Lecturing Facilities
Finally I feel I should make some remarks upon problems relating to lecturing facilities — problems of which your Council is well aware but which are from time to time commented upon by those attending lectures and in one case lecturing to those attending. They concern the available facilities. We ourselves own a quite respectable slide projector, but for screen, lecture stand, and microphone equipment, we have depended on the Hong Kong Club where our lectures have almost always been held. Unfortunately the screen is antiquated, and does not show slides to their best advantage; the lecture stand tends to conceal lecturers of short stature like myself with the resultant impression of a voice mysteriously coming out of nowhere. The microphone shrills back at us, no matter where we seem to place the speakers, and indeed for this reason we have been trying to do without it. But it does mean speakers with soft voices cannot always be heard. The obvious answer would appear to be to buy a complete set of equipment, and this we may eventually decide to do. But we would have to depend on the good-will of the Club in letting us house it there. If kept in my home or that of others who occasionally chair meetings it has to be brought down and taken back, which could present further problems. The club already houses our projector and a large box of journals and other publications which we display for the benefit of new, and potentially new, members. We hope to go into these matters of purchase and storage in the coming Council meetings. We will also have to take into account the real possibility for the future that our venue may have to change — in which case, where, in a central location, can we find similar facilities that again would house equipment? All this, then, will be under review.
Finally I would like again to thank those who have helped in the organization of activities for this past year, not least those who have given us lectures with all the snags for presentation I have just outlined. And now, on with the rest of the meeting!
March 1980
XV
MARJORIE TOPLEY