When busyness abates for a bit, I tend to get some reading done. Now after a few days I have a couple or three books on the go. I have chosen some that may relate to the projects on which I am working. Yesterday, went to the local public library and borrowed some books on ooms card.
One is Mission Inc. the practitioner’s guide to social enterprise by Kevin Lynch and Julius Walls Jr.
The book is written by two leaders in social enterprises. At times it is clear that they are not writers, but they do deal with their topic simply and with clearly explained ideas. They discuss 10 paradoxes of social enterprise giving them pithy titles that often have the word versus in them, such as “Do-Gooders Versus Good Doers,” “Sweat Equity Versus Blood Equity,” and “Doing Good Versus Doing Well.”
I am only a few chapters in, but here are a few choice pieces.
The lines between for-profit and not-for-profit businesses are blurring as a pragmatic new generation of entrepreneurs, investors, and philanthropists comes onto the scene determined to use the tools of business to address the urgent need for action to combat economic injustice and environmental damage.
[...]
Today, fifty-one of the world’s hundred largest economies are corporations. The vision evoked by the very title of David Korten’s seminal book, When Corporations Rule the World, has apparently already come true.
[...]
So, what if we put the power of business in the hands of people who think differently?
[...]
What if profit were not the point of business but the means by which the point of a better world were achieved?
— Mission Inc. the practitioner’s guide to social enterprise
I stood inside the funeral home on King Street Wednesday afternoon. I was at the entrance looking out at the cars speeding by, the sun shining and birds feeding on the berries outside the windows.
Inside things weren’t moving so quickly. People walked slowly into the chapel. Many bowed their heads or people talked in soft tones. Chas Mugford had died three days earlier and we were there to remember him.
I was there with Magda. We had seen Peter and Tyrone on the way in. While I stood there looking out at the world, Owen and Nino walked by. I hugged each of them. Roisin and Bartek came in. I saw many other people I knew.
Men from the funeral home gently asked whether we would want to sit in individual seats. We could also go into a back room and watch the service on closed-circuit television.
I preferred to stand with my friends at the back. I opened the door for people coming in and I would see everything happen directly. Just before the service started, though, they told us that a row being saved for the family wasn’t filled and we sat down.
A minister who knew both Chas in Orillia and knew his wife Alli led the memorial. Chas’s friend Shona spoke. Steve spoke too, he told some good stories. Then the Mugford family went up. His sister Adele spoke and the dad Chuck said a few words.
There were quotations from David Suzuki and from Einstein. People told stories of Chas’s handiness, his curiosity about physics and the universe, and his love for his daughter, little Ella.
I was roommates with Chas and four other guys on Helene in Waterloo. I thought Chas was made naturally a family man and was made to be a father. He was always talking about interesting things and related well to people.
After the service we milled around and talked for a bit. Then Magda and I went to the bank to put a little in for Ella’s education fund. Then we went to the Grad House for the gathering.
We showed some of Chas’s relatives from C-lot to the old Schweitzer farm house pub on the hill.
Inside we talked to Jan K, and James and Bick. Up on the patio we joined a circle with Steve, Roisin and Bartek, Peter, Kevin, Howie and Irene, and a few others. Later I had to go, so I said hi and bye, to Nat, Hugh, Steve, Katie, Peter W., and Owen. Then we went inside to see Alli and Ella.
Then we went home. Then I was driving back by myself with the wind blowing in the windows, the sun shining on the clouds and the blue sky and I cried.
We won our match against Phoenix yesterday to keep our spot in the premier league next year.
Our captain, manager, and team proprietor was away, so Stu and Sal organized us. Also the assistant referees didn’t show up, so we didn’t have linesman.
We knew we needed the point to clinch our spot this early, so we knew the stakes. We started well, but did have lapses.
Brent in the net kept us in it all game talking to us, keeping morale, and, most of all, keeping the ball out of the net.
We had a few lapses as they put long passes in and got a few breaks, but Brent got them or we cleared them.
There were quite a few divers on the team. At one point I was defending against at the left edge of the penalty box and he dropped to the ground in a simulation, pushing the ball out of bounds in the process. I can’t imagine giving up a chance to shoot for a goal honourably, to cheat and go for a penalty kick, but that’s what he did.
Chad hit the net later in the first half to pull us ahead and it was 1-0 at the half.
We got two more in the second to make it 3-0.
At one point a guy complained about “Canadian soccer.” Chad rejoined, “You mean the kind that is winning right now?”
