PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

The Rea-da-book Project will commence soon. A location at MIB has been identified. There will be another location somewhere in SS2. The Club is still discussing with Beautiful Gate for a specific place to set up a booth. The Physically Challenged Band will be formed soon to encourage talent among the disabled.

The Club will soon arrange a meeting with the Welfare Unit of NKF to discuss another worthwhile project in ‘Redeeming Human Dignity’. There are people who cannot hold down to full-time jobs because of medical reasons. Our Club has decided to train these people in culinary skills so that they could start food outlets.

Funds must be available for our commitment to the community and to our Club. At the First Club Assembly, our Club Budget showed a deficit of RM30,000. This has come about because of the new structure – the Club Leadership Plan. From the budget, we’re committed to TRF amounting to RM24,500. To offset the Club Account’s deficit, we’ve launched a Charity Musical Show called ‘I have a date with Spring’ that will be performed on 18th October 2009. We’re very optimistic that we can raise RM30,000 from this Dama Musical Show. On this, I strongly appeal to all our Rotarians to come forward to commit to the purchase of RM1,000 for the tickets. We did this in the Charity Anniversary Dinner Show on 6th January 2009. We will do it again this time. So please help your Club!

There’s always joy in giving. Giving means helping people who are very much less fortunate than us. There’s mounting research evidence that volunteering in helping people can benefit both mental and physical health. We intuitively feel that it’s good to be good. 

The district training modules for the President-Elect Training Seminar list 5 roles of a club President. They are:

In his first month, President Dr Eric has performed all his five roles with flying colours. This can be attributed to his vision and commitment to the job, the great job his predecessor IPP Dato Kevin Yong has done to bring up the club and the many months of preparation he and his team had put in before taking office.

His first month in office has been very busy with committee meetings, project planning meetings, installations and club projects. The club weekly meetings have proceeded very smoothly with record attendance. We have had good speakers and Rotarians have taken the duties assigned to them seriously. The newer members have been invited to be involved in the weekly meeting. They have all responded positively and are very excited.

The first item the PETS Module on Issues, Fears & Problems of Club Presidents is “Cannot get members to serve”. President Dr Eric certainly does not have the problem. Members of the club are happily offering their services to the club. We have members serving up to four committees, and all serving at least two committees. No one has complained. The newer members are also actively involved in various sub-committees. Every member of RCPJ is actively involved in at least one project of the club this Rotary year. All members of the club have been invited to write the Guest Editorial for the PeeJay Pos. Many have agreed but some are quite frank that they are unable to.

In my training session as a district trainer and group discussion leader I have always maintained that the provision of a vision and mission by the club President is very important for the success of the club. The members will usually rise to meet the President’s expectation, sometimes reluctantly by a very small minority. President Dr Eric Wong has shown conclusively that the theory is correct. He set his goals, visions and plans very clearly during the handover night and his first meeting. Now ALL the members of RCPJ are faithfully following the masterplan and moving forward smoothly.

We wish you, Dr President, the same success for the remaining eleven months of your year as our President.

As part of the government stimulus package, RM50 million has been allocated by the Ministry of Human Resources to re-train those who have been retrenched and train those who have been unemployed for more than one year and youths who have completed their SPM. These courses last from 2 to 6 months and the trainers are paid an allowance of RM500 for single and RM800 for married trainees. The training course is free.

The training programs are in 6 core areas, namely business administration, manufacturing, hospitality industry, restaurant operation and professional chauffeur. The response has been generally poor despite shortage of manpower in these sectors. These training programs had been widely publicised in the newspaper, radio, television and career fairs. Unfortunately it is least known outside the towns and cities.

All the training programs will end on 15 December 2009.

Rotary quote of the day contributed by Rtn Kamarulzaman Omar:

“The only difficult thing about being a Rotarian is that no matter how hard I work, I will never be able to repay all the things that Rotary has given to me. But I’ll keep trying.”
PRID Jerry Barden, Director Rotary International, 1995-97

ATTENDANCE: 28/37 = 75.67%

Evening Meetings

The Club Administration Committee has agreed to have evening meetings once every two months with the first in September.

Sister Clubs

The Board has accepted a proposal to replace the Rotary Club of Sunderland with the Rotary Club of Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan. PP Teo Woon Hud to follow up. It has been agreed to replace the Rotary Club of Bangkok South with a club in South Thailand, possibly in Krabi. PDG Dato Dr Low Teong to look into the matter. Any suggestion is welcomed.

Paul Harris Fellows

Congratulations to the following who have agreed to contribute to The Rotary Foundation.

1 Malaysia Cheers

The Board has agreed that the proposed Muhibbah Cheers be renamed 1 Malaysia Cheers and it will be held on the occasion of the birthday of DYMM Sultan Selangor which falls on Sunday 6 December 2009. Rtn Dato Donald Lim is the organizing chairman.

Club Trip To Cameron Highlands 

President Dr Eric Wong has appointed PP Albert Yong, assisted by PDG Dato Dr Low Teong and Rtn Koh Kia Heong to organize a CLUB FAMILY OUTING to Cameron Highlands on 6-8 November 2009. 

A comprehensive program will be drawn up for the spouses and family members. For the golfers a good round of golf for the PJ Closed Golf Competition will be organized by Rtn Koh Kia Heong.

The venue is the Dahlia Villa. Estimated cost is RM100.00 per night for room and RM105.00 per pax for the meals.

Do mark out these dates in your diary, respond to the invitation proforma prepared and watch out for further details during the weekly meeting announcements and in your Pee Jay Pos. A non-refundable deposit of RM100.00 will be collected on confirmation of participation.

Rotary Club of Mill Point: A club of 69 members, roughly the same age as RCPJ. The meeting was on Friday starting at 7.30 am over breakfast and finishing at about 8.30 am. The meeting was conducted in a very sleek manner. It was interesting to observe that many of the members were active professionals who had full time jobs to go to after the meeting. A couple of the more senior members took me for a golf game at Royal Perth after the meeting.

Rotary Club Subiaco: A much smaller club of about 30 members. The meeting is in a local restaurant, the Witches Cauldron, at 6.30 pm on Monday. I had the pleasure of meeting PDG Bill Brown while at the meeting.

The two clubs were very different in character and size, but both were very interesting. Rtn KO presented President Dr Eric the banners of the two clubs.

PP Teo Woon Hud was appointed the Organising Chairman for the event.

Details of the event are as follows:

Date: Sunday 18th October 2009 at 8.00pm

Event: Charity Musical Show titled “I have a date with spring.” It is a Cantonese Musical with English Subtitles.

Venue: KL Performing Art Center (KLPAC)

Stories: It is a total Malaysian Musical adaptation set around the night Club scene in the 60’s about four night club singers. There will be a lot of singing of oldies and dancing just like the good old night clubs

Support: The Board of Directors led by President Dr Eric Wong, including our 2 PDGs and Organising Chairman PP Teo Woon Hud will commit at least 30% of the 118 tickets costing RM500.00 each.

Involvement of rest of RCPJ Members:
Each member to buy or sell to others 2 tickets of RM500.00 each
Or 4 tickets of RM300.00 each

The Invitation Cards sponsorship letter and promotion brochures will be available very soon. In the meantime start listing down the potential friends, business associates etc. etc. that you can approach to sponsor your ticket allocation.

More details on the show will be available in future issues of the PeeJay Pos.

SOUTH AUCKLAND VASECTOMY

An Auckland couple had 9 children.

They went to the doctor to see about getting the husband "fixed." 

The doctor gladly started the required procedure and asked them what finally made them make the decision -- why, after nine children, would they choose to do this.

The husband replied that they had read in a recent article that one out of every ten children being born in New Zealand was Chinese, and they didn't want to take a chance on having a Chinese baby because neither of them could speak the language. :-)