Planning of a educational visit began early in the year. A contact was provided to the host but when the host got in touch with the contact, there was no response. A pro-active member of the visiting team had decided to take the initiative to liaise. That was great! So liaising began between both parties via the pro-active member. Several negotiations went on based on the understanding of the pro-active member until the final days before the trip. Meanwhile the host was in touch with the various functional teams to ensure a sharing and tour was provided along with making arrangements for some of the meals. And then when the day arrived, Murphy's Law came to play. The arrival of the group was delayed due to unforeseen diversion of traffic at the bridge, some highway jams etc. This threw the whole plan out of the window. Fortunately, the host acted fast and did some swapping between the tour & the presentation portions to ensure the functional groups would be around to lead the tour at their stations. So, lunch, tour & eventually presentations completed. The whole program was delayed by 2 hours though. The guests then went for dinner and a visit to Gurney Drive which is a scene not to be missed when in Penang.
The next morning, the hosts arrived as early as 7:00 am to check on the guests breakfast arrangement and then to follow through on the checking out process and storing of luggage. The group then broke up into 3 to interact with the respective teams for key learnings. The final part involved a joint Surprise event on home recording. The guests enjoyed a different experience of an on-the-spot live recording and received a copy of their singing album.
The last part was to have lunch and adjourn. The program here was simplified to allow more time for the group to commence on their remaining part of their tour to neighbouring temples of other traditions such as Burmese, Thai & Mahayana before stopping over at the newest mall in Penang - the Queensbay Mall.
On their journey back, there was a final education part of the program at a new monastery in Ipoh just a short left turn from the highway. This monastery was officiated during the Lunar New Year early this year. Its located next to a beautiful hillside & cave. There seemed to a delay of 2 to 3 hours arriving here once more.
After visiting the scenic monastery, it was now time to go back home to the city.
Moral of the story, great trip with immense education and learning for both the hosts and guests, perhaps, the building in of buffer as a contingency measure would have helped from reaching back at the early hours of 1:00 am which was approximately 3 hours behind schedule.
The next morning, the hosts arrived as early as 7:00 am to check on the guests breakfast arrangement and then to follow through on the checking out process and storing of luggage. The group then broke up into 3 to interact with the respective teams for key learnings. The final part involved a joint Surprise event on home recording. The guests enjoyed a different experience of an on-the-spot live recording and received a copy of their singing album.
The last part was to have lunch and adjourn. The program here was simplified to allow more time for the group to commence on their remaining part of their tour to neighbouring temples of other traditions such as Burmese, Thai & Mahayana before stopping over at the newest mall in Penang - the Queensbay Mall.
On their journey back, there was a final education part of the program at a new monastery in Ipoh just a short left turn from the highway. This monastery was officiated during the Lunar New Year early this year. Its located next to a beautiful hillside & cave. There seemed to a delay of 2 to 3 hours arriving here once more.
After visiting the scenic monastery, it was now time to go back home to the city.
Moral of the story, great trip with immense education and learning for both the hosts and guests, perhaps, the building in of buffer as a contingency measure would have helped from reaching back at the early hours of 1:00 am which was approximately 3 hours behind schedule.
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