How NOT to ruin your SUS

A fellow sabha-ologist and Bal Presenter - Jarvikbhai sent us the following observation.

How many of us have started our presentations with a question? I certainly have and this blog post is an instant example. Questions are a tempting tool to make things interactive. A quick and easy unexpected - maybe a way to gather consensus on a specific topic we want to talk about.  I recently utilized asking a question to start my Bal Mandal presentation trying to make things interactive. While it may work for a blog post (since the question is rhetorical) I found it isn’t as effective when doing a presentation, especially for Bal Mandal. I lost all command presence after asking the question since the sabha devolved quickly into a free for all. I did not want to crush enthusiasm or shout at the kids to pay attention (because they were paying attention they just were not behaving). So I weathered the storm, but it took a great deal of momentum out of my talk. As a presenter, we want our audience to pay attention from the beginning.

Following our Simple-Unexpected-Stories paradigm, we usually start our presentations with an unexpected to grab attention. It does not have to be a video and in fact if we start every talk that way it would not be very unexpected. I spoke to the sanchalaks and they confirmed that the kids had not seen a video in a few weeks. My simple take home message was “We should follow Yogi Bapa's example and fill our free time with devotion.” So I found the following video to grab attention.

The video is fast paced and just under about a minute long - perfect to entice the audience (balaks for my case) and prove the point that we spend a considerable amount of time doing unnecessary things which wouldn’t help us in the long run. Thus, we should use that free time to do different bhakti/seva for Bhagwan. I felt really good about starting in this manner and then integrating this idea to all the prasangs of Yogi Bapa.

However I started with a question asking the Balaks what they do during their summer time. I was expecting answers that weren’t  bhakti/seva related so that I can have balaks realize the amount of time we spend doing unnecessary things by showing the video next. In theory the plan would work but reality disagreed. As soon as I asked the question, all the balaks started yelling different things which is opposite of what I expected. I lost all command presence. I did not want to yell to get them to quiet down. I wanted to feed their enthusiasm.  If I had started with the video, it would have grabbed their attention much sooner and would actually care to listen to the following things I had to say.

So are there no real ways of using questions in your presentations, absolutely not! Virenbhai’s blog post is great example of how to incorporate a question at the beginning of a talk. Afterwards I thought of the following ideas that I may try in the future. Bring a ball or a throwable object. We could set conditions that whoever has a throwable object can speak. We could ask the same balak who has that object to pass it to another balak for them to speak. That way the commotion is reduced drastically.  

Satyakam's Test

Back in April, we kicked off the Small Hands, Big Hearts Project with Shaluk and the tussle his mind faced with the melon, and tomorrow, we will revisit Satyakam's test and how he earned brahmvidya.

With tomorrow's sabha ghosti, let's use the 15 minutes in a targeted way to reinvigorate others to this elusive seva. Here are some ways to focus the discussion and keep the momentum going.

Know your audience: Survey your audience to see exactly what individuals are doing and frame questions accordingly.

• If commitment is an issue, the discussion should focus on identifying opportunities using the example prasang as a guide.
• Chaturmas just concluded, and if an individual gave up something for four months, there's a good chance s/he can solidify it as their sacrifice to this project
• If commitment has been made, the discussion should focus on how to keep motivation afloat.
• If Satyakam could give you 1 piece of advice, what would he say?
• Imagine Satyakam participating in this project alongside us. From the prasang, how would he go about staying consistent with his sacrifice?

Do sampark: Let's not forget about those who may not be attending sabha tomorrow. Identifying ways they can sacrifice can serve as an opportunity to spark a conversation and do sampark.

Leverage your karyakars: Ask parents coordinators to communicate with parents of kishores/kishoris who cannot identify a niyam or may feel shy approaching their parents. 

Create a rally point: Graphically display your mandal's contribution in an area where they can see, like the sabha hall.

Data Science in Bal 1!

Viren - a bal karyakar and experienced Sabhaologist shares a great way to modify the un-unexpected of asking every kid a question.

During my preview for my Bal 1 talk, I said that I would get everyone’s attention by asking them who they loved the most and then comparing that to Bapa and using that to start my talk. The idea I wanted to convey was that Swamishri’s love for us is unconditional. I know from past experience that just asking Bal 1 an open ended question can lead to lots of talking. So what better way to captivate kids’ attention than doing data science? The best way is to see who everyone loves the most was to create a bar graph. Each balak was given the question “Who do you love the most?”. When every balak answered, we tallied for either mom, dad, brother, sister or grandparents. After tallying up each balak’s response, we saw that most balaks love their dads the most because they spend more time with them. However, then it was easy to connect this to how Swamishri loves us unconditionally though the balaks said they love their dads. If we graph Swamishri’s love for us, it would be impossible to graph. This idea of graphing easily caught all the balak’s attention and it was an awesome way to see Swamishri’s love is unconditional.