Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Ever since a week ago, when the grad nite teacher-in-charge told us about the poor response of the grad nite (which was a meagre 80), the school had been actively looking for ways to raise the numbers.
A 3-pronged approach was in use, and it did, to an extent, raise the numbers.
1st prong: Get teachers to fill up the empty seats.. Poor teachers.
2nd prong: Get teachers to psycho their students into going. Some classes had the luxury to escape from such torment, cos their teachers left the decision to their students. But my class didn’t have such luxury. Our CT was so active and even took pains to spend sooo much time and effort, to try to psycho and brain-wash us… Poor us.
3rd prong: To get ppl to go, through CCAs..
Results: The initial 80 escalated to a wondrous 270 within 4 days. The 3-pronged approach seemed to work. However, the number still falls short of the minimum 350, under which a $25 000 deposit is at stake. After a few more days, the number seemed to stay stagnant yet again.. With the deposit deadline drawing near, the 4th prong was kicked into place today.
So it was another meeting at the audi for everyone again. The principal had to interfere this time round to speak to us about this matter.
To refute the claim that grad nites are expensive, a comparison was made with normal dinners at the same hotel, and true enough, 85 bucks wasn’t that ex..
To refute the claim that ppl have to spend a lot on suitable clothes, the principal actually encouraged us to dress-down on that day. YES. Wear casual if you want to. This should help save money.
To make grad nite sounds more fun and informal, the principal decided to do away with the name ‘grad nite’, and coined a new name for the event, “DECEMBER PARTY at THE RITZ”.
And then, comes the exciting part..
SUBSIDIES. UP TO 35 BUCKS per person, leaving it juz $50 per person for the event. Cool. This really goes to show how desperate the school and the teachers are already. But, this is only entitled to CCA groups which had achieved gold at SYF or top 4 in national placing… But nevertheless, it would certainly affect many ppl and will surely bring up the numbers further..
The 4th prong will surely work la, cos its subsidies leh.. that’s wad many ppl had been waiting for.. but for those who are not that lucky to be part of those CCA groups, I guess their decision still stand la.. cos this would only benefit some ppl, not all…
Wad im trying to say is, this is surely the first of a kind. Be it in tj history or anywhere else. Perhaps the school admin would have learnt a lesson from us, and so for subsequent years, they would be extra careful when it comes to organizing grad nites. But seriously, no one would have expected such poor response from our batch.. Even if there are 350 ppl going (the minimum number to escape the loss of the $25 000 deposit), the number will still be a far cry from last year’s grad nite’s 550+++.. Our batch is really a weird breed.. Lol.
For now, let’s juz see how the issue progresses..
For me, im now more concerned abt my class chalet. Haiz. I really wanna go.. (i only mean chalet)
人生是黑白的.
9:52 PM <3
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