Bellbird Park, 11 December

 

Hi Marlis,

I hope you are getting to enjoy being outside a bit more now that Summer is on the way. We’ve already had our first few heat waves and it’s looking like another hot week coming our way. It looks like I didn’t take many interesting pictures this time, so this letter has no pictures and just words, sorry!

Like with most letters a lot has happened over the past few months, so let’s get right into it, shall we?

 

New job

I’ve been in the new job at McNab Construction for about 2 months now and it’s surely been a whirlwind! My official title is Change and Business Improvement Team Lead, which is ridiculously long, so I just say Change Lead.

I’ve been to the Toowoomba office (100km to the west), The Gold Coast office (100km to the South), visited two of our other businesses and six building sites, attended a ground breaking/sod turn (lots of shovels and pictures) and met at least 200 people of whom I remember maybe 50 names...

I have a team of three to look after, Jess (39), Marty (64) and Greg (53). We’re all coming at change and business improvement from different angles, but we’ll figure it out. It’s a bit of an adjustment to lead a team again, but fortunately they are all grown-ups and experienced so it’s more a matter of getting comfortable with each other, building trust and collaboration.

Our job is to support the business with the strategic plans and projects they want to run to do things better or differently. The challenge is that when I started there were a number of empty positions that needed to be hired, like the Chief Operations Officer (my manager), the Chief Technology Officer, a Legal person, a Robotics person and about 12 others, so all these new people and me are hitting the business at the same time. Everyone is genuinely friendly and helpful, but I can easily imagine them getting a bit tired of all the new faces and big ideas they want to get started on.

I just do what I always do, create more clarity through structure, models, frameworks and templates, always good to have for when things kick off in the new year. Our CEO was very clear to the whole organisation about not starting new initiatives until the new year. This was right after I started, but he did explain the first few months would be ‘rocky’ and so far it’s indeed been an adjustment, which is management speak for: “Not sure that I want to do this, but let’s see what happens”. For me it’s mostly that I am not sure I like leading a team, perhaps I am better as an individual contributor. In the previous role with Lactalis I had prepared and helped run a complete system introduction, so that’s what I am comparing it too, which isn’t quite the same of course, this will be a job for the long run.

I thought I would have to toughen up a lot of the change management language I normally use, thinking that these builders and tradies are all rough and tough, but the exact opposite is true! They want us to really focus on the peoples’ experience and consider the organisation 5 years from now, which is very rare and a welcome change from how these things usually go. Let’s see how it all works out, when we get back in the new year.

I might have mentioned it before, but the new office is just 200 meters away from the Lactalis office where I was until August this year. I know the neighbourhood really well, have my favourite routes for when I take a break and go for a walk and I get to walk from the city across the river most days. That’s always a nice start to the day, even when the weather isn’t great. There’s always something to see and it keeps me fitter than just walking from the train station, which is only 5 minutes away from the office.

 

Yumi’s work and dancing

Yumi has been busy at work as always. They keep coming up with good ideas and getting funding for them, so her team is pretty busy and is always on the verge of expanding with new team members. At some point she’ll have half the organisation reporting to her! She went to Melbourne on a short two-day trip a few weeks ago and even if she grumbles about being away from home (mostly being away from Dash😊), she’s really good at networking and always comes back with new ideas and things to experiment with.

Her next dance performance with the Choo La La ladies is on 20 December, so I get to sit through that awkwardness once again, but she has some much fun with the whole thing I am always happy to go and see what they’ve come up with this time. I like her other dance group better because it’s so over the top and outrageous to watch. And everyone keeps their clothes on (mostly) which is always a plus, haha.

 

The Yard Project

Last time I wrote you, the soil and grass had just gone in and since then we’ve run about 30,000 litres of water through it all and I don’t know how much weedkiller. Despite the extremely dry weather since, all that water kept 85% of the grass alive, so there’s only a few dead patches that need to be scooped out when the weather cools down.

It’s very much a first world problem, but oh man do I hate mowing the lawn, every.single.week. Aaaaargh. But…I bought four additional batteries for the electric mower and now I can do it all in one go and be done with it, which makes it slightly better, but still two hours of my life I don’t get back every week. I could of course pay someone to do it, but that thought annoys me even more, so I grumble my way through it every week and get a bit faster every time. It’s just so much grass, and it keeps growing!!

All grumbling aside, it is a massive improvement to what the yard used to be and we think everyone in the neighbourhood is quietly following along how we’re going with it all. When they walk past some just nod in appreciation and others want to know how much it cost, if we’re happy with the gardener we worked with and what weedkiller I use to keep it so neat. It’s not quite where I want it to be just yet, but it’s really hard to kill nutgrass and because we watered the grass so much, the weeds also get all the nutrients. Sometimes I step back and wonder about how I’ve become this person, someone who thinks about weeds, garden hoses and fertiliser too much. I am sure I am being punished for something I did in a previous life! 😊

This week we’re getting the very rickety garden stairs replaced with properly made timber stairs from the same materials as the front fence (Merbau timber) and I hope it’ll look really good. Surely that’s it then for the yard for a while, right?! Wrong! Now I finally get to paint the whole fence (all 60 meters of it, twice and half of it on two sides, yay! Strangely enough it’s something I actually look forward to. I bought a battery powered paint spray gun, and Yumi and I decided on a specific colour of grey we both liked. Now I just need to wait for the Christmas break and three days of dry weather to get the job done. After all that, it’s time for the plants to go in, but that will be in  Autumn to give them a fair chance to settle in. Yumi has big plans, but somehow I feel I will be the one who ends up digging a lot of holes. I hope the end result will be worth it.

Greyhound things

Late Spring and Summer is when the big flies come out here, and Dash is terrified of them. Then there’s the late-night thunderstorms which scare him equally bad. Whenever that happens he just doesn’t want to go outside the next morning. It’s so sad and we feel really bad for him. He just turns into a 35kg puppy who wants to hide in his bed and there I am, making him come outside to go for a walk.

He’s usually fine once he’s outside and better when it’s Yumi and me walking him, but when there’s a big fly buzzing around or trying to land on him, he goes into a panic and starts snapping at the air to try and eat it. Even after he gets it, he just wants to go home right away. I try to calm him down and keep on walking because he's never actually been stung since he joined our family, so I hope at some point he realises that it’s not as scary as he thinks, but it might never happen. Poor guy, I wish there was a way to explain it to him ☹.

 We had Evie the 9-year old greyhound come and visit for a few days and she was right at home once again. Dash didn’t mind her too much, she’s stayed with us before for a few days and he’s always such a good host. She steals all his toys, sleeps on his beds and gets in his way, but he takes it all in stride and mostly just ignores her. Her foster parents had to visit family in NSW and when they came to pick her up you could hear Dash breathe a sigh of contentment and relief from the comfort of his own bed, haha.

Yumi had to deal with lots of mini-dog dramas too. Dogs getting bitten, a dog losing her tail getting caught in a car window, dogs not working out with families, one ate rat poison (twice!), one having to be rehomed because of family issues, all that stuff. But there have also been a lot of adoptions and new fosters, so the dog business is keeping on keeping on! A few weeks ago, we must have had a record 14 greyhounds join on the greyhound walks one of her friends organises every two weeks, that sure was a lot of tails and happy doggo grins!

 

The new book

I might have mentioned it before, but I’ve written a second book and after many, many, many rounds of changes it’s now out in the world. 10 Years Writing About Change is very different from Bad Change, and mostly a gift to myself for being in business for myself for the past 10 years. The hardest part is always the promotion and continuously having to remind people that the book is for sale, I am not particularly good at it, so it costs double the energy to get it done every week. You’d think I’d be more excited about it and I am, but it’s also just another book on Change and I wrote and shared all the content over the past 10 years already, so it’s not as new to me as it might be to others  So far, I’ve sold 50 copies for charity, which doesn’t seem like a lot, compared to the 1,100 copies Bad Change has sold, but any self-published book that sells more than 100 copies is considered to be doing really well, So I am on the right track.

I joined in on a book fair a few weeks ago, as a combined event between the International Association of Business Communicators and the Change Management Institute. No wonder we go by the acronyms IABC and CMI, haha, those names are so long! It was a panel of 4 other writers and me, answering questions about what it’s like to write books and what tips we had for aspiring writers and of course people could buy some books at the end. I even sold a few copies of both books and made some new friends, so that’s a good night in my book.

 Funny thing was, I had ordered a bunch of the more affordable and slightly less glossy US version of the book (somehow you can’t print standard quality in Australia, don’t ask…) and they were supposed to arrive well on time before 27 November, the night of the event. Then I got a message they would arrive on 1 December and I was like “Okay, it is what it is”. So I sold out at the book fair, come home late that night and what’s there waiting for me? Exactly! The books had arrived that afternoon… Oh well, I’ll have enough copies to give away to friends like you! I don’t expect you to read it, but wanted you to have one as we’ve been friends for 10 years too this year. I think I started visiting in June 2015, so it’s about six months overdue, sorry!

 

Change Management Institute

It’s been a busy few months events-wise. We had a morning event, networking drinks, a weekend event, the book fair and the mentoring program was also wrapping up. 2025 has certainly been the busiest year for the Queensland community. Oh, and I got a very heavy glass Change Leader award for being one of the three Australian Change Leaders for 2025. Always nice to get some love from the community, but still feel weird getting awards, so I just say thank you and get on with my day.

We have even bigger plans for 2026, getting out to Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Toowoomba, maybe even Rockhampton if we can make it work. I think that is important because the CMI team and I are CMI Queensland, not just CMI Brisbane and we hope to inspire some people to join our team as the regional connections. It’s very simple on paper, but in practice it takes a lot of organising and chasing people.

I’ve decided to finally get my CMI Change Master accreditation (it’s 50% discounted for CMI volunteers, so that’s nice!). After filling out some forms and getting two references to support me, I now have an interview on Sunday 22 December and I think there’s one more step after that, but I’ll see what happens. I think I’ll be fine and once I have this one, I’ll do the other big one, which is from a similar professional body in the United States, called ACMP (the name is too long to spell out, trust me). After that I can finally say I’ve done all the major ones and have an informed opinion. I can already tell the process is very different. The CMI one is all about evidence and interaction, the ACMP one is essentially a multiple-choice test based on their body of knowledge (a book). I expect that by the time I write you again, I’ll have one and perhaps have started on the other. Not sure if I’ll be much smarter when it comes to change but I’ll have a shiny certificate to prove that I know what I am doing.

 

Rural Fire Service

It’s been quiet with fires in our area after a very busy period in October and a wet end to November but this weekend we got to go out in force to a mid-sized fire that had kicked off on Thursday, got put down quickly, but flared right up across 150 metres of bush away from most people on Saturday. We had good fun with water, blowers and rakes for about 5 hours, putting it out and then making sure it wouldn’t get back up again. Learned a few things, stood around and chatted for most of it, which was nice, because 32 degrees is too hot for wearing all our gear and getting in front of flames.

We had a great response time too, because we were at the station with about 10 firefighters doing some mowing, grounds maintenance, cleaning and organising before we go to reduced capacity for the next 5 weeks over Christmas. It’s likely we’ll come in any way, because school holidays mean higher fire danger and the temperatures will go up as well. We’re trying a roster to keep our vehicles ready to go, but it’s a bit hard on the people who have been there for 10 plus years and have seen that being tried and not work. Me and a few newer members (all been there 2+ years too) are willing to give it a crack, otherwise everything will always stay the way it was. Sometimes we talk too much and do too little, but not while I am there, ha!

Early November we got to visit the Airforce base nearby (two of our members are professional firefighters there) for a demonstration of their equipment. They have some pretty awesome tools and vehicles. Their fire trucks are specifically built for airplane fires and are like our trucks on steroids. We carry 2,000 litres of water, they carry 11,000. We can empty a tank in 13 minutes, they can do it in 2 minutes. Our truck has 4 wheels that come to my thigh, theirs have 8 which are nearly 2 metres tall. The coolest part is their water cannon that can reach over 100 meters far and 50 meters high. We’d be lucky to get 20-25 on a good day. Everything is just superpowered and extra big, which is just the best. We all turned into little girls and boys 😊 They were super nice too, taking us through their procedures and equipment. I thought it was going to be a bit boring, but it was great fun and I learned a lot about other ways to fight different kinds of fire. Not that we’re likely to ever do that, but still good to know.

 

Short things

·      I just finished another round of grading student papers for the Change tools course and there might be some changes coming for that collaboration with Deakin University. It’s been running for 5 years now and I always expect it to end, but it keeps getting renewed each year. Just this week I was talking to them about delivering some online work with a group in Cambodia, which sounded interesting. More about that in the next letter.

·      Karate is going okay. I am not making as much progress as I would like and I get so frustrated being told I need to go faster, but when I do, I get told to do it better. On good days I just laugh and keep going, on not so good days I wonder why I show up for this twice a week. I am about to hit 30 lessons with my yellow belt which means I am technically ready for the next orange belt, but I feel like I might as well wear yellow the rest of 2026. I said I’d give it a year and we’re only 7 months in, but at this rate I don’t know if I’ll continue beyond that.

·      For the Christmas break we’re going to Rockhampton and spend some time on the coast and in the bush, without any actual camping. It’ll be good to get on the road again and see some different scenery. We’ll also stop by Yumi’s greyhound charity boss who lives up there with her 5 greyhounds, husband and however many greyhounds happen to be in the kennels, so that’ll be fun for Dash too. Yumi also somehow managed to make a work appointment… We don’t get up there very often so it’s all good, I know a few change people there so might take the opportunity to see them too.

·      We went to a concert by a country/folk/rock band called the Dead South from the US in the Brisbane Riverstage Musci Bowl. It was very, very good and they sounded almost exactly like the cd, haha. They are my kind of music, but Yumi went along anyway. It had been 28 years that we went to an actual concert as we both don’t like big crowds, so it was a real night out and good fun with great music. The average age was probably 40-45, so no dramas or lots of drunk people, just solid music one song after the other, we should really do this more often!

·      We’re thinking of getting a solar battery installed in the new year. With the Queensland sun being out most days, it means we’ll be fully independent for electricity and can even sell back power to the grid. My friend Michael had one installed a while back at apparently it only takes a day to get it all sorted and set up. We might also pre-install a battery charger for an electric vehicle. Not that we’re planning to buy one soon, but we might in the future and then it’ll be a hassle to get it added. I’ll know more the next time I write.

·      Family and friends are all doing well, getting ready for a new year and rushing to the end of the new one. Nothing to exciting, which is exactly how we like it 😊.

·      Okay, I think that’s it for now, not such a long letter as last time, but work has been busy with me being all over the place and getting up to speed with things. Next time I’ll be more settled in and we’ll see what has happened by then.

Have a lovely Christmas and a Happy New Year, I will call you to say just that on Christmas Day when taking a break from painting my fence!

 

Be well,

Gilbert

 

Bellbird Park, 12 August 2025

 

Hi Marlis,

I hope you’ve been keeping warm as you’re heading towards your 91^st birthday, only a few more weeks of winter before Spring arrives and Canberra warms up a bit! Up here in Queensland we had a few cold nights with 0-2 degrees. Nothing that a scarf couldn’t fix or get excited about but of course everyone here treats it like we’re all about to freeze, haha. 

The past few months have been very busy, as usual, with a few endings and new beginnings, so here we go with our adventures of the past two months.

 

Yumi’s work and hobbies

Yumi celebrated the first of five years completed in her role with the Queensland Mental Health Alliance, that has gone so quickly! She now has a team of five specialists who (of course) all love her, she gets along well with her management team and is making good progress to her five-year plan. I am not surprised at all and couldn’t be happier that she’s once again doing work that gives her a sense of purpose. She’s becoming a bit more relaxed about things now as well, so she gets to enjoy herself and do meaningful work most days, not a bad outcome, right?

An even better outcome is that she’s made some new friends at work that she goes to have dinner with and goes on walks with every now and then. That’s such a change from when we lived in Altona and she’d stay in the house for days if I didn’t take her for a walk or a visit to the shops. I think the greyhound volunteering she does has certainly helped with being more social. She’s met so many strangers that became dog friends and she’s in constant contact with her fosters and adopters, not to mention all the markets and other events they organise for the greyhounds.

 

 

Her dancing is going well too. She’s training from event to event throughout the year and there’s always something going on with the two dance groups she’s part of. Last week we had the performance of the burlesque Choo-La-La dancing group, which is the one where 100+ women of all shapes, sizes and ages dance to music in their underwear (and sometimes topless, it’s 18+) for 2 hours and they make a better show of it every time. It’s 100% not my thing and still super awkward to sit there and watch it, but Yumi enjoys the dancing and teamwork, so I can sit there being uncomfortable for a few hours so she knows someone in the crowd is there for her alone.

Each performance I sit further away from the stage and last time I had a guy right behind me who was yelling and whistling (for encouragement, I think), which didn’t do anything for my ears, but it was impressive to see how they keep getting better every time. Next up is the Common People Dance Project in September and in her third year she’s now an old hand helping others settle in. That one I am sad about missing (I’ll be diving in the Maldives) because it’s so much fun and over the top, but I am sure she’ll have a great time.

The greyhound activities are busy as ever. Just last week we had two greyhounds getting dropped off from Rockhampton and picked up in a matter of hours to go to their new foster homes. The week before that we had another one and the events have been busy too. I helped out at two markets, which was just the best fun and a great source of income for the charity as well, but I am mostly there to play and cuddle with the dogs. It’s so wonderful to see all the people stop by for a chat, at some point we had about 12 greyhounds and 6 other dogs, which got a bit busy, haha. We also did another Bunnings barbecue that one of Yumi’s volunteer friends organises so well! We just turn up for a shift and help out getting things started and leave after a 7am to 12pm shift. I got to help out cutting another 12 kilos of onions, which only took an hours and 15 minutes, when I thought it would be 3. I found it does help to have a sharp knife and the cold outside actually helped, because we could leave them outside overnight. Still, the fridge stank of onions, but we got a tip to put baking soda in the fridge to soak up the smell and it actually worked!

 

 

Late June there was a bit of an emergency with vet bills for the charity. Due to a series of unfortunate events all of a sudden there was $11,000 to be paid. Yikes! But the greyhound community rallied together and ended up colleting $10,500 in donations, so that was a massive relief. As I often jokingly say; if you want to feel good about humanity, go and volunteer for an animal charity, you’ll meet the absolute best people!

Work around the house

Now that the new backyard fence is fully in place (we even got that last bit of insurance money and a contribution from the neighbours’ insurance), we were so excited to get started on the front yard fence. Then one day before they would get started the fence guy called to say their order hadn’t gone through at the supplier and now it’s 6 weeks delayed. Booooo! Not much we can do about it, so instead I removed the old brick mailbox that we both didn’t like and put up a new one, which already looks a lot better, even though it’s being held up by two star pickets at the moment 😊. I’ve also found that the best part about Queensland winter is that I didn’t have to mow the lawn for nearly 7 weeks, yay!

 

  

I also tried to remove some of the concrete left-overs from the front and back yard, but that wasn’t very successful. I bought the right tools, but since we have clay soil, it was hard going by hand and as we’re planning to get the topsoil removed and replaced soon, I’ll leave it to the people with the big diggers who will do it in a matter of minutes. We just got a quote that was within our expectations and will probably be a bit cheaper than that, but lets see how we go. There is some preparation I can do, but I’ll let the professionals deal with it so we get a good outcome. By the time the next letter comes around I hope the fence is in place and maybe we’ll even have actual grass in the backyard!

I did the gutters the other day and was expecting to see a lot less leaves with some of the big gum trees gone, but they were still pretty full and I am glad I didn’t leave it much longer. That would be so embarrassing with all my years of SES experience to then have flooding in the house because I didn’t keep my gutters clean. I also tried to clean our retaining wall with chlorine. It works alright enough, but I just feel so bad for all the little lizards, frogs and insects who might get burned or poisoned just so our wall looks a bit nicer (it will never be completely clean) so I’ve decided to leave well enough alone and eventually we’ll get plants to cover it instead.

Our new water tank pump is doing a great job, our water pressure is much better outside now too and I did use some of the chlorine to remove the green algae from the tank and that worked like a charm. I’ll give the remaining Chlorine to my friend Michael, he can use it in his never-ending pool project, haha.

Volunteering

It’s been good times with the Rural Fire Service, got to go out to a few controlled log pile burns and even helped put out an illegal one (no permit). It’s never dangerous, everything is very much under control when we get there, especially the ones that we set on fire ourselves, but I can definitely use the experience, so I try to go whenever I can. Most bush and grassfires happen during the day, unless it’s kids at night playing with matches, as they do, so I can’t go too often when I am working as it takes 45 minutes to even get there, but when I can, it’s always a good learning experience.

 

We also got some training on little buggies we can use for inspections and moving materials. Here I was expecting a lot more speed and torque, but instead we got up to a thrilling 25km/hr and the most exciting thing was that they are prone to roll over due to a high centre of gravity. No one rolled it during the training, so we all passes and had a good time.  I also went for a test drive in one of our fire trucks, which are still manuals (they are 20 years old). I did well enough, but didn’t really enjoy the experience as our training officer can get a bit too specific and always finds fault if you don’t do it perfectly. That gets old pretty quick and always makes me feel like I can’t be trusted to drive without banging into everything, so I am not putting my hand up for that again. We have enough truck drivers as it is, so they can drive and I’ll just sit ack. Especially after having driven the truck in VICSES around all parts of Victoria in some very trying circumstances, I don’t want to have to deal with comments about my hand position or not indicating fast enough on a road where we haven’t seen anything but kangaroos and cows for 20 minutes…😊. 

 

I finally got my pants! Not that I was walking around pantless, but we have a lot of pieces of unform, most of it yellow, but my ‘blues’ (cargo pants for formal events) as they are called went missing, got re-ordered, were on backorder, went missing again and finally arrived a few weeks back. Best of all, they are a perfect fit, so now it’s just my epaulettes and name badge. It’s only been nearly 2 years since I joined, so I should get them any day now…That’s the fire service for you, or any other service really, haha!

 

Finishing up at Lactalis

On 31 July I wrapped up the job at Lactalis after 8 months and it was such a good experience. The team had organised a card, a gift (donation to a greyhound charity) and even took me out for drinks, which was lovely. I got so much appreciation while I was in the role that I never felt like I or my work were not valued and we did some amazing things with our small but might team. I won’t list all the things here, because they might not make any sense to you and it’s pretty boring to read through when you’re not in the job! Let’s just say that I did the work of three people and we (for once) got to do what we needed to do. It was a bit unfortunate that I didn’t get to see the end result, but I’ll hear about it eventually if everything goes to plan it will be in the news in a few months. If they run into more delay…well, then it’ll be 2026.

I had done all I could do for the project by the time I finished up, so it felt good to be able to hand over a complete set of communications and plans for them to unpack at each milestone for the project. There’s still a lot to do, but they’re set up for success for sure. The organisation is going through a lot and if they’d ever ask me to come back, I just might as it was such a good experience. Then again, a job I am interviewing on Tuesday is literally 200m down the road, so I can pop by my new friends at Lactalis any time if that all works out.

I don’t have anything else lined up just yet and it’s always funny to me that when I announce I am ‘on the market’ again, everyone always says I will get snapped up in a moment, but that’s generally not how it goes. This new role I might get is at a building company, they want a permanent employee to set up their change and business improvement team and it sounded like such a good job, perfect for me. Then I found out the person who wrote the job description essentially wrote it for me as she knows me and wants to work with me. I am meeting the leadership team soon and feel this is mine to lose, but we’ll see. If this doesn’t work out, I’ll wait until I am back from the dive trip to the Maldives and then start looking in earnest. The building company would like m to get started mid-September anyway, so let’s hope it all works out!

 

Melbourne trip

As a treat to myself, I went on a 2-day trip to Melbourne all by myself, just to meet old friends and visit places we used to go. I started at 3.30am on Sunday and arrived in Melbourne at 9am, picked up my ‘Mystery Car’, which was a very unexciting Toyota Corolla, but it was a good car for a few days.

My first stop was Kathryn, who I first met in 2017 while working at Deakin and we always stayed in touch and connected over our love for Cookie Monster. She went through a lot in the past few years (lost her husband to a long-term illness, then her job, then her mom) but seems to have come out better for it on the other side and that’s just great! We had a very nice brunch in a café and then I zoomed off to the other side of town to meet with my friend Joanne. Joanne and I meet for the first time in 2016 when she trained me in some change thing and we’ve always stayed in touch online, getting together when the time and place worked out. It was so good to see her and hear what’s been happening for her. She’s one of the best change managers I know and always has unique perspectives to share. I even had time for a quick stop in St. Kilda for a piece of cake from a famous cake shop and short walk on the beach. The weather had been gorgeous all day and it was super busy, but that’s how I remember that part of town best.

My next catch up was at 6pm for dinner at yet another part of town so I had time to check into my very average hotel (didn’t want to spend money on it) and I got to walk around the city a bit to see what has changed. Melbourne felt so much busier than Brisbane, not like I remembered it from 3 years ago, but it was good to see it bustling like before Covid. I walked the 4 kilometres to Fitzroy for dinner with Natasha, checking in with lots of spots I used to meet people and some places I worked at or went shopping. I spent a lot of time on the streets of Melbourne, that’s for sure.

Dinner was great, Natasha is also a long-time Change friend who I’ve known since 2018 and we share many views on how Change Management should be done, I’ve been a guest on her podcast and soon will be again, just for fun. By the time I got back to my hotel it was 9.30pm and after a quick call with Yumi (and Dash) I went to bed because it had been a long day.

The Monday started bright and early and not cold at all. I drove to Altona, where we used to live and wanted to beat traffic so I arrived at 7am and it was still dark! I forgot that it takes longer to get light in Melbourne, after all Queensland is 1,800km up the road, haha. It was great to tour the town, and see how everything has changed. The street we used to live on now has three new houses, our old dog-walking spots all have bigger trees and Altona is still Altona, but with more apartment buildings. They started building them when we left, took them 3 years to finish them almost to the day. I really like the new pier they built, it’s much longer and wider and less prone to fall apart. Bit strange that there’s now paid parking in most spots, but that was always going to happen, I guess.

I got the time wrong for meeting my friend Fiona at 9am, I thought it was 8am! I used the time to drive to Williamstown to see the beach and even got to stop by the old filming spot for the tv series Blue Heelers, so funny to see what it has become since they stopped filming 20 years ago, it looks very similar still. I stopped at the beach, got some fresh air, some sea gulls sat on my car for a bit and I made it back in time to Altona to go for a walk with Fiona as we used to do since 2018.

 

I went back to the city to park and do some shopping but didn’t end up buying much, just walking around and zipping through town on trams and trains until it was time to meet my friend Peter, who I wrote the book with and did about 20 other projects. We’ve been friends since 2016, he was the first person that I had a coffee catch up with after moving from the ACT to Melbourne and I think it’s great we’re still friends. He’s move away from Change management quite a bit, he’s more into investing in the financial markets on the side to his government job, but we still had lots to talk about, like his engagement (after 12 years), travel plans and new ideas for things we can work on together.

 

My final stop was my old SES unit in Altona, so I drove back after meeting with Peter and finding something to eat and it was so good to see them too. Everyone who had worked with me was still there, well some have moved to other areas, but enough familiar faces. I still miss them and how actively involved I always was in keeping the community safe, especially now I know what volunteering for SES and RFS in Queensland is like. They showed me the new very fancy shed (It’s 6 by 15 meters and 6 meters tall, so not really a ‘shed’ but you know what I mean 😊. Great that they have more space now, that was always a challenge. I stayed for an hour and then drove back to the city for another call with Yumi and a very uneventful flight back the next morning.

Every person I met with it was just like we only met yesterday, sort of like when I get to visit you! It was so good to see everyone and realise I’ve known all these people for nearly 10 years. I might not hold onto physical stuff, but I sure know how to collect people, haha.

Karate

I’m now three months into training two times a week and I am slowly making progress. I can’t say I am enjoying it much, but that’s mostly because I am getting in my own way, wanting to do everything right the first time. I’ve thought about quitting more than a few times, but it’s a better use of my time than sitting on the sofa Monday and Wednesday nights and the people are great. It’s me I have the issue with, and that’s something I have to learn to deal with. I don’t like it when I don’t know what to do or when instructions are unclear and that’s about half of the 60-minute lesson. Then there’s my hands and feet who don’t do what I want them to do, and somehow I still have muscle memory from Kung Fu practice even though that’s now more than 11 years ago. It’s a great exercise in patience and I’ll get it at some point. I’ve told myself I cannot quit until I’ve at least graded for the first belt, which is yellow, or as they say gold. I think gold sounds much better than black, why would you ever want something other than a gold belt? After that there’s orange, green, blue, purple, three browns and then black. Technically you could get to black in 5 years, but me being me it’ll be 7-10 more likely. That’s too much to consider as I have little patience, so I am only focusing on the yellow belt now, then see how we go for orange. No one is making me go there twice a week and I think I can be good at it, If I give myself some time and don’t try so hard!

 

Mum’s retirement

My mom retired! She started working again at 56 after the family business had its troubles and kept at it for 11 years. Her final weeks didn’t go exactly to plan, as she broke her toes 2 months ago and of course didn’t go to a doctor, because what do they know?! Sigh. But then her foot kept hurting something fierce and eventually she went and got a cast for a few weeks. She still went to work all that time, with broken toes…Not cool, mom! Her colleagues organised a nice send-off and just as when my dad ‘retired’ (he still drives a truck 3 days a week) I wrote her a letter to share how much of an example and inspiration she’s been for me, which she really liked, even if it made her cry (not my intention!). I don’t know that she’ll sit still for very long, but the cast is off by now and they have some holidays planned first. After that I bet she’ll get involved in something pretty quickly, she’s never been one to sit still for very long, but I do hope she’ll take it a bit slower

 

Change Management Volunteering

I’ve agreed to help out with the sixth edition of the Australasian Change Days, which means that for the past 5 months I got to work with my long time friends Sarah, Anna and Ro to organise a 3-day online event that draws in the best and brightest Change practitioners from all over the world. It’s a lot to organise, but Sarah (our leader) does most of the work, I just do some promotion and help organise people’s sessions. I think I’ve been involved in one way or another for the past 5 years, either presenting, organising, promoting or just as a participant and every year I tell myself this is the last time, but then I find myself saying yes once again. I never regret it, but it does get a bit busy sometimes. Good thing it’s so much fun and I get to learn from the best change managers and other smart people while we’re at it so that keeps me entertained as well. This will be my last year, I think, maybe, haha!

My other volunteering with CMI is rolling along. I try to step back a bit to let some of the newer members take charge, but they get busy, life happens and then have other priorities, so I often just end up doing things myself anyway. We try some new things, put on more events than anyone else and have fun doing it, even if it can be frustrating sometimes. This year the organisation is celebrating 20 years and we’re planning on putting the spotlight on 20 of our members, but it’s slow going. In the meantime, I’ve sorted out venues, made the plans, contacted 30 new and departing members and made a few proposals. I keep reminding myself not to do too much as it always creates the risk that things turn sour for me, so I’ll back off a bit and let my two leaders lead 😊.

 

Small things

·      After 11 years we finally got a new TV! It’s so fancy and the screen quality is so much better, haha. We managed to give the old one to someone else who was happy to have it as theirs had just given up the ghost. Great that we kept it from going to landfill, it has a few more years in it!

·      I am still working on what is quickly becoming quite the new book on Change Management. I’ve pulled together everything I wrote on Change Management in blogs, articles and presentations and ended up with a 400-page document. Still not sure what I’ll do with it, but it’s fun to see how my thinking and practice have evolved over the past 10 years. It’s nearly 100,000 words, as much as I’ve written to you over the same period of time.

·      I finally sold my old Apple laptop, the one I never got to like but used for 3 years all the same. Got a decent $475 for it after many failed attempts on Facebook Marketplace, which can be the worst place to sell anything. And then when I got home there was a call for donations form a local animal shelter, so we ended up donating the money to them, that’s the best thing that laptop has ever done. Never again will I buy an Apple laptop!

·      The dive trip to the Maldives is coming up quickly, I’ll be away from 4 to 14 September, going with my friend Just for his 50^th birthday. Unfortunately, that means I can’t be there for your birthday, but if I can I’ll give you a quick call.

·      My parents are going away on a 3-week holiday to France, like the true pensioners they are, haha. I hope they have a great time. Yumi’s brother and family just made a wonderful trip through Japan, that had me just a little bit jealous, the pictures alone made me want to book a trip as well, but then I realise I am going in just three weeks now, yay!

Okay, that’s most of it for the past 2 months, I’ll write you again in October, right around my birthday when I turn 47(!).

Stay warm and safe,

Gilbert

 

 

 Bellbird Park, 7 June 2025

 

Hi Marlis,

 

I hope Canberra isn’t in full ‘winter-mode’ but as it’s only 5 degrees in the mornings here, there’s probably polar bears walking outside where you are! 😊It’s been a busy two months, but mostly work things and a few special events, let’s get started and see what I remember.

 

Volunteering with RFS

After nearly 18 months I am starting to feel more confident using the different types of equipment and material we use in the brigade. I am there for most trainings every week and at the end of each month on a Sunday, so you’d expect things to stick after a while. We haven’t had much fires due to all the rain that came through, but that just means that in 2027 there will be so many new plants (which acts as fuel) on the ground that we might have a busy fire season then. Until then, we train. And train we did! This year we’re trying something new with various people taking care of a training night and it makes it all a bit more interesting than always seeing and hearing the same person talk.

We went to one of the friendly landowners in the neighbourhood who has a lot of land and therefore lots of trees and shrubs that fall over and need removal. He puts it all in a big heap and then we come and practice setting it on fire in a controlled way, good fun! There’s a lot to learn and think about when you’re out in the open ‘putting fire on the ground’ as we call it. Our officers are very experienced and there are so many firefighters there to train that there’s really never any issue, just a lot of fun and excitement. It gets more interesting when the wind changes or when it turns out there’s a wasp nest nearby or a downed tree was full of sap, but we’re always safe. I even got some time on the chainsaw, which was great and I found it’s a skill you don’t unlearn if you’re trained well. Everyone was very impressed with my skill, and so was I because it had been about 3 years since I had last done anything with a saw!

 

 

We also had the open day for our 30^th anniversary and that took some preparation. We cleaned the whole brigade building (well, I did with a few other clean freaks, haha), cleaned all the vehicles, made everything look as nice as can be. We had demonstrations, a BBQ, the local radio was there, some politicians stopped by, the mayor came and some of the command officer (who we never see) were there to commend us for a good job, so that was nice. I was there from 8am to 7pm and mostly just helped out wherever it was needed. Cutting onions, setting up tables, blowing balloons, moving vehicles, directing traffic, all in a days’ job.

 

 

It was a bit sad to see my some of team get so invested that they got angry with each other because the plans changed throughout the day. And who do they come and complain to? Of course that’s me! And I just stayed out of it, calming them down and telling them to focus on why they wanted to help and that we’re all friends. That seemed to help as we all made it through to the celebration dinner at the end of the evening which was for members, family and ex-members, so we had a good 60 or so people there. It was good to have 30 years of history in the room. The old guard sat at the front, the new ones in the back and there were 5-6 speeches until we got to the food part. But then there’s always one person who would also like to say a few words and he just kept going. We couldn’t stop laughing at the increasingly weird stories, but when we spotted an opportunity, my table started a round of applause, and he was quickly ushered off to the side. Yumi and I left soon after, 11 hours on my feet was enough of a day for me!

 

Karate

I’ve started karate! It’s been on my mind for a long time to take up a martial art again and one of my firefighter friends suggested I give his karate school (dojo) a try. I did two introductory lessons and had a good time and now I’ve been at it for 5 weeks already.

It’s so different from when I did kung fu more than 14 years ago, but apparently, just like chain sawing’ it’s not a skill you forget. But of course, karate is just different enough for my kung fu muscle memory just getting in the way, haha. I am starting all the way from the beginning and that’ fine with me. This time around I don’t have much to prove, I don’t need to be a black belt in 3 years from now and that’s a good thing because I am not making much of it so far.

It is good fun though, trying to make sense of where my feet go, how to hold my hands, learn all the patterns and get a bit of exercise instead of lounging on the sofa two extra nights a week. It foes mean that I have hardly any evenings at home, with RFS on Thursday and CMI events on other days, plus the busy weekends, but it’s great to be practicing martial arts again. I am taking it slow and don’t want to get too invested early on, as I tend to do. Apparently it takes only 30 lessons to grade for a new belt (yellow is next for me), so with 2 lessons a week I don’t have to worry about grading until September, which suits me fine, I don’t like exams much.

There are 8 more belts until I get to black, so 2030 seems a good timeframe to keep in mind. Our Sensei (master teacher) is a black belt 7 times over (7^th dan) and our trainers are very skilled and friendly, just like everyone else. We only train for an hour, so it’s not exhausting at all, but we work up a good sweat and have a good time 😊.

The garden project part 1

We finally have a new fence! And for a lot less than $200,000, haha. It took a while to get there, but once they started after a week’s delay due to rain and our neighbour first rebuilding the retaining wall on his end, it was up in just four days. I was hoping they could do the work while I was still working from home full-time, but that didn’t work out so one day it was just there when we came home from work.

 

The backyard is now an absolute shambles as we agreed the neighbour could bring in a digger through our yard for a few days to move the big stone blocks around for his retaining wall, but we’re planning to replace the soil and turf anyway, so that’s not a big issue. He worked hard all over Easter and the next long weekend. Just as he finished all our timber and posts got delivered. The truck broke down in our front yard and it was a bit of a challenge to get it out, but these guys are rough and ready, so they got it done.

 

 

I had to clear some trees along the fence line first, so borrowed the neighbour’s (Scott) pole saw and had a great time cutting down trees. It’s funny that I can’t do it while volunteering at RFS, but as a private citizen, I can cut down trees all day long. These were only thin ones, so not a lot of weight, but I had great fun dropping them without any damage and exactly where it was. As it always goes, I was doing a great job with everything working just as I wanted and no one to see it, so I just patted myself on the back and got on with it.

 

It took only an hour to cut them all down and then Scott offered to use his trailer to remove all the green waste and bring it to the recycling centre, which we did a few days later. That was so helpful because it would have been at least 4 trips by car. But you know the best part? I got quoted $3,500 to do the job by an arborist so I felt pretty good about saving all that money managing it myself!

The next part of the yard project is to get the front fence in place at the end of Winter, which is probably end of July here in Queensland. We’ll go with a 1200mm black fence with timber posts sort of thing, just need to decide on the type of fence and post. After that it’s the turning and replacement of the soil and removal of the concrete paths. Once all that’s done we’ll get some new stairs installed from the street to our yard with some stone pavers to the house and from there on we’ll see what happens with plants and stuff.

Greyhound adventures with Evie, Star and Dash

It’s been busy at with the greyhounds, one emergency after the other! First there was Evie about 3 weeks ago. She was only supposed to stay one night when her foster parent had to go away for the weekend. She was already adopted, but needed to get 16 of her 42 teeth extracted, just like Dash 4 months ago, at the ripe old age of 9 years old. There were some concerns about her foster not feeding her properly and when Yumi brought her home I took one look at her underfed frame and said: “She is never going back there again, nor should that foster be allowed to have another dog”. I also said other things but I won’t repeat them here 😊. Her racing weight was 27-28kg and she weighed in at 24 when we got her, bones sticking out everywhere! I was so angry!

 

 

We fed her three times a day and for 4-5 day everything we put in stayed in and nothing came out, but we could only feed her high-energy sausage as her mouth was still healing. Then her adopting family had some issues so she stayed with us another week, but she was right at home and ever so lovely. Morning walks by myself in the dark with two greyhounds who always want to go in different directions is definitely not my idea of a good start to the day, but we got there in the end and she’s now living her best life with the new family.

The same weekend we handed Evie over, we got news that Star was not doing well with his adoptive parents and after 3 days they just gave up. Fortunately, his foster parents were happy to take him back in, because they are lovely people and then some. Before his adoption, he was fine to stay by himself for 10-12 hours outside, but something happened and now he would just lose it being left alone even for 5-10 minutes. So, we became doggy day care for a week, with his foster parents dropping him off and picking him up, or Yumi picking him up and dropping him off so they could g to work and then Yumi and I worked from home on different days. He was none the wiser and seemed to enjoy himself just fine with Dash.

 

And to top it all off, Dash injured his back leg slipping in mud while running in the dog park with Evie. Of course, he could not stop licking the wound, so we had put a really big band aid over it. It’s on his knee, which is a very awkward place to put any kind of bandage, even on a human, let alone a hairy, very muscular dog leg. He howled like a banshee (the famous greyhound scream of death!) when we had to get it off, which was not a great experience for any of us. We ended up putting him in shorts that we then taped to his torso with sports tape. It looks ridiculously funny and is quite a hassle to take off and put on, but at least the wound gets a chance to heal.

The people who most enjoyed it all were the vets, because we dropped quite some money on health checks and medication, but what else would we spend money on, right?! 😊

 

Speaking at the AIHS conference

After 6 months of waiting ,it was finally time to go and speak at the Australian Institute for Health and Safety (AIHS) conference in Gold Coast. I had worked on my presentation over the past few  months to get the story, concept and images just right. The topic was Bad Change and how to avoid it and they had a good time, going by the feedback I got afterwards. I spoke for about 20 minutes and then they worked through three 1-page tools that will help them organise a work or personal change.

 

 

I got there early, so snuck in a visit to the beach and I looked so out of place in my suit and dress shoes, but it’s always good to see the ocean and get some sea breeze. It wasn’t a sunny day, but still nice enough after the 1h15m drive to get there.

It was fun to be on stage for 500+ people (the bad picture shows half of them), but I was equally glad to get off stage and go home once I had done my best set of tricks. Afterwards, I was contacted by someone from the Army who had been in the room and wanted to use my templates for some changes in her part of the army, pretty cool! I also promoted the Bad Change book a bit and gave a way a few copies to people in the room as part of the workshop. I hope they buy some more, and then we can donate more money to the National Homeless Collective.

Work at Lactalis

Work has also been very busy the past two months with lots of things to deliver and organise. Not in the least because most of April I worked form home full time as the old office was closed but the new office not yet open. We made it all work and on 6 May it was our turn to return to the very fancy office.

I was involved in creating all the communication around the relocation so there were very few surprises left but it was still very nice to walk in and see it all for myself. We’ve now been in for 4 weeks already and it feels just like we’ve always been there. I am of course very used to changing office environments every few months, but for people who had been in the old building for 10+ years it was quite the adjustment. Some of them were struggling with how no one has their own desk and you have to clean up after yourself every day when you go home. Again, I don’t know any better and I now have a full-sized desk with multiple screens and it’s a big improvement from my perspective. Closer to the station, closer to the city, what’s not to love ?!

The program of work I’ve been working on with the team for the past 6 months is moving into the final stages and with less than 2 months left to go before my contract ends, I feel like I’ve done my best work and now we need to start wrapping things up. I made a list of everything I’ve done so far and I even I am impressed with how much we’ve done. I won’t be around to see it all come to a close, because of delays and hold-ups but that’s fine, they’ll get there without me and I can do a lot of the work in advance, it’s a matter of changing some words and numbers in the materials I’ve already created.

I’ll start looking at new opportunities in a few weeks. I am not sure that Lactalis will offer me another extension (I am quite expensive) but even if they do, if I will take it. The change they need to make is a process of years and I don’t know that I need to be there for that. Also, I am not sure they really have the intent/appetite to make that change. There certainly are pockets of enthusiasm, but at the end of the day they are much more focused on what’s right in front of them instead of who they want to be in 3-5 years. I’ve done my best to give them the tools and frameworks, but they have to do the work and time will tell how committed they really are.

I wouldn’t mind having some time off in August, then go diving early September and see what happens after that. Lots to do around the house and there are at least 3 side-projects for work I’d like to get done too.

Yumi’s busy life

Yumi has also been very busy. She travelled to Townsville and Cairns for work, to meet with the community and do consultation for her Mental Health Alliance work. She has been hiring and onboarding people on her team and after 8 months they are now complete, yay! I can’t believe that end of July she’s already been there a year, time has flown for sure!

There’s a bit of drama at the moment with the new CEO rubbing quite a few people the wrong way and they end up leaving because they don’t want to work with her, which is not great. From my experience with this type of leader they will do a lot of damage reshaping the organisation into something that works for them and then realise they’ve chased away all the very best people and now nothing gest done and they leave. It’s a very common and dumb pattern, but it happens to most organisations at least once. Some survive, and some don’t. Yumi tries to stay out of it however much she can and just focus on her project, which is the biggest thing the company has going on and she’s doing great work according to everyone. So far 4 people have left and 2 more are about to go that they know of. Not great when you’re only 18 people altogether.

Greyhound-wise it’s not too busy with the number of dogs she has to organise, but each of them is a bit special. I am very proud of how she manages it all, and put in the work at work and do her dancing too. She’s now dancing 3 hours a week on Monday (1 hour) and Wednesday (2 hours), which are also my karate evenings, so Dash has the sofa to himself and can watch whatever he likes on TV!

Change management community activities

My other volunteering has also been busier than usual. The conference in August is starting to come together and we’re doing all the promotion and organisation on a weekly basis. We’re a team of four friends, three in Perth and me in Brisbane. The time difference and distance is a bit of a challenge some days, but we mostly make it work and I look forward to seeing it all happen in a few months.

We’ve kicked of the third year of mentoring with Change Management Institute and I’ve already met once with my mentee for this year, Candace. We’ve also done some more events, which is always good fun. I have taken a small step back to let others gain some experience too, that way it doesn’t have to be all about me, which suits me fine. Because I am so experienced, everything is easy for me, but many hands make light work and we’re putting on quite the show for our members this year with so many great events and offerings.

My professional network is going through a growth spurt at the moment, ever since I started sharing tools and some more advice again after not writing or 4-5 months. I am now back at it and am making new friends across the world. I am helping a lady in New York with her very messy Change at Pepsi (Cola), offer some guidance to people in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide and am meeting people I’ve been connected to online for year in person for the first time. I have no idea if it will lead to new business, but it’s fun to hear their stories and help in small ways where I can. I’ve been getting such heart-warming messages from people who tell me my writing and creations really inspire them to try new things and give it a go, which is just the best!!

 

Small things

 

·      New table

We’ve finally organised a new table, which gave me an excuse to buy a new electric sander too! We bought it second hand and then I spent a few hours sanding it back and giving it 5 coats of varnish. I think it came out okay and like the idea that we didn’t buy something new, but gave a perfectly fine table a new life.

 

·      Finished Death Stranding video game

I finally finished this video game after buying it 3 years ago, playing it for a few hours and then putting it away as it was so confusing and strange. I picked it up again to give it another go and it was still strange and one-of-a kind, but I figured it out and made it to the end. I can’t really explain it briefly, but just wanted to share it anyway because it felt like an achievement, haha.

 

·      Another car through a fence, but not ours

Yes, you read that right, another car through a backyard fence on the other side of the street this time. It happened a few weeks back on Friday evening at 10pm, right as we came back with Dash before bed. They missed the corner in the dark, same situation as with us. Fortunately, no one got hurt this time too, but it does make us wonder what needs to happen before someone takes action. The council says they are thinking of putting up lights, I suggest they hurry up.

 

·      My mum is retiring soon

By the time my next letter arrives, my mum will have retired. That’s an end of an era and then some. Right after the family business troubles she started work again and has been working in retail (clothing) ever since. She’s not exactly the person to sit still and do nothing all day, so I am excited to see what she’ll do next. Probably take a well-deserved big break, go on a few trips with my dad in the caravan and then start volunteering again as she used to.

 

·      New range hood

We finally had someone come and install the new range hood that we bought 8 months ago and kept in the garage all this time. Turns out it’s so freaking powerful we can only run it on setting 1 or we can’t hear anything and it sucks the food right out of the pan. Not really of course, but man, it has some power!

 

·      Blue Heelers

We’ve started watching old episodes of Blue Heelers as part of my education on what it means to be Australian. There are 500+ episodes and it’s showing its age in places but for a show form 1995 it’s quite progressive and dealing with some big issues. I am sure you’ve watched it at some stage, but it’s so funny to see Williamstown, Werribee and Castlemaine from the past, places we used to live nearby and visit when we lived in Altona 😊.

Okay, that’s it for now, I’ll write again early august with the latest adventures. Stay warm and safe and be well,

 

Gilbert

 

Just another picture of the greyhound walk, because there’s always room for one more dog picture! 😊