Finishing what I started

Since we're here at the airport in Puerto Princesa with two hours to wait until our flight departs for Manila, might as well take the opportunity to do some writing.

First let's explain why it's been 5 days since my last post. I fully intended to finish off that last one sometime on Thursday - but I woke up at 5:30 am with a bit of a stomach bug that not only kept me from posting, but also kept me from leaving my room at Sonie's all day. On the plus side, I learned a few things about Asian TV. On the downside, I missed the team's visit to the university of Santo Tomas rare book room. Grrrrrrrrrrr. More on all of that later

So here's what I learned from the Paranaque club's report to Gov Sid:

Over the past year they ran a vocational training program; 40 adults enrolled, 36 of them graduated.

They sponsored the purchase of a water filter for a village without a source of potable water.

They were among the first of the Manila area clubs to respond when the call went out requesting emergency relief assistance in the aftermath of Typhoon Ondoy - running a feeding program in Quezon City and and Laguna that aided some 8000 people, and provided material relief goods to an additional 5000 people. In December the returned to Laguna with Christmas presents for residents still suffering displacement.

They were one of four clubs out of the 84 total clubs to sponsor a member of the outbound GSE team soon heading for New Jersey - Lorena Gerna.

They established a partnersip with an Interact Club. They sponsored Red Cross emergency training and a local conservation briefing for the community.

Those are the highlights; I was writing notes as fast as I could during the presentation! Clearly this club, although small in membership, has a lot going on. I was interested to hear they plan to assist local aspiring community folk to break the poverty cycle by helping the look for sources of funding like microgrants, and starting a cooperative venture between the club members and local chefs to teach the poor Cooking as a household skill (if anyone out there is curious about the link between superprocessed fast foods and significant health problems among the poorest populations around the world, give me a shout and I'll happily explain it).

Gov Sid took the opportunity to address the club, congratulating them on their success and challenging them to improve and intensify other efforts. I was particularly thrilled to hear him reiterate the challenge he accepted at DisCon on behalf of the entire District to identify 100 high school graduates intending to pursue careers as teachers and do everything possible to facilitate their progress.

He also advocated a renewed effort to create programs to help develop ethical leadership and prote positive values both within Rotary and without.

Gov Sid also promised to assist the club's effort to establish sister agreements with clubs in Macao and Thailand. He used the phrase "Service beyond boundaries," which I though was a really great slogan.

Once the formal reports were finished, there was nothing left but singing and dancing - and yessiree there was plenty of both. It was a fun and interesting meeting from start to finish, and I'm very glad Sonie gave me the opportunity to attend!

Lew