Hi all, Love Cheras Carnival was successfully organized in Leisure Mall recently. We had Datuk Ong Tee Keat come officiate the carnival in the early afternoon, he also announced a donation amounting to Rm10,000.00 towards CPF Bhd/Carnival as an encouragement to CPF for making great efforts in organizing this annual event. This is the 5th consecutive year that CPF has been organizing this carnival along with other events as well.
The Hong Kong Team that flew in just to assist in the carnival and visitations arrived early, ready to serve and to help
We started off by having the children from Shinning Stars performing a multicultural dance that definitely made many parents proud.
After the soft launch by Shinning Stars kids, we then proceeded with the art coloring contest that drew about 160 kids from age 4-9 years old. There were so many of them that we needed to split them into 2 different locations, the concourse and the ground floor.
Some of the kids really came prepared as you can see, we call them "semi-professional" contestants. The prizes were definitely attractive to attract such contestants, the grand prize for both categories age group was a bicycle each.
Towards 2.30pm, most of the VIP guest and media arrived awaiting Datuk Ong Tee Keat to officially launch the carnival.
Datuk Ong also spent time to present prizes to the top 3 winners of the coloring contest of each category. The parents must certainly be proud of their children as the press were there to take pictures of their children receiving prizes
This is the art work of a 7 year old winner in the contest. Mind you, we only gave them a piece of paper that had only the Olympics mascot and rings, the rest of the paper was plain. The children were left to their own imagination of how to color and draw their own. 
After the prize presentation, Datuk Ong was taken to tour the exhibition, counseling and games booths that were available for "FREE" to all members of the public
This was a free dental check booth
Even the local police came and exhibited valuable information to the public
There was a single mother's society that came as well
Great Commission, a community based NGO was also there to exhibit
The public was heavily encouraged to donate blood to the blood bank as they were really in need of blood, many responded
The carnival even had a Vet available to advise pet owners of their pets health
An expert chinese tea maker was also there to serve great chinese tea to everyone
A charity art gallery was there showing off some of the art by our very own christian artist. Profits of selling their art pieces actually goes to charity
shoulder and back massage were made available all
Different games were made available to families with many free prizes up for grabs
A family focused organization that focuses on family well-being were there to exhibit their services
A community-based business was also there to exhibit on how to help the less fortunate in the society to make it on their own
The dental care booth
There was also a gamblers rehab centre there to advise on how to cut gambling addiction
A dialysis centre exhibiting about their services to kidney patients
Community services were made available to the people of Cheras
NKF aka National Kidney Foundation was also there to provide their services to members of the public
After the carnival during the day, we then had a 2 hours break before a mini-concert started. This concert was also provided for the young people of Cheras free of charge.
Thanks to the CPF pastors openness, this was one of those concerts where it wasn't only christian songs that were being sung, we were also given liberty to invite circular artist from around the country to come and perform in this community concert meant for the young people at Leiure Mall Cheras.
this is definitely one step forward into getting closer to the grass root people without scaring them off with our typical evangelistic enthusiasm (nothing wrong with this type of enthusiasm, just that different tactics need to be applied at different times & wif different people)
as a result such liberty given, we ended up with a good mixture of circular and christian groups/singers. we started off with 2 oldies singers (dun play play...one of them is 2005 Astro Golden Melody Champion) and they really wowed the crowd.
After the oldies, we started with a rock band "The Bus Company Band" where all the band members were christians.
After the band performed, we then had a hip hop group from Muk-En Methodist church. Methodist??? yes correct, Methodist, it's about time we all start to be relevant to the community around us
Following the performance of the hip hop dancers, we then had our very own hummingbird local star, Serene Cheam wowing the crowd with her sweet voice
During the interval, we had games for the young people and freebies to giveaway as well
Another hip hop performance by the Muk-En Methodist Church (2nd team). Yes, this Methodist Church actually has 2 teams of hip hop dancers
We then had some of our local youth from Rumah Charis performing to the crowd
The night ended with a "bang" when The Bus Company Band came on and perform again to close the concert
Here are some pictures of the crowd during the concert
Overall, Love Cheras Carnival 2008 was considered a success. A big thank you to all the supporting churches, individuals, groups and organizations that made this event a success. Not to forget also the people of Cheras for coming to support this Carnival.
