Oct 3, 2010 Annual General Meeting & Dinner

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We had a great time together at the Annual Dinner held on Sunday (Oct 3rd, 2010) at the Diamond Banquet Hall in Markham. We enjoyed the performance by our mentees and singing karaoke.

A new board of directors have also been elected for the year 2010-2011.

Sep 26 , 2010 Fall Colors Hiking at the Seaton Trail

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Our fall colors hiking at the Seaton Trail on Sep 26, 2010 was highly supported by our alumni, their families and friends. We also have a number of exchange mentees from HKU.

May 24 , 2010 Hiking on Victoria Day at Humber Valley Heritage Trail

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Reported by Pierre Fan

Our Victoria Day (May 24, 2010) trail hiking was as popular as ever as 50 members, their families and friends joined the fun. Supplemented with great weather for a day out, the trail never fell short of scenic views.

The event was indebted to Augustine Chan for his selection and advance scouting of the trail. After a long day of hiking, sixteen of us headed for dinner and the tradition of everybody enjoying this well organized annual function was well preserved.

A new challenge of a common desire for more such fun filled outings arises and the Association hereby invites your suggestions and volunteering for our future endeavours.

May 16, 2010 Joint Hong Kong Universities Alumni Badminton Tournament

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Reported by Dr. KF Siu

When I heard about this joint university alumni badminton competition, I was thrilled. I played badminton occasionally and considered myself to be quite good among my social group. Despite being ‘old’ and ‘fragile’ now, I can make it through game of singles, though my panting from exhaustion by the end of it can give my wife a good fright. All the participating members at the tournament were all of about the same age, so I figured the others would not much better.  I considered it an opportunity for a little friendly competition. Well friendly, or so I thought… The amount of involvement, the dedication of the organizing committee, the skill and enthusiasm of the members of the different universities was tremendous, I was thoroughly surprised! It was such a big occasion with over a hundred participants all showing such high level performances that I felt very privileged to even be selected as a reserve player in our team even though I didn’t get a chance to play on the court.

With the amazing efforts of Peter Yau, Augustine Chan and Timothy Cheng, we were able to gather enough interest from members for a practice session at the Flying Dragon about a month before the event. We were lucky enough to be able to recruit Dr. and Mrs. Wong On Yu who had played for the HKU team before and Steve Fung and Christopher Tam who were regulars on the badminton court and jumped in to help without hesitation. Lisa (Mrs. Chan) loves playing badminton and she teamed up with Vanessa (Mrs. Wong) to form our strong ladies doubles team. Kristine Lai and Leanna also picked up the game and showed their talents during the practice rounds. Our practice drew the attention of Michael Suen who was a regular at the Flying Dragon. And there we had it, our strong HKUAA Ontario team, backed up by Pierre and myself as the men’s reserve and Kristine Lai as lady’s reserve.

We practiced hard and came in high spirits to the tournament on May 16. Our support was strong; the number of our members attending the event to lend their support and to cheer the team on, in my opinion, topped all the other Hong Kong university alumni. We played well and did our best but unfortunately the others seemed to be stronger and more prepared.  They must have been practicing a whole year prior to the event. We got silver in the men’s double while Chinese university snatched the overall champion. However, Winning is secondary, friendship comes first. We all had a wonderful time cheering, shouting and enjoying the matches to be followed by a wonderful dinner in the splendid set up in a tent at the Mandarin Golf club with a beautiful sunset.

Special thanks to Dennis Au-Yeung and Loretta Hoi, who jointly sponsored the team uniform and DAAO of HKU who provided the cheer team uniform as a gift. We look forward to the next year’s joint sport event to be organized by the Chinese university as they were the overall champion for this year.  This method of handing over the next organizing committee is likely to become a tradition. Thanks for a great tournament and see you all next year!

May 2, 2010 Slogan Writing Contest – CALCY

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The Slogan Writing Contest is an event in the 10th Chinese Arts & Literary Contest for Youth (CALCY) and this year it was sponsored by Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (HKETO), and the Alumni associations of Hong Kong University, Baptist University, Chinese University, Polytechnic University and Shu Yan University.

A total of over 400 students participated in the Contest and we received over 600 entries, most of them having been written in classes. The theme for this year’s slogan was “Go Hong Kong Go” and the slogans could’ve been entered in English or Chinese.  The slogans were to reflect the resilience and to stimulate the cooperation and hard working spirit of Hong Kong people.

Peter Yau, the Treasurer of our alumni association was one of the adjudicator.  The adjudication was performed on May 2, 2010 in the office of HKETO in Toronto. The judging process was serious, fair and objective and adjudicators were very impressed by the quality of the entries. After four hours of careful deliberation, the top three slogans in Chinese and English were selected. Once the selection processes was over, all the adjudicators and volunteers were invited to a dinner by Stephen Siu, Assistant director of HKETO.

A plaque of appreciation was presented to HKUAAO on May 16 at the Award Ceremony of 2010 CALCY held in Chinese Culture Centre of Greater Toronto..

Feb 26 , 2010 Advance Screening – Last Train Home

Last Train Home is an award-winning documentary that draws us into the life of a single family caught up in the world’s largest human migration, as China’s thousands of migrant workers try desperately to make their way home to see their families for Chinese New Year.

The event was well received, a total of 35 members and friends reserved tickets and despite the snow storm and poor traffic condition, 32 members turned up in the Richmond Hill Centre for Performing Art that evening and enjoyed the movie.

After the movie, director Fan Li Xin went on stage to answer questions from the floor. This was followed by light refreshment and lining up by many to get the signature from the Director.

We received a thank you card from Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival  for our support of their fundraising function and our enthusiastic response for the film.