Matric Fair!

Heya! :)

I guess most of the NTU and NUS legionaries must be busy in preparing for the matric fair. A good time to recruit more members! A note of encouragement here.

About 5 years back when the NUS legion consisted only of 5-6 people, all members were needed to be down for the matric fair almost daily. Just because of our small numbers. But busy students as we are, understandably, not everyone can be there all the time so we had to resort to 'sharing one more legion slot' to the numerically superior CSS. It was good that we did that too because it utilizes the slots available more effectively.

What was good was that we all recognised that each of us knew we had to put in as much effort into matric fair because it was one of the greatest avenue to recruit members to the seemingly dying praesidium. And so we did. But we did it with the focus that we recruit members to be in a catholic community - we are not recruiting in competition with CSS. It was fun working with CSS in terms of sharing ways how each of us do recruitment. CSS did it with publicising the activities like mass, outings, CGs etc. Legion did it the 'book-barrow way' - giving out articles on the faith, distributing MMs and subtly inviting potentials for legion meetings.

Oh yea there were a long list of contacts after the week of matric fair. But it seemed that the CSS list was so much longer but it was also much due to legionaries selflessness in referring people over to a more encompassing catholic organisation. It is funny that we recognised that we needed people to fill up the ranks of the legion but at the same time, know that it is often better to place names in a ministry where people might be more interested at the first glance. Moreover, the legion is an 'acquired taste' where you can't expect people to know and love it almost immediately after a glance at the matric fair. Legionaries consoled ourselves then by saying that we are 'planting seeds', even if it was not for the legion at the end of the day.

As expected, we had only a few invitees to our meetings and not all of them expressed interest. The legion system weeds out those who are not suited to the ministry yet. And so we struggled with the low membership (but amazingly great attendance) and continued to do the work we are called to do.

Looking back, the subsequent spurt of growth in the legion was powered by an unseen force. People started joining from the oddest places - opus dei referrals, contacts in CSS, book barrow. One of them was special. There was a person we thought was a great legionary potential in CSS and she had a non-catholic friend. And so we wooed her like mad by following up. And not to make her non-catholic friend feel left out because they were together so often, we included her in our wooing as well. Guess who became the legionary in the end, and a good one at that.

The rambling above seems to derail from the topic of matric fair. But it is important also to see beyond the matric fair. Our seeds that we plant now would grow in unexpected ways and reap fruits unseen. Though the event might seem not to yield much from past experiences, you would never know if you don't try to put in that little bit more effort in just being present. Most of all, have fun at the matric fair! Because when you cast away your worries and let God do the recruiting, you enjoy what you do and do it well in God's name.