Our Baboga Class has undertaken several initiatives since High School. And we are not done yet, with the recent launching of the Bursary. Through all these years, whether we failed or succeeded, one thing was constant: we learned our lessons and we adapted. And we did that multiple times. So, let me count the ways.
Baboga Sinking Fund. In 2nd Year High School, Mr Doblas became our class adviser. He came from a teaching stint in another High School in Cebu. We were impressed immediately for he had a way with words. Remember when we loathed being associated with the “flower power” activity at the seminary as being too feminine? Well, he turned us around by saying that “flower is a symbol of femininity, but a sign of masculinity”. We didn’t know exactly what it meant, but it sounded deep and insightful. His magical words always transfixed us, more so that when heard about how important a credit lending facility would be to help our friends who were in need, we didn't think twice. We lost track of the reason for using the word “sinking” for this initiative, and we all know what happened after that. But the one lesson that we can never forget from this is the importance of a proper and detailed accounting.
Movie premier. In 3rd Year High School, we sponsored a movie premier, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. We negotiated with Royal Cinema and were given tickets to sell. We went around selling ticket, even accepting IOUs. Several people promised to pay later, after the showing. Collecting money after the event proved to be more difficult that extracting a bad tooth, we found out. We couldn’t collect them at all and ended up not earning anything for all our efforts. The lesson we learned from this initiative is to never accept IOUs and promises of payment after the fact.
Katcha IHMS Tote Bag. In 4th Year College, we wanted to raise funds that we can use to celebrate our graduation. So, we manufactured tote bags. We bought several yards of the katcha canvas cloth, several rolls of white thick strings, silk screen and stencil and black ink for the printing, metal eyelet (grommets with washers). We decided on the size of the tote bag, computing the total cost per bag and whether the selling price would provide sufficient profit. After factoring in the sewing fee, we found that it was. So we went to work. We gave the katcha to a sewer in Taloto with our specifications. We would then do the silk screen printing. It was just a simple “IHM Seminary” branding that became an instant hit among the seminarians. Carrying this during outing became the in thing. I can’t remember who did the silk printing though. But I remember the attaching of the grommets and the strings was done in MarJals’ room, while drinking San Miguel in can. Our class was rich enough to be able to order anything from the canteen “charge to the class”. Every month, MarJals would take care of verifying Taning’s listahan and paying our utang. One lesson we learned from this initiative was that selling a useful product with a good branding is easy, and it really helped that this time around, we didn’t accept utang and IOUs.
Scriptum Print Format. During the very first reunion in 1998, someone mentioned that there was a “need to sustain what we have started last October 30”.The solution offered was to “Publish a one-sheet newsletter . . . Distribute copies to all class members, especially those who are not participative."
It wasn’t immediately acted upon. In fact, it wasn’t until 5 years later when Soc, McAbs, Juntabs, and Nox started writing and publishing in print format the newsletter called Scriptum. From 2003 to 2006, twelve issue were published, and distributed Bohol-wide by Juntabs. One lesson we learned from this is that some plans may take a while to gestate, but eventually they will come to fruition if you continue to talk and dream about it. The bursary is another good example.
Scriptum Online Blog. Issue number 13 of Scriptum marked the transition to our online blog. We stopped publishing Scriptum in print format, as we said, to “save the trees”. We have continued the story-telling using a different medium and in fact wrote more than 100 articles already. Scriptum took on the character of our batch—with lots of serious stuff and also lots of crazy stuff. One lesson we gather from this initiative is that to succeed we need to constantly innovate and not be afraid to adapt new technologies.
Orphanage Donation. During several online discussions via Zoom and our FB page in preparation of our Ruby Jubilee reunion, there was a suggestion to give something to the most in need, especially during the time of COVID-19. The original suggestion was to give food to poor families. Several other suggestions were voiced out and eventually our batch settled with the giving of a grocery gift card to the orphans of Albur. The initial budget of P300 became P500 and then more than P1000 per child. Funds were easily raised. And we were able to give more than we had originally planned for. A lesson gained from this experience is that projects like this that involve a one-time dole out are quick and risk-free; it can easily be replicated without risk of failure.
Bursary. One project conceived way back in 1998 finally took form during the Ruby reunion with the launching of the IHMS Batch 80-84 Bursary. This is an initiative that is on-going and gradually unravelling. It still remains to be seen whether this will succeed or fail. And the lessons are still to be learned. We will revisit this . . . years from now. (--- nox arcamo)
