CTC Meeting in Texas

I had an incredibly exhausting but also very inspiring weekend in Austin, Texas! The trip down was the red-eye of all red-eye flights... leaving 6:30pm from Vancouver, I arrived in Austin at 8:15 am after stops in LA and Houston. The whole weekend was spent battling exhaustion...

But the amazing group of people at CTC were enough to reinspire me. I was amazed and inspired by the passion of this small group of people who have worked hard to build an organisation out of their desire to work in solidarity with a community in Kenya - Maai Mahiu.

Immediately upon returning, I took my Leadership 12 students today to visit two amazing people. Rex Weyler was the founder of Greenpeace; a fascinating man, he welcomed myself, another teacher, and my 14 students into his home and entertained us with stories, advice, anecdotes... he focused on the challenge of "how does an organisation sustain creativity?" He also talked of the importance of having FUN - without fun, an activity is just not sustainable.

We then met Sam Sullivan, the outgoing mayor of Vancouver. In his last 2 weeks of office, he is frustrated at having been unable to run as mayor again this term. He passed on some interesting gems, though - and I quite appreciated his sense of humour. He spoke long and eloquently of the importance of a strong civil service.

The common thread here seemed to be the significance of non-governmental bodies in leading the change of the future. An apt conclusion, after a weekend spent with CTC!