YOU could feel the difference, the moment you stepped out of the lift at the fifth floor of Junction8 office tower.

At 6pm yesterday, the press conference organised by the Aware veterans was about to begin.

There was easy banter, cheerful chatter and warm smiles that lit up the room like a cocktail party.

Unlike the tense, terse affair which was the press conference given by the new exco on Thursday, this one was decidedly different.

You could almost smell the scent of victory. You could almost spot a hint of glee in the eyes of the old guard members.

On Thursday night, the new exco had chaired an emotion-charged press conference at the Raffles Town Club that, among other things, was disrupted by a heckler.

There were shouting matches as they stumbled over their answers and contradicted one another. At the end of it all, many questions were left hanging.

They had messed up big time. And the old guard, experienced old hands that they were, knew it.

In the office of the Women's Initiative for Ageing Successfully, a converted dance studio where the press conference was held, they moved about with ease and confidence, offering drinks and smiles aplenty.

There was none of the distrust, fear and apprehension that hung in the air of the new exco's conference.

'We are not here for a tit-for-tat...' said former president Dr Kanwaljit Soin, as the press conference began. 'We are giving out fact sheets and letting the facts speak for themselves.'

That set the tone for the evening - dignified, proper, yet casual.

'We do not have a lesbian desk, so to speak,' said DrSoin to laughter, as she used newsroom jargon to answer a reporter's question about whether the old exco was pro-homosexuality.

As members of the panel took turns to speak up passionately about the saga, Dr Soin spoke again, to laughter:

'You may be here for a long time... we hope you have tah pao (slang for ordered out) your dinner.'

Charm offensive

The charm offensive was clearly on but for the old guard, many of whom have been at Aware for eons.

The rapport between the panel of 11 Aware members and the media was apparent.

Perhaps that was why the ugliness of the whole affair, the name-calling, the heckling, the dispute at the Aware centre that had required police intervention - twice - on Thursday night, was far from everyone's mind.

Instead, it was the experience and the diversity of the old exco that stood out.

The 11 panel members was made up of nine women and two men.

They came dressed in saris and smart suits. There were Christians, Muslims and Sikhs.

They had been quick on the uptake, organising this press conference immediately after the new exco spoke up.

And they sat there, smiling, yet ready to draw swords.

This article was first published in The New Paper.