Well, what an incredible few days it really has been. Yesterday especially!

Yesterday started at 7:30 AM with a trip to the television studios in Cluj, the main city in Transylvania in Romania..I have to say they looked after me incredibly well and were so professional and friendly. We were on air for about 15 minutes discussing exactly what coaching is and how it benefits people. It was broadcast nationally.

Then it was a mad dash taxi drive back to our hotel to prepare for our introduction to coaching event. We had a packed room, and the event was very well received. People travelled from many parts of Romania some over 400 miles way !!

When that finished at 5:15 PM it was then a case of reset the room and prepare for the

Noble Manhattan Coaching Support Group. The group in Cluj is run by Monica Ichimescu, our senior coach and group president in the area.

Monica Ichimescu

There were well over 35 people from all around the Cluj area and the main topic was spirituality in coaching, which of course I love 

Then, a short trip to the Toastmasters club where I was given a most wonderful reception, I gave a short talk on Communication Skills and Public Speaking.  what a fantastic group of people This had been organised by Irina Irimia, our coordinator in the Transylvania area, who has done an incredible job.

Irina Irimia

Then eventually a hot cup of mint tea and bed !! After a long and eventful day.

I wonder what today will bring ??

Gerard

Another use for our Company Brochure

Well, I flew back in yesterday from Romania to a winter wonderland Snow everywhere and white forests and trees as far as the eye could see. It did look absolutely beautiful.
Unfortunately when I arrived at my car, which had been parked in the airport car park for nine days, I was in for a little bit of a shock.
The first problem was finding the car, every car was simply covered in snow, in fact it was so thick and deep it was difficult to tell where one car finished and another car began.

Eventually I located my car ( thank goodness for remote unlocking !!- it was the beep that finally helped me to find it)
Then began the real adventure.
You know that snow sometimes can be light and fluffy and dry, and you can just blow on it and it will fly away.
Well, this wasn’t one of those times !!! The snow was rock hard, Icy and freezing.
I could barely get the door of my car open and after five minutes of futile effort trying to scrape it off with my hands, Which turned to blocks of ice. I finally hit on an idea.
In my case I had some of our Noble Manhattan company brochures.
What a wonderful tool. Because they are quite firm and hard it was one of the best ice scrapers I have ever found, it cleared the snow and ice in about five minutes.

So, not only will our brochure act as a gateway and a pathway to a whole new life and career as a coach it will also come in very handy as an ice scraper

The reason I had been away was to run a residential course for our diploma students and a number of other seminars and meetings with our team in Romania.

After an initial three days in Bucharest
We then spent four days in the tiny town of Predal in the Carpathian mountains just south of Transylvania.
We had people from all over the country and some of our training team had flown in from other parts of Europe.
The scenery was spectacular.
Here are some photographs from my bedroom balcony.

The course went incredibly well and it also gave me a chance to observe some of our new Romanian training faculty in action.
I am delighted that we now have a full faculty of over 20 people in Romania.Filling such roles as

Country manager, administration people, trainers, mentors, final assessors, markers of written work, webinar leaders,

We are also now beginning to take on board a number of strategic partners throughout Romania which is proving to be very successful for everyone concerned.
In fact we have created a special website for people who are interested in becoming a strategic partner
www.noble-partners.com

It was so lovely to work with our Romanian team again and also to get to socialise with everyone.
Here is a Team Photo of those on the course.
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( the Romanians do love to socialise )
In the evening we had some wonderful music and dancing -here are just some of the team enjoying themselfs on the dancefloor-

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I’m looking forward to my next trip on 17 January 2011.

Well, what an interesting and fascinating week it has been so far. I am writing this from my hotel bedroom in Bucharest in Romania. Packing right now and getting ready to go to Warsaw in Poland.

 The last week has been just so jampacked !! From the moment the plane landed on Monday afternoon it has been meeting after meeting briefing after briefing. We did a very large introduction to coaching event here in Bucharest and had some amazing people.

Then we flew to the northern city of Iasi in Moldova. This was a first for me and I had been looking forward to it quite a lot. I was not disappointed, the city is so incredibly beautiful with dozens of magnificent churches , Museum’s, palaces etc

We stayed at the Ramada hotel and did another ” Introduction to Coaching” event.

What an eye-opener !!! We had so many people arrive we didn’t have enough chairs or space and had to do some rearranging ( very quickly) the response to what we are offering is just magnificent.

So it looks as if I shall have to go back to Iasi on a regular basis.

 Then we flew straight back to Bucharest just as a large three-day Mind Body and Spirit exhibition started. We had a large exhibition stand there and have about 12 of our team helping.

I ran a workshop on Friday afternoon on ” Spiritual Coaching” the room was full.

This week we also had our first coaching support group meeting in the city of Timisioara (29 people came to that first meeting) this is run by our new coaching support leader Vali, what a great job he has done.

 I have to say huge thanks to our country head here in Romania, Valerica Cojucaru , she is doing a magnificent job.

Where do we find these incredible people ???

 Well, I have to go now to catch my plane to Warsaw.

Lots of love

Gerard

Hi everyone I just returned

Late on Sunday night from our most recent residential coach training programme held at Eynsham Hall near Oxford. 

http://www.eynshamhall.com/

It was lovely to meet so many people in such a wonderful atmosphere. We had a group from Poland, people from Romania, Ireland, France,Scotland, Spain and South Africa. In total about 30 people and 7 staff.

And just imagine how pleased I was to receive this e-mail the next day. It really does make it all so worthwhile.

 To: sadiehargreaves@noble-manhattan.com

Subject: RESIDENTIAL WEEKEND 26/02/-28/02/10

Hi Sadie,

 I attended the recent residential weekend and I feel that I really must express my gratitude to Gerard and all at Noble Manhattan for the hard work that went in to making it an enormous success.

From the very first day when I stepped into the training room, I felt like I was transported back to my childhood, the happiest period of my life. All the wonderful memories of love, care, attention, joy and laughter were bursting out from inside, so much so, that I was struggling to contain them.

 The entire three day training course was packaged and delivered, with such thought, care, attention to details and to the needs of all the students, that it reminded me of my happy childhood.  he select these David, Aina and Cherry did their jobs exceedingly well, from day one right through to day three and the facilitators, John and Chris were right up there with them. They made themselves available, approachable and willing to answer our questions and help us to overcome our anxieties and self doubt. But, most importantly, they were willing to share their knowledge and experience with us. I felt blessed.

 I think that Gerard is an amazing human being. I love his passion, energy, kindness, attention to the smallest detail, his giving nature, but above all, I love his massive heart. He is unique and a great inspiration.

 I made a lot of friends at the residential weekend and I am looking forward to keeping up with them and sharing our experiences for years to come.

 Thank you Noble Manhattan.

  Kindest regards

 Lyn

 This coming Saturday we are doing a one day ” Introduction to Coaching” in London for people who are considering training to be a professional coach and the next day Sunday we are going to be doing a very special day indeed.

A “ Build Your Coaching Practice” one-day training course in London. If anyone is interested in spending Sunday with me and learning the most incredible techniques on how to build your business then just let the Office know 

info@noble-manhattan.com

 or call  01305 769411

 Looking forward to seeing you all soon

Lots of love

Gerard

Although we are now only at the beginning of February it actually seems as if Christmas was many months ago.

Our International Distributors strategy is going very well.As many of you know we have opened offices in Romania within the last couple of years and also with our partners in Poland, Turkey and Canada and we now have the opportunity to partner with two more companies Internationally this year.

So if you know of any organizations or well-placed individuals that would be interested in talking to Noble Manhattan Coaching about partnering in their country, please let us know.

 Our support group division is growing extremely well with five new support groups starting in Romania and five new in Poland within the next two months as well as that we are on target to launch at least 10 to 12 more in the UK by late summer.

Allan in Canada is doing extremely well and has got 3 regular meet up groups getting together every month in different areas south of Toronto with a total of over 60 people committed to coming each month.

 The biggest stage of my recent book ” A Coach’s Story” is now complete. I am so glad that all of the writing has now been done.:-) Now we have to get it proof read, edited and then of course published. All being well it should be done and dusted and on the bookshelves by Easter.

 We are also delighted to be able to announce that we have partnered with ” Catalyst Coaching” in the London area. It has been a real joy working with Catalyst, and over the last few months I have got to know their owner Nick Horan very well, in fact we have become good friends.

So from this month onwards we are delighted to be able to shoulder the burden of taking on all of the delivery of coach training for Catalyst allowing them to develop even stronger in their learning and development arenas. A partnership made in heaven

 And as if all of that wasn’t enough we are just about to launch a most incredible face-to-face coaching course in London.

It will be 10 days face-to-face over a one-year period and we are calling it “A Coaching MasterClass with Supervision”

It will be suitable for All Coaches, All managers from organisations and even student coaches.

To find out more about this incredible course contact the office. ( very very special deals just for the first few!!)

 We are also delighted to be able to announce that we are taking on a new general manager for our Noble Quest.

http://www.noble-quest.com/

 Our Coach Radio Division is building furiously right now under the leadership of Greg Evaristo. www.coachradiointernational.com

 Greg is fast putting together an international team of business development associates,programmers, designers and professional broadcast trainers. It looks as if we will be able to launch properly at the end of this month.

 I have also decided to take on some new Personal Coaching clients over the next few months. I will be doing this in a highly dynamic interactive online group environment.( it really won’t be for the fainthearted ) This will be for people who really want to move forward and make 2010 the year when their life really starts to take shape and they achieve the success they wish to.

If you would like to find out about being coached by me for one hour once a month then please get in touch with Stacey Melvin at staceymelvin@noble-manhattan.com

 Lots of love

Gerard

Just got back yesterday from my two-week trip to Florida. I was there initially to attend a four-day coaching convention run by the ICF.

We usually take a booth there every year

It was held at the Convention centre at Rosen shingle Creek.what a huge magnificent place

I was there with my wife and two of my children who did the usual tourist things ( Disney World, universal studios etc) while I attended the conference.

At the conference when we first arrived it was interesting to see a whole group of SWAT people walking around all with their guns on their hips.

They were attending their own convention.

I found it very interesting that in a convention setting they were all wearing camouflage trousers and boots and carrying their guns, and so different to the UK.

 Later that evening we saw most of them wandering around in the bar drinking beer but still wearing their guns on their hips.( Only in the USA !!!!!)

Now, that’s an interesting combination, guns and beer.

One I don’t really want to see together.

 Coaches and SWAT teams, you really couldn’t get two more different types of people.having meetings in the same hotel.

I have to say the ICF ran a very well organised and structured convention,hats off to them.

 It was great to see a lot of old faces from last year in Montral and from the year before in Los Angeles.

Next year it is at Forth Worth in Texas,looking forward to that

In fact one of the most hectic times in the last year. I am currently at the residential training course at Eynsham Hall near Oxford .(http://www.eynshamhall.com/)  

We have fantastic men and women who have flown in from all over the world, Deborah from Canada Lavinia from Romania, Monica from the south of France,Lukasz from Warsaw in Poland to name just a small few.

As well as our intensive coaching residential program we also have a large exhibition happening at the Olympia in London being run by Emma and her team

while at the same time Vali and her team are running a five day exhibition in Bucharest.

The head office team are also preparing for our five day exhibition in Orlando in Florida which starts the day after tomorrow so I have to fly over early tomorrow morning with Gordon and Christopher and others to oversee that.

I have to say though that I am really looking forward to it. I am bringing my family with me so that we can also have some holiday time together and possibly go to Disney World etc.