Happy New Year 2009

Dearest Volunteers,

Thank you very much for a wonderful year of volunteering in 2008. Some activities we did in 2008 include Esplanade outing, our first Movie-Outing, ESN carnival, volunteers recruitment, volunteer trainings and setting up new committee members.

We have a few new faces among the residents and we also have some residents that have passed on. We will definitely miss them but at least we have been there with them on all those Saturdays and those happy memories will remain with us.

In 2008, we have new volunteers that have joined us as regular and ad-hoc volunteers. Thank you very much for participating in our weekly activities and special events. Hope to see you all again in 2009, where we will continue to serve, bring more fun and joy to our residents.

I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year and may 2009 be filled with Good Health, Happiness and Joy!

Cheers,
Carolyn

Sounds Easy on 27 Dec 08

Last Saturday, the residents were treated to fantastic performances by a-cappella group - Sounds Easy.

Performancers from Sounds Easy - Haoren, Yanxing, Phil, Claire, Jeslyn and June

Group photo time

Thank you very much to Sounds Easy for entertaining the residents for 1.5 hours with your wonderful performances.

X'mas Gathering 21st Dec 08

An enjoyable gathering at my place... hope everyone had great fun with Wii sports tennis, bowling, boxing, Wii Fit etc

and we had plenty of good X'mas food and drinks...

Eric and Weizhong in action with Wii boxing...

X'mas Celebration 20th Dec 08

What a wonderful saturday to enjoy X'mas with the residents and staff of All Saints Home - Tampines... It's always full of Joy and Fun being ASH Volunteers. Our well decorated Christmas Tree

Prayer by Chaplain Wong and Susan
Sing Along Session led by All Saints staff

Christmas Message by Rev Lau

Giving out goodies by Santa Claus

Hip Hop dance performance by Hougang staff
Happy faces of our volunteers

Peformance by Bauhinia Baptist Church
Myanmar New Year dance by Hougang staff

Game - Guess where is the santa claus, candy bar, x'mas tree and snow man??
Santa Claus in 1, 2,3 or 4? Make a guess

Huarry, I won a prize by guessing right

Christmas Carols..

Great singing by the choir group

Performance by our long serving volunteer

Myanmar dance - Unit is Strength
Very nice performance showing the Myanmar culture "Cheers"

Dinner time - our volunteers enjoying the food

Santa Claus is coming to town! And we're gonna paRRrr-day now!

Friends, helpers, volunteers lend me your ears! Just in case you did not receive the flood of emails that were circulated, here is an instant update on what we will be up to over at ASH this weekend. We're finally celebrating Xmas at ASH with the elderly this Saturday and will be having a pot-luck lunch over at Edmund's place on Sunday. The details for these 2 events are as follow:

ASH Xmas celebration
Date: 20-12-08
Time: 1430 hours (the event starts from 4 to 6 pm, but we will be coming to the home earlier to prepare for this event)
Venue: ASH (Tampines) of course
POC: Xing

Pot-luck lunch
Date: 21-12-08
Time: 1330 hours
Venue: Edmund's place (more details are available from the POC)
POC: Jiahao or Sook Ying (aka welfare committee)

Now that you've got the time and place to these 2 events, look forward to seeing you this weekend at ASH to celebrate this joyous festivity (if albeit an early one) with the elderly! Opps, I almost forgot. In the words of Jiahao, "Let's PaRRrr-day!" on Sunday.

Cheers,
WZ

Prelude to Xmas: Santa Vista

I'm pretty sure that 'Santa' had visited All Saints Home for the previous Christmas celebrations, but last saturday, the real deal appeared right before everyone. The Santa Claus who decided to make an early appearance to the folks at ASH was none other than Benny's son in law Danny (I'm not sure I got his name right, so I beg your pardon if I got it wrong). At first, I wasn't quite sure what Benny meant when he told me that Danny will be singing Christmas carols as Santa and decided to continue with preparation works for the Christmas celebration. A couple of minutes later, before we started to make our usual rounds to the wards and sing carols to the elderly, a Santa Claus had trotted down the hallway armed with the sleekest looking guitar to rendezvous with us.

At this juncture, apart from stopping myself from marveling out loud, I was filled with admiration for Danny's superhuman endurance and dedication. In case you forgot, last saturday was quite possibly the hottest and most humid day of this year. Draped in nothing more than a tee-shirt and berms, I was already perspiring under the sweltering heat. The wretched weather's effect on Danny under that thick Santa Claus garb must have been unspeakably worse.


Danny (before donning on Santa's garb)


Ta dah!! Santa Claus has come to ASH, armed with a guitar no less. But where's that bag full of gifts?

And so began our Christmas carols with Santa Claus leading the pack with his booming vocal. At the narrow hallways along the ward, I was starting to feel the full impact of the unbearable heat and stifling humidity. All these was nothing in comparison to what Danny must be going through under that thick garment. Suddenly, I was even more impressed. Despite the weather and belting out at least 5 or 6 songs at every ward, Danny's voice never once wavered during the caroling. I also managed to uncover another stunning revelation: Anita's a great singer. She managed to hit all the high notes that were previously thought to be impossible (perhaps only Eunice can rival Anita's vocal prowess, lol).





Caroling with Santa and a pleasant surprise for the elderly at the wards.


And of course, we did not let slip the opportunity of taking a group photo with Santa.

At the end of all the caroling, my throat was incredibly dry and starting to get hoarse. But it was something I would do again. How often do you get to sing Christmas carols with Santa Claus? Santa did not complain against the wretched weather, instead he heralded forth Christmas spirit to this part of our sunny island all the way from the North pole. That alone is a compelling reason enough to make me believe in Santa. Already, I cannot wait for Christmas to come.

Wishing Everyone in All Saints Home - Happiness and Merry X'mas!

Dear all volunteers, staff and residents of All Saints Home,
Merry X'mas and Best Wishes for the coming year 2009.

To: Volunteers (either newly joined or seniors), Especially to those in the committee,
Thank you for all the graceful effort in bringing care, happiness and joy to the residents of ASH for the year of 2008.
For the new year 2009, please think over...
1) What it meant to you, being a volunteer of All Saints Home?
2) Which activity/event you like best in 2008, and we want to do in 2009?
3) Any suggestion or new idea for Elderly activity, Welfare or recruitment/orientation?

Quote:
Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within. It is not what we see and touch or that which others do for us which makes us happy; it is that which we think and feel and do, first for the other fellow and then for ourselves.

Enjoy this meaningful video clip : http://www.simpletruths.tv/movies.php?movie=TPOA

Cheerio,
Edmund

ESN Carnival Photos

We WON the ESN Carnival poster design competition! A Big THANK YOU to Weizhong and Czek Xing for hard work as well as to all the volunteers that have contributed their ideas and views.






Auntie trying her luck at Wheel of Fortune game




Smash Can time

ESN Carnival

Dearest Readers,

the mooncake festival last saturday was a smashing success, with the volunteers and elderly alike enjoying themselves throughout the entire event. As this celebration comes to a close, All Saints Home will be participating in a carnival organized by the Elderly Sector Network, ESN. Held on the 27th of September, this carnival will be bringing together the different volunteer groups under the umbrella of ESN. At the same time, the beneficiaries from these groups will be spending their time at the game stalls, food and beverage stands, fostering closer ties between them and the volunteers in the process.

A meaningful and large scale event, it is organized once a year for both volunteers and their beneficiaries. The details for this event is as follows:

Date: 27th September 2008
Venue: Yishun Junior College
Time: 1330 to 1630

All Saints Home will be bringing a total of 15 elderly to the carnival and this requires a volunteer size of at least the same number. However, we have yet to come up with sufficient volunteers for this event and would be pleased if you could show your interest by volunteering to keep the elderly company at the carnival. We will be meeting up at 1230 at All Saints Home on the 27th of September to assist the elderly onto the buses bringing them to the carnival. Should you be interested in joining us, do not hesitate to contact Carolyn, me, Xing or Jiahao. For this event, Jiahao will be consolidating the names of the volunteers and take charge in assigning volunteers to assist each individual elderly.

Cheers,
Weizhong

Mooncake Festival Celebration 13 Sept 08

Thanks to all the volunteers who had organised and attended the Mooncake Festival Celebration for our Tampines residents... What a wonderful and fulfilled saturday!

Still remember back in 17th Sept 2005, Mooncake aka Mid Autumn festival celebration was our very 1st event our ASH volunteers brought to our "Ah kong and Ah mah" and we had done our 4th Mid Autumn in 2008.

We started at 1pm to prepare the mooncake, yam cake and pomelo into 150 plates for our uncles and aunts of ASH.

Weizhong and Benny-Our MC for the event.

After enjoying the delicacy, the 1st performance was the Chinese Dance by Linh. Nice solo dancing.

Followed by the most fun game-Guess who is the volunteer in this Baby photo... Many correct guess, which show that our residents had known our regular volunteers well. We are like their grandsons and grand-daughters, that's why they recognise us.. hee ;)

Kee Teck giving out prize to one of our favourite uncle...

The next Game is - Guess what is in the Bag? Jia Hao carrying the bag around for excited aunt.Trang, Thu and An performing Malay dance, Watch the steps...

Our final game was passing the lantern and our old folks have to say something related to Mid Autumn festival.

Then came the joyful singing by Praise Team volunteers... Great! Thanks to all 19 sec 3 students of Class 3A of Dunman Sec School. Your 3 hours with us meant alot to the old folks and our volunteers, hope to see you again.