Get-together with games, comedy, singing and dancing
With it being more than six months since we last shook a leg, we decided to host a get-together Kovai.co style on August 5. Many members of our UK team including our founder Saravana Kumar, Vice President of Sales, Gowri Ramkumar, Lead Product Consultant, Lex Hegt and COO, Andrew Cloke being present in our India office also presented us with the perfect excuse for us to party.
Friendship Day Theme
With friendship day being just around the corner, “celebrating the comradery” was chosen as the theme for the get-together. Keeping with the theme, we were each given a glow-in-the-dark band to wear around our hands, and some of our colleagues, namely Sai Dheepika, Janaki Sekar, Priya Dharshini, Vishaal Paraman, Vaishnave Jayaram and Haripriya Manoharan had painstakingly handmade and cut out props for a photo booth with the same theme. There were four different frames that we could pose in groups or just props that we could hold and pose.
“We browsed online looking for photo booths with office friendship day as the theme. While we hand drew, painted, and cut out a few, we also downloaded and printed out a few,” says senior SEO specialist, Sai Dheepika. Everyone loved the idea, with many colleagues getting to click pictures with the senior leadership, she said.
The fun began at the entrance itself, where people could “Trap their Beloved”. Each of us could write down a colleague’s name along with a dare for them.
Ice Breaking Activities
The event began with an ice-breaking activity, where we were separated into two long lines. Each fruit name had an instruction along with it—like moving front, back, left or right. It was fun with many forgetting instructions, banging into each other, and bursting into splits of laughter.
This was followed by a game for the leadership team, where they were separated into four teams of two members each. While one person had to walk across the field with paper cups blindfolded, their partner had to navigate and direct them. The team with Arunkumar Kumaresan, our Head of Operations, and Suprej Venkat, Director of Engineering, won it hands down, by crossing the field without touching or knocking down any cups and doing so in just one minute 45 seconds.
Team Building Activities
This was followed by another activity with playing cards. A team, of the same suits—heart, spade, clubs and diamond—which gathered first with all the cards was declared the winner. This was probably the most fun and exciting. People were scurrying about trying to find others with the same suit, form a group, and find more people. Team Spade, which included our founder Saravana, won it.
Sharing Insights
Once the ice-breaking activity wrapped up, Saravana took the stage to share some insights and exciting company updates. Saravana told us that our latest product–Churn360’s website was now live and the team had already begun conducting demos and was on its way to bagging its first set of customers.
Andrew Cloke who recently came onboard Kovai.co, interacted with the audience telling us about the time he and Saravana worked together in fidelity investments almost 15 years ago. Turns out he was the one who suggested that Saravana move his job part-time, giving him more time to build the first version of Biztalk360.Entertainment
This was followed by entertainment put together by namma Kovai.co’s in-house talent. It began with a stand-up comedy by Shanthosh Senthilkumar, a migration specialist. Later, our singers—Vishal Soosai Pandian, Benito Kumar, Suki Rajendran and Charles Tony Sebastian took the stage to belt out some melodies from Tamil movies. Sai Dheepika also performed a melodious song solo. They also involved the audience, by making all of us sing along with them. “The energy was infectious, with everyone I took the mic too agreeing to sing a few lines with us,” said Vishal. “No one was too shy or reserved. Right from Gowri and Manikandan to interns, everyone joined,”.
This was followed by individual dance performances by our colleagues including Sai Deepika, Sruthi Murali and Dhurgadevi.
Once the performances were done, the DJ for the night took over the dance floor and soon everyone found themselves off their seats. “While the group events made us extremely comfortable with the leadership team and managers, because we could open up and see them in a different role, the DJ and dancing were the most fun. Everyone came forward to shake a leg and let their hair down,” says Divya Harinarayanan.
Lex Hegt, who has been working for Kovai.co, for more than six years from Amsterdam and was on his first visit to India and the India office said the get-together was one of the most fun evenings he had in a while. “It was extremely enjoyable. I found myself with no stage fright when I had to go on stage for a dance or game. It was also amazing to see everyone participating in everything,”.
