CNN features our Temple & Week Ahead 3-10 June

Dear Friends,

Please accept our humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
You might be one of those people discounting this mail, wait right there. This email is about you.

A few days ago, our temple was featured in an article on CNN (www.dandavats.com/?p=12659). The article highlighted the 10 Most Underrated Cities in the World and included Durban. It also clearly confirmed that Sri Sri Radha Radhanath Temple is one of the main attractions in the "Sun Fun Sea City".

We would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every devotee for the valuable and loving service rendered at the temple. To the devotees who helped build and raise funds for this architectural masterpiece, to those senior devotees who have been serving here for the past 29 years, to the countless number of devotees who continue to, week in and week out, help at the temple, to our staff who endeavour every day to beautify and protect our temple, to our well wishers, sponsors and friends from all around Durban, South Africa and the rest of the world, to all the visitors who frequent the temple on a regular basis or just walk in for the first time; we would like to sincerely thank you for your service.

As we are the 2013 winners of the Durban Chamber of Commerce, Best Landmark award and recognised in various national and international websites. We would like to grow and improve our service to Sri Sri Radha Radhanath and Their followers. This is YOUR temple, OUR temple — Srila Prabhupada’s family and we plan to improve it in the months to come.
Besides continuing to excel in on our outreach programmes such as college preaching, harinamas and book distribution, we would like to increase our care to the devotees.

We would also like to Go Green, it seems to be a trending topic in the world and we would like to get serious about this long term project by also saving Krsna's energy. We made a start over the last year by banning polystyrene plates at the temple and we would like to continue this by not allowing cups and coiners as well. Polystyrene takes over 300 years to decompose. As a temple we use almost 100 000 plates and 100 000 cups a year, this excludes what is used at FFL and Ratha-yatra. So we will be playing our part in saving the planet by introducing biodegradable cups, spoons and take away containers. We are also working with the department of energy to harvest solar energy form the temple’s stainless steel roof. Every kilo watt, every drop, counts.

As an offering to the Deities we would like to restore the temple to its original majesty by October 2015, on Their 30th Installation Anniversary. Work has already begun with replacing the smaller artworks in the temple and by fixing the roof of the temple, waterproofing and re-screwing the tiles on the roof, as well as consulting experts to help with the temple landscaping. In the next few weeks we would like to begin with repairing the altar gate, the wall tiles around the moat, the pathways around the temple and a few minor adjustments in the temple room. We are also working on a donor reciprocation, CRM (customer relationship management) programme — to enable us to acknowledge contributions of ALL our sponsors.

Please contact us if you would like to get involved in any way, after all this is your temple, our temple , Srila Prabhupada’s family.

We are fortunate to always be blessed with the association with senior devotees and this week we have the good fortune of having the association of His Holiness Rama Govinda Swami and His Holiness Bhakti Brhat Bhagvata Swami. You can listen/download some of Bhakti Brhat Bhagavat Swami, Ram Govinda Swami and Madhavananda Prabhu’s classes on http://soundcloud.com/durbankrishna. You may also tune in live during temple programme times to our audio channel http://www.awdio.com/search?search-input=SSRRT+&search-submit=1 and Ustream channel http://m.ustream.tv/channel/ssrrt-durban. You can view/download the May/June Hare Krishna News at http://iskcondurban.net/kngdownloads/newsletters/26.pdf. 

Your servants 

Swarup Damodar and Vibhu Caitanya Das

Week Ahead

Tuesday, 3 June
Sarnia Nama-hatta with Bhakti Brhat Bhagavat Swami at 7pm

Wednesday, 4 June
Northdene Nama-hatta with Bhakti Brhat Bhagavat Swami at 7pm

Thursday, 5 June
Lotus Park Nama-hatta with Bhakti Brhat Bhagavat Swami at 7pm

Friday, 6 June
Arena Park Nama-hatta with Bhakti Brhat Bhagavat Swami at 7pm

Sunday, 8 June

Bhagavad-gita - A Brief Overview with  Bhakti Brhat Bhagavat Swami at 11am
Sri Sri Radha Radhanath Love Feast with Bhakti Brhat Bhagavat Swami at 3pm

Finally, BBT Africa has published their 2013 Annual Report. You can view/download at https://app.box.com/s/ahxmj0xjjm0rcnshgv8n as well as an invitation to the BBT conference in Ghana. Also please see attached invite to the annual BBT Africa conference in Ghana.

As always, we look forward to seeing you and hope this finds you in the best spirits,
T: 031 4033328  |  F: 031 4034429  |  www.iskcondurban.net  |  temple@iskcondurban.net
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