Diwali Sweets Distribution to Support Staff at St John's

First Recce for the SJOBA Thunderbolt Rally 2011

Most sundays are spent sleeping. 17th of October was different for a handful of SJOBA members though. 

The first recce for the SJOBA Thunderbolt Rally 2011 started in the wee hours of a would-be bright and sunny sunday. Two promising vehicles and a combination of young and not so young ex-Johnians tested some rugged and un-tested routes in the sub-Himalayan ranges. After completeing a fair amount of stages, complete with a draft of the road-book and gps tracks, the team reached Koti Resorts for the night, full of dust and exhausted. 

Next morning started early too, sans the Monday morning blues. All pepped up and not willing to have such an early breakfast, the team vroomed off from Koti resorts onto the unknown tracks, having planned a mid-day brunch. As fate would have it, one of the most interesting stages was un-doable because of a landslide so, turning back, the team headed off towards another stage. A quick lunch was followed by more offroading. Due to shortage of time in hand, the team split into two and headed in different directions, finally meeting on the highway in the late hours of the evening. 

After lots of on the spot planning and brainstorming, the seniors in the team decided on a probable route for the rally. After two days of work, fun and bone-rattling rides, a very satisfied team returned to Chandigarh, counting down the days till the next recce.

SJOBA Badminton Tournament

Sh. Ram Prakash Chawla SJOBA Badminton Championship 2010 concluded on October 15, 2010. The Badminton Tournament, which was added to the SJOBA Calender last year as just a mixed doubles event, this time had two categories—a mixed doubles and a men's doubles category.

There were ten teams in each category, split in to two groups each. After three days of non-stop action, the top three teams from each pool then played against the top three teams from the other pool in a second round league. After summing up the cumulative scores, the top 4 teams in both categories went ahead to play the semi-finals on Day 5. This was followed by the Third place matches and the Finals in both categories.

Old Boy Vivek Sood, Batch of 1987 and part of winning mixed-doubles team last year, won in both the categories, with partners Ms. Tarini and Old Boy Atul Chopra from the 1977 batch.

Needless to say, it was a highly action-packed and a very entertaining event.

The final results were as follows:
Mixed Doubles:
1st: Tarini and Vivek Sood (1987)
2nd: Tanu and Ambar Shante (2006)
3rd: Ruchi and Animesh Sharma (2001)

Doubles:
1st: Vivek Sood (1987) and Atul Chopra (1977)
2nd: Animesh Sharma (2001) and Kanwar Walia (1985)
3rd: Ambar Shante (2006) and Sameer Madan (1981)

Three Special awards were given to:
Rajeeve Sood (1976) for being the seniormost participant in the tournament.
Tanu for being the best lady participant.
Bhavesh (2005) for sparing his time and officiating all the matches.

SJOBA Wins Football Match vs St John's

The Annual St. John's vs. SJOBA Football match was played on October 9, 2010, with much zeal and vigour, although the crowd seemed to be a wee bit more disciplined than they should have been. The match kicked off at 9.30 am amidst bright sunny morning.

Amanpreet Singh a.k.a. Boney from the batch of 2005 found the net twice in the first half for Old Boys.

The School team played brilliantly and succeeded in scoring a goal in the middle of the second half, despite goalkeeper Ranjit Bajaj of the 1995 batch doing a wonderful job between the goalposts. 

It was a great match with hardly any fouls. The rolling trophy was presented to the Captain of the SJOBA team, Atul Chopra from the batch of 1977, by the Principal of St John's, Mrs. Kavita Das. 

As custom has it, the trophy was handed back to the School Principal by the SJOBA President Nagendra Singh, to be kept in the School. 

Prize distribution was followed by the much needed refreshments which all were looking forward to after the gruelling but fun match.