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Mamma Mia - How Can We Forget You?
‘Donna’ and ‘Sam’ perform
Mamma Mia.
Mark Beales
If there was a single foot that wasn’t tapping in the
main hall, we couldn’t see it.
As the sounds of Mamma Mia filled the hall at Garden
International School (GIS) in Ban Chang, Rayong, the audience was up out of
their seats and dancing along with the students to the final number. From
November 23-25, students staged their version of Mamma Mia, the musical
based on the music of Abba.
Vanessa Vanderpoel took on the role of Donna, a
middle-aged women whose daughter Sophie is about to get married. Sophie,
played by Praw Brander, secretly invites three men to the wedding. This trio
all had a fling with Donna 21 years ago, and Sophie now wants her father at
her wedding; the only trouble is she doesn’t know which of the men it is.
Some of the stars of Garden’s
latest production.
Vanessa was superb as the troubled mum who is looking for
love but just doesn’t know it. Helped by Christina Traister and Daniela
Escobar as her sidekicks, the three girls took on some of Abba’s biggest
hits - and nailed each and every one.
Not only was their singing as powerful as it was
pitch-perfect, the choreography added some impressive and often comic
touches - best seen in the hilarious Chiquitita.
The three men invited to the wedding were played
wonderfully by Rohit Ghosh (Sam), Ben Bartlett (Bill) and Jason Tang
(Harry). The show, just like the musical, was peppered with classic Abba
tracks, from Dancing Queen and Voulez Vouz to Super Trouper and Does Your
Mother Know, the latter performed wonderfully by Christina, aided by a
stunning dance troupe. By the end of the show, the audience responded to the
students’ obvious enthusiasm by dancing along to Mamma Mia to mark the end
of another spectacular success.
Dancing kings from Garden.
Many thanks go to the companies who generously agreed to
sponsor the show. The gold sponsors were Rosie O’Gradys Pub and Restaurant
in Pattaya, Camel Pub and Restaurant in Ban Chang, the Gunn family and Usana
Health Sciences. The silver sponsors were U Smile, Indian by Nature, Pala
Lagoon Project Land & House, Praw Street Dance and Modeling Studio, PM Valve
and Viking Power Systems. And the bronze sponsors were Eastern Star, the
Lyubchevskaya family and Khun May’s Restaurant and Cafe.
Thanks also go to the cast, crew, band and choir and to
director Ken Lund, assistant director Jenn Blais, producer Ben Liversidge,
musical director Paul Shiells, assistant musical director Michelle Peralta,
choreographer Hannah Sumalee Inthararat, set designers Andrew Gordon and
Jane Vincent, costume designer Martine Morris, additional performance coach
Kasia Grisdale, music support from Alan Aquino and catering from Patsy
Smith.
DVDs, posters and T-shirts are still on sale at 250 baht
each. If you’re interested, email dramadept@ gardenrayong.com. The deadline
for buying T shirts is December 7. There is no deadline for the other two
items.
Students perform Abba’s hit
‘Does Your Mother Know?’
‘Sophie’ prepares to marry in
the musical’s climax.
Garden’s singing stars belt
out ‘Waterloo’.
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GIS Christmas Fair promises to be biggest and best ever
Mark Beales
This year’s Christmas Fair at Garden International School
promises to be the biggest and best ever.
The fair will be held at the school on Saturday, December
10 from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. and all money raised will go help buy even more
resources for the school, based in Ban Chang, Rayong.
The raffle is a huge part of the fair and there are some
great prizes available, including bicycles, fridges, a golf round for four -
and a giant teddy bear!
There are two ways to help out - by donating prizes and
by buying tickets. Students are busy selling tickets at the moment, and
there is a prize for whoever manages to sell the most.
The fair itself will have a range of games and activities
organised by teachers and staff.
Foundation will be doing face painting and other events,
while primary activities will include bottle fishing, pick a straw, ‘guess
how many sweets are in the jar’, magic cards, tin can alley, ring toss and a
‘make your own banana split’ stall.
Secondary teachers will be having several fun games too,
including a raffle, a soak the teacher stall, Santa’s penalty shootout, pin
the nose on the Rudolph, mysterious island, and table tennis challenge.
The Thai department will have an egg scooping event and
lucky tree, library staff will have second-hand books for sale and the music
department will provide some festive songs.
If you’d like to have your own stall at the fair, email
[email protected], phone us on 038-880360-3 / 081-8596460 or fax:
038- 030 805.
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Young Marines Pattaya participate in Sattahip’s Mini-Marathon
Sattahip’s
Mini-Marathon Walk-Run Young Marines Pattaya participants, left to
right: Jim Coomes, Rad Mays, Pvt. Bret Mays, Nok Mays and Joe Ferral.
Rad Mays
A Mini-Marathon Walk-Run was held in Sattahip on
Sunday, Nov. 27 in honor of His Majesty the King’s birthday. Admiral
Thira Haochareun, Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Thai Navy, presided
over the opening ceremony.
The walk-run competition supports the government’s
policy to promote physical fitness in local communities. The Young
Marines Pattaya Unit participated in the event’s five kilometer health
walk. The Unit’s participants were Jim Coomes, Joe Ferral and Bret, Nok
and Rad Mays. The Unit had planned to walk the 10.5k mini-marathon, but
due to event restrictions were unable to do so. All the Unit’s
participants enjoyed the event, got some exercise and had a great time.
Komed Wasawaphan, a student at the Chumphon Naval
Academy, was the winner of the 10.5 kilometer mini-marathon.
If you know someone that would like to become a Young
Marine, please contact Rad Mays at 083 115 8694 or email to
[email protected]
At the starting line,
Young Marines from Pattaya and other participants in Sattahip’s
Mini-Marathon.
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Friends of Youth, Pattaya City take kids fishing
Nathan Russo -
Friends of Youth
Saturday following Thanksgiving, Friends of Youth,
Pattaya City entertained about 40 kids from Banglamung Boys Home and
Mabprachan Jr School to a day of fishing at Pattaya Barra Fishing Park.
The park specializes in fishing for Baramundi known as Pra Kapong on
Thai menus - a tasty meaty fish.
The kids arrived early in the morning and only
stopped fishing long enough for a great lunch served up by the fishing
park. In addition to food provided by the park, GP Foods, owned by
Boonlai Kaebaimai, delivered a great assortment of minced pies, apple
pies and Cornish pastries that everyone enjoyed. Boonlai said the pies
are sold at WWMCO (formerly known as Western Beef) Villa and Friendship
supermarkets.
A friend of one of the owner’s of the park also
volunteered her time to do face painting which the kids really enjoyed.
To learn more about how you can get involved with
this very worthwhile organization contact Jerry Dean at 083-115-8475.
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Satit School helping flood victims
Satit students and staff
present the donations to Sorrayut Sutatsanajinda, Pitohayatan Janput
(Nong Bright) and comedian Jaraenpon Onlamai (Gho-tee).
On Thursday 1st December, staff and student
representatives of Satit Udomseuksa School, Pattaya went up to the
Bangkok Channel 3 television station to donate 460 aid bags for the
victims of the recent floods in Thailand.
Parents, students and staff helped raise money and
donated items for the younger victims that included milk, bottles,
pampers, towels and more.
Students and staff of Satit presented the donations
to Channel 3 reporter Sorrayut Sutatsanajinda, Pitohayatan Janput (Nong
Bright) and comedian Jaraenpon Onlamai (Gho-tee).
‘Living with the Tiger’ screening at the Regent’s School
Mike Thomas
and Bla share information about the film.
Joonas Neelov
Last Monday, movie star Khun Bla and film director
Mike Thomas visited Regent’s as part of their tour with the documentary
“Living with the Tiger”. Khun Bla and Mike are both lively HIV/AIDS
activists and the screening in The Globe Theatre was part of the
Regent’s World AIDS Day 2011 programme.
The movie gives an insight into the lives of HIV/AIDS
affected children in Thailand and the difficulties they face living
within Thai society. Filmed by its director Mike Thomas, Khun Bla plays
a major role in the documentary as the film crew follows his life for
three years, from the Thai countryside all the way to a Bangkok opera
stage.
Apart from screening the movie to many members and
friends of Regent’s, Khun Bla and Mike Thomas also got to know the
Regent’s a bit better. The pair had some quality time in Primary, where
they talked about their movie and HIV/AIDS. They also carried out some
fundraising by selling DVDs and T-shirts of the movie during lunch
times. The T-shirts will also be sold at the coming Christmas Bazaar!
Everyone can find out more about the movie and Baan Gerda on http://www.
livingwiththetiger.com/.
After the evening screening of the movie on Tuesday
and a long question and answer session, we said our thanks to Khun Bla
and Mr. Mike Thomas for sharing their moving story with us. Bla and Mike
headed off to prepare for the next showing of the movie in NIST in
Bangkok.
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Blind School gears up for annual sports competition, thanks
to generous PSC donation
William Macey, charity
chairman of the Pattaya Sports Club, presents sports equipment to Aurora
Sribuaphan, Principal of the School for the Blind.
William Macey, charity chairman of the Pattaya Sports
Club, recently presented much needed sports equipment to the Pattaya
School for the Blind.
Like school children around the world the blind
students enjoy participating in competitive sports events. Sports such
as goalball were devised especially for the blind, and this game is now
an official sport at the Paralympics.
Thanks to the Pattaya Sports Club, Aurora Sribuaphan,
Principal of the School for the Blind, accepted several goalballs and
soccer balls, all of which have a small bell inside so that the students
can hear where the ball is as opposed to being able to see it.
Professional spiked sprinting training shoes were
also donated which will hopefully give the students an advantage at
future athletics competitions.
The annual sports competition at the School for the
Blind will take place on January 26th. All visitors are welcome to
attend this event at the School which is located on Soi 16 Naklua Road.
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Asian U student researches education in Iraq
The best learning results
come up when students share a computer, instead of working alone.
Freek Olaf de Groot
With more international students studying at Asian
University, contributions to the local community have now reached an
international level. In addition to contributing to the development of
the local community around Asian University, international students are
applying their international learning experience at Asian University to
actively contribute to development of education in their home countries.
One of these students is Ahmed Falih Rabeea, an Iraqi
secondary school English teacher from Basra in southern Iraq. Ahmed
joined the Master of Education programme in Teaching English to Speakers
of Other Languages (TESOL) last year with the goal of applying his
learning experience to contribute to the educational system in his
hometown. As part of his thesis he has started a project to introduce
the use of E-learning at local schools in the south of Iraq.
This is how a normal
learning environment looks like in Iraq.
During his studies on the M.Ed. TESOL programme Ahmed
was introduced to the principles of E-learning in English language
education and decided to explore the opportunities for a pilot project
in Iraq. This proved to be easier said than done in a country in which
education suffered from two decades of war. Innovations in education
such as E-learning are a rarity in Iraq. However, with limited internet
access and only a couple of hours of electricity a day, Ahmed decided to
take up the challenge. In order to run the experiment successfully he
rented 20 computers and two generators to power the computers during the
practicum.
His experiment aims at investigating the effect of
interactive learning materials on students’ English language proficiency
levels. One group of students is now receiving 2 hours of interactive
computer-based instruction per week and 2 hours of normal textbook-based
instruction. Another group is following the standard programme of four
hours of textbook-based classes a week without the interactive learning
materials.
The first results are hopeful and showed zero
absentees during the first 8 weeks of instruction, a much more positive
attitude toward learning English and more motivated students.
Ahmed said, “Some shy students told me that they
learn English with much more confidence and excitement than before. As
to the school teachers, they expressed their admiration to see that the
Basra Education Directorate and the school administration have paid much
more attention to this development and lend support to this project.
They would like to adopt such a method in their way of teaching.”
The final results will be expected in late December
when he finishes his experiment.
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