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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 less significant 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 17th June 1960, was Chartered on 30th 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 Ramakrishnan Raja as Secretary. Among the professional leaders were Dr. S.K. Barat of CLRI, A.K. Parameswara Rao, a chartered accountant, E.N Narayanaswamy from Industries Department, Chandramouli, horti-culturist, Muralidhar, jeweller and Veerappa Chettiar, a quarry owner.

We met on the 17th 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 2/3 years.

The District then covered the whole of Tamil  Nadu, Malabar, Travancore and Cochin and Sri Lanka. We attended District Assemblies, District Conferences, Seminars and One-day Institutes besides District Conferences. 

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 our Club a distinct stamp and made it very popular in the District.                          PDG Govindarajan S R

The Charter was officially presented to us on 1st September 1960 at a function presided over by PDG D C Kothari.

In appreciation of the efforts put in by DG Gopal Rao, RI admitted our club in a record time of 11 days. Our Charter was issued on on June 1960, the last day of the Rotary year.

Rotary Club of

Adyar in June 1985
Chennai K K Nagar in  April 2003
Madras Centenary Commemoration in Nov 2005
Gummidipoondi Industrial City in 2007

Interact Club of

Asan Memorial Higher Secondary School
Corporation Girls Higher Secondary School
Anna Gem Science Park Matriculation H S School
Sree Seetharam Vidya Matriculation School

Rotarct Club of

College of Engineering, Guindy
A C College of Technology
Asan Memorial College of Arts & Science
 

Inner wheel Club of

Madras South

Rotary Community Core

Nerkundrum, Tamilnadu

Probus Club of

Madras South

Rtn. C V George and Rtn. Ramakrishna Raja were the District Governors from our Club

                          

First inducted member of the Club