During the 2013 BBG National Conference Christie Cherian and Beryl Nassé discussed the possibility of a joint meet between BBG Chennai and Goa, these discussions resulted in four BBG Chennai members visiting Goa on the 29th and 30th November to investigate possible links between activities in Goa and how they could interact with BBG Chennai members.

The members from Chennai were
1. Christie Cherian – MD – – Red Sky – property services/ MCI Consulting – corporate finance
2. R Balajee, Director – Converging World Renewable Energy – wind / solar/ biomass
3. Ravi Kumar – Zanec Softech – Healthcare IT and Related Software
4. Nagendran Annamalai – Tirupathi Green Energy – Renewable Energy

It was agreed that this would be an ideal opportunity to visit the two incubation centres based in Goa the Centre for Innovation and Business Acceleration (CIBA) and Goa IT Innovation Centre (GITIC) and give the entrepreneurs an opportunity to showcase their projects.

The overall consensus was that the time spent at the incubation centres by BBG Members from Chennai and Goa was valuable with the members from both groups considering the possibility of mentoring options to some of the entrepreneurs.

The day closed with a dinner for all BBG Goa members to meet with the delegation from Chennai.

On the 30th November a meeting with Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry was organised and BBG members met with members of the Chamber. BBG Chennai members introduced themselves to the meeting followed by a round table discussion which ended in an agreement that more interaction between BBG groups and GCCI investigating commercial ventures rather than government projects could be beneficial to all concerned.

All BBG members who took part in the 2 day event agreed that it was time well spent and believe that this will lead to more activity between the groups in both states.

The President of GCCI hosted a lunch for all who attended the meeting and is very keen to follow up on the discussion and for GCCI participate in a visit to Chennai.

It gives us great pleasure to advise that JDS Food Products won the “Best SME” Award at 1st BBG Awards Ceremony at the National Meet in Mumbai on 21st September 2013.

Devdas Reddy and Bhuvaneswari Devdas have been in the pappadum and related business for two decades. This Award is testimony to many years of steady hard work and perseverance. For information, in 2012 they won the “Gem of India” Award and in 2013 the “Udyog Gaurov” Award from the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi. We commend their achievement and wish them continued success

BBG’s 24th Monthly Meeting held on 21st August 2013 was scheduled as the valedictory meeting for Mike Nithavrianakis, Deputy High Commissioner. The meeting opened with Peter Spackman, Co-Chairman welcoming special invitees/guests and members. The Chairman then addressed members on BBG news. He spoke about recommending our SME, JDS Food Products for the BBG Awards at the National Conference in Mumbai in 20th / 21st September 2013 (JDS Food have since won the SME Award).

Committee Member, Shajee Varghese and Co-Chairman, Ravi Kumar spoke about the special qualities of Mike Nithavrianakis that endeared him to all members. Also how BBG developed from a few networking meetings held at Cottingley towards end of 2010/ early 2011. From those small beginnings, Mike has encouraged and supported the growth of BBG Chennai both in the development of membership and in the various events and in getting good speakers. The biggest contribution came from Mike in the form of his strong support for the 2nd National Meet held in September 2012 which was a resounding success.

Mike Nithavrianakis then took the podium and spoke at length on his experiences and the wonderful times he had in Chennai and relationships he made all over South India as well as the country as a whole

Christie Cherian presented Mike Nithavrianakis with a silver salver and plaque honoring him as BBG’s Founding Patron.

As appreciation of Mike’s popularity, we had the best attended meeting with 84 attendees.

Mike continues in Chennai till 18th October 2013, when he formally hands-over to Bharat Joshi.

Following meeting in November 2012 with Bala Mahendran CEO of Basildon Council, he had extended an invitation for a visit by BBG to Basildon to meet some of local high companies in auto/aviation & technical apprenticeship/ education

On 3rd April arrangements were made for Christie Cherian to visit Basildon and meet Bala Mahendran to discuss co-operation between BBG and Basildon to look at specific areas and meet some local high-tech companies. Basildon Council itself has made improvements in it’s operations and in provision of facilities/ services locally – it was felt some of these could be offered to Chennai’s Corporation if the right connections can be made at appropriate levels. Christie was also able to tell Bala of planned June 13 BBG trade mission which Bala welcomed and said they could field some visits / meetings

Of big interest was the visit to Prospects College which has a commendable apprenticeship scheme to source well trained technicians for the high-tech companies locally. Christie visited the brand new Futures Community College and was taken around an impressive purpose-built building training some 600 technical students – some have been absorbed by local companies. At Gardner Aerospace, Christie was taken around a very high-tech plant with CNC lathes turning out aircraft parts for Boeing and other aviation companies (Gardner recently acquired a company in Bangalore and has 2 factories in Poland). Gardner employs 17 apprentices from Prospects. The third location visited was MIRA a company based in Nuneaton doing auto and aviation components and environment testing.

The tour around industrial estates of Basildon and Wickford revealed a very active business region just 40 minutes out of London and showed that UK still has interesting manufacturing in high-end products.