Flourish 2014

Today was a early start, as Akela took me with her to attend a Leaders Conference thing. It was held at Seton Christian Church and we had to be there heaps early (8:15am). Which meant  by the time we got home after the football, I went right to bed!

At the conference thing Akela dragged me along to; we had a number of speakers. The MC was a friend of Akela’s from Rovers.

We 1^st heard from Andrew Lock, who was a Cub right through to Rover. He is currently the only Australian to have climbed all 8,000 pecks in the world and spoke about being risk adverse. We were particularly taken when he said, “Scouting gave me the basic skills needed for me to achieve my goals in life and that leaders taught me to plan and prepare for responsible risk taking”. Akela thinks there are those within scouting who are adverse to taking risk and don’t want to push either themselves and need to take a look at the way many within society are becoming risk adverse.

Dr Michael Carr-Gregg spoke “of how such adversity can be overcome with a positive approach and how Scouting is in a unique position to be an organisation that can provide a very real solution to such issues. He believes that Scout Leaders, by utilising the ‘Aims and Principles’ Scouts can teach the youth within scouting resilience.

 We then had Mark McCrindle speak about the changing trends and the characteristics of each generation, from Generation Builders to Generation X, with Generation Alpha now being born.

 Neil Fuller OAM spoke about the personal challenges he faced, losing his lower leg at 18, after a sporting accident and how he overcame and adapted. Of particular note, He said “ You can’t control everything but,

·      You can control how you perform,

·      You can do your best,

·      You can believe to achieve and

·      You can do the best you can today”.

The final speaker for the day was Amanda Gore, who spoke to us about how to create positive and vibrant emotional environments for Scouting to occur. Her presentation was both entertaining as it was humorous.  

 
There are several links here, which provide some more information about the topics covered by the guest speakers. We hope by sharing them that people will be able to understand more about the speakers we heard today.
First World Problems

Action for Happiness Posters

Andrew Lock

Akela and I snuck out a few minutes before 5pm finish, as Akela really wanted to get to the football.  The location was very close to the grange train line, and we were able to make the 5:05pm train into town. As a result, we were able to get a very good seat at the Oval (near the front, as Akela likes sitting close to the action.

The football game was good – in part because the Crows WON, which always makes us happy in Akela’s household (and Akela’s husband has accepted that we are a family of Crow Supporters!).  But this has sure made for a LONG day…..