Leadership training in Tanzania

Back in Tanzania for the 3rd of 3 workshops in "leadership in education & training" (see my previous blog posts of July 2016 and October 2016 when we did the first two workshops). This time we are hosted in Dar es Salaam, the main industrial city on the Indian Ocean (very hot & humid here).

The agenda starts with "leading & managing change" today followed by "strategic planning" and "project management" during the coming two days. The participants of the professional development program are experienced and aspiring leaders of the colleges in Tanzania.

Happy Chinese New Year

Tonight I attended with a few colleagues of Seneca the annual New Year celebration dinner of ACCE, the Association of Chinese Canadian Entrepreneurs. We cooperate with them during weekend events on professional development for their members. It was a long evening with speeches, singers (among them the Mayor of Markham who is from Italian descent but can sing songs in Mandarin and Cantonese), lots of door prizes and food, food and more food. Always an interesting crowd in this community of Markham where 40% of the households speak Mandarin.

The MP for the region is John McCallum, who till last week was the federal Minister of Immigration and who will be as of next week the new Ambassador of Canada in China.

Happy Australia Day to those "down under"

Tonight I attended a reception and screening of the Russel Crowe movie "The Water Diviner" in downtown Toronto in celebration of the birthday of Australia. This while our daughter Hilary (and her colleague and friend Jess) are down under in Australia and celebrated that day in Melbourne.

Of course they had some fun materials about Australia at the event, such as road signs like this. From my stay of four months in Sydney in 1983 I remember laughing so much about the fun language the Aussies developed over time which had a lot to do with the aboriginal languages of Australia. At this event they had a small Aussie dictionary. Should send it to Hilary.....

Oops, I even printed it down under upside down....oh what the heck, I am going to leave it like this

Best wishes for 2017

Wishing everybody a healthy & happy 2017. Let's hope that we can keep the peace between peoples around the world, and ideally that we can make peace in regions where war and conflicts continue to put so many people in danger and in such difficult circumstances.

Memories

Just finished reading this book. Johan Cruyff was "The Great One" in Dutch football (soccer for the North Americans) when I was a teenager. We will never forget the delight of what this player showed at the field and how he inspired the Dutch national team during the World Cup in 1974. Johan passed away this year at the age of 69. He will always be remembered as one of the best in his sport.

The beauty of the Christmas break for me - next to spending time with the family - is that I actually feel like reading a few books. I am now starting the book written by former US President Jimmy Carter. He wrote this book at age 90; wow.

Best wishes to all for a happy & healthy 2017.

Premier Wynne and Asia Pacific

This morning I attended a dialogue between Premier Wynne (current political leader in the province of Ontario) with the CEO of the Asia Pacific Foundation, a trade stimulating organization with a focus on the Asian trading partners of Canada. The President of Seneca College recently traveled with Wynne and business people to Korea and Japan, so were invited to attend this breakfast event. Interesting reflections about a province (and country) which for so long had its trade mostly focused on its southern neighbor the USA.

December 13

A few colleagues toke me out for lunch today and put this on the table for desert; three of us had birthdays today on December 13. I started a diet a week ago; this lunch today did not help.... But tonight I tried to compensate with this dinner....

The office of Seneca International is very much in the Christmas atmosphere. We almost finished another year - 2016. Here we come 2017!