14th Annual Farewell - The Roarscars

On the 9th of July 2016, which was a Saturday, the Leo Club of Wesley Methodist School had its annual Farewell at Cabana Avenue Event Space located at the Cascades, Kota Damansara. 69 Leos consisting of 36 junior Leos and 33 senior Leos alongside with 2 faculty advisors, namely Miss Low Fee Ngoo and Miss Manusha Nair were present.

This year, the organising committee was made up of five junior Leo members, led by the organizing chairperson, Leo Soma Sivashankar, assisted by the assistant organizing chairperson, Leo Teo Boon Kee, and the committee members, namely Leo Chia Kye Shean, Leo Isabelle Yap and Leo Alistair Lim. The theme that they decided on for this event was “The Roarscars”.

On the day of the event, the junior Leos gathered at the venue at 10.45am. Upon arrival, preparations for the event started with immediate effect as everyone split into their respective departments to carry out their tasks. After setting up the venue, a full rehearsal of the entire programme flow was carried out to correct any mistakes, and the members were given a final briefing.

The arrival of senior Leos began at 12:30pm. Seniors were given the door gifts upon registration, which was a group photo of all members from their past event, International Relationship Day. Early comers were allowed to hang around inside the venue and enjoy a music playlist that was played by the junior Leos. The event officially began at 1.00pm. The emcees of the event, Leo Lau Tjia-Yi and Leo Yau Yih Lynn started off with their welcoming and also opening monologues to welcome the seniors. Laughter filled the air as the emcees entertained everyone with their hilarious puns and short poems based on some of the senior Leos. Following that, a short funny video presentation which was prepared by the junior Leos was played. After that, it was time for lunch. The senior Leos followed by the junior Leos were invited to take food from the buffet-style lunch prepared. During lunch, another video presentation was played. This was a question and answer based video where junior Leos asked senior Leos about their thoughts and life as a Leo member.

After lunch, the senior Leos were then asked to head outside and bring along a balloon each that were tied to the chairs in the venue. These balloons were then used to separate the members into groups as inside the balloons were small pieces of papers that had names of planets on them. The game masters of the event gathered everyone in their respective groups based on the planet names as everyone headed back inside for the first game. A total of 2 games were played throughout the games session which were, “Blindfolded Pictionary’ where members had to guess the drawings of another blindfolded member and also “Zoom In Zoom Out” where members had to guess which senior Leo it was in zoomed in pictures of some senior Leos from the slides prepared. To wrap up the games session, the group that accumulated the highest pointes were given chocolates and sweets as a reward while on the other hand the group with the lowest points were made to eat special ‘green tea’ oreos prepared by the games committee. It was then revealed later by the game masters that the ‘green tea’ part of the oreo was actually wasabi. Everyone laughed as the losing group tried their best to consume the oreos, but they were very sporting.

After games session ended, the junior Leos took to the front as they performed a dance. The dance really lightened the mood as the senior Leos enjoyed the dance very much. After the dance performance, an award giving ceremony was held. Custom trophies with award names specific to each senior had been prepared beforehand as the emcees announced the names of the senior Leos. The trophies were given out by the faculty advisor Miss Manusha Nair.

Next up was time for everyone to express their feelings and thoughts, also known as the open-microphone session. The open-microphone session began with the Immediate Past President Leo Lai Yan Sheng giving his thanks to everyone in the club followed by the recently installed President Leo Soma Sivashankar expressing his thanks to the seniors for all their contributions towards the club. It was truly a heartfelt moment.

After the open-microphone session, another video presentation was played for the entertainment of the senior Leos. This video was entitled “Thank You”. This video consisted of clips of the junior Leos saying thank you to the seniors and also a short message to them.

Following that, it was time for the grand finale. Three junior Leos namely Leo Lee Yan Yee accompanied by Leo Alexandra Goh and Leo Tio Ying Han on the guitar performed the song “Flashlight”. This song was chosen as it conveyed a meaningful message to the seniors that they were like flashlights to the juniors, constantly guiding them through the dark and difficult times. After about 2 minutes into the song, Leo Lee Yan Yee had to pretend that she had a faulty mic as that was the signal for all the junior Leos to stand up and begin a flash mob dance. The senior Leos were definitely caught off guard as the junior Leos surrounded the seniors and danced. After that, the lights were switched off as electronic dance music started to play and the junior Leos began pulling out all the senior Leos as everyone began to dance together. It was truly a memorable moment as both senior and junior Leos enjoyed themselves thoroughly dancing together.

At about 5:00pm the event officially ended. Senior Leos were allowed to return home whilst the junior Leos stayed back to clean up the venue. All in all, everyone had a great time throughout the event and everyone went home with memories that they will never forget.