NUS Mountaineering at the top of the ladder as “All-Star Portal”

It has been a radically-different semester for all of us indeed as we continue to spread the love for the mountains among the NUS community. NUS Mountaineering (Make It Real “MIR”) has made it a point to keep our NUSync portal updated with in-depth stories, breath taking photos and exciting event updates. It’s not easy to keep student life thriving during COVID-19. Unlike other student organisations, we require a physical environment to hone our skills and practise our techniques. In the absence of face-to-face interactions and physical sites, my remarkable and dedicated EXCO team and I worked extra hard to develop two creative programmes for our members. They were key factors that landed us the title of “All-Star Portal” at the NUSync contest in 2020.

Here are two initiatives NUS Mountaineering pushed through during COVID-19:

1. MIR TV: Bringing the mountains to you

We launched eight successful online sessions in Sem 1 featuring speakers from past and present members to impart the basics of mountaineering through their unique and powerful personal experiences. Hot topics included what to wear to managing injuries in the mountains. The NUS community tuned in from the comforts of their own homes to meet others online and gained new insights at the same time.

“MIR TV brought together our current EXCO and alumni to exchange their personal and unique experiences of exploring distant mountains,” said Project Director and MIR 20 EXCO member Chong Yong, Year 3, FoS.

2. NUSummiteers: A digital challenge to scale peaks

This inaugural event brought together a whooping 100 members and non-members together by challenge themselves through mountaineering training drills and where our Summiteers went beyond their usual routine while still applying safety measures.

“We were delighted to see digital submissions of our participants hiking with their friends, trying out top-rope climbing, climbing more flights of stairs or hiking daily for longer hours,” recounted Ophelia Ong, Project Director ,Year 2, FASS/FoS.

Kudos to everyone who participated, challenged themselves, and scaled new heights with NUS Mountaineering this semester. Also, a hearty congrats to my EXCO who worked tirelessly to literally move mountains.

Together we achieved the following:

• Launched two new programmes that brought together members and non- members hence widening our audience to be more inclusive;
• Improved the wellbeing of students by challenging them physical and mental throughout the semester;
• Built a more resilient EXCO as it was our first time working together during a pandemic as we forged stronger bonds and are more prepared for the new year

In summary, through these two key initiatives and learnings we collected fantastic stories and photos that were easy to upload to NUSync to connect with the NUS community. We took advantage of the different tools NUSync had to offer while making our portal user friendly for visitors to learn about our club.

With the $500 cash prize, we plan to use it towards the launch of our long-awaited book and to celebrate our 20^th anniversary with our alumni community and current members.

Thank you OSA and my EXCO for Making It Real!