2016 CSP Exercise

Objectives

The objective of the CSP exercise is for the students to talk to the PEM and plan out their timetable for the semester.

Roles the EMRS students took on

•     Computer Lab assistant – To help students that need help with their time table
•     Usher – To direct the students to the correct rooms
•    Registration – To take the students attendance when they report for CSP
•     Rooms IC –  To check on the rooms and send students from the holding room to their respective diploma rooms when there is empty seats
•    Counselling rooms helper - Ensure that the students are at the correct room and the noise level is low

Pre event preparation

We were told that we are the team in charge of CSP in first few weeks of EMRS. That is when Andre and I the 2 OIC’S started planning for the event. However most of the information were only available closer to the event date, this hence require us to plan the detailed things within a short time, and to ensure that everything would be ready by the event day.

The room allocation and the people In charge of those rooms

The students who register at the reporting room, will be given a number card where there is instructions and reminder at the back of it. This is to allow us to track the students more easily and let us know whether the students have completed the entire exercise.

                                            

                                             

                                                The registration room layout on the event day

                                             

                                                The layout of the counselling rooms

                                               

                                                   How the com lab look like on the actual day

                                                    

                    EMRS students helping to solve the student’s problems about their time table

At the end of the day, CSP was me and Andre’s first time being overall in charge for an event in EMRS. It was a very enriching and fun event as we get to make decisions and lead my fellow EMRS students and complete this event together. The event went smooth in the end event though there were many hiccups along the way such as pasting the wrong diploma signages at the wrong room. We would like to thank the supervisors for their guidance and ensuring that we are on the right track and correct us when we make a mistake.

EMRS FIRST TEAM BONDING 10/3/2016

EMRS TEAM BONDING 10/03/2016

Selection

Emily, Pearline and Xinyue are selected as OICs to plan and facilitate the upcoming Team bonding event to aid the new batch of EMRS students to bond as a whole, have better relationships to assist future working experiences through a series of physical and mental activities.

Preparation

We (Emily Pearline Xinyue) gathered the whole of team 4 to discuss some of the forfeit ideas and to vote for some general ideas like game instructions for charades and broken telephone.

We listed down our checklist for the event which includes:

1.   Production schedule

(allows team 4 to have a better idea of what's going to take place behind the scenes)

Time Activities

11am-1130pm SET UP SPORTS HALL ZONE ONE -paste triangular masking tape -paste division line -bottle and string to stand by at the side -clear any obstructing items -double check area to minimise injury rate to the minimum -double check portable sound system

1130-12pm SET UP EMRS ROOM -place containers and instruction lists at respective tables -double check sound system and open videos -file all the related documents and stand by tickets. -prepare forfeit slips  

12pm-1245pm LUNCH -come back 15-20mins earlier

1245pm-1pm SET UP BRIEFING SLIDES -last check for errors and prepare the room for briefing

130pm-3pm ONGOING EVENT -proceed to EMRS room during water break

245pm-330pm DOUBLE CHECK EMRS ROOM -final check for relevant indoor games logistics -check if video is loading -final sound check to prepare for game start

430pm-5pm RBF -Pearline does a debrief while the rest collate the ticketing system

2.   Programme schedule

(allows team 4 to note the activities that are suppose to be taking place currently)

Time Activity

12pm-1pm Lunch Break

1:30 – 2:00 pm Briefing / Introduction (By using power point) Introduce our ticket system

2:00 – 2.20pm Game one: Blow Wind Blow (individual)  

2.20 –2.40 pm Game two: Crows and Cranes (individual)  

2.40 –3.10 pm Game three: Tied Up Dog and Bone (group, ticketing system 01)  

3.10 – 3.30pm Water break

3.30 – 3.50pm Game four: Broken Telephone (group)  

4.00 – 4.30pm Game five: Charades (group)  

4.30 – 5.30pm Debrief and end of programme

3.   Games instructions

(assist gamemasters in case they forget how to explain a particular game)

4.   logistics list

(assist logistic IC to purchase the necessary items, calculate budget etc)

5.   Ticketing system blank template

(for game masters to allocate teams with respective tickets fast enough)

Pearline and Xinyue started on the proposal by gathering and filling in all necessary information while Emily noted down all the logistics and gathered them from various different places.

Days before the event

Our team (team 4) went down to the event site to book the venue and check for any form of potential dangers and obstacles that might be present. We wanted to reduce the level of danger to the lowest to ensure that our EMRS mates are able to have maximum enjoyment and learning points.

3 hours before the start of event

Under the lead of the three ICs, team four went down to the event site to scan the venue for one last time and to set up relevant logistics. Team four played the various games before hand to spot any possible loopholes and to test if the hall is too humid for activities. The security guard alerted us that our booking did not come with aircon so Pearline and Xinyue contacted the teacher who helped us to book the venue immediately. She then kindly informed us that we should make do with fans. Xinyue asked permission from her to request for aircon and she approved however when the security guard called the maintenance centre there was no one working on that day. We decided to make the best out of that day with the fans in the sports hall. 

Briefing

A powerpoint slide presentation was made for the briefing. Briefing was conducted by Pearline. The slides includes programme schedule of the day, to allow the participators to have a better understanding of the team building activity. Besides that, a safety measures were also briefed during the presentation to remind participants what are suppose and not suppose to do. 

Mass games

1. Blow wind blow
   

Xinyue gathered everyone nearer to form a circle surrounding herself, she gave out    instructions and pearline assisted and observed from the side recording down points to take note for AAR. Emily played with the rest to note down points for AAR in the shoes of a participant. Everyone had great chemistry and the ice was melted almost instantly. Sleepy faces turned into happy smile, laughing goofily at one another.

1. Crows and cranes
   

Xinyue divided the hall into two equal halves using the centre red line as the line of division. One side was called crows and the other is called cranes. The Two halves were asked to play with fairness and they are to take note of the safety of their peers while chasing and escaping

1. -Tied up dog and bone
   

Xinyue got all three teams to stand in a neat line facing the centre bottle, they are then assigned numbers and partners as the game proceeded on. This game didn't go according to plan as the moment strings was involved, the atmosphere got really challenging as there were many people involved some were confused as they headed to the centre with their partners, the dropping and grabbing of the “bone”was simply too fast and furious.

Indoor games

The indoor games is conducted by Emily. 

Broken Telephone

The game was supposed to be played outside the EMRS room along the corridor but the portable speaker we had was not loud enough to provide distraction for the game, we decided to use the EMRS room as the speakers in the room are louder. Everyone understood how the game went and achieved the objective of the game and even though we thought the EMRS room would be too small for the game, everything went well and everyone had fun. 

Charades

Even though we have chosen words that are of a certain level of difficulty, the teams still played with ease. As Charades is quite a well-known game, there were no challenges faced while trying conveying the instructions to the participants. 

Debrief

Our debrief was conducted earlier because our activities ended slightly earlier. The purpose of that debrief was to get feedback on how we can improve in future and to let everyone has a say on our they feel about this activity and how this activity will benefit them in EMRS team in future. Debrief was conducted by Pearline. We personally felt very heart warming to listen to everyone’s thought  and we also felt a sense of achievement because most of the people enjoyed the activity that we planned. We were happy to get many good responses from everyone :)

Forfeit performance

A lesson was learnt during the forfeit. Doesn’t mean that the team that had the most number of tickets will win. Despite having the most number tickets, team 2 & 4 lost to team 3. 

1st place : Team 3

2nd place: Team 2 ( only need to do 1 forfeit ) 

LAST : Team 4  ( need to do 2 forfeit !!! ) 

Forfeit of team 2 was to post an unglam picture on social media !! 

Forfeit of team 4 was to eat korean spicy noodle and drink vinegar. The game masters weren’t spared either. Pearline almost died in korean spicy noodle while xinyue and emily could not stand the smell and taste of the vinegar !! 

To be honest, forfeit can be improved. Forfeit should be conducted in front of the whole emrs groups instead of the team. Rest of the team seemed left out when one group is conducting the forfeit. Joy and laughter should be shared among everyone :) 

AAR

Xinyue’s thoughts and discoveries:

I learnt from the teachers that EMRS usually don't play team bonding games in an airconditioned environment and i thought that it would be great to implement and improve for future activities because if we have the facilities, why not use them! It is reflected that the tied up dog and bone did not go according to how we thought it would but nonetheless, everyone had fun. Some people responded that the forfeit should be more mild. Some also reflected that there were too many physical games and we should start off with ice breaker games.

Pearline’s thoughts and discoveries:

 During the AAR, we prepared a powerpoint slides on what we did well, did not do well, challenges faced and overcome and what we can improved on. We were happy to get many good responses and we also learnt to accept new feedback and responses on how what we can do to improve our activities in future. AAR is a good time for us to reflect and improve ! :)  

Emily’s thoughts and discoveries:

I have learnt that it is very important to be able to adapt to last minute changes as not everything will go according to plan. If the organizers panic and do not know what to do, the whole event would be affected. But overall, it was a great learning experience and I believe that we have achieved our objective. 

Overall thoughts

“It made many students bond together including the DBI students. After the team bonding games, it have proven that it’s effective as many were opening themselves up to the rest which result in better team rapport.”

-Andy Leng, gp 2

“It was fun and enjoyable, it really helped teams to have better rapport and not only that but bonded the whole EMRS as a whole.”

-Kristian Jeremiah Joseph, gp2

“Good interaction with the teams and we get to know each other better. I think it would be better if there were ice breakers before the mass games”

-Oh Kai Qi, gp 3

“Able to know my fellow peers in EMRS more and know their working styles”

-Zheng Rongxin, gp 2

“Can relax and have some fun while bonding with the team”

-Pamela Lim, gp2

“It’s very fun and bond us more and i've enjoyed myself! I want more of such activities”

-Zuriel Ma, gp 3

“It was a good opportunity to make new friends and future colleagues.”

-Andre Leow, gp 4

“It was fun organising and making sure that the event went well. It was truly an enjoyable event. Beneficial to hold it at the start of this stopover ”

-Amberlyn Ong xin hui, gp 4 

“I had a great time with my team and i think we should have more events like this”

-Gladys Kee, gp 3

EMRS Group photo

RHB-The Straits Times National Spelling Championship (Preliminary Round)

Credits: The Straits Times

Date: 26 March 2016

Venue: Suntec City Convention Hall

Time: 08:00 to 13:00

About the event:

Big spell is an annual National spelling competition, presented by RHB Banking Group and The Straits Times which opens to Primary 4 to 6 students. This competition consists of 3 rounds- Preliminary, Zonal and Grand Final.

For the preliminary rounds, it was estimated that there was more than 1800 students who signed up for this competition. These students were required to take a test of which they had to spell 50 words.

The top 30 spellers in each zone - north, south, east and west, will be selected to enter the Zonal Round on April 16. The best performers from the Zonals will then move on to the Grand Final on April 30.

Pre-event:

The EMRS students were divided into 4 different zones and each zone had different roles and responsibilities.

Zone 1- Arrival & Dismissal

Zone 2- Ushers & Invigilators

Zone 3- Invigilators

Zone 4-Registration

A briefing was conducted by Avivar Audience Communication Pte Ltd on March 17. The representative shared with us the event details such as the program schedule, roles and responsibilities and so on. After which, we were told that we had to do a site recce on March 23 whereby teams were involved. During the site recce, we were further briefed on the floor plan so as to be more familiarized with the event.

Event Day:
- Registration

All the students were required to report at Suntec City Convention Hall at 06:45. Luckily, transport was provided where we were able to share a cab and claim from the company afterwards.
We started off the day by helping to paste seat numbers of participants based on the different zones that we were already assigned to. However, the process of pasting the seat numbers took longer than expected thus, some of us were not able to enjoy the light breakfast that was provided.

At about 07:50, students, parents and teachers started to arrive for registration. Without wasting time, we headed to our respective zones to assist the school teachers and participants. The crowd was overwhelming, making those ushers in Zone 2 lost when they tried to find the various schools that they were assigned to. However, we managed to overcome this obstacle by remaining calm and helping one another. Due to the huge number of participants, there was a space constraint in terms of the assembly area which resulted in the delay of timing in proceeding to the examination hall. Nevertheless, to prevent any more delay, we did our very best to control the crowd and took the initiative to apologise for the long wait.

- Examination

After ensuring that the students have settled down at their respective zones, all ushers were then tasked to be invigilators. We felt that it was a huge responsibility to be an invigilator as we had to ensure fairness and constantly be alert during the exam. Through our observations, we realized that the participants were anxious. Hence, to overcome this, we interacted with them and tried to make them calm. After the hour-long examination, the collection of papers was challenging but we managed to remain vigilant and calm by helping one another to make sure that the number of students tallied with the number of scripts collected.

- Dismissal

Dismissal of the students was actually quite challenging as there was a change in plans in the midst of dismissal. Instead of dismissing by zones, schools were actually dismissed only when their busses have arrived. It has been quite a long day for the participants, thus resulting them to be restless, running around and playing among themselves. Even though this actually tested our patience, we tried to put ourselves in their shoes and advise them in a nice and friendly manner. Nevertheless, we had to keep in mind to be always alert of their whereabouts and safety. There were many unhappy faces due to the late dismissal but we maintained our professionalism by addressing the situation calmly.

Conclusion:

To most of us, 2016 Big Spell was actually the biggest event that we had ever been involved in which led to many lessons being learned. For instance, the essentials of being proactive and adapting to changes, as things may not go as planned and sometimes unexpected situations may occur. We also learned life-long skills that can be applied in the future, such as taking initiatives and being proactive in terms of adapting to unexpected situations and not being afraid to try. Last but not least, we were grateful for our respective supervisors who constantly checked on us and guided us.



With love,
EMRS Team 2,3 & 4

Team 2: NYP-in-Action for the community

NYP-in-Action for the community: Party for senior citizens – Team 2

Date: 12 March 2016, Saturday

About the event

NYP-in-Action for the community: Party for senior citizens is a half-day event that allows elderlies from Thye Hua Kwan Moral Society to be exposed to a new environment that they have never been in and to foster bonds between the elderly themselves as well as with the student helpers. The event had different activities panned around the School of Health Science and North Canteen such as: 

1.  Morning tea
2. Morning exercise
3.  Treasure Hunt
4. 5 games booths (Different schools are in-charged of it including EMRS team
5. Karaoke Session
6. Lunch

The previous team 2 was tasked to set up a game booth for the Old Folks SG50 Lunch Event in November 2015. However, it was postponed due to the haze. Thus, this year our team, which is the current team 2 was in charge of the game booth, while the rest of EMRS teams were the table servers to take care of the elderlies.

Pre-event

We made some references to the game that was done by the previous team 2 and make some changes to it. Throughout the preparation for the game, we managed to overcome a few problems by ourselves and of course with the help from our supervisor.

1) We changed the theme from “Monopoly” to “Balik Kampung” which means ‘return to village’ to fit the event’s objectives as we want to attract as many elderlies as possible to be involved in the activities.

2) The game that was done by the previous team 2 was on the cardboard. The length of the game board was the full length of EMRS table. However, we decided to shorten the game board to ¾ of the original game one as we felt that it might be a little tedious for the elderly to hit the ball around. In addition, instead of asking the elderly to hit into the can to win prizes, we make holes on the cardboard for the elderly to hit into it to win, where different holes carry different points.

3) After listening to the advices given by our supervisor to make the game more interactive and challenging, we came up with the idea to add in small obstacles on the game board itself such as small humps, bridge and seesaw.

Preparation of our game booth

Advertising and promotion

We have designed the following for our A&P:
1. Banner: Initially, the plan was to stick the banner onto the wall. However, our supervisor told us that it is not allowed as they were afraid that the tear down of the banner would be messy. So our supervisor suggested us to stick it behind of the game board so we do not need to tear down from the wall and make a mess and also it would not take up too much space.

2. Poster: At first, it was too dull and our supervisor commented that it might not be able to attract the elderlies’ attention, so we changed the colour to brighter tone such as golden brown and also to add in the picture of a Kampung so that it was able to link to the theme of our game.

3. Game rules: Everyone worked together and came up with different languages for the game rules to let most of the elderlies know how to play the game, as not all of them understand English.

Preparation of our A&P

Logistics

The logistic IC made a logistic plan and took the required equipment from the EMRS logistics room and make sure that the equipment that will be used for the game booth is in working conditions. We then realised that some poster stands were not in working conditions. However, we managed to resolve it by exchanging the poster stands with team 3.

Event Day

Before we set up our game booth we faced several problems such as:

1. The prize system

We could not decide on the prize system as there were too many choices. We nearly had an argument with each other. Luckily, one of us took the initiative and decided on the prize system.

2. The placement of the prize table & poster

We are indecisive on where to place the table and poster. Our supervisor then gave us suggestions on where to place them and we followed. 

Eventually, we managed to set up our booth on time. While the rest of the EMRS team were at the north canteen taking care of the elderlies.

Soon, our game booth was crowded with people! We had to modify our game rules as we do not want the elderlies to wait too long for their turn. We also received lots of positive feedbacks from them which gave us a sense of achievement. 

An excited winner getting her prize!

After the games ended, we headed back to the North Canteen to join the elderlies for the karaoke session and lunch. We really enjoyed ourselves during the session where we get to sing and dance with the elderlies. We were also very happy that we managed to hype up the karaoke session.  After that, we helped to distribute the lunch to the elderlies. They then went back after they had their lunch.

We are glad that the event ended smoothly and we fostered stronger bonds within our team. We are also very grateful to have our supervisor’s guidance and make this event a successful one.

TEAM 3 - Under $3 Mini Roadshow

About the event

 

Team 3: Under $3 mini-roadshow

 



Date: 16 March 2016

Venue: Opposite Old Shopping Arcade

Time: 10.30am to 3.30pm

 

 

(From top left to right)

 Shermaine(OIC), Baizurah (A&P), Chun Ler (Mobile selling), Sijie(Finance),Jowi (Finance), Gladys (Finance)

(From bottom row left to right)

Natasha(A&P, Mobile Selling, Kaiqi (Logistics, Mobile Selling),  Wilbur (OIC, Mobile selling), Shawn (Mobile selling)
 Zuriel (Inventory), Jelyn (Inventory)

 

 

 

“Under $3” was a mini-roadshow that we collaborated with NYP Cheers to sell snacks and drinks. We decided to collaborate with Cheers instead of D’Studio as we felt that the demand for Cheers’ products would be higher compared to D’Studio. Moreover, our mini roadshow was held during the school holidays thus consumable products may be more ideal.

These snacks and drinks that we sold were chosen carefully by taking into consideration certain factors, such as price, hot selling and promotional items. After which, as a team, we came up with a theme for our mini roadshow which was “Under the tree”.  Since the products were all under $3, we unexpectedly, randomly thought of a tree since it's pronounced closely to the number "3".

Objectives

The objective for our Mini Roadshow was to hit the target sales that were given to us which was $250. Another objective would be learning the fundamentals of event planning and management. Starting an event from scratch, planning to executing and then proceeding to do the after action review.

Pre-event

 

 

 

After allocating the tasks for each team member, we proceeded to the preparation of the mini-roadshow.

Advertising & Promotion

As we were given a budget of $20, we decided to recycle some previous events' materials to save cost. However, we did purchase some materials from NYP's Popular for our booth decorations.

Everyone played a part in doing up the A&P materials.

Poster

We faced many challenges in the process of designing the poster. Firstly, although using Photoshop was new to our team, we challenged ourselves to be familiarized with the software as we believed that it would be beneficial for us in the future. It indeed took some time but we managed to pull through. We had difficulty brainstorming on the design for our poster to fit our theme, nevertheless we successfully came up with a design. The poster went through several changes due to constant requirements of re-editing. The poster was placed at 5 different locations, 5 days prior to the event, to create awareness about our mini-roadshow event.

Price tags

We designed our price tags in a way that they fit with the theme. Thus, the price tags were in a form of flower pots where the price was written on the bud of the flower. These price tags were for our snacks.

Whereas for the drinks, we wanted to be more creative therefore we came up with a board, with the labels of the drinks pasted on toilet paper rolls to have a 3D-effect.

In order to attract more customers, we designed a signage board for our promotional items, specially handwritten by us.

 Banner

 

We used recycled cardboards and bought colour papers to design our banner, "The tree". It was indeed challenging as we had to ensure that the banner was of acceptable size, weight and height. 
 

Logistics

Our logistics team designed the floor plan so as to finalise the logistics list prior to the event. We came up with a logistic list to avoid any missing fixtures and to be more organized. They also had to make frequent trips to the logistics room to ensure that the fixtures were in good condition.



Event-Day 

After weeks of preparation, the day has finally arrived! Our team was very excited for the event day. Our event was scheduled to start at 10.30am so all of us gathered together, an hour before. While one of the team members went to pick up the ice, some of us went ahead to set up the booth while the inventory team brought down the stocks.

 

 

During the set up, we had a tough time deciding where to place the banner due to its size. We tried placing the banner at the back of the booth, but realised it didn't stand out. Eventually, we decided to place the banner in the front of the booth like how we planned to during our dry run. We tied the banner around two bottles. The bottles acted as support to prevent the banner from tilting forward and falling over.
After successfully setting up the booth, we began to unpack the stocks to put them on display and at the same time, distribute the stocks to the mobile sellers. Fortunately, we managed to get everything done before 10.30am.

Prior to the event, we had assigned the mobile sellers to go to different venues to sell our products. Meanwhile, the rest of us stayed at the booth. Since it was the school holidays, the crowd was quite bad and thus, sales was moving at a relatively slow pace. Business only started to pick up during lunch time as more people came to patronize our booths and our mobile selling teams also came back to the booth to restock the items.

Both the booth members and mobile selling teams used the inventory list to record our sales and this made things easier for us to do the stock check at the end of the day. Everything went rather smoothly except that we had some issues at the cashier. We did not have enough small change for our customers.

 

Tear-Down

 

All the team members contributed in the tear down process as we split the work among ourselves. We moved the remaining stocks back to the EMRS room and organized them. We counted our sales and at the same time, did a stock check. Surprisingly, we exceeded the target sales of $250 and felt the sense of accomplishment and this would not be possible without the guidance of our supervisor and having worked as a team.