AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 6 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 193 of 332 events since Sep 2020 are hosted there forever. As on date, our Channel enjoys a Subscriber base of 225. Digitization of Old Newsletters It was all very well to have resumed publication of the Newsletters, but the Team still felt a void. The infectious passion with which some of the pioneer members of AFVOA had sustained the Newsletters between the Year 2000 till 2014 stood out like a beacon of inspiration. It then occurred to us that a fitting tribute could be paid to the selfless efforts of the pioneer members by digitizing the old Newsletters and making them online. While the low hanging fruit of capturing the images and placing them online was available, the approach suffered from the inherent problem of non-searchability. As is its wont, we chose the more complex and the user- friendly approach of achieving searchability of content through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology with a 99% accuracy level. Bingo! 72 of the 80 Newsletters, published between the year 2000 and 2014, comprising 1,020 pages are online now in our website! We doff our hats to the pioneer members’ ability to inspire the next generation of Office Bearers even after many years. As inveterate optimists, we are still hopeful of completing the digitization of the missing 8 Newsletters, as soon as they become available. Digitization of “Hello Veterans” Directory The pioneer members had truly understood the guiding spirit of camaraderie among the veterans of Chennai and had painstakingly launched our first hard copy of the local veterans’ directory for the first time in 1995, and followed it up with 4 more versions over the years. While compiling the data and printing them would have consumed humongous effort, the successive Managing Committee members made personal efforts to reach the Directory to all the members individually. The well designed Directory, adorning the members’ Drawing Rooms was a source of envy of veterans settled elsewhere in the Country. The Directory is a perfect example of the missionary zeal and steadfastness of the successive Managing Committee members. Team Vartha truly felt that the only way to pay rich tributes to the efforts put in by the previous Managing Committee members is to digitize the