Monday, May 16, 2016

RHB-The Straits Times National Spelling Championship (Finals)


Date: 30th April 2016, Saturday

Venue: Nanyang Polytechnic Theatre for the Arts

Time: 7AM-12PM



About The Event:

For the Finals, there were a total of 21 participants. These 21 participants have gone through the Preliminary and Zonal rounds which started out with 1,800 participants. These 21 participants gathered for this final to determine the overall champion.



Pre-Event:

On 28th April 2016 the crew from Avivar came to the Theatre for the Arts to recce the place and also to give the EMRS students a briefing about the event.

On 29th April 2016 the crew from Avivar came to the theatre for the Arts to set up the place for the event and also to brief the EMRS students on the flow of the event and also to do a dry run of the event at 3PM.

   

  




We reached the theatre for the arts at 3PM, however the briefing and the dry run only started at around 4.30PM as there was a slight delay as the Avivar crew were not done with the setup, which caused the whole dry run to only end at 6PM.   



The dry run only included the stage crew and the ushers, as part of running through the game play. Therefore those who were not involved in these roles, pretended to be the participants to allow the Avivar crew and ourselves to better visualise and understand what would happen on the actual event.


Event Day:

On the actual day, all the EMRS students gathered outside the theatre for the arts at 7AM where we began with the registration crew being briefed by Avivar. Every EMRS student was given a badge to indicate that they are a crew member.



                              


At 7.45AM, the registration started for the participants and the  guests. 



However there was a slight delay on the preparation in the auditorium, it took longer than expected to complete. Hence, we tried our best to explain the situation to the people and ask them to wait.



After all the preparation is done, the participants were first allowed into the auditorium for a briefing of the process of the competition followed by the guests.  


Once the guests were settled down, we watched a video while waiting for the arrival of the GOH and VIPs before the competition commenced.



The spelling rounds commenced and it went smoothly and we finally were left with 2 students who sat aside to wait for their spell off to determine the champion while we invited the last 4 students who were eliminated to determine the 3rd runner up.




And after a few rounds, we finally have our Grand Final winner and the two runner ups.



Post-event:

After the competition was over, the EMRS students had the chance to take a photo with the VIP who is the Minister of State for Education and Communication & Information.



In conclusion, we definitely benefited a lot from supporting this event in means that we could and it was a good learning experience for us to be able to witness the process of an external event.