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Hi Tuesday,
My question is about how to add power to your spells. I'm new to witchcraft and I really need to know how to power them up please? I do and say everything it tells me to, but they don't seem to work. How can I add the missing power?
Hi Suzie,
Thanks for getting in touch, that's a great question about how to add power to your spells.
The fundamental basics of casting a spell, are that you are raising energy, filling it with your intent, directing it, then releasing it to the universe. Put like that it sounds pretty simple I know, but as with many things in life, to fully understand how to add power to your spell, we need to break the process down.
For more Q&A or to ask me something, check out my Tumblr or contact me HERE.
1. Raising Energy
There are several different ways of doing this. Some people like to hum or sing, others dance. Beating drums is another popular one, as is sex magick (as long as you can hang on until the right moment!) Personally, I like to chant, because it helps with setting my intention correctly and helps me to focus. This doesn't have to be a loud shouty business! I prefer to mutter – mainly because I feel like a bit of a tool yelling my head off – but whatever works for you! Again, time frame is a fairly subjective issue. As a general rule of thumb, I'd say from when you feel it growing from inside your belly/solar plexus until you feel ready to explode.
2. Intention
These 2 steps go hand in hand really, as you are building energy with a specific intent. As the energy grows, you need to be able to clearly visualise what it is you want to happen. So for a money spell you might see your bank balance increasing or your wallet filling. For weight loss spells you'd visualise yourself weighing less and less until you are at your desired size etc.
3. Directing
This is when you tell the energy what you want it to do. I love writing rhyming incantations because they are more fun to say, but a few simple sentences or even off the top of your head is fine. If you are performing a 3rd party spell, this is when you tell the energy where to go. If sympathetic magick, this would be when you used your poppet/moved your candles or whatever. Basically, this is the practical bit.
4. Releasing
Once you've said and done all of the necessary bits, then you are ready to release the energy into the universe. Again, there are different ways to do this. Some like to ring a bell, clap their hands or thump the table top to signify it is done. Others might use a phrase like 'So Mote It Be' or words to that effect. I like 'Let It Be,' as I'm a secular witch, but again, whatever means something to you. This is where you send the energy that you've built out and on its way.
Casting successful spells takes a lot of practice, the ability to visualise and the discipline to focus. Wishing you the very best of luck with everything, and I hope this has been helpful in teaching you how to add power to your spells.
Tuesday x


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Currently, we only offer uni-size, however we will gradually expand to multiple sizes and categories in the future.
Most of our designs are cut for loose fit to achieve oversized looks.
We measured each garments for your better imagination of the fits. All measurements are in inches and 1"= 2.54cm. If you are uncertain about the size, please don't hesitate and simply send us email at email@example.com. We are absolutely more than happy to help you.

subset: commoncrawl


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Just a short practice session with my favorite model talent. The Ma-le'l Dunes are a beautiful location to take a walk in between lightly forested wetlands and sand dunes stretching to the ocean. For this session I used the Nikon D5100 with both kit lenses. (18-55 VR, 55-300 VR) My photography style varies quite a bit, but I feel that I am limited at times with lens options. I would really enjoy some public input on which lens I should invest in next. Perhaps something geared for macro close-ups? Tell me in the comments section below.
Thanks for viewing my portfolio and remember; email@example.com to arrange for your own photo shoot! Otherwise, go ahead and critique my work in the comments section below. I thrive on constructive criticism!


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Last updated October 2015.


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Select the Award for which you are Nominating*
- Business of the Year - Recognizes a business that has made an impact on our community through their business expertise and community service. - Citizen of the Year - Recognizes an individual for their accomplishments in one or more of the following areas: Employment, Civic (city, county, state) and/or Voluntary service. - Customer Service - Recognizes a business that has made exceptional contributions and exceeded expectations in delivering services of superior quality to its customers. The business must demonstrate and model exceptionally consistent customer service techniques and build customer oriented relationships. - Lifetime Achievement - Recognizes an individual or group that has spent a lifetime serving, volunteering and making an impact on the community. - Volunteer of the Year - Recognizes an individual or group for their service to the community on a volunteer basis.
Name of Nominee*
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Nominated by:*
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It may be a problem and irritating to come back to a spot and never be capable of talk your basic wants. It is possible that you have experienced some astral travel in your lifetime, as stated above, both through your remembered dreams or daydreams. Take very special care to abide by the foundations of the property you're staying in and ensure expensive Fido is correctly groomed and de-flead before you travel…or it might value you! Uncover the considerably unthreaded approach of the practically everybody standard travel circuit in India on this interesting bike tour combining Rajasthan, Agra & Delhi.
And people are just the tales from the individuals who have bought world travel insurance coverage: I can not show it, however I suspect the quantity of people who wish they had bought travel insurance for the peace of mind it gives should be a significant determine. Major Havana lodges are being cleared, based on the pinnacle of a U.S. travel company who asked to not be recognized for concern it could injury future business relations.
Immigration advocates said the new ban still discriminated against Muslims and failed to address some of their concerns with the earlier order. Give your self permission to reside only within the current moment and cease worrying about the end result and you'll have a better travel expertise. Traveling light will take the stress out of you journey, and with a little bit of discipline, you can study to pack more efficiently.
The brand new breed of web-primarily based travel membership makes use of the shopping for power of thousands of members in the identical method big-box warehouse stores do except they do not bulk purchase toilet paper, they bulk buy trip travel. Fortunately, sweet promo flights, which consists of low-cost flights and accommodation to a number of the most sought after accommodations are quick changing into a pattern to travelers.
While consumers are spending more money on travel on the internet, the method may be fairly impersonal. If that is so, a niche operator could also be just the fitting travel associate for you. This would possibly happen throughout the off season that typically sees hotels publicizing such interesting last minute deals to be able to get travelers to occupy their unsold rooms.Travel accommodation is a major concern for all travelers embarking on any form of overseas journey, whether it's a brief weekend getaway or an extended backpacking expedition.


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User login
Symbol visibility (public, private, protected, etc.)
I'd be curious to know what people's opinions are on the matter of symbol visibility, and whether there are any new and fresh ideas in this space.
Now, you might think that symbol visibility would be a rather dull and pedestrian topic for a language theorist - few research papers on language design even mention the topic. However, I think that this is actually a very interesting area of language design.
Limiting the visibility of symbols has immense practical value, especially for large code bases: the main benefit is that it simplifies reasoning about the code. If you know that a symbol can only be referenced by a limited subset of the code, it makes thinking about that symbol easier.
There are a number of languages which have, in pursuit of the goal of overall simplicity, removed visibility options - for example Go does not support "protected" visibility. I think this is exactly the wrong approach - reducing overall cognitive burden is better achieved by having a rich language for specifying access, which allows the programmer to narrowly tailor the subset of code where the symbol is visible.
Here's a real-world example of what I mean: One of the code bases I work on is a large Java library with many subpackages that are supposed to be internal to the library, but are in fact public because Java has no way to restrict visibility above the immediate package level. In fact, many of the classes have a comment at the top saying "treat as superpackage private", but there's no enforcement of this in the language.
This could easily be solved if Java had something equivalent to C++'s "friend" declaration, the subpackages could then all be made private, and declare the library as a whole to be a friend.
However, I wonder if there's something that's even better...
By Talin at 2014-05-27 16:44 | LtU Forum | previous forum topic | next forum topic | other blogs | 5557 reads
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Biz Hub has signed today to deliver a new mobile device Food Safety auditing system for Primary Industries and Regions, SA (PIRSA). After the competitive tendering process, Biz Hub was selected on the basis of our ability to deliver all stated requirements, along with being the best value for money.
The project replaces an existing tablet-based onsite auditing system with our Skyve open-source low-code Enterprise Platform and includes mobile device forms, signature capture and the ability to work while disconnected (in remote and regional areas).


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The Dream Comes To An End
Kentucky's bid to sweep the NCAA tournament as well as the college basketball season came to an abrupt end last night as they were defeated by Wisconsin 71-64 in game 2 of the final four. Even though 38-1 is certainly nothing to sneeze at Kentucky players definitely had envisioned themselves going to the championship and completing that undefeated campaign. falling JUST two games short.
You have to wonder though, had UK played in a conference like the ACC vs the SEC would they have actually went undefeated even thru the regular season? After narrowly escaping Notre Dame in the elite eight before falling to Wisconsin last night in the final four, it appeared against the Irish that the wheels might already be beginning to fall off and it was confirmed last night. Kentucky's fans were left in shock and disbelief as Wisconsin fans ROCKED the dome as Jump Around blasted thru out the stadiums speakers. Kentucky faithful were so deep in their thoughts, it was as though they never noticed all the celebrating going on around them. After such a great run at going undefeated fell JUST two games shy of that perfect mark of 40-0, it was now ALL OVER and Big Blue fans were left to feel utterly cheated out of certain destiny.
I think we embraced 40-0 because I feel we were the best team and a lot of other people felt that way too, said Andrew Harrison. Well The Badgers might have a few words to say about that. So now that Kentucky's out of the tournament and with just 2-teams remaining who will be the team rising from the BLUE ashes to take the title game?
This is Whats On My Sports Mind about this subject.
As I had stated back on Jan. 21st that I did in fact feel that UK would go undefeated thru the regular season and the SEC tournament but that I felt it would be tough for them to make it thru the NCAA tournament and wind up undefeated simply because #1. I do NOT feel the SEC is a good measuring stick in college basketball or a good path to have to go down when preparing your team to enter the NCAA tourney and #2. I do not feel that Kentucky addressed that as they SHOULD have when they scheduled non-conference opponents.
If you want to better prepare your team for such a grueling task as IS March Madness you need to put your team thru the fire prior to the big dance and in My Sports Mind, that's where Kentucky failed before the Tournament ever began. The sad thing is that in the end NO ONE ever remembers who finished 2nd or in this case, 3rd or 4th however you choose to look at it and Kentucky's 38-1 record is now nothing more than that of quite a few other good UK teams that made nice runs at the title, only to come up short. SO now as Kentucky fans scramble from Indianapolis, In. scurrying back to their homes wondering about NEXT year and what could have been and now that the TV promoters are NO LONGER licking their chops at the hope and anticipation of a Kentucky/Duke matchup for the championship. NOW, There's only Duke and Wisconsin left to fight it out for the title. SO which team will emerge as the victor among the spoils? In My Sports Mind and I've felt for some time now that Duke would be the team to knock UK from the unbeaten ranks and I felt they would of course do it in the title game, but Wisconsin beat them to it and Even thou the Badgers did accomplish that feat, I still believe that in the end Duke will win the championship over Wisconsin, The Blue Devils showed great poise after falling behind early to a much improved Michigan St. by coming back to defeat the Spartans 81-61 in game one of the final four. The Blue Devils have already gave head coach Mike Krzyzewski his 1000th win earlier this year during the regular season and now they have a chance to make this season even more special, I DO believe that will give them even MORE motivation to win it all for their head coach.
SO Whats On Your Sports Mind on this subject?
May 8 2015
Can I just say what a relief to uncover someone who really understands what
they're discussing on the net. You certainly realize how to bring
an issue to light and make it important. More
and more people need to look at this and understand this side of the story.
I was surprised you are not more popular since you most certainly possess the gift.
May 8 2015
Thanks for the nice complement Ray, Very much appreciated 🙂
Oct 10 2015
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September 10th, 2005, 12:31 AM
Just wondering if anyone knows where the forward swept flying wing design of the Gould Death Gliders came from? The F302 uses this design because it's a Human derived 9and improved) version of the death glider, but I was wondering where the producers/designers/writers/sfx people came up with the design from originally.
Any one know, or have any ideas?
Any one know, or have any ideas?


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After 30 continuous years' service as a member of the trombone section of Chichester City Band, Don Webb will formally retire at the band's Christmas concert in St Paul's Church, Chichester on December 14.
Don said: "I have enjoyed 30 years of lovely music-making with the band. I had the chance to play in four national finals: 1995 Wembley, 1996 Cardiff, 1997 Birmingham and Cheltenham in 2018. At Cardiff we achieved our best-ever result in a National Finals with third place.
"I have only ever played in two bands. In 1958 when I got called up for national service, I played in the Regimental Band of the 10th Royal Hussars (PWO) for two years. I never joined a band when I was demobbed, but I began playing again when I started teaching my sons Kevin (trombone) and Martin (trumpet and cornet). We would often play at Easter and Christmas in Chidham Parish Church. After several years of persuasion from friends and family, I joined Chichester City Band in January 1989. I have never wanted to play for any other band and always feel very proud when we play Sussex by the Sea.
"I am not saying farewell to all my lovely friends in the band, but I am retiring as a playing member. However, I will still have contact with them as I was made life vice president in 2012."
Don will continue to attend concerts, contests and other events to support the band and to support Martin, who continues to be a member of the cornet section.
"It has been nice playing lovely music with the band for the last 30 years. But since my arthritis I have got a mobility problem. When we have a band engagement, if it wasn't for Martin, I could not get there. He is like my roadie. I discussed it all with both of my sons and they said 'We think it is time for you to retire, dad', and they are right. I lost my wife five years ago, and I think she would be saying 'Donald, it is time for you to hang up your trombone!'
"I realised a few years ago that my lungs and my body wouldn't be able to cope with it, but I am definitely not stopping music altogether. I have taken up the ukulele and play in three ukulele groups. I couldn't imagine no music at all, plus I am life vice president of the band."
Don recalls: "I did my apprenticeship and then was coming up to national service. I thought I would go into REME but in The Melody Maker, they were advertising for bandsmen. I started teaching myself the trombone when I was 19 and I hard-necked it and wrote to them.
"When I got called up in June 1958, they said 'You will be sent to Catterick for your basic training.' When you come from a home environment, with your mum and dad doing all sorts of things for you, it is quite a shock when you are suddenly in the army and get sent to Catterick.
"It was the toughest place you could go. Even the hardest guys were all 'Dear mum, please come and get me!'"
After national service, Don got married and had children and he stopped playing for a while.
"But then one day, I was up in the loft and found my instrument and blew a few notes. Kevin was seven at the time and he was shouting 'Bring it down! Bring it down!' He said he wanted to learn and I started teaching him.
"I started Martin on the trumpet and Kevin said 'Dad, you really should join a band', and that's when I joined the city band."
Don's final concert takes place at St Paul's Church, Churchside, Chichester on Friday, December 14, starting at 7.30pm. Admission (including interval refreshments) is £10, concessions £8 and free for children accompanied by a paying ticket holder. Tickets can be reserved in advance by contacting email@example.com or can be bought on the door.
Titus Rowe is delighted to be back in panto in Bognor Regis!
First anniversary for Jake at St Richard Singers' Christmas concert in Chichester
Latest novel from Yapton author Roberta Grieve goes back to childhood memories
Brighton date for concert celebrating the music of Pixar with films including Toy Story, Ratatouille and A Bug's Life
Sussex dates on Ben Elton's tour as he returns to the stage after 15 years
Arundel's Carly Paoli releases Christmas single in support of our soldiers
Lindisfarne and Oysterband to headline Bognor's 2019 Southdowns Folk Festival
Funtington Music Group offer their Christmas special with singers Erin Alexander and Tina Gelnere
The Magnard Ensemble perform in the Chichester Chamber Concerts series
Major new bursary for Chichester outsider artists charity in conjunction with The Arts Society South Downs
CBeebies presenter Rebecca Keatley is delighted to join the panto fun in Worthing!
Find out the films coming up on the big screen at Worthing Theatres


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Aberfoyle Hub Veterinary Clinic
Hub Professional Centre
Aberfoyle Park
- Phone:
- 08 8270 5155
Aberfoyle Hub Veterinary Clinic
08 8270 5155
Hub Professional Centre
Aberfoyle Park,
Hub Professional Centre
Aberfoyle Park, SA, 5159 Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
We offer a range of orthopaedic surgical procedures including and not limited to; cruciate ligament repairs, putellar luxation repairs, repair of broken bones and amputations. Not only are we able to offer these procedures to you but we are also able to offer the support and after care that you and your pet may need. We will develop a physical therapy and rehabilitation plan for your pet and will guide you through the process to do the best we can to insure your pet has function of their limb again.
If you have any question regarding our orthopaedic surgical procedures or our physical therapy and rehabilitation plans, please call us on 8270 5155.


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Number of practices submitting monthly Friends and Family data dives sharply
GPs have been warned they risk breaching their contract if they fail to submit July's Friends and Family Test results, after some areas have seen significant drops in responses.
The response rate for the FFT from London practices fell to 57% in May, a drop of 13% on April's results and the lowest of any English region.
The South was the next region lowest performing area, with 68% of practices submitting data, followed by Midlands and East (70%) and the North (72%).
But the latest NHS England figures for June reflect that measures taken to boost GP awareness of the rules had begun to take effect, with responses increasing 13% in London - compared to 7% nationally.
Pulse reported in May that Londonwide had warned a quarter of practices had not consistently submitted FFT data, but that NHS England would not initially issue breach of contract notices.
Instead, it launched additional training to support the 1,000 practices who had not been regularly submitting data
In a newsletter to member practices Londonwide LMCs state: 'We are aware that there must be confusion for practices about the data required for F&F test because NHS England has the monthly returns that show that many practices have not submitted regularly and some, not since it was introduced.'
It adds that some practices did not submit because of IT errors, because they thought it did not apply to them or because they thought this was a one-off submission exercise.
But the letter warns 'We must remind practices that if you do not submit F&FT data monthly for three consecutive months you will be in breach of your contracts and risk having a breach notice issued to you.'
'Monthly submissions of the data you collect from F&FT must be submitted on the 12th working day in the month after the data is collected. July's data is due on the 18th August.'
An NHS England spokesperson said: 'The number of practices submitting friends and family data went up by 7% in June and the overall number of responses was 8.6% higher. Our priority continues to be to support the small number of practices experiencing difficulties in collecting and returning friends and family data to identify and overcome these problems.'
Pulse revealed at the start of the month that practices' positive results from the Friends and Family test were being underestimated because NHS England was not differentiating between patients giving a negative score and those responding 'don't know'.
This story was edited on 20 August to include NHS England's statement and the latest results from June.
Readers' comments (10)
I suspect that the full data is pretty terrible. If you look at http://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/friends-and-family-test/friends-and-family-test-data/ all of the F&F data is published for maternity, inpatients, outpatients etc. The latests data is for June.
Despite seven months of plugging data into the system there is nothing for GPs. How bad is the data quality?
F*$k those guys. breach breach breack. The government NHS England are a bunch of numptys. Don't prescribe antibiotics and then FFT and NHS choiuces so people can tell the world ur a crap doctor because youre actually a good doctor. classic nonsense form the government and a great way to waste everybodies time with useless beurocracy; which of course theyre determinied to cut.
This comment has been moderated.
CQC, Breach notices, Imposed Contracts, Referred to the GMC by the patient for not prescribing antibiotics, by NICE for prescribing antibiotics, Indemnity fee skyrocketing, MPIG and seniority and pay cuts, Appraisal and revalidation , doubling workloads in 15 years - there really has never been a better time to be a GP. Maureen was so right. 5000 no problem. We may have 10000 extra GPs.
Guess what- there are still a few mugs out there.


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28 December - Merry Christmas. Bah Humbug!
Ever since I learned from
Bexley's very useful waste leaflet that I could put orange
juice cartons and butter tubs into the recycling bins my residual rubbish has
fallen from two, very occasionally three, plastic carrier bags full to only one.
Most recently the wrapping around a sliced gluten free loaf, some greasy paper
after a fry up and a data CD I had made for a friend but which I had put on line
for him to download instead. There was a crisp packet too but not much else. Cabinet member Peter Craske
should look upon me as a good friend but I would guess he doesn't.
As I have a Friday collection and I was away for Christmas I left my green bin on my drive so as not to obstruct the footpath and hoped the dustman would be kind enough to come on to my property when he did his round on Sunday morning. If he didn't it was of no consequence, keeping it another fortnight wouldn't matter.
When I returned home late on Sunday evening I found my bin blocking the drive, which was not unexpected, but I wasn't pleased to see rubbish strewn across the road, my own garden and my neighbour's.
My email Inbox told a similar tale from elsewhere in the borough.
After picking up the rubbish from both gardens and the road this morning I realised that almost none of it was mine. A toothpaste tube of a type I do not use, remnants of cheese which I never eat and soup cans which were not mine. (Full of 'poisonous' gluten!)
I decided to check my CCTV to see what these useless bin men had been up to.
With the bin carrying a load of no more than a couple of ounces, a gust of wind during the afternoon of Christmas Day had sent it skidding backwards on its two wheels to be plonked on the footpath at a crazy angle but still upright. More than 24 hours later someone unsteady on his feet bumped into it and knocked it over. Not long afterwards my carrier bag went bowling down the road out of sight.
When the binman came he looked into the bin, lifted it upright and pushed it back on to my drive where it still was when I came home. Hmmm. Not so useless after all.
Perhaps I should in future add a few bricks to the rubbish bag, but the question of where the unrecognised rubbish came from remains. The party poppers certainly weren't mine. Maybe someone further down the road suffered the same windy fate as I did.
If you have a bin man problem what you really need to do is to catch them in the act which is what happened to a BiB reader yesterday.
She lives in a flat sharing a communal bin which not only had its normal number of black sacks but the extra generated by Christmas. As soon as one bag was removed the pile fell down and Serco's finest simply left it but not before the refuse truck's registration number was snapped. The operatives too but it's probably best not to show you those.
The face of refuse collection is changing, maybe I no longer need a big green bin. A small bag at the bottom of a 140 litre bin is not easy to get out and I have to hook it to the lid in case the bin man has short arms. Maybe that nice Mr. Craske could think about a small box for the real rubbish too? One without wheels that is not at the mercy of the wind. Even when the bin is parked by the side of the house I have to tie it to a drain pipe to stop it being blown over.
Not collecting rubbish from flats may be the post Christmas norm. This is what those nearest to my address looked like this morning.
I used to think I had a good idea of who abused the nearby communal bins but a week or so ago I found him trying to decontaminate the paper bin and poking retrieved plastic bottles through the correct orifice and complaining about who does these things. It was either a very good act or I have been suspecting the wrong man.


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What Really Happens to Donated Clothing
Donations keep charitable businesses going, and there are a variety of ways that you can choose to donate to your favorite charity. You can choose to give your time, money, blood or you can donate goods to your favorite charity. Almost three-quarters of people in the U.S. donate to charities each year, and close to 3% of their average income is donated each year. Donating clothing is the best option, compared with other options such as trashing unwanted clothing.
Sometimes when you schedule a red cross clothing pick up, your clothes donated are re-sold. Used clothing donations have many uses and reselling them is a popular use. The donated clothes are sent to


text:
How to Address Customer Complaints about Your Restaurant
Your business's reputation can make or break you. Good reviews are a great way to bring in new customers; they let potential customers know that you offer a quality product. Bad reviews, however, can wreak havoc on your small business.
While you might not agree with every customer complaint, it is still essential to address their concerns promptly and professionally. If handled the right way, a bad review can be a great opportunity to build a positive relationship with a customer.
What Not to Do
As tempting as it may be to bury a review or remove it completely from your Facebook or Google Plus page, do not do this. Do not try to hide from bad reviews or hide them from other readers.
When you completely ignore bad reviews, the message you send customers is that you do not appreciate feedback and will not work on addressing customers' concerns. While it might be difficult to read harsh reviews, most reviewers are trying to offer genuine feedback. Even if you do not like how a review is presented, it is important to treat your customer and his or her feedback with respect.
While it is important to not ignore bad reviews, it is even more important to not inappropriately engage with reviewers. Do not fight with anyone online or try to prove anyone wrong. This only makes you look unprofessional to anyone reading the reviews of your business.
What to Do Instead
Instead of ignoring bad reviews or trying to prove customers wrong, there are some concrete steps you can take to turn bad reviews into loyal customers.
- First, apologize for the customer's bad experience. When apologizing, do not try to make explanations or excuses. Simply say that you are sorry.
- Second, try to make amends. Give them an incentive to return to your restaurant by offering a coupon or complimentary item.
- Finally, understand that you will not be able to win every customer back. Do not push too hard if they decline your offer; this makes your attempts seem disingenuous. By simply offering an apology and acknowledging their feedback without being combative, you can show future customers that you appreciate customer feedback – both positive and negative.
While it is never easy to receive negative feedback, there are ways you can make the most of it. Use every negative comment as an opportunity to reach out to your customers and see how you can improve their experiences. Do not ignore customer feedback or argue with the individual. After all, if their feedback is genuine, it can give you some good tips on how to improve your business in the future.
Image from Mangostar/Shutterstock


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I can't believe we're over halfway through the Georgia Nicolson readalong! I think we're almost at the point where the books will be new to me. Craziness! I mentioned last time that I was feeling more optimistic about the readalong and really remembered why I adored these books when I was a teen. This time, with Then He Ate My Boy Entrancers? Er. Not so much. This was, in Georgia's words, vair vair weird. Or as Jessica of Paper Trail Diary and the mastermind behind the readalong said, Georgia's latest story was full of randomosity.
Here's the synopsis of the sixth book in the Confessions of Georiga Nicolson series:
Let the overseas snogfest begin!
Georgia and Jas are off to Hamburger-a-gogo land! Georgia plans to track down Masimo, the Italian-American dreamboat, but after a long week in America, she only succeeds in learning importantish things -- like how to ride a bucking bronco. Will Georgia reel in the Italian dreamboat? Or is she destined to live forever all aloney on her owney?
But this is where the randomosity and vair vair weird comes in. I present you with Exhibit A:
As the olds went off to get last-minute pressies and Libby went to get something for the kitties, me and Jas made our small but meaningful tribute to our visit to Hamburger-a-gogo land. The only good thing about the nightmare trip to Gaylords was that we got to buy some souvenir bison horn hats. We were able to wear them for our farewell nuddy-pants photo session in the hotel room.Um. What the what? I actually don't even have words for this.
There were also far too many gay/lesbian slurs in this book. Dave the Laugh implies, on several occasions, that Masimo is gay. And at another point Libby, Georgia's younger sister, is having two of her dolls kiss and if it wasn't for the fact that it was actually one male doll dressed up like a woman, it would be "lezzie snogging" and Georgia blames her parents "because of their lack of moral code." Really? This is really what teen books were like in the early 2000s? Reading that now is incredibly appalling.
I think I've just realized a big problem I have with this series. Georgia is so completely boy obsessed that she doesn't care about anything else. Not school, not (really) her family, not even really her friends. She needs everything to be about her and her thoughts are consumed with boys (and makeup and shoes and hair and clothes). I wasn't really that kind of teenager. Sure, I thought boys were cute and I wanted to wear what everyone else was wearing, but I still realized that there were things more important than snogging my latest crush. Of course, reading it now, at 29, is much more difficult because I want to shake Georgia and tell her she's being a little idiot. She'd likely just roll her eyes and lump my advice in with that of The Olds (her parents and their friends). But really. I sometimes have a hard time feeling sorry for and reading about a teenager who is so obsessed with finding out where her new crush is staying that she can't be bothered to learn how big the United States is.
Though I had about a gazillion problems with this book, I did find myself giggling at certain exchanges. How about this foreshadowing:
[Mum] said, "I'm really looking forward to this trip, aren't you? I wonder if we will bump into George Clooney. I hope we do! He's so...woof woof."There was also this random exchange between Georgia and her father after he came home after drinking a few beers and decided that the family was actually Irish, not English:
I said, "Mum, excuse me if I am right, but did you just bark like a dog?"
She laughed, "Well, you know, he's gorgeous, isn't he? And he might really like English women."
I said, "Dad, when you say 'villainous English,' do you mean us?"I also really enjoyed how none of the Americans they met could place their accent. It's a bit true of Canadians too...I have a hard time figuring out where people are from right away. I'd have to really listen hard before I could determine if they were English, Irish, or Australian. (Though I really couldn't tell the difference between Australians and New Zealanders...sorry. I know it's the exact same as people not being able to tell us Canadians from Americans.)
But he wouldn't be stopped. "They changed the name to Nicolson."
I said, "What, that grand old English name? NOT. Why would they change their name from an Irish one to a Scottish one? The English, ie, us, hated the Och Aye landers just as much as the Leprechaun-a-gogo folk. More. That is why we built Hadrian's wall at the top of England...to keep the ginger-beardy folk out."
Dad was still rambling on like Paddy O'Mad. "And another thing, we look Irish. That man in Memphis spotted it. ..."
"No, he didn't, Dad. He was an American - he doesn't know where anyone comes from unless it's Texas."
The rest of the book after their vacation was a rambling mess of chasing after boys and buying shoes that were three sizes too small and having to have the doctor come to cut them off her feet (I couldn't believe how stupid she was). I think I'm going to kind of pretend Then He Ate My Boy Entrancers didn't happen because it was just so utterly bizarre. Right to the end when Gordy the kitty was eating one of Georgia's fake eyelashes aka boy entrancers.
Here's hoping the next book, Startled by His Furry Shorts isn't quite so full of randomosity! We'll be reading that one for July 26.
Review of book one, Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging.
Review of book two, On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God.
Review of book three, Knocked Out by My Nunga-Nungas.
Review of book four: Dancing in My Nuddy-Pants
Review of book five: Away Laughing on a Fast Camel
Review of book three, Knocked Out by My Nunga-Nungas.
Review of book four: Dancing in My Nuddy-Pants
Review of book five: Away Laughing on a Fast Camel


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When word broke this week that Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's use of private e-mail accounts for state business is being investigated, I had unwanted flashbacks to the White House e-mail scandal. "Here we go again," I thought.
At the same time, though, I realize that almost everybody uses personal e-mail accounts for business purposes -- maybe when servers at work are down, or when mail sent from a work account is inadvertently blocked by the recipient's spam filter. (The latter happened to me just last month when I was trying to send questions to a prospective interview subject.)
From what I've read about Alaska's rules on the matter (which, admittedly, isn't much), there is nothing legally wrong with using a private e-mail account for state business as long as e-mails that address state business and don't fall under certain exemptions are captured and retained for the public record. That said, however, it is certainly not good practice, for several reasons. I'll discuss two in particular here.
The first has been illustrated quite vividly by the hackers who managed to gain access to Palin's Yahoo accounts and scatter various e-mails, photos, etc., throughout cyberspace: If state business is conducted via a private account, even if copies of messages were made and retained for the record, the state cannot manage the security of the information contained in those messages. Anyone can get to them.
The second has also been illustrated in Palin's situation in that many have assumed that she used the private accounts to evade the record retention requirement in order to cover up inappropriate actions. That may have been the motive, but it may not have been. Time and further investigation will reveal that. But should an executive -- either of a state or of a company -- even leave room for people to speculate whether she has reason to keep e-mail under wraps?
I don't think she should.


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Employee Services
Employee Services
This page is a tool for you to be able to access 24/7 to take care of your personal City business. Enter your time sheet information, review email, research benefits, pay tables, policies and contracts. You will find forms to change your address, update benefits and make requests for such things as petty cash, or advance travel. Select the links below to browse services.
Essential service links
Employee Timesheet & Information
Accident Investigation Fillable Form
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Employee Benefits - Benefits include Medical, Dental and Vision, deferred compensation, supplemental life insurance, etc.
Salaries, Pay & Finance Forms - Find pay schedules, classification tables, payroll change forms, payday calendar, etc.
Union Contracts, Personnel/Operating Policies and Travel Policy


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Following are my statements about time & these understanding I got after I properly assimilated all observations of nature
1. Time is result of a natural process – one revolution of earth is one day, so on..etc. Man has just found a way to streamline his activities to maximize the utilization of day time.
2. From day one, human is fighting with the time in proving his superiority over other creatures
3. After that, human started racing against his old records and beat each record at least by 1 second (or even nanosecond) & show to the world he becomes better and better over a period
Now time management becomes integral part of life which requires specific skills to be developed to compete with other people in the world. Better time management leads
i) greater success ratio in career & personal life
ii) allows one to achieve more
iii) increase efficiency & effectiveness of an activity
Current researches relates every particle in the universe to 'Time' in one or the other way. Either approachability, rotation, size, etc are compared in terms of time. So humans are no exception for this.
Mind build time sense by nature. My mind sets time for each activity & keeps on calculating lapsed time, remaining time, over time, in different angles based on critical nature of the task. Sense of urgency – increases my heart beat, makes me think faster than light, make me work faster than usual.
World is like a race ground – all are running. One who completes faster gets appreciation, praise, monetary benefits. The one runs slow gets blame, scold, no monetary benefits. Race is by nature. You cannot stop it or take rest. You have to run or at least walk to beat someone who walks slower than you, otherwise it is not possible for you to survive. Life is counted as number of years, days, hours, minutes you lived. Unless you develop time sense in you, it is very difficult to cope up with expectations.
Practice makes a man perfect – this statement is 100% true for time management. Time management requires practice in every aspect. So, how do I practice? Start in small steps.
1. Increase your daily active life at least 10 – 15 mins by waking up earlier than the time you wake up daily.
2. Don't be lenient on holidays. Wake up same time on Sunday too.
3. Follow a cyclic process – Set time goals, observe & take corrective actions for future.
4. Prioritize as much as possible. Force your prioritizing to broader level. Don't just put all of them in 1,2,3 levels. Have unique level for each of them. If you have 20 activities in hand, have 20 priority levels. This gives unambiguous execution order. But do remember #3, and modify the priority levels based on current situations.
5. Have good mental health – everyday perform activity that gives you happiness at least for 10 minutes like talking to your parents, spouse, watching comedy videos, reading books that you felt close to your heart, washing your car, cleaning home, playing with your kids or pets.


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National Bonsai Foundation
The National Bonsai Foundation (NBF) is a nonprofit organization that was created to sustain the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum. NBF also helps the United States National Arboretum showcase the arts of Bonsai and Penjing to the general public. The National Bonsai and Penjing Museum is located on the 446-acre (1.80 km2) campus of the US National Arboretum in northeast Washington, D.C. Each year over 200,000 people visit the museum.[1] Distinguished national and international guests of various Federal Departments are also among the visitors.[2]
A Western Yellow Pine (Pinus ponderosa) bonsai on display at the Entrance.
|3501 New York Avenue N.E. Washington D.C. 20002
|National Bonsai & Penjing Museum
Mission statementEdit
"The National Bonsai Foundation is a section 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization established in 1982 to sustain the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum. It cooperates with the U. S. National Arboretum by offering financial support and advice to the museum.
This private/public collaboration between the Foundation and the Arboretum enables the museum to promote the art of bonsai and penjing to visitors through masterpiece displays and educational programs while also fostering intercultural friendship and understanding."[3]
In 1976, the country of Japan gave a gift of 53 Bonsai trees to America for the United States Bicentennial. The trees were selected by the Nippon Bonsai Association, with financial assistance from the Japan Foundation. The trees arrived at the Potomac Bonsai Association, and volunteers worked with the staff of the US National Arboretum to keep the trees in display condition. In 1979, Janet Lanman talked with Dr. John Creech, Director of the Arboretum the possibility of adding American bonsai to the museum. Dr. Creech proposed this idea to well-known Bonsai teacher Marion Gyllenswan. An independent body of Bonsai authorities was assigned to review private Bonsai collections, possibly as a part of a national collection. These Bonsai authorities were called the National Bonsai Committee. In 1982, the National Bonsai Committee was reformed into the National Bonsai Foundation (NBF). The National Bonsai Foundation recruited people from all across the country to be directors. The members of the first Board were Marybel Balendonck, Larry Ragle, Melba Tucker, Frederic Ballard, and H. William Merritt. MaryAnn Orlando served as the Executive Director and principal fund raiser for the NBF. Marion Gyllenswan was appointed the first president of the NBF. (Frederic Ballard would be the second President from 1990-1996 and Felix B. Laughlin would be the third from 1996 to present).
In 1986, the ten-year anniversary of the gift from Japan, the National Bonsai Foundation announced that they would be building the American Bonsai Pavilion to complement the Japanese Pavilion, and to showcase a collection of North American Bonsai. This became a reality in 1990. That October 1, the American Bonsai Pavilion was dedicated to two American Bonsai Masters. The Yuji Yoshimura Educational Center is a work space and a classroom. The John Y. Naka North American Pavilion provides the display area for the North American Bonsai Collection.[4]
With donations from the Bonsai community, the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum grew greatly in the early 1990s. The Kaneshiro Tropical Conservatory (named for "Papa" Kaneshiro, the father of Hawaiian Bonsai) was added in 1993 for delicate trees. A behind-the-scenes greenhouse was also added for trees in development.[5] The Mary E. Mrose International Pavilion for Information, Education and Cultural Exhibits was completed in 1996. And the NBF website was launched three years later. Awakening the Soul: The National Viewing Stone Collection (2000) became the first book published by the National Bonsai Foundation. The following year the NBF sponsored the first North American Bonsai Pot Competition for ceramic artists, published The Bonsai Saga: How the Bicentennial Collection Came to America by former U.S. National Arboretum Director, Dr. John Creech, and published a translation into English of Forest, Rock Planting & Ezo Spruce Bonsai by the Japanese Bonsai Master Saburo Kato. Johann F. Klodzen was appointed NBF Executive Director. With significant funding from NBF, in 2003 the Maria Vanzant Upper Courtyard and the H. William Merritt Entrance Gate to the Kato Family Japanese Stroll Garden were dedicated. The NBF also became a membership organization that year, supported by annual dues as well as by contributions. A number of bonsai societies, related groups, and individuals then became members.[6] The NBF, along with the U.S. National Arboretum and the Potomac Bonsai Association, hosted the World Bonsai Friendship Federation's 5th World Bonsai Convention in Washington D.C. in late May 2005. Also that year, John Naka's Sketchbook and the Proceedings of the International Symposium on Bonsai and Viewing Stones (which was held in 2002) were both published by NBF. The completion of the Rose Family Garden and the paving of the lower courtyard were accomplished with NBF funds.[7] In 2011 the Campaign For The Japanese Pavilion: A Gift Renewed was established to raise funds for the renovation and improvement of that Pavilion which had been damaged over the years from exposure to the elements. The much-needed restoration is planned for 2013 if necessary funds can be raised.[8] Over the years funds have also been used on occasion to purchase select pots from Japan for some of the collection trees, and new periodicals and historical reference volumes from Japan for the museum library.[9] Because the museum and National Arboretum are part of the USDA, these items become owned by the United States National Agricultural Library.
Collections and exhibitsEdit
The National Bonsai and Penjing Museum has four collections. The Japanese, the Chinese, the North American, and the Viewing Stone. There have been five curators of the collections so far: Robert F. Drechsler (1975-1996), Warren Hill (1996-2001), Jack Sustic (2002-2005), Jim Hughes (2005-2008), Jack Sustic (again, 2008–2016), and Michael James (2016–present).[11] In addition to the collections, the museum also has pavilions, courtyards, and gardens. The National Bonsai and Penjing Museum has a number of temporary exhibits going on at one time.[12] These are supported by NBF Officers, Advisors, Staff members, and volunteers.[13]
The Japanese CollectionEdit
This collection started with the 53 original trees from Japan.[14] These trees spent a year in quarantine after arrival, and on July 19, 1976 were dedicated in a ceremony with many dignitaries from Japan, and the USA watching. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger acted for the American government, and accepted the trees. The collection which is now 63 trees can be seen in the Japanese Pavilion in April through October. From November to March, they can be seen in the Dr. Yee-sun Wu Chinese Pavilion.[15]
The Chinese CollectionEdit
The Chinese Collection (also known as the Penjing Collection) in the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum is in the Yee-sun Wu Chinese Garden Pavilion. This pavilion is named for Dr. Wu Yee-sun (1900-2005), who collected and designed penjing in Hong Kong. In 1983, Janet Lanman, a NBF Board Member asked Dr. Wu if he would like to help include penjing in the museum. Dr. Wu was delighted at the idea, and gave funding to build a pavilion, as well as donating many penjing trees. In 1988 the museum was renamed National Bonsai and Penjing Museum.[16]
The North American CollectionEdit
Most of the trees in the North American Collection are in the John Y. Naka North American Pavilion. The tropical species of this collection are in the Haruo Kaneshiro Tropical Conservatory. The 63 tree collection was made entirely by North Americans. The John Y. Naka North American Pavilion was dedicated in 1990 to the American-born grand master John Y. Naka (1914-2004). His world-famous Bonsai composition "Goshin" (seen right) is displayed at the entrance to the Pavilion. The trees in this collection can be seen on display in spring, summer, and fall. In winter they are in the Chinese Pavilion.[17]
The Viewing Stone CollectionEdit
Besides having many beautiful Bonsai trees, the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum also has a world class collection of viewing stones. Bonsai and viewing stones are closely related. Both show great respect for nature, and when the small scale plants and stones are combined, the whole of nature can be imagined via these magical miniature landscapes.
This collection began with six suiseki that accompanied the 53 original Bonsai. The collection today has a total of 105 stones from all around the world. The stones can be seen in and around the Mary Mrose International Pavilion. The Melba Tucker Suiseki and Viewing Stone Display Area has its stones periodically changed in themes.[18]
- ^ National Bonsai and Penjing Museum
- ^ "Museum Notes". NBF Bulletin. XXII (1–2): 4. 2001.
- ^ National Bonsai Foundation Mission
- ^ National Bonsai Foundation History Milestones
- ^ Bonsai Collections
- ^ National Bonsai Foundation Member Groups
- ^ National Bonsai Foundation History Milestones
- ^ National Bonsai Foundation Projects
- ^ "Museum Notes". NBF Bulletin. XXII (1–2): 4. 2001.
- ^ "Hiroshima Survivor". National Bonsai Foundation. Retrieved 12 May 2012.
- ^ National Bonsai Foundation Mission
- ^ National Bonsai Foundation Exhibits
- ^ National Bonsai Foundation Directors
- ^ http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/this-390-year-old-bonsai-tree-survived-an-atomic-bomb/ar-BBllbHc?ocid=HPCDHP
- ^ National Bonsai Foundation Japanese
- ^ National Bonsai Foundation Chinese
- ^ National Bonsai Foundation North American
- ^ National Bonsai Foundation Viewing Stones
External linksEdit
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to United States National Bonsai & Penjing Museum.
- Official site of the National Bonsai Foundation
- Official site of the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum
- NBF Bulletin (quarterly-semiannual newsletter)
- National Bonsai Foundation on Facebook
- Capital Bonsai Blog, featuring the collections of the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum
- The Bonsai Saga: How the Bicentennial Collection Came to America by Dr. John Creech.
- Video: '400-Year-Old Bonsai Survived Hiroshima Bombing' by Zulima Palacio
- Video: 'Place - Japanese Bonsai Garden at the National Arboretum' by Rupert Chappelle.


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Movie Review: The Raven
Seeing the posters, watching the trailer, or simply hearing "John Cusack is Edgar Allan Poe" should give you ample preparation (warning?) about exactly what kind of Poe The Raven is showcasing. And should be enough to say how much attention to poetry the movie gives. Which is to say: 'little-to-none.'
That, however, is exactly what you want. You do not need a background in American Poetry or Genre & Meaning, or for that matter, who Edgar Allan Poe is or was. You simply need to let yourself go and watch the dark and dreary film unfold.
Because what you see on screen is not exactly Poe, but John Cusack playing dress-up as Poe—a poor, alcoholic, and smug writer (is there any other kind?) that makes scenes in pubs and knows only despair and hard luck. He becomes more compelling as the film unfolds, especially when he gets out of the way his Nicolas Cage-esque entrance, where he raves a lunatic, loud and wild-eyed.
A madman of sorts is using Poe's words as a means to kill people, replicating some of his finest, darkest deaths. There is no shortage of blood, especially near the beginning of the film in a scene very not too dissimilar from something one might see in the Saw franchise. The tension isn't as high, and the spouting blood has a certain syrup like quality, but if there was one thing the real Poe wouldn't roll his eyes at in this representation, it should be the blood and death.
Luke Evans is fantastic as Detective Fields, a worthy foil to Cusack, and the man to find the killer—if he isn't the killer himself. What starts off as a relationship formed from suspicion and mistrust blossoms into a partnership—dare I say bromance—that seems effortless and genuine. Evans' brooding stare, bulging muscles, and deep voice certainly make him of interest to the female fans (and more than a few males) who choose seek an alternative to Cusack's boyish charm; a charm that still comes through despite his wrinkled brow, receding hairline, and crazy goatee.
The Raven lies somewhere between the reboot of Sherlock Holmes (the RDJ variety) and The League of Extraordinary Gentleman; lacking the brains of the former though featuring a strong male relationship, with some whimsy and generous interpretation of history from the latter.
Based around the fact that the last days of Poe's life are unaccounted for, The Raven is more a cat and mouse story that is actually surprising at times, and even when the pace slows, it often features an interesting back and forth between Evans and Cusack.
A word about Alice Eve, the love interest of Poe. She of course becomes a victim, an act that drives Poe simultaneously mad and lucid, eliciting from him the finest of prose as per the villain's request. Fair-skinned and blonde, she is not completely helpless. She should be given more to do, but in an early scene with Poe, she proves a worthy partner to the thoughtful poet.
Generously using history, The Raven sets out to meet expectations, as long as you know what Cusack brings to the table: the right amount of charm, fire, and star power, evermore.
[star v=3]


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The cashew nut market, which is already experiencing the highest price in nearly five years, will spike higher as the demand from US and Europe is outpacing supply from the major growing regions, particularly Vietnam, India and West Africa.
Market price for cashew is estimated to move up to record levels due to the combination of severe droughts and heavy rains in these supply areas saw a reduction in both crop yields and quality earlier in the year, Lady MJ Santos, Founder and CEO of MJS Commodities, a supplier of raw cashew nuts and many other commodities, said.
Global demand for cashews has been growing faster than any other tree nut, including almonds, hazel, pistachios and walnuts, and that spike in popularity is putting a strain on the global supply, which could cause a shock in prices for processors and consumers.
Cashews are the US and Europe's favourite nut, but the mostly poor farmers who grow them often bear the greatest risk in the trade. Not only a popular snack, the nut is also a key ingredient in a range of foods such as biscuits, snack bars, cereals, sauces and puddings.
Bloomberg reports demand has grown by 53% since 2010, and outstripped production in at least four of the past seven years.
Vietnam, the world's largest exporter, suffered its worst drought in nearly 100 years with record low river flows, and a range of food crops have been decimated. Over the past year, an unusual dry spell has left 2 million people in the country with acute water shortages and 18 of 63 provinces were in a state of emergency as of May, according to the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization. As a result, Mekong Delta and elsewhere in Vietnam has cut output of its major agricultural exports including rice, black pepper, coffee and seafood.
This year's cashew harvest in Vietnam is down by 11%, and prices in that country have already gone up by as much as a third, according to estimates from a growers' group, which mean trouble ahead stateside: the U.S. is the biggest importer — bringing in about a quarter of all cashew shipments — with folks eating them as snacks or using them to make protein bars and cashew milk.
Vietnam is the largest producer of cashew nuts — responsible for 28% of world production. However, Vietnam also imports shelled cashews, which are processed at large plants in the country and re-exported. Consequently Vietnam accounts for 42% of the world's processed cashew nut exports. Many of the cashew nuts imported by Vietnam originate from West Africa, which is still experiencing severe droughts that could also affect next year's crop.
"There's been no year like this year," Nguyen Duc Thanh, chairman of the Vietnam Cashew Association, told Bloomberg.
He says prices will probably stay high until the next harvest comes in early 2017.
Although Vietnam exports about 58% of the world's cashews, the country isn't totally dependent on its own growers: about two-thirds of the cashews it processes were grown somewhere else — like West Africa, which has seen a big jump in production — and are then processed in Vietnam.
That being said, high demand is still putting stress on the processed nuts market, with export prices jumping 22% this year through August, Thanh said, and other experts say global demand will keep rising this year, against supply that will remain flat or slightly below last year.
While increased output from Africa may offset lost supply in Vietnam, rising demand is still impacting the market for processed nuts. Export prices on average have jumped 22 percent this year to $7,809 a ton in August, Thanh said, citing data from Vietnam's Ministry of Industry and Trade. Shipment prices averaged $9,000 per ton on an FOB basis in Ho Chi Minh City on Oct. 30, he said.
The festival season, which generally sees a heavy demand for finished cashew in the local market, has not brought cheer to the Indian cashew processing units either.
In India, the price of raw cashew nuts has gone up this time by 40 per cent.
Raw material is not available locally in sufficient quantity forcing the Indian processing units to import it from Tanzania, Ghana and other East and West African countries. There also the prices have gone up abnormally. Moreover, the increase in import duty enforced this year from 4.36 to 10 per cent has dealt a deadly blow to the Indian cashew industry.
India produces 6-7 million tonne of raw cashews per annum and was, until recently, the leading supplier of kernels to the global market.
Lower supply of nuts in Vietnam, India and West Africa has made raw nuts very costly. Average price of kernel has moved to $4.75 to 4.80 per pound for W320. But demand is seen robust and ahead of supply even at this high price.
"Raw materials are overpriced and entry of new processors in Africa and India have further worsened the market for processors", Pratap Nair of Vijayalakshmi Cashews, one of the oldest and largest cashew-exporting houses, said.
"The current price level is likely to extend for quarter and depending on the demand it may move up further," he added.
In the April-September period, cashew shipments from India dropped 25 per cent in volume and 13 per cent in value terms, as imports of RCN have seen a substantial decline during the first five months of 2016-17, marking a continuation in the downward trend in exports of the nut. Total imports by India fell by 32 per cent to 5,00,329 tonnes.


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2016 Educational Animation Festival
Last Updated by
Create an animated movie that teaches a math, science or social studies fact or concept and you could win a Box of Light animation workshop!
Check out all of the submissions so far here!
WVIA is partnering with Box of Light to present the first Educational Animation Festival. Create your own stop-motion animated movie and it can be featured online, along with a grand prize of a Box of Light animation workshop. The contest is open for students in 2nd through 12th grade. Deadline for entries is
March 25th, 2016. Deadline extended to May 15th, 2016. For full rules, details, examples and submission documents, visit the festival website. Good luck!
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At Raytheon our air and missile defense systems have one mission: providing peace of mind.
Raytheon Missile Systems (RMS) is the world's largest developer, producer and integrator of weapon systems. Military forces in more than 50 countries look to us for a high-quality product portfolio that includes missiles, smart munitions, projectiles, kinetic kill vehicles and directed energy weapons. RMS is helping to shape the future of innovative weapon system solutions in response to our customers' most urgent needs and our Systems Design team in Tucson, AZ, is looking for you!
Raytheon Company Overview
Additional information about RMS and Tucson, AZ
The Systems Design Center (SDC) is responsible for the overall technical integrity of the systems being developed, and is the point organization for coordinating across disciplines, including:Electrical, Mechanical, Software, Specialty Engineering; Test; GNC; Modeling, Simulation and Analysis; and Signal Processing support where required. The organization often takes the lead on Failure Review Boards, Engineering Review Boards, and other cross-discipline engagements.
The Systems Design Center within the System Design & Performance Directorate has systems design responsibility for programs in the following product lines: Naval and Area Mission Defense, Air Warfare Systems, Land Combat Systems and Air and Missile Defense Systems.The center is currently looking for Mid-Senior Level Systems Engineers to provide systems design expertise for programs in various stages of the product life cycle as individual contributors.We are not looking for managers or directors at this time.
U.S. Citizenship status is required as this position needs an active U.S. Security Clearance as of day one of employment.
Required Degree, Skills and Experience:
·BS in Engineering, Computer Science, Math or Physics
· Eight (8) years of experience in one or more of the following technical domains: RF/IR signal processing, electronics, navigation (GPS or Inertial), missile autopilots, modeling and simulation (for example 6-DOF), aerodynamics, missile related mechanical engineering (flight control systems, warheads, missile structures, seeker gimbals, RF/IR seeker sub-systems);
·Four (4) years of systems engineering experience with exposure in one or more of the following domains: requirements analysis and development; system performance analysis; integration and verification; and subsystem or system architecture development
·Past work experience interacting with multidisciplinary teams of system design professionals including electrical, mechanical, software and logistics engineers
·Prior work experience giving technical briefs or presentations after synthesizing or generating technical materials from multidisciplinary sources.(Note:In person interview process will require giving a short presentation on a systems engineering topic of your choice.)
·The position requires an active Department of Defense Secret Clearance
Desired Skills:
·Current DoD secret or TS/SSBI clearance
·MS in Engineering, Computer Science, Math or Physics
·Matlab and/or C++ experience
·Modeling and Simulation experience
·Experience with model-based systems engineering
·Missile performance analysis
·Ability to visualize system functionality, to create block diagrams, and to analyze system performance
·Ability to analyze issues and define solutions
·Ability to perform trade studies to optimize system performance
·Familiarity with DoD customer infrastructure with respect to command and control, telemetry, flight test, ISR, fixed wing, and/or rotary wing systems
·Understanding of Systems Engineering Product Development Cycle
·Strong communication and leadership skills including effective written, verbal, and listening skills
This position requires the eligibility to obtain a security clearance. Non-US citizens may not be eligible to obtain a security clearance. The Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office (DISCO), an agency of the Department of Defense, handles and adjudicates the security clearance process. Security clearance factors include, but are not limited to, allegiance to the US, foreign influence, foreign preference, criminal conduct, security violations and drug involvement. Employment is contingent on other factors, including, but not limited to, background checks and drug screens.
Check us out on YouTube:
CNBC Video Missile Defense Demand Increasing
Ballistic Missile Defense (SM-3)
Tank buster Javelin!
Raytheon is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or protected Veteran status.


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Let's Get Acquainted
learn more about our wedding planning process.
Then, schedule a complimentary consultation with one of our coordinators to discuss your dream wedding!
Your wedding is FULL of decisions…oh so many decisions. My hope with this Q&A is to help you feel more confident in your decision to choose the BBS wedding planning team.
After reading through it, if you feel our vibe, then get in touch with us at email@example.com and we can talk more about all those decisions together.
Do you have a clear sense of self and a sense of humor? Let's get to work and have some fun doing it. Do you have an idea of what you want, but no idea how to make it happen? Let us be your guide. Do you have absolutely no ideas about what you want? Oh boy, oh boy. We'd love to help you build a beautiful vision together! You are the reason we are here. Our clients will tell you that when you work with BBS, you will not only get straight-forward, impartial feedback from us, but you'll also get planners who are here for you, emotionally and more.
We accept electronic payments. Once we receive your non-refundable retainer, we are pleased to be able to offer the option of setting up automatic payments. With automatic payment set-up, you will never have to worry about sending checks and you will not have to be bothered with financial matters on the day of your event.
We are an extension of your wishes and expectations for your day. You will be granted access to a web-based collaboration and communication tool so we can all stay on the same page and allow you to maintain control of your wedding.
In the same breath, it's all about trust. Trust that we have taken the utmost care to ensure that you get not only what you deserve, but what you paid for…the most fantabulous wedding possible. All eyes will be on you. So enjoy, let go and let Bliss!
During our training, we learned that it takes the average bride over 200 hours to plan her wedding. That's FIVE 40-hour work weeks. Can you imagine that? The schedule of most busy professionals will not allow for that, can yours? Many of our past clients have thanked us for saving them time, energy and money!
Besides, can you put a price on peace of mind? There have been several people who opted to plan their own weddings because of 'cost'. However, those who invested in BBS have time and time again admitted to us that their day, quite frankly, would have been a "hot mess" had we not been in the house! We can help you avoid that too.
Yes. We are happy to collaborate with your wedding and event professionals to make sure your wishes are taken into consideration with every detail.
No. Each consultant only takes one event per day.
Most definitely! We invite you to do some research and we are confident that the feedback you gain will put all doubts to rest. We also invite you to browse our client and event professional testimonials.
Of course. Please feel free to call us with any questions or ideas you may have at 312.465.2295 ext. 1 or you can email me at firstname.lastname@example.com to discuss your questions.
Samantha Dockery
Owner/Lead Consultant
Then, schedule a complimentary consultation with one of our coordinators to discuss your dream wedding!


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No, only checking accounts can be used for bill payment purposes.
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I've been following the Casey Anthony trial and it's a rather heartbreaking thing to witness. There is too much evidence against her for her not to be guilty: not reporting her daughter's death for 31 days? Who does that? Even if it was just an accident, most mothers don't let their children "go missing" for that long, let alone one hour, without contacting authorities.
Furthermore, I don't think Casey is alone in all this. I think her parents didn't want to see her have any harm, and covered for her. I can't say I blame (well, I can) Cindy Anthony for lying (it's been proven she has under oath), because that's her daughther. But I also feel that if it wasn't an accident and it was malicious and it was just so Casey could live her life that her parents would have been more forthcoming. I also feel if they (the grandparents) didn't have some part in it, whether it be bystanders or not, that they would have been open and supportive of the prosecutors.
The grandparents were the caregivers of Caylee, which also makes me concerned that they didn't go to authorities before 31 days either.
She's been found not guilty of first degree murder and aggrevated child abuse, probably because there was reasonable doubt in her role in Caylee's death. Granted, the chlorform and hair sold me that she was heavily involved in the disposal of the body, but the jury obviously didn't feel that Caylee died at the hand of Casey, which is why they didn't charge her with murder. YES, I'm aware of something called circumstantial evidence. I might not be an aspiring lawyer or in law school, nor do I know all the intricacies of the law, but guess what? I'm not claiming to either.
It's concerning though that she was charged on all accounts of providing false information, yet was not found guilty regarding any circumstance of Caylee's death. And how she didn't get aggrevated child abuse is beyond me, given evidence enough is not reporting a "missing child" for 31 days.
What really gets me going is how she didn't get aggrevated manslaughter? HOW? I chatted with some lawyer friends who say she'll probably get less than four years in prison for false information, which is deplorable given we can all conclude she had an active part in Caylee's death.
What really gets me going is how she didn't get aggrevated manslaughter? HOW? I chatted with some lawyer friends who say she'll probably get less than four years in prison for false information, which is deplorable given we can all conclude she had an active part in Caylee's death.
I don't know what happened, but I do think that Casey and her parents both know exactly what happened that day Caylee died, but the point is that we don't enough evidence against any of them to prove them guilty. This country is founded on the notion of innocent until proven guilty. Casey sure as hell may not be, seriously... how she didn't get manslaughter is just a crying shame.
What drives me nuts is that I see (mostly women) on social forums getting aggressive because of the maternal instinct. Yes, I don't think anyone who murders or abuses children deserves a life worth living. I also don't think they should die. I think they should be locked up forever. But I also have to go with the evidence in this case. Too much reasonable doubt. However, the circumstantial evidence was high, which is why I'm actually shocked she wasn't convicted of first degree murder.
Bottom line: try watching the trial and reading the news before going off some opinion from your parents, significant other, etc. Make up your own mind, whether you believe she's guilty or not, let it be your own formulation -- not regurgitation.


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I have a garden!!! It's even growing things, which is pretty amazing when I think about it, as we've only been here six weeks! I'll post more details and pics later. There's bushland over behind our back fence and we have an abundance of wildlife here! Last week there were four kookaburra's like these one's http://www.mareebaheritagecentre.com.au/images/kookaburra-large.jpg in the gum trees, laughing away for about an hour!
On the weekend Dian and I were watching butterflies dancing around the garden. I haven't seen butterflies for ages, and these were beautiful! This morning I followed a bee, so laden with pollen it was falling off her! She buzzed around the pumpkin patch, hovered near the garlic, stopped off at a few dandelions that I deliberately let flower, before buzzing off again.
A magpie http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Australian_Magpie_-_by_frank_wouters.jpg hopped almost right up to the back door! I took out a piece of ham and cheese pizza and fed him. It was so friendly! Obviously used to humans, although he did go and jump on the back fence when the cat decided to play.
I really love the area here. There's so much greenery and plant life, it's just wonderful! I don't enjoy that we're so far from shops (20 minute drive for a major shopping centre) Dian's school, church etc, but the area is lovely.


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Mike Long def. Steve O'Mahoney-Schwartz, 2-1
Dave Price def. Dave Humpherys, 2-1
Pat Chapin def. Gary Wise, 2-1
Jon Finkel def. Kai Budde, 2-1
Brian Hacker def. Dirk Baberowski, 2-1
Jakub Slemr def. Nicolai Herzog, 2-1
Zvi Mowshowitz def. Koichiro Maki, 2-0
Chris Pikula def. Darwin Kastle, 2-1
© 1995-2003 Wizards of the Coast, Inc., a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Wizards is headquartered in Renton, Washington, PO Box 707, Renton, WA 98057.


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Beautiful handmade fabric children's toys, I would love you to meet Tracy from Cute Cuddles x
Hi, Tracy from Cute Cuddles here. I am a work from home mum with a love of sewing. I love that I get to share my passion for bright colours and fabrics with others and see the smiles our soft toys bring others.
|Giraffe Soft Toy
When did you start Cute Cuddles?
I started Cute Cuddles nearly 4 years ago now. My daughter has some health anomalies that made day care a non-option for her. Between the sickness and hospital visits, tests and stress I would do what I love best – relax with some fabric and my sewing machine. I then offered my soft toys to friends and family to take as baby shower gift and Cute Cuddles grew from there.
|Elephant Soft Toy
How did you name your business?
I get told all the time how cute our cuddly toys are… so Cute Cuddles named itself really.
|Dinosaur Soft Toy
What is your favourite product within your range?
My favourite product is a hard one. I love the dinosaurs because my son asked me to make that for him and I love the pony for the same reason from my daughter. One of my favourites to play with as I am making them though is the bunny rattles – those floppy ears! I just can't resist them!
The biggest, and I think coolest, thing about a Cute Cuddles soft toy is that no two soft toys are the same! Each one is completely unique and hand sewn too. Making them perfect from birth as there are no small plastic parts. Also, you never have to worry about toys getting swapped or mixed up as each Cute Cuddles is completely unique.
What is one thing you do daily to make your business work?
I work from the heart. When I love what I am doing, people love what I am making. It sounds corny, but it's true. When I get a piece of fabric that is popular but I'm not loving, it doesn't sell as well.
|Bunny Toy Rattle
Where to from here with Cute Cuddles?
As long as people continue to smile and love what I am making, I will continue to make them. I often design new products within our range so there is always a new Cute Cuddles to add to your collection.
|Pony Soft Toy
How can we purchase from Cute Cuddles?
Website: www.cutecuddles.co.nz
Facebook: www.facebook.com/cutecuddlesnz
Instagram: www.instagram.com/cutecuddlesnz
Email: email@example.com


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This got me back.
The title of this post is Isolationism, Recession and Megadeath. No, that last is not a reference to this. But what I do mean is explained below.
I don't think it takes much knowledge of economics to realize that we are at the brink of a precipice. In a very fundamental way, we don't know what it going to be happening to the economy until the data starts coming in: anything before that is speculation at best. We don't even know if there is going to be a fundamental, structural break in the economy - where demand and supply shifts drastically, leaving tattered wreckage in the wake of the storm - or whether we are facing a "simple" recession that is going to put a damper on the economy for a while until enough heat is built up to get a head of steam back up.
There are arguments for both cases. I tend to the latter, as the business makers of today have tools at their fingertips that allow them to make rapid changes in their businesses that were unthinkable even a decade ago. Or, more exactly, the things that clever folks were dreaming about are, to an incredible extent, now reality for many, and indeed help run businesses. Things like just-in-time computer-assisted logistics, allowing advanced and sophisticated purchasing to be automated, bringing it to smaller businesses; things like virtual business units, formed as needs and markets arise, but also disbanding when they are no longer profitable; things like inexpensive and wide-spread CAD and direct prototyping; things like giant container ships, reducing shipping costs per unit to almost nothing; things like viral memes and guerilla marketing; things like the Internet audience and the Long Tail.
While any recession is unpleasant - and I've tried to find work during several of them, not recommended - I simply don't see this becoming the kind of structural break that some are implying: that Wall Street is dead and there are no more investment banks in the US (try telling that to Brown Brothers Harriman, for instance: there are quite a number of similar big players that are not publicity hounds).
What is happening, and this is true of any recession, is that the time has come when companies and individuals, indeed governments and entire countries, have to pay for their mistakes, their errors of judgment and their stupid pet tricks (sorry, Dave, to steal that name for this purpose). Recession happen when collective mistakes are made and clog the system, starting usually when smaller mistakes generate larger problems that can be safely ignored as long as everything else is going fine. But when the problems snowball and start to be unavoidable, that's when consumers hunker down and stop spending; that's when companies stop hiring and try to get their costs back under control (meaning that their purchasing managers start actually doing their jobs); that's when structural weaknesses are exposed and make necessary adaptation impossible.
Let's keep with the usual definition of a recession: two consecutive quarters of negative growth. Not slowdown - the so-called growth recessions - but actual contraction of the value added in the sum of economic activity in a geographical area known as a country (you can, with decent numbers, break this down to statistical areas, but let's stick with countries right now...).
What causes recessions? There is basically only one answer: mis-allocation of capital. Now, this is a very Austrian answer (in the sense of the Austrian school of economics, more here).
There are basically two sides to this story: on the one hand, you have the people who use capital foolishly; on the other hand, you have people who finance the mis-allocation.
Now, what does this have to do with recessions? How can people making stupid choices about how they spend their money lead to a contraction of the economy? After all, spending is what drives the economy, right?
Yes. But spending is a function of demand - generally speaking, you spend only on things you need (in the broadest sense of the word) - and as such has everything to do with psychology.
We avoided a recession after 9/11 not because the Fed shined in managing the shock to the system - it did - but because people listened to President Bush, who probably averted a recession single-handedly by exhorting people not to withdraw and cocoon, but rather to not change their behavior: he asked Americans to go out and spend. This averted a crisis of confidence.
This is increasingly the problem facing the US today, but it started with a crisis of confidence in the banking system. This is what causes depressions, not merely recessions: when it becomes virtually impossible for those with money to assess the risks that are entailed in loaning to people who want to borrow the money.
Why this convoluted sentence? Because you have investors - the people with money - who demand that they get paid for the use of their money. In order to determine that price, you have to assess the risk that the money will not be paid back. Invest in US government bonds? No risk, low prices for the money. Invest in corporate junk bonds? High risk, high prices for the money. There is a direct and causal relationship between risk and interest rates. Interest rates, after all, are nothing other than the price of using someone else's money.
Now, when the government intervenes, it screws things up. I don't mean sometimes, I mean always. Without exception. The question is how much it screws things up. The problem the government has is that it is driven by politics, not by economists: politicians call economics "The Dismal Science" because it makes them very, very depressed when it points out how much they are going to screw things up when the government interferes in the economy.
I've mentioned the below before, but bear with me.
The sub-prime crisis is to a large degree the logical follow-up to the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, which basically said that if banks wanted preferential credit conditions - critical to remaining competitive - then they must make loans to borrowers that did not, under normal conditions, qualify for a mortgage to conditions that were not onerous. Basically, the banks are tested to see if they are, in effect, cherry-picking their customers and lending only to the wealthy: if this was so, they were found in non-compliance, which affected their deposit requirements, which, as we all know, is the fundamental leverage the Fed has over the banks.
This meant that the banks were, by law, required to make loans to customers that would not normally have qualified, or, more exactly, who would have qualified only for rather expensive loans, either through a risk premium (front-loading) or higher interest rates.
This was tightened in 1995 under Clinton to ensure that the banks "properly" serviced their community, i.e. their geographic area, and didn't "red line" distressed economic districts to avoid making bad loans. How did they check this?
Why, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, which gathered the data that activists (hi, ACORN, that's you) then used to argue that the banks were, in fact, discriminating against minorities and lower-income communities. This dated from 1975, which preceded the CRA from 1977/1995.
The problem that you see here is simple: strictly speaking, the banks haven't been making straight-forward mortgages, based on purely the numbers and not based on politically-motivated government interference, since the 1980s. While this hasn't led directly to the sub-prime problem, it underscores how political pressure distorts the market: it created the sub-prime market as such. Previously, the banks didn't make the loans: they were then required by law to do so, and in doing so, created the hole that became the sub-prime swamp. If there were no sub-prime loans, there would be no sub-prime crisis. Plain and simple.
So what does this have to do with isolationism?
Isolationism in the US is a recurring theme, one that recurs when three conditions are met. First you have disappointment with US involvement overseas, usually either disappointment that the US intervention somewhere, which made sense at the time, has turned out to be either significantly more expensive in terms of money and lives, or those involved are so completely and totally ungrateful that it grates on US sensibilities. Second, US workers start losing their jobs to foreign competitors, which are generally seen as being somehow unfair to US workers, not allowing them to compete on the basis of quality of work or some other metric. Third, politicians get involved in order to take advantage of disappointment, using these discontents to further their own political careers.
Hence the isolationism of the US after WW1, which was arguably the worst failure of US politics in the 20th century, as the withdrawal of the US, at that time the emergent superpower, from European politics meant that the worst sentiments of the Allied powers - to punish Germany for the war - were not leavened by Wilson's sentiments of restructuring international relations to avoid wars.
Isolationism is now gathering momentum once again. It is driven by disappointment - that the US intervention in Iraq has cost so much in terms of money and lives, but also the disappointment that the US has been so lambasted for doing the right thing, especially as the critics fail to say what the "proper" right thing should have been.
It is also driven by opportunistic politicians, with the Democrats here clearly taking advantage of the disappointment and discontent to score political points.
What does Isolationism have to do with Megadeaths?
Well, first of all what is Megadeath? It's actually a simple concept, one that shouldn't surprise: megadeaths are deaths in the millions. This happens when things go really, really wrong: building large cities on flood plains or in the shadow of volcanoes are some examples; the large-scale mass wars of the 20th century are others; making economic and financial mistakes that lead to starvation in the Third World are others. What is important is the concept: megadeaths are, invariably, demographic, economic and political catastrophes.
So what is the connection? Simply put, this:
As the scale of the economic crisis becomes clear and comparisons to the Great Depression of the 1930s are tossed around, there is a very real danger that America could succumb to the feeling that we no longer have the luxury of worrying about distant lands, now that we are confronted with a "real" problem that actually affects the lives of all Americans. As we consider whether various bailout plans help Main Street as well as Wall Street, the subtext is that both are much more important to Americans than Haifa Street.
This is the situation we have right now: that we, collectively as Americans, become even less interested in what is going on in the world. If anything, we don't care much right now, and the danger is becoming even less interested.
One problem with this emotion is that it ignores the sequel to the Great Depression -- the rise of militaristic Japan marked by the 1931 invasion of Manchuria, and Hitler's rise to power in Germany in 1933, both of which resulted in part from economic dislocations spreading outward from the U.S. The inward-focus of the U.S. and the leading Western powers (Great Britain and France) throughout the 1930s allowed these problems to metastasize, ultimately leading to World War II.
Is it possible that American inattention to the world in the coming years could lead to a similarly devastating result? You betcha.While Kagan here is being a tad provocative (you betcha), he is absolutely right.
Why does this then happen? We know that the US already basically ignores the rest of the world, besides the news junkies and recent immigrants, but it is when the politicians start making decisions to deliberately ignore the rest of the world that the real troubles begin.
Why? Simply put, because there are those out there whose geostrategic ambitions are held in check by the fact that US politicians do care about what happens in the rest of the world. We've seen wars unleashed when a US politician was careless about drawing lines (Korea is one; the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was the other, albeit carelessness by a diplomat brought about that one).
Whatever the parallels between the current economic situation and that of the early 1930s, the current international environment is by any comparison more dangerous for the U.S. than the one that led to World War II. This is not hyperbole, particularly considering a last factor. When France and Britain ignored developing dangers while handling them would have been possible and relatively inexpensive, America was able to bail them out, if at terrific cost. There is no one to save us if we make similar mistakes in the coming years.
The current economic crisis is extremely grave. It is hurting many Americans today and will hurt many more as it unwinds. It will end, however, as economic crises always do. The question is how long the recovery will take and how bad things will get before it takes hold.
This question should be at the forefront of voters' thinking as they consider the economic proposals of the two candidates for president, but not necessarily as they decide whom to vote for. Better policies can speed the recovery; worse ones can slow it -- but none are likely to prevent it.Hence the title of this post: Recession, Isolationism and Megadeath.
Bluntly put: the recession, if it leads to isolationism and mistaken policies that lead to a worsening, and not an improvement of the situation, can, literally kill millions if it leads to new conflicts and a continuation of economic problems. Think of what the response might be if Iran detonates a nuclear bomb in Haifa: if you've been reading this blog for a while, you would know how many millions of Iranians would then die (and that'd be just the start).
That is why anyone recommending isolationist policies - like getting rid of NAFTA, like wanting to institute protectionist policies (such as unions and limiting competition from overseas), like wanting to increase tariffs to protect industries - must be seen, implicitly, as someone who wants war, who wants conflicts, who wants megadeaths.
There is a causal relationship. Don't pretend there isn't. This time it won't be a European war, but rather it may be one in the Middle East that leads to the destruction of one Israeli and 20 Iranian cities; it may be in Asia between China and Taiwan (how long does anyone think the Chinese would be deterred from bullying Taiwan into submission or destruction if it wasn't for the Seventh Fleet?); it may be in Western Asia between India and Pakistan, both armed with nuclear weapons.
Regardless, if the US turns its back on the world, bad things happen. Very bad things.


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Uphill Primary School is a 'Learning Without Limits' School where everyone is trusted, included and welcome. We believe that all children can become more powerful, committed and successful learners when given distinctive supportive conditions and generous opportunities for learning. We know that children thrive best in a nurturing environment where all their achievements are valued and celebrated.
Our SENCo is Mrs Sasha Allsopp. She is contactable via the school office and is available on Tuesdays & Wednesdays, by appointment, for parent consultations.
If you have concerns about your child's progress at school regarding any of the following: reading, writing, numbers, social and emotional development, behaviour, communicating, physical or sensory; the first person to speak to about your concerns would be your child's class teacher. If you still have on going concerns you may wish to speak to the school's SENCo Mrs Sasha Allsopp.
If any educational needs are identified Mrs Allsopp will plan how to provide support for your child with the involvement of both yourself and the class teacher and outside agencies as appropriate. If additional support is needed Mrs Allsopp will access this for you and record your child's progress through their Learning Passport. Parents/carers are offered the opportunity to meet with their child's class teacher twice a year at Parents' Evenings to discuss their progress.
Mrs Lucy de Scossa is our school's Learning Mentor. She is available to meet with parents/carers to discuss any social and emotional issues which they feel may be affecting their child's ability to learn. She can work with small groups and/or with individual children depending on the child's specific needs. Appointments can be arranged via the school office.
If you still have concerns that your child's needs are not being met, please do talk with the Headteacher.