Last week's Proceedings -
14th March, 2007
Last week's Proceedings -
14th March, 2007
Pres. Paul chaired the luncheon meeting and Rtn Peter Yeung welcomed the visiting Rtn John De Boer from RC Willowdale, Toronto, Canada (who had the Ontario Governor General's Caring Canadian Award and being a Willowdale Rotary Club member for over 30 years) and Rtn Isaac Namabiri and Mrs Debbie Namabiri from RC St. Marylebone in London, UK. Both visiting Rotarians were delighted to exchange banners with Pres. Paul.
Pres. Paul made a few reminders
- 4th April (Wednesday) – Club visit from RC Harbour to join us at Excelsior Hotel
- Rotary Club of Metropolitan Hong Kong, I would like to express my sincere invitation to you all to attend our 1st Anniversary Ball which will be held as follows:
- Date: 29th March, 2007 (Thursday)
- Time : 6:30 Cocktail & 7:30 Dinner
- Venune: Crystal Ballroom, Basement III, Holiday Inn Golden Miles, Tsimshatsui, Kolwoon
- Dress Code: Formal*
- Rotary Landmark MapGazine
- RC Beijing visit - Delegation leaving in late March
- Proposed Enactments and Resolutions for Council on Legislation in Chicago in April 2007
- District Conference on 26th May
- RI Council of Legislation in Chicago
- Rotary Blood Donation Week. Inaugural Living with HIV Charity Drawing Competition organized by RC of Bayview Sunshine, Chi Heng Foundation, Living with HIV and Standard Chartered Bank. Opening ceremony to be held on Friday 23rd March, 2007
PDG Uncle Peter was acting SAA and reported red box collection of HK$600.
PP Hubert introduced our speaker, Mr Edwin Lee, as his PolyU DBA classmate, being the youngest and most creative. Mr Lee addressed us on "Spirit of Entrepreneurship".
Mr Lee left his US employment after 11th September, 2001 and returned to HK to start his own business. Mr Lee is the founder and CEO of Hong Kong Business Intermediary Co. Ltd., and acquired the CPA and CFA qualifications. HKBI is a business sale specialist, with 40 staff and had about 300 successful cases in SME business sales.
Mr Lee gave us a few interesting stories about his view on "Spirit of Entrepreneurship":
- An ancient story in Tang Dynasty, about a rich man educating a young friend about his trick on how to get rich. Using a metaphor on what to choose from when there were 3 slices (big, medium, small) of water melon – the rich guy picked the small one, finished his slice of water melon and went on to take the second one, when his young friend was still eating the big slice of water melon. [the lesson learnt: no harm to be a humble businessman to start with]
- Also a real story about Mr Harland Sanders – the KFC founder who developed a unique, quick method of spicing and pressure-frying chicken. During WW2 time, his café business was forced to close down. However, Sanders kept trying to sell his recipe until 1952 to sign on his first franchise to Pete Harman, who owned a hamburger restaurant in Salt Lake City, Utah. Subsequently Sanders convinced several other restaurant owners to add his Kentucky Fried Chicken to their menus – and now becoming largest fast-food chicken operator, developer, and franchiser in the world today. [the lesson learnt: perseverance will win in the end]
Mr Lee went on to explain his "three Bs"on business ventures:
- "Build"– to be creative, but may risk high business failure rate when starting from scratch.
- "Borrow"– to consider franchising, and adopting successful business models
- "Buy"– to buy out existing business, who has track records, customer sources and experienced staffing
Mr Lee had more stories on the entrepreneurship:
- That in the 600AD – first Chinese woman emperor - Wu Zetian had a nightmare about losing all her teeth. One of her aids got reprimanded by telling her that could be interpreted as losing all her relatives in future; whereas another aids got promoted and rewarded by telling her that it meant Wu would live much longer than all her relatives. [the lesson learnt: positive thinking gets reward]
- A story was about the farm cattles – different response from cows, sheeps and pigs – when the cow was milked, or when the sheep was sheered for the wool; - both were tame and did not get hurt that much. Yet when the pig was caught, it reacted violently because for sure the owner aimed for the ham. [the lesson learnt: different perspective / emotional when the stake is at risk]
- Another story about asking the way – how far to get to the train station. It was difficult to estimate when different people had different pace – so it could only give a wise guess after people had started to move.
Mr Lee had handled many business cases for retail stores, food & beverage, golf shops, education centres, and trading firms.
Mr Lee explained how HKBI served their buyer / customers – by providing professional services in identifying different business factors – such as choice, foundation, transaction, time, room to improve, success rate etc. HKBI believed they provided professional services with satisfaction, low risk level, low cost, with support and flexibility, a quick and clean start.
Mr Lee concluded by telling us that many people started their business successfully when they have heart and with endurance. Rtn Herman Lam thanked the speaker for an insightful talk and Pres. Paul adjourned the meeting and proposed a toast to RI coupled with RC Willowdale and RC St. Marylebone. The guests were invited to take a group photo.
Rotary Information
Foundation Alumni Co-Ordinator
PDG Jason C. H. Yeung of district 3450 is selected to attend the training in Chicago, U.S.A. from 8th to 14th March 2007, as a RI Foundation Alumni Co-ordinator.
After a silence of two years, District Governor Tony Wong formed an organizing committee for the preparation of a Past Presidents Dinner on the 9th March 2007.
This committee was headed by IPDG Peter Wan with his committee members. The past presidents gathering was held at the Hong Kong
Academy of Medicine, Jockey Club Building, Aberdeen, Hong Kong. It was started with a cocktail reception followed by western style dinner. There were lots of activities, such as showing the nostalgic pictures of various years, live music, Fun Fun Show and lucky draw. The attendance was around 200 participants from Hong Kong and Macau. Due to the long distance, there was no past presidents from Mongolia. Led by President Paul Chan, R/C of Hong Kong Island East had its past presidents also, namely, PDG Peter Hall, PP John Luk, PP Rudy Law and PP Eddy Wong. (Eddy was also one of the organizers of the committee of this event).D.G. Tony gave a special announcement at the opening of the meeting of a new club in district 3450 – the Rotary Club of Taipa, Macau which will have its charter night on the 23rd March 2007 in Macau. The charter president Rocky Chung was also invited to the stage to say a few words.
The theme of the evening was "Those were the Days", when many of the old slides were shown on the screen. The oldest past president was in the person of PDG George Choa. Those appeared on the slides looked so young. PDG Peter Hall was in the picture at the opening of our own premises of the Rotary Information Centre, dating back to 1985. What a great reminiscent !
In order to promote Rotary, a coloured pamphlet in Chinese and English, consisted of many Rotary Landmarks in district 3450 were distributed to each and everyone of the participants. At present, it includes the following eight landmarks :
- Mai Po Rotary Centennial Institute;
- Tai Mo Shan Rotary Park;
- Castle Peak Rotary New Life Halfway Home;
- Macao Rotary Memorial Clock Structure;
- Shek Kwu Chau Rotary Monument;
- HK Park Fighting SARS memorial Site;
- Tsim-Sha-Tsui Park Lane Rotary Courtesy Sculpture and
- Shatin Central Park Preserve Planet Earth (PPE) Sculpture.
Before the curtain was down, a lucky draw took place. One of our members, PP John Luk was lucky enough to be a winner of a prize too.
Having all the enjoyments of the evening, the party was ended by 11 p.m.******************
Electronic Make-up Questions
JokesI'm the Boss
The boss was complaining in our staff meeting the other day that he wasn't getting any respect.
The next day, he brought a small sign that Read:
"I'm the Boss!"
He then taped it to his office door.
Later that day when he returned from lunch, he found that someone had taped a note to the sign that said:
"Your wife called, she wants her sign back!"
on
14th March, 2007
Our guest speaker was Mr. Edwin Lee, CPA, CFA Founder and CEO of Hong Kong Business Intermediary Co., Ltd, speaking to us on the business opportunities, "Spirit of Entrepreneurship in Hong Kong".
A photo of our three visiting Rotarians with PP John IV.
(L to R) IPP Eddy, Rtn Peter II, PP John IV, PP Rudy, Rtn. Heman and Rtn John De Boer (RC Willowdale, Toronto, Canada)
(L to R) PP Tim, Rtn Dr. Tony, Dir Jason, PP's Henry, Hubert, Rtn Herman.
The group Photo of our meeting with PDG Uncle Peter, Pres. Paul, Visiting Rotarians and members on 14th March 2007.
