We apologise for the very late announcement of our 6th Batizado & Troca de Corda. Up to a few days ago, several of us were still scrabbling to find a venue.
The reason being that this time of the year sucks for us because it is the busiest - what with the varsity exams (so our undergrads won’t make it for this year’s troca de corda), our high school grads have flown the coop (so we’ll be missing them as well while they’re overseas enjoying their freshmen year), our Poly grads are either waiting to enter National Service or are already enlisted (so we’ll be missing some fine young men from our troca de corda this year), the Cambridge O and A levels are in full swing, all the polytechnics are gearing up to impress and woo the new batch of O level students fresh out of their paper chase from next week onwards with their various performing showcases. So it’s no wonder that all their available facilities are fully booked.
Still, little miracles DO happen and everyone - yes, I do mean, everyone in the entire cohort - was most relieved when we announced that we finally found a venue for our workshops. Just two days ago! 
I need to say this ‘coz I’m so damn proud of our cohort - this is the tightest we have been as a group and we have many (many!) hands who have pulled this year’s festival together. If we were a ship, this is the best crew I’ve ever been part of! So a BIG thank you to everyone who has added your weight to get our festival going. And so let the fun begin…
Now for the details everyone is waiting for:
Batizado workshops: Wed 16 Nov - Fri 18 Nov 2011
Time: 8pm - 10pm
Venue: Multi-Purpose Hall @ Sports Complex (Republic Polytechnic)
Campus landmarks to look out for would be the swimming pool and rockclimbing wall.
Here’s a suggestion for all who are coming by train.
1. Try to arrive at the Woodlands MRT station by 7.15pm so that will give you plenty of time to take a leisurely walk through the park connector (about 10-15 min) and end up at the front of the campus by 7.30pm.
(Just to let you know there’s a POSB ATM to your right - if you need to draw money to buy stuff later during the workshop. Believe me, there will be stuff to buy if they are in your size or match your taste).
Walk ahead along the wide corridor til you see the 7-ELEVEN or Subway. We’ll get a couple of our RP cohort to meet you between 7.30pm - 7.45pm so they can take you to the workshop venue which is another 5-7 mins walk to the back of the campus. You want to have enough time to change (you’ll be quite warmed up if you had walked all the way from the train station) and do the usual meet-and-greet with your fellow cohort mates and our guests before the workshop begins. 
If you have wheels, you might want to check the map below. Maybe Anne can give some directions under comments for this post later.
Please see map for directions. http://www.rp.edu.sg/campus_tour/
6th Batizado & Troca de corda
Sat 19 Nov 2011
Time: 3pm - 5.30pm
Venue: Istana Park (across from the Istana - nearest MRT station is Dhoby Ghaut)
Noite Brasileira
Sat 19 Nov 2011
Time: 9pm til late
Venue: Piedra Negra (Haji Lane @ Arab Street area)
Showcase of Maculele, Capoeira, Samba Batucada, Samba de roda & Forro throughout the evening. More information and a separate poster will be put up later.
Post-Batizado BBQ Sun 20 Nov 2011
Time: 2pm onwards
Venue: East Coast Park
Food will be catered (halal-certified) BYOB and let’s party again! Can our party animal committee post the details under comments here?
So that’s it, folks. Have fun. Enjoy. You’ve trained all year just for this.