Remember This Ad?

Posted on August 25, 2007

“Hi, I’m a single, 24 year old looking for a special companion I can share my beauuuuuutiful home with.  I cook, I clean, and I promised to be home by 7pm everyday.  I missed my special companion cause I lost mine last week.  So, please call if you have a white maltese puppy for sale…”

The ad is for an Online Classifieds called www.mocca.com.  I paid the website a visit and discovered that there are actually many posts regarding pets for sale and there are even people offering/seeking pimping services for their dogs.

In the ad, the lady was looking for a ‘special companion’ because she had lost hers a week ago.  When I first saw the ad, I thought it was rather creative but after watching a few more times, I realised that something is not quite right.  The ad wasn’t sending out the message correctly. 

Whether morally or emotionally, it just doesn’t seem right to go round looking for a new pet after the previous one went missing a few days ago? 

The media have the power to influence it’s viewers hence it plays a substantial role in educating and instilling the correct values to the public.  They must be mindful of what goes on air, thus, I wrote a letter to them sometime back.

“Dear Sir,

I wrote in with regards to the Pets Section of the Mocca Classifieds.  Mocca provides an alternative avenue for consumers to “search”, “buy”, “sell”, and “connect” and is indeed a convenient way of bringing the buyers and sellers together.

However, I am very disturbed by some postings from the Pets Section whereby people are seeking for ‘mating’ services for their pets.  These people may not know that under the AVA rule, it is an offence to breed and sell from a unlicensed premise (eg, residential) without approval.

I attached the notice from AVA below:

Notice From AVA:

The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) is the regulatory authority that safeguards animal welfare in Singapore. In this respect, one area under AVA’s purview is the display and sale of pets.

We would like to advise that the individuals who post advertisements to sell animals on forum page may be committing an offence under Section 48 of the Animals and Birds Act 2002 which states that no person shall keep in captivity for sale, export or exhibition any animal or bird in any place that has not been licensed.

The Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority (AVA) would like to inform the public that the commercial breeding of animals can only be carried out on farms licensed by AVA. Pet owners who regularly breed and advertise to sell pets can be considered as commercial breeders. An individual convicted of breeding and selling animals from his premises without a licence from AVA can be fined up to $5,000 upon conviction.

We seek your assistance to stop the illegal sale of animals over the Internet. You can assist us by deleting postings by net users who regularly advertise ornamental fishes, birds and rodents for sale in forums and providing us with their details.

AVA Notice & Import/Legality issues with regards to Arowanas and other protected species. (05-04-2004 until 01-01-2008)

The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) is the regulatory authority for trade in food, live animals and plants for Singapore. The import and export of live animals requires prior approval from AVA, and endangered species are further subject to international controls under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), to which Singapore is a party since 1987.

The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) would like to remind all net users that only AVA licensed traders are allowed to engage in commercial trade in fish (such as Asian arowanas), corals and other marine invertebrates. Under the Endangered Species (Import and Export) Act, it is an offence for a person to sell, offer for sale, or display to the public any CITES species (eg. Asian arowanas, hard corals, giant clams and many others) that has been imported without AVA permits. The offender is liable to be prosecuted in court and may be fined up to S$5,000 (or S$10,000 for repeated offences) and/or jailed for one year. For more details, please refer to the AVA website at http://www.ava.gov.sg

As the Arowana remains a protected species, I would like to remind traders of fishes to ensure that the sales/promotional messages made here must conform to the import/export laws/restrictions imposed on your country.

If you are making a country specific sale, please state the country in the title or post message so that members will know where the sale is limited to/valid for.

Certain species which are endangered whereby any form of trading is prohibited by respective country laws is strictly not allowed and the governing authorities have every right to pursue the matters if necessary.

“Thank you for sending the SPCA a copy of your email to MOCCA (August 15th)  highlighting animal welfare concerns and raising awareness. We appreciate your support and initiative.  We have in fact written in to MOCCA on another matter regarding an advertisement now airing, as it does not in our opinion, promote responsible pet ownership.

Thank you again for your support.

Yours sincerely,

Deirdre Moss (Ms.)
SPCA
31 Mt. Vernon Road
Singapore 368054
www.spca.org.sg”

Ahhh, such fond memories…

Posted on August 18, 2007 Updated on July 27, 2016

Lately, SC memories keep flashing in my mind constantly. I missed everything about the SC! The purple couch, the shaky whiteboard, the Singa Puppet and not forgetting the green/blue lizard with the hole in the arse which I keep inserting my finger in (to push back the exposed cotton wool lah!)

I remembered how I used to wrestle with JJ inside the SC Room, where we would roll from the table and onto the floor! There were also times when GM pulled tables together and played table tennis like a pro albeit the tennis ball was flying all over the place. Then, during some of our late evening meetings when the sun goes down, a few of us would sneak out from the door and climb in from the window just to scare the timid ones.

I vividly recalled during one of the camps, I was inside my sleeping bag and trying to shift to a better position facing the air-con but Mr Chua laughed that I looked like a giant caterpillar wriggling in my cocoon… Everyone had a good laugh and I even flipped over the purple couch!

Then on another occasion, we accidentally burnt a hole in the middle of Mr Ravi‘s precious soccer field and we even got an earful from him! In the end, we were made to mend the burnt patch by ‘transplanting’ with the grass from the side of the field.

Now thinking back, the camaraderie of sharing woe and weal together is something so priceless!

Every project we took up is a challenge and we learnt important lessons like teamwork and teamspirit. There are happy times and not-so-happy times but it’s these unhappy times that made the happy times seem sweet. Being in the SC family has really enriched my three years in school and life would be so dull without it!

Let’s flashback to some of our past activities…

SC CAMP 2005

Beware! Ginamon is here!

Haida and me

Campers

Open House 2005

Balloons galore

Yanling and Jeffrey

Melisah

SC Investiture 2006

The whole of College Central‘s EXCOs taking the Oath

Momento

14th and 15th EXCOs

SC Camp 2006 – MacRitchie Hike

Me and lao gao

Me and Yanti

EXCOs

Eco Camp 2006 – Sentosa

Siew Hwee, Me and pink dolphin

Campers

Kewl Turtle

Bonding Day 2006

Nap Nap!

Captain’s on the deck!

Bishan Carnival 2006

Fanny and I

Me and Huiling

Bishan Councilors and VIPs

Teachers’ Day 2006

Performers backstage

Heritage Fest 2006

Fun On Foot!

National Congress 2006

Hi… Hi… HiHi… Hi5!

To my current councilors, do enjoy every second of your term of appointment. We handpicked each and every one of you and for some of you, we fought hard. Like an unpolished diamond, there are certain qualities in you waiting to be discovered hence, we bypassed the other probation councilors just so we could have you! Take this opportunity to prove your abilities and shine with us!

Don’t be shy to give everything a try because you only have a year or so with us and before you know it, everything will be over. You wouldn’t want to leave the campus with the nagging regret that you didn’t do enough?

To Wenqiang, congrats on your appointment as Deputy Treasurer! There’s a chinese idiom that says, “Persevere and thou shall see the moonlight when the clouds parted!”

To my 16th EXCOs, work hard! I’m sure by now you guys would have realized that being an EXCO is not a bed of roses? It’s a thankless job not many would thank you for BUT don’t let that get you down! Always stand by and support one another. You must learn to accept and respect each others’ flaws only then, the EXCOs will be united to bring the whole Council together.

You have to know that every action and decision you make or do will not only affect yourself or the EXCOs, but it will also affect the running of the whole Council.