New Year, New Location, New President, New Member inducted and the declaration of the committees programs, goals and aspirations for the year made the very first Club Assembly/Business Meeting an excellent start to the year. Especially with the presence of 73% of the membership.

President Mahmood Al-Yousif inaugurated the meeting at the Officers Club in the Elite Resort & Hotel by welcoming members and guests and inducted the first new member to the Rotary Club of Adliya in the year.

Mr. Fareed Bushehri, classified as Consultant – Environmental & Resource Sustainability and proposed by Rotarian Sameer Dawani listened to the tenets of Rotary and his rights and responsibilities read by President Al-Yousif and then confirmed his knowledge of the Rotary Four-Way Test before being officially welcomed into the Rotary Club of Adliya by his fellow RCA Rotarians.

The president then launched his presentation summarising his goals for the year and requested volunteers for various required subcommittees which would be critical for the success of the programs.

As you can see from the joint presentation and hear from the audio Podcast below, the major program for the year will be the Gift of Life Bahrain which is a program specifically designed to enable the diagnosis, treatment and ultimately surgical intervention of children with congenital heart defects. This program will raise sufficient funds to help the Ministry of Health to build and equip a specialised centre (the Children’s Cardiac Centre) to be housed within the Salmaniya Medical Centre, the main healthcare hospital in the Kingdom. To ensure its sustainability, the Rotary Club of Adliya will also ensure that a supervising doctor and some attendant nurses will be trained in the use of the provided equipment.

[audio:RA-1007-5.mp3]

Please click the Play button to listen to the Podcast

The Vice President and Honorary Treasurer PP Redha Faraj presented his budget for the year and explained how the sources of revenues to the Club must be utilised in order to achieve the required growth in program adoption, particularly the GOLB project, informed the club of the impact of membership growth and presented two scenarios for the Club to consider and suggested milestones and fund-raising possibilities and targets which should be considered to ensure the success of the Club’s endeavours.

The Gift of Life program will be supervised by Rotarian Khulood Al-Qattan who chairs the Service Projects Committee and ably assisted by Rotarian Dr. Faiza Ghabrial who heads the Humanitarian Subcommittee. The Gift of Life program was the brainchild of both Rotarian Dr. Faiza and PDG Nijad Alattasi.

To help raise funds for GOLB, the club will mount five major fund-raising activities:

1. Breast Cancer Awareness Walk
   1st October 2010 in cooperation with Think Pink Bahrain, subcommittee headed by President Mahmood Al-Yousif
2. Cricket Tournament
   scheduled for November 2010, subcommittee headed by Rotarian Zoher Taherbhai
3. RCA Bahrain Model United Nations XVII
   scheduled for February 2010, subcommittee headed by Rotarian Fareed Bushehri
4. The Bahrain Invitational Golf Tournament
   scheduled for March 2010, subcommittee headed by PP Peter Muijrers
5. Art Competition
   scheduled for March 2010, subcommittee headed by PP Redha Faraj

There are several more activities scheduled for the year and we need your help! RCA Rotarians especially are encouraged to contact me or any board member to offer your services. Please download the presentation and have a look at the available activities ready for your leadership.

Rotarian Khulood Al-Qattan then informed the club of her activities and emphasised her committee’s goals for the year, starting with the GOLB project and going on with educational, social and vocational aspirations. She specifically mentioned programs and ideas discussed during her meeting with her committee which comprise of:

• Rotarian Dr. Faiza Ghabrial – Head of the Humanitarian Subcommittee
• PP Dr. Khalid Tabbara – Head of the Educational Subcommittee
• and Rotarian Fareed Bushehri – Head of the Vocational Subcommittee

The Public Relations Chairperson Rotarian Ahdeya Noor then shared her plans on how the Club could be best exposed in the media and talked of her intentions to leverage the Arabic press more effectively and continue to work with the English papers who have always been supportive. Rotarian Ahdeya is also looking into exposing the Club’s activities in the national radio and television.

Past District Governor Nijad Alattasi then informed the club of the work and existential importance of the Rotary Foundation and declared his plans to activate the Club’s understanding in order to further the relationship with the Rotary Foundation.

The acting Sergeant-at-Arms Rotarian Jawad Hassan ably officiated the proceedings, PP Peter Muijrers entertained those present and acted as the fine master while Honorary Secretary and Incoming President Dr. Sajida Tabbara concluded the meeting by announcing the Secretary and positive Treasurer’s reports for the evening.

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