President Rudy started at 1.25 pm with a special welcome to our guest speaker, Mr. David O' Rear.

He noted that there was no other guest with us , nor was there visiting Rotarian attending.

PP John then reported on the annual Uncle Peter Cup Golf Competition. He informed that 12 members competed in 3 foursomes at Fanling on 23rd November 2004. PP Li was the winner with PP Andrew came 2nd and the 3rd place went to PP Tajwar. Full results would be given in the coming issue of Tung Feng. Some members noted that it was PP Li 's second time capturing the Cup in as many years ; the next Uncle Peter Cup was set to be a more competitive affair with PP Li to be the guy to beat.

There were three birthday boys : Francis , Eddy and Paul. PP Tim was invited to lead the chorus. As always, Happy Birthday was sung heartily to the happy trio.

President Rudy made two other announcements:

(1) members were reminded of the Club's coming AGM and the process of nomination of the Club's officers and directors which was underway.

(2) a fund raising function for the Hepatitis B Immunization Project for New Born Babies in China in the form of musical performance entitled " Celebrate Rotary with Touching Russian Melodies" on 12/12/2004 at 7pm at Polytechnic University , Hung Hom with each ticket priced at $200.

The Sergeant-At-Arms report revealed a collection of $ 900 for the day and a more generous donation of HK$1,600 from the golfers at their fellowship dinner following the Uncle Peter Cup Competition.

Dir. Jason then brought us to the highlight of the meeting with his introduction of our speaker , Mr. David O' Rear . Mr. O'Rear is the Chief Economist of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce. Members were told of his academic and job credentials : notably he did graduate work with the University of California , Berkeley and had worked for such established organizations as Business International and the Economist as political and economic analyst. His views were much sought after by the media. His topic : " Hong Kong in 2004 and 2005".

Mr. O' Rear started by observing that there were 3 surprises in the year 2004

(1) The strong rebound of the Hong Kong economy after SARS , particularly the upsurge of our tourism industry.

(2) the rising oil price

(3) the dropping US currency.

The following is the gist of his talk which developed from his above observations

- Hong Kong , as it is , can do very little about those exterior elements like oil price and the dropping of the US Dollar.

- However, there are matters which are within our capability . Steps can be taken to prevent another outbreak of infectious disease like SARS which did serious damage to our economy.

- Cutting our spending is another matter to address. We recorded budget deficit for the last 7 years in a row . The operating revenue fell by 24% while our spending went up 32% in the past 7 years.

- Not in a single year in the past 5 years did we cut spending. In the last 5 years the number of civil servants dropped by 10% but the cost of our civil service rose by 12%.

- One solution is GST. Only 18% of our population paid salary tax. GST can widen the tax net . The advantage of GST is that it can be easy and inexpensive to operate. The key is to keep it simple with few exemptions.

Our speaker was kind enough to entertain questions from our members after he had finished his talk. A rather heated discussion on GST ensued with some of our members clearly taking strong if not opposing views on the issue.

PP Tim formally thanked Mr. O' Rear on behalf of our Club in his usual eloquent way with a few further insights from his tax expertise.

PP Desmond informed that the speaker for next week's meeting would be PP. Kenneth Chow who would talk about Rotary Foundation.

President Rudy closed the meeting with a Toast to R.I. and " clubs all over the world ". -

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Rotary Information

In our previous Tung Feng issue No. 17 of this year, we have given you some background of the functioning of a E-club. As the E-club is getting in shape and soon will be chartered in our district, we reproduced the following information from our president designate Tenny Leung as follows.

"On behalf of all members of Rotary E-Club of District 3450, I am pleased to advise that the website of our E-Club has now been launched. Our website address is www.rotary-eclubd3450.org. You are most welcome to visit our website land let us have your comments and suggestions.

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce to you a bit about our E-Club.

Our club's name is Rotary E-Club of District 3450, the first cyber club in District 3450 to be chartered under the Cyber Pilot of Rotary International.

We have submitted our club application to RI and are awaiting the charter to be completed in a couple of weeks. As discussed with DG Alexander, our inauguration will be held at the intercity meeting on 17th December 2004 to welcome RI Director David Linett. Please mark your diary and show your support.

The purpose of our E-Club is to extend Rotary to business, professional and community leaders Worldwide who are unable to meet traditional attendance requirements because of physical immobility, or extensive travel, or conflicting occupational demands, or residence beyond reasonable distance from an existing District 3450 Rotary Club.

Our vision is to retrieve former Rotarians of District 3450 who left Rotary for various reasons that they were unable to meet traditional attendance requirements of their former clubs; Rotaractors who have achieved their objectives in Rotaract or have reached the age of 30 and wish to develop further in Rotary but are restricted by their business/career commitments; Rotary alumni such as former Group Study Exchange (GSE) participants, RYLA Participants etc. We certainly welcome business, professional and community leaders who are referred to us by existing Rotarians to be a member of our eClub.

At present, we have 12 charter members of whom 3 are former Rotarians, 3 are former Rotaractors. We have in our file applications from existing Rotarians who are either working in China Mainland or traveling extensively into China Mainland and are not able to fulfill the regular weekly meeting requirements. However, since they belong to a Rotary club in our District, we are not able to recruit them as full members. However, our board is now considering admitting these Rotarian as our honorary members. and welcomes them to participate our service projects.

Our E-Club opens 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year for Rotarians of other clubs to do a make-up. Rotarians can do a cyber make-up by visiting our website and following a few steps at the Make-Up button, read the articles selected from the list of make-up articles and complete the make-up request form. A Make-Up confirmation will be provided after completion of the steps.

The development of our E-Club services is underway. We are actively approaching those former members of Rotary clubs in District 3450 who resigned from Rotary on being relocated to China for business purposes and try to retrieve them into our E-Club. These potential members are certainly valuable resources for Rotary services in China. Your help in identifying and introducing these members of your clubs to us is much appreciated.

Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at either epresident@rotary-eclubd3450.org or cpith@netvigator.com."

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Club News

The 11th yearly event - known as PDG Peter Hall Golf Competition

The above golf tournament took place again this year on the 23rd November 2004 at the Hong Kong Golf Club, Fanling, New Terrritories played at the Eden Course. There were 12 attendees competing for the following titles, such as longest drive, closest to the pin, net score winner, lst runner up and 2nd runner up plus booby prize

Although PP Tajwar Shadikhan duffed his first shot at the No. 1 tee yet he scored one of the longest drives later in the afternoon. Other longest drive winner went to Rtn. Andy Wong, a beginner in golf.

The closet to the pins winner were grabbed by PP Stephen Liu and PP Jack Lau.

The final result was as follows :

Net Score Winner - PP David Li
1st Runner up - PP Andrew Chen
2nd Runner up - PP Tajwar Shadikhan
Bobby prize - Stephen Liu

The winner PP David Li, with double happiness, treated all of us (including those not joining for the Golf Tournament) to a Chinese dinner at the Club House for fellowship. All trophies and prizes were given out during the dinner.

Why we say "Double Happiness". Firstly, he won the tournament and secondly, he had been awarded the "Medal of Honour" from the Government of Hong Kong (Special Administrative Zone) as gazetted in the SAR publication in recognition of his development in the Accountancy field in Hong Kong. We are proud of you David !

 

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Joke & Cartoon

It has been written that had Adam and Eve been Chinese, we would still be in paradise. Why? THEY WOULD HAVE EATEN THE SNAKE AND NOT THE APPLE .........

 

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Photographs of Our Meeting
on

24th November, 2004

Mr. David O'Rear, Chief Economist of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce speaking to us on "Hong Kong in 2004 and 2005".

(L to R) PDG Uncle Peter, Mr. David O'Rear & Pres. Rudy.	(L to R) Hon Sec John, Rtn Francis Li, & PP Tim Lui.

Hon Sec. John reporting on the results of our recently played Peter Hall Golf Tournament.

We have three birthday boys today. They are Dirs Paul, Eddy & Rtn Francis. PP Tim leads the birthday song watched by Pres. Rudy.

(L to R) Dirs Eddy Paul, Stephen, Jason, PP Desmond & IPP Henry all enjoying the meeting.

(L to R) Dr Tony, Hon Tres Laurence, Rtn Kenny & Dir Andy.

Group Photo of our members with pour guest speaker with PDG Uncle Peter, Pres Rudy on 24th November, 2004.

The prize presentation of The Peter Hall Golf Tournament

All our golfers lined up before the tee Off of the Peter Hall Golf Tournament on the 23rd of November 2004.

PP David Li's surprise was winning the above medal which is more important then any trophies he received that is the Medal of Honor from the Hong Kong Government. Here showing it is PDG Uncle Peter and PP David. Congratulation to you David.!!!

The eventual winner was PP David Li who won the Peter Hall Golf for 2004 for the second time in a row.

The surprised winner of the longest drive on the 1st hole was Dir Andy Wong. Congratulating him is PDG Uncle Peter

The closest to the hole on the 2nd hole was the recently recovered PP Stephen Liu. Congratulation to PP Stephen.

One of our former member Jack Lau won the closest to the hole on the 5th hole. Congratulation to you Jack.

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