Cancun Rotary Club

Good Morning. Welcome to Cancun !Our Rotary Club is located in the most popular of Mexican vacation destinations. We hope that when you visit this corner of the Caribbean you will take time to visit our Club.

We meet at the Hotel Oasis America located on Tulum Avenue at the corner of Coba (the extension of Blvd. Kukulcan, the main road that runs through the Hotel Zone).(See Map) Our meetings are held Wednesday evenings. We begin at >9:15 p.m., have dinner, and finish with our business meeting. There's no telling when the post-meeting domino game will break-up (it often runs rather late), but the meeting itself is over around 11:00.

If you have to be up early Thursday morning, we understand and 'tis okay for you to leave after dinner and the exchange of visitor cards/banners.

Note: All our hotels have high speed internet. And although we do have plenty of quality casinos with their exciting nightlife atmosphere, there should be no problems for those visitors from Europe or the Asian Pacific who enjoying playing at online casinos in the privacy of their hotel room. And for our visitors from the United States, your favorite online us casino sites are also available via our excellent internet providers. However, we really encourage you to visit Cancun's top casinos. Six of our best casinos are: Dubai Palace Casino - largest casino in Cancun, Caliente Sports Book & Casino, PlayCity Casino, Playboy Casino Cancun where you can have real live game interaction with dealers and Playboy bunnies, Juega Juega Casino, Casino Palace, and the Royal Yak Casino & Sports Book. Slots, poker, video machines for Poker, Blackjack and Roulette, enjoy gambling, Latina style.

Club Profile

This Rotary Club was born almost at the same time as Cancun was established: 1976. Since then we have grown; although not the case right now, most years we have been the largest Club in District 4200. Most Clubs in the District are small, though, so we have lots of growth potential.

Most of our Community Service work is channeled through the "Centro Comunitario Rotary International de Cancun", the community center we established in a working class neighborhood located on the west side of the city.

At the Center we provide medical and dental consultations, vocational education (beauticians' training and the design and tailoring of clothing), literacy education for adults and children not in "age appropriate" class levels, aerobics classes, and a location for university students to assist the local residents with legal advice and with information relating to home design and construction techniques. Just last spring we started collaborating with a Mexican government program that uses satellite TV and computers for adult education. The students cease being illiterate and become E-literate in one step. During the 2003-04 year we added a "women's shelter" for women at risk; this is operated by an outside agency using part of the Community Center.

Our 4 Avenues of Service

Like all Rotary Clubs, until the beginning of this Rotary Year (up to July 1, 2005) we operated along four "Avenues of Service". This year Rotary has changed the official organizational diagram a bit, but for the time being we can still talk about the previous set-up without confusing you or ourselves:

First Avenue:SERVICE IN THE CLUB. This is where we build friendships among members as a foundation and basis for all of the other service work we may perform locally, within our six state "District 4200", or in the context of Rotary's international presence around the world.

>SERVICE THROUGH OUR OCCUPATIONS. Projects in this Avenue may include vocational fairs for students, worker recognition programs for industry, and education in subjects such as Ethical Business Practices in which the Rotarian's Four-Way Test is the foundation.

Third Avenue:SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY: This is where we concentrate most of our efforts to be a "service club" in which Rotary International's mottoService Before Selfis made manifest to our neighbors.

In Cancun, most of our efforts are organized around the "Centro Comunitario Rotary International de Cancun", a community center which we constructed in 1994 in a working class section of Cancun. At the time it was constructed, the neighborhood had no social services infrastructure, -or even running water,- available to the residents.

Through the Center, local residents have access to on-site Medical and Dental consultations, vocational training, general education, aerobics classes,and soon, access to legal and construction related orientation. Our Adult Education program is part of a new federal program to use satellite links and computers to move the students from "illiterate" to "E-literate".

The Vocational Training which we have given includes:
a) Beautician's Training and
b) Design and Sewing of Clothing.
c) A locally supported Service Project being realized with the Universidad LaSalle de Cancún will soon make available computer and secretarial skills training.

The Educational activities include talks given by the Center's doctors, aerobics, English as a second language, and (through the state government which uses our classrooms) Adult Literacy education and "main-lining" preparation for children who are older than other children at their level of education. These are typically street children or students who previously lived where school attendance was not possible.

Medical and Dental serviceshave been given using equipment and furnishings loaned on a temporary basis.

The Fourth Avenue:SERVICE IN THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY. This is the means by which we collaborate with Rotary Clubs in other countries. Some programs are realized on an annual basis, such as International Study/Exchange Groups university level Educational Scholarshipsfor undergraduate and graduate study. During the 2002-2003 Year, the District sent not one but two study groups: one to Michigan, USA and one to a two-country District located in Washington state and British Columbia, Canada. We received the visiting groups in April. In previous years we received Study Groups from northern Ontario, Canada; and North Carolina, USA.)

During the 2002-2003 Year we sent hign school students to British Columbia, Canada and to Germany; we received students from Thailand and Germany. This was the first year we sent our students abroad, but it will not be the last. Previously, our students had participated only in the summer time short period exchanges.

In the 2003-04 Rotary Year we expanded this to 5 students (USA-2, Canada, Germany, Thailand). In addition to receiving the educational benefits, each student is honored with 2 identifying items of value - the Cancun Rotary lapel pin and a cubic zirconia friendship ring with the engraved logo and student name. Additional purchases of these items for credentialed family members can be purchased from our vendor at additional cost.

Other projects are effected on a Club to Club basis, such as the donation of medical aparatuses (wheelchairs, canes, crutches) we received several years ago from theVero Beach Rotary Club, or they may be multi-participant projects in which the Rotary Foundation matches donations of Clubs (and Districts) participating in the realization of an International Service Project.

Information and Links

CANCUN AND THE RIVIERA MAYA
Climate: Winter in Cancun is defined byYe Webmaster as any five days the temperature gets down to 68 F. Typically this happens in December before "winter" officially begins. The rest of the year we enjoy daytime highs of 90-93 F and typical overnight lows of 80. The difference between Summer and the rest of the year is that August and September can be very humid. While there is no "rainy season", rain is more likely from mid-September through early November than at other times.

Installations and Attractions: Cancun has existed only since 1974, and the "Riviera Maya" (previously known as the Tulum Corridor) is even newer, so what you can not do here is sight-see ancient colonial sections of the city. To see the Yucatan's colonial period, zip over to Mérida, 200 miles to the west; when you go, you can stop at Chichen-Itza and see some real antiquities.... pyramids dating from the Late Classic period of Mayan development (circa 600-1100 A.D.).

The Beach Life: Most of the activities in Cancun are water oriented; the Caribbean waters of the region are crystal clear with a turquoise tint and, starting at the south end of Cancun Island, the shore is protected by a Barrier Reef located about a half mile off-shore. This Reef, the second longest in the world, is teaming with colorful sea life which can be observed with a simple snorkel and face mask. SCUBA divers say that near-by Isla Mujeres is the best all around dive destination because it has a tremendous abundance of sea life as well as the corals associated with diving at Cozumel.

Land Lubbers: The non-acquatic oriented visitor can spend time catching the sun's rays on the beach, playing golf on one of the four courses in the Cancun - Riviera Maya region (more opening this year), checking out the archeological sites, or shopping, shopping, shopping.