As announced before, KUT 2006 was celebrated at St Georges Church Hall in East Ham London on the 27th August. All together around 75 people of various communities. We had friends joining us from from Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram, Burma, Pakistan, England, South Korea.

They all attended the celebration with mush enthusiasm and it has been the biggest ever celebration since it all started 8 years ago.

The church hall was beautifully decorated and adorned with a huge banner done by Gl. Khukhup Khongsai and varieties of traditional shawls and scarfs. Hall, seating and flower arrangement and overall decoration was led by Ng. Neihlam Vaiphei & Rev. Zamhao Haokip and a few other helpers.

The celebration host Lien Gangte (Secretary KUT committee) gave a brief introduction and the celebration was opened with a prayer by Pi. Kim Telien and welcome speech was given by Pu. PK Telien. East youths sang the opening song and Pu.

Lamboi Haokip talked about the meaning of KUT giving us a clear and true picture of what KUT is all about and also leading is with our traditional KUT chant Li Li Li Li Li Li Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho Ho.

Suhtal Laam (Bamboo Dance) went well and everyone had such a good time with all the other activities like singing special numbers, group songs and our traditional lenkhom with people dancing around merrily.

This year Miss Nenghoi Haokip, a second year Careforce volunteer from Edinburgh was crowned MISS KUT 2006 by Miss Neihlam Vaiphei, MISS KUT 2005. Prize for MISS KUT 2006 was sponsored by GL. Daniel Haokip.

KUT Feast was served to all at 7:00 pm with varieties of delicacies cooked by all the volunteers and young people. The cooking team was led by Mr. Christopher (Our friend from Burma), Lien Gangte and Jemnu Gangte.

In order to raise some money towards the celebration, we had raffles and this was sold to the Kutters by the Haokip kids, Monica, Joshua and Regina. We managed to raise a total of £130 from the raffles and some contributions from members.

Special entertainment session was led by GL. James Vaiphei, which went really well! I would say the medley he sang with songs from Benny Khongsai and some Bollywood numbers was an item.

The last session of the celebration was mainly singing songs and Lenkhom. Lenkhom was led by Gl. Daniel Haokip and Miss. Nanghoi Haokip. They both did a fantastic job. KUT in the UK has become very popular and it is also growing year after year. The celebration ended with singing songs and dancing till 12:30 pm.

The following day, some of the members had our annual meeting and discussed a few matters. Pi. Kim Telien (Acting Treasurer) gave her financial report and election of new committee members for KUT 2007 was done.

Rev. Zamhao Haokip was elected as the new Chairman for the coming year Gl. Lien Gangte was re-elected as the secretary. Pi. Boungkim Khosla was re-elected as the Treasurer.

So needless to say, we all had a wonderful time and everyone went home looking forward to next year’s KUT with much anticipation.

Thank you to those who sent us their best wishes for the celebration and above all we do give our SPECIAL THANK YOU to God as he has enabled to share our friendship and cultural values together in such a beautiful way.

KUT CHIBAI TO ALL!