I had the privilege and a special treat of attending the social meeting of the Rotary Club of Le Mans, France.  I had come in France over spring break as a visiting
professor at the Université du Maine.   To find out information about the club, I wrote Vincent Trémbenbert, the contact person on the club website and learned the club meets in the Concordia Hotel in the downtown Le Mans for lunch on Fridays and has a social event once a month. So, on Thursday, March 29, I was able to attend the “apéritif” after which the new president for 2012-2013, Donald Dupuy presented slides on the “BIG ROADS of France.”
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First, he showed slides of the road map history of Le Mans in the age of the Roman occupation ( this is REAL history! ).  Second, he presented the itinerary of a trip organized to check over some of these famous routes in Brittany organized for September and open to all club members.  Third, he revealed some interesting hiking paths open to all in the local area.  Evidently, club members do a great deal of hiking together.  Then, I was warmly welcomed and invited to speak about the Rotary Club of Akron.  Everyone was very interested in how we had so many members.  The Le Mans Rotary Club currently has 55.  I explained how large the club was (our Lance Chima is doing such a terrific job!) and talked about our recent service projects.  I especially spoke about our literacy project with the school dictionary project, the adult literacy project, and, of course, the Rotary Camp for children with special needs.  They were very interested in hearing about these service projects. I then exchanged the banner or “fanion” as they say in French and was very proud to present this to Mark Krohn and our Akron upon my return.   I hope to have the opportunity to return there another time.  If anyone is interested in following up or going to Le Mans, here is the contact information for  Vincent Trémbenbert: vincent.tremenbert@orange.fr
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