Why are there Silly Fines at Rotary meetings?

Photo credit: Unsplash

Silly fines, as the name suggests are fines that members are charged at a meeting to help the club run its operations and projects. They are meant to make members laugh and have fun while the fines are being paid.

Silly fines are not supposed to be an instrument of punishment, where members are only fined for not doing something. Occasionally, members can be fined for not being appropriately 'dressed' as Rotarians (such as not wearing their pins). However that shouldn't be routine. A member can even be fined for being promoted at work, or looking radiant at a meeting. Another funny example can be fining bald members. 👨🏾‍🦲

To ensure that members enjoy giving these tokens to help their clubs, some clubs have decided to scrap the "silly fine" name and rather take "happy dollar" or "gratitude dollar" where members pay a token for something they are happy about, or grateful for.

The role of fine master is also not the preserve of the Sergeant-at-Arms. A different member can be chosen to play that role at every meeting to spice it up.

May we be encouraged to pay our fines, when we are charged at meetings, whether in-person or virtual.

Join us. #WeAreRotary

Voter experience: #GhanaDecides 2016

Showing off my political manicure

Today's elections went on smoothly as expected.
I got to my polling station at 8:47am and voted at 10:12am.

I had misplaced voter ID card and therefore went to the polling station with my passport.
I initially didn't want to vote, but decided to test the system and see if I could really vote without my voter ID, especially as I didn't partake in the verification exercise.

My polling station in the Brong Ahafo region -- Mmredane -- was really organised.
This year, there were two queues. One for those whose names fell within the A-G alphabets, and the other H-Z.
This allowed for the smooth election process that took place.

An observation though is that voters sometimes got confused as to the correct queue they had to join. Most thought the queues used first names, others thought their surnames had to be used.
We however discovered that the EC officers were using the very first name on the voter ID card and not first names or surnames.

I was disappointed because we registered by filling a form that explicitly asked for surnames and first, and middle names. I therefore expected the cards to be printed with the same template. Anyways...

I left the polling station immediately after voting as I wasn't playing any social media reporting role as I did for GhanaDecides in the 2012 elections.

I have been glued to my TV set since.

Why artisans fail to flourish in Ghana?

A study space I long for. Source: not known

In the middle of August 2014, I moved into a new apartment. I decided to engage the services of a carpenter who would make new furniture for me.

I was fortunate to 'accidentally' meet one at my house. He had come to deliver a set of beautifully crafted furniture to my neighbour.

We got talking -- an negotiating.

He was to make a couple of trap doors, and a study table with chairs.

Delivery was to be expected in a month.

This transaction took place in the second week of September.

On the 20th September, I paid 50% of the TOTAL amount.

I got my trap doors in the second week of October, but the table has STILL not been delivered.

Truth is, he has not even started it!

I wonder how our 'local' artisans are going to expand their businesses, when their work ethics is this bad. I've been in touch with this carpenter from the word go, but have only been getting flimsy excuses.

I just realised he'd actually taken a number of jobs and is finding it difficult meeting deadlines.

Greed.

I feel bad for him though because other neighbours of mine would want him to make stuff for them, but they have second thoughts.

Why can't we just take things as they come? Taking them one day at a time?

Hmm.

Nkrankrom No. 4 -- a village near Sunyani

Nkrankrom No.4 is a village in the Sunyani Municipality of Ghana. A 25-minutes drive from Abesim would get you to the vilage. On foot from the Catholic Secretariat, it would take you about 45 minutes to get to the village.
I actually 'discovered' the village with a couple of friends  when we decided to take a stroll some days ago.

We saw no borehole in Nkrankrom. No school. The kids, we learnt attended school in Nkrankrom No.1. The bridge connecting these two villages is broken, and as such, no vehicle can access that route. The folks in this village are mostly peasant farmers who engage in subsistence farming.

I asked why the name 'Nkrankrom' (loosely translated, Ga town). I was told that four brothers migrated to the area, years ago. They settled close to one another and started their individual communities, hence the numbers 1 through 4 attached to differentiate them.

The folks are welcoming, and would have wished we spent more time with them. My friends and I plan to go there another time, and perhaps get to know their needs better -- and (possibly) some palm wine. (smiles)

From what we saw, Nkrankrom No.4 doesn't suffer from 'food poverty', it is the social amenities that are lacking.

New student hostels for the CUCG (Photos)

 

Found on every floor 

The CUCG -- Improved Transport

Since moving to their permanent site in August 2008, the Catholic University College of Ghana has been plagued with a number of challenges. Paramount among them (was) their access road.

A number of pleas have been made to the government and other agencies to come to the institution’s aid and help develop its access road. Thankfully due to a Cocoa Farmers’ Funding Project, the road has been given a face-lift to the joy of not just the university community, but the people of Fiapre (the locality within which the CUCG is sited). Thanks to J. Adom Company Limited – a very good and efficient construction firm based in Sunyani.

Prior to the construction, transportation was a very big issue to students. Drivers refused to ply the road because of its bad nature. Most of them complained of how the road had adverse effects on their vehicles. The school buses were also breaking down constantly. This affected academic work as some students were late for lectures.

It was really heartbreaking to see students on foot after lectures.

Thanks to the contract, transportation has improved. Now I pick a cab from town to the school’s junction, and the driver will ask, “Mi nfa mu nk) campus?” (Can I take you to the campus?). Interesting. A bit funny. There’s even a union of drivers for the CUCG campus! Yes, really.

But these drivers need education. Most of them drive carelessly because of the enhanced road. We do not want accidents on our road!

The community is grateful to the institution(s) that played (and still play) a major role in the project.
Mawu ne yra miakata. Nyame nhyira mu. W) nunts) ni y) ngwE adz) nyE. God bless you.

Politics of traffic & street lights?

        So I have been living in the Sunyani Municipality (of Ghana's Brong-Ahafo Region) for the past 6 years -- and counting. It is a lovely town I must confess, well-planned and a far cry from the country's capital, Accra, in terms of congestion. The region is known as the 'breadbasket of Ghana'.
        One would have thought that the first-class streets, adorned with streetlights and traffic lights, would not just serve as monuments -- as the case is now. More often than not, these streetlights fail to function, and they can be off for over a fortnight with no one (especially the metropolitan assembly) attending to them. You only see the streetlights working again after a lot of 'noise' has been made on the FM Stations.
        Quite recently, we began having traffic wardens (police) directing traffic whenever the traffic lights go off -- which is commendable -- but doesn't solve the problem.
        However, an incident I saw a couple of days ago worried me greatly.
        It was about eight minutes to six in the evening and the traffic was really heavy. Drivers were tooting their horns at one another -- in short, it was chaotic. I wondered where the warden was (as were the other passengers), only to see him at a distance -- on phone! His countenance was one of an individual oblivious to his immediate surroundings.
       But he is not to blamed entirely. What are our leaders doing about such mishaps in our communities? Next to nothing, if you ask me. They spend copious amounts of time on the airwaves talking politics! Discussing issues that are so trivial (sometimes) that, they need not over-hype them.
      Someone calls another a palm-wine tapper -- and so what?
      Another calls his opponent 'kokoase kurasini' (a villager from a cocoa-farming community) -- and so what?
We really need to up our game and stop this 'disgusting' approach to addressing societal issues.

Drivers doing their own thing -- Chaos!

Find your own way?