A STUDY OF THE PARTICIPATION OF RESIDENTS' COMMITTEE MEMBERS IN RADIN MAS

Abstract

The Residents' Committees ( RC ) have been in existence for more than a decade. Their contribution to community work in Singapore is remarkable and laudable. Over the years, the RCs have been receiving increasing media coverage. However, little has been reported on the profiles of members in the RCs. It is noted that in most of the RCs, there are varying degrees of participation amongst the members. There are the active members ( who are usually doing most of the work in the RC ), the inactive members ( ie. those members who are usually absent from most of the RC activities) and those members who are neither active nor inactive. The presence of inactive members implies a loss in manpower to the RC, especially since the recruitment of RC members is fraught with difficulties. Their presence can also have an adverse effect on the morale of the other members, especially those active members. Much attention has to be paid to the needs of the RC members so as to better understand their motivation and to sustain their interest in RC work. This Academic Exercise attempts to look into the profiles of both active and inactive members in the RC. In particular, it would be useful to find out if there is any significant differences between the two groups of members. The results of the study show that there are indeed some interesting differences between the active and inactive members.