The April 19^th meeting of the Westwood Village Rotary Club was also the first day of  the District Conference for District 5280.  Vice President TERRY M WHITE ran the meeting for President Ed who was in San Diego.

Our Greeters were  PP Bob Wessling and Curt Smith

Pledge: PP Sean McMillan

Invocation: Tom Barron

Head Table: Aly Shoji, Terry M.White , Leah Vriesman, and PP Mike Newman

Guests:  Sunny Friedman, helpers of Lenny and Peggy Bloomfield, Insa Janssen (Ambassadorial Scholar from Germany who spoke last week), and Dr. Neha Seth.  Neha is a dentist from India, who is a former youth exchange student who visited Minnesota several years ago and is now taking advanced studies in Endodontics at the UCLA School of Dentistry; she was the special guest of Colby Smith.  Neha a! lso gave a brief presentation to the meeting and exchanged banners fro m her sponsor club, Amravati Midtown (India, District 3030) where her physician father is a member. She gave us a letter of introduction from the President of the Amravati Midtown Club.

Announcements:

 ·         April 26th and May 17th meeting locations at Skylight Gardens.

Program:  Leah Vriesman, about her selection as a Fulbright Scholar and her year abroad in Germany

Leah started her talk saying that she became acquainted with a University in Germany, the Hochschule Neu Ulm, due to hosting for many years a group of physicians studying for their MBA wanting to learn about the US Healthcare System.  Through this connection, she was invited to spend a year there teaching, so she decided to pursue a Fulbright Scholar's award and received one of 10 granted in the field of Public and Global Health in 2010-2011.  In addition to being in Germany, she traveled to East Africa 3 times with this same German University to teach a group of African physicians from 5 countries about healthcare administra! tion.  Over the course of the year, she and her family traveled e xtensively, lessened stress and the U.S. lifestyle by not owning a TV or car, and made lifelong friends and memories.

—YOE Terry M. White
Leah Vriesman