May Pole Dance - Pui O (Click here to read more)

Dear Friends and Community of South Lantau,

We acknowledge you for your community effort, contribution and participation in the May Day celebration on Pui O beach on Saturday!  And look forward to future events with you.

In the morning women and children gathered on the beach to help set up the bamboo pole with colourful ribbons and collect wood for the fire place.  By afternoon we had a great turn out with many families joining in the drumming and dancing around a colourful Maypole, and sharing in hearty potluck dishes for dinner.  It was a great turn-out for a fun community event.

At the sun set, we drummed and danced around a fire. Some people including several from town, camped out under the beautiful moon.

The next day, most unfortunately, a two-year-old girl from Sai Kung, was burnt by fire embers not properly extinguished after the event ended.  The last people to leave from the event picked up all garbage. They also carried a few remaining pieces of wood out on to the roadside, and put sand on top of the fire place. As they saw no fire or smoke, they assumed everything was extinguished.  Unfortunately, that was not the case.

We heard this shocking news late on Sunday night and very sincerely regret this accident happened.

We've learnt a painful lesson from this and must take responsibility, doing what's right moving forward.  From this moment, we will tighten our process for setting up and taking down whatever events we create.  Equally importantly, we'll not let this very unfortunate accident negate all the positives that have resulted from these community events - which bring joy and connection to many.  By being even more diligent with the details, we will be encouraging this spirit to grow and expand to many other families and friends.  

An Appeal For Your Involvement

For the Maypole celebration, there were only two of us coordinating the whole event.  In order for future events to be even more-safely organised, we need your help with all aspects of these events.

We would like to form a committee of men and women called the South Lantau Inspired Community (SLIC), dedicated to holding family events such as the May Day celebration in and around South Lantau.  People inspired to be on the committee will help set an agenda of events and identify, assume and also monitor delegated responsibilities.  These will include: event preparation, materials sourcing, creative input, fundraising, publicity and event management (including safety precautions and take-down checklists to ensure we leave venues even cleaner and safer than we found it).

We are living in one of the most-balanced lifestyle locations in Hong Kong with an abundance of nature, park land and beach offering unlimited opportunities for family outdoor activities.   If we come together collectively as a community, we will have the needed resources to create and safely manage fun family events in future.

Pls. contact Kumi on kumi@drum-jam.com if you would like to know more about joining SLIC.

Kumi Masunaga and Linda Fancy (Pui O)