Thursday, February 12, 2009

ISA HK/China --- Our Station is 4 years old



*** Our weekly Station Mail is for the information of Station Members only, but Station Mail has given up copyright & can be freely circulated. For administrative reasons, comments from outsiders are usually not entertained & may be circulated within our system locally & overseas. Please note Station Mail is sometimes given in Blog at http://isahkchina.blogspot.com , although images are usually not attached due to size. ***

Dear Station Members,

Coming to the month of February 2009, ISA HK/China will be 4 years old.

Remembering when we first started in Feb 2005, ISA HK/China had only the Station Manager (SM) & one other Station Member as the only two constituents. We were in doubt of whether ISA Arboriculture could take off in our territory at that time, although we have seen the successes in other territories. Arboriculture is not a hobby like house plants as known around the world. It is a serious profession involving institutional research in universities & govt bodies at high level. Tree Care is a necessity in many municipals & is usually in the hand of City Arborists & Urban Foresters, because failing trees can become major hazards in a populous city. Legal battles would be the end result if trees have become Time Bombs.

3 years are gone by now & ISA HK/China has already +770 Station Members joining in from all walks of life, from Professors to Housewives, Engineers to Florists, Politicians to Civil Servants, Designers to Contractors, & from many other disciplines. We are an inclusive group in greenery & practically anybody with an interest in tree is welcomed to join in. We are also the biggest & an influential Arbor Group in our territory of HK, Macau, Taiwan & China at present, & we keep on expanding. Station Membership has now spread into China with their Landscape Engineers joining in as the forefront, learning & applying ISA education in their seminars & policies during their daily work. It may be just a matter of time that China will adopt ISA knowledge & principles for their trees, from design, installation, maintenance to inspection, before their public will join in en mass. The English language of ISA research appears to be the major obstacle to our brothers & sisters at present, & TCHK (http://hk.myblog.yahoo.com/treeclimbinghk) is working hard to break the ice in this aspect.

Station Structure has also developed from the sole SM & a bunch of enthusiastic volunteers to recruit two helping hand of Tony Ng & KM Li as Deputy Station Managers (DLM) in the past year. Although these two gentlemen play rather low key in their public appearance, their valuable contribution has built ISA HK/China in many areas into a solid foundation. Tony is a contemplating strategist whose steady skills has provided useful support in administration & training programs, whereas KM is a muscular trainer in many areas of the practical side of Arboriculture including appliances & climbing. On the active side, Tony has participated into the Singapore Green Thumb Climbing Event last July in place of the SM who was caught with the urgent Tree Rigging at Tsuen Wan Tak Wah Park, & has won awards in Safety & Chainsaw Uses. KM has represented ISA HK/China to attend the Leadership Workshop & Proctor Assembly organized by the ISA HQ last October to bring back photos of magnificent North American Trees to be put on Station Mail later on. We are grateful to their valuable contribution at all times.

One major breakthrough for ISA HK/China in 2008 would be the advance into China at the 2008 IPM Show in Foshan & the 2008 China Southern Green Fair (CSGF) in Zhongshan, both happened in Dec 2008. The name of ISA has since then appeared in national media in China to meet their millions in the greenery industry. Seminars on ISA Arboriculture & Tree Climbing Demonstrations were conducted for the first time at these two national shows. The name of ISA is now officially registered in the China Greenery System which is a positive beginning for our further development.

As we grow, we are constantly looking for volunteers to come in to expand ourselves. We need personnel with strong belief in Integrity, Professionalism, Participation, Fact-finding & Truth-telling to steer our Station forward, & into the Land of Old Dragons which seems to leave half a door open for us. We intend to build a united front of local experts to enter China to set up 'Trading Posts' initially in the affluent cities along the coast. As we can gradually recruit local participants to join in with our belief, we shall promote ourselves inward step by step. ISA HK/China will maintain a watchful eye on its development with all our expertise, & with the help of ISA HQ & our regional counterparts. Our promotion strategy is clear & simple to be transparent to anybody, because we believe we are doing good deeds to the China people to help them to grow better trees to improve their quality of living. How would they then object to that?

Our liaison with our regional partners around the Pacific Rim has continued to be as strong as ever, & our intimate bonding with ISA HQ will persist since we bear their name. All we need now are more helping hands from our territory willing to devote themselves for the course of our development, to set up ourselves strongly in structure & to maintain our progress steadily into China. We cordially believe those who would help in now would reap the sow in future to come, in a land so vast & green for the Tree Care Profession. Sky may be the limit for the development of Tree Care in China, which at present is a blank page.

3 years are gone & we are now moving into our 4th year. As our billionaire tycoon Mr. Li Ka Shing has said to the media in the past: "Maintain stability during development, & maintain development during stability." Such may be our guideline in a time of financial turmoil currently. Such may the key to our success in future.

best regards,

Sammy Au
Station Manager

"Trees are good for the community. Trees need care like human beings. Arborists are the Tree Care Professionals."


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