DORSET, United Kingdom--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Jango Alptekin, founder and owner of Jango Health & Fitness, has established himself as a leading fitness, fat loss, and body transformation expert in the UK and has his sights set on dominating the South Coast with his tested and proven rapid fat loss formula. He is a Registered Exercise Professional and has been instrumental in helping scores of people lose a significant amount of weight in an astonishingly short period of time. His clients attribute their success to the Jango Formula and are very quick to bring others with them to the high energy, fun, and effective boot camps where participants are experiencing amazing results that they previously thought were unachievable. Jangos stated mission is to help people regain their confidence and self-esteem by helping them improve their body shape through correct nutrition and exercise.

Jangos business is built around helping his clients achieve rapid fat loss. He identifies his program as a last resort type program because people often come to him as a last resort after they have tried every fad diet, exercise DVDs, traditional gyms, and advertised trends. On his website he gives people as a free download, what he terms, Jargon Free Fat Loss Formula. He says, My formula gets straight to the point and teaches you how to recharge your body and get the health kick you need to lose the weight.

Jangos reputation is spreading internationally. He has recently been approached by a major resort in Portugal to discuss the possibility of offering weeklong fitness camps for individuals attending the resort. He also has his sights set on taking his brand to Turkey as well as dominating the South Coast of England. He will soon be releasing an at home training program for individuals who cannot make it to the local camp. This program will be available through an online membership site. Additionally, he has been featured on local radio and is often being mentioned by the local press. Because of his contribution to his industry and his outstanding business success, he is being featured as one of the World Fitness Elite in The Independent in the UK and in USA Today in America. Learn more about Jango and his business at http://www.jangohealthandfitness.co.uk.

Read More: http://www.jangohealthandfitness.co.uk/about-jango-health-fitness-personal-trainer-in-bournemouth-poole-dorset/

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Jango Alptekin - Body Transformation and Fitness Expert Achieves Dramatic Results For His Clients

retirement

Highlights

Financial Security Index Charts Retirement Savings Picture Improves A Tad

Americans have made some headway with their retirement savings after the last few disastrous years. Nearly one-fifth of Americans (18 percent) are saving more for retirement this year than last year, according to Bankrate's August Financial Security Index. When we asked this same question in 2011, 15 percent said they were saving more than the previous year -- not a significant difference.

But the same proportion of people, 18 percent, say they are saving less than they did last year. That's actually much better than last year, when 29 percent of Americans said they were contributing a smaller amount to retirement savings than the previous year.

"The fact that people have stopped saving less is good -- but are they saving enough? The data (are) showing, in aggregate, no," says Certified Financial Planner David Littell, co-director of the New York Life Center of Retirement Income and professor of taxation at The American College in Bryn Mawr, Pa.

The combined retirement income deficit for baby boomers and Generation Xers is estimated to be $4.3 trillion, according to a May 2012 report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute, or EBRI.

Ideally, people would increase retirement contributions every year, but they don't because it's very likely that most people have no idea how expensive 30 years of retirement will be.

According to a March 2012 report from EBRI, 56 percent of workers say they haven't calculated how much they need to save for retirement.

Calculating retirement income needs is the first step to establishing an effective retirement savings rate. It may be higher than you think, particularly if you're older than 30.

Read this article:
Retirement savings picture improves a tad

LONDON -- The last five years have been tough for those in retirement. Portfolio valuations have been hammered, and annuity rates have plunged. There's no sign things will improve anytime soon, either, as the eurozone and the U.K. economy look set to muddle through at best for some years to come.

A great way to protect yourself from the downturn, however, is to build your retirement fund with shares of large, well-run companies that should grow their earnings steadily over the coming decades. Over time, such investments ought to result in rising dividends and inflation-beating capital growth.

In this series, I'm tracking down the U.K. large caps that have the potential to beat the FTSE 100 over the long term and support a lower-risk, income-generating retirement fund (you can see all of the companies I've covered so far on this page).

Over the last week or so, I've looked at Standard Chartered (LSE: STAN.L) , Legal & General Group (LSE: LGEN.L) , Rio Tinto (LSE: RIO.L) , GlaxoSmithKline (LSE: GSK.L) , and SABMiller (LSE: SAB.L) . Let's take a look at how each of them scored against my five key retirement share criteria:

Criterion

Legal & General

Rio Tinto

GlaxoSmithKline

Standard Chartered

SABMiller

Originally posted here:
Are These the Ultimate Retirement Shares?

(MoneyWatch) Welcome back to my third post on retirement calculators, online tools that help you determine how much to save for retirement. My first post showed the wide range of contribution amounts that the different calculators might suggest for you, while my second post provided in-depth results about each calculator and identified two of my favorites.

This third post provides some tips for selecting and using calculators so you can determine just how much you should save for retirement, given your circumstances and just how much information you need to provide.

Retirement calculators can vary widely in the number of questions they'll ask you. In theory, the more questions a calculator asks, the more accurate the results will be. But any estimate is only as good as the assumptions you make, which can often turn out to be much different from your actual experience. For people who are a few decades away from retirement, I doubt if much accuracy is gained when you're asked a lot of questions about factors you can't control or don't know much about.

For example, some calculators ask for your input about future rates of inflation, rates of return on your retirement savings, your marginal income tax rates today and in the future, and so on. Now if you're an economist, financial advisor, or actuary, you might feel comfortable offering an answer to these questions -- you might even feel frustrated by a calculator that doesn't make it easy to input your own assumptions.

But most people's answer to these types of questions is, How the hell should I know? If this sounds like you, you might be more comfortable with a calculator that makes these assumptions for you. So look for a calculator that matches your level of interest in attention to detail.

Regardless of the level of detail in your retirement calculator, be sure to look for a calculator that shows its default assumptions and makes it easy to change these assumptions. With some calculators, that's difficult, and I'd avoid any calculators that make it hard to understand their assumptions.

Can you trust retirement calculators? What are the best retirement calculators?

You'll also see a wide range of sophistication in the results. Some simple calculators will just tell you how much to save, while others will give a range of estimates based on more complicated Monte Carlo analyses. In this latter case, you'll see the odds of success of different strategies. For instance, you might see a contribution strategy that gives you a 50 percent chance of success or a 90 percent chance of success, or some result between.

While a more detailed Monte Carlo analysis gives the appearance of increased sophistication, eventually you'll need to choose a specific amount to save. If you really want to be safe, you should save the amount that gives you a 90 percent chance of success, though it's likely that will require a boatload of savings. If you just want to get in the ballpark -- and you can make adjustments in your life as you age -- you might be comfortable using a 50 percent chance of success, though I wouldn't go any lower.

Because your results can vary based on the various assumptions the program makes, I'd suggest you use two or three different calculators and compare the results. If they produce different answers, it's probably not the case that one is wrong and one is right; each will use its own methodology and assumptions. Understand how each works so you can understand the reasons for the differences in output. Eventually you'll probably settle on a favorite calculator, which is fine, but you should do so only after you've initially made the effort to investigate a few others.

Excerpt from:
How to choose and use a retirement calculator

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Transamerica Retirement Services today announced the findings of the 2012 Gregory Group Plan Sponsor Survey, an annual study of retirement plan sponsors that identifies performance improvement opportunities for third party administrators (TPAs) of 401(k) plans. In a report published by Transamerica entitled Increasing Client Satisfaction in a Low-Margin World, the survey finds communication to be a leading driver of satisfaction for plan sponsors.

Among all factors influencing survey respondents perceptions of value delivered by their TPA, frequency of communication proved to be one of the most important. In general, plan sponsors who indicated they received more regular contact from their TPA rated the quality of service from their TPA higher. Additionally, the survey finds that frequency of communication can impact satisfaction with a TPA both positively and negatively. Plan sponsors who indicated they are contacted quarterly by their TPA were most satisfied.

This years study focuses on drivers of client satisfaction, and shines a light on the important role of communications in regard to plan sponsor satisfaction of TPAs, said Deb Rubin, vice president and national director of TPA Services for Transamerica Retirement Services. The survey shows that plan sponsors want face-to-face interaction for both an annual visit and during problem resolutions. This face-to-face communication is a significant benefit for plan sponsors who utilize the services of a local TPA. The TPA, in turn, has a dynamic opportunity to be aware of the clients business situation and to proactively help the client, resulting in higher satisfaction among plan sponsors.

The Gregory Group survey was commissioned by Transamerica and was developed to help TPAs understand what keeps clients satisfied. The report also offered action items and best practices to help enhance TPAs business.

TPAs provide unique value in todays competitive environment and Transamerica listens closely to what they say they need to be successful, said Rubin. Transamerica is dedicated to the success of our TPA partners, and this survey is just one of many services we provide to help TPAs achieve their business goals.

More information on the survey is available to third party administrators by calling Transamerica at (877) 398-7526 Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. - 8 p.m. Eastern Time.

About Transamerica Retirement Services Corporation

Transamerica Retirement Services Corporation (Transamerica or Transamerica Retirement Services), which is headquartered in Los Angeles, CA, designs customized retirement plan solutions to meet the unique needs of small- to mid-sized businesses. Transamerica and its affiliates have more than 17,0001 retirement plans totaling more than $20 billion1 in assets. For more information about Transamerica, please refer to http://www.TA-Retirement.com.

About the 2012 Gregory Group Plan Sponsor Survey

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Transamerica Retirement Services Reveals Findings of 2012 Client Satisfaction Survey of TPAs

Americans have made some headway with their retirement savings after the last few disastrous years. Nearly one-fifth of Americans (18%) are saving more for retirement this year than last year, according to Bankrate's August Financial Security Index. When we asked this same question in 2011, 15% said they were saving more than the previous year -- not a significant difference.

But the same proportion of people, 18%, say they are saving less than they did last year. That's actually much better than last year, when 29% of Americans said they were contributing a smaller amount to retirement savings than the previous year.

"The fact that people have stopped saving less is good -- but are they saving enough? The data (are) showing, in aggregate, no," says Certified Financial Planner David Littell, co-director of the New York Life Center of Retirement Income and professor of taxation at The American College in Bryn Mawr, Pa.

The combined retirement income deficit for baby boomers and Generation Xers is estimated to be $4.3 trillion, according to a May 2012 report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute, or EBRI.

Ideally, people would increase retirement contributions every year, but they don't because it's very likely that most people have no idea how expensive 30 years of retirement will be.

According to a March 2012 report from EBRI, 56% of workers say they haven't calculated how much they need to save for retirement.

Calculating retirement income needs is the first step to establishing an effective retirement savings rate. It may be higher than you think, particularly if you're older than 30.

For instance, with 30 years to save for a 30-year retirement, someone with an investment portfolio split between 60% stocks and 40% bonds would need to save 16.62% of her income per year in order to replace 50% of her income in retirement. Those numbers are from the work of Wade D. Pfau, an associate professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.

His findings were published in an article titled "Safe savings rates: A new approach to retirement planning over the life cycle," which appeared in the May 2011 issue of the Journal of Financial Planning.

Under the same circumstances, someone with 40 years to save would only need to put away 8.77% of his yearly income, according to the study.

See the article here:
Retirement Savings Poll: Don't Call it a Comeback

Here is something a lot of people struggle with: given a vague idea or project, how do you move towards shaping something concrete out of it? For Vivek Haldar, a software developer at Google, the solution comes in four parts.

All projects start with a big blob of vagueness. Folks who create the most concreteness out of that are the ones who have the biggest impact. I'm learning how to approach this, but I still feel like a non-swimmer in the shallow end with lifesavers. I've learned a little, by personal experience, and by observation.

This is not design yet. These are high-level ideas that put constraints on the design space. For example, GMail chose the principle that search should be the primary email navigation mechanism. Think long and hard about these, because these principles will be baked into your code and your system in a way that can't be "refactored" away later. This is where wizards (i.e. very senior battle-hardened engineers) can help. Often, choosing these is a matter of taste and design and conceptual integrity. It might sound wishy-washy but it's hard. Document these well. This is your manifesto.

Once you've got a spine, you've got to add a few more bones.

This usually takes the form of a prototype, or a walking skeleton. It might have huge swaths of functionality missing. It might have serious shortcomings. It might be ugly. It might be slow. But that's OK. Think of this as the spec of sand around which a pearl is formed. What is important is that it be concrete, and growable.

It needs to be concrete and tangible. Something you can show and demo and people can play with and talk about and criticize get excited about. People rarely get excited about design documents. They frequently get excited about working prototypes, even when they come with massive this-will-break-on-you disclaimers.

Your prototype should not be a dead end. You should be able to put work into it and make it incrementally better. Adding something new or changing it should not require you to build a new one from scratch. In other words, it should support iteration. There may come a point when you have to throw one (or more away), but ideally that happens only when the prototype has brought you to a major insight that invalidates some of your basic assumptions. Even then, it would have served its purpose. And even then, you need something that will get you to that point quickly.

In other words, focus on learning and fixing, continuously and quickly. Don't sweat too much about getting it right. Chances are, your idea of right won't be the right one. Chances are that most other peoples' idea of right won't be either. Only by having something real to criticize and learn from will everyone figure out what right is.

Build, fail, fixand repeat.

On Vagueness | Vivek Haldar

Read more from the original source:
How I Turn Vague Ideas Into Tangible Goals [Success]

A SUNBURY boy is now able to learn just like his classmates at Killara Primary School - and it's all thanks to modern technology.

Last year Ben Clewer, 7, was the first child in Australia to receive a cochlear implant with the new CI422 electrode.

His parents, Lyall and Susan, admit they were nervous about Ben being a medical trailblazer. But their fears were unfounded as the cochlear implant has been a great success.

Ben's parents first realised there was a problem when he did not start putting more than two words together at the age of two.

They had him tested and found out that Ben had significant hearing loss.

After being fitted with hearing aids for four years, they were referred to the Eye and Ear Hospital's Cochlear Implant Clinic, who told them about cochlear implants.

As Ben still has some residual hearing, the CI422 electrode was recommended.

Ben attended a mainstream kindergarten in Sunbury with the assistance of Taralye, an oral language centre for deaf children in Victoria.

His parents also wanted him to attend a mainstream primary school, but finding the right school close to home was difficult.

Ben's father, Lyall, successfully applied for $10,000 funding from the Sidney Myer Foundation for two "sound-fields" in the classrooms at Killara Primary School. This included the installation of speakers which transmit into Ben's personal FM system.

Continued here:
Implant a huge success for Sunbury boy

Hanks High School graduate Vanessa Thomas helped NMSU's inaugural women's soccer team to a surprising 9-9-1 finish. (Courtesy photo)

Vanessa Thomas' first season at New Mexico State was full of surprises.

The former Hanks High School standout was one of the first players to commit to the Aggies' first-year soccer program in 2009. Thomas, who was one of El Paso's top strikers during her four years with the Knights, expected to be attacking on the front row at NMSU.

"I was recruited as a forward, but I was put in on defense my first game and I've been there ever since and I love it," Thomas said. "It was a shock. I was a little kid freshman and I didn't know what to expect. I'm glad it played out the way it did."

Heading into her senior season, Thomas has played in 55 matches and started in all but eight. She has served as one of the cornerstones of the NMSU program.

"Vanessa is part of what we call our foundation class," Aggies head coach Blair Quinn said. "I think any senior class would be motivated, but I think what is special about them is that very few classes get a chance to start a program and see it through during their four years."

The Aggies compiled a surprising 9-9-1 record in their inaugural season as Thomas saw action in each match and started in 14. NMSU reached the WAC tournament and lost 1-0 in the first round to fourth-seeded Nevada.

"It was a little surprising since we were in our first year," Thomas said. "But we had good players."

With Thomas a fixture in the back row, New Mexico State went 7-8-3 in 2010 and failed to make the WAC tournament.

"I can always do better and that's what this year is for," Thomas said. "I can't wait to make this year better than last year."

Go here to read the rest:
Hanks High School grad finds success in new position at NMSU

COLUMBIA, S.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Employers counting on wellness programs to bend the benefits cost curve must include strong communication plans in their strategy if they hope to achieve their goals. Those who shortchange this crucial step risk wasting their investment of precious resources in a tight economy.

Thats one of the key findings in a new white paper released today by Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company. Well on the Way: Engaging Employees in Workplace Wellness uses proprietary and industry research and case studies to show how wellness initiatives can help employers control ever-higher health care and benefits costs, and the vital role of benefits communication in driving the effectiveness of these programs.

A growing number of employers are implementing programs that successfully reduce employee health risk factors and better manage chronic illness the primary drivers of health care costs. And employees value these programs: Nearly 90 percent of employees say the range of a companys health and wellness benefits is either very important or somewhat important in their choice of an employer.1 Yet these employees still might not participate in wellness programs because of lack of information.

You can build it but they may not come

Most employers cite weak employee engagement as the biggest obstacle to changing their employees health risk behavior, the white paper reports.2 But more than half of workers say they dont know enough about their companys wellness programs to participate in them. A new Colonial Life survey found 52 percent of workers whose employers offer wellness programs say theyre only somewhat or not at all knowledgeable about them.3 Lack of knowledge is higher among younger workers, less educated workers and lower-paid workers.

Just offering a wellness program and expecting a majority of employees to participate the if you build it, they will come scenario is prone to failure, said Steve Bygott, assistant vice president of marketing analysis and programs at Colonial Life. Communication that clearly delineates the benefits of participation to employees is the first step to long-term engagement in wellness programs.

Recent research shows wellness programs are often poorly understood and theres a surprising gap between what employers and employees think: 57 percent of employers believe their employees have a good understanding of the health and wellness programs offered and how to participate, but only 41 percent of employees agree they have a strong grasp of the programs offered.1

Personalized communication is effective

One-to-one employee communication, delivered in partnership with a benefits provider, offers a cost-effective means to build understanding and enhance engagement in these programs. Surveys with more than 20,000 employees who met individually with a benefits communication counselor show nearly all (96 percent) say it improved their understanding of benefits, and 98 percent say the interaction was important.4

See original here:
Colonial Life white paper shows communication is key to wellness program success