The future of F.U.N. outings

[KopiOkaya]

I have been thinking a lot recently...

The last few F.U.N. outings has been quite taxing on me - both mentally and physically, so much so that I lost about 5 kg within that short 1.5 months (which in a way, can be good news since I am grossly overweight).

My first thought is future F.U.N. outings have to incorporate more teamwork rather than I doing most of the planning and recce. Jacob specifically told me to leave him out and alone if the outing requires both of us to recce the venues. I understand him totally since he has family and personal commitments to attend. Instead, I seeked help from A.M.K.; Amberture, Maestro (Bluffname), and the King (AndiKong). I must thank A.M.K. for their great, but more importantly, sincere help. They never requested a meal or even a cup of kopi from me as their 'wages'. They did it out of their love for F.U.N. group and to help a friend. This is what I call TRUE brotherhood.

My second thought is we must change our F.U.N. outings to more casual, less formal, events so as to encourage more non-members to join us. Those people who wish to join us do not necessarily have to use Fujifilm products, BUT members must try to show them the benefits and advantages of using Fujifilm products. I am sure Fujifilm Singapore will want us to sustain longer as a group since their last user group lasted less than 2 years.

My next thought is F.U.N. outings has to be more member-oriented, without sacrificing our core principles of offering free-of-charge memberships to all Fujifilm and FinePix users, and providing wholesome and educational activities. I need feedbacks from members what kind of activities they want and hope to participate more often? Is it feasible to integrate marketing and sales talks from Fujifilm Singapore into selected F.U.N. outings? This thought has been in Jacob's and my mind for a while now. We are not sure if this is fine for everybody, since bringing Fujifilm Singapore to F.U.N. means that they want us to give them the opportunity to introduce and to test their new products. They conduct their talks and we test out new Fujifilm gears. This is a WIN-WIN situation for both parties.

My final thought is not so much about F.U.N. outings. Instead, Jacob and I cannot and can never be chairman and secretary of Fujifilm F.U.N. forever. Therefore, we shall appoint a new chairman, secretary and communication and relations coordinator during our F.U.N. birthday in November 2010. The appointments will last 2 years, with effect from January 1, 2011. All members (except Jacob and I) will vote for their new committee members. However, both Jacob and I are still the founders of Fujifilm F.U.N. group. We will continue to offering our help and assistance to the new committee. In fact, I already have a few very good and extremely capable candidates in mind. This is to give our members an opportunity to operate and govern Fujifilm F.U.N. group. At the same time, this will bring new and fresh ideas to the group and to its activities.

I welcome feedbacks from all members. Do keep them coming so that we know how and where to improve ourselves in future F.U.N. outings BUT please refrain from commenting and attacking another member's integrity (we don't want and don't need another CS). This, you can either PM me or that member directly.

[amberture]

IMHO:

A few quick points:

1) Fuji Product awareness/ Non-FUji user

Once I went for a photoshoot with a friend using D200. We took the same scene and we compare the result. He commented that the pic output is more vibrant then his. (we read alot but it is different when some1 is telling u personally from other camp)
- FUN and Fuji's quality awareness objective met.

2) Compact/ prosumer Camera

I could recall there was an outing for F200 camera user. It turned out well. We can extend outing to this group, which I believe is also the group that HQ is interested. I am amazed by those photo taken with F31, F70, F200 from u guys. Our Bro Kong will be there. He is eying on S200EXr. I would like to get myself a F31, 200 etc to go along with my DSLR. The compact user with F40 will also upgrade to higher model. There are many ppl amazed with the photos the camera can produce.

Win-win for Fun and FUJI. We can develop passion for photography and forge good friendship.

3) Member/ Non member. (less formal)

Critical mass. But critical mass does not imply to be in 100s or 1000s. I recalled I joined Rotaract Club which active member is less than 20 and only less than 10 Committee member but there are many many regular non members around. They organised pretty big projects successfully both locally and oversea.

FUN continuity is achieved.

4) FUji

If there is critical mass active of member/ non member, we can organsie product demonstration/launch organised by FUJI and we have the first view of the product launch. (E.g Apple Conference) I will like to attend such event then. (Freebies, priority will be added bonus).

Win-win for Fun and FUJI.

5) Fun/ Fuji awareness.

I purchased a Fuji camera based on the picture on Sticky thread (seeing is believing) and discussion on forum and bluffname's S5 website. So we can continue to do so. Naturally, public will visit our blog/ website for more information when they are looking for FUji product. More traffic meaning more member/ non member joining FUN.

FUJI and FUN's objective met.

Will post more later.

Look forward to your advice and opinion.

cheers:coolnod:

[KopiOkaya]

Bro Newphew,

Thanks for the analysis... As you know, we are not interested in quantity. You can have 50 or 100 members BUT what is the use if they feel neglected, or worse, they learn nothing about photography, or benefit nothing from our activities. Already I felt very, very bad for loosing Coolsigg and his partner halfway through our shoot yesterday. I tried calling him on his phone twice, but you know how noisy it was outside ION Orchard with all those loudspeakers blasting irritating iPhone ads. In the end, I stopped searching for him. Not because I gave up easily but I had to 'take care' of other members as well.

My point is, members must be happy and comfortable with us. Just like you are happy and comfortable with Uncle Richard, Uncle Kong and myself. My goal is I want all members to experience and feel like how you felt about us. That is why we remain down-to-earth and stop you from the BBB craze. I could have tried to sell you that NP-150 battery since you were very keen, but instead I told you honestly you do not need another S5 Pro battery.

[bluffname]

AGREE :cheers:with ALL the points you raised, Bro.

Only thing I wish to add is that I feel you take on too much work and responsibility and stress yourself out unnecessarily. As a FUN member, I like to see the organiser(s) enjoying himself (themselves) rather than feeling stressed out from having to take care of us.

For example, I don't think there is a need to recce FOUR times (and by the way I only helped your twice, not three times - you gave me too much credit).

More importantly, there is no need to feel bad if some members got "lost". Of course it is great if we shoot as a group and interact along the way. At the same time, it is not your responsibility if some of us lose the group along the way. It is equally our responsibility to stay with the group, or at least to inform the organiser if we need to chabut early. Nowadays, with handphones, it is so easy to just sms or call and ask, "Where are you arh?"

Except that last night, my handphone died. And I could have lost the group because there were times when I could not see any of you nearby. But because I could not be contacted, I made special effort to look out for the rest and fortunately managed to catch up, lose again and catch up again. But... if in the end I did lose the group, I certainly would not be upset and curse/swear at the organiser for "doing a bad job". It is so easy to lose each other in such a "mad" crowd and it would not be fair for anybody to blame the organiser if that happens.

We are all adults so you don't have to stress yourself trying to take care of us. Of course, if we go shooting in McRitchie forest or Malaysian jungles, then a lot more care has to be taken. But hey, we were at Orchard Road!

This is not to say I/we don't appreciate your efforts. But like I said earlier, I much rather see you relax and enjoy yourself along with us instead of feeling it is your "duty" to take care of us. If anything, we should take care of the orgaiser(s) :cheers:

There is also no need to recce four times to make sure that we have enough things to shoot along the route. To me, once or at most twice is more than enough. Again, if I feel uninspired during a particular outing, I would not blame you or the person who suggested the location. After all, nobody forced me to join and if I think a particular location does not offer much potential, I can just opt out. And part of the FUN - and learning - in such outings is to see others shoot something nice or even great that we did not even notice.

Bottom line is: RELAX :happy1: my friend and (big) Brother!

Yeah, maybe a less formal way of doing things will help you relax.

[KopiOkaya]

For example, I don't think there is a need to recce FOUR times (and by the way I only helped your twice, not three times - you gave me too much credit).

Alamak... You helped me recce three times lah. You forgot meh? I still remember very clearly -

It was a Monday morning. After returning the 70-300 VR lens to Camera Rental, we took bus 190 to Burger King @ ION Orchard for lunch. You suggested we meet and start our 'next' outing there.
It was a Thursday evening. You, me and Newphew met at Wisma Atria Food Republic for dinner. After that we went to ION Orchard to photograph the purple Christmas tree, where you ripped your Dockers pants.
It was a Saturday evening. You, me, Soon Hoe and the King met at the newly-renovated Albert Centre Food Centre for dinner. We took bus 65 and alighted at 313@Somerset. From there we walked to Heeren, The Paragon and then to Tangs. It was raining that evening so the King shot that 'Very French' picture with his Miniature Marvel. I took that 'Prada + lady with pram' picture that day.

Oophs!!!! Four times to be exact. It slipped my mind.


The last time was a late Friday afternoon. You, me and Newphew met for lunch at 313@Somerset Food Republic. After we 'escorted' you to UOB bank, all of us walked to Ngee Ann City where Newphew 'reasoned' with the Singtel branch manager and helped you save S$120 for your next mobile phone purchase.
There you go... you helped me recced four times, not three.

[coolsigg]

Already I felt very, very bad for loosing Coolsigg and his partner halfway through our shoot yesterday. I tried calling him on his phone twice, but you know how noisy it was outside ION Orchard with all those loudspeakers blasting irritating iPhone ads. In the end, I stopped searching for him. Not because I gave up easily but I had to 'take care' of other members as well.

bro, really sorry for breaking contact with the group last weekend. However, I will continue to support furture FUN outing as I like the atmosphere and comradeship exhibited during the short time we chatted in BK.

Like bluffname mentioned, no need to feel bad at all. I am sure there will be more chances I look forward to joining future outings. :)

Can see that you guys had put in alot of effort to organise the FUN outings and to make everyone feel welcomed. And I learn a lot from the interactions.

Perhaps, like what others said, what we can do is to rope in Fujifilm SG to have product demo and hands on, especially for new product launches.

We do know that locally, Nikon and Olympus do it as part of customer care program. It doesnt even have to be a big bang approach. I went for some Nikon demo/hands-on at SG Flyer's Popeye. Olympus did a simple EP2 intro at Funan TCC (I went too!). These are simple, no frills sessions to intro their products to existing and potential clients. :)

Unfortunately, when my colleagues and friends asked me what compact to buy and I mentioned Fujifilm, they always give me the "Eeek! Fujifilm good meh?" comment. This shows that the general mindset of the consumers are still biased towards Canon/Nikon and increasingly Sony/Panasonic. We as FUN group can only do so much. Fujifilm do need to put in more in branding and marketing campaigns and we can help out in that area.

[KopiOkaya]

Perhaps, like what others said, what we can do is to rope in Fujifilm SG to have product demo and hands on, especially for new product launches.

That is what I was trying to persuade Fujifilm Singapore to do; organize view and test sessions. They agreed to do it. But instead of having it on a weekend or weekday after office hour (like Nikon did), they scheduled it at 10am on a Thursday at Fujifilm Building. Jeeze... I told them how do they expect people to go to Fujifilm Building on a workday morning? They hesitantly changed the timing and location to 6pm at MS Color in Ang Mo Kio. In the end, we had to cancel the event due to poor response.

I am sorry to say this but I find the marketing staff at Fujifilm Singapore unintuitive. If they want to bring in more sales and increase brand awareness, they will have to take the initiation to reach-out to the consumers, and not the consumers suit them.

It is very frustrating, but I will keep trying hard to make it happen - at least for all F.U.N. members.