After much anticipation on the highly-strung committees' part, 11th of November finally arrived. For a vast majority of the Sri Aman population, this day was one that banked on terrifying not because the day of the Eco Carnival finally arrived, but because it was our report card day. However, for committee members of the Eco Carnival, most of whom were in school before the first ray of sunlight graced the skies, it was the day where we finally got to see if our efforts would come to fruition.
Members in charge of the registration booths and enquiry counters were already hard at work while last-minute preparations were still being done by both members and booth operators alike. The hall-arrangement committee worked together to make sure that the hall was properly and immaculately set up for the international conference about to take place later in the day. Workshop, guided tour and interactive talk committee members were briefed by Angela Chong on their tasks and how to control the many groups of students who are about to join the guided tour later in the day, and later worked together to set up the workshops.
Meanwhile, members of the stalls and exhibition committee assigned to monitor the setting up of the booths on top of labeling each booth with the name of companies, clubs and classes. Members of other committees were also scurrying about frantically in their respective attempts to complete every aspect of their preparations before the first visitors to our carnival began trickling in.
By 8.00AM, all sales and exhibition booths had been properly set up. Students from other schools arrived and registered in front of the hall. Each participant of the International Conference received a goodie bag with items sponsored by various organisations such as Sime Darby, TM, and Taylor's College. When the VIPs invited to the International Conference finally arrived, the International Conference comprising of speeches from each of the VIPs on top of serious discussions about the problems our environment face finally begun. Students from our schools raised many interesting questions and suggestions, and it was evident that our guests of honours were suitably impressed by our students' attentiveness and innate understanding of the topics discussed.
While the International Conference was being held for the pre-registered audience, the exhibition booths as well as the booths selling environmentally-friendly items were being visited by other visitors to our carnival. There were exhibitions from numerous large organizations, such as Sime Darby, Tenaga Nasional, Syabas, DOE, Tetra Pak, P1, just to name a few. Booths selling the eco-friendly equivalent of bathing soap, cosmetics, and household detergents were set up, on top of booths such as the Gerai Orang Asli, a booth selling crafts made by Malaysia's indigenous tribes, a booth by the Malaysian Arts and Crafts Guild, which sold beautiful hand made bags made out of old clothes and pretty hair accessories, also hand made.
There was even a booth run by two Japanese girls who demonstrated and explained how we can make candles out of used oil. The explanations were amazingly, given in Malay. Watching them put shaved bits of crayon and droplets of oil into the candles before the candles set to give the candles some colour and scent was a big eye-opener for me. There was also a booth giving away used reference books and half-completed PMR workbooks away for free. These books were donated by members of the Toyota Eco Rangers club who recently sat for their PMR examinations. Bros, the company manufacturing reusable bottles, not only had a representative giving an interactive talk to a large group of students, but also set up a booth selling their products.
Students who signed up for the guided tours were first taken to interactive talks given by representatives of numerous large corporations, namely Mr Douglas Tan, the Export and Eco Development Manager of JASA Eco; Miss Rachel Lim, Creative and Marketing Manager of Living Wings and finally, Mr Lionel Yap, General Manager/Directo of Solamas. The interactive talks opened the eyes of the students to numerous environmentally-friendly alternatives to their usual harmful habits. Participants of the guided tours were then taken to the exhibition booths, game stations, retail booths and workshops by their friendly and helpful tours.
There were four workshops conducted on the day of the carnival, which included an origami workshop, a paper-recycling workshop, a bio-enzyme workshop, and a composting workshop. Game stations allowed visitors to the stations to try their hands at playing interesting and amusing games such as Snake and Ladders. The guided tours ended at 12.30 pm.
Competitions such as Eco Crafts and Eco Music were held at 2pm, and the winners were announced at 4pm. We would like congratulate the winners and thank the participants of the competitions, for all the enthusiasm and hard work they invested in the competitions.
Exhausted committee members finally stumbled their way home at around 4.30 pm, completely wiped out from event filled with minor emergencies that almost caused heart palpitations, excitement, and top it all off, fun. We were all self-satisfied in the knowledge that all our hard work and preparations paid off in the most unexpectedly wonderful manner, and are all eagerly anticipating another opportunity to go through roller-coaster of emotions ranging from stress, drama, relief, and satisfaction again. Maybe next year?
Our Eco Music Band performance.
The VIPs present at our event.
A booth exhibiting solar panels.
Attendees of the international conference paying attention to our headmistress's speech.
One of the Interactive Talks being held.
Paper-recycling workshop being conducted.
Origami workshop being conducted.
The International Conference being held.
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