to escape the madness, the melancholia and, yes, the panic, which sometimes surrounds the human situation.
Activities
Another of the fields where our Branch has made significant contributions over many decades has obviously been with our lecture and visit programme. These may be described as the backbone of our Society. Over the past year these have consisted of lectures, averaging about one a month, mainly at and jointly with the Hong Kong City Hall. These sessions are open to the general public free of charge. This is a form of community service. At the Chi Lin Nunnery talk well over 90 people attended. Over the past year we have in addition mounted visits locally and two visits outside the Hong Kong SAR. All these had leaders - sometimes more than one working as a team - who had a thorough understanding of their subjects (see Appendices One and Two).
In some cases, because some of our members have good connections, it has also been possible to call upon the assistance of knowledgeable local people: for example in the case of Dr Ting who was able to invite people to assist with our visits to the China Mainland. Records show that, in the 1980s and the early 1990s for example, our visits outside Hong Kong were not well supported. Planned trips sometimes had to be cancelled. In the 1960s and '70s, it was not easy for various reasons (for government servants for example) to visit China. Over the past few years this situation has changed. More recently, on our tours outside Hong Kong it has not been possible, sometimes, to enroll everyone who wanted to join. It is interesting to mention here that our first overseas tour was to Thailand back in 1973.
Although full day or weekend seminars, especially during the 1960s and the early '70s, were a fairly regular feature of Branch activities, they have not played such an important part in recent years. This was partly why our conference, titled Hong Kong: Forty Years of a Growing City, held during our 40th anniversary year as a joint function with the Museum of History, was so welcome. It consisted largely of our own members as speakers, persons on whom we rely so much. They included the Reverend Carl T. Smith, Dr Patrick Hase and Mr Tim Ko. Tim's family has lived in Kowloon for five generations, since the 1850s. These three speakers are outstanding examples of members who have put,
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