By Sergeant Kodie Low of 3rd Kuala Lumpur
Pesta time is here again and with that 3rd KL just completed their first band camp in Seremban, Negeri Sembilan at the Wesley Methodist School. The Boys took the KTM to Seremban this time and everything went well besides some small miss communication. Once we arrived at the Seremban KTM Station, the leaders gathered the Boys we started walking to the school, which taking about 15 minutes to arrive. Upon arriving, Cpl. Liaw Wen Xiang falled-in the Boys briefed on ground rules for the camp. The Boys then got settled in to the assign rooms and right after that we got on with the first activity of the band camp which would be sectional practice.
3rd KL Band practicing in the hot sun
It was just practice, after practice and more practices for the rest of the day. On the second day, which was a Sunday and following traditional practice, everyone present at the camp went for church service which was near by the school. After service and a short walk back to the school, the Boys got back to sectional and full band practices for a few hours before proceeding to trying out our first formation (if you are not from 3rd KL, you have got to wait till Pesta to see it!). Even though the Pesta Band Competition is during the evening, 3rd KL likes to make our Boys tough, so we practice our formations under the oven hot sun. When this happens you will see many “wannabe terrorist” that's because the Boys wrap up their faces to avoid sun burns, as many have experienced before. While this was going on, some of the officers popped out to buy something for the Boys, after the successful completion of the formation practice, the Boys got to enjoy big cold bottles of 100 plus of which the Boys fell silent with joy.
Left: Cooling down after a gruesome PT session Right: Getting brief on the formati... no, no - it's "algebra"
On the February 2nd, it was birthday celebrations for two very special persons which are Mr Lawrence Tay who has reach 50 years of age and SSgt Wong Hoe Kit who reached his 21st birthday. With almost the entire Senior Section present, we decided to throw a surprise birthday celebration and dedicated the party to Mr Lawrence, who has spent almost half his life serving the BB. A cake was prepared and a special video done by Mr Terence Tay featured pictures of Mr Lawrence from his childhood up till present times. All of this was unknown to Mr Lawrence until the last minute, of which the surprise was launched when Mr Lawrence viewed the video the cake was brought. As an incentive for the Boys for working hard during the day, they were given some free time to explore the town, although most all of them ended up in KFC for some fast food.
Birthday celebration are in order!
On Monday, which was the third and last day of the camp, began with some PT conducted by Sgt Vaenthan. On the previous day, Sgt vaenthan's PT session included some stamina training, of which on event featured “suicides” (not the literal one of course). One of the Boys took a nasty dive while running all out but no harm done, despite some rolling around a good number of times. After breakfast we completed the rest of the first formation and did our best to prefect it as much as we could. Before long, it was time to hit the road (or in this case tracks) and get back home. Before leaving Wesly Methodist School, we conducted a closing parade where some of the officers gave their review on how things were during the past 3 days and then it was off to the train station. A few Boys stayed behind to load up the instruments into the lorry that helped us to transport the instruments to the school on the first day. Finally, everyone got back safely to YMCA and one by one the Boys went home to see their families again and also get some good rest. A big thank you to Mr Lawrence Tay, who was also the school’s administrative manager, for allowing us the use of the school compound for the band camp.
