What were your 10 Best Things of 2010?

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Thanks so much for your loyal support in 2010.
As you’ve shown an interest in Life Clubs I thought you might like to know the 10 best things that happened to us/me in 2010. I’ve written them (more or less) in the order in which they occurred.

Life Clubs 10 Best Things of 2010
1. Our website: David Eldridge of Two Associates designed our gorgeous website for us and it was launched in the first few weeks of January. I was fond of our last website too, but we love this one as it’s so simple and easy to use.
2. The Life Book: Also in January we held a launch party for the publication of my first book of the year, The Life Book, which all the Hosts and a lot of our friends attended. It was also my birthday, so a double treat for me. Plus Florence (without the Machine) arrived late and danced with us.
3. NHS: We met Judith Mohring, a consultant psychiatrist working at the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, who instantly saw how Life Clubs could help those with mild to moderate mental health problems. Together we won a bid and next summer we will be working together in the Central & North West London Mental Health Foundation Trust offering early intervention for those with depression, anxiety and other problems.
4. Macmillan Cancer Support: Our Life Clubs Intensives (one-day workshops) raised money for Macmillan Cancer Support and helped sponsor Lynne Irwin, who ran the workshops with me, to walk along the Great Wall of China. The days were great fun and we’re going to do more in 2011.
5. Corporates: We started our corporate breakfast-seminars this year and they’ve been great fun. Already those who went to earlier breakfasts are returning with colleagues and showering us with work. If you’re interested in Life Clubs for your company, look here and invite yourself. We are happy to organise these breakfasts in other parts of the country too if you can provide the venue.
6. My Best Thing Today: Everyone always loves the way we begin each Life Club (What’s the best thing that happened to you today?), so we decided to start a website for you. We’re getting about 500 hits a day already and have had lots of publicity. Do send us a postcard too.
7. The Work Programme: We were approached a few weeks ago to help with bidding for The Work Programme. Having worked with many unemployed people, we know Life Clubs works and can’t wait to see the results.
8. How To Get What You Want: My second book, How To Get What You Want, was published in the Autumn. It’s my first book for young people and I really enjoyed working with families at The Cheltenham Literary Festival and then in Feltham Community College with the Year 10 children.
9. Twins: Many years ago, Bill, a financial whiz, came to Life Clubs. A few years later, on his recommendation, Claire, his banker wife, started coming to my Westminster Club. This year, everyone at the club has watched Claire grow larger and larger. Her final club was the week before she delivered the first Life Clubs twins. Max and Mimi are gorgeous and we’re looking forward to them coming to Life Clubs too.
10. Me: Getting personal, my best thing of 2011 has been, as usual, my family. This time, my youngest son, Tommy, who I spent five weeks in the South of France with when he was appearing in a film, Mother’s Milk. It was a treat being able to get to know him so well and to spend so much time alone with him. If I have a regret it’s that I never did it with my other three. Oh, oh… I feel a goal for 2011 coming on!

We’ve also been so lucky this year in all the people we’ve met. We’ve met new Hosts, new Clubbers, new corporates and have had a variety of wonderful people in our Base Camp in London. Of course, the ‘old’ friends are brilliant too and I also want to thank everyone who has been involved in Life Clubs for longer. It couldn’t happen without all of you.

I hope you all have had a wonderful break and I wish you the very, very best for the next year. Check our website to find out when your nearest club is starting up.

Do let me know all the good things that have happened to you. I’d be so grateful.
With best wishes,
Nina x

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Use your dreams to get what you want

There’s something magical about acting. I can see it in my son’s face, he has an extra dimension to him when he’s acting. An expression that isn’t usually there. It’s dreaming yet focused – both at the same time.

Listening to the actors he’s working with, I can hear how precarious their world is. It’s a lurch from one job to the next with long periods of no work and no money.

And yet there’s that beckoning of stardom.

We all have a beckoning. Something in our life that we love, that’s special for us. Something that we want to achieve.

This week’s workshop was called Holding Your Dreams and was about visualising that thing we want most and allowing our fantasy to help us make a realistic, practical plan.

I’m currently visualising my new book selling out.

Using this visualisation I know that I want to find any groups of young people be it in universities… schools… youth clubs… orchestras… anywhere. I see I need to find large groups of parents too, maybe also school teachers. I want great reviews on Amazon and in Waterstones. I’d like a big splash in any media possible.

If you want to help my dream, do buy How To Get What You Want for anyone you know between the ages of 15-25 – and have a look at it yourself before you give it away. You may find you want an extra copy.

My best wishes,
Nina x

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Treading on eggshells...

We've just done our feedback workshop (Telling It Like It Is) and it made me realise two things:

Firstly: yet again I've realised just how difficult it is to give feedback. It's wonderful when you can first practise your feedback on a stand-in guinea pig (like in the workshop) but when you plunge straight in, like I tend to do, you can break hearts.

Secondly: I noticed just how many of us want to get things off our chest. At the club there was a group of lovely people and each one of them had something they really wanted to say to someone else. It could have been a rift they wanted to heal or a situation they no longer wanted to be part of. But there were a lot of unspoken feelings floating around that room.

What would you like to say to someone but have been so busy treading on eggshells that you've never said it?

And is that something you'd like to say for their benefit... or yours?

There's a fun cartoon in my new book How To Get What You Want (£9.99, Walker Books, out on Monday!!!) all about feedback. Do buy it for anyone you know and love who is between 15 and 25. And, whilst you own it, check out if you wouldn't rather like it for yourself..!

Hope you have a great weekend,
Nina
PS Been asked by Psychologies Magazine to ask you if you'd fill out their quiz. It takes five minutes and a chocolate hamper could be yours!!!

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How thin am I?

Being one of those 'I don't want to see skinny role models - my kids need to eat properly' type of mothers, I never thought I'd be blogging about dieting.

But suddenly everywhere I look I read about obesity being worse for our children than skinnyness and, as this week at Life Clubs we were thinking about ourselves from the outside in, Genevieve and I decided to go on a diet.

It's been five tough days. We are two women who love our food and then some. But for the whole of this week our plates haven't looked this dissimilar from the photo - except that instead of arranging our vegetables quite so beautifully on our plates we eat them. We walk around clutching our hungry stomachs and feeling like Julia Roberts... suffering.

But watch this space. Just give us a few months and we'll look like Julia too.

Next week is a brand new workshop, What Shape Am I In? It's not to do with diets, it's to do with metaphor and is great fun.

See you then,
Nina
PS First copies of my book, How to Get What You Want, have arrived. They are fab. Hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

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