NOW AND THE FUTURE

Les looks forward, with unbridaled enthusiam, to the future; he insists that communicating with others is the key to out future.

I have never been too interested in the past; yesterday has gone so let it be. I'm interested in tomorrow which is the future. So what does the future hold in store for places such as Stoke Ferry, Wereham, Methwold, well you name whatever village you wish.

My answer is that our future isn't as bright as it should be and the reason can be summed up in one word, or the lack of it, and that one word is Communication. I look at everything though the eyes of a salesperson, which we all are. We all have got something very important to sell and that's ourselves. But you can't sell yourself if you are not in communication with other people. Selling and communication go hand in hand; you can't have one without the other.

Our Village Pump epitomises everything I believe in. Where would the Pump be without our Editor? Well where would he be without our contributors? And where would they be without those who collate and distribute the Pump? And where would all of those be without the people who eventually buy the Pump. You could say where would the Vicar be if he or she was about to deliver their Sermon only to discover there was no congregation. The point I am making is that individually we may not consider ourselves to be that important but collectively we are INDESPENSABLE.

What is holding us back isn't ability which we all have in different shapes and sizes, but our inability to communicate with other people because we presume wrongly that we have little to offer. It seems to be in our nature that we shouldn't push ourselves forward. The real point I am making is that there is only one thing all of us can be and that's a salesperson. You need only one Vicar in church, one conductor of a choir, one Chairman of your local Council, and only one Bus Driver. Little wonder they only put in one seat for this Driver and 30 for the passengers, and yet everyone on the bus can be and are salespeople.

How many people will be at Church or Chapel next Sunday? Well maybe not many, and why? Because our salespeople, our Communicators, haven't been at work. What's so difficult about going next door inviting them to join you at Church, Chapel, Bingo, going down to the Pub, you name it. It's that simple; you are selling, you are in Communication. You are doing no more than what any salesperson will have to do if he or she wants a sale, you have to ASK.

All of this I hope explains why yesterday holds little interest to me. But what of tomorrow? What exciting world awaits us; will it bring us what we want? Or will it bring us what we deserve. If we put so little in to our world what right have we to expect much in return.

If tomorrow is just going to be a repeat of yesterday, well why bother. Let's hoist the white flag and be done with it. But we know we can do better than that. At least we can do one thing, we can TRY, and even if we didn't do that yesterday, or even today, well we will have plenty of time tomorrow, and the next day, and all the other days that the FUTURE holds for us.

Les Lawrence