Shin hosts her own farewell dinner

Shin hosted a 'farewell dinner' for KMP crew at Kechara Oasis (of course) on Weds 25 March. Everyone showed up - Joan, Judy, Jamie, June (so many 'J's), Han, Chris, Susan, Sio Chian (there are 4 'S's too including Shin and I!) Lanse, Yek Yee, David.. Shin started reminiscing about being the first full time staff at KMP and it was a nice wander down memory lane.

KMP started off with two guys, Joe and SP, in a rented room, madly burning DVDs and liaising with freelance writers, proofreaders, editors like Jamie, Andee and eventually myself. From there, we moved to another rented room in a house across the street, and eventually took over the whole premises. Shin was brought to Kechara by Wai Meng and she was invited to join KMP by Joe, who had become CEO of KMP.

However, Joe and Shin somehow worked at cross purposes and never the twain did meet. It was a case of different characters and personalities and many misunderstandings. However, thank Buddha that's all in the past.

We relived our first foray overseas at the Singapore Book Fair, which was the first real bonding experience for the team. This was initiated by Joe who had the great foresight that the experience would change our lives and it did!

Since those days, KMP has since changed premises, been almost shut down a few times, been almost assimilated into another department, been almost turned into a thangka shop, and fortunately, it's so far only 'almost' and we have survived.

Our staff turnover has been quite incredible, with a swapping of staff between ladrang and KMP - Joe and SP left KMP for the ladrang, Susan left the ladrang for KMP, Joey Wong left KMP awhile back and has just joined the e-Division at ladrang, JJ left KMP for ladrang and now Shin is also heading for ladrang. We've also recently had a few great additions to the team - Joan Foo Mahony as KMP advisor, Judy as our very capable admin and Dr Lanse as our part time Chinese translator.

We'll miss Shin as we miss all those who have left us but they are always with us in spirit and those who are in ladrang have not really left since we're all just one big family!