BACKGROUND

A brief history of our Association:

BE College Alumni Association UK

This is probably where it started - The Centenary Reunion of the Bengal Engineering College, Shibpur was held in the Mahatma Gandhi Hall, YMCA, London in the year 1956.   A group photograph of this event will be displayed here. (Debajyoti to note)

The proud owner of this photograph is Mrityunjoy Banerjee, our current president of the Association.  However, it would appear that there was no regularity of the reunion celebrations in those days. This could be confirmed or otherwise by Alma Mater residing in the UK since 50s to early 60s. I arrived in the UK in March, 1966 and attended the reunion held in Earls Court, London. In that era a very small group of enthusiastic ex-students of the College used to organise reunion celebrations in the London region. Amongst others Nitaidas Bose and Sarbajit Guha were very active members in those days. Both of them still attend reunion regularly.

I had an opportunity to help organising the reunion in 1971. It was bit unconventional. We organised a coach trip to have a picnic lunch in the New Forest, followed by reunion dinner in a hotel in Christ Church, Hampshire. The whole trip was very enjoyable.

In the later years I recall attending two reunion functions, one in 1973  and the other in 1974, both were held at South West London. Up till then Sarabjit Guha was one of the main organisers; he later left to take up an assignment in Beirut.  I have no recollection of any reunion being held since then till 1992 when Satya Shankar Ray (CE 1964) took the initiative to organise a reunion meeting in a hall in Swiss Cottage. To the best of my recollection Ray’s initiatives were admirably supported by many, amongst them were Mrityunjoy Banerjee, Biman Ghosh, and Dilip Ray, who are also members of the current Committee.  By all accounts it was an admirable initiative.  However, reunion celebrations were stopped after 1996, mainly because Satya Shankar lost interest and later, he left UK.
Then the turning point came in the year of 1998.  A few senior Alumni like Mrityunjoy Banerjee, Nirmal Dasgupta, Bipul Bardhanroy, and myself; revitalised the process by holding the 1998 Reunion Meeting in London Kings College Sports Ground. 

This was a ground breaking meeting as we all agreed to register the Alumni as a registered entity and open a bank account.  We also, in this meeting, set a Membership Fee of £5.   For the first time a steering committee for the Alumni was created and we held the Annual General Meeting, although there were general meetings of other sorts during previous Reunion Meetings.  From here on the reunion endeavours of the Association were sustained by the committee members like Dhiren Das, Pushpasis Sen, Joydeb Nandi, Dilip Ray, Sudip Mazumdar, Sandip Maitra, Sibdas Chakraborti and others.  The Reunion has now become an annual event although the attendance has always remained a sore point with the organisers. The most encouraging news is that a few young Alumni graduated in 90s have joined the Committee recently.

In the year 2000, we held the Millennium Reunion and to commemorate the occasion we handed out a bone china plate souvenir designed with College Clock Tower to all participants.   In the year 2007 we successfully celebrated the 150th Anniversary of the B.E. College by holding the Reunion at the historic York House, Richmond, Surrey.   For the first time we were able to get sponsorship monies to support our endeavours.

The Alumni to us, is a small family and nothing is more important than to keep the family intact, in good health and without recriminations.  We tread this path with the support and well wishes of you all, that is the Members of the Association.

Nandalal Ghosh (CE1963)