The Rotary E-Club of Heritage New York is the outcome of many months of behind-the-scenes work by Rotarian Bina Ahmad who has been a Rotarian since 2009 and is a member of the Rotary Club of Yonkers-East Yonkers.

 

She conceived the idea of forming a new Club as a vehicle to introduce her friends and family to do good and also to enhance the membership experience in the District.  She felt organizing a new Club was the best way to increase the District's membership.  She soon found that there are many of her friends and acquaintances who are ready and willing to engage in doing good but are not able to attend regular daytime meetings of a Rotary Club.  So she decided to explore the flexibility of online meetings coupled with the new relaxed attendance requirements for Rotary Clubs.  Not surprisingly, the response was very positive.  Bina then approached some close friends and relatives, including her sister and convinced her son to join in.  It didn't take her long to secure the 20 members needed to charter the new Club.

 

Since all of these new would-be Rotarians had little knowledge of Rotary, Bina set out to "educate" them about Rotary being very mindful not to overload them.  She discussed the by-laws and adapted the RI standard constitution and got the members to agree on a slate of Officers for the new Club. 

 

Bina was able to get all of the paperwork in to Rotary Headquarters in mid-December 2018.  On January 19, she got the good news from Club and District Support that the Charter for the new Club had been signed by President Barry Rassin.  In April, at the 2018-19 District Conference, RI Past President K.R. Ravindran and then District Governor Krishnan Chittur gave her the award in recognition of her efforts to establish the new Club - the first new Club in the District in nearly 10 years.