My Morning with Madiba

The passing of Nelson Mandela is creating the irresistible urge in countless people around the world to recount their personal experiences with this great man. The McCann's are no exception, and unapologetically so. Mark asked me to post this on the blog for him.

Hamba kahle, Madiba

My Morning with Madiba

 I was lucky enough to spend the morning, as a sixteen year old boy, with President Mandela on the 13^th of May 1995.

A close friend of the family (Beryl) was one of his personal assistants and asked if I wanted to assist in helping President Mandela sign copies of his newly released autobiography, “Long Walk to Freedom”. These copies were specifically going to be sold at the Rugby World Cup final to raise money for the Nelson Mandela’s Children’s Fund. As I recall, this was the first fundraiser for the fund.

I woke up early that morning, as we had to be at President Mandela’s house by 6:30 am (he was apparently an early riser!).  I was a little nervous during the drive as I was not sure what to expect when meeting the president of the country. Do I call him Mr. Mandela, President Mandela, Madiba; do I shake his hand? These were just a few of the thoughts that ran through my head.

At around 7 am we were ushered into the dining room where all the books were piled. The next moment President Mandela walked in, tall, commanding and in his pyjamas. I will never forget them: light blue flannel pyjamas. He immediately put me at ease coming over, thanking me for helping and excusing himself for still being in his pyjamas. It was early he explained, he hadn't had breakfast yet, and they were quite comfortable.

There was another boy around my age there to help too and the three of us came up with a strategy to make the process efficient. I would put the book in front of President Mandela, open on the page he had to sign, and the other boy would take it away and stack it once is was signed. We worked like this for about an hour and a half until all the books were complete. In this time President Mandela chatted to us about our lives, family and school. Thinking back it was amazing how calm and relaxed he made us feel around him.

Once we had finished signing all the books he looked at both of us and suggested we join him for breakfast. This will forever be one of the most surreal experiences of my life. There I was eating bacon and eggs with Nelson Mandela in blue flannel pyjamas. He was at the head of the table, I was on his right, and the other boy on his left: just the three of us. I recall quite vividly trying to keep up my best manners, answering his questions, making conversation, all while his 2-year-old grandson was playing with my feet under the table.

Being a Saturday, I guess all the fun presidential decisions needed to be made. The reason the date is so clear is that during breakfast there were a number of people coming and going trying to figure out who of the family was going to join the President at the soccer that day. Bafana-Bafana, the South African national soccer team, were playing Argentina at Ellis Park. I recall thinking “ask me, ask me!!”. I never did get the invite J.

At the end of breakfast President Mandela got up and went to the phone in the corner of the room. There he had a little red phone book. Picking it up he asked us for our telephone numbers. “I always want to keep in contact with my friends”, he said while writing the numbers down.

At this point it was time to head out and with a quick goodbye my morning with Madiba was over. It is a morning I will cherish and forever be privileged to have had.

Madiba, I consider you a friend too. You are humble and have no prejudices.  South Africa and the world are a better place because of you and you will be sorely missed. In your passing I am brought back to these memories and want them to inspire me in how I live my life.

Madiba, hamba kahle, go well, keep on dancing and hopefully, one day, the whole world will be dancing with you.

Mark McCann

5 December 2013

Always Leave the Office On Time?

I came across this poster from a friend and former colleague:

Bear with me as I give you my reflections.

Commuters queue for minibus taxis
in Johannesburg.
Picture: SUNDAY TIMES

This sounds wonderful, difficult not to agree in principle. No offence intended, but I'm afraid that it is a first world luxury that goes with a home swimming pool and a jacuzzi. The Toronto Star recently ran a series on Third World sweat shops. This poster for them is the stuff of dreams. The same goes for farm labourers and peasant farmers, and for thousands of Black South Africans who stand in queues for an hour or more, literally, for their turn to get into a minibus taxi that will take an hour before they get to their place of work or home again. As for the large numbers of unemployed, most would love to have the opportunity to work overtime - at least until they've had to do it through the winter.

If you can always leave the office on time, thank Heaven for the privilege, but spare a thought for the overwhelming majority of the earth's workers whose only choice is to work for as long as they are told or beg on the streets.

These people are not fools or losers. They are fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters who are modern day saints helping to keep their families alive. The bad news is that a lot of these overworked and underpaid workers are the reason for much unemployment in Europe, the US and Canada - among others. I give up. I have no idea what the solution is.

Remember, Remember the Month of Movember

If you haven't noticed yet, this is the month of Movember. Once again the gallant Mo Stashed Hairiers are covering their upper lips for the cause of raising funds for men's health, notably prostate and testicular cancer research and men's mental health. Please go on over to the Mo Stashed Hairiers blog which also has some information on prostate and testicular cancer and some common sense, health precautions that men can take.

Here is a video we made three years ago.

Joop Schats, May 1923 - October 2013, R.I.P.

Langzaamaan raakte je geest al verder van ons vandaan.

Na een goed leven is op de mooie leeftijd van 90 jaar overleden onze lieve vader en opa

Joop Schats

Johannes

Hilversum, 16 mei 1923      -      Huizen, 24 oktober 2013

Rob in herinnering en Wilma

Reinoud, Laura

Sonja en Giljam

Rebekka, Daniël

Ingrid en Terry

Miriam, Mark, Sean

Stephen, Judith

Reinier en Heather

Maia

Vincent

Marjoke, Ruben

Jeroen

Levien, Sera

Martijn in herinnering

en achterkleinkinderen

Correspondentieadres: Sonja Schats
Caro van Eyckstraat 81
1507 SC Zaandam

De crematie zal in familiekring plaatsvinden.

U kunt een herinnering of condoleance plaatsen op www.rebel-uitvaart.nl/requiem - inlogcode: JSchats

Cost Benefits of ISO 9001 Certification

Somebody posted the following discussion question on a LinkedIn group that I am following:

Hi I am collecting all the reasons for obtaining ISO 9001 accreditation. I am especially interested in the cost benefits of having the accreditation. Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

Firstly, as an aside, accreditation goes to an auditor, a quality system gets certified or a certification.

Here is my response to the question.

If I may go beyond cost benefits to include all financial benefits then: 

1. The certification on its own will have some limited financial benefits, mainly for marketing and sales: 

   a. Your company brand is enhanced. 

   b. Some companies will not source from suppliers who do not have ISO certification. 

   c. Many potential customers will prefer an ISO certified company over one that is not certified. 

2. The real benefit to your company is not in the certification itself but, if done rightly and for the right motivation, in the improvement to the quality of your company processes, resulting in the improvement to the quality of your final product or service and enhanced customer satisfaction. Here is the real cost benefit: a reduction in your cost of failure. It is generally accepted that the later a failure or defect is detected, the more expensive it is to correct. A good, effectively implemented quality management system (QMS) will help reduce your cost of failure by reducing the occurrence of defective work and helping you find any defective work before it gets to the client. A QMS built on ISO 9001 principles has a built in feed-back mechanism for continuous improvement; you should see your cost of failure reduce over time. 

3. This, however, comes at a cost: the cost of prevention (implementing and executing on your QMS) and the cost of appraisal (quality records and audits). It may well be that these costs initially exceed the offset from the reduced cost of failure, but you should definitely get a return on investment over time if you ensure that you put in a good, effective QMS and do not merely go for ISO certification for its own sake.

Elizabeth (Aunty Bessie) Sessler 1916-4-27 - 2013-6-30 R.I.P.

Aunty Bessie passed away in the early hours of Sunday morning, June 30, 2013. She died of pneumonia in her own bed , in her own room at Summerfield Park, exactly as she had hoped and prayed for, and our close, mutual friend, Pat Prinsloo, was with her at the end. She was 97 years old. According to Pat she spent all her waking time of the last few hours in prayer, aware that this was probably the end.

Although she was practically blind, only able to discern light and dark shapes, and even then only when the light was good, and although she was starting to become hard of hearing, nevertheless, her mind was sharp as a tack and you had better tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth or she would catch you out if you just tried to fob her off.

She spent much of her waking time in intercession, praying not only for people in need that she knew but also nationally and internationally for people who were victims of floods, earthquakes, fires and civil wars. She listened to the news and was up on national and international affairs although she was fed up with politicians of all stripes, particularly where there was corruption and public waste. However, she never got used to calling it Zimbabwe - it was always Rhodesia for her.

Her reputation as an intercessor got to be quite awesome and people sought her out to pray for them and their needs. Once you got on to her intercession list the only way you came off was if she moved you to her thanksgiving list. She would follow up and ask how it was going with such-and-such. If you told her that the issue had resolved itself some time back she would become indignant and ask why you had never told her. What must God think of her, she would say, asking him for things that he had already answered instead of thanking him? How could she thank God if you did not tell her that her prayers had been answered?

The three sisters: Marjorie, Ethel, Bessie

Bessie the 'Gal - Durban Bay

Aunty Bessie lived a long and varied life with many ups and downs, a lot of enjoyment, fun and celebration but also a lot of hardship and pain woven throughout. Right to the end Aunty Bessie always had something to get up for in the morning. She was a real human being and daughter of Eve who came to know the loving mercy of God and the joy of sharing that with others. I still ask her to intercede for me.

To Ingrid - Mother's Day 2013

While quaffing a beer on a public house patio I talked about you;



And I found nothing strange about showing your picture while riding the train.


 Absorbing the sounds of underground jazz made me wish you were there;




And seeing the beauty of wetlands and ponds, and a lone tree standing, made me wish you were there.

The fact is that beautiful things that are new remind me of you.

Do Conservative Party MPs represent Stephen Harper or their constituents?

This is obviously a question which leads to a lot of confusion in the minds of parliamentarians today - right up to the Government House Leader, the Hon. Peter Van Loan. If MPs are confused I can be forgiven for my own confusion in the matter, and so can you. Fortunately we now have Elizabeth May in Parliament to explain it to all of us in very simple words that even I can understand.

Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague from Langley, as well as the hon. member for Vegreville—Wainwright. As a specific case, may I say this is one of the most important points of privilege I have heard in the brief two years, almost, that I have been serving here? It cuts to the core of what is wrong with parliamentary democracy that the hon. government House leader could put before you a sports metaphor that we are here as teams, as brands or colours, and we are all to take instructions from our team boss.

We are not here as teams. The principle of Westminster parliamentary democracy is that we are here as representatives of our constituencies and our constituents. We are merely incidentally members of political parties. Political parties do not exist in our Constitution. They are not an essential part of our democracy. They have grown to be seen to be the most interesting thing going on, and we have grown to see politics as some sort of sport. However, democracy is not a sport. We are not playing on teams, and each individual member has individual rights, and the members for Langley and Vegreville—Wainwright feel their rights have been infringed.

I would add that I rose on a point of order to you some many months ago on the question of S.O. 31s and the fact that they were increasingly being used for purposes that, while not against our Standing Orders as they are written, are against the spirit of Standing Orders as described by former Speaker Madam Justice Sauvé, who pointed out that they should typically speak to matters of local concern in our constituencies and should not be used as a place for attacks on others, specifically ad hominem personal attacks.

At the time you said you might comment on that later. Perhaps this point of privilege might give you a chance to further elucidate when it is inappropriate for the approved S.O. 31s from the Conservative war room to be very vicious attacks and the ones that members wish to make about the concerns of their own constituents to be censored and prevented from being presented in this place.

from Elizabeth May's Parliamentary web site.
http://elizabethmaymp.ca/parliament/statements/2013/03/26/privilege-s-o-31/

Dear Hon. Bob Chiarelli, Minister of Energy:

There is still time to make the right decision on nuclear.

It’s a bad idea to waste billions by refurbishing the Darlington nuclear reactors to keep them running until 2055. This plan is terrible for both our economy and our environment.

No nuclear project in Ontario’s history has come in on budget or on time. The existing Darlington reactors were supposed to cost $4 billion, but came in $10 billion over budget. The recent refurbishment at Bruce Nuclear is $2 billion over budget.

At a time of record deficits, we should not be wasting billions on old technology. In fact, we are still paying for the debt from previous nuclear projects.

Your government decided to exempt this project from a provincial environmental review, which means that we still don’t have an independent analysis of the risks and costs of this project.

I urge you to conduct an independent review of costs and alternatives to nuclear. It is unacceptable and irresponsible that the Ontario government has nothing in place to protect ratepayers or taxpayers from nuclear cost overruns.

Nuclear is an inflexible source of base-load power that removes incentives for conservation, efficiency or more affordable sources of power.

Committing billions to nuclear will hurt recent strides in developing other sources of energy, including renewables, and hamper our ability to take advantage of new, emerging technologies. Your government has already directed agencies to stop the expansion of renewable energy in 2018 to reserve grid capacity for nuclear.

If the cost to our pocketbook isn’t enough, nuclear also presents a significant threat to our environment.

Darlington’s use of Lake Ontario water for cooling destroys millions of fish, larvae and eggs each year, and Darlington is also a major source of thermal and chemical pollution in the lake.

MOST IMPORTANTLY, THERE IS STILL NO PLAN OR COST GUESTIMATE TO DEAL WITH NUCLEAR WASTE. Meanwhile, the amount of dangerous nuclear waste continues to grow. We also face the risk of a serious nuclear accident in the most populated region of the province right over and next to the most important source of the region's drinking water.

More affordable, reliable and safer alternatives to nuclear exist. The Darlington refurbishment should be halted until the need for, alternatives to, and environmental effects of nuclear are fully and independently considered.

Thank you,
Terence C McCann
Holland Landing, ON

More nuclear at Darlington is the wrong move

Send a message to Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli to tell him that that nuclear is the wrong move.

Israeli Settlers Dump Sewage On Palestinian Land

This is simply wrong. It is also uncouth arrogance and the most effective way to promote conflict while others are praying sincerely for peace in the Middle East and for good relationships between Israel and its neighbours in particular. It is a successful way to retain the moral low ground. There are Israelis who feel even more strongly than I do about this. What is happening in the Middle East is certainly very complicated and I have no idea how it should best be resolved. I am certain, however, that this is not the way.

The saga reminds me of the behaviour of the British in India in Gandhi's time. Let me not get started on the South African apartheid analogy.

For the full faeces filled details of the contamination and stench click on this link to Open Zion in The Daily Beast.

Israeli settlers from Shavei Shomron have recently started dumping untreated sewage on the farmland in Sebastiya, a small Palestinian town in the West Bank just north of Nablus. Today, Sebastiya organized its first popular demonstration in 36 years specifically to draw attention to the issue of the sewage contaminating their lands.  Read full report here.

Photographs taken in the Shavei Shomron area. Once on the page search for "Shavei".

Credit http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=490815

It should be noted that, not only am I not anti-Jewish, which you might think from my comments above, but I am very sympathetic to the Jewish cause and am very proud to be associated by marriage with aid given to some Jews by my wife's family in Holland during World War II. There is a world of difference between being a critic and being an opponent.

Are Catholic Bibles Different from Protestant Bibles?

I bet you won't find this in any Protestant Bible, regardless of translation.

Proverbs 31:33-34
One thing I know, two things do I understand: it is knowledge which teaches us that tomatoes are a fruit from the Lord's hand; but it is by wisdom that we understand not to put tomatoes into fruit salad.

Weekend News from the Magalhaes-McCann's

I received this email from Luisa yesterday (Monday)

All is well here in Peterborough.  We had a fantastic weekend.

Friday night Mark went out drinking with friends, I cozied up with a chick flick and a bag of chips.

Jonty and Aunty Heather

Saturday we went to an outdoor carnival up on Armour Hill with Stephen and Heather, and Rob and MaryAnn met us there.

All mine

We arrived early enough for the Mayor's pancake breakfast, and stayed late enough to participate in Chilifest and enjoy some lunch.  There was so much for Jonty to do, sleigh ride, tobogganing, hockey, petting a pony.  His favorite:  climbing into the horse transport car to see the big pile of poo.  We had to go back 6 times... :-) 



Saturday night I had a night out with some friends.

Sunday we hung out, had friends over for lunch, and Stephen and Heather and Bob and Michelle and kids over for supper, and finished the night watching Allan Hawko--Republic of Doyle. With such a great weekend, its no wonder Jonty didn't want to go to Bethany's house this morning!