The BOSM Review Meet (BRM), held at the SAC Amphitheatre on November 26, started 20 minutes late. Scheduled over a month after the fest concluded, the meet was attended by the sports team captains and the coordinators of various clubs and departments who worked for BOSM 2022.
As is customary, a roll call of all the members of the BOSM Review Committee (BRC) set off the proceedings. While there were very few absentees, several captains and coordinators had sent proxies in their place. With 51/55 members represented, a quorum was established, and the Sports Secretary (SS), Ekansh Agarwal declared the BRM open. He congratulated the members of BRC for making the fest possible and explained the structure of the meet.
Teams
The captain of the Boys’ Athletics team said he faced issues with registration, while the captain of the Girls’ Athletics team added that a school team won medals in certain events they had not even registered for, requesting The Department of Controls, BOSM (BoCo) to comment. BoCo explained that the list of participant registrations for athletics given to them was not segregated by event, which was confusing for them. Hence, they switched to on-spot registrations during the event.
Inventory issues were brought up by the captain of the Boys’ Badminton team, who stated that his inventory had arrived only three days before BOSM, despite him having requested it two months in advance. Joint Sports Secretary (JSS) Harshvardhan Singh said it was a fault on the side of the vendors, as they had requested inventory two months ago too. Boys’ Basketball faced issues with accommodating match referees and ensuring they received mess coupons. The captain of the Girls’ team brought up an occasion where an outstation team disagreed with their match schedule, and thanked BoCo for handling it smoothly. The Boys’ Carrom team representative informed the BRC about a case where two unregistered teams had to be sent back.
The captain of the Cricket team said that participating teams were not informed of the fixtures for Day 0, adding that cricket always started on Day 0 of BOSM; but he was informed that the Department of Reception and Accommodation (RecNAcc) did not provide accommodation earlier than Day 0. The Boys’ Football team mentioned an incident where an injured player was unable to receive timely medical attention, and the provided aid was improper. He requested better medical correspondence. The Safety Medical & Advisory Council (SMAC) assured him that there would be an internal discussion regarding the matter. The hockey team representative complained about the poor lighting during night matches, making them hard to conduct. Additionally, their team jerseys had their sport misspelt as “Hocky”—a source of embarrassment for them. Along with that, medals were not given on time and the referees were still unpaid. Ekansh Agarwal said that installing lights was not in their purview but in the Institute’s.
Volleyball Debacle
The Boys’ Volleyball representative raised the issue of YMCA University having brought non-student players, leading to their disqualification and eventual blacklisting. The Department of Publications and Correspondence (PCr) claimed that their responsibility was only to stop blacklisted participants from playing. PCr said that they found the Volleyball Captain ‘rude’ and claimed information was sent to him every day. The Volleyball team then demanded more transparency from the Sports Council, stating that they only received over half of their demanded inventory. The Girls’ and Boys’ representatives claimed serious misconduct from Ekansh, stating that he used derogatory language to address them. He then reprimanded the teams for interrupting the other Departments’ work by crowding SAC, and said he would ‘cuss more if Volleyball kept creating such political situations.’ An SFC member had to intervene to prevent the sides from indulging in any more jeering or name-calling.
The captain of the Handball team mentioned the lack of publicity for the sport and its events, the unavailability of the hockey grounds for practice, substandard prize money, and accommodation problems faced by outstation teams. The Sports Council and PCr responded that since Handball was a very late addition to the sports roster, accommodating all their needs was comparatively difficult.
In the context of skating, captain Priyan Modi said the LTC hallways were unsafe for speed skating and wished that they would be smoothed out more, next year. He mentioned that RecNAcc did not provide the lists of hotels housing outstation participants. Claiming that this was not their duty, the RecNAcc CoSSAcn blurted out a curse, for which he promptly apologised. Ekansh put forth allegations of ‘serious misconduct’ against the team as Ayush Agha, a BITS alum, had participated and was thus banned from participating in any more events.
Clubs
The BOSM Hindi Press representative claimed that they only received posters and not standees for their display “WallMag”, to which the PCr responded that it was an error on Devsaria’s part. The Coordinator of Coding Club, Aarav Goel, was questioned by Ekansh regarding issues with the mobile application made by them. The Sports Secretary mentioned that the app was not functioning properly since people could change the date of betting and bet again, to which Aarav replied that they were just minor bugs. The Haryana Cultural Association (HCA) representative mentioned that certain Department heads came to their events with passes and admitted their wingmates while skipping the queue.
Radioaktiv wished that the Department of Sponsorship and Marketing, BOSM (BOSM Sponz) would be more transparent in catering requirements, and suggested they roll out a form asking clubs about their needs, much like other departments. SMAC reported facing scheduling issues since matches were supposed to end at 10 PM but were extended to 2 AM, which caused them to extend the ambulance and paramedic services hence they wished that this be accounted for during future BOSM editions. The representative from ARBITS claimed that their initial proposition for artists was denied based on budget constraints. He claimed that had they been informed of the tentative budget earlier, they would have procured extensive and fitting artists for the occasion.
Departments
The Department of Live Events (DLE) claimed to have generated a revenue of INR 8.6 lakh attributing the success to the incorporation of Flam as their marketing partner. When asked about ticket statistics, The DLE BOSM coordinator, Nishit Bohra said that 1689 tickets were sold with 550 being scanned and 700 being cancelled. Ekansh then brought up an additional expense of INR 13,000 made during the fest. In reply, Nishit said that in an attempt to “minimise costs” and “maximise revenue”, they had decided to use an alternative for the usual Mojo barricades. They were forced to look for last-minute replacements whose setup eventually cost them the amount they asked for in the end.
The questioning then moved onto the adventure zone. DLE claimed to have broken even on the INR 1.8 lakh spent. Ekansh then pointed out that the adventure zone was traditionally a profit-making set-up and asked why no significant profits were made. Nishit explained how power fluctuations at the Institute’s end damaged the bull-ride, and water shortages caused soapy football—a major cash bringer—to sometimes be unavailable. Arguing that the freezing cold at night did not tempt many to jump into the pit, he was immediately reprimanded by SFC in the context of the pitching meet when an explicit warning about potential water shortages had been given. Nishit said that they were able to compensate for the loss of functionality of two of their rides courtesy of the newly introduced Human-Gyro ride which was an immediate hit.
The focus then shifted towards the Department of Photography (DoPy). The key point of discussion was the loss of the DoPy cameras. The BOSM coordinator, Anirudh Bakshi, claimed that their camera equipment seemed to have disappeared from the DoPy room at SAC when the campus shut during the Covid-19 lockdown. To make up for this, the Sports Council purchased a new camera for them. The lack of an additional tent and a subpar crowd response resulted in a drop in revenue. Despite selling more diaries than expected, DoPy ended up being over INR 80,000 short of their pitch.
AudiForce immediately started off by questioning the Hindi Activities Society (HAS) about their understanding of the capacity of the Main Auditorium and expressed displeasure at the number of tickets sold. The representative spoke about the difficulties they faced while handling the crowds and further communications revealed that the root cause was miscommunication between AudiForce, HAS, and the Sports Council.
The Department of Visual Media (DVM) outlined their handling of transactions worth INR 46.92 lakh, proclaiming success. The Department of Sounds mentioned difficulties with getting speakers on time. PCr mentioned that the net attendance at BOSM was 1186. SFC suggested a change in the procedure which will ensure a more even work spread. RecNAcc then spoke about the struggles of accommodating a little over 1000 participants. They raised an issue with certain departments that approached vendors without consulting RecNAcc. They affirmed that all further vendor contacts must be done through the department alone.
BOSM Sponz was questioned about the amount of money they brought in. They admitted to having fallen short of the promised INR 6 lakh, having brought in INR 4.95 lakh. Further questioning revealed INR 2.95 lakh was from Inter-BITS. They were pressed by Yash Saboo into admitting negligence which led to the loss of the 23 “in kind” sponsorship kits from Beardo. There was also a discrepancy in t-shirt count. Despite troubles, they remained firm in saying they would have met their promise had the Sports Council not rejected a potential Decathlon deal. Further discussion revealed that the deal fell through as a consequence of issues with the tender and miscommunication to do with the deliverables of the deal.
Link to BOSM Review Meet – Part II