I’m hoping that you will enjoy my occasional writing about the exciting program which I am involved in, Leadership Guelph & Wellington. The expressed aims are to teach networking skills, community engagement, general skills development, inclusiveness skills, how to build new initiatives, learn about Guelph and Wellington’s history, build community amongst ourselves and outside of our group and our community and organizational responsibility. A really tall order.

Twenty-two of us gathered on Friday morning, Oct 23, 2009, at the Holiday Inn in Guelph. Our day began at 8:30 AM and ran until 8:30 PM. A long day but a very educational one.

After meeting one another and our teachers, we had a little exercise on what we collectively expected to get out of this course,why we were there and how we intended to use the new skills.

Next was a little writing and talking about “What I love About My Community”. I wrote that I am so glad that many people here are invested in this community. They have a passion for the city. People are committed to working and living here and having a say in how this community works.

Carly O’Brien from The Achievement Centre was our very capable and interesting discussion leader on the Principles of Effective Leadership and Personal Leadership Styles. Each of us was included in the discussion and asked our opinions.

During our lunch break our guest speaker was Rene Meshake, an Anishnabe poet, authour and musician who is writing a series of books which reflect the lifestyles and beliefs of our First Nations people. He spoke openly and honestly about his attending a residential school and sexual abuse which lead him to homelessness and alcoholism in Toronto under the Bathurst Bridge. He found his way out of that lifestyle through belief in a higher power and is now married and productive and giving back to his community. An unexpected yet inspiring leader.

Next we broke up into four groups and designed our Ideal City. Two of the groups chose to build the model around Downtown Guelph. The third chose the infinity symbol with people joining hands around the circles and putting inside the buildings and services which were felt necessary to a happy life including parks, water and open green spaces.

The fourth group chose to depict the words needed to describe the Ideal City. They used a triangle concept with an inverted triangle inside it filled with people. In the triangle were the words Mind, Body and Soul which are the true desires of everyone. The base of the triangle contained two layers, one for the services needed to provide for the community and one for the wise governance to make it work. An elegant way of defining an ideal.

This was a team building exercise which made us work together to develop the ideas of each member and turn it into a unified whole.

The rest of the afternoon was dedicated to Carly again helping us to understand and comment on the Principles of Effective Networking and introducing the idea of a Personal Leadership Journal (which this will become, I hope).

Just before supper, we had a short lesson on networking and were given a task to obtain business cards from the guests who were coming. We were not told who they were or why they were attending. That made most of the participants stretch their comfort level a lot. When the guests arrived they were all the people from the University and various community organizations and businesses who had contributed to the design of this made in Guelph program which we are the first people to experience.

Saturday, the 24th, began again at 8:30 again but the learning load was much shorter. Everyone seemed to appreciate that. Although we were all excited and feeling empowered, yesterday had been a long day.

The morning speakers were Kathryn McCracken from the Guelph Civic Museums, Libby Walker from the Wellington County Museum, Lloyd Longifeld from the Chamber of Commerce and Eden Grodzinski from Vital Signs, a social planner. Many of us were surprised to learn about the very rich history of Wellington county and the City of Guelph which has been incorporated for more than 150 years. Leaders need to know the story of where their peoples come from and what they have accomplished in order to be able to be true guides into the future.

The second set of morning speakers were Naomi Melnick from Community Resource Centre Fergus, Gilliam Riseborough from East Wellington Community Services Erin and Cathy Taylor and Christine Oldfield of the Volunteer Centre of Guelph/Wellington. They talked about what has been done in our area to facilitate volunteering and addressed some of the needs which are waiting for leaders.

After a leisurely lunch where participants spent time getting to know each other better, we came back to discuss the definition of Community Leadership and the fact that those who have the title aren’t necessarily those who get things done. Those with the title need willing, able and capable people around them to accomplish great things. What will the people 150 years from now have to say about us? How will we be remembered? What really matters? And how can we affect the future?

Our last hour or so was spent playing with balloons. Well, there was an objective. There was to be a prize for the builder of the tallest, free-standing balloon stack. It was surprisingly difficult and took a lot of coordination and thought. In the end, using tape and balloons the tallest structure was about four feet high. Too late, our team realized that we had a young fellow who was over six feet tall and we should have just taped balloons to him and it would have been the tallest free-standing stack. Ah well, genius takes time to become creative.

At the end of the day we each sealed a card to ourselves in an envelope with what we intended to accomplish in the next nine months. I wonder if I’ll be able to accomplish my two main objectives by then.

From here on we meet once a month and I can hardly wait until the 19th of November. There were so many examples from our speakers and instructors and the participants as well on how and what we want to become, what we want to be part of. I would highly recommend this course to anyone who is able. To be continued after the 19th of November.

Chip technology to help foil credit card fraudsters

The Canadian Press Date: Wednesday Jun. 4, 2008

Digital technology is putting the power of a computer onto credit and debit cards to help cut down on fraud.

Cards are being embedded with a microchip, or a tiny computer. That means the traditional swiping of a credit or debit card and signing a credit card slip won’t be necessary.

Visa Canada, MasterCard Canada Inc. and Interac Association are moving to bring Canada in line with card technology that’s already in use in much of Europe and parts of Asia and Latin America.

“The key driver for this is really on the security side,” said Michael Stephenson, Visa’s senior business manager of the chip initiative.

The three are involved in a pilot project in which credit and debit chip cards are being tested at businesses and financial institutions in Ontario’s Kitchener-Waterloo region, west of Toronto.

Quebec-based financial institution Desjardins is leading a test in St-Jerome, north of Montreal.

It’s expected that Canada will move to chip technology over the next three years or so. However, the magnetic stripe is expected to remain on some cards to allow them to work in jurisdictions where chip technology isn’t available.

Some test results have shown that transactions with chip cards are 40 per cent faster, Stephenson said.

Instead of cards being swiped, shoppers insert them into a small chip-reading terminal.

Consumers using chip cards need to type in a PIN number when making a purchase instead of signing their names. If a card is lost or stolen, a thief shouldn’t know an individual’s PIN number.

Client information on a card’s magnetic stripe can be copied by fraudsters to make fake credit cards, causing millions of dollars in losses to businesses and financial institutions.

Jack Jania of international digital security company Gemalto said it is more difficult to copy a chip card because the data and the transaction are encrypted.

This brings a higher level of security to a transaction, said Jania, vice-president and general manager, secure transactions, for Gemalto in North America.

Gemalto is known as the world’s largest provider of smart cards and develops operating systems for the cards. It’s involved in the Canadian project to help implement the international standard known as EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa) standard.

“There’s a secret key inside the computer chip that makes that card unique,” said Jania, who’s based in the Austin, Tex., area.

Jania said the chip card randomizes how things are stored in its memory.

He also warned: “If you try to pry open the card and take it apart, you expose the device to light and it automatically dumps its memory.”

The chip is encased in “very hard black epoxy” and will be damaged if taken apart, he said.

“It’s designed to be extremely tamper-resistant to make sure the inherent data that’s in that little computer is secure.”

Waterloo Regional Police Staff Sgt. Wally Hogg said while it’s too soon to say what impact the chip cards have had, it will be difficult to extract information from them.

“There shouldn’t be any concern about having the card double-swiped,” said Hogg, who’s in the fraud branch.

Interac Association’s Kirkland Morris said consumers shouldn’t have any privacy concerns about the switch to chip technology, but the move will take time.

“All of the debit and all of the banking machines have to be upgraded or replaced to chip (technology) before the end of 2012,” said Morris, vice-president of enterprise strategy. “And all of the merchant terminals have to be upgraded by 2015. It’s absolutely a multi-year exercise.”

MasterCard Canada’s Oliver Manahan said France was the first country to move to chip technology about 18 years ago and its fraud rates fell to almost zero. “Here’s technology that can be used for the greater good of protecting payments and keep money out of criminals’ hands,” he said.

Chip Cards – Debit Card Technology Evolves

Courtesy Merchant Services Association

New debit cards will contain an embedded microchip that will put the power of a computer onto your card. Point-of-sale terminals and Automated Banking Machines (ABM) across the country will also become chip enabled.

Chip cards will have processing functions and will work together with chip capable terminals and ABMs to ensure a highly secure transaction by validating both card and cardholder, providing increased protection against debit card fraud.

Chip card technology is based on a global standard known as EMV, a proven technology in wide use around the world. Chip technology is virtually impossible to duplicate, increasing consumers’ confidence in the payment system, while decreasing your fraud management costs. Chip technology will provide a platform for new product and service offerings, allowing you to keep pace with your competitors’ card payment technologies.

The same Interac services, combined with all new technology:

Completing a sale with a chip debit card and terminal:

• Insert the chip card into the chip reader instead of swiping.

• The customer’s card must remain in the reader until the transaction is completed.

• Then it’s business as usual. The customer completes the transaction and payment is accepted.

The chip transition timeline:

Every payment service provider has its own timetable in place for providing chip terminals. In order to ensure a smooth transition, Interac Association has implemented final conversion deadlines that work within merchants’ normal business cycles, so that merchants will be able to transition to chip within the set timeline and with minimum impact.

• Interac chip cards and terminals are already being rolled out across Canada.

• Complete migration to chip technology will take several years and the timetable for the introduction of chip will vary from one financial institution, and one service provider to another.

• All Automated Banking Machines (ABM), point-of-sale (POS) terminals and banking cards across Canada will be upgraded.

• Magnetic stripe debit card transactions will no longer be accepted at ABMs after December 31, 2012.

• Magnetic stripe transactions will no longer be accepted at POS after December 31, 2015.

• Chip cards will continue to carry the magnetic stripe, not only to facilitate the chip transition period, but also to allow cardholders to use their debit cards in other countries that do not use chip technology.

 Respect is an attitude. Respect is tolerance. Respect is being aware of others around you. Respect is treating everyone else as you would like to be treated.

It begins with respecting your body and mind. Not overfeeding yourself, not drinking to excess, not losing control of your emotions and reactions. If you know for a fact, based on 50 to 60 years of studies and testing that all forms of tobacco do result in significantly higher rates of cancers and earlier death rates (on average ten years) along with a guarantee of painful later years, why would you start smoking or chewing tobacco or taking snuff? Is being “cool” worth ten years of the only life you will ever have? You only get one body. Don’t wreck it before you run out of need for it. As they say, if you don’t find one hour a day to exercise, you’ll probably find 24 hours a day to be dead.

Similarly, keeping in mind that your body is the most wonderful and fascinating machine that ever has been or will be – because it’s self operating – putting in the right food to allow it to operate properly and moving all the parts of it each and every day is just respecting what you have.

Drinking alcohol or using drugs is another way of disrespecting yourself. It has been known for centuries that both cause people to lose their normal inhibitions and dulls all of their senses. That includes vision, making folks more prone to accidents. That includes hearing, making drunks loud and annoying or druggies surly and prone to fits of anger.. That includes the sense of touch. Ever notice how folks on something spill things and can’t control their tongues? That includes losing control over your mind, what you say and do. Why would you want to consume something that stops you from knowing where you are, whom you’re with and what is going on around you?

Allowing others including peers, magazines, celebrities, and even family, etc. to make you change what you know and understand is good for you is a very large form of disrespect of yourself.

Respect for the people whom you live with is the second form of Respect. Leaving things laying around the house or yard where you live assumes that you have the right to take over everyone else’s space. This makes for difficult relationships. Naming and blaming others is a pattern that shows up again and again in our society these days. Responsibility for all of your actions is the mark of a respectful, mature person.

Do you have the right to make noise and play games anywhere you want to at any time that you want to? My answer to that is “Who died and left you in charge of the world?”

Your respect for your own self should stop you from disrespecting those in your neighbourhood who are elderly, sick, have small children, or go to work every day. Your respect for yourself should make you show up bright and early and prepared for your job. Whether that’s for an employer or at school.

If someone else has money, they don’t owe it to you just because you honour them with your existence. An employer expects you to do something for the privilege of him/her giving you money. You have to do something for it. If someone has paid for you to go to school you owe them the respect to at least appear on time and be ready to learn. Hangovers and lack of sleep are choices which you make. They are not an alibi or Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card. The money for education, whether it’s training or retraining, comes from your parents, your neighbours and every single tax payer in the province and city where you live. Respect means that you do your job.

The third form of Respect refers to other people’s property. If you didn’t work for it, pay for it, or make it, you have no right to take it, use it, steal it, or destroy it. And if your lucky enough that the owner gives you permission to use it, respect them enough to return it in the condition which you received it. If it’s not, replace it. And don’t blame anyone else because it’s not in good condition.

Respect means taking responsibility because you are the only person/thing in this world which you can control. It’s Okay to admit you made a mistake, the rest of the world understands because they’ve made a few themselves. But you can respect everyone including yourself by being honest.

The fourth type of respect is in serving your community. Going out of your way to help others. Making sure that services are provided for all who need them. Making sure that your city is safe.  Working to find collaborative ways for all the people in your community to be able to live and survive with respect and dignity is one of the highest forms of respect we as human beings can achieve. If not you, then who?

All around the world people express the same sentiments in one form or another. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Do you really want some kid outside your house in the middle of the night shouting, slamming doors, or playing football? Do you really enjoy spending time with people who are out of control for any reason? Do you want people to see you as a problem or as a solution. It’s that simple. Let’s all have a lot more respect around here!

This was written in regard to the proliferation of out of control and thoughtless students who make life difficult everywhere in Ontario and North America. They aren’t the only ones. They have watched others do it and are emulating what they think is really cool. I, for one, expect better of people who are born and raised in a free society with sufficient food and water and no wars on our soil. I don’t understand how people get old enough to be away from home but haven’t been taught respect for themselves, for property, or for their fellow citizens. Let’s get civilized, folks! Teachers and parents please start sooner to instill respect of all kinds in our young people.

Sue can be reached at Sue@suesviews.ca

The time zones of the Earth where proposed by Sanford Fleming, a Canadian railway planner and engineer, who lived from 1827 to 1915. As a railway planner he constantly ran into a problem explaining when trains would arrive. Every city up until about 100 years ago kept it’s own time based on when the sun was at it’s highest in their location (noon hour). Every 1.5 degrees in longitude as we move around the Earth means a minute difference in time. This got rather unwieldy when you consider the huge distances from coast to coast in Canada, the United States and Asia.

At an international conference in Washington D.C. In 1884, all concurred that there should be 24 time zones around the world each being about 15 degrees wide and differing by one hour stretching from North Pole to South Pole. Since there are 24 hours in the day, it worked out pretty close to local time – 7:00 AM was still in the morning and 7:00 PM was still at night and noon still in the middle of the day. Most cities close to each other used the same time and even if they were in different time zones, the time settings always differ by a whole number of hours. Most countries adopted this system with a few, such as Newfoundland using a set of 15 or 30 minutes different from the standardized time zone.

Zones begin with zero degrees longitude at Greenwich, England. Halfway around the world, 180 degrees away, is the International Date Line (IDL) where the date changes across the boundary of the time zone. The same date around the world only occurs at the instant of noon in Greenwich and midnight at the IDL. All other times have different dates on each side of the IDL.

If you want to have some fun check out www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/ for time in the cities of the world. This will keep you on time wherever your travels take you. There’s also a conversion calculator so that you won’t be calling people in the middle of the night or getting upset when they don’t answer your email immediately. If you want to see a map which you can zoom in on go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_zone.

But this amazing idea is only one of the interesting things Sanford Fleming initiated. Born in Kircaldy (ker-caw-dy). Fife, Scotland, between Edinburgh and Dundee on the east coast, Sandford was 18 when he and his brother David emigrated to Peterborough, Ontario, Canada in 1847. In 1849 he established the Royal Society of Canada to further public interest in and education about the sciences which operates today and provides scholarships and free lectures to all Canadians in Toronto.

He didn’t stop there by far. In 1851 he designed the Threepenny Beaver, the first Canadian postage stamp. He worked full time as a surveyor for the Grand Trunk Railway and because of his hard work became Chief Engineer of the Northern Railway of Canada in 1855. One of his biggest concerns was that train bridges be built of iron and not wood as was common in that day. Safety came first to his mind.

In 1855 he married the love of his life, Ann Jane (Jean) Hall and together they had nine children. His oldest son Frank accompanied him on his Pacific expedition. Fleming was a dedicated family man who welcomed his father and six younger siblings to Peterborough shortly after his arrival.

By 1858 he started talking about a railway spanning all of British North America and was appointed the sole engineer to supervise the survey of a railway joining the Maritime provinces with Quebec. The newly formed Canadian government decided to build that rail link to the Pacific ocean in 1872 and naturally Fleming did the surveying of the route. That year he organized an expedition which included a naturalist and a Presbyterian minister to go all the way to the Pacific. He was there when the last spike was driven in Craigellachie, British Columbia in 1885. He even published a book that year titled The Intercontinental: A historical Sketch.

In the midst of all this activity, Fleming served in the 10th Battalion Volunteer Rifles of Canada, now known as the Royal Regiment of Canada and was made Captain on January 1, 1862. He retired from the militia in 1865.

Retired from surveying in 1880, Sandford became Chancellor of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, a position he held for his last 35 years. Not stopping there, he advocated the construction of a submarine telegraph line connecting all of the British Empire, the All Red Line, which was completed in 1902. In 1880 he was vice president of the Ottawa Horticultural Society. In later years he lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia later deeding the house and 95 acres to the city, now known as Sir Sandford Fleming Park (Dingle Park). He also kept a residence in Ottawa, and was buried there, in Beechwood Cemetery.

Fleming was a Freemason and his accomplishments were known world wide. In 1897 he was knighted by Queen Victoria. Fleming Hall was built in his honour at Queen’s in 1901, and rebuilt after a fire in 1932. It was the home of the university’s Electrical Engineering department. Fleming College in Peterborough, a Community College of Applied Arts and Technology was opened in 1967 and serves the middle and eastern parts of Ontario. Also, the main building, Sandford Fleming Building at the University of Toronto Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering honours this great Canadian.

We don’t tend to praise those heroes who have dedicated their lives and knowledge to Canada near enough. Fleming is a great example of one of the Scots who invented our modern world.

What’s the difference and why should you care?

We’re all familiar with interest. It’s talked about everywhere and we all think we understand it. If you want to borrow someone else’s money to use for your own purposes you can expect to pay an extra sum of money for the use of it. Depending on which side of the fence your on it could be income or an expense.

Economists have presented different interpretations of interest. Professor Abu Saud, who helped many Islamic countries set up their banking systems, defined interest as “the excess of money paid by the borrower to the lender over and above the principal for the use of the lender’s liquid money over a certain period of time”. Paul Samuelson, an American economist, stated that “Interest is the price of rental for the use of money”. “Interest is one of the forms of income from property, the other forms being dividends, rent and profit” according to Don Patinkin an Israeli/American monetary economist.

When we earn interest it is important to us that we are earning a sufficient amount to make our money grow more than the cost of living or inflation is growing. For many years Canadians regularly purchased Canada Savings Bonds as a safe, guaranteed way to earn interest on their money. In the last couple of years here in Canada we have had very tiny and even negative inflation. The government and civil service feel that their control over the economy in total is the main reason for this. Other might say that the world economy has hit a bump in the road and since everyone else’s inflation has retreated, our should have also. As a result, interest earning rates have decreased in tandem and savings bond rates are very small today.

When it’s our income we want it to be as high as possible. However, when it’s money we’re paying out we want it to be as small as possible.

So, how do we ensure that the amounts are as small as possible? By being very careful about the type of interest we agree to in contracts. We need to be sure that we are paying simple interest as opposed to compound interest.

Simple Interest is just as it sounds. If you sign a contract that you will pay five per cent for the loan of a sum of money say $100 you will pay 5% for each year that you do not pay back the money. Each year the lender is entitled to $5 from you, year after year the same amount.

Compound interest is quite another idea. The one we’re most used to hearing about is compound semi-annual interest on our mortgages and bank loans. If you borrow $100 and don’t pay that $5 each year that amount will be added to the principal and interest will be charged on $105 for the next year. What it means is that if we don’t pay the full amount of interest due for each period, we will pay interest on interest. With a home mortgage the interest total is usually quite large for any given period making it impossible for the borrower to pay it all. Thus ensuring Interest on Interest.

Lenders, of course, are kind enough to give you terms to allow you many years to pay back their money – which incidentally compounds your interest many times over the term of the mortgage. There is a renewal clause which permits the lender to change your rate of interest periodically, often at five year intervals.

Alternative simple interest vehicles are available if you own as little as 20% of your assets. If you would like to explore safe and practical differences to standard financing, please call or email.