The cheque presentation

Yesterday was the day for the presentation of cheques awarded by Yayasan Sultan Azlan Shah for various NGOs and shelter homes in Perak.

We (the reps from the various NGOs/homes) were to report to the person in charge at 2.30 pm while HRH The Regent of Perak was scheduled to arrive at 3.45 pm.

I had never been inside DBI's premise, so I wasn't really sure where the function hall was. And so I decided to go early. Good thing I did. I thought the venue would be somewhere at the ground floor - but apparently the function room was on the 10th floor.

There were quite a number of representatives already present by the time I reported to the person in charge. After a while, they called out each organisation to make sure we sat according to the numbers allotted. Mine was number 69. And in total there were 71 recipients. Surely you can guess where I sat, huh? Yep, last row...

Anyway, when the emcee called out the names of the various organisations, I kinda figured he wouldn't pronounce Buddies correctly. As expected, he mentioned Buddhist of Ipoh. I pointed out to another officer that it's supposed to be Buddies, not Buddhist. So this officer went to correct the emcee. The emcee replied back, "Tapi tulis sini budis!" Duh, dah lah tak tau, degil pulak tu!! The officer then said to him, "Ni tulis orang putih, sebut BA-DIS bukan BU-DIS."

Hmmmph... maybe next time we should just change the spelling to Badis...

Anyway, after our seating arrangements were settled, the protocol officer then briefed us on what to do etc. The lady sitting beside me began to get nervous. Every now and then, she'd be asking me, "What is it that we have to say after we get the cheque?" And every now and then I'd have to tell her, "Menjunjung kasih, tuanku."

At about 3.50 pm we heard the sound of sirens loud and clear. Obviously HRH had arrived. And walking in along with him were the Raja Puan Muda, and also Raja Ashman and Raja Eleena.

The official function started off with a bacaan doa, followed by a speech by Raja Nazrin and then on with the cheque presentation. The emcee did some blunders as well during the official function, with wrong pronunciation of names. Despite the presence of royalties in the room, our giggles were rather obvious when the emcee tried to pronounce Persatuan Autisme. And at one time, he was about to say Persatuan but realised it was Pertubuhan, so he went like... Pers..tubuhan... (now what does THAT sound like??)

I was quite worried that he would again mention Buddhist Society of Ipoh - what a shock it would have been to those present seeing this Mak Aji going to get the cheque!

But guess what? I think after the giggles due to the word autism, this time he played safe. He only mentioned my name without mentioning the organisation!

Well, anyway, with 71 recipients altogether, frankly I had expected a cheque of maybe just RM2K, or at the most, RM5K.

I hope nobody realised I went terbeliak biji mata when Raja Nazrin mentioned in his speech that each recipient would be awarded RM20K each. Of course, there's a condition to it. In six months time we will all have to send a written report with details on how we spent the money.

Time to plan for new project, maybe?