14th February 2020 was as a very special day to me in my life as I hosted my first meet-up as a local guide. It was the 129th Meet-up of Bangladesh Local Guides (BDLG). The theme of this meet-up was “Let’s be enlighten at the book fair ” It was mainly a photo walk with some other local guide related activities which we will come know gradually in this recap. But in a short photo taking, discussion, Q & A, fun with sport, quiz and a lot of other things were the parts of this nice meet-up.
You can see the photo album of this meet-up Here.
Why on 14th February:
February is a very special month for us in Bangladesh. It is prominent to us for two special reasons- this month we observe International Mother Language Day on 21st February which is recognized by the UN on 17th November 1999 and observed worldwide. And a month-long book fair is held on this month which is known as Ekushey Book Fair . The other specialty of February are Valentine’s Day and the first day of spring in Bangladesh, both are observed on 14th February. This 14th February was Friday which is the weekly off day in Bangladesh. So for all of these reasons we choose the 14th of February for this meet-up.
[Top: Shilpakal Academy, Bottom: The Ekushey Book Fai]
Venues:
As a lot of programs held through the full month of February so we choose two venues for this meet-up which are situated within walking distance. One is the Shilpakala Academy and the second one is the Ekushey Book Fair. I think you can guess the reason for choosing the Ekushey Book Fair as one of the venues but why the Shilpakala Academy? You will get the answer after some time.
[List of the interested attendees]
Attendees:
After the announcement of this meet-up. 47 local guides shown their interest to attend. But as there were a lot of programs throughout the day some attendees missed this event. Some of them attend the first session and some attended the second session. On an average almost 25 local guides attended.
[Outside of the Shilpakala Academy]
Why we choose DAS-2020
Dhaka Art Summit is hosted every year two years at the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy in collaboration with the Ministry of Cultural Affairs of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. It was founded by the Samdani Art Foundation in 2012. “The Dhaka Art Summit (DAS) is an international, non-commercial research and exhibition platform for art and architecture related to South Asia. With a core focus on Bangladesh.” So add this venue in our visit list.
[A painting of the Exhibition based on International Mother Language Day]
And we start our meet-up:
All the attendees were informed several times to be present at the Shilpakala Academy Premises by 3.00 PM. And most of them came by 3.10 PM. Some of them came later, whereas some came near the end of our first session here. After a brief discussion on our programs inside the exhibition hall, we entered into the ocean of arts, painting, and creativity. We were surprised to see too many foreigners participating in the exhibition. The ratio of foreign and local visitors will be 45:55 which gave an international flavor to our meet-up as well!!
There were a lot of things inside which we have never imagined even. Every wall has a painting, every floor has something to surprise you. Better, I can say every inch of the exhibition hall has something to see, to think about and to take a photo. A lot of artists were performing live inside. Some of them were painting, some were cutting the piece of wood to make a model out of his imagination.
[Local guides in action inside the exhibition hall of DAS20]
There was a dance performance inside which I have never seen before. Both local and foreign visitors were enjoying this event very much. We took a lot of photos inside which you can see in our album in the below link. I think things will be clear if you see the photos and videos taken by our attendees.
After a lot of fun, photo taking and gathering experience from world prominent artists we decided to leave this venue at 4.50 PM. After coming out of the exhibition hall we took some group photos outside and ate chocolates brought by our local guide Abdus Sattar. Then we went for a tea session outside of the Shilpakala Academy. During tea session, we discussed many things about the new features of Google Maps. We came to know that most of the local guides are trying to be habituated with the new features of the maps. Adding roads was also a hot topic among the local guides. Some of the local guides said goodbye to us after this tea session and we started walking to our second venue: Ekushey Book Fair.
[On the way to the Ekushey Book Fair]
Finally at the book fair:
After leaving the Shilpakala Academy we came to the Ekushey Book Fair. Some local guides who missed the first session joined us here. So again we became 20+ in number. Before entering into the book fair we took 30 minutes outside the Fair gate to be introduced with our newly joined local guides. Here we took another short discussion session regarding maps related issues. There was a small prize-giving ceremony here for our local guides. Outside the fair gate, we saw the ceremony of launching new books. Then we entered into the main fair.
[Bookstalls inside the fair]
Inside the Ekushey Book Fair 2020:
This year 395 publishers with 869 stalls and 34 pavilions are attending the fair. So this is a huge book fair and the largest in the country. Every day a lot of new books are published targeting this fair which is sold here. There is a stage inside fair named “Saying as a writer- আমি লেখক বলছি” where selected new writers can talk to the readers about his newly published books for about 20 minutes. Every day thousands of people come to this book fair and buy books. After visiting many bookstalls we sat beside the writer’s corner for our final discussion.
- Here new local guides talked about their problems which were solved by the experienced guides.
-We discussed our future plans; how we can increase local guiding activities all over the country, our limitations and ways to overcome them, how we can contribute as a spam-free local guide, etc.
[Writer’s Corner- আমি লেখক বলছি]
-We also discussed the upcoming mega event of Bangladesh Local Guides which will be held in March 2020.
And finally, we left the fair premises at 8.20 PM and went to the campus of the University of Dhaka to eat something. Inside the university campus, we shared our funny experience as a local guide while taking food. Finally, we said goodbye to each other.
[Discussion sessions]
[New attendees on top, competitors using one local guide as a writing table for the quiz!]
Sport event, quiz, and prizes:
We participated in some funny events inside the Shilpakala Academy. Out of which was the hanging from the ring. We enjoyed this event very much. Lot of fun were there as the attendees tried to hang from the ring and failed in a funny way. Some of us played the board game Ludo inside the exhibition hall. In fact it was a part of the exhibition. One of our female attendees took the pleasure of using the swinging cloth chair.
[Enjoyment inside the Shilpakala Academy]
As per my plan, before entering the book fair, we arranged a quiz competition among the local guides. We distributed question stickers to the local guides and they wrote the answer. We choose the funniest and best answer as the winner and rewarded him with a simple prize. We also gave some pens to the local guides who attend a meet-up for the first time in his/her life. In two venues we got 5 brand new attendees. We encouraged them to attend the upcoming meet-ups.
[Quiz questions]
How did I use social media for this meet-Up?
I mainly used Facebook to spread the latest update of this great event of my life. I created a hashtag for this meet-up which was” #১২৯তম_মিটাপ ” 129th_meetup. I also twitted from my twitter account about this meet-up.
You can see the photo album of this meet-up Here.
Reminder and Credit:
I want to give special thanks to our prominent local guides @MahabubMunna and @Designer_Biswajit for the support and guidelines throughout the whole event. Special thanks also go to @AbdusSattar and @Ayeshashimu who worked a lot on meet-up day. I want to give special thanks to @AriMar whose “ How to organize a successful meet-up ” gave me some ideas to make this a very enjoyable event to the attendees and to @Aruni for her reminder to write this recap.
I want to invite my friends @Ant_Bad_Yogi @OlgaKlimchik @user_not_found @Austinelewex
Some other posts on this meet-up:
Thanks for liking the video.