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7 January 2019

Letter to Marlis November-December 2018


Melbourne 7 January 2019,

Hi Marlis and Happy New Year!

I am still working out what I was doing again last year, the past few weeks have been so irregular that it’s a bit harder to get back in the rhythm of things. Today I’ve got a lunch date in the city so after I accompanied Yumi to her work, I walked back to the city (only 5km) and I am now doing my digital nomad thing where I ‘work’ from shopping centres, the library and a restaurant until I meet my friend Priscilla to catch up. Modern times indeed 😊. UPDATE: she just cancelled because her grandma has passed at the age of 101 (!), heading home now. I wasn’t feeling great anyway, got this summer cold since yesterday, maybe I’ll sit in the sun for a bit and roast it out!

Lots of stuff has happened since the last letter, so let’s get started!

South Australia trip
We travelled to Port Lincoln and the Eyre Peninsula from 13-24 December and it was pretty good. When we left Melbourne, it wasn’t the best of weather, but 2 days later SES was really busy with all sorts of flooding. By that time we were already at sea looking at sharks, so I missed all that activity for once. Port Lincoln was a bit the same, rainy and gloomy. It’s a nothing town based on grain and tuna fishing (apparently the tuna capital of the world, including the world-famous tuna-toss competition…Yeah, I hadn’t heard of it as well). We were happy to get on the boat for 4 days of Great White shark watching and after a very bumpy ride and some waiting, we got to see them in all their glory. It’s 100% safe and controlled, so don’t think we’re all that heroic, we’re really not. We saw 6 or 7 different males, ranging in length from 3-4.5 meters. The super-giant females (that’s the actual term, no kidding) can go up to 6 meters, but December is not their time of year to be there, so we only got to see boy sharks, who were impressive enough. They are very calm, not aggressive at all and almost shy. The bait (tuna gills and organs, yuck) goes in on a rope and gets pulled through the water and right before they can sink their teeth in, the crew pulls it away as they are not supposed to feed them. Doesn’t seem to upset the sharks too much, they just swim another circle and try again, or leave it and move on. We learned a lot by just observing them in the surface cage (when you’re just 10 cm below the surface) and also in the 20 meter deep bottom cage. There’s not much else to do or see under water and after 30 minutes of watching them and getting some good photos, we were freezing cold (water temperature is only 14-16 degrees) and were happy to get hauled back up again for the next team to go in and see.

All sharks have a unique marking on their tails and their fin shape and size is also different, which helps with identifying the 300 or so sharks this operator has seen so far. Apparently, they also travel in clans, the same 4-5 sharks seem to show up in close proximity and in the same timeframe, leading the scientist to believe that they group and travel together. Just image encountering 4-5 super-giant females in one dive, wow! From the safety of a dive cage of course 😊. Even though some sharks get tagged for research and tracking, there’s still very little known about them, where they breed, where they disappear to and their migration patterns. Magnificent creatures!

After the dive trip (we only made 5 dives, which was a bit disappointing, but the weather was not great) we drove some 1,500 kilometres through South Australia and were once again impressed by how big Australia really is. So far, I had only seen big sky country in WA, but SA has some beautiful and impressive scenery as well. We travelled through towns that had no more than 30 inhabitants and that makes you wonder how people make a living out there, but somehow they do. The landscape is beautiful and not unlike some of the great plains of America (what I’ve seen on TV). The mining towns are sad and beautiful in all their former forlorn glory and I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many grain fields in my life anywhere. Normally I get lost in my own back yard, but navigating the countryside was really simple for this trip; the next town is where you see the massive grain silos in the distance and there’s really only one road anyway.

At some point we stayed the night in a unit in a nowhere town and decided that this was probably the kind of house we would buy some day. Not too big, but with a nice verandah, a carport and big enough for the two of us, perhaps with a nice view. No million-dollar mansion for us if we can help it. I tried to get Yumi to travel a bit of the Nullarbor too, but that didn’t happen, so at least there’s something to visit next time still! The weirdest thing when we came back was that after all that rain Victoria had seen in our absence, everything was extremely green and vibrant when we came back. Grass and plants had grown considerably and there was such an abundance of life, very nice to come home too.

Yumi’s job adventures
After months of thinking and doubting, Yumi has now decided that it’s time for her to strike out on her own and leave National Disability Services (NDS). The organisation is making some changes and more than a few of her really good colleagues have now left or were treated in such a way they decided to leave. From my Change management experience nothing good will come of the plans they’ve got prepared so far. As far as I can tell from what Yumi shares with me, they are doing everything wrong that an organisation that hasn’t changed for about 20 years can do wrong and I am very happy for her to leave. Her next adventure is that she’ll team up with two former colleagues and start their own advisory business in the area of self-managed teams (never mind, it’s boring for most people anyway 😊). Despite more than 100 organisations expressing interest, NDS never saw a lot of potential in it and after trying to get them on board for 2-3 years, Yumi now feels she might as well do it herself and enjoy her work even more. There might or might not be a role for me in this as well, for now we’ve agreed that I will support her where and how I can, but it’s their business. I’ve drafted some plans and schedules that might be useful, but part of the fun is to figure out some of these things for yourself too! We’ll be going to Canberra in two weeks from now, to spend 2 days together with Caroline (Sydney) and Alan (ACT) to nut out the details, should be fun. Unfortunately, I will not be able to visit you as the agenda is really full (9am-9pm) and we’re driving back and forth and need to be back by Sunday, so that will have to be next time . This weekend we bought Yumi a super fancy laptop computer and now she can really get started! I think it will be a big success and I am not just saying that because she’s my partner, their product offering and national coverage is very attractive and exactly what the market needs right now. Their launch date is 1 March 2019, but I’ll keep you informed as always.

Slowest career change ever
My own career change is slow and disappointing as expected so far. I think it will take a few months more and then I’ll land on something. So many companies are not at all prepared to really try a new approach, some have been stuck in their ways for years and some just can’t see beyond the things they are doing now, even if they’re not working/solving the problem. I could of course start my own charity, but Australia already has about 60,000 (no joke) and so far they’re not really successful, despite the $130 billion dollars going into it every year! I can easily see how things could be better, but so far not a lot of people seem interested in making that happen. You have to wonder; they’ve been working at it for 50 years at least and still there are so many homeless and hungry people, clearly whatever they are doing is not working on a sustainable scale. I don’t want to take away from the great work all these hard-working people do, but I also feel that just because they are doing a great thing, doesn’t mean they don’t have an obligation to go with the times. I’ve had so  many experiences by now of organisations not replying, replying very late, doing their admin with pen and paper, incredibly poor volunteer management, not leveraging the potential of their networks, the list goes on. Not to say that I will be able to solve it all, but come on guys, don’t be sorry, be better! I’ll need to get past my own frustration at some point or really find another field to work in, I guess. To be continued…

5 years in Australia coming up
6th of February we’ll be here five years! I can’t believe how much has changed for us since we made the move, for the better that is. I can honestly say that I have never ever regretted coming to Australia, even if the family situation was a bit tough at times. We’ve had so many great opportunities, met lovely people, made many new friends all across the country and have seen so much and still have so much to see of this beautiful country that it still gets me excited. I love living in Altona and don’t see us leaving any time soon, but we’ll probably not end in Victoria if I can help it. WA and Queensland keep pulling, so perhaps we should just see if we can make a life for ourselves there at some point. We’re still considering our citizenship, but right now there’s no real need for it and the easiest way for it to happen is if Yumi goes first and then I become a citizen by association AND keep my Dutch/Rotterdam nationality. No hurry though, it would mean that we’d also have to vote, which is not a great thing to look forward to at the moment with the clowning around in government we’ve seen in the past 3 years. All things considered, it’s been an amazing adventure so far and sometimes we wonder if it can actually get any better. Only way to find out is to keep living the dream I guess, haha.

Presentation to Council
You might remember that a few months ago I participated in a round of proposals for our local Hobsons Bay council with two proposals on how we might reduce litter and waste in our community. To my own surprise both my proposals made it to the second round, so the night before we left for South Australia and the sharks, I presented my ideas. The first one, the Tidy Tradie Trophy, rewards tradies on the many building sites around town to keep their building sites clean and free of litter, the second one the C4 project is all about Council Coordinated Community Cleanups. I won’t bore you with the details, safe to say it’s all about collaboration and organising (two things Aussies do enthusiastically, but not particularly effectively). The night itself was a lot of fun. In just two hours, people of all ages from 10-80 years old presented their ideas to 3 groups of about 30-50 people. A lot of them being about bike paths and dogs on leashes, but also some truly cool things like a rickshaw bike for elderly and disabled people and community gardens that could feed whole streets. I thought it was very inspiring to see how much time, thinking and effort people had put into their ideas to improve their community. I hope the 10-year-old boy gets his basketball court, he did such a good job!


CMI Awards dinner
Even though I left the Change Management Institute, my good friend Anna has now taken the lead and as this whole awards dinner was my crazy idea to begin with, I felt I needed to be there to show support. It was a very fun evening, with everything working out exactly as expected, the venue, the food, the guests and the awards. It was a true celebration of the best this community has to offer. I hope they’ll go another round next year, possibly with some new ideas and even more than 50 people. I ended up sponsoring one of the prizes because the CMI organisation is a bit silly sometimes, but I met the recipient of the prize before I knew he was the winner and he seemed very switched on, so that’s $300 well spent 😊.

SES activities and Bunnings BBQ
SES work has been busy and quiet at the same time. Not too many incidents and requests for assistance lately, but that’s always a good thing. Aside from the crazy busy 15 December (that I missed) trees and waterways have been behaving, so we got to do other stuff. I’ve been doing Community Engagement training, but it was much less interesting than I had hoped. Just a lot of paperwork and emphasis on following rules and filling out forms. I was seriously considering not even going to part 2, but then I decided to just get over myself and finish it. The next day it got cancelled until further notice because the only trainer got deployed to the Queensland fires. Great, I had just finished preparing my presentation! Oh well, I’ll just finish it and see what happens next. I am going to try to get some boat training too, that sounded like fun. As I have a lot of time, I ended up organising our unit’s end of year BBQ and trivia night and that was good fun too. We had soooo much food and drinks we ended up dividing it all amongst ourselves when everyone went home. On the 30th I also helped out for the day with a BBQ fundraiser at Bunnings. It was not too bad and we made some money, but I smelled like meaty sausage for about 2 days, no matter how many times I washed my hands, clothes, hair and every other inch of me, yuck!

New Year’s Eve with Salvos
Just to mix things up a little and also because we had nothing better to do, Yumi and I volunteered to help out the Salvos with their New Year’s Eve presence. Turns out we’d be stationed at the ‘lost children’ point from 6pm to 2am. Great, crying kids, just our thing... Well, it turned out much better than we thought. Only 2 children got misplaced and for both the parents were found within 20 minutes. We had a good time, watching the many celebrants, people walking their dogs, some very cheeky and photogenic possums and lots of tourists asking for directions. It was very weird that people would walk past the tent, see the sign (Lost Children) and then start to laugh. Some even wanted to take a picture. I mean, what is so hilarious about lost children?! Anyway, we had front row seats when the fireworks went off, as they were launched from about 10 meters behind our tent, but we missed part of it as we were dealing with a little boy who got separated from his parents. As soon as we called it in, police, ambos and security all rushed to our aid, and then people started calling and using the radio as well, it was chaos, but at least we were all trying to get things sorted. All’s well that ends well and at 1.30am the crowds cleared out and we walked back to another tent near Flinders Street station and they had the real hard cases of drunk and drugged party people to deal with, which fortunately passed us by completely. On the train home we helped a young lady who was really, really drunk and spewing (nice!), but she made a miraculous recovery, so we were not too worried after all. We were in bed by 3am and up by 7am, pff, we’re no longer used to this😊.

Litter picking
I managed to pick 439 bags of litter over the course of 2018. I am not sure if I should be happy or sad about that number, but at least it’s no longer in the environment. Believe it or not, but I finally found money! And two days in a row no less. First time was $55 and the second time was a $20 note. Not too bad eh?! I gave it to some homeless people when I went into the city a few days later, it wasn’t my money to begin with anyway and I am sure they can put it to good use. I am not sure if I will continue picking with as much enthusiasm as I started out with in 2018 though. Having learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t, I now know that my 1 tonne of rubbish less is really just a drop of a drop in an ocean of litter. Then again, it does make my immediate environment that much cleaner. Perhaps I’ll find some middle ground after a while. Now that it’s holidays and there’s a different crowd out and about, it takes a different kind of motivation for me because these people are just visitors and make such a mess, it’s really hard to not be judgemental. Also, I found that I can walk much further and more relaxed if I don’t bring my litter gripper and bags. Need to think about it a bit more!

The Goat people
The fundraising campaign in November was very successful for them. A lot of my friends, family and business friends chipped in and raised quite some money and the target of 200 new goats was well and truly smashed. Then on the day of the big event (8 November) one philanthropist just handed over $50,000!! Another group forked up an additional $25,000, so all in all, they raised close to $100,000 which will go a long way towards their goals. Even cooler is that they drew the attention of the Philippines equivalent of Telstra, called Globe. They have 80 million (!) customers and want to be the corporate partner. And they knew someone at CNN Asia, who will now do a 6-minute documentary on the project and its goals. It doesn’t get much better than that. I am still not sure what role they see for me moving forward and will calmly await their plans. At this point I really can’t do anything more unless they make some decisions about how to progress first. But even if it goes no further, I feel I’ve made a positive contribution all the same.

Big summer clean up
The day after we came home from the SA trip, we decided to do a really big clean up and sort all the stuff we had in the house. Yumi let go of 19 pairs of shoes (there’s about 30 left now) and I said goodbye to a lot of stuff that we’d been needlessly carrying around as well. Yumi is a bit of a hoarder when it comes to…well everything really, but I am not at all, so we always have a long lead up time before it starts, but after all is said and done, it really only took about one hour. A lot of stuff went to the Salvos store and there’s this cool initiative in town where you can donate clothes that are still good to wear to a job interview but might not want to wear yourself any more. We let go of about 12 suits, and so many skirts, pants, shoes, bags and shirts that we could basically start our own store. They open again on the 21st, and I’ll be on that end of the bay anyway, so that’s our garage cleaned and sorted once more!

Small stuff
  • ·       I’ve rediscovered tofu and am now trying out all sorts of new recipes and cooking methods, great fun and yum too!
  • ·       For Yumi’s 40th birthday we’re planning to visit the Mt Beauty and Mt Buller alpine region. I wanted to do something a bit more festive like diving in Bali or travelling through New Zealand, but this is what she wants, so that’s what we’re doing.
  • ·       Friends and family are all healthy and well. Two of my friends (Just and Alex) are thinking of coming over, fingers crossed. Our parents are okay too. Yumi’s are thinking of moving to a new house and mine are enjoying their new place more and more.
  • ·       It’s finally happening, after 4+ years we’re switching banks from NAB to Bank Australia. Bit of a hassle getting everything transferred and changed, but after all the dirt and scandal from the Royal Banking Commission, I’d really rather not have anything to do with NAB anymore. Time will tell if Bank Australia is any better of course, after all, it’s still a bank.
  • ·     I sold my PlayStation and the Virtual Reality googles! And bought a newer fancier one 😊. I cannot imagine not having a PlayStation it’s been that way for the best part of 20 years!


That’s me done for now, enjoy the summer weather and be well,

Gilbert

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