Guest Blogs
Knowitall.ch often invites local experts in their field to contribute to their own blogs on our site. This means not only you will benefit from the useful recommendations that we make on our News pages, but you can also profit from some of the great advice and tips that these experts have to make on their favorite subjects. Whilst each of these bloggers has been recommended to us at some point during the evolution of Know-it-all passport and knowitall.ch, obviously we are not able to test out all the suggestions they make on their blogs, nor do we necessarily agree with all their opinions. So if you do find one of their tips useful (or not!), do let us know!
To make these blogs more accessible to you, we have now decided to group them altogether in one section, entitled Guest Blogs, accessible from our main menu bar. We will also post the most recent blogs on the home page of our site in the right hand column.
We are still building up this area of the site, and are looking for bloggers in a number of sections, including Your Home, Travel, and Leisure, so if you feel you have a useful contribution to make in either of these areas, and have the time to submit blog entries approximately every month, then please get in touch!
By Marianne Salem, Lake Leman International School, www.llis.ch
By focusing on academic testing and grading, are we threatening our children’s love of learning? Leading thinkers in education believe so, citing widespread problems at the heart of mainstream and state-led schooling across the world.
What do the experts say?
Sir Anthony Seldon, vice-chancellor of Buckingham University in the UK and former Master of Wellington College, a leading independent school, said that too many schools worldwide had adopted an “exams-factory” approach thereby neglecting students’ wellbeing and character development.
“Anybody who says you can reduce the purpose of education to the passing of tests is guilty of adopting that approach… exams and tests matter but they’re not all that matters and the problem is they are seen by many to be all-embracing,” said Sir Anthony in an Independent.co.uk report.
By Sunita Sehmi, Walk The Talk
Philippe Chevrier has become synonymous with great restaurants, good food and excellence! He was an apprentice at the restaurant « Le Chat Botté » in the Hôtel Beau Rivage in Geneva. Once his studies were completed, he worked for two years as a commis chef (at « L'Oasis » restaurant in La Napoule and at « Le Gentilhomme » in the Hôtel Richemond) before undertaking two one-year training periods in bakery and confectionery. In 1984, he spent the year as a chef with Frédy Girardet in Crissier before joining « Le Patio » restaurant where he was sous-chef de cuisine from 1985 to 1986. He was later employed as chef de cuisine at Domaine de Châteauvieux in Satigny, of which he became proprietor in 1989. Philippe obtained his first Michelin star in 1991, and his second in 1994. He was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre du Mérite Agricole in 1996 and thereafter opened the Café de Peney, also in Satigny. More accalades followed and in 2002, he was scored 19/20 in Gault Millau and voted Chef of the Year.
He is the owner of the Vallon in Conches, in the outskirts of Geneva, and opened the Epicerie de Châteauvieux in Satigny. His recent opening of a New York style bistro, “Chez Phillip”, has become one of Geneva’s cool restaurants and of course the food is fabulous! I was lucky enough to interview him about his latest venture, which is open 7 days a week and this place is never empty! The formula of an authentic grill house has clicked with customers and Philippe’s business model has proved to work time and time again.
By Debbie Croft, Croft Coaching
Is this known as “having it all”? Can you even have a career and family without the burden of guilt, overwhelm and fatigue? There isn’t a text book standard response to this. Why? Because everyone’s definition of “having it all” is unique and it’s based on your own exclusive value system and aspirations.
Step 1: Self-awareness
The 1st step therefore when considering how to navigate career and family is to have a very good understanding of what is important to you, as a parent and as a professional.
As a parent – if someone asked your child 10 years from now to describe you as a Mum or Dad over the last 10 years, what do you want them to say? Who inspires you as a role model as a parent and why? What do you want to copy from your own parents? What do you not want to copy from your own parents? If you take time to consider these questions over a short period, coming back to them several times, you will soon have a sound awareness of your values as a parent. Now, take these values and prioritise them, which ones are the most important for you to honour?
As a Professional – what are your short term and long term goals? What are you longing for in your career? Consider skills and strengths you love using – how much do you use them in your role today? What do you want others to be saying about you at work – your peers, your team, your leaders? Again, project forward 10 years from now – what have you achieved? What are you proud of in your career?
Step 2: “What ifs…..”
Best case scenario, when you look at these 2 lists, what does life and work look like if you are honouring your priority values and following your professional aspirations? Take away the “impossible” for this exercise and imagine that it’s all possible, i.e. dare to dream! This will expand your ideas. Ideally brainstorm this with a friend, trusted colleague or your coach.
By Steve Cashmore, Forth Capital
This is an area that needs so much investigation and a decision cannot be taken lightly. But we live in a different world and the pension regulator has now offered a freedom and choice! The issue is that the new UK pension freedom rules of defined contribution (personal pensions) have not been extended to the defined benefit world (company schemes).
So many factors now need to be considered…. Spouse’s options, Health, Lump Sum Death Benefits, Tax Free Cash (Pension Commencement Lump Sum), Financial Strength and Stability of the Employer, Flexibility of the Income, Inheritance, Investment control, etc etc etc.
Some company pension schemes only offer return of contributions in the event of a member's death before retirement. In my many years as an advisor I have seen many company schemes where this is the case… the worst I have seen was a company scheme that had a value of over £600,000 yet in the event of the members death before retirement his family would receive only return of his contributions approx £65,000 in this case… Explain that to your spouse or to your family!!
By Mark Routen, Forth Capital
Things are changing at HMRC, the changes are happening fast and they are certainly not in favour of the expat community. The Government in the UK inherited a vast black hole in the finances and this needs to be filled. They have approached this by arming HMRC to extract as much tax as possible together with running a very successful PR campaign calling into question the morals of those who act within the law to arrange their taxation affairs in an efficient way. They are trying to be seen as a type of Robin Hood taking from the rich and saving taxes for the poor.
This has been a very effective use of the politics of envy and the man in the street now sees the rich as a fair target. This goes further as to identify the rich - in people’s mind they use buzz words and unfortunately for expats the words Expat and Non Dom figure highly on this list.
The end result of this is that we are seeing creeping legislation, which starts off as a fairly mild restriction of allowances or increase in tax but then creeps up year after year until it becomes a real issue. They are already acting in three areas of attack which affect many expats: –
- Taxation of UK residential property owned by non-residents
- Restriction of pension tax relief and benefits
- Attacks on Non UK Domiciled individuals, both entering and leaving the UK.
