This post comes a little late, more than a week after the Festival (26 & 27 May 2012) has ended. (And I’ve got a lot of backlog of posts) But anyways, it’s been quite an experience being part of the organising committee of the Festival.
Working in the public service is an interesting experience indeed, but that is for another post, another time, maybe. For now, it’s just photos of of the two days of Festival! Posts about the trips to Chek Jawa (24 May 2012) and Cyrene Reef (25 May 2012) in preparation for the Festival will come later (along with the posts about the rest of the events that happened the week leading up to the Festival).
Welcome arch to the Festival of Biodiversity 2012 🙂
Republic Poly (RP) and Singapore Poly (SP) student volunteers helping out at the Festival
Jogger runs pasts and stops to check out our marine biodiversity exhibition, Follow the tide 😀
Naked Hermit Crab volunteer Heng Pei Yan explaining to the visitors about our marine animals
A really tricky game made by the marine exhibition volunteers – complete the food chain!
The fun and interesting games done up by the marine exhibition volunteers were a draw for many kids
Crowd at the level 1 booths
RMBR Toddycat volunteer drawing more public to the booths on level 2
Plenty of activities for the children at the booths on level 1. This is by Raffles Institution
Commonwealth Sec student explaining to visitors (From left: Shawn Lum from Nature Society Singapore and Benjamin Lee from NParks) about their school’s project at Lorong Halus
From left: Lim Liang Jim from NParks listening to feedback from RMBR Toddycat volunteer Kok Oi Yee about our Nature parks and spaces
Cicada Tree Eco-Place volunteer enthralling students from Progress Class Society with stories about our native wildlife
Kids happily colouring the colouring sheets given out by Cicada Tree Eco-Place
Official launch of the Festival
Opening speech during the official launch given by Minister of State for National Development and Manpower Tan Chuan Jin
Volunteer artist Tham Pui San, who helped put together the mural mosaic, presenting Guest-of-Honour President Tony Tan with the last piece of the mural to complete it while NParks CEO Poon Hong Yuen looks on
President Tony Tan visiting the marine exhibition booth with Director of National Biodiversity Centre (NBC), NParks Lena Chan next to him.
President Tony Tan filling in the feedback form on what he’d like to see in our Nature parks and spaces
President Tony Tan talking to students from Carl Zeiss, partner organisation of Nature Society (Singapore), about the new bird guide and butterfly guide applications they’ve recently launched
Commonwealth Sec student explaining their project to President
RMBR Toddycat volunteer Fung Tze Kwan telling President Tony Tan about our wild mammals in Singapore
Some of the concurrent activities throughout the Botany Centre
Kids captivated by the stories told by librarians from Bukit Merah Public Library
High turnout for the art & craft sessions for the children – this one run by Raffles Girls’ School Secondary (RGS) girls about the underwater world
The art & craft workshops conducted by volunteers were very well-received by the kids and parents alike
Film screening of Singapore Got Wildlife, Meh?, a video compilation of photos and videos captured by the nature enthusiasts community
One of the many talks conducted over the two days, Lee Yan Leong from Nature Photographic Society (Singapore) drew quite a crowd on his topic of Macro World of Singapore
All in all, I think everyone really enjoyed the Festival very much (: Very glad to have been given the opportunity to help organise this, and there are definitely many things I learnt in the process.
And for the first time being one of the organisers of such an event instead of being one of the volunteers talking to the public, it meant that I had enough time to run around and take photos with/of people (:
From left: Ria Tan, Siti Maryam Yaacub and Toh Chay Hoon, whose contributions helped made the Festival (and especially the marine exhibition) an awesome one 🙂 Thank you!
From left: Nurshahidah Yusri and Heidyl Goh, interns at NBC, manning the Comprehensive Marine Biodiversiy Survey (a.k.a. Mega Marine Survey) booth
From left: Edward, Lim Swee Cheng and Koh Kwan Siong
Siti, Lim Wei Ling & Wendy Yap manning the book sale booth
Lim Liang Jim at his Connecting with Nature – Nparks Public Engagement booth
(photo is a bit dark:/) Tan Sze Peng & Linda Goh and me. Short of Sabrina Tang, we worked on this Festival together
David Tan, who painstakingly sacrificed many nights of sleep to produce the film, Singapore Got Wildlife, Meh? Short of Eunice Soh, who was away in Borneo, and helped obtain and sort the material for the film. Thanks, both of you!
Siva, the last speaker for the Conserving our Biodiversity symposium, who arrived just in time for his talk! 😀
Volunteer artist Adeline, Tham Pui San, Adeline’s son, me and Sabrina Tang standing beside the (finally) completed mural!
For more updates and for a list of photo albums and blogposts on the Festival, please refer to the Festival of Biodiversity blog! 🙂
So that’s it for now. I’ve got a lot of backlog to clear, but will be traveling soon, so probably will pre-write the posts to be published once in a while when I’m overseas.
Nature rambles. 