Petrol Hike & Rotaract Activities

I, like every Malaysian, was shocked and surprised by the fact that there will be 30 sen increase in petrol price with effect from 28-2-2006.

I was having tea with President Harley, Rtr Eng Tee, Rtr Feilin of RAC Shah Alam and Lloyd at Bukit Tinggi on 27th night and the news came too late for me to pump up my nearly empty tank. As a result I have to pay alot more for my petrol the next morning. But even had I had the time to fill up my tank on the night before the increase, I would have just saved RM10.00 to RM12.00 only. In the longer term, the petrol increase will still have great and obvious impact on my daily life.

I read Guang Ming Daily this morning while having breakfast. Today’s heading featured “HOW TO GET ON WITH LIFE?”

It highlighted the predicament faced by ordinary family with ordinary income. For example, for a labour who had been working for the past 15 years with a salary of RM3,400.00 per month and with a family of 6 members (husband and wife and 4 children), his estimated monthly expenses would be around RM3,300.00 to RM3,400.00. In another words, he would not have any savings left. With the recent petrol price increase, his monthly expenses are expected to increase 25 percent. It is not likely that his salary will be increased in the foreseeable future. So how is he going to pay for the extra expenses?

The conclusion of the news article is that we have to live our life frugally. Do not waste money on unnecessary things, spend wisely.

This leads me to the core of my posting this time. We as rotaractors have many activities planned in a year. We are expected to attend many functions organized by our club, other clubs and district. I have no doubt that these functions are fun and usually strengthen the ties between the rotaractors and rotaract clubs. I have little doubt about that.

However, these functions also come with a price and normally they are not cheap. I just received an invitation from a president of another rotaract club inviting us to join their farewell party. It costs RM35 per person. I could pump in another extra 10.5 liter of petrol with that money!

Further it has come to the near end of the Rotaract year. As usual, clubs shall be busy organizing installation dinner and sending out invitations to other clubs. These dinner tickets, again, are not cheap and will normally cost around RM30 to RM50 per person. There is also a tendency to organize the dinner as grand as possible thus hiking up the price.

The coming District Rotaract Assembly cost RM235.00 per person as compared to RM200.00 per person last year.

The age range for rotaract club is between 18 to 30, which means the members normally consist of students with no income at all and young working adults with little salary to meet monthly commitments.

Hence, the question I pose to you is where do we strike the balance? On one hand, we have to actively participate in rotaract activities (if not what’s the point of joining rotaract?), on other hand, we could barely survive the high cost of participation.

Can I appeal to all clubs and the district that in future, all activities organized shall involve as nominal cost as possible? Then we will be able to attract more rotaractors and also potential rotaractors to join us.