Notes From Our 1st MBL Call 26th March 2016

It was such a wonderful call..Thanks Meghna and Sheetal. looking forward to the magic every month. I'm so grateful to the community and to the power of love that keeps us all going :)

Here are some notes I took -

Meghna: Introduced the MBL calls format which we will be having every month featuring different themes from all over India. This month we are featuring the newsletter team and understanding their perspective on the selfless work they do month after month. A blog that Meghna has enjoyed reading in the recent past is By Zilong and she was deeply inspired by his perspective of being a Pilgrim or a wanderer, mindfulness in living with certain principles and how his sharings are such a gift to the readers. The power of blogs and sharings helps so many people connect deeply with one another. She also shared how a bunch of love warriors got together in Pune today to paint Neerad's room who just underwent a bone marrow transfusion at the hospital recently and this would be a surprise welcome for him :)
She shared how inspired she was by seeing the entire community come together for Neerad and Sheetal on this journey and felt this was the power of the love/maitri capital we speak about.

Ashima who has been consistently working on the newsletter's month after month, shared how she felt so connected to the community by the blogs and the sharings and it meant the world to her living in Africa to be connected back home to the ecosystem she so deeply loves. Recent blogs like the one on Neerad by S2, Mihir's train journey, Ani didi's gift from london
and many more blogs have touched her deeply and she felt like she was present for all these incidents herself :) "I dont know what is my motivation, I feel like I am connected through these stories."

She shared how many watsapp stories were swapped internally yet there is a need for people to blog more. Someone could handle social media better for posting these stories consistently. She also felt we could change the newsletter format a little so it appears more cleaner and neater. Maybe include 'be the change idea.'

Neeti who has been replying to MBL, Propoor and pollination project mails for a while now shared how she just cant overlook any mail. However difficult they maybe or from whichever country they are from, she feels it is her opportunity to be compassionate and do her best to understand where this person is coming from? get better aquainted with remote islands and connect heart to heart with people in need emphathetically." I cant just be good on the online platforms, my son is constantly watching me offline and I have to take that love and compassion into my daily life too." She feels very inspired by Rev. Heng Sure's Highway dharma letters lately and has been reading it often.

Siddharth who has been on the editorial team for a while now, shared how the invite to this call took him down memory lane to 2012 when he and Madhu were thinking of starting the Mbl newsletter. How they were concerned about where the sories would come from? and how it was amazing that 4 years down the road, the stories keep pouring in :) they just come. What keeps him going is the potential MBL has unlocked in him and helped him tap into his inner resources deeply. He never wrote earlier, but started writing for MBL and how that unlocked much more than he thought he could do. A month ago he felt the urge to write more, so we will see much more of it now :)

He felt we could introduce an audio format to share more stories. Invite volunteers to transcribe, profile amazing people from the ecosystem.

Parag bhai shared how awakin's were going strong in Surat and how Mihir had just finished a Mindfulness challenge for many folks recently. He was invited to teach a local laddership circle at Auro University in Surat and would be starting this Monday! Nipun bhai added how he would be such a value add as visiting professor to the SOIL college as well :)

Drishti shared with a lot of enthusiasm how the mumbai community was planning their next Seva cafe at a restaurant in Navi mumbai offered to them in the spirit of gift and another one at Rahul's old age home Narmada Niketan. She and Darpan were super inspired by the first seva cafe in Mumbai 3 years ago and have wanted to do one ever since :)

Gitanjali shared how many wonderful guests at Kat katha like Shaheen Mistry, Manish jain, Anar didi etc were keeping them enthusiastic and very insightful circle's of sharing have been taking place.

Sheetal expressed his gratitude to the newsletter team and then held space for a Q and A with Neeti, Ashima and Sid. He shared how a story when listened to if immediately captured in writing is so necessary in the moment. Also audio transcripts would be a great value add.

Nipun bhai summed up the call with a new inspiration recently

His meeting with Ferose. led to them sharing about his first book 'Gifted',on stories of specially abled people). Ferose loves books -- he has 3000 of them signed by authors, including some by US presidents and such -- and wanted to help spread generosity. He's been inspired to do his next book on 'Givers'.
He has reached out to his co-author (Sudha Menon), and sorted out a deal to do 25 profiles in the coming year.


Nipun bhai's advice to him was to head into many-to-many direction. Instead of a book with 25 profiles, think "Wikipedia of Givers", where we do proof of concept with 25 profile from Sudha, perhaps another 50 from other authors, and then crowd-source it into a volunteer-motivated, global platform. He loved this idea, especially when It was framed as "Profiles in Generosity" (riff of JFK's"Profiles in Courage" that he's a big fan of).

As they were discussing what these profiles would look like they decided that there is no fixed number of qualities to look at. They can't have a giver criteria but rather it is something that emerges, 'between the cracks.' We could all identify 5 giver's from our extended ecosystem to begin with in India and take it forward from there.