Sixth student leadership workshop

My friends and I have concluded the first weekend of the sixth student leadership workshop for the Fourth and fifth Formers of Penang Free School. The final number of participants had been whittled down from the original 46 to 25. We had anticipated that right from the beginning. Some had unavoidable activities that couldn't be rescheduled for one reason or another, while some others were simply not interested at all. Their loss, I would say.

The workshop itself went well but of course, it was not without any pre-workshop drama. The surprise was that the school had, at the last minute, required the Form Five boys to attend an event to set their targets for the SPM examinations at the end of the year.

To say that we were upset over this would be an understatement. More than half of the participants would be affected. Luckily, the school Senior Assistants came to the fore: an arrangement was made to exempt the boys from attending that event. If they were required to be present at that event, I would dare say that my friends would have taken an unprecedented decision to cancel the workshop altogether. After weeks of planning, a spanner is thrown into the works. Who would have liked it? It wouldn't be a popular decision, though. The only ones to suffer would be the boys themselves. Luckily, a solution was found quickly and I've to thank Cikgu Samad for this.

So our event finally began last Saturday. But because the Parent-Teacher Association was using the Pinhorn Hall for their annual meeting, we were again required to use an alternative venue for the morning session. Normally, we would use the meeting room in the Archives Block but with the Wuhan coronavirus such a big issue nowadays, we felt that it would be better to choose a more spacious and airier place.

The Headmaster offered us the dining hall of the School Hostel. It wasn't a bad alternative: place was big enough and the windows could be opened on all two sides of the building. Unfortunately I could catch faint wafts of odour from somewhere. Others didn't. But then, my nose has always been more sensitive than many other persons'. Needless to say, the move back to our regular venue, the Pinhorn Hall, for the afternoon session on Saturday was a big relief to me.

The Headmaster turned up in the afternoon but he was clearly drained after chairing the Parent-Teacher Association meeting in the morning. Fully understandable, having to deal with the parents, some of whom are quite unreasonable. He was scheduled to speak to the participants but we decided to move it to the next day. He spoke off the cuff on Sunday but he had his pointers on his mobile. Anyway, I hope his speech will inspire the boys. It is full of wisdom. They can certainly take lessons from the video at the end of this story.

The coronavirus scare meant that we decided to take some precautions before, during and after the sessions on the two days. At the start of each day, we took the temperatures of everyone - participants, student coaches and even the coaches - and requested them to wash their hands or sanitise them often. Those with the occasional coughs were asked to wear their face masks. And similarly at the end of each day, their temperatures were taken again.

As usual, we have been starting each day with the participants singing the School Rally. It was a practice that I had introduced two years ago. Nothing like the School Rally to set the tone for the leadership workshop. I experimented on the second day by requesting the boys to sing the School Rally the way that the Old Frees do by dragging out the word "soul". I thought it timely to let them hear the difference.

For only the second time, we introduced a quiz into the workshop; all questions were based on the history of the school. Prior to the quiz, we had shown the videos that Siang Jin had made last year, and which were available on the Internet, and I had taken the boys on a tour of the Pinhorn Hall. The wooden plaques at the back of the hall were significant points of interest.

The second half of the sixth student leadership workshop will take place on 26th and 27th of March.