Untitled Document

Last week's Proceedings -

19th April, 2006

Pres Eddy promptly open our meeting today at 1:15pm so as to allow enough time for today's long program. He formally welcomed DG Peter Wan to our meeting. He further welcomed Mr. Kevin Chu from World Vision and other visitors consisting of the two assistants to our speakers of the day, one each from Rtn Eric Chin and one from Mr. Kevin Chu.

Pres Eddy then made two announcements: The first is concerning our up coming District Conference which will be held on 22nd -23rd of April, 2006 which is just three days away. This Conference will be held at the Regal Airport hotel and will start at 12:30pm on the 22nd starting with Registration. So far we have a delegate of eight Rotarians from our club going but he encouraged more members to join.

The second announcement was on our upcoming debate on next Wednesday regarding the prepayments for our lunches. He emphasize the importance of this meeting so he encourage all members to try to attend and put in your opinion in this matter.

Then Pres. Eddy proceeded to the order of business today.

1) He asked PP Hubert to introduce the first speaker for today who is Mr. Kevin Chu of World Vision, whom we all already knew. He introduce us to our next project which is the Water Project in Kenya. This project is being funded by our Club in collaboration with PP Hubert who jointly provided the funds of HK$298,000 to provide clean water to Kenya villagers effected by drought. Mr. Kevin Chu told us about the extended draught which left 20,000 people with little clean water. The only supply of water are from deep opened wells which provide unclean water for the people which is not even suitable for cleaning purposes. See the Kenya Water Project-Photos. For full report see the Kenya Water Project Report.

At the end of his report a checque for HK$298,000 was presented by DG Peter Wan to Mr. Kevin Chu of World Vision and witnessed by PP Hubert and Pres. Eddy to build the motorized water pump to draw clean water from a deep hole to provide clean drinkable water for the villagers. See Photo.

DG Peter then thanked our club for such a meaningful project for our District.

2) Pres Eddy then invited Hon Sec Andy to introduce our main speaker for today who is our own member Rtn Eric Chin who spoke on the subject of "Developing Creativity and High Order Thinking Skill for our Next Generation by Harnessing the Power of ICT Education". He told us that Rtn Eric is the founder and CEO of Futurekids Hong Kong, an organization to teach children about computer skills.

Rtn Eric began by telling us about why ICT (Information, Communication and Technology) is so important. He told us that the ideal age to start training our children is around 5 years old to 15 years old. They must acquire information into meaning, understanding and new ideas. They must receive:

a) know-how and why
b) Key Technology skills:

* Programming
* Database
* Multimedia, Graphic, Animation
* Word Processing, Spreadsheet
* Internet & Email, web design

What is ICT Education?

* Develop Student's capacities for self-learning, problem solving , Information seeking and analysis, and critical thinking.

* The ability to communicate, collaborate and learn.

How ICT helps to develop Kids' Creativity?

* Free from constriants of existing learning tools
* Creation of virtual spaces
* Simulation
* Ideas visualization

ICT also helps the children to acquire:

* Problem solving skills
* Inquiring skills
* Reasoning skills
* Communicating skills
* Conceptualizing skills

What are the benefits?

* Provide Satisfaction, pride and confidence to students

He ended his talk with answers to questions from the floor.

IPP Rudy then thanked the speaker for a very interesting talk.

Pres Eddy then closed the meeting with a toast to RI coupled with the Rotary Club of Tolo Harbour.

Rotary Information

Polio-endemic near Eradication

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative announced in February that Egypt and Niger are no longer polio-virus because the indigenous form of the polio-virus has not circulated in either country for more than 12 months.

That leaves Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan as the only countries that have never stopped indigenous polio transmission.

The monovalent form of the oral polio vaccine will be the vaccine of choice in all polio-affected areas this year, according to the announcement. Aimed at individual virus strains, the monovalent vaccine will be used to eradicate poliovirus types 1 and 3.

Polio has been endemic in our country for all of recorded history. The best tools of our age finally defeated this enemy has been with us from Pharaonic times.

The success in Egypt and Niger is the result of intense efforts in 2001-05 to halt Africa's polio epidemic and fast-track the introduction of monovalent polio vaccines into selected areas. The number of cases of polio in India and Pakistan in the last quarter of 2005 also fell by more than half compared with the previous year, due to more effective immunization strategies and the use of monovalent vaccine.

"To fully exploit these new tools, government commitment in Nigeria must remain high at all levels as to ensure that all children are vaccinated,". said Past RI President Jonathan Majiyagbe, of Kano, Nigeria. Ninety percent of Nigeria's polio cases are concentrated in just 8 of the country's 37 states.

The announcement says that this year, in addition to mass immunizations in the four remaining polio-endemic countries, large-scale campaign with the monovalent vaccine will need to take place in eight countries with reported cases of imported polioviruses.

****************************

Electronic Make-up Questions

You can submit an electronic makeup for this missed meeting by answering the following 5 questions:

1. Pres. Eddy made two important announcements. What were they?

Answer:

2. We had a District Officer visit our meeting, who was he?

3. We have two speakers today who was the first one?

4. Who was the second speaker?

5. Who was missing from our head table?

Please copy these 5 questions click the following URL John Kwok and paste it to the email and answer these questions and then click send

Subject: Special Quality

A woman is flying on a jumbo-jet to Europe. After they are airborne, the announcements start : "This is your captain Emilia Rodrigues. We are cruising at 35,000 feet .. etc. etc."

When the announcement is finished,the woman passenger beckons to a stewardess and asks, "Is it really true that this great big airplane is being flown by a woman?"

"Yes, says the stewardess, Captain Rodrigues is a woman."

"How wonderful! I am so excited! Do you think you can arrange for me to go up to the cockpit to congratulate her?"

"Yes, I think I can arrange that. You might like to know that the co-pilot is also a woman."

"Oh, how exciting. This is wonderful news! Please let me go to the cockpit so I can congratulate them both!"

"OK, you can do that. You might like to know that actually the entire crew of this plane are women."

"That is the most exciting thing I have heard in a long time ... this has really made my day ... I just have to go to the cockpit to express my admiration!"

"One more thing you might like to know ... we don't call it the cockpit any more."

Photographs of our meeting

The guest speaker is our own Eric Chin who spoke on "The Developing Creativity and High Order Thinking Skill for our Next Generation by Harnessing the Power of ICT Education."