Hello Everybody!

"Atsui desune" (Very hot, isn't it?), has become a common greeting here in Japan lately. Here in Kyoto, the daily temperature hits over 35 degree (centigrade). My apartment has two air conditioners, but they suddenly broke last Saturday at the beginning of a 3 day holiday. So I couldn't get hold of the managment company until Tuesday, and I tried to bear it. My apartment is located on the top floor of a 5 story building, and it is a corner room. Yes, it sounds nice, except for in the summer. All the heat from the flat roof and walls really boil the unit. On Tuesday, I felt sick with headache and my body temperature was high, the doctor warned me not to sleep or stay in the unit until the air conditioners were fixed, then gave me an IV shot to rehydrate me... So until Friday, I ended up commuting from my Mom's house in Osaka. I hear that not just Japan, but many countries are having an extremely hot summer. I hope everyone is taking good care of their health drinking water and avoiding the heat. I think Bario was a heaven, as the morning and evening temperatures were lower than 20 degree.

Tokyo operation is now run by YoyoPan Club.



Members are those who have experience running activities as Facilitator Leader(FL). This makes Tokyo Pangaea autonomous. We discuss, debate and reflect about future and past activities in an effort to improve quality and efficiency of activities.
I am very impressed by the amount of discussions that are happening through this group. Members keep up and new sleds appear frequently. I pop up once in a while, to give me a better understanding of what is going on, where they have problems, and what Pangaea HQ can do to support them. I am learning a lot about the Internet community through Yoyopan.

Ms. Yoshimi Nakagawa joined as an intern, and she will do so until next March. She majored in Law in university, and was a vice chair for students clubs at university. So she has been helping to set legal documents and rule books for us. This helps us greatly, as none of us were strong in that domain, but had to understand, and we ended up studying books with unfamiliar legal vocabularies.

This month, I will be in Japan for the entire month. This is very unusual, but I am happy to be able to focus on R & D.

Well, I would like to introduce a Pangaea Ring writer for this month, Kenkichi Shimooka known as Woophin who is one of the Pangaea volunters. He originally started to engage in Pangaea as an FL at Kyoto and now is actively engaging in the Tokyo activity as a Yoyopan member.

Yumi

I would like to introduce a Pangaea ring writer for this month, Kenkichi Shimooka known as Woophin who is one of the Pangaea volunters. He originally started to engage in Pangaea as an FL at Kyoto and now is actively engaging in the Tokyo activity as a Yoyopan member.



Hello.

My name is Kenkichi Shimooka. I am called "Woophin" in Pangaea.
I happened to know about Pangaea by chance. I used to volunteer to teach how to operate a computer at a children's hospital of Kyoto University Hospital on my days off work. A representative doctor of the children's hospital asked me if I knew about Pangaea.
I actually had just learned about them, because a few days before that day I found a flyer for Pangaea which was titled, "Let's talk with children all around the world using Pictogram".
I said that I knew about it and it sounded interesting! The doctor said Pangaea was planning to do an event here, but he was worried about how to cope with a matter of compliance in order to invite an organization from outside. I persuaded them to start the first event because I also wanted to join the activity.

On that year, Pangaea was researching whether they can provide some events to a field of children's hospitals. I was also interested in it very much, so I joined the Pangaea event which was held in Kyoto University Hospital. Furthermore, I was invited to some regular Pangaea events as well. I realized that I learned a lot of things through participating with them as a facilitator.
I never imagined that one flyer which I found in Kyoto could have changed my life, and even after I moved to Tokyo, I still have opportunities to work with them as a volunteer member. I find it's worth doing it. I get as excited when I participate in Pangaea activities as the children do.

Kenkichi Shimooka
President
ref Inc.