During and after the quiet summer break, the new team of the Beijing Rotaract Club has been pretty busy.
We had several good meetings: 20 July in Luga’s, 24 August, 28 September in Homeplate BBQ, 12 and 19 October in The Bookworm.

I will miss the upcoming meetings as I will be away from Beijing taking part in a documentary on The Three Gorges.

The Rotary Club of Beijing has its regular lunch every week on Tuesday in Kempinski Hotel, in a private room, starting around 12:30 and finished 2 pm sharp.
Visiting Rotarians are always welcome and we see people attending from all over the world. As we are the only club in the region, we are kind of unavoidable. Guests are welcome but must be invited by a Rotarian. No walk-ins admitted.

See here some pics from lunches this month, on 16 and 23 June.
I was happy to see again Rtn Norbert, an old friend who worked in Beijing in the past and whom I introduced into Rotary. He is now back to Germany where he has joined a local Rotary club (Leverkusen-Opladen). He exchanged banners with our club.
Attendance is now low with summer coming. As usual I have to jump in as Sergeant-at-Arms, a kind of permanent title I have.
Nice to get a personal mug… here dedicated to my involvement with Rotaract.

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.