Note From President Shernaz Vakil
THE LAST HURRAH
From Covid-induced brain fog to a Parisian hurrah it’s been a roller-coaster of a year.
The pandemic played hide-and-seek with our members and projects not allowing us to operate as we normally would have done.
Since then, it’s been a frantic race to revive, renew and re-vitalise our mandates with the communities we serve.
I have truly enjoyed this frantic catch-up, as we packed in what we could in the last five months.
It’s been both a joy and a challenge to lead the Club this year, the joy has come from doing many meaningful acts of service that warm the heart; and the challenge of course from our particularly difficult pandemic-induced shutdowns and the effect they had on so many people around us.
At the beginning of the year, my greatest fear was how and where to collect the funds that are required to service so many of the projects we do at RCB.
I needn’t have worried, I got so much support from everywhere including PP Ramesh Narayan and PP Arun Sanghi both very spontaneously going out and collecting funds for some of our legacy projects.
I strongly believe that it was providence itself that brought a lot of funding to the Club. It was almost like I would conceive of doing something, and the funds would appear very soon after. I really never had to say NO to anyone as money would suddenly appear and most of the requests for help were met almost immediately.
This year our focus has been on serving the people most in need, giving them the basics they have been denied, whilst
giving them the tools to help themselves.
We have tried to address the inequities we see in society, making it our social responsibility to support the disadvantaged, through meaningful and sustainable projects.
Of course, our most successful intervention has been our ability to pivot solar power to provide the basic necessities to our rural folk.
The other is to educate and empower women of a neglected community to stand up and speak for themselves. Now, with our Chalaang initiative with the Vaidu children, we will transform and unburden their lives by showing them a world of hope and possibilities.
We ended up winning a District Award for the highest growth in membership and a Dream Platinum Club Award for Rs 14 crore in projects, USD 3,27,000 (Rs 2.5 crore) in TRF (the highest giving among 111 Rotary Clubs in Mumbai as on June 25th, 2022) and Rs 2 crore in Global Grant making it a total of Rs 19 crore.
The culmination of the year with the Nuit de Gratitude was a big bang bash to compensate for the very few parties we
could have during the year.
The themed evening brought in the crowds as I thanked the team to a packed audience.
The romantic French music the great backdrops (courtesy Rtn. Khurshed Poonawala) and the “look & feel” of an evening in Paris, set the mood for a fun night.
RCB was happy and free that evening, celebrating, meeting, and cheering the year that was.
Thank you, RCB, for celebrating with me.
My most grateful thanks to PP Dr. Mukesh Batra, my additional director, who held my hand and led me through some difficult days.
At the Nuit, I thanked all my Directors, Trustees, Chairs and the team that made my year meaningful.
I once again thank the Shukriya Zealots, Khurshed, Rhea, Fali, Avaan and Zinia for their support for the evening and,
especially, Freyan Bhathena of Word It Well and Alpana Lath of The Narrators without whom the video and bulletin would never have seen light of day.
It is with a sigh of relief I sign off, wishing PE Vineet Bhatnagar & DGE Sandip Agarwalla a watershed year ahead!
— President Shernaz Vakil
