An Evening with our friends from the
Rotary Club of Milano Aquileia
It was the twinning ceremony of the two
clubs, the Rotary club of Milano Aquileia, D2040 and our club, the
Rotary Club of New York, D7230, which inspired several of our members to
attend the dinner on March 19, 2004 at the Grand Hotel Duomo, Milan.
Present were 150 Rotarians from Milan and
from our club the following members were in attendance: President Greg
Lynch, Immediate Past President Silvio Amori with wife Margaretha, PDG
Paul Caruso with wife Gail, Board Director Giorgio Balestrieri, Roberto
and Massimiliano Mattei, Scarlett Pildes and Executive Director Andreas
Runggatscher with wife Monica.
This was an evening that ratified last
year’s idea of Milan Rotarian Gabriele Colombo and PP Silvio Amori of
establishing an official pact of friendship between our two clubs and to
have an international relationship promoting both our causes and to
reciprocate on various levels of “Service Above Self”.
Friendship is great but to furthermore have
a joint international project of significant importance is even better
and with the support of our New York Rotary Foundation of a second grant
of $5,000 for the fight against Buruli disease, we celebrated the true
spirit of Rotary in a wonderful setting.
In addition we presented our sister club
with a silver plate commemorating this historic moment and in return
received a wonderful book describing the history and the arts of the
great city of Milan.
President Greg who had taken Italian lessons
for some time now gave his impressive speech in Italian and received a
standing ovation. He pointed out that the true spirit of Rotary finds
itself in moments like this and that we truly are looking forward in a
rewarding future together as a real Rotarian force.
It was the meeting of members of both clubs
who have followed up on the opportunity of becoming protagonists in an
initiative which exceeds every border, projects that can be successfully
undertaken with a great intensity, with a free spirit, great ideals.
“Persone per cui il fare e il fare bene e la
vera ricchezza: fare da Rotariano” (quote, Graziano Della Rossa,
President Rotary Club of Milano Aquileia), translating into: “People for
whom doing and doing good is true wealth, following the Rotarian
spirit.”
Our friends from Milan will be in New York
on occasion of Italy Day, June 1st.
Andreas Runggatscher
Executive Director