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10 content marketing ideas for your firm
Good content marketing on your website is vital if you want to make the most of your firm's potential.
We spoke to Karen Reyburn from The Profitable Firm about content marketing ideas to help you win new customers.
The power of good content
Content is information that you publish and share. For most firms, the website will be the main content hub. This is where you market your services to your clients – and where prospective clients find out more about you.
You may have heard of SEO (search engine optimisation). This involves trying to make your website rank well in search results. SEO can drive people to your website, but as a professional service firm, you're not selling a product, you're proving your expertise. Therefore, sharing good, relevant content will not only keep your visitors reading – it will encourage them to come again and again. Repeat visitors eventually become new leads – and you can turn those leads into paying clients.
In this guide we'll look at 10 content marketing ideas for your accounting firm. The guide is based on a list of 27 ideas drawn up by The Profitable Firm, a marketing agency for accounting firms in the UK.
1. Write an ebook
It's often said that everyone has a novel in them, but an ebook doesn't have to be a long read. What's important is that it's relevant to your target audience.
The advantage of an ebook is that you have your reader's undivided attention. Compared with a website, there are fewer distractions and incentives for them to click away. This means ebook content can be more detailed than your usual web content. But you still need to keep it focused:
- Be specific: Cover a single topic in detail
- Be unique: There are lots of ebooks out there – make yours stand out with a unique angle or perspective
- Be individual: The content should be custom, not off-the-shelf – it should reflect your own voice and expertise
- Be knowledgeable: This applies to all content but particularly to ebooks – demonstrate how your knowledge is relevant to your target market
2. Create a business template
Businesses are always pressed for time – especially small businesses. You can make their lives easier by providing templates for important aspects of their work.
You can use your accounting experience to create a template that's attractive and time-saving. It might be a template for a business plan, an investment proposal or a pitch for a new client. Put the template on your website and invite your clients to download and use it. Or you can add a link to templates that you've found (for example, try our free business plan template or business continuity plan template).
This is an example of hard-working content. You create the template once, but it can be used by many of your customers. They'll remember where they got it, and that will help them keep your firm in mind.
3. Invite prospects to complete surveys
Surveys and questionnaires help you find out more about your existing and potential clients. But they have to be done well. If you ask for too much detailed information you'll put people off.
- Keep surveys and questionnaires short and focused, to be completed within a few minutes
- Don't ask for too much personal information
- Offer a reward, such as access to a report, or entry into a prize draw
4. Host live events and seminars
These are great for drawing people together under your firm's brand. Not only will you have a captive audience, you'll also be able to get direct feedback from your target market.
If you're not sure you can organise this yourself, find an event management company to help you. But stay in control of the content. Make sure each event and seminar covers topics that are relevant to your prospects.
5. Deliver a webinar
A webinar is like a seminar but you deliver it online instead of in person. Find a topic that's relevant to your target audience, then talk about it. Be aware that you may need some training to feel confident speaking in front of a camera – even if it's a webcam. Webinars also take time to organise, market and set up, but once you've done a few you'll feel more comfortable creating them.
The great thing about webinars is they can reach a much wider audience than seminars. This means you could potentially gain clients who live in a different town – maybe a different part of the country entirely.
You can also use webinars to extend the life of your content. Uploading replays to YouTube or Vimeo gives you another weapon in your content arsenal.
Don't expect huge audiences for your webinars. It's a big time commitment for prospective clients to take an hour out of their day. But those who do so will be much more likely to use your services.
6. Host online training sessions
Haven't got time for a full webinar? Then perhaps you could create:
- a five-minute video showing your clients how to keep track of the hours they spend on a project
- a short piece about using their accounting software to create an accurate invoice
- a brief introduction to managing payroll in small businesses
These snippets add value to your website and will be appreciated by existing and potential customers.
7. Create an infographic
An infographic is a visual representation of information. A picture paints a thousand words and an infographic can do that for your business. Infographics work well on social media, and can be used time and again. Take a look at our infographic on starting a business, as an example of what you could do.
Make sure you take advantage of social media channels like Twitter to share your infographic. A prospect might not see your tweet the first couple of times, so retweet the link to the infographic to ensure you squeeze the most out of having one.
8. Use blog posts intelligently
Your blog is where you communicate thoughts and ideas to your customers. Too many firms neglect this part of their website's content. Blogs should be updated regularly – that means weekly, not once every few months. Blog posts can also be sources of other content marketing ideas. For example, the following content types work as stand-alone items as well as blog posts:
- Industry guides: Useful information about the industry in which you and your clients operate. Keep it niche and tailored, never generic. You could break these down into bite-sized industry tips too.
- Fact sheets: Think of questions and concerns you've heard from your clients. Your prospects will probably have similar questions. You can answer them quickly with a fact sheet.
- Expert interviews: Find someone relevant to your target market and interview them. Customers and prospects will be interested in what they have to say. This will help enhance your reputation for thought leadership.
- Checklists: Quick and simple list of actions to achieve a specific task. Help your customers complete their work.
- FAQs and SAQs: Frequently Asked Questions and Should Ask Questions. These are variations on the fact sheet theme. They are great for helping readers find answers quickly.
- Book reviews: A nice way to comment on the work of industry experts – and become associated with them.
9. Analyse the market
Analysis usually comes from market experts. There's nothing to stop you becoming one of those. Consider including content such as:
- trending topics in your target market
- comparisons of products or services that are of interest to your customers
- tips to help your clients navigate changes in regulations
10. Case studies or client interviews
Interviews with existing clients can help you cover topics of interest to your prospects too. Find a willing client to talk about their experiences of business in general – and working with you specifically.
Don't write too much about yourself here. It's important to get across how the client operates. But you can make subtle mention of how your firm is helping them achieve their goals.
This type of content could be in the form of writing or a video – and is great to share on social media.
Use content intelligently: Make it about them, not you
Whatever content marketing ideas you use on your website, make sure you use them intelligently. Here are some quick tips:
- Understand your target audience and put yourself in their shoes – or in other words, write for them
- The more content you offer, the more you can ask from a prospect, such as personal details and business information
- Keep content relevant to prospects and their industry – it should be educational and engaging, so make sure you don't focus on your firm
If you keep these points in mind, your content will – over time – help generate more business for your accountancy firm. And as your reputation and authority grows, so will the number of leads generated from your website.
Xero does not provide accounting, tax, business or legal advice. This guide has been provided for information purposes only. You should consult your own professional advisors for advice directly relating to your business or before taking action in relation to any of the content provided.
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Article Text
Objective Unsolicited web-based comments by patients regarding their healthcare are increasing, but controversial. The relationship between such online patient reports and conventional measures of patient experience (obtained via survey) is not known. The authors examined hospital level associations between web-based patient ratings on the National Health Service (NHS) Choices website, introduced in England during 2008, and paper-based survey measures of patient experience. The authors also aimed to compare these two methods of measuring patient experience.
Design The authors performed a cross-sectional observational study of all (n=146) acute general NHS hospital trusts in England using data from 9997 patient web-based ratings posted on the NHS Choices website during 2009/2010. Hospital trust level indicators of patient experience from a paper-based survey (five measures) were compared with web-based patient ratings using Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. The authors compared the strength of associations among clinical outcomes, patient experience survey results and NHS Choices ratings.
Results Web-based ratings of patient experience were associated with ratings derived from a national paper-based patient survey (Spearman ρ=0.31–0.49, p<0.001 for all). Associations with clinical outcomes were at least as strong for online ratings as for traditional survey measures of patient experience.
Conclusions Unsolicited web-based patient ratings of their care, though potentially prone to many biases, are correlated with survey measures of patient experience. They may be useful tools for patients when choosing healthcare providers and for clinicians to improve the quality of their services.
- Patient experience
- internet
- quality
- quality measurement
- quality improvement
- patient satisfaction
- hospital medicine
- health services research
- patient safety
- health policy
Statistics from Altmetric.com
- Patient experience
- internet
- quality
- quality measurement
- quality improvement
- patient satisfaction
- hospital medicine
- health services research
- patient safety
- health policy
Over the past decade, there has been an explosion of websites, such as Amazon, Tripadvisor and Yelp, in which customers rate their experiences with goods and services. Unsurprisingly, patients are increasingly rating their experiences with the healthcare system on the internet as well. A review conducted during 2009 identified 33 different physician rating websites in the USA.1 While patient web-based ratings of healthcare may not be well received by clinicians,2 patients themselves may value this type of information when they make healthcare choices.
In the USA, websites hosting patient options and rankings are run by private enterprises. In contrast, patients in England are encouraged to rate and comment on their healthcare providers on a government run website called National Health Service (NHS) Choices, which provides comparative information on healthcare organisation performance. Comments are moderated according to a fixed set of rules;3 comments deemed offensive or which refer to individual clinicians are not posted. Healthcare providers are encouraged to respond to comments, and many do.
Traditionally, measures of patient experiences have been derived from large paper-based or electronic-based surveys of randomly selected patients, often coordinated nationally. While such surveys may appear to have advantages of standardised questions and a randomised representative sample (to all patients or to a random subset of patients), they are costly to administer4 and may suffer from response biases.5
As gathering patient opinions and experiences becomes increasingly important, because we care about them inherently, because they might drive improvement through transparency or because we might want to use them in payment policy, it would be useful to compare patient experience captured via traditional surveys with ratings from these new websites. The amount of agreement between patients' online ratings of hospitals and measures of patient experience via these surveys may be useful in considering how relevant these website are, and which of these two strategies to favour in trying to capture patients' voices of their care.
We have previously demonstrated an association between patients' online ratings of their care in hospitals and certain clinical outcomes, including standardised mortality.6 Studies looking at survey measures of patient experience have also demonstrated associations with outcomes.7 ,8 In this paper, we examine unsolicited ratings posted on NHS Choices for all acute hospitals in the England, describing patterns observed and analysing associations with conventional measures of patient satisfaction obtained through formal surveys. We also compare the strength of associations between NHS Choices ratings and clinical outcomes and associations between patient survey measures of experience and clinical outcomes.
Online ratings data
We obtained aggregate patient ratings for all NHS hospitals in England posted on NHS Choices from 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2010 from the English Department of Health. We excluded 22 hospitals that provide services only for children or specific specialties (eg, oncology or rheumatology hospitals), leaving a sample of 146 general acute hospitals. The NHS Choices website allows patients to indicate whether they would recommend a hospital to a friend (yes/no) and rate hospitals on four specific domains of quality: the cleanliness of the hospital environment; whether they were treated with dignity and respect during their stay; whether they were involved in decisions about their care; and whether the hospital staff worked well together (see table 1 for scoring system). We examined only the ratings, not the free text comments. The proportion of patients recommending a hospital trust was calculated by dividing the number of ratings that recommended the trust by the total number stating a view on recommendation. For ratings on a scale, the mean rating for each hospital trust was calculated.
As organisational performance in the NHS is generally measured at the level of a hospital trust, data were aggregated at this level. A trust is a single or small group of hospitals in a defined geographical area operated by the same management team. Data were combined by creating weighted arithmetic mean values for each score at each trust. Weighting was based on the total number of comments for each component hospital.
Conventional patient survey data
Conventional measures of patient experience were taken from the 2009/2010 NHS Inpatient Survey.9 ,10 This is the yearly national paper-based survey of patients in all NHS hospital trusts conducted by Picker Europe for the Care Quality Commission, England's health regulator. The survey is similar to the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems in the USA.11 It surveys a random sample of patients who have been treated in NHS hospitals for at least one night. Sixty-eight thousand five hundred and ninety-four patients completed the survey between September 2009 and January 2010. The response rate was 52%.12 We selected questions that were closely related to the domains reported on NHS Choices (table 2).
Clinical outcome data
Three outcome measures have previously been demonstrated to be associated with online patient ratings in hospitals: standardised mortality ratio, standardised mortality from high risk conditions and emergency readmission rate within 28 days of hospital discharge. We obtained data on these outcomes from Dr Foster,13 a health intelligence company, and NHS Comparators,14 the NHS's comparative health system performance service, for the year 2009/2010.
Statistical analysis
We performed a descriptive analysis of the quantitative data from NHS Choices, calculating mean and median scores in each category, and measures of dispersion including the inter-quartile range. We compared the total number of ratings left on the NHS website for all hospitals with the number of patient admissions and the number of responses to the national inpatient survey.
We compared patient website ratings with other measures of patient experience using Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. This conservative non-parametric test was used because the data in the patient ratings was not normally distributed according to the Shapiro–Wilk test (p<0.05 for four out of five NHS Choices variables described).
To examine the relationship between patient experience and clinical outcomes, we compared both measures of patient experience (survey and online rating) with the three outcome measures using Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. We then compared the strength of the associations using Fischer's z-transformation. Statistical analysis was conducted in Stata V.11.
Between 1 January 2009 and 31 December 2010, there were 10 274 ratings of acute hospitals posted on NHS Choices. This represents a rating of 0.04% of hospital admissions (the NHS had 29 118 009 hospital admissions over the same period15). Nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven ratings related to acute general hospitals. The mean and median number of ratings for these general hospitals were 69 and 46, respectively (range 4–290, figure 1). Of those who offered a view about recommending the hospital (9183 ratings), 67.4% (6120) indicated that they would recommend the hospital to a friend. The remaining 914 ratings did not express a view about recommending the hospital, but rated other aspects of the hospital. A summary of the rating results is displayed in table 1.
Comparing website and paper-based survey ratings of patient experience
Patients' website ratings of their experiences on hospital cleanliness, being treated with dignity and respect, staff working well together and being involved with decisions about care were significantly associated with responses to similar questions in the national patient survey (Spearman ρ=0.31–0.49, p<0.001 for all) (table 2). The proportion of people willing to recommend the hospital on NHS Choices was also associated with the overall rating of the hospital in the national inpatient survey (Spearman ρ=0.41, p<0.001).
Comparing different measures of patient experience with clinical outcomes
For those quality indicators for which an association has been demonstrated between online ratings and patient outcomes (ie, standardised mortality ratios and readmission rates), we observed that the strength of association between online ratings and outcomes was at least as strong as that between patient survey experience measures and outcomes (table 3).
Key findings
Our results show that despite fears by providers and hospital administrators that rating sites would offer mostly criticisms, ratings of hospitals in England are largely positive, mirroring the results from privately-managed physician rating sites in the USA.1 ,16 ,17
When the NHS launched its NHS Choices website, it was unclear how much the site would be used, both in terms of numbers of responses and geographical distribution. Our results show that every acute hospital trust in England has been rated. However, at present the number of ratings is only a fraction of the number of responses to conventional paper-based surveys, and an even smaller fraction of healthcare contacts. There is also variability between different hospitals, which may reflect different levels of awareness of the rating site among patients or of levels of promotion by hospitals.
Our results demonstrate that patients' website ratings of hospitals and more conventional measures of patient experience from large random surveys are significantly correlated, which is reassuring since it is likely that they are capturing overlapping but different populations of patients and some different dimensions of hospital quality and performance. We also found that clinical outcomes, such as hospital standardised mortality ratio, are at least as strongly correlated with self-selected patient comments left on a website as with the random survey of patients obtained in the national survey.
While traditional surveys have the advantage of random allocation (although they may still suffer from response bias), patients who offer unsolicited opinions about their care may be providing richer feedback. Unsolicited comments may be more likely to pick up low probability but high impact events affecting patient experience, particularly if people who have experienced extremes of care, whether good or bad, are more likely to respond to online reporting schemes. These results do not prove that one method is better than the other, but they do help us to understand how they compare. A comparison of some of the characteristics of the two methods of capturing the patient voice is displayed in table 4.
Our results do not upend all of the arguments against the use of patient website reporting, including that such reports may come from a biased selection of patients and that they carry the risk of harming doctor–patient relationships. We also note that hospitals may try to encourage particular patients to rate their care online; this adds an element of management to the self-selecting group of raters and may lead to a more complex selection bias. However, we suggest that unsolicited patient comments may have an important place in national quality and safety measurement systems. Our findings add to the increasingly persuasive literature promoting the notion that one needs to view safety, quality and service delivery through a number of lenses to get an accurate picture.18
The data from NHS Choices are from the complete years 2009 and 2010. We compared these with available data on quality during the financial year 2009/10, which is not quite an exact match. However, in each case we are using the most recently available data. We also only had access to rating data at the hospital level, not individual ratings, so there may have been some loss of accuracy when hospitals were aggregated together into hospital trusts for our analysis. Further, we were unable to examine the characteristics of patients who posted a rating on NHS Choices and the extent to which ratings differed among age, gender, ethnic and socioeconomic status groups. The number of ratings was small for some hospital trusts; however, if trusts with <10 ratings are removed from the analysis, all results remain significant.
Further research
More research is needed to understand how web-based patient ratings are used by patients in making choices about healthcare—including how they reconcile them with objective clinical information such as outcomes and processes of care—and how this information could be used by healthcare organisations to understand and improve their own services.19 We only analysed quantitative data available from the NHS Choices website and did not examine the wealth of patient comments on the site regarding their own experiences of care. Further study of these experiences and how they could be used by healthcare providers to improve the quality of care would be useful. As a system that relies on patients volunteering to come forward to rate services, the nature of responses will also depend on how active the process of solicitation is. It would therefore be useful to understand why people choose to come forward, and what effect increasing the promotion of such websites would have on the nature of responses. Furthermore, research is needed to dissect the relationship between bad clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction in the context of appropriate medical care. In healthcare, as opposed to most other services with online rating, you can do all the right things, but still have a bad outcome. Having a clearer understanding of the interaction between clinical outcomes and satisfaction measures would be useful.
NHS Choices allows patients to rate their care at the hospital level. This is different to many websites, which rate individual physicians. It may be more difficult to develop insights into care quality when rating individuals, as the smaller number of ratings may preclude robust estimates of patient experience.
Our study demonstrates that, given the opportunity, many patients will provide ratings across a broad range of providers and geography, and that most ratings of hospitals are positive. We also found associations between patient ratings and patient survey responses.
Although we appreciate that there are inherent risks in the use of ratings from a small group of self-selecting patients, we also see that there are advantages of using this new form of information compared with using the traditionally survey approach, in particular its lower cost and its ability to detect episodes of poor care that a random survey might miss. Although online feedback mechanisms should not replace patient surveys, they may provide information on hospital quality that is relevant, complementary to survey data and potentially useful for patients when making choices about their healthcare. Healthcare providers and purchasers should therefore promote the development of such online reporting schemes and encourage their use.
We would like to thank the team at NHS Choices, and John Robinson in particular, for providing access to their data.
Role of Sponsors Study sponsors had no role in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication.
Some contents of this manuscript have been accepted to be presented at the BMJ International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare in Paris, 20 April 2012.
Funding There was no specific funding for this project. CM is funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the National Institute for Health Research Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care scheme (CLAHRC) for North West London. Imperial College London is grateful for support from the National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre Funding scheme, the National Institute for Health Research Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care scheme, and the Imperial Centre for Patient Safety and Service Quality. Dr Wachter conducted much of this work while at Imperial College London in 2011 under a US-UK Fulbright scholarship. The funding sources had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis or interpretation of the data; or preparation, review or approval of the manuscript.
Competing interests Dr Wachter reports having an equity interest and/or serving on paid advisory boards for PatientSafe Solutions and CRISI; receiving support for helping to lead a leadership training program for IPC-The Hospitalist Company; receiving honoraria from the American Board of Internal Medicine for serving on its board of directors and Executive Committee; receiving honoraria for many speeches on patient safety and quality; receiving support from John Wiley and Sons for writing a blog; and receiving funding under a contract from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality for editing two patient-safety websites and royalties from publishers from two books on patient safety. Dr Wachter is a 2011 recipient of a US-UK Fulbright Award for study in the UK. Professor Darzi was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Lords) in the United Kingdom Department of Health from 2007 to 2009. Professor Majeed has received funding for research from Dr Foster Intelligence, a commercial health intelligence company. The other authors declare no support from any organisation for the submitted work, no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous 3 years and no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data sharing statement Data are available on request from the corresponding author.

subset: commoncrawl


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Dir: Raoul Peck. France-Haiti-US-Belgium. 2012. 99mins
In January 2010, an earthquake brought Haiti to its knees, killing 250,000. Two years later, in Raul Peck's discouraging look at the country, Haiti was still down, mainly thanks to the botched relief efforts of international organisations.
Lyrically filmed, given the subject matter, Fatal Assistance is a timely reminder of the inadequacy and incompetence of most relief efforts worldwide.
In its title, Fatal Assistance (Assistance Mortelle) evokes the deadly rage of a rejected lover from a one-night stand, but non-governmental organisations stayed much longer in the Pearl of the Antilles. While they didn't kill Haiti, Peck's doc shows that they left it on a perilous life support.
Shrewd in its analysis and poetic in a voice-over narration, Fatal Assistance suffers from the problem that Haiti is no longer the crisis of the week. The doc will play in festivals, which tend to show films that exhume long-neglected trouble spots. Yet theatrical release seems unlikely, so Fatal Assistance's odd fate is that it may screen at events sponsored by non-governmental charities, perhaps some of the same institutions that it skewers at feature-length.
Veteran film-maker Peck (The Man By The Shore, Lumumba-Death Of The Prophet) travels along a timeline as interviews and nightmarish archival footage examine the devastation that the earthquake brought to his native Haiti. He then tracks the international help that would put it deeper into the hole.
Priscilla Phelps, an American housing adviser, attacks the institutions for whom she worked while acknowledging their good intentions. Like the eloquent voice-over by producer Hebert Peck, she is credible, and damning. (A female voice-over, in the form of a letter evoking the crisis, is less persuasive.)
Haiti hasn't lacked for leaders, just for good ones. In Fatal Assistance they emerge at election time like an endless number of dark-suited characters exiting a car at the circus. Peck also gives us plenty of footage of dull meetings with Haitian leaders (mostly silent) and top personnel from all over the world, led by (but hardly limited to) Bill Clinton, who chaired the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC). Insiders joke that, when the camera-friendly Clinton was around, the relief umbrella organisation was called "Haitian Reconstruction: The Movie."
Relief wasn't just about exposure for politicians. Most of the money spent went to firms and contractors in the donor countries, we're told.
Yet the talk-aholic Bill Clinton was far from the worst adviser to take up Haiti's time. Peck shows haunting footage of the return of the ghostly aged "Baby Doc" Jean Duvalier, Haiti's brutal ex-president-for-life, who flies in with a once-chic wife bearing the scars of too much plastic surgery when there's a leadership void. Haiti did not immediately imprison the former dictator, but exonerated him of crimes against humanity, proof that there were other problems facing the island than the bureaucratic inertia and ineptitude of the NGOs.
And there were. A vast plain outside Port-au-Prince was covered with houses of concrete and wood, which lacked plumbing but still leaked, without transport or any amenities – hundreds of reminders of the rich friends who decamped for the next disaster.
Peck's doc is distilled from hundreds of hours shot, attesting to a substantial budget – and the help of NGOs? In cutting so much, the stories lose continuity and context. Much of what he leaves out are also the many instances of violence, gangs and rampant corruption — the obvious clichés, Haitians like Peck might say, but still ugly truths in that still-desperate country.
Lyrically filmed, given the subject matter, Fatal Assistance is a timely reminder of the inadequacy and incompetence of most relief efforts worldwide – including unfinished efforts in the US for Katrina and Sandy – but it's also testimony to how quickly the moralists of the major institutions forget.
Given how those institutions operated, Peck might be skeptical of the attention that could revisit the world's charities on his native land.
Production companies: Arte, RTBF, Entre Chien et Loup, Velvet Film, Figuier Production
International Sales: Doc & Film International, www.docandfilm.com
Producers: Rémi Grellety, Raoul Peck, Hébert Peck
Co-producers: Martine Saada, Diana Elbaum, Alex Szalat, Wilbur Leguebe
Screenplay: Raoul Peck
Cinematography: Rachele Magloire, Kirsten Johnson, Antoine Struyf, Rafael Solis, Richard Senecal
Editor: Alexandra Strauss
Music: Alexei Aigui


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text:
The popular micropub in Westgate-on-Sea
Current & Pending Drinks
Range of Drinks +
Range of Drinks
About The Bake and Alehouse's Drinks
The Breweries
Soft Drinks
Food & Snacks Offered
More +
Micro-Pubs - What is a Micro Pub?
Real Ale - What is Real Ale?
Opening Hours
About The Bake and Alehouse
Find The Bake
Contact John (the Landlord)
About this Site
Read some Customer Comments
The list of current ales was amended today (Friday, 12th of July) at 2:53 PM
an ale from
Wantsum Brewery
This drink, which we class as a '
Single Hop Ale
,' has a strength of 4.5% ABV.
So far, this is one of 55 beers from Wantsum Brewery that have been sold at the Bake & Alehouse.
To date, the Bake & Alehouse has supplied -
From THIS brewery:
20 ales with a higher strength
20 ales of this ABV
12 ales with a lower ABV
2 ales with an unrecorded strength
From ALL breweries:
268 stronger ales
108 ales of this strength
506 weaker ales
12 ales with an unrecorded strength
Records indicate that a barrel of this drink has been available once in the Bake & Alehouse since August 2012
Please click on the logo above to visit the brewery's own web site.
The Bake & Alehouse
21 St. Mildred's Road, Westgate-on-Sea, Kent CT8 8RE
Landlord: John Morphy - 07913 368787
[email protected]
Facebook: Bake & Alehouse
(C) Copyright 2022. Site designed, created and written by
David Wallin.
All Rights Reserved.
Site hosted by Thanet Hosting


text: Jesus seeks to show all people everywhere his love. People who are sexually attracted towards boys are commonly shunned and even expelled from churches. This board is a place of refuge for Christian boylovers. As we share together, we learn how to live our lives to reflect His love. The first post is hard, because we often can't be honest with our struggles for fear of rejection and persecution. You aren't alone. Others on this board have been where you are today and have had similar experiences. You too can be forgiven and loved, so please join in the conversation. This board exists primarily for Christians who are sexually attracted towards boys. We believe that such a sexual relationship is sinful. However, like any sin, being tempted is not in itself, a sin. And if we do fall, it's not beyond forgiveness if we seek God's grace. Christians who aren't attracted to minors are also welcome to participate on CBLF as long as they are supportive in our struggles. To register your nick -- or for asking questions and reporting problems -- please use our Support Request form. Registration is not required, but sometimes we temporarily discontinue unregistered posting due to trolling. Constructive comments are welcome! |


text:
Family: Amaranthaceae
Plains Snake-Cotton
[Froelichia floridana var. pallescens Moq., moreOplotheca floridana Nutt.] |
Plants annual; taproots semi-woody. Stems 1, erect or ascend-ing, sometimes procumbent, simple or sparsely branched (rarely much-branched) from base or above, stout, to 18 dm, puberulent or tomentulose with short, viscid, whitish or brownish hairs. Leaves principally on proximal 1/3 of plant, petiolate; blade lanceolate to oblanceolate, oblong, or linear, largest leaves 3.8-11.2(-21) × 0.5-3.8(-4.2) cm, base attenuate to cuneate, apex acute to obtuse, canescent to subscabrous adaxially, sericeous-tomentose abaxially. Spikes dense, much-branched, apex often pyramidal, flowers arranged in 5-ranked spiral; bracteoles stramineous or blackish, pubescent with small tufts distally. Flowers 4-6 mm; perianth lobes, greenish white to pinkish, oblong, apex acute; filament lobes slightly to greatly recurved distally, stramineous to pinkish, apex acute. Utricles flask-shaped, 5 × 4-5 mm, with irregularly dentate lateral wings, both surfaces of perianth with distinct spines or tubercles. 2n = 58 + 2. Flowering summer. Open sand prairies, edges of woodlands in sandy soils, roadsides, railroad rights-of-way; Ala., Ark., Colo., Fla., Ga., Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kans., Ky., La., Md., Mich., Minn., Miss., Nebr., N.C., N.Dak., Ohio, Okla., S.C., S.Dak., Tex., Wis.; West Indies; introduced in Australia. Froelichia floridana ranges from broad-leaved stout herbs surpassing 1 meter in height to much-branched plants forming bushes to 2 meters in diameter and single-stemmed, erect herbs 1 dm in height. Much of the variation in the species has been difficult to ascribe to either geographic or ecologic differences and reflects inherent genetic variability and wide environmentally induced plasticity. Although specialists and taxonomists have implied the existence of well-delineated morphologic taxa with a strong geographic correspondence, this is not always true, and, in fact, one encounters typical specimens of any given variety sporadically throughout the range of the species. Some variability in Froelichia floridana is clearly attributable to geography, principally in terms of general morphologic trends. There is a cline toward long, narrow, almost linear leaves as one moves east along the Gulf Coast and into Florida. This would culminate in the little-known var. pallescens Moquin-Tandon, a linear-leaved form (leaf length more than eight times width) from peninsular Florida. Additional variation ascribable to geography is observed in plants traditionally included in F. drummondii, these being large, stout plants with broader leaves, more obtuse leaf apices, and more densely fulvous pubescence on the abaxial surfaces of leaves. Plants of this form are generally restricted south of the Brazos River and continue to the southern extent of the range in Kenedy County, Texas. Further work examining this variation using micromorphology or molecular markers may elucidate a reliable means to identify intraspecific taxa within F. floridana. Erect, (3)5-20 dm, canescent or thinly tomentose, the stem stout, tending to be quadrangular; larger lvs mostly 5-12 נ1-2.5 cm; upper internodes progressively longer; spikes terminating elongate peduncles, often branched, eventually to 10 cm, the fls closely set in a 5-ranked spiral, averaging ca 15-20 fls per cm; bractlets rotund, scarious, much shorter than the cal; mature cal soon deciduous, flask-shaped, symmetrical, mostly (4)5-5.5 mm, densely woolly, with 2 lateral entire to dentate or erose wings; seeds 1.6-1.8 mm; 2n=ca 78. Dry, especially open, sandy soil; coastal states from s. Del. and e. Md. to La.; disjunct inland from Ind. and Wis. to s. Ill. and Mo., and from S.D. to Tex. July-Sept. There are 3 vars., 2 in our range. Coastal plain plants, var. floridana, are robust, to 2 m, with the lowest internode of the infl often 1-2 dm; the peduncles are lanate with hairs to 2 mm, and the larger lvs are mostly elliptic-lanceolate and broadest near or below the middle. Plants of the upper Mississippi Valley region, var. campestris (Small) Fernald, average smaller, seldom over 1 m, with the lowest internode of the infl seldom over 1 dm; the peduncles are more closely hairy, with hairs mostly under 0.5 mm, and the larger lvs are more elliptic-oblanceolate, broadest above the middle, and obtuse or rounded at the tip. Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp. ©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission. From Flora of Indiana (1940) by Charles C. Deam I have specimens of this species from three counties. One was collected July 7, 1900, by Umbach on railroad ballast near Aetna, Lake County. Another was collected by Miss Madge McKee along a sandy roadside about 6 miles south of Roselawn, Newton County. In 1933 I found a large area of it in very sandy soil in a fallow field in sec. 3 in Starke County about two and a half miles northeast of North Judson. This species in time will no doubt become a weed in the sandy areas of this part of the state. Doubtless introduced into the state. ...... Indiana Coefficient of Conservatism: C = 5 Wetland Indicator Status: UPL Diagnostic Traits: plants mostly 60-90 cm tall; stems and leaves with white-wooly hairs; leaves opposite, linear-lanceolate; inflorescences spicate; bracteoles pubescent along midvein and near apex. |


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5-star resort The ShellSea at Krabi's Shell Fossil Beach Open for Booking
Krabi (Thailand) – February 24, 2017 (travelindex) – The ShellSea, a five-star resort located on a white-sand beach adjacent to Krabi's famous Shell Fossil Beach is scheduled to soft open in April 2017. The beachfront resort offers 72 spacious guestrooms 12 luxurious villas and one grand villa, with 180-degree views of the Andaman Sea and facilities that include a lap pool, family pool, spa, restaurants, beachside bar, and a selection of non-motorised recreational water sport equipment. A motivated workout can be had at the state-of-the-art fitness centre, with wall-to-ceiling glass windows overlooking the panoramic views of the ocean.
Reservations are now being accepted for bookings, with a starting rate of THB 5,000 for a ShellSea Garden room, subject to an additional 18.70 percent for service charge and government tax.
The rate includes breakfast for two, Wi-Fi internet connection, and complimentary shuttle bus to Aonang Beach twice daily on a fixed time schedule.
The ShellSea is owned and managed by Aonang Ville Co Ltd, which also owns and operates Aonang Villa Resort, one of the longest established resorts at Krabi's Aonang Beach.
The resort is set directly on a 300-metre white-sand beach that links directly with the famous shell fossil plate, thereby offering guests classic beachfront resort relaxation along with the opportunity to explore one of Krabi's prime attractions.
Guestrooms include Sea View rooms and Beach Front rooms, each with their own private balcony; Beach Front Pool Access rooms, on the ground floor; Sea Villas, each with their own pool and private terrace; and a Grand Villa, with its own pool and a full 180-degree view of the ocean from its beachfront setting.
For more information or reservation please call 66 75 819519 or email: email@example.com
Contact information:
The ShellSea
999 M.6, Laemphopattana 1 Road
Sai Thai, Muang
Krabi 81000, Thailand
For media liaison, please contact:
Piyahatai Autchayawat
The MarCom Pro.
tel. 081 421 2212
email email@example.com


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If your pet is ever missing, a dog license tag provides the best way of notifying you if someone finds your pet. Once your dog has been assigned a license with his own distinctive tag number, the number and information about your dog is permanently filed in the county's records.
Ohio law requires that licenses are to be renewed from December 1 through January 31 or within thirty days if you acquire a new dog. Puppies must be licensed by the time they reach three months of age. Cost is $18 annually for a one-year dog license, $54 for a three-year dog license, and $180 for lifetime/permanent dog license. Ohio law requires an additional late fee ($18 in Summit County) if you do not renew your dog's license by January 31 of the year it is due.
Yearly renewal applications will be automatically mailed to all current registered dog owners. If you have lost your renewal form please call our office.
Online payments for dog and kennel licenses are now available. You can pay for your dog tags online with a credit card or electronic check. Official Payments is our provider for online payments and they do charge a nominal fee per transaction for their service.
Handicapped Assistance tags Assistance tags are available in our Services Department at 1030 E. Tallmadge Ave., Akron OH 44310 and are good for a trained dog's entire life. There is no charge for an assistance tag. Please call 330-630-7226.
Neighborhood Locations
We also have convenient neighborhood locations throughout Summit County where you can purchase your dog's license. Those vendors do charge an additional $.75 processing fee.
Dog License (1.09 MB) If your pet is ever missing, a dog license tag provides the best way of notifying you if someone finds your pet. |
Kennel License (540.99 KB) Kennel licenses can be purchased at our Services Department, 1030 E. Tallmadge Avenue, Akron, OH 44310 |
The Fiscal Officer warns dog owners of a possible phone scam involving dog licenses.
The Fiscal Office never calls dog owners, taxpayers or anyone else asking for payments of any kind and does not accept documents that contain Social Security numbers.
Never give personal information, including your bank account, credit card numbers or Social Security number to anyone EVER over the phone.
The Fiscal Office never requests any type of personal information over the phone.


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Gold vs Gold, Part 4June 17, 2019 |
In 1990, with rare coin values in their infancy, Greg Holloway smashed the record books with the first sale in world history of any rare coin to bring over $1 million. Despite the fact that the world was in recession at the time, this transaction proved that rare coins have great appeal beyond economic conditions. Greg actually began his career in 1970 at the age of 13. Before the end of his teenage years, he was recognized by his peers as a top expert. A virtual fixture at numismatic events, Greg has personally attended 1400 rare coin conventions. Between 1986 and 1987, Greg was one of the 33 founding dealer members of both PCGS and NGC, the worlds two largest professional coin grading services. He was also one of the six original shareholders and graders of NGC for a brief period of time. In 1987, Greg was also one of the original shareholders of the worlds first real time rare coin trading system. For over 20 years, Greg has been one of the worlds most prolific and respected instructors in the field of numismatics having given hundreds of webinars and teaching at in person conferences. Today Greg is still active in all aspects of education of rare coins, having recently written the first ever encyclopedia of large English gold coins. Having been the first person in world history to sell any rare coin for over $1 million, Greg is eminently qualified to search for future $1 million coins that can still be bought for a fraction of this sum. Watch more of Greg's teachings free at www.GoldenArtTreasures.com |


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Party Tents And Their Many Uses
A party tent is popular choice for wedding events, trade fairs and other outdoor events where 50 or more people gather together. This type of tent is more costly than traditional canopies used in the backyard and it usually requires a few extra people to set up. Party tents for special events are harder to set up than regular canopy tents. That's why sometimes they are rented instead of being purchased. The majority of tent rental companies that offer these tents for lease also offer services for "pitching" and "striking" the tent.
If you need a party tent for your event you will need to first consider the area where the tent will be erected. Companies that provide tent rental services commonly charge additional fees if the venue is not exactly the best location to set up a tent. For example, a concrete surface will be more difficult to set up on than grass. The distance of the event from the rental company is also important to consider because typically the greater the distance the greater the cost.
Weddings are a more common event that would use party tents. Since weddings don't happen frequently, most people would prefer to rent a tent rather than purchase one. When tents are used for something more frequent than the occasional event or wedding, people are more inclined to buy a party tent instead of renting one.
Tents for weddings come in various designs and colors, although white is by far the most common choice. Tent manufacturers who offer wedding tents often provide accessories such as carpet, flooring, platforms, tent designs, awnings and even lighting. The type of tent that will be used for a party needs to be chosen with the weather in mind. If the party will be held during the summer, tents without sidewall are the most common. These party tents for summertime parties are normally set up with only the tent top and the necessary center and wall poles.
These type of tents are called pole tents. Pole tents became very popular in the United States back in the 1950's for use as tents for church planting and revival meetings. Pole tents became extremely popular back in those days due to their classic look and ease of set up. Frame tents are another type of party tent for events and parties. Frame tents do not use center or wall poles. Instead, the tent is supported with a framed assembly and anchored with stakes and secured with guy ropes on the outer perimeter. This allows the center to be completely free so that people can move without a center pole obscuring their view or keeping them from dancing at the center.
We hope you've enjoyed this post. If you still have questions and need assistance, please do not hesitate to give our tent experts a call today at 918.540.2435. One of our knowledgeable and friendly staff members will be happy to assist you. You can also contact us online via email here.


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Just so you all know!! The new catalog will be here in just a few weeks! I am so excited to see all the new stuff!
If you would like to buy a catalog, just tell me know and I can get you one! They will be $5 per catalog unless you book party for January or February!
I will be having an open house at the end of January as well! There will be door prizes and a Make-n-Take! Plus you will get to see some of the new stamps and lots of new projects and cards! I will update you more on this after the Holidays!
Here a just a couple of cards I have made recently ! Hope you all are doing well!


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Drop Dead Diva Season 2 |
Get set to be blown away by the latest drama and entertainment shows on an all new, all awesome AXN Beyond channel. More than ever, viewers from the Philippines will enjoy a fresh and unrivalled programming line-up across a newly-expanded spectrum of genres, as AXN Beyond refreshes to redefine the entertainment experience like no other.
Turning into a 'super-sized' channel, AXN Beyond will serve up more monthly premieres from many more genres than before. Taking the definition of 'entertainment' to the limit, AXN Beyond will go beyond fun, feisty and fabulous with its variety of shows. These range from mystery and suspense, fantasy and science-fiction, paranormal and supernatural, fashion and design, to lifestyle and romance, across drama, variety, reality, sitcom, comedy, talk shows, movies and even music concerts.
Said Voo Chih Yeong, Head of AXN Beyond, "Viewers need to look no further than AXN Beyond for the latest shows across the variety of genres, as our channel will have something for just about everyone at a single destination. With a far more compelling entertainment experience, AXN Beyond now appeals to an even wider audience than before. Viewers who have come to enjoy the great programs on AXN will definitely love and appreciate the same world-class quality in the fresh content selection on the all new AXN Beyond."
Indeed, AXN Beyond hails from the same team that brought Asia its top English general entertainment channel, AXN. As a fresh, hip and energetic TV destination, the new AXN Beyond draws audiences across a wide range of demographics seeking new and exciting entertainment choices, and has its sweet spot among male and female viewers aged 18 – 35.
'Superduperlicious Tuesdays' on AXN Beyond!
Viewers are set for 'Superduperlicious Tuesday' evenings as AXN Beyond serves up a back-to-back series of the channel's very latest shows, all premiering on Tuesday, December 7, 2010! The fun begins with reality talk show The Marriage Ref, as celebrities such as Madonna, Demi Moore and Gwyneth Paltrow pass judgement on real-life couples' marriages.
That leads to light-hearted series like Drop Dead Diva Season 2 which continues the life of shallow model Deb (Brooke Elliott) whose soul ends up in the body of a brilliant, plus-size attorney. The night's fun culminates in AXN Beyond's headliner of the month – fresh new legal comedic drama The Defenders which stars Jim Belushi (According to Jim) and Jerry O'Connell (Sliders) as colourful Las Vegas defence attorneys.
Beyond Fun, Feisty & Fabulous
In the same month, AXN Beyond will bring on some of television's most compelling stories in its latest drama offerings. Viewers will be captivated by the intrigue in Caprica, prequel to Battlestar Galactica and television's first science-fiction family saga. Audiences will also get caught in the suspense of Persons Unknown, a mystery drama following seven trapped strangers whose every move is watched.
Reality entertainment on AXN Beyond is far from the usual stuck-on-an-island-fighting-for-survival shows, but is fun-to-watch yet nail-biting fare. Fierce competition, over-the-top backstabbing and catfights in reality series await in Top Chef Masters and The Rachel Zoe Project, while The Real Housewives of New York Season 2 sneaks a peek into the lavish lifestyles of the rich in the Big Apple.
Adding more than a dash of glitz and glamour is Scream 2010, the world's first and only awards show celebrating the best in science-fiction, fantasy, comics and horror. Music lovers will enjoy Beyoncé I Am... Yours, a spectacular 'live' concert by singer-songwriter Beyoncé Knowles' at Wynn Las Vegas.
With all that and more, viewers will surely adore the all-new, all awesome entertainment experience with the latest shows across the greatest variety of genres, unveiling this December on the fresh, hip and super-sized AXN Beyond.
Please see the attached list of programming highlights for detailed show synopses and tune-in information.
The Defenders, Premieres December 7, 2010, airing Tuesdays 9.50pm first and exclusively on AXN Beyond
The Defenders is a comedic drama about two colourful Las Vegas defence attorneys who go all-in when it comes to representing their clients. Nick (Jim Belushi, According to Jim) and Pete (Jerry O'Çonnell, Sliders, Crossing Jordan) are the local go-to guys with an eclectic client list who are still looking to hit their own jackpot.
Leading the law firm of Morelli & Kaczmarek are Nick Morelli, an earnest, hard-charging attorney who represents his clients to the best of his ability, no matter how big or small the case; and his partner, Pete Kaczmarek, whose passion for the law is matched only by his love of fast cars, beautiful women and expensive clothes.
Joining them in their growing law practice is new associate Lisa Tyler (Jurnee Smollett, The Great Debaters), an enthusiastic young attorney looking to put her exotic dancing days behind her; and their young assistant, Sophie (Tanya Fischer, Life On Mars), a spunky and sweet ingénue who is eager to please her bosses.
Caprica |
Caprica, Begins Dec 9, 2010, 10pm in a two-episode TV premiere event, with subsequent episodes airing Thursdays 10pm on AXN Beyond
Set 50 years before Battlestar Galactica, Caprica follows two rival families – the Graystones and the Adamas. Bound together by tragedy, their ensuing struggle will determine the fate of the 12 Colonies. Caprica is a society rife with advanced technology. Little do they know they are trembling on the brink of the creation of the first cybernetic life-form node, or 'CYLON'.
The Graystones and Adamas come from different cultures and wildly different socio-economic backgrounds. Daniel Graystone (Eric Stoltz) is a computer genius and the leading businessman of the 12 Colonies. His wife, Amanda Graystone (Paula Malcolmson) is an elite neurosurgeon. Joseph Adama (Esai Morales) is an immigrant, a lawyer with ties to the mob, and a father who is desperate to reconnect with his estranged son, William (Sina Najafi). Their bitter rivalry will bring the end of life as they know it. Their children are the future.
Drop Dead Diva Season 2, Premieres Dec 7, 2010, airing Tuesdays 9pm on AXN Beyond
Returning for a second season, comedic drama Drop Dead Diva continues the story of a shallow wannabe model that dies in a sudden accident, only to find her soul resurfacing in the body of a brilliant, plus-size and recently deceased attorney, Jane.
At the close of last season, Deb was ready to let go of her past and embrace her new life as Jane. But the unexpected arrival of Jane's "secret" husband, Ethan (Devon Gummersall), at her doorstep left her with more questions than ever. To make matters worse, Jane may be disbarred after breaching client-attorney confidentiality when, against the firm's advisement, she reported her client for fraud. Faced with a new love triangle and the uncertainty of her career, Jane must, once again, chart out a new future for herself…
The 13-episode second season of Drop Dead Diva features breakout star Brooke Elliott (Wicked, Taboo"), Margaret Cho (Ghost Whisperer, Notorious C.H.O.), Jackson Hurst (The Tree of Life), Kate Levering (Cashmere Mafia), April Bowlby (Two and a Half Men), Josh Stamberg (Lie to Me) and Ben Feldman (The Perfect Man).The Season 2 opener of Drop Dead Diva will feature entertainer Paula Abdul (American Idol) reprising her role as Judge Paula Abdul, a figment of Jane's subconscious. Devon Gummersall ("My So-Called Life") and David Denman ("The Office") return as guest stars this season.
Persons Unknown, Premieres Dec 27, 2010, airing Mondays, 9pm first & exclusively on AXN Beyond
From Academy Award-winning writer Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects) comes Persons Unknown, a mystery drama in which a group of seven strangers is taken from their lives and trapped in a deserted town with no recollection of how they got there.
The eclectic group of strangers are Charlie Morse (Alan Ruck, Spin City); Janet Cooper (Daisy Betts, Shutter); Joe Tucker (Jason Wiles, Third Watch); Bill Blackham (Sean O'Bryan, Six Feet Under); Moira Doherty (Tina Holmes, Six Feet Under); Sergeant Graham McNair (Chadwick Boseman, Lincoln Heights); Tori Fairchild (Kate Lang Johnson, Days of our Lives); Erika Taylor (Kandyse McClure, Battlestar Galactica); Mark Renbe (Gerald Kyd, Casuality); and Kat Damatto (Lola Glaudini, Invincible).
Held hostage, the strangers are constantly watched by omnipresent 'security' cameras with no idea who or what is behind them. Every attempt to leave is thwarted by unforeseen circumstances, which seem to derive from mysterious forces. At every turn, these strangers-turned-comrades are threatened physically, psychologically and emotionally. Their chance at survival is to rely on each other…
The Marriage Ref, Premieres Dec 7, 2010, airing Tuesdays, 8:10pm, first and exclusively on AXN Beyond
Jerry Seinfeld is back and in the producer's chair for a funny and revealing comedy panel series The Marriage Ref, about the unpredictable and hilarious institution commonly known as marriage. In The Marriage Ref, disputes between real-life couples are revealed, examined - and ultimately judged.
For the first time, audiences will be able to look at these fights, analyze them and declare a winner. At the centre of the action and making "the call", is popular comedian Tom Papa (The Informant!) who will have the final say in determining the victor of each spat.
Advising and influencing the Ref's decision will be a rotating panel of 'experts' comprising top celebrities, comedians and sports stars who will weigh in and offer their own wit, wisdom and unique opinions. Guest stars featuring through the series include Tina Fey, Eva Longoria Parker, Larry David, Ricky Gervais, Madonna, Martha Stewart, Sheryl Crow, Tracy Morgan, Gloria Estefan, Donald Trump and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Scream 2010, Premieres Dec 19, 2010 Sunday, 7:10pm on AXN Beyond
Scream 2010 is the world's first and only awards show dedicated to honouring the best in the science-fiction, fantasy, comics and horror genres. In its fifth year in 2010, Scream saw 33 spike-shaped show and individual performance trophies presented, including the top honour for the best production in the business named 'The Ultimate Scream'. A star-studded, glamorous and ultimately fun-filled awards show, Scream 2010 will have celebrities such as Halle Berry, Bill Murray, Blake Lively, and Megan Fox letting their hair down.
Christopher Nolan's summer science-fiction blockbuster movie Inception leads the way with nominations in 14 categories, with other popular movies Kick-Ass and Iron Man 2 close behind. True Blood had the most nominations of any TV series with 10.
Scream 2010 also continues the tradition of featuring exclusive World Premieres from some of the most anticipated movies of the year to come including Scream 4, The Rite, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1, Paranormal Activity 2 and Super. In addition, the awards show will honour the 25th anniversary of the original Back to the Future film, with Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, and the time-travelling DeLorean car reuniting. Also, the recently-concluded landmark mystery-adventure series Lost will see a farewell tribute with cast and crew on stage.
Beyoncé I Am... Yours, Premieres Dec 18, 2010, Saturday, 9pm first and exclusively on AXN Beyond
Filmed at the Encore Theater at Wynn Las Vegas, the Beyoncé I Am... Yours concert features performances of over 30 songs from Beyoncé's three multi-platinum solo releases, 'Destiny's Child' catalogue and a few surprises. These include #1 hits, "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)," "If I Were A Boy," "Halo," "Sweet Dreams" and showcases a gut-wrenching performance of "That's Why You're Beautiful." Also to look out for is the biographical storytelling woven between many songs and exclusive behind-the-scenes footage.


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17th Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett
Detroit, United States, June 30, 1928
Rank | Pilots | Country | Score | Duration | Landing |
1 | William E. Kepner William O. Eareckson | USA | 740.80 km | 48:00:00 | Kenbridge, Virginia (USA) |
2 | Hugo Kaulen Hugo Kaulen jr. | GER | 739.30 km | 41:25:00 | |
3 | Charles Dollfus Georges Cormier | FRA | 720.80 km | 42:35:00 | Dan River, North Carolina (USA) |
4 | Georges M. Blanchet le Gallee | FRA | 669.00 km | 00:00:00 | |
5 | S.A.U. Rasmussen Southworth | DEN | 624.60 km | 00:00:00 | |
6 | Ferdinand Eimermacher K. Zech | GER | 619.80 km | 32:14:00 | Blue Ridge Mountains (USA) |
7 | Palmer McKee | USA | 594.00 km | 00:00:00 | |
8 | Eduardo Bradley Elliff | ARG | 568.00 km | 00:00:00 | |
9 | Naylor Wherritt | USA | 523.00 km | 00:00:00 | |
10 | Thonnard Boel | BEL | 478.00 km | 00:00:00 | |
11 | Otto Bertram Georg Fröbel | GER | 474.00 km | 26:00:00 | |
12 | Ernest L. Maag ? | SUI | 404.00 km | 21:00:00 | West Virginia (USA) |
Book Article
From the Book: Die Gordon Bennett Ballon Rennen
(The Gordon Bennett Races) by Ulrich Hohmann Sr
Start: Detroit, Airport Henry Ford, June 30th
In Germany, especially in the "Münsterland", the permission for German balloons to return to the Gordon Bennett Races, had created a state of balloon euphoria. Already the preparations of the German teams were watched by the press extensively, Ferdinand Eimermacher had a talent for "public relations".
Together the two German teams took the steamboat RELIANCE from Hamburg to New York, which was little occupied from Cherbourg on. Not more than 40 passengers were on board and experienced quite stormy sea. This did not matter to Hugo Kaulen junior as long as he could ask a female person to dance, but balloonmeister Zurwonne was lost in his cabin for four days. The special dinner to honour the Gordon Bennett competitors (Caviar on ice, turtle soup, cooked salmon from the Rhine, asparagus stalks, pheasant a la Alsacienne and bombe glace Reliance) on Sunday, June 17thunfortunately met only a few admirers. Hugo Kaulen junior, however, danced.
They had two weeks to America, and in these two weeks, there was always the same "lousily weather", as Eimermacher called it without any glossing over. No reason therefore, to flee too often from the hotel room on the 49th floor of the sky scraper on the Detroit River.. Just in time, one day before launch, the weather turns and promises improvement. At home, the attention on the event is again drawn to readers of the newspapers, the "Münsterische Anzeiger" written on June 30th:
"In all nations today the eyes look with the most tension to the two million people in the city of Detroit, where once again the most famous of all races, the Gordon Bennett Race of the air, will have its beginning in the evening hours. Beginning of launch will probably be fixed at 4 p.m. American time, and we Germans, especially we from the Münsterland, have all reasons to commemorate this hour, at about 10:30 in the evening, with our best wishes. Only somebody who has once seen the interest of the whole American world in the Gordon Bennett Race, can estimate, how much ambition and what a stimulation is given to the individual pilots of every nation by the sympathising with the interest of the population."
This newspaper was right: The United States really wanted to know about it this year. They had won twice in a row in 1910, when Hans Gericke ruined the final possession of the cup for them. This should not happen now again. Demuyter from Belgium was not there, who else could steal the success? The Germans again? Well, Kaulen senior had performed a good fight the year before, but he had changed his co-pilot. And his junior did not yet have enough perseverance, as it was proven the year before. Eimermacher? His balloon was not the lightest, he himself also had his 200 pounds, this allowed the Americans to take on board almost ten bags of ballast more. Never before they had heard of Otto Bertram and he was still 45 years of age. Could the French be serious opponents? Blanchet was at the Gordon Bennett Race for the fifth time, but never in front. Charles Dollfus was still young, they did not believe he would be capable to win. Everything favoured the Americans. They had the support of the US Army (and the Goodyear-company). A wonderful, light balloon was at their disposal. Added by the home advantage, not much could go wrong.
In America the economic activity was blooming (the big Wall-Street crash came one year later), in Europe it was not as well everywhere. Compared to others, Germany seemed to be still in the best position, but even there in the first six month of the year almost 31.500 emigrants were registered (in 1910 there were only about. 27.000 in the whole year). France could nominate only two teams, Belgium, Denmark and Switzerland were represented only by one team, but the word "team" was not right for Swiss Ernest L. Maag, for he was all alone and flew solo with a hired balloon of 1000 cb m. He had no real chance.
The early date of the race was chosen in consideration of the Olympic Games, which drew more and more interest, and which were opening in Amsterdam on July 28th. Also the Germans took part again in the Games for the first time since 1914. They entry was not opposed any longer. Much more interest was created by the fact, that for the first time women were allowed to participate in the classical disciplines (since then, women had been at the Olympic Games only once, 1908 in archery), this against the will of the founder of the new games, Pierre de Coubertin.
In aviation, Risticz and Zimmermann prepared to improve the world record in motor flying, which they managed on July 8th with 65,5 hours. Also there were a lot of discussions about the dramatic rescue of the Italian General Nobile, who was stranded with the airship ITALIA at the North Pole on May 24th and was finally picked up by the Swedish pilot Lundberg on June 24th. 16 ships, 21 airplanes and totally 1500 men were involved in this action, Roald Amundson met his death at this rescue operation.
We have already talked about the Germans Kaulen sr. and Eimermacher in the 1927 chapter. Otto Bertram was there for the first time. He came from one of the oldest German balloon clubs, the Chemnitzer VfL, founded in 1895 (after the Berliner VfL in 1881 and the Münchner (Munich) VfL in 1889). Born 1883 in Saxony, he joined ballooning in 1914, when he was a sailor and later served as captain of a ship. He participated in four Gordon Bennett Races, but his biggest success in ballooning was in advance of a Gordon Bennett Race: He became the first German champion in ballooning, when he flew 1047 kilometres in the balloon CHEMNITZ III with his co-pilot Prehm from Darmstadt to Dlugossen in Poland on April 4th 1935. This championship was also the qualification for the Gordon Bennett Race in the year 1935. Still after World War II he visited gas balloon races in Germany before he passed away in Celle in 1960, aged 77.
In Detroit on launch day all streets were congested. 60.000 cars were counted by the American Automobile Club, who regulated the surging spectators. At 10 a.m. already 50 airplanes started for a race of 6000 miles round the USA. Also an air show was presented, attended by German glider pilots. Etzel Ford again holds the pistol in his hands and this year Eimermacher is the first, to make MÜNSTER VIII climb. The track is quite similar to the one of the previous year, first east, then south from an altitude of 1500 meters on. And again, like the year before, Eimermacher finds himself in front of the Appalachian mountains at the beginning of the second night.
There are uncounted stories and anecdotes about Ferdinand Eimermacher. He had written a ballooning history in Germany. He fixed his memories in his book "Welten, Ozeane und Sterne" (Worlds, Oceans and Stars), which appeared in a private publishing venture in 1956, because the chosen publisher requested to wipe out some sequences which turned out too crude to print. The book fits to the earthiness of the author and is very interesting for balloonists but has little to tell to readers who are not much involved in this subject. They would be bored by the detailed descriptions of the flights. A reprint from the sixties, titled "Im Bund mit Wolken und Wind" (United with Clouds and Wind), allows to guess how Eimermacher lived and flew. Even if we suppose, that some sequences are presented a little blown up and dramatised, the impression of the enormous strain of this race 1928 is still left. He writes:
We approach the last, still higher mountain range. We count twelve bags left. We can see the plain ahead of us, but are afraid, not to reach it anymore. We fly with only 3 kilometres an hour. Little papers, we had thrown overboard indicate the double speed close above the ground. We have to go down to this layer, to finally gain the plain and with the plain the faster winds. We level out the balloon about 30 meters above the tree tops. When we come closer to the last range, we recognise how wild and rough these mountains are, which had been considered insurmountable for a long time. Suddenly we are in front of ridge of the mountain. A wall of purple and blue take our sight to the opposite valley. This wall loomed to a heavy, deep black cloud, waving up and down eerily. It reminds me of a big fire, when burning masses of tar and impenetrable black blue smoke makes whole streets impassable. The Lord shall save us from the breakout of this thunderstorm! Stranding here in these mountains might cut us off from the rest of the world for weeks. The balloon stands still, as if it fears the disaster. Finally, after ten long, frightening minutes, it takes up speed again. The dreadful clouds give way and let us pass with a scornful grin. Thanks to the Lord, this cloud monster gives us our freedom, we move down to the hilly plain. As we had hoped, we pick up a speed of about 30 kilometres an hour and with this speed joy is growing again. We count 10 1/2 bags, our situation is quite satisfying. One hour later, at 9 p.m., we reach a middle sized town, Waynesboro in Virginia. The needle of our compass indicates a southbound heading.
This navigation shocks us, for we have to detect, that unfortunately we had not yet reached the desired plain but only a huge valley, about 80 kilometres wide, and then have to fly over the last, but most wild range of the mountains.
The sky shows a more and more threatening face. I guess a disaster. From my last visit to America, I know that Virginia almost always has terrible thunderstorms at night. It is 10 p.m.. We come closer to the mountain. The dark, puffed up clouds lay heavily on the peaks. We climb up, break through the enormous masses of clouds, and can see the head of the thunderstorm, ghostly illuminated by the full moon. We descend again. The speed decreases here in the mountains, so we can reach the big plain of Virginia first at 0.30 a.m. to my calculations. Once again it goes up to the pale gloom of the moon, and again down to the pitch darkness.
11 p.m.! My calculation are, that we have to cross just two more ridges. Again I have bad feelings. I watch like a hawk, work with slices of paper and altimeter. Just in the moment we are again in a bedlam. The balloon shakes, paper slices rush upwards, the altimeter climbs to the sky, 3500, 3700, 4000, ...5000 meters. Now there is a jerk. Instinctively I grab the basket ropes. A feeling of dizziness overcomes me. Zech startles up, grabs the ropes and moans: "What are you doing, I become sick!" The basket turns in his ropes. Next to its board, something appears and grabs to me. Before I recognise, that it is the handling line, thrown to the level of the basket by a gust of wind, there is again a hard jerk. The basket, lifted in his ropes, swings back to his old position. Zech moans: "Stop it, or I have to vomit." Then he falls back to his sleep like death. Meanwhile, our balloon climbs on.
Now we sit on the head of a gigantic thunder cloud. It is evil, could I fix my fur coat better. Uncomfortably my co-pilot crouches in the corner of the basket. The view to the cloud giants that dance around us is incredibly nice but also horrifying. One close by especially stares at us and then pounces on us with all his size to destroy us.
With a whistle we rushed to the deep. I still don't dump any ballast, for the balloon would not respond to my hands in the falling stream. Black clouds surround me. The altimeter indicates a quick fall, the needle can be watched leaping back. With tension I listen to the deep. The horrifying whistle increases, the clouds grab us from below, lift us up and drags us down to the deep, towards the giants of trees. Ballast and one more bag of ballast go overboard, as useless as it is. I believe, I have to do something.
The enormous mountain yawns to swallow us. I believe, the end of the world has come. We sink into the canyon, where the dry giants of the jungle enclose the rock-walls. I give a kick to my co-pilot, for I have no more time to wake him up by other means and yell, shout at him: "We will get run through!" Zech jumps up, instinctively I throw another bag overboard and we both jump to the opposite corners of the basket, to escape from the deadly thrust. The sharp stab of a 150-feet high giant of the jungle passes close to our bodies. I only get a enormous punch to the left upper arm. I feel no pain, just tumble to the other side of the basket. We experience, how a huge branch pokes into the body of the balloon writhing in pain at the lower hemisphere, slits it open and turns the appendix upwards. On one side below us we can see the fluttering envelope while the basket, breaking the branches, sinks deeper and deeper.
Howling and slapping the storm grabs the wreck and tries to throw it to the deep. As quick as possible we fix the one and only handling line left to the next branch to keep the basket up when a fall comes. It is 11.14 p.m. Frightening seconds pass. Spasmodically the wind hits under the envelope, cuts more and more wounds to it with the sharp branches and finally presses even the gas down to us. We fear to suffocate, when the next gust of wind finally throws the envelope on our heads.
Also, the attacking forces of the still not completely deflated balloon are so big, that the giant tree as a whole grunts and groans and one branch after the other falls down to the deep creaking. To our horror even our last fixed point starts rustling in a frightening manner. I try, to deflate the balloon by ripping off, but it is useless, the envelope has become totally entangled in the trees and is completely deflated by its many wounds. The shreds are fluttering already on the neighbour tree.
We have to leave the basket at once. We agree in all steps. Everything is done with cold blood and objectivity. We cannot recognise, if the released trail rope even reaches the ground of the canyon, but we know, it touches the lower trees. So out! The security rope, I always have with me, will then hopefully lead us to the ground finally.
As pilot I want to stay in the basket. Zech crawls out with some important tools and disappears to my eyes. It takes a long time, which appears almost infinitive to me, until I can finally hear from below: "I'm down!"
"What kind of ground?" I shout down. "Swampy" – "O.K., then I'll dump our necessary equipment!" Part after part I let fall down. Approximately 40 minutes have passed, before I finally may also leave our doubtful place up there. With a heavy rucksack full of instruments, camera, binocular a.s.o. on my shoulders it goes down from the dizzy height. – To climb down on a rope for hundred meters is not easy at all, especially for me, with a weight of more than 200 pounds and loaded with a heavy rucksack. Now I also feel the injury of my arm. A stabbing pain forces the sweat out of my skin. The trail rope appears endless, I nearly can't hold myself any longer. Is it the pain in my arm or appears the response of my comrade, whom I ask, if I'm not already down, too close – I leave the rope. – Then I fall, hit hard on the ground and can't get back on my feet anymore. Broken leg is my first thought.
So far the report of Ferdinand Eimermacher. Thank's god, it wasn't a broken leg, but severe bruising at arm and leg, as it was detected by the doctor at Lynchburg after the rescue. Until he came there, Zech however had to cover a 24 hours walk before he reappeared at the inaccessible landing place in the back forest with a farmer and his two hands. The remaining parts of the balloon had to be given up. Ferdinand Eimermacher recovered on the hospitable farm of Mister Griffim and then returned to Germany satisfied with his sixth place. Father Kaulen and son nearly made it, to take the victory (and thus the winning of the cup) from the Americans. They came only 1,5 kilometres shorter than Kepner/Eareckson. A very close result after a total distance of 740 kilometres.
In Münster in Westphalia, Eimermachers home-town, something had happened which is called a "super-canard" in the newspaper world. There, on July 3rd, the "Münsterische Anzeiger" came out with an extra edition showing as headline on page 1: "Eimermacher winner in the Gordon Bennett Race." The report: "New York, July 3rd– In the Gordon Bennett Race the German balloon MÜNSTER VIII won with the pilot Mr. Eimermacher Münster (co-pilot: Zech-Herford)". How could this have happened? – About seven hours after the involuntarily landing of MÜNSTER VIII, the people of Lynchburg had seen two other balloons. So for the time, Eimermacher was ahead. So from this advance of seven hours and the wish to win, it could be, this false information developed. A little subdued (and in much smaller letters), the "M.A." wrote the same day:
"The cheer was to soon. The flag at the town hall, run up this morning, when news came up that the balloon MÜNSTER VIII had gained victory in America, is taken down again. A bad fortune did not only take the victory from Eimermacher but has also hurt him and robbed him his balloon. After long hours of fearful doubts, torturing but still hopeful uncertainty the following telegram arrived at the family of Mr. Eimermacher at 8.30 p.m. yesterday in the evening:
Lynchburg, 1.03 p.m.: In the second night, 11 o'clock, balloon damaged. Strong gusts of a thunderstorm made balloon rise to 5000 meters, then threw him to a canyon on a dry giant trees. The gas escaped. Condition of the balloon unknown. Recovery appears impossible. Co-pilot is well, myself slightly hurt, pulled tendon, haematoma on feet and arm. After an arduous walk finally here.
As well as a success for Mr. Eimermacher, it would not have been his private affair, also his misfortune is not his personal thing. But as hard as this strikes German aviation and the town of Münster, it strikes Mr. Eimermacher even harder in his sporting ambitions. His wish to win was so big, much bigger than the hopes, that were with him. So this set back hits him extremely hard, and he does not need to know, that due to false information– he had been celebrated as winner for 12 hours."
When Eimermacher returned to Münster in the afternoon of July 26th, he gets a welcome as if he had won. Considering the strain he stood, his courage and dare devilry, this must be allowed with full heart. But looking back to the reports, the fact is interesting, that the success of father and son Kaulen is not mentioned with a single word (not to talk about the participation of Bertram/Fröbel). May local patriotism make people really so blind, that the son of the home town is put equal to the faith of the whole German aviation?
The balloon US ARMY won the race, so the second cup went to the final possession of America. Henry Ford soon agreed to sponsor a third cup. So the Gordon Bennett Races were not at the end, they could continue.
Another anecdote of the 1928 race should be told: Orville Wright, first man in a plane, was the director of the race. One of his duties was, to set up additional rules. So he requested that every participant had to send a telegram with the required data to the championship-office within 24 hours after the landing. When one competitor tried to follow this rule, the man at the telegram office told him, he could not send the telegram: A balloon had landed nearby and destroyed the wires!