LISHA Women’s Wing was formed on the 12th May 2012 by Joyce Kingsly. Joyce formed her own EXCO Members and developed a concept for ongoing monthly networking sessions for ladies.
She says, she did not want to have the usual networking style. Hence came up with segments like 10 minutes Business presentations, mini stalls for ladies to showcase their products and also to sell them, inspirational speeches by renowned Speakers, guidance speeches by experts, networking games and buffet dinner. She says, ‘My team was made of just 6 business women initially. We also conducted awareness programmes for both men and women, which was just attended by 20-30 people. Now our membership has grown and we have about 80-100 people attending on a normal week day’.
LWW is open to all races and to members and non members all over Singapore. One need not be necessarily involved in business to be a member. LWW events are open to professionals, home makers and Online business as well, with a minimum age 16. Membership is $100 for 1 year and they will enjoy free entry to all networking and awareness programmes.
LWW has so far conducted 100 programmes.
Their mission is to empower women, provide a platform for everyone to network, collaborate, exchange ideas, pick up new skills and be inspired. Joyce says, ‘We are glad to have touched many women to have the urge to come out of their shell to excel’.
When asked about the challenges/innovation in the process, her answer was that
‘We Ladies wear many hats. We ourselves are business women, wives, mothers, daughters, sisters struggling with many roles. Therefore managing business, family and social work may be a challenge. But the passion to serve keeps us going.
As how 5 fingers are not the same, all of us are of different in characters. but we are here together for a common goal.
If we have conducted 100 events in 5 years you could imagine what a huge variety of events we would have done all the way. It is because that we do have interesting concepts that our events have flourished to what it is today. Therefore we make efforts to constantly improve, obtain feedback and get to know what the ladies prefer. We have to keep our innovation hat on all the time to keep our programmes lively as well as keep the crowd growing’.
To mark the 100th event, and it is five years journey, LWW launched a book ‘DOYENNE, VOICE not an echo”
So, how come is the idea of this book? For this she says, “There are many Indian business women in Singapore doing successfully. We wanted to expose their existence and success stories. Such a book on Indian women has not been done in Singapore before. We are also celebrating our 5th anniversary and the 100th event. Hence we thought, it is the most ideal time to come up with our precious creation “DOYENNE, VOICE not an echo”
Making of the book
She next went on to talk about the making of the book
It was a pleasurable experience getting to know all these successful ladies and to be inspired by their success stories. There were many things to co-ordinate. Obtaining Nominations – selection process of the 50 ladies – interviewing – writing their stories – make up and photo shoot – proof reading – obtaining child hood photos – all these from 50 ‘busy’ entrepreneurs.
We had a great team of Editor- Vajidha Hamid, creative writer Indhu Divya, Make up Artist – Stephanie of Sharvani Bridal, Photographer-Panneer Chelvam and Book designer – B V Rajendran. Many areas of talents united together. Everyone did it passionately, patiently and persereverently.
So, our next question to her was ‘How is the idea of holding it at this venue’?
For that her answer follows. ‘It is a grand book launch. Doyenne is a classy hard cover coffee book. We wanted to give it the best as there were several reasons to celebrate – 5 years, 100th event, book launch. Amidst all these we were determined to have a charity aspect. We pledged $10,000 to “Project Smile” another group of ladies who help the underprivileged Indian families in Singapore.
We were also happy to have Ms Ho Ching as GOH and Ms Indranee Rajah as special guests (in the picture) with many VIPs’.
She concluded with the following as Others related to the event
‘All the 50 ladies featured in the book (in the picture) were present to receive their set of books upon launch; A 5 tier cake was cut to celebrate 5 years; We had an all girls band – ‘Girls Empower’ with their lovely songs and we had 5 artistic dance performances with themes of the 5 elements of water, earth, sky, wind and fire. The entire event was a wrap up with awesome lucky draw prizes.
We hope you will purchase a book at just $50 to help our charity cause. We are certain that our book DOYENNE will certainly inspire our ladies.
I wish to thank my wonderful LISHA Women’s Wing Exco, my iron ladies for making this possible. Thank you to all our Sponsors, The Media, Sound & Light company – In4nity Events, our Official Photographer, the staff of Marina Bay Sands and to all who were present at the event and to all who have contributed to the success of the event.
Thank you everyone for your hardwork’.
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