European Refugee Crisis

European Refugee Crisis.

There seems to be little action taking place to resolve the situation and now they are talking of changing the rules laid down in the Dublin Agreement, which states that those seeking asylum in Europe need to apply in the first country they reach,

The rules have worked fine for years, however numbers have increased including large numbers of economic migrants who have swelled the numbers and do not qualify for asylum. Last year Germany announced it would accept anyone who reached it border and this effectively destroyed any form of control, causing millions of people to cross from Turkey to Greece and North Africa to Italy, Malta and France, many without documents. European countries were eventually forced to temporary close their borders as they could not cope.

Germany has now admitted that it cannot cope with the 1.1 million refugees and in it fact does not even know where over half of them are because they only registered names and country of origin before allowing them to travel to the area of Germany they wished to live in to apply for Asylum and it is possible that some may have left Germany for other countries.

Immigrant are increasingly being accused of causing problems in countries they are living in including Germany and Sweden, probably the worse case being in Calais where some 150 broke through security fences and 50 of them boarded a ferry bound for the UK. They complain about living conditions in the “Jungle” camps both in Calais and Dunkirk but are unlikely to use new facilities under construction by the French Government at Dunkirk as they fear they will become internment camps.

The truth is that many immigrants will not be granted asylum as they are merely economic migrants and not refugees whose lives are in danger. Law and order has broken down what is need is for refugees to be able to register as asylum seekers either before they travel to Europe or on arrival. There needs to be a way to fast track applications, rejecting those who are economic migrant who should apply for visa's in the normal way

UK Asylum – If someone is at risk of being persecuted in their own country, they may go abroad and ask for asylum in another country. Granting ‘asylum’ means giving someone permission to remain in another country because of that risk of persecution.

In legal terms, a person who has asked for asylum in the UK and is waiting for a decision on that claim is called an asylum seeker. Someone who has received a positive decision on his or her asylum claim is called a refugee.

Although some asylum seekers might enter the UK illegally, once they have applied for asylum they are no longer ‘illegal’. Anyone seeking protection is entitled to stay in the UK while awaiting a decision on their asylum claim.

The right to claim asylum is in international law. Governments are obliged to provide protection to people who meet the criteria for asylum. The UK has signed these international laws and they are part of UK legislation.

David

Something Extraordinary Is Happening in the World, And Most People Haven’t Noticed

Source: www.medium.com | Original Post Date: December 16, 2015 –

Most of us haven’t quite realized there is something extraordinary happening.

A few months ago, I freed myself from standard-procedure society. I broke the chains of fear that kept me locked up into the system. Since then, I see the world from a different perspective: the one that everything is going through change and that most of us are unaware of that.

Why is the world changing? In this post, I’ll point out the eight reasons that lead me to believe it.

1. No one can stand the employment model any longer.

We are reaching our limits. People working with big corporations can’t stand their jobs. The lack of purpose knocks on your door as if it came from inside you like a yell of despair.

People want out. They want to drop everything. Take a look on how many people are willing to risk entrepreneurship, people leaving on sabbaticals, people with work-related depression, people in burnout.

2. The entrepreneurship model is also changing.

Over the past few years, with the explosion of startups, thousands of entrepreneurs turned their garages into offices to bring their billion-dollar ideas to life. The vortex of entrepreneurship was to find an investor and get funded — to be funded was like winning the World Cup or the Super Bowl.

But what happens after you get funded?

“Isn’t it absurd that we, 7 billion of us living in the same planet, have grown further apart from each other?”

You get back to being an employee. You may have brought in people not sharing your dream, not in agreement with your purpose, and soon it’s all about the money. The financial end becomes the main driver of your business.

People are suffering with it. Excellent startups began to tumble because the money-seeking model is endless.

A new way to endeavor is needed. Good people are doing it already.

3. The rise of collaboration.

Many people have figured out that it doesn’t make any sense to go on by yourself. Many people have awakened from the “each man for himself” mad mentality.

Stop, take a step back, and think. Isn’t it absurd that we, 7 billion of us living in the same planet, have grown further apart from each other? What sense does it make to turn your back on the thousands, maybe millions, of people living around you in the same city? Every time it crosses my mind, I feel blue.

Fortunately, things are changing. Sharing, collaborative economy concepts are being implemented, and it points towards a new direction. The direction of collaborating, of sharing, of helping, of togetherness.

This is beautiful to watch. It touches me.

4. We are finally figuring out what the Internet is.

The Internet is an incredibly spectacular thing, and only now — after so many years — we are understanding its power. With the Internet, the world is opened, the barriers fall, the separation ends, the togetherness starts, the collaboration explodes, the help emerges.

Some nations saw true revolutions that used the Internet as the primary catalyst, such as the Arab Spring. Here in Brazil, we are just starting to make a better use out of this amazing tool.

Internet is taking down mass control. The big media groups controlling news by how it suits best what they want the message to be and what they want us to read are no longer the sole owners of information. You go after what you want. You bond to whomever you want. You explore whatever you may want to.

With the advent of the Internet, the small are no longer speechless. There is a voice. The anonymous become acknowledged. The world comes together. And then the system may fall.

5. The fall of exaggerated consumerism.

For too long, we’ve been manipulated to consume as much as we possibly can, to buy every new product launched — the newest car, the latest iPhone, the top brands, lots of clothes, shoes, lots and lots and lots of pretty much anything we could our hands on.

Going against the crowd, many people have understood that this is way off. Lowsumerism, slow life and slow food are a few types of action being taken as we speak, pointing out the contradiction of how absurdly we have come to organize ourselves.

“With the advent of the Internet, the small are no longer speechless. There is a voice. The anonymous become acknowledged. The world comes together.

Fewer people are using cars. Fewer people are overspending. And more people are swapping clothes, buying used goods, sharing assets, cars, apartments, offices.

We don’t need all of that they told us we needed. And this consciousness of new consumerism can take down any company living on the exaggerated end of it.

6. Healthy and organic eating.

We were so crazy we even accepted eating anything! It only needed to taste good, and everything would be alright.

We were so disconnected that companies started to practically poison our food, and we didn’t say anything!

But then some people started waking up, enabling and strengthening healthy and organic eating.

This is only going to get stronger.

But what has this got to do with economy and work? Just about everything, I’d say.

Food production is one of the basic fundamentals of our society. If we change our mindset, our eating habit and our way of consuming, corporations will have to respond and adapt to a new market.

The small farmer is getting back to being relevant to the whole chain of production. People are even growing plants and seeds inside their homes as well.

And that reshapes the whole economy.

7. The awakening of spirituality.

How many friends do you have who practice yoga? What about meditation? Now think back, 10 years ago. How many people did you know by then who practiced these activities?

Spirituality, for too long, was for esoteric folks — those weird-like and mystic people.

But fortunately, this is also changing. We’ve come to the edge of reason and rationality. We were able to realize that, with only our conscious mind, we can’t figure out everything that goes on here. There is something else going on, and I’m sure you want to get hold of that as well.

You want to understand how these things work — how life operates, what happens after death, what is this energy thing people talk about so much, what is quantum physics, how thoughts can be materialized and create our sense of reality, what is coincidence and synchronicity, why meditation works, how it’s possible to cure some ailments using nothing but bare hands, how those alternative therapies not always approved by regular medicine can actually work sometimes.

Companies are providing meditation to their employees. Even schools are teaching the young how to meditate. Think about it.

8 . Un-schooling trends.

Who created this teaching model? Who chose the classes you have to take? Who chose the lessons we learn in history classes? Why didn’t they teach us the truth about other ancient civilizations?
Why should kids follow a certain set of rules? Why should they watch everything in silence? Why should they wear a uniform? What about taking a test to prove what you actually learned?

We developed a model that perpetuates and replicates followers of the system, that breed people into ordinary human beings.

Fortunately, a lot of people are working to rethink that through concepts such as un-schooling, hack-schooling and homeschooling.

Maybe you’ve never thought of that and even may be in shock. But it’s happening.

Silently, people are being woken up and are realizing how crazy it is to live in this society.
Look at all these new actions and try to think everything we were taught so far is normal. I don’t think it is.

There is something extraordinary happening.

Written by Gustavo Tanaka of www.medium.com

David

What can we learn from Lewis Burns about being an entrepreneur?

Lewis Burns is an artist, musician, teacher, philanthropist, and I'm sure he wears many additional hats,  but I do not know him personally.  We just connected recently on LinkedIn.

eigen foto

eigen foto (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption]

From his LinkedIn profile, it states,

"Lewis Burns is a Talbragar-Wiradjuri man born in Dubbo, NSW. He has been learning about his Aboriginal culture for as long as he can remember. He continues to practice and respect these life skills each day and still learns and grows from this ancient knowledge.

Lewis' love of his heritage is evident when you speak with him, and depicted even more in his Aboriginal crafts, traditional dancing, didgeridoo performances, mural paintings and teaching. He is very dedicated to sharing what he knows with others to help keep these customs alive. Lewis paints in traditional Aboriginal and contemporary styles.

He has exhibited and performed both within Australia and overseas with his handcrafted didgeridoos. Each piece of Lewis' artwork tells a story…..a story that will live on forever through the generations, as the artwork is handed down from one family to another"

So what can we learn about being an entrepreneur from him? 

  1. Be honest – Be proud of who you are, where you have come from, and be true to yourself.  Lewis Burns exudes his heritage in everything he does.    
  2. Be original  – Lewis Burns certainly has this covered.  He has an abundance of originality. His art shows a careful study and beautiful reflection of his obvious love of animals, and the natural environment. In this age of copy-cat Internet marketing and hype, Lewis truly stands out.
  3. Be ubiqitous.  Lewis is everywhere.  He is on LinkedIn.  He has a Facebook page for his business, Red Earth Gallery.  He is on Twitter, and Instagram. I invited him to MarketHive, (a new social network for entrepreneurs, membership by invitation only), and he joined right away.
  4. Be conscientious – Be a philanthropist as much as you can.  Give of your time and talents to less fortunate and disadvantaged groups.  Lewis shows boys at a local juvenile detention center how to make and play didgeridoos.
  5. Be a teacher – whatever your special talent and skill, learn to teach it to others to pass on your knowledge. In Lewis case, I think wherever he is, and whatever he does, he is teaching his love of his culture, his heritage, and his love of all things.

So, my suggestion for all new or experienced entrepreneurs is to purchase a didgeridoo from Lewis Burns, (they are extraordinarily beautiful), and one of his online courses on how to play it.  Then try to emulate him in everything you do, from your daily marketing, to your respect for your fellow man, and nature, and the divine in all things.

You will be a better person, and a better entrepreneur for it, and this world will also be a better place in which to live.

Note: See more on Lewis Burns on the social networks, and his website at:

http://lewisburns.com/

English: Various types of Didgeridoo. Top: A t...

English: Various types of Didgeridoo. Top: A traditionally crafted and decorated didgeridoo. Middle: A bamboo souvenir didgeridoo. Bottom: An undecorated traditionally crafted didgeridoo. Photo taken by myself in July 2009. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

English: A demonstration of Australian musical...

English: A demonstration of Australian musical instrument 'didgeridoo' during 'December Night' celebration at Balboa Park in San Diego, California in 2009. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

David

Committed to Success

Commited to SuccessThe New year has now officially started with today being the first day of work for many people. Yesterday in church the sermon was about surprisingly about New Years Resolutions. Few responded on being questioned,to have made resolutions, including the Priest himself. I find it surprising that so few people are will to commitment themselves, to changes which can improve their lives.

 

I make resolutions most years and my track record of achievements is pretty good, I find that committing them to paper, helps to hold myself accountable. If you are interested in my plans for 2016 they are listed here

I pride my self as being a committed person.

“You don’t win an Olympic gold medal with a few weeks of intensive training. There’s no such thing as an overnight opera sensation. Every great company, every great brand, and every great career has been built in exactly the same way: bit by bit, step by step, little by little.” Seth Godin founder of Squidoo

I planned to retire at 55 but managed to retire at the age of 50 and became a full time Adventure competing in some of the longest and hardest expeditions races in the world, it took me three years of racing before finally being able to get my complete team across the finish line during a race in Amazonia,

I have always been a goal orientated person and can be quite controversial is someone stands between me and my dream. I have developed a happy disposition knowing I will do what ever it takes, both physically and mentally to achieve my goals

To help me achieve my New Years Resolutions this year, I need to enlist the help of some like minded people, who wish to improve themselves by working with me to promote a newly launched social neural marketing site called MarketHive.

MarketHive is an intuitive site with a FaceBook like look and feel, however it has been built from the bottom up to support budding entrepreneurs with a range of essential tools to maximise your marketing efforts.

 
David Ogden
Helping People Help Themselves
Http://markethive.com/david-ogden

David

Essentials of Marketing

Essentials of Marketing

Many people are puzzled when it comes to marketing, what is it you need to do. Marketing involves getting your message across to you potential customers, usually in the form of words, audio, pictures or video or combinations of the foregoing.

The tools you use can be in the form of email, circulars, advertisements, recorded messages, blogs, social media and radio or television. The changes in technology combined with the rise of social media, puts more emphasis on videos and shorter blogs due to screen sizes of mobile devices, however email and blogs remain important when it comes to the written word.

Not everyone has access recording studios to produce videos, however anyone with a bit of practice can produce a blog. The written word has been around for thousands of years and has stood the test of time, so if you are a marketer it is an essential skill you need to develop.

Where do you start you might ask. The first step is to gather information on the subject you plan to write about. Quite often this can be a challenge, if you for example,have just joined an existing online business, because you are also learning yourself. One way would be to write a kind of online diary of your experience to share with others. Another way is to read other members blogs and then rewrite them in your own words to reflect your opinion. One thing to avoid is cutting and pasting large sections of text and claiming them as your own. If you do copy text verbatim always acknowledge the source.

The first few blog posts are the most difficult and you should aim to write at least 200-300 words. About a year ago I carried out some research that blogs containing 600- 1000 words were the most effective, and whilst this might be true I am beginning to have some doubts, because it can depend on the screen sizes of your potential customers devices. I for one do not like reading emails on an I-phone in portrait mode.

David Ogden
Helping People Help Themselves
Http://markethive.com/david-ogden

 

David

Preparing for a New Start

The New year is now only days away and if you New year's resolution was to set about improving your financial situation by starting up an online business, then there is no time like the present to get started.

Many people find it useful to find a mentor, I did myself many years ago and it was money well spent. A mentor will guide you and help you avoid the pitfalls which will trap the unwary. So where do you find a mentor? Well you can search online using Google, however most mentors charge to help you and how do you know that you are going to get along with their method of mentoring.

MarketHive can provide a solution for you, the site has been developed over the past few year by a group of entrepreneurs many of whom will guide you with free advice on how to become successful online. The advantage of using MarketHive is you are not limited to just one mentor and the chances are you will discover other people with similar interests to yourself.

MarketHive is an intuitive site with a FaceBook like look and feel, however it has been built from the bottom up to support budding entrepreneurs with a range of essential tools to maximise your marketing efforts.

David Ogden
Helping People Help Themselves
Http://markethive.com/david-ogden

David

Wasted health, the tragic case of open dumps – Press Release

Report calls for alliance to solve escalating global health emergency threat posed to millions by open dumpsites

  • Open dumpsites receive roughly 40% of the world’s waste and serve about 3.5 to 4 billion people
  • Substantial rise in unregulated dumping of mobile devices, electronic appliances, medical and municipal waste accelerating scale of the threat and health risks
  • Uncontrolled burning of waste releases gases and toxins into the atmosphere
  • Open waste sites in India, Indonesia and the Philippines more detrimental to life expectancy than malaria2
  • 64 million people’s lives affected by world’s 50 largest dumpsites (equal to population of France)1
  • In addition to human/environmental impact, the financial cost of open dumpsites runs into the tens of billions $USD

A new report presented at the ISWA World Congress today has revealed the global health emergency already affecting tens of millions of people worldwide is escalating in scale and impact. The report, published by the International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) entitled ‘Wasted health, the tragic case of open dumps’, demonstrates how the problems of open dumpsites experienced in the developed world 40 years ago still exist in poor and emerging countries but are being additionally compounded by unprecedented new issues. These include the unregulated accumulation on a massive scale of discarded electronic and mobile devices, medical waste, and animal carcasses, which are routinely burnt.

While the risk of disease and illness to millions of people living in the immediate vicinity of open dumpsites is cause for concern in its own right, the impact of the gases and toxins being released into the atmosphere by burning the waste has global consequences. The report concludes that without a coordinated response to the issue through a global alliance of organisations capable of delivering real change, the problem will only worsen and quickly.

Read the full report here.

David

Planning your Life

Today is the shortest day of the year, Christmas is nearly upon us and the year end is in sight, so its time to start thinking about new year resolutions and start planning the year ahead.

Take some time this holiday season to carry out a personal view of your own achievements during the past 12 months.

One year ago we were living in Cyprus, I was working as a sailing instructor and we were planning on building our savings and improving Jay Education, little did we realise that 12 months later we would be living in the UK.

We certainly did not not expect to move to the UK, as we managed to get Jay accepted in a private English School in Paphos, however planning ahead, job opportunities are limited. I also discovered that because I had been working in Cyprus we could move to the UK without having to pay for a visa. We applied for a Family Pass in the spring and were somewhat surprised when it was granted. We did the maths and although the cost of living is higher in the UK we would save on school fees and it might open up a path for Jasmin and Jay to apply for British Citizenship. The biggest drawback was the weather.

We chose to live in Derbyshire due to the fact that is a reasonable cheap place live and generally still maintains British values with some beautiful countryside. Returning to the UK after a 15 year absence is a definite shock, on a visit to Nottingham seeing a sign in Polish enforcing no drinking in public places. We are still struggling to open bank accounts,paying over the odds for car insurance and cannot apply for credit as we have not borrowed money. Values have certainly changed, no longer is a man's word accepted as his bond.

Looking ahead to the forthcoming year we have some challenges, the first being my son who lives in Manchester and was diagnosed with a brain tumour around the time we arrived in the UK, an operation to remove it ended up in failure and he is now partially blind and facing an uncertain future, with no prospect of work and mounting debts. Some good news came last week when he was accepted for social housing, however the apartment is an empty shell, so we need to see what we can do to help make it habitable. This will mean both Jasmin and myself need to find jobs to bring in extra income in order to recoup money spent on moving to the UK, helping my son and building up a reserve so Jasmin and Jay can travel to the Philippines to visit their family, they have not seen for some two and half years.

One part of my plan for 2016 is to expand my MarketHive system, which keeps me in touch will fellow entrepreneurs and allow me also to help people understand what they need to do to earn money from online business opportunities.

So now its your turn, work out what is important in your life and get it down on paper, if you like share your thoughts on MarketHive, make a positive move to improve your situation.

David Ogden
http://markethive.com/david-ogden
Helping People Help themselves

 

David

Britians Last Deep Coal Mine Closes

Britians last deep coal mineThe closure of the last deep mining pit at Kellingley Colliery  in Yorkshire, yesterday marks an end of an Era in the UK. I live in in what used to be a coal mining area  in Derbyshire, there is still plenty of coal beneath the ground, however it is uneconomic to mine, because countries such as India and China have lower production costs, probably due to lower safety standards and wages, together with state subsidies

The UK government plans to shut down all coal powered power stations within the next 10 years and it is ironic that once again it is China who will benefit from a building contract for a new nuclear power station.

Yes coal is a dirty fuel, however,  clean power such as solar and hydro power are also having subsidies reduced dramatically from the 1st January, which will make them less economical viable, for example a small hydro plant in a river in a Yorkshire village has just come online to supply some 40 houses. It will pay for itself in 10 years, however anyone planning a similar plant will need to wait 100 years for  payback.

Mining has been a way of Life in the UK and it is sad to see it coming to an end, with the reserves underground  miners thought it was a job for life but now have to seek other ways of earning an income to support their families.  Nowadays the problem is that many job only offer the minimum wage and these are usually snapped up  by foreign workers from Europe who are used to lower wages.

Miners like many others will either have to start looking further afield for work  or take stock of their situation, examine  what skills and interest they have and find a way of monetising them.

A few people who possess drive and enthusiasm might turn to the Internet as an alternative way of working, however it is a different kind of hard work, learning a new trade and there are traps in the way of the unwary in the form of Multi Level Marketing (MLM)schemes which promise a lot but from which few people can earn a living. If you want to earn a living online, it is easier to do so via an Affiliate system, earning a percentage of selling products and services.

Getting started working online can be a daunting prospect, and can raise  many issues, so most people seek advice from entrepenuers who have been successful and are willing to help others succeed in a selfless manner.

I am connected to one such group of people called MarketHive, I was asked to explain this the other day, it a mix of a social media for entrepeneurs to share business and marketing ideas, like a Facebook for business but  on a more professional footing such as LinkedIn. In addition MarketHive provides tools and widgets, to make the likes of WordPress better and enable anyone to get their message to the market place or customer via blogs, video or email

David Ogden
Helping People Help Themselves
MarketHive.com/david-ogden

David

How to gain more MarketHive subscribers on a daily, weekly and monthly basis?

How do you increase your number of MarketHive subscribers, or "children" if you will?

I think LinkedIn is one of the best ways to accomplish this.  It seems at though, I may have finally cracked the LinkedIn code to do this, well sort of.  I have been studying every LinkedIn training course I could get my hands on in the last six months. Today, I got 12 new invitations to connect with me this morning in my inbox, and I have added 981 connections so far this month.  This is a fairly rapid increase, that I believe few people are currently doing now, on LinkedIn.  

In addition, all of those new connections have been invited to join MarketHive.  (I am currently getting nearly a 1% response rate on invitations to MarketHive). I am actively trying to find a way to increase that percentage, but it is resulting in nearly one new MarketHive sign-up per day.

I don't know how many entrepreneurs realize that their first level connections are already in their sales funnel?  Everyone looking to market on LinkedIn needs to think this way.  Ok, it may not be exactly the same, but it is very close to it.  Everything depends on what you do with those connections.  

Some kind of automation is needed here for sure.  The manual way of messaging in LinkedIn will take you nearly forever (well, not exactly. but it could easily take 3-4 hours perday) to send invites, messages, shares, posts, and all of the tasks you need to do on a regular basis.  Even if you send messages to your 1st level connections and you have 1000, it will take several hours a day and 4 days to complete the task. 

Btw, the LinkedIn limit for invitation requests per day is 40-50 maximum with a free account or a paid account, (Sales Navigator has a limite of 100 per day).  There is a limit of 250 messages per day to your 1st level connections on all LinkedIn accounts.  If you do that every day manually, it is a very time consuming process, for sure!

I am in the process of setting up a step-by-step training program on how to use LinkedIn to promote Markethive.  I may also expand it to a complete LinkedIn training as well, depending on the level of interest.  In any case, this is something anyone can do.  It can be done, even with a free LinkedIn account.  With additional low-cost automation software solutions, the process can be greatly accelerated.  

All for now.  Thanks for your interest.  

Best possible sucess in all your endeavors!

John Lombaerde

David