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Activities
Celebration of SPB’s Birthday 2007 through an Act of Charity
This year too, the LEGEND’s Birthday was celebrated on 4th June 2007, through
an Act of Charity. This was the first one after the formal launch of the “SPBFans
Charitable Foundation”
in January 2007. Mr.Ashok (Trustee) had initiated fund collection through the
Group email which resulted in a total collection of Rs.60,000 inclusive of
Rs.40,000 donated by our SPB himself. As many of you might be aware, our SPB
had announced in the Fans Meet at Bangalore in Jan 2007 that he would be
donating Rs.10,000 every month to the Foundation Account.
 This time, an organisation by the name RASA
, at Chennai was identified by our Webmaster. (please click on this link to
know about RASA and its activities www.rasaindia.org). And as usual the core
team of Ashok and Venkat had got into the act and worked overtime to discuss
with this organisation and get all their requirements. Their requirements were
Special chairs, Tape recorders, Assessment kits, Play pen with coloured balls,
Basket swing, Rope ladder, Sensory integration board, Wheel Chairs, Different
musical instruments
While the contributions generated could not meet this total requirement, it
would cater to a part of it. Based on a discussion by WebMaster & Ashok with
our SPB, it was decided to present a cheque to RASA on June 4th, 2007 and at a
later date meet all the Special Children (due to holidays children were not
available on this day) and spend some time with them and also handover the
items bought by RASA from our donation.
The following members assembled at RASA, Abhiramapuram, Chennai at 6:00pm on 4th
June 2007
.
Webmaster Mr.Giridhar Raja, Ashok (Trustee), Mrs.Ashok, Venkat, Vijaykrishnan,
Madhumitha, Priya, Prasanna, Seshadri, S Balaji, Ramachandran, his Sister Uma,
Anand, Srinivasan & Dasaradhi
 The Group was warmly received by Dr.Ambika & team.
She gave them a brief summary of the organisation & its activities. RASA is a
school for Special Children (Children with certain mental & physical
disabilities). It uses Theatre, Drama, Music, Dance and other forms to develop
Special Children unlike the traditional medical approach. Dr.Ambika is the
founder and she along with other like minded persons are involved in this
process of teaching Special Children to acquire various attributes and grow up
in life. Around 100 children attend this school which is spread over three
locations, one at Ahbiramapuram which caters to 35 children and the other
centres at Mandaveli and Mehta Nagar-Nungambakkam taking care of 65 children.
Dr.Ambika told the Group that by God's grace they were able to pull along
through the contributions of philanthropists like the SPBFans Charitable
Foundation
and she felt happy in being associated with the Group on this occasion. She
invited the Group to come over one day and spend some time with the children
and have a look at the activities so that one could understand what is going
on. She also extended an advance invitation to the Group to a gathering of 250
Special Children that they are planning probably at Narada Gana Sabha, sometime
in September 2007, which will showcase the performances of Special Children not
only from RASA but also outside it.
After Dr.Ambika had completed her brief about the organisation, our WebMaster
handed over a cheque for Rs.60,000 to her.
The Group left the place with the fulfillment of having done something good on
SPB's birthday on behalf of the SPBFans Charitable Foundation
.
Further to the above visit, a team of Chennai Fans once again visited RASA on
the "777" day (07/07/07) headed by the Webmaster. The purpose of this visit was
to spend some time with the Special Children and also to handover the items
bought from the donation, which could not be done during the earlier visit as
the School was closed for holidays.
Members who visited this time around were Webmaster - Mr.Giridhar Raja, Ashok,
Venkat, Madhumita, Vijayakrishnan, C Balaji, S Balaji, Anand, Sridhar &
Dasaradhi
The Group was welcomed warmly by the RASA Administrators, Staff and Children.
The RASA Special children sang a few songs for the Group combined with some
dance under the lead of Dr.Ambika, the founder of RASA. It was heart moving &
soul stirring to see her & her associates treat the children as their own by
exhibiting motherliness in their actions and encouraging the children to come
forward to introduce themselves to the Group and also prompting them to perform
in front of the Group. The Group was also prompted by Dr.Ambika to join in with
the Children to dance for a song.
RASA had purchased some musical instruments, Wheel Chairs & Exercise Aids.
These were formally handed over by the Members to the RASA Administration.
(Special Courtesies: Venkat for arranging photographing of the event through
Sridhar who captured the memorable moments professionally)
Spbfans Charitable Foundation Organises Its First Blood Donation Camp
Date : 2nd December 2007 (Sunday)
Time : 9.30am to 1.00pm
Venue
: Indian Red Cross Society, Egmore, Chennai
2nd Dec 07 would indeed be a Red Letter Day
in the annals of the Foundation, true to the words, as Blood flowed from the
hearts of SPB Fans, their near & dear ones, into life packets, to fulfill their
purpose at a later date.
In the initial stages of campaign, there lurked doubts, as to the success of
it. Finally the spirit of comradeship prevailed and it was an overwhelming
response when many enthusiastic donors presented themselves at the Indian Red
Cross Society, Egmore, Chennai to donate blood.
Hats off to Ashok, Venkat, Balaji, Prasanna, Madhumitha, Lakshmi……. who came
along with their friends / relatives / colleagues as well and contributed their
might to the success of the event.
The camp became active by 9:30am when around 10 donors had turned up. This was
an encouraging sign for things to follow. To start off, our Trustee Ashok had
brought with him two big banners – one on the SPB Charitable Foundation and the
other on the SPBINDIA website. The first one was displayed on one of the walls
of the Hall where blood was being collected from the donors and the other was
displayed at the entrance to the Red Cross campus.
Donor after donor filled up forms and were examined by a doctor to confirm
fitness to donate blood, then had their blood group confirmed and were paraded
into a hall where a part of their being was sucked into life packets, which had
the destiny written on it, to save the life of a fellow human being.
As time passed, donors trooped into the venue and finally when it all ended at
1:00pm, the count had risen to 36, three more, than the registered 33. It was a
grand success in a way, this being the first camp organized by the Foundation.
The Red Cross Society Team and their Chief Doctor too were overwhelmed with the
response.
This event proved, to one and all, that a noble cause would always have success
attached to it. What it needed was the initiative and the bent to do it.
This camp also gave some of the donors a chance to have their health checked up
as part of the process. I, in particular, felt relieved, when my blood pressure
was found to be normal, because two weeks back, I was found to have high blood
pressure (I was sick at that time) and the check at Red Cross rested my mind.
Similarly I found some of the donors turn curious and querying the doctor on
some of the aspects related to the check-up before blood donation. It also
proved to be a learning experience for such donors.
While the camp was in progress, some of us immersed ourselves in transferring
SPB songs from one mobile to another through Bluetooth mode. This was
complimented with exciting discussions about our LEGEND’s songs and one could
see members singing a few lines of the songs and analyzing the beauty of its
rendition.
There was one donor Mr.Narayanan (a friend of Madhumitha) who has a Light Music
Orchestra to his credit. A discussion cropped up when he enthusiastically
suggested performing small concerts to raise funds for the Foundation when
answering to a point raised by our Ashok regarding organizing of activities for
fund collection. Ashok suggested that some of the members who were good singers
could also take part in the process and even conduct a show as part of the SPB
Fans Annual Meet.
The camp finally served as a platform for blood donation – the prime purpose
and also for discussions on SPB songs and future course of actions for fund
generation.
One felt that such camps should be organized once in 6 months as part of the
Foundation’s activities. There should be no doubt that further camps would
receive better response, thereby fulfilling one of the objectives of the
Foundation.
Let Us All Join Forces And Take The Foundation Activities
Forward.
The list of donors is given below. Let us
salute them all for being there.
| Arun Krishnan. N |
Ashok. R |
Azad. A |
Balamurali |
| Baswar. N |
Bhupathi. G |
Dasaradhi. G |
Devi. V |
| Dewakar Raja |
Divya. R |
Guruprasad. G |
Jayakumar. C |
| Kannan. M |
Kavitha. S |
Khadar Basha. A |
Lakshmi. V |
| Mahesh Kumar. S |
Manikandan A.R. |
Manoj. M |
Mohan Raj. V |
| Narayanan. R |
Ponnaiah |
Prasannavaradhan. R |
Priyamvatha. S
(Madhumitha) |
| Raghav. R |
Rajasekar. A.M |
Revathy Narayanan |
Sasikanth. B |
| Seshadhri. S |
Shankar Ganesh. S
(Balaji S) |
Sreenath Bharadwaj. R |
Sridhar. K |
| Sunitha Harikrishna |
Veeraraghavan. D |
Venkataramanan |
Vijayakrishnan. V |
It was interesting to note that, apart from
the above intended donors, there were a few outsiders who happened to donate
blood after seeing the banner put up at the entrance to the Red Cross Camp.
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