3 posts tagged “support”
SGGURLS 10th Moderator Meeting
Singapore, 25th April 2009
It was another hot night of 32 degrees in Singapore. I took a cab driver to find PLU cafe. The damn cabbie kept wanting to drop me off at KTV lounges. He eyed me from the rear view mirror and kept asking if I was going to work? I presume he thinks I am a KTV hostess. :-P Jeez, I must improve my dressing.

When I finally to the PLU cafe, the staff was very friendly and hospitable. However, they have a strange custom in the cafe. To get to the cosy lounge upstairs, I had to take off my heels. Waaaahhhhh.... me without my heels? Anyways I acquiesced and went up stairs. I was pleasantly surprised by PLU cafe's tatami laid back style lounge. It was love as first sight. Now I fully understand why Hendrika (also from the SDAM, SGDOMSUBS network) kept suggesting that we hold our meetings in PLU. Andrew the owner of the PLU cafe set us up well. We had an incredible comfy and cool corner with the air-conditioning just above us. He’s so thoughtful and it was heaven for us just to escape from the sweltering heat outside.

We had a fabulous night and a very eventful one. SGGURLS achieved another big milestone by electing its first ever Chairwoman, co-Chairwoman, Official Biawak (or Vice-Something ..can't really remember but I think it's got to do with vice), Secretary, Treasurer, Chief Marketing Office, Chief Event Organizer, Webmistress, Liaison Officers to the various networks. I won't tell you who the names of the officers since I won't steal the Chairwoman's and co-Chairwoman’s thunder. They'll do the announcement.

We met the beautiful Elisa for the first time. She's very sexy and her photos don’t do her justice. We really need to get a pro-photographer to do a nice portfolio for the gurls. This is where the SGGURLS 2009 Calendar project comes to the rescue. Miss Destynee Chua the chief editor outlined the overall approach for putting the calendar together. It was very exciting to hear her ideas. I really can't wait to get this thing off the ground. The gurls closed quite a lot of outstanding tasks that night. I was awed by how far the SGGURLS' team has progressed. Some of the SGGURLS' mods have really grown tremendously and have stepped up to the leadership role. The team survived the forming, storming and norming stages. They put together some very sophisticated and fun events which were like a 100 times better that last years. I will let the Chairwoman & co-chairwoman to announce these exciting events.
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Links:
PLU cafe in Singapore: http://plucafe.blogspot.com
Singapore transgender social and support network: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sggurls
SGGURLS 3rd Moderator's Meeting
Singapore, 12th October 2008
The SGGURLS moderators convened at DYMK bar at about 9pm+++. Some of the gurls were already there since 6pm as they attended Leona Lo's talk. Before the Moderator's meeting started a variety of topics were discussed. The most memorable were highlights from Leona Lo's inspirational talk about the challenges that a trans-gurl will face. Destynee said that the best part of the talk she liked was that a tgurl needs to be self-reliant and not hope for the knight in shining armor. There's no such person. Trish agreed and said that building up a means to achieve financial independence was a key to a successful pre and post transition.

The topic of purging came up during the discussion. A spot survey from the moderators showed that almost all the Mods (short for Moderators of SGGURLS) who were present that night had purged their fem personalities at least twice only to be defeated by a stronger resurgence from their fem side. Nic said that "we're born with a curse never to escape the need to be a woman." Trish however disagreed and said that it was not a 'curse' but a blessing. Trish summed it up best by saying that Trans people (MtF, FtM) are the only people with a unique understanding of what it means to be a man and a woman. All the Mods agreed that it's quite difficult if not impossible to escape from wanting to be that elusive girl / woman. This need is like the programming in salmons that compel them to swim upstream.
The Mods also discussed about how a pressing issue of harrassments of members and Mods in the SGGURLS forum. The Mods discussed the term 'harrassment'. Harrassment means to incessantly contact the gurls without any regard if the communication was not welcomed. We discussed about some specific cases that happened for the last two weeks. It was agreed that if the harrassers persist, then the Mods will take appropriate actions. The approach is to reason with them first. The banning of harrassers will be a last resort.

When Kaila & Joy finally arrived (10:30pm ), Trish called the meeting in order. The Mods meeting was chaired by Destynee and Kaila. Destynee briefed us the status of the arrangements. Kaila went through the agenda. Destynee gathered our decisions for the halal menu which made many of us hungry. If the menu sounds as good as the actual food, most of us can't wait to get their hand on the food. Nic and Destynee worked out the finance for the SGGURLS nite. We discovered that we were short of about S$200. The Mods brainstormed on how to cover the shoftfall. Smart Joy suggested that each of the Mods contributed an additional sum. The sum to be worked out. Ivy suggested that we also ask if some of the bars, etc. wanted to sponsor our SGGURLS nite. There were some items that still needed to be worked out particularly drivers and the drinks portion. Destynee suggested that the Mods bring 1-2 bottles of their favorite drinks. Nic suggested that maybe make it optional (but much appreciated) if participants would also bring a bottle of their favorite wine or liquoer.
The Mods also got to meet up with Angeline who posted her photos on the board recently. Kaila exchanges some tips for her on how to overcome her shyness. Most of us already think that Angeline is brave for joining the Mods meeting. After the meeting, the gurls adjourned to smoking heaven ("Cow&Coolies"). For non-smokers the place was smoking hell. But our friends in Cows&Coolies already very familiar with our group were fun. Their friendliness and craziness made up for the blured vision from the heavy smoke.
Special thanks to Rayne who was our official ("arrowed') photographer for the night.
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SGGURLS (a Singapore based social network group for tv,cd,ts): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sggurls
MYGURLZ (a Malaysian based social network group for tv,cd,ts): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mygurlz
DYMK bar: http://www.dymk.sg
Cows N Coolies: http://www.streetdirectory.com/businessfinder/company_detail.php?companyid=21564&branchid=8466