About Lions Club of Gokuldham Yashodham
The Lions Club of Gokuldham Yashodham was formed at the invitation and initiation of Lion K M Goenka (Member, Lions Clubs Juhu and Builder/Developer). Lion Goenka invited many leading professionals and officers working in corporate companies and a large force of engineers, contractors working in Conwood for initial meetings. After rounds of meetings, it was decided to form Lions Club Gokuldham Yashodham, with Lions Club Juhu as our Sponsor. Our Club was inaugurated on 18-05-1986 and Charter was presented on 29.06.1986, with 77 charter members. The enthusiastic Charter President admitted another 22 members during the year, taking membership strength to 99 by the year end (1986-87). In the very second year we had to drop as many as 44 members for NOT paying their dues on time. After initial two years’ hiccups, we stabilized ourselves in third year and marched ahead. We travelled a long way. We initially planned many things but soon realized our potential and limitations and started to cut the coat according to the cloth available.
Many seniors like D R Bali (Spouse of Kumud Bali), Maruti Bhosale (father of Avinash Bhosale), M L Seth (father of R K Seth) opted out of the race and eventually resigned from the club due to old age. The middle rung (aged) members like Subramaniam (elder brother of Viswanath), Vishwanth and Prof S M Patil were forced to step in to fill the gap in leadership. Although each of the President carried out small to big activities during their time as per the directives of the District and as well as Lions International guidelines. We were talking about a permanent project since the beginning but nothing concrete came out. Some of the memorable achievements of first ten (10) years are as given below:
Systematic planning and Luck favouring us during when Lion Prof. S M Patil (1991-92), we could accomplish the following permanent activities -
- Extension of Lions Club Goregaon East (Extension Chairman - Lion Vishwanath)
- Extension of Leo Club (Leo Advisor - Lion R K Seth) - To develop leadership qualities and to give opportunities to our own children - All Leos excelled in their life.
- Possession of Garden Plot (Chairman-Lion Vikas Hoshing, then Director in Conwood Group of Companies).
- Installation of Telephone Booth on 30.06.1992 (Project initiated and payment done one and half years ago when by Lion Vishwanath) Our tenth (10th) President Lion S S Virdi (1995-96) on the strength of small savings of about 75k in fixed deposit (collected in last 9 years’ time) decided to raise further 75k, collecting Rs 1000 per member, and purchased a flat in Gokuldham.