The retreat started off around 9am where all gathered in a spacious conference room with modern facilities. Shifu gave an opening address by sharing his first experience in volunteering when he was 13 and how he had witnessed the social service field has evolved over the years in societal, volunteers and clients’ expectation. Shifu therefore urged all to raise our levels of professionalism as there has been more demand in the quality of our services in today’s society.

One unique component of this year retreat is the introduction of Viriya values. Jenny brought forward the concept of Formula V, the Viriya core values which are Teamwork and Collaboration, Respect, Seeking solution not problems and Take ownership. She further re-emphasize that there is a huge need to re-strategise the way we can help our clients to bring an impact.

All centre managers gave a frank and open account about the achievements, challenges encountered in year 2007 as well as the plans to move forward for the year ahead.

The meals and tea breaks were good and all enjoyed both the food and the enjoyable times interacting with each other.

The warm-up game was fun. Coordination, cooperation, steer leadership and clear communication were some of the important skills learnt from the team building activity.

Some insightful sharing about motivational counselling attended by the WHFSC staff were shared in helping to empower and better help our clients. All of us had some taster by trying out some of the exercises like charting our life, Why I live, What I want to be, What I want to change about ourself and etc… Through these exercises, we learnt that by reflecting deeply about ourselves and own belief, we can draw strength in these to motivate us as we move towards our goals in life.

After a sumptuous breakfast on the second day, all of us were out for the final programme-team building games on a bright and sunny Sunday.

There were lots of fun and laughter for the tele-match, good creativity for the “doll up” game, teamwork for the “filling up water” game and silly fun for the unsuccessful tug of war.

After a sing and dance movement as a mark of our friendship, Shifu and Jenny gave a closure with many heartfelt advice and encouragement. All of us have enjoyed this year staff retreat and we look forward to the next one, probably held overseas!