A vibrant RID 3000 discon Team Rotary News

DGE Anantha Jothi, who will become the first woman governor in RID 3000, introduced her core team at the twoday district conference titled Caarnival

Inaugurating the discon at the PSG Convention Centre in Coimbatore, India’s former vice-president, Venkaiah Naidu complimented Rotary for its multifaceted projects for the communities. Orator Sukhi Sivam thanked Rotary and Rotarians for doing ‘service above self’. DG I Jerald presented the Distinguished

Service Awards to PDGs M Muruganandam and Dr Zameer Pasha, and Avenues of Service Awards were given to 10 members.

Vijay TV anchor Gopinath, industrialist M Ponnuswamy and transgender Kalki gave stimulating talks inspiring the audience. Kalki later joined PDG Dr Zameer Pasha and Mala Balsubramaniam in a panel discussion on Rotary’s new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policy.

On the second day too, eminent people including Lok Sabha MP S Venkatesan, environment activist G Sundarraj and film director SA Chandrasekhar delivered speeches on diverse subjects.

Madras High Court former justice K Chandru, recalling his personal experiences said, “our judiciary is such that every common man in India will get justice, but it may be delayed.” Tamil film actor Parthipan spoke on the new emerging path for the next generation filmmakers. Special programmes were conducted for the Anns and Annets.

Earlier, RI president’s representative PDG Ashes Ganguly, RID 3142, and his wife Nandita were given a rousing welcome at the inaugural ceremony with oyilattam , a traditional folk dance, and chenda melam , percussion drum beat of Kerala.

The discon team led by Ramachandra Babu took care of logistics for the successful conduct of the fellowship meet.

Two years ago, when around 125 Rotarians from RI District 3000 planned a holiday trip to Turkey under the leadership of their incoming governor I Jerald, they were looking forward to a fun-filled holiday in the land of the Ottomans. “I had planned this trip as in 2013, I had successfully led a goodwill mission trip to China for about 115 Rotarians. We had then visited Beijing and Shanghai. At first we thought we would go to Russia in 2022, but due to the Ukraine war, we changed the destination to Turkey,” says Jerald.

Rotarians from across the district — Madurai, Trichy, Dindigul, Pudukkottai, Karur, Perambalur, Theni, Kodaikanal and Ariyalur signed up; hotels were booked and visas acquired. But 10 days before they could travel, a horrendous earthquake hit both Turkey and Syria, and the tour planners were in a tizzy. “But then, one of our club presidents, CR Venkatesh from RC Madurai Metro Heritage, suggested let us not cancel the trip. We are Rotarians who always help people in distress, so let us go there and do something for those affected by the earthquake. So I told him you plan what we need to do and we will try our best to help them,” says the DG, who was part of the group.

With Venkatesh as the project coordinator,