Yesterday we had the founding of Giving Tuesday Korea! It is not a TNKR project, but to get started, you work with the army you have! If you were in the room yesterday, you probably had a warm glow, and it wasn't just because you were breathing through a mask, as mandated by the Korea Press Center.
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Giving Tuesday Korea ambassador Mr. Lee was moved by his appointment.
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Then the high school kids took over! They couldn't join in person because of COVID, so they prepared videos instead.
Two of the high school students were so good that they looked like they were TV announcers doing a news report.
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Asha Curran, CEO and co-founder of Giving Tuesday, sent a message welcoming Giving Tuesday Korea to the Giving Tuesday family.
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Yes, if you were in the room yesterday, it was absolutely fantastic!
On the other hand, if you were online watching, you might not have had such a great experience. For years, people have been asking me if our various events were going to be online. I usually said "No" because we didn't have a team to properly run an online live event. We were barely surviving as an organization, so we didn't have the luxury of paid staff with the responsibility of running such an event.
Yesterday was going to be different. Thanks to a grant, we were able to pay for a professional MC as well as a tech team to run the event online. It was delightful for me because I didn't need to be involved at all, the tech team was going to handle it.
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Second, our tech team worked with TNKR co-founder Eunkoo Lee in advance. They had more than one rehearsal. But there is still a difference between practice and game day! And it is more difficult when you are holding an event at a different location. Anyway, I heard there were audio problems. Some people said it was fine, some said the audio was poor. Some said when they listened on their phones that it was no problem.
TNKR co-founder Eunkoo Lee said she learned a lot about online events from yesterday's session!
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After all of the speeches, it was photo time! I have heard some people in the last few months say smart-aleck things like, "I guess we didn't really need that meeting." The world is zooming around, but once it is safe to meet again in person, then people will be holding conferences again. It might be tougher to justify the cost, but there is still nothing like getting together in person and celebrating.
And it was a celebration. Giving Tuesday Korea's first Victory Tuesday!
A reporter wanted a photo of the Giving Tuesday Korea country directors.TNKR co-founder and Giving Tuesday Korea Outreach Director Eunkoo Lee was in charge of most of the logistics. Even during the group photo, she had her head turned, checking on something.
We then celebrated with a nice dinner, courtesy of Giving Tuesday Korea's ambassadors.
Here's an article by a Ministry of Unification blogger about the event.