It was a real pleasure to meet up with several visitors from our fellow Pentangular Club in Leuven, and to hear from their 2021-2022 President Elect, Erik Vanderlinden, about their plans for this year's Pentangular meeting, to be held in the Flemish City.
One of the objects of Rotary is: "The advancement of International understanding, goodwill and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service". It was in this context that "Pentangular" - a group of five European Rotary Clubs, of which we are a member, was set up. You can read more about the history of Pentangular here.
Erik was joined on his visit by Isabel Penne, Joseph Leunis and Frank Op ‘t Eynde. For many of our members it was a welcome chance to catch up with old friends that they'd met and socialised with during past Pentangular meetings.
In his presentation to us, Erik outlined the objective of this year's Pentangular meeting, to be held on 15-17 May: "to strengthen mutual friendship and support international action through cooperation". He also reminded us that like our individual clubs, Pentangular serves to bring people together in friendship and take positive action for society. Talking of the Joint Pentangular Project (an international project that involves all the participating clubs), Erik also reminded us that Pentangular provides an effective way to set up and manage international action projects so that they lead to substantial impact.
Interestingly, the theme chosen by Leuven for this year's meet is "Cherishing beauty" - a rather charming theme which they describe as allowing them to show us their city's "gems", such as Park Abbey, an historic building that was "once one of the richest Abbeys in the Low Countries" which is now undergoing extensive renovation after becoming derelict for a period of time. Pentangular attendees will get a chance to look behind-the-scenes at the restoration effort.
Erik ended his presentation by saying he was looking forward to "seeing us in great numbers" in Leuven and to welcoming our members there.
For more about the Rotary Club of Leuven, click here.
Picture: Our Past Presidents John Hill and Margaret Griffin pictured with our President Neil Fraser and our visitors from Leuven. (Not Pictured: Past President Alastair Scott, who is our Pentangular Officer). Picture credit: Rotary Club of Canterbury.
