Last week's Proceedings -

President Laurence started the meeting on time at 1:25 pm. PE Andy introduced the visiting Rotarian Morton Altman from Rotary Club of Gig Harbor, Mid-Day, W.A. USA.

We also had a visitor Ah Ming who is the President of the Rotaract Club of Hong Kong Island East. He briefed our members for their upcoming project called "Competency Dynamic". This is a leadership training program involving training workshop and community services project with the Duchess of Kent Hospital. The number of participants will be about 30 to 40 young people.

The birthday boy for the day was Director Eric Chin and PP Hubert Chan led the birthday song for him.

President Laurence made the following announcements:

1. On 18 November, U-heart, a charity organization building schools in the mainland for the poor districts, will hold a fund-raising concert and invited our members to join.
2. The charter dinner of the Rotary Club of Financial Centre will be held on 22 November in the Marriott Hotel.
3. Six other Rotary Clubs will join our luncheon meeting on 5 December. The speaker will be the eye specialist Professor Denis S.C. Lam. All members are urged to come to support this joint luncheon.
4. The District Sport Day will be held on 9 December 2007 and the host club will be our daughter club RC of Harbour. We may consider to be one of the sponsoring clubs as well.

If any members interested in joining these events, please ask for more information from President Laurence.

Then Sergeant-at–arm Heman reported a total collection of $1,400 for the Red-box donation. There was a total of 16 members plus 3 visitors attending our meeting today.

The highlight of the meeting was the talk by our speaker Brady Sidwell.

Mr. Sidwell is a Rotarian of Rotary Club of Wanchai. He was a former Rotary Scholar and had visited our club before. He is now working in Hong Kong.

He is now working in Rabobank International and is the Assistant Director in the Strategic Advisory & Research Department.

The topic of the talk was "Food and the Environment – feeding the future".

Brady explained the "Trilemma" of Food, Energy and Environment. The situation is that what you feed the environment today, the environment will feed us tomorrow.

The following is some of the facts which is important for our future:

1. The income and population growth will change our way to live and to eat.
2. The dietary pattern is changing – more food, more meat, more protein, more spending away from home for eating.
3. The food demand will be the greatest in Asia especially China and India which represent about 42% of the world total.
4. Two important factors affecting food supply are land and water.
5. The cultivated land in China represent 10% of the world total but the population is 20% of the world total. In China, 39% of the river and 75% of the lakes are polluted.
6. There is conflict between food supply and the environment. As the demand of food increased, we need more land. But due to population growth, there is less land for growing food.
7. The global water consumption rate is twice the population growth rate and the world is facing the shortage of drinkable water.
8. Fish is being over-exploited and the sea is no longer providing unlimited supply of fish. Fish farming is a big business to be considered.
9. The area of forest is reducing due to over-cultivation by human beings.
10. In year 2050, the world population is estimated to be around 9.2 billion. One farmer can produce food for 129 peoples now but back in 1960, one farmer produced food for 25 peoples only. How can we increase our productivity for food further to cope with the population growth?

Brady suggested that all the stakeholders should look for sustainability and raise the Corporate Social Responsibility of the Environment to safeguard our food supply in the future. It would involve joint effort of academic research, government and private investors.

Director Eric Chin then thanked our speaker for giving such an informative talk.

President Laurence closed the meeting at 2:05 pm by proposing a toast to RI coupled with the RC of Gig Harbor and RC of Wanchai.

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What is "RIBI"?

In the last issue of our weekly bulletin, the words "RIBI" have been used and many members asked what is "RIBI". The following is a full explanation of "RIBI"

The structure of Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland (RIBI) forms an interesting chapter in our history. In 1914, after Rotary expanded across the Atlantic to Great Britain and Ireland, a British Association of Rotary Clubs was established as part of the International Association of Rotary Clubs. During World War 1, there was little contact between the international clubs, and the British association held the small number of Rotary clubs together in Great Britain, Ireland and a few other European communities.

Following the war, a new Rotary International Constitution was adopted in 1922 which established the principle that whenever a country had 25 Rotary clubs it could become a "territorial unit" and thus have a representative on the RI board and receive other specific powers. The clubs in Great Britain and Ireland immediately petitioned for and received the status of a "territorial unit." No other group in the world made such a request or received that status.

In 1927, Rotary International terminated the territorial unit concept and organized Rotary clubs by "areas" of the world. However, all of "the rights, privileges and powers of existing territorial units" were forever projected and perpetuated. Thus, since RIBI was the only territorial unit, it has continued to function as an independent unit of Rotary International, subject to certain approvals by the RI Constitution.

The RIBI form of administration is uniquely appropriate to Great Britain and Ireland because of geography, language, tradition and custom. Because of this historic relationship, RIBI maintains a slightly different administrative structure from all the other Rotary clubs and districts in the world, even though it is a full member of Rotary International."

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on

PDG Uncle Peter, Speaker Brady Sidwell from Rotary Club of Wanchai & Pres. Laurence Chan	Hon. Sec. Norman Lee, AG Eddy Wong & visiting Rotarian Mr. Morton Altman

(L to R) PE Andy, SAA Heman, PP Henry, PP Tim, PP David & Rotaractor Pres. Ming from RAC HKIE	(L to R) PP Hubert, Dir. Eric, PP Stephen, PP Rudy, Rtn. Tony & Rtn Peter

Pres. Laurence Chan exchanged banner with Senior Active Rtn. Morton Altman from RC of Gig Harbor from Washington D.C. of U.S.A.	Pres. Laurence Chan presenting a gift to our birthday boy Dir. Eric & PP Hubert was asked to lead the birthday song

Pres. Ming from Rotaract Club of HKIE briefed the member about their leadership training projects	SAA Heman reporting the Red Box collection

Dir. Eric gave a vote of thanks to the speaker	Group photos with members, visiting Rotarians & guests

Sister club Osaka Jonan arrived HK on 06 Nov. and was greeted by PP Stephen, PP John Kwok, PDG Uncle Peter and Pres. Laurence at the airport	Lunch "Yam Cha" with PP John , PDG Uncle Peter & his daughter Emily, PP Stephen & his wife Christina and PP Rudy at the Summer Palace Restaurant on 07 Nov.

Lunch "Yam Cha" photos with members from RC of Osaka Jonan & RC of HKIE on 07 Nov.	A round of golf with Osaka Jonan at Fanling HK Golf Club on 08 Nov.

Farewell dinner to Osaka Jonan at World Trade Centre Club on 08 Nov.	Pres. Laurence Chan gave a welcome note to RC of Osaka Jonan's visit

Pres. Michio Umezaki of Osaka Jonan gave a thank you note to our club	Pres. Laurence Chan exchanged souvenir with Pres. Michio Umezaki

Pres. Laurence thanked Nishimura san, director of international service, for Osaka Jonan's donation to our club	PDG Uncle Peter presenting a memorial gift to the golf winner, Tameji Saeki san, accompanied by PP Stephen & PP John

Rtn Tameji Saeki sang a traditional Japanese song with our Rtn. Nancy Yee performing the Japanese dance to thank all the members.	Rtn. Nishimura later joined the dance with Nancy to support Rtn Tameji Saeki's singing.

PDG Nakagawa saying hello to all our members at the farewell dinner.	Rtn. Tameji Saeki showing his golf prize to PP John Kwok and Rtn. Nagata

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