RE-IMAGINING THE AGM:
The Annual General Meeting for the community was born out of a desire to have a medium to share what was on the mind of our Head of School and give the school’s stakeholders a vision for the coming year. The inaugural AGM was in January 2020 and drew over 120 members of the community to a meeting to hear from our school leaders. In the time between our first and second AGM, much had changed. Gathering in community was one of the goals of the Advancement Office. During a planning session in early November 2020, there was a flame of hope that perhaps we would be back to normal by January, and we could host our community in person. But what if we couldn’t? What format would work best if we had to limit our audience to small groups? After evaluating the complexities of planning for both scenarios, we decided to pivot and go full steam ahead in producing a fully virtual AGM in 2021.
Serious Screen Time How many screens does it take to run a live AGM event?
A virtual meeting opened up so many possibilities as we thought about where our speakers could be while they delivered their message. We loved the idea that the community could visit different parts of our campus and we could, as Fay Leong put it, leverage the “power of place”. And so our team set out to create a production to best communicate this year’s vision from our Head of School and other important topics from our experts.
On Location Instead of filming the event speakers standing behind podiums, the team filmed each speaker on location to enhance their message.
Fay on the Bay
On January 8, Hong Kong hit a low of 7 degrees and a high of 10 degrees Celsius. Bundled in long johns and puffy jackets, we transported our crew and equipment out to the dock, determined to stay on schedule, to film our Director of Curriculum and Assessment, Fay Leong. Fay’s delivery was perfect, albeit a slight tension in her cheeks, which she later shared was attributed to not feeling her fingers from the cold. Early the following week, as we planned out the next video segment, I was struck by the sunlight streaming into our offices and how beautiful the bay looked compared to the grey, gusty day we experienced the other day. I immediately went up to Fay’s office to see if she would be willing to go out there again. Her only opening was in the next 30 minutes, and so our team dropped everything and captured Fay on the Bay again under a big, blue sky. Our recording session was 17 minutes and featured a bigger smile on our speaker. We hope you enjoy all the videos!
Brrrr! All smiles despite the absolutely freezing weather while filming Director of Curriculum and Assessment Fay Leong on the pier of Tai Tam Bay.