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$17 and 4 years

In July 2005, I took out $17 from my wallet and gave it to a staff at the volunteer organisation I volunteered with since 2002, Heartware Network. I had no idea what was in store for me, after receiving 2 booklets, one small and another larger one.

I started looking for activities to do in order to fulfill the requirements listed in the booklets. The journey wasn't easy, but it was filled with surprises that I never knew existed, and I started to believe the saying, that "for everything that happens, there is a reason".

In October 2005, in order to pick up a new skill, under the recommendation of my friend, I took the courage and entered the conference room in Punggol Community Centre, where the chapter meeting of the Punggol Toastmasters Club (Punggol TMC) was held. During the table topics section, also known as the impromptu speech session, the table topics master (who was in charge of giving out the topics) explained to the audience that members (and guests) who got chosen to take part in the table topics section would have to give a 1-2 min speech about the topic that is assigned. To my horror, I was chosen (or rather, "volunteered") to be one of the participants of the table topics session. I was given a topic to speak about, and surprising, I didn't really make a fool of myself. I could at least mutter some comprehensible gibberish before I quickly adjourned to my seat, glad that the ordeal was over. That night, I signed up to be a member, with the thought of attending the chapter meetings once a month (the club meets twice monthly) and leaving the club 18 months later, the bare minimum needed to fulfill the skills section stated in the booklets.

I took on the role as club President 8 months later, thanks to people who placed their trust in me. I also took on the role as Area Governor for Area U2. It was a scary thought to be managing 5 clubs (Punggol TMC and the 4 other clubs in Area U2), considering that I was a fairly new Toastmaster. However, I decided to take it as a challenge. I visited other clubs during their chapter meetings, serving as project speech evaluators and sometimes language / general evaluators. I took part in speech contests as contest judge. I co-organised events such as club officers training and area speech contests. And at the end of June 2007 (my term in office for club Presidency and Area Governorship started from 1 July 2006 to 30 June 2007), it was time for me to step down. Could you imagine my excitement, when I managed to lead Punggol TMC to achieve the President's Distinguished Club award? Could you imagine my surprise, when I managed to lead Area U2 to achieve the President's Distinguished Area award, with all 4 clubs achieving President's Distinguished Club status? Could you imagine my joy when I was award the District 80 Area Governor of the Year award, out of all the Area Governors in Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau and Thailand?

In fact, I earned more than merely trophies and medals for my effort. Equipped with the skill to speak in front of an audience (a rather far cry compared to what I was before joining Toastmasters), I was invited to conduct a workshop during the District 80 Semi-annual Convention 2007 held in Singapore, and my audience consisted of guests from other countries. Even though I did not become a school teacher, I was given the opportunity by a training company to conduct workshops in secondary schools on a free-lance basis, with a fee of course. No prizes for guessing, I did not stop being a Toastmaster after 18 months as planned earlier. Instead, till this very day, I'm still a Toastmaster, and I still do give workshops to an audience of Toastmasters.

I took part in the Celebration Tree @ Orchard organised by Heartware Network since 2002, and the year 2005 was no different from the previous years. In December 2005, I volunteered at the Giving Tree @ North East (a similar project as the Celebration Tree @ Orchard), hoping to use this project to fulfill one of the requirements stated in the booklets. Sadly, I did not manage to use this project to contribute to the requirement stated. But interestingly enough, guess what? I met my girlfriend.

I needed to do a sport as one of the requirements stated in the booklets. I sourced around for possible activities, one that could last for 4 months. Not knowing what to do, I spent some time thinking of a sport that I had always wanted to try. In the end, I took up archery (I should have taken up bowling instead, but archery was just as interesting!). Though I have not touched the bow and arrow since I graduated from the archery course back in 2006, it was still an interesting experience nevertheless.

Going for an overseas community-involvement expedition was something that I thought of doing, but never had the chance to do so. With a stroke of luck, a friend of mine introduced me to the Yunnan Expedition 2006, and before I knew it, after several meetings with the expedition team members, I was on my way to Luchun, a village in Yunnan, up a mountain 12 hours away from Kunming. It was an epic journey, where I returned with 4 bosom friends and formed a group named Pandas.

The final piece of the jigsaw was completed when I volunteered at the Meet-the-people session at Hougang for a duration of 12 months. Similarly, I'm still volunteering there today.

If you have read till this point, I thank you for your patience. As you can see, these 4 years were magical in each and every way, and I picked up many gems along the way that I never thought I would see. On 2 October 2009, last Friday, I finally saw the complete puzzle which I worked on for 4 years, when I received my National Youth Achievement Award (NYAA) Gold from the President himself. As I walked across the stage that Friday afternoon, many thoughts raced across my mind (including the thought of walking properly and not falling down on stage in front of everyone).

Some may think that 4 years is a tad long to take to complete this award. I have to admit that there was some point of time when I wanted to give it up altogether, but at the same time, I'm glad to have completed this ride.

It will take me another hundred words or so just to name the people who have accompanied me through this 4 year-long journey, but I believe you know who you are. I don't think I'm able to tag everyone who has accompanied me through this roller-coaster ride (some of you don't have facebook accounts anyway), but if you read this, take heart to know that you were part of this magical ride, and I thank you for it.

Monday, October 05, 2009

$17 and 4 years

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