Last week's Proceedings -

1st November, 2006

Pres. Paul opened the meeting at 1: 20 p.m. and welcomed PP Albert Ang (RC of Mandaluyong, Philippines), Rtn. Margaret Nerio (RC of Huntington Beach, USA) and PP Simon Wong (RC of Northeast).

Then he proceeded to make two announcements.

  1. Rotary International President Bill Boyd and his wife Lorna together with his Aide, the Rotary Foundation Trustee Ron Burton couple will be visiting Hong Kong from 20th to 23rd of November, 2006.

    President Jeremy of Rotary Club of Hong Kong and President Joseph Chan of Rotary Club of Wanchai who will jointly organize an Intercity Meeting for us to meet our leaders. The Intercity Meeting is to be held on Tuesday, 21st November, 2006 at Kowloon Shangri-la Hotel from 7:00 p.m. till about 10:00 p.m. Dinner Fee: HK$650.00 net per person including drinks.

    It is our great honor to have our R.I. President visiting us since there are over 500 Rotary districts internationally and we are one of the lucky districts to be visited by our R.I. President Bill.

    Registration: Rotary Information Centre at: ric@rotary3450.org or by fax: (852) 28955926.

  2. The forum for Rotaract Advisors
    Date:Saturday, 4th November, 2006
    Venue: G 5214, City University
Pres. Paul then gave away three banners to our three guests and receive one banner in exchange ( Huntington Beach). One banner each was given to PP Albert Ang and PP Simon Wong.

Then Pres. Paul celebrated birthdays of PE Laurence and Rtn. Eric and lead the birthday songs to them both.

Next he invited our speaker for today who is our own Rtn Herman to give his vocational talk.

He started his talk by telling us a joke. Definition of a successful man. A man that made more money than his wife can spend. Definition of a successful women. A women who can find such a man.

Rtn Herman is Hong Kong born and was educated at St Joseph College. Went to Canada in 1974 for four years in Oakville Ontario and finished his undergraduate degree majoring in economics and commerce at the University of Toronto. He returned to Hong Kong in 1981 and started his career in the securities business working as a floor trader on the floor of K N stock exchange. IN 1985 he became the Chief Investment Officer for the Deutsche Bank Capital Market here in Hong Kong and later in 1987 set up an Asian Securities Sales and Trading operation for them in New York. Three years later he joined Smith New Court as head of their Asian proprietary trading. SNC is the largest ADR Market Maker in the United States. They made markets for 8 Asian cities across a 2 hours time zone to Domestic Mutual funds as well as hedge funds like Soros and Tigers. Average working hours came to 16 hours per day. Life was tough then but have built him a good foundation when he founded his own hedge fund operation in 1993. The first Hedge fund he launched was named Tai-chi Equity. The initial seed capital was US$8 million. During the following ten years four more hedge funds were launched with asset under management totaling more than US$100 million. These years are very exciting moments that he treasures very much.

Then in December of 2002 his father passed away due to colon cancer. That has changed his life completely or at least how he looked at things from then on. For the first time in his life he saw death up close. From the moment his father closed his eyes he knew for sure that spirit exists after death. He asked questions like where do we come from, what are our purpose on earth and where are we going after death. As a Christian he found all the answers in the Bible. When he started to search for the truth he found everything written down like a manual. Now he goes to Bible study three times a week on top of regular Sunday service.

He now values a man by not what he owns but how much he is willing to give. How much he is willing to serve others.

When Pres. Paul asked him to join the Rotary Club, he was attracted by their slogan.
“To serve above oneself”. He said, “As a new comer to this club, I will try my very best to learn from each and every one of the existing Rotarians how to achieve that objective. And of course have lots of fun while doing it.

So at this moment you would probably wanted to know why on earth this guy wanted to start an IT business at the age of 45 after spending 25 years of his career in the securities business”. He further said, “ Well there are two reasons:

  1. Because I know very little about the IT business and I have a strong passion to learn and to understand them.
  2. I know that Information is King and the speed of obtaining information will give us a strong competitive edge on what ever business or industries we are in.

The Internet has provided us with such (almost free) platform where by information can be passed, broadcasted and distributed at lightning speed.  I believe we are at a very preliminary stage of development and are merely scratching the surface of this tremendous network.”

He started Tian Di Web a couple of years ago in Sai Kung near the University of Science and Technology.  They rented a village house and have only two staff, one web designer and a programmer.  Initially they were doing web site for Churches and non-profit organization for free and slowly they moved into the business sector.  Slowly and surely they have acquired the necessary programming and creative architecture they are now building trading engines for stocks online trading.  Last year they moved to their office in Lan Kwai Fong in Central and now have 10 staff and still hiring.

He then ended his talk by inviting questions from the floor.  Then followed very enthusiastic questions from many of our members, which Herman answered very thoroughly.  

Pres. Paul thanked the speaker for a very interesting talk and presented him with a photograph of himself. 

Pres. Paul then closed the meeting with a toast to RI coupled with the Rotary clubs of Mandaluyong, Huntington Beach and Northeast.

 


Rotary Information
The Rotary International Service Above Self Award is presented annually to individual Rotarians whose contributions to the organization embody the spirit of the Rotary motto “Service Above Self”.

The award recognizes outstanding efforts in the promotion of RI objectives in any Avenue of Service and is Rotary’s highest honour for a Rotarian. Current and immediate past district governors and current and past RI directors can submit nominations for the award, which are then considered by the RI Board of Directors. For 2004-05, the board selected 125 Rotarians and one of them is PP Stanley Siu-kwong MOK of the Rotary Club of Hong Kong Sunrise of district 3450. Our heartiest congratulations to Stanley, and we are proud of you.

Club News :

On behalf of The Rotary Foundation, PDG Peter Hall presented a one-ruby multiple Paul Harris Fellow Pin to our PP John Gee-on Kwok during our regular lunch meeting to-day, thanking him for his generous contribution to the Foundation. For general information, this 1-ruby PHF pin recognizes his donation of total US$7,000.00. up to this date. He pledged to continue his contribution to the Foundation until he reaches the Major Donor’s mark. Well done, PP John Kwok and many thanks to your ardent support.

Refreshing our knowledge of the Golf Rules :

As our club’s golf tournament is approaching to start in October, 2005, it is considered the right time to refresh our knowledge regarding this complicated ruling as per the following Questions and Answers.

Q. In a stroke play, a competitor, whose ball lies in a bunker, makes a practice swing and touches the ground in the bunker with his club. His fellow-competitor advises him that his action may be a breach of the Rules. The competitor disagrees and makes several more practice swings prior to making his stroke, touching the sand each time. What is the penalty ?

A. As the competitor was correctly advised that touching the ground in the bunker with his club during a practice swing was a breach of the Rules, the third principle in Decision 1-4/12 is not applicable. Therefore, the competitor is penalized four strokes – two strokes for the initial breach and two stroke for all subsequent breaches when the additional practice swings were made.

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Ball Changed During Play of Hole to Aid Identification

Q. A and B realized after playing their tee shots on a par-5 hole that they were playing balls with identical markings. Based on the location of both tee shots, A knew which ball was his. To avoid subsequent confusion, A lifted his ball before playing his second shot, substituted a ball with different markings and played out the hole. Is this permissible ?

A. No. A was not entitled to substitute a ball. In match play, A loses the hole – Rule 15-2. In stroke play, A incurs a total penalty of three strokes – two strokes under Rule 15-2 and one stroke under Rule 18-2 for lifting his ball in play without authority.

 

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Electronic Make-up Questions

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

1. We have three visiting Rotarians, who were they?

Answer:

2. Pres. Paul made two annoucements, briefly name them.

 

Answer:

3. We have two birthday boys today, who were they?

Answer:

4. Who was our guest speaker today?

Answer:

5.Rotary Information mentioned about Service Above Self award, who received this honour this year?

Answer:

 

Instruction:

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

Jokes
Right Foot

A re-visit, but it's good to waste some work time occasionally. Sounds silly, but try it.

How Smart is Your Right Foot?
This is so funny that it will boggle your mind. And you will keep trying at least 50 more times to see if you can outsmart your foot, but you can't.

1. While sitting at your desk, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles.

2. Now, while doing this, draw the number "6" in the air with your right hand. Your foot will change direction.

I told you so...And there's nothing you can do about it.

Have a good weekend.

 

Photographs of our meeting
on

1st November, 2006

Our speaker today was none other than our own Rtn Herman Lam, giving us his Vocational Talk.

(L to R) PDG Uncle Peter, Rtn Herman and Pres. Paul.

(L to R) PP John IV, Rtn Margarte Nerio (RC Huntington Beach, USA), PP Albert Ang (RC Mandaluyong, Philippines).

Our two birthday boys PE Laurence and Rtn Eric receiving their present from Pres. Paul while we sang happy birthday to them both.

We received one banner in exchange from Rtn. Margaret. (RC Huntington Beach).

We gave one to PP Albert (RC Mandaluyong).

And one to PP Simon Wong (RC Northwest).

(L to R) Dr. Tony, Rtn Eric, IPP Eddy, PP Rudy.

(L to R) Hon Sec. Andy, Rtn Peter II, PE Laurence, and PP Simon Wong (RC Northwest).

Group Photo of our meeting with PDG Uncle Peter, Pres. Paul and visiting Rotarians on 1st November, 2006.

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