A poem about Squash:

Squash
It’s fun
Not in the sun
And the number of players can be one

Drive, boast, drop and kill
That is how you display your skill
But also remember that a squash match
is ultimately a test of your will

Squash is the ultimate combination of skill, agility, fitness, mental resilience, and intelligence. Our training hones all these attributes through court and physical training. Court trainings include rallies and drills which are fundamental but important skills required to play a decent match. After all, no matter how tough a game is, every squash player goes back to their basics and play on from there. As the time ticks by, our breathing gets heavier, our legs get tired and our shots get looser. This is the crucial moment where our fitness plays a significant role in determining a win and a loss. Our regular physical training ensures that every player on the team is able to endure a full match. To add on, our weekly sprints and long runs also help us in preventing the fatigue feeling after a long match.

So where do we attain all these fitness and skills? Well, it all takes place 3 times a week at Serangoon Gardens Country Club and each session lasts for about 2 to 3 hours. Training usually falls on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. However, during off season periods or exams, training is shortened to only 2 times a week. For the past few years, Raffles Squash is proud to have had such a dedicated coach who has not only been with us through numerous years of Nationals, he has also been a friendly mentor who was always there to give us advice and support. With an amiable coach, trainings have always been fun and enjoyable! Knowing how to have fun is also one of the things that Raffles Squash pays much attention to because we believe that happy members will not only have a closer camaraderie, everyone will also be encouraged and motivated to train harder. Indeed, the time flies when we are training! 

So enough said about our training sessions. Let’s enter a squash court and learn more about this unique sport. Welcome to the squash court! 

The red lines denote the boundary of the play area and all shots must be within the top lines and bottom lines. Right now some of you might be thinking that aiming at such large walls is not a problem, but after you have considered how a point is won, playing squash is no easy feat! Squash is a mentally and physically draining sport which requires game tactics and strategies. Even having a perfect game plan does not always guarantee a full proof win. But no worries, with some practice and hard work, you’ll definitely be driving that ball at an amazing speed.

Since squash is a small CCA, the team is very close. We all get along very well together, and provide moral support to each other during matches and exam periods. We also enjoy lunch as a team after some training sessions.

And so, we hope you got a better idea of what Squash is and we really hope you’ll sign up!

What is a “Chinese Orchestra”? To some a “Chinese Orchestra” is just a bunch of silly looking people performing the same Chinese New Year songs during every Lunar New Year celebration. To others, “Chinese Orchestra” is a cluster of students who perform weird Chinese music that seemed totally foreign at a certain CO concert they attended to support a friend.  Sure, to a certain extent, they may be right, but that is definitely not all there is to a CO.

To us, CO is a gathering of friends who share the same passion for playing music together. As an orchestra, everyone plays a part in creating and shaping our music. What makes us different from a symphonic band or orchestra however is that we create music using Chinese instruments such as the guzheng and pipa, and we build our foundation through Chinese music. But that doesn’t restrict us to making only Chinese music! In fact, CO plays music of all genres and origins, be it modern or traditional, Western or Oriental. Don’t believe me? Here are Chinese Orchestras playing cool songs that you can connect to:

In RICO, we believe that we should play music with each other and for each other. All members have a say in what songs we should play, and some even arrange or compose their own pieces which we often feature.  Regardless of our members’ prior experience in playing an instrument before or not, everyone has a place in RJCO.

As an orchestra, every member is crucial in shaping the group sound. Our practices are split into 2 types: sectional and orchestral. In Wednesday sectional practices, we split up into our sections to hone our individual skills and instrument mastery so as to achieve a homogenous sound within the section. In Thursday/Friday orchestral practices, all sections gather to coordinate between sections shape the music as an orchestra, creating one unified sound.

But it’s more than just the music. It is also about how 60 over people can work together to create something beautiful and become a big family. For most of us, our love for RICO stems from the friendship that binds us together. It’s about those late night dinners we have after practices and early morning gatherings just to see each others’ smiles before we plunge into the day. It’s about those outings, chalets and camps that allow us to spend quality time together, half the time mocking and teasing each other. And it’s about those friends that you know that you can fall back on, because there’s an entire orchestra behind you.  We go through the highs and the lows as one orchestra.

What is a “Chinese Orchestra”?  It’s just a usual group of students, bound by an unusual bond of friendship, playing music together.

Looking for something exciting and fun yet meaningful? Do you want to bond with your fellow Indian batchmates over some interesting activities? Then Indian Cultural Society is the CCA for you. In ICS, you get to organise and participate in numerous notable events from our annual cultural production to service learning activities. In collaboration with SINDA, we organised Value-O-City (notice the pun with velocity and vivocity? hehe), an Amazing Race targeted at 150 primary school students at Sentosa. It was fun-filled day with various games and activities which not only enriched the kids but also our ICS members. We also did a 5-week long Skills School Programme for Primary 4 to 5 kids with emphasis on inspiring and mentoring the kids. Members were happy to make an impact on the small kids in a big way.

Look forward to being on stage in our very own annual Sangamam show, a cultural showpiece. Sangamam is one of the main highlights of our CCA as members come together to showcase their talents such as acting, singing and dancing. The road to Sangamam is filled with memories as you get to work with your friends to stage this production. As Maanasa, a member of ICS mentioned, “Sangamam is one of the most fun thing in JC!” Sangamam 2014 will feature a major change from the previous years. Come join ICS and get to be part of this milestone. You can surely expect the unexpected…

Other than just in the Raffles Indian community, members also get to be involved in the wider Indian community through participation in SINDA Youth Leaders’ Seminar and Yishun Junior College Seminar.  Our members have also participated in diverse competitions from short films to short story writing.

We meet either on Wednesdays or Fridays weekly/fortnightly and more frequently as events draw closer. Your involvement in ICS is fully up to you, flexible and you can choose to take on responsibilities such as being in charge of events or help out during the event itself.

There is no pressure, only laughter and memories as one big family.

The Outdoor Adventure Club (ODAC) is made up of a community of people who love the outdoors, who dare to try new things and who look beyond themselves to work together towards a common goal. We ultimately aim to develop the character of every single ODACian and inculcate in every ODACian – respect, for oneself, for others, and for the environment, while using the outdoors as a medium. As the name suggests, ODAC takes part in a plethora of outdoor activities, such as overseas expeditions, kayaking, rock-climbing, hiking, cycling, mountain biking and many more.

There are several key milestones that each ODACian has to go through – Basic Training Camp (BTC), June Expedition, Gear Up and last but not least December Expedition. As ODAC does not take part in any competitions, these milestones are an important assessment of the achievement of each batch. Therefore, ODACians are strongly encouraged to go for the weeklong expedition (usually 4D3N) during the June holidays as well as the longer expedition during the December holidays.

Due to the nature of ODAC, it is preferred that ODACians do not sign up for enrichment programs as the overseas expeditions of ODAC tends to clash with the trips and activities of many enrichment programs, such as ALPS, ISLE, GCEP, BLP and LBA. Moreover, interested students should also take note that there is a cost involved in joining ODAC because of the price paid for our expeditions and personal equipment.

Our training days fall on Mondays (4.30pm – 6.30pm) and Wednesdays (2.30pm – 6.30pm), with the longer durations usually used for external trainings around Singapore. Training for our expeditions become a part and parcel of ODAC life. Running, static exercises, staircase climbing and Bukit Timah Hill trainings sometimes even with loaded backpacks are a familiar routine for all ODACians. This is to ensure that all ODACians attain a certain level of physical fitness, to eventually challenge ourselves in a way we have never before during the expedition.

Of course, if you were to ask any ODACian, not all trainings are about building up our fitness levels, we do have many trainings having the outdoors incorporated into them. As a batch, we’ve trekked the Southern Ridges, the Pipe-A-Pipe trail, Macritchie and Peirce reservoir nature trails and many more. And for many of us, these are trails that we would have never gone on by ourselves. ODAC has brought us on a journey to discover the hidden gems of our very own country, with mesmerizing, breath-taking and picturesque scenery.

Each batch of ODACians has entirely different experiences, embarking on different expeditions to various places each year. And for last year’s batch of ODACians, we scaled both the sixth highest mountain in Malaysia, the second tallest mountain in East Asia, and cycled more than 250km along the East coast of Taiwan.

ODAC embraces the idea of ‘the path less chosen’, no doubt, some people might wonder whether it is worth lugging a 15kg backpack up and down a mountain when there are other sceneries out there that are much more accessible. To these people, we will now very frankly tell you that ODAC is not the CCA for you.

We’re looking for the individual willing to step out of his/her comfort zone and continually challenge him/herself to better his/her skills, who has the mental strength to pull through difficult situations, who is a team player and cares for his/her batchmates, and most importantly, the individual who, at the end of the day, is are able to rejoice that he/she gets to be a part of what nature has to offer.

But just to clarify, we aren’t looking for people with a do-or-die attitude, we’re looking for people willing to try and give it their best shot. And if you think that you’re up to that challenge, we welcome you to join the ODAC family.