Contents

President's Message - By Raymond Sin
How are you my friend - By John Wan
Editor's Note - By Alexander Mak
Matilda Sedan Chair Race - By Michael Eyles
Coming Up Events
The Board

President's Message

By President Raymond Sin (2001-2002)

Congratulations to all members of the Editorial Board for their good job in bringing our Kingspark News back. In particular, I have to thank PP Alex Mak, the Chief Editor, and Rtn. Terence Leung, the Publisher. Without their dedicated involvement, the relaunch of the Kingspark News would not be possible, at lease not in this year.Time passed so fast. It was 11 years ago when I was first involved in the Rotary family. I was the chartered Vice President of the Rotaract Club of Kowloon East. With the invitation of PDG Raymond Wong, I joined Kingspark and became a chartered member. Over these years, I have gained sufficient experience and friendship to be confident as a President. From Kingspark's 7th Annual Ball, the Joint Installation with our Rotaract Club, the District Installation and the recent Kingspark Camp on Star Leo, I know that members are really supporting me. Thank you.

As I said in our own installation night, I promised to serve Kingspark with passion and enthusiasm. I hope I can achieve this. I also promised to bring a more Interesting (attractive), member-Involving (increase in attendance and new members) and Interacting (among members) year to Kingspark. Since the beginning of my term, I started using e-mails to communicate with members. I also noticed that our previous newsletter and our web site were very good channels for communication, so after the re-launch of this newsletter, I hope that our web site would have a fresh look. With the help of CP John Wan, our Webmaster, I know that this would not be difficult to achieve.

After our Club meeting on last Thursday, IPP Tom, CS Director Ho Chi Ming, Rtn. Joseph and I attended a press conference organized by Longrand Electronics Ltd of the Penpower Group. At this conference, Longrand announced its launch of a community project to collect second hand computer accessories , check and store them to good conditions and donate them to local charities. The Hong Kong Computer Society and Kingspark are co-partners of this project and IDEAL organization is the first beneficiary. On the basis of this, our Rotaractors and myself were also invited to speak at the conference, thus promoting Rotary's image in the public media due to the wide media coverage of the event.

In the coming weekend, IS Director Stephen and PP Alex will represent our club to go to Guangxi together with Rotarians from the Rotary Club of Kwun Tong to visit the primary school built by us together with Kwun Tong and also explore opportunities for International Service projects. I wish them every success and health in this visit. I am sure Stephen and Alex will tell us more about this after they have come back.

I am deeply moved by the efforts put in by the Editorial Board in giving us such a wonderful bulletin. I really want members to join me to support them by contributing articles.Before I conclude, may I once again remind you that DG Johnson is paying an official visit to Kingspark this Thursday, so please come to this meeting to support your District Governor as well as Kingspark. See you in this meeting.

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I was rather thrilled when I saw for the first time "Letters from a Rotarian" in print. I had arranged for 100 copies to be delivered to the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on 20 July so that each outgoing and incoming president could have a copy. Amidst the excitement and confusion, I had forgotten all about it until Tony Wong came to me with a copy as hosts and guests filed out of the Grand Hall. Tony asked me to autograph the book. I gladly did. I then began a futile search for the 100 copies.

The morning after, I learnt that Peter Wong had them taken to his office after the event for safekeeping. Kenneth Chow volunteered to distribute them in the following two weeks to the presidents of last year and the present year, and he must have done, for I had received a few thank-you notes since. Kenneth is a good man indeed. Apparently, he was coming down with fever at or after District Installation. He also postponed his appointment with the dentist, and he was not feeling well at all that Saturday morning, but he had no complaints about the extra work. Kenneth does live up to Rotary's ideals of service and I thank him for that.

More than a few of you have asked whether I feel relieved now that I am no longer District Governor. I have provided sufficient clues to answer this and related questions in my recently published book. I would therefore not repeat the answers here. One thing is clear though, I am spending more time with Rosita than before and I now seem to have much more free time. Thus, when President Raymond asked me to write a weekly column for Kingspark News - which he had decided to publish again on a weekly basis - I gladly said yes.

And what would I write? Well, we would have to find out together. As a start, I would pick up where I left off and write whatever that comes to mind. I had thought of doing some creative writing. I slept in bed last night thinking about a name for my principal protagonist. I woke up this morning without any obvious name or names, and I could not remember any dream I dreamt, if at all. I had thought of writing of, around and about you. That would upset some of you and others. It might even generate more articles for our weekly bulletin, but then our very professional editor Alexander would probably not allow that happen. I had also thought of profiling the more prominent Rotarians in the District, beginning with past governors. That should be interesting. Above all, I would like to write something that you would find interesting, something you would enjoy reading, something that would hopefully make you smile, laugh, cry and maybe even think.

Before I go on, let me thank all my own club members for the contribution to The Rotary Foundation in return for copies of "Letters from a Rotarian." Anwer has said he would buy a dozen. He must have many friends. I hope your solidarity and will be emulated and more importantly, that your contribution to The Rotary Foundation will be habit-forming such that ours will become another 100% contributor club to the Annual Programs Fund.

Another pleasant habit-forming routine is attendance at the regular club meetings. We should seek to learn more about each other at regular meetings by attending as many of the club meetings as possible and by turning up as early as possible. And very importantly, we should find out why some members are not attending by calling them up in the same afternoon. It doesn't matter if more than two or three call up a missing member. In fact, the more the merrier. Try this. Call up a missing member and ask him, "How are you my friend?" Talk to you next week.

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This paper is meant to be a communication tool among us, the Kingsparkicans. Our policy will be to follow the three 'I's promised by President Raymond - interesting to, involving and interacting with you. To make this paper interesting to you, we shall try to do away with the usual information giving stuff as much as possible, and focus more on things that are of interest to you. We are not sure yet as to how this can be done, and thus would need a lot of innovative ideas from you.

The success of the paper depends primarily on the extent of your involvement. In the past, this statement scared off a lot of you, especially those of you who do not like to write. We are fully aware of this, and will suggest that you contribute in other ways, if not in writing. For example, if you have something interesting that you like to share with other members, please let us know and we will do the writing.

Finally, for the purpose of interacting with you, we shall consider setting up a "Members' Corner" to generate some discussion among Kingsparkicans on issues of common concern. Your recent trip on Star Leo is an excellent topic for this discussion. These are just some of our thoughts. We are waiting to hear yours.

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Mrs. Elizabeth Loftus was our speaker at our luncheon meeting on 9th August and she entertained us not only about the sedan chair race itself but also about the historical background of the Matilda Hospital, and furthermore about sedan chairs too!The Sedan Chair Race was first held in October 1975 for raising money for charitable causes while having fun at the same time. Each team has to build a sedan chair, decorate it and in the race a maximum of 8 bearers plus one passenger are allowed. There are two courses, one 3.2 kilometres long and the other 2.1 kilometres,each starting and ending at the Matilda Hospital. In the past few years the event has raised about HK$2million each year, mainly from sponsorships for the teams. The Matilda Hospital although it is a charity does not receive any of the proceeds; charities are chosen which are otherwise not well supported or have specific projects for which they would not receive funding from elsewhere.

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Coming Up Events

1) Visit to Primary School in Guangxi - 17 - 19 August 2001

2) Visit by Rotary Scholae Sarah Tam - 23 August 2001

3) District Rotary Foundation Seminar - 8 September 2001

4) District Swimming Gala - 23 September 2001

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