On Wednesday I had the pleasure of attending the graduation ceremony of DOXA Cadets. DOXA is an organisation that attempts to improve the life and opportunities of disadvantaged children and young people. They have a number of programs including the Cadetship program that helps disadvantaged students attend and complete University studies. This is done with…

Yesterday was fascinating insight into changing ways to interact with clients and the way technology is changing the way services are delivered and what clients and the public expect. In the morning I took part in a Discussion Panel at a Superannuation Conference. A 10 minute presentation for the three participates followed by questions from…

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 13,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 5 sold-out performances for that many…

I’m fairly certain that today I gave my 200 ‘professional’ presentation in the Gold Coast which also means I’ve now presented in all States and Territories in Australia. I originally decided to do work presentations to clients (trustees, lawyers, accountants) to challenge myself. I remember the early days, my heart racing, sweating, the struggle to…

Watching the events in Egypt with the deposal of President Morsi and the chaos and deaths (though less than that which occurred during the overthrow of the last President) I’ve been thinking about “What Does Democracy Really Mean?” Especially with the different systems I’ve seen around the world. Strangely people don’t seem to have an…

In the space of a month I have 4 colleagues retiring and it definitely makes me feel a little sad and a lot older. Rob, Julia, Marilyn and Ian are legends in so many ways. I first dealt with them over 10 years ago and I saw them as this wise group of people who…

Mental health is something that many of us take for granted until we or someone we care about crashes. As a society we see advertisements about physical health issues all the time, in fact some of them might lead to mental health issues due to poor body imagines, but rarely mental health ads. In Australia…

It’s that time of year when you start reflecting on what the hell happened to the last year.  Usually it’s about our relationships, the people we love or loved, the people we found and those that we lost.  The stupid arguments, the times we should have said we are sorry, the regrets in acting like…

The road to recovery from painful experiences can be very long and difficult.  Last Friday I visited a colleague who has been on long term leave looking after her husband who died of cancer recently.  I really don’t know how I’d go losing someone so close to me, caring for them for many months and…