Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Annual Dinner 2008

President’s Speech
Dr Lim Choon Yang
21st Annual Reunion Dinner
31st October 2008

Good evening fellow alumni

How are you doing?

This is the first opportunity for me to address you in person as the new President of the SHS Alumni Association of Kuching. It is my very great pleasure to say Welcome back to the great Sacred Heart Alumni Reunion Dinner!

I have long been impressed by the vital and challenging work that the Alumni is called upon to perform. Like they say, the real proof is in the pudding, and the pudding in this institution is the body of Sacred Heart old boys and old girls, if I may call you that, many of whom are distinguished individuals in society.

Indeed, I must say I am proud to be one of you.

I have a special guest to introduce to you tonight, and she is Irene Tiong who has just flown in this morning from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia in KL. Irene, where are you? Can you please stand up and show yourself, please? Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, please give her a big round of applause to show that we welcome her to our Annual Reunion Dinner. Irene scored 4As last year after she lost her mother just before her STPM. Her mother was the family’s sole bread winner. We have helped Irene financially, and today she is doing her first year business program at UKM, partly sponsored by our Alumni under our Needy Student’s Fund.

If you would remember, the other old student sponsored by us under the Fund is Marry Soon who is now in final year in Segi College, KL doing a twinning business degree with a UK university. Marry is under a scholarship from Segi College, thanks to the generosity of Dato Clement Hii.

Now, I have a whole of people to say thank you to tonight.

First of all, I must thank Mr Vincent Lau, a senior old boy, for accepting our invitation to be our patron for tonight’s dinner function. He has kindly given us a generous contribution to our alumni fund.

As part of our reaching out program, we have invited 20 students from our school to be here with us. I understand that they have spent many hours practising for their performance for tonight’s function. I would like to thank the students for their efforts. Now students, where are you? Please show your hands and make some noise. Yes, there they are. Thank you.

Mr Vincent Lau, thank you again for your generosity in sponsoring the travelling and lodging expenses of the 20 students, on top of having made a handsome contribution to the alumni association.

Thank you to Dato Clement Hii for making a contribution to the Alumni to sponsor the special life-time service awards which we are going to present Brother Adrian and Brother Albinus tonight.

To my old classmate, Datuk Idris Abdullah, also known to us simply as Das Murthy, thank you for sponsoring the cost of travelling of our teachers.

To Mr Thomas Ngu Sing Hieng of Instacom Engineering Sdn Bhd for contributing towards the Needy Students’ Fund every year. Thomas is giving RM3,000 each to Marry Soon and Irene Tiong every year.

Thank you to Mr George Then of Maybank and Mr Dennis Lee of Boulevard Hypermarket, SSF Shipping Sdn Bhd, and Bukit Young Goldmine Sdn Bhd for sponsoring our lucky draw prizes.

To Mr Lepo Lee of Lee’s Music Centre, a big thank you for the nice guitar which will go to the lucky winner of the grand lucky draw afterwards.

We are most grateful to the big-hearted advertisers for their generous support in placing advertisements in our souvenir magazine. Their advertisement fees will be of very great help to our alumni, as every year, funds are required to support our various activities.

We have many people here tonight.
People of different ages.
People with different interests.
People of different aspirations.

And we are all here because we share a common interest, that is, our beloved Sacred Heart School.

We have benefited from our Sacred Heart Education, we should ensure that the current students also benefit from their time in the school. As we encourage our students to reach beyond and take responsibility for their learning, they will need counseling, mentoring and support from the teachers and also the alumni.

I was at the School Speech Day on Monday this week, and I had to give a speech to give some encouragement the students. Boy, that was a difficult job. But it was very enjoyable. The reception ceremony was grand, and the state of preparedness of the school for the function was perfect and impeccable. The warmth of the staff and teachers was very reassuring and the cheerful smiles on the students’ faces were most infectious and refreshing. Dato Clement Hii was the guest of honour, and he sponsored most of the prizes. Both Sacred Heart School Old Boys Association and our Alumni also sponsored some prizes.

After the function, I saw some of the students crowding around Councillor Robert Lau, the President of SHOSA, to ask for some advice and guidance on some project. Apparently, he is the student advisor for that project.

Unfortunately, since we are not in Sibu, we would not be able to do similar things for the school and the students. But there are a whole lot of other things that we can do. And so let us each do our part.

Now, it is my duty to thank the hardworking Committee members for the support and cooperation that they have given me. I have enjoyed their fellowship and teamwork very much. Our committee meetings were always cordial and enjoyable. And I sincerely invite more younger members to serve in the committee in the future. In fact, this year, we have many new young faces, Jenny Ting, Aloysius Lim, and Nicholas Hu.

And finally, most important of all, I say a big thank you to all of you present tonight for being here with us. Your presence and support is a great source of encouragement for us. If you are not here, there is no game tonight.

I hope you will all have an enjoyable evening.

Thank you.

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