It's far more than a change to our name. It is a development of who we are and what we do!
This blog looks briefly at the history of Parallel Dreams and how we have evolved and what we are planning for the future. We are truly excited about what lies ahead as we move into this new decade.
How did Parallel Dreams begin?
Parallel Dreams was born in 1999 when founders Derek & Shona Tate came up with the name during their honeymoon in New Hampshire, USA. Initially the name was associated with our ski performance courses and worked alongside Snowsport Recruitment Ltd. a company we set up to recruit ski and snowboard instructors to a number of New Hampshire ski areas in the USA including Loon Mountain, Waterville Valley and Bretton Woods. Sadly the recruitment of snowsport instructors to the USA ended due to the tragedy of September 11.. However, Parallel Dreams continued with ski performance courses running in a number of European alpine venues. In addition, we were also heavily involved with Race Coaching at Firpark Ski Centre and in Scottish Ski Resorts using Shona's background both as a competitor and coach in alpine skiing and the knowledge Derek gained from his post graduate sports coaching diploma from Moray House, Edinburgh.
Parallel Dreams Alpine Skiing - The book
During the season of 2006/2007 we embarked on a project to write the book Parallel Dreams Alpine Skiing - Taking Your Performance to New Levels with all the photos taken in the Chamonix Mont Blanc region. The book became, in effect, the first manual for the Irish Association of Snowsports Instructors (IASI). This moved us into a new area of book publishing and other titles would follow including the Ski Instructors Handbook series and a number of e-books. We also very much supported IASI and Irish Snowsports Teaching with attendance at the World Interski Congresses and created and developed the philosophy of Learn it, Love it, Live it that has been adopted by IASI ever since.
Parallel Dreams Coaching
Over the years Parallel Dreams Coaching has worked alongside our sister business British Alpine Ski School Chamonix and Megeve with it's main function being to offer ski performance courses at UK indoor snow domes in the summer and autumn and courses out-with the main winter season in places like Cervinia, Italy and this remains to this day an important part of what we do.
The Parallel Dreams Coaching Academy
So why the move to "Academy"?
Educating and coaching the coaches has been an important part of Derek & Shona Tate's work over the years with organisations like the British Association of Snowsport Instructors (BASI), Snowsport Scotland (SSS) and the Irish Association of Snowsport Instructors (IASI). The Parallel Dreams Coaching Academy is now a Licensed Course Provider (LCP) for IASI and as such organises and runs Alpine Level 1 Ski Instructor Courses and offers Continued Professional Development (CPD) opportunities not just for snowsport instructors but for coaches, teachers and instructors from any sport. And this autumn the Academy will run it's first Sports Coaching Conference with the theme of Health and Well-Being through Sport and Mountain Life. Registrations for this conference are now open.
In addition, the academy is now moving into the world of business coaching using the extensive experience gained from working in sport at all levels and in particular Derek's passion for psychology. He recently graduated with a Masters in Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) from Bucks New University and has created Flow Workshops for businesses.
To celebrate this evolving business and brand it seemed only appropriate to update our logos. Below is the new, more modern and clean primary logo for the Parallel Dreams Coaching Academy.
And the new secondary logo, ideal for badges etc.
Thanks go to Paul Rose Design for the new logos.
About the Author
Derek Tate is an author, coach and teacher and runs Derek Tate Coaching. His mission is to help others to flourish and get more out of life through better mental, emotional, and physical health. He offers mental skills coaching, alpine ski coaching, online courses and workshops and writes self help/psychology books.