Author: CheckW

It looks like the 2+ years of Covid is finally over. S’pore is open for business as usual and ramping up aggressively.

The annual F1 night race happened last weekend with the largest crowd ever. There were about 302,000 who attended, making it the biggest turnout ever in its history. 49% were overseas visitors. Just before the weekend, 30+ MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Exhibitions) events were held to take advantage of the F1 races.

There was so much pent-up demand for travelling to S’pore that hotel prices shot up to pre-Covid levels. One visitor even provided the cost breakdown of his one-week stay here. It was USD$30k and consisted of hotel accommodation, F1 tickets and Michelin-star restaurant meals.

It was inevitable that a Covid surge would happen after the event but that was a calculated risk the authorities took as being acceptable. It shows to the world that S’pore is open for business and we are back to normal now. A relaxation of restrictions was also announced today with a vaccine booster strategic plan going forward.

We see the same actions happening everywhere around the world except for China. Even HK is targeting to stop quarantines for overseas travellers soon. Japan is on target to welcome tourists for its winter season. Covid is totally behind us now.

The virus has mutated from a deadly version like all other viruses into a less severe version in order to stay alive and not kill the host. Just like the common flu, there will be constant mutations which will require optional flu shots periodically. Even the newer Omicron mutations are getting milder and probably 60-70% of the population had already contracted the virus at least once to gain antibodies against future strains.

We are back to concentrating on other events that are of concern to us again. There are a lot of event risks happening into the year-end which is still causing high volatility in the markets. I will highlight the top 3 below and the likely scenarios to be played out.

The elephant in the room is the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. It has resulted in multiple secondary effects on the world economy with its many moving variables. The outcome is mostly uncertain but we can clearly still see ahead that Europe is heading into a miserable winter with possible gas shortages if winter proves to be colder than expected, thanks to climate change.

While European countries are trying to stock up supplies ahead of the winter, they are also looking to other sources of energy like coal and nuclear power plants which they have been trying to limit and reduce in recent years. The new UK government is also proposing a household cap on energy costs for 2 years while Germany had taken over some Russian assets within its borders.

The recent mysterious explosions at the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea in late Sep also add to the problem. All fingers point to Russia for the sabotage but some conspiracy theories blame it on US covert ops. They think the US wanted to ensure that the European countries do not have the option to blink under pressure to negotiate with Russia later.

Oil and gas prices should remain firm to higher, no thanks to OPEC’s announced cut in production at these critical times. Europe will be in for a rough ride into Dec/Jan. It will only subside if the Russian/Ukraine war ends. But things are getting worse for Putin and he threatened the nuclear option. This limited nuclear response has further heightened the tension for everyone.

The next event risk is the US mid-term elections which are about a month away. Initially, the Republicans seemed to have the upper hand. But they managed to shoot themselves in the foot with the overturning of Roe vs Wade plus a lineup of incompetent candidates that lie like the orange one.

It will be a close call here according to the polls. But I think the Democrats should maintain their majority given the anger of the majority with the actions of the GOP recently. With a 06 Jan hearing this Thurs, we will see more of the Trump shenanigans than happened on that fateful day.

Finally, the last event risk is from China. Come 16 Oct, the meeting will begin where Xi is likely to be re-elected for his 3rd term. Hopefully, once that is over, China will return to its pragmatic ways to review the economy and allow tough Covid restrictions to ease.

This could spur its domestic economy to rev up again and that will be good for global supply chains to function effectively again. Chinese stocks have been beaten up for a while thanks to Covid, the US/China conflict and Xi’s actions to regain control of its economy again. China’s blue-chip stocks have all collapsed as a result.

The US dollar will continue to strengthen as the Fed resume its rate hike of another 75 bps into the next FOMC meeting in Nov. Economic numbers show strength in job numbers and inflation remains elevated.

We are all looking into an interesting and explosive 4Q. The subsequent weeks might spring more surprises. One should stay nimble and only trade in the high-probability trends instead. Long gas futures and buy USD against other currencies that lack the resolve to hike rates.

On the personal front, my new consultancy project started in Oct. With regards to the 10-week full-time course I was supposed to start on 17 Oct, it was abruptly cancelled by RISE 2.0 as they could not form a class. Seems like the demand for part-time is more popular as the economy improves and there are more job vacancies. I was given the opportunity to join the part-time course or wait till early 2023. As the schedule for part-time does not suit me, I have decided to wait it out till next year. But chances look low that they can get the numbers to start a full-time one in Jan though.

I now have a lot of time on my hands till year end and am looking at my 2022 to-do list to fill it up. One of them will be to improve my video editing skills and try new software like Adobe Premier Pro. I might even try to get certifications for Microsoft Power BI to learn more about cloud computing and data analytics tools.

The family is meeting up in France for the last 2 weeks of Dec for a Christmas break. I will have the time to start planning the agenda now 😉

Looking back at my school days, I always had a beef to pick with my history lessons years later. I question its relevance to my education and how it could have been much more enriching if it concentrated on topics closer to home.

Why would I want to learn about ancient history? Mesopotamian and Egyptian stories of King Hammurabi that happened thousands of years ago? For a 13-year-old, this was so alien that I could not relate to it. Why do we have to learn about something that seemed useless to me? It was just memory work and hardly engaging at all.

Only years later when I was older, I begin to appreciate history and the lessons from the past we can learn to hopefully prevent from doing the same mistakes again. To know why it happened and about the twists and turns which eventually resulted in specific outcomes became fascinating to me. Spartacus, Vikings, European and even China history had many stories to be retold. Yet, I know very little about our own Singapore history.

But as a young kid, history was boring and it was the last thing I wanted to learn. The syllabus should have been about our young nation’s history which talks about our roots and culture. That is more relevant and relatable to us. We were still a young country in the 1970s, having only gained independence in 1965. Maybe that was why we did not have much to share. Hence I guess learning about other people’s ancient history was a necessity.

Lee Kuan Yew (LKY) was the man that turned this tiny red dot around, from a 3rd world country into a 1st world one within a generation through sheer foresight and determination to forge our destiny no matter what the cards we were dealt with. And we have much to thank him for.

I had an opportunity this week to better understand our founding father’s many trials and struggles in the LKY musical I saw on Tues evening. This original musical was first staged in 2015 and it was relaunched again this year. It was a celebration of us returning back to normal after 2 years of Covid.

As I had not seen it in 2015, I did not want to miss it again this time. So I bought a ticket to watch it alone since my family members couldn’t make it and it was going to end soon on 02 Oct. It was made up of an all-Singaporean cast fronted by Adrian Pang and Kit Chan. The musical writeup below from SISTIC:

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“One of the most successful Singaporean shows of all time, The LKY Musical, returns this September. Presented by Aiwei and Singapore Repertory Theatre, this will be the first large-scale musical to take place here in over two years!

Watched by over 50,000 people during its first run in 2015, this home-grown musical tells Lee Kuan Yew’s story – from his student days in 1941 to Singapore’s independence in 1965. Starring Adrian Pang and Kit Chan, with music by Dick Lee.

This is more than just one man’s story. This is a tale of idealism, war, intrigue, betrayal, loyalty, determination, passion and love. This is the story of Singapore. 

The LKY Musical is an inspiring tale of facing hardship head-on, overcoming seemingly insurmountable challenges and rising from the ashes. With new musical arrangements and new songs, this is an ideal show to bring Singaporeans together after the challenging past couple of years.”

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The show was an eye-opener for me as it focused on the period before S’pore gained its independence. It detailed the incidences that happened that shaped LKY’s determination as Singapore was kicked out of the Malaysia union after 2 years of group independence. It also resulted in tough decisions that LKY had to take and explains why he took them.

He was trying his utmost best to ensure that the Tunku continue to allow Singapore to remain in the union. He was the original person that planted the idea to Malaysia to propose that the Asian countries form a pack in order to seek independence from the British colonial masters.

But the subsequent 2 years of internal conflicts resulted in many disagreements and infighting. It made the union painful for all and impossible for the team leader to continue with the status quo. There were multiple ideological differences that included the view on how to manage the communist threat within each country plus the right to recognize all citizens as equals which became sore points. These eventually became breaking points.

Singapore was like the kid brother that refused to toe the line and was becoming more than an irritant to the big brother. LKY wanted equality for all races but Malaysia preferred to see that differently. Communism and Socialism were also grey areas that the leaders disagree with.

The musical is a tale of resilience, political intrigue, betrayal, loyalty, uncertainty, self-determination and hope. There is an overwhelming sense of triumph against the odds, and unimaginable pride at realising all it took to finally call Singapore our own. 

The LKY Musical ends up being more than the story of a single man – it is the story of a nation, rising from the ruins of war and the struggle of decolonisation, to emerge as one united people, one Singapore.

Sometimes in life, you feel like a rabbit sitting in the middle of the highway facing an impending truck with high beam lights staring at you. You freeze in your tracks, paralyzed with fear, waiting for the truck to hit you. Alternatively, you can snap out of it and proactively try to do something to avoid it. Now is such a time.

It sure feels like the rabbit situation as we head into Dec. There are a number of red flag warning signs in the markets now that indicate that there is a crisis waiting to happen in Europe into winter. It is linked to Russia and its war with Ukraine.

The EU’s Achilles heel had been revealed since Feb as Russia started its invasion of Ukraine. Russia supplied 40% of the EU’s gas requirements in 2021 and the taps are slowly being turned off as the war has affected the energy sector. Since having a colder than normal winter in 2021, European gas prices have been up more than 400% to date.

The average European household monthly energy bill is likely to reach EUR 500 in 2023, triple the amount paid in 2021. That energy bill could represent over 20% of the household disposable income next year. European governments have already approved over EUR 375 billion in aid to allay these costs. It may not be enough if we hit a colder than normal winter in a few months’ time, no thanks to climate change. 2021 also had an unusually cold winter.

Russia has the largest natural gas reserves in the world and the EU is highly dependent on it. The Ukraine war had upped the high-stakes poker game as Russia uses gas supplies to try to arm-twist the EU to drop its support of the war. NATO countries have been sending more weapons to Ukraine to fight its troops on the ground.

To avoid an energy crisis, Europe is trying to build up its gas reserves as quickly as possible. As of mid-Sep, it has filled more than 84% of its gas storage capacity but is it enough if they get colder than normal winter again? While it is also trying to reduce its gas use with restrictions and conservation methods, a particularly frigid winter or faster Russian cutbacks could completely deplete the EU’s gas stockpiles very quickly.

The other major factor working against the situation is the inflationary climate that has caused central banks to aggressively hike rates, following the lead of the Fed. Covid had caused world demand and supply chains to collapse totally by more than 90+% in 2020 with lockdowns. Governments then started to print money like no tomorrow to support their economies.

America’s Universal Basic Income (UBI) experiment of monthly $1.2k cheques had resulted in adverse inflationary pressures when the world moved to the endemic stage as it recovers. In 2021 alone, America increased its money supply by 30% and added to its already huge deficit.

After the collapse in global demand to a much lower base because of Covid, any increase would have easily sparked inflationary flames. The Fed’s three subsequent 75 basis points rate hikes have convinced investors that it is so serious about combatting inflation that going into a recession is a necessary evil

So I am quite certain that we are going to see a European shit show happening in a few months’ time. EURUSD has already dropped more than 5% within a matter of weeks. GBP’s troubles also starting to show. The new government recently pledged to cap energy prices in the next 2 years and proposed generous tax cuts. Germany also had to recently take over national and Russian energy assets in order to better control spiralling prices.

The stock markets are reacting very badly to the above news. Coupled with 2 other event risks we discussed before, all this is leading to an explosive end to 2022. We have the American mid-term elections and also China’s big meeting to re-elect Xi for a longer term. All these are happening in a few weeks’ time into early Nov.

Things are turning more negative now as bigger and wild market swings become common. Banks are also trying to wind down their trading books into year-end and this makes liquidity a growing issue too. It will be a tough 3 months from here till Christmas as we try to figure out our stock portfolios. There are so many moving variables that are out of our control. Putin threatening the nuclear card makes it even tougher to second guess.

The clearer trend is currently in currency trading. With the aggressive Fed hikes of 75 bps for the last 3 consecutive meetings, the USD has been strengthening against all currencies as the rest of the other central banks try to catch up. JPY is a definite loser as BOJ refuses to hike rates due to its unique issues. It is a clear sell.

GBP after the queen’s passing is getting hammered as the new PM Truss hands out a 2-year energy bill subsidy candy and tax cuts like there is no tomorrow. EUR is a mixed bag of disorganization as each country tries to frantically prepare for the cold winter. Even mighty Germany is taking over its big utility firms as well as the Russian ones located in the country.

There is the impending winter gas crisis that might tip Europe over the edge if the Ukraine war turns for the worse. This is a shit show that is waiting to happen and the probability is increasing every day. I am still trying to trim my portfolio of the weaker stocks and jumping into FX positions which have a clear USD strength trend (short EURUSD, Long USDJPY). May even buy some gas oil futures as a pun.

Big question marks: Putin, will China open up again? I am still optimistic that we may see a recovery into 2023 but talk of going into a recession is getting louder. These are very uncertain days which we have to weather through over the next few weeks.

We just had a nice family vacation in Bangkok last week before our older son returns to the UK soon to finish his final year. It was a great family bonding session. Also celebrated my 29th wedding anniversary last night and the completion of our younger son’s dance performance that happened on Friday evening. Looking forward to a new consultancy project and the Skillsfuture course that will start in mid-Oct for 10 weeks.

Life is mostly about being in the right place at the right time most of the time. Sometimes you are being dealt a wrong hand and given lemons. You then have to learn to make lemonade to make the best of the situation.

Queen Elizabeth’s passing this week is a celebration of the life she had. She was born into royalty and had to figure out the way she wanted to run it. It was never an easy position to be held in such high esteem and be blamed for anything that could go wrong under her watch. Her immediate family issues certainly didn’t help, coupled with the long history of British colonization and the decline of the once great empire during her 70 years as queen. But she had a good life and made the best of it anyway, regardless of the rocks and stones being thrown at her.

That is the topic of discussion this week. Each and every one of us should give thanks for what we have been served and count our blessings every day. It provides a sense of peace and contentment while removing the jealousy of comparison with others that poisons the soul.

We celebrate small happiness events every day and this prolongs our overall well-being happiness index. I wake up every morning and determine the thing that would be the highlight of my day. It could be a morning jog, a lunch with friends or just having a beer while watching the sunset. Big happiness events, like buying a car, come too infrequently. You have to work hard to achieve them and hence small happiness works well to fill in the time gaps. It helps to prolong my overall feel good happiness. My motto in life is to stay healthy and happy all the time.

I have been lucky in life for the chances I was given. I choose not to dwell in the negatives but to celebrate the positives, to embrace them wholeheartedly. Our tiny little red dot of a country gained independence in 1965 and one man’s (LKY) steely resolve managed to pull us from a dirt-poor nation into a first-world country within one generation.

I was born in 1966 and was able to ride the 50+ years of the most profound rise and economic development of Singapore. From school to my work career, I have benefited from the strong long-term planning of this tiny nation. It has risen from nothing to become one of the top countries in the world, bar none. Even China’s leaders had consulted with LKY for direction to eventually craft their socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics.

My birth timing was perfect. I was able to ride the wave of development growth and the opportunities that were presented to my generation. We rise with the tide as the world evolved. Our country had nimbly navigated the waves that bashed us, turning obstacles into growth opportunities by planning many steps ahead.

1974 oil crisis? Develop the oil refinery industry here and start to buy gold as a foreign reserve hedge. 1987 financial market crash? Make us a top financial centre where MNCs want to set up regional headquarters here. 1997 Asia financial crisis? Make us the centre of strong legal infrastructure where ASEAN countries prefer to litigate here. Crypto winter now? Plan to become the leading government to push for standards for crypto advancement rather than banning this potential future trend.

S’pore proved to the world that it can always punch way above its weight for any issues of global importance. Even superpowers periodically check in on our views to try to get an unbias opinion and advise. And I am so lucky to be born here, so comfortable that I never had the urge to work overseas LOL. The downside? This became a negative for us citizens as we had hardly have any overseas work exposure.

Given that I was born so near the 1965 independence date, I can see the stark economic differences between people than are just slightly older than me who did not fully enjoy the growth as much as my generation. There is a lady who operates a prawn noodle shop in Ghim Moh hawker centre that I frequent every Sat morning for breakfast. She is very smart and can articulate well. She is only slightly older than me, perhaps no more than 10 years.

Yet she is happy for what she had achieved, coming from humble beginnings in the 1950s where having a full belly was a daily blessing. From that low base, she had experience the prosperity that feels huge for her. With more education, she could have gone much further. But yet she is contented with what she has now.

I was a 1960s baby who came in at the right time where education was available to all who wants to learn. University became a possibility and not just a piped dream. Career opportunities in the recently developed financial sector in the late 1980s swept us all into the economic expansion phase miracle.

Our lives had very different trajecktories and outcomes because of our different born dates. Yet we are both thankful for our daily blessings as we give thanks to a healthy family and the ability of our children to realise their dreams. The country has provided for us and we should pay it forward by providing guidance to the younger generation, in the hope that they want to leverage on our past experience.

Bottomline, our brief times on Mother earth is what we make of it. You may be handed a silver spoon or lemons at the beginning and the future outcomes can be vastly different. External factors can also nuture your path as you seize opportunties that pass you by.

I just had my school reunion recently and I am amazed at how differently we all turned out at mid-age now. We could never imagine individuals carving out careers into different fields that were totally unexpected when we were 18 year old teenagers. We can only cherish the old times and the nostalgia now while celebrating our milestones as we head towards our next halftime journey.

Let’s all give thanks and count our blessings every day.

It was a hilarious week of American shenanigans as we saw the ex-president’s lawyers trying to justify themselves with every crazy reason possible, only to be shot down one after another within hours.

If you try to defend the indefensible, you start to dig a deeper hole and make yourself a bigger fool than you are every time you are caught lying. After a while, I lost track of the many lies that were said and simply come to the conclusion that this man cannot be trusted anymore.

It was mentioned that this was an insider’s job that spills the beans to the authorities on the dangers in the Mar-a-Lago compound and he was furious to want to know who was behind it. Hence the crazy push to want more information to be made public even though that will hurt his case.

He is back to his usual tricks to rally his MAGA troops to get them into a frenzy and trigger possible violence against the FBI. Then he offers to lower the heat which he had started!! How magnanimous!! LOL. I hope that the rational side of the GOP party will finally wake up to the nightmare that he is toxic to America and get rid of him once and for all.

No man can be above the law no matter who he is. One can continue to spew lies and reinvent alternative facts. It speaks volumes of the morality of America when such an immoral character can become president at any cost. I really do think that it is the beginning of the downslide of the country. It is starting to look comical that a person can really screw himself and yet his followers religiously defend him at all costs, blaming it on the deep state and various conspiracies. Throw logical thinking out of the door with the kitchen sink and the baby.

It is laughable to the rest of the world that this farce is continuing to distract the superpower nation from more important things like infrastructure and climate change agendas. Petty-partisan politics have crippled both parties to indulge in actions that do not benefit the majority. You can only look good if you make the other side look bad at all costs. Even when the majority of citizens agree on a certain cause of action, they will simply reject it in order to spite the other side. It simply makes no sense as to how a democracy should be run.

That is why I subscribe to the notion of having more than 2 political parties as a long-term solution. There are many that are disillusioned with both parties and do not want to vote on the binary choice presented. There should be a 3rd or 4th party that gives the platform for more ideology and political views. Chris Cuomo called this group of people free agents in his podcast. Andrew Yang is proposing his new Forward party as an alternative independent party.

Hopefully, this will break the deadlock between the current 2 incumbent parties and knock some common sense into the politicians. The will of the people could be better served this way. While we do see the disasters of other countries having too many fragmented political parties that sometimes result in small parties becoming kingmakers and tiebreakers, surely this is a small price to pay for the current American political mess, no?

Over in Asia this week, the major news was the fixing of the political dates for China’s re-election plans. The top management is supposed to retire after every 10 years but Xi is trying to make a pitch to go for a 3rd term now. The start of the process to get re-elected will be on 16 Oct. Xi is trying his best now to contain the fires of Covid and emerging economic issues like the housing crisis till then.

He needs to rally his supporters behind him and also ensure that his enemies do not sabotage his attempt to do the impossible, to get a third 5 years term. He strongly believes that he needs a longer runway to ensure that China remains on the correct footing and does not deviate from its longer-term strategic road map.

The US mid-term elections will also be around Nov too. Hence these 2 high event risks are closely watched by everyone. Markets could become highly volatile as traders watch every move and try to figure out how to navigate the turbulent waters till the end of the year while making sure that rising interest rates do not bring us into recession as we fight to tame the inflation monster.

It is quite difficult for me to fine-tune my portfolio, given that it had been hit quite hard in the first 6 months of 2022 with the general market’s meltdown. Thankfully, the past few years had been good market rallies but they had resulted in too many excesses which had been wiped out this year. I wonder if the old levels would come back again.

After the Oct/Nov event risks from the American midterm elections and Xi’s re-elections, I think that the supply chain issues would have eased and the interest rate hikes should have cooled inflation reasonably by then. Inflation should be under control then after 2+ years of Covid shutdowns. If things do not turn around by early 2023, I am afraid that the central banks would start to print money again to jump-start their economies.

We are already into Sep now and the weekly countdown has begun. We are heading into interesting days ahead…

Two comments over the last week stood out for me. The first one summarizes the topic this week. It was from one of our ministers who said: “We sleepwalk into conflict”. This perfectly describes the situation now in the 3 conflict zones around the world, namely Ukraine, Taiwan and Myanmar. I will attempt to forecast what is the endgame for each of them in this week’s blog.

The Ukraine war with Russia just entered its 6th month anniversary this week. This protracted war of attrition has caught both sides by surprise. Russia had lost a lot of its soldiers and equipment fighting a nation that simply refused to surrender. Ukraine shows its determination to fight on, thanks to the constant supply of weapons from Europe and America.

While there is a promise by Ukraine not to use the equipment to launch an offensive on Russian soil, it is starting to employ guerilla tactics to test grey lines and push the envelope on what it can and could do.

It tried to fire “stray” missiles into nearby Russian towns but probably deemed it to be too risky to poke the bear and antagonise its overseas supporters. Instead, it then decided to start to attack Crimea now. Logically, this area did belong to Ukraine which Russia forcefully annexed in 2014. So it seems like fair game to them, that they are “trying” to take back what used to belong to them. It seems to be acceptable to the UK and USA as they have even stepped up to provide more sophisticated weapons like drones and strategic missiles to them after the Crimea attacks.

Russia has also seen the depletion of its equipment and now threatens to increase the number of soldiers and use the new supersonic missiles that they have developed recently. I see no end in sight for now as the escalation to a higher level is inevitable. Winter is coming soon and Europe will suffer from the cut in oil and gas supplies from Russia which is difficult to replace. The world just hopes that Putin will not use a nuclear weapon if he is forced into a corner.

For Taiwan, the Pelosi visit now allows China to up its game permanently at a higher heightened alert status for the foreseeable future. From the American angle, the main reason is not just standing up to China alone. Taiwan is now a more reliable purchaser of American military equipment. Being the top semiconductor producer in the world, there is also a strategic interest to want to steer all its production capacity away from America’s main competitor, China.

The move to decouple the 2 biggest economies is not a healthy long-term strategy. It will create more inflationary pressures for all. America’s anti-China rhetoric since Trump will come back to bite its ass. By not firing a single bullet, China has conquered many parts of the world (eg. Africa, Asia) via money politics. One belt, one road initiatives and generous government-to-government loans are diminishing America’s military might strategies. Its military lobby simply cannot allow this to happen.

Myanmar is the saddest story of the 3. How can a 300,000 persons strong military control a 55 million population? It had been closed to the world for 50 years before opening up less than 12 years ago. Signs are pointing to the country clamping up again very soon, to go back to the old ways of isolation. Most foreign investments have left the country.

The previous leader has been sentenced to increasing years of jail to silence the opposition. Civil war has started in regions around the country. All indications point to mass military suppression of the rioters for a very long time. I am so bearish that I quit my Myanmar consultancy job last Dec after 4 years. I cannot bear to see the destruction of what had been built up and feel helpless as an outsider who is unable to contribute anymore.

Myanmar looks like it is going back to dark times again as there are no possibilities of a strong opposition uprising. The military has the full support of China for strategic mutual win-win objectives. It is certainly depressing to see a country that is full of potential disappear again from the world map.

The 2nd comment that made me stand up was from the Clubhouse app chat room I listen to daily while exercising in the mornings. It is such a profound and simple message. “We RISE when we LIFT others up”. Help others from the good of your heart and expect nothing in return. The reward is satisfaction and warmth in your soul. I strongly believe in paying it forward. One should count our blessings daily and help others as much as we can without any expectations of returns to make it more enriching and fulfilling.

Just like to end my weekly blog with a recap of my agenda for the rest of 2022. The class reunion has just concluded and I think we all had a great time catching up with childhood schoolmates again. I am looking forward to a short trip to Bangkok with my older son and wife in mid-Sep to spend quality time with him before he goes back to the UK for his final year of study.

I signed a new consultancy contract this week with a firm that excites me with its possibilities. It has solar, ESG and Fintech all rolled into one. The CEO is also trying to create a viable carbon credits trading platform using crypto/blockchain technology. These are the things I have been preparing to pivot into for the last 4 years of lifelong learning which I can hopefully apply. This may result in a full-time role next year too.

I have also been accepted into the Rise 2.0 FinTech program which will be for 10 weeks. The target start date will likely be just after my BKK trip and goes into mid-Dec. Then we have a planned family vacation to France to end the year with a bang.

The next 4 months have been planned and will keep me busy with various projects as a result of planning and luck since Apr. I am positive that my lifelong learning at halftime will bear fruit as it energizes me in the near future.

And the “Post-CPF” reunion party is finally over on Thurs evening. It is a completed project for now until the next one, which may be in 4 years when we all hit our 60th – another big figure change event…

The whole planning process started in early Jun as my previous co-organizer and I had the same view that it could be time to do a reunion again as we move into the Covid endemic stage for good. The last one was held in 2016 when we turned 50. We had promised to do the next one when we turn 55 in 2021 and can collect CPF, but that was not meant to be. That is why we named this reunion a “Post-CPF” party.

We polled our schoolmates to get a sense if there is any interest as the virus had already locked us up for more than 2 years already. It was a gamble we had to take to decide if we wanted to press the button to proceed. Another group of classmates from a school police uniformed group (NPCC) tried to do it last year but had to cancel it. They eventually resorted to selling the T-shirts they had already printed to recoup their sunk costs.

Once we felt that the interest was high enough, we kickstarted the search for a suitable location to hold the event. This took a few weeks while we fixed a date in Aug. It should be sufficient time with a 2 months heads-up for everyone to diarize into their busy schedules.

We found a venue after asking for a few quotations and physically visiting the top 2 candidates to check them out before finally deciding on the one we wanted. We then had to put down a 50% deposit to secure the date we wanted. The quote was for 100 pax with a dinner buffet and with taxes, it was $66 per person. Coupled with door gifts and other costs, we decided to charge $80 per head. At the last reunion we had in 2016, we charged $60. So with raging inflation now, I guess this was a workable number. The buffer was for door gifts and other expenses, plus the invitation of teachers to join us at no expense to them. As we are doing this on a pro bono basis, all surpluses (if any) will be donated to the school fund.

Then there was the anxiety of Omicron transmission in enclosed indoor environments for large crowds. The only option for us after paying the deposit was to postpone the event to a later date. So to assure everyone, we told them that we will be providing weekly updates as part of a marketing campaign to keep everyone abreast of the latest situation. If the venue and authorities implemented new curbs, we would have to follow accordingly.

My generation of 56 years old uncles and aunties are not too tech savvy nor appreciative of social media. Most have a distrust of placing too much faith in sharing private information with the world. Our main medium of information dissemination was via the 2 Facebook groups created for our secondary and junior college years. Then we set up a FB event page to track interest (“Going’, “Interested” and “Share” options) so that we can plan the logistics nearer to the date to commit a minimum number for the dinner buffet.

The other way was to send good old traditional emails to a growing DL: distribution list. Then someone complained that they don’t want their email address to be seen by others and so we had to BCC the entire list. We now have 200+ email addresses to send to.

Then the spamming started. 2 months before the 18 Aug actual date. I created a marketing campaign to provide weekly Sunday updates. The aim was 2 fold: to provide information if the event would proceed/postpone and to hype up the excitement into the actual day. Because I had to ensure that we had a wide audience network, each message had to be sent 4 times. 2 via the FB groups (class of RI 1982 and RJC 1984), once via the FB event page and finally 1 more to the email DL list. If one belongs to all 4 channels, then the person will be spammed with the same message 4 times LOL…

Into the final days of the event, I did daily spamming (Mon to Thur) on the expected agenda and location details etc. That evening, someone told me that he had to come because of my spamming 😉 Well, I guess they can delete or block my spam messages if they had wanted to…

Finally, the day came. I went a few hours earlier to help prepare for the event. We needed to decorate the room and set up the registration desk. Fortunately, we had a group of volunteers who kindly agreed to come early too. At 6 pm we welcomed the first guests. The school also sent some students to interview some of our attendees and the head of the Alumni club came to check us out too.

The 4 hours passed by pretty quickly and we were done by 10 pm. Everyone had a lot of fun reconnecting with old childhood friends again. I see so many happy faces and hugs amongst classmates who have not seen each other for more than 30+ years. This is our reward for organizing the reunion. It warms my heart.

Spamming – that’s why some came LOL

The last-minute surge in attendees based on previous reunion trends was not reliable and did not happen this time. It was the opposite. We expected 110 to show up but only 96 eventually came as there were a lot of last min cancellations. Thanks to Covid, some were still uncomfortable with big crowds. All the teachers who are now in the high-risk group sent their apologies, even though we had invited them to attend for free. Others were more cautious as they had a cough or flu this week. It was totally understandable.

We had a lot of leftover door gifts which we sought to sell away at the end of the evening in order to break even. We had guaranteed the venue a minimum of 100 persons for the dinner buffet. There were also other additional costs associated with the event, like door gifts and decorations. Luckily, we managed to just barely break even. Some had also kindly offered to top up more to help and we thank them for their offers which were eventually not needed.

Well, this reunion is a wrap now. We will update our database from the attendance forms filled to use for the next reunion. Hopefully, barring any unforeseen circumstances, we should be able to have another one in 4 years’ time as we celebrate our big figure change to our 60th in 2026.

I think I have a most unusual hobby in the world – I like to organize class reunions :-0.

Over the last 10 years, I had done 4 and one is coming up next week. Most are for my secondary and junior college class of 1982/84 and one for my university cohort. Each reunion gets more elaborate due to encouraging positive feedback. Generally, we have at least 100+ attendees except for the uni one that was only 28.

It started in 2012 as I was trying to find new meaning to my life after suddenly being retrenched from my 19 years at an American bank. I was busy trying to get interviews for a new job, doing more than 60+ one-on-one face-to-face interviews over 10 months. I needed something to relieve me of my job hunting stress.

Meanwhile, I had a lot of time on my hands in between interviews. Organizing reunions became a way to direct my energies away from the depression I was feeling after being cut off at my knees at the height of my banking career. I decided to throw myself into this new initiative and single handedly organized 2 reunions within a span of 3 months.

The first was in May 2012 and it was a smashing success as we had a good turn out (RI/RJC – May 2012). The second one for my uni batch (BizAd – Jul 2012) was less well received and we only had 28 people. We all had a good time for both gatherings as we reconnected with old childhood classmates again. The flow of food and drinks certainly helped.

This started my purpose driven motivation journey to organize more reunions. Seeing the happy faces of classmates who have not met for years suddenly laughing over the many crazy things we did as kids was so fulfilling for me. While the gathering is over in a few hours, the reconnections continued long after the event. Many who had left S’pore had also made their way back home just to attend the reunion and it really warms my heart.

It may be due to the fact that we are getting older as nostalgia becomes more important and there is a greater appreciation of it. Almost 40 years ago, we were young and carefree without a worry about the future. There was no handphones or computers and even internet in the 80’s. I sometimes wonder what we did in-between all the free time we had as social media and youtube videos were non-existent then.

My regret is that I should have done more in my student days with better time management. On hindsight, I had alway admired the ones that could do everything and were also all-rounders. Good at sports, studies and even had time to be a counselor. Amazing!! I wish I had a mentor to guide me then to help me optimize my full potential. I am trying to do that now as a mentor to undergrads to pay it forward to fill the gap I had then.

There were 2 more reunions in 2015 and 2016. Each became grander than the last as I gain experience in using social media like Facebook and roping in another person (KT) with the same motivations as myself to want to do it. We invest our time and effort on a pro bono basis and also bear the financial risk as we only collect payment at the door on the day of the event. If there is a surplus at the end of the day, it will be donated to the school fund for students. The amount may be small but it is the thought that counts.

For the 2015 reunion we featured a classmate who had an unusual life journey, taking a road less travelled. He went to Kenya to do charity work in 1995 and started a foundation to improve the lives of villagers in the Tana river delta region. He makes a trip back here annually to collect donated clothes and used school equipment to pack them into containers to ship back to Kenya for distribution to the people. A classmate suggested that he participate in the reunion to create greater awareness to his foundation. His higher calling is such a noble cause.

We decided to do another one in 2016 because it was the year we all turned 50, the halftime marker for us. We had a big birthday cake to celebration all our birthdays with some teachers whom we invited to join us. The Alumni office had managed to digitize our secondary school report cards and suggested that we print them as a unique personalized door gift for attendees. That was memorable, seeing my 13 year old face and my so-so exam results LOL…

After that reunion, we promised to take a break and do the next one 5 years later when we hit 55 and are able to touch our CPF monies. It was suppose to be in 2021 but then Covid happened. As we reached Jun 2022, KT and myself had the same thinking that maybe the time has come for the next reunion.

We polled our classmates to get a sense of interest and decided that there is enough momentum to go ahead. We decided to call it the “Post-CPF” reunion party now. The FB event page was created and we started a weekly marketing campaign to drum up interest via social media and email distribution lists. Hopefully, the messages go viral and the outreach is widened.

As of now, we expect about 110 to attend. Like previous ones, there could be a last minute surge in RSVPs that would make our logistic planning very tricky as we need to finalize everything, especially food, 3 days in advance.

Today is T minus 5 days to the reunion. We are at the final leg of planning and nearing the finishing line with many moving parts. We have a core group of volunteers that are critical to make this reunion a success. It is an invigorating experience to plan and hopefully our efforts are appreciated. Most importantly, everyone should have fun as we treasure the new fun moments with our childhood buddies. Auspicium Melioris Aevi!