Our Organisation
A Reading Organisation for Adults Thinking Through the Later Working Years
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How Pendula Came to Be
Pendula began in 2019 as a small reading circle hosted in a rented room on Cecil Street. The founding group — four adults in their late forties and fifties — had noticed the same gap: there were plenty of places to receive advice about money, but almost nowhere to simply read about it together, talk through what they had read, and consider how it applied to their particular household circumstances. No product was being sold. No outcome was being promised. The conversation itself was the point.
Over time, that informal circle drew more participants through word of mouth. People found value in the unhurried format — in having a structured reading and then the space to discuss it with others at a similar stage of life. The founding group formalised the arrangement in 2021, registered Pendula as an educational organisation, and moved into its current premises at #15-02 Cecil Street.
Today, Pendula runs three structured offerings across the year: a four-month reading programme on household money patterns, and two weekend workshops on household coordination and Singapore savings schemes respectively. Each cohort is deliberately small. The format has not changed from those early sessions — reading first, then discussion. No advice is offered. No products are recommended.
Mission
What We Are Here to Do
Pendula exists to give adults in their forties, fifties, and beyond a considered, unhurried space to read about the money structures of their lives — household patterns, Singapore savings schemes, multi-generational coordination — and to talk about what they have read with others who are at a similar point. We are not here to provide answers or direction. We are here to support the reading and the conversation.
The People Here
Those Who Run the Reading Hall
Lin Teo
Programme Director
Lin has been facilitating reading groups in Singapore for over twelve years and joined Pendula at its founding. She selects the reading materials for the four-month programme and leads the monthly facilitation sessions.
Rajan Nair
Workshop Coordinator
Rajan coordinates the weekend workshops and is responsible for compiling the workbooks and reference materials. He has spent many years working in public education and joined Pendula in 2022.
Margaret Wee
Participant Liaison
Margaret manages participant correspondence, cohort scheduling, and the reading materials dispatch. She is usually the first point of contact for those writing in with questions about enrolment or upcoming dates.
Our Standards
How We Work
No Regulatory Advisory Role
Pendula is not a licensed financial advisory firm and does not offer regulated financial advice. This distinction is maintained clearly in all programme materials and communications.
Participant Privacy
Information shared within sessions remains within the group. We do not record sessions, and personal disclosures are governed by the participant agreement signed on enrolment.
Source Transparency
All reading materials are drawn from publicly available sources — official Singapore government publications, MAS consumer literature, and CPF Board documentation. Sources are cited clearly in all printed materials.
Considered Group Sizes
Cohorts are limited to eight to twelve participants. This is not a capacity decision — it is a quality decision, based on how many voices can participate meaningfully in one discussion session.
Materials Reviewed Annually
Programme reading lists and workshop workbooks are reviewed each year to reflect changes in Singapore scheme documentation and to incorporate feedback from past cohorts.
PDPA Compliance
Personal data collected during enrolment is handled in accordance with Singapore's Personal Data Protection Act. Participant data is not shared with third parties and is retained only as long as operationally required.
Our Approach
Reading as a Form of Financial Understanding
Financial understanding does not have to arrive through a seminar or an adviser's meeting room. For many adults in their forties and fifties, the most useful form of engagement with money-related subjects is quieter than that — a structured reading, a considered conversation among peers, a return to the same material over several months with fresh eyes.
Pendula's programmes are built around this observation. The four-month reading programme moves at the pace of the participants. Each session introduces a short, carefully selected reading — drawn from Singapore-specific public documentation, consumer education literature, or academic material on household decision-making — and then gives the group time to discuss what they have read in relation to their own household circumstances.
The Singapore Schemes Reading Workshop takes a different approach: participants work directly through publicly available CPF and SRS documentation, with a facilitator present to clarify language and structure rather than to interpret meaning. The aim is that participants leave with a clearer reading of the documents themselves, not with a recommendation about what to do.
The Household Coordination workshop addresses something different again — the conversational and structural dimensions of shared household money management. How are decisions made? What rhythms have formed? What language do households typically use when coordinating across generations? These are not questions that have single correct answers, and the workshop does not treat them as if they do.
Enrolment Window
Interested in Joining a Cohort?
Write to us with any questions. We are happy to correspond about upcoming dates and available places at your own pace.
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