Scent of Money

We are getting greedy. After yesterday’s celebration at the Garden, a suggestion has come up to generate money from this blog so that nobody would ever be required to foot any bill for any party, picnic or excursion in future. A corpus would be created to meet all Club expenses without having to resort to individual contributions or imposing any kind of financial burden on members.
In putting forth the idea this morning, Sushma Gupta’s husband, Pradeep Gupta (below) was suggesting the 'monetization' of Big Laaf. In other words, space on the blog page would be sold to advertisers (like they do in newspapers) for a price depending on the ad size and positioning, target readership, the traffic the blog attracts and the strikes on ads. Effectively, anyone arriving here to read this blog, also gets to see a variety of ads of commercial products and services – health supplements, medical insurance, investment opportunities, holiday deals, etc.
The proposal found immediate takers in Yusuf Rassiwala, Razia Khan and Dilip Babani among others, despite Shekhawat arguing that this would mark a departure from the Club’s policy of not having any dealings with money. Not only would it lead to accounting issues, but worse, create misunderstanding among members and even rifts within the Club.
Gupta’s counter-argument was that if big money comes in without an investment and we are able to raise the quality of our recreation in the interest of all members, why not? Besides, we have a well-established and active blog with 500-plus posts and over 60,000 page views. He offered to set the ball rolling after he retires on December 31 while Yusuf (left) and Dilip volunteered to take care of the accounts. That sealed the matter.
Yusuf however, brought up a pertinent point. Before venturing into monetization, we need to formalize our association with a proper membership list, or else “every Tom, D. . . and Harry in the Garden" will claim to be a member. We will also have to open bank accounts with an authorized signatory who enjoys the confidence of all members. The nitty-gritty of all this needs to be ironed out, for which, he has requested Shekhawat to convene a meeting at the earliest.
Harish Wadhwa:
Is Shekhawat-ji asking for votes with folded hands like a politician? Or is he thanking everyone for their love? Well, the guess is yours! LOL. Kishor-da, as usual, gave a nice joke-ka-dose. The chai session was also nice.
Renu Babani's PIC-SPEAK:
* "Namaste, with folded hands and on behalf of everyone, I greet you all..."
* "Don't I look like a hero of yesteryears?"
Kishor Babani:
Don't you all know that he has got an election ticket for the forthcoming elections? He is requesting the public to vote for him. He surely will eradicate poverty and corruption if he wins!