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! 😊