Club Assembly - April 29

Before the next meeting is upon us this evening, let me report on the Club Assembly we had a fortnight ago, on April 29.
STATUTORY WARNING: This will be along read for you, since it also serves as Minutes of teh Club Assembly!
The meeting opened with a short video of a play by a Rotary Club abroad enacting an impression of the first ever meeting of what is now the world-wide Rotary movement, on February 23, 1905 when Paul Harris and his three friends met at his office.Here's the video for those who were not there:

President Champaka then requested the club Directors to report to the members on the activities of the past few months.

Taking the floor first, Rtn. Amaresh enumerated teh club programmes held since January. Our speaker meetings included a talk on "Doing Projects in India" by PDG Val and Rtn. Terry Leivers of the UK; another on "Emergency Care" by Dr. Mahesh Joshi., etc. He also mentioned the programmes on the theme "Know Your City" - a talk on the Hyderabad MetroRail project and another on "Tales from the Nizams' Era". To dd interest, we also had a panel discussion on "A Teacher's Perspective" with teachers from a government and a private school.
Rtn. Amaresh also mentioned the excellent Public Meeting held during the official visit of DG Hari Krishna on Janaury 28 and the fact that over 20 of our members attended the District Conference in Guntur on February 15-16.

Rtn. PP Reddy next dealt with Membership. He recalled that we started the year 2013-14 with 82 members and had added 12 new and very active members till date. Two of our members left the club - one on a transfer to Vishakapatnam and the other due to business preoccupation. Our current strength is therefore 92. Rtn. Reddy said he had targeted to bring the membership up to 100 before the year end and told members there was till time for eight more to be inducted! A few proposals have been received from our members and we are moving towards the target!
Speaking on his area of responsibility of Public

Relations, Rtn. Vijay first profusely thanked Rtn. Ramesh Kandula, who is an editor at CVR News, for his constant support in covering our club occasions, such as the meeting addressed by ACP (Traffic) Mr. Amit Garg, and the one where Ms. Amala Akkineni spoke on Blue Cross and the Literacy Summit. The Vocational Awards Nite was covered by Andhra Jyothi and the DG's visit to the Govt. School at Filmnagar was also covered by CVR News. ABN TV covered the Life Skills programme inauguration by Ms. Amala Akkineni at the Film Nagar school. A surprise feature in Eenadu reported an interview with President Champaka, accompanied by pictures of our projects - that was a feather in our cap! To finish the year on a high, our club got excellent publicity through hoardings in the city and live coverage by ETV when we co-sponsored the Ghantashala Musical Nite a few days ago!
Rtn. Sharda then reported on the great fellowships events we had through the year:

• Installation Nite where about 160 Rotarians and guests enjoyed cocktails and dinner
• Vocational Awards Nite where we had Rotarians from the twin cities joining us for High Tea.
• A great Divali Dhamaka on November 9, where we enjoyed cocktails and dinner to the strains of popular musical hits performed by the Rafi Foundation members.
• A Rotary Quiz, followed by cocktails and dinner.
• A lunch fellowship meet where Ms. Amala spoke on "Blue Cross".
• The gala dinner on January 28 at Aditya Sarovar after the DG's Public Meeting.
• The great Cricket Fellowship at Rtn. Abhishek's Mango resort.
• And the laugh-a-minute Politicians' Nite on April 22 with cocktails and dinner.

Rtn. Chamala then reported on the club's Literacy Projects:

1.       Breakfast for 300 children of Manikonda Primary school @ Rs. 15,000 per month.

2.       Adoption of Govt. High School, Film Nagar:

a.       Renovation of  toilets and paving of toilets area.

b.      Setting up of Science Laboratory

c.       Repair of computers

d.      Construction of stage and paving of area

e.      Repair of 350 desks

f.        Refurbishing of school electric wiring

All of the above was achieved with club funds and funding from Shankar Rural Development Foundation.

g.       Activity Centre with funds from Dr. Vivekanand, brother of Rtn. Sharda, consisting of audio-visual equipment, almirahs, books and games, painting of the room and vinyl flooring. Unlikely that any government school has such a facility!

h.      We are also funding a lady to clean the school and the toilets and a teacher for computer classes costing a total of Rs.13,000 per month.

3.       75 school desks were donated out of funds given by club members.

4.       The BJR School toilets project is pending which will be taken up in June.

Including the expenditure incurred by SRDF and the donation for the Activity Centre, an estimated Rs.10 lakhs has been spent so far on our signature project!
Rtn. Raghav then listed the international projects undertaken this year. The Matching Grant Project at Shekinah

Foundation's school for the mentally handicapped is almost complete. The final stage is the installation of a solar hot water system which is under installation.
We have already gifted the majority of the Hearing Aids donated by RC of East Palo Alto Bayshore, with the help of the Govt. ENT Hospital at King Kothi. We have also received a further 30 Hearing Aids gifted by Rtns. Val and Terry Leivers and these will also be donated soon.
The Houses for Humanity Project, funded by Rotarians from the UK, is progressing and three of the 20 houses to be constructed are complete.
Rtn. Raghav also reported that our Club Trust had a balance

      of Rs. 6 lakhs for use in our community service projects. Also, our members have contributed $9,200 to TRF this year and he was hoping that the amount would go up to our committed figure of $10,000 before the year end. Rtn. Jyothi Gutta promptly volunteered a donation of $250, and her announcement was greeted with acclamation.
The meeting ended with thanks from President Champaka.