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What?
Jats in Greater Washington area (DC, VA and DC) have agreed to come together to revive and strengthen the regional Jat community. A kick-off picnic is scheduled to be held at 2:00pm on 15th July (Saturday) where all of you are cordially invited to eat, meet and greet with other fellows. Interested people are requested to go through all details.
Where?
Burke Lake park, 7315 Ox Road, Fairfax Station, Virginia. Burke Lake park has nice picnic spots with general amenities like benches, BBQ grills, volleyball courts and ample empty space. Directions to place could be taken from http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/b...directions.htm , more precise directions will be provided later.
More Details:
Everyone who is interested in attending the picnic or interested in being part of our community (even if they can’t attend this particular event) should become member of our yahoo-group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jats_dc/ . Minor logistics details will be sent to the group, this post is just for publicity purpose.
Since we don’t have funds to start with, food will be arranged on pot-luck basis rather than catering. People have (partial) freedom to bring whatever they want but uniform distribution of responsibility will be planned through internal communication in the yahoo-group. People are welcome even if they are not in position to bring anything but communication with us well beforehand is strongly requested.
Again, since we don’t have funds to start with, we plan to have picnic in un-reservable area of the park. Which means picnic spot is free, to be occupied by earlier birds (I plan to be there as soon as park opens) but without any shelter (which might be little problematic if it rains). In case forecast is rain, 2-3 days before the event, there might be little modification in the arrangement which will be well communicated with everyone.
This event is also meant to gauge the strength and interest of the community, to discuss long term goals and to formalize the coordination process little bit for future events. If everything works out fine, we plan to have regular events in future e.g. Diwali function etc. And since money is needed for arranging any good event, a minimal amount (not more than 5$ per head) has been suggested by senior members to be collected from attendees.
As you know we also have yearly picnics in our friendly neighborhood (New Jersey), it would be good for us to work together. People are requested to spread the word around in your contact circle (in PA, NC area too) and those who can’t make for 1st July NJ picnic should definitely consider attending 15th July DC picnic, and those who are coming to 1st July picnic must come for 15th July too).
The process of contacting people and planning has been underway for last one month and so far around 30 individuals have expressed desires to come. Some people are coming from NC too, like Anju Singhji.
Once again, interested people must contact us beforehand because:
1) Pot-luck arrangement needs proper prior planning
2) People coming from out of Fairfax county would have to pay 8$ for parking, which can be avoided if you can park your car at someone’s place outside and then come to the park in someone else’s car.
3) For people coming from far away (lets say Australia for joke’s sake) and want to stay, we need to plan hosting arrangements beforehand.
Finally, I am just putting this post here but actual underground work wouldn’t have been possible without the help of Anjulie Dalal and her family, Anmol Rattan and Ajey Bargoti; these people will also be helping in further work. Thanks to Har Swarup Singh, Rajender Singh, Vidya Fozdar, Anju Singh and Aditya Ahlawat for valuable suggestions.
-Vinod
