We are back! Let the "Twin Club Challenge" beginn...

Friendship is a gift you have to work for every day. To stay in contact with friends that live far away, you have to be creative and committed, so that you do not loose sight in each other. This Blog was created to do exactly that. To reach out to our fellow friends in another country and to show how friendship without borders can be achieved. Now there is a different chapter that is yet to be written. With a new approach we will try to show how you can stay in touch and stay friends without seeing each other. 
Creativity, commitment and friendship are the key idea of this new project. 
In a number of challenges, the Rotaract Club of Bremen and Galatasaray Rotaract Kulübü are trying to deepen their friendship for each other. In taking a vital part in each others club life, projects and in having a prosperous exchange in ideas. 
In the following months we are going to show you what kind of challenges we have created for each other.

Twin Club Awarded Clubs Galatasaray and Bremen Continue to Work:)

After winning TCA, you must wonder whether we still do projects and keep up the work:) The answer is a big Yes:)

 

After last year's intriguing project Dinner Challenge, this year we started to make Film Challenge Nights. While Bremen members watch a Turkish production, we watch a German one. We again try to communicate through Skype.

Now the next step may be a combination of Dinner and Film Challenge. I think we're ready for it:) 

In addition to this fun project, we are also very excited for our friends' visit to Istanbul, most probably in November:) 

We'll do our best to make a great programme and welcome them in beautiful Istanbul.  The months of  November are a bit cold in Istanbul but hey! Our visitors come from Bremen:) 

We can't wait for November:)

We also congratulate Bremen Rotaract for Autumn bREMen 2014:) We'll be there, can't miss that. 

As a person who already visited Bremen, I would like to say that, it's a magically cute city with beautiful people living in it. Don't miss bREMen:) 

All the best and love from Istanbul:)

Aysegul

Galatasaray Rotaract Club

Past President 12-13

Cooking for Peace - Final Phase Has Started

It's been a while...yes, that is true.

Both of our clubs had been extremely busy with so many things.

In Istanbul the preparation and performing of the annual International Youth Forum in May took time from all the members - additionally to all the other running projects.

In Bremen it was the same with the Charity Run - all powers were hold here.

Additionally we had applied together with our Twin Club Relationship for the "Twin Club Award", an annual competition held by the European Rotaract Information Centre (E.R.I.C.) - and made it to the final 3! Very cool! But it also means work, because we have the possibility to present our idea in two different occasions in Rome during the European Convention (EuCo), which means preparing presentations and so on.

And last but not least: our project "Cooking for Peace" turned out to be much more work than previously believed. Cooking all the wonderful recipes we received - like we originally planned - didn't work out, so we decided we had to break it down to one recipe per participating club. We cooked and cooked and cooked - and gained pounds and experience. Some recipes didn't work out as planned at the first time, so we had to repeat them, which brought more work.

Last Monday the last recipe was finally cooked - about 6 weeks later than planned. Since then we are layouting the book, talking to printers, begging them to print in a very short time enough books for us to take to Rome.

This week therefore meant working night shifts - or as we also like to say: "Service Above Sleep".

We hope the final product will be as good as we imagined, and we really hope you all will like it.

Our Joint Bulletins

Hi everyone,
First of all, I' d like to tell that we missed you and Bremen a lot.
We still talk about our trip, edit videos, share in internet and spread the word that, now, Bremen Rotaract and Galatasaray Rotaract are Twin Clubs.
Again, thank you for everything :)))

Now the purpose of this post is to share more materials with everyone.
You can see our shared bulletins in English in the following.

All the best,

Ayşegül.

First Joint Bulletins

  
The Second Joint Bulletins

Call for Recipes - Extended Deadline 7th of March, 2013

Dear Readers,

 

For a while now the Rotaract Club Bremen wanted to gather all recipes the members had prepared in the years before for buffets at Christmas meetings, collar exchanges etc. After we had started the “Twin Club Experiment” with  the Rotaract Club Galatasaray in Istanbul  and have done so far three dinner challenges (=> the club in Turkey cooks a German recipe, the German club cooks a Turkish recipe - during cooking and later during dinner we connect via Skype and exchange experiences, maybe you have read about it in this blog), we decided already in July to finally do a cooking book, putting mainly recipes from both of our clubs (ok, it was a very silent announcement, but we weren't sure when we would manage to finally do it). 

We called the project  

"Cooking for Peace - The way to a Nation's Heart is through its stomach" 

and we already presented it with a poster at the Global Peace Forum in Berlin in December. 

What do we ask from you now:

This is a "Call for Recipes" :) Every Rotaract club can participate and send us a recipe. They can be traditional, modern or just really tasty ;) - important is that they're possible to cook with not only local products, but that the products can be bought in wide parts of Europe - or at least the local products can be replaced easily by something that actually can be bought somewhere else. And they have to be written in English.

We will choose the ones we like best (criteria example: Can we recook it? How easy are the ingredients to find? How difficult are the recipes?), recook them, take a picture for the book, and then the "winning" clubs fill out a questionnaire about their club and projects. We will then add their recipe, photo and info from the questionnaire into the book. The books will be sold and the money will be used to support projects like a local soup kitchen for homeless people.

For the recipes we have the following categories:

"Snacks and Starters"

"Main courses (including side dishes)"

"Desserts and Cakes"

"Drinks"

As the cooking book shall be finalized and printed in time for EuCo in Rome, we had set the deadline for the recipes to receive on the 28th of February, so that we would have enough time in March to recook them. 

Since we have received especially in the last days so many great recipes, we would like to extend the deadline for another week to not miss any recipe, so send us your recipe until the 7th of March, 2013.

Please send all recipes to

bremen-recipes@rotaract.de

Thank you so much!

Notes from Bremen

Dear friends,

This is Kıvanç from Rotaract Club of Galatasaray. I was one of the lucky six people to have a chance to visit Bremen and meet members of Rotaract Club of Bremen. I'd like to say a few words regarding our visit.

As most of you already know, we, as Rotaract Club of Galatasaray have been carrying out many joint projects and activities with Rotaract Club of Bremen, since the beginning of this term. Led by one of the former members of Galatasaray, Emre Adam, we've done joint house parties that we called Dinner Challenges, in which we cooked each others traditional cuisine. We also skyped at the same time. Then, we created this blog. "The Twin Club Experiment" has had thousands of visitors from all around the world.

These were things you already knew. Now, I'd like to write details of our trip to Bremen.

We, the crew of Galatasaray, consisting of Me, Emir, Efe, Ayşegül, Anıl and Fatih, met at the Istanbul Atatürk Airport at the morning of January 25th, Friday. We checked in, went through passport control, and then had a little chat till our gate is open. We've talked about Air Crash Investigation Series on National Geographic Channel. We concluded that the probability of a plane's falling down has decreased a lot over the years passed. We've found a giant screw near the aircraft, but luckily it was of no problem.

We've landed in the pretty airport of Bremen in 3 hours. The city looked white and incredibly nice. Tim, the president of Rotaract Club of Bremen, was at the airport to welcome us. We left our luggages at Emre's Place and had a little city tour. Weather was a bit chilly (around -10 celcius) and there were snow on the ground. Sun was standing at somewhat lower position than what we used to know, making the whole city look like a huge movie set. On the very first day, as soon as we arrived, we were fascinated by the city. Although the city is a bit small, it was fantastic! And despite the cold weather, the streets were indeed warm!

After the short city tour I was talking about, we finished the day at Marlen's Place with a great house party. We were 17 people in total at the house that day. We chatted about ourselves and our countries, and tried to get to know each other. That house party was also the 4th Dinner Challenge. We ate the sauce prepared by tuna fish first, and the one with yogurt, which was quite similar to what we call haydari. There were 2 recipes for challenge: Köfte and Pancakes. The question was, who was going to eat that much food? But that problem is resolved by itself, all köftes were gone within 5 minutes. After köftes, we cooked pancakes and ate them all as well! To sum up, that night was hilarious.

On Saturday, the second day, we were 10 people at the beginning. We took a longer trip of city. Seen the great buildings in Bremen in detail. Then, we visited Beck's Brewery. During the brewery tour, we've learned a lot about their awards, history and details of production. At the end of the brewery visit, they offered us their beers, the ones with lemon, lime, sprite, orange, and some more. That was a great chance to see the headquarters of one of the most well-known beers in the world.

We continued to wander around Bremen. We were 12 people at that moment. We took an "End Polio Now" picture in front of the famous Musicians of Bremen. We had a dinner in a nice restaurant and then went to Emre's Place to have a mini house party. We drank tea and ate chocolate. We've talked about details of dolls that we brought from Istanbul. We've talked about our countries. We've talked about TV series and movies. That night was great too. We had a lot of fun.

On Sunday, we were 9 people at Hamburg. We had a coffee with DRR of District 1850. Wandered around Hamburg, seen the city from 70 meters high cathedral tower, walked below the river through a tunnel, ate great food again and went back to Bremen by train.

On Monday, we did shopping, drank coffee, prepared for the meeting and went to meeting hall. We were 28 people at the meeting hall, including Guvernor of Rotary District 1850 and Previous Guvernor of Rotary District 1850. Johanna showed their presentation first, then Ayşegül showed our presentation.

Then, Ayşegül, President of Rotaract Club of Galatasaray and Tim, President of Rotaract Club of Bremen, have signed the Twin Club Agreement in the presence of District Guvernor. By signing this document, we, Rotaract Club of Galatasaray and Rotaract Club of Bremen, have officialy become twin clubs! That was a great moment for us. In our belief, this document is not only a piece of paper. Indeed, it is the symbol of our friendship that will last forever.

We were able to visit the great exhibition of Hundertwasser on Tuesday morning. Then we said farewell to each other and Friederike has guided us to the airport. We've landed in Istanbul safe and sound.

Now, we're waiting for members of Rotaract Club of Bremen to visit Istanbul too! You can make sure that you will be more than welcome in our hometown!

Here, I'd like to thank all members of my club who came to Bremen, who helped in the organization of this trip, and who participated in our joint projects with Rotaract Club of Bremen.

Also, I'd like to thank to all members of Rotaract Club of Bremen for the trip! You've put great effort in this visit in order to make it as much fun as possible, and you all were just perfect! It was a great experience for all of us to meet you. Thanks!

And also, I'd like to thank all Rotarians who did come to our joint meeting and helped us spreading the word.

Lastly, I'd like to say "Thanks a lot!" for the one who leaded both clubs to create great friendship bonds. He spent a lot of time on the relationship between clubs. Thanks a lot Emre! We're happy that we followed your ideas!

Thank you guys, for having us as guests! It was a great experience! Don't forget, you're always welcome in Istanbul!

All the best,
Kıvanç

Soon...!

Only two days are missing! Then we will have Friday and this Friday is a special day for our Club in Bremen - and also for this experiment - because this Friday we will finally meet in person!!!

A delegation of six Rotaractors from Istanbul will visit us in Bremen for four days. So exciting!!!

How everything turns out? We will post it soon! :)