Letter from Baba Colin Chee, President, The Peranakan Association Singapore
(This is a monthly column to TPAS members and guests)
How time flies. It has been about a month since TPAS held its Annual General Meeting on Sunday 27 May 2018.
The first General Committee (GC) meeting was held two days later on Vesak Day. This was to set our broad priorities for the two-year term and assign specific tasks for the next six months. I am touched and thankful that most of the GC turned up despite the public holiday. They were filled with enthusiasm. Two members could not attend for very good reasons.
The second GC meeting will be held on 3 July. The GC’s first Planning Retreat is scheduled for 28 July. It is to bond the team and to draw up a detailed road map for the GC’s two-year term ending April 2020.
As outlined in my manifesto before I was elected, TPAS’s first order of the day is STABILITY.
Database Subcommittee
Essential to stability is a membership database that is operationally efficient for TPAS to carry out its work.
The previous GC did a great job in minimising returned magazines and mails. Our target is to reduce returned material to zero, if possible. Every returned material is a cost to TPAS. And we do want to reach out to every one of our members in a timely fashion. We do not want you to miss out on information and programmes we plan to organise for you.
A new Membership/PDPA Subcommittee headed by GC member Baba Philip Yeo has been formed. It is tasked to work on and reconcile discrepancies in the database, giving due attention to personal data privacy. It will also look into the work flows for membership applications, payments, membership approvals and updating, among other transactions.
In addition, TPAS will have to start building an infrastructure that will allow us to use our database for programmes with other third parties and stakeholders. This has to be achieved within the parameters of PDPA (Personal Data Protection Act). It will therefore take time to implement.
Please do understand that our database may not be up to date if you have moved house, changed phone numbers or email addresses and did not inform the Secretariat. This is TPAS’s most recurrent challenge.
We ask for your cooperation to email us at membership@peranakan.org.sg to update us on your mailing address, email and contact phone number. These updates are crucial if you want to read or hear directly from TPAS.
Communications Subcommittee
After our first GC meeting on 29 May, the team harnessed technology – through WhatsApp and email – to stay connected throughout the June holidays. Decisions were made and we brainstormed through this ‘magical’ online thread that bound us across time zones and geographies: from Hawaii to Japan, Southeast Asia, Croatia and to France!
Technology can also be a bane. As technology advances at a rapid pace, cybersecurity is a major concern in all organizations. TPAS is mindful of this. It is taking the necessary steps to safeguard our members’ data and digital presence. These steps will also ensure the integrity of our other digital content.
We have formed a Communications Subcommittee led by Nyonya Dawn Marie Lee, who is also editor of The Peranakan magazine. The subcommittee is responsible for TPAS’s publicity and feedback, our magazine, and TPAS’s digital platforms – for now, Facebook and our website.
Lucky for us we have in this subcommittee a few young techies – Nyonya Victoria Chanel Lee who manages our Website and email blasts and Baba Emeric Lau who manages our Facebook. GC member Nyonya Josephine Tan Eber, who is TPAS’s Digital Advisor, also actively advises the subcommittee.
Our Communications Subcommittee has been very busy trying to get a good new designer at a lower cost. And Dawn has been chasing after articles for the next edition of The Peranakan magazine coming out this September. The magazine is very highly regarded by both TPAS members and non-members for its authoritative documentation of Peranakan culture and its collectability.
Printing each edition is costly. Although advertising revenues help pay for the cost of printing, the magazine is still heavily subsidised. We will continue to manage that cost. However, members must realise that this situation is not sustainable over the long term. The GC, with the help of the subcommittee, will continue to seek solutions.
Smooth Transition
By the end of June, we would have successfully transitioned from the previous GC to the new GC.
The Secretariat and Treasurer functions are busy at work on this. In making this transition happen, I thank very much Baba Ee Sin Soo, Nyonya Koh Hwei Ling and Nyonya Angeline Kong from the outgoing GC. Also, Baba Ronney Tan, Nyonya Agnes Ng, Baba Bryan Tan and Nyonya Elizabeth Ng from the new GC. We have also had the benefit of an extra two pairs of helping hands – Nyonya Gwen Ong and Nyonya Sylvia Peh.
One of our challenges here is the management and storage of our inventory of paraphernalia ranging from files to magazines, books and souvenirs. We will have to write off much of these and find meaningful ways to dispose of them.
Baba Nyonya Convention
The transition to the new GC for the upcoming Baba Nyonya Convention in Tangerang has also been smooth, thanks to Angeline and Gwen. Gwen heads up the Special Projects Subcommittee. Her team has fully taken over the coordination of this November event in Indonesia.
Gwen recently reported that TPAS has fully subscribed to its allotment of places for the optional tours which follow the three-day Baba Nyonya Convention in Tangerang, Indonesia. The tours are all sold out!
However, if you are still interested in attending the Convention itself from November 23 to 25, please submit your request to Gwen, subject to the availability of hotel rooms.
Other Happenings
Our TPAS choir, The Peranakan Voices, was asked to sing at The Peranakan Museum’s Filterlife Weekend Festival on 23 and 24 June, in conjunction with the Museum’s Amek Gambar exhibition. They gave an “entertaining and flavourful” performance, I am told. Many appreciated the nostalgic songs they sang. We thank them for volunteering their time during the holidays and for upholding TPAS’s name.
From 16 to 20 August, TPAS is organising a Yogyakarta and Solo Batik Tour. We can take up to a maximum of 18 TPAS members on a first-come-first-serve basis. The highlight is a specially arranged lunch in Solo’s royal palace. I thank Nyonya Angela Kek and Gwen for arranging and coordinating this tour.
However, if there is early overwhelming demand for the tour, we will look into increasing the number of places, but not by many more. So please do book early before 16 July if you are interested. Please note that the indicated tour costs of $650 per person twin share and $780 per person single room do not include air fare nor travel insurance. Non-members will each pay $50 more. Bookings can be made through the TPAS Facebook and Website.
Tentatively in early December, TPAS will bring back Malam Jolly for its members! An organising subcommittee is being formed. More details later.
Clearly, it is going to be a full rest-of-the-year. I anticipate more programmes and events will be added after our Planning Retreat in July! We will set up a Programmes & Events Calendar, digitally and in the magazine, as we go along.
Thank you for taking the time to read this monthly letter. If you have any ideas and/or feedback, please write to me at president@peranakan.org.sg, or have a chat with any of your friendly GC members.
In ending, please take time to pause, in our busy lives, to remember those who have contributed much to TPAS – including past Hon Secretary Geok Huay and past President Peter Wee. Pray for good health to be restored to them. Not least also, pray for our Hon Life President Uncle Kip, who is in his 90s and thankfully doing well.
God bless,
Colin Chee
Unity. Stability. Growth
It is not going to be business as usual
29 June 2018