Email from CS Nanayakkara

Helping our alma mater- Purchase of essential books
Dear Nalini,
Many thanks for your very recent e mail on the above topic. I am very pleased to hear that you have more money than needed for the purchase of books. It is likely that the Medical College Library would have received individual donations towards this project. This raises few issues which I would like to share with you and all our colleagues. This is because of the financial commitment and responsibility I undertook on behalf of some of our like minded mates (initially all from UK) and the need for us to be transparent and accountable.
You may remember the start of these activities when few of us initially felt the need to show our gratitude to the Colombo Medical College for providing us with a wonderful basic medical training to be good doctors- entirely free of charge.Various deficiencies were identified( scholarship fund, computers etc) and one of the options was the need for the purchase of much needed library books and journals. You took lots of trouble in liaising with the senior Library staff to identify the a list of educational material urgently required and you very kindly provided us with the costing's ( total cost of app Rs. 175,000.00)
Kappa did a wonderful job by agreeing to provide all the much needed computers to the library all by himself.Few of our batch mates responded and indicated their willingness to provide the necessary money for the purchase of a couple of books on an individual basis.
Few of us in UK (initially) felt that we may be able to raise sufficient funds collectively as a Group to enable us to ‘foot the total bill’ towards this Library project. I did write to you on behalf of the UK Group ( without making it known to all our batch mates till we were confident of the total funds raised) that we would be able to raise the total cost identified- app £1500.00 You very kindly agreed to be our link person so that we could transfer the total funds to you as one transaction to avoid any unnecessary bank charges and also to enable you to represent our interest in the best possible way. Our Group got bigger and more enthusiastic and we have managed to collect app £2500.00 ( In pound sterling and app. Rs 110,000.00 worth of cheques which I was about to make the transfer to you).
Few of our voluntary donors are still writing to me to ask how much they should contribute and how the money could be sent. On behalf of the Group, I did share my thoughts that in case we exceeded the original target of £1500.00, any excess could be utilised towards the purchase of any urgently needed educational material. Our Group was very keen to help the medical College Library as a one off donation to mark the 50 years of our ReUnion.
I do sincerely believe that all those who responded to our appeal and made the voluntary contribution to me as a Group would still want the money to be used judiciously towards a much needed Project.
Could you please let me know if
1.you have managed to purchase all those books & journals highlighted and costed previously from the individual contributions you/Library have received so far.
2.if you do not require the money we collected as a Group(mostly from UK, few from Australia and a few from USA)towards the purchase of the books as earlier indicated
3. you have any other urgently needed single/combined project which could be funded from the money we have collected. I am sorry that this is a very lengthy response but I want to make sure that the dedication, commitment and the enthusiasm shown by our small Group will not go waste.
Best wishes
Nana