THE CIRCLE
FOURTH EDITION JULY 2021
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The Circle July 2021 The Circle is a limited circulation magazine which I produce as a retirement hobby for my family and friends, past clients, and fellow Midstreamers. The content is designed to appeal to people over the age of 50, and retirees. I like to try writing the sort of articles that I would like to read.
If you want to learn how to write, I was told, write a hundred stories. I’m happy to report slow and steady progress. Thank you for your feedback and support. This fourth edition of The Circle is made up of three very different topics:
1. The right connections: Angola needed things it didn’t have and if you made the right moves, and watched your back carefully, deals could be done in US dollars. But you could also be taken to the cleaners. 2. Ben and Jerry’s ice cream: Successful people stress the virtues of hard work as a key ingredient in their success. But sometimes people are in the right place at the right time, and sometimes luck and good values play a part as well. 3. Maropeng: My first attempt at copywriting, material that aims to increase brand awareness and persuade you to take action or buy something.
Front cover picture: River Thames from Richmond Hill
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1 The right connections
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The right connections I’ve never ever seen a place like Angola after the war. I’m talking about after the civil war when the family came to power and took control of everything. Angola was the fastest-growing economy in Africa at that time and you could make a lot of money if you had the right connections. The country had so much oil they called it the Kuwait of Africa and they were exporting it all over the world, along with vast amounts of diamonds. There was no manufacturing capacity and everything had to be imported but they didn’t care.
Besides being so resource-rich in oil and diamonds they had gold, copper, timber forests, and coal deposits which had hardly been touched. In Luanda they were building roads, apartment blocks, hospitals and schools like you can’t believe. All the big South African construction companies were there and most of them lost money. Inflation was rampant and prices were ridiculous. It was one of the ten most expensive cities in the world. The roads outside the city were terrible but there were Maseratis and Lamborghinis cruising the palm-tree boulevards along the bay in Luanda.
The right connections This is how it was. The family was the government and the government was the family and their friends. A foreign company couldn’t do business with the government directly. You had to have a local partner or agent on the ground with the right connections, who took a cut of the action. But the country needed things it didn’t have and if you made the right moves, and watched your back carefully, deals could be done in US dollars. But you could also be taken to the cleaners.
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The right connections Some years ago a South African logistics company was asked to quote to supply the Angolan army with 200 trucks, troop carriers, fuel tankers, truck-trailers, double cabs and land cruisers. The enquiry came through a motor dealership in Luanda owned by two Angolan citizens, who faxed through a copy of the order on an army letterhead. The order number and the general’s signature on the order looked genuine. The dealership sent copies of the owners’ identity documents, passports, tax certificates and company registration. They looked genuine too and a quote was sent. .
They sent a letter from a reputable Angolan bank confirming it was holding a deposit of ten million US dollars on behalf of the dealership, with instructions to release the funds when the trucks arrived in Angola. The chief sales guy phoned the bank and a friendly senior manager confirmed they knew all about the deal and were waiting for instructions. The bank faxed through certified bank statements, guarantees and 6 insurance documents.
The right connections The trucks were despatched from Durban in two container vessels. The friendly banker sent a mail saying the vessels had arrived and the funds would be remitted as soon as the first truck was offloaded onto the dockside.
The logistics company waited in vain for their local bank to confirm the funds had arrived. At 3pm they phoned the Angolan dealership in Luanda and the phone just rang and rang. Then they phoned the Angolan bank and got an engaged signal. They phoned the international telephone exchange who said the number had been disconnected.
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The right connections The next morning three senior executives took the company jet from Lanseria Airport at 5am.
The three executives had no option but to get back in the jet and fly home.
In Luanda the dealership’s office was closed. They went to the bank and were told the friendly banker had left several months earlier.
The company hired a private agency to go undercover into Angola. Within a month they identified the son of a senior Angolan minister as mastermind of a complex scheme to steal the vehicles, worth 100 million South African Rands.
At the harbour they were directed to a warehouse next to an army barracks outside the city. The warehouse was guarded by armed Angolan troops in full battle dress. The trucks were inside. The polite sergeant in charge said ownership of the trucks was now a matter of legal dispute and until the matter was resolved he had orders to arrest anyone who tried to enter the warehouse.
The army general denied any knowledge of the order.
It emerged that the bank statements, insurance documents and affidavits were all forgeries. The passports and identifications were genuine government documents but with false names.8
The right connections The chief salesman was blamed for allowing the trucks to be offloaded in Luanda before the funds arrived in South Africa. He soon left the company and is rumoured to be living in Zimbabwe. The company’s insurers questioned whether credit references had been properly checked and disputed the claim. Interpol issued an international arrest warrant for the mastermind and his partner who were openly driving around Luanda in their new imported sports cars. The company’s lawyers wrote to Angola’s justice minister, asking the Angolan courts to prosecute the two for fraud. But the Minister of Justice turned out to be the mastermind’s mother-in law and the company was not able to find Angolan lawyers willing to act for them. They didn’t have the right connections. The company has never recovered the trucks or received any payment.
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2 Ben & Jerry’s ice cream
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Introduction Successful people stress the virtues of hard work as a key ingredient in their success. But sometimes people are in the right place at the right time, and sometimes luck plays a part as well. Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield were two hippies living in the New England state of Vermont. Cohen couldn’t sell his pottery and Greenfield was rejected by three medical schools, so for something to do they thought they would start an ice cream business together.
They took a $5 correspondence course on ice-cream making and in 1978 opened the first Ben & Jerry’s shop in a converted filling station in Burlington Vermont, a student town that didn’t have an ice cream parlour. They started their business with $4,000 each and borrowed another $4,000 from a bank.
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Ben & Jerry’s ice cream Their ice cream was made with natural ingredients and plenty of butterfat. They chose imaginative names for their products, like Chunky Monkey, Rainforest Crunch, Whirled Peace, and Wavy Gravy. Jerry created unique flavour combinations and tested them on students before they were launched. Their shop quickly became a favourite with the local community thanks to its rich ice cream and creative flavours. Ben and Jerry made it a point to connect with the community, hosting a free film festival and giving away free ice cream on the store’s first anniversary.
The business caught the public’s imagination and expanded like wildfire across New England. In 1980, they began supplying local grocers, and in 1981 opened their first franchise store. As the business grew they hired professional managers to run operations, distribution and procurement. In 1984 the company went public, and Ben and Jerry were suddenly worth 25 million dollars each. By 1987 there were over a hundred Ben and Jerry’s ice cream franchises in 35 states. In 1988 Ben and Jerry were named U.S. Small Business Persons of the Year by President Ronald Reagan.
From the outset, Cohen and Greenfield were deeply committed to supporting Vermont’s economy and preserving its environment. They used local milk suppliers and hired local artists to design their cartons and graphics. When they needed capital, they sold shares to Vermont residents. B & J’s hippie founders believed that companies have a responsibility to employees, suppliers and society as a whole, as well as shareholders. They set up the Ben & Jerry Foundation, which donated 7.5% of the company’s profits to worthy nonprofit organizations. These causes included safe houses for children, drug-addicted pregnant women, environmental groups, HIV-positive individuals, and the homeless. Because of its socially conscious image, and the owners’ unconventional personalities, the company had to do very little marketing. Media coverage of its various antics was guaranteed, providing free publicity for the company, its products, and its values. Over time, Cohen and Greenfield came to view their business as, in Cohen’s words, “an experiment to see if it was possible to use the tools of business to build a better society.” 7
Ben & Jerry’s ice cream Ben & Jerry’s mission statement consisted of three parts: Product Mission: To make, distribute, and sell the finest quality, allnatural ice cream in a variety of flavors made from Vermont products. Social Mission: To operate the company in a way that recognizes the role that business plays in society, by initiating ways to improve the quality of life of the community. Economic Mission: To operate the company on a sound financial basis of profitable growth, increasing value for our shareholders, and creating career opportunities and financial rewards for our employees.
Ben & Jerry’s was run on democratic lines. All employees were invited to attend staff meetings, and issues affecting women, minorities, and gays in the company’s work force were freely discussed. Cohen and Greenfield set a salary policy that no manager would be paid more than seven times the salary of the lowest-paid employee.
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Ben & Jerry’s ice cream All staff voted on the company’s liberal employment policies. Company-wide staff benefits included: •
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Reimbursement of study fees for any course at all, flexible employee loans, paid gym fees Twelve weeks of maternity, paternity and adoption leave, child care centers at work, freed body massages, and sabbatical leave for all Paid adoption expenses, life insurance for unmarried partners, and free ice cream at all times for all employees
Ben & Jerry tried to be equally responsible when choosing suppliers. Rainforest Crunch ice cream featured nuts grown in South American rain forests. Wild Maine Blueberry ice cream was made with blueberries grown and harvested by the Passamaquoddy Indians of Maine. The brownies used in the Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream were bought from a bakery that used its profits to build shelters for the homeless. Similarly, for the milk and cream that form the bulk of its products, Ben & Jerry’s was committed to buying from Vermont dairy farms at abovemarket prices.
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Ben & Jerry’s ice cream Ben and Jerry were admired inside and outside the company for their policies and were viewed by many as the company’s two biggest assets. But there were also those who criticized them for not walking their talk in terms of equal treatment of their employees.
Despite the firm’s often stated and politically correct policies, employees in fact held less than 1% of the Ben & Jerry’s sales grew steadily company’s shares. throughout the 1980’s. But in the And while Ben and Jerry often early 1990’s sales started to fall. pointed out that their own salaries The consumers who had loved Ben & were only $130,000 per year, they Jerry’s super premium ice cream were didn’t say that their combined now entering middle age and growing shareholdings were worth $50 more health and weight conscious. million. The FDA introduced new labeling rules. Customers could now see the amount of fat each scoop contained. These customers started to move to low-fat ice cream products offered by new competitors who entered the market. 6
Ben & Jerry’s ice cream With falling sales and increasing costs, shareholders felt the company’s liberal policies were luxuries it could no longer afford. The B & J shares consistently underperformed the market. The investor community said the business was putting its social responsibility principles way ahead of its shareholders. At the same time Ben and Jerry, tired of arguing with shareholders, were losing interest in the business and disappearing on unannounced holidays, which did not go down well at all on Wall Street.
The company suffered its first financial loss in 1994. By 1999 the share price had fallen nearly 50 percent from its peak.
Ben & Jerry’s low share price naturally attracted interest from prospective buyers. In early 2000 international food giant Unilever bought Ben & Jerry’s for $326 million. Shareholders, frustrated by the poor performance of their socially conscious shareholdings, loved the deal. Ben and Jerry said they hoped their company would stay in Burlington, remain true to its social responsibility policies, and continue to operate independently of Unilever’s other U.S. ice cream businesses. They were wrong. 7
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield still live near each other in Vermont. According to Wikipedia both men have an estimated net worth of $150 million.
Today, thanks to Unilever International, Ben & Jerry's ice creams are available in all the major cities in South Africa. You can buy B & J’s at Woolworths. 4
3 Maropeng
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Introduction A few weeks back we took the grandchildren to Maropeng for a Saturday outing. It was a great experience for all of us. Maropeng – in the Setswana language Returning to your roots - is an hour and a half’s drive from Midstream past Krugersdorp and the roads are well signposted. Where else can you see real fossils, learn how humankind was born, view stone tools a million years old, and play interactive games, all in one morning?
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What to expect You need to book your tickets and tour time in advance on the internet. Guided tour groups depart every hour.
The paths from the car park are clearly laid out and the area is planted with indigenous trees and shrubs. The entire complex is spotlessly clean and wheelchair friendly. COVID protocol is strictly observed.
The outdoor reception area provides benches while you wait for the tour to start. There are gift shops, a photo shop, restrooms and a cafe serving snack foods.
We battled to print out our prebooked tickets from the internet, but the ticket office around the corner sorted our problem out quickly and efficiently, with smiles all round.
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The Maropeng Visitor Centre exhibition, which opened in 2005, takes you on a journey through time. It’s a self-guided interactive tour, which includes a memorable underground boat ride.
The tour is divided into three parts: a briefing, the boat ride, and the exhibition itself. The Cradle of Humankind was declared a World Heritage Site in 1999 because of its bequest to our knowledge about the birth of humanity. Parts of the Cradle are still unexplored and who knows what may still lie hidden in the Sterkfontein Caves and other sites?
At 1130 on the dot the guide led us to a briefing point near the main building, along a pathway framed by rocks and indigenous shrubs. He explained that Maropeng lies in the middle of a vast world heritage site called The Cradle of Mankind, which is where the human race began. There are many cave sites which have yielded fossils of our ancestors, including two famous fossils called “Mrs Ples” and “Little Foot”. These fossils have been unearthed over many years by Dr Robert Broom and his colleagues from Wits University.
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The exhibition After the orientation the guide leads you to the dome that houses the exhibition itself. The rest of the tour allows you to take all the time you need to explore. The boat ride takes you through a series of caves showing the stages of evolution of the planet. It begins with the origin of the universe and the role of the four classical elements of water, air, fire and earth in creating the world we know today.
The exhibit area covers an impressive 2 500 square metres and 3.5 million years
The grandchildren loved the ride which takes you through a waterfall you feel sure will drench you at any moment, past icebergs and volcanoes, with thunder, lightning and roaring winds in the background.
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What to expect The exhibition is very childfriendly, and at the same time interesting to adults. As a teacher I found it fascinating to see all the clever and creative ways complex information is conveyed through the many exhibits. The grandchildren found buttons that buzz, caves that light up, robots that talk, bells to ring, and levers to pull. Adults can explore the same interactive creations to learn more about the scientific treasures discovered in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage site.
Imagine the challenge posed to the museologists and museographers of Maropeng, to conceive and create an exhibition that explains the origins of our planet and the development of humans and our ancestors over the past few million years. They chose to start from the beginning of the world, to the formation of the Earth’s continents and the development of humans, plants and animals. To show how it works they provide an introduction to DNA and the concepts of evolution and extinction, and explain how fossils and limestone caves are formed. No small undertaking and they’ve done 6 it brilliantly.
Maropeng reminds us that Africa is the birthplace of humankind. The ancestors of modern humans emerged seven million years ago, right here in the Cradle of Humankind. At some point, our DNA split to a different development path. The first stone tools were used in Africa 2.6-million years ago and our ancestors were able to use and control fire at least one million years ago, which is probably why our species survived. But the exhibition also sounds a warning. Life on earth has been rocked by five major extinctions. The last great extinction was 65million years ago, when the dinosaurs were wiped out. As Greta Thunberg often reminds us, we may be in the midst of the sixth major extinction today, with mankind as the driver.
I hope my grandchildren will be able to take their children to Maropeng one day.
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In closure Thanks to those who responded to the Croque Monsieur article. Some people have created their own sandwiches and we now have a Croque Jeanne and Croque Minnie competing with Croque Marthinette. Oh and even a Croque Benoni which turned out to be Croque Panini with predictive text. I can now tell you where to find a Croque in Pretoria, Hyde Park, Hillcrest and Cape Town. If you’re interested. Photographs in this issue have been sourced from Unsplash.com and the Maropeng website.
The Head of the River is a great pub in Oxford on the river Thames with good5 food and live music. The students punt down from their colleges for a night out.
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Missing any back copies? To obtain back copies of previous editions of The Circle, drop me a line at stretch@global.co.za
http://www.johnstretch,.com