I would like to thank Angela and her friend for helping me to get the concert ticket for Jay’s concert. I was asked by Angela if I wanted to join her for this concert a few weeks before the concert ticket details were released. I agreed as it has been 7 years since I last caught his concert. Little did we expect that the tickets were so hot that it ended up we had to sit separately.
I was impressed by his stage, dance moves, piano playing, guitar playing and the merchandise he had for his concert. He managed to sing most of the older songs like 安静，黑色幽默，不能说的秘密。
His concert was not bad overall, save for the first part, where he sang some of his songs that I was not aware of.
The VES Appreciation Ceremony for this year was very different from the past. Please allow me to go through the differences for this year which was different from the past.
The event was held at Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park on a Saturday morning on 25 May, in a major departure from the past where it was usually held at the Revenue House at Novena in June. We had a new Commissioner, Dr Tan Kim Siew, as the previous Commissioner, Mr Moses Lee moved on to his new post at Sentosa Development Corporation. This was also the first time, which the Commissioner did not give out any award to the award winners. Instead he presented the prizes to the GIRO Lucky Draw winners and we had received our awards from Ms Jessica Tan, MP for East Coast GRC, GPC Chairman for Finance & Trade & industry. There was a celebrity host for the event, Ms Belinda Lee, Mediacorp actress. I was surprised by her frankness and her request to have a photo with me, before the end of the event.
This was also the 1st time my mum was not able to attend the event as it was the long weekend and she decided to go for a short trip with my dad & his classmates so I got some of my friends to join me. I was glad that Ann, Jue Liang, Alex, Sharon accepted my invite and actually made their way from the East & West of Singapore to grace the event. I would like to thank them for gracing the event. For those who were not able to come due to various reasons, I appreciate the support from you guys and gals.
My group of friends Ann, Jue Liang & Sharon (Photo courtesy of the IRAS Facebook Page Photographer)
Me receiving the award from Ms Jessica Tan
My friend, Alex in the background, would like to thank him for some of the shots here.
My photo with Belinda Lee
My Group photo with fellow volunteers & the IRAS officers
My group photo with the other volunteers
I was certainly surprised to find my photo with Belinda on her official Facebook Page two days later. I was alerted by my volunteer friend that I had appeared on Belinda’s official Facebook page. It was certainly a nice surprise. I would like to thank her for those encouraging words. =)
I had received a whatsapp message on Thu morning from my Constituency Manager that she wish to appoint me as the treasurer of the RC as the current treasurer was not too happy being appointed to the post since Jan. I shall not go into details why it became like this as it is too highly sensitive.
Being appointed as a treasurer means more work and responsibilities for Paul. Although I do enjoy volunteer work, I prefer to work in an organisation that does not have so many “politics” as you are already dealing with “office politics”.
Some people who works in the organisation on a full time basis are just plain lazy. They are being paid by the organisation to do work, just like what our bosses pay us to do everyday, yet they choose to push every thing for the volunteers to do. We are not your free labour at your beck and call for 24 hours a day & 7 days a week.
I was asked to go to the bank to update my signature to the bank account today. What I thought was a simple 30 mins task turned into a 3 hour nightmare of running around of 2 bank branches between Nex & AMK Hub. If the paid employee of the organisation did not even bother to clarify who are the current signatories, and how to go about to update the changes, does this shows that she is lazy?
I was glad that I was invited to Lawrence & Wendy’s wedding lunch at Inter Continental Hotel last Sunday. This was definitely one of the most unique wedding that I have attended in the Year 2013.
The photos taken by the wedding photographer was beamed almost immediately to the projector screen and developed for us as momentos within 20 mins.
There were two types of wedding flavours. The salt & pepper shakers & a bottle of sweets.
The wedding lunch had the presence of several very important people that works or used to work in the Cabinet.
It was also great to catch up with Jonathan Lim, Johnie, Karen Hui and Xavier at chairman’s wedding as well.
May I take the opportunity to wish the couple a happy and blissful marriage.
In recognition of your contributions towards Volunteer e-Filing Service, we are happy to congratulate you on being awarded the 2013 e-Filing Volunteer – Outstanding Volunteer Award!
You were nominated by your Volunteering Centre for this award in recognition of your commitment, service and leadership qualities, and good understanding of the e-Filing system.
Thank you for confirming your attendance at the VES 2013 Appreciation Ceremony earlier. You will be receiving the Certificate of Commendation from our Commissioner, Dr Tan Kim Siew, on 25 May 2013. Please let us know if you would be bringing any guests with you, so that we can make the necessary seating arrangements (up to 2 guests).
Registration for the Ceremony will begin at 9:15 am, and we would need all guests to be seated by 9:45 am. The ceremony proceedings would end around 11 am, and thereafter, you are free to enjoy the various games and activities available
Please advise us on the following before15 May 2013 (Wednesday).
1. Name to be printed on the Certificate
2. Confirm your attendance,
3. and the number of accompanying guest(s)
Thank you!
PAY Ai Ying (Ms)
I was not surprised that I was selected for the award this year as I was told by the liaison officer of the Serangoon CC, Juncai that I would be nominated for what I have contributed for the team at Serangoon CC. He also informed me that the Serangoon CC was one of the three CCs with the most taxpayers that e-filed, which was a surprise as I knew that the competition was close.
I would like to express my thanks to my following friends, who would be heading to Bishan Park to support me on 25 May.
I celebrated two of my friends birthday the last weekend and had 2 Swensens Special cakes for the 2 celebrations.
4 May – Birthday Celebration for Xiuling
This birthday celebration was planned rather early as Xiuling mentioned that Angela & I are always quite busy and she really wanted to celebrate her 21st birthday with us.
The dinner place was initially at Sakae Sushi, but I had not expected it to shrink in size, and there was a long queue already at 6.30pm. In the end, we went to another Japanese restaurant, Kazokutei, a subsidiary of Ajisen, as recommended by Angela. I was quite pleased with the food as it was not bad and I must say it was indeed value for money. We are glad that Xiuling’s boyfriend, Jeremy was able to make it.
The part 2 of the celebration was the cake cutting at Swensens. We got the birthday gal to choose her cake. Her first reaction was why was her cake so expensive? This sis of mine, do not like to accept treats from people but Angela, Jeremy & I told her its after all her birthday. Angela & I got her a Nikon digital camera, which was what she wanted for her birthday.
5 May – Mandy’s Birthday Celebration
This celebration, planned by Evelyn was in 3 parts. The first part was the KTV session at Party World @ Vivo City. I was a little disappointed with the service. The waiting time for the drinks was too long. It was so bad that I launched a complaint to the marketing manager the following day.
I had sang this song to match the retro theme that most of them were doing for the day
The 2nd part was dinner at The Soup Restaurant. I was surprised by the affordability of the meal. It was really value for money.
The 3rd part was the cake cutting at Earle Swensens. I was surprised that Swensens does not provide a knife for takeaway cakes, as a result, we decided that it was better to cut the cake at the restaurant itself.
I hereby wish the birthday gals have a blessed birthday =)
Having been volunteering my services to the community for the past 10 years, I have come to realise that rewards will come, once people recognise your efforts, the rewards will come. Therefore, we should not be disheartened if we are not rewarded at the first or second time. One should wait patiently for his or her turn.
However, we must not be greedy and always expect a reward in return. I always believe that Heaven is watching our every move. Your greed for rewards and recognition will be your undoing in some part of your life. Also, I feel that it is not right to steal other people’s credit or achievement and take it as your own.
Volunteering is not a paid job, therefore people should not expect a lot from the volunteers, like what they expect from a salaried employee. Volunteers usually have their salaried job, business profession to look after as it is for part of their livelihoods.
The main satisfaction you gain from volunteering is the smiles on the faces from the people that gained from your help.
I have not been able to blog as much as I like for the past month as I had been busy with my yearly volunteer ritual, the IRAS Volunteer e-filing exercise and my work.
I was tasked by a high ranking IRAS officer to look after the junior volunteers for this year’s exercise. Having been invited to the Lunar New Year reception for this year’s exercise makes me all the more see the need to return the favour at this year’s exercise.
I must say that I really enjoyed this year’s exercise, although there were some parts of it which I did not like, for example, rowdy and demanding taxpayers, volunteers that just refused to follow instructions.
The crowd of taxpayers who visited us at the Serangoon had been superb. There were a number of days where we had to start earlier than usual to try our best to clear the crowd. On behalf of the team of volunteers at the Serangoon CC, I would like to thank the taxpayers for visiting us and we hope that we have made your tax filing experience an enjoyable one.
Also a big thank you to the CC staff of Serangoon CC, Juncai, Angie, Deepak, Jeffrey, Jacqueline, Rokiah,Edward for accommodating us at the CC for the last 4 weekends.
This year was also different, as Paul decided to set up a group whatsapp chat to allow for fellow volunteers to raise questions and fellow volunteers to assist to help one another when stuck. Some of us actually kept our handphone on for emergency help purposes.
We had a dinner gathering at the 1st week of the exercise where we shared our volunteer experiences which I hoped the volunteers found it useful. We are doing another one in June. Hope that the response will be just as good, if not better.
It has been a busy month for Paul so far, that I have no time to update this blog of mine for the past month.
IRAS VES Exercise
I had gone for the training on 1 March, and was rather surprised that the IRAS trainers had made some basic mistakes during the training session. I was rather surprised that the trainers & officers still believe that I should have kept the errors under wraps. Personally I feel that the volunteers should be made known of all these errors as they may lead to the taxpayers doing the wrong thing under the wrong coaching of the trainers to the volunteers. Fortunately, the right thing was done in the end.
I was rather surprised how some volunteers were doing the e-filing for the taxpayers. It is either the training was not well conducted, or some of them were sleeping when the lecture was conducted. How could such an important point, printing the consolidated statement for the taxpayer to verify if the entries entered are correct are missed out during printing. How can PA’s instructions not be disseminated to all CCs during e-filing?
Work
This was expected as this was the start of every tax agent’s peak period.I just hope that my new colleague can be more stable in her work and cause less anxiety to us and my bosses.
Grassroots Activities
As I was quite busy this month, I was only able to help out in the recycling project as I thought it was a meaningful project.
I was not very keen to attend the session as they are covering the things that I know, by virtue that I am working in this line for the past 11 years and I have been seething with anger about one of the fellow volunteers stealing away the other volunteer’s credit for the VES exercise the past two years mentioned in 2 blog posts ago.
This year, I roped in 2 new friends of mine, Patricia & Baoshan to join us as they are interested to learn more about personal income tax. It is good to see more young people coming forward to help in our common cause.
The training was alright, but I was surprised that the IRAS trainers made several mistakes in the training session which I thought it was not acceptable as such mistakes have a huge impact on a taxpayer’s compliance records.
I hope that the coming VES will not be plagued by problems like last year.
