To Demojake.

demojake said...
hey sebastain;

as a former councillor, i have seen my share of fails and successes of various organised events, and here's my opinions.

i was rather surprised when you came across to me as a really patriotic teen, a stark contrast to many of us that are sort of disillusioned, so to speak.

however, you should understand that sec1s don't have the maturity of 18 year olds. fresh out of primary school, obviously their minds are still entwined with fun, games, and other paraphernalia. to get them to stand the sweltering heat to them is absolute torture given that they don't really understand the event, much less appreciate its significance.

i hate to do it, but i am afraid the accusing finger has to be directed at you people. it is your responsibility not just to execute the event for the sake of getting it over and done with, but the welfare of all the participants must also be considered. food, drinks, ample shelter, good coordination and proper instructions are keys to letting them be more focused on the event. however, from some blogs i have read, i didnt notice (correct me if i erred). even i myself would not be pleased with the execution if such crucial steps were missed.

sure, these steps seem hard, but it is the cost of doing events on such a large scale. if you cannot do it, then don't do it, unless it was purely for the portfolio mark.

hope to hear from you soon.

August 16, 2008 12:44 PM

hey demojake.

i really appreciate your understanding that this was not purely my fault, and for that, i thank you.

to clear up on some points; i didn't do it for so-called portfolio marks. i did it out of pure sense of volunteerism. i like to volunteer, that's who i am. and why did i choose to be a motivator in connect singapore? because i was sure i could carry out my part successfuly.

You have to understand, as being chief motivator of a school, i'm sort-of near the bottom of the command chain. Everything was planned by the exco, we were told to listen carefully. it's not that i'm pushing the blame or anything, but the teachers and schools were also part of the event, and not just the students.

I feel that our part were more of a coordinate-between-areas than that of a welfare one, but still, we did take the student's welfare into consideration. we asked them to bring bottled water, and for my case, when the sun got too hot we allowed the students into the shade. Welfare of student should be covered by the schools; remember, it's for the president's challenge, i'm sure the organisers aren't getting a single cent out of doing this.

from what i know, the mess that caused our parts to go haywire was when we were supposed to move out to the sectors we were supposed to stand at. we actually had everything planned out down to the minute, but because some schools have students who didn't really cooperate, other sectors, including my own, had to stall for time. that was when the RI boys started getting rowdy. and when finally it was time for us to move out, sector 12 moved out immediately, but we had to organise the RI boys and get them to gather first.

because of the extra time that the stalling took up, and the time we used to get the RI boys gathered, we had to walk really fast towards our area. when i reached the point where the RI boys were supposed to start lining up, i waited almost 20 minutes for the rest to reach, and even then, i had alot of trouble getting them to stand in a straight line. The instructions i gave at first was, one arm's length from each other, side by side. i'm sure it wasn't hard to understand. but still they couldn't cooperate, even a few of the interact club members looked at me out of desperation when the boys they were in-charge of were clustered together and not following instructions. We were supposed to be ready then, but when the jeep passed us, i was still getting them to spread out properly.

let's skip to the execution of the pledge taking. What happened there was, i'm sure, not the students fault, not our fault as motivators, not even the organiser's fault. the radio station screwed up that last part. All of us were told that the DJ would initiate the countdown to the pledge taking after the 12 o'clock news at noon, but the station was playing songs all the way until around 1240 hrs, where out of nowhere the DJ started counting down. all the students were listening to the radio, and were getting ready for the pledge. but when the countdown ended, the DJ continued talking, and apparently that was the signal. From what i know, the station was suppose to air the national pledge, but they didn't. all of us were confused, really, really not our fault then.

There. you should be able to see clearly, at my point of view, it wasn't mostly our fault. yes, i agree that some things were overlooked, but when the schools agree to participate, they should have understood that it was their students there, and maybe could have provided more for their students. we had to endure what everyone had to, and more, and just a reminder, planning something at such a large scale wasn't easy to begin with, just cut us some slack, a little bit of understanding on your part will suffice.

thanks.