September 5, 2013

Secretary’s Corner_09052013

Last Thursday was a very long “Rotary Day.” Our regular noontime weekly meeting featured Fr. Edgardo Dumaual as guest speaker. After Fr. Ed, we listened to Mr. Dante Diamante speak about the Plastic-to-Oil Recycling Machine. He represents the Japanese manufacturer. We have come to know about this marvellous invention when PP Jimmy Ortigas shared the video in our Egroup. The thread of emails received several favourable comments from our members. As such, we sought to invite the local distributor to enlighten us about a possible Environmental Literacy Project if our club would get our hands on the ‘demo’ unit and use this to educate school children about the benefits of recycling plastic into oil.

After our meeting, IPP Jojo Bacarro and I picked up sacks of bread donated by Mr. Rizalino Chua the brother-in-law of FDG Benny Pe and in turn donated these to San Juan’s Department of Social Welfare and Development.

Next, we motored through the normal rush hour traffic to the Marikina Rotary Center at 7:00pm where we attended the weekly meeting of RC Marikina and witnessed the signing of the Sister-Club Agreement between our clubs. Several members were able to observe how our sister club conducts its meeting and also listened to FDG Benny Pe pitch our seminar project on September 14.

Attending the meeting of RC Marikina – an all male club, brought nostalgic feelings of when I was a ‘baby’ Rotarian in the early 80’s and our club was still all male. Our spouses were called Rotary Anns and male testosterone was at its highest during Rotary meetings. In addition, similar to RC Marikina, our club also had a ‘club house’ at the mezzanine of the Padilla Arcade (atop a popular watering hole in Greenhills, San Mig Pub). Those were the good old days, and I remember our departed fellow Rotarians well and how their attitude towards Rotary have moulded how I regard Rotary today.

Cheers and enjoy Rotary J

Sec./PP Jovie