Leo Orientation Camp '09

Hellllooo Leos :D
Missed LOC? Oh well, here's a sneak peak to enlighten the ones who couldn't go and a ride down the memory lane for those who participated :)
Enjoy!

Day 1

Amazing Race!

Day 2 :)

Last Day :)

Leo Orientation Camp 2009

If you Leos out there haven’t been to this camp, you had definitely missed out a whole lot of fun! So do remember to participate in this camp next year!

On the 29th of August 2009, the Omega Leo Club of Petaling Jaya Integrity with the help of the organizing chairperson, Leo Nicholas Chew, organized the “Leo Orientation Camp 2009”. The camp which was 3 days and 2 nights long was held in SRJK (C) Yuk Chai. Opened to all four sister clubs, the Leo Club of SMK Damansara Jaya, Leo Club of SMK Taman Petaling, Leo Club of Taman SEA and Leo Club of SMK Assunta. A total of 70 Leos and 2 Lions (Lion Ivan Ho & Lion Clayton Tan) participated in this delightful event. There was a total of 11 Leos who represented the Leo Club of Assunta, in this event.

There were four objectives to this camp project. Firstly, it was to strengthen bonds between every Leo member, amongst our sister clubs and to clarify through fellowship. Secondly, it was to foster good relationship between Lions and Leos. The third objective was to implement the sponsoring club and district projects. And the last objective was to learn the procedure of the standard and method of reporting. The event was a great success and all four objectives were successfully achieved.

29th of August 2009, Day 1

It was roughly 9 o’clock in the morning, when all registered participants gathered at SRJK (c) Yuk Chai. It was the first day of camp, and most of us Leos were new to each other. So, instead of talking to each other, we only talked amongst Leos from our own clubs. Therefore, we had an ice breaking game to get to bond with each other and then came the opening ceremony of this camp. We had more ice breaking games after the opening ceremony.

Later on, we went to clean up the classrooms that we were going to sleep in to prepare ourselves for the night while some cleaned the toilets. Everyone co-operated pretty well together. We had our lunch and then played a game called “Ice and Fire”, with each game we play, our bond gradually grew stronger. The next physical activity we did was a game organized by the PJI (Petaling Jaya Integrity) members, where each group had to score points by either defending their enemies from attacking their territory, or attacking their enemies territory without getting caught.

Soon, it was getting darker and it was time for dinner. When we were done and satisfied with our meal, the PJI Leos came to entertain us with jokes. After the short entertainment, we were told to change into dark colored clothes, sport shoes, or as Leo Beatrice said, “Wear as much as possible, you will need it”. We headed to do as we were told, and gathered back at the canteen. We were then divided into five groups; approximately 6 to 8 members per group. It was time for the most exciting physical activity in this camp. The activity that we were going to do was called the “Amazing Race”. This activity was all about team co-operation because we would need to depend on our teammates in order to accomplish the tasks and overcome the challenges that we were about to face.

There were approximately 10 to 13 stages in this “Amazing Race”. One of them was where each teammate lies down on another teammate while sitting on a chair in a circle, the organizing committees from the PJI Leo Club will then take off the chairs that were underneath everyone, and we had to depend on each other to balance on our legs for 5 minutes without falling. It was a very hard and tiring activity which required lots of co-operation. There was another stage where we had to sit around in a circle with our knees straight and facing towards the centre, the challenge of the game was to stand up without bending our knees. This stage was definitely harder than it sounds, again, we had to depend on our teammates.

The toughest stage of this “Amazing Race” was when each team had to collect 10,000.00 dollars (fake money). We were actually given paper money at the very beginning of the game, so it was up to us whether to save it wisely, to use them for the tougher stages, or to use it at the beginning of the game.

We were allowed to sell our earrings, our shoes, our watches, anything that we had. Boys were allowed to sell their shirt and pants, we were even allowed to sell our hair! Well, as ridiculous as it sounds, we had FUN! But selling all that we had on or with us was not enough to earn 10,000 dollars. We eventually had nothing left to sell, what do we do? The only option left was to do as many push ups, sit ups, and star jumps possible. With each 20 of the any exercise we do we will earn our team 100 ringgit. So, you can just imagine how many push ups/sit ups/star jumps each person would have at least done.

By the time each team completed their race, it was already late at night. Everyone was extremely exhausted after the race, we were so tired that even bathing was like carrying 10 pounds of stones for us! Some were so exhausted that they even had leg cramps and body cramps all over. Well, that was how our first day at camp went. It was an unforgettable one.

30th of August 2009, Day 2

At 6 o’clock in the morning, everyone was awoken by the loud whistle of one of the PJI Leo committees ordering us to wake up. The moment we got up, our bodies started aching crazily! All the pain came from the first day of the camp, most of us were groaning, but the pain was worth it because we really had a lot of fun on the first day. The second day was all about mental activities, so everyone was pretty relaxed because we were too tired and exhausted to move.

We went to the basketball court for a morning exercise with loud blasted music from one of the PJI Leo’s cars. It was fun because even though it was so early in the morning, everybody did their morning exercises with full spirit! After the morning exercise, we had our breakfast and then we gathered in a classroom for a meeting. Every club shared details of some of the projects that were to be done jointly with the sister clubs. A presentation of pictures from past projects was also held. We then had Lion Ivan to give us a meaningful speech.

It was then time to relax and so we left the classroom for more challenging games. The games were hosted by Lion Clayton. We were divided into four groups, each group had 1 president and 1 director. Here’s the idea, the members and the president are only allowed to communicate with the director, whereas the director is allowed to communicate with everyone. However, we were not allowed to communicate through verbal speech, we had to write on “post-it-notes” and deliver them to the respective recipients. Each person will have 5 unknown symbols, so it was the director’s job to find out all the unknown symbols and to keep the members updated, but it wasn’t as easy, we were not told what to do and were only given 5 symbols, so we had to also find out what was the answer to the game. This game was pretty interesting and it definitely wasn’t easy, almost like a brain teaser.

After a few more games, it was time for dinner. Wait, not so fast! We had to cook our own dinner, there was about 6 members per group to cook a dish. We were only given 2 hours to cook, but instead, we took an hour longer because the dishes couldn’t be prepared in time due to our poor cooking skills. It was obvious that everyone really enjoyed cooking together. We got to share everybody’s dishes, the taste may not be the best, but we sure did enjoy everyone’s cooking!

About 10pm, we had our fellowship night where each Leo club had to present 2 or more performances. Taman Sea performed a “Bimbo Drama”, DJ danced to “Thriller”, whereas Assunta and Taman Petaling combined to do the “Algorhythm march” and sing a remix of “The Climb” and “Boom Boom Pow”. Some of the performances were not well prepared but being spontaneous was what made everything funny and entertaining. Then finally, the PJI Leos taught us the “Bush Dance” , it was a simple but enjoyable dance! We thought it would have been better if there were music, so we decided to head to the basketball court for some noise.
Music blasted out loudly from the car and we started dancing to them.

We were definitely not compatible to professional dancers, but we had loads of fun! We even celebrated Merdeka at 12.00am sharp and sang some Merdeka songs.Let’s just say we went a little wild J It was almost 1.00am, when we finally decided to head back to our rooms. However, this time we were allowed to stay awake as long as we wanted. Some went to bed, some being too energetic, did not want to sleep and therefore spent their time bonding with other school Leo clubs.

31st of August 2009, Day 3.

7.15am in the morning was when everybody had to get up, it was the last day of the camp so we were really upset about it. Looking on the bright side, we really had the time of our lives for the past two days! We had our breakfast and then a meeting. During the meeting, we had a post-mortem to discuss about the pros and cons about the camp.

The camp was rated 8 out of 10 by almost all the participants, which was quite impressive. After the meeting, we had our last game of the camp, which was to build a huge paper plane (approximately 70cm x 80cm) using only newspapers. It was harder than it sounds because we were not provided with anything else except for newspaper and we were not allowed to use tapes or string. We had to make sure it flew properly and also create a pilot for our planes! With much whinging and cracking of brains; we finally came up with a somewhat fly-able plane. It was really funny to see all kinds of weird shaped paper planes being thrown in air in hopes that it will fly as long as possible. But, sadly most of the planes landed in pieces.

After our last game, we went to the canteen to have a meal. It was then time to say goodbye to everyone. We were really upset about leaving the camp because the bond between us Leo clubs have grew a whole lot stronger and everybody got so attached to each other in just 3 days. It was like as if we have been “BFFs”(Best Friends Forever) for many years. But eventually, everything has to come to an end.

The chances of having so much fun like this are one in a million. I have learnt a lot after participating in this camp. The most valuable lesson that I have learnt from this camp is that team co-operation is very important. It is very difficult to be successful without the co-operation of each member in a team or a LEO club for the matter. Another lesson I have learnt is to never leave out your club members and make sure to always keep them updated, it helps keep a club active in every way. I must say that this camp was a major success. If it wasn’t for this camp, we wouldn’t have been able to meet so many people, and develop such undying leadership skills and friendships.

Report written by Leo Ng Vern Gin

Photographs taken by the awesome :) Leo Eric Teh (PJI)

Post by Leo Shereen Raj