15 hour - 100km - Relay for Life (2-3 March 2019)

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/15-hour-100km-relay-life-2-3-march-2019-janice-leong/

This was organised by Singapore Cancer Society to raise funds for cancer research. The relay symbolizes the fight for cancer never sleeps.

 

60 SAP team members participated in this relay. We ran in shifts of 2-3 hours with breaks in between our runs. There is passion and determination in all participants to run our best race, for the cause of this relay.

Cancer patients, cancer caregivers, you are not alone.

Year of Rooster, Year of Travel

For me, it could be the year of travel.

I went to 4 continents in 2 months !

April - Chiang Mai - holiday
May - Australia (business)
May - USA (Holiday)
June - Prague (business)/ Slovakia, Austria (weekend Holiday)

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USA - What a pleasure to visit Sam and Ailene. They migrated to USA since 2014 and I have not visited them since. Why? I'm afraid of dogs.  But i wanna visit them, I miss their company, their joy and fun.  I had 5 months to practice in Singapore not to be afraid of dogs, but nothing like a real live experience.

Roo and Boo greeted me as soon as I stepped into their house in San Diego.  I screwed up my courage and let them sniffed me. Well, it was okay, alright, not so bad. I can say I over my fear of dogs and this is my lifetime bucket list !

2 weeks in USA, San Diego was relaxing. Unlike most of my travels and tours, I was stationed full time in SD. No packing, unpacking and moving my luggage around. That doesn't mean I was totally bored at one place. It's nice for a change not to move around so much. Ailene, Huey Ting and husband went to outlet malls, shopping malls, a few hikes, many lunches and dinners.  We also went berry picking.  It was a really relaxed holiday.

Weather was nice and cool, we had many walkies with the doggies in the mornings and evenings.

Many plans were made for 2018/2019 - National Parks, skiing etc, hope we can fulfil the palns.

Here is a Youttube link to my vacations in USA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDgntCLdz-E&t=85s

Iceland and UK November 2016

Iceland

Tour Agent: gjtravel.is

https://youtu.be/PdU_2xbRyfI

United Kingdom 

We applied for SIA Krisflyer and each of us had a free hotel voucher with Millenia chain hotel. We merely paid for the upgrade to family room.
Another 2 nights were spent at Marriots, from rewards mileage.

https://youtu.be/L8HdsrIxCMs  

Finally, we are done !

It’s been about 3 weeks since my last post. A lot has happened since then. We have already finished our project and I’m back to Singapore.

Work was intense. We spent the 2^nd   and 3^rd  week of April interviewing more clients - the kids, a New Zealand pioneer youth social entrepreneur, Paula Sorsona, a board member of Puerta 18, Laura Benbenaste, the founder of Puerta 18 as well as doing team discussion and research.
 

·         In our discussion and brainstorming sessions, we came up with the Kid’s Wheel – where the kids are the center of Puerta 18 where they have unique identity from which they can utilize to grow and expand from.

·          We also started a a WIKI page for Puerta 18, which they can refer to for the internal information like:  visions, missions, operation guidelines and work strategies.

·         The SAP team analyzed Puerta 18‘s current offerings and created a menu of ‘‘sponsorable units“ (size of funding required, frequency of sponsorship and staff requirement ) – and from this, created a process to evaluate potential sponsors and map them to sponsorable units.

·          Created standard monthly report templates which Puerta 18 can use to conduct their monthly meetings, this would build their business management skills.

All of these were presented to them on our last day of the project work as well as in a manual guidebook, which they can refer to in future.

With the final 2 days left, we presented our scope of work to Puerta 18 and a closing ceremony at SAP Argentina office.

My Thoughts :

 This has been much of a learning experience for me and I felt lost at times and not aligned with the team on their thinking. The more I felt I need to contribute, the more stressful I became.  However, this came to another light when unexpectedly, I  experienced “breakthrough” in the work.  As you know from previously post, mate drinking is a art and culture of Argentina. I learnt to make mate and was the mate master (serving the mate to the team) for a couple of times. At first,  I was lost and made a bit of mess at the Puerta 18 pantry. Some of the youths taught me the finer skills of mate making and I chatted with some of them who could speak English and just on the last weekday, Sophia, a youth from Puerta 18, gave me a box of mate from her home country, Paraguay!  Somehow my anxietiesfor the last 2 weeks all dropped.  After all, Social Sabbatical is not only about work, it is about connection with the locals, the clients and touching them.

 I learnt to categorize and dissect information collected and to expand on the ideas and to think strategically and structurally, which I seldom do in the office. I also did a lot of work on Power Point, Google drive, Excel and Word and most of all,  movies making, which is new to me.  I can now show my videos and pictures of the past 4 weeks in my newly acquired skills on imovies – links below:

Of course, all work without fun makes a bored Janice.  For the weekends, some of us went to Iguazu Waterfalls. Another weekend was spent exploring around the town where Tina (another member of the Los Buenos team) and I checked out the biggest mall, to the best hotel in town and of course, visited the cartoon icon, Malfada statue. It was a relaxing, fun and  I clocked many steps ! Last Sunday at Argentina was spent at Carolina’ (Pyxera ‘s coordinator) house having a nice bbq Argentina style or asado lunch !

Iguazu Falls

4 weeks in Argentina

 

  

  

 

 

 

I want to thank Rob and Kathrin (my Puerta 18 teammates) for their patience and guidance. I also want to thank Tina for all the support she has given me in the past few weeks here in Argentina. I was sometimes very anxious and she listens and gave me good advice. It is good to find a friend in another part of country!

 

 

 

 

Buenos Aires - First Week

I’m into the first week of Buenos Aires , we interviewed our client (Puerta 18), the kids. It’s really more in depth than just a business formula of assisting them to replicate their what they have done successfully so far into another francjhise. We asked questions, they replied willingly and with passion.   We had brainstorming sessions where everybody , include Puerta 18 team provided ideas on what they want out of the new franchise. To them it’s all about engaging in the kids’ lives , touching their hearts and to make it meaningful for them.  When we finished the interview with the kids, they were so emotional that they hugged one another.





Interview with Enrique

 

interview with Amanda

Learning together with the kids @ Puerto 18

Learning together with the kids @ Puerto 18

brainstorming session @ Puerta 18

P18 team !

 

Mate



Art of drinking Mate

 

Over the weekend, we went a charity organization , Fundación SI  where we help

baked empanadas (traditional local dish) for distribution to the homeless. This is a avenue where they can reach out and help the community.   Check out the movie which i made and uploaded to youtube.

 

 http://youtu.be/gRKcWiTo4-w

 

 

Met my Argentinan Shared Services colleagues

 

 

 

 

We also did some sightseeing at the famous Recoletar Cemetry, a local bookstore and the parliment. The weather was nice and cooling and was a nice break to a intense week.



El Altena ( Bookstore)

 

El Altena ( Bookstore)

Celebrated Rosemary's birthday

Catholic church

Habour port

Harbour port

came across a lake while jogging

came across a lake while jogging













 

My thoughts so far

In my work, I am quick to assist in team strategy and provide work knowledge. I am now in unfamiliar place and working with a new team. I am really taken out of my comfort zone and am stretched to the limit. I feel I need to contribute as much as much as possible but at times I  have a blank mind. But, at the end of day, isn’t this what social sabbatical all about – ie to fulfil ourselves as well as touching lives and assisting the community?  I learnt Google drive and made a movie, all in 3 days !

 

 

Social Sabbatical - Arrival to Buenos Aires

After 30 hours of flight, I finally arrived in Buenos Aires. There was some excitement on the plane (Emirates) and that is we had free wifi on the plane !  and of course I had leg cramps, after sitting for so long.

As you can see, I have jet lag now and doing some updates. Here’s a couple of pictures from Day 1 ( Team Activities) and Day 2(Kickoff)

 

I’m into my Day 3 at Buenos Aires. I was at the SAP Office for the Kick off and went on to interview my clients.  After a intense day, what’s on my initial thoughts before the trip on the client is very different from what’s really when we talk face to face with them. We will visit the client again the next few days and will consolidate all our sessions and will provide them a finalized scope of work by the end of the day.

 

Social Sabbatical - Argentina (Buenos Aires) 2 April to 30 April .. Part 1

When I told my friends I'm going to Argentina for one month of Social Sabbatical and it's a voluntary program to assist the community, the first thing that came to their minds if I am help to dig a well, build a wall or provide tuition to the kids there.
Social Sabbatical is a voluntary short term assignment for SAP's key talents to work mainly in the emerging markets to resolve business challenges for the NGO group in the education and social entrepreneurship sector. The assignment is meant to strengthen our leadership skills, build networks, work out of our comfort zone and think out of the box.

I was invited by the Social Sabbatical team in May 2015 to apply for this program.  The key requirements is that we need to have extraordinary performance ratings or under the talent program.  I sent in my application form and was interviewed by the project team. In July,  was informed that i'm assigned to Argentina in April 2016. (9 months later!). 12 candidates are assigned to the Argentina team.

Preworks- 6 weeks before the trip in April 2016
Booking of flights, hotels, checking visas and passports
We were given given assignments to find out more of Argentina- history, culture, food, society, economy and were given reading and video materials on how a voluntary program works. We also came up with our team name ( Los Buenos), mission and goals.



3 weeks before the trip in April 2016
We are given our Scope of work. I was assigned, together with 2 other team members, to assist Puerta 18, a non profit organisation that offers a variety of ICT courses, vocational learning and the task is to assist Puerta 18 to franchise their successful formula and roadmaps to the rest of Argentina. We researched on Puerta 18, interviewed our client and came up with agenda to conduct a onsite interview when we are in Argentina.

My thoughts so far
This is a exciting program and time for me.  I felt I needed to take a break from office work and this came along.  We need to work outside of our comfort zone and do some projects outside of my job scope. So far, i have built networks with people outside my arena, organised personal trips to Iguazu Falls for the team and acted as facilitator for the group in some of the assignments. I hope to build leadership, communications skills, humility and bring this back to my team in SAP.

My flight to Argentina : 2 April/30 hours including transit and stay tune for more news...... Janice Leong