BULLETIN OF ROTARY CLUB OF TOWERS VOLUME 22 ISSUE 11 JUNE 2020 TOWERS TIMES Message from the President

A year has gone by! First of all, I would like to thank RCCT for giving me the opportunity to be the President of our club. I once heard from a senior member, "The president is the servant of the club", I had this in my mind from day one.

It has been a remarkable one year, and I am proud to say that I have done my best. I would like to take this platform to thank my advisor PP Rtn Sagar, my trainer PP Rtn Krishnachander, PP Rtn Gopal, and my "Lakshya Board". Our lakshya was—fun, fellowship, service and bonding. The first half of the year was equally filled with fellowship and projects. The global pandemic since March has restricted our bonding to virtual meetings, but we aced that too. We also contributed towards relief projects to the frontline workers and the migrant population in the best way possible, all the while maintaining social distancing.

I am glad we had a record high fundraiser, yet another successful VOD, organised AVATAR, an event for our parents, initiated the Aminjikarai dialysis centre and successfully submitted our third Global grant application.

Super big thanks to one and all in my RCCT family, Rotarians, Anns and Annets for your wishes and blessings. Special thanks to the District Governor Rtn Chandra Mohan, District Secretary Rtn Ganapathy Suresh and all the District officers for their continuous support and encouragement. Finally, I have mention my pondatee and my lovely family for standing beside me and giving me full support.

Rtn Rajesh Narang President 2019–2020

Scan the QR code to know more about our activities in 2019‑20

2 Contributors Ravi Rajie Nirmala Sriram

Spouse Ravi Varanasi speaks about our Charter Night celebrations. ...12 Rtn Rajie Vijayasarathy tells us how the club service team surprised us with the “Lock‑down ...14 master chefs”. Ann Nirmala Gopal narrates how much fun the ladies of RCCT had in a WhatsApp quiz event for ...15 over a week. rd Rtn Sriram writes about the 23 installation of RCCT and the coronation of our Manali King. ...17

On the cover: Sunrise at Rock beach, a 1.2‑kilometer‑long stretch in Pondicherry. Photograph by Rtn Rajesh Narang

3 Community Service

4 05/06/2020

As a part of our charter Distributionweek celebrations President ofRtn Rajesh provisionNarang and community kitsservice Director Rtn Satish Kandimalla distributed a provision kit comprising 28 items like rice, dal, atta, oil, soaps, masks, sanitary napkins, etc., to 50 migrant labourers. These workers had opted to stay back, and many haven't been paid salaries for months. The beneficiaries were sourced through Feed Chennai. RCCT also donated cattle food for 15 days to a Goshala in Nolambur which shelters 28 cows. Part of the contribution was from Annet Pavitra Reddy, who baked some yummy brownies and donated all the money from the bake sale towards this project.

5 05/06/2020

Marking the World Environment WorldDay, a tree plantation Environmentdrive was conducted in AGR Global dayschool campus in Velachery. A total of 16 trees were planted in and around the campus. Rtns President Rajesh Narang, Imtiaz, Ann Kavitha and Annett Armaan attended the project.

6 07/06/2020

WJointe distributed provision Projectkits to 80 deserving withpeople in RCMaduravoil. ofThis Chennaiwas a joint project with R otary RoyalsClub of Chennai Royals. Rtns President Rajesh Narang, Amudha, Dinesh and Ann Sapna participated in this project.

7 25/06/2020

The COVID‑19 global grant Jointapplication for Projectfunding to provide 7 withventilators, 4 RCMEmonitors, 1 portable bronchoscope, 1 chest ultrasound and Personal Protective Equipment to Government Hospital for Thoracic Medicine in Chennai, , submitted by the Rotary Club of Madras East and the Rotary Club of Rio Claro‑Sul, was approved by Rotary Foundation (India) (RF(I)) and the Trustees of The Rotary Foundation (TRF). The grant was an amount of US$ 121,333. This project was approved in less than 4 hours of a working day. RCCT was a project partner and contributed US$ 5000/‑ towards this milestone project. This project was inaugurated by TN Health secretary Dr Radhakrishnan, IAS. The meeting was held in an open space with proper social distancing. The other participating Rotary clubs were North West, Coromandel, Mylapore Uptown and New Gen.

8 9 Our Manali and OngoingThirunillai centres remain closed following the government orders with respect to the Community Service ProjectsCOVID‑19 outbreak worldwide. But our dialysis centre is functional as it is a critical service.

Retteri Dialysis Centre: 55 patients, 459 dialysis in two shifts.

Anbagam rice donors (750 kgs): Rtns Amudha, Umapathy & Sunil Soni.

When a request for a used laptop came in for a child to continue his studies online, President Rtn R M Suresh donated a new laptop for the child. May his tribe grow more!

10 Club Service

11 10/06/2020

nd Doc Daneeka, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé to Blood Orange, the number 22 has a special relevance. For RCCT this year is its 22 year of exemplary existence, a Rotary Club Chartercarefully nurtured over Nightthe years by her founder members to become a Rotary family. A family not of blood & genes, but of bonds & goodness. Every person who has observed RCCT has a nice word so much so that over the last 22 years, with every event, project, act or gesture, the thesaurus may have run out of adjectives but RCCT has never run out of its humility. RCCT is a Rotary Club where every member addresses the Club as “Dear RCCT Family“. We are the true ONIDA of our District 3232, a Club long awaited to be born, if we were to get to the origins of this Indian American name meaning, a blessing long awaited. The day started off with our Club Chronicler recounting the day RCCT was welcomed into the Rotary World of 28000 clubs, by the then RI President Glen W Kinross through a formal note. Rotary International is now 35000 clubs strong. She quickly added Charter President Sabu's note from his desk which was quite authentic of an anxious Charter President, who knew back then that his hope and wish for the club to have a whole heart and giving oneself come true in attracting only the best into the club. A club where children grew up together, graduated and then got married. A club where children became the reason why some tolerable acquaintances grew into tender friendships, a club where having fun was second nature given that sincerity of speech and purpose were first nature. This was a club akin to a home built brick by brick by every single member of the family (past & present)—Rotarians, spouses, Annets and family elders. Every experience was etched into its rooms of remembrance, every achievement decorated its hall of fame, every learning was archived in its library and every smile stocked away in its spirited bar. As would any birthday include some kind of charity to square up karma credits, RCCT too decided to be benevolent to the bovine. We supplied half a months' rations to a Goshala which houses 28 cows thanks to a sweet and generous donation by Annette Pavitra. Our incoming President Suresh did the honours with current President Rajesh. For me, the day was rather getting restless as I was eagerly awaiting the evening, Charter Day meant many things to many members who were present on that day, but for me it was a memorable one because it was in hindsight, a Family Day, a day where I met a few friends who went onto become family. So, with the preparations for the evening becoming more palpable, it was an endless wait to an evening of fun and fun it was. The programme commenced online with a short & sweet invocation by Rtn Raajendra Kumar, though I still can't figure out how he had same Tee shirt in different colours! It was a truly scientific evening for us, with all of us on a zoom call. Priya, Krish, Sabu, Aarthi, Deepa, Prasad, Imtiaz and Raaj entertained us with songs. Hamsa was as graceful as her soul bird in hosting the show amidst difficult circumstances of having to crowd control online. A cake & a champagne culminated the celebrations to an awesome evening. Adios Amigos, see you in better times. Stay in, stay safe. ‑ Spouse Ravi Varanasi

12 13 Cookbooks are passe. Zindabad LockYouTube! down Master chefs Socially distanced sans house help, the women of RCCT made the best use of the lockdown. Cooked, baked, sauteed, roasted, fried. You name it, it was on the plate! This would put any star chef out of the game! "Necessity is the mother of invention” but in this group, it was on a completely different level, on par with excellence!! Vera level!!! All this inspired others who never quite enjoyed cooking to put up some exotic looking dishes for the palate. Gourmet cooking was at its best! Cheers to all the ladies who turned out to be "Lockdown Masterchefs". This was endorsed with a lovely surprise by the Jupiters. The icing on the cake was the delicious homemade cupcakes along with the personalized apron. Dunzo'd or personally handed over.... this power couple, Hamsa & Satish, does everything in style, with a of class, that made each one of us feel like Michelin Star chefs! ‑ Rtn Rajie Vijayasarathy

14 Its Quiz Time!

It was real fun on the women's group during the lockdown.....Ann Dr. Gita came up with the idea of a guessing game using the childhood pictures (age 3 to 5) of all the ladies of RCCT...OMG! It went on for 7 continuous days, with 6 pictures each day. It was great fun finding the answers... we started bribing each other for answers on direct individual messages... My bribe offer was ribbon pakoda and adhirasam for many! Gita would post the puzzle after lunch, around 2 pm....but answers would be given at 6 pm only. Almost half day was gone staring at the pictures and wracking our brains. Hamsa has the power of knowing the previous birth of a few, Sapna ended up with a headache and had to resort to Dolo 650, Anitta found that many looked like boys in the pictures! Radha's motto was "TRY, TRY, TRY, TILL YOU SUCCEED"...she kept trying various permutations and combinations, and kept trying even after the answer paper was out! Paddy was the only one who got almost 90% of the answers. When I called her for clues, she said "see the shape of the face"; my bad luck that everyone changed their dp to God pictures or their pets' pictures! Then I took my "BRAHMASTRA" nothing but surrender therapy... meaning, the person in the picture had to surrender on their own...that too failed... Gita is planning to conduct the same game with pictures of the RCCT men as well...we are waiting! Thanks to Gita for keeping us engaged and for the great amount of fun we all had! ‑ Ann Nirmala Gopal

15 Note from the quiz master: More than the participants, I think I ended up with the maximum entertainment! Ridiculous guesses, funny guesses, outright crazy guesses! I know I was strict, but I had to be, to make the game interesting. Thanks ladies for being so sportive and enthusiastic!

16 25/06/2020 Installation

Scan this to view the 23rd Installation of RCCT

17 An event which no one could rd have even in their wildest of dreams imagined, had taken place on 25 June 2020 in RCCT, a virtual installation of RCCT's 23 President. It was a historic day in the RCCT calendar that will be remembered for years to come. No one will ever forget the year in which our President Rtn. RM Suresh had been at the helm of affairs in RCCT. As the saying goes “First impression is the best impression”, the installation process started off with an excellent invite which set the tone for the entire event. The concept was different and innovative, true to the trying times which the pandemic is driving the world towards. The innovative manner in which the proceedings were conducted goes to show the amount of effort and time devoted by the installation committee in planning for this event. One could never feel that it was a virtual installation function that was taking place. The master of ceremony, Ravi Varanasi, did a fantastic job by making the event lively and preparing the presentations in a manner that conveyed information about RCCT with humour to keep the audience glued to the event. The entire flow of event was so well planned, and it looked as though RCCT had conducted many such events in the past. The speeches from the outgoing President, Secretary of RCCT were crisp and to the point with focus on what RCCT had achieved in the year 2019–2020. The outgoing President Rtn Rajesh Narang thanked his team for the support during his term. Despite the pandemic and lockdown in the last three months, March to June 2020, Rtn Rajesh Narang continued to steer the club with many meaningful projects and kept the spirits of RCCT members high with continuous interaction in all areas of service including virtual meetings with interesting speakers. Thanks Rtn Rajesh for the wonderful year. The Secretary's presentation was excellent covering all the activities of RCCT right from projects, meetings, fellowships, club trip etc. with the relevant details. This was followed by the handing over of the Club Charter by the outgoing Secretary, Rtn Jayashree to the incoming Secretary, Rtn Venkatesh, well presented in a video.

18 PP Rtn Sagar made an awesome introduction of the incoming President through

an rdaudio presentation. This was followed by the installation of Rtn RM Suresh as the 23 President of RCCT. The exchange of the gavel and collar was well captured in a video to give the real feel of an installation. This was followed by the most important part of the event, the acceptance speech of President RM Suresh. He is known to be a man of few words but highly focused in his work. All of us in RCCT know the amount of dedicated work that Suresh has put in the Manali Health Centre, a prestigious project of RCCT with the support of CPCL. Suresh with his first lady Sivakami, sitting beside him, addressed the gathering and as expected, his address was to the point, focused and crisp. Congrats President Rtn RM Suresh and wish you a successful Rotary year 20–21, a year which all of us are looking forward to as the pandemic has turned the world upside down and has made people rethink the manner in which they conduct their lives. We are sure RCCT will embrace the mammoth challenge and come out in flying colours, as always, to serve the society at large. This was followed by a very innovative presentation of the incoming team going with the theme of the evening (fire and ice), with interesting information about the roles and responsibilities presented in a unique manner. The last but not the least in any event, was the speech by the Chief Guest. The incoming Rotary District 3232 Governor, Rtn Muthu Palaniappan, after the formal introduction by AG Rtn Ashraf. DG Rtn Muthu Palaniappan congratulated the outgoing team for the excellent work done during the year 19–20 and was astonished with the manner in which RCCT raises the bar ear after year. He also mentioned about the unique manner in which the information on the projects was presented with

19 the details of project value, number of people benefitted and person‑hours of RCCT spent on the project. He narrated the study carried out by Rotary International by appointing a third‑party agency to find out the impact of projects executed by Rotary, which gave information of the amount spent and most interestingly the person‑hours spent. He appreciated RCCT for capturing this information as he felt this signifies the involvement of RCCT members in executing the projects. He appreciated RCCT for the many firsts the club has delivered in the past and the ability to conduct events in style. He requested RCCT to come up with a mega project and assured support from the district. He also briefed about the various plans of the District for the year 20–21 and sought the support of RCCT. He congratulated the incoming team lead by Rtn RM Suresh and wished them all the very best. The event was concluded by a vote of thanks from the incoming Secretary Rtn Venkatesh followed by the National Anthem. RCCT, true to its image and name in the District, again broke records in conducting this event. There were 220+ participants for this virtual meeting, the first time ever any virtual Rotary meeting was conducted with 220 plus participants. Thanks to the installation committee for thinking out of the box and presenting an excellent installation ceremony. Three cheers to RCCT!!! Stay safe. ‑ Rtn Sriram

RCCT Selfies!

20 RCCT Selfies!

21 Vocational Service

22 30/06/2020

The district Vocational team conducted Ninaithalea fun event on 30June 202 0. InikumA quiz was conducted by Rtn Sridhar of RC Guindy and all the Presidents sang a song and in between the quiz. We ended the last day of the Rotary year 2019–2020 with big laughter.

23 RCCT @ District events

24 27/06/2020

The incoming Board members of RCCT attended Arivarangamthe first ever virtual district training assembly – Arivarangam.

25 Achievements & Celebrations on Annet 2 2 June R oshan and Dattatri 29 June 2 won 0 2 0 the in P third erth, . place restrictions Murdoch Annet in R two oshan University Varsity on contact Dattatri pub on quizzes 28 won June got a 2 quidditch 0 lifted. 2 0, it was tournament held as soon held as the at 26 Rtn Vinod & Ann Sangeetha

President Rajesh's favourite word is bonding and it's his idea to greet the

Anniversary Celebrations anniversary couple with a gift at their homes. The gesture is being reintroduced this year.

27 28 You have been reading about few rotarians Did and youanns in this Know?column for the past 11 months. In this issue get to know more about the team behind it.

Rtn Padmaja Venketram aka paddy graduated in Fine Arts from Stella Maris College and has a PG Diploma in Visual Communication from Loyola College. She is an alumni of Besant Arundale Senior secondary School and has learnt painting for over 5 years in Kalakshetra College of Fine Arts. She has worked in the creative department of many advertising agencies, before branching out of her own, first as a freelance designer and now as a Founder of B&P Creatives, a design outfit that specialises in branding, creative strategies and digital marketing. She makes time to go back to sketching and painting whenever possible and if you follow her on Instagram you can see her creations. She mostly gifts or donates her artwork. A popular Blogger for many years, Femina published her short story in 2003 and that set the ball rolling. She has published a book of short stories in 2007. And now published a story “Wandering Spirits” in Amazon Kindle in January 2020. She plans to write a novel some day! She’s married to Venket Ram, who is the original Rotarian of RCCT. When he had to quit due to work pressure, she became a Rotarian.. They have a 16 year old son, Prithvi, who practically grew up surrounded by the love and warmth in RCCT. She says, “ The last 23 years in RCCT has nurtured me with so many meaningful connections, deep friendships and a satisfaction to have made a positive difference to many lives. I just can't imagine how my life would panned out without RCCT”.

Ann Sandhya Satish aka Sandy is a Home science graduate from Vizag with interests in nutrition and textiles. Settled in Chennai after marriage and busy raising Abhinav, she did her diploma in Interior designing in 1993. She worked with an architect for a brief period and then branched out on her own. She has had a successful 25 years in designing interiors, with a flair for space management and decluttering. Wait for the next Marie Kondo from Chennai. She shares her passion for travelling with her husband Satish and they are always in to exploring new places. They are often referred to as a couple who lives out of a suitcase. She likes to paint, stitch, embroider and knit whenever time permits. Her recent hobby is Resin Art. Those who know sandy knows that she is a yoga enthusiast, a health freak and how she pursues healthy cooking and eating as a way of life. Lockdown has pushed her to experiment healthy versions in baking and gardening.

29 Ann Anitta Venkatesh, was born in Srirangam and has lived across the width and breadth of Tamilnadu State due to her father's career in law enforcement. She had moved over ten towns and half a dozen schools before she finished her schooling. Married to Venkatesh and moved to Chennai and has lived there for the past eighteen years. She has an MBA in Marketing & Finance from School of management, Bharathiar University (BSMED), Coimbatore and a career in Sales Operations & Analytics for the past 15 years. She currently works in HCL Technologies. She is a proud mother of a teenage son and 6‑year‑old Labrador who is an integral part of their family. She likes to learn new things and enjoys DIY projects. She loves to cook occasionally and bakes for friends and family for almost 2 decades now. After many failed attempts at blogging, she has recently started her digital journal “Lazymommycooks” on social media. She hails from Alambadi, a picturesque village on the banks of river kollidam, surrounded by lush paddy and sugarcane fields in Tiruchirappalli district. Her family is one of the few families, educated and moved away yet who are connected to the village and its development in many ways. Her dream is to make the women from her village self‑sustainable and financially independent.

Ann Dr Gita Dattatri has a doctorate in chemistry from IIT Madras. After a 6‑year teaching career as an Asst Professor, she moved to the publishing industry, designing and editing textbooks for higher academics. She learnt Carnatic music for over 15 years from reputed gurus and has given performances on the radio as well as at temples. At one point, she had to choose between music or chemistry as her career. Well we all know what she chose. Travelling has always been her passion, especially to nature‑centric getaways. Bird watching takes her to forests whenever she gets any free time. The Theosophical Society, IIT, Pallikaranai and Nanmangalam are her favourite haunts within the city. All she needs are a pair of binoculars and a camera! She has been part of the Chennai Bird Race since its inception. This probably came from the time she had spent on these vast green campuses: Kalakshetra, Women's Christian College and IIT Madras. She likes to do Tanjore paintings, enjoys board games, hand‑work, cooking, loves reading all kinds of books but absolutely abhors watching movies unless they are Harry Potter or Sci fi movies! She is very enthusiastic about outdoor games and has represented her school and colleges as captain of the throwball team. This has spilled over into Rotary as well! Gita has been with RCCT since September 1998. She has enjoyed being with us through the highs and lows, projects, fellowships and club trips. She has been the editor of Towers Times for several years and has won the club awards for the best bulletin for several years. She's married to her childhood sweetheart, Sanjay, a software engineer who has had several startups and is currently gunning to become an author! They have a son, Roshan, who has just completed his two masters honors degrees in physics and mathematics from BITS Pilani, Goa. He's currently working on a research project on gravitational waves in the University of Western Australia, Perth.

Bulletin Team: Ann. Anita Venkatesh, Ann. Sandya Satish & Rtn. Padmaja Venket Ram. Advisor: Ann. Dr. Gita S. Dattatri 30