The Annual Dinner 2009 was held on 29 March 2009 amidst the beautifully-landscaped Hort Park. Aptly-themed ‘Survivor’, the Dinner saw some 52 alumni, students and guests gathered in the beautifully decorated Multi-Purpose Hall for an evening of good food and entertainment. While watching the beautiful sunset showering the hall with golden lights, the guests warmed themselves up with a game of ‘Bingo with a Twist’. After much laughter and fun, Meng Kai, President of the 8th SMAAC Committee, started the 3rd Annual SMAAC Dinner with a speech reflecting on past events organised by the club. This was followed by an address by the Guest-of-Honour Prof Hardy Chan, Co-Director, SMA Singapore office.

Dinner was a sumptuous spread of international buffet with 16 items to choose from. The mee siam earned the highest praise from many guests, especially Prof Chan. The first 5 prizes for the lucky draw were then given out by Prof Chan and the lucky winners walked away with prizes that included vouchers, movie tickets and computer hard disks.

The first session of the lucky draw was followed by another game. The emcee for the event, Norman, asked guests at each table to guess the titles of 10 songs played by the DJ. Participants rushed up on stage with answer sheets in hand only to realise that they had been tricked. They were instead asked to show their talents in folding paper aeroplanes and making them fly as far as possible. Although students and alumni from SMA are academically gifted, folding flyable paper aeroplanes proved to be a big but fun challenge to some participants, much to the amusement of everyone.

In the next game, Norman got 3 couples to come up on stage and asked them questions regarding their partners. The final twist of the game was for the ladies to identify their partners correctly by feeling the legs of the guys while blindfolded. Surprisingly, all ladies found their partners correctly!

After the entertaining games, the guests eagerly awaited the results of the top 5 lucky draws, drawn by Meng Kai. The exciting prizes were: Nintendo DS, Philips digital photoframe, iPod shuffle, OSIM Upampie and an $80 CapitaLand voucher. The 2 ½ hours of fun came to end with the giving of tokens of appreciation to our Guest-of-honour, Prof Chan, our sponsor SMA Singapore and our photographer, Shanti Dewi.

With the combined efforts of committee members and financial assistance from our sponsor, we managed to make this event a success. On behalf of the 8th SMAAC committee, I would like to specially thank the following for their generous support:

• SMA office of Singapore, for their generous sponsorship
• SMA Singapore officers: Ang Mei Ling, Shanti Dewi
• SMAAC committee members: Meng Kai, He Yuting, Su Xiangyong, Hu He, Wang Wen, Cen Yizhe, Ng Gar Yan, Jia Gengjie, Ling Ming Ming, Kek Sei Wee, Xu Ying, Lui Ho Man and Chen Xiaowen.

I look forward to another exciting annual dinner next year!

Guests queuing up for a sumptuous spread of international buffet.

Participants went on stage thinking they were participating in a song quiz only to find out that they were participating in a paper aeroplane game.

The emcee testing the couples with questions about their partners.