Be a Manager

Wedding & Travel Fair 2009

I have recently attended the very first bridal fair in 2009. The Wedding & Travel Fair took place from 3rd to 5th January in Suntec City Convention and Exhibition Centre, Level 3, from 12 noon to 10pm. This event was organised by Lian He Wan Bao and Wedding & Travel and it is managed by Fullhouse Communications. There were more than 20 top local and overseas bridal boutiques offering attractive wedding and travel packages.

The fair aims to attract more business despite of the current economic recession by offering bundle wedding packages. Today, almost everyone is watching their expenses. However, with such packages, couples can now afford their dream honeymoon. These travel packages mostly cover Asian countries as it is really expensive to have a vacation in European countries or any place further.

The fair had pretty overwhelming responses as the place was really very crowded. As reported by the Chinese newspaper, there were about 3000 people who dropped by the 3-day fair each day.As i walked through the rows of bridal stalls, i could see that most stalls were seated with customers as their staffs explain the promotional packages.

I would say that the fair was definitely targeting at couples who are planning to get married in the near future and is at the same time on a tight budget. It is said that you only get married once in your life and who doesn't want a wedding of a lifetime? But then again, there are the financial issues. Wedding & Travel therefore brought together all these bridal boutiques and travel agencies to bring forward the best and value-for-money promotions for couples.

The event was published in the Chinese newspaper - Lian He Wan Bao and there were articles about it in the W&t (Wedding and travel) magazine. Information about the event can also be found on the internet. For instance, under the 'Events Calendar' of http://www.suntecsingapore.com/ and 'Exhibitions' of http://www.wedding-travel.com/. When taking a stroll in the Suntec City Mall, people can also see the upcoming events to be held in Suntec City Mall or Suntec City Convention and Exhibition Centre as there are televisions in various locations of the mall which screens information about upcoming events.

The event had lucky draws and competitions. This might be one of the factors that attracted the crowd besides the promotion packages. The competition was a rather interesting one as it aims to find "The Singapore Couple 2009". Most articles in the newspaper covered the story mostly in the angle of the competition. Stories of loving couples, unique love stories between couples who attended the fair and winning entries of the competition and so on were published.

In my personal opinion, the fair was a success. The reponses were good and there were interesting newsworthy love stories which came out of it. However, i feel that the fair was a little too small in terms of the size. It was not held inside the convention halls as I expected, but outside of it. The stage which other events like lucky draws, announcements, celebrity appearances and performancs was placed at the far end of the entire fair. Some times, people may not notice it.

If I were to take charge, I will try and book the convention hall and organise a bridal gown fashion show. Instead of only displaying the beautiful wedding gowns on mannequins like the fair did, i would hire appropriate girls (hieight and facial features) to put them on and have a fashion show. Afterwards, the girls can parade around the convention hall. This will further interest some people, like females, to get married as soon as possible. Having the girls to walk around, they can also effectively promote their respective vendors as people might approach them as ask about the gown, the girls can then promote the brand and etc. Seeing such a scene, some ladies might choose just purchase a photoshoot packages even if they are not getting married at the moment. This can also bring in sales for the respectives vendors.


Below is a picture of the fair that I have taken with my camera from the 4th of the the Convention Centre.




Here are some scanned brochures that i manage to get when i was walking through the fair. There are really well designed and beautiful pictures that might really interest a patron into purchasing their product or services.

*Click on pictures to enlarge.

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Individual Assignment Entry 1

For this assignment, I managed to conduct an interview with my aunt and got to know more about her management role. Despite a really tight schedule, it was really kind of her to spare me some of her time to answer my questions. (:

Celine Au-Yeung

Acting Executive Director and Finance & Administrative Manager

FCCA, AHKSA, ATIHK, MIHRM (HK)

AFS Intercultural Exchanges Limited

1) Briefly describe your job responsibilities as a manager

I am a Chartered Accountant who works in an international non-profit voluntary organization which has been dedicated to promoting international cultural exchange activities for decades. It's aim is to establish mutual respect and understanding among participants worldwide through various exchange programs and a mission to achieving the vision of racial harmony and world peace. Since its establishment in 1983, this organization in Hong Kong has sent over 2,700 participants abroad to over 30 countries.

I have been working in this organization for 12 years. I am the first staff in Hong Kong to have the 10th anniversary service, and I am also the longest serving staff ever. Therefore I have the chance to cover all the staff members’ position in the office to widen my experience.

As a manager in this volunteer based organization, I am responsible for the office management with 6 staff members and managing a team of around 300 volunteers of different ages and background.

In brief, I am responsible for the following:
- Accounting and Financial Management
- Financial Planning/Budgeting
- Monitoring Cash Flow and Line of Credit
- Human Resources management
- Annual Audit
- Compliance with all the external legal and statutory requirements including Inland Revenue Department, Companies Registry, office insurance
- Attending Annual World Congress with partners of over 50 countries
- Attending the Annual Asia-Pacific Initiatives meeting with 10 partners
- Meeting with Donors, Education Bureau, Consulate General, schools, students and parents
- Planning for Staff and Volunteers trainings and development
- Event planning e.g. Annual Volunteer Forum for 200 to 300 people, Annual Intercultural Fair for around 1,000 local students with 100 local and overseas volunteers and students
- Covering other staff members and acting as Executive Director; and take up ad hoc projects as and when needed


2) What is your management style?

This is the longest job in my life so I am treating it as my major career, and all the people in this organization as part of my family members. We have a warm and casual working environment here as we are mainly working with volunteers, students, parents and educators. My style of management is to have appropriate assignment of jobs and responsibilities to the relevant person. If somebody is good at one thing but not the other, it doesn’t mean that they are not a good staff or volunteer – you just have to understand what and where their strength is. I prefer to provide guidelines and explanation to my sub-ordinates and the volunteers, and work with them in a harmony atmosphere. However, when it comes to a conflict between the volunteers and the mission of the organization, I will step in and stay firm in my belief.

I feel that my aunt's style of management is leaning towards the Human Relations School of Management. She also practices Scientific Management.

3) What are some of the difficulties you face as a manager?

To maintain the stability of both the office paid staff and volunteers is never an easy job. I fully understand that a non-profit organization cannot offer high salary or attractive bonus scheme, and not everybody will treasure job satisfaction and invisible return more than the actual cash income. So whenever the job market is good, we have higher risk of staff turnover. Also, there are different life cycles of the volunteers especially for the younger volunteers. Right after they return to Hong Kong from the year of exchange program overseas, they need to concentrate their effort to enroll into a High School, then they work as volunteer for 1-2 years and have to put more time in their final year of High School. They come back as volunteers when they are admitted into the university, but then they will leave us because they need to work hard for their final year in the university, and then striving their way for their career, people networking, job promotion, marriage, becoming parents etc.


4) How do you overcome these difficulties?

It’s difficult to change the reality that we all need to earn a living and support our families. It is also true that everybody must move on instead of staying with an organization forever. Therefore what I can do in keeping and motivating the staff and volunteers are by offering jobs rotation, organizing appropriate Staff and Volunteer Training regularly, Volunteer Exchange from time to time, recognizing them in form of Award Presentation during the Annual Volunteer Forum, and arranging gathering / activities from time to time to raise their morale.

5) In your opinion, what makes a good manager?

In my working career for the past 20 years, I have worked with lots of managers in the Accountancy firm, Commercial sector and non-profit sector. I am very lucky to get to know many good managers who have great impact on me. To me, what’s important to make a good manger includes the following:
- Be responsible and willing to Commit
- Don’t jump into Decision too quickly
- Willingness to listen and be flexible
- Understand the needs, strength and weakness of others
- Be patience especially in time of problem solving
- Ability in Risk Management
- Have regular exercise and balance in life / family / work
- Have a sense of humor – which is very important

So that concludes my interview. (: