The Commodore advised that Mr Manzoni’s involvement in the club had been wide ranging; from his time as chairman of the Youth Sailing Class, as a member of the Sailing Development Sub-committee, then on the Middle Island Sub-committee and finally to the General Committee, where he served as the Honorary Secretary from 2012 to 2016. Whist on the General Committee he had also sat on the Membership Committee and chaired the Membership Matters Sub-committee. He was also a member of the Race Management Sub-committee. In total he served on thirteen committees over an eleven year period.
Over and above his service on various committees, Mr Manzoni’s contribution had been in two key areas; the growth of youth sailing and in race management.
Taking each of these areas in turn, the foundations that Mr Manzoni helped lay ten years ago are at the heart of the Club’s current vibrant and successful youth sailing, with some sixty squad members and over two thousand youth sail training days in a year. The squad has gone from strength to strength, and the future of the club will continue to benefit from this investment in bringing on the next generation of sailors.
Mr Manzoni had been – and continues to be - a key driver to improve race management skills in the Club and the wider Hong Kong sailing community. Having spent time in Europe gaining sufficient experience to become a National Race Officer, he was responsible for the creation of the Race Management Sub-committee in 2013 and the establishment of the race management training programme, bringing in external international race officers to teach budding domestic race officers. He was appointed by ISAF as an International Race Officer in 2015. His commitment to race management remains undiminished as he continues to run race management seminars, as well as acting as the PRO for the annual Hong Kong Race Week - the largest sailing event held in Hong Kong - and the imminent Zhik 29er World Championships being held in Hong Kong in early January 2018.
On the sailing side Mr Manzoni has been a stalwart member of the Etchells class and regularly sails with the class in Hong Kong as well as internationally, having competed in the Etchells World Championships as a Corinthian team in Cowes in 2016 and San Francisco in 2017, where he came fourth in the Corinthian division. Within the class he is a consistent winner of the best costume at the Etchells year end prize giving and apparently wears a pink spiked Mohawk wig with particular aplomb.
Despite the fact that he is - for the time being anyway - down to his last RHKYC committee (the Zhik 29er World Championship Organising Committee) he continues to serve the sailing community in Hong Kong through his position as Vice President on the Hong Kong Sailing Federation Council. Somehow he also manages to find the time to sit on the World Sailing Constitutional Committee and to chair the World Sailing Judicial Committee.
The Commodore invited Mr Manzoni to receive the Noel Croucher Award for his outstanding contribution to sailing.
The Commodore then advised that Mr Ng Kong Wan joined the Club in 1999 as a Junior Member and was one of the first batch of junior members from an old initiative, targeting university students to row and/or sail with the Club. He became an Ordinary Member in 2002, a Full Member in 2007 and was elected as the Rowing Captain in 2015-2017.
Beyond being a Rowing Captain, Mr Ng was also involved heavily in a lot of club committee work. He has been a member of the Rowing Committee, the Membership Committee, the Membership Matters Sub-committee, the Communications Committee, the Coastal Rowing Sub-committee and the General Committee.
While it is unusual to award an individual the Noel Croucher Award in the year that he just retired from the position of Rowing Captain, both GenCom and RowCom have agreed that Mr Ng stands out as someone that has gone above and beyond the requirements of that role.
Mr Ng has certainly done more for rowing in the club than anyone else in recent years. His ambition to see change within the rowing section started long before his role as Rowing Captain but this role allowed him to solidify his goals, the fruits of which the rowing section is now reaping.
Mr Ng has always had a strategy to promote the rowing section at a number of levels. In particular the development of youth rowing and building a schools rowing programme, expansion and integration between RHKYC and HK University Alumni Clubs, growth and expansion of the University Elite Programme and getting University Rowers to experience International Rowing events through the support of the Club, building the profile of the sport in the local community and of Hong Kong rowing internationally and working to win for Hong Kong the Asian Coastal Championships 2018 and the World Coastal Rowing Championships 2019.
Mr Ng has treated his involvement with the club as a full time role. His abilities to develop rowing for all can be seen with the development and running of the Harbour Regatta. Although this was a milestone for the Club, the strategy behind this event goes far beyond this. Key factors at play were: developing the operational relationship the Club has with the HKCRA and the HK Water Sports Council, working with key government stakeholders in order to present the importance of sport in the Harbour, building media coverage and attracting celebrities to attend the event as well as attracting sponsors which has traditionally been virtually impossible given the limited commercial appeal of Rowing in Hong Kong. Additionally, it is very clear that the successful execution of the Harbour Regatta led to HK being tentatively offered the FISA World Rowing Coastal Championships pending the securing of sponsorship. The effort to navigate both club and governmental departments to build such events has been significant and sets the Rowing Section with a benchmark going forward that far exceeds anywhere that we have ever been before.
Far beyond the continued development of rowing for a small group of rowing members at the club Mr Ng has opened the sport to many people and continues to develop the sport and create ways to get young people involved with the Sport. His commitment has gone far and beyond what would normally be expected of a Rowing Captain or member of the Club. His hard work and dedication has ensured that the sport of Rowing has been spread to a far wider audience than was historically the case at the Club. Mr Ng’ s work continues to expand and bring Rowing to a wider audience, in particular the youth in HK which is very important for the club and the lifeblood of the future for rowing at the Club and in Hong Kong.
The Commodore invited Mr Ng to receive the Noel Croucher Award for his outstanding contribution to rowing.