Family Time: Instant Protection Against Dangerous Influences}

Submitted by: Elena Neitlich

Family time is a necessity for those wishing to build happy and healthy families. Parents that take time out to eat as a family, play, read, and talk together, teach children that they matter, that relationships are worth nurturing, and that strong family bonds breed success.

Setting aside blocks allocated for family time can be very difficult for busy families. By the time everyone is home from work, school, sports, and other outside activities people are tired, playing a board game seems like the least important item on the to-do list. However, playing a board game, metaphorically, is the most important item to cross off of the list.

Family time is valuable time when parents can take time out to observe their children, follow their children, hug and kiss them, encourage, guide, and laugh. Family time is when children feel comfortable opening up to their parents; this is a time when the mood is relaxed and children feel supported, valued and loved.

Eat together

Studies have shown that the family activity with the greatest positive impact on children, is sitting down together to dinner each evening. Benefits for children include learning patience, (family members should wait for everyone to be served before eating and remain at the table until everyone is through), sitting quietly and calmly to eat, and listening attentively and participating in the conversation. If an evening meal is impossible to schedule, families can find a different meal to gather, a fun idea is to set the table later in the evening when everyone is home, and have dessert together.

Children should be included in meal preparation, setting the table, and clean-up. Although table manners must be taught and reinforced, mealtime should be a pleasant experience with a focus on togetherness. Quick behavioral reminders will reinforce good manners and then conversation can be resumed. Parents should choose to be in a good mood and not let the days issues weigh down the meal. After all, this is family time!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaCtzmVl2GA[/youtube]

Creative planning can make the evening meal easier to put on the table and clean up afterwards. Simple meals, and meals prepared in advance and frozen, are good ways to ease the evening scramble and help keep the focus on family time, not on cooking and cleanup. Instead of spending an hour cleaning the kitchen after the meal, simple meals free up some time in the evening for togetherness.

Shut off the television and the computer

Shutting off the television in the evening helps to place the focus on the people in the house instead of the strangers on the screen. The evening hours spent interacting as a family instead of staring at the television will benefit everyone greatly and will help create warm and lasting memories.

Shutting off the television and the computer eliminates the risk that children will be exposed to damaging levels of violence and sexual content. Experts claim that violence and sexual imagery negatively change the brain chemistry of children, resulting in permanent changes in the brains wiring.

Set a relaxed mood

Bathe young children and put them in their pajamas. Put on some light music that isnt jarring or offensive, this often cues a little impromptu dancing from children, always good for a laugh. No arguing, bickering, or crabbiness. Family time should be warm, joyful and happy. Parents should be demonstrative and giving, snuggle, hug, and kiss the kids and each other. Family time like this is ideal for modeling loving, kind behavior.

Find fun games and activities

The nature of children is to be fun loving and flexible and open to many ideas. Coloring, board games, guessing games, acting, playing with dolls or cars, and reading are all fun things to do together. Allow children to help set the evening agenda. One idea based on the Montessori principal of learning suggests observing the child and leading by following the child.

There are other opportunities during the day for family time

The evening is not the only option for family time. Parents should seek out other times to be together. Take the kids on the morning and afternoon dog walk, invite them to join in on gardening, ask them to help wash the car or help with the laundry. It is probably true that activities will be completed slower with kids as helpers, but their happiness far outweighs the inconvenience.

Parents who zone out each evening in front of the television or computer for hours and hours rob children of the necessary family time that they need. It is stingy of parents to choose to channel or web surf over spending time with their kids. In a blink of an eye the kids will be up and out of the house and parents will have the rest of their lives to stare blankly at a screen, alone.

Making a conscious effort to spend quality family time together is vital to the health and welfare of children. Children do not thrive if parents dont interact with them daily. When parents choose to have kids, they automatically choose to sacrifice their time to raise their kids. Family time is a parenting tool which helps to regulate the content that children are exposed to and introduce healthier activities. Developing strong relationships with children also will build bonds that last a lifetime.

About the Author: Elena Neitlich is owner of

Moms On Edge

at http://www.momsonedge.com. When you’re tired of battling with potty training, bedtime and other behavioral issues, find clever

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2 February

As increase in digital music sales slows, record labels look to new ways to make money

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Every September, the Apple iPod is redesigned. Last year saw the release of the iPod Nano 5th generation, bringing a video camera and a large range of colours to the Nano for the first time. But as Apple again prepares to unveil a redesigned product, the company has released their quarterly sales figures—and revealed that they have sold only 9m iPods for the quarter to June—the lowest number of sales since 2006, leading industry anylists to ponder whether the world’s most successful music device is in decline.

Such a drop in sales is not a problem for Apple, since the iPhone 4 and the iPad are selling in high numbers. But the number of people buying digital music players are concerning the music industry. Charles Arthur, technology editor of The Guardian, wrote that the decline in sales of MP3 players was a “problem” for record companies, saying that “digital music sales are only growing as fast as those of Apple’s devices – and as the stand-alone digital music player starts to die off, people may lose interest in buying songs from digital stores. The music industry had looked to the iPod to drive people to buy music in download form, whether from Apple’s iTunes music store, eMusic, Napster or from newer competitors such as Amazon.”

Mark Mulligan, a music and digital media analyst at Forrester Research, said in an interview that “at a time where we’re asking if digital is a replacement for the CD, as the CD was for vinyl, we should be starting to see a hockey-stick growth in download sales. Instead, we’re seeing a curve resembling that of a niche technology.” Alex Jacob, a spokesperson for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which represents the worldwide music industry, agreed that there had been a fall in digital sales of music. “The digital download market is still growing,” they said. “But the percentage is less than a few years ago, though it’s now coming from a higher base.” Figures released earlier this year, Arthur wrote, “show that while CD sales fell by 12.7%, losing $1.6bn (£1bn)in value, digital downloads only grew by 9.2%, gaining less than $400m in value.”

Expectations that CDs would, in time, become extinct, replaced by digital downloads, have not come to light, Jacob confirmed. “Across the board, in terms of growth, digital isn’t making up for the fall in CD sales, though it is in certain countries, including the UK,” he said. Anylising the situation, Arthur suggested that “as iPod sales slow, digital music sales, which have been yoked to the device, are likely to slow too. The iPod has been the key driver: the IFPI’s figures show no appreciable digital download sales until 2004, the year Apple launched its iTunes music store internationally (it launched it in the US in April 2003). Since then, international digital music sales have climbed steadily, exactly in line with the total sales of iPods and iPhones.”

Nick Farrell, a TechEYE journalist, stated that the reason for the decline in music sales could be attributed to record companies’ continued reliance on Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, saying that they had considered him the “industry’s saviour”, and by having this mindset had forgotten “that the iPod is only for those who want their music on the run. What they should have been doing is working out how to get high quality music onto other formats, perhaps even HiFi before the iPlod fad died out.”

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When Jobs negotiated a deal with record labels to ensure every track was sold for 99 cents, they considered this unimportant—the iPod was not a major source of revenue for the company. However, near the end of 2004, there was a boom in sales of the iPod, and the iTunes store suddenly began raking in more and more money. The record companies were irritated, now wanting to charge different amounts for old and new songs, and popular and less popular songs. “But there was no alternative outlet with which to threaten Apple, which gained an effective monopoly over the digital music player market, achieving a share of more than 70%” wrote Arthur. Some did attempt to challenge the iTunes store, but still none have succeeded. “Apple is now the largest single retailer of music in the US by volume, with a 25% share.”

The iTunes store now sells television shows and films, and the company has recently launced iBooks, a new e-book store. The App Store is hugely successful, with Apple earning $410m in two years soley from Apps, sales of which they get 30%. In two years, 5bn apps have been downloaded—while in seven years, 10bn songs have been purchased. Mulligan thinks that there is a reason for this—the quality of apps simply does not match up to a piece of music. “You can download a song from iTunes to your iPhone or iPad, but at the moment music in that form doesn’t play to the strengths of the device. Just playing a track isn’t enough.”

Adam Liversage, a spokesperson of the British Phonographic Industry, which represents the major UK record labels, notes that the rise of streaming services such as Spotify may be a culprit in the fall in music sales. Revenues from such companies added up to $800m in 2009. Arthur feels that “again, it doesn’t make up for the fall in CD sales, but increasingly it looks like nothing ever will; that the record business’s richest years are behind it. Yet there are still rays of hope. If Apple – and every other mobile phone maker – are moving to an app-based economy, where you pay to download games or timetables, why shouldn’t recording artists do the same?”

Well, apparently they are. British singer Peter Gabriel has released a ‘Full Moon Club’ app, which is updated every month with a new song. Arthur also notes that “the Canadian rock band Rush has an app, and the industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails, led by Trent Reznor – who has been critical of the music industry for bureaucracy and inertia – released the band’s first app in April 2009.” It is thought that such a system will be an effective method to reduce online piracy—”apps tend to be tied to a particular handset or buyer, making them more difficult to pirate than a CD”, he says—and in the music industry, piracy is a very big problem. In 2008, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimated that 95% of downloads were illegitimate. If musicians can increase sales and decrease piracy, Robert says, it can only be a good thing.

“It’s early days for apps in the music business, but we are seeing labels and artists experimenting with it,” Jacob said. “You could see that apps could have a premium offering, or behind-the-scenes footage, or special offers on tickets. But I think it’s a bit premature to predict the death of the album.” Robert concluded by saying that it could be “premature to predict the death of the iPod just yet too – but it’s unlikely that even Steve Jobs will be able to produce anything that will revive it. And that means that little more than five years after the music industry thought it had found a saviour in the little device, it is having to look around again for a new stepping stone to growth – if, that is, one exists.”

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1 February

Police report drug haul seizure worth up to £30 million in Brownhills, England

Monday, December 2, 2013

Police in the West Midlands in England today said nearly 200 kilograms worth of drugs with value possibly as great as £30 million (about US$49 million or €36 million) has been seized from a unit in the town of Brownhills. In what an officer described as “one of the largest [seizures] in the force’s 39 year history”, West Midlands Police reported recovering six big cellophane-wrapped cardboard boxes containing cannabis, cocaine, and MDMA (“ecstasy”) in a police raid operation on the Maybrook Industrial Estate in the town on Wednesday.

The impact this seizure will have on drug dealing in the region and the UK as a whole cannot be underestimated

The seized boxes, which had been loaded onto five freight pallets, contained 120 one-kilogram bags of cannabis, 50 one-kilogram bags of MDMA, and five one-kilogram bricks of cocaine. In a press release, West Midlands Police described what happened after officers found the drugs as they were being unloaded in the operation. “When officers opened the boxes they discovered a deep layer of protective foam chips beneath which the drugs were carefully layered”, the force said. “All the drugs were wrapped in thick plastic bags taped closed with the cannabis vacuum packed to prevent its distinctive pungent aroma from drawing unwanted attention.” Police moved the drugs via forklift truck to a flatbed lorry to remove them.

Detective Sergeant Carl Russell of West Midlands Police’s Force CID said the seizure was the largest he had ever made in the 24 years he has been in West Midlands Police and one of the biggest seizures the force has made since its formation in 1974. “The impact this seizure will have on drug dealing in the region and the UK as a whole cannot be underestimated”, he said. “The drugs had almost certainly been packed to order ready for shipping within Britain but possibly even further afield. Our operation will have a national effect and we are working closely with a range of law enforcement agencies to identify those involved in this crime at whatever level.”

Expert testing on the drugs is ongoing. Estimates described as “conservative” suggest the value of the drugs amounts to £10 million (about US$16.4 million or €12 million), although they could be worth as much as £30 million, subject to purity tests, police said.

Police arrested three men at the unit on suspicion of supplying a controlled drug. The men, a 50-year-old from Brownhills, a 51-year-old from the Norton area of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, and one aged 53 from Brownhills, have been released on bail as police investigations to “hunt those responsible” continue. West Midlands Police told Wikinews no person has yet been charged in connection with the seizure. Supplying a controlled drug is an imprisonable offence in England, although length of jail sentences vary according to the class and quantity of drugs and the significance of offenders’ roles in committing the crime.

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31 January

The Importance Of The Pmp Course And Of The Pmp Itself

By Jessica Parklanes

There is much debate about the necessity for a PMP course in preparation for the Project Management Professional (PMP) examination itself. Indeed, there are varying opinions on the importance of possessing a PMP credential on your resume.

Necessary and Important

You will come across employers who will specify that the PMP certification is preferred and/or required. This is usually because the PMP allows for a standard measurement by which prospective project managers can be initially assessed, usually on the basis of the resume. As such, a PMP course and certification is necessary and important, especially in high-profile corporate projects.

Most employers who prefer and/or require a PMP certification do so because it speaks of an employee who can enter the organizational structure, manage projects and people, and achieve desired results without need for more training and supervision. If you have the certification, you can open more doors for yourself.

You will also get benefits from a PMP course beyond the credential itself. It is a great source of theoretical knowledge, which can lead to a treasure trove of research materials and the best practice research available today. Indeed, you can never have too much of updates on the field of project management, especially when you want to make a successful career out of it.

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Furthermore, you will see an increased need for project management skills in the business world. More and more, people are encouraged to do more and more with less and less, which demands ample project management skills. If you have the PM course and credential under your belt, you will be more capable to take on the challenges that come your way even in a non-project manager capacity.

Important but Not Necessary

You will encounter people who opine that the PMP training and certification can be of importance but is not necessary. You do learn about project management techniques and principles but application in the real world is another matter. In other words, a PMP credential does not a good project manager make.

There is also the matter of quantifying the certification’s contribution to successful project management. Because of the many variable factors involved, you simply cannot clearly attribute contribution values of the PMP credential, continuing education, changing environment and personal characteristics to project management success. Unfortunately, this is not a cut-and-dried return on investment calculation.

Not Important, Not Necessary

You will meet people whose opinion veer towards the commercialization and commoditization of the PM course and credential. In a sense, it has become a factory assembly-line operation whereby books and software are generated to feed the masses of potential project managers who desire to jump on the bandwagon.

The growing demand for the PMP certification as actually diluted its value. Since more and more people want the certification, it has become the standard rather than the differentiator. There is nothing wrong with establishing standards per se; the problem comes when every Jack and Harry can get one.

In the end, your view of the PM course and certification will depend on your motivation for getting them. Also, you have to consider that actual experience in project management is the ultimate differentiator of project managers. How you actually use the course and the credential depends on you and you alone.

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29 January

CanadaVOTES: NDP incumbent David Christopherson running in Hamilton Centre

Friday, September 26, 2008

On October 14, 2008, Canadians will be heading to the polls for the federal election. New Democratic Party incumbent David Christopherson is standing for re-election in the riding of Hamilton Centre.

From 1985-1990, he served as a Hamilton City Councillor for Ward Four. He was elected to Ontario legislature in 1990, defeating a Liberal cabinet minister. Under Bob Rae, Christopherson served as Minister of Correctional Services and Solicitor-General. He did not seek re-election to legislature in 2003, opting to run for mayor of Hamilton. Considered a frontrunner, he lost to Larry Di Ianni.

He returned to politics just months later, changing his focus to federal politics. Christopherson beat Liberal cabinet minister Stan Keyes, the incumbent, serving as NDP critic for cities, community infrastructure, labour and steel policy. He has served as a member of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts, and Deputy Chair of the Parliamentary Steel Caucus.

Wikinews contacted David Christopherson, to talk about the issues facing Canadians, and what they and their party would do to address them. Wikinews is in the process of contacting every candidate, in every riding across the country, no matter their political stripe. All interviews are conducted over e-mail, and interviews are published unedited, allowing candidates to impart their full message to our readers, uninterrupted.

First elected in 2004, David Christopherson is the only MP to have represented Hamilton Centre, which was created in 2003 from parts of three other ridings. Only 38 km², small versus other area ridings, its located on the south side of Hamilton Harbour. Alphabetically, Christopherson’s challengers are Anthony Giles (Libertarian), John Livingstone (Green), Lisa Nussey (Marxist-Leninist), Leon O’Connor (Conservative), Ryan Sparrow (Communist), and Helen M. Wilson (Liberal).

For more information, visit the campaign’s official website, listed below.

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29 January

Cloned cattle’s milk and meat seem safe, according to new study

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

A National Academy of Sciences report (.pdf) last year said that while the milk and meat from cloned animals would not likely make anyone sick, more research should be performed. Now, a new US-Japan study published in the April 11 online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says that milk and meat from cloned cattle does indeed appear to meet industry standards and appears to be safe for human consumption.

As BBC News reports, the scientists, led by Professor Jerry Yang from the University of Connecticut, compared the produce from two beef and four dairy clones, all derived from a single Holstein dairy cow and a single Japanese black bull, with the produce from normal animals of similar age and breed.

The meat was analysed against more than 100 physiological, tissue and cellular components, while the milk was analysed for protein, fat and other variables. No significant differences between the produce of cloned and normal cattle were found. Higher levels of fat and fatty acids were found in the cloned cow meat, but they still fell within beef industry standards.

While the study showed the cloned produce to be within the range approved for human consumption, the scientists stressed that the research was still in its early stages. Their findings, they said, provide “guidelines” for further research with larger numbers of clones from different genetic backgrounds.

Cloning livestock may one day increase yields by copying those animals that are especially productive and especially resistant to disease.

“The milking production levels in the US are three to four times higher than levels in China; maybe even five times or more compared to cows in India and some other countries,” Professor Jerry Yang told BBC News. “Therefore cloning could offer technology for duplicating superior farm animals. However, all the products from these cloned animals must be safe for human consumption. …and it is a major issue for scientists to provide a scientific basis for the data and information to address this question.”

As USA Today reports, there is currently no law governing the sale of meat or milk from the estimated 1,000 to 2,000 cloned farm animals in the USA. But since 2003, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has asked producers to voluntarily keep the meat and milk of these animals, and that of their offspring, out of the food supply.

Wired News reports that companies like ViaGen and Cyagra, which offer livestock-cloning services, have also been waiting for several years for a final say from the FDA.

“For the United States agricultural industry, (cloning) can reduce the number of cows necessary for milking,” said Jerry Yang “They can have a pleasant environment and produce even more milk.” He also said that cloning cattle from the United States, where genetic breeding is more advanced, could save developing countries 50 years of breeding.

The idea of cloning animals for human consumption is not without its critics. First, there are the welfare concerns, as most cloned animals do not make it to term before being born, and many of those that do are born deformed or prone to illness. The Humane Society of the United States has asked for a ban on milk and meat from clones for just this reason. Second, there is still the concern that healthy clones may have subtle defects that could make their food products unsafe to eat.

As the Washington Post reports, some critics are asking why it is necessary to clone cows that produce huge amounts of milk when surpluses, rather than shortages, are the main problem facing the U.S. dairy industry today.

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29 January

The Find A Dentist Program Of The American Academy Of Pediatric Dentistry

The Find a Dentist Program of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry

by

Norwalkdentalarts

A dental emergency is like ticking time bomb; you know it is there due to the little pain that it gives but you would not know exactly when it is going to explode sometimes it pops up on the very unlikely times, like during weekends when the nearest dental clinic is off for Sunday or when you are in the middle of the night. During these troublesome hours when your baby starts crying over some bad toothache, the best resort is to look for an emergency pediatric dentist.

These emergency dental cares are easily accessible through the find pediatric dentist programs of many dental institutions nowadays, these programs specialized in urgent oral and dental care. These services are available 27/7 and all you have to do is to go over their service hotline. Moreover, these find pediatric dentist programs have their own clinics where you can drop with or without an appointment.

In America, the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry has their own Find Pediatric Dentist who is open to anyone who would like to have information about their huge pool of pediatric dentists found all over the country the organization claims to have at least a pediatric dentists in all corners of the county. In their directory, one can have all the contact information about a member pediatric dentist, such as telephone and emails addresses. However in the Find Pediatric Dentist , AAPD does not guarantee that everything written in their directory is correct, for updates by the pediatric dentists themselves may happen anytime in between.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQqkHBx9f8[/youtube]

Good Find Pediatric Dentist Program

In time of troubles such as a toothache, it is best if the directory to turn in into is updated as much as possible, daily it would be such a hassle to scan through the pages looking for the nearest pediatric doctor near you only to know that the doctor has changed location. Moreover, in a find pediatric dentist program look for an organization with members that are distributed to as many places as possible such as those of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentist.

Another important characteristic of a good find pediatric dentist program is 24/7 availability with the proper amenities to do home service this may sound exaggerated for a toothache or any other kind of dental emergency; but this is simply what the AAPD is tying to melt in our mentality for an oral emergency is not a simple thing to attend to. For the AAPD oral and dental disability is reflective of other possible more serious disease and not seeking the right dental need is one step closer to the grave hence find pediatric dentist programs are established.

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27 January

In depth: Buffalo, N.Y. hotel proposal controversy

Friday, May 26, 2006

Buffalo, N.Y. Hotel Proposal Controversy
Recent Developments
  • “Old deeds threaten Buffalo, NY hotel development” — Wikinews, November 21, 2006
  • “Proposal for Buffalo, N.Y. hotel reportedly dead: parcels for sale “by owner”” — Wikinews, November 16, 2006
  • “Contract to buy properties on site of Buffalo, N.Y. hotel proposal extended” — Wikinews, October 2, 2006
  • “Court date “as needed” for lawsuit against Buffalo, N.Y. hotel proposal” — Wikinews, August 14, 2006
  • “Preliminary hearing for lawsuit against Buffalo, N.Y. hotel proposal rescheduled” — Wikinews, July 26, 2006
  • “Elmwood Village Hotel proposal in Buffalo, N.Y. withdrawn” — Wikinews, July 13, 2006
  • “Preliminary hearing against Buffalo, N.Y. hotel proposal delayed” — Wikinews, June 2, 2006
Original Story
  • “Hotel development proposal could displace Buffalo, NY business owners” — Wikinews, February 17, 2006

In February of 2006, the Savarino Services Construction Corp. proposed the construction of a seven million dollar hotel on Elmwood and Forest Avenues in Buffalo, New York. In order for the hotel to be built, at least five properties containing businesses and residents would have to be destroyed. It was not certain whether the properties were owned by Savarino or by the landlord Hans Mobius. The hotel was designed by Karl Frizlen of the Frizlen Group, and is planned to be a franchise of the Wyndham Hotels group.

Elmwood Avenue is known by the community as a popular shopping center, and Nancy Pollina of Don Apparel (who is “utterly against” the construction) claims it’s the only reason why students from Buffalo State College leave campus. Additionally, Michael Faust of Mondo Video said he did not want to “get kicked out of here [his video store property].”

In 1995, a Walgreens was proposed to be built on the same land, but Walgreens later withdrew its request for a variance because of pressure from the community. More recently, Pano Georgiadis tried to get the rights to demolish the Atwater House next to his restaurant on Elmwood Avenue, but was denied a permit due to the property’s historical value. He has since been an opponent to the hotel construction.

In the process of debating the hotel, it was thought that a hotel had previously existed on the proposed site, however; research done at the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society had shown that no hotel had previously existed on the site.

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26 January

4-year-old boy killed by dog in Liverpool, England

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

A four-year-old boy has been killed by a dog in the city of Liverpool in Merseyside, England. The child has been identified as John Paul Massey. The animal belonged to his uncle. The boy’s 63-year-old grandmother Helen Foulkes tried to protect the boy but ended up getting bitten by the dog in the process. She had to receive hospital treatment for the injury.

The dog itself was shot dead in the front garden of the house where the attack had taken place. The police had said that they did not take further action after receiving a report about dog breeding earlier this year.

Chief Superintendent Steve Ashley from the police force said about the incident: “In February this year a housing officer rang Merseyside Police to say they had received complaints of dog breeding at the address. At that time the police said it wasn’t a police matter and no action was taken by Merseyside Police.

That is contrary to our policies and an investigation is now launched into exactly what happened in February.”

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24 January

Coaching An Engineer: What Makes Top Performers Better?

Submitted by: Martina Carroll-Garrison

I had been an Engineer, Project Manager, and Program Manager (PM) for nine years. For the last three of them, my performance as a PM had reached a plateau. I would like to think it was a good thing that I had arrived at my professional peak early in my career.

Unfortunately, it seemed as if I had just stopped growing, and I felt as if I was stuck. During the first two or three years of my engineering career, my skills and confidence improved almost daily. Scope, schedule and budget were my stock, my value was high, and my end-users loved me because I delivered. I remember being 20-something and feeling invincible. The middle three years seemed to be about pushing through barriers and expanding my professional repertoire, while the last three years seemed to lack passion or engagement.

As an Engineer in the Facilities and Construction Industry, I have had a great team around me for most of my professional life. I recognized that I was stuck, especially when colleagues were moving ahead organizationally and professionally, while I appeared to have hit the proverbial brick-wall. My mentor suggested that I engage an Executive Coach; as he felt he was too close to give me objective advice about my professional stagnation. What? Engineers do not hire coaches I thought we are smart enough to figure this out for ourselves. I must admit that I found it ludicrous to pay someone to come into my worklife and coach me on my work methods, when I had already been successful. Fortunately, I had a strong mentor and reason prevailed, and I made the investment in myself. For me the investment in an Executive Coach was a watershed experience. Through coaching, I developed deep self-awareness, albeit the experience of learning about myself was excruciating. That first journey into self was the most revealing yet most difficult road my logical mind has ever travelled. Through the experience, I discovered that I had created my own professional brick-wall, and I was the only person impeding my professional advancement.

Through coaching, I experienced a tectonic shift in my professional wellbeing, which resulted in my accelerated transition from nine years of technical positions to emerging executive assignments within 12 months. I grew as a leader simply because I had excellent coaches who taught me how to know myself, or they taught me how to think as a leader of people rather than a leader of projects, scopes and schedules. There was no distinct formula for my coaches positive influence over my career, and I have engaged an Executive Coach several times. I suspect the secret to each successful coaching engagement is that I admired and respected each of them, and I listened to them. I understood that the coaches in my worklife were not infallible, and I had to learn how to apply their wisdom to my specific environment and work culture. Through remaining curious about their unique perspective, listening to and understanding their feedback, being open and transparent about testing their ideas, and using them to test my ideas or explore my fears, I was able to work through some sticky leadership issues. Unequivocally, I achieved personal and professional growth, and transitioned from being an Engineer to an Executive because of Executive Coaching. As I progressed professionally, I also discovered that as a leader, I was expected to be a coach to my team. I studied the art and science of coaching my team and I discovered that I excelled at coaching. I now pursue my second career as an Executive Coach and delight in working with Engineers and other high performing individuals who aspire to achieve greater executive influence. I could never have achieved such deep self-awareness or professional growth without the help of my various Executive Coaches.

Is Executive Coaching For Me and How Do I Use One?

Executive Coaching re-awakens passion, curiosity, engagement, and dreams, while also deepening your self-awareness and leadership capacity. An Executive Coach s job is to observe, to assess, and to guide your professional development. An Executive Coach will tell you what others will not or cannot about your leadership presence and your impact on others.

You are a young or mid-career Engineer who aspires to be an executive, and your mentor suggested that you hire an Executive Coach. Alternatively, your organization sees your leadership potential and engages an Executive Coach to help accelerate your executive growth. Although a less frequent scenario, your organization recruited you into an executive position, and now is offering you an Executive Coach to facilitate your transition from being an Engineer to an Executive. Regardless of how you have come to the coaching relationship, the top three coaching objectives are:

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Develop self-awareness. By becoming more aware of your limitations and growth opportunities as a leader, and understanding the root cause of your behavior in the workplace and its impact on others.

Enhance life development. By balancing personal and professional roles more effectively, you increase your capacity for executive level performance.

Accelerate leadership capacity. By developing interpersonal and team leadership skills, you become more effective in leveraging influence within human systems at the executive level.

Use Your Executive Coach

Coaches come in all shapes and styles. Whether your Executive Coach is a seasoned professional, an internal asset, or an empathic listener and thought provocateur, or a combination of all three they all have one thing in common. An Executive Coach will assist you to lay the foundation for your accelerated learning. They help you to develop greater self-awareness, give you motivation, provide accountability and support, and they keep you focused while you are taking specific actions towards your professional goal.

10 Ways to Use Your Executive Coach

To optimize the relationship it is therefore important to understand how to use your Executive Coach by developing an effective coaching strategy

1. Choose to make the most of your Executive Coach. This is your decision alone and your attitude rather than your aptitude will make the difference to a successful coaching relationship. Accept that there is a teaching moment in every coaching conversation if your mind is open to learning. Making the most of your Executive Coaching relationship begins with choosing to do so. Every successful career journey you make begins with the end in mind, and so it is with your Executive Coaching journey. By reflecting upon why you need an Executive Coach and what issue or issues you want to explore with an Executive Coach you will have already begun your journey towards self-improvement.

2. Ain t nobody s business but your business because only you can change you. Your Executive Coach does not change you. Coaching is a one-on-one process in which your Executive Coach helps you to resolve your work related issues. An Executive Coach provides just-in-time training to help you to develop greater self-awareness. You should expect to receive motivation, accountability and support, towards keeping you focused while taking specific actions towards your goal. However, you define the goal, because the coaching outcome is unique and specific to you.

3. Seek pain. Change sucks, it can hurt and it s good for you! If your Executive Coaching relationship is not causing you some discomfort then you are missing the point. We like where we are because we are comfortable, or at least we have learned to tolerate it. Changing our situation causes so many other secondary impact spirals that we often forget the benefit of the original change. Thus, change becomes uncomfortable and even painful. Newton’s laws of motion remind us that a body at rest stays at rest and a body in motion stays in motion. Start moving, embrace the pain and work through it with your Executive Coach.

4. Demand accountability. The Executive Coach serves as your accountability partner. The Executive Coach gets you moving, but you are the one that endures the pain of flexing mental, emotional, spiritual and physical muscles you did not even realize you had. When the Executive Coach is working harder than you are, he/she will know they are in the wrong relationship and usually offer to resign.

5. Demand feedback. We know what we know about ourselves quiet well, but what we do not know is what causes us the most problems. Out blind spots are the reason we need an Executive Coach to provide us feedback on how others perceive us. Feedback can be uncomfortable but if you do not demand it from the safest relationship you will ever have you are missing the greatest growth opportunity of your life.

6. Test your learning. Your Executive Coach is not infallible, and sometimes may inadvertently substitute his/her coaching hat with a consultant hat. If you are uncomfortable with a new direction , test it before you deploy it. In coaching, one size does not fit all and you have to know how to interpret and adapt your learning within the culture and environment where you live and work. When I worked in Belgium it was normal to greet and kiss colleagues (both men and women) on the cheek, however as a coachee I would be very confused and even misled if my Executive Coach asked that I exhibit similar interpersonal behavior in New York or Atlanta.

7. Coaching styles are different. Do not be put off by them. My coaching style is one of gentle irreverence, as I will call you on your BS. This is my style and you may be uncomfortable with it, but this is the authentic version of me. You want to work with an authentic coach, not one who will change to meet every whim as they become too distracted to serve your real needs. Before you fire me ask yourself are you firing me because I am unable to coach you, or because my style irritates you. This is a life-test, as you face the same dilemma in your workplace and among your customers and clients. Learn from the experience and work through it by focusing on the goals and the outcomes.

8. Be transparent with your Executive Coach. While trust takes time to build, you can accelerate the process by being open and honest, as this will lead to a better relationship and a better coaching outcome. Be clear about what your personal value system is and share it with your Executive Coach. An authentic coach will know if there is disconnect and offer to remove himself or herself from the relationship. Likewise, an authentic coach should not take you outside the boundaries of your personal value system. Be open to exploring new ideas; however know where you stand and why you stand there.

9. Do not harbor resentment nor suffer in silence. If an Executive Coach does not meet your expectation, be direct. Unless you articulate to the Executive Coach when or how the relationship is not working he/she will not know how or when to fix the issue. This is a simple life-hack with application beyond the coaching relationship; do not assume that people know what you are thinking. A client once told me after the coaching engagement that I did not hold her accountable for assigned activities during our time apart, and she felt cheated. I had no idea that she felt this way in what was otherwise a very successful relationship.

10. Keep your eye on the prize. An Executive Coach s job is to help you to become unstuck, but does not give you the answers; rather an Executive Coach helps you to unlock the answers from within yourself. Through the process of coaching, you will discover there are many other questions that need to be asked and answered. Before you deploy on another coaching adventure be sure that are satisfied with the progress you have made on your first quest. Stay focused on the prize and on your contracted engagement.

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About the Author: Dr. Martina Carroll-Garrison is an Executive Leadership Coach with the MCG Consulting Group, LLC at http://www.mcgconsultinggroup.com

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Posted by Admin in Gates - Comments (0)
24 January
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