Total Eclipse

During our time at school, there was a burst of new sounds and shows on TV which in some way, came to define our glory days - the Grammy Award Show ('first-to-view' on Malaysian TV), which acquainted us to The Police and Bonnie Tyler; MacGyver; The A-Team; and many more. (Of course, I could talk about the rise of a new channel and how it has come full circle and how A-Team is re-running of the air, but this is not about that).
One song wiffed through my mind last Saturday evening, when 14 guys of our batch met over tea (kurang manis) and fried mee (dengan telur mata kerbau - cepat sikit, OK!?).

Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
(insert record scratch sound)

Eh, siapa ni, huh?

Takkan tak ingat?

Sekejap, jap.

Sama-sama kat sekolah kena tangkap ... (insert typical naughty schoolboy incident).

Ahh, OK, ... (insert school nickname)!

La, rupa kau dan lain la / La, rupa tak ubah sikit pun, macam dulu jugak.

Mintak business card.

(press Play again)
and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name

So to those who we haven't seen for ages, who have yet to surface, yes, do come around. Our troubles are all the same. We would forget for a moment, but we will remember forever.

Majlis Makan Malam STAROBA 2006

This is hot off the presses.

Ten of us from Batch86, namely Mansor, Che' Man, Zahir, Lul, Iran, Adlan, Yazit, Rozhan, Ainul Azam and yours truly joined the hundreds of Old Boys, teachers, students and friends of STAR in attending the STAROBA Dinner held Wednesday evening at Hotel Singgahsana, P.J.


Ainul Azam (L) with table head Mansor (R)


Lul (L) manages to squeeze in a quick SMS to his minions while Iran (M) and Adlan (R) study the menu


Yazit (L) and Rozhan (R) are mesmerised by the night's speeches


Cheman (L) and Zahir (R) arguing about whether Black or Yellow won the inter-house takraw semi-final of 1986

The theme of the dinner was "Ke Arah JUBLI EMAS 2007". The event was graced by STAROBA President Yang Berhormat Dato' Dr Awang Adek Hussin and numerous other dignitaries who proudly call STAR their alma mater.


The huge turnout

It was a rare opportunity for us Batch86ers to meet STAROBs of other batches. We met Atan's dad (En Yusoff Ahmad) and Kama's dad (En Muhammad Awang), the grand First Batchers, as well as lads too junior for us to remember. Being the "perasan muda" blokes that we were, we even mistakenly presumed that a bunch of guys who greeted us were our seniors (they were actually First Formers when we were in Form 5).


The massive panoramic photo of STAR at the back of the ballroom

A STAROBA gala dinner would not be complete without entertainment. The evening's music was provided by the DBKL band and Illa Sabry. Illa frequently performs at our dinners, and we should thank her for that. I'm sure it's not at all thrilling to sing in front of a crowd of old fogies who are more interested in catching up on old times rather than the entertainers.

Most of our group had to leave early at 11.00pm, whilst the party was still in full swing. Before calling it a night, we did manage to discuss some concrete plans for OBW2006. Bring back the pride, lads!!

Our kinda girl

I was bloghopping and wasting my time as usual doing some research when I found this gem of a blog posting. I thought you might enjoy reading it. It's even better than my old article that was copyright-infringed by MCOBA and Utusan and published in MCKK Impressions. It's still floating around on the Web. I won't give you the link. Google "MCKK" + "dickhead". Use some brain cells for a change.

Anyway, back to Lily and her posting. It's titled "The Aryan Malay" and here's an excerpt:

"Anyway, Koleq Boys can be found all over Renong and MCOBA (Malay College Old Buggers Association) Building. They wear their stupid red tie every Wednesday to proclaim the loss of their cherry after rugby when they were in Form 1.

The thing with dating a Koleq Boy is, you ended up hanging around other equally arrogant and ignorant people too."

TKCians get it too in her diatribe but of course you should always forgive repentant TKCians who are discerning enough to marry STARians.

Read it and have a good laugh. But don't blame me if you fall in love with her.

The pics are back from the shop

Here's a selection of photographs from meetings held recently:

Committee Meeting, January 6th
Meeting in STAR, January 14th
Star '86 Gathering, January 21st

You might be wondering what those pieces of paper with the numbers on them are. Back in the, well, old days, when light only struck silver halide crystals instead of silicone photosensors, and cameras where still relatively expensive for most students to own, only a few guys, sometimes just one, went around photographing every event that cropped up. Once the reel was finished, they would hand the film in to some Kedai Gambar for the pictures to be processed. Even in, well, my time in Ipoh, there were some titanic progress: the processing period went from a week, to a day; from shops that had to send them to a central processor, to having their own machines; from expensive to slightly less expensive. Ipoh being as it was then, you had to go into town to find these shops; TC (Taman Chempaka) came a bit later.

When the first set of pictures were returned, you will always get that small clear file booklet for you to place your pictures (and still like today in the era of half hour processing, the shop kindly lets you have the opportunity to fill it in yourself). Now the cameraman has to do 4 things:

1. Insert the pictures in the correct order, by looking at the filmstrip against the light (or the sun).
   
2. Tear a piece from an exercise book, cut them into small squares, number them, and insert them with the pictures matching exactly with the number on the filmstrip.
   
3. Tear another piece of paper from the exercise book, draw a table for names, and choice of pictures, and stick it to the back of the simple album
   
4. Pass the book around
   

From here on, one can write a treatise on the need of physical reminders, on the desire to have every photo that one is in, of the shuffling to be in every photo, on that strange pose of the upward glance away from the camera, on how different (or the same) this present day is with regards to photosharing, or on the general concept of young entrepreneurship. We could also follow the cameraman as he collects the cash, goes back to town and returns the prints to expectant wide eyed boys, but let's leave it at that.

But before you go, you might want to write down your pick of pics...

Rock You Like A Hurricane

We have already covered the topics on who could, and indeed should not, be invited to be the MC for OBW2006. The polls are running and no doubt the good people on the OBW2006 Committee or Dinner Sub-Committee will have started cracking their heads to pick their choice.

An important element for a successful OBW Dinner is the entertainment. Having been to only two OBW Dinners since leaving STAR, I am not in a position to give a meaningful historical analysis on these events. But the dinner shows on both times that I was there were, sadly, quite dreary. There were some live music, singers singing and dancers dancing … and the shows were over. The Dinners were enjoyable only because you could smoke with old friends on the School Ground and not have to worry your old teachers about it.

Perhaps what should be considered for OWB2006 Dinner are some top-notch acts who can entertain really well. We need those who can get the crowd going totally wild. We need those who can bring all of us back to the rock ‘n’ roll era, to the eardrum-piercing hard rock and to the oh-so-sentimental slow rock. We need those who were absolute icons to STARians from the early 70’s to the early 90’s and even now still command considerable respect from most STARians young and old. We need none other than the Scorpions.



However, we may not have the sort of budget to be able to afford the Scorpions. But may be we can pre-book Akademi Fantasia 4 Finalists to sing some Scorpions classics. Or Malaysian Idol ’06 Finalists.

Posted by J Giles

The new Staroba magazine

There is already much talk about the Batch '86’s bid to take over the production of the Staroba magazine /newsletter. Some heard about it for the first time when the Staroba President, Datuk Dr. Awang Adek announced this at this year’s AGM. Sorry for putting everybody collectively in hot soup.

You may already have received a copy of the one and only issue of the Berita Staroba published sometime in the middle of this year. The original plan was to publish 4 issues per year but as was reported in the Staroba annual report, this could not be achieved due to lack of funds. Nevertheless, many thanks to Fakhrul Annuar of batch 1990 for a remarkable solo effort in getting that single issue published.

Enter Batch '86 or actually the trio of Mansor, Zahir and Atan. Being the consummate entrepreneur that he is, Mansor broached the idea by saying that taking over the magazine would be a good enterprise. Combine the fact that we have a captive middle to high income audience with the fervor for writing that some of our batch members have, we do have a good thing going. At one point, we even considered the income of the new magazine as the major source of funding for OBW2006. But some other members politely pointed out that we should not get ahead of ourselves and just aim for the magazine to be self-sustaining.

Anyway, the President got wind of our intentions and one day summoned the trio to his office in Putrajaya. We explained the concept and he was fully supportive of the idea. The long and short of it was this venture is a win-win situation. Staroba gets a no-cost magazine, Batch 1986 can add one more feather in its cap and Starians have something decent to read on the crapper.

So here’s a summary of the project (expanded from a brief received from Zahir):

Mission

An attractive Staroba Magazine that Old Boys can be proud of.

Objectives

• To be self-sustaining in its production. No funding from Staroba. No RM50K advance from the President. No sympathy handouts from Old Boys. Just pure commercially driven sponsorship from businesses who regard the magazine as an effective advertising medium.
• To be a medium for disseminating news about events and issues concerning STAR and Staroba. This is a given. The usual reports on sports and other events will be retained.
  
• To add value to the Staroba and STAR brand. Other people need to know that Starians are successful, hard-working, intelligent, professional and good-looking. All these should be projected through the content of the magazine (and careful editing of the photos).
• To generate hype for OBW2006 and the golden jubilee celebrations. The attractiveness of an upcoming event is only as good as its hype. Of course we will have a blast for OBW2006 but we should also publicise this fact beforehand.
• To add value for sponsors of OBW2006. The sponsors want to get a good Return on Investment on their advertising ringgits. They will get ads in the magazine thrown in as part of the sponsorship package and this will reach a bigger audience than the actual attendees of OBW2006.

Content

So far in the mock issue (yes, there is one already) sections featured are:

• Articles related to Star, Starians and/or boarding school
• Personal experience articles written by Old Boys
• Interviews and insights of prominent Starians
• Staroba activities
• Sports results
• Updates of Old Boys
• Classified advertisements
• Miscellaneous departments of interesting nature

Method

• Batch ’86 will set up an independent division to concentrate of the production of the magazine.
  
• Staffing will initially start with batch ’86, but will slowly grow with staff and input from other batches and independent parties.
  
• Source of revenue will be from advertising, media and mailing related activities.
• The magazine will be used also to get support for the OBW’06 and Jubli Emas 2007.

Team

So far, volunteer writers are:

• Don
• Atan
• Zahir
• Azlan
• Jo
• Ma’e
• Kalut

If you find your name in the list without prior consent, just shut up and regard that as a compliment.

Frequency of publication

The magazine is planned to be issued every quarter. The first issue is targeted for January 2006.

OK guys, let’s get cracking – we’ve got a magazine to publish. Oh yes, the working title of the magazine is “School Ties”. We might even keep it.

Du’a or Don’t.

OK. Here. Holiest place. Pray. All requests welcome. So. OBW success? Pray? Why. Many people. Hindering. In front of me. Agggh. Patience. OBW success? Odd request. Think of. Types of events. Many events. Many people. Image flash. MC choice 1. No. I’m fasting. I’m fasting. Why did he pic blog it. I’m fasting. Patience. Should not waste. These cupped hands. Raised to heavens. OBW success? Has good intentions. Many people. Together. From everywhere. Image flash. MC choice 3. Aggggh. Internal mind’s eye. Burning. Why did he pic blog it. Focus. Focus. OBW success? Maybe not supplicate. Heh, good vocab. Arrogant. Don’t be. All requests welcome. Think of. The greatness. ONE. 1^st meeting. Kicked off. With du’a. Good move. Berkat. Has good intentions. OK. OBW success. May it be. Patience. Pray. Still. Need usaha. Focus. Lot’s of work. To be done. Pray. Done.

This 5-second inner turmoil was brutally exaggerated and stretched out in bullet time by a trained professional and should under no circumstances be attempted or duplicated by any individual.

Links

It appears MCKK Batch'86 have posted the Who'll be MC? entry on their blog portal. Pemes dah!! hahaha, yeh right - so which one of you guys blackmailed them into linking us?

Jejak Kasih

We still don't know where everyone is, unfortunately. As we try to get more participation, we have to search for long-lost friends, trying to find their phone numbers, which company they work for, and where they are living - for all you know, it's not much of a chore, and they might just be next door (or next to your Taman Perumahan). The conversation will roughly follow this pattern:

1. The stretched out name calling.

e.g. "Ooi, Maaaaaat, lama tak jumpa"

2. The unsureness, when familiarity has been lost to age, if you are actually of the same batch...

...despite being bunker mates (the double-decker beds of form 1, mind you), or same class, or band group, or co-curricular club which never actually did much, or being caught together by the disciplinary teacher.

3. Talking about the last time you met each other, which tends to be -

(a) Form 5 in school, 1986, which sadly is where most of us actually last met.

(b) University, if you went to the same one.

(c) The 10 year reunion during OBW 1996.

(d) A buka puasa or Raya gathering circa 2000+

(e) A trip to a night club which led to dubious after-activities, but due to embarassment, the sentence never quite finishes, leading back to mentioning a, b, c, or d.

3. The evitable mentioning of increase (or rarely, decrease) in size. Add the bit where you also mention that the other person used to be a sportsman, more pedas if he represented the state.

4. The bringing up of a trait which has long been left behind in STAR, such as a prominent piece of clothing like a rock t-shirt he never took off, or embarrassing behaviour like constantly waking up late. The target other will just meekly smile, internally screaming that he doesn't have it anymore. Such talk can be quickly recovered by...

5. ...the universal sharing of belittling somebody else in the batch, in simpler words, kutuk. Choose one who was the butt of jokes during school and still is, or perhaps a Canadian, or someone in (or head of) the news.

6. You proceed to matters about family, number of kids, whether you’ve “tutup kilang” or not, as well as finding out your sister is married to the other's wife's cousin.

7. Then talk about work, which usually starts off by one saying "Engkau kerja dengan XYZ lagi ke". This leads to a reply of a yes or, "Lama dah aku tinggalkan diaorang". Which also leads to either saying that he hated that job, or usually, hates the current job he's in and is looking for new opportunities.

8. If one of you mentions that you work for somebody prominent (unless you're the prominent one), the other guy will try to get the phone number or ask to have a meeting with your boss. Being entrepreneurial, people do try to get any leads they can get, can't fault anyone trying to rise up in this cut-throat world.

AND finally, saying

9. "Eh, batch kita organise 2006 punya Old Boy Week kan?"

10. And, without much talk about what personal effort can be given (OK, maybe some, but this is what tends to happen) is quickly ended by ...

"Kita patut mintak tolong [the head of the Certain Private Television Network] organise karnival masa tu".

The sorry state of STAR's internet presence

Google is undoubtedly the most powerful search engine on earth. Google your name and you'll get at least one or two relevant hits - it's THAT comprehensive. It was thus VERY depressing when I got the results of my Google searches for our school's name:

• For 'STAR Ipoh', Result No.1 was a hotel website and NONE of the results on the first page were relevant to our alma mater.
• For 'Sekolah Tuanku Abdul Rahman STAR Ipoh', Result No.1 was a Wikipedia entry on Ipoh in general, where STAR was mentioned, together with ACS, SMI, etc as one of the schools in town.
• The worst result was for 'Sekolah Tuanku Abdul Rahman' - Result No.1 was on the first Agung, highlighting that he went to school in MAKTAB MELAYU KUALA KANGSAR!!!!
  
  

On not ONE of the 3 searches could I find a website dedicated to STAR on the first page result. What is this?! It's as if we don't exist in cyberspace, and in 2005, that's a very bad thing indeed.

It's granted that because the words 'Sekolah', 'Tuanku', 'Abdul' and 'Rahman' are so common, a lot of irrelevant results would be shown. However, if there were a proper STAR website that got a lot of hits, it would surely turn up as the first result on a Google search.

In a few days or weeks, obw2006.blogspot will be No.1 on the same Google searches, no doubt about it. But this is just a blog, dedicated to ONE event organised by ONE batch of the school. In all humility, it hardly deserves to be the torch-bearer for the school in cyber space.

What can we do about it, chaps? The situation should not be allowed to persist going into our golden jubilee.

Ho(s)tel

At the recent OBW 2005, old boys returning to Ipoh were put up at several of Ipoh's luxurious hotels - Syuen, Casuarina and Excelsior. The 4/5 star hotels had well-appointed rooms and various facilities and amenities to cater for your every need. For OBW 2006, we will most probably make arrangements with the same hotels for returning old boys, at their own expense, of course.

But let's take a minute to reflect on WHY we actually go to the reunion. The OBW is meant to be a time to meet old friends & teachers at the school as well as re-live old times through reminiscences and physical experiences. In this regard, wouldn't you think it's somewhat cheating if, after the Grand Dinner, you go back to sleep in your king-sized bed with Dreamland mattress in a climate-controlled air-con room? Why don't old boys sleep at the school? Now, I know this may be a hard-sell, especially to those of us who have become accustomed to the good life, but I think with the right marketing strategy and product spin, STAROBs will be falling over themselves to stay at the dorms.

So, without further ado, gentlemen, I present for your consideration my brochure for The Ho(s)tel STAR 6 Seasons!

Accommodation
The Ho(s)tel STAR 6 Seasons has arguably the largest bedrooms in any hotel or resort in the world. We call them staterooms. Studies have shown that the single traveller often feels lonesome when in a new and unfamiliar bedroom. The Ho(s)tel STAR 6 Seasons has solved this problem by thoughtfully putting 20 guests in one stateroom.

Satisfied guest surveying an airy stateroom

Luxury beds

Never worry about your bedmate's stray arm or leg hitting you in the middle of the night. The Ho(s)tel STAR 6 Seasons provides every guest with one single, 7’x3' bed each so you have your own private sleeping space. Sedap brand mattresses are used to give crucial back support - you'll feel as if you are floating on sponge. If it's Sedap, how can it be "tak sedap"?

In-room dining
While other hotels only offer tea & coffee making facilities in-room, The Ho(s)tel STAR 6 Seasons provides all guests with a combination water boiler, instant-noodle cooker and cigarette lighter to meet all their cooking/smoking needs:


When it's time to dine, why use bone china when you can have the finest multi-purpose plastic receptacles?

The Chez Bok

The Chez Bok can be used to cook and eat your Mamee or Maggi instant noodles (mee sold separately at the Ho(s)tel’s gift shop, Le Ko-op). When nature calls a few hours later, the Chez Bok doubles as your own portable bidet (The Ho(s)tel STAR 6 Seasons is a staunch supporter of sustainable logging and thus does not supply toilet paper to guests).

Spacious attic

The Ho(s)tel STAR 6 Seasons is perhaps the only hotel in the world that provides attic storage, with easy access, for all guests. The attic also doubles as a Panic Room, when guests wish to avoid that irritating certain someone in a hurry.

Recreational facilities
The Ho(s)tel STAR 6 Seasons has a combination football-sepak-takraw court / badminton hall / hurdles track at all ground-floor staterooms. The sturdy railing-net eliminates the possibility of the net/hurdle being torn or knocked down, ensuring a longer and more robust game.

Arrows show trajectory of the ball/shuttlecock/hurdler

Traditional massage
Old boys Bagak* and Mary* have generously offered free massage services to all STAROBs staying at the Ho(s)tel – all they ask is to be alone with you in the massage room, and that they be the ones who choose their clients. Bagak and Mary have distinct massage styles, one strong and aggressive, the other gentle and passive. We’ll leave you to find out who gives which type!

Rates
As the The Ho(s)tel STAR 6 Seasons only opens for 2 nights in a year, places are limited. Beds will be auctioned off on eBay at a reserve price of RM300 per pax per 3D/2N package. Only the privileged few will be able get rooms. Don't lose out - bid well, and bid high!

Notes and disclaimers:

* Fictitious characters. Any resemblance or similarity in name to anyone living or dead is unintentional and purely coincidental. i.e. If you're one of the hundreds of guys whose nickname is Bagak or Mary, jangan perasan - we're not talking about you!)

Who'll NOT be MC

Pleeeeease do not get Amran Tompel again. For those who were there for OBW 2005, I am sure you cringed as much as I did. Before I carry on with my diatribe, here’s a short resumé of Mr Amran Tompel:

• A.R. Tompel’s son.
• A.R. Badul’s brother.
• Acted in numerous Badul-directed flops (notably Tak Ori Tapi OK which cost RM1 Million to make but only earned RM300K in the box office).

Based on this glorious career history and conections, he found his way into emceeing the grand dinner this year. Fingernails scratching a blackboard. You get the idea……

I could imagine his thoughts when given the assignment (if he even was capable of having any):

“Sekolah Tuanku Abdul Rahman ….Sekolah STAR…. Star Wars.... ini modal bagus untuk buat joke ni…….”

“Bapak aku pemes….. cerita bapak aku dulu ngorat Saloma menarik jugak ... lepas tu aku usik Azian Mazwan Safuan pasal aku datang dari keturunan orang banyak bini.... sure diorang tergelak terbahak-bahak...”

”Joke lama abang aku daripada Bakat TV tahun 1975 pun mesti meletup .....”

“Diorang ni banyak veteran ... kalau nyanyi lagu ‘My Way’ mesti diorang suka...”

On that last count I wasn’t sure whether we were supposed to laugh or be serenaded when he did his heart-wrenching rendition of the Ol' Blue Eyes classic. Anyway thank you Mr Amran Tompel for such a hilarious and entertaining evening. NOT!

now, everyone can comment

(with a nod to Air Asia)

I've disabled the "registered users only" function for the comment box. We figured that there may be many who want to leave a few words but do not have a Blogger account.

So fire away; both brickbats and bouqets will be published. The only stuff we'll delete are obscenities, spam and anything from a malay collegian. Ha ha just kidding, we won't delete the obscenities.

But seriously, anyone may comment. Please. If you don't have a Blogger profile, the default is Anonymous, so just sign off at the end of the message if you wish.

Who'll be MC?

...as in "Master of Ceremonies", not "Malay College" (boooo).

OK, I realise that this blog starts off assuming... sorry... PREsuming that everyone knows what's going to happen next year. Actually, the blog is not meant to be a detailed website on OBW 2006 (there are plans for another dedicated site), but a journal tracking the preparations for the weekend. As such, finer details on the event may or may not be posted here (but they will definitely be published somewhere and even if it's not on obw2006.blogspot, we'll have links to it).

In the spirit of blogging, this blog is meant to be an alternate site; a fun chronicle of the organisers' journey. It's all part of raising awareness for OBW2006 amongst our batch and other STARians. Perhaps junior batches may even use it as a guide for what (and what NOT) to do when organising future OBWs. At the very least, it'll be something that we can read and look back on with fondess in the years to come: nostalgia fodder, in a nutshell.

On to the subject matter of this posting...

One of the things we discussed at our meeting on Saturday was whom we could get to host the weekend's events. It was agreed that the host's duties would extend beyond emceeing the Grand Dinner: he/she would be conducting events for the greater part of the Main Day (which normally falls on a Saturday).

In this regard, a couple of names were bandied about, and it was not at all surprising that they belonged to hot babes (it IS a "boys" weekend after all):

Candidate No.1: Marion Caunter


You may know Marion as one of the hosts of 8tv's Quickie, the short programme that acts as a kind of filler between prime-time shows. According to the NST, Marion has English, Portugese and Chinese blood and is a Penang girl. She had been voted as one of FHM's sexiest women of the year. She also looks good in a baju kebaya (I know this because the theme of TV3's kad raya, which I received last year, was Artis-artis Cun Memakai Kebaya), but that is besides the point. How good will she be as a MC? None of us who attended the meeting had ever seen her perform "live". She seems quite chirpy and bubbly on TV, but that may not be a good enough indicator of how she will be on stage, especially in front of hundreds of wolf-whistling, infantile, testosteroney schoolboys (and we're not even talking about the kids currently enrolled at the school).

Candidate No.2: Daphne Iking


Daphne's the host of TV3's Explorace series. She's a Sabahan, and believe it or not, went to school in Canterbury in Kent (apa lagi Kama, great potential for pick-up lines there). Now, with Daphne, some of us at the meeting actually did get to see her in action at corporate events and apparently, she was excellent. If she can fend off buaya directors and cranky reality-show contestants, I'm sure she can handle STAR boys with ease.

So who shall it be? It is purely coincidental that both of the girls are attached to a Certain Private Television Network, but hey, we don't see any difficulties in getting either of them to do our gig (we'll pay lah, of course: we don't want to abuse our relationship with Management of Certain Private Television Network). Based purely on track record, the clear choice of those at the meeting was Daphne Iking. What do YOU think? Comments please!

Of course, if we can't get Iking due to scheduling conflicts, there's always I.King:


:D

SPAM!

The blog is hardly a few days old and we ALREADY have spammers on the comment box.
Measures have to be put in place to stop this. Unfortunately, that means more steps before your comment can appear on the blog.

Don't blame me - kill the spammers :(

Inaugural Meeting

The journey of a thousand miles begins with but one step. And so it was on the afternoon of Saturday, 1 October 2006 that a band of brothers from the class of 1986 assembled at the Kelab Golf Negara Subang for some food, reminiscing, and most importantly, to kick off preparations for STAR's Old Boys Weekend 2006.

The group of STAR boys who sat for their SPM in 1986 have been tasked with organising next year's annual celebratory reunion of ex-students that is known as the Old Boys Weekend (OBW for short). "Hang on, it's hardly been a month since OBW 2005 was held", some of you may say. To that, we say, there's nothing like striking when the iron is still hot. In fact, some previous batches had begun collecting funds a couple years before their turn came.

The meeting started with lunch at the Golfer's Terrace at 1.00 pm. Yours truly came slightly late at around 2.00 pm, and wasn't surprised to find out everyone had straggled in at different times anyway. After a hearty meal of local hawker delights (how much do we owe you, Atan?), we adjourned to one of the seminar rooms to commence the meeting proper.

I shan't go into the details of what were discussed - that's what the Committee's Secretary is for, isn't it Zahir? Suffice it to say that plans were laid out, funding strategies drwan up and sub-committees formed. Representatives were appointed from the group who attended the meeting as well those who were absent - keep checking the Yahoogroups to find out your duties!

What struck me personally was how committed and enthusiastic everyone was about the forthcoming event. Monen drove down, alone, all the way from Kuale Kangsor for gosh's sake.

Zahir made full use of the meeting room's sliding whiteboards and flipcharts to create a multi-tiered, multi-layered battle plan. Nadzif set up a mini I.T. communications hub, complete with 2.6 MBps wifi hookup (as well as free ringtone and photo download service, to boot). If we can keep up the energy, lads, OBW 2006 is sure to be a blast.

The meeting ended at around 5.30 pm when most of the attendees had to adjourn to attend to various personal matters. All in all, we had a very fruitful discussion indeed.