2002 – 2003 David Lindsay

Membership: 36

After a smooth transition from IPP Ramesh we got off to a good start with a vocational trip to Du’an County, Guangxi province to see the progress of our clubs work on the Three Schools Project which was subsequently chosen to be our Centenniel Project. The main reason for the trip was to attend the opening of the middle school latest additions in the form of a new 5 story building and the major renovation of some existing buildings. Our party comprised members of our club, members of Rotary Club of Macau and a large contingent of Interactors from Tang Shiu Kin School in Wanchai.

After hair-raising drives up the nountians to see the works done at the primary schools we attended a grand opening ceremony with many local dignitaries in attendance and a number of speeches, including ones from our benefactor PP Bill and your president . This was followed by a wonderful open air concert in the evening with a myriad of song and dance routines and even a comedy sketch in English. Our interactors also joined in at very short notice and aquitted themselves well. This was a fantastic and inspirational trip for everybody. A marvellous thing to see how Rotary really helps those that need it.

A number of fellowships were arranged that included a breakfast buffet at the Hong Kong Football Club, a Golf Day brilliantly organized by PP Bruce followed by dinner at the Kowloon Cricket Club.

Regrettably the second half of the Rotary year was badly affected by SARS and from march through to april all meetings were cancelled throughout the district and plans for our annual fundraiser were cancelled as a result.

However, this only spurred our club onto greater efforts to help the community and we managed to donate over HK$110,000 – some to assist in fighting the disease by providing barrier equipment for frontline medical staff and students, some to the We Car,e a fund to help the families of SARS victims and some to St James Settlement for fans and health packs for the elderly. This was in addition to the District SARS levy of HK$333 per member.

At joint lunch hosted by RC Admiralty, attended by DG Gloria and many District VIP’s cheques for District donations and our clubs donation to We Care Fund were presented to Carrie Lam JP, the Director of the Social Welfare Department.

Our club also donated over US$7500 to the Christina Noble Foundation for assisting their projects in Mongolia and also another US$7000 for an unrelated project in Mongolia, this time for an Internet Café.

Further donations were made to help victims of the earthquake in Xinjiang and our club continued its substantial support to the Stride for a Cure fun run day and to Oxfam by sponsoring our club trailwalker team. Additional donations were made to Holt HK LTd for a baby milk project in China and a child care centre in Bangkok.

Membership at 1st July 2002 stood at 33 and increased to 36 by 30th June 2003. Even though the year was badly affected by SARS our club continued its tradition of unstinting community endeavour and of course our fellowship was not too shabby either!!