Dear memberIt is my great honour and privilege to be able to write to you as the new Chieftain of the Hong Kong St Andrew’s Society. On behalf of the committee, I want to thank you for your continued support throughout these extraordinary times.Like many of you, my family and I took the opportunity to travel back home to Scotland, for the first time in three years, to catch up with family and friends for a much-needed extended break. We had a wonderful time in our home city, Glasgow, including a stunning few days on the Isle of Mull.We have now only just completed our reduced quarantine earlier this week and I am firmly looking forward to my year ahead as Chieftain!While Hong Kong still grapples with the pandemic, we have seen some glimmers of hope with the reduction of quarantine, as well as the news that the Rugby 7s will take place at the end of this year. Unfortunately, we do still have some restrictions in place, such as the limit of 120 people for events, with a maximum of 8 people per table. With that in mind, your committee are still going to go ahead and plan our events in the hope that by the time they come around the restrictions will be further eased.We do then have some dates for you to add to your diaries. First, we have a provisional booking for the St. Andrew’s Ball on Saturday, 26th November, as well as a firm booking for the Race Night at Happy Valley on Wednesday, 30th November, which falls nicely on St. Andrew’s Day this year!We are also planning another family beach day in October and will hold our first welcome gathering of the year sometime in the coming weeks. Both of these get-togethers are a great opportunity for you to bring along friends and encourage them to become new members.Under the leadership of our previous Chieftain, Jenna Fitzgerald, we saw an incredible number of diverse events take place last year, more than I’ve ever known in the past, and I hope to continue with that incredible work.As you will be aware we recently introduced new IT systems to manage our Membership and Events. While we have had a few teething issues, these should now be resolved and going forward the automated membership process should dramatically reduce the administration time previously required and provide us with much better and accurate membership information.I am also in the very fortunate position to be supported by a wonderful committee with a huge amount of knowledge and experience, but also an abundance of enthusiasm, so I am extremely confident that we will be able to support you all with some wonderful events in the coming year.In closing, I want to take the opportunity to thank all of you for your continued support of the Society during this very challenging time for us all.I very much look forward to seeing you all again soon.Scott SempleChieftainSt Andrew’s Society
Some reading of interesthttps://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3188530/glasgows-extraordinary-street-art-and-artists-whohttps://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel/2021/01/a-neighbourhood-guide-to-edinburghhttps://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel/2021/04/the-eight-best-restaurants-for-outdoor-dining-in-glasgow