July

MATHUR ASSOCIATION BOMBAY

                                     NEWSLETTER

July 20, 2012

                                                                  NEWSLETTER

Dear Member

1.AN APOLOGY:

As you are aware, we normally issue two Newsletters in a year – one in June / July, and the other in December. The later one announces the date and venue of our Annual get together function, usually held in the following January.  However, since our last Newsletter dated August 1, 2011, this is our first one in year 2012, and we feel we owe bit of an explanation for this unusual gap, as follows:

For the present year 2012, preparations for the function to be held on 18th February (no suitable venue was available in January) including booking of a school venue at Bandra-E were made and even the Newsletter for the function announcement was kept ready. However, later it was learnt that this year the School examinations in Maharashtra state were preponed from usual March to February due to elections. In view of this development it was felt that the function, if held in February as proposed,  may  have a poor attendance as most of the children as also a good number of parents will not be able to participate.  Consequently, the venue booking for February had to be cancelled, to some embarrassment to the Management.

It was then proposed to hold the function in early April but no suitable venue could be found, despite vigorous search by our Committee members. Going beyond early April was not favored due to anticipated onset of hot weather (suitable air-conditioned venue being out of our reach), and also to the expected general holiday exodus. Alternatively, organizing a Monsoon picnic in July / August (in place of a formal 2012 function), was actively considered but the idea could not materialize mainly due to distances of such picnic spots and difficulties in arranging transport facilities to ensure a good gathering.

It now looks that we will most probably be having our Annual function of  2012 as a Diwali function around the coming November for which a separate circular will be issued when the details are finalized. In the meantime and to save the news and other information from getting stale we do not wish to delay issuing our regular Newsletter any further.

So, here we are with our first Newsletter of the year 2012.

2. OUR LAST FUNCTION:

We had our last Annual function (a day Event) on 16th January, 2011 at Naval Baug, Madh-Marve, attended by 145 participants. It has already been reviewed in detail in our last Newsletter dated 1st August, 2011.

3. OUR ZONAL ACTIVITIES:

MAB’s Zone-1 (South Zone) & Zone-2 (Central) had their Zonal get together on Saturday, 10th March, 2012 at Hotel Sea Palace, Colaba, followed by a sumptuous (contributory) dinner. It was a function organized for the first time by the Zonal Committees and provided a lively forum for the members of the Zones and their families to meet with each other. The function was attended by 56 persons which included some from other Zones too, adding to the charm of the occasion. We thank the members of the Zones for extending their cooperation to the organizers and making the function a great success and also look forward to their continued support in future.

4. MAB  MEMBERS DIRECTORY:

We are happy to announce that our new Directory (2011 Edition, updated till March, 2012) has gone for print and its copies will soon be available for distribution to members. The program and modalities of distribution will be informed in due course. However, it may be stated in advance that only one copy per listed family will be supplied free of cost. Additional copies, if required may be supplied, subject to availability on payment (price yet to be worked out, but likely to be around Rs. 100 each).

The completed Directory is already available on our website (http://sites.google.com/site/bombaymathurs) and contains an additional column, ‘Hailing From’,against a member’s name which gives the ancestral place of the member and spouse. However, this is indicated only against those who have volunteered to furnish the same at our largely and repeatedly announced request. Those who have not yet furnished this information but wish it to be indicated against their respective names on the website  may even now kindly do so by post or by phone to our Directory Cell (Shri Shamsher B. Barellia (Tel: 2446 7271 /  9820427290) or by email to our id  bombaymathurs@gmail.com.

Our website Directory is regularly updated from time to time and presently it is corrected till June, 2012.

Data base: We also plan to compile a data base of our members and their families which will be put on our website. For speedy collection of the required data a copy of the Membership Form has already been supplied to all members through our earlier Newsletters. It can also be downloaded from our website or obtained from any of our Managing. Committee / Zonal  Committee  members.

         Members are requested to kindly fill it and send it to us through their Zonal Committee member or directly to our office address by email / courier / post at their earliest

     A list of members of our Managing Committee and the Zonal Committees is attached herewith at Annexures A & B respectively for information.

5. MAB WELFARE TRUST

We make a living by what we get

We make a life by what we give

The formation of the MAB Welfare Trust and its Registration under the Charitable Public Trusts Act, along with our having obtained permission for issue of Certificate under Section 80G of I. Tax Act (entitling a donor to claim tax relief) have already been announced in detail in our previous Newsletters. It may be recalled that the main objective of the Trust is to provide emergency medical relief to members in distress, besides other public activities in the field of education, welfare of Senior citizens, etc.

We wish to bring to member’s kind notice that it was in response to a long and pressing demand by them for creation of a Trust for the benefit of the community at large and that MAB had put in a lot of efforts in the formation and Registration of the Welfare Trust. A beginning has been made but much greater efforts are now required by one and all to develop the Trust to a viable financial level so that it is of some real, meaningful service to the needy.

We hope it will please be appreciated that members of the MAB Management alone cannot carry on the Fund Collection drive all by themselves, without active support and involvement of all its members. Members are therefore requested to please make wholehearted efforts to get as many contributions as possible, not only from within our own Biradri but also from other sources and well-wishers to develop the Corpus Fund of the Trust. Within the Biradri, our first request is to our members who are in their own business / profession (or those who have resourceful approach to other potential contributors elsewhere) on whom we depend for active support.  Charity begins at home - an old saying

      On its own part the Trust has been regularly performing charity activities, to be compulsorily done as mandated under the Charitable Trust Act. A few years back for example, it had organized a free Eye Camp at a School at Bhayander where the students got their eyes tested and the poor amongst them who needed glasses were provided with free spectacles. In the last two years a contribution of Rs. 25,000 to the Cancer Society as aid for child cancer patients, and another one of Rs. 15,000 to a deserving Mumbai Mathur student for educational purposes were provided. These have already been reported in our previous Newsletters.  Later, in the year 2010-11 another contribution of Rs. 25,000 was provided to an institute of destitute children for education of the inmates therein. 

                    The total funds collection for the Trust so far stands at Rs. 2,46,358 only.

 6. GENERAL: Membership & Sponsorship

Life Membership:

We repeat our request to our members (other than Life members) to take the Association’s Life Membership (one time payment of Rs. 1000 - covering the member and spouse - renewable after 15 years). Membership fee can be paid in cash or by a crossed cheque drawn in favour of ‘Mathur Association Bombay’ at our office, or through any Managing Committee or Zonal Committee member.

By becoming a Life member you not only save yourself from the botheration of paying each year, you also save monetarily. We put your amount in a Bank FD and get some interest on it regularly.

        Annual Membership:

Annual Membership subscription of Rs. 100/- per year (financial year, April to March) covers a member and spouse. Earning male member in a family is taken as a member in his own right, and is due for separate membership fee. This fee for the current year is already due those who have not yet paid it are requested to do so at their earliest as per method mentioned above.

                                Sponsorship:

The Association, as you know, has no source of regular income except membership fee and some interest on its FD’s which are totally inadequate to meet the expenses of our functions, newsletters, etc. The problem has become much more serious during the last few years due to overall unprecedented price rise, especially in catering and venue hire charges.  We, therefore earnestly appeal to members to kindly help us by taking any of the following sponsorships which will go a long way to enable us to hold good functions:

Give a Corpus Donation which could be put in a Bank FD and its interest used as your running contribution at each function.

Give whatever you wish as a spot cash/cheque general contribution towards function expenses.

Sponsor (wholly or partly, individually or jointly) an item of the function by contributing the amount shown against each in the table below:

Any other way desired, e.g., Donation on a marriage or any other happy occasion in the family or business