Our Fellowship Chairman today was PP Tom and our Sergeant-at-Arms was Rtn Patrick. Our Sergeant-at-Arms managed to collect $640 between the raffle and fines.

Today our acting President Thomas announced that the District Conference would be held between 22nd and 23rd of April 2006 at Regal Airport Hotel. The RI Convention, on the other hand, would be held from 11th to14th of June 2006 at Copenhagen and Malmo.

Our Spring Dinner on last Friday was held at China Club and we had all Club 888 lucky draws in the evening. On the other hand, we will have joint meeting with Rotary Club of Hong Kong in May at Bankers Club.

The speaker of today was Mr. Stuart Leckie and his topic was "The Hong Kong Rugby Sevens". He introduced that the world's premier Rugby Sevens Tournament was born over pre-luncheon drinks at the venerable old Hong Kong Club on a misty spring day in 1975. The Chairman of the Hong Kong Rugby Football Union, an amiable South African entrepreneur, A.D.C. "Tokkie" Smith, was talking with tobacco company executive Ian Gow. It was Gow's idea, as Promotion Manager for his firm, to sponsor a Rugby Tournament with top teams from throughout the world competing. As the Tournament grew throughout the 70's and 80's in both supporter's popularity and the number of participating teams, which had now progressed from club sides to representative teams, the Tournament moved from its original home in the Hong Kong Football Club to the Hong Kong Government Stadium. By the beginning of the 90's, with demand for tickets having outstretched the capacity of the Stadium for over five years, it was time for a larger facility. The Stadium that had been the Tournament's home for 12 years was re-built in 1994 and a 40,000-seat Hong Kong Stadium is now its current venue. In 1993 the first Rugby World Cup Sevens Tournament was held in Scotland, where the game of Sevens had originated. Hong Kong was awarded the prestige of hosting the 2nd Rugby World Cup Sevens in 1997, which was a huge success in a memorable year for Hong Kong as it was handed back to China and became a Special Administrative Region. 

This year, Cathy Pacific and Credit Suisse sponsor the Hong Kong Sevens, and they have invited 24 teams to HK for the competition. The game will be held on 31 March to 2 April, but the tickets have great demand, may be you can get the ticket outside the stadium, or you can watch TV at home.