Altona, 10
March 2019
Hi Marlis,
I hope you are
well, it’s been fairly calm with the weather and bushfires in the ACT if I am
not mistaken, let’s keep it that way, shall we? 😊. It’s been a busy 2 months with lots happening, but at the same time
not much change in other areas. Here we go!
New car
It was about
time to trade in our Holden Astra 2008. He served us very well for nearly 5
years, but it was getting near 200,000km and some of the noises I heard every
now and then didn’t sound very healthy. So, three weeks ago, after we did our
research (extensively, because Yumi did most of it) off we went to buy the car.
First dealership, first buy. It was only the second car we bought in Australia,
but we still can’t get over how comparably cheap cars are in Australia. Ours
was $26,000 before trade in and that’s what you would have paid in the
Netherlands in Euros, so 33% more! I wanted a small, economic environmentally
friendly car, but Yumi wanted a bigger SUV-like kind of vehicle, so that’s what
we got. We bought a 2018 Demo burgundy coloured Ford Escape, which is quite a
bit higher but not much bigger than the Holden. Everything is so new and fancy,
the aircon doesn’t smell weird, the radio doesn’t crackle, the seats are comfy
and the steering is more precise. Such an upgrade! It’s one of those: if you
don’t have it, you don’t miss it, but once you do…”sort of things. We like to
give our cars a personality and a name, so the previous one was Tootie and he
liked being around other cars so was always happy to stay in parking lots at
the airport, but the new one is Eski and she’s more of a classy lady who likes
to cruise the highway with the wind in her grill, haha. Ah well, a bit of
silliness will keep us young I guess 😊
Trip to the ACT
Mid-January we
did a lightning visit to the ACT so Yumi could work with her partners on the
new business. We were all the way in the top end near Franklin and basically
just worked through the Friday and part of the Saturday. We drove Tootie back
and forth and it was great fun to do the road trip (1,500km) in a few days. We
always stop in Albury to referesh a bit and this was when it was 40+ degrees
basically everywhere and it was sooo warm. But we got a tub of my new favourite
ice cream Halo Top, which comes in 12 flavours, but has almost no sugar and is very
low in calories so it’s all the joy and none of the guilt 😊. Anyway, we got through most of their actions, got a few walks in the
neighbourhood in and visited some of our favourite restaurants. Kokoro (Japanese)
in Gungahlin wasn’t as good as we remembered, but Yumi has now decided to also
be a vegetarian, so that might have taken away from the experience a bit. I
love that there’s not too many (enough) options, she just likes to look at the
menu for 15 minutes and then agonise another 15 over what to pick. By that time
I am usually already over it. We also had diner at Bicycletta (Italian) in the
city, which has so many good memories that the food is just half the
experience, but it was good all the same. Next time we go to Canberra, I’ll
definitely try to schedule a visit with you as well, would be real nice to see
you in person again.
Yumi’s 40th birthday trip
Yumi turned 40
two weeks ago, but because of her Asian genes of course looks no day of 33 and
it wasn’t a big deal to her anyway. All the same, we did a trip for my birthday
to the NT, so for hers I suggested New Zealand, or maybe Bali, but she wanted
to go to Tawonga, in the Victorian Alps. As always we had a great time. Yumi
had found a cosy little house to stay in, nicknamed The Pod and that’s exactly
what it was, a little self-sustained unit with all the amenities and great
views. And the night sky was so dark we could see all the stars (well, maybe
not all…) and we think we saw the Milky Way, but I always think that, haha. We
did some hiking over 3 days, seeing waterfalls, hillsides, lakes, mountaintops
and lots and lots of locust. No seriously, there must have been 1,000’s of
them, it was a bit freakish. It’s funny how these ski-towns take on a different
sort of vibe when it’s summer. Everything is so quiet and subdued, like they
are all just snoozing in the sun, waiting for the masses to return. We enjoyed
the views, some fairly nauseating mountain roads and at some point Yumi made us
climb a mountain that took 45 minutes to drive up at 20km/hr, all the while
being chased by about 100 mopeds that were doing a historic drive. There was
also this weird town being built (I forget its name) that was full of
investment properties. Huge houses that would cost upwards of $1,5 million in
Melbourne, but here they go for $500-800k and you can live there with 3
families, 6 dogs, 4 grand parents and 20 chickens and still have room to spare
for a swimming pool. What made it weird was that it’s out there, in the middle
of nothing and virtually deserted. I love that kind of thing, but it was a bit
spooky too. On her actual birthday (25th) we made a day of it in the
city, having lunch, Yumi getting a 3,5-hour spa treatment while I entertained
myself elsewhere and then we had a nice Indian dinner. Good times all around.
Work
Work has been
okay. I am working with NDS (Yumi’s now former employer) to design a document
for boards and directors and it’s nearly done. It was tough at the beginning to
figure out where all the parts had to go, but now it’s just a matter of
finishing it up. I am also coaching a former colleague from Deakin who wants to
do some things differently and if all goes well I will return to Deakin for
what will be my 8th engagement by the end of the month. This time
around I will keep it to 2 days a week so I don’t become part of the problem
like some of the previous times. We’ll hammer out the details in the coming
week, probably 2 days a week until the end of the year, which would mean I
don’t have to do anything else to have enough income, which is pretty awesome.
Yumi’s new work
Since this
week’s Tuesday Yumi is now also self-employed and I could not be happier. It’s
a bit strange to have her at home all the time now, but I am also enjoying it
immensely. She’s been really busy cleaning up her old files, setting up
processes, drafting proposals and sorting out all sorts of small things. She’s
appropriated the study, which is fine by me as I am not up there anyway, and
has made it into her own little office. This week the website should go live
and then Purpose at Work is open for business. She’s already got a few
contracts and they are doing a conference at the end of April in Sydney, which
will surely raise their profile. They are also working with partners in the UK
and Netherlands to do other cool stuff in the business of making people enjoy
work more. I think it will be a great success and even if it doesn’t work out
(highly unlikely, it’s Yumi after all) she’ll learn so much from it. Initially
I tried to help with everything, but after a while I realised that she actually
wanted to do all of it by herself. That was a bit disappointing at first but I
get it, she just has to feel like it’s all her own doing, so now I just keep my
distance a bit and leave things be whenever I feel I need to give her ‘advice’.
They’ll have their share of failures, which is fine of course 😊.
5 years in Australia
On February 6
we celebrated our 5 years in Australia! We’ve gained so much from being here in
so many ways. Lots of new friends, like you and so many new options that I am
not sure we would have explored if we’d stayed in the Netherlands. Yumi has
really made a name for herself in the Disability sector and due to all my
volunteering and change work, I’ve built a very solid network of interesting
people that keep me inspired. People still ask if we’d go back some day, but so
far nothing has even come close to making us think about it, I think we’re here
to stay, but perhaps not in Melbourne. Yumi recently mentioned that Queensland
might be more suited climate-wise and I can easily see us living there. Once
her business has taken off, we’ll look at that option more seriously, but that
will be 2020 for sure. The list of things to be grateful for in this country is
so long I won’t bore you with it, but the natural diversity, big skies,
friendly people and good earnings are all big pluses. Now if someone could fix
the politics, it would really be paradise!
Litter picking activities
A while back,
Yumi and I took up some more responsibilities in the litter picking group we’re
part of every month. We’re helping out with administration and data collection,
which happens to be something we’re quite good at. Over Summer I did a few
‘lone wolf’ clean-ups too and I keep being amazed at how much rubbish and litter
ends up in the street/fields/road/beaches/nature reserves. But by now I don’t
worry too much about it, I set a timeframe, break out the bags and get going.
We’ve got an app on our phones to help track litter, by counting bottles and
cans and other stuff. It’s still being tested, but over the past few days I counted 480 bottles and about 70kg of rubbish, just by myself. Imagine that there’s at least 100 of me out there doing
the same or more. It’s pretty devastating to see how much waste there is. First
I just put it in the bags and didn’t think about it, but now there’s numbers
against it, it’s actually a bit demotivating, so much junk!!. This morning I
was out and collected another 88 bottles and other rubbish which was easily
11kgs. Ah well, one day this will all be a bad memory. Yumi and I are planning
to do a ‘best effort’ clean-up on a road nearby which looks like a litter bomb
went off. We’ll see what we can do in a few hours…
SES
I’ve been
keeping busy with the people in orange. It’s been fairly quiet with the
emergencies, but as I live close by and have good availability, I generally go
out on jobs to help the community. It got a bit exciting with the winds picking
up, but aside from a gazebo that climbed a roof to get a better view a few
gardens up the street, nothing too exciting. We did get to perform some support
tasks for the fires near Nar Nar Goon and Koo Wee Rup (who comes up with these
names?!) like bringing lighting trailers and providing logistics support, but
the most danger I’ve been in was either getting a paper cut when doing the
finances or dying of boredom on the drive back last Friday which saw me and a
SES buddy stuck in log-weekend traffic. Sigh, note to self, no more picking up
materials on Friday afternoon! I am still trying to get my leadership team to
spend some money, but either I am not speaking the right words or they just
have different plans they are not telling me about, but the money stays where
it is. Of course, we don’t HAVE to spend it, but that’s what it’s there for, to
keep us operationally ready. I am just happy to do the numbers and provide that
bit of transparency, I’ll leave it to the other 25 members to ask the questions
for a change. Recently I missed a few events because of work or travel, so not
much to share from that. Let’s see what the next few months do.
NDS Victoria State Conference
Monday 4 March
was a very special day. Not just because I got to speak to a group of 500
people about my views on change, but also because it was Yumi’s last day on the
job for NDS and I got to be her co-presenter in her last workshop during the
annual NDS State Conference. Then she also got to lead a panel on Innovative
Work practices and after the cocktail party afterwards we had a really nice
diner in town just the two of us. I don’t think I can think of a better way to
finish up. It has been a bit of a process for her, basically preparing 2 months
and then still having to sort things last minute because her colleagues could
just not get organised. The conference was a real confidence boost for me too,
so many people telling me that they liked my talk, asking if we could do
business and I might even have saved someone’s job, even though she will never
know that I talked her director into rethinking her dismissal, which makes it
even better. I realised that I knew many more people than I thought and made
some useful new contacts for who knows what happens later. I still have this
idea where I set up a social venture for people with a disability picking up
litter in so-called hotspots. It’s work no one else wants to do and it still
serves a purpose. I think I can get councils to pay for it, just have to work
with some disability service providers and the government on how it could work.
To be continued.
Writing and Berlin Change Days
Over the past
6 weeks I’ve caught the writing bug something fierce. I’ve been pumping out all
sorts of articles on change management and changing the profession and am
building quite following by now. I was more than a little impressed when an
article I wrote 3 weeks ago got nearly 3,000 views and 400+ likes. Normally I
get about 5-600 and maybe 60 likes and I’d consider that amazingly cool. It was
about 15 future roles I could see people do in Change Management and people
loved it so much I wrote another one with 15 more roles. Then people started
contacting me that I should do more with it and even though I never even
considered that (I write mostly to empty my head), I had good fun coming up
with ideas and ways of making the content available. Right now I am thinking of
developing a deck of cards with the 30 roles and maybe a small booklet to work
out the profiles a bit more. A change friend of mine wants to meet next week to
discuss an idea she has to make it into a workshop. I am not too sure about
that, I don’t see this as a way to make money, but let’s see what her idea is
first before I get all ethical and stuff, maybe it will be good fun 😊. Through that writing I met a gentleman called Holger and he runs an
event in Berlin in the last weekend of October, called the Berlin Change Days
and another change friend of mine (from WA, Australia) said I should put in a
proposal. I’ll hear by the end of March if I get to come and have a bit of fun
with them. I might also add a quick visit to the Netherlands if it works out!
Small things and dramas
1. Our landlord was being a bit
unpleasant about wanting to sign us up to a new lease even though we served out
the first one and were now legally okay to just extend month over month. We
ended up agreeing to 8 months, but it really ruined the relationship, so now
we’re considering moving, which might just be what they want so they can get an
even longer lease…
2.
Our Canada trip is getting closer. We’ll be flying out on 29 July and
spend 3 weeks there, including Yumi’s best friend Hester’s wedding. Canada in
Summer is beautiful and hideously expensive, so I am hoping the pictures will
be worth it!
3.
Not much happening with the goat people, all good things for them, but
not much involvement for me. I talk to them every now and then, but as long as
they feel they need to do it all themselves, there’s really no point in me
trying to help out. Wait mode it is 😊
4.
I’ve had a lot of time to read and keep being amazed at how good the
books are that I get to read. Learned a lot about online bullying (terrible),
human behaviour (fascinating), extremism in Australia (not much happening,
haha) how our brain chemistry works (complicated) and how we all get fooled by
economic growth (lies, lies and statistics).
5.
Family and friends are all doing well, not much happening, kids are all
fine, some becoming teenagers now and some going to secondary school, how did
that happen all of a sudden?!
6. I’ve been walking, a lot.
Like most things I enjoy, I get a bit obsessive and where I normally would be
happy to reach 10,000 steps a day, I’ve now regularly clocked 15,000 or even
20,000 steps per day, or 100km a week, due to litter picking, clearing my head
and just loving being outside. Fortunate side effect is that I found some
motivation to stick to my diet, so I dropped about 8 kilos that I really didn’t
need.
That’s it for
now, I’ll write again in a month or two and there will be enough new adventures
to share I am sure.
Be well,
Gilbert
