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What's Happened In Milton Keynes Gurudwara


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In Milton Keynes there has been a major problem with the committee because of the abuse of their power over the Gurudwara Sahib. A building that was no longer in use, was converted into a gym for the sangat of Milton Keynes by the sangat. The seva of converting it into a gym was completed by the sangat. The sangat got together and asked the Gurudwara committee for a £1500 contribution towards the gym equipment, as part of their requirement to deliver the youth activities and facilities, which was awarded by the committee. The youth also contributed towards the maintenance of the gym. Once the gym was set up, a lot of youth from the community came regularly to use the facilities provided and they also went to the Gurudwara on a daily basis. However, the committee did not approve of this because ‘the youth were not telling them the income of the gym’. Whoever had signed up to the gym paid a daily fee of two pound for the use of the gym, or they could opt for paying on a yearly basis ( a hundred and fifty pound ). The left over money from the fees was used to cover the maintenance costs of the gym, purchase more equipment and provide more facilities for the youth. Problems arise when the committee then ask the youth to show them how much income the gym is making. The youth showed the committee the income of the gym, which was no income. As stated above all the money that came in was reused to improve the services of the gym. However, when the committee are asked to show the sangat the income of the Gurudwara and where the money all goes, they do not tell the sangat. Bare in mind, the youth showed them the costs of the gym when asked upon by the committee.

After this, the committee then state that they will cut the power that supplies the gym, simply because they were not seeing any income from the gym. Two days later, the gym power was cut. The youth had no knowledge that the committee were going to cut the power on that day, so when they found out it was the committee that had cut the power they asked them what was going on. The reply from the committee was ‘nothing’. So the youth, asked them could you please put the power back on to the gym. Their response was that they would call a meeting to discuss this. This meeting never took place. A week later the youth and sangat bought a power wire out of their own money and plugged it to the Gurudwara, so that the gym unit could have power. The next day, the sangat at the gym were lifting weights and the power was cut. Two singhs went inside the Gurudwara to find out why the power was cut. They found the plug had been unplugged, by the committee member, so they re-plugged it. Two minutes later, the power was cut yet again. The youth at the gym were worried about why this kept happening, so they came to the Gurudwara Sahib to check what was going on. The committee member broke the power plug in front of the sangat. They were then confronted by committee members. They told the singhs ‘who do you think you are, this is our Gurudwara, you can’t rob power from us, we despise you’. The members then went on to provoke a physical fight by saying ‘come on hit us’. At this reply, the youth were shocked, all they wanted was the right to have power to the gym to provide a facility for the youth to get together and train and bring the community together, but the committee were there trying to provoke a fight with the youth. The youth then backed off.

The next day, the youth told the sangat what had happened the day before. As the youth were shocked with what the committee members had done, so were the sangat. The sangat were confused at what was going on, so they decided to ask the committee themselves about what had happened. The committee’s response was to play the blame game and make out that the youth were to blame and that the youth were in the wrong. Three to four days later, the sangat saw the committee members knocking down the gym and when they were removing the gym equipment from the gym itself. Later that day, the youth and the sangat went to the Gurudwara to find out why the gym was being taken down and where the equipment was. The committee did not tell them anything and told them to write them a letter about the issue and that they will get back to the sangat. The sangat listened to what they said and wrote a letter asking about what had been going on. As usual, the committee did not reply. A meeting was called for by the youth and the sangat, but the committee refused to hold a meeting. The youth thought enough was enough, so they told the police about the whole issue and what the committee were going.

This went on for months and months and with those months, the committee grew in power and they started sending out letters to sangat’s house telling them that they can not vote and they told them not to come to the Gurudwara. They also said, if they do come to the Gurudwara, the committee will tell the police. This continued to happen for some time. The police were not doing enough to help out. Some singhs, who knew what was going in Guru Ji’s house was wrong and uncalled for, did something about it. The Gurudwara’s name is Baba Zorawar Singh Ji. What the committee did was make a mockery out of Guru Gobind Singh Ji’s childrens’ names. Later on, singhs from outside the Milton Keynes area heard about what was going on and with maharaj’s grace, they got together and sorted the main member out. This is an update to what has been going on from Milton Keynes Gurudwara Sahib.

The three bad Committee Members of the Sikh Society of Milton Keynes (SSMK),

Surinder Singh Sodhi/Talwar/? – President

Santokh Singh Samra - General Secretary

Gurdipe Singh Chawla - Assistant Treasurer

The above named persons cannot be members of the Managing Committee as stated in the SSMK Constitution 2003 rev 4 Section (6):

• A person, who has bought the affairs of the SSMK, into disrepute;

• Breached clauses of the Charities Act 2006;

• Has engaged in harmful activities to the interest of SSMK;

• Has mismanaged in activities the affairs of the SSMK i.e.: financial problems, opening other Gurdwaras, and dividing the Sangat;

• Has breached any clauses of the “Trustee Act” and “Charities Act”.

Further details;

Section (5) Termination of membership: The named above have been unconstitutionally dismissing members of the general body including life-time members upon their own discretion; to target certain members and to gain the majority in the general body. Membership was unconstitutionally refreshed and other members have been struck-off without just cause or following due process as per the constitution.

Section (17) Selections: The president was unconstitutionally selected internally against the advice of other Committee members and without the vote of the general body, contrary to the constitution. Also see Section (7) Managing Committee: It states that the President should have held membership continuously for 3 years prior to being considered for selection and shall be Amritdhari Sikh. Mr Sodhi did not hold his membership continuously for 3 years prior to being selected.

Section (2.d) Aims and Objects: States that he SSMK is to provide and promote facilities for recreation and leisure-time occupation of young members of the Sikh community in the interests of social welfare with the object of improving the conditions of life for the said young members.

Also see Section (3.g) Actions required to achieve aims and objects:- Youth Training: Require the Committee to create an environment, where the children and young people may be given the inspiration and education to grow as outstanding citizens in the Sikh way of life. Rather the Named have targeted the youth, destroying their environment, threatening and discouraging them from any involvement with the Gurdwara.

These fundamental points have been totally violated by the three above mentioned members rendering them unsuitable to continue.

The integrity of Mr Samra having such a prominent role on the committee also comes into question when he has the arrogance to say “I wipe my <banned word filter activated> with the Hukumnama” in the Sangat and in a committee meeting after which he refused to apologise to those Gursikhs who were offended. The named with Mr Sodhi have also stated their total disregard for the Akaal Takht - the sovereign throne of the Sikh Panth under which all Sikh establishments operate.

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Milton Keynes, never expected this!!! A fantastic Gurdwara in UK named after the chorte Shahibzaade. With every repect all Gurdwara's need to be run as Gurdwara place of worship, its Guru Maharaj's Palace, but nowadays we have made it as own personal properties and treating it like a business. This needs to stop!!! We have built beautiful Gurdwaras around the country, but when it come to doing Parchaar and bringing and helping the next future generation we tend to leave it out, and come out with the the normal excuse "its costings us money", "cant afford it", "or you pay for it!!!"

This isnt right...... We as a nation need to take control of the Gurdwara Sahib and where they are doing wrong we should tell them and get it stopped. We need to support the Sangat in Milton Keynes and message to the committee members is to listen to the Sangat and not dictate. Other wise incidents like these will occur.

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WJKK WJKF

Think what the Singhs did was correct ... and think that you have been very tactfull in your statement as i know of other things contributing....

How ever may have done the Kuatapa in private as this sort of behavior should not be conducted in front of guru ji.

We need to remmember that it is the GURU'S House and not ours. We need to stay as one united front and keep the bad apples out .

WJKK WJKF

Bsingh

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Guest confusingh

there are a couple of problems you've brought up, however these are countered quite easily. The running of Guru Ghar in Britain has to be under place of worship/charity, meaning the Gurdwara is exempt from certain taxes and therefore has to account for the running, maintenance and associated finances. The gym would therefore come under associated finances, meaning the Gurdwara should be able to provide their appointed accountant of details of all cash flow within this gym. Maintenance has to be accounted for as well, this is simple accounting.

Although the gym is most likely doing good for the community, and I think its great that the youths are doing such work, I think the need for somebody with experience of accounting would be good to have within the youth group.

I can understand the frustration with the commitee members and being apne, they most likely handled it the wrong way. However you can't carry out maintenance costs with no account nor can you not account all money given to the gym. If you do this, you are simply not telling anybody where the money is going or accounting for it. It is impossible to run even a very small gym without any accounts so I think the mistake has been on the part of the youth. If a Guru Ghar is seen to be unaccountable for then they may lose their rights of exemption and face taxes and in some cases fines.

Simply put, you can't run something in association with a Gurdwara Sahib (which is exempt from several taxes etc.) without accounting for it or producing financial evidence of cash flow and expenditure, if you don't do this, then don't expect to be running long, if the commitee don't close you down, the Guru ghar may face other charges. I know its frustrating but you should really know better this is quite simple stuff brother.

In regards to the commitee not telling sangat where money has gone; well they must have accounted for it in some way or another or they would have lost the Guru Ghar's status, be fined and taxed more.

In the eyes of the law, and in my knowledge there is nothing you can do, you haven't ran the gym effectively, and perhaps an experienced person should have been responsible for the management of the gym facilities, ultimately you should be able to tell everybody how much went on each thing (with receipts etc.) for example... this much on maintenance... then details of the maintenance with receipts... this is how much money has been given to us... and then a list which is fully accounted for with names etc. time and dates.

If you don't do this then sorry mate, you can't really do anything about what the commitee has done.

Bhul Chuk Maaf, I hope you sort the issue out the best way for the community.

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa

Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh

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the bro has already said that the youths showed the income to the committee. i think the youths have done well to diffuse the situation from turning into a fight. i have been in this situation a few times myself. just try and do the best you can.

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Guest confusingh

Disagree with the above post. It's clear that the running of the gym falls within the charity's objects (see Section 2.d quoted above in the first post). Hence, there is no legal reason to distinguish between the spiritual/Gurdwara activities and the gym activities of the society for accounting/tax purposes.

Waheguroo

Fateh,

Let me clarify, an annual report should be published by the person appointed by the commitee to be able to provide evidence for the Guru Ghar to keep its status for tax exemption, if the gym does fall within the Guru Ghar it is firstly immoral to not be accounting for the finances and cash flow, as well as verging on being illegal.

If the Guru Ghar is to state all money spent on langar, made in golak, spent on katha etc. then why not account for the finances of the gym facilities?

ALL finances within Guru Ghar should be accounted for in detail, and if infact the police are to get involved perhaps an external accountant should be employed if the commitee or youth don't understand this procedure.

The objectives which are refered to are set by the Sikh council, who have no authority on tax exemption, the tax exemption should be through the CC

Its simple fact, if we don't want to account for things or we want to try and be above the law, don't try and run facilities if you have no experience or are not going to follow procedures.

IF infact the youths are able to provide or have provided in detail receipts for maintenance, and provide documents and evidence for all finances as well as the entry charge, with dates names etc. then I agree the commitee have been wrong, if we are here trying to justify misunderstanding of procedure or the abilty to be above procedure, that in my opinion is either arrogant or selfish.

AGAIN, as some sangat failed to understand what I meant, the objectives refered to are set by a council, which is made up of the Sikh community, however they have no say on the legal procedures nor on the finances and accounts of the Guru Ghar, this is a procedure which has to be shown and investigated by the CC. IF the Gurdwara is not to pay as much or certain taxes, ALL accounts should be at the disposal of the CC or G.O

This is just procedure and the law we have to follow if we are to efficiently run Guru Ghars for the community. I think the gym facility is great, but it should be fully accounted for.

Bhul Chuk Maaf Karna, This is just how the cookie crumbles!

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa

Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh

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Bro, how are you getting confused??

The poster very clearly said that the committee asked them to show how much income the gym was making, they demonstrated that no income was being made as any money received was spent on maintenance and equipment. This would obviously be done by showing documentation.

Thats it. Simple.

People who have experience dealing with committees will know that their main focus seems to be about making more and more money. In their minds the gym would be making a profit, for the youngsters, the gym would make a difference (regardless of profit or loss).

The fact that the gym was not making money annoyed the old boys. Having personally spoken to the committe itself in the past, I am aware of just how 'polite' they can be. I would venture that their concerns with the gyms income had nothing what so ever to do with the gurdwaras accounts of tax status. They themselves probably have absolutely NO idea of procedure. I think you are giving them too much credit if you think that was the cause of the disagreement bro!

In the 80's a lot of shady people skimmed money from gurdwaras through various schemes, and many of the guys in charge now are from that same generation. Although they may not have directly taken money, the mindset that "somebody somewhere must be stealing it", has never left their minds. Try sitting through a few committee meetings and see how often this accusation or hints at the accusation crop up! They seem to assume that the youngsters are doing the same as their generation did. Shame really.

Bottom line is, the committee acted like a bunch of baboons, they pushed their weight and got pushed back. You reap what you sow.

Lets just hope the youngsters can sort things out there. Keep strong, its going to be a long and tough journey.

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Typical youth reaction. The public kutapa was not the way to win a vote of confidence from the local sangat. It was counter-productive and from what some of my relatives in MK think the gym breeds troublemakers who will kick-off in the Gurdwara.

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