Event : CASE Cross-Cultural Dinner
Venue:
Auditorium B, Building 37 Date & Time : Friday, 11th
May '2001, 4:30 PM - 8:30PM
CASE Cross-Cultural Dinner was the first of its kind in GEPS, Schenectady. And
this get-together was called for to promote inter-personal relations amongst
people with various cultural backgrounds. About 50 people attended the
get-together. The crowd was a healthy mix of Americans, Indians and Mexicans.
One of our clients, Eric Paulsen
planned the seating arrangements very meticulously consisting of 8 tables
naming each table after famous cities viz., Bombay, Calcutta, New York, Paris,
San Francisco, London, Mexico City and Acapulco. Seating was planned in such a
way that all tables had a mix of people from all the three nations. And
national flags of the three nations adorned each table. The tables also had the
geographical maps of India and Mexico.
The evening started with a presentation "Know
your Co-workers Better".
This presentation was prepared by Chockalingam Srinivasan and it
contained the personality profile and an individual picture of all the
attendees. Trivia such as people's
interests, hobbies, favourite movies etc. were captured in the presentation.
Everyone had an amused expression on their faces when they got to know some
trait of their colleagues that they had not known before.
Next, Sasi Kumar Allidurai gave a brief presentation
on various cultural aspects of India, its location, tourist attraction spots
and other interesting facts about our country.
An overview of the TATA group and the various businesses of the group
was also briefed. After this, one of
our colleagues, Mauricio Sanchez, of CIAT gave a similar overview of Mexico and
CIAT.
The evening then progressed with some interesting team-building games organised
by Sasi and Padmaja. Each group did
their best in bridging all the cultural barriers and worked together as a
team. Dinner was served after this and
the night was in full swing. Tapan Das and Pradeep Kumar Senapati presented a
Oriya Bhajan. Anand Ayyachamy and Senthil Nagarajan sang Tamil songs. The group
song " Mera Joota Hai Japani" from the movie "Shree 420"
set everyone clapping their hands and tapping their feet. The CIAT team then
sung a Spanish song "El Rey" which means "The King" in Spanish.
Another client Kevin O Dell from CASE, Fluids Team then sung an English song
"Row..Row" and the entire auditorium was thundering with claps.
Joe Barnes, Global Leader for the CASE team addressed the crowd with a wrap up
message emphasizing the importance of working as a team. He then appreciated
how the evening had helped achieve
the same.
The crowning glory of the evening was the traditional Mexican Game
"Pinąta". A Pinąta is a big cardboard toy stuffed with chocolates and
Candies hung from the ceiling. three Pinątas were hung up from the ceiling and
the participants were blind-folded and given a stick to hit them. There was lot
of noise and as the crowd tried to distract the player away Pinąta.
The
event was successful in bringing the best of the three cultures together and
ended with a hope of better interaction and team work among the CASE group.
