To celebrate the hard work, introspect the progress plus performances, understand the programs better, achieve a common resolution for the future years and above all to Get together and have fun, FSL India arranges an Annual Meet for the staff every year. This year, the event was arranged at Out2Learn campus located 40Kms away from Bangalore city from 16^th to 18^th of May, 2013. The calm, scenic and the serene campus of Out2Learn provided a perfect platform for this Annual Get together.

The Program officially took off at 12:00 Noon on 16^th of May, with all 44 Participants of FSL India (from Kundapur, Chennai, Mysore and Bangalore), under the canopy of the big and beautiful Neem tree, located at the center of the campus. The event started with an inauguration speech by the President of FSL India – Mr. Rakesh Soans, who stressed the importance of this meeting, where all the staff of FSL India gets an opportunity once in a year to be with their fellow colleagues, share their experiences, challenges, difficulties and achievements. He also emphasized that the program would be fun filled with group bonding and learning activities. Thereafter, the Director of FSL India – Mr. Rohan D’Souza also gave a brief speech adding that this meet was an occasion to celebrate our achievements of the past year. As an ice breaker activity the audience was asked to introduce the person sitting next to them in order to know each in a better way.

Later, the platform was given to the trainers – Mr. Bhargav and Mr. Kamesh from Out2Learn campus, who explained the various facilities available in the campus and gave a brief introduction about the types of games specially designed for us to make the best of these days. The fun started pouring in when we started the first activity “Acid River”, where all team members divided into four groups had to lift a tumbler filled with water on a plate and place it outside the big circle, with the help of only threads and without setting foot on the circle. Which of course required concentration, creativity and remarkable coordination between the team members. This was followed by other similar fun activities like – “Water bottle lifting, Ski Walk, Air Frame, Passing the Marble, Spider Web, Reverse the order”, which engaged the participants and one could clearly see the team spirit and the motivation of the team to outshine the other. The Pièce de résistance was the “Jungle Gym” with 7 different stages – passing through net, walking on single line and a double line wire, passing the river, walking on swing and wooden flank, walking on the single bamboo stick and finally landing through sliding in a rope, almost 30Feet above the ground. A handful of members were slightly hesitant to participate in this event however with the support and motivation from the team and…they jumped into the bandwagon.

After a quick shower and dinner, everybody rushed to the hall for felicitation of the staff members who completed 5 years and more at FSL India namely – Mr. Joy Carvalho, Mr. Pratap Krishnan, Mr. Daya Salins, Mrs. Shobha Vaz, Mr. Dinesh Sarang, Mr. Muneer Ahmed and Mr. Aravind Thunga . The atmosphere lit up when videos from different FSL offices were played.

The 2nd day started with more fun activities like the: Tumbler Stretch, Blindfold Pick, Fit in a box, Reverse the Mat” all of them designed on Team coordination and creativity. That was followed by a group discussion facilitated by the President, the Director and the Joint Director engaged the staffs in a vigorous brainstorming session. The underlying focus to address questions like – What are we doing? Why are we doing? And what do we have to do to make our beneficiaries as our ambassador? were addressed and at the end of the session, 3 Teams – Planning, Supporting and Implementation with their roles and responsibilities were formed. These teams were later sub-divided according to their field of work at FSL India and were asked to brainstorm and come up with innovative ideas to improve the quality of our programs. The session ended with a presentation from each group, flooding with new and creative ideas.

After some refreshment the evening activities started with “Build a Roller Coaster” with the help of threads, cut pipes and marbles designed on think out of the box concept brought a perfect end to the second day of the event.

On the last and final day of the Annual Training, 18^th of May the FSL India team trekked to the nearby hillocks with the staffs from Out2Learn and later came down “Rappelling”, which of course for many was a completely new and an exciting experience. So after 3 days of exhilarating fun and learning the team reached FSL Bangalore office. Thereafter a special session was held to receive input from all the teams that participated, the management arrived at a mutual decision of selecting 2 to 3 activities from the proposed activities and develop a detailed plan for implementation of the same.   Presentations and Group discussions were continued and later a common decision was reached that each group would select 2 to 3 activities from the proposed activities and develop a detailed plan for implementation of the same.

The annual staff meet concluded with a vote of thanks from the President and the Director of FSL India.