News News News!Nabeel Khalid | Year 2 NUS | Year 2 AIESEC | NUS Branding & Communications Coordinator
More pictures below!As dead as this blog may be, for your kind information, a lot goes on in @ in NUS. For starters, we already have some of our EB elects and LCP elect. Presenting the @ in NUS Executive Board for 2008-09:
LCP:
Chang Siew YikLC VP Finance:
Adrian Ong Lian KiatLC VP In-coming Exchange:
Vasudha RamLC In-coming Exchange Executive:
Audrey WongLC VP Business Development:
Shonit SuriLC Business Developement Executive:
Wenny Natalia TangoLC VP Talent Management:
Muhammad Usman Aslam MaharLC VP Information Management:
Nabeel KhalidLC Honorary General Secretary:
Yap Hui Ying We're having another round of applications for the remaining positions available and the
deadline to apply is
25th March, 2008! So hurry
here (Right-click and open in new window/tab):
LC VP Out-going Exchange
LC VP Communications
LC Out-going Exchange Executive
Maybe I should share with you my personal experience in going through the unique evaluation process our LCPe Siew Yik made us all go through. But first, let me *warn* you guys about what's coming up next in AIESEC in NUS...
If you like free lunches, and if any of your answers to the following questions is 'yes', then you should come to the
"Living with HIV" CSR programme by Standard Chartered Bank:
- Do you want to know about Standard Chartered Bank's CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) strategy?
- Do you want to hear about the live story from the regional director of Standard Chartered Bank?
- Do you want to have networking launch with the professionals from Standard Chartered Bank?
Click
here for more on this.
(Right-click to open in new window/tab.)Or maybe these corporate events aren't your thing, or there's a clash with a class or date or something? What if you have a thing for six-course dinners? Not to mention delicious coffee, food and learning! Answer 'yes' to any of these questions and then click the link below:
- Wondering what to do on a Saturday evening with the one you love?
- Do you want to have a hesitant-free conversation about safe sex with your loved one?
Click
here to learn more about
"Coffee with Love @ Geek Terminal".
(Right-click to open in new window/tab.)Or fine. You don't have sex and you're saving yourself for marriage or whatever! What if finance is your thing? You know,
Strategic Investing and what not. This event builds on the success of last year's
Finance Workshop that received very positive feedback.
Take a look at this event by clicking
here.
(Right-click to open in new window/tab.)Too many blocks of text have been starting with 'Or' in this post. I wanna try something new here now. Have you heard about the "Global Village" event held at most AIESEC conferences? Some of us decided to share
that event with the
ENTIRE NUS community! For real!
AIESEC in NUS is holding
Global Village on the 27th of March and the entire OC has been working really hard to make this event possible. All an AIESECer needs to do is to show up at the Central Forum (the big area below Central Library in NUS), wear an AIESEC t-shirt that we have designed and check out all the different cultures NUS has to offer and see them merge under AIESEC! (Psst, there would be cultural performances between 1 pm and 2 pm so you better leave early or the traffic could be really bad then - since so many people will be on their way to the event!)
Oh, did I mention it's on the
27th of March? I guess I did, but did I say it's a
Thursday? From
10 am to 6 pm! (We need volunteers for the day and we have our eye on you... tee hee. You will, come, yes?)
About 0.0005% of you who are still reading this and wondering why I still haven't talked about what I promised long ago -
here is the story of how we got selected for EB!:
First of all there was this annoyingly long form we filled out that was full of personal questions. Well, it wasn't a bad form but I'm sure you've been through times when you try to think about your future or your past and it gives you headaches - you know what I mean?! (Okay maybe it's just me who gets headaches when I do self-reflections.)
We submitted our forms right before the witching-hour ( deadline 11:59 pm) on a Tuesday night (19th February) - smack in the middle of the week when I had another assignment due at the SAME time. Tsk tsk... Shouldn't leave out stuff to do at the last minute!
Submission on time was one challenge but next up we had to go through the first round of assessment. All the EB applicants were given a task that they would complete and as they would make progress, they would be judged! What a sad world we live in - a brother judging another brother eh, Siew Yik? Just kidding...
Our assessment task was to plan and execute an event involving the whole LC (about 100 odd members). We had a budget of $100 and four days to do it. The goal of the event was to get the members to interact with each other.
Did I mention there were 17 applicants applying for 8 positions in the executive board? Talk about stressful situations!
But it wasn't so stressful really. I mean, sure, we did have a 2.5 hour discussion (17 people trying to agree on one thing) to finalize exactly WHAT we would do on that fine Sunday evening. We decided on a costume party of some sort, which changed into a theme party over extended email conversations later on. We split ourselves into departments like Programs, Logistics, Publicity and Finance. Finance was also given the charge to overlook the progress of all the 'departments' in the 'OC'.
The theme we decided upon (at an "emergency meeting" held on the following Friday) was
Retro/'60s/'70s. Bow ties, baggy trousers, tight shirts and the like (I think!). Despite booking limitations on Sundays in NUS, we managed to book a function room in PGPR and we managed to prepare food for 50+ people within a $100 bucks.
Feat? Yes.
Turnout?
Not so good. It turned out that despite literally
CALLING EACH MEMBER we still weren't able to get members down for our spectacular event on such short notice.
But the event itself was quite a success if I may pass my own (biased) judgment. Because we got people to have fun, eat good food (bias - it was South Asian
-ish food), and interact with each other (bias again - I was emceeing =P).
Later that night, the
evil LCPe sent out the results of the first round of evaluation. We had to see 4 of our team members be removed from our team, despite all the hard work they had put in and despite all the amazing things they were able to offer by being part of our team. It was sad and also a tad bit demotivating for the rest of us who progressed on to the second round.
I would like to call the second round the "grilling" round. No, they didn't test our barbecue skills. Quite the contrary. They barbecued us! They cooked us! They baked us! They fried our brains!
They were members from the current MC team, the MC elects, the current LCP and the LCPe. They asked us questions that challenged us to the extent that we started doubting ourselves. It was intense to say the least. What were our plans? How were we going to measure our success? What numbers can we predict? Questions asked with past performance in mind and questions about future performance...
But as we understood later, it was because there was a difference in their expectations of us and our expectations of ourselves. They wanted us to be more pro-active than we could imagine; to step out of our comfort zones more than we thought we could; to create a difference and create more positive impact on our society than we thought we could.
Out of the 13 remaining applicants wanting to fill in 8 VP positions, (plus some Executive positions) only those listed in the beginning of this post were able to make it.
It has been an intense yet fun experience that most of us found strangely stimulating and motivating.
Now we return to our mid-terms and normal school life for a while before we start assuming our new positions in AIESEC and start a new phase in the LR stage (leadership role). Do wish us luck for our term!
Food station - cooks and helpers!
Random scene from the event.
Posers!
And more posers!
Or click here to view the Facebook album.Labels: Activities, Applications Open, Assessment Task, EB application, Fun.., LC gathering, Pictures, Updates
GV (Global Village) was a first-of-its-kind event for AIESEC Singapore and let me explain why before you say anything. I mean sure, we always have a GV at every AIESEC conference and it is always more spectacular than before. But AIESEC conferences are attended by AIESECers only, and people outside of AIESEC never get a chance to witness GV. So the GV event at NUS was an attempt to try to give that same feeling to non-AIESECers (and perhaps, draw them towards AIESEC).
It was held at the Central Forum at NUS (right below the Central Library) which is one of the busiest spots in NUS, enjoying a traffic of thousands of students. I was the project's director and I had an amazing Organizing Committee (OCP and OCVPs - all brilliant). We had a good idea of what we wanted to do and what we wanted to see happen at the Central Forum. Unfortunately we could only do so much in 1.5 months. Nevertheless, the event can be best described as having mixed success.
We had Indian, Malaysian, Pakistani, Sikh and Thai cultural stalls, apart from the stalls put up by AIESECers, which included a display of different hats from around the world and AIESEC T-shirts from different countries and conferences. I may have some bias when I say it was a fascinating display that was put up by all the stalls.
But I think the most popular stall was the one with the hats from around the world - it was empty most of the time - because everyone would steal the hats to camera whore! It was quite a sight, really, as you can judge from some of the pictures.
Coincidently BTMICE (sector of Business Travel, Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions) and the Services Communications department of the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) were organizing an overseas media familiarization trip for international journalists in conjunction with the upcoming Singapore Education (SE) Awards 2008.
For your information, by the way, NUS is a nominee for ‘Best Host for International Students Studying in Singapore (Schools)' for SE Awards 2008, so NUS surely must have benefitted from GV. When they came over, they had an entire camera crew that took pictures of the people present, as well as videos of a couple of AIESEC dances ("It's the time to disco!").
Public displays of affection girls? Get a room!
Moochie moochie
Domestic violence!
