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Monsters Inc - By Alexander Mak
A friend's response - By John Wan
Mozart, Beethoven, Bach and Chopin - By Ho Chi Ming
World's First Cyber Rotary Club - From RI News Basket
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The Board

Monsters Inc

By Alexander Mak

PP Alexander Mak is the chief architect in the fund raiser based on the Gala Premier of Monsters Inc.
This is his first person report

These are just a few thoughts that I would like to share with you. I hope that you would not be bored by them.

This is the first gala premiere that I have organized and also the first one in which I have to turn to my friends to ask them to become sponsors and contribute from $10,000 to $30,000. For those who know me well, you are probably aware that I hate asking people for favors and, worse still, this time I have to ask them to pay not a small sum of money. Apart from the psychological hurdle that I have to overcome in order to make the request, I also understand that I am doing this at a time of financial difficulties for most of my friends, as a result of the economic depression that Hong Kong is now going through.

I asked myself whether it was better that I made the contributions myself in order to avoid the hassle and also the embarrassment of having to ask for sponsorships from my friends. But the target of $160,000 is not a small sum of money! Moreover, I would also like to test my ability to raise funds this time, despite that it is the first time in my life that I am doing this.

So, two weeks ago, I went through my personal telephone lists and dug out the names of all those whom I believe that my friendship is good enough to make them donate something. I dared not call them up to ask them. I was not good at the technique of asking for money over the phone. I was never good at explaining, effectively, difficult issues over the phone anyway. Thus, I sent them all a letter instead, and then I kept my fingers crossed. I dared not call them up to follow up with this letter, for I want to avoid the embarrassment of being rejected over the phone and not knowing what to say after that.

The days went by one after another, and they were very long days in my life. Then, thank God, the contributions started to come in. Some of them called me up to say that they will become a silver sponsor by contributing $10,000. To my surprise, one called my secretary to say that he wanted gold sponsorship by giving $30,000. Others did not even bother to call at all and just wrote me a cheque. Then suddenly towards the end of last week, the contributing messages ceased, but I was still short of sponsorships by about $80,000. I asked myself again. Should I take the easy way out, contribute this $80,000 myself and forget about the whole thing? However, my pride would not let me do that. Now that I had started to test my fund raising abilities through this exercise, I should finish it to prove that I was worth at least $160,000 to my friends. Then I decided to act positively and approach those friends who have not yet responded to my letter.

I was, therefore, happy to have breakfast with two of my very good friends last Sunday. I raised the issue of sponsorship with them and they both agreed to contribute $30,000 each. One said that he had already asked his secretary to send me the cheque and the other said that he had been in China and, thus, had not read my letter, but he agreed to contribute $30,000 nonetheless. This news made me happy all day that day. Now that $60,000 of the $80,000 had been obtained, the remaining $20,000 should be easy.

I was, therefore, not surprised to receive a few more cheques of $10,000 this week, pushing the amount of sponsorship raised by me to beyond $160,000.

Now that I have succeeded in meeting my fund raising target, I looked back and reviewed what had happened. You may say 'What the hack? You are only raising $160,000. No big deal!' But I learnt a lesson through all this-the lesson that we should not be afraid of challenges and once having accepted them, we should persist until we have overcome them!

I hope that you are not bored by all this apparently silly stuff, and please accept my apologies if you are. I just wanted you to share my joy in having gone through all this.In passing, I would like to thank all of you and President Raymond for all the hard work in selling the tickets. Your support has certainly revived the old Kingspark spirit in that together we work towards a noble cause, together we support each other whole-heartedly and together we enjoy our fellowship through the service project.Thanks to all of you again.

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A friend's response

By John Wan

First of all, hearty congratulations to PP Alexander Mak for a job well done. Alex, as many of his friends would call him as such, is a quiet and modest individual. He always get things done.

I have never had any doubts that he would not achieve his targets. I had made inquiries on progress of Project Monsters without him knowing and for that matter without knowing at the time that he was in charge. When I found out that he was in charge, I was very reliefed, for I knew then that it would be a resounding success.

My confidence in the project was well founded. First, Alex was handling it; and secondly, rather fundamentally, it was a good project. This latter point underlines the very important principle that as long as one has a good project, one should never worry too much on how to finance it. Rotary International had a dream in the mid Eighties to wipe out Polio from the face of the earth by 2005. The leadership had a fund raising target of US$200 million at the time and planned to achieve the sum in about five years or longer. The sum was raised in two years.

It is reassuring that the world and certainly Hong Kong is not short of generous individuals who would give for good causes. Alex's story is another example, a shining example, and a reminder that we must not lose heart in our project planning and more importantly in our continuing effort to take services to the people who need them.

Congratulations to Alex once more and a big thank you to the members who had helped to make it a bigger success!

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