Meeting at Chennai

5 June 2003

Report on Chennai Alumni Meet (Summer 2003)
By Swaraj Mishra, PGP 1999

The Chennai meet was organised on 31 May 2003 at Hotel Quality Inn, Sabari. The meeting started around 8.30 PM, after the informal interaction among the alumni. Siddharth Poduval, the Junior Co-ordinator (Batch of 2004) started the proceedings with a welcome address and agenda of the meet. It was followed by self-introduction of all the alumni present. All the guests were taken back in time to the good old XIMB days with a video presentation on the campus. Then it was time for a brief discussion on the Chennai Chapter and nominations for Chapter office bearers. In order to register the Chennai Chapter as a formal society, the office bearers were nominated and the mantle of the Chennai Chapter was passed on to the more recent batches. The office bearers, who were nominated in the meet are:

President

Ganesh

(2001) ganesh_bugs@yahoo.com
2.

Secretary

Saipriya

(2002) saipriya_natarajan@yahoo.co.in
3.

Treasurer

Ramu

(2003) UMARP2001@yahoo.com

After this, the house was open for discussions. The topic of discussion in the forum was "Alumni and Campus Placements". After being informed that the campus placements for the year 2004 has been handed over to a placement consultant, serious concerns were raised by the alumni on this decision. It was felt that, the placement has to bee coordinated by the institute directly as no external agency can show the level of dedication, commitment and personal touch that we expect from the institute representatives.

The other concerns and ideas raised by various guests present are...

We should target the manufacturing sector also, who have low, but continuous requirements.
It has been observed that alumni are contacted for placements only after the placement week, when the tings have gone out of hand. Or in other terms, only in case of crisis, the requirement is given to alumni and not before that. Many alumni raised this point. (Request to placement committee - Can we involve the alumni for the contacts and leads well in advance?)
It was mentioned by some alumni (and supported by many others) that even after giving the leads to the institute, no follow-up was done last year from institute side. There were companies willing to hire freshers, but they were not approached even after giving the leads.
There are many smaller, local, but fast growing and professional companies, which we fail to target each year. Information regarding such companies can be gathered from alumni.
It was also mentioned that some alumni had requested the institute to provide the CVs of all the unplaced students as there are certain requirements. However, till date there has been no response even though months have passed. The same request was given again to the batch of 2004.

After the open discussion, it was the time for the bar, food and of course..... the dance floor. The JLT continued in true XIMB fashion till late in the night (of course, not by XIMB standards) and the meet got over with renewed enthusiasm and nostalgia!!!

The meet was attended by a total of 57 guests, including 37 Alumni, spread across various batches of PGP and EXPGP. Among others, Prof. Kumar and 4 "would be" students from the 2003-2005 batch also attended the meet.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the Junior Organisers Siddharth, Satwik, Lagna and all their batchmates in Chennai), the batch coordinators from alumni (Shailen, Prem, Ganesh) and above all, all the alumni and their spouses, who attended this meet to make it a success.

This was the eighth alumni meet organized in Chennai since the first formal meet in 1998. All the meets have been successful, thanks to the active support of our Chennai based alumni. Hope this support will continue in times to come.

Over to you Ganesh, Saipriya, and Ramu as the new coordinators of the Chennai Chapter.

Swaraj Mishra (PGP 1999)

swarajmishra@hotmail.com

STATEMENT OF ACCOUNTS FOR CHENNAI ALUMNI MEET (2003)

The meet was partly sponsored by Cavin Kare (for the Meet) and ABN Amro (For the T-Shirts).

Expenses
Rs.
Collection
Rs.

* Venue
Purchase of Hard Liquor
+ Miscellaneous
Total Expenses
15,935
1,800
4,000
21,735

Registration
Collection from Drinks
collection from T Shirts
Total Collection
8600
3560
2500
14,660

SHORTFALL AS OF NOW = (Rs. 7,075)**

* Venue includes the food, snacks, soft drinks, beer, music, and LCD Projector
+ Miscellaneous includes the expenses incurred by Junior Coordinators towards contacting and organising (STD, Local phone, travel etc), Expenses for sponsorship, transportation, tips at the venue, buying of stationery, photography etc.
** We expect the sponsorship cheque of Rs. 10,000 to come from CavinKare this week. After the receipt of the same, we'll have a net surplus of Rs. 2925, which will be handed over to the new committee for safe keeping, to be used in the future meets.

The above accounts are only at a broad level. The exact break-up with the details and receipts will be handed over to the newly elected committee, for verification and authorisation on behalf of the Chennai Chapter.

29 May 2001

On the hot and humid evening of 26 May 2001 at Chennai, the alumni meet of XIMB witnessed an unprecedented attendance with 70 alumni attending the meet. Needless to say, this was the biggest alumni meet Chennai had witnessed. Kudos to

Debashis Panda

and team for this event.

The meet formally started off just after 8.00 p.m., though the alumni had started assembling from 7.30 p.m. onwards, getting busy finding their batchmates and others they knew. The first formal event was a small talk by the Class of 2002 on XIMB and the recent developments. It was followed by a thought provoking address by Prof. Kumar, where he posed a few questions in front of the alumni. Then came up the part where you have most of the alumni usually shying away... introducing themselves! And that opened the gates to the partying mood with the bar, dinner, and JLT Floor opening at short intervals. The party was on with the popular "anthem", "

Jahan Teri Yeh Nazar Hai...

This is the fifth alumni meet I attended and fourth one in Chennai. I could very well feel the sharp contrast between the first alumni meet we saw in 1998 and this one. Well, one of the most visible changes has been the growing number of alumni and the growing

enthu

level. We have also seen the alumni moving from depending on the Institute to being self-reliant. It's about time too. We have also seen alumni organising get togethers separately during the year also. As far as I can remember, it was happening only in Mumbai when the first meet was organised. The scene is really encouraging and we are fast moving towards being recognised as one of the strongest alumni body.

Best of luck to all the alumni chapters all over the globe!

Swaraj Mishra
1999 Batch

Alumni Home: Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar 751 013, INDIA, E-mail: <alum@ximb.ac.in>

Expenses	Rs.	Collection	Rs.
* Venue Purchase of Hard Liquor + Miscellaneous Total Expenses	15,935 1,800 4,000 21,735	Registration Collection from Drinks collection from T Shirts Total Collection	8600 3560 2500 14,660