I really need to catch up on my meeting attendance posts!
During my travels in April I was able to visit two Rotary clubs: first Rotary Barcelona Pedralbes and then Rotary Berlin Kurfürstendamm. When I visited Barcelona Pedralbes, it was the Thursday before Easter weekend and they didn't have a regular meeting. Instead they hosted just a casual lunch because so many members were out of town. I introduced myself to the members who were present, and since they didn't have the club banner they promised to mail it to me!
The Berlin Kurfürstendamm meeting was quite busy and much more similar to the meetings that I had attended in the U.S. because of the nametags, attendance sheet, and lunch payments (I haven't yet witnessed any of these Rotary institutions in Spain yet). The speaker's presentation was on mergers and acquisitions... at the beginning I attempted to understand the few German words that jumped out to me but after 15 minutes I just tuned it out (I probably would have done it if I was listening to a speech on mergers and acquisitions in English as well). The definite highlight of the meeting was meeting Berliners and hearing their personal stories about what Berlin was like before the wall came down. As I have already expressed (profusely), Berlin has such a rich culture, and its recent history ensures that it is an ever-evolving city.
During my travels in April I was able to visit two Rotary clubs: first Rotary Barcelona Pedralbes and then Rotary Berlin Kurfürstendamm. When I visited Barcelona Pedralbes, it was the Thursday before Easter weekend and they didn't have a regular meeting. Instead they hosted just a casual lunch because so many members were out of town. I introduced myself to the members who were present, and since they didn't have the club banner they promised to mail it to me!
The Berlin Kurfürstendamm meeting was quite busy and much more similar to the meetings that I had attended in the U.S. because of the nametags, attendance sheet, and lunch payments (I haven't yet witnessed any of these Rotary institutions in Spain yet). The speaker's presentation was on mergers and acquisitions... at the beginning I attempted to understand the few German words that jumped out to me but after 15 minutes I just tuned it out (I probably would have done it if I was listening to a speech on mergers and acquisitions in English as well). The definite highlight of the meeting was meeting Berliners and hearing their personal stories about what Berlin was like before the wall came down. As I have already expressed (profusely), Berlin has such a rich culture, and its recent history ensures that it is an ever-evolving city.
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| Rotary Barcelona Pedralbes |
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| The fancy Kempinski Hotel in Berlin where Kurfürstendamm has their meetings |
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| Flag exchange with the President of Berlin Kurfürstendamm |
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