Golden News
Volume 14 - Number 4   24th July 2000


The weekly newsletter of the Rotary Club of Kowloon Golden Mile, Hong Kong.
Web site: www.rckgm.org

Visits to Clubs in the District

At the last Board Meeting President Cassidy mentioned his wish to make visits to other clubs in the District during his year in office. The Board endorsed this worthy idea and the first, as mentioned at the last meeting, is this coming Friday. We will visit the RC of Kowloon North (President Bill District Web Page Benton) on Friday at Holiday Inn. Pres. Cass. says we'll twist the arm..oops sorry urhm! negotiate with the hotel to have a different menu on Friday. Interested KGM Rotarians please log in on Wednesday.
Last Week's Meeting...
.....was attended by 27 Rotarians, slightly over 50%. Is that good enough, I ask you? Well, no, not really, but you will throw the holidays routine at me. That's not good enough either. We have to do better!
Notwithstanding, the meeting was off to a good start with three Rotarian visitors from Kowloon Club, namely our Honorary advisor IPADG Larry Parmanand together with Pres. Shane Parmanand and Rtn. Colin Brown. We also had the pleasure of the company of PP Vince's two guests Myro Lopes from the Philippines and Sajed Shamsudeen from Sri Lanka. Rtn Elissa emerged as Sergeant and did a fine job..,
Hon Treasurer said what all Treasurers do, "Pay up", but he also asked that when we send in our cheques to put our names on the back if we are using a company bank account. Of course he knows "Selpro" cheques.
PP Brian mentioned the Rotary Foundation Seminar, see below, and added a point of information that of our 56 members there were 28 Paul Harris Fellowships in existence. My subsequent research shows that this represents a far less a number of existing members of the Club as some have multiple PHF's to their name. Seems like an opportunity here. Perhaps we should all start contributing on a monthly basis. Come to think of it, for about HK$160 per month per KGM Rotarian we could have one PHF per month. How about that then?
Our guest speaker, Tony Au, introduced by Rtn Terrence, gave us a fascinating, if somewhat challenging talk to follow, basically on the history of the computer, civilization's move through the various ages, culminating in the Information Age and broad brush picture of what we can expect beyond this. Our speaker, it seems was much in favour of having vision in life and work and was not impressed in his early days to pay $800 to hear Bill Gates say that internet ventures were useless. Apparently BG changed his mind some years later but Tony stayed away from his dissertation in Hong Kong many years later when he confessed to this. Many examples were given of programmes and products which had become so powerful today but only a few had the vision at the time to foresee this. What then of the future? It seems that free range chickens lay better eggs while a friend of his took a 15% pay cut in order to stay at home and work which might seem to indicate a freer working/office society in the future, if not a paper less one! One in which our speaker felt Hong Kong would play a greater role in the future as we walk around town sporting our wearable computer, with our fingers poised over the undo key. Did you know it was the most useful key on the computer? Brian Barter Net Hodgson did the thanking honours.
Programme For 26th July
Speaker - Cassius Rolfe-Johnson
Subject - Hair Mineral Analysis (yeh yeh what's goin' on .... the programme says one thing and what happens is different etc. etc. ok! ok! ..... the Programme Chairman an' me's gonna woik closer tagedder ok? "Wot's hair t'day will be gone t'mara")
 Fellowship
Irish Night ............ Begosh & Begorra !
The Dublin Jack Pub, 37 Cochrane Street,
Central
(Adjacent to the mid-levels escalator)

From 6:00 p.m. Friday 28 July, 2000.


Semi-Annual Dues (Repeat notice!)
WANTED!*# - Those who haven't paid to do so!!

A Voice From the Past
Hi Vince et al,
Nice to see all the "old" faces - all getting older like me. Give our best wishes to all the members who remember us?
Walt
(aka Walter Whyte, one of our early bulletineers, who pioneered sending our weekly missile over the fax by some programme which I could never understand - but even so he spent less time than I do in getting the job done!!!)

         This Week's Birthday Celebrants
IPDG DPI San 21st July sharing with Ernest Hemingway..Dipo also had a Whale of a time last Rotary Year.
PP Joseph Kwan 26th July nicely paired with George Bernard Shaw .......................... .................................Run Run Rabbit Rabbit Run Run Rabbit Rabit Shaw Shaw Shaw.
District Dates For Your Diary
District Rotary Foundation Seminar 2000-2001

IPP Grace Young Mid levels, Host  Club Chairman, advises that this important seminar will be held on 9th September 2000, 8.30 a.m. to 3.00 p.m. at the Crystal Ballroom, Holiday Inn Golden Mile. Registration fee $350.00. The Chairman, PDG Jason Yeung and Regional Rotary Foundation Co-ordinator 2000/1, PDG Jackson SL Hsieh will be officiating.
All Rotarians, in particular Presidents, PEs, VPs, International Service Directors, Foundation  Chairmen/women/persons/uncle Tom Cobleys an' all and new members in particular should attend. A full update on the Foundation, including much important new information, some of it extremely relevant to District 0345, will be given. There will also be group and panel discussions which will answer many questions on the Foundation and it's funding.
 

Preliminary 2000-2001 District Sports Events Details
EVENT HOST CONTACT NUMBERS
(TEL/FAX)		 TARGET DATE VENUE
Sports Day Happy Valley Pres. Tony Wong 2557 0235 
2558 0114 		 19th November Wanchai Sports
Ground
Swimming Kowloon NE
Rtn Den Lai		 2732 8788
2164 8232		 24th September Kowloon Park or Ma On Shan
Bowling Kwai Chung Pres. Alcuin Li 2853 9712
2545 7477		 Early October Mei Fu Sun Chuen
Tennis  Hong Kong  NE Pres. Denny Shiu 2519 3220
2743 6632		 Mid November to mid December To Be Advised
Golf Shatin
PP Ricky Wong		 2520 2701
2861 3757		 12th January Mission Hills China
Badminton Bayview Sunshine Pres Amy Leung
Rtn Louise		 2218 8734
2162 4121		 Mid March to early April Hong Kong Park
Western District
Football Causeway Bay
Pres Alex Lau		 2820 4888
2840 0947		 Semi Finals March
Final April 		 To Be Decided
Basketball Pres Y C Chan
Kowloon NE		 2870 4128
2143 6380		 End April to early
May		 Wanchai Indoor
games centre
Table Tennis PP Tang Kam Tim
HK Sunrise		 2219 7333
2164 9939		 May Southern Stadium
Bridge PP Joop Litmaath
Hong Kong		 2564 3866
2880 9746		 Mid November HK Country Club
Mahjong Pres Patrick Luk
Kowloon West		 2330 2362
2365 0678		 To be decided To be decided 
From the desk of Rtn. Neerja Sujanani, Director Vocational Service
My first project will be to have a column each week in Golden News on Members' Vocations. Every Rotarian is requested to write a couple of paragraphs on what they do in their vocations, what makes their particular vocation different, past career paths, etc. If you need assistance or would like me to give you more ideas and guidelines, feel free to drop me a line. I shall lead by example, so here I go with my piece:

Classification: Publishing - Financial Magazines

Having graduated in Economics and Commerce from Jai Hind College, Bombay I continued my education with one year of Law. During that year I set-up my own print and production house which demanded more time and attention as the business took off very well, thus I quit my law course. I was the sub editor of my college magazine (circulation of 10,000 copies) for a year and then moved on to the post of Editor-in-Chief for 3 years. I also freelanced as a sports journalist for the Sun Magazine in the UK for 2 years. As for Rotary, I have been Hon. Secretary of Interact Club of CJM, Charter President of the Rotaract Club of Bombay Main and then served on various Rotaract district posts.
With that background, I moved to HK to settle down and joined Global Finance Magazine, a US-based finance and banking publication as Production Associate. Then onto my current company as Production Manager for The Economist Group (Asia/Pacific) Ltd. Several promotions later, I am now Business Manager, Advertising Sales for CFO Asia, a specialist magazine for Chief Financial Officers in Asia. I am responsible for all the printing, production, distribution, advertising sales and marketing, business development, web site development, sales administration and the enhancment of business and revenue from different and innovative streams.
My extra-curricular activities include this Rotary job(!); Hon. Secretary of India Club which is currently under refurbishment; Committee Member of the India Association and Member of the International Advertising Association.
I am married to Baiju whom all of you should have met already. We have an entertaining 11 month old son Sohan and since I can see this piece is becoming too long, come and have a chat with me at a Rotary meeting and I’ll tell you about my hobbies in person!
Okay, who’s going next? President Cassidy will do his next week and then after that I will draw up a roster which you all will receive shortly.
Neers!
Cheerja

  KGM Web Site
By PP Vince the Phantom Web Master
Those of you who like to listen to music while you surf will be pleased to know that the KGM web site now offers a variety of user selectable tunes at the top of the page. Just click on one of the 8 currently available choices and you can start tapping your size 10 bug squishers to such soothing classics as "All The Things You Are", "Lullaby of Birdland", "Green Onions" and so on. I have even added a user selectable "Welcome Message" too. Check it out !
I am also pleased to report that the "Old Boys & Girls Roster" is now 100% complete. What started out just a month ago as a list of a mere 85 names now has, believe it or not, 105 names ! Many thanks to our PP's, especially PP Robin Ching, who helped jog my fading memory.
The "Basic Club Roster" is also now complete as it reflects the actual induction dates for all current members, thanks to the help of VP Nanu Lachman and the wonderful staff at Rotary International.
Finally, I managed to dig up an old photograph of President Cassidy when he was still a very young, impressionable lad, and this has now been posted to the web site. You can find the hyper link just above the Sergeant-At-Arms link. Enjoy !
Quote
To become successful you must be a person of action. Merely to "know" is not sufficient. It is necessary both to know and do.
Napoleon Hill
Elzzup
There were no entries to the         puzzle      of last week, therefore no winners. For the benefit of anyone interested what you had was an anagram of my full name. Szzzz. One more try and I promise I'll get the message!! What is unusual about the following phrases?
"Incomprehensible problem in Chinese"
 "Sums are not set as a test on Erasmus"
Limerick Of The Week
There once was a fellow named Rafferty
Who went to a gentleman's lafferty
On observing the sight
He said "Newton was right,
This must be the center of grafferty!"

Another Mantra
I think my Kharma ran over my Dogma.
Joke of the Week
General Motors Revenge
At a recent computer exposition, Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, "If GM had kept up with technology as the computer industry had we would all be driving $25 cars that could run a thousand miles to the gallon". General Motors responded as follows:-
If GM had followed Microsoft we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:-
1    Your car would crash twice a day, for no apparent reason.
2    Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3    Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull over to the side of the road, close all of the windows. shut of the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before continuing. For some reason you would accept this.
4    Occasionally executing a normal left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart. You would then have to re-install the engine.
5    Only one person at a time could use the car unless you bought "CarNT", but then you would have to buy more seats.
6    Macintosh would make a sun powered car which was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive, but it would only run on five percent of the roads.
7    The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single general protection fault warning light.
8    New seats would force everyone to have the same sized butt.
9    The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.
10  Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the antenna.
11  GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Ran McNally Road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the cars performance to diminish by 50 percent or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Department.
12  Every time GM introduced a new car, buyers would have to learn to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as in the old car.
13  You'd have to press the "start" button to turn off the engine!!!!
(Oh dear!) L'URCHIN