Jarhad's Junk Site

My Sunday was burnt attending PA Grassroots Seminar at Suntec City on 12 Jul 09.  Most of the pressing issues that were brought up were nothing new, but after so many years there just haven't been any solutions for them.  I was quite bored, and being one of the youngest in the hall , I was getting restless.  However, came Labour Chief Lim Swee Say's turn to share about bridging all estates as one - I think he was the most entertaining speaker of the day.

During the question and answer dialogue session, he was posed two questions: should volunteers be accepted even if they are volunteering with the objective of reaping certain tangible benefits, and should monetary incentive be given to volunteers?

Minister Lim replied in a little X-rated way, first with a anecdote - he likened it to a relationship between a man and a woman.  Men get close to women in order to sleep with them; women sleep with men in order to get close to them.  Just as the means of one party is the end to the other, volunteers should be allowed to reap benefits, provided they work for it - that way both parties are satisfied and achieve what they want.

Then he told a story: A man sees a beautiful woman in the park, and asks her if she would sleep with him.  The decent woman, extremely offended, exclaimed that she's not a prostitute and wouldn't do it no matter how much he was willing to pay her.  Then the man replied, "Who said anything about money?"  Moral of the story: money can be seen as an insult and it changes the whole equation.

Next up, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, in my opinion the second-best speaker of the day, expressed his view of why people continue to volunteer.  It was friendship that kept volunteers coming back together again and again, because they enjoy their time together.

These are the only things I remember from this seminar.