When a Past President travels with a Past President [Frank Reinhardt]
My relationship to Italy have always been quite strong, therefore the decision to participate together with my wife Lucia did not take much time. Monika, Engelbert´s lovely and thoughtfully “secretary” proved to be the best choice as a chauffeur for this 800+ km trip by car.
The known generous hospitality of our Italian friends was surpassed once more by the culinary seductions, which we more than appreciated during these three days of stay. Unfortunately the weight balance on Sunday showed the real dimension of an Italian AGM. We had eaten too much!
To meet again Tablers from various international Clubs and of course from Club 41 Italy, was once again a great pleasure and lead us forget the long car journey.
Already the first evening with fizzy white and red wine, Parma ham, Salami and Tortellini was an insidious attack to every BMI and this was only the inception.
The Italy Club 41 inaugural ceremony is always special, but in Parma it had a special charm. Very classic the chains of Club 41 and Ladies Circle have been handed over on the stage at the honorable theater, Rergio di Parma. The new president Claudio began his turn with an especially studied solo song on the stage.
Some observations: What about the relationship between Club 41 and Round Table from my point of view?
After having talked to a few members of Club 41, I learned that Club 41 Italy would like to improve the contact and concrete working relationship to Round Table Italy, but the will to work together and achieve more has not been found yet. RT Italy has a huge loss of memberships and at many cities they are forced to close tables. So a new active approach has to be worked out and put in operation to attract candidate sto join RT Italy.
A solution have to be found how to work together. The risk is that RT Italy will diminish and club 41 will onboard more and more Non-Ex-Tablers with the risk to lose the Round Table spirit.
On the other side the AGM proved the outstanding relationship to Ladies Circle and Agora.
Two of our international well known German Tablers have been elected during the assembly to receive the highest award of Club 41 Italy. Engelbert Friedsam and Bob Parton are now Honorary Members of Club 41 Italy. The officially handover will take place during the 41 international HYM 2017 in Rimini.
Many thanks to all our Italian friends for a wonderful AGM.
Special thanks to the AGM convenor, Francesco Bassi and the Past president Club 41 Italy, Alberto Ivo Dormio for the perfect organization.
We will come back :-)!
Yours in Table
Frank Reinhardt
OTD Pastpräsident 2014/15
