EXCO REFLECTIONS
YEAR-IN-REVIEW SERIES 21/22
Introduction - (Originally presented on CDRC's Instagram Account)
With the rising awareness of Alternative Dispute Resolution methods, CDRC’s membership has significantly grown this academic year. To ensure that every member takes away new skills from CDRC, the exco launched the mFam Leaders initiative where senior CDRC members were selected to lead and mentor groups of 5-7 juniors. We would like to thank the mFam Leaders for stepping up to assist our juniors.
With a total of 63 mFam Leaders and 52 mFam groups, CDRC aimed for closer interactions between mentors and mentees to provide a higher quality of guidance throughout each member’s journey with CDRC. In the future, CDRC might even organise an inter-mFam event to allow members to apply the skills learnt from our training sessions in a friendly competition :) With 268 members this year, CDRC is glad that the importance of ADR is increasingly recognised in our community.
As CDRC’s official sponsor, Sage Mediation has kindly supported CDRC members with its Young Mediators Training programme and the Sage Young Mediator Certification Assessments. We are grateful to Mr Aloysius Goh, Ms Samantha Lek and the Sage team for collaborating with CDRC to provide our members with meaningful opportunities to advance their negotiation and mediation skills.
As the practical assessments are coming up in May, we wish all CDRC members taking the Sage Young Mediator Certification Assessment all the best and we hope that you will share your experiences with the rest of CDRC soon!
Undoubtedly the backbone of CDRC, our Training Directors (TDs) have provided CDRC members with insightful General Training Sessions over the past academic year, coupled with Kahoot Quizzes where winners have taken home multiple Grab Vouchers (and with some even winning more than one Kahoot Quiz). Apart from Training Sessions, the TD’s (along with our distinguished alumni) bear the heavy responsibility of selecting the teams who represent NUS and CDRC at international competitions. This intricate process involves the holding of auditions, the grading of individuals and the provision of feedback to the participants. In many instances, the TDs have even gone on to coach the selected teams for their respective events. Despite their various tasks with CDRC, our TDs have themselves continued to successfully bring back various championship prizes for NUS. Together with countless CDRC members, we all thank Edwin (@l1wulv) and Kaezeel (@happykaezeel) for their hard work and contributions to CDRC :)
An initiative spearheaded by our Vice-President (Internal), Wayde Chan (@seedoubleyou_727), the internship drive has successfully provided ten selected CDRC members with internship opportunities at various organisations.
Through these internships, CDRC members will be able to apply their negotiation, mediation and general skills in a practical context while contributing to the organisations they are interning at. In time, these networks of opportunities will continue to grow and returning interns will be able to share their experiences and knowledge with fellow CDRC members. Do look forward to a greater selection of internship options in the future for all CDRC members :)
On this note, CDRC would like to thank our partners at SAGE Mediation, Bethel Chambers, Peacemakers Consultancy Services, Lupl, Allen & Gledhill, as well as Corteva Agriscience for taking a chance on our members, and we look forward to developing our partnerships further in the upcoming Academic Year.
The best (and most fun) way to pick up negotiation and mediation skills is to participate in competitions. CDRC members have been highly successful at multiple international and local events, winning a variety of prizes and flying the NUS flag high. In many instances, competition-winners have gone on to coach subsequent teams at the same competition (or others), passing on the baton, and sharing their knowledge and experiences with the next batch. On this note, we would like to express our gratitude to our alumni, who despite graduating, have returned to coach multiple teams over the past academic year! Since the pandemic, most competitions have been held remotely over Zoom. Recently, however, with the opening up of borders, more events are being held in-person, allowing competitors to travel overseas. We highly encourage CDRC members to join our next semesterly auditions and to take up the opportunity to advance your ADR skills.
In March, CDRC co-hosted its first international competition in collaboration with SULS, Allen & Gledhill and the Society of Mediation Professionals (Singapore). Featuring 24 teams this year, the competitors were tested on their skills as mediators and negotiators, and judged by professional mediators. With this experience, CDRC looks forward to organising more events in the future and availing the opportunity to members who wish to practice their skillsets in a competitive context. Read more about the event here: https://law.nus.edu.sg/media/nus-law-achieved-excellent-results-in-the-cdrc-x-suls-bilateral-mediation-competition-2022/?utm_source=nuslawslider&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=moots
As an annual event for CDRC, a shirt is designed for each batch of CDRC members. This year, Edwin (@l1wulv) created 10 (yes you read that right!) designs of which the top 4 were put to a vote. The two most popular designs were incorporated into the CDRC 21/22 Shirt.
21/22 COMPETITIONS
View our achievements page for details about the competitions that CDRC participated in during the academic year.
3RD LEADERSHIP HANDOVER
The new team comprised of Joel See, Joshua Toh, Wayde Chan, Uleysiss Boo, Samuel Wee, Edwin Chan, Kaezeel Yeo , Mavis Ng and Celester Tan.
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