President Blog

My Dear Fellow Rotarians and Friends,

I wanted to take this opportunity to express a few thoughts and observations from my year as President of the club in RY 2023-24. I'm not sure about you, but this year has gone by very quickly – much faster than I had ever expected, and I am thinking most of you feel the same way. Of course, none of us knew how differently this year would turn out from the way it started.

Well, today is the Club Day! And I congratulate all of you for being part of such a presitigious club in RID3131. It has been about a year since I took office of the President & we are celebrating so many things! Surely, we’re celebrating the club aday but we are also celebrating much more;

• We are celebrating our club day
• We are celebrating greeting & meeting friends, shaking hands, meeting the new members, lot of fun and fellowship
• We are celebrating being together, feeling proud,  moving on from current state of club to newer heights,  and
• Celebrate what we achieved during the year

But while we do all this, let’s see an overview for a moment about where we’ve been:

The Past year: The past year lead by IPP Bhagyashree was amazing and I’m thoroughly impressed of the work that our club did. It was truly a superb performance under her leadership.  

Service: We have a common bond, “Service Above Self” which keeps us committed to keeping our Rotary Club active, alive, relevant and vibrant.  As the sole purpose of Rotary is towards “service to the community”, we tried to address almost all the focus areas of RI and work on service projects in the avenues of Health, Basic Education & Literacy, Environment, Water Management, Youth,  Economic & Community Development, Women Empoerment Peace Building and also that of in District Thrust Areas. Service is at the core of who we are and what we do in Rotary. No one would be a part of this Club if we did nothing to help the community. But proudly, we do and might I say, we do it well.

I must mention that in this rotary year, in spite of long strike of Anganwadi Sevikas, we completed infrastructure up-gradation of 55 Anganwadis in Taluka Mulshi, Maval, Bhigwan and Khandala (Shirwal). We could do so due to dedication and passion of members to work in remote areas, under odd conditions and limited resources. This was all  under the leadership of PP Rita Kothary and her team. Much appreciation to the entire team of Anganwadi execution.  

Youth: There is a lot to work with youth! We added one interact school i.e. Prajnanabodhini English Medium School at  Shirgaon and strengthened our all interact schools with structured interactive multiple sessions for the overall development of children.  First time in our club, we organzed 2 days residential RYLA at Rani Laxmibai Mulinchi Sainiki Shala at KasarAmboli, Tal –Mulshi,Dist Pune. Our Interact schools were also part of implimenting an environment cum public image project in the villages. Kudos to New Generation Director PP Deepak Walokar & his team who did everything that was planned wihtin first 8 months of the year.

Membership: We inducted 7 new members: and I am very happy that most of them are very active in club’s activities and I am sure they would be participating much more in the coming years and to be future leaders in our club.  What more can I say? I am so excited that I had the privilege of inducting so many new members in a time when I thought I’d only induct a few! Unfortunately, we also lost some members due to personal reasons or professional commitments. It happens and there’s nothing we can do about that, but we continue to evolve! Congratulations Membership Director Rtn juee Kulkarni & Team for your contributions in adding members this year.

Annual Program Fund & Fundraising through CSR: We raised record CSR funds of over 1.0 crore  this Rotary year!!!  so we could continue with projects that we had planned in the year.! Much appreciation to our “King of CSR” — Rtn PN Santosh Chiplunkar and his team. We wanted to come up with a way to make APF giving more flexible and natural; so, give any time during the year campaign was created with pledges that could be fulfilled during the year.

I admit that I never expected us to get APF of $30000+, but will always be impressed that we did it - Many thanks to District Foundation Director Charu Shrotri , as always. A big thank you to our Foundation Director DGN Santosh & his team for a all time high APF collection.

What else? We had so many accomplishments this year,  

• We have good representation in RID3131 being one of the most respected club in the district

• We organized variety of weekly meeting in hybrid mode – may be physical, outdoor or online.
• Monsoon Picnic , Day Picnic, Ladies Picnic, Potluk Dinner & Bawarchi Night
• We had a wondorful & unforgattable long trip to Vietnam -Kambodia.
• Helped NGOs through SRUJAN – our signature project
• We had lots of fellowship during or after meeting resulting to member’s assimilation
• Celebration of birthdays & anniversaries of members and spouses every month
• Given lots of focus on cultural, assimilation during the year
• Hosted few Dist Events – CRM & PELs
• Received approval for our Global Grant for Solar Project to School
• Many Awards & Citations
• Verity of Service Projects, almost in all focus areas and what not…The list is very big
• Good membership growth
• CSR of 1+ Crore   and
• All time high collection of APF and much more………..

Did I accomplish everything i wanted during this year? No, certainly not (does any President?), but you should always set your goals high regardless of where you land. I could have lowered the bar and made myself feel great, but that’s not who I am; that’s not our club as well.  that’s not what WE wanted.

I never felt like giving up on Rotary. I never felt like I couldn’t do it, and I never once felt like that I didn’t have any support. My Board was outstanding!  While this Board was helping make decisions, please remember that they are also members of the Club and were doing everything in the best interest of the club that has a legacy of 55 years. Thanks a lot to our all the  Past Presidents, DGN Santosh, PP Charu Shrotri, PP Vishwas Sapre, PP Rita Kothary, PP Ajit Damle, PP Ashok Kothary, PP Dr Rajeev Deshmukh and the future leaders of the club – PE Niranjan, PN Santosh Chiplunkar and PND Pavandeep Singh without them I don’t know if I could have really made it to the end. It has been an absolute delight, to serve as your president.  Now I am even more delighted to pass this honor to the very capable PE Niranjan.  I am sure he will do an excellent job in the coming year. Thank you for allowing me to serve as your President, it has been an honor, privilege and a humbling experience, one that I will cherish always.

A special thanks to DG Manjoo Phadke , Dist Trainer PDG Shailesh Palekar,  AG Sunita Shirguppi, DRT Shirish Karnik & All the Dist Leaders for their guidance & continued support throughout my Presidentship. 

Last but not the lease, I express my sincere gratitude to all my Board Members, Chairpersons, Committee Members and all other members, Anns & Spouses who were directly or indirectly supporting me during the year.

I look forward to seeing you at the Club Day Celebration on June 21.

I thank you all for being with me in this journey called Rotary to CREATE HOPE in the WORLD.

Rtn Vipin Ghate, President 

Rotary Club of Poona West, Pune