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Saturday, November 10, 2007

Inauguration of the clinic (II) - The run-up to the opening

The actual inauguration was held on Sunday the 21st of October, 2007. To be honest, we had to rush through the last three or four days' work of renovation to meet the deadline for the opening. I tried to send out phone invites and also invitation cards to as many relatives, friends, doctor-associates, other colleagues and contacts, as possible. In the end, this effort involved cooperation from my children, my wife, a few of my close friends, my employees, the internet (since many of the invites went by email), the phone service (which, gratefully, did not let me down most of the time, though the landlines were more reliable than the mobiles), the postal service (since over 75 invites went by post - this one was a dampener, as later on, I learned that at least 14-15 invitees got their invitations after the event was over!) ... and some others too.

On the penultimate day, I sat down to run through the lis
t of all the things that had to be done/were done:

-sending out invitations and following those that were sent by post with a phone call wherever possible
-checking and cross-checking the invites to see that I didn't miss anyone or to confirm that the phones had indeed been made
-calling up the people who were going to erect a "pandal" (
a sort of shaded verandah on the sidewalk outside my clinic) and tell them to erect it that very night
-confirming with the icecream supplier the order for 500 ice
-creams
-running after the carpenter, plumber, painter, varnisher, electrician, glass-vendor, mason, etc. and seeing to the completion of the
ir final work in time for the opening
-installing a fish tank (the vendor also brought water in two large plastic bags from his home and filled the tank! He brought the fish on Sunday morning at nine o'clock and made the tank complete!)
-seeing to it that the florist keeps the floral festoon ready to apply it to the front of the main board the next morning
-seeing to it that the board maker fixes the main board and the side board outside the clinic's main door


... plus a zillion other tasks!

In the event, is it a surprise that a few people did get left out, a few tasks did remain incomplete and a few mistakes did occur? :-)

Here are a few pictures of the clinic on Sunday
morning, before the guests began to arrive:





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