Thoughts during the Circuit Breaker. Part 2.
Cuifen Pui
Compost Artisan | Food Sustainability Educator | Regenerative 'Hood | Alignment Coach
~ 2 months into circuit breaker. I thought to pen down thoughts before Singapore starts easing measures put in place to ensure physical distancing. Here's the second post.
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One of the things I am very thankful for is #collectivewednesday.
#CollectiveWednesday is an idea that came to me just before we were asked to stay at home. I had wanted to build a sense of community amongst Foodscape Collective's network, and was exploring how small group sessions could be hosted by people in the network. With stay-at-home, I wondered how we could keep the essence of the idea and stay connected with one another from our homes. I was much encouraged by the words and action of support from various people. This week we had our 7th weekly session, where people tuned in for 40 mins to 1 hour to listen to authentic sharing of personal stories and knowledge by people in the network.
#collectivewednesday is amazing for the many lessons that came with it. It has been iterative learning on a weekly basis, which is a much faster pace than the 'business as usual' world. Together with others, I had to learn new tools and new ways to engage. Tools are aplenty, but it was important to identify what would work best for most people. This became increasingly important with each call, as we started to focus on how to do the calls better.
There had been steep learning curves and quick decisions to be made. There was at least one session where I wanted to hide my head in 'sand' after the call.
With the weeks go by, I started realising this was equivalent to a part-time job! I spent ~2-3 days for each week's call, and the engagement with the guest for the week could start a few weeks before. I started learning what it means to curate a series of meaningful sessions for people who come from all walks of life.
With the preparation needed to host the calls, I started having a very good sense of time - down to the minute. I shifted from seeing my room as a space that confines, to one where I have the room to grow as a performer who connects with the audience as they come into a private and safe space for conversation and connection.
I started understanding what are the different roles that people can play, to help make a call a good experience for all. I started looking at how I can engage interested people in the network, to step up and form a tag-team to take this call series beyond the stay-at-home period.
I started learning how to do more than basic video editing. For the first time in my life, I uploaded videos on Youtube - and even created a playlist. With a logo on the side!
Many firsts ??