I had an event which was supposed to happen on the 14th of September 2019. It is organized by my school batch alumni (Batch 2000). Unfortunately, it had to be cancelled which was something I did not expect. I thought the worst that could happen was for people not to show up after they register. A late start mayeb. Or that I would mess up with the event/booth booking or something. Perhaps I was too naive to think that,
‘aktiviti persatuan.. takkanlah boleh cancel…’
‘surely by hook or by crook, the event will still have to be up and running’
It took a while to kickstart the planning for the project.
Hence, I took the onus of searching for an event space outside Melaka because most of my batch mates live near the area of Kuala Lumpur and Selangor. As someone who is not well versed to the area in these states, most of my research is thus online. But since no one wanted to do it, I thought I’d volunteer even though it was a bit difficult on my part when it comes to scouting the area and such.
I was then on a series of communication frenzy on whatsapp and email with many different people outside of the medical field. I was learning many new things – procedures, figures of speech and interesting terms related to these events. It’s a mix of party, soul searching and networking. I was on an adrenaline high and super excited to make things work despite minimal evident support from most fellow members of the group. I confided in myself saying that “.. they are busy, they will make their contribution later”
In less than a week, I managed to secure an event space and a prominent speaker. An instafamous speaker who does Quran tagging and such. Everything was presented to the Top Committee and since no negative feedback was received, I thought everything was going very well and wanted to give an extra token of friendship for my friends who will be attending the event. I hunted for items suitable as door gifts with a reasonable price tag. I feel it would serve as a good form of sedekah as well.
I also decided to go a bit extra in terms of decorating the place and setting the mood hence bought miscellaneous decor items and fragrance sachets from Kaison. I was that excited.
The time finally came to start promoting the event. We were not pulling the crowd that we hoped for and everyone was worried. Perhaps it was the long holidays but it was already the final weekend of the consecutive 3. Surely, you would want to just stay in KL, right?
But we were wrong and suddenly all the previously dormant members of the group woke up and begin asking questions and making changes to the plan. Suddenly everyone has a suggestion and a quotation of some sort. Was I frustated? DEFINITELY. Bitter? Unfortunately, like any other human being, I was. In fact, on the verge of being pissed off for not recognizing the warning signs of this possibility to occur. Some of these red flags include;
- less than 50% of support within the same cluster of people. If you have 10 people in the group and only 3 people are committed and on board, you might want to reconsider your project. It will be a waste of time.
- the top committee are not checking with you from time to time regarding the project. This of course can be a two prong interpretation of such action. It’s either they have full trust in you and your team or simply not paying attention
- members of the top committee not planning to attend the event or substitute with someone of the same management hierarchy. For instance, if the president cannot attend – the vice president should fill in the shoes. If not, the secretary. What should not happen is the head of a biro who leads the programme and also fills in the shoes as the VIP. That my friends, is a syok sendiri programme.
- More than 2 person in the group starts assuming multiple roles in the programme. For instance, a runner is also the MC, the usher and manning the registration.
The above is of course just my mere observation. So once the event got cancelled, I had two options on how to respond;
- Remain bitter and just refuse to participate in any form of fundraising activities until the big reunion is over.
- Conduct a self postmortem, reflect on the situation and learn from it. Hopefully not repeating the mistakes in the future.
I chose the latter choice but it undeniably took me quite a while to work out my emotions. I felt betrayed. Angry. However since I have a lot of responsibilities and projects to shoulder in September, I must move on so that I could concentrate on those tasks.
MY COPING STRATEGIES
- I distanced myself from social media for a while – just so I won’t vent on bitch mode. Now that I’m calmer, I could blog about it in a hopefully more sensible mode. Did you guys think I manage the wrath well or I can do better? ha ha
- Writing in my HoboMinci feels good and that was exactly what I did
- I utilized my doterra oils by diffusing calming blends and apply it topically.
- I also bluntly expressed my frustration to those who were concerned, just so they know I have feelings and hopefully would not take my (future) efforts for granted.
- I made dua to Allah that He would protect me from ill feelings and thoughts. I feel religion in a way helps me to nurture Sabar and accept Qada’ and Qadar. I like to believe that whatever He decides to take away, He will replace with something better and whatever that is happening now is the best for me. InsyaAllah..
As for the gifts I intended to give my friends, I will keep hold of them. I am sure Allah has plans for them. Perhaps to give to those more deserving. I don’t know. InsyaAllah.
Minci Moss 