Future plans

UPDATE ON REORGANISATION OF THE SLLS: 3RD JANUARY 2021

As we lost contact with Mr Jackson due to technical problems, the opportunity was taken to discuss future arrangements for the SLLS. The consensus appear to be for 2 meetings a month from May and frequency to be determined according to season and availability of speakers. The time of day was discussed and the general view appears to be to leave the time of the meeting open without establishing a pattern for a particular time. Mahendra requested all to email him with their suggestions and also made a plea for users to look at the Website regularly.

The Country representatives will liaise with the existing UK SLLS committee for organising future meetings, There won't be a formal Chairman. Coordination will be through the SLLS Event Planning sheet which is already in operation.

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Update 15th May 2022

Zoom meetings will be managed by Dr Ruwan De Soysa.

Update on 4th December

I am hereby giving notice formally that I am relinquishing the Chair from April next year. it is not a sudden decision as I have been contemplating this for some time. I cannot quote the standard political jargon of "in order to spend more time with my family" !This leaves plenty of time for new ideas and new names to take the SLLS forwards. It has given me a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction to Chair for the past 10 years but it is now definitely time for new blood and fresh thinking.

Thanks to all of you and a special thanks to my fellow committee members Ruwan and Niro.

Mahendra Gonsalkorale 4th December 2020

THE FUTURE OF SLLS ZOOMS

It would not be possible to maintain the current pace of a meeting every week for an extended period of time. There will be 3 or possibly 4 in November and 1-2 in December.

The plan is to have not more than 2 a month from January with the possible extra one now and again if we "get an offer we cannot refuse". One will take the normal format (at 2.00pm UK time) but one will be tailored mainly for our own UK members and most likely will be at 7 pm UK time on a Saturday or Sunday. (Overseas members are not excluded! The times will be tailored for the UK membership of the SLLS and we apologise to some overseas participants who may be inconvenienced. I am sure they understand that the primary purpose of the SLLS is to serve the membership here in the North West)

We enjoyed the International and wider UK audience during Covid.

As Chairman, I wish to thank all those who contributed and participated and offer a special thank you for those who introduced so many widely respected leaders in their respective fields to appear for us. The roll call is truly outstanding.

Mahendra Gonsalkorale

FUTURE ORGANISATION OF THE SLLS

We welcome suggestions from members on the future orgnanisation of the Society. We would like to see new blood and in particular, more involvement of younger people. We would like to expand the organising committee with this in mind. The future of this Society relies on their interest and support. Please email any of the committee members or if you prefer, you can post on the WhatsApp SLLS Group.

Devinda and Shanali sent in this proposal at the request of the Committee. Members responses are most welcome. The plans are ambitious and requires more active participation by members and volunteers with the required skills to implement it. In the meantime, I have made some modest improvements to the website in indexing and navigation.not yet

Update: November 7th 2020. Regional Representatives

We have decided to appoint Regional Representatives to help locate good Speakers and fix dates.

So far we have the following Regional Reps:

USA and Canada- Mevan Wijetunga and Ernest "Robin" Andree

Sri Lanka - Neetha Manthriratne

The UK Reps are Devinda Karunaratne and Shanali Perera

We would like volunteers from Australia and New Zealand.

Dr Shihan De Silva has accepted to be a Regional Advisor for UK and Sri Lanka

Proposal

1. Revamp website - Have separate pages for

- past talks

- interesting quotes/poetry

- resources page

(Ex -links to free reading material https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/ ; https://www.hathitrust.org/ )

- video introduction about the SLLS (2mins)

2. Legacy Project

- Digitalising Hugh-Nevill Collection on Sri Lanka at the British museum to make it widely

available to Sri Lankans worldwide

- How can we go about doing it?

- Funding options - Reach out to UK OGA, OBA, SLMDA or SL organizations or private funders

3. Newsletter - Annual

- Can this be piloted as a blog first? Perhaps invite articles, poems with word limit to be

submitted on covering various topics?

- Potential ideas

A. Being creative during the pandemic

Share artwork, poetry, photographs, knitting, any other hobbies that you have taken up

during this period. Any music you have created, new dishes you have cooked, areas you

have worked in your garden

B. Being away from ‘home’ - Reflections

4. Dedicated meetings - Targeted for children/younger audience

- Ex- Book reading with children’s author Nizrana Farook - the girl who stole an elephant

5. Workshop format slots

Educational - How to write a short story – Ex: Nimmi Harasgama

Creative activity - Creating art/music/poetry/crafts

Combine culinary skills with literature - Ex: Peter Kuruvita

Fashion and Batik industry – Ex: Darshi Keerthisena, Buddhi Batiks

6. Future format to be physical and virtual meetings (combination)

- Even during physical meetings people can join in via Zoom from remote locations

- Breakout sessions from dedicated talks for SLLS members to socialise

7. Regular quorum meeting with steering group to discuss future program and ways to improve

8. Create a separate digital archive of all SLLS activity (most of the data already present)