WORKSHOPS AT ICE SKATING RINK (7- 8 NOVEMBER 2008)

7th November 2008-Sasha, organised the Fair Trade Fair on handicrafts that gave the craftsmen, the platform to display their talents, in collaboration with the Fair Trade Forum-India organized in Ice Skating Rink. Shri Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, the Mayor of Kolkata inaugurated the event by lighting the auspicious lamp and declared the fair open.
In the later half of the first day was held a workshop conducted by Prof Ranjan Mitter, highlighting on the topic ‘Entrepreneurship at the grassroots’. Prof. Ranjan Mitter is a faculty in The Indian Institute of Management and has also participated in various seminars of Fair Trade Forum in India and abroad.
For the ease of understanding of the audience that comprised mostly of people from Producer groups who participated in the Fair, he divided them into four groups and gave different topics to discuss amongst themselves. They topics were a) being business oriented vs. production oriented b) overcoming lean periods c) building system vs. customer mandate d) how to scale up business
Prof Ranjan remarked that the utmost thing is to understand the potential customers and to make the products according to their needs, wants and demands. He even told that there were other sides to business other than manufacturing that required if not equal, but utmost importance since it differentiates one in the crowd. Marketing is equally essential if it needs to be sold in various avenues. And access to information for an organisation is extremely important. Delivery of the product in time is necessary. Likewise the understanding of one’s customer and market and planning as in ‘how to’. In the context of discussing lean periods Prof added “Variable cost component should be high whereas fixed cost should be made low” and “there should be variations in the kinds of products made, for the different kinds of customers.”
Pointing at the audience, Prof Ranjan advised them to adopt the customer‘s system into the maker’s system. He discussed the importance of customers in business. Suppose a product is generally made in a definite style, but the customer wishes to get it done in another style, then, he says, is the maker’s duty to fulfil their demand. In reference to ‘Scaling’ Prof talked about the ‘Nirma case study’ and suggested that imbibing business policies might prove beneficial.

8th November 2008-It was the second day of the exhibition. Another workshop in the second half of this day was held. Saumen Brahmachari of Dev Sangha, Deoghar, and Jharkhand, India, who gave a stimulating discourse and talked at length about ‘Self Motivation’, took this workshop.
Defining happiness he said,” when an individual grows with basic nature of harmony, then one is happy”. He even referred that when one becomes satisfied and content in work, then deterioration is obvious and decline follows. According to him Motivation is the process to arouse, uphold foster and direct the behaviour towards a desired goal. He even mentioned that self-motivation is a subset of motivation with distinctive features and its importance is increasing with changing times. He described the need for voluntary social service. They are Freedom for self (Atmanang Moksharthaya), Good for the society (Jagat Hitaycha) and Economically viable (Yatha Sakti, Yatha Sambvam).
He covered eight triggers of self-motivation. 1) Role model-We necessarily have a role model in our lives. They are generally personalities who have achieved something in life and we feel motivated to follow the path set by them. 2) Message-This can be given by someone close to us(family) or can even be given by role models.3)Attitude- Positive thinking is such that, way of thinking how a particular situation may have been worse ,than what it had been.4) Faith-In God or Man 5)Insult/injury-Out of insult of injury, people can be self motivated. He gave the example of Frank Woolworth 6) Death-In this context Mr Saumen told a story of a young girl who was influenced by deaths of 3 ladies and started an only girls medical college in India called Christian Medical College, which after 1947 became a co-ed medical college. 7)Love-A gentleman from Ukraine discovered streptomycin medicine for a particular disease and was rewarded nobel prize for it. This discovery, he made out of love of his sister, who died of the same disease.
He concluded by saying ’Man has to keep rising, otherwise he will fall down. So one has to keep motivating oneself with time’. He further added that self-motivation needs a continuous educational process to develop both Emotional Quotient and Social Quotient that holistically changes the individual’s mind set of set mind. Such self-motivation must be self-rewarding, socially relevant and oriented towards the Divine (Pure Bliss).
Both the workshops were well taken by the audience that comprised mostly of the participating groups in the fair and other member from the producer group as well as Sasha staff.
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