A Stroll Down Memory Lane -
The Second KL Parents' Campfire

by Loh Kok Kin

he fumbling beginner experimenting in the rudiments of drama, sounds of hoarse adolescent croons piercing the night air, crispy chips and Kickapoo bottles circulating among the patrol members, good-spirited jeers and teases hurled at boys blundering in Troop games - under a canopy of stars and an ogling moon. These have been the sights, sounds and smells of the typical Campfire circle for the Troop since the Second Selangor Scout Troop was born. The group’s Campfire was for many years an ‘inside’ event, the jealous preserve of its members.

Enter 1970. On 30^th May, Second KL organised their first Annual Parents’ Campfire at Castle Camp (now Kem Kota Raya). It was a resounding success. As Chong Kok Weng (then Assistant Senior Scout Leader and King Scout) recalls, "Our song book (of 1971) was in high demand around KL. All Ranger Units, Girl Guide Coys, Scout Troops wanted copies. So we typed, cyclostyled and bound hundreds of them and sold them for $1.00 each." The song book had 139 pages, and contained 274 songs. Its front cover, drawn by Zamani Zakaria, depicts five Scouts sitting around a bonfire as a guitarist accompanies their singing. This tradition of song book production has flourished ever since, and has been occasionally complemented by the publication of Apache, the Troop’s Campfire magazine, which was published for the first time in 1989.

Many monsoons and droughts has the Troop weathered since that Campfire. Gone are the days of the cyclostyle, to be replaced with silk-screen printing of song book covers, typing (on typewriters and later, on non-WYSIWYG computers), photocopying and stapling of contents pages (which were littered with free-hand illustrations) by the Senior Scouts. Even that is now taken over by word processing, Photoshop editing and since 1997, professional printing and binding. Gone, too, are the days when music for the performances were dubbed from cassette to cassette, with the PA system/ music chief copping the full blow for playing the wrong tape. Today what can go wrong with CD-burning and computer-automated sequencing of songs?

Initially, each Boy Scout patrol was obliged to present their own performance - a sketch and/ or item (in VSGian jargon, ‘item’ means any group performance but a play/ drama/ sketch). The best performance would then be announced at the end of the evening. This ‘Best Performance’ award still continues today, in the form of the Chan Lee Mun trophy, first awarded in 1972. Chan Lee Mun was an Assistant Scout Master of the Boy Scouts in 1970 and 1971. Later, due to time and efficiency constraints, patrols were combined (in pairs or threes) to choreograph performances. These performances were then auditioned, and God forbid the patrol with the worst performance because - by ‘divine decree’ - they would be condemned to the refectory or pavilion to wash the dishes for the night! Meanwhile, it was compulsory for the Senior Troop to produce at least one performance, despite their heavy schedules organising the night. Occasionally, there would be a choir to lead the singing sessions. Michael Chin (Assistant Scout Master in 1990) was the first leader of this group of musicians in 1989.

In the 1990s, this programme format changed. 1991 inaugurated a routine where the youngest Troop members (Form 1s or Form 2s) would present the opening item. Then, from 1992 onwards, the whole Boy Scout Troop combined to produce a sketch. That first Troop-combined sketch was Beauty and the Beast, an adaptation of the Disney feature released early that year. That year also saw the resurrection of the Rescue Act (first performed in 1986), which has since been faithfully continued (with modifications of course) in every Campfire. The 1990s also saw the disappearance of a rabble-rousing performance, which constantly rated as a crowd-pleaser, namely the Miss Second KL contest. This beauty pageant has now been transferred to become an internal Troop event.

Apart from the Chan Lee Mun trophy, other coveted awards of the Troop are also presented on Campfire’s night, which marks the end of a Scouting year for the Troop. The major awards are - Get-To-Know-You Camp Best Patrol, Competition Camp Best Patrol, Treasure Hunt Winner, Best Patrol Log Book and of course, the highest accolades of achievement in the Troop, the Best Boy Scout Patrol and Best Senior Scout Patrol awards.

In 1995, a Second KL Annual Parents' Campfire Theme Song was composed for the first time. Entitled One Scouting, One Brotherhood in accordance with the theme of the that year's Campfire, and composed by the then Troop Leader Loh Kok Kin, it goes as follows:

When asked for memories of Campfires, every VSGian has his story. Lam Yin Keat (Senior Scout Leader of 1987) recalls the game of ‘hide and seek’ - sneaking into the computer lab in the middle of the night to print song books on noisy dot matrix printers, while warily looking out for the snooping school jaga. Or who can forget the blinding spotlights of the adjoining Stadium Merdeka which often schemes to stage a football match simultaneously with our Campfires? And the Troop Lighting Department hasn’t always been lucky, as the 1988 experience will attest to. That year, due to severe storms and widespread blackouts, car headlights had to used to illuminate the quadrangle.

However, the school quadrangle has not been the invariable site of the Campfire circle. Troop Campfires have also been held on the school field, not forgetting Castle Camp in the early years. However, since 1986, for effective audio, lighting and management purposes, the circle has stayed at the quadrangle. Of course, what mention of the VSG Campfire is complete without reference to the exhibitions? The Campfire exhibitions, nowadays held in classrooms, used to be set up in the Scout Den while the gadget site would be situated nearby, usually at the skating rink (where the Surau now stands). Previously, the gadget site used to simply consist of an elaborately designed archway. But with the burgeoning Troop membership from 1987/ 1988, an actual (Competition Camp standard) campsite has always been built, complete with a raised-bed, tower, kitchen complex, bridge and various other gadgets according to the Seniors' creativity.

Our guests of honour have ranged from high-ranking Scout officials like the late Mr K.S. Maniam (State Scout Commissioner) to high-ranking civil officers like former mayor Dato’ (now Tan Sri) Elyas Omar (whose son, Dzamir Elyas, was a Victorian and a Second KL member) and senior officers in the Department and Ministry of Education like the State Director Tuan Haji Sapi and Deputy Director-General Tuan Haji Abdul Rafie. The Troop has many close friends, too, like the veteran district commissioner Mr Robert Tee Sing, who has graced the occasion many times.

The face of the Victoria Scout Group’s Annual Parents’ Campfire has changed over the years. Yet, in the words of the theme song first composed for the 1995 Campfire, "Breaking down the walls that rise between us", there is a joyous unity of spirit that has kept our enthusiasm timelessly ablaze. Be it in singing The Feng Yang Song and Isle of Capri in 1971, or Oops, I Did It Again in 2000; be it in setting up the Hyperbolic Paraboloid Complex in 1975 or the raised-bed and tower in 2000, this common spirit infuses all who dare call themselves members of Second KL/ Victoria Scout Group. It is for this reason that many ex-members return yearly to re-acquaint themselves with the Troop and mingle with Scouters and Scouts many years their junior. Traditionally after each Campfire, the Troop would fall into a horseshoe to listen to the words of these ex-leaders. Indeed as each VSGian, present and past, partakes of that Campfire camaraderie, we can proudly proclaim, in the words of the Group Song, that

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