DISCON

The 2012 District Conference (DISCON) RI District 3860 Philippines took place March 8-10. The opening ceremony started at 1PM on Thursday and included an introduction of the president of each of the over 100 clubs in the Philippines and pulling up the tail of the catwalk were the GSE teams, both inbound teams from Pennsylvania and Texas, and the outbound team from the Philippines to Texas.  Later that night was fellowship, the "Rotarians Got Talent" show, with a focus on the movie "Grease". Although we were not aware that we were to perform a “cultural dance number” until we arrived in Davao City, we still pulled off a song and dance number while dressing the part as well as we could (we went for a make-shift vagabond look). Nicole made it clear to the audience that "We can't sing or dance, but we'll give it our best shot." Throughout the song we got lots of laughs and a huge round of applause in the end -- a success in our eyes.

Introduction of the GSE team

 Day 2 of DISCON began with a call to order, followed by the invocation, Philippine National Anthem and introductions of dignitaries and GSE inbound and outbound teams. Some of the topics that various speakers presented were, "Responsible Mining and its Contribution to National Development", "New Approaches to Rotary Membership" and "Small Business Enterprise", just to name a few.

 Nicole and Stacey with Allan Limas

PDG Joseph (Yumi) Michael Espina, GSE Chair Richard (Dick) Barba, Nestor Archival, and PDG Theodore (Ted) Locson

John with Ed Chiongbian, district governor nominee and GSE team leader of the district 3860 team to Pennsylvania in 2011, and his wife Cely

The next to come on the schedule was Governor's Night, a night for cocktail dresses and ties. The night involved the presentation of many high honored awards to clubs including the 100% Paul Harris Fellow Clubs. We also heard a few words from the district governor Leoncio "Nonoy" P. Villa-Abrille. The entertainment portion of the evening included some dance presentations from various Davao clubs. After all the formal talking, it was time for some casual conversations among the big rotary family of the Philippines along with lots of dancing. It was unique to see that there was a group dance that everyone did to almost every song that was played. Nicole still showed them the Pennsylvania way to dance to "Footloose" by busting out her moves! It was great! The night was very enjoyable overall.

 The GSE team dressed up -- we clean up rather well, don't we?

RC Davao City performs
 

The final day of DISCON was presentation day for us. After a few more morning speakers the Texas GSE team took the stage and we followed. We told them about Pennsylvania, our district, a bit about ourselves, some places we have visited that have been of interest to us, and also some topics we hope to further extend our knowledge of before we leave. This part of our presentation worked well to bring some rotary members to us for conversation regarding our topics.

Stacey on the big stage

Nicole on the big stage