Orb Meet 1 - 2005

From: "Sabiha"
Date: Sat Apr 16, 2005 2:19 pm
Subject: Report - Orb Meet 1 - 2005 sabiha_orb

Hi All!

The meet did happen on the 15th (yesterday) and I must tell you it
was one of the better ones so far!

Most of the people who had confirmed attended and some who had not
turned up! Waseem couldn't make it because he was too busy working
on a Friday for his company (you must sue your employer Waseem!).
Shabaaz too was held up with work.

The venue was excellent. The weather was so unusually good for this
time of the year. I mean normally we can't think of sitting outside
(read without AC) during this time of the year, but we did yesterday
at the Country Bakes and it was so pleasant with nice breeze through
out the evening. I am glad Umesh suggested this place!

Amazingly most members were on time and started arriving at 5:00 and
soon after. Teresa and I had reached Country Bakes at 4:30 to make
sure we are there to give directions and to meet early arrivals.
Teji arrived sharp at 5:00 (and I was impressed!) followed by Abdul
Kader, Umesh and Muffaddal. Ranjith and Sachith came around 5:30 and
so the meet began.

After introductions and pleasantries (it was the first attendance
for Teji and Mufaddal and some of the other members had missed each
other in the previous meets) we got on to the main agenda of the
meet and that was to discuss organizing an exhibition for work of
the members. A lot of ideas were shared for organizing the
exhibition and more new ideas were introduced to do other kind of
work which we shall hopefully take up once we make the exhibition a
success. (I will be posting about the exhibition in a separate post)

One question which we face at every meet with new attendees is the
name of the group. All people have a question as to what Orb stands
for. Well for the sake of all members here's a clarification. Orb is
not an abbreviation of any name. Orb itself has meaning. Orb stands
for globe or sphere or planet and we have this name for the group
because we started the group visualizing it as a world of creative
and likeminded people. To us, Orb represents "the world".

The best part of the evening was we got one individual interested in
the group who later joined us from an adjoining table after hearing
what the group was all about and who hopefully would become a member
of the group soon! His name is Amjad. We also got to meet his wife
Darshana who is on her way to motherhood.

One of the other topics of discussion was the Orb Reporters. The
attending members, as Mufaddal pointed out, were under the
impression that since we already have one reporter each for the
three main emirates (Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah) they did not come
forward to be reporters. Let me take this opportunity to tell you
all that there is no limit to how many people can report for one
emirate. If you have something interesting or informative to share
about an area or about any activity in any emirate, please go ahead
and post it. Since most of our members are working people its
difficult for them to cover their emirate all the time, so having
more than one reporter will actually be good as someone or the other
will be having something to share at some point of the week.

Going back to the meet, Bobby joined us later in the evening for a
little while and Teji made sure he kept irking me throughout the
evening with his obnoxious sense of humour (I am sure you know what
that means Manoj and I know to be better equipped next time Teji!).
Towards the end of the meet, Veena, the owner of Country Bakes
joined us and gave some ideas about displaying work done by our
members which we shall look into. We also clicked some pictures at
the meet, which will be posted in the next few days.

All in all a successful meet I must say. We had all members
including Ranjith and Abdul Qadeer chipping in with their valuable
views and tips, which we shall definitely work on in the coming
days. The attending members have decided to meet again after two
weeks (29th of April) to discuss and finalize the Exhibition. Those
who did not attend are very welcome to join in this time around.

With thanks to all the members who attended for making this a
success, I shall bid adieu for now!

Cheers!

Sabiha