Full Report : Malam Anugerah Resak KTDI 2019 (MERAK ’19)
Last year on April 19th, 2019, Kolej Tun Dr Ismail organized an annual dinner to appreciate the students of KTDI who has been contributing to the college. The dinner was held in Puteri Harbour in one of the magnificent hotels. The theme of the dinner was ‘Glitz and Glamz, so everyone was excited to dress up elegantly and charming. The students of the college were invited to the dinner and it was a very entertaining dinner. I took part in this event as the head of Transportation Unit. My task was to ensure that the students arrived the hotel and went back to the college safely. I am also in charge of the students’ safety throughout the journey of the event. I worked hard with my team to ensure that our plans ran smoothly as planned. The preparation was made about a month before the event took place. There were many tasks that my teams helped to do before we actually handled our tasks. The event director assigned us to help with the sponsorships team earlier since there were not much of task that needs to be done involving transportation a month prior event. The scholarship unit really needed some hand since the event date getting closer and they still could not secure much sponsors for the event. We took the risk to call upon big companies and small ones too. Fortunately, we managed to secured few companies to sponsor our event. This event would not be as grand if it was not for our sponsors and efforts to secure them.
My transportation team begins working and dividing our tasks after the registration date ended. From there we get the number of students who are going to the event using the transportation we provided and make analysis based on the data. About 40% of the students took their own wheels with friends and the rest went to Jen Hotel by bus. Among all the tasks that was assigned to us, my favorite was the during the day of the event where I witnessed first-hand the students’ excitement and joy faces going to the dinner. It was one of the best feeling to see people happy with the effort that we have put in. There were minor issues along the way that was unexpected at the very last minute when some students decided to not took the bus when their name has been assigned into the bus. The reason was that they wanted to ride with their friends to the event. It was not a big deal in the beginning but about a couple of the students started to send message to my team telling the same thing. We were afraid that we would end up with one empty bus that would actually be wasteful for the money that we had spent. The goal is to ensure that the students are safe from the beginning until the end of the event. I have told the students to gather around Dataran Resak at sharp 6pm. Unfortunately, there were some miscommunication happen between my team when one of my teammate showed up late for the gathering. It all sorted out well after we were assisted by the college representative, JKM teams. Each JKM members helped assisting one bus and there were 8 buses in total. I distributed the students list name to each member. The students have been assigned to respective busses and with one head in charge. We managed to depart from college right on time at 7pm but the drill was kind of messy. As mentioned before that I did not expect there were still people contacting my team at the very last minute that they are not going to the dinner by bus. After all students has take their seats, we had to do some checks to make sure everyone was present and that no one is left behind. It took some time to wait for the students that were not there but they have the name in the list. After trying to contact them, we found out that most of them went carpooling with their friends. So, I instructed the bus driver to depart at 7pm. We were lucky we arrived on time and there were no major traffics along the way. The event was such a meaningful event and it was a great success to me and the whole Merak Crew. From this event I made more friends than I ever anticipated. The meals were mouth-watering and the desserts were amazing. I did not manage to take a lot of pictures since I was busy enjoying the night with my friends. It was such a memorable experience in my life.
From the experience I had, I feel like there could be better improvement on handling the student’s transportation. However, this was the first time to take the lead of a unit and making last minute decision was not as easy as it may seem. Although the program ran smoothly, I was afraid I could not be able to succeed. I had doubt with my own capabilities however I did not let that ruin the confidents I had in myself to believe that I can do it. The reason I wanted to join organizing this event is to challenge myself and also gaining new experience while studying. I joined this event with my friends to have some fun other than working hard in class. During the first meeting, I was nervous to come out from my comfort zone but part of me wants to accept challenges. The ice breaking session where we get to know each other help release the tense that was going on. My event director was so kind to us and would assist us in any problems that we encounter. Honestly, I was really looking forward to have participated in two big events from School of Computing but due to the pandemic crisis, unfortunately all of the event had to be cancelled. These big events, Run For Unity was the biggest event organized by my school annually. I would like to participate in more events after volunteering for Merak Dinner. It was anxious for me at first, but my first event as an undergraduate was not bad as I had in mind. If I were not to participate in this event, I would not know the ways to Transportation Department in the university. I would probably never know how to deal with bus services and bookings for events.
Throughout the night, I can see everyone enjoyed being there with wonderful performance and skills being present on the stage. We can see that students of UTM were born talented and smart both academically and other fields too. Despite the task that I was responsible of only took part at the beginning and the end of event, I did not only enjoy the night. I look up to other crews who needed help to serve the students food, arranging gifts and awards and ensuring the event run smoothly. We really had strong cooperation towards the whole crew despite we all were assigned to different tasks. Could not deny that it was the most tiring night but it surely was worth the pain. I love seeing how our director of the event responds to all situation in a calm manner. Small issues such as running out of time, unable to sort for lucky draw winners and some even forgotten to claim their prizes. All issues were managed accordingly. He may have flaws too but its his effort in ensuring everything is well.
After this pandemic end, I wish to participate in more extra-curricular activities that involves me handling events and giving back to the students. I have been to and participated in numerous events and I respected the event crews for always trying to make the best out of it. Though we are still battling this Covid-19 pandemic, it did not stop me to improve my soft skills. In fact, it has given be the chance to sharpen my skills to be a better individual who provides services to the country. I have been learning new programming languages and involves in business activities which I never thought to join in a million years! I wish to expand more of my small business into the university and being taught more about marketing and business strategy.
During the whole experience of participating as a crew, I learnt about so many new things about general knowledges and myself too. Handling one event was not an easy task however I get the job done pretty well. After the event, we had post-mortem to talk about the mistakes and any improvement that could have been done to make sure such mistake do not happen again. The situation reminded me of some experience I had when I was in high school when some students could not take the blame for what they have done. I am not saying that they could not accept their mistake, but some crews decided to show some attitude when we pointed out their mistakes. I had to speak out that we are more matured and should not act childish when we are adults who should be professional regardless the bond we had with other teams.
The problem was that they thought when having a friend in your team means they could get away easily. However, that should not suppose to happened. This was one of the situations faced during the night when one unit failed to get all of the team working together. The team was supposed to serve dinner for the students but some of them were at the back of the hall taking pictures and need reminder of their task. Everyone has their own particular role to get the task done to make the event runs smoothly as it should be. This kind of attitude is not rare and often happen when dealing with certain individuals. There are articles proving that having a close friend working in the same workspace could create an environment of favoritism. While it is okay to create more friends to increase productivity and effectiveness at work but there should be boundaries too.
I am aware that this should be the practice when working soon. As an individual, it is necessary to create a boundary between work life and personal matter. By creating new environment in a workspace we are going to be in soon, this helps us to build connections with people that could benefits us in the future. Engaging with different types of people helps us broaden our mind, gaining more knowledge we never know.
Based on what I have point out for every R point, I have learned so much through the experience. So many responsibilities and skill to master based in what I gain. This includes ability to sell out our event to ensure we get great sponsorships, planning and expecting the worst outcome that could happen during the event and be able to set up more than one plan. Of course, life would be unpredictable however, the decision we make decides if the plan goes right or downfall. Every event that I participated will have each flaws and that is where we take it and learnt from the lesson. For instance, planning to double confirm either each students are going by bus or carpooling with friends. RSVP should be made 2 days prior event to ensure the process runs smoothly. As a step, I will have to observe better when participating in more events to ensure the same mistake would not be repeated again.