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About Uptown |
Another light has been lit……..
June 1984 was a significant time. A meeting took place between two very dynamic personalities – one a Rotarian just about to take on the highest office in the district, and the other a former Rotaractor eager to join the ‘big league’.
Gemunu Goonatilake had gone on record to say that during his year as District Governor, he would give top priority to the expansion of Rotary through the formation of new clubs. In Fazal Ghaffoor a former Interact and Rotaract President, Gemunu seemed to have made the perfect choice to form the first new club in his year.
A participant at the first ever Rotary Youth Leadership Award (RYLA) held in 1978, Fazal was the unanimous choice as the best participant at the inaugural RYLA. Later, RYLA was to play a big part in the formation of the new club too.
As he set about the task of collecting his own band of ‘merry men’ for the formation of a Rotary Club, Fazal already had with him a few former schoolmates from Royal who had been Interactors too.
The next stop was naturally the Rotaract Club of Colombo where he had been the President and he soon had five others joining him – significantly all of them had been fellow participants at the inaugural RYLA too.
Within a month, on a cold monsoonal day in July 1984, a dozen or so youthful members gathered together at the home of their “Godfather” Gamini Edirisinghe. That cold rainy night saw the birth of a brand new club – “Colombo Uptown”.
A member of Gemunu’s own Club – Colombo West – the sponsoring club, Gamini was selected by Gemunu to be the special representative and the ‘godfather’ (as he came to be known by us) of our new club.
Once again, Gemunu had been unerringly accurate in his selection. Gamini was an old boy of Royal College and as an active member of the OBU he had already established an excellent rapport with many of the new members.
By the end of July 1984, the Rotary Club of Colombo Uptown had been set up with provisional status with 22 members.
The first decision the new club had to make was to decide on a meeting place. These were the days when there were not many five-star hotels in the country and the two that did exist were far too costly for the young members. It was then decided that our venue would be the Hotel Lanka Orchard at Wellawatte.
‘Uptown’, albeit its provisional status, was soon quite active in the district. Being
composed almost entirely of former Interactors or Rotaractors the young club embraced Rotary and its ideals quite easily.
'Uptown’ was also a happy phenomenon for Rotary in Sri Lanka which was witnessing the rewards of investing in the youth through Interact, Rotaract and programmes like RYLA.
It was an agonizingly long wait for the final official recognition of the club by Rotary International and the awarding of the Club Charter. This finally happened on the 31st of May 1985 and was delayed by a curious fact.
Rotary International had initially refused to accept the signature of “godfather’ Gamini Edirisinghe on the official application form because his signature was (and still is) just one line at an angle of 45 degrees and two dots. The signature looked more line a line drawing of a pair of spectacles and since Gamini was an optometrist the irony was quite amusing.
On the 8th of July 1985, the Hotel Lanka Orchard was the venue of the ceremonial presentation of the Charter to the Club and the installation of Charter President Fazal Ghaffoor.
Another light had just been lit in the world of Rotary!
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