Our 3rd Annual Meet in Mumbai turned out to be a great event, 30 organisations participated from 10 states along with Mr Parag Karia ( Arpan, USA ) Ms Maria and Mr Taco ( Stitiching Geron , Netherlands ).
The participants spoke about their work in brief which was followed by an interactive sessions on operational issues, we had a distinguished grass route worker Dr Avinash Pol from Satara , the audience was spellbound by his achievements, it seemed like he had a " Magic Wand " in his hand, he works in an informal way and is not attached to any organisation, by using govt schemes very cleverly he has been successful in creating some real good, low cost infrastructure and also helped villagers in sanitation, irrigation, agriculture, marketing etc, all this while still practicing dentistry, many of the organisations plan to visit him to learn and replicate his model.
Our Annual Meets have resulted in our associates collaborating with each other in many ways, a lot of insights were provided by the older and senior organisations. Our associates have really started helping each other in various ways with wonderful results,
We had a session with our supporters Mr Babu Joseph ( Axis Bank Foundation ), Mr Sudhakar Ram ( Mastek ) , Mr Anup Maheshwar ( Fund Manager ), Mr Ajay Sheth ( Quest Foundation ) and Mr MBL Bhargav ( Let'z Dream Foundation ) , who shared their thoughts with the group.
The three day CF Annual Convention included a get-together on the evening of 3rd March 2012, where CF associates, donors, supporters and well-wishers assembled in large numbers to meet/interact with the nearly 30 NGOs that CF is actively engaged with. Ramesh Uncle and Nimeshbhai, co-founders of CF, extended a warm and cordial welcome to everyone present, especially the several special guests and the stage was then set for Nimeshbhai to briefly introduce the various NGOs and their founder/s.
Nimeshbhai, who has undertaken painstaking efforts over the years to identify credible and efficient social organizations for ‘Caring Friends’ to support, nurture and grow, was undoubtedly best cut out for the task. While respecting the limitations of time, he managed to perfectly introduce each NGO to the audience. Nimeshbhai’s introductions provided excellent insights into the NGOs, their area of work, growing reach, their impact and also helped the audience gain crucial personal insights into the lives of many founders and the sacrifices they have made and continue to make in pursuit of their passion. The short yet personal and genuine introductions drew an enthusiastic applause from the audience and prepared them for another round of interaction over dinner with the founders and key functionaries of the NGOs
The group ngos appreciated the role of Arpan, CF and it's group of friends and expressed their gratitude to one and all, they find this unique and informal concept very helpful in letting them focus on the core issues.
A special thanks to friends who specially flew down for the meet, Mr and Mrs MBL Bhargav ( N Delhi ), Mr and Mrs Vishnu Dusad ( N Delhi ) Ms Almitra Patel (B'lore ), Srikanth and Chitra Belwadi ( B'lore Chapter CF ).
Also to our important friend from Singapore Mr Rajesh Raman, he too flew down specially for the meet. Rajesh is trying to gear support in Singapore for Caring Friends
This 3 day meet would not have been as smooth without the support of Dhiren and Preeti, who were on their toes and looked after all the arrangements with great care and warmth.
With moist eyes we departed very reluctantly, already looking forward to our next annual meet.
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