Hello Veerashaivas of North America:
The countdown to our yearly convention has started. We are 145 days away from the 37th convention in Dallas, Texas.
Our convention theme is “Iva Nammava”. And we hope to make the feeling of brotherhhood and community a central part of this convention.
Everyone in the Texas chapter is working hard to make sure that every aspect of the convention is being taken care of. Hosting the convention requires a lot of work by many dedicated people. The winter olympic games in Sochi, Russia is now in progress and you can see the amount of work, effort and expense that goes into an event of this magnitude. The VSNA convention can be viewed as being a sort of a microcosm of hosting a major event like the olympics. We want to make sure that everyone of you attending the convention has a memorable time, make new friends and connections, reunite with old friends and families and enjoy all that Dallas and Texas have to offer
Dr. Neeraj Patil of UK (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neeraj_Patil) will be addressing the convention. He has previously spoken at the Vishwa Kannada Sammelana as well as many other events. He is a Lingayat luminary and an inspiring speaker. Mr. I.M Vitthalmurthy (Retd IAS officer, Secretary for Kannada and Culture, Secretary of Tourism in Karnataka) will also address the convention and speak on the virtues of Basava philosophy in todays world. We will also have Swamiji’s and Veerashaiva/Lingayat scholars who will speak at the convention. The convention will be a festival of ideas, thoughts and views about our religion, philosophy and way of life.
The entertainment committee is also working very hard in lining up a stellar list of top performers from India and within the US. We believe you will be mesmerized by the performances and enjoy every moment of the entertainment.
We have also published our first newsletter (http://bit.ly/1giqHXm). It will be published on a 6-week basis and will provide information about the convention. The convention portal (http://vsnaconvention.com) is also being constantly updated. We had a few registration issues for people registering from Canada. These have now been fixed. We would like to encourage you to register now for the convention. The Sharana Package (http://bit.ly/1ljxMtN) is worth more than it is actually priced at and is a great way to sign up for the convention. It will save you money as well as time and simplify your registration. We want to make it as easy as possible for you to attend this convention.
It has been a brutal winter for many of us in N. America. But according to Punxsutawney Phil, Spring should be here in six weeks. Shivaratri is also around the corner and many of the VSNA chapters will be celebrating the event. Please discuss the upcoming convention and make plans to attend and participate. If there is anything that you need from the Texas chapter and various committees involved in the organization, please do not hesitate to contact us. Contact information for the committees is available at: (http://www.vsnaconvention.com/2014/HTML/committee.html).
Come one, come all and enjoy Texas hospitality. We look forward to seeing you all in Dallas at the convention in July.
Sincerely,
Basavaraj Patil (Chair)
Shiva Prakash (Co-Chair)
Vijay Patil (Treasurer)
Jyothi Hattarki (Secretary)
email: convention2014committee@vsna-tx.org
Phone: 214-509-8190