Month: October 2011

Kickboxing: outstanding all-round exercise

Emma

kickboxing is a relatively new martial art that was developed from older and more complex styles by American soldiers who came into contact with them in the East. The kind of kickboxing London clubs teach is quite different to these martial arts (such as karate) in a number of respects, though of course it draws heavily on them for its techniques. The kind of kickboxing club you will find here will typically offer a range of benefits. Learning the particular style of kickboxing they teach is one; this will usually be far less complex than traditional martial arts, because it is streamlined or adapted for competition and sparring. Therefore you will not need the complex patterns or kata characteristic of karate, kung fu, and so on.

However, people don’t just go to kickboxing classes to compete. Many people go to learn it as a method of self-defence. As well as the kicks, punches, blocks, stance and footwork you’ll learn as part of the kickboxing syllabus, you will probably also be taught techniques useful in specific self-defence situations, such as body grabs and strangles. These are taken from other styles, but incorporated into the sessions since self-defence is one of the most common reasons people learn a martial art.

Then, of course, kickboxing is great exercise. It’s good for stamina, speed, strength and agility, since all are required in the course of sparring. High aerobic and anaerobic fitness are ideal, and the drills you will do aim to improve both. You will also develop better flexibility. This makes it a fantastic all-round form of exercise, in a way that usually isn’t found without cross training. Few other sports offer this.

Finally, kickboxing is a good way of meeting people. It’s an inherently social activity, even if you are learning to punch and kick your new friends along the way. A kickboxing club offers a controlled environment to study a martial art, and you will meet lots of like-minded people along the way, enjoying a great atmosphere as you learn kickboxing. London has many different clubs, each offering different styles and emphases, but this is usually a constant. The benefits of learning kickboxing therefore go far beyond sparring, or gaining confidence in self-defence. It can be a highly engaging and addictive past-time, and one that is tremendously rewarding.

Please visit http://www.zendokickboxing.com/ for further information about this topic.

http://www.zendokickboxing.com/

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Accounts payable audit will save you big money

Stuart

An accounts payable audit is a way of trawling your accounts records and finding out where the mistakes have occurred in the past – and, as a result, where they are likely to crop up in the future. Needless to say, errors of any kind in your accounts are a mistake you can’t afford to make – especially at the moment, in times of economic uncertainty. One of the most common problems is duplicate payments – paying the same individual or organisation twice for one invoice. This could be down to human error, but it can also happen more deliberately. This is another purpose of recovery audit software: to prevent fraud and recoup money you have lost unnecessarily, whether through genuine mistake or through dishonest exploitation of the weaknesses in your system.

Estimates vary for the amount of money wasted by the average business on unnecessary payments, but it often comes out between 0.1 percent and 0.5 percent – that is, between one and 5 invoices per thousand. Needless to say, this can represent a significant proportion of turnover. An examination of three years’ worth of accounts for many organisations can reveal discrepancies that run into three figures. The problem is that the average invoice has so many data fields that it is very easy to enter data inaccurately. In fact, auditors have found that errors of this type occur in the accounts for every single business whose accounts they have examined.

Depending on the size of your business, accounts errors could be costing you hundreds or thousands of pounds every month, if not more. That means that recovery audit software could net you tens of thousands of pounds back in bad payments. Even if the figure is lower, it is likely to pay for itself the first time you ever use it, and continue to earn its keep in the months and years to come.

Such recovery audit software therefore promises a fantastic return on investment and allows some peace of mind from the problems that human error inevitably brings. Although it is probably impossible to eradicate duplicate payments altogether, an accounts payable audit will go a long way towards this goal. In an economic downturn or period of poor growth, every method of saving money should be investigated. If checking your accounts can find the money you would have saved by making redundancies, then this has got to be a preferable option.

Please visit http://www.fiscaltechnologies.com/ for further information about this topic.

http://www.fiscaltechnologies.com/

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ICT infrastructure upgrades for higher quality access to broadband

Jo

The internet has long been hailed as an inclusive and democratising resource proffering a staggering supply of information and useful services. However, many people still feel left out of the so-called age of information by the singular fact of living in a community where high-speed web connections are harder to obtain. Good news is on the way, however, as certain companies are getting behind ICT infrastructure developments that aim to bring an end to these unjust circumstances. Investments are being made, for example, in creative upgrades and corporate outsourcing drives that will help rural estates integrate into the online world through next generation access and community broadband set-ups.

We often hear the term ‘online community’ these days in reference to social networks created between friends, acquaintances and fellow professionals in the virtual realm. Evidently these networks can serve us well, particularly when they make organizing events and meetings or sharing documents or articles easier. For some time, rural inhabitants have experienced difficulties in reaping the benefits of such web-based communities, though they may have counterbalanced their technological lack by strengthening connections and communications in the physical realm. More and more, however, rural estates are having it both ways thanks to the success of community broadband: they are finding themselves in a position enabling them to maintain the strong contacts they have cultivated locally through slower means, as well as gaining in the online stakes. It really is a win-win situation.

Community broadband projects thus have a social as well as a professional function. Moreover, next generation access works to answer the requirements of both households, who may want to save time and resources by carrying out everyday tasks such as shopping and paying bills online, and businesses whose expansion and success has become unavoidably dependent on taking advantage of their presence on the internet. That is why ICT infrastructure upgrades represent such a serious and significant undertaking. Indeed, a great number of local councils are showing their support for the companies investing in improvements to internet access. In the north of the UK, in areas such as the South Yorkshire towns and cities of Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham and Doncaster in particular, many business centres and science parks actually count on the technological innovations making broadband better: their very survival depends on the advantages that are sometimes only accessible online.

Please visit http://www.broadbandvantage.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

http://www.broadbandvantage.co.uk/

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Graduate scheme ideas delivered by the leading professionals

Emma

Making the transition from university to the world of work can be extremely hard. First of all, it seems to require those in their final year or recently graduated to know exactly what they want to do in professional life. Some courses lend themselves in a very straightforward fashion to certain career paths: medicine and law are just two examples taken from the academic realm, while vocational courses tend to be even more job-oriented. However, a number of other degree options are far less suggestive of a particular direction to follow after graduation – take history, theology, and philosophy for instance. In one sense, students graduating from the latter category of humanities subjects have an advantage: they have greater freedom to choose which graduate jobs or graduate scheme they will look for. In another sense, the humanities students are unfortunate: such is their flexibility that they often find themselves caught up in the complex situation of indecision and internship schemes.

The internship culture has a negative press. In the worst case studies, bright young graduates positively brimming with ideas are taken on by a business that exploits them; using them for only the most basic tasks such as archiving press and opening mail. Obviously, these internships are to be avoided. But how do graduates know to steer clear of such bad practices? What they absolutely have to remember is to do their research. Careers websites will often supply descriptions and insider analyses of internship programmes and as a rule, the more established the employer, the less likely graduates are to find themselves being used for cheap or free services.

An even more certain way to avoid exploitation on the job or internship market is to apply for graduate jobs or a graduate scheme that pays a competitive starting salary. Careers services online tend to be comprised of a large number of recruiters from lucrative fields such as law, consultancy, advertising and retail. The better websites will not confine themselves in such a way though and may offer details of opportunities in publishing, charity, not-for-profit and the public sector. And, if the amount of choice is just too vast and overwhelming, the very best careers sites allow graduates to complete psychometric tests and receive news of recruitment events so that the whole affair becomes more personal.

Please visit http://www.careerplayer.com/ for further information about this topic.

http://www.careerplayer.com/

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