Garden of Character

First Harmelia showing some of the fruits of their Food for Life Garden

I was fortunate enough to be able to witness Mr Scott Teare's closing address at the 2015 Africa Scout Conference held in Kampala, Uganda.  In his very moving closing speech, Scott moved the audience with a visual description of his understanding of Scouting, which I would like to share with you below.  I hope you will be as inspired by my humble sharing of these words as we were by his sincere and frank presentation of them.

Mr Scott Teare (Secretary General, WOSM)

In Scott's own words:

"Scouting actually plants a "Garden of  Character".

No matter how small the space or the growing conditions - we can always plant a simple Garden of Character.

Here is my suggestion as a start of such a garden.

No garden would be complete without five Peas: Promptness, Preparedness, Politeness, Perseverance and Prayer.

I would also plant four Lettuces: Lettuce be Loyal, Lettuce be Helpful, Lettuce be Friendly and Lettuce love one another.

Perhaps some squash would be good too: Squash gossip, Squash criticism, Squash indifference and Squash prejudice.

And no garden would be complete without at least three Turnip's: Turnip with a smile, Turnip with new ideas, Turnip with real determination to do all we can to include as many young people as possible.

The harvest of such a garden will be tremendous!"

Scott finished his speech by reminding us all that:

"Today young people spell Love T-I-M-E.

They just want  a little of your time to help them feel love and have faith in them.

Thank you for giving TIME, for giving your love."

With inspirational leadership and a shared vision as encompassing as this, how can we but succeed in Scouting!

SSA Contingent prepares to head to Japan World Jamboree

Today we wish all the best to our 178 delegates who are heading off from all over South Africa to join over 32,000 scouts from around the world at the 2015 World Scout Jamboree in Japan.  For many of these participants this will be the first time they travel internationally and for some their first long distance flight. 

But this year’s contingent is also going to be experiencing another first.  This contingent are the first to be wearing the new South African national flag badge.    The badge, which is modelled on a beaded South African flag, is very representative of our South African Scouting Family.  

Each one of us, like the individual beads portrayed on the badge, brings our own personal splash of colour to the table, be it red, green, blue, black, white or yellow.  At first glance, we seem like a swirl on a palette, full of potential to be anything we can imagine.  But when we work together, we form the pattern of something meaningful, in this case the symbol of our incredible rainbow nation.

The badge is circled by coloured rings representative of the three branches of Scouting.  That is yellow for Cubs, green for Scouts and red for Rovers.   The rings bind the flag in much the same way as these branches of Scouting help prepare and contribute towards the growth of our members as contributing and constructive citizens of our country.

We know that our contingent will have an incredible experience and we are proud and grateful that they have been part of the launch of our new national SCOUTS South Africa flag badge as they take it out on its maiden trip to show the world the calibre and value of South African Scouting.

You left me no choice....

How often do we have people in authority (parents, scouters, bosses, government) talk about having no choice when announcing an unpopular decision?

This point has been on my mind a lot lately as I am in the process of dealing with a internal disciplinary matter.  The volunteer in this case has clearly violated a number of conditions of their service and the simple answer is to boot the individual out as they left me no choice.  Or did they?

We always have more than one choice in any set of circumstances.  I could ignore the offence and hope it goes away, but that has ramifications for both myself and the organisation that I am unwilling to tolerate.   I could throw the book at the person, kick them out and as a consequence lose their potential value and future contributions to the movement.  I could rap them over the knuckles and provide support to get them back on the team page but that will require work and explanation internally.   I am sure you can also think of many other options I could consider.

As a leader you have the responsibility to mentor, train and develop those in your organisation. When you state as a leader that you have no choice, what you are actually saying is one of two things, either you don't like the consequences of the alternatives you have considered in responding to the offensive action, or you haven't bothered to spend the time and energy to find an alternative.

Own the decisions you make!

I will have to make a choice between the options I have seen or thought up, but at the end of the day I am choosing an action deliberately to (hopefully) achieve a greater goal.  When you send the message that you have no choice you are actually just letting others decide for you or shirking the responsibility of your role.

No-one said the job as leader was going to be easy or all sunshine and roses, but the right call today - even the thorny ones that come with lots of pricked fingers - is off far greater value in the long run. And never forget that with a little work you can often trim the thorns off.

On International Woman's Day

Emma Watson, in addressing the UN on gender and equality said, “How can we effect change in the world when only half of it is invited or feel welcome to participate in the conversation?”

We are fortunate to live in a time when, in most of the world, discrimination on the basis of gender is, at the very least, frowned on.   Recent research by McKinsey, on the performance of listed entities is providing demonstrable evidence of the benefits of mixed gender boards, and show this effect to be true across many different cultures and economies.  As with all forms of discrimination, we still have a long road to travel before we can comfortably say that all men and women feel welcome to the table to engage on all topics, but we have the openness to realise a unique opportunity to build on the unique and often complementary leadership styles that woman bring to any given situation.  

So this International Woman's Day, let us celebrate the potential and contribution of the women who are all around us in our homes, organisations and everyday life.