The Car Rally for a Good Cause
The Fund Raising Program at our Club Rotary Madras South
The fund raising event at the Rotary club is an annual event . Each Rotary club raises money to do as many community projects as they can. So, Fund raising project is a key event in a Rotary Club's calendar. This year the event was special . We had our lady Rotary member Asha Marina, who is the Club's Fund Raising Director spearhead the whole effort and what a good job she did, can be figured out easily as you read this post. The Rotary Madras South ( I am a member of this club ) board agreed that the event to raise funds would be a Picnic Car rally.
Key things that had to be done were :
1. Get a reputable organisation to conduct the rally. The Madras Motor Sports Club was approached to conduct the rally and they agreed.
2. Lining up sponsors was the next big thing. Ford in India agreed to be the Gold sponsor . LIC and Inno Geo city were other affiliate sponsors. For Ford , to partner with Rotary, it connected very well with their CSR initiatives. The initiative to support the rally from Ford was a diversity ( Lead by the Women's forums ) and a employee engagement initiative and connected with its objective to creating a "better world". So you had the best of best organisations working together to make it a great success. Asha coordinated between the three organisations and with many more to make the whole event just not a picnic car rally as it was termed, but a great event , with net surplus from the proceeds going towards community service projects.
3. Find a Sponsor for Lunch at the rally conclusion point.
4. Start point for the rally. Anna University was engaged to be the starting point.
5. Inno Geo City was the closing point and Shaminas and other infrastructure at to be arranged at this far flung place with infrastructure challenges.
6. Lining up a Advertisement Campaign in the newspapers
7. And many activities ….. Posters , Banners …..Rally forms ,
The Rally itself
The event was held on Sunday Jan 30th.The flag off was done by Joginder Singh , President and MD of FBSC ,starting at 9.01 AM for the first car which was a Ford car and by the time the last car was flagged off it was close to 11 AM. The cars had to cover a distance of 65 kms starting at the Anna University main gate to reach the end point Orgadam a suburb.
There were close to 40 entries from Ford the main Sponsor . One day prior to the rally , the number came to 26 cars . The outside response was overwhelming.. Total of 105 cars were flagged off and all of them reached the end point, which by itself was great.
The rally route wound itself round the city , where the participants had to identify pit stops , get the Marshal's sign off for in and out of the Pit stop, look for various sign boards and answer questions . The rally was based on the Time , Speed , Distance formula ( using Tulip charts that were given at the time of flag off to each car ). . The teams had to be observant of things around them and be alert. For example there could be a question in the following way -- "When the Odometer shows 11.6 kms completed , what is the Maharaja doing.?. If you looked around when your Odometer shows 11.6 or near about, you will find a Shoppe called Maharaja Shoppe.
And in terms of identifying and getting to the pit stops, you could not be late or early at any pit stop. Points were docked for getting in early or late . So the teams had to get the distance right , the speed to travel and during each stage had to increase, reduce speeds at which they travelled.
There was lot of team work .. It was not just about driving the car. The Navigator had to do a very good job and the other members had to chip in with calculations. The lesser penalty point that you gain in each pit stop check in , the more were your chances of winning. Each participant at the rally enjoyed the challenge and relished it.
There was lunch followed by which the MMSC officials collated the data cards ( what a serious effort ) announced winners . MMSC ran the event with so much of Professionalism and Diligence.
Joginder kindly consented to be at the closing venue and distribute prize to Ford Winners while other Guests of Honour did so to the winners of the General and Rotarians category.
My wife took part as a Driver with three other Rotary Anns as her team members. They had a great time , going around and getting to the end point. They did not figure in the top three winners. A all Women's team from Ford was a prize winner within the Ford Category. They finished second and missed the top slot by a whisker.
Wanted to also pen down the remarkable work done by Asha our Fund Raising director.
-Lead the whole effort.
-Kept calm and was assured in her communication.
Plenty of challenges -- working with different organisations , handling their requests -- Not a easy thing to do at all
-Plenty of talking on the phone and at odd times and with all sorts of people. ( when the advertisements went out , her number was the number to call if you want to enlist)
-The whole event went on smooth. At no stage , we got bogged down or had last minute issues to deal with-- Which means Asha did the planning well.
-Other Club members chipped in at right times to give support to Asha.
-A difficult job done so well. -- hats off to her for stepping up to do this…
Our Club President in his thanks email to the club members wrote about Asha's work as under
"On behalf of all the members of RCMS I must thank Rtn Asha who took it upon herself to get this fundraiser on the road ( pun included). The benefactors of the funds raised will never know her personally, but the first line of her vote of thanks said it all ," Thank God Almighty for making us instruments of service to the society. " Her account has already been credited. "
Special thanks goes to our to the Ford Women's Forum team that helped coordinate the effort for the great organisation, that i work for . Just cannot stop being proud about this fact.
The fund raising event at the Rotary club is an annual event . Each Rotary club raises money to do as many community projects as they can. So, Fund raising project is a key event in a Rotary Club's calendar. This year the event was special . We had our lady Rotary member Asha Marina, who is the Club's Fund Raising Director spearhead the whole effort and what a good job she did, can be figured out easily as you read this post. The Rotary Madras South ( I am a member of this club ) board agreed that the event to raise funds would be a Picnic Car rally.
Key things that had to be done were :
1. Get a reputable organisation to conduct the rally. The Madras Motor Sports Club was approached to conduct the rally and they agreed.
2. Lining up sponsors was the next big thing. Ford in India agreed to be the Gold sponsor . LIC and Inno Geo city were other affiliate sponsors. For Ford , to partner with Rotary, it connected very well with their CSR initiatives. The initiative to support the rally from Ford was a diversity ( Lead by the Women's forums ) and a employee engagement initiative and connected with its objective to creating a "better world". So you had the best of best organisations working together to make it a great success. Asha coordinated between the three organisations and with many more to make the whole event just not a picnic car rally as it was termed, but a great event , with net surplus from the proceeds going towards community service projects.
3. Find a Sponsor for Lunch at the rally conclusion point.
4. Start point for the rally. Anna University was engaged to be the starting point.
5. Inno Geo City was the closing point and Shaminas and other infrastructure at to be arranged at this far flung place with infrastructure challenges.
6. Lining up a Advertisement Campaign in the newspapers
7. And many activities ….. Posters , Banners …..Rally forms ,
The Rally itself
The event was held on Sunday Jan 30th.The flag off was done by Joginder Singh , President and MD of FBSC ,starting at 9.01 AM for the first car which was a Ford car and by the time the last car was flagged off it was close to 11 AM. The cars had to cover a distance of 65 kms starting at the Anna University main gate to reach the end point Orgadam a suburb.
There were close to 40 entries from Ford the main Sponsor . One day prior to the rally , the number came to 26 cars . The outside response was overwhelming.. Total of 105 cars were flagged off and all of them reached the end point, which by itself was great.
The rally route wound itself round the city , where the participants had to identify pit stops , get the Marshal's sign off for in and out of the Pit stop, look for various sign boards and answer questions . The rally was based on the Time , Speed , Distance formula ( using Tulip charts that were given at the time of flag off to each car ). . The teams had to be observant of things around them and be alert. For example there could be a question in the following way -- "When the Odometer shows 11.6 kms completed , what is the Maharaja doing.?. If you looked around when your Odometer shows 11.6 or near about, you will find a Shoppe called Maharaja Shoppe.
And in terms of identifying and getting to the pit stops, you could not be late or early at any pit stop. Points were docked for getting in early or late . So the teams had to get the distance right , the speed to travel and during each stage had to increase, reduce speeds at which they travelled.
There was lot of team work .. It was not just about driving the car. The Navigator had to do a very good job and the other members had to chip in with calculations. The lesser penalty point that you gain in each pit stop check in , the more were your chances of winning. Each participant at the rally enjoyed the challenge and relished it.
There was lunch followed by which the MMSC officials collated the data cards ( what a serious effort ) announced winners . MMSC ran the event with so much of Professionalism and Diligence.
Joginder kindly consented to be at the closing venue and distribute prize to Ford Winners while other Guests of Honour did so to the winners of the General and Rotarians category.
My wife took part as a Driver with three other Rotary Anns as her team members. They had a great time , going around and getting to the end point. They did not figure in the top three winners. A all Women's team from Ford was a prize winner within the Ford Category. They finished second and missed the top slot by a whisker.
Wanted to also pen down the remarkable work done by Asha our Fund Raising director.
-Lead the whole effort.
-Kept calm and was assured in her communication.
Plenty of challenges -- working with different organisations , handling their requests -- Not a easy thing to do at all
-Plenty of talking on the phone and at odd times and with all sorts of people. ( when the advertisements went out , her number was the number to call if you want to enlist)
-The whole event went on smooth. At no stage , we got bogged down or had last minute issues to deal with-- Which means Asha did the planning well.
-Other Club members chipped in at right times to give support to Asha.
-A difficult job done so well. -- hats off to her for stepping up to do this…
Our Club President in his thanks email to the club members wrote about Asha's work as under
"On behalf of all the members of RCMS I must thank Rtn Asha who took it upon herself to get this fundraiser on the road ( pun included). The benefactors of the funds raised will never know her personally, but the first line of her vote of thanks said it all ," Thank God Almighty for making us instruments of service to the society. " Her account has already been credited. "
Special thanks goes to our to the Ford Women's Forum team that helped coordinate the effort for the great organisation, that i work for . Just cannot stop being proud about this fact.
Comments
Srividya Srikanth
Very interesting fund raising event. Raj was involved in a fund raising event for a Charity Organisation..It is not a easy job at all. In the end it is very satisfying. BTW, what was the fund raised ? If it is confidential no need to disclose...Just as a matter of interest..Coongrats to all.
Hats off.