Rotary Club of Madras South, 2^nd Club in the city, was inaugurated on 17^th June 1960, and was Chartered on 30^th June 1960 with 24 members. We have 62 active members and one honorary member.

Two members of the Club - Rtn. C.V. George (73-74) and Rtn. Ramakrishna Raja (86-87) - have been District Governors. Three members have led GSE teams; many of our members hold important positions in the District Office every year.

The Club has implemented many commendable projects, over the years, in all avenues of service. 

It has organized many thematic exhibitions on subjects relating to Environment, Automobiles, Quality Control, Futuristic Technology & others. In the last five years, we have successfully completed two Matching Grants Projects. 

Founder-members who continue
to be members of our Club

First - inducted - Member

A Note on the Formation of the Club

The first Rotary Club in India, Rotary Club of Calcutta, was formed in September, 1919 and was chartered in January, 1920. The Rotary Club of Madras, the fourth in India, was formed in 1929.

No other club was formed  in Madras for more than three decades and people had no idea what a Rotary club was. The general impression was that it was a club of affluent people who met over lunch every week and had a lot of fun. Social and community service was insignificant and mostly unpublicized.

 It was only in 1960, the then Governor, Gopal Rao, strongly supported by P.N. Ethiraj, R.P. Sarathy, S.S.T. Chary, PDG D.C. Kothari and others, finally succeeded in getting Madras Club to cede territory south of Adyar River to form the South Club. It was inaugurated on 17^th June 1960, was Chartered on 30^th June 1960 with 24 members. Most of the members were from the Guindy Industrial Estate.

Frank Bradbury Pratt of English Electric Company was chosen as President, J.K. Mullick as Vice-President and Ramakrishna Raja as Secretary. Among the professional leaders were Dr. S.K. Barat of CLRI, A.K. Parameswara Rao, a chartered accountant, E.N Narayana-swamy from Industries Department, Chandramouli, horticulturist, Muralidhar, jeweller and Veerappa Chettiar, a quarry owner.

We met on the 17^th June 1960 in the Library Room of Guindy Industrial Estate under the Presidentship of Governor K. Gopal Rao who declared us provisional Rotary Club of Madras South. We concentrated on Club Service and Inter-national Service for the first two or three years.

The District then covered the whole of Tamil  Nadu, Malabar, Travancore and Cochin and Sri Lanka. We attended District Assemblies, Seminars and One-day Institutes besides District Conferences. Our members attended District Conferences in Tanjore, Coimbatore, Salem, Kottayam and Colombo in large numbers.

We  organized several inter-city meetings and fireside meetings. This massive involvement was necessary  for us to understand the Rotary movement. Not only this pre-occupation but the slow tempo of resource mobilization restricted our community service in the early years and picked up only after two or three years. We met in Hotel Oceanic on Fridays before we moved on to Hotel Savera.

Thus, the first few years of Madras South were devoted to consolidation, indoctrination, publicity and public relations all of which gave Madras South a distinct stamp and made it very popular in the District.            - PDG Govindarajan S R

[PDG (Late) SRG was the President of our Club for the year 1963-64. He was the Governor of our district for the year 1977-78 when he was a member of the Rotary Club of Madras West]

Rotary Club of

Adyar 
in June 1985

Chennai K K Nagar 
in  April 2003

Rotaract Club of

College of Engineering

Interact Club of

Probus Club of

Madras South