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JANET LEE SCOTT
accurately the exact size of some committees and their internal arrangements. For example, data obtained from the interviews with MAC chairmen may be incomplete, as some chairmen are not always clear about the structural details of their own committees. They omit the names of some of the committee subdivisions, or are not clear about the exact number of people participating. Such variations in data are not the result of a lack of knowledge on the part of the chairman; certainly, most chairmen (unless they have recently moved to the block) know their blocks and committees very well. Rather, it is likely a result of the chairmen's counting up only those members who are active in the actual day-to-day working of the committee. This is encouraged by the fact that members join and resign as residents move in or out of the block. For the same reason, subdivisions of the committee may also not be mentioned.
A minority of the committees hold banquets or inauguration ceremonies for new officers and on these occasions, the printed invitation cards that are sent contain the names and positions of all the members of the committee. They are for that reason a valuable source of information. But, as just explained, only a small number of committees hold such ceremonies. The Tung Tau Sub-office of the Wong Tai Sin District Office keeps records on the MACs of Lok Fu Estate, but these records are kept only for the officers, not for the details of the committee itself. Therefore, since both invitation cards and District Office records are incomplete, the only recourse is repeated questioning of the chairmen. For this reason the following account of committee structure, while accurate both in general outline and substantive detail, may be subject to minor revision.
Committee Size
As would be expected, the greatest variations in committee size and structure are due partly to the size of the building and the number of residents. What is the population of Lok Fu Estate by block? Block #19, with a population of 1,923 people divided among 337 households, is the largest block, while Block #9, with a population of 224 people divided among 48 households, is the smallest. In all, six blocks house below 500 people, seven blocks house between 500 and 1,000, five have populations of