Acceptance Speech

Gov Elect Rtn Olivannan, PDGs, AG Rtn KS Srinivasan, visiting district officials, incoming Dist First Lady Nallini, IPP Thangamuthu, out-going & in-coming Secretaries Sridhar and DR Jaisankar, outgoing first lady Sudha, incoming first lady Dr Manjula, , my dear fellow bridging presidents, visiting Rotarians, my dear fellow Coromandelians, Ann’s, Annett’s, families, friends, guests and other invitees, a warm welcome and a very good morning. 

First of all, let me congratulate and thank President Thangamuthu and his outstanding team of office bearers, for the great honors and laurels they earned to this 23 year old club. RCMC has been awarded PLATINUM for the year 2009-10... one among the 12 clubs in the district and six other awards, which is remarkable and this in turn has set a new bench mark for the coming years. Well done Mr. President and the team. The secy’s report was yet another manifest for the other good work done by the team.

"We do not remember days; we remember moments", this phrase has always been true with me, It was way back in 1999 during Dr.Hari Ramesh’s Presidentship, Sankaran and another 34yr old friend of mine, Paddy, played a key role in bringing me in to this great movement, Rotary. And believe me, these 11yrs have been my greatest moments of my life, Thanks Shanks and paddy for getting me here. Once again I thank my dear friend sankaran for an excellent introduction.

Today, I feel very proud and happy to stand before you to deliver this acceptance speech. After 22 presidents and their teams, who have established such a high standard and decorum for this great club, I feel a heavy pressure of responsibility to keep up this accomplishment. Also, I am fully conscious of the expectations from all of you. Though, I am very confident enough to promise you all, that I’ll do my best to meet your expectations, we have to be aware that it is the team effort that has reaped the fruit of success in this great club. I feel I am over the moon to have many able and passionate Rotarians as office bearers in my team and that gives me an added conviction that we can not only meet the expectations and can even exceed ! If I can borrow from our DGE Oli, the team will certainly strive to make the new rotary year filled with 3Es…an EASY; EFFCTIVE and ENJOYABLE thru 3Ts…Total commitment, Team work and Transparency.

As I strongly believe, that we need to recognize and love people for what they are and not for what we want them to be, my motivation to join rotary was to earn friendship from different walks of life and to meet and nurthure friendship with people of different attitudes, character, social status and behavior. Here, I would like to refer a remarkable quote taken from the "Top 100 outstanding quotes" from Rotary International Presidents, Rtn Albert S Adams, RI President 1919-1920 says, “Friendship...the craving for which brought Rotary into existence is the thing that will keep Rotary a living, vital force in the world for all time, the very foundation of our organization". Today I can vouch that the best friends I have other than from my school and college days are from the rotary and that’s one of the finest privilege rotary provides for people. Also this 105 years old international organization gives an adequate amount of opportunity for an individual to be responsible to the society and to contribute for its well being. This gives an endless satisfaction that you are able to give back to the society and connect sensibly and sensitively to the society that made you what you are.

Coming to the brief outline of what our club RCMC will do in the next 12 months,

1. We will continue with our signature and unique project Karna vidya and take that to further heights at a budget of about 1.5 Lacs
   
2. "Project Selvi" which is all about empowering girls. We’ll build on the good beginning done at Avvai Home and Corporation school at Kamaraj Avenue at a budget of Rs 60000 and will try to extent it to Okkiyam school.
   
3. Will team up with Nalandhana, Brithya and other NGOs for creating awareness of AIDS, health camps, equipments and computers for schools, education, clean water, food and health care supplies for needy children of the poor communities at a cost of about Rs 50000.
   
4. Conducting the unique Parallel music festival for the benefit of differently abled, in a renewed and revitalized format year after year.
   
5. Setting up a vocational training school for the children of Okkiyam Thoraipakkam Panchayat School at a cost of Rs 200000 from RCMC and by obtaining grants from the district and RI Foundation.
   
6. As it is marked every year in our calendar, the Polio Plus will be given the final push and we will conduct polio immunization camps on the NID at a budget of Rs 20000.
   
7. Focus on Membership development - today we are going to induct 3 new members who are achievers in their own walks of life... we will fulfill the target of adding atleast 5 more during the year.
   
8. Contributions to Rotary Foundation – Will honor the commitment made at the PETS and as the token and first step in that process I contribute 1000 U$ today towards PHF to the RI Foundation. The rest will follow soon.
   
9. New generations – the two rotaract and two interact clubs of RCMC will be nurtured and developed. RYLA will be organized and conducted during the second half of the year.
   
10. The club’s functioning will be totally transparent, open and participative.
    
11. To make the rotary experience harmonious and fun packed, regular weekly meetings with class speakers from diverse fields, monthly family fellowships and outbound fellowships will be organized
    
12. All efforts will be put in place to train and get the green and grey Rotarians involved in the club activities and projects to promote their interest and to groom them as good Rotarians and sustain them in the rotary movement...
    
13. We will also undertake District nominated/guided projects that suits our ability and capability.

Dear Coromandelians, I thank you all for giving me this excellent opportunity and I’ll do my best to be worthy of the confidence reposed in me and be a worthy successor to the illustrious list of Past Presidents of our club. Let me assure you that the experience in rotary is going to be 3E s thru 3T…Easy Effective and Enjoyable thru Total commitment n involvement, Team Work and Transparency…

I want to mention with a heavy heart that I feel the absence of my parents and my beloved brother, who would indeed feel more proud and happier than me, to see me getting this great honor of serving you as the 23rd President of this great club.

If we cant then who will? Together let us build communities and bridge continents…

Once again … Thank you RCMC and one and all here for this great opportunity and patient listening !! God Bless you!