Bulletin Issue 571 Volume 13  - No. 12  14th December 2018

(if you have any comments or questions, please contact Denis 
 
  Rotary Theme for November: Rotary Foundation
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Meeting Information

 ALL YEAR Dinner Out 1st Tuesday of each month 7pm at a restaurant

Meetings Friday 12.00 noon - 2pm @ Millennium Hotel in Jungceylon
Rat-U-Thit Road Patong Beach
November – April 2nd 3rd & 4th Friday - May – October 2nd & 4th Friday only
Dress code - Smart-Casual
(long pants and shirts with collars for men, women: smart-casual)
 
 
                                                        
Click for map
 
 
Visitors Welcome
registration mandatory
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
Dear Rotarians and Friends of Rotary,
 
 
 
 It's halfway through my year as President.  It has been a busy time. 
 
  •  PP Larry completed his Swim Safely programme
  • We participated in a dental mission at the BanYa school
  •  Dr Johan and PP Walter helped arrange for one of those kids have surgery so she can now talk properly. 
  • Our club participated in the donation of dishes with the other Phuket clubs during the vegetarian festival. 
  • We donated 34,000THB for dishes at one of the schools in Patong so the kids have something          to eat from. 
  • A group of 8 members visited Kho Samui to help with the installation of a new club, which also became a sister club. 
  • We also participated in the Living in Phuket event which introduced Rotary to the Expat community.
  • Karen participated in meetings with the Presidents of the rest of the Rotary Clubs in Phuket. 
     
      Sadly, in addition to this, our dear PP Larry Amsden passed away.  
 
 We have a lot more to do. The community assessment needs to be undertaken. 
 Our charity fund seriously needs funding. We need to convert those people who have shown good interest    in becoming members.  Fortunately, we have time. 
 We also have many members, who hopefully will be able to help us achieve our 2019 goals.
 
I wish all of our members and their families
Happy Hannukah, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 
May 2019 be a year of Joy for all! 
  YIR, Karen
 
 Karen Eidsvik Moody
 President, Rotary Club of Patong Beach
 2018-2019

 

 
Events:  December  
         
 All meetings @ - Millennium Hotel 
       
  •        14th - Friday  -  Annual General Meeting & Election of Officers. 
  •        15th - Saturday - Christmas Party @ the Holiday Inn 
  
Friday  14th December 2018 
 
 
 
The Annual General Meeting & Election of Officers for the       2019-2020 Rotary Year
 

 

 It's Holiday time join us for a family Christmas dinner with carollers, great food and friends. 

 This year it will be a more intimate dinner focusing on our immediate Rotary Family. 

A full buffet menu with everything from lobster to Roast Sirloin and all in between.  A half a bottle of red and white liquid grapes per adult and free flow beer and soft drinks :-) 

We will also have a Secret Santa! 

Bring a wrapped gift under 300THB per person -- it will go under the tree and we'll have a sorting match -- should be fun! 

            Looking forward to seeing you!

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                            No Birthdays until February  
 
 
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Wishing You All the Very Best for Christmas - stay safe
& Have a Super 2019 
Denis & Nid  
 
This is the last Bulletin for the year 2018   
 
 
Friday 30th November     
   
 
 Lunch was a very nice Thai meal shared among the 8 members present.  The deep fried catfish salad was a   bit spicy though. 
 
 
 Dr Larry raised his disagreement with the dress code, once again, and it was explained that the whole club   voted on this issue (it wasn't only Karen's decision) and shorts were not voted in.  But to placate Dr Larry   another vote will be held at the AGM on the 14th of December. 
 
 Dr. Larry also requested a special Leave of Absence for his time in Canada as he didn't want to attend   meetings in his hometown.  That question will be put to the board again.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Your eyes have it Gary 
 
 
Upcoming events are: 
 
  • The AGM on the 14th of December.  This meeting is open only to members.                                        Please mark your calendar! 
  • The Christmas Dinner is on the 15th of December.  It is an intimate affair with only members and family.  If we don't fill the 30 person minimum it will be open to friends as well.                                  A notice will go out to let people know if / when they can invite their friends.                                        There will be a secret Santa gift exchange.                                                                                         Please bring one gift per person attending.  It should be in the range of 300 THB each.               Please register as soon as possible so we can confirm the numbers.
 
 Dr Johan noted that he met with Mar Aye and said she is speaking normally now.                                         Soon we'll have a video recording her new speech. 
He also is holding a Christmas party for the kids at BanYa Literacy Centre, the date to be confirmed, and is looking for volunteers to help both financially (it costs about 27,000THB) and with their time.                   Pascal donated 2000 THB towards the party.
 
After these, the next meeting will be dinner out on the 8th of January, venue to be determined.
 
 PP Arnaud paid up his EREY towards Polio -- Karen has the 3,500 THB.
 
 There was a discussion regarding dinners out and charity.  It was agreed to generally keep dinners out at   500THB but if the venue is something very special increasing it a little is OK.  But, going forward if a dinner   is  500THB, the invitation will request 600THB, 500THB to pay for dinner and 100THB to go to the charity   account.  Particularly at dinners out we have an opportunity to raise charity funds, as many clubs do at   these events, and this is a way of doing so.
 
It was also suggested that a "calling tree" be set up as a means of calling all Rotarians to improve attendance.  Karen will work on aligning people up and this will be discussed at the AGM.
 
 Karen told her story.  Roy recorded it and will share it with Denis for the bulletin.
Regret it is not possible to include the recording in Clubrunner - ed Denis 
 
 
 
 
 
Karen Eidsvik Who Am I
 
 
 
  • I was born in Ottawa, Canada in 1965, the third of three kids
  • My parents were born in British Columbia, Dad is first generation Norwegian and Mom’s family came to Canada over 200 years ago.  As a result, every two years, we’d drive 4000 km to visit grandparents and cousins.  We drove in a big station wagon and I slept on the luggage most of the time when we weren’t fighting over the front seat.  I can’t imagine that drive today with seat belts confining us those three straight days.
  • We spent our other summers camping, the real stuff with canoes, and tents.  Our winters were spent on skis or skating on the Rideau canal.  Gardening and sewing, since Mom made all our clothes, she was frugal but at least she knew how to sew.  This way she saved so we could have annual tickets to the symphony, which I liked because I was allowed a ginger ale during intermission.
  • I grew up in a nice quiet neighbourhood with road hockey, someone who took care of the neighbourhood skating rink, and a lady who rang the dinner bell for all the kids at 5 pm in summer and winter.  We were the only kids who went to the French school and always got a lot of grief for that.    But as a result, we are all fluent.  I took piano and ballet, was a brownie and eventually a girl guide.
  • We are Catholic but not fanatic, our church was modern, I was an altar girl.
  • Then we moved to Switzerland when I was 12 and everything changed.  We went to a brilliant, small, international school with dozens of nationalities, very cool curriculums and overall started to enjoy school, except for German where I spent a fair amount of time in detention.
  • We travelled Europe from St Moritz to Andenes.  As I’ve said, Mom was frugal, and to ensure we could travel extensively we always had a picnic basket full of food for lunch or dinner.  We camped until Mom found out that some of the Auberges were cheaper than camp-grounds. We used the Michelin guide extensively. But we got to see a lot of the continent.
  • At our dinner table, we met leaders of their fields in international conservation.  The top marine biologists, other biologists, alpine specialists and learned about the world first hand.                      They opened the world to us.
  • After 3 wonderful years, we moved back to Ottawa. It is a great town, but a let down after Geneva.     At school, I was way ahead of my peers and that first year back I was spread across 4 grades: Grade 9 Canadian History, Grade 10 Canadian Geography, Grade 11 Math, English and Biology and grade 13 Biology.  It was complicated and made it difficult to make friends.  So I joined the yearbook, the science team, the cross country, track and field, and water polo teams.  I was best at water polo but did the other sports to get days off school.  I also took ballet and had a part-time job at a grocery store.
  • I wanted to get into sciences and wanted to be an engineer, but my grades didn’t and I got into Carleton U in Ottawa in Sciences.  It was close to home so that was good enough.
  • I failed 1st year miserably, though I had a lot of fun, and decided it was time to go back to Europe.  I got into Lyon in Science.  My parents were surprised but I’d already had everything arranged.  I was 18.
  • While there I learned that I couldn’t transfer my credits so I moved back to Carleton in January.  I was pregnant by May.
  • That was stupid.  I was 20.  Abortion wasn’t something I wanted to do but I also knew I couldn’t keep the baby.  I spoke to my sister, a lawyer in Edmonton Alberta and she arranged for me to get into the University of Alberta.  Then, I told my parents.  They offered to raise the baby, as did my brother and sister, but I knew there were other families that needed it more than we did.  I have a very supportive family.
  • In Edmonton, I studied Economics and Statistics and got my best grades ever.
  • When Sarah was born I gave her to the parents I’d chosen through a private adoption my sister had arranged.  I asked that they raise her with faith, I didn’t care whether it was Jewish or Catholic as her parents were both.  I also gave them letters I had written to give to her if / when they thought right.  In the years later I only knew whether or not she was alive, and had no contact.
  • I moved back to Carleton a week later and eventually graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce Honours.  While there I joined an international exchange organization, AIESEC and earned an internship in Japan.  I left Canada before I got my diploma.  Much to my Mom’s discontent, she very much enjoyed my company and my Zabaglionies for dessert for her dinner parties.
  • After 6 months there I realized Japan wasn’t going to work out and I moved to Bangkok where a friend arranged a job with a marketing research company.  They asked me to find a local partner for a Dutch consulting company.  I became their managing director.  I was 25 and advising companies on local market entry strategies.  I was also a charter member of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce Thailand.  I met David, an American.
  • He was in Oil and Gas and was transferred to Singapore.  We married,  I took up Fashion design and had Elaine a year later and then were transferred to Calgary.
  • In Calgary, I considered getting my professional accountant’s accreditation and started working in a small accounting firm part-time.  I joined the local Chamber of Commerce.  We had Andrew in 1994 and I also started a company designing, sewing and selling clothes for breastfeeding professional women with a Dutch friend.
  • At a Chamber event, I met who eventually became my partners.  They were Subway franchisees in Alberta and wanted to know how Subway would do in Singapore.  I didn’t know anything about Subway but knew Singapore needed sandwich shops.  So I started applying for the rights to set up the first store and got them after an interview with Subway’s founder, Fred Deluca.
  • We moved back to Sing and I started finding a location, vendors, food supply etc.  We opened the 1st store in December 1986.  It was delayed a little due to the 1st shipment of frozen dough being left on the runway in 30-degree heat.  It was a mess and took 6 more weeks.
  • The store ran 24hrs with me behind the counter sometimes for 24hrs if the night shift didn’t show up.  But it struggled, the rent was too high.  I struggled with my partners who couldn’t understand why it was so hard to get reasonably priced cheese, salami and bread dough – in Asia.  Surely I wasn’t doing my job well.  Louise was a scheduled caesarian for 6th April 1998.  One of my partners arrives on April 1st to close the store.  That was tough.
  • We struggled.  David couldn’t get much work with oil at 12$ a barrel.  The Asian crisis was in full force and it was difficult to sell franchises.  Franchising was new to Asia and not respected, Subway had 30 stores in the region. 
  • Then, Subway HQ asked me to help support and grow S.E. Asia and we relocated the store to a profitable location and the cash flow improved. 
  • I was also a member of the Canadian chamber of commerce, and on weekends played rugby and dragon boated.
  • Eventually, my partners and I had a complete fallout.  We had 20 stores and 10 franchisees in Singapore by this time but they thought they could do better.  I lost the rights to Sing and sold the store.
  • Subway HQ at the time was restructuring and offered me the position of Regional Director, Asia.  I accepted and set up the office.  There were 300 stores in Asia at the time.
  • In January 2015 my sister called.  She said Sarah had been given my letters on her 18th birthday and wanted to meet me.  Oh Joy.  All those years of tears on her birthday.  We met in Toronto that summer and it was like we’d never been parted.  The whole family was elated and welcomed her with open arms.
  • I met Gary at a conference in 2007 and my life changed again.  We married in 2012.  We had a great party!  Guests from around the world.  It was in Bintan, Indonesia, and I arranged guests to smuggle over 120ltrs of alcohol duty-free – better looking at it than for it!  Afterwards, I had to figure out how to smuggle 30 ltrs back to Singapore. 
  • Subway was going well.  We had over 1000 stores in Asia.  I was on the board of the Canadian Chamber, and was elected the first foreigner and first woman chair of the Franchise Association of Singapore.
  • My brother moved to Singapore with his kids.  It was weird for both of us to have family living in the same town, do you see each other every week, every month?  We settled to birthdays, holidays and occasional bbq’s, but it was lovely to watch my niece and nephew grow up, and Bruce’s youngest, Terje, be born.
  • In Sept 2015, Fred Deluca died.  My Mom died in October.  I was asked to leave Subway in March 2016 after 20 years.  Asia had over 2000 stores by then, but the new management thought they could manage better from Connecticut.  Funnily enough, since Missy, who was my Marketing Director, and I left, the Asian staff has more than doubled while store growth has remained flat.
  • Gary and I had often talked of the next chapter of our lives and perhaps owning a hotel, so we did.  I joined Rotary quite soon after moving to Phuket.  Gary was supposed to commute, but that didn’t work out.  I popped the champagne when he moved to Phuket.
  • Then Andrew died.  He was a chef.  He’d finally found what had loved and was very happy.  One evening after work he had some cocaine.  It was laced with fentanyl, the drug that is a hundred times more potent than heroin, and it killed him, along with 900 other Canadians that year.  It was/ is difficult.
  • But here we are, building new lives again.  Last year we bought an apartment in Kamala.  Rotary has been a pillar through which we both have grown great new friendships.
  • Elaine is happily working in her field in Vancouver, one credit away from graduating from UBC.  Louse is studying (I hope) and working in Victoria.  And Sarah is a lawyer in Washington DC and husband Ross in caring for Yona Shai, our 3-year-old grandson.
  • So you can see I’m an eternal optimist.  Even in my toughest years, through faith, support of my family, and of course Gary’s love, life is always good regardless of what’s going on.                                          You just have to give thanks for it. 
Thank you, President Karen, a superb presentation   Ed Denis 
 
 Living in Phuket
 
 This is the 3rd year the Bangkok Hospital has hosted the Living in Phuket event.  It is an opportunity for   businesses and charities to introduce themselves to Expats.  Karen, Gary, Dr. Johan and Khun Da manned   the booth and introduced Rotary to several people.  It was a good event.  Hopefully, a couple of new   members will be the result of this effort.  Unfortunately due to technical difficulties, unless Dr. Johan has   photos, only one of mine is available.
 
Meeting Report:  Gary Eidsvik-Moody  Photos: Visiting Rotarian Pascal de Corte 
Thank you - Ed Denis 
 
 
 
 
    
   Tuesday 4th December  2018     
 
 
 
 
  Dinner Out at Taste, Kamala with 25 pax. 
 
Great Night with some of the best dishes enjoyed this year.
Everybody was extremely impressed & Happy!  
 
PP Richard Jones 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Thank you PP Richard - ed Denis  
 
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P.P. Richard with his wife Radoslava, K.Jane from Lillo Island Kamala,          joined by K.Apple & K.Aum at the
Annual Christmas Ball
at the British Club of Bangkok, Saturday, December 1st, 2018.
A Fantastic Night was had by all!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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