On Tuesday afternoon, I recapped my day in my notebook while stuck on a train. What normally is a 10-minute train ride from the National Exhibition Centre back to Coventry became an hour-long standstill as a freight train broke down near Coventry's station. I didn't mind the respite from the activity - it gave me a chance to reflect on what would prove to be our busiest day at the convention.
Attending this convention is like drinking Rotary Kool-Aid from a fire hose. It's sweet and delicious, but there's just so much of it to gulp down. The convention's House of Friendship is a case in point. In the HoF, there are hundreds of booths and exhibits describing successful Rotary club projects from around the world that need support and that set the patterns for how we might successfully create a long term program of service in Ecuador.
Then there are the dozens upon dozens more Rotary Fellowships - worldwide organizations of Rotarians with similar endeavours and interests. Krista and were awed by all the different international projects, the Rotarian Action Groups, and the numerous fellowships. Krista quilts, and she was ecstatic to learn of the Rotary Quilting Fellowship, which, like many other fellowships allows spouses of Rotarians to join.
At today's plenary session, Rotary Foundation Trustee Chair Jonathan Majiyagbe brought us up to date on the foundation's finances and changes to the grants programs that are part of the Future Vision program.
He reminded us that there is, in his words, no moratorium on humanitarian service. In this global recession, those people who had the least in the first place are those most affected. More children, especially, are suffering from hunger, disease, and malnutrition.
Never before, he said, has the need been so great for our foundation's programs and the efforts of Rotarians. Instead of focusing on the negative numbers related to the foundation's investments (which aren't really that bad, in perspective), he showed stats about lives positively impacted by Foundation matching grants and 3H grants worldwide.
During the plenary session intermission, Krista and I met Peter and Diana who were sitting in front of us. They were from the UK, and Peter was a Past District Governor. Peter noticed my Incoming President ribbon and asked me if I was ready for my year. I told him I felt fairly well-prepared. Diana asked the more important question of Krista - was she ready? She nodded, maybe a bit tentatively, I thought. Well, we'll have to work on that. The best things I can do to help her be prepared are to be communicative and be organized. No coincidence that those are probably the two things I have to be to have a successful year overall.
After the intermission, Mia Farrow spoke on the theme "With Knowledge Comes Responsibility". Her relationship with Rotary couldn't be more clear - she is a polio survivor, UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and passionate humanitarian. She held my rapt attention, so I didn't take any notes here. For highlights of what she said, check out this news page on RI's web site.
Lunch wasn't just pub grub today. Krista and I attended the Presidents-Elect Leadership Luncheon. Once again, the speakers included RI President D.K. Lee and President-Elect John Kenny. More importantly, though, were the eight other people around our table. Krista and I were at a table with four other PE's, spouses, and table hosts. On our left sat "The Matching Grants" - Jon and Linda Grant, from Foster City, California. Linda was PE of her club and John was a Past-President, Past District Governor, and past Regional Rotary Foundation Coordinator for zones 23 and 24. On our right were the table's hosts, Jose Antonio Salazar-Cruz and his wife, Myriam. Jose is a Rotary Foundation Trustee.
There was lots of great discussion at the table, and I mentioned to Jon that one of my hopes was to meet a club or district official from Ecuador at the convention to open some lines of communication that might help our efforts in La Florida and Bahia de Caraquez. Jon said their club has routinely worked with districts in Ecuador and that his foundation chair would be happy to help me make some contacts. Following up on this will be at the top of my to-do list when I get home.
Okay, if this day hadn't been full enough, Krista and I attended a Vocational Service and Functional Literacy Projects breakout session in the early afternoon. We heard from a panel of speakers who had implemented projects around ethics, self-esteem development, and critical thinking, many of them centering directly on the four-way test. I won't go into details, but I was really inspired by the opportunities our club might have to bolster our projects in what PE John Kenny called Rotary's "forgotten avenue of service". The good news is that many of these projects don't demand a lot of money to be successful in the long term.
The day didn't end there - I attended a Youth Exchange breakout after the first one. I didn't find it useful, unfortunately, because it gave mainly a cursory overview of the program's benefits and operation.
I did, however, get to talk to Pauline Perrault, who's on our district's Youth Exchange Committee about working closely with our Youth Exchange Committee and our club as we dip our toe back in the pool. In a conversation with her and a member of RI's Youth Exchange Resource Group from Australia (I can't remember his name), we covered the issue of club and host family certification, once again, as a sticking point. Clubs worldwide have reacted similarly.
The fellow involved at the International level assured me that the same rules were being applied on his side of the world as on ours. Certification of a host family is not meant to be a scary, "Gestapo-like" thing (to use his words). He put it in perspective this way: If you were sending your daughter half way around the world to stay with someone, wouldn't you want to know that family had insurance? Wouldn't you want to know she was staying with a safe home with safe people?
Good points, I guess... it's irrelevant to debate whose posterior is actually being covered by this requirement of the program. More relevant questions focus on the criteria used the define who is a "safe" host family and how accountability is ensured for the proper handling of private information our district and RI collect. We will continue to explore these issues and advocate for change where we see fit as we explore participation in RYE again.
And, finally, the train's moving again... stay tuned for more.
No comments:
Post a Comment