2022: June – GGS Virtual International Camp + Regional Conference planning continues!

We started June off with virtual international camp from 1-4th June! It falling on those dates means that I had a conference tech team meeting + team leads meeting happening during camp time. Gotta love it when a guides thing conflict with another guides thing (sarcasm) 😆🤣

So guess who came into Guides HQ office bright and early and was told to jump straight into tech support? It’s like there’s a theme going on about me not choosing tech and tech choosing me in 2022, whether on national or regional level (I’m not mad, just amused. I had a great tech team for regional conference.) Another lesson here is that, if GGS wants to have another virtual international camp, it’s probably a good idea to have a tech team ready in place.

Then I saw Grace and she said that she bumped into Huda and was asked to help out in tech support at the last minute. We ended up moving to Tech Team HQ at the conference room and moderating the opening ceremony chat with the YAs who got ropped in to help at the last minute. It was…wild. After that, we all elected to shut the public chat for the rest of the big sessions.

The rest of the day was spent photo taking (cos everyone is in uniform!), taking photos of the physical camp happening downstairs, tech moderation for 1-2 divisions and collecting stories to showcase on the newsletter from the padlet boards (this would continue for the next 3 days).

Then I had my conference tech team meeting that night, along with coordination with the rest of the Comms team who were not on site, curating photos from the photographer and working on the social media copy (to be approved by Lena + Ada). Besides my conference tech team meeting, the rest continued for the next 3 days.

Photos above are part 1 of 2022 of surviving on serious lack of sleep while running both tech and comms. Thank goodness there were kind people who brought good food to keep the team’s fuels running. My conference teams were also kind enough to wait till camp ended for me to get back into conference work.

Taking the team leads call during this period of time was interesting. 1 for the lack of sleep. Lol. I obviously couldn’t lead it then (we have a thing where we all take turns to lead the calls). After the call (cos I took it in the common conference room), Hawa was like, you don’t seem to stutter around them. I think cos we were getting comfortable with each other then.

At this point, Antonia have started planning for the “Meet the Candidates” sessions, Karen was finalizing the programme and Georgie was getting the tech team familiarized with EventsAir. I also joined the team a few days before international camp started. As it turned out, Yashodha was a participant at the international camp and not too long before the tech team meeting, we had a karaoke session😂

Looking back at the tech WhatsApp group chat in June, we were playing around with gamification, figuring out points for trivia answers, how to display speakers’ names etc. And badges.

On the personal front, my tweets told me that keeping a day job, running 2 teams for regional conference and job hunting all at the same time might have been abit too ambitious. My work contract was ending the next month, and I had an nonnegotiable for my next job, which was that I could only start in September, once I got back from Thailand.

Travel forms for Thailand had also started to come in, asking for dates of arrival and departure. It’s all quite exciting cos this was my first trip as a WAGGGS Global Team member🤩 But at that point, I also realized that I wasn’t quite close enough to anyone else going on the trip.

I wasn’t particularly close with any of the team leads when we first started in April. Probably just Gwen? We met in person during the Taiwan Conference and again, during JLS in Sangam in 2019 but I don’t think we were the type of friends that could text for days like the way we are now. I think this shows how much the regional conference had impacted the both of us. The things we text about pre-conference compared to now are wildly different.

I know Rupa, Gwen and Bron cos we were (are) on the AP regional volunteer team together. I met Larissa (briefly!) and Antonia at the last regional conference in Taiwan. I met Karen as a YA years ago and are FB friends. I know Chem cos I visited KL in 2017 and dropped by her guides meeting. I never met Hayley, Lynda or Christa. Though with Christa, we have a number of mutual friends so definitely heard of her from somewhere before.

Regardless, I decided to try my luck and asked Karen, Bron, Maiya, Antonia and Gwen if they had anything planned post conference. We were all buried in our day jobs and conference work so post-conference planning had to take a back burner for awhile.

In the meantime, I submitted my tentative dates for WAGGGS to approve me flying to Thailand and conference work were just starting to pick up with deadlines to submit platform guide and get photos of the APR Committee Candidates even though it wasn’t going at full speed just yet.

July and August proved to be one of the most insane yet fulfilling months of 2022 and my life.

2022: May – Work Governance + Planning for Virtual International Camp + Regional Conference continues

The work that I was doing was in a completely different field, in an arts organization. It wasn’t a field I was particularly passionate about but I had great managers and my colleagues were nice people. Because it was a nonprofit, we also had a board with 6 EXCO members. And during my time there, the President decided to step down before her term ended so as an organization, we needed to hold an EGM to elect a new president and co-opt another member in.

While all these was happening, in the field that I’m passionate about, the regional committee nominations were coming in and I had to start promoting them but only after the nominations committee gives the green light for my comms plan and Antonia’s session plans for the MOs to meet the regional committee candidates.

Essentially, even though it was 2 massively different fields, the conversations that I was having with my colleagues as a staff member about governance was also the same conversations I was having as a conference volunteer. That was the crossover I wasn’t expecting but it was such an eye opener to see both happening in parallel.

The thing I like about Comms work is that in a situation like that, you get an overall overview of the whole nominations and election process. What do the audience not know and need to know to make an informed decision? What boundaries do the candidates have? How do we ensure that all the candidates have enough air time? That was also when my discussions with Gwen (procedural coordinator) and Antonia started on how to promote the candidates. Starting with….the “Meet The Candidates” sessions.

May was also when crunch time for virtual international camp started. I remember Rebecca and I had difficulties getting content to share on social media cos they had registrations issues to solve and we didn’t want registrations to blow up before it was solved. We also couldn’t get access to GGS’s social media to promote the event. Which was a battle in itself.

Then, by the time it was solved, we were asked by Hawa and Chief why we weren’t promoting promoting content. Looking back, the way the international camp meetings were run played a part too. Like we would have 30mins to share updates to go into breakout rooms to have our own department meetings and you can jump into different breakout rooms to talk to other teams.

It probably worked in theory but it doesn’t work on practice at all. Yes. It would be time consuming to do all the meetings separately but at least Rebecca and I might have be able to understand the programme properly if we had a chance to sit down for an hour or 2 to fully understand the comms needed for the day.

On top of that, I found out in May that Chief wanted to hold a physical camp for the Trefoil Guild to be “inclusive”. The best part was that the programme wasn’t confirmed yet. There was also live programme team, which wasn’t initially included. I think we only started including them in our weekly meetings from May onwards. And no one from Trefoil Guild joined the weekly meetings. In other words, it was chaos with these last minute additions and we didn’t get an overview as a comms team as to how it would all tie in together.

Of course, when I asked Hawa about them, she would just say that “there are lots of things going on behind the scenes”, which is probably the line I hate the most in the last 1.5 years of being her deputy. Like what “behind the scenes??”, can you let everyone know so that you wouldn’t be questioned all the time? And it doesn’t help with the amount of workload the Comms team cos we are being told about it at the last minute.

Because we don’t have a logistics team, we went down to HQ for several weekends to pack the goodie bags for schools and to send overseas. I think I remember showing up and there were like Hawa, Fiza, Huda and Aiden packing. That was definitely an oversight. Hawa, Jasmine and Huda worked insane hours to deliver, but, is it worth it when they request to hire more trainers? Probably not. Is it also sustainable for them? Probably not.

Rebecca and I managed to get access to GGS’s social media in the end and were also told to post twice a week in the lead up to the camp but our post had to be checked by Ada, the Comms commissioner. Who will not be in the country during the international camp period. So, they brought on board, Lena, an ex-GGS comms staff, to help with the checking.

So May was packed with conference Comms team meeting(twice a month), weekly conference tech team meetings on Wednesdays, weekly team leads meetings on Friday, calls with Rebecca, weekly virtual international camp meetings. It was insane with both happening at the same time.

I think I might have been packed almost every night and weekends till regional conference ended😆

Somewhere around May, a list was also passed around to see who could stay overnight at GGS to execute the international camp. And I ended up putting my name down and taking leave from work. At least the end of May means the start of June and 1 major volunteer project ending. After that, I could focus solely on conference planning for the next few months.

2022: April – Virtual International Camp + Regional Conference planning months

When the core team for virtual international camp first got together in Dec 2021, Yimin was introduced as one of the ACC to look after marketing and IST teams. But somewhere around Feb/March, she decided the commitment was too huge for her and recommended Rebecca, from the international committee to take over her.

At the same time, I was having decisions with Jasmine about the roles for IST. Neither of us have seen the platform that the virtual international camp will be on yet since Hawa was still building it out with the vendors. However, Jasmine was already asking me about the different roles for IST and I could only give her the general roles that I know cos it’s hard to give specific roles without knowing how the platform works(especially if it is a virtual international camp).

At the end of that discussion, Jasmine decided to scrap the IST team cos the platform was build out and share way toooo close to the date of the virtual international camp and I ended up leading the marketing team.

Here’s where it started getting frustrating (for me). Rebecca, whom I know from SAC guides and whom Yimin recommended, was thrown into the deep end with the ACC role since she wasn’t active on national level. Natasha, who was suppose to lead marketing, was too busy with life to focus on international camp. So….I ended up taking over Natasha and helping Rebecca navigate the national level space of international camp politics. Honestly, it would just have been easier for Hawa to give me that ACC role since I ended up speaking for Rebecca in so many meetings when she couldn’t make it. None of it was Rebecca’s fault though.

So how that team ended up to be was totally different from how Hawa first envisioned it. Rebecca and I ended up co-leading the marketing and comms team. Nat helped with some of the few graphic design, Yimin worked on the daily newsletters, Janelle worked on video editing, I worked on social media and getting access to stuff and Lena helped with the approval process.

While all that was happening, Yimin and I started on another parallel massive project, planning the virtual regional conference at the start of April. This time round, on different teams. Her in Programme and me on comms (initially). The relief when I saw familiar names and faces on that first zoom call😮‍💨 Like, thank goodness that there are people I actually know (I excited texted Anjali and Thammy after that call😆)!!!

Another though was, oh….I was actually expecting some of these people to run for 2022-2025 regional committee…who is running for those then?

What I did not expect was how the journey for the next 6-8 months would impact my life (cos as we speak, the last circular is still not out so we are still not done yet. Hahaha).

Along with Antonia, I experienced the last in-person regional conference in Taiwan in 2019 as an IST volunteer. The recruitment for the IST team probably only started 2 months before the conference so for both of us, this regional conference was the first time we started from the beginning.

Our duties during the last regional conference was also massively different than the responsibilities we have this year. In Taiwan, we took care of the WAGGGS shop, some social media, last minute tech support for some sessions, note taking, morning reflections, the WAGGGIES for international night and various bits and bops that pop up during the conference. Most of it was reactive rather than planned.

This year, Antonia became Conference Chair and I found myself as the Comms and Tech lead. Which meant that both of us were team leads and had much more responsibilities than we had 3 years ago. During that first call, Chem, who was our Conference Planning Chair (I know, so many chairs 🪑) said that the leads and young women planning team were going to BKK and they will be informed.

So….I have Thammy to thank for for getting me to BKK. We were chatting a week or so after that first call about possibly meeting up in BKK and working from there during the conference period.

Then she was like, aren’t you going to BKK? Cos they said all the leads are going and aren’t you the Comms lead? I was like….yes. That’s true.let me ask Chem! So I texted Chem and she said only this list of people are going and I went back to Thammy and I was like, I asked and apparently my name isn’t on the list.

Then a few weeks later, I got a text from Chem saying that the regional committee are trying to find the funds to fly me over! And they did! I would later learn that Chem brought it up at the meeting asking why are all the leads flying over except for me. I guess the response was, “oh yah hor.” So…thank you Thammy and Chem!❤️ Never been more glad that Thammy asked me that question even though it should have been a given. Also WAGGGS, please value your Comms and event teams more and budget to fly them out for events (the rest of that are in my handover notes).

I started off in April as a Comms lead with 2 people under my charge, Bandita from Nepal and Malkini from Sri Lanka. For me, that month was just getting them familiarize with the way I run social media for AP, try their hands on things like copywriting and graphic design and giving them access to the things that they need. The team leads also started to meet every Friday noon from probably mid April onwards (thank goodness I WFH on Fridays then).

So, after 1 Friday meeting, at the end of April, Bron asked me if I was free for a chat. I honestly thought that I was in trouble and thinking through the things I’ve done wrong. Hahaha. When we got on the call, she mentioned that she had been discussing with Christa (the events manager for AP Conference) and they though it will be a good idea for me to lead the Tech team as well since both Comms and tech are so interconnected. Then how I felt about it. Was I interested in taking up that role?

I was like, yes. Sure. Of course. I asked her if there was anyone leading the team at the moment and she said that there was Georgie (the Events Coordinator for AP conference) but she’s in the UK at the moment so it’s hard to join the team leads meetings. And….That was how I became the Comms and Tech lead. The call ended with Bron asking if I wanted to contact Christa or if I wanted her to contact Christa for me.

So, I texted Christa, we probably got onto the first of our many many calls and she walked me through the tech notion page with a promise to add me to the WhatsApp group after introductions on the next tech team call the following Wednesday.

I know I had a lot to live up to after working with Robyn that Jan🤣 And I’ll probably never be as good as her but I try! Even though I was the tech lead on paper, in reality, Christa, Georgie and I led a team of 3, May from Myanmar, Yashodha from Sri Lanka and Aastha from Nepal together.

I also think that from May onwards, my weeknights and weekends were jammed pack with virtual international and regional conference calls, in addition to the job that actually is paying me money so I think I really didn’t go out much. Lol.

2022: Feb – March – Application for International Commissioner + Start of Virtual International Camp planning months

Shortly after we started planning for the virtual international camp, so, somewhere around March, I applied for the international commissioner role cos I always found that whenever I go overseas for say, the JLS, it would be nice to have someone who actually have done it before and can tell me what to prepare and expect. There’s also so much more to international experience than just planning for thinking day celebration and connecting units to be penpals. During the last decade, I’ve learnt that the WAGGGS processes are mostly left unsaid and you need the experience to know how to navigate them. But…what do I know?

Oh man. That interview was FULL of red flags. Like if it was a normal job interview, I definitely wouldn’t have taken it.

In a normal job interview, they would at least ask if the day and time suits you but here, it was, here’s the time and zoom link. Let me tell you, after a decade in the restaurant business, I’m more of a night owl than an early bird and 8:15am means that my brain isn’t fully functioning yet. Also, I wasn’t told who I was interviewing with.

Being in the EXCO/a commissioner, as with being the regional committee, it’s an unpaid voluntary position that comes with certain decision making power. Normally, it’s an election process but in some MOs like mine, the Chief Comm, ED and assistant Chief Comms are the ones choosing the members of the EXCO.

Which is to say that GGS’s governance process needs a complete overhaul, to say the least. Normally, the candidates are taken care of by the nominations committee(or a 3rd party) that’s not involved in the EXCO/Regional Committee/World Board, to prevent a conflict of interest. Which is why being part of the planning team for regional conference was good cos you actually get to learn stuff like that. More on this later.

Back to the interview…so it turned out to be with the ED, CC and 2 ACCs, all of whom I know. What I’ve always struggled with in interviews like this is the complete weirdness of introducing yourself like you’ve never met them before. Especially when I’ve traveled with one of the ACCs to Taiwan and she has seen me in action.

Another thing was the questions. This being an international commissioner role, I would have expected the questions to be more international based. Instead, it was, “what have you done on a national level??” then I was asked to predict how the next year (like, it’s a pandemic, I have no clue how it will be like for the next month, much less the next year).

The interview promptly ended in 15 mins, with them telling me that they had someone else interviewing for this position too(okay…what have that got to do with me…). And to no one’s surprise, I received an e-mail a few weeks later telling me that they found someone else more suitable for the position.

I think I was mad for a few more weeks cos there was no one else from Singapore who knew the international scene as well as I did. And I also didn’t know anyone else who was involved that they could have chosen. I clearly knew that I was the most qualified for the job but I didn’t fit the mould that they wanted the commissioners to fit in.

I ranted to friends, of course. One advice, from Edith, that stayed with me was that, “you’ve clearly been passed over for “promotion” again and again but they still want your skills. So you don’t need to give them anymore international-related advice since that’s the job of the international commissioner.”

So…from that point on, whenever anyone shared with me any international event stuff, I would share it with my other international guiding friends but GGS jolly well go find out for it themselves. I think that was also when I slowly started realising that GGS had been taking the volunteers for granted. Especially the ones that have done so much with so little throughout the pandemic. I wasn’t tired yet (cos we were still planning the virtual international camp) but was getting increasingly frustrated. On top of that, Sapnaa decided not to continue her role with GGS, the marketing team(whom I got to know later) at GGS also left and Huda took over Sapnaa’s role as staff.

To say that it’s interesting when a long time volunteer becomes a staff is an understatement. Especially when she gets thrown into the heat of virtual international camp planning straight away.

There was a bright light(which I didn’t realise) right after the rejection, in mid March, when I received an e-mail from Rupa saying that I was selected for the regional conference Comms team and inviting me to be the Comms lead(yay!!!🥳🥳) That was easily one of the easiest yes that I’ve said!

I think being on the pioneer regional volunteers team with the 2019-2022 regional committee was one of the greatest decisions I ever made. Being a new team with no reference meant that I had lots to space to experiment with what works and what doesn’t for our audience. I also had the chance to launch our instagram account. And that became my testing ground from what I’ve learnt at work.

I also appreciate and loved the freedom that Rupa, Bron and Maiya gave me in terms of building out the structure for the regional social media work and giving me the access that I needed to do the work. And they’ve always acknowledged what I’ve done AND gave me due credit for my work. For that, I’m forever grateful for their faith in my abilities and for giving me the space to do what I need to do. The fact that they straight up just offered me the role of Comms lead (without putting me through an agonising interview) for regional conference said ALOT. Gotta love people who also use action!❤️❤️

With the regional young women event in Jan, we also decided to go with an unconventional way of registrations, with Bron’s full support. Instead of going through the conventional route of sharing it with MOs, we allowed young women to register by themselves then inform the MOs. The more….conventional MOs didn’t end up sending their girls but we had someone from Mongolia! Which was such a big deal!

What I like(and still do) about volunteering with the region and with WAGGGS is that there is a volunteer contract for every role that you have. That contract typically have a start and end date/month along with your role description. So, you are not stuck in any one role for any longer than you would have liked and you know exactly what you are getting yourself into.

On the other hand, for my national level roles/committees where you get yourself into a committee (or you get invited), there is no start and end dates. Nor is there a role description. So people can be in committees for years (and they typically are) with no separate role contracts for big projects like the virtual international camp. Which results in people who are active in the committees are easily overworked.

But of course, instead of looking into crucial things like governance and volunteer management cos they are not shiny enough, the EXCO decides to build land and water obstacle courses on campsite that no one asked for to try and bring in revenue and which the camp committee ended up being the one taking care of it. And they wonder why people don’t want to be commissioners….

Anyway, next post will be on virtual international camp planning, work governance and regional conference planning!

2022: Jan – Where do I start?

This is still alive!!!!! The good part is that most of my friends now don’t know this exist. 😮‍💨

It’s been awhile since I’ve last written a blog and 2022 has been a year! In some ways, it was a continuation of 2021, starting a new regional volunteer position as social media manager, alongside that, regional projects like the regional young women event. And also the deputy camp commissioner role. I enjoyed the former way more than the latter.

On a work front, 2022 started off with the continuation of a marketing and fundraising job that I had just started in Dec 2021. And that job stayed pretty much uneventful till it ended in August 2022.

Things were much more exciting on the volunteer front, where I put most of my time and energy towards when work allowed, with the many hats I ended up wearing over the course of the year. Some intentional, others, a complete surprise.

The year started off with the execution of the regional young women event, from the 6 months of planning beforehand. Did I realize how big of a deal that a volunteer team managed to pull off a 80 person event on a completely new platform back then? Nope. Not really. Not till now. There were just too many things going on. This event was also where I became friends with Robyn, Riju, Anjali, Aya and Roji.

What do I remember was the brilliance on Robyn who led tech. She found a platform for us, talked with the platform people, customized some of it, pulled things together with Bron, a brilliant graphic designer we found while looking for volunteers to help us with the logo, for the banners, border design etc that the Canapii platform needed. At some point, Riju and I ended up jumping into Programme and coordinated things to made sure it moved. And I jumped back to my original Comms role and coordinating Robyn and Bron at the end of it. It was a race to finish, as always but we somehow made it work.

Once that ended, it was on to planning for the next big project, Girl Guides Singapore’s Virtual International Camp 2022.

And somewhere in the middle of that, I applied for a Comms role for the AP regional virtual conference 2022. Mainly cos I was already running comms on regional level and the duties overlapped and it didn’t make sense to have 2 separate people running comms for regional conference so I just wanted to make things easier.

But…I’m getting ahead of myself. I was initially roped in to the virtual international camp cos they wanted an “International Service Team” which they wanted me to led. Fair enough.

There was Girl Scouts of Korea Virtual International Camp which was happening before ours did and I proposed that the core team participate in that to gain a better understanding of how to run a virtual international camp. Which I though was…logical. Even more so cos it was free to participate AND each MO could send as many as they want. Being the regional comms person has its advantages and one of them is getting direct information about international/regional events before the MO does.

That started off the series of clashes I had with my CC who said that it will be up to the international commissioner to decide and we shouldn’t send so many just cos we can🙄🙄 On hindsight, it should also have been a sign that I just wasn’t compatible with the way my MO thinks anymore. I have grown but their mindset still seem to be stuck from a decade ago.

From my previous experience with Canapii, Robyn, Bron and the regional young women event, I also knew that having the logo, branding and tech down was the most important, before we could work on the rest of the puzzle. Thankfully, with Hawa being a professional graphic designer, the logo and branding was set after a month or so, with a little back and forth between Yimin and Hawa.

The issue with the virtual international camp was that there wasn’t a tech team to begin with. Which is vital for well, a virtual event. And something that I’ve asked about as well.

I don’t entirely blame Hawa cos she doesn’t have experience running such a big scale virtual event, and you wouldn’t know the key pieces to a virtual event if you have no experience being part of a team that ran one. There’s also only so much advice I can give(or only so much that they will listen to). But that also meant that the tech work was spilt between her, Raudha, Huda and the rest of us during the virtual camp.

Also, on hindsight, I would have preferred the structure of the virtual international camp ( Advisors -> CC -> ACC -> team leads -> planning team) to be flatter, like the one I had in regional conference (Regional Chair + WAGGGS staff + Conference Planning Chair -> Team Leads -> Planning Team). Taking away that extra layer (of ACC) made things move so much faster!

More on virtual international camp and regional conference in the next post! That was the start of 2022. And I never meant to be a virtual event “expert” at all…that might have been a result of switching careers during the pandemic.

Comfort Zone

I guess the JLS core team hit jackpot for challenging me😂😂 I was indeed challenged.

It was way out of my comfort zone being a participant/delegate, cos I spent the last 7 years being on the other side of the fence as a volunteer. Although I appreciated being able to get decent hours of sleep and not have meetings till 11pm. Lol. It’s a weird thing to be uncomfortable about cos most people were delegates before they volunteered.

Doing it at Sangam was another level of discomfort, that I brought upon myself. Danish Emma and I were discussing it after we chose our 9 hubs and we didn’t choose Chalet/Switzerland for the reason that we knew the country well and the chances of us disappearing to KISC will be too high😂 This was an anticipated discomfort and what I wanted, so all good. Although, I may have regretted my decision a little bit while we were on the World Centres hub call and the wave of homesickness hit when I heard Virginia’s voice over Zoom at Chalet.

When I was at KISC, the whole centre knew I was an ex-vollie at Chalet. It was a known fact. And thankfully, no one judged me for it. But being told, “don’t bring all your scouts shirts to Sangam” wasn’t a great start. Which on hindsight, I shouldn’t have listened. I didn’t know whether the JLS and Sangam team would embrace the KISC side of me so I tread with caution and was careful not to mention KISC in reflections cos I wasn’t sure if I could mention it. The only times I felt really comfortable talking and truly let down my guard was when I was with Agnes. That probably explained why I loved hanging out with her. Doesn’t hurt that we have a ton of mutual friends. Haha. I remember taking my cues to talk about KISC from her. It wasn’t much at the start of the week, then there were some days that we sat together in the same table for meals and the topic will naturally turn to KISC.

So yes. JLS 2019 had challenged me indeed. Although not in a conventional way. Then again, I don’t do conventional well.

However, the next time I see Agnes at a Guiding event, it’s pink neckers on!!😄

#JLS2019

It’s been awhile.

The last 6 months of 2019 was great. Wouldn’t have traded it for the world, especially coming home to Kandersteg for 2 weeks. That was, in some sense, my only “real” holiday last year even though it was a Ex-Staff Work Party/wedding. All 3 trips involved swimming costumes though(Hot Spring for Taiwan, Finnish Sauna for Switzerland and Swimming pool for India).

During JLS, out of the 21 participants, there were only 2 of us, Boldness and I who were Ex-vollies/staff at World Centres. She at Pax Lodge and Sangam and me at Chalet and KISC. We were also by sheer coincidence(or maybe not), we were assigned to the same patrol. On that note, 2 of my facilitators were ex-vollies/staff in the same places as me as well, Agnes was ex-staff at KISC and Yolanda was an ex-vollie at Chalet. And a Sangam volunteer, Katy was an ex-GSI at Chalet.

During the course of the week, Bex gave us many many reflections and somehow or another, that always led me back to talking about my first vollie experience at Chalet. Likewise with Boldness and Pax Lodge. That week also played out the difference in my Chalet and KISC relationships. Probably cos of how KISC works, Agnes and I clicked right off the bat and there were times when both of us went off tangent and end up chatting about KISC. Which didn’t really happen with Katy and Yolanda.

As much as I wanted to do that, I was still a participant after all and our days were jam packed so there wasn’t any time or space to talk about both Chalet and KISC in depth, in the way I normally do when I meet up with ex-vollies/pinkies.

What I didn’t really expect from JLS was old emotions from Chalet/KISC to surface. And for me to finally empathize with the way Stef and Katie Scales felt 7 years ago. Probably from the Hero Story session with Narindra, Aliza, Gloria and Michele. That session was a favorite and we’ve all probably would have started bawling if it was in a more private area(we were in the hall).

It was probably around 2 days in that I started internally debating how much of my heart should I put into this seminar. When you’ve done 3months/4 months/6months/1year, you know that 1 week isn’t gonna be much of a heartbreak compared to those. You know that you can get through the week unaffected. I probably saw that same thought occurred in my facilitators as well cos 5/7 of them have gone through the same heartbreak as ex-vollies/staff at Sangam/Chalet/KISC/Cabana. I might be wrong. At that moment, I understood how Katie Scales felt 7 years ago.

Because I was the 2nd oldest participant and it wasn’t my first international experience, I caught myself behaving the way Stef did sometimes(She’s better now). And I guess I could understand why now. I was closer in age and experience to the facilitators as compared to my fellow participants so I could relate better. And the same with the Sangam volunteers. Haha. I mean….it happened during RSG in 2013 as well when I hanged out with the Chalet vollies more than my RSG participants😁

Boldness and I talked about our respective vollie experiences a lot that week. We were both the “token African/Asian” during our initial vollie stints, which took a lot of adjusting for both of us to be comfortable in our skins at both places. And our hero stories featured our initial vollie experiences as well. I guess in that sense, we have a shared history so we got along as well. It was easy to see where she was coming from and vice versa. As with Agnes, she understood the context of the stories so I didn’t need to explain the backstories/context too much as I normally do with other people. She’s also an extrovert, which works well for me.

Some observations about Guiding

I recently went back(on purpose) to the alma mater to conduct my BPA Execution round. And it was a shocking reflection on how my old Guiders and I used to run the company with the little knowledge we had 10 years ago. Cos they still run it the same way-with drills and badges. It’s bring home the message that having the knowledge(or at least the willingness to learn), dedication and commitment in the Guiders are key to running a successful Guides unit. Times have also change in the last decade.

13 years ago, drills might have been the centre of Guides meetings but 13 years later, everyone is gradually finding out that it’s not part of the WAGGGS programme. 13 years ago, listening to the CLs/Leaders/Exco wasn’t as important as it is now. As a Guider, they are my eyes and ears to the company. 13 years later, campcraft is even more relevant now than it was before because of technology, social media and the need to get kids outdoors. Ironically, there are more schools with fake grass now. And the outdoors play a big part of the Guiding movement. 13 years ago, the lack of knowledge made me think that cooking with solid fuel was outdoor cooking. Sadly, the lack of knowledge is still there in my alma mater. 13 years later, I know better. 13 years ago, it was probably fine not to have Guiders be hands on during Guides meeting. 13 years later, I learnt that it made all the difference in the world when they do. And that it’s importance is so underrated. Girls can sniff out dedication in a heartbeat.

Most Guider friends think it’s admirable that I’ve been in this for long. And helping units whom are not my alma mater. Truth is, I’m killing the Guiding skeletons in my own closet along the way too. To be the hands-on Guider who is constantly learning and actually know what she is talking about(amongst other things), one that I never had as a teenager. I’ve been lucky that the units I work/worked with all have Guiders like that.

When I had that revelation 2 years ago, during BTC, my friends in my patrol couldn’t understand why I had such an emotional reaction to it. After all, they were still new to what being a Guider is all about. To me, that was the answer to the question I didn’t know I’ve been asking myself for the past decade. That having a good, hands-on, dedication and committed Guider makes all the difference when you are at the receiving end of it. So glad most of my patrol mates turned out exactly like that! Their girls(and my SAC girls) sometimes complain that they have so much work to do and so many things to pass down. I tell them that I never had that privilege when I was their age. Yes. It’s a privilege to have Guiders so invested in your progress.

Why? And How?

2018 seem to be the year to make sense of 2016 and to actually do something about it.

I know what I REALLY want to do now. And it’s just become clearer after my time at KISC. Campsite and nature. Those 90 days spent working outdoors had really influenced how I felt about work. Probably also that I can live without pastry. Now, to put that into action. Along with resisting the temptation to apply for kitchen jobs again(cos I know I’ll be miserable in a year). And convincing my parents my plan to study for an outdoors degree in Canada(still in the works).

As with 2016, I found myself back in SCGS this year. Though this time round, my role is more a diplomat rather than a trainer. Don’t get me wrong, I still love my SAC Guides; they are the reason my standards for my girls are high. In some ways, my SAC Guides are my benchmark for how a unit should be run cos Ms Tan got the unit running like a well oiled machine.

This year, I’m back in SC Guides without Adeline or Yoon Teng as both of them left the school last year. Which felt strangely weird the first few times I went there. To admit the truth, I really missed their presence there(and I still do, especially when the girls are doing fire lighting and tent pitching cos it takes me back to outdoor challenge practices in 2016). I had to adjust not having a teacher friend there anymore-putting my bag in the Guides room instead of Adeline’s desk.

Well, the whole reason why I’m there during most meetings is that the current CL called me back. She happened to be one of the kids who got along really well with me during outdoor challenge practices then I bumped into her on the train in late 2016 after I got back from Switzerland and I gave her my number. Exact same kid who asked Adeline during my time in Switzerland when I was coming back (THAT really melted my heart). What are the chances, right?

Long story short. New Guider/Captain came in, then invited ex-trefoil guild president to help with the unit first thing without getting to know the girls first. The girls got really frustrated and desperate so they called me in for reinforcements in February.

I’ve been catching up on what really happened during the last 2 years, from both exco and the Guider who stayed. Hence the insight and perspective into what happened in 2016 and I see it in a whole new light now knowing what I know. And my instincts were spot on. Yoon Teng and Adeline came back for campfire in mid March and Yoon Teng gave me an even deeper insight into things. I didn’t plan on getting this emotionally involved but I guess it’s too late.

I realize now that I have to sit Adeline down at some point and apologize for so many things. And that I understand why she reacted the way she did. That I’m still grateful for her generosity and kindness. Also that I’m even more impressed how hands-on she had become during the last 2 years. Maybe we can come to a truce.

For now, I’m gradually pushing the SC Guides(and learning all 80 of their names) the way I do with my SAC Guides at camp. I question them with “Why do you do things this way? Why not that way?” or “How do you think we can make this more effective?” Finally, my pastry training comes in handy during Guides! Haha. Thankfully, the new Guiders caught on on that and we are getting them to think of the logic behind our actions. Their answer of “cos our seniors taught us that way” isn’t a good enough answer anymore. Bonus? I’m getting really familiar with tentage again!

The boundary line that Adeline drew 2 years ago is still there. The kids, in more ways than one, are still Sophia’s, Adeline’s and Yoon Teng’s girls. Will probably be for the rest of their lives. Haha. I know that one really well, you can’t escape no matter how hard you try! All you gotta do is look at Ms Ng and I. Even after all these years, I still get questioned like I’m 13 when I’m with her. Seriously speaking, the girls know a good Guider when they see one. They can sense the dedication and commitment in a heartbeat. So my plan is to get out of the school once the new Guiders catch on on that!

I think it’s me

I don’t think I’ve have the heart for this anymore. It’s the 2nd time it happened since I’ve came back.I’ve been trying my hardest but hitting a major brick wall. 

Also, let me tell you something about me. If you start yelling at me, I’ll automatically shut down. Like, nothing will go in. I wouldn’t even start a conversation after that. Why would I if it’s like walking on a minefield? Which means, I wouldn’t tell you freely what’s on my mind. Which will then trigger another mine. 

I know I make mistakes. I’m a natural born klutz, cos I do. Some, I’m completely unaware of. Most, I do. Trust me, I do. And I feel guilty aka put more pressure on myself. You harping on and on about it will only make me feel worse. And helpless. Like nothing I can do to make the situation better. Which I wish I could. 

But, like that fateful day at Oschinenscee, I’ll put my heart and soul into this from now on. There is no other choice. I’ll try not to assume anything. Walk a mile in your shoes too. Pay more attention to the details. All I ask is please try not to explode on me. And some breathing space.