IRENE Fully Booked Project 2024

23/12/2024

New journalist at Centurion Rekord, Tshiamo Boikhutso, and I met recently to do an update on the IRENE Fully Booked Project, and he produced this fine feature two weeks ago to finish the year.

As you will see, the collective IRENE book is taking shape. Excitement is growing, and it’s time to get the coaching sessions done and the chapters written so that this big beautiful thing can come out. I need you to come to the party with your best effort.

It’s time, too, to finance the project. So far I have run it on love and sweat equity, and the other costs of production are now kicking in, so I have put together a crowdfunding model that I’ll share in the New Year when things go to a new level.

History is being made and 2025 is the time to be in it.

05/12/2024

Justice Baloyi grew up near Tzaneen and had the privilege, he says, of the facilities of the farmers his family worked for, like their literature. This began his love for reading and caring for books, and that led to him to doing a degree to be a librarian and then taking a job in central Pretoria.

He travelled to work through Centurion and realised that this was a place of historical import where significant events had happened and people had lived. In time, he was appointed to run the Irene Library, and took the reins as half the regulars left with the previous librarian.

Justice not only recovered this loyalty in time but built a whole new base in the meantime, with the village bochord now still in his loving care and his son at Irene Primary School. His chapter is about running a thriving community, building an inclusive culture, and the importance of following your passion.

The IRENE book is coming your way and Fully Booked will take you all the way.

25/11/2024

When Liezl Thom’s chapter arrived, it took the IRENE book up. I hadn’t done a coaching session with her yet and was about to schedule one when she dropped me a note with her piece of writing attached. “Hope you can use it,” she said.

Although I had not guided her, she had paid precise attention to what we had discussed in the get-togethers before I launched the project, observed my social media posts, and then delivered exactly what I am looking for, with flair. What brought us here, where are we now, where are we going, and what can we teach the world?

Liezl had a twenty-year career in journalism, and is still the South African producer and reporter for ABC News in the States. She has also established herself as a transformational life coach and professional speaker. She lives in greater Irene, on what was previously Jan Smuts’s farm where he did his famous writing on holism.

Her chapter begins in her youth with a stirring relationship with the Irene concentration camp cemetary. Then it takes us through her study of history and the name of Irene and its peaceful meaning. She bring things together poetically through her love for the area and ends with an evocative message for the world. It’s brilliant, and Liezl is a star.

The IRENE book is coming your way and Fully Booked aligns the stars in your brand for holistic success.

11/11/2024

Irene Homes is on a sizeable section of land in the village and owned by the Anglican Church. It’s 120 years old now and takes care of 88 intellectually disabled women with 62 full-time staff, which it finances through donations as well as its charity shop along Albert Road. It also holds an annual fête, which has been a tradition and a delight for decades, plus a Christmas market, which is coming up on 30 November.

Charity is a big part of community, and Irene Homes is an institution in the area and a vocation for the people who work there. The love and joy they give and get in return are priceless, as people with special needs are known for insight and generosity that change the lives they touch.

Retiring CEO, Estelle van Schoor, will share this soulful magic in her chapter with the working title ‘Love is the Living Church’, and a few of the residents will write something too. Imagine the power…

The IRENE book carries remarkable understanding and will be in your hands soon. Fully Booked is the thing.

29/10/2024

Irene is brimming with brilliant people, and always has been. Last weekend I connected with two of them to work on their chapters for the upcoming book. First was semi-retired attorney Eugene Searle, who has lived in the village since 1966, and second was Kevin Barnes, Chief Financial Officer of the South African branch of a global insurance brand and happy local for fifteen years.

Despite dyslexia, Eugene studied and practices law while exploring all sorts of passions fairly obsessively, as he puts it, like photography and the birdlife in Irene. His mom was secretary at the primary school and his dad even more obsessive with his record-keeping and proud study of the Afrikaans language.

Eugene streams around the streets in his electric wheelchair with his black Labrador, enjoying a full life quite independently. His chapter will share how he has been successful and happy despite his challenges, and how Irene has enabled a lifestyle unlikely anywhere else. “Once you drink the water,” he says, “you want to come back.”

Kevin grew up in the Lowveld and built his career on moving beyond his background. In time, he and his family moved to Irene simply for the kids‘ schooling, which went wonderfully while everyone turned into lifelong residents.

He plans to represent “the younger Irene” in his chapter, saying that “it is not just for old people”, although he clearly now qualifies for the mid-term category. His take on success and community is bound to boost the bottom line for every reader everywhere.

The IRENE book will open your heart and blow your mind, and Fully Booked will take your brand all the way home. Talk to me.

14/10/2024

My father, Frank, was born in 1939 and his youngest brother, Denis, in 1943. Denis went on to marry Sandra van Wermeskerken, who was part of the generation born around 1949, who now constitute the Irene elders, all in their mid-to-late seventies.

They gather in the village for a reunion each October, with people pulling in from all over and others sad not to make it. I was included last year, in my own relatively youthful capacity and as representative of my family, including my gran, who was Grade 1 teacher to almost all of the folk in the 1950s.

I was overwhelmed by so much to take in, and this year was the same, even though I know quite a few of the people now. We met at the customary Scout Hall for Saturday lunch, and then had Sunday breakfast on the other side of the railway line at Ouma Isie’s Tea Garden at the famous Smuts House Museum.

A number of the fellows are contributing chapters to the Irene book and providing a great feel for the past that brought us here, the soul we are feeding for the future, and the lessons learned from this special place where community is key.

The chapters by the elders form the backdrop to the picture that is coming together. The Irene book is a revelation on its way to you, and Fully Booked a winner all the way. Get in touch to make it happen where you are.

06/10/2024

My opinion piece in the Business Times section of Sunday Times today explains how and why to find your organisation’s voice. This is the power of Fully Booked and the project I am doing in Irene:

19/09/2024

There are a few books written about Irene, and a few more inspired by it. When I was eight years old, in 1976, a definitive document came out in coffee-table format simply called ‘Irene’, written by Nigel Helme, who was part of the van der Byl family.

My grandparents gave us a fountain-pen inscribed copy for Christmas back then, and the same gift to a few other family members and friends, I’m sure. They kept a copy for themselves, and I have those two books still, with the updated edition for sale at the dairy.

Another well-known book is ‘Dear Irene’ by Diana Lensen, which details the homes and the families who lived in them over the years. Less-known is ‘Irene: A Sentimental Journey’ by Jimmy Taylor, from the early 60s, which speaks to my memories from the 70s onwards and much of the village still.

Then there’s ‘Irene Personalities’, also by Nigel Helme, this time as editor, comprising eight substantial chapters by accomplished and renowned Irene folk in the early 80s.

The book I am producing is written by Irene people old and new, resident and remote, with 80 contributors now on the list. It’s focused on what we have to teach the world, and the local and global vision we want to realise together.

It’s a compendium of autobiographies hinged on the magic of Irene, and it’s coming your way. Fully Booked will do wonders in your brand too.

05/09/2024

There’s a little shopping centre in Irene, on Main Road, next to the station, that’s been there as long as I can remember. The flats upstairs are now businesses, and what was once a haberdashery is a gem of an Italian-themed restaurant called Village Bistro, still with wooden window frames from way back.

It was recently renovated by the new owner, Charlene Fouché, who bought it from Lana Vlahova, who had taken it from a struggling setup twelve years previously to an Irene institution. It’s a dream-come-true for Charlene, and she has perfectly blended the soulful old with the classy new, with great love, just as I envision Irene evolving through this Fully Booked project.

Lana was visiting the new version of Village Bistro last weekend, and Charlene invited me to work on the book chapter together, which we had been waiting to do. The synchronistic conversation became one chapter by each woman, telling two stories of entrepreneurship, community and love of retail, plus what this enduring restaurant and special village have to teach the world.

The IRENE project gets greater each day, and the community-authored book is coming your way. Fully Booked will renovate your organisation.

27/08/2024

The article about the IRENE Fully Booked Project in the print edition of Centurion Rekord last week also appeared online, with a few extra photographs of community members and contributors:

Irene residents far and wide are getting together to record the history of their neighbourhood through the stories that they were, and continue to be, part of.

22/08/2024

The local newspaper, Centurion Rekord, ran an update on the IRENE Fully Booked Project yesterday following a fun interview with journalist Shaun Sproule last Wednesday at the new bakery in town, George’s Bread & Co, owned and run by Jonathan and Yvonne Cornes from the East Rand.

GBCO is right next to the historic Irene station, in the old precinct that is being nicely upgraded with new shops, the renovation of the station itself, and the reintroduction of running trains, which make for mystical sights and sounds around the village.

Over a remarkably good cappuccino, and in the flow of notable synchronicity, I shared my experience of the project and the people, and how everything is on the up in Irene. Read Shaun’s article and look out for a book chapter by Jonathan and Yvonne, whose new venture is part of their shift into being themselves for a living.

The IRENE book is coming your way, and Fully Booked will bring an unprecedented boost to your business. Contact me to talk more.