Medical Check Up

It is a requirement to submit the medical check up form and insurance form at least two months before the departure.  It is quite rush for the team to make all these arrangement, especially our group members are all packed with business trips and engagements. 

With the sponsor from PDG Dr. Jason Yeung, three of us enjoyed the services.  Dr. Yeung carried our body check with all procedure.  I guessed some are not required but with his professional cautions, he conducted all examinations. 

During the examination, Dr. Yeung suddenly talked to me with an unfamilar phrases that I did not know.  He gave me a facial expression of "unbelieviable".  I recogised that in the phrase there is one Portuguese word I heard of - "Obigado"......I knew.  Dr. Yeung was testing my language ability on Portuguese.  It is unlucky that I know nothing about Portuguese except a few words that I learned from the Internet.  It might be time for me to start my Portuguese learning.

A few weeks later, I found Joe had a book of learning Portugese.  He had the same experience when he met Dr. Yeung.  It seems to be a strong advice for the team to learn some basic Portugese for the trip.

Later in the presentation at Macau, Yolanda and me tried to catch up some phrases from PP Fatima.

~ Pauline

A Clear View on a Misty Day

I was invited to join the club meeting of my sponsor club - Rotary Club of Tsimshatsui.  It was a misty day.  When I first arrived the 39th Floor of Hotel Panaroma, the misty view of Victoria Harbour flashed into my eyes.  It gaves a miserable view of Hong Kong. 

I was paired to join the luncheon with PP Kenneth.  I was so lucky that I do not need to do any presentation on this day.  All I have to do was just having a lunch talk on face reading.  This might be some of the club culture that allow Rotary members to learn more through different talks. 

It was the first time I met the members of my sponsor club, they are all very friendly and supportive.  I am glad to be sponsored by them.

~ Pauline

A Tensed Show in the Relax Town

13 April is a nice weekend, but we were tensed.  After a 4-hour long discussion on the content of the presentation on 12 April, Yolanda and I was headed to Macau by ferry.  We spent all our time in discussing the script of our presentation in the one-hour journey.  We both agreed that practice make perfect, therefore, we practised on board.  The passengers sitting around us might be very curious on what are we doing.

After a short break to buy Yolanda's favourite local snack, we dashed to Hotel Casiono Lesbon and met PP Kenneth.  We have the last minute amendment on the script and powerpoint presentation.  This is the first time we try to make our presentation a Hong Kong-Macao-Mongolia focused one.  Different mentors gave us different opinions and our tasks was congregate all the best ideas and put them into our presentation.  We arrived at the Military Club of Macau at the last minute.  The Joint Presidents Meeting has been conducting. 

Our presentation was schedule at the end of the meeting when everyone are enjoying their dinner.  It is a challenging task, because if our presentation was attractive, we can get all attention, otherwises, no one will hear us.  We were "lucky" that many presidents were concentrated to listen to our "interactive" dialogued presentation.  It was not easy to get all attentions, but we got lots of constructive advices after the presentation.

After the presentation, we firstly experienced what Joe told us that the Rotarians in Macao are very friendly.  PP Stella was waiting for us at the entrance and drove us to the Pier to catch the ferry back to Hong Kong.

This was one of the most tensed presentation I had, but it was one of the most inspiring one.

~ Pauline

Free Gifts

We have sourced for different information to enrich the content of our presentation material.  PP Kenneth sent us a message that Hong Kong Tourism Board could provide some tourist information, video of Hong Kong and some souvenior for us.  I was taking up the responsibility to collect the items.

Hong Kong Tourism Board is so resourceful.  They offered us some tourist leaflets about Hong Kong, a 2-minute video of "Hong Kong Life", 6 free high resolution photos and 200 5-style pins for us.  All free of charge.  We plan to use the pin as souveniors for an interactive session in our presentation.

A Lesson to Learn

It is our first rehearsal of the GSE presentation. We were invited to join the Club meeting of Rotary Club of Taipo, the club of our team leader and stage our first presentation.

We have prepared two versions for the day. The first one was a long version with plenty of information about Hong Kong, Macao and Mongolia. However, after a long discussion, we changed our mind to make a short version on a brief introduction of our knowledge to our desination - Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Wearing in our tailor-made blazers, we all look professional. Pauline is the first one who start the presentation. Under the limelight, she still felt quite nervous. Pauline and Yolanda started with a brief introduction of the facts and figures of Brazil and Sao Paulo. We found that it did not work well in the dinner occassion. Joe's part on the comparison of Rotary in two districts drew more attention. Our self-introduction are more attractive than the hard facts.

The audience were generous and they gave us applause but we know that we need more efforts to make the presentation more attractive and presentable. Comments on the layout and content gave us direction to make improvement.

We can comment that our first presentation can bearly passed. We hope we can have more vivid ones in the near future. Our daily planners are filled up with dozens of GSE pre-trip activities.

Top row: Our presentations

Second row: The team (Glos was still working.)

Bottom row: (left) We got a souvenior from Rotary Club of Taipo; (right) We are the lucky stars of PP Kenneth, he got the prize from the raffle ticket sales. The second time he got.