Bulletin Spring 1975

of successful fund-raising. We had set an ambitious, courageous programme for ourselves ！ The founding members of the Organ Committee, besides myself, were James Muir, Tom Pniewski and Michael Smith. We decided that the Chung Chi College Chapel would be the best and most logical place to install a new pipe organ, but we kept this choice in confidence for the time being. Only toward the end of 1972, on November 5th, to be precise, did we officially approach the Chung Chi College administra (the father-to-be, as it were) with our request to seriously consider the installation of a proper pipe organ in the Chapel. It would be an overstatement to say that we received a very encouraging reply, for many doubts, ifs and buts were expressed, particularly on the subject of money. Thus the meetings of the Organ Committee that followed were devoted to the question of whether we could or should commit ourselves to raising a total of about HK $200,000. By this time the Organ Committee had grown to its largest size. In addition to the names already mentioned, Sonia Archer, Dale Craig and Keith Anderson as Chairmen of the Music Department, David Gwilt and Sheila Lau had joined us. My husband never became an official member, but he and his secretary, Jennifer Lam, did immense amounts of clerical work behind the scenes. We held monthly meetings in early 1973 to keep in close touch with one another's fund-raising activities. Our first donation was received on February 15th, 1973, and from then on more than seven thousand letters to prospective donors were sent out, local businessmen and other interested parties visited, and contacts made with every possible local and overseas source of money we could think of. We were quite successful in arousing the interest of local newspapers and radio stations in our project, with the result that interviews were given, articles written and our own news releases printed. On March 8th, 1973, we were greatly heartened by an anonymous donation of HK $50,000 which Michael Smith managed to secure. Meanwhile, of the twelve organ builders we had contacted in several countries, eight had replied with quotations. Our recommendation to award the contract to Mr. Detlef Kleuker of Brackwede, Germany, was fairly easy because of his long experience with tropicalised organs, his reputation lor reliability and, very importantly, his comparatively low price. Yet we delayed our final decision until we had seen detailed sketches, stop lists and estimates from a selected few builders.