Rotary

Rotary Club of Beijing

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Unauthorized websites

We want to point out there is no updated website of the Rotary Club of Beijing. The only official site http://rotaryclub-beijing.org/ is currently dormant.
Any other website claiming to be of the club is unauthorized and do ignore the content.

On my website I bring some news of recent activities of our Club but it is not as such the official website of the club. Any content here is my personal view.

Visit of our Special Representative

The present group of Rotary, Rotaract and Interact clubs in China is seen by Rotary International as a special “District”. As such we do not have a governor as itis the case for districts, instead we have a “Special Representative” (SR), Rtn. Richard. Officially our club is in District 0052 with Club Number: 60724.
Our weekly meeting of 20 October at the Kempinski Hotel we had a special guest: Richard , our SR.

He came over to discuss progress of Rotary in China and to learn about our club.
Before the lunch he met with members of the board.
As for now in China we have 28 Rotary clubs, 10 Rotaract clubs and 12 Interact clubs.
I joined the club on 11 January 2005.

What is Rotary?

See here a few slides about what is Rotary. For more, see the international website.

 

 

World Bank talk in Rotary Club of Beijing

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Rotary lunch 25 August 2020

During our lunch in the Kempinski Hotel Liangmaqiao we had a World Bank talk in Rotary Club of Beijing by our new member Ben, to speak about a fascinating subject:
“China’ s infrastructure development – lessons and practices”

China has had a spectacular success in developing a massive infrastructure that has generated rapid economic growth and helped to lift 800 million out of poverty.
Many developing and emerging countries seek to understand how China was able to finance and develop such large-scale infrastructure.

Ben Reja, World Bank Practice Manager for Transport Infrastructure based in Beijing, discussed China’s model of infrastructure financing and how the World Bank has been supporting various local governments to build up their infrastructure in an environmentally, socially, and financially sustainable way.

New members

Not only the World Bank talk that day, we were also happy to see two new members, Christin and Ben, being officially inducted.
The Rotary Club of Beijing is sparing no efforts to attract new members to serve the community.

Social event for Beijing Rotary

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Didier is our PE

Our Belgian friend Didier organized a major social event for Beijing Rotary Club on 22 September, in his nice villa in Shunyi. Didier is our PE (President Elect of the club) for next Rotary year (2021-2022).
President Danny organized a bus to go and return, that was pretty cool.

Buffet

Over 40 guests had a wonderful time, enjoying the buffet (nice paella and sausages, among other), and many bottles were emptied (I took care of the bar). Catering was done by some very creative French cooks.
At the occasion our newest member Michael received his pin and read the Four-Way Test.

We had visiting Rotarians, Rotaractors and potential new members, along with representatives of some NGO we work with.

Great many thanks to Didier, his family, Rob, Danny and all who made it a great get together.

Rotary Nuertingen Kirchheim Teck

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

ZOOM

My good friend Eli Khoury who worked a few years in Beijing is now the president of Rotary Nuertingen Kirchheim Teck Club in Germany. We miss him and his lovely family.
The club: https://nuertingen-kirchheim-teck.rotary.de
He invited me to give a talk about Beijing using ZOOM. I finally found a way to do it so that my face is not sun-burnt red – the camera of my iMac desktop sucks. The iPhone is much better, and with some extra lights it looks really so much friendlier.

Topic of the E-Meeting

“Surviving Beijing during the pandemic. What’s next for the economy?”

Time was 13:20 CET / 19:20 Beijing time on 16 September 2020 and the talk with Q&A took some 40 minutes. I gave an overview on how the COVID-19 epidemic started and how Beijing (and China) handled the fight against the virus, with the today result it is the safest place to be for the virus. I explained how life was during the “lockdown” – that was not really a lockdown as in other countries, while somehow draconian. I survived it very well. Now Beijing is slowly back to “normal” but still with some restrictions.

I also talked about the impact on the economy and what we can expect in the near future.
I also explained there is a lot of fake news, such as the story that China “made the virus by purpose”. And that it is clear another virus of the same kind can be expected in the future; to ward it off, China is clamping down on the trade of wild animals and improving the sanitary conditions of the “wet markets” where vegetables, fish, meat and so much more is sold.

Care for Children

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Our weekly lunch

During our Rotary lunch in Kempinski on 15 September we welcomed Care for Children to give a presentation.
Nice turnout, as members were interested in the presentation.

Speakers always get our banner as a token of appreciation.

Care for Children

Some members participated online using ZOOM.
CfC was established as a charity organization in the UK in 1998. Since 1998, it has pioneered family-based care in China, helping transform their child welfare system. Foster care now represents one of the primary methods of care for orphaned and vulnerable children.
Working under the Ministry of Civil Affairs with the Chinese Association of Social Workers, it has trained thousands of family placement workers throughout the country to provide long-term support to children and the families they join, and hundreds of thousands of children’s lives have been transformed.

The speakers delivered a very professional presentation:
Dr. Zhang Qiuling, Research Manager. She is an International child development specialist with Doctor degree on Child Development. More than 20 years of research and training experience in child protection, child development and family care & deeply understanding of child welfare and social service system of China.
Erin Wang, Training Manager. Master of Educational Psychology, University of Sydney. Ten years of experience in curriculum design and field training in child development and family care.

For more details, see: https://www.careforchildren.com/index.html
In short:
What We Do: We partner with governments across Asia to place orphaned and abandoned children into local, loving families.
Where We Work: Care for Children has been working in China for twenty years, Thailand for seven years and Vietnam for two years.