Lattes, Layups and Loud Choruses: RC4’s IG Fair Returns
Lattes, Layups and Loud Choruses: RC4’s IG Fair Returns
Written by Dylan Yim
For one evening, the MPSH and Seminar Rooms turned into a maze of table banners, sign-up sheets and the band playing in the corner. The RC4 Interest Group (IG) Fair saw interest groups from across the college spill out of their usual corners to pitch themselves to residents old and new.
From dodgeball drills to espresso shots, the fair is one of the few nights when almost all of RC4's co-curricular life ends up under one roof, or in the case of the RC4 IG Fair, spread across a hall, a makeshift stage and a few seminar rooms all at once.
At one end of the hall, a small crowd had formed around a makeshift coffee bar: a grinder, a portafilter machine wrapped in a hand towel, a carton of oat milk, and a hand-lettered chalkboard advertising the night's special: a Butter Scotch Latte. Members of the group worked the machine in shifts, pulling shots and steaming milk for a queue that didn't let up.
For Zaydan, a resident of Ursa house and an exco member of RC4 Coffee Academy, the night was as much about listening as it was about pouring. "I found IG Fair to be really fun," he said. "I got to teach others about my love for coffee, but I also got to know what incoming enthusiasts hope to see in future sessions."
Much of that teaching happened one cup at a time, walking newcomers through why one bean tasted nothing like the next. "I remember enthusiastically explaining the different taste profiles different beans have, and how we came to a decision on which supplier or beans we wanted," Zaydan said.
Across the hall, under a screen still looping footage from an earlier set, a six-piece band ran through their line-up, bass, guitar, drums, keyboard and a vocalist working the crowd between songs.
For Wonje, a resident of Draco house who played keys for the set, nights like this show how much room RC4 gives to music and the arts outside of formal rehearsals and ticketed shows. The fair wasn't a proper audition or a polished concert, it was just a stage residents could get up on to try performing and see if it was something they wanted to keep doing.
The fair was also a reminder of what keeps drawing musicians into RC4 life. "RC4 never fails to attract musical talent," Wonje said. "It gives our musicians a fun and exciting space to not just perform for the audience, but to try out different instruments and rekindle their passion for music."
That mix of new and returning faces wasn't limited to the crowd, it was on stage too. The band had only come together about a week before the show, with some members meeting each other for the first time just a day before their one practice session. "Honestly it was great, cause for a band that was formed a week before the performance and met each other just a day before to practice, we were actually really good," said Jun Wei, a freshman from Noctua house who performed with the group.
One of the night's unplanned highlights, he recalled, came when a mix of freshmen and already-graduated seniors drifted back to the stage and broke into a few pieces together, freshies singing along at the top of their lungs. "It was truly mesmerising," Wonje said.
On the other side of the hall, the sportier interest groups had taken over: dodgeball, badminton and floorball booths lined the wall, each with its own stack of photos and sign-up forms. At the dodgeball booth, three cones stood in a row a short distance away, and passersby were invited to try knocking one down. Manage at least one hit, and a member would hand over a sweet as a token for the attempt.
Few people stopped at just one throw. Members running the booth said some residents kept coming back to line up shot after shot long after they'd already knocked a cone over, less for the sweets than for the fun of trying again.
Not every booth was selling an experience residents could have that same night. At the RC4 CASA table, a small crowd leaned in over a laptop and a stack of QR-code flyers, packets of snacks pushed to one side to make room for the sign-up form. CASA is an interest group focused on volunteering. In one of their programmes, RC4 residents are paired with young students in CASA Clementi and through regular sessions, mentors help with homework, engage students in games, and spend meaningful time together.
"You don't need any tutoring experience, you just need to show up," said Derrick, one of the group's exco members at the booth.
It was a reminder that RC4's interest groups aren't only about performing on a stage or winning a match, some are built around showing up for people outside the college altogether. For many first-years browsing the booths, it was their first real sense of just how far RC4 life extends: past CCA points, into rehearsal rooms, sports halls, coffee corners and, for groups like CASA, a housing estate in Clementi.
By the time the last booths began packing up, the hall had thinned out but the signups certainly have not - a small, steady sign that for at least one more year, RC4's interest groups have no shortage of newcomers to look forward to.
