Outpost Learning Event and Kuala Lumpur

The Outpost Learning Event (LE) in Kuala Lumpur was really great.  I learned a lot about Outpost and had a wonderful time, too!  My fellow Outpost volunteer, Kay, went with me.  This blog is quite long as we did so much and I have a lot of pictures I want to share.

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday afternoon. The hotel was beautiful and I had a fantastic view of the Pertronas Towers.  Here are a couple of photos taken from my hotel room window on the 24th floor.

The view was so beautiful at night.

That first evening Kay and I walked to the mall located at the base of the towers.  There were a ton of stores, but we spent most of our time walking around a supermarket in the mall.  Coming from Sakhalin where the choices are somewhat limited, a supermarket with some western products and a lot of things we weren't used to seeing was so much fun for us.

The LE started on Sunday at noon when we had to set up our stalls.  Each Outpost location had a stall that represented their country and the products and services offered to the Expats at that location.  I think there were at least 35 countries represented.  Some countries have more than one Outpost location.  We also had to develop a poster that describes our services.  It hung on the wall behind the stall.  We shared a table with the Moscow Outpost.  Here is Kay behind our table.  You can see the table pretty well in this picture. 

Here I am.  We had  a slide show of  Sakhalin Island and brought some souvenirs to give away, as did everyone else.

Once the booths were set up, the LE started off with a celebration of 15 years of Outpost and a kickoff of the new Outpost Handbook.  A lady who was instrumental in the start up of Outpost spoke about it's history.  The were other introductory type speakers and a speed networking coffee session where we were able to meet fellow Outpost volunteers from around the world.  It was so interesting to talk to people from Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Syria, etc.  The girl from Egypt was evacuated when the demonstrations started there.  She heard all the gunfire, etc.  The family of the girl from Bahrain was evacuated while she was with us in KL.  The final speaker of the day was a very energetic girl who runs a website entitled Expatwomen.com.  She was very inspiring and had a lot of ideas and stories about how women with successful careers, who quit their jobs to follow their husbands, reinvented themselves. 

On Sunday evening there was a cocktail and hors d'oeuvres party at the Dutch Ambassador's home.

 
The food was fabulous and just kept coming:

The overall theme of the LE was communication.  How to communicate with your clients, how to communicate with your team and how to communicate with HR.  Monday was focused on communicating with your clients (or the Expats). We had a workshop on services we could provide to clients such as Career and Development workshops, welcoming services, etc.  There was a panel of clients who gave their opinions and suggestions and answered questions about Outpost, a session on written communication and other networking exercises.

 There were so many different nationalities represented there.  It got confusing as you couldn't associate someone's nationality with the country there were representing because everyone was an expat.  The Chinese girl was representing Holland and the Australian was representing Malaysia for example.  There were even a couple of guys there.  Here's a photo of the meeting room:

 
The conference center provided lunch every day.  It was a huge buffet including many kinds of hot dishes, sushi, salad, desserts, fruit, cheese, bread, etc..  Anything you could think of.  There was a coffee shop where you could get latte's all day long.  It was all so tempting.  I seriously gained 2 or 3 pounds that week.

On Monday evening we walked to a local Malaysian restaurant for dinner.  It was nice and relaxing.  Since the program was so full and some people wouldn't have any time for souvenir shopping, the organizers of the event arranged for some local artisans to set up their wares at the restaurant.

The third day of the LE (Tuesday) was focused on communicating with your team.  As focal point, my job is to manage and motivate the team of volunteers.  In Sakhalin we have a 10 member team.  There was a cultural awareness session including a role play about perceptions.  I played the selfish, demanding American women who thinks money can buy everything.  (Interesting how the world perceives Americans).  We learned about an online tool used to track clients and their arrivals, questions, etc.  It has a library system, too.  I want to start using this for our location. 

On Tuesday evening, we had a formal sit down dinner at an old governor's mansion turned into a hotel.

We had cocktails outside on the patio and there were traditional Malaysian dancers for our entertainment:

Dinner was really good.  During the dinner there was a slide show presentation on Malaysian history.

The final day of the LE was Wednesday and focused on communication with HR.  When I took on this focal point job, I didn't realize how much you really do have to work with HR.  We get our funding from HR, so there are budget proposals to prepare, status reports, monthly meetings and minutes, etc.  I seriously feel like I have a full time job again.  The final session of the day was a "Cracker Barrel" session where hot topics that had been submitted throughout the days of the meeting were discussed.  Final thank you's and presentations of gifts were made and it was over. 

Wednesday evening, we went shopping at a really huge mall and then to dinner at a local restaurant.  Shopping in KL is fantastic.  There is shopping mall after shopping mall and the prices are really good.  Too bad I didn't have room in my suitcase or I would have bought more.  Max was happy I didn't have any extra suitcase space or weight.  A lot of people left on Wednesday evening, but we stayed an extra day to do some sightseeing and shopping.  Not really any sightseeing as KL is just a huge, big modern city.  No problem, we really just wanted to shop anyway.

There was a really cool bar on the 36th floor of our hotel, called the Sky Bar.  By day it is a swimming pool.  By night it is a bar.  It was hard to get a good picture of it, but I think you can see how close the tables are to the edge of the pool.  On the one side there is only a small wooden deck to walk on.  There are windows along the top and you can see the reflection of the Pertronas Towers above me.

Thursday morning, Kay met a friend for coffee and I went to the supermarket.  I bought spices, Malaysian curries, vanilla extract, salted nuts for Max and Kraft Free Zesty Italian dressing - all things you cannot get here in Sakhalin.  We had to check out of our room at noon, so we packed and stored our luggage at the hotel.  Then Kay and I went shopping at some of the malls again.  It was so much fun.  We met some of the other ladies who stayed on at a local Malaysian restaurant for a final dinner before heading to the airport.  Our flight left at 11:30 Thursday night so our taxi came at 8:30.  The hotel was so nice and offered to let us shower before we left that evening.  They supplied soap, shampoo, everything.  We got back to Sakhalin on Friday around 1:00 p.m.   Great trip!  Now to put all the knowledge I gained into action!

Love to you all!
Karen