Rotaract Club of Bombay Bayview
Rtr. Unnati kapoor
President 2021-2022
Rtr. Farzad Wadia
Secretary 2021-2022
PROJECTS
Multi Millenial Membership Drive
At the beginning of the year, our club started off with 22 members only. This sparked us to take the initiative ‘Multi Millennial Membership Drive’ to increase the club membership. We started off with a marketing agenda, 'EUDAIMONIC WELLBEING' which means fulfilment of social, emotional and mental well being.
We reached out to young college students and sent out pamphlets, in both online and offline formats to various tuition centres, youth mentorship organizations to attract millennials from diverse niches.Now we stand at a strong total of 72 members.
After becoming members, they were requested to join our Human Resource director Rtr. Krisha Chowksi for a quick meeting to note down their personal, professional and community service goals so that we can fuel their sense of purpose. We keep motivating and providing them with the best hospitality we can and
ensure a comfortable environment for all.
Quarter 1
Gain Gyan Project
‘Gain Gyan Project’ is an initiative taken by Rotaract Club of Bombay Bayview to impart education and knowledge into the heart of the country. We collected over 1000 books in 4 days by asking our Rotary and our members to contribute.
These books will be distributed across the country and we've already sent out a handful to the St. Jude Child Cancer centre and are working on collaborations with a few NGOs in Gujarat and Goa as well. It fills our hearts with joy to see the childrens’ day brightened and sparked with knowledge through our books.
Bayviews's Bustling Game Arcade
‘Bayview’s Bustling Games Arcade’ was a club service initiative taken after the membership drive. It acted as an ice-breaker session. We chose games that would help the members open up with one another and understand each other’s personalities.
We even played the game Skribble which was humorous and fun. Post this, the members felt more connected and the spirit of togetherness and unity shined in our club.
Golden Ganesh Chaturthi
Rotaract Club of Bombay Bayview organized the event ‘Golden Ganesh Chaturthi’ in collaboration with the organisation ‘Greenway Products’. It has empowered many artisans in the Raigad district in Maharashtra to showcase their talent.
Shadu mitti was collected from the soils of Gujarat and the Konkan to create the biodegradable idols of Ganesh. These were then painted with extracts of turmeric, hibiscus and marigold flowers. They dissolve in 1 hour in the tub! The club marketed these Ganpatis to raise
funds for other events.
Project Tree Sixty Five
‘Project Tree Sixty-Five’ is a year-long initiative started by our club to make India green. Despite the pandemic, last year, 2550 saplings were planted across Maharashtra. This year we collaborated with the Young India association who provided us with the saplings from the funds we raised. We set a new record at the organization of planting 50 saplings in 2 hours. 25 Badaam trees and 25 Guava trees were planted in Yeoor district where the Adivasi tribes live. The purpose was to take up a public health initiative to improve the health of many by oxygenating the motherland, as well as for the trees to be used for commercial purposes to empower the livelihood of many locals.
We got featured by the press on Zoom Marathi for being a driving force of youth doing good to improve the country. Post the plantations, we took the opportunity of holding a small club service event by inviting our members for a trek on the hills of Yeoor.
Quarter 3
Clothes Donation Drive
Tree365 is a marque project for the Rotaract Club and for the current year is targeted in afforestation and carbon sequestration activities in Yeoor Village, Thane. Yeoor is the northern most tip of Sanjay Gandhi National Park and an extension of the Aarey Forest. Since it is the largest and most important green basin in the city of Mumbai, Yeoor was chosen as the primary location for afforestation activities. The club had already done multiple tree planting drives this year at Yeoor. However, planting trees between the months of November-April is not feasible since the climate is dry, rainfall is abrupt (there were multiple instances of uncharacteristic winter rainfall this year) and watering the saplings is an arduous and costly process. Further, any afforestation project requires continuous community engagement. Since we could not plant trees, we went ahead and helped the tribals out with old clothes and blankets for the winter. Club members sourced old clothes from their own wardrobes and those of family and friends and brought it together at a common venue. We then scanned through the clothes to ensure the quality is intact and the clothes are wearable before taking them to Yeoor.
We planned our donation drive for the second week of January and managed to donate over 50 pairs of clothing. Our clothes were happily accepted by the members of Yeoor. We also donated chocolates and board games to the children of the community.
Number of participants: 18
What the Tech Program
The past two pandemic driven years has shifted the way we, as consumers, purchase and consume things. From our groceries, to cabs, food deliveries and treats to education, seeking answers to questions to staying in touch with loved ones and even our Rotaract Meetings have gone online. With this massive tech disruption in our lives, it felt imperative to enable our senior citizens of the community to be able to keep up. And this thought led to the ‘What The Tech’ program. To make this a success, we followed the following steps:
• Prepared training material including but not limited to a presentation, videos on how to use essential apps online and even curated our own videos with screen-recordings and voice over by members
• We then trained a larger set of Rotaract members so we could flawlessly deliver to the senior citizens
• On a marketing front, we sent out Creatives and Flyers to family, friends and larger whatsapp groups. In total, we got over 60 senior citizens to attend.
• The training was done over Zoom in various batches. We held detailed Q&A sessions and prepared FAQs
The feedback we got from the senior citizens and their families has been terrific. We were able to equip a larger audience within a short span of time thanks to the efforts of over 13 members who participated.
Career Counselling Workshop
The club held a Career Counselling Workshop with ‘Edupeer’, a well renowned education consulting firm in January. Per an internal survey we conducted, 60% of our club showed interest studying further- either in India or overseas. We reached out to Edupeer and they held an exclusive session with us on January 15, 2022. They walked us through the merits and demerits of studying abroad viz a viz studying in India, various career options available and then entertained questions from the participants. We had 17 members attend the session and a couple of them have even signed up with the agency to seek guidance on their applications.
Farmers
Market
The Rotaract club of Bombay Bayview is abundant with entrepreneur spirit and enthusiasm, and it had to be fulfilled. We organized a farmers market in the first week of the new year. On the supply side of things, we had a mix of home (Rotaract Club) grown small businesses and larger names like Tillage and Pink harvest. A detailed over view of the event is as follows:
Business Participants:
a. Bombay Tea Party- an e-commerce set up offering the freshest and finest quality of green tea, herbal tea and other blends
b. Pink Harvest Farms- Gourmet, Healthy and Convenient with their home-grown, 100% natural and vegan superfoods that are effortless and yum
c. Tillage: A locally sourced, home grown food and beverage brand that supplies the freshest natural flours, millets, multigrain and honey. Their sourcing is conscious, local and seasonal
d. Rotaract’s Lemonade Stall: Our members created a delicious recipe of charcoal infused refreshing lemonade
e. Rotaract’s Granola bar Stall: Another member’s family is proficient is making the finest and crispiest granola that serves a healthy and delicious snack
f. ShyamSundar Super Market: Owned by a Rotaract member, they brought all the household groceries that one could think off available at discounted rates.
Our members marketed this event to their best and we landed a football of over 100 participants. We received a great feedback from the businesses we engaged with and the event was a huge success.
Crypto-Currency Masterclass
If you have spent a fair share of time on social media in the past year, you have probably come across buzzwords from the Crypto Currency ecosystem atleast once. Or you have read Tweets from adults, including an entrepreneur worth $300bn, talking about taking a ‘token coin’ that resembles a breed of a Japanese Dog, to the Moon. Or you’ve heard of someone who would be driving a Ferrari by now had they held on to that paltry Bitcoin investment a little longer (HODL, always). And if you haven’t, then your social media restraint is worthy of applause.
‘Which token are you buying now’ is a common question that’s always been around at our Rotaract events. Whether, its planting trees or helping elders with booking an Uber, the members are always on the hunt for the next ‘Meme coin’. To let this go untapped, seemed a cardinal sin. We therefore launched a Crypto Currency masterclass series. A series that resembles a study group where members meet fortnightly to discuss, study and learn various trends of Cryptocurrency. We’ve even expanded to include topics on personal finance. This series is extremely exciting and we are sure to carry this forward to the next year.
Topics we have covered:
• What are cryptocurrencies
• Crypto Ledgers
• Bitcoin and Blockchain 101
• Various Coins and how are they different
• History of cryptocurrency
• Personal Finance- Modes of investment, Power of Compounding
Number of participants: On an average, 20. Number of sessions held: 3