Mindy, a former children’s television presenter and her nemesis, “Technogreed” skilfully conveyed a very important message to us all. They expressed the importance of the need for children and teenagers to become socially, culturally and environmentally aware and proceeded to demonstrate the art of learning through entertainment and fun, a technique they introduce, powerfully in their web site, Biggerbug.com. 

Mindy and Technogreed feature in this character driven site, which aims to  encourage self expression, creativity and individuality among their targeted audience. They enthralled us all with their hard hitting facts and eye-opening statistics regarding the academic pressures placed on young children in Asia today. By the end of the talk, based on the silence (you could hear a pin drop) of the RCKGM audience, a rarity to be sure, it seems we were all convinced that we need to re-assess our views and values on life. It was also well stated that the solution to the many of the world’s ever-growing problems lies in the up-bringing and education of the next generation. We all know that children and teenagers represent a large part of our world. They are constantly learning, growing and changing and therefore continuously need guidance in all areas of life. In Asia especially, a lot of emphasis is placed upon education and the need to study and “do well”. What is sometimes overlooked is the amount of pressure this puts on young people today.

We at The Bigger Picture believe that learning can be a fun experience and so we use entertainment as a means of teaching. Through social, cultural and environmental awareness we encourage self-expression, creativity and individuality amongst children and teenagers. In doing so, we aim to create a better world by targeting the next generation through means of ever changing technology and…………..well, you will all have to come and listen to the talk to find out, won’t you?!!!

(NB from Editor - Good Luck to them on their project!!!) Rtn June gave the vote of thanks with precision and the quotation above about a pin dropping. Thanks a million Mindy and Technogreed. Do come again.

From this fishing village, there was born a boy from a large family of nine, where he was the Number 5 son.  Even from an early age, his academic ability proved poor, his interest for studies low, and his pursuits of the common goal of academic excellence proved elusive.  Even with private tutors, he hardly managed to pass many school exams, and failed academically – all this by Primary Three. With such unruly behaviour, the family had no choice than to dispatch him to an even more far away island, where a boat journey would take seven days and a turboprop airplane journey over two days. 

This strange Island is where other unruly characters of dubious behaviour were also sent.  The Roll recalls such names as the Carrolls, the Pintos and the PoW (aka Charles Windsor). In this strange land where “the women roar and men thunder”, where meat pies and cold amber fluids form the national cusine, where six foot tall large tailed mammals hop down  Queens, George, Albert and Flinders Streets, and where these same streets on weekends could well be a screen set for the Last Blue Sea.  This land is where he would spend one score year. 

The name of the town where he stayed is a reminder for these with poor memories – it is called Town (town). At this town, Town (town), he learnt the dingo lingo with other boys from Woodstock, Magnetic and Thursday Island; and where he joined school teams for the Second-eleven; the 8 and 9 Stones; and excelled in the sights of rifle shooting. Still, academically under achieving, he managed neither with the pen nor the slide rule, but did learn to pencil draw.  

This was to be the new calling and the beginning of his journey on the yellow brick road, where to obtain a Diploma would take no less than six long years, to graduate from weatherboard to brick-veneer, at Garden Point.  The large Island then became so small, where to a majority, the natural step for all the country’s native sons and daughters were to pay homage to the Motherland in another far away land, where by now a jet plane takes no less than 30 hours to transverse the globe from South to North.  The journey’s end was to study the key and cornerstones of Byzantine, of the Greek, Romanesque, Renaissance and the Gothic.  

Environmental Psychology took over one year to grasp at the birth place of Lewis Carroll, before venturing to the Big Ben, into the drafting offices in Mayfair and the West End, working with others in pin-stripe three-piece suits to practice brick and mortar skills on other far off lands at Riyadh and Cairo.  

Opportunity called in the early 80’s – like Blondie “Paris is calling” to practice more brick and motor skills on yet more far off lands at Lagos, Beirut, and Alexandria. Four years passed in Rue du Faubourge St. Honore before another calling from the original Motherland with open door policy to lure her native sons to return.  The likes of I M Pei, returned to repay their debts to the Wild East of the 80’s in the late 20^th Century.  

Knowing more about the baguette than Canto-pop, a new life began at the same fishing village, where the harbour is no long fragrant and the topography more like a stagnant canal. Three long years of speculative mosaic tiles on rough concrete was sufficient to dull even the grey matters of an unintelligent brain, where upon a more meaningful challenge arised to make the hilly and narrow streeted Island more user friendly and accessible to the physically challenged.  

Therefore, the last 13 years have been devoted to creating for the barren island more barrier – free and accessible environments for the physically challenged, as well as for our grand-parents, parents and for most of us in the not too distant future.  I hope you will find the Island’s physical environment and its public transport more user-friendly and accessible than it was half-score year ago. 

If you find it not so, do let me know and may be something can be done to get it right for you within the next 13 years.

 [You may ask, "What has all this to do with one’s vocational service?"  Not a lot really ....... yet alot!]