“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other”, said John F Kennedy, the 35th President of The United States.
That certainly holds true for Nicole Tan Yee Eng, 18, who serves as the current President of Team Republic Sports Club (TRSC). The Diploma in Mass Communication student sat down recently with The Republican Post to reflect upon her experience as a leader and the lessons she learnt.
Team Republic Sports Club is an Interest Group (IG) which serves to “promote sports to non-athletes” in Republic Polytechnic, She further elaborated that this is due to the fact that “physical education isn’t as strongly emphasised as when in primary and secondary school”.
The Beginning
Shock. That was the word Nicole chose to express her feelings when she first got selected as President. Initially, she was leaning more towards the role of Marketing Communications in her Interest Group (IG), as she shared that it was more suited and relevant to her course of study.
Taking a trip down memory lane, she recalled how she got inspired into joining the IG. Being a tennis athlete herself, she wanted to share the same joy of playing sports with non-athletes. Additionally, the ability to socialise with students from different courses convinced her to stay in the IG. She said, “Sports Club was not just limited to athletes only, hence I got to meet many students from different courses who also shared the same interests and goals as I did, thus bonding over that.” Truly, it was the tight bond among the members of the IG that she enjoyed the most.
Charged with overseeing the club, liaising with the different sporting Interest Group leaders and helping out in events that involved her IG, were some of the responsibilities that she had to undertake. However, she was not alone in this endeavour, as she had her executive committee (EXCO) team to support her.
The Takeaways
Going the extra mile was a principle that Nicole firmly believed in and acted upon whenever she faced challenges in liaising with the sporting IG leaders, as some of the leaders were not cooperative with her at times. She shared, “I think most of the sports CCA leaders are not really keen to be involved with non athletes, and it is quite difficult to liaise with them at times.” To resolve this hurdle, she would often find them in real life and try her utmost best to work with them, when online messaging failed.
Avoid being hostile was a key lesson that Nicole learnt as well, in managing disagreements within her team. She said, “Just talk things out properly and avoid being hostile.” In particular, she recalled a disagreement within her team, about administrative issues. She shared that the way she resolved that dispute was to “lay things out and try to resolve what was the main root of the problem”.
One memorable event that Nicole and her team did during their tenure was organising a volunteering activity at the old folks’ home, Metta. She fondly reflected on how they “played sports with the elderly and promoted the benefits of playing sports with them”, which “aligns with the club’s goals and values”.
The Future
Looking towards the future, Nicole notes that the IG has undergone a revamp. Previously, the IG only consisted of sports IG athletes, however, the IG is now open to all students, whether they be athletes or not. She says, “ We (TRSC) now allow open recruitment and any student, athlete or not, is free to join us.” This new approach has been successful, as the IG has accepted more than 30 students during the 2024 academic year.
For the upcoming academic year, Nicole points out that the IG is “still in the trial & error phase, and will continue to tweak the club to the best of students’ interests”. She adds that the IG will continue with the open recruitment approach and promote sports to the non-sporting students.
The Reflection
Comparing herself before and after taking up the presidency, Nicole admits that she has definitely changed. She said, “Before being President, I had no idea what it took to be a student leader.” However, she reflected that the role had enabled her “to learn about many things and many aspects of running a CCA in RP”. She said, “It really gave me a lot of knowledge, and it was a very eye-opening experience.”
To summarise the interview, she had a piece of advice for the incoming leaders. She says, “Only do it (take up the role) if you can commit!”
