His life and work have greatly cheered me.' Another of our long-time members to pass across was Sheila Sersale who served with the Hong Kong Housing Society in the pioneering days when public housing was getting into its stride. She is one of our many members who laid post-World War Two foundations for the Hong Kong we know today. We are also sorry to have to record the passing of long-time RAS member Patricia Loseby who claimed to be Hong Kong's first practising woman solicitor. We will remember them.
Membership drive and public relations
It is important for an old, established organisation like ours to stand up and be counted. With this aim in mind our membership drive coupled with public relations has, as I said before, continued. In addition to giving talks to various bodies the views of some of our members are not infrequently sought by the media. Certainly those of us who have been involved in this drive have achieved something. It is possible for numbers to continue to increase if we carry on working at it and showing the flag. We now have our own web site, thanks to Moody Tang, on www.royalasiaticsociety.org.hk. But there is no point in expansion for the sake of expansion. First, we have to decide what the optimum size of our Branch should be. Some members already complain that they cannot go on visits because they are frequently oversubscribed. Increasing numbers does of course bring increased administrative problems and we are grateful to Dr Peter Barker who, in conjunction with Mary Painter, has been responsible for upgrading our computer database.
Publications
Volume 38, a special Millennium and 40th Anniversary edition, came out hot off the press in December 2000. It is a splendid, 'bumper' issue with 412 pages and includes a good mix of scholarly articles besides Notes and Queries and book reviews. There are many original photographs, both colour and black and white. One of the strong points of our Society has always been the Journal, which has been published ever since the HKBRAS was reformed. If one needs to obtain obscure information about local history, customs or culture it is surprising how often one can find something pertaining to what you need in one of our journals. There is nothing else in Hong Kong really quite like them.
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