Odyssey 2020 – Venture Beyond Possibilities

7 February 2020 was a day to remember for all of us at The Mentoring Circle (TMC). Working together with the Office of Alumni Relations (OAR), we organised the second edition of our largest mentoring event of the year –  Odyssey 2020. 

Riding on the success of Odyssey 2019, this year’s organising committee has raised the bar even higher. Our participants and guest speakers thoroughly enjoyed themselves. We continued the Bean Bag Chats which was last year’s crowd favourite! This year, it was even bigger and better, boasting 14 Bean Bag speakers from a myriad of industries in Singapore.

The event began without a hitch and the first speech was delivered by Director of OAR, Dr Bervyn Lee. Following, current TMC President, Daryl Gan gave his address. Starting us off, Daryl expressed his gratitude to the organising committee, led by Chairmen Ian Yeap and Jan Ng, for pulling off Odyssey 2020. He then introduced TMC and spoke of the impact that we’ve achieved after 3 years and 500 cups of coffee. Daryl also spoke of TMC-X and TMC Academy, new programmes that we’ve developed to help equip our members with relevant hard and soft skills in face of our ever changing world today. If interested, you may check out the TMC Academy programmes that we are currently running, on our social media platforms.

The real value of the club doesn’t lie in just the single mentee-mentor pairing, but in the open culture and community that we’ve built here where everyone gives and receives help freely.

Daryl Gan, TMC 3rd Circle President

Daryl also pointed us to the second edition of the State of Mentoring, a booklet of research on mentoring. This year, the booklet is titled ‘Peeking into Possibilities’. Helmed by incoming 4th Circle President, Loh Jie Yao and his new executive committee, the team collected inputs from our current pairs of mentors and mentees to shed light on what worked and didn’t work in a mentoring relationship. The team described the possibilities of transformation that other organizations or student clubs could experience with mentoring. We want to share the implementation of TMC’s programme structure and inspire individuals so they can bring mentoring into their own communities unrelated to us. This creates a more salient giving community; placing the emphasis of social capital at the forefront. TMC wishes to empower more leaders of change and potentially collaborate in making mentoring a widespread good. Take a shot at mentoring, you’ll never know how it can impact you.

If you’re interested in finding out what makes our mentoring programme tick, feel free to reach out to us for a digital copy of the booklet. 

This year’s Guest-of-Honour was Mr Kenneth Chan, Managing Director of McDonald’s Singapore. Although there were no sharing boxes to go around, there were definitely nuggets of wisdom in the MD’s speech. Mr Chan shared about his journey in McDonald’s, starting off as Assistant Marketing Manager and thinking that he would remain a ‘marketing person’ forever. He mentioned that previous profile assessments said he wasn’t capable of being in leadership roles and an introvert by nature, Mr Chan also didn’t like confrontations. However, with the nudge of a mentor, Mr Chan answered the call for talent and joined management. He recounted that if his mentor hadn’t pushed him towards the role, he wouldn’t be where he is today. The job of managing multiple restaurants wasn’t easy and it was on the job learning all the time!

Once again urged on by his mentor, Mr Chan found himself applying for another leadership role. This time it was the position of CEO of China McDonald’s, something he had never thought of when he started his career in McDonald’s. Yet through it all, Mr Chan reflected and said that he has never regretted the things he tried and would have if he didn’t try. 

The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.

Mr Kenneth Chan, MD of McDonald’s Singapore

Finally, Mr Chan shared small tips on leadership:

• Be bold, go big or go home.
• Lead with clarity of thought.
• Engage in stakeholder management and remember stewardship.
• Raise your hand and don’t underestimate your value.

In the Q&A segment, Mr Chan shared briefly on how to make an introverted personality into a strength. He advises us to be frank and honest about your conversations, without the intent of being harsh. It is important to come from a heart to help and have humility. Remember to be confident and know that over time, your credibility will build up and enable you. Mr Chan’s next journey is to teach and train young Asians on how to be leaders for the future. 

This year’s Bean Bag Chats upscaled and included more speakers with a variety of experiences. From finance to food technology, our speakers spoke of their journeys and piqued the interest of our student participants. A big thank you to our speakers for taking time out of their busy schedules to come down and support Odyssey 2020!

Here are our speakers and their student groups: 

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We also had a Back To School Giveaway competition and congratulations again to the winners of the Apple AirPods 2 and the $10 Grab vouchers. We hope you enjoy them! We would like to thank all of our sponsors for contributing to the success of Odyssey 2020 as well. Big shout-out to the following brands for the sponsorships and contribution to the lucky draw prizes: 

BEZ Balloons
CNP Laboratory
Chuan Lam Production Pte. Ltd.
Grams.Sg
HelloHolo
Lovestore Floral
Puzzles Bar
REDS Hairdressing
Saint Games
Sekoni Original
United Graphics

On behalf of the entire organizing committee, we would like to thank every single one of our participants for attending Odyssey 2020 and helping us make this event a success. Despite the DORSCON Orange alert, we were heartened to see many turn up in the spirit of mentoring and also cooperating with our hygiene guidelines. We hope everyone enjoyed themselves and forged meaningful friendships through the evening. 

https://youtu.be/MeGikGtN-eM

Participants’ feedback & reflections:

Good job to the TMC and Odyssey 2020 teams for conducting such an insightful event!

Mr Freddy Radena Ginting, Class of 2023, School of Economics

As an SMU alum from the Pioneer BBM batch of 2004, I’m heartened to see exceptional students benefitting from an exceptional network of mentors.  A well organised and valuable event. Thanks to all who organised and contributed

David Isaac Mathews, Bean Bag Chat speaker

Thanks for having me as one of the speakers – it was a very well organised event, so great job to you and your team and the student volunteers for the hard work! 

Terence Quek, Bean Bag Chat speaker

The Mentoring Circle is a fantastic initiative, and something I wish I had when I was still studying; and equally energising for us ‘older’ people too! Thanks for having me and hope I can be helpful in any way in the future.

Justin Halim, Bean Bag Chat speaker

Well done to the Organizing Committee !!
A privilege to be invited & to share my insights and knowledge with the students … A great turnout and lots of buzz and enthusiasm 👏👏

Terence Seow, Bean Bag Chat speaker

Well done guys! Had a blast. Thanks for having me. Hope everyone got something thought provoking out of it.

Eugene Chang, Bean Bag Chat speaker