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12:09 AM Thursday, June 3, 2010
{ Workshops #1 }

Last Saturday (30 May), our team spent a long but fruitful day at YMCA, attending four consecutive workshops in preparation for our project:

1. Financial Management
This presentation was extremely useful because it taught us how to do up an Income and Expenditure Statement which is extremely important in order to keep track of our finances. We learnt about the 30/70 rule in greater detail, which basically states that not more than 30% of your income and expenditure statement can be spent on administration/ marketing. It is extremely important to be transparent, especially after what happened to NKF and Ren Ci Hospital. Only by being transparent, can we gain the trust and support from the public.

In addition, we also learnt of the various publicity tactics, such as creating a blog (which explains the existence of this blog!), publicizing our events in our school website/ newsletter, attracting attention during street sales using tactics such as holding huge placards, balloons etc. Basically, in order to gain public’s support, we have to:
- Be different.
- Be in-tune with our sponsor’s business and philanthropy objectives
- Be responsive to the needs of the beneficiaries
- Learn from best practices
- Capitalize on special events
- Be in touch with public sentiment
- Create a product that carries our social mission and is still marketable

We are now more aware of how to properly managing our money matters and gain public’s support!

2. Sales and Marketing Strategies
Through a very engaging presentation and discussion, Mr. Marco Low shared with us many tips on how to market our products to our audience so that we can raise as much funds for our VWO as possible. Amongst many other things, we had to look into how to make people want to buy our jellybeans when there are so many other places where they can purchase candy from:

- Necessity?
- Trendy?
- Desire?
- Peer pressure?
- Emotion?
- For a good cause?
- Support a friend?

We figured that the main reason why anyone would buy from us was to support our cause and beneficiaries, and decided that that would be our key selling point.

What touched our hearts more, other than his knowledge and expertise in marketing and sales, was his heart. Through his sharing about his experiences as a volunteer and a fundraiser (who raised approximately US$50000 with his friends via taking part in Iron man races), we were deeply inspired to embark on our project with great zest and gusto! A video he screened about Team Hoyt moved us close to tears. It was deeply touching and inspirational: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBjR1-0GVkI

The true spirit of lending a helping hand to others in need. And determination. Against all odds.

3. First Aid and Safety Management
Ms Oscar Ng and Mr Tommy Koh did a wonderful job in reminding us of all the minor details which we had to take into account when planning our event, even something as simple as our street sales. We realized we needed to prepare emergency contact plans, first aid kits, volunteer safety briefings and the list goes on. The endless list of thing needed to be prepared before our street sales, thankfully they were there to remind us! Or we may jolly well end up in a fluster when we realized we had missed out so much safety protocol. We were also introduced to the first aid kit and trauma pack, and all of us are quite inspired to take up a first aid course now!

4. Volunteer Management
Mr. Kelvin was the last to speak, but his workshop was nevertheless extremely interesting and enjoyable. We learnt about how to recruit volunteers, how to ensure that they are well prepared for the activity (in our case, street sales), and most importantly, volunteer appreciation! It was something which many of us would not have thought of, because in our lives, more often than not, we are more preoccupied with our own event (whether it went well, how sales was in general, etc) than the welfare of those who have helped out in one way or another in our event.

As such, our team made a resolution to never forget anyone who has made a difference or will make a difference in our YFC journey! We have decided to have a volunteer acknowledgement section to thank all the wonderful volunteers who help out in our street sales!

To sum up, it really dawned upon us that there were so many details to look into when we are planning an event. It always seemed so easy when we were helping out as volunteers, but being the organizers, we realised that we had to look into every small detail.

We are extremely grateful to those who took time off their busy schedules to come and speak to us, and we promise that we will make the best use of all advice given to make our YFC journey a fulfilling and awesome one.

WE ARE READY TO GO!

Posted by: Yuan Teng