I am
putting pen to paper (read: putting fingers to the keyboardJ) to write about the
experience of being a member of the core team at JSS Noida Alumni Association.
While in college I had the opportunity to
work as an organizing member of Team Impetus and various other common interest
groups which had put me in great networks beyond the boundary of the year of
college. I have always appreciated the power of networks and crowds to pull in
resources. (1)
It
started with a decision, small of sorts. It was a decision to attend an alumni
meet being organized by the college. I had no travel plans and decided to visit
the college and meet some friends and teachers after a very long time. The
function was organized in the lawn outside the girl's hostel (2), the attendees
were served dinner and the program included song / dance performances by
students and 3-4 usual speeches. In the last part of the program, the Alumni Officer,
Dr. Ansari asked the current alumni core team to step up and call out the
requirements of fresh volunteers for the alumni related initiatives. I was more
than happy to volunteer for the team and full of enthusiasm as I could also see
a couple of my good friends there which included +Vaibhav Agarwal.
With the
most basic means, we jotted down all the names on a piece of paper and got the
paper photo copied and handed a copy to each of the new volunteers as well as
Dr. Ansari.
The journey
wasn’t very eventful until we decided to take on the challenge of building a
strong alumni base over the most commonly used social platforms and also have a
group mailing list for sharing opportunities. We roped in many volunteers and
worked on various ideas including web applications. (3) The ideas did require a
lot of time and effort, and we were then at a relatively naive state. We put
our best foot forward and organized an alumni meet while working on spreading
the word on the digital platforms. The event did not turn out to be of the
standard we had expected it to be (4) but we did manage to get out mathematics
clear J. (5) We were bang-on on
the projections we had made. This did give us all a better understanding of the
opportunities we had at hand and also put us in a very open position with a lot
of alumni who were eager to contribute but did not do so for the lack of a
clear platform.
I will be
posting about my experience with the college management a little later, when we
made them aware of the power of a strong alumni network.
Today, we the JSS NAA core team has reached
a juncture where we are open for new and enthusiastic volunteers, who are
required bring in fresh energy and ideas into the initiative. I have
highlighted some parts of the above text with a number enclosed in brackets.
These are just a few examples of where the fresh synergies are required; the
zeal and vigor on digital platforms, planning and resource management for
events, brainstorming and channelizing reach-out initiatives through technical
solutions, tackling management hurdles and working behind the scenes on
building a great brand of the college and it alumni. Trust me, it is worth
taking the time and effort, you wouldn’t get to blow a lot of air in an already
full balloon!
I am still motivated towards the initiative
and would appreciate participation from all batches that have passed out so far!
Please feel free to reach out to me at +919560444562 and share any good / bad /
ugly suggestions / comments / feedback, besides the official channels of the
Alumni Association.
Samrat Kishor
Class of 2008 [ECE]
JSS Academy of Technical Education