Sunday Ani
On Saturday, September 14, all roads led to the Golden Tulip Hotel, Amuwo Odofin, Lagos, where the Rotary Club of Amuwo, District 9110 Nigeria, installed its 33rd president as well as its board of directors.
Rotarians, Rotaractors, friends and well wishers of the club, both within and outside Lagos turned out in their numbers to grace the memorable event
Speaking on the event, the new president, Francis Ogugua, said that apart from the installation, it was also an avenue for the club to raise funds for its numerous projects lined up to be executed in the next one year.
On his plans for the club, he said: “The immediate past president really performed very well. So, all I need to do is to build on her achievements. The number of projects successfully executed is always our yardstick for measuring our achievements, and we have so many of them lined up. I have plans to raise funds to execute most of the projects we have at hand now.
“Rotary is a membership club that renders service and we can’t really do much if we don’t have enough members to render these numerous services for which Rotary is known. So, we intend to grow our membership and get quality guests that will graduate to being members of the club. We also intend to build goodwill among our members because it is very important to our success. Those are some of the tasks I want to achieve during my tenure as president of the Club,” he said.
On what the club has for the youths, Ogugua said: “The Rotaract Club and the Interact Club will be given due attention. Interact club consists of members that are still in secondary school, while Rotaract club members are those in higher institutions of learning. We have both clubs with us here and we are going to give them due consideration in our programmes,” he added.
The immediate past president, Mrs. Uzoamaka Akaneme described the event as the final curtain closing on yet another Rotary year. She expressed pleasure at the opportunity given to her to serve.
She gave a wonderful account of her stewardship during the 2018/209 rotary year, even as she thanked the club members for having the confidence to elect her to pilot the affair of the club for the year ended.
She said the last Rotary year was anchored on inspiration which was put into action, adding that all the proposed programmes except two were executed during her tenure.
“We grew the membership to 60 within the one year period. We had two club assemblies and seven staff programmes. There were service projects, and micro-credit projects, where we disbursed above N1.9 million to 12 women in the programme tagged, ‘United against poverty in the community.’ Under the ‘Economic and Community Development,’ we carried out tree planting under the ‘Save our Environment,’ and in vocational service, we partnered with IBM among other projects,” she stated.
The guest speaker, Mrs. Julieth Okene thanked the club members for serving humanity. She said: “Rotary is about giving, serving, supporting humanity and you have been doing this since 1905. It is amazing; it takes a giver to know a giver. It is not easy to give because it is either you are giving your time, money or ideas; it takes a lot. I thank you for your selfless service to humanity and I want to encourage you to keep on doing good.”