Tuesday, March 31, 2015

#YoungPeople, all unemployed with their own personal barriers, joined together as freedom writers.

YMCA Bedfordshire wins coveted national award
A group of young writers from YMCA Bedfordshire have been officially recognised for their invaluable contribution to a local school by winning the Community Impact Award, part of The Prince's Trust and Samsung Celebrate Success Awards.

The team of 14 young people, all unemployed and with their own personal barriers, joined together on the YMCA Bedfordshire-run Prince's Trust Hemel Hempstead Team 3 programme. 
They wanted to undertake a challenge that would fulfill a genuine need, deciding to help the Collett School in Hemel Hempstead by replacing the primary school age books for older teenagers with reading difficulties with their own work. 
Setting their sights high, the group wrote and published a series of six books that would inspire and engage the students, raising funds through hosting a pub quiz and persuading local businesses to donate.

Paul Hunt, CEO of YMCA Bedfordshire, said: 
"Every member of the team has been on an individual journey overcoming many barriers and they should all be extremely proud of what they have achieved, not only as a team but also as individuals."




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7 Ways for #Parents to Help Stop #Sexual #Abuse



I think this is fab stuff
Great for Parent and anyone with CARE in their soul.

Teachers / Youth Workers ANYONE
Everyone

NOT by me - source at the FOOT

I shared a savvy piece on my Facebook page last week from Lauren's Kids about how smart parents miss sexual abuse. It got more shares than anything else I posted last week. Or the week before. Or the week before that. Since it struck a nerve, here are some additional tips and resources on this tough topic:

1. Be mindful of the messages you are sending. Do not prep children with these types of directives when you drop them off for a playdate: "Be good," "Do what you're told," or "Listen to the grown-ups." Praising compliance is a slippery slope. "Well-behaved," obedient, passive, quiet children are often targets for grooming, boundary-pushing, and abuse.

2. Stop using punishment as your go-to parenting approach.Punishment creates an "us vs. them" dichotomy that can erode your relationship with your child over time, leaving them not as inclined to come to you when there is a problem or difficulty. Children need to know that you are on their side, no matter what.

3. Pay attention to parenting style. Authority and parenting style are most effective when moderate. All the research shows that an authoritative, "firm and kind" approach, that is emotionally attuned and validates feelings, is healthiest. Punishment's main motivator is fear, and fear of you is not preferred when you have a child faced with a problem as big as inappropriate sexual behavior from an adult in their life -- most likely one you know and trust. The US Department of Health and Human Services' 2010 report on Child Maltreatment noted that only 2.8% of abused children are abused by someone they do not know.

4. Set firm boundaries -- yours and theirs. Pay attention to when you need to say "no," and make space for children to say it, too. Encourage body autonomy by not requiring them to hug or kiss anyone they do not wish to hug and kiss (yes, even grandparents!). In the same vein, I recommend not forcing the issue on eating new foods. Even the "one bite rule" encourages kids to not listen to their own bodies. (Yes, I know they will tell you they are hungry only for cookies. I'm not talking about THAT kind of nonsense.)
5. Teach the proper names for body parts. All the body parts! Get support and practice beforehand if needed. The best approach is not "The Talk," once, and in adolescence. Early and frequent discussion about bodies and their functions, in a developmentally appropriate way, is what's required. 
6. Encourage children to be self-referencing. Ask them often, "How do you feel?" and "What do you think?" Help them identify when they feel nervous and get a "funny feeling" in their tummy. If your little ones believe that you find them important and deserving of patience, they will be much more likely to come to you if they are ever in a situation in which they feel uncomfortable. 
7. Grow your own emotional resilience and competence. When we indicate to our kids that certain things are unspeakable, or that we can't manage strong feelings, or that we would, "never get over it" if X happened, we send a scary message. We convey emotional frailty, and our kids will hide information to protect us from that which they believe we cannot handle. Having emotional resilience and competence does not mean repressing our feelings. It means owning and feeling them, boldly and bravely. This will show our kids that we will rise to the occasion and help them with any problem they may face -- even the ones in our worst fears.

What other tips or advice might you share?

This article was originally posted at www.sarahmaclaughlin.comwhere Sarah offers skills and support for calm, cool, and compassionate parents.


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Being and #Becoming #Authentic #Vulnerable - NOT PRETEND-FACE




REACH-OUT - GET IN-TOUCH


When it comes down to managing life, coping with tough times, difficult relationships


When it comes down to managing life, 
coping with tough times, 
difficult relationships - 
it comes down to what is going on inside you 
the beautiful human.

We can only be with, 
manage, cope with another who is kicking off in your space 
IF we manage our own emotions.

That internal BHP.
Feelings
Swirling thoughts
Anger feelings
Put-down feelings
Shame
Resentment
FEELING CRAP ....... 
we can learn to manage - learn skills like 
emotional literacy - emotional intelligence.
We can have our 5-A-DAY in Emotionally

Follow me here
AND I am available to conduct facilitation and training in these areas of life.

Get a life = get skilled up - we can do it .............


THIS is part of a #BlobTree Tool called 'emotional resilience' - learn how to use it - connect with others.


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Hire me - Trainer, TeamTraining, Hard-to-reach, group worker, support 121


Hire me - Trainer, TeamTraining, Hard-to-reach, group worker, support 121



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Monday, March 30, 2015

You are many things ..... this is just ONE





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An encounter with Charlie Chaplin in London Town


I have been doing it for years - once with as many as 30,000 people.
Often with hundreds
sometimes with people sat around round table in a conference with cabaret style seating.
Sometimes when they are standing in a circle.

I get people to touch their unique finger tips - one had reaching out one way and another the other way.
Beautiful to see a network of finger tips touching - a beautiful net of humans who are smiling at the same time.
You could call it an ice-breaker.
With meaning !

You may have seen my Pipturesques on Pipstagram on this page or on the the Instagram page + Facebook + Twitter - I do it once and then they filter into these social networks AND my website here.
I love collecting Pipturesques of groups touching tips and myself with anyone appropriate - Charlie here was obliging but not really communicating - poor eye contact, expressionless, no smiling - actually - he could have been almost cold and motionless - not very much alive.

I will carry on  touching tips around the world - even with famous static/frozen/cold humans - because I love it.

Setting a climate of trust is always a big aim.
Encouraging people to take a risk for their own development -  a small one first and then moving on into the experiential where we all begin to feel things - and then dig into feelings too.

Most behaviour comes out of feelings and, as we all know, some of that behaviour is not good - with not good feelings.
I yearn to understand all this.
Each time I work with a group - every-time - I am learning from those present and my own feelings/behaviour and digging into my thought processes.

If I can encourage someone to get on the road to 'becoming' - that is a great step .............. a journey of change has began ...
....a chosen journey toward becoming whole - 
The Road Less Travelled


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Friday, March 27, 2015

Ever felt a bit #CRAP ? #GermanWings

12 men
every day
in the UK
commit SUICIDE



The sort of #music I love 2 hours for you here

The sort of music I love
2 hours for you here






1.Abraham's ThemebyVangelis

2.Don't WaitbyBonobo
3.D-T (Dorian Concept Remix)byLetherette
4.ClearbyDark Sky
5.Something In The Air (Bonobo remix)byMaya Janes Coles
6.Mama's WisdombyCatching Flies
7.Primative People (Tale of Us Remix)byMano Le Tough
8.LydiabyDauwd
9.Maputo JambyCut Head
10.Moon CirlcesbyMaribou State
11.We Are Fine (Tourist Remix)bySharon Van Etten
12.Porchlight and Rocking Chairs (KiNK Remix)byJimpster
13.NaokobyLorca
14.First Fires (Maya Jane Coles remix)byBonobo
15.Drops (Pedestrian Edit)byJungle
16.LapwingbyWerkha
17.RequiembyTen Walls
18.Bissao (Pilooski Edit)byFrancis Bebey
19.Woo HabyGeneral Ludd
20.JimmybyRomare
21.ReflectedbyWill Arcane
22.Hey Now (Bonobo remix)byLondon Grammar
23.Decisions feat. Emily KingbyTaylor Mcferrin
24.The Tempest feat. Adda KalehbyThrowing Snow
25.Runnin' (Machinedrum remix)byKelis
26.Embryonic (lone remix)byIllum Sphere
27.Glassbeadgames (8 hours at fabric dub)

#StiffUpperLip ! I wonder if that crash pilot had talked with someone about #feelings = #GermanWings



I wonder if that crash pilot had talked with someone about  
So many BHPs talk all sorts ..... ANYTHING BUT..... 
FEELINGS
Even with friends.

I know I keep going on about this stuff.
Emotional intelligence.
Emotional Literacy = able to be literate about our inner life............ EVEN WITH OUR CLOSEST FRIENDS
PARTNERS !!!!!!!!!!

12 men in the UK will commit suicide today.
Most of them BHP's will be smily friendly chatty humans - no-one knowing that there is a dark cloud lodged in their soul.
#Mental Health - it's an illness but so SO tied up with SHAME = the stuff we cannot talk about.
and no-one ever challenges my statement here





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Thursday, March 26, 2015

I see #Beautiful in you because you are beautiful


I accept you 
Just as you are. 
I may not enjoy your 
Language 
Values 
Behaviour 
Pleasures 
(even if you don't like me) 
I accept you/your ALL




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Youth Workers, City YMCA London and other Vacancies Nationwide



LATEST VACANCIES


My current reading about the teenage brain.


I am reading a book about the teenage brain.
Latest chapter was about bumps to the head.
Blows to the head and what happens in the skull as the brain bounces around in the protective fluid.
How important it is to take any knock seriously especially for young people or children.
It's good how my sport, #RugbyLeague , and others are dealing with slightly concussed players quiet militarily.

Sometimes there is a delay of days/weeks - even longer before there are symptoms.
I have seriously tried to remember if I had a head blow in my childhood because my learning is slow - and still is. 
I was nearly a teen before I could read!
Our Conniepops wrote down an order for an Indian takeaway for four adults just by listening to us word 'chicken tikka biriani' etc - and she is only just turned five years old.

I still can't spell (thank you for your consistent help Miss Spellchecker) !


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Wednesday, March 25, 2015

#RugbyLeague teaching #RugbyUnion - they need it too !


#LevelFive communication - powerful / nurturing #relationships





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I #BoycottStarbucks


#Emotions - #Feelings and how good they are


is a strength not a weakness. 
If we hide it 
we are not being authentic. 
We are offering only part of self 
into a relationship

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How you are feeling? 
Are you able to get in touch with them? 
If we put a word to a feeling weare managing them - not scared. 
 & SAD - everything would come under one of those. Be more specific.

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All feelings are good. 
But not if we don’t learn to manage them. 

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#Angry? 
Take a deep breath before you speak, 
because your mouth acts quicker 
than your brain
because feelings
travel faster to the brain
than thinking.

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Monday, March 23, 2015

‘Dear Alisher Usmanov…’ TWO WORDS FOR A BILLIONAIRE RUSSIAN by Martin Wroe



‘Dear Alisher Usmanov…’


TWO WORDS FOR A BILLIONAIRE RUSSIAN WHO OWNS A THIRD OF ARSENAL FOOTBALL CLUB



You probably don’t remember me but you might remember something I told you. It was just two words and you repeated them to me, when we met briefly, the other night, outside the Stade Louis II stadium in Monaco.
As I was leaving the match, slightly forlorn that Arsenal had gone out of the Champions League on goal difference, I did a double take. Was that you, standing there, surrounded by your retinue ? Of course it was you, probably waiting for a car to take you back to your boat in the harbour.
Ramsey gets the second.. not quite enough on the night.

‘Was this destiny?’ I asked myself and without waiting for myself to answer, it dawned on me that even though Arsenal would not win the Champions League this season, maybe tonight could deliver a good result after all. At least for the hundreds of low paid staff contracted to Arsenal as waiters, bar staff or cleaners at the Emirates.
The thing is Mr Usmanov, I’ve been banging on about this to the club for ages but no-one bothers to reply.
I wrote to Alexis Sanchez. First in EnglishThen in Spanish.
No reply.
First in in English. Then in Spanish.
But walking past you I suddenly saw that your one third ownership of Arsenal Football Club could make you the man to herald a small revolution at the club.
Few people would guess that you were once an accomplished fencer in the Uzbekistan national team, but that will not be how history remembers you. More likely you will be remembered as someone worth $15billion, the richest of all the rich Russians and second richest man in Britain. Dilmar alone, your boat, named after your mum, is worth some £110m and needs 47 staff to look after it.

Dilmar signals your status as a global player of power and influence and that’s why I decided to cautiously approach your ring of handsome minders and indicate I’d like a quick word. Our conversation, if you remember, (granted the dialogue was mainly from my side) went something like this.
‘Mr Usmanov, very glad to meet you, (perhaps we shook hands at this point, I can’t remember, I was in mission mode) I am a season ticket holder at Arsenal and I’d like to thank you for supporting the club.’
You smiled, courteously, perhaps wondering if I was about to ask if you could spare a few roubles.
I was wondering if you could do me a favour.’ I continued. ‘I’ve written to one of your employees, a Mr Ivan Gazidis, the CEO of Arsenal, to ask him if he would start paying all his low paid staff the living wage. It’s been nearly a year and he still hasn’t replied.’
We sized each other up for a moment or two and as I wanted to be sure you had heard the key phrase in our conversation, I repeated it slowly — ‘living wage’.
To my delight you repeated it back to me.
‘Living Wage, Living Wage.’
You said it twice and smiled at me and I knew my work in Monaco was complete and it was time to take to my heels before your ring of advisers decided to hasten my departure.
But now as you read this phrase again — ‘Living Wage, Living Wage’ — our meeting will come back to you and you will be asking yourself, ‘What is this Living Wage Living Wage?’
Let me explain.
When I wrote to Ivan Gazidis before the FA Cup Final last year, I told him the story of a friend of mine who works on match days at The Emirates Stadium. Raja works for a company Arsenal contract to do their catering — filling fridges, pouring drinks, making tea, washing up. But he gets paid badly, barely above the legal Minimum Wage.
Although he works every shift he’s offered, these wages are not nearly enough to cover his rent and heating, to pay for life’s essentials. Food for example. Raja is working for the fifth richest football club in the world with a value of $1.3bn but Raja is in working poverty.
Perhaps he’s served you drinks in your box at The Emirates. Maybe as you’ve chatted with some of our great players. Strange to think he’d need to work full time for a decade to earn what Mezut Özil earns in a week.
As you probably know Premiership football clubs symbolise the extreme disparity of income in our world and that’s where the Living Wage comes in. It’s one real pathway for people on low incomes to find a decent quality of life… so they don’t have to work all the hours God sends, so they can take their kids to school in the morning or read to them before bed, so they can study and aspire to a better job.
I’m part of this great organisation called Citizens UK and it was some of their members — community groups, parents — who launched the Living Wage which is calculated according to the basic cost of living. It’s the amount someone needs to get by holding down one job, instead of two. For example, in London, if you’re paid the Minimum Wage — the legal one — you earn £6.50 an hour. But the Living Wage — the one you might be able to live on — is £9.15 an hour.
Mr Gazidis at Arsenal tells us the Living Wage is ‘complex and political’, that the club employ cleaners and catering staff through other companies. But so do hundreds of other major corporations. HSBC, for example, one of the UK’s biggest banks has announced it will pay all 45,000 staff the living wage, including those on contract. In the last year the Living Wage has gone mainstream — all the main political parties support it and hundreds of major companies, from Barclays Bank and Goldman Sachs to ITV and Santander.
The press are picking up on it, not least because, as David Cameron puts it, the Living Wage is ‘an idea whose time has come’. City accountants like KPMG are backing it (‘extra wage costs are more than met by lowered recruitment churn and absenteeism, greater loyalty, and higher morale leading to better performance’) and London Mayor Boris Johnson has written to Mr Gazidis and every other Premiership boss asking for clubs to introduce it.
Until recently though, no football club had become a Living Wage Employer. Then the mighty Hearts of Midlothian in Scotland became the first. Followed by Luton Town, the first English club. And then, would you believe it, one of your own very good friends stepped in to show that even with all the exhausting complexity and politics of being a super-wealthy Premiership football club, it’s still possible to become a Living Wage Employer.
This friend is of course your fellow Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, the owner of a club in south London called Chelsea and in December they became the first Premier League club to sign up to the Living Wage. As their Chairman Bruce Buck put it, Quite simply it is the right thing to do.’
Alisher and Roman. Both Billionaire’s, Both Russian and both passionate owners of English football clubs. But only one of them is an accreddited Living Wage Employer.
So now that you know what the Living Wage is, I thought you could talk to Roman Abramovich about how they’re introducing it at Chelsea — and then talk to Ivan Gazidis about getting Arsenal to follow suit.
I know you’ll see both the business and the moral case because, as you’ve said, ‘I have been very fortunate to be successful in business, and I believe that it is right that people who have this type of wealth should give something back into society.’
You also have a concern that people are paid decent wages. Only last month, when Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko asked you for a loan to pay £3.9m in unpaid wages of Russia’s national coach Fabio Capello, you stumped up. ‘It is a disgrace,’ you said, ‘When a person who’s working for Russia doesn’t get paid for his labour.’
I feel certain you can persuade Ivan Gazidis and the other directors of Arsenal Football Club that it’s also a disgrace that such an exceedingly wealthy club believe they cannot pay everyone who works for them a living wage.
As you know Arsenal has a great record in the local community and backs many great local initiatives like the new Sports Centre. But on the Living Wage, it’s getting embarrassing. Last month, the Premier League invited a few of us from Citizens UK to a meeting, where they gave us free coffee and biscuits.
We suggested that after selling their TV rights for a record breaking £5.14 billion the clubs had no excuses left for not introducing the Living Wage. To back up our argument, Joel handed in his petition with 60,000 signatures — but the Premier League people told us they don’t have any power to advise clubs. They do what the clubs tell them to do.
One of our delegation was John Crowley — that’s him on the right above — who works at both Chelsea and Arsenal on match days and is saving up to pay for his degree. It’s absurd that in future Chelsea will pay him £9.15 an hour while he can expect nearly a third less doing the same work at Arsenal.
‘The Living Wage is about lifting families out of working poverty.’ says John. ‘I’m saving up to afford a law degree so I can achieve my dreams of being a lawyer and the minimum wage simply isn’t good enough especially when we know the Clubs can afford it.’
Over to you Mr Usmanov. You’re a passionate supporter of the club and
Thanks for letting me button hole you in Monaco the other night. Maybe you’re the man to persuade the club to do the right thing and start paying everyone a Living Wage.
Maybe that night in Monaco wasn’t the defeat it felt like.
best wishes
Martin Wroe
LIFE, DEATH, FOOTBALL & FRIENDSHIP — something else I wrote about football.