Greeters: Mary Toews and Todd Morrow            

 

 

12:05   Pledge of Allegiance by President Will McMahan followed by the Thought of the Day with Lance Balla from For whom the Bell tolls, regarding the interconnectedness of all; the loss of one is a loss for us all.

Introduction of Visiting Rotarians by Todd Morrow; Guests: Janice Ellis-Claire and Bill Finley (host dad), Courtney Hooks. Zeb Cobb: sister from Texas and friend from Las Vegas

Musical Moment with PP Deb Wright-“Together” Song ("the more we get together, the happier we'll be!")

 

12:25  Happy Dollars/Birthday Bucks/Raffle: President Will McMahon for his wife; thanks for the card. Mark Valentine-music for life program ($1k from Everett and Mill Creek Rotary) to provide instruments for school students; delivered 82 instruments valued at $47k and still taking donations in cash and instruments and time on their Board. Eileen Simmons-proud dollars for son who is a Pulmonary Critical Care Specilist in Boston who had a research paper on asthma accepted for publication in Nature magazine.

Erik Samuelson Rotaract raised 110 back to school packs for school kids; new DG coming Thurs night to Rotaract meeting and will have charter paper done as of Thursday.

Zeb Cobbs-bell ringer for birthday dollars and anniversary dollars. Denny Tetzlaff AquaSox pitcher making MLB and pitcher of the year awards, season ended in Spokane with extra innings, next year will be 35^th year.

Don Senter-“good” bill of health. Tom Koenig for human caused fires in Chelan area,

Judi Edwards put up property for sale and has an offer in Douglas County. Jim Staniford: bell ringer for Silvertips, remodel of building back to its original name Grand Leader Mercantile

Raffle (wine and goodies): guests of Zeb (Tina and Lawrence), PP Larry O’Donnell, Steve Ellis (tix to Loverboy), auction item for tonight 4 tix to Mariners plus VIP parking donated by Sean Kelly,

 

12:35  Program Introduction:Janice Ellis-Espen Diamond Skyping from Norway. Thanking Rotary for the opportunity and food is great, school is difficult and people are wonderful, beautiful area that he is in. See your email for a click to his blog to follow his adventures.

Courtney was here talking about her exchange in Italy 2016-2017. This exact day last year was her first day she arrived in Italy. She chose to do an exchange to try new food, learn a new language and break up high school. She was studying Chinese in high school and wasn’t very successful. She enjoyed the exchange students at school and wanted to meet other exchange students and try a new culture. She went to the city of Catania (2^nd most important city during the Rennaisance), first university in Sicily is there; founded in 8th cent BC, mascot is an elephant. When she arrived she did not speak Italian (Sicily accent is very different! And all of the older generation speaks Sicilian). There were two other Rotary youth exchange students in her city who both spoke English (Mexico and Canadian exchange students). She spoke about jetlag and challenges about eating during their times (lunch at 2pm, dinner at 9 or 10pm).  She spoke a lot of English with host sister who spoke English. Other host sister was in Brazil on exchange. Stayed with first host family for 5 months, who lived with all of the family members-grandparents and cousins/aunts/uncles.  She missed a lot of school to get her permesso di soggiomo (permission to stay). Showed pics of host family and host pets (cat and fish). Courtney got to travel to Rome with her host family in October and saw the Coleseum, the Vatican.  She lived below Mt. Etna and got to hike and saw snow in Italy. Mt Etna erupted 3x while she was there. 

Her 2^nd host family had a son doing a Rotary exchange in Anacortes while she was with them. They lived outside of the city at the base of Mt Etna, her host dad would take her to school via scooter or car 30 minutes and sometimes he was a crazy driver! School was 8:30-1:30. Her school classes counted for HS credit here and took many hard courses (physics, chemistry, math). She had a lot of help online and the educational system was very different than home.

She had lots of opportunities to travel and went to London with 50 Italian students and was their translator of sorts. She was sent on an Italy tour for free- paid by the club. They went to Naples, Rome, Caserta and Pompeii for a week, and then did a Sicily tour with other friends/exchange students: Catania, Siracusa, Agrigento, Palermo, Ragusa.

She had great food: pizza, desserts, pasta, Nutella. Fried pizza (hot dogs and fries on top of a cheese pizza; can you believe that is the most popular pizza in Italy?!) Courtney is vegetarian, though..

She celebrated her birthday with two cakes! Typically birthdays are a very big deal with tuxedos and fancy dress, but she had to go to London the next day so didn’t do the party and celebrated low key with her host family instead.

She went on a Eurotour; 11 countries in 17 days including Milan, Geneva, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, and more!

Courtney’s takeaways: beause of her experience she has become more friendly and open to meeting new people, has a decreased sense of difference (languages sound the same and people look the same to her now), seeing people of different backgrounds, she gained independence and learned a lot about history, learned how to have a lot more love in her heart.

Courtney closed with presenting 3 banners/flags from 3 clubs in her exchange town.

What a great representation of what a Rotary Youth Exchange is all about!

 

1:05  President Will wrapped up with a Thank you to Courtney and to all with contributions, visitors, guests            

 

1:10  Closing Remarks – Presentation to Stove Team International gift to Courtney. Thank you's for contributions, visitors and guests.