Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

Fear of failure.....maybe not

I'm reading Seth Godin's Tribes right now...great book.  Last night I read his views on why people are afraid to take on leadership roles.  He suggested that we are not afraid of failing, rather we are afraid of criticism. Huh. Interesting.  I admit that I had to read this section over a couple of times and as it slowly filtered through the little grey cells, it hit me that Seth was right.  Rightly or wrongly, I don't fear failing (partly because I assume that I will fail) but what I dread, fear, I worry about more than anything else is that someone will say "What were you thinking, that is the worst idea ever!".  

As this realization sifted through, it got me thinking about the Wartime Houses project that I'm working on. (Some would say leading it, I like to not think about that.)   Not once did my fear of criticism hold me back from not only pushing things forward, but from contacting total strangers and asking them to join the project.  Heck, I even emailed some pretty impressive folks and didn't think twice about it.  So what is different?  Have I somehow overcome my fear?  No.  I'll ask Janice over and over about whether it's a good project or not.  I think the different is that I believe in this project.  I believe that it's important, that it's a part of our history that people should know about and that it can change not only how people think about heritage but the city.  Grand idea?  Absolutely, but if we didn't have grand ideas nothing would change. 

Now I'll post this and worry about it.

Not old enough to be heritage. Connecting with our past.

I'm working on a project called Home from the War - Stories from St.Catharines' Wartime Neighbourhoods.  It started out as a one time celebration to mark the 65th anniversary of the end of Word War II.  It has grown to include: a photo exhibit, the planting of a garden, a website, the installation of a plaque and the possible greening of wartime house.  The most exciting and interesting addition has been the gathering of stories from families that lived in these houses and in some cases still do.  

Most reactions to the project have been very positive and in some cases down right excited, but recently I've run across a few who question whether these houses are really heritage. I wasn't so much shocked by their view, but stumped by it.  How can buildings that are 65 years old, not be old enough?  How old does a building have to be for them to consider it heritage?

Until these people said that they didn't think Wartime Houses were old enough, I hadn't had to explain or justify why a Heritage Committee would consider these buildings heritage. I have to say, it's caused me to really think about it and this afternoon when I read a "Saved for the Nation: Monuments to Britain's Cold War" from The Guardian, the answer came to me.  The CEO of English Heritage, Simon Thurley said about these cold war buildings,"To anyone over 50, the cold war is too recent to feel like history, but to 17-year-olds it is just as historic as Napoleon." 

To many in the heritage world older is better. What we in the heritage world sometime forget is that history and heritage are relative to today's date. To someone who's 90, the 65 year old house that they live in isn't that old, but if you ask an 18 year old about the recording of "We Are the World" in 1985, that was a long time ago.

As I thought about it further, I thought about how hard it is to get people excited or interested in heritage. Many of the events and buildings that we celebrate or preserve are over 100 years old and for a majority of people, they don't see or feel a connection to them.  Wartime Houses offer a connection to our past to many who lived it, their children and grandchildren.  That's a connection. 

One of the families that has so generously offered their time, memories and photos to our project is the McArthurs.  They lived next door to my Nana and I contacted them because I had been given a copy of a book of their father's poems that he wrote during and after the war.  I thought it was a great story and example of a family that lived in a wartime house.  What I didn't expect was how this recent past connect us to our distant past.  The McArthur family is directly connected to the building of the Fourth Welland Canal, the First World War and the immigration of so many during the early 1900's. 

I think if I'm asked again about whether Wartime Houses are old enough, I will answer, that by connecting people to the recent past, it makes it possible to connect them to the distant past.  By understanding the changes in our city and country in the last 65 years, it opens the door to understanding what happened 100 years ago.  So are these houses old enough?  You bet.

Remembering Christmas' Past

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Papa McPherson.  Not just Christmas, but his birthday too!

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Papa Oille, a big kid at Christmas and for many years my New Year's Eve date.

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Nana Oille.  I don't know if she really wanted to, but she would get up with us early on Christmas morning.

As always I'll be thinking of them on Christmas.

Compassion

On November 12th, Karen Armstrong revealed The Charter of Compassion. It is a simple, beautifully crafted document urging us all to simply "always treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves".  If you haven't seen her talk at TED from July 2009, take the time and watch.


As an adult I've never been a church goer and it certainly gets more difficult when the church you belong to condemns your "lifestyle".  As a kid, I attended church regularly with my Mom and even then, I recognized that there seemed to be a difference between followers and faithful.  A difference between those who considered themselves religious and those who acted on their beliefs. 

In particular, I remember a story that my Mom told me about a group of ladies at the church.  These ladies were members of the women's group, they attended church (I think everyday) and on Sundays they sat in their pew, pious and watched everyone.  I was always fascinated with anyone who seemed to be such a strict follower.  I wondered where did that "belief" come from.  What I didn't know was that they preferred to be "right" instead of compassionate. They believed in the "rules", but that those rules didn't apply to them.  They followed and embraced all elements of church doctrine, instead of living the simple message of do unto others.

This woman, who was a long time member of the church, member of the women's groups and a friend, left her abusive husband.  They had been married for many years and finally she got up the courage to leave him.  And for this simple act of courage, she was talked about, ostracized and these women made it clear to others in the church and the group, that she simply was not welcome because she broke the rules.

As a adult, I have spent a lot of time learning about other faiths, trying to understand those who do not believe and struggled to find my place within my church.  I have tried to find something I can fully believe in.  With The Charter of Compassion I believe that I have found it.  It will not be easy to follow the golden rule, so much of the world around us urges us to focus first on ourselves, but I believe that in it's simplicity I can try and in trying find something to believe in.

We shall remember them...

These are just a few photos from our 2008 trip to France and Belgium where we toured the many cemeteries of World War 1.  So many lost, so many families forever changed. 

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The Essex Farm Cemetery.  It was here that John McCrea wrote 'In Flanders Fields'.

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A small glimpse of the 60,000 names on the Menin Gate.

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Tyne Cot Cemetry is largest Commonwealth Cemetery. 

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A.A Vearing
Be Not Far From Me |  For Trouble Is Near  | There Is No One To Help Me.

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A. Mc Lean, Age 23 - 2nd Bn. Canadian Infantry
Noble Duty .  Nobly Done . Greater Love Than This Has None . To Die That We May Live

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Samuel Howard
His Name Is Written In Letters Of Love On The Hearts He Has Left At Home.

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W. S. Liddle, Age 23. 
We Soon Again Shall Meet Around The Saviour's Feet.

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J. Watson, Age 22.
We Shall Meet On That Beautiful Shore.

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Thomas Noon - My great-grandfather.

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Vimy Ridge

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Some of the 11,000 names of missing Canadians.

Changing perception, changing minds

I'm amazed that things always seem to happen in clusters.  I tend to go with the whole "bad things happen in threes" idea, especially when it involves me injuring myself, but it also happens with new learning experiences. 

I am always on the hunt for new information, new ideas and new ways of doing or seeing things.  And inevitably, these learning experiences come in clusters.  Yesterday, I watched Rory Sutherland's talk at TED Oxford conference and was completely taken with his views on changing perception.  The 2 points that he made that stuck with me were  the question "how many problems can be solved by changing perception?" and the quote "making the new familiar and the familiar new".  

This morning, while I was checking out the viral video chart, the #1 video on the chart was "Interactive Swedish Piano Stairs" which turns out to be part of Thefuntheory.com website an initiative of Volkswagon.  The site along with the 2 other videos is "dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people's behaviour for the better."  It's all about changing perception.

All three ideas from Thefuntheory.com are simple, straight forward and generally speaking probably quite inexpensive.  But they all got people to change their behavior, their perception of - taking the stairs, recycling bottles and littering. Is it a permanent change?  I don't know. I mean stairs that play music are fun but every day?  A bottle recycling bin turned into a game, fun for a little while.  Or the garbage bin, that sounds like the garbage is falling into a giant deep hole, amusing but after a few pieces I don't know.  But that's not the point, at least I don't think it is. 

Change isn't easy.  Everyone one who has ever tried to quit smoking or start exercising knows it's really hard.  Hard because usually changing one thing impacts a whole bunch of other things.  How we view or perceive the change is a huge part of actually making the change.  But if that first step is fun, maybe, just maybe it won't seem so hard to take it and we'll stick with it.

Just thinking.