In the 9th Annual Award Ceremony of the Elderly Volunteers Award Scheme, there were 1,484 elderly volunteers participated in contributing 45,156.5 hours of service time. The 442 awarded volunteers aged from 55 to 98 came from 37 different service units. As this year's theme was "Volunteers Service Progresses in Time", there is a new award "Honorable Elderly Volunteer Award" for those who have been publicly recognized by their volunteer service, and hoping that the award recipients will be seen as role model.

Last year, the Open Institute for Senior Citizens has offered 135 courses with 1,800 elders applicants. In order to be eligible for the certificate programs, applicants must at least completed 9 courses of 208 hours in a combination of social and educational subjects. This year, the number of graduates is 46, which is a double of last year. As an encouragement for these elderly graduates, a graduation banquet was held in which each of them had the opportunity to wear their graduation coat when receiving certificates.

The theme of this year's Elderly Consultation held by the Elderly Council is "How the Government can integrate Youth and Elders in the Family". We invited Mr Chan Kam Man, J.P., Member of Elderly Commission, Professor Kwan Yui-Huen from Applied Social Sciences Department of City University of Hong Kong, and Mr Leung Kwok Fai, Committee Member of Association for the Rights of the Elderly as our guest speakers. Speech were delivered around the 4 main theme of the 1999 International Year of Older Persons: the challenge of the aging population; the social and individual needs of the elderly; changing the stereotyped thinking towards the elderly; and acknowledge the contribution of the elderly. Elders from various units also had the opportunity to reflect their opinion.

A 3-day Exhibition of Chinese Calligraphy and Painting was held in The Hong Kong Cultural Centre in order to acknowledge and appreciate the artistic quality of members from the Open Institute for Senior Citizens. It also provided an opportunity for the public to admire the ability of the elderly. The 34 elders who participated in the exhibition attracted approximately 5,000 people to attend the exhibition. There were foreigners who gave some impressive comments such as "A beautiful picture, well done!" "Good Work", etc. On the other hand, elders speak in simple English and Putonghua that learnt in the Institute to explain their art work.