What Happened at Our Meeting
PE. Henry opened today's session by reminding members that he, VP. Rudy and Rt. Robert would, in turn, be chairing the regular Wednesday's sessions henceforth, as Pres. Chris had already started his sabbatical leave from the club. PE. Henry further mentioned jokingly that he had already pre-paid the Sergeant-at-Arms, lest he would make any blunders today. PE. Henry then introduced our visiting Rotarians, namely, AG. Bob Wilson of Hong Kong South as well as Christine Stewart of Matilda Bay (Western Australia). PE. Henry and Rt. Christine then exchanged the club flags. Rt. John Yao then introduced his guest, Dr. Stephen Chow, who was soon to become a member of our club. PE. Henry further welcomed Rt. Lewis who came back from China.
PP. Tajwar then briefed members about the Long John Golf Challenge Cup. He mentioned that he faxed the details of the game to all golfers in the club and was anticipating response from members soon. He added that this tournament was meant as an yearly event organized for fellowship among members with other sister clubs. He answered some questions from the floor regarding the game and promised to send more faxes regarding the rules and other details of the game.
Rt. Heron, who acted as the Sergeant-at-Arms, announced a handsome collection of HK$2,200. Meanwhile, PE. Henry announced the club's decision to top up today's collection to HK$3,000 and donate the proceeds to the victims of the earthquake at XinJiang (North China,) as suggested by Dir. Jason. PE. Henry then mentioned that today's featured program was our Club Assembly, which was to be chaired by VP. Rudy. Regarding the club's decision to donate today's proceeds to the earthquake's victims, PDG Uncle Peter remarked, "As the Rotary Foundation discontinues assisting in world calamities, I hope our action will echo other clubs to follow actions on such urgent needs."
VP. Rudy then invited PP. John to speak about Club Service. PP John first alerted members that our club's attendance was not good. He mentioned that many members had consistently been meeting below the club's minimum requirement of 60% attendance. PP. John also said that attendance continued to be low despite the club's repeated reminders about members going for make-ups. Thus, he urged members to actively participate on the make-ups in order to beef up the club's attendance rate. IPP Stephen also suggested that there was a way to make up attendance "virtually through the web," about which PP. John would elaborate in his talk next week.
On the topic of "New Members Admission," PP. John mentioned that the club was not meeting its target of admitting at least five new members per year. According to him, the club was still short of three new members as of today. He further warned members that the club's membership had declined by a factor of half from its peak number. AG. Bob had subsequently offered some suggestions on how to improve the club's membership. First, he described that it was often difficult and inefficient to have all members to recruit new members. He said that the most effective way was to organize a task force of no more than three members. Second, he mentioned that HK Island East had made one of the best weekly bulletins among the clubs, and he suggested HK Island East to utilize similar resources to produce a special brochure to introduce potential and new members about the club. Third, he suggested that the recruitment task force should attempt to approach new arrivals of Hong Kong to join the club. One resource that the task force might want to utilize was the New Appointment section of the South China Morning Post, which often introduced new senior appointments of companies, many of whom were also new arrivals in Hong Kong. VP. Rudy also suggested renewing the incentives for introducing new members to the club.
PP. John finally touched on the topics of "Firesides Events" and "Speakers Program." On the "Firesides Events," he mentioned that the club should hold four every half-year and we had only two so far. He urged members to volunteer to hold more of these events, which had proven to be fun and effective in fostering good fellowships among members in informal settings. Rt. Robert suggested re-scheduling one of the regular meetings to an evening session, whereby members' spouses and companions could be invited. Sec. Eddy supported the motion and suggested the date be 23rd April. PP. Tajwar cautioned members to publicize any time change to our regular meeting well in advance, lest visiting Rotarians might have come at the original time, not knowing about the change. PDG. Uncle Peter added in the case that PP. Tajwar mentioned the visiting Rotarians' make-up would be considered valid by the club.
As far as the "Speakers Program," PP John requested support and help from members to nominate more speakers. Thus far, he had lined up speakers up to 2nd April, as shown below:
5th March Club Assembly
12th March Web Page talk by John Kwok
19th March Cigar Talk arranged by Clark Lu
26th March Fung Shui by Raymond Lo (arranged by Raymond Lee)
2nd April Rotary Foundation by PDG. John WanSubsequently, VP. Rudy invited Dir. Laurence to speak about International services. Dir. Laurence reported that he had sent out letters to our sister clubs about our club's theme this year, namely, "to ensure continuous intimate relationship with our sister clubs." In this respect, he mentioned that the club wished to encourage sharing of project ideas among the sister clubs. He had proposed to review our project portfolios, seek possible collaborations on some of the projects with sister clubs, and share experience in executing these projects.
PE. Henry finally concluded the Club Assembly and thanked all the speakers who contributed fruitful ideas. He then ended the session by proposing a toast to the Rotary Clubs of Hong Kong South and Matilda Bay (Western Australia.)
1905 Chicago attorney Paul Harris organizes first Rotary meeting on 23rd February 1905, leading to formation of Rotary Club of Chicago.
1906 Rotary Club of Chicago provides a public toilet outside City Hall, Rotary's first community service project.
1910-11 Paul Harris elected first president of National Association of Rotary Clubs at the first Rotary Convention.
1911-13 Clubs formed in Canada, Great Britain and Ireland; organization name changes to International Association of
Rotary Clubs. The National Rotarian magazine launched.1915-16 Club chartered in Cuba, the first non English-speaking Rotary country.
1916-17 President Arch Klumph proposes establishing an endowment Fund, precursor of The Rotary Foundation.
1923-24 Current Rotary emblem adopted.
1942-43 Rotary conference in London on education and cultural Exchange sets stage for UNESCO.
1945-46 Forty-nine Rotarians help draft the UN charter.
1946-47 Founder Paul Harris dies in Chicago, outpouring of funds from Rotarians used to establish fellowship program.
1948-49 First 18 Rotary Fellows study abroad, a precursor of Ambassadorial Scholars.
1962-63 First Interact club formed in Melbourne, Florida, USA. World Community Service programme launched.
(to be continued)
Mathew was happy as his girlfriend and he were dating for over a year, and so they decided to get married. His parents helped them in every way, his friends encouraged and his girlfriend?
She was a dream! There was only one thing bothering Mathew, quite much indeed, and that was his mother-in-law to be.She was a career woman, smart, but most of all beautiful and sexy, who sometimes flirted him, quite obviously too, and made him feel uncomfortable. One day, she called Mathew and asked to come over to check the invitations so he went. She was
alone and when Mathew arrived, she whispered to him that soon he was to be married, and she had feelings and desires for him that she can't overcome. So before Mathew get married and commit his life to her daughter, she wants to make love to him just once. Mathew was in total shock, and couldn't say a word.So his mother-in-law said, I'll go to the bedroom, and if you are up for it, just come and get me. Mathew just watched her delicious behind as she went up the stairs. He stood there for a moment, and then turned around and went to the front door... He opened it, and stepped out of the house. His father-in-law was standing outside, and with tears in his eyes, hugged Mathew and said, we are very happy and pleased, you have passed our little test. We couldn't have asked for a better man for our daughter. Welcome to the family.
¨Lesson learned "Always keep your condoms in your car"
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5th March, 2003. |