Wednesday 29 May 2024 in the evening, at the Tanglin Club, we celebrated the 40th anniversary of our Club. The Club was founded in December 1984, but we couldn’t miss the opportunity to celebrate it while the Rotary International Convention was going on here in Singapore. In fact, to celebrate with us we had our Sister Clubs Pontian (Malaysia), Dusit (Bangkok), Bandar Seri Begawan (Brunei), and we had an exceptional Guest of Honor, Gary Huang Past Rotary International President accompanied by his spouse Corinne.Our President Ambaree a few weeks earlier asked me to be the Master of Ceremony for the evening because as Chartered Member I lived the history of our Club. When she asked, we didn’t know that Past President RI Gary would attend our anniversary.
Together with my co-MC Kelvin, we scripted the narrative, the flow of the events and thanks to the photographic collection and photographic memory of my fellow Chartered Member, Dr. Kwok Wai Mun, we put together the canvas to guide us and entertain our guests during the evening. A special note of thanks to our Bianca Polak, the gentle, IT savvy and always willing to help with choosing the format and inserting the pictures.Our guests of honor included Belinda Charles, a committed educator and spouse of the late Hector Charles, our Chartered President, Derrick Wong, our Honorary Member and Past President of the Club, and Chartered Member and Past President Sunny Bay.
Dr. A K Abraham, the other Chartered Member and Past PDG, was unable to join us because he wasn’t well that evening.
We told our guests and younger Rotarians about the most significant moments in the life of the Club, what happened in Singapore in 1984, we acknowledged the work done together with our Sister Clubs, and we cut the traditional anniversary cake adding a “twist” to the celebration as we learned how to “clap” and “zan” from PPRI Gary!
It was great fun and a great fellowship.
Yet, I do not wish to write a commentary of the evening as much as to share with you all what touched me deeply on that evening, and I am sure touched many of you.
To celebrate the women in our Club I invited PP Penelope Phoon to share with us one episode in the life of our Club that was of particular significance for her.
For those who do not know Penelope well she is an elegant, demure, and soft-spoken person with an iron will. She went through adversities in life, and she always stood up to the challenges with great courage and dignity. That night she came to the dinner accompanied by a guest.
Penelope took the microphone and start describing a literacy project the Club undertook when she was our President. Pictures of extreme poverty were shown, and under those conditions and circumstances learning for children was very difficult. We raise funds to donate books, educational support, and school uniforms for the children of Malang, a small village in East Java,Indonesia. Nothing out of the ordinary though, it is what as Rotarians we often do.
One day, accidentally Penelope discovered that her helper Miss Dhea was from Malang too and she showed her the pictures she took when in Malang. Dhea simply commented that those were the normal conditions for her family too, and to help her family she migrated as domestic helper to Singapore. She never visited a supermarket before, she was hesitant to use escalators and she never had a handphone on her own.
During the Covid lock-down Dhea couldn’t travel back to Indonesia and thus continued to work here and help Penelope.
At this point the “magic” happened…..
Dhea was so impressed by the work done by Penelope and the Rotary Club that she donated the cost of her return airfare to support the children of Malang, and she organized the collection and, with the help of her family, the distribution of toys and basic food in the village.
Amazing how an act of generosity and kindness sparks such a positive reaction! For Dhea, Penelope and Rotary are a force for good, worth emulating to solve the problems in her village.
You can imagine the surprise when Penelope asked her guest to stand up and be recognized!
I was speechless and incredibly happy. There Dhea stood to receive the applause of our members, visitors and PPRI Gary Huang.
I will never forget our 40th anniversary!