Preparations under way…

3 weeks to go to our Family Day. Meetings are held every week now to ensure the smooth running of the whole thing. Venue has been confirmed. Now we’re waiting for the confirmation of the number of people attending before discussing on the logistics.

We’ve given everybody until Monday, 13th June to confirm attendance. My part time staff has been busy calling all volunteers, not only to confirm their own attendance, but also the attendance of their clients as well.

As of today, on my side, I already have confirmation of 50 attendees from my clients and their family members – including 19 children aged 12 and below. The other volunteers combined managed to get 10 of their clients/families to attend. Which means now we have 60 attendees not inclusive of volunteers. In my earlier confirmation with the management of our family day venue, I told them we may have about 70 attending. For the moment the figures look just about right… inclusive of volunteers. But there may be a few more additions by tomorrow.

On my side, the first few to confirm attendance were the regulars – Fuzi +5, Mrs K +5 & Aini +3. They’ve been joining our family day outing since 2007. Sofie and her children started attending last year, and looks like they too are going to be regulars. The year before, she was just referred to us, and since she was at that time too weak to even get up, she didn’t attend. Her children weren’t too familiar with me yet, and so none of them joined. However, now that the children would follow me around even without their mother coming along, I believe the children would still join with or without their mother. So with Sofie +4 that’s already 21 in numbers.

As for Lin, she had confirmed attendance, but needed time to confirm the numbers. You see, her 2 older girls who are already working could not confirm earlier if they can make it on that day. Lin had already mentioned that her 2 boys may not join. Lin plus 3 duaghters = 4. That’s a total of 25.

Yah did join our family day in 2007, but after that she went “angau” and her family went a bit haywire, she missed the event from 2008 to 2010. Well, now she has started working and her children are back with her, she will reappear at this year’s family day. Yah + 4 children. Total now 30.

Another client who just joined last year, Rin, again confirmed her attendance for this year, together with her 2 children. Total 33.

The rest from my list will be newcomers to our family day. There’s Halimah whose youngest son is now already 1 year +. Halimah will be coming with her husband and another child. That’s an additional 3… total 36.

From the north, since we are arranging for a bus from Taiping, this time we have quite a few coming. Aza +2, Jay +3, and a new client whom I have yet to meet, Elli + 3. And this morning I managed to talk to a client I met last year at Taiping Hospital, Ita, and immediately she agreed to join with her youngest child. Her other 3 children are staying in boarding schools. That makes an additional 13, total now 49.

And add to that the latest client referred to me just last Wednesday, Fadil, I now have a total of 50.

I am still waiting for replies from Rozi who had earlier indicated her interest to join but could not confirm just yet. I believe I may be able to get 4 or 5 more of my clients to come. Tomorrow I am going to make another round of calls to those who have yet to confirm.

And based on last year’s attendees, I do hope the other volunteers can get a few more clients to come as well.