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KINGSPARK NEWS Club Number: 30119 2005-06 Rotary Year : Issue 11 : 2 December | ||
| This
is the biweekly bulletin of the Rotary Club of Kingspark Hong Kong Club Website: http://www.rotary3450.org/kingspark-hongkong | ||
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| Chief
Editor : Francis Wann Club Webmaster : John Wan | ||
| Editorial
(Frankly Speaking) - By Francis Wann | ||
| District Website | RI Website | RI President | TRF | News Room | Global History Fellowship | ||
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Frankly Speaking
Come December, and suddenly we all seem to have projects and functions big and small up to our necks. Soon we'll have the Installation of the Centennial Time Capsule at the Hong Kong Park, the Rotary Centennary Challenge Cup at the Shatin Racecourse, the usual festive parties and celebrations, the various district-level competitions and visits, the march for universal suffrage on 4th, the World Trade Organization conference, and today (1 December) also marks the World Aids Day. If we are frank with ourselves, we would have to ask if what Rotary is doing today is still relevant in the new century. We would have to ask ourselves why Rotarians are leaving our clubs, and we'd have to ask if Rotary's got its fundamentals right, or should we, as they put it, "move with the times"? In a few days, we'll be meeting RI Past President and Chairman of Rotary Foundation Frank Devlyn at our Inter-City meeting, and naturally it would be appropriate for us to discuss these or other issues which are close to our hearts. Frank Devlyn's theme during his term of office was "Create Awareness, Take Action', and five years on, it remains as appropriate as ever. It's refreshing to go through his books ( His second book "Frank Talk II" is available via FrankTalkBooks.com) and find inspirations in his old morals. As it says in the blurb, it's "a book that reads like a novel and not simply a report of historical facts". Five years ago he talked about changes. As he said, for Rotary, change is both necessary and inevitable. "To face the new century, Rotary must change. It's the hardest thing in the world to accomplish, but it must be done. Rotary must change with the times, but change with the dignity that our organization requires." The overiding challenge, as he put it, "is to make Rotary meaningful in the new century, at all levels." You'd have to read his mind - or his books to understand his words of wisdom. If any members should feel confused or puzzled, or not fully convinced, why not talk to him direct? Today when we look at our clubs in our district, it's inevitable some of us might think that Rotary fails to deliver, or not as much as it should. How would you make members proud of their Rotary pins? How would you make members feel their contributions could make a difference? And how would you make members feel " I'm glad I came to that meeting?"... Frankly, Frank Delvyn may not have all the answers, but at least he's helped to ask the right questions. *CP John was District Governor in the same year when Frank Delvyn was RI President. | ||
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President's
Column
Our Vocational Service Director, Rotarian Marvin, has been very busy in organizing our Vocational Career Seminar for the last couple of months. We have chosen Ching Chung Hau Po Woon Secondary School in Tuen Moon to be our service school. We have not fixed the dates yet because we have not finalized our invitation of the key note speaker, but it will be either one of the Friday afternoons of 6th, 13th or 20th January, 2006. Marvin has worked out a survey from the target students and the statistics have shown that the popularity goes to the careers for many service industries, e.g. psychologists, bakers, tourism, food and beverages, fashion designs, designs, advertising, cooks, etc. The popularity for the traditional professional careers, e.g. solicitors, accountants and bankers has gone done down to the 26th, 30th and 36th respectively. The change in popularity may be the changes in the back ground of the students of where they live. The organizing committee is working hard to make it a very successful seminar. It is a signature project of our club. Though you may not be a speaker for any one of the careers we do hope our members will attend the seminar as a support. Under the leadership of Rtn. Marvin, he and 5 other members, i.e. PP Peter Lo, Rtn. Ken Tsang, PP Ted Ho, Rtn. Michael Au and IPP Thomas Chan, have started their service for the School-Company Partnership Program organized by the Young Entrepreneurs Development Council. They are participating in the workshops in an assigned school to help the students every Saturday morning lasting 2 to 3 hours each. There will be 7 workshops lasting until the middle of February 2006. I appreciate the time and effort of our members in achieving this program very much and would like to thank them for all their hard work. We had our evening meeting on 24th November, 2005 and there were 3 Interactors from each of our sponsored Interact Clubs totaling 9 and 2 Rotaractors attending the meeting. The Presidents of each of the Interact Clubs presented their year plans and we had a good sharing. It was also a good opportunities for all of them to know each other and work togather. President Vivian Choi and her sister Olivia Choi of our Rotaract Club also gave their presentation on their "Little School Bags" project which will be co-organized with by our club in some way. It is a good project which requires the support from our club and our Interactors. It was a very successful meeting. We had an informal lunch gathering, happy hour and dinner when PP Tom came back to Hong Kong on 21st November, 2005. The attendance was very good even with very short notice. The gathering seemed like to be for a whole day, but in fact it fell into the Organizing Committee of the Christmas Party meeting at Craigengower Cricket Club in the evening. We had PP Tom, PP Raymond his Rotarianne Eliza, IPDG Alexander, PP Ted, PP Peter, IPP Thomas, Ken Tsang, Joyce and myself showing up at different time of the gatherings. It was a good coincidence and we had a good time. We will have our Christmas Party on 17th December, 2005 and we have scheduled our Annual General Meeting at the Hotel Miramar on 22nd December, 2005 at 1:00 pm to elect our President Nominee Patrick Wong to be our President Elect to serve as President for 2006/2007. I will see you all in these big days and I would like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. | ||
By PP Edward Lau [A report from Polio SubCommittee Chairman, DRFC, on the NID in Agra, India, 27.11.05.]
PDG Satish Wadhwa, the organizer of Rotary involvement with NIDs in Agra, arranged a fellowship welcome dinner for all overseas Rotarians on the eve of the NID. Including us were some 80 Rotarians from six other countries, namely, Canada (the largest contingent with nearly half of the overseas participants), U.S., Russia, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand. We were all invited to speak and several overseas Rotarians spoke of the times when they were victims of Polio and expressed their sincere gratitude to be able to participate in the NID. Very touching! PDG Satish informed us that there will be some 2,500 vaccination booths throughout Agra and they expect some 1 million children will be vaccinated at tomorrow's NID. We were all very excited by these numbers and were mentally calculating how many children we will get to vaccinate tomorrow. It was nearly half past eleven when we all said goodbye to each other and returned to our hotels to get some rest before the hard work begin the next morning. We arrived at the District Hospital at 9:45am and found the parking lot packed with "tuk tuks" (three wheeler scooters) which were decorated with a Polio banner on the back and a loudspeaker on the top. Some overseas Rotarians were already there and were distributing some of the gifts they had brought with them to a large crowd of children in the courtyard next to the Hospital. We found a quiet corner but, as soon as we began to take out our gifts of pencils, rulers, stickers, etc., we were also swamped with children. It was completely chaotic and took us much effort to get the kids queue up and so on. This scene was repeated over and over as more overseas Rotarians arrived and began to distribute their gifts. We stopped about half an hour later when it was clear most kids already had their shirts and pants stuffed with gifts. Then we all took off in the tuk tuks to our designated vaccination booths, with the loudspeaker blasting out Indian music and Polio vaccination messages which definitely attracted much attention. The vaccination booth that we went to turned out to be inside the compound of a women's maternity hospital. Over the next three hours, the five of us vaccinated 84 children, with the youngest being just one day old. As an incentive, the children were rewarded with gifts after they had received their two drops of polio vaccine. After giving away the gifts to as many children and hospital staff we could find, we still had three boxes left. Instead of leaving them behind at the hospital, we decided it would be better to donate the gifts directly to the recipients. President Tobi made an excellent suggestion of an orphanage. After lunch we went to apparently the only orphanage in Agra, Mother Teresa's Home, which housed some 47 orphans with ages up to early teens. The children loved our gifts and they had a wonderful time playing games with President Tobi and Rtn. Philippe. When we asked Sister Andrina what they needed most, she said diapers. We all looked at each other and came to the same conclusion… diapers would make a very meaningful gift to the orphanage. The grin on Sister Andrina's face upon our return really made us feel that our surprise donation was much appreciated. We went to Agra to participate in Rotary's greatest humanitarian project, the Eradication of Polio, and the unexpected visit to the orphanage made the trip even more meaningful and memorable. We would like to thank RC Channel Islands for donating $20,000, IPP Brenda and Rtn. Catherine Siu of RC Bayview Sunshine for $5,000, and Rtn. Eric Lo of RC Tsuen Wan for the gifts to the children. Part of the cash was used to buy diapers for the orphans and the balance will be donated to the PolioPlus Partners program, specified for future NIDs in India. A 50% matching grant will be sought from The Rotary Foundation. Some photos of our trip will be displayed at the Inter-City Meeting in Honour of Past RI President & Rotary Foundation Trustee Chair Frank Devlyn on 5 December at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. | ||
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It is Advent Again
This time, I found a bunch of past issues of Kingspark News, on hard copies, issued some ten years ago. In those days, Kingspark News was issued weekly and faxed to members and readers within the district and without. It was one of the more widely read weeklies amongst Rotarians and I was proud to be its editor at the time. There was an editorial published around this time ten years ago in which the editor discussed the preparation of Christians for Christmas with the preparation of shop owners and businessmen for the big season and the year ahead, ending with an appeal to all Rotarians to prepare themselves for the board election that would take place during the month. I recall that, on publucation, the article attracted the attention of a past district governor who called and sought my permission to have it read out in full at one of their regular club meetings. Naturally, I felt good and flattered. Ten years on and one could be doing the same thing, urging the membership to take time to prepare themselves and so on. What have we achieved? When was the last time we did a SWOT analysis - Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats? When was the last time we achieved 100% monthly attendance? When was the last time we contemplated having a meeting with full attendance, including make-ups? When was the last time we had an original service project? Who were benefited? How many Rotarians were involved? I can go on like a broken record, and I am aware that I have been perceived as such and that the some in the membership would close their mind to what I have to say. But I am not out there to say things to please others, I would never seek a second term as governor or another term of presidency. Those of you who were around in the sixties would remember a best seller with the title, "I'm OK, you're OK". I came across a professor who quipped that somebody should produce a sequel with the title, "I'm an a**hole, you're an a**hole; and that's OK." On a more serious note, I'd like to share with you what Pope Benedict XVI said on World Youth Day on working together to overcome terrorism - "I am certain that I echo your own thoughts when I bring up as one of our concerns the spread of terrorism. Terrorist activity is continually recurring in various parts of the world, sowing death and destruction, and plunging many of our brothers and sisters into grief and despair. Those who investigate and plan these attacks evidently wish to poison our relations, making use of all means, including religion, to oppose every attempt to build a peaceful, fair and serene life together. "Terrorism of any kind is a perverse and cruel decision which shows contempt for the sacred right to life and undermines the very foundations of all civil society. If together we, Christians and Muslims, can succeed in eliminating from hearts any trace of rancour, in resisting every form of intolerance and in opposing every manifestation of violence, we will turn back the wave of cruel fanaticism that endangers the lives of so many people and hinders progress towards world peace. The task is difficult but not impossible. The believer knows that, despite his weakness, he can count on the spiritual power of prayer. "I am profoundly convinced that we must not yield to the negative pressures in our midst, but must affirm the values of mutual respect, solidarity and peace. The life of every human being is sacred, both for Christians and Muslims. There is plenty of scope for us to act together in the service of fundamental moral values. Only through recognition of the centrality of the person can a common basis for understanding be found." It is going to be a long Advent this year and Christians have a full four weeks. I wish you a very happy and fruitful Advent. | ||
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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 from the latter for publication in the same issue if possible. | ||
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Editor : Francis Wann The Board of Directors President
: Dominic Ko | ||
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