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Kingspark News Rotary Club of Kingspark Hong Kong |
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This is the Web Version of the weekly bulletin
of the Rotary Club of Kingspark Hong Kong, District 3450
Club Website: http://www.rotary3450.org/kingspark-hongkong |
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Editorial
- By John Wan |
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Club Webmaster
: John Wan
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Anniversary Balls
Kingspark will hold its Annual Ball this week. President Raymond has billed it as the single most important event on the Club Calendar and has appealed to all members to support the event. To encourage attendance, he has re-schediled the regular meeting of the week to the weekend to be held just before the anniversary celebration and he has challenged members to make it a 100% attendance meeting. I have attended a fair number of anniversary balls in my Rotary career, and lest I may be misunderstood, let me say upfront that I have enjoyed most of them. I had attended a good proportion in my official capacity, either as a government official or as a Rotary official, but regardless of the capacity, they were all fun. Well, mostly, anyway. The problem is that they are rather costly, particularly if they are to achieve the objectives for which the events were held in the first place. Annual Balls are primarily for fun, fellowship, PR and fund raising. Some of the objectives can be competing and conflicting. Many Rotarians have said that the total expenses on an annual ball can far exceed the net takings at the end of the day. Against this background, the founders of Kingspark had taken a conscious decision from the start that our anniversary balls would not be for fund raising primarily and that they should be a family affair. To ensure that we would have sufficient funds for service projects, we include in our monthly subscription or dues an amount. We think that this is the most equitable means of fund raising and would indeed fully meet the conditions of the 4-Way Test. Under the system, each member is committed to pay a minimum and equal amount towards the Club for funding the Club's projects, regardless of whether he or she attends the anniversary celebrations. A collateral benefit of the policy is that the Ball Chairman, normally the President-elect would not be under pressure to raise funds from the event which very often could detract and degenerate other objectives of the event. |
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By President Raymond Sin - written on 23 April 2002 |
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On the morning of that day, some of us will go to the airport to welcome our sister club members from the Rotary Club of Sathorn. More than ten of them are coming all the way from Bangkok to join our Annual party. International Service Director Stephen Lin has arranged many programs for them, even though they will be staying in HK for only 2 days before flying to Japan to meet with another sister club of theirs. International Service is one of the four avenues of service in Rotary. If you are interested in joining us for the programs, please feel free to contact Stephen or myself. They will leave HK in the afternoon on Sunday. I think the Vocational Service Project on 9th May (Thursday) will be a major service project of Kingspark and will require most of our members' manpower before the end of this Rotary year. Our Vocational Service Director Amy Chow, together with PE Anwer and VP Peter Lo will hold a project at TWGHs Wong Fut Nam College, Kowloon Tong. The project will consist of 2 parts: Theme talks and small groups' discussion. The expected attendance of secondary school students is around 260. It could be the first of its kind in our club history. The organizing committee has put in a lot of effort to arrange for the event. The plan is to go to the school after we finish our regular Rotary meeting on that day. I hope to see most of you that afternoon. We all expect a fruitful result and I look forward to an encouraging full report from Amy afterwards. The Interact Club of Wah Yan College HK, sponsored by Kingspark, will have their annual walkathon on the Sunday, 28 April. I think that will be a very good opportunity for members to get involved in Interact activity, particularly for those who do not know what Interact club is all about. See you on 25 April (Thursday) at Chinese Club for the April dinner meeting and Board meeting. |
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You are welcome to write to 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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By Harry I have been reading with interest the Web Version of Kingspark News beginning from Issue 20 and I applaud the efforts of the Club for the efforts put into its production. I would like to respond to the editorial of the last issue on accountability and transparency. I find that transparency may have the effect of conformity to a certain extent. I would illustrate my point with a panopticon. A panopticon is a strangely shaped structure for a prison constructed such that the warden can see any and all of the inmates at any particular time. The inmates understand the system and know that they are under constant surveillance. At the same time, they also realize that it would be physically impossible for the warden to watch every inmate all the time at any one time. However, the possibility that their action could be watched all the time has in practice become an effective means to curb misconduct. This concept must be distinguished from the "God always watches over us" kind of consciousness, as in the case of a panopticon, all activities can actually be videotaped round the clock. Following on this example, the fact that auditors make scheduled visits has already led to noticeable changes in the demeanor and conduct of people in the business world. A panopticon could be an extension of the system. Lawyers and consultants do a lot of work for clients, often in their absence and without their detailed knowledge. However, they have been trained or instructed to work conscientiously as if the clients are standing behind them. In a sense, the panopticon theory has been extremely effective primarily because it preys on the human psyche and perhaps vulunerability. At the same time, however, whereas the announced audit visits are a move towards transparency, there is a built-in bias in the process. The important difference in these cases is that they are not conducting experiments as in the case of the panopticon prison, and there is no control in these audit visits in the sense that they are a requirement. One hopes that the process would lead to improvements in the systems, which would in turn lead to progress. I wish that the Web Version of Kingspark News would continue to prosper. [Harry is a graduate from UC Berkeley, USA. He now works in California. - Ed.] |