Rest in Peace: Rtn Hari Mohan Monga and R’Ann Sangeeta Monga

On 19 July 2013, we lost a very old and dedicated member, Rtn Hari Mohan Monga, and his wife, R’Ann Sangeeta Monga, in a car accident near Sonipat.

The planned July 22 weekly meeting was cancelled and was converted to a condolence meeting to pay our respect and homage to the departed souls.

PRIP R.K. Saboo expressed his anguish over the way fate took away the two noble souls from us.

PRIP Saboo said that he had the privilege of being associated with Rtn Hari Mohan since the 1960s when they first came together to form the Industries Association in Chandigarh.

“He was a very ardent worker and his commitment to Rotary never diminished in all these years,” said PRIP Saboo.

Due to personal problems Rtn Monga had not been very active for last few years. But he was always there to help whenever his services were required. Despite the fact that he had lately shifted to Gurgaon, he continued to remain member of our Club. In fact, before leaving for Gurgaon on the fateful day, he had visited RVTC to pay his dues. “I will now see you next year,” he told Labh Singh. Sadly, that was not to be.

Raja Saboo praised him for never indulging in politics or groupism and remembered him as a very friendly and jovial person and a remarkable human being. “This Club is deeply grieved to loose a friend and member like Monga,” he said.

Paying his tribute to Rtn Monga and R’Ann Sangeeta, PP Maj B.M. Singh recalled his over 40 years of association with both. “He was very friendly and always smiling,” he said.

PP Maj B.M. Singh also recalled the lovely snacks that R’Ann Sangeeta Monga used to serve at the fellowships. “She would never say no whenever we asked her to prepare snacks for the fellowship,” he said. “We have lost a wonderful couple,” he added.

A one minute silence was observed in memory of the departed souls.

Rest in peace Rtn Hari Mohan Monga and R’Ann Sangeeta Monga.

Club News - July 15

Rtn Pushpinder Chahal—Our Ambassador to Rotary Club of El Dorado, Hills, CA, USA
Rtn Dr Pushpinder Kaur Chahal, during her trip to USA, visited Rotary Club of El Dorado Hills. She substituted as the Guest speaker there as the originally invited speaker could not attend. She gave a presentation on various projects of our Club. She was presented with a mug and a flag. “The Rotarian of El Dorado Hills were very impressed by our projects and showed keen interest to partner with us in future projects,” she said.

Thank You
Rtn Dr Santosh Gupta  for donating an additional Rs 3000 for the Uttarakhand Relief Fund on her birthday.

Paul Harris Fellows

Rtn Vikas Garg was presented the Paul Harris Fellow pin and certificate by Rtn Jagesh Khaitan.

Rtn Pawan Katia was presented the Paul Harris Fellow pin and certificate by IPP Vivek Gupta. Rtn Pawan Katia is a multiple PHF.

 

Blood Donation Camp by Rotaract Club of Chandigarh

Rotaract Club of Chandigarh organised a blood donation and eye donation camp at Rotary Blood Resource Centre, Sector 37-A Chandigarh on 13 July . The camp was held as part of Rotaract Club’s 6-week internship programme—Rotaract 360. 51 volunteers from all age groups donated blood.
The presence of the Rotarians from our Club—President Hassan S. Mejie, PP Baldev Aggarwal, Rtn. Desh Deepak Khanna, Rtn. Mona Khattar, PE Prof. Paramjit Singh and Rtn. Surinder Paul Kaur—motivated the Rotaractors and the interns to donate blood for a noble cause.
Rtn. Mona Khattar was among the donors to encourage the first-time young girl donors.
Many of the young donors were refused due to low haemoglobin count. This is a disturbing trend and it was decided to organise a seminar for the youngsters, especially girls to enlighten them about healthy eating habits and importance of having a healthy body.

The noble provision of eye donation was facilitated in accordance with provisions of the Eye Bank, PGIMER, Chandigarh. All the volunteers' got themselves registered for eye donation after  death.

Lucky Draw

Rtn Rajinder Jain was the winner of the Lucky Draw prize this week.

Teaming and Power Play

The 15 July meeting was a meeting with a difference. We had Dr Amandeep hold an activity based session on Teaming and Power play. The ball was set rolling with the “Marshmallow Tower Challenge”, a simple team-building exercise that forces the individuals to team-up quickly and collaborate and innovate to build the tallest free-standing structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, 36 inches each of tape and string, and one marshmallow. The marshmallow needs to be on top.

Members were divided in to eight teams of 7-8 members each. The task was to be accomplished in 15 minutes. There were no prizes for the winners. The idea was to show the importance of team work in achieving success, be it in a corporate world or in an organisation like our Rotary Club.

Walking around the tables, one could see the Rotarians challenged by the task. Many participants were found to be upset with tape not opening or the sticks getting broken or lack of coordination among the team members. Some just sat back and gave up, while others plodded on. “No project is blessed with perfect conditions, problems can arise unexpectedly. Such situations arise in all organisations and good team-work helps in dealing with them successfully,” said Dr Amandeep.

Building on the experiences from the activity, Dr Amandeep shared that organisational success comes from aligning individuals to perform well in teams, collaborate and contribute to the overall goals.
Talking on “power”, she said that it impacts organisations negatively, harms teams and can cause distress to individuals. Most individuals exercise position based power or formal power and their team members display compliance solely based on their leader’s role, position or title rather than the person specifically as a leader. Coercion and selective distribution of rewards are  ways in which position based power can get abused. Real power is the expert power that comes from your knowledge and expertise. This power helps you become a real leader, irrespective of the fact that you hold a position or not. Then, there is the referent power, gained by a leader who has strong interpersonal relationship skills. It is of particular interest as leadership today is more about collaboration and influence rather than command and control.

Taking the talk further, Dr Amandeep discussed the various ways in which individuals translate power bases into specific actions. The best teams are those where the leaders use rational persuasion, inspirational appeals and consultation. Jostling for power leads to organisational politics, and should be avoided.

The game also taught us the importance of systems thinking.  “Systems work the best when perfected at the design stage,” said Dr Amandeep.

All in all, it was an interesting and a very useful exercise that was thoroughly enjoyed by the participants. “It was a refreshing change,” said Rtn Dr Pushpinder Chahal.

Rtn Varun Rao welcomed Dr Amandeep with a bouquet. She was introduced by Rtn Vipin Dewan. PP Arvind Mehan presented her a memento. Rtn Jaiparkash Hasrajani proposed the vote of thanks.

Club News - July 8, 2013

Hunnar Se Rozgar Tak
Pres. Hassan Mejie and PP Man Mohan Singh Kohli visited Dr. Ambedkar Hotel Management Institute and met  with a batch of students sponsored jointly by our Club and Mehar Baba Charitable Trust. The students prepared and served a continental lunch. Mrs. Bharti Tyagi, Principal of the Institute and PP Man Mohan Singh gave the students a motivational talk. A majority of these students are from EWS families from rural areas.

 
Thank You
PRIP Raja Saboo has contributed `65,000 towards Heartline Project on the 50th Birthday of his younger son Jaivardhan.

Rtn Vinod Talwar sponsored the 22 cart Gold Coin for the Lucky Draw. There will be one gold coin prize to grab every month.

Prayer Meeting
A prayer meeting in memory of Munish, son of PDG Dhyan Chand, was held in Shimla on 10 July. From our Club, it was attended by Pres. Hassan S. Mejie & R’Anne Harkiran, PDG Kawal Bedi, PP Baldev Aggarwal, PP Praveen C. Goyal, PP Vijay Wadhawan, PP Atma Ram Singh & R’Anne Arti.

UT government taking steps to improve Education in Chandigarh

Mr V.K. Singh, IAS, Finance Secretary UT Chandigarh was to be the guest speaker on July 8 but he could not return from Delhi due to flight cancellation. Instead, Mr Ajoy Sharma, IAS, very kindly consented to be the speaker and present steps being taken by the UT administration to improve schooling in government schools in Chandigarh.

According to Mr Ajoy Sharma, in last one year the Chandigarh Administration had taken a series of very innovative steps that have laid the foundation to providing good education. Ten new senior secondary schools are being added this year and another 10 will be added in two years time, he said. Besides, huge effort has gone into plugging the human resource shortage. In 2012, the Chandigarh Administration has added 800 new teachers and in the next six months another 1500 will be recruited. Efforts have been made that the newly recruited teachers come with the required training to make a qualitative change in education being provided in the city.

Mr Sharma also added that more and more school classrooms are being converted to Smart classrooms. The teachers are being encouraged to have a sense of ownership and do their work with renewed passion. The focus is not on making the class “smart”, he added, but to also transform the thought process of the teachers.

While sharing his own experience of studying in poorly equipped and staffed schools, followed by exposure to institutions like IIT and some leading foreign universities, he said that he was well aware of the gap the existed and he, along with his colleagues in the Administration, are working to bridge the gap.

Mr Sharma added that a dedicated team of 18-20 teachers has been constituted to hand-hold and transform the school and teaching environment. Overall personality development and extra-curricular skills are being given a lot of weightage. More sports facilities are being created and existing infrastructure is being revamped and upgraded. “In coming years, you will see a lot of improvement in government schools due to the steps being taken currently,” he said.

In the interactive session Rtn Krishan Kumar suggested to open the school grounds to children in evening. Mr Sharma assured him that steps are already being taken in this regard.

Rtn Ashok Khanna suggested that yoga be made part of the curriculum.  In reply, Mr Sharma said while yoga is not yet part of curriculum, yoga teachers are being deployed and children are being encouraged to learn yoga.

Rtn Geetika Rao suggested that more efforts should be put in to imbibe social responsibility among school kids, to which Mr Sharma said that steps are already being taken in this regard.
President Hassan Mejie appraised the guest speaker about the projects being undertaken by our Club to help children from poor families get better education and training.

Mr Sharma was introduced by PP Man Mohan Singh Kohli. Rtn Reema Dewan  proposed the vote of thanks.   Rtn Surinder Paul Kaur presented a memento  to the Chief Guest.

The second Lucky Draw (a gold coin courtesy Rtn Vinod Talwar) was won by Rtn Jaspal Sidhu.