Happy New Year!
I missed the last meeting of 2016 last Thursday because Rtn. Elvo and I had the honour to represent Area 1 (Macau) to attend the District Governor Nominating Committee meeting in HK. I learnt from those who attended that the last meeting was a wonderful meeting attended by wonderful members and a visiting Rotarian PP Ampo from our sister club, RC Taipei. PP Ip, PP Synthia and Rtn. Liying brought along Port wine, sparkling wine etc. to bid farewell to 2016. 
You can see from the attached photos that everyone was holding a gift from our fellow Rotarian Janet Tracy which was a book “Grace and Shu Mai” written by her. Shu Mai is the dog adopted by her from Anima. The box collection that evening was donated to Anima. I was told that was a wonderful night!
A delegation of nearly 50 persons led by Pres. Sam, with PP Choi and me, 30 Rotaractors from UMAC and 8 from RAC Macau went to Du’An, Guangxi for an Educational and Poverty Alleviation Project and this is the 17th year we have done this visit. We sponsored 100 poor middle school students and a university student. We visited 9 poor villagers and gave them cooking oil. We visited 3 primary schools for a total of about 700 students in the mountain area, bringing them stationery and gift packs and Rotaractors giving them interesting lessons and games. We also visited the Middle School we helped build in 2002 which has become one of the best middle schools in China. I do appreciate the good work our UMAC Rotaractors did in taking the lead to organize this trip.
Meeting tomorrow – Speaker PDG Eugene Fong on Membership
District Membership Chair, Past District Governor Eugene Fong will speak to us tomorrow on membership. I do hope you can grab this opportunity to learn more about Rotary.
Mark your dates
- 5/1 (Thu) – Speaker: PDG Eugene Fong on ‘Membership’
19/1 (Thu) – 2nd Club Assembly 3/2 (Fri) – Rotary Spring Dinner at Plaza Restaurant 9/2 (Thu) – Speaker: PDG Ada Cheng on ‘Public Image’ 16/2 (Thu) – Speaker: PDG David Harilella on ‘The One and Rotary Global Rewards’ 25/2 (Sat) – Blood Donation Day at Flower City Garden, Taipa 6/5 (Sat) – 70th Annual Ball – Born This Way 27~28/5 (Sat~Sun) – District Conference at L’ Hotel Nina et Convention Centre, HK
Before I end this report, I’d like to share with you that at the last Ball Committee meeting held on 30/12/2016, we tentatively would take the theme “Born This Way” as suggested by Rtn. Liying and I quoted her reasons for consideration below. “Born This Way” is a song by Lady Gaga that inspired Liying for this ball theme.
1. “Born This Way” clearly refers to concepts of “the origin story” of an organization, the “essence” of an organization, and the “identity” of an organization. These are the areas our celebration should focus on, both in our publications and our events. Our publications can especially benefit from this theme to explain who we are and what we do, to publicize our 70 years of achievement, while not sounding too self-congratulatory– “razzle-dazzling” everyone else…
2. The song itself touched millions because of its empowering message of being true to one’s authentic self, fighting against prejudice and discrimination, and advocating for tolerance and universal love. These certainly are the values the Rotary holds dear. 😍 We could even create a section in our annual book and the video where we present quotes from fellow Rotarians as well as individuals from our service partners to share their life stories, especially stories about gaining self-knowledge, fighting identity-related struggles (with our handicapped communities, there should be plenty), actualizing the self, learning about one’s self in the presence of others, or being part of the empowered “Other”…. through working for/with/alongside our Rotary Club.
3. For our ball, “Born This Way” as a theme opens up all possibilities for costumes. Hopefully, our guests won’t be too lazy and just come wearing their daily attire and being their ordinary selves, or naked with their birthday suit on….😂 🙃😅 We do need to emphasize that we encourage people to bring a unique, preferably emotionally uplifting story about themselves with their costumes…
I do need Rotarians to share your stories and interesting photos of the past 70 years of Rotary history of our Club.
Thanks for your patient reading and look forward to seeing you tomorrow.
Yours in Rotary
Stella
