THE big interview
Golden girls Hong Kong’s Ladies Circle celebrates its 50th birthday this year. President Fiona Bulmer tells Carolynne Dear how it’s stood the test of time
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hen Fiona Bulmer arrived in Hong Kong twelve years ago, she was looking to make a few friends. “I worked to start with and then broke off from my career for the children. So from working full-time in Central, I was now living in the ‘burbs’ of Pok Fu Lam with two babies and I really needed to reach out to create a social network. And then I discovered Ladies Circle, which was kind of a turning point for me.” Ladies Circle arrived in Hong Kong from the UK in 1968, which makes this year its golden anniversary. Bulmer now presides over the group as president, a role she took up with trepidation a couple of years ago. “I went from popping in to a meeting just to see what it was all about, and then suddenly I was treasurer - my fault for admitting I was an ex-accountant! - and the next thing I knew I was being voted in as president,” says Bulmer. “This was a huge step for me but I really feel I’ve grown with the role and am very proud about what we’re achieving as an organisation.” Originally set up in the UK in the 1930s as a charitable organisation for the wives of Round Table members, Ladies Circle today has a global network of over 10,000 members in 37 countries. The Round Table was also founded in the UK, in 1927, and still has a Hong Kong branch. The initial Circle met on England’s south coast in the seaside town of Bournemouth in 1932. It was predominantly a social group, but word spread and by the late 1930s eight more Circles had been formed up and down the UK. The group struggled during World War 2, but held together despite the odds and in 1947 went international with new groups in Denmark and Northern Ireland. In the 1960s, it arrived in Hong Kong courtesy of Jeanne Allingham, who became the Circle’s first Hong Kong president. “The idea came from a Round Tabler and his wife who were new to Hong Kong and had been members in the UK,” she tells me from her current home in the UK. “Initially we met in each others homes before moving to the 32 expat-parent.com
Current president Fiona Bulmer
Manning the cake stall at the Easter Fair, HKCC, 1986