Date: 16th May 2009
Time:
Venue: Singapore Conference Hall

Yiguan's Reflection
The fundraising event at the Chinese Orchestra concert was the very first TOOP's fundraising event. Personally, I was looking forward to it because I have never done such a thing before. It was a new experience for me to raise funds through selling flowers. Additionally, this concert has audiences not only from our school but the public. Initially, I thought that it would be difficult to explain to them what TOOP yunnan is about and persuade them to buy flowers. However, after approaching more people and getting warm-up, it was not a difficult task at all.

College Day was held in the morning at school before the Chinese Orchestra concert. I thought that I would have a problem to rush there on time, however Ms Yanti gave me lift down to Singapore Conference Hall (SCH) along with a few others. We reached SCH around 3pm and started out preparations. We had to shift the boxes of roses up to the third floor and started packaging them. We were suppose to cut the stalks and attached a ribbon and tagcard to it. We managed to finished packaging all the flowers in 2hours and went for a break. We started our fundraising project at 6pm and I was selling flowers on the 2nd level. As most of the team members stationed themselves at the 1st level, the audiences would have bought the flowers then. However, I managed to convince the some of the audiences who refused to buy a flower in the 1st level to do so. I feel that stationing the people at different entrances and areas is very important because we are able to target more audience and raise more funds. Through this, I learnt that we need to be sincere and approachable when fundraising because, only then, the customers will be convinced and willing to buy from you.

As I had the ticket for the Chinese Orchestra concert, I will into the concert hall and enjoyed the concert. Only during intermission, I went out and continue selling flowers with the team. I was told that we still had 200 flowers left. However, everyone tried our best and managed to sell the flowers to our friends. During intermission, the performers took the time to meet their friends. Hence, their friends were more willing to buy the flowers as they could give it to their friends as a memento. There were only 50 flowers left after intermission! Some of the team members tried to sell the remaining after the concert at only $1 and we only had to absorbed a few to reach our goal.

In conclusion, I felt that this fundraising event was a success and a good kickstart!

Edwin's Reflection
Selling of flowers in Chinese Orchestra concert was our first TOOP Yunnan fundraising project. Personally, I do not know what to do and what to expect as this is our pioneer event, there was nothing to take reference from. This event was a success but there were also lessons to be learnt. Not only did I pick up fundraising skills, other soft skills were also another significant thing I learnt from this fundraising project

About two days before the event, Jinyi and I were finding places to buy the ribbons and Ms. Azyanti suggested us to check Popular at Tampines Mall. Purchasing the ribbons and cards were quite difficult as we were trying to not waste any ribbons and cards. In addition, as we want to minimize cost for the other concerts, we even tried to calculate the amount of ribbons and cards for the next few Performing Arts concerts. The discussion was not just between Jinyi and I but also Ms. Azyanti who constantly called us. It was a test of patience and resilience as we were getting tired and we had to consider many factors before finalizing the amount. We had to estimate on how many flowers we are going to sell for the other 2 concerts, so as to get the right number of ribbons and cards. Besides purchasing cards and ribbons, we were notified that we had to pay $100 to Singapore Conference. We had to change the amount of flowers we are going to sell so as to hit our target of $500. That particular day taught me to see things in different perspectives so as to ensure that we did not spend any unnecessary things and can earn our target of $500

On the actual day, I started to contact my friends in the morning, asking them to buy flowers and bouquets. I decided to do this because most of my friends will actually buy flowers before they come to watch the concert. Thus, I reminded them about the selling of flowers and persuaded them to buy. It was quite effective as I managed to sell about 20 stalks before I reached Singapore Conference Hall. This actually taught me to be initiative, getting as much sales before we even started the fundraising event

In the evening, the sale of flowers was not good when we counted about 200 flowers left after the audience went in. The team contemplated on bringing down the price so as to attract more people and we can also clear all the flowers. However, we decided to leave it as the same price as we do not want to lose customers’ trust, especially the audience who purchased flowers will be similar to those for the next few concerts. We continued to sell the flowers during the intermission and after the concert, leaving about 10 stalks of flower left. In that few hours, I actually learnt about socials skills while selling flowers to the customers. I learnt that people are more willing to buy the flowers when you inform them that this is a fundraising project.

All in all, this first fundraising event has been an enriching and experiential one. From the preparation period to the actual selling of flowers, this event has taught me to be initiative, resilient and learn more about social skills. Looking at matter from different perspective would be one of the most valuable lessons I took back from this event.

Thank You everyone to make this event a success

Jinyi's Reflection
The flowers sale at the Chinese Orchestra concert was actually our first TOOP fundraising event. To me, it was a rather big and important event because I was the IC in-charge for that particular fundraising event and we were all inexperienced.

A few days before the concert, Edwin and I actually went to the Popular in Tampines Mall after school to buy ribbons and cards for our flowers sale. Edwin found that there was a 25% discount for everything sold on that day, hence we went to buy our stuff from there in order to cut down cost. (econs again!!) We spent approximately more than 2 hours at Tampines Mall thinking of how to present the flowers (roses) in such a way which would appeal to the people going for the CO concert. We even used a pen as the stalk and tied it with ribbon and a card to see how we could further improve our products. We had to consider numerous things such as the minimum length of ribbon to be cut for each stalk so to reduce our cost, what to bring on the day, the manpower, the time taken for preparation and so on.

Also, preparation such as cutting the ribbons & punching holes onto the cards had to be done before the day of the concert so to minimize the workload and time taken for preparation on the day itself. Through this process, I felt that fundraising was not easy because a lot of things had to be planned, considered and prepared. It was indeed a good opportunity for me to learn many things. On the day of CO concert, we reached Singapore Conference Hall at about 3pm and began our preparation. We finished faster than expected. We started selling those flowers at about 6pm. Most of us stationed ourselves at the entrance. A lot of people got intimidated by our eagerness to sell the flowers. Some of them even tried to avoid us. We learnt that and tried to give some space for the people to walk. We smiled. We were friendly. We learnt to convince people to buy our flowers. We learnt many social skills when dealing with customers.

At first, the sale was not good, we left approximately 200 stalks even after when the CO concert had started. However, we were not discouraged. We continued to motivate each other and stayed positive. It was then a huge relief after the intermission because we managed to sell about 150 stalks. I guess it was because people then had more time to consider buying our flowers. We then sold off the remaining 50 stalks after the end of the concert and just needed to absorb a little to reach our goal of getting the total revenue that we wanted.

It was really late by then and everyone was exhausted. However, deep down in our hearts, we felt rather satisfied. Our first fundraising event was actually a success. I personally feel that this fundraising event was really a learning platform for me. It was not just the planning skills which I have learnt, but also the emotional aspects such as endurance and optimism.