16th June 06, Friday 11:43pm

Dear Janet,

First of all, I sincerely apologise for being late for the meeting as I was not familiar with the area plus I was held up for a while at the security gantry and the reception. I'm sorry about this and should have apologised earlier.

With regards to the camp proposal that you mentioned in your email thread at the bottom, I was not sure how that tied in with your previous email about communicating through mass emailing. As such I replied back to clarify what were the deliverables from our side but did not get a reply. Previously, my discussions with Renjie (Stacey's friend) was that you all were looking for student leaders and that was what I got from your earlier emails too, that we might even be recommending some. However, the focus changed to that of getting students across the board and I changed over to that. For one, leaving the School of Information Systems out of the picture was not going to be easy as it would be blatant discrimination of the SIS students.

Next, you mentioned over our tele-communication that you wanted to talk about the camps and the various dates, etc. As such, I brought my laptop for the meeting as the dates for all the various camps as well as the university-wide events taking place around this time were all on it. I was about to open it to load all the exact dates as well as some details and contact points but you decided to do without the school camps in the picture and instead focus on the main camp. As such, I felt that the laptop was not needed anymore.

I understand that you might be wondering about why I did not give you definite answers for the various deliverables at the camp on our side. First and foremost, I explained to you I was not involved in the camp organizing committee and it would not have been fair or right for me to make decisions on their behalf. As you mentioned, they already had their program more or less planned out and a skit or announcement will depend on whether it can be accomodated in. Secondly, as you know, I am the President of the SMU Students' Association. Would it be correct for me to make empty promises to external parties or worse still, important corporates such as Bods.Bodynits in this case? It would definitely be wrong to promise and agree to everything that you raised only to later go back on my word or reverse my decision. Whatever I could see possible and feasible on the spot, I had already agreed to at the meeting. I hope you understand that SMU has her own constraints, being in a new environment and still settling in, and definitely not as well-established nor having long histories and illustrious backgrounds like NUS and NTU.

Notwithstanding SMU's age in comparison with other universities, our target audience is also smaller as we have a smaller intake of students. Our current student population stands at 4000 while we are looking at 1200 freshmen joining us this year. Naturally, our camp size will be comparatively less as compared to other varsities which have populations around 20000 and are looking at incoming batches that can eclipse SMU's current population easily. It is definitely not fair to draw comparisons among the different camps.

Finally, I'm sorry if I have come across as arrogant when I requested for your proposal. I was actually thinking of having a contract between us so that there will be commitment on both of our parts. Nevertheless, it should have come from SMU's side and what I needed was your requirements from my side which I thank you for listing out as below. As agreed, I will be getting the camp proposal from the organizing committee (which is already done up).

Sorry again if I have offended you in any way and I hope you see where I'm coming from in this email.


Regards,

Tio Shu Hao, Timothy
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Dear Timothy,

I can see that news travel far more efficiently than i thought it can. Not that it is meant to be spread as i clearly have no idea smu ppl will be reading(none the less, i was ranting my frustration, i hope you understand that). Having said that, i hope it does not sour the collaboration that we could have.

I see that both you and i have a clear miscommunication. Allow me to clearify my part. This ambassador programme aims to target the whole smu cohort (i know i've stated 3 schools in the first place, now that you have brought up the case of "discriminating" the other school, i would be more than gladly to include that particular school.). I intended for the whole cohort of students to be involved as i do not want it to be just restricted to the clubs members as this programme is planned for the students in each targeted school.

I acknowledge that perhaps smu runs her system differently as compared to ntu and nus. thus, it is so wrong on my part to assume that i could get things done by going through the same procedure. that said, i am willing to accommodate and work with you, that is if you're still interested.

I look forward to work with smu. Seek your reply soon.

PS: if you do not mind, i'd like to post this email up to "clear" your name because of my rash act and also to prevent the start of any verbal war between the varsities that are involved. Thanx.

Regards,
Janet.