Julie Craig - Rotary Friendship Exchange
Julie started to hear about the Rotary Friendship Exchange during her year coming up to year as District Governor. She got in contact with a Rotarian from India and she decided to do a Friendship Exchange with their district in India. In Pondicherry, there are approximately 200,000 visitors each weekend. Pondicherry is very different from the rest of India. There was a fair share of Rotary meetings. There are 15 Rotary clubs in Pondicherry so there was 7 clubs at one meeting. There were quite a bit of banner exchanges. All of their meetings are evening meetings. They start whenever everyone got there and called it “India Time”. Most of the time people in India will eat food with their hands as it is a much better dining experience as there is all kinds of different pressure points in your hand. Julie shared with our club all of the experiences that she had in India. The Rotarians were very family orientated and very involved within their clubs. Believe it or not the trip cost her a little under $1,000 due to very generous Rotarians in India! There are projects that Julie is identifying in each city and raising money for. Julie is the friendship exchange chair next year and will be coordinating another Friendship exchange and is looking for people who are wiling to host inbound Rotarians. She will also be coordinating an outgoing exchange to Nigeria!
.
