Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Board of Directors - Officers: President: Geeta Gala
Vice President: Nitul S Haria Secretary:
Jaideep Shah Treasurer:
Sweta Haria Regional Directors:
Region 1: AZ, CO, HI, NM, So.CA, UT Manish Mota
Region 2: AK, ID, MT, NV, No.CA, OR, WA, Bhavini Gada
Region 3: AR, KS, LA, MO, OK, TX Arun Shah
Region 4: IL, IN, IA, MN, NE, ND, SD, WI Louis K. Shah
Region 5: AL, FL, GA, MS, TN Open
Region 6: KY, MI, OH, W.PA, WV Chirag Shah
Region 7: WA. DC., MD, NC, SC, VA Nimesh Chheda
Region 8: DE, E.PA, NJ Deepak Gada Region 9: NY
Sweeta Khona Region 10: CT, ME, MA, NH, RI, VT
Pallavi Dedhia Region 11: Canada
Bhavesh Veera
Website: www.kojain.org A non-profit organization
Tax Exempt No: 06-1442444 Volume 52, Issue 1, November 2019
KOJAIN wishes you all Happy Holidays
Inside this issue
1 KOJAIN election results 2020-2021 2 Sammelan 2020 info
3 Diwali Celebrations across various regions
KOJAIN BOARD 2020 – 2021 KOJAIN board elections were conducted in October/November for 2019. We are pleased to declare the results of the KOJAIN Elections for the term 2020-2021. There are few open positions which board is trying to fill. If you are interested in applying for the open positions feel free to reach out to Jaideep Shah and Bhavesh Veera. Please welcome the below newly elected KOJAIN officials.
POSITION NAME 1 PRESIDENT Nitul Sundarji Haria (CA) 2 VICE PRESIDENT Manish Mota (AZ) 3 SECRETARY Bhavesh Veera (ONT) 4 TREASURER Vasant Nagda (MA) REGIONAL DIRECTORS
5 REGION 1 Manish Jain (CA) 6 REGION 2 Bhavini Gada (CA) 7 REGION 3 Arun Shah (TX) 8 REGION 4 Louis K. Shah (IL) 9 REGION 5 Open Position
10 REGION 6 Open Position 11 REGION 7 Nimesh Chheda (MD) 12 REGION 8 Deepak Gada (NJ) 13 REGION 9 Open Position 14 REGION 10 Pallavi Dedhia (MA) 15 REGION 11 Sagar Dedhia (ONT)
KOJAIN would like to thank the Election Committee Members who worked to get us through this whole process.
Hasmukh Shah (Chairman) 713 822 4546 [email protected]
Manilal Savla 908-770-6870 [email protected]
Rajesh Shethia 505-715-2966 [email protected]
Pradeep Savla 416-540-7945 [email protected]
KOJAIN board appreciates all the hard work by Election Committee Members.
Dallas KOJAIN community invites you to experience an event full of
Culture, Food, Dance, Games, Workshops, Dallas ft. Worth tours and
much more. We have something for all ages. You’ll have the oppor-
tunity to meet and spend quality time with your Kutchi community.
Let’s come together to create mesmerizing memories.
Mark your calendar to celebrate the Biggest, Brightest, and most
awaited Sammelan!!!
We are excited to Invite you and your Family to
KOJAIN 2020
July 24—26
@DFW Airport Marriott
8440 Freeport Pkwy.
Irving, TX 75063
Stay tuned for Registration!
For additional information
please contact:
A
L
L
A
S
T
X
Dallas KOJAIN awaits to meet you & your family! KOJAIN Sammelan 2020 Committee
Region 1 – AZ, CO, HI, NM, So.CA, UT
Jai Jinendra! About 180 kutchi’s from Southern California gathered to celebrate the Diwali festivities. The event was a big success with blessings and huge participation from the members in various social - cultural programs, talent show, games, crafts, karaoke, dinner, and garba. Good time was had by all. The community also welcomed new kutchi students and members to Southern California.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/cW5X7xEGPsy6jREw7
Region 2 – AK, ID, MT, NV, No.CA, OR, WA, WY
Bay Area Diwali Celebrations – KV Divotsav
KutchValley (Kutchis of Silicon Valley, California) celebrated Diwali in style on Sat, Oct 19th, 2019 at the IFES Hall in Mountain View, CA. This was the 18th year of Diwali celebration and was called “KV Divotsav 2019”. About 375 people took part in the celebration, which included 120+ community performers who took part in various dance and drama items. Every year the Kutchi community looks forward to this day for celebrating Diwali in a grand manner. Many are involved in some aspect of the celebration thus making it a true community movement.
The platinum sponsor for Divotsav was Manish Dharod of SimplyGlobal.com - a visitor’s health insurance site - and the gold sponsor was Pallavi Shah - a realtor and wealth builder. There were 11 entertainment items including dances and a drama. Besides this, the audience had fun playing Housie on Kutchi Words, savored delicious Gujarati food and did a flash-mob dance.
Since the name of the celebration was “Divotsav” the program lineup started off with a Diya dance by the senior women. The other dances covered a variety of themes including Bhangra, Semi-Classical, Bollywood, Hip-Hop, Space-Themed, Marriages, etc. Love for culture and motherland shone through many of the performances. The fun filled drama containing references to Kaun Banega Crorepati, Just Kidding Baba, and the famous Kutchi Phudadi Maasi sent the audience into bouts of laughter.
Performers as young as 2 years and as old as 70 years participated in the programs. The entire entertainment segment was streamed live on Youtube.
The organizers of Divotsav 2019 were Beleena Veera, Bhavini Gada, Jayesh Gada, Madhavi Khona, Naman Gala, Nitul Haria, Prashant Shah, and Romil Rambhia.
KutchValley is a non-profit organization in the Silicon Valley helping Kutchi’s in the Bay Area stay connected to their Kutchi roots.
Congratulations to Sagar Savla & Tanvi Chheda
Sagar Savla and Tanvi Chheda from the Bay Area, California recently got married on Oct 26th, 2019. Sagar is a product manager in Google whereas Tanvi is doing her Ph.D at Stanford in Geology. This marriage was unique because instead of an expensive traditional wedding where lot of money is splurged on various things, they both opted to have a simple registered wedding and instead donated money to charity. They called this “Our Internet Wedding”.
Thanks to technology friends and family from around the world were invited to join in the celebration by calling them through various modes. For each of those calls, they donated 100$ to one of the two charities that they had selected. Sagar had picked World Wildlife Fund (WWF), whereas Tanvi selected Global Planned Parenthood.
The callers who participated in their reception had the option to choose between these 2 charities. During the video calls, they took a snapshot of themselves with the caller just like you would take a photo with the bride and groom in a traditional wedding reception. The engagement/wedding was also featured by Facebook on it's blog
- https://tech.fb.com/tying-the-knot-with-portal-how-one-couple-got-engaged-over-facebooks-video-calling-device/
They both met 5 years ago through the planning meeting for the Bay Area Kutchi Diwali Party when Tanvi was in town for summer internship.
Best Wishes to both of them for continuing to experiment with unique concepts and inspiring others to do the same.
Region 6 - KY, MI, OH, W.PA, WV Region 6 Kutchi's celebrated Diwali on Oct 20th. About 80 people from Michigan gathered at Arvin & Jaya Shah's residence to celebrate Diwali in style. Community welcomed new members in the area. Seniors played Bollywood based games, while kids had fun doing fireworks.
Photo Link: MI Kutchi Diwali Party 2019
Region 7 - WA. DC., MD, NC, SC, VA
Mohit Laxmichand Ramji Gala – Virginia - USA -Sadau He is First KVO to finish officially total till today (11 Nov 2019) 32 Marathon and Ultra Marathon. Mohit is BE electronic and working as software engineer in USA.
DC Kutchi Diwali Get Together
KOJAIN’s at Washington DMV (DC-MD-VA) Metro celebrated a Grand Diwali occasion on Saturday 19th October 2019, at the Reston VA Community Center. This was the largest gathering of over 160+ members, 4 generations of a family from age 1 to 101+. The event started at 5:30 PM and the celebrations went on until 11 PM. The party started with a sweet mouthful of Jalebi Fafda and ended with Brownie Ice-cream and had many delicious and mouthwatering savories in between. Everyone was dressed in their beautiful traditional attire and gleefully took advantage of the portrait photography session. The activities started with Kids decorating their Aarti thali, followed by Prayers and Aarti. The MC’s of the evening were Rekha Ratilal Chheda and Rina Parash Shah who kept everyone on their toes with a series of activities, games, quizzes, requesting/forcing everyone to get on their toes, join the floor, form small groups, and get to know each other better. In the late evening, everyone again took the floor to enjoy Garba and Dandiya. It was lovely to see a 9 years old playing dandiya with a 75 years old along with everyone else.
The DC KOJAINs celebrated the 3 golden girls (age 90-100+) –Hirbai Nathubhai Gangar , Nenbai Damji Momaya, and Devkunvar Khimji Dharamsi for their beautiful smile and showering love and blessings on all.Finally, this celebration would not be possible without the spark and esteemed evergreen support from:• Manoj Dharamsi (VA) and Kanti Gangar (MD). • Parash Shah
and Sunil Dharamsi were thekey organizers; and Treasurer Khushali Vijay Chheda. They received tremendous support from Kanta Dharamsi, Gunvanti Gala, Tejal & Sheel Lodaya, Rishi Dharamsey, Jatin Nagda, Rachita & Raju Jain, Bhavesh Maisheri, and many other volunteers. Overall it was a wonderful event and is reflected in the memories captured at:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/yjsToETbtVEpBP4r7
The DC KOJAIN group wishes everyone a Happy Diwali festive season and health and happiness in the future ahead. When you are visiting the DC area, we look forward to meeting you all
Region 8 - DE, E.PA, NJ
The KCONJ A NJ NONPROFIT CORPORATION was formed in August 2019. KCONJ stands for Kutchi Community of New Jersey. IRS 501(c) 3 status for federal income tax exemption was obtained in September 2019. KCONJ was created with the intention to support the Kutchi Oswal Community and promote its welfare etc. with special focus on Kutchis living in the NJ and the east coast of United States. It shall primarily operate as a cultural, charitable and social non-profit organization.
It’s first Board of Trustees comprises of Manilal Savla, Manalapan, NJ; Shailesh Gala, Raritan, NJ; Deepak Gada, Paramus, NJ; Sanjay Peer, Kendall Park. NJ; Kanti Gala, Manalapan, NJ and Priti Shah, Edison, NJ. Its registered office address is c/o Manilal Savla, 160 Colony Lane, Manalapan, NJ 07726.
It’s first community event, Diwali Party, was held successfully in Randolph, NJ on November 2, 2019. Above are some of the photos of the party.
Avaap acquires Navigator Management Partners based in Columbus, OH
Avaap, an IT firm, was founded in 2006 by young Kutchi madu Dhiraj Shah (son of Jadavji and Chandan Shah) and his wife Namrata Shah (Village: Navavas) of Edison, NJ. It has been named as one of the fastest growing companies in the US by Inc. and NJ BIZ magazines. It has offices in the US, Europe and India with over 600 employees and does business with customers in 35 countries. In July 2019, it acquired Navigator Management Partners of Columbus, OH.
Further details can be found in the following link: https://tinyurl.com/y4rn8zho
New Recognition for Kanti and Lata Gala Kanti and Lata Gala of Manalapan, NJ were recognized as Crowns in the Amway business in the presence of 10,000 plus entrepreneurs in Baltimore, MD on October 5, 2019.
Region 10 - CT, ME, MA, NH, RI, VT New England Boston Kutchi’s celebrated Diwali party on Nov 2, 2019 with about 100 attendees. There were performances by small kids to adults of many age group. Close to half of them were either current or past students. We are wishing Happy Diwali and Saal Mubarak to all our fellow Kutchi families across the continent. May the New Year bring good, health, abundance of wealth and Happiness.
Region 11 - CANADA
Common Database and Single Communication Platform With our agenda to bring all Kutchi Families on Single Communication platform (email / Website/ messaging) we successfully launched our website www.canadiankutchhi.org for newcomers/students/business communities and families residing in Canada on Nov.19th 2017.Today, we have comprehensive list of Kutchis along with their native place and location/occupation in Canada. This helps new comers to integrate immediately in Canadian business / job / society. Kudos to team members working on this agenda under leadership of Kunal Chheda, we have head count of 306 members as of Nov 4th 2019.
Volunteer Appreciation Day and New RD for Canada Sagar Dedhia is nominated as Regional Director for KOJAIN Region 11 CANADA. Thanks, Sagar, for taking this responsibility and wish you success in this role. On Nov 1st, KOJAIN Canada Volunteers had an appreciation and gathering event to review achievements/ learnings for 2018-2019. We could review all 6 agendas Bhavesh and volunteer teams were running in 2018-2019. Also Sagar had opportunity to secure support from new volunteers wishing to support for 2020-2021. Pls see glimpse of event at Madras Dosa Hut Etobicoke in below pic as current KOJAIN RD Bhavesh Veera transitions his duties to New Regional Director Sagar Dedhia for upcoming 2 year term.
Thanks to all key members working on various agenda’s in Canada 2018- 2019.
Ankit Kenia Neeraj Maheswari Bhavesh Veera Pradipbhai Savla
Bhupesh Dedhia Pranay Satra Chirag Dedhia Priyesh Chheda
Hirenbhai Chheda Radhika (Lalan) Shah Hiten Dedhia Riddhi Dedhia Kunal Chheda Ronak Nagda
Manishbhai Shah Sagar Dedhia Megha Rambhia Vira Shashikantbhai Shah
Mihir Shah
