Three in one under the stars
The end of a challenging Rotary year has come. The world was just beginning to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic when we were faced with the horror of war.
Rotarians, as usual, do everything in their power and according to their possibilities to be of help to those in need on a personal, club and district level, without interrupting, of course, club life and projects.
Sofia-Balkan Rotary Club created four years ago one of the most beautiful projects in the district, which is already traditional and continues to grow.
Together with the National Academy of Arts (Faculty of Fine Arts), each year we honor their student who best recreated the theme of the relevant Rotary year, and a jury of teachers and club members choose the winner and rank the prize winners.
So, on 15.06. we solemnly presented this year’s award.
The winner and winner of the BGN 1,000 prize was Ivan Burbara – 1st year master’s degree;
second place went to Nadezhda Boyanova;
and third – Simona Pavlova.
The prize painting was purchased by EDG Violina Kostova, who was among our many guests.
(The link below is to the works from this year’s edition of the competition: https://www.rotaryclubsofiabalkan.org/%d1%80%d0%b5%d0%b7%d1%83%d0%bb%d1%82%d0 %b0%d1%82%d0%b8-%d0%be%d1%82-%d0%ba%d0%be%d0%bd%d0%ba%d1%83%d1%80%d1%81%d0 %b0-%d0%bd%d0%b0-%d1%80%d0%be%d1%82%d0%b0%d1%80%d0%b8-%d0%ba%d0%bb%d1%83% d0%b1-%d1%81 )
The event was held on the beautiful outdoor roof terrace of the Academy of Arts, which hosted the event. Besides the wonderful view, the purely symbolic busyness of the place – in the center of the square, symbolizing the statehood and spirituality of Bulgaria: the National Assembly, the National Library, the Patriarchal Cathedral “St. Alexander Nevsky” and SU “Kliment Ohridski”, as well as next to the Aposatola monument – predisposed us to do the traditional rotation of the boards.
President Alexander Grilikhes handed over the necklace to Krsimir Veselinov with wishes for a successful year, building on what has been achieved so far. Krasimir Veselinov presented a plaque to Alex Grilikhes with Gratitude for the service in 2021-2022 and the successfully completed projects of the club. The moment was also used to present a plaque to Past-President Kalin Kulin with thanks for the service in the 2020-2021 year – with all the challenges of online meetings and the state of emergency.
We from RK Sofia-Balkan have always had the main priority of working with the youth programs of RI. In addition to our two Interact Clubs, we are also a sponsor of the Rotaract Club Sofia-Balkan, and very often we carry out joint initiatives with them, and every month we also have one joint club meeting. As a continuation of this successful practice, we had invited the young friends to do their rotation with us. Thus, Alexander Tsekov presented a necklace to the President-Elect Todor Karparov. The curious thing in this case is that both of them are former members of interact clubs from the RK Sofia-Balkan family, which is another proof of how important RI’s youth programs are.
Yet, apart from work, completed projects and future plans, what is especially important and valuable for every Rotarian is friendship. It was a great happiness for us that our celebration was attended by so many friends from the Sofia clubs, from RK Pirdop, members of RK Harmanli brought special greetings from their hometown and the wine festival, and the presence of members from RK Pirot, with whom the details of our upcoming twinning were discussed, as another proof that Rotary builds bridges and overcomes all boundaries.
The time spent with friends flies by, and late at night, under the light of the starry sky, this triple celebration of ours ended: changing the boards, awarding the competition and meeting so many friends, another proof that service in Rotary can really changes lives, and our main goal is to constantly reinvent it.
