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| Happy 12th Birthday from Astro Kem Badminton |
Going into their into their 3rd year, Astro
Kasih, a Corporate Social Responsibility “CSR” outreach programme from Astro
Malaysia Holdings Bhd has again invited Malaysian’s boys and girls of ages 10
to 12 to participate in the Kem Badminton Astro. The ultimate prize for the 30 selected
participants is an all expense paid trip for a 2-weeks intensive advance
training in Tokyo, Japan with the Nippon Badminton Association “NBA” Juniors. Again Wong Choong Han and his team of
ex-BAM players now turned coaches ie. Lee Wan Wah, Chew Choon Eng and Chan
Chong Ming were tasked to provide the filtering and selection process.
Sounds like a promotional contest which we see every day in
the papers whereby winners will win free holiday trips overseas right? Well,
this is serious business by Astro’s CSR undertaken by the volunteers of Astro
employees. There was even one qualified state players sacrificed her National
Junior GP tournament for this try out. As I understand, more than 1,600 boys
and girls from the all over Peninsular, Sabah and Sarawak participated in these
tryouts held in different states which is a massive undertaking by the Astro
employees every year.
Last year, both brothers participated in the tryouts but
they only made it to the second round. This year, only Aaron is eligible to
participate. I registered him early to book a slot for the tryout on 22nd
August held in Kompleks MSN, KL. Not only did he get a call for the second
round trials, he was also among 8 boys hand-picked to participate in a 2 day
joint-training session with the visiting NBA Juniors.
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| Joint Training with Nippon Badminton Association Juniors |
Subsequently, the field was narrowed down to the last 60
participants. They were called for a
5-day intensive training camp for the final round selection . Here the group
were trimmed down to the final 30 boys and girls. We were hopeful because some
top GP names were missing from tryout list and therefore theoretically, Aaron
had a clear chance to be among the final 18 boys.
2 weeks passed and we began to hear from other parents some
Penang players had already gotten calls from Astro. We became anxious as were many parents and
coaches at this late stage. I was already scouting for local tournaments in
case Aaron was not called.
I remembered it was on Friday, 2nd Oct evening
while I was in Bahau office rushing to finished up my work before a late night drive
back to Puchong, I was interrupted by a phone call. The voice at the other end
identified as Astro speaking to me in Mandarin. She asked if I was Aaron’s
father. I knew this would be good news but there was more to come. Astro wanted
to surprise Aaron by presenting him with the envelope as his birthday present
which was on 7th Oct, only 5 days away. I diverted the caller to my
wife to make this clandestine arrangements.
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| Interview with Kak Dayang |
The date was set on Monday evening 5th Oct to
hold Aaron’s birthday in his paternal grand parent’s home only this time, the
Astro crew with Dayang Zainatull Aqma, Astro Arena hostess was also with us to
spring a surprise birthday gift to Aaron. When he arrived, he unsuspectingly
opened the back room door to a full view of Astro crew and we can see it in his
face that he was pleasantly surprised by this unexpected event. The rest of the
episode has been captured in this video clip edited by Astro which was also
aired in Astro Arena Kem Badminton channel 801.
It was certainly the best birthday gift Aaron has ever
received and a wonderful gesture from Astro to reach out to the young hopefuls
that sometimes, dreams do come true. Although we will not be accompanying
little Aaron to Japan, we hope he will enjoy his birthday present and most of
all, gain valuable experience from it all. Congratulations Aaron, you’ve earned
it!
