In the REP (Renaissance Engineering Programme) family, we don’t consider bonding to be an important thing. We consider it to be everything.
As you might know from my previous posts, love, respect and a little bit of insanity run in the REP family, and the first step towards building all of these is the Freshmen Orientation Camp (FOC) – an event fondly organised by the awesome REP seniors to welcome juniors with a bang!
So here is an exclusive sneak peek into Ignire 2013. “Ignire” is the latin word for “ignite”, and surely, we saw some magnificent fireworks (metaphorically, of course) this year. The camp theme was “Super Villain” and as Shao Ying, President of the Organising Committee, put it, this was “a camp different from other camps as the freshmen trained to be true villains!”. So clearly this year, it was all about being “bad” and living dangerously.
In the process of “vilifying” innocent minds, there was a day at the beach, an amazing race around Singapore and a chalet stay to top things off. Lee Guan, a freshman right out of camp, excitedly remarked: “The camp was super action-packed, and the seniors did a splendid job! Through many fun-filled activities, Ignire has allowed us to understand REP and integrate into the family.” Well, freshies, welcome aboard!
Like every show that blows your mind, Ignire had a dedicated team of people putting in countless days of hard work behind the scenes, even sleepless nights. From deciding on the overall theme of the camp to working out the final details of the T-shirt design, these folks have brainstormed for hours and put in every ounce of passion and creativity they possessed into the effort.
Daryl, an orientation group leader exhausted from the camp, reminisced about the bad weather and manpower shortage, and how the committed seniors improvised to ensure everything ran smoothly.
Expectedly, everyone learnt a lot in the process – about resilience, perseverance and, most importantly, teamwork.
For me, it has been both overwhelming and humbling to see an event of this scale grow from a simple objective – to give our juniors something to cheer about and cherish as they embark on a brand new phase of their lives.
Awesome memories created during our FOC this year…
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