SPA UK Sandesh 2017 | Page 66

Leicester SPA Leicester’s calendar is always packed with events taking place almost every month, especially from March to December and this year it has been no different. We have many major religious events The Children’s Workshop Team taking place throughout the year continues with various workshops and I am pleased to report that the throughout the year and they have participation and support from our proven very successful. We hope members has been fantastic. Every that members continue their support event has been a success. Our Bhajan by enrolling their children to these Mandal have also enjoyed success with workshops to learn about our culture almost every slot booked during our and about SPAL, as they are the future regular Bhajans. Many thanks to our of SPAL. Religious Team and Bhajan Mandal. Our Social Club committee held several The activities taking place during the social evenings throughout the year week at our site have experienced a and are pleased to report that these significant increase in participation. events were sold out and were very The Ladies Keep Fit activity has seen successful. the most increase in participation. Similarly, we have seen an increase in The friendly darts tournament took membership of the Table Tennis Group, place in January this year with guests the Darts group, the Yoga Group and from Loughborough, Coventry, Rugby the Men’s keep fit group and there is and Bolton and what a success this room for more. was. The event also helped us raise approximately £1300 for charity. In September this year, our SPAL Raas and Garba group participated in Gujarat Hindu Association (GHA) Raas Garba Competition and I a m so proud to report that our SPAL group was named Runners up. Many thanks to our Raas and Garba group. In June 2017, SPAL Yoga Group staged World Yoga Day at our site and the support received was overwhelming. The Mahila’s have also been very busy organising events for Mahilas including the recent Coach Trip to various mandirs around the country and the SPAL coach trips have always sold out. Thank you for your support and I am sure we can count on our Mahila team to continue organising events for the This is one of our very popular weekly activities. The 2016 New Year’s Eve party was also very successful with 400 people attending. The event organisers made sure everyone from young to the seniors had a fantastic time. ladies in future and supporting the rest After almost a year spending time in of the SPAL’s events. reviewing SPAL membership policy 64 vol. 42 | Prajapati Sandesh 2017 including introduction of Associate membership, we have agreed and published our final revised membership policy in June this year which includes an increase in membership fee for both the annual and life membership from April 2018 resulting in a significant increase in life membership this year. This year for the first time we held our Nutan Varsh gathering in the morning. It was cold and raining at the time, but that did not stop our members attending the event to celebrate our new year and the prathna hall was full.