Earth Day at Botanical Gardens

Dear all,

These are some of the thoughts for the exhibition for Earth Day at The Botanical Gardens:

Preparation
Siva, Airani and I managed to pack the necessary items for the event in only an hour’s time. Off we go the next day to set up shop at Botanical Gardens. In my opinion, it just shows we are getting more and efficient in setting up mobile exhibits. All we need now are better posters (Replace those battered ones) and probably invest in display stands, transport boxes for specimens and equipments (pens, markers, scissors, yarn, etc.) and we can set up shop at any place and any time.

Setup
Airani and I did the setup. As usual, once I pulled out our star, the dugong, it drew a crowd before we began putting up our posters. So for those who don’t want any bother before opening shop, leave the star to the last minute. By the way, anybody knows the gender of the dugong. I have got a couple of people asking. Some even ask for its name. I think I will start calling it “Dewi”. (I thought I hear some screams.) Siva, maybe we can have a “Name Our Star, the Dugong” competition just for fun.

Crowd and Guiding
Traffic was not that heavy but the constant stream of people kept me busy throughout the event. Thank you Airani and Dinesh for the help! Most of the time, I’m alone. Later I know from Siva that I could actually abandon the booth to see the film or join in the talk. But talking to the public was really a good way of exchanging information. Did you know horseshoe crab is actually considered a delicacy in Penang and Thailand?

Since most of the time, I was the only one manning of the booth; I was not able to attend to all the people at the booth at the same time. I realized some public will wait by reading the posters on the easel that were put in front of the table before I finished with another group to attend to them. Next time round, we can try putting a few interesting posters in front of the booth to hold on to the crowd before we have time to attend to them. By the way, the two posters on the easel were “Is there marine life in Singapore?” and a self made “International Coastal Cleanup Singapore Process”

Next, to all fellow mobile exhibitors, I am sorry to announce the sea urchin specimen had decided to leave us and joined its brethren either up there or down below depending on its karma. (Up there I hope, since it sacrificed its life for the benefit of educating the public.)

Actually, what happened was someone picked up the specimen and I wanted to hold it for her. In the process of the transfer, it dropped, bounced on the table, rolled off the side of the table and kamikaze like Humpty Dumpty. I am sorry for the lost.

I comforted her and ensured her that it would be alright as museum was already prepared for the lost by bringing them out for display. She did offer to compensate but I refused. I did pick up the pieces and any adventurous soul can try to glue Humpty Dumpty back again. Now I think we should have some idea on what to do with the specimen in case they break, especially those in bottles. What should we do if Dewi decides to join Humpty Dumpty the sea urchin? Would the specimen boxes (plastic one) come in handy?

Tearing Down
Tearing down was only a matter of minutes and as Siva was waiting for me at the porch with horseshoe crab in his hand, he had to entertain the crowd at the porch. Finally did some guiding. Ha ha ha!

Yup,Yup! That’s all. Suppose to be only four paragraphs. Sorry that it turned out to be a full one and a half page report.

Chen Kee… Off to sew a pillow case for his teddy bears…

Toddycats Exhibition at NLB

For the last 2 saturdays I have been stationed at National Library for a Toddycats exhibition in conjunction with Eco 4 the world's UNEP Passage of Hope photo exhibition. Being more of a regional perspective, our little booth brings a local perspective to biodiversity conservation.


Eco4theworld's Passage of Hope travelling exhibition.

Doing this partly as my project for NEA's Young Environmental Envoy, the toddycats exhibit was unfotunately the only 'booth' there. To rectify the problem, I attempted to bring the different groups to the public by helping them distribute their flyes and printed materials. It was an excellent exercise at consolidating the efforts of the different green groups in Singapore and complimented each other very well.



Thanks to Joe from SEC's Green Volunteer Network, Ria from Wild Singapore for providing their excellent Wildfilms presentations, Vilma from NSS for the free Nature Watch which were very popular with everyone, Abby from Blue Water Volunteers for their flyers and all the help from the toddycats, from planning to actual day manpower. Many were bugged by me for months and others responded brilliant to last minute calls for help from the monkey. Even without script, trained Pedal Ubin guide, Andy D was able to help with the exhibit effortlessly. Of course he mentioned that hearing me regale the public with the same stories every 5 minutes helped!



The first Saturday, due to shortage in manpower, we only had the monkey, lots of freebies and panels galore. Many people were wondering if we were selling anything till we told them that there were free things to be had. After 1pm, the lunch time crowd started coming in and it was a jam!


The only picture of monkey over the 2 weekends.

As the exhibition coincided with the International Coastal Cleanup in Singapore, one of the biggest event in Toddycats calendar, the monkey had a shortage of manpower. However, it did not stop us from spreading word of the coastal cleanup and the surprising biodiversity in Singapore.

"Did you know there are dolphins in Singapore" worked brilliantly as an opening line for me on the first Saturday.



On top of that, we had 2 videos from WildFilms, one of which I spent a whole night converting from powerpoint to quicktime while adding a soundtrack from Snow Patrol courtesy of Hua Qin. It proved to be worth the time well spent. We introduced more than 100 people about the marine biodiversity in Singapore, the curse of the plastics and what people can do!

The next saturday, we brought on the help of the specimens, a proven crowd-magnet over past exhibitions.



Time was spent packing the exhibits the day before and on the day itself, 2 toddycats met me in school along with Wai who was kind enough to come and give me a hand loading the specimens into the cab, pass me the BWV flyers and also lend me her camera or there would have been no photos of the day! Interestingly, most of the toddycats that helped out explaining the exhibits were mostly non-biology students but we had no problems holding their attention. There was the geographer monkey, an accountant and an accurer. In fact, our veteran is a bear making mechanical engineer! We may not know scientific name and physiology but we sent the public home with awareness of biodiversity conservation in Singapore anyways.



We had with us a Malayan Pangolin, a Colugo, a Hawksbill Turtle hatchling, a Black Spitting Cobra, a Dugong, a Knobbly seastar and a Beach Horseshoe Crab! People listened on, captivated by the stories and the opening line never failed me.

"Did you know all these animals can be found in Singapore?"

At times I felt like the mobile salesman you find outside NTUC selling his wares behind a table to a crowd of curious housewives. At one point when the booth was left alone save for a monkey, I had to resort to addressing all 10 people in front of me at the same time.



Still, it paid off but nothing beats having and seeing my volunteers attend to the interested public, giving them personalized attention. It's especially great seeing the kids take it all in.

I met a kid who told his mama that they should go to a beach right now and bring a horseshoe crab home to keep in his tank. Hopefully my asking him if he had a beach or mangrove at home to keep the horseshoe crab alive and happy persuaded him otherwise. I doubt he has a forest at home to keep the colugos happy either. Better keep it out there in the wild for all the share.



There were encouraging moments when I saw a returning visitor. A mother who visited the booth on the first Saturday with her two kids returned again to show support to our exhibition on the 2nd Saturday after hearing from me that there would be real specimens the second time round! In fact, the kids loved the specimens so much, I ran out of stories to feed their hungry enquiring minds.

It also helped that we played a little "where can these animals be found" game with the kids and adults alike, with NSS Nature Watch magazines to be given away as prize. Being so popular, the magazine had no problems enticing even the adults to play our game. Before we knew it, 200 copies of the magazine was given out over the two Saturdays! In fact, save for a few brochures, we gave out almost everything we brought to the library! Our bags always came back lighter.


Playing games.

At around 4pm, we packed up and ICCS zone captain drove down all the way from the museum to pick me and the specimens up from the library back to the school. It was a good way to spend my weekend. Talking for 6 hours nonstop was worth it!


Unpacked and home sweet home.

For more photos, see my flickr set.

Setting up exhibition for NYEF 2006

The night before the National Youth Environment Forum, organized by ECO Singapore and held at SMU School of Accounting on 2 September 2006, the security guard at SMU encountered a car load full of toddycats bustling up towards the building with panels and gear in tow.



While Siva, Weisong and Gwynne has the responsibility of presentation and caucus group discussion tomorrow, Yueat Tin and Chen Kee has the task of setting up the panel exhibition the night before due to logistics reasons. Luckily, Yueat Tin encountered more toddycats, namely Anand and November, at the NUS Masters of Environmental Management Lecture Series and managed to rope them in to help out in exchange for a free ride home! Along the way, the civet cats also managed to pick up an ECO member at the Energy and Climate Change talk that evening and got insider help from him.



After much shifting around to accomodate the feng shui and limitations of the venue, the exhibition team finally decided on a spot not so far or different from the originally assigned one. Setting up the exhibition display panels turned out easier than expected with the extra pairs of hands. We also managed to get extra display panels courtesy of our friendly organizers which helped very much.



After setting up and being very pleased with our handicraft, the team took photos and head off to supper, transfering photos and blogging this very account. But not before we arranged for the logistics for the next day which involves transporting the specimens for our booth from the museum in the morning.

The display includes mainly details about RMBR Toddycats and our activities, RMBR newsletters and museum roundtable flyers. At the same time we will also be displaying several specimens such as the dugong, horseshoe crab, knobbly sea star and the heart urchin.

All photos courtesy of Wong Yueat Tin.

Enviro Fest! - Deep in explanations 

EnviroFest 2006! - Exhibits

NUS Open House

Toddycats on standby at the Public Gallery for NUS Open House

Saturday, 11 Mar 2006
Session 1 - 10am – 2pm: Oi Yee, Kiah Shen
Session 2 - 2pm – 6pm: Wei Siong, Oi Yee

Sunday, 12 Mar 2006
Session 3 - 10am - 2pm: Danwei, Kenneth, Airani, Ivan, Oi Yee (up to 12pm)
Session 4 - 2pm – 6pm: Airani, Ivan

See photos from NUS Open House 2004.

My Ten-Cents worth of feedback about the Plastic Exhibition

Feedback about the Toddycats combined booth setup for the National Environment Agency's launch of "Why waste plastic bags, choose reusable bags" campaign at Parkway Parade Shopping Centre on Saturday, 11 Feb 2006. By Lim Chen Kee.

1. Conceptualization
At conceptualization, we have clearly stated our objectives and the theme of the exhibition, which we then designed our posters based on our objectives and theme. This is important because I realized when our booth is finally set up, our posters immediately became the focal point of the booth, making our booth relevant to the theme of the exhibitions.

The posters are well designed and suited for our objectives for the exhibition. The large pictures captured a lot of attention of by-passers especially the photograph of the turtle biting the plastics. However we should have stand-alone photographs of plastic litter for display and decoration.

2. Exhibition
What sort of people stopped by and what were their reactions?
More teachers and students from green clubs stopped by our booth than the general public. Since most of the former had not heard of ICCS, we used the opportunity to inform them about the cleanup and promote off-peak cleanups, which they could customise as small-group student projects with enhanced post-cleanup activities.

The general public was mostly attracted by the photo of the turtle on our posters, so we used that to initiate a conversation. Most of them were interested enough to want to be involved. However we were unable to attract the younger-aged public to our booth.

How effective was it?
We did not promote the message of reducing usage and recycling of plastics, as our focus was how marine litter, especially plastics, are harmful to nature and the environment. This focus did help to create an awareness as to why reducing plastics consumption and recycling would contribute to the protection of oceans, seas and shores and the animal life there. This was needed since it was not covered by other groups.

Was it worth it?
Yes, it is worth it. By being there, not only did we make the presence of the ICCS known; we also provided an avenue for groups who want to do more.

What did you learn from the other booths? What could we have done, had we more time?
Booths with bigger crowds used quizzes, puzzles and free gifts for the public. I don’t like the idea of using free gifts to entice the public [a Toddycats outlook], but I do think we should think about interactive activities in future. This will increase the effectiveness in spreading the message. We can also take a booth and with more space expand on the message.

What did you learn from the process?
I learned that if the audience is attracted by the posters and stopped to take a look, and there is someone who approaches them to talk to them, they would usually stay and listen. I missed a lot of opportunities by not engaging the split-second onlookers.

Other Comments:
I have a lot of fun and I think we did well for the exhibit in such a short time. To me, I feel that the mobile exhibits that we had discussed before can be done successfully and prove to be an effective tool to help spread environmental awareness if we plan well.

Campaign to reduce wastage of plastic shopping bags

The campaign as launched on Saturday, 11 February 2006 at Parkway Parade.



At 8am, Weisong, Chenkee, Yueat Tin and I went down to Parkway Parade with RMBR newsletters and museum roundtable brochures. We were met by the team of girls from the RGS green club with their teacher Beng Chiak representing both NSS and RGS. The girls were earlier than us, with plastic bags already decorating our panels. Our school booths were also bustling with activity.


Before and after

It worried us for a while that our booth lacked half our titles and had no panels. The panel was 1 hour late but eventually arrived to our relief. Yueat Tin brought her laptop and customized a ICCS presentation to autorun at the booth.



Luckily, as promised by the organizers NEA, our titles were delivered minutes before the guest of honor, Dr Yacob Ibrahim, arrived and Weisong, the tall one in the group, kindly put it up for us.



The morning was very successful as most of the crowds were students and teachers who were participating in the launch and were very interested in the issue of marine trash caused by plastics. Many were interested in participating in ICCS, and organizing talks for their schools. However, other booths with games and free giveaways were decidedly more popular than ours. This could possibly be something we could look into next time. Books were also very popular as when the guest of honor visited our booth, A/P Simon Tay, the chairman of NEA, picked up the Chek Jawa guidebook sold by NSS and decided to buy a copy after browsing! On the other hand, SEC sold out their books within minutes of being swarmed by teachers.



Our booth design was also one of the cleanest, tidiest, yet informative one. The idea of using panels was convenient not just for setting up but presentation is clear and attractive. More would come to the booth if the set up was more interactive with quizzes, or things for people to do at our booth. Of course, more than ever, we realize the usefulness of the namecard we printed for Giving Tree as we did not have them this round, we felt their absence more.



Having a booth right beside NEA's was also useful as it gave us much chance to give feedback to them and learn qutie a bit more about plastic recycling. For example, plastic bags can actually be recycled by putting them in recycling bin, they will be collected. In fact, as long as any plastic bottles that are cleaned and not contaminated is recyclable. There were also much of an issue that reusable bags were being given out in plastic bags and NEA received due feedback.



Still, this is a good attempt by NEA and now if you see this sign at any of the supermarkets involved or any of the shops in Parkway Parade, you will know they are a participating outlet. During the launch, reusable bags printed with each of the supermarket's unique design was also given away. Sadly, the hypermart Giant that was in Parkway Parade was not a participating supermarket.



Pledge to use reusable bag or less plastic bags today!

Thoughts on Raffles Museum exhibitions at fairs

Toddycats are setting up just posters at the Giving Tree @ North East 2005 this time, and guides, critical to any exhibit,will be there. No specimens no large photo blowups but we are lucky even to be there; it was pretty much a last minute decision with some heroics and Eco-Challenge had been holding the fort for us as liason.

One of the reasons I decided to get on board with this is it will serve as a first step in reviving outreach at fairs. It's been a long time since Raffles Museum Toddycats have participated in an exhibition to reach out to the public. Thankfully, in the past couple of years, Wild Singapore and Blue Water Volunteers have been very active in this arena over marine issues and have very nice and informative exhibits that they have setup in numerous places tirelessly. I've called on them myself and they setup their colourful booth during Terry Hughes coral reef public talk on 15th June 2005.

For the Humanimal Fair at The Substation's Sept Fest 2004, we were too busy with the coastal cleanup but thankfully, Wildlife Singapore got things coordinated and a joint booth was setup in the courtyard with BWV and WildSIngapore. That fair had a very charming feel!

The first and best Toddycats experience so far was at Museum Fest in 2002. We prepared exhibits in our usual Public Gallery style - print and mount photos and text and Ria loaned me her expensive screens complete with lights. We also brought out specimens from the museum and videos of local documentaries that we have collaborated on - these caught people's attention immediately and proved to be a magnet! With the interesting exhibit, voluble guides, the large crowds at Suntec City and the combined draw of many museums in one place, we ended up taking to an estimated 2,000 people in three days!



The dugong specimen in particular was a hit - the tragic orphan had died in our waters decades ago and was well preserved in a glass jar. That raised so many questions that led into a discussion to not only dugongs, but also about sea grass, marine ecosystems and the fate of these areas and marine life in Singapore and the world.

It helped that we had lots of manpower - we had a mixture of new and old guides - museum staff, senior guides, some Secondary two Chinese High students and two Singapore Polytechnic students on attachment, and a whole bunch of brand new Toddycats!





Museum Fest also served as an interview session for some new Toddycats and these novices were tasked to interact with the public after some rather basic background reading! That was quite exhausting but a lot of information as conveyed. I remember Oi Yee taking up post to explain ad elaborate on the exciting scenes on the television we brought down to screen the mangrove episode of Secret Worlds, a documentary by Charith Pelpola that we had collaborated on in 2001.

It was particularly delightful talking to the children. They were fascinated by the animal photos and specimens and when we talked about their biology and where they could be found in SIngapore, their eyes widened! I met my JC classmate who brought her daughters to finally get their questions answered!


It's a pity Museum Fest was discontinued. That was a wonderful platform and we were then prepared to repeat it year after year. And it led to raising awareness of the Raffles Museum's profile to thee Minster of Information and the Arts, with the help of National Heritage Board's CEO, Mr Lim Siam Kim.




In November 2003, we set up an ICCS exhibit at East Coast Park for the launch of NParks/NEA's "Litter Free Parks" campaign. Toddycats exhibits team worked on mounting ICCS information, and I got photos of marine life mainly from Chek Jawa from Alan Yeo and "Singapore Waters" posters from NSS' Marine Group. I remember dragging the heavy exhibit frames out from Sungei Buloh and later struggling with Patick Neo and Anand to set it up. The icing on the cake was the colourful and insightful RGS' reflections posters that their teacher and ICCS coordinator, Mariette Ong brought down for me.

RGS students came down to act as exhibit guides and amongst the visitrors was the CEO of NEA who found the information fascinating. I had earlier visited the Public Education Branch and gave them all our information as we are all working towards the cleanup of our shorelines.







I recycled the exhibit the same day when I bundled it into a taxi and set it up that evening at the Singapore International Foundation. We were giving a forum about Chek Jawa so it was perfect for the occasion!

Later that December (2003), the exhibit was set up at Sungei Buloh's 10th anniversary and Mr Mah Bow Tan visited the exhibit and I was abler to explain about the sources of the pollution. A surprisingly large proportion was originating from land!

Most of the RGS students who served as exhibit guides were later trained in the Sungei Buloh Anniversary Walk programme that year which was the 10th anniversary; and some are still involved this year!

Sungei Buloh and Labrador were designated Nature Reserves in November 2001. This was the first time in Singapore's post-colonial history that nature areas had been given such protection. Unprecedented, surprising, and a cause for celebration after decades of loss.

When we interviewed 115 people at Suntec City during Museum Fest 2002, only 9% had visited either site. All were surprised by the animal life depicted in specimens, videos and photos at eh exhibit. This the museum exhibit on Wildlife in Singapore at well frequented locations on high-profile public events are an effective way to share information about Singapore's biodiversity with our urban population.

I guess this is a less than subtle hint to the Toddycats about reviving the exhibits team!

Toddycats at the Giving Tree @ Northeast

After last minute week-long rush, Toddycats had a riotous time setting up booths on Thursday evening!



Hmm..Wai is contentedly sleeping after her exams it seems! Actually she was starving and exhausted from the high energy action courtesy of Nov, Anand and Oi Yee!