Scholarship Award to Woon Shuan in Singapore

Hard work paid off for Woon Shuan when he received an NP Merit Award from Ngee Ann Polytechnic in Singapore. This was from his Sec 4 year in ACS Barker Road in Singapore where he did his O Level examinations that qualified him for this award.

Here are his proud parents sharing the joy of the moment with Shuan

A teacher from ACS Barker Rd, Mr Tan Seck Heang was invited by Shuan as a VIP guest too.

A nice Hi Tea buffet was included in the Award Presentation event

Congratulations to Woon Shuan for this achievement as the under dog to his older brother's academic performance and winner of scholarships as recorded in a previous journal post

The Old Boys Network is strong in Singapore too

A few emails circulated around a week before the date for a dinner on Thursday 29th July in Singapore for an informal old school boys gathering and here are the pics for the night :

Gathered from left to right is me and my wife Geok Lee, Sim Seng, Sui Guan, Eric Lee Seng Kiong, Chee Hoo, Steven Chiam, Francis Tan and Bob Toh

Some late comers were Patrick Wong with his wife Shirley

Missing in the above photo is Chee Hoo who went to the Men's room

We found ourselves after dinner at the Padang area, site of the Formula One race and also the National Day parade as in the Padang in Kuala Lumpur

We sat on the VIP seats to enjoy the view from there.

 We sang our St John's "Oh When the Saints" cheer song too!

Just less than a week ago, on the previous Saturday of July 24th, some of us were present in Kuala Lumpur for the Memorial service of one of our old buddies, Terry Moe, who passed away in Hong Kong. You can view the photos of that gathering by clicking here

July 24th, Commemorating 2 Deaths and Celebrating 1 Birth

What a day to remember, July 24th! I'm not referring to Pioneer's Day in Utah which is an official public holiday there in the US state. It commemorates the entry of Brigham Young and the first group of Mormon pioneers into the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. It's about the fact that I participated in 2 sad events and 1 happy one all on the same day in Kuala Lumpur. Here are the photos and videos to reflect this day : Kee Saik Chuan, a friend from Church passed away :

Terry Moe Bing Tah, a friend from School passed away :

Robin Yap, a friend from the Toastmasters Club celebrated his birthday

( Robin is the birthday boy on the far right with face partially blocked)

In Memory of Terry Moe Bing Tah

The news of the death of Terry or Bing Tah, as we know him at school, in Hong Kong where he resides with his family, got to Malaysian friends who were in contact with his family. His wife, son, and daughter arranged the date of 24 July 2010 to have a memorial service in a temple in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur. This was assisted by an old schoolboy we know named Lambert mentioned in the video below.

The following are some photos and a video from that memorial service:

More photos of his memorial service held at Brickfields can be found here.

We remember Bing Tah as a sportsman in St John's and also always a positive and cheerful friend fellow Johannian:

He was into Soccer

Into Karate where I was also

Rugby

In Form 3/4 with Bro. Augustine. I was in Form 3/2, En. Sheik Mohd.'s class.

In Form 2/2 with Mrs. Cherry Tong while I was in Form 2/4 in Bro. Augustine's class

 

In Form 1/2, Mrs.Yoong Yan Ping's class, where Bing Tah and Baldev Singh are marked by the arrows who were known to be the two who passed away earlier than many of our other friends. Baldev passed away earlier after he was married in the 80s. Apparently, he died while trying to save his daughter riding a bicycle from being hit by a truck but lost his own life instead. We have such valiant souls with the Spirit of the Eagle!

In Memory of Kee Saik Chuan

Passing 22 July 2010

Bro Kee came back to Malaysia in the late 80s with a PhD in a very specialized and narrow field of biology from the US. He had joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a student there to come back to Kuala Lumpur and that is where I got to know him.

I had started my growing business in the field of information technology in the 80s and when he couldn't find employment at the local universities in his very specialized field, I offered him a new path in the computer field. As I had majored in Computer Science as a pioneer in 1977 at my university in Australia doing a business program majoring in Accounting too as my goal was to become a Chartered Accountant, which I had achieved. 

Now Bro Kee was an intelligent man, a scholar while I was a business graduate with a pure science background in middle or secondary school. I knew I could teach him what he needed to know as I had trained so many others with less education in many different fields that I seemed to have the knack of being able to learn and impart knowledge to others.

I had become an entrepreneur/consultant/leader in several different fields and eventually gave him an opportunity to take over my payroll software business after training him in every detail he needed to know about it. 

Our staff recreation trip to Port Dickson -

At a public exhibition -

Press coverage -

A Church trip to the Manila Temple -

My life really became very busy in what I had termed as the Body Mind Spirit domains of life. I had strategically moved the base of my family to Singapore in 2007 which primarily consisted of my wife and the four sons. Our oldest two daughters were overseas in US and one worked in China too.

In 2010 I was shuttling often between Singapore and Malaysia to receive shocking news while in Kuala Lumpur of the passing of Bro Kee. I rushed to the PJ Church in Newtown & his wife Choi Chan saw me and gave me a tight hug saying she thought I might not be at his funeral. I quickly responded I received a last-minute notice and would surely come though I was a bit late!

Beyond Expectation - 1st Anniversary Celebration of eXfuze Malaysia

From the time I first ventured to find out more about eXfuze in USA to celebrating it's 1st anniversary after it's soft launch in Malaysia, a lot of water has gone under the bridge as they say. Here is a brief chronology of events made up of written journals and photo albums : 23 Aug 2008 First it was a long trip to fly to Florida to visit the eXfuze office and meet it's founders. Fortunately Su was with me a long part of the journey. The trip was worthwhile as it brought results. 25 Mar 2009 Working with American companies, legal work is of prime importance and it took quite some time to finally get all the paper work finalized. 7 July 2009 A soft launch of eXfuze Malaysia and it's premier product SEVEN+ could take place with the set up of a warehouse office and the visit of the CEO Rick Cotton from the USA 27 Jan 2010 We had the pleasure of welcoming Paul Morris , the eXfuze VP for Sales and Marketing to Malaysia at an event in the eXfuze Resource Centre at Starhill Gallery in Kuala Lumpur. 16 July 2010 The following is a pictorial account of the anniversary event held on 16 July 2010 at Starhill :

I had the pleasure to kick of the evening's event with a welcoming speech.

Our VIP guests were seated in the front : L to R - CEO Rick Cotton, Celebrity Anita Sarawak and husband Mahathir, Caribbean Diamond Kaneko San It was Beyond Expectation to have Anita Sarawak and her husband Mahathir to share firm testimonies of our Seven + product and they had done this voluntarily without any payment from the company! Rick Cotton was the last speaker to address the warm audience After that contest prizes were given out in form of cheques.... ... or physical prizes like a handphone, net book and a notebook There were even prize winners of the SEVEN+ bottle New rank qualifications of distributors were also recognized The guests later enjoyed their dinner and mingled with each other

The Toastmasters group spotted celebrity Hannah Tan and took a group photo together. The Toastmasters known for their communication and leadership skills were invited as part of an eXfuze Community Outreach initiative. eXfuze Malaysia seeks to connect to other organizations and groups in the country who share similar good philosophies and practices of the company such as healthy living, leadership development and the heart of giving. The passion of Rick Cotton who started the VivaKids organization long before eXfuze was founded will see our support to needy children in the country as a percentage of every bottle sold of SEVEN+ goes to the VivaKids program. My interest in community & healthy living led me to announce that our eXfuze office in PJ will promote more bike riding in the PJ area especially. The reason for this is self explanatory with the photo below :

More on the Bicycle Story can be read here

July 4th in America

Today I’m at Church in Singapore for the fast and testimony meeting. Several testimonies were shared before me and one was from a young newly married couple who just returned from the Manti Temple in Utah,USA. Having just returned from our own daughter's wedding in Logan Utah, I was prompted to share my testimony of the gospel that is centered on love.

I mentioned of the time when I was a young adult living in KL and would come down to S’pore to attend Church seminars on marriage and families by Bro. AC Ho who was present in the congregation. I thanked him for setting the sights for us young adults at that time for the future.

I had continued in my life from there to raise my own familywith the goal to have a forever family with relationships that will last to the eternities. In the process of building my family in the gospel of love, I had also built many forever relationships with friends in and outside the Church, many of whom are from the USA.

Being July 4th today, I like to wish all our American friends Happy Independence Day and dedicate the video clip below that reflects the spirit of a country that leads the world today :

Postdated event (4 July 2013) : Apparently the above video clip of the Battle Hymn of the Republic July 4 version sung by the Mormon Tabernacle that looks at the history of America in the past 100 years is no longer available in youtube. I checked with other sources like here to see if it is available but it has also been removed from their site for reasons not stated.  I will therefore replace it with an older version below :