Commonwealth Games 2022 and team work by Sheila Johnson
 |
| Myself and my husband, Angus at the opening ceremony |
Hockey, like a lot of sports is a team game. First we watched Kenya's ignoble defeat by Australia 8-0 to Australia, and then England's game against Ghana, again a 12-0 defeat for Ghana. I don't know a lot about hockey, which was my husband's game, but I could see clearly why both African teams were defeated. When the winning side players had the ball in both cases, they were able to pass easily to one another as there were none of the opposing players nearby to stop them. Clearly this shouldn't happen. The same was true when they scored, it was almost without opposition. But when the Ghanaian or Kenyan players occasionally got the ball, there were very few of their players strategically placed to pass the ball to. Hence the very differing scores!
It struck me that this is such a great image for us as writers. We are a team too. The ACW team. We need to support each and every player/writer, defend them when they are down and pass on our support and help when they need it i.e. be strategically placed. Perhaps we can't all be top players or scorers but we can all contribute to support our winning side in some way. In God's eyes we are all winners anyway.
Sheila Johnson lives in Cheltenham and is a qualified journalist who has written for a number of publications both local and national. She has also written two books under her pen name Sheila Donald, Alpha Male and Waireka. Her website can be found at www.journojohnson.com
So true and a great analogy to remind us that we are all in this together. Thank you, Sheila :)
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting, isn't it, how watching a team do it badly offers the stark lesson. I love the book 'How Not to Write a Novel' for the same reason as it offers examples of excruciating writing to make its point. I was also talking to a friend this morning who has a book called 'How Not to Run a Charity' in which each chapter is about a mistake made and learned from. Shame for Kenya and Ghana though :( but they will learn from their mistakes too.
ReplyDeleteI love those books, Fran, and you're right of course. Mistakes are hideous when they're yours, but we should try to learn from them. Sounds like loads of fun, Sheila!
ReplyDeleteMistakes are great for teaching lessons but not greater than the support from team members in a group. I guess we all have to be strategically placed to to receive maximum support from others in a team. Lovely post, thanks. Blessings.
ReplyDeleteThank you Sheila, I agree this is a very good analogy of the ways in which groups of writers can support each other.
ReplyDeleteThank you everyone. I thought the analogy was useful.
ReplyDelete