Hamburg Rotary International Convention

The Rotary International Convention draws a lot of people who want to get to know each other.

Every Rotary conference has memorable stories, Hamburg has two for me.

In a session on trafficking a mother told the story of her daughter who was trafficked while she was living at home. A gang threatened the family and the daughter felt she had to do what they said. Later after it became obvious that something was wrong, she was asked, Why didn't you say anything? She said, because nobody asked. A very sad story but Rotary is working on it. The above picture shows the mother on the left and three other speakers.

An optimistic story is that of a young lady, in Africa, who saw that many children could not do well in school because at night they had no light. She was able to make a system using solar energy that gave light at night to even very poor families. And it was made partially with used garbage bags. She urged us all to talk to people about what they need and then work to do it. 

There are a lot of people at the International Convention. Here is the home
country welcome reception. A great chance to meet other people

A very moving moment in the opening ceremony is the parade of flags. Flags
from all the countries where Rotary is. Youth Exchange, Rotaractors and other young
people brought the flags into the arena and announced the country

There were some talks and some entertainment

Zones 24 and 32 have a dinner called "Beyond the Borders" at each International Convention
This year it was at the St. Pauli soccer stadium. 

The St. Pauli team and stadium have an interesting history. From a
nothing team they have become a powerhouse with a great stadium.
All owned by the members. Here is a mural at the stadium

There is a museum which describes the history of the stadium, the team and the local area
This is an old scoreboard, remember before electronics when people would actually change the numbers

Here is the team symbol. The Museum goes over how it evolved over the years
As for everything with the team. the local people were involved

Steve Farber talked about the use of "love" in business. Here is
a comment by a practitioner of it and the results

Steve went to talk to a company for whom he was giving a speech
the next day. They already practiced love of their customers
And this applies to Rotary.

There was a breakout session on the use of video cameras on your smart phone
Here is the speaker doing a smartphone video interview. She also
educated us on editing

At the Convention individual Districts get together to talk and review the day(s)
Here is our District 7980 enjoying some time together

Ending Polio is still our most important major initiative
Here is a discussion of it. In 1988, before Rotary took up the fight, there
were 350,000 cases of polio per year. The fellow on the right
who is a technical expert on the effort said in just a few years it will be gone
If we keep up the effort

A Japanese district talked about engagement. At the end
they showed how they can create messages which engage

Some Comments by various speakers
1. Rotary is not an organization we are a family
2. Rotary allows us to live beyond ourselves
3. To engage others, let them suggest ideas on what to do
4. If you do what you've always done you'll get what you've always gotten
5. The best way to predict the future is to create it
6. Friendship is the glue that binds us together

Missouri RYLA is a multi-district RYLA. They have several real good ideas.
For their RYLA challenge they ask the participants to prepare a budget and timeline on the project
They put their presentations of RYLA challenge projects on their website
During the RYLA they have pretend emergencies that the participants have to deal with
Their review of the RYLA challenge projects is a "Shark Tank" approach
The participants take a personality profile called True Colors

Chris Wells, a Rotaract District Representative gave a very active presentation
on the importance of Fellowship and Friendship

Do Goodery Video

There is a Fellowship for Rotary Builds Business
There are many Rotary Action Groups and Fellowships to participate in

Mark Malone introduced his family
He talked about Rotary Connecting the World and our Communities
and his four focii  Membership, Family, Rotary Leadership and the UN

And Barry Rassin reviewed his year. Again he emphasized the
importance of Rotaract to Rotary and vice versa
He mentioned many projects from around the world which
"Have done good for the World"

#rotary19