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together as one to celebrate Christmas. Staff of the three offices started brainstorming while staying within the challenging budget through plenty of creative and unique handicrafts. Popular Singapore took the main theme a step further with their local theme of “Santa Claus is coming... to POPULAR!” as they invited Santa Claus himself to check out their Christmas decorations. Popular Singapore also built a snow- covered gingerbread town to tell the story of three gingerbread men who inspired the townsfolk of an entire town, signifying POPULAR’s solidarity. Meanwhile, Popular Malaysia’s local theme of “Cherry, Cheery Christmas” incorporated both POPULAR’s corporate colour (“cherry”) and the spreading of the jolly and blissful festive atmosphere in the office (“cheery”) through creative decorations such as the magnificent Christmas tree, made by stacking books, and the “POPULAR Family Gallery Wall”. Another Christmas tree made from 98 pieces of round paper represented all POPULAR outlets in Malaysia, signifying how the season’s cheer reached every corner of the country. Popular Hong Kong focused their Christmas decorations around three main unique handicrafts of a gashapon machine, a treasure chest, and a large-scale pop- up book. With a twist of the knob on the gashapon machine, staff got to receive a small surprise gift and a large dose of good luck. There was also a treasure chest of blessings that Santa Claus had brought along with him to Popular Hong Kong. Look closely and you would have noticed that Mr Chou was given a makeover to appear as Santa Claus! Mr Chou’s Santa Claus also made an appearance in the pop-up book which highlighted the unity of POPULAR in fighting the pandemic side by side. A Competition of Fairness and Unity A difficult decision awaited the six judges. After much deliberation, Popular Malaysia was declared the winner by the slimmest of margins. All six judges unanimously pointed out that the strong competition between the three entries meant that the winner could only be decided by awarding points strictly based on the official scoring system. Indeed, staying objective is a key emphasis of Mr Chou’s judging approach, who penned a comprehensive email to the other judges to explain why the three judging criteria had been selected. “Creativity, being the most valuable, requires deep thinking and sharing,” wrote Mr Chou, who also noted that planning is crucial as “cost effectiveness is what every business must be conscious of”. He also placed a strong emphasis on the overall look of the decorations as it “draws the first attention”. “I find it difficult to pick the winner as all three offices have done a great job,” Mr Poon revealed when he was interviewed by Popular News. “Every team put in a lot of creativity to share their views of the Christmas spirit with the strong POPULAR spirit!” Meanwhile, one can only imagine how testing it must have been for Ms Lim to remain neutral given that she was leading the organising team of the Christmas decoration competition. This was definitely not the case! When Popular News asked for her insights to the judging process, Ms Lim replied with a detailed write-up of the strengths and uniqueness of the Christmas decorations by each of the three participating offices! Her thoroughness in assessing the winner would definitely clear any lingering doubt. In fact, Ms Lim also proposed a rating scale to further improve the evaluation process! “It was not just meant to be a competition, but an opportunity to present POPULAR’s core values and team spirit.” As we congratulate Popular Malaysia for their victory at the inaugural Christmas Decoration Competition, let us all keep Ms Lim’s wisdom in mind. Truly, it was the collective show of unity that was the ultimate winner! The inaugural Christmas Decoration Competition in 2020 was the perfect display of POPULAR’s unity in a challenging year. 2020年首届圣诞装饰大赛，充分展现 大众同仁在这抗疫之年的团结精神。 133 popularnews - 5