Posted on 08-Dec-2014
By Sergeant Jack Lim Kuan Wei of 12th Kuala Lumpur Company 
October 26th, 2014
To review on the past events and performance of 12th Kuala Lumpur Company as well as to plan for year 2015, 1the Company held its first ever NCO Strategic Planning Retreat from the 24-25th of October during the Deepavali and Awal Muharam school holidays. Although the retreat only officially started on the 24th, a few NCOs actually came in the night before to finish up all their proposals and finalis
e some plannings together before the retreat began.
After the rest of the NCOs arrived on the next day, we began the retreat with the review of the timetable as well as setting the expectations for the all the NCOs for the new year. We then delved into the details of all the events held so far in 12th KL to identify the problems from each event and figure out how to improve upon it for the new year. After that, we did the SWOT analysis of the NCO Council. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. We identified each of these of the council and based upon it to improve ourselves. All these sessions were led by Sgt. Ong Wil Sern.
After that, we had a short game of Chinese Whispers. The aim of the game was to pass a message from the first person to the last person only by whispering to the next person without a second repeat. The message was almost always jumbled up and turned upside down by the time it reached the last person. The message from this game is to know that we shouldn’t depend on people to pass the message as it may not be the same when it finally reached the last person. Instead, it is better to pass the message directly to the person the message is intended to in order to prevent miscommunication.
After a short break, we were joined by our Captain, Mr. Nicholas where he shared about his hopes and visions for the Company for the new year. All the NCOs were also given a chance to voice out and chip in on what their visions were for the company in the new year. The visions and expectations by all were used as the foundation for the running of the new year to ensure that the visions were reached during the new year.
Soon after, we started the presentations of every department. Every department was given some time to present on their plans for 2015 and everyone will give their feedback on how to improve their plans. After all the departments have presented and their feedback were given, they were given time to improve on their previous plans based on the feedback given, which is to be presented again the following day.
After most of the departments were done with their plans, we spent a few hours writing articles to contribute to the KL State Writing Competition after our Captain left as he could not stay overnight. All the NCOs worked on at least two articles to be submitted the same night. While that was happening, the NCOS who still had to finish up their plans were given the time to do so. We carried this on till late in the night when we finally finished up what we had to do and retired to sleep.
The next day, we woke up bright and early and had our morning devotion after washing up. The chapter shared was from Psalms 23 which contains at least one verse which would apply to everyone’s daily lives. All the NCOs were required to share about their experiences in regards to that chapter and how that God speaks to them through that chapter.
After the morning devotion, we changed into our day dress to continue our filming for the recruitment video. The filming took longer than expected as the standard for drill was no longer there for the drill team and many retakes were needed. This has definitely shown the weakness of the drill team and therefore highlights the importance of changing the drill plan for 2015 to ensure that the drill team was up to standard. Nevertheless, the filming was still done and the NCOs returned to the meeting room to discuss about each NCO’s contributions to the Company.
This continued till Captain arrived at around 2pm where we continued on our planning for 2015. We started by restructuring the Parade time to accommodate for all the plans by each departments to be carried out. After the timetable was settled, we then went on to start setting the calendar for 2015. Halfway setting the calendar, we realized that many departments were still not ready with the dates and plans for their camps and special events. Therefore, they were given time to finalise their plans before we continued on with setting the calendar.
After the calendar was set, we then went on and had our last summary of each department and we had to present our plans to captain and get them approved by him. After all the departments were done and their proposals and plans were finally finalized and approved by Captain, we had a last session to rearrange the squad leaders to optimize the squads to before we headed for home.
Through this retreat, I could definitely see progress being made in 12th KL. I am definitely looking forward to all these plans being implemented and seeing the new change in 12th KL. 2015 is definitely a year to look forward to!
Page Created: 8th December 2014
Last Updated: 8th December 2014