Written by DDS Phoebe Pang, Rotary Club of Macau Central
With the opportunity granted by PDG Eric Chak , chair of District Public Image Committee, I was acting as the organizing committee chair of the PI Seminar in Macau.
The theme of the seminar is “story telling”, we had the honor to have Professor Agnes Lam and PP Joao Francisco Pinto from Rotary Club of Macau to be our honorable speakers.
It was enlightening to listen to the issue of fake news by Past President Joao Pinto, who is a veteran journalist with diverse experience from Portugal and Macau. In this age of information overload, most people do not have the mind nor the time to examine whether certain news is real or fake. Sometimes the news is fake due to negligence, sometimes by purposeful misinterpretation, and sometimes by malignant intention and technology. PP Joao encouraged us to develop our information literacy and shared ways for verifying the authenticity of the news.
It was also a great pleasure to learn from Prof. Agnes Lam from the University of Macau. Drawing from different theories of communications, Prof. Lam shared with us how to tell a good story of Rotary, especially using the What, How, and Why. A good story can be told in person, in a newspaper, or on social media. Regardless of where a story is told, a good story always has a noble purpose and calls for action. In addition, Prof. Lam shared the tips and techniques for a story to get traction on social media, which is now the major platform for stories to be heard. Not only do Rotarians need to be good service providers but also great story tellers.
It was the first seminar from Rotary held in Macau after three years of pandemic, nearly 100 Rotarians attended this seminar and all of them concentrated on the topic and had a happy morning.
A successful seminar is not organised by one person- last and not least, thanks to all the backup helpers such as Advisor team PDG Eric Chak, AG Liz, PP Angela, PP Lily, MC PP Elvo, IT support PP Jason, translator PP Vicky, PP Colin, HK Coordinator PP Helen, PP Sammi, Promotional Materials PP Ron, Venue coordinator PP Synthia, all the PEs as well as Rotarian Cecilia for their organization.
