Dear Rotaractors all over Europe,

I kindly invite all of you to read this first E.R.I.C. Newsletter of the new Rotaract year.

Full of interesting articles, projects and a lot of information, this Newsletter is once again

a great result of our Marketing officer. I therefore would like to especially thank Jordan Terziyski.

Standing at the beginning of the E.R.I.C. meeting in Amsterdam, I'm already convinced that this

will become a great weekend! We can see that the E.R.I.C. meetings are getting more and more

popular and this progress makes the ERIC board as well as the country representatives very happy.

I sincerely thank all the Rotaractors who are participating in the ERIC meetings. They are the

proof that both the ERIC board and country representatives are working and collaborating in a

good way. Dear friends, enjoy reading this newsletter and don't forget to follow up our new

pan-European Ecological Projects.

Add your color to Rotaract,

President 2010-11

European Rotaract Information Center (E.R.I.C.)

Lerzan Şentürk, MD

What is your board job description? (in summary please)PresidentThe President is the Chief Executive Officer of E.R.I.C. She presides over both the E.R.I.C. Committeeof Representatives and the E.R.I.C. Executive Committee. She represents the E.R.I.C. members withrespect to all other organisations within the Rotary/Rotaract world and actively encouragesparticipation. Working towards the inclusion of the remaining countries within Europe which aren'tcurrently represented. It is the responsibility of the President to appoint members of the ExecutiveCommittee and work closely with them over the year to attain the goals they have set out. A key part

of the role is to provide support and guidance to all Rotaractors in E.R.I.C. working closely with the Execteam and the E.R.I.C. Committee to do this.

what is your goal for this term in the board?Increasing the information sharing within the countries by grouping the ERIC-countries due to thegeographical distances. Building up an online archiving of ERIC by communicating with the past 22

terms' board members. Creating awareness around Europe for Ecologic Rotaract Responsibility withan appropriate marketing campaign. Going on organising the traditional ERIC projects and adding newone's for increasing the INFORMATION SHARING ınbetween the Rotaractors under the umbrella of ERIC.

Lerzan Senturk

Medical Doctor. Working in the Pharmaceutical Industryin the Global Medical Affairs.

What are your hobbies?Rotaract, Cooking, Travelling, Old-timer cars

rotarACTORS!Do meet, enjoy, share, and keep in touch with new friends, this is a way to “add your color to rotaract”!ERIC gives us the opportunity to combine our colors and create new perspectives, ideas and thoughts--> Let's do it!During this year, I'll do my best to allow your 'colors' to get mixed..Any suggestions? Contact me!

Lorenzo Cardelli

BOARD

What is your board job description?ERIC Vice President

What are your hobbies?Tennis, Sailing

What is your goal for this term in the board?My goal for the coming year is to support the rest of the board in achieving the goals set by our futureERIC president and her team. To create minutes of the meetings of good quality. To promote ERIC aroundEurope and beyond. To launch the term Ecologic Rotaract Responsibility. Besides our social responsibilityto the community we should also be aware of our responsibility towards the environment. We shouldfacilitate economic growth and at the same time use natural resources respectfully. Secondly we shouldbe aware about the energy poverty within the world. This is a very unknown kind of poverty, stronglylimiting the chances for development. Therefore my goal is to create awareness around Europe for thisimportant responsibility with the cooperation of the full board.

Jan Helsen

Engineer/PhD Student

What is your board job description?Secretary/Coordinator for ERIC Ecology Projects

What are your hobbies?Sports, Literature

What is your goal for this term in the board?I want ERIC to think about wether we can provide future REMs and EuCos by (longterm constant)budgets or will we have to raise the fe in order to keep up the quality.

Linus Dreier

Architecture Student

What is your board job description?Treasurer

What are your hobbies?Sports, Art

What is your goal for this term in the board?To publish the ERIC newsletter, to provide pins, information brochures and other marketing tools.

Jordan Terziyski

Architect

What is your board job description?Marketing Officer of ERIC

Timi Töltszéki

What is your board job description?Social Officer of ERIC

What is your goal for this term in the board?- Social Awareness Projects- Best European ServiceProject (BESP) Award- Twinning- Social section of the web site – inc. the twinning database and project library in conjunctionwith the IT Committee

What is you job description?Assistant Social Officer

What is your goal for this term in the board?Raise awareness for resources, the issues of waste, energy use and poverty of energy and it'sconsequences on this planet.

Carla Isabel Keller

Advertising Account Executive/Consultant &Marketing Communications Manager

What are your hobbies?Horses, Single Malt Whiskies, Rotaract, Skiing

What is your goal for this term in the board?Keep the communication running, facilitate the exchange of informations.

Anton Gradišek

Physicist, PhD student

What is your board job description?IT officer - responsible for communications, maintainingthe ERIC website and administering the mailing list

What are your hobbies?Guitar, Travelling

Giorgio Gandus

What is your board job description?E.R.I.C. Assistant IT Officer

What is your goal for this term in the board?The Assistant IT Officer is responsible for supporting the IT Officer in theinformation technology administration of E.R.I.C. services. Review the addedvalue of the E.R.I.C. website and its content

EUCO Warsaw 2010

On Wednesday the 28th of April 2010 the Polish capital for several days turned intoa heart ofEuropean Rotaract. Despite the initial concerns over the cloud of volcanic ashes, more than 500rotaractors from over 30 countries arrived to Warsaw to take part in EUCO 2010 (the EuropeanRotaract Convention). It was the largest event in the history of Polish RAC, organized by six Warsawclubs, supported by Rotaract friends from from all over the country.On Tuesday, the Rotary International President's envoy, RI Rotaract Committee Chairman ProfessorDong-Joon Lee arrived in Warsaw. Professor Lee honored us with his presence together with his wifeDiane and it has been their first visit to Warsaw. Professor Lee was actively involved in the whole 5-dayevent, being the inspiration for rotaractors, encouraging openness to new ideas, explaining how theRotary and Rotaract cooperate worldwide. He strongly stressed the essence of the rotaractors'participation in international events, especially in the upcoming Rotaract Pre-Convention Meeting in

Montreal. His presence on EUCO was extremely valuable to us.On Wednesday evening, after the majority of participants registered the hotel Novotel CentrumWarsaw, we officially opened the Convention, in the presence of Professor Lee and Governor of theDistrict 2230, mr . After the flag presentation, the head of the organizing committee,Natalia Pihowicz from Rotaract Club Warsaw Stare Miasto, officially inaugurated the event. Then themicrophone was passed to Richard Berkeley, a Brit living in Warsaw and promoting the city. His speechabout Frederic Chopin as a native Varsovian has been fantastically illustrated by a young Polish pianistMarek Bracha, recently classified as one of seven Poles to the International Chopin Competition. Afterthe Opening Ceremony Rotaractors got a chance to visit Warsaw's pubs.On Thursday, participants had a full day to explore Warsaw on their own. The evening released in allof us extraordinary energy at a rotaract-exclusive party at the Sketch club. Everyone was supposed todress in a way that emphasized their country of origin.

Tadeusz Płuziński

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Some have chosen the ethnic costumes, some have dressed in the colors of their nationalflags, still others came in T-shirts specially designed for the EUCO. And in this atmosphere ofcultural diversity we felt a great unity, having fun together and dancing till the early morning.Participants, however, were not able to have a good sleep, because immediately after the breakfast,the E.R.I.C conference began and lasted until the evening. Here, after the opening by President ofERIC, Claire Tennant, we had an opportunity to listen to a very interesting presentation by ProfessorLee, as well as to one by Dr. Johan Maertens, president of the Rotary Club Maldegem who came tous all the way from Belgium. Dr. Maertens presented the case of drugs addiction among the youthas a problem where the Rotary and Rotaract can get involved and try to minimize the consequences.The E.R.I.C. Conference was also a moment of public presentation of the achievements of the RAC ineach country and announcement of the winners of the contest for the best European project (BestEuropean Service Project – a children support project of the Italian District 2030) and the best partnerclubs (Rotaract Sofia-Balkan with Rotaract Belgrad Metropolitan). The Board of E.R.I.C. for the nextyear was also elected during Friday's conference. Lerzan Senturk from Turkey will be the E.R.I.C.President for the year 2010/2011. Furthermore E.R.I.C. provided many other interestingpresentations, which enriched the conference program and were an opportunity to exchangeexperiences and inspiration for the future.

Friday night began with a tram party – the participants had a tram-tour of Warsaw in the rhythmof music. Even the limited amount of space did not prevent them from dancing. Everyone met laterin Warsaw clubs and discos.

Saturday was the day of extra tours. Our guests had the opportunity to visit Warsaw from the bottomto the top. The tours showed both the historical part of town - including ghetto areas, and Old Pragadistrict – and the modern parts of Warsaw such as the construction site of the National Stadium.Those who chose to relax could watch Warsaw while sitting in a hot tub at the 43 floor of theInterContinental Hotel or dine in an exotic for most milk bar.

And finally came time for gala - the last point of EUCO 2010 agenda - dinner, dancing and the possibilitysocialize with everyone. The official part comprised of endless acknowledgements and thanks. Members

of the organizing committee, composed of Magda Lachowska (RAC Warsaw Victory), Ewa Jankowska(RAC Warsaw Zamek) and Darek Krzysztoporski (RAC Warsaw

under the strong leadership of Natalia Pihowicz (RAC Warsaw Stare Miasto)were awardedthe special commemorative medals from the E.R.I.C. In addition, the Board of the European RotaractInformation Centre has agreed to donate € 500 towards the gala charity. All the money collected duringthe gala raffle was donated to a girl with a rare and extremely difficult to treat type of cancer – AniaHermanowicz. We managed to collect over 10 000 PLN (2500 Euro).

EUCO was a magical adventure for us. Not similar to any other project, it gave us an opportunity tolearn more than we thought we would. And we had a lot of fun too! It is a great honor that we couldhost such an event in Warsaw. Next EUCO will be held in Dortmund. And for now we have memories,photos, and positive energy. It was amazing to see that we have so many committed, dedicated andhelpful people in the Polish Rotaract and Rotary environment. Thank you all for being there.

rd

(RAC Warsaw Wilanów), Mikołaj DragovićŚródmieście),

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Bosnia and Herzegovina finally

has its own ERIC Country

Representative!

After more than a ten years of Rotaract in Bosnia and Herzegovina, we finallyhave our own ERIC Representative. In the past years, mostly because of the factthat citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina still need visas for most of the Europeancountries (this should hopefully change this autumn), we gave our vote to ourfriends and neighbours from Croatia who successfully represented us in ERIC.

From this year we decided to more actively take part in work of ERIC. This is primarly because we feelmore confident about ourselves - we are growing rotaract community: from this spring, beside 3 existingclubs, we again have a club in Sarajevo that is reunited and working again. We don't want to stop at thisand chartering more Rotaract clubs will be one of the highest priorites for this Rotarian year in Bosniaand Herzegovina.

We are also eager to get to know better our European friends in Rotaract and already looking forwardto see you at the REMs in Amsterdam and also in Belgrade where lot of us will be attending.

On the other hand we also would like to host you here in Bosnia. Rotaract club Banja Luka just finisheda successful project called Rotaract Rafting Weekend 2010, and their plans are to make it traditional, soyou will all be invited.

We are very glad and honored to be part of the great family called Rotaract and we are looking forwardto another Rotarian year that is going to be nothing but success, just like all previous ones.

Nemanja KovacevicERIC Country Representative BiH 2010/11

Dreaming to be a Human

We are Erenkoy Rotaract Club, a club of District2420. We try to help children and people to havebetter conditions for their lives. According to ouraim, last year we chose an elementary school forwhom we can support the needs of childrencontinuously. This school has 79 students andtheir economical statue is very low. School is in asuburb location. The conditions of the school arevery inadequate, there are only two classroomsin the building, the 1st and 2nd degree students

share one, and the rest of them share the other classroom. The school hasn't got a heating system, theyuse a heating stove for heating which is very harmful and dangerous for the children. They don't havecleaning materials. The factories near school donate some chemicals, and the employees of the schoolproduce cleaning material by these materials. And also this fact is very dangerous and harmful for thehealth of the children. The students don't have any books or notebooks, there is no library, no lesson

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equipment, and also no need to say but, they have never seen a computer in their lives. They don't havea toilet in the building, there is a shack in the garden as a student toilet. There are only two teachers inthe school. The children don't have a boot, most of them wear a slipper in winter.

There is a risk for children such as these students, as giving up education. We expect to prevent this riskfor these 79 students. If they have enough conditions to learn something, they will love school and learning,and won't have harmful addictions. We need educated people in this world, and we don't have any luxury

to lose any of these children.According to these conditions the aim of the project is, providing the right circumstances for these childrento have their education, and also for living as a human.We regularly visit the school and see what they need more and if they began to love education. We talkwith children about their future plans and dreams in order to see if they a goal in their lives, and makethem learn how to make the right decisions about their lives, and make them children which have dreamsabout their lives, and also for the world.We gave boots and clothes to the children as presents. At the same day two dentists from our clubmembers, taught children how to brush their teeth. At our next visit to the school we brought notebooks,books and writing materials and cleaning materials for the school. During this period we arranged a firm tochange the preschool class. The firm did wallpapers to the walls of the class and carpets for the ground.The class seems perfect with the new look. After all these donations, the smiles on their faces let us knowthat we are on the right way and we still continue to help this school by providing writing materials forchildren and cleaning materials for the school.

Berk TanelDistrict 2420.President of Rotaract Club of Erenkoy

GIFT. ACT

On January, 15th 2010 Rotaract Club of Olsztyn and Rotaract Club of Warszawa Zamek launched theirfirst joint innovative project called GIFT.ACT. It was soon to be voted the best service project in District 2230(Belarus, Poland, Ukraine) in year 2009/2010.Rotaractors from Olsztyn and Warsaw asked Rotary Clubs, Rotaract Clubs and friends all over the world tosend one item which was characteristic and unique for the region or country they were from.The responsewas amazing! We were receiving gifts from everywhere – from countries ranging from Nepal to Canada andfrom Sweden to Brazil! Thanks to worldwideinvolvement and proactive cooperation of Rotary and Rotaractcommunity over 30 fantastic and unique gifts were sent to Poland.All of the received presents were assigned for the auction and lottery which took place on the 24 ofApril2010 in Warsaw. The prize draw was followed by short presentations,carried out by invited guest speakers,about countries the donated gifts were from. The event was a blast! The guests were absolutely fascinatedwith all the items they had possibility to purchase and thanks to their generosity 1.000 Euros was raised.This amount of money enables Rotaract Club of Olsztyn and Rotarat Club of Warszawa Zamek to offer yearlyscholarships for two gifted and talented kids which are going to be awarded on October 15th, 2010.GIFT.ACT was a project created with the aim of helping talented, gifted and promising children from

challenging backgrounds to explore their abilities, talents and potential development. It gives support to

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thedevelopment of children's outstanding capacities; children that have little means for additional education.

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But the purpose of GIFT.ACT was also to promote proactive cooperation and participation amongRotaract Clubs and our friends from all over the world as well as foster cooperation between clubs ofthe same district but different cities. Bridging cities, countries and continents at its full!

Marta PierzkałaVice President, Rotaract Club Olsztyn, Poland

Love Bridge

Improvements for Laka Village

The project “Love Bridge” is a cultural project which aims to improve the knowledge of Pomak Turksliving in Bulgaria on both Turkish and Turkey, and also give them the opportunity to meet with peoplewho share the same roots with them and had immigrated from Bulgaria more than hundred years agoand settled in Turkey. This project brought us “The Best International Service Project Award” in 2009-2010 term in District 2440.

Being one of the distant villages of Izmir, Laka village is one of the villages which need help forimproving its living standards. As we have discovered the shortage in this village, we decided to takeaction. We have made all necessary agreements and provided a dental scan for everyone in the village.In our national holiday April 23th, we took the children of the village for sightseeing and introducedthem another world that they haven't been able to see before. To keep the people notified about theworld, we have established a computer laboratory in village school and provided certificated courseson how to use computer. Without any sponsors, we believe we have made a difference in the lives ofLaka village people.

D2440 Rotaract club EFES

ROTAGURME

Almost everyone likes to gather around a table with friends eating great food and having drinks.This year, Nilufer Rotaract Club will do this with a cause, with a project on mind: ROTAGURME.For the 2010-2011 term we are aiming to visit nearly 20 restaurants in our lovely city, Bursa. We will getto know all the different cuisines, restaurants in town and do reviews of them. Starting on the 15th ofSeptember we will visit our first restaurant and also launch our blog for this project. By keeping this blog

we will be helping people who will search the internet for restaurants they can go to in Bursa. When theywill search the net our blog and reviews will come up and they will find all the information they need in

our blog.In this blog there will also be a section which will tell more about who we are as a club and what we aredoing as Rotaractors.By doing this site we will kill two birds with one stone with this project. We will be able to do our ownpresentation in a useful way that benefits both the local people and the visitors in town and also benefitour Club and the Rotaract publicity.

Coruh CUBUKCUNilufer Rotaract Club, Bursa, Turkey, D.2440President 2010-2011coruh@tikirmakina.com