Showing posts with label Tree Hugging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tree Hugging. Show all posts
Friday, June 13, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Graeme Codrington and Hannah's rules
I had a very strange experience on thursday night last week. Kim and Laurel invited me to go and see Graeme Codrington talk at a charity fund raiser which, having no idea of who exactly he was, landed me in the Rosebank Union church. I haven't been in a church for a good many years now and it was quite strange to be back but in some ways, it was like I had never been away. The manner of the MC and the analogies and stories that he used were old 15 years ago, it was a bit like being in a time warp.
We had just sat down and there was "Hello Roland" from the row behind from someone that, although I recognised the face, for the life of me I couldn't remember a name. If I looked to the left and the right, there were people I knew so not only did the topics remain static but the people seem to have been pretty static as well.
The speech entitled "Hannah's Rules" by Graeme Codrington was quite good in the way he packaged the message that he was trying to get across. There wasn't anything really new in what he said and I really hope it wasn't news to the majority of people in the audience but it was nicely put together and every little bit of exposure helps. Hannah's rules comes from graeme's daughter who, although young, is already concerned with the environment and the ethics of people who damage the environment and she is just typical of the new generation of consumers and employees. If you, as a business person, want to remain in business in the coming years you need to recognise that the people you are going to be employing and selling your goods and services to are going to hold you to a different ethical scale to the one that you are used to. Be prepared for them or be irrelevant. Even better, being prepared for them can actually save you money in the here and now.
At least it was for a good cause at least - I think!
We had just sat down and there was "Hello Roland" from the row behind from someone that, although I recognised the face, for the life of me I couldn't remember a name. If I looked to the left and the right, there were people I knew so not only did the topics remain static but the people seem to have been pretty static as well.
The speech entitled "Hannah's Rules" by Graeme Codrington was quite good in the way he packaged the message that he was trying to get across. There wasn't anything really new in what he said and I really hope it wasn't news to the majority of people in the audience but it was nicely put together and every little bit of exposure helps. Hannah's rules comes from graeme's daughter who, although young, is already concerned with the environment and the ethics of people who damage the environment and she is just typical of the new generation of consumers and employees. If you, as a business person, want to remain in business in the coming years you need to recognise that the people you are going to be employing and selling your goods and services to are going to hold you to a different ethical scale to the one that you are used to. Be prepared for them or be irrelevant. Even better, being prepared for them can actually save you money in the here and now.
At least it was for a good cause at least - I think!
Thursday, August 02, 2007
FishMS
Ventures, they say, are only 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration so naturally I, like everyone else, wants to be doing the 5% rather than the 95%. About a year ago, I was sitting in a fish shop in Rosebank mall on my own (because Caron was overseas) ordering supper and I had never heard of the line fish. Being quite keen not to deplete fish stocks to the level of extinction and having read an article by SASSI I was quite keen on following their list but I simply can't remember 10 things by rote let alone 20 or 30. Sitting there cursing my memory, or lack thereof, it occurred to me that it would be really cool if I could just SMS the name of the fish to a number and it would send me the information. Hence was born FishMS of which I can claim only two things, the original idea and the name - everything else which as I have mentioned is the 95%, belongs to Tony and Barry as well as SASSI. Tony for the actual development work which wasn't trivial as well as operational responsiblity and Barry for financing, philosophical backing and encouragement and finally SASSI who have done and continue to do an excellent job of the publicity.
Tony came through the other day with an arbitrary magazine with some recipes in the back. One of the recipes was for fish and next to the recipe were suggested altenatives to the one in the actual recipe since it happened to be an orange category fish. In addition, the FishMS number was shown with a brief description of what to do to check whether the fish you are buying is endangered or not. Seeing this, and I don't think SASSI had anything to do with it, was really one of those warm fuzzy moments when one briefly feels that the little people in the world really can make a difference.
FishMS has now had numerous articles in quite a diverse number of publications and there is even a movie about it which actually won an award of some sort. You can check it out on youtube at FishMS
Tony came through the other day with an arbitrary magazine with some recipes in the back. One of the recipes was for fish and next to the recipe were suggested altenatives to the one in the actual recipe since it happened to be an orange category fish. In addition, the FishMS number was shown with a brief description of what to do to check whether the fish you are buying is endangered or not. Seeing this, and I don't think SASSI had anything to do with it, was really one of those warm fuzzy moments when one briefly feels that the little people in the world really can make a difference.
FishMS has now had numerous articles in quite a diverse number of publications and there is even a movie about it which actually won an award of some sort. You can check it out on youtube at FishMS
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Bachelordom strikes again
Every time Caron goes away we play out this little game where she does the dutiful wife thingy and makes sure that there is enough in the refrigerator to keep me hale and hearty until she returns. The problem is that I don't really know how to cook outside of braaing and even worse, after a day at work, I have absolutely no inclination to start learning. So, while I have a refrigerator full or raw ingredients, I have no skills to convert this into edible food so I tend to do what all intelligent people do when faced with something they don't know how to do - they outsource it. In this context this means that I have been out to a restaurant every night this weekend except thursday when I went for supper at Kim and Laurels. As a result of this I am feeling like I have put on a couple of kilograms, actually I have put on a couple of kilograms so I think that I need to get back to exercising. In addition to not eating very well I haven't managed to cycle or run once this week principally due to work committments.
On friday I went out for lunch to the Ocean Basket which is a chain of fish centric restaurants and when I asked what the line fish was I was told that it was a "Cardinal" which I promptly looked up on FISHMS (+27 79 499 8795) only to be told that there is no such thing as a "Cardinal" fish. When challenged on the actual origins of the fish because it could possibly be imported the waiter and then the manager got vaguer and vaguer assuring us that "it was like Kablejou" and the real clanger for the conversation was when we were told that it comes from the west coast of Mozambique. A cardinal error since Mozambique does not have a west coast. In the end the manager brought up his fish list which didn't have it on it and even a search on the internet by the manager didn't locate the elusive fish. Must be very rare, we're so lucky to actually have the opportunity of eating it. Not.
Back at the office we contacted SASSI who knew of a "Cardinal" but it is an aquarium fish which means that we would need about 20 of them to make a decent meal. It is looking highly probable that the Ocean Basket has just unilaterally renamed a fish, problably with the express purpose of avoiding awkward questions as to why they are serving fish that isn't on the approved green list of fish which can be caught in a sustainable and renewable manner. Definitely smells a bit fishy to me. :-) More on this when a response from Ocean Basket is received.
On friday I went out for lunch to the Ocean Basket which is a chain of fish centric restaurants and when I asked what the line fish was I was told that it was a "Cardinal" which I promptly looked up on FISHMS (+27 79 499 8795) only to be told that there is no such thing as a "Cardinal" fish. When challenged on the actual origins of the fish because it could possibly be imported the waiter and then the manager got vaguer and vaguer assuring us that "it was like Kablejou" and the real clanger for the conversation was when we were told that it comes from the west coast of Mozambique. A cardinal error since Mozambique does not have a west coast. In the end the manager brought up his fish list which didn't have it on it and even a search on the internet by the manager didn't locate the elusive fish. Must be very rare, we're so lucky to actually have the opportunity of eating it. Not.
Back at the office we contacted SASSI who knew of a "Cardinal" but it is an aquarium fish which means that we would need about 20 of them to make a decent meal. It is looking highly probable that the Ocean Basket has just unilaterally renamed a fish, problably with the express purpose of avoiding awkward questions as to why they are serving fish that isn't on the approved green list of fish which can be caught in a sustainable and renewable manner. Definitely smells a bit fishy to me. :-) More on this when a response from Ocean Basket is received.
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