We Are The Champions
As DG Harjit Singh Talwar congratulated the Rotary Club of Bombay for a job well done these past years and outlined the path ahead, an air of pride and determination dominated RCB’s Tuesday meeting last week
AT THE OUTSET
let me congratulate and compliment all the Past Presidents of this Club, 90 years’ service to the community, guidance and support to the leadership of the Club and all incoming team members. They are the strength who have noted, guided, inspired and ensured that the Club stands tall today not just in District 3141 but in the world of Rotary International. My compliments to all Past President and incoming leaders of this Club.
Friends, over the last 10- 10½ months, if the District has been administered effectively and efficiently it is not because of the District Governor or the District core team it is because of the people who have volunteered to give their time and talent towards the effective functioning of the District. Due to paucity of time, I will not read out the names but at least 15-18 people from your Club represent in the District. My gratitude and thanks to them for helping us to do what we have done in the last 10 months. Abhinav, Abhishek, Alok, Freyaz, Gul, Kalpana, Mukesh, Nandan, Nirav, Paul, Pradeep Gupta, Pradeep Saxena, Ramesh, Sandip, Manish, Vijay, Sunita, I think I have read all the name if I have missed out any, please excuse me but a big thank you to all of you for the support in administering the District in the last 10 and half months.
We had wonderful, interactive, closed-door meeting about half an hour before the meeting with the board of directors, both the current ones and a few incoming ones. I must compliment all the directors for the wonderful presentation they gave of their respective avenues which give a true insight into the great work that has been done by all of you in the first 10 and half months of Rotary year.
Rotary Club of Bombay is an institution. In the Rotary World, District 3141 has a pride of place and people look up to us in awe and inspiration for what we do. Taking that further, Rotary Club of Bombay has the pride of place in District 3141 for the great work it does in touching lives. My compliments to all the directors who did the wonderful presentations. I’ll just touch upon a few important aspects.
One matter of concern was the average age of members in the Rotary Club of Bombay which most agree needs to be younger and possibly take them as a group so that they bond well with the seniors in the Club. A good catchment area for this could be your Rotaractors, especially from the community-based Rotaract Clubs. You can try to give them special incentives by way of discounts in their membership in the first few years of membership.
I would like to compliment and congratulate a few people from your Club for their tremendous support: Sandip Agarwalla, group Avenue Head for the Teach vertical looking at literacy under the Rotary India literacy Mission. He has provided tremendous leadership and surpassed all the targets given to us; my congratulations and compliments to Sandip. In addition to that, he has also pioneered the water sanitation projects in the District. Not only has he taken the global brands, as mentioned by Preeti, head on in the Rotary Club of Bombay, he has also been a support to other partner clubs and taken the global grants forward. Thank you very much, Sandip, for your efforts.
Second is Ramesh Narayan: this man’s passion is unparalleled. The kind of work he has done regarding PR of Rotary in the last year is incomparable. We started with our association with the International Advertising Association wherein we developed a special campaign to sensitise our youth towards the need of our elders, a very successful campaign with the culmination of the awards function at Andheri where I was present. That the campaign received so much mileage that many of my Co-Governors from as far as Assam called to congratulate me and asked how much money we spent on it. They were not willing to believe me when I said that we had not spent a single penny. My compliments to you, Ramesh, for taking this so effectively, so far, in terms of its outreach.
Then we have our TRF ka Badshaah Nirav Shah: the man who eats, drinks, wakes, sleeps, walks Foundation. He has helped the District a great deal in terms of garnering funds for the foundation with his passion. Apart from this, contributing large sums of money to TRF to celebrate the weddings of Rotary children was a wonderful move, Nirav. Thank you very much Nirav.
The pride of TRF, Gulam Vahanvaty who is a TRF Trustee from our District. It is a matter of immense Pride for me to have two of our stalwarts, Gulam and Dr. Bharat Pandya as RI director donning important positions in the Rotary International and Rotary Foundation.
All of this plus over Rs four and a half crore on various response projects to Covid-19, be it medical supplies, awareness, ventilators, PPE, N95 mask, food packet distribution, grocery distribution, it is phenomenal.
We had a meeting with H’ble Health and Family Welfare Minister Mr. Harshvardhan, the Union Minister, over Zoom, which was presided over by our Rotary International President Nominee Shekhar Mehta; both the directors were there, Gulam was there, all the governors and governor elects, it was a proud moment for District 3141 and with me as a District Governor when the information was shared that as of April 18th, Rotary in India had spent Rs 101 crore in response to Covid. Now the figure must have more than doubled. Out of that, our District has spent more than Rs 12 crore. Imagine, there are 38 Districts in India and our District 3141 alone spent more than 12 per cent of the total amount as of that day. My compliments to all of you.
This is a great opportunity for Rotarians to interact with the governor one on one, unfortunately it’s not in person but virtual. Coming to Foundation, I would like to congratulate the Rotary Club of Bombay again for being in the forefront of generous, wholehearted, benevolent contributions to TRF for the last several years. Last year, under Vijay’s leadership, we contributed a sum of US$ 864,000 to TRF.
Rotary Club of Bombay has a pride of place when it comes to The Rotary Foundation. You have 11 AKS members from RCB and I am given to understand that this is the highest from any single club in the world.
Coming to Global Grants, I attended many inauguration functions at the Masina Hospital where you upgraded four-five facilities, spent a lot of money through global grants. You have four-five on-going global grants in the process of being closed and you have applied for another four, two directly and two in partnership with other clubs. Your total amount, Preeti, is close to US$ 433,000 US dollars and another US$ 164,000 is to go to the sanctioned global grants towards the Club’s contribution.
I also congratulate and compliment donors who contributed more than US$ 10,000 dollar in this Rotary year; Dilip Piramal, Meera Alreja, Rajas Doshi, Nirav Shah, Jetu Lalwani, Astra Industries, Nandan Damani and, of course, we have more than 30 members contributing generously between US$1000-3000. Sandip thought of the great idea of multiplying the funds that we receive through HDFC towards the pediatric heart surgery and to reach out to RCB members to contribute small sums of money, in multiples of a thousand dollars, to help children in need of heart surgery. Congratulations.
2020 is very special for the Rotary Club of Bombay and District 3141. First, we have a Trustee, PDG Gulam Vahanvaty who is a member of Rotary Club of Bombay. We are celebrating the 100th year of Rotary in India, which is special to celebrate and commemorate. RCB has 272 Paul Harris Fellows. So, can we take a challenge to make Rotary Club of Bombay a hundred per cent PHF Club? It will be a great honor to achieve it.
Second is the Paul Harris Society Recognition, given to an individual who contributes one thousand dollars and pledges to contribute $1,000 every year. Many members generously donate much larger sums of money in the RCB but are still not recognised as Paul Harris society members. That is why I would like to highlight this special recognition. It will be a great pride for the Paul Harris society if members join from your Club. We have today more than 300 Paul Harris society members from our District and out of this 101 new society members have been added this year. The need of the community is increasing, we have been utilising funds from the Foundation every year so it is also our duty to contribute generously year after year. My appeal, to begin with, is to the 30 large-hearted donors who have contributed towards the paediatric heart surgery global brand upon the appeal made by Sandip Agarwalla, Nirav Shah and Preeti Mehta to come forward and pledge to continue this contribution every year and become member of this Paul Harris Society.
We have a club in our District where out of 180 members, 53 are members of the Paul Harris Society that is the Rotary Club of Mumbai Queen’s Necklace. We have another club where we have 33 Paul Harris Society members. Amongst the new Paul Harris Society members, a one-year-old club Rotary Club of Mumbai Western, where I had an OCV just three days back, with just 42 members, 9 have agreed to be the Paul Harris Society members. So Rotary Club of Bombay – it will be a great achievement. The third is EREY- Every Rotarian Every Year Club is also feasible. Having said that, the OCV is also an opportunity for members to interact one on one with the governor.
While it is great to have such strong bonds amongst yourself, they are preventing people from joining District fellowships and participating in District fellowship events. I understand and appreciate that it may not be possible for too many of you to join District events but may I encourage you in the years to come, to look out for some representation of your members in District events. I have mentioned that you are an institution in yourself but at the same time we wear the same common pin. So you have to be part of the mainstream.
I am also glad, proud and elated that I have 33 lady Presidents in the District and Preeti is a shining example of woman power leading one of the biggest clubs in the District. The leadership that she has provided is exemplary, leading with distinction, charisma, taking the Club to greater heights in 2020 by way of administering, involving and the great projects that the Club has done in the year 2020. I compliment and congratulate directors and members to support her in these endeavours and I have no hesitation in saying that you continue to be one of the best Clubs in the District.
This is the reality of what we are facing in the times of COVID-19:
Ghar gulzaar, sheher sheher
Basti basti mein kaid har hasti hogayi
Ghar gulzaar, sheher sheher
Basti basti mein kaid har hasti hogayi
Doston, aaj phir zindagi mehngi
aur daulat sati hogayi…