KL State NCOs' Training School 2012

Once again the NCOs' Training School circus returns to Kuala Lumpur, this time being held in the August school holidays, which was just a week long. KL opted to have it from the 24-26th of August 2012, the last days before the start of the next school term. I usually prefer having this camp at the beginning of the school holidays.. poor kids would be so tired when they go back to school the next day since this time its held at the end of the holidays. With with a pretty tight calendar for the State and from the companies, we're just left with one choice. Still, the lack of time did not prevent 63 people from coming together for KL State's 2012 NCOs' Training School.

 This time, I was in-charge was focused on fixing up the BNTS, though I also coordinated the logistical needs of the ANTS team. There were 33 candidates, 4 coaches spread among 3 squads. I also "lectured" in 2 modules. That's something new that we tried this year, modeled after an experiment from Penang, where we introduce 1 hour of "lectures" before breaking off to 1.5-2 hours of "tutorials" and discussions. The idea, at least in theory, was so that one coach can focus on a specific module, rather than 1 coach teaching separately and being overburdened to prepare teaching materials for 6 modules for BNTS and 5 modules for ANTS. It was a good compromise, where quality is not affected and the interaction between trainees and coaches remains intact. I think it went pretty well and we might stick to this for awhile.

The course began, as it always does at 9am for all participants. For me, it began the night before when the 1st Johor Bahru Company with its supplied coach and 5 participants coming early to KL, presumably to avoid the unpredictable traffic and just to be early. I was planning to be there the night before anyway to set up and prepare myself mentally and logistically (thought I did forget a few stuff and ended up going back all the way to the office from Sentul). Ended up sleeping at around 3am anyway preparing stuff.. from notes, to nametags, to labels and arranging t-shirts. Special thanks to Steven Voo (3rd KL) for helping me out here and there. Flashing back to 9am, 24th August 2012, all participants were no time.. none late.. which was convenient, as late comers for ANTS will be sent more, while BNTS simply gets a heavy punishment, but normally allowed to stay. There were members from 1st KL, 3rd KL, 4th KL, 6th KL, 10th KL, 12th KL and 1st Seremban for the BNTS.

We had one major drama right at the start during the opening parade when one of the 4th KL Boys fainted flat on his face, breaking 5 tooth, biting a small part of his tongue and a tear under his chin which required 5 stitches. A few of us sent him to General Hospital before moving him to a private hospital in Ampang. He recovered okay in the end, but will be enduring some time of pain. Poor guy. I do feel pretty bad about it.

The rest of the camp was uneventful and smooth. Modules went okay, coaches didn't face much problems, learners seem to get doing alright themselves. It was a good mix of discipline and fellowship. On the first night, we conducted a "special activity" inspired from the BNTS I had in 1998 in 1st KL, which I unfortunately cannot share here in case any kids are reading as to not spoil their fun some day. As usual, towards the end of camp there would be a BNTS assessment to determine whether or not they deserve the BNTS certificate - perhaps something that we need to work on as it does seem rather odd that in the end it comes all down to one written exam - not exactly what people will imagine a "leadership camp" with all those expected aptitude test, etc.

To mark the end of the NCOs' Training School, a joint closing ceremony was conducted with the BNTS and ANTS participants, with the State Commissioner, Mr Tony Chow as it's Guest of Honor. We also had visiting captains from 3rd KL and 6th KL.

A special thanks to coaches Mr Isaac Chua, Mr Steven Voo, Mr Valter Woo and Mr Edwin Tham for their tireless efforts during this course.

Till the next one in March 2012!

6th KL Enrollment and Awards Day

My back-to-back weekend continued with a visit to 6th KL Company BB and 4th KL Company GB's Enrollment & Awards Day which was held at their church premises at the Holy Light Lutheran Church in Salak South Garden. I was seconded to this company as they reactivated this year for a 6 month period, just helping guide the officers and teaching drill.

The combined BB-GB Guard of Honour being inspected by Rev. Barnabas Boon

Marching in of the GB and BB Colours

6th KL was reactivated* in January this year after more than 2 years of silence due to a lack of officers to run the company. With three very eager officers in the form of Ms Goy Su Ling, Mr Edwin Tham and Mr Jonathan Kong, the company was able to see life once again. Though small in size, I believe a good foundation will eventually lead to growth. I feel that 6th KL is in much better shape than they were a few years ago.. more proper. 

*Reactivated - as in the company did not close down, but merely went on recess. BBM has a policy of allowing companies to go inactive for a maximum of 2 years, before officially declaring it "Closed". Since 6th KL was able to reactivate within that period, they avoid the hassle of re-registering and so on. 

Commissioning of the the three officers 

With 12-15 Boys and 3 officers, it is indeed a humble rebirth. But if there's one thing I know about starting or restarting God's ministries, it is that never look down on size. The company has Pre-Juniors, Juniors and Seniors available to complement the entire age group of Boys there is (except Primers which is for the much older Boys - perhaps some day when they are ready). 

It was a smooth Enrollment & Awards Service with everything done by the book. It may seem ordinary, but it is anything but. It's no easy feat to keep things ordinary when you've basically restarted from scratch. So kudos to them for having such a successful service!

Hope to see both Brigade ministries continue to grow and if possible, reacquire the school to develop its membership base. Let's see how it all goes. May the Lord continue to lead!

4th KL GB and 6th KL BB group photo after E&A 2012

Girls' Brigade Selangor-FT Drill Competition

This was certainly a new experience for me as I was invited to be one of the judges for The Girls' Brigade, Selangor & FT Group Council Drill Competition. I was asked by my church member, Ser Joo, who was the organiser and co-judged for this competition. 

Only 3 companies took part in this competition - 1st KL (Wesley Methodist Church KL), 6th KL (St. Mary's Cathedral) and 1st PJ (Trinity Methodist Church PJ). All the teams assembled at the Methodist Boys' School basketball court and first up was uniform inspection. Uniform inspection - was sure something I didn't know how to do when girls are involved. I remember once I judged at 10th KL's inter-squad drill competition and inspecting the girls was a major complication. The only difference with this one was I didn't have to be careful - just don't touch at all!

Yours Truly inspection 1st PJ Girls' Brigade

The competition format was an interesting one where they've adapted the format from the Ministry of Education which had formation drill, though GB added chants which was available to the KRS (NGOs were required to do silent drill under its category with no shouting or chants). Each team took 10 minutes to perform. 1st KL and 1st PJ did well, while 6th KL needed to improve on some basics.. but was still reasonably in their drill quality. 

After an hour or so of drill, the judges proceed into Menara Wesley to tabulate the scores. In the end of the day, 1st KL emerged champions with 1st PJ as the Runner Up. Personally, I felt 1st PJ was better overall with better formations. Though 1st KL displayed slightly better drill quality, I felt their formations were way too short to be awarded high marks. Unfortunately, the other two judges didn't feel the same way. Oh well, just a competition and personal opinion is part of it.. I had mine and they had theirs. 

Congratulations to the winners! Hope to see more GB companies taking part in the coming years.

Bowl for Fund 2012

On August 4th, 2012 the Kuala Lumpur State Council organized a fundraising bowling competition at the Megalanes Sunway Pyramid. The idea was mooted by the State Commissioner, Mr Tony Chow, who suggested organizing this event since he took office in year 2011. Initially, such an event was scheduled in December 2011 but was then pushed to February 2012, then April. Finally, a date was pinned on August 4th, which didn't clash with most of the main programs of the other companies (though it was pretty close to some big events certain companies were having).

 I initially expected to be a straightforward event. Get the lanes booked, send out the registration forms, get sponsors and just run the program itself. The Girls' Brigade did a similar event in 2011 which turned out quite successfully, giving us extra confidence that we can pull off something similar. Boy, was I underestimating the scale of things. Little did I know that the GB event was actually mainly organisms by the Rotary Club, all they had to do was to invite friends and have all the lanes filled up. Even that was no easy feat. Forms were circulated to all companies 6 weeks prior to the event, but response has not been as favorable as I had expected. We were pretty ambitious to book out the whole bowling lanes as well, four sessions in all. Each session requires 48 teams or a total of 196 bowlers. In total, we needed to find 784 bowlers.

We didn't think it was going to be too difficult. The KL State BB had a membership of 550 on average. That means if all of our membesrs came, it would've filled up 2.5 sessions (but the membership also includes Pre-Juniors which pretty much cant play, hence cannot be counted). For the event to sell out, only half of us needed to invite a friend or family member, I didn't think it'd be that difficult at all. But reality turned out to quite different. We ended up needing to cancel the fourth session and 16 lanes from the first and third sessions. By the Grace of God, we still somehow manage to bring in over 400 bowlers which filled approximately 110 lanes.

State Commissioner, Mr Tony Chow, making the first throw of the event

I would like to thank all the KL State companies which have shown much support for this event. Also a great thanks to Mr Tony Chow and Mr Richard Cheah who have put in the greatest effort in obtaining sponsors - the other important element towards the success and relevance of this event as a fundraiser. In total, we were able to obtain over 30 sponsors who contributed in cash and in-kind. Among major financial sponsors, who made the contribution in the form of an advertisement space on the Bowl for Fund 2012 souvenir book, were the Stedfast Association of Kuala Lumpur and the Young Man's Christian Association of Kuala Lumpur, which gave the biggest sum of donations. Donations in-kind were also received from Yeo's, Nestlé, Seoul Garden, McDonalds and Methodist College Kuala Lumpur.

The event itself was straightforward on the day itself as bowlers only need to register, collect shoes and proceed to their lanes. Each bowler gets to bowl three games per session and all along the way fun prizes would be handed out to bowlers who meet a certain criteria of scores (ie. two strikes in a row, or three spares in a row, etc) would receive either McDonald coupons or H-Two-O can drinks. At the end of the session, the scores would be tabulated with the Top 12 individual bowlers, Top 5 teams, High Game Men/Women/Under-12 receiving prizes. The Top 12 individuals would receive a mini hamper while the Top 5 teams (of which would normally also include the Top 12 individuals) would receive a larger hamper. the High Gamers would receive a voucher from Seoul Garden which entitles the winner to a full buffet meal for one person and also trophy. There was also a category called Wooden Spoon, which is given to the bowler "which has still much to improve". Finally, medals were also given away to the Top 3 teams for the whole competition, two of which had to be given away later on as they have also gone back. Special thanks to Melissa Tay, Ian Tay and Shahrin for assisting us with the registration and marks tabulation (they took less than 10 minutes after the last team finishes bowling to come out with the results - very fast!).

Although the figures are not finalised, we have profited approximately RM22k from this event (though I was personally targetting RM30k), making this event a relative success, which will keep the FTO project alive after spending significant amounts of funds on the new KL State Council Secretariat.. as well as to keep me well fed. Praise the Lord for His grace and faithfulness!

Group picture of Session 1 participants

It is great that most participants enjoyed themselves and everything went smoothly. Already, Mr Tony is suggesting to have another bowling competition next year. I'm not too sure about having it so soon, but we'll see.






Couldn't resist the fun myself either.

KL Ministry of Education Inter-School Footdrill Competition

It has been 6 years ago since the Ministry of Education (MOE) organised a inter-school footdrill competition. The last time two BB companies represented SMK Taman Desa and SMK (L) Methodist KL at the army camps of Sungai Besi. Both didn't do too well..

This year, SMK Taman Desa and SMK St. Gabriel's sent their BB teams which themselves have won their their school level inter-uniform group drill competitions.

The Kuala Lumpur Federal Territory's Education Department is divided into 5 Zones - Pudu, Bangsar, Keramat, Sentul and Putrajaya. Four of the zones held competitions this year, each averaging 4-5 schools per zone.. rather little considering each zone has 20-30 schools.

The competition format is quite different compared to what BB is normally accustomed too, where a drill squad of 12-15 drillers and one commander  are given a set of 30 or so command movements to follow. The MOE format allows for more creativity as drill teams comprised of exactly 30 drillers (no more and no less) are expected to come up with various formations, but not before a fixed set of "silent sequences" are completed.. very different from the command and order that our drill is used to.

2-5th April 2012 were the dates for the various zones, where the Brigades were represented in three zones. SMK St. Mary's Girls' Brigade represented in Zone Sentul, while SMK Taman Desa Boys' Brigade represented for Zone Bangsar and SMK St. Gabriel's represented for Zone Pudu. Though the GB team did not place, the Boys from Taman Desa and St. Gabriel's were made champions for their respective zones. What an unprecedented achievement for the BB in Kuala Lumpur! Not one, but two teams made champions. Glory to God!

All the Boys practiced hard for this event. Formations are generally more complicated to implement, especially needing to specifically choreograph movements for each of the 30 drillers. Pressure is on the commanders as well, Corporal Timothy Lim from SMK Taman Desa and Corporal (then Sergeant) Tang Hong Ee from SMK St. Gabriel's, who were in-charge of formulating the choreography. Cheers to them!

SMK Taman Desa BB (right) and SMK St Gabriel BB (left) Drill teams undergoing inspections

Both teams proceeded on to the finals, representing their zones (4 zones). It was a straight fight between BB and the Scouts, a 2 vs 2.. a 50% chance of winning and a certainty to bring something home. But the Lord had something greater installed for us as the Champions for KL were announced, whereby SMK Taman Desa representing Zone Bangsar were declared champions. We surely couldn't asked for more. Unfortunately, the BB team from SMK St. Gabriel's did not place, but I believe they are satisfied with the road they've taken so far which saw two victories.

A great performance from the both schools. Hopefully, more BB platoons/clubs from the various schools can rise up and join the ranks in MOE level competitions.

Both school teams posing for the cameras

BB Are KL Champions!

More articles at klbb.org.my:
BB Shines in Inter-School Foot Drill Competition
SMK St. Gabriel's BB Makes it TWO!
SMK Taman Desa BB Wins for Zone Bangsar

Johor ANTS 2012 and Johor State Council Drill Competition

Here are some pictures of the Johor State Council ANTS in Kluang. I was the headcoach once again for this  event. 

Johor State BNTS and ANTS 2012 participants showing off their certificates of attendance

Something new for me was judging for drill competition. It has been 6-7 years ago since I last judged for drill in anything. I was approached by Mr James Soo, Johor State Commissioner to judge. What I didn't know was that I was expected to prepare the marking scheme and the whole system. I slept at 3.00am the night before to think it through. I'm glad I brought my printer along, otherwise it would've been really though.

The winners of the competition were, 1st Johor Bahru followed by Runner-ups 1st Simpang Renggam. Both teams displayed high levels of precision and uniform care. My humble opinion is that they will easily beat KL at their current standards. Congrats to the winners. The other two companies, 1st Kulai and 4th Johor Bahru didn't do too badly either. Hopefully more Johor companies will make it a point to train up and participate in future Drill Competitions, be it for Pesta or just amongst themselves. 

Karisma 1 Malaysia

Normally I am not a fan of attending government functions, more cause I don't like crowds.. and the traffic. But this was one program we felt was worth the curiosity. BBM requested some of us to be represent BB in an event sanctioned by the Ministry of Women, Welfare and Community Development which organised an event for NGOs and other organisations. Dubbed "Karisma NGO", the purpose of the campaign was to encourage NGOs and other welfare organisations to apply for grants. 

I managed to scrape a few senior Boys from 3rd KL, mainly Sergeants and Staff Sergeants who were past SPM. Mr Derek Chan from 1st KL joined us also. 

So we were at Putra Stadium Bukit Jalil for the launch. Honestly, it wasn't that complicated a program which was packed with performance and entertainment. I guess I don't blame them - how do you make an event out of something which basically requires the Prime Minister to only say "Yes". Putting that into consideration, it was pretty good effort. I'll reserve my political views aside since small kids might be reading this blog.. but I did find it totally inappropriate for ministers to promote their political parties in what was supposed to be a government activity. 

Thousands pack into Putra Stadium

I guess either way, it was interesting to see the various performances and learned a few tricks which we might be able to use to get some funds. Was great catching up with Derek. So few people our age nowadays (that's the  1984ers) .

BBM Contingent which comprise of members from 1st and 3rd KL