A week in Isla Mujeres

Yesterday Mary and I arrived in a cozy rental apartment on Isla Mujeres, a short ferry ride away from Cancun. Lovely setting. Ready for a week of relax! And...away from the -30 degrees in southern Ontario today. Sorry for the folks at home....

Professional development

Today we start three days of training with our team of international business development managers of Seneca International. This team covers our international student recruitment and contract training acquisition around the world (divided in three regional teams: East & South-East Asia, South Asia and the Americas, Europe, Middle East & Africa). The first day has a focus on wide values such as: "the consultative selling mindset", "developing a buyer perspective", "creating value & understanding needs", "creating shared success" and "negotiating & closing". The second day will focus on better understanding some of our "products/services" such as several of our diploma & degree programs and some of our post-graduate certificate specialization programs. The third day we will review some of our practical tools such as our annual budget, our new access to data on our international students at Seneca and the need for specific "niche marketing" in some of our markets.

Back at it....

Back at it.... another year started today leading the Seneca International team. I think 2019 will be an interesting year for all of us. Yesterday Mary and I started the new year with a good healthy dinner and today I had left-overs....

And while Hilary is enjoying the life in British Columbia + makes many long shifts in the ERs of several hospitals, our son Mark (here pictured with Karlee) is travelling for 5 weeks in Thailand....

Life is good....

Hilary and Mark

Two nice photos to keep. Mark with a few of his friends from both high school time and university time (photo taken before they have a night out in St Catharines before Christmas 2018). And Hilary with her friend Shaid from New Zealand out in BC (I think the photo was actually taken somewhere in California where they just went for a week vacation). Happy young professionals enjoying life.

Mary and volleyball team

Just a nice photo to keep. Today (Dec 1, 2018) Mary & friends participate in a full-day volleyball tournament. I stick to my swimming and regular gym work-outs....

Peterborough campus

Today we hosted a group of colleagues from Polytechnic Institutions in Indonesia at our aviation campus in Peterborough. It is always a real nice campus to show; a mini airline in operation with a variety of training aircraft, simulators and a full dispatch operation.

Having the visitors experience the simulators is always a hit.....

Ottawa

Being in Ottawa for the annual CBIE conference, I always love walking around in the city. My favorite is the bridge between Ottawa and Hull. During the period 1991 - 2005 I ran many times over the bridge and then along the river on both sides during my stays in Ottawa during periods I was doing training for the five marathons I ran. No more running now, but still love the sight from the bridge towards Parliament Hill. On the other side is the Museum of History where the conference opening reception was held last night.