Rotary Club of Beijing

Beijing Rotary in 2019

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

A look back to Beijing Rotary in 2019.

Yes, I am finally cleaning up my pictures. More to follow. This is part 1.
Our Rotary Club of Beijing was pretty active in 2019 when the dreaded virus had not yet messed up our lives.

Different locations

We usually have our weekly meetings in a private room in the Beijing Kempinski Hotel but we do change at times.

See here some of the different locations, such as our evening in Legend Beer (27 April 2019), Via Roma in Kempinski (6 August 2019), Hotel Chao in Gongti Dong Lu (27 August 2019), and Paulaner in Kempinski (2 July 2019).

Kempinski lunch 29 October 2019

The speaker of the day was Humana People to People, Michael Hermann, chief representative.

Humana People to People China is a development organization, started in 2005 in cooperation with the Yunnan Government Poverty Alleviation Bureau with the aim to create development in poverty areas of China. On 23.07.2010 the organization registered at the Civil Affairs Bureau of Yunnan Province as a foreign background non-profit organization.
See: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-hermann-58058917/

About Michael Hermann, in German:
Der 63-jährige Michael Hermann arbeitet seit nunmehr 15 Jahren als freiwilliger Helfer in Südwestchina. Als Vertreter der Hilfsorganisation „Humana People to People (HPP)“ setzt er sich dafür, Kindertagesstätten für Vorschulkinder in den Bergdörfern der Provinz Yunnan einzurichten, um den Teufelskreis der Armut zu zerstören.
http://www.bjrundschau.com/Meinungen/202010/t20201019_800223982.html

A gorgeous BBQ

Thanks to Rtn Till of the Hyatt Regency in Wangjing a vast number of Rotarians and Rotaractors turned up to enjoy the sumptuous BBQ buffet.

Looking back at those pictures, sad to see how many of our friends left Beijing and how much the virus has changed our social life.

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.

Beijing Rotary and Rotaract

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Rotary lunch

Another busy week for Beijing Rotary and Rotaract. We started with our weekly lunch in Kempinski Hotel on Tuesday 29 September.

Happy to see our friend Andreas back in Beijing and back to the club. More than ten years ago I had sponsored him to become member. Now he will hopefully soon be our member again.
Earlier we had our Social event for Beijing Rotary.

We still have a number of Rotarians and Rotaractors who could not yet return to Beijing.

Rotaract social

On 30 September Treffyn organized a social Rotaract evening in a Chinese restaurant close to 3.3. It was our first “life” get together.

Good choice, good authentic Chinese dishes, simple environment, lots of beer – and vodka thanks to Treffyn. Pretty cheap too.
Restaurant details: “Shijinyuan” in Sanlitun East Second Street, next to the north gate of the Armed Police Beijing Corps Hospital. Name in Chinese: 十锦园.

Thanks to Danny, president of the Rotary Club of Beijing, to join us.
Yeah after that dinner I still had to rush to Morel’s Restaurant as it was the “official drinking evening” for Renaat. Many bottles emptied…

Rotary in action in Beijing in May

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Some updates on Rotary in Beijing and China

Rotary in action in Beijing in May 2017, a number of events to mention here.
We have now a new Interact Club, in the International School of Beijing. The Club is sponsored by the Beijing Rotary Chaoyang Club. The Dulwich College Beijing also has an Interact Club, sponsored since 2007 by the Beijing Rotary Club.

Also to mention: Dalian has a new Rotaract Club for students and young professionals age 18 – 30, sponsored by Rotary Club of Dalian. On 20 May the Rotary Club of Dalian will celebrate one year!
Changchun also has a Rotaract Club now.

Rotary lunch 9 May

I was the Sergeant-at-Arms, once more.
We had as speaker Dr. Zhang Tiejun, Hebei Children’s Hospital talking about the GOL Hypospadias Project. Hebei Children’s Hospital is our long term partner in the Gift of Life project. Originally a heart surgery program for underprivileged children, GOL has from 2015 supported the surgery of six children suffering from hypospadias.

According to Dr. Zhang hypospadias is not a rare condition in China. About 50,000 boys are born each year with symptoms. The rate is 1/300 and rising. Treatment often involves multiple and specialized surgeries. Hebei Children’s Hospital dispatches pediatric urologists to rural areas to examine children with defects, educating families about seeking medical treatment and advice from experts. They also provide clinical training to rural county surgeons. With the implementation of the GOL-Hypo project, the hospital now has 6 surgeons. Helped by the deployment of a medical screening van in villages, the number of successful treatments has been growing by 20% annually in the past two years.

To know more see the previous post: https://www.beijing1980.com/2017/04/13/hypospadias-surgeries-need-support/

Our club is organizing a dinner next Tuesday 16 May to celebrate the 1000th Rotary meeting in Beijing since 1996. I will miss it being out of town. Location: Italian Restaurant “La Dolce Vita” in Sanlitun, behind 3.3 Building

Social Rotaract evening in Legend Beer

On Friday 12 May our Rotaractor Vasco invited us for a drink as he will leave us soon.
I joined along with Rotarian Sven.
As usual a lively evening, lots of beer and Jägermeister.

See the pics of the evening, part of the group.