Morgan PR learns some meditation to quieten the mind at The Ammerdown Centre

Personal development is absolutely key to success in business and one of my favourite quotes from Jim Rohn is: "Learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job", and it was these wise words which led me to the Ammerdown Centre this weekend to learn about 'Meditation - to quieten the mind'.

I first encountered meditation in Thailand almost 20 years ago and dabbled some more at the Perth Meditation Centre in Subiaco, Perth, Western Australia in 2002 and Morgan PR has even written about local meditation in a variety of articles.

However, there is a big difference between a class or writing an article and immersing yourself for a long weekend with the guidance of a talented teacher such as John Preston, who was taking the weekend's course.

John worked for many years as a senior social services manager, counsellor and lecturer in adult education. Then he spent five years training as a monk at a Buddhist meditation monastery and returning to lay-life he now traches meditation as an entirely secular practice promoting personal growth.

Over the weekend our small class learned different techniques which began with basic calming through to techniques to help you concentrate and cut out the chatter that charges in to interrupt novices such as myself.

We also looked at Mindfulness, which is all about the development of awareness. You can try this at home - just try and focus on something as simple as brushing your teeth, totally - or mindfully. Think of nothing else, only what you are doing, how it feels. I can manage about six seconds before my mind interrupts and exclaims: "I'm being mindful" and of course I am no longer focused.

Part of the course involved learning about Vipassana, which is more awareness mediation rather than the concentration approach previously mentioned. In practical terms this was about accepting the myriad of thoughts your mind throws up and letting them pass by without indulging in more detailed thought. That is simplistic, but it was powerful stuff.

We watched a video showing how Vipassanna was used with one of the largest prisons in India. It was quite remarkable to see the difference it had on inmates, many of whom were still on remand awaiting charges after several years. This involved a 10 day silent retreat within the prison and involved some heavyweight meditation with apparently remarkable results. Apparently it has been tried in the UK too but Google isn't giving that one up yet.

Also worthy of a mention in dispatches was fellow student Jo, who runs Yogology, the superbly named website for her Yoga and Kinesiology classes she runs near Bath. She is also a Reiki practitioner.

It was an excellent and rewarding weekend. Ammerdown is a really peaceful location and well suited to the course I was on. Praise indeed must go to John Preston who deftly handled a mixture of motivations among those of us attending the course.

Something he said on the first evening has stuck with me: "Meditation is not about achieving a state of relaxation; it is about accessing the calm already within."

'Skies' by Giles Penfound at New Greenham Arts, 3 July - 1 August 2008

'Skies' is the stunning new exhibition by local award-winning photographer Giles Penfound and Morgan PR was lucky enough to be at the opening of the show at New Greenham Arts at New Greenham Park near Newbury this evening.

Giles has taken photographs for Morgan PR many times now and we are always delighted with the results - and hasten to add the clients are inevitably blown away too!

With commercial jobs delivered to such a high spec it is easy to forget that Giles is so much more and the myriad of sky shots, taken by simply looking up above Newbury and seeing things that we all take for granted, prove just how talented this photographer truly is.

It is testimony to how powerful these images are that they still work when resolved into pixels on a computer screen; you can see many of the Skies images on Giles Penfound's website.

Sheepdrove Eco-Conference Centre proves perfect for Morgan PR planning

Much as brilliant public relations does not happen by accident, neither does the burgeoning success that Morgan PR is enjoying. Both take more than a little careful planning and we took the day out today to do just that - plan.

More specifically the next 90 days. Those familiar with the world's number one business coaching company ActionCoach will know that the concept of breaking down your goals into 90 day segments is an essential first step to achieving not only your annual goals, but those more distant five, 10 and even 15 year goals (yep, we have them all!).

So with phones diverted to Verbatim, the premier call handling service that we use, we heading across to the Sheepdrove Eco-Conference Centre near Lambourn to spend a day plotting immediate future of Morgan PR.

We had opted for a surely unique conference facility - The Rook's Nest, which is a round room within the red coloured tower pictured above and it is kitted out with sumptious sheepskin bean bags that somehow prove adept at getting the creative juices flowing.

Although after a sumptious lunch bursting with flavour and all sourced from Sheepdrove's organic farm, the bean bags were tempting for a less productive snooze. However, no such option was allowed for we were joined by our business coach, Sally Rainbow-Ockwell for the second half of the day, offering her considerable expertise to test our plans for the future and hone them to more aspirational and yet achievable outcomes.

Sally is pictured below with Diane from Morgan PR clearly thrilled with the tremendous targets we have set ourselves! That or the comfort of those bean bags!

Talking PR with leading chartered building surveyors Easton Bevins

Morgan PR provides public relations and web services to Chartered Building Surveyors Easton Bevins and has done for almost a year now; so it was a delight to be given the opportunity to address the whole company earlier today at a team training day.

How many businesses would have the courage and foresight to take the entire staff - and I mean everyone - for an away day? Easton Bevins had closed its offices in Bristol, Cheltenham, Swindon and Newbury and brough everyone to the Tortworth Court Hotel and just speaking in the morning it was clear how much of a team atmosphere there was and how comfortable everyone felt with one another. I mean Morgan PR is doing much the same later this week, but there were 30 there from Easton Bevins, there'll be a few less at our team day at Sheepdrove on Thursday.

We were talking about the importance of good public relations and the contribution that the team at Easton Bevins can make by helping to identify the stories and opportunities that they will be encountering simply by delivering their professional services.

We also spoke about how successful the flooding advice website Floodadvice.org had been and that traffic had spiked recently when we had more localised flooding, showing it still has relevance.

There was some lively discussion over blogging with quite a few people in the room curious as to how it would work for a company like theirs. Where to start? With such a big and geographically and professionally diverse team they could spread the challenge of maintaining a blog, allocate people to their specialisms and very quickly would create a context rich database of article that Google would rush to.

The speaker before Morgan PR was talking about sustainability, which did instill some guilt at stomping a ruddy great carbon footprint on the 130 mile round trip to the venue. However, on the bright side, looking at the Fair Shares Fair Choice website we were directed to, it would seem my own footprint is already respectably low - even I 'must try harder'.

Learning about business with ActionCoach

Morgan PR's involvement with ActionCoach began at the Regency Park Hotel in Thatcham in October 2005, when I attended a seminar to write a feature about the business coaching company; last night I was back there for the 2008 equivalent, only this time I was introducing the speaker, Sally Rainbow-Ockwell.

It was really good to have the opportunity to talk about the help she has given us to a group of people who are exploring the potential of business coaching; not least as I recall the bubbling cynicism that I bathed in the first time I encountered the group. Oh how times change!

We had over 20 people at the event and there was an element of 'Newbury Business Group at Large' with quite a few delegates coming from Newbury's foremost networking group. Ever the professional networkers though they neatly spread themselves around the room.

Robin Winnett from Kaizen Systems, Suzanne Goodland from Integrating HR, Karen Chapple from Irun Solutions, David Lewis from Dontex Systems, Michelle Lucas from Greenfields Consultancy, Carl Wheatley from The Bridge and Kate Taylor from The Virtual Business Team were NBG members at the seminar. Also there with Morgan PR clients Inspiration Architects and Proport Eco-Sevice's Antony Straszewski was there too, and you'll recognise that name from this entry in last week's blog

Among the other businesses we know were Kevin Rayner and Ali Rayner from Rayner Diesel, Tracy Clements from Strategic Office Services, Graham Chapple and Darren Boyce from Applinet and Donna Byatt from Why Not Jewellery.

It proved a lively seminar - which is testimony to Sally's skills as a presenter because the hotel's air conditioning was faulty and we had been encouraged to 'open the windows'; it left the room stuffy and sticky on a humid evening!

Plenty of the group have taken the opportunity to book an appointment with Sally in the near future... which would be the next step on a remarkable journey.