§6.1The Sequence: Give, Listen, Build
Institutions in this space have tended to open with an ask – for time, for opinions, for signatures. We would rather open by giving, and only then ask to listen:
| Months | Activity |
|---|---|
| 1–6 | Gifts first, at both Lighthouses, Chinatown Complex and Geylang Serai. The Hawker Security Package arrives in full (§2.9): group critical-illness cover for every stallholder 55+, free in its first year, and the FMAS–NTUC group-cover route opened to stallholders where it fits. No survey comes with any of it. |
| 4–9 | Listening & co-design. (1) Trust built through people the hawkers already trust, with staff who speak the dialects. (2) Listening, to former hawkers who left the trade as well as those who stayed. (3) Workshops on pay and consent rules. (4) Trial documentation with three willing hawkers, paid at full Fellowship day rates. (5) The starting count: at every stall that consents, a two-week till count – orders a day, plates an order, dollars an order and the share of orders from the people the hawker names as regulars – gathered by the listening teams by interview and a simple tally sheet, by dish type, and published only by dish type and centre. |
| 9–12 | Design freeze & commitment. In order: (1) the community reviews the final design; (2) the veto thresholds are tested (§6.2); (3) the first Hawker Council is elected and the board appointed (§3.8); (4) the evaluator publishes its starting figures; (5) the starting count sets plates an order and the Regulars' List's share thresholds for each dish type, and gives the Plate Ledger its first stall-level numbers (§3.6, §2.10); (6) NEA and the Town Council confirm the dates of any repairs and redecoration at each Lighthouse, so that none opens into a closure (§6.3); (7) each Lighthouse's hawkers vote, and one that declines is replaced by a centre with a similar cuisine strength; (8) NEA and its Town Council confirm the third pilot centre, Tekka, from the same willing centres. |
| 13–18 | The Lighthouses open. The whole chain starts at two centres, side by side (§6.3). |
| 19–24 | Gifts first, at Tekka. The same sequence, in six months: the Security Package arrives in full, then listening and co-design, with Tekka's own starting count, then the centre's own vote (§6.2). |
| 25 on | Three centres, five at most. Tekka opens with the whole chain, one year behind the Lighthouses; a fourth and a fifth are add-ons. A sixth centre waits for the tests of §6.5. |