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About Rotary Club of Hyderabad Deccan

Rotary Club Of Hyderabad Deccan one of the finest Rotary clubs in the Rotary Dist.3150 is a 100% PHF club.  The focus of the club is the welfare of poor and disadvantaged children. The club has many projects for children to its credit which includes building of a school for over 200 handicapped children at Mumbapur, furnishing of several schools, providing drinking water & sanitation facilities at several other schools and orphanages, holding competitions and organizing vocational training Camps for Children, support to Polio affected children, Vaccination of children against diseases like Hepatitis ‘B’ etc to name a few. Several smaller projects to uplift Children with visual, hearing and other orthopedic handicaps have also been undertaken. The Summer Camp an annual feature for the last 12 years imparts training to poor children in vocations such as Sewing, Painting, Embroidery and Knitting. Other major programmes include Aids Awareness programmes, Health Camps, Blood donation, etc. Another feather in our cap is The Rotary Challa Obulapaty Chowdary Blood Bank, which is doing wonderful service in making available blood at reasonable cost to the needy.  Service comes naturally to RCHD.

Fellowship is the bedrock of Rotary. Our monthly fellowships, always invariably well planned and innovative ensures that the Club members bond well and form a close knit family and effort is made to foster camaraderie and bonhomie amongst Members and their families.

Meticulous planning & clinical execution of all our many programs like Installation of the new board, Vocational excellence awards function, D.G visit, fund raising programs etc is the hallmark of our club.
Armed with a set of young and dedicated members who come from a broad spectrum of  industries and professions and a sky-high ambition the club has embarked on a path of  growth with a no of ambitious Service projects.

History

-By PP Rtn. Devender Surana

Once fine day in the year 1988, after I had just completed my education, I was summoned by my uncle who suggested me to join a Rotary Club. I asked him why and where? He replied that he wished me to join the Rotary Club of Maulali which was being started by the Executive Director of HCL, who was then our biggest customer. That was the beginning of Rotary Club of Maulali, initiated by Shri G.R. Reddy the then Executive Director of Hindustan Cable Ltd, with members drawn from the senior employees of the company and wide variety of vendors of company. Thrown-in for good measure were a few members from the industries surrounding HCL.

The club grew very fast and had 25 members in no time. Even before the club got its official charter, some good service projects were contemplated and completed with the sponsorship of one or the other vendors of the company. As such on paper the club had brilliant track record of start up. The attendance was good as it provided a good opportunity to senior management of HCL to interact with each other, and for the same team continued under the President ship of Shri G.R. Reddy for a second term. However, after some time disaster struck and Mr. G.R. Reddy, had to resign from the company. The decline of the club was as fast as it had grown and the few meetings thereafter were a farce.
There was feeble attempt to revive the club in 1991 under the president ship of Mr. K. Sreenivas which did not work out.

In the early part of 1992 Mr. Shekhawat took the lead to revive the club. In February 1992 a meeting was held to decide as to how it was to be taken forward. There members of erstwhile Rotary Club of Maulali attended along with the few prospective new members. Along with the addition of a few members of the Rotary Club of Hyderabad under the stewardship of Mr. Shekhawat, a few members of Rotary Club of Hyderabad (East) wereroped in, to give moral support.
Ms. Samatha Shekhawat, d/o Mr. Shekhawat volunteered to be the secretary and take up the onerous job. In spite of my protestation, I was asked to lead the club, initially as the president elect for three months and thereafter as president. The club started in the month of March 1992 with the membership of just 9 members. We had regular weekly meetings including speaker meeting s until July when the official club was marched. It was clear to me that in order to build a strong club, we needed to concentrate on club service and fellowship, to create better bonding between members. We had a lot fun programmes in the initial part of the year and managed to attract many young, like minded members into our fold. I still remember that the then District Governor Mr. Vasant Vora had even suggested to me to merge our club with another one so as to have a decent membership. By then however, there was a high degree of bonding and the club firmly rejected the proposal.

Many of our current favorite projects were sounded in the first year including 1. Monthly fellowship 2. Rotaffair 3. Treasure hunt 4. Tombola. These received wide attention and increased the visibility and prestige of our club. By the end of the first year the membership of Rotary Club of Maulali stood at 32 members ad it was on its way to be in the premium club.

Rtn Ramgopal took over as the next president and for the first six months continued in the same way with good fellowships. However, two incidents marred that Rotary Year. First- there was an election for the president elect with the election between Rtn. J.C. Shekar and Rtn. Sanjay Patwari which split the club into two groups. Second- during the election of Mr. Shekhawat as the District Governor, there were some alleged irregularities which lead to a lot of heart burn between many members. President Raja Bajaj succeeded President Ram Gopal the following year. We continued to have difficulties in the club during that year too. The following year, Rtn. Sanjay Patwari took over as President and once again concentrated a lot on fellowship and bonding and brought the club back to its glory with continuously increasing membership and activities. The subsequent year Rtn. Sunil Pamnani took opver as president and he further consolidated the gains of the earlier year. Next was Rtn. Sharad Choudhary who was instrumental in the club completing its first WCS project and leading the club to its first best club award. The club has never looked back ever since.