oNE bODY, mANY pARTS

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Today is such a special day and I enjoyed every moment of it... been a long time since I last felt this way... Well, today, I felt very connected to my colleagues and for once, somehow, I was not nervous when I spoke with them and we had a lot fo fun during training.

Today, our department has kind of "closed shop" for the day for internal training. Since we have a new staff and this is appraisal period, our boss came up with this idea to have a day of training and have all staff do presentations on their area of work. In this way, it serves to orientate the new staff, help staff to understand each others' work so they will see how everyone's roles interlink with one another, "cross train" all other colleagues as well as help her to do her appraisal. Would say this is an ingenious idea! And the whole session was conducted in such a friendly manner with fun and laughter and lots of food. Even though this presentation was meant to be an appraisal and our Number 2 also came down to observe, there was really very little competition and we all would even joke about each other's presentation saying how it "spoil market" and sometimes even affirming each other. Somehow, I was also less tensed today and my presentation, surprisingly, went very well and I seemed to confidently covered everything I wanted to say and most importantly, the presentation did justice to reflect the work I did.

Our boss shared that in order for a team to success, we need to be clear about the goals, roles, processes and relationships. For goals and roles, we are generally clear about it. For processes, we are currently refining it. But one of the challenging things still remains to be relationships. She reminded us that it is not good enough to have clear goals, roles and good processes but bad relationship.

I like one of the exercise which my boss wanted us to do; she wanted us to get in groups to discuss what factors help develop close relationships in a team... the cliche answers like "communication", "being genuine", "sharing same valooes (values) and viseons (visions)" came up. But one thing stood out and both groups highlighted celebration and food... True enough, our team really celebrate (in fact we find every opportunity to celebrate) and this makes work a little less mundane. We give each another fun nicknames like Ms Malaysia (for staff working with Malaysian centres) and even have interesting lingos like "kaboom kaboom" to refer to stamping of dates on letters. We eat together (and often go out to find nice food), we go on holidays together with each others' family, we have fun together and even exercise together hahaha... in fact, our department seems to be so well-known for its hospitality, we maintain a snack corner (some call comfort food) where people from all over the building can come share the food :) Our meetings also have food and snacks. Maybe that's why we started recently to also exercise, becoming a little health conscious :)

Anyway, guess what we did after a whole day of training? Yes, we went to have teochew porridge buffet with another ex-staff and visited one of the centres which will be closed down come April next year. So we went there to take photo and then go makan after that...

A verse that my boss used: 1 Corinthians 12:12-31

12 The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.

13 For we were all baptized by[c] one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

14 Now the body is not made up of one part but of many.

15 If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.

16 And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.

17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?

18 But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.

19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

21 The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!"

22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable,

23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty,

24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it,

25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.

26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

28 And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues.

29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles?

30 Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues[d]? Do all interpret?

31 But eagerly desire[e] the greater gifts.

Star Light Star Bright

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It's October time again and I remember that amost one year ago, I just came in to join my current organisation. Who knows, eyes blink blink blink and here I am. Anyway, October time is also appraisal time and I just had my appraisal done with my boss today.

Appraisal Time
For appraisal, I will need to first assess myself and then sit down with my boss for the appraisal. Generally, while my rating of myself wasn't all together bad but when compared when my boss' evaluation, I rated myself slightly lower in quite a number of aspects. I am really not surprised since I always feel that I am not confident and tend to underestimate myself quite a bit.

But anyway, the appraisal went well and I concur with the evaluations made by my boss and my boss also with mine... I must say I like appraisals because I tend to be harsher on myself and hearing others sharing my strength can help balance things a bit (and of course boost self-esteem a bit too) and it is also an opportunity for me to identify my strengths (trust me I can be rather clueless at times) and identify areas of weaknesses to work on. It kind of put things into a balanced perspective.

Thanksgiving
At the end of the session, my boss did say that hopefully I will continue to stay and grow in the organisation. Well, it does feel good to be asked to stay but then again, I really have no intention to leave... at least for now, salary don't seem to be the concern since I am still single and I would usually stick around in an organisation unless I am not coping well at work or if I am "forced" to leave due to extraordinary circumstances e.g. politics. I really thank God for (i) my job, (ii) wonderful colleagues, (iii) for guiding me in the work all these while (it is so clear because it is just not possible for me to be doing the things I am doing now taking into consideration I have no experience whatsoever in volunteer management), (iv) for a good appraisal and (v) for all the"ministry" opportunities to work with people.

Although I am generally a very shy person (though it is still puzzling why some don't seem to believe it when I say I am shy), I really thank God for bringing volunteers into my path e.g. volunteers who had been abused and now want to help others, volunteers who needed a second chance in life after a taking a wrong turn, volunteers who are struggling with social anxiety issues and wanted to overcome this by volunteering etc. Not only have our paths crossed only briefly, I do hope I had been able to be of help to them; at least I have learnt a great deal about resilience from them... sometimes I just feel I am not just doing volunteer coordination but also a bit of social work.

I also thank God for bringing a new staff to our department. Yeah! I no longer feel like I am the newest kid on the block in my department and most importantly, I started to feel rather relaxed knowing that "reinforcements have finally arrived"; that that someone who can help me with a bit of volunteer management is finally here. I just managed to sit down with her today to take her through the work I do. I kind of enjoy the briefing because as I went through with her what I do in volunteer management, I come to realise how much has been done and realise how much I still like the work that I do. I really thank God for a job which has provided me with an opportunity to be creative and autonomous as well as for a boss who is very supportive of my professional development... to date, I realised I have attended some 8 training sessions, workshops, conference etc... that's pretty a lot for a new staff in one year.

Today is also a happy day because I finally got down to round up my evaluation of a database system for volunteer management; something which has been pending and bugging me since the day I came... I rounded up my evaluation, handed over my evaluation report to my director and the IT director and now just await good news. Frankly, I had been quite skeptical about the system because somehow I felt the system does not fully address my operation needs but I just could not put my finger on it. Now, I am so glad I managed to put together a report to prove my case and submitted to both my directors who generally agree that the system might not be the most effetive way to go... hopefully this will pave the way for a better system to be purchased/developed to handle volunteer management in my organisation... I am really looking forward to that.

But I do feel a little guilty because I am not sure how this will affect my boss since she was the one who made the decision to purchase this volunteer management module in the first place... on one hand, I felt bad that this might make her look bad but on the other hand, I am concerned that if I were to go ahead, the system is just going to make everything more ineffective and inefficient since relative more time will be spent on data entry. Anyway, I still thank God for the conclusion to this burden I have been having for some many months now.

Movies Under the Stars

Today, my friend blessed me with a ticket to watch King Kong under the stars at the Padang. I have read about Starlight Cinema but have not considered going since it costs $15 to watch a movie and this is indeed a bit steep. But since my friend had free tickets, I did not mind going. Watched King Kong (again) but this time, it was a unique experience; sitting on some "makeshift" mat (sat on plastic bags), watching a movie under the stars with the Singapore CBD skyline as the backdrop and having a picnic... Think it would have been more comfortable if we brought a mat along but since it is rather last minute, plastic bags will do. Haha and since King Kong is 3 hours long... I echo what I mentioned in my blog entry on Dec 17... "sit until backside pain" :)

Doesn't help the event was sponsored by Nokia and they were going around helping people to take photos and printed out the photos free for them... the photos so clear. See la, their marketing strategy worked on me... now I am so tempted to get a new phone with a higher resolution camera... then I can use for blogging... look at my silly phone and the photo it produced (above), look like some abstract art item, can't even tell what it is :D