What Can You Create?

“Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.”

Golda Meir

How's Your Soul Doing?

“You have the need and the right to spend part of your life caring for your soul. It is not easy...To be a soulful person means to go against all the pervasive, prove-yourself values of our culture and instead treasure what is unique and internal and valuable in yourself and your own personal evolution.”

—Jean Shinoda Bolen; psychiatrist, author

From Teacher to Bluegrass Musician!

Tom McCreight

Sometimes what we do in our retirement is an extension of what we did in our earlier life. Tom McCreight was a teacher in North York and he loved being a teacher. His career took him to all areas in the board where he taught math and sciences. One day the music teacher at his school came to him and told him that he was putting together a band and asked Tom if he would like to be the bass player. Well...... Tom had never played the bass but hey he knew a few chords and before he knew it, he was playing in a band. Ultimately that group went where most groups go but by now he had become involved with the Toronto Bluegrass Committee. He received a call and was asked to put together a house band and they started playing The Brunswick Hotel in downtown Toronto on Saturday afternoons. Ultimately this led to the founding of SILVERBIRCH of which Tom is the sole remaining member.

SILVERBIRCH

Retirement came and Tom got more and more involved with bluegrass. The band continued to play and Tom started selling bluegrass CDs under the name Coot. His business grew as did his nickname, "The Old Coot."
This ultimately led to his publishing a quarterly newsletter and you can still find his column at The Blugrass Music Association of Central Canada website. http://www.bmacc.ca/

Through his association with "his hobby" Tom met Mike Stevens, the famed harmonica player which led to his involvement with Arts Can Circle.
http://www.mikestevensmusic.com/

During a layover in Gander, Mike talked a reporter into taking him up to Davis Inlet. What he saw and experienced http://archives.cbc.ca/society/poverty/clips/11525/ led to the founding of Arts Can Circle, an organization which, in their words: "is an independent, volunteer-run group working to link creative artists with Native youth at risk in Canada. Our hope is to encourage self-esteem amongst Native youth in isolated communities through a cooperative exploration of the arts."

So Tom continues to play bluegrass but now his hobby has led to a much greater involvement with a much larger project.
You can catch Tom and Silverbirch on Saturday March 28, 2009 as they play a concert fundraiser for Arts Can Circle at The Uxbridge Music Hall. He has been very grateful for past support from the merchants and people of Uxbridge. Previous concerts have been extremely well received and supported especially by The Royal Canadian Legion Branch 170 and by the Rotary Club. There are only 300 seats in this wonderful hall and tickets can be puchased for only $15 at The Blue Heron Book Store. Come on out for a wonderful night of Bluegrass!!

When I asked Tom for a favourite quote he said, "I'd rather be sorry for something I did than something I didn't do."
Ya gotta take a chance and get out there and do it!!

So, Whaddya Think?

“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.”

Ayn Rand 1905-1982 novelist, screenwriter, playwright,

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=JBOX00adAXc

What a great video!! Is this you or do you want to do more? Let us know where your inspiration is.

So, Whaddya think?

It's not the critic that counts, not the one that points out where the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the one who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends themselves in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if they fail at least fails while daring greatly, so that their place shall never be to reside in the grey twilight with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt, 1910

So what arena are you in?

So, Whaddya Think?

“The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination.”

Don Williams, Jr. novelist and poet


I don't think that this quote has ever seemed truer to me. We have all travelled our own paths to attain this destination called retirement. Now a new journey starts which will again be different for us all. I really don't want to think about the next destination so maybe it's time to concentrate on this journey and what I can do now.

Retired Scientists and Engineers

Not all retired people want to do something different than what they did before but many don't want full time employment. This is a very interesting site for those of you with the appropriate skills and talent.


YourEncore is a network of retired and veteran scientists and engineers providing their clients with proven experience to help accelerate their pace of innovation.

YourEncore was created to tap into our country’s under-utilized asset: the growing number of retired and veteran scientists. They provide an environment where these experts can continue doing the work they enjoy by matching them to short-term projects at their Client Companies. Clients benefit from the external knowledge and experience brought in through their Experts.

YourEncore has been in operation since October 1, 2003. The Procter and Gamble Company and Eli Lilly and Company are the initial founding Client Companies. The Boeing Company joined as a founding member during their first year in business. They now have a growing client base of over 30 companies, many of which are Fortune 500 companies, in their network and have several more top companies joining shortly.

If you are interested,check them out at

http://yourencore.com/

New years Resolutions.... Bah Humbug!!

Well I almost did it. My resolution this year was to post every day. I blew it on the first day.
I don't think that resolutions work very well, I know they don't for me. What we really need to do, if we're going to make long lasting changes, is dig a little deeper into ourselves and spend some time exploring our values and see what we need to adjust.
You could go to a Tony Robbins seminar but they get rather expensive and are usually located in some warm climate to which you would need to fly. or...

Look at these seven words:
Friendship, Health, Family, Fitness, Creativity, Service, Finances

I might have missed some that are right for you so feel free to add any others you would like. For those of you who are very wealthy, or living on teacher's pensions, feel free to delete finances.

Your unique combination of these values usually make up you. Which do you need to adjust?
Spend some time thinking of your life in these terms and see what new resolutions you might now like to set.

If thes words are not enough to get you started, you can watch Mr. Robbins himself. Enjoy


Let us know what's working for ya.