Posted on 15-Sep-2018
Written by Wan Rui Ming
The 23rd National BB Pesta and Convention; Pesta Beyond ended off with a series of unforgettable events and moments! It started off with the first ever Junior Pesta and ended off with 8th Penang Company emerged as the overall Champion of the event. The audience was even on cloud 9 when YB Mr. Anthony Loke sang with the Boys' Brigade Hong Kong members at the grand finale of combined band and singing performance with the release of confetti and massive balloons.
This year's Boys' Brigade Malaysia Pesta 2018 was organized by the Kuala Lumpur State Council and was held at the Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang. The highlight of the event includes with the Junior Pesta, drill, band, singing and dancing competitions, Inter-Platoon games, KL City Outing and Youth Rally. Furthermore, the event witnessed a spectacular line-up of VIPs and BB delegates that lighten up the opening and closing ceremonies; both Junior and Senior Pesta. The write-up below are the summaries of the event.
The 3-days-2-nights Junior Pesta 2018 was held 2 days before of the actual Pesta and witnessed the participation of over 200 BB Junior members within Malaysia. It has successfully facilitated the younger members of the Brigade to foster new friendships and to have a time of joyful fellowship with each other. The highlights of the event were Juniors' Drill Competition, Star Wars and Fitness Monopoly.
The 10th Kuala Lumpur Company was crowned the Champion for the Juniors' Drill Competition and the 1st Kuala Lumpur Company was awarded the 1st Runner-up and the 1st Petaling Jaya Company was awarded the 2nd Runner-up.
On the second day, the Juniors had one whole day of fun and games with the Star Wars and the Fitness Monopoly. The Star Wars is a player will be given a “lightsaber” and can only be used to revive players. Other players are to immobilized opposite team players by throwing bean bags and the player who is touched by the bean bag needs to freeze and squat down on the spot. While the Fitness Monopoly is a obstacle with inflatable course filled with thrilled station games and activities where participants are needed to complete in order to move to the next station.
Overall platoon results:
Champion: Hydro Blue
1st Runner-up: Aero Yellow
2nd Runner-up: Photon Red
3rd Runner-up: Terra Green
The opening ceremony of the Pesta 2018 kicked off at Monday 4.00p.m. with the arrival of the Guest-of-Honour Yang Berhormat Puan Yeo Bee Yin - Minister of MESTECC, accompanied by the 2nd Penang Company's pipe-band before she proceeded to inspect the Guard-of-Honour. This was followed by the singing of Negaraku, march past of all States and the 8th Penang Company's rifle performance.
Joining the event were the participants of the Junior Pesta who took part in the 3D2N event which began on July 18. The Juniors took part in the March-past ceremony; one Junior boy led the crowd to sing the National Anthem.
The participants then headed off for dinner and prepared for the In10city Dance Competition that will be coming after.
On 8.00pm, the Dance Competition started off as emcee welcomed all the attendees and judges. The competition heated up as teams were introduced and squared off one-by-one on top of the stage of Dewan Terbuka! Different styles of dance and costumes were displayed on stage.
Soon after rounds and rounds of intense battles, judges were off to calculate and finalize their overall rankings. Meanwhile, emcee announced that there will be a “Dance Battle” between representative of each teams and the hall filled with cheers and excitement! And again, teams battled head-on between each other to show their personal arsenal of freestyle dance moves.
At last, emcee again welcomed back the judges who were off to finalize the markings and announced the rankings of the TOP-3 teams.
Results for the National Dancing Competition:
Champion: 8th Penang Company
1st Runner-up: 1st Johor Bahru Company
2nd Runner-up: 16th Penang Company
Day 2 came, where most of the intense battles happen in the four days' event. It includes the Drill Battle, Voice of BB, National Bible Quiz & Mighty Band Face Off.
On 9.00am, participants, supporters and members gathered on the Padang Kawad to get ready to kick start the Drill Battle; in other words, the National BB Drill Completion! After the state qualifying rounds, 21 teams were qualified and faced against each other while battling the hot sun to emerge as the Champion.
On 12.30pm, announcements were made that the 8th Penang Company's SMK Air Itam's team emerged as the Champion, while 1st Kuala Lumpur took the 1st Runner-up spot and 8th Penang Company's Penang Chinese Girls' High School took the 2nd Runner-up spot.
Participants then proceeded to their individual hostels for lunch. At 2.00pm, competing teams made their way to the Dewan Besar for the continuous rounds of competitions which are the Voice of BB, National Bible Quiz and the Mighty Band Face Off.
The Voice of BB is the BBM's national singing competition, comprised of teams from different states that were chosen through online audition submissions whereby the top 10 finalists would be selected for the Finals. From acapella to choreographed performances, teams were seen to give out their best to win the hearts of the judges lined up at the front of the stage.
Finally, the 1st Manjung Company team emerged as the Champion of the competition which was followed by the 8th Penang Company team and the 1st Johor Bahru Company team achieving the 1st and 2nd Runner-ups respectively.
After the Voice of BB ended, the first ever National Bible Quiz kicked off continuously as participants prepared to be tested on their Christian knowledge. Participants representing each state were tasked to answer a series of memory verses, theological quizzes, stories and events that recorded in the Bible.
At last, the Champion was bagged by the Penang State team, followed by the Melaka State and Selangor State teams were presented the 1st and 2nd Runner-up placings.
Lastly, in the evening, the National Band Competition kicked off as from all across Malaysia lined up at the Dewan Besar after the dinner session, to compete for the top-spot of the competition.
After all the majestically played music pieces, the 1st Johor Bahru Company team was crowned as the Champion of the competition, the 3rd Kajang Company team as the 1st Runner-up and the 1st Kuala Lumpur Company team as the 2nd Runner-up.
Day 3 is the renowned “Pesta Platoon Games” where all the participants will be grouped into platoons and teams and battle against each other in multiple games and activities, The participants were divided into four major quadrants (platoons) namely Photon, Terra, Aero and Hydro. This year's main event of the games is the “Inflatable Course”; an obstacle course setup with inflatables and water games.
The games started as early as 8.00am which participants were given a round of briefing and then, everyone proceeded to the field to complete their “missions”. The games include the Commando Crawl, The Wheel, Dance Challenge, Team Plank Balance, alking on bricks and many more!
At night, the worship team from Acts Church led the congregation praising God in the Youth Rally through various high praise and worship songs. Pastor Andy Yeoh then took for the sermon where he shared about faith in Christianity and how it changed him.
Prepared by Mr. Kenny Voon of 3rd Kuala Lumpur Company
The four and final day of Pesta proved to be an exciting one, especially for those not from Kuala Lumpur, as Pesta participants finally get to set foot beyond UPM and explore the nation's capital. It was city tour which took place in a format of a treasure hunt.
Altogether, 64 squads of with 25-30 participants each dressed in light blue swarmed the streets of KL. More than 220 questions and challenges were presented in a booklet, which required participants to solve complicated riddles, identity key landmarks or features, but ultimately, to work as a team to solve as many questions they could.
The challenge saw participants covering major landmarks including Dataran Merdeka, Lakes Gardens, KL Tower, the National Monument, KL Bird Park, Central Market, Petaling Street, Bukit Bintang, and of course, the KL Twin Towers. Most explored on foot, with occasional use of public transportation such as the LRT and MRT.
Alas, time was short despite starting off the day at 7.30am, as the Pesta campers had to return in time for the closing ceremony.
As the clock struck at 7.30pm, the Guest-of-Honor for the grand closing ceremony, Yang Berhormat Mr. Anthony Loke - Minister of Transport walks in escorted by the 8th Penang Company's pipe-band. This was followed by the welcoming address by Mr Terence Yap, Chairman of the Pesta Beyond before Mr Andy Tan, Commissioner of the KL State Council, and YB Mr. Anthony Loke gave their speeches and appreciation to the audience present.
In his speech, Mr. Anthony Loke shared three main-points for attendees in the hall; Service for the others, Punctuality and Discipline.
The biennial event then came to a silenced atmosphere as the representatives from the Guard-of-Honour marched towards the Pesta flag, and lowered it to mark the end of the 23rd National Pesta, Pesta Beyond.
The show and performances kicked off as the BB Indonesia team presented the musical-skit entitled “The Greatest Show” with the soundtracks from the original movie “The Greatest Showman”.
Following that, the BB Hong Kong team presented their famous local 1993 hit song “Boundless Oceans Vast Skies” which was released by the Hong Kong Canto-rock band “Beyond”. The audience gave a louder cheer when our guest of honour, Mr. Anthony Loke joined the team on stage and sang along.
Next, prizes and awards were presented to all the teams that won the competitions and the Champions the band, dance and singing competitions performed once again. In addition, announcements were also made that the next National Pesta and Convention will be held at the Melaka State in the year 2020.
The closing ceremony wrapped as the combined Kuala Lumpur State band along with Mr. Meshach, Mr. Jit Lee and Ms. Lydia Barker performed the (song name). The crowd was indulged in the mass-singing. In between, confetti's and big balloons were released and marking the end of the 4-days 3-nights event.