After four days in Johor Bahru for the YK District Retreat, Alicia and I made our way for Retreat #2… our Staff Retreat – UP. UP stands for United + Purposed, and it would be held at Bintan Lagoon Resorts, a gorgeous beach-front resort on this small Indonesian island.
UP, from idea to execution, took a grand total of five short weeks, which left the Committee gasping for air at times, and thanking God for smooth operations at other times! Thankfully we had very able people taking charge of the various segments of the camp (from technical details to the program flow to games…), and the Committee had loads of fun and lots of laughter in the midst of all the planning!
Having the Retreat in Bintan also meant a great deal of logistical issues to consider, from the ferry to Visas for non-Singaporeans, to the rooming configurations… so the staff were also compliant enough to help out with that. Changes abounded, as can be expected, but all was taken in good stride!
The past three days were spent hearing from our mentors, eating together, playing together, and it was an unbelievable and undeniably awesome Retreat! For this one, we decided to not bring along our maid (cos of the money we’d spent on the earlier retreat, and also because I didn’t have the time to bring her to the Indonesian embassy to get her endorsement letter done up, to save us on the $190 required upon her exit of Indonesia!). So it made things triply tiring for us, juggling sessions and having to also care for Jay.
But it was also time well-spent with him! Not too much free & easy time, but at least we managed to spend some time on the beach!
The sessions with PK and PP… the superb telematch… the people and the fellowship… what awesome memories we’ve created in the last 3 days!
I was station-master for the telematch, and I walk away with these memories…
What an seemingly innocent prop! A blue basin!
* Faces cropped out so I won’t get killed back in the office on Tuesday.
The telematch was spread out over a good part of the resort, so teams had to RUN a lot!
And at the end of the 10 stations, this was what greeted them…
And if you ever suspect our dedication to play… this picture should change your mind. We work hard, but we sure play very hard as well!
What an awesome afternoon that was! All my other more incriminating photos will of course be kept for future blackmail purposes my fond memories’ sake!
Especially for the sessions, what I’ve been taught and caught is much too much to share now, but suffice to say, we are sufficiently recharged, renewed and re-energized to end this year on a high note and to begin 2011 with much anticipation! God will come through!
I think a 3 day 2 night retreat is much too short, so maybe next year we can something a tad longer? ;)
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