Luke Power will move straight into a full-time coaching position with Greater Western Sydney, having announced his retirement after a decorated 302-game AFL career.

Power spent 14 season with Brisbane - and was a member of their 2001-03 triple premiership-winning outfits - before joining GWS for their debut season in 2012.

The 32-year-old midfielder played 20 games for the Giants this year, while sharing the captaincy duties with Callan Ward and Phil Davis and acting as an assistant coach.

That assistant coaching role will now become a fulltime one in 2013.

"A year ago when I retired from the Brisbane Lions I probably wasn't equipped to go into a role in coaching or in football," said Power.

"Under the tutelage of a lot of people this year I've learned a lot about the game, a lot about myself and about teaching young players.

"I'm looking forward to getting into the next stage of my life."

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Enter our Unbreakable Toyota Hilux competition and you and a friend will be at the biggest game of the year and you will toss the coin before the opening bounce.

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Power turns to coaching

STA mentor Salvacion grateful to be back on field

September 17, 2012 6:25 PM

Two of Dave Salvacion's biggest loves in life are coaching soccer and officiating lacrosse. It takes something serious for him to leave the field in the middle of a game.

Having a stroke qualifies.

The symptoms surfaced during a girls lacrosse game he was working on May 14 in Portsmouth between the Clippers and Bishop Guertin.

"It happened at halftime," Salvacion said. "Everything was tilted sideways. I told my partner something was wrong. I started the second half. I tried to follow the ball, but everything just went sideways."

And his world was about to be turned upside down.

"I called time-out," he said, "and I promptly threw up at the scorer's table. That's basically the last thing I remember other than waking up the following Saturday after my surgeries and getting my last rites. That's how close I was."

According to Salvacion, a blood clot had formed near his heart and traveled to his brain, damaging the part of the brain that controls balance.

"I didn't suspect I was having a stroke," he said. "They said I was lucky it didn't go into my lungs. That would have stopped me dead in my tracks and there would have been no chance."

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After stroke, a new outlook for soccer coach

One of the most challenging things for life science and healthcare entrepreneurs is developing a compelling presentation that will wow investors and motivate them to invest in their companies.

But there are a lot of components to that pitch that entrepreneurs may not even have considered. And what about the investor questions? How would you handle a provocative question from an investor that seems to diminish your work? A flash of anger and you may lose even the potential investors who believe in what youre doing.

Mid Atlantic Diamond Ventures, an entrepreneurship advisory and venture forum program, is affiliated with Temple Universitys Fox School of Business. It runs a coaching program that seeks to get startups to the golden chalice: a second meeting with investors.

In addition to a second meeting another goal of the program is to get entrepreneurs hardwired into the entrepreneur ecosystem.

The coaching process we use is a scrub process, said Lucas. For scrub sessions, entrepreneurs come in with an investment pitch, half of the board [from Mid Atlantic Diamond Ventures] will be in the room to provide feedback on presentations. Investors include entrepreneurs across life science technology, marketing, engineering so they are getting rich, well-rounded feedback.

Its a tough love approach. Entrepreneurs might hear, Weve seen this before and it doesnt work. Go back and take a different approach.

The program has four pitching events each year with presentations from eight to 10 companies across IT, life science, and physical science the next forum is scheduled for September 21.

One goal of this program is to get them a second meeting so can do a deeper dive into [their service or product] but another goal is to help them build contacts, build a customer pipeline, guide them through the grant process, help them find a manufacturer if they need one, Lucas said.

Even serial entrepreneurs sometimes neglect or cast aside advice they receive from the coaching program and that can come back to haunt them. Among those potential pitfalls are providing a valuation too soon, not doing enough market research on needs of customers, and blurting out your intellectual property or failing to present complex concept in terms that non-insiders can understand.

Originally co-founded as Diamond State Ventures in 2003 in Newark, Delaware, the investor forum was was acquired by Temple Universitys Fox School of Business in 2006.

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Coaching program for startups seeks to get companies hotwired into entrepreneur ecosystem

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr-3SROXy20

17-09-2012 05:49 Online degrees, accelerated, affordable, fitness training, health and fitness, nutrition and exercise and sport psychology. fitness degree online, personal training degree, health and fitness degrees, sport psychology degrees

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Wexford University Health, Fitness, Nutrition Degrees - Video

(PRWEB) September 18, 2012

U.S. and international students who want to get an early start on their New Years resolutions can now register for online classes in health, fitness, nutrition, exercise and sports psychology at Wexford University; winter session online college classes begin Jan. 7, 2013. The 100 percent online university offers associate through doctoral programs with self-directed learning and flexible scheduling.

In addition, foreign students can complete international degree programs with an easy online credit transfer process, and all military personnel can enjoy a 15 percent discount on their health, fitness and wellness education through Wexford University online. Likewise, both U.S. and international students receive a 10 percent education when tuition is paid in full up front.

Online registration for degrees in fitness training, health and fitness, nutrition and sports psychology is now available at http://wexford.edu/. Innovative online classes run through mid-March, and spring, summer and fall online college sessions are also available in 2013.

Starting out the year with a flexible online education is a great way to launch both the year and a career in health and wellness, said Jack Bauerle, Chancellor of Wexford University. Wexfords real-world education can help people find lucrative careers in the growing health and fitness field, and our students can enjoy a convenient, affordable, self-paced education process.

Wexford Universitys online degree programs include the following options: associate of arts degree in Fitness Training, bachelor of science degree in Health and Fitness, master of science degree in Nutrition and Exercise, master of arts in Applied Sports Psychology and a doctorate degree in Applied Sports Psychology.

Interested students can complete an online application at http://wexford.edu/.

About Wexford University Wexford University is dedicated to providing world-class education through cutting-edge technology, offering direct application degree programs in an accelerated format with 100 percent online learning to save time and money. Programs include an associate of arts degree in Fitness Training, bachelors degree in Health and Fitness, masters degree in Nutrition and Exercise as well as masters degree and doctorate degree in Applied Sport Psychology. Wexford University is the higher education division of NESTA (National Exercise & Sports Trainers Association). For more information, please visit http://wexford.edu/.

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Wexford University Now Accepting Applications for January Classes in Fitness, Nutrition and Sport Psychology for U.S ...

There are quite a few last minute touches being put on the new Choice Health and Fitness Center. A Grand Opening Celebration will be held Monday and health officials are hoping to have everything done before that day.

There is plenty of work going on including pouring concrete for sidewalks, cleaning up the parking lot and laying sod before next week. And there's much more happening inside the nearly $24 million facility. More than $27 million was raised with $3.5 million going to the YMCA Family Center for updates and renovations.

Workers are finishing up locker rooms, steam rooms, tiling and one of the final areas to be finished up will be the tennis area which still needs curtains and nets hung up. Fitness officials say the nice weather has construction ahead of schedule. The facility was originally going to open more than a month from now. Work will continue on the 42 acres of land surrounding the facility which will have six outdoor tennis courts, a splash park and possibly a greenhouse and orchard next spring.

The Grand Opening which is open to the the public will be Monday, September 24th from 3:30 to 7 p.m.

Tags: reporter stories,lezlie johnson,choice health and fitness,news,updates

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Choice Health and Fitness Center to Open Next Week

Home business Two leading fitness firms in good health

Watchiranont Thongtep The Nation September 18, 2012 1:00 am

Fitness First (Thailand) has earmarked Bt1.5 billion to establish 15 new clubs within the next five years, while True Fitness plans to invest more than Bt360 million for four new branches next year.

Thailand is a fast-growing market for the UK-based Fitness First group in terms of profits and branch expansion despite the global economic downturn, said Mark Buchanan, managing director of the Thai unit.

He said the company was looking at setting up small clubs of about 1,000-1,500 square metres, targeting small communities in high-density areas of Bangkok with easy access to the mass-transit system. Currently, Fitness First clubs average 3,000sqm. The new type of club will also be seen in the provinces.

The company aims to see a return on each new project within four years. This year, it projects revenue growth of 10-15 per cent to Bt1.5 billion from the 23 clubs it operates currently. This will help the company enjoy a 40-per-cent surge in profit.

Buchanan said there was more room to grow in the fitness business in the Kingdom as only 2 per cent of the population use such a service.

"We believe we can create more than 50 jobs for each club and also support sports-science education," he said.

The company employs about 1,200 people, 70-75 per cent of whom are fitness instructors with full international certification.

Next year, True Fitness plans to facelift its six clubs in Thailand with an investment of Bt180 million. Founder and chief executive officer Patrick Wee said the company had 30 centres across the region, in Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, mainland China and Thailand. It aims to expand to 50 centres in the region within five years.

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Two leading fitness firms in good health

When we're laying the groundwork for our retirement plans, many of us spend hours noodling on optimal asset allocations, withdrawal rates, and income-replacement rates.

But another metric tends to receive far less scrutiny even though it's a far bigger determinant of whether we can retire when and how we'd like to: how much of our income we're able to save while we're working.

I recently surveyed Morningstar.com users about their own savings rates. Posting in the Investing During Retirement forum of Morningstar.com's Discuss forums, I asked readers if they had stuck with the old rule of thumb and saved 10% of their salaries, or if they had nudged their own savings rates higher. I also asked them whether in hindsight their savings rate was too high, too low, or just about right?

Responses, not surprisingly, ran the gamut, and many posters noted that they hadn't saved a fixed percentage throughout their pre-retirement years. Rather, many readers said that they saved somewhat half-heartedly in their younger years, then kicked up their savings rate aggressively when they started to get "real" about retirement, often in their 40s and 50s. "I wish I had started saving more aggressively earlier on!"--or some variation of that statement--was a frequently echoed refrain. To read the complete thread or share your own retirement-savings rate, click here.

'I Have Been Making Up for Lost Time'Although some readers advocated for a flat savings rate, many posters noted that their savings rate trended up as they aged, no doubt the result of a confluence of factors, including higher absolute levels of income, which makes it easier to save, and a greater sense of urgency about retirement, which naturally increases as we age.

The savings pattern laid out by Keith999, who expects to embark on a financially secure retirement soon, will ring true for many investors. "In my 20s I spent, in my 30s I spent more, then in my 40s began saving about 6% of salary, early 50s about 12%, and the last 10 years I/we saved 20% of two salaries. The last 10 years probably represent over 50% of the total saved and indeed has put us over the top of what we need."

ColonelDan's savings rate moved up in stairstep fashion: "I managed to save/invest 5%-10% of my early meager military pay; 10%-15% of military pay in the latter half of those 24 years; 20%-25% of my regular civilian salary plus 100% 401(k) catch-up amount, 100% employer's 401(k) match, and 100% of all bonuses."

Cterry notes that increasing one's savings rate as retirement approaches can have the salutary effect of preparing a pre-retiree to live on a lower income during retirement. "The advantage to ramping up savings so much in the nine years before I retired was that I didn't have to worry about 'Some advisors recommend 90%-100% of current income for retirement--do I need that much?' because I already was living on 70% of my gross."

Playing catch-up is the name of the game for many pre-retirees. For FidlStix, running the numbers on in-retirement income needs was a wake-up call. "About eight years ago I did my first estimate of how much income I might need during retirement. That was a shocker. I was 10s of thousands [of dollars] behind where I needed to be at that point. Since then, I have been making up for lost time. I jumped my percentage of salary saved to 22% including a 5% company match. I also started a Roth IRA five years ago, contributing about 10% additional on average. My total saved this year will be about 38% counting the Roth."

'I Was Finally Able to Really Do Some Saving'Family matters also figured heavily into many posters' savings-rate patterns. Not surprisingly, many readers noted that helping to defray college costs for their children had put a strain on their savings, but with college over, they were able to sock much more away. Juris2 wrote, "I've saved a bit more since my kids ended college in 2003 when I started a supplemental retirement account (SRA). I'm currently putting about 25% per year in my retirement account and SRA combined, including employer contribution, as I approach retirement in two years. (Almost all savings accumulated beyond the RA and SRA were wiped out by college costs for my kids.)"

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How much did you save for retirement?

Most of us could always stand to put a few more bucks into our retirement accounts. After a decade of lackluster returns for stocks during the 2000s, you may well have a lot of catching up to do in saving for retirement, and even the raging bull market of the past three-and-a-half years hasn't brought major market averages back to their pre-financial crisis levels. Given that Social Security is under siege and company pensions are rapidly becoming a thing of the past, what you save for yourself is definitely the most reliable source of funds you can count on after you retire.

Yet there's an even bigger reason that now is the best time to start finding ways to funnel more money into tax-favored retirement accounts like 401(k) accounts and IRAs. With the looming fiscal cliff just months away, the incidental tax benefits that retirement accounts provide could get a whole lot more valuable.

The worst-case scenarioWithout government action, a whole bunch of bad things are about to happen to your taxes. Let's take a look at the three basic categories of higher taxes that you may face:

1. Higher taxes on ordinary income are coming.Without a tax law change, income tax brackets across the board are going to go up. Although most of the attention has focused on the impact on the rich of higher brackets, the changes could potentially affect anyone who pays tax.

At the beginning of 2013, current law provides for the lowest existing tax bracket of 10% to go away, reverting to 15%. That could add $870 to the tax bill of married couples with incomes roughly in the $20,000 to $70,000 range. And obviously, adding three percentage points to the current 25%, 28%, and 33% tax brackets would produce a big hit on higher-income taxpayers as well. Although both parties have talked about agreeing to the need to renew tax breaks on low- and middle-income taxpayers, it hasn't happened yet.

The more you put in a deductible IRA or 401(k), the less taxable income you'll have. With tax rates rising, the savings you'll get from contributing to a retirement account will also increase.

2. Higher taxes on investment income are coming.The elimination of tax breaks on dividend income and the rise in long-term capital gains rates, while investment focused, will be costly for many taxpayers. Right now, those in the 10% and 15% brackets pay nothing in tax on qualified dividends, but that will rise to 15% in 2013 with no changes to current law. Those in higher brackets will lose the 15% limitation and pay whatever their higher rate is, up to 39.6%. That will eliminate the current penalty that investors in non-qualified dividend payers, including mortgage REITs Annaly Capital (NYSE: NLY) and American Capital Agency (Nasdaq: AGNC) , have to pay -- but only by raising the rest of the playing field to match the higher rate.

For years, dividend stocks have attracted new capital. But the new rules will make it more important than ever to shelter dividend income inside a retirement account. In particular, on high-yielding stocks Frontier Communications (Nasdaq: FTR) and Windstream (Nasdaq: WIN) , which have yields of 8% to 10% and whose dividends are generally eligible for lower tax rates, you could end up paying more than two-and-a-half times as much in taxes as you do now in a regular account. In an IRA, by contrast, you'll save more of your hard-earned money and let it work harder for you during your career.

3. Excess taxes for high-income taxpayers are coming.In addition to old tax law coming back to bite taxpayers, new increases are also on their way. Medicare withholding will rise by 0.9% once wages rise above certain limits -- $200,000 for most singles and $250,000 for joint-filing taxpayers. Also, a 3.8% surtax on investment income will apply to high-income taxpayers, making it that much more important to get high-yielding dividend stocks under cover of a tax-favored retirement account.

Get your money protectedTo reduce your taxable income and therefore your tax bill, IRA and 401(k) contributions are one of the most effective things you can do. The sooner you get money into those accounts, the better off you'll be -- and even if the fiscal cliff somehow gets fixed, you'll still have done a lot to make your retirement that much more secure.

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3 New Reasons to Beef Up Your Retirement Accounts

Dear Tax Talk, My husband and I are in our early to mid-70s. We have two children with special needs who are not self-sufficient. We have about $620,000 in a defined benefit plan, and we receive about $9,000 per month in pensions and Social Security, not including the defined benefit plan. The $9,000 will be reduced by about half when the first of us dies and will be about $3,000 when the remaining spouse dies.

We just moved to New York from California, where we sold a house that we bought for $300,000 in 1985. It sold for $2 million after closing costs. There was a $700,000 mortgage, leaving us with about $1.3 million. We know we have the $500,000 exclusion of gain, plus we put about $500,000 into remodels over the years, so our cost is $1.3 million. Our taxable gain will be $700,000, so we will be paying about $105,000 (15 percent) in federal taxes and $70,000 (10 percent) in California taxes. This leaves us with $1.1 million to buy a house in New York.

We want to buy an apartment that we will be happy in. We spend a lot of time at home and entertain a lot. If you can imagine, the apartments in Greenwich Village that we love are not very nice in the $1 million range. So our business manager suggested we put a small amount into a mortgage, so we can afford $1.3 million, a price at which we would be able to find something we like.

I am an actor, well thought of, and my husband is a playwright whose play is being done on Broadway this year with a major star, so he will probably make about $1 million before taxes. We have made very little over the past 10 years, but we love it here in New York and are doing well. But I am not making any money.

In addition to a house, my greatest concern is my kids. I think the apartment will be a good investment to leave for them, but also I feel we need second-to-die insurance and long-term care insurance. So I worry. Can you help? -- Margaret

Dear Margaret, The help to your question may very well reside in your question. Your business manager should be the person on top of planning for your children's future. If he can't do it, then he needs to find the right qualified professionals.

While second-to-die and long-term care insurance are great products, they're also best purchased at a younger age. These products also involve high commissions to the broker that sells them, obviously creating a conflict of interest in their recommendation. At this stage in your life, these products may not make economic sense for you or your dependent children.

If your husband is making up to $1 million this year from his play, you may want to consider additional contributions to the defined benefit plan. While an individual retirement account has an age limit for contributions, a defined benefit plan does not necessarily have to have an age limit.

With respect to the home sale, you have California taxes due on the sale. The same applies for New York and your husband's earnings. You may want to consider paying those taxes prior to the end of the year to make sure they're deductible. That is, anyone owing state income taxes should consider getting a prepayment in for the year to ensure the tax deduction.

Your CPA should prepare a tax projection to see what makes the most sense to pay to maximize your deductions and minimize any late-payment penalties. The projection should also be mindful of the alternative minimum tax. I hope this helps answer some of your concerns.

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Planning for retirement, special-needs children