On January 9, our Club invited Mr. KF Lee, a memorization expert and “mental athlete” who shared with us his upbringing and his trained talent for memorizing any patterns thrown at him. He is the Hong Kong record holder of many memorization challenges, and is skilled at memorizing random numbers, names, human faces, cards, images etc. He also believes that memorization is a skill that can be learned, and proved as such by conducting an experiment whereby Harbour members were taught a method of memorization and then were asked to memorize a sequence of random objects. Mr. Lee proved that Harbour members’ memory is not as bad as we may think! Mr. Lee also shared with us how persistence overcomes failures and difficult tasks, as exemplified by his business successes after repeated failures as well as various bike tours.
On January 7, President Mark attended District Vocational Service Seminar, hosted by our good friends at Rotary Club of Peninsula. The star speaker was Mr. Wong Kam Po (黃金寶), world champion cyclist and arguably one of Hong Kong’s greatest sporting icons at the turn of the century. Mr. Wong shared his upbringing, from a Shatin boy in a middle-class family to a cycling world champion, and all the frustration, tears, and hard work in between. Now fully retired from competitive cycling, Mr. Wong is devoting his energy and time promoting cycling and sports in general, and encouraging youngsters to chase their dreams by using his life’s history as guidepost. He is also spending a lot of time promoting Sports Legacy Scheme, a government-sanctioned scheme to help both student athletes and elite athletes who either are planning to retire or have retired to continue their involvement in sports by turning them into sports teachers so that they can continue teaching and spreading the positive values of sports and the spirit of olympism.
On December 19, our Club hosted a trifecta of meetings: Board Meeting, Club Assembly, and Annual General Meeting. At Club Assembly, President Mark shared with attendees the progress of various projects, including our Global Grant projects with Rotary Clubs of Pudu and Taoyuan Southeast. President Mark also detailed our Club’s plans to go ahead with putting together a project with Hummingfish Foundation. At Annual General Meeting, members approved, among other things, the financial accounts of RY2018-2019, expertly prepared by last year’s Treasurer Barry. After President Mark declared the closure of Annual General Meeting, our Christmas-themed party began. The dinner menu was specially designed by Regal’s catering for the occasion, with a colorful and delicious dessert spread to complement the festivity of the evening. President Mark and Rotarian Sam brought wines and whiskeys, respectively. Before tasting, our resident sommelier Past President Kay shared a bit of information and history about the wines on offer: one Chateau Montelena and one Negru de Purcari, a prized Moldovan wine brought home by President Mark when he visited Château Purcari near the Ukrainian border in Moldova half a decade ago. Members lucky enough to be sitting at Rotarian Sam’s table also got his expert take…
On December 14, President Mark and Catherine, Past President Samuel and Amy, Immediate Past President Lily, Rotarian Jason and Sara attended Home Care for Girls’ annual Christmas Party x Homecoming (關愛日). Our Club is the sponsor of the event, which was well attended by donors, families and friends of the Centre. Many girls who stayed at Home Care in the past returned, some of them even bringing their families and children! The girls gifted attendees with two performances – a hip-hop dance, and a chorus accompanied by a guitar.
On December 12, Mr. Dixon Ip, a coffee connoisseur and a certified judge in coffee events around the world, came to our Club to talk about his most passionate topic: coffee. Mr. Ip is a friend of our Club’s honorary member Prof. Tim Tong. While most of us mortals drink coffee for its caffeine, Mr. Ip approaches coffee with the scientific rigor of a world-class lab researcher and the intense passion of a restless teenager. In Mr. Ip’s eyes, coffee is not just a drink; it is an ode to all the hard work that goes into it, from the farmers cultivating the coffee plants to the roasters experimenting with varied roasting temperatures. Mr. Ip is especially passionate about the cultivation process – something that has led him to travel all around the world in search of different agricultural techniques and pre-processing styles. As a coffee judge, he has also traveled around the world for coffee and barista competitions and, in the process, has probably seen more latte art than all of us – combined. Mr. Ip believes that coffee consumption has also changed over the years. Consumers are now paying more attention to package labeling. Whereas just a decade…
Past President WT reported that he had a lot of fun at the Zone Institute, held in Manila from November 29 to December 1. Past President WT was invited to be a panelist to talk about mediation and arbitration as a model for resolving conflicts within Rotary and in society.
Mr. Titan Lam, founder of TIRAPY, came to our Club on November 28 to talk about the TIRAPY system, a therapeutic medical system that helps to improve blood circulation and encourage controlled muscular movement. The concept of the system takes inspiration from multiple disciplines: neuro-endocrinal science, kinesiology, psychology, and martial art. While Mr. Lam himself is a decorated martial artist with over 30 years of combating experience, our members in attendance did not have the privilege of seeing a demonstration of his martial arts skills. What Mr. Lam demonstrated, however, was better: the TIRABALL, the centerpiece of the TIRAPY system. The TIRABALL is an inflatable ball with metal ball bearings inside. As the user moves the TIRABALL, the ball bearings start to move, thereby providing centrifugal force and added resistance as the user continues his/her movement. Mr. Lam gave examples of how the TIRAPY system has helped people with muscular degenerative diseases to improve their muscular strength and acuity. Past District Governor Eugene Fong and President Mark attested that juggling with the TIRABALL is no walk in the park, as both started to sweat and feel mild exhaustion after barely a minute of fiddling around with it.
On November 14, our Club invited Ms. Annike Pong, founder of Music Children Foundation, to give an overview of Music Children Foundation, a local charity that provides free music education to underprivileged kids in Hong Kong. Music Children Foundation (”MCF”)’s vision is simple: to introduce music to underprivileged children at an early age and to cultivate their core values towards building a harmonious society. Ms. Pong believes that music education does not end with merely perfecting musical senses and techniques, but building self-confidence, enhancing communication skills, and fostering a life-long interest in the arts through the learning of music. Ms. Pong also cites how music has transformed the lives of not only children but families: as parents become volunteers in MCF events, they spend more time with their children. Parents also get to understand their children more through the new common language of music.
On November 4, our Rotaract Club hosted their RY2019-2020 Club Installation, attended by President Mark Tong, Charter President Patrick Poon, Vice President Barry Chan, Past Presidnt Grace Yen, Past President Webster Ng, and Rotarian Kelvin Yeung. The new Board includes many faces familiar to Rotarians: Chaeri Yoo, incoming International Service Director who was an inaugural member/fantastic pianist of Harbour Lights, the Rotarian/Rotaractor band that performed at our Club’s 32nd Anniversary Party; Anuj Bhatia, incoming Professional Development Director, and Cindy Effendy, incoming Treasurer, who attended District Peace Night with us. All Rotarians gave speeches of congratulations and encouragement to the Rotaractors.
On October 24, our Club invited Ms. Candy Lok, a therapist specializing in play therapy and filial therapy to give a talk on her expertise. Ms. Lok introduced to our members the basic concepts and theories of play therapy, and explained how play action can reveal a great deal about the psychology of a child. While her work focused on children from talking age up to mid teens, she explained that the concept could very well be applied to other age groups, including infants. In general, Ms. Lok explained that visual observation and listening were as important in understanding children’s feelings as asking the right follow up questions at the right time. Ms. Lok also shared with us a number of anonymized cases in which a simple painting or sand play can reveal a great deal about how a child thinks.