OUR FIRST MEETING FOR THE YEAR WILL BE:
DATE: Sunday 27 February 2011
TIME: 12:30 PM – Start time for a shared lunch
VENUE: RAVE – Eric Bridgman Lounge
For our first meeting we will be showing a DVD entitled “Harmony in a Dong Ethnic Group Village.” This is one from our collection but hopefully most of you have not seen it. It is about a small Village located in the deep mountains of China’s Southeastern Gulizhou Province. Tang’ an Village is a dong ethnic group village of which a Norwegian man assisted in bringing the various groups together in a harmonious working relationship to better their living conditions. If you wish you can do some research on the area and after this 25 minute documentary then we can have a discussion which I am sure would add interest. The narration is in English with some subtitles when the Chinese residents are interviewed so you might want to bring your specs !
Don’t forget to bring something along to share for lunch and friends or visitors are welcome. It should be a very good and sociable time for all.
UP AND COMING MEETINGS
Our guest speaker for March will be Sue White from the Rotorua District Council. Sue works in the RDC’s Social Services and Community Services Section and is in charge of the Sister City Programmes. Late last year she made a trip to China to represent Rotorua at an International Conference. It should be an interesting meeting. The April meeting will be our AGM and we will have no speaker to give us time to discuss the future of the Branch. I am attaching some documents to this newsletter for those who are on e-mail regarding the possible changes to the National organisation which seems to be necessary in order to gain charitable status. Without charitable status then aid work in China would be somewhat diminished. It is my understanding that the Branches would then have to apply for charitable status separately if we want charitable status. Therefore this issue needs to be discussed thoroughly. Also please note on your calendar that April’s meeting will be a week earlier than normal, 17 April, because our normal meeting falls on Easter week-end.
OTHER NEWS
We now have a firm date for the much-anticipated visit to the Godwits at Miranda Shorebird Centre in the Firth of Thames Saturday February 26 is the date. High tide will be at 2.20pm. We are planning on arriving around 11am. Once again we will be joined by members of other branches and staff from the Chinese Consulate. This replaces the annual picnic to Raglan and the event has been organised by the Auckland Branch.
The new manager at the Rotorua Arts Village is Tania Short. Norma and I are looking forward to working with her. I am sure we will see some changes in the future which will result in a smoother running of this great facility
