BTC Journey - One Year Marathon

“BTC Journey” I’m so excited to hear that, I mean I had never imagined that BTC will grow so fast and so strong in just 1 year. Well, this is how it began.

Almost every weekend I used to trek with my friends and suddenly on 4^th Jan, 2013 I thought why only us let’s make it we. I called one of my fellow trekkers Chaitanya and proposed my plan about making a club, I bet he was surprised but finally agreed to support it. That’s how BTC was formed; it took a bit of courage, support from friends and hell lot of planning. By the end of first weekend of 2013, I was done with website and most of the details and was ready to open BTC’s first ever event. Finally on 6^th Jan, 2013 I dropped first email to BTC group and opened registration for the very first event of BTC. As expected, all my fellow trekkers registered for this event. I still remember we were eight, out of those eight, seven are now organizers.

By January end, we were done with 3 events; I mean that count was great for a new born group with only 40+ members. By February, Meghraj took the lead and became one of the active organizers of the group. We were done with three one day events and four night treks by end of February. But in March, I am not sure how and why it came to my mind to have a Grave Encounter series of BTC. So, on 9^thMarch, 2013 we had our first ever Grave Encounter event.

By end of May, we were done with 17 events, had 266 members (Since Jan) & 545 fans on Facebook (Since Jan). We were more than happy. Then, we planned to start more and more groups hence BTC had its first ever cycling event on 1^st June, 2013 organized by Anthony, first ever WOW trek on 8^th June, 2013 organized by Ajita, first ever Go Green event on 15^th June, 2013 organized by me, and first ever Biking event on 30^th June, 2013 organized by me. Hence BTC Cycling, BTC WOW, BTC Go Green, and BTC Bikers Clubs were formed. June was one of the best months in BTC’s history, with 10 events in BTC’s bucket, 253 members on Google group (June, 2013) and 321 fans on Facebook (June, 2013). June was great as my lovable friends Ajita, Anthony and Ruwise got their first taste of organizing events. Without them it would be like other months but their support and hard work made this month as a special month.

July and August were months of Channa, Santosh and Sangmesh as they organized their first treks and soon became back bone of BTC. By July we had 1,000 fans on Facebook and by September there were 1,000 registered members of BTC. That was one of the biggest achievements we have had. October saw our Facebook fan base growing and it touched 2000 mark.

BTC touched its 50^th event on 5^th October, 2013 and same was celebrated on 12^th October, 2013 as first ever organizer’s event. We enjoyed that event to the core and had lots of fun, not that other events were any lesser on fin quotient, however this was an achievement, achieved by all BTCians and was one of the best moments in our life. We worked so hard to reach this feat.

Again October turned out to be one of the greatest months in BTC’s history, it was the month we started participating in Social events, thanks to Ajita for organizing first ever Social event on 5^th October, 2013. Additionally BTC Bikers Club, BTC WOW and BTC Go Green had done 6^th, 5^th and 5^th events respectively. We knew it will take a lot to make these small group a big success and we worked hard for it. In November, we had first ever two days WOW event. Thanks to Ajita who took so much pain to grow this sub group into a major success and yeah can’t forget the support given by Kiruba.

In December, Sushma and Deepthy got their first chance to organize an event thanks to Channa who supported them and helped them in every aspect. Sushma and Deepthy are one of those organizers who always wanted to do something big. I am sure soon they will be handling major chunk of responsibility in BTC.

By end of 2013, we had 77* events, 1,925* members, 2,681* fans on Facebook, 363* members in BTC WOW group on Facebook and a total of 1,209* members participated in various events. BTC founded as cost sharing group and will always be like that, our main motto is to explore the nature. We will try to get involve in more and more Social events, Biking events, Cycling events and WOW events from 2014.

Special thanks to Chaitanya, Meghraj, Ajita, Ruwise, Dinesh, Anthony, Shruti, Channa, Santosh, Sangmesh, Kiruba, Abhishek, Deepthy & Sushma. Thanks to BTCians who were always there for us.

May every day of the new year glow with good cheer & happiness for you and your family. Happy New Year!!!

*: stats as per 31th Dec, 2013.

Written by   : Virander Sirohi

Founded by  : Virander Sirohi & Chaitanya Kumar Adusumilli

Founded on  : 4th Jan, 2013

URLs            : BTC Website, Facebook Page, BTC WOW Group