Last week's Proceedings -

President Laurence chaired the RCHKIE luncheon meeting for the second time at the new venue (Regal Hotel, Causeway Bay) and it was well attended by 18 members and guests.

PP Rudy introduced the guests attending:

• Speaker - Dr. Au Wing Kwong, head of Social Work Department, from the Hong Kong Shue Yan University; and his two students – Mr. HF Cheng, third-year student from Social Work Department, HKSYU, also the current president of their HKSYU Community Service Team; Mr. SY Tse, second year student from Chinese Department, HKSYU, also the incoming president of their HKSYU Community Service Team
• Pres. Laurence had also invited two applicants to Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholarship program to attend our luncheon - Ms Molly Fu, HKU environmental life science student, and Ms Jean Tsui, HKU translation student

Our birthday boys were none other than, Pres. Laurence, PP John Kwok, and Rtn Kenny Chan, who invited PP Tim, HS Norman and HT Rudy to be their song leaders.

After the birthday celebration President Laurence made his announcements:

Under the ‘Rotary Shares’ theme of the year we are inspired to share our friendship, experience and resources amongst ourselves within our Club members, locally and internationally and extend those to their respective communities.

Today I like to present to you some of the upcoming opportunities for your awareness and consideration to participate and to share the joy of giving and of accepting as follows:

1. A golfing event to raise fund for the Society for the Relief of Disabled Children.

For cash donation, they are looking for a sponsor for the "HOLE-IN-ONE" Prize. The cash donation for this is HK$45,000, and the winner could drive away a Mercedez Benz or a Posche. Other donations can be in nominations of $1,000, $2,000, $5,000, a "wood" or an "iron" golf club.

All type of Prizes is welcome. Anything that would make the lucky draw looks good and attractive. Please inform our Secretary Norman if you like to join.

You can also click onto the following website to learn more about the Society.
http://www.charitygolffordisabledchildren.org/

Please lend a hand. A good opportunity for Rotary public relations and exposure, and at the same time, help the disabled children. You can call PP Angela Hui of RC of Peninsula South at 9303-1182 if you need more details, or send her an email at angela.hui@hkaf.org for enquiry.

2. A charity moon cake sale for this coming Mid-autumn festival.

RC Kwun Tong will use the fund raised in this exercise to fund their elderly home service and low-income family children service. For any order of six boxes or over, they will deliver free of charge and at your choice they will arrange for your order to be donated to the services recipients.

Some members of their club including their President Carol Ling have visited the cake factory in China and observed that the products produced are of high quality in all aspects.

Please contact Pres. Carol Ling at 9161 7633 or send an e-mail to her at c36ling@yahoo.com.hk if you like to place order or enquire further details.

3. A visit to the Hebei Female Students in September 2007

PP George is organizing a trip to visit some of the female students sponsored by our club members for their primary education most likely in the third week-end of September 2007. I and my wife Jennie have prepared to join.

On top of the education fund that has been allocated already PP George has suggested we should buy some extra stationeries for the students and also consider buying some moon cakes from Hong Kong to bring to the teachers to honor and to recognize their hard works in their harsh working environment.

In 2005 our AG Eddy and PP George has visited them once and now it would be the right time and worthwhile moment to visit them again. Please consider to join us this time to share their joy and to witness their accomplishments in making use of our contributions.

4. Fellowship dinner in September 2007 for our members and families

To celebrate the great honor of our PDG Uncle Peter being awarded the "Distinguished Service" District Award coupled with our handful receipt of many other District Awards under the leadership of our IPP Paul last year we propose to have a dinner party for our members and their families to share these glory and experience of our good efforts.

The exact date and venue will be announced in due course but will most likely be one of the Friday evenings in September 2007.

5. District Simplified Grant applied for Joint Water Project with RC Makati North, one of our sister Clubs

This is a joint project with our sister club, RC Makati North, in the Philippines in which we will sponsor the material and accessories required to build a water supply system for a community of 150 families in the outskirt of Manila.

We will also plan to sponsor the building materials to build two houses to accommodate four families in the community out of the 100 houses that will be built in five years using a land donated by a local landlord and the materials donated by Rotary Clubs in the Philippines and overseas.

All the construction works are done by the benefited inhabitants guided by a volunteered famous local architect. If we continue with sponsoring 2 houses each year starting this year at the end of this 5-year project we will be able to contribute 10 houses, 10% of it, and benefit at least 20 families in the community.

More information will be presented to our members next week.

6. District Simplified Grant applied for Swimming Training Program for Choi Jun School’s mildly handicapped students

This is a project to sponsor and subsidize the swimming training program for up to 72 students who are mildly handicapped intellectually to boost both their physical capability and self confidence at school and at home.

More information would also be presented to our members next week and this ended the announcements of President Laurence.

Our luncheon speaker – Dr Au Wing Kwong, head of social work department of Hong Kong Shue Yan University, was formally introduced by PP Rudy. Dr Au Wing Kwong was himself a member of the Community Service Team (CST) in the then Shue Yan College in 1982; and became the academic advisor and consultant to their Community Service Team in HKSYU afterwards. The CST had fruitful exchange experience for their Yunnan / Kunming village school visit, local university cultural exchange, NGO service exchange (taking care of drug addicts rehab, and leaning difficulties children).

A formal presentation in Cantonese was given by Mr HF Cheng, the current president of their HKSYU Community Service Team. HF talked about their CST organization structure:

• CST was established 35 years ago and sponsored by HKSYU student affairs department, basically a self-financed school organization.
• CST had about 150 – 180 student members, from their HKSYU 4-year programs, normally with July for next cabinet election (executive committee), and September for new member recruitment during the orientation camp, and November for the change-over of the cabinet.
• There were three main lines of services, for "senior citizen line", for "handicapped service / rehabilitation line", and for "young children / learning line". There were co-operation with NGO service partners, such as with the Hong Kong Playground Association (香港遊樂場協會), The Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation (香港復康會); and the Hong Kong Society for the Aged (香港耆康老人福利會).

Mr SY Tse, the incoming president of their HKSYU Community Service Team talked about their CST activities. The main objective of their community service team was to offer assistance to their three focused service groups, and to understand more about their service client needs through actual project and community service and to broaden the member self development opportunity and to receive training.

The CST had orgainsed internal newsletter, website (http://www.xanga.com/syccst), and many social activities such as blood donation, and cultural exchange activities for their members.

RCHKIE members had showed great interest in the CST work and Pres. Laurence presented their photo in action as memoirs.

SAA Heman reported a red box collection of HK$1,200 and particularly with handsome contributions from PP John ($300), Pres. Laurence ($200) and Rtn Kenny ($200).

Meanwhile, we had an important next week program – for District Governor Peter Wong to visit our regular luncheon on August 15 (Wednesday), again at Regal Hotel in Causeway Bay. President Laurence reminded all our members to come early to meet our DG at the luncheon on next Wednesday.

The meeting was punctually adjourned, and a toast made to RI coupled with Rotary Club of Hong Kong Island East. The members and guests were invited to take a group photo.

Observation by Membership Development
Chairman, PDG Peter Hall

AUGUST is the month designated by Rotary International as the Membership and Extension month. PDG Peter Hall is appointed by President Laurence Chan to be the chairman of this committee for the Rotary year 2007-2008, hence he gives his expression on this topic.

At the beginning, I thought it was only Hong Kong which has the problem of membership or membership retention. Throughout these years, I made survey from other countries, such as Japan, USA and the United Kingdom. All these countries have the same problem of losing members and difficult to increase the number of new members.

In my mind, Japan is one of the countries where Rotary is very strong and not easy to become a member of a Rotary Club. They all lived up to the standard of Rotary requirement. This practice becomes history. Not only Rotary, but also other service organizations are facing the same trend. It seems the only way to increase membership is to charter more new clubs.

I remembered the old days when I was a member of my club, all members must be at the meeting place half an hour before the meeting started, otherwise you will be warned and gave your reason. If you cannot attend the meeting, you have to inform the Hon. Secretary, at least by telephone.

If you cannot meet the attendance requirement, your membership will be terminated after warning for the 3rd time, unless you have a valid reason. During my year as president in 1964/65, I have to carry out the board’s decision to terminate the membership of one of the members who had a poor attendance.

I would try out the initiative decided by the RI Board to recruit new members as follows :

1. Recognize the proposer of a new member with a special lapel pin;
2. Waive the admission fee for Rotaractor (after completed his/her Rotaract membership) to join Rotary;
3. Rotary Foundation alumni can be admitted to Rotary club though the classification is filled.

I hope these incentives will help.

Rotary International often said that “Do not make Rotary too expensive”, as evidenced by a report made by RI General Secretary Ed Futa at the 2007 Salt Lake City Convention that 9% of the clubs worldwide are having “Coffee Meeting” in order to minimize expenses, I would suggest that when a member introduces a potential friend to attend our meeting and his/her friend be ultimately successful inducted into Rotary, this member should be reimbursed with the cost of the lunches/dinners incurred. To familiar with the club, the said potential friend would have attended four or more lunches/dinners already.

Secondly, a Rotarian should remember who introduced him/her to Rotary at the first hand. Now is his/her duty to introduce at least one person to Rotary. In such a way, Rotary membership will multiply. Approach those members who have never introduced anyone into Rotary.

Thirdly, Classification is not a problem. We have only two types of membership now. We can always open a new classification to fit in for the new member.

Fourthly, take care of our members moving out from our area to other area or vice versa, these transferring members need not pay admission fee for the second time, as he/she is already a Rotarian.

Lastly, the job looking for new members does not totally confine to the Membership Development Chairman. Every member has the responsibility to do his/her duty.