Контактная санкиртана - Страница 1

Dear Satyaraj Prabhu,

PAMHO. AGTSP.

As we spoke about in Sucharevo last week, I said that I would send

you some basic principles behind the "Contact Sankirtan" concept.

Please bear in mind, that the concept behind contact Sankirtan

involves the utilization of a strong support system for maintaining

the program. When I say strong support system, I mean that it

requires funds, manpower, cooperation, an office, vehicle and

equipment (such as a computer). But you should not be discouraged

if all these things are not immediately manifest. When I started, I

also had nothing, but gradually these things became available as

the program started to grow.

Most important is that you need to develop a database of names and

addresses of people who are potential purchasers of sets of Srila

Prabhupada`s books. Or, in other words, you have to define your

"universe" according to the way that Sridhar Maharaja described it

in his presentation last week. How to define it? Well the following

is some examples of ways that you can start.

1) Get names of people who correspond with the BBT. I already spoke

with Sannyas dasa about this and he agreed to give out names to

anyone who would responsibly take care of them.

2) Get names of people who visit the temple programs. In most temples

there is a guest book which people are encouraged to sign. However,

the best way to encourage people to sign the guestbook is by telling

them that by signing they will be put on our mailing list to receive

news of upcoming events. (More about that later.)

3) The book distributors should be encouraged to get names and

addresses of interested people that they meet when they go out on

local distribution. (This is the cooperation part.) Usually the book

distributors will claim that they are too busy to get the names, but

generally it is not very difficult at all if they actually meet

interested people. They should just have a simple form that they can

fill out right on the spot. When they meet an interested person, they

should just ask them if they would be interested to receive our

newsletter which includes news of upcoming events. Most people will

not mind at all.

4) Put inserts into the books being distributed locally. Print up a

card that can be mailed in requesting more information. There are

many samples of cards that can be used. I`m sure that Sannyas dasa

could help you with this one.

5) At all preaching programs devotees should be encouraged to collect

names in the same way. They should have a guestbook, and any

interested persons who come up for books should be encouraged to sign

the book to be put on a mailing list.

6) Anyone who phones the temple to make inquiries should be asked for

their name and address for the same reason.

7) Anyone who writes letters to the temple making inquiries should be

added to the mailing list.

8) I don`t know about in Russia, but in the West there are other

groups who have mailing lists and they sell their lists to other

groups. For instance there are vegetarian groups, philosophical

groups, book buyers groups, etc. These mailing lists would be

considered "cold" contacts, whereas names which we receive ourselves

are either "warm" or "hot", depending where they came from. With

"cold" contacts, you don`t want to waste time visiting people if they

have shown no interest in Krsna consciousness at all. Therefore what

we used to do when we got such lists is that we used to put together

a mailout packet, with a newsletter and a response card in the

newsletter. If the people sent in a response card showing some

interest, we would move their name into the "warm" category, and then

would discard all the names of people who did not reply. (I think by

now you can begin to see how important it is to have a newsletter, or

at least "something" which can mailed out to people who show

interest.)

9) As the contact sankirtan leader, you have to always remind

devotees about the importance of getting names. Unfortunately, it is

commonly forgotten. But when everyone is reminded, and then the

devotees start hearing the scores from the Contact Sankirtan party,

gradually devotees start becoming more inspired to get names.

As your database of names grows and grows, gradually you are

beginning to define your universe. Then from that list you can put

together names and addresses into different geographical areas. Then

devotees can go out to visit these people. Again, I don`t know what

the best time of day is in Russia, but in the U.S., nobody is home

during the day. Therefore the devotees would have to leave everyday

between 5:00 to 6:00 PM, and they would spend about 3 to 4 hours

visiting people in the evenings.

The distributors would always travel in pairs. It`s better that way,

because sometimes you are invited in, and there may be only one woman

at home. Therefore it`s not good to go alone. They should bring