A wild day at the IYOR launch

Way before the launch begins (but AFTER a good lunch), a whole bunch of shore volunteers gathered to put together the IYOR launch.Jeff is obviously already feeling tired even before we begin.Soon we find out why. The panel frames are quite fiddly to put together. Meanwhile, Marcus is taking lots of (no doubt embarassing) 'behind the scenes' photos.
Siti, the Mistress of Ceremony was busy polishing up her script.

While there was a flurry of packing doorgifts, putting up exhibits and a million other things which I forgot to photograph.

In almost no time at all, the exhibits were up!Here's the Toddycats with the infamous baby dugong.Debby of the Hantu Bloggers is already hard at work even before the doors open.TeamSeagrass has an exhibit of live seagrasses!There's an exhibit about our first Coral Nursery.And the 100 Stars of Cyrene!
These 100 unique Singapore stars are up for adoption!
There's lot of fabulous goodies like stickers for visitors.Car decals and MORE stickers.
Even before we can begin, we have young visitors coming into the room to view the exhibits.
And leave heart-warming comments in the Celebration Guestbook.
Wildfilms is present to document the talks!
All too soon it was time to start welcoming the guests to the launch. Francis gives the welcome address, with massive documentation by seriously armed photographers.At all corners of the room!The room is totally packed out, with standing room only! Siva gives a very inspiring and insightful talk about the marine community (of people, that is).To the delight of the VIPs and audience.Prof Chou Loke Ming gives an equally thought-provoking talk about our reefs from way back in the past to now, and explored the future for our reefs.Meanwhile, at the back of the room, the Star Ladies are getting ready to present the 100 Stars of Cyrene for Prof Chou to name and thus launch IYOR.November introduces the Adopt a Star programme and conducts the launch ceremony.Then it was time for Francis to present tokens of appreciation to the VIPS. I bet it's the first time they received funky underpants in public!

Then the party really began as everyone enjoyed the exhibits, caught up with one another, queued up to adopt a star and generally had a great time!

The Reef Celebrations continue on 9 Aug (Sat)! Come to the Botanic Gardens for a day of MORE fun and celebrations of our reefs and shores. More details on the Singapore celebrates our reefs blog.