When the senior members of my LC (Local Committee), AIESEC IIT Kharagpur, enthusiastically called for new recruits to attend the RLDS (Regional Leadership Development Seminar), no one had any idea about how much fun and they were gonna have there! Three of us volunteered to attend the RLDS while two EB (Executive Board) members went for the NTC (National Trainer’s Conference).
The seminar was in Shakunt Resort, which was on the Delhi-Jaipur highway. We had to take a train from Kharagpur to Kolkata and then to Delhi. It took us more than 24 hrs just to reach there. Luckily, we had taken an A/C berth. Every LC had to present a ppt about themselves and then show the LC Jive (a set of dance moves unique to the LC) and Roll Call (a moralizing shout unique to the LC). We, 5 of us – Himen Doley, Ninad Sancheti, Subhadeep Mondal, Charudatta Nirmale and A G Nikhil, selected our song and made the dance moves in the train with our laptops. (You should have seen the faces of the other passengers!) Later, we took a bus to Paota (the nearest town to the resort). In the bus, we started practicing our Jives and naturally got threatened by the conductor to throw us out! At Paota, we found a café to download our LC video from our VP C, Shubhanshu Mishra. Totally unprepared, tired and anxious, we entered the resort. After refreshing at our rooms, we went downstairs.
What met our eyes were not the boring sleep-inducing lectures. What met our eyes gave a new meaning to the word “conference”! We saw a bunch of about 40 guys and gals dancing to their song! And that was just the delegation of one of the other LCs! We presented our video about our LC, AIESEC IIT Kharagpur. Everyone gave us a positive response! Our Jive could have been better though ;) It was a treat to the eyes to watch other LCs too performing with enthusiasm.
After lunch (which was great, by the way), we had presentations by Kamal Seth on the State of the World in which we live, the History of AIESEC and the AIESEC Way. On the whole, it was an enlightening session and made us think in different ways. We even had a game (a sort of treasure hunt) in which we were divided into teams and made to decode different puzzles which were related to the AIESEC Way! The best part was the Jives we did in between the presentations. Everyone would dance to the music. Everyone’s favorite was the song Jugni from Oye Lucky! The new recruits learned dance moves from the seniors. It was a completely different experience from our Local Congress as there were many more people to have fun with ;) Then we had a Wrap Up in which the facilitators (Faci’s – basically consisting of senior members) explained what to expect from that night and the next 2 days. We were surprised to know that the party on the second day would admit only couples! We were forced to start asking for dates! The Faci’s increased our interest by Speed Dating in which quite a few of the Faci’s were “sold” to the performer with the highest support!
After dinner, we had a delegation meeting. We had our meeting with AIESEC Kolkata as we were an extension of Kolkata when we started. Our head asked us to find dates soon! Later that night, we would go through Skolling! For those of you, who don’t know, Skolling is an AIESEC tradition that consists of two teams competing in a drinking competition! One of the team members had to necessarily be a girl (or dress like one!). Since, RLDS was a dry conference, the organizers (AIESEC Jaipur) whooped up a brownish, disgusting looking drink. Later on, I came to know it contained old dal, lassi, lots of salt, chili flakes and sauce (YUCK!). Believe it or not, I was one of the few who kinda liked it! It reminded me of some vague dish of Kerala!
After that, we had a Monster-themed party! We had to come in Monster costumes to be able to attend it and outside the venue was a stall with a face-painter! I painted my face and had a hell of a time, dancing with everyone!
At the end of the day, we didn’t realize that we had gone through a 24 hr long journey because the fun we had negated all that and made us fresh! I realized that this is the power of the youth. We were enthusiastic about everything and had a lot of energy at our disposal!
The next day started with the news that we would be divided into 20 FLCs (Fictitious LCs) and would start working with them, later in the day. We woke to a presentation about AIESEC Xperience which was followed by 2 inspirational presentations about Gen 2010 and India. The love and care we had for our motherland was evident in many faces in the room. We vowed to never rest till India is at her best and to promote world peace.
After lunch, we were divided into our respective FLCs. Every FLC was a mix of members from all the LCs. There was a Faci assigned to every LC. They taught the new recruits about the functioning of the OGX (OutGoing eXchange) department. We had fun in making our own Jives and Roll Calls. Of course, we made promises to keep in touch. We also had to elect our FLCP (FLC President). The candidates had to prepare a speech for the final day and had to present them in front of the other members of the FLC.
The official part of the day ended with another delegation meeting in which we consoled the ones who didn’t have dates ;) and congratulated the others. We also helped each other on our speeches for the FLCP election.
The Date Night was a blast. There were couples all over, dancing with each other oblivious to the others! The dates had a lot of fun too!
The next day started with the FLCP elections. The 20 elected members were honored for their oratory skills! We had a session called “One Day in the Office of the LCP” in which the FLCP conducted meetings and noted points to present them in front of the other FLCPs as they had to come to a consensus. The members, in the meantime, watched an inspirational speech by Apple Founder, Steve Jobs.
As we broke for lunch, AIESEC IIT Kharagpur must have seemed the unhappiest bunch, as we were leaving the conference after that. We bid our farewells. That’s when we realized that Subhadeep was missing! We searched here and there. We found him having a last Jiving session with the others! We were so reluctant to leave the conference!!! Throughout the return journey, we talked about the fun we had in the conference and how we could improve our LC and make it the best!
In the conference, we got to meet AIESEC delegations from north-western region namely, Delhi IIT, Delhi University, Chandigarh, LPU (Lovely Professional University), Kolkata, Jaipur, Indore and Surat! On the whole, about 250 people came for this conference and all of us (yes, ALL) had a great time.
