Our official Rotary year 2017 started with the handover of the presidency on the 28th of June 2017 at the SOHO factory in Warsaw. After an impressive house-warming party at Joachim’s new flat, we started the year with a delicious dinner at the nearby restaurant.
Because of our 5th anniversary all former presidents had the chance to hold a short speech about the former years and successes of our club. Our 5 former presidents:
- 2012/2013 Michael Kern
- 2013/2014 Agnieszka Śliwińska
- 2014/2015 Krzysztof Szadurski
- 2015/2016 Ulrich Schwendimann
- 2016/2017 Joanna Żmuda
This year our club was led by the following board:
- Joachim Franke – Vice-president
- Dariusz Bujniewicz – President and blub secretary
- Roland Sprung – Treasurer
- Oliver Burrak
- Alexander Heinelt
- Piotr Franciszkowski
- Joanna Zmuda (Past president)
After a short online survey our new designated president focused on the following topics:
- increased cooperation of all members
- introduction of new club members
- finding novel projects to support with the help of our club
- one annual club trip
- looking for an interesting partner club
- Ideal club size: 40 members
- Motto of the year: Rotary changes the world!
First big attraction during our club year was our club trip to Stettin organised by Darius at the beginning of August 2017. Stettin organises every year a famous ship race called “Tallship-Races”. During the summer time we had the chance to find new places and restaurants in Warsaw where our club meetings were held during the lunchtime.
Our study-scholarship with two female students was continued. Together with the RC Mettmann we finanse an annual scholarship at the TU Berlin. In addition we organise a second scholarship in cooperation with the RC Berlin Mickiewicz at the University of Viadrina.
Besides our successful scholarship programs we support the social project “Joyo-Help me to start” which supports children to get access to any available education in Rumania
In addition we decided to support the following social projects as well:
Thanks to the initiative of our dear colleague Fried and the huge motivation of Alex and other members, we organised to finance a children’s swing at the German-Polish Garden initiative in Warsaw. The planned opening is fall 2018.
In addition Piotr and Max convinced the principal of the Willy Brandt School in Wilanow to organise a schoolrun to collect money for the Rotary “End Polio Now” initiative. The schoolrun will take place on the 26th of September 2018.
Our club started a cooperation with the ICC Poland-Swiss organisation. A first meeting will take place between the 16th and 19th of September 2018 in Warsaw.
During our christmas party we had the honour to welcome a new club member, Lukas Schifferle. Our latest members Fried Nielsen and Robert Edward Boroch joined our club on the 1st of July. The official ceremonie will be held during our next christmas party in December 2018. We currently have 29 full-part members at our club.
In addition to our regular lunch meetings on every Wednesday, we had certain occasions to extend the traditional program, e.g. with professional wine-tasting, first-aid courses or an official rotary welcome for the international comittee in Warsaw.
After some amazing years at the Hotel Polonia, we changed our favorite club restaurants to “Der Elefant” where our regular club meetings are now held.
The handover to the new president Dariusz Bujniewicz took place on 4 August 2018 in the Potocki restaurant in Galkowo on the occasion of the club trip. For his exemplary social commitment in the past Rotary year, Alexander Heinelt has been awarded the Paul Harris Fellow in Sapphire.
Many thanks to the members and the board for the great cooperation, the great commitment and the valuable moments together.
Benjamin Schwägli, President of the Rotary Club Warszawa Goethe 2017/2018
