On Tuesday evening, September 19th, the three Rotary Clubs of the Cowichan Valley held a special film presentation at the Cowichan Centre for Performing Arts to celebrate Rotary Foundations’s 100th anniversary. In addition to the celebration they wanted to bring more awareness to the community of all the good work that Rotary Clubs do both locally and globally. The three clubs are the Rotary Club of Duncan, Rotary Club of Duncan Daybreak and Rotary Club of South Cowichan. They promoted the evening through our Facebook page and Club website.
Rotary Club of Duncan club member, Nick Versteeg, is a documentary film producer. Two years ago he went to Nepal to film a documentary about some of the projects we were involved in there. Towards the end of his visit the big earthquake struck on May 12, 2015.
Thankfully Nick and his team were OK and they got some amazing film footage of the aftermath of the quake, which became pat of the documentary. Nick promised his Nepalese friends that he would be back. He made that first film and the Rotary club presented it to the public and, through that and other fundraising efforts, they collected about $8000 in donations which we put to work in Nepal through the Sir Edmund Hillary Foundation.
Nick went back to Nepal this past Spring to film the sequel to his first documentary. This new film shows the restoration work that has happened in Nepal, particularly in the area where Nick and Rotary were involved. They presented this film last month and had over 200 people attend with donations of just over $2800. This time the donations will go to Polio Plus.
The format of the evening had Nick speak to welcome everyone and introduce the film. He also explained why they were celebrating Rotary Foundation and how close we are to totally eradicating Polio. Next he introduced the Presidents from each club, Richard Odo, Bret Torok-Both and Andrew Higginson, who gave brief talks about each of our clubs. After the film there were brief presentations by Mr. Christopher M Considine, Honorary Consul General for Nepal, Rob Tournour of Another Brick in Nepal and Dr. Bishnu Pandey from BCIT Engineering Department specializing in earthquakes. These gentlemen participated in a Q & A session with the audience.
All in all it was a very successful event.
