Being chairperson of the Activities Committee is a demanding position and we thank Valery Garrett for her considerable effort and for a job well done. We also thank her Committee comprising the Reverend Carl Smith, Doctors Elizabeth Sinn, Michael Lau, Patrick Hase, Joseph Ting, as well as May Holdsworth, Sarah Parnell, Peter Stuckey and Jason Wordie. Others who have helped with the organising of activities include Stephen Selby, Michael Broom and Arthur Hacker. A vote of thanks is accorded to all of them.
Projects and other activities
Again our Society has been involved in various ways with projects and other activities which sometimes amount to a form of community service. For instance, over the summer we pieced together information for Mrs Victoria Brown of Australia. She was trying to trace details about her great-grandmother, Mrs Miranda Main (née Mann), who served as a school principal in Hong Kong at the end of the 19th and early in the 20th century. When Mrs Brown visited Hong Kong in October of last year, together with Mr S T Chiu of the Antiquities and Monuments Office, he and I showed Mrs Brown the old school building at 136 Nathan Road where her great-grandmother had been principal. Also, RAS members David Clinton and Dr Gillian Bickley met Mrs Brown and provided her with useful information.
With the help of Council member Tim Ko, we also provided information regarding bullet and shrapnel marks on a wall on Lower Stubbs Road where a great deal of fierce fighting took place when the Japanese invaded Hong Kong in December 1941. In another case a lady in England, Frances Howell, was trying to trace details of her relatives who lived in Shan Dong Province and Hong Kong.
Again, in response to a letter in the press, information was provided for a relative in England regarding Lieutenant Henry Dallas who died in Hong Kong in 1844. Information was obtained regarding both the grave and a monument on the wall inside Saint John's Cathedral up until World War Two.
Also, our Branch was invited to send a representative to make its views known to a government working party which was looking into the subject, 'Conservation and the Natural Environment.' This is the
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