ABOUT THE CLUB
After the five First Generation Clubs in the erstwhile City of Madras namely Rotary Clubs of Madras, Madras South, Madras North & Madras Midtown, we the `Rotary Club of Ambattur’ ( RCA ) was formed almost 10 years after Rotary Club of Madras Midtown. As the sixth city club, we were the first of the second generation Rotary Clubs in the then city of Madras. The birth of our club was keenly encouraged by two eager parents namely, Rotary Club of Madras and Rotary Club of Madras West. In fact Rotary Club of Madras South too had taken a lot of interest in supporting us, mainly because they knew many prospective members residing in their territory, who were commuting daily to Ambattur, which by then had become the biggest industrial area in this north western part of the city of Madras. Senior Rotarians of these three Rotary clubs including the ruling DG Venugopal Govind (Rotary Club of Cochin) from the then undivided R.I.Dist.320 (extending up to Kerala) had realised the rich potential of this area. He had sent in the second half of his Rotary year 1979-80, Rtn.PP. Subramani (Rotary Club of Chalakudi) as Governor’s Special Representative (GSR) to discuss with all concerned senior Rotarians of the above three city Rotary Clubs for the finalisation of the Charter and also the 33 Charter Members of the proposed new Club.It was the proud privilege of Charter President N. Krishnan, Asst.Secy. Jai Shetty, Sgt.at Arms Jan & Charter Secretary P. Sridharan to help the GSR to send the invitation to the 33 Charter Members of the newly formed Rotary Club Of Ambattur. P Sridharan already being a Rotarian in the Rotary Club of Bangalore South (for 7 years) and as its then ruling Secretary, could continue in both clubs (as per then prevailing R.I.rules) without any break. This was due to the fact that he had moved to Madras for a career change and the rule of a minimum of 30% in home club was not introduced. P Sridharan was in fact a member of both the Clubs for the Rotary year 1979-80. That was the reason for him to be the natural choice of the founding fathers, to be the Charter Secretary of this Club. In addition, NK, Jan and P Sridharan were residing around the C.I.T.Colony in Mylapore & our factories too were close to each other in Ambattur. It was in one of those meetings that Jan not only mooted the idea, but readily took the post of Bulletin Editor. We then decided that it would start as a fortnightly and that it will only be a cyclostyled version to begin with, but with a lot of Rotary information. Thus was born `Amber’ with its first Issue being released on 24th April 1980, a fortnight after our first inaugural provisional meeting on 10th April 1980. All these enabled a lot of more interaction among all of us, the 33 proposed Charter Members, visiting each other’s units & houses whenever possible.
The point strictly applied at that time by all concerned (including us, the initially selected senior Charter Members of this newly formed Club) was adhering strictly to then applicable unique principles/guidelines for membership to Rotary. This was ensured while sending invitations to the 33 eligible members to join our Rotary Club of Ambattur as its Charter Members. These were
1) Ensuring their place of business or residence being within our Club’s territorial limits
2) Ensuring the basic principle of being a true leader at a mature age of the business/ profession which classification was being assigned to the concerned Charter Member
3) It was also agreed that no other existing Rotarian from any of the other five city clubs would be transferred to this club, even if their place of work was in this new club’s territorial Limits
4) All RCAns will ensure payment of all Club Dues, within the stipulated time.
All this had ensured that this new club had new and young business and professional leaders to lead the Club to greater heights. We thus got many ex Round Tablers (Square Legs and over 40 Years), seasoned Annettes and Rotaractors mostly from the 3 City Clubs as charter members of Rotary Club of Ambattur. Instead of sharing the territory with the Rotary Club of Madras, we preferred the offer of sponsorship by Rotary Club of Madras West, more because they agreed to cede a very big portion of their territory extending right up to Thiruvallur. It was the largest area for any Madras city club until territorial limits for city clubs were relevant. The territorial limit ceded to us by the Rotary Club of Madras West was clearly outside the Madras city limits, which at that time ended east of the railway track adjacent to the factory of Wheels India Ltd. RCA’s original territorial limit, covering rural upcountry areas, probably explains the reason for our closeness with all the rural/upcountry clubs in our District right from day one, till date. Rotary International, for the same reason turned down our application to be called `Rotary Club of Madras Ambattur’, giving us only the name of “ Rotary Club of Ambattur’ in the then R.I.Dist.320.
We cannot forget thinking of and thanking those senior Rotarians, from the three city Rotary clubs, who played a key role in both helping us and also in guiding us in all our initial endeavours as a new born. They were Late Past District Governors, Rtn C.R.R.Pillai, Rtn. R.Ratnam, Rtn. Dr.Sundaraman and Rtn. R. Ramakrishnan from Rotary Club of Madras. The first organisation meeting of RCA was on Thursday 10th April 1980 during the tenure of DG. Venugopal.C.Govind. Most importantly our special thanks to Rtn. PP.Deepak Banker of Rotary Club Madras, for giving his Ambattur Factory, Kunal engineering company’s conference hall for our weekly Thursday afternoon lunch meetings. From Rotary Club Cof Madras South, we had Late PDG.Ramakrishna Raja, Past Presidents Rtn. R.V.Rajan, Rtn. P.V.Lakshminarayan and Rtn. Vijayakumar who also were a big help. From our sponsor club Rotary Club of Madras West, Late Past District Governors Rtn. S.R.Govindarajan, Rtn. Bhoja Shetty and Past Presidents Rtn. Venkatesan and Rtn. S.T.Seshadri, were pillars of support in all of RCA’s initial service ventures.
Those days there were no empowered Zonal/Regional R.I. Offices and all approvals (including our Charter Certificate) had to come from Rotary International in Evanston. We also did not have today’s fast mode of communication and had to depend only on long distant calls. The joke was that we were intimated of being chartered on 28th August 1980 and with the help of seniors of the 3 city Clubs, our Charter Night Celebrations were fixed on that day at Taj Conemara with the ruling District Governor G. Varadaraj (from Coimbatore) presiding over the function. The fact was that the charter certificate had still not reached us, for being handed over to P Sridharan officially and being exhibited to all present in the function. We therefore managed with a make do cardboard roll box, making the audience believe that we had no time to frame it. Only NK, Jan and P Sridharan knew the tension we had, till we got it much later to show it to all our Charter Members.
Prospective Anns had confirmed that both they and their Annettes would help by being actively involved in all of RCA’s Projects. It must be noted that ladies were not allowed to be invited for membership in those days. Our Anns were clear, being part of RCA family, they were neither interested to start an Inner Wheel club nor join any other club’s Inner Wheel. Our Anns agreed to take an active part in not only the Club and Community Service avenues, but in all of RCA’s activities. Our then General Body therefore wanted us to have them as Committee Members in all Committees. P Sridharan wrote to the R.I. headquarters in U.S., asking if rules in the then R.I. Constitution permitted the same. Our Question had created history of sorts in both R.I. and our own District. Reply sent, (with a Special congratulatory note to the Anns of RCA) to the then DG, was announced by him at the District Conference. It stated that RI had agreed that we could have them as `Advisors’, but not as committee members. With such rich Rotary knowledge gathered by our Charter Members, it was not surprising that we had the first edition of constitution and bye Laws of R.C.A., approved by the general body, printed in December 1980. After the last sixth edition approved and printed in January 2016, we need to plan to get the next edition discussed and approved by our general body. Latest relaxations allowed by R.I in membership in not still clearly mentioning minimum age limit, should not make RCA to rush giving undue relaxation in minimum age. It should not be at the cost of leadership quality of our future members.
RCA needs proven leaders not only to run our four long term projects, but must also be able to add on to our services to our community in other avenues too. This must be taken into consideration by our present general body, by not overtly reducing the average age of its membership.
The participative involvement of all the charter members and their Anns went a long way in making my job as Charter Secretary easier. Our new concept to have younger members, included quite a few (Square Leg) ex Round Tablers and Rotaractors and Annettes of involved and experienced city Rotarians into RCA. This not only brought young blood into RCA but became popular, to inspire many other clubs in our District to follow suit. We are now only left with seven charter members, each one of whom has played a major role in RCA’s growth to its present pride of place in R.I.Dist.3232. Even after 40 years, today RCA, has it’s two charter members viz. Permanent `Annadata’ Ajit Patel and Charter President NK as Major Donors. Showing his capacity to be the king of fund raising Rtn. IPP. P.N. Ramachandran has created records of all sorts.
Our first Club Assembly cum Picnic on 15 August 1980 even as a provisional club at a farm in Mahabalipuram, is continued till date as a tradition on every 15 August. (as far as possible by every board) to ensure that their action plan is discussed with the general body & finalised in the very beginning of the Rotary year. Small beginnings in community projects in the very first five or six years as a new and small club, have grown into mammoth long term projects R.C.A.’s long term projects and activities are unique and diverse and serve other needy communities through other Rotary clubs both in our District as well as in the neighbouring Districts. The first four long term projects are today managed by our Ambattur Rotary Charitable Trust.
1. T.V.NAGAR SCHOOL run by T.V.Nagar Society adopted by us in the very first year, is till date managed well by Rtn.PP.Hariprasad. Starting from asbestos roofed primary classes, we have supported the growth of this school till date. Credit for this first long term project goes to charter member and Past President Late Rtn. P. Panchapakesan, who was called the first `Bishma Pithamaha ’ of R.C.A.
2. Ambattur Rotary Hospital Blood donation & Measles Immunization camps (much before R.I. took it up as its Project) were done in Charter member Late Dr.K.N.Sukumar’s clinic. Also the major healthcare work in Ambattur as well as in Sholavaram CSI Rainy Hospital, all of which were conducted in the first two years, made us decide on our second long term project of a medical centre. After scouting for land in Karanodai and Sholavaram areas, we were lucky to get one acre of land at the present location . Its growth from First Aid Centre to a Polyclinic and now to a Multi Specialty Hospital at affordable costs being owned and run by our ambattur Charitable Trust is history. Charter Members Late Past Presidents Rtns. C.G. Krishna, N.D. Kalro, ex-Rtns. Past Presidents V.R.Sukumar, Sudha Umashankar and Rtn. Past Presidents Alben Rebello and Richard Fernandes, have all contributed a lot for the growth of Ambattur Rotary Hospital activities.
3. Distribution details of SCAW (Canadian based NGO) kits from 1986-87 in the southern part of our country as our third long term project and its growth as on date goes to Late Rtn.Past President Thiruvenkadam, With his blessings, the annual distribution for many years now, is being ably organised by Past President Rtn. Ravishankar.
4. RCA first Adopted Ayanambakkam Village (next to Ayappakkam) by putting up a Park there. We next put up an award winning Subabul demonstration farm there. This was similar to the one we put up in Karonodai, with the help of our Charter Member/1982-83-Rtn.Secy.Natesan. RCA though very popular with the village folk of Karonodai, for putting up a rural bank there (for which too we got a District Vocational Award), noted the difficulty of RCAns to visit this far off project site for further activities. It was a coming home of sorts when Ayappakkam thus caught the attention of RCA members for consideration as a site for its fourth long term project. Ex-Rtn. PP. Sudha Umashankar, was the main driving force (who had a few of us in her Committee), who jumped into action digging deep into the Pattas/ Kathas etc. of the plots in that area. She gave all details and feed back to our Late Rtn.PP.Vasu Bhatia who had all the German contacts for RCA to get the Grants. He had backed Sudha fully, not only because he knew her capacity as a Journalist, but also because he was confident she had the capacity to convince the Germans (particularly Rtn.Gutsche Martin) to invest here. Thus came Ayyapakkam After School Learning Centre for RCA’s fourth long term project. First taking the help of Neumayer Trust of Germany and Iniya Udhayam Charitable Trust (I.U.C.T.), we started an after school learning. It has today grown to be a recognised after school Educational and vocational training centre. It is now run with the help of German Rotarians, who visit the Centre every year and is now being managed by our Rtn.Upendra Bhatia (S/O Late Rtn.PP. Vasu).
5. Many firsts in RCA’s formative years, made our Anns popular. Starting with Rotary Songs by our popular ’JAMS’ at the very first Charter Presentation Night, this continued for next five years in all district meets. Next they trained our Annettes to take up the mantle for Rotary songs in a bigger way in our R.I.Dist. Other City Rotary couples and Annettes joining us, was a bigger hit in the District. All of us in this `JAMS’ group made fireside dinner meets during practises such a hit that other city club participants named Rtn.PP. Ashok Rao the ’Fireside King of RCA’ . Our Anns also played a lead Role, in selecting i) Best Conductor/ Driver in Ambattur Bus depot ii) Best Nurse/Ward Boy in Hospitals in our territory iii)Micro credit project which later was followed by other clubs and the District. iv) Our totally in-house fund raising program in the first year was a fashion show ’Women of Zodiac’ directed and modelled by our own Anns & Annettes. Fund raising programs like Cracker Sales, Dandiya Night etc. (with full support of PPs Hari & Omi) had our Anns making it a success.