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The
Maharaja Cricket Cup 2003, organized by Vibha during the 3rd,
4th and 10th of May is a rousing success and generated terrific participation
from the local community. Click
here to read about the coverage on cricket and the tournament
in the Atlanta Journal of Constitution!
Prabhu Natarajan, Atlanta
678-640-9516
P.S. Thanks to Giri from our Action Center for handling the AJC reporter.
He is working on providing factual information to the reporter on
the number of Vibha action centers that was misquoted by the reporter.
Thanks to Niket for the timely update to our website with this terrific
publicity on AJC! You can visit Atlanta's website at atlanta.vibha.org
Bay
area bowlathon
Folks,
Our first event of the year 2003 was a success. We had a very good
turn out, especially given where we were just a few days prior to
the event. All credit goes to your efforts in publicizing the event.
The
best part of it all is we got some new volunteers interested in
joining us in this great journey that we have undertaken.
I would like to thank kiran, ram, raja for helping out in the publicity.
I would like to thank ganu, mona, maruthi, devi, jeydev, venky,
viji for helping out on the day of the event. I am sure i have missed
someone because there were more ppl who helped out. I would like
to thank hari for helping out with the planning of the event.
I would like to specifically thank Aruna for her tremendous effort.
I am not even going to try to mention the list of items because
i am bound to miss a few of them.
Lets continue this tradition and make the following events a much
bigger success. Looking forward to working with you all in the upcoming
events...
Thanks,
Kaartik
Heritage
of India Festival
May
17 & 18, 2003
Alameda County Fairgrounds, Pleasanton, CA
Heritage
of India festival is festival focussed on the
Indian culture with a lot of cultural programs and
about 60 booths from various vendors.
Summary
-This
was a fantasic branding opportunity for Vibha.
-Over 11k people attended the event.
-Net revenue from the event was 2.5k.
-60 new volunteer signups
-22 patron signups.
The deal
We
worked out a very beneficial contract with the
Heritage India Festival organizers (Rushi Inc.)
who were really very nice. Vibha was offered the following :
- 10 c per ticket sold (gate price was $5, cheaper online)
- 2 to 3 minutes stage time twice a day
- Three super huge 20x20 booths free of cost
- One food booth, free of cost
- Logo publicity in most of their fliers printed after the contract
In
return, Vibha had to do the following :
- Supply 10 volunteers for the festival on each day of the event
- Help with store and email publicity
- Provide entertainment in the form of children games in our booths
Vibha teamed up with a local restaurant & got 30% of the
proceeds from foodsales. Vibha also had games/mehndi/
drawing/face painting in their booths to involve kids
and raise some money through those channels.
Volunteers
Number of volunteers at the festival: 47 over both days
Volunteers
on May 17, Saturday:
-------------------------------
1. Aarthi Ramaswamy
2. Anand S. Kumar
3. Anush Mohandass
4. Arun Santhanam
5. Aruna Yerragudi
6. Devishree Radhakrishnan
7. Kaushik Mittra
8. Kavita Nayar
9. Kavitha Manickam
10. Maruthi Bhaskar
11. Meena Motwani
12. Nita Thakur
13. Pradeep Ananth
14. Raja Gobi
15. Rajesh Haridas
16. Rekha
17. Roopa Dharmapuri
18. Rupa Kalidoss
19. Sam Rao
20. Shobhana Ahluwalia
21. Siva Natarajan
22. Vandana Vidwans
23. Venkatesh Subramanian
24. Venu Pola
25. Vikram Nagulakonda
26. Vinay Gupta
Volunteers
on May 18, Sunday:
-----------------------------
1. Aarthi Ramaswamy
2. Anand Krishnamurthy
3. Ankur Jain
4. Anush Mohandass
5. Arun Santhanam
6. Devishree Radhakrishnan
7. Ganesh Balamitran
8. Jay Thakre
9. Jeydev Rajamani
10. Keena Shah
11. Kiran Parashar
12. Lalitha Swaminathan
13. Maruthi Bhaskar
14. Monika Taparia
15. Prasad Nellipudi
16. Pratik Bang
17. Puja Manglani
18. Raja Gobi
19. Rajashri
20. Rajesh Haridas
21. Ram Senthamarai
22. Sam Rao
23. Senthil
24. Shwethambari Ram
25. Somnath Mani
26. Sripriya Dev
27. Uday Kiran
28. Venkatesh Subramanian
29. Viji Iyer
30. Vinita Srinivasan
HI festival authorities had asked for 10 Vibha volunteers
per day to help with the festival logistics. But, at no
point in time did they use all 10. Most of the time, they
just need 2 volunteers with a maximum of 4 at a time for
very short bursts (approximately 5 - 10 mins).
HI festival authorities were very appreciative of the help
provided by Vibha volunteers with pre-event publicity and
days of the event tasks.
Booth
Details
Food
Booth (Booth #6)
Partnered
with Swagat Indian Cuisine. Only South Indian food stall at
the festival. The most popular food stall at the event. We had two
Vibha
banners at the food stall.
Menu:
-----
Idly - $3
Vada - $3
Soft Drinks - $1 (coke, sprite, water, etc.)
Mango Lassi - $2
Masala Dosa - $3
Bisi Bela Bath - $3
Vibha Booth 1 (Booth #22)
o Games:
Ring Toss, Tic-Tac-Toe - $1 for 2 games
o Prizes: Points redeemable towards things like T-shirt, stuffed
toys,
yo-yos, whistles, etc.
o Bunny Costume: Polaroid picture with bunny - $3
o Vibha Information
Vibha
Booth 2 (Booth #38):
o Mehndi
- $3 for half hand (for kids)
$5 for full hand (for kids)
$5 for half hand (for adults)
o Drawing - Drawing sheets, crayons and other drawing accessories
were
provided for the kids to draw. Kids were given a certificate
of appreciation & free candy (a pack of M&Ms) for their
efforts. We retained the drawing from kids and displayed it
in the booth. We also took pictures of kids drawing on
Sunday which can possibly used in our promotional material
later.
o Face Painting
o Vibha Information
Vibha
Booth 1 (Booth #45):
o Games:
Can Can, Marble Game, Dart Game (on May 17 only) - $1 for 2 games
o Prizes: Points redeemable towards things like T-shirt, stuffed
toys,
yo-yos, whistles, etc.
o Vibha Information
Sign Ups
Number
of people signing up at the booths : 82
Number of people expressing interest in volunteering: 60
Number of people wanting to be added to patron list: 22
A few high school kids expressed interest in volunteering and
is included in the number above.
Feedback
If Rushi decides to make HI a recurring event in the BA, then we
can do a
lot more. If we are able to include it in our annual planning, we
could
have planned for more publicity at the event:
1.
Better Banners
2. More publicity of our upcoming events, ticket sales etc.
3. Maybe a prepared skit/songs on stage to get the Vibha name out.
Conclusion
This
event was just fantastic for Vibha. The branding that was done exceeded
all expectations. A revenue of 2.5k should be treated as just the
icing.
We will definitely do it on a bigger scale for 2004 to improve revenues.
If
you have any questions or feedback, please let me know.
Thanks
Arun Santhanam
Vibha San Francisco/Bay Area
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