AGM 2008 (Monday, 19 May)

Annual General Meeting Notice
NOTICE is hereby given that St. John’s College Alumni Association, University of Hong Kong Limited will hold the Annual General Meeting, details of which are as follows:-

Date : 19th May 2008 (Monday)
Time : 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Venue: HKU Alumni Association, Room 101, Yip Fung Building,
2 D’Aguilar Street, Central, Hong Kong.
Dinner: Optional (Right after AGM at 8:00 pm)
Agenda
(a) to receive and adopt a report from the Directors (below);
(b) to receive and adopt a financial report (please visit the Forum section under AGM 2008) from the Honorary Treasurer;
(c) to elect the Board of Directors for the coming year;
(d) to elect an Honorary Legal Adviser;
(e) to elect an Honorary Auditor;
(f) any other business

Pursuant to Article 51 of the Articles of Association, all members are eligible for nomination and election to become a Director. Please lodge a Notice in writing with the College Office to that effect signed by the member to be proposed and two (2) other members nominating the former on or before 9th May 2008.

All members are invited to attend the AGM. A member who has the right to attend and vote is entitled to appoint a proxy to attend and vote at the AGM on his behalf. A proxy needs not be a member of the Association. Any member who wishes to appoint a proxy please lodge with the College Office a signed Proxy Form (attached) at least 24 hours prior to the AGM.

Please confirm your attendance with the College Office by telephone or by fax (no.2817 5624) on or before 14th May 2008.

Vincent Chiu
Chairman
17th April 2008

Reply Slip AGM 19 May 2008

I _______________________________ (Printed Name) of contact no. ________________ will be coming to the above AGM and will / will not attend the dinner afterwards.

Signed: _________________________ Date: ______________________

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PROXY FORM
I, ___________________________________ (full name), of ____________ (contact no.) being a full member of the St. John’s College Alumni Association, hereby appoint _____________________________________ (full name) to be my proxy to vote in person for me and on behalf at the AGM of St. John’s College Alumni Association, University of Hong Kong Limited to be held at 7:00 p.m. on 16th May 2008, and at any adjournment thereof.
Signed: _________________________ Date:_____________________

Note: This proxy form must be duly completed and returned by hand, by mail or by fax
(no. 2817 5624) to the College Office on or before 16th May 2008.

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Directors’ Report 2007-2008

During our cabinet “Blue Ocean Strategy” discussion last year, our Board of Directors came up with seven strategies we wanted to focus more in these few years. Some of them we did well, and others may need improvement. So in this Directors’ Report, I will report our activities according to these 7 core strategies:-

1. Improving China Network

No doubt our Beijing Reunion Dinner in last November 10 followed by the setting up of the SJCAA Beijing Chapter was one of the highlights of the year. Fifty St. John’s Alumni participated in this function in Beijing. For the first time in history of SJCAA, we broke our HK territorial limitation and expanded the St. John’s connection into China!

After the success of this event, SJCAA is now also actively looking at the possibility of setting other Chapters in China. Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenzhen will logically be some of our next cities for other SJCAA Chapters.

SJCAA was also actively involved in the Third Wing activities. We supported the formation of the Third Wing Association. From this year onward, there will be one more committee from the SA of the Third Wing sitting in our regular Directors’ meetings.

2. Connecting Interest Parties

Definitely, golf is still the game which will arouse more interests and involvement from different eras of Alumni among the Association.

In this year, the Golf Beginners’ course was very well received. We needed to put a quota during the recruitment in order to guarantee the quality of our coaching. From August to September 2007, 14 lucky golf beginners were able to attend the 4 evenings of training by our experienced golfers led by Mr. Edmund Wu and many other assistant coaches from the Alumni. The trainings were held at the Island Golf Club. All the students were very appreciative of the training and started their long journey of golfing.

Then it came the SJC Golf Day with the Inter Floor Golf competition held at the Firestone Golf Club on 16 November 2007. Fifty Alumni took part in the event and the victory this year went to 4/F.

Two Golf Malayan Cups were played against Ricci within 12 months this year.

First on 15 May, 2007. Twenty-four St. Johnians played against the Riccians at the Harbour Plaza Golf Club Dong-guan. We lost by 15.5 to 20.5 to Ricci.

Then came to a highlight of the year when St. John’s tied with Ricci in this year Golf Malayan Cup held recently also at the Firestone Golf Club on 12 March 2008. There were twenty-four players from us playing against an equal number of very strong players from the Ricci Alumni. At the end, after losing for two consecutive years, we tied with the Riccians.

All the golf events were very well received and supported by our Alumni. We also need to thank our Golf Interest Group who spent a lot of time and energy in organizing these functions.

3. Continuing St. John’s Succession after Graduation; and 4. Building on Trusted Relationship

We continued to organize the Summer Internship Program to provide working experience to our undergraduate St. Johnian in the summer of 2007. There were altogether 35 students applied for the internship and finally 13 students were able to be matched with jobs and completed their internship. This has been a very meaningful event and it truly demonstrated the Succession principle of St. Johnians even after graduation.

Internship for 2008 is also underway for application and job appealing. We anticipate that it will be another successful year.

We also for the first time changed our Mentorship program to provide mentorship for young graduates. Alumni who graduated within three years were qualified to be the mentees and Alumni with more than 3 years in the industry were to be their mentors. Near 80 pairs of St. Johnians were matched successfully under this program so that the seniors would be able to provide career and other social guidance to their mentees.

Then on 20 Jan 2008, a BBQ dinner after a golf driving range practice/introduction was held in the Pak Shek Golf Driving Range. About 20 mentors and mentees had a good time together for 2 hours of golfing and a delicious BBQ afterwards.

5. Using Group Memories

On Saturday 22 Sep, SJCAA also supported the organization of a reunion party in St. John’s for the late 80’s Alumni who celebrated their 20th Anniversary of their friendship. There were about 100 Alumni took part in this event and they all had a wonderful good memories on the 80’s.

Besides that, SJCAA organized the Alumni High Table talk on 23 April 2007. More than 80 Alumni came back to the College to attend the High Table Dinner and took part in the following High Table Talk by Professor Wang Shu-chun from the School of the Communist Party in Harbin.

In addition, SJCAA also co-organized with the College the last High Table Dinner hosted by Rev Paul Tong before his retirement. 80 Alumni attended the dinner and they had a good sharing session with Rev Tong.

6. Getting Family Involvement

Forty-six Alumni with their friends and family members participated in the September 16 Boat trip to Ap Chau, Kat O and Tung Ping Chau. They spent a good whole day on this trip, had nice seafood lunch in Kat O. It was definitely a wonderful memory for many Alumni who went to these islands for the first time in their lives in HK.

Then a small group of Alumni and their family members went to the Mai Po Shrimp Party on 29 Sep 2007. Catching the shrimps lively from the “gei wei” was really a wonderful experience for our city people. More than 40 pounds of shrimp were caught within half an hour. Then we cooked them in a big pot of water and enjoyed what really the Gei Wei Shrimps were.

Conclusion

In summary, we had a very colourful year of 2007-2008. SJCAA has been quite successful in exploring our new strategies in different areas above and to further establish our presence in Hong Kong and China. The membership of the Association since March 2007 has recorded a nearly 20% growth. We had 90 more ordinary members, one life member and 83 more e-members joining our Association in the last one year.

We will still be an Alumni Association continuing to grow by attracting more recent graduates as well as overseas Alumni especially with our newly set up China Chapter.

Last but not the least; I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the hard effort spent by our 12 Directors and all those alumni who had spent time and effort in organizing and supporting our events.

It is no doubt that SJCAA is one of the most established and successful Alumni bodies in the University of Hong Kong and we will continue to be that.

Vincent Chiu
Chairman 2007-2008
SJCAA