Hi SFFians,

SSF08 is a great year.

Today is the last day for SSF08. We close with last two programmes for the year in the festival with Wow! The Street Festival Award – Band Competition and SSF08 Closing Ceremony.

It has been a very exciting run this year, many challenges, many changes and many unexpected situations of which makes SSF stronger, bolder, and better! And because of all that, SSF learnt new things, new ways of managing, new ways of solutions to counter problem. We have great outcomes and results. Thanks for all that happened.

I want to take this opportunity to thank our volunteers, SMU students, Radio Pulze and Radio Heatwave. They are on the ground day in day out without fail, working together, learning together, and excelling together. Great team guys!

I want to thank all the youth leaders for their loyalty and great efforts each year. I see them growing and maturing in areas of management, yes it is a nurturing process of learning the ropes and sometimes some decisions may not be the best or may not get the best of results but there again what is important is that each must experienced from the learning source from all things and areas that you’ve worked on.

I want to thank all participants for taking the first step forward to be on stage, on the platform - to be seen, to be heard and to be acknowledged. You have taken ownership of it and I am very proud of it. I hope that you will not stop there but to carry on taking stage continually so that each time audiences sees you they want to see more of you, be inspired by your creativity and innovation in your performances taking your skill and talent into another level of excellence.

As you have all heard by now, SSF is working very hard toward having its training hub by end 2011. That means we have to raise a lot of funds to make it happen.

Presently, we have two concerts at hand that will kick start this fund raising mode. Newly appointed mentor Erick Guansing together with his student will help SSF raise funds in their own concert in early August, and SSF first official fund raising will take place on 31 October in UCC with Sing, Sing, Sing – Singapore’s Best Sing concert. Not only do we have our Singapore Best Performers on stage but also several MPs have agreed to come forward to help in this fund raising concert.

Yes, it is all very exciting and I hope you all can be a part of it. SSF appreciates whatever help there is to assist us in making this dream come true. It will be a training hub for all including the underprivileged and youth at risk. It will be your Revolution Playground!

Before I go, I just want to congratulate all the winners of SSF08 in the various competitions, and I really look forward to this evening WOW! The Street Festival Award Band Competition. Come and join us at SSF08 Closing Ceremony tonight!

See you all there!

Till 2009!

Annie Pek
Founder and Producer of SSF