Do you have an issue going round your head that you just cannot seem to resolve?

Is there something you’re trying to do and you just cannot seem to move forward with?

Is there an issue you’re ‘stuck’ on?

Would you benefit from resolving the issue and being able to move forward? What would that mean to you? What difference would it make to your life?

In just one ‘Time to Think’ session you can do this. Professional Life Coach, Jo Orgill is offering ‘Time to Think’ style coaching sessions to abc Mallorca members.

“Jo has coached me using the Time to Think method. It was amazing. As I thought about the things that were preventing me from moving on with a new business idea it became clearer and clearer to me that I was focusing my attention on something I didn’t need to be focusing on. A second issue I identified, something that I could not see a way to manage, became really clear. I came up with lots of ideas to get that part moving. The best part though was that I maintained my motivation to move this idea forward after our coaching ended.”

“I had got myself quite stressed about how I was going to promote my new business having very little money to do so. After working with Jo using the time to think coaching model, I came up with so many ideas for free or relatively low cost that I was flying. I highly recommend a time to think session with Jo.”

There are several options for your ‘Time to Think’ session, depending on your preference, most sessions last approximately 1 -1 ½ hours:
- Telephone session €45
- Face to face session in Palma €60
- Face to face session outside of Palma €85

No preparation is needed before the session. Just have a notebook and pen handy and be ready to think and talk.

All sessions and queries are treated in strict confidence.

To book a session (or for any queries) please contact Jo on jo@JoOrgill.co.uk or call 618 335 827.

Click here for more information regarding the Master Class.

Click here for more information regarding the booking form at Hotel Horizonte.

Click here for more information regarding the Masterclass Delegate Registration Form.

Click here for more information regarding the Masterclass Marketing Brochure.

abcBusiness Lunch

We are delighted to inform you that our next abcBusiness lunch will take place at Hospes Maricel, an occasion not only to enjoy a fantastic lunch, but also to get to know this fabulous place.

Come and join our networking event where you will have the chance to exchange ideas, make new contacts and present your business to potential collaborators, customers and suppliers.

Date: Friday 17th of September 2010.
Time: 13:30 sharp.
Venue: Carretera d’Andratx, 11, Calvia, Mallorca
Price: €30 per person clients of abcMallorca & abcProperty. €40 per person members of the abcClub

Reserve your place today by calling Oana at 971 70 88 88 or by email to oana@abc-mallorca.com, as places are limited. We will be giving existing clients priority to attend this event.

As we incur the cost of members who have booked and do not attend, we ask you to cancel at least 48 hours before the event; otherwise we will have to request payment.

We very much look forward to meeting you and hearing about your business plans for 2010.

Best regards,

Helen & the team at abcMallorca

Free 1 hour One 2 One Marketing Sessions!

Starting, developing or expanding a business is never easy. But don’t worry, you needn’t do it alone. Fishtank offers an unprecedented opportunity for entrepreneurs of all experiences to acquire free, personalised and objective advice from Marketing Experts. Click here to contact us and pencil in your own 1 hour marketing session, free of charge.
 

Address: C/ Solleric 3, Alaro - Marketing for small businesses

Phone: 0034 689 59 11 36 

Email: richard@onefishtwofish.co.uk

Web: www.fishtankvirtualmarketing.com

SUMMER SALES HAVE STARTED!
 

In order to provide you with an extraordinary dream home, we offer abcClub members a 10% saving on the entire Bretz Collection. Visit our store in Santa Ponsa and get enchanted by an unwavering passion….

www.bretzstore-mallorca.com – info@bretzstore-mallorca.com – Phone 971 134 149

A few years ago, before such mind-zapping epics as Smackdown, Manhunt and Mortal Kombat erupted onto video game screens, the DVD that eclipsed all others for sheer mayhem and gratuitous violence was Grand Theft Auto.

In it, the player takes on the role of a mobster’s apprentice, clawing a way through the ranks of the underworld heirarchy, via gory storylines glorifying armed robbery, assassinations, drug-pushing and, of course, brutal, car-jacking heists. Roundly condemned as dangerously degenerate by all the usual suspects in moral authority, notably the church, media clean-up campaigners and the police, Grand Theft Auto’s notoriety guaranteed it would be the ultimate trophy on any kid’s birthday present wish list. And so it proved.

Archly parodying reality, it was nevertheless based on every god-fearing motorist’s worst nightmare – being waylaid by some gun-totting heavy, who’d stop at nothing to separate the driver from their car.So it has comes as some shock to many to discover that a real-life version of this video nasty is being played out here on the tranquil, sun-bleached byways of Mallorca…and the twist in the tale is that the mob of armed car-jackers is none other than the police.Their victims are foreign motorists, driving foreign-plated cars. And, judging by the evidence of the exotic array of Mercs, BMWs, Audis, Porsches and other particularly tasty 4×4s ‘arrested’ by Trafico, business is booming.The modus operandi of the island’s uniformed car-jacker gang is simple. Set up a checkpoint in a zone frequented by non-Spanish EU citizen – i.e. Portals Nous village or the Bendinat roundabout – and confiscate until the gas tank of the gruas’ towaway trucks are empty.

Equally, the bevvy of yummy mummies, collecting their kids from international schools at going-home time, provide a nice little earner.Last month, for instance, 32 such vehicles were impounded in one, fell swoop, with their owners being lashed by hefty fines – up to €9,000 – and ordered to transfer their motors onto Spanish plates, pronto. With financial penalties out of all proportion to the offence, it’s little wonder one disgruntled driver told the police where they could stuff his car, since it was worth no more than €3,000.Meanwhile, the German community feels particularly chagrined by all this heavy handed policing, citing fears that they are being unfairly targeted. Maybe so. But perhaps they should take it as a compliment, because invariably Germans have better taste in cars than anyone else.

However, the fact broadly remains that all foreign vehicles must be transferred to Spanish registrations within, at most, six months of being imported here. And in the interim period, a non-Spanish vehicle should have all the valid paperwork from its country of origin (in the British case a current road tax disc and, if applicable, MoT certificate).Now, while it is perfectly understandable for Spain to want knowledge of all vehicles on its roads – to reap the fiscal benefits, check roadworthiness and, presumably, crackdown on real criminals – once upon a time the legitimacy of such precipitate action was questionable.Criticism stemmed from a requirment to pay an ‘import duty’ on foreign-plated cars, levied at 12% of their value, along with fees for technical checks, including an ITV road-worthiness test of vehicles aged three years or more.

But such a ‘tax’ was against the laws and spirit of the EU, since one of the charter tenets is that goods, services and people can travel freely, without let or hindrance, across member state borders at no cost.

Undeterred, Spain responded with a swift change of vocabulary. So, ‘import duty’ went out of the exhaust pipe of governmental parlance to be replaced by the more arcane term, ‘matriculacion’ or registration charge.

According to my humble understanding, EU nations are entitled to demand an ‘admin/matriculation’ fee to transfer a vehicle’s registration. But, since it cost no more to shuffle the paperwork for a €50,000 Mercedes ML than a €5,000 Fiat Uno, I was at a loss to understand why a sliding scale of payments, based on a percentage of a motor’s notional value, was fair.This is acknowledged elsewhere in Europe and, in the instances of the UK and Germany, re-registering foreign vehicles usually costs less than €500 and is done in a figurative blink of an eyelid compared to the groaningly protracted and bureaucracy-laden Spanish practice.

Clearly, this also taxed the consciences – or so I like to think – of Spain’s legislators, because from last January 1st a new set of costs was implemented.Sensibly, these reflect eco impact and are based on the grams per kilometre of CO2 emissions a vehicle discharges into the atmosphere. Auto manufacturers are supposed to provide an independently-measured, CO2 figure that each of their motors spews out – it should be listed on your vehicle’s ownership documents – and this is now the basis of the ‘matriculation charge’ or whatever passes as a euphemism for an ‘import duty’.

Hence, a dirty, gas-guzzler is rightly clobbered accordingly and the most pious/least poisonous motor escapes tax-free.
For the record the new cost criteria is: Under 120 grams per kilometer (gkm) = zero euros; 120-160 gkm = €475; 161-200 gkm = €975; and 201-plus gkm = €1,475.

This is a step in a positive direction, but an interminable state of affairs still exists here when buying or selling a motor. So it’s small wonder a cottage industry has evolved, whereby confused foreigners employ gestors or administrators to handle the complex machinations of a simple car ownership transfer and ratchet up further costs.

Perhaps some day EU states will get agreement on and adopt a pan-European set of rules governing all aspects of motor vehicle administration, but don’t hold your breath.

In the meantime, to paraphrase a popular English proverb: A switch in time saves nine thousand euros. Don’t say you haven’t been warned!

Becoming a member of the jet set is like being struck by "the curse of Graham Norton" – life loses all meaning, maintains, Adrienne Cullen.

First, a joke: there can’t be many people left who haven’t heard the one about David Beckham, Sven Goran Erikssen and the pre-match press conference …

The England soccer team is about to face up to some doughty foreign foe. As tension mounts, Erikssen introduces Beckham, then the iconic England captain, has a quick word in his ear, and the briefing gets under way.

However, looks of rapt attention soon turn to confusion as Beckham proceeds: "Well, they’re very small, they’re white, they have a very minty flavour which I really like … Victoria keeps them in her purse all the time coz they’ve only one calorie each …"

Whereupon a resigned-looking Erikssen leans across and can just be heard off-mic saying, "David! I said tac-tics!!!"

Which only goes to show that membership of the Jet Set doesn’t necessarily pre-suppose brains. Though it is certainly true that talent – no matter how limited its range – and physical beauty do make up for a lot.

So does good humour, especially when it’s self-deprecating.

Victoria Beckham, for instance, has regularly been excoriated in the tabloid press as the ultimate cash-splashing soccer wife. But she did herself no end of good when she was asked by Michael Parkinson if she’d learned any Spanish since David had moved to Real Madrid.

A few words, she said, with a straight face. Just enough to manage the everyday things …

An example, asked Parkie?

"Donde está Gucci?", she replied, quick-as-a-flash … and a not-quite-onside audience collapsed in sympathetic laughter.

So here’s a poser: do Posh and Becks exemplify the Jet Set? Who exactly are this notional Jet Set anyway? What are the requirements for membership? In fact, to become even more metaphysical, I think we can legitimately ask: does the Jet Set really exist at all? These are difficult questions to tackle – especially without a glass or two of Bolly on board – but they certainly speak to the spirit of the times, so let’s have a go.

First off, is it about fame, is it about money, is it about talent – or is it about all three?

Well, there are plenty of people with money who don’t court the limelight. In fact, quite the opposite. So it’s not just about "loads-a-money", to use that great, impeccably-crass Harry Enfield phrase. And there are plenty of people with talent-to- burn in their various fields who’ll never be invited to take part in Big Brother or I’m a Celebrity Get me Out of Here. So it’s not just about being particularly good at something either.

Which means it’s got to be something else that makes someone with as much money as Sir Alan Sugar crave the TV cameras every year to lecture his wannabe-apprentices on how he started out in life with £15 in his pocket and a barrow full of dreams … and now has a "stinkpot" moored off the Costa del Sol.

What is it that makes a chef with as much talent as Gordon Ramsey debase himself every year in a TV programme as depressing – nay, downright frightening – as Hell’s Kitchen USA? "F*** me!", as he might say himself.

Let me stress than nobody is a bigger fan of Sir Alan and Sir Gordon than I am. And if they’re not desperate for the money, then I’m afraid the answer to why they do it is sticking out a mile. It’s just got to be: EGO. You massage mine and I’ll massage yours.

Andy Warhol had it sussed. Life is short, then we die. And in the meantime we must make every clutching effort we can to achieve our 15 minutes of fame, no matter what the personal cost or how deep the public humiliation. Think ageing Janet Street Porter on Sir Gordon’s TV programme, The F-Word – in which the foul-mouthed chef feeds his Jet Set friends, most of them Essex boys and girls who wouldn’t know al dente from al-Jazeera.

I’d don’t know why, but somehow the entire Jet Set milieu seems to me to be summed up perfectly not by Sir Alan, Sir Gordon or Dame Janet, but in the extraordinary public persona of Graham Norton, who’s fronted a series of vacuous BBC TV programmes promising fame and fortune to all-singing all-dancing youngsters if they scratch out the eyes of the competition, bless them.

Yes, Graham Norton makes me want to cry out: Is that all there is?! He makes me doubt the very value of life itself! Thank goodness for Bolly to blank him out … and Cristal …and Krug … and the OFF switch!

But perhaps I’m being too harsh! Most Jet Set carry-on is totally harmless, mindless even. It’s not to be taken seriously, except as a diversion. Tell-tale signs of infection include any of the following:

If you’ve achieved any four of these six requirements then beware: The Curse of Graham Norton has struck. You are fated to join all the other men who wear black silk shirts and too-large Rolexes, and all the other women whose hair is held back by Gucci sunglasses even in the depths of winter. You are a member of the Jet Set. You have plumbed the very depths. Your life has been cleansed of all meaning. Cheers!