Community – Page 6 – Discipline makes Daring possible.

September 7, 2022

Starting a conspiracy

Now that the weather is turning autumnal, I’ve decided I need to work on getting a little bit fitter.

So every other morning I get up early, walk a couple of miles to one of my local parks, and use their outdoor gym equipment. Well actually, just the rowing machine thing, because I’m trying to get some upper body movement in.

Then I walk back again.

This morning was my second visit. The chap who was there the first time saw me coming and said “you after that machine there?”, and when I nodded, got his towel out and carefully wiped the seat for me, to get the dew off.

That wasn’t just a kind gesture, it was a ‘welcome to the club’, a little bit of encouragement, a nudge to start a habit. Because now I have to continue, so I don’t let him down as well as myself.

Who knew you could start a conspiracy so easily?

September 6, 2022

An opportunity

Yesterday brought home to me just how ageist our banks have become.

My husband helps to run a small non-profit organisation. Just over a year ago, they were told their account wasn’t active enough and would be closed.

13 months later they are still trying to open a replacement.

Doing anything face-to-face is out of the question – the banks simply won’t countenance that. Everything has to be done as a combination of phone calls with a bank contact and online.

First of all, the bank contacts are obviously overloaded. It took months to speak to anyone, and months for them to get back with a decision.

But the online part is the pits.

Because the non-profit does things properly, several signatories are involved. And as with many small, local non-profits, all of them are over 60, some well over 60 – because that’s how they have the time to devote to these causes.

They don’t all have mobile phones, and if they do, they don’t carry them around all the time. So a simple thing like 2-factor identification becomes a real difficulty.

Then, when they get things wrong, the error messages coming back are unhelpful, for example being told you have entered the wrong email address via an an email sent to that address (!!). So they get worried about getting things wrong, and do what seems sensible. They write things down, take things slowly.

But their fingers aren’t as fast as they used to be, so they get logged out of screens before they’ve had time to type things in.

And so they get frustrated, and have to spend more time getting together to try and sort things out.

These are intelligent, kind, generous people who are just trying to help their community. All they are looking for is somewhere safe to keep the money people have trusted them with; somewhere that will give them an audit trail for the few transactions they need to carry out.

Tough. Because banks have clearly decided that people don’t matter. And what could have taken a day to set up in-branch has taken 13 months – so far.

There’s a massive opportunity here for someone prepared to offer a no-frills, human service. Perhaps not for long, since the baby-boomer bump will be over in a decade or so, but for long enough to do decent business.

I wonder if anyone will take it.

August 25, 2022

Inoculation

I’ve missed out on so many diseases – whooping cough, diptheria, rubella, polio, tuberculosis – as a result of being inoculataed against them at an early age. And I am very grateful.

Now it seems that people can be ‘inoculated’ against spreading misinformation too.

By showing people youtube videos explaining the techniques used to manipulate them into liking and sharing, it seems people are more able to spot the manipulation happening in other videos.

That’s good news I think.

The bad news is that these videos are being developed by Google, who will decide which societies are ‘in need of’ inoculation.

The techniques are well known and have been used for centuries by politicians, newspapers and advertisers.

Perhaps, instead of relying on the kindness of Google,we could inoculate people early, and just start teaching this stuff in schools?

July 20, 2022

Connect the dots

Back in February, I got involved in a project called ‘Connect the Dots’, an ancillary to The Carbon Almanac.

The idea was to take the well-researched facts, issues and solutions from the Almanac and connect them together visually, so that someone can see how they interact. More importantly, so someone can see how a single action can have multiple impacts.

We started with Solutions, because in spite of what we see and hear, they are already out there. People are already taking practical, unheroic, collective steps to change the systems that we have turned into traps.

We’re having a rest for a week, and then we’ll come back to it, perhaps with more people joining in. So it will continue to grow.

Yesterday the project went live.

Find it under ‘Extras’ at The Carbon Almanac.

It’s not finished – it never will be.

It’s not perfect – it never will be.

Hopefully it is inspiring enough to prompt more people to take action.

Together.

Connecting the dots.

July 19, 2022

On a Friday

At the beginning of this year, I got involved in writing a book. With at least 26 other people and a brilliant designer. All of us members of the ‘Like Hearted Leaders’.

Every week, on a Friday, we LHL’ers share a laugh, or a tear, or an insight. In spaces where we can think, question and learn. Where we meet and make friends with some wonderful, inspiring people.

Where we are like-hearted, but not necessarily like-minded, which makes it one of the most stimulating groups I’ve ever had the good fortune to be part of.

You can see that in our book: ‘On a Friday’. Now available on Amazon.

Written by us, for like-hearted (but not necessarily like-minded) leaders like you.

July 13, 2022

It’s not too late

“It’s not too late but we need to begin changing our systems. And you can’t change a system until you see it.”

https://vimeo.com/727950704

You can order a copy now from here: https://thecarbonalmanac.org/book/, or pre-order from your favourite independent bookshop. Here’s mine.

There’s even a downloadable kids book and educators guide, a photobook, podcasts and a Daily Difference email. And more extras coming soon.

All designed to get us talking to each other about climate change. Because when we talk, we connect, and when we connect we can take action big enough to make a difference.

After all it’s our future we’re talking about.

It’s not too late, but we need to start changing our systems now.

July 12, 2022

Geography and geology

No man is an island,

Entire of itself;

Every man is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,

As well as if a promontory were:

As well as if a manor of thy friend’s

Or of thine own were.

Any man’s death diminishes me,

Because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;

It tolls for thee.

John Donne

“Of course, each of us is literally made of the Earth, as is all life on the planet.

The water in your body once flowed down the Nile, fell as monsoon rain onto India, and swirled around the Pacific.

The carbon in the organic molecules of your cells was mined from the air by the plants that we eat.

The salt in your sweat and tears, the calcium of your bones, and the iron in your blood all eroded out of the rocks of Earth’s crust;

and the sulphur of the protein molecules in your hair and muscles was spewed out by volcanoes.“

Lewis Dartnell, Origins.

It’s time we really learned to see ourselves as we really are.

Sawubona.

June 29, 2022

In common

When everyone feels divided, when it seems that group is set against against group, right against right, and politicians openly sow discord, I find it helps to remember that we have a lot of things in common.

The biggest of which is our place in the ecology of the planet we share. A place we are jeopardising by our own short-sighted actions.

Its not too late to reverse that jeopardy. If we recognise that despite all our differences, we have this vulnerability in common, we’ll find we also have the power to reverse it.

In common, shared, to be used together.

Discipline makes Daring possible.

June 27, 2022

Purchasing power

Eggs may not seem like a big deal, but when it comes to dealing with climate change, every little helps, especially when done by a lot of people.

Here are 4 egg producers doing something towards reducing the impact factory egg farming has on our planet.

And here are a few questions you can start to ask about all the small things you buy:

Where is it made?
Where is most of it actually made (before the label’s added)?
Who by?
How is it made?
Where do the inputs come from? How are they produced?
Where do the outputs go? How are they made harmless?
What alternatives are there?

It’s not too late to take meaningful action to save our future on the planet.

Before you can act, you need to be informed. The market won’t do this. Especially when it isn’t working properly and a few mega-companies control huge swathes of production.

We have to inform ourselves. Then tell our friends.

I learned about these egg producers through ‘The Daily Difference‘ from The Carbon Almanac. Why not sign up yourself?

Contrary to what we’re told, it’s not too late, provided we all take action.

June 23, 2022

Regenerating business

What is it that people want?

Agency – to make their own ‘me-shaped’ dent in the universe.
Mastery – to learn and master (even teach) new skills.
Autonomy – to be free to choose how they make their dent.
Purpose – to do this for something bigger than themselves, that has meaning beyond the sale.
Community – to do all this with ‘people like us’.
Status – to know (and for others to know) where we stand in our communities.

We want to be citizens. Collaborating with purpose on something bigger than ourselves.

What if, instead of building our businesses to sell stuff – that might create a fleeting sensation of one or more of these things, we built them as a means to enable people to genuinely achieve these things?

We could repair and enrich our world instead of impoverishing it.