Year end message 2013
It’s the end of another year and as usual we look back and calculate successes and losses, what was the worst moment in 2013 – what was the best? Did we come out on top?
Much happened country-wide and globally that directly had an influence on our business, political and social environment. For us it was not in the least the upheaval in Ayliff Street. This was a year earmarked by a slow moving economy, political intolerance, anger amongst all and personal anxiety. We experienced high levels of stress which slowly carved into our pleasure, hard work and energy levels.
Building and keeping a solid business is never easy, it takes team work and each and every person’s passion, dedication and sometimes plain stubbornness. Forgiveness too, because we are all human so we all make mistakes.
My thanks go to the whole team but especially to John and George who have carried the load with me every step of the way. Moving equipment and furniture over 2 planks, setting up office in the dining room amongst a whole lot of junk and general chaos. It was all-consuming, exciting and exhausting, so much so, that we forgot the co’s birthday this year, we are 14 years old!
So now, this is a time to pause & reflect – was it worth it??
The answer is, ABSOLUTELY!
We have a lot to be thankful for, we can celebrate brilliant achievements, here are some milestones
- Primary Schools went up from 11 to 23
- Teachers training sessions twice this year
- 2 homeschoolers on hsc
- Grade R released in May
- eRand stopped and Amajuba Ed Centre in Madadeni came on board
- Bangizwe started satellite in umkhanyakude
- Office Migration courses for FET college (total of 34 Lecturers)
- Donated a course to spca
- Mitton launched NC IT prof forum – inaugural meeting at our centre
- Other graduation in Flamingo street
- Stucky carried on with staff training NC + VR and migrated to Googledocs/gmail with support of our capable mentors
- New GCP manual
- Fundamentals in Zulu version
- Income / expenses dbase
- Schools dbase
I did 16 audits and called on 51schools to market our curriculum
Distributed newsletters to hundreds schools pigeon holes twice this year
Whole range of new blogs on our website
Tendered for DoE, ADM, NCM (1 for training, 1 for web) and FET College and didn’t win any of them
Trick is to stay positive – whatever the situation, there simply has to be a bright side. It’s that positive attitude that saw us through this difficult year and that will carry us to new heights in 2014!
Again a BIG THANK YOU!
(the parts in italics are quoted from the President of the Chamber’s year end speech)
