Perhaps you’ve heard of Rotaract and Interact – but have you heard of Rotex?
Rotaract clubs “bring together people aged 18 and older to exchange ideas with leaders in the community, develop leadership and professional skills, and have fun through service”, while Interact clubs “bring together young people ages 12-18 to develop leadership skills while discovering the power of Service Above Self”. Rotex is a little different – it is a society of past Rotary Youth Exchange (RYE) alumni that “engages with current Inbounds and Outbounds to better their exchange experience overall.”
Just like most families, we’re delighted when family members visit us – so it was lovely to welcome Chisa, a Rotex from District 2860 in Kobe, Japan, to our meeting yesterday.
Chisa, who is currently a 3rd year international student at the University of Kent, joined us for our evening meeting at a new venue for us: The Old Gate Inn in Canterbury. The speakers for the evening were scouts and guides – but we’ll write about their presentation in a separate article at a later date.
Chisa had originally contacted us via Instagram, expressing an interest in meeting other Rotex and Rotaracters here in Canterbury. She’s now been in Canterbury for just over two months – and following our introduction has already managed to join our fellow Canterbury “Sunrise” club for a morning meeting. We were pleased to hear Sunrise members gave her a warm reception and were all nice and friendly!
We hope Chisa will continue to keep in touch and join us whenever she can in between her studies.
If you’re interested in learning about District 2680 you can visit website (in Japanese) here.
Picture: Our President Rosemary Doyle (left) welcomes Chisa (right) to the meeting at The Old Gate Inn. Picture credit. Rotary Club of Canterbury.
