What is Group Study Exchange?

Club member Bob Morrow who is our resident expert on Group Study Exchange (GSE) gave an interesting presentation, taking into consideration the Rotary Foundation view of the program as well as his personal experiences as the team leader that went to Bulgaria in 2008. As is his usual style he got us hooked by using humour. He started of with some funny lines used by UPS service technicians as they respond to the pilots who want them to fix or repair planes. He had us laughing and listening before he even mentioned GSE.

He reminded us that GSE is a Rotary Fundation program that pairs districts throughout the world and has a team leader who is a Rotarian along with 4 - 6 professionals, 25 - 40 years old, who are not Rotarians or linked by blood to Rotarians visit each other for four weeks. These visits are both cultural and vocational although in the future they will be even more vocational in nature.

The Rotary Foundation pays for the travel costs of the team and lets the district decide on the team composition. Team members must be flexible, tolerant and open minded and be able to get a leave from their jobs for the month. There are pre-training sessions to prepare the team for the cultural and language differences they will experience.

He closed his presentation with the video the 2010 team prepared for its exchange to South Korea and asked our members to look for possible team members and to consider being the team leader for the 2011-12 exchange to Brazil. The Dundas Valley Sunrise club is asking the District 7090 GSE Committee if it can host the Brazilian team for several days in October/November.