Rotary Club of Beijing

Rotary Club of Beijing in April

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Rotary lunch 6 April

Rotary Club of Beijing in April had a busy month, started with the board meeting before the lunch, in a private room of Kempinski Hotel on 6 April 2021.

Lunch was in Via Roma, the Italian restaurant of Kempinski. PE Didier inducted our new member Vivian.

A new venue: Encuentro

The dinner on 13 April 2021 was held in the new South American restaurant Encuentro, located opposite Worker’s Stadium North gate.

Happens that our guest Iris from Panama is a professional food expert and has been advising the restaurant. She also tried an impressive and colorful cocktail, or was it a fruit cup…

Two new members were inducted by PE Didier, Hans and Chris.

A Spanish evening in The Roots

On 27 April 2021 the Rotary Club of Beijing had a Spanish-themed evening party, attended by visiting Rotarians, guests and Rotaractors. Full house at The Roots Restaurant that did a good job with the food, drinks and service.

PE Didier presided the dinner and brought along two guitarists (both from … Xinjiang, not Spain) who entertained us during the evening.

See here a short video (VPN needed in China):
Rotary Spanish evening in Beijing The Roots on 27 April 2021, https://youtu.be/0YBakPzOmQQ

Rotary Club of Beijing is active

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Picking up speed again, except Rotaract

As life in Beijing is basically back to normal, our Rotary Club of Beijing is active thanks to the efforts of PE Didier.
The club is also trying to attract new blood and I am happy to see we have more interest from people from Latin America, among others.
Rotaract is still struggling as many of its members can’t yet return to Beijing, but we try our best under the conditions.

We look back at times like when we had a well-attended hotpot with the Rotaractors on 18 December 2019, in Ritan Dong Lu.

Last year we kept in touch with the Rotaract Club of Beijing West by ZOOM. They still organize this year online events. The Sanlitun club has restarted meetings, like this one in SOHO Sanlitun.

On 22 December 2020 we had our Rotary dinner in Morel’s Restaurant and our Rotaractors Kien and Trefyn also joined.

Rotary lunch 2 March

Our lunch of 2 March 2021 in Kempinski hotel was presided by PE Didier, our President Elect. It was his first event as Club President filling in for Rtn Danny, our 2020-2021 President, who is relocating to Nanjing.
No speaker but Didier gave some feedback to the members present, as well as new potential members, after yesterday’s Club Board meeting.
The project HOPE, introduced by Rtn Helen was approved. As a result the active projects of our Club are HOPE and hypospadias. The Bethel project is still waiting for better times. A project to teach English in Hebei schools is being considered where members of Rotary and Rotaract could act as volunteers.
HOPE is an initiative to help children with mental disabilities to improve their mental and physical condition through special riding lessons. The specially trained horses and the qualified therapists use the horses for the children to open up. The contact with the animals have a proven therapeutic effect.

Didier also appealed for members to come forward and help in taking up roles in the different committees of the Club. Several positions need to be filled such as treasurer and membership chair. New committees are in the pipeline such as events committee (includes the speaker program). On the Rotary International website we can find the job description of most common positions and committees.

More details about hypospadias, see this earlier post with the details: https://www.beijing1980.com/2017/04/13/hypospadias-surgeries-need-support/

Rotary dinner 9 March

Tuesday 9 March at 7 pm we met in Morel’s Restaurant and we had an interesting speaker Tilman Rieger. He is a Shanghai Rotary Club member and also introduced Tilman Tillmann to our Club.  He is the founder and CEO of 8C Consulting, Executive Coaching and related.

He talked about Conflict Management in Relationships. “Know yourself, understand your counterpart, communicate more effectively!”

Beijing Rotary in February

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Many activities

Beijing Rotary in February 2021: it was a busy month!
See here some of our activities.

Lunch 2 February

Back again to Kempinski Hotel, with Christopher Felder as our guest speaker.
Topic: Resonate Leadership Speaker
In his talk, Chris, a frequent guest, gave an inspiring talk on leadership and what a resonant leadership entailed. Summing up, Hope and fostering Hope, are the driving forces behind a Hope leader. During the interactive session with questions from Chris and answers by the members, Chris took us to examine the examples of some of the famous leaders from around the world, the strengths that made them great, and the metrics of a great leader. Chris also busted the common myths of intellect and toughness as the key drivers for leadership. At last he led the audience to conclude that EI, or Emotional Intelligence, that encompasses social awareness, relationship management, self-awareness and self-management, is what is needed in leadership that generates resonance.

Fellowship at Paulaner in Kempinski

With Chinese New Year, a change of location for our lunch on 9 February. Happy to welcome Rotarian Amanda from the Rotary Club of Cambridge UK.

Fellowship at Roots Restaurant

Still Spring Festival, we were back at Roots (LINK) for our Tuesday lunch.
No speaker, simply enjoying the food and good company with visiting Rotarians from France and UK.

Farewell Party

Our President Danny will leave soon for Nanjing where he will open the latest Fraser’s Suite. He will be replaced by the President Elect Didier, assisted by Rtn Piper. To wish Danny success in his new post and to thank him for his service, we had a party in The Roots Restaurant; for the restaurant and the great menu see this post.
Time was Tuesday 23 February at p.m.
Location: “The Roots” above Paddy O’Shea’s
Delicious buffet evening with sangria, red and white wine, mojito, beer…
Thanks go to the incredible musicians in the person of the very Danny himself, Michael, Rob, Winnie, Kevin, Chris, and all of us accompanying.

Rtn Danny donated a real big “hongbao” to the Rotary Club of Beijing to support our projects. Didier gave him some cigars (one of Danny’s weaknesses).
Great evening!

New year for Beijing Rotary

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Safe Beijing

With the virus threat pretty well under control in Beijing, the new year for Beijing Rotary has brought a modest restart of the activities of the Rotary Club of Beijing. See about our January activities.
Our Rotaractors are still struggling to get their members back, with many foreign students abroad or not allowed to leave their campus.

At least our Rotaract Club of West Beijing has been able to induct new members, online.

Dinner 12 January 2021

On Tuesday 12 January we started our 2021 with a dinner meeting in Morel’s Restaurant.
Our US Peruvian Rotarian José gave us a speech on “Living as an immigrant in USA, Expat in Panama and a Laowai in China”. An exciting interactive talk as many of us have shared similar experiences.

José is a new member, recently inducted.

Lunch 19 January 2021

Back again for lunch at the Kempinski Hotel.
Rotarian Hans Diederen tried his best to explain the new and fascinating world of Bitcoin and Digital money.

26 January Fellowship Dinner

In the evening of January 26 Rotarians, Rotaractors and Friends of Rotary came together for a festivity evening with some Mediterranean fare at Roots Restaurant, a newly opened restaurant in Dongzhimenwai, above the well-known Paddy O’Shea. Over Sangria and Mojito, Rotarians connected with friends, and reconnected with other members.

 

Beijing Rotary a busy December

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

All pretty back to normal

Turns out it is for the Beijing Rotary a busy December.

On Tuesday 15 December we had our regular Rotary lunch meeting in the Kempinski Hotel. Janine Jakob, founder of full Potential Partners in Shanghai talked about leadership, how to become a leader with the right purpose, be it in Rotary, your company or your life.
She writes: “After having worked at American Fortune 500 IT company Hewlett-Packard (HP) for 7 years, I discovered myself more, found my purpose in life, and started my 2nd life phase by founding my own company Full Potential Partners in Shanghai. Now I’m following my calling on my path to have a bigger impact on individuals and companies in China and globally to make them happier and more successful.”
See: https://meet-janine-jakob.jimdosite.com/

She also showed her book “365 days of motivation”, in English and Chinese versions.

Rotarian Mike presented a copy of his latest book (in Chinese) about the Forbidden City.
Rotarian René reported the good news that our communication with the Interact Club of Dulwich is back on track.
The club also decided to have our Christmas dinner celebration in Kempinski Hotel on 29 December.

Career talk

On Monday 24 December in the Yard House, a career talk by our IPR specialist Rotarian Benoit.

Thanks for (again) explaining the complex world of intellectual property rights!

Rotaract Christmas hotpot

As every year the two Rotaract clubs tried to join forces for the Christmas hotpot in the usual Ritan location, the Ritan Shuanrou in Ritan Dong Lu.
Nice crowd but some could not make it at the last moment as universities suddenly did not allow international students to leave campus. It has happened before on a regular basis, making the meetings of the West Club near impossible.

Happy to see our president of the Rotary Club of Beijing, Danny, attending!
Many potential new members took part and we had to explain more about Rotary and Rotaract.