We had our first Footprint strat session yesterday.  It felt like breaking new ground to build a building or plant a tree.  We started to articulate the vision of what this new company can become!  My job is to start telling people what we’re busy with: so here is my first deliverable, Bilaal!  (Bilaal is helping to keep us honest and stick to deiverables and timelines)

Footprint is going to be a company that offers training at grassroots level: LSM1-5.  Our difference is that we will be able to offer it at the unbelievable price of R450 per day (or thereabouts)!  Ummm, that’s not per person, thats for the facilitator!  Period. So if you had 10 people in the room, it would cost you R45 per head!!!!!

At last, companies who couldn’t afford to train their blue-collar workers in basic life skills like managing their money and managing their health, because that kind of training has been too expensive to deliver nationwide, can now tap into our national training footprint and make it work!

Our offering: Only 2 courses to begin with - “Manage your Health”, and “Manage your Money”.  The course will be run with LSM 1-5 needs in mind.  Learning materials are picture-based, so there will be no language or literacy barriers.  Trainers will be sourced and enabled in local communities so the training will take place with local flavour and languages. We envisage building a team of over 1000 trainers nationwide to cover the nooks and crannies of South African enterprise.

We need: Some customers to start with!  Our programes will be very appropriate to support banks and financial institutions with their consumer education needs. Mines are also very involved in helping miners live healthy lives, and overcome the scourge of AIDS, TB, Heart disease and others.  Municipalities may be interested in talking to us about skills development and employment opportunities within their local areas.  There are many more spaces where companies have workers spread out across South Africa, and we would love to chat to them about how we can train their staff, or their consumers. (Getting a new customer is also on my list of deliverables with Bilaal - please help me or I’ll be in trouble again!)

We are in the process of planning our resourcing going forward: very soon, I’ll publish the roles we will be needing to recruit to.  So for those of you wanting to be part of this magical new company - dust off your CV!  It’s going to be a fantastic ride!  We’ll be building South Africa, one person at a time!

Now this is how you send out a ‘boundaries’ email, a la Hanli:

Hi All Avo’s,

Sadly, I am not going to see you at Kudo’s this morning, but just know that I am there in spirit and that I am sending you good vibrations for the weekend! At the moment SAB is an all-consuming beast and Anabela and I are doing our best not to get eaten alive. It’s important for us to know that you guys are there for us when we need some Avo-lurve…

Someone else who needs some of your Avo-lurve is Vanessa. She has been to deepest, darkest Africa on a gruelling training mission and sounds exhausted. At the same time I have been harassing her relentlessly about work, because we are in the middle of delivering a training development project for SAB that is as big and scary as the NCA project.

Vanessa asked me to make an announcement at Kudo’s this morning to say that for the next two weeks she will have to put her head down and finish the SAB training curriculum, because after that she’s off to Cape Town to go get hitched.

So, please the Avo’s, could you be mindful of that and keep meetings / issues / interruptions that are not life / death to a minimum?

As soon as she gets back from Cape Town next week, I am locking her into a high tower (like princess rapunzel!) and only after she has spun me enough golden thread will I let her out to marry prince Gareth.

Beware! I am the wicked witch!

Well Sego’s definitely earned her stripes!

She dived into the deep end and trained Negotiate!, her first course as an Avo trainer.

(We like to make sure you’re kept on your toes here don’t we?!)

She’s done an awesome job and has managed to knock the socks off the delegates in the process!

Check out some of the feedback she received:

You blew me over.

Change absolutely nothing, you inspire participation.

She is great and must just keep it up.

You are great, you went beyond my expectations.

Keep on being who you are; you are great.

Mind-blowing course.

Sego, take a well deserved bow!

So, in the interest of keeping our news fresh, current and relevant - we have to tell you about the latest scandal at Avo.

Let me set the scene:

There we were, in our cosy conference room, having our Kudos session (beaming at all the wonderful things we’ve done this week).

Jules (also known as the MD) pops out. One or two others pop out too and we can hear some people talking and wandering around in the background, but nonetheless the session and the beaming continue without a hitch.

Suddenly, Grant appears on the stairs and says “Just a message for the sales guys, Jules needs to postpone your meeting…”

Images of what could have gone wrong for this meeting to be postponed flash through our minds (okay, mine at least). (Oh no, please don’t let there be a disaster!).

And then he says “…cause she’s locked in the bathroom and the key’s broken!”.

And, ladies and gentleman, here’s the scandal:

The entire room bursts out laughing. In fact, some of us had to hold back the tears!

No “Is she alright? She isn’t claustrophobic is she?”.

Just full on laughter.

We then bounced around a few ideas, such as leaving her in there. Leaving her in there, with her phone. Leaving her in there, with her laptop.

But, alas, she escaped through the window! And she even has war wounds to prove it!

So, you know you’re day’s going to be alright when you can start it off by having a laugh at the MD stuck in the loo, wouldn’t you say?

Thanks for the entertainment Jules! (Even if it was unplanned…).