We are pleased to announce that the 9th biennial BMM convention for young adults (MAIYTRA) will be held in Washington, DC from July 2-5, 2010.  We are asking for your help in making MAIYTRA 2010 a success. 

Held every two years since 1994, MAIYTRA began as an effort to preserve Maharashtrian culture among Marathi young adults in North America.  Since then, it has grown into a vibrant and prolific community of Marathi young adults interested in celebrating our cultural heritage.  The conventions provide a forum for social and professional networking with other young adults who share similar backgrounds, values, and a common interest in maintaining the Marathi community into future generations.  MAIYTRA, as an international community of young adults, also serves as a bridge between the under-18 youth groups in our Mandals and the young families that join the Mandals.  In particular, MAIYTRA 2010 (www.maiytradc.com) is focused on preparing young adults to participate and take greater responsibility in their local Marathi communities by serving the past generation and guiding the next generation.

MAIYTRA 2010 is MAIYTRA for ALL, meeting the needs and interests of all young adults ages 18-35+, with activities that cater to all different age groups, career stages, relationship status (single, looking for someone, or married), personality types, social styles, and more.  Whether a young adult is still in college or an established professional, whether they are first-generation arrivals from India or raised here as second-generation Marathi-Americans, whether they are happily single for now or looking to meet someone special, MAIYTRA 2010 is designed to cater to their needs.  Also, for the first time we are specifically inviting and creating programs for young couples.  Many other attendees may be primarily interested in professional networking and career development, and we have designed valuable opportunities for them as well.

Your support will help preserve Marathi culture into the 2nd and 3rd generations and will provide direct benefits to all our local Mandals, including yours.  There are 3 ways in which we are asking for your assistance.

(1)    Please help us reach out to your membership so that young adults, and especially parents of young adults, can take advantage of the tremendous opportunities we are creating for our attendees this year.  In particular, many misconceptions about MAIYTRA exist in our community: that it is a weekend-long party, or that it’s only for singles seeking to meet someone, or that undergraduates are too young to attend.  We need your help to dispel these ideas and to encourage your membership that all are welcome and that if their children start coming to MAIYTRA early, while still in college, they are much more likely to stay active in the community, instead of drifting away.   The first enclosed attachment is the text of an e-mail to send to your mailing list to market and fund-raise for MAIYTRA 2010.  The second enclosed attachment is a document with the HTML code for banner and square ads to add to your websites to help promote MAIYTRA, along with a text description of MAIYTRA you can add to your front page if you have the space.  In particular, we suggest you encourage your membership to register by April 30 at www.maiytradc.com before prices go up.

(2)    Please help us raise donations to support many of the new initiatives we are undertaking this year.  These initiatives include MAIYTRAConnect, an online social and professional network exclusive to MAIYTRA attendees, so that attendees can meet before the convention and stay in touch after the convention.  MAIYTRAConnect will be the long-term platform that links our community between MAIYTRA and BMM conventions.  We are also working to reach out to the thousands of young adults who aren’t yet connected to or aware of BMM and our local Mandals, and we hope to help integrate them into our communities both at MAIYTRA and in their home cities.  The third and fourth enclosed attachments are a PowerPoint presentation that can help you and your executive board better understand what we seek to achieve with MAIYTRA 2010.  We hope you’ll encourage your local community to donate to MAIYTRA 2010 and support the preservation of our culture.  If your board would like to make a donation on behalf of your Mandal, we would also be exceedingly grateful for your support.  All donations can be made at donate.maiytradc.com.

(3)    Please inform Marathi entrepreneurs and professionals in your community that MAIYTRA 2010 is a tremendous opportunity to advertise and recruit talent on an international scale.  The fifth enclosed attachment is the sponsorship packet for MAIYTRA 2010, which we ask that you pass on to any Marathi entrepreneurs or businesses in your community.

A major goal of MAIYTRA 2010 is to build and encourage young adult communities and connect them to all the local Mandals across North America.  This will lead to increased membership but also added energy and enthusiasm, and will lay the core of future volunteers and leadership for our local Mandals and BMM.  Some of the ways in which you can help us with this goal and help attract more young adults to your own Mandal are:

(a)    Appoint a young adults coordinator to your executive committee, if you don’t already have one.  We can work with them to help them reach out to MAIYTRA attendees from your local area and invite them to more Mandal activities.  If one of your programs includes a dinner, you can also set aside a table or two for young adults.

(b)   Co-sponsor pre-convention and post-convention activities in your area, so that we can jointly promote MAIYTRA registration and your Mandal’s activities.  This is a great way to reach out to Marathi young adults in your area that aren’t connected through family to your Mandal.

(c)    Start a MeetUp group for Marathi young adults in your area.  Our generation is a very mobile one, and many of us have moved away from the areas we grew up into new cities.  MeetUp (www.meetup.com) is a popular way for a lot of new arrivals to find activities and friends, and this is a great way to reach out to recent transplants and Marathi young adults who may have never been involved in Mandals growing up.  The cost is only $144 per year, and you can use the MeetUp group to promote your own regular Mandal events as well as to hold other low-cost easily-organized activities like potlucks, picnics, happy hours, movie nights, etc.  We can give you the information on how to do this, if you’d like.

(d)   Discount first-year membership for Marathi young adults who join through MAIYTRA and/or MeetUp (if you start a group).  We can publicize this for you on MAIYTRAConnect and at our convention, and send targeted e-mails to MAIYTRA attendees in your region.

We have spoken to many young adults in different cities across North America to come up with these suggestions that we believe will boost your membership and help preserve our culture into the next generation.  If you would like to implement any of them in your own Mandal, please contact us and we will be happy to assist.  We hope that you will become our active partners in making MAIYTRA 2010 a success and strengthening all our communities. 

We sincerely appreciate all your support.  If you have any questions or ideas or concerns, please don’t hesitate to e-mail me. 

Thank you sincerely for your time and consideration,

Vijay Paradkar
President, MAIYTRA 2010
president@...
www.maiytradc.com