An interesting Afternoon

From food to Insurance? 

So my blog is all about food,  then why am I writing this post which is mostly unrelated to food. Here is why. I got an invitation to an event a couple of days back and to be fair my first instinct to participate was to meet the Kolkata Food Bloggers' gang but then I realized it is basically a survey, well that was the impression. Now I have to confess that I work as a freelancer with Qualitative market Research and the prospect of being on the other side of the table (where you view your opinions instead of in depth probed questioning seemed unnaturally attractive to me and well I thankfully have my next project starting from tomorrow) and so I was getting ready when I messaged my fellow blogger to confirm her participation and alas she unfortunately could not and my first instinct was to cancel it but then I had RSVPs and it felt wrong to cancel it and so I went.

Now I neither have much knowledge about insurance nor am I a fan of a certain Mr/Tendulkar only because I have zero interest in cricket but I shall share my experience.

The friendly discussion as I am calling it took place at Hotel Kennilworth and on arriving at the reception I was directed to the room in question and a very friendly woman introduced herself as the person working with the PR department of Aviva.  Now the people from Aviva were warm and even though we were supposed to start at 12:30 we started a bit late since some of my fellow bloggers came a bit late.

So once the discussion began it was clear that we were encouraged to give our opinion to make insurance fun with regards to Sacin Tendulkar as the brand ambassador. From what I understood Aviva mostly focuses on Child Insurance Plans. Now after a very interesting day I have to say that while I shall probably stick to food alone from next time my day was not a complete wastage and her is why.

When you participate in certain discussions you automatically gather a lot of knowledge. So there are plenty of insurances in the market and for a woman in her mid twenties who freelances insurance is probably the last thing on her mind but what I got to learn interested me

Did you know about Aviva's book donation campaign. This is a campaign everybody knows about but the most interesting of facts for me was to learn that this particular company is one of the first insurance companies of the world. Now you might say all this information is anyways available over the internet but then again how many of us actually read about Insurance firms.

From the discussion what stuck with me was the social work which Aviva actively does and that has impressed me a lot.

There was even a little contest and quite frankly it was a lot of fun. There was a nice lunch served as well where the people from Aviva actively engaged in conversations making the event a truly informal and lovely one instead of a typical survey because this event was clearly much more than that  .

We went home with a biography of Sachin Tendulkar and an autographed framed picture of the Indian Cricket team before Tendulkar retired.

Now while I quite frankly am not their target blogger I would really love if such events are organized irrespective of whether I participate or not and here is why :-

1. We need respite from our daily routine and many of us blog as a hobby and so such events not only make ti a fun day for us but it widens one's social circle if one wants 
2. If you have free time and are bored of your books, movies music you remain busy and well an idle mind is the devil's workshop so being busy is probably quite nice. 
3. Quite honestly in my opinion our voices in society are most of the times never ever heard and to voice one's thoughts (even if it pertains to a particular subject matter) is a very satisfying feeling. It gives you immense emotional satisfaction. 

While I cannot really recommend the brand since I do not understand anything about insurance,  a brand which has lasted over 300 years is probably worth trusting.