July 6th weekly edition

• Quotable Quotes of the week
  


• He is a strong man and an ideal ruler . I congratulate him for what he did - Bal Thackeray on French President Nicolas Sarkozy' s ban on burqa
  
  We cannot remain oblivious to the conventional threat from India - Qamar Zaman Kalra Pakistan Information Minister
  
  I have no regrets for what all I did in Babri Masjid. I am ready to be hanged - Uma Bharti Bhartiya Janshakti Party Leader
  West Bengal government's indifference is to be blamed for Maoist problem in Lalgarh -- P.Chidambaram Union Home Minister
  

Marketing for a Charitable Cause

• It has been a slow start to the Rotary Medical Center that is well equipped with a lab , X Ray machine , a Ultrasound machine , ECG-- All these are the latest in terms of technology and can give the very best of results to interpret medically-- however due to road work on the Highway that caused a access block to the centre , we had very few patients trickle in --
  The rates that are charged are at cost and they will be at least 70 % cheaper to a commercial run Diagnostic centre - We realised that we had to market this -- Even if you want to do something that benefits society , you need to market it and sell it as well -- Also people are wary when it comes to getting things cheaper or free of cost -- We had to get credibility in and also bring people in - that way the center can pay for itself and also fund for expansion as well -
  Ideas that came in
  


• Visit all doctors in the surrounding 5 -8 KMS radius and give them literature on the lab--
  


• Make small bit notice and have it circulated amongst all the schools ( Govt run preferred ) in the area -
  


• Run a advertisement slide in the local cinemas on the center --
  


• Conduct a free medical camp--
  


• And more …
  


• But we needed people who can make it happen -- who else can do this but the great colleagues that I work with and about which I am very proud off -
  Volunteers from Ford ( warranty area ) came in on Saturday( July 4 ) , saw the facility for themselves and had a brainstorming session -- It was a very nice of this group who came in from various areas to the medical center at Nerukundaram and wanted to help -- Without this , we had no resources that could implement all the ideas that were generated -- the first free camp is on July 26th and will focus on Diabetes -- Please refer this place to your known people --your household help , security at your apartments are some of those that can benefit --they are the ones who need to get the benefit of this -- Contact at the medical center is Saravanan -- 98412 45061
  Brochures shall be ready by end of next week and you can take them for me to give it to Doctors that you visit -- Word of mouth helps a lot --
  

Humour Club

• It was one of those great meetings -- This Sunday ( July 5th ) although it was a morning meeting , the hall was packed -The open session had its moments of laughter in the hall but once the speaker of the day took charge and ran the session for around 70 minutes or so , it was a laughter riot -- Had great energy on stage , got the entire audience involved and created humour out of everything -- Started off with the way Doordarshan ( our only Channel of the late 70's and through 80 's ) ran its programmes and this person ran the program called " Ula Varum Olikathir " -- So much of humour in the way the Government run channel functioned and many in the audience were able to relate to what was spoken--
  And the speaker continued with a rendering of the Ramayana in a typical fashion bringing in old film songs to narrate each instance of the Ramayana and completed the story in a quick time -- All through as the speaker picked a each song for a particular scenario , the audience were asked to sing along and it was amazing to see a 85 year old Patti sing along and a 75 year old younger Patti dance along - All of us were having fun and enjoying the rendering of the Ramayana -- No guess for who the speaker was -- None other than Revathy Sankaran , famous TV personality who now runs the early morning shows on TV - She is also acting as Rajini's mother in the forthcoming movie "endiran " and she had this to say about her role --" I am 65 and a mother to a 59 year old "( Rajini's age ) --Amazing personality, a live wire on stage who cannot be but loved by one and all for her easy approach to life ,always wishing everyone well and being so versatile -- Revathy Sankaran had a few strong words for the Delhi High Court on Article 377 and the Rainbow rally -- She had this to say " I have my son to be married working in the US-- How does it look to say , he will bring home a daughter in law or a son in law ?
  Again this program is a great stress reliever-- just to laugh for couple of hours - the only hitch is that it is a regional language driven forum.
  


• The 26th Anniversary of the humour club is on 12th July and is being celebrated at Kamarajar Hall from 4 PM onwards -- If you need tickets , do let me know
  PS : Tough times -- The humour club raised its annual membership to INR 200 and Life membership to INR 2000 !!
  Please do find time on second Sundays of every month to attend -- I can assure you that there cannot be better stress reliever than this