8/1/2014
Updates received from helpers so far:
Archana and Lakshmi are planning to meet with the school Food Services Director
Samia and Anagha to meet with the school’s Facilities Director and Coordinator of Finance & Building Use
Sweta is working with Lamberts and other sponsors
Soni is working on applying for Westwood cultural grant
Ganesh is working on the online ticket system
Samia is working on setting up website for the program (separate from planning website)
7/11/2014
Notes of Meeting by Shruti Manglik
Location
Westwood High School cafe reserved for October 25. Capacity is 250-300.
Samia to look into one weekend before and 2 weekends after dates - 10/18 & 11/8
Anagha to look into the german-American center.
Number of people
Minimum 100
Maximum 150 / 200
Invitations
Ganesh to create Evite & Paypal
Suggested sending Evite out early, discount for "early-bird" purchases so we can have definite numbers.
Fundraising
Need a minimum of $3K - 4K to cover basic costs of food, drink, paper products, space, decorations, prizes, DJ, guest speakers, kids activities
Fund raising booklet - pages need to be sold to local businesses; might be a lot of work. Ask Soni for ideas as she has done this before for WESC.
Also suggested to request just a few big sponsors (Sahani Dental, Beth Israel, Apna Bazaar etc.) and let them advertise at the location
Things to consider would be size of event, kind of advertising allowed, additional costs to us...
Kickoff
Guest Speaker - Superintendent, Selectman etc. (Kishore to reach out)
Pooja by kids
Activities
Children
Diya painting
Rangoli exhibit
Henna
Dress up Indian
Parents
Theme dress up
Dress up Indian for the non Indians
Antakshri
General
Garba/Dandiya
Bhangra
DJ
Action Items
Informal commitment from the Indian community at a minimum
Agenda for the evening
Time table until the event
Assigning individuals in charge for each event for the evening
Quotes from caterers for 100/150/200 people
Flyers
Responsibilities established in this meeting
Guest Speaker - Kishore
Location - Anagha & Samia
Food/Catering - Archana, Lakshmi, Sweta help
Dance/Activities - Maitreyi, Gauri, kids, Chetan & Sweta to help
Decorations - Anu
Budgeting - Shruti
Next meeting - 7/18/14 6-7pm at the Mangliks 29 Youngs Road.
7/10/2014
Lakshmi and Archana meeting with Food Services Director at High School
7/3/2014
Update from Anagha and Ganesh:
I believe we will need 2 custodians, so we should budget for around $900.
Ganesh and I have looked into a couple of other things..
- Other Venues --
- Contacted and visited the German-American Center -- but the person who was to show us around left to watch a soccer match :( . I really liked the place, lots of parking and looks decent and well-maintained. Don't know the cost -- if for any reason the high school does not work out, this is a credible option. They do have availability. I will continue to call them up and reschedule the appt.
- Endicott Estate in Dedham -- they charge a lot more for dinner than what we paid for lunch. The lady quoted $3000 . Feels too much, so we should eliminate it from consideration. Though it is a beautiful place.
- Cost of food/tickets -- Walpole has an annual gathering of Indians with catered food and kids performing shows (no professionals) and they charge about $25 for each adult and $15 for each child and $15 for each senior citizen. That gives us an estimate of about $80 per family. For 30 families we can have a budget of $2400. Of course -- this is based on Westwood Diwali group charging something similar. Additional expense to come from sponsors.
- Fireworks -- spoke to the fire departments of 3 towns -- Dedham, Westwood, Walpole as we were not sure where our venue would be. Each one has said individuals lighting fireworks is simply not allowed by MA law. So, we need to hire a professional company and they would be paying for a fireman and policeman detail and putting a professional show. Even sparklers for kids are not allowed. For Westwood, the only site where fireworks done by a professional are allowed is the one used for the New Years Day and the viewing site is the high school. Walpole, Dedham are likely to allow for other sites. A recommended fireworks company is Atlas Fireworks. They conduct the fireworks show for the Diwali event hosted in Andover and in one additional town, that I forgot. But the cost is prohibitive -- almost $5000. We may have to rule out fireworks -- that is a huge disappointment.
6/08/2014
We had a small but productive meeting last Sunday. Here are the latest updates.
Our preferences for a Diwali celebration this year are:
An outside venue
An open participatory event
Involve kids and teens more
Involve outside community more
Next meeting
The next meeting is on Sunday, June 29, 5pm to 6pm at Anagha & Ganesh’s home, 105 Conant Road, Westwood.