New Year, New Start! Exabytes this year’s annual dinner named “The Tenacious Tenth” that signified the great team work which held Exabees together for 10 great years took place at Gurney Hotel Ballroom on January 7, 2012 with plenty of joy, beautiful moments and laughter. This year’s theme was Oscar night and a yellow balloon was tied to every chair to make the dinner scene look even more upbeat and celebrated.
At 6.45pm, registration and photo shooting started with arriving Exabees taking group photos before the ‘Oscar backdrop’, just like Hollywood’s Oscar Night. Many beautiful and gracious female Exabees dressed elegantly in nightgowns, male Exabees in suits and some even in tuxedos. In fact, besides snapping beautiful and memorable photographs, there was another reason that made Exabees arrive with full anticipation. An iPad2 was up for grabs in our Early Bird Lucky Draw for fellow Exabees who arrived before 7.30pm!
As everybody arrived on time by 7.30pm, without further delay, the opening ceremony which saw CEO Chan, Mrs. CEO and family, COO Andy Saw and Mr. Wilson cutting the ribbon on stage was kick-started with a big round of applause before Chan gave his uplifting welcome speech. As charismatic and friendly as usual, Chan congratulated every Exabee for their hard work in helping Exabytes to remain as the biggest web hosting provider since 2005 till today. He further revealed another major goal for the company – Exabytes is to become the biggest web hosting provider not only in Malaysia, but in the whole Southeast Asia. Chan also stressed the importance of customers to Exabytes, saying that Exabytes would have no reason to exist without the support of its customers. Chan’s speech ended amidst deafening applause, and dinner was ready to be served.
To our surprise, the food savoring moment was accompanied by a captivating video clip played on the projector presenting all the significant and sweets moments of Exabees throughout the past 10 years. After some touching and mesmerizing memory flashback, we were ready to play some games and have some good fun! Each table was to send 2 representatives to participate in the first ping pong ball game. A carton box with 3 big holes at the bottom was tied to the waist of each participant. He or she was then required to carry a ping pong ball in the carton box and make his way from one end of the stage to the other end without dropping it on the floor. When the participant reached the other end of the stage, he or she must shake his hip so that the ping pong ball drop on the ground through one of the 3 big holes in the carton box. Once the ball touched the ground, the participant must quickly move to the other end before his teammate could take over the race. The teammate would then continue to do the same and pass the baton back to his teammate until the timer reached 2 minutes. The team which managed to drop the most number of ping pong balls on the floor in 2 minutes won the game.
With extreme ‘hip work’ and ‘waist power’, Chun Howe and Zack made their tablemates proud by becoming the winners of the ping pong ball game. Next, Exabees were ready for the second game of the night, “Ang Pow Hunt”! (an ang pow is a little red packet used to give monetary gift to mostly unmarried friends and relatives during Chinese New Year). The game is simple and straight forward. Twelve ang pows with cash inside were hidden randomly all over the ballroom and whoever found it would become the owner of the ang pow and the cash. Once the pleasant announcement was made, there was an instant cheering and commotion and 12 ang pows were all ‘hunted’ in less than 5 minutes. In Chinese tradition, an ang pow is a symbol of prosperity and Exabytes was glad to give away the prosperity to our 12 lucky winners.
While the night was still young, it was time to salute the very dedicated Exabees who deserve the very special 10-Year Service and 5-Year service awards. TW Ku, Roger Lew, JY Teh, Vickson Tan and HP Beng were invited to the stage to receive the highly honored award, 5-Year service award from CEO Chan. The next prestigious award to go was Exabytes’ 10-Year Service award and there was only one recipient for this special honor. He was no other than the COO of Exabytes Andy Saw aka the very first employee of Exabytes who CEO Chan met in an elevator at Gurney Tower 10 years ago.
Subsequently, the spotlight shifted to our 12 deserving EOTMs in the entire 2011. First time EOTM recipients of Exabytes were each entitled to a RM250 voucher from Sunshine Square, a departmental store. Second time EOTM honorees would each enjoy a RM500 voucher and third time honorees a RM1,000 voucher. Congratulations to all EOTMs and keep up the good work!
At the same time, CEO Chan and his counterpart Mr. Wilson were making effort to spot the Best Dressed Male Exabee or ExaKing and the Best Dressed female Exabee or ExaQueen in the hall. It was really a tough call as every Exabee was dressed up marvelously in that special night. Finally, the verdict was reached. ExaQueen of the night went to a beautiful lady who had the most outstanding hairdo of the night, Ms Ooi aka PY Ooi, Business Development Manager of Exabytes Malaysia. Without further ado, our beloved ExaKing was also announced the very next moment. He was the tall and good looking Arren Tan from WP Webhost, another business division of Exabytes. Congrats to Ms Ooi and Arren for being ExaQueen and ExaKing!
The time has reached the most awaited moment – Exabytes Annual Dinner Lucky Draw which featured prizes like 2×iPhone 4S, 2×iPad2, 2×PS 3, 1×Langkawi trip, 6×flash drives, etc. All Exabees anxiously hold their numbers in their hands, praying that their numbers would be called for huge prizes such as iPhone 4S and iPad2. Certainly not all Exabees would go home with their dream prizes, but congrats to Sau Hun, Ethan, Ms Ooi, Lim, JY Teh, Chun Howe and Rachel for their good luck in the brand new year in bringing home these fantastic prizes.
Finally, the beautiful event was nicely wrapped up by the sensational dancing session. Before anyone realized it, our emcee was quick to invite CEO Chan and his lovely missus to have the first dance of the night. Other couples soon joined in, holding hands and dancing to the romantic music. As the more upbeat music kicked in, all Exabees were down on the dance floor, dancing and rejoicing. No one was in the mood to stop the great fun until we were called upon for group photo taking.
As the annual dinner ended with prosperity and great joy, Exabees aspire to bring the company to the next level of success by offering more latest and value-added products, services and solutions to our customers. Just like what was said by CEO Chan in his welcome speech, without the support of our clients, there would be no Exabytes and Exabytes’ annual dinner.
Once again, Happy New Year to our valuable blog readers!
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“Dashing through the snow
