VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE
#buysinglit2020 - Marina Bay Literary Walking Tour (Social Media Assistant)
March 2020
As a social media assistant, I followed the tour (consisting of attendees, guides and facilitators) around the Marina Bay area, documenting the tour to be posted on the official #buysinglit Instagram page in a story format. I gained a better understanding on how social media requires a certain style, what kind of photos should be posted on an organisation's social media, and how the presentation of an organisation's social media can be affected by anything uploaded. Through this experience, I learnt more about social media management and social media presentation.
Oh' Verve Drive 2019
July 2019
As a volunteer for Oh' Verve Drive 2019, I assisted the organising team with sales and promotions of items in order to raise funds for Verve, a community arts festival. I handled transactions between the fundraiser and customers, and offered aid to customers whenever I could. Being one of the first people to engage with customers taught me how to interact with them and collect feedback and suggestions that have since helped me in event planning. It was eye-opening as well, as at one point the organising team had to leave and the fundraiser was being run by another volunteer and myself. We had to quickly adapt to the situation and handle any problems that cropped up by ourselves, and we successfully managed to run sales while the organising team was unavailable.
Verve 2019
Dec 2019
As a volunteer for Verve 2019, I assisted in facilitating a paper marbling workshop that was part of Verve's programme line up. This was quite a popular programme and had a number of visitors. I assisted by guiding participants with the marbling process and then handling the marbling itself. As the programme involved constructing a notebook out of their marbled paper, there was a lot of organisation involved - keeping track of where each artwork was and who it belonged to as it dried, the division of paper and construction of notebook. We interacted a lot with different members of the community to provide a positive experience of community arts for our attendees. Through this experience, I honed my interpersonal skills, communication skills and organisation skills.
Pang!demonium's This Is What Happens To Pretty Girls (Usher)
May 2019
As an usher for this show, we had a few tasks that mainly involved guiding people to the right entrances to the theatre based on their seat number. We also walked around promoting the show's programming booklets and collecting donations for Pang!demonium. This required me to step out of my comfort zone and do things such as approaching strangers in order to promote the booklet to them and ask them for donations, or a post-show survey.
I was also involved in their gala opening, where we helped to set up the space for the gala, and cleared glasses and helped the Pang!demonium team in any way they needed, on top of our previous duties. This volunteer experience taught me a lot about volunteer management as well that I look forward to using in the future.
Very Special Arts' Peter and The Wolf (Usher)
May 2019
As an usher for this show, we ushered people to their seats inside the theatre, and it was a production that felt more intimate as well as one that placed an emphasis on inclusivity as well. Volunteers were given more freedom and treated with a lot more freedom, and it also allowed me to understand even more styles of volunteer management.
We were also exposed to interacting with more areas of the community that we might normally not have the opportunity to connect with. It was a very fulfilling experience and they briefed us on what we could do in various situations, which can definitely be carried over for future use. It was a good experience in getting to engage with more people from the wide community spectrum, something that will certainly help with future community arts engagements.
GALLERY
Volunteer Program at the Science Centre
June 2016 - June 2017
I volunteered for the Science Centre when I was in secondary school out of my own accord. It was an experience that allowed me to work with a high number of visitors from all walks of life. As a volunteer, I would set up mini activity stations for people to stop at after an exhibition to try for fun. It involved things like facilitating origami sessions and colouring, hence it was also something a lot of parents liked to let their young children try. It was during my time at the Science Centre that I got to try facilitating activities for young children for the first time. It was interesting experience and taught me a lot about working with children. It was certainly heartwarming to see them eager to learn, but it does require a certain level of gentleness and patience which I hope to translate over to community arts.
I got to interact with a wider range of demographics at the Observatory, which I also volunteered at. I facilitated similar activities to the ones at the Science Centre, but this time people of all ages would participate. I got to learn how different people react differently to the same things and it helped me to hone my people skills as well and be aware of how people of different ages might prefer to be treated. I also helped them with counting the number of participants for certain programmes at registration. It was my first experience with customer service as well.