Sunday, April 4, 2010

RIPE Ray in Madurai

Closely following Kalyan's visit came RIPE Ray's visit to Madurai (D3000) alongwith RID Ravindran and Rotarian Coordinator Duanne Sterling on 29th and 30th of March. It was indeed thoughtful of Ravi to request the world leader to visit and address rotarians in cities and towns which have never before witnessed such a high profile visitor.



Ray addressed an intercity meeting in the evening wherein he laid emphasis on the need to revisit some of our age old customs and practices, look at its relevance in today's world and to have the courage to change those that need to be changed. This was a refreshingly new thinking and which should re energise our organisation. For long, many rotarians have bemoaned that RI is becoming increasingly bureaucratic with its forces of inertia being too strong to permit any meaningful change in its working. RID Ravi spoke briefly and in his own inimitable style touched upon the need to get rid of the politics so often prevalent in our region. Ravi's 'no nonsense' approach has found a lot of takers and it augurs well for our organisation.



The evening dinner at Hotel Heritance was a classy affair and the organisers had left no stone unturned to make it a memorable evening with the lavish spread and unique ambience.



The following morning, Ray addressed the pres elects of D3000. It was a well attended program and those present certainly gained from listening to Ray's vision. He stressed on the fact that in the coming year, the emphasis is going to be on strengthening the clubs to make them Bigger, Better and Bolder. His 3B slogan has really caught on and I expect to hear this on many more occasions in the coming months.



I used this opportunity to discuss with Duanne and Ravi about my new assignment as RC and got a lot of inputs from both, that should hold hold me in good stead. Hopefully before July 1 we will have a region specific action plan and a set of deliverables and I am looking forward to meeting with Ravi later this month.



In all it was a memorable event, notwithstanding the extremely hot conditions at Madurai. a special word of appreciation to DGE Valliappan for looking into every minute detail of organising such a big event. His presentation on his district's action plan for the coming year was excellent and amply demonstrated that he has the vision to dream big and the ability to make those dreams come true. I will be one of those wishing and hoping he does well.

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