On Monday July 13th 2009, a total of 582 drummers made their way to the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham for the first Stick it to MS event. Sadly due to work requirements I was unable to join them and join in the fun.

The great news is that Rick Prince is doing it all again but this time planning to be bigger and better – we’re going for 800 drummers, all in the same room at the same time playing the same pattern in perfect unison. I’ve already got my registration in and this time, as it is taking place on a Sunday (July 15th) there will be no work meetings to get in the way.

You can read all about the event here and if you are reading this then I would really appreciate it if you could see your way to donating a few quid to the cause – it’s why we’re doing it after all.

Cheers

Yesterday, whilst going about my daily business, I had that rarest of things happen during the day… a call on my personal mobile telecommunications device rather than my work based one.
The call was from the good folks over at Vodafone, contract providers of said personal device (which is a new Samsung Galaxy Nexus that I received about a week ago and I’m very pleased with it) but that’s another story.
So – this young lady from Vodafone didn’t want to take up much of my time but would I be interested to hear about the MASSIVE discount that I could get on the new iPad as a loyal Vodafone customer?
Intrigued by the call I said sure, tell me more about it.
This HUGE discount (it had now morphed from massive to huge – not sure if that was in the script!) was dropping the upfront cost of the 64GB version from £345 to £219 and instead of the monthly cost being £27 per month as per the details on their website this deal would be £32 per month for the 24 month contract.

Are you with me so far?

So, me being fleet of foot when it comes to numbers commented that the discount she was offering me wasn’t really a discount at all – simply moving the goalposts on the overall cost from a lower proportion up front to more on the monthly fee. Not at all she tells me and if I wasn’t interested in the deal I could always go and pay more elsewhere. At this point I sensed that she wasn’t happy with me as I wasn’t sharing her enthusiasm for the deal of the year! So I tried to help her out a bit – even though she didn’t ask me for that help (and this never works with a woman, never offer help unless specifically requested) – so…. I played back to her that she was offering me a £126 discount on the initial payment but asking me for £120 more on the contract value…”Yes!” she exclaimed with glee – see a MASSIVE discount for you.

No, you’re not getting it I said – its a £6 discount because you want to charge me more per month for the next 2 YEARS – says I – in my book a MASSIVE discount is not £6 on something that’s going to cost me nearly £1,000 over two years. At this point I was starting to lose patience as I was clearly dealing with a complete and utter imbecile – I had taken her off script and that lifejacket was of no help for her as she was drowning in a sea of logic. I ended the call by asking her not to call me again offering me MASSIVE deals that in reality didn’t actually exist and furthermore if that is Vodafone’s current tactic then sadly a whole bunch of customers may in fact get duped by their poor practices. I didn’t wait for a reply!
I hope that call WAS recorded for training purposes as advised at the outset

Imagine this – you know that you’re about to kick the bucket after a long and fruitful life and you kind of have an inkling that you’ve got about a minute or so to go before you say goodbye to this world. You are surrounded by those you love and who love you and the youngest member of your family comes over and asks you – “what shall I do with my life?”
Think about this right now….what would your advice be to this child? No – I invite you to really think about this right now!
Chances are that it will be full of stuff like, live life to the full, take chances, have no regrets etc etc etc. Whatever it is that you have just come up – deep down, this is the stuff that you actually want for your own life. Now, ask yourself this. Are you really living your own life according to this “advice”?
If you are…GREAT!
If you aren’t….WHY NOT?
Maybe you answer that last question with a whole host of ‘reasons’ that have more to do with other people’s lives impacting on yours rather than you taking control of your own life and fulfilling your own desires and aspirations. Are you at ’cause’ or are you at ‘effect’?
Don’t wait until it’s too late – take control of your life and live it the way you want to. This doesn’t necessarily have to have an adverse affect on any existing relationships and if you want something bad enough you’ll find a way – if you don’t, you’ll find an excuse!

Last week for me was one of those bonkers weeks that if one was of a nervous or stressful disposition could have quite easily tipped me over the edge.

It all started on Wednesday with a trip to head office to discuss with my MD a particularly large and challenging ‘account plan’ for one of my large clients. I then headed off to the accommodation for our upcoming 2 day corporate ‘team’ event and as usual, the bar beckoned. Thursday was spent ‘playing’ a business simulation game with the emphasis on team working, followed by dinner, beer and karaoke – a 4am retirement for me with the party still going on! The next day, with a fair few colleagues in a similar jaded outlook, wrapped up the ‘game’ with the day concluding with a team drum and percussion session lead by the more than able Mark Walker and his talking drums chums. This was a great way to finish off our event but I then had a 3 and half hour drive to an Aquarius gig near Droitwich. As ever, we rocked the place once we were on and I got home about 2am. The next night we played in Worcester, it snowed, and, as per the post title, I started my journey towards Wembley at around 1am. I had a pre-booked room at the Travelodge at Cherwell Valley services on the M40 – got there around 2-30am, grabbed a few hours kip and then headed off to Wembley Arena at 6-30am. Evidence of the previous nights snow was all around with several abandoned vehicles littering various stretches of the M40 but I got to London in reasonable time and was able to make it in to the Arena by 8-30am. The rest of the morning was taken up with engaging and motivational talks/video clips laying the backdrop to further, more in depth sessions to come. All told there was an estimated 40,000 of us attending 4 sessions that weekend although I believe more of them as a proportion had Saturday slots as there were plenty of spare seats on my session not least of which because it was Sunday morning and it had snowed the day/night before. Plenty was made of the spirit required to be a Games Maker and that exhibited by those of us who had battled to get to London.

Watch this video on YouTube.

Some have commented on the ‘quality’ of this session being little more than flag waving and could have been delivered via DVD or some such impersonal means. To make this comment seems to totally miss the point of what this session was all about. Suffice to say that I anticipate the next sessions of Role Specific Training, Venue Training, and for those like me with Team leader roles there will be additional Leadership sessions being more detailed and in depth – that should keep them happy – or, as Eddie Izzard commented – just knee them (the naysayers) in the bollocks – it’s official!

The day before yesterday – so that would be Wednesday – I found myself at a bit of a loose end in the afternoon so I decided to get the camera out and have a go at smoke photography. This, in essence, is quite simple. You light an incense stick and take pictures of the smoke. As the pictures themselves are not very interesting the next thing to do is bugger about with them a bit in photoshop – other digital image processing software options are available

I think what I might do next time I try this is write a bit of a ‘tutorial’ as to how  I did it but for the time being here are a couple of shots from the Flickr Set – I hope you enjoy them

It’s about this time of year, when the current one is all but done, when some if us turn our thoughts to what the next one might look like. Some might be thinking, holy crap, where did 2011 go? If this year has flown by and what started with the best of intentions just turned into pretty much more of the same, then maybe you need to review how you go about shaping your year – and then ultimately your life.

It’s very easy to sit down over a glass of something fermented and say to yourself, next year I’m gonna do <insert whatever you want to achieve> – then maybe come next Christmas think – well I would have liked to have done that but, work, band, school, life, family (and any other excuses) kinda just got in the way or were of a higher priority. Well – they were only a higher priorty because you didn’t actually commit to your goal and make it a priority in itself.

The good news is you can actually do something about this if you want to and it really is very simple to do – why can I say this you may ask – because it’s what I do, and I’ve had another reasonably good year and ticked off a few things that I wanted to achieve – admittedly one or two went astray, nobody’s perfect eh?

So – I’m sharing with you my approach, by no means unique, take from it what you will – but one thing is certain – if you go into 2012 the same way as you did with 2011 and are not happy with the outcomes for this year then don’t be surprised if the outcomes for 2012 are broadly similar. A wiser man than me once said if you always do what you’ve always done you’ll always get what you always got. Alternatively only a mad man would keep doing the same things and expect the outcome to be different.

I digress – here it is – much of it is based on the principle of SMART goal setting with a few added Ian K nuances:

1) Set yourself goals that are within your own power and volition to achieve - they MUST NOT be reliant on somebody else’s input or control. Self initiated, maintained and controlled is the way to go here folks.

2) Your goals must be stated in the positive and have a clearly defined outcome that can be evidenced. As an example a bad goal would be “I don’t want to be as fat as I am now” – A much better goal would be “I want to lose 14 pounds by Easter 2012″

3) Once you have your goal defined actually write it down – get yourself a goal “notebook” – a really nice one, one that you want to touch and open every day, one that gives you real pleasure just picking it up – In this notebook you will start by writing down your headline goal – please write it down – that act in itself starts the commitment process but also does some weird stuff to your brain too – won’t go into details but its sort of like when you choose a new car, suddenly you spot that model all the time (for a while) – this bit of your brain picks up on the fact that you’ve written it down so it must be important so I’ll keep an eye for things that help.

4) From then you will write down how you will achieve this goal and what it will mean to you when you achieve it – all in very strong and positive glowing terms – again this helps to shape your frame of mind as to why you need/want to do this thing!

5) Finally – and this is the key piece – you will write down the first step to achieving this goal and when you commit to doing it.

From here on in you then take control of achieving this goal – you take that first step, write it on a card or a post it note and you put it somewhere where you and others can see it – then everybody knows you are going to do ‘x’ on the way to your goal. This may be a daily task, a weekly task or otherwise but write it down, make it visible and “just do it” – then go back to your notebook, fill it in, complete that first step and define your next step – write it on another post it/card and repeat and rinse as necessary – before you know it you’ll be filling in your notebook daily, ticking off those tasks and steps and achieving goals left right and centre. If others see your tasks and goals you may be pleasantly surprised to find out that they actually help you achieve this goal – a double bonus – so don’t go all shy and English on me by keeping it a secret – get it out there and get on with it!

Of course you can choose to ignore all the above – make a new years resolution, have trouble working out how to get cracking with it, give it up by the 14th of Jan and let the rest of the year steam along until we get to Xmas 2012 and wonder what the feck happened this year – where did that go? I’ll tell you where – it went and you’ll be another year closer to your grave and another year of lost and unfulfilled potential.

So this year – if you want to make a change – make a change! Happy days

So earlier today whilst doing something rather innocuous (and a little bit silly frankly), the details of which I won’t go into here. I was reprimanded for my ‘childish behaviour’! This is quite a common occurrence in the Kershaw household and approaching 50 years of age I wonder if I will ever grow up. This then got me thinking – should I grow up? – what’s the point and what will I miss out on if I do. One of the great things we can learn from children is that failure doesn’t exist. As adults we can all too often stop doing something for fear of failure or, in some cases, not even start something because we think we may not be able to conclude it successfully. Imagine for one moment if children had the same attitude – for one thing, none of us would be able to walk! We’d have a go, fall over, think ‘bollocks to that’ and stay on the floor, much more comfortable down there anyway and much less hassle and pain. No – instead, you learn from the experience, make some changes, alter the approach, and have another go. We enter a positive feedback loop which ultimately ends up in ‘walking’. From here we can progress to fast walking and ultimately running. And all because we were childish enough not to know what failure means.

If something isn’t working then don’t treat this as failure, merely gather feedback from the situation, work out what to change, make the change and gather more feedback. If you retain this flexible and frankly childish approach to whatever it is that you want to try and achieve, you WILL achieve what you are setting out to do – subject to it being possible of course and within your control – but I feel that might be another post once I’ve worked on my own goals for 2012!

So here’s the story. Saturday mornings are usually spent walking the dog after dropping daughter off for her Saturday job – as a consequence we are typically out when postie turns up.
So on our return yesterday we have been ‘carded’, you know the score – tried to deliver a package but couldn’t.

Anyway – this particular instance there were two packages, one for me, with my name on it that needed signing for, and as it’s our daughter’s 18th on Tuesday there’s one for her that’s too big to fit through the letter box.
So off I toddle to the local depot with card and my wallet (carrying ID).
“ID please!” says counter postie, clearly there because of his excellent communication skills and public facing charisma and charm. My ID duly passed over – “I need ID for the other package”.
So the conversation then goes along the lines of she lives at the same address as me, can’t make it to the depot blah blah blah. All to no avail.
“We’re not allowed to hand over mail marked for somebody else!”
“OK – so can you just re-deliver it on Monday then please?”
“Yes, not a problem.”
Here’s where the logic is about to completely break down and that moment reached where you realise that dealing with an idiot and a jobsworth in the same human form is a recipe for frustration.
“So when you try and redeliver, and once again you’re not going to be able to put it through the letter box you’re going to have to knock on the door yes?”
“Well yes, of course!”
“OK, so on Monday, when that happens and she’s out and just me in the house, is your postie going to give the package to me?”
“Yes”
“Will I need ID for my daughter?”
“No”
“OK, so you’re happy to give me her package on my own doorstep, and you’re happy to give me my package now because I’ve proved who I am and where I live, but you’re not happy to give me her package now”
“Sorry mate, them’s the rules!”
FACEPALM!

So the BBC reports: “Former Fifa president Joao Havelange has resigned from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) days before an ethics hearing into his conduct.”

In all likelihood the case investigating his alleged corrupt activities during his involvement with ISL will be dropped – how convenient is that??? Surely this goes beyond being an internal IOC/FIFA matter – have any ‘laws’ been broken here (potentially/allegedly etc) and is it not the duty of some officaldom somewhere to see this sort of thing through?

Has he done this to protect Blatter in so much as what would he have said during his hearing that may have also implicated his old mate?

All too often things of this nature get conveniently swept under the metaphorical carpet – a new phrase needs to be coined – innocent until proven guilty should be replaced with Teflon Resignation – innocent because nobody can make the guilt stick.

If you followed my posts last month you will have spotted that I become bandless (out of choice) due to the hand pains I was getting.

Well the good news is that the Gig Grips are working great and following a great session I am pleased to accept the drum seat with Pete, Chris and Brian – otherwise known as Aquarius.

This is one of those bands that really knows how to make sure that the audience has a great time – all too often bands merely focus on what THEY want to do and forget that the reason they are there is to entertain the audience. These guys don’t have a set list – simply a whole bunch of songs they know and will play whatever it takes to get the crowd going, even inviting them up to sing, dance, join in and otherwise take part in the show.

The band started life in 1974 and although there was a hiatus from the mid 80′s to the mid noughties they are still going strong and I am pleased to be able to join them. Full details coming soon and my first outing will be in the new year – watch this space.