Dear fellow Johnians,
I
am humbled by the task before me, grateful for the trust you have bestowed in
me and mindful of all the work done by previous teams in keeping the SJOBA flag
flying high.
I
thank the outgoing president Sanjiv Kumar and his team for giving us a wonderful
year.
We
have had an overwhelming response from Johnians wanting to be on this years
team. It’s heartening to see how all of us feel for our Alma mater. We have done our best to have as many of us as
we could on the team this year, but my executive and I do look forward to
having the support and cooperation of everyone.
This year is a significant
year. Besides the silver jubilee batch this year we have the first batch of St
John’s completing its 50 years. This is their Golden Jubilee year.
This year also
marks the Sester Centennial Anniversary which is the 250th year of Edmund
Rice, founder of the Order of the Irish Christian Brothers. SJOBA stands
committed to provide its unstinted support to outreach events planned to mark
these celebrations.
Please
contribute with ideas, suggestions, work on the ground and any help that you
can give to make the events better and more meaningful. I would welcome new out
of the box ideas. I promise they will get my executive and my special attention
as we would like to do things differently but do them well. I wish to generate
more camaraderie and brotherhood, so do come together and make this year a
roaring success with delivering events that are fun, interesting but more
importantly meaningful and help make a difference both for Johnians in schools
and the alumni. Old boy Sahil Sharma the Honorary Secretary of SJOBA would
regularly update you with information in regard to the forthcoming events. A
group of very talented Johnians are also working on developing a new SJOBA
website which would be dynamic in nature as well as a SJOBA App so that
communications and information could be provided more effectively.
Friends
it is time to give back to your school and the Johnian community at large
therefore I would urge you all who have made a success of their lives and
careers to do come forward and help and mentor our young Johnians who are still
finding their feet. Be the wind beneath their wings and help them fly through a
programme my executive and I wish to put together this year.
If
I could take away one big thing from this year for myself that will be to make
our school not only No.1 in the city or in the region but No. 1 in India in
time to come. I hope to work closely with the school, Mrs. Das and our alumina
in pursuing and achieving this goal.
And
finally to quote Mac Sir- ‘Do not think what SJOBA can do for you but think about
what you can do for SJOBA’. So Johnians
hold that thought and do come forward and stand by your school and your mates to
make this a year to remember.
Regards,
Ajay Thiara
President
St.
John’s Old Boys Association
