2013 Charity Bazaar, 9-10 November 2013

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

See here the announcement of the upcoming Bazaar!

2013 Charity Bazaar, 9-10 November 2013 – Kempinski Hotel (Beijing)

It is our pleasure to invite you to participate in the Rotary Club of Beijing’s annual charity Bazaar, which is our key event to raise fund to support our charity work. This year we are again offering a fun day of pre Christmas shopping, entertainment, food and games for the entire family. With our exciting offering, we are expecting a very large turnout from the expatriate communities. As a charity event, all proceeds will be donated to support our charity projects.
The Kempinski Hotel has generously provided the venue for our Bazaar which will take place over two days from November 9th to November 10th. The event will be heavily promoted through the media and by the hotel.

Highlights:

– Over 70 vendors offering fashion and accessories, jewelry, handicrafts, health and beauty products, toys, etc.
– Exciting musical and dance performances
– Free wine tasting and makeovers
– Kids corner so parents can enjoy their shopping
– Raffle draw with great prizes

With excellent promotion, the Bazaar is sure to be a big success. Moreover, with your support, we will have more fund to help more people in need.
As a vendor, your table fee will serve as a donation to support our club’s charity projects. The amount will be based on the space available and location (Please refer to the floor plan for details.)  Also, you are invited to donate 1 to 2 prizes with value of CNY 100 – 500 for our raffle draw to help us raise more fund.  All proceeds from the Bazaar will be used to support charity work.
If you are interested, please complete an application form and return it to us before September 30th, 2013.  Should you have any questions, please contact us.  Thank you for your generous support!

Rotary Club of Beijing Bazaar Committee
5 September 2013
Email: rotarybazaar[at]126.com

InterNations Beijing: Book Reading Club

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Sunday afternoon 1 September, 3 to 5 pm at a new location: IQIYI CAFE, where TERRA restaurant was a year ago. Close to Zhongyu Building, Sanlitun Nan Lu.
As it happens more, I was the only man among all the girls – no complaints.
I managed, unexpectedly, to finish the assignment right in time: to read the book of the Brazilian author Paulo Coelho, “The Alchemist”. Pity I had no time to find the Portuguese version in time, so I read the English translation.
We had a lively discussion about the book, with the additional remarks if some of the thoughts could be applied the same way in a Chinese environment: how well can one pursue his/her Personal Legend, or if you prefer, how can you succeed in your quest to fulfill your dream. Indeed, Chinese society urges a lot of conformity and pursuing very personal goals are often made difficult by peer and family pressure.

For me the added value of the discussion was that it made me reflect on possible themes for my new book(s). Won’t comment on it right now.
Thanks for the pics from Jing and Windy (I improved them a bit).
Looking forward to the next round.

FAMMM: the “COFFEEMAN NIGHTS”

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

The second Coffeeman Night was held Friday 16 August, at LANTERN Club.
Latin Groove with Dancing performances, Salsa Electro – Music, all very much “Columbia café and dance”. I guess I will need to get into that salsa stuff. Reminds me of my Brazilian times…

The FAMMM community consists of 2,000 members – comprised equally of Chinese and Western fashion editors and designers, media, trendsetters, artists, models, movie and vocal talent, as well as industry producers and agents.

Sergey Bubka, the IOC and Beijing Rotary Club

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

An Olympic Gold Medalist

As reported in our RCB Bulletin dated 19 August 2008, it was announced during the weekly lunch that on 17 August 2008, former Olympic Pole Vaulting Gold Medal winner Sergey Bubka and a number of Rotarians visited Sun Children’s Village. Sergey’s second visit to the Village of this year drew media attention to the program, resulting in stories in the local press and China Daily. Sun Village was created in 1996 by Zhang Shuqin.
See here the pictures taken during the visit.

The original Bulletin and pictures were posted on the old website, later all trashed. I found back the original Bulletin: 080819_bulletin

In our auction list for the 2009 Rotary Ball, item 10 said:
10. T-shirt signed by Sergey Bubka, voted the world’s best athlete

More about Sergey Bubka

The interesting news is that Bubka is one of the contenders to be the next IOC President, to succeed Jacques Rogge.
See the article: “In I.O.C., New Obstacles for an Expert at Clearing Them”, NYT 14 August 2013 (updated link):
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/15/sports/olympics/15iht-bubka15.html

His name is also spelled Sergei Bubka:
Wikipedia:
Serhiy Nazarovych Bubka (Sergey Nazarovich Bubka; born 4 December 1963) is a retired Ukrainian pole vaulter. He represented the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991, was repeatedly voted the world’s best athlete, and in 2012 was one of 24 athletes inducted as inaugural members of the International Association of Athletics Federations Hall of Fame.
Bubka won six consecutive IAAF World Championships, an Olympics gold and broke the world record for men’s pole vaulting 35 times (17 outdoor and 18 indoor records). He was the first to clear 6.0 m and the only (as of July 2013) to clear 6.10 m.
He holds the current outdoor world record of 6.14 m, set on 31 July 1994 in Sestriere, Italy and the current indoor world record of 6.15 m, set on 21 February 1993 in Donetsk, Ukraine.

This post was updated on 18 June 2021.