[PDLM]

Good news indeed, although I do hope that Minnie Ho meant to be that generous and did know that it was US$ not HK$...

[KnowItAll]

PDLM - I had a chat with MrB about that (my thoughts exactly) and yes, the funds are legit.

Waiting for Alby to get back so that we can set something that is a little bit more structured, to benefit HK.

[PDLM]

OK - good.

For the charitable stuff, it would be good if there was a little variety in activities. some of us are better suited to the "touchy feely, be nice to disadvantaged people" stuff, and others are better employed doing other practical stuff. Getting a Geo-group together for a day at Crossroads would be one possibility for the latter, although I realise that that is largely about getting stuff from HK to benefit people in other places.

Environmental stuff would be another one that might work well - how about adopting a "Geo-beach" and cleaning it up every 3 months or so?

[KnowItAll]

Crossroads has a survival camp .. interesting way to get people educated. Unfortunately, the day I met them, the person standing next to me was the CEO of Sunday... so naturally the guys were not interested in chatting with me.

Subsequent emails to them have sort of given me the impression that they're a tightly run machine which doing well and my contribution would probably not make much difference to them.

Dunno... can reopen the conversation with them.

But, am waiting for Alby to resurface in HK - she's the resident expert in things NGO / Eco.

[PDLM]

True - Crossroads is a pretty sizeable operation, and it is run as a sort of "family firm" so if you're not buddies with the founder's family then you're just a random body putting some effort in (unless you are someone "big", in which case the family will fawn over you in true Hong Kong style). Which is a bit of a shame really because I feel they would benefit from a bit more decent "real world" management in there - it's a bit big to be run in the "hippy commune" way that it seems to be currently.

If you want influence I guess you're best off founding something yourself.

[KnowItAll]

Nah ... don't have the energy to found, will let someone find.

[mrb]

With your help the final total raised came to US$17,562. It will be used to build a standalone library for one school, and reading rooms (libraries in existing school rooms) for two other schools.

Expected construction dates, etc. here.

[mrb]

We've had an update from Room to Read. The library construction project is still on track for this year, though they're taking longer to decide on the location than we expected.

The reading rooms are finished, and they've sent a completion report that shows how the finished room looks.

We'll be in touch again when the location for the library is confirmed.

[KnowItAll]

Just want to clarify that the report you've linked to is NOT the one that the money was raised for (the completion date of that was May 2007) and that the new library is going to be constructed soon.

[mrb]

Yes, that's right.

We're still waiting to find out which community will get the library that the USD10K target applied to. Construction of that library has not begun yet.

At the end of last October's fund raising we'd all raised around USD17K. The extra USD7K was also passed on to Room to Read, and some of it went towards funding their 2007 'reading room' projects (smaller projects than the $10K standalone library). The completion report we've linked to is for one of these reading rooms.