Last September 2006 during the WOCO conference in South Africa, I met Alexander Pons and Christophe Breuer, two guys from table 50 from Eupen in Belgium. At the conference, which was packed with national board members and office holders, human chemistry worked to form friendships with two people who hold no official positions but are undoubtedly uncrowned ambassadors of the Round Table in Belgium.
When I arrived in Switzerland on a family vacation a month later, I couldn’t refuse their suggestion to come to meet us in their city, Eupen, and to attend the meeting of their table, table 50, together with table 60 in the city of Hey. Christian Denayer, the table’s national president, came specially to that meeting.
Christian and I had become friendly prior to that. It began when he came to visit me in Namur during the Round Table 5 Euromeeting last May, and continued afterwards when we met at the EMA conference in Malta. I very much appreciated the effort he made in coming especially to meet me again. Our good relationship will also undoubtedly promote special relations between the Belgian and Israeli tables, a relationship that will constitute a basis in the future for many more friendships between table office holders.
Stronger than anything in the table are the friendly relations that go beyond borders, which only the round table can create. This is the kind of relationship I have with Alexander and Christophe, an exceptionally good one. Our friendship is not the usual type of friendship formed in the table, but the kind that in my opinion crosses borders and rises to true friendship way beyond table affairs. It is no accident that I promised the two of them, before returning to Israel, that whenever and wherever it may be, if they need me, I’ll be there. “True friendship,” Alex taught me while I was there, “is completely unconditional friendship.” This, I feel, is the type of friendship formed between me and the two of them.
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