On April 18, Past President Grace, Past President WT, Past President Angela and Maurice, and Grace’s friend Yvonne distribute hot meals at Holy Cafe. Over 200 meals were distributed that day. Past President WT and Maurice used their engineering skills to assemble face shields, which were given to the elderly.
Our Club conducted our first-ever online meeting on Zoom on April 9. This is in part a response to government’s social distancing guidelines and recommendations on avoiding large group meetings, and in part a response to Rotary International’s recommendation on moving all physical meetings to online platforms. It turns out that many of our members are already quite familiar with the platform, and most had no issues logging on and joining the meeting. After the meeting room opened at noon, members started trickling in. Some arrived early to make sure that audio and video issues were addressed before the official start of the meeting at 1pm. Others just joined early to chat, just like our fellowship time before our physical lunch meetings. The Zoom meeting followed our usual agenda items, with members taking turns to report items of which they are in charge and/or managing. President Mark reported on the statuses of various District and Club events. Past President Grace explained and reported on the treatment of Annual Dinner Gathering Fund already received from members. Past President Webster explained the mechanics of Amity’s Walk for Living Water 2020, and reported that he already started to engage our youth to participate.…
On March 7, President Mark and Catherine, Past President Grace, Rotarian Jason and Sara helped at Holy Cafe to distribute hot meals to the elderly. Mrs. Maria Sung, the owner of the Cafe and the 2019 winner of The One Hong Kong Humanitarian Award, started distributing meals to her neighborhood when she realized that many elderly did not have a proper hot meal in the weekends. The pandemic exacerbated the problem because some of these elderly who might have visited their relatives or might have received visits from their relatives in the weekends were forced to be on their own as people avoided going out. On occasion, our Club donated some masks to Holy Cafe, a social enterprise, so that those elderly served by the Cafe could receive some extra masks. Our Club’s plan is to set up teams to help Mrs. Sung with her weekly hot meal distribution.
Over the Chinese new year, Past President Gary Lim of Rotary Club of Pudu and his family visited Hong Kong from Malaysia. Our Club members showed them our usual hospitality. Thanks to liaison by Past President Dora, our Director of International Service, we went for a long hotpot dinner one evening, and a dim sum lunch in another afternoon.
On January 15, more than a dozen Hong Kong Harbour Rotarians and spouses were present at the naming ceremony of Patrick SC Poon Amity College at Hang Seng University of Hong Kong. Patrick SC Poon, of course, is our Club’s Charter President and well-known philanthropist. During Charter President Patrick’s speech, he mentioned that Rotary philosophy of service above self is one of his chief guiding principles when he does philanthropic deeds. Plenty other District dignitaries were present, including District Governor Wilson Cheng, Past Governors Moses Cheng (Chairman of the University’s Council), Anthony Hung, Jones Wong, Peter Wan, Ada Cheng, YC Ho, and District Governor Nominee Keith Chow.
On January 14, Service Projects Director Kelvin, together with Past Presidents Eddie Leung, Grace and Angela delivered Chinese new year pudding packages to the volunteers and staff of Yuk Chi Resource Centre. They first assembled in Causeway Bay to pick up the packages from Regal catering, and then delivered 60+ pudding packages to Yuk Chi in Tuen Mun as part of our Club’s annual tradition to show our heartfelt appreciation of the hard work of the staff and volunteers of the Centre. Our Club’s delegation was led by Service Projects Director Kelvin, who reported that the delivery was smooth and that the recipients were all very happy to greet and meet with us. The visiting Rotarians also took time to tour the Centre and learned about the Centre’s latest developments.
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.
Poliomyelitis is a highly infectious disease that most commonly affects children under the age of 5. While polio cases have dropped in recent years, there has been a recent resurgence of the disease in areas thought to have been polio free. Although there is no cure, vaccination is safe and effective in immunizing children and reducing the risks of further outbreaks. For over thirty years, Rotary has contributed more than $1.8 billion to fight the disease. On October 19, over 500 Rotarians in Hong Kong and Macau gathered together to raise awareness of the disease and to raise more funds to help to vaccinate children in impoverished communities around the world.
On October 9, President Mark Tong, together with Charter President Patrick Poon and Past Presidents Grace Yen and Webster Ng, attended the Club Installation of the Interact Club of King’s College. Principal KC Tang also attended the Installation and gave an encouraging speech to the Interactors. President Mark and Charter President Patrick also gave uplifting words to the Interactors, at a time of social unrest. Outgoing President Tom Lam gave a report of his achievements in the previous year, while Incoming President Marx Wong outlined his ideas for the coming year. The new 15-strong committee was pinned by President Mark and Charter President Patrick, with over 30 Interactors and school staff as witnesses.
On September 28, Past President Grace Yen attended the Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) / Automatic External Defibrillation (AED) Education Project 2019-2020 Launch Ceremony at Hong Kong St. John Ambulance Headquarters. The project, organized by our Area 3 friends from Rotary Club of Hong Kong Northeast, is sponsored by our Club. As part of our sponsorship, 20 of our Interactors and their teachers shall have the opportunity to learn basic CPR/AED skills. Past President Grace collected a certificate of appreciation from our District Governor Wilson Cheng and President Heidi Lee of Rotary Club of Hong Kong Northeast, the organizer of the Project.