The world’s largest Christmas tree!

It display rises up the slopes of Monte Ingino outside of Gubbio, in Italy’s Umbria region. Composed of about 500 lights connected by 40,000 feet of wire, the’tree’ is a modern marvel for an ancient city.

The Capitol Christmas tree in Washington, D.C., is decorated with 3,000 ornaments that are the handiwork of U.S. schoolchildren. Encircling evergreens in the’Pathway of Peace’ represent the 50 U.S. states.

A Christmas tree befitting Tokyo’s nighttime neon display is projected onto the exterior of the Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka.

Illuminating the Gothic facades of Prague’s Old Town Square, and casting its glow over the manger display of the famous Christmas market, is a grand tree cut in the Sumava mountains in the southern Czech Republic .

Venice’s Murano Island renowned throughout the world for its quality glasswork is home to the tallest glass tree in the world. Sculpted by master glass blower Simone Cenedese, the artistic Christmas tree is a modern reflection of the holiday season.

Moscow celebrates Christmas according to the Russian Orthodox calendar on Jan. 7. For weeks beforehand, the city is alive with festivities in anticipation of Father Frost’s arrival on his magical troika with the Snow Maiden. He and his helper deliver gifts under the New Year tree, or yolka, which is traditionally a fir.

The largest Christmas tree in Europe (more than 230 feet tall) can be found in the Praça do Comércio in Lisbon, Portugal . Thousands of lights adorn the tree, adding to the special enchantment of the city during the holiday season.

‘Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree’: Even in its humblest attire, aglow beside a tiny chapel in Germany’s Karwendel mountains, a Christmas tree is a wondrous sight.

Ooh la la Galeries Lafayette! In Paris, even the Christmas trees are chic. With its monumental, baroque dome, plus 10 stories of lights and high fashion, it’s no surprise this show-stopping department store draws more visitors than the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower.

In addition to the Vatican’s heavenly evergreen, St. Peter’s Square in Rome hosts a larger-than-life nativity scene in front of the obelisk.

The Christmas tree that greets revelers at the Puerta del Sol is dressed for a party. Madrid’s two-week celebration makes millionaires along with merrymakers. On Dec. 22, a lucky citizen will win El Gordo (the fat one), the world’s biggest lottery.

A token of gratitude for Britain’s aid during World War II, the Christmas tree in London’s Trafalgar Square has been the annual gift of the people of Norway since 1947.

Drink a glass of gluhwein from the holiday market at the Romer Frankfurt’s city hall since 1405 and enjoy a taste of Christmas past.

Against a backdrop of tall, shadowy firs, a rainbow trio of Christmas trees lights up the night (location unknown).

(Source for pictures: http://www.praisecafe.org/)

My mom got hit by a car the other day. The driver hit
her knee and she fell down in the street in shock.

I made a video update here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YwkUAc8ePA

Sleepy Brice and Aziza, the hyper energetic mom

I was really shocked.. But the good news is she’s still alive!

She’s a bit paranoid of crossing the street now… so I’m keeping an eye on her to see if there’s any psychological issues I need to report from this accident today.

We have already forgiven the driver. It could’ve happened to anyone really..

I hope your family and loved ones are doing well?

Life is extremely short. I wanted to write this to remind you
to tell the people in your life how important they are
and how much you love them!

Don’t wait too long. I hope you’ll put the past behind you.

Sometimes just saying “I forgive you” or “I love you” will make
a big difference in your life.

A bientot,

Brice

P.S: Leave me a comment below on the blog and I’ll respond to you.

A TCK just emailed me and said someone in her family got his first and only “I love you” from his dad on his death bed. Now he tells everyone how much he loves them.

You may find this post interesting on grief: Grief expert: “My life is good, but why don’t I feel that way?”

Tom is an experienced counselor who has helped over 1000 victims in 9/11 in NYC recover from grief and trauma. He shares his wisdom with TCKs at TCK Academy. I hope that helps you or someone you know.

What will the future of the nonprofit sector look like in four years, ten years or twenty years? According to a Duke University professor and author David Rendall, social enterprise could be the future of non-profit funding.

Recent studies point out there is a Non-profit worker Burn Out and emerging leader deficit. “Low salaries, long hours and never-ending to do lists plague the non-profit sector.”

Harvard Business: New Landscape for Non-Profits:

Today the U.S. government no longer considers nonprofits to be entitled–or even best qualified–to provide social services. Profit-seeking companies like Lockheed Martin are now winning contracts for such services (…) The change raises fundamental questions about the mission and future of nonprofits. Because nonprofits now find themselves sharing territory with for-profits, sometimes as collaborators and sometimes as competitors, the distinctions between these organizations will continue to blur.

A response to a 2006 report that found 75 percent of nonprofit executive directors were planning to leave in the next five years. The 2008 report surveyed 6,000 emerging leaders in the nonprofit sector, and found 69 percent of them felt underpaid.

The reaction to the Meyer Report have shook the non-profit world and caused many blog discussions, including the emergence of Non-profit 2020, a conference to engage emerging leaders in a discussion on the latest reports on the leadership deficit, and a very interesting discussion of Nonprofits of the Future on Social Edge.

There is a growing desire from the non-profit sector for self-reform.

What are the proposed solutions?

Derwin Dubose, a fundraising professional with eight years of experience in development with non-profits, writes on his blog:

As of 2006, there were nearly 1 million 501(c)(3) organizations in the US — a nearly 70% increase from the 536,000 there were ten years earlier — and I’ve heard that number currently grows at a rate of 1,000 per month. As the number of non-profits grows, inefficiency within our field goes up while the pool of available donors shrinks. Competition will be high for donations, and only well-oiled organizations will be able to thrive in the super-saturated market.

Professor David Rendall, makes the following suggestions:

1. Organizations should combine service with business: Given the conditions of the market for non-profits, how can non-profits protect themselves for the future? One way to look at becoming a social enterprise: a non-profit organization that generates earned income to support its social purpose. Earned income is revenue that’s received in exchange for products or services.

2. Social enterprise should participate in the Experience Economy. More and more, consumers are paying top dollar to have unique experiences. Non-profits should consider eco-tourism, travel, direct service opportunities, and experiential events as new fundraising mechanisms.

3. Don’t take on business models that have been rejected by the private sector. In the age of eBay, we don’t need another thrift store.

4. Consider other audiences for our organization. Too often, groups dismiss social enterprise because the people they serve can’t afford to pay.

5. And finally, don’t start a non-profit, start a social enterprise that can make money and then fund charitable pursuits. Starting a business is far, far easier than starting a non-profit. All of the forms, legal information, reporting, and liability with a non-profit added to the super-saturated market for non-profits is reason enough to concentrate on social enterprise.

What are your thoughts? What will the future of the nonprofit sector look like in four years, ten years or twenty years? Retweet/Share. Leave a comment below and share your thoughts.

Resources :

Study: Nonprofit Burn Out. 75% of non-profit executive directors plan to leave in the next 5 yrs. (Some work 3 jobs.)

http://np2020.org/ Non-profit 2020. Engaging emerging leaders in a discussion on the latest reports on the leadership deficit.

Nonprofits of the Future, a discussion on Social Edge

When I read this report, I immediately thought: “Wow, I’m not alone!”

You’ll have an intimate peek of my life and anyone leading a non-profit organization, charity, association or community.

Read the full report from the Meyer Foundation

“What we learned was sobering. War for talent or no, those who care about the health of the
charitable sector—those who believe, as we do, that strong nonprofit leaders are the best predictors
of organizational success—can draw both warning and inspiration from the results of this survey.”

* In 2006 the Meyer Foundation, working in partnership with CompassPoint Nonprofit
Services, released a report showing that three out of four executive directors planned to leave
their jobs within the next five years.

* These leaders cited a lack of adequate compensation, burnout, and overwhelming fundraising responsibilities as reasons for their departure. The survey and focus groups for this follow-up study show that emerging leaders are acutely aware of these challenges. They see the executive directors of their own organizations struggle, and often fail, to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Not surprisingly, many next generation leaders wonder how they would fare as heads of their own organizations.

* Money issues loom large for many of these would-be leaders. Close to two-thirds of our survey respondents report having financial qualms about committing to nonprofit careers.

* Over two-thirds (69 percent) feel they are underpaid for the work they currently do. Focus group participants discussed having to forego luxuries their friends could easily afford. Some described how they had to take on second jobs to supplement their nonprofit salaries.

* A report by The Bridespan Group, for example, indicates that by 2016 the nonprofit sector will need 80,000 new senior managers each year, 40 percent more each year than is currently required. Demand pressures and a constrained supply will challenge nonprofit boards of directors and recruiters who must compete against
government and business for talented leaders.

The survey results described in this report tell us a lot about ourselves, and not all of it is flattering. The wisdom on the streets—confirmed to some degree by this study—is that we tend to undervalue nonprofit work and the people who do it. Even those of us who should know better sometimes fall prey to the notion that important charitable work can and should happen at a discount. This same idea animates the view that professionals who toil at nonprofits ought to work longer hours and for less pay than their for-profit counterparts. Where does this idea come from? Perhaps we’ve all heard too many charitable organizations promise that 100 percent of our donated dollars will support those who are most in need. Our desire to cut out the middle men—those who actually feed the hungry, house the homeless, and heal the sick— might also be rooted in the notion that acts of giving ought to be kept “pure.” The archetype of the charitable act includes a generous donor and a grateful supplicant. It leaves little room for the people who do the very hard work of delivering nonprofit services.

We undervalue these people at our peril. Nonprofit executive directors are burning out and leaving the sector in alarming numbers. Meanwhile, emerging leaders are thinking twice about stepping into the breach. This is a great shame when we consider the extraordinary vision and values that drew these talented people into our sector in the first place.

So what are some solutions?

According to Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace prize winner, the solution is a social business that can create a world without poverty. You can read more below:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0215/p09s01-coop.html

What are your thoughts? Please leave a comment below

Have you ever wondered just how bad not fitting in a group of friends can get?

You may find this a little bit shocking.

What is it about?

I received a very moving email from a member from our non profit community TCKID, a 36 yo man who suffered from over 12 years of stuttering and depression because of a lack of belonging. His stuttering “gradually got better” after he made better friends.

He’s not the only one, I have talked to a few dozen people with similar stories who are suffering in silence.

I am currently working with a speech therapist to survey our members on this issue.

Why is it important?
If you are reading this, then maybe you’ve experienced loneliness and social rejection at some point in your life or know someone who did.

As a wise person once said:

“If we don’t raise awareness, then more people will continue to suffer in silence.”

I encourage you to break down the wall of silence and share this story to your friends.

Did you know emotional pain hurts more than physical pain? According to a study published in an August issue journal Psychological Science.

A lack of belonging is a key A psychological sense of belonging is a greater predictor of major depression than other factors commonly associated with depression, such as social support, conflict and loneliness, according to a new University of Michigan School of Nursing study.

I receive around 20 messages & emails per day of stories like this, but I never cease to be surprised by the pain people go through because of a social rejection and not belonging.

What to do next?
Do you know someone who may have chronic fatigue syndrome, depression, headaches, or chronic pain? It may be caused or exacerbated by psychological and emotional issues.

A few things you can do:
* Share it on your Facebook. Maybe your friends know someone like this!
* Leave a quick comment to let this man know he’s not alone. Let him know you read this.

Read his story below:

Hi Brice,
Hope you can understand my English, It’s what I learned by myself so I hope everything is understandable.

I think my story is maybe a bit different because there are 2 other factors in my life that makes my life even more difficult.

You may reconsider your promise of reading every email if they are all this long

I lived in Oman, Irak, and Saudia Arabia with my parents up until I was 13. I loved it there. I can’t Imagine a better childhood than the one I had. That is the first 13 years. The rest was not a pleasant experience to say the least.

I never went to school when we lived in the Middle East. All studies were done via mail and came from the ministry of education in Belgium. My mother was also my teacher… if she had the time that is.

My fathers career was the bigest focus of my mother. I can remember that she was always preparing some big party to get my father introduced to the write people. So many times we were left wandering on ourselves, wich ment no school at all and that was fine for me My mother also had a very different idee of how to raise children. She believes in a free way of raising children. Wich in many ways ment ‘no’ upbringing. A child can only develop it’s natural capabilities if it’s not suppressed by adults she thinks. In theory this sounds very good but in reality there are many drawbacks. I didn’t know what it’s like to listen and do what an adult tels me. And on top of that I have ADHD wich my mother also refuses to give me medication for because se believed that this would also surpress any natural development of a child.

At age 13 we came back to Belgium.

So there I was in Belgium in a real School (even a boarding school!) for the first time in my life. Here all of a sudden I had to listen to what adults told me to do.
You can imagine it didn’t go well and I hade real problems to fit in. I had been kicked out of 7 schools when I reached the age of 18. The day I got the be 18 was also my last day of school, with no degree whatsoever.
The only job I could get back then was working in a factory. That also didn’t went well.

I think I must have worked in at least 20 different jobs by the time I was 24 and I was feeling deeply depressed.

From the time I was 13 when we came back to belgium I had begin to develop a speaking disorder, apparently because I couldn’t handle everything. When I was 24 I stuttered so bad that I could hardly speak anymore. Today almost all of my stuttering is gone as I began to think a lot and understood from where it was all coming and starting to accept things for what they are.

Back when I was 24 the internet was starting to develop. I saw a big opportunity here in designing websites, creativity had always been my biggest capability. Designing websites was so new that there was no degree for this so me not having one I hoped wouldn’t be that much of a problem. I talked it over with my father and he also believed it was a good idee. He bought me an Apple computer I couldn’t afford myself back then but it was the computer you needed to have to do graphic design work. I also stopped working in the factory’s and I got my self a licens to work as a freelancer. The beginning was far from easy, I had to learn everything myself and I didn’t have any money. But I hanged in there and it did work out in the end.

Today I work as a senior Motion Graphic Designer at Agency.com Brussels. I’m a full time freelancer at this company for the last 5 years, I have a really nice income and I work for mayor international clients. I worked really hard to get this and I’m good at what I do so I should be happy where I ame now. But I’m not. I want to walk away from it all and do something else. And this isn’t the first time. Back when I was working in the factory I was also a semi profesional snooker player. I put years of hard work in my snooker, but when I started to get really good at it I walked away from everything and start to do something completely different. Same with the job I have now. I’m going to walke away from something I worked so hard for to do something completely different I know nothing about. Now I want to start up a small company that designs and makes leather laptop sleeves and bags, and I know absolutely nothing about this leatherbag business.

It may seem strange and foolish to leave everything you worked for and are good at behind, but this is what I know and in a strange way I feel familiar with, this is what I always have done.

Except that it’s painful because it’s something I worked so hard for. I still cry sometimes that I left my snooker and never looked back to it. And I aslo cry now that I realise I’m going to do the same again with my present work. But if I stay and do where I ame now I’m unhappy to.

I’m a bit afraid to seek contact with other TCKA people because what if I can’t even relate to these people? Many things I read on the website I do relate to. But for me it doesn’t stop there. There are 2 other big thing wich causes a lot of problems for me in fitting in, making friend and keeping friends I think. It’s not having a proper upbringing by my parents together with having ADHD. It’s like our family lawyer once sad to a friend of mine when he was talking about our family, ‘the mother can not be tamed, and the children, they are like wolfschildren’. He didn’t say it in a bad way. But I think his observations are right. So maybe it’s not only me who has it difficult in keeping friends, but it’s aslo true that it’s not easy to be a friend and stay a friends with me for other people. I think many times people don’t know what to think of me, they don’t seem to be able to get a grip on me an place me.

I’m an observer and a thinker like may TCKs. Maybe a bit to much of a thinker because the outcome is many times not that pleasant. Thinking a lot develops very strong believes, principles and values. This is fine, accept I also think it’s this that makes it very difficult for other people to stay friends with me. I can easily make friends with Belgium people but after a period of time I can’t stay friends with them.
Many times it comes to a confrontation I’m so deeply hurt in my believes, principles and values by these friends that I can’t be friends with them anymore. The person in question does not even understand why. Not all people think as much as I do and are therefore many times unaware of what they are doing and why I can’t be friends with them anymore.

This makes it very difficult for me to have a feeling of home.

For me home is not a physical place. I feel home wherever I know there are people who truly care about me and I about them. Home is a constancy in your life wich you know is always there no mater what. But I can’t find constant friends, they always come and go. Therefore It’s difficult to have a real feeling of home.

My stuttering began when I was 13.

At first it was not so bad and I could keep it much under control so people wouldn’t notice it. As adapting and trying to fit was more difficult each year it got worse. I remember when I was 16 a teacher in class asked a question to me. It was really simple, everyone in the class knew the answer and so did I but couldn’t say the word. The teacher waited for the whole class hour for me to say the answer. I sat there all this time in my seat with everyone in a painful silence waiting for it to be over. It was only at the last minutes I couldn’t take it anymore and I broke out in tears.

When I was around 18 it was again more easy to keep it under control when I felt a bit better because I made some friends here in belgium who I had a nice time with, even if it was only on a very shallow level. It was a few years later when it went very bad when I started to realise that I had no education what so ever and that it was not going to be easy to get out of the life I was living. The friends I had were all doing drugs and so was I. The older I got the more I started to have difficulty what I was doing and the people I was associating with. I was 24. So I cut them of in my life all at once. This was very hard, it was a time that I had no friends what so ever. It was also the first years as a freelancer and in the beginning I had no experience and no or very little work. All of a sudden I also had to talk to people with I higher education and I felt very much inferior to them. I remember those years very well because at one stage it was so bad I could hardly speak. I felt very unhappy and depressed. When I was talking I was thinking about these things that made me feel depressed and it made my brain and talking organs completely out of sync.


The next years my stuttering gradually got better as I made some new and different friends than I had before.

My work as a freelancer also started to go very well, and when I was around 30 I was working for all the big clients I always believed I had the capabilities to work for.

Today I think people who know me can still recognize some stuttering, but it’s more a habitual left over.

If I really wanted to I could speak without stuttering but I don’t care that much anymore. When I was younger I felt very ashamed for it but now I don’t anymore, and with that thought it gradually went away.

Getting older makes you accept things more like they are. I’m 36 now.

Lately I feel that some of my stuttering is coming back a little bit from time to time because I’m very much in the same situation as I was so many years ago when I was doing it so much. I feel again very restles because of all the changes that have happend lately and are going to come. Like before I felt that a lot of people I was friends with were not really my friends and I had to break with them. But a very few are still there this time, so it’s not that bad. Also I realised that the job I worked so hard for is coming to an end and that I have to leave it behind in search for something else. But also this is not the end because for each loss there is place for something new and different. It’s still hard because you step in the unknown and you don’t know what it’s all going to lead to but then you realise that you have been here many times before. It doesn’t give you any guarantees but it helps.
Of course Brice you have my permission to share my mails if it can help people.
Seppe