About Pollensa
A reading room built for the questions that matter later in life
We started Pollensa because we noticed that many adults approaching retirement were making consequential household decisions without fully understanding the language those decisions were written in.
Our Story
How Pollensa came to be
Pollensa was founded in 2019 by a small group of educators and adult-learning practitioners in Singapore who had spent years working within financial institutions and continuing education settings. What they observed — consistently, across different contexts — was that many working adults in their forties and fifties struggled not with the decisions themselves, but with the vocabulary those decisions arrived in.
Terms from CPF documentation, employer benefit letters, and housing paperwork were creating a quiet, private confusion for people who were otherwise capable and informed. The problem was not a lack of intelligence or ambition. It was simply that nobody had ever explained what the words meant in a context that felt appropriate for adults at that stage of life.
The name Pollensa comes from a quiet reading town on the island of Majorca — a place associated, in the minds of the founders, with the particular quality of attention that comes from having time to read without interruption. That quality of attention is what the programmes try to recreate.
The reading room at Robinson Road opened in April 2019 with a single six-week pilot circle of eleven participants. Word spread quietly. By 2022, Pollensa had developed three distinct programmes and established an approach — small cohorts, reading in advance, discussion in the room — that it has not substantially altered since.
Founded
2019
Robinson Road, Singapore
Approach
Reading-led. Discussion-centred. Educational in scope. No advice given.
Programmes
3
Covering retirement geography, income vocabulary, and household financial language
Mission
We believe that clearer reading leads to more considered decisions
Pollensa does not tell participants what to do with their money, their homes, or their retirement years. We offer the vocabulary and the quiet space to read more carefully — so that when participants do make decisions, they understand what they are deciding.
The Team
The people who run the reading room
Lim Teck Hwa
Programme Director
Teck Hwa spent fourteen years in adult continuing education before founding Pollensa. He leads the design of reading materials and facilitates the six-week income programme.
Siti Rahimah
Reading Circle Facilitator
Siti trained as a secondary school librarian and has spent the past decade working in adult literacy settings. She facilitates the Household Vocabulary Reading Circle and manages cohort correspondence.
Cheong Wei Lin
Workshop Lead
Wei Lin holds a background in urban planning and housing policy. She developed and leads the Retirement Geography Reading Workshop, drawing on her understanding of housing transitions in Singapore's later-life context.
Standards & Approach
How we hold the reading room
Educational scope only
All programmes are educational reading courses. Pollensa holds no financial advisory licence and does not provide regulated services. Participants are reminded of this at enrolment and at the opening of each session.
Materials reviewed annually
Reading materials are reviewed each year against current Singapore documentation and policy context. CPF payout structures, HDB scheme terminology, and employer benefit language are checked for accuracy before each new cohort begins.
Cohort size maintained strictly
No programme runs with more than twelve participants. This ceiling is not altered for demand or convenience. Smaller cohorts produce better discussion and a more comfortable reading environment for adults who may not have been in a classroom setting for many years.
Personal data handled with care
Participant details are collected for enrolment purposes only, stored securely, and are not shared with third parties. We comply with Singapore's Personal Data Protection Act and retain records only for the period required.
Feedback after every cohort
At the close of every programme, participants are invited to share written feedback on the reading materials, the facilitation, and the session structure. This feedback is read carefully and shapes the next revision of materials.
Permanent Singapore address
Pollensa operates from a fixed address in the Robinson Road area of the CBD. All sessions are held in the same room. Participants know where they are going and what to expect when they arrive.
Our Values
Reading as a form of preparation
Pollensa operates from the belief that the period between 40 and 65 is one of the most consequential stretches of adult life — not because decisions have to be made urgently, but because the vocabulary for those decisions is rarely explained clearly anywhere.
Our programmes address that gap by treating financial language the way good adult education has always treated difficult texts: as something to be read slowly, discussed openly, and returned to. Nobody leaves a Pollensa session with a product to buy or a number to act on. They leave with a clearer sense of what the words around them mean.
Our Context
Singapore-specific reading, for Singapore households
The vocabulary of personal finance in Singapore has its own structure — CPF accounts and payout elections, HDB flat classifications and resale considerations, medisave and hospitalisation planning language. These terms appear in letters and documents that many Singaporeans have read dozens of times without feeling entirely certain what they mean.
Pollensa materials are written specifically around this context. The reading circles are designed for people who live and make decisions within Singapore's institutional framework — not adapted from materials written for another country or another stage of life.
Join a Reading Circle
Find out which programme suits where you are
Write to us or call during reading hours and we will share the current cohort schedule and help you identify the most appropriate programme for your reading.
Write to the Reading Room