Cynthia Foo

Phew! What a great relief. NAPSA Congress Perth 2009 has finally come to an end. FYI, it was a massive success too!!!

~18 months of preparation. All the blood sweat and tears.
I still remember how I was elected as the Logistic Chairperson. I swore to God I had no idea what the heck ‘logistic’ means in terms of the NAPSA Congress. And honestly, I still don’t. All I know is that , I did anything and everything i could.

We had so many meetings over the 15 months. I clearly remember how the promotional stage got started too.
All in all, I’ve learnt heaps during this time:

How to negotiate and strike a deal with those businessman out there.
Organise catering for ~260 over a week - speaking to countless caterers
Get contact with various pharmaceutical companies for more sponsorships and freebies for the showbags
Working with people - many many people
Understanding myself
Etc Etc

I told myself, if I don’t get to go Congress at the end of the day, I’m still very happy because the entire preparation process is an educational, fruitful and satisfying journey. *tears*

Anyhow, let me show you some behind the scene shots. Things that we did a few days before the Congress. Ha! The last minute packing! I was thinking of getting the show bags organised long time ago, but they took up most of the space in my living room! That was insane!

This is me with all sort of items and freebies from all over the place. hehe.. must show off some glamour shots, right?
300 copies of Bus and Cat Timetable, 250 copies of ‘Your Guide to Perth and Fremantle’
Both were provided by different logistic companies.

We have heaps of skin care freebies from both Hamilton and Ego, eye drops from Novartis, keyrings, Guild mints, Fred Hollows Foundation information sheet etc. 

Almost 90% of items were gathered since weeks ago. Official packing day started 2 days before Congress.
I had most of the packing done in my house. I figured it out it would be best place as I could spend some times with Kian too.

First night packing was great! The workload was quite heavy, I must say. But I enjoy spending time with a great man like Richard. We shared our stories, our politic opinions and some random silly ideas of mine.

The other day, Kian drove me all the way up to Swan Valley to collect some clean skin.
I was given 2 bottles of wine - still not looking very impressed.
“wah lao! we bought 4 freaking dozens of wines.. and only 2 free bottles??” lol
I’m a Chinese after all

Clean skins - thou without the labels.. alas, what the heck, it is alcohol after all, right?

I got Keegan to do the design of the labels; Kate came over the next day to stick the labels on the clean skins.
This is what pharmacists are very good at : sticking bloody labels on the bloody bottle/box.

EEEEEEEp! We love our wine! Yay!

Dan joined us to do more packing. I swear to God, we packed until we all felt like throwing up. By the end of the day, we nearly wanted to throw the Fred Hollows away. But we didn’t of course. It’s for good cause, right?  

We sorted more t-shirts, more bags, more boxes. All looking very good.

Carolyn also joined me the day before to stick name tags on lanyards. More sticking labels work.
I told ya, pharmacists are good at sticking labels. We don’t go to uni for nothing, can?

Few hours before the registration day, we did some last minute work. I gathered more troops for a small part of the packing.

This is my spare room at College. Spare room = storage. Happy?

And finally! Me and my proud production: I (still) feel like crying. Big time.

The entire journey is extraordinary unbelievable. I haven’t mentioned the process getting the Congress Manual done.
It was lotsa hard work, but at the end of the day, it was worth it.

I’m very lucky to have nice people around me.
I can never thank everyone around me enough for helping me. The motivation, inspiration from everyone brings me this far.
Till then, I will post up more about Congress. If you can’t wait to see the party photos.. go to FB

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