About Us
About Us “ Looking into the PAST ”
Rajendra Man Sherchan, Charter PresidentRotary dawned unto me on the onset of the Millennium.
Many years back, before the start of the Millennium, during one of my regular morning walks, I bumped into Mahesh Pradhan also having a morning walk. He put forward the idea that a Rotary club was being opened in Thamel and asked if I was interested in joining the club. I had told him that I was interested but needed more details as I did not have any idea on what Rotary was all about except that it was an INGO. I had also heard about one club in Thapathali with many senior influential businessmen as members and that you had to be invited to become its member, which I thought was quite a prestige, but wondered how many had actually been invited by them. Mahesh disappeared and the matter was forgotten. Until a few years later I met Gopal Kakshapati, a member of the Rotary Club of Kathmandu Mid-Town, who revived the subject of Rotary and briefed me about the objectives and encouraged me to form the Rotary Club of Thamel. Thereafter, we decided to consult a few of our “ Chimeykies ”. This time it was my turn to invite Mahesh.
On May 29, 2001 The first meeting of RC Thamel was held at Hotel Mandap, under the Coordination of Gopal Kakshapati. It was basically to draw a list of names for prospective members of Thamel to open a Rotary Club. There were 5 of us in the first meeting namely Rtn. Gopal Kakchapati, Dr. Keshav Adhikari, Mahesh Pradhan, Ganesh Pandey and me. We decided to add more names as we needed to have at least 20 members to form the club.
On June 5, 2001 our second meeting, Bibhuti Man Singh and Arjun Sharma joined us at Hotel Mandap. A committee consisting of Gopal, Arjun and me was formed to visit Kathmandu Guest House and request the management to provide space for the rotary meetings of RC Thamel and negotiate the charges for the hall, breakfast, etc.. and put the details of understanding in the next meeting on June 12, 2001 for approval.
On June 12, 2001 we met again at Hotel Mandap and forwarded the proposal of the rate of Rs 125 per person for breakfast by Kathmandu Guest House. The proposal was accepted and Kathmandu Guest House was confirmed as our venue and also to immediately start to hold our regular meetings there. Regarding the annual fees we decided that we would consult and decide once we had the required number. We then decided on an Ad Hoc committee for RC Thamel until we could have more members and get ourselves organized. The Ad Hoc committee consisted of:
President - Rajendra Man Sherchan
President Elect - Dr. Keshav Adhikari
Secretary - Mahesh Pradhan
Treasurer - Arjun Sharma
The list for prospective membership continued to grow but the difficult time of convincing our friends to be Rotarians still continued. Some had already joined different NGO’s whereas some others were not ready to take the plunge in committing themselves to social service without first knowing what Rotary was all about. Some were apprehensive whether they would be able to make at 7:30 AM. every Tuesday . Though our number swelled to 17 members by the fifth meeting, we still could not have confirmed members as we were not certain as to how many would really join the club and this fluctuated and hovered around 12 regular members.
In our 17 th meeting we decided to change our venue to Hotel Malla as our members were having a difficult time parking their vehicles and from the 27 th meeting onwards we held our meetings at Hotel Malla, Lainchour.
On 6 th November 2001 ( 21 st Kartik 2058 ) meeting no 23 we formed our board consisting of the following :
a) President - Rajendra Man Sherchan
b) President Elect - Mr. Dr. Kasab Adhikary
c) Vice president - Mr. Soyambhu Ratna Tuladhar
d) General Secretary - Mr. Mahesh Pradhan
Treasurer - Mr. Argon Prasad Sharma
Jt. Secretary - Mr. Kiran Pratap K.C.
Jt. Treasurer - Mrs. Manju Shrestha.
Director Club Affairs - Mr.Bibhuti Man Singh
Director International Affairs - Mr. Arun Adhikari.
Director Vocational Service - Mr.Kumud Tripathi
Director Community - Dr. Sushil Koirala.
Sergeant – at - Arms - Mr. Ashok Nath Pyakurel.
For almost a year our weekly meetings continued focusing in giving the members greater insight about Rotary. Some of the early notable rotarians, speakers and eminent personalities that visited our club were Dr. Tika Man Vaidya, Mrs. Ambika Shrestha, Mr. Chinta Mani Bhattarai from our sponsoring club RC Kantipur, Professor Janardan Subedi, Dept. of Sociology, Miami University, District Governor Sidhartha Sadan Bose, Immidiate Past District Governor Ravi Sehgal and his wife Sumati, Mr. Sudeep Pathak, President of "Human Right Organisation of Nepal" (HURON), Rtn. Hothe Kjell from Heomenlcollen Club, Oslo, Norway, Mr. Kamal Mani Dixit, Rtn. Ken Mumford of Witney Rotary, Oxford England, Past D.G. Sekher Meheta and Asst D.G Rtn. Dr Raman Khanna .
Finally Rotary Club of Thamel with 25 members was Chartered on May 15, 2002. The occasion was graced by District Governor Siddhartha S. Bose and many other senior dignitaries of Nepal Rotary. The rest as we all know is history.