Presentation of Henk Veenbergen (team leader)
Concerning the program I would like to refer to it elsewhere in this report (see Index) Because of the available time during our presentations at the Rotary meetings in Japan as mentioned before we made the appointment in the team that my introduction was limited to the introduction of the team, to give the warm greetings of our districts governor Ad van Olst and the chairman of the GSE committee and the chairman and members of my own Rotary Club (Epe no. 077). Thanks to pictures through our power point I could show the place where Holland was situated, where the team members where living and where our district was situated. Depending on the circumstances and the former experiences my introduction was attuned to this. It always required the necessary preparations but to my opinion my introduction was at least every time actual and to the point. About the translation I did not have to be worried because in most of the cases a Japanese interpreter who spoke English fluently translated it into Japanese. To be sure that all present Japanese Rotarians where well informed about the presentation the GSE co-ordinator Mr. Shigeo Matsuoka made a film at the first presentation and send it as I noticed to the various hosting Rotary clubs. Partly this information was gratefully used by the present interpreters during their preparations.
At the end of the presentation the banners where exchanged in all cases and we handed over our certificate as a gratitude for the warm welcome. Because of the time schedule and the language barrier unfortunately there was no possibility to exchange thoughts integral. Although sitting at the table during lunch and dinner we where able to do so as far as our guests where able to speak English.
Presentation of Renate Bergman: Geography
The Netherlands is a really flat country, everything is divided in geometric shapes, demarcated by canals and ditches. The Netherlands contains a large number of small towns and villages. Real metropolises, with millions of people do not exist in the Netherlands. Yet the Netherlands is the world's highly urbanized country. Over 15 million people living on just over 41,000 km2.
Amsterdam is the best known city of the country with over 700,000 inhabitants and the capital of the Netherlands. Amsterdam is the economic center and is famous for its museums, the Van Gogh museum, the Rijksmuseum with the Nightwatch of Rembrandt and the Stedelijk Museum.
Ever since the seventeenth century the Dutch tried to gain land out of the water. More land, means more money so .. land was gained over the years. The Dutch made so called 'polders'. A piece of land enclosed by dikes. The largest polder the Dutch have is 48,000 hectare. To gain land from water en making the 'polders' they used windmills. Three windmills on a row made the capacity even bigger and these rows of windmills are still a famous element in the Netherlands.
Nowadays one third of the country would fall prey to the waters of the North Sea and the big rivers if they were not held at bay by dunes and dikes. The majority of the population lives in these areas protected by dunes and dikes. The largest cities and their most important industrial areas are to be found in the west of the country which is essentially a river delta. So dikes and dunes are very important for the Netherlands. After the great water flood of 1953 where 2000 people lost their lives, the Dutch developed the 'Delta'-project.
This is in a nut-shell something about the geography and big cities of the Netherlands and how the Dutch coop to live with water.
Presentation of Marco Elout: Monarchy and government
Monarchy
The Kingdom of the Netherlands is a constitutional monarchy and includes next
to The Netherlands also The Netherlands Antilles and Aruba in the Carribean.
Five generations after our first King Willem I, Queen Beatrix is since 1980 our present queen. She is the fourth female head of state at a row and she lives with her husband Prince Claus in The Hague.
Government
The Dutch King and ministers together form The Dutch Government. Hereby the
ministers are fully responsible for the management of the country, because politically
our King can do no wrong.
Regularly a member of the greatest political party becomes the Prime minister of the Cabinet. For the last six years and for the second time in a row our country is ruled by a so called "Purple" cabinet. This is a coalition between the PvdA (social democrats), VVD (liberal) and D66 (labour democrats). The name Purple is a result of the mix of the political colours of the three parties.
The First and Second Chamber together form the Dutch Parliament, which is called the Staten-Generaal. The Parliament is seated on "Het Binnenhof"in The Hague. The parliament is the highest political organ in The Netherlands. It is authorized to enact laws.
Next to our national government we have two local government levels. The first one is the province, which can be compared to your prefecture. The Netherlands is divided into 12 provinces. At last our provinces are divided in municipalities. There are about 500 municipalities in Holland nowadays.
Poldermodel
Besides our regular government structure, we have in respect of social economics
a very strong consensus structure between government, employers and employees.
During the economic recession in the early eighties our government and employer- and employee-unions made agreements about wage moderation and reduction in working hours. This agreement is known as the "Agreement of Wassenaar". Since then our Dutch consensus culture is called the "Polder model". The Poldermodel became famous in Europe and maybe also in the rest of the world.
Presentation of Marjo Evers: Spending free time
In general the Dutch people have a high work productivity or work-load. Therefore the economy in the Netherlands is flourishing. On the other hand people have more and more spare time. In the Netherlands a lot of employees are contracted for 36- 40 hours a week. There are also a lot of employees with part time contract, which means less than 36 hours a week. This means al lot of spare time. People spend their free time in various ways.
Soccer
The number 1 sport in the Netherlands is Soccer. In weekends a lot of , especially
men are playing soccer or visit professional soccer games. Last year we organised
with our neighbour country Belgium, the European championships. Many Dutch people
saw the games of the Dutch team. People watched the game in a pub, or stayed
at home with friends and watched television. In the soccer stadium you always
recognise the Dutch fans, because of the fact that they 're wearing orange clothes,
have orange hair and have also Dutch flags with red, white and blue painted
on their cheeks.
Ice-skating
In winter we are watching the ice-skating championships sprint as well as all-round.
We all know Shimizu who became Olympic champion in Nagano. It doesn't matter
if there is a Dutch championship, a European championship or a world championship.
Every championship the stadium is filled with people and of course everyone
is wearing orange clothes. Sometimes, not each year, it's possible to skate
on ice outdoors. If there's a long period of temperatures below zero the "Eleven
Cities Contest" is organised. It's a round trip through eleven cities in the
north of the Netherlands and has a distance of 200 kilometres. It's especially
a trip for trained people. When this event takes place you can follow it the
whole day on the television and a lot of people go to one of the eleven cities.
Skaters have to finish within a certain time. When it's obvious that a skater
can't arrive within the time, he or she has to stop.
Cycling
Everyone in Holland owns a bike. Most people even have two or three bicycles.
If possible, people travel to work by bike. I, for example, need 10 minutes
to go to work by bike. That's faster then by car, because of the traffic. Especially
in spring and summer a lot of people are cycling just for fun when they are
out of work. In the Netherlands we have special bike roads and cycle routes.
Holland is a perfect cycle country and of course we have several bicycles for
all kind of situations.
Presentation of Ronald van Lienden: Economy and export
My part of the presentation was related to Economy and Export of The Netherlands. The following subjects were part of the presentation: economic facts and figures, export, famous Dutch companies and export to Japan.
The Netherlands are technically advanced and highly industrialized. The country has few natural resources and the economy depends heavenly on foreign trade. Food processing is a major manufacturing industry. The services industry generates two third of the gross domestic product. The economic growth is 2,7% per year (in 2000). The population is ageing, 14% is older than 65 years (in 2030 this will be 26%).
The main trading partners are Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, the UK and the USA. The most important export products are: food products (cheese, beer, vegetables, meat), flowers and flower bulbs, chemicals (plastics, drugs, paints) and services (transport, banking, insurance). Famous Dutch companies are Philips, KLM, ABN, Shell, ING and Unilever. The Netherlands are responsible for 5% of total EU export to Japan. Some examples of important export products to Japan are flowers, flower bulbs, and dairy products.
Presentation of Martina Molendijk: History and art
The Netherlands started out as part of the Roman empire. This later became the German empire and there also was quite some Spanish influence. The Netherlands were devided in many different regions by religious and political conflicts. William of Orange can be seen as the founding father of what Holland now is. He wanted to unite the seventeen regions of Holland. Not everyone agreed with his ideas; he had to pay for them with his life.
The Dutch economy began to florish in the seventeenth century; things went so well that we refer to this century as the golden century. The founding of the V.O.C. in 1602 was also of positive influence on the florishing economy. The Dutch conquered Jakarta and named it Batavia. Batavia served as a center from which the ships went out and collected salesware for the rest of Europe. The golden century was also a very good time for dutch poets and painters. Some painters; for example Rembrandt are now still known all over the world.
In 1814 the kingdom of the Netherlands was founded. It than still included Belgium, but Belgium was seperated one year later. King William 1 was our first king and started out our democracy.
Our visiting cards are made of a design by Piet Mondriaan. He was a 20th century dutch painter who spend almost his whole life painting. He lived in many different places and was influenced by different people. This can be found back in his paintings. He started out making concrete paintings and slowly changed to an abstract style. His motto was; simplicity in order to focus on the most important issues. He never had a change to complete his last painting; the victory boogie woogie. He never had a chance to complete it because he died before it was finished. Still, the Dutch governement bought it for 35 million dollars.
