The International Assembly was a mixture of plenary sessions
in a vast auditorium, interspersed with training sessions for the DGEs, and
sessions for the spouses which seemed mostly aimed at learning about Rotary.
The week was also interspersed with big events such as the Festival Evening,
Cultural Exchange and International Evening.
It was an exceptionally busy week, with an early start and
late finish every day, and often there were further activities in the
evening. You may think, ‘well, I’ll have
the occasional afternoon or whole day off, nobody will miss me’. This would be wrong, because your badge
contains a microchip, which is scanned every time you enter a plenary or
breakout session, so if you are absent the organisers will know. It needs to be remembered that RI is paying
for each DGE and spouse to attend, so they will take it very badly if this
generosity is abused. Quite apart from being rude to your hosts, you could be
punished. Anyone who doesn’t appear for
a session, will have a visit from a nurse to ascertain whether they are
unwell. There was a story, which I
thought was apocryphal, but I have subsequently learnt to be true, that a
couple of DGEs one day decided to have
an afternoon off to play golf. When they got back to the hotel they found they
had been turfed out of their rooms, and told to catch the next flight home.
Scene from one of the DGE training rooms
The first thing I noticed at the plenary sessions was that
they were clearly aimed at the DGEs only. All the DGEs were given their own
seats at the front of the auditorium, whilst the spouses had to sit at the
back, wherever they could find a seat. On the first morning I was allowed to
sit near Vivian, but thereafter was banished to the back of the
auditorium. From this vantage point I
had a good view, not only of the speakers on stage, but the audience reaction
to them. Current RI President Ron Burton (standing ovation) welcomed everyone
to the Assembly, then handed over control to the incoming president, Gary Huang
(another standing ovation). Thereafter, every time Gary came on stage (which
was often) he got another standing ovation. Well, not from me, he didn’t. I
stood the first time out of respect for his position, but not again. Looking
around the auditorium, some people were fervent in their ovations, and appeared
to be trying to outdo each other with their adoration. For some reason it made
me think of the newsreel pictures of the North Koreans, and their worship of
their glorious leader. That is probably a little unfair, but I really did
notice a similarity.
Communal singing before every morning session
I wasn’t overly happy with Gary Huang following his letter
to all DGEs (including Vivian) a few months earlier. It was his first letter to
his group of DGEs and there were so many things he could have said in it, such
as ‘thank you for volunteering for this demanding but worthwhile role’, or
‘Best of luck in the coming year and I will support you wherever I can’. But his letter didn’t say any of this. It was
a request for money. He wanted all his DGs to put their own hands in their
pockets, and persuade their Districts to do the same, to donate money to The Rotary Foundation, which is Rotary’s Charity. His motivation seemed to be to do
better than his predecessor did the previous year. Rotary Foundation is our own
Charity, and does great things, not least winning the war against Polio in the
world. Vivian, as do all of her colleagues I am sure, already gives generously
to Foundation, and it goes without saying that she will encourage all Rotarians
in her District to support our own Charity. I just felt disappointed that
Gary’s first letter to her should have been a demand for money.
I actually warmed to Gary Huang during the week. He came across very well, had a good sense of humour, taught us some Chinese, taught us the
‘Happy Clap’(a sequence of claps to denote happiness), and even had us singing in Chinese. In his opening speech he
launched his theme for the year. Every year the RI President picks a theme for
his year of office. Personally, I don’t know why. ‘Service above Self’ seems to
describe Rotary perfectly, and has been the underlying Rotary theme ever since
I joined. But nevertheless, each president wants to make his mark with his own
theme and logo. Gary’s was ‘Light Up Rotary’, which he launched with a great
firework display on the screen behind him. He told a really nice story about
why he chose this theme, which he accredited to Confucius, speaking several
centuries ago, who said ‘When you are surrounded by darkness, it is better to
light one candle than to sit and curse the dark’. Gary said there were 1.2 million Rotarians
worldwide. What if we all lit a candle?
Aside from Gary, plenary sessions were initially taken up
with introducing the officials, directors and past directors of RI, who were all brought on to the
stage hand in hand with their wives / husbands. Much of the first two days was
taken up with this procession of the great and the good of the Rotary
organisation. After that, we heard from a lot of Heads of Departments, e.g.
Foundation, Membership with their priorities for the coming Rotary year, which
DGEs are expected to take back to their own Districts. There were also some
speeches which I assume were designed as motivational talks, but in truth I
felt most of them fell short of the mark. There was one notable exception. On
the Thursday morning we had a talk from Past RI president Cliff Dochterman about
what delegates should expect from their year in office. He likened the year to
conducting a symphony Orchestra, and he brought the house down as he compared
the different sections of the orchestra with various people DGEs will come
across during their term of office. He was brilliant, and I couldn’t help
wondering why we had to wait until almost the end of the Assembly before
hearing from him. Also he is over 90 years of age, and may not have many
assemblies left in him. Is there no-one younger than that who can deliver a
truly motivational speech at International Assembly?
The Incomparable Cliff Dochterman
Outside of the plenary sessions, the DGEs went off to their
training rooms to learn about all aspects of their job. Meanwhile the spouses
had their own breakout sessions to go to.
How this worked was that a large number of rooms were made available,
with different languages spoken in them. For example you could choose an
English –speaking room, or French, or Spanish, or Gujarati, or Russian or whatever. Having
chosen your room, you could then choose which table to sit at. Various circular
tables, each sitting 12 people were spaced about the room, and they all carried
a sign indicating the topic being discussed, and had a facilitator to lead
discussions. As I am on the Membership Committee at Shepperton Aurora, I
initially chose to go to the membership session, and then the Rotary projects
session. I chose the latter because I have an embryo project at Aurora with
Mission for Vision, and I wanted to learn a bit more about what steps you
should take to publicise the project around the Rotary world.
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It soon became clear to me that these sessions were not
designed for experienced Rotarians like me who want some additional knowledge,
but rather they were for spouses who
were non-rotarians and needed to get some idea about what their DGE husband /
wife would be getting up to during the next year. I found that most of the time
I was giving information rather than receiving it. Also some of the
facilitators were not really up to the job. I think that many of them were
simply spouses of RI Directors, and knew less about Rotary than I did. One of
them liked the sound of her own voice so much that she dominated the
conversation from start to finish, hardly giving any one else a chance to
speak. She needs to re-visit her facilitator training, I thought. Another
occasional problem was that people of other nationalities would often sit on an
English-speaking table, with the intention of improving their English. That’s
fine, but the only problem was that they struggled to communicate with any one
else around the table.
I don’t want to sound too negative about the breakout
sessions. They were mostly very enjoyable, and I met some fantastic people from around the world. When deciding which table to sit down at, I made
a point of not choosing a table containing any of my RIBI colleagues, because I
found it more interesting to meet new people. I think I contributed more than I
would normally to the discussions, but that was because sometimes I knew more
about the subject than anyone else on the table. I was of course happy to
assist in the education of my colleagues around the table.
Before going to San Diego I had been advised of some of the
spouse training that had gone on in previous years. I heard of spouses (mostly
female, I presume) being taught how to take telephone messages for their
husbands, and to make sure he always has a freshly ironed shirt to wear.
Apparently a few years ago, a group of women were so incensed at this
‘training’ that they walked out. They haven’t included that particular session
ever since. However Gary Huang’s wife, Corinna, did lead an optional training
session on scarf-tying, which I was tempted to attend, just for fun, but at the
last minute I changed my mind. I think Vivian was disappointed that I didn’t
attend this session, as she is pretty hopeless at tying scarves, and will be
wearing her ‘Light Up Rotary’ scarf regularly in the coming year.
One afternoon, there was an event for the spouses in one of
the main halls called ‘Cultural Exchange’ in which different countries were
encouraged to wear national dress, and give some demonstration representing
their culture. There were some terrific displays, including a magnificent
dragon dance by the Koreans (I think). In RIBI we decided to copy something
that went down well the previous year – we put on masks representing different
members of the Royal Family and just waved at any passers-by. I was wearing the
Prince Philip mask, so I sat down next to the Queen, whilst Charles, Camilla,
Andrew etc all stood behind us. It seemed a bit weird to us, but we quickly
came to realise that we were one of the biggest attractions in the hall. People
would invariably break out into a smile when they saw us, would want their
pictures taken with the Queen, some even knelt before her to be knighted. At
one point when I had a break, I walked away and turned back to look at the
Royal family. It really was very funny. There was even a corgi behaving badly
(actually Keith Barnard-Jones in a corgi mask).
One evening Vivian and I were taken out (with others) by a
local Rotary club (El Cajon). Their members picked up about 20 DGEs and spouses
and took us a few miles out of San Diego to a particular social project of
theirs, where a community centre has been built, and a beautiful garden
developed around it. There they provided a Mexican buffet, which was excellent,
and took us on tours around the gardens. Then we had the obligatory
presentations from each visiting DG about his or her District. I was amused by
a Swede who stood up and said that in his District there were 2,000 members.
‘Of these’ he said ‘1,000 are Rotarians,
the other 1,000 are just members’. This struck a cord with me, as I think it
did with many others around the room. Our hosts were very generous, and seemed
genuinely interested in their guests. When they took us back, later in the
evening, I felt that it had been very enjoyable, particularly as it got us out
of the hotel for a few hours.
There were two big evening events at the Hotel during the week.
The first of these was International evening, where we were all encouraged to
wear National costumes. The English contingent chose to wear Union Jack
clothing (although I did point out that the Cross of St George would have been
more appropriate), the Scots wore kilts, and the Welsh and Irish just their respective flags. I was
resplendent in my hat, tie and waistcoat. The evening started with a grand
procession through the hotel, where we followed the England banner, just like
at the Olympics, and we then took our seats for a banquet in the main Hall,
with entertainment provided by Taiwanese dancers (I think). On our table was Ken Billington, an RI director and his wife, and two charming Japanese couples.
Their English was almost non-existent, but one of the women taught us all the
rudiments of origami during the evening. It was great fun.
On the Thursday was the Gala evening, where countries had to put on a show depicting their culture. There were some marvellous, well prepared and choreographed presentations, then there was us. Our plan had been formulated at Scalford Hall last year, but there had only been one rehearsal, the night before, which Vivian and I were absent for, as we were visiting El Cajon Rotary. The plan was this: we would all come down to dinner wearing black, then when our turn on stage came along, we would wear tabards and carry flags representing the 4 home nations. We would sing one verse from ‘Land of Hope & Glory’, then ‘We’ll keep a Welcome in the Hillside’, then ‘Danny Boy’, finishing with an up-tempo version of ‘You take the High Road’. It was quite a challenge accommodating all the home countries in 3 minutes, but we managed it. The presentation may not have looked very slick, but we enjoyed ourselves, and certainly belted out the songs
We meet some South Koreans on Gala Night
The Assembly finally came to an end on Friday morning, with
a rallying cry from Gary Huang at the final Plenary Session ‘Don’t forget to
send me your money’. Only joking! He actually said something wise, he said that
you cannot change the world in one year, but you can leave it a better place
than you found it. Well, that was the gist of it anyway as far as I can
remember. Final farewells to old and new friends were made, and we all
dispersed to every corner of the globe. Except us and a few others, who were
staying on for a few days. Did I learn anything at the Assembly? Not a lot, to
be honest. However, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. The International
fellowship was fantastic, the company of our RIBI counterparts and the general ambience was special. And of course, I was rubbing shoulders with the movers and
shakers in the world of Rotary, which I
don’t often do.
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