On Saturday 30 May 2015 we had our Rotary Training in Beijing.
It took nearly the whole day and we were fortunate to have the meeting room of BASF, thanks to our Rtn Joerg. We had a delicious lunch served, very creative salads.
Rotarians came from several locations in China. I was happy to see many of our Rotaractors to join the session too.

In the evening I organized a fellowship dinner in the Indian restaurant SWAGAT (Guanghua Lu SOHO), where many of the Rotarians and Rotaractors joined. Rtn. Nikola was so kind to foot the bill (unexpectedly) for all Rotaractors who were obviously more than happy.
As usual manager Nendu of SWAGAT did a fantastic job so all were happy with the food, including several vegetarians.
Afterwards the really young generation (me included) ended the evening in Heaven Supermarket, the well-know bar in Sanlitun.

On 22 May 2015 Rtn Piper, President of the Beijing Rotary Club, invited some members for a private dinner with Rotary International President Gary Huang and his wife. The idea was to brief Rtn Gary on new developments in China and also to introduce Ms. Wang Yilin who was to attend our Rotary Ball along with some VIPs.

Thanks to Piper for a nice and relaxed dinner!

Rotary is one of the world’s largest international service and charity organizations. Its 1.2 million members are business and professional leaders, in over 34,000 clubs in more than 200 countries. The Beijing Club has carried out many charitable projects in China.
Every year the Rotary Club of Beijing holds a charity dinner to raise funds for public welfare projects. Its charity event is Beijing’s most international ball; participants are diplomats and executives from foreign companies, as well as Chinese friends and officials.
This year it was held on Saturday May 23 at 6:00 pm, in the Kempinski Hotel with the theme “Broadway”.
The over 300 Chinese and foreign participants enjoyed the dinner, the performances, dancing, lucky draw and much more.
The program: welcome cocktail; welcome speeches by Gary Huang (World-President of Rotary International), Piper Tseng and Daniel Albrecht.
Performances: acrobatics; Charleston dancers; Jazz dance; music and songs by DJ Juliana Lima (Brazil) & singer Daria Yurchenko (Russia).
As for myself, we had two tables to accommodate our friends from Jiamei Dental and many more. As Rotaract Liaison I was happy to see nearly 20 Rotaractors helping out and enjoying their evening.

See here some of the pics, mostly taken by myself, some collected from others. Not meant as an official photographer’s report – just my personal choice. And just people crossing my path! Most of the pics are downsized for the web, original sizes with me.
Overall the Ball was a success despite the enormous competition: the same evening there were several other balls in Beijing, with one heavyweight: AMCHAM.
For our Beijing Club it was a great honor to have RI President Gary and his wife attending this event.

On Thursday evening 14 May 2015 at The Bookworm we had our Young Professionals Networking Event, organized by Beijing Rotaract. It was a chance to meet young professionals in Beijing and give to charity at the same time; proceeds went for earthquake relief in Nepal, through Shelterbox – we raised RMB 1245, a modest sum as unfortunately few Rotarians turned up.

Guest speaker was Daniel Mulroy who spoke about the art of coping with cultural differences and leveraging multicultural workforces to get things done and even achieve higher output. Daniel is currently the Director of Research & Development at the Leithon Consulting Group. He has more than 18 years of experience in entrepreneurship and business planning.
Thanks to Rotarians Daniel, Apithy and Marc-Philipp for their support.
I also had the chance to introduce Mr. Li Wei who is deeply involved with the local Chinese charity “OpenDoing”. Some of my friends are volunteers there and regularly visit retirement homes and schools for children with disabilities.
See: www.opendoing.com
It is a proof many Chinese people start to actively participate in charity, something rather new in China.
And one pic is a view of the new building under construction of SOHO Sanlitun, to be a hotel.

On Monday 11 May we had our Rotaract elections in The Bookworm.
See here the results, the new Board for Rotaract Beijing 2015/2016

President: Anissa Zidi (France)
Vice President: Frederik Kerckhof (Belgium)
Treasurer: Tristan Louette (France)
Secretary: Emmanuel Hanley-Lloyd (UK)
Director – External Relations and Projects: Johanna Chen (Germany)
A special Advisory Board Position (for Chinese Citizens):
External Relations – Chinese Projects: Sophie Zheng (China)
Missing: a Director-Marketing, position to be filled soon.

We are also looking forward to our Social event in The Bookworm on 14 May 7 pm.
We look forward to another Rotaract year that will start in July. A warm welcome to the new board! See the pic with the new board as well as the new and present board.