Foundation Report, 2006 Garden Party

Our club has a tradition of a summer garden party, providing an opportunity for local Rotarians to hear about the life and experiences of some of those who have received grants or scholarships from the Foundation. We successfully held our 2006 Garden Party on 4th June. We were most grateful to Past President Nigel and Cynthia Norris for hosting it their lovely garden and were blessed by sunshine on the day. 68 members, friends and guests attended. After an excellent hot buffet lunch we had enjoyable and informative talks from our guests as below.

Our guests this year included three "Ambassadorial Scholars", young people who have been awarded Rotary Foundation scholarships in order to further their studies at an overseas educational institution. Two of these were scholars visiting our District in the Rotary year. Oyuna Shagdarsuren from Mongolia was dressed in the striking traditional "formal" robes of her native country, a full length black silk coat featuring gold embroidered dragons, over a gold silk skirt. Oyuna was studying Agriculture at Reading. She spoke of the nomadic lifestyle of almost half the people in her country, and the extremes of climate, with temperatures as low as minus 40°C in winter. Her career intention when she returns to Mongolia is to apply what she has learnt this year in the development and improvement of local agricultural methods. Asami Endo from Japan is following a "British Studies" course at Oxford, and she spoke of the cultural benefits of the international scholarship year and her perceptions of this country.

Our third scholar was Lisa Morris who lives in the Thames Valley and last year was an outgoing scholar from our District visiting South Africa. She spoke of the problems of health education, AIDS and HIV in Africa and of the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda.

We also welcomed Malcolm and Valerie Boddington and John and Viv Northridge who were respectively Asami and Oyuna's Rotary counsellors and kindly brought them.

After the presentations by the students, Malcolm, who was the Rotary District Foundation chairman, spoke of the importance of Rotary Foundation scholarships, and of the project being initiated by some of the visiting Ambassadorial scholars to help young people from poorer countries to be able to take up these scholarships to study in more expensive economic environments.

The final presentation was from Rotarian Alan French, Team Leader of the recent Rotary District Group Study Exchange visit to Australia. Group Study Exchange is an initiative whereby groups of young professionals undertake a structured exchange visit with a similar group of young professionals from overseas. Alan himself had been a Team member in a previous visit so had personal experience of both roles. He reminded us that the Rotary Foundation is the largest independently funded scholarship organisation in the world.

Apart from the informative presentations, the Garden Party raised just under £500 for the Rotary Foundation.

Brian Millis

Foundation Committee Chairman