#projectsave

DAY 1

We were up early in the morning and on campus getting everything ready for our kick off. There was a lot of excitement and camaraderie among the team and everyone was ready to do whatever was necessary.

I was apprehensive at first, since Harrieth and I were assigned to tie-dye and it is not something we had ever done before. But before we knew it, we were making colourful shirts and acting like quite the experts. I am pretty sure that the students who visited us had no clue that this was our first time trying it too. We sold a lot of shirts and it was a huge success. Renee did a good job as an MC and even when there were less participants she made it sound like a lot was going on.

During day 1 a lot of shirts were bought by our team members themselves and we were all excitedly playing with the paints like kindergarten children.

DAY 2

There was neither tie dye nor face paint on this day. It hardly mattered though because I did not mind working on anything that was needed for the project.

Harrieth and I were reassigned to quizzes this time. It was math and we had to do a lot of screaming to get people to participate. We managed to get quite a lot of participants and a few of our friends came by too to show their support. We hardly had to be on our feet in the quiz booth as opposed to the tie dye booth and this was a welcome change. Some lecturers visited our booth too and it was fun to get to test some lecturers instead of them testing us as usual. I also helped in the merchandise a bit but it was a very slow day for merchandise.

I discussed our budget with Ms K and we reminded the team yet again to give me the receipts so that I can calculate the final budget. We were cutting a little close and I tried not to worry over that. My expectation was to keep our budget for Project SAVE within our estimated budget while excluding the t-shirts.

Day 2 was a relative success.

DAY 3

Tie dye was back on again. We had learned by now that while some wanted to do their own shirts, others wanted us to do it for them because they did not want to get their hands dirty. And they wanted their shirts to look great. By now we were quite the tie dye design experts. I managed to convince some teammates on day 1 to let me experiment a bit on the bags and shirts, so now we had even more patterns. Harrieth turned out to be quite a natural in twisting the shirts and Mina was great in mixing colours in the right consistency.

We must have done a good job on Day 1 because this time the participants were other students out of our team and everyone seemed so excited.

I also made a short video of us doing tie dye and put it up on our page.

I completed the budget until that day and posted it up on the Facebook group so that everyone could see our status.

By the end of Day 3, we were dead on our feet and I was afraid I would not wake up in the morning the next day.

DAY 4

This was the final day of the project. We were all a little nervous because SPCA representatives were coming. We wanted to make a really good impression on them because they were our clients. I was also apprehensive about the face painting activity because the Photo Booth had so many options and it would be hard to get people to actually paint their faces when they could just take a prop and pose for pictures. However, we did get some participants. 

Surprisingly day 4 seemed slower than the other days for the first hour and I was worried that it would give the wrong impression to our clients. The pace picked up later and everything was going well by the time SPCA representatives came with the dogs. The dogs were well likes by all the students who were passing by. 

Harrieth and I were determined to make our own shirts before things picked up so we made two and I turned mine into a tank top and displayed it on the board. This seemed to inspire a lot of students to come and try for the same thing. I spent a lot of time cutting shirts on top of tying and dying. I also had to sell my shirt to a girl because she was running late. In the end we sold all the shirts we had and some even gave orders for 2-3 shirts when they passed by so that they can come and collect later. 

The only oversight on our part was that we did not buy and XL sizes and there were quite a few who wanted them. This is a learning point for all of us in the future.

By the end of the project we were all ready to go home and hibernate for days because it was so exhausting. Yet it was so rewarding. Working together as a team with very little hiccups and doing something for animals who needed our attention was very satisfying. When Ms Helen from SPCA came over to our booth I asked her how she liked the event and she said that we had done a good job which was the greatest compliment to our project as she is our client. 

Week 9 is the actual project and therefore we were all very focused on tying up any loose ends. We focused mostly on distributing the prizes into days and activities. There was a lot of pet food involved. We had gotten so many prizes apart from the pet food including cinema tickets, goodie bags and toys and costumes for dogs. We were all very temped by the all pass movie tickets.

I helped Akhter with his thank you letter a bit and revised our write up about the project to Taylormade magazine. 

In the finance department, everyone was hurrying to give their receipts for refunds. I reminded again, to make sure that they get receipts for everything and give it to me so that I can record it. I also gave out cash to whoever needed it.

On Sunday we were supposed to go to campus and arrange everything. We met some roadblocks and decided to do it early on Monday but we did get to see the buntings and backdrop. A tagline I came up with in the file blurbs was used in the buntings too which was a pleasant surprise for me.

Reflections: I was glad that I joined Taylormade, and that it came in handy for our project. We are in mass communication and we mostly focus on the more fun parts. It was challenging to get everyone to follow rules regarding the finance. Until the last week I was under the impression that the university needed strict records and receipts and I tried to stress upon it a lot.

Side Note: We skipped week 5 since we were all on mid term break. 

This was a big week for the finance side of this project since our dean Ms Jo signed off on our seed money which is RM1500. We will be able to handle all the finances in the project without difficulty which this amount. I was however, a little afraid but it was laid to rest as we were expecting at least RM500 from other sponsors. 

I also received a reply from Ms Helen at SPCA informing me that SPCA will issue receipts for out donors. 

We have managed to acquire  goods including stationaries, pet food, movie tickets and goodie bags for our project and as such I proposed that we hold back on spending on prizes until the goods we already have are allocated to prizes for activities and spend only on materials needed. This was accepted by everyone. 

I have started handing out cash for everyone in charge of activities and made the required changes to the Excel budget sheet. I also have a form so that everyone signs off when they receive the cash. We made another change because everyone found it easier to first buy things with their own money and then give me the receipts. I agreed but advised to check the budget and spend accordingly. 

I made another post on our Project SAVE page emphasising the importance of spaying and neutering.