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.