Minneapolis-St Paul, MN
March 18,2012
a note from Kusum Gosain – India Association of MN President-2012

Congratulations to all of you for putting up a successful event yesterday!!  I am sure you all are relaxed and enjoyed a beautiful, well deserved Sunday with your dear ones. Our team efforts were reflected last night with a great display of activities in all areas.  Registration, decoration, social hour, food, cultural performances, achievement award, keynote speech, panel discussion, all went very well.  I received many compliments from many people for all of us in putting together such a wonderful event.

Sorry for my long windy email but I wanted to take this moment to acknowledge all the great work that you all have been doing. I apologize if I forgot to include someone or some activity.

PG & Manohar, let me take this opportunity to sincerely thank both of you for great leadership through out the process of planning, organizing and executing this fantastic event.  PG you were so good with weekly teleconferences and keeping them brief and manageable.  I know you had to chase all of us for providing updates.  Also, thanks for bringing many attendees to the event. Your efforts in reaching out to people via email, phone calls etc. is very much appreciated.

Manohar, thanks for your treasure activities.  You were so prompt in providing us documents and invoices for soliciting sponsorship.  Thank you your work with hotel. I know we were all shooting questions at you all the time.  Thank you!

Nag, you were engaged throughout and jumped in wherever and whenever needed including getting sponsorship Thank you for your availability at all times when we needed you.  You brought in so many TEAM members to the event. Your leadership is very much appreciated by all of us.

Sunoj, You had the toughest job of organizing panel discussion for the event. Right from topic selection to the execution of the whole panel, you had challenges come your way.  You kept your cool continued to march forward. In the end you delivered an insightful panel discussion bringing the panelist from different sectors.

Shalini, you are irreplaceable to the board.  Your leadership with publicity and communication was incredible, delivering everything on time.  Your creativity and graphic designing has taken IAM to a higher level.

Hari, as always you are indispensable to IAM.  Your encouragement and leadership on ticket sales was incredible. We had over 200 attendees at the event. You were always on top of it, understand the tediousness of this work.  Thank you for all your help on the day of the event as well.

Hasim, as always you did an outstanding job in bringing so many new sponsors  on board this year.  You keep bringing new organization to IAM.  Kudos to your tireless efforts on this.  You also stepped up and helped in many areas.  I continue to enjoy having you on IAM board.  Thank you.

Maya & Smita, thank you for your help with decorations.  I know you had tough challenges with tight time available to decorate all areas. In spite of that you and your volunteering team did a fabulous job.  I was admiring all areas and taking pride in how good the place looked.  Thanks to your detailed planning.

Priyanka, thank you for owning and delivering the complete cultural program and its execution in absence of Santhosh.  Please convey thanks to your parents for all their support during the event.

Ravi Bhagwat, Uma, Jackson, Brahma, Indira, Guptan, Seema, Nag, thank you for managing the registration and membership desk.  I didn’t see any long lines or confusion at the desk.  Its all your planning and execution that made this process so smooth.

Ravi B, I am glad your trip to Vegas got cancelled and you could be part of CI!

Venkat, thank you for your support with many aspects of CI. My special thanks to you for bringing Boston Scientific on board. I know you are busy with Festival of Nation planning, in spite of that you supported CI in so many aspects.

Babu, no words are enough to explain your engagement and availability to update website at short notices, including troubleshooting issues while you were India. Online ticket sales process was a key success to our event.  Thank you for all your help with tech support at the day of the event.  Everything went flawlessly. Great work Babu.

Robert, what a wonderful job you have done to promote Connect India via various channels; your blogging, interviewing and broadcasting it on newly developed CI website was superb  We have not explored these channels before. Thank you introducing IAM to these new areas.  Program brochure looked excellent.  I understand how time consuming these activities can be.  Thank you, its wonderful to have on the team.

Raman, Umeshwari, Guptan K thanks for your help and support on the publicity team. You all did a wonderful job in supporting the team and creating several different promotional materials. Raman, Guptan we missed you at the event.

Santhosh, we missed you at the event and I know you were missing being here. Your efforts in sourcing the cultural performance for CI are commendable.  I know that you were busy with Festival of Nation activities at the same time but you kept up with everything so nicely.  I admire your attention to detail.  I also want to thank you for bringing Ty in as a photographer to the event.

Ravi Sura, What can I say!! Wonderful coordination!! You stepped in at the last minute and laid out such a detailed and clear plan for all of us.  Thank you for your leadership.  Your sense of humor and liveliness while assigning us tasks, brought a much needed smiles on our faces in little tense moments. All of us at IAM are thankful to you for gracefully executing our program.  Thank you!

Nagraj, achievement award ceremony was done very elegantly. Thank you for stepping up and taking charge when we needed it most.  You did such a fantastic job of executing the ceremony.  I thank your selection committee for choosing great candidates for organization and individual awards.

Sanjeev, we missed you but enjoyed the delicious food organized by you.  I heard several great comments about appetizers and food.  There were no big buffet lines, everything went smoothly.  Please convey our thanks to Balbir at India Palace. Thank you for bringing some revenue in ads and your help with panelist connection.

Shanti, its a pleasure to have you as TAC chair this year.  TAC team has taken up such an active role with IAM and with its activities.  Everyone on the TAC team was so engaged with board members and stepped in wherever and whenever we needed help.

Ammar, Suresh, Sudhir da thank you for your assistance and participation in the day of the event activities.

Raman, Suresh, Brahma, Ammar, Nag and Robert, you work on membership team is much appreciated. I know you had to cover many events in last few weeks.

All of you are wonderful members of the IAM board.  We have a great start to 2012 and looking forward to your continued support with many more successes with future activities.  I am very confident that we will deliver great successes with such a wonderful and diverse board in place.