Scouties

Today was a full day out with the scouts, with Marcus, Raj and Vinod showing me the insides of the gym followed by a long lunch at the expensive Cafeteria located in Vinod's clubhouse. Following that was five games of bowling where we had lots of fun competing, making fun of one another, blessing one another with 'bad karma' as well as trying out freak shots (which didn't work out) xD

Tired but contented, I think I'm ready to kickstart my mugging regime again by holing myself in the council room starting from tomorrow! haha scouties rock. This reminds me of a line I wrote in the reflection I did for scouts under my portfolio submitted earlier. I can still imagine myself meeting them 30 years down the road, introducing our kids to one another and sitting around as usual, doing nothing yet doing everything at the same time. So true (:

So here are some reflections on one of my favourite bunch of people as well as the CCA which brought us all together.


Batchmates and our juniors at the 02 Farewell organized for us.
At the start of 2007, my batchmates and I were struck by indecision as to whether we should continue serving the troop. The potent combination of a new schooling environment, Orientation, as well as the host of new Co-Curricular Activities (CCA) abound, had overwhelmed and won many of us over. Essentially, the problem lay with reconciling personal interests with the Group’s interests, and already, a significant number of the batch had declared that they would no longer serve in the Training Team. The greater issue behind our indecisiveness was that should we lack a sufficient number of scouts willing to take on this new helm of leadership, the Group would become destabilized.

During this course of debate, I have learnt something valuable that continues to shape the important decisions I make today. The whole uncertainty made me think about just how impactful our actions are and how we have the choice to make a difference. We can choose to leave behind a legacy, but we can also choose to become a liability to the progress of the Group. However, for every choice decided, a sacrifice has to be made.

Even more importantly, we have to look away from the micro scale of the issue of reconciling the conflicting interests between self and group, and instead, look at the macro scale of the matter. Putting aside our vested interests, I realized just how important obligation to a cause is. It is a sense of duty to the Group, and a need to give back to it what it has given us throughout the past four years. This includes the many unforgettable memories that I have accumulated, the plethora of leadership opportunities that have shaped me and made me who I am today, and the countless friendships I have made across the different batches of scouts. Are we so selfish as to discount future batches of scouts what we have enjoyed and gained from our enriching scouting experience? Who are we to decide?

In the end, it was the idea of 'giving back' that found resonance among the few of my batchmates and I, and made us decide to continue serving the troop even as we pursue our individual interests in Junior College. Blessed with the benefit of hindsight, I am glad to have made this decision to stay on. While it was difficult balancing my commitments to Scouts and Students’ Council as well as managing my schoolwork all at the same time, it is certainly true that the most memorable times are often those that we find ourselves struggling alongside our friends, and yet are still able to find the strength to assist one another.

In fact, due to the structural changes that took place within scouts, we have, by choosing to continue to serve in our capacity as leaders to the Group, inadvertently left behind a legacy – the legacy of being the longest-serving leaders in the entire 86 years of the Group’s history. Had we chosen to conclude our service to the Group back then, perhaps we might have been known as the batch that marked the start of the Group’s downfall. What a contrast that would have been.

My experience in scouts has left me with many valuable lessons, but among them all, this is definitely one of the most important and relevant lesson. In today’s globalized context, we live in an ‘upgrade’ culture where the new often undermines and replaces the old, but this has reminded me to always look back at one’s roots and recognize the importance of tradition in the new world order. Even more important to me, though, are the friendships that I have forged with my batchmates, and I can still imagine myself meeting them 30 years down the road, introducing our kids to one another and sitting around as usual, doing nothing yet doing everything at the same time.