Practise in the Hall

Continuing the Oct 20th story :
Tiring and dissapointing day. It was a regret that we unexpectedly lost some props. THAT incident completed our team "life cycle"...we have had good times and hard times.
Lucky there was long holidays.
The badminton hall that we use to practise was not fully equipped.
Jamal lend his own speaker system to the team. (last photo)

Anyway, we did a few full runs, improved our eye contact (until someone hit the video tripod), recorded some runs, watched our own show and made corrections.

For this practise , we had improved LOI (picture #3 from top), and decided to replace the colorful "week indicator" due to low impact.
And the "salesman" couldn't join on time. So we had the "China Engineer" to replace the salesman temporarily (picture #3 and #4 from top). (He did OK although he was actually thinking about the internal auditors' findings)

Some of the toughest scene this time were production scene and the ending itself...showing the savings cards, the bow, and self introduction.

* We received flight tickets on Oct 20th.Hooray*

The Malaysian Gifts - behind the scene Part II

"Bunga Towel" is typical Malaysian wedding gift to the guests at wedding ceremonies. But in a wedding, most of the time the hand towel is replaced with a hard-boiled egg.
That is what we are going to give other Team Rally participants as our souvenir.
In actual wedding, Malaysian offer more colorful flowers.

It's a good decision to make the gifts (Bunga Towel) ourselves, instead of ordering it from outside. Usually we make the gift while waiting for late members (oops), and during break time between practices.
That keeps the team together..we had times to discuss some scenes, thought how to improve some acts, AND that work tested our craftsmanship skills. Everyone had some share in making Bunga Towel.

Some of us are excellent in hand crafting, some are hopeless (long cycle time..). Among the guys, Wak Jamal can be considered the best.

Some photos behind the scene. (from the top)

1. Jamilah's finished goods. Kira boleh lah.
2. A row of flowers made from Hudson's sweet.
3 & 4 -- Picture 3 and 4 : a Bouquet of Bunga Towel..this is to be at center of our table during Team Rally.
5. Picture 5 - Small hand towel is folded to fit into the small bag. The hand towel has "Johnson Controls Malaysia" embroidered on it.
6. The Master minds - Kak Nor and Ema
7. Wak Jamal and Aris were the first 2 guys who made Bunga Towel. Wak Jamal was the first to figure out how to fit the towel with the embroidery appear at both sides of the bag!
8. September-born Wak Jamal and Aris was doing assembly line style of production.
9. Aaron tried to make the branches of Bunga Towel. But maybe his mind was on claims and internal auditors. We pity him, but we pity ourselves too.
10. Fieza was following up parts delivery.

Our Story , Oct 20th

To get use to large space to perform, we practised at a badminton ( a type of hand-racquet sport) hall.

Joke of the day :
Jam blocked the video camera for 8 minutes or so, then she reversed and hit the tripod...:-) .
The team laughed like crazy seeing the vibrating video. (see picture)

Surprise :
We lost 3 mini seats and the ugly XYZ seat cover. Unexpectedly, someone broke in at night to use the badminton courts and was attracted to those items.
We also lost a pack of Hudsons sweet. Lucky Kak Nor did make extra mini seats. But she had to make the XYZ seat cover again.

That ended our Ramadhan days. Self-control point of view, we celebrated "victory" on 24th October 2006.
Plant shut down was from 21st to 29th Oct 2006.

Full Dress Rehearsal - Oct 17th 2006

We had full dress rehearsal on Oct 17th for the management. Attended by Mr Goh and the Directors (Mr Yong, En Ibrahim, Mr Chan).

Earlier, during afternoon break we had Nasir, Suhaimi, Sazida, Azlena and Izyan viewed our practice session. They commented mainly on expressions and costume.
The management gave about 3 major comments (body language, story line, and spacing control)..and many more editorial , terminology and standardization comments.

We recorded our show too, for viewing after that. Thanks to Fieza for lending her own video camera. Also to Kak Nor for spending her personal time to practise everyday .

Some photos during preparation (from top). Somehow, Wak Jamal and Hafizan are not captured. They happened to wear the same color.

1. Yes, the banner was ironed too

2. Fieza the video woman

3. Aris trying to fit his costume

4. Swathi and Datin added to our colorful appearance

5. Shamsul and his German engineer costume. A China Engineer helped him (also Immigration Officer, video editor, Claims Processor)

6. Jamal in his FIshbone person and dummy costume

7. Celebrity clothing for bidding...

8. After the rehearsal, the team viewed the recording..

The Malaysian Gift - Behind The Scene

2nd Week of October - besides surviving the challenges for stage performance, we have started to prepare for gifts exchange and table decorations.
The Master minds are Ema, Kak Nor and Fieza.

3 members went to "Mydin" during Friday lunch time to buy items for our team gifts.
It's a TRULY MALAYSIAN creation - "Bunga Towel".
Mydin is the Malaysia version of K-Mart or Wall Mart in USA.

*The first 2 pictures above are proto-type of Bunga Towel.

Practising Again

After 2 weeks of turbulence, the team gathered for practise for incoming Full Dress rehearsal to management and JCI employees.

About 9 major improvement points were discovered.
Towards the end we invited Marlia the JCAC engineer to comment on our story flow.

We also had briefing and ideas exchange on USA schedule,props shipment date ,souvenirs idea, and other tasks to do.

Notes on Pictures ...
1. The banner that will give us a HOME RUN - SHAREABILITY banner.
2. How to combine the 2 banners..easy packing, more efficient.
3. "Ramli MS" is setting up audio video system
4. Fieza is very happy with her props. Jangan terbalik sudah..
5. Our first run - Datin is complaining
6. Jamal and the gold fish bone
7. CPP construction. Still "props yang boleh di banggakan"
8. Aris, hiding himself behind the big lense. Macam mana lagi nak improve dia ni. Pemalu sangat...
Fieza and Aaron at the back, happily dancing.
9. First time test pass. JCI boss is jumping around. Kalah Jam kalau macam ni.
10. Last 2 pictures are BOS training/production scene.

Joke of the day
* Nak pakai T-shirt kuning Friday?
* Someone's phone ringing and someone else melatah

The team in Orange and Black

New uniform received Oct 9th. Our first day wearing it Oct 12th.
It has our name, Malaysia flag, Team Rally logo, JCI logo and our blog address embroidered on the shirt.
We took team picture before our practise session. Shahril of ME was our cameraman.

Backdrop - 2 minutes 2 men

On Oct 9th Wak Jamal and Aris figured out how to set up the back drop in 2 minutes...using only 2 men.