June, 21
2023
Dear
friends
Now that
the last official meeting (in Leuven, where we of course hope to see all of our
members as much as possible) I think it would be good to do a recap of the past
year.
Let’s
start with the people of our team: due to health reasons, Wil had to step back
after many years of valuable support and knowledge on all aspects of Rotary and
Global Grants in particular. She is now an honorary member and we hope she will
still come to our meetings every now and again.
Whilst
Tom announced that he needed to take a step back due to his work reasons, he
will still stay for now to see how things pan out. His Paul Harris Fellow came
through finally, after a long struggle with the Zurich HQ, an honour that was
fully deserved for his excellent year of being the President in 2021-2022.
What is
great to know is that during this year, we managed to increase our club with
Arlen, who we will get to know surely much better over the next year, we wish
him a warm welcome. Additionally we have two new people, Vincenzo and Emilomo
that are interested in joining. They will bring down our average age profile
quite significantly and come with quite and international background and lots
of enthusiasm. Both currently live in Belgium. Laurent will be taking over
their introduction process.
Speaking
about enthusiasm, it was Caroline who got the great idea of writing an exciting
article in the Rotary Contact, which was wonderful story about the
opportunities that an E-club can offer. Caroline also got us in touch with
Anoda Mbuku Kasi, who is now working with the government in Kongo on her FOLOLO
project. Caroline also reached out to our Ukrainian fellow Rotarian Mykola
Stebljanko, who told us a the moving story about the daily life in a war-thorn
country. Of course the Mali project of Koen also got a great mention in the
article. The idea that there are now several vegetable gardens in Mali, that
are being irrigated with modern and sustainable water pumps and sponsored by
our money and Koen’s hard work, how awesome is that. We have seen the pictures
of the first crops being harvested, only a few months after the start of the
project, showing once again that if you treat Mother Earth with respect and
love, she will reward you .
Thierry,
Chris and David have been travelling the globe again in their many business
adventures, sharing their business experiences and strong stories and good
advice.
Of course we can always count on Ludo, being our Rotary guru, often operating
in the background and always ready to come forward with advice and good council
whenever we had a query. We tried to show him the special support when he asked
us to step in. Hopefully we will see him one day on the cover of the Rotary
magazines as the next President….who knows.
Our
French member Jean-Michel has been working tirelessly to give chances and
education to adolescents who come from less privileged backgrounds, with his
E-Ryla program. His deep involvement in the Artimisia project of his friend
Lucile Vernet showing us an natural and powerful way to combat malaria, which
an impressive story we got to listen to.Now that he has moved to the South of
France, he is put forward and idea that we might go and pay him a visit in
2024, which seems like a pretty cool idea.
Lastly I
am very much indebted to Laurent and Frank, who supported me in my presidency
this year, every step of the way. As I said when I started, it would be quite a
stressful year from a work perspective, with the additional job I took on at
SKF as the project manager for the implementation of SAP in the Benelux. It was
such a lot of work! I am very proud to say that, together with the support of
the central IT team and local departments, we went live on March 1st with
all our processes in Sales, Finance and Purchasing running correctly from that
day. What you did not know was that in parallel of SAP, my mother fell quite
ill, suffering from heart failure, which landed her in hospital for weeks,
needing lots of care and support. It took almost six months of waiting, arguing
with cardiologists and getting second opinions, before my brother and I got her
the surgery she needed. She came through with flying colours, feeling so much
better now. Something to be very grateful for.
Whenever
I struggled to keep the E-club tasks going, Laurent and Frank came to my
rescue, for which I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart. And
apologies to all of you, if things did not always move as smoothly as they
should have. I am sure Laurent’s presidency will be super organized!
So…
what’s next?
Building
on our achievements of this year, I feel it would be great if we can keep on
moving forward with
- E-Ryla
- The Artimisia projects
- Staying in touch with our Ukrainian
friend and see if there is something we can do
- Staying informed about the FOLOLO
project
- Getting regular updates from Koen’s
project
And all
the other great ideas that Laurent is already working on.
As you
know we will have our F2F meeting on 21/6 in Leuven. Frank is organizing it and
it would be fantastic to meet as many of you as possible, to celebrate our
E-Club, be proud of what we have achieved and experienced and simply have a
good time together.
Yours in Rotary
