In one way the world is divided into three categories of people:
- those who who are effective in committees
- those who are not
- those who never join a committee in their life and are prone to say “an ass is a horse designed by a committee”.
Me? I guess over time I’ve progressed from the last position to somewhere in the middle. I have been moved to join committees on occasion, fired in the moment by some noble cause or other. But I have to confess it seldom lasts. Pretty soon I become bored with the contradictions, confusions, repetitions, inanities, inflated and self-serving personalities, petty politics and the sheer ineffectuality of it all.
I don’t think I’m a Jonah but few committees I’ve ever served on seem to go anywhere.
Unless I catch myself, I soon come down with a bad case of the “pearls before swine” or PBS syndrome and like Achilles, retire to my tent. Or I can revert to an adolescent attitude of general subversion, where I start amusing myself by ad hominem comments or teasing the more awful of my co-committee members and co-opting any kindred spirits present to do the same. I am not proud of my wretched shadow and do struggle to come to terms with it.
That is why I am lost in awe and admiration at those few people who actually can and do manage to work effectively through committees and combine the necessary skills and strength of character that can bring a group of men and women together to achieve a common and worthy goal.
We are not talking alpha males here, bulldozing their way to solitary non-achievement or those strange grey neutered denizens of the murk, who thrive in the thickets and formalities of communal endeavour and vernacular.
You know who you are, and if you’re not sure, e.mail me......
No, I mean those men and women of goodwill and expanded self-interest that are driven to seek the greater good, who combine the necessary vision and steel to produce a desired result, along with the tact, patience and humility to inspire their less endowed brothers and sisters to put aside their personal considerations and stick with it long enough to achieve a common end.
There are too, those who are simply not built for collaborative effort and do not have the stomach for committee work but who nevertheless care deeply and who, through their own individual action, make an enormous contribution to the common good.
Such people are rare and we should treasure them.
Then there are those good folk who work through fellowship organisations like the various Round Tables of Bali.
2 Kliks of Clean Beach
In terms of trash, 25 years ago I guess Bali was pretty much a pristine paradise. We weren’t strangling ourselves and the environment in a foul gunk of plastic bags and Big Mac containers. It was still a bio-degradable world and our numbers were fewer. The amount of untreated sewage and other waste flowing down our rivers into the sea was something with which nature could cope.
How quickly that can change!
Hats off then to the “Clean Seminyak - Petitenget Program” for taking collective and effective action to keep two kilometres of continuous beach free of trash and debris.
In November last year 5 hotels and 2 restaurants on the beach got together to set up a program committed to doing whatever it took to keep 2 km of beach from Gado Gado at the Seminyak end to the temple at Petitenget, clean on a daily and permanent basis.
This is an area of numerous stylish homes, restaurants and more than 50 hotels. So why are only two restaurants and five hotels coming to the party?
Don’t they understand that if you’re up to your epiglottis in garbage you ain’t going to be that stylish for long?
Well to be fair, many of them do know this and some have long been scrupulous about cleaning up directly in front of their own properties. That’s good, so far as it goes, but what about all those folk who can’t or won’t? You end up with a patchwork of clean and filthy and as we all know, filth travels - so pretty soon the whole area looks a mess. That’s why collective action is necessary, even if the freeloaders do get a free ride.
The original seven stakeholders who started the program each undertook to put up Rp 2.5m per month or Rp 300m per annum with 30% of that to come from other interested parties in the Seminyak-Petitenget area. The objectives were not only to keep the entire beach clean on an ongoing basis but to monitor the quality of the ocean water and improve the safety for those enjoying the beach and to increase public and local community awareness and participation in the area’s environmental management.
After six months the program is only now really starting to function as it should. It seems it does take that long for any collaborative effort to get under way. There is always much to organise. Employees and fence sitters usually need that long to make up their minds which way the wind is blowing and work out if they really need to get up off their butts. Or, if after a decent interval it will all go away, as so many of these good ideas so often do.
Kudos then to motivators-in-chief Hansjorg Meier of The Legian, a relative newcomer to Bali and who really put the fire into the program, and to Kamal Kaul of The Oberoi, who has of course been here forever. Kudos too, to Made Wiranatha for signing up twice for Gado Gado and Ku de Ta, when he could have gotten away with one corporate payment.
The stakeholders in the program and who are to be congratulated for having the wit to engage in such an act of expanded self-interest and public spirit are :
Bali Imperial Hotel, Gado Gado, Kudeta, The Legian, The Oberoi, Resor Seminyak, and Santika Villas. They are ably assisted in their aims by the NGO, Bali Fokus.
Bearing in mind that 30% of the annual operating revenue is still being looked for from others in the area there is a Non-active Member category, who can express their support by subscribing Rp 400,000 per month. Honourable mention then goes to the following, many of whom are not even on the beach but have the moxy to know that the commercial and ecological health of the area are somehow connected:
Cafe Warisan, The Dusun, Hu’u Bar, Living Room, Pelangi Hotel, and Trattoria.
Good on yer, boys! The rest of you go and eat at these joints immediately.
There is much being done and much remaining to be done. Staff and supervisors being hired; collection, sorting and removal matters to be attended to; education and local community relations to be enhanced; a start made monitoring the safety of the seawater and (who knows? one day?) doing something to get local business and the powers-that-be to do something about the stuff that makes the water unsafe in the first place......
So live or run a business in the Seminyak-Petitenget area and if you are fortunate enough that the personable and beauteous Tomoka should come your way, you should do the right thing....... AND SIGN UP!
Conspicuous by their absence from this program is that well-known and much improved hostelry, La Lucciola. This is not (I would like to think - wouldn’t you?) that the owners and management of the place are congenitally stingy or are ecological retards. No, no, let’s give them the benefit of any doubt as I’m sure they take care of their patch of beach and wouldn’t leave it to others......... Maybe they are a just a tad sceptical of collective action? They may have a point, but in this case........C’mon guys! Time to get with the program.........
Hint for any businesses seeking to do something similar. It seems the trick to maintaining a head of steam is to meet weekly and for senior management to put their presence where their mouth is by attending themselves; and, ensuring at least two other members of staff are required to attend so the whole program doesn’t get blown away by the wind as people are away from Bali on business.
For further info on the “Clean Seminyak-Petitenget” program contact: Bali Fokus : 759 610, e-mail <clean-seminyak@ yahoogroups.com».
Those Who have Gone Before.......
All this good stuff is not to say these are the only good guys on the plot. I have heard of several other groups in other parts of the island, other beaches, other hill towns where people are coming together to protect and restore our environment. Much of it long-term and often unremarked. My co-columnist Ibu Kat, whose pencil I am unworthy to sharpen, in our last issue writes of the giant progress being made by various individuals and organisations with the clean-up of Ubud.
And, I am reminded that two years ago or so there was another big campaign about cleaning-up Bali. What I wondered (bearing in mind - if it ain’t sustainable, it ain’t worth squat) had happened to that, now all the hoo-ha had died down? At that time, if you recall, there was a massive Clean-Up Bali campaign lasting many months co-inciding with the “Clean-up-the-World” campaign. The motivating force and organisation behind this magnificent effort had come from those true power-houses of good works and the nicest of people in Bali to boot, Sarita Newson of Saritaksu and Muriel Ydo of BIWA fame.
Sarita tells me that Ibu Widi has now taken this on and far from ending has moved into the local community as a whole, where it is making steady progress in educating people on why looking after the environment matters and to cleaning up the rivers and temples, as well as the beaches. In the end, it is this kind of solid, sustained and unremarked service that is going to make the biggest difference of all. Ibu Widiasari, Clean-Up Bali Campaign, 288 995, 0818 344 654.
If by temperament I don’t make the ideal committee member, perhaps I can at least ensure I contribute in some other way. The thing for the likes of me, and most of you, to remember is that even though we may not possess the rare gift of serving our fellow man to the extent that a few people can, we can still contribute by supporting those who do. The other thing to remember is to get out the way the minute we feel our nose is out of joint.
