Congratulations are in order. On 19 June 2021, Rotary Club Bali Ubud Sunset [RCBUS] announced its new Board of Directors: Hans Schimd will serve as President, Kartika Dewi as Immediate Past President, Brian Goldman as Treasurer, Sue Bishop as Secretary, and Marion Hook as Communications Chair. The meeting was held at The Firefly Garden in Taro where RCBUS members enjoyed their meeting in a beautiful outdoor setting equipped with the necessary technology and were served a delicious traditional Balinese lunch.
We were joined by four Rotaract members, Davi, Gian, Gulah, and Ywan. Rotaract focuses on young people between the ages of 18 and 30, helping them to develop leadership skills to be used professionally, in their communities, and worldwide.
Who are the people of RCBUS’ new Board of Directors? They are a diverse group of people from four different countries on four different continents. What do they have in common? They are all people of action who are grateful to live in Bali and want to give back to the Balinese.
Hans Schmid was born in Munich, Germany, where he also attended Ludwig Maximilian University, graduating with a degree in computer science. Before coming to Bali in 2007, Hans served as CEO of BMW Bank and BMW Financial Services worldwide. He then became a partner in various consulting and software companies in the automotive finance industry. Hans retired in 2018 and with his wife, moved permanently to Seminyak. They have 3 children and 2 grandchildren, all living in various parts of southern Germany. All 5 of them visit Bali as often as possible. Hans also enjoys traveling, riding motorbikes, and mountain climbing here in Bali.
Hans is a liaison between RCBUS and Rotary clubs in Germany, working diligently to form international partnerships. He worked through German clubs to support RCBUS’s Sewing for Living project. Hans is a champion of the Wehea Project which focuses on preserving the rainforests and endangered wildlife of the Wehea Forest Area of Kalimantan. Locally, Hans is actively involved in the Kedampal Water Project and the Klinik Bali Sehat project. He has also traveled to East Bali to help RCBUS members distribute food to those families in need, particularly during the current Covid-19 pandemic.
Tika owns a local convenience store which sells items which her community need on a daily basis. Despite being a merchant and a busy mother of 3 children, Tika is involved in all RCBUS projects. She is the mastermind behind the Sewing for Living project which teaches local Balinese women to use sewing machines and to crochet, enabling them to earn money and independence by working out of their homes. Tika recruited teachers, sewing machines, supplies and students for this amazingly successful project. Whether a project is happening in Kedampal, Taro, Karangasem, Ubud or Keramas, Tika is there and involved.
Sue has been a member of RCBUS for 10 years. She was born in England and moved to Canada when she was a child. As an adult, she had an active career in sales and marketing. Sue and her late husband moved to Australia in the early 1990’s where Sue pursued her career. In 2012, they retired to Keramas, Bali. Between them, they shared four children and six grandchildren on two continents, Australia and North America.
Sue fell in love with the Balinese people, particularly those in the Karangasem Region, and recognized their dire need for better local health resources. She founded and currently chairs Yayasan Bali Sehat http://www.balisehat.org, a nonprofit health initiative, in order to meet that need. Thanks to this effort and financial support from RCBUS, among many others, Bali Sehat currently provides healthcare to villagers, many of whom live on less than $100 usd a year, in the poorest regions of East Bali. After years of Yayasan Bali Sehat providing health care through outpatient clinics in various banjars in Karangasem, 2021 saw the opening of Klinik Pratama Bali Sehat as an outpatient clinic in Culik, Karangasem Regency. It is the only medical facility of its size in the area and will open as both and inpatient and outpatient clinic in January of 2022 Sue has forged strong connections between RCBUS and several Rotary Clubs in Australia..
Marion Hook and her late husband, Jim, retired to Bali in 2019. Marion was born in Connecticut in the US but has also lived in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Arizona. She lived with her family in Jakarta in 1982. Her daughters now live on two different continents, one in Australia, the other in Tennessee in the US.
Marion began her career as a high school English teacher and has taught Shakespeare to teenagers, ESL to little kids and to corporate engineers, communication skills to dislocated steel workers and cooking classes to kids and adults. She has also directed not for profits in Pittsburgh, PA and in Milwaukee, WI. She joined RCBUS in 2019. She, too, is a person of action, enthusiastically helping to raise funds many RCBUS projects including a chopper machine for Rumah Kompos Taro, healthy day clinics for Bali Sehat and supplies for Sewing for Living. Some of those efforts have connected RCBUS with other Rotary clubs as far away as Florida and Arizona, USA. She has compiled information on low or no cost methods of water harvesting, methods that can be taught to agriculturalists in the arid mountain regions of Bali.
RCBUS proudly continues to grow its membership, even during the current chaotic social environment. We are able to do this because we are Rotarians committed to providing and completing projects that have a lasting, positive impact on the local community. In the upcoming Rotarian year which starts on 1 July 2021, RCBUS will focus its efforts on membership growth including our Rotaract Club; cementing international partnerships with Rotary Clubs in Australia, Germany, and the US; and supporting Klink Pratama Bali Sehat, Sewing for Living, the WEHEA Project; and the Rotaracts’ Mobile Library.
If you would like to join this dynamic group of people who love Bali and work to help the people who live here, information to do so can be found at http://rotarybaliubudsunset.org/how-to-become-an-rcbus-member/.
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