SUCCESSFULLY HOSTING EVENTS
Talents & Interests Network Team Photo
What We Have Accomplished At this time, we have already held multiple events, namely the: - Astronomical BBQ Night, - Leather Making Workshop, - DDP Yoga Sharing Workshop, - Solve the Mystery Game, and - DIY Aircraft Workshop. I believe each of these activities were successful in their own ways. The Astronomical BBQ Night helped foster a more holistic environment among a small group of HKUST undergraduate and even postgraduate students as we gathered around to have a BBQ together and learn about some stories of the constellations and how to use the Sky Map app to find these constellations. The Leather Making Workshop helped arouse students' interest in making leather products by exposing them to the practice and providing a platform for them to share their creative ideas in leather making with others. The DDP Yoga Sharing Workshop was a good experience for the organizer we supported to share his interest in DDP Yoga. Although attendance for this event was low, we were able to share the experience with the participants and discuss more closely about their own experience and how they can continue practicing yoga. The Solve the Mystery Game was an exciting social experience for groups to test their problem-solving skills. Each group was able to solve the mystery with only minutes to spare. Each group also shared with us that they enjoyed the game very much, they were shocked at some points (since our theme was a ghost story), and are very grateful for the experience.
The DIY Aircraft Workshop helped students learn the basics of flight and gain an experience in building and flying a model Remote Controlled Aircraft. The event was a social experience that helped different students learn about the same interest. Although many of them were beginners and thus not experts in flying, they were able to fly smoothly at some points and enjoy an experience of RC flying. More information on the events can be found here: http://ti-network.weebly.com/previous-events.html
The Challenges and Lessons from the Experience Through the experience of founding this organization with a few other co-founders, we faced multiple difficult challenges. These challenges ranged in conceptual, organizational, and interpersonal challenges. One of them was finding the core concept of our organization. Through out the first semester of our second year, we focused on making and organization that hosts "fun" events. Later on, we changed it to be fun and unique events. Then, finally after brainstorming again during a meeting during the winter break, we formed the idea of the Talents & Interests Network, which aimed to empower others. From then, our goal was much clearer and we began contacting others to formulate events.
Another challenge was keeping the team on track. We all led busy lives, and as the chairperson of the organization, I had to keep everyone on updated and ensure our goals are being met. I have to confess that my team was not very responsive during most times, so upon asking for assistance with an idea, not much or none would reply. I understand this could be due to our busy school lives as my teammates remained passionate about the organization, so by keeping well ahead of our planned deadlines, I regularly requested updates and reminded others to complete the tasks they set out to do. At some time later on, after we held our first event, I moved on to allow others in my co-founding team to take on some roles of leadership in organizing the event. We divided each event to be taken care of one of our co-founding members, and through this, we were able to support each other more effectively. I also became closer with one of the co-founders, Bernad, as he was very much involved in planning and organizing each of the events and has been very reliable. His competence in meeting deadlines and high quality of work also inspired me to lead our team with a strong vision of excellence. I also greatly appreciate the efforts of my co-founding team and OC team in acting in their roles to prepare for the events.
Another difficult challenge involved interpersonal issues, as one of our OC members was slacking, not showing up to our meetings, and was very distant in communication with our team. We were unsure of the intentions of the member in joining our team, and after several offences from the member, there was a lot of tension between the team and that member. In some cases, there was a presence of strong passive aggressive messages between the two parties, and our team had planned to dismiss the member as soon as possible. However, after consultation with Rufina, we planned to help the member become more communicative and have the two parties become less hostile to each other. It took several tries to meet up with the member as our messages would often be ignored, but eventually, when we both participated in the REDbird training about professionalism, our team discussed the issue with the presence of Rufina, and later on I confronted the member and discussed the positive communicative attitude that our team was aiming for. After that, we noticed a much more positive attitude coming from the member and eased the tension in our team. We learned that an issue involved in this challenge was the use of one-way communication, as we mainly communicated through instant messaging. We found that to deal with interpersonal challenges, it is much more effective to use two-way communication such as calls or face-to-face to discuss more sensitive issues like what we faced.
