General Manager’s Message

Kung Hei Fat Choi!

Wishing all members and their families a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year of the Tiger!

As you will all be too well aware, the year has begun with an ongoing spike in cases of the Omicron variant of Covid-19. In the interest of protecting members, staff, families, and guests this prompted the General Committee to implement the requirement that all those visiting the Club’s premises must have received at least one shot of vaccine. This came into effect a little over a month before the HK Government makes it a requirement on 24 February. This initiative has been overwhelmingly supported by members and their guests and comes on top of all of our staff already being fully vaccinated. What is also extremely heartening to see is the recent positive uplift in vaccination rates in the wider community, so hopefully this will mean that Hong Kong will be better prepared to deal with any future outbreaks of the pandemic without having to resort to closing down sports and restricting dining opportunities.

Hopefully by the time you receive this copy of Ahoy!, the restrictions on sport and dining will have eased again, or at least we will have an end date for them in sight. If not, and Government has decided to keep them in operation throughout Chinese New Year, then let’s hope these tough social distancing measures will be successful and we will be fully operational again soon.

Given all of that, it’s therefore very hard to write about what the Club has on offer this month with any certainty. With regards to the social events and food promotions that are laid out in this issue, the timings given are all based on a return to normal as we would very much like to remain optimistic! Should we not be in that fortunate position, then please do refer to the weekly emails and website for the most up to date information. Any food promotion however will certainly still be on at lunchtimes, such as the Chinese New Year Auspicious Dishes in the Bistro and the Raclette Cheese at Middle Island.

Which brings us to the Poon Choi Dinner on the Rooftop scheduled for 5 February and the St. Valentines’ Set Dinner in the Compass Room on 14 February. The Plan B for these two events is to turn them into long lunches! And as happened last year, our ever-popular midweek Wine Dinners will move to being late lunches, held at the weekend. Again, please check the weekly emails and go online to check for the latest update. If you have changed your email address lately, please do make sure to update membership to make sure we are able to keep you fully up to date.

As for the two Wine Fairs, if dine-in is till unavailable after 1800hrs, then the Kellett Island event will be rescheduled to a late afternoon slot, but unfortunately the Shelter Cove event will need to be skipped this month.

As for what happens with our Chinese New Year Celebrations, we will certainly be celebrating the move to the Year of the Tiger, but only time will tell exactly what form that celebration will be able to take!

All that remains for me to do is to thank members for their extremely generous contribution to the CNY Lai See Fund for staff. This will be distributed equally to all staff in the middle of February. I would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of all staff, to thank you all for your support and generosity.

Kung Hei Fat Choy!

General Manager Mark Bovaird

總經理布馬克

Happy New Year!

We wish you all a very happy 2022! It was great to see many of you down at Kellett Island on New Year’s Eve to watch Vice Commodore Lucy Sutro fire the cannon to bring in the New Year against a backdrop of fireworks! Our bagpiper looked resplendent too as he stood, spotlit, out on the breakwater playing Auld Lang Syne.