Well, hi, Tak Wei here, and its my first blog for the batch. Wow, yay. After about a month of acts I finally get to write a blog entry about act. So anyway, the activity I'm writing about is the act on 4th Feb, a.k.a Muster Parade and Batch Meeting. I think you knew that (see the title you dummy!)
So let me begin my story. RE was some fail, since my teacher-mentor didn't come, and it was declared free period, so I left for the den at bout 2.50pm, which was early, and I thought that no one else was there. But when I arrived, I noticed that quite a few others had arrived liao. zzz... Oh yeah, I and Kenneth's RE group, which had like 5 scouts, have the same teacher-mentor. -.-"
Act was to start pretty soon, but not before we saw Sup, Hiok and Francis funking in the den, and I getting the chance to whack a few carom seeds with Alvin. By the time all of us changed into Scout U, the other batches started to arrive. Wow, and the VU decided to slip from the Den to allow the rest to change.
Being Muster Parade, the unit started walking towards the Raffles Square (after all, we always did that last year), then Kenneth Kuan and Francis decided to blow horseshoe near the monkey bars, which left everyone scrambling, including the VU. (Thanks...) Attendance taking took place after that, and then Kenneth decided to size up there and then. However, this quickly changed when Mr. Chan started making announcements at the Raffles Square. With that, we quickly ran to the Raffles Square.
At the Square, we (as in the VU) formed up behind the SU,and sized up accordingly. Fortunately the footdrill by the SU wasn't so 'birdsh*t' as from Monday act, and we sized up successfully. Then Mr. Chan started to brief us about the new procedure about Muster Parade and did two dry runs to test out the new procedure. Of course this included Uniform Check and there was no longer a need to march into the square as compared to last year. (another yay).
The Muster Parade proceeded on quite smoothly, and with some quick announcements from Mr. Chan, we were dismissed from the Muster Parade, and thank the heavens (better known as Alvin Chua) that we did, seeing that it started drizzling. However, as soon we were dismissed, Alvin called another horseshoe just steps from where we were.
The SU didn't have act today, so after that, they were dismissed. Good for them. For the Ventures, we had other plans, and we went to confirm with Kenneth about the venue of Batch Meeting, and all he told us was to find a classroom and the security guard would open the door. And all this was done in the rain, so by the time we entered the sheltered Junior Blk, we were drenched with rainwater. We sat down for a while and watched an NPCC Sec 2 footdrill session, which turned out to be about the same standards as the Sec 2s of 01, before walking up to find a classroom to have our meeting in.
Our meeting venue was finally confirmed to be 4F classroom, and until the guard was there to open the door, we had to stone outside and wait for him. While ZJ, Joel and Amos went to the toilet, the rest of us was trying to enter the classroom through other means. Alvin for one tried to open the window with brute force, which (being God and every other almighty being) he did successfully. -.-“ Of course we still waited for the guard to come open the door, and he did, like after 3 mins. By then I went to the toilet and didn’t see the thing.
By the time I entered back the classroom, I was quite pleased that everything was arranged already. (No work for me!). So I just took a seat on one of the tables already laid out and waited for Kenneth, Hiok and Francis. And we just waited until they arrived, and they did, with Mr. Chan, who decided to attend a portion of our meeting. So he just stood up and with that, our Batch Meeting started, with of course our first and most important project, our Batch Project cum NYAA CIP project with Pathlight School about the organizing of several scout acts for their students.
Alvin happily told us that we have established contact with the school and we had to meet them up on Friday, which conveniently was Venture Funk or Venture-Organised PT or my Golf training, so I couldn’t make it, which wasn’t really essential since they only needed 3 people, so we got the 2 I/Cs and KK. Nothing much about this part since it was only in its preliminary stages. Part 1 done.
Next part was about Den Upgrading, which Hiok and Joel were overseeing, and they just reminded us about the details of the upgrading, which, amusingly, all came from the proposal sent out by them, but they just reminded us anyway and confirmed some other deadlines and logistics. Rong Jun was also kind to remind me he was going to his (and mine) Bio teacher’s house as part of this project, and I joked that Mrs. Foo might just get him to dish out some last minute Bio homework. Part 2 done.
Part 3 was the more ‘closer-to-deadline’ thing we had to worry about, Overnight Games. Bryan, who arrived after Maths Club selection tests, just told us that the only thing needed was to allocate the new 4 Ventures who will join us to their respective jobs and the games would be settled. So, other than some deadline changes and final things, this part was also done. Yay, 3/10s of the batch meeting settled, the time was about 4.45. Next part was about Pioneering Act, which ZJ and Amos was in-charge.
ZJ told us about the planned act on Saturday which was to pioneer and test out the new proposed structure, which was of a much smaller scale as compared to what was suggested during the first pioneering act. (More details please read the earlier blog post about Pioneering Act). Then he asked for help to pick poles for the act and he suggested on Friday, which is again our VU day of full activities. Wished I can help, but I can’t do much, seeing that I have golf. Part 4 done.
KK then went on to brief on the acts that would happen after the Saturday Pioneering Act, where we would split up into 2 groups. One group goes to the air-conditioned area to buy pet stuff for Sup’s batch hamster project, while the other group goes into the murky, humid, lala forest to cut firewood and bamboo for Backwoods. So we decided that the only to settle this was to, well, spin a bottle and see where the cap points at. I know, not the most intellectual of ways but one of the most fair. In the end, I still got lucky and will get to follow Sup to buy our new batch pet. Part 5 done.
Now, Part 6 was on Skills segment for NYAA, about this time Zhi Xuan also stopped by to check on the meeting. Our latest update from Jon Ed was that we had to go to some CC to do the cooking, but have too little stoves and ovens, and might decide to settle with 01 Stoves, which, from QM experience, might leave Ram a bit pissed. So we had a long discussion on what to do. Either do cooking and face what might (and will) become a logistical nightmare, or look for other options, one of which was about doing writing and PR skills. We put it to a vote and finally it was decided that we had to change seeing the possible problems that we might face. This of course was not nice, but yeah, these things do happen.
Kenneth went out to inform the VTLs about the change in plans, and Anurak went on to update us about the batch shirt thing. He gt 3 quotations and wanted us to choose 1. There was the cheap one, the not so cheap and unworth one, and of course the super expensive but good one. We at first didn’t mind paying more for the name to be printed on the sleeve, but then still changed to choose the cheaper one. Then Anurak wanted us to pay 20 bucks for our birthday presents thing, which was to pay for presents for other batchmates. Eventually, the scheme was just allowing us to pay for our own presents. But still, the thought counts.
So we made our next part, with KK back from calling the J1s. What timings to allocate for the Skills NYAA. Seeing that almost everyday I had something to do with 01, I really didn’t want another afternoon. Most of us wanted Friday night, but ZJ couldn’t make it and then of course others wanted to have it on other days, then others cannot make it, and to cut it into a nutshell, this was really CMI and everything really broke down (*sniff sniff sob sob*). KK decided to just carry on with the meeting.
The final part was about AOB, and we had some things like Den Duty, which KK wanted VQMs to check again about the dates, and of course about the Den Cleanup. Then there was still the procedure regarding the new 4 Ventures, which was to be confirmed by Kenneth. Of course, the final thing was that Vijay was to be our new unofficial VU-SU correspondent, seeing he was the SU Secretary. But other than these AOB, the meeting ended, and we started to pack up the tables again. Anurak at that time dropped his money on the floor, leaving us in laughter as always. But other than that, our batch meeting was over and with a singing of a birthday song for Soham, and a chocolate from Soham’s stash of chocolate, our act reached a rainy end…
Yeah, sorry for the short blog entry, I didn’t want to flood it with hardcore info. That’s what Alvin’s minutes are for, so look out for them. Anyway, as promised, here are the pics from today’s act. (will upload onto photobucket soon)
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