Bellbird Park, 9 April 2026
Hi Marlis,
I hope you are well and had a good Easter with the
family, although not all at once 😊. You are certainly getting the cooler weather of the
two of us, which must be nice after such a long and dry summer. I’ve had some
pretty big adventures over the past two months, so here we go!
I am not including any pictures this time, sorry, my
printer isn’t that great and I didn’t take many great pictures. I promise to
bring them when I visit later this year.
Cambodia
What a cool trip it was! I had never expected that
what started as a bit of fun in online teaching in 2019 would give me the
opportunity to go to a different country and teach people about change
management in 2026. I was there from Friday 13 to Sunday 22 March and ran two
3-day Change Fundamentals workshops for two groups of 30+ government, not for
profit, education and industry professionals. I won’t bore you with the detail
of what we covered exactly, safe to say it was a lot of smart change stuff and
they loved it. And I loved it too!
I was there with Deakin University on behalf of the
Australian government (DFAT), accompanied by our Lead Academic Dhara and
semi-pensioner Michael, both associate professors in their field. Dhara was
nice, be it a bit distracted and busy, but Michael and I got along very well
and I really enjoyed working with him and learning more about his field of
ethics and leadership. The three of us went for dinner nearly every night in
different parts of the capital, Phnom Pehn, and over the week and a half I was
there, I got to see a lot of the city and all its hustle and bustle.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, when we weren’t teaching, I
got up early and worked my regular job, had some meetings and then went to see
the sights like a real tourist. I went to see the Killing Fields memorial for
the victims of the Pol Pot regime, which was very different from what I
expected, it looked like a park more than anything else. But there was also S21
Prison, in the middle of the city, where 20,000+ people were tortured and
killed by their own countrymen, and that place just felt evil. I wanted to leave
as soon as I stepped inside the old school buildings they had converted to
prisons. I don’t have to tell you about what people are capable of, but to see
it for myself and hear/read the stories of things that happened months before I
was born, is chilling.
It was important for me to see and witness that part
of the country’s history and they’ve done a good job of sharing and coming to
terms with what happened, but fortunately I also got to do a lot of fun things!
· I went for walks every morning in this city that never
sleeps, I think I walked a total of 75km while I was there. People mind their
own business and I never felt unsafe; they appear too busy with their own affairs
to pay much attention to others.
· I visited the national museum, which wasn’t much to
look at and kind of stuck in the 1980s, but I at least got an impression of the
wonderful art and architecture of Angkor Wat, the famous ancient city 350km
away that I will visit and explore with Yumi one day.
· Also visited the national palace and some temples just
because they were there, but they are quite literally everywhere and as I don’t
have a lot of use for religion or monarchy, I left most of them for others to
see and enjoy.
· I went for a huge walk along the river, out of the main
city, across the river to where most tourists don’t go and saw the city change
from very clean, to very dirty, to something in the middle. This city will
change so much in the next 10 years and you can feel it everywhere you go and
everywhere you look. Good for them!
· I went on a riverboat cruise, which wasn’t much of a
cruise, more like a big circle on the river, but it was nice all the same to
see the city from the water when all the lights come on. I had walked about
12km in 30+ degree temperatures, so it was good to sit down and let the breeze
come in over the water.
· I went to the Central Market, where I posted a card to
you ( I hope it arrived by now), bought some crappy souvenirs and was amazed by
how much stuff they can cram in a very small space. Imagine the Canberra Centre,
but with 10x as many stores and 100x as many people, I don’t think you’d enjoy
it. I ran into Louisa from Italy who I never met before. She needed some help
finding a bookstore but couldn’t figure out how to get her phone GPS to work. She
made me think of you, so I helped her navigate to the store as it was only 10
minutes out of my way and helped her a lot, so that was my good deed for the
day done!
My hotel was very good, I had a very large room on the
8th floor and could see most of the city from there, with
construction going on everywhere and a whole Buddhist temple complex with 50 or
so buildings and shrines outside my window. The weather was great (hot, but
dry), the people very polite and friendly and everything so cheap that I simply
couldn’t spend more that $30 per day even if I tried.
Traffic was also very interesting. There are so many
tuktuk taxis and cars all jostling for position that you’d think there’d be accidents
all the time, but everyone seems to know what to do. I guess it only looks like
chaos to outsiders, haha. I figured out quickly that you should ignore the
lights and just step into traffic. People will slow down or go around you, but
if you don’t, you’ll be standing there for a long time because they don’t stop
until they reach their destination.
The government team we worked with already told us
they want us to come back and if I am available, I’d love to do this again,
maybe in a different country. What an adventure!
Yumi’s job and activities
Yumi is busy as always. She went on a trip with her
team to Roma and Charleville (500km west of Brisbane) to meet with community
groups, service providers and even the mayor of Charleville for their Workforce
project and had a very productive time of it. She gets along very well with her
team and since the last letter I wrote, she hired two additional team members
and collected even more projects that they are starting on.
So much has happened and has been built since she
started in 2024, that I wouldn’t be surprised if the next two years are even
bigger and better than the first two. She’s still got three more years in the
contract, so let’s see how far she can run. She seems to be enjoying herself
and I couldn’t be prouder of how much good she does for the mental health
sector. My jobs are generally for businesses who just work for money (they say
they don’t, but we all know that’s the #1 priority) while she and her team actually
make the world a better place.
She’s still enjoying the dance groups she’s part of
and with the third year of the Common People Dance Project starting in a few
weeks, she’ll be dancing even more. I enjoy the Common People performances a
lot more than the Choo La La performances, but I’ll be there anyway, it’s great
to see how much fun she’s having!
Things are going well on the greyhound front too. Two
weeks ago, we had 9 dogs come down from Rockhampton on a Saturday, that’s 9
dogs out of racing, so always a good day! Fun fact, the ACT has banned dog
racing, yay! I hope other states will follow soon, but given it’s a billion
dollar industry, it will be a while I think.
Fortunately, Yumi now has a coordinator-colleague in
the North, Dee, who took care of the distribution of six of the doggos, so we
only had to organise for three of them. One got picked up immediately when the
trailer arrived, and the other two stayed with us overnight. The boy was fine,
a gentle giant who was just out of racing and excited about everything. The
girl was a bit more work and a very rare barking greyhound, which she
demonstrated a few times throughout the night, haha. We know to ignore it, but
let’s just say we both needed a nap later the next day. Dash also thought it
was all a bit much, but he’s always very friendly and a good host. By the end
of the morning, both dogs had gone on to their foster families and we could
finally take a break too.
We spend last Saturday at a dog market (where you can
learn more about the breeds and buy all sorts of stuff for your dogs) near the
coast, which is always great. I stupidly got a bit sunburnt, but we all had a
great time with the visiting greyhounds and all the other pooches walking by.
This coming weekend we’re doing a Bunnings BBQ to raise funds for the charity,
it’s a complete mess with getting things organised, so I am helping out where I
can, but even I am getting confused with where all the materials are. Then
again, we always seem to make it work, so why would this time be any
different!?
Work update
In other news, for the first time in 28 years working,
I was made redundant last week! It was the strangest thing really, but not a
surprise. Before going to Cambodia, I had already discussed with my manager
that I felt the organisation needed something else, more project than change
based support, that I was there too early and they needed to do some other
things first for me to do my best work. I am sure you’ve heard me say this
before, it appears to be a theme in my career… I spoke to a few other people in
the business and they all agreed with my assessment of the organisation, so I
put together a plan that didn’t include me moving forward. I was planning to
leave by end of May at the latest, but they didn’t wait that long.
We had just gone live that day with a project that had
been six months in the works and a smaller project as well. One moment I am
preparing a strategic plan for my manager, the next I am talking to the head of
HR about how the business is letting my manager Chris, my last team member Marty
and myself go effective immediately. Righto!
Fine by me, because this wasn’t going to end well
anyway and I got paid until end of May, so I feel like it’s a fair deal, but
handled a bit clumsily and with a weird sense of urgency. Well, that’s in the
past now and one week later, I think this is the best possible outcome. I am
proud of what I achieved and enjoyed working with the people, learned a lot and
got to do most of the things I said I would do. These things happen, no big
deal, I’ll take a break and get some other things done before moving on to the
next thing, whatever that may be 😊.
The yard project - part 4
Speaking of getting things done, I’ve started on
removing the strip of grass that simply wouldn’t grow because it sits under the
roof overhang. We decided to fill the space with river pebbles, 5 tonnes of
them apparently! The past few days I’ve been stripping back about 50m2 of grass
around the house, which was hard but good work and I think for someone who
isn’t a professional gardener, I did a pretty good job. I even put up some
string to help me keep a straight line, immediately bagged all the dirt and sods
and also fixed a patch that I hope will take well. I still hate gardening, but
I think the end-result will look better and…less grass to mow, haha!
Next week will be the hard part where the pebbles
arrive on Monday and I get to walk them into the yard. I could go with a wheelbarrow,
but I don’t want to ruin the grass, so I am planning on using two buckets
instead and do about 250 trips up and down the path and driveway until it’s all
done. My poor legs are already quite sore from all the bending and squatting,
only fair that my shoulders should get a bit sore as well. For once, I was
smart in my planning and didn’t start the work before I had the Bunnings BBQ,
because having sore muscles while standing for 8 hours selling sausages is not
a happy day.
Lots of Small Things
It’s been s strange couple of weeks and I am still
puzzling some of it together, so instead of writing a rambling account of
everything I’ve been up to, here are some short notes to keep you up to date on
what happened in our lives.
· I’ve been getting so much done around the house in the
first few days being unemployed! Fixed the fence in a few places, cleaned and meshed
the gutters, cleaned my office, put new strips on our doors to keep the mice
and snakes out and re-organised my tools, always so therapeutic!
· Yumi had a 30cm Easter Brown in the house while I was
away and they are seriously deadly. Even the young ones come out of the egg
with enough venom to kill an adult. Fortunately one of my fire mates is a snake
catcher, so it was caught and taken off within the hour and Dash got a trip to
the vet only to find that he probably hadn’t even noticed and definitely wasn’t
bitten. So glad we have insurance, because that test was $650, but after
insurance only $130…)
· The new car is doing great and with the whole fuel
situation we’re having right now, it feels pretty good to drive electric. I
checked and our fuel cost has gone down by 80%, yay!
· Our June Japan trip is coming up and planning it has
been a lot of fun, we have the tickets and accommodation sorted, by the time
the next letter comes around I’ll tell you more about what we have planned.
· I passed my second exam for Karate and am now the
proud owner of the orange belt. Something has shifted for me for the
better. I get less frustrated and enjoy it more. It’s almost been a year since
I started and I only considered quitting 57 times so far, but I am still there
twice a week and get a bit less bad at it every time.
· All our family and friends are doing well, getting
life done, finishing school for some of the kids, finding new jobs for the
adults and my parents have multiple trips with the caravan planned, over the
next few months, good for them, I am so glad they get to travel when they want
now!
· Its’ been quiet with the fires fortunately, giving us
more time to train and practice. I’ve made a few proposals for how we can do
things differently and introduced a phone group where we can share information
and updates which seems to work very well. It can be a bit frustrating at times
how slow things move, but the I remind myself it’s only volunteering and all is
good with the world again.
· I’ve been assigned a new mentee in the Mentoring
program for the Change Management Institute and we’ll start running a few
events soon, so that’s all kicking off too. I didn’t go to networking drinks at
the end of March. I was just back from Cambodia and wanted to go to Karate and be
at home with Yumi more than hang out with my Change friends, but there will be
enough opportunities in the months to come, I am sure.
· I’ve also signed up to help organise the seventh
edition of the Australasian Change Days or ACDC as we jokingly call it. It’s
become a fun group of friends who like to do good things for the community and
I consider it a privilege to be part of it. It’s shaping up to be another good
one and a good way to spend my time.
· Over Easter Yumi and I started playing a video game
together again, which has been years and I always enjoy it, even though she
takes for-ev-er to make any decision, it’s a great way to spend time
together. I had bought the game to play by myself, but realised a few hours in
I would enjoy it more playing with her and fortunately she agreed to join in on
the fun. As usual she’s the smart wizard and I am the dumb but mighty warrior,
so we’re essentially playing out our real life, haha!
· Our house apparently has gone up in value by 25%,
which is always good news, but of course now we also get to pay 25% higher council
rates... Oh well, it’s all fun and games on paper, we’ll see what happens
when/if we sell in a few years from now. We’d still have to buy in the market
then, so we’ll just keep saving and paying of the mortgage as fast as we can.
Okay, I think that’s most of what’s been going on for
us. Be well, stay warm and safe, I’ll write again early June.
Gilbert
