Well 2012 is drawing to a close and it looks like the doomsday pessimists misread the Mayans, and 2013 approaches full of challenges and opportunities, so we thought we’d take a little time to think back over the year that just was.
January was almost completely devoted to working on The Most Important Graph in the World with Tony Buzan. Each day Jennifer would Skype talk with Tony and then convert their discussions into text, with Bill doing some proofreading and suggesting application ideas.
By the end of the month the book had been drafted, Bill’s Foreword was done and the publisher was happy.
February saw Bill and Jennifer off to Florida to speak at the Creativity Cruise Conference organised by our friends Eileen Doyle and Bruce Baum. Some great people from around the world attended, including our South African friend Kobus Neethling, and it was a great few days with some good friends. And Jennifer won the prize for being the first to present in her bathing suit – had everyone laughing and having fun.
February also saw us catch up with Tony Buzan in Orlando after the cruise. He and the ThinkBuzan team were running a TLI program, so we dropped in to lend a hand and speak to the participants. While in Orlando we fulfilled a dream of Bill’s to visit Epcot and Cape Canaveral – seeing the Disney dream in action is something to behold.
March saw us back hard at work, not that the US trip wasn’t work, and we ran workshops for several great clients, and spoke at a number of networking events. A social highlight was Bill and Jen going to see and hear Tim McGraw – Yee Haa.
April was a short working month with Easter and Anzac day holidays, but the work was flowing in and we were back and forth to Sydney and Melbourne a few times. We also attended the Rotary District Conference on the Gold Coast, and met up with some good friends.
But the highlight for the month was celebrating Bill’s mum and dad’s (Bill and Gladys Jarrard) 60th Wedding Anniversary. A large family and friends gathering took them by surprise, and they were presented with a Memory Album with messages from the Queen, two Prime Ministers and two Governor Generals (Canada and Australia), a Premier and many absent friends. See the photos on the Jarrard Family page.
May again saw work all over the place, from the Sunshine Coast to Ballarat, as well as the usual Sydney and Melbourne gigs. Bill and Jen also took time off to go to the first game of the Rugby League State of Origin series – Queensland Maroons versus New South Wales Blues. Maroons won and later took out the series for the 7th year in a row. QUEENSLANDER!
June saw Jennifer head to the UK for Tony Buzan’s 70th Birthday and the launch of their book – The Most Important Graph in the World. A grand time was had at all, and looking back it seems June was a month of birthdays – Queen’s birthday as well as Tony, Vanda, Carol, Lauren and Bill’s daughter Kylie.
July was a quiet month with a few workshops around the country, and a great time to be living in Queensland where our winter daytime temperature sits about 20°C.
Too cool for the pool, but fantastic for walks on the beach.
August again saw family celebration with Jen’s mum Helen and husband Gerry both have their 70th birthday, with a family party on the Brisbane River Kookaburra Queen. The last week of the month had Jen running workshops in Perth before flying over to South Africa to run some certification programs.
September was one for overseas trips for Jen. South Africa the first two weeks, back on the Coast for a couple days to help at the IWBNet education conference then straight over to Dubai to run a TLI program to accredit more Mind Mapping instructors. At the same time as Jen was in Dubai, Bill was in Singapore running our regular Applied Creativity & Innovation program at SIM, and had a great dinner with Tony Buzan while there, as well as an opportunity to catch up with great friend Dilip Mukerjea.
And while Jen was in Dubai her latest book with Tony Buzan was also released – Brain Training for Kids, a book Jen wrote with teacher friend Vicki Matthews a year okay. Vicki did all the original artwork and Mind Maps. Great job, and a great book for the little ones.
October was a quiet one thankfully, a chance to catch up and get to know each other again.
But the exciting news we got about this time was that Bill’s daughter Kylie got engaged to Matt Smart and set the date for their wedding on 15 September 2013. Going to be a happy year.
November was devoted in part to planning, before Jennifer flew to Japan to run another TLI program with Tony Buzan – 48 more Mind Mapping instructors brought into the global network. At the same time we worked closely with our new sponsor of the Australian Memory Championship – Life’sDHA, and the event itself was a huge success when run on 24-25th with competitors from Australia, China, Philippines and Japan. See the results at the link below.
http://www.buzan.com.au/learning/events.html
And finally December is another quiet one in the office for Bill who is starting planning for next year, but not for Jennifer as she’s in London to help run the World Memory Championships 14-16th. See all the amazing statistics on the website Jennifer built for the World Memory Sports Council. She’s due back on Christmas Eve, and then we’ve got family celebrations and a Boxing Day viewing of Les Miserables.
https://www.world-memory-statistics.com/competition.php?id=wmc2012all
So that is 2012 in review – just another pretty standard year for Bill and Jen, as we take the Mindwerx and Buzan message to as many people and places as we can. 2013 look to be even busier and with more focus and lots of opportunities and we hope to see as many of our friends as we can.
Have a happy and peaceful festive season and all our very best for a fabulous 2013.
Bill and Jennifer
Leave A Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.