PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

2008 is almost coming to an end. Let’s take stock of what we had achieved in the last five months. Have we done enough for our community? Have we made enough effort to attend luncheon meetings and committee meetings? Have we participated in our projects? These are soul-searching questions that you need to ask yourself as a member of the Rotary Club of PJ.

If you have not, the next seven months could be crucial in making your mark as a Rotarian. The most important event one month from now is our fund-raising charity dinner show that is targeted to raise RM500,000 for the next three years. The tables are selling fast. Have you booked a table? Have you asked your friends and business associates to buy tables and donate towards a worthy cause? Have you through your influence secured an ad. for the souvenir program? There are targets that we need to achieve pretty soon. Please help the Club. Remember you’re one of us.

The Club has discussed some new projects that will breathe life into the community. One of them is Read-a-book that will be implemented soon. This will encourage reading in our community and will also sell Rotary to the public. Another one is the ‘Child’s Last Wish’ that focuses on what a terminally-ill child wants and Rotary will fulfill this wish. The third project is ‘Redeeming the Dignity of a Human’ that trains retrenched workers and single parents to master a vocational skill in cooking. Rotary will assist in training the selected candidates to start hawker stalls in coffee shops in PJ. However, this project will not commence immediately until we have funds from our fund-raising project. If you have any ideas that could supplement what we have proposed, please do not hesitate to raise them at committee meetings. We need you to be involved in the initial planning.

There are lots of things that are in the pipeline as the year accelerates. The important thing is to make yourself useful and be proud of being a member of the RCPJ.

The CLE or the Concentrated Language Encounter is the ray of hope from reading a street sign to learning the ABCs of words that open up the world. This technique teaches children through oral and written story telling. It also provides them with the meanings of words or vocabulary that the children could use. Dozens of Foundation grants have funded CLE projects in 30 nations. The CLE is a pathway for literacy.

Our RCPJ is one of the beneficiaries of the matching grants for the CLE. The Club has conducted numerous CLE projects including Stage 2 in various parts of the country. The focus has been on the primary school teachers who are equipped with the technique that they could employ with their students. The feedback has been encouraging.

Vivian shared with us her experiences in visiting very exotic places that few tourists had ever been to. She talked about the Museum Island in Abu Dhabi, Up and Away Sky-diving, Vatican Football, Gracious Ganges. For golfers, have you heard of where the green is white? Or Urban Golf?

In all her travels, she shared with our Rotarians anecdotes – very amusing ones. She has also learned about people and cultures that are not often found in travel magazines. In her relaxed style and in good command of the language, Vivian inspired more than 10 questions.

Vivian had one advice for our Rotarians – Look beyond travel brochures.

A kindergarten teacher has decided to let her class play a game.

The teacher told each child in the class to bring along a plastic bag containing a few potatoes. Each potato will be given a name of a person that the child hates, so the number of potatoes that a child will put in his/her plastic bag will depend on the number of people he/she hates.

So when the day came, every child brought some potatoes with the name of the people he/she hated. Some had 2 potatoes; some 3 while some up to 5 potatoes.

The teacher then told the children to carry with them the potatoes in the plastic bag wherever they go (even to the toilet) for 1 week.

Days after days passed by, and the children started to complain due to the unpleasant smell let out by the rotten potatoes.

Besides, those having 5 potatoes also had to carry heavier bags. After 1 week, the children were relieved because the game had finally ended.

The teacher asked: "How did you feel while carrying the potatoes with you for 1 week?"

The children let out their frustrations and started complaining of the trouble that they had to go through having to carry the heavy and smelly potatoes wherever they go.

Then the teacher told them the hidden meaning behind the game. The teacher said: "This is exactly the situation when you carry your hatred for somebody inside your heart.

The stench of hatred will contaminate your heart and you will carry it with you wherever you go. If you cannot tolerate the smell of rotten potatoes for just 1 week, can you imagine what is it like to have the stench of hatred in your heart for your lifetime?"

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Moral of the Hatred (Human Vices) story:

Throw away any hatred for anyone from your heart so that you will not carry sins for a lifetime. Forgiving others is the best attitude to take. "Learn to Forgive and Forget."