February 18, 2010

My dear Friends;

Considering 2009 was a tough year, we finished the year reasonably well, with your generosity and help. A detailed report was presented to the General Body and is available on our web site.

During the year 2010, the Board, with your help wants to enhance the programs that were started in 2009 – increase activities on all Sundays with Prasad being served from our Kitchen thus improving revenues for our Temple; conducting religious discourses, conducting cultural programs, renting the Temple premises for suitable activities, etc.

Effective First Sunday in March 2010 the Board requests all devotees to contribute $5.00 per person above 12 years of age and $3.00 per child between the ages of 5 and 12 (children under 5 are free) for Lunch prasad. This would apply for each Sunday the prasad is served at the Temple. We appreciate your understanding and cooperation.

While we are attempting to increase revenues, we have taken steps to cut costs in the operations. Since the loss of one of our Priests to another Temple, Shastriji has been doing an excellent job of meeting the needs of our community. But with reduced hours and limited volunteers and limited ability to serve, our revenues have fallen. Our costs have remained with maintaining two houses and a mortgage on the second house.

The Board has offered the job of the second Priest to Sri Chakrapani Bhattar from Kumbakonam Tamilnadu and sponsored his R 1 visa, which is currently under approval process. Sri Chakrapani is 42 years old and has a wife and two children. He is a priest with his father in Sri Sarangapani Swamy Temple in Kumbakonam. He comes to us with a depth of knowledge and experience. He has committed to be with us for three years away from his family. He has visited US 9 times during the past 12 years on various assignments. We are looking forward to him joining us sometime this spring.

Shastriiji has been doing a great job and working with the Board on this plan to restructure our costs. The main priest house will be converted so that the basement can be an efficiency apartment for the single priest. Thus both of our priests can reside in the main priest residence. We plan to get this done by early spring so we could get the second house on the market and hopefully reduce our debt and expenses further.

This is the twelfth year since we did Pratishtapana for our Temple. It is time for us do the Maha Kumbhabhishekam. We plan for the Kumbhabhishekam on Saturday June 12^th and Sunday June 13^th. Please mark your calenders. Various committees are being formed please join them and contribute. We hope all of you can come together to celebrate this great event. We appreciate all the volunteers that make our Temple function so well.

With best regards,

Manohar Naga
Chairman,
Board of Trustees

Bharatiya Temple of Lansing
955 Haslett Rd
Haslett, Michigan 48840.
Phone: (517) 339-6337