Judi Ellis smiles as she surveys The Helena May's dining hall. The refreshments are much the same: pots with tea and pastries and sandwiches served on old-fashioned three-tiered stands. But the guests include a number of Asian faces, a marked change from the past when members were almost exclusively expatriates.
There has never been a restriction on membership by race, says Ellis, the club chairwoman. 'It's just a wrong perception. We are an international mix, not just for Chinese people or British.'
Organisations such as The Helena May are keen to shake off their image as colonial establishments catering to expatriates and have worked to diversify their membership. Many clubs in Hong Kong lost a lot of members around the time of the handover due to an exodus of Chinese and expatriates. But the impact was undoubtedly greater in clubs dominated by westerners.
Membership fell by half at the Foreign Correspondents' Club and by 20 per cent at the United Services Recreation Club (USRC) during the same period. The effect was far less severe at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, where there was only a 10 per cent fall, mostly due to the departure of expatriate civil servants.
The Helena May, which occupies a heritage building on Garden Road, was among the hardest hit, with numbers dropping from more than 1,000 in the early 1990s to about 400 at the time of the handover.
Originally called The Helena May Institute for Women, the club was set up in 1916 to accommodate newly arrived single females, and its members reflected that intent. The club has moved with the times to include men as associate members and its name changed accordingly, but the impact of 1997 has been a major challenge.
