PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE – JULY 2011

I am deeply honoured to be elected to serve as President for 2011-2012 and I look forward to working with my board and members, to accomplish the goals we have set for this year.

Rotary International has revised its Strategic Plan which consists of 3 priorities which call on us to (1) support and strengthen our clubs, (2) focus and increase our humanitarian service, and (3) enhance our public image and awareness.

In keeping with the first priority our main goal this year will be to increase our membership by 10% and we plan to do this by organizing regular fellowship activities and making our meetings more exciting and vibrant.

We have recently been selected to participate in RI’s Innovation and Flexibility Program and this will allow us to experiment with many new and interesting ideas to attract younger members into our club. We will look into RI’s amended policy on meeting attendance, meeting options and member termination and we will experiment with different alternative types of membership and new ways of club operations.

We will continue with all our Service projects with special emphasis on strengthening the family unit, as RI President Kalyan Banerjee has asked, and in so doing help to build strong communities. In this regard we will look into the feasibility of doing a Parenting program for the parents and guardians of the students of our Learning Centre and we will engage the help of Families in Action to do a Peer Counselling program with the students.

We will continue with the Music program which brought a number of successes this year in the Music exams and we will also continue to develop our young leaders by affording Secondary school students the opportunity to attend the World Affairs Seminar, a leadership conference, in Wisconsin, U.S.A.

We also have a commitment to our Rampanalgas Community Corps to repair the roof of the building and to replace the kitchen appliances, so they can resume their catering services and the making of condiments.

We will be supporting DG Lara’s plan for environmental sustainability by undertaking a Tree planting exercise at the Fondes Amandes Re-Forestation Project and at the top of Lady Chancellor Hill. We will use these occasions for fellowship.

We will be embarking on an aggressive drive to create awareness of our many projects and activities and sensitise the public through the social, print and electronic media, and through our website. We will also produce brochures and other material which will be distributed to various businesses and other organizations.

Lastly we will continue to support The Rotary Foundation in its efforts to eradicate polio and we will encourage all members to become sustaining members by contributing towards the Annual Programs Fund.

We are embarking on a very exciting period in Rotary’s history and we look forward to a productive and rewarding year ahead as we “Reach Within to Embrace Humanity” and work towards making our club Bigger, Better and Bolder.

I wish to thank you all for being here this evening and look forward to your continued support.