A BIG step for paintball in Singapore...

A BIG step for paintball in Singapore!

SINGAPORE (18 October 2009) – Established in 2007, the Paintball Association (Singapore) PBAS which is a non-profit organization with aims of promoting and developing paintball as a mainstream sports has been a forerunner in supporting paintball initiatives in Singapore. Since its formation, the association has set its sight on creating paintball awareness to the public as its top priority. The PBAS has accomplished this by organizing school awareness outreach events in tertiary schools, setting up orientation courses for competitive players to participate in the sport without legal restrictions governed by local authorities and supporting the growth of competitive paintball in Singapore by co-organizing the Singapore Paintball Novice Series (SPNS). A PBAS website was launched early this year to further promote the sport by creating awareness for the game.

In November 2009, Singaporeans will see the most number of Singapore teams participating in an internationally recognized tournament. The Paintball World Cup Asia 2009 will be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with a total of 120 teams from the regional countries. There will be at least 6 local teams who will be representing Singapore in this prestigious paintball event of the year.

With PBAS’ continuous efforts to promote and develop paintball in Singapore, we are pleased to announce another initiative driven and achieved by the association. The Singapore Police Force have granted flexibility under the licensing conditions where condition 12 of the Licensing Condition for Operating a Paintball Game Center: “The licensee shall ensure that there is a barrier dividing the play area so that opposing players will not come into physical contact with one another” will be removed. However, operators remain to have the rights to impose regulations in their fields to ensure that the safety of the participants is not compromised and that paintball games are to be supervised by referees who are familiar with safety rules. The Basic Tournament Orientation (BTO) has been introduced and conducted by PBAS since 2008 to allow the tournament paintball to be played without a center line. One of the objectives of BTO is aimed at educating tournament players about tournament safety and rules and with the change in local regulations, BTO shall be reviewed by PBAS. With the new progress achieved, PBAS will implement the change for all PBAS-sanctioned tournaments, events and activities with effect from 1st November 2009.

With this change, we hope to see more paintball initiatives by operators in Singapore and that this change will help us develop paintball into a mainstream sport in years to come. This is definitely a BIG step for paintball in Singapore!

Jane Koh
President
Paintball Association (Singapore)