by Grace Ding, New Maternity
“Can you do a modeling segment for World Breastfeeding Week?”
It was a simple question and the simple answer was yes. However, that started a rush of activities that culminated in our mommies modeling onstage at BMSG’s annual World Breastfeeding Week 2010 event held at the Fountain Square, City Square Mall on 29th August, 2010.
The behind-the-scenes work that ends up with the models onstage is often time consuming and at times trying. We had to prepare the script for the emcee, the music for our models and look for the models, which proved to be the bigger challenge!
It was a hot sunny morning as we geared up, all ready for our maiden volunteer "job," to stage New Maternity's catwalk modeling show. It was indeed our honour to help out.
The morning did not start off so well unfortunately. We received a last minute notice from one of our models that she could not turn up for the show. These are things that are the stuff of nightmares! With hours to go before the event, it really left us all in a bind. What were to do? All the modeling choreography was done and everyone had a part to play.
You can tell a lot about a person from the way (s)he rises to challenges and it was a godsend that our managing partner, Jean stepped up to the plate and volunteered to fill in the empty slot, even though she was not entirely comfortable being in the forefront. Then again, all the models were amatuers and had little or no modelling experience. So we simply reminded each other that this was meant to be in the name of fun and that we would not take ourselves so seriously. So what if we tripped up? At least we could say we did a catwalk show!Everyone took turns to have breakfast and hair done by Angie, our professional hairstylist.
We only started our first rehearsal at 12pm and everyone was just not sure what to do since no one had actually done this before. Finally, we managed to get the choreography moving along and after a few rounds, the “models” were getting more comfortable with their moves and routines. However, we did not get much practice as mums started trickling in an hour before showtime and we had to retreat backstage.
Despite little hiccups here and there, we managed to pull off the event and everyone was delighted with their new found modelling skills. We had a great sense of achievement with this catwalk event and felt that this had brought a new level to our business.
This event had certainly shown us that with supportive people around us, we can achieve many things. We were able to successfully put up the catwalk event with help from various people including family and friends who pitched in any way they could, be it hairstyling, stage management and even baby caregivers.
In much the same way, we were able to breastfeed successfully because of the love and support of our families and friends.
