President’s Message – June 2016 - The Oxford and Cambridge Society of India

President’s Message – June2016

Dear member of the Oxbridge community,

This is an important communication, so please do have patience and read to the end!

The Annual General Meeting of the Oxford and Cambridge Society of India (OCSI) shall be held in New Delhi on 3rd September 2016. The Notice and agenda papers for the AGM will be sent out to members in August. Do block the date in your calendars nonetheless.

The two-year term of your present Executive Committee and Office Bearers comes to an end at the AGM on 3rd September and therefore there will be need to elect a new group to handle the affairs of the Society. The current President wishes to inform you that he will not be standing for re-election and will be handing over office along with the Committee, as is a good and well-established convention of the Society.

The last couple of years have seen many new members join the Society and others may not quite recall the process of OCSI Elections, so I am sending out this email well in time.

The diverse objectives of the society could be captured in three key overlapping themes – Fundraising, Fellowship and Furthering knowledge. And with the collective wisdom of the new committee, we have translated these broad objectives into specific projects and activities that span over a wide spectrum, ranging from social and cultural to intellectual events.

It is needless to say that being financially self-sufficient is crucial to the welfare of the society and therefore fundraising remains the most important as well as the most difficult activity. While the committee will explore means to increase the corpus of the society and the fund for the OCSI Scholarships, your active support could make a significant difference. Any help, in terms of contributions and ideas in this regard is very welcome.

We also believe that there is scope to further deepen connections and enhance fellowship, among alumni, the universities and other like minded people, not only quantitatively, by increasing the numbers, in and of events, but also by exploring qualitative experiences of coming together and sharing. Therefore, in addition to the traditional annual dinner and the annual ball, we are planning special evenings, where members and the alumni could meet to share their knowledge and experience through discussions over dinner. This is in addition to the networking evenings scheduled for every alternative month where we reach out beyond our circle of alumni, and mix with the alumni of other universities over drinks. And, extending beyond our borders, we have also planned trips to visit Myanmar and Brussels to engage with the alumni there.

We would also like to expand our academic and social horizons to the so far relatively neglected areas related to the immense cultural heritage of India. Therefore we have also planned events around intellectual and cultural traditions around themes of music, arts and literature. We are launching these activities through curated evenings of music as well as heritage walks around Delhi with experts.

And lastly with regards to furthering knowledge, we believe that the alumni is a repository of knowledge and therefore, the OCSI can play a much larger and pivotal role in promoting knowledge and learning, not only by tapping the rich talent within, but also by engaging with a larger context of people, ideas and issues that are relevant to us today. And therefore, in addition to the supporting students through our scholarship programme and the lecture series of Oxbridge academics, we are planning to have an ambitious international conference in the first quarter of next year, where we intend to invite scholars from the universities, alumni, experts and others to discuss and debate issues relevant to us in India today.

Please do visit our website at www.oxbridgeindia.com as well as our Facebook and LinkedIn pages, where will be updating the calendar of events regularly. In addition we will also be sending you detailed information of the upcoming events through both regular and electronic mail, well in advance to block your calendar and join us at these events.

While it is relatively easy to make ambitious plans, the success of these depends entirely on your support and participation. I therefore look forward to seeing you regularly in our events and welcome your views, comments and contributions in making them a success.

With best regards,
Vikram Lall
Honorary President
The Oxford and Cambridge Society of India
president@oxbridgeindia.com

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