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About Us

Passionate about our work

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”
Confucius

Our mission is to deliver the most vivid, powerful and memorable development programmes that lead to worthwhile change.

We believe that a brilliant programme should be a fully immersive experience hitting the senses from every direction. Fun, challenging, personal, thought provoking, creative and stretching.
 
Our programmes are a powerful blend of projects, experiences, contemporary management/leadership thinking, reflection, feedback and expert coaching

We creatively use the outdoors to ensure full accessibility for everyone. The simplicity and majesty of natural environment creates a space where people can step back from the frenetic modern world to re-think and create their next steps.

We bring learning to life using projects that relate to real world examples. You see leadership and teamwork in action and use this for the basis of feedback. You understand the importance of team dynamics because you live and feel them in reality. We help relate these experiences to your context and most importantly create clear compelling actions that build great places of work.

Our People:

Howie Crook (Director) has over 20 years of experience in designing and delivering experiential development programmes. Started his career in outdoor education, his interest in business led him to focus on Organisational Development, Leadership and Graduate Development. He has lectured in Outdoor education at degree level and run national workshops in graduate development for the former Association of Graduate Recruiters.
Howie is a Master Practitioner of NLP, Qualified hypnotherapist, Gallup Strengths Coach, MBTI Practitioner  and holds MSc. (distinction) in Leadership.
More recently Howie has specialised in development programmes for the construction industry, particularly focusing on creating added value via account leadership and culture change.
Howie’s passion is to bring you the best possible programme that create change, added value and brilliant organisations to work in.
Steve Mitchell has been designing and delivering executive development, personal and team development and cultural change programmes since 1994. He holds a degree in psychology which continues to be a major area of interest for him. Steve works as our senior executive coach and is also a specialist in leadership development.
Steve also has extensive international management development experience, having worked on programmes at INSEAD in France. He has led programmes at IMD in Switzerland and frequently runs corporate retreats in the Alps.
Andrew Chaplin has gained considerable direct experience in industry as a manager and consultant across a wide number of industry sectors.
He enjoys working with clients to design and carry out programmes and processes which allow individuals to focus on delivering measurable business objectives and to develop individual and organisational effectiveness.
Andrew has a dynamic and creative style, while remaining focused at an individual level, he enjoys working with a coaching framework to generate commitment to action from programme participants.
Mark Taylor is an experienced facilitator and coach and has worked with graduates and senior team development. He likes to take a training approach with a longer and more integrated view.
After a decade of working for Impact Development Training Group as a consultant he decided he wanted to work differently and return to working for a small organisation.
Mark has a wide range of skills and has worked with graduates and senior teams. His recent work has included senior team development – high performing teams, coaching skills delivery and modular based graduate development. Clients he has worked with in the past include Royal Bank of Scotland, British Telecom, Environment Agency, Merck Sharp and dHome, NHS, and Sony.
He believes it is important to maintain a balance between work and other parts of his life – ‘We should aspire to a sense of human being not human doing’. A priority is spending quality time with his partner Helen. He still pursues his interest in windsurfing and sailing when time allows.
Jane Dalton began her career in 1990 in the corporate division of HSBC, firstly as a business account manager and then assessing applications for venture capital investment.
Since 1998 Jane has worked in management development working with people of all levels in a range of client organisations in the UK and worldwide. Jane’s roles have included consultancy, client management, training design and delivery on programmes such as modular management development programmes, coaching, leadership, team development, influencing skills, creativity and innovation, culture change, business simulations and assessment centres.
Ragnar Speicher has been working as a performance coach in Germany and as a UK based facilitator across Europe and Asia since 2006. He has designed and delivered programmes around performance management, communication skills, performance coaching, high performing teams and leadership development for clients from across sectors, such as engineering, financial, governmental, construction, and marketing.
Ragnar graduated with a first class MA in Communication sciences and specialises on developing effective communication and building strong relationships. He was also awarded a first class Diploma in European studies (Aston University, Birmingham, UK). His non-academic certifications includes:

  • Transactional Analysis 101
  • Myers Briggs Type Indicator Practitioner (CAPT)
  • Emotional Intelligence Practitioner (JCA)
  • Diploma in Ericksonian Hypnotherapy
  • Coaching Managers to Coach (Institute of Leadership & Management)
Lou Hinson has been working in the field of learning and development for almost 20 years. She has a wide breadth of experience to draw upon having worked in a variety of sales, management, coaching and training roles in both the pharmaceutical a hotel and leisure industries. This includes over 10 years of expertise developed whilst working within GlaxoSmithKline.
Louise is passionate about enabling people to envision and reach their potential both in their personal and professional lives. She is a highly skilled trainer / facilitator having designed and delivered a wide range of bespoke experiential workshops based on specific client needs. In addition Louise thrives on 1:1 coaching interventions and the opportunity to see individuals grow and develop for themselves with her support and encouragement.
Louise has a degree in Medical Biochemistry and is a qualified coach and NLP Master Practitioner.
Kieran Cheetham With a masters degree in Physics and a PhD in optoelectronics, Kieran is our technical wizard! He is also a certified Microsoft Office Specialist.
Kieran allows us to run live web projects fully integrating social networking media such as Facebook, Linked-in, Twitter and other media such as YouTube. This opens up possibilities of publishing to the web, providing long-lasting business benefits.