Bernard Dubay
Personal Photo & Random Life Thoughts Blog
23/01/2012 by Bernard

Outdoors training and teambuilding – does it work or not?

This is a guest post by an anonymous learning and development professional with over 15 years experience in the industry. In it, our guest examines whether the outdoors setting popular for much training and team building activities these days is in fact an improvement over the usual class room based styles of teaching and training.

Using the non-traditional setting of the outdoors has become common currency, and not merely for young kids. Such experiential training includes both danger and safety, though providers assure that agility, physical fitness and strength are not prerequisites of such courses. The challenge and the risk lie in going from the ‘comfort zone’, trying out new behavior, moving out the limitations of the regular and extending expectations.

Problem-solving and team-building are two of the approaches of training applied. One a day-long vacation was included by programme young managers example by canoe along several miles of tube in the wilds, followed by a pattern ride or walk to a particular town hall. Players were given brief coaching in the paddling of the canoes, and staff popped up at factors along the way to provide confidence.

They did not mention that there have been about 13 gates along the route or did they mention that canoes could not be taken through locks but must be portaged (maintained) around them. Additionally they neglected to say that housing for the night was on the ground of the town area. As a means of requiring people to notably, to cooperate with each other and, address their responses, anxiety was, in short, intentionally included in the workout.

Yet another easy process usually used is to change or remove the hierarchies of title and position among players. Jr staff are devote fee of, or on a level with owners and managers. Office and shop-floor employees are confused together. This reduces boundaries of habit and expectation. Such routines present realistic, innovative and actual tests as seen in corporate team building perth. Success depends upon using the attributes and abilities of personal business friends to accomplish the best collective outcomes.

Players in outdoor instruction study equally difficult capabilities (such as rockclimbing and caving), and comfortable or life capabilities. Night walks, orienteering, bridge-building, mock raft-building, saves and adventurous treasurehunts often function in the programmes. The components of experiential learning such as the certificate iv frontline management perth contain the inescapability of learning enforced by the course style, feedback from others, contact with settings, new people and problems, and statement, analysis.

Team building literally being built by cranes in Perth, WAInstance is also an effective traction to attaining. I was once on a program helping out a young girl of about 14 years. She reported herself ‘sh*t-scared’ to abseil down a cliff and ultimately was persuaded to i want to go ahead of him and stay aside. Next issue I believed, she was standing at the end of the ledge. Over lunch that day, she explained to the people that he wasn’t likely to let ‘a bleeding guide writer’ do something and not dare to do it herself.

Representation throughout or after activity is a vital component of outside instruction – it acts as an aid to transferring individual and cultural increases such as confidence, trust and management and staff abilities straight to the workplace and, less right, within the property environment. Doing this depends upon the efficiency of the debrief, which may contain mentoring, the identification of lessons considering variables at work that may stop or help move and discovered. As Peter Honey has written the secret is, isn’t to allow the tail of experience wag the blockage of understanding.

Newer outdoor students such as merit applicants might be necessary to prepare an option, allowing for contingencies and issues to write down a pair of policies for living under material and venturing through the environment without harming it to create a signal of team conduct that features assisting each other and talking truthfully but without imposing injured and to produce a risk assessment for an outside task.

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01/12/2011 by Bernard

My effects pedal – a little digital friend

When you live in a town with a slow or nonexistent music scene it can be hard to get out there and jam with a lot of talented people.  Sure, there may be a few wayward souls that are out there rocking out and doing their own thing, but often times you really need that personal connection to really put out some of your best stuff when playing with someone.  If you just can’t seem to find that in your town the next best option is to pick up a rhythm machine.
Boss pedals makes a really great one called Dr. Rhythm that I’ve used for a while now when I don’t want to get out and jam with real people.  Sometimes it’s just more comfortable to jam along with the person you know best – yourself.

i cant believe how many boss pedals there really are
The DR-880 is a massive machine with more options than you could ever explore in your own personal time.  If you took all of that time you might as well join the Boss pedals development team because you’ll probably know as much as they do!  Anyways, it’s got over 1,000 patterns, 500 of which are preset.  The remaining 500 are up to you to create, and they make it easy to do so with a super simple interface that just breeds creativity.  It’s so easy to sample a track, slice it up and then put down a beat over it.  Then you can plug in the guitar and lay down a couple licks or riffs over it and maybe throw in a bass line or some synth and you’re off to the races.

Without a rhythm machine, those of us who are more proficient in stringed instruments would be pressed for luck when it came to coming up with a fully fleshed out sound.  What would you do without percussion, especially if you didn’t know any solid drummers in your town?  You’d probably have to go to some program like Fruity Loops and mess around with that, but then you’d be dealing with very poor quality samples and wouldn’t be able to play them yourself.  You would have to program them which ends up sounding robotic and uninteresting.  There is just something about being perfectly on time that is off putting to the professional musician’s ear.  I know it is to me, at least.
Dr. Rhythm solves all of these problems by being the tool you need to accompany yourself.  Even if you had a drummer in town you’d need to get the beat in your head into his hands and there’s no telling if that’s ever going to happen exactly the way you want it.  This tool allows you to do that with total control – something an artist is very familiar with, but often does not get.  It’s hard to argue against the Boss Dr. Rhythm.  If I had to say one thing I would mention that it’s a bit costly but in my mind it’s a price worth paying for the best digital friend you’ll ever hav

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11/11/2011 by Bernard

Taking the plunge to buy a new home – credit issues?

I might be buying into that great American dream of buying my own home, but it is a daunting prospect and I still haven’t completely made up my mind about it.

Everyone wants to buy a home, but not everyone can afford it.  In fact, if people were forced to pay for their homes like they pay for most things in life (in cash), then almost no one would be able to afford a home.  Housing prices have risen to be substantially more than the average yearly income of a family, and stockpiling that much cash is seen as impractical in today’s times.  We can thank the advent of credit cards for this belief.

The use of credit has made it possible to do what the average person would not be able to do: fund large purchases.  Everyone needs to have a way to get around, and everyone needs to have a place to live.  Unfortunately, both of these costs are very large – for most, they are the biggest expenses that they will have to pay in their entire life.  Here is where credit comes into play.  Your credit is a way for the bank who lends you the money for your house, or the car dealership who lends you  money for that nice SUV, to determine whether they think you can pay back the money or not.  They take a look at your credit score to judge your “creditworthiness.”  Based on this score, they assign an interest rate to your loan.

Credit - what is your score?

Do you know your credit rating?

If you have a high interest rate, this means that they think it is less likely that you will be able to pay back your loan, and must collect extra money to safeguard against that situation.   On the contrary, if you are given a very low interest rate, you probably have very good credit and they don’t feel the need to protect their loan as much.  So, it is obvious how much having a very good credit score can help your life.  When you’re looking at home and car purchases, the difference in a percentage point or two in interest can literally mean tens of thousands of dollars over a 30 year mortgage or 10 year car payment loan.

So, it is vital to pay attention to your credit score.  You can get a free credit score report from various places, and it is highly recommended by both experts and financial planners alike to make sure and take advantage of this opportunity to get better acquainted with your credit score.  Once you are able to find out what your score is, you can then go about either improving it if it is bad, or maintaining it if you have been responsible enough to be blessed with a good credit score.

While there are many things that go into a good credit score, one of the ones that is completely controllable is timeliness of payment.  Making sure to pay bills on time is one of the best ways to improve a credit score dramatically.  Taking advantage of the revolving credit of a credit card can not only increase a credit score, it instills a sense of responsibility for the money that is being loaned to you every time you make a purchase.

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