boilerbhangracompetition
Boiler Bhangra Competition - April 4, 2015
- Messages
- 47
Dear Bhangra Team Forum,
First and foremost, I understand that this message has been long overdue and I sincerely apologize to you all. Before I begin an apology, I would like to apologize to all individuals who were directly involved in such a disappointing event: the seven teams, the judges, the liaisons, the board members, the photographers and videographers, the caterers, the guest performers, the venue owners, the perspective audience, and the founders of the competition. Boiler Bhangra has successfully been running as one of the many prestigious Bhangra competitions for the past three years and has become a renowned competition. It has had some of the nation’s best teams both compete and attend, an amazing amount of love and respect from the bhangra and Lafayette community, and celebrity-guest performances. The competition was known to be an organized, family-friendly, enjoyable, and one amazing weekend.
Second, I would like to apologize to the rest of the bhangra community about this year’s failed competition. I understand that many of you had reached out to me with concerns, questions, and complaints that you have generated in these past few months with no available response, and I sincerely apologize for the lack of professionalism, and respect to you on my part. It has been a few months since the cancellation of the show and I understand that there are many negative views upon Boiler Bhangra and my executive board. However, I urge you to not put down the competition itself. It has been held up to its standards and its reputation in the past years with the exception of one, due to an irresponsible leader. If you wish to criticize, hate, or look down upon anyone please place all that on me, not the board or the competition.
Yes, I should have reached out to teams, managers and individuals sooner. Yes, this competition is a team effort along with my executive board; but where the competition failed was due to a major fault on my end. I have screenshots and emails regarding anything I say to further validate what occurred.
The main reason for cancellation of the event was due to a communication issue between Purdue University and myself. Purdue University uses a system called BoilerLink in which all activities and organizations are registered. However, all communication that was made between myself and the venue workers were not put on BoilerLink. Due of the lack of response on this website, Purdue believed that the event was not occurring and cancelled all reservations. Simultaneously, our contracts were taking an unusual amount of time to process. Although we had finished our contracts weeks in advance, Purdue requires that the contracts be submitted and processed within five days. Due to the delay in the processing on the venue’s part, the university declined our contract leaving us with no place to hold the event. The rumor going around that our venue was not booked prior to the show is false. If you would like to see prove of contracts and booking of the venue please email Boiler Bhangra directly and I will send you the according documents. We had our mixer venue, hotel venue, and after party venue all ready to go for competition weekend and teams had checked in by this time as well, but Purdue University was not willing to negotiate on the contract deadline.
Although our contracts were in on Monday evening, I messaged Purdue regarding why the event was still denied on BoilerLink. They responded to me saying, “ due to no response on BoilerLink, we have cancelled the show.” Prior to this message, I had not received a notification from BoilerLink nor did I receive an email until they denied the competition from occurring on the Monday before the show.
After speaking with higher management and officials of Purdue, they permitted us to use Loeb, our original venue as planned. We were given this notice and granted permission on Wednesday. Unfortunately, they stated they had no crew available to work the venue. The original crew workers had been reassigned to work other events due to the original cancellation of the show. Purdue University stated that we were allowed to use the venue, under one condition: we find tech crew members both Purdue certified and able to work the necessary equipment for liability reasons. I, along with the previous director, both tried to find workers to assist our show, but did not succeed. Due to the various complications with the original venue, we tried to find alternatives.
I then found a venue outside the Purdue campus to use for the show. The owner of the venue was ready to complete contracts and find workers for the show in the short amount of time. But we then ran into another issue with Purdue University. They would not allow us to complete and submit the contracts for approval in such a short span of time: 3 days prior to the event. Because our event is funded through Purdue, all of the money is in an account handled by them. The only way to use that money is by processing forms and contracts, and having them send it directly to the venue itself. Because of this rule, I tried to finance and pay for the venue out of pocket with other funds. Purdue found out about this method, and cancelled everything once again.
The next issue I want to address is reimbursements. Many deposits were made and would be unreturnable. We had a huge loss in our student account, and personal account taking care of all these sunken costs. However, I also understand that teams spent a great deal of money preparing for and travelling to this competition. Because of the current state of finances and funds, I was able to give teams a partial refund of 200 dollars. I apologize that I was not able to fully refund teams, but this was the best solution that I could find at the moment. If teams did not receive the reimbursement to the Venmo account provided, please email me at boilerbhangracompetition@gmail.com. Additionally, if you want proof, or would like to see screenshots of the payments I can provide those as well. If I somehow forgot to send a reimbursement to your team, it is because I did not receive a follow up email, call, or text. I made sure that reimbursements were a priority. I overlooked my expenses and believe to have missed one team, but I am not sure. Believe me, if we had the funds to give back everything, we would have given you all a full reimbursement.
I understand your frustration and as a previous dancer, I know losing money to a competition that never occurred would make me angry, frustrated, and annoyed. But please don’t blame the competition, blame me for not distributing funds in a more responsible manner. I never expected such a thing to happen, but then again I never expected to cancel Boiler Bhangra.
Now onto new beginnings. The new appointed board has understood all the mistakes and failures o this year’s competition. They have properly prepared and are diligently working to ensure the image of Purdue’s south asian community and Bhangra competition is reestablished. Crossroads of Bhangra will continue what BB did for three years and create a competition noteworthy. I understand once again there is mistrust in Purdue’s committee due to last one failing, but this one will not. I have explained to them in detail all the faults this year, how to ensure it never occurs again, how Purdue’s business office works, and many other things to help this competition succeed.
I want to apologize once again to all the teams, judges, and the rest of the bhangra community. I have been very unprofessional and irresponsible as a co-director for Boiler Bhangra. I am very sorry for releasing a public statement to you all so late as this was hard for as me well. However that is no excuse for my misbehavior. My last request from you all is to not hate on the new board and competition. They are doing their utmost best to fix the mess that I have created, and I can assure you that they will succeed.
Thank you for reading this message and being patient with me. I would like to send a very big thank you to Raghuveer Musty and one other gentlemen who was with me on the phone in trying to help me come up with a plan B. I owe you two very much because that was a time where everyone was upset and furious at the situation on hand. Once again, please email boilerbhangracompetition@gmail.com for any unanswered questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Mohammad K Ali
First and foremost, I understand that this message has been long overdue and I sincerely apologize to you all. Before I begin an apology, I would like to apologize to all individuals who were directly involved in such a disappointing event: the seven teams, the judges, the liaisons, the board members, the photographers and videographers, the caterers, the guest performers, the venue owners, the perspective audience, and the founders of the competition. Boiler Bhangra has successfully been running as one of the many prestigious Bhangra competitions for the past three years and has become a renowned competition. It has had some of the nation’s best teams both compete and attend, an amazing amount of love and respect from the bhangra and Lafayette community, and celebrity-guest performances. The competition was known to be an organized, family-friendly, enjoyable, and one amazing weekend.
Second, I would like to apologize to the rest of the bhangra community about this year’s failed competition. I understand that many of you had reached out to me with concerns, questions, and complaints that you have generated in these past few months with no available response, and I sincerely apologize for the lack of professionalism, and respect to you on my part. It has been a few months since the cancellation of the show and I understand that there are many negative views upon Boiler Bhangra and my executive board. However, I urge you to not put down the competition itself. It has been held up to its standards and its reputation in the past years with the exception of one, due to an irresponsible leader. If you wish to criticize, hate, or look down upon anyone please place all that on me, not the board or the competition.
Yes, I should have reached out to teams, managers and individuals sooner. Yes, this competition is a team effort along with my executive board; but where the competition failed was due to a major fault on my end. I have screenshots and emails regarding anything I say to further validate what occurred.
The main reason for cancellation of the event was due to a communication issue between Purdue University and myself. Purdue University uses a system called BoilerLink in which all activities and organizations are registered. However, all communication that was made between myself and the venue workers were not put on BoilerLink. Due of the lack of response on this website, Purdue believed that the event was not occurring and cancelled all reservations. Simultaneously, our contracts were taking an unusual amount of time to process. Although we had finished our contracts weeks in advance, Purdue requires that the contracts be submitted and processed within five days. Due to the delay in the processing on the venue’s part, the university declined our contract leaving us with no place to hold the event. The rumor going around that our venue was not booked prior to the show is false. If you would like to see prove of contracts and booking of the venue please email Boiler Bhangra directly and I will send you the according documents. We had our mixer venue, hotel venue, and after party venue all ready to go for competition weekend and teams had checked in by this time as well, but Purdue University was not willing to negotiate on the contract deadline.
Although our contracts were in on Monday evening, I messaged Purdue regarding why the event was still denied on BoilerLink. They responded to me saying, “ due to no response on BoilerLink, we have cancelled the show.” Prior to this message, I had not received a notification from BoilerLink nor did I receive an email until they denied the competition from occurring on the Monday before the show.
After speaking with higher management and officials of Purdue, they permitted us to use Loeb, our original venue as planned. We were given this notice and granted permission on Wednesday. Unfortunately, they stated they had no crew available to work the venue. The original crew workers had been reassigned to work other events due to the original cancellation of the show. Purdue University stated that we were allowed to use the venue, under one condition: we find tech crew members both Purdue certified and able to work the necessary equipment for liability reasons. I, along with the previous director, both tried to find workers to assist our show, but did not succeed. Due to the various complications with the original venue, we tried to find alternatives.
I then found a venue outside the Purdue campus to use for the show. The owner of the venue was ready to complete contracts and find workers for the show in the short amount of time. But we then ran into another issue with Purdue University. They would not allow us to complete and submit the contracts for approval in such a short span of time: 3 days prior to the event. Because our event is funded through Purdue, all of the money is in an account handled by them. The only way to use that money is by processing forms and contracts, and having them send it directly to the venue itself. Because of this rule, I tried to finance and pay for the venue out of pocket with other funds. Purdue found out about this method, and cancelled everything once again.
The next issue I want to address is reimbursements. Many deposits were made and would be unreturnable. We had a huge loss in our student account, and personal account taking care of all these sunken costs. However, I also understand that teams spent a great deal of money preparing for and travelling to this competition. Because of the current state of finances and funds, I was able to give teams a partial refund of 200 dollars. I apologize that I was not able to fully refund teams, but this was the best solution that I could find at the moment. If teams did not receive the reimbursement to the Venmo account provided, please email me at boilerbhangracompetition@gmail.com. Additionally, if you want proof, or would like to see screenshots of the payments I can provide those as well. If I somehow forgot to send a reimbursement to your team, it is because I did not receive a follow up email, call, or text. I made sure that reimbursements were a priority. I overlooked my expenses and believe to have missed one team, but I am not sure. Believe me, if we had the funds to give back everything, we would have given you all a full reimbursement.
I understand your frustration and as a previous dancer, I know losing money to a competition that never occurred would make me angry, frustrated, and annoyed. But please don’t blame the competition, blame me for not distributing funds in a more responsible manner. I never expected such a thing to happen, but then again I never expected to cancel Boiler Bhangra.
Now onto new beginnings. The new appointed board has understood all the mistakes and failures o this year’s competition. They have properly prepared and are diligently working to ensure the image of Purdue’s south asian community and Bhangra competition is reestablished. Crossroads of Bhangra will continue what BB did for three years and create a competition noteworthy. I understand once again there is mistrust in Purdue’s committee due to last one failing, but this one will not. I have explained to them in detail all the faults this year, how to ensure it never occurs again, how Purdue’s business office works, and many other things to help this competition succeed.
I want to apologize once again to all the teams, judges, and the rest of the bhangra community. I have been very unprofessional and irresponsible as a co-director for Boiler Bhangra. I am very sorry for releasing a public statement to you all so late as this was hard for as me well. However that is no excuse for my misbehavior. My last request from you all is to not hate on the new board and competition. They are doing their utmost best to fix the mess that I have created, and I can assure you that they will succeed.
Thank you for reading this message and being patient with me. I would like to send a very big thank you to Raghuveer Musty and one other gentlemen who was with me on the phone in trying to help me come up with a plan B. I owe you two very much because that was a time where everyone was upset and furious at the situation on hand. Once again, please email boilerbhangracompetition@gmail.com for any unanswered questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Mohammad K Ali
