President Bina welcomed members to the meeting and announced that a number of new members would be joining the Club in the next few weeks.
She congratulated Mehran on his new appointment as Vice-president of CitiGroup.
District Annual Meeting:
Mehran spoke about the upcoming District Annual Meeting. This year, because of COVID, the Meeting will be held via Zoom, on Tuesday 24 May at 7 PM. Registration is required, so please register via the District or our Club website. It is free.
In addition to the Governor’s State of the District Report, there will be the District Awards Ceremony, where the Governor will present awards to outstanding District Rotarians and Clubs. We are proud that at this meeting, our Charter President will receive, on behalf of Rotary International President Shekhar Mehta, the highest Rotary honor – the Service Above Self Award – which is given to only 133 Rotarians, out of the 1.4 million members.
There will be a presentation of last year’s audited financial report, on which there will be a vote.
There will also be a memorial, honoring those Rotarians in the District, who passed away during this year.
Two short presentations, on the new District Ethics and Dispute Resolution mechanism, and the new District Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, will conclude the event.
Club Treasurer Annual Report:
Club Treasurer Yeasin presented his first Annual financial Report. We received our IRS EIN (Employer Identification #) and the 501(c)3 tax exempt certification in December 2021. The required $250 fee for this certification was paid by Charter President, as a donation to the Club.
Our Club also received the New York State Charities Bureau Certification in December 2021. No fee was incurred for this process.
PDG Mahbub kindly prepared and filed all the paperwork for these certifications at no charge. We express our collective thanks to him.
With these approvals we opened our Bank account with TD Bank, also in December, with the dues from our Charter President.
It was decided that the Club will collect annual dues in January every year. So, we asked for our annual dues in January 2022, and thanks to all members, we collected dues from all active members. All the dues were deposited to our TD Bank Operating Account. From this account, a total of $1,721.75 was paid out for RI dues, ClubRunner and Foundation donation. From the remaining balance in our operating account we will have to pay the Rotary International 2nd half (July to December) dues
As per decision of the District Board, our District dues for this year were waived, because we are a new Club. All expenses for Club projects were borne directly by members' contributions.
For ease of accounting, and proper segregation of non-tax-exempt dues funds and tax-exempt donation funds, a separate savings account was opened in April 2022, to receive tax-exempt donations from members and others towards the Club contribution for the proposed upcoming Global Grant project. Contributions to this account have been earmarked by the respective donors for the Global Grant project for the Monu Mia Sultana Girls Orphanage, as and when this project will be undertaken.
Club Projects:
Ashfaque spoke about the Eid project of giving clothing to orphan children in Chittagong.
Yeasin spoke about the District New Member Grant Project providing clothing and groceries for needy people and the joint project with the Westchester Club.
Club Fundraiser:
President Bina spoke about the innovative fundraiser by which she has created a Facebook page to raise funds for Club Projects by selling sarees to friends and family.
Already, a number of sales were successful raising funds for Club projects. With wider publicity, we expect to raise more funds.
Other Matters:
President Bina asked Yeasin to explore setting up a PayPal account for the club where members can pay their dues online and also make donations to the Club. Yeasin will collaborate with Mehran to set up the account as a not-for-profit account as soon as possible.
Next Meeting: Scheduled for June. Date and time will be announced at a later time.
If you wish to add any items to the Agenda, please send it to the President at least one week prior to the meeting.
