Have you ever been through one of those life changing events when suddenly something happens that stops you dead in your tracks, and make you wonder what the hell you are doing!

Well I think that most of us have had a similar experience, but I wonder how many of us actually do something about it, or do we just ignore it and move on.

You might be wondering why I am writing this – well let me ask you to have a guess!

If you think that something has happened to me, then … YES you are absolutely correct!

After two years of illness, unemployment, no funds and going past sixty, the continual worrying about how long it would take me to get well (if ever), to find employment (if any) and start generating an income once again (hmmm), suddenly I was confronted by one of those light bulb moments when someone I met said – almost as a passing comment,

“Jim, you need to become free!”

That moment quickly lapsed into days of thought, research and … well a number of sleepless nights. Was it worth it? Well I think it was because it not only made me think – it made me consider in real truth – exactly what my situation was, the realistic future and most importantly, that I had to do something to move forward.

I don’t wish to harp on about my situation any more but wanted to talk about the issues which became apparent to me after I had finished that process.

When it was suggested to me that I needed to become free, as I walked away I started to ask myself what she really meant. After all – we are all free aren’t we? Well, as I thought about it I started to realised that actually I was not very free. I did not have the freedom that I think she was referring to. In fact from the day I was born I have been a slave and never had the freedom that I now want.

From the moment I was born until I left school I had to do what my parents said. I left home and spent twelve years in the Royal Air Force doing exactly as I was told. Eventually I got married and had to do what my wife wanted, and the kids demanded. Pay the rent, pay the bills, fund the holiday, buy the food … you all know exactly what I mean.

The truth is that I had to work from dawn to dusk to provide for my wife and two children and subsequently after my marriage failed, I still had to provide for them as well as myself. In time there came the second wife and two more children and as happened with the first wife, my second marriage did not work either. Now I had to support two wives and four children as well as myself. This is getting boring, but eventually I met my third wife, married her and had to support her and two more children. That time I had a father-in-law as well.

When I look back I realized that my marriages failed because I was so busy providing for everyone that I had no time for the family and especially the children. That changed with my third (and final) family and we transformed our lifestyle, moving to a country farm and although we struggled to make a living, our lives seemed much better.

Was I free … no of course not!

The point I’m getting at is that we are all slaves to life. It has been said that you can’t buy happiness. That I believe is quite true, but money can, and does, buy freedom. Freedom in turn brings happiness. If you are free to do as you wish, within the bounds of the law and what is morally correct, you can do all those things that make you happy and contented whatever they may be. You CAN have that freedom!

So the morale to this story is, get loads of money and make yourself free, and then you will be happy!

Ops! That’s what I have been trying to do for the last forty years isn’t it?

That’s the problem … striving for money. Of course the truth is we will have our freedom and be happy when we win the lottery, or we discover we have a great aunt that has left us a fortune! May be it will be our latest business idea that will make us rich and free? Just may be …

Well ‘may be’ nothing!

The chance of winning the Euro Lottery first prize is apparently 116,531,800 to 1. Do you have a rich Aunt somewhere – I don’t think so! So your only real chance is to start a new business, make loads of money and the problem is resolved. I’ll say no more on that subject other than I am, like most people, always very optimistic!!

I spent some considerable time over the last few days looking back through loads of books, video’s, cd’s and tapes that I have accumulated over the years from which it appears I have not learnt many of the lessons they teach. I spent time talking to others and the result was that I discovered a formula that I believe might just be the answer to the problem, or at least the route to solving the problem.

What I leant was that first you need to have a DREAM! You need to know what it is that you really want. Is it money, a new car, a new house or is it just the freedom to do exactly as you wish to do. Defining your dreams is not easy, they must be achievable somehow, they must be realistic but other than that it is down to you to put them on your list.

Secondly, having decided what your dreams are and what you want to achieve you need to set all the necessary GOALS that will allow you to achieve those dreams. This is the hard bit, but it can be done if you apply yourself to it. We have all heard about setting goals, about how they are the things you will need to do to achieve your dreams. In most cases they represent the steps you will go through to get you from where you are now, to where you want to be in the future.

Thirdly, having set yourself a set of goals you now need to BELIEVE in those goals. If you don’t, you are already on a losing game. If you cannot believe that you can achieve your goals and subsequently your dreams, then give up now and remain a member the National Federation of Voluntary Slaves because that is the only option open to you.

Fourthly, once you believe that you can achieve your beliefs, you need to TAKE ACTION otherwise how can you achieve those goals that you now believe in? Taking action is hard because often other people and things stand in your way. Do not allow you beliefs to be weakened under any circumstances. Stick to them … they will win in the end. Be obstinate, it might be a fault in many cases, but when it involves your beliefs, it is god!

Lastly, you will never succeed alone. You need to have other people working with you or helping you to achieve your goals. This means that you need to LEAD, that is to insight others around you to want to participate and benefit from their efforts as well. Your success must lead to their success, and if it does, then you all succeed. If you do not take the lead, no one else will.

Finally on Sunday I went to a meeting at ExCel in London and one of those light bulb moments happened again when the following words flashed up on the screen:-

Dream – Set Goals – Believe – Take Action – Lead!

Have a happy day … and become free!

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See what i’m doing HERE and HERE as well

There are occasions in our lives when we are faced with questions that we never imagined would be asked of us. Those questions come from within us as we travel on the journey of life and are really difficult to answer. Whatever answer we come up with, are likely to change our lives dramatically. Unless this has happened to you, it is difficult to comprehend the concept.

Let me explain how it happened to me!

I am in my early sixties and have had a fairly routine life, working for others, having my own businesses and doing the things that I wanted to do, for myself and my family. I have an inherent desire to assist other people, I don’t carry grudges – believing that what has happened has happened and we should get on with life, and do not see myself as someone particularly important or someone who is going to change the world.

I was quite happy to plod along, earning a living, loving my wife and family and carrying for those around me. I was in good health, reasonably fit for my age, willing to have a go at anything and quite happy with my lot!

Then things suddenly changed.

I became ill and after nine months of medical intervention was diagnosed with bowel cancer. Luckily for me it was found at an early stage because the effect of the cancer had caused serious pain in my chest and heart. Once it was discovered, I was cut open and the cancer and my large bowel and some other bits removed. It was a reasonably simple operation taking a few hours and it appeared to have been very successful. After about six weeks I was well enough to face a six month period of chemotherapy to reduce any chance that cancerous cells had found their way into other parts of my body.

This on-going treatment however, did cause me some issues which resulted in damage to my pancreas and nerve system. Eventually they stopped the chemo as my condition deteriorated and concerns were raised about the long term effects of these problems. The result was that I now have diabetes and an on-going pain issue.

Once all this was resolved back in early May this year, I then went into a six month period of recovery from the chemo, adjusting my lifestyle to deal with the pain and changing my diet to compensate for the diabetes.  I have to admit that this has not been easy and as I write this, it has not been completely resolved.

You may think that all these events that have been going on for 22 months now, are bad enough. Indeed they are very challenging and hard to face every day. My wife and family have been amazingly supportive and I really could not ask more of them. However, like many people, I feel that I have to stand on my own two feet and deal with these issues myself. I tend to keep quiet about the pain that plagues me most days, although I cannot hide it from my wife.

But these issues are only the visible effects of being ill. Behind the scenes are other things that get forgotten about initially but rear their ugly head later on. For eighteen months I have not earned a penny of income and that means that our family budget has been reduced by around 60% each month. Our savings have been slowly reducing until they no longer exist.  In an effort to save money, our standard of living has also dropped dramatically. Not just mine – but my wife’s as well.

In addition my wife now worries about her job as it once provided the cream on our cake, but now it is the only form of income we have. She had two jobs just to generate as much as she can. Her main job is not secure as the business she works for has been sold to a competitor and her branch office might be closed at any time. This pressure upon her also put pressure on me to try and get back to work to provide for my family, as I believe it is my role to do!

The question that now faces me is simply this.

Where do I go from here?

The answer is almost impossible to determine.

My health will probably never return to what it was before. I have a statistically reasonable chance that cancer will re-appear at some stage. My life expectancy is also statistically reduced dramatically as a result. I will face continual treatment and monitoring over the next seven years.

I am nearly 62 years of age and my previous skills in IT and management are no longer that valid and therefore I probably will only find work in an unskilled role.

The economic situation is such that jobs are difficult to find anyway, and in the unskilled areas almost impossible. With the government introducing plans to subsidise the cost of employing young people, the number of older people looking for work will increase as these positions are taking by younger, and cheaper to employ, people.

To frustrate the matter even further, our savings have gone and as a result, starting another business is not going to be very viable. Banks don’t like lending money at the moment, so a new start-up is going to get little or no help what-so-ever. What is more, I do have a number of ideas as to what sort of business I could start, all of them with lots of potential. However without resources I have little or no chance of starting even just one of them.

If I was not a positive individual I could quite easily give up, bury my head in the sand and wait for the inevitable to happen.

Well let’s assume that I can’t find work, and can’t find anyone to help me launch a new business. Let’s also assume that my health does not improve and I have no option but to put up my feet, watch lots of telly, and wait for the commencement of that final journey to heaven, hell or as food for the worms. Sounds likely to me!

But something is bothering me.

I knew an old gentleman back in 2004, who told me that he had become seriously ill in his late fifties. He was informed that he would be probably only live another year or two.  When I last spoke to him he was an amazing 103 years of age and as far as I know, he is still alive today. He told me that he lived every day as it happened. A hearty breakfast, keep occupied (he got a maths degree at 92), never watch television and don’t ever give-up! Sounds like great advice!

But that is what bothers me. What happens if I live to be 70, 80, 90 or even older? With modern health provision and people living longer it is projected that a normal healthy person of my age will live to be 91. Will I look back and question any decisions that I make today? Will I see my life as a waste? Will I regret not doing something to help myself and others? After all I have worked since I was 15 but life didn’t really start happening until I was 21 and that is 40 years ago. If I am to live until I am 91 that is another 30 years – nearly half my productive life!

When we are faced with these issues, especially health problems that suddenly appear we are knocked off that road that we were on. We spend time recovering and these events change the way we think and act.  Our future is suddenly on a different road. Our destination has changed, our desires are modified, our needs and those of the people around have to be adjusted.  Life is different; the questions we ask ourselves change and the answers are hard to swallow.

So what do we do? What do I do? What road do I want to be on? What expectations do my wife and family have? Will I see 91 and wish I had done something? Is it all worth it?

Well the answer is not showing itself yet, but I am beginning to understand deep inside myself that I must not give up; I should plan to celebrate my 91^st birthday and simply see the events of the last two years as a simple ‘blip’ on my road of life!

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If you’ve heard it once, you’ll have heard it a hundred times, ‘how to make your fortune online in less than seven hours!’

Yes Sure! My daughter got pregnant and had a baby the next day!

The fact is that so many Internet marketers are now trying to convince us that they can show us how to make a fortune in no time at all. And what’s more it will only cost you $37 one off payment with nothing more to pay – ever, until they offer you their next product!

It makes you wonder if these people are mad. If they can show us how to become millionaires overnight, then why don’t they do it themselves and leave us alone.  After all, making a million the way they are doing it means they need just over 27,000 people to buy their product at $37, and that is often discounted if you click off the page. Thankfully most of us have more sense and avoid this sort of marketing with a barge pole.

But the real question is … can you make money online? The answer is of course ‘YES, you can’, you only need to look at Amazon, Facebook, Google and hundreds of other well known sites.

‘But they are huge companies who have invested millions to achieve their levels of success’ I hear you saying. And you are perfectly correct. But I have to tell you there are others who name you will not have heard of that are making a very good income online every day.  They sell information, products for small amounts of money such as $47 each. If you make just two sales every hour then you have an income of nearly $824,000 per year.

Others operate membership sites, where they have say 1,000 members making them $20 each per month or nearly $250,000 per year. They may have fewer members at a higher margin or more members at a lower margin, whatever way they operate; they earn a good return each day.

I know a number of membership site owners that run more than one site; one for example has seven sites with a total of around 5,500 members earning $20 per member on average per month, a cool $1.3 million a year doing something they love.

Personally I’m into membership sites and am currently working on two, one called Niche Member Site principally to help others build their own member sites, and another called The Writers Club especially for people who have a passion to write. Neither is taking paying members yet as they are busy being populated with information but feel free to have a look and pre-register if you are interested.

There is of course no commitment.

The point here is simply that anyone can make money on line if they do it in the correct way. There is no fast overnight solution that will make money long term. The secret is to learn about the Internet and what you need to do to be successful. This takes time and money as do all good things.

Once you have your own Internet business set up you still need to find members or customers to purchase your products. That is probably the hardest part of an online business, but it is not that difficult if you know what needs to be done.

I don’t profess to know all the answers and am not in the business of teaching them either at this time, but I would rather rely on an expert or two. In my case I have a good friend and mentor Chris Farrell who does know the answers and is very happy to share them. He has put all his knowledge onto his website along with over 1,000 video’s describing and teaching members how to progress. It is of course a membership site and does cost around $37 per month, but it has a great affiliate program which pays you 50% for introducing other paying members. Get just two and your membership is free!

Using affiliates like this is a great way to get members. If every member got just two others then the membership of the site would explode. Indeed with Chris’s site it has exploded! This has been re-enforced because he offers all his members unlimited free web hosting!

So if you are thinking of starting an online business, or are just interested as to what you could achieve then why not have a look at Chris’s site, he has plenty of free stuff which you are welcome to look at and learn from. There is no doubt Chris Farrell has earned the huge reputation that he has for helping people and for the quality of material he offers.

Chris Farrell Membership Site

Finally, just a reminder … you can make money online, without flooding people with spam emails, and also build yourself a great business and a great reputation in the areas that you work.

I sometimes wonder if the politicians of the world ever really think for themselves or just go along with the crowd. We vote them in to represent us, but once that process has been done, we rarely see them until the next election when they ask us to vote for them again. They represent us so surely it would be good if they communicated with us more often and listened to what we are saying.

If we look back on the events of the last few years, visa vie the banking crisis and the collapse of many of the world’s economies, we have to ask ourselves the question, do politicians really think about what they are doing or not! Do they go along with what the head honcho says or do they consider the consequences of their actions themselves.

Common sense tells us that if you spend more money on the affairs of your country than the taxation system generates, then in due course something has to give otherwise the country will go broke!

Surely all politicians have enough common sense to know that they can only spend what they can afford. Borrowing continually, year after year, is going to result in disaster as we have recently seen. It appears that this borrowing is so fixed in our system that the governments of the world can almost treat borrowing as if they were printing money! The truth is they can’t and they shouldn’t!

It seems to me that most politicians are only interested in themselves and not interested in the likely outcomes of their actions. They do get paid reasonably well, they get good expenses and they have very long holidays! If what they achieve goes wrong, they blame others, or take the toll by losing their seats. Not a very high price for breaking an economy.

If you have your own business you’ll know that you cannot afford to spend more than you are earning. If things get tough, then cuts have to be made.  A country’s economy should be no different from running a business.  Yes, I know that we sometimes borrow money for our business, but it is always based upon our ability and desire to repay it quickly. Banks will lend us money if they think we are a good risk, and only then. Countries are nearly always seen as a good risk, as someone else will bail them out! Iceland, Ireland, Greece and other countries come to mind!

The only differences are that it is our taxpayer’s money that is used, for which we get no interest, and worst still, we don’t even get a say! If my business runs out of money, hard luck – it goes bust – end of story!

The problem appears to be that the majority of MP’s do not want to do anything that might jeopardise their chances of being re-elected at the next election. If an MP stood up to the country’s leaders and incited other MP’s to join a fight against spending money that the country cannot afford, i.e. by increasing tax, cutting expenditure, including benefits if necessary, they would certainly risk losing their seats at the next election.

A large proportion of the general public are fed up with this lack of sensible activity and has thrown in the towel. When a new election comes around they either don’t bother to vote or vote for the same old party as they always do.

What can we do to resolve this issue?

Nothing of course!

Each morning I wake up and wonder what the day holds for me. Will it be full of the normal stuff or will something happen that is different from usual? Well the obvious answer that most of us would like to hear is that it will be a special day and different!

Actually this is against what most human being really believe deep down. We like our lives to be predictable and consistent. Our brain secretly plans what we will be doing during each day and if something happens to change that then we tend to get stressed out.

Now this does not mean that we never want anything different to happen, but we are more relaxed if our day follows the pattern that we expect and does not throw any major challenges in our direction.

If you consider the desire we all have to win a hundred million on the lottery, we must ask ourselves why we have that desire. Is it so that we can buy whatever we fancy? Perhaps it is so that we can travel to far off countries to enjoy ourselves? Maybe it because we can give up our routine jobs that bug our lives?

Well the truth is more likely to be that having money enables us to control our lives in the way that we want! Having lots of money enables us to do just that. If problems or events occur that disrupt our lives, the idea that we have money reduces the stress dramatically as we believe inside our head – that money will take the problems away.

We all suffer pressures each day, be it having to work, being unwell, getting older or dozens of other issues that can and do stress us out.

If I told you that tomorrow you stand a very good chance of going to work and being told by your boss that you are being made redundant, then you would start to worry. If you had all that money I mentioned before, then you would probably believe that losing your job is not an issue! But to many of us, losing our jobs is not just about the money, but it’s about how we personally, internally feel about what is happening. It is an event that we had not planned and do not want!

Leading an exciting life is fine, many of us do just that, but our lives are planned and under control. It is when things go out of control that we get upset and stressed. We like to know what is happening. If a friend asks you if you would like to spend a day with them, the first thing most people ask is, what will we being doing? It is our internal being that needs to plan and cater for every event in our lives.

Think about it … is your life more fun and less stressful if it goes according to your inner desire?

So, every morning when I awake I ponder on the day. My life varies from day to day, but I can’t afford to allow my mind to get stressed, so I think about that day, what it holds and what I shall be doing. If at the end of the day I have followed that vague plan, then I feel less stressed than when it all goes wrong!

Think about your day every morning and enjoy it!

For centuries now businesses across the world have relied on marketing as the main way of getting new business. This has consisted of advertising, PR, branding, customer service, loyalty systems, social networks and many other aspects.

The marketing process today focuses a great deal on ‘image’. This is simply the idea that if a product or service has the right ‘image’ in the eye of the potential customer then they are more likely to buy! An ‘image’ is a picture. Some call this branding but it is more than that. Macdonald’s is a brand, but the ‘image’ we have is of that lovely cheese coated, freshly cooked, hot yummy 100% burger, if that’s what turns you on! You don’t go to MacDonald’s because of its name, but because you fancy a burger!

Businesses need to ensure that their potential customer get an ‘image’ of their product or service. They need to know that they will get real enjoyment and advantage out of it, whether it is a burger, a new settee, a new car or even a new partner!

A lot of what we believe is stamped into our heads by the advertising medium. We see a specific manufacturer of beds for example who’s advertising does not focus on the quality of the bed but more on the quality of sleep that you will get. This is the ‘image’ that we want.

A lot of this process originates with our belief in a specific business. For example, if we purchase product for our home in IKEA, we probably have the ‘image’ in our head that IKEA sells the sort of stuff that we like at a price we can afford. However, you might be the sort of person who would not be seen dead in IKEA or indeed allow their products in your home. It is those things that are important to you that matter. It is the overall ‘image’ of the business that attracts or repels us.

My wife and I purchased some new settees from a well known furniture group who advertise on TV. The settees were just what we wanted and the price quite acceptable. The only problem was that after about a year they started to sag and had lost their good looks. “You get what you pay for” we were told. Would we buy another product from them? No, of course not, because their ‘image’ is one of cheap and not very well made.  That image in our eyes is almost impossible to change!

Last year we were at an exhibition and visited the Raft Furniture stand. We had a long chat with the exhibitor about how the settees were made, the quality of the leather, the source of the oak and teak they used, the guarantee, price, delivery etc. We even tried the product out and spent time looking at the quality. Now the price was substantially more but the quality was superb. The guarantee indicated that the product would probably see us out of this world. The ‘image’ that we have of Raft products is so good that we would definitely shop there in the future.

To gain a good image takes more than selling you a product. Marketing is expensive and you need to win over your buyers with an ‘image’ that brings them back, time and time again. Part of the way to do this, is to prove to potential customers or clients, that you know what you’re talking about, you understand your products and services, you know how they will affect your customers, indeed … you have to show them everything that will give them the right ‘image’ of what you offer. In short you need to demonstrate that you are an authority on the product or service in question.

Demonstrating Authority

This can be very hard if you only have a short period of time to achieve it. If someone walks into your shop and wants to buy a £1 product you can’t afford any time so you won’t bother. But if someone comes into your car salesroom and wants to buy a new top end Mercedes then you can spare quite a lot of time, in fact the more interest they show, the more time you will give.

But most of us are not selling ‘image’ type products as such. We offer business services and goods generally. If we have a retail business we rely on the manufacturer of all the different brands we sell to create that ‘image’ for us. Of course the truth is that our retail shop itself has to have a favourable ‘image’ with our potential customers. I had a bad experience with one of the supermarket chains (I won’t say who but bright green comes to mind) such that the ‘image’ I have of them is so bad that I would rather walk an extra mile for a pint of milk, than go into their store! I don’t care if they claim to be cheaper than anyone else, they stink in my opinion – a bad ‘image’ is very difficult to remove.

If I wanted to hire a consultant to help me with a specific area of my business, how do I go about finding the right person? That’s quite easy for me because I know a lot of people who I have experience of working with and they have an ‘image’ which I like. There are some that have great ‘images’ but not in the area that I need. But to many business people they do not have this knowledge and have to search for it. We often do that by asking others we know if they can recommend someone. Interestingly, we probably ask those who have a good ‘image’ in our eyes, first.

If we subscribe to our local business magazine and each month there is an article by a particular consultant which we enjoy reading and learn from and we have a need for such a person, would we not be attracted to the author of those articles? Of course we would especially if the subject written about is closely related to some problem we have.

It is said that when a person publishes a business book they almost automatically get more business because they are seen as an authority. Sadly most of us cannot afford the time or effort to become a published author and gain such an ‘image’.

What would happen though, if you could improve your ‘image’ by being able to publish authoritative articles on your area of knowledge? Do you think your ‘image’ might be improved? The evidence is that every little bit helps.

Have a look at http://www.onc3.com and then join our FaceBook group at http://www.facebook.com/groups/organicnetwork to learn more about improving your image.

Enjoy your day!

In the last few days in London here in the UK, we have seen numerous riots involving what appears to be young people both white and ethnic. They have set buildings, cars and even a bus on fire, and have smashed dozens of shop windows and looted the contents. Although the police have been doing their best to calm the situation it still continues.  Many hundreds of people have been arrested and even a case of attempted murder is being dealt with.

Yesterday the riots spread across London and into other cities such as Birmingham, Liverpool Nottingham and Bristol. The Prime Minister is apparently considering bringing the army in to assist the police to keep control.

The riots started in Tottenham after a man was stopped and searched and nothing was found. He was taking part in a peaceful march and demonstration about an incident when Mark Duggan was fatally shot by the police last Thursday.

The question that we must all ask ourselves is why these people in Tottenham reacted in the way they did. Sadly people do get injured even fatally when they are involved in some confrontation with the police. After all the police are trying to do their job and it is not their desire that people should get hurt, but to resolve problems peacefully.

It appears that many of the people in Tottenham are not happy with the way they are generally treated by the police. This area has a lot of problems and has a high level of ethnic people but why do some of these people feel that they are being badly treated by the police?

Well I’m sure we all have our opinion as to why they feel this way. Is it actually true? Do the police stop and search more people with an ethnic background that those who are white? Perhaps it is because the levels of poverty in these areas are worse than in other places. Is it something to do with poverty? Is it a reflection on the unemployed?

Well of course we can speculate as much as we want. We can listen to the opinions of people from all sector and areas. We can even form our own opinions … but as so often happens, the real reason does not come out until much later.

It is important that we do not mix up all the other riots with what happened in Tottenham. That was where it all started and where the problem lies. The other riots probably started for other reasons but happened because there was an excuse to riot!

Now we all know that the police will step in if something has happened. We might not see this happening in our cities or towns, possible because we have no reason to attract the attention of the police. If the police are stopping and searching individuals then there has to be a reason! If I was stopped and searched because of something that had happened I’d be pleased to know that the police were doing their job.  If it happened repeatedly then perhaps I would feel differently.

It is a bit like terrorists, they carry out their atrocities because of what they believe. I think that the truth is that a majority of people just want a peaceful life. These terrorists and rioters have a problem that they can’t seem to resolve. Maybe the authorities should talk to their representative to establish what the real issues are.  Once they have been identified then they can be resolved. After all if the police kept picking on us for some reason, perhaps because we are white, we would start asking why they kept doing this! If we are suspected of carrying out specific crimes then we should expect nothing less!

Are these poor and ethnic populations being targeted because they are involved in crimes? Is it a fact that these people are more likely to carry out criminal offences than those who are better off? Is it right that people should riot, set homes on fire, damage property of other residents, and steal from stores they have smashed their way into? 

Of course not!  

The vast majority of us are appalled at these riots, but what alternative do these people have?

For the last 25 years or so I have been involved in writing. Not fiction best sellers as some do, but writing reports, job specifications, training documents, rather large 50,000+ word business proposals as well as my blogs. In itself, that is not that special as most of us will have to do these things during our working careers.

But as I moved towards retirement I had an urge to write something a little different. Perhaps an adventure novel or two, or maybe a non-fiction business book that helps others do what they want to do. Whatever it is, the urge was there, and if I could earn a few shillings as well, that would be the icing on the cake!

But where do you start? Those business documents were often only read by a few people and then usually just the summary at the end. Writing reports does not make you a potential bestselling author! Like most things, we need to learn a few basic principles before we get started. They are probably not that important and we will learn them as time goes by, but time is important so I decided nearly two years ago to take a course in writing.

I eventually found one at the Writer Bureau that seemed to cover most aspects of writing so I signed up and paid my fee. I also purchased a pile of books about writing and publishing, grammar and English and proceeded to read them.

I soon received all my course material and started to read through it as well. Sadly I did not seem to have the enthusiasm that I had when I had ordered the course. It looked a lot harder than I had expected and Christmas was just around the corner. I decided to leave it until the beginning of the next year when I would knuckle down and give 100% of my available time and effort.

Then everything went wrong. Early in 2010 I suddenly became ill and did not feel up to doing anything at all. My condition got worse as the months passed and eventually after having been prodded and inspected like a lump of meat, I was told that I had cancer! A major operation followed. A further three weeks recovering in hospital before being discharged with a plan of eight 3 week cycles of chemotherapy to look forward to.

As I could not work, I thought that this would be a great time to work on my course. Well how wrong I was! My illness and the chemo were about as much as I could cope with and the course just remained in my office waiting patiently for me to return. A couple of months ago the chemo was terminated after my hands and feet became numb and painful. That condition sadly has got worse and I am finding it quite hard to deal with.

It seems that the opportunity to return to employed work is not going to happen in the short term, and if I am honest with myself, with the economic situation being as it is, and with only a couple of years to go before I can retire, I probably will never have a job again. Of course I have other interests which I play at, a business idea that I am trying to find backing for and I still have that desire to write my novel.

Although all these events stood in my way, I have to admit that if I had really wanted to move my writing forward I could have done so! Serious illness and pain can quite quickly pull you down and is both stressful and hard to cope with. I still have problems today but I have restarted my course and I am confident that I will get through it quite quickly.

The important lesson I have learnt is that it is easy to get distracted and wander off into your own world without realising what you are doing. I decide that to help me focus on my writing I needed to join a writer’s group of some type. There does not appear to be a local group that is active so I had a look on Facebook and found just the thing.

http://www.facebook.com/groups/writingsupport/

What is especially good about this group is that it is active and the members openly support each other and offer encouragement. A majority are, like me, taking a course in writing so they understand the challenges that we all face.

Having a group to motivate you and encourage you to move forward is a great idea and I can highly recommend this one to all writers both new and old. For the new people you get the encouragement and help, and from those more experienced the offer of help and guidance to move forward.

Thank you already to The Creative Writing Support group.

Today we live in a world where so many things are going on that even the cleverest people cannot possible keep track of them all. This is the result of the high level of communications that now exist across the world.

It is less than a century ago that the only real way to converse over any distance was by letter. If you wanted to communicate with someone on the other side of the world, you wrote a letter, posted it, and then it would spend a number of weeks at sea before it was delivered. The recipient would then write a reply, post it, and weeks later you would receive the letter.

Today we not only can write letters but can use emails, telephone, Skype, chat, blogs and lots of other mediums to communicate, often in seconds over huge distances. A piece of news in the UK would be in Australia within minutes of it happening. This means that we are all being bombarded with stuff, a lot of which is quite irrelevant. This technology also allows us to communicate with more than one person at a time. Skype for example allows you to talk as a group, blogs go out to hundreds or even thousands of people, chat can now be multi person and emails can have a large distribution list.

Communications have gone mad!

Of course the arrival of this technology has also created further problems in that once we have sent a message to one or more people, they often respond in seconds and that means that we often reply almost straight away. Back and forth the messages go! These simple and very quick methods of communicating mean that we give very little time to think about the reply we should make. This often results in the wrong things being said and the wrong ideas being communicated to the recipients.

Do you feel that this extra pressure is difficult to deal with? Well if you are communicating with just one other person it is bearable, but if you are simultaneously talking to half a dozen, a dozen or hundreds of people, it can become very stressful and time consuming.

Personally I love speaking to people, especially on Skype Video where I can see them as well. I prefer one to one communications, because then it is restricted to just two people and it is focussed and rewarding. Once completed, I can move onto the next person.

I find it very interesting that when two of you are in conversation the other person is always waiting to break in with their response. As they start talking, you then are waiting to reply. Yet when someone talks to a group of people, either in a meeting or online, they often struggle to get a response from anyone. I wonder why that is?

Sometimes I blog and hundreds of people will read it. I invite comment, but none come! Again I wonder why this is. Surely others have opinions as well as me! If I make a mistake in my blog by stating something stupid or in error, then I get comments about the error which tells me that at least those people read it!

Communicating is essential in our modern lives but communications must do what it says on the box, it must allow us to communicate our message to others and visa versa otherwise there is little point in even trying.

In 1975, following an invasion from Morocco after Spain relinquished the territory known as Western Sahara, many thousands of Sahrawi people walked over 600 kilometres across scorching deserts to flee the brutal Moroccan invasion, sadly thousands died on the journey as they made their way to Algeria. On arrival they established a series of large camps in what is known locally as the desert of deserts. These vast tented camps are named after the cities in their homeland.

Now 36 years later, they’re still here.

These people live in conditions that we would not find acceptable, nor would we survive in for long. They have little alternative, after all this is a desert, a bleak unwelcoming place, hot, arid and devoid of vegetation, water and most other things.

The Sahrawi refugees who live here receive around £34 million in food aid each year from a range of NGO’s and Agencies, but this cannot continue forever, and this aid is constantly affected by other calls for funds elsewhere in the world. This makes the refugees here, very vulnerable. These people want to work together to grow their own food to improve their nutrition and provide food security for themselves. This is not easy as they are very isolated and have little more than sand available to them.

During the Second World War, the people of the UK, Australia and the US adopted a programme called “Dig for Victory” a way by which the people of those nations could grow the food they needed to support themselves. They did not have miles upon miles of sand so it was a little easier for them than for the population of Saharawi who are forced to live in the Desert of Deserts.

Martin Dewhurst who is working with New Dawn researched the idea of how to bring Permaculture, the ideal solution that uses 1/5^th of the water conventional techniques use and is quietly being adopted in desert communities around the world. Permaculture (permanent-agriculture) is a proven, natural process capable of transforming what appears to be barren unproductive land into a fertile, food production area quite quickly.  Once the land has been prepared, trees are first planted followed by other consumable crops. Here is a link to a short film that explains the process a little clearer.

To achieve this outcome the people first need the inputs of knowledge, seeds and plants and most of all the help of others to set up Permaculture training centres.

New Dawn is planning a trip to the area with 20 Land Rovers to deliver the help and equipment that they need to get started.  These starter kits are called ‘Grow Your Own Food Kits’ and were designed and prepared by Dr Alan Rae and Professor Willem van Cotthem

Below is a photo of the Demonstrator Expedition Land Rover designed to take the story of the GYO Food Kits into schools and public events.

Of course this all costs a lot of money which may seem too many of us as a waste of resources. But rest assured, 170,000 people will benefit from this process. Not all at the same time, but once a few projects are going; more will join and participate in the development of their desert into productive land.

To raise the necessary funds New Dawn are looking for sponsors from businesses of all types. They are filming their next expedition in March 2012 so every sponsor will not only have the pleasure of helping others to survive but will get a little publicity into the bargain.

If you are interested in learning more about this project then feel free to contact Martin Dewhurst T:01422 416157 / M: 07951 708171 or email him at martin.dewhurst@me.com or have a look at the website at http://www.newdawnrovers.org/ and the supporting charity at http://www.pennyon.com/

Just to make it even more fun and to help youngsters here in the UK, young people from around the UK will be joining this expedition to the desert to utilise their young skills and strength to help put get these projects going. At the same time as they help and encourage those people, our youngsters will be developing their own characters and will gain many advantages from their experience.

I’d love to go but I think that I am a little too old and would probably be so affected at what I saw that I would not want to come back!

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