Sunday, April 30

Nothing is certain, only the certain spring."

Charles Kovess’s passion point reminds us of our ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) heritage. Australian troops landed at Gallipoli on the 25th April 1915 and suffered 25,000 casualties, before final evacuation in Dec of that year. Australia had become a Federation in 1901 and the Gallipoli campaign served to create the notion of the ANZAC spirit and our Nations spirit. Ideals of courage, endurance and mateship were etched into a fledgling nation’s consciousness.

It is ironic that the ANZAC spirit arose from an ill conceived battle with its needless defeat and slaughter of innocent blood. The British maps of the landing area were flawed, depicting gentle slopes rather than the steep cliffs, not expecting that landing parties would be wading through deep water where many would drown, and be sitting ducks for Turkish machine gunners. There was a narrow strip of beach then tall cliffs to be scaled to face the Turkish enemy. The fleet could have sailed on further with little Turkish defences to a much easier landing.

The fallen became “They that will not grow old”, our ANZACS, who died for a mother country for another’s war on far off fateful shores. It’s a sobering thought to realise in the Great War of 1914 to 1918 over 300,000 young Australians volunteered to defend what was “Mother England” from a total population of only around 3 million, with 66% either killed or returning incapacitated.

During the 1960s and 1970s numbers attending ANZAC marches fell but the tide of sentiment has turned from the 1990’s to a remarkable resurgence of interest, particularly amongst young people, with many making the pilgrimage to the Gallipoli Peninsula to attend the Dawn Service. Our younger generation wants to learn of this history and to understand how it impacted in their communities. School Children learn of their equivalents then, since many lied about their age (typically only 16) on enlistment. They do the detailed research of the families and where they fell; even some visit their gravesites in Turkey to “live” that history. It becomes very emotional for them, influencing their future lives to the better. It’s as if the ANZAC consciousness urges them to live each moment to the full for "Nothing is certain, only the certain spring."

Included below is his Passion point.

Welcome to the 4th Passion Point for 2006.

Our goal with these Passion Points continues to be to provoke you so that your business, and the rest of your life, become filled with more passion, performance, and improved balance of mental, physical, and spiritual elements. A special welcome to the many new subscribers who have recently joined our passionate community.

MAN’S INNER JOURNEY: A GREAT PROGRAMI attended a great weekend seminar entitled ‘Man’s Inner Journey’ in July 2005. It’s excellent. It’s being repeated in Melbourne on 13 & 14 May 2006. Details are below."DIRECTION THROUGH REFLECTION” A day, a pen and a poem have strong connections.

The 25th of April has special significance forAustralians and New Zealanders, and also for Turks.

It was on 25 April,1915 that Anzac troops landed on the Turkish shore of Gallipoli, shaping history and, arguably, their nations.
23 years later, on 25 April, 1938, theHungarian Laszlo Biro lodged a patent for what is nowthe universal ballpoint pen. Little did Laszlo realisethat his humble invention would soon become aninstrument of war.
The Biro was mass produced inEngland for Second World War RAF navigators to use inunpressurised aircraft cockpits, where fountain pensfailed.
It is on Anzac Day, more than any other, that we pauseto remember those who fell in all wars.
The most quoted memorial words are:

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left growold:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."

"The Ode", as it is known, is the fourth verse from aseven verse poem
"For the Fallen", by English poet Laurence Binyon.

Although Binyon's 1914 poem predates Anzac Day and the Biro, all are connected through warand history.

It is through reflective times like Anzac Day that we recognise and realise many things--history, respect, and gratitude, are but a few. It is through reflection that we recognise the sacrifice of others towards our uniqueness and our tomorrows.
War, directly or indirectly, still influences us through our freedom. The pen, despite the typewriter and the mouse, still helps record our history. Words, if not always in poetic form, are fundamental to civilisation, education and freedom.
As we pause to reflect this Anzac Day, war and wordswill become inseparable, contributing to our unique, yet shared experiences.

Unlike the fallen, "who grownot old", we will age and, only through our efforts,grow.
Whether we will be remembered is up to us.

QUOTES TO CONSIDER"

I'll choose this moment and keep it, He said to himself, for a vow, To remember for ever and ever As if it were always now."Laurence Binyon (1869-1843), English poet.

Do you vow to use the now to shape your future?
"Nothing is certain, only the certain spring."Laurence Binyon (1869-1843), English poet.

What do you bring to the certain spring; at curtaincall, will few or all, remember what you did?

Have a passion-filled day, week, and month, till our next Passion Point.
Charles Kovess Australia’s Passion Provocateur © Copyright- Charles B. Kovess & David J. Wood of Passionate Performance. Republication welcome provided authors are acknowledged & advised at above address. If you want to see Charles on video, or listen to audio, just go to www.kovess.com and follow the links.

For a list of keynote speech topics that Charles would love to deliver in a passionate, entertaining, provocative, and educational way to your teams, clients, or prospects, at breakfast, lunch or dinner, see below.

All 141 published Passion Points to Ponder are on our website. If you wish to review them, please visit the site. If you wish to receive a list of the 141 titles of the Passion Points please let us know.

MAN’S INNER JOURNEY For Men: How often do you invest in YOU?Commence the journey from your head, to your heart. Discover the tools to improve the way your life works! The Man's Inner Journey Seminar is designed specifically for Men. The workshop offers you a practical blend of information and experience for you to develop insights into the beliefs, attitudes, influences and patterns ofbehaviour that impact (positively and/or negatively) on the quality of your life outcomes. The workshop offers you the tools to change and develop.

The next Man's Inner Journey workshop is on 13 & 14 May 2006 9AM-6PM in Melbourne.For more information visit the website www.mansinnerjourney.com, or send us a REPLY to this email, and we’ll send you some more information.KEY NOTE SPEECH TOPICS
1 PASSIONATE PERFORMANCE: YOUR KEYS TO MENTAL, PHYSICAL & SPIRITUAL WELLBEING IN BUSINESS. 2 THE POWER OF VISIONARY LEADERSHIP 3 The 7 Key steps to create Outstanding teams.4 How to retain the best people in your Organisation.5 PASSION: THE KEY TO YOUR SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN THE 21ST CENTURY.6 HIGH PERFORMANCE BUSINESS LEADERSHIP IN THE KNOWLEDGE AGE.7 Change: Make it an inspirational game!8 A PASSION FOR LIFE, AND LIVING IT!9 KEY PRINCIPLES OF PERSONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY.10 7 STRATEGIES THAT GUARANTEE LOYALTY FROM EMPLOYEES AND CUSTOMERS.

Best regards from Australia's Passion ProvocateurCharles Kovess LL.B.(Hons), LL.M., CSP*, MAICD, MAITDPast National President National Speakers' Association of Australia(*CSP means Certified Speaking Professional, the highest membership category of NSAA and the only internationally recognised designation for professional speakers.)

Saturday, April 15

Tenebrae At Eltham - Good Friday 2006


We gathered to meditate on the most sacred day of the year. The focus of our ceremony was the seven sayings of Christ uttered when he was dying on the cross. Through a series of psalms, reflections and sacred music, we were led to the foot of the Cross. In our darkened narthex the lighted candles represented our world about to be plunged into darkness. The lights were gradually extinguished throughout the ceremony until only one flame remained, symbolising Christ. When the last light disappeared a loud noise (strepitus) was made to remind us of the earthquake on that fateful day on Calvary.

Friday, April 14

Friends of the Peeps












Have you heard about Peeps? Peeps are a type of Sandpiper bird native to North America. I recently learnt about them as a consequence of visiting Sylvana’a blog although her peeps are the “nylon” or “porcelain” variety. The picture above represents some Australian “mates” of the peeps (covered by Australian Enterprise Workplace Agreement) who send their best wishes via Lindsay Lobe. I hope this leads to a more genuine understanding between the two countries without the need to beat around the BUSH.

Wednesday, April 12

Escape to Adventure

The steady “drumming of an army” of rain drops on the tin roof above temporarily lifted, providing a welcome respite. A night sky was silent and threatening with faint moon beams casting their deathly shadow through the clouds over the murky brown waters below cascading in endless eddies of debris and swirling mud.

It was just a few days ago that a blue sky was endless, pastures beckoned, cattle grazed beside a tranquil river, that flowed leisurely behind our Fawcett Street Home in Kyogle.

Returning from school each day I would rush out into the paddocks with my companions and go on to the river bank to play imaginative adventures of conquests and danger. The grazing cattle were wild animals, trees our refuge, dog and cat our guardians and wooden swords our protectors.
At the same time each day my mother would shout from the porch “The Search” a signal for us to return and listen in bated breath to the radio series “The Search for the Golden Boomerang”.

Our family house had been purchased on the basis it was flood free. As an added precaution it was built on high stilts. Despite the cyclonic rain on that fateful day it was not thought our house would be flooded and hence we were not concerned. As the floodwaters entered our backyard I imagined myself as fisherman and dangled my fishing line in the brown waters.
However soon the rising waters were inching their way up our back steps so we evacuated to neighbours on higher ground. My father told us he was staying on to protect our furniture and effects.
That night I peered out over the murky waters to see my Father swimming around in the flooded house, placing objects onto higher vantage points in a futile attempt to avoid the ever rising floodwaters.

The waters were rising at an alarming rate and it was with some relief, we watched in silence as my father finally wearily swam out through the bedroom window and with measured strokes struck out for the bank and safety at last. Fully clothed, cold, exhausted but determined he slowly hauled himself up onto the bank to join us on the veranda, in time to see our house disappear under the mighty waters of the Richmond River.

In other parts of town tragedies were occurring.

People watched helpless from the Kyogle railway station as six persons drowned when their home was washed away. A mother and her two children drowned when a small rescue boat capsized in waves on Fawcett’s plain.

An aboriginal man was caught in floodwaters and drowned. Others were washed away but survived by clinging to trees until rescuers arrived.

I can still remember afterwards that smell from the flood and the endless mud. There were pieces of corrugated iron from rooves around and it was soon turned to good use in makeshift canoes, folded over and sealed both ends with tar, to deliver milk and supplies.

I remember search parties each morning looking for bodies and everyone helping one another.Amongst the sadness there were stories told of courage and heroism as men and their boats tried to rescue people in desperate trouble.

The two most courageous were Eddie Towns and Max Biggs who later received a Bronze Medal and Certificate of Merit of the Royal Shipwreck Relief and Humane Society of NSW.

Amongst the people who assisted with the clean-up was the 1st Kyogle Girl Guide Company, who was later awarded with the Walter Donald Ross Trophy. Only one Girl Guide Company is the recipient of this International Award each year for Outstanding Community Work. Each received a memento bracelet.

My parent’s sold there house at a tremendous financial loss and decided to leave Kyogle not long after.

If you click on the icon link or here you can see pictures of the Kyogle Flood of 1954 including the Fawcett Street plains.

Sunday, April 9

The Times they are a Changing

For those countries that adopt daylight saving, depending upon which hemisphere you live in it was time recently to either wind your clocks back as is the case in Australia in the Southern Hemisphere or forward for summer for those in the Northern Hemisphere.

Charles Kovess reminds us life is about change. I think that’s true of marriage, as each partner adapts to changes in circumstances and in a sense re marries many times as one becomes wedded to new ideas of a changing environment. Life’s achievement is generally 3% inspiration and 97% handwork contingent on a willingness to make many small changes.

I have produced his Passion Point as per below.

A Passion Point to Ponder 5 April 2006
Welcome to the 3rd Passion Point for 2006. Our goal with these Passion Points continues to be to provoke you so that your business, and the rest of yourlife, become filled with more passion, performance, and improved balance of mental, physical, and spiritual elements. A special welcome to the many new subscribers who haverecently joined our passionate community.

OUR HUNGARIAN LINKS

2006 is a special year for Hungarians, being the 50thanniversary of the Freedom Fight against Russian occupation in October 1956, and also the 50th anniversary of the Melbourne Olympics where Hungary won the goldmedal in the water polo, after defeating Russia in a famous ‘bloodbath’ match in the semi-finals.

Therewill be lots of celebrations later in the year!
Charles is the President here in Melbourne of the Australia-Hungary Chamber of Commerce & Industry.
If you have any links of any description with Hungary,be they family, ancestral, business, or sporting, we’d love to hear from you.

CHANGE IS INEVITABLE; GROWTH IS OPTIONAL
”Here in the Southern Hemisphere, the autumn days growshorter; leaves and fruit fall, the harvest and gardenbeckon, and winter sports begin. It's a time ofchange, a reflective season, as summer fades from view.

The recent Melbourne Commonwealth Games gave us greenand gold aplenty. In beautiful weather, they were the perfect bridge between the green fields of summer and autumn's golden ways. Yet, they were more, much more.
Like a harvest, they displayed the fruits of discipline, hard work and sacrifice by the athletes, support teams and administrators. For the athletes,who trained hard during all weathers, it was their time to perform before an audience of millions and reach for a higher level.

Gold, silver and bronze may only be seasonal colours to most of us, but to the athletes they are the highest measures of performance; the culmination of their dedication and disciplined efforts.

Do you want to reach a higher level and be better than you are?
Do you need to give your life a greater purpose?
Do you have the courage, discipline and passion to pursue your dreams?

Just as the seasons inevitably change, so can we. Change need only be small disciplined steps towards a greater goal and every day is a golden opportunity to take them; but do we?

The seasons change gradually; do we, or do we remain captive to the habits of yesterday, fearful of the growth today?

QUOTES TO CONSIDER "Discipline is the bridge between goals andaccomplishment." Jim Rohn, American speaker andauthor.

What are your goals, do you achieve what you believein?
"Change is a measure of time and, in the autumn, timeseems speeded up. What was is not and never again will be; what is is change." Edwin Way Teale (1899-1980),American author.

As the seasons change do you? Do you pursue what is,are you true to self; or do you change not and watchthe seasons slip, like golden dreams on silverstreams, away?
And now, it’s time to lighten up, with our favourite
humorous quote on change:

“Change is inevitable, except from vending machines!”

Have a passion-filled day, week, and month, till ournext Passion Point. Charles Kovess Australia’s Passion Provocateur © Copyright- Charles B. Kovess & David J. Wood of Passionate Performance. Republication welcome provided authors are acknowledged & advised at above address. If you want to see Charles on video, or listen to audio, just go to
www.kovess.com and follow the links.

For a list of keynote speech topics that Charles would love to deliver in a passionate, entertaining, provocative, and educational way to your teams, clients, or prospects, at breakfast, lunch or dinner, see below.All 140 published Passion Points to Ponder are on our website. If you wish to review them, please visit the site. If you wish to receive a list of the 140 titles of the Passion Points please let us know.

KEY NOTE SPEECH TOPICS1 PASSIONATE PERFORMANCE: YOUR KEYS TO MENTAL, PHYSICAL & SPIRITUAL WELLBEING IN BUSINESS. 2 THE POWER OF VISIONARY LEADERSHIP3 The 7 Key steps to create Outstanding teams.4 How to retain the best people in your Organisation.5 PASSION: THE KEY TO YOUR SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN THE 21ST CENTURY.6 HIGH PERFORMANCE BUSINESS LEADERSHIP IN THE KNOWLEDGE AGE.7 Change: Make it an inspirational game!8 A PASSION FOR LIFE, AND LIVING IT!9 KEY PRINCIPLES OF PERSONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY.10 7 STRATEGIES THAT GUARANTEE LOYALTY FROM EMPLOYEES AND CUSTOMERS.

Best regards from Australia's Passion ProvocateurCharles Kovess LL.B.(Hons), LL.M., CSP*, MAICD, MAITDPast National President National Speakers' Association of Australia(*CSP means Certified Speaking Professional, the highest membership category of NSAA and the only internationally recognised designation for professional speakers.)http://www.kovess.com/.com ph 0395622248 mobile 0412317404 PO Box 1412, Central Park East Malvern Vic 3145 Office: 17 Notre Dame Parade, Mulgrave Vic 3170
Author of 'Passionate People Produce' and 'Passionate Performance'Co-author of '7 Heavenly Virtues of Leadership'

Sunday, April 2

Corporate Social Responsibility

The Corporate Advisory Board to the Government that is advising on any recommended changes to the law as it affects companies has now published submissions from various community and business organisations as well as private individuals.

If you would like to read any of the submissions click here.

Many of the submissions tend to just focus on their own area of interest or conclude the existing law adequately covers the situation.

I think Australian companies should be actively encouraged to adopt socially environmental responsible business practices. In fact this should always have been the case it is an indictment of our civilised state to think otherwise. The alternative is to give no consideration to sustainability and disregard the rights of future generations.My preference is for descriptive provisions to operate by way of guiding principles enacted in law and within corporate governance structures.
Otherwise I think we are in danger of thinking of ethics and environmental sustainability as something only very highly trained people are capable of thinking about.
CSR needs to stay in the mainstream of shareholder and stakeholder concerns, acknowledged at every level in the community.

As mentioned in the discussion paper over 80% (See my Submission Number 9) of investors want to see more reporting of CSR by companies.

Educational bodies need to encourage education and ethically based subjects in their courses.Descriptive provisions create a clear responsibility.

Imagination and morality have always been required for civilisations to deliver results for its populace along with new knowledge and understanding.