The Charity New Year Reception was held on Tuesday, January 12th in PE Daniel’s showroom at Jiancai Jingmao Dasha (Beijing Building Material Trade Tower). Twenty-five guests participated in the event including two Rotaractors. Three bottles of fine wines donated by La Cava De Laoma were auctioned off as were three paintings donated by PP. Mike Ma. The proceeds from the auction will go towards the funding of club projects. The total collected in the evening (tickets, auctions, donations) was close to RMB 50,000.

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See here a selection of the pictures, by Celine and Gilbert.

Despite the fact most meetings were “cancelled” the Beijing Rotaractors remained active over the New Year.
So, on 5 January 2016 we had a social evening in Great Leap Brewery (sanlitun) , and as the pictures tell: it was fun!

On 12 January we had our first “official” meeting with our President Anissa back in town. At the last minute we changed location, run ning away from the (noisy) The Bookworm to Lyrics Cafe & Bar in Sanlitun SOHO, the B1 level and at the very end next to the staircase.
Obviously again a large turnout to plan the activities for the next months, followed by a cozy get-together.
On a different note: I got a picture early January from Rtn Monica Nabureera from the Rotary Club of Kampala Nsambya, Uganda, where she gave our Rotary Club banner. The club was very happy to receive it. She had visited our Beijing Rotary Club some weeks ago.

It was the last lunch of the year. As usual they forgot the birthday boys and girls of December, so once again no cake for me!

The speaker was Charlie Parton, of the EU Delegation; Topic: China’s Five-Year Plan.
Charlie Parton has been a Counsellor for Political Affairs at the Delegation of the European Union in China since 2011.
China’s Five-Year Plan is a general guideline for the country’s management and development, setting a direction. The government discussed its 13th Five-Year Plan in October 2015, covering the period of 2016 to 2020. It will be expanded before its official presentation in March 2016.
The Five-Year Plan contains very important messages: Continued economic growth with rebalancing and reform; sustainability, with a focus on the environment, on air and food safety; strengthening the army and the management of government. One of the themes is innovation which will be supported by repatriating experts and improving the education system. An emphasis is on China going global. SOE reform, land reform, tax reform, and price reform figure in the plan.
Unfortunately I missed much of the talk as I had to run out to take part of the Press Conference in CCTV for the Sanxia 3D movie (see other post).151215 rotary10.JPG

(thanks to Celine for the pictures and report)

President Daniel hosted the induction of a new member, Mr. Christoph W. President Daniel handed over the Rotary pin and induction certificate. Rotarian Christoph is sponsored by President Daniel.
President Daniel exchanging banner with visiting Rtn Daniel Counio
Tom Stader gave an update on the Library Project; our club as well as the Shanghai club have been working very closely to set up many libraries in poor schools, in China.

As announced earlier, on the morning of Saturday 12 December, a group of Rotaractors went to a migrant children school located in the South of Beijing, where they mingled with kids with hearing difficulties. It is part of the long-term cooperation with the Migrant Children Foundation (led by Rtn Helen). The volunteers had a great opportunity to make the kids happy as the pictures show.

On Monday 14 December, another busy meeting in The Bookworm, attended by some 24 people from Rotaract and Rotary. It was unfortunately the last meeting for Marc-Philipp as he is leaving Beijing.
An impressive mix of nationalities: USA, Romania, Lithuania, China, Guyana, France, Germany, Belgium, Turkey, Canada, Kazakhstan…
Next Rotaract meeting: 11 January 2016!

On the evening of 10 December 2015 Beijing Rotary and Beijing Rotaract joined forces for a social event, this time at the Belgian Morel’s Restaurant on Gongti Bei Lu.

We had a total of 20 Rotarians and guests and 16 Rotaractors.

Very lively and successful evening, all seemed happy with the great deal of only RMB 150 per person, all included except extra drinks.