RHB SEED Leadership Camp 2012

Hey guys! VK_chan here. Here’s the report (which I tweaked a little bit for my blog) for the RHB SEED Leadership Camp 2012 which I recently attended with my friends. And I’ve gotta say it was the bomb! It rocked the world! WHOOSAYYS!!!

All of us were more than exhilarated the moment we set foot on the grounds of Nilai Springs Resort. After an hour and fifteen minute bus ride from Menara Star, three of us, Chan Lye May, Pang Shi Han, Michelle Low and Chua Yan Rou were greeted by coaches of the RHB SEED Leadership Camp at the hotel entrance who then led us into the hotel’s ballroom for the first briefing of the camp after we settled down our luggage. In the pre-camp briefing, participants were taught their respective group cheers by the enthusiastic coaches who brought much liveliness into the room as most of the participants (myself included) were still feeling quite awkward with each other.

Throughout the whole camp, all of the 244 participants were separated into groups 1 to 14 which were led by their respective coaches. All fourteen groups were then divided into two major groups called Thunderbirds and Ohana. Thunderbirds consisted of the odd number groups such as Group 1, Group 3, Group 5 and onwards whereas Ohana consisted of the even number groups. Each group was given some time to get to know each other and their coaches as well as come up with their own group flag. This is also where the ice breaking session began, my team’s coach, Aidil asked everyone of us in Group 14 to get to know each other in that limited time we have and to remember each others name. Honestly, the thing I suck at most is remembering people’s names. It takes like half a year for me to remember them. So I guess you could say I managed to pull off quite an epic feat that day. Haha! But Lady Luck was definitely siding with me though, because in the next game we played, we had to return the name tags to their respective owners that were randomly given to us. Thank God I got the easiest one! I got my own coach’s! Hahaha. Okay. That was easy 😛

Here’s Group 14 (a.k.a. The Simpsons ) working on the group flag.

After lunch and Friday prayers for the muslim boys, we returned to the hotel’s ballroom for the next segment of the programme. This time, participants were given an enlightenment on the true meaning of leadership by fellow trainer Muhd Amin Morni. Amin taught on MICEE which stands for Model the way, Inspire a shared vision, Challenge the process, Enable others to act and Encourage the heart. This slogan became the pillar and foundation of how anyone can become an inspiring and awesome leader. Amin also shared on the importance of approaching problems and obstacles by means of more than one strategy. If you fail plan A, try plan B, if you fail plan B, try plan C and that was how he emphasised on the significance of always looking out for new solutions to problem or in other words, to challenge the process. Participants later played some games which strengthen the core meaning of leadership even more. I’ve got to hand it to Amin though, everyone of us were totally laughing our heads off at his hysterical jokes! Gosh, if only he’s my history teacher, I’d never fall asleep in class ever again. P.S. He really resembles Disney’s Goofy though. Even my friend agreed with me. Really 99% resemblance.

Amin walking through the crowd while he delivered his talk on leadership. Photo credits to Calvin How.

At around 6.30 p.m.,we were released for dinner and given our respective keys to our hotel rooms. After some rest, we proceeded to the ballroom again for the 39 Minutes to Win It challenge.

In this challenge, teams were put into a pressure test. Every team had 10 challenges to overcome. For every challenge, they may send only 1, a few representatives or even the whole team to complete the challenge, depending on the blueprint that is stipulated at every station. All these tasks would have to be completed within 39 minutes.

Before starting the challenges, teams could walk down the stations and understand the different challenges. For every challenge, they will then have to stipulate the time limit to complete that particular challenge. The total time limit for the 10 challenges will be 39 minutes, but it is up to the team to denote the target for each challenge-as long as it accumulates to 39 minutes. Once they have set the target, they cannot reset it and will have to start conquering the challenges.

For every challenge in which they exceed the time limit, they will have to restart the challenge until they meet the time limit until they finish all 10 stages or 10 challenges. If at any point in time, they would like to change the configuration of the target timings that they had initially set, they can do so but they would have to restart all stages or challenges from scratch.

The day concluded to an end at around 11.45 p.m. Participants retired to their rooms and rested for the next day which held even more excitement and challenges then any of the participants could have imagined.

Day 2 started out with a morning investigative challenge called Taken where participants had to play CSI to find out who was the real kidnapper to a mystery by searching everywhere from the hotel lobby to the exterior of the hotel for clues while overcoming obstacles in the process.

After the challenge, participants were once again entertained by Amin to more talks on leadership. One new thing we learned was the tetramap, a cross-cultural training tool for better behaviour and performance in the workplace. It is an elegant way to get people working more collaboratively and productively. It is mapped out on a 3-D geometric shape; the tetrahedron unfolds to create a map linking nature and behavioural relationships. It is based on the four elements of nature which are air, water, earth and fire with each element holding their respective meanings and characteristics.

Participants were then separated into two separate groups. One of them will do the physical challenge while the others will have to do the mental challenge. The physical challenge consisted of a circuit of obstacles where participants have to overcome them while holding a blown up balloon in hand throughout the whole activity. Members of each group will take parts to complete each round of the circuit. If any rules of the game were found broken by the coaches, everyone would have to do a punishment, which is a hundred ‘success claps’ which was just clapping your hands above your head non-stop for a hundred times. We did a total of 1000 success claps that day or even more. However, the coaches were kind enough to go through all the pain with us as they too motivated us by participating in the ridiculous punishment as well.

Photo credits to Calvin How

Physical challenge. Photo credits to Calvin How.

On the other hand, for the mental challenge, participants were required to complete a total of 6 mind-boggling tasks by answering quizzes, riddles, completing the letters of words and even memorising 25 difficult English words accordingly in one minute. Some words were so foreign that none of the participants nor the coaches knew what they meant. Participants even had to search frantically for the answers in newspaper sections. For example, the answers to some of the questions were contained in the newspaper advertisements and so on. Other tasks included completing slogans, logos and naming flags of different countries around the world. For the word puzzle, participants were given a large mahjong paper filled with thousands of alphabets and participants had to answer the questions given by searching for the answer in the sea of letters.

Whenever a task for the physical challenge was completed, we could cancel one task for the mental challenge of the same team in return to lessen their burden. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work the other way around for the physical challenge team. It was a rough fight between Ohana and Thunderbirds that day as both teams of the mental and physical challenge had to race against the clock to compete for the final stand.

At night, we had a campfire which was officiated by Tunku Ali Redhauddin Ibni Tuanku Muhriz, the most senior of the Putera Empat of Negeri Sembilan. Also present was Mr. Kellee Kam Chee Khiong, the group managing director of RHB banking group. Mr. Kellee gave a short speech followed by the Tunku himself. After that, we were given some time after dinner for last minute preparations for the campfire performances that were about to ensue. With such little time to prepare, the participants of the RHB SEED Leadership Camp really overdid themselves by pulling off such a splendid and dazzling performance. Some of the most memorable being an Oppa Gangnam Style dance by Group 14 and 13 and a dance off which was dominated by a camper called Aiman whom danced like a dancing machine. Other performances include short skits and debates by fellow campers. The Tunku was so impressed by the performance that he gave every fellow camper a Kit Kat as a reward on the following day.

The boys of Group 13 and Group 14 performing Gangnam Style on the night of the campfire. Photo credits to Calvin How.

The campfire then came to an end, but before returning to our rooms, the participants were given one last debriefing with our respective coaches.

On the last day of the camp, everyone showed more energy and enthusiasm than ever. We had been asked to get our belongings and luggage ready by 7.30 a.m. Then, we proceeded to the cafeteria and had our breakfast. We had lots of fun for the past 2 days but we’re left with a slight tinge of sadness too as this will be the last time we get to be together with our newfound friends. After that, we entered the ballroom for the last segment. We had been asked to write our goals on a piece of paper and decorate them with words that motivate us to achieve them. Ridzuan, one of the trainers aside from Amin asked us to hold our paper in front of us while keeping our hands straight. He urged us to imagine a minute as if it was a year in our life. So, we did, for 69 minutes. It was very hard for us to keep our hands straight for 69minutes but we did it! It was really amazing. Our coaches kept walking around and motivated us to keep on going and never give up. ” Just keep going! Never give up your dreams and goals! ” That was what they told us. After the tiring 69 minutes session , En. Johari Abdul Muid, the managing director of RHB Bank Berhad gave us a speech on leadership. Then group by group we received a certificate, photo and a Kit Kat from the Tunku as promised. Later we had our last debriefing by our respective coaches . We were told to fill in the form about the camp and our coaches gave us the chance to discuss about it. Next, we had our last meal at the cafeteria. Each of us had only 15 minutes to eat our lunch, so most of us just swallowed everything up as we had to rush back to the ballroom last minute photo taking opportunities with our friends and coaches. At 2.30pm, our transport back to Menara Star finally arrived. With much reluctance, we were forced to bid our final farewells to our fellow coaches and campers whom we have bonded with for the last 2 and a half days.

All in all, this camp has truly been an amazing experience and definitely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Mixing around with peers from all over Malaysia turned out to be quite fun once you overcame the awkwardness. We will definitely keep the cherished memories, laughter and tears shed during the camp deep in our hearts for all of eternity.