SQUAD 12/68 MEETINGS ON THE BEIJING TRIP

Our discussions for the Club’s Annual Gathering has picked up momentum. Since the last report, there has been 2 more meetings. One on 10 Dec 2009 and the latest was on 08 Jan 2010. The venue was unchanged, Kelab Tasek Perdana DiRaja or as we affectionately call it the ‘Lake Club’.
Discussions on 10 Dec 2009.
It was a Thursday. There has always been some haggling over the day to have our meeting. Some prefer Thursday as there would be less traffic and somehow would make it easier to reach Lake Club in time. Previous to this it was on a Friday.


 
There was quite a heavy bookings on that day so I had to agree to the management’s suggestion for use of the General Committee Room. I targeted for 16 squad members to attend. So the ‘big’ room would be sufficient for us. Being in the basement ( it’s a new room adjacent to the new Admin Area) I had to order the food from the Buttery earlier. This includes 12 bottles of mineral water, sandwiches and some pastries.
The attendance was only 7.

We still managed to discuss what we set out to discuss, but I think we wasted on the food. It has been ordered, we are liable. It ended with us taking back bottles of mineral water.
I will not mention the discussion as our able Chairman, Apai has written quite comprehensively on this.

Discussion on 08 January 2010.
This time round the attendance were better. Ten in all. It was a Friday. And it rained that day. So, quite a number of us were caught in the Friday jam.
Isa actually had to sought the assistance of the traffic policemen to get him out of the Jalan Ampang crawl. We thought that was the surest way to get caught in the jam. Apparently he was from the South and decided on the shortest route to Lake Club. It ‘backfired’ and he had a ‘long route’ instead. Still he was there actively engaged in our discussion.

This time round our discussion was held at the Poolside Dining Room. This room is our preferred place as we can order food from the stalls nearby.

We had the usual rojak and mee goring with indivual preferred drinks. 
Apai has also sent the discussion to us on the e mail network.
Taking the opportunity then, we also ‘commemorated’ 2 of our squads birthdays. First it was Bakar Baba, whose birthday fell on the 22 Dec 09.

The other one was our Presidente whose birthday fell on 6 Jan 2010. Both touched 60 I think.

As the pictures showed we bought them a slice of cake each. One candle on each, sang ‘Happy Birthdays’ and they blew the lone candle on the slice of cake. I explained that if we bought a bigger cake, then we would have to put the total number of candles to indicate their ages. Sixty candles. Still not enough space. So, we resorted to a symbolic ‘one’ candle for the years they have been on earth.
After our discussions, some of us adjourned to the ‘cafeteria’ for café latte. The interesting topic was on the loss of the F5E jet engines. We had quite a good expose’ of the situation from our Billy Gooi. An ‘insider’s version, so to speak. Interested to know details? – get it from Billy.
I hope all members of Squad 12/68 has gone through Apai’s ‘Record of Meetings’ sent on 09 Jan 10 and agreed with whatever the 10 of us decided for us all. There were details of our decisions on that ‘records’.
I noticed that all were excited about our trip and looking forward to it. There should be more meetings as the day draw closer. I just wait for Burn’s instruction when next to book a meeting room.

Club 12/68 Forever.