Rotary District Congress is being held on June 15th - June 17th 2018 at the Westin Draganora Resort.
Please download details of the event and booking arrangements. DOWNLOAD
Below is a letter from John de Giorgio, the District Governor and a member of Rotary Club Malta regarding the District Congress being held in Malta 15-17 June 2018
Dear Rotarians
Rotary District Conference – Malta 15-17 June 2018
As you all know, our Rotary Clubs in Malta have the opportunity of selecting a District Governor from among the Rotarians in our Clubs once every eleven years and I have had the privilege of representing you in that role and, indirectly, being an ambassador for Malta in Sicily.
Towards the end of each Rotary year on the 30thJune, each District holds its end of year Congress and I have chosen to hold the District Congress in Malta between Friday the 15thand Sunday 17thJune at the Westin Dragonara Resort where we shall all have the opportunity to be ambassadors for Malta and to host our Sicilian guests. This is particularly fitting in the 50thanniversary year of Rotary in Malta.
The District Congress is an event which Sicilian Rotarians look forward to with great expectations mainly because of the history of very successful Congresses organised in Malta in the years in which Tony Coleiro and Alfred Mangion were Governors of District 2110, Sicily and Malta. Despite these having been held in 1997 and 2007 respectively, I can assure you that during the visits that Monique and I made to the 90 Clubs in Sicily these Congresses were invariably mentioned in an extremely positive light. We have a lot to live up to this year: so no pressure!
Of course, the Rotary International President cannot attend all the 538 Congresses held worldwide and therefore appoints various people, usually Past District Governors, to be the RI President’s Representative at each Congress. In our case, the RI President’s Representative at OUR Congress, and yes I do think of it as OUR Congress, will be Past President Ravi Ravindran (2014-15).
Past President Ravindran is one of the most well-regarded Presidents of Rotary in our time. He is a successful businessman from Sri Lanka, known as being pragmatic and effective and we are honoured to have him at our Congress. I was reminded of this point this very weekend by the current President Ian Riseley, with whom we spent the last few days at the Rotary Peace Conference on the theme of Maternal and Infant Health with a focus on migration, as well as by many other people at the conference.
As you will see from the attached programme, the event starts with the Annual General Meeting at the Westin Conference Centre on Friday 15thin the afternoon followed by a welcome buffet dinner at the Westin Reef Club that evening. This is a smart casual event. The main conference is held on the Saturday at the Westin and then culminates with a concert at the Mediterranean Conference Centre starring the very capable Maltese tenor, Cliff Zammit Stevens, and a dinner in the Sacra Infermeria downstairs.
On Sunday morning we shall be wrapping up the Congress with a summary and awards ceremony. This is followed by a lunch at the Westin. Flights to Sicily are late on Sunday evening and we shall be organising tours to Valletta, including St John’s on Sunday afternoon which will be open just for us.
I must thank the Congress organising committee of local Rotarians, led by Ian De Cesare, for their hard work to ensure the success of the event.
As you can imagine I am very keen for there to be a high participation in all events from Rotarians from our Maltese Clubs and we have organised the event also to facilitate such participation.
We have broken up the booking capabilities, and associated prices, to allow individual events to be booked. We opened bookings for the Sicilians early due to their requirement to book flights and hotels. We already have more than 400 Sicilians booked and we are looking forward to the Rotarians from the Malta Clubs joining for this important event.
While the official language of District proceedings is Italian, so as to ensure ease of participation by Rotarians from our Clubs we shall be providing simultaneous translation facilities during the conference of Saturday and Sunday morning from Italian into and from English.
The translation services are a significant cost that will be borne by District however it is important for us to understand how many people will be needing translation from Italian to English to allow us to plan costs and technology. I would appreciate it if you could indicate this information on the attached booking form.
It has been a great privilege and pleasure to represent you this year and I have to say that the welcome and hospitality given to Monique and I throughout the Sicilian Clubs has been beyond belief, in good measure specifically because we are Maltese. They have a very high opinion of us.
I hope that, together, we can reciprocate this welcome and have a level of participation from our Rotarians that does justice to this important event in this 50thanniversary year of Rotary in Malta. A number of you have not attended Club events recently. May I urge you, at least, to attend the District Congress to enjoy the internationality of this event.
We look forward to seeing you at the Congress and are counting on your loyalty and support.
Best wishes in Rotary
John de Giorgio
District Governor 2017-2018
District 2110, Sicily & Malta