RIAS alumni chapters meet in New York, Cologne & Berlin
RIAS Berlin Commission alumni chapters held reunion meetings in New York, Cologne and Berlin in recent weeks — the first get-togethers in over a year. New York Alumni Chapter leader Michael Gargiulo (right) and six other members of the New York alumni group met at Reichenbach Hall in Manhattan on Thursday, July 15 to celebrate their first meeting after the coronavirus pandemic shutdown. Gargiulo said the group was delighted to meet again in the popular German-style beer hall in midtown and talked about the upcoming alumni program in September in Berlin for up to 30 Americans interested in covering the German federal election on September 26 and networking.
“It meant so much for us to get back together after a year and a half because it meant that RIAS New York is back, but also New York City is back,” said Gargiulo, who is also the U.S. coordinator for applicants to the alumni program. Among those alumni who also attended the New York alumni meeting were Adam Reiss, Tiffany Zeno, TJ Speicher, and Basti Harting.
In Cologne, chapter leader Martin Richter (second from right) and six others gathered in a Brauhaus near the Rhine River on Wednesday, July 14. The turnout was reduced by heavy rains in the region that evening that led to devastating flash floods the next day in towns southwest from Cologne. Those attending also talked about the planned alumni program to the United States in late October and whether the United States will relax travel restrictions on European Union citizens soon — a topic of discussion that Chancellor Angela Merkel discussed with President Joe Biden a day later at their meeting in Washington DC.
“I think everyone who came had a great time,” said Richter, who will be coordinating the German applicants for the October alumni program to New York in late October. Among those who also joined the alumni chapter meeting were Bartosz Dudek, Claudia Davis and Kerstin Ruskowski.
In Berlin, the chapter met on June 30 with Vladimir Balzer (first from the left) organizing a meeting at a Berlin restaurant in the government quarter that four others attended. The Berlin group talked about the upcoming elections in Germany, the status of vaccinations and infection rates in the coronavirus pandemic, recruiting efforts for new applicants to the RIAS programs from especially eastern Germany and the upcoming alumni program in October in New York after the October 2020 program to Washington was cancelled. The group also celebrated Benjamin Eyssel’s long-delayed appointment to Beijing for RBB radio (on the right) Also attending were Dorte Störmann, Erik Kirschbaum and Philipp Eins.
