The Oasis Preview Meet preceding the 50th edition of Oasis was held on November 10, 2022, at the SAC Amphitheatre. The meet aimed to track the progress of the Oasis Review Committee (ORC), which includes all the clubs, departments, and associations that are organising events as part of Oasis 2022.
Attendance
After a 45 minute delay, a quorum was established in both the ORC and the Union Council (UC), with notable absentees being Pritika Ramu, the Oasis Coordinator of the Department of Photography, Priyanshu Pareek, the representative of the Day Scholars, and Nakul Singh, the Hostel Representative of Vishwakarma Bhawan. The latter two chose to transfer their votes to Garima Garg and Chirag Kakkar respectively.
Clubs
While most clubs assured the Union Council that preparations for the events were going smoothly, a few of them faced hurdles while conducting pre-fest work.
The meet began with Astro Club being questioned about certain security issues that the Chief Security Officer (CSO) had raised regarding their events in APOGEE 2022. Alok Narayanan, the Oasis Coordinator of Astro Club, assuaged the President, Ashirwad Karande, saying that they had enough of a workforce from the 2021 batch to barricade the different entrance points into the clock tower. Mayan Agrawal, the Oasis Coordinator of BITS Embryo, shared that they were in the process of finalising the chief guests for both the Inauguration and the Film Festival. Ashirwad urged him to be mindful of how little time there is left for the fest.
Ananth Venkatesh, the representative of Association of Rock, BITS Pilani (ARBITS), shared that they were facing issues with the Department of Controls and the Department of Sponsorship and Marketing regarding travel and cash prices respectively. He added that they were working towards resolving them. Prabhsimran Singh, the representative of Safety and Medical Advisory Club (SMAC), was questioned about his absence in the budgeting meets. Adaa Bhardwaj, Editor-in-Chief of the Oasis English Press (OEP), was also questioned about her repeated absence in budgeting meets.
Mountaineering and Adventure Club
Divyam Goel from the Mountaineering and Adventure Club (MAC) was called upon to address complaints raised by some members of MAC. Ritien from CRC informed the ORC that MAC’s budget was not cleared in the first go because they were informed by a member of the club that there were some “backdoor transactions” taking place. CRC stated that a few members of MAC reached out to them regarding certain “possible wrongdoings” with the club’s transactions for Oasis. Ashirwad then mentioned that no vendors had been finalised with respect to the events organised by MAC for this Oasis.
The StuCCA highlighted that the club was asked to provide a revised quotation a week ago, but Divyam said that he was unreachable owing to a trip “at the mountains”. They further implored MAC to finalise their vendors, given that there was only a week left for the fest. They also informed Divyam that the paintball event, which MAC wanted to organise over three days, would now be organised over two days instead.
Ragamalika
Abhinav from Ragamalika started off by explaining that the club will be organising three events—the Classical Prof Show, Swaranjali, and Tandav. The President brought to the notice of the ORC that Ragmalika had directly finalised the artist and the quotation without consulting the StuCCA. He added that the MoU was handed over to the StuCCA only nine days prior to the fest. He explained that there were additional issues with the funding because while previously, the Classical Prof Show was fully funded by the institute, this year, it was only partially funded. Abhinav justified the delay in submitting the MoU by saying that they were not made aware of “where the money would be coming from”. This led to Ashirwad explaining the process of artist finalisation to Ragamalika, saying that they completely missed the part where they were supposed to pitch the artists and the quotations to the StuCCA, and instead directly presented a quotation to them. Abhinav reassured Ashirwad that they would keep this in mind for the next year.
He then questioned why PCr would not be providing them with separate lists for the solo and group events in Swaranjali and Raghav. Before allowing PCr the opportunity to address this query, Ashirwad issued another clarification to the ORC. He explained that in the first pitching meet, Ragmalika had no idea of what either their previous prize pools for these events were or what the correct prize pools were supposed to be, which led to them pitching a lower prize pool than Oasis ‘19.
Madhav Gupta, the StuCCAn for PCr, then replied to Abhinav’s query. He stated that the Nishtha, the Oasis Coordinator for Ragamalika only informed him that two events, namely Swaranjali and Tandav, would require help with participants. He added that she failed to mention that Swaranjali had four subgroups— solo, group, percussion, and strings. He explained that this oversight led to neither DVM nor PCr being able to edit the pre-registration form, as that would lead to inconsistencies with those who had already registered by the time they found out. He offered that the “best they could do” would be to help them with calling all finalists and finding out their categories once all confirmations were done. He further reiterated that this was never PCr’s responsibility. Ashirwad added that the submission for the Event Pitching Form from Ragamalika’s end only included the two events in one form, which had not been separated to start with, “let alone the mentioning of subgroups”.
Minor Departments
The coordinators of minor departments briefed the UC about the work their respective departments will be carrying out during Oasis. They also brought up any inventory or budgeting concerns they had. The Audiforce Oasis Coordinator, Achintya Shankar, mentioned that the barricading provided during BOSM was not sturdy enough and requested better inventory this time around. Referring to an Instagram story posted by their artist, Ashirwad asked the Department of Live Events (DLE) to ensure that the artist knows he will be performing in Pilani and not Jaipur. Arjav Jain, the Oasis Coordinator of Informalz, informed the ORC that they will be conducting four events—Treasure Hunt, Beg Borrow Steal, EQ, and Game Room, which is a new event. Aditya Iyer, representing the Department of Lights, reminded the StuCCA to add them to the WhatsApp group for StuCCAns and coordinators.
StuCCA
The StuCCAns gave updates on their department’s work and also addressed some concerns they had with other departments and clubs. Rhythm Saxena, the StuCCAn of the Department of Art, Design, and Publicity (ADP), said that all their decoration work was going on smoothly and the structures will be completed in time. As for publicity, he noted that they had crossed 10,000 followers on Instagram and had 25 ongoing deals for media partnerships.
The StuCCAn of the Department of Publications and Correspondence(PCr), Madhav Gupta, mentioned that more than a thousand accommodation requests have been approved. Bringing up the issue with participation this time, he added that during Oasis 2019, they had a participation of 1300 from kernel events and 200 from miscellaneous visitors. However, the kernel event participation had reached just 1000 this time and registrations were already closing. He speculated that there had been a change in the kernel events’ rulebook extending the team limits in 2019, but the changes had not been reflected in the rulebooks this year. He mentioned that finalising the changes in the rulebooks was something he intended to bring up in ORM so that the issue does not repeat itself in the next Oasis.
Karishma, the StuCCAn of the Department of Sponsorship and Marketing (Sponz), was glad to announce that they had exceeded their initial pitch of 18 lakh and were looking at approximately 23 lakh rupees of total cash sponsorship. She also mentioned that they were working with various clubs and departments to help them cut costs substantially.
CRC
The CRC reminded all members of the ORC to adhere to the budget allotted to them, and announced that every club and department with an allotted budget will be assigned a Hostel Representative to keep an eye on the inventory possessed by the clubs. They reminded all members of the ORC to ensure that they have the relevant GST bills for reimbursement.
After this, the floor was made open to motions. Seeing as there were none, the President declared the Oasis Preview Meet over.