OH MY GOSH! It is now the final countdown until the SGI-Canada Youth Festival which is on May 15, 2010. This means that there is only twelve days left. TWELVE!

This has been a long anticipated event. One whole year of planning has gone into this day and I’m sure it will be spectacular. Out of 3,000 tickets available at Roy Thomson Hall, there is under 500 remaining! I’m sure it will end up being a packed house and full of Soka Spirit! Remember, if you haven’t got your tickets for this event yet, you can purchase tickets online at Roy Thomson or directly at the box office.

Just to reiterate, this event is an event in conjunction with two wonderful organisations, Me to We and Free The Children. SGI Canada have partnered with these two organisations as they share the same values of empowering youth and we hope to work together to create many good things for this world. The co-founder of Free the Children, Marc Kielburger, will be guest speaking at the event.

Last weekend we had our dress rehearsal in the Ikeda Hall (main hall which we have our large meetings) and it was all cleared out to simulate the stage. It was a long day (10am to 5pm), where we had two run throughs and then leaders including Tony Meers (SGI Canada General Director) gave their encouragement and sincere thank you to each and one of us who has put their time and effort into making this event such a success.

This includes all the performers (Hip Hop Dance Group, Latin Dance Group, Youth Chorus, Youth Band, Musicians) and the Behind the Scenes group (marketing, public relations, hair & make up, people movers, coordinators) and so on and so forth! There are so many people participating in this event that I just know that the weekend of May 14 to May 15 is going to be amazing!

Here are some photos of the dress rehearsal and another sneak peek of the event!

Here’s Mai (Public Relations) and Louise (Hip-Hop Dance Group Coordinator)

Below are the hip-hop dance group getting their make-up done!

Leslie, Sammy and Young Chul after we got our hair and make-up done.

Here’s us being “gangsta”.. hahahaha

Above are the boys being gangsta..

Funny how there’s that little girl in the bottom-right hand corner! Haha.

Youth Chorus rehearsing while waiting to be called on stage.

Latin Dance Group waiting for their turn to go on stage. Do you recognise where they got their costumes from? It’s a H&M Dress from the Spring Garden Collection. Aren’t they lucky!!

Below are the youth band! Their shirts look so sharp and spiff! Cute!

Please keep in mind that there are so many other performers and segments that I haven’t shown in this post. The youth of SGI Vancouver, Ottawa and Montreal are also making their way to Toronto to perform with us!

IT IS GOING TO BE AWESOME!!!!!

So we’re just one month away until the Youth Festival: “Your Victory is My Victory”, which is taking place on May 15, 2010 at Roy Thomson Hall, Toronto, Canada. SGI Canada youth members from all over Canada will be performing at this event.

The SGI youth in Toronto will be performing the following:

• Hip-hop
• Latin
• Youth Chorus
• Youth Band

I know that the SGI youth in Vancouver will be dancing alongside with us Toronto-nians in the hip-hop dance, but I am unsure what else may be in store! I’m excited to find out! I’m sure it all will be amazing.

So I’m part of the hip-hop dance group for this event. This is our second last practice until the dress rehearsal! I took a couple of snaps for all of you to take a sneak peak to this much anticipated event.

By the way, if you’re interested in coming – make sure you get your tickets quick! You can purchase tickets at Roy Thomson Hall online or you can simply purchase tickets at the box office. Please make sure you also visit the Youth Festival official website for more information!

As you may know, I have been rehearsing for an event that is coming up in May. It’s been a long expected event and a lot of organization has gone into getting this altogether. The youth of SGI Canada in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal are getting together to perform original pieces of hip hop and latin dances, and choruses.

Further information about the event is below. There are 2,500 tickets up for grabs – get your tickets quickly!

“Me to We”, the social enterprise that supports Free the Children, and SGI Canada present “Your Victory is My Victory” a journey of youth empowerment through music and dance.  More than 400 youth performers from across Canada.

The co-founder of Free the Children, the world’s largest organization of children helping children through education, Marc Kielburger will be the guest speaker at the event. (Source: Roy Thomson Hall)

• Venue: Roy Thomson Hall
• Price: $35 – $25
• Purchase tickets: Click here

On 29th August 2009, my old District (when I lived at Bayview/Sheppard) held a BBQ for all the members. Lots of yummo food and good company. Photos below.

Yesterday, a lot (someone said 55) of SGI youth members volunteered their Saturday in planting trees around the conservation area of Caledon. Driving to Caledon was much like driving around country-side Victoria – lots of open space and mountains in the background, except it was much more lush due to the privilege of having so much more rain in any given season than Victoria would receive in an entire year.

We had to walk about 25 minutes to the actual site, but on the way we saw the trees that SGI had previously planted (SGI has been assisting CVC with an annual tree planting event for ten years now!) and we could see that they’ve made a great contribution already.

Unsure as to how many trees we actually planted, given that Eva & I planted around eight (and I sorta gave up to start taking photos, and then consequently talking to a lot of people), I’m guessing we could’ve planted around 20 between the two of us and times that by (55 people divide by pairs of 2) would equal around 550. That’s a hell of a lot of new trees! Yay!

There were so many bugs! I got quite a big mozzie bite on my arm. (Thanks Judi for your after-bite spray). I saw so many worms, snails, some sort of black jumping insects.. But at one point, we all heard Casey screaming from afar, “frog! frog! frog!” Eva scrambled to catch it while it was jumping away and I managed to get quite a good a good shot of it (see below).

While the forecast for the day was thunderstorms, we were lucky as it only drizzled for a couple of minutes. Some sheltered, while some kept on going. As the rain subsided, I ran to grab my camera and then the sun came out! It was lovely.

I got some great shots of everyone. Paula was right when she saw my photos and commented that everyone looks so happy. It was a rather good day! It was good to see everybody!

Oh, and thanks to Tsuneko for driving me to the site! I’ve posted some photos below, but there are a tonne more at my Flickr SGI Tree Planting 2009 Set. P.S. I don’t know why I have such a manly pose in the group photo. Haha!

My Flickr SGI Tree Planting 2009 Set