Want To Enrich The World? Start In YOUR Community

Writes ANTHONY WILSON: Trevor, I think the following quote, spoken by President Woodrow Wilson in the early twentieth century on the subject of the spirit of achievement, may be appropriate in the context of community collaboration:

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.

Anthony.

ANTHONY WILSON
+27 83.592.61.33

Thanks Anthony, your quote captures the essence of my opinion of the leadership and service provider CHALLENGE in Lonehill, and that is to lead and motivate the entire community by example to '..live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement... to enrich the world'.

I see that Saturday morning meetings with the LRA directors at Mugg & Bean in Lonehill resume again this weekend... this is a great opportunity for individual stakeholders to share their honest opinions and input with our community decision-makers.

And it seems that our 'first' public feedback meeting of this current LRA board's tenure will take place in February. I'm looking forward to that - reminds me of a 'First 100 Days In Office' review. I'm hoping to see an honest, OPEN appraisal of where we've come from, where we are, and where we're going as a community.

As Anthony opened with a quote, I'm going to close with a quote which points to where I believe the greatest CURRENT challenge lies for our community to achieve great ambitions:

“The loftier the building, the deeper must the foundation be laid.” - Thomas Kempis

For me, the legacy that every LRA Board leadership team should leave is a MORE SOLID foundation to enable the next board to take the community to NEW heights.

Nothing can be more soul-destroying and damaging to a project than for others to have to pick up its crumbling pieces each year. Nothing is learnt by doing the same things and repeating the same mistakes year after year.

And Community FOUNDATIONS, in my opinion, are built upon CORE VALUES. I wonder if anyone can recall the founding values of the Lonehill Community Initiative. I'm guessing that they'd been forgotten over the past couple of years. To me, a community without foundation values is as ineffective as a compass without a magnetic needle.

Check out this link for a neat article on how to Build a Strategic Framework: Mission Statement, Vision, Values...

To see how a community embraces the importance of establishing a foundation of core values go to www.whitebear.k12.mn.us/schools/corevalues.html

I look forward to the LRA annual AGM handover to a new leadership team that goes something like this: 'That's what the last year's team handed on to us as their legacy, this is what we ADDED to the project in the year that it was under our watch and we're proud to hand this legacy over to the new leadership team to improve upon.'

Having said that, great architects & engineers will tell that lessons CAN be learnt from projects that don't rise to any heights or even collapse in the process... and that is to analyse what processes, systems, people, materials were involved that led to the collapse - and to remove the weak links so as not to repeat the mistakes. Sometimes one just has to adjust the mix to get a different result.

Just don't believe THAT to be easy, because the egos of those involved in the past will resist and fight the change in every way possible (even subconciously) - it's just human nature. Quality leadership, to me, recognises the reasons for that resistance and ensures that it does not stop progress towards the ideals extracted from Anthony's quote: '..live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement... to enrich the world'.

Looking forward to February's public feedback meeting.

Regards
Trevor Nel - 011 705-2790
Lonehill Resident