Present: Krishna Chandra Pandeya ji, Manohar Thakur ji, Om Prakash Choudhary, Vibhash, Vivekanand, Rakesh Ravi and Sanjay
Apologies: Gyaneswari ji, Parmanand ji, Virendra ji, Sushil ji, Anil Singh ji, Kaladhar ji, Ashaji-Navin ji, Kameshwar ji, Anil Jha ji, Arun Jha ji, Pradeep ji, Jai Prakash ji, Atul, Sanjay, Ghanshyam, Sami Haider, Anuj, Deepak
Topics for discussion:
Well-being for all NOBA UK members: All NOBA UK members are doing well.
Gratitude was expressed to all frontline workers (health, care and all other essential services)
Current pandemic in UK and in India; measures by UK Government and Government of India: We discussed ongoing COVID 19 pandemic and shared our personal observations and reactions to this unprecedented situation
Update on Manohar ji's conversation with Netarhat school Principal Dr SK Singh
Other ideas to help our school further
Decisions:
Members congratulated Sanjay and Tina for the publication of their paper on Self-Referential Processing and Emotion Context Insensitivity in Major Depressive Disorder.
Manohar ji updated members on his conversation with Dr. SK Singh regarding our offer of donating a running shield/cups in some chosen fields. Dr. Singh did not sound very enthusiastic as there are too many trophies already available for various activities. Dr. Singh suggested a couple of Smart-classes (costing approx. Rs 1.5 lacs each) instead. He also informed that Rs 2 crore had to be returned to the government for lack of clearance that members found it very disturbing.
Members also brainstormed various other ideas:
Members agreed that we, as a school are very good academically, however we have a perceived weakness in other vital skills necessary for success in this rapidly changing world.
Instead of awarding prizes, which always raises questions about the integrity and reliability of the selection process as well as the extra work involved for the teachers there, we considered organising activities in different extra curricular activities with our support.
An idea about sending some English speaking students for few weeks every year to help the students with the spoken/written English was greatly appreciated by all. It was felt this could benefit the next generation of our own group as well. This idea can readily be implementable too with the permission of the principal.
The idea of setting up a NOBA UK scholarship every 5 years, that was discussed last time, needs to be further deliberated.
Members also discussed about the scholarship that could also be offered to the children of instructors, cooks, barbers and other staff of our school. This would help them in their higher studies.
An idea to promote hobbies, such as photography, music, sports, yoga was also considered.
Encouraging entrepreneurship can also be promoted among the students that would make them aware of different stages and challenges of the journey.
It was decided that we would take our time to come to a practical and useful solution to our quest for contributing to our alma mater. Manohar ji will inform the principal accordingly.
In order to capture such ideas for further deliberations and bringing them to a conclusion in terms of a more crystallised and implementable plan, a group page has been created on our website (https://www.nobauk.org/group/nobauk-group/discussion). Members are requested to use this page to share their ideas and to discuss among members. Please note this page will ask for your login credentials and therefore members are requested to create one if they are not already member of nobauk.org site.
It was also agreed that although Whatsapp can be used to alert members but substantive discussions should rather be held on our website which is well preserved and easier to follow. It was also confirmed that our website is pretty secure.
Members agreed to meet again on Sat, 6th June via video conference. All NOBA UK members are requested to attend, if they are not busy with their essential services to the nation.