To attract more young adults to be involved in the RC, the image of the RC has to be changed to a more modern one and painting of murals to uplift the mood of RC. From there, RC can hold open house and invite younger residents to view their activities. Some activities can include golf enthusiasts club or games club.
RC do have good events from time to time, but unfortunately many are not made known to such events. I would suggest that the publication like eg. "Cohesion" and other related publication instead of focusing so much on past events, instead they should have a consolidation or highlight the upcoming events from various divisions and RCs. Yes we do have an www portal, but since there is already the publication, make full use of it.
I saw the latest issue of Cohesion, front & back shows elderly folks wearing brisk walking t-shirt doing warm up exercises. As a young adult, it doesn't attract me one bit. Maybe will attract my retired parents. Really needs major rebranding.
What sort of activities will attract young adult? Maybe movies & picnic under the stars?
It all depends on your RC, but in Punggol, the RC organises interesting activities like Lantern Festival with BBQ and Kite Flying which attracts the families with children.
All the ideas mentioned above about newsletters and stuff, if you look around the dustbins near the letterboxes, most of them are in it.
Keep in mind that the Resident committee are made up of people who are working adults like us and they are only doing this part-time.
Question here is to create activities that are long lasting and promotes community spirit/fellowships among neighbours. Take for example, instead of focusing on the whole neighbourhood, focus on one block and start from there. A block party or something which the main objective is to create togetherness and "break the ice" between neighbours. if this starts off well, then maybe the block members may even take over and organised activities among themselves monthly. it can even be the children's brithday parties. From there, some community bonding is built up as well as maybe even crime watch community.
Kite Flying and Lantern festival with BBQ sounds like fun. Maybe should consider shifting to Punggol haha.
Yes I know RCs and other grassroots organisations (GROs) are mostly run by volunteers. They key is finding the right activities to attract younger folks. Over in my estate, they are very keen to promote brisk walking. If they do a simple survey, they'll realise that it is not an activity that attracts alot of people, who wakes up at 7am on Sunday morning to do brisk walking? Retirees and elderlys. Younger folks head to the downtown gyms if they want to jog.
The RCs and GROs should be focusing on activities that people WANT to participate rather than organise activities and waste time & money giving freebies and free breakfast to PERSUADE people to participate in their activities.
This probably because most RCs are made up of member age 35 and above.Hence,when there is no members from the youth portion,activities held by rc would be more focus on those above 35.
recruitment of youth into rc takes time.
probably,what grassroots can do now is possibly request at least 1 yec member of their division to be attached to their rc.
so that these yec member can inject ideas and run activities that can attract the youth.
Sutradara, I think more than 1 YEC member is needed to effect any change in the RC. I queried and found out there is around 22 RC members in each RC. Perhaps a better solution would be for at least the same amount of YEC members to work with the RC (maybe rotate around the RCs) to collaborate and run activities together. That might inject some fresh ideas.
Coz so far in my estate, seems like all the activities are usually temple visits, factory tours, 1 day tour to some M'sia destination and the likes. eh, boring leh... hmmm.. I don't recall seeing any YECs activities being advertised though.
mine too lolx..but fortunately the yec in my area could advertise their activities..if i am not wrong,in active RCs area,publicity of RCs Activities, in the estates notice boards,would take first priority..right??
a collaboration project between RC and YEC is a good idea.i think some YEC have started doing so..but it takes two individuals to tango :D..one on another not,also problem.
I'm not too certain what's the guidelines to advertise RC activities, hehe, I'm not in RC or YEC BTW. But got friends in them. This kind of collaboration needs some pushing from the top down, maybe the MP in that area. Else there's no "incentive" for the YEC and RCs to collaborate. Every committee is always more interested to to run their own activities. So when they have their monthly meeting, something to report on mah.
For the benefit of confused viewers, RC = Resident committee, YEC = Youth Executive committee.
I would like to point out that grassroots leaders are VOLUNTEERS. They are not paid to help. They should be given a big THANK YOU from the community for all their hard work. If people feel there should be something different in the events or the activities, then they should come forward and volunteer to help. So many residents want so much and it is very hard to please everybody. The RC do a great job in hosting events in their estates and they hold many different events for all ages. Perhaps a senior citizen may not be interested in a hip hop dance, perhaps a teenager may not be interested in brisk walking. There are many events within the division that are of interest to all residents. If Junia and others have suggestions on events or activities, then please join as a volunteer. We need many people to come forward and give a helping hand.
Hey A relax, don't need to get so defensive. Don't presume that others including myself commenting on this forum is not already volunteering at some organisations or in some capacity. Surely you cannot deny that there are more creative ways of hosting community events.
From your postings, you are obviously very involved in grassroot activities. So maybe it's right that we feedback to you and you bring the feedback to your RC committe etc. To consider running activities that will attract the mid 20s to late 30s. Currrently most activities are either targeted at the youths or the elderly.
The govt trying to attract this age group to be more involved in politics right? (I do read the papers). Doesn't most potential community leaders/MPs etc come from grassroot leaders? Doesn't grassroot committes recruit volunteers from participants from these events? So more activites should be targeted at this group
Chill A.we are only giving suggestion on how RC could reinvent itself.the main purpose of rc is to engage residents.currently what we observe is that most rc activities tend to focus on one segment of society and neglecting the other.e.g one rc can be too youth centric where another senior centric.hence,we proposed for a well balance of activities that targets all the segments of society.
we are not asking for activities that requires alot of manpower, just a simple one will do. e.g knitting class for mothers,motivational talk for students etc.
yes,there are activities that are done in the division level by the sub-coms to cater to the different interest of the residents.however,these activities are normally done at cc or at places that is not within the reach of residents.isn't it better if r.c organise more of these interest based activities in their rc centre or within the precinct..where it is nearer and convenient for residents.
If you want something to work - more events, more young people joining, more fun events for the youth, etc....
Don't just talk, complain, etc..
Just Do it - Come up with plans, proposal and timeline for your plans, organise groups/ committee to join you in your quest to make it work. Submit your plans/ proposal to the relevant people (RC/CC) involved.
I find this new portal is much better than the www.grassrootsconnect.org.sg At least you can air your views freely unlike the PA one when i post certain issues it was not published. Guess they are not 100% transparent.
I agree with some of you here. We must improve the mode of communication with the residents. The existing mode does not help much anymore. (Notice Board) As time goes by Lift Upgrading etc....some new lift area does not fit any notice board lei.
For the NEW generation I guess they use alot of internet. Hence examples of the various GRO here are good examples of publicising their events.
When is each RC or Constituency be starting to create a database on their own sending SMS or emails on their happening in their CC? Personally i find the marketing part from SAFRA are quite a good one. PA should consider doing collate data from the passion card they have and notify residents of the activities they have.
So far i notice, some constituency day in day out doing the same event.....For eg. Every year sure have National Day celebration,
New Year Celebration, Mooncake festivals etc... Have they really move out of the box? Like organizing things that youth enjoy.
How about trying this......FASTEST SMS Contest (Young /Old category all can participate)
or Do some Networking activities among residents. Who know your neighbours could be your supplier or buyers...
Invite your cleaners of your block (Town Council officials) to participate in your Party. So as to have good PR with them. After all they helped us to clean our corridors.
Create a forum within the Constituency so as the residents can feedback and share their experiences within their zone.
