27
05
2008
Well Alan has given us all his wake up call about the standard of our rope management skills. Once again the old man of the hills and rocks gave up an evening of his time to refresh us all about the simplest skills needed to get ourselves out of some of the minor sticky situations we could encounter on the rocks. Despite all my years as a climber and an instructor in Outdoor Education, I still find that the skills needed for self rescue of my little team on a climb are always rusty. That’s a good thing really as it means the occasions when things go wrong are mercifully rare.
One of the basics is getting your mate up a pitch that he can’t follow you up because he/she has got too tired. In the photo above Greg is getting “assistance” from Alan, before going off to practise it himself.
Below is a new pair of hands! These hands can throw grown men in white suits all round the park, but there was some new learning going on as Mike found out the awkward way how to escape from his belay to go down to an injured mate.
href=’http://cosmicray.myccblog.com/files/2008/05/clip-or-unclip.jpg’ title=’clip-or-unclip.jpg’>
After the Tuesday night refresher, we took ourselves off to the delights of Dalt Quarry to climb on badly spaced bolts! Here’s Alan on one of the little horrors in there, belayed by Sue.
And there was more ; kids on Scout camp; instructing canoeing; taking a couple of groups up a rocky scramble. Great fun and it was a favour I owed one of my friends. Now it’s back to the daily routines of working at home.
how does the outdoor stuff help my marketing effort? It doesn’t really, but it’s what I live for; and it’s what the IM lifestyle is intended to provide more freedom to follow. Good luck in your efforts to attain your version of freedom.
Ray
Comments : No Comments »
Categories : wake up call, Outdoor Education
26
02
2008
My Big Why
I was reading another of the many ebooks that I have downloaded over the past several months and this one, for a change, really grabbed my attention. Something clicked and I started scribbling on the shopping list pad like a mad man. Success in 10 Steps, by Michael Dlouhy, resonated with my feelings about marketing in a way that hasn’t happened since I started this journey towards rebuilding my life and self esteem. The author, Michael, pointed out that you have to have a damn good reason for wanting success in our line of business if you want to get through the difficulties that crop up in any new venture. This industry has an appalling failure rate currently running around the 95% mark. Doesn’t exactly sound like the best arena for the Mid Life Marketer’s Kickstart! Well, Dlouhy’s comments flicked a switch and the writing poured out. As you can see.
So - my BIG WHY runs something like this…
Motivations
I spent 30 years in education in various settings. For most of that time I was recognised as a pretty decent hard working teacher or outdoor instructor. Underneath the surface, however, all was not well. I went into education with very self centred motives;
I liked the holidays - I could work and earn but still get big climbing trips in
I liked the idea of going to college and getting supported for a few more years
I studied Outdoor Education so that I could add canoeing and caving and sundry other activities to my outdoor experience, with somebody else paying!
Children never even registered in my thinking. I was so green and clueless about life, it was untrue! I’d never suffered any of the great knocks that many friends were dealt, but on the other hand, I had never had the confidence to really kick out on my own and TRY anything emotionally risky. Everything I had was poured into a semi-fantasy world of climbing, canoeing, caving, skiing and if I was lucky, a bit of shagging here and there.
My next posting here will tell you how I slowly gave myself the reasons for making this kind of work a success…
Comments : No Comments »
Categories : self centred, Outdoor Education, kickstart, self esteem, success, Uncategorized
