Travel for free

by Phil Houseal, published in the Community Journal (Kerrville TX) Sept 24, 2008

Growing up in a small Kansas town, Gina Henry-Cook yearned to see the big, wide world. In her words, she was "smitten with travel."

Since she hadn't won any lotteries, Henry-Cook tried to come up with ways to support her travel habit. She earned a masters degree in international management, so she used that experience to catalog ways to travel for free. She began sharing her tips with friends. Eventually she came up with 40, which she refined into her seminar and a book "Free Vacations & Make Money Traveling."

I asked her to give us a sample of what we will discover in her class.

"Just pick three favorite ideas from this class and those will pay for your vacation," she stated.

She gave her top three:

1) How to maximize frequent flier miles using a credit card, so you can fly for free

2) How to put together a small tour that will let you travel free

3) How to earn a free cruise by putting together a class to teach aboard ship

She also shares ways to make money closer to home by becoming a mystery shopper for the retail, banking, and travel industries. Students learn how to choose the best-paying assignments, how to import items that will pay for the vacation, how to fly as a courier, how to get on as a tour guide, how to write articles and take pictures, and how to teach language classes for free travel.

She has dozens more ideas, all crammed into the three-hour session. "I like talking, so it's a high content three hours," she said, adding that she takes questions and sends participants home with all the contact information they'll need to start traveling for free.

These days, Henry-Cook has come a long, long way from Kansas. She has traveled to more than 80 countries and 40 states. Every year she leads 100 seminars in 86 cities across the country. Former students contact her all the time with new tales of how they used her ideas to see the world.

"It's all possible, it's all practical," she said. "Anyone can do it."

XXX

Gina Henry-Cook will teach the class "Free Vacations & Make Money Traveling" on Wednesday evening, Oct 1. To learn more about this and hundreds of other lifelong learning classes, call 830-895-4386, or visit www.clubed.net.

Club Ed is the Community Education program of the Kerrville Independent School District.

Visit our new blog at http://clubedcomments.blogspot.com/

Tool Time for Tomboys

As published in the Kerrville (TX) Community Journal, by Phil Houseal, Sept 17, 2008


Before this year, Bonnie Tom was anything but handy around the house.

"I couldn't do anything as far as home repair," Tom insisted. "Honestly, I couldn't."

So the Boerne resident signed up to take a women's home repair course. That is all it took to send her on a mission to help other women hone their own home repair skills.

Club Ed is offering half a dozen of Tom's Ms Fix It courses this fall. Designed specifically for women, the courses cover basic home repair from plumbing and electrical to tiling and paint preparation.

One key aspect of approaching home repair from a woman's perspective is the tools themselves. Tom uses Tomboy Tools. How are they different?

Ever since a cave dweller picked up a rock to crack a nut, tools have been designed by men, for men. Tomboy Tools are tools designed by women, for women.

According to Tom, the tools are smaller and lighter, with comfortable non-slip grips and an ergonomic design to better fit a woman's hands.

They are also designed for projects that a woman is more apt to undertake. For example, they have a nifty measuring tool that makes hanging pictures easy. The jig includes a sliding ruler, built-in level, and adjustable points to score the drywall so you know exactly where to drive in the nails. The caulk gun even has a swiveling nozzle to make it easier to apply caulk in tight corners. Brilliant.

OK, they are pink, too. But that is just to promote the fact that a portion of the proceeds support Susan G. Koman cancer research. The original line is still blue.

But the Ms Fix It courses are more about creating a supportive environment where women are not afraid to ask questions.

"It is amazing how some women who never picked up a screwdriver are responding to these classes," she said. "We provide a non-intimidating environment in which to learn and ask questions."

But are women really so eager to move into home repair, the traditional domain of manly men?

"More and more women want to do this, because women are realizing they can be self-reliant, can usually fix something faster, and avoid the higher cost of getting someone to come to your home," Tom said. "Our mission is to empower women to have confidence to fix their own homes."

XXX

The series of Ms Fix It classes begin in September, and include Plumbing, Tiling, Electrical, Paint Prep, Energy Efficiency, and Drywall. To learn more about these and hundreds of other lifelong learning classes, call 830-895-4386, or visit www.clubed.net.

Club Ed is the Community Education program of the Kerrville Independent School District. Comment online at clubedcomments.blogspot.com.

Read article about the class in the Boerne (Tx) Star (Oct 2008)