The Athletic Department’s “Sweat and Be Polite” event was sold out in two weeks, and people’s enthusiastic participation attracted attention

◎ Su Mingtong

The "Sweat and Be Polite" event launched by the Sports Department was originally planned and expanded so that people could redeem a total of 3 million sports coins for 14 weeks. Due to the overwhelming enthusiasm of the participating people, it was all used up in just two weeks. Therefore, the Sports Department urgently announced on September 14 that the "register account" and "upload sports records" functions would be closed, which was like closing the door and thanking guests, and the public was in an uproar.

The "Sweat and Be Polite" campaign launched by the Sports Department originally planned to allow the public to redeem a total of 3 million sports coins in 14 weeks. Due to the enthusiasm of the participating people, it was used up in only 2 weeks. (Taken from the official website of the Athletic Department) The athletic department has released three million copies, and the required funding is calculated at 50 yuan per copy, which amounts to 150 million yuan, which is not a small burden for the department. However, within two weeks of its launch, 3 million people had actually participated in running, walking and other sports. It can be called the most successful and meaningful event in history, and it is worthy of the sports department's efforts to raise financial resources to continue it. Now it is recommended that people must exercise for nine weeks in total to qualify for the lottery of only 50,000 sports coins, which greatly increases the difficulty of obtaining sports coins. I am afraid that the popularity of public participation will decrease significantly.

Cooperating with a group to expand financial resources and increase the number of sports currency draws can increase incentives to participate.

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The Ministry of Sports can invite the Executive Yuan, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Transportation and other agencies or private organizations and groups to co-organize the "Sweat with Respect" event based on the reasons of higher-level guidance, cultivating people's exercise habits, promoting people's physical and mental health, encouraging school students to participate, attracting people to exercise at tourist attractions, and participating in grand events, and contribute the available budget to make this event continue to attract people and successfully complete the event.

Based on a sports coin of NT$500 per copy, it would cost approximately NT$250 million to increase the number to 500,000 copies. In addition to budgeting for relevant subjects, government agencies can also use the first reserve fund and the second reserve fund, while private institutions and groups have more flexibility to contribute financial resources. In actual implementation, the number of shares can be increased at any time according to the increased financial resources to maintain public participation. With the popularity of Minister Li Yang’s call, it seems that it will not be difficult to continue to create a national movement atmosphere.

The author believes that with the high popularity of Minister Li Yang’s call, it should not be difficult to continue promoting this activity for a few more weeks. (File photo) (The author is a retired civil servant)