And across the island, housewives and mothers get together to offer to babysit children with hand, foot and mouth disease, as childcare centres and kindergartens close to break the spread of the disease.

There are support groups for parents of autistic kids, for stroke patients, cancer patients and even one for men whose wives have breast cancer.

There is something afoot in Singapore.

All kinds of groups are mushrooming. Civil society flourishes.

Many of these groups offer mutual support. Others are platforms for like-minded people to gather. Most lack political clout, or indeed, the will to exercise political influence.

But there are three potential groups which have the potential to become lobby groups to influence the socio-political landscape.

They are the grey, green and gay lobbies.

The grey lobby is the most obvious. The numbers are familiar. By 2030, one in four Singaporeans will be aged above 60.

Already, social-service providers are scrambling to prepare themselves for the day.

New housing initiatives like 900 studio flats designed specially for the elderly, are in place. Then there's the $200-million Eldercare Fund set up last year to, among other things, provide more nursing-home beds.

The latent power of the grey lobby is acknowledged implicitly whenever the ""some-man-two-votes'' idea is mooted as one way to offset the electoral weight of the elderly which, as (elderly) management guru Peter Drucker once said, are notorious for being ""vocal and greedy''.

An inter-ministerial group last year, which looked at the challenges facing an ageing population, was well-attuned to the potential power of a grey lobby. It considered setting up an umbrella body to represent the interest of the elderly -- and desisted.

In political terms, that leaves the door wide open to any energetic bunch of spry septuagenarians, to get organised.

It will be tough going to persuade the HDB 'ah pek' to sign up in the initial years, but in 10 years' time, as more among the baby-boomers age, the profile of the elderly will change and, with it, the clout of this group.

The green lobby is the other force to watch in 21st century Singapore. It has been vocal -- and remarkably successful -- in putting nature conservation on the public agenda.

There's a Green Plan to safeguard nature reserves and a Blue Plan to safeguard marine nature areas. The green lobby wants a revised Green Plan.

That green sentiments run deep in the public psyche can be seen from the level of heat in debate over issues ranging from recreational facilities at Sungei Buloh park to plans for the development of Pulau Ubin.

The fact that visiting American conservationists' comments against the eating of shark's fin sparked off the ""Great Shark Debate'' in July also illustrates the hold conservation has on the prosaic Singaporean mind.

In Singapore, the green lobby is small -- members of the Nature Society, in the vanguard of the lobby here, number about 2,000.

But the numbers will grow, if what is happening outside Singapore is any guide.

Elsewhere, notably in Europe, the green lobby has become a political force to be reckoned with. At international forums, whether at the World Economic Development forum in Davos, or the United Nations, the environment has become a key issue.

The green lobby's clout will grow, as it has logic and history on its side. More societies will come to accept that sustainable development, not development at any cost, should rule economic progress.

Throw in the international dimension of this lobby group, and the fact that green activists are often well-educated and passionate - and the potential of the green lobby to influence policy, or create mischief if it wishes to, is clear.

Another small lobby group has the potential to wield influence beyond its numbers.

This is the gay lobby which, until this year, was one which dared not speak its name.

Several events catapulted the gay issue into the public eye. First, there was SM Lee's live interview on CNN, when someone asked if homosexuals had a place in the Singapore 21 vision, and SM Lee's answer, in essence, was that the state had to follow the mores of society, and that Singaporeans were not ready to accept it.

That position was repeated in May, after the police turned down an application by a group of gay people to hold a forum on homosexuality in Singapore.

There is an impasse -- for now.

But as many who commented on the issue noted, including Straits Times reader Richard Chiang ""It is not a matter of whether homosexuality will ever be recognised, but a matter of when.''

No one can tell just what influence this lobby group may wield, and whether it will be to the detriment or benefit of Singapore society.

If nothing else, the gay lobby is likely to be more assertive. In 1997, a request to set up a gay and lesbian group called People Like Us was turned down.

Three years later, came a request to hold a public forum -- again turned down. But the gay commuunity is not likely to remain silent and seems prepared to speak up at every opportunity.

During SM Lee's webchat at The Straits Times last week, the predictable happened -- there were questions on the role of homosexuals in Singapore. But perhaps because SM Lee had already given his stand on the issue, those questions were not among the 40 he answered.

For now, the gay lobby's influence is most marked in its ability to purvey cultural norms, because of the preponderance of homosexual themes in Singapore's art and entertainment scene.

Whether it will turn out a socio-political force remains to be seen.

It lacks the ability to muster mass support that the grey lobby will have, and it cannot invoke the moral suasion of the green lobby.

But if the trend in other industrialised societies is any guide, the tide is towards acceptance of homosexuals, not criminalisation.