Club Meeting on 2nd November 2006

Please be informed that our next club meeting is on the 2nd of November 2006 (Thursday) at PP Kuah's office at 8.00pm.

Our Speaker for the meeting is Ms. Lee Siad Huey (pic), a practising lawyer who was a former WAH FM (which had been closed down) DJ. She will share with us the experience and challenges of being a Radio Station DJ.

Want to find out what this talk is all about? Don't miss it! Mark it on your diary now! Thank you : )

p/s: any guest who wants to join the meeting, please contact me at harnniann_toh@yahoo.co.uk

This is the Ninth meeting of this Rotaract Year. It is getting more exciting! See you there!

Who’s baby? Who’s angel?

Contributed by Lloyd Cheam


On the behalf of Rotaract Club of Port Klang Centennial, I proudly announce the kick off of the game - The Angel & Baby. I believe plenty of heard of it before, nonetheless, I will brief through the purpose and the guidelines of this game.




Purpose -
First of all, this game is meant for fostering a better relationship among Rotaractors. Also, it would be a great way to know each other.

Guidelines -
Basically, everyone is an Angel and a Baby at the same time. However, all you really need to worry about is how to be a good Angel. ^ ^

1) Everyone will have to learn to act like an Angel and will have a Baby to take care of. So, when it makes a round, everyone will get the chance to be a Baby and being taken care of too.

2) What does an Angel need to do? It’s all what a Baby needs, someone to concern about him/her.
A simple, “Hey what sup? How are you doing?” will definitely do;
A reminder of all Rotaract’s activities will do too;
An invitation to join all our fellowships and outings also will do too.
Get the idea?

3) So, what’s the incentive?
There will be a secretive gift proudly sponsored by our club!
Since it’s a secret, it shall remain a secret until it will be revealed.
Who will win it? That shall be a popular vote for the winner.
Something like the Angel of the Month!

So, by the next I see you, I will not be asking you, “Hey, what sup man?” instead I will be asking, “Hey, what sup with your Angel? Is he/she doing alright?”

There you go, the loop of Angels & Babies.
Lloyd--> Ban Fong--> Harnniann--> Hui Hui--> Feldman--> Zee Kin--> Jia Thiam--> Rajan--> Eng tee--> Diana--> Yiip Shaun--> Fei Lin--> Nanthini--> Way Wen--> Shawn Ong--> Soo Ling--> Timmy--> Vivien--> Lloyd

PS: Sorry Diana, I let you have another extra Baby to take care of ;)

Activities for November 2006

Dear Rotaractors & Guests,

I am pleased to announce that our Board had recently planned out a series of activities for the month of November 2006 and they are as follows:-

2nd November (Thurs): Club Meeting @ 8.00pm (Speaker: Ms. Lee, Former Wah FM DJ)
5th November (Sun): Futsal @ 10.00am (The Roof, Port Klang)
11th November (Sat): Board Meeting @ 1.30pm
16th November (Thurs): Club Meeting @ 8.00pm (Speaker: Dr. Puravi on Family Planning)
25th November (Sat): Monthly Fellowship (News KTV, Klang Parade)

Members and Guests! Wow time flies! We have almost come to half of the rotaract year! Kindly take note of the above dates. It is definitely a exciting month and we hope to see you in these exciting activities!!

“Sorry, tonight I can’t make it…”

Contributed by Rtr Harnniann

They say Rotaract gives you opportunity to be trained as good leader. It certainly does.

Throughout my experience as president of the club and organizer of various club activities, one common challenge that will always recur and must be handled with great wisdom is when you suddenly receive a phone call or sms from your members that he (or she or sometime they) could not attend the activity you have spent so much efforts organizing although they have promised earlier they would come.

For example, you are given a task to organize a talk on “Crime Prevention”. To make sure that the talk is a success and beneficial to the members, you want to get the best speakers. So you approach the police officers, the politician, the lawyers etc. Graciously and with a bit of luck, you get your speakers ready to come to give an interesting talk.

But, without the audience, you can’t have a talk. So you proudly announce the date, venue and time of the talk during club meeting and also through emails, blogs, phone call and sms.

You have to do headcount, right? After promoting the talk numerous times to your members, you finally have 11 names confirmed coming for the talk. Great! 11 is nothing to shout about but at least better than single digit.

Then, there come the faithful day. In the morning, you call up the speakers to remind them of the talk and make sure they know how to get to there. You double check whether everything is in order. The banners, the projector, the MC, the tables and chairs etc. You go through your checklist again and again to make sure you do not miss out anything.

But just when you think everything is perfectly planned out, you receive an email from Rtr ABC informing you that she could not make it tonight as she has to bring mother to see a doctor. Ok, how can you reject such excuse? So you still have 10 left. Not too bad, still a double digit.

3 hours before the talk, Rtr DEF sent you a sms which read as follows:-

“dear OC, sorilar… forget tonight have tuition. really cant come. Hope you all enjoy the talk”

Your heart sinks to the bottom of the ocean when you read this sms yet Rtr DEF expects you to enjoy the talk. Now your audience dropped to single digit: 9!

You are panic and take nothing for granted. You start calling the remaining 9 one by one to make sure they all come.

The 1st to the 8th rotaractors tell you they are coming, don’t worry. Woosh! So far so good.

But when you call the 9th rotaractor, Rtr GHI, he said, “Har? Tonight meh? I thought next week mar? Tonight cannot woo… tonight I have to finish my assignment, due date coming soon… why you call me so late?” Ok, now you are being blamed.

8! You only have 8 left… you look at the list of speakers and start cursing yourself, “Why I invite this Dato… that YB to come to give talk?!!” Now this Dato, YB, Tuan, have to travel all the way to Klang just to give a “small” talk to a group of 8?!

You decide you must do something about it, urgently.

You check your phone directory and start calling the members one by one, hoping for miracle.

“Huh? I thought I told you I won’t be coming already mah?”

“Really cannot leh… you try calling other people lar…”

“Still in office lar… by the time I go back, the talk finish liao lor…”

Now your heart break into million of pieces. You question and blame yourself why take up this post as organizer of this talk… it was so not worth it…

You call your president or advisor to tell him/her about your predicament.

“boy… that’s part of the training. Get used to it and you will grow up faster and stronger” they replied.

Vaguely, you hear Alanis Morissette sings,

“You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn…”

Justice for the case

Contributed by Rtr Harnniann

From time to time, engaging in a legal debate with a layman can be fun and informative as it is a great exercise for lawyers to see the point of view of laymen who often are their potential clients.

One day, Engtee asked me what I did in court that morning. I simply answered, “oh, to get another postponement so that I can file my client’s defence.”

“Just that? Then your job is so simple!”

I protested, “No! I have to make sure the court gives me at least a 2 months postponement, it is not easy.”

My answer puzzled her, “why you lawyers always like to drag the matters in court?”

“It depends. If I am acting for the Plaintiff (the party who sues) of course I’d want my case to be disposed off expeditiously. But if my client is the defendant, then I will use all my skill and knowledge to have the matter delayed as long as possible so that my client has sufficient time to prepare the necessaries.”

“Why?”

“Well, you see, as a Plaintiff’s lawyer, you are tasked to push forward. You should be ready to fight for the case every time your case is called up in court. You should object to every single request for postponement by the defendant. You should make sure that the defendant gets the shortest postponement…

But as a defendant’s lawyer, you do exactly the opposite. This is especially so when you know your client has nothing to argue about in court. You put in numerous interlocutory applications, maybe try your luck to strike out the plaintiff’s claim.

It’s like playing tug of war. The Plaintiff pulled as hard as possible towards one direction while the Defendant does the same at opposite direction. Both sides should try all their best to get what they want. Then we shall reach a balanced point, which is called justice of the case.”

Engtee was not impressed, “I don’t understand what you talk about but I think Justice means if you owe people money, you pay.”

Sometimes lawyers can be long winded and very philosophical when they explain the true meaning of justice. Yet, put it to a layman, it simply means “you owe money you pay”.

Futsal 1st Oct 2006

Contributed by Rtr Jia Thiam

The rotaractors of Port Klang Centennial, together with some guests had a small fellowship get-together yesterday (01-10-2006). Instead of doing the usual activity, we had something unusual; Futsal Game. The participants are divided into three groups with the ladies as the captain for each of them. Some were curious about their competence, while others wouldn’t bother much. I was worried myself. LoL!

The guys had a tough time playing with the girls at the field. Being a gentleman, the phrase “Ladies First” must be putted into action instead of plain words. What else can we expect but to give them the ball =D. Somehow, most of the time, the girls are the one who should be pitied. We guys took advantage on them when they attained the ball. A simple charge towards them will scare them off. I’ve seen some who did this. Sigh! How could we guys do that? But it’s fun though. Nevertheless, we had lots of fun throughout the game. I guess the girls will forgive the guys right? Hopefully no girls will be reading this. I still want to stay alive =P.

Shortly after the game, we had some “duck rice” for our lunch. After all the sweat during the game, we deserved something better. Somehow, after all the calories we managed to burn during the game, the duck rice helped to add back to the missing calories. Not bad huh.

Have fun and I wish there’s more of this activity in the future.

Friendship Beyond Borders

Contributed by Rtr Hui Hui

As I was writing this article, the famous conference song ‘Pinoy Ako’ (in Tagalog) still lingers in my mind. That was the song sang at the APRRC 2006 convention hall at Tagaytay City, Philippines where the Asia Pacific rotaractors did the line dance in unity.

The decision to attend this conference and paid the package of US130 was made at the spur of moment. And it never occurred to me to visit the Philippines, the country of 7000 islands.

But, the preparation to go for the conference was a tedious job. The team of APRRC committee of rotaractors had to crack their heads to come up with a cultural performance and ideas on promoting Malaysia as the next APRRC host.

Lead by Rotaract KL President Kim Kek Seong and PP Vijay Ananth, about twenty of us met at Rotarian Donny’s Kua home at Bukit Damansara after work. The last time I met the fellow committee was during the DRA and joint district rotaract conference. And, I never thought that all of us as delegates became good friends after the APRRC.

After the first, second and third week of August, the team finally got the dance moves correct and the correct tune of the songs to be performed. I volunteered to sing for the first and for the final part cultural performance. It was Joget Pahang song made popular by Siti Norhaliza and A Thousand Million Smiles by the late singer, Sudirman.

Imagine I had to watch Siti’s concerts in VCDs and P Ramlee’s old movies to get into the mood.

The rehearsals and the meetings continue until we touched down at Clarke Manila airport. We were greeted courteously (Mabuhay: Welcome!) by the APRRC Pilipinas committee team.

To my dismay, the journey to Days Hotel, Tagatay City was longer and tiring. And talk about not having adequate sleeping hours from the first day of travel. But, what was fun are the series of things that we experience ie:

1) Rolling our heavy luggage (full of Malaysian delicacies and tourism brochures) to a Manila shopping mall. Left it in the bowling alley and went shopping.
2) Dressing up in cultural costumes. Laughing at DRRE Dinesh for putting on the huge size ‘papa’ sunglasses with a Baju Melayu outfit.
3) During the first part of cultural performance dance, part of the ‘Joget Pahang’ song was already ‘axed’ out due the technical problems. In spite of that, the joget dancers were versatile enough to catch up. (I admit I was nervous seeing the huge crowd of eyes at the stage below during that time)
4) Seeing the team candidly snapping pictures of rotaractors caught sleeping at the conference table during the opening ceremony on the first day. Thanks to IPP Bernard of RAC Kelana Jaya.
5) Seeing the RAC Seremban rotaractors came back from a midnight swim in resort swimming pool in a chilly weather like in Cameron Highlands. Grrr….
6) ‘Kan pai’ session with the Taiwan rotaractors, thanks to IPP Harley, Rotaract District International Service Director, who drank vodka on my behalf, and for PP Vijay, Kim and Nellie.
7) And then, the drinking and the Mars/Venus debate session with Rtr Kim, Jamie, Amanda, Nellie, Tracy till five in the morning thanks to PP Vijay, the man that no need much sleep.
8) Myself with Rotaractor Aslinda, Jamie, Sindhu, Rosmarie sneaking out from the convention hall to go shopping in the city with our two Filipino friends, Rotaractor Maria and Mark who graciously accompany us.

And the most wonderful moments, were the fellowship and exchange of momentos with our gracious Rotarians and Rotaractors from the host country Philippines and from Australia, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and other Asean region countries. And the live dancing and singing session as well.

What I gained was the ability to reach out to our fellow rotaractors friends within country and abroad. And I proud to say that the team of us did promote Malaysia successfully as the next APRRC host, I hope!

P/S This article is dedicated to my new circle of friends who I had formed the close bond during the trip. You know who you are…J