Bryon Howard

Last year, along with my roles as a realtor, husband, and father … I set a goal to qualify for the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii. I also set goals around my business, finances, fun time, contribution and relationships. (Things worked out pretty well.)

In the process of determining what I want 2009 to look like, I came across some notes I took from some lecture on Maslow’s Four Levels of Learning. From my pen scrawled notes, I reflected on these levels of learning: Unconscious Incompetence; Conscious Incompetence, Conscious Competence, and Unconscious Competence.

Unconscious Incompetence is not knowing what you don’t know.

Conscious Incompetence is knowing that you don’t know everything.

Conscious Competence is the most dangerous. You think you know everything.

Unconscious Competence is when you do what you do so well, that you don’t have to think about it. This is the ideal situation. This is cruising.

I’ve been active all my life. I’m unconsciously competent at biking, running, and swimming. I especially excel when these sports are done together – as in triathlon.

This year, my goal is to achieve unconscious competence in my business. I’ve only been listing and selling real estate for 8 years, and working with a coach for 3 years … so I’m doubtful if I’ll achieve “cruising through life” status … but I bet I can improve tremendously. It won’t be easy … so I have a plan to make it happen. (Email me at Bryon@thehowardteam.net if you wish to see my plan, and thus become part of it - holding me accountable in that plan!)

Bryon is conscious of his incompetence as a writer, but he enjoys it – once he gets started. He is enjoying his new volunteer role on the board of The South Calgary Community Association as editor of the community newspaper. He lives in Altadore, and is a husband, father, and realtor with REMAX House.

The City of Calgary Public Art Program wants to hear from you! Five community forums, one in each quadrant as well as in the Centre City, are being held in mid-February to encourage and solicit your thoughts and perspective on future public art initiatives in your community and throughout the city.

A short presentation of selected public art projects in neighborhoods and urban areas will be followed by a discussion on:

• What values, commonalities, aspirations and unique features of your community deserve acknowledgement and/or celebration?

• What anchors your community? Where do people tend to gather? What are the landmarks or locations you would take a visitor to see?

• What public art have you seen or experienced that you especially liked? What about it made it successful?

Light refreshments will be served – all are welcome. For the forum date, time and location nearest to you, as well as other ways to provide input, please visit www.calgary.ca/publicart.

Creating a stong community ... this is the mandate of The South Calgary Community Association (serving South Calgary, Altadore, River Park, and Garrison Woods).

We need to increase our Membership to at least 1000 homes. Buy a membership today!

This month, some of our exciting new programs we are supporting include:

• We will be supporting a community wide food drive for the Calgary Interfaith Foodbank

• We are working with a group of local residents to help save a community outdoor rink

• Our traffic committee is growing in numbers are we are working hard to encourage the city to review our traffic concerns

• Our blockwatch committee continues to eradicate graffiti in the neighbourhood and they are planning a community wide clean-up event this spring

• Our INDULGE committee is gearing up for yet another exciting evening of food, wine and dancing...tickets on sale to members first!

• Our Auditor complimented our Association, in particular our Treasurer for maintaining not only an excellent set of books, but also for ensuring that financial controls are in place to manage our budget and finances properly

• We e-mail our members on a monthly basis ( members who have not rec’d e-mail updates should contact Victoria directly ) providing them with important updates on all of our initiatives and events

Victoria Morgan, Membership Director membership@southcalgarycommunity.ca

From blockwatch programs to traffic safety, we offer programs to support a safe community. We need your support to create the strong community.

As they watched their utility bills creep ever higher, Chandra and Kalpana Jangam realized they had to make their 31-year-old Calgary house more energy efficient. The question was who could they trust for reliable advice?

Their answer was the ecoENERGY Retrofit program. It offered them the best of all worlds: a professional energy assessment, rebates on energy-efficiency improvements, significant long-term savings on utility bills and substantially reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

Operating since April 2007, Natural Resources Canada’s (NRCan) ecoEnergy Retrofit program offers grants to residential property owners who improve the energy efficiency of existing homes. To qualify for the grants, homeowners must take these three steps:

1. have a licensed, independent energy advisor do a detailed energy evaluation of your home;
2. undertake one or more approved energy-efficiency upgrades;
3. have the energy advisor do a follow-up evaluation to verify the upgrades and help you apply for any grants.

Grant amounts are tied to the energy efficiency of specific upgrades. Examples include $30 for a window replacement, $50 for a low-flow toilet replacement, up to $500 for a high-efficiency furnace and up to $600 for significantly improved attic insulation. For a detailed list of available grants visit the NRCan website.

The ecoENERGY Retrofit homeowners’ program is available for existing, low-rise residential properties, including single detached and attached homes (e.g. row housing, duplexes and triplexes) and small multi-unit residential buildings. Newly-built homes occupied for less than six months are not eligible, nor are any energy-efficiency upgrades started prior to an initial energy evaluation.

For more ideas and information on energy-efficiency, subscribe to our free online newsletter enerclick, visit http://www.climatechangecentral.com, call us toll free at 1-866-609-2700, or email contact@climatechangecentral.com.

For the past few months we’ve all seen the headlines … “Financial Meltdown”, “Recession”, and “Hunker Down”. The word of the year for 2008 is ‘bailout’.

Looking ahead at 2009, what will you choose to fill your head with? One of hope, resilience and knowing that, “this too will pass?” or, will you bury your head in the sand along with all those other doomsday prophets?

I believe 2009 is the year that many folks will get back to reality in spending habits. Life may become simpler.

This morning as I was preparing my kids sandwiches, I used the last zip lock sandwich bag. I began to consider my school days. I wondered to myself, “Will I buy more zip lock sandwich bags”?

Growing up, I was the youngest of six kids. My parents were born in the depression, in rural Prince Edward Island. It was natural for my Mom to send us to school with our sandwiches wrapped in the recycled 1 litre milk bags. I was quite embarrassed about my sandwich wrappers for most of my school years. However, by the time I was in grade 12 – and a leader in my school – I began to think that my sandwich wrappers were cool – and I appreciated my Mom’s habits.

Last night I attended an information session put on by One Change. Their flagship project is Project Porchlight. I have volunteered to distribute free energy efficient compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL) door-to-door in our neighborhood.

Did you know that if every Canadian house hold changed one bulb in their home to a Compact Florescent light bulb, it would be similar to taking 66,000 cars of the road!

This one simple action will help to save you money, and help to save our planet. Simple action making global impact!

So as we enter into 2009 take some time and reflect over your past year. Take time to set some goals for 2009. Think about Financial goals, Time goals (how much time will you work, spend with family and friends, etc.), Strategic Goals (is time to “make the switch”, do something new, replace your role at work), Association goals (… or mentorship, who are you hanging out with).

In 2009, recycle your lunch bags, change your light bulbs – and prosper! I hope to see you on your door step in Altadore – where I will be giving away light bulbs promoting simple change, joining our community association, and talking to you about real estate!