Baishakhi Event News !

Baishakhi Event 2005 concluded at XLRI, Jamshedpur, at 1.30 p.m. on Sunday, May 1.

Participants gave positive feedback, and facilitators also expressed their satisfaction. There were two Basic Laboratories in Human Process (BLHP) at the Event. One was facilitated by Sanjib Basu with Snigdha Pattnaik as the co-facilitator, and the other was facilitated by Paul Siromoni with N. Annamalai as the process observer. The 2 BLHPs had 9 and 8 participants respectively, adding up to a small community of 21, including the 4 from ISABS.

Although we had hoped for a greater participation from the Jamshedpur area, and that indeed was a major objective in locating the Event there, we had only 3 local participants. Interestingly, the 17 participants came from unexpectedly varied places : Mumbai (1), Raigarh, Chattisgarh (2), New Delhi (2), Chennai (1), Coimbatore (1), Guwahati (1), Kaula Lampur, Malaysia (1), Behrampur, Orissa (1), Kolkata (4), and Jamshedpur (3). Two aspects need attention for the future: (a) the low participation, especially in relation to the considerable investment of planning and energy; and (b) the low representation from the immediate region, that we saw in the Bhubaneswar Event also, and, by contrast, the geographical spread of participants.

In addition to many small group and three large group (community) sessions, we had a Sunrise and a Sunset Seminar. N. Annamalai spoke on ‘Blocks to Creativity’ one morning and Madhukar Shukla spoke on ‘Human Process in Organisations’ in the evening. There was also a party on April 30 evening with much music, song and merriment ! The facilitators and process observer had their ‘Happy Hour’ on April 28 evening, joined by Madhukar.

Many thanks are due to Shakila Ahmed and Chandrima Banerjee for their efforts as Joint Deans of Programmes for the ground-work from Kolkata, and to Madhukar Shukla for his invaluable help and support from XLRI, Jamshedpur, as the Professional Member-in-residence. We must sincerely thank XLRI, including the Director Fr. Casimir Raj and members of the staff, for the cooperation and hospitality they provided in a very green and peaceful environment conducive to the work of the Laboratories. N. Annamalai was the Event Manager, and worked tirelessly to keep the engine running smoothly and successfully, in addition to his process observation role in the BLHP. Paul, Snigdha and I did our bit also as the facilitators. Thank you, Anna, Paul and Snigdha !

Sanjib Basu
Regional Representative
ISABS Kolkata Region