Tree planting at Varthur School, covered by CNN-IBN
Amarnath, Ganesh, Gita, Vijay, Nitesh, Children &
others
Getting down to work at Varthur School
May 14, 2008.
AREA IDENTIFICATION
Arun Katiyar/Ganesh
Map of area in
Whitefield outlined – 22 sq. km area
Initial forays
into the area done
Team to start
detailed work on the 19th (Starts at 7 AM with breakfast –
sponsored by M/S/C, and expect to finish with debriefing at about 4PM
20 to 25 teams
of 2 or 3 each will do field surveys
Will also try
and meet local residents and RWAs
Tesco has already
offered their campus for 100 trees. Planting can start
One lake behind
Purva Parkway identified. Residents willing to look after the plants
Discussions with
the “Save the Lake” group next week for planting on all the lakes in
the area
Discussions on
with other campuses in Whitefield
EcoWatch talking
to institutions such as the Army, Police etc.
Meeting with BBMP
on 11th
Update -
May 14
The first survey on Apr 19 went off very
well. About 40 to 50% of the area has been covered. It was an enjoyable
day, despite the heat. Most people said their perspective of trees
itself has changed.
Met Maj Gen.
Anju Manchanda, Administrator, Vaidehi Hospital. We are to give them a
formal request.
Meeting with
BBMP hopefully will be held next week
AWARENESS
Vijay Mane/Sunil Sud/Sriram
Publicity
material
All collateral
material – Coupons, Posters, Banners, flyers, standees, under design
and preparation. Expect to get ready
Also preparing
Kits for Community use
Ajay Nemani
has also confirmed that he will find free hoarding that we could use
(however, the skin has to be prepared by us at Rs. 10,000 each and
sponsorship not be allowed for these)
Attractive
mobile trolleys being made for use in public places. First prototype
already available. More being done. Vijay Mane has sponsored all 20 of
these.
Also preparing
badges reading “Green Warrior” to be given out in schools where the
children contribute to trees.
Collateral
material being designed by Bianca Bhavnani as her contribution to the
project
Other websites
The project is
also being made part of Change India Movement and will be displayed
prominently on their site
Amarnath
Kamath and Rajeev Mehtani would be the official spokespersons
The plan is to
arrange one-on-one meetings with select media personnel in the week of
Apr 21 to talk about the project
Times of
India
Deccan
Chronicle
Economic
times, and
One regional
newspaper
Background
notes on the project as well as the CSR angle being prepared by Sriram
A full scale
Press Conference will be held sometime in end May/early June
The major
event on Aug 15th will be covered by all media
Awareness Update - May 14
Publicity
Material
Four standees,
two banners and few posters, initial coupons, badges ready
Five of the
“Tree stands” ready for use
More material
focusing on the “Plant 100,000 trees” ready.
Other Websites
Project Green
Dream featured on www.HolisticBangalore.com as the Editor’s Choice.
Many thanks to Nilima and Vijay Bhat
Interview of
key people on the same site
Green Dream
now a part of the Change India movement and featured on the Change
India site.
PR (Rajeev Mehtani,
Anamika Iyengar, NXP have been particularly active)
Symbolic
plantation of the first tree done on Earth Day (Apr 22). Event covered
by the Hindu, thanks to Sriram
One-on-one
meetings held with Bangalore Times, ET and ToI. Main spokespersons were
Amarnath Kamath, Gita Sriram, Rajeev Mehtani and Dr TV Ramachandra,
Centre for Ecological Sciences, IISc.
Extensive
coverage of the project in ET and Bangalore Mirror on May 14.
ToI also
expected to give coverage.
COLLECTIONS
(COUPONS)
Gita/Ritu
Mathur/Hema Patel/Soumya Srinivasan
First offer of
Rs. 1 Lakh made by the RBITC president, Mr Kamath
13 Tree
contributions already received, even before the coupons aer ready
Coupon getting
ready. Working with Sanjay Swamy’s company (mchek) to finalise the art
work etc.
Community kits
being prepared and will include posters, banners and flyers. These will
be given to the person from each community taking responsibility for
that community along with the numbered coupons
The project is
under RBITC and collections will be made in RBITC Charitable Trust
Areas where
coupons for trees will be offered
Communities –
Ritu Mathur
List of 40
communities in the area prepared. Getting updated
Corporate –
Rajeev Mehtani
Working with
CSR teams in ITPB through Capt Dayalu of Tesco
Need to get
known corporate contacts from RBITC members – Rajeev’s team following
up with members
Plan to set
up the trolleys under preparation (see below) in various companies for
collections
Schools – Hema
Patel/Soumya Srinivasan
Make formal
presentation on the project in Indus School on Monday, 14th
Also
preparing badges reading “Green Warrior” to be given out in schools
where the children contribute to trees.
More work on
schools in june when many of the schools reopen
Public Places
– Soumya Srinivasan/
20
attractive trolleys being prepared sponsored by Vijay Mane to be used
in these places for collection
Bharati
Kamath as offered that boys/girls from her company can work on weekends
at the Malls and other places to get contributions for trees. They will
get 5% for of collections for their efforts.
Expect to
start this activity end April/begging May
Update
May 14
Coupons with
mChek branding at the back ready
Coupon no. 1
taken by Dr TV Ramachandra, Centre for Ecological Sciences, IISc.
Contributions
for trees against coupons are beginning to come in. Collected made in
the Indus international School, ANZ, Forum Mall. More activities around
this being planned
ITPL has offered
us 10 days around Environment Day (June 5) to put up our stall there.
Need a process owner and a team of volunteers for this event. Need one
person (or a small team to take responsibility to plan and execute the
whole programme towards pre-set objectives
Plans for
propagating in residential colonies in and around Whitefield underway.
More volunteers to take on groups of residential areas required
After the
initial work at Indus International School, TISB has also shown
interest in our working with them
Other schools to
be approache
CORPORATE
INVOLVEMENT
Rajeev Mehtani
Companies being
approached both for sponsorship of various media as well as for other
contributions
Mchek has
sponsored branding on the 100,000 Coupons (Rs. 5 Lakhs) and they will
be also given the stutus of Gold Contributers
Brochure for
companies getting ready. Design by Anamika Iyengar.
In return
companies are being offered the following:
An appropriate
plaque will be formally presented to them
Mention in our
website of their involvement
Mention in
press releases and other media notes
Acknowledgement
at the major event of Aug 15
Appropriate
banner display space at the above event
May also offer
podium space at the Press Conf for Gold Contributors
In addition,
companies are being asked to
Encourage
their employees to participate, both by donating trees and by getting
involved in various aspects of the project
Participation
already confirmed from TI, TESCO, UTi
Make available
space in their campuses (if any) for planting trees
Maintain/Monitor
the sapling in and around their areas
After initial
meeting with Tesco,
Have offered
to provide space for 100 trees and look after them
Setting up
meeting with the CSR teams of companies in ITPB with the assistance of
Capt Dayalu of Tesco
Once again, list of
companies with contacts that members of RBITC may have is being sought.
Rajeev’s team is following up with the members to get this going.
Update
– May 14
Companies
contacted so far – ANZ, Viajya Bank, Bally technologies, Oracle, ARM,
Cadence, NXP, HP, UTi Worldwide, Thought Focus, Manhattan Associates,
Cosmic Circuits, Prestige Developers…. All under process (Not only for
contributions, but for everything that we are looking for from
companies)
Beautifully made
Hard copies of Brochure ready – available with Rajeev or I (we missed
out printing our website in it. Please add when you use)
WEB
COLLECTIONS
Vivek/Anil/Arun, for setting it up
(everyone for spreading the message)
RBITC site up
(rbitc.in and rbitc.org)
Content being
prepared by Sriram and team
Content for the
Green Dream already prepared and uploaded
Anil has
negotiated a very good deal with hdfc for the gateway – no set up
charges, no maintenance, only 1.95% of collections to be paid. Expect
to be operational in two weeks, if not earlier
Will need
everyone to spread the word to all contact all over the world to get
this going
Update
May 14
Greendream.rbitc.org
is up and running
Payment gateway
being worked on by Anil and his team.
Extensive help
from a number of people in this. Thanks to m/s Thought Focus for
offering to do the back end integration for the payment gateway
Hopefully, it
should be operational in about a week
First draft of
proposal received from EcoWatch and discussion held
More detailed
plan expected to be ready by 11th
However, the
plan is to start plantation in Tesco and around the Lakes, if necessary
Planting map
prepared by the Area Identification Team will be given to this team by
21st
.
Update
May 14
Ecowatch has not
been very responsive, possibly due to their own very large commitments
Met Mr AK Varma,
Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, who has promised complete
support in terms of getting saplings, and in any other way.
Mr Varma has
asked Mr Palliah, DCF Urban to be the single coordinating point in the
exercise
Dr Harish Bhat,
Centre for Ecological Sciences, IISc has agreed to help in all
activities related to choice of plants and in plantation (Currently
traveling abroad)
Gita had an
initial discussion with the Stree Sakthi group to help water and
maintain the saplings.
Further work
will await completion of the election process (including counting) 25th
as also the beginning of the monsoon.
.
FINANCE
Amarnath Kamath/ Sheila/ Kala Dev
Bank account
ready
Initial
contributions received
Will take care
of accounting, receipts and payments, cash flow, including issuing and
accounting for coupons
Update
May 14
Parul Shah has
taken charge of coupon books and will coordinate all disbursement of
coupon books and collections against them
Please collect
coupon books from her and start the collection process as best possible
On return of
Sheila from her sojourn in China, the Finance team may take up more
planned cash flow exercise
SO
FAR,
SIGNIFICANT
PROGRESS MADE
GREAT EFFORT BY
ALL INVOLVED – FROM RBITC, PALM MEADOWS AND OTHER COLONIES IN
WHITEFIELD, COMPANIES, OTHERS
