10/10/2016 - Allan Holender and Boomer Public Radio

 Slow Living Radio is thrilled to welcome veteran radio broadcaster and creator of Boomer Public Radio, Allan Holender to talk about his life on the waves, as a journalist and author, and Zentrepreneurism.

 A PROFILE OF ALLAN HOLENDER

"To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old". - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

As a leadership and team-building trainer, Allan Holender has  developed and delivered programs to colleges, universities, hospitals, and the corporate world. He has mentored entrepreneurs, CEOs, and senior management from some of North America’s top-ranked companies. He was also a business commentator in Canada and the United States, having hosted a nationally syndicated business radio show on the Talk America radio network. For five years, He was the Chief Community Officer for the Let's Talk Business Network. It was a support community for entrepreneurs, CEO's, Business Owners and Free Agents. Allan facilitated Executive Mastermind Groups, Peer to Peer Mentoring, One On One Coaching and Professional Development Workshops. He was the Executive Director of Big Brothers of Burnaby. He's also been the Director of Development with both the University of British Columbia and the University of Alberta, where he led a team to successfully  complete the final phase of a 37 million dollar capital campaign.

Allan was also the Founding Part-Owner of Radio Station CISL 650 (South Fraser Broadcasting) in Richmond B.C. Helped secure the CRTC license and is the Founding President of two professional Fund Raising Associations in BC and Alberta. He founded a company specializing in setting up Charitable Foundations and Planned Gifting through wills, bequests, and gifts in kind, property and life insurance. and  was retained by the BC Health Association to conduct a comprehensive development study of all hospitals and health care institutions in the province and developed a Hospital Foundation and Planned Giving Manual to assist hospitals and health care institutions throughout the province in establishing foundations and planned giving programs

Allan has been a serial entrepreneur for the past 20 years and has written a book on the new world of business, called Zentrepreneurism, where it's the blended bottom line that is important. His daily mantra is passion, purpose and profits with integrity. He has a Bachelor of Arts Degree and Masters Studies is in Sociology.

Allan  was retained a few years ago by the University of British Columbia  as a Management Consultant to complete a development study to determine the feasibility of building and operating a world’s best Centre for Sport Medicine and Exercise Science within UBC.He was also the CEO of The Centre For Business Excellence. The Centre was devoted to balancing the quest for profits with quality and superior people development.  CBE offered highly focused and unique programs that educated inspired and empowered Executives, Entrepreneurs and Business Owners to reach new levels of success in business and in life.  The Centre, under the auspices of Dale Carnegie Training strived to develop strategic alliances and partnership with those who recognized the value of advanced education for entrepreneurs and corporate leaders.

Allan has  been a champion for business through his contributions in radio, television and writing and was a contributing business writer for the Vancouver Sun, Profit Magazine, , The Home Business Journal and Yaletown News.

Allan  was a Guest Expert/Contributor to the BCTV television Weekend News and :

· Co-Founder, President, Executive Producer, Conscious Planet Radio Network

· Founder, Media On Tap Radio Network. 

· Host & Co-Producer, “ZenBiz Radio” on Voice America

· Host & Producer of a Vancouver Business Radio Show “BizTalk Radio” on CISL 650

· Host & Producer of the “HomeBiz Minute” on 400 U.S. affiliated stations coast to coast and 200 Canadian stations on Talk America and CHUM Radio Network

· Host & Producer of a Nationally syndicated business talk show on TALK America Radio Network

· Host & Producer of Canada’s first radio show dedicated to home business entrepreneurs, the  “HomeBiz Show” on CFUN 1410 in Vancouver

His  community and professional leadership spans 43 years. Including; Past Director, South Fraser Broadcasting, Richmond B.C., Past Chairman, Community Advisory Board, Radio Station C-ISL 650, Richmond, B.C.,Past Chairman, Educational Division, United Way, Edmonton, Alberta, Past Board Member, Northern Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation, Edmonton, Alberta,Past Board Member, Edmonton Concert Hall Foundation, Edmonton, Alberta, Guest Speaker and Panel Member for UBC Enterprise Conference, UBC Sauder School of Business, Mentor, UBC Sauder School of Business, Founding President, Association of Fund Raising Professionals of B.C. (NSFRE), Founding President, Alberta Association of Fund Raising Executives, Past Board Member,  Council for Advancement and Support of Education (C.A.S.E),  Pacific Northwest

Allan has a 40 year history in the radio broadcasting industry as an owner of terrestrial and online radio stations and is  developing a syndicated infotainment national radio network called Boomer Public Radio for Boomers and Beyond.  He will be producing and hosting a national radio podcast, and is inviting your participation."There is a huge untapped niche in the marketplace for programs geared to the 60-90 year old listeners who remember the "magic" of radio and grew up in a time when radio was king", says Holender. "As a veteran broadcaster from that era I hope I can bring the credibility and the voice from the soundtrack of their lives. 

09/19/2016 - Sisters Crush for Breast Cancer and Terra Petra Truffles, Australia

Slow Living's first interview this week is with a woman with a mission and a cause. Rayellen Jordan, Founder of Sisters Crush for Breast Cancer. Their annual walk/run in Yountville is on October 15, so come and support the team (and Slow Living's hosts) and have some fun for a good cause.

Next we are delighted to welcome Peter Marshall, who with his wife Kate, and family (and dogs), have established one of Australia's most respected truffle farms, organically grown and respectful of the environment, and while doing so are building an environmental infrastructure to restore the land to it's former healthy habitat.

Peter Marshall, 
Terra Preta Truffles, 
Braidwood, New South Wales

The Marshall's in action with Sal looking for her reward, while Shadow does the work with Kate.

For a dog let loose on a gentle sloping hill bathed in bright winter sunshine, birdsong in the air, Sal looks bored. Standing under a 10-year-old hazelnut tree, the golden Labrador-kelpie cross turns her head away as if to yawn. Suddenly her paw comes out and lightly pats the earth in front of her. In spite of all appearances, she has been working hard, all her energies concentrated in her nose, which sits about 20 centimeters above the rich autumnal leaf litter underfoot.

The second half of this crack truffle-hunting team, Kate Marshall, moves in with a slim truffle pick, gently breaking up the soil and scraping it away with gloved hands. She murmurs constantly to Sal, who appears to be patiently waiting for the human to find what the dog already knows is there.

And there it is – a nobbly chocolate-brown truffle the size of an apple. This is the holy grail of gastronomy; the rare, precious and mysterious black Perigord truffle (Tuber melanosporum) that has been the food of kings and inspiration of poets for centuries. Suddenly, Sal is focused, intent, staring – not at the truffle but at Kate’s pocket. Sure enough, a little dry doggie treat issues forth and it’s on to the next tree.

Hunting is a macho business, full of guns, traps, blood and pain. Truffle-hunting is a gentler pursuit, requiring skill, intuition, strategy, experience, a good nose and a close, trusting relationship between dog and human. ‘‘They have a symbiotic relationship, Kate and Sal,’’ says Peter Marshall, of Terra Preta Truffles near Braidwood, a historic country town with streets as wide as football grounds. Peter and Kate, sons Keith and Angus, and daughter Rita are all obsessed with these edible fungi; Peter most of all.

When we look at a tree, we see a tree. When he looks at a tree, he sees the other half of the story, buried underground. ‘‘Half the forest is below the ground,’’ he says. ‘‘So when I prune, I prune to create fruit that is invisible and underground.’’

This ‘‘underground fruit’’ is the truffle, produced by the tiny straggly white threads (mycorrhiza) that feed and receive nutrients and moisture to and from the tree.

Slow Living's Sal, gets coaching from Peter

 The truffles’ strong aroma is thought to have been developed to attract animals that would then dig them up, aerating the ground around the tree and dispersing the spores. ‘‘The tree and the truffle depend completely on each other,’’ Peter says. ‘‘In fact, native truffles are vital to Australia’s forest system.’’

A renowned arborist and forester, he brings obsessive scholarship andrigour to the preparation of the soil and selection of tree stock for truffle-growing.

At Terra Preta, he has planted hazelnut and oak, reinstated natural waterways and ploughed the ground, doing everything possible to turn what he calls ‘‘devastated’’ land (soil compacted from years of animal grazing and cropping, with damage from irrigation, pesticide use and gold mining) into soft, loamy friable soil.

The softer and healthier the soil, he says, the easier it is for the tree roots to spread and truffles to form. Soft and springy underfoot, the soil here is a marvel. You can dig into it with your bare hand and break it up as easily as a rich flourless chocolate cake.

Terra Preta truffles are flown to truffle specialists Friend & Burrell in Melbourne and also on to France, Italy and the US.

(Story from Sydney Morning Herald by Jill Dupleix)