Golden Rotary has been working with a sister club in Thailand to help build and populate a hydroponics research lab at an Agriculture College.  Geoff Noble has been our prime mover and shaker on this project.  The tie with the sister club was established by Geoff's son, Gavin, when he was serving in Thailand with the navy.

December 2005

Dear Geoff

I hope you received the pictures all and are pleased with the results. As I said earlier on there will be a big Handover ceremony with the Provincial Governor ( almost same level as a State Governor ) and the directors from the Education Ministry in BKK on the February 10. 

Your Club will then receive a CD containing the whole event then. info and all.

The reason we have no seedlings in the green house yet is the College goes for the Xmas Holliday and then they are on minimum Staff. The director does not want to loose 2500 plants so he instructed them that the seedlings will move in after the holiday.  When we officially handover this project there will be a every slot filled with grown plants . You will see this later.

Again I like to thank your club for sponsoring this and you can be assured that their will be for many years many students benefit from this project.

My Seasons Greeting to all your Club Members and their Families and I wish them a very nice Christmas and a Happy New Year. Hopefully that our Clubs can continue to work on Projects together in the future. 

Again Thanks to al of you for your generosity and my apology for that it took so long to be completed.

Regards 
Peter 

Final visit to Chantabury Agriculture College. MG 56350 November 2005

On Wednesday the 30 November our Community Service Director Peter Thorand left Pattaya early in the morning for a final visit and a soft hand over ceremony for the MG 56 350 .On arrival at the college everything was ready. The rows and rows of feed pipes are set up; pumps in place, and the whole green house is covered with protective netting. To be exact, there are1920 Salad plants and 336 Cucumber and 336 Tomato plants.

The College has now a capacity of 2592 plants to grow produce the hydroponics way thanks to the two Rotary Clubs which organized this Matching Grant #56350.

There are many students eager to learn this process and the seedlings have been moved indoors until such time they can be outside in the feed trees.
This Station will be able teach and be a valuable asset of the college for many students for many years This is a new way to grow vegetables and produce in a soil less environment. The ideal solution to the poor farmers in the north east of Thailand, where the soil only supports one crop per year.

The Director of the college informed the visitors that the official hand-over ceremony will be held on February 10, 2006. 
This is the day is when the College has his annual visitor day and there will be around 5000 people visiting from all over Thailand .
On this day the Governor of the Province Chantabury and many officials from BKK will be present to witness this donation in kind, which was made possible with the commitment from two Rotary Clubs from two continents. The media and television will be on hand to cover the event as well.

A detailed report from the final Ceremony will be sent to the sponsor club in the MG, namely the Rotary Club of Golden Colorado, and to the Representative of RI in Illinois after the 10 February 2006.

Flag Presentation September 8 2005

Geoff Noble, who has been a prime mover in establishing our sister club relationship with the club in Taksin Pattaya, Thailand, provided the following photos and text.  

Geoff informs us that the club has received the $12,000 from Rotary International and should be breaking ground on the hydroponic growing station at the Agricultural College in Chantabury later next week.

The gentleman on the left is the Vocational Service Director, Marvin Green. The man in the middle is the club President, Stephan Heynert, and the man on the right is our point of contact in our matching grant project, Hans Peter Thorand.  (He is currently serving as an Assistant District Governor.)

The following text was provided by Peter Thorand. 

Today's meeting was a very special one.  We received a flag from our Sister club in Golden, Colorado.

The presentation was the Flag of Colorado:

ADG Peter Thorand gave a speech on the Sister club of Golden, Colorado. He mentioned the great joined effort to help the poor in this country. He then said we are even more close to each other since the flag will be standing in the meeting room and every one will be reminded that we have fellow Rotarians in Colorado which are our friends as well. 

ADG Peter Thorand then explained that this relationship all started the day he meet the Junior Officer, Lieutenant, Junior Grade Gavin Noble from the USS Juneau on her visit to Pattaya almost two years ago. Through this young officer, he made contact with his Father (Geoff Noble) a Rotarian from Golden, Colorado and you all know the rest . Today we have a Sister-Club agreement and a Matching Grant for $12,000 for the Agriculture College in Chanatabury. He told the members that this flag of the great state of Colorado was actually flown at the Colorado Capitol building on August the 3rd, at the request of Senator Moe Keller, and presented to the Rotary Club of Golden Colorado in support of their Sister-Club agreement with the Rotary Club of Taksin Pattaya , Thailand. He said that our hearts and minds will be with them in our weekly meeting and the flag will be proudly displayed for all to see.

Vocational Service Director Marvin Green, and ADG Peter stepped forward and present the Flag and a nicely framed certificate which stated the proof of the origination of the Flag to the President.

All member gave a large round applause for the Rotarians in Rotary Club of Golden Colorado."

Framed certificate stating that the flag was flown over the Colorado state capitol building at the request of Senator Moe Keller.