L-R: Past president of Rotary club
of Ikoyi, Rotn. Loye Akinbami; District 9112 Governor Elect, Femi
Oyenekan; New President, Rotary Club of Ikoyi, Rotn. Funsho Gbogboade; Past
District Governor, Rotary International Nigeria, District 9110, Dr Kamoru Omotosho;
and the Immediate Past President of the club, Rotn. Augustine Irabor during the
investiture of Funsho as the 39th president & Inauguration of the club’s
Board of Directors, 2023/2024 in Lagos on Saturday.
As an organization Rotary has objectives of encouraging and fostering the ideal of service as a basis for worthy enterprises and in particular to encourage and foster the development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service, high ethical standards in business and professions, it also recognizes the worthiness of all useful occupations and the dignifying of each Rotarian's occupation as an opportunity to serve the society, among others.
But most significant about
Rotary Club is the four way tests which try to find out things they think, say
or do if they are true, fair to all concerned, build goodwill and better
friendship and lastly, whether their actions are beneficial to all concerned?
Therefore in making sure
the club realize its set objectives, Rotary has a well thought out succession plan
which has passion for the club as a primus inter pares in terms of one of the consideration
for whoever takes up the top job. No wonder, this rare gem, Rotarian Funsho
Gbogboade was elected as the 39th President of the Rotary Club of Ikoyi. Indeed
her choice was not by accident.
Her tenure to run from July 22, 2023 to July 2024, Folasade would not be alone in piloting
the affairs of the club in the year under review, she would be working with
other eminent personalities as board members who were also inaugurated same
Saturday, July 22, 2023.
Funsho Omolara Gbogboade, born on 18th October,
1962 hails from Aran Orin in Kwara State, Nigeria, she is a graduate of the University
of Ilorin with BA Hons in English Language. She joined Rotary Club of Ikoyi 14 years ago, and has
virtually served in almost all the committees as member, Chairman and Director.
She has also served in RYLA and Family of Royal Committee at District level
amongst others. Also she has won several awards at club and district levels.
Gbogboade is awesomely blessed with four
children.
Speaking to the media, Gbogboade spoke on
her she felt “I feel so so delighted, I bless
God for giving me this wonderful opportunity because serving humanity has
always been my passion, and I see this as a very successful achievement.”
On her programme for the
year she said, “In Rotary we have seven areas of focus, we have disease prevention
and treatment, for this year we have what is called basic life support, we are
going to spend money on that, we are going to spend money on donations to
hospitals, we are going to spend money on donations to orphanage homes, and we
have just completed a project, that is solar and inverter project to enhance
power supply to our blood donor centre at Falomo Police Hospital, so we are
doing a lot, I am telling you.
“We are going to embark of
cataract screening and surgery, we are going to have free cancer screening and
breast cancer screening for women; that will take place next week. We are also adopting
a school, we are going to fix the toilet, the library in order to enhance learning
and make the children happy, because what Rotary does is to put smiles on the
faces of the less-privileged people," Gbogboade stated.
Answering question on how
to raise money for the projects she said, “In Rotary, we believe that people
will support us, companies will support us, organisations will support us and
in Rotary, we have gold hearts, Rotarians; we give and give and give. There is
polio eradication that Rotarians are involved in and every Rotarian, every year
will give at least a hundred dollar, this is for children we don’t even know,
we have not met them in the world, so Rotarians, we have a gold heart, it is not
that we have so much, but we have the heart to give”
She has a message for
Rotarians “I want to appreciate my members, they have been so supportive, in
Rotary we don’t even relent in giving, so I want to appreciate my members for
their great support.”
For Rotarian Augustine
Irabor, the immediate past president, he said “I am very relieved, it is one
year call to duty, like I mentioned during my speech, this is exactly one year
ago, when I took over the mantle of leadership of this club and we have touched
lives in various ways. I am happy today we are here again to hand over to my
successor.
“The past one year has
been very interesting and very motivating and with all the challenges that go
with because it is not an easy ride, managing people, projects, finance and so
many other things. It was quite interesting and quite motivating. I am quite
pleased that we were able to do what we were expected to do by bringing smile
to the people.
Under Irabor, the club
recorded a total of 14 new members, and in line with the district’s target, the
club also recorded an increase in the percentage of female members from 25 per
cent to 30 per cent. During that tenure the club ensured provision of well-meaning and
impactful projects, with specific time lines which were unveiled during the
investiture, the projects include tree planting in support of the environment
at king's college, Lagos, introduction of life saving squad, organisation of
school reading exercise, donation of Rotary branded exercise books to schools,
hearing for learning in collaboration with district and 15 other clubs, family
health days, support for routine polio immunization in collaboration with
Rotary Rlub of Victoria Island,
Other activities under
Irabor includes Golf tournament, voluntary blood donation exercise, micro
credit (global grant), donation of office Printer and Rotary branded exercise
books to Junior Boys Academy, Lagos Island. Wash project, donation of hospital
consumables, support to free prostate screening exercise, Pro Bono legal
services, teacher support, among other achievements of the club under Irabor.
Also speaking at the event
was Emmanuel Efutayo, the President elect or what you called the incoming
president of Rotary Club of Ikoyi, he said “My year will be next year, Gbogboade
is passionate about rotary and she will put everything that is required to make
her year a success. As a board we have so many agenda, especially on how to
grow our membership, I am Chairman of membership committee, from about 84 now
to about 100, we want our club to be a mega club. We have some projects in
place, we did one last week at the Blood Donation Centre in Falomo, there is a school;
we are adopting, also we are sending some of our youths to what we call Rotary
Youth Leadership Academy, we are also collaborating with some other clubs.
Albert Van-Lare who was
the Chairman of the occasion spoke glowingly about the new president. “I think
they have done great job, I like the foundation they have set, and I like the
direction this organisation is going to.”
On what Rotary should do
to sensitise Nigerians on their activities, “I think going to the communities
is a way to publicise the organization and I think the result eventually will
show to the public how to understand their activities.”
Responding if rotary club
has done enough in Nigeria, he said, “I don’t think you will ever do it to get
to a point when you have done enough, there will always be more to do. But I will
put it differently, I will say they have made a remarkable presence in the
community, is it enough? No, enough suggests we have reached a point of
stopping, they need to do more.”
On what he expected the
new president do he said, “I will expect that she is going to put her mark on
this club by putting in place those projects that she has spoken about and
should concentrate effectively more on projects that actually touch human
lives, I like the project of school where they want to do some construction
work, I like the idea of breast cancer screening because this is very
important, and other projects she mentioned.”
Commissioner of Police
Nkechi Eze, a Dental Surgeon, she is in charge of police hospital, Falomo. Appreciating
donation of solar inverter by the club she said, “I feel wonderful, it is been
a great privilege being associated with the club, I am very very happy. I am
very glad that it happened in our time, and in the present president’s time, we
are quite grateful to Rotary for donating the solar inverter machines and
batteries for us. Actually there was a blood transfusion center that they had
helped the hospital set up few years back, and we were having some power outage
issues but with the solar inverter that the club just donated it is going to go
a long way in helping us alleviate the problem.”
Special Guest Speaker of
the day was Prof. Folasade Akinsola, Consultant Ophthalmologist LUTH/Dean,
Faculty of Clinical Sciences College of Medicine, University of Lagos. While
almost all the past president of the club were present.
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