Therapy Focus Part 3

Like promised, Part Three is going to be about our Garden Party to mark the end of our Symphony of Sunflowers campaign.

The Symphony of Sunflowers was officially launced at the Government House on the 3rd of December 2009 to coincide with the International Day of People with Disability. Since then, the Symphony of Sunflowers (SOS) has been going on annually to encourage the community and corporate partners to help brighten the lives of children with disabilities.

The SOS campaign runs throughout summer with seedkits placed at Waldecks made available for purchase at $6.95 each. Inside the seed kit are SOS merchandises such as fridge magnets, bookmarks, lapel pins and a donation book - and of course a sunflower seed. Through purchasing seed kits, the community helps as all profits go to our Help A Child Grow Fund.

The Friday before the long Easter weekend (and week!), Therapy Focus threw a Garden Party to mark the end of our Symphony of Sunflowers campaign and to thank our corporate sponsors and others involved in making the campaign a huge success. After a few discussion session, we finalized the venue and with a few phone calls we made a booking at the Vientam Memorial Pavillion in Kings Park.

As part of the planning, I was asked to contact audio visual companies in Perth who would be willing to give us the best quotation for our AV Equipment for the day. After a few days, I received the best quote from Matrix Productions (highly recommended if you're in Perth and organizing an event that would need AV equipments, they're very professional and extremely nice as well). Two days before the event, I was in office preparing 50 media showbags to be given out to those present.

Our roles during the event was to be in charge of the food and beverage. Easy, we thought! But it did get a little tricky when we arrived at Kings Park only to realize we forgot to pack the tea & coffee to be made and left out packing icebuckets to chill our soft drinks. So, with teacups on one side, melting ice on the other and one very stressed out supervisor, Megan & I decided to take things into our hands. We sorted out the coffee chaos by getting our lovely Admin staff to bring some on the way and used boxes that we brought stuff in as our icebuckets, we now had to start on the Fruit Platter and get the Sausage Sizzle going. Fruit Ninja time! (For those who are a little confused, Fruit Ninja is a game on Iphone that you slash fruits and gain points with - very addictive I suggest you not download it!). This was a whole new experience for me, because at the risk of sounding completely spoilt and pampered - it was the first time I ever chopped up a pineapple and ate a slice of kiwi (I'm highly allergic to certain fruits and had never had kiwi with the fear that I may be allergic to it, but I took the risk only because I had my antihestimine pills on me!). Yes, you're all probably having a good laugh now, just as how Megan was in utter shock that I had never tasted a kiwi or sliced a pineapple in my life. And like Megan had put it in her blog, knowing that we had a time frame to slice up and prepare 4 huge fruit platters and get the BBQ going, it was indeed like being on the set of Master Chef.

Three hours later, we were packing up and the thought of the event flowing so well with no major problems, just little hiccups here and there - it was insanely rewarding. I've managed and organized countless number of events in my life, and I have to say that the feeling of content once the event is over - definitely over the moon.

This event thought me to always have a Plan B, to never freak out and panic when something goes wrong. The key to handling a crisis that pops up : STAY CALM.

Till my next blogpost, have a wonderful day! :)