Last week's Proceedings -

Pres. Paul called the meeting to order and welcomed back PP Stephen Liu after his trips to Shanghai and Osaka. Visiting Rotarians were Rtn Nancy Yee from RC Vancouver, Chinatown (our sister club in Canada) and Rtn Benny Ratnani from RC HK Northeast. PDG Uncle Peter had invited a special guest for us, who was Leslie Soltay (our past president in 1994). Our guest speaker was Mr Graham Bibby and his guest Mr Simon Davies.

Acting SAA was Rtn Andrew Shek, who reported a red box collection of HK$1,200.

Pres. Paul made the following reminders

1. Rotary Club of Metropolitan Hong Kong reminds us their sincere invitation to attend their 1st Anniversary Ball which will be held as follows:
   
   

   Date:	29th March, 2007 (Thursday)
   Time:	6:30 Cocktail & 7:30 Dinner
   Venue:	Crystal Ballroom, Basement III, Holiday Inn Golden Miles, Tsimshatsui, Kolwoon
   Dress Code:	Formal

   
   Our presence will be their great honor for celebrating the first year birthday of their Club. So, please mark down our diary and they will call us shortly to confirm our attendance.
   
   
2. Annual Fund Raising Dinner of Rotary Club of Kowloon will be held on Friday 27^th April, 2007, details as follows: -
   
   

   Theme:	Stars of Tomorrow
   Date:	Friday 27th April, 2007
   Time:	6:30pm Cocktail Reception
   Venue:	Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel, Cinderella Ballroom
   Tickets:	$1,000 per person
   Head Table for Dignities:	$3,000 per person

   
   World renowned pianist, Lang Lang will be our special guest for the evening. A press conference would be held in the same venue before the dinner to launch the Lang Lang Piano and the announcement of the Lang Lang's presence at the fund raiser (as a new resident of HK) to support the KELY Café project for the youth of HK.
   
   An auction of Lang Lang's piano with him signing the instrument on the spot to the highest bidder.
   
   Jewelries Auction (design by Edward Chiu), Lucky draw, table prizes and so much more, do not miss out and please show your full support! All donations are welcome!
   
   
3. District Delegation to Beijing 31^st March to 4^th April, 2007. DG Tony will lead a delegtion to visit Beijing officials from 1^st to 4^th April, 2007. This is an carrying on for almost the last 2 decades. Departments which the delegation will be meeting with include:
   
   1. 港澳辦
   2. 統戰部
   3. 民政部
   4. 衛生部
   5. 全中國青年聯合會
   
   During the visit, the delegation will provide a simple booklet detailing introduction of Rotary, history of District 3450 as well as the projects which all the respective clubs have been carrying out in China with total monetary contributions. The District would need our help urgently to advise should there be any additions or changes in the projects undertaken in China by your club since then. Please let them have our feedback by close of business on Friday, 23^rd March, 2007. If they do not hear from you by 23^rd March, 2007, they would assume we have no amendments to the details of your clubs' projects.
   
   Last year, we had a delegation of 30 Rotarians and guests visiting Beijing ministries and national associations. We are glad to inform you that this year we will have Deputy Director Zhou Jun Ming and Officers from the Liaison Office of PRC, Kowloon Branch Office as our Group Consultants (訪問團顧問:中聯辦領導:周俊明副主任, 九龍工作部冼部長及方處長).
   
   Indeed it will be a very good chance for us to meet Chinese Officials of different departments to report our services in China and seeking their opinions and guidance related to our future services.
   
   We are in need of your help to join the delegation and also, to inform our members especially our Service Directors and encourage every one of you to participate. In fact, we are under the pressure of having a small delegation to be leaded by a heavy weight Group Consultants from the Liaison Office of PRC.
   
   Kindly be understood that at this stage, we could hardly come up to a confirm itinerary since the traveling agent must need to know how many delegates we have. For those who wish to join the delegation, please by calling IPDG Peter Wan / PP Edmond Chan to confirm:
   
   IPDG Peter Wan - Email: peter.wan@hk.pwc.com Mobile: 9106 1313
   PP Edmond Chan - Email: ec@chanandchan.com Mobile: 9468 1368
   
   For your information, the District Governor will be going with PDG Anthony Hung, IPDG Peter Wan, DGE Peter Wong and Incoming DS Albert Poon to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia on Wednesday, 4^th April, 2007 and will be coming back on 7^th or 8^th April, 2007 to provide the training program for Rotary Clubs in Mongolia. They welcome Rotarians to join and the District Governor will be glad to arrange for a touring program for participants to tour this beautiful country Mongolia. Please feel free to call him at (852) 91098899 if we find any questions.
   
   
4. To advise President Mr. Paul Chan will be on business trip, out of town respectively on 28^th March and 4^th April, 2007. VP Mr. Laurence Chan kindly take the chair on these two luncheon meetings, in case Mr. Laurence Chan will not be available, IPP Eddy Wong kindly help to take the chair on the aforesaid dates.

IPP Eddy introduced our guest speaker Mr. Graham Bibby from Richmond Group (Asia Pacific), to talk about "Investment guide to making money in Phuket's growing property market".

Mr. Graham Bibby is a well known figure within the financial trading profession. Graham first came to Hong Kong in early 1991 after successfully establishing an Asset Management and Financial Planning company in the UK in 1984. He founded Richmond Asset Management in 1992 under the authorization of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission. Graham was also the Chairman of the Technical Analysts' Society of Hong Kong from 1996 to 1998.

Graham described the typical types of investment returns to be:

• Yield
• Growth
• Yield & Growth
• Guaranteed

An investment return could be ranging from 15% to 25%, depending on its associated risk factors. Phuket property investment was said to be among the top 5 choices globally, especially for retirement destinations, as it is about one-third of the cost of living, when compared to European cities (such as those from Spain).

Phuket was said to have a transformation from "pure holiday destination" to "retirement location". The city has good weather, sunshine and beaches, global dining, growing expatriate community, safe and clean environment, and low cost of living.

Graham produced some statistics about the attractiveness of Phuket property market.

• For holiday booking, it had a take-up rate close to 90% (in March 2007), back to pre-Tsunami level
• There was 400,000 rooms in the holiday front
• There was 200 flights into Phuket each week
• There were 1,800 private jets landed in Phuket in 2006

Graham explained that the Phuket property price rise was more than 15% since 2005 and expected rental income increase of 6% over the next 5 years.

The Phuket property buyer profile in 2006 was as follows:

• 55% from HK (mostly western expatriates)
• 20% from Singapore
• 10% from Europe
• 5% from Thailand
• 10% from others

The life style investment for Phuket was for its potential to "earn income when you are away" and otherwise stay there to appreciate the nice and easy living there, same as those 1.8 million tourists getting there every year.

The residential property price was about HK$4-5 million, when the local Thai style 2-bedroom was as low as HK$1 million. For rental property, the advice from Graham was to go for a professionally managed developer, with an experienced marketing team.

Vote of thanks was by Rtn Norman Lee, and Leslie Soltay had a similar praise for the Phuket holiday experience. The follow up question from the members about the Phuket property investment was such as the tax concern, Graham's advice was to consider using an off-shore company (e.g. BVI) to perform the future buy-sell transaction.

Pres. Paul proposed a toast to RI coupled with RC Hong Kong Northeast and RC Vancouver Chinatown. The members and guests were invited for a group photo after the meeting was adjourned on time.

RI Council on Legislation (2007)

When talking about Council on legislation, one always refers to the present Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Government of the Special Administration Region (SAR).

Rotary also has a Legislative Council, but we meet only once every three years which is called Council on Legislation of Rotary International. The last meeting was held in Chicago, Illinois, USA in 2004, hence we shall meet in 2007 in Chicago from 22^nd to 27^th April to up-date the rules and policies of our administration. Each district is to send one representative to attend the Council Meeting. PDG Vincent To is selected to represent district 3450.

Items of legislation whose purpose is to amend the Constitution or By-laws of RI or Standard Rotary Club Constitution are "Enactments".

"Resolutions" are items which simply express an opinion or which establish or revoke policy or procedure of RI without amending the constitutional documents.
Adopting a proposed enactment requires a majority vote whereas adopting a resolution requires 2/3 votes. For example, Enactments are amendments to existing legislation and Resolutions are provisions to be added to existing legislation.

Prior to the meeting, proposed legislation had been mailed to the district representative for his study and discussion at the Council on Legislation which will be voted upon on each item. Nowadays, the operation of vote counting is by (button-pressing) which facilitates a lot of time consuming.

The Council will be operated under the chairman, vice chairman, the Parliamentarian and member-at-large together with all the representatives from 532 districts worldwide.

At present, we have received from RI the following resolutions/enactments:

Volume 1 ......Nos.1 to 138
Volume 2 ......Nos. 139 to 357

We shall be waiting for the return of our district representative to advise us the result of the decision made when the whole operation is completed.

Club News

From the picture in this bulletin, you will note that our PP John Kwok had become a Paul Harris Fellow with two-stone Ruby pin by his constant contribution to The Rotary Foundation.

PDG Peter Hall presented him with a 2-Ruby Pin on behalf of Rotary International and look forward for his further donations to become a Major Donor. Many thanks PP Johnny. Other members are also requested to become a Paul Harris Fellow starting with a contribution of UD$1000. Other easy payment is to start with a contribution to the Rotary Foundation of US$100 per year, until it is reached to US$1000. spread out in ten years or less. Just inform PDG Peter Hall of your wish and the rest will be done by him.

Our guest speaker Mr. Graham Bibby Making his point in his talk to us about "Investment guide to making money in Phuket's growing property market".

IPP Eddy introducing the guest speaker.

Pres. Paul presenting a club banner to our guest speaker.

(L to R) PP's Rudy, JL, Stephen, Dr. Tony, Rtn's Andrew II, Kenny, PP's George, Henry.

(L to R) PDG Y.K., Rtn Herman, guest Mr. Simon Davies, Rtn Benny Ratnani (RC of HKNE).

PDG Uncle Peter presenting PP John IV his 2-Ruby Paul Harris Pin.

(L to R) We welcome a former member (PP) Leslie Soltay, visiting us from Ontario, Canada, Rtn Nancy Yee (Vancouver, Chinatown) and guest Mr. Simon Davies.

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