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.

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.

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.

On 9 May a different location to do the elections of the new board for Rotaract East (Sanlitun): The Tree in Sanlitun, a well-known Belgian bar and restaurant.
The new team was elected, different nationalities, different faces. They will start their Rotaract year 1 July.
We were happily surprised by the invasion from many members of the Rotaract West (Wudaokou) who joined us for a pretty intense party.

Indeed our Birthday Boy Frederik paid us all a drink and they then switched to Tequila at some point. Somehow all Rotaractors made it home safely, if not the same evening…