Parit Buntar in memory (2)

Sungai Kerian at morning. Lovely.

15 February 2008

It’s the first day of the event and we were kind of excited to be in the exhibition. As early at 8 am, three of us already gathered at the PBI’s café (cum lobby) for our breakfast and by 8.30 am, off we move to the exhibition field.

Sigh! It was empty and nobody was there, except for few local people having their morning exercise.

Nevertheless, Tini, Dayang and I brought all the materials to our appointed booth, and again we were in dilemma; should we start to unpack the materials and setup the booth, while our “neighbors” were still not around? We were also not sure where our booth was.

Until one representative from K-Perak confirmed our booth position, then we start to prepare all the materials. Accompanied by Amir UK’s songs, we were in our melancholic mood to get our booth ready. And then how we start to tease out Zaaim via SMS on Parit Buntar, his hometown. Sorry Zaaim, we got nothing to do.

Then, the rest of the day activities you can read from Dayang’s blog.

Post mortem

Dayang was so frustrated until she cried. Aahah!

If I might say, the exhibition was not a failure in total, as we already being informed that the visitors are the people of Kerian, which could vary from kids to old folks. And what has been discussed among us that day is our approach and strategy. I think we are lacking of strategy in making our exhibition to be more successful.

Tini, Dayang and me have come out with a “check list” to be done for any exhibition, and on top of that, we have to strategize with best approaches depends on the target people, location, etc. For example, approaches in Career Fair at UiTM should not be used in event like we had in Parit Buntar. In UiTM, we might be able to sit at our booth and we can expect people to drop by and looking for details from you. But in event like we had in Parit Buntar, that approach might not working.

I like the idea of what our neighbor did that day. There were ladies from Celcom’s booth, taking the initiative to move around the exhibition area and pass their brochures to the people, instead of just sitting at their booth and waiting for rakyat of Parit Buntar to come. I found that the approach is good to implement, and its actually works.

So, I tried to apply the same method. I went to this “makan” booth and have a chit chat with the owner. I showed her my interest on her product, “dodol cempedak”, which is actually nothing new. The different is only she used microwave to prepare that traditional “kueh”. I tried to be more modest, and make a friendly conversation. And few minutes after that, we start to be more comfortable and the talk led to why am I in Parit Buntar that day.

Nah! Then I started to explain her on SPIKE. She was like confuse, but immediately she pointed to her sisters at the back.

“Haaa.. dorang ni sesuai kot!”

Her sisters who were helping her that day are students from USM. They are graduating in April, so they are actively looking for jobs . I explained them about SPIKE and they showed some interest on the program. And at afternoon, another friend of the sisters came and request for more brochures and forms. Well, I cant assure that they will come and join us, but at least we can give a hope that the girls will separate to their friends about this program.

Above all, we really need to sit down and strategize our approach on these kind of activities. Or, if we already have it, we should share among SEV team members as every each of us should have the same understanding.

And, thanks to Tini and Dayang, as well as Rizal and 2 SPIKERS (Razlan and Farezal). Sorry for not being able to stay until end of the exhibition days. You guys did a good job. Well done.