Retro...Relive Your Past
Originally, the theme ‘Retro’ wasn’t the first choice. Early on since we entered GREEN, the secretariats wanted us to do the ‘Arabian Nights’ theme. A later on, it was suggested that ‘Masquerade’ should be chosen. There were several other themes that did not fit the likings of ours and could not achieve the mood or feelings of the theme. In the end, Retro was selected since there were tons of materials that can be used, like the selection of songs, the costumes and other add-on materials. Our Project Director for the activity was Mr. Azami, which was our CEO as well, and was helped by a couple of group members from other companies.
I could sense the pressure of handling a major activity was unbearable. The theme was finalized around 2-3 weeks before the event, which was held on the 6th August. Even then, there were numerous changes of the date itself, as well as the place, which in the end, it will be held at the Prince Hotel & Residence. The committee members who had their kick-off meeting before the theme had finalized will have to scrap some of the ideas involved. What made it even worse was it will be held only 4 days after another big activity started, which was the Motivational Camp for the children of Nur Salam.
(In case you need to know the list of activities handled by which company, read my next entry above.)
I was actually involved in TWO committees (which I shouldn’t, if I knew the workload wasn’t that easy :p). I was the Performance Coordinator, and in the same time, the Multimedia Unit Committee. For P.C., I was led by my compatriots Ms Suhaiza from my company (which I actually led her as the head of CSR for the Nur Salam trip. Everyone should have a chance to lead and follow, and vice-versa huhu), and also Mr Ardi the talented ‘artist’ from Paradigm. Mr Rahimie, the CEO of Greenity heads the M.U.C., and with its subcommittee leader, Mr Azhan, also a ‘Greenitian’, handles Videography.
I couldn’t tell from Azami’s part; the pressure was too enormous “Kalau ade dinding kat depan aku, maunye aku langgar je, dah xnampak ape dah”… So let me just specifically tell about my task scope. It was supposedly to be ‘easy’. But yeah, I always wondered, “What the heck a Performance Coordinator does?” They told me that we had to make sure the performers who will use the stage are prepared and get ready when the time comes. We also had to collaborate with the Protocol Unit and Technical Unit for the timing, sound and positioning the performers. But I could see that they themselves knew what to do, where to stand, when to come up and off. And both Sue and Ardi made a very good job in handling them that made me as a P.C., ‘redundant’. Yes, I had to admit this one. Even at the dinner itself, I dare to say that 95% of my time, only as a spectator as the rest can handle themselves. But of course, an additional helping hand was always welcomed, and I did a little bit of my part.
But then again, one should always able to manage their task. We had learnt Project Management here, so it should be applied in this case. Apparently I was out of hands when dealing with the other committee, the Multimedia part. I was supposedly to edit every activity video, convert it to a proper format, and burn it into DVD so that it could be given at the dinner as a gift. (Of course, the rest of the committee members can help). The problem was the lack of manpower (specifically, the ones who actually knows about video editing), machineries (like computers, notebooks and related softwares) and time. In the end, all of these had to be ‘shelved’, and I felt a bit guilty for unable to complete it.
Besides the DVD, the committee had to do some video presentations for the dinner night. This was superbly done by Azhan and co. (esp. Zaki, the video expert from Greenity), and they also had to endure a couple of sleepless nights. There were 3 videos, the ‘CSR’, which shows the activities done at Nur Salam, accompany with the song ‘You Raise Me Up’, sung by Ardi the artist himself; the ‘Excitement’, which was the main video, showing all the activities that have done at GREEN, and ‘Freelance’ which only served as an extension for the ‘Excitement’ video just in case if it was needed (which in the end, it wasn’t). I think I’ll upload the ‘Excitement’ clip here when I had time.
But I still had my chance to do something to show. There were ideas of have some slide shows before both of the major awards, the Best Male/Female Participant, and Best Group Award, so they assigned me to do it, especially Faizal, my room-1.10-mates and the CEO of Amphibious, who was the head of Technical. I was a bit ‘stumped’ at the time, but luckily, a lot of ideas contribution came from Yatimi of Synergy Green. He suggested a lot of things for either of the slide (although I did not take his idea completely), and even helped me to finish it during the dinner day itself when I was partially ‘given up’. Actually, we started the Best Group slide on the previous day and completed on that day. But on the Best M/F, I did not pickup how to visualize his idea of certain part, and much of it has to be omitted. The time was already 7 pm (the ceremony starts at 8pm, and I had to prepare myself). He offered to prepare the slide while I’m off to Asr prayer (very late!). When I came back, much has already done and I was surprised (and get excited), and I took over from him and finish it. Had he didn’t help me, there would be no slides on Best M/F, or not as what we intended. I was thinking of uploading here as well, after I figured on how to convert the PowerPoint slide to video.
This poster designed by Kak Umi. Nice!
The rest of the night was simply awesome. All those dancing, P.Ramlee gimmick by Warcreavers (led by Safarudin of Protocol unit), Vespa gimmick, Nur Salam children performance, Synergy Green’s “Mr Grasshopper” show(*), Choir speaking by Ms. Sabarina of Amphibous (article wrote by Raifudin of Paradigm), Ardi’s singing etc. was done brilliantly.
(*) – Supposedly, it should be Greenity to perform as they were the winners of the Musical Day. However, the GREEN secretariats and Khazanah’s representative felt it was too…emm, kiddy?
You could see ‘rainbows’ that night. I mean, it was very colorful, with the guests wore all those striking colors and various patterns, stripes and polka dots, fancy glasses, bell-bottoms, hats etc. The performers also wore the Afro ala Alleycats. Possibly our CEO had the most outstanding outfit, he deservedly so after all those ‘kusut’ moments. Me? I only put on Abah’s 80’s shirt. Abah said he used to wear it at the functions during ‘his’ days, so I guessed this shirt qualified as a Retro shirt. I did not have any additional stuffs, just that I changed my hairstyle a bit.
Junita Jumadil of Sigma Corporation was the winner of Best Female Participant. IMHO, she deserved it as she had this curiosity and need-to-know attitude, and she ALWAYS ask a lot of questions to the facilitators, and she will try to improve herself by frequently giving speeches and presentation in a group activity.
Rahimie A Rahim of Greenity. Emm, I think Greenitians could tell his merits of getting the prize.
Greenity won the Best Group award. I always thought that they were the favorites to win it, so it wasn’t surprising to see them getting it. They made their very early impression since the Tele-match when they were the only group with a cheer songs and gimmicks, which caught the eyes of the secretariats and Khazanah’s ‘up there’ person.
Sigma Corporation, with the VIPs. Notice my conservative style compared to others.
Well that’s it for now. I would say that it was the perfect ending and closing for the GREEN programme.
PS – I still feel obligated to complete the GREEN DVD. In fact, when I’m extremely free, I would continue doing all the menus and drafting some transition videos using After Effects. On the main menu, it will look something like this:
However, I still do not have enough materials, like photos and activity videos, and more importantly, the full profile of each and every GREENians. Hopefully, I get to contact those who have it. My target is to finish it by the end of this year the earliest, or before our supposedly upcoming GREEN reunion, something like that.
