Take your skills to the next level and become a qualified instructor with a recognised Training & Development Qualification.

Do you have a particular skill or talent that you would like to teach to others?

Would you like to become a qualified instructor in your own field of expertise?

The New FETAC Level 6 Training & Development Special Purpose Award (6S3372) has been developed by Adult Educational Specialists, Le Chéile Adult Education in County Westmeath offers you the opportunity to not only become a fully qualified instructor but also to be able to design, develop and evaluate your own training programmes.

The course which will be available nationally will be delivered through two modules

1. Training Needs Identification and Design
2. Training Delivery and Evaluation.

The programme consists of two modules and is delivered using adult and community education principles in practice. In addition to employing participatory engagement with participants; dialogue and learning experiences to enhance the application of training theory and concepts in practice. The participant will acquire the required knowledge and concepts to support their role as practitioners as trainer through a learning process that reinforces the key principles and practices of training and development from various perspectives through a validation process that will identify and engage with the needs more effectively.

• Training and Development in Context
• Adult learning theory and principles in practice
• Organisational needs in Training and Quality Assurance Systems
• Effective training planning, design, delivery and evaluation
• Training needs analysis to meet learners needs
• Session planning, resources and meeting outcomes
• Adapting and implementing changes for effective training
• The competent Trainer and your role
• Reflective practices in training
• Managing conflict and barriers to learning
• Facilitating life-long learning in Education and Training

New Paradigms will be delivering this programme in the west of Ireland in 2013.

To find out more, contact New Paradigms (094) 9067080 or Le Chéile Adult Education (044) 9344565

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Ireland welcomed over 6.5 million visitors last year 2012 and this figure is likely to be surpassed in 2013 with early indications looking promising particularly with initiatives such as “The Gathering”.

Healthy visitor numbers during a recession can bring a much needed economic boost to the country, and help to create and sustain employment.

Visitors to Ireland are attracted by the friendliness of the people, the rural landscape, the music and the heritage.

While Ireland’s attractiveness as a destination has remained consistent, the tourism business is evolving rapidly and could be said to be moving towards a more visitor-centred model rather that an industry-centred model based on the old paradigm of “Build it and they will Come”. The new visitor is taking more control of his or her  experience and they are enabled to do so with the advent of cheap air travel and the internet.

The delay of the often unwieldy traditional tourism industry in adapting to a more visitor-centred model present new opportunities to entrepreneurs and communities to more to a New Paradigms where the visitor gets what they came for and are happy to pay for the experience.

The Irish Tourism Product may over time evolve to meet visitors expectations but they will be facing growing competition from other countries where the product is still new and innovative.

In Ireland, there is a great demand for innovation in the tourism business and this has opened opportunities for small businesses and organisations.

Successful businesses in the sector will be able to anticipate evolving trends and have the skills to capitalise on the opportunity.

New Paradigms in association with Le Chéile Adult Education are delivering training across Ireland in Tourism and Enterprise Development.

Irish Tourism Enterprise Training is designed to encourage the development of Entrepreneurial Skills in the Irish Tourism Sector, focusing on investigating tourism enterprise opportunities in your own locality.

Who is the Course for?

The course is suitable for individual who wish to develop a new tourism enterprise or develop an existing enterprise. It would be of particular benefit to those looking to diversify farm activities.

If you are involved in a  Marca na Feirme, Tidy Towns Committee, Chamber of Commerce, Vintners Association, Leader Company or any Community Organisation concerned with the Social and Economic Development of your town or village, then this course could be of enormous benefit.

 The Course will cover:

•  Tourism Enterprise Development in the Locality.
• Tourism Enterprise contributing to the economy of the Local Area.
• Principles and Practices of Enterprise.

Cost:

The course will be offered to individuals and organisation so please Contact Us today at New Paradigms (094) 9067080 Le Chéile Adult Education (044) 9344565

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New Paradigms – Consulting. New Paradigms and associates are there to support organisations, community groups and small businesses tin achieving Success. In uncertain times many organisations find themselves floundering as they react to events beyond their control.

The Key to Success is Action and the Key to Action is taking those First Steps. Those small first Steps are often the Giant leap from being Reactive to Proactive.

It is essential to have “Good Advice”. Good Advice is something that you cannot buy and even with the best advice it is useless unless that advice gets heeded.

Whether you are a business owner or member of community organisation, you need to have a clear picture of where you are now before you can progress to where you want to go. Evidence-based research is essential in planning for a successful future. A well compiled set of statistics of course might enable you to draw funding but statistics alone will not buy you success.

Call New Paradigms today and arrange a meeting. We don’t charge you just to meet you so you have nothing to lose. Perhaps that call might be your “First Step to Success”.

Image courtesy of [image creator name] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Are you out of work at the moment or working at something that is not fulfilling?

“Pathways” is a new programme developed for job seekers to help you discover a career that is built on your strengths.

Over 6 sessions you will have an opportunity to examine the pathways that exist at the moment to create a fulfilling career and also create new pathways.

• Discovering our Personal Resilience
• Going from Ideas to Decisions to Actions to Results
• Creating and Achieving Goals.
• Get a one-to-one Life & Career Coaching Session.
• Discover the Importance of Networking.
• Get Social Media working for you.
• Communication Skills.

The course will run for 8 hours over 6 weeks and will be delivered by Bernard Joyce Dip RD Bsc, Trainer and Life Coach with New Paradigms – Consulting

CONTACT US

Image(s): FreeDigitalPhotos.net     Image(s): FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Are you doing the job that you love?

How are you relating to those around you?

Very often we achieve degrees of success in different aspects of our life but very often at the expense of others. Success in the workplace can often come at the price of  our health or our family life.

Coaching can be a very useful way for you to get clarity on your goals and explore the many options that you have open to you.

As a qualified Life and Career Coach I can help you to take the first step. The good news is that, that first step doesn’t even need to cost you. Most people don’t know for sure how coaching will benefit them until they try.

To give you an introduction to the world of coaching we can offer the first 45 minute session for free. After that, if you choose, I can offer ongoing sessions at a very reasonable rate

Coaching is becoming hugely popular in Ireland among people involved in business and sports. But is among ordinary people that coaching is really having an impact as more and more people are choosing to seize control of their own lives and go after the goals that up until now seemed out of reach.

You may have read books, watched videos or even attended seminars on the are of personal development. Hopefully you have come away feeling more confident, more alive and more aware of the power you have within you to bring about change in your life.

Why not try coaching for yourself. New Paradigms are offering a free life coaching session with a qualified life and career coach. If you find it useful, you are welcome to sign up for a further five sessions or more.

The Free coaching sessions are only available in Co. Mayo but do please contact us if you live elsewhere. We might be able to arrange a coach where you live or via skype / telephone

Make the that change you want to see today. To find out more contact  (094) 9067080 or CONTACT

Image: David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Business is about connections. “Networking” is the buzzword for organisations and business at the moment.

Online marketing is particularly suitable for small ‘niche businesses’. The village shop, the B&B and pub which survived on ‘passing trade’ for generations are having to find new and novel ways to attract customers. The plumber, plasterer or electrician established successful businesses on the back of ‘word of mouth’ but are now struggling to compete for the attention of potential customers.

The village has just gone ‘global’ and that’s where your customers are too.

The new “passing trade” and “word of mouth” is the internet and the world of social media and online marketing.

Does your business have a strategy for spreading the word about the services you have to offer through social media?

New Paradigms believe in the value of connecting, be that in person or online. The skills are not so different, it’s all about establishing credibility.

We carry out half day consultations and workshops that will leave you better able to promote your business online.

Photo credit:

Image courtesy of [image creator name] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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From here a group of 14 people boarded the ill-fated voyage in 1912, 11 perished in the disaster and just three survived and they chose never to return to their native soil. If one visits the village of Lahardane today it isn’t hard to step back in time. The village and landscape remain largely unchanged apart form the  new houses and businesses, signs of the short spurts of prosperity often witnessed by small Irish villages.

As local people are pulling out all the stops in commemorating the bereaved, who though never forgotten, their tragic deaths were rarely spoken about until recent years, one is struck by how little has changed in the people and their circumstances. In towns villages all over the west of Ireland young people today again gather to say goodbye to loved ones as they hit off to foreign shores filled with a sense of adventure.

What a blow it must have been for a small community to lose so many people, first to emigration but then to such a tragic death just days later. As the fourteen people boarded the train in Castlebar, how their relatives and friends must have clung on to prospect of a letter from America as consolation for their going. It is understandable that the tragedy was too painful to talk about for decades. That the survivors never returned bears testament to that pain.

The work dome by the villagers in Lahardane in commemorating those lost in the disaster has somehow managed to be both respectful and hopeful. The new park in the village to remember the fourteen people who left is set against the backdrop of Neiphin Mountain. It is a landmark visible to many living in Mayo and would have been visible to the fourteen from the carriages of the train as they commenced their ill fated journey.

The park though has also a certain sense of hopefulness also, it is bright and cheery, a place where people will go and meet, where visitors will come. In time it will no doubt contribute to the village’s economic development.

For many communities, commemorating the past and accepting the future are important aspects of planning for the future. If villages just plan to survive, then their success will be measured only in their survival. Villages and rural area need to be resilient if they are to have a sustainable future. Resilient communities plan to not just survive but to thrive

Perhaps one way of remembering our past generations is to start now to create a better future for our future generations.

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It is pointless to “Wish we had”

In our community, there are often many items on the “Wish we had” list, a playground, a village shop, a community centre, places for our young adults to go, employment opportunities and proper services.

This list mightn’t apply to every community, we sometimes take for granted what we already have, what we already benefit from.

We benefit from decisions made in the past but we suffer from mistakes.

Poor Decisions and mistakes usually have one thing in common, they are most often results of poor planning or even at worst no planning.

Community Planning aims to put the community at the centre of decision making while also engaging with the many other actors who have a stake in our community.

For Community Planning to effective and sustainable, it requires full community participation and the best way to get people involved is to make it fun because the future should be fun.

Community groups and organisations are often reluctant to engage in planning. Planning can sometimes be perceived a yet another task for overworked committees and volunteers.

Good planning should in fact take pressure off volunteers and really make effective use of resources that are available.

Effective Planning must lead to clear outcomes. However it it through the process leading to these outcomes that the real benefits lie.

We are happy to come and meet you or whatever community group you are involved in and give you an idea of how to start planning for your community’s future.

Image: xedos4 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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We also welcome articles or suggestions for publication.

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Communities often respond reactively to such uncertainty, resulting in inbalance. Younger people tend to migrate to either urban centres for education or employment or as is happening presently, they are emigrating further afield. These leaves communities a smaller number of younger people and consequently more older people, who as they get older will be more dependent on services. However with fewer people of working age, there is less money coming into the local economy and this reduces the demand for services such as shops, pubs, schools and post-offices. As these services start to decline, economic activity spirals into further decline.

A political response has often been to inject money into these areas via grants or by attracting industry or small businesses, but as rural spiral into decline, they become less attractive to investment. Periods of economic prosperity have in the past given an impression that rural communities are bouncing back, but these periods have caused further imbalance. The attraction of the countryside as a better place to live in has often resulted in an “urbanisation” of rural areas, as people commute back to the towns and cities to work, shop and even attend school.

But communities around the world are adapting a more proactive approach:

A resilience approach is one where people in a community take intentional action to enhance the personal and collective capacity  of the people within that community to respond to and influence the course of social and economic change.

There are different definitions of “Resilience but in general it relates to “Social” and “Ecological” systems. Many rural areas still maintain high levels of resilience. The term community resilience is often used in relation to the scenario of “Peak Oil” but a community that is resilient is often as well equipped to deal with various scenarios, Hurricanes, Earthquakes and Economic Collapse.

New Paradigms have adapted an approach used in Canada that involves the whole community community coming together to increase their collective resilience.

This approach uses research to assess the level of resilience that already exists within a community to create a community potrait, This potrait then informs decisions that the community can take to increase resilience.

The research looks at some of the key functions of a local economy:

• Human Resources
• Equity
• Infrastructure
• Credit
• Research, Planning & Advocacy

If you want to find out more about what is resilience, New Paradigms are available to come to your community to give a two hour presentation on the benefits of adapting a resilience approach.

For More Information, please visit the Following

Stockholm Resilience Centre

Download Community Resilience Manual here

• What is Resilience
• What is Resilience
• Thouights on Resilience
• THoughts on Resilience
• What is Resilience

Video from Stockholm Resilience Centre

From Stockholm Resilience Centre

From CAT, Wales

Content goes here

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