(photos from flickr)
Hope your week has had some sunshine in it.
Mine has been interesting and fun.
I’ve been enjoying how useful and portable my new laptop is – small and beautiful – style and function combined.
Everyone who sees Diva the laptop – loves her and wants one.
I’m imagining the Pixmania.ie crew scratching their heads as they see a buying spike in a place they have never heard of - Ballinamore.
Not only do we live in a beautiful place but we’re also tech savvy.
Speaking of tech savvy – Moo Bar now has free wifi.
Do yourself a favour and pop in for a great coffee and bagel (I am scared of how much I love their brie, bacon and cranberry bagel) and surf the great netsphere.
Tonight Moo Bar has latin dancing classes.
Congrats also to Brent in Moo Bar for the great website he has designed single handed.
I showed him a ‘how to’ article on Google Pages (their new free & easy web site design tool) and he was off and running.
Let’s see – what else has happened in my week?
I got a new contract with Leitrim Tourism, County Council & Leitrim Enterprise Board to develop an all of Leitrim promotion week.
I’ve called it Experience Leitrim Week – Explore + Enjoy.
The name does what it says on the tin.
Last year I wrote a Leitrim tourism product development strategy and this will inform the development of the week in April 2009.
It’s a really exciting opportunity to promote the county I love.
I’m recommending a blended approach that will cover 8 themes and have 2 streams.
The streams involve a mix of packaged events/tours and what I’m calling ‘build your own experience’ – where you can see a wide range of places, people and events that are happening in the week and you choose what you want to do.
It could be a history walk in the morning – a massage in the afternoon – a caili in the evening – and some quiet stargazing before bed.
I’m facilitating a brainstorming meeting in July and am developing a strategy to enable Leitrim people – and people who love Leitrim – to give us their ideas. We’ll be using social media and conventional media to listen.
One suggestion I have is for anyone to send photos to the Leitrim Tourism site (new site will be up in a few weeks) of the places, people and events in Leitrim they love.
I have also recommended that their site build in a number of interactive tools so people can communicate their ideas. I’m thinking that 30 second podcasts of people, characters, sayings … from leitrim people would be great as well.
The session in July and the invitation for leitrim people to contribute ideas for the Week will be such a great opportunity for all of us to show what we love about this wonderful county.
I’m really looking forward to being a small part of the whole process.
I ate my fave bagel 3 times in Moo Bar this week. I may have to join a circle of people where the opening lines are
‘ Hello, my name is Liz and I’m a brie with bacon & cranberry in bagel addict …’
Sad – very sad.
My brother Sean celebrated his birthday so I had a great chat with him in Oz. They were sitting outside after a bbq and he said it was getting a bit cold – yeh – 24C! Wimp boy. We were lucky to hit a max of 12 this week and it rained most days.
I also found out yesterday that I didn’t win a social entrepreneur ireland award.
Yeh – disappointed for about 30 seconds and then let it go.
Everything has its opportunities and costs and the SEI award was no different.
I gave it my best shot and the rest was out of my control – and I never ever fuss, worry or bother about things beyond my control.
5000 euro would have come in handy for the development of SKIL2 – as would the notion of the award. They also wanted awardees to commit 5 days to networking events and that would have been costly.
I’ve asked them for some very specific feedback and I will use it to fine tune my presentation of SKIL2 to private and third level sponsors.
Everything really is a learning experience and I believe very deeply that the attitude you choose to any situation is what ultimately counts.
And it’s the perceived failures that test our resolve. Success is easy to smile at …
(photo from Flickr)
I choose to see this as an opportunity to fine tune how I communicate SKIL2.
I’m also very grateful to the SEI award.
Deciding to go for the award made me develop SKIL2 beyond a vague idea. It wouldn’t exist otherwise.
Has not winning an award shaken my resolve about SKIL2?
It takes more than that to derail my belief in the real impact that SKIL2 could have for small to medium non profits.
Life and my business as a social entrepreneur and consultant is full of challenges – you just keep your eye on the vision and learn from everything and everyone.
So – that is over and now I focus on the future.
An aside – it’s interesting to explore where you ‘face’ in terms of the Past, Present & Future.
I am definitely a Present & Future focused person. While I think about the Past it is not where I face. I have an uncanny ability to just let go (good and bad thing) of the past.
A dear friend would identify herself as facing the Past – a real connection to people and places along her life time line. She is well able to dream the future – but her dominant ‘facing’ is the Past.
Where do you face?
The next step in the SKIL2 journey – is a journey.
Off to Paris (Love saying that!) next week (Saturday 28th) for an international open source learning management systems conference – Sakai.
Look out delegates – Liz is in town.
I hope to meet people there who will help me build SKIL2.
I will be blogging on Diva for the week I’m in Paris.
And this afternoon I go and play in the Sunny Funny Garden with the kids and some grown ups.
Thank you Lindy for the seeds you sent. We will have such a plethora of sunflowers that satellites in space will be able to see their smiling faces in Ballinamore.
The crocheted butterfly is a dote and has pride of place in my kitchen.
And tomorrow I’m off on an impromptu visit to a dear friend at his country retreat in Athlone.
Given the appalling state of public transport in this country I’m amazed that there is even a bus from Ballinamore to Athlone. I’ll be happily ensconced on the number 77 with my newspapers at noon tomorrow for the 2 hour trip to Athlone.
Looking forward to catching up with Feargus and exploring a bit of Athlone.
Oh yeh – had my hair cut and coloured yesterday (stay with me Dad) and love it.
So there you go dear reader – a week chock full of fun and adventures – and soooo many more to come.
Have a fab weekend.
Liz
