Posted by Jim Dunny on Jan 22, 2018
Last Wednesday evening, 9 members of RB Sunrise Rotary Club traveled to the Meridian on Front Street to host a Hospitality event for 11 DGE's who were in San Diego for the Rotary International Assembly.  The assembly is a gathering of all of the District Governor Elects from around the world. The assembly is a mandatory training event for these future district governors.
 
Everyone who attended this meeting came away with a better understanding of how Rotarians around the world share a passion for service to benefit others.  Each of the DGE's had an opportunity to tell us all about their district and what plans they had for their year as district governor.  This was a very diverse group. Several of them had very large districts geographically.  For example the DGE from Queensland, Australia has a district that includes Rotary Clubs on islands in Bali and other small islands.  She told us that when she will visit one of the islands, she will fly in and then have to remain there for a week before the next flight comes for her to return home to Australia.  Peter Meisen helped all of understand the districts of each of these DGE's covers by projecting maps of their district on a screen in the front of the room. He also projected photos of the region and also each of the websites for the districts.  Carl Kruse, a past president of our club and a past district governor of our district spoke about what we do here in San Diego. Joining us for this event were several members of a new Rotary Club in Tijuana.  One of them helped us by translating for the DGE's from Brazil who could speak Spanish, but did not speak English.
 
Our President Elect Mike Moffat presided at this meeting and said that our event was the second largest hosting event in our district.  We were privileged again to be able to meet at the Meridian because the owner of Mary's Athens Market restaurant is a resident there, so in addition to providing us with good Greek food, she made it possible for us to have a pleasant place to meet again this year.