Blog

Club 100 is a philanthropic club of the North West CDC and it started in 2008 as an initiative by the then Mayor of NWCDC, Dr Teo Ho Pin.

I remember that he had organized a lunch for about 8 people and he mooted the idea of starting a club of donors comprising individuals and companies giving a sum of $100 a month on a giro scheme.

All the monies collected would be used to provide for the food needs of needy residents. At that lunch I wondered (my ignorance then) if there were really people who were hungry in Singapore.  It was only later that I realized that there were many people, for a variety of reasons, who were in need of food assistance such as the elderly, the disabled, the sick and families whose breadwinner was unable or no longer wanted to provide for them for a variety of reasons.

Some of the pictures of our earlier events.

After that lunch he asked me if I would chair this initiative. I agreed and I have been doing this for all these years.

We started small with 10 donors and over the years so many wonderful people have joined us in this initiative. There are now close to 800 members who contribute to this worthy cause.

Under the current Mayor Alex Yam, we now provide other forms of assistance, in addition to food assistance, as the needs in our community have grown.

Every year we have a dinner to thank our donors and I  always look forward to this event. So many of the donors have, over the years, now become friends and this is always such a happy one with people running around taking pictures with their friends, catching up with the latest happenings and enjoying the food.

This year’s dinner is at the National Gallery and the food tasting session is later today. We make sure the food is top quality for our donors and friends and will post pictures of food tasting later.

Finished the food tasting session for the dinner on 13 February at the National Gallery.

3 live stations of laksa, Kueh pi ti and roti jala.

Main courses of beef rendang, sweet and sour fish and lemongrass chicken.

Think it will be a good dinner!

Today is Pongal festival. It marks the start  and the giving of thanks for a bountiful harvest.

When I was growing up, the highlight of the festival was eating sweet pongal cooked by my grandmother and my mother. They would cook it in huge pots and somehow we would finish it up over a couple of days. Back then it was primarily a family event.

Nowadays pongal is celebrated in a huge way in India and in particular Tamil Nadu. Government schools are closed for 4 days for the celebrations with lots of special programming on tv and radio there.

And with the growing importance of pongal celebrations in India and with the arrival of new Indians here, Pongal is becoming a big festival here amongst Indians here especially the Tamils. Light ups in Serangoon Road and celebrations all over the island this week are now common.

Am looking forward to celebrating Pongal with my mother with a wonderful vegetarian meal and sweet pongal later today!!

Had a wonderful lunch, hosted by Prasoon Mukherjee, with the Ambassador of Brazil Luciano Mazza de Andrade at the Shangri la.

He’s just arrived here and was good hearing from him about the country. Didn’t know we import so much from Brazil such that we are the 6th largest export market for them.

Never been to South America. Perhaps time to start planning a trip to Brazil and Mexico?

Finally the dinner postponed from Nov took place at MBS.

Good venue, good food. The jackfruit payasam was exceptionally yummy! However the most enjoyable part of the event was the wonderful company. It was nice meeting old friends and getting to meet new people.

Not sure if and when such an event by the Indian community will ever occur…

It would have been nice if the significance of giving SM Lee an elephant was explained to him and the audience. Also a commemorative program of the event showcasing the highlights of his career and his key interactions with the Indian community would have been meaningful for the guests as a keepsake souvenir.

The songs were beautiful although I always thought that his creativity ended starting with Aspects of Love and Sunset Boulevard.

First time I was introduced to any music by Andrew Lloyd Webber was when I played Jesus Christ Superstar in the school band between 1976 to 1978. I loved the music.. but I did not know who the composer was. I remember going to Sungei Road in 1976 to buy a pirated cassette of JCS (the movie soundtrack) for a princely sum of $2. I didn’t appreciate all the songs then. Now I think the entire album is a classic.

First musical of his I saw was Cats in London. That was in 1988. I managed to get the standby tickets for the matinee on a Saturday. Later I saw Phantom when I was a student in the UK. This was on a weekday matinee and again they were standby tickets.

Over the years, I have also watched his various musicals such as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat (with Jason Donovan), Cats, Evita, Phantom, Aspects of Love (the original cast with Michael Ball) and Sunset Boulevard. And I have seen the movie versions of Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cats, Jason and Phantom.

At tonight’s concert, the female singer was good but the male singer could have been better.

Overall an enjoyable evening.

Hmmm… On reflection I didn’t enjoy the performance of the song he composed for the coronation of King Charles. They could have skipped that one.

If they had performed “Unexpected Song” from Song and Dance, that would have been nice..

This is my first ever post here.

Let’s see what comes up…

Welcome to WordPress! This is your first post. Edit or the first step in your blogging journey.

Hi.. this is my very first post here on 10 Jan 2025.

Hope you like what follows..