On July 1st 2009, Rotary Club Willemstad held its changing of the board ceremony. Among the present were several Rotary Club Curaçao members who had come to show their appreciation for the RCW fellows.

In the speech that ended his tenure as RCW president, now past-president, Patrick Thissen thanked all who had contributed to another succesful Rotarian year. He looked back on the events of the past year and looked forward to the continued support of all fellow Rotarians.

In his final speech Patrick Thissen said the following:

"Dear fellows and friends,

The theme of last year was Make dreams Real and we certainly have succeeded making this true. But this is not final, we will continue doing so! 

I really have enjoyed being a president for this young club and I am proud what we have accomplished together with good and honest fellowship and service above our self.

Again another year with a lot of Rotary experience. We are a club with a strong commitment and passion to serve. We are ambitious and dedicated to our mission. As I said in my speech last year you are all leaders and it was an honour to serve you as a president.

This year we have invested more money in the community than planned. We invested into sustainable projects for the youth, to help them become self supporting and independent.

Projects such as the Vincentius Foundation in Wishi Marchena and the renovation of a house for a family with three children. This year we also decided to start new and interesting projects for the coming year.

We also increased the income of our popular Rotarally managed by our fellow Henri Burgers. And we returned with the successor of Arte Bebe: Baby bebe. Which generated again funding for our community. The play Liefdes brieven by Paul van Vliet and Anne Will Blankers generated more than 40.000 guilders for the Youth Foundation.

We got closer with and got inspired by our younger fellows of Rotaract and supported them with their seminar Young People and Politics.
We had more than 15 external speakers this year and for every speaker we donate a tree to the Carmabi reforestation project.

For fellowship we had our Christmas lunch entertained by singing fellow Olga. We had the fire side meetings, the family day, joint happy hours with RCC and last weekend we did really well with our joint rotary soft ball team.

Our memberships extended with 6 Rotarians and we have reached the number of 40. Organisation wise we became stronger. We developed professional tools and procedures to manage our projects and club.

This was the first year that our club was represented at the annual RI Convention and returned with a lot of inspiration, new ideas, good contacts and information.

We did a lot and I did not mention all. I am convinced that this all will not slow down with the incoming president, but that is what you will hear from him.

Dear fellows and friends, thanks so much to give me the opportunity to serve you all. It was a great pleasure!"


Patrick Thissen
Outgoing president RCW
1 juli 2009.