Bloggers Invited By Federal Government

Received an invitation from the Ministry of Federal Territories last week to be present for the Blog4FT campaign which was to be held at Pavilion KL on Monday.

I did question the person who invited me as I was wondering how did he obtain my email address and how did he get to know that I was a blogger. You know what I mean when you receive an email from the Federal Government people.

Found out that he was the Special Officer to the Minister too. A small world indeed when my colleague told me he knew this guy after reading the email invitation for this event.

Took leave on Monday and ran around to settle some stuff for the new house and rushed back to shower prior to departing for Pavilion KL. Quite a jam along Jalan Sultan Ismail after exiting Smart Tunnel. Arrived at the centre of Pavilion and saw that it was filled with chairs in view of the launching of the Blog4FT campaign.

The shopping centre was beautifully decorated with Kolam designs in anticipation of the forthcoming Deepavali festival on 17 Oct 2009.

Back to the campaign. What's the campaign about?

The Ministry is engaging bloggers and traditional media to write about stuff / happenings in the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Labuan.

Browse through the dedicated website for this event itself, Blog4FT. Are you game for it? A blogging competition is being held and the Ministry actually encourages you to blog positively and promote FT indirectly.

It's opened to anyone divided into four categories, namely:-
* Malaysian Public - This category is open to all Malaysian citizens except those that fall under the Malaysian Media or the Junior Categories.

* Junior - This category is open only to Malaysian citizens below the age of 18 as at 31 December 2009.

* Malaysian Media - This category is open to employees of Malaysian Media Companies registered with the Malaysian Government.

* International - This category is open to non-Malaysian citizens.

I found that this is a good move indeed as this Ministry is trying to build good rapport with the bloggers instead of threatening bloggers as done by another ministry (which do not deserve my mention).

Registered my goodself upon arrival and was told that the event may begin around 3.15pm. My guess was correct. The little delay to the start of the event attended by big shots was expected.

Don't know how many bloggers were invited but felt privileged to be one of the bloggers.

While waiting for the event to begin, I dropped by at Dome cafe which was located just besides the event area. Made full use of the RM5 voucher (part of the door gift) and ordered a Tiramisu cake (a blogger has forgotten to take picture of his food?!?!??!). After deducting the RM5, the cake cost me RM9.95.

The arrival of the special guests was welcomed by a group of drum instruments performers. Can't take a picture as they were seated on the other end of the stage. You get to see different races playing their own drums (must learn the names of those drums) and they were able to rhyme it beautifully.

The Minister, YB Dato' Raja Nong Chik, gave a short speech telling us that he just got the hang of the internet and high technology era because of pressures from his kids.

After much persuasion from his kids (not those in kindergarten mind you but teens), he caught up with it really fast and is now known as the Facebook Minister in the Cabinet for having a thriving Facebook account.

Sadly and maybe unfortunately, the Ministry of Federal Territories' website is not updated and bearing in mind that the event was organised by the same ministry, they should have taken more responsibility in updating the name of the Minister. It's still showing the previous Minister's name and the previous organisation chart ......... tsk tsk tsk.

C'mon, please update your website.

At the end of the speech, a number of guests were called to the stage to press a button I supposed and it initiated a "biometric scanner". That's what it says at the screen behind them.

Thereafter, a short skit was presented by five individuals depicting how they were brought up in FT since young and what FT was to them.

At the closing of the event, representatives from the Ministry, organiser, sponsors stood at stage for a photo session.

The event (especially the blogging competition's prizes) was sponsored by some large Malaysian companies.









Walked up to the 4th floor to take this picture of the event area.















Could see a better effect of the Kolam design from up there.
Tags: Blog4FT, Ministry of Federal Territories, Pavilion KL, Kolam Design, Deepavali, Raja Nong Chik

Christmas Community Lunch for 1,000

Exactly one year ago, we embarked on a five christmas dramas that zapped our strength away. One year later, our church, Praise City Church, decided to do something different.

Why not do something for the community? The last I heard from the organising people (didn't contribute this round as I was away in Sudan) was invitations should be sent out to old folks homes & orphanages and bring the people for our Christmas celebration.

We had been doing various stuff (that was also done with much stamina and zeal) for our own church members' eyes all these years and we ventured to try something not done before .............. a big challenge.

Out comes the idea of the Christmas Community Lunch. The target was to bring in 1,000 people for the function.

Praise God that we obtained approvals from the Royal Malaysian Police and City Hall Council as we would be having the event on the frontage road and the empty land facing our church.

Every church members did their best and everyone put in their efforts in getting various issues settled, arranged and organised.

All in all, we managed to sell all the 1,000 tickets - 100 tables that is. We want people to feel happy during this year end festive season. Those who will be attending the function at 11am (later on), will be part of the church's history.

Maybe one day we can try feed the 5,000????

I was at a relative's christmas party in Bandar Sri Damansara and went to church after the dinner.

Lots of people were there to arrange all the tables/chairs and decorate the outdoor stage.

The guys & girls who were decorating and preparing the outdoor stage were really enjoying themselves ...... their laughter fills the air.

Altogether there were 28 big white tents that covered all the 100 tables along the stretch of road.

Can't show much with the lack of light but it was a long stretch of tables.

The church entrance, for once, was empty as the event will be held outside.

This Nigerian brother was doing the dirty work where nobody would know. He scooped water out of the sitting area so that people will have a clean place to sit tomorrow morning.

Well done brother ....... your tough work is not in vain at all.

What did I do? I ensured that his unnoticed work didn't go unnoticed by taking this picture that took quite long as light was so dim and with a mere camera phone .......... took quite long to find the right moment of lighting from passing cars' headlights.

Final planning / instructions / things to look out for tomorrow morning by the core group.

All the supervisors supervising each other's work sitting down ............. no wonder it took us till midnight to finish our work.
Tags: Praise City Church, Christmas 2008, Christmas Community Lunch, Christmas Celebration

Leadership Summit in Seremban

Two weekends ago, during the Deepavali holidays, I was in Seremban attending a leadership summit.















My identification card plus the programme book that has the various speakers' outlines and for you to write notes.














The musicians, with the keyboardist and drummer from my church, the rest were their good friends.
Dancers from the Christian Dance Fellowship of Malaysia presented us with two dance numbers. Fantastic movements. Made me itch and the thought of me doing it ain't hard ........







The second day of the summit ended around 5pm plus and four of us in one car decided to hunt for the infamous Seremban Siew Pow. We went round and round the small Seremban town but can't seem to see it. Last resort, called friends who originated from Seremban to locate the shop. Found one behind the Maybank branch but it has sold all their siew pows for the day.

Called our friend again and he said that there's one more near the toll exit. This is a real challenge but the signboard directing us to it was big enough even though it was across the road.

Finally we saw it. This shop frontage is actually facing the North-South Highway.

I got Seremban origin fellas questioning me why do I like. Some of them don't purposely go out of the way even though it was located in their own town. Out of town people reacts differently, I supposed.


They have various food products and the fillings for the siew pow could be chicken or pork. It was already late afternoon and I think we were getting the sort of leftovers.













Got myself a box of siew pows and two different kinds of honeycomb biscuits (sak khe ma in cantonese and if you decipher that three words or can't understand, sorry lah. FYI, it's my favourite).

Related post - Global Leadership Summit at Malaysia

Tags: Global Leadership Summit, Seremban, Christian Dance Fellowship of Malaysia, Seremban Siew Pow, North-South Highway

Hugo Boss Has New Product Name

This brand name of Boss Babi is found in China's departmental stores. Could this be Hugo Boss' latest brand name for their handbags.
The word Babi in my malay language is actually pig. The animal pig is somehow off limit to the muslims. I guess this handbag section is non-halal then ........ hehe but maybe not. Co-incidentally it was named as such but the material couldn't have been sourced from the pigs.

Be careful when you purchase this as a present for your lady boss as you wouldn't want to insult her with brand name of Boss Babi = Pig Boss!

This Boss Babi brand is owned by Guangzhou Lankai Leather Development Co Ltd and they produced various types of high end leather goods. If you are interested to market their goods, give them a call as they are looking for joint-venture partners. But I think this products won't make it in Malaysia and Indonesia for sure.
Tags: Boss Babi, China, Hugo Boss, Guangzhou Lankai Leather Development Co Ltd, Leather Goods

I’m Going Silent this Halloween with Nokia XpressMusic

Nuffnang, my blog advertising company, has creatively thought of another themed night event for bloggers. This time it's known as the Nuffnang Nokia Silent Halloween. What a long name for the event. Who cares anyway ...... as long as you get to go.

No doubt Nokia is the official sponsor this time with Universal Music Malaysia ("UMM") joining the fray as the official music sponsor. The venue - Borneo Baruk Club yet again ..... fantastic place indeed.
When I read about the event, I was curious about the words "Silent Halloween". How in the world is it going to be silent when all this frightening 'monsters' are supposed to frighten you out of your daylight ....... night in this case. They are going to have the first ever Silent Dance Party????!!!!?!?!?!?!?! When you have the UMM coming in as the official music sponsor, how can it be silent? Something wrong somewhere ...........

I think I have to fly over to Hawaii to learn more about the Silent Dance thingy. There is this centre by the name of Silent Dance Center. They better teach me the right silent moves.

When we are invited (hopefully I'll be invited. not easy lah in order to get the invitation as need to blog interestingly), we'll be given some music tracks to be downloaded into our mobile phone or any other mobile music devices. So, I suspect we have to bring along that gadget that has those downloaded songs for the night event. And we will, individually, dance according to those music that has been downloaded????? What if each person gets a different song? We could see mayhem on the dance floor.

Better still if I have one of those Nokia XpressMusic mobile phones. I knew that it will be given away as prizes but would be good if it was used to downloaded those music for the event as it's manufactured for such purpose as well. Perhaps my body will move according to the downloaded scary music or eerie sound.

Not only you get to attend the event but Nuffnang will be preparing prizes for the Best Dressed in Silent Halloween and Best Silent Dancer Prize. I think I could think of the dressing easily this time. It will be extraordinary, different from the rest hahahahahaha ........ in the halloween arena, that character is the most feared ..... supposedly lah.

As for the dancing part, we'll see.
Tags: Nuffnang, Nokia, Nuffnang Nokia, Nokia XpressMusic, Silent Halloween, Trick Or Treat, Event, Borneo Baruk Club, Universal Music Malaysia, Silent Dance Party, Nokia IAC Bands, Independent Artists Club

PCC 20th Anniversary Dinner

At last after all the preparations for the last two to three months, efforts were not in vain. The committee headed by Christy Yeong managed to gather 430 people for this grand dinner held at Bukit Jalil Golf & Country Resort.
The youth team performed their fast dance that has a short hip hop step in between.
Our African contingent performed their songs too. Later this same group back up for our Senior Pastor's song.
One of our committee members managed to bring in this (what you call those white blown up plastic stuff) that made so much of noise that you can't hear anything else. Imagine the noise made by 430 people in a ballroom ........ deafening indeed and people of all ages actually enjoyed banging that two blown up plastic stuff.



It ended just 10.30pm and it was a memorable event while I lost out in an auction for a t-shirt signed by all our Malaysian badminton players during the Beijing Olympics. It would have been a good collection.

Related post - PCC 20th Anniversary
Tags: Praise City Church, 20th Anniversary, Bukit Jalil Golf & Country Resort

Selected as AMBP Travel Ambassador

Was invited by Star newspaper to attend an event for the launching ceremony of a travel tool (domestic travel) administered by Mayflower ACME Tours Sdn Bhd ("Mayflower"). This travel tool, found in AllMalaysia.info and Mayflower's websites, shall make your holiday planning much easier. The travel tool will assist in booking flight tickets, accommodations, cars and tour packages.

In this travel tool, it will publish write-ups by bloggers on various local holiday destinations so that travellers will know what to expect. What bloggers? These bloggers are known as Travel Ambassadors.

I was selected by Star's All Malaysian Bloggers Project ("AMBP") after applying to become one of their Travel Ambassadors. AMBP has selected forty bloggers out of two hundred plus applicants. Thanks to Star for selecting me. Now I get to blog for a publication as well. Who told me that blogging was a waste of time? It's payback time now.

For a start, we were given Mayflower's Privilege Card, two vouchers for 2 days/1 night hotel stay at Terengganu and Sabah beaches respectively and limo transfers to/fro KLIA.

Michael Aeria, COO Multimedia, Star Publication gave an opening speech, followed by Mayflower's GM, Chin Ten Hoy.

Michael said one sentence which I will remember - we (Star) view bloggers as our partners, not as rivals! Solid statement coming from a mainstream media.
Datuk Rashid Khan, the commercial director of Malaysia Airlines was there too to grace the event. Michael, Chin and Rashid were actually putting their hands onto a button visualised on the white screen to imitate pressing a button to start a video clip.

Got to know some bloggers in the process. From left - Quachee, Thomas Yap, Soon Seng, Hurley, Teckiee and Samantha Poh.
We were treated to a buffet dinner and the same group of us sat at the cafe chit chatting till 9pm. What a start! We even got the AMBP Editor, Michael Fredericks, to sit with us talking about the Travel Ambassador programme. Got to know Tammy who was seated beside the editor.





We are excited about the programme. We will be getting all fully-paid holidays to local destinations at the expense of Star/Mayflower where in turn, we shall do a write-up on our travel experience.

It won't be restricted to travels alone but we will be invited to festival events, cultural events and food promotions too. All this in return for write-ups. What's so hard about it? It's all fun.

Reading: Holiday planning made easy - Star
Tags: AMBP, All Malaysia Bloggers Project, Travel Ambassador, Event, Star, Mayflower, Mayflower ACME Tours Sdn Bhd, Travel

Duty at Roy Durman's Healing Crusade

The musicians getting themselves into the mood with the worship singers (in white) getting ready. On Saturday and Sunday evenings, I was assigned the duty of being a counsellor. In between, still managed to squeeze a few shots.
Service started with praise and worship and followed by announcements of various events / happenings.
This Indian lady's legs were weak when she came and through God's healing power, she managed to walk on stage to show God's strength upon her.








These are the people that came up for healing on the deaf and dumb situation.















A few people were chosen by Roy Durman to go up on stage for healing of their deaf and dumb situation.









People that fell under the power of God.
















This was Patrick Leong (left) who came to sing two songs before we started the healing crusade on Sunday evening.














There were the people that came went up on stage for healing on their backbones / slip disc / sclerosis.

Related post - Roy Durman's Healing Crusade
Tags: Roy Durman, Healing Crusade, Patrick Leong, Praise And Worship, Deaf And Dumb, Sclerosis, Slip Disc, Healing Power

PCC 20th Anniversary

With my church's 20th Anniversary Dinner approaching (on 21 Sept), preparations to get certain things done have to be rushed. One of them being the videos in bringing you certain memories or trying to highlight other things. The forthcoming dinner has a sports theme. The stuff we do will be related to sports too.
Some came early and waited at the church office.











When everyone was there, we lighted up the torch. Yeah, we had our own too. Playing the same tune with the on-going Beijing Olympics.













Our director on the right and the wise videoman.

Real run for our torch bearer with his accompanying runners. The videoman's hand was sticking out of the moving car.
Ooooooops!!!! Ran out of burning stuff before the end of our video shooting.
The rest of the crews. Toiling under heavy drizzle on a Saturday afternoon.
This two ladies were afraid of getting wet .......











Noticed this dead rat on the railings. Then some just realised they were resting on this railing earlier ...... yucks!

I have taken lots of photos but cannot release it for more will be revealed in the forthcoming dinner. Cheers!
Tags: PCC, Praise City Church, Anniversary Dinner, Sports Theme