After the one-time program and the six-session course are conducted in the college or its vicinity, a weekly program is the logical next step. It is meant especially for the serious students from the six-session course to make them fixed in devotional service by regular association. Various aspects of a weekly program for the youth such as the proper venue, preaching and cultivation strategy, troubleshooting are dealt with herein.

Weekly Program: An overview

The ideal venue for a weekly youth program is the hostel room or the flat of an interested student. The advantage of this venue is that the other students don't have to go far for the program; nor do they feel that they are going to any unfamiliar place; after all it is the room or flat of one of their college-mates.

Once the program starts, its first goal is to create one potential leader from among the students. Once this student-devotee becomes serious and starts practicing Krishna consciousness properly, other students derive great inspiration from his example. This is because they are able to relate to him far better than to a shaven headed devotee, clad in saffron dhoti-kurta. The other students follow this student leader and gradually become serious about Krishna consciousness. Due to the responsibility of being the leader for the program, the student-leader also increases his dedication. This is how the strategy of creating one leader and, through him, many other devotees, works.

When 4-5 devotees have become steady in Krishna consciousness, they can be inspired to start living in a room together and a daily morning program consisting of mangala-arti, chanting and reading or hearing can be started. When this group of 4-5 devotees matures and comes to the level of chanting 16 rounds, then the weekly program is considered successful.

The Key First Step: Choosing the Right Venue

Most often preachers who start a program in some remote temple hall or community hall are unable to get a steady audience. This is usually because of the following reasons:

1. People come to temple just to have darshan and then go away.

2. People sit for a few minutes in the lecture as a ritual and then go away.

3. They are unable to relate with the program or the preacher.

4. People don't take such programs seriously because they don't feel it is meant for them.

Consequently the program does not yield any tangible fruits. Therefore no preaching program (especially a youth program) should be held in any public place.

The ideal venue for a weekly youth program, as explained earlier, is the hostel room or the flat of an interested student. The following approach can be adopted for getting such a venue.

Getting the right venue for the weekly program: (What if none?)

At the time of concluding the six-session program, which is likely to be held in the college premises or in a community hall close to the college, we have to enthuse the students about the importance of Krishna consciousness and urge them to take to it very seriously in their lives.

We should tell them, "We congratulate you for having successfully completed this Discover Your Self course. Now you have understood the most important knowledge in your life, which will be your cherished priceless gem throughout your life. To enable you to increase your knowledge and understanding further, we also have a senior course, called ‘Your Best Friend’. It is also a six-session course, but being exhaustive, it may take about 10 weeks to be completed. How many of you would like to participate in this course and get a deeper understanding of the Vedic scriptures?" Generally, we see that because they are enthused due to participation in the DYS course, all of them - about 25 to 30 in number - raise their hands.

Then we can further say, "According to the Vedic scriptures, giving others spiritual knowledge (jnana daan) or assisting those who are giving spiritual knowledge is one of the greatest, most noble services that one can render to society. Would any of you like to render this great service by providing your room for just ten sittings for conducting this course?" Sometimes two or three students volunteer. Then we can find out from the prospective participants the room that is nearest for the majority of them and choose that room. We should thank the other students for offering their rooms and tell them, "Your gesture itself is appreciated." so that they do not feel discouraged. And then we should announce the name of the student at whose room the course will be held and request everyone to give him a big hand. This student should be given special treatment by inviting him to the temple and developing a personal relationship with him. Then we can fix the venue at his home, print and distribute pamphlets among the students and start the Your Best Friend program from the subsequent week. Here it is important to say that we want the room for ten weeks only because, if we ask it for an eternal weekly program, then nobody will give. This is how the venue is fixed.

In case no one comes forward to offer their room for the Your Best Friend course, then the interested students can be told that they will be informed about the venue within a week. In the mean time, rigorous pocket book distribution in that area has to be done. Now, IYF would have earned a good name and students will be familiar about it. Many students would not have been able to attend six session regularly (even if they were serious and interested) due to:

Tuitions, assignment pressure, home visit, competitive exams, falling sick, some time-bound project to be finished and various reasons. Now by pocket book distribution we can locate such good ones, and there is a great possibility that one of them may offer us his room as a venue. As soon as we get the venue, we have to print pamphlets giving detail of the weekly program and follow up the interested students from 6-session program.

If we are still unable to locate a venue, we can try fixing up the program

• in the terrace of some congregation member's house
• in the hostel mess after night dinner
• in the Gymkhana club after evening hours
• in a secluded lawn within the college premises in the evening hours

Somehow or other, we should be determined never to give up hope. If we have a burning desire, then it is Krishna's problem to provide us the facility.

Getting the audience for the weekly program

• The audience can be got from various sources:
• Students from the six-session course who have taken beads and are chanting at least one round.
• Students from the six-session course who have promised to come for the Your Best Friend course, but have not yet started chanting. (Majority will be from this group)
• Students from the six-session course who showed enormous interest but dropped out due to their academic inclination. (Just because they did not complete the DYS course does not mean that they are ordinary people. Although they did not come for the six-session course, they may agree to come for the weekly program)
• Prizewinners of the one-time program who did not join the DYS course.

The addresses of all these students can be pooled together and they can be followed up by distributing pamphlets to them. And on the day of the weekly program, all these students can be assembled together and the weekly program can begin.

All this work involved in getting the audience for the weekly program is the responsibility of the CC follow up senior devotee allocated by the coordination committee for this purpose.

Stabilizing the audience for the weekly program

It is generally observed that the students come for one or two weeks for the program and then stop coming because they become preoccupied with many other engagements. To sustain their interest in the weekly program, we can do several things: Making Local Program Members (LPMs)

As soon as the students come for the weekly program, we introduce the concept of LPM (Local Program Member). We ask them to fill up the ISKCON Youth Forum (IYF) forms and become IYF members by paying a very nominal amount of only Rs 50/- per year. The benefits for them are that they become entitled to take books from the books library and tapes from the tapes library. (These libraries can be maintained by two of the serious students from among the participants; these two students can keep records of issue and receipt) The students are very enthusiastic to become LPMs because they can also get an attractive IYF card, which makes them formal IYF members. And attendance is taken at the start of every session. So these students become very keen to come regularly and give attendance. 

Enclosures: IYF form, IYF membership Card, Issuing weekly notes to LPMs

The LPMs also receive notes after every session. Other students can also come for the session, but only the LPMs are given notes. So the newcomers understand that the LPMs are very special people and, when they are told that they can also become LPMs, they also become eager to become LPMs.

Printing weekly pamphlets

It has been observed that, when we print and distribute pamphlets, over a period of time, people become bored to see the same pamphlet repeatedly. To maintain their interest, one of the ideas is to print only 50-100 pamphlets for each week with a catchy title and a few interest-arousing subtitles. And the pamphlet for each week can be printed on a different color paper so that the students are captivated on seeing it. Otherwise, if we print 10,000 pamphlets, the students see them once and then the pamphlets becomes useless; if we show it to them again, they say that we know about the program already. Whenever we tell the students that there is a class today, it is their nature to ask, "What is the topic?" So it is advisable to distribute pamphlets with topics for each week so as to attract them to the weekly program.

Conducting weekly quizzes

Many times students come for a few weeks; but they are not attentive during the sessions and their mind keeps wandering and soon they lose interest and stop coming. So to keep their interest alive, we have a weekly quiz. The students are supposed to study the lesson and come prepared next week. But most often it is observed that they don't come prepared. So each week the copies of the notes of the previous week can be kept ready and, as soon as the students come, they can be given these notes to revise for about 10-15 minutes. And then the question papers can be given out. This ensures that they have gone through whatever has been taught in the past at least once before writing the test. Thus even if they did not hear the previous session attentively, they read the notes once, understand them and get some benefit from the session. Moreover, the quiz test is not in a dry question-answer format. It is designed in such a way that the students have to make very little use of the pen, but have to use the brain more instead. They have to make tick marks, encircle or cancel items, fill in the blanks, match pairs etc. So the students don't find the quiz test laborious; rather every week they look forward to it.

Cultivating a group of student-devotees

It has been observed that the general audience derives more inspiration from a student who takes great interest in the program than directly from the preacher. So it is very essential to stabilize a handful of students, say two or three, who have a keen interest in the program. These top-notch students from the program have to be given very special treatment; they should be invited to the temple and given prasadam, good love and very personally cared for. And they will also reciprocate with such love and care by becoming more and more dedicated. And when they become very strong, they become like a host for the temple. We need a host for the temple who is still living in the student community. Such a person can create a great interest among the students. And if he himself makes announcements and tells them, "Do this; it is so nice." they appreciate it more. In this way the students become inspired by their collegemates.

Having interactive sessions

The speaker should be very friendly and interactive. He should give ample opportunity for the students to recollect examples, analogies etc which they heard in the previous class. Such an interactive session keeps everyone alive during the program and they look forward to it every week. So the program should not become a victim of the spectator syndrome.

Inviting for IYF meetings

During the weekly program, the speaker should announce about the Saturday IYF meeting along with the topic. When the serious students come for the IYF meeting and see so many youths from various colleges and get their questions answered and doubts clarified during the meeting, it gives them tremendous spiritual strength and inspires them to become more serious. They go back and talk about the meeting with all the other students and in this way the weekly program becomes very strong and stable. (If the students can come for only once a week to the temple it is better to invite them for the weekly IYF meeting than to the Sunday feast program. Since the IYF meeting comprises of students of their age group, it will inspire them more than the Sunday program)

Following up the students

Any program, especially a college program, requires a vigorous follow-up. It is best if the coordination committee can allocate one devotee, apart from the preacher, as the follow-up senior devotee for the program. He can develop a personal rapport with the students, call them for the weekly programs, meet them once or twice between successive programs and gradually cultivate them in Krishna consciousness.

Starting a morning program

When the audience gradually matures with about 4 or 5 students chanting about 6 to 8 rounds, the duty of the preacher is to inspire and enthuse them to start living together in one room so that they can wake up early every morning, chant and read together. They can also start taking prasadam from the temple. This combination of sattvic diet, sattvic environment and sattvic association will help to make rapid spiritual advancement.

Once such a group is created, the preacher can hold his weekly programs in their room. Moreover he can go one or two hours before the regular program starts and teach these students important aspects of Vaishnav etiquette and Vaishnav behavior and also provide more information about spiritual way of living. This extra knowledge will help them to make quick advancement as devotees.

Boiling the milk (Stabilizing the serious devotees)

To further inspire the already serious students, there can be another program apart from the weekly program called the Bhakti-Vriksha or cell group meeting. This can be for about an hour every week. This meeting can be conducted in the morning so that the students don't feel that they have to spend two evenings (too much time) every week. In this meeting, for the first 15-20 minutes, they hear a tape and orally answer a few questions based upon it. Then they discuss philosophy as per the level of the students.

The cell group meeting can be held on two levels: junior and senior.

1. Junior cell group

The junior cell group is for those who have started coming recently to the program. As they have not attended the previous sessions, they are unable to properly understand the present sessions. So for them the previous sessions are revised in the cell group. 

2. Senior cell group

The senior cell group is for those who have been coming regularly for several programs but are afraid of opening up to the preacher, who may be a senior shaven-headed devotee in saffron. Since this cell group will be conducted either by one of the student leaders or by the follow up senior devotee, both of whom the students see as one of them, it ensures that they can interact freely with him, ask questions and make further spiritual progress.

If there are two competent student-leaders available, they can conduct both the cell group meetings. If only one is available, then he can conduct the junior cell group and the follow up senior devotee (allotted by CC) for the program can conduct the senior cell group.

The purpose of the cell group is twofold. Firstly it provides an opportunity for one of the leader-type devotees in the program to preach the philosophy of Krishna consciousness and thus become very strong. Secondly, it helps both the new students as well as the introvert old students to get a better understanding of the philosophy and thus advance in their Krishna consciousness.

The cell group works on the principle: Each one teaches one while being taught by one.