With the ANZA Volunteer of the Year Awards fast approaching, we have the list of the 2017 nominees that have been picked by the ANZA community.

The Volunteer of the Year Awards celebrates our dedicated volunteers, whether it’s through our sporting groups, monthly tours, interest groups or charitable work. ANZA volunteers are the dynamic force of our community. Each and every volunteer has been – and continues to be – an integral and valuable part of the ANZA team.

The seventh annual Volunteer of the Year Awards (VOYA) is only a few weeks away, and we’ve finally collected the list of people that the ANZA community has voted deserves to be commended for their passion, dedication and generosity. The following people below received a nomination:

• Ali Lott
• Alp Altun
• Andrew Kinder
• Bruce Swales
• Cara D’Avanzo
• Carmen Fay
• Caroline Herbert
• Christopher Brown
• Corrina Ranger
• Craig Norwood
• Darren Cohen
• David Hay
• David Lancefield
• Donna Williams
• Fiona Challies
• Geoff King
• Geraldine Gibbs
• Grant Reid
• Heather Frame
• Heather Tyler
• Heidi Maccanti
• Henrike Medcraft
• Janine Furlong
• John Goulios
• Karen Frame
• Karla Loughnan
• Kirsten Falting
• Luc Mongeon
• Marcel de Bruijckere
• Marie Brown
• Mark Onderwater
• Mathew Lamb
• Matthew Tesseyman
• Michael Kenderes
• Michelle Villanueva
• Michelle Wheeler
• Mina Lawandi
• Nigel Rackham
• Nikki Rackham
• Phil Jefferys
• Rebecca Hall
• Simone Jackson
• Skye Wellington
• Stephanie Lim
• Steven Wong
• Travis Mills
• Trent Standen
• Virginia Soh

This year’s winners will be posted on our website in a few weeks’ time. We want to thank everyone who sent in their nominations for this year’s VOYA.

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The ANZA Mahjong group that focuses on fun first has caught the attention of local news, Gerard Ward finds.

A few months after landing in Singapore back in 2005, Sue Chamberlain went to her first Casual Coffee, and was invited to the ANZA Mahjong group the following day. Unsure of whether she should go or not – ‘I was kind of a shy person when I first came to Singapore, if you can believe that,’ Sue says – she bit the bullet and went down for her first game of Mahjong. Situated in a condo’s function room along Nassim Road that a previous ANZA Mahjong group coordinator lived in, she sat and learned to play a game that 12 years later she’d still be playing – and also coordinates.

The group has called many different venues home – at least since Sue started – from condominium game rooms and the defunct Hog’s Breath Café at CHIJMES to Boomarang at Robertson Quay where they play now.

Difficulties lie in the legality of Mahjong, whereas it is not illegal to play it, but illegal for there to be any gambling involved. While ANZA Mahjong’s style doesn’t even take score – it makes socialising a lot easier – it could be seen by passers-by as gambling, and a lot of community centres in the past wouldn’t take the risk. To this day, the group needs to carry an affidavit from ANZA stating that there is no gambling involved. ‘It’s just for fun,’ Sue says, highlighting the social aspect of the game that makes the mornings so special. ‘Sometimes it can get pretty loud in here,’ not referring to the game pieces on the table, but the players.

On a Thursday morning you’ll find five tables in the air-conditioned part of Boomarang with Mahjong tiles, trays and mats. With a round of coffees ordered, the five tables begin to play. Those who know the game can just jump right in, and new players can get the rundown by Sue and the other Mahjong regulars. Each player gives a dollar donation that goes towards replacing the equipment. Any excess funds get donated to charity.

By each table are copies of the Western/International version of the game rules, including all of the possible moves in the game. ‘I have mostly stuck with the same moves, but I force myself to learn these new ones,’ Sue says, flipping through the various plays one can wield in the game. She refers to the names of some special moves, and how these link to historical moments in Chinese, British and Japanese history.

Sue Chamberlain (left) teaches new players the basics.

ANZA Mahjong has made news here in Singapore during the years, from The Straits Times to local Chinese-language newspaper Lianhe Zaobao – the latter of which was last year, talking about the amazement that non-Chinese players were loving Mahjong, a game stereotypically seen as more of a game played around Chinese New Year. The medical benefits of a mind-challenging game like Mahjong have been said to stave off things like Alzheimer’s, ‘so it’s for medical reasons too,’ Sue laughs.

Having the ability to play a version of Mahjong is incredibly impressive in the right circumstances, though Sue recalls playing with some Singaporean ladies on a cruise once, and how quick they played – and in silence, too.

While not there for the score, members are here for much more. The openness to newcomers and conversational atmosphere makes it a great way to meet new people here in Singapore.

Whether through gears or gadgetry, Singapore’s been pretty future-focused with these new, fun activities, Gerard Ward says.

With kids having their faces buried in smartphones, there has to be a better way to get them moving their bodies more. Here are a handful of activities that people young and old can get involved with.

Augmented Reality

ArtScience Museum has teamed up with Google, Lenovo and WWF to create a world within a smartphone. Visitors take these ‘phablets’ attached to robust selfie sticks and walk around Basement 2 of the museum, getting to see a jungle appear among the floors and walls of the room.

Using Google’s new Tango technology, the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro uses dual cameras for area learning – in this case, a circular hallway – depth perception and motion tracking to learn the dimensions of the room it’s in. Users move the phone around, seeing a virtual rainforest. Along the way are prompts to press on the screen – for example freeing a lesser mouse-deer from a trap – and visitors can then watch the reed animal scampering around their feet and heading off back into the wild.

The ‘Into the Wild’ exhibition brings awareness to the plight of illegal logging, poaching and palm oil forest clearance that is not only destroying natural ecosystems of forests worldwide, but quickly pushing animals towards extinction. For example, in the last 60 years orangutans have declined by around 50 percent, and are now only found in the wild on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra.

At the end of the exhibition, held on Level 4 of the museum, visitors are encouraged to plant a virtual seed to grow a tree – for every virtual tree planted in ArtScience Museum accompanied by a pledge to WWF, one real tree will be planted in Rimbang Baling, an Indonesian landscape in Central Sumatra recognised as ‘the beating heart of the central Sumatran Tiger landscapes’. During the last century, over 95 percent of the world’s wild tiger population has vanished.

While this is one of the first uses of Tango technology in public, the potentials are huge to make use of our physical space in new ways – it’s no surprise that Singapore would be all over trying this kind of new technology.

Into the Wild
ArtScience Museum, 6 Bayfront Avenue, 018974
6688 8888
marinabaysands.com/museum/into-the-wild.html

Virtual Reality Arcade

Looking ridiculous is something I’m good at. I’m not colour-coordinated, I trip over rocks that don’t exist, and my sneezing changes from stifled hiss to a seismic shift. Throw on a virtual reality headset and I’m someone else.

Ignite VR is a small space within Marina Square Shopping Mall that has four virtual reality spaces set up – essentially a square of green carpet, a computer, a Vive headset and controllers as well as a flatscreen TV for friends to watch what’s going on. Founder of Ignite VR Roy Koo plans to be around until at least May when the lease runs out. Before his arcade, people who were curious about the technology – myself included – had nowhere to go aside from buying it first. Families can have fun too, with comfy couches for the adults to sit and watch if they don’t want to get involved in the arm-flailing and body-weaving action – though I suggest you do.

‘This setup is great for corporate events, where players can help each other,’ Roy tells me as I begin to adjust the headset, beginning to see a virtual environment on the screen that’ll soon be near my eyes. There’s a tourism shop two doors down, and lots of tourists looking to spend some time while the next tour bus rocks up can have a go.

The controllers that are strapped to your hand look like remote controls with cup holders in the end, but are quite high-tech. Sensors placed around the room read where the headset and controllers are, allowing you to duck, weave, walk around the virtual world you’re in.

The first game I try is familiar: Fruit Ninja. Like the smartphone game, you have to cut through fruit thrown into the air – the only difference is you have two samurai swords in hand, using 180 degrees to chop away.

The next is a bow-and-arrow situation called ‘The Lab: Longbow’. This is where I become a little more focused. Picking up a bow and arrow – left hand and right hand – the aim of the game is to protect your castle gate from little stick figures charging with swords and axes. You physically have to steady the bow and pull an arrow back with your hands to fire. I leaned, aimed, judged distance and let go of that bow string countless times – first in a controlled way, then by the time the stick figures were ganging up on the door, in a flurry.

There are dozens of games to try out, from the silly Job Simulator game, space shooter Space Pirate Trainer to a 3D painting space called Tilt Brush. Some can be played with more than one person. For an hour, it’ll cost $28 if you book ahead of time – usually $30 an hour – and there are options for half-hour slots ($15) and pay per play ($3) if you want. I can’t imagine playing just the one time.

Ignite VR
Marina Square Shopping Mall #01-223/224, 6 Raffles Boulevard, 039594
8688 0490
ignite-vr.com

Bike Sharing

Sometimes it’s those last-minute moments when you think ‘If only I had a bike for this last few kilometres’ that a bike-sharing phone app comes in handy. While it’s still not the first thing a person would think, there have been three companies popping up in Singapore offering bikes for rent by the hour all around the country.

The original concept for this style of bike rental came from the Barclays Cycle Hire – also known as ‘Boris Bikes’ – in London and ‘Citi Bikes’ in New York City, with docking stations around town that allowed bikes to be rented out short-term using a credit card.

This concept adds a bit more freedom, with a smartphone app locating the bikes around you. The first company to arrive was oBike (obike.com), with two more brands shortly after, MoBike (mobike.com), now ofo (ofo.so) – as well as Singapore’s LTA deciding on its own version of this kind of bike scheme. February was a busy month for bike-sharing services in Singapore.

You might see some of the white and yellow-coloured single-gear oBikes at MRT stations around town – including Jurong East, Buona Vista Woodlands and Bukit Batok. These bikes, found by using your phone’s GPS and unlocked by scanning a QR code, are $1 for every 30 minutes. There’s a $49 deposit for new users, which can be refunded when the user is finished using the service for good – until then it’s held in your account.

Users find any public bicycle parking area around town when they’re done, then manually lock the bikes with a contraption that sits above the back wheel to finish the trip. This arrangement is a step towards a sharing economy here in Singapore, and could be the start of a healthier city.

oBike (obike.com)
MoBike (mobike.com)
ofo (ofo.so)

Automatic Rock Climbing

Rock climbing was always something that required persistence and training – and a friend who was just as willing to go so that they could belay the rope as you climbed up. While you might be lucky and have a dedicated friend for one session, getting them back might prove tricky.

Because of technology however, the need to nag non-climbing friends is over. Clip ‘n Climb, New Zealand’s fun approach to rock-climbing, has made its way over to Singapore at the newly opened Our Tampines Hub (OTH). With 19 walls – all eight metres tall – to scale, this park will have young and old climbing all sorts of different walls.

Each wall has a different spin on things; you’ll be climbing space invaders on one, a Morse code-style wall on another, and even grabbing ‘ice picks’ to scale the Dry Ice wall – don’t worry, it’s just a name.

The pulley system is unique in that it’s automated, meaning you won’t need to take turns spotting your partner and taking care of the rope as they climb. Make sure to wear sporty clothes and closed shoes.

The rock climbing walls are situated in HomeTeamNS, which also houses a laser tag arena – for those wanting to train for cardio after the muscle-building of wall-scaling. It costs $25 for 90 minutes of Clip ‘n Climb – with discounts for SAFRA and PA members.

Clip ‘n Climb
Our Tampines Hub #03-03, 51 Tampines Avenue 4, 529684
hometeamns.sg/clip-n-climb-hometeamns

Self-charging Exercise Equipment

A while back there had been a surge of exercise-connected ideas and fads with TVs powered by stationary exercise bikes and pedometers on Tamagotchi toys to encourage kids to walk more.

The latest to come from human energy to electricity comes in outdoor exercise equipment. UK-based gym equipment manufacturer The Great Outdoor (TGO) Gym Company has built a series of machines that people can convert human energy into electricity – charging smartphones and iPads as they pedal and cross-train. This initiative to spend time exercising outside with an added benefit of a charged phone seems to be the best way to get a kid glued to their phones to be outside. No longer would those Netflix binges be too guilt-ridden – though it’s highly unlikely you’ll be able to pedal long enough for more than two TV episodes.

Singaporean group Playpoint – a company responsible for bringing some of the most interesting playgrounds in Singapore, like the Wall-Holla vertical playground – installed a series of TGO machines at an HDB not too far from Bukit Panjang in the north-west. To work out the arms the hand bike fits best, and those who don’t skip ‘Leg Day’ can take on the spinning and recumbent bike – the cross trainer is the nice middle ground.

Little green lights indicate the voltage charge you’re creating as you pedal. The estimated time to fully charge your phone would be roughly three hours, which seems like a lot, but if you’re hoping to get just enough charge to get you home, this is a great place to start – just don’t forget to have that USB cord with you.

TGO Energy Gym
234 Bukit Panjang Ring Road, 670234
playpoint.asia/projects/energy-gym

Smart Bus Stop

What on Earth could this possibly mean? Back in August of 2016, Singaporean architect firm DP Architects, as well as a multi-agency collaboration with government bodies, launched the concept bus shelter to encourage more use of public transportation. With the aim to make a shared space a little more community-friendly through the use of modern technology, there are a heap of bells and whistles attached to this shelter.

Along the shelter is a bookshelf – though on our visit to the stop, most of the books were missing – a built-in swing set, phone chargers, a place to park your bike. Big touchscreens have bus arrival timings, maps and journey planners, news and events, links to download e-books from the National Library Board (NLB). On the roof is a miniature garden that uses a rainwater irrigation system to keep the plants happy and healthy. There’s even free wifi on offer for those needing it.

While this only really applies to those who go on certain buses near the Jurong East MRT station, this is still a great indication that Singapore is pushing to reimagine public spaces that we use every day, and to bring communities a little closer together.

Project Bus Stop
134 Jurong Gateway Road, 600134

Australia’s boutique tea brand is trying to introduce the concept of mixing loose leaf teas together to create something new, Gerard Ward finds.

It’s difficult enough to get the right amount of milk measurement for your friend’s cuppa, let alone know how black and green tea would possibly go together. Initially the idea of mixing different teas together seemed odd.

Singapore’s no stranger to tea lovers – from the hawker stall’s pulled teh tarik to the traditional Chinese tea shops. While boutique tea brands aren’t new – Singapore’s biggest brand TWG Tea is always putting some interesting blends together – it’s the newer trend of tea-drinkers mixing their own teas together, that Australian tea brand T2 is pushing for, that is interesting.

The opening of T2’s first store in Singapore – at 313@Somerset along Orchard Road – brings Melbourne’s iconic tea brand to Asia. Initially fans of the brand living in Singapore could only get a box of tea through the online store or department stores that imported a small selection.

T2, which began in Fitzroy, Melbourne back in 1996, was purchased by consumer goods company Unilever in 2013, so there’s been a bigger, global push. The boutique’s employees – or tea-jays as they have jokingly been naming themselves – are there to whip up a sample of any of the 150-odd teas and tisanes (caffeine-free herbal teas) available. How else could someone understand the taste difference between the New York Breakfast (hints of maple syrup and pancakes), Melbourne Breakfast (notes of vanilla) and Singapore Breakfast (roasted rice and coconut flakes)?

The quirkier mixes of teas and tisanes, like Turkish Cherry or Lamington – a black tea mixed with cocoa beans and coconut flakes that uncannily smells and tastes like the iconic sponge cake – are what piques the interest.

T2 CEO Nicky Sparshott.

On top of that, mixing blends together with other ingredients like soda water and ice to make something like a berry fizz iced tea seems like a bit more work – though iced drinks is a smash here in Singapore. ‘We don’t want people to feel intimidated,’ T2 CEO Nicky Sparshott begins. ‘But we don’t want it to be mainstream – we want it to feel like an elevated experience you wouldn’t get elsewhere.’

‘I really think tea is the beverage of this millennial generation because of its versatility, and of its ritual,’ Sparshott says. ‘The fact that every single culture in the world has a tea ritual or moment, and it’s manifested in different ways – from Moroccan Mint to colonial English Breakfast.’

One of the things standing in the way of adopting loose leaf teas is the hassle and mess of it all, but with modern-day strainers, teamakers and cold-brew jugs, loose leaf tea shouldn’t be as daunting. You might think weaning off your daily addiction to coffee is tough enough, but wait until you have a shelf with eight different teas to choose from.

Some foods were meant to be tinkered with, and as Gerard Ward finds, made in all sorts of new ways.

Chocolate-coated Waffle Cone Coffee Cup

MavRx Coffee Apothecary
1A Duxton Hill, 089587
facebook.com/mavrxcoffee
While we’ve all pondered what could work as edible plates and cutlery, there are coffee cups that can hold your drink, and be your post-coffee snack. What looks like the bottom half of an ice-cream cone are waffle cone cups, coated in chocolate and built to withstand an espresso and steamed milk. At $10 each they aren’t exactly a cheap option for caffeine, but considering these cups are flown in from the US – and can take weeks to replenish once stock runs out – it’s worth giving it a go at least once.

Infusion Beer

Alchemist Beer Lab
South Beach Avenue, 26 Beach Road, #B1-16, 189768
6386 4365
facebook.com/AlchemistBeerLab
Making a shandy with beer and lemonade is one thing, but combining a stout with marshmallows, vanilla pods and mint leaves seems a bit excessive. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, they say, which rings true for this microbrewery in South Beach Avenue. Teaming up with Changi Village’s Little Island Brewing Company, Alchemist Beer Lab has a laboratory-looking bar setup of 16 beer towers – half are your standard craft beers, and the other an amalgamation of different ingredients.
Drinks like Passionista (cider, passionfruit and pulasan) and Hopzilla (ale, Motueka New Zealand hops and mandarin orange) are tested and tweaked according to drinkers’ opinions. Tell them there’s not enough guava, and you might notice a change in the next brewed batch. The bar also has some good bar snacks and tapas to grab while you sample the selection of beery concoctions – we featured the Thai chicken wings recipe last month.

Puff Pastry Ice-cream Cones

Churn Creamery
124 Tanjong Pagar Road, 088533
6221 3987
churncreamerysg.com
If you’re wondering what happened to the old-fashioned ice-cream cones, those tasteless, papery vessels are a thing of the past. Waffle cones have been the cone of choice nowadays. So how does an ice-creamery go one step up? A mix between a crispy, flaky croissant and pie pastry, the ‘puffone’ makes a mess and it’s delicious – tables have transparent plastic coverings for this very reason. You’ll be asked whether you’d like to coat the inside of the cone with chocolate – this is when you notice the tap of chocolate flowing like a beautiful fondue – which is a free top-up.
There’s a dozen flavours to choose from, from speculoos and mint to blue pea sea salt. Stack on top of your puffone ($1.50) a single scoop ($4.80) or double ($7.80). As you come to the bottom of the cone, you’ll find a pool of chocolate not unlike a Cornetto – though this chocolate is still in liquid form. These guys also make bowls out of waffles.

Liquid Nitrogen Ice-cream

320 Below
6 Eu Tong Sen Street, 059817
6221 6272
320below.com
Made-to-order ice-cream is not something you hear as a request, but now that science and technology has become almighty, ice-cream maker 320 Below have opened ice-creameries around town with a unique technique – liquid nitrogen. A dangerous substance to meddle with during high school science experiments, the makers at this shop have no qualms working with the substance. The benefit of liquid nitrogen bringing the ice-cream mixture’s temperature down to under -320°F – roughly -195°C – is having made-to-order ice-cream in mere minutes.  Using a tank of LN2 pumped into the mix, your dessert is made within minutes – cancelling the need for any preservatives, flavourings or emulsifiers.
This quick-freezing process also means the amount of sugar can be lowered, and there are no ice crystals, making it smoother – something I noticed when ordering the Thai Coconut ($5.80 a cup). The signature ice-cream also contains pieces of juicy coconut too. The almost two dozen flavours on offer – a few of which can be turned into sorbet or yoghurt too – range from friendly chocolate, vanilla and strawberry to apple cinnamon, black forest and tiramisu.

Salted Egg Yolk Potato Crisps

The Golden Duck Co
thegoldenduck.co
The salted egg yolk trend isn’t new – in fact, it’s been around for decades. Usually paired with black pepper or chili crabs back in the 1990s, salted egg yolk sauce doesn’t sound too appetising at first – though neither is Vegemite if you try explaining what it is. If you were around last year, cafes and bakeries were jumping on the bandwagon of adding the golden yellow creamy sauce to various foods – like Drury Lane’s salted eggs benedict and BreadTalk’s salted egg yolk croissants. Avoiding the messiness of the viral trend of 2016, the flavour is now in potato chip form by Singaporean snack company The Golden Duck Co.
Originally these Gourmet Salted Egg Yolk Potato Chips ($7.30) were only available by ordering in bulk online – I know this because when these were first announced I tried getting some for the magazine. Now you’ll find these in tons of locations, from Pasarbella to 7/11. These particular chips have hints of chilli and curry leaves, leaning more towards the salt than the sweet – sweet potato chips don’t work very well. If you’ve got a taste for this Singaporean favourite, perhaps the resealable top of the packet will never be used for its intended purpose.

Australian designer and host of The Apartment: Rising Stars Edition Jamie Durie talks all things ‘transterior’.

Were there any environmentally focused challenges in this season of The Apartment you judged that you put to the contestants?
Well certainly that’s a big one in my area. I have no tolerance for people who call themselves designers and don’t understand sustainability. In terms of the choice of materials, the footprint on the planet, their method of construction and manufacturing, all things need to be considered if we’re going to develop a future for our children. I come down on [the contestants] very hard when it comes to impact on the environment.
A couple of them were quite shocked because while [fellow judges] Genevieve Gorder and Laurence-Llewelyn Bowen were judging them quite high on certain items, I would fail them immediately for using rainforest timbers – the contestants had no idea where it came from, and they’re trying to say that it’s recycled, but it’s not. Anything bigger than this [signals roughly two feet length] is orangutan habitat, so it should be absolutely not allowed to be used. That’s something very high on my agenda.

Is there anything in the last year trend-wise in terms of interior design or something people lean more towards?
Yeah, I think there’s a definite push towards more natural materials and what I call the ‘transterior’ movement. I released a book just a couple of months ago called Living Design on this very subject. I think the environmental movement over the last fifteen years has certainly put the planet back on the agenda. We are falling in love with our own planet again, and we’re yearning to reconnect with nature because we’ve kind of turned our back on it for the last 100 years.
Another 1.8 degrees and we could lose the Great Barrier Reef. We’ve got signs of rising waters all over the world. We’re degrading 38 football fields of rainforest every second around the world. In a way I think this kind of hugging nature again in this industry is…well you could call it driven by guilt. I think the Millennials of today are making up for what their past generations have done. And that’s coming forth in the design industry.

I read that your design firm created the Fullerton Bay Hotel rooftop pool garden.
Yeah, the Lantern. We did that twelve years ago. That’s the good thing with some of the gardens we work on, they can get better like a good bottle of wine over the years – but if they’re not maintained well, they don’t. That’s probably why I moved over to furniture design fifteen years ago, because for me, to design one piece of furniture, I could touch a million people and nobody has to worry about watering it or clipping the hedges and maintaining it. We’ve also done plenty of work on Sentosa, so I’ve had a long career here in Asia. I could live in Singapore, easily.

Are there any small-scale things people could do to adopt this ’transterior’ mentality?
Certainly there’s a lot of vertical gardening going on, and they’re simple things people can do. We developed a vertical garden blanket a few years ago – we sell so many through our website that we can’t make them quick enough. They’re made out of recycled plastic bottles, and you simply plant into them.
I think we’re starting to get a little better at getting some more sophisticated materials into our homes. Like bamboo flooring, and that’s something very simple that people can do at home now. Most of the apartments here are on concrete slab, and so when you pull up the carpet and you get this concrete slab, you lay down a liner and just put the tongue-in-groove bamboo flooring down and ‘bang’, you’ve got this beautiful bamboo floor.

The Apartment: Rising Stars Edition is currently airing on the Sony Channel.