- November 16, 2011
Minutes of Meeting held on
November 16, 2011IDAYA GANAM at Vishranthi – Old Age Home
What a serene way to start the IDAYA GANAM for the year 2011 to 2012. It is one of premier event of RCME and speaks volumes of enthusiast interest in Rtn.Ramana , Rtn.Gopal and President Uday on this project. All of us have been waiting for this to kick off after multiple events , fellowship tours and fireside chats. We had start this year IDAYA GANAM at Vishranthi Old Age home, in Palavakkam
Honoring and respecting our mothers come first before any one else – as the age old powerful saying - Matha, Pitha, Guru and Deivam. Like the saying goes, it is perfect start to IDAYA GANAM this year. Role played by mothers in shaping ones life is very important and RCME did our little part to be with them on Wednesday to recognize them.
I read about a discussion between sage and a pupil about the role played by mothers and equating them to Goddess. Pupil was lamenting about how his/her prayers unanswered by a certain Goddess, and Sage replied :
“Never suspect your mother’s intentions. When you were newborn, did she feed you, keep you clean and healthy because you asked her to do such things? No. Till you became old enough to think for yourself and make demands on her, you had completely entrusted yourself to her care. And when you started making demands as a grown up child, she conceded only such demands which in her Judgment were good for you and declined the rest. You even got angry with her and hated her whenever she declined your demands though such feelings were momentary. To our Goddess we are all children in a cradle. Leave yourself completely in Her. She knows what to give and when to give. This is just one of the examples equating a mother to a Goddess”
Rtn. Ramana’s (Call of duty) has been gearing up for this for some time and he was the first one receive us along with President Uday. Rtn. Ramana made perfect arrangements and everything was in place for the evening.
We had two full hour singing sessions with mixture of semi-classical and old film songs by Ms. Srimathi, Rtn. Ilamkumaran, Rtn. Rajaram from FMLR participated along with our own PP Ganesan, Sada, Ann Sujatha, Annet Mansvini and Skanda Vyas. We had two inmates singing and children inmates dancing to tunes of singers.
RCME donated a 42” LCD TV, One water heater, 25 Tube lights apart from donating towards the dinner expense of the evening. Rotarians Surendra Kumar, Papa Rao, Srini 100, President Uday contributed towards the cost.
There were around 172 inmates including Old age women, children .It is run by Ms.Savithri Hari who is 81 years old (!). They have nursing facility with doctors including Ayurvedic and Homeopathic doctors making frequent visits.
The project was attended by about 20 Rotarians and families. The Vishranthi management and inmates thanked RCME for its gesture and we all returned home with their blessings.
Rtn. Srinivasan
- November 9, 2011
Minutes of Meeting held on
November 9, 2011Social Media Trumps All!
The adage” the pen is mightier than the sword” is apparently passe: the Social Network media, exemplified by the likes of twitter, facebook and youtube, has supplanted the pen, making it more powerful and potent - whether in the overthrow of Middle Eastern despots or in the building (or destruction) of a product’s brand images, especially with the GenY set, than either the written word or the sword.
That seemed to be the gist of an interesting and informative talk by Sourav Jain, whose work is in this field. The talk primarily focused on how such media can be intelligently, cost-effectively and productively used to market a firm’s products or services, through a number of real life examples such as Fastrack watches. Mr Jain also pointed out that the Social Network could be a double-edged sword, especially if your product/ service was poor or faulty, as this would be mercilessly highlighted in the fora. He shared the recent case of the delays in Kingfisher airlines and another case of a bakery, whose products were perceived to be of poor quality, both of which were “tweeted” extensively, resulting in diminishing the brand image, with the latter outfit deciding to withdraw itself from the space, as a result of the negative publicity. At any rate, Mr Jain warned, there was no option to ignore this powerful medium, except at your peril: the Network was growing very rapidly, @ 8% p.a., and is expected to play a major role in marketing strategies of firms. The Social Network is quite pervasive, touching all of us in different capacities: as individuals sharing personal info or searching for answers, as consumers sharing our experiences - good or bad, or as producers marketing our services/ products.
Earlier the meeting began with the Greetings List read out by PP Ganesan; PP Balaraman spoke about an upcoming Fellowship at Pondicherry Feb 17-19th; Rtn. Ramana shared with members details re the first Idhaya Ganam program next Wednesday (Feb 16) at Vishranthi and solicited funds towards purchase of a new and larger TV set for the inmates as the existing one was very old; President Uday volunteered to sponsor 25 tubelights and PP ganesan, a geyser for the facility. Rtn. Sudhakar briefed about the plans being made for the PHCC in Jan 2012. He also indicated that PP PLC, Dr MS Ravi, and Rtn. Surendar had come forward to donate Rs 10,000 each toward this flagship event of RCME (and that more would be welcome). Rtn. Ramana also informed the members that a city-based fellowship at Hotel Marriott is scheduled for December 19th.
The meeting concluded past 8pm after the speaker took a number of questions on the contentious nature of this topic, providing unintended amusement for members, and a Vote of Thanks by Rtn. Shreen Raghavan.
Rtn. Shreen Raghavan
- November 9, 2011
Minutes of Meeting held on
November 9, 2011Rohini Shines Brighter than Ever!
The weekly Wednesday meeting had an aura of glamour with Actress Rohini being the main speaker. However as always in Rotary, it was not the aura of the star but the topic she chose, “Children & Adolescence”, that everyone was intrigued about. The meeting was first off to its customary start with President Uday inviting Rotarians, Anns and their guests. Then it was onto the birthday and wedding anniversary announcments by Rtn. Ramesh Kannan. Rtn. RMN Narayanan then gladly announced the successful fund raising done for the VHS project with the pleasant surprise that our funds would be matched by matching grants from Rotary Foundation.
It was then the turn of Ann.Veena to give a wonderful introduction of the speaker Rohini. It turns out that she has been a star right from her childhood days and has also won accolades of Best Actress for “Stree” in Telugu and the more recently the “Kalaimamani” from Tamilnadu Government for the year 2010. Rohini started her talk by emphasising that she was very interested in this topic as that was something near and dear to her. Even though she was only 5, she felt she had no choice and that she was made to be a movie star. She cautioned parents on being very open especially with children and having close dialogues with them all the time. Children she felt require that comfort and will not openly express themselves otherwise. They may act in various ways like being distracted or irritated and those are signals that parents should pick up. Especially when it comes to adolescents, it is very important to explain to them about hormonal changes in the child’s body and the effects of these. In all she was for open dialog and not brushing the truth under the carpet as many in society especially ours tend to do. In fact this motivated her to make a documentary on child actors titled “Silent Hues” which even won her international recognition. As she was ending her speech, Rohini stressed again that addressing unpleasant topics like puberty in teens etc. should be boldly addressed and discussed by parents with their teenage children. She feels that these days even women have platforms to express themselves freely but still children seem to be not having the freedom to do so. After a few Q&A from audience, her talk concluded with a thunderous ovation.
It was then onto announcements from Secretary Rtn. Selvan and the evening ended with a warm vote of thanks from Rtn.Ravi Venkataramani. In all an informative evening where real topics of teens today was discussed by an Actress and for a change not the usual film/movies oriented discussion that we expect from film stars.
Rtn. Murugavel Selvan
- October 19, 2011
Minutes of Meeting held on
October 19, 2011AWARD IN THE NAME OF THE EMPEROR OF MEDICINE PRESENTED TO THE CINDERALLA OF MEDICINE.
This was the theme of our weekly meeting on 19 October 2011 at the Hyatt Regency.
As the dignitaries walked up to occupy their chairs, it looked like a dream come true.
Dr. KV Tiruvengadam, Dr. Sarada Menon, Mr N Kumar along with our President Rtn. Uday, Secretary Rtn. Murugavel, Co-sponsor for the function, Dr. MS Ravi and chairman for the program, Rtn. Srinivasan made a beautiful sight and this was immediately confirmed by the lensmen, clicking away to glory.
The meeting started at 7:00 PM sharp, with a solemn invocation song rendered by Ann. Veena Ramaswamy, followed by welcome address by the President and then cake cutting, on the occasion of Dr. KVT’s birthday a few days ago.
Rtn. Srinivasan highlighted the salient features of the award and the citation,prepared by Rtn. Gyaneshwar was also read out by him.
The award was thereafter presented to the recipient, Dr. M Sarada Menon for her meritorious services to the needy and under privileged in affordable health care services, by the chief guest, Mr. N Kumar, Vice-Chairman, Sanmar group.
In her acceptance speech, Dr. Sharada Menon spoke very passionately about this field of medicine, which has had dominance throughout her life, Schizophrenia or mental illness. With all the achievements and milestones that she has crossed in her profession, her mentioning that she has many more goals to achieve in her preferred speciality, was an eye opener to the audience.
Co-sponsor for the event, Dr. MS Ravi mentioned that he was very proud to be associated with this award function and in the presence of such great luminaries as Dr. KV Tiruvengadam and Dr. Sarada Menon, he felt humbled. It was very gratifying to hear his commitment to support this function for many more years.
In his trademark smooth and calm manner, Dr. KV Thiruvengadam elucidated the excellent work done by Dr. Sarada Menon, over the past many decades. It was very interesting to listen to his mention of his professional association with the recipient over more than 40 years. With satisfaction and joy, he turned to the recipient and anointed her as the ‘Cinderella of Medicine’.
With Rtn. Shreen Raghavan introducing the chief guest, Mr N Kumar in his inimitable and relaxed manner recalled his family’s Association with Dr. KVT over the generations and mentioned it was a privilege to be present when a veteran such as Dr. Sarada Menon was being recognised for her unparalleled service to the medical profession.
He made particular reference to the excellent work being turned out by Rotary Club of Madras East and expressed that he has some interesting projects in mind to be considered and implemented by our Club.
Mementos were then handed over to the dignitaries and after Rtn. Surendra touched upon the recent successful fellowship visit to Dubai, the secretary made the customary announcements about the next meeting.
Rtn. Umamaheshwari, the incoming president, proposed the vote of thanks in her customary fluent style and the President adjourned the meeting after the national anthem was sung in unison.
Rtn. V A R
- October 12, 2011
Minutes of Meeting held on
October 12, 2011Hey Dubai Tour Team...
The journey began on Wednesday night at 11.30 with the drive to the airport to have Rtn. Kumar and Kruthika welcoming us at the airport with all our visas. We checked in and loitered around till the flight started off by 3.15 am. We were educated by Rtn.Rakesh Chand on how to stay/eat/drink free in chennai airport. If you have a Mastercard, I guess everything is free inside the lounge! We reached Sharjah 10 minutes ahead of schedule and then 2 luxury buses took us on a lovely drive to the city of Dubai landing at The Rolla Residency in 45 minutes’ time. A special mention must be made that Mr and Mrs Rtn.Ravidas left Chennai early for Dubai just to receive us at the Hotel when we arrived.
We headed straight to the restaurant to devour a sumptuous breakfast at compu speed !!!!!!. Hot idlis, chutney, noodles, potatoes, fruits, Cereals, breads juices etc. We then checked into our rooms and went straight to bed. We all had spacious suites while some of the Rotarians even had a double bed room suite. We rested for a couple of hours and by 12.30 started off to The Aryas to have our lunch. Our lunch was sponsored by Rtn. Muthu Kumar. Every item was cooked with love as ingredient, the highlights being the kara kozhambu and Ada prathaman.
After lunch, we set off to see The Dubai Mall, the biggest mall in the world attached to the Tallest structure in the world “The Burj Khalifa”. Here we spent time shopping, and seeing the biggest Aquarium and the waterfall. We then assembled at “At the top” at the bottom most part (paradox) of the building! (kindly sponsored by president). Exactly at 6 pm we entered the lift at The Burj khalifa and reached the 124th floor in just a minute. The lift is indeed the fastest we have experienced. They could also be just changing numbers in the display!. We had a lot of photos taken and collected lots of information about the place. The structure is about 828 meters long, built with 35000 metric tons of iron. From the top-most floor, we can see as far as 98 kms. We then returned to the mall and saw the musical fountain, which splashes water upto 100 feet high with a Hindi song as an accompaniment. This is very similar to the one at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
On Day 2, we spent about 2 hours at the electronics mall called Plug-inns and at IKEA furniture mart. Lots of money was spent with heavy shopping at IKEA from fellow Rotarians. After lunch and shopping at the Emirates mall, we headed back to our rooms. In the evening, at around 6 pm, we headed out for the Cruise. We had a red carpet welcome by Uday and gang with the cruise ship fully lit giving us an Arabic flavour. The ship had 2 decks with the top deck arranged as a party hall, and the one below arranged as a dining hall. The whole dining hall had more dishes than the table/chairs. We had a Lebanese/Arabic singer singing Arabic songs. Some Rotarians even taught him how to sing a hindi song. We had a gala time there singing, dancing and helping ourselves to a well spread dinner. Some of our Rotarians tried Indian/Arabic singing and belly dancing too. The route chosen was scenic/beautiful with lots of sky scrapers in the background. Our dinner and the cruise was sponsored by our dear president Uday. We returned to our hotel reluctantly by 11pm.
On the morning of Day 3, we were left on our own and so a few of us visited their relatives, a few went to Meena Bazaar and the others went to the Gold Souk. Whatever little was left in Gold Souk was purchased by us as the earlier batch swiped off most the gold in the Gold Souk! By 3pm, all of us assembled and started off to our desert safari in 13 Land cruisers. It was a lovely drive. We stopped to have our tyres deflated and then on to our exciting rides which went on for about half an hour. It was similar to a roller coaster ride with the Land Cruiser zipping, skidding and dropping. We stopped for a photo session and also at a Camel farm. We also had pictures taken with the Falcons and by 6 arrived at cute little tents (more than 30) set up right in the middle of the desert. Here we had camel rides, runs on a sand slide, good drinks and a mouth watering dinner finally followed by the grand finale “ The belly dance “. The belly dancer was graceful and quite a professional dancing to foot tapping Arabian music. Rotarians did try their hands on a Hookah as well and then we started off to our hotel.
On Sunday morning, we had a good breakfast and started checking out by 9 am. With all our luggage in the bus, we went on a City tour. It was a guided tour giving a chance to learn about the UAE and its people. 7 families rule the 7 states which combine to make the UAE. About 195 nationalities live in Dubai. The main income for the UAE is from the 2.4 million barrels of oil they drill out every day and is about 185 million USD per day. Water is more expensive than oil in the UAE!. We went around the Jumeriah mosque built in the Egyptian style, Burj Al Arabhotel, Armani Dubai hotel, The Atlantis and Palm Jumeriah. We heard that Shah Rukh Khan has a villa in the Palm Jumeriah. By 1 pm we reached the Dragon mart, the last mall for this visit. This stretches for about a kilometer having all Chinese products. By 4.45pm, we set off to Sharjah airport. We were all checked in by 6.30 and in our flight by 9pm. We all had a lovely dinner very well packed by organizers.
The entire trip was very well organized by Kumar Ashirvadam, Srini Rao and team. Hats off to their efforts and we would like to thank our president Uday for making it a very memorable and enjoyable trip.
Ann Veena and Rtn. Srini (100)
- October 6, 2011
Minutes of Meeting held on
October 6, 2011It was a high tea meeting at the Bheemannapet Community College (BCC) premises on the auspicious Vijayadasamy day, the day Goddesses Saraswathi is worshiped.. Guest were greeted with hot puffs, chocolate cake and masala tea at 4.30 in the evening. In the absence of President Uday, Rtn. Umamaheshwari, President Elect called the meeting to order followed by a melodious rendering of the Tamil thai vazhuthu by the students of BCC. Rtn. Uma then welcomed the gathering comprising of Rotarians, students of BCC and Winners, faculty members and the print media. We had two visiting rotarians from RC Madras Coromandel, President Bala and Rtn. Subbu.
BCC Project chairman, PP Rtn. Venkat addressed the students on the importance of computer awareness and the relevance of the project. Winners Project Chairman PP Rtn. PL Chidambaram then talked about the beginning the BCC project had in the earlier days and the need to enroll more number of students currently.
The certificates were then distributed to about 15 students of BCC and 6 of Winners. Hot Breads founder Mr. M. Mahadevan, who was the guest of honour then joined us in congratulating the students and posed for photos with the students.
Rtn. Natarajan welcomed everyone to a program by singer Suda Raghunathan at the corporation school at Thiruvanmiyur on Monday, 10th October 2011 @ 10.00 am as part of the Joy of Giving week celebration.
As part of the Joy of Giving week and in support of the “A Tribute to Tamil Cinema – longest cake project”, RCME donated a sum of Rs. 5,000 to Mahesh Memorial Trust in support of its fight against paediatric cancer. This was handed over to Mr. Mahadevan by PP PL Chidambaram. The meeting ended with Secretary Rtn. Murgavel proposing the formal vote of thanks.
Post event, media persons were briefed by Service Project Director Rtn. Gopal and press notes were also distributed. The meeting was well attended by about 25 members in-spite of the changes in venue, timing and day of our regular weekly meeting and thanks goes to all of them for their support.
Rtn. Gopal
- September 28, 2011
Minutes of Meeting held on
September 28, 2011The Sergeant at arms collared the President and the meeting was called to order. Birthdays and Wedding Anniversaries were announced by Rtn. Sridhar. After the project announcements the chief guest of the evening (Rtn. Balaraman) was introduced by Rtn. Ananth.
Balu’s topic was “Around the US in 45 days”. It was a dream trip for Ballu, Vineetha and the kids. They covered 12000 miles across 29 states and they combined sight seeing together with, spending quality time with each other. According to him, it was an unforgettable experience
The entire trip required meticulous planning and AAA (Automobile Association of America) provided them with maps, distances and pit stops as well. Ballu and Vineetha decided that between themselves they would alternate during the day (not more than 3 hours at a stretch) on the steering wheel and that they would not drive beyond 5 PM everyday. They had a Toyota Previa with 100,000 miles on it and they got themselves a portable VCR with lots and lots of Disney movies for the kids.
Some of the memorable moments during their road trip were :
• A Hungarian who was singing ‘Awara Hoon’ in a small town in South Carolina
• Seeing more than half a million motorcycles in Sturgis, ND
• A wild wolf crossing their path in Yellowstone National Park
• Bignets at Café Au Lait in New Orleans
Ballu also shared with us some pictures of his trip that covered the Caverns of New Mexico, Riverside Walk in San Antonio, the window from where Oswald shot Kennedy, Epcot Center, Orlando, Daytona Beach Florida, Virginia Beach and Mount Rushmore (which has the faces of the presidents sculpted on it.)
A lively Q&A session followed after which, Rtn. Ramesh Kannan gave the vote of thanks. The meeting was adjourned by the President
Rtn. Ananth
- September 14, 2011
Minutes of Meeting held on
September 14, 2011“Madras String Quartet”
The weekly Wednesday meeting had a special air to it, the speakers had come bringing along musical instruments along with them. So every member was anticipating to hear soothing music instead of merely listening to words for a change!! However the meeting was first off to its customary start with President Uday inviting Rotarians, Anns and their guests. Then it was onto birthday and wedding celebrations. This week a new member S. Sridhar was brought into the RCME family. He and his wife Lakshmi Sridhar run a very successful air-conditioning business. They are blessed with two children Nivetha and Vishaal. A very warm welcome to them into our RCME family!!
It was then the turn of the Madras String Quartet to enthrall the audience with lovely renditions. These included 1st Movement of Eine Kleine Nacht Musik by Mozart, Petals in the Mist by Karikudi Mani, Krishna Nee Bagane Baro by Vysaraj and finally The Entertainer by Scott Joplin. The four artistes V S Narasimhan (violin), Heman- thraj Muliyil (violin), B J Chandran (viola) and V.R. Sekar on the Cello did an outstanding job playing their respective instruments. The hall was filled with melodious music and you could see and feel the members enjoying the music in pin drop silence. Although everyone was an accomplished veteran in the film/music industry, it was nice to see that they formed this quartet out of pure love of bringing Western and Indian Music systems closer together. It was such a technically outstanding performance that Ann Rajalakshmi an accomplished singer herself made it a point to thank all of them in a brief message at the end. Of course all good things also have to come to an end and it was on that note that Rtn. Sada signed with his Vote of Thanks. A request was however made to the Quartet that in future it will be great to have them play at one of our other events and we would definitely be welcoming them again to RCME !!!
Rtn. Murugavel Selvan
- September 7, 2011
Minutes of Meeting held on
September 7, 2011September 7, 2011, marked a very special day in the events calendar of RCME. The annual presentation of Dronacharya Awards to noteworthy teachers and coaches was held at our usual venue at The Hyatt. This year, we had two very deserving candidates – Mrs Alamelu Mani, a Carnatic Music teacher from Mumbai and Mr D. Sreekumar a roller skating coach from Tamil nadu Roller Skating Association and Besant Nagar Roller Skating Club, Chennai. The award function was sponsored by La Ambience Interior Decorators and Consultants.
After the President Uday called the meeting to order, the evening started with a mellifluous prayer song of the Carnatic genre by Ms Alamelu Mani’s Student and the younger sister of our own Rotarian Jayanthi Govindan. Rtn. Praveen then read out the Birthday and Wedding Anniversary Greetings. President Uday then welcomed the gathering which had amongst it several students of Ms Mani over the years and the family members of both the recipients. Uday spoke about the noble profession that teaching is, and how all of us really owe our success to the seeds sown by our own teachers during our formative years. He also said it was RCME’s privilege that we were able to do our bit in recognising the efforts of some of these unsung teachers and coaches and talked about how deserving each of the chosen candidates that evening were in their respective areas.
The evening then moved on to the reading of the citation and presentation of the awards. Rtn. Ananth read out the citation for Ms Alamelu Mani and the award was presented by the Chief Guest Father Dr P Christie, S J, Director of the illustrious Loyola Institute of Business Administration (LIBA). Ms Mani then gave a short and sweet acceptance speech. It was very obvious that she was emotionally overcome by the occasion and the fact that one of her very early students, Rtn. Jayanthi, had remembered her and sponsored the award literally made her shed tears. Ms Mani’s very first student, Ms Sarayu Srinivasan, offered to say a few words about her teacher and she stepped up to the mike and gave the audience some insight into the selfless nature of the awardee. Ms Sarayu went on to talk about how Ms Mani was humility personified and how, in spite of being the constant source of inspiration for her own famous son (yes, Ms Mani’s son is none other than the famous ghazal and film playback singer Hariharan), she remains the same old simple person.
Rtn. Siva then read out the citation for Mr Sreekumar and the award was presented by Fr Christie. Mr Sreekumar, in his acceptance speech, recalled the days several years ago when he started in a small way with a couple of young children and how, over the years, that stretch of Besant Nagar area has now come to be identified with roller skating. He has been the coach and mentor to several hundred children over the years and Mr Sreekumar said that being chosen for the award gave him immense satisfaction.
The eloquent Chief Guest, Fr Christie, then took over the evening with an inspirational talk facilitating the two recipients of the Dronacharya Award. Being from the teaching profession himself, he talked about how there are two different generations of of students – today’s generation is inattentive and obsessed with gadgets and SMS etc, while during the older days, they were very devoted to their teachers and very obedient. He also mentioned that the dedication of the teachers of the older days also stood as a great example to the current crop of teachers. Today’s teachers also have to be on their toes because the students are sometimes better informed because of the information overload and access through the internet. He did dwell on the fact that teaching is one of the noblest and selfless professions and it is a great gesture by the Rotary Club Of Madras East that they have chosen to recognise deserving teachers year after year. He saluted the two awardes of the evening and confirmed that RCME could not have found better candidates.
The evening ended with a Vote of Thanks by Past President Dr M S Ravi.
For members of RCME, it was one more occasion to savour the excellent causes that the club has been supporting over the years and one could sense the glow of satisfaction not only among the award recipients and their families and students, but also all the Rotarians who had gathered there. Kudos to Rtn. Ramachandran for a wonderful execution of the function, and thanks to Rtn. Jayanthi and Mr Govindan for having sponsored such an excellent function. We all felt proud to be part of RCME that evening!
Rtn. Bala J. Raman
- August 31, 2011
Minutes of Meeting held on
August 31, 2011The meeting was chaired by Pres. Uday and Rtn. Siva standing in as Secretary in the absence of Rtn. Murugavel Selvan. After the invocation, Pres. Uday announced about the demise of Rtn. Govind’s father and the members stood up in a minute’s silence as a mark of respect to the departed soul.
Rtn. Balashanmugham greeted the members on their birthdays and wedding anniversaries and the cake was cut by the Rotarians who celebrated this week.
Rtn. Badri gave a detailed account of Terry Fox run which attracted around 12000 people participating in the run. The committed collection so far is around Rs.14 lakhs and Rtn. Badri is hopeful of making it to above Rs.20 lakhs. Rtn. Badri also thanked all the sponsors and the team that made the run so successful. Kudos to Chairman Badri and his committed team for making this a grand success for the third time.
Rt. Siva once again announced about the RYLA that will be held at Tiruvannamalai on the 9th, 10th and 11th of September and urged all the members to be part of the trip arranged by the Fellowship committee. The members and families can use this opportunity to visit Tiruvannamali to encourage the students and also visit the temple and ashrams. Rtn. Siva further announced that the pricing for this trip is Rs.1500 which included travel by AC coach/Stay in a luxury resort and all meals.
Rtn R.M. Narayanan announced about the completion of documentation for applying for matching grant from Rotary Foundation for some critical equipments in VHS, Chennai. The matching grant committee headed by RMN has made sure to get commitments from our sister club and also from a Rotary Club from Austin USA for their contributions. He also thanked the DG for allocating a good sum from the District designated fund towards this project.
Rtn. Gopal announced about the ongoing blood donation programs and also announced about the Dronacharya Awards next week and requested the members to come with their spouse and Annette’s. This award is sponsored by Rtn. Jayanthi Govindan.
Rtn. Gopal recognized the presence of Mr. Parasuraman who runs a night school at Velacherry. He further announced about our club’s contribution of Rs.25000 towards this worthwhile project. Rtn.M. Srini handed over the cheque to Mr. Parasuraman.
Pre.Uday then invited Rtn.IPP. Rajendran for presenting the accounts for the year 2010-11. Rtn. Rajendren announced that he would be transferring a sizable amount to the current year Board from his year’s admin account. The presented accounts being so crystal clear, there were no questions and the same was passed unanimously.
Pres. Uday announced about the fellowship tour to Dubai from 13th Oct to 16th Oct and requested members to join and send in their payments directly to Rtn. Kumar’s office.
There being no other agenda the meeting was concluded.
Rtn. M Srinivasan
- August 24, 2011
Minutes of Meeting held on
August 24, 2011Our club met in a larger hall on Wednesday, 24th August 2011, at the Hyatt Regency. It was to accommodate our own Rtn. Lanka Lingam to address us and to allow Rotarians to engage in an interesting session of "out of the box" thinking. The topic Lanka spoke to us was on “Innovation and Inner Vision.”
P.P.Ballu at first briefed us on the successful Terry Fox run with which RCME is associated. A tremendous enthusisam had brought in a huge crowd of more than 10000 people of all age groups and lifestyles towards awareness of Cancer treatment and cure. This is one cause that surely has no controversies and the run took place in the IIT campus on Sunday last.
Siva spoke to us on the Thivannamalai tour RCME is taking to combine RYLA and divine pursuits. It is to be on the 10th and 11th of September a Saturday and Sunday. The details of the tour have been mailed to all Rotarians.
A representative of Sakthi Travels spoke about the arrangements for the travel made to visit the R.I. Convention to be held in Bangkok next year. Lanka in his talk conveyed that Innovation is not a single event or discovery but a series of steps taken that leads to improvement in product, process, people and values. For this an organisation needs to constantly think out of the box and not be restricted to established mindsets and ways of doing things.
He brought home the point in a game that all Rotarians were asked to take part which involved two teams making an attempt to reach from one end of the grid laid on the floor to the other end. Each team member was asked to take one step at a time in the grid in which were hidden mines that could blow up by stepping on them thereby terminating his or her movement. Both teams tried hard and came across a point where they could not proceed further and to do so they needed to step outside the grid. This was what Lanka called "out of the box" thinking.
Now, one could claim that this was not according to the rules though it was not specifically prohibited. One would be right in claiming so. But one would have learnt the lesson that one does need to think outside his/her mindset to move ahead in life.
Lanka then showed some video data to show how things could be done in better ways and spoke about his inventory holding idea of ships that would go slow and charge less and thereby provide storage space and savings in inventory costs.
I believe it was a lesson well learnt.
P.P.Gurmukh proposed vote of thanks and said in his twenty years in RCME this was a first time he had such an interactive role playing session.
The Secretary made his announcements and the President adjourned the meeting which had an intresting and valuable take home for all of us.
Rtn. Gnanesh
- August 17, 2011
Minutes of Meeting held on
August 17, 2011Did you know Chennai has 16000 cops on a 1:500 Cop to Chennaite ratio?
(Well, in Delhi it is 1:200)!!!
Have you realised there are 6 police controlled locations along the sea shore for Ganesha idols’ immersion after the festivities?
That Chennai has 1800 kms of roads of which only 800 kms is densely used?
Interesting statistics about our city seemed to be second nature to Mr. Natarajan IPS Retd. and former Commisioner of Police, who kept our members glued to their seats with facts and details about our great city, laced with his subtle humour.
He says, “EVERY CITIZEN IS A COP, THOUGH NOT IN UNIFORM”.
Having seen the changing and ever increasing population of this city over the past 4 decades, he stated that the act of policing in this city, has undergone a radical change. In those days, the police were the first to get information on any burglary or breach of law and could act accordingly. Nowadays, thanks to the TV channels’ coverage, as well as the proliferation of mobile phones, the public know about happenings much before the cops do. So, the manner of their handling law and order has also changed and adapted accordingly.
They have a large Police Training Academy in the outskirts of the city and the training given to young cadets is very systematically and professionally drawn out.
It was a pleasure to see all our Rotarians sitting through the meeting, though extended by 15 minutes, due to various announcements and the narrative capacity of the speaker for the evening.
Earlier, the meeting was called to order by President Rtn. Uday, with the customary birthday/wedding announcements following. Quite a few were encircling the cake to be cut, but it was Rtn. Chandrasekhar who was first and thereby literally ‘had the cake and ate it too.’
Announcement on RYLA fellowship program to Tiruvannamalai by Rtn. Shiva, a light hearted narration about the previous week-end fellowship dinner by Rtn. Swamy, a plea by our Treasurer Rtn. Rakesh Chand on subscription payments, update on Rotaract by Rtn. Gopal was then followed by the entry and participation of Mr. Akash Dubey when a short and heart touching film on Terry Fox run was shown to the members. This was followed by a ‘direct from the heart’ appeal by Akash and then by Rtn. Badri detailing the program for the run on Sunday, 21st August 11 at IIT campus. The by-now folklore gesture from RCMEians was seen again that evening, with spontaneous contributions flowing from those present which was heart warming.
With Rtn. PE Ram taking care of the speaker introduction, the last couple of activities were the Secretary’s announcements and Vote of Thanks that was rendered by Rtn. K R Chandrasekaran.
Rtn. V A R.
- August 6, 2011
Minutes of Meeting held on
August 6, 2011The meeting on 6th August was significant for more than one reason. First for choosing, aptly, Mr. Seshasayee of Ashok Leyland to receive the “M S Swaminathan Environmental Protection Award” and for celebrating the birthday of Dr. Prof. M S Swaminathan a day before others could do at other forums (Prof. M S Swaminathan’s birthday was on the 7th of August). The meeting was called to order at 5.30 P.M by President N S Udaykumar and he also briefed the gathering about the importance of the award and the numerous service activities carried out by our own Rtn. CKR, and his company Cavinkare the sponsor for this program.
This was followed by the introduction of the award recipient by Rtn. Ravi Venkatramani and the glowing citation which was read very stylishly by Rtn. Shreen. The awardee, Mr. Seshasayee, in his acceptance speech insisted on personal discipline and sacrifice as part of saving the mother earth in so many ways apart from rotary clubs setting an example by choosing Energy Saving Programmes at District level. He also encouraged our club to adopt a model project in a middle class area as well as it would be more difficult to show significant progress and any resulting success would be more rewarding. Dr. M S Swaminathan spoke about how much he respected Ashok Leyland and Mr. Seshasayee for their efforts especially considering that their industry was top on the list of the biggest contributors to global warming.
The Chief Guest of the evening Mrs. Lele spoke, that for two reasons she accepted to be the Chief Guest for the evening. One was that the recipient of the award is Mr. Seshasayee whose work was appreciated and acknowledged at global level on Energy saving and the other was that the award is instituted in the name of Dr. Prof. M S Swaminathan. She added the problem of global warming was real and the world had to come together to cut down on greenhouse gases and adopt green practices.
Rtn. Murugavel Selvan proposed the vote of thanks and the evening ended with the national anthem.
Rtn. Sadhasivan
- August 3, 2011
Minutes of Meeting held on
August 3, 2011“CHINMAYI UNPLUGGED”
It is indeed rare to meet someone who you instantly connect with, rarer to hear a candid voice with a mindful view, and perhaps the rarest of instances when one sees a young yet firm head resting on ever so delicate shoulders, deliver an evening that was refreshingly different.
The meeting of August 3 commenced with the weekly string of birthdays and anniversaries followed by singing and cake cutting, and then it was time to tune in tothe speaker of the day, Chinmayi Sripada.Speaking on the topic of “Follow your Dream,” Chinmayi shared with us, a very personal journey, which she relived animatedly as she spoke in an almost casual manner, not mincing words, keeping it real and ‘as is.’ Her talk was infused with satire, her struggle with ‘free advice’ and a tinge of bitterness; she only glowed when she spoke of her ‘dreams’ and her mother who is also her ‘guru.’ One felt like wiping away the frown on her young brow, and perhaps no one had given her this bit of tested advice that “This too shall pass.”
Blessed with a voice to die for, an attitude to kill for and above all a feistiness that one can only watch and envy, Chinmayi has crafted a career that spans diverse domains like music, entrepreneurship and is the CEO of a translation services company, that goes by the name “Blue Elephant.” Not surprising, as the first time you meet her, you can feel it in your bones that ‘this babe is diff’rent!” Doing true justice to her personality, Chinmayi peppered her talk with a few of her popular numbers - the recent and melodious ‘Nenjil Nenjil” and the timeless and heart wrenching ‘Oru Deivam thantha poove,’ adding musical sheen to our evening. She then spoke about her passion for music, how she knew her mind at 11 years and made the switch ‘overnight’ from traditional Carnatic classical to the then lesser-preferred Hindustani music! [In South India, in Madras!!] Imagine the eyeballs it would have gotten her! In this case, ‘free advice!!’ Undeterred by all, Chinmayi recounted with verve, how she stuck to her guns and waited with conviction for her musical break with Rahman, and the memorable ‘kannathil muthamittal’ happened when she was just 15! From then on, there was only one way to go; not just forward, but a path that touched a zenith with Playback singing, Radio Jockeying, Television hosting and finally ‘Blue Elephant.’
Now, this is not all. As I am writing this, Chinmayi Sripada has her own ‘App’ on iTunes, the first ever for a woman of music in India, we are told and her precious head is buzzing with ideas, plans, projects and ‘dreams.’ In her words, ‘there is room for all of this and more. Who says that you can ride only one horse at a time? If it is a chariot drawn by twenty horses and you are in the driver’s seat, think about it. It is possible, no?”
Julie Andrews’ lilting melody in ‘Sound of Music’ is perhaps the best ode to this gen next tweeter, who has over 25000 tweets, reaching out to all out there, saying her story, speaking her mind, sharing her music.
Live on, Dream on and Rock on, Chinmayi!
“Climb every mountain, Ford every stream, Follow every rainbow,
Till you find your dream.”
Rtn Janaka Pushpanathan
- July 27, 2011
Minutes of Meeting held on
July 27, 2011This meeting promised to be a blockbuster due to the presence of action hero and political heavyweight Sarath Kumar and it did not disappoint. We had a record attendance of over 80 members, anns and annettes who eagerly showed up to savour the action (and the fantastic spread). PE Ram made the announcements for birthdays and anniversaries and Sarath Kumar happily pointed out that he was also celebrating his birthday this month. Rtn. Uma Maheswari graciously donated Rs 30,000 to the Jeevan Stem Cell Bank on the occasion of Annette Hasini’s 21st birthday which was happily received by Rtn. Tarachand Dugar. Vaishnavi (niece of Rtn. Shivram) spoke about the Terry Fox Run and requested help with spreading the word and soliciting sponsorships. Rtn. Babu informed the club about the interact installation at National Public School and also made a mention of the Green Kalam Project and how well it has been received. Rtn. Sydney Murali advised the members about the M.S.Swamination Environment Protection Award to be presented to Mr. R. Seshasayee, Executive Vice Chairman of Ashok Leyland on Saturday, August 6th. President Uday Kumar then set the stage for the highlight of the evening with a statement “Sound Mind in a Sound Body” and pointed to a former Mr. Madras and one of our fittest chief guests ever.
After Rtn. Ganesan’s warm introduction, Sarath Kumar proceeded to impress the audience with his charm, wit and articulate thoughts about politics and government. He pointed to his long standing friendship and association with Rtn. Jayaraman and his family. He talked about his association with the Rotary and even pointed out that renowned Unesco was conceived of at a Rotary Conference! He is currently working on a project with the Rotary Club of Tenkasi to build a model village that will help stem the migration of the rural population to the cities. He talked about his schooling at Raja Muthiah School and Anglo Indian School following which he joined Loyola where he participated in the first ever strike! He spoke about how he was (and still is) a fitness freak and sports lover and how his entry into films was accidental. He is married to Actress Radhika and has 3 daughters and a seven year old son. He joked about how Radhika played both his mother and his wife in the movie, Suryavamsham.
The floor was then open to one of the longest and most interesting Q&A sessions I have ever seen at RCME. He handled the various questions like a pro and drew the audience closer to him with every answer. Moving onto a topic close to his heart, he strongly stated that the political system in India needs a blood transfusion. He talked about his time as MP, where parliament behaved like a big social club and no serious business got done. He commented about how it was important for educated people to enter politics to change the system in the long term. He alluded to the story of a person spent his whole life building a tunnel through a mountain just so that future generations could benefit. He stressed the need for an iconic leader to emerge from the educated people to cure the political system of its ills.
Secretary Selvan introduced Rtn. Balaji Sreenivasan as the chairman of the attendance sub committee who then pointed out how easy it was to make up ones absences. Rtn. Srinivasan (100) then proposed the vote of thanks and expressed his admiration for Sarath Kumar’s efforts in the empowerment and education of people.
Rtn. Ravi Venkataramani
- July 20, 2011
Minutes of Meeting held on
July 20, 2011The meeting was attended by a group of over fifty rotarians eager to get expert insights on Real Estate from the eminent realtors of RCME. The meeting began briskly with Rtn. Mohan Rao announcing the birthday and anniversary greetings. A cake was cut by Rtn. Sudhir on behalf of all the rotarians announced. Rtn. M Srinivasan spoke briefly on RI President Kalyan Banerjee’s inspiring speech during his visit to Chennai last week. Rtn. Siva spoke of the fireside meetings held during the previous week. Announcements were also made about the tree planting event at Valasaravakkam under the aegis of RCME and American Eye Care Centre on 17th July. Rtn. PLC urged members to refer students for the Bheemanapet Community College. Also an appeal was made to refer Corporate Donations/ Sponsors for the Terry Fox Run to be held on 21st August.
With no more ado, the scene shifted to the event of the evening, “A Panel Discussion on Real Estate”. The panelists were V A Ramash, T V Ramkumar, Sudhakar, Surendra (off the dais) and the panel was moderated by PP Ganesan. The discussions ranged from the do’s and don’ts in Real Estate Investing to the dilemmas of investing within the city to investing in the outskirts, investing in land or building, is low cost housing a myth and many more. All the questions were analysed and expert insights were provided by the panel. While the questions were innumerable, the time being a limiting factor, the discussions had to be unfortunately wound down. The first classification talk of the year was a success and spelt a good start for many more to follow in the months to come.
The meeting ended with a vote of thanks by Rtn. Surendra thanking the panelists and the moderator.
Rtn. Babu Krishnamoorthy
- July 13, 2011
Minutes of Meeting held on
July 13, 2011The second meeting of the rotary year played host to another great speaker, Divya Vijayagopal, Host of Airtel Super Singer on Vijay TV. It promised to be a great meeting and several Anns and Annettes eagerly showed up.
The meeting started with the birthday and anniversary announcements followed by another great cake from our very own Winners Bakery. New Generation Director Babu talked about the recent rotoract and interact installations at TSN College and PS Matriculation School. Service Projects Director Gopal advised the club about the upcoming Terry Fox run and the various activities that have already begun. Rtn. Doc Srini briefed the club about his one-on-one meeting with RI President Kalyan Banerjee and his promised support from Rotary International in making the Cord Blood Bank a global project. Rtn. Prabhu seized the occasion and graciously donated Rs 30,000 towards the Cord Blood Bank project which was received by Rtn. Guptaji.
Idaya Ganam Chairman Ramana recognized the contribution of Rs 40,000 made by Rtn. Papa Rao towards the project. Rtn. Harish advised about the various blood donation camps conducted thus far and was optimistic about hitting our goals for the year. RCME has definitely made a busy start to the new rotary year as always!
The focus then turned to the feature of the evening with Annette Sindhu doing a great job of introducing Divya to the audience. As expected, Divya gave a very entertaining account of her road to becoming the host of Airtel Super Singer. She mentioned that she was a very good student while at Church Park and graduated near the top of her class. However, when she joined MOP Vaishnav for her B.Com she discovered her passion for the stage. While she had been learning carnatic music since the age of 5, college provided her the opportunity to explore new horizons and discover herself as an entertainer and model. She was also very active in the student union and enjoyed being the focus of everybody’s attention. When the time came to think of an MBA, Divya felt that she was not good at marketing or finance and preferred instead to choose HR as her specialty at the School of Social Work as she loved interacting with people.
Divya talked about her first big break as a playback singer for a Telugu movie and how easy it came to her. She shared her experiences hosting her first TV show in Malayalam and then onto Super Singer Junior and how she almost walked away from it all. It was quite clear that Divya has achieved the success that she has because of her immense confidence in her abilities, determination and her unique quality of taking both success and failure in her stride. She encouraged the audience to seriously consider a career in media as it was a fun place to be in but warned that very few people make it to the top. She added that as long as enjoyed the journey and remembered to “make hay while the sun shined” they would have no regrets.
Secretary Selvan made his club announcements and reminded the members about the visit by RI President Kalyan Banerjee requesting a large turnout from RCME. It was then the turn of Ann Veena Ramaswamy to give an eloquent vote of thanks. She pointed out that Divya, despite her supposed inability to market and sell, had done a fantastic job of selling herself and Airtel Super Singer to the audience.
Rtn. Ravi Venkataramani
- July 6, 2011
Minutes of Meeting held on
July 6, 2011RCME 2011-12 Rotary Year First Weekly Meeting
The first weekly meeting of the Rotary year 2011-12 got off to a great start at RCME’s new venue “The Hyatt”, last Wednesday the 6th of July’11. President Udaykumar briefly welcomed all Rotarians and then as a sign of things to come, he proposed that this year Birthdays/Wedding anniversaries would be celebrated a little differently from before. All the celebrating Rotarians were called up front to join together in a wonderful cake cutting ceremony. Of course as Secretary Selvan pointed out, something’s still remain the same as he proceeded to collect “Sunshine” from the celebrating Rotarians. Following these, club announcements on blood camp was made by Club Services Director Gopal. Then IPP Rajendran updated everyone on the Kannagi Nagar project.
It was then the turn of Rtn. Venkat to introduce the speaker of the day Mr. Stanley Evans. The topic being “Indigenous languages of the British Isles”. Stan started off by letting everyone know that there are at least 17 different Accents and Dialects that are present in the British Isles. He then went on to say a few words in many of them and did an excellent job of showing the variations. The audience were taken aback at, how complicated even pronunciation of certain simple words could be. Stan explained to the audience that how depending on the geography a lot them could be Scottish, Gaelic, Irish, Welsh, Cornish etc… After his explanation of the origins and how these accents have evolved and merged, he concluded by saying that the few major accents mentioned above he feels will stand for a long time. It was then onto a vibrant question and answers session.
Secretary Selvan then made his club announcements, including an important one about this year’s RI President Kalyan Banerjee addressing a joint Inter City Meet on Thursday July 14th. It was then the turn of Rotarian Sadasivam to give an entertaining vote of thanks. He talked about how, even though while growing up his English teacher was the most feared, he gladly still accepted to do the Vote of Thanks for this speaker even though topic for the day was related to it. In all the first meeting got off to an excellent start and there was an overall appreciation from many Rotarians not just on the speaker/topic but also on the food being served at the Hyatt!!
Rtn. Murugavel Selvan
- June 29, 2011
Minutes of Meeting held on
June 29, 2011New Address. New President. New Rotary Year!
RCME’s IP address now reads 600018.27.2011.12
It was an evening of change. Change of guard from the 26th President to the 27th, change of venue from the familiar brand ITC to the nouvelle Hyatt, change of setting from the ubiquitous banquet hall to the ‘atrium in the lobby!’ But for those sturdy pillars in the line of vision, it seemed like a nice idea, to start with.
It was also an evening of many firsts. Anchored in true ‘bollywood ishytle,’ Sydney Murali and Ann Uma Ramesh lent sparkle to the flow of events, scripted with crisp prose and interspersed with a sprinkling of some headily yet apt music (chosen carefully by Rtn. Sanjay and Ann Raji) which gave a new dimension to the customary introduction of N S Udayakumar and his new board.
Another poignant first was that Annette Shruthi represented her mother and secretary Rtn. Jayanthi Govindan and took us through the year gone by, presenting the report from her mother’s desk, and in her words. We wish Jayanthi a speedy recovery and cannot wait to welcome her back into the warm folds of weekly Wednesdays!
The ‘last first’ was the choice of First Lady Rtn. Dr Sai Prasanna as Chief Guest and she touched us with her feisty speech on Rotary, the movement, its objectives, and what a club like ours could do, to create that difference. We particularly related to her articulation of a Rotary club being Viable, Vibrant and Visible and the 17awards that we bagged at Kireedam in the last Rotary year stands a tall testimony to this!
“Installation Night,” read the tastefully done invitation and the evening kicked off with a serene rendition of a hymn invoking the blessings of Sri Raghavendra, sung beautifully by Ann Aruna Sivasubramaniam. It was a proud moment for many as President Rajendran outlined the various activities of the club and thanked all the people behind the scenes for the wonderful presidential year that he and the club enjoyed. Rtn. PP R Venkatakrishnan’s introduction of the incoming President was laced with the trademark ‘Venki’ humor and drew quite a few laughs, at the same time, gave us all insight into the real person that Uday is! Both the roster and bulletin were released after which AG Rtn. Palaniappan and District Secretary Rtn. Babu Peram addressed club members. President Uday’s acceptance speech was short and to the point; again it was a reminder of his personality, “Do More, Say Less.”
Ann Vineeta Balaraman then introduced Rtn. Dr Sai Prasanna and invited her to address the RCME gathering. Dr Sai’s address was filled with many Rotary anecdotes that were both thought provoking and action oriented. There are many leaves that one can take from Dr Sai’s book, one of which is her commitment to know more about Rotary, which she shared with us, saying, “When I said I was going to Madras East as the Chief Guest, everyone warned me that it is one of ‘the’ clubs! So I read more and prepared well, as I am not an accomplished speaker like most of you!” We were touched by her humility, as she charged us with her honesty and perhaps this is what R I President Rtn. Kalyan Banerjee meant when he culled out this year’s Rotary theme of “Reaching Within to Embrace Humanity.”
Rtn. Janaka Pushpanathan
- June 22, 2011
Minutes of Meeting held on
June 22, 2011Himalayan Trek by Krishnan Naganathan and M. Srinivasan
It was an emotion filled evening for our club members when we met at Park Sheraton for the last time this year before we move to Hyatt Regency. We have decades of pleasant memories at this venue and our members turned up in large numbers to reminisce the evening. President Rajendran started by thanking VA Ramash and Ramachandran for their excellent contribution in bringing speaker after speaker, every week this year. Ann. Viji Shivram announced birthdays and holidays in her usual style. Dr. Rebecca spoke highly of RCME’s support for palliative care education project and Ann Ramaa Venkatadri issued certificates to the students of the palliative care program. Shreen Raghavan updated the club with the progress of our Secretary Jayanthi’s health after the surgery and said, “she is recovering well.” The final episode of Idayaganam project at Russian Cultural Centre was announced by Ramana, which will be a tribute to the legendary singer PB Srinivas on Sunday, 26th July at 10 am. RAINS, the Indoor Sports Fellowship hosted by Bala and Ann. Usha was dubbed as a major success with PE Ram providing a succinct update on the winners of the tournaments. The stage was then set for M. Srinivasan and Krishnan Naganathan to showcase their trek to the Himalayas. It was a laugh riot for the audience with M. Srini holding the mike and responding to the comments and jokes from other members. Krishnan spoke in detail about their 9 day trek of the Rupin and Supin Valley. The pictures of the Himalayan Glaciers, beautiful flowers, pristine forests, lively streams and fabulous views made everyone turn green with envy. The audience must have surely felt as though they made the trip as well. Incidents of snakes in the tent and slips on the snow certainly made things dramatic. Members were assured by Krishnan that there will be more treks and we could join him. Another highlight of the evening was the talk given by our Annet. Anirudh Ravi who visited NASA and bagged an award. He shared his experiences on space walking, G-Force Gravity, meeting with Astronauts, etc. Muragavel Selvan announced that the next meeting will be held at Hyatt Regency on Anna Salai and welcomed everyone for the installation of the new board members. All in all, it was another wonderful and memorable evening for the RCME members, guests and visitors.
Rtn. T Sivasubramanian
Next Meeting
November 30, 2011
RTN. PDG. P.T. Prabhakar
Time: 06:30 PM
Venue
Hyatt Regency, Chennai
News - Current
RCME was the lead sponsor for this event and Murugavel Selvan was well recognized. It was a g . . .
Way to Good Health at Andhra Club
RCME was the lead sponsor for this event and Murugavel Selvan was well recognized. It was a great participation in a district level programme.
Rtn. Uday
Ms. Mary Diana Samuel, 15 year old daughter of Dr Aaron Samuel, MD FRCS FACS in USA, died in a . . .
Donation of Van to Mary Diana Samuel Home
Ms. Mary Diana Samuel, 15 year old daughter of Dr Aaron Samuel, MD FRCS FACS in USA, died in a car accident. In her memory, her father has started a trust to help poor and needy orphans have a safe place to stay and good education. The Trust operates out of Chennai, the place of his birth and education.
“Mary Diana Samuel Foundation” was registered in 1999. The orphanage “Mary Diana Samuel Home” was constructed and inaugurated 3 years ago. It is now the home to 55 girls and 5 boys – all studying in schools in the area. The orphanage is 10 kms from Sriperambudur on the Sriperambudur – Thiruvallur Road. The trust takes care of the stay, food, school fees and dress for the children.
To facilitate the transportation of the children to the schools the orphanage was in need of a van. In response, The Rotary Foundation, Rotary International District 6780 ( Tennessee, USA), Rotary Club of Bradley Sunrise (Cleveland, USA) and Rotary Club Madras East, have come together under the Matching Grant Scheme of Rotary International, to donate a Swaraj Mazda van costing about Rs 10 Lakhs to the institution.
The van was handed over to the Home on Wednesday, 28 September 2011 at Hotel Hyatt, Anna Salai, Chennai 18 during the regular meeting of RCME.
Rtn. R M Narayanan
A meeting of Rotractors of TSN College of Science & Arts was held at 4.30pm on Tuesday 4th Oc . . .
TSN Rotract Club meeting on Tuesday 4th Oct
A meeting of Rotractors of TSN College of Science & Arts was held at 4.30pm on Tuesday 4th Oct 2011 at the Dhun Building office of India Cements. The Meeting was addressed by our Rtn. Swaminathan, who spoke about instances in his life where he was tested on his ability to handle difficult situations and how common sense helped him handle the same with great results. Moreover he spoke of the interesting life he had lead and the people he had met and how they had helped shape his thoughts and actions. The message that the students took away were Face the challenge, Enjoy the journey of life and do what brings you joy, then life is a blessing. Other Rotarians present were Rtn. Muthukumaran.
Rtn. Babu
I am pleased to inform you that the matching grant for purchase of vehicle for Mary Diana Samue . . .
Matching Grant - Swaraj Mazda Vehicle
I am pleased to inform you that the matching grant for purchase of vehicle for Mary Diana Samuel Home (Orphanage) has been approved and the vehicle is ready to be delivered to the orphanage.
The formal hand over of vehicle to the beneficiaries will be conducted at 1830 hrs on Wednesday 28th September at the Hyatt – during our weekly meeting.
Kindly come in large numbers for the same
President N S Udayakumar
Talk at NPS on 7th Sept 2011, on the Subject of “Self motivation and Focus”, the key to a S . . .
Talk at NPS on 7th Sept
Talk at NPS on 7th Sept 2011, on the Subject of “Self motivation and Focus”, the key to a Successful Career” was a engrossing session.
The above was the theme debate during the new generations month of Sept. The meeting got of to brisk start with the Chief Guest Rtn. VAR, giving his brief views on the topic, following which 8 students (who were informed prior of the subject) delivered a scintillating speech for roughly 2 mins each. Alas they can be only a few that could be chosen as winners. The winner and the two runners up were awarded gift coupons from Odessy book store. RCME was represented by Rtn. Muthukumaran and Babu apart from Rtn. VAR.
Rtn. Babu Krishnamoorthy
Refreshing and Rejuvenating RYLA The trip to Tiruvannamalai was enchanting and energetic. Nearl . . .
RYLA-Thiruvannaalai-Enchanting
Refreshing and Rejuvenating RYLA
The trip to Tiruvannamalai was enchanting and energetic.
Nearly 35 members and Anns went for the trip The stay at SPARSA Resort was very much enjoyable with its scenic beauty and aesthetic atmosphere.Congrats to Pres Uday and PP Kumar for finding such a wonderful place.
RYLA was attended by nearly 50 students from TS Narayanaswamy College. Pres. was insistent that our own Rotarians experience and knowledge should be made use of and hence only our own Rotarians addressed the session except the First Lady Dr. Sai who is always ready to DELIVER.
The trip to temple was neatly arranged by Pres with the help of local club and we all had good Darshan.
The Girivalam was indeed a fascinating experience with CHIDAMBARA NATHAR leading and with the Secy. Selvan being a torchbearer!
The service of Rotarians was exemplary with Rtn. Muthu finding a good spot for hot tea in between the walk. Nobody felt the strain and it was refreshing and rejuvenating.
The interaction with RYLA participants was entertaining with Rtn. Murali being a moderator in the debate “Which is good- Love Marriage or Arranged marriage.”
Even being a love marriage man God knows why he gave a judgement towards arranged marriage!
The food at the resort was very tasty and homely tho’ the Masalvadai which treasurer Rakesh found in a teashop and the Kumbakonam Degree Coffee topped the list. (Let not anyone miss these two even if you miss Annamalaiar)
Everything was meticulously planned and executed KUDOS to Pres. Uday Kumar and Babu Krishnamoorthyand Siva
OOHH! OOHO!!
Rtn. Srinivasachari Venkatadri
A weekend trip to Thiruvannamalai... a combination of RYLA camp, stay at the serene Sparsa Ecot . . .
Thiruvannamalai
A weekend trip to Thiruvannamalai... a combination of RYLA camp, stay at the serene Sparsa Ecotel resort... visit to the famous temple of lord Shiva... girivalam... aashram visit... what an wonderful experience the whole trip was!
We all assembled at Nungumbakkam (President Udaykumar’s office building with ample parking) at 9am on Saturday, 10th Oct. The mood of the Rotarians and families was upbeat, every one looking forward to the trip. The day was partly cloudy and partially sunny, with little drizzle here and there... in fact an awesome day. The journey of about 160 km from Chennai on the luxury bus was very comfortable, with the road to the destination in pretty good condition and the surroundings very scenic and lush green. The crowd inside the bus was also in a fun mood. Rtn. Dr. Ravi, Ann Veena Ramaswamy and many others sang some melodious Hindi, Tamil and Kannada songs,ably assisted by Rtn. Sydney Murali with his dhol. The mobile microphone of the bus audio system was put to some very entertaining use besides making announcements. Mid journey, we stopped at Highland restaurant for excellent coffee and some yummy vadas elsewhere. Rtn. Paparao, Rtn. Sanjay Singh and Rtn. Kiran Dhariwal spotted a ladies purse with no lady attached leading to some hilarious moments, with first lady Chitra Udaykumar trying to trace the owner. Ultimately no owner could be found and the purse was duly returned to the restaurant manager by Rtn. Sydney Murali.
We reached the Sparsa resort well in time for lunch and were welcomed by soothing aloe vera drink, minirudraksha necklaces and relaxing complimentary foot massages. The first impression of the resort was that of a serene and tranquil get-away amidst lush green surroundings. The gardens were blooming with some beautiful floral trees and shrubs. This ecotel is located at Anthitanthal village, Thiruvannamalai. This is an eco-sensitive leisure resort, totally blending with the rural surroundings with all the modern comforts. The accommodation was in the form of cottages, each cottage with two rooms on the ground floor and two rooms on the first floor. The first floor roof was thatched on the exterior , with normal ceiling interior and modern facilities, giving the cottages a very interesting rural touch. As we were all ravenous by this time, we quickly checked in and attacked the restaurant for lunch. A wholesome spread awaited us, which we all enjoyed very much.
The resort is a beautifully maintained place with an ayurvedic spa, crafts centre with a pottery wheel, gym, swimming pool, etc etc. There is yoga in the mornings and live music in the evenings. There is mellow carnatic music playing on the audio speakers all throughout the resort. Post lunch, some people went take rest, some to book their appointments at the spas and some of us just explored the place. There was lots to do here. Anns Dr. Sunita Ravi and Veena Ramaswamy and Annette Shivani tried their hand at the pottery wheel, succeeded in making some clay deepams and pots. We had some henna designs traced on our palms and then went off for a bullock cart ride to the countryside which was a lot of fun. Rtn. Kumar Ashirvatham was capturing all the fun on his camera ably assisted by Annette Shivani. The resort had some brightly colored lambretta scooters to go for rides...which were immediately tried by all our young at heart rotarians, Dr. Ravi, Ann Dr. Sunita, Rtn. Siva, Rtn. Apparao, Ann Harita, and Rtn. Sydney Murali. Post tea everyone headed to RYLA... where it was enjoyable interacting with all the youngsters. There were some lectures by the Rotarians, some presentations and a lively debate about love marriage versus arranged arranged marriage. It was very interesting to hear the views of the youngsters. The youngsters put up some some amazing and energetic dance performances around the campfire.
Post dinner we all started for temple visit. The architecture of the centuries-old temple is very beautiful and the nine gopuras or the entry points were very very impressive. We could feel the element of fire in the temple and in the darshan. All-in-all a very religious and devout experience. After the darshan it was time for girivalam, 14kms walk. Most of the rotaians undertook this. Rtn. Muthu, Rtn. Uma Maheshwari, Rtn. Kiran Dhariwal, Ann Dr. Sunita all walking barefeet for the full 14 kms. Rtn. Rakesh Chand and Ann Anasuya Murali’s mother also showed great spirit in completing most of the 14 km round.
Sunday... 11th Sept. everyone was up and about early in spite of sleeping after 2am after girivalam. Some went for the yoga class, some for their spa appointments, while some hit the swimming pool. After a sumptuous breakfast, a group headed to visit to the aashram and a group to the RYLA proceedings. By 2pm we started the journey back to Chennai post lunch. The first Lady of District rotary club came to see us off. The bus audio system with the mobile microphone was put to full use by Rtn. Ganesan with his jokes and songs, and Rtn. Dr. Ravi and Ann Veena. The whole group participated with some songs or jokes. Rtn. Muthu, Rtn. Manian, showed some energetic dance moves but were ultimately overshadowed by Annette Anuj (S/o Rtn. P Ramaswamy and Ann Veena). Rtn. Sydney Murali played all the song requests. The long journey was over in flash and we were back in Chennai. Special thanks to President Udaykumar and his team, Rtn. Kumar Ashirvatham, Rtn. Siva for making this weekend trip so comfortable and enjoyable.
Ann Minal Singh
It was a pleasure to be part of the RYLA project conducted at Thiruvannamalai. Our ride to the . . .
Visit to T’Malai RYLA
It was a pleasure to be part of the RYLA project conducted at Thiruvannamalai. Our ride to the temple city was very comfortable and never a dull moment in the company of Rotarians. Very good arrangements were made for our stay and it had something for all. In the evening we proceeded to meet the RYLA students where Rtn. Murali conducted a program “Niya Nana” on the topic “Aranged Marriage vs Love Marriage”, where we got to talk. The temple visit and visit to Ramana Maharishi Asharam was spiritually satisfying. We could never forget the evening Kumbokonam Degree Coffee on the way back, Thanks to Rtn. Jayaraman for that. On the whole we enjoyed the whole package and wish to join in future programs.
Mrs. and Mr. Ramanathan
Parents of Rtn. Gopalakrishnan
RYLA camp for TSN College was held on 10.9.11 & 11.9.11 at Arunai Anandha Hotel, Thiruvannamala . . .
Report on Thiruvannamalai RYLA
RYLA camp for TSN College was held on 10.9.11 & 11.9.11 at Arunai Anandha Hotel, Thiruvannamalai. Staff co-ordinator Mr. S Suryanarayanan (TSN College) along with 43 (24 boys, 19 girls) rotaractors participated in the sessions.
10.9.11 The inaugural session started at 12.15 p.m. by prayer. It was inaugurated by Dr. Sai Prasanna, who is the Dist first lady and by profession a maternity doctor, who has the distinction of 20,000 successful deliveries. She introduced the topic
3-G. Goodness, Guts, and Grind
Goodness: We have to think everything good from heart. We should be open hearted in mind and action which will keep you in a consistent and constant state.
Guts: To tell / accept the truth and express the real feelings without hurting others.
Grind: Tolerance to achieve wealth and fame in righteous manner.
Good things in life include good food, good manners, respecting others, first helping ourselves, others, tolerance and forgiveness.
Rtn. Venkatadri and Rtn. P L Chidambaram, experienced Rotarians spoke about the above subject from their real life experience.
Rtn. Ganesan discussed few words about goodness and success. The success in the story is not the destination but the journey.
11.9.11. Rtn. Babu Kishnamoorthy, a Chartered Accountant by profession and wealth manager, discussed about the GRIND. He reiterated that GRIND is nothing but hard work. First deciding for ourselves about the goal and trying to achieve it by focusing on it.
The video clippings were shown to focus on everyday practice to achieve fame. For never giving up attitude the zebra and the lion video clipping was shown.
Many people will fall, but some people will fall, getup and run. This will make you to achieve the success.
In the next session Kudanthai Sister Smt. K. Manjula musician by profession gave a lecture demonstration on music combining the ragas with cine and carnatic music.
It was an impressive program which paved the way to gain knowledge about music, raga, thala, swaram etc. The parents were Sruthi - mother, Layam - father. The aroganam and avaroganam were said. Every song has 3 parts pallavi, anupallavi and charanam.
She explained physical features of ragas, colours, singing time, gender and specialities of ragas, eg: Amruthavarshini - For rain pouring
Then Dr. Sunitha Ravi MDS, discussed about dentistry, regenerative medicine, anti ageing and goodness of health, food habits and intakes. Rtn. Sadasivam talked about justice and success.
Rtn. N S Udaykumar involved in Corporate catering and house - keeping business discussed about Optimism and pessimism, hard work and happiness.
Rtn. Ramaswamy discussed about inspiration, success and journey which should be in righteous way.
Ms. Priscille Asirvatham told about the activities in Rotaract in her College i.e Stella Maris and urged the Rotractors to interact with one another to gain for the other’s perspective.
Mr. S Suryanarayanan, College staff coordinator discussed about 3- G’s by giving Sanskrit slokas an Thirukurals. Also thanked the Rotary President , Rotarians, College Principal, staff and students and members who made this event a successful.
Ms. Nandhini Kamath, Secretary, Rotaract summarized the sessions and thanked everybody. The college Rotaract president Mr. C Shankar raman coordinated the rotaractors and motivated to join the camp.
The Best RYLA rians were Mr. Nagoormeeran III BBA & Ms. Varsha, III B.Sc ISM (male and female respectively).
The Runners up were Mr. Ganesh II B.Com corp & Ms. Parvathi IV CST.
The events ended with National Anthem.
Rtn. Babu Krishnamoorthy
News - Archives
I would like to place on record my thanks to the American Eye Care Centre and Dr D P Prakash in . . .
Green Kalam Project
I would like to place on record my thanks to the American Eye Care Centre and Dr D P Prakash in particular for having co-sponsored RCME for the launch of 1000 saplings on Sunday 17th July at Valsaravakkam, Chennai. This movement towards protecting our environment should be replicated at schools and colleges where our rotractors and interactors function. The substantial annihilation of green lungs and forests will cost us dear in terms of renewal of oxygen. It will also have an adverse impact on global warming. Let each of us do our bit to spread the message of planting of saplings and let the message not end there – we have to seek to nurture the saplings and ensure they grow into trees to reverse the damage caused till date.
I am very happy to say that this function was reported in all the leading dailies.
Rtn. N S Udayakumar
Rtn. PP Ganesan and myself had been to the District Rotaract (DRR) meeting yesterday (24/7) whe . . .
Terry Fox Run - Rotaractors of RI Dist 3230 roped in:
Rtn. PP Ganesan and myself had been to the District Rotaract (DRR) meeting yesterday (24/7) where about 350 rotaractors had assembled at the VHS, Adyar. The DRR had arranged for a video on Terry Fox downloaded from youtube. The whole audience was visibly moved by the film. PP Ganesan talked about the project and the poster was also released during the meeting. We gave about 100 posters to be carried to their respective clubs and displayed. We have promised them individual certificates as well as Z Gift hampers (welcomed with big cheers). The DRR has promised good participation.
Rtn. Gopal
On 21st July 2011, the new office bearers of the Interact Club of Ecstasy of the National Publi . . .
Installation of Interact Club at National Public School on 21st July
On 21st July 2011, the new office bearers of the Interact Club of Ecstasy of the National Public School were installed at a brisk ceremony. The Chief Guest was Rtn. Gopalakrishnan , Director Service Projects of RCME. In his address to the students, Rtn. Gopal praised the long standing Interact club’s activities and wished the students a productive year of activities ahead. Apart from about 100 students, the others included the Principal, Administrator and the coordinating teachers of the school. RCME was represented by Rtns. Muthukumaran and Babu.
Rtn. Babu Krishnamoorthy
This is a special year in Rotary for all Indian Rotarians, only for the third time in history a . . .
RI President Visit to Chennai For Inter City Meet – July 14th 2011
This is a special year in Rotary for all Indian Rotarians, only for the third time in history a person of Indian origin has been made a RI President. It is none other than Rtn.Kalyan Banerjee. He and his graceful wife Binota visited Chennai last Thursday to be at the Inter City meet between all Rotary clubs of District 3230. The function got off to a rousing start with Anns from the “nightingales” rendering a soulful welcome song. Special mention should also be made to Ann Janaka from our own RCME who was part of this group. Well done Janaka !! After series of other colourful and vibrant songs and dances from Anns and Annettes from various clubs, it was on to Rotary matters. A lot of Senior Rotarians and their Anns were recognised by both RI President Kalyanji and Dist.3230 Governor Sampathkumar for their generous contributions to the cause of Rotary. Once again must mention that Rtn. Dugar from RCME was also felicitated for this. I noticed a lot of our fellow Rtn.s in the meeting like President Uday, Muthukumaran and M.Srinivasan amongst others.
It was then the turn of Rtn. PDG Ramakrishna Raja to introduce the RI President by saying a few words about Kalyanji and his achievements and family. DG Sampath welcomed the first couple to Chennai and requested the full gathering of Rotarians to honour Kalyanji as a RI President from India by showing our extra warmth and support to him by registering and participating in large numbers in all rotary activities this year. It was then the turn of RI President Kalyan Banerjee to give his keynote address “New Horizons for Rotary in India”. He talked about how now times have changed and India has moved from being one of the largest recipients in Rotary to one of the largest donors in rotary. He wanted everyone to further the cause of rotary by just being good human beings and looking within themselves to help the community. Hence his theme of “Reach within to embrace humanity”. He concluded by thanking all Rotarians in Dist.3230 for the good work they do and urged them to continue to reach greater heights in rotary service.
It was then the turn of Rtn.Mohan Raghavan and Dist.Sect.Babu Peram to thank everyone especially the all the staff in helping put an event of this magnitude together. In all it was a very good opportunity for all Rotarians in the district to meet with each other and also listen to the RI President Kalyan Banerjee. With the business of the day being now completed, it was onto the fellowship part. A dinner was being served at the venue itself. There was also a sit down Banquet arranged with RI President at another venue. The banquet was well attended by many Rotarians with their Anns and it gave an opportunity to interact first hand with RI President. The food at the banquet was sumptuous and there was the usual Rotary fellowship as well. Heard from many Rotarians and Anns that it was an evening well spent and now they are all charged up for another great year of Rotary Service. For me as well it was an evening well spent and motivated me more to help towards furthering the cause of Rotary!!
Rtn. Murugavel Selvan
RCME joined hands with American Eye Care Centre in the launch of Green Kalam Tree Planting Proj . . .
Green Kalam Tree Planting Project – 17th July 2011
RCME joined hands with American Eye Care Centre in the launch of Green Kalam Tree Planting Project on the occasion of the opening of their 4th Eye Care Centre at Valasarvakkam. The project was inaugurated by actor Vivek in a gala function held on Sunday, the 17th of July 2011.
Rtn. Dr. Prakash welcomed the gathering. Actor Vivek spoke about his commitment to plant 10 Lakhs tree saplings in Tamil Nadu, a beginning of which was being made this day with 10,000 saplings. President Uday expressed that, if we do not act now, there would be come a time when we have to carry oxygen in bottles. The event was attended by Rtn. M. Srinivasan, Rtn. Muthukumaran, Rtn. Ramamohana Rao,Ann Chitra, Annet Sindu and yours truly.
Thanks to Rtn. Dr. Prakash, RCME got an opportunity to be part of the green initiative and has undertaken to distribute 1000 saplings. RCME will be seeking the support of Rotaractors and Interactors in this project.
I would also like to appeal to members who have open spaces in factories or farms to come forward in planting these saplings.
Rtn. Gopal
I wanted to update you on two installations done by the New Generations team last week. In TS . . .
Rotoract & Interact Installations on 7th & 8th July
I wanted to update you on two installations done by the New Generations team last week.
In TS Narayanaswamy College of Arts & Sciences, the new Rotractors lead by its president Shankaraman was installed on 7th July 2011, by President Uday Kumar at a colourful ceremony at the college. Earlier the students put up a nice show of Power point presentation to highlight the performance of the Club during the last year. In his address, the President RCME Rtn. UdayKumar urged the students to make the most of the opportunities provided by this forum to enhance their learnings. The event was graced by a large number of students and the Principal of the college apart from Rtns. Gopal, Muthukumaran and Babu from our Club.
July 8th saw the installation ceremony of the new office bearers at Dr Nalli Kuppuswami Vivekananda Vidayalaya Junior College. The chief guest for the evening was our member Rtn. GPN Gupta. The large gathering of students lent support to the incoming Interact President Mr Vishak and his team. The installation was followed by an inspiring address by Guptaji. Rotarians in attendance were Rtn. Muthukumaran and Rtn. Babu Krishnamoorthy.
Rtn. Babu Krishnamoorthy
On July 10th, a blood donation camp conducted in Mogappair near MMM hospital in St. Thomas Jaco . . .
Blood Donation Camp
On July 10th, a blood donation camp conducted in Mogappair near MMM hospital in St. Thomas Jacobite Church had great response as we had collected 54 units of blood.
And the good news is that they would like this blood donation camp to be conducted every 6 months, so in January next year we have to conduct the next camp there.
Rtn. Harish Premnath
President Uday has clearly spoken about the need to bond in this new Rotary year. Over the year . . .
Message from Chairman – Fireside Meets
President Uday has clearly spoken about the need to bond in this new Rotary year. Over the years, we have invariably observed that the erstwhile “fruit basket meets” stops after doing a few rounds. We have therefore tweaked it a bit so that the 100+ members get to know each other better. We do hope this new avataar of fruit basket, herein after called the “Fireside Meet” (FSM) will enable us to fulfill Uday’s dream.
Instead of ‘allotting’ names to some chosen hosts Rtn. Siva, Director – Club Administration and I decided that the most fair (hope it turns out so) method would be to draw lots. So, lots were drawn and 33 groups have been formed. Here is how it will work:
the target is to have 33 FSMs starting from July’ 11 to Jan’ 12.
recommend that a min of 3 Rtns. meet with their respective families (to view your slot, pls see below) over dinner, lunch, tea etc. You could also go for a movie or have a picnic if you feel like. Mind you, you are free to have a get together of more than three families if you wish.
annets who report on their FSMs will be eligible for a prize – an article & some pictures is what the committee will appreciate. Prizes worth Rs 20,000 is up for grabs !
the committee hopes all the groups will find the time to meet in the specified month. Should any group need assistance, they could always call me or Rtn. Siva.
Will be in touch with you from time to time folks! True fellowship is spending quality time with your fellow Rtns. & FSM is surely one way of fostering friendships for a life time.
July ‘11
Kasi; Meenakshi; Palaniappan S
CKR; SSR; R Nahar
Uma; Chandrasekran K R; Sudhakar
Bala Anand; Uday; Muthukumaran T
Babu; Balaji; Sivasub; Vijay Sekar
August ‘11
Govind; M S Ravi; Venkat (RVK)
Lanka; Janaka; B Srini (Leo)
Ballu; Ramasamy; V S Mohan
Selvan; Kumar; Harish; Mohan Rao
Ananth; Ramana; Gnanesh
September ‘11
Doc Srini; Sada; M Murali
V V Shivkumar; Raj Mohan Reddy; Firoz
Dr. Prakash; M Srini; Sanjeevi
K Ganesan; T V Venkatraman;
L Ravishanker
Skandaraj; T V Rajagopal; Surendra
October ‘11
Sameer Sanyal; Puru; GPN Gupta
M Nagarajan; V A Ramash;
Sanjay Singh
P K Ranganathan; R Jayaraman; N Badrinarayan
V Ganesh Ram; Mahesh Bandari; Rajni Turakhia
T V Ramkumar; G Praveen;
Nilakantan
November’11
Ramesh Kanna; K Chandrasekar; Gopal
Venkatadri; A Palaniappan;
J Narayanan
Kandasamy; PLC; Murali Krishnan (Sydney)
Srinivasan (100); Kiran Raj; Hema
Srinivasa Rao; Krishnan Naganathan;
K S Natarajan
December ‘11
V G P Ravidas; Tarachand Dugar; Ram Mohan Rao
Papa Rao; R M Narayanan;
Swaminathan
Krishna Prasad; Shivram; KTK
Shreen Raghavan; Rakeshchand;
Jayanthi
Sudhir; Ramesh Ananth Krishnan; C Sanjay
January ‘12
P Muthu; Gumukh Kinger; S Prabhu
K Rajendran; P E Ram; N S Manian
Ravi Venkataramani; Chief Ram; R Muthukumar
Rtn. Shivram
RCME donated a sum of Rs. 33,000 to VIDYA SAGAR towards therapy aids, equipments, uniforms etc. . . .
Aid to VIDYA SAGAR
RCME donated a sum of Rs. 33,000 to VIDYA SAGAR towards therapy aids, equipments, uniforms etc.
VIDYA SAGAR is an NGO working actively for around 25 years towards helping disabled people get their rights and become contributing members of our society. Their centre works in the areas of education, therapy and in the area of legal rights. They have reached out to more than 3500 people with disabilities in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Rajasthan and Bhopal.
On 7th July 2011, President Udaykumar and First Lady Chitra Udaykumar visited the Kotturpuram Centre of VIDYA SAGAR and handed over the Cheque to the Director of the Centre. Also present were Rotarians Sivasubramanian, Babu Krishnamoorthy, Muthukumaran and Viji Shivram, who were taken around the center to have a first hand view of the good work the Centre is been doing.
Rtn. T R Gopalakrishnan
My dear brothers and sisters in Rotary! All of us in Rotary are looking to change the world - . . .
Message from RI President
My dear brothers and sisters in Rotary!
All of us in Rotary are looking to change the world - why else would we be Rotarians? We believe that our world can be happier, healthier, and more peaceful, and that we can create that better world through our service.
In 2011–12, I will ask Rotarians to Reach Within to Embrace Humanity. I will ask you to search first within yourselves, to understand that all of us, everywhere, have the same dreams, the same hopes, the same aspirations, and similar dilemmas. When we understand, and truly feel, that others’ needs are the same as our own, we begin to understand how important our work is. In the year ahead, we will have three emphases in our Rotary service.
Our first emphasis in this Rotary year will be the family. The family and the home are at the core of all our work – all our service begins here. And through the family, we approach all of our community and indeed, all of humanity, as an extended family, in which all members care for each other. In times of joy and in times of need, no one is ever alone.
Our second emphasis will be continuity – finding the things we do well and taking them to the next level. We must build on our successes, expand on them, and strive to do even more. Of course, our greatest obligation is to PolioPlus, where success is now so close.
And our third emphasis will be change. We must understand that true change can only begin with each of us, and start within us. We cannot share peace with others if we do not have it to give. We cannot look after the whole world without first looking after those closest to us: our families, our clubs, and our communities.
Mohandas K Gandhi said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” In Rotary, we endeavor to live ethically and honestly, to share friendship and fellowship, to see equal worth in every human being. We are not interested in the lowest common denominator, for Rotary is anything but common. Instead, we work to elevate ourselves, elevate others, and thereby embrace the world.
Together, we will Reach Within to Embrace Humanity. And in peace, harmony, and friendship, we will bring change – and a more joyful world.
Rtn. Kalyan Banerjee
Inspector General of Police Shakeel Akhter launched the CCTV network at Kannagi Nagar on Saturd . . .
CCTV Network at Kannagi Nagar
Inspector General of Police Shakeel Akhter launched the CCTV network at Kannagi Nagar on Saturday, the 2nd of July 2011, in the presence of Commissioner of Police K K Tripathy.
The facility consists of cameras installed at various locations in the locality connected wirelessly to the monitor at the Police Station. The CCTV Network has been funded by the surplus generated by Winners Bakery project of our Club.
According to Police sources, about 30,000 people live in Kannagi Nagar and more are expected to move in. The locality has witnessed 35 suicides and 10 murders since January 2010. The CCTV facility will greatly enhance policing the sensitive areas in the locality.
RCME has committed to join hands with the Police and like minded NGO’s like Action 20-20 in developing the community holistically.
The function was attended by Rotarians IPP Rajendran, Muthukumaran, Srinivasa Rao, Uma Maheshwari, Sridhar, Gopal, Venkatadri, Krishnaprasad and Hot Breads Mahadevan.
Blood Donation camp was conducted at Kalyanasundaram & Associates on Saturday, the 2nd of July . . .
Blood Donation Camp
Blood Donation camp was conducted at Kalyanasundaram & Associates on Saturday, the 2nd of July 2011 through Jeevan Blood Bank. There were about 30 volunteers and 25 units of blood was collected. President Uday was among the first donors.
Rotarians Babu, Murugavel, Muthukumaran, Balaji, Srinivasa Rao, Harish, Gopal and Kalyan (RC Madras Coromandel) were the other Rotarians who took part in the Camp.
At the outset, I would like to thank all the members for giving me the opportunity to serve as . . .
Message From Secretary
At the outset, I would like to thank all the members for giving me the opportunity to serve as Secretary of this esteemed club. I promise to do the best I can in trying to make this another very eventful and successful year. With Rtn’s Siva and Ganesan in charge for speaker meetings, I am sure that this year as always we will continue to do our best in our Wednesday evening meetings by bringing in prominent speakers and having very informative sessions. Additionally, we have also decided to have the third week meetings of every month be dedicated to Club members and their families. Some ideas that come to mind are having a debate on interesting current topics. For e.g.: “Should cut off marks alone be the criteria for College Admission? Is IPL good for the game of Cricket or just for the spectator?” Anyway, this is just an indication. Suggestions are welcome for other meeting ideas. We could dedicate a few meetings for participation from our Anns and perhaps a couple of meetings for Annette’s exclusively? This, we feel will be in line with President Uday’s vision of involving as many Rotarians and their families in interactions with each other.
Once again looking forward to each and every Rotarian’s active participation, in some form or another, in making the upcoming rotary year 2011-12 another great year in the annals of RCME.
Rtn. Murugavel Selvan
As Director - The Rotary Foundation, I plan to do a matching grant project for Voluntary Health . . .
Message From Director - The Rotary Foundation
As Director - The Rotary Foundation, I plan to do a matching grant project for Voluntary Health Services (VHS), Chennai. They require a sterotactic neurosurgery frame costing around USD 67,000. We have already made some progress on this.
Besides our regular contribution of USD 15,000 to The Rotary Foundation, we will also be participating in GSE team exchange and Fellowship tours to our sister clubs in Manila etc.
Rtn. R M Narayanan
Fellowship Tour no doubt brings RCME families closer. A Rotary year is not fully complete for m . . .
Message From Director - Club Administration
Fellowship Tour no doubt brings RCME families closer. A Rotary year is not fully complete for many of our RCME families without participating in a Fellowship Tour. This year we have planned 4 fellowship tours so that you can participate in at least one of them (more the merrier!) and enjoy the company of the other Rotarian families in an exciting new place. The first fellowship trip will be to Thiruvannamalai in September (Chairman: Babu Krishnamurthy). It will be followed by an International Fellowship tour to an exciting destination in October (Chairman: M. Srinivasan). We have a grand Indian fellowship tour in Feb, 2012 (Chairman: Balaraman). The final tour will be for the Rotary Covention headed by our own RI International Director Kalyan Banerjee in Bangkok in May 2012 (Chairman: RM Narayanan). I wouldn’t want to miss any of these tours. Would you?
Rtn. T Sivasubramanian
As the Director - New Generation, it is my first task to thank Pres Uday for offering me this w . . .
Message From Director New Generation
As the Director - New Generation, it is my first task to thank Pres Uday for offering me this wonderful opportunity and all RCMEites for your trust. It will be my endeavour to ensure that the Interactors and Rotaractors have a productive and enjoyable year ahead. There in a RYLA that we are planning to host in Thiruvannamalai this year tentatively between 9-11th Sept (please block your calendar). Apart from this, we are lining up a host of regular events and programs including speakers of eminence to inpire the youth. My thanks to Rtn. Muthukumaran, who has agreed to support me in this. I am also in the process of forming a committee of new Rotarians to help me with this function (An appeal to new Rotarians to join up and share your ideas, inputs and suggestions).
Looking forward to your participation and support.
Rtn. Babu Krishnamoorthy
The Rotary theme for the year being “Look within to embrace humanity”, the service projects . . .
Message From Director - Service Projects
The Rotary theme for the year being “Look within to embrace humanity”, the service projects team would look at integrating all avenue of service to make its projects more meaningful to the society. To elaborate:
Kannagi Nagar – Kannagi Nagar is Annai Sathya Nagar Part II and is already an example of how one project can help the other. Our vocational service project “Winners” contributes towards the development work envisaged at Kannagi Nagar. It will also be our endeavor to bring Interacters and Rotaracters to sensitize them to the ground realities.
Bheemannapet Community College – We will try to tap students from Kannagi Nagar and bring them to BCC.
Terry Fox Run – Efforts are being made to involve the District Rotaract in this project.
It will also be our effort to look at Family participation in projects as is happening in Idaya Ganam.
Rtn. T R Gopalakrishnan
As Director - Membership, I plan to do the following: Strengthen the positive club image and ma . . .
Message From Director - Membership
As Director - Membership, I plan to do the following:
Strengthen the positive club image and make it attractive to members by giving them opportunities to participate in club and district activities and recognizing them.
Orientation of new members, and to develop programmes to educate and train them.
Increase membership by 8% (3% women and 3% members who are below 40 years) through a classification survey and recruitment from different industries.
Take up Corporate membership as a pilot project.
Finally, Sponsor a new club!
Rtn. M Srinivasa Rao
Metamorphosis of the fruit basket: The origin of the fruit basket meeting has now become a dist . . .
THE ALL NEW RCME FIRESIDE PARTY
Metamorphosis of the fruit basket: The origin of the fruit basket meeting has now become a distant memory of a few older Rotarians. The rationale behind starting a fruit basket meeting was to foster a bond between Rotarians and their respective families. With the club’s membership leaping along, the need for a smaller gathering of Rotarians with families was welcomed and enjoyed by all. But what starts off with a bang in the beginning of the Rotary year, peters out by the end of the year, for a number of reasons.
This year we are back with the entire fruit basket tweaked in to an All New Fireside Party, so that the interest will (fingers crossed) not wane.
At the RCME Fireside Party, the basic concept of a few Rotarian families meeting remains, how, when, where they meet is entirely up to their creativity. You can arrange to meet at a coffee place, a restaurant, a bar, your home, go for a movie or even on a picnic! The choice is yours. We have drawn up the lots so that you won’t be just confined to your own groups. We will let you know your party members (your family and 2 other Rotarian Families), and you can always add more members to your party if you choose to. Also, we have attractive prizes if you report about your party with pictures (Annets take notice!). So, let’s all give it a try and make it a fun filled enjoyable party.
Rtn. Shivram Chairman, RCME Fireside Party!
I got a call from Rtn. Kannan to conduct 2 sessions of the Rotary Leadership Institute's leader . . .
RLI Trainer: An experience!
I got a call from Rtn. Kannan to conduct 2 sessions of the Rotary Leadership Institute's leadership training seminar for RC of East R A Puram(ERA). When I saw the names of fellow instructors, I felt honoured to do the sessions along with PDG Rekha Shetty, PDG Subbu and Kannan! I felt it was also historic for a member of RC of Madras East to conduct it for its child Club, RC ERA – after all Rotary Club of ERA was started by RCME and this was only strengthening the umbilical cord!
The meeting kicked off on Saturday, 12th June at 3.30pm. President Dilip and President-Elect Selvam conducted the inaugural session with poise and perseverance.
In his inaugural address, DG-Elect Olivannan emphasised the importance of such training and when President's can attend PETS and Secretaries can attend SETS, this is a must for all members of a club.
Once the inauguration was over, PDG Rekha Shetty set the context beautifully and asked me to do the first session on Leadership characteristics.
Here, I would like to mention the audience for the seminar. The seating arrangements were of a U style, wherein the presenter can see the entire audience. RC ERA, true to its history had a lot off Anns and Annets attending this seminar. It was also interspersed with new members like Babu, incoming team and their Anns and Annets. They were a wonderful set of participants, who not only showed interest in interacting, but also asked a lot of questions.
Leadership characteristics is such a vast area! I brought in leadership styles at business, interspersed with leaders in Rotary, Personal Heroes and their style and execution. I summed it up with listing the various type of Leadership, how in Rotary everyone is a leader and in spite of that, we need a Leader and followers.
I believe this was well received and hopefully, I could impart information on the different type of Leadership characteristics. The emphasis on the sessions was to keep it very interactive!
Then came Rtn. Kannan, who did a session on things outside a Rotary Club, how Rotary International is organised, number of hierarchies (Club to District to Zone to Region etc), total number of Clubs etc.
This was a very useful and informative session. Rtn. Kannan is a silent worker, but a thought provoking presenter. He made sure that all in the audience learnt about Rotary and its organisation structure, by taking and asking for examples. Wonderful to have Rtn. Kannan on this panel.
Then followed a session on Membership Retention by yours truly. It was interesting because there are many ways to retain members and there is also an Exit Interview form available! This form captures in detail all the nuances of data capture from a member who was leaving a club and also indirectly suggests solutions for retention.
Here we discussed why members stay back and what are the interesting things a Club can do to retain them and keep them motivated. Another interactive session, wherein we coined the 5 P's - Programmes, Projects, Patience, People, Participation, which are key for membership retention.
PDG Subbu followed this with a wonderful narration on The Rotary Foundation. It was very beneficial for all to learn and understand that TRF is run in a wonderful way, with DDF, DSG, and other ways of funds. Queries on DDF, matching grant, etc. were explained in the most simple and elegant manner by PDG Subbu. He was been termed as "Guru-kool" of RLI. In fact Subbu leads the RLI programme, ably supported by PDG Rekha Shetty and Rtn. Kannan.
Following this, the session was taken by the charming PDG Rekha Shetty. But I had to leave for another engagement, so could not stay back and listen to her session.
I suggest all new members attend RLI training.
Rtn.Sydney Murali
The evening of Friday, June 4, 2010, was a glittering evening. The Annual Awards function of RI . . .
District Annual Awards Function
The evening of Friday, June 4, 2010, was a glittering evening. The Annual Awards function of RI District 3230 was held at Hotel Taj Coromandel's Ball Room. The District officials, Presidents and their spouses and the Secretaries of all the clubs of District 3230 started coming in from 5.45 PM onwards. The mood was one of celebration and fun, with everyone rejoicing at what was the final “Presidents' Meet” of the year 2009-10.
The formal proceedings started sharp at 6.45 PM, and the MC was none other than our District Governor's daughter, Ann Adithi Anand, who did a very enthusiastic job of presenting and introducing all the cultural entertainment components of the evening's programme. She was complemented on the Rotary related content by Asst. Governor Rtn. Ravi Shankar, also fondly known as 'Mike Tyson' among all this year's officials!
We had some wonderful dances from the Kalakshetra team – from a traditional folk dance of Kerala to the dances to Bollywood and Kollywood tunes, they did everything with a complete nonchalance and style and it was a feast for the eyes.
The Awards Committee headed by Chairman R. Veeramani of RC Adyar had kept the awards very simple – a rating of Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze for the different clubs based on their projects during the year. RC Madras East got the Platinum Club rating making it one of the best performing clubs in District 3230.
There were also awards for contribution to The Rotary Foundation for Polio Plus and for the District project, Project Blossom and a number of clubs were recognized for their contribution on these fronts. There were also awards for Rotaract and Interact activity.
Among the other specific awards, RCME got the special recognition award for our Bulletin and the Fund Raiser Robert Kaplan Seminar. Rtn. D.V. Ramana also won the award for his contribution as the Chairman of FMLR – Fellowship of Music Loving Rotarians.
One of the most fulfilling moments for RCME came when our Secretary, Sydney Murali, was announced as the Best Secretary of the District. Just two other Secretaries were picked to share this award with Sydney.
RCME was also given the R.I. President's Citation for all-round performance during this year.
Our wholehearted congratulations to the RCME Board of Directors Team for a wonderful year, as well as to Sydney for this special achievement, as also to Ramana for his contribution.
Our Dist. 3230 had organized the Secretary-Elect Training Programme (SETS) at GRT Grand Pondich . . .
Seyalarangam 2010 (SETS)
Our Dist. 3230 had organized the Secretary-Elect Training Programme (SETS) at GRT Grand Pondicherry on the 8th and 9th of May 2010.
It was a well planned excursion and the purpose was nicely fulfilled.
The salient features of the arrangements :-
8th May at 6.30 am
Two buses were organized, with one leaving from Egmore and the other from Gandhi Nagar Club, Adyar. We reached GRT Grand, Pondy at 12.00 noon. We were all allotted rooms on twin sharing basis.
‘SETS’ was inaugurated by our Dist. Governor-Elect, Rtn. Olivannan and the Chief Guest was Rtn. Joseph Suresh. A Video Presentation of RI President speech was shown to the participants.
We had a very interesting and interactive session on the Roles and Responsibilities of a Club Secretary in the afternoon by Srinivasan.
A Century Of Service - Glimpses of Rotary’s 100 year history – was shown and the Speech was rendered by District trainer PDG P.T. Ramkumar.
An entertainment programme was then conducted by Ann Nalini Olivannan – titled “ Andhi Pozhuthinil”. It was very interesting and engrossing.
DJ Music and dance that followed were enjoyed by all the participants. After that, Cocktails and dinner was served.
9th May 2010
The day started off with a group photo with all posing in T-Shirts and we moved on for breakfast.
The session started with a speech by PDG Sivagana Selvam on How to be a successful Secretary.
We then had very interesting break out session conducted by incoming Dist. Secy. Nagendra Babu on Dues, Dist. Dues and Magazine dues. This session was found to be very informative by all the participants.
Prof. T. Ramalingam then gave a speech on Ellam Inidhu, a hilarious and informative speech by PDG Raja on how a Secretary should deliver his or her role with a smile!
This was followed by a speech by DGE Valliappan from RI Dist. 3000 on ‘Enjoy your year as Secretary’. The Incoming Governor gave us the concluding speech. This session ended with beer and biriyani being served.
At the end of the meeting, we boarded the bus at 2.30 pm on our way back to Chennai. It was a purposeful and planned programme with precision on timing and perfection in presentation.
Rtn. Jayanthi Govindan
As all of you are aware, we have produced a series of 6 slick advertisements (video) with Tamil . . .
Chief Minister views the Traffic Safety Ads produced by RC Madras East
As all of you are aware, we have produced a series of 6 slick advertisements (video) with Tamil Star Surya lending his presence in each one of them. These advertisements were very well received and applauded by Rotarians during our Silver Jubilee Charter Nite last Friday. These 20 to 30 second clippings were directed with an objective of provoking serious thinking by the viewer on his / her behaviour on our roads – something that is a burning need in our cities and towns.
We had the privilege of showing it to the Chief Minister last Friday, May 28th, 2010, in his office in the presence of Police Commissioner, Mr. Rajendran and Addl. Commissioner, Mr. Shakeel Akhter.
Please find attached a photograph of today’s function that appeared in a local evening newspaper, MalaiChudar. You can see Rtn. Kandaswamy Bharathan in the front row and our President Rtn. Balaraman in the third row. We will have a formal launch of these ads with the Media shortly.
Big thanks to Rtn. Kandaswamy Bharathan and Rtn. Umamaheshwari of our club for their passionate involvement in this project, and their committee members, Rtns. VAR, Skandaraj, Rajendran for their support.
We must acknowledge the complete involvement and dedication of Neela Krishnamurthy, the Director of the films, Rajasekar DOP and many others without whose efforts this result would not be possible...... and of course, Actor Surya who was very passionate about the cause and gave his time willingly and with no hesitation whatsoever (and at no cost).
The Speaker for the meeting was Rtn Sydney Murali of RCME, he spoke eloquently on the subject o . . .
TSN ROTORACTORS Meet on 23rd Aug
The Speaker for the meeting was Rtn Sydney Murali of RCME, he spoke eloquently on the subject of “Communicating with Empathy”. To ensure the students got the full import of the message, Rtn Murali interspersed the talk with an interesting exercise amongst the students. His Tamil cum English oriented presentation helped reach the message very well among the students. Rotractor Nandini reported about the Terry Fox Run in which over 200 students from TSN college had participated. The session ended with rendering of the National Anthem by the students.
Rtn.Babu Krishnamoorthy
I am happy to inform that the Third Edition of Terry Fox Run was a great success. In a short sp . . .
Chennai Terry Fox Run 2011
I am happy to inform that the Third Edition of Terry Fox Run was a great success. In a short span of three years it has surpassed the 10,000 participants mark which is more than any Terry Fox Run held in other Indian cities (i.e. Mumbai, Delhi etc.) . The participants were from all walks of life, house wives , young and old ,school children to Corporate professionals , all filled with commitment to the cause.
The event was attended by officials from Canadian and US Consulate in Chennai and Director and other officials of IIT Madras. The run was flagged off by Actor Sarath Kumar and his wife Radhika who also ran along with the other runners.
A 3100 strong contingent of enthusiastic Rotractors brought strength to this years run. This will help Cancer awareness messages reach the young generation. The hero of the Chennai Terry Fox Run Akash Dube with usual zeal addressed the audience giving background of the run and its objectives.
The event has been well covered by media today which will make Terry Fox Run known to more people in the city.
All these could happen due to dedicated efforts of every member of the organising committee ( Rtn Babu Krishnamoorthy, Rtn Hema, Rtn Gopal, Rtn Ganesan, Rtn Murali, Rtn Natarajan, Rtn Papa Roa, Rtn Rajendran, Rtn Shivram, Rtn Siva, Rtn Swaminathan, Ann Viji Shivram, Ann Vara, Mr.Bhavik - Rotractor ) and Ms Vaishnavi who played a key role in planning and coordinating all the major activities.
Rtn Ananth, Rtn Balaji, Rtn Jayaram, Rtn Leo Srini, Rtn M Srini, Rtn Ram, were a great support in arranging chief guest , press meet, logistics etc. And of course all the Rotarians, Anns and Annets who participated in the Run also extended their help at the venue in manning the Merchandise booth, forming human chain etc.
I acknowledge support of Sponsors Kumaran Systems (Rtn Vijay Shekar),Tata Tea, Tata Realty,(Rtn Swami), Indian Terrain, Guindy Machine Tools (Rtn Venkat), ETA , Pepsi, (Sujatha Dube), DHOOM, Big FM, Radio Mirchi, Satyam Cinemas,Taj Coromandel (Vaishnavi), Z-Talc (Rtn Shiv), Marg Group, Real Image Media, Cancer Institute (Rtn Badri).
With the active participation of IIT Students no doubt it was a true Team Effort which made this year’s Chennai Terry Fox Run reach a new height.
I am sure, very soon Chennai Terry Fox Run will become the largest one day event on Cancer Awareness and Fund Raiser for cancer research in INDIA.
Rtn Badri
Visit to RVC of Nandiambakkam on 15th August The first RVC inaugurated in this part of the Rota . . .
Visit to RVC of Nandiambakkam on 15th August
Visit to RVC of Nandiambakkam on 15th August
The first RVC inaugurated in this part of the Rotary World and second only to an RVC in Gujarat, was inaugurated in 1986, the second year of our club, and is celebrating its Silver Jubilee this year.
We have over the years assisted in mitigating a) their drinking water problem by working jointly with the government of Tamil Nadu, b) their transportation needs to the city by getting a sub urban railway station at the village jointly with the Southern Railways, c) built an additional class room for the Panchayat school, d) a community hall which is used for training the youth in computer literacy and English speaking. Both of the latter initiatives are on a self sustaining basis and as supervision of the quality has become difficult we are in the process of tying up this with Bharathi Vidhya Bhavan, Mylapore who will be professionally running this centre jointly with the RVC.
After a two year break, the President has visited the RVC’s Independence day Celebrations. Rtn. President Udyakumar accompanied by Rtn. Dr. Ravi and Rtn. T. Muthukumaran visited the village and hoisted the National Flag at RVC building, Venkateswara Matriculation School and the Panchayat School. After witnessing the cultural events and oratorical skills of the students, President spoke and distributed prizes sponsored by RVC to the best out going students and the class toppers at the Panchayat school. It was a fulfilling experience which ended with lunch at Anna Nagar.
Rtn. T Muthu Kumaran
The First Fellowship on Saturday, 14th August themed WILD WEST, was a grand western affair at t . . .
WILD WEST FELLOWSHIP
The First Fellowship on Saturday, 14th August themed WILD WEST, was a grand western affair at the Rain Tree Hotel.
The Rotarians, Anns and Annettes were welcomed with a cowboy hats and scarves to give an authentic touch to the evening that followed. The hall was decorated in a manner to reflect the Wild West, especially the “old jail block of a sheriff office” which was the centerpiece of attraction.
The entire evening was full of fun and entertainment through games and events led by Ann Sundari and Ann Sowmya. The variety of games and events were a testimony to the fact that huge preparation had gone into making this an exciting and fun filled evening. The first game was for the kids, a treasure hunt of sorts searching for the wild west paraphernalia like cowboy hats, belts, guns, moustache etc. The next game for the kids was to match the person in the wanted poster with the individual in the party and bring them in person. The third game was for Rotarians and Anns: something like the dog & the bone game. Then there was the game for the longest tail that could be created with whatever items were available at the hall, participants got hold of belts, dupattas and borrowed what they could to make the longest tail for their annettes. Finally, a quiz on the wild west trivia concluded the fun on the games side.
After that, the cocktails were flowing and the dance floor was thrown open to the dancers who tapped their feet to latest Tamil and Hindi beats. Dinner and dessert was an exceptional spread with the highlights being the Mini Burger which was enjoyed by the Annettes very much.
Kudos to the fellowship team headed by Rtn. Krishna Prasad for all their hardwork and team effort.
Rtn. Babu Krishnamoorthy
As an experiment, we are this year trying out a mentorship programme for the first year student . . .
Mentoring Programme Inaugurated on 16th August
As an experiment, we are this year trying out a mentorship programme for the first year students of our Rotaract College TS Narayanaswami College of Arts and Sciences.
In June this year, we held a day long programme for the faculty to sensitize them to the skill of mentoring and to motivate them to improve the lot of the most backward students who join this college. Ms. Nalini Ravindran, a corporate trainer from Sahaja, handled the session with Ms. Sabitha Sridhar. The programme was inaugurated by Ms. Nalini Ravindran. She addressed the students and explained the process of mentoring and how they will benefit from the programme.
Rtn. T Muthu Kumaran
It was a nice and energetic experience to interact with 50+ sharp minds at the National Public . . .
National Public School Interact Club Meeting on 17th August
It was a nice and energetic experience to interact with 50+ sharp minds at the National Public School Interact Club meeting. I also happened to be the Speaker and that added to the experience like icing on the cake. Though the meeting was started a bit late, it picked up the momentum there on.
The topic being ‘Effective Listening’, generated din followed by silence and participative listening and communication from the students. The students enjoyed the interactive and stories packed session and carried out with them the importance and merits of Learning through Listening. The teachers present were happy and thanked RCME for the service.
Rtn A.Sanjeevi
RCME joined hands with Public Health Centre in the campaign to spread the message of Breast Fee . . .
RCME joined hands with PHC in promoting Breast Feeding
RCME joined hands with Public Health Centre in the campaign to spread the message of Breast Feeding during the Breast Feeding promotion Week. RCME took part in the campaign held at Pushpanagar PHC and Choolaimedu Aangan Wadi on the 3rd of August 2011. Fruits and Health Supplements were donated to lactating mothers.
Thanks are due to Rtn. Hema Seth for co-ordinating and participating in this project.
Rtn. R Gopalakrishnan
This is to inform you about our Closed Door Club Assembly meeting on Aug 31st’2011. At our re . . .
RCME Closed Door Club Assembly Intimation Letter (For Aug 31st ‘2011) !!
This is to inform you about our Closed Door Club Assembly meeting on Aug 31st’2011. At our regular weekly timing of 7 PM with high tea starting at 6.30 PM at Hyatt Regency, Anna Salai.
Will soon send both the Trust accounts and Club accounts of last year for your perusal and passing at the time of the closed door meeting.
Rtn. Murugavel Selvan
Happy to inform you that we have finally narrowed down on dates and rates for RYLA. The RYLA Ca . . .
RYLA Fellowship Tour
Happy to inform you that we have finally narrowed down on dates and rates for RYLA.
The RYLA Camp will run from 9th to 11th September ; however for convenience the family trip has been scheduled over the weekend.
We plan to leave on the morning of Saturday 10th September and return before dusk on Sunday 11th September by A/c Coach .
The cost of the trip will be Rs 1500/= per head
We have drawn up the agenda to in a holistic manner, to give you:-
1) RYLA Leadership training in the ashram for a few hours
2) Purification and solace to mind by visiting temples in the vicinity
3) Fitness of body by trekking and visiting Girivalam
You have a short weekend getaway at an affordable price, all arrangements taken care of by the organizing committee (no hassles of transport / meals (only vegetarian) / accommodation for you) - learning, prayer and exercise all brought to you on a platter. For Julia Roberts it was EAT, PRAY, LOVE for the RCMEites it is LEARN, PRAY, ENJOY.
For registration, please send in details to Director New Generation – Rtn Babu Krishnamoorthy
Looking forward to an enthusiastic response.
President N S Udayakumar
Dear Friends The first grand fellowship of the current year (2011-12) is all set to rock us on . . .
Fellowship invite - 14th Aug
Dear Friends
The first grand fellowship of the current year (2011-12) is all set to rock us on 14th August 2011 (7 pm) at the Rain Tree Hotel, Mount Road. The 1st Fellowship team has been doing a great job in presenting a memorable fellowship to all of us.
I have a great pleasure in inviting all the members with their families to this “WILD WEST”. Please block your date and do come and enjoy the fun.
We appreciate the Fellowship team for their meticulous planning and implementation.
Once again I request you all to be there on 14th Aug with your family
Rtn. D V Ramana (Chairman - Fellowship)
“Experience, Travel – these are an education in themselves” To lend weight to the above q . . .
Fellowship Tours
“Experience, Travel – these are an education in themselves”
To lend weight to the above quote, we have this year scheduled four Fellowship Tours.
I am sure every family is toying with the idea of vacations and a break from routine – may I request you to block your calendars for the following dates:-
1. Thiruvanamalai (Overnight 10th September Saturday – leave Saturday post lunch return Sunday evening)
This year we have combined it with the RYLA camp. We have also reduced the number of RYLA camps from 3 to 1,(The RYLA Camp will be held from 9th to 11th) Tthe fellowship tour added onto the RYLA camp will include trip to Thiruvanamalai Temple and Girivalam, to invoke the blessings of the Deities. It is a one night trip away from home over a weekend.
2. International Fellowship Tour to Dubai – (13th to 16th October )
This promises to be the most economic overseas tour to the most happening destination. This city has something to offer for all age groups – Sure to ‘wow’ the Anns and Annettes – We are working to give you a cost cheaper than any other Indian destination beyond Tamil Nadu.
3. Grand Indian Fellowship Tour - Local tour to nearby destination at a very affordable price (17th to 19th February)
The Chairman is working on exotic locations and themes for a weekend get away !
4. RI Convention Bangkok (6th to 9th May)
The RI Convention has always been held at a Western location, this year the RI President being an Indian has chosen an Asian destination viz Bangkok - the trip is sure to be a fun trip bringing with it all the excitement, colour and charm of Eastern Asia. Let us make this a memorable family tour to Bangkok …. J
May I request you to please block your calendars for all the four tours, if unable to partake in all four, please consider at least minimum two of above – we can promise you memories that will never fade !!
This is only advance intimation for you to block your calendars - You will be receiving more information on these tours from the Club Service Director and Respective Chairman of the Fellowship Tour Committee.
Looking forward to your participation in the tours
President N S Udayakumar
Report on PS Matric Interact Club meeting. The first Interact Club meeting of PS Matric School . . .
PS Matric Interact Club Meeting on 28th July
Report on PS Matric Interact Club meeting.
The first Interact Club meeting of PS Matric School for this Rotary years was a learning experience. The Speaker for the meeting was our Rotarian Sanjeevi. The meeting started sharp as scheduled at 3pm. After a brief welcome and introduction of the speaker, it was the turn of the speaker. Through a variety of interesting interactive sessions, Rtn. Sanjeevi brought home to the students the concept of Effective Listening. The 45 minute sessions was an enjoyable and learning experience to the students of PS Matric. The other Rotarians present were Rtn. Muthukumaran and Rtn. Babu.
Rtn. Babu Krishnamoorthy
It is to inform that our annual club project Chennai Terry Fox Run 2011 is scheduled to be held . . .
Terry fox Run-Chennai 2011 - on 21st Aug (SUNDAY) at IIT Madras campus
It is to inform that our annual club project Chennai Terry Fox Run 2011 is scheduled to be held on 21st Aug (Sunday) at IIT Madras campus between
8 am and 11 am. Now we are only 20 days away from the event date, we need to create enough awareness about the event to get large number of participants in the run.
Apart from creating publicity through News Paper / Radio and other media, we can also create more awareness through emails/social networking sites/ poster display etc.
I request all the members to use the attached file in the signature of your emails and also please display the posters in your office / GYM / Social Clubs/nearby Malls and any other venues you think relevant to publicise this event. Posters are available with Rtn. Gopal which can be collected in the club meeting or from Mr. Gopal’s office.
I look forward to active participation and support of all the members to make this project a grand success.
Rtn. Badri