Dear Bhindeshi Members,

We have almost come to the end of a fabulous year which saw us conduct a pujo for the 1st time, a cultural program laced with fabulous food, and finally a Live program of the best talent in the Pacific NW. As has been the practice over the past few years, we would love to welcome all members of Bhindeshi to the year-end General Body Meeting, wherein we are going to conduct the following activities

Progress Report to be presented by the President

Financial statement to be presented by the Treasurer

Election of the Committee members for 2019

Any old business that remains outstanding

Any new business that we see on the horizon

Considering that our organization has grown beyond a small localized group of people, we thought it would be important to abide by the stated by-laws of the organization and undertake a process of formal election to formulate the Office Bearer and Executive Committee for the year 2019. In order to do this we would go through a 2-stage process wherein we would begin with an online nomination for the positions and subsequently elect the officials during the General Body Meeting itself. The detailed process would be as follows –

The election process would be presided over by the current President (Sandip Karmakar).

The rules of the nomination for the Office Bearer (OB) position (President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer) are as follows –

They should be an existing member

They should have been in EC for at least 1 year

The rules of the nomination for the Executive Committee (EC) member are as follows

They should be an existing member

They can be in the EC for a maximum of 3 terms

The nomination process

Two separate surveys (one for OB and one for EC positions) would be initiated during this week.

The survey would close by 12/23/2018.

Each member would be able to nominate 1 person for each position.

Only the Cultural EC would have 2 leaders, considering the intensity of work required to be performed during the course of the year.

The office bearer team will sort out any conflicts regarding nomination, and the result will be published by Sandip Karmakar by 12/30

In case there are no nominations for a specific position, the EC committee would meet to determine the self-nomination process.

The election process on the GBM day, January 6th, 2019

The nominated candidates and the electorate would need to be present on the GBM day. Absentee nomination or voting wouldn’t be allowed.

Votes would be cast in the form of ballots by members on the day of the GBM to elect one amongst the nominated members for each position.

We sincerely feel that the Bhindeshi members are the soul and purpose of our existence, and we seek your wholehearted involvement at this critical juncture of the evolution of our organization. We look forward to your active participation in the nomination process and also seeing you at the GBM to elect the team that will lead the path in 2019.

The GBM would be held at KCLS Kingsgate library (12315 NE 143rd St, Kirkland, WA 98034) between 3.30 PM and 5 PM on January 6th, 2019.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Regards,

Team Bhindeshi