First Day at the Convention

The presence of Royalty always has an impact on security at events and today was no exception.  All those with first sitting plenary seats were warned to be in our seats no later than 9:30 a.m. as Princess Chulabhorn, youngest daughter of the Thai King, would be at our opening ceremon.  With the Convention Centre being a good hour away from the City Centre we were duly out and about well before 8 a.m. being fortunate to get the last 4 seats on a coach from the Four Seasons leaving immediately (we heard stories of others waiting more than an hour before a bus with any room came by).  Despite our, we supposed, early arrival, we found ourselves back in row 700 of the cavernous hall.

Frankly, the ceremonials around the Princess’ arrival in a wheelchair and her subsequent monotonal Thai welcome felt rather bizarre.  The mood of the day brightened rather when the subsequent flag ceremony announced a further three countries being part of the Rotary family, South Sudan, Bhutan and Nauru having joined in the past year.   

Rotary International President Kalyan Banerjee focussed on the key to Rotary's future being bringing more young people into Rotary and getting the word out through social media.  He also announced changes to Rotary.org including Rotarians gaining access to share & post their Rotary humanitarian projects with the world - details, photos + videos - on Rotary Showcase, a new website feature available to all clubs.  Touching on major projects from Rotary clubs around the world he also spoke of his pride in Rotary's newest project partner Shelterbox, a UK initiative providing disaster shelters around the world, as well as the RIBI initiatives with Help for Heroes and Breast Cancer.

Being at a Convention is always an awe-inspiring experience – the sheer scale of the operations, the number of Rotarians, well, just the vastness of it all.

Our return journey saw us on the Skytrain again – beginning to feel like a daily commute!