Christine Lau
I am sorry to hear of the passing of one of the best of us, Christine Lau, who passed away peacefully yesterday, after a brave fight with cancer.
Christine was as passionate about Toastmasters as it gets. She was a regular contestant and champion.
Our condolences to her friends, her immediate family and her extended family including her students and Toastmasters friends.
Christine, we'll miss you. Rest in peace.
Christine was as passionate about Toastmasters as it gets. She was a regular contestant and champion.
Our condolences to her friends, her immediate family and her extended family including her students and Toastmasters friends.
Christine, we'll miss you. Rest in peace.
I am so sorry to hear about Christine , she was a most passionate public speaker and she had passed on her skills to many. She will be missed.
Brian
Thank you for providing a platform here for the sad news about Christine. She was such an energetic person with so many ideas and she contributed to our old club in many ways I would say not less than our effort in making the Hong Kong Toastmasters Club a success. We surely will miss her.
I am no longer an active Toastmaster, and I know most people reading this blog are not interested in how Toastmasters clubs were run in HK before the number of clubs mushroomed exponentially since joining a district, but I feel I should write something here, which some Toastmasters/former Toastmasters I contacted felt the same about Christine.
The people I contacted were active in Toastmasters between 1996 to 2001. the time we were holding our club positions in the Hong Kong Toastmasters Club, the club with about one quarter of the Toastmasters population (in terms of number of members) locally, Hong Kong was undergoing very fundamental changes. Whilst all of us enjoy the camaraderie, my observation was that, due to the worsening economic situation at the time, many of us treated Toastmasters in a very practical way - as a platform to realize our potential while we waited for opportunities to change. It was of course under this precinct and the coincidence of our role as leaders in joining a district that we hit it big out there. When the party was over, many of us, including myself, had to move on to other pastures to pursue our goals.
I am sure that Christine, as a happy go lucky person, would rather enjoy herself in meetings, enter as many contests as she could and take a more supportive role than being a club president.
However, for the continuation of the club, she kindly took up the challenge to be the president of the Hong Kong Toastmasters Club (2001-2002) on top of her teaching role and her chairmanship at the English Sub-Committee of the Hong Kong Schools Music and Speech Festival Association, at a time when the economy and spirit of HK almost rocked bottom. Even after her presidency, she continued as co-VPE until the time of her death.
In 2004 Christine was the one who connected us again for the club’s 50th anniversary.
People in the group I spoke to are no longer members of the club we once took office and most of us have very little ties/links with present members of the club. Hence, we will be paying tribute to Christine, both individually and collectively.
May her soul rest in peace and we will forever hold her in your hearts dearly.
Bernard Yue
(Having spoken to a group of past presidents and vice-presidents of the Hong Kong Toastmasters Club for the period 1996 to 2001, who now reside in HK, the Mainland and overseas)
The last sentence should be:
May her soul rest in peace and we will forever hold her in "our" hearts dearly.
The Vigil Requiem Mass for Christine will start at 8p.m. on 5 June 2008 at the Hong Kong Funeral Home in North Point.
The Requiem Mass will be held at 10a.m. on 6 June 2008 also at the Hong Kong Funeral Home.
On 9 June 2008, another Requiem Mass will be held at 6:30p.m. at the Catholic Cathedral in Caine Road.
The obituaries will be published in the SCMP on 2 June 2008 and Mingpao on 3 June 2008.
Bernard Yue
A vote of thanks from Christine's her family will be published on 7 June 2008 in Mingpao.
Bernard
Thanks, Bernard.