Family Festival 2007

National Family Week is coming up - if you recall, we are having the "have dinner with your family" thing for our office sometime in May.

There are also a number of other activities organised in conjunction with the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports and the National Family Council. This includes the Family Festival 2007 - a week-long series of family-themed lunch-time talks in the CBD from next week 21-25 May 2007. The principal organiser is Touch Community Services (with whom I have done a little work, hence my connection to this series of activities), with partners including Focus on the Family, Fei Yue Community Services, Care Corner, Koda, and DEL-Care.

The program is pretty good as it covers a broad scope of interesting issues, and the venues are pretty close by e.g. One Raffles Quay, Capital Tower.

For parents of teenagers, Yeang Cherng's workshop on mentoring teens in the internet age should be current and insightful. Yeang Cherng is a member of the Cyber Wellness Task Force in the National Internet Advisory Committee. I went up to Japan with him in 2005 and he is a dedicated guy.

For parenting in general, there's "Maximising your child's potential" (Dr Eliza Lian-Ding), "How to be a Band 1 Parent" (popular Family Life Coach Simon Sim - if I remember correctly, funny guy and good speaker) and "Keys to Happy Parenting" (MP for Bishan-Toa Payoh Josephine Teo).

For not-yet-parents, there are also talks on family communication, work-life balance, financial planning for families, happy marriages etc.

The official launch and opening talk on 21 May 2007 is by Nanz Chong-Komo - the former 1.99 founder who is now a motivational speaker. You may have seen her books on sale in stores. The guest of honour is Mrs Lim Hwee Hua, the Minister of State for the Ministry of Finance and Transport.

You can see the website at www.familyfestival.sg. I also have the brochures with me and I will be happy to give you a copy if you drop me a line.

Do let me know if you are interested in finding out more or in attending any of the talks - I'll be happy to organise (for the avoidance of doubt, this is my personal thing, not a company-sanctioned activity, so this is subject to exigencies of work) or I can let you know the details and leave you to it. Also, feel free to forward this to your colleagues, friends or family. Cheers!

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