Rotary hears from Exchange Student

 

Rotary exchange student Kaori Miwa gave a presentation to the Portage Rotary Club, Tuesday, where she discussed herself and her home country. She arrived from Japan in Aug. of 2012. (ROBIN DUDGEON/PORTAGE DAILY GRAPHIC/QMI AGENCY)

Rotary exchange student Kaori Miwa gave a presentation to the Portage Rotary Club, Tuesday, where she discussed herself and her home country. She arrived from Japan in Aug. of 2012. (ROBIN DUDGEON/PORTAGE DAILY GRAPHIC/QMI AGENCY)

Japanese Rotary Exchange student Kaori Miwa gave a short presentation to the Portage Rotary Club at Tuesday’s meeting.

The 17-year-old from Inazawa, Japan arrived back in August. She has been staying with host families and attending school at Portage Collegiate since then.

Back in Japan she was in her second year at a private school. She explained that at home she lives with her mother, an elementary school teacher, her father, who works in an office in the import/export business, as well as a brother, sister, and grandparents.

Inazawa has approximately 130,000 inhabitants is located almost 360 km southwest of Tokyo. Inazawa is known for its plants and gingo nuts as well as its naked man festival known as a Hadaka Matsuri.

Miwa will be returning to Japan at the end of the school year.

Pond Hockey

The Portage Rotary Club also got an update on the Western Canadian Pond Hockey Championship which is scheduled to take place from Feb. 22-24 on Island Park.

“Things are coming along quite smoothly. We’ve gotten great feedback from the community for sponsorships, it’s actually been overwhelming,” said Rotarian Travis Foster.

It is expected that the cut off date for sponsors will be by the end of this week, giving the committee time to prepare material before the event.

“We are going to cut it off this week so that we can now start getting our signs made up and the programs put together. We don’t want to have anybody,” said Foster.

“For registration we are currently up to 13 teams. I know of probably about three more that are just waiting for it to come through. We will likely cap it at about 20, I think that would be more than enough teams to fill the weekend. Being three weeks away we’re probably going to reach the 20 teams.”

Foster also discussed partnerships with two local organizations – the Portage Fire Department and the Oakville Seals hockey club – that will make the event a success. Both groups are hoping to volunteer some of their time in exchange for a donation to a good cause.

“Just to give our committee a little bit of freedom the firefighters are helping us out in flooding the ice…in return they have asked for a donation after everything is said and done to their cause,” said Foster. “I believe they are going to be putting it towards their donation to the BDO Centre for the Community.”

The Oakville Seals hockey club is also hoping to lend a hand with the reffing and scorekeeping during the event.

“They have told us that they will take care of the entire weekend of reffing and score keeping for a $500 donation if their team gets up and running for start up fees either to help with jerseys or things like that,” said Foster.

For more on the pond hockey championships you can visit the website online at www.portagepondhockey.