Due to the ongoing pandemic and our District Governor’s call to continue to meet virtually as much as we can, our Club conducted our regular meeting on December 17 on Zoom. Professor Tim Tong, our Honorary Member, joined our meeting. Amy and Catherine also joined. Rotarian Eliza joined from her quarantine hotel with makeshift Christmas gear.
The “regular” meeting was anything but regular: in addition to the regular reporting of Club and District activities, it functioned as our Club’s second assembly of the Rotary year, our annual general meeting, and our annual Christmas party. It would also be our Club’s first ever online AGM, first ever online Christmas party, and, amazingly, despite having weathered near a year of pandemic, our first ever online assembly.
At the beginning of our meeting, Past President Dora announced the passing of Past President Feeling (Rotary Club of Taoyuan Southeast). Those who knew Past President Feeling personally would most certainly agree that Past President Feeling was a most generous and warm person, a loving mother, a dear wife and a committed Rotarian. Past President Dora gave a long and heart-felt tribute to our beloved sister, who has been a bedrock of warmth and love to all of us in Hong Kong. Past President Dora also shared a video tribute prepared by our sisters at Taoyuan Southeast.
After a quick round of usual updates, President Mark declared the AGM open. After the usual order of business, elections for officers and Board of Directors for RY2021-2022 were held. At the conclusion of the elections, all candidates put forward by President Elect Sam were elected. Congratulations to the newly elected incoming officers and Board members!
After AGM was declared closed, President Mark passed the control dials to President Elect Sam, chair of the assembly. President Elect Sam proceeded to call up current Board of Directors to present their reports to members. Past President Angela, as Membership Director, gave updates of our membership, and made the happy announcement that Charter President Patrick has nominated Professor MF Yuen, a world-class clinician scientist at HKU, to be our Club’s third Honorary Member, and that our Board has duly considered and approved the nomination, and that Professor MF Yuen has gladly accepted our Club’s invitation to become Honorary Member. Past President Webster, as Youth Service Director, continued the flow of good news by announcing that a prospective Rotaract Club at Hang Seng University of Hong Kong is under planning, and that if all goes well, it will likely be chartered in the coming Rotary Year. President Elect Sam concluded the assembly by announcing that the tentative date for the upcoming Club Anniversary dinner to be March 20. All planning is underway, though its viability is entirely dependent upon pandemic conditions closer to the date. President Elect Sam also asked us to pencil down the next assembly date: March 11.
With all the business and administrative portion of the meeting out of the way, the equally important business of fellowship and entertainment began. Past President Angela led rounds of entertaining games; after ten rounds of exhilarating fun, Rotarian Kelvin bagged two wins, with Past President Kay, Rotarian Eliza, Past President Samuel, Past District Governor Belinda, Past President Grace, Rotarian Fei, Past President WT and Past President Dora bagging one win each.
Finally, no Harbour fellowship could end without Bingo, and this year’s Christmas fellowship, even though it was held online, was no exception. To conserve time, the usual Bingo game was redesigned to be a single number Bingo: in other words, a lottery. Catherine manned the lottery wheel while President Elect Sam kept tabs of winners. In the end, there were 7 winners, with Amy taking home the top prize (a bottle of Dom Perignon), and Rotarian Eliza taking home the second prize (canned abalone).
