august action

so another month has ended and the start of a new month awaits. on the surface, it seems that we have been lying low with not much action but the truth is far from that. take for instance the three contributing writers, our 八六九一 is away on holiday, The Kimchi Fairy is currently in korea. how about Mr Couchsurf Critic and myself? it's just been work, work and more work. just to reveal a little about the identity of Mr Couchsurf Critic, he's a new daddy (*salutes and applause*) and recently made some changes to his career path hence the silence because the sound (and fury!) is fully managed by his newborn.

busy schedules and travels aside, july was definitely a fruitful month for the kaki bukit community arts & culture club. let's talk about what you would have witnessed around the neighbourhood.

community art gallery

community art gallery (blk 550)

the panels are up!!! more importantly, you will see artworks by our very own kaki bukit residents. since the art panels have been in place for the past month, we are very thankful for everyone who helped us keep a lookout of the pieces. for instance, we have had multiple calls with regards to the works slipping through the cracks. we have rectify the problems to the best of our ability. for a couple of the panels, we need the contractors to come in and do some repairs but nonetheless, thank you for being our eyes!

community art gallery (blk 526)

another exciting piece of news about the art gallery, the pcf centre at blk 526 have decided to adopt the panels right outside their school. this means that the artwork of the children will soon have a place in our gallery. expect to see the big masterpieces of our little ones from 1st october!

if you are truly inspired to adopt a panel, do drop me an email at kakibukitcac@gmail.com and write community art gallery as the subject.

hotspot: singapore memory project

for this month, we are in partnership with our friends from the national library board and brought in one of their roving exhibitions. while the panels are about geylang serai, you can participate in the project by telling us what your favourite memory of kaki bukit is. hopefully we collect enough contributions to, one day, have our own exhibition as well. do remember to pick up your gift after you have written down your memory for us.

singing kakis' night

wow, time flies. we went back to ville rc for another night of song. it's our second cycle already. that means that four months have gone by since we launch this initiative. it's great to see residents join us regularly for an evening of music and singing.

anyway, beyond what we accomplished in the month past, there is more lined up ahead before we bid 2013 farewell. here are a list of dates that you want to keep free: 25th august, 30th august, 27th september, 29th september, 25th october, 26th october, 16th november. the programmes will be getting more exciting. i'm sworn to secrecy about the exact details about some of the events BUT there is one that i can share with you about!

we are celebrating children's day in a unique fashion. we want to invite all children who are malay, speak malay or interested in the malay language to join us for an afternoon of pure fun! tickets are on sale as you read this post. grab them early because there is a seating capacity! call 64454223 to purchase your tickets!

i'm having a blast putting together the second half of 2013 for you but let's not overload this post so ta-ta for now. here's wishing you an early happy national day! oh, do join us on 3rd aug at the kaki bukit neighbourhood park at 6pm for celebrations. you will get to meet the KBdARTs too!

catch the hARTbeat @ kaki bukit!

edwin

it's july already?!!

hey everyone,

it's the first day of a new month. it's that time when i sit down to reflect on all that went on in the month for the kaki bukit community arts and culture club. it is also a time for me to share some of the upcoming offerings.

so june has been an interesting month (other than the fact that i was away for reservist for three and a half weeks, thus taking me away from my grassroots work significantly), there was the dengue outbreak, the haze problem and of course, the hello kitty queues!

yup! i have my own full collection!

it was definitely interesting to witness the reactions of singaporeans and personally, i think it shows an evolution of our culture. while we may be 'kiasu' or 'kiasi', we have developed this ability to laugh in the face of adversity. just think of the number of jokes and jibes you heard with regards to the psi levels.  anyway, due to the haze, we had to cancel a number of our events but we are looking at how we can bring those activities back on a later date.

but what's in the past is in the past.

here are a couple of things that you are going to witness in your neighbourhood!

1) community art gallery: as you read this post (assuming that you are reading this on 1st july), panels are going up around the neighbourhood. these panels will be serving as our very own community art gallery. the first artworks that you will see are the products from our recently concluded parent-child cartooning workshop. 

primarily, we are hoping to feature as many of your works as possible hence if you have any works of art that you would not mind putting up for display. do drop me a note at kakibukitcac@gmail.com

2) singapore memory project: towards the end of july, when you swing by the community centre, you can also view a couple of panels from the singapore memory project. these are specially put together to help us remember our heritage as a nation. as part of this exhibition, we are also gathering your memories of the kaki bukit estate. with each contribution that you make to the singapore memory project, you will also receive a special gift from our friends of the singapore memory project.

3) singing kakis' night: this has become a signature of our estate and guess what? it gives me great pleasure to announce that we are going for a second cycle of singing kakis' night. having personally attended all four nights (over the last four months), it was great to see each residents' committee package their singing kakis' night differently hence don't miss out on any of them, especially when it comes to a space near you. you don't always have to sing, it would be just as fun if you join us as a member of the audience.

well, with that, i wish all of you the best of health!

catch the hARTbeat @ kaki bukit!

edwin

super jun(e)ior!

so we bid another month farewell. the month that went by was definitely less busy (and i am using this term VERY loosely) for us compared to april but nonetheless, it was an interesting month. a part of the month was spent planning for the year ahead, from june 2013 to may 2014 but most of it was having meeting after meeting. for one of the weeks, i had about eight cacc-related meetings. it was either having internal discussions, meeting fellow cacc chairpersons or working out potential partnerships. hence i am glad i survived.

look out for our bottled water!

some of those plans, i can share with you via this platform (maybe not this post but future updates). the others will be a surprise! yes, there is a BIG project that i am personally handling that even the staff assisting me has no idea what i am doing (sorry, nicole! it's a secret...)

anyway, here is a pictorial update of the things that we presented you with for the month of may!

1) launch of KBdARTS

in case you are wondering why they are called darts, part of it is due to the swiftness of movement and the precision that we hope to nurture in our little ones who go through this programme. the main reason is because KBdARTS stands for kaki bukit dance arts. yes, we are still trying to hunt down the person who served up the cheese platter!

2) flower power (hARTbeat @kaki bukit - may)

we brought back one of the favourite workshops from the arts village. boy, were we surprised by the warm reception of the residents! even before we completed the setup of the event, we had a huge group of residents gathering to learn from the instructors. well, we will not let the cat out of the bag BUT the pandan rosette workshop will make another return to kaki bukit.

3) singing kakis' night (bloom rc)

this is fast becoming one of my favourite community outreach programmes. other than the obvious engagement of residents, i think the song and music brings a nice musical touch to the neighbourhood. this is what a community is all about. there will always be room for big fanciful events but nothing says family like gathering a group of like-minded people coming together to participate in one of their favourite activity: karaoke.

for the month of june, we will still have our signature singing kakis' night and hotspot programme. if you want details, do follow our facebook page closely! beyond that, since it's the schools holidays, we are doing a little extra. we are going to bid farewell to a familiar sight that has been around for the last three months.

change is coming... snap your pics SOON!

in addition, there is also a cartooning workshop that you can be participate as a family. details are on our facebook page or the main kaki bukit facebook page. as i speak, vacancies are filling up fast so do sign up early.

finally, if you have any comments about kaki bukit cac or would like to get involved in what we are doing, do drop me a note at kakibukitcac@gmail.com. more hands make light work!

catch the hARTbeat @ kaki bukit!
edwin

come what may!

our signature KB CACC standees!

it's been slightly over a month since this blog has been launched. while we have not seen much writing on this blog per se, a lot has gone on over in the kaki bukit division for the community arts & culture club. it was definitely a busy month. here is a quick recap of all that has gone on:

1) 'eat your art out!' - passionarts village

enough has been mentioned on this blog about the village and if you want to take a quick stroll down memory lane, do click here! being the forward-looking person that i am, i actually have a concept for next year's village but not giving anything away for now. 

2) singing kakis' night

this is one of the signature roving activities that you will see and hear a lot of within the kaki bukit neighbourhood. since this is the first time i'm talking about it, singing kakis' night is essentially a night of karaoke that occurs every last friday of the month. what is unique about this is that it moves around the entire neighbourhood.

big thanks to the chairperson of green rc, fannie!

so in april, we partnered with one of our residents' committee and went over to green rc. what a night it was! as a part of their singing kakis' night, they had a block party complete with food, dance, games and exhibition booths. so if you've missed april's installation of singing kakis' night, fret not! it's the month of may already.

3) 'shall we dance?' - hotspot programme

another of our monthly features are the hotspot programmes. once again, these are activities that occur on the last weekend of the month. whilst singing kakis' night is on a friday, our hotspot offerings are on either saturdays or sundays. in addition, the programme duration is much shorter so blink and you will probably miss us.

shall we dance @ kaki bukit?

so in april, we decided to invade a rather tranquil area of the neighbourhood. we plonked ourselves right in front of sheng shiong and macdonald's, danced our hearts out for four hours and made a lot of new friends. if you haven't seen us gyrating to the tunes of justin bieber, you need to click here! 

yes, it was a busy april BUT we are not about to slow down our engines. in the month of may, there are more offerings coming from the kaki bukit community arts & culture team.

other than our regular singing kakis' night (24th may) and our may hotspot programme (26th may - morning), we'll be launching a couple of programmes and partnerships. more updates in my next monthly update. of course, you will be hearing from the kimchi fairy and mr couchsurf critic over the month and in june, we will be adding a third contributing writer to our humble blog. =)

if you want the latest news, just join our facebook page or follow us on instagram (@kakibukitcac).

engage us online! ;-)

catch the hARTbeat @ kaki bukit!

edwin

the eating continues...

after three months of planning, the PAssionArts village came and went. if you didn't get a chance to experience the ongoings of 'Eat Your Art Out!', you can still be a part of the village via the special moments captured by the army of photographers. all the photos (that are not too scandalous!) are either on our facebook page or running on the instagram feed on our blog! if you are a fellow instagrammer, just search for either #kakibukitcac or #artsvillage.

but what a journey and experience it has been to bring this village from concept to execution. nothing is ever perfect and i am probably my own harshest critic: this could have been arranged better, that could have been pushed back. this could have been placed here! 

a picture speaks volumes: colours, sun, sweat, thumbs-up

however, like i told the team running the entire event, you must enjoy your own village and what you are doing. whether it was giving out peanuts to residents for them to eat then prompting them to toss it into our art installation or helping children with their (sometimes messy) cupcake decorations, it has to be an event where the working team has fun memories as well.

'Kopi Kaki Korner' before 'operation'

happy people, happy sandwiches!

i do miss my village. i miss residents walking by, (literally) wondering what was going on thus giving me an opportunity to walk them through the village. i miss the pandan rosette bouquets that residents made and were passing around. (there was a lot of 'i make one for you, okay?') 

i miss little leroy who came to our village around 4.20pm, which was almost our closing time. in conversing with his mum, i realised that they came by to our village specially to take a look. there were no workshops left for him to be a part of, no giveaways for him or no food demonstrations that he could watch except our peanut art installation. 

so i sat him down and taught him how to crack peanuts. it was the first time that little leroy (from horizon primary school... yes, i did ask the usual age and school question) cracked the shells of peanuts. it was also the first time he stepped on peanut shells and heard the shells crackled under his feet. this  encounter made all the late nights, meetings, emails and sweat worth it.

like i wrote in a script recently: a gift from the heart will be a treasure for the generations. 'Eat Your Art Out!' is truly a gift from the hearts of an extensively long list of people but we truly hope that we have created treasures for you and your days ahead.

anyway, before i run off for some kleenex, i would like to encourage you to visit this little application that we have. it's a photo contest that we are running on facebook so do pop by before 19th april 2359 and vote! till our next encounter...

catch the hARTbeat @ kaki bukit!

edwin

no man is an island

the perception that people have towards grassroots work is always interesting. i do enjoy the stunned silence whenever i tell people that i am involved in grassroots work. more often than not, i will get the 'so you are a (ruling party) supporter?' that is when i explain to them that one can be involved in grassroots work and be politically distant but that's not the point of this post. 

i always believe in using available platforms to bring attention to causes or movements that otherwise would be heard but not seen. i'll be sharing two of them with you. the reasons are simple: i'm partnering both for our upcoming arts village and they are causes that i believe in.

the first are the family life champions. we have been raised in a society that sees family as dad, mum, children and the occasional grandparents. however, when i was first introduced to the existence of family life champions, it got me thinking about the true definition of family. with the changing trends of today, what exactly is family? well, the definition of family differs from person to person but one thing is certain. it is the family unit that gives us support and keeps us going. 

some of our FLC giveaways

in order to get everyone thinking about what a family is and what meaningful family life is, we are giving out quite a few premiums with the family life champion logo imprinted on it. not just to remind everyone about the importance of family but also, each individual is a family life champion. it starts with me!

another organisation that is a part of the 'eat your art out' village is about building hope. i get acquainted with this organisation when i was a volunteer years ago. the organisation? SCORE. when you visit our village, you will get a chance to sink your teeth into some food items. well, a large majority of them are from score. just doing my part in bringing prominence to a cause i was once heavily involved in.

i won't go into further details about the mission of score but do take a few seconds to visit their website and feel free to partner them!

catch the hARTbeat @kaki bukit!

edwin

ready for SM action?

ready to whip into action?

i know what you are thinking and i want you to think what you are thinking (haha!) that is the perk that i get to enjoy as a writer: i get to mislead readers without getting into (too much) trouble.

anyway, back to business, i'm going to give you a little glimpse into the action at our upcoming village. this is specific to the activities on 13th april. 12th april is just a movie screening with free snacks but if you are ready for some SM action, 13th april is your day.

taken from social media marketing

by SM, i am talking about social media. yes, it's time to test how well you can 'socialise'. we have made available three platforms:

Taylor Swift: 2.5 million followers

1) instagram: there will be three instagram instant wins. to qualify, it's simple. just turn up at the arts village and snap away. after that, make sure that you add the hashtags #kakibukitcac and #artsvillage to qualify. however those are not the only hashtags you can use. if you want to use 1001 tags, you are most welcomed to do so. when the emcee announces that the instant win is on, you can pick up a prize as long as your picture has at least 50 likes. once a picture has been used, it cannot be recycled. there are no limits to the number of entries BUT you cannot redeem more than one instant win at one moment. this means that once you have claimed a prize, you will have to join the queue AGAIN to claim your subsequent prize.

Justin Timberlake on The Social Network

2) facebook: this is a common one and i like to work within expectations. all you have to do is snap more pictures then load it onto our app on facebook. get as many of your friends to 'like' it as possible. the top five pictures with the most number of votes wins. at this moment, all i can reveal is that the prizes ARE attractive.

once the app goes live, it will be made known via our own facebook page as well as the main kaki bukit fan page so do look out for it.

(update: good news! the app has gone live... here's the link. all the best!)

graphic from celeb-blogger.com

3) blogging: finally, we want to encourage you to blog about us as well. tell us about the entire experience you had at our village. the top blog post will win $50 in vouchers. 

in order to participate, simply turn up at our village on 12th or 13th april and then write a post about us by 20th april. send the link of your post to kakibukitcac@gmail.com, message us on facebook with the link OR tweet the link to us by using #kakibukitcac. only posts which are posted by the admins onto our main page will be considered for the contest.

in conclusion, there are plenty of opportunities for you to try out your social media skills whether it's instagram, facebook or blogging. best part? you get to win prizes along the way, so see you at our PAssionArts Village where we are going to eat your 'art' out!

catch the hARTbeat @ kaki bukit!

edwin

the art of writing

whether i like it or not, the arts village is going to take place in under 10 days! (*scream* *pant* *attacks of every nature*) anyway, no stone has been left unturned (except going to your house and dragging you out of bed to tell you about the event).

the photo campaign is pretty successful. not easy to gather close to 100 shots. we would have gotten more if not for the bad weather during our movie screening last sunday. anyway, here are a couple of them!

check out the full album here...

beyond the photos, there are also a couple of bloggers who have kindly featured us on their blogs as well! here they are...

wild dragon chase, kimchi fairy, anythingalsoeat!

finally, i managed to figure out the twitter widget and can't wait for everyone of you to tweet to us! just make sure that you are not tweeting from a protected account AND add the hashtag #kakibukitcac...

catch the hARTbeat @ kaki bukit!
edwin

eat your art out!

this has to be one of my worst kept secrets EVER!

since the planning of this village started in january, i have been telling everyone i met about it. not to boost of an exciting village but more to get responses and gauge if people will buy my idea of an arts village that revolves around food. i mean, how many of us actually stop to admire the 'artistry' on a bun before we gobble it down? i certainly don't. thus in crafting up this arts village, i had a few objectives in mind.

a) see art in our everyday lives... like earlier mentioned, it's not easy to come up with interesting patterns on your daily pastry or design the frosting of a cupcake. if you think it's easy, just ask my dragonboat team mates who decorate a birthday cake for me! so i really wanted everyone to stop and just see that art can be simple and approachable too!

what do you think? A* for effort!

b) merge the passions of singaporeans! we always talk about how singapore is a food paradise and indeed it is. i love how my local hawker centre is a gourmet haven! hence if you are coming by the village, before you gobble down the food, just pause and appreciate the creativity of the matter.

so that said, here are a few reasons why you should visit MY village! (welcome to my world of shameless marketing... there are a few other villages over the same weekend BUT you don't want to miss out mine!)

1) we are the ONLY food art village. see your food turn into art or art turn into food. doesn't matter which way you prefer... you get the gist of it!

2) giveaways! i am sworn to secrecy with regards to the exact timings that we are distributing freebies but we have some interesting (and useable) items to give you. however, if you prefer the traditional pens and fans, i promise to not disappoint...

3) social media... while i like to create buzz in real life, being modern and contemporary is my mantra too. thus if you think you are big, huge or gigantic on social media, do turn up at our village to take the social media challenge OR follow our facebook page closely to be in the know of the contests that we are running.

4) community giveback... one of my guiding principles in grassroots work has always been to use the platform to bring awareness to causes amongst us that sometimes go unnoticed. for my arts village, a significant part of the food featured comes from score. you can click here to find out more about the good work that they are doing.

all in all, the village is a couple of weeks away. the stress is mounting but i'm looking forward to it because it's been an exciting three months for the team behind this entire project!

in case you missed out the earlier banner!

catch the hARTbeat @ kaki bukit!

edwin

ps: while i write the post in first person, the journey to completion is a collective effort between kaki bukit cac and eunos cac. just so that i have something to write about after the event, i will name the people behind the scenes in another post.