Please visit the Cape Town gallery to view photos of the functions listed below.
Strategy Workshop
Date: 26 May 2010
Venue: PricewaterhouseCoopers
Reviewed by: Claudia Brandt
Claudia Brandt is a personal life coach with a strong business background specialising in coaching women in business. Check out her website at www.brandt-coaching.co.za
Is your ladder leaning against the wrong wall?
It's incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity, in the busy-ness of life, to work harder and harder and climb the ladder of success only to discover it is leaning against the wrong wall. It is possible to be busy – very busy – without being effective.
Brian of Afriversity used this quote by Stephen Covey early on in our workshop on strategy development and in a sense this was what the workshop was about for many of us: Where am I heading with my business? And is my busy-ness effective?
These can be scary questions and many of us like to leave them lurking in the dark and just get on with all the other tasks that seem so much more pressing. However, it was a relief to tackle these questions with Brian. Not only is he very knowledgeable on the subjects of strategies and entrepreneurship. But he also eased us into the workshop with his humor, relaxed facilitation style and his many illustrative anecdotes and helpful cribs.
Brian introduced us to the two very basic types of business: the lifestyle business and the business as asset for future harvesting. And surprisingly we had a lot of discussion right there. We talked about the thrills and toils of entrepreneurship. Some of us confessed that they do not like to handle staff and management issues but rather run a very small business and concentrate on their product or service. Others were running a bigger company and had questions around exit strategies, crisis and finance management. It is the size of business that basically determines which type of ladder you are busy climbing and what your daily work consists of. You need to make a conscious choice right here.
And this is the point we came back to often during the workshop: Know yourself and build your business from there. In order to be a successful entrepreneur in any kind of business you need passion, perseverence and motivation. These are sourced from your strengths, needs and wants. Concentrate on what you are good at. As an entrepreneur you get the chance to build a business – every single aspect of it - around yourself. Isn't that a liberating thought? I think it can make strategy planning an exciting challenge.
Brian very generously left us with a lot of material and food for thought on how to develop a strategy. What I enjoyed most were the passionate discussions we had, the questions that were asked and the insights we shared. Thank you to all the courageous entrepreneurs who participated and thank you, Brian.
Afriversity is a not-for-profit organisation founded to train, support and assist promising entrepreneurs. Brian runs regular courses to train entrepreneurs. Check out his website at www.afriversity.org
GET THE CAMEL OUT YOUR TENT
Date: 29 May 2010
Reviewd by: Claire McTaggart - RECRO Business Consulting
Get the camel out of your tent is an intriguing title for a talk about procrastination, which was well put together by Tracey Foulkes of Get Organised for the Business Women’s Association.
Many of us, including myself, a self-proclaimed expert procrastinator, were eager to hear any tips for overcoming this seemingly common problem. Tracey used the analogy of the camel getting into ones tent as what happens to all to many of us letting the clutter and unfinished tasks pile up which leaves us eventually literally sleeping out in the cold, not using all our furniture for its intended purpose, and in a similar case – my sister was actually sharing her single bed with a number of her medical textbooks at one stage!
Tracey explained that procrastination is either behavioural or decisional and largely self-sabotaging, we all know the feeling of something hanging over us waiting to be done. She went into the three top reasons that it occurs being fear of failure, success or finishing; misaligned priorities, leading to non-commitment and the perfectionist habit among us of gathering more & more information resulting in avoiding the decision; and also being so overwhelmed by the task that we get stuck in our concern over possible failure and disappointment. The payoff of procrastination is that we can blame someone/something else (usually time/boss etc) instead of taking responsibility and looking at ourselves. I’m sure we can all relate to more than one of these and apply these in our lives right now.
Perhaps the most helpful section of the talk was the tips for overcoming procrastination, which Tracey is an expert at assisting people on including visualisation of the end result and how one will feel when the task is completed; brainstorming the project & breaking it into bite-sized chunks; making a public commitment or holding yourself accountable to someone else; committing to just 10 minutes of the project (often starting is the hardest); realising that not all tasks need 100% effort some tasks only need 70%, leaving one with more energy for the 100% required tasks; tossing a coin for menial decisions which seem waste time; getting someone else to help one with the bigger picture and focusing on the end result not on the ‘how to’ details.
We all gained a lot of valuable insight from the discussion and left another Business Women’s Association event feeling inspired, motivated and with a little bit more perspective on getting over procrastination and getting on with living a freer life.
Thank you to Cheryl for organising & Tracey for the informative talk.
RBAA Gala Dinner
Date: 13 May 2010
Reviewed by: Phumeza Mgxashe
BWA in Western Cape honours top achievers
The annual BWA’s Regional Business Achiever Awards (RBAA) gala dinner, held on Thursday, 13 May 2010, lived up to its reputation for glitz and glamour as the top women achievers in the Cape were honoured. The delightful hosts of the function, namely, Nina Joubert, chair of the BWA in the Western Cape and Sumaya Adam, Head of Business Banking at Nedbank, pointed out that it was a special night for the BWA in the Western Cape as this was a 10th consecutive annual awards function.
An array of phenomenal women had been nominated; by family, friends and business associates; in the entrepreneur, professional, emerging entrepreneur, corporate and social entrepreneur categories. The night was the finale after an intense judging process that included an interview with an equally accomplished judging panel.
The judges, Ryland Fisher (author and former Cape Times Editor); Aden Thomas (breakfast host for CapeTalk); Yvonne Finch (past Vice-President of the BWA and convener of the judges); Carol Bouwer (TV personality and businesswoman), Julia Fourie (HBD Venture Capitalists), Ferose Oaten (Businesswoman and Vice-President of the BWA) and Anita Stemmet (PriceWaterhouseCoopers); all spoke about how daunting and challenging it was to pick a winner for each category and all felt humbled and privileged to have been part of the process.
The winners on the night were:
Corporate Category:
Ariella Kuper
Head of New Business Development
Director
Auction Alliance
Professional Category:
Elaine Rumboll
HOD Executive Education
Graduate School of Business
UCT
Entrepreneur Category:
Tracy Foulkes
Founder and Managing Director
NoMU Brands (Pty) Ltd
Emerging Entrepreneur Category:
Helga Steyn
Oaktree Marketing Solutions
Social Entrepreneur Category:
Ester Watson
Gender/Disability Coordinator
George Municipality
Also, on the night, Kim Baxen, a post graduate Tourism studies student at UCT was awarded the annual BWA bursary to further her studies. The BWA in the Western Cape also managed the raise over R19 000 towards a bursary for 2011, through a raffle ticket sale and an auction of a lunch with two prominent Cape personalities and RBAA judges, Aden Thomas and Julia Fourie and a big thank you to BWA members, Rowena Hey and Thando Takane who kept the auction going to the point where R4100 was raised. Rowena Hey, previous winner of the RBAA Entrepreneur category, promised to report back to the BWA on the lunch.
The annual gala function was at recently-opened and exquisite Crystal Towers Hotel in Century City which proved a perfect venue that warmed up the 200 guests on a cold and wet Cape winter night.
BOOK CLUB
Date: 6 May 2010
Reviewed by: Phumeza Mgxashe
Great conversation, lively debate, wine, delicious snacks, cross-cultural interaction and ….books
The BWA Book Club held its monthly meeting on a chilly winter evening on the 6th of May 2010 in its usual joint at Lion’s Kloof guest house in Higgovale.
Once the pleasantries of greetings and orders of the first round of drinks out of the way, the Book Club travelled down memory lane recalling the days of meetings packed with members and guests.
It was then that a re-branding plan was hatched and am pleased that the BWA Book Club will revamp itself in order to increase attendance at its meetings. Many ideas were brainstormed and the club is ready to re-launch itself. Watch this space.
Later in the evening, the business of books was the order of the day. It was quite pleasing that “Something on my mind” the biography on the life of Kate Jowell, now has a few fans and people keen to read it after the a different light was shed on it.
Paulo Coelho remains a big hit with the Book Club as a favourite author, and perhaps he should honour the Club by coming to Cape Town to spend time with the members. Better still, he could pay for all of us to visit his homeland of Brazil.
I would really encourage anyone who feels the need for relaxed networking, cross-cultural interaction, lively debate and is prepared to gain different perspectives on the big and small life issues, to pay the Book Club a visit.
The next book club meeting will be held at the same place on Thursday, 3 June 2010. We look forward to seeing you.
On the Couch with Kader Asmal
Date: 15 April 2010
Reviewed by: Phumeza Mgxashe
Kader Asmal – cricket, thrillers, SA politics, Ireland and more…
On a cold autumn Thursday evening in Cape Town, Professor Kader Asmal warmed up BWA members with tales about Ireland, academia, thrillers, politics and neighbourliness.
Never the one to shy away from expressing his take and views on a variety of topical and current affairs in South Africa and Cape Town, accompanied by his wife Louise, Asmal talked about his childhood in the rural town of Stanger in KwaZulu Natal, his interactions with his mentor, the Nobel Prize winning Chief Albert Luthuli and the years spent in academia in Ireland. In fact, he says had 1990 not happened he would still he would still be in Ireland.
As one of the brains behind the South African constitution, he holds it in high regard calling it the best guarantee for the future for our grandchildren. He went on to point out groundbreaking developments in South Africa including the fact that the country has a homosexual, HIV positive, white male judge serving in the highest court in the land and also the fact that we have a High Court judge who is openly gay who had instituted and won a legal challenge to certain aspects of the law that discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation. “We have 14 million people who are able to access social grants and in the old order, these people would be languishing in poverty,” he added.
When asked about the enormity of the problems in our education system, he cited the fact that in 1994, the government had to integrate 18 apartheid era government departments of Education. He said that to this day, the country has not been able to achieve a national school ethos catering to all communities.
Interestingly, Professor Asmal regards himself as a private person and says “the time spent in exile was not a sacrifice but necessary because both my marriage and membership of the ANC meant that I was involved in illegal activity”.
His interests are cricket and reading thrillers, newspapers, especially the Irish Independent which he says on average boasts four pages of book reviews, quipping that in most SA newspapers, one could argue that the book review section is regarded as the “kindergarten” section.
He bemoaned the lack of social cohesion, especially in Cape Town, which he said was largely due to the apartheid spatial geography. “We live in silos and have very few opportunities for social interaction,” he stressed.
Having moved town and country means that he has lost touch with many of his friends as he acknowledged that friendship depends on regular social contact.
His closing remarks were “Do good by stealth” and encouraged BWA members and guests to seek opportunities for racial integration as this will yield collective good.
WRITE RIGHT
Date: Thursday, 18 March 2010
Reviewd by: Junita Duncan
A fun filled, interactive evening where a diverse group of business woman got together for an interesting talk delivered by Deborah Glover from Business Presentation Group to "WRITE RIGHT".
Since 2000 Deborah is a valued member of a team of facilitators with BPG, her key area of expertise being Communication skills. She draws on her experience as a Speech and Voice Teacher.
The discussion started on a good opening note with Deborah’s high energy and great sense of humour. Everyone interacted, discussed and voiced their opinions on different writing skills / techniques.
This interesting debate created:
- silence as we all were glued to our seats and listened attentively
- learning at the same time
- laughter while we compared old fashioned writing styles to more modern way of writing
She concluded that writing should:
- be simple
- use familiar words
- use short / clear sentences
- get to the point
CAPE TOWN AGM
Date: Monday, 1 March 2010
Reviewed by: Phumeza Mgxashe
BWA branch in Cape Town gathers for the 2010 AGM.
The BWA Cape Town branch held its AGM on Monday, 1 March 2010 at Atlantic Imbizo at the V&A Waterfront.
There was an impressive turn-out of 45 members and with 12 proxy votes, sent by some of those who could not make it; a quorum was declared the AGM proceeded.
Both the minutes of the previous AGM and Treasurer’s reports were tabled and adopted. The outgoing Chair, Ferose Oaten, tabled the Chairlady’s report detailing activities and programmes embarked on in 2009.
Ferose Oaten who has chaired the Cape Town branch for three years and is also Vice-President of the BWA, announced that she will be stepping down at the next Committee meeting. She said she will continue to serve on the Committee and will still oversee the Regional Business Achiever Awards process and event, a flagship of the organization.
Ferose was given a standing ovation by the meeting delegates and was thanked by Nina Joubert, currently vice chair of the Cape Town branch, for her leadership and dedication.
Upon the completion of the AGM, the meeting was then addressed by international speaker Vanessa Hall, the Founder and Director of Entente Pty Limited, Australia. Ms Hall spoke about trust, which she defined as our ability to rely on a product /person /organization/people to deliver a specific outcome. She went on to present a model on trust that has been seen by over 300 psychologists globally. She mentioned that she’d surveyed over 600 Australian on the subject of trust before coming up with the model.
Judging by the impromptu conversations on the subject after the presentation, one could tell that Ms Hall had struck a chord and had managed to capture her audience on what most people would have assumed was a routine and almost boring topic.
Ms Hall is an award winning author, speaker and advisor to business leaders and individuals alike. Her business and personal experience has ignited an unstoppable passion that has made her an outstanding entrepreneur and globally recognised thought leader on trust. Ms Hall’s award winning book, The Truth About Trust in Business, has set a new standard as to how any successful business should be operated.
BWA BUSINESS SPEED DATING
Date: Friday, 12 February 2010
Reviewed by: Lizelle Louw of Conference Complete
The thought of speed dating makes most women break out in a cold sweat, butterflies suddenly appear in our stomachs and our insecurities become detectable. As a newcomer to the world of Business Speed Dating the anticipation of the day had the same averse effect on my physical form.
How very wrong I was. I walked in to find a diverse group of woman energetically exchanging ideas, sharing their experiences and showing a genuine interested in each others growing businesses. As a young business woman I found the warm welcome of more experienced woman inviting and reassuring.
My objective for this session was to network with every person at the event. The Business Speed Dating activity ensured that this goal was met. I did not only meet potential business acquaintances but also met woman that would be able to enrich my life on a personal level.
This event was well organized, informative and exciting. I look forward to future BWA Business Speed Dating events!