Golden News
5th
December 2000
The Weekly Bulletin of the
Rotary Club of Kowloon Golden Mile
http://www.rckgm.org
BIRTHDAY BOYS AGAIN!!
Don Sakhrani –
6th December
Silva Yeung –
7th December
Last Meeting
The gong went gong at 1.15 by President Cassidy just as one Bulletin editor was sneaking through the door, not unnoticed by the appropriate authorities however. There was then choir practice for the 2 birthday boys by the other 26 attendees and 2 guests in attendance; a roundabout way of noting that attendance could have been better. Where are you? President Cassidy has a CD of mine with Frank Sinatra singing a song with the same question as its title. If you don’t start attending you may not hear the song or my story that goes with it!
Agnes took the rostrum, with
permission of course, to give us the bad news of her departure (see last
Bulletin).
Our one visiting Rotarian was
PP Tony Choi from Admiralty and Guests of Rotarians were Mark Go – Rotarian
Agnes; Isabelle Yu – PP Cassidy; Theresa YC Cheung - PP CK Tsang and Trail
walker Eric Thomas, introduced this time by his
dad.
Next PE Ebe reported on the
Walkathon held on 26th November. About 35 persons turned up, 23
Rotarians and family members and the remainder our helpful Interact and Rotaract
members who came for the fellowship and to help us reserve the Barbeque area, a
very necessary activity as the location is extremely popular. Alas its
popularity is not reflected in the state the sites are left in by those using
them the night before.
When the early birds arrived
to get things started it was like a battlefield.
Apart from Rotariannes
Therese and Emy who organized much of the food and the occupying Interactors and
Rotaractors every one walked the roughly two hour circuit with no one dropping
out. First home was Rotarian Hans, I think, I wasn’t there! Rotarian Trailwalker
Carola marked the trail with chalk and talcum powder and completed the circuit
twice. The general consensus was that the walk was not difficult and passed
through very beautiful country with spectacular
scenery.
Top in the sponsorship at the
time of the meeting was PP Ram with over HK$20,000, Rotarian Eliza over HK$3,000
and Rotarian Miranda up among the high rollers but as yet
un-audited.
I am proud to report that
when Kowloon Golden Mile had finished the area was left spotless; so much so
that the park cleaners who descended on the site as we were leaving were visibly
impressed and happy that their work on this site would easier that
usual.
It occurs to your bulletin
editor that the terrible state of BBQ areas in Country Parks might be the
subject of some future community activity by our Club.
PE Ebe also advised that this
fundraising item would be available for collection by Rotarians at the next
meeting. Price HK$100 for 10 pieces – a giveaway!! Be sure to be at the next
meeting. Supplies might not last!
Rotarian Eliza then introduced Ms Mya
Kirwan, the Executive Director of the Kely Support Group, a local charity that
offers non-judgmental support to young people in Hong Kong on whatever subject
or matter they want to talk about. They listen. Their approach is to encourage
young people to help themselves by providing peer support through positive
contact with other young people. Kely achieves this through face-to-face client
work, telephone hotlines, education and information programmes and a range of
outreach projects. All Kelly services are free to clients. Mya gave a very
telling example of a client with a drug problem. In a very personal letter from
the client, now abroad, it was revealed that were it not for their care and
support, which is continuing even now by telephone, the subject would not have
been able to get through the ordeal.
Myra concluded her talk with a request for
the group’s work to be considered by the Club and its members in future
charitable deliberations.
There was a lively question session after
the talk. Rotarian Rajiv gave the vote of thanks.
DATES
FOR YOUR DIARY
Sunday, 10th December – 2.30
– 5 p.m. Visit to Po Leung Kuk
Friday
Lifted
From Our Web Page
Next Fellowship: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday 13 December
2000
Joint Fellowship with the Rotary Club of Wanchai
at
the Hong Kong Cricket
Club,
Wongneichung Gap Road, Hong Kong.
ON
VOCATION!
Thomas K Mo -
Classification: Distribution - Chemicals
I was born in Hong Kong in
the afternoon of 12th November, 1791, the same day as Dr. Sun Yat Sen
(now you know why I am so good). My primary and secondary education took place
in HK and the Tertiary and Masters’ was in USA. My present work is Technical
Sales & Marketing
Early in my career, I moved around quite a bit -
from Toronto Canada to New Jersey to Singapore before returning to Hong Kong in
1985.
I first worked for International chemical firms in technical sales
but was soon assigned to the head-office to help look after product and business
development on a worldwide basis. Then the whole team was sent to Singapore to
man the Asia Pacific business, including sales/marketing, joint venture studies
and implementations, raw material purchases and so on. It was fun, while
relatively young, to travel around and get to know different cultures and make
friends in many countries.
As challenges disappeared while company
politics soared to a level that I deemed unacceptable, I ventured out on my own
in 1997. Both of the companies I had worked for ended up giving me their agency
for HK and China. Which was a good move but the timing was lousy in that the
economy collapsed in Asia and has not yet recovered. The prospect is there and
we hope to do relatively well from 2001 onward, provided the US economy does not
take a nosedive and get everybody in deeper trouble.
Funnily, I never
gave sales / marketing much thought as a career until my research professor woke
me up at graduate school. (PP Louis, contrary to what you may believe, I was
never too vocal (talkative) early in life, though I did participate in a number
of extra-curricular activities at high school).
Like some students with
Asian background studying overseas, I believe a number of them went through
university courses without really knowing and understanding if those were the
courses would lead to career paths that they would like. When in graduate
school, I faced the grim prospect of working under a professor in the Chemistry
department who felt that a certain chemical reaction on paper must proceed the
same way in real life and that it could be demonstrated in the lab so that he
could publish a scientific paper on it. The reaction did not go in that
direction and the end result was that the experiment, which involved a toxic
solvent, had to be repeated more than 20 times. When he finally reluctantly
agreed to accept the results, my health, enthusiasm and desire to be a research
chemist all went to pieces.
It was in a hospital that I had the time to
reflect on life and think about what would be good for me instead of a
paper-chasing course of actions to make my parents and friends proud by becoming
the first Ph.D. in the Mo family.
Since I made up my mind to try sales, I
have not looked back and there is no way that I will work in the lab for 8 hours
a day for the rest of my life. However, I do like to get into labs of suppliers,
roll up my shirtsleeves and do some work so as to allow me to perfectly
understand the products that I promote and how they may perform for our
customers.
The Rotary Club of Kowloon Golden Mile provides a perfect
sanctuary for me to forget about the daily grind and allows me to keep in
contact with people of high professional and ethical calibre from many
professions and different countries. Our membership mix, the friendly and always
jovial atmosphere make our club second to none not only in HK but mostly
probably in the world.
THREE CHEERS to OUR CLUB.
”Who casts to
write a living line, must sweat”
Ben Jonson, to the Memory of
William Shakespeare
I think I may have bored you with this one before but it seems appropriate to tell it again for our Vocational Boy in this issue.
It seems that when Rotarian Thomas was a younger, and very proud of his O Level passes in Chemistry and English, he tried to impress the owner of a Chemist Shop by pointing to a puddle of liquid on the shop floor and saying, “I suppose that is H20?” to which the owner replied negatively saying, “No it’s not, it’s K9P”.
BRAIN
TEASER
What
is the linguistic link between
“Chalk” and the fundraising activity mentioned earlier that took place before
the BBQ?
Clue:
Look in London.
(PP
Robin Ching successfully solved last week’s Teaser. He correctly noted that the
first part of the sentence was an anagram of the second part!)
URCHIN