My Birthday & The Masterclass Obligation By Ogunbowale
“A meritocracy is a system in which the people who are the luckiest in their health and genetic endowment; luckiest in terms of family support, encouragement, and, probably, income; luckiest in their educational and career opportunities; and luckiest in so many other ways difficult to enumerate — these are the folks who reap the largest rewards.
The only way for even a putative meritocracy to hope to pass ethical muster, to be considered fair, is if those who are the luckiest in all of those respects also have the greatest responsibility to work hard, to contribute to the betterment of the world, and to share their luck with others.”
– Ben Bernanke
Ben Shalom Bernanke, an American economist who served as the 14th chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States of America from 2006 to 2014 had the comment above to make about meritocracy and the inherent obligation to give back.
On giving back, for nearly three years now, numerous individuals, most belonging to the category of people that I revere a lot have reached out directly or insinuated one way or the other, the need for me to make some time to train as many as are willing to learn my skill which (according to them to put it mildly) is quite special with respect to managing high level Government and Corporate events as a Compere.
Hitherto this year in a bid to celebrate my birthday on the 4th of February, I decided to pull some funds together to organise a Masterclass for about 30 persons who are seriously in need of it and at NO COST to the attendees, even though I ended up devoting nearly double my monthly pay and yes, it was worth it.
Preparations for the event started weeks ahead and we had a small group of capable hands working tirelessly to ensure we had a memorable event. Joshua Abiodun (Gen Josh, a solid compere by every standard) led the team comprising notable individuals such as Hon Akinsete Olakunle (Shete CFR) the Special Adviser on Housing and Urban Development to Governor Seyi Makinde, Adebayo Akinola (MC Worship) and Barrister Tope Arowosegbe from Lagos. The registration and screening process to finalise on final attendees was quite stringent as we received far more applications than we could manage at the chosen venue. Eventually, some thirty individuals were selected and convened at a venue disclosed exclusively.
On D-day, we had the Hon Commissioner, Ministry of Information and Civic Orientation; Prince Dotun Oyelade early on ground even before the stated 4PM (between veteran broadcast journalists and senior military men, I am yet to conclude on who keep more to time, lol). The Commissioner helped to hit the ground running by sharing his very passionate and brilliantly colourful decades of experience as a reporter and prolific writer. Prince was just the right man to set the table for the Masterclass dinner about to be served. We are grateful for his presence. He also donated a dozen copies of his most recent highly coveted book; “Dotun Oyelade Reporting… memoirs of a newshound”.
Joshua Abiodun (Gen Joshua) then took the Mic and held the attendees spell bound with his session on dressing the part as a World Class compere, everyone had one or more points to ponder from his very deep and introspecting session from dress codes to colours and taking care of our attires as a work tool. We then listened to Barrister Tope Arowosegbe who laced the icing on the ‘Professional dressing’ cake from his wealth of experience as a Wardrobe consultant…o por!
The Special Adviser (Media) who also doubles as Chief Press Secretary to Governor Seyi Makinde, Pst Olanrewaju Sulaimon was also on hand to address the attendees, he gave nuggets on how best to do our jobs better while also encouraging the organiser and attendees.
The main session was quite loaded as clearly testified to by all attendees and thus for professional and copyright reasons, there will be NO DISCLOSURE in this writeup. Yep, thanks for understanding. It was so engaging that the attendees stayed put even after we exceeded the stipulated three hours and it was obviously getting dark. They still remained on seat even when the timed Generator decided to go off…my people were clearly hungry for quality.
Well, a very robust question and answer session was used to round off the event and light refreshment served. It was such a very memorable and rewarding way to celebrate my day.
My appreciation goes to God who knew and formed me long before I came into existence; it is He alone that takes all the glory for whoever I am today and will become tomorrow. I also want to appreciate my father, mentor and boss at work, His Excellency Governor Seyi Makinde FNSE, DSc, GSSRS who chose to have me on board as his Special Assistant on Communications. I can organise a Masterclass today simply because the Governor was benevolent enough to trust me with his highly sensitive State events as his official compere. I do not take this kind gesture for granted sir, God bless you.
Suffice to say that for almost a decade now, my birthday has consistently arrived early all the way from Finland, thanks to Dr. Leye Adetunji and family. My brother and friend, CEO of Mevron Group (Wale Lasisi) also did not carry last from Biden land, releasing the Mevron facility in Bodija for the Masterclass was quite helpful (even though diesel cost nearly choke…lol), thanks bro. I must also appreciate all colleagues, family and friends who reached out to celebrate me on the day via warm greetings and those who without any request, chose to extend a hand of fellowship in cash and kind, I am very grateful.
Finally, big thanks to my wife, Oyedoyin, for managing me well all these years, I thank you babe.
For those asking, Yes, there will definitely be another Masterclass soon and it will not be free except a major sponsor turns up to foot the bill. Yep, that’s it.
Happy birthday in arrears to moi; Oladayo Oluwajuwonlo Ogunbowale, here is to a glorious and loud brand new year, cheers!