2001 – 2002 Ramesh Chugani
Membership: 33 – 36
2001-2002 Rotary Year is remembered as a year full of various interesting things and remarkable achievements.
Sister Club relations strengthened — We renewed our sisterhood agreement with the Rotary Club of Mandaluyong during their visit to us, which was attended by 27 visiting Rotarians and spouses. PP M.S. Kalra visited our sister Rotary Club of Jurong Town in Singapore, in honour of their 30th anniversary celebrations. PP Steve Lan and IPP Bill Benter visited our sister club, the Rotary club of Ama, Nagoya. Our Joint Meeting with the Rotary Club of Macau was a tremendous success where members and spouses enjoyed great fellowship.
Community Service and International Service Projects were all met with the basic needs of the community: –
A total of $176,200 was donated in the name of the club which went to various Charities and causes including R.I. District 3450 – Supporting Publicity Program & Protect Mother River Project, R.I. Foundation- Polio Plus Partners Project & Paul Harris Contributions, Rotary Int’l- Afghan Refugee Relief Fund, Holt China Children’s Trust- Milk Bottle Project, Trailwalker Charitable Trust, The HK Society for the Deaf, Adventure-Ship Ltd., Po Leung Kuk Charity Walk, Shatin Anglican Church- Good Samaritan Children Hostel in Chiang Rai, Joint Interact Council- Sponsorship I.U. Trip to Japan and the Royal HK Yacht Club- The Yantu Project.
We also contributed HK$50,000.00 to ST. James Settlement. Their Mr. P. L. Chan was presented the Paul Harris Fellow. A Fund Raising ball was held for the Camp Quality Summer Camp.
A sum of HK$77,000 was donated to Crossroads International and Global Hands to cover the living expenses of their temporary resident computer scientist and the purchase of a pallet stacker. A Community Service trip to Crossroads International was made in June to their humungous warehouse at the old Kai Tak Airport where President Ramesh, accompanied by 1st lady Regina, led a team of members in helping loading goods for shipping to the needy.
All Community Service & International Service projects were well supported by members, in particular IPP Bill with his generous contribution and Rotarian Brian, our International Service Director, who had been looking after the School project in China very well.
President Ramesh, IPP Bill and Rotarian Brian made a trip to Zhuhai to attend a meeting with the Macau Rotarians and two government officials from United Front, Du’an County. The Mou was signed for the construction of the Du’an county experimental school.
For the youth activities, we were the host club of RYLA programme for the year and supported activities of our Interactors from Tang Siu Kin Secondary School.
Inside, we were very sad that our figurehead and honorary member PP ‘Uncle’ George Chu passed away, a great loss to our club and the District. Rotarian Nagendra left us this year too. But 4 new members were inducted to our club. We also designed and launched our new club banner to go along with our Club Bulletin “Sampan”.
Overall this was a wonderful and successful Rotary year of the Club under the leadership of President Ramesh well supported by all club directors, members and most importantly, his better half Regina.