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    • 2015 Speakers
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Sign a Rainbow



Kelly Merrill-Jones

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Kinetic Potential
Carleen Pearce
'Transforming the Woman Behind the Mother'

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Heart-Centred Eating
Lana Vernon
'Heart-Centred Eating: letting go of the 'diet' mentality'
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MIOMO
Yvonne Godfrey

'How to win in every season of your life'

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Heart Magic
Lysa Black
'Naked Mumma:
Stripping away all expectation'
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Inspiring Conscious Evolution
Amanda Fleming

'Activate your superpowers - a path to your potential'
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Joyology
Pat Armitstead

'You Don't Have to Keep Everyone Happy'


Scroll down to read more about our speakers and their talks


Kelly Merrill-Jones
Master of Ceremonies for Mothers Unite! Conference and Director of Sign a Rainbow

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About Kelly
Kelly is passionate about nurturing the language potential of babies, infants and
toddlers, as she believes that language and communication underpins all areas of a child’s learning and development through life.  It starts from birth.   The birth of her baby in 2011 was the inspiration for the early language programme that she developed.  Documenting the techniques she used as a trained teacher who specialized in early language development.  She adapted these techniques with her own baby as the foundation for the Sign a Rainbow programme.

At the heart of her courses is the appreciation of the precious time spent with
Auckland families with hearing children, children with special language needs and enthusiastic educators.  Through sharing her parent and child friendly programme, she aspires to empower the adult and child to clearly and confidently communicate together, reduce communication frustrations, whilst nurturing the skills needed during the ‘babbling’ and communication stage of learning language.  Kelly enjoys learning from the families and educators she meets too.

With Kelly’s training and experience as a teacher of the deaf, she uses official New Zealand Sign Language to bridge the gap between pre-verbal and verbal stages of language development.  Providing parent and baby with a physical and visual way to communicate while they are being encouraged to babble and
talk.

Kelly is mother to a ‘threenager!’, a qualified Primary Teacher, Early Childhood Education (ECE) Teacher and a Teacher of the Deaf. She has been teaching since 1999 in the UK and NZ and has relished the opportunity that a variety of dynamic teaching, management and national roles have presented.  Kelly has taught in the public and private sectors of education, in mainstream schools and Special Education across a range of age groups.  She enjoys facilitating, lecturing, mentoring and tutoring teachers who are studying towards their qualifications in ECE, Primary teaching, teacher of the Deaf or towards gaining their full NZ Teacher’s Registration. 

Kelly enjoyed the challenge of being one of two Parent Co-ordinators of Hillsborough Playcentre in 2013.  She is one of a few hearing members of the New Zealand Sign Language Tutors Association.

Carleen Pearce
Empowerment Coach - Kinetic Potential

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About Carleen
Carleen's passion is coaching, speaking and teaching in order to facilitate positive change in individuals and in organisations.  She balances this passion with her role as mother, step mother, partner, as well as managing her daughter's cricket team, sitting on the netball committee and running a martial arts gym with her partner.  In amongst that she pursues a passion for photography, and her own ongoing development.

She has a particular interest in Transforming Communications within families. She is passionate about helping family members to create mutually supportive environments where all members are heard and have their needs met.

Carleen is certified as both practitioner and master practitioner of NLP as a certified mBraining coach, has  certificates in hypnotherapy, a certified transforming communications instructor as well as training in several other methodologies.

Carleen has had a varied career including as an editor of a corporate newspaper and in retail proper administration and has had careers in both NZ and Canada.  Her background in high pressure administration roles has made Carleen an expert on complex systems and how they work.  And that expertise is one of her key strengths as a coach.  She has the ability to notice how systems a person is running within themselves, and the systems we are a part of with other people, are creating our worlds.

Her years working in schools has driven a particular interest in family systems and helping children and parents to become more resourceful.

Transforming the Woman Behind the Mother
What is the biggest challenge you face as a Mother?
Chances are you answered that question in terms of your mothering duties - raising kids, dealing with teenagers etc.  All too often when women become mothers that role can define more and more of who we are, making it feel like there's less and less space for the multi-faceted woman behind the mother.  In between running kids to activities and events, fitting in around partners work and activity schedule we are left wondering,  "How do we create the time for our own interests, our own passions, our own growth"? This session will help you to reconnect with the you behind the mother.  You'll learn the self-sabotaging thinking pattern that leads to behaviours based in the "I couldn't possibly" mindset - the mindset that makes it seem like everyone else has to come   first and there's nothing left over for you.  You'll have an opportunity to refocus on the things that excite and inspire you.

And we'll give you some practical tools to rearrange things so you can continue to meet the needs of the family while also meeting your own needs. The session will be fun, interactive and above all practical, empowering you to go home and put the principals into action the same night.


Lana Vernon
Food Love Coach - Heart-Centred Eating

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About Lana
I am a wife, a mother, a lover of life and a lover of food. I am completely passionate about teaching and supporting women to fall in love with food again.

From a childhood where food was celebrated and enjoyed, to an early-adulthood where food became confusing and scary, I have now come full circle. I have revived my love and affection for food, and learnt how to balance my body's need for nourishment with my soul's need for enjoyment. I believe that every woman should have the chance to experience that joy – that release - of re-learning to love and celebrate food. I support women to let go of guilt, fear, or feelings of restriction around food; help them get clear about how to nourish their bodies AND their souls; and empower them to embrace the pleasure of eating again.

Heart-Centred Eating: letting go of the 'diet' mentalityFor most people, the word 'diet' usually conjures up a whole bunch of negative images and words, predominantly involving ideas of restriction, deprivation, and guilt. Many people spend years on the diet merry-go-round, feeling miserable, and still not achieving the health or the body they desire.
Let me introduce you to the concept of heart-centred eating, which will help you to let go of the 'diet' mentality. Heart-centred eating is all about approaching food and eating from a place of love - love for yourself, love for your body, love for the people you share it with, and love for what you're eating. You'll learn how to start healing your relationship with food, so that you can allow yourself to truly fall in love with food again.

Yvonne Godfrey
Leadership Communicator - Miomo

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About Yvonne

Yvonne Godfrey is a leadership communicator. After over three decades of working with small business owners, Yvonne turned her attention to young adults and their parents.

She believes the success of a society depends largely on the quality of the emerging generation of adults. So in 2009 she founded MIOMO (pronounced Me-omo) to successfully transition young people into adult life! Since then she has worked with hundreds of teens and young adults ,equipping them to become responsible, independent and successful.

In 2011 Yvonne was the host parent on the TV reality show, 'The World’s Strictest Parents' which was watched by nearly 3 million people. Then in 2012, Yvonne was diagnosed with breast cancer. This put Miomo on hold as she rebuilt her health.

Being uncertain of her future and wanting to equip parents with the tools and resources she used on Miomo, Yvonne wrote ‘Parenting Yadults’ How to set up your young adult for independence and success in life! (You can purchase her book today.)

But you can’t keep this girl down, and right now, Yvonne is in the middle of delivering a new Miomo programme for students in their last year of school.

She is now considered an authority on the issues of teens and young adults,  as seen by her comments in an article on sexting in the New Zealand Herald newspaper.

One of the highlights of her speaking career, which spans 24 countries, was speaking recently at Government House representing The Parenting Place.

Lysa Black
Intuitive Coach - 'Heart Healing'

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About Lysa
I am a truth lover, a nurturing Empress and a Mother of two. Being raised in emotional turmoil prepared me perfectly for my role as a Heart Healer. I am deeply sensitive, intuitive and empathic which was a terrible curse as I grew up in home filled with arguments; now it is my treasured gift that I have cultivated and tested over 6 years of coaching women to heal. That pain I once knew has become my purpose as I passionately reach out to women in emotional turmoil and make the reach for peace swifter and easier. I have healed my own patterns of chronic dieting/bingeing, loveless relationships and job jumping. Now I have been blessed with my miracles: Loving the skin I’m in, receiving the gift of true love, and feeling fulfilled in my inspiring career. I live to support others to manifest their own hearts' desires. Healing is a process of reclaiming our truth. Truth is the master Healer leading us back to our purpose, power and peace.
Naked Mumma:
Stripping away all expectation
The hidden pressures to be a 'perfect' Mumma sneak up on us all. Lysa shares how she stripped off all of the unconscious expectations that were weighing her down. The rules, lives and expectations of our own Mothers and Gradmothers mix up to become our impossible Motherhood ideal. Get naked with Lysa as she leads you through a liberating 'Expectation' strip-off! It's time to discard your secret list of 'I Should'; and find yourself at home in 'I Am'.

Amanda Fleming
Presenter At Large - 'Inspiring Conscious Evolution'

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About Amanda
During a successful and rather eventful seven year career as a front line Police Officer through my twenties, I learned many of life’s lessons first hand. My epiphany at age 27 led to me studying and training for another seven years before starting my business in 1991. The nature of my life’s work since the mid 1980s has been to serve the community through the design and presentation of highly relevant, stimulating and meaningful transformational learning events in both public and business settings.

I have long known I am alive to make myself useful. We are all made for something and we are all called to contribute that (whether we hear the call, respond, or not). All of us can contribute therefore all of us can be of service in some way. Just as every cell in our bodies has a purpose, so to do we as individuals in the context of our species.

I am driven to be useful in ways that stretch, grow and bring out the best in me and others. My highest calling is to contribute to the evolution of human consciousness by fostering conscious evolution through life affirming education. I do believe LOVE is at the heart of our species immune system and if we allow that immune system to be compromised, we are lost. I stand for a future beyond my own lifetime.


Conscious
Evolution is the magic carpet that can lift us out of our singular self serving motivations and free us from our self-imposed limitations.

Activate your superpowers - a path to your potential
If you need to ‘re-set’ your compass, this session will enable you to deliberately improve your life as a mum, as a woman and as a human being in the world.

If you suspect you have more potential yet, you won't want to miss this session with Amanda Fleming. Amanda will overview five naturally occurring human powers and help you activate each of them to higher functioning in three primary relationships we all experience (with self, others and the world at large).

These human powers, when fully matured, will help enhance your every area of day to day life - at work and at home. Amanda offers you a way of seeing your past and present as a glorious opportunity to move beyond the limitations of patterns of thinking, feeling and action holding you back. Her session will help you create a compelling and joyful future that calls you towards it.


Pat Armitstead
The World's First Joyologist - 'Joyology'  

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About Pat
I did not learn about joy by studying joy. I learned about joy by experiencing pain, grief, shame and embarrassment. In a period of great grief and depression I chose not to be medicated. I became re-associated to what was not working in my life and committed to do what it took to restore my physical, emotional and spiritual self. I believed to be fully self-expressed required reclaiming my power and living into my full potential.

I do the work that I do because I believe the pain and suffering reflected in this survey can be transformed with the healing power of humour and laughter. I believe we can replace poor self-esteem and low level functioning with resilience. I believe many people lapse into states of perceived helplessness and lead a mediocre life as a result. I believe people have lost sight of the awe and wonder of our lives. I believe it is time to shift our thinking and raise consciousness levels as the universe and mankind is requiring the optimum contribution from all of us.  I know how to replace anger, resentment, shame, and embarassment with joyous states, and when people are in these states they are engaged and productive.  My vision is to be a voice for all that is joyful about humanity .


You Don't Have to Keep Everyone Happy
Being a mother does not require this of you!

You are not required to be nice.  You don’t have to play games.  You don’t have to go without  and you don’t have to squeeze everything in! To achieve a level of mastery over the patterns and beliefs that had us believe these notions to be true is to become empowered.

I want you to imagine for a minute, a world where you no longer tolerate anything that does not serve your highest good!  Imagine showing up authentically and being able to give voice to all that is within you.  Imagine being a woman who no longer tolerates struggle and guilt.  You may be thinking "That’s not me !", and my response would be " Not yet"

Imagine further, being a woman and a mother who is a stand for living by her highest values, and experiences freedom as a result of that.  Imagine the flexibility that comes from that inner confidence!  Imagine then the books you can read, the writing you might do, and the art that is created!  Even more importantly imagine the flexibility that shows up - literally and figuratively- in your life when you make time to dance again.

Motherhood can rob you of your sense of self, if you deny yourselves full self expression along the way.  You can end up questioning who am I and what is my purpose?  Most people have all they need to be happy and fulfilled, but rarely capture the excitement, the engagement or the levels of self expression they deserve to have.  Across the globe the emotional energy of the world is flatlining.  My work is designed to improve the quality of peoples lives by charging them with responsibility, accountability and possibility!

Participants will leave this session with a renewed sense of purpose and affirmed in a life path that includes parenting and providing themselves as an extra-ordinary role model!


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