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Rotary World Service - District 5950 Group Study Exchange 2003
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Rotary World Service - District 5950 Group Study Exchange 2003 |
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| Norway - April 2003 | May 14, 2003, Day 23 | |
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Meet
the Team Photos: click a photo to see it full size. Use your browser BACK button to return to the journal page.
Contact the Team THE TRIP
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Wednesday, May 14 Today we all had slightly different schedules. For John and Mike it was another opportunity to learn more about their careers here in Norway. Mike headed off to the Ringerike Hospital, www.ringerike-sykehus.no, and had an opportunity to visit with fellow family physician Sigurd Rosenberg. John also made a trip to the Ringerike Hospital and ended his day at MicroDaisy, www.microdaisy.no. For the girls, it was a leisure day. You know what that means – you guessed it – laundry and repacking day! With our busy schedules, I think all of the girls welcomed the opportunity to get reorganized and run some errands. After a nice morning, Alanna, Lynn, and I met in town and were introduced to our host of the afternoon Rita, another of Ringerike’s Rotary members. Rita was kind enough to take us to visit Guro Hildisch. Guro is a knitting designer and hosts many interested guests at her farm Gammelklokkergården. Guro creates and knits her own designs patterns. I think this was an especially big treat for Lynn who originally learned how to knit when she was a Rotary Exchange Student in Norway.
Our final event for the night was a trip to Oslo to meet up with our new host families. The trip was about an hour and after greeting our hosts it was off to bed to get ready for another full day! I thought I would finish off this addition of my journal entries with some thoughts about Rotary and Rotaract. As a member of Rotaract I have had a lot of contact with Rotarians in my home area (Districts 5960 and 5950). And, I have thoroughly enjoyed attending the Rotary meetings here in Norway. I know regardless of their language or where they live, I have something in common with their members. I am also enjoying learning how they run their meetings, what are their projects and focus, etc. I have found a couple of things very intriguing to me. Of all of the Rotary meetings that I have attended so far, all have been in the evening and none of them has served large meal. As a result, the due structure is lower and it allows individuals with a more structured work schedule to attend meetings. As a Twin Cities Rotaract Member, we have had numerous conversations with Rotarians on how to make a successful transition to Rotary. Unfortunately, the transition is not usually successful. Two of the issues that commonly come up are time of day and cost. The Minneapolis and Twin Cities Rotaract Clubs, which both meet in the evening, do a great job of offering a young professional’s version of Rotary. However, I think we lose a lot of strong members in their 30s because they are beyond the age of Rotaract, but their schedules and\or their budgets may not fit in with the traditional Rotary format. It has been discussed that an evening Rotary Club may be a great opportunity for our area and I think that viewing the success here in Norway strengthens the idea that it is some thing that the Minneapolis/St. Paul districts should consider pursuing.
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