1971 – 1972 Gary N. Harilela

· by · in

Membership: 38 – 44

Pres. Gary, following the foot-steps of Pres. Jack and started his meetings with a joke.
The first Paul Harris Fellow in our Club was Pres. Gary himself and the First Lady Paul Harris Fellow was Rtnne. Vilma, wife of Rtn. Philip Lai, Rtn. Ram Hiranand also became a Paul Harris Fellow.
During the year, a Past President Committee was formed with PP Freddy as the first Chairman. The Territorial Limits was finally cleared. We were permitted to recruit English speaking members from the relinguished territories particularly in the area of Rotary Club of New Territories. A Fund Raising Gala Premier was held at Hoover Theatre. The movie Love Bug as arranged by Rtn. George Chu, raised a net proceeds of over $20,000.
The main Community Service Project for the year was the building of a shelter and provision of sports equipment for the Portland Street Children Playground. Another of the projects under International Service worth mentioning was the donation of a large quantity of bicycle reflectors to India. This project was completed with the assistance of the Rotary Club of McLean who matched our contribution dollar for dollar and Air India shipped the reflectors to India free of charge. It was estimated that 60,000 lives would be saved by this project.
Our Club achieved 100% attendance at the District Conference.
Perhaps the most significant project in which the club has become involved was the building of a workshop for the Blind in Yuen Long. This project, proposed by Kowloon North in 1966, was co-sponsored by the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club and District 644 of the USA. Construction of the workshop commenced in 1968-69 and during the following year President Sidney T. Chang was invited to broadcast news of this project on television and radio to the people of Hong Kong. The text of his broadcast was subsequently featured in the annual report of The Society for the Blind.
The workshop was completed during 1971-72 and officially opened by the Governor of Hong Kong at that time, His Excellency Sir David Trench and attended by the then District Governor Calvin Chang, President Gary Harilela and Vice President Stephen Sung.