2008 MNS State Education Coordinators Meeting and Workshop

The author with a Rafflesia flower.

Last January, I went to My Gopeng Resort, near Gopeng, in the state of Perak, to attend the annual meeting of the State Education Coordinators organized by Malaysian Nature Society. This meeting was being conducted with the co-operation by the Ministry of Education Malaysia. The participants for this 3 days 2 night meeting were MNS officers, MNS State Education Coordinators (all are full time school teachers) and State Co-Curricular Center officers from various states. The meeting had been held at My Gopeng Resort and Kampung Ulu Geroh from 25 to 27 January, 2008.

The agendas for this meeting were presentation of reports regarding 2007 School Nature Clubs programmes by the MNS HQ and the coordinators; the discussion about the programmes need to be done this year; activities with Semai community (indegenious people), and environmental education workshop.



Report presentation by the author.



We were being brought by several guides to visit the Raflesia flowers at Bukit Pacat (Leech's Hill) area. We were very lucky to see several Rafflesia's buds and two bloomed Raflesia flowers. On the way to the Raflesia's site, which took about one hour jungle trekking and hill hiking, we were given some information by the guides (one of them was Ngah, a friendly guide for my group) regarding the flora and fauna of the area. On the way back to the Semai's village at Ulu Geroh, we stopped for a while at the Rajah Brooke Birdwing Butterflies area.

At the village,we were given the chances to try the 'blow pipe'(the hunting weapon) and the target were several balloons. The community then served us with several traditional food such as fern shoots, smoked fish, tapioca crackers etc. The Semai community members also taught us about their traditional games and their spiritual dance.


The author is trying to use the blow pipe.



The author with an MNS officer (with head scaft) and Semai kids.


On the third day of the meeting, all the coordinators then gave a short briefing about the programmes that being planned for this year.

After a short closing ceremony, we left the meeting and workshop with lot of memories.