The new Board has its say

The New Board has its say. Incoming President Kedari Reddy makes her speech at the installation cermony: Good evening respected Rotarians, dear Parents, and my fellow rotaractors. In the words of one of our founders, Varenya, Rotaract is what you make of it. For some of us, it is a platform to develop professional and leadership skills. For the rest, it is a means of showing goodwill towards people. For me, Rotaract is about making a difference. It's about making a difference at an individual level and to the society, on an emotional as well as materialistic level. Since it's inception, Rotaract Club of Hyderabad East has only scaled heights. Be it the fundraisers or service projects, they only kept getting bigger and better. Rotaract Club of Hyderabad East today, is a family. And we all absolutely love it. A big thank you to our parent Rotary Club for being there for us at every point and guiding us. The club wouldn't have been what it is today, without their priceless support. Acknowledging the brilliant job done by the club last year, all we can do now is make a promise. A promise to keep up with the momentum of the past two and half years and try our best to surpass it. Thank you. The Vote of Thanks by Biswadeb Das,Secretary for the Rotaract Club of Hyderabad East 2010-2011: On behalf of the Rotaract Club of Hyderabad East I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those without who this event would not have been possible. I would like to thank Rotarian Madhu Babu (President of Rotary Club dist 3150) for gracing this occasion. I would like to thank all the Rotarians who have come here today. Thanks to the Rotary club for always being there for us and supporting our every endeavor. Thank you to the past board, we promise to go on with the legacy of our club and do even better than we have. Thank You to Vijaya Kanth (DRR) for being with us on this occasion. Thank You to Tansen (IP DRR, DRT and Co-chairman Addets) for your support always and being there today as well. Thank You to all the parents for taking out time from your busy schedules and being here today. Also, we have among us members of other Rotaract clubs Thank you for taking out the time and being here today. Thank you to Vishnu who was very generous by providing us the venue for todays program A big thank you to all the members of the club who made this event possible. A special thank you to New member Padmini for the welcome song, to Pooja and Pragnya for handling the hosting of the cermony so beautifully, to Mrinmayee and the other volunteers for co-ordinating the happenings at the venue, and to all the other members who have contributed in terms of time and manpower. Thank you. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank those who are not present with us but deserve to be mentioned nevertheless. Rotarian Jawahar Vadlamani, those members who are not with us right now, but have guided us through the projects and the installation through the physical distance. Lastly, we would like to thank all those who have believed in us all through.

Installation Cermony: 2010-2011

The Rotaract Club of Hyderabad East had its installation on the 28th of August, where the third board took over and promised to take the club forward in the year of 2010-2011. The ceremony was held at The Aditya Park Inn at Ameerpet. The meeting saw speeches from the Past President Ravi Chandra, who completely moved away from his planned speech as he let his heart talk, the last year report by Akbar Ali who let us catch glimpses of moments and experiences as lived by the Rotarians last year, the incoming President promised to try and live upto the expectations,and the Rotarian President, Mr Madhu Babu promised us full support for the coming year and also gave us suggestions to improve ourselves in the coming year. Mr Vijaya Kanth (DRR)and Tansen (IP DRR, DRT and Co-chairman Addets) also motivated us through their confidence in us, and their encouraging and kind words. The New Board members were presented with their badges by Rotr Madhu Babu.

The new board is as follows: PRESIDENT : Kedari Reddy, VICE-PRESIDENT : Savit Vadlamani, SECRETARY : Biswadeb Das, JOINT-SECRETARY : Pragnya Challapally, TREASURER : Navya Akkinepally,  DIRECTOR OF FINANCE : Nikitha Reddy, DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY SERVICE : Sruti Raju, DIRECTOR OF VOCATIONAL SERVICE : Prateek Reddy, DIRECTOR OF LIAISON : Tanvi Desai, DIRECTOR OF CLUB SERVICE : Mrinmayee Dhoble, . DIRECTOR FOR INTERNATIONAL SERVICE: Pooja Vaikari, DIRECTOR OF FOOD AND BEVERAGES : Abhishek Ganapa.

Along with the New board, the new recruits were formally inculcated into the club, as new members and could now call themselves Rotaractors.
The list of new members is as follows: Padmini Karamchedu, Sampoorna Gonella, Nitish Jakkani,         Prakash Dangwal, Neeharika Yadav Dayyala, Arpit Misri, Akhila Jyothy, Sheena Rao, Shruti Reddy,      Soumya Reddy, Arjun Prasad, Mohammed Abdul Majid, Prathyusha Krishna and Bhargav Ram.

Here is to hoping to another great year ahead. We wish the club the best of luck in their endeavors. After all, they have to make a difference, differently.

SInce its inception its been more than just HISTORY ..

One of the oldest Rotaractors Krutika Reddy writes a blog entry especially for the Rotaract. Varenya calls me up and says, " Krutika, you know what we all can start a club and have fun ". I had absolutely no clue whatsoever - what we'll do as a part of Rotaract;, how many Rotaract clubs existed , NOTHING , zilch - absolutely nothing.. We were all charged by the idea of starting something new all by ourselves. ' FUN' and something 'NEW '- those were the magic words and that was all that mattered to us. Fifteen of us met at Varenya's house and her father, our mentor, Past Rotary Governor, Jawahar Uncle started off by saying " Please ask yourselves what is in it for me? " Back then, it was a million dollar question. ( I said back then because each and everyone who has been a part of Rotaract can tell you what the club has in store for you NOW confidently ).None of us had an answer to it except for our " two magic words". We began officially on 29th September 2007 ( but i must mention that we had already finished our first fund raiser by then) . Here the list of the founder board members: President : Varenya Vadlamani Vice-President: Ravi Chandra Secretary: Poojita Tulasi (unfortunately served only for three months ) following which it was me. Joint- Secretary : Dheeraj Reddy Treasurer : Isha Kajrewal Director of finance: Amrita Kanjani Director for community service: Me for a while after which all of us handled it :) Director for club service: Amrutha Ganapa Fifteen of us had no set road laid for us and it was a complete inchoate beginning. There were times we pulled 7 extra chairs and sat around one table in eat street; There were times we met every sunday at Barista shamelessly without ordering a single drink and sat for hours together until that guy almost kicked us out ! There were times when we shifted the meetings from Barista to vengalarao park and from there to Mc Donalds.But what mattered the most to us was ' Hey we've got to meet and we don't care where'. The general trend was: a lot of frantic calls made in the last moment; confusion at its PEAK :D, but definitely a lesson learnt at the end of the day. There were a lot more pressing situations, shipwreck of our efforts. But, we've learnt to deal with each of them collectively, struggled and succeeded. That was the bonding we shared .. Errr.. OOPs we STILL share and continue to do so. Rotaract club of Hyderabad East in 2007-08 was what fifteen friends strongly supported and believed in; They believed that they can make it big though they didn't know how. Now, they believe that helping others doesn't mean sacrificing their precious 2 hours time of a blockbuster movie or a saturday night party at a happening place or for that matter a couple of heavenly hours of sleep. The "bhaari" term social service to the 15 of us meant something different and now each of us has a refined interpretation for it. That was what the club did to us. I can vouch for every founder member that each one of us has changed and, our club since its inception has been more than history to us. It's a nostalgic moment :) I take immense pride (I have goosebumps on my hands now) in saying that all of us, each and every rotarator has MADE Rotaract club of Hyderabad East BIG ! Rotaract is a part of our lives and its responsibility is never a burden for us. I can promise on behalf of all the rotaractors that some years down the line when we reminisce about the days we've spent together, we'll certainly say " DAMn ! i miss those days". I know for a fact that when I call any rotaractor in the future and say " hey, could you please help me " , I can be rest assured that help will come my way. To all the new and old members of our "family" , on behalf of all the founder members , I acknowledge your commitment and welcome you to get your share of our "Rotaract" experience. Rotaract has been more than history to us and I promise that so will it be for each one of you. ALL the best and welcome aboard " to make a difference differently "

Rotaractors have fun too

For all of you who think we only do work, work and more work...just to let you know we have fun too.The Rotaract is about friendship, about making others laugh, its about having an extended family, about trying new things, about laughing at yourself, about dancing as if no one is watching. About loving life, and giving back to the society, using your rights and knowing you can make a difference. Its about pride in yourself, about the warm feeling when you know the smile is because of you, about the 2 AM conversations and 4PM lunches....It is about making a difference differently :-)

Recruitment 2010

It was finally the day of the recruitment!! Venue: Jalvihar. The day started with bursting activity, the registration team making the final preparations, GD (group discussion) and TS ( Team Simulation) teams arranging the venues, the refreshments team tidying up the place and our incoming president elect- Kedari Reddy making sure everyone does what they are supposed to. The Participants started coming from 10AM onwards and after their registrations the recruitment took off with the GDs. The First round of Group discussions went on for half an hour and by then the other we has to organize other GD panels which were also soon occupied. The GDs were intensive as the participants became more engrossed, by which time even our GD team was a little hesitant to say “Time’s Up”. The team simulation rounds started next,working parallel to the GDs, with participants churning their minds to bring out the best fundraiser ideas possible. The ideas varied, from vintage car rallies to rock shows. It seemed like the TS team had the best fun, but every team claims that title. The Personal Interviews were conducted by two panels. The interview time varying from half an hour to an hour, the participants seemed more excited than we were. The recruitment was wound off by 3 pm, while the rotaracters stayed back to discuss the potential rotaractors. It was a fun discussion as usual, as we sat around eating sandwiches and pulling each others leg. Thank you for the great response. -Aditya J

Silver Lining

Close your eyes and try to walk around in a dark room, difficult isn’t it?? Now imagine living your life like that, well, that’s how it is to be blind… Like everyone else, people who are blind want to live normal active lives and are often more capable than sighted people realize. Despite their difficulties they are cheerful and happy all the time. Devnar is a residential school for the blind. The school has classes from LKG to inter 2nd year. Upto Std 5, students are trained in Braille. Once they are proficient in the usage of Braille, they start their lessons. The school encourages students and helps in their overall development. The children can sing, dance, play instruments, games like cricket and have other talents as well. They work hard…very hard! They learn and write their exams in Braille. But, for their public exams i.e. for when they are in the 10th and inter, they need scribes to write it for them and even during the pre-finals for practice. So, we thought of writing the pre-finals for these children. We spread the news and the response we got was amazing. Students, business people and even house-wives volunteered to write the exam. We even had to turn down a few of them due to excess of volunteers. The exams were for 6 days and the scribes were very excited to write the exams for the students. It was the first time for most of us to write these exams and we were elated. Basically, we just had to read out the questions and write the answers as dictated by the students. The students were strong-willed and tried their best to answer every question in the paper. They were always polite and enthusiastic while giving their answers. You've probably heard that blindness is the most feared disability. You've probably heard that blindness is a tragedy. You've probably heard that blind people are limited in many ways, that the more vision a child has, the better chance of success he or she has, that 80% of what a child learns is visual. Well, forget all that! Blindness does not have to be a tragic situation. It does not inhibit development of concepts, getting an education, being independent, being happy! It was amazing to see the students interact so well with each other, the partially blind kids help the fully blind ones and they were happy to help. One could notice the genuineness in them when they greet you with a big smile, their sincerity when they come to their exam halls on time (the scribes were late on a few occasions), and their innocence when they ask you if you are going to come again the next day to write their exam. The scribes told us how much they enjoyed writing the exam and how, for the first time they weren’t nervous in an exam hall! Many of them stayed back after the exam to interact with the students. We were told that most of the children were neglected and people look down upon them in the society, so even if we give them a little attention their day is made. We observed that since they lack one of their sense organs they make sure that the others work really well. They learn their lessons through cassettes and have their goals set high. Some of them want to become IAS officers while others lawyers, many of their passed out students are working in Multinational companies, one of the students is studying in MIT, Boston. These are truly remarkable achievements. We could feel an urge in them to make their place felt in this competitive world. The volunteers were given certificates by us as we wanted them to know that they were doing a very good job and to encourage them to continue to serve the community and make a difference wherever they go.. Pragnya Challapalli

Don't know who had more fun that day!!!

photo collage

Some of the members of the Rotaract Club of Hyderabad East. Collage made by: Kedari Reddy

New promise

We apologize for the long gap between the posts. The Rotaract Club of Hyderabad East is back with it's blog. In the time lapse between the posts, we have recruited new members, carried off yet another successful year with Aurum- our annual car treasure hunt, featured in the press, received aamazing responses for our clothes and book donation drive, and for our project with a blind school. We also worked really hard and pulled off Oorja- the 41st District Conference, where various Rotaract clubs spoke about their projects, their future ideas, their relations with one another and with their parent Rotarty club. And time flew by. We are now looking towards our third recruitment, on August 8th, 2010. The new board is in place, being guided by the old ones who will step down in the second week of August. While we will continue to keep our old promises, we make one more- to regularly update this blog.:-). Watch this space for more.