This years Tuck tournament was planned to be a special one, never was the team more prepared, more skilful  or even more sexy, thanks to the new team kit. JMSB Grad FC had two teams competing in the Concordia Dome league with one making it to the final, all was looking promising. New players were recruited over the year to give the team a strength in depth never before seen. We were ready for battle!

The tournament got off to a promising start, JMSB taking the lead twice against IPADE from Mexico, including a screamer of a goal by Vince Ferrara. IPADE crawled back into the game to make it 2-2 and eventually won thanks to a lucky free kick which was awarded to them thanks to a Neal Kierans vengeance tackle.

JMSB Grad FC had to pick themselves up after a bruising defeat, but were up against the Champions and eventual winners, Tuck. The lack of green soccer fields in Montreal during Spring and Winter showed as Tuck defeated JMSB like a well oiled machine. With the final game against MIT the last opportunity to salvage some pride the JMSB team gave it 110% on the field and battled as if it was the game to end games. It was looking promising after Rodrigo Villareal scored arguably the goal of the tournament, but JMSB succumbed to lack of 11 vs 11 experience and lost 2-1. It was a harsh result considering the brave and courageous performance by the members of JMSB Grad FC, who gave it their all. Despite the results, the players left the field with their heads held high having done the team and JMSB proud after their display of passion, commitment and endurance throughout the gruelling competition.

After playing hard on the field, the team played even harder off it when they licked their wounds and partied that night. There must have been a cattle massacre considering the copious amount of beef consumed by the team at the Tuck BBQ. After drinking Tuck dry the team headed to the only bar in town to continue the festivities where they met the match referees who joined them in the fun. 

While JMSB didn’t put any points on the board, they won a lot of points with everyone who was involved in the tournament. The team was a credit to the school and made a lot friends that weekend. May our love hate relationship with the Tuck tournament continue, but next time, having made great inroads this year, we will be stronger and better than before.

“Uno – Dos – Tres – JMSB!!!”

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Come join us and watch the Champions League final at MVP on May 25th – It will be mad craic!!

https://www.facebook.com/events/148640131984097/

If you would like to buy a JMSB Grad FC jersey please fill out the link below. An order will be made if enough people want one

https://sites.google.com/site/jmsbgradfcjersey/

MBA610 students had a Dragons Den style event where they were pitted against each other and needed to sway the public to vote for their brilliant ideas. Each team had their own booth where they informed and charmed the electorate, to prove why they were on the cusp of revolutionising their respective industries. 

The event was absolutely buzzing with excitement and creativity, which was testament to the passion displayed by all the MBA610 students who took part in the amazing event, and also to Dr. LeBel who brought a new competitive aspect to MBA610.

Congratulations to Hana, Katie, Elliot, Mariane and Marina who were part of the winning team ”InCharge” whose recharging hub for public spaces captured the imagination of the electorate. 

Round up, round up! The most awesomeness event of the year is around the corner!

Are you tired of studying late nights? Are you hallucinating? Are you getting obsessed with the letter “A”? Is the job market scarier than Kim Jong-Un? Well the JMGSA has the perfect remedy for you!!! The End of Year Gala is the best way to let yourself go and realize again how awesome the real world is.

This year’s event is “Mad Men” themed, which gives everyone the excuses to dress up as classy as they wish and drink an “Old Fashioned”. The End of Year Gala is not just about the end of the term or even the end of the year, for many it’s the end of the road as a JMSB Graduate student. The Gala is therefore the quintessential way to bring to an end the experience of a lifetime.

So, whether you wish to dance like Peggy, dress like Betty, or drink like Don, the End of year Gala is the perfect send off after a perfect year, and what better way to end it than with the people who made that possible.

Tickets can be bought through the JMGSA team or online through http://jmgsagala.eventbrite.ca/

Can’t wait to see you there!

Neal

https://www.facebook.com/events/428279427262649/?fref=ts

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I hope you all had a restful holiday and have had a good start to 2013. It’s already been an eventful start to the year with the MBA International Case Competition. Kudos to the entire organizing team (Simon, Kartik, Caroline and Rahmy) as well as their executive assistants (Katie, Dmitri, Dave, Rana and Rebecca) for raising the bar yet again for the most prestigious international case competition of its kind. As a member of the competing JMSB team, I can tell you that the participants were spoiled and it was nice to know that everything was taken care of for us. The MBA and M.Sc. Societies also held orientations for new students who just started in January. Welcome to all our new classmates, we wish you a successful first term! All of the other club presidents are furiously working away at numerous events and initiatives for YOU so make sure to regularly check the JMGSA Facebook page as well as First Class for news!

WINTER CHALET TRIP

First up is the Chalet Trip this weekend, we have rented the Chalet du Rocher in Val-des-Lacs where we will have a hot tub, pool table and the JMGSA Executives at your service. As usual, we’ll be cooking up a storm so get ready for some home cooked goodness as you get to know your fellow graduate students. 

The cost for JMSB graduate students is $50. Register here.

As the term goes on, we will make sure to post notices on this blog about upcoming events also. Have a great term and make sure to get involved! I promise you it is worth it.

Happy studying!

Cedrin Law
President, JMGSA

The competition is open to all business and finance graduate students. We are looking to get a team together by January 17 and would love to see students from different programs get involved.

Some details on the competition…

Qualifying Round:  Fri, February 1st to Fri, February 8th 2013

During this round, each team will be emailed the 1 page qualifying case profiling a small cap investment opportunity.  Teams will be required to evaluate the security using qualitative and qualitative measures, make and defend a recommendation of Hold or Sell your position in the firm.  You will be required to provide a two-page report summarizing your analysis and recommendation. Key to your success will be your team’s ability to take into account the long term, value approach to investing in small capitalized global securities that drives small cap investors like Van Berkom & Associates. Our judges for this round will include senior investment analysts. We will announce the top nine teams selected by our qualifying round judges no later than February 15th. These teams will be invited to compete in the Van Berkom JMSB Case Competition.

Live round: March 22-23 2013

If you are interested, please send the following to nikoleta.tsoflikis@gmail.com by January 15:

- A copy of your CV/Resume

- A list of finance courses and relevant portfolio management/investment experience (e.g. CFA candidates)

            – A BRIEF statement about why you want to participate and what you can bring to the JMSB team.

I’m honoured to be  a part of the team that is competing in the 2013 JMSB MBA International Case Competition at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel. We’ve been here for one day and already every school here has seen the fantastic job that the organizers, executives and volunteers have done. It is going to be an exhausting, but rewarding week where all participants are going to learn a lot, and get to meet great people including other competitors, volunteers, judges and sponsors.

Our team is excited and pumped to start preparation for our first case today. This year, the organizers have raised the bar yet again for the competition by developing an app (for both iOS and Android devices). This is a great way to keep up to date on the schedules and scores throughout the week. I encourage all of you to download the app! It’s what our team is going to be using constantly throughout the week. The app can be downloaded here.

JMSB SCHEDULE: ROUND-ROBIN (CASE 1 TO 5)

JMSB has been assigned to the Bombardier Division with the following schools for the round-robin:

• Muenster (Germany)
• Dusseldorf (Germany)
• Aalto (Finland)
• Purdue (US)
• Manitoba (Canada)

The case matchups can be found here. Below you’ll see the schedule for the first five case presentations, we hope to see you all there!

Monday

• Case 1 (vs Dusseldorf) - JMSB Presentation Time: 3:40pm in the CAE Room

Tuesday

• Case 2 (vs Muenster) – JMSB Presentation Time: 11:00am in the Bombardier Room
• Case 3 (vs Manitoba) - JMSB Presentation Time: 5:05pm in the EDC Room

Wednesday

• Case 4 (vs Aalto), Live Case – JMSB Presentation Time: 2:25 pm in the CAE Room

Thursday

• Case 5 (vs Purdue) - JMSB Presentation Time: 11:35 in the Bombardier Room

Now time to get some breakfast and try to get rid of some of these butterflies in my stomach… Go team!

Cedrin Law, JMGSA President

The Fall term was brilliant! We welcomed in the newbies – who are awesome! The soccer team thrashed the faculty staff – awesome! Partied at numerous JMGSA and MBA events – awesome! Went to my first chalet trip – awesome! Turned 30! – not so awesome!

So looking forward to 2013!!

To kick off the term will be the party to end all parties! The John Molson International Case Competition is going to be brilliant! If you are a volunteer for it, prepare yourself over the holiday period! No better way to start 2013! I know the organisers have an amazing week planned so hopefully I will see you there at some stage (hint hint I’ll be a bartender in the hospitality suite).

Also, best of luck to the JMSB MBA Case Comp team! Alain, Julia, Cedrin, Matt Fishman and Matt Starek make up the star-studded case comp team. The guys have brilliant chance of taking back the trophy. I’ll be there cheering them on until i go hoarse at the ICC – hope to see you there too!!

On January 23rd we will have our first event for the JMGSA Speaker Series. We will be welcoming Louis Vachon, CEO of National Bank, to JMSB, who will be giving a talk and there will be a cocktail after. Tickets will be limited and will go on sale during 1st week of semester. Keep an eye out on facebook and on the JMGSA blog for further details. 

Chalet trip is sorted for January 25-27! Want to know why being a JMSB Grad student is so awesome! Go to this event!! I highly encourage all current and new students to go!!! Its the perfect baptism of fire for all newbies! It will help you integrate into your program and add an extra layer of awesomeness to your JMSB grad experience!!!

Tonight is the MBA Christmas dinner, for those who are going, hope you have a great evening fuelled with delicious food and tasty cocktails!! Text me yeah if you go for pints after!!!!!

On that note…

Hope you all have a brilliant and festive holiday period! May you eat excessively and drink wisely-ish!

See you in 2013 for another best year of your life!!

Neal – VP of Academics

The 10 students who are part of Tim Field’s Case Competition Class completed their last case presentation last week and are eagerly awaiting the announcement of the 5-person team that will represent JMSB at the MBA ICC. Stay tuned for news on Thursday evening.

THE JMGSA IS RECRUITING EXECUTIVE ASSISTANTS

Do you want to get involved and contribute to the graduate student experience at JMSB? The JMGSA is currently recruiting executive assistants for Events, Communications and Case Competitions. We are looking for driven individuals who are action oriented with strong organizational skills. Responsibilities for the positions are briefly described below.

Events Executive Assistant

• Work with VP Events to organize logistics and execute JMGSA events
• Coordinate events with clubs and associations

Communications Executive Assistant

• Work with VP Communications to manage all JMGSA communication channels
• Assist with promotion of events and activities for JMSB graduate students
• Maintenance of the jmgsa.ca website (WordPress experience is an asset)

Case Competition Executive Assistant

• Work with VP Case Competition to organize logistics and manage finances for teams being sent to case competitions

Get involved and apply to be part of great team! Please send your CV and a brief e-mail stating which position you wish to apply for and what you feel you can contribute to the JMGSA to president@jmgsa.ca. The deadline to apply is Monday, December 3^rd, 2012 by 10:00pm.

It’s hard to believe but the end of the term is almost here. As all of our students prepare for finals and planning for 2013, we have some exciting news to share with you. Dean Harvey has allocated funds to be used specifically for graduate case competitions! Before this, graduate case competitions were funded on an ad hoc basis or, for Ethics Competitions, through the Miriam Rowland fellowship in Business Ethics. This made it challenging for teams to be put together with enough time to adequately prepare and train with their coaches.

With this committed funding, we will now be able to proactively plan out the competitions that JMSB will be attending and increase the preparation time for teams to hone their skills. This also allows us the ability to send non-MBA students to case competitions as well (i.e. the HEC International Business Competition and the Van Berkom-JMSB Case Competition). 

To further demonstrate our commitment to case competitions, I’m pleased to announce the following changes:

• The VP Case Competition, Nikoleta Tsoflikis, currently a position in the MBA Society, will now be directly under the JMGSA umbrella. Nikki and an executive (to be recruited), will be responsible for scheduling the case competitions that JMSB will participate in, recruit students to put together teams, and manage the case competition budget with assistance from the JMGSA.

This new case competition program is being supported by Tim Field, Lecturer for JMSB and coach for numerous case competition teams including the MBA ICC team. The approval for this funding was in large part due to his guidance and support. A special thanks also goes out to Matthew Fishman and Rabia Khan who helped to draft the proposal submitted to Dean Harvey.

The JMGSA gratefully acknowledges the funding provided by Dean Harvey and JMSB Administration to further enrich the experiences of our graduate students. This commitment to students contributes to the quality of the JMSB Graduate Student experience and will help build long-lasting relationships with students long after they graduate.

We look forward to updating you about the performance of our case competition teams over the next few months.

Regards,

Cedrin Law
President, JMGSA

This year, we’re told that there are 1,297 graduate students registered at JMGSA (btw we are expecting %100 participation at our next chalet trip). The JMGSA is allotted $48 per student for the year and so, loosely speaking, we are working with $62,250. I say loosely because, while we are working hard to get our hands on other sources of funding,  we also have to worry about fixed expenses that we have no control over that will reduce this amount substantially. This $48 is funded entirely by YOUR tuition, so its important to participate in the events that our student body works hard to organize.

And while the JMGSA is here to help and support all graduate students, clubs and societies in any way that we can, the reality is that we are working with finite resources. There are plenty of other organizations that can help you fulfill your mandate or your initiatives this year. Both the GSA and Alumni Association offer financial support to graduates and of course there is plenty of corporate cash out there that you can try to get your hands on!

Stay tuned for more JMGSA finance updates so that you know where your money is going!

Vince