Rotarians Learn About China
HS Senior Teaches Rotarians Chinese!
Gallipolis Rotarians learned about a recent China trip from a Pt. Pleasant high school student who traveled there last summer. Elizabeth Blankenship and her father, George Blankenship, visited Gallipolis Rotary Club and shared experienced about her travel. Our speaker was introduced by PDG Mel Simon, who recalled learning about Elizabeth through meeting George. Elizabeth has taken four years of Chinese language while in high school and plans on majoring in Chinese when she enters West Virginia University this fall. Her 17 day journey last summer took her to Char Chun in the Jilin Province to study with a foreign language institute along with other students mostly from the east coast of the US. She studied language classes every morning and then afternoons and evenings were filled with excursions and sightseeing. Our speaker was able to travel to see many sights in China including the Great Wall and several days in Beijing. Elizabeth taught Rotarians a few Chinese words including hello, goodbye, and how are you. Rotarians enjoyed asking our speaker additional questions about her experiences. President Chuck recommended that Elizabeth check into the Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship opportunities for post graduate work when she graduates from WVU. Thank you, Elizabeth and George, for bringing this fine program to our club today!
President's Announcements--President Chuck Clark welcomed Rotarians and guests to our meeting today. Our special guests were George Blankenship and his daughter, Elizabeth, a senior at Pt. Pleasant High School and our featured speaker today. VP Kevin Dennis provided our invocation.
Community Service Opportunity--Thanks to everyone who helped out with the service opportunity in the setup for the community Town Hall sponsored by Gallia CPR, Citizens for Prevention and Recovery, and helping our community's effort in combating drug abuse and addiction. Rotary is urging all clubs to be active in our communities to help educate citizens in the dangers of drugs. We were happy to see Jenny Evans and her young future Rotarian, Elle, Monday evening! Thank you, Lee Bauman and Kevin Dennis for your efforts with this in our community!
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District Conference--Our District's end of year bash will be held at Cherry Valley lodge on May 16-17. President Chuck, VP Kevin and President Nominee Charlene are all attending. Details are available on the district's web page at http://www.district6690.org.
Gallipolis Hoop Project--VP Kevin announced a great service opportunity for our club in helping with this year's Hoop Project in July. This was a tremendous success last year and this year should be even better with over 100 teams attending! Our club will be getting organized in the next few months so more information will be coming out. We should all be invovled and wearing our "Rotarian At Work" shirts!
Fellowship--Gordon Amsbary conducted our club fellowship today with his tidbits of history and other trivia. And he was in action collecting any late fines or fines for missing pins or badges.
Split-The-Pot--Charlene Smith ran our STP today and our small pot was $5.00. Charlene asked our speaker, Elizabeth, to draw the winning ticket which was held by Margaret Evans! Margaret generously donated her winnings back to the club's Endowment today. In the draw for the large pot of $205.00, our winner missed out on the big one by drawing the 10 of spades, keeping the large pot available for another week! Our Foundation Fine was assessed against anyone who 'did not take part in the past weekend's basket bingo!"
Next week's program speaker will be Judy Walters from the United Way. Have a great week and see you next Tuesday!