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SCRABBLE GALA 2012
By MISS. MAGESWARI MUNUSAMY

                The Gala was long in the waiting, a maiden venture by Scholar’s Scrabble Club. The students of Sg Pelek who form the main bulk of the club members, have been taking part in competitions held in cosmopolitan areas such as Subang Jaya and Petaling Jaya. They gained precious experience playing the game with established and distinguished players in the Scrabble arena. Beginning as ‘country bumpkins’, the Sg Pelek youngsters learnt to be quiet, courteous and alert, taking a cue from their inimitable peers. And it was time to battle it out in the homefront with MSA’s help. The support given by the Malaysian Scrabble Association was invaluable as SSC is still considered a yearling.

                Suffice to say, the Gala was a blast. The Sg Pelekian youngsters came in full force. The eager beavers renewed the organiser’s vigour to make the Gala a success. The master’s category players, Vanitha Balasingham, Alex Tan, Ramaraj Sundraraj, Vinnith Ramamurthi, to name a few, graced the event. There were only eight players but they are heavyweight players who came to give support. In the intermediate category, the response was heartwarming. The youngsters with growing experience gave their best and Yu Teck Chein emerged the winner, with Priyanka Sethu and Siew Qing Wang coming in second and third
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                Kudos to the beginners who came in droves, from 8 players from Pahang, 3 from Negeri Sembilan to a feisty Sri Lankan student who just moved to Malaysia two weeks ago and he, nine year old Vignesh Ramanan, was the champion followed by Kok Yun Shung and Saranya Subramaniam. There was much excitement, almost palpable, from the young ones because Scrabble was a game they had yet to compete in. The excitement spread to students from neighbouring schools who were curious about the Gala and the waves it created in this rustic town since its announcement. The interest aroused motivated the Sg Pelek community to offer financial assistance and parents too volunteered their services for any future competitions. Moreover, a million thanks to the former students of SMK Sungai Pelek who came willingly to aid the organisers by volunteering to be runners for the Beginner’s Category, which wasn’t an easy task. 

                This article is an appreciation to all those who stood by SSC to lend a helping hand. Hats off to Mr. Sundraraj for being a real gentleman at heart, and for coordinating the tournament. His experience benefitted the SSC committee members who will coordinate future tournaments. His family members tagged along and they were a great help too. The principal of SMK Sg Pelek, Pn Saimah bt Ahmad, is a visionary woman who backs any activity that benefits school students. She allowed the SSC to use the school hall to hold the competition and she also gave away the prizes to the winners. She was clearly impressed with the effort put in by the committee members who got the hall ready and Mr. Sundraraj and co. who contributed their expertise in handling a tournament. Mr. Manharlal Patel, the vice principal and a long-time friend of Mr Sundraraj, was also a driving force. He showed up even before the gala started.

                All in all, at the end of the day, everyone heaved a sigh of relief when the gala came to a close. All fears and anxieties melted away to be filled with pure pleasure, pride and gratitude. It is both humbling and exhilarating to know that there are strong hands to provide us with firm support. Thank you to everyone who came for us and we are sure everyone had a gala time.                















SSC’s SCRABBLE WORKSHOP
by: Vetri Thillagan Gunaseelan


            The Scholar’s Scrabble Club (SSC) members have successfully organized and launched another activity on 16th of June, 2012 in SMK Sungai Pelek, Sepang, as per the aim of SSC; to build a new generation of Scrabblers. With the presence of our efficient sources of creative ideas, Jivan Subramaniam and the advisors of SSC, a Scrabble workshop was held for all the primary schools in the Sepang district, namely SK Sungai Pelek, SK Methodist Sungai Pelek, SRJK (T) Sepang, SRJK (C) Sepang, SRJK Wah Lian, SRJK (T) Telok Merbau, (…another 2 schools…). The teachers and students from these primary schools have encouraged and shown a very positive view towards our event. Around 46 students from these 8 eight schools were present on that day, escorted by a teacher from every school.
            The event kicked off with the registration session at 7.45a.m. meanwhile the SSC members were setting things in order. Meanwhile SSC’s Advisor, Mdm. Kanakalecthumi, Miss Mageswari and Jivan were preparing the Public Address System (P.A. System) and setting up the arrangements in the hall, the students and teachers gathered in the Lecture Hall. With their cooperation, the registration session was over in about half an hour. Though the President of SSC, Ravienthran had a tight schedule to show up in the event, he did manage to sacrifice some of his precious time to supervise the team. After signing the certificates of participation, he excused himself and made a move.
At about 8.30a.m., Jivan began his session of the day. The students were introduced to the gadgets used in a Scrabble game such as tiles, tile bag, tile rack, digital clock and various types of Scrabble board. Step by step, he taught them how to play and form words out of the tiles on the rack. The students portrayed a positive feedback when Jivan questioned and quizzed them. Jivan caught their attention by showing them a row of letters (R E I N S A T) and asked them to make words out of it. They were never like beginners when they voiced out their answers; they managed to form many words from it. We were able to sense the enthusiasm of the students in Scrabble with their expression and energetic tone, moreover when SSC’s Secretary, Geetha Maniam was capturing their photographs. Jivan also stressed how to play a clean game without any rule-breaking.
            Jivan ended his session at 9.45a.m.. Geetha and Vetri Thillagan Gunaseelan took charge of giving out the breakfast for the students and teachers. Meanwhile, the rest of the members confirmed the arrangements of the Scrabble boards in the hall are in order, for the next session. The break time ended at 10.15a.m. and they orderly made their way to the hall. The cleanliness of the area was kept in good condition.
            In the hall, Jeihiin Subramaniam carried out his session – playing session. We distributed the score sheets and double-letter word list to the novices. Then, the playing session began. The teachers walked around helping their children to form words out of their row of tiles. Some of the students had their opponents from different school. Not only students, but teachers, too were intermingling with students from other schools; correcting and helping them when they struggled. Undeniable, most of them were so new playing this board game, thus playing lukewarmly. But, some lightning-brain students were able to conquer the techniques of this game rapidly. A student by the name of Aisha from SK Sungai Pelek started the game by playing WANTED for 28 points. She learnt by herself that by placing the 4points letter (W) on the ‘double letter score’ with the word overlapping a ‘double word score’ would earn her a high score. Besides, two other students from SRJK Wah Lian and SK Methodist Sungai Pelek played the bingos GOLDERS and MANGOLD for 68 and 74 points, respectively.
             The playing session came to an end at about 12.15p.m., 15minutes before the workshop officially ends. Mdm. Kanaka introduced the Chief Advisor of SSC, Mr. Bathmanaban. Then, the prices as well as the quality of the Scrabble boards were explained, mainly converged to the teachers. The certificates signed by both, the Chief Advisor and the President were presented to the teachers on behalf of their students. This workshop has successfully ended at 12.30p.m. as planned in the schedule.
Last but not the least, a bunch of compliments and appreciation is paid not only to the committee members of SSC, but also to the students and teachers of SMK Sungai Pelek for their kind assistance in organizing the event. With their help and concern, things had turned out flawlessly making the event a successful one.









                    CHARITY PROGRAM BY SCHOLAR’S  SCRABBLE CLUB
                                     Prepared by: G. VetriThillagan

          
A charity program for the Scrabble newbies, as the second event organized by the Scholar’s Scrabble Club (SSC) in the year 2012 was held atPERSATUAN BEKAS PELAJAR SJK(T) SEPANG. This magnificent idea was suggested by Mdm. KanakaletchumiKulandasamy, the advisor of SSC. The charity program managed to witness around 30 teenage students from Sungai Pelek town and other peripheral areas. Most of them hardly had any experience in Scrabble, and it did give us an immense challenge to expose them to Scrabble in two and a half hours. Once all the trainers in-charge namely, JivanSubramaniam, the President, JeihiinSubramaniam, who was the recent champion of CNY 2012, KogaanSelvaraja, Geetha Maniam, Prema Maniam, Arunan Sethu and myself, VetriThillaganGunaseelan were there, the advisors and other supporting teachers gathered the students in a classroom to begin the session. We, as trainers split ourselves into 2 teams as there were 2 different classes of students. Prema, Geetha and I were with Mdm. Kanaka in one classroom, where as the rest took over the other classroom.
          Firstly, the students were simply briefed on the gadgets used such as the Scrabble board, tiles, tile bag and the rack. As soon as the students were clear with the names of the gadgets, Mdm. Kanakaletchumihad begun the next session; how to play Scrabble. The Secretary of the club, Geetha suggested to Mdm. Kanaka that the students should understand the playing manner thoroughly before knowing how to score as well as calculating it. Mdm. Kanaka randomly drew seven tiles from the tile bag. Then, we showed them how to form a word from the tiles arranged on the rack. Some of the students showed positive interest by sharing some of the words that could be formed. Geetha was helping Mdm. Kanaka with her demonstration whereas Prema and I were managing their discipline. The students were quite easy to be controlled and managed as they were disciplined and polite indeed. We carried out the session for about 45 minutes.
          The next session – playing session – were conducted by us, trainers. We paired the students randomly, and provided them with a Scrabble board, a tile bag and two racks. We asked them to arrange the tiles on the board in 10 x 10 and explained to them it was a systematic method to count all 100 tiles. We aided them at first as they were not so able to play. Most of the students had a problem in placing the second and following words. The words were overlapping with the other words, as if forming double-letter words as well. Hence, we taught them how to form one word at a time. At times, they formed a word attached to the beginning or the end of another word. For example, one of the students placed the word “GREAT” at the end of the word “DOG” forming a non-existing word “DOGGREAT”. Therefore, I briefed the student on the rules of forming a word. This session prolonged till 10.30p.m. where the students were asked to recount the tiles and place it in the bag carefully.
          We gathered the students from both the classes in a room. The supporting teachers and other advisors gave a closing speech and an appreciative talk on their attitudes, voluntary involvement of the trainers in this charity and the further sectors for the students to succeed. All of us dismissed about 15minutes later.