SIA Sponsors NZ Boat Team While Sg Team $ No Enuff!

[makapaaa]

<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>Struggling Singaporeans and lucky Kiwis
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Singapore's world championship-winning junior dragon boat team had to toil to raise funds for the Prague meet, according to a parent, compared to the more fortunate New Zealand team which was sponsored by Singapore Airlines. -- PHOTO: NATIONAL JUNIOR COLLEGE
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->AS THE parent of a rower from the victorious Singapore junior dragon boat team, I was glowing with pride - and gratified - to read Tuesday's report, 'Dragon boaters roar in Prague'.
For the past year or more, my daughter trained seven days a week and squeezed in additional time and labour between training to scour housing estates, collecting old newspapers and drink cans to help raise money to fund the trip to the Prague meet. She lugged these items from home to school as well. All this in addition to keeping up with her school work. My home was turned into a karung guni depot, stocked with old newspapers and drink cans.
Relatives chipped in by collecting these items and passing them to us during weekend family gatherings.
My neighbours must have thought we had financial problems.
I had to sacrifice my sleep to drive my daughter to training to save travel time and so she could get as much sleep as possible. She missed most weekend family gatherings around the dining table because of training or she was simply too pooped.
She - and we - made these sacrifices with one aim in mind: to send a national team to Prague and do Singapore proud. And it was mission accomplished for the 49-member squad of students who won four gold medals, three silvers and a bronze.
But here is the ironically disappointing postscript: My daughter and the team discovered that the national team from New Zealand which took part in the same championships was sponsored - by Singapore Airlines.
Dennis Tan

 

[downgrader]

That's why I never flew this potato airline

 

[makapaaa]

Just like NUAss and NTeaU reserve scholarships for FTrash only?

 

[Maverick01]

This is essentially just one side of the story...we must first ascertain whether the team has approach any sponsors and whether SIA was one of the organization they approached. If the team did not take the effort to sell their sponsorship deal to organization then how to blame others??? Sponsorship fall from sky??? Furthermore, he seems so sad to see his daughter slogged away being a karang guni, end of the day how much could she raise alone through her karang guni effort? few hundred? Then why dont he fork out this amount if he is so worried for her daughter? Unless we are looking at few thousands or more but I reckon the karang guni effort of her daughter alone would raise that much.....if can everyone also karang guni already....Dont want do his part and fork out then suddenly arrow blame to some company for not sponsoring the team???

<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>Struggling Singaporeans and lucky Kiwis
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Singapore's world championship-winning junior dragon boat team had to toil to raise funds for the Prague meet, according to a parent, compared to the more fortunate New Zealand team which was sponsored by Singapore Airlines. -- PHOTO: NATIONAL JUNIOR COLLEGE
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->AS THE parent of a rower from the victorious Singapore junior dragon boat team, I was glowing with pride - and gratified - to read Tuesday's report, 'Dragon boaters roar in Prague'.
For the past year or more, my daughter trained seven days a week and squeezed in additional time and labour between training to scour housing estates, collecting old newspapers and drink cans to help raise money to fund the trip to the Prague meet. She lugged these items from home to school as well. All this in addition to keeping up with her school work. My home was turned into a karung guni depot, stocked with old newspapers and drink cans.
Relatives chipped in by collecting these items and passing them to us during weekend family gatherings.
My neighbours must have thought we had financial problems.
I had to sacrifice my sleep to drive my daughter to training to save travel time and so she could get as much sleep as possible. She missed most weekend family gatherings around the dining table because of training or she was simply too pooped.
She - and we - made these sacrifices with one aim in mind: to send a national team to Prague and do Singapore proud. And it was mission accomplished for the 49-member squad of students who won four gold medals, three silvers and a bronze.
But here is the ironically disappointing postscript: My daughter and the team discovered that the national team from New Zealand which took part in the same championships was sponsored - by Singapore Airlines.
Dennis Tan

 

[littlefish]

This is essentially just one side of the story...we must first ascertain whether the team has approach any sponsors and whether SIA was one of the organization they approached. If the team did not take the effort to sell their sponsorship deal to organization then how to blame others??? Sponsorship fall from sky??? Furthermore, he seems so sad to see his daughter slogged away being a karang guni, end of the day how much could she raise alone through her karang guni effort? few hundred? Then why dont he fork out this amount if he is so worried for her daughter? Unless we are looking at few thousands or more but I reckon the karang guni effort of her daughter alone would raise that much.....if can everyone also karang guni already....Dont want do his part and fork out then suddenly arrow blame to some company for not sponsoring the team???

You have a very balanced viewpoint. The NZ team sponsorship was probably done by the NZ office of Singapore Airlines as part of their community contribution effort. It is not fair to simply blame SIA unless they specifically turned down their sponsorship request and channelled the money to the NZ team.

 

[bryanlim1972]

his daughter probably learned so much more about life and suffering by doing it (fund raising) the hard way.

dragon boaters and canoeist are a tough bunch. respect.

 

[shOUTloud]

No matter what. This can turn into a PR disaster for Singapore Airlines. The next round when the dragon boat team approached them for sponsorship, it would be interesting to see whether they will give some token $$

 

[littlefish]

No matter what. This can turn into a PR disaster for Singapore Airlines. The next round when the dragon boat team approached them for sponsorship, it would be interesting to see whether they will give some token $$

The easiest solution would be to require their overseas offices to request permission from Singapore if they are sponsoring teams participating in events of an international nature. That would save them the embarrassment that may ensue in cases like these as they can then extend the sponsorship to the Singapore team as well (if they are still in need of sponsorship) or reject the NZ sponsorship. They need to have a corporate sponsorship strategy that encompasses all the regions they operate in if they don't have one.

Of course, it would simply be unforgiveable if SIA decided to sponsor the NZ team instead of the Singapore one because they think the NZ team has a better chance of winning and giving them a higher advertising mileage.

 

[UpYoz_olo]

his daughter probably learned so much more about life and suffering by doing it (fund raising) the hard way.

dragon boaters and canoeist are a tough bunch. respect.

Stupid donkey 'sport'. Play cricket better if cannot make it with soccer

:oIo::oIo:

 

[Maverick01]

his daughter probably learned so much more about life and suffering by doing it (fund raising) the hard way.

dragon boaters and canoeist are a tough bunch. respect.

from the way her father described, it is more of a chore than a learning experience which led to finger pointing...father just casually shoot arrows...

 

[makapaaa]

You have a very balanced viewpoint. The NZ team sponsorship was probably done by the NZ office of Singapore Airlines as part of their community contribution effort. It is not fair to simply blame SIA unless they specifically turned down their sponsorship request and channelled the money to the NZ team.

Cum on, they should have done their homework before signing the cheque. Unless of course, when the ang moh asks for $, anything goes. Ho Jinx and Daddy-in-Law are living examples of such CBs.

 

[bryanlim1972]

Stupid donkey 'sport'. Play cricket better if cannot make it with soccer

:oIo::oIo:

Try it before u condem it

 

[littlefish]

Cum on, they should have done their homework before signing the cheque. Unless of course, when the ang moh asks for $, anything goes. Ho Jinx and Daddy-in-Law are living examples of such CBs.

I don't know how SIA operates but they may have allowed a great degree of autonomy to their overseas offices on such decisions. I would definitely agree that they do need to have a central decision-making unit for international events if they don't have one currently.

Maybe they will soon remove the word Singapore from their name to avoid such brouhaha in future, afterall, they all aspire to be global companies.

 

[UpYoz_olo]

Try it before u condem it

Ah di, lai! When I paddled a canoe solo around zi island aka little red dot, you were probably still sucking your pacifier and running around in diapers. I no boast one, unlike many here. Tell you what, back then waters around pulau ubin, while not pristine, teemed with life. As the canoe breaks the water in front, little fishes will leap out of the waters on both sides of the canoe. Sometimes, a few of these fishes 'fly' into the cockpit of the canoe. If there are some water in the canoe, I get to ID the specie after we complete our journey. Else, we get 'salted fish' sometimes. This is true experience and not pliagarised from elsewhere.

I also done gradon boat competitively lah. No big deal wat. Only diff is team effort that's all. In fact, sometimes no body hardly noticed the absence of my effort at all

Both activities gave me chow-tar skin and blistered back which is why I say it's a stupid 'sport'.

:oIo:

 

[boring]

Ah di, lai! When I paddled a canoe solo around zi island aka little red dot, you were probably still sucking your pacifier and running around in diapers. I no boast one, unlike many here. Tell you what, back then waters around pulau ubin, while not pristine, teemed with life. As the canoe breaks the water in front, little fishes will leap out of the waters on both sides of the canoe. Sometimes, a few of these fishes 'fly' into the cockpit of the canoe. If there are some water in the canoe, I get to ID the specie after we complete our journey. Else, we get 'salted fish' sometimes. This is true experience and not pliagarised from elsewhere.

I also done gradon boat competitively lah. No big deal wat. Only diff is team effort that's all. In fact, sometimes no body hardly noticed the absence of my effort at all

Both activities gave me chow-tar skin and blistered back which is why I say it's a stupid 'sport'.

:oIo:

hi, u should wear long sleeve and good head gear to protect ur skin being chow tar. i also a former hardcore canoes but now no time lei only stick to running and swim. soccer no good la give u all sort of injuries at less dragon boat can give u body to show off mah:p

 

[UpYoz_olo]

hi, u should wear long sleeve and good head gear to protect ur skin being chow tar. i also a former hardcore canoes but now no time lei only stick to running and swim. soccer no good la give u all sort of injuries at less dragon boat can give u body to show off mah:p

Show off to who?? Zi chicks in this 'sport' all chow-tar and butchy type one. Other sports have better intrinsic values; see attached pic. Anna Rawson just one sexy sportwoman that will have me concentrate in zi sport. Cricket is another one where successful cricketers have no shortage of chicks around all the time and they earn millions. Of course, footballers like Ronaldo also.

Why waste time on zi 'sports' called canoeing and dragon boat????

:oIo:

 

[Leongsam]

The NZ team wins gold medals at world and Olympic level on a regular basis.

The Singapore team can't even paddle to save their own lives.

Sponsoring a team of sinkie losers would do nothing for the SIA image.

 

[makapaaa]

<TABLE id=msgUN border=0 cellSpacing=3 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD id=msgUNsubj vAlign=top>Coffeeshop Chit Chat - SIA defends decision to sponsor NZ team!</TD><TD id=msgunetc noWrap align=right>

Subscribe </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE class=msgtable cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="96%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=msg vAlign=top><TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgbfr1 width="1%"> </TD><TD><TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0><TBODY><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgF width="1%" noWrap align=right>From: </TD><TD class=msgFname width="68%" noWrap>kojakbt22 <NOBR>

</NOBR> </TD><TD class=msgDate width="30%" noWrap align=right>7:11 am </TD></TR><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgT height=20 width="1%" noWrap align=right>To: </TD><TD class=msgTname width="68%" noWrap>ALL <NOBR></NOBR></TD><TD class=msgNum noWrap align=right> (1 of 9) </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgleft rowSpan=4 width="1%"> </TD><TD class=wintiny noWrap align=right>20400.1 </TD></TR><TR><TD height=8></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgtxt><TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD>SIA defends kiwi deal
</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- headline one : end --></TD></TR><TR><TD>Not possible to fund every local sport, it says in response to ST letter </TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- Author --></TD></TR><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Christopher Ong
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Singapore's dragon boaters (foreground) are upset that SIA sponsored New Zealand while they had to raise money for their trip to the World C?ships. -- PHOTO: NATIONAL JUNIOR COLLEGE
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->SINGAPORE Airlines (SIA) has defended its decision to sponsor a New Zealand team over the Republic's World Championships junior dragon boat side, saying it cannot be supporting every local sport.
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'The New Zealand team were staying in the same hotel as us and we saw the Singapore Airlines logo on their polo tees. It was a little disappointing that instead of sponsoring us, they sponsored a team from another country.'

ALYSSA LIM, NJC rower

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</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>SIA provides sponsorship in cash and in kind to local sports, ranging from the Singapore Sports School and the Singapore National Olympic Council to the Singapore National Paralympic Council, its spokesman Nicholas Ionides said.
'As much as we would like to, it is unfortunately not possible for us to support every sport, however,' he said.
'In this particular instance, the cooperation with the New Zealand dragon boat team was limited and was a local initiative by our New Zealand station to support the community we operate in.'
The national carrier was responding to a letter by Dennis Tan, the father of one of the Singapore dragon boaters, in The Straits Times Forum yesterday. He had expressed disappointment over SIA's choice of teams.
The Singapore team, comprising 45 National Junior College (NJC) students and four from Hwa Chong Institution, had won the World Championships Junior trophy in Prague from Aug 26-30.
Despite making their debut at the competition, Singapore won the award - given to the top Under-18 nation - by winning four golds, three silvers and one bronze. They had to fend off stiff competition from 24 other countries, including powerhouses China and Russia.
Tan's feelings were shared by members of the dragon boat team, among them NJC rower Alyssa Lim.
'The New Zealand team were staying in the same hotel and we saw the Singapore Airlines logo on their polo tees. It was a little disappointing that they sponsored a team from another country.'
However, it is not uncommon for international companies to sponsor sports teams from other countries.
For instance, South Korea's Samsung and AIG of the US sponsor Chelsea and Manchester United respectively in football's English Premier League. Closer to home, Dubai-based air carrier Emirates is the sponsor of horse racing's Singapore Derby.
The Singapore team had to shell out $120,000 to compete in Prague. The Singapore Dragon Boat Association helped by allowing the team free use of its boats for training and equipping each member with polo tees and competition singlets.
While the bulk of the money came from the schools and the students, the team raised an additional $10,000 by collecting recyclable items like old newspapers and drink cans and selling them, said team manager and NJC physics teacher Yong Yuen Cheng.
Getting sponsors was tough, said Yong. 'We started looking for sponsors last October but most of the organisations either never replied or rejected us.
'Only the National Youth Council was kind enough to sponsor us with $5,000. It is quite discouraging. But we did not approach SIA for sponsorship, so I don't think we can blame them.'
Members of other sporting associations confirmed that securing sponsorship for local sports is never easy.
Low Teo Ping, who heads the Singapore Rugby Union and SingaporeSailing, blamed the current economic crisis.
But Cyrus Medora, executive director of Netball Singapore, said sports sponsorship is growing with increased awareness created by the 2010 Youth Olympics and the recent Asian Youth Games.
Still, rower Clement Neo of NJC felt local sponsors could do more for home-grown teams.
He said: 'We were representing Singapore at a big event, so we could do with some support from our own people.'


[email protected]

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[makapaaa]

>>>For instance, South Korea's Samsung and AIG of the US sponsor Chelsea and Manchester United respectively in football's English Premier League. Closer to home, Dubai-based air carrier Emirates is the sponsor of horse racing's Singapore Derby.<<<
But that's after they've spare cash left after sponsoring their own people, right?

 

[scroobal]

Can't believe we have people who continue to live in a well despite unprecedented easy access to information.

1) Bulk of SIA revenue comes from foreigners. SIA does not operate between Seletar and Changi.
2) As SIA is the "national" carrier for Singapore it therefore has an immediate captive market and the ad dollars don't get the bite that it can overseas.
3) All commercial entities operating globally typically allocate a budget to each country where it operates. That budget will have marketing spend that follows a general theme but it meant for the country where it operates. SIA NZ will obviously spend their marketing dollars in NZ. The Kiwi will know that SIA spent on them and their TV will probabaly show the Kiwi boat carrying the SIA logo for Kiwi consumption.
4) Did he approach SIA in the first place?

I bet you after seeing the letter from Dennis, 2 reactions will occur
1) The Govt will think that they were right in bringing in FT
2) FT will think that no wonder they are replacing locals.

<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>Struggling Singaporeans and lucky Kiwis
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Singapore's world championship-winning junior dragon boat team had to toil to raise funds for the Prague meet, according to a parent, compared to the more fortunate New Zealand team which was sponsored by Singapore Airlines. -- PHOTO: NATIONAL JUNIOR COLLEGE
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Dennis Tan