Thomians, their partners, friends and worthy foes, gathered at the PARRA VILLA Grand Ballroom in Sydney, Australia, on Saturday May 30 th 2009, for the annual STC OBA NSW ball. The weather was not the best and the traffic in Sydney made one wonder what had become of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC).

But this did not deter 400 hundred guests from near and far and all walks of life, all faiths and communities from flocking to the PARRA VILLA Grand Ball room to meet, greet, reminisce and dance the night away.

The ‘Emcee' Mr Duke Ramachandran opened proceedings for the night and invited the President Mr Richie De Silva to greet the guests. Richie spoke warmly of Thomian history with particular focus on the 2009 Royal-Thomian cricket match, where 11 teenagers had given themselves and the world a unique lesson in management. Then it was the turn of Sri Lanka 's best dance-band MISTY to turn the guests into an unified mass of rhythmic dance.

This they did with professionalism. MISTY tested the audience, judged their mood to perfection and then set about the task of ‘delivering' with an appropriateness not often witnessed on the dance scene. They brought the party animal out with a rich blend of jazzed up old time favourites, local and international hits with frequent improvisations to suit their audience. And when most bands would stop for a break, MISTY would bow to the audience's request for more and kept on going!

The audience never had to stop dancing because the band had stopped! They stopped because to keep dancing may well have resulted in major knee surgery on Sunday morning!

The staff at PARA VILLA were stretched but, to their credit, their energetic responses and the friendly smiles of the young staff contributed to the success of the evening.

The STC OBA committee had pulled out all stops to give the community an opportunity to exhibit our Lankan social cohesion, based on a shared commitment to our traditions and history and our love of song and dance.

Thanks to clever marketing and community goodwill we had 18 prize winners on the night. They worked tirelessly, ably assisted by their spouses and supporters.

The audience did not disappoint. They came out decked in all their finery to have a great night.

It was a delight to see the young and the not-so-young blend with the beat, improvising on the run, to give visual expression to the words of a song. It was a good night for one and all.

Click here to view an album of photos by Doug Jones who represented Ozlanka at the dance