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 Dr Graham Brown, Forth Capital
In my last blog I discussed the importance of the Lifetime Allowance in pension valuations. Now I will take a look at Lifetime Allowance Protection.
The concept of Lifetime Allowance and subsequent protection was introduced after ‘A’ Day in 2006. At this point, it was possible to apply for protection against a potential lifetime allowance charge. If you applied successsfully, you will have received a certificate from HM Revenue & Customs. If you have enhanced and primary protection you will have only one certificate. Enhanced protection will apply unless it is revoked or lost; however, it is no longer possible to apply for enhanced or primary protection. The advantage of this protection is that you will be able to crystallise your pension by moving to a Recognised Overseas Pensions Scheme (ROPS) without paying any Lifetime Allowance Charge. This is a substantial benefit for large pensions.
By Tara Lissner, Swiss Gardening School
We are putting the final touches to our autumn course timetable and are gently adding them to the website as details and locations are confirmed. This year we will launch a series of two-hour workshops at off-site locations beginning with "Designing with grasses" at the wonderful nursery Roussillon Fleurs in Meyrin later this month.
After a lovely long summer break I’m back to everything; back to school for the kids, back to early mornings for me, back to the overgrown and somewhat scorched garden and back to being alone in the morning when I can catch up on everything I didn’t get around to this summer. Sound familiar?
Summer brings with it so many distractions from the garden, holidays to take, guests to host, places to visit, people to see, meals to share. Short of harvesting the bounty from the garden this summer I managed to avoid doing much more than a lot of watering and a little weeding; the incredible and seemingly unending heat did not encourage me either. But now with September upon us and a most distinctive autumnal feel to the early dark mornings reality has set in – it’s back to work.
One of the traditional barriers faced at international schools is that of community integration and student-community engagement. The schools are fantastic centres of learning for students of all cultures and nationalities, but typically, these learning environments have been very self-centric. Services used by the students and their parents are often available on the school site, and with lots of young people to mix with at the school too, this has often led to international schools becoming quite isolated. Students often only mix with staff, other students and their families, and parents tend to socialise with each other. While this is a supportive and safe environment, it also presents issues with the wider community. Are these schools doing enough to integrate with local people?
By Hiba Giacoletto, Healthwise
If you are looking for a latte that is free of dairy, soy and refined sugar, you can make it yourself in just a few minutes.
Almond Spice Latte uses a lazy version of almond milk made by blending almond butter made only from ground almonds with water. To that I add some sweet spices and a little maple syrup to sweeten. You can also make a plainer version with just the almond butter, water and coffee or even replace the water for almond milk. The blending action helps create the froth that feels quite latte-like.
Simply combine all the ingredients below and blend, then serve immediately!
By Debbie Croft, Croft Coaching
This is the first in a series of blogs, which looks at the juggling act between working professionally and becoming a parent. Accompanying the transition to parenthood requires a change in assumptions, beliefs, behaviour and motivations on the part of the parents concerned.
For a woman, it is probably one of the most challenging and exciting transitions; amplified by a great deal of mental and physical changes and unknowns, with associated fears; especially with the 1st child.
Fathers however, are often overlooked during this transition period; despite their conflicting desires to spend more time with family, whilst upholding professional aspirations. So, in Part 1 of this blog, I am going to start with how Fathers can better balance parenthood and professional work.
