Watch this space

Many times in life, people ask the question why you? Too often this happens in interviews. If I could, the answer would be ‘why not?’ Ok so I would never do that because I think it’s a little checky but you can be guaranteed that I will be thinking it.

Life sure has thrown me a couple of curve balls…Here are a few obstacles I have had to overcome in the last 10 months:
* Doing my BTech has taught me to sacrifice and preserve in ways that I have not known to be possible.
* My father passing away suddenly…and learning to cope with it without resorting to drastic coping mechanisms,
* Experiencing unexpected love, the lover’s quarrels and compromise that goes along with it.
* Giving up smoking…hopefully third time lucky.
* Learning to lose weight and not doing it by smoking.
* Work stresses and career reassessments.
* Finding the balance between love, friendship, family, work, studies and life on life’s terms.

What makes me unique is who I am and the warped way I see the world. I’m ambitious, stubborn, beautiful, intelligent and an extremely determined woman. I have no doubt that I can survive, overcome and exceed expectations set by myself and others on this journey called life...Watch this space!

Tell me something I don't know so I can be a big fish in the pond

I recently attended a workshop on Media Strategies for Fundraising. The workshop would cover how to communicate with the public to generate awareness and funding via the media. How the media could assist with gaining support from Corporates, getting publicity for sponsors and establishing a win-win relationship. We would develop a media/marketing strategy to ensure organisation effectiveness. All of which I was eager to learn and participate in.

After day one of the two day workshop, I started to lose credibility in the facilitator’s lack of direction and expertise. All participants expressed their disappointment at the value she was adding to the brief knowledge we already had. As all of us were from the NGO sector, we could not afford such a workshop or the luxury of missing two days works so we expected value for our money and time.

The few comments and handouts given were brief and was information that anyone could obtain from the Internet. So what were my expectations? I expected someone who had ten years experience in media (she worked for a national paper) and was once an editor of an NGO publications to give in-depth knowledge and experience how to get our foot in the door. Strategic research, witting, pitching, angles, insight and tips were what I was expecting. I wanted to know how we (the small fish) could compete with the big fishes in the pond - so we too could claim a pie of the pie.

And to top it all off...the food was not that great to say the least. She was not able to cater for all, to her embarrassment, resulted in many of the participants leaving to go buy lunch. Everyone knows what a blunder food can have on an event.

I cannot say I got nothing out of the experience…the networking that got done amongst us NGOs were more than beneficial - we shared ideas, resources and experiences on what worked and what didn’t work. I have built strong relationship with people who share the same goal as mine – to create a better world for those we care for. We have arranged to meet on a daily basis to see how we can help each other achieve our goals.

With the bad taste left in my mouth, it had me thinking…should there not be a regulator who qualifies who can give workshops? An official body who could assess the competency of facilitators? This experience was definitely one to remember, I will now approach a workshop or course with caution…at least until their background check clears.