President's Column
By President Joyce Mak
Service Projects and Leadership Training
Vocational services have always been one of our club's emphases each year, and our signature project, the Career Expo has been giving various secondary school students some broad understanding and the necessary skill sets for different professions. Most students would have a general idea in preparing themselves to plan ahead in their study with a given targeted career goal they would like to achieve. This project has been well recognized in our district and has continued throughout the years. These projects serve to underline the importance of encouraging high ethical standards in all vocations on the one hand, and help to build goodwill and peace in the world.
With such a belief, this year we are delighted to organize our Career Expo jointly with two secondary schools. One of them is Heep Woh College and the other is our Adopt-A-School partner, Ho Tung Secondary School. We have held our kick-off meeting with both schools together and I had the privilege in meeting both schools' social workers, teacher advisers, principal from Ho Tung and vice-principal from Heep Woh College. They have estimated that close to four hundred students will benefit from this expo. We also strongly encourage parents to participate in the seminar and wish that they could give advice and support to their children. As usual, we will invite speakers from different vocations who are specially chosen and which these professions are of students' interest. This Rotary year's Career Expo will be held on 20 January 2009 and the chairman is our Sergeant-at-arms Kennedy Tsang. Thanks to Kennedy for taking up this role and I look forward to another year of success under his great leadership.
We treasure fellowship and international exposure. We are always ready to do matching grant projects with our international partners or sister clubs. Our sister club from Sathorn, Thailand will be initiating a Matching Grant Project for this Rotary year and it is named "Laryngoscope and Blade for Children Life". Its objective is to provide the Laryngoscope instrument to hospitals in Bangkok and other provinces of Thailand. This instrument will help the patients, especially children, who are suffering from hard breathing or have a difficult airway situation. Since this year is the 15th year anniversary of their club, the Committee has set the number 15 as the number of the instrument sets which are planned to distribute to the project hospitals in the different provinces which include Chiangmai and Chiangrai. One set of instruments costs around 1,226 US dollars, therefore by buying 15 sets, the estimated project costs will be 18,400 US dollars.
This project will also be supported by another sister club, Taipei Chung Yuan and a few partner clubs of Sathorn. We are most honoured to be invited as a visiting guest not only to their 15th Anniversary celebration dinner, we are also most welcomed to participate in their project site visits in Chianmai and Chiangrai. They have scheduled the celebration dinner in Bangkok on 5 March and another 2 days visit to the hospitals where those Laryngoscopes will be donated. It is a very meaningful project and I hope our members will give them full support and take this opportunity to participate in this world community service project. Apart from visiting the project sites, With Sathorn Club's great hospitality, they'll be also organizing some local sight seeing tour for us too, so, don't miss this fellowship opportunity and enjoy our friendship in the world of Rotary.
Leadership training in Rotary has always been an important aspect in grooming future leaders. The set up of Rotary Leadership Institute is a world wide educational platform which intended to provide the opportunity for Rotarians identified as potential leaders by their clubs. Through attending courses organized each year, the participants will be able to improve their Rotary knowledge and leadership skills. It is hoped that the participants will be motivated to become enthusiastic, creative and dedicated Rotarians and future club leaders. The whole course comprises of three parts, each to last for one day, plus a Graduation course. The District strongly encourages each club to nominate up to 2 candidates (not PPs) to attend the course. I was graduated in the class of 07/08 and I agree that the course has given me a lot of important information not only on the Rotary Basics, but also the leadership skills in being a Rotary President. Though the content might be very similar to PETS training for President-elects, it would be a wonderful way for the club to prepare for future successors. Yes, we need new blood!
|
|
