Day two at my placement and
Karen was under pressure for the big meeting, but still maintaining her
calm demeanour and cheery outlook. I got straight down to work,
re-reading the notes I had made from the day before and discussing my
findings with Karen. She was pleased with what I had achieved so far,
and shortly after this meeting I cracked on with my work.
I drafted the template for a
business plan, which I thought had appropriate inclusions for the
context of the business. I spent the morning on this whilst Charles
worked on the financial statements.
What felt like five minutes
after I went to sleep my alarm was ringing! I got up and took a long
glass of water and was surprised how fine and ready for the day I felt. I
guess it was the part-excitement, part-apprehension to begin my
volunteering. Charles (the production manager of the unit) met us on his
moped to help us get an auto-rickshaw and make sure we weren't scammed.
We saw many more unique sights on the way to Lingarajapuram, the area
where I work, (and Maciej and Anton work close by). Twenty minutes,
eight kilometres and 80Rs later we arrived at the production unit.
Maciej and Anton left with someone from their organisation and Charles
showed me around the place. It was smaller than I had imagined, I had
the image of a moderately sized factory with around 20 tailors, but in
reality the unit has the capacity for 15 sewing machines, but only 4
tailors as yet.
At lunch I visited Deepa
Bakery, opposite our production unit, where I picked up an egg puff (a
gorgeous puff pastry with herbs and of course, spices), a samosa and a
snack, which I then ate on the balcony outside our office with Clive,
discussing my first impressions of India. He admired the way I had
thrown myself into things and my open minded outlook towards the
culture, which he (and I) believed had reduced the culture shock and
made the experience a whole lot more enjoyable.
After lunch, I began
tailoring the marketing plan to concisely fit into the template document
I had constructed. As you can tell from my previous two blog entries,
writing concisely is not my greatest strength! After completing this I
was quite unsure how Karen would feel about it, as I found it quite
difficult having studied the
marketing of huge corporations to apply my knowledge to a
micro-business. To my delight she was really pleased with my work, which
filled me with more confidence, and she compiled mine, Charles' and her
own work to create a professional and very well presented business
plan.
Charles took the plan to be
bound at his shop and gave me a lift on the way to save my Auto fare. He
rides a moped and if you have ever seen the traffic in India, you will
understand what a daunting prospect travelling as a moped passenger is! I
lived to tell the tale and celebrated my successes that day by meeting
with the other students from Leeds Met in “Sherlock Holmes Pub”, which
interestingly enough, was in no way detective related.
On Friday I spent time
researching the organisation's history and recent sales, to better
understand how they function. Karen brought the steering committee to
the production unit before lunch, so I got a chance to meet them, which
was nice, and as they left I went to get myself another egg puff! In the
afternoon the mood was more relaxed and I decided to make the best use
of my time by doing some more market research, and spent time emailing
my dad (who is a big part of fair trade in the UK) for some advice and
some valuable contacts. His experiences have somewhat inspired my trip
to India and he is always very helpful and willing to share his
knowledge with me to help me help the organisation.
That night we met up with
some girls from Leeds Met, who we showed our new favourite bars (as they
live further away). We met some friends who invited us to a party, and
as in the previous two nights, met a host of new friends, (many of whom
took our phone numbers and invited us to parties the next day!) We had a
fantastic time and a nice lie in the next morning, before getting up to
take a free trial in the local gym!
I can't get enough of this World Cup, so I'm going to go and watch the game, but I promise I'll write again soon! Byeee!