Don Broyles (left) presents GSE team members with Putnam club banners. Pictured (l to r) are Masao Seki, Yuki Yashiro, Yasuko Yamagishi, Sayuri Kitahara and Chizuru Ishii.

Guest speaker was Rotarian Harry Mills.

May 13, 2008

Putnam Rotary this week entertains visiting Japanese professionals as part of a Group Study Exchange sponsored by RI District 7550, 33 local clubs in southern West Virginia.

Let by Masao Seki, a food manufacturing executive serving as team leader for RI District 2590 in the Yokohama area, team members include:

• Yasuko Yamagishi, an artist who is head of the Kashinomiyaonryu school of flower arrangement;
• Yuki Yashiro, a kindergarten teacher;
• Sayuri Kitahara, an administrative clerk at Seiko Gakuin High School (a Catholic boys' school of 1,300 students); and
• Chizuru Ishii, a musician. Chizuru studies at Tokyo University and plays the traditional small drum used in Kabuki theatre.

The GSE program, sponsored by the Rotary Foundation, provides travel grants for teams to exchange visits in paired areas of different countries. For four to six weeks, team members are hosted by local clubs as they experience the host country's culture and institutions, observe how their vocations are practiced abroad.

The Putnam club treated the Japanese GSE team with a dinner this evening at Wellington's in Scarlet Oaks Country Club.

A picnic cookout is planned for tomorrow evening at the home of Rotarians Bob and Mary Keely.

Local sites visited by one or more of the visitors included Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Diamond Electric, Tasty Blend Foods, and Putnam Schools.

Putnam Rotary has previously hosted GSE teams from England and Australia.

West Virginia's RI District 7550 is planning to lead a GSE team next year to France.