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Dharma center opens
at Wat Chaimongkol
Officials present necessities
to the monks at the Tripitaka Building and Children’s Development Center
opening ceremony at Chaimongkol Temple.
Vimolrat Singnikorn
A new educational building to be used for dharma studies and a new Child
Development Center were officially opened at Wat Chaimongkol on March 23.
Priest Maha Theerachan of the Central Buddhist Priest Committee at
Chanasongkram Temple officiated at the opening ceremony, with Chaimongkol’s
Abbot Pisanchariyapiwat and 250 monks and members of the public in
attendance.
Chaimongkol Temple has a large area of land and it was considered
appropriate to build a center here where monks and novices can learn dharma
and the Pali language. Construction of the three-story building began in
2003 with a budget of 17,860,000 baht.
In 2004 the Child Development Center was opened. This too is a three-story
structure, and was built with a hip-roof reinforced concrete design under a
budget of 21,360,000 baht. At present there are 1,250 in the kindergarten
class.
Priest Maha Theerachan,
Central Buddhist Priest Committee, Chanasongkram Temple, arrives at the
opening ceremony for the Tripitaka School and the Child Development Center
at Chaimongkol Temple.
Round Square School
from Canada visits The Regent’s
Regent’s students and
staff pose with the Appleby delegation by the fountain next to Sty.
George’s House.
Paul Crouch
The Regent’s School, Pattaya, was honoured to host a visiting
delegation of adults from Appleby College, Oakville in Canada, last
week. The fellow Round Square School was passing through the country and
decided to spend the afternoon with The Regent’s Round Square Council at
the Pattaya Campus to share ideas and projects.
Head Students, prefects and RS leaders from both the Primary and
Secondary Schools met the delegation on the steps at the front of the
Globe Theatre. After a tasty lunch, the students led the visitors on a
tour of the school and described all the Round Square activities that
the school is currently involved in. These included the Primary and
Secondary RS Councils, the Koh Phi Phi Lunch Project, the Hill Tribe
Project, HIV / AIDS awareness and the upcoming Environmental and
Leadership Weeks.
The tour finished with a presentation and discussion session in the
Secondary School led by students who have participated in Round Square
projects at Regents.
Regent’s Koh Phi Phi Lunch Project is well supported by local
organizations
The Regent’s Round Square Council is delighted with the response from
both international schools and especially locally, Pattaya based
organizations. The lunches for Baan Koh Phi Phi School on the island of
Koh Phi Phi have now been sponsored up to and including December 2007.
This is a fantastic achievement that enables the school to provide a
full-time chef, new cutlery, utensils and good quality food for the 60
students each month.
Special thanks for two local groups: The Jesters Care for Kids Charity
Drive, who have generously sponsored four months, and the Pattaya
Panthers and Panties Rugby Club, who have sponsored the month of April
2006.
Below is a list of all the sponsors. Please check out Regent’s website
(www.regents.ac.th) for photos and more details regarding the Baan Koh
Phi Phi Lunch Project and all other Regent’s RS projects.
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Baan Koh Phi Phi Lunch
Project
Month School
November 2005 Regent’s Pattaya
December 2005 Regent’s Pattaya
January 2006 Regent’s Bangkok
February 2006 JH Sheffield, UK
March 2006 The Southport School, Brisbane
April 2006 Pattaya Panthers RFC
May 2006 The Armidale School, NSW
June 2006 Baylor School, Tennessee
July 2006 St. Andrews College, NZ
August 2006 Bermuda High School
September 2006 Ivanhoe Grammar School, Melbourne
October 2006 Trinity Anglican School, Cairns
November 2006 Collingwood School, Canada
December 2006 St. Clements, Canada
January 2007 The Southport School, Brisbane
February 2007 JH Sheffield, UK
March 2007 Jesters Care for Kids Charity Drive
April 2007 Jesters Care for Kids Charity Drive
May 2007 Graal Moritz, Germany
June 2007 Windermere St. Annes, UK
July 2007 Wellington College, UK
August 2007 Collingwood School, Canada
September 2007 Jesters Care for Kids Charity Drive
October 2007 Graal Moritz, Germany
November 2007 Jesters Care for Kids Charity Drive
December 2007 Aiglon College, Switzerland |
Grease! provides lubricant
for continuing Ban Chang revival
Six months of hard work by students and
teachers alike has reached a crescendo on this final night.
Caspian Pike
Last Friday evening, as March was waving goodbye to the calendar for
another year, I ventured down to lush, verdant, gentle and peaceful Ban
Chang, which used to be one of the best kept secrets in the Eastern
Seaboard. Here, the sun shines just as brightly but the heat is tempered
by a cooling breeze coming off the Gulf of Siam. There is a relaxed air
about the place, reflected in the ambling gait of its inhabitants. As I
cruised along the folksy, tree-lined streets, I sense that I had entered
Thailand for real, without a shopping mall in sight. The town oozed
tranquillity and I was becoming intoxicated by its serenity. It’s an
idyllic environment, one very much suited, you might think, to bringing
up children. And you’d be right.
It appears that sleepy Ban Chang is no longer a secret and is undergoing
something of a revival – a revival which reaches beyond the economy and
further than the fairways of Eastern Star Golf Course. My brief was
another pleasurable one; to visit Garden International School, where
rumour had reached me of a revival production of the musical Grease!
which I was told, I really must see. I travelled incognito, eager to see
a genuine face of a British International school.
It seems that Grease! is all the rage. Last year, the International
School of the Eastern Seaboard put on a great show. No problem with the
American accents there! Here at GIS, as I stood in front of their quite
impressive façade, I knew that inside, six months of hard work by
students and teachers alike was about to reach a crescendo on this final
night, the last of their three performances. Amongst the audience,
expectations were high.
There was something of a carnival atmosphere about the place. A GIS rock
band played 50’s songs on one of the landings. “That’s a bit different,”
I thought. “There must be someone imaginative at the helm of this show.”
There was something reassuringly serious about the way in which the
front of house manager undertook his duties. He was courteous indeed. A
positive first impression well forged. I was beginning to look forward
to the evening quite a lot. Then I spotted something else. Another
‘real’ band, who’s members were (I rightly presumed) to play the score.
“I want to know who’s behind this,” I mused.
Lights down for a full house and we were off. I couldn’t believe my
eyes. How handsome, how resplendent, how magnificent Danny Zuko looked!
A proper latter-day John Travolta. I wondered if he could dance, or
sing, or act. For the most part, he could. Tremendous. “Good for you,
Bjarke Hvass Kure,” (the lad who had landed the role), I thought.
It’s an ambitious project, no question, putting on a show of this nature
in a medium sized school. I guess you need people to hold it together,
so having someone so commanding as Bjarke has to be a big bonus.
Then again, his companions in class and on stage had ample opportunity
to demonstrate their own talents. Shane Mulligan was an excellent
Kenickie, Sharel Abraham a hilarious Johnny Casino and Raymond Van
Puymbroek a remarkably mature and confident Vince Fontaine. Coiffured to
the hilt, dressed like Freddie Truman, Raymond’s rendition of “Beauty
School Drop-Out” was one of the highlights of my evening.
Then there were the “Pink Ladies”, who really were pink, presumably as a
result of some generous gesture from Nini Tailors of Pattaya, long time
supporters of programmes and people of quality at GIS. Peng Janthasorn
was Rizzo, that lusty bint we all love to hate, but would secretly love
to love. Now there’s a tough role, full of great songs and requiring a
lot of presence and acting expertise. She carried it off though, perhaps
most notably with a wonderful “Look at me, I’m Sandra Dee”. The audience
was loving it. Erika Hampel, Christine Reizner and Jisu Ahn, the other
“Pink Ladies” gave great support.
And so to Sandra Dee, played with no little panache by the captivating
Sunny Park, whose name sounds like it came out of Grease! in the first
place! To me, her performance best illustrated how a combination of hard
work and obvious enjoyment in what you’re doing, pays off. Hers was
without doubt an assured, confident voice, equally capable of subtlety
and strength. She also demonstrated complete comfort whether engaged in
pathos or drollery. Whoever did the casting, had got it spot on.
The absolute zenith of the show came with a rip-roaring, hand clapping
and genuinely outstanding rendition of “Grease Lightning!” On any number
of levels, this was the showpiece of the night. From the costumes and
the lighting, to the top prop red roadster, manufactured in the school’s
DT department and whisked on and off by stage hands with all the
precision and apparent effortlessness of a Formula One team: this is
where the production hit home. This is where all the months of planning
and teamwork could be celebrated; in this song there was an
unmistakeable polished dynamism which only relentless practice can
bring. There was no arrogance in the band’s pre-planned encore of the
number. It was what the audience wanted.
At the end, as the last of the punters receded into the night, I finally
managed to do something I had wanted to do all evening; I identified the
person behind the production. Shane O’Shea was talking to Andrew Watson
of Pattaya Mail on TV. It seems clear that in the months since he
arrived last August, Shane has breathed new life into the music
department. He’s on his own. Doesn’t take lunch breaks, doesn’t take any
breaks. Doesn’t have time. He’s given up his weekends and he loves what
he’s doing and it shows – most of all in the obvious affection that the
students have for him. That’s a rare quality indeed. I overheard him
deflect praise to the students, his band and Ms Sonalee Abeyawardene,
his co-producer. The amount of work involved in choreographing,
directing and producing a show of this kind is immense. It takes a
special and dedicated teacher to pull it off. But that’s what Shane
O’Shea had achieved.
Summer school seminar
teaches students robotics programming
Piyavadee Suvannahong
Asian University cooperated with Gammaco to hold a LECO writing program
seminar for students during the summer holiday, which will increase
their skills knowledge in class when term begins.
Asian University students created, setup and
programmed this robot.
Rak Chanthanasarn, LECO product manager said that the purpose of the
seminar was to provide a working experience of the system so that
students can solve problems and learn how to work together.
LECO was applied here in robotic work. Rak said that all robots first
need data supply for program control. LECO has a photo program, which is
easy and attracts more children than the digit program. This training
let the students create their own program to develop their knowledge.
The seminar was held from March 23 to 25, materially supported and
taught by LECO under the auspices of Gammaco.
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