41st Annual General Body Meeting & family get-together


The Kerala Master Printers Association held their 41st Annual General Body Meeting and a family get-together at the 4-star Renai Cochin, located at Palarivattom, Ernakulam, on 20th July, 2019.

As per the official agenda of the meeting, the minutes of the previous AGM, activity report for the year 2018-19, and audited accounts for the same, were discussed and approved. The meeting was attended by more than 200 members.
Coinciding with the meeting was a very informative inter-active session organised for the ladies and children with the chief guest, Kochouseph Thomas Chittilappilly, Chairman of V-Guard Industries Ltd., investor, writer, and philanthropist.
R. Gopakumar, President, KMPA, delivered the welcome speech. O. Venugopal, Co-ordinator, KMPA, was given the honour to introduce the chief guest. Mr. Venugopal had a lot of interesting nuggets of experiences to share about Mr. Chittilappilly during their early days of acquaintance.

Mr. Chittilappilly’s talk was inspiring and humorous to say the least. According to him no entrepreneur can bet on ‘LUCK’. It has to be based on an aim in life. Secondly to be a successful business person, you have to work smart, and not hard. Getting tech-savvy is a major way to build a successful business. Another point highlighted by him was the employer-employee relationship, which according to him helps in building up any enterprise. The audience was in splits when he used a hilarious Malayalam movie situation to explain this point. Mr. Chittilappilly was honoured by a ponnada (shawl of honour) and mementoes.

This was followed by a talk from our guest of honour, S. Dayaker Reddy, President of Indian Printing Packaging and Allied Machinery Manufacturers Association (IPAMA). He was on a two-day visit to Kochi, primarily to attend this occasion, besides wanting to meet the printers of Kerala. He emphasized on the importance of using the latest technology available to reap in benefits. He also urged members to visit as many exhibitions and conferences as they can, be it big or small, to keep abreast with the latest equipment and solutions available in the printing packaging industry. He also enquired if the printers were facing any difficulties in sourcing machines and if proper support was provided by the machine manufacturers. He offered to give all assistance and support for any machine related problem if required in the future. He was honoured at the function for his outstanding contribution toward the printing industry.
Senior member of KMPA, K.P. Uthup released the copy of the new KMPA directory during the function. New members were also inducted during the occasion.

The activity report of the previous year was presented by Biju Jose, General Secretary, KMPA. The power-point presentation threw light on the zealous cause of the KMPA team during the disastrous floods that threw Kerala out of gear in August last year. The report also covered conferences, seminars, and meetings that were conducted with a great deal of finesse.
The meeting was followed by product promos from two of the sponsors, viz. Kodak and Mindsoft, which was received well by the members.
At the end, Goonj, a non-govermental organisation, with its headquarters in Delhi, gave an interesting video presentation of the disaster relief, humanitarian aid, and community development programmes that they so evangelistically pursued during the floods in Kerala, focusing on clothing as an unaddressed basic need!

The event was finally concluded by a sumptuous buffet accompanied by a musical night.