Address by the Headmaster on Speech Day and Prize-Giving Ceremony
14th October 2004
Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. Mavros, Board members, invited guests, ladies and gentlemen and young men of Falcon. A special welcome to Mr. Mavros to I am delighted to have as our guest at his our 50th Speech Day. Nearing the end of my third year at the College, I can not believe that the time has passed by so quickly. I suppose it could be closely aligned to a rollercoaster ride.
There have most certainly been some lows, but some wonderful highs and some breathtaking swoops, both down and up.
There is the wonderful story of how geese operate - they have a marvellous system. Because they know that they have to make these very arduous journeys on their migration flights, they fly in formation, with the lead goose taking the brunt of the work. The other then fly in a position where the air is broken for them. When the one in the front gets tires, another one takes over and the rest help the one who has been at the lead. In a community like ours, this sort of co-operation is how we have to work. We are most certainly presently flying in strong wind, but our unity will get us to our destination.
Our situation has many positives.
The first, of course is that we have become a much closer community - we have communicated far better with parents. They are now fully aware of the intimate details on how the school is sun, and this new communication has made us more accessible and transparent. This greater accessibility has brought our parents into the process of education of their children which can only a good thing.
We have also communicated far more with the authorities, creating a much more transparent working relationship with the Ministry and ourselves. This, too, has most certainly been the way forward.
We have had to take a full audit of ourselves, in terms of costs and in terms of the product we produce. We have done these exercises and they have revealed much. People want more for their money in 2004 than they did in 2000 and that has brought the reality of the situation home to us.
I believe the situation has, for the most part, removed suspicion which parents and the authorities have had. It has revealed areas of strength and weaknesses, all of which are good. It has united pupils and parents, it has shown parents the importance of a stable staff and shown us how important our P.R.O. and the perception of our College is.
Computer Story - I.B.M. required parts from a Japanese company and they said they would be happy if 5 of the one million components were there, but 5 were packed separately and a note in the package said these are the 5 out of the million that are defective.
I guess that tells the story of the full - if you are doing something one should strive for perfection.
I would like to talk to you today about a couple of words which come up over and over again - resilience and perception.
Resilience - I would like to spend some time talking about this word. With this world in its present state, with September 11 disaster, Iraq, Gaza Strip, etc. - it has made many people realise that resilience is a quality needed by employers, and employees. Zimbabweans in my opinion, are well trained in this quality and very especially so, the Falcon Boys.
Diane L. Coufu, of the Harvard Business School, said "more than education, more than experience, more than training, a person's level of resilience will determine who succeeds and who fails".
There is no questi0on that living in Zimbabwe in 2004 requires resilience and it does enhance one's desire to succeed.
There are three fundamental characteristics that set resilient people apart from others:
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They accept and face reality - we train ourselves how to survive before we have to.
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Resilient people have the ability to find meaning in some aspects of life. Values are as important as meaning; value systems change very little and are used as scaffolding in troubled times.
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The third building block of resilience is the ability to improvise, the ability to solve problems without the usual or obvious tools and that is a Great Strength.
The next word is perception
The dictionary definition is:
Perception - the ability to see, notice or understand something:" that's the dictionary definition - for me the dictionary is sadly, far off the pace.
Perception is what a certain pair of eyes wants to see, often not even ever having been near the real thing. In this difficult time, many people have been contacted for their views and its very interesting to hear what they think is happening in our schools. We have had such diverse perceptions that some feel all is well whilst others are taking children out because they are unsure if we shall be opening in the new Year.
Perceptions has to be related to input and we have leaned, this year, that we need input - we need to keep folk informed, we need fold to know about us - we need to be contactable , we need to advertise what we have and we need to maintain our standards. We have to be in the public's face. So what really then is perception? Perception is what a person or a group of persons view as reality. How then do we get to every person's perception of what we are at Falcon? I believe a really good start is if every single person in this room would tell one other person, not related to the school, what Falcon is?
There is also the issue of what people associated with the College, actually know. If, at any time, someone feels they do not have the information needed to answer questions on the College, then they need to get in touch with someone who really does know. Rumours, unfortunately, contributed largely to a mis-perception.
What, the, of Falcon? What do we do to go forward in difficult times?
Darrell Rigby, a director of Bain and Company, I feel, gets it right and he says "we need to go against the grain of convention and exploit situations in down turns and to harness the unique opportunities that exist for upward mobility".
He suggests that down turns go through three phases. He suggests, firstly, there should be no panic - you look bad situations in the eye and develop techniques to detect storms.
He suggests that we shouldn't diversify, but focus on our core business and spend to gain market share. I believe this to be vital at the moment. We need to make sure we do everything related to educating young people as well as we possibly can and reach out to people to gather children to Falcon.
He suggests we manage costs effectively - I believe in the last few months, we really have become more efficient and have looked long and hard at costs to maintain standards, but to keep costs to a minimum.
He suggests that we need to maintain loyalty of our employees. This is vital - maintaining and working hard at keeping good quality staff, in my opinion, is vital and that's an awareness that the Board and I most definitely have.
He also suggests we need to maintain loyalty of our customers - that's you, parents; and our suppliers. Again, we are working very hard at this at present and our 50th Year Celebrations have most certainly brought our community closer together.
Our downturn is not going to be here forever and we have to maintain our momentum.
This year has seen many unusual events, as the Chairman has suggested, but very few staff have left.
We did however, say goodbye to Rob and Deidre Hartley - Ron had established Falconry at the College and taken it to great heights. He had taught geography, taken the Senior Natural Historians, coached Sports and run Photography. It was sad to see the Hartley's go and I hope that they enjoy the new challenges ahead.
Mr. & Mrs. Bevan also left rather suddenly this year as a result of Mr. Bevan's ill health, which needed treatment out of the country. I am grateful to them for their input in Music, Art and Design & Technology.
At the end of the year we say goodbye to Liz Cumming, who has run the Commerce Department, coached Cricket, run our Social Events, been a Housemaster's wife and I guess that says it all. We are sad to lose Liz into the big wild world to make her fortune.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the staff and boys and you, the parents, for your wonderful support; in particular, the support shown to me by parents, boys and so many people was quite overwhelming and I am most grateful. I'd like to thank Dave Fleming, who has always been there for me,. At our recent Conference, a South African Head, who was talking to us, said he was away from school one week out of every four and someone said - How does you school work when you are away and he said - in the same way as when I am there and I think that says it all about Dave.
I would also like to mention Mr. Lew Watson, the Bursar. You can imagine the kind of pressure which has been brought to bear on him over the past year and he has coped wonderfully. There has been only one minor stutter and that was when he was training for the cycle race and he managed to have a head-on with another cyclist on the way into Esigodini. The real reason was he had to train in the dark because of the work load. Lew, we will get you a light fort that bike.
I'd also like to thank Mr. Tim Tanser, the previous Chairman, who has been a tower of strength, and Mr. Andy Laing, the new Chairman. Andy ahs already told you how close we have become. On a serious note, I could tell folk how much time these mend spend on our behalf in so many areas, it's unbelievable. They really need to be applauded.
I would also like to thank my own family, especially my wife Martha, who really is fantastic. I am most grateful for her support.
Finally, to the young men and their parents who are leaving our community thank you for choosing Falcon. Thank you for the part you have all played. Go forward from here with all the things I hope our system has equipped you with and develop still further. Be as good as you possibly can be in the filed that you choose. Look forward, reach for the stars, but do give us a thought once in a while. We would love to hear from you.
Thank you.