KAPPA History: How it all began

OI KAPPA MAU!

Since this is the inaugural post, I thought I'd touch on how the "Houses" concept started in MDeC.

I was appointed the MDeC Sports Club Pro-Tem Committee President on 4 September 2006 during a meeting where all interested staff were invited. Of course more people showed up at the KAPPA Gala Awards Celebration last week, than at that meeting, but biasalah...

The Pro-Tem Committee met up with CEO the following week, when he outlined his vision for a cross divisional grouping where people could hang out and compete with others from all over the organization, thereby increasing interaction. We then decided that 4 houses were optimum, and worked with HCD for the pioneer house membership, which was divided first by gender, then rank. By mid September 2006, we ended up with four houses with equal numbers of guys vs gals, and equal number of higher ranks vs lower ranks (assumption being that the higher ranks were useless at sports and anything non-skema). And contrary to popular belief (at least among the members of houses that don't win too many championships) I DID NOT filter the list by athletic ability, artistic skills, aptitude for winning, resourcefulness or any other criteria and place all the best/cool people in MY house. Yeah, I had the time to interview 400 people within a week and book the good ones. Two words: SOUR GRAPES :)

Anyway, the Sports Club spent most of the following few weeks developing a Constitution and benchmarking other clubs (MIMOS, SHELL etc) because that was the direction given to us. In the meantime the house split was validated by HCD, we developed mailing lists, and started planning for the Inter House Games.

I knew that we needed to create some hype among the staff, and get people excited about being placed in Houses. So we developed a LOTR like write up and sent to ALLMDeC (pre Internalcomm days when anyone can send to all and choke up everyone's box). Full text of the teaser (Rising of the Houses Part 1) and the House Split email (Rising of the Houses Part 2) in the coming posts.

Timeline:
4 September 2006 - Pro Tem Committe election
27 September 2006 - Rising of the Houses Part 1 & 2 email. House membership made public for the first time.
29 September 2006 - Inaugural Rising of the Houses - Kappa at the Balcony, 3rd Floor. Ravee Suntheralingam elected 1st KAPPA KAPPITAN.
2 November 2006 - First KAPPA Party - Deepa-Raya Celebration. The atmosphere was kinda green (with envy). Rumah lain dah mula berbulu.
24 November 2006 - Eve of Inter House Games. Three games (Badminton, Pool, Table Tennis concluded. Kappa Hero Hindustan in 3rd spot with NO golds. No prizes on guessing which house was at the last place) Rumah lain mula perasan boleh menang.
25 November 2006 - Let the Games Begin - 4 outdoor and 8 indoor event. Champion without a doubt - KAPPA!!! The start of the KAPPA era! KAPPA haters crawling out of the woodworks.
3 March 2007 - MDeC Annual Dinner (MAD030307) - KAPPA KLEAN SWEEP - we won ALL 5 categories in contention. Kappitan Ravee led us on a victory lap around the ballroom. KAPPA envy solidifying.

So there you have it. Some Hari Ini Dalam Sejarah for all you Sharks. More details to follow.

The superb win we had during the recent games should not come as a surprise to anyone. Winning is in our genes :)