Retreat, Celebration and Farewell

It's timely for a mini-celebration with my RAs as we accomplished milestones within two of my projects - completion of data collection and completion of preliminary data analysis. 
I booked the four of us for a soap-making workshop at Soap Ministry. It is nice to be away from the office for a while and it is great for team-building and bonding as well, not that we need it much lol. 

All excited to start our soap making!

Hard at work trying to blend two essential oils

Going nuts blending scents

Cheryl pouring her soap mixture into the molds

A wefie while waiting for the soaps to harden

Our own customised soaps

We had lots of fun at the soap-making workshop. It was "difficult" too as we had to make decisions on what herb, what essential oil and what molds to use. We asked plenty of questions and we learnt lots too about the different herbs and essential oils and their benefits.
Besides it being a celebration of hard work, it is also a celebration of friendship and farewell lunch for Cheryl. We had it at our favourite Swensens.

Our favourite Earthquake sundae! 

Thank you, Cheryl for being part of our team. It has been a blast and we welcome you back anytime! We wish you all the best. Keep in touch! :)

Ideas for Retreat Activity

I am thinking of having a retreat for my research teams during the lull period of our research. I thought it would be fun to just get together for some fun and relaxation and away from the office. Wondering what to do...
Escape room game?
Cooking class?
Art jamming session?
Soap making workshop?
Pottery class?
Terrarium workshop?
Cafe hopping?

3-Day Retreat

Today is the 2nd day of a 3-day retreat. It has been quite gruelling mentally. But sugar never fails to pick me up. :)

Research Retreat

My workplace had a research retreat, 8:30am - 5:30pm today. Although it was a full day, it was not tiring at all. I found the retreat really productive and fruitful as it cleared doubts and answered questions as well as allowing colleagues to work together. :)

Retreat 2014

Our organisation had a whole day planning retreat at The Elizabeth Hotel. For the first time, I am a member of the retreat committee. There were lots of planning involved in the days leading up to the retreat which happened to coincide with my pilot study data collection this week and there were lots of prep work for the pilot study too. You can imagine how flat out I was. Thank goodness my fellow committee members were understanding. :)
I was the facilitator and presenter for one of the break-out sessions as well as the photographer for the retreat. It was a fun experience. I enjoyed today's retreat as I felt that our retreat objectives were achieved and it has been a productive day. :) 

Me hard at work lol

Lunch at Modesto's

Option of Main Course: Penne Alfredo

Option of Main Course: Seafood Fried Rice

A group photo to remember this retreat :)

Academic Retreat

We had our 2nd Academic Retreat today. Instead of going out, we had our retreat in-house. But we booked a room from another department for our whole day retreat of presentations, sharings and discussions.The quality of presentations, sharings and discussions remained high but the quality of interpersonal interactions suffered because of the close proximity to our workplace. During lunchtime, instead of interacting with one another, quite a few colleagues skipped back to their offices to check emails and to do a bit of work. As a result, I missed out on interacting with some of them. :(

Retreat at Hard Rock Hotel

Our department had our retreat at Hard Rock Hotel today. It would be work in the first half of the day, followed by lunch and end with a visit to the S.E.A. Aquarium in the afternoon.
The retreat started close to 9.45am and it was a flurry of ice-breaking activities, aimed at giving us the opportunities to bond together as well as providing us with learning opportunities. Kudos to the organising committee that they achieved both of those aims. :)
I particularly loved the activity whereby we, as a group had to put together a puzzle. Apparently there was different conditions for each of the four groups and we were all blind to them. Should have known! What do you expect when a group of researchers get together to come up with activities?! Haha. For our group, we were given the complete set of jigsaw puzzle pieces but with no picture of the jigsaw so that meant we had no overview or big picture to go on. We immediately organised ourselves and started division of labour, picking out different pieces and placing them together by colour and by the edge. Some of us started putting the pieces together as we recognised the characters in the puzzle. There was not much talking but when we did, it was trying to problem-solving. We were so focussed on solving the puzzle that we even forgo our break lol. Through our perseverance, we completed the puzzle! :)

Our completed puzzle! :)

At 11am, the more serious work started. There were some presentations and thought-provoking discussions. All too soon, we had to end our discussions as we ran out of time. We adjourned to Starz Restaurant for our buffet lunch at 1.30pm. We almost had the whole restaurant to ourselves as the lunch crowd had left. :) The food was pretty good. I particularly love the cold dishes and the desserts. :)
By the time we were done with lunch, it was 3pm. We slowly made our way to the S.E.A. Aquarium where we took more group photos. As I was feeling pretty tired after an eventful day and it was close to 4pm, I decided to call it a day. I decided to save my S.E.A. Aquarium ticket for another day as it is valid for 180 days. I can spend more quality time at the aquarium next time. 
I thought the retreat was well-organised and wonderful. I was a little apprehensive that it would be all work and no play. How wrong this Wong is lol. :P It turned out both fun and educational. I also got to know a few more colleagues better too. :)

A colleague took this photo. I can be a watch model if I am out of a job haha.

Project Retreat

One of the projects that I am involved in had a retreat out of campus at the Bukit Batok Civil Service Club. It was a good change of environment for everyone to have discussions about the plans for the project. :) Buffet breakfast and lunch were provided. As I had my breakfast, I only took the lunch.

After the lunch, it was optional recreational activities, either bowling or spa treatment at the club. As my toe was still recovering, I decided to skip the recreational activities and headed home. I took a lift from a colleague home. On the way back, I complained about my stomach feeling queasy. Maybe I overdid the rice and potato. I have been on a low carb diet for quite some time now, thus, the discomfort perhaps. Hope it settles soon.

Retreat

My centre had a whole day retreat today. It was business before pleasure. We had group discussions in the morning, followed by poster session and presentations and finally, the team-building games in the afternoon lol. There was lunch and tea breaks at the appropriate times, of course. :) In between, there were three lucky draws. Luck was with me and I won a prize in the first draw haha. A water jug with glasses, very practical. :)

The serious business was fruitful, especially the poster session. I learnt a lot about the other projects. :) For the pleasure, I never expected to have so much fun playing the games. My team was the overall winner in the games lol.

PS. I realised I have a competitive streak in me and I don't like to lose. I was all out to win in the games lol. :P

Retreat at Jurong Bird Park

Today, I had my centre's retreat at the Jurong Bird Park. It has been ages since I went to the Bird Park so I was looking forward to the retreat, for once. Actually, most of us were as I discovered I was NOT the only one armed with a camera at the retreat.

Our retreat was at The Lakeview Room which faces the Flamingo Lake. We had a very nice view of the flamingoes at the lake. However, I think it were the flamingoes which were enjoying watching us - this bunch of people who were supposed to be listening with rapt attention to the presentations but some were dozing, some were doddling and some were sms-ing. Hahaha. We had presentations in the morning. We were given a lunch break of 1hr 15mins. We had buffet lunch and each of us were also given a free complimentary panorail ride ticket.

My group of friends (C, KM, BR, E, and a few others) had our lunch quickly and we set off on the panorail ride. While on the ride, we really behaved like tourists! We all had our cameras out, snapping photos here and there, exclaiming excitedly at the lovely birds that we saw on the way, such as scarlet ibises, crowned pigeons, pelicans, and flamingoes. We gave the Lory station a miss and went straight to the Waterfall station as we didn't have enough time. We had a walkabout at the Waterfall Aviary. It was really nice to see the birds flying around and the tallest man-made waterfall. We had several group photos at the waterfall. We were a lucky bunch too as we got back on the ride, it started raining. When we arrived back at the Main station, we saw more of our colleagues going off on their rides and it was almost time to return to the retreat. So we decided to take one more last photo shoot with the Caribbean Flamingoes, those really bright orangy-pink ones or is it pinky-red or.... never mind, it is just a nice bright colour which looks really nice in photos. Hahaha. Oh, I also made a trip to the sourvenir shop to get something little for the girls. Yes, I know. My friends were rolling their eyes and laughing at me. Well, since already behaved like a tourist, so what's one more behaviour of tourist - shopping for souvenirs.

In the afternoon, we had group discussions and sharings. It was actually not as bad as I thought and quite enjoyable. The retreat ended right on time at 5pm. Before we left the Bird Park, we went to one last place.
We went to see the penguins at the Penguin Parade. We were behaving like little kids, "oh"-ing and "ah"-ing at the penguins "flying" through the water. Again, cameras were out in full force for the photos and videos. I don't think you will see a more touristsy bunch of "tourists" than us. =)

Overall, it has been a very enjoyable day, the first ever for the centre's retreat. I think what made it so enjoyable was that we had time to bond with our colleagues, not at the presentations and sharings but actually at the ride, the walk-about, etc. It was during those times that we got to know each other better as we were all relaxed. I think the centre should have future retreats at tourists' attractions. SO where next - Zoo? Chinese Garden? Sentosa? Haw Par Villa? Museum? Centre, please kindly CONSIDER?!