THANKSGIVING NO. 10

Woah! 2024's Thanksgiving post is our TENTH one! (Yes, Summer's will be celebrating our 10th year anniversary in July 2025!) 

Pretty late for this annual thanksgiving entry for 2024. Much has happened in the past 3 months and I was slightly overwhelmed. While the trials were many, the thanksgiving was more. 

I still remember that fateful day last year - 18th of October 2024. I just arrived overseas when I received a WhatsApp text from the property agent of our TPY rental space. He informed me that the space, a shophouse, had been sold. And to get the transaction completed, we had to do some rectification work. The work included tearing down all the partitions of the shop! This was because, those partitions which had been built since June 2020, are "illegal"! *gasp* Not really illegal 'illegal', it was just that it had not been approved by SCDF. 

So we had two choices - to spend a good amount of money to get a Professional Engineer to approve it and apply for SCDF fire safety license. Or... a more drastic option, was to tear down everything and M.O.V.E!

It took me a few weeks to decide, with the agent chasing after me every other day. I was at a lost of what to do and what the legal requirements were for rental and renovation. Thankfully, angels were sent along the way to shine some light into the dark tunnel. After speaking with several people, I came to a decision. 

The choice was obvious. Our tenancy at TPY was only till July 2025, i.e. another 6 - 7 months. And we had already been thinking of moving since July 2024, because the space was getting too small for our team and for our kids! (Those preschoolers have grown into teenagers and those tiny tables and chairs no longer suit them.) And I personally have also started working with more adults, doing orofacial myofunctional therapy; hence a hybrid of adult and kid-friendly space is needed. 

So.... here's some photos of what happened to our TPY space within a few weeks.

All partitions taken down. The murals of the three therapy rooms remain.

A worker removing the cables and sealing up the ceiling.

From the photos above, it was obvious that the TPY space was no longer suitable for any therapy sessions. Thankfully in the midst of arranging for the rectification work, we managed to find another space to move to. I would not have done it without Yu Yun, our counterpart from Inside Out Counselling and Wellness Practice, who has been sharing our TPY space since 2021. 

Yu Yun and I outside our new space in Bishan.

Yu Yun was active in searching for a new place, negotiating with the agents, and then leading the renovation works. This gave me mental space and time to handle the work in TPY, as well as the rescheduling of the therapy sessions. (It was a double madness because it was the school holidays and there were several changes in the kids' schedules, as well as ad-hoc consultations for local and overseas clients. And I also had two overseas trips planned months ago!)

I also thank my wonderful team for helping me pack up the TPY space and move and set up the new space. They even asked their husbands to come help! Because of that, we had doubled our manpower and could pack, move and unpack within a very short period of time. 

Below are some of the madness at the new space. 

One of the therapy rooms: arranging all the resources onto the shelves.

Many bags of resources to unpack!

It has been 3 weeks since we started operations in our new place. There are still some furbishing work to be done. And I thank my team for being so supportive and understanding. They really try their best to keep sessions going as usual while the space is still undergoing some works. 

Here's some photos of the new space. 

One of the therapy rooms with a book shelf.

Our front desk

Waiting area

One of our therapy rooms

This is the story of the drama that ended 2024. Finally I can take some rest and look forward to 2025. Our company word for 2025 is HOPE. We have new hopes for Summer's in 2025 in our new space as much as we will continue to bring hope to the families we work with! Blessed new year everyone!

Note: Besides the above rental drama, we also had a few other changes in Summer's in 2024. Those changes seem daunting at that time, but the outcomes were very positive. Because of those changes, we changed our clinical direction and became an oral-motor-focused Speech Therapy center, as well as the leading provider of Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy. I am thankful in all circumstances, because everything happens for a reason. 

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