President, Katie Dukeshire, called the meeting to order and Susan Watson led the group in prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance.
Announcements
- Welcome guest, Laura Brannock, with Reverse Funding. Laura’s first reading will be next week.
- Continue to bring in canned food items for Allied Churches during the month of January.
- 1st Annual Rotary Birthday Luncheon will be February 23rd.
Happy Clams
- Master Lee welcomed the visiting students from Gwacheon, South Korea to our meeting. The girls will be in the US for two weeks with the Sister Cities program.
Update on Youth Services Committee – Ed Woodall
- We continue to support the two Rotaract Clubs at Elon University and Alamance Community College.
- Ed/Cliff have met with ABSS Superintendent to discuss Interact clubs for local high schools during 2016-2017 school year.
- We will be sponsoring a student for the Youth Leadership Summer Program at Guilford College this summer.
Sister Cities – Gwacheon, South Korea
Sixteen students from four high schools in Gwacheon, South Korea attended our meeting as part of their US visit with the Sister Cities program. Master Lee always brings the students to Rotary during their time in Burlington because the programs share the same goals; promoting peace and friendships. Rotary is also popular in Korea.
The Sister Cities program started in 2012. Ann Honeycutt, Sister Cities President, thanked our club for our past financial support. The funds we have contributed have helped provide a scholarship for a student to travel to Mexico. She shared a tearful “thank you” for our work to end Polio across the world as Rotarians.
The Gwacheon students represented four different high schools. They each presented highlights from their specific high school.
Gwacheon Women High School
Gwacheon Women High school is a all girl, private high school. The food here is better than the food at other high schools. Mountains and lakes are nearby and they have 300 students per grade (only 3 grades vs 4 in US high schools). There are many club opportunities to include Newspaper, Korean International Model Congress and Voluntary Agency Network of Korea.
Gwacheon High School
Gwacheon High School was built in 1985 and the high school focuses on healthcare. There are 1000 total students with more girls than boys. The students take seven classes per day with the school day lasting 9:00-5:00. If students are involved in extra activities, they eat dinner at school and leave at 7:00. Many students stay at school and study until 10:00. Students can participate in ice skating or boys soccer. In 2010, the boys soccer team were 2nd in the nation!
Gwacheon-Jungang High School
Gwacheon-Jungang is a public high school that opened on January 8, 2000. The school motto is Autonomy, Originality, Diligence. Gwacheon-Jungang focuses on science and math. Soccer, relay racing and badminton are all available to students.
Gwacheon Foreign Language High School
Gwacheon Foreign Language is a private school that focuses on learning new languages. The students have both a formal and informal uniform and the library stays open until midnight for students wanting to study. There are five departments: French, German, Chinese, Japanese and English. The school offers 100 club opportunities including horseback riding and Debate Club.
We were all very impressed with the Korean school day and the amount of study time the students shared. Master Lee shared that after the Korean War, the Koreans worked hard to rebuild their economy. The job market today is so competitive, Korean students must over achieve in order to ensure a good job. On average, most students achieve a graduate degree.
The Mayor of Gwacheon will be in Burlington on Tuesday January 19th.
Card Drawing
No card drawing today.
Upcoming Programs
January 19 – Philip Stewart
January 26 – Charlie Cobb
February 2 – Penn Corbett/Micah Fox
February 9 – Mike Dunning
Closing
At the conclusion of the meeting, we all stood to recite the Rotary Four Way Test, and the meeting was adjourned. Until next week…