CYL Secretary Report 2007

Year 2007 marked the 68th Anniversary of CYL. CYL continued to establish stronger links with more organizations, serve the community and its members in many ways and enjoyed an eventful and fruitful year.

Public Relation, Sponsorships and Partnerships

Market City kindly sponsored CYL in organizing the following events:

  1. The Chinese New Year Festival celebrating year of the Pig at the Market City
  2. The 2nd Lion Dance & Martial Art Festival on 7 July 2007 at the Market City
  3. Moon Festival celebrations at the Market City

CYL provided stage performances of Lion and Dragon Dance, Chinese Cultural Dance, the Cantonese Opera singing and in-cooperated other artists including magicians, Chinese musical ensemble, Peking Opera, Quartet Performance, and Contemporary pop band.

City of Sydney (CoS) continued to engage CYL with a formal event service contract to organize the cultural entertainment program in celebrating:

  1. The Chinese New Year of the Pig Festival at Belmore Park, which consisted of two days of entertainments.
  2. The Chinese New Year Dragon Boat races at Darling Harbour 2007
  3. The Chinatown Moon Festival celebrations at Chinese Garden 2007

CYL organized the infrastructure of the event, mobilized the in-house performing groups including the Lion and Dragon Dance Troupes, the Chinese Cultural Dance Groups, the Cantonese Opera Troupe and the Wushu Group, and coordinated other performing artists from Sydney and one performing group from Beijing to participate in the entertainment program.

Art Gallery of New South Wales partnered with CYL to present contemporary Chinese culture lecture entitled ‘China Today: Arts and Cultural Lectures’ in March 2007. During which 4 speakers presented the current trends in film, literature, performance arts and architecture. The link between the 2 organizations is further strengthen when NSW Art Galley invited the Chinese Cultural Dance Groups to participate in cultural performance at Family Day campaign, in conjunction with support of the exhibition “Chinese Jade from the Forbidden City” in September 2007. The International Dragon Boat Federation (IDBF) engaged CYL to conduct the Dragon Eye dotting ceremony during the 8th World Dragon Boat Racing Championships Opening Ceremony at Parramatta River Park on19th Sept 2007. In all the above events, there were good turn-outs, feed backs were good and the performances were well received by the publics. The increasing support and links of the sponsors / organizations is recognition of CYL’s relationship with the community and reaffirms CYL’s contribution to a vibrant cultural and good community life.

Major Achievements and Awards

  • Dr Leng Tan, the CYL Vice President and the cultural director of CYL, was awarded the government commendation for her contribution to the community and made us all proud.
  • During the 2007 City of Sydney Chinese New Year Festival Celebration program, CYL wins two first Prize Trophies: 1. Chinatown Challenge Shopfront Decoration Competition (best Community section). 2. The Chinese New Year Parade Best Local Parade entrant.
  • CYL was awarded the City of Sydney Cultural Grant and Sponsorships Program 2006-2007, in recognition of development of new dancing performances and upgrade of equipments for integrated services and resources for Sydney community.
  • The CYL Dragon Boat Team won the following events 1. The Stanley International Dragon boat races in Hong Kong – 1st out of 110 mixed crews. 2. The NSW State Title1500m race – 1st price.

Activities – Cultural, Sports, Recreational, tours

The Chinese Cultural Dance Groups – On top of a regular training program and a busy performing schedule, the senior dance girls developed promotional postcards for distribution to the public to promote the Chinese cultural dance. An adult exercise class was formed late this year for the older members. See Culture Dance Reports for detailed information.

Cantonese Opera Troupe – for details of activities see Cantonese Opera Group report.

Dragon Boat Group – This is the largest of CYL sub-group in terms of membership numbers. Besides a busy schedule of land training, paddling and loads of competitions, they went to Team Bonding Camp in October, organized Intro Course for beginners to learn dragon boat paddling techniques resulting in attracting many new members. For details of activities see Dragon Boat Report. Dragon Dance Group – The group has been re-organized, the new leader is Howie Poon, and there are regular training sessions.

Lion Dance Troupes – The Lion Dance Troupe had a difficult year as their chief instructor had retired. However, the Troupes kept on self-training and practiced hard, hosted the 2nd Lion Dance and Martial Art Festival at Market City in July, enjoyed camping during the Easter holiday, attended the Lion Dance World Championship Competition in Malaysia in August 2007 and had a full-on performance schedule throughout the year. See Lion Dance report for details of their activities.

Wushu Group – The group has been showcasing their skills and techniques in all the events organized by CYL. For details see Chinese Cultural Dance and Wushu reports

Media Arts Group – Two issues of CYL News Bulletins were published in 2007. Sydney Dragon Boat Centre (previously known as Sydney Water Sports Centre) – A conceptual drawing was done and submitted to NSW Maritime Authority. The master plan on pontoon and development of the Bank Street site are being under consideration. See Sydney Dragon Boat Centre report attached.

Tours (1) General Tour – CYL Table Tennis Group organized a China Tour (Jiuzhaigou) in May. The 12 participants enjoyed the trip. (2) Heritage Youth tour – This year the Tour Leader is Bridget Poon and the tour runs for 27 days from early December. The group of eleven visited Guangzhou where they joined the Winter Cultural Camp and participated in language and culture and field study classes, followed by sightseeing to Shanghai, Beijing, Xian and Hong Kong. See Tour Reports for details.

Others

  • The CYL 68th Anniversary luncheon was held at Burwood RSL Club on 7th October 2007. Doris Law and Susie Chu organized the raffle tickets and lucky draw prices.
  • A rice dumpling making party lead by the Cultural Dance Group was held on Jun 2007
  • A bush walk at Manly Warringah War Memorial Park was organised in October 2007 by the Chinese Cultural Dance Groups in conjunction with the Cantonese Opera Group.
  • A dragon was donated to Junee Correctional Facility at end of 2007 and was received with delight.

Human Resources

The 2007 management committee sees the attendance of some new, young blood including Homan Leung, Lokman Leung and Eliana Wong. We are grateful to Jason Ng, the Lion Dance chief instructor, for his contribution to CYL for more than a decade of service. Unfortunately Jason decided to vacate the position due to family commitment but will remain a consultant. Julie Chong, chief editor of Media Arts Group, did a good job during her term.

Word of Thanks

We thank Market City and City of Sydney for their continual support of CYL; Consulate-General of the People’s Republic of China for donating cultural dance costumes to our Chinese Cultural Dance Group; the Lion Club of Sydney Pacific Inc District 201N5 for donating dinner tickets for CYL members of 60 years and above. Most of all, we are grateful to all community organizations, fellow committee and sub-committee members, office staffs, family friends and CYL members for their on-going support for CYL.

CYL Secretary: Christine Keow Giak Sim