1st April Meeting - Gian Luca-Reinhard - Switzerland

Chair
Bernie
(Bernie deserves extra points for being at the lectern at 6:30am to coordinate the finer points of her presentation - no telling what stuff-ups have been built into the chair’s running sheet)

International Toast
Norm’s back up to speed and proposed a toast to RC New Delhi.
The world is almost polio free and New Delhi has been the command HQ for India
Unfortunately Norm left the last three polio affected countries at home (Nigeria, Afghanistan & Pakistan) I knew Norm had a big house - but three countries ??

Maybe RC Caloundra could get some dancing girls too

Visitors
Ian from RC Glass House Mountains, Gian

Apologies
Pam, Gerry, Neil (Helen has a broken arm)
Ian (cruising the Pacific) Helen - As I will be away for five weeks, would someone kindly take the minutes at our April meeting
& nearly Judy (who may have just been early for next week’s meeting)

Makeups
Conference - Deborah, Helen & Mark - any others?

Presidents Report
Seems Gian was another of Deb’s USC BBQ/guest speaker victims -
wonder what they were putting in the sausages.
 
With help from Men's Shed, hopefully we will be working on the Lighthouse Centre bus garage during the school holidays.
 
RYDA today - lots of attendees.
 
Great speakers at the Conference
Quote from Einstien via Bernie Tamba-Lebbie -
“If we knew what we were doing it wouldn’t be called research”
 
No bites from last week’s comment about Deborah’s Photoshop skills -
It’s lucky that nobody ever reads the Blog

 say what?

Speaker
Alf introduced Gian, a 22 year old student from Switzerland doing a “top-up” business degree at USC.  In winter he is also a ski instructor.

 flower power meets the Swiss army knife

Gian gave a most interesting account based on spelling out Switzerland and basing a topic on each letter.  Good thing he’s not from somewhere like Fiji or Togo, cause he would have had trouble filling the twenty minutes.

                                                            so that’s where it is

Switzerland was founded in 1291, it’s not in the EU so there is no Euro.  It’s eight million population fits into 43 kilometers square  (Australia is 1200 times bigger) Luckily, the reflections in the lakes make it look like there's more land.

confused yet?

They have no oil or gas, but plenty of water.  Glaciers, which cover 3% of the surface area, are melting, meaning more water.

Zurich has 300,000 people, but is not the capital (the correct answer is Berne)

The Rotary Club of Obwalden has 60 members, but only four women.
Ab sofort steht die neue Homepage des Rotary-Club Obwalden zur Verfügung. Der Rotary Club Obwalden wurde 1957 gegründet und zählt derzeit 61 Mitglieder. Die Mitglieder treffen sich wöchentlich zum freundschaftlichen Austausch.
Viel Spass!

Projects include a ski/slide for the disabled and working with local musicians.

Switzerland has four national languages with 60% speaking Swiss German.  They can understand Germans but Germans cannot understand them.  Sometimes neighboring villages speak different languages.

Switzerland is 50% mountains (the Alps) with the Matterhorn the most famous.

The country has been neutral since 1884 and consequently has become the headquarters for many UN/diplomatic organizations.

The final letter D is for Democracy - Gian said he could speak for hours on this, but fortunately time was running out. Still, the elegant flow diagram captivated the meeting, even though it was hard to work out who actually was in charge.

Questions centered around confusion about the democratic process, and the relative costs of alcoholic drinks.  Dr Bruce let slip his long held desire to migrate to Switzerland, but it seems the Swiss have been forewarned and have tightened up their entry requirements.  Bernie thought she may have visited during their "three countries in half an hour" tour.

 

Directors
Pauline told us to expect the Golf Day article in this week’s Caloundra Weekly, complete with half price advertisement.

Mark gave us a rundown of Conference speakers, including Dr Bernie Tamba-Lebbie who spoke about the ebola outbreak in Ghana and closing of borders;  Adrian from USC about Antarctic ice runways, and Hazel Hawke’s grand-daughter Sophie who spoke on Alzheimer’s.  Bindi Irwin spoke on population.

Next year’s conference is on Bribie Island. I’ve always wanted to travel overseas.

Sergeant Bruce managed to fine all the women in the Club -
expect some “last word” cross fines next week.