Today Eileen and I went to the Rotary Club of Parque Chacabuco an inner suburb of Buenos Aires. We had mentioned to Eileen’s cousin Margareta that we wanted to visit a Rotary club during our visit. It so happens that Margareta’s Doctor is a Rotarian and Margareta is receiving special medication from her doctor donated by Rotary. So Margareta organised with members of the club our visit.

We arrived at 8:45pm for their 9:00pm meeting and were very warmly welcomed. The club had arranged for an interpreter for us who was a young student that the club has nominated for an Ambassadorial scholarship to Australia,

The club has 18 members and an active Inner Wheel that also meets during the Rotary meeting. After the formal part of the meeting we were introduced and exchanged banners. The club’s main area of work is helping the many thousands of poor living outside of Buenos Aires.

After a 3 course meal the meeting ended around 11:30pm. The Rotarian who was communicating with Margareta offered us a lift back home. On our way home he took us to one of his 10 Restaurants, This was a very lavish smorgasbord restaurant, we were asked to help ourselves, but as we had just finished our meal at Rotary we only had coffee and an apple pancake.

Eileen and I visited the Rotary club of Vancouver South on 22nd October.

The club meets at the Marine Drive Golf club, so in the morning we left to visit the near by University of British Columbia where there is the Museum of Anthropology, unfortunately we found it closed for renovations. So we visited a Japanese Garden instead.

We arrived at the meeting just on 12 noon. The club has only 18 members but there was only 8 in attendance. We had a good time with the members and they gave us their banner on the understanding we will post them one of ours.

After the meeting one of the members drove us back to University of British Columbia and we walked along the coast to Vancouver which is about 10 km, this was after we walked about 12 km yesterday. I hope my walking friends read this.

Regards
John and Eileen Gatt

On 28th October Eileen and I did our last makeup for our OS trip. Yesterday I checked the RI web site for clubs in Taipei, the search found 173 clubs with Taipei being part of it’s name. There were clubs meeting every day Monday to Saturday (yes even on Saturday) most of the clubs meet for lunch with a few breakfast and dinner clubs. Within 5 minutes walking of our hotel there were 10 clubs meeting on a Tuesday at lunch time. So I picked a club at the Westin hotel which I have never been to.

We arrived at the Westin Hotel at 11:55am and went to the 3rd floor were the Rotary Club of Taipei Chen Shan meet. (There are two clubs meeting at the Westin Hotel every Tuesday a 12:30). We were warmly meet by the club President Peter Hou who spoke perfect English. The club has 50 members and Peter suggested that there should be 30 in attendance today. The speaker was to be one of the Rotarians telling the club of a new venture he and a fellow Rotarian were starting in the Audio Design area.

By 12:30 there were nearly 40 Rotarians and visitors so they had to add a few more seats to accommodate the extra numbers. The meeting started at 12:30 and the meal commenced with the first of 7 or 8 courses. After some announcements all in Chinese, Eileen and I were introduced and I was asked to speak about our club. After which we were presented with their club banner. Luckily we had an ex banker sitting next to us who also spoke good English and he explained most of what was being said. One of the normal items at most club meetings in Taiwan is the singing section. The Taiwanese love to sing.

Regards
John Gatt

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