Melva Gifford

These are some notes I took from a CERT fireside that talked about preparation in case of emergency.

–        9/11 was the circumstance that notified the US government that they were not adequately prepared for communication between organizations.

–        After 9/11, efforts were made to help avoid duplication of organizations and help coordinate communication between organizations.

–        After 9/11 Thema was created.

–        Thema is designed to respond to an emergency, 4 to 5 days after the event for the following reasons:

• 1. It takes that many days to collect the resources to respond to catastrophe
• 2. Thema needs that amount of time to set up volunteers
• 3. Nice to determine what the safest places to set up operations
• 4. Need to determine the status of the power grid, passable roads
• 5. Thema will often do a flyover to determine the condition of the site.

–        Local emergency teams are structured to respond to situations that are not extreme, but for the day to day events.

–        Local emergency teams will quickly get overwhelmed from the excessive need of calls for help.

–        Local emergency teams need to respond to the needs of their own families. In addition to the people they serve.

–        The problem with Katrina was that though the federal government was ready to help local and state government are not ready and that influence the national response.

–        Individuals and families are responsible for their own preparation of emergency

–        72 hour emergency kit used to be sufficient. Now it’s recommended to 96 hours.

–        No one has ever says that they felt over prepared

–        Have an emergency kit in the trunk of your car.

–        Important items to have your emergency kit is medical information on your family members, as well as financial and insurance information in your emergency kit

–        Preparation includes alternative bathroom facilities

–        You need a means to purify water.

–        The pumping of water is made available to electricity. If you don’t have electricity, you’ll have no water.

–        There’s also the problem of water being in good condition. Your only access of water may be from what you get out the pipe or from other sources.

–        CERT training provides the following types of training

–        You learn some basic first aid skills

–        You know how to respond to various challenges.

–        CERT gives you the mindset to plan in advance for various circumstances

–        It gives you advanced training to respond to various circumstances

–        You learn communication skills

–        There are free online courses on Thema’s website of how to respond different challenges.

–        Grief and pain is palatable in an emergency

–        CERT training helps empower you to respond quickly to an emergency with his standing around dumbfounded.

–        Respond instantly to an evacuation order, this type of order is important to get the citizens out a way for authorities to respond to dangerous circumstances, such as gunshots at Fort Hood.

–        How well prepared, or you in case of a house fire? Do you have an escape plan for all members of the family?

–        A good recommendation is to have shoes, gloves and flashlights to help you get out of a darkened room in case of emergency and shattered glass, etc.

–        Trained people are safer emergencies

–        Trained people know the basics and leave the difficult tasks to the experts.

–        Usually government will respond to an area that has been searched. Trained 1 to 3 days sooner because the citizens have very separate base of operations, triage and have already determined the needs of the area.

–        This speaker’s first aid training enables her to save her son twice from choking.

If you have items you’d like to add to this list, please share them in the comment section of this blog.

During a recent meeting at Toastmasters, we received some very good counsel for one of the core members of the club. He reminded us to recollect what our original motivations for joining Toastmasters were. We may have wanted to improve our ability to communicate more effectively for a certain cause. Or we may be motivated to be more effective communicators to achieve a higher position in our employment.

He suggested that as we prepare our future speeches that we choose topics that will relate to the original purpose of why we joined the organization. If someone wanted to be a better storyteller, then he advised that we pursue the storytelling track in Toastmasters. If we wanted to communicate more effectively on certain topics, then we should practice those topics during Toastmasters. That way, we become experienced in communicating our specific interests while we gain communication skills through Toastmasters.

One way I can relate this advice for me, is perhaps to the use of object lessons. If I’m in general conversation with someone and I want to emphasize a point, I may compare it to physical object and how it is used, and then relate that comparison to some personal theme.

I wanted to use this same advice in regards to teaching at church, family or other opportunities. If our students have a passion for sports, we may want to touch upon the principles of successful sports, in conjunction with religious themes to better relate the principle to our listeners. Or if we want to touch upon a moral topic, we may want to include every day events of life, to help identify potential challenges.

The principal I want to emphasize here is that we don’t have to just corral our practice of better communication to only a once a-week meeting. We can continually work on our communication skills every day in various circumstances. We can use imagery, observe body language to determine the receptiveness of our audience or we can see how our word choice can either weaken or strengthen the theme we are promoting.

I invite each of us to review our personal goals and see how different parts of our lives can contribute to achieving that goal. I think this could make us more effective teachers.

During the summer, I attend a Success two day workshop that presented several motivation speakers. I took notes. Here are some ideas by Bryan Fertu who is the CEO of Success 2013. Also ideas by Ben Kittel, Larry King, Keith Craft and James Smith.

–        You need to embrace the crisis of the earth.

–        Book: seasons of the earth.

–        $83 billion was printed by the government last year to sustain the stock market.

–        The things you do today determines what you will be in the future.

–        The more possessions you possess the more your possessions will possess you.

–        You need multiple sources of income that doesn’t require you to work. Choose revenue that can work for you.

–        Book: awakening the giant.

–        There are three pillars to financial success.

1. Stock market

2. Real estate

3. Have businesses.

–        When you’d take action. You change life.

–        how to be of force that unstoppable

–        Develop a winning business system.

–        Faith is believing God’s way is the better way.

–        Our beliefs are like the roots of a tree. Roots of a tree determine how the tree will grow. Roots of a tree. Never stop growing.

–        Whether you believe you can or you can’t, you’re right, decide to be a believer.

–        Successful people read books, attend seminars to learn about success

–        You become what you think about most of time.

–        When you’d take action. You change life.

–        Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.

–        You can make mistakes in life and still succeed.

–        how to be of force that unstoppable

If you have ideas that you would like to contribute to this topic, please feel free to share them.

Here is a word I mess up on a lot. But maybe this idea will help.

Bad: familer

Good familiar

One way to help on this word is to look for letters that are familiar. How do you determine that, by seeing letters more than once and they look fAmIlIAr.  Two As and two Is. So fAmIlIAR.

An alternative mind device might be that if you are famiLIAR with a certain subject and someone else tries to be a LIAR with information on the topic you know, you can catch them.

If you have a more successful way to remember how to this word correctly, please feel free to share it.

Here are some notes I took about how to maximize your references in a job search.

–        Show your references your resume so that they can be familiar with what you put in there in case they get called upon, and they might build expand upon a topic you put in your resume. Also have your references tell you when they are called so you can see who is considering you.

–        If you’ve had multiple bosses during your career at one company choose a boss that likes you as a reference.

–        There are usually three desired references to give: your BIOS, a coworker, and someone who is known you for a long time outside of work as a character reference.

–        Sometimes those that call references will be sneaky to find out information about the applicant. For example, they may say that we want to improve our employees what areas do you think this applicant could improve on.

–        Check with past coworkers who are willing to give letters of recommendation, but do it quickly asked to get laid off. The longer you wait, the less emotion attached your coworkers or to you.

–        You may want to ask your references as to what they may say that they were called the worker to worker. You were.

–        Coworkers can give letters recommendation.

–        Give recommendations and references while they’re fresh.

–        Have people you network with two that your resume and give suggestions. As a look at the resume asked them to write down people they think of when they look at the various individual skill sets you document.

My negative might be, I seem to have a strong personality. How would I turn that ‘negative into a positive? I report that responses from managers have complimented me how I’d provide a positive atmosphere to the company and the great team player.

If you have ideas to contribute to this topic, please feel free to share them in the comment section of this blog.

I hope the following lesson can be of use to youth ministries, family counselors, parents and grandparents as well as family devotionals or family home evenings.

A lot of companies will have sales promotions to add variety to their marketing. For example an ice cream shop may feature blue berry cream as a flavor of the month to promote their store. This can be compared to how many of us can make an impact in other’s lives simply by the type of person we are.  A person who is has traveled a lot or has had a lot of experiences may feel more comfortable in talking with someone outside of their nationality because they may already be familiar with some tips of the language or experienced in meeting strangers.

We can make the same comparison to how we associate with people in our neighborhood or congregation. The type of personality or person we are, may make us more approachable by others in the community who share a similar type of personality.

My invitation is for each of us to do a self-evaluation to see what type of person we are. If we are a little bit silly, sometimes, that might help a lighter hearted person relate to us than with someone who may be more solemn. The invitation is for us to take advantage of our personality strengths as we interact with other people. We may naturally ‘click’ with someone else. It is a great opportunity to establish new friendships and perhaps influence others for good. At the same time we can strive to be our best selves as we establish new friendships. Others will be able to detect if we are sincere or not.

As a private assignment answer these questions:

–        When it comes to appearance, some people describe themselves in seasonal terms. Are you a winter, spring, summer or fall?

–        Are you an introvert or extravert?

–        Do you like meeting new people?

–        If you were to compare yourself to a famous person, who do you feel you are most like and how are you different from that person?

–        What is your favorite mode of communicating face to face, phone, texting, or Facebook etc?

These are just a few ideas to self-evaluate your personality type. There are others in the community and congregation who will feel more comfortable around you because of who you are. I invite each of us to interact with someone we’ve seen but never talked to before. It could be a chance to establish a new friendship.

It you have some ideas on this topic, please feel free to share them in the comment section of this blog.

During the summer, I attend a Success two day workshop that presented several motivation speakers. I took notes. Here are some ideas by Rick Bulluzero. He was a former Microsoft executive. She was applicant in the TV show the apprentice.

–        Determine in advance what values you want to preserve in your business and career.

–        A time of transition is a time to reflect on your values.

–        A strong leader is both hardheaded and softhearted – Day Packer

–        values include

1. Treat others with respect treat customers well.
2. Embrace disruption and change. Disruptions can provide new opportunities. An example of disruption was in the 1980s, when the dot matrix printer had been created, and the news was out about a new type of printer. An HP decided to pursue LaserJet and inkjet printers.

–        When necessary, reinvent yourself.

–        Always strive to make the difference.

–        Commit to be a top performer. 80% of success comes from 20% of the people. The same can be said of businesses.

–        Be self-aware and be open for feedback.

–        Perseverance: if you have mission you believe in, then keep going even against the challenges.

–        Steve Jobs once advised Rick how to survive a struggling company. He said, it is simply placing one step in front of the other.

–        Act with integrity.

This all sounds like good advice to me. Do you have advice? Please feel free to share it in the comment section of this blog.

I keep wanting to put an a in this word instead of a second I. But I have a visual image that may help me remember. When you want two boards to stay in place you put a nail in it. If you really want them to stay in place, you defInItly want to put in two nails.

Bad: Definate

Good: definite.  Finite means forever.

definite = two nails to make sure it definite stays in place.

We’ll see if that helps. If you have a way to remember, please feel free to share it.