Upon my return to Sri KDU in November 2004, I began persuading my boss, Mrs. Chan to have an annual Olympics-like tournament to allow students to take part in various competitions aimed to provide a platform to show case their hidden talents. Of course, as usual, Mrs. Chan was very supportive of the idea as she straight away saw the potential in such a large-scale event for her students. However, the obstacle now for us was to plan out the mechanics of each single event which included the drawing out of the competition rules and regulations, experienced or qualified teachers to be in charge of the events, and to work out the overall budget for the event. Since this is a large-scale event, my suggestion to Mrs. Chan was to set up a student committee to help run these events. With the help of three other teachers, namely Ms. Foo, Ms. Kalai and Mr. Hafiz, we founded the Performance Club in 2005 to organise the first ever Paramount Championship. Later, Mr. Mark was then invited to join the family of PC.
Mr. Hafiz Mazlan was given the task to design the logo for the club, which was then adopted for the championship. The logo, a silhouette of a performer (from Saturday Night Fever) symbolises the enormous desire of a performer to strive for excellence in whatever he/she joins.
At the initial planning stage, trust me, it wasn’t as easy as we thought I would be because there were four brains to come out with great ideas and the problem was which idea we should adopt. We need to be very open minded to screen through every single one of them and discard them when necessary.
With the leadership of Fam Li-Ying, our first president, Paramount Championship took off the way as we planned. We received encouraging feedback from the parents and management since then which gave us green light to continue with the championship till present. Today, the Paramount Championship has become the signature interschool competition orchestrated to challenge students in a multitude of events, one that will test their participation, leadership as well as teamwork. It is not an event designed to identify winners but an event that was hoped to inspire students and also evoke hidden talents.
Hence, the main objective of Paramount Championship is to provide a platform for all secondary school students to showcase their creativity and talents in the field of performing arts and academic arena. Besides, this is also one event that could promote class unity and build positive rapport among the students, and between the students and their homeroom teachers.
Labels: Background
