When The Spotlight Moves Backstage

The People Who Made Rotterdam Happen

By Evelina Knowlton

The lights have now gone down on Rotary’s European Action Summit – To Belong 2026

Five intense and wonderful days in Rotterdam. Five days of meeting old friends, making new ones, exchanging ideas and sharing some very special moments together.

Our social media feeds tell that story beautifully: hundreds of photographs, smiling faces, embraces, laughter and the unmistakable joy of being together again at an important Rotary gathering.

But now I would like to turn the spotlight somewhere else.

Let us turn it backstage.

Behind every successful event there are people whom we rarely see in the photographs. They arrive before everyone else. They solve problems that most participants will never know existed. They worry about the smallest details so that others do not have to. And when everything works perfectly, they quietly move on to the next task.

For weeks, I had the pleasure and privilege of working with an extraordinary group of Rotarians and Rotaractors to organise the Intercountry Committees Breakout Session on 12 September and our ICC presence in the House of Friendship.

They were an incredible team.

Working from Italy to organise an event taking place in Rotterdam also teaches you something important about trust. You have to rely completely on people you may never have met personally. You entrust them with responsibilities, decisions and details from hundreds of kilometres away.

I could not have placed that trust in better hands.

What began as an organisational team has ended, for me, as a group of people I am now very proud to call dear friends.

Leadership Means Being There

My first and heartfelt thank you goes to #JandeMooij, responsible for the organisation of the Summit.

Despite carrying enormous responsibilities for the entire event, and despite the demands surrounding the presence of our Rotary International President Olayinka Babalola, Jan somehow always found the time to respond to my messages — usually almost immediately.

That may sound like a small thing. It isn’t.

When somebody carries that level of responsibility and still makes colleagues feel that their questions matter, it says something very important about leadership.

Thank you, Jan. That was leadership in action.

Annet — My Other Half in Rotterdam

And then there is #AnnetWeijermarsCorver.

Annet was our Rotterdam team leader for the ICC event and the House of Friendship — and, during these past weeks, very definitely my “other half”!

She embodies so many of the Rotary values that

we talk about but are not always fortunate enough to encounter so completely in one person: competence, commitment, generosity, respect and an extraordinary ability to bring people together.

She knows her work. She understands people. And, perhaps most importantly, she respects and values everyone who works with her and alongside her.

We worked relentlessly together for weeks, right through to the final preparation of the House of Friendship. What visitors eventually saw at the ICC booth was the finished product. What they did not see were

the very early mornings, when preparations were already under way while many others were still waiting for the doors to open and the day’s programme to begin.

That is the backstage of a successful Rotary/ICC event.

The Team Behind the Smiles

My deepest thanks therefore go to #EbedLitaay, #LauradeGroot, #AnastasiaMoor and #WillCampbell — Annet’s fantastic team.

Your energy, patience, friendship and tireless contribution made an enormous difference. I will always be grateful to all of you.

And there were many others who helped, supported, encouraged, carried, moved, prepared, welcomed and simply made things happen.

Every one of you contributed to what our visitors experienced.

Because a warm welcome does not happen by accident. A successful session does not happen by accident. A booth that looks effortless is very rarely effortless.

Behind it are people.  And Finally… the Luggage Department!

There is one final thank-you.

To Richard Knowlton, who discovered a previously unsuspected talent and temporarily reinvented himself as our very own porter and baggage carrier!

Every successful team, after all, needs someone willing to carry the boxes. And perhaps that is the real message I take home from Rotterdam. Rotary is not only what happens under the spotlight. It is also what happens before the doors open and after everyone else has gone home. It is the person answering a message late at night, the volunteer arriving early in the morning, the Rotarian or Rotaractor moving a box, solving a problem, welcoming a stranger or quietly doing whatever needs to be done. The photographs show us the success.

The people backstage make the success possible. To Jan, Annet, Ebed, Laura, Anastasia, Will, Richard and every person who helped us along the way: thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Rotterdam gave a few unforgettable days. But what I will remember most are the people who made them possible.