ECA Drive Day
Once upon a time, Taylor’s College Sri Hartamas was born into the history of this land. In the flourishing year of 2009, there was a sudden burst of life in this college. Approximately 350 students decided to occupy the space in the famous institution of education.
Thus, since it was THE BEGINNING, an extremely rare event auspiciously named “The Extra-Curricular Activities (ECA) Drive Day” was held.
Ironically, this special event was held on a day which was supposed to cause bad luck – Friday, the 13th of February. The preparation for this event seemed to be very precise – every club or society would have a booth set up in the Delta Theatre – and this is said because most clubs had flyers put up, videos on the LCD screens and publicity for their club spread by word of mouth. Also, it was the day before St. Valentine’s Day, which meant that the sales of roses, little bears and candy was also going on. (If there was anyone who was NOT tired at the end of the day, you must have either been on Red Bull, or you are NOT normal!)
Some were already setting up their booths at 12.30 pm. It was obvious that certain clubs had put in their heart and passion into making their clubs known, especially the Heart of Passion (HOP)! “I’m promoting HOP because it’s a really good cause. I also think the Culture Fusion Club is really great,” Cassendrah mentioned.
If you were to step outside of the Delta Theatre, the first booth that would most likely catch your eye is the club, TAYTECH. Headed by Aswin, their booth had LCD monitors, laptops, sound woofers… basically the name of the club said it all. “We’re planning on bringing in guest speakers with experience on IT to give talks, and lots more. We have a good response,” Aswin revealed.
Later at around 1.30 pm or so, more people were buzzing around outside the Delta Theatre, where more clubs were set up first. The momentum of the event was slowly picking up. As a pre-event question, this writer asked Mr. Rahul if there were too many clubs, and he replied, “Yes, I’d say there are, since some of the clubs’ objectives are overlapping, so we’ll decide what to do based on the response.” Moving on, the Tree Huggers Club put in effort to advertise their club by wearing green shirts. When asked why they named their club as such, the vice-president Arthur answered, “We ‘embrace’ the environment. And we ‘hug’ the trees to prevent them from being chopped down. It’s a passionate name.” Do you get it now?
People seemed to be quite excited, walking around, going from booth to booth. The Football Club had their booth right beside the Futsal Club, both which seemed to garner loads of attention from the guys. It was also appropriate that each of the presidents, their vices and helpers were all wearing football jerseys. The Model UN, already popularized, apparently had increased their number of members even further. “We’re doing pretty well and I’m very satisfied. There are so many interesting clubs here!” the president Isabell quipped.
And that’s true! There were many unusual clubs that were worth attention. One example is the Food Club. Amos was guarding the booth when I asked about their activities. (One can’t help wondering if all they do is eat) “We plan on making recommendations for students, rate restaurants and so on,” he said. Also, there was the Film Club. For those who don’t know, there is a difference between this club and the Theatre Club! According to Nigel, the Film Club was planning on watching movies, reviewing them, and organizing filmmaking competitions. The Theatre Club, however, is all about acting, and will produce a play possibly in the middle of the year, according to the president, Vishakan.
Even later, there was a Capoeira performance by a group of people from Bantus Capoeira Malaysia. “Capoeira” is actually a mix of dance and martial arts. They did a series of moves, one with sort of traditional music and the other with more upbeat music. The performers were so flexible! The show really impressed the crowd. One of the performers named Terry told me, “We started this group here in Malaysia a few years back. Bantus is actually an international Brazilian group. I was fascinated with capoeira when I first saw it and then decided to get involved.”
When the air of excitement had sort of ceased, I asked Ian, a senior, about his opinion on the event. “It was a success. The big clubs like TAYMUN, HOP and TAYTECH were amazing. The Capoeira performance was fantastic.” Others thought it was good and bad. “ECA Drive Day was quite successful. However some clubs like the Rugby and Music clubs were not attended to, so it makes it really hard to join them,” said Ezmir, a fellow senior. His last comment was echoed by Abby Ho, who remarked, “It was disappointing that some clubs didn’t turn up.” Regarding the preparation for the event, George Robinson stated, “It was smooth, but there was a lot of work. I thought it was a very organized event.”
So there you go. Some of you might not think too much of the ECA Drive Day, but I think most of you would agree that it was indeed an accomplishment. Before I end, I would like to apologize if your club wasn’t mentioned – one can’t possibly cover all 34 clubs listed that day! Thus I’d like to end with one person’s spot-on summary of the event (I shall not reveal his name to avoid being accused of biasness) – “It was a great event for students to pursue and consider their best interests.” And indeed, it was.
By SARAH LIM | Photos by CHEW TJIA HWEI and TAN KAY HWA
Thus, since it was THE BEGINNING, an extremely rare event auspiciously named “The Extra-Curricular Activities (ECA) Drive Day” was held.
Ironically, this special event was held on a day which was supposed to cause bad luck – Friday, the 13th of February. The preparation for this event seemed to be very precise – every club or society would have a booth set up in the Delta Theatre – and this is said because most clubs had flyers put up, videos on the LCD screens and publicity for their club spread by word of mouth. Also, it was the day before St. Valentine’s Day, which meant that the sales of roses, little bears and candy was also going on. (If there was anyone who was NOT tired at the end of the day, you must have either been on Red Bull, or you are NOT normal!)
Some were already setting up their booths at 12.30 pm. It was obvious that certain clubs had put in their heart and passion into making their clubs known, especially the Heart of Passion (HOP)! “I’m promoting HOP because it’s a really good cause. I also think the Culture Fusion Club is really great,” Cassendrah mentioned.
If you were to step outside of the Delta Theatre, the first booth that would most likely catch your eye is the club, TAYTECH. Headed by Aswin, their booth had LCD monitors, laptops, sound woofers… basically the name of the club said it all. “We’re planning on bringing in guest speakers with experience on IT to give talks, and lots more. We have a good response,” Aswin revealed.
Later at around 1.30 pm or so, more people were buzzing around outside the Delta Theatre, where more clubs were set up first. The momentum of the event was slowly picking up. As a pre-event question, this writer asked Mr. Rahul if there were too many clubs, and he replied, “Yes, I’d say there are, since some of the clubs’ objectives are overlapping, so we’ll decide what to do based on the response.” Moving on, the Tree Huggers Club put in effort to advertise their club by wearing green shirts. When asked why they named their club as such, the vice-president Arthur answered, “We ‘embrace’ the environment. And we ‘hug’ the trees to prevent them from being chopped down. It’s a passionate name.” Do you get it now?
People seemed to be quite excited, walking around, going from booth to booth. The Football Club had their booth right beside the Futsal Club, both which seemed to garner loads of attention from the guys. It was also appropriate that each of the presidents, their vices and helpers were all wearing football jerseys. The Model UN, already popularized, apparently had increased their number of members even further. “We’re doing pretty well and I’m very satisfied. There are so many interesting clubs here!” the president Isabell quipped.
And that’s true! There were many unusual clubs that were worth attention. One example is the Food Club. Amos was guarding the booth when I asked about their activities. (One can’t help wondering if all they do is eat) “We plan on making recommendations for students, rate restaurants and so on,” he said. Also, there was the Film Club. For those who don’t know, there is a difference between this club and the Theatre Club! According to Nigel, the Film Club was planning on watching movies, reviewing them, and organizing filmmaking competitions. The Theatre Club, however, is all about acting, and will produce a play possibly in the middle of the year, according to the president, Vishakan.
Even later, there was a Capoeira performance by a group of people from Bantus Capoeira Malaysia. “Capoeira” is actually a mix of dance and martial arts. They did a series of moves, one with sort of traditional music and the other with more upbeat music. The performers were so flexible! The show really impressed the crowd. One of the performers named Terry told me, “We started this group here in Malaysia a few years back. Bantus is actually an international Brazilian group. I was fascinated with capoeira when I first saw it and then decided to get involved.”
When the air of excitement had sort of ceased, I asked Ian, a senior, about his opinion on the event. “It was a success. The big clubs like TAYMUN, HOP and TAYTECH were amazing. The Capoeira performance was fantastic.” Others thought it was good and bad. “ECA Drive Day was quite successful. However some clubs like the Rugby and Music clubs were not attended to, so it makes it really hard to join them,” said Ezmir, a fellow senior. His last comment was echoed by Abby Ho, who remarked, “It was disappointing that some clubs didn’t turn up.” Regarding the preparation for the event, George Robinson stated, “It was smooth, but there was a lot of work. I thought it was a very organized event.”
So there you go. Some of you might not think too much of the ECA Drive Day, but I think most of you would agree that it was indeed an accomplishment. Before I end, I would like to apologize if your club wasn’t mentioned – one can’t possibly cover all 34 clubs listed that day! Thus I’d like to end with one person’s spot-on summary of the event (I shall not reveal his name to avoid being accused of biasness) – “It was a great event for students to pursue and consider their best interests.” And indeed, it was.
By SARAH LIM | Photos by CHEW TJIA HWEI and TAN KAY HWA
1 comments:
omg....so nice....