rivettingKateTaylor

Is leadership the new buzz word? Nope, it’s been around for a long long long time.

I have been working on stories all day, plus a 250km return trip in the middle plus the kids winter sports prizegiving complete with kids vs parents game of soccer (one-all and Lachlan got most improved for his team!) so that intro was the best I could come up with at short notice.

I am doing a feature at the moment for Young Country magazine about leadership – looking at everything on offer from Young Farmers and Federated Farmers courses through to Kellogg’s, FAME, Nuffield and the Executive Development Programme offered by Rabobank.

I am interviewing some pretty cool people – cool in that they are just like you and me, except they have great aspirations. So do I, actually, but they’re hidden under the pile of rubble on my desk at the moment, either that or I have already mixed them with chocolate and cream and they’re long gone….

One thing I wish I could learn is the art of delegation. Wonder if time management is part of the deal? Procrastination 101.

But for me, because I’m tired and I have to say what I want to say before I fall asleep on my keyboard (it’s 12.57am and I have officially just met one of four big deadlines for the month).. um, where was I.

I am also writing stories for the Hawkes’ Bay Regional Council’s next newsletter and a DominionPost ram feature, among other tasks. One of the reasons I am up so late is because life doesn’t stop when you have deadlines and you are self employed (and you’re selfish and still do everything you want to do).

In other words, I went to school camp last week, went to my netball club’s prizegiving on Saturday and played in the Harris Cup shootout at golf on Sunday. A W E S O M E ! All of it.

Last year I was the top qualifier for Harris Cup and got knocked out on the first hole (you start with a group and the bottom one drops off each hole until there are only two left on the last hole) but this year, I made it to the fourth hole. Look out next year. I might even keep them all in bounds… on the fairway… close enough to two putt.

The netball trip was wall climbing in Ahuriri (cut short because the van overheated on the way there….)   and then Laserforce. You have to give this a go. It is the most adult fun I have had fully dressed and sober 🙂 for a long time ( I was the driver).  You put these little suits of armour over your shoulders and go into this darkened maze with strobe lights and funky music and shoot laser beams at people. You gotta love it.  It was a good thing the van overheated outside pubs on the way home though aye.

And last week’s camp. Talk about leadership. How to hold your tongue on numerous occasions when you want to tell lovely little 10 year olds they’re being dumb, but also, how to allow your eyes to shine with pride when you see them doing something they said they couldn’t do (before you pushed them).

The coolest thing was walking as a group down the road one night, then the teacher taking all the torches and getting the kids to walk back along the road to camp in the dark. Sounds basic to country kids (can’t tell you how many times I have made my kids do their farm chores in the dark when they’ve neglected to do them on time!) but some of these children have never seen the stars without a street light.

In fact, one 10-year-old boy asked me on the way up to Wakarara (west of Ongaonga off SH5 under the Ruahine Range) if the animals in the paddock were boy cows or girl cows. I thought I held my sarcastic streak in check well!

We also took compasses into the swamp at Triplex Hut and instead of walking around the loop track we crossed in the middle of it, keeping to the same bearing.  Muddy!  I always knew how to find north but I couldn’t remember anything else (I wonder what else I was thinking about in  my girl guide days?)

My favourite part of the camp was building the fires and cooking our own sausage, damper and then a banana with chocolate chips and marshmellow pieces inside. Seriously yummy and seriously fun.

So. My first camp as a grownup. I have technically been to Camp Wakarara before as a grownup but I was on Young Farmers weekends so they don’t really count.  I even whistled the National Athem in Camp Idol.

Sad.

Goodnight. 1.11am. That took 14 minutes. Do I tell a good yarn when I’m tired? I’ll tell you in the morning when I read it with fresh eyes. Laugh at it or delete it. One of the two.