![\"cuckoo\"](\"http:\/\/localenterprise.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/03\/cuckoo.jpg?w=300\" "\\"cuckoo\\"")
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Is it weird how we hate magpies but love the first cuckoo of Spring?\u00a0 Perhaps it is because the cuckoo perpetrates evil out of sight, all the time making re-assuring calls, while the magpies are just so brazen in their squawking murder and destruction.<\/p>\n
In my experience many enterprise capital investment projects are a lot like cuckoos.\u00a0 Beautiful eggs are laid in the carefully constructed nests of loving parents.\u00a0 Shiny new enterprise centres owned and managed by the community for the community.<\/p>\n
But it soon becomes apparent that these fledglings have tremendous appetites for cash.\u00a0 That two person reception desk costs a lot to staff.\u00a0 Then we have hosts, caretakers and security to pay for.\u00a0 There are rates, insurances, fuel bills and marketing costs.<\/p>\n
There are the costs of low occupancy and repairs.<\/p>\n
Suddenly the loving parents are run ragged just trying to get enough cash to keep the beast alive.\u00a0 “Forget the social purpose – we just have to pay the bills.”<\/p>\n
The revenue streams that were written into the business plan from leases on community cafes and gyms, from rent paying tenants and the conference trade just don’t materialise as forecast.<\/p>\n
Equipment gets stolen or broken and there is just not the cash to replace it.\u00a0 The shine starts to come off.<\/p>\n
Money that could be spent elsewhere gets gobbled up by a project that is “too politically important, too symbolic”, to be allowed to fail.\u00a0 Other projects die so that the ‘special one’ can survive for another year.<\/p>\n
And what of the original cuckoo – the funders that helped lay the egg?\u00a0 “Well you must understand – there is only so much we can do. The ‘business plan’ assured us it would be viable by now.\u00a0 No we can’t offer any more funding.\u00a0 Perhaps it can be sold?”<\/em><\/p>\n Now ALL fledglings go through periods when they cause their parents grief.<\/p>\n The sad truth is that some of them never do.<\/p>\n Because from the very beginning they were cuckoos.<\/p>\n The cuckoo she’s a pretty bird She sucks all sweet flowers She flies the hills over The cuckoo she’s a pretty bird\n
\nShe sings as she flies
\nShe brings us glad tidings
\nAnd tells us no lies<\/p>\n
\nTo make her voice clear
\nShe never sings cuckoo
\nTill summer is near<\/p>\n
\nShe flies the world about
\nShe flies back to the mountain
\nShe mourns for her love<\/p>\n
\nShe sings as she flies
\nShe brings us glad tidings
\nAnd tells us no lies<\/p>\n