On May 28, our Club met at Regal Hongkong Hotel for the first time after two months of meetings on Zoom. Thanks to Regal, special arrangements were made whereby all attendees were required to get their temperature checked and their hands alcohol-wiped before entering the venue. The large venue enabled tables to be placed far away from each other – all tables were placed well over 2 meters apart, and our Club enforced that no more than 8 members were to sit together. During the meeting, our members reported to the rest of the Club the various activities that occurred in the past few weeks: Past President Grace spoke at length about her experience distributing hot meals at Holy Cafe; Past President Samuel gave a summary of Rotarian Kelvin’s virtual fireside chat on the topic of Covid-19; and President Mark gave an update of Amity Foundation Walk for Living Water, for which our Club helped to raise more than 140,000 HKD as of May 28. Past President Peter announced that he would donate 5,000 HKD, already budgeted for PP Peter Show, back to our Club. Past President Dora also spent time to thank our good friends at our sister clubs…
On January 23, Mr. Roy Cheng, an expert in arbitration and mediation, came to our Club to share with us his experience as a mediator. He summarized how a mediator works, and how crucial it is, in this day and age of political polarization. He believed that the most important elements in mediation are: listening, and empathy. He detailed, in confidence, some of the behind-the-scenes mediation efforts to break the impasse at Hong Kong Polytechnic University in November. To thank Mr. Cheng for his sharing, Past President Peter presented a fan with calligraphy that reads “和為貴 / Treasure harmony” – a message that is much needed in today’s society.
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 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…
Richard Wesley, Museum Director of the Hong Kong Maritime Museum, explained the history, vision and mission of the Museum. The Museum is a unique cultural entity in Hong Kong dedicated to preserving, collecting and displaying objects that tell the story about trade and maritime in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta. Richard shared with members photos of Hong Kong’s maritime past as well as precious art work related to the sea. Richard remarked that our Club, being the first Rotary Club in Hong Kong he visited as a speaker, was uniquely suited to be his “maiden voyage” since both his profession and passion are related and connected to the Hong Kong harbor.