Our first meeting

Event: Dinner @ TOMMY’S PUB, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, UK.

Time: 8:00 PM, Thursday, 09.10.2008

Situation: In Thursday’s afternoon session, Mr Simon has allotted the groups to all students. One group decides to know each other, socialize, and shares each other’s culture, tastes, skills & roles by means of an informal dinner as mentioned above.

Purpose: To discuss about name of team, project subject and title, to decide dates for future proceedings and meetings, and of course, to enjoy and have fun.

People Involved: Sepideh, Allan, Echo, Abis, Vishal

Action Proceedings: After the project groups were allotted to us, we met in the class, and a small session of introduction, and exchanged e-mail ID’s and phone numbers. Then to become more familiar to each other, & to decide about further steps of action, we all decided to have an informal meeting at some non-academic location, like some pub. Since most people stayed in university campus, we decided to have the meet in TOMMY’S PUB.
Then a group mail was sent by Vishal, to remind everyone about the meeting, and to collect the RHUL ID’s of whole group. Echo & Abis took the responsibility of getting all stationary items (diary, charts, markers etc.) that might be needed during our meeting. Allan, since living in-campus, was supposed to book the table for us in advance, in case there was too much rush that day. Sepideh would take down the minutes of meeting. Vishal would manage & take charge of meeting proceedings.
And also, everyone decided to cook and bring the food from home, so as to share the real taste of everyone’s culture, (and also to save costs, food at TOMMY’S is bit costly!!!)
Then on Thursday, we all were very eager about our first informal meeting with our colleagues, with whom we would be working for rest of the year. All well dressed up, and ready to have fun, started for the destination TOMMY’S PUB. Everyone reached almost around same time, except Allan, who was already waiting for us on a table nicely placed in a corner, bit away from rest of the crowd. And also, except Echo, she was late as she missed her bus. When we called her, she was on her way, and reached a small bit later. The meeting started at 08:15 PM.

Agreements/ Outcomes: In the meeting, we all had nice discussion about ourselves, our lands, families, the food, cinema, and little bit about project also. We came up with the following roles for each of us in the project:Sepideh (Complete finisher): Typing, Documentation, Organizing meetings.Allan (Compete finisher): Researching, Managing information, and accounts.Abis (Shaper): Manager, Planner, and Leader of team.Echo (Resource Investigator): Collecting information, funds.Vishal (Plant): Presentations, preparations, Documentation.

And with the following Deadlines:Understanding, and developing concept – 1 week,Planning & Development - 3 weeks,Implementation – 3 weeks,Close-out – 1 week.Hence, to finish off the project two weeks before the original, official deadline.

Initiatives: To have a feel of real world working environment, get experience, learn, and also to get good marks, and an A+ grade.

Communication: Face to face, then though e-mails, phones, SMS, message passing, and sometimes, just by actions (gestures).

Tools used in process:
Technologies: Internet, Telephone networks.Physical tools: Computer, Mobile Phones, pagers, Pen, Paper.Public Transport: Trains, Buses, Cars.

Outcome: Our first meeting was a real success in terms of achieving the targeted goals. We all get to know each other well, and have a nice free-flow communication between us. After this meeting, we felt like we will certainly do good in our project, and will have a nice time with each other for whole year.