The 2007 Company Work-plan Retreat

Wow, what a great day to be away of office the whole day on 30 November 2007. This was one of the objectives written down on the flip chart of the Tembusu Room of the Costa Sand Resort in Sentosa, together with others like to have fun, to be spontaneous, bonding with one another and others which I have forgotten. Yes, it was the second day of the long awaited retreat of the year for work-plan for my company, the South East CDC. Indeed had a great time bonding with one another through various fun and interesting activities and also had a chance to be in the same group (group name: The Pirate King) with our new colleague, Yuchang and getting to know him a little bit more. Thank God for my “light weight”, I was physically carried by him and other ladies in our group across the 3D structure in one of the games. I like the second part of the activities in the afternoon where we got a chance to explore the great outdoors of Sentosa, However, it was a pity that we only managed to complete one game station out of three and did not managed to find all the places for the picture hunt. This was due to lack of time. Anyway, still enjoy the fun and bonding lah. One of my colleagues was asking me on our way back home about how I felt about the whole retreat and if it was better than last year in terms of venue, programs, etc. Well, to me it is the company (not as in the company I’m in, but the people I’m with) that matters more than anything that we do. The grand finale of the day was to sing the song “Nothing can stop us now!” together, and then finding the person who’s Certificate of Achievement we had been given earlier which we were supposed to pass it out to him/her. Well, I had got a privilege to exchange with a colleague for my so-called godmother in my workplace, Peggy’s certificate and passing it out to her.

The first day of the work-plan retreat was held at the Tapestry Room at the Bukit Batok Civil Service Club. The highlights of that day I supposed was the chance to ask our dear Mayor, Mr Matthias Yao a question (which he promised to give honest answers to everyone of us) and also the gallery walk by our various departments. I grabbed the opportunity to ask him a question about his possible career path or passion if he did not went into politics or became a Mayor. Still waiting for the answer as he promised to answer all the questions from all the staff via email within this few weeks and perhaps months (looking at the number of staff strength we have). One of the gallery walk was a Humty Dumpty Wall by my X-Team department, previously known as Projects department. The concept was that every brick on the wall (ideas, suggestions, thoughts, etc) counts towards saving Humty from falling off the wall. Thought that was interesting, though I didn’t help that department to save or prevent Humty from falling. Well, my suggestions, in fact two of them went to my Corporate department. These were mainly on issues of Knowledge Management which was one of our company’s priorities to improve. All my two cents worth came from the subject which I studied and managed to just pass for this year’s examination. It is Introduction to Business and Management (IBM). Interesting, the Balanced Score Card concept was shared briefly by my General Manager that day and my Deputy General Manager during our departmental retreat at the Costa Sand Resort on 23 November 2007. This was also one of the topics in IBM and also covered more in depth in another subject called Management Accounting which I almost passed for my examination this year and will be taking again next year. Well, guessed that’s how only some of my academic subjects can be applied in my company.

I will be looking forward for the year 2008 retreat, which God knows if I will still be around.