Pyara

Gift Aid and Gurdwaras. This may bore many people, but I think as educated Gursikhs we should be taking more responsibility in making our Gurdwaras aware of their rights/benefits as a Charity. As the majority of our Gurdwara/Sikh Organisation are set up as a charity, we would benefit by joining the HMRC Gift Aid Scheme. The Gift Aid scheme is for gifts of money (donations) by individuals who pay UK tax. It increases the value of donations to charities by allowing them to reclaim basic rate tax on your gift. For every £1 Sangat donate whether through membership or donations, HM Revenue and Customs can give the Gurdwara 25p, which means that for donations of £1,000, the Gurdwara can receive an additional £250. This might mean receipting Sangat's donations (who are UK tax payers), but a simple tick in the right box means more tax relief for the Gurdwara. If the committee operated smartly, they could receipt the entire weeks Gurdwara Kirtan Peta (for example) to a member of the Sangat who can tick the Gift Aid box so that the Gurdwara can claim back the Gift Aid. It's a simple tax efficient way of getting the most out of the Sangat's donation. A prime example is if the £150,000 deficit of Mata Sahib Kaur Academy was collected entirely from UK tax payers then the Academy could get an additional £37,500 from HM Revenue and Customs. I am sure this will go a long way in helping with the finances.

Organic milk is supposed to be hormone free. The claim is no harmful pesticides or fertilizers (organic only) are allowed in the feed the cows eat. There is also no bovine growth hormones (BGH) allowed to increase milk production. There's no genetic mutation or irradiation permitted. There is supposed to be no antibiotics allowed, and if a cow does need to be treated it is to be returned to the herd for a year to make sure the antibiotics are out of its system. Finally organic cows must have access to open pasture which other cows do not.

The report is appearing in more and more online papers. Anyone know this Granthi? Has he been in the UK before? Has the committee commented on the situation? Although I agree we should review this issue in a generic form, we should also be looking into who this individual is and the specific incident. What does anyone know about this Surinder Singh, where does he come from in India and can someone post his picture? We can get the Punjab Singhs to look into his circumstances in Punjab. At the end of the day there needs be accountability from the individual and even the committees lax attitude to selecting this Granthi.

Unlike Churches and Christian Societies, our Gurdwara committees seem very uncomfortable using the Guru's golak to provide temporary shelter for at least the homeless punjabi/indian migrants. I can understand the generalised concerns about the homeless having alcohol, drug related problems, but like the Christian homeless shelters, you can isolate these centres from the Gurughar and develop them into rehab centres as well as centres which will provide support for these people to get back on their feet. Something is better than nothing.... It's so uplifting to know groups like SWAT (Sikh Welfare Awareness Team) exist out there who take this kind of sewa on.

Is this the midlands Gurdwara which hires their hall for Muslim Walimah type parties? I met a Singh (can't remember his name now) a few weeks back who told me that a midlands Gurdwara were taking advantage of the local muslim population's need for a cheap hall for their parties. Sounds like it may be Dudley Gurdwara then? Funnily enough, he said the mosque does not provide the party facilities for the local Muslim community.

This is a very positive step that RST have taken, however the parchaar needs to carry on at a local, national and international level. There are still loose ends to tie up It's an unfortunate situation that we have developed a culture of meetings which need to take place in order to discuss the obvious issue of meat, alcohol and parties not being appropriate for Gurdwara properties. But I suppose it's going to have to be change in gradual steps...

I do think it's realistic achievement particularly as some Gurdwaras are already doing this. Hitchin Singh Sabha are a great example of a progressive thinking committee. See the 'Accounts' section of their Gurdwara's website - www.sgssh.org. When the new naujwaan committee came in they wanted to be fully transparent and update the Sangat regularly. They created spreadsheets (accessible on their website), based on the previous 3/4 years accounts, which helps forecast their coming expenses and income. It is labour intensive at the outset to upload all previous accounts records and, as an ongoing requirement, they ensure the Gurdwara treasurer is commercial and excel-literate. However, it's a strong control mechanism. The Sangat get confidence from the transparency Hitchin Singh Sabha committee provide and the sewadars are able to create a realistic budget for what percentage of the Gurdwara's income they put towards Granthi wages, Parchaar, Youth, Maintenance and New capital projects, etc. This is definitely a great example of good practice all Gurdwaras can follow.

There's probably too many Sikh Organisations competing for the same £ and a significant amount of our Sikh resource could be saved if more Sikh Organisations pooled their resources and worked together. It does boil down to Panthic ekta and perhaps coalitions of Gurdwaras and Organisations will be more efficient for the Guru's Golak. I remember walking into the Parkash 2010 samagam at Guru Nanak School, Hayes and being inundated with people emotionally blackmailing me with direct debit/standing orders for Sikh charities, Channels, Gurdwaras, Organisations. I can see how it gets overwhelming for the average Sangat and can sometimes push individuals away. I know some families that will now not attend certain Gurdwaras/Organisatons because they feel that they are persistently pressurised in to increasing their standing orders and that's just counter productive for all the good work that's actually done by the sewadars of those Organisations. When the Gurdwara stages make continuous announcements at programmes for extra funding required for new projects or funding deficits that need to be covered, it is often done as a super quick wallet emptying exercise and just ends up winding members of the sangat up. This approach also needs to be addressed. Perhaps the sudden need for instant funding is due to a lack of foresight, forecasting, budgeting and planning by the custodians of the Gurdwaras. As mentioned above... financially embarrassing situations do not come about overnight, things must have gone wrong along the way but obvious signals were ignored. There needs to be a higher level of responsibility with regards to the Guru's Golak and sewadars need to be able to implement corrective action at very early stages before a financial situation escalates to the levels we are seeing at Sikh Channel and Mata Sahib Kaur Academy.

With recent funding pleas from the likes of Sikh Channel, Mata Sahib Kaur Academy and many other Gurdwara committing to more debt, it looks like it's so important that Sikh Insititutes address their longevity of financial survival. Sikh groups/Gurdwaras need to understand about maintaining a sustainable business model. It sounds very straightforward, but how do Sikh groups/Gurdwaras move smoothly from begging for money wherever it can to having a sustainable funding stream? I apologise for refering to Guru ji's Sewa as a business, but maybe by applying a commercial approach we may prevent ourselves from panicking with last minute threats of closure. Common business sense tells us that sustainability starts with planning, not with chasing funding. Gurdwaras must be run in a way where the custodians know exactly what they need, what it will cost and what their Gurdwara costs to run. They need to make sure their sums are right from the word go and refrain from making financial commitments with the Bank for any expansion if they are still struggling to meet their normal commitments. There is no need to expand or take out an additional loan if the Gurdwara/Organisation in it's current state is able to satisfy the moral obligation to Gurmat and Sikh Maryada. As Sangat, we must also demand accountability and implement controls/audits in the way our funds are utilised. This is something Sangat still shy away from. If you have donated £1000 of your hard earned money for sustainable Panthic sewa, then we must ensure that we are satisfied that £1000 has been put to efficient use. Many committee/sewadars remain unchallenged about mismanagement of the Guru's Golak and they simply carry on misusing the Sangats money.Unfortunately, it seems, nowadays some Gurdwaras underestimate the costs involved. In the end, the very thing that was supposed to be earning a sustainable income starts costing the Sangat money. And before you know it the Gurdwara/Organisations spends more time and energy chasing money to keep what was once its brilliant sustainable funding idea alive than it does fulfilling its Gurmat aims. Also, due to our increasing splits, there are a lot of Gurdwaras/Organisations golak's out there chasing the same Sangat's funds, and this sort of increasing competition quickly erodes the reliability of those donations being available. Common sense also tells us that if we pool our funding together, then it's likely to go further. But we are stuck in a culture of setting up new Gurdwaras and not working with each other. Sikhs are a financially successful community and we are quite a philanthropic bunch, we do donate large sums in the Guru's golaks. There is therefore a a strong steady flow of regular donations available from the Sikh sangat and it needs be utilised in an efficient, responsible manner.

The "shop front" website needs urgent updating to reflect the current position. The home page still reads August 20 2010. SCUK need to bang out their communications on http://sikhcounciluk.org/ so that sangat feel the council are up to date with Sikh issues. I notice most of the UK Sikh Organisations have very outdated web portals which only makes the organisation look unprofessional. I hope SCUK address this as they should be the first hit on a google search for "Sikh Organisations in UK".

Perhaps 6 months ago I would have never said this, but if we loose the Sikh Channel we loose a topical voice for Sikhs. The live studio show format of Sikh Channel is a potential asset to the kaum and we have still not used it to it's full capacity. I must confess, when speaking to Davy Bal he threw the ball back in our court. If more articulate naujwaan are willing to put themselves forward on the Sikh Channel live show discussions than we can break the monopoly of the same old skool/stage secretary voices. We still find naujwaan too shy or not committed enough to talk about Panthic issues. Sangat TV and Sikh TV are still not up to scratch with panthic discussion programmes and that's the niche Sikh Channel hold over them. We must not let the Sikh Channel close!

Quick Google map exercise show's that this "cultural" centre is simply opposite the Guru Nanak Singh Sabha Gurdwara. Perhaps Dudley Singh can advise if the Committee have ever been made aware of the Akal Takht Sandesh or whether the local sangat have managed to lobby the Committee to stop allowing meat, alcohol and parties on site? Taking on another bank loan/mortgage is likely to end up being used as a justifiable financial excuse by the committee to further perpetrate the immoral activities allowed in the cultural centre. So it's imperative that the Sangat act fast. There is no need to re-mortgage the Gurdwara property if the the Gurdwara committee are currently able to meet it's moral obligation to Gurmat and Sikh Maryada. If the committee want to create a debt with the bank just to back up their own Manmat, then we, as the Sangat roop, need to act asap.

I agree with you. Although, I do think that if meat and alcohol are not allowed, the venue is likely to be less attractive for bhangra party bookings. I can't see many Punjabi's booking a venue for a party where they can't get drunk and munch kebabs. Nevertheless, we do deserve to have full clarity from the RST committee and full adherance to the Akal Takht Sandesh..

Punjab Times, Page 5 in this weeks edition (6-1-2011)

There's been a fire at Doncaster Gurdwara before.http://news.panthic.org/articles/4970

On the actual spot where Bhai Sukhwinder Singh was stabbed on the corner of Uphall Road and Victoria Road, there is still a large size poster with the image of Bhai Sahib on the wall of the corner house. Amazingly, 1 year on and the poster is still there (although a bit weathered). The house is owned by a Pakistani Punjabi family who have kept the poster on their wall and surprisingly vandals have not damaged the poster. The flowers and candles remained on the site for several weeks after the chaupai sahib jaap/vigil last year, until some local Singhniya went down and cleaned up the site. Every so often a fresh bunch of flowers are seen on the site, so some locals in community still revere Bhai Sukhwinder Singh's sacrifice.

http://www.sikhcastes.faithweb.com/whats_new.html Someone on this website has collected a whole load of surnames above at classified them into caste group.

Is the terminology of CLAN name just a defensive way of justifying a CASTE name? I have started to see terms such as clan and ethnicity being used interchangeably with caste specific surnames. On some websites, CASTE surnames seem to be authenticated by referring to them as CLAN or ETHNICITY. I personally don't feel so convinced, there's no harm in knowing something about your blood forefathers, but I feel I have more status with the surname Singh as a pose to a caste surname Gandu or Bra or Danda (for example). Furthermore, "CLAN" names still promote a hierachy system, where one "CLAN" name can be seen superior over another. In practice it's just dividing us back into caste groups. Using the Scottish Clans is a bad example as they may be proud of their clans but they certainly are not so divided or segregated by their clan names.

We should be grateful that Jathedar Singh Sahib Gianni Gurbachan Singh Ji phoned in live on such a topical issue to give further clarity. Even as the Jathedar of Akal Takht Sahib clarifies all issues, Dr PS Bhogal (seen sitting on 2nd from left on the front row of the audience) who represented not only the committee of RST but also Birmingham Council of Gurdwaras squabbled on the Panth Time show about why the party hall needed to exist. It frustrates me that there are irreconcilable individuals perceived "fit" to be representative of the Khalsa Panth in UK Sikh councils and the Sikh Channel. We have seen too many of the self appointed individuals who twist Gurmat and misquote Gurbani to back their own agendas. I pray the SCUK grow out of this form of leadership which I believe has held progression back in UK Gurdwaras for the last 20 years. On one side these individuals say that booze fuelled Gurdwara party halls are progressive for the Sikhs community and on the other side they verbally acknowledge alcohol related liver disease as a major killer in Sikh/Punjabi men. It's just embarrassing hypocrisy....

Jarnail Singh Khalsa Ji, It's great to see such good Sikh related activities taking place in the Guru Ghar...but don't use it as a cover up to ignore the immoral activities that also take place in the Gurdwara's hall. In the comfortable world of ignorance you have conveniently made a statement that Sikh Rehat Maryada and the activates of Maharaja Jassa Singh Ramghria Hall are separate....So in your little cosy world you have acknowledged Sikh Rehat Maryada but are prepared to disregard it in the boundaries of the Gurdwara owned Maharaja Jassa Singh Ramghria Hall when whiskey is poured in glasses...because as you put it the table tennis, yoga etc makes it all acceptable! "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil".... lets just all look the other way ! I have a positive suggestion for the committee regarding the hall ...and it is...'please do not allow meat, alcohol and parties on the premises'....

I use my "caste" or family given surname on official documents out of shear laziness. I haven't officially changed my surname to Singh through deed poll yet so any official document has my surname, my bank accounts, property deeds, passport, driving licence etc. It's a bit hypocritical, I don't mention my caste/family surname when involved in the Gurdwara activities but officially it's still there. Anyways, how to change your official surname to Singh/Kaur : http://www.deedpoll.org.uk/

Never thought I'd say this a few months back but my vote goes to Sikh Channel. It's the only channel with the ability to produce topical programmes on current issues. I think several months down the line, I don't think Sangat TV will be as topical as Sikh Channel. However, Sangat TV has a fairly good content of recorded programmes, even though it is repetitive. Sikh TV seem confused on what they should broadcast and the other day I saw the "mahan" Bhangra superstar Shin being interviewed about his latest album and Shin was promoting a song about sharab..At least Davy Bal keeps the manmat in the Brit Asia Channel seperate from the Sikh Channel.

I like the above comments...However, I don't think pessimism is a bad thing if the right results are desired. Over optimism can lead to complacency. The right things won't happen because they're the right things; they happen because people work to make them happen.

With all the disparity and mismatch of constitutional issues which are inherent in the governing documents of all the gurudwaras, what I originally assumed SCUK would be was a central body who would bring a unified maryada and guide Gurdwaras in their day to day management My interpretation now is that I get the feeling that SCUK are aiming towards being a government consultation group. Personally, I struggle to justify another government think tank as we have a number of Sikh consultative groups already in existence such as British Sikh Consultative Forum, British Sikh Federation, Network of Sikh Organisations, Sikhs in England, Sikh Federation UK and United Sikhs. They do possess a level of expertise and experience. It's hard to see what SCUK in it's raw format want to achieve if it's not getting involved in Gurdwara issues (as people have mentioned on live phone-in programmes). We get monthly watery updates via Sikh Channel discussion shows but I am struggling to see any substance. It only adds to confusion about what SCUK are meant to be. What issues will a "Sikh Parliament" address? There needs to be some clarity. The main gap I see where SCUK should fit is as a central Gurdwara body discouraging anti Sikh activities, encouraging Akal Takht Maryada, promoting Sikh principles whilst supporting the current Sikh think tanks that exist out there. Before people are accused of not coming forward to join this council perhaps some transparent updates are required, i.e where can we find out how many/which Gurdwaras registered, who the membership panel made off (35 people I believe), who are the key nominated leaders, what panthic core issues will be addressed ? The official website unfortunatly gives little update.

Sikh Paji, From your postings above, I suspect you are linked to the RST committee in some way. A primary role of a Gurdwara Committee (as custodians of Sikh maryada) is the promotion Sikh/Gurmat principles. I feel your comments on halwais and hotels acts as a pretext to take the focus away from the specific anti Sikhs activities allowed in the Maharaja Jassa Singh Ramgharihia hall. You yourself have talked about educating "families of all Castes that we do not have a Meat and Drink Party before or after a wedding", in short the bad examples set by Gurdwara Committees such as RST will not help in the education towards the evils of alcohol abuse. The best stand for a Gurdwara Committee like RST to make would be to abolish the acceptance of alcohol, meat and parties on the site of the Maharaja Jassa Singh Ramgharihia hall. This is at least a start in the kind of education programme you have suggested above in your post.