Charter Gala of Beijing Mandarin Rotary Club

Charter Gala of Beijing Mandarin Rotary Club

On 22 May a very special event for Rotary in Beijing: we celebrated 20 years of reopening of the Beijing Rotary Club, 10 years of its charter as well as the Charter Gala of Beijing Mandarin Rotary Club

The Gala took place in the garden of JE Mansion, JianYi Residence Beijing and was honored with the presence of Rotary International Immediate Past President Gary Huang. Other special guests were Carl-Ludwig Doerwald and IPP Frank Yih, RC Shanghai. as well as many others.

Also six Rotaractors joined of our two Beijing Rotaract Clubs.
Gary handed over the official charter of the new Beijing club.
Great evening with old and new friends!

Rotary Beijing Club and Mr. Standards in China

In our weekly Tuesday lunch on 17 May, we had as speaker Klaus Ziegler.
Topic: Role of Standards in International Trade, European and Chinese Perspectives.

(thanks Celine for the pics)

Working with stakeholders – and for the benefit of all – Standards are developed for new products and services. Beneficiaries and business, technology, science, government and society in general. Standard bodies like DIN publish these standards, and encourage their implementation. Klaus explained twofold role of standardization and benefits of standards for business. He then talked about international standardization structure and regional standard organizations.
I know Klaus since many years, he is also a member of our Old China Hands Lunch. He can be called Mr. Standards in China with his exceptional track record. We also talked together in some seminar.

Rotary Beijing welcomes Tang Loaec as speaker

Our usual weekly lunch at the Kempinski Hotel, with a speaker from France, Mr. Loaec.
His topic: “Help each other, protect each other”
Tang is Founder & CEO of TongJuBao. He has 25 years experience in three continents (Europe-Asia-Americas) in financial services. He also knows how difficult it is to provide credit or insurance to those needing it most. That’s where the story of TongJuBao began.

Our next big event will be on Sunday 22 May: the special Gala Joint Anniversary Celebration with RCBM.
The joint Anniversary Celebration of RC Beijing and RC Beijing Mandarin will be held at JE Mansion (健壹公馆), starting at 6 pm. Past RI President Gary Huang will attend the event together with district officers.

Rotaract Sanlitun at Smokeyard Restaurant

On 16 May we tried for the first time a new location in Sanlitun Nan Lu: the Smokeyard.

My evaluation: nice and cozy interior, nice decoration, quiet corner on 2fl for us to meet. Surprisingly with a decoration that looks like a knockoff of the Rotary sign!
As for the food, not convinced yet. I tried the baby ribs, the meat was not tender while the taste was OK. Much better in other locations such as HomePlate BBQ and D-One Sports Bar where the meat falls from the bones and is so tender. Here, a lot of fork and knife work to do. The pizza looked nice, so did some of the hamburgers but I need to try. Prices are very reasonable. They quickly ran out of their home-brewed beer, did we drink so much?

One more good meeting for the Rotaract Sanlitun and we will come back here for sure.
Sadly, some of the Rotaractors shown will be leaving us soon.

The Rotaract Club Beijing West in action

On 12 May I finally made it to one of their first meetings since they started. Location: Bo Coffee, where they can use a private room. Very near the subway station Wudaokou, but nearly one hour by subway from gongti.

The new club is doing very well with new and dynamic members.
We are looking forward to organize a Gala with the two clubs (East and West), probably in Conrad Hotel on 25 June, details to be confirmed.