Danish Delight
Thursday, October 6, 2022
By Cathy O'Gara
Danish Delight

A fun thing about being a Rotarian is visiting clubs around the world on your travels. Although you may  not understand everything that’s going on, the format and the friendliness will be a breath of home away from home.
This past June, my husband, ADG Ed Sternberg, and I went on a long-planned trip to visit friends in Denmark. Our first stop was in Jutland, where we were able to attend a joint meeting of the city of Fredericia Club and the nearby Lillebælt Club. It was a scheduled vocational meeting and plant tour at the newly re-branded Crossbridge Energy Partners, a refinery that produces approximately 35 percent of the total Danish liquid fuel consumption and exports an equal amount to Northern Europe using crude from the North Sea oil fields. They are building a plant to produce hydrogen using refinery waste and locally sourced biofuel such as restaurant fat, with the goal of being carbon neutral.


Ed Sternberg presents Thorkild Nissen with a Union County Rotary Banner.

We met with Lillebælt Club president, Thorkild Nissen the next day to learn about each other’s clubs. Currently, their main project is helping to settle Ukrainian refugees in the area and the language problem is proving a bit daunting.
The next week we had dinner with an old friend, Birte Broch, who is past president of her club in Køge, a port city about twenty miles southwest of Copenhagen. She told us a bit about the organization of Rotary in Denmark. There are over 12,000 Danish Rotarians in five districts that span two continents (!), including Greenland and numerous other islands that make up this seafaring nation. Rotary Denmark is their multidistrict coordinating board, led by the five district governors and five district governors-elect that administers and supervises the activities of the five districts.


Birte Broch is honored as a Paul Harris member along with Max Vilby and Kristian Ebbensgaard, here with and Køge Rotary Club president Peter Rassing.

There are two clubs in the town, Birte’s club, Køge Rotary Club, established in 1933, and Køge North Rotary Club, a dinner club founded in 1973. The new president of KRC has chosen to focus on lifelong learning — helping people maintain skills for their whole lives, as well as revitalizing their youth exchange programs which were put on hold during the pandemic. The club also provides financial support for local activities, which get little or insufficient help from the government. The club also supports two football coaches from Køge, who are working with children in Tanzania.

The next time you are traveling, whether it’s here in Georgia or around the world, plan a visit to the local Rotary club. You will be warmly greeted and get a special insight into local happenings!