Rotaract

Rotarians meet in Beijing

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Informal meetings

After months of restrictions due to the virus, Rotarians meet in Beijing again for informal meetings and simple social events.
Many of our members are locked out of China; especially our Rotaractors have a tough time as many are students or professors/teachers, unable to return.
We did restart with some modest lunches and dinners just to meet each other.

Hilton “BBQ”

Initially on 28 July we had planned an outdoor BBQ in the Hilton (3rd East Ring Road) but due to possible rain the hotel gave us the restaurant on the 2nd floor for our private dinner.
It was also the handover from the 2019-2020 team to the 2020-2021 team.

I managed to bring in some more young people who were able to mingle with the Rotarians.
Good service of the Hilton staff left everybody happy!
We had so many nationalities present, too many to mention…

A farewell dinner

Sadly in Beijing people come and go. One of our past presidents of the Rotary Club of Beijing is leaving us, as he got a new assignment in Europe.
One of our “core members” organized a small dinner at her home, to say farewell to our members leaving us. Our host did a wonderful job, so much delicious food, drinks and we even had a mini KTV session, revealing some hidden talents among our members.
I took part with a Rotaractor to help out for the service, we dressed in our Rotaract uniform!

We all hope we can slowly get back to normal to do our “service to the community”! Most of our projects are for children in need.

Beijing Rotaract Clubs new team

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Election time

Every year it has to be done, see here the Beijing Rotaract Clubs new team, after the May elections:
Rotaract Beijing West:

President: Gaukhar T. (Kazahkstan)
Vice President: Kien D. (Guyana)
Secretary: Sabrina L.
Treasurer Georgiana B.

Rotaract Beijing:

President: Marc T. (USA)
Vice President: Trefyn G (USA)
Treasurer: Frederice K. (Belgium)
Project Director: Deliah N. (Uganda)

See the election meeting on 22 May of the Beijing Rotaract Club in Ruhe Cafe, followed by celebration in QMex.

New team in place

On 26 June the Rotaract Club of Beijing had the last meeting of the Rotary year, followed by a celebration in QMex. The new teams start on 1 July.

 

Some of the weekly meetings

See the meeting in Ruhe Cafe on 24 April 2017.

 

 

The 2017 Rotaract Gatsby Gala more

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Yeah it was a blast

From the 2017 Rotaract Gatsby Gala more pictures! See the previous post:

The 2017 Rotaract Gatsby Gala

Since then I collected some more pictures, from left and right.
A large amount are on this site, thanks to Deliah:
https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0L5oqs3qJsbbuM
I chose some from the album, posted also here (most edited).

And one more video

Again thanks to Deliah this great clip:

You can’t say Rotaractors don’t know how to have great fun!

Beijing Rotary lunch 27 June

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Sergeant-at-Arms

Our Tuesday Beijing Rotary lunch 27 June in Kempinski again required me to jump in as Sergeant-at-Arms. Happy to welcome our Rotaractors from the Rotaract Club of Beijing: the outgoing president Peter D. (Romania) and incoming president Marc T. (USA). And Matt S. from Rotaract Club of Honolulu (Hawaii).

(Pics by Celine)

Speaker

Speaker for our Rotary lunch 27 June was Dr. Joern Joergensen, topic: “A Life without Glasses”.

Dr. Joergensen is the founder, CEO & Medical Director of EuroEyes, has performed over 100,000 surgeries. Dr. Joergensen is recognized as one of the Best Eye Doctor in Germany by <FOCUS>. EuroEyes is the largest clinic group in Germany for Refractive surgery. Myopia has become an epidemic in east Asian countries, especially in China. As the aging of the population grows, more and more people also get presbyopia. EuroEyes started to get many Chinese patients in Germany. There is a big gap in high-end medical services in China. The numbers of myopia and presbyopia patients are growing rapidly. Dr. Joergensen explained the pathological mechanism of myopia and presbyopia. Besides guaranteed high quality of surgery and services, EuroEyes also give back to the community by performing free eye surgeries to the people in need.

Rotary Beijing lunch 20 June

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Highlights

We welcomed Gau for the Rotary Beijing lunch 20 June, our Rotaractor from the Beijing Rotaract West Club the incoming president); also the incoming president Marc  and Deliah, our incoming Project Manager, both from the Beijing Rotaract Club. Visiting Rotarians this time were from from Tel Aviv and Honolulu.
Rotaractor Deliah made a presentation on the upcoming Rotaract Gatsby Gala. Rotaractor Gau made a presentation of the 14th Asia Pacific Rotaract Regional Conference in Phuket (Thailand).

See here the online report:
http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/xb2GH5mJKtD8xvoCIz8BmQ

(Pics by Celine)

China and Chinese Truck Industry

We had as speaker our Rotarian Jens Hamester.

Mr. Jens Hamester held various roles at Mercedes Benz Trucks. He worked with Daimler for more than 30 years, started in Aftersales and then in Pre-Sales for a couple of years, before he assumed the overall project management of Actros MP II in 1998 – 2003. From 2004, Mr. Hamester headed up the advanced engineering of Daimler and from 2006 Entire Vehicle Development Division of Mercedes Benz Trucks. Within that he is also responsible for R&D in Brazil and Turkey, and for the new Atego Product Line project. Before he switched to China, Mr. Hamester was Chief Engineer of Mercedes-Benz Trucks Chassis Engineering. Currently Mr. Hamester is the R&D VP of BFDA (Beijing Foton Daimler Automotive Ltd.).

China is similar to Europe and USA in its land size, but with much more population and less in GDP. Mr. Hamester explained from political ideology to economic improvement to harmonious society and the China dream from 1979 to now. Mr. Hamester analyzed the new trend in the market. There’s a strong increase of the HDT (heavy duty truck) market volume, especially in the last quarter of 2016. Products shift to tractor segment. 6*2 shifts to 6*4 in number of tiers; higher horse power. Mr. Hamester also gave examples of existing JV between Chinese Truck OEM’s and foreign OEM’s.