It definitely falls short of what I expected in the first place when I turned up at the much-anticipated townhall session organised by Unleash The Roar! (UTR!).
As the name already suggested, I would expect a "townhall" setting at Suntec City where a Q&A session between a group of selected panelists and the floor would take place after being updated on the progress of the various UTR! initiatives.
Some of the UTR! Townhall participants
After all, it was labelled as "football conversation" which I thought many questions were ready to throw up in this "townhall" session following the recent SEA Games debacle that had everyone talking all day long on social media.
ATTENDEES IN SMALL GROUP DISCUSSIONS
However, this was not the case when each attendee was allocated to a table where he/she was encouraged to share his/her opinions with the other attendees at the same table which resembled a small group discussion.
A note taker from the organisers was assigned to each table to facilitate the proceedings and at the end of the day, according to an ActiveSG report, "The UTR! Team will study each suggestion, consolidate key points from all group discussions and will share them in a summary report in the near future."
I shared with some of those I met prior to the beginning of the session that the flow of the program was not something I expected.
Instead of being termed as "football conversation", it would be more apt to call it a "brainstorming" session since the absence of meaningful interaction between the floor and the supposed decision-making group.
"TIME DRAINING"
A similar sentiment was shared by a fellow attendee who noted down his observations on his public social media post which was to forward to me shortly after the event.
Former national striker Noh Alam Shah
In the abovementioned post, besides concurring the lack of Q&A with the main stakeholders and highlighting other stuff, this fellow attendee also noted poor time management of the organisers resulted in only three out of 20 tables had their views being highlighted of which he stated former Lions striker Noh Alam Shah "who spoke the truth fact" while "the rest chose to be diplomatically and politically correct ...".
He opined that the session the whole evening was not a productive one when the main problem - the fall of Singapore football was not even discussed and labelled it as "honestly time draining attending".
However, it should be noted that one such feedback may not necessarily represent others with another former national player Rafi Ali feeling otherwise.
" ... On the whole, this event was very good and positive. ..." said the former Tampines Rovers head coach who shared some of his thoughts in the said ActiveSG report which was mentioned earlier in this post.
MANAGING EXPECTATIONS
Furthermore, when those whose attendance was confirmed by the email sent by the organisers, there were no other details like the programme of the day, etc.
Perhaps, managing the expectations should be factored into the subsequent gatherings in the future to avoid such disappointments experienced by some attendees.
At this point in time, trust building among various stakeholders in the local football community should be one of the utmost important tasks to ensure UTR! is not to be ended like the much-ridiculed "Goal 2010".
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