Yearbook 2012 - The Rotary Club of Bangkok South

COMMUNICATIONSANNUAL REPORT 2011-2012RAKESH SODHIACommunications DirectorIt was actually quite late in the lead up to the 2011-12 year that Iwas asked to head up the Communications Committee (ComComas it is known), when Rtn David Armstrong had to leave the clubdue to work commitments outside the country. But I was extremelyfortunate to inherit a Committee that was not only substantially thesame as that for 2010-11, but which had put in an awful lot ofgroundwork under that year’s Director, Gareth Marshall.Tim Cornwall continued his sterling efforts in producing ourmagazine, the South Wind, week in and week out. The publicationis fully self-funding from ad sales, and Tim looks after the contentand layout in what can only be called a labour of love. Tim has verykindly agreed to continue in this role in the coming year. The SouthWind now has over 2,400 issues to its credit. It issues electronicallyeach week and is sent to all members and those non-membersregistered on our mailing list. A small number are printed each weekand are available at our Friday luncheon meetings.Our Club website has continued to develop, with the additionof pages on Matching Grant Projects as well as a functioningcalendar plug-in. We can now add and amend events so that theyappear in very brief form on a small calendar on the Home page,with more details of each contained on the Events Calendar page.Rtn Gary White has been keeping this up-to-date and, of course,like any database or calendar, it is only as good as the informationgiven. The same goes for the website itself – it is a huge andnever-ending job trying to keep it current. We do rely in part onmembers to let us know of anomalies or items that need updating. is now working on a register of passwords and log-in details forthe club’s ever-expanding portfolio of software systems and socialmedia sites. This will be copied and stored in several safe placesreview and up-date, and several are now on the website, along withthe 2010 and 2011 Yearbooks. Our sincere thanks to Veritas for theirdonation of artwork and layout services for many of these.We have continued to up-date and circulate quarterly a list ofmember contact details (mobile/email), but we are reliant uponmembers to keep us up-to-date with their current details.Committee Members:Our Club Member database has also been transferred to Bentosoftware after the old Rotary International one started corruptingdata – and Rotary no longer supports its old Secretarial andFinancial systems.Another area needing attention this year (and next) is our ClubPhoto library. This is kept on Flickr, but had not been up-datedfor some time. Major events were there, but not weekly meetingphotos and lesser events. A mechanism was put in place to tag,catalogue and upload all photos onto Flickr, but has not workedout. This needs the concerted attention of the incoming ComComteam to get it working properly.External communications this year have been probably thebest in years, if perhaps ever, thanks in great part to the effortsof President Mark Butters, who has cultivated relations withpublications like the Bangkok Post, the Pattaya Mail and TV, andBig Chilli. Events like Coins, the Paul Harris Dinner and Kids Outhave received extensive coverage, and President Mark himselfwas the subject of an extensive interview (focussing on the Club,not himself, I should add) in the Bangkok Post. Many thanks toformer member Gareth Marshall for arranging this. Soon to be IPPMark has kindly agreed to continue with this job on the incomingComCom Committee.The Club Yearbook for 2011 was put together by former RtnDavid Armstrong and Rtn Gary White, and published by Rtn Ravi’sSehgal Group. It was very well received and was one of the morecomplete and extensive ones we have done. This year’s book isbeing done by Rtns Morgan Perkins and Gary White, and is againpublished by the Sehgal Group. Our thanks to Rtn Ravi for his andhis staff’s sterling efforts in doing that.And this report would not be complete without mention of theClub’s 50th anniversary History Book, whose production wasoverseen by a team led by PP Maarten Worp and published byRtn Jim Fowler’s Veritas. Our sincere thanks to them, and RtnDean Outerson, for all the work they put into making it such anexcellent publication.Nor would it be complete without my sincere thanks to all theComCom team: PE Nick Pisalyaput, Dean Outerson, GarethMarshall, Gary White, Ian Morris, Tim Cornwall and, latterly forthe 2012 Yearbook, Morgan Perkins. Our best wishes to incomingDirector Junior Shaw and his team for another successful year.NickPisalyaputDeanOutersonGary WhiteIan MorrisTim CornwallRotary Club of Bangkok South Yearbook 2012 23