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

• 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

• The project is also being made part of Change India Movement and will be displayed prominently on their site
• www.holisticbangalore has agreed to put up information on the project o their site

• PR
• 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

• 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.

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• 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.

• 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

• 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

• 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.
• Companies being offered options to join as

• 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

• 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)

• 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

• 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

• 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.

• Bank account ready
• Initial contributions received
• Will take care of accounting, receipts and payments, cash flow, including issuing and accounting for coupons

• 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

• SIGNIFICANT PROGRESS MADE
• GREAT EFFORT BY ALL INVOLVED – FROM RBITC, PALM MEADOWS AND OTHER COLONIES IN WHITEFIELD, COMPANIES, OTHERS
• MUCH MORE REMAINS TO BE DONE

• SEE ABOVE. SUMS IT UP NICELY

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