SUNSTYLE CHRONICLES from www.sunstyle.co.za

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

methane

here is a string of e-mails about methane use in cars in South Africa. I feel a conference coming up...

Hi mate

sounds most interesting and you should try get hold of a copy of her research docos if you can. There is no doubt that when one produces methane at marginal costing it's much cheaper than petrol. Consequently, a (relatively) few people should fully capitalise on their position to exploit the resource at marginal cost.

It would be interesting to see her costings and see the cost of a conversion plant, as well as the amount of raw material (volumetric conversion rate) and conversion time required to make the gas.

Pls send info, I'll do a bit more research on my end as well - I'll also look at the Indian web sites.......

Cheers
GT

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Douglas [mailto:douglas@racionzer.net]
Sent: Tuesday, 29 August 2006 5:11 PM
To: Gianni Torta
Subject: Fw: methane query


Dear Gianni

I got this response from Marlene the methane mama today. Thought you may be interested...

Regards

Dug
----- Original Message -----
From: Marlene
To: Douglas
Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2006 6:19 PM
Subject: Re: methane query


Dear Douglas

Thank you for this enquiry. In short, I am most willing to share experience, as time allows! It will be my pleasure. The "project" was a "pet research" project where I looked into the purification of methane from some 56 to 95% via membrane systems (Okkie v Schalwyk 082 859 0833) now retired but previously from Atomic Energy Coorporation - and investigated applications in terms of convertion of diesel and petrol vehicles, use as household gas in place of propane (easi) gas, also heating hot houses from raw methane from anaerobic digesters (Indian deisgn), etc. I have left the findings and doc in the possesion of Mogale City (I left their service about 3 months ago) - and requested that they provide it to any interested persons - no charge. You may contact with magda at 951 2104 or 951 2000 ask for water and sanitation dept. This will be usefull info, but admittedly - I never "prgressed" to the stage where I wrote up a scientific paper on the findings.

Finally, a definite YES it is worth loooking into it - it was even worth doing so 6 years ago when the fuel price bordered on R 3-70 something and the trend in energy was already an indicator in its own right.

I trust the above will meet some of your initial requirements - please feel free to email me anytime - I will try to get back asap.

Kind regards
Marlene


Dr M van der Merwe-Botha

Specialist: Water and Wastewater, Municipal













----- Original Message -----
From: Douglas
To: Marlene van der Merwe
Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2006 5:12 AM
Subject: methane query


Dear Marlene

I was referred to you from Mr. Mostert at the Baviaanspoort Works and then Tina at your office gave me your e-mail address.

I am a social entrepreneur who is looking at the possibilities of using methane to fuel the vehicles in our orgnaization.

Apparantly you not only have done extensive research on this process but hat you have actually converted vehicles. Some of my fellows in new delhi, Brazil and Pakaitan use methane extensilvely in to fuel their vehicles.

With the current petrol price nudging R7/litre, is it worth looking into methane production?

Would you be willing to share some information and even some of your research results and opinions with me on this matter? If so on what terms?

Your assistance in this matter is appreciated.

Kind regards

Douglas Racionzer
www.sunstyle.co.za

Ps check-out my website and blogs to see where I'm coming from on this.

Friday, August 25, 2006

Methane thinking for cars

These excerpts are an exchange of ideas between members of the Difference about the use of methane for fuelling cars. I think it its very interesting how two very different people on two continents can think their way through a problem and how Sunstyle is able to use members of the Difference in this creative process:


Dear Gianni

The price of petrol is around R7/litre now!

We need an alternate (not alternative) form propellant.

Now flowing down the back yard is a sewerage pipe for the 20 or so houses up the street.

How might we build a small domestic gasometer in the back garden?

Cheap, effective and renewable gas.

Do you have any ideas please?


Doug

This is way technical - give me 'til the weekend and I'll get back to you.

Remember however, that in SA the govt. has never promoted LPG or CNG for cars, instead it developed SASOL (Fischer-Tropp process from low-grade coal) to promote mining in Eastern Tvl (and break embargoes) and the methanol from sunflower oil to keep farmers growing. Also, SA has no major reserves of natural gas. In SA, methane is a clean grade (i.e. industrial quality) of synthetic gas - I don't think it's "mined" like in the North Sea or N of Australia - hence it's expensive. As a comparison, LPG at fuel stations here costs around $0.50/litre while petrol is around $1.50/litre. However since you only get half as far on 1 litre of LPG as you do on 1 litre of pertol, its still only 2/3 of the cost per kilometer. The AU govt is investing $1.5 BILLION over the next 5 yrs to subsidise new LPG cars and conversions from petrol to LPG (remember that AU mines its own CNG and LPG, whereas oil is imported).

Dear Gianni

Thanks for the info so far. A little update. they have discovered huge natural gas reserves in Mocambique and a pipeline was commissoned about 18 months ago. It is being built as we speak! The SA govt. is pressurizing the gas companies to reduce the cost of LP gas to consumers and ESKOM has been giving out free LPgas canisters and cookers in Kayalitsha after we piloted a scheme in Orange Farm through AFROX.

Important to know the 3/4 consumption rate.

Normal LPGas cannot be used efficiently in motor vehicles I have as they require a purer form. That is why I have plumped for methane and because we can produce it locally. Not sure if it will be in sufficient quantities though.

Once I can run a local domestic unit. I can install a lrger one in mamelodi where Moses stays. Would just love to sell methane and do conversions to local taxis!

Apparently new delhi lives on methane and so does most of pakistan...why not the good old RSA?

Doug
pls explain: why are you ordering a CNG kit. Where do you find CNG in SA? why do you say that cars require a purer form of LPG? (CNG is predominantly methane, wheras LPG is predominantly propane - cars are tuned differently). What kind of problems does it cause? I'd say that if natural gas is available in SA, then CNG is the way to go.

As far as I remember, LPG in SA is synthesized (I assume predominantly ) by SASOL from coal, or it is imported since it comes from natural gas, which SA doesn't have, hence I can see why it should be expensive. For comparison, it costs $15 (around R75) to refill a 9kg LPG canister here at a petrol station. I'm sure commercial contracts (i.e. hospitals, hotels, restaurants) etc must be cheaper. I'll work out what the density of LPG is - i.e. Litres per kilogram, and we'll have a basis for calculation. I'll also find out what the commercial costs are like.

CNG, LPG and methane are gasses, and all are petroleum or coal based. The fuel that was of interest when I worked at Dept. of Mineral & Energy as an "alternative energy" assistant were the alcohols; methanol and ethanol. Both are easily manufactured from biowaste. The raw material of choice for alcohol production is fermentable organic and animal waste - this can be highly accelarated with bio-enhancers and can yield high quality alcohols depending on the raw material and bacterial combination. Manufacturing alcohols is easy for cattle and pig farmers, the problem is the cost and logistics of collecting and taking the small production batches to central collection points.

The last element of auto fuels is sunflower or canola oil, as an alternative to diesel.

This covers the auto fuels. Regarding domestic fuels, your sewerage however, has 2 problems: water dilution and pathology. If one uses fermentable organic waste, then you manufacture alcohols, which are not really suited to domestic consumption. There are waste converters available that generate methane (swamp gas) from compost, but the conversion rates are poor, or houses would be self sufficient with gas to provide waterheating and cooking.

Stellenbosch University (I'm almost certain it was them) did a reseach project in the mid-80's of a domestic waste converter to generate electricty (i.e. generate heat from waste to run a turbine to run a generator) for domestic use. The technology worked, since domestic waste is a nett enegy source when correctly dried and sorted. The practical difficulties were related to separating the waste and to the dryness of the combustible waste. This meant that you need space to store "large" quantities of waste to air-dry; hence storing and preparing domestic waste was not a practical proposition.

So, this leaves us with your original problem unsolved - fuel for transport and fuel for domestic use.

I know you're looking for alterantive fuels, not alternative technology, but electrical technology is the way to go - it is safe, clean and economically viable. Exchange batteries can be charged via solar panels, and for vehicles, up to (I think) 70% of the vehicle's kinetic energy can be recaptured through regenerative braking.

This is not a simple problem, the technology will move towards high efficiency solar panels and batteries for cars and bulk electricity moving towards wind, tidal and nuclear.


Dear Gianni
What I read is that the sewerage pipes idea is not feasible. The smell and the effort required to sort-out waste makes domestic production of fuel unfeasible.

You suggest electric but that means a new fleet of vehicles yeah?

So we are basically fucked unless we all ride horses or go by bicycle.

Hmm ...come on Gianni you can come up with something here.

Oh by the way I am currently in the planning phase of an ethanol producing farming operation.. These guys use indigenous trees and they want me to train people and provide some retail supply chain links. Havent heard from them for a few weeks though.

I got the info about Lp gas from an Indian website: http://www.axisauto.com/

They supply components for cars to use CNG's and Lpgas.

Oh yes so back to electricity...If I got a tray of batteries cwhat would I need to do to simply use them every day to drive our Nissan sentra. Electricity would probably be cheaper than petrol is at present!

I know you are dealing with a complete amateur and a non-engineer...thanks for being so kind and gentle with me on these things. i promise when you need help with social development issues or philosophy or politics, i will be kind to you...

If methane is used in vehicles in Delhi, Brazil and Pakistan then we can use it in our cars. [Agree - it comes from petroleum, either synthesized as by SASOL, or pumped from fields as in India and in the future, we could also pump it from the Mozambique gas fields - I'm sure that Shell, BP, Caltex and the local politicians are onto this already....]

If methane is made from decaying bi-degradable waste, then could we not use one of your water purifiers to take waste water and recycle it and then take the solid bio-degradable waste which has been filtered out and subject this waste to a digestion process? [Yes, the Tswane City Council is already doing this at their sewerage farms , except they bio-degrade the crap, and not turn it into alcohol - wonder why? Fire risk and pilfering, and some serious technology shortage, and the fact that petrol is cheaper.]

I have drawn a rough plan for the house waste which involves a water pump, a plastic 210 litre drum, a readu supply of condoms, an air pump and a gas bottle (with regulator of course). What do you think the production of methane for our house would be? [Probably not enough to power your PC to send these e-mails. ]

Four of us plus the gardener who lives on the premises? [ I could post you ours too....[

humour me [- sarcasm is humour, just not very good humour. ]

[Energy is a technology issue, you won't overcome it with a "grass-roots" approach. Unless we all live in mud huts, use cold water and only need energy for light and running a small fridge to keep the white wine in, even a wealthy family simply cannot generate enough waste to produce viable energy, unless it's willing to spend big money to build an integrated incinerator + steam generating plant + steam turbine + synchronous generator unit. Its ROI would probably be 100,000 years.

For transport, the oil-less solution lies in fuel cells, solar charging of battery technology, power capacitors and energy storage flywheels - which BP, Shell, and Caltex will introduce when the oil runs out - I just hope they get the timing right....

Regarding public infrastructure, mag-lev trains and decentralised work areas linked with super rail networks will greatly reduce the need for micro transport (i.e. people and goods within local areas). In the meanwhile, for as long as consumer-based industry helps getting politicians elected (i.e. while my arse points to the ground), this ain't gonna happen.

Doug, let this one go - turn your attention to removing the cost of transport, or import a few thousand Chinese and Thai men with rickshaws....]


Dear Gianni

This I guess is part of the difference twixt thee and me. Once I get a little idea in my head I cannot let it go...

Something you said made me call Mr. Mostert at the Baviaanspoort sewerage works. he reports that they use the gasses to fire some turbines in their works!

He also remembers a Marlene vd Merwe who studied the use of methane and is currently working at the Krugersdorp works. I have her e-mail address and will get back to you. Apparently there are a number of others interested in her work and she actually runs the labs vehicles off methane.

Mr. Mostert has no problem with the concept and even suggested we could run a tester at his works on one of the smaller sludge dams as he would be most interested in saving petrol on his works' vehicles!

Now if we could hook our wagons on the baviaanspoort gas....our petrol costs dissapear....

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

choosing Orange Farm and nDwaleni

Moses and Takalani have pointed out that both these townships have local authority structures and have begun putting street lighting in the formal RDP housing sections. The only areas without street lighting are the non-formal housing sections... the squatter camps.

They argued that there would be strong official opposition to solar street lighting if we focussed on installing them in these areas as the authorities are keen to make sure these areas are not serviced.

One of the ways around this problem is to pitch for the conversion of the current street lights to solar lighting.

Another way is to simply go ahead with local organizing committees in the squatter areas and make it explicit that they will have to manage the politics.

Alternatively we could focus our attention on "deep rural" traditional villages and build our firts street lights there.

Hmmm.....

Monday, August 21, 2006

After some thought and discussion, Gary and I have come up with a tentative agreement to trial the set-up of the solar powered street lights in townships. We have now identified two possible sites; Orange Farm and nDwaleni.

I have worked out that there are 25 street lights in the 1 km strentch of road in which I live. That's 1 street light every 40 meters.

Now we need a strong social development programme to support the installation and development of the street lights and to use this process to inspire further energy efficient lifestyle changes in these communities. This is wehere the Tala Club comes into the planning:

The Tala ClubEvery Customer must become the centre of an ongoing lifestyle improvement programme of activities designed to educate, inform and encourage the customer to save energy and promote the environment.
Every person who buys an energy-efficient product from a Sunstyle collaborator will automatically gain membership of the Tala Club. Tala is the siPedi word for Green.
· Members of the Tala Club will receive a monthly newsletter providing recipes for use on energy-efficient cookers, tips on energy savings, competitions, and promotional give-aways from suppliers of food products and information on new energy-efficient products.
· Tala Clubs will have a local organization in each neighbourhood structured on a standard constitution. Each local branch will have an elected chair, secretary and treasurer. Tala Club members will be able to work towards certain defined competencies within the local club. These competencies will allow the participants to undertake defined roles within the local club: These roles will include among others: “Lungisa” (repairer), Savings and Loan officer, Learning Facilitator, Burial Club officer, Reporter, Researcher and so on.
· The Tala Club members will also be the first to test new energy-efficient products and will receive discounts of product upgrades. Market research agencies will have direct access (for a fee) to a diverse set of focus groups that know the products and have empirical experience in their domestic daily use.
· The use of Nedbank’s administrative and technological resources through its bank account and card system linked to a points system that pays the user for using the card and then offers users to pay for energy-efficient products supplied by Sunstyle with points accrued.
Principles for intervention
The structure of local township economies and particularly the way in which business is set-up in township[s such as Orange Farm and nDwaleni may be characterized as “dormitory-town economics”. This is a system in which residents act as pools of cheap, surplus labour to the needs of Johannesburg and Nelspruit. Services are mostly run out of Johannesburg and Nelspruit and are delivered to Orange Farm and nDwaleni. Those goods (including social goods) that are produced in Orange Farm and nDwaleni are not consumed locally to any appreciable degree.
Thus any value that Orange Farm and nDwaleni residents generate is seldom kept locally but tends to move rapidly out of these townships. The situation with owners of RDP homes, people in traditional villages and those assisted by welfare programmes is no different. In the overwhelming majority of cases the money and value generated is spent and leaves places like Orange Farm and nDwaleni without circulating through the neighbourhood first. This simply reinforces the likes of Orange Farm and nDwaleni’s continued structural status as dormitory-towns for Johannesburg and Nelspruit.

¨ If areas such as Orange Farm and nDwaleni are to develop then locally generated value and income must be retained within the local economy for as much and for as long as possible.
¨ Locally generated value must also be used to develop the skills and capacity of local residents and organizations to provide for the needs of the residents residents living in areas such as Orange Farm and nDwaleni.
¨ Services and goods on offer must be appropriate to the needs and aspirations of the residents of areas such as Orange Farm and nDwaleni.

These three principles of retaining value locally, using value for local development and ensuring appropriate technology are the basis upon which the after-sales programme for energy-efficient products is founded and will serve to consolidate the gains made in selling energy efficient products. These values are oriented towards the restructuring of the manner in which value flows into, around and out-of the local Orange Farm and nDwaleni economies. We see Orange Farm and nDwaleni as systems that need to develop a greater integrity and not remain merely part of the greater Johannesburg or Nelspruit economy. If value courses around the local Orange Farm and nDwaleni economies then the residents will have more resources to meet their needs and aspirations.

If one rand of value generated by a Tala Club member is then spent locally on a taxi ride which is then spent locally at a mechanic which is then spent locally at a spaza shop which is then spent to buy locally manufactured sweets which is then spent to pay for the wages of a local resident. This one rand of value has passed through 5 local businesses and has been put to good use to develop the local economy. However, as is now the case most of the value generated in Orange Farm and nDwaleni leaves the area after one local transaction only. We need a system that keeps value within the local economy if Orange Farm and nDwaleni are to develop and break free from its current bondage to Johannesburg or Nelspruit.
This retention of value within the neighbourhood would be assisted by the administrative and technological support of Nedbank’s bank card linked to redeemable points.
If Orange Farm and nDwaleni is able to generate and retain much of the value it creates then we will have achieved the foundation of a stable, self sustaining local economy which can contribute to the wider economy without being subject to the vagaries of an increasingly globalized system.
Recapitulation
An After-Sales Programme in Sunstyle using Nedbank’s points-based bank card will seek to Improve the lifestyles of its members by retaining value locally, using value for local development and ensuring appropriate technology.
These principles will be applied in the development of the Tala Club with its local branches, the publishing of a newsletter with local reporters, the use of local branch members in focus groups for market research and the development of members of each branch to repair products, report events, chair meetings and run the various income-generating projects within the Tala Club.
After-sales service will create pools of local skills within the participating townships and secure the continued custom of members.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Street Lights

The amazing thing about the Difference is that its members are always working on some idea or other. Today I got a call from Gary Besaans, a long time member of the Difference. He has been thinking about solar powered street lighting for almost 18 months now. You see most of the streets are still unlit. This fosters crime and makes the areas where business is doen unsafe at nights.

Gary has found a system of LED lights that would work without maintenance for 10 years!

We are now going to work-up a business plan and see if we can attarct some financing for this idea.

personality

When I was about 13 I looked in the mirror one day and realized that I was never going to be handsome and that I would have to rely on my personality....

Well I guess that's what millions of people who find themselves living in poverty have to work out. They realise that they are going to have to rely on something other than what they have been given to make it through.

I have recently been looking at a variety of initiatives to release value to the poor. Most of these initiatives involve ideas such as the SASIX social exchange or the idea of an international retail bond and even the "blended\" social investment initiative presented to the world forum in Oxford in April.

What these initiatives all share is a clear focus on money and its investment, a sense of massive scale and an international element. Wealthy people from largely 1st world countries are wanting to "invest" their money in social development projects.

What is missing from these plans are the many local, indigeneous and small initiaves currently being practiced in countless neighbourhoods where poor folk find themselves having to rely on something other..

Roche van Wyk's work in the Western Cape with Mama's Coin Factory under the auspices of Community Resource Organization (check out their website: www.cro.za.org)

The work of the SANE network and many Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS) around the globe also deals with value and its trade.

The huge global network of co-operatives seem to offer support to a mix of poor and others within a common bond.

The various environmental organizations and particularly the Full Cost Accounting system that offers an alternate to current accounting systems which ignore the full costs of operations.

There seems to be a divide here. One side in which the formal, global, wealthy are trying to create markets while the poor, dispossed and local are trying to make it through. The question is how should SUNSTYLE position itself?

Thursday, August 17, 2006

My friend

My friend the tree
may fling his arms
in any twisted
way
but
the leaves still
chase the sun

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Non-formal Business Journalism = Real business journalism

Well we can now announce the birth of a new type of journalism! Real business journalism. Not your usual stocke exchange rubbish which only a tiny minority care for or understand. Real business journalsim is about the doings of business people wher most people live, non-formal housing, ghettoes, townships and favella's.

Check out Hleziphi Mudau's articles over the next couple of weeks and find out what really happens in business.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Neccesary Alternates

I've been compiling some of my papers for Jim Grimes, an old anarchist collaborator from the eighties. I want him to review some of my thinking on the work I've been doing.

Anyway as I was printing out various papers (Jim's a Luddite) to send him via post, I began to notice a pattern in my thinking; Its all about alternates (not alternatives) that is I seem to seek-out the unspoken, hidden or suppressed narratives and positions and then bring them to the light.

Its as though I seem to be saying that the whole story must include the thing that is seen as other, diffrenet and alien.

Harold Garfinkel's work and Sausure seem to be combined in this theme.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Free accounting software

If we are going to drive full cost accounting and embed it as an integral process into the Real economy we will need freeware accounting packages available to participating organizations.

To this end I have been checking-out the freeware accounting software called Quicken. It seems to have been developed by an Australian company called "Dynamic Bottom Lines".

I would suggest we use Qicken as a platform and develop full cost accountin procedures using their code. we would also need to create bridging sequences that would allow the new software toi read and convert more formal sofware packages such as Pastel and so on.

Perhaps we could ask the SohoDojo guys to get onto this? I know of two local programmers who could do this stuff. Wtach this space.

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Stakeholder exchange more thoughts


well we said goodbye to Clare Mulvany this morning. Enjoy your travels!

Got to thinking about the stakeholder exchange again...thanks to Clare she told me about a conference in Oxford in April this year. A Brazillian social entrepreneur has establsihed a social market exchange and in June SASIX, a South African version was set-up.

these are very exciting developments and I wish them well.

I have been thinking that this is not enough though...we need to establsih a very different systemic change. Something that shifts the notion of value creation away from the old single bottom line to the triple bottom line.

We need a social market exchange that trades in social value not only monetary value.

Friday, August 11, 2006

Clare mulvaney

Spent the day with Clare who is doing a tour visiting various social entrepreneurs and she asked me to tell my "story". This took some time.

She had also taken some pictures of the work we did with the graffiti artists yesterday. I will try and upload them today onto this site.

chek-out Clare's blog called exceptional lives. The link is avaialble on my webpage.

Clare also knows of a social market exchange that has been establsihed in Brazil which sounds very similar to our idea of the stakeholder's exchange.

Clare told me that she attended the Skoll World Forum on Social Investment at Oxford in March this year. Some speakers were discussing a social market exchange:

Ron Grzywinski, the Founder and CE of Shorebank says:
"Experiments with one investment approach or another are good. But soon we are going to need new processes of exchange if these are to grow or replicate and lever new resources for social change.

A social stock exchange offers one such mechanism. What would a mature social equity offering look like? What is the scope for a genuinely market-based social equity market – what are the inflexion points for change?

How can the social networks of an exchange community such as this increase the flow of philanthropic resources too?

What types of information on impact facilitate exchange – can the social sector deliver?

Can the cultural barriers to working with a wider range of mechanisms in the social
enterprise field be overcome – how else can they be helped to access new networks?"

We at Sunstyle will continue to explore these ideas.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Wimmins day

Well Cat and Dug went down to to the Horror cafe in Newtown, Jhb. We took Andy, Clare, Katy and Ben along. We met up with some serious grafitti artists and three Ashoka bods... The organizers were not well organized no paper till much later, only two marker pens but plenty of cans of spray paint.

We had about 25 youth attending...only 7 or 8 wimmin.

We worked on some themes and some images and then the artists began to draw the designs.

We retired to the Horror cafe for tea. When it started getting dark we drove past the designated wall and they were alsmot finished! It looked really good.

Some local cops stared harrassing us for encouraging the kids to do graffiti and i was beginning to get really pissed when one of the organizers came up and said she was responsible and i was merely an invited guest.

The youth should be proud of the work they did in Newtown today. I feel confident in their skills, their insights and their spirit!

Monday, August 07, 2006

Black cat and white Dug

Well its wimmin's day on Wednesday! We have been invited to run a workshop on cartooning and graffitti for wimmin at the Horror Cafe in Newtown, Jo'burg. It starts at 15h30...dunno when it ends.

Cat and I are going to teach all the participants how to draw a 'toon. We will also show them how to spray a tag.

We will also be introducing some pretty heavy notions for discussion around why more wimmin need to be doing 'toons and spraying graffitti

Sunday, August 06, 2006

My calling

Day before I turned 18, our class went to a valedictory Mass in a township outside Brits. I asked its name and was told merely that it was "oukassie" the old location. Anyway all the Catholic Matrics were there and I had the msot amazing day. You must understand that this was in 1979. Whites and blacks simply never socialized!

Anyway while playing football in the school grounds I saw a brother in a tree beside the church. He was throwing seeds at us! It was at that moment when I felt inside me a deep peace and at the same time a deep burning. A knowledge came to me then. That I must spend my life working among the poor and in places like this.

Within 12 weeks of that day I was in the South African Army. By the time I awolled from the SADF two years later, I had decided to become a social worker. Much happened while studying Social Work. I left South Africa for nine years of exile and returned again to settle in Pretoria in 1995. My wife Andy and my son, Benjamin made a small family unit.

In 1999 while managing Emerging Market Services, Andrew Ball phoned me and asked me to find out why REST 4 REAL spza shop was selling so much custard. The shop was in Mmakau, about 40 km west of Silverton.

I paid a visit. The owner said that on Sundays people come down from that church on the hill and buy tins of peaches and custard for Sunday lunch. The church on the hill was a new one and I asked what denomination it was. Catholic I was told.

I decided to go up the hill and investigate. As I drove in the driveway of the school I realized that this was the place where 20 years ago i had received that strange calling...

I fell to my knees and cried out loud at the sheer amazing power of this calling and its Originator. Twenty years later without planning or forethought, I was doing the very thing in the very same township where I had been told to start my life work.

Portugese Business Community

I spent most of yesterday at my son, Benjamin's school's annual carnival. By the way what this thing with meat? carni...

Anyway I met Virgilio Da Silva at the carnival and we got to talking. We discussed the tragedy of the portugese language community in South Africa who seem almost totally incapable of standing together in business matters. Virgilio agreed and recalled how he had tried to organize various portugese shop-keepers into a collective in the city centre some years back and despite having gone to school and going to church with these guys, being unable to get them to work together on issues of mutual interest.

It seems that that there is a deep culture of mutual suspicion and competition between members of the portugese community. At least in Pretoria.

If they only could form a collective, they would be able to punch above their individual weight in the supply chain.

Virgilio suggested that only a Portugese priest with deep humility and no financial stake could organize the portugese business community.

Hmmm...do we know anyone who might do something like this with a community work interest?

Friday, August 04, 2006

methane

We have just returned froma small get together at marita's house and I met a lovely couple from Pakistan. Shabaaz was telling me that most people drive on methane these days and that the conversion is cheap and the supply of methane is provided through local gasometers....With the price of petrol now nearing R7/litre...the unregulated price of methane would be a huge benefit to the taxi industry as well as being environmentally "freindlier" so I shabaaz suggests.

Something to think about...

I have also contacted one of the origional members of the The Difference, Tony Lennoff who knows some people who would be able to set-up a bond or debenture issue for retail trade. her'll get back to us.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

being in the world

Today Andy (my wife) and I travelled the 70 Km to Jo'burg to meet Hleziphi Mudau, the really cool journalist and to do some musical chores at Lovemore's Music. Hleziphi was great! She apparently has about 100 news articles she has written on township business mostly in and around Diepsloot.

We agreed that Hleziphi would photocopy her articles and I will then set-up a personal blog for her articles available from the Sunstyle Website.

We also agreed to set-up some interviews with her at various newspapers including the Daily Sun and we will try to get her and janine du Plessis to meet with Mayer Fischer-French who does business reporting for the Mail and Guardian to promote the creation of a township business section.

We also agreed that there would be violence in Diepsloot and neighbouring Olievenhoutbos unless some conflict resolution was not conducted. I agreed to contact some social workers active in these areas to investigate. We cannot have a nascent business scene mired in violence.

On another topic, Marita Oosthuisen visited this evening and asked us to proof-read her masters dissertation on public participation in Environmental Impact Studies. This should be interesting as it raises a whole set of issues about how formal and legally framed actions may be routinely undermined.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

retail development bonds

Daniel Bradlow is in South Africa. The ashoka people in Washington have already been onto him aconcerning his innovative ideas about offering a bond for the development of the informal retail sector in South Africa.

I wrote something on this in July and now it seems that we may just have something to work on. I'm very interesetd to know how a fund manager would know where and with whom to invest with.

It seems that most fund managers would start by setting fair but strict criteria and then seek projects that fit these criteria. I would suggest a different approach; select social entrepreneurs and find out what is in their plans. support those plans that are most likely to make a decent profit and be sustainable.

The project-based approach will simply get bogged down in details and become excessively bureaucratic. We simply are not there yet in the social development field.

I do hope that professor Daniel Bradlow eventually gets to meet with the Sunstyle team.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

rainy day


This is still winter in the highveld and it really shoul not be raining. It has rained from 2.30 pm on and seems to be set to rain for the night. Wierd winter weather!

Today I sent a SANE request to Marita to start developing a public participation process for the Mamelodi Extension 17 community around the subject of their title deeds. Most have lived in their own houses now for over 6 years without receiveing the title deeds to theise houses. This is deSoto's territory and I must agree weith him that it ensures the poor remain trapped in the poverty cycle.


I have posted the diptych I painted entitled "Magnificence" It is now palces on the wall of our lounge in Silverton. Its a big painting about 1.3 mteres by 800 cm x 2 (hence the diptych)

I'm planning to doa whole series of these so watch this space.