BNI Odyssey Handover March 2021

I was selected as the Secretary-Treasurer for our BNI Odyssey chapter for the last 6 months, along with Sabah Mistry as Vice President and Sushma Venkatesh as President.

The meetings would continue to be “ONLINE” on Zoom, and we had a new “Pilot” script to contend with, amongst other things of getting the hang of trying to make the “digital world” more engaging for entrepreneurs, most of whom have operated rather successfully in an offline world

While my interactions with Sabah during the last term as education coordinator has solidified my friendship with her, my relationship with Sushma over the last 6 years could termed “Cordial” at best. Both of us share different ideologies on ways to work and hence there was not much meeting of the minds for the most part.

What a tumultuous term it was.

The first meeting there was the bomb blast of a voice message from ex-member Ms Upma, the collateral damage to the relationship of our DC with senior members of the Odyssey brigade and relationships within Odyssey members themselves to a beating.

To the almost non-existent working of the MAARG committee, largely influenced by the wrongful notion that putting in “stalwarts” to do the job would make our lives easier & the ever-busy President who would disappear and appear like magic expecting work that was assigned to be done by the honourable membership committee.

All this lead to Sabah, as vice President, single-handedly leading from the front and almost taking over every role to keep the numbers of Odyssey ticking on the BNI dashboard.

The term culminated with Dr Nimmy throwing down the gauntlet at Ram Kumar Seshu and Sukhen’s feet to get the boys to celebrate the women of Odyssey.

The last two weeks, under the able leadership of Sukhen, we were able to put together a decent presentation for the ladies, ensuring each and every one of the boys gave a testimonial to the ladies or recognize the ladies contributions to their business in their 30 seconds and gives section.

Deepak Jumani and I came up with an idea for a special surprise event, for the women to be showcased to Odyssey as entrepreneurs.

We decided to do both the handover and the women’s celebration together to save money as the treasury had very little left to be able to afford two events back to back.

Deepak Jumani organised the stage, the venue, the DJ, lights, sound, food and cakes. Got his kids and wife involved as well.

I curated the videos, arranged the gifts and took up an MC role on stage

It was a grand night. Odyssey weren’t able to participate in full strength though, due to travel and Covid concerns.

But the DJ was exceptional, the women felt appreciated. They were surprised and emotional after the presentation, and we danced like no tomorrow, and like nobody’s watching till about 1 am. The Caterer ensured that we were fed delicious hot food even at that ungodly hour, and that’s how our term ended, as it began.. .. in a blast!

A Few pictures from the party.