President’s Message
Fellow Rotarians,
A year ago at my ‘Installation’ function at the Taj, I delivered my “acceptance speech”, outlining our goals and tasks, to be accomplished during my year as President of our great Club.
Twelve short months later, the time has arrived to review our progress and for me to shortly demit office.
This for me, has been a year full of happiness, meeting people and learning. I have been very fortunate to have received so much affection and amazing support.
I must admit that I was a bit sceptical on certain aspects. However, I soon learnt that my worries were much unfounded.
I received guidance from my “Think Tank” (PP Rtn. Ramesh Narayan, Rtn. Pradeep Chinai, Rtn. Ashok Jatia and my better half – Gautam), and also from several of the members from time to time. I have been very fortunate and blessed to receive the continuous support and guidance of our Board, our Trustees, Past Presidents and members. One only had to reach out and the assistance was there.
The formal preparations for the year began with our off-site at Rtn. Ashok Jatia’s Rhythm Resorts (“home away from home”, as I call it). The sessions were very encouraging – with directors and incoming chairpersons coming together to draw up plans and a roadmap for the year, particularly our goals for the various community service projects. The overnight trip included discussions on the Club’s plans for the year, but the seriousness was balanced out with fellowship, fun, music and dance during the breaks and in the evening.
My main focus was to further enhance our community projects and try to bring about and exploit the ‘synergy’ potential.
While the Scholarship Committee continued its efforts of further supporting our Bhavishya Yaan (BY) and Night Study children, the Skill Development Committee is working on creating a database for our BY kids, conducting aptitude tests and providing guidance to them for their career options once they pass their SSC.
And then Covid-19 happened a few months ago, and cast its long shadow over India too.
Still the synergies continued in the Covid-19 Relief efforts. The Bhavishya Yaan, Ananda Yaan and Child Welfare Committees worked with the Covid-19 Relief Committee in reaching out to feed people, focusing on relief to the needy beneficiaries of their respective projects. The Animal Welfare Committee too made their contribution with helping feed the helpless and abandoned strays.
Our Bhavishya Yaan Committee, as usual, believes in outdoing themselves and they have done it once again. The students’ excellent SSC results with a near 100% pass percentage were commendable. I am delighted to see that our BY children are well on the path of getting a better life and to forge ahead.
Ananda Yaan still continues to provide some hours of succour, joy and happiness to the senior underprivileged poor, in the twilight of their lives.
Apart from various other activities, some of the key highlights were, the effective media campaign and an infotainment evening for senior citizens, both the brain childs of our PP Rtn. Ramesh Narayan.
The Child Welfare Committee had an eventful year with learning combined with fun to ensure all-round development. The distribution of nutritious food to the street children of Salaam Baalak Foundation Centre at Chowpatty was a new initiative to celebrate the birthdays of our members.
I am so very grateful and indebted to the children of Machchimaar Nagar for having made my 60th birthday a very special one, spent in their company with our Rotarians, Rotary Partners, my family and some of my dear school friends. This one will remain etched in memory for life.
At Talwada, the ADMC celebrated its 20th year by inaugurating a new Well Baby Clinic, a television set and a cable connection to play educational videos and cartoons for the children visiting in the OPD, a new playground for children and upgrading the terrace to make the same more usable. I personally continue to admire PP Rtn. (Dr.) Rahim Muljiani and PP Rtn. (Dr.) Rumi Jehangir for their immense dedication and their work at PRVEC. We also are indeed extremely proud of the RCB Medical Centre at Cotton Green, in a standalone building graciously provided by Bombay Cotton Merchants and Muccadam’s Association, where over 6,000 underprivileged patients were served this year.
Much of India lacks clean drinking water and the Water Resources Committee’s efforts to make this available in the interiors of Vidarbha are truly commendable.
Saving the lives of our little hearts through Paediatric Heart Surgeries is another need of the hour. Our Club’s outreach in this area has been significant thanks to the multiplier benefit through our Global Grants.
The upgradation of the ENT and Urology Departments at Masina Hospital is yet another significant contribution by us towards the improvement of our healthcare system and its availability for the needy.
The Cancer Aid Committee’s efforts in the area of cancer awareness, screening camps and treatment are very appreciable.
The Gender Equality Committee continues to play a meaningful and an important role in women’s empowerment and has always had my support.
A new project, and one of the very many close to my heart, was rolled out this year. The Integrated Rural Development Project by the Environment Committee in four Villages to address the needs of solar power, water, toilet blocks and education. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “The future of India lies in its villages” I believe this to be a very meaningful and effective long term solution for rural development and in avoiding migration – the pain of migrants and their suffering and hardships was witnessed in the Covid-19 crisis.
Our Rotaract and Interact Clubs too, as always, have done incredible work this year. It is a pleasure to see their continued enthusiasm and dedication as the future generation in service of society.
Besides service, our Club is also known for its fun activities. A line up of sports activities included soccer followed by the Bhavishya Yaan XI vs the Rotary Club of Bombay President’s XI and the Thirteenth Annual Golf Tournament for the Trophy instituted by the Biswas family in 2008.
We lost our dear Sitaramji Shah, who always will be remembered for his dedication to yoga and its spread. The success of our Yoga Committee has been thanks to the leadership and guidance of Sitaramji.
Our Vocational Training Centre in partnership with YMCA made additional and exceptional efforts this year by introducing additional courses organising a two day personality development workshop to focus on positive attitude, body language and confidence building followed by a Job Fair.
The Night Study Centres saw growth with the opening of five new NSC classes, expanding our reach. The NSC students benefited from the Rotary scholarships and enjoyed the CCI Christmas party and the Annual Get-Together.
The Urban Heritage Committee’s efforts towards conservation of our heritage structures, including rare books and maps are admirable.
The Fellowship and Assimilation Committee were simply outstanding in giving us a delightful and unforgettable year with fun-filled fellowships. Members enjoyed a memorable and fun fellowship trip to Pondicherry and Mahabalipuram in July/August, 2019, followed by a trip abroad to Uzbekistan in November, 2019. The cancellation of the South America trip in March this year was rather unfortunate, necessitated due to the global pandemic. The same may hopefully be undertaken some time in the next Rotary Year.
The In-Camera Committee again hosted some excellent interactive fellowship meetings, graced by outstanding speakers touching upon interesting and engrossingly informative topics.
The Young at Heart Committee is made up of our seniors who, as the name suggests, continue to surprise us with their abundant zeal and spirit.
The Public Awards Committee did a commendable job in selecting well deserving personalities as Awardees. It was truly an honour and privilege for our Club to recognise and honour these eminent individuals for their service to society.
Thanks to the efforts and hard work of Rtn Farhat Jamal and the Programme Committee, our weekly meetings featured an outstanding line up of wonderful, eminent and distinguished speakers and topics.
The Bulletin, Website and Social Media Committee did an amazing and fabulous job by giving our Gateway a new and energised look, adding style, constantly updating information on our website and social media, all of which received increased attention and mileage from across the world.
Thanks to our Sergeant-at-Arms our weekly meetings were orderly, dignified, and effective.
Our fund-raiser at the NCPA in August, 2019, with an energetic and charged-up Sonu Nigam performing, was an excellent event so well organised by our enthusiastic team of Rotarians. Our overall fund raising for the Club projects, as also, our contributions towards TRF have been encouraging and admirable, despite the economic downturn, the Covid-19 situation, and lock-down.
In this past year, unfortunately and sadly 4 of our members passed away. We have taken a fairly conservative approach in inducting members and have added a total of 8 new members; all of whom we hope will make great contributions to the Club, resulting in our total Club strength of 322. We started the year at an average age of 59 and end it at 56.8.
The average attendance of our Club for the year was 52.5%. Meetings were conducted over Zoom Conferencing due to the pandemic. Initially, attendance was low but we have seen an increase in the number of attendees of these virtual meetings.
Club Assemblies were lively and interactive and all our projects were well reported, well received and much appreciated.
Our PP Ramesh Narayan deserves a special mention for enhancing our Club’s public image, as also for the wonderful initiatives in the area of Elder Care and the Elder Awareness Campaign, both for our Club and the our Rotary District 3141.
I must acknowledge and recognise the exemplary work done by Past President Sandip Agarwalla, Immediate Past President Vijay Jatia, President Elect Framroze Mehta and President Nominee Shernaz Vakil supported by the rest of the team for the Covid-19 Relief activities – – and to implement this in a lock-down situation was a very challenging and humongous task. Well done.
Once again, our heartiest congratulations to PP Sandip for being appointed DGND 2022-23.
Championing one of the key Rotary beliefs that children are our future and they deserve a better world than what we had, the “Chhoti Si Asha” fund-raiser on 28th June, 2020 focused and committed to immediate relief projects as well as the creation of long-term projects in the area of nutrition, health, education and skill development and other projects of our Club. Amongst others, I thank Sabbas Joseph, Wizcraft and Rotary India for the partnership.
In a nutshell, I would say with great pride that our Club, thanks as always to all of you, has excelled itself in community service and again proven that we are capable, motivated, dedicated and will forge ahead, whatever be the circumstances.
I have had a demanding, but a very rewarding year, with many memorable moments which I will always treasure and cherish.
I thank you all for your support over the past year and for giving me this once in life-time opportunity to lead our very distinguished Club. I thoroughly enjoyed my time and tenure as our President. My support and efforts for our Club will always continue.
I wish incoming President Framroze and his new team continued success.
Preeti Mehta
President