For several years now, one of the Rotarians in my church has been telling me about "these trips that Rotary takes young professionals on" (my words, not his!). I've been crazy busy at work, though, and haven't been able to even consider such an excursion (4 weeks out of country).
This year, however, was different, and this blog has been created to tell the tale. For now, the blog entries are likely going to be a bit of a ramble. They'll get more organized once I get to where I have a specific topic to discuss. For right now, though, I just want to get my thoughts on the page.
This year, the "trip that Rotary takes young professionals on", which is more accurately known as a Group Study Exchange (hereafter called a GSE) is to Northwestern Italy. This is a location that has always intrigued me, and seems a bit more accessible (than some) to a world traveler neophyte like myself. And, more importantly, being away from the job was a reasonable thing.
Back in December (I'm writing this on January 21st), my fellow church member and Rotarian told me about the Italy GSE and sent me web links to a brochure about GSE as well as the application PDF. I discussed the trip at length with my wife, Mariya, and we eventually decided it was an excellent opportunity.
The majority of the application was very straightforward. In fact, it would have taken about 20 minutes to complete, except for one brief paragraph telling the applicant to write an Essay of Intent. So, during the first few days of the new year I thoughtfully and prayerfully considered what things I should point out during my essay. There was no guidance on the expected or desired length of the essay, so I ended up settling on a target of one page, and wrote and rewrote that page. Then I had my wife look at it, and rewrote again based on her feedback.
After completing the application, I arranged to get the signature of the president of the Rotary club that is sponsoring me, Champaign West Rotary Club, scanned everything in, and sent a PDF copy to the outbound chair as well as a paper copy via US Mail. This was about a week before the deadline.
From doing research online, I had determined that GSE team sizes always ranged from 4-6 members and a Rotarian team leader. All recent teams from the area of east central Illinois (District 6490) had four team members, so that I was what expecting. When the outbound chair acknowledged receipt of my application, he mentioned that they had three applicants at that time and that they were expecting perhaps three more. That seemed like good odds. Let's just briefly fast forward straight to the interview day and state that there ended up being eleven applicants.
Anyway, back to the story... The GSE selection process consists of an application (including the Essay of Intent). Then, there is an interview with select Rotary members. The interviews were set up for a Sunday afternoon in Mattoon. The 6490 district covers a rather large area of east central Illinois (probably 150x200 miles) I had to drive about 50 miles; I'm sure some drove more, and some drove less. My interview was set for 2pm, and I arrived about 20 minutes early wearing my sports coat, slacks, and button up shirt. When I drove into the parking lot, I got nervous! I hadn't been nervous at all before that. I had thought carefully about the application and essay. I had thought carefully about possible interview questions. I knew that if it were "meant to be" that I would be selected. I truly wasn't nervous before. But for some reason, when I drove into the parking lot, I got nervous! So, I sat in my car for a minute or two and calmly prayed to God to help me out; my nerves calmed down a bit, and I went inside the building. Around 2pm, the previous applicant came out of a door, along with two other people: the outbound chair, who introduced himself and also introduced Mike, the Italy GSE team leader. Mike then took my picture, and the two of them disappeared back into the meeting room. A few minutes later I was ushered in.
The interview took place in a small room with a lot of people. I think there were 11 plus myself. In my case, the Rotary members were uniquely qualified to be on the interview committee. I believe that ALL of them were previous team leaders, so they had an excellent concept of the composition of the ideal candidate. For my case the interview was about 25 minutes long. The questions were well thought out and were clearly designed to determine how appropriate, prepared, deserving, and understanding I was.
When it was over, I was told to expect a phone call later in the evening. I then talked to my wife, who was very curious about how the interview had gone, and received a phone call about 7:30pm telling me that I needed to pack my bags, because I had been selected. I just want to take a brief moment to comment on the selection committee. My job was easy yesterday. I just had to show up and chat for 25 minutes. They, on the other hand, had to spend the entire afternoon interviewing candidates and then had to choose four out of the eleven. I am 100% confident that each of the 11 candidates was a very good candidate, and I'm glad that I didn't have to choose. But, I'm very glad that I was chosen, and plan to represent this Rotary district to the best of my ability.
So, that's the story thus far. I'll be continuing to blog about this experience. I'm writing because I want to remember it, and hopefully others can get something out of reading it. Stay tuned!