The Actual Story: In the early 1974s, some eminent persons like KD Gupta, JK Bajaj, Suresh Jain, KN Rajpal, MA Abichandani, Sushil Kumar Arora and others formed an association in Panchsheel Enclave to promote and encourage dance, drama, music, poetry and allied creative arts amongst others. With co-operation, shared wisdom and salubrious inputs from the colony residents, they formed a Society named “Holiday Club”. They then applied for a place from DDA and acquired a plot of land in Panchsheel Enclave.
After acquiring the land and overcoming a whole slew of problems, they constructed a building for their dream Club. The Club in the late nineties had a beautiful design and architecture and commenced functioning. Thereafter unabated endeavours continued to bring about a very copious accretion to the club infrastructure and facilities – both primary and secondary. The Members of the Club who are our premier most stakeholders have been the major contributors for Club’s achievements.
About Holiday Club Society: Holiday Club is a Society registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 (Act XXI of 1860) as in force in the Union Territory of Delhi and shall be governed by the provisions of the said Act having registration No. S-7352. This Club is an elite and prestigious Club of South Delhi having its registered office at Panchsheel Enclave. The Club is formed on the principles of mutuality for the benefit of its members without involving any activity of commercial nature with the objectives to provide a common place for the members for recreation, entertainment, participation in various indoor and outdoor games, discussions on matters/topics of mutual interest, participation in various social activities and promotion of feeling of unity and cooperation amongst the members, to promote education, knowledge and awareness amongst the members and their families, to promote fine arts and culture, organize dance, drama, music concerts, play competitions, exhibitions, cultural programmes social functions and celebrate various festive occasions, to promote all types of sports, games and pastimes, to maintain a well-equipped bar, kitchen with highest level of cleanliness and hygienic conditions for preparation of nutritious food and refreshment for its members etc.
Gaurav Bhardwaj (LL.B, M.B.A, Advocate, Born and brought up in Panchsheel Enclave is presently a Member of the Governing Council of Sports Authority of India, he is the General Secretary, Holiday Club, since March 2022. Previously. He served as Jt. Secretary of Holiday Club for two terms.
He comes from a family of eminent personalities who have contributed in the development of society and well-being of people. His father Late VM Bhardwaj was a well-known personality of Panchsheel Enclave.His uncle (Tauji) Late IM Bhardwaj was an eminent – well renowned person who had contributed a lot as a prominent political leader and a social worker. His elder brother Pankaj Bhardwaj is quite well known for his contribution in the welfare of Panchsheel Enclave as the President of PERA. During the conversation simple question-answer session was held between us where questions were asked to Gaurav and he replied with full conviction:
Q: 1. Gaurav ji, being the youngest Gen Secy of the Holiday club what are your goals and achievements in making it one of the best clubs in Delhi today?
Ans: I feel honoured to be a part of my team and although we got the club in a very well developed condition by all those teams who have contributed in making the club what it is today. I feel happy that we have contributed in giving our members fine experience of food and dining, celebrating all festivals, distributing sweets on Diwali, Lohri and Holi as a loving gesture to all members. Giving honour to our senior members on senior citizens’ day, celebrating Karva Chauth in the Club gave our ladies a beautiful experience. As far as working is concerned, I have been successful in controlling the pilferages and thereby increasing the turnover and revenue of the club. The staff is given good salary, uniforms, perks and a raise as per the law. The accounts of the club are documented in such a way that it will give a correct picture to all who take on to the working of the club. We advertise now on fb and other social portals, have wifi connection running for members. We have our own club app and have made all operations digitized. I introduced the smart phone app, web portal, digital operations online payment app recently giving 10% discount to members for payments and bookings. The members can watch the photographs of all the events on the web portal of the club. Today our focus has been more on providing superlative facilities in our events. We try to do the decor without raising much of the cost. It’s now observed that more youngsters have started using the club facilities and are seen visiting the club more often with families and friends.The Giani ice-cream parlour and Defence bakery is always crowded with youngsters.
There are about 528 resident members and we try to facilitate them with five-star facilities in the club premises. Our newly renovated dining hall and the bar with a singer on Wednesdays, a newly renovated coffee shop with a new coffee machine being installed will be an amazing experience for all our members. The new wellness spa introduced in club is also an attraction for the members. The gym and sports activities like tennis, table tennis, badminton and swimming pool are all time favourite for all youngsters and elderly. Our senior citizens activities are held regularly in our conference room like discussion on Bhagwat Gita, senior citizen elderly programs, meetings and discussions. We extended the support for them and made our conference room available for them.
Q. 2 How do you tackle the difficulties in your day to day running and operating the club?
Ans-We all work as a team together and take ideas from each member into the committee. Now that we have young members in the committee, they add the spice to it.
We do have to solve the problem of swimming pool as current flowed in water a couple of times which was is dangerous.We plan to shift the solar panel installed on top to the other side for safety reasons.
Q. 3 Why is it that you have given membership to more outside residents and the club is becoming more of a commercial place unlike the vision of the visionaries of our “club”?
Ans- The club needs funds to work and make improvements every now and then accordingly to meet its growth and development we had to allow induction of more members in the club.
