Kerapatan Waris & Hari Keluarga BERKAT

The Rasah Clan

Last sunday 28 December 2008 happened to be the last day of Hijri 1429 and it was an auspicious day for BERKAT - Rasah, because the planned " Kerapatan Waris & Hari Keluarga BERKAT " finally materialised, Alhamdulillah.

It was significant in the sense that it was the third large gathering of the descendants of Tuanku Tambusai ever to take place. The fortunate part is that although the day before an announcement was made of the passing away of the state ruler and the hall which we were going to hold the function bore his name, there was no cancellation. Luckily the ownership of the Golf Resort has changed hands and the new team just took over the management of the Resort just two months before.

Although I had a discussion with other members of our organising committee at the venue on that saturday afternoon, little did we expect surprises, but as the saying goes, if something were to happen , it will and when we arrived on that sunday morning we found the place to be in a mess. The night before the venue hosted a function and somehow the management got the wrong facts about the timing of our function. Nevertheless since we pressed for quick action, the mess was quickly cleared up and our function started half an hour after it's scheduled time.

Since we had expected that the latecomers would still be streaming in after the scheduled opening of the function, which only involved the family members, and the only outsiders were the invited reciter of the Al-Quran and Prof. Abdullah Zakaria Ghazali from University Malaya, we somehow were spared any embarassment.

The function went on fairly smoothly after the late start of about half an hour, beginning with the recitation of the Al- Quran by Ustaz Abdullah Omar and he followed it with the Doa. My welcome speech took about ten minutes or at most about thirteen, and then followed by the talk by the good Professor. His talk was quite revealing as he had been to Rokan Hulu and visited the Benteng 7 Lapis, so he knew what he was talking about. Since he's a Professor of History, he gave a good interesting account of Tuanku Tambusai. The session was chaired by my brother Dr Mohd. Hazim Shah who was instrumental in getting him to come for the talk.

After the slide presentation and the endorsementof the new line-up of the Ahli Lembaga Waris Rasah, we had a photography session and lunch. So ended the auspicious day which had been planned well in advance and with no less than four meetings which started on the 10 August 2008.

The central focus of BERKAT's effort for the 3rd term would be the encouragement of more younger generation people to be involved and later lead the organisation. As it is now the transition is taking place where half of the new line-up consists of new faces, and it takes into consideration two additional posts which is provided for under the amended provision in the Undang Undang Tubuh of BERKAT. I wish them all the best for the future!