27th October 2023 Friday - Sam returns home/ Grooming

Halloween meeting with members of PDF 2023

Sam returns from Hanoi - KL late tonight, in the meantime, we are meeting up with the PDF folks to discuss deadlines, roles, tasks over a meal and drinks. The young ones will do well I think, they have the energy. The thing is how to get them in the door in the first place. It is not about sweet talking as one of the Office Bearers suggested. It is leadership by example and having a good product to pitch at them. It is about giving them autonomy while offering support in areas that they are not familiar with. It is about recognition and acknowledgement of their efforts. It is about making sure that they get something out of it; enjoyment, new networks, personal development and achievement. 

As they become more experienced, they will get a sense of being able to teach and groom another group of younger people. 

The trouble with this process is that IT TAKES TIME, lots of time. The process cannot be forced. 

Leadership by example - I have a funny story about this. It is funny now but at the time, I was furious. We were building houses for Habitat for Humanity; installing timber piles into swampy land ground - tiring and dirty work. The local affiliate was headed by a pastor, who would coincidentally arrive when morning tea was served and offer words of encouragement while partaking the snacks and coffee. As we return to our work, he would take some photos and drive off. Later in the afternoon, he will drop by and take some photos from his car, shout a few cheery words of encouragement. And drive off. 

This process repeated itself as we continue to build more houses with HfH. Needless to say, I lost all respect for that 'leader'. 

my idiot children taking photos at our hotel project, the one which is reputed to be haunted

30th June 2023 Friday a very productive lunch

Si Yong and I decided to have lunch to discuss the way forward with PDF2023, our little design festival in November. We had many of the loose ends stitched up; speakers and moderators getting signed up, venue confirmed, sponsors lined up, format and time table decided. What we need to do next was to identify the people to manage the components of the festival, SY and I will manage the overall structure and pace of the festival, individual events will be managed by team leaders; the Urban Installation by Tay's team, the Forum by my team, sponsors by SY and so forth. 

We waited for Pik Shia to order her meal before launching the question/ request - can you manage the trade expo? Aiya, cannot la, I'm very busy, what's involved? when is the event again? Over the span of one sentence, she declined, resisted, explained, queried and seemed to agree. By the time her meal arrived, she was making plans about who to involve and how to plan and delegate.

We then talked about the education aspect of the festival. We have had student exhibitions, and workshops before, and were looking for a new team to plan and manage this. I thought of a young couple I met during a university crit, I rang them, they offered to drop by at our lunch. After understanding the format, they agreed to head this section of the festival. 

I thought that this was a very productive lunch, and mentioned this to SY. People are naturally attracted to successful teams but what's more attractive is the freedom to express themselves, implement their own ideas and be acknowledged for their work. 

7th June 2023 Wednesday PAMSC meeting

I will add a cover piece to protect the timber tops and add height to the recycled timber panel.

There was a phone call yesterday asking for an early morning meet up - I knew what the topic of conversation would be (or rather what the request from the person involved would be) He had not done his homework and is depending on us to do it for him). 

I decided to be gracious and share the information with him as JY had diligently done it already. 

At 1030am, I went to the Stampin site with Sean to meet RAK - the outcome is quite good though there are some areas to be improved. I asked Sean to take charge of the design element of the project and that improvements can still be considered at this stage. 

We agreed to meet on site again and view the mock up of the car port steel works. 

Nice living room window - deciding whether light or dark colours

RAK missed out a narrow RC ledge on the TV wall

Later that afternoon, a good design chat with Kamal about drain diversions and steel structures

 

PAMSC meeting no. 3

The day ended with our monthly PAMSC meeting, and as usual I felt that there is not much for me to report as our report is in the form of two newsletters monthly. But tonight I reported on the progress of the PDF, our design festival in November; 2 moderators are confirmed and 3 of the 6 speakers.