Kingspark News

Rotary Club of Kingspark
Club No. 30119. GPO Box 248 Hong Kong

Volume 12 Issue 9 - 15 December 2003

Contents

Editorial (Words of Wisdom) - By Francis Wann
President's Column (Half-Yearly Report) - By President Peter
The Art of Storytelling - By Joseph Chan
Interact Clubs Update - By President Philomena Chan
From the Webmaster (Merry Christmas) - By CP John Wan
Letters to Editor
The Board

editorial

Words of Wisdom

It's now only ten days to Christmas, and also time we reflect on ourselves over our achievements and failures. Understandably for most of us, the deserved remark would be "could have done better".

It's also the time of the year when we stop and think, to seek new inspiration and service opportunities in local, national, and international terms. More importantly, perhaps it's time we discuss the new role of Rotary as the new century dawns upon us after a century of service. Has Rotary taken on a new meaning?

We have just finished our hepatitas B findraising walkathon yesterday on the Peak in our collaboration with the Ministry of Health in China to vaccinate 1 million newborn babies in ten years. With the Rotary wheel grinding towards its centennial year, all Rotarians would be obliged to help Rotary International to accomplish its three stated goals - the eradication of polio from the face of earth, increasing membership to reach 1.5 million worldwide, and reaching US$100 per capita in annual giving.

Today Rotary provides US$90m each year for international scholarships, cultural exchanges, and humanitarian projects which improve the quality of life for millions of people in need, yet it all began with a philosophy incredibly simple - the vision of a better world. As Paul Harris, who started the first Rotary Club, put it, "Little which is worthwhile comes without effort. It could not be appreciated if it were so to come. Rotary was not the result of a stroke of genius; in fact, there is little if anything, even original about it. There is wisdom in the expression, 'There is nothing new under the sun.'" [Paul P. Harris, Page 73 "This Rotarian Age" 1935]

I was listening to an online interview in "Talk of the Nation" with guests Simon Winchester, author of The Meaning of Everything: the story of the Oxford English Dictionary: and Jack Lynch, editor of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary: Selection from the 1755 work that Defined the English Language. I was fascinated by the way the words got their way into the dictionary in the compilation, and that almost every word is class ridden. For example, the word "oatmeal" was described as "a cereal which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people..." While the first edition of OED was commissioned in 1857, it wasn't finished until June 1928 when none of its first editors would live to see its completion. The second edition came out in 1989 with a 1.7GB CD-ROM. Work on the third edition has already been underway and it would be interesting to know when it is complete. Nevertheless the story of OED has striking resemblance to the work of Rotary. At any time and place, people of various backgrounds and creeds are united by one single mission to serve.

And as the Rotary Bell continues its itinerary around the clubs and will arrive here in Hong Kong in May 2004, would you let it ring in your ears?

Merry Christmas.

P.S.: Simon Winchester will appear in a "Meet-the-Author" session at the British Council on 19.12.03 at 7:00 pm (registration 2913 5215). Talk of the Nation can be retrieved at http://www.npr.org/rundowns/segment.php?wfId=1456468

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President's Column
By President Peter Lo

Half-Yearly Report

The Art of Storytelling
By Joseph Chan

A few years ago, a manager of Disney Hong Kong revealed one of the secrets of success of Walt Disney. That is, our desire to listen to stories, local or foreign, old or new.

Storytelling can take many forms: bedside stories by parents or grandparents, tales in the story books, animations, television episodes, movies, drama, operas, dances, music pieces written according to some storylines and even gossips and rumors we used to share every day with others. No matter what forms they are presented, we love listening to stories and, sometimes telling them.

Apart from its entertainment and cultural values, storytelling also has some practical uses in our daily life. We can use them to present an idea to someone who would be unlikely to accept the idea if we tell him or her about it plainly. One of the best examples is Jesus Christ. He used many parables to spread the good news to the people in order to make it easier for them to understand the great ideas he had in mind and make them less resistant to them. Coincidentally, many other great religious leaders used the same method to spread their ideas and beliefs, which have been passed from generation to generation for thousands of years.

In our daily life, we also use story telling to influence others. For example, we know that there are many poor people all over the world and it would be good for us to help them. However, the most powerful way to ask more people to give would be to invite those who have seen and helped the poor people to share with us their experience and joy of being generous. I think you would all recall the occasions on which our fellow Rotarians used such an approach to persuade us to join them in certain charity projects.

Another example could be taken from those in the insurance industry like me. Insurance is a unique, important but intangible product. We usually cannot find it useful unless something unfortunate happens. However, it will be too late to buy it if the accident has already taken place. Hence, we sometimes convey the ideas of insurance to our prospects by telling them some real cases in a tactful way. The easiest way would be to tell them the cases in a storytelling way. It usually works as the stories are based on real cases with the unnecessary details removed in order to make the main ideas much more obvious. I should not being telling you this since it may make you less willing to listen to me the next time I tell you stories, worrying that I am about to sell you an insurance policy.

I think all of you would agree that storytelling is a very effective means to present ideas. However, there are downsides if we use it in a wrongful way. The most typical example is gossiping and spreading rumors. Most of us must have experienced their negative effects and hated those who spread them. However, many of us have intentionally or unintentionally participated in creating and spreading them somehow. Such interesting phenomenon of human behaviour is actually the foundation of the prosperity of many popular magazines and newspaper. However, the focus of such rumors is not on the ordinary citizen like me, but on those who are famous or have certain connection to the famous ones such as movie stars, politicians, business tycoons, and so on.

Of course, we can make use of storytelling to make our daily life more interesting and entertaining. If we can spend some time to go to book stores to buy a few story books and read them, we can tell stories to our spouses, children or friends when we get together. Just go to the section which sells children books and you will find tremendous wonderful story books. Take half an hour to read through one or two short stories and tell them to your audience with all your imagination and sense of humour. The responses of the audience would be very encouraging. If you need more support and variety, you may invite one or two in the audience to tell the stories together. It will be a great fun.

If you want to improve or upgrade your storytelling skill, there are various ways to do so. Watching the annual children storytelling competition would certainly help. You may visit the website of the Hong Kong Boys and Girls Club Association.You can also listen to RTHK (Radio 4 and 5). They often have excellent hosts with good storytelling skills. In addition, you may buy a few story telling cassette tapes, such as Harry Potter, from the book stores and listen to them. You may also learn from those who often tell stories, such as those who work for charitable organizations and insurance companies. Don’t worry, they may just want to tell you stories. No one can sell you unless you want to buy! In my opinion, the simplest and most direct method to learn the art is to practise more. After all, practice make perfect.

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Interact Clubs Update

By President Philomena Chan

(Philomena Chan is President of the Interact Club at SKH St. Benedict's School, the new Interact Club we sponsored. - Ed.)

What exactly is an Interact Club? What do the members do? What's so special about it?

The Interact Club is a brand new club in our school. Doubtlessly, our schoolmates don't even have an idea what it is and what it does. To promote our club is the first task that we need to do. I believe that it could well be the most challenging problem for us during this whole year. Fortunately, the Rotarians gave us a big hand and we are happy that we can achieve a great success in the end.

We formed the cabinet of our club successfully in the middle of October. Immediately, we held meetings to discuss and establish our constitution and set objectives for our club. What followed were a series of promotion activities and the inauguration ceremony.

Our promotion period started right after our form test in November. We visited the classes from time to time, explaining and promoting our club and its activities. We also posted posters in every corner of the school. We also made announcements during the morning assembly as well. We were concerned about the response of the schoolmates, wondering if our activities are attractive enough.

It is gratifying to see that quite a number of schoolmates were interested, and most of them got the concept of what we wanted to do. We recruited around 30 members after a few days.

Our inauguration ceremony was held on the 21 November 2003 in our School Hall during the morning assembly for F.4 to F.7 students. It is our honour to have 5 guests from the Rotary International District 3450 and 6 guests from Rotary Club of Kingspark. Six of our executive committee members were inducted. We are really proud of being pinned in front of every teacher and student of the school. It was really brilliant! We must thank President Peter Lo and District Governor Jones Wong for giving us their speeches. Everyone of us found the ceremony interesting. The number of member has since increased, and many of our senior form students have joined.

The first activity, "The Best Teacher Singer" will be held very soon, followed by our joint-school leadership-training scheme organized together with Wah Yan Hong Kong, Wah Yan Kowloon, Hotung Secondary School and St. Clare's Secondary School.

We planned to hold "The Best Teacher Singer" during our school's singing contest. It is actually a programme similar to the fund-raising activities shown on TV. We have already invited about 12 teachers and the one with the highest fund (no. of votes) will perform in the singing contest. Besides raising fund for the poor, we hope that students can understand more about the Interact Club through this activity and recognize that our activities are serious fun!

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From the Webmaster

Merry Christmas

President Peter was a bit worried on the eve of the Club's AGM. He actually asked me what would happen if there was no quorum. He was more assured after I told him that we needed only a third of the membership to turn up. In the end, we did have the quorum, but not a lot more. PE Thomas Chan was confirmed President for 2004-05 and Dominic Ko elected PE, unopposed. Watch this column for the full line up of the new board. For me, I am happy that I was elected, again unopposed, the Club Webmaster for the ensuing year.

This is the time of the year many people in Hong Kong would plan for holidays and vacation. Others would take stock of what the company or organisation has achieved or not achieved, in like manner that President Peter has done, on the Club, and definitely on his own business. For Christians, yesterday was the third Sunday in Advent and the main message, indeed the single most important message, in the Readings and Gospel was one of joy and happiness, in anticipation of the birth of our Lord.

Rotary not being a religious organisation notwithstanding, there are sufficient similarities between Rotarians and Christians, and for that matter members of other mainstream religious bodies, in how we relate to other fellow human beings. In similiar fashion that Christians believe that Jesus Christ has come to serve the human race and save them from eternal damnation and hence would follow the life of Jesus and spread the good news of His Coming, Rotarians believe that business and professional people gathering together under the banner of Service would bring world peace and international understanding to the human race.

Rotarians believe in and practice "Service Above Self". The dedicated Rotarian believes that service is the cause for which Rotary exists and the reason for him or her to remain as a Rotarian. The corollary to this is, there is no other greater reason why any person should or would join a Rotary club.

As we prepare to celebrate Christmas or the anniversary of the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, let us ride on the spirit of Advent to spread the good news of Rotary. Share with each other and the family the good deeds we have done or tried to do, encourage each other to put more Rotary into each other, and endeavour to do more in the next year.

Merry Christmas to you all.

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Letters to Editor

Views in any article in Kingspark News reflect those of the authors. They are not necessarily the views of the Rotary Club of Kingspark or of District 3450. You are welcome to write to Chief Editor Francis Wann or Club Webmaster John Wan on any topic, particularly in response to articles published in Kingspark News. We would publish all contributions as long as the authors identify themselves, the contents are not offensive or abusive, and would not offend common decency or common sense. You need not be a Rotarian to write to us and you have a choice to withhold your name in the published version. Where the contents make reference to statements or policies of individuals or organizations, we would try to obtain a response fro the latter for publication in the same issue if possible.

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The Editors

Chief Editor : Francis Wann
Ex-officio : President Peter Lo
Features Editor and Board Secretary : Michael Eyles
Events Editor : PP Ted Ho
Reviews Editor : Joseph Chan
District Desk Editor : CP John Wan

The Board of Directors

President : Peter Lo
President-Elect : Thomas Chan
Vice-President : Dominic Ko
Secretary : Louise Chan
Treasurer : Raymond Lam
Rotary Foundation : PP Raymond Sin
Club Service Director : PP Ted Ho
Community Service Director : Clan Hung
Internal Service Director : Michael Au
Vocational Service Director : Patrick Wong
Programme Director : Joyce Mak
Sargeant-at-Arems : Feroz Sultana
Sports Captain : David Cheung
IPP : Anwer Islam

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