Golden
News
Volume 14 No 14 October 10, 2000
The Weekly Bulletin of the Rotary Club of
Kowloon Golden Mile
http://www.rckgm.org
OCTOBER
IS VOCATIONAL SERVICE MONTH
Preamble
By Urchin
Just to say
how nice it is to be back in Hong Kong. It’s only when in foreign parts you
realize that in spite what they say on the news and in the papers, we live in a
modern with-it city, which is quite on a par with others around the world. In
addition we in Kowloon Golden Mile have a switched on Vocational Director whose
Vocational hand was easily turned to issuing the bulletin for me during my
absence. Rotarian Neerja my thanks for a job well done!!
Last
Meeting
There were four tables, representing 31 Rotarians, not too good for attendance, so take heed Attendance Director’s words to make up soon before the deadline is up. The remaining seats were filled by visiting Rotarians PP Hari Harilela, PP Mike Harilela and Guests of Rotarians Mr Kumar, guest of PP Hari and my son Eric Thomas from Perth in Australia, a regular reader of this Bulletin, I hear!
President Cassidy opened
the meeting in due and interesting form with the good news that the directors
had given a polished Club Assembly performance during the District Governor and
his delegation’s visit last meeting.
Rtn Neerja spoke on the
theme of this month, see banner above, KGM activities planned and the Vocational
Service Seminar to be held on 15th October. (See also
below).
The Octoberfeste was
revisited and may be reviewed in numerous incriminating photographs, which are
available for cancellation if you know who has the negatives.
It also came to light
that KGM covered itself in glory at the recent District Swimming Gala. I seems
that among our younger generation are many latent Gold Medals!
PP Vince then spoke on
our Web Site and also gave some sturdy advice to those of us contemplating doing
the same for our personal use or for our businesses. The internet, email,
web-pages and e-business being what it is, i.e. many different things to many
different people there were just a few who would have preferred another half day
or so just to catch up a bit first. The presentation was nevertheless very
professionally done. We were actually on line and were shown how to navigate our
site, e-shop and make money for our Community Fund to mention just a few things
covered. Thanks PP Vince for giving us the best site in the District, at no cost
to the Club it should be soundly acknowledged, and a clear explanation of a
difficult subject, in spite of your comments later on in this
bulletin.
President Cassidy
brought the meeting to a close in the usual way with the following
quotation.
“Success in life has nothing to do with what you gain or accomplish for yourself, but what you do for others.”
Prospective
New Member
The Membership
Committee and the Board of Directors have approved an application for Active
membership in favour of Ms
Erika Taylor; membership
classification of "Training". Any club member
who wishes to lodge an objection to this proposal is required to do so in
writing to the Club Secretary within 7 days from the date of this notice
(i.e. on or before 17th October, 2000), setting out the reasons for their
objection.
If no objections
are received within the specified period (and subject to advance payment of the
ruling joining fee), Ms Taylor can be inducted as an Active member of KGM
on or after 17th October, 2000.
On
Vocation!
With Mukesh Dayaram
Classification
- Manufacturer of Men's Ladies and Children's Jackets
I was born
in Hong Kong and studied in La Salle primary school and then went on to la Salle college where I graduated
from form 5 in 1978 and then in the same year went on to continue my studies in
Ottawa Canada for 3 years.
I returned to Hong Kong in August 1981 and started
in the family business. In the course of this work I have travelled extensively
around the world, becoming quite fluent in 8 languages.
Our principal source
of our goods is China where I travel to quite often. It is quite challenging
these days since we find ourselves competing with China itself to satisfy our
clients’ needs. Most of our work involves designing new styles for the current
year and obviously providing the best prices and service possible. Our main
markets are the Middle East, South America and Spain. We are however
aggressively trying to venture into the US and European markets which is proving
to be quite a slow process.
I have a wonderful wife Rashika and we have 3
lovely children, Vinay, Dinesh and Lavisha. Trust me, they are quite a handful,
which keeps us on our toes all the time. The biggest complaint from my family is
that I spend too much time on my business and very little time with them. I hope
to
improve on that point as and whenever possible
Message
from the Vocational Service Director
Rtn
Neerja
Thank you Rotarians for your
attendance and participation at the Vocational Visit to the Harbour Hotel,
Hunghom, Kowloon. Photos will be posted on our website soon. Keep
posted.
Please note that OCTOBER is Vocational Service Month!
On the 18th
of October there will be a short vocational service avenue quiz for which prizes
will be given so please make an effort to attend the meeting.
Date for your
Diary...
The District Vocational Service Seminar will be held on Tuesday, the
17th of October 2000 from 12.30 noon to 2.00 p.m. at the Peninsula Hotel. The
cost of your attendance is HK$250 (including lunch) which the club incur for the
first 10 Rotarians to register!!! You are entitled to one make-up so please rush
your names to Rtn. Neerja Sujanani (e-mail: neerjasujanani@economist.com).
From Rtn Silva, Community Service Chairman
After our Free
Medical Check for the Elderly and Disabled in last July, the Community Service
Committee has decided to visit to newly arrived families on Saturday 14th of
October.
I would like to
have a group of 4 to 6 and intend to visit three to four families if
possible.
Please let me know
on or before this Thursday at the meeting or by returning this message or by
telephoning 9408 1198.
Program of the
day:
1.
Meeting time at
2:00p.m. At Hall of Holiday Inn Golden Mile.
2.
Paying visit to
families from 2:30 to 4:00pm.
3.
Program will be ended
at 415pm. And depart from Holiday Inn around 4:30p.m.
I also urge you
not to drive and to dress casually as we are visiting some of the poorest group
in HK.
Reply
slip:
To: Rotarian
Silva,
I / and _____(No.
of family member) would like to take part in this Saturday’s visit to the newly
arrival families and will meet you at the Holiday Inn Kowloon Gold Mile before
2:15p.m. the latest.
My contact
telephone No. is ____________.
Name:----------------
After giving my
presentation on "Web Site Design Tips" at last week's meeting, I was contacted
by many members who said that although they appreciated my talk, it was
generally too technical for them, and they would have preferred learning more
about using the KGM web site, instead of general information on web site
design.
As I am very sympathetic to those who are overwhelmed by the World
Wide Web (and other newer technologies in general), I apologise if I wandered
off too deeply into technicalities, and I promise to do another presentation
solely about the KGM web site, at the earliest opportunity.
In the
meantime, should members have any questions about, or need assistance with,
find their way around the KGM web site, please do not hesitate to contact me
on 9011 0088, as I will be delighted to help navigate you through
it.
Birthday
Boys & Girls
PP Robin Ching
– 1st October
Rtn Diana Chou –
2nd October
Rtn Elissa Cohen –
7th October
Rtn Balu Chainrai –
9th October
Beatle John Lennon 10th October
Joke of the
Week
Courtesy PP CK Tsang
The next time you
have a bad day at work, think of Tom, a commercial diver in Louisiana. He
performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs. Below is an E-mail
he sent to his sister who sent it to “Laugh-line”, sponsoring a "worst job
experience" contest. Guess who won?
Hi Sue,
Just another note from
your bottom dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the
office. I know you've been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I
would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it's not so bad after
all. Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you
with
a few technicalities of my job. As you know, my office lies at the
bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It's a
wetsuit. This time of year the water is quite cool so to keep warm we have
a diesel-powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of garbage
sucks the water out of the sea, heats it to a delightful temperature and then
pumps it to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air
hose. Now, this sounds like a damn good plan, and I've used it several
times with no complaints. What I do, when I get to the bottom and start
working, is I take the hose and stuff it down the back of my neck. This
floods my whole suit with warm water. It's like working in a Jacuzzi.
Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my nether region started to
itch. So, of course, I scratched. This only made things worse.
Within a few seconds my bottom began to burn. I pulled the hose out but
the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened. The hot water
machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into an inconvenient part of my
suit. This is even worse than the poison ivy you once had under a cast. Now I
had that hose down my back but as this is hairless the jellyfish did not anchor
itself there. Regretfully, another part of my anatomy was not as
fortunate. When I scratched what I thought was a normal body itch, I was
actually grinding the jellyfish into deeper and more intimate aspects of my
anatomy. I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the
communicator. His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along
with 5 other divers, was laughing hysterically.
Needless to say, I aborted
the dive. I was instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression
stops totalling 35 minutes before I could come to the surface for my chamber dry
decompression.
I got to the surface wearing nothing but my brass
helmet. My suit and gear were tied to the bell. When I got onboard,
the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of
cream and told me to "apply liberally where needed" when I got in the
chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I was unable to go to the toilet for
two days, due to reasons very similar to those which would make if difficult to
put a pyramid through the eye of a needle .
I later found out
that this whole episode could easily have been avoided if the suction hose was
placed on the leeward side of the ship.
Anyway, the next time you have a bad
day at the office, think of me, and how much worse your day would be if a
jellyfish were unexpectedly to invade your private space. I fervently wish
that you never to have such a bad day at the office; if you do, this story will
most surely make it more tolerable.
URCHIN