I’ve always been a fan of both the face and the physique of actor Rob Lowe. Sigh.  However, after his recent interview with Oprah, I must admit to becoming a fan of how he thinks.

Knowing he was 47 years old, Oprah asked Lowe if he was facing the same difficulties as actresses as they approached middle age working within an industry that was so youth-obsessed. Lowe replied that while he couldn’t say for sure; he did know that he wanted to remain young in spirit. He went on to explain that a youthful spirit meant approaching every day… More Posted on 06-27-11

A Cowboy Tips His Hat

While most Canadians are aware of the devastating impact of forest fires on Great Slave Lake, they perhaps aren’t as aware of the many acts of generosity and kindness it has inspired.

I learned about one this past week as I listened to CBC Radio and heard how singer, songwriter, actor, and activist Tom Jackson, somehow managed to pull off a sold out concert to benefit the town within two and a half weeks. Everyone involved with the production described getting it together on such short notice as an amazing act of community.

One of the biggest draws was Canadian… More Posted on 06-19-11

If We Knew Then What We Know Now About Parenting!

While I like to think my husband and I have been good parents to our collective brood, I’m boggled as to why our sons have had any struggles at all over the years. After all, from both a material and an opportunity perspective, they have had so much more than we did growing up.

Whereas both my husband and I grew up in blue collar, sometimes dysfunctional families who had to work hard to pay the bills, our kids had their material needs met, grew up in a stable loving home, experienced the role modeling of solid values, were… More Posted on 06-06-11

Kool-aid and Kids at Hope

I drank the Kool-aid.

While not a religion or anything at all like Jonestown, it is as good as it gets if one defines a cult as great devotion to an idea or movement. It also has a passionate guru in Rick Miller, the founder of a belief system known as “Kids at Hope”.

It began in 1993 as Miller’s reaction to concerns that too many kids were being labeled as “youth at risk”. Fighting back, Miller, the founder and now CEO of the non-profit movement known as “Kids at Hope”, made the decision to flip to the other side… More Posted on 05-25-11

Command without Control?

Now that we’ve survived another election, I’m going to apply my Pollyannaish thinking, click my heels three times, and hope that Ottawa can now focus on what really matters.

It seems the United States may already be heading in that direction with the release of a critical document that doesn’t seem to have garnered as much media as would be warranted, even though it makes the case for, and then provides, a new narrative for the entire country.

It is a narrative that answers the same kind of questions Canada should be asking in this time of rapid and… More Posted on 05-02-11

A One-Size-Fits-All Solution for Large Scale Change?

Sometimes it takes an outsider to hold up a mirror to bring clarity to your journey.

This week I received an email from one of our government funders that included a link to an article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

The article talked about creating collective impact for social change by working collaboratively across sectors. It pointed out that collaboration, partnerships, networks, and other joint efforts to address specific social challenges, are nothing new. However, as our funder pointed out, the project we’re working on together is a form of collective impact because it is focusing on… More Posted on 04-25-11

Speak Your Possibility

Have you ever been to a conference or presentation where the speaker wraps up by inviting questions from the audience?

Despite typically having a mitt-full of questions, I must admit I’ve rarely had the chutzpah to take any of them up on the invitation. 

However, last week at the Rural Alberta Development Fund’s Blue Sky Conference I made the leap and stood up to ask a question because of a number of points made by the speaker, Eric Saperston, as he shared his story. Eric, a critically acclaimed film director, producer, and writer, spoke about the importance of… More Posted on 04-10-11

Be a Gumby

A while back I did a workshop in London, Ontario. With the permission of the organizers, I was able to invite one of the members of our information technology team to attend. While the majority of our team is based in Alberta, Chris just happened to live in London.  The organizers were surprised to learn that although we had hired Chris on a contract over a year before, the workshop was the very first time we had ever met face to face.

This week we hired a young woman named Montana as our new Knowledge Transfer Coordinator. Although now based… More Posted on 04-03-11

Is there a Disconnect Between Our Grass-roots and Grass-tops?

While I’m typically much more interested in grass-roots leadership, the federal budget temporarily shifted my attention to the grass-tops. And, despite my aversion to politics, I have to tell you that I’m not surprised it was defeated as it missed a lot of what I’m seeing as the priorities of the average citizen. As such, it seems to reflect a major disconnect between the grass-roots and the grass-tops of Canada. 

As a result of having delivering some 25 workshops across the country on the topic of community building, I’m hearing that a growing number of Canadians believe government priorities,… More Posted on 03-27-11

What if?

It seems there is a time and a place to ask, “What if”?

My husband sells kites. As well as the kites most would recognize from their childhood, he sells large traction kites that are used for snowkiting, kite surfing, or kite buggying. Not a sport for the faint of heart or those in less than stellar physical condition, this past December he received a query and subsequently sold and shipped a kite harness to a guy in his 50’s who appeared to fit that description. Normally that would be the end of the story.

However, this week… More Posted on 03-20-11

On Being Happy

At a recent staff meeting our team discussed the challenge of juggling escalating work demands against the need for ensuring a balanced lifestyle.  As someone who tends to spend a lot of time working and therefore not really walking the talk, I ended up being the recipient of a number of jests.  While I get how ironic that is, given I’m in the business of supporting individual and community well-being, the truth is I love what I do and ultimately consider myself to be a pretty happy person.

Later that same day, I happened to talk to my mother… More Posted on 03-14-11

A Spirit of Striving

It might not sound like a big deal to some, but this week I did my first interview via Skype.  I had to push myself to get comfortable with the technology but in the end it was much less complicated than I thought it would be. What wasn’t quite as simple was the focus of the interview itself. The entire interview was based on one question, “How do you position, or in some cases reposition, an entire field, profession, or industry?”

While my field for the most part has been the community building that falls within the profession of… More Posted on 03-06-11

Could Boomers and Generation Y be an Ideal Match?

This week, despite working really hard to turn my to-do’s into to-done’s, the list kept getting longer.  As a result, it was difficult to muster up much energy for an interview with a fresh-out-of-school young woman who wanted to interview me for an article that would showcase our organization’s community leadership work.

Much to my surprise, it was an uplifting experience. She had obviously spent time on our website and understood our mandate, prepared excellent questions, and listened well. But it was her enthusiastic grasp of the value and importance of our work that was most exciting. Even when I… More Posted on 02-20-11

Where Everybody Knew Our Name

Like many boomers, I grew up in a neighbourhood where everybody knew our names.

Not only did they know our names, they knew exactly where we lived, the names of our parents and pets, and probably what we had for dinner the night before. We played tag and hide and seek until the street lights went on, organized lavish theatre productions in our backyards, skated on ice rinks that stretched across several backyards, and delivered casseroles baked by our mothers to those who were sick or had lost a loved one.

While most of us were second or… More Posted on 01-23-11

Is Today’s Play Reducing Resourcefulness?

It started when my sister told me she had recently asked her son why none of his friends wanted to hang out at their house. My eleven year old nephew explained that since they were the only ones within their extensive network who didn’t own an Xbox or a Wii, their friends wouldn’t come over because they couldn’t play video games.

While my sister and her husband had always been clear about not wanting video games for their kids, they admitted to wavering at that point not wanting their kids to be the outsiders. It’s not that they thought… More Posted on 01-16-11

Page 16 of 27 pages ‹ First  < 14 15 16 17 18 >  Last ›