Communication, Learning and yoU (CLU) will help you “connect the dots” to recognize and understand your learning styles and the learning styles of your co-workers, children, your partner – actually anyone around you!
CLU will make understanding personality traits accessible and fun! It’s all easy actually, once you communicate and learn how to “connect the dots”.
Presentations and workshops are available for large groups or small intimate numbers. It’s customized to your needs.
“Connect the dots” to find the clues to more effective and satisfying communication and learning.
Frances Balodis
Frances Mae Balodis MEd., ARCT, LCCN(H), LCNCM(H), RMT, MYCC is co-founder of CLU™. She has spent an entire career helping people become more effective when communicating ideas, concepts and instructions to others. Through their firm, Communications, Learning and yoU (CLU), Frances and her husband, Gunars, conduct presentations and workshops for parents, teachers and managers that apply the synergies between Personality Traits and Learning Styles. With their unique and proven approach, teachers become more effective in the classrooms, reaching a broader group of students, and parents learn how to better communicate with their children: turning conflict into harmony, groups into teams and ordinary into extraordinary.
Frances is a Neurolinguistic Practitioner (NLP), a certified instructor of the renowned DISC program and a Registered Music Teacher. With her husband as founding partner, she was the founder of Music for Young Children® (MYC®). This organization grew from a small home-based business in 1980 into an international success with hundreds of teachers, instructing thousands of students across Canada, the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam.
At MYC, using her expertise in understanding how different types of people learn and absorb information, she developed her now renowned methods of bringing out the best in children. These methods, which apply beyond music to all subject matter, are now being used by teachers around the world.
Her unique approach to learning makes her a frequent speaker at events such as Ontario Music Educators’ Association, Ontario Registered Music Teachers’ Association, National Symposium on Art Education, Early Childhood Music and Movement Association, World Piano Pedagogy Conference, Homeschooling Conferences, and Association for Children with Learning Disabilities. Together with Gunars, she also conducts her own presentations and workshops at which she works directly with teachers and parents.
Like most successful people, Frances is involved in the community. She is a member of the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers (CAPS), a member of Canadian Association of Family Enterprise (CAFE), a member of the Canadian Federation of University Women (CFUW), retired director of a young children’s choir, Bullfrogs and Butterflies (B&B), an examiner for the Conservatory of Canada, a frequent adjudicator for music festivals and is a thrice-published composer. She received the 2009 Entrepreneur Woman of the Year award from the Women’s Business Network of Ottawa.
Gunars Balodis
Gunars Balodis B.Eng., M.Sc., P.Eng. is an expert in showing people how to motivate and draw out the best in others. Pulling from his successful military experiences and his years running an international company that operated in eight countries around the world, he shows people how to create very effective and highly productive teams that are engaged and creative.
Through their firm, Communications, Learning and yoU (CLU), Gunars and his wife, Frances, conduct presentations and workshops that apply the practical synergies between Personality Traits and Learning Styles. With this efficient and proven approach, managers come away with the ability to understand the personalities of their people and how to bring out their strengths, creating groups of people who work more effectively together.
Gunars is a member of the Royal Canadian Legion, the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers (CAPS) and the Canadian Association of Family Enterprise (CAFE). He is a Neurolinguistic Practitioner (NLP) and is also a certified instructor of the renowned DISC program. He was the founding partner of Music for Young Children (MYC) which grew from a small home-based business into an international corporation with tens of thousands of students across Canada, the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam.
Originally a farm boy from rural Ontario, Gunars joined the RCAF in 1964. He is a graduate of the Royal Military College, a Lt. Colonel (Ret) and he holds a Masters Degree in Physics from Dalhousie University. In the military, Gunars’ career included tracking Russian submarines, conducting airborne operations over the Atlantic and the Arctic, commanding a military Intelligence unit for Maritime Command and a posting at Air Command HQ in Winnipeg. This is a man who understands teamwork and how to pull together a group of individual personalities into an enthusiastic productive team.
In the private sector, Gunars spent five years in the corporate sector with a leading edge high tech firm and was involved in the launching of the very successful Music for Young Children (MYC). He owes his success at MYC to the combination of his years of military training in the Canadian Forces combined with his ability to understand and communicate in the very different teacher-student-parent world. This unique combination enabled him to bring to that business a different approach to team building and management – a skill that Gunars developed and has applied successfully for over 30 years.