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Frequently Asked Questions for Surrogates
- Why should I choose Family Forward Surrogacy?
- Why should I work with an agency rather than working directly with Intended Parents (IP's)?
- How does the matching process work?
- What are requirements for becoming a Gestational Surrogate with FFS?
- What will my compensation be?
- Will I have a contract and a lawyer who will look out for my best interests?
- How can I be sure that the IP's will have legal and financial responsibility for the baby or babies after birth?
- What happens if the IP's die before the birth?
- Who decides which IVF clinic we use, which OB/GYN we will see, and the hospital at which I will deliver? Where are these located?
- Can you explain the medical aspects of IVF required for surrogacy?
- What happens after the birth?
1. Why should I choose Family Forward Surrogacy?
You should choose FFS because the majority of our staff members have personally been through the surrogacy process, and we understand the issues more thoroughly as a result of our personal experiences. On our team we have a former Intended Parent, a former Gestational Surrogate and an LGBT advocate. Collectively, we have someone who has stood in each party's shoes and have worked through most issues you may experience during the surrogacy process. At FFS, we are passionate about and committed to what we do. FFS is a boutique agency that will take the time to get to know you and treat you as an individual. When you work with FFS you will never feel like a number.
2. Why should I work with an agency rather than work directly with Intended Parents (IP's)?
Peace of Mind: FFS performs a criminal background check of Intended Parents or the Intended Parent (for simplicity, we will refer to all Intended Parents in the plural, "IP's") before we accept them as clients. We also require IP's to participate in a psychological counseling session to ensure that they are stable and emotionally capable of handling the stress and responsibilities of becoming IP's, including being supportive of you.
Third Party Escrow Account: FFS works with a third party escrow company that will ensure that you are paid in a timely manner throughout your pregnancy. We estimate the costs of the surrogacy process for you and your specific IP's in advance and require the IP's to deposit all anticipated funds into the account within seven (7) business days of signing the Surrogacy Agreement contract. If there are complications with the pregnancy, we will ask your IP's to add additional funds to the escrow account as soon as we have knowledge of the complications. For this reason, you will never have to worry about being paid or reimbursed in a timely manner. Using a third party escrow company to administer the funds also protects your relationship with your IP's, because you will never have to ask them directly for a check.
Assistance: You will have a dedicated case worker, herself a former Gestational Surrogate, to help you in scheduling appointments, make sure you understand the medical protocol, or just to provide a shoulder to lean on – in good moments or bad. In addition, if any issues arise between you and your IP's you can call on your case manager, the founder of FFS, or our Director of LGBT Outreach to assist you in working through these issues or in averting them altogether through regular communications.
3. How does the matching process work?
FFS believes that one of the most important parts of our job is to make a good match. FFS will ask in-depth questions about your preferences regarding the type of Intended Parent or Intended Parents you wish to be matched with, and will strive to match you with IP's who meet your preferences. FFS also asks the IP's what they are seeking in a Surrogate. FFS will have a very good idea that you will be a good match before you even meet. As a Surrogate you will have the right to decide not to work with particular IP's at the beginning of the process, and to be matched with other IP's. However, if you are very particular the matching process may take longer.
4. What are requirements for becoming a Gestational Surrogate with FFS?
FFS has created a short questionnaire (only 16 questions) so that you can quickly determine whether you qualify to become a Surrogate with FFS. If you live in the following states you will not qualify to become a Gestational Surrogate as a result of laws in these states: NY, WA, MI, LA, AZ.
Please click on the following link to view or complete the questionnaire. Gestational Surrogate Online Application
If you meet the minimum criteria, you will be asked to answer some additional questions online. If the answers to the additional questions meet our minimum qualifications, then a case worker from FFS will call you to start the formal application process. As part of the application process, you will be asked to provide personal information and medical records. We will also send our Surrogacy Coordinator to meet with you and your family in your home at a time that is convenient for you. In addition, you (and the Intended Parents) will be assessed by a psychologist who specializes in Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) and surrogacy, and then conduct a joint session with you and the IP's. After this process is complete, and all parties agree that you and your IP's are a good fit, you will be matched with your IP's, subject to confirmation by the IP's IVF clinic that you are medically qualified to become a Surrogate.
5. What will my compensation be?
Surrogacy Fee: First time Surrogates with health insurance with a history of being "friendly to surrogacy" should expect compensation of $33,000-$35,000.
First time Surrogates with no health insurance, health insurance with an exclusion for surrogacy or health insurance deemed to be "at risk for surrogacy" should expect compensation of $30,000-$32,000.
Experienced Surrogates can add $5,000 to the above amounts or can negotiate another rate with their IP's depending upon how many successful surrogacies they have had.
Multiples Fee: If you become pregnant with multiples, you will be paid an additional $5,000.
Additional Expenses and Compensation: You will also be entitled to a $200 per month incidentals expense account, a $500 maternity clothes allowance ($750 for a multiples pregnancy), payment of your health insurance premiums or a maternity health insurance plan, and a life insurance policy. All of the co-pays and deductibles for your health insurance (for medical cost related to the pregnancy) will also be paid for by your IP's through the escrow account.
Additional Medical Procedures: If additional medical procedures are required, you will be compensated for them as follows:
- Additional Transfer Fee $750 (per additional transfer)
- Invasive Procedure Fees $500 (for most procedures)
- Caesarian Section (if ordered by OB) $1000
- Loss of Uterus $2,500
Travel, Lodging and Meals: If you live more than 90 miles from the IP's IVF clinic, all of your travel, lodging and meals during trips to the IVF clinic will be paid by the Intended Parents through the escrow account. For invasive procedures, your spouse or another companion may join you and their travel, lodging and meals will be paid for as well.
You and your spouse or another companion will be compensated for lost wages for work days missed as a result of travel for IVF or pregnancy related procedures. This compensation will be capped at a mutually agreed upon amount based on your and your spouse or companion's salary or hourly wage. You and your spouse or companion will have to provide proof of your salaries or wages.
Doctor Ordered Bed Rest:
- Lost Wages: If you are put on doctor ordered bed rest you will be entitled to lost wages. Again, this compensation will be based upon your salary or hourly wage, and your short-term or long-term disability benefits, if applicable. Disability policies will have to be provided to FFS and our attorneys in order to set lost wages reimbursement rates and caps for doctor ordered bed rest.
- Childcare Allowance: If on doctor ordered bed rest, a childcare allowance will be made. Childcare will be available only for hours when you would not have been at work or if you are a stay at home mother. For example, if you are employed and have to go on bed rest, you should keep your child or children in school or daycare as if you were at work. Childcare allowances will be made for after business hours childcare or for stay at home mothers at a rate not to exceed $10 per hour or $100 per day.
- Housekeeping Allowance: If on doctor ordered bed rest, a housekeeping allowance will be made. The housekeeping allowance is not to exceed $300 per week.
6. Will I have a contract and a lawyer who will look out for my best interests?
Absolutely. The Surrogacy Agreement contract will outline all of the rights, responsibilities and commitments required by you, your spouse or partner (if applicable), and the IP or IP's throughout the surrogacy process. You will be given a stipend with which to hire your own independent attorney who specializes in Assisted Reproductive Technology and Surrogacy to review the Surrogacy Agreement contract, and to make sure that it is fair to you.
7. How can I be sure that the IP's will have legal and financial responsibility for the baby or babies after birth?
The Surrogacy Agreement contract will require you to participate in any court proceedings required to establish the IP's rights as the sole legal parents of the baby or babies. In some states, a pre-birth order will be issued so that the Intended Parents' names will appear on the birth certificate. In other states, you may be required to complete paperwork after the birth which will terminate your parental rights and ensure that the Intended Parents are the legal parents of the baby. The specific procedure for you and your Intended Parents will be outlined in detail in the Surrogacy Agreement.
8. What happens if the IP's die before the birth?
The Surrogacy Agreement names the person who will be the legal guardian of the baby or babies if the Intended Parents die prior to birth. This guardian is required to be a party to the Surrogacy Agreement and to sign it, so the guardian will be well aware of his/her responsibility to become the legal guardian of the baby.
9. Who decides which IVF clinic we use, which OB/GYN we will see, and the hospital at which I will deliver? Where are these located?
Usually the IP's choose an IVF clinic near their home. If you live more than 90 miles from the clinic the IP's will cover the costs of travel, hotel, and meals while visiting the area. At about 8 weeks gestation, the IVF doctor or Reproductive Endocrinologist will hand over primary responsibility to an OB/GYN. Sometimes you can continue to use the OB/GYN you already see, but in most cases the IP's will want to have you work with a high risk OB/GYN or Perinatologist. You will work with your IP's to find a doctor with whom you all feel comfortable. Usually, the IP's will choose the hospital at which you will deliver. Most often this is dictated by where the high risk OB/GYN or Perinatologist has hospital privileges. The hospital may also be chosen for legal reasons, i.e., a hospital in a jurisdiction which allows the IP's names to be put on the birth certificate.
10. Can you explain the medical aspects of IVF required for surrogacy?
First, you and your partner (if applicable) will have to undergo blood tests to screen for sexually transmitted and infectious diseases. The Intended Parents and Egg Donor (if applicable) will also have to undergo such tests. These tests are intended to protect all parties, and are required by the FDA.
Next, usually at the same visit, you will undergo a gynecological exam. The Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE) will conduct an ultrasound and may order additional tests assess your uterus. Once you have been cleared medically, and after the Surrogacy Agreement has been signed, you will receive instructions from the RE about the specific protocol you and your Intended Mother or Egg Donor (from this point forward we will refer to the Intended Mother as the Egg Donor) will follow to synchronize your menstrual cycles so that your uterus will be ready to accept the embryos created by inseminating the Egg Donor's eggs with the Intended Father's or donor sperm. It is imperative that you follow the protocol strictly.
You will be required to give yourself injections, (or have your partner or a reliable relative or friend give them to you). If someone else is going to give you injections, that person should be trained on how to give the injections. The doses of medication may vary, as per the protocol, so you must be vigilant about knowing how much medication you have on hand and alerting the staff at the IVF clinic if you are running low on any of the medications. As per the medical protocol, the Egg Donor will undergo a retrieval procedure, and 3 or 5 days later the embryo or embryos will be transferred into your uterus vaginally via a painless procedure. You will continue to take injections after the transfer as per the medical protocol. Approximately 10-14 days later, you will have a pregnancy test. If pregnant, you will continue to take injections as per the instructions of the RE. At about 8 weeks gestation, the IVF doctor or Reproductive Endocrinologist will hand over primary responsibility to a high risk OB/GYN or Perinatologist.
11. What happens after the birth?
The Intended Parents will have all parental rights to the baby or babies, and will make all medical decisions regarding the baby. The baby will be covered under the Intended Parents' health insurance from the moment of birth. You will be compensated, as described above, for lost wages for up to four weeks after a vaginal delivery or six weeks after a caesarian section.


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Weapons Code of Conduct
Possession or use of firearms, explosives (including fireworks), dangerous chemicals or other dangerous weapons or the brandishing of any weapon or any other object in a menacing or threatening manner on institutionally owned or controlled property is prohibited.
The owner of a private vehicle is prohibited from possession or storing a weapon in the vehicle while it is operated or parked on University property, including University parking areas, either on campus or at any off-campus facility owned, leased, or operated by the University.
Exception as provided in WKU's POLICY & PROCEDURE DOCUMENT NUMBER: 0.2021:
Deadly Weapons / Destructive Devices Policy http://www.wku.edu/policies/documents/weapons_policy 7-27-12.pdf
Weapons may be defined as an object, instrument, device, or substance designed to inflict a wound, cause injury or incapacitate. Weapons may include, but are not limited to all firearms, pellet guns, stun guns, paintball guns, air guns, slingshots, martial arts devices, knives and clubs.
The above information is provided solely for your convenience and is not intended to constitute a formal legal understanding or legal advice. If you have any additional questions on storing or transporting deadly weapons in a vehicle while on campus, including whether a particular means of storage or transportation would violate the Student Code of Conduct against weapons on campus pertaining to carrying a concealed deadly weapon, you may wish to consult the University Police Department.
Students who store weapons in residence hall rooms, who brandish weapons, or who use a weapon in a reckless manner may face disciplinary action, which may include immediate dismissal from the university. Students who store ammunition in the residence halls will face disciplinary action.
Unauthorized weapons will be confiscated and disposed of properly by WKUPD.
Some of the links on this page may require additional software to view.

subset: commoncrawl


text: Daniel Myrick, co-director of The Blair Witch Project alongside Eduardo Sanchez, is heading back to the horror genre with another documentery-type pic entitled Raw Feed, according to Variety. The movie is already being aimed at a direct-to-video release as Warner Home Video has picked up the release rights. It was also reported that Myrick is also working on the Soltice, a supernatural thriller for Endgame Entertainment.


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The World Bank has unveiled its ambitious plan to support renewable energy development and fulfil its pledge under the Paris Agreement.
In a statement by World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, he says, "Following the Paris climate agreement, we must now take bold action to protect our planet for future generations… We are moving urgently to help countries make major transitions to increase sources of renewable energy, decrease high-carbon energy sources, develop green transport systems, and build sustainable, liveable cities for growing urban populations. Developing countries want our help to implement their national climate plans, and we'll do all we can to help them."
The plan is designed to increase clean energy projects in developing countries and the Bank is aiming to double its current contributions to global energy capacity by adding 30 GW which is enough to power 150 million homes, bring early warning systems to 100 million people, and develop climate-smart agriculture investment plans for an estimated 40 countries.
The plan also involves green transport, climate-smart agriculture, and urban resilience as well as increasing climate financing to $29 billion annually by 2020.
The Climate Change Action Plan aims to accelerate efforts to tackle climate change over the next five years and will help developing nations deliver on their national climate plans submitted for the historic climate agreement reached at COP21 in Paris in December.


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Summer Zen: How to fall in love with yoga and meditation
There are a multitude of reasons to fall in love with the ancient wellbeing practice. Here's why yoga is one of the best exercises you can do - and how to get started.
You've probably heard of yoga - it's been around for centuries, after all. But that doesn't mean you've tried it. It's not surprising, what with all the yoga-based pose names such as bakasana, downward-facing dog, and mountain - not to mention all the super-flexy #Yogis curved into sailor's-knot-like shapes on Instagram.
There are also lots of different types of yoga, from hatha to bikram, vinyasa to ashtanga (more info on these here). It leaves the yoga newbie with a string of questions, that they might be uncomfortable asking. With that in mind, we've put together this starter guide to the ancient practice, so you can separate from your mantras from your mudras in no time.
Why get into yoga?
Regular yoga can dramatically improve both your mental and physical health. Here are just a few benefits of the practice:
1. You'll get more flexible.
You may not be able to touch your toes, yet, but stick to a yoga routine and you'll soon be on your way to those elusive pretzel-shaped poses. The more you practice, the more your body loosens up and aches and pains will start to melt away.
2. You'll build muscle strength
Many yoga positions - such as handstands and crow poses - require incredible strength. You'll build this over time with regular practice, using your own bodyweight as a workout tool. The muscle tone and definition you build with yoga doesn't just look great aesthetically, it protects you from conditions such as osteoporosis, arthritis and back pain.
3. Perfect your posture
From being slumped at the office to hunching over your steering wheel, the modern lifestyle has made it harder to maintain a solid posture. But yoga can stretch you out, take pressure off strained muscles and have you standing tall in no time. Tree pose, mountain pose, forward-fold, downward-facing dog and cat-cow pose are all posture-perfecting gold.
How to get started with yoga
Whether you're looking for a new way to challenge your athletic abilities or want to reach out to your inner Zen, getting into yoga is different for everyone. Some people are more flexible, others find it near-impossible to switch off and meditate when they first start the practice.
The great thing about yoga and meditation is that it can be done anywhere, at any time, by anyone. All you need is a yoga mat and comfy, loose clothing. An open mind and a little patience will help, too.
Start off with a gentle workout to ease you into it. Master your breathing first (or pranayama, in Yogi speak) - taking a deep breaths in through the nose and filling out your belly - before moving on to basic poses such as cat-cow and downward-facing dog.
You can head to your local Holmes Place club for a Yoga class and ease yourself into it in a relaxed environment with likeminded people. Learning to stop thinking at 100 mph everyday - and simply learning to breathe - can be one of the kindest things you can do for your body.
Find a Club near you.


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To subscribe to VT Alerts through phone calls, text messages, or emails sent to non-vt.edu accounts, visit the registration website.
You will need your PID and password to register. While on the site, you can choose to receive either a phone call or text message in the event of an alert.
To be eligible for this channel of VT Alerts, a community member must meet one of several eligibility criteria. Users are subject to the conditions of use. Those eligible include:
- Students who are currently enrolled or were enrolled in one of the past four semesters, including students of the Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine
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To determine eligibility for this channel of VT Alerts, individuals can verify their Virginia Tech affiliation by completing the following steps:
- Log in to MyVT.
- Click on the "Personal Info" tab.
- Click on "Manage your Profile.
Attention Google Voice users: The SMS portion of VT Alerts cannot send text messages via Google Voice, so you should use the direct number for your mobile telephone for the text message option.
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Thomas M. Disch, R.I.P.
The Businessman, Thomas M. Disch 1940 - 2008
There are tributes from people who knew him here, here, and here. Go read his books, and his stories. Read The Genocides, Camp Concentration, 334, On Wings of Song. Read the stories collected in Getting Into Death and Fundamental Disch. He was a damn fine writer. He was one of the writers who meant a lot to me when I was a lonely teenage sci-fi geek in the late 1960s/early 1970s.
Update: Daily Kos has posted a fine memorial essay.


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1 bottle Lost Vineyards White Sangria
3 ounces Rum
1 cup Ginger Ale
4 Plums; 1 pureed, 3 sliced
1 Apple, sliced
1 Lime, sliced
Bunch of Fresh Mint
In a large pitcher, combine the Lost Vineyards White Sangria, rum, pureed plumb, and a few sprigs of mint. Muddle the mint a little, then add 2 of the sliced plumbs, apple, and 4 slices of lime. Top off with the ginger ale. Distribute the remaining plum and lime slices among individual glasses, adding ice if desired.


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Barbour iPhone 6S
Discover the cases and accessories your iPhone 6S needs, from shock-absorbing silicone styles to our curated collection of Ted Baker book-style folios and our ultimate Carbon Fibre range. Leather styles ensure long-lasting protection, whilst our signature soft-feel back shells make for the perfect everyday essential.
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Free Collection Processing
Tenant Tracker is not a collection agency. However, we will forward your collection accounts to an approved agency for
, where allowed by law, and you will receive the following:
Forwarding and posting to all 3 national credit reporting agencies
Weekly skip tracing for up to 7 years
Legally compliant dunning letters
Full service dispute resolution and negotiation center
Experienced legal oversight
The most important thing to remember about collecting bad debts is that you probably won't collect what you don't submit. Most of the time when a debtor finally pays up, it's because we've prevented them from renting another place, buying a car, or getting some other kind of credit - and that won't happen if you don't report your bad debts. Simply give us a breakdown of charges, check the appropriate box, sign and you're done.
Smart tips about how to get the most from your Debt Collection Procedures and Systems. First, let's review the basics of any successful collection process:
Report it - You won't collect what you don't report. Plus, unreported accounts leave you vulnerable to the chance of renting to them again, and generating another collection.
Focus - Is debt collecting your core business, and are you going to stay legally current? Ignorance of the law is no excuse - debt collecting is a highly litigious activity and is constantly changing. Regardless of any contract language, collection activities (including on-site activities) are highly regulated by both Federal and State laws.
Delegate - Assign the account to an outside agency - then from that point forward refer the debtors to that agency. Otherwise, you are pulling yourself back into the legal requirements and risks of how that account is being processed.
Use common sense - Don't let your ego get ahead of your business judgment. Something is better than nothing. Many accounts have room for negotiation and a fair business settlement. Keep in mind, you have already lost money on the account, and the last thing you need now is to let it bleed more business resources. In my experience, there are some honest disagreements, or at least the judge may see it that way, and pushing a lease collection to the courts has almost never turned out to be a cost-effective plan.
Adapt - Evaluate and adjust your resident selection criteria to avoid, in advance, as many of these accounts as possible.
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Immingham (sometimes known locally as Ming-Ming or simply Ming) is a town in the North East Lincolnshire unitary authority of England, located on the south bank of the Humber Estuary. It is six miles (10 km) north west of Grimsby.
Immingham is sandwiched between the A180 to the south and the A1173 (Manby Road and Kings Road) to the north, which is also the access road between both gates of the port. From the west, it has no direct link to the A180; access is via the A1173 towards Grimsby, or more conveniently via the Brocklesby Interchange and the A160 and through the petrochemical works at South Killingholme (in North Lincolnshire). The A1173 has a spur for the east gate of the docks – Queens Road. The B1210 carries traffic to the west of the town, from Stallingborough to Habrough.
The medieval village of Immingham is on the outskirts of the town to the north west near St Andrew's Church.
The north-west corner of the civil parish is at End End Farm, next to South Killingholme and North Lincolnshire. The boundary with Habrough crosses the A180 just west of both Luxmore (Total) service stations, named after Immingham's Luxmore Farm, just to the north on the B1210. The boundary passes to the west of the medieval village of Roxton, now part of Immingham. The south-west corner of the parish takes in the east of Roxton Wood, and borders Lincolnshire in the wood, extending as far south as New Beck Drain. Eastwards from Roxton Wood there is a boundary with Stallingborough. This boundary crosses the A180 just west of the A1173 junction and follows North Beck drain along the western edge of the Kiln Lane industrial estate, and is also the postcode boundary (DN41 and DN40), and meets the Humber just east of Cray Valley Chemicals (owned by Total).
The European route E22 apparently passes through Immingham (this actually refers to the nearby route of the A180 and the A160 via Immingham Dock) and thence on to Amsterdam which implies there is a ferry to Amsterdam. No car ferry of that nature exists but freight transport (lorries) can go with the DFDS Tor line via Immingham Dock to Gothenburg on the AngloBridge line, to Esbjerg on the BritanniaBridge Line, to Cuxhaven on the ElbeBridge line, and to Rotterdam (for Route E22) on the ShortBridge line. Sailings go from the DFDS Nordic Terminal which has six Ro-Ro berths; DFDS has been operating from the port since 1992. Immingham is the busiest freight ferry port on the east coast of England. The Stena Line has a route from the Hook of Holland to Killingholme (Humber Sea Terminal).
The name means "Homestead or village of Imma's people'. Research into families with the surnames associated with "imma" or "emma" show that many seem to have begun their migration across England (mainly northward) from this part of Lincolnshire.
The town, Immingham, has a completely English name which is unusual in an area noted for large-scale Norse settlements. This suggests that the name of the town dates from before the Viking invasion of this area. Bede mentions a Northumbrian nobleman called Imma, who fought in the Battle of the Trent in 679 CE.
Bede tells us that in 679 Imma was a Thane (a type of King's bodyguard) in the service of the 18 year old brother of the King of Northumbria, Aelfwine.
In the Battle of the Trent in 679 CE Aelfwine was killed and Northumbria lost control of the area of modern Immingham. Imma was left for dead. He later revived and was taken into captivity (being careful to keep his name and title secret). The Mercians who had captured him treated his wounds and when he got better chained him up each night to prevent his escape.
Meanwhile his brother, Tunna, a priest and abbot of a monastery, assuming his brother dead, had regular prayers and masses said for him.
The Mercians had great trouble keeping Imma in captivity and guessed he was more than just a peasant. The Mercian Chief had him closely questioned. Imma agreed to speak if the Chief promised not to kill him. On learning that Imma was a King's Thane he was furious but could not go back on his word. The Mercians believed Imma was using black magic to escape. But Imma pointed out that his brother was Christian and was probably praying for him and that was the reason for his near-success.
Because he was such a problem the Mercians sold Imma in London as a slave to a Frisian. This Frisian also found it difficult to keep Imma captive so he allowed him to arrange for his ransom. The King of Kent eventually paid the ransom because he had connections with Imma's family. Imma went through a number of other adventures before he got back to his own country. On reuniting with his brother, the abbot confirmed that he had indeed been praying for his brother.
The town contains a memorial marking the site of the 1608 departure of the Pilgrim Fathers to the Netherlands. The vessel anchored off Killingholme Creek but suffered very bad weather. Due to this the wives asked to be put ashore for the night. The vessel was sailed up Killingholme Creek to just below St. Mary's Parish Church in Immingham – a small depression probably marking this site can still be distinguished at the end of Washdyke Lane. The inhabitants of Immingham agreed to the wives and children sleeping in their parish church overnight. But news of this group reached the authorities, who proceeded to come to Immingham and arrest the dissenters. On hearing this, the captain of the vessel insisted on sailing away before the wives and children could embark. Hence the wives and children were arrested and jailed. Word of this spread throughout the country, and very soon a popular protest against this inhumane treatment arose. Due to this popular feeling the wives and children were released and allowed to join their husbands and fathers in the Netherlands. The vessels sailed to Boston (Lincolnshire) and on to the Netherlands, then to Southampton and finally Plymouth, from where history records the sailings of the Mayflower. From 12 July 2008 until 19 July 2008, the town held a number of celebrations to mark the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrim Fathers' arrival and departure.
During the First World War, Immingham was a submarine base for early submarines.
During the Second World War, Immingham became the shore base (for a time) of Lord Mountbatten and the docks hosted his famous vessel, HMS Kelly. He roomed at the County Hotel.
Squadron Leader John Dowland and Leonard Harrison received the George Cross for defusing a bomb that had fallen onto the grain ship SS Kildare in February 1940 in Immingham Dock.
The Humber Force, part of the Home Fleet which had two cruisers and a destroyer flotilla (including HMS Afridi) was based at Immingham during the war, as well as submarines (including HMS Seal).
Up until the turn of the 20th century Immingham was a rural village, dependent on agriculture. The advent of the railways encouraged speculators to utilise its location on the coast to build a deep-sea dock to rival that in nearby Hull.
This caused the area to grow as workers moved in; much of the growth in living accommodation was centred around in a narrow strip (now known as Pelham Road) between two public houses at opposite ends of the town, the Bluestone and the County Hotel. The advent of the First World War caused the area to suffer some decline: This was not reversed until the 1950s.
In that decade the docks began to grow as the country recovered from the austerity of the Second World War and the post war years. The expansion of chemical and petroleum industries along the Humber Bank over the next twenty years also fuelled the economic growth and level of population of the town, evident in the architectural style of many houses. This new residential growth expanded on both sides of Pelham Road and in the 1960s a comprehensive school and shopping centre-cum-office complex (Kennedy Way) were opened to facilitate this increase.
Opened in 1965 the Kennedy Way centre was host to a supermarket, many independent traders and several banks; in 1979 it was extended to house a further supermarket and other shop units. However in recent years the centre has been in decline with several outlets remaining empty for many years. Both supermarkets (Kwik Save and Tates) have moved out along with the Midland Bank, although a further supermarket development operated by the Co-operative Group on Washdyke Lane is still operational.
Plans for the redevelopment of the area were published in January 2009. Plans drawn up by the owners, Wellway Properties Limited, and the supermarket chain Tesco show the partial demolition of the existing area and the creation of 30,000 sq ft (2,800 m2) superstore in its place, with the rest of the area being upgraded. The proposed demolition covers properties leased by three banks, several national chains and a number of independent businesses.
One leaseholder, the Yorkshire Bank, confirmed they would not be taking up the option on new premises in the development and closed their branch in August 2009 after 40 years of operation. In late 2010 Barclays closed their branch in the centre as a result of the planned redevelopment. Another tenant, the Norwich and Peterborough Building Society closed their Immingham office in March 2010 as part of a national re-organisation rather than as a result of the redevelopment. It leaves just two banks in the town, NatWest and Lloyds TSB, the latter in premises scheduled for demolition under the proposed plans.
North East Lincolnshire Council has one council ward within the area of Immingham.
Being 200 miles (320 km) by road from London, Edinburgh and Rotterdam, means that Immingham is central to the UK and Europe. Local motorways connect to all parts of the UK placing 40 million consumers within a 4-hour drive. Access from the south is hindered by single-carriageway roads, but most heavy traffic comes from the M62, M18 and M180.
The A1173 is due to be improved to bypass Stallingborough, and join the A180 junction from the south. Much heavy traffic heading north for Immingham uses the B1225 and then the A1173. The route of the A1173 has changed, with a gap between the B1210 roundabout at Stallingborough and the A180 roundabout, in preparation for direct access to the roundabout from the southern and of the A1173, which will not be built for at least five years.
The nearest railway station is at Habrough, approximately 3 miles (5 km) away on the Cleethorpes to Manchester line.
This area is the busiest in the UK for rail freight with a choice of specialist terminals serving destinations across the country.
Humberside Airport, situated 6 miles (10 km) to the west of Immingham, and 3 miles east from the M180/A15 junction, is a national and international gateway connecting over half a million passengers to 30 destinations every year, with daily flights to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, the world's third largest international airport. Humberside Airport is accessed from the junction of the A15 and M180 via the B1210 through Habrough.
With Grimsby and Cleethorpes, Immingham is part of the economic area known as Greater Grimsby, which, in turn, forms part of the wider economic partnership of The Hull and Humber Ports City Region The main sectors of the Greater Grimsby economy are food and drink; ports and logistics; renewable energy; chemicals and process industries and digital media. Along the A1173 is the Knauf UK GmbH plant that makes plasterboard.
In 2008 the Port of Grimsby and Immingham was the UK's largest port by tonnage.It is owned by Associated British Ports and is a constituent port in the Hull and Humber Ports City Region. Its prime deep-water location on the Humber Estuary, gives companies direct access to mainland Europe and beyond.
Building of Immingham Dock began in 1906, and it as opened by King George V on 22 July 1912. In part funded by the Great Central Railway, the dock property was 2.5 miles (4.0 km) by 1-mile (2 km); covering 1,000 acres (4 km2), with 45 acres (180,000 m2) of water. The docks were connected to the town and mainline by the Grimsby & Immingham Electric Railway, with locomotive servicing at Immingham TMD. Now owned by Associated British Ports, Immingham is home to the largest deep-sea docks in the country. A large port and industrial complex, coal is imported through the port by SSM Coal Ltd. The port partnership of Grimsby & Immingham is the largest port in the UK in terms of tonnage, with a total traffic of 57 million tonnes, 10% of the total, in 2006. Much overseas coal for the Trent Valley and Aire valley power stations arrives in this country at Immingham and is transferred via FirstGBRf. The large Immingham Railfreight Terminal to service the docks, also acts as a storage point for excess locomotives and wagons, as well as a scrapping location.
Close to Immingham, oil is refined at the Lindsey (at North Killingholme) Oil Refinery by TOTAL and at the Humber Refinery (at South Killingholme) by ConocoPhillips. They both own the Associated Petroleum Terminals. Oil began to be imported in 1970. The Killingholme Refineries opened in 1969, owned by Total and PetroFina. The refined fuel was transported to the rest of the UK by rail. 70% of the refined oil from the Humber Refinery goes to the UK, the rest is for Europe. It is the only coking refinery in Britain, produced by catalytic cracking. In the second half of 2007, an £80m bioethanol fuel plant will be constructed close to the town. The plant will use locally-grown wheat from which to synthesise fuel.
Immingham Power Station powers both petrochemical works to the north, being owned by ConocoPhillips. To the north of the petrochemical works is Killingholme Power Station owned by E.ON UK and Centrica and 3 miles to the east on the Humber bank is the South Humber Bank Power Station, owned by Centrica. In April 2009 Drax Power held public exhibitions in the area that detailed their proposal for a 300MW renewable energy plant to be fuelled by biomass.
Immingham is the centre of digital media in Greater Grimsby, with award-winning companies and state-of-the-art facilities. Partnerships with Sony, BBC, ITV and the Press Association enable the area to deliver programming across Europe.


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Thanks to your counselors, recommendation writers, classmates, family and friends who all helped you to accomplish all that you needed to do throughout the application process, to get admitted to the college of your choice, you finally got in. The tedious task of trying to get in is followed by the equally enormous task of staying in and sustaining that fire in your heart to succeed in college. Here are some tips on how to make the most out of your college life:
Set your goal.
Remember why you tried with all that you have to get into college and keep it to heart. Like most aspirants, you want to go to college for the continuing education, which will end in graduation, and will open up doors into great jobs or great graduate schools. For others, it is to relish the education college brings and still for some, it is what happens outside of the classroom that consists of academic success. The point is, know what your goals are and set your mind and heart in accomplishing them.
Explore your new world.
You may be one of those who have their plans down pat, coming into college already seeing yourself as a future doctor, lawyer or business tycoon. For some, these plans are non-existent, just going through the motions and feeling their way through their college education. No matter which end of the spectrum you are on, allow yourself to explore your new world and learn from everything — academically or otherwise.
Make independent choices.
College is a time of independence. Gone were the days when you have to take into consideration your family's dreams for you as well as your own and make plans that merge these two together. There is nothing wrong with consulting, say your parents, when making major decisions in your college life, but keep in mind that this is your life and this is your future. Every choice that you will make will result to consequences which you will face on your own. Hence, make them for yourself.
Expect to perform well.
Nobody forced you to follow the path you have chosen for your own. You chose this precisely because it is your heart's passion and it is your calling deep within. Therefore, set yourself up for an excellent performance. Give it all you've got.
Learn outside of the classroom.
As they say, do not let your studies get in the way of your education. Some learnings about college life and life in general may not be gained inside the classroom but in the world outside. Try not to just stay inside the box but go out! Join an organization or a club. Be involved in extracurricular activities and meet new people. Try something that you've never done before. Whatever you do, just make sure that they are things you can look back to in the future and be proud about.


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I usually reserve making it until Thanksgiving but I have a huge basket of heirloom butternut squash just screaming to be used. Aside from the fact that it was my son's request for his Birthday Cake.
The recipe originally comes from Kraft Foods Philadelphia Cream Cheese, but with a few modifications I've turned it into my own personal garden kitchen work of art.
Instead of the pumpkin that Kraft uses, I've substituted with some winter squash.
The crust is what really pulls this cheesecake together. I've been making my own gingersnap cookies for many years mainly just for this cake. You can find the link for the cookie recipe in a previous post by clicking here.
It's quite simple to crush the cookies with some pecans or even walnuts and add some butter to them to press into your cheesecake pan. I also love to sprinkle some fresh organic pumpkin seeds on the top for an extra special treat. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.
Mix crushed gingersnap cookies with the crushed pecans. Add melted butter and mix in with a fork. Press into your pan to at least 1/2 to 2 inches up the sides.
Beat softened cream cheese, 3/4 cup of the sugar, and vanilla until well blended. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing on low. Reserve 1 1/2 cups of the plain batter in a small bowl and set aside. Add the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar, pureed butternut squash and spices to the remaining batter.
Pour the squash batter into your pan on your crust. Take your reserved plain batter and by the spoonful dollop on the top of your squash mixture. Cut through the batters with a knife several times to swirl it and get the desired effect.
Sprinkle on the pumpkin seeds.


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If there's an image that summarises my idea of complete horror, this is it: a wolf spider carrying dozens of babies on her back. It's the only spider in the world that does this.
It's also the only spider that carriers her eggs in a round silken globe attached to her abdomen. After a gestation of 9 to 27 days—it varies depending on the temperature—the egg hatch and the infant spiders move onto the mother's back until they are old enough to hunt on their own.
These spiders are everywhere in the world, billions of individuals living in gardens everywhere. They are voracious predators, roaming the soil under the ground looking for other insects to eat. Sometimes, they wander into houses.
When I was living in Miami I had an encounter with one of these wolf spiders, one that was burned into my retina. I remember the hairy bastard walking down the rug of my bedroom; my girlfriend screaming; me using a shoe to kill it and then I remember seeing two hundred thousand little spiders running everywhere. Then I screamed more than my girlfriend, because I remembered I hate spiders too. [Spirderzrule—Thanks Karl!]
Another view of the abdomen plagued with spiderlings.
A wolf spider carrying her eggs in a silken globe on her abdomen. The only spider in the world to exhibit this eerily human-ish behaviour.


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Firebreak by Neutron Fire Technologies
Fire Safety is a critical element of modern building design. As such it demands robust solutions that ensure that in the event of fire the structure remains stable and the fire is contained to allow safe evacuation of the building occupants. Such products or systems need to be economical, versatile, easy to install and above all reliable.
Neutron Fire Technologies Ltd is a major European and global supplier of specialist fire protection products with an extensive range of products backed up with modern fire test evidence and third party Certification. We have many years successful experience of supporting international customers and have an active new and improved product development programme.
We are constantly developing new products and solutions to complex fire protection needs.


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Anadarko sells pipelines for $4B to merged Western Gas spinoff
Anadarko Petroleum said Thursday it will sell its remaining pipeline assets for $4 billion to its decade-old pipeline spinoff Western Gas Partners.
The Woodlands-based oil and gas producer said it is moving all of its remaining pipeline systems - primarily in West Texas' Permian Basin and in Colorado - to Western Gas. The deal is essentially for $2 billion in cash and $2 billion in stock.
Western Gas also will merge its two publicly traded entities - Western Gas Partners and Western Gas Equity Partners - in a continuation of the industrywide trend of simplifying the structures of pipeline firms.
RELATED: Multibillion-dollar deals show Permian's dominance
Anadarko will own a controlling 55.5 percent of the merged Western Gas.
"The size of this asset sale, along with the clear benefits of the simplification transaction, highlights the tremendous value of Anadarko's midstream business," said Anadarko Chief Executive Al Walker.
The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2019.
Just this summer another Houston producer, Apache Corp., decided to form its own pipeline firm with investments from a Los Angeles private equity firm. Apache is creating the new Altus Midstream with a projected market value of $3.5 billion.


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EQTrace-TD is the professional, inexpensive Profi-GPS-Tracker and access-control solution for field staff organisations, shipping - companies, professional renting -, construction - companies as well as and more.
The access-control function will enhance security and you always know who and when had used the vehicle. This immediately will reduce the number of damages of the vehicle itself.
Very simple installation: Just connect to power supply and you a are done!
* Included for 12 month. After 12 month: 150€ plus VAT per year- Delivered without smartphone.
** As long as a GPRS-Signal (for mobile phones) can be received


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We're excited to announce the 12th annual Chippewa Valley Code Camp!
On Saturday October 26th, 2019, we will be bringing together the brightest minds in West-Central Wisconsin to celebrate our shared passion for creating and developing software!
Chippewa Valley Code Camp and the Chippewa Valley Developers' Group are dedicated to providing a harassment-free conference experience for everyone. Please review our code of conduct for everyone attending the code camp.
Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date about our monthly meetings and/or special events.
The most important factor in our ability to hold this annual conference and our monthly meetings are the generous donations from our Sponsors. Without their continued support, we would not be able to offer the conference for free, and would likely not hold the conference at all.


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joelballezza necesitaba un nuevo diseño de Logo y paquete de redes sociales y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 97 diseños de 41 diseñadores freelance.
The Wild Ones
The Wild Ones is a Seattle-based film company that produces movies about trail running and mountain adventure. We're ultra runners and feel most at home on the trail.
The mark itself can include just a "t" "w" and "o" as if they were carved overtop each other on a tree, or exclude the copy all together and just go with something that screams "wild" like a beast romping on a ridge line.
I like the organic look of elk antlers, tree branches and other visuals that communicate wilderness and wild people.
Ideally the logo would be delivered with the name and logo lockup, as just the graphic logo, and in horizontal and vertical lockups for multiple uses.


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How can we build greater honesty between individuals and institutions across Australia?
What's the problem?
Honesty between individuals is the essential foundation for the development of trust within and between communities, businesses, governments and societies.
Without this, armies, police forces, companies, schools, hospitals, the media and judicial systems would all cease to function in the way they are supposed to. Honesty enables people to rely on each other and builds social capital. Research links strong social capital to increased individual and community wellbeing.
Seven things you need to know
The good news is that levels of generalised trust in Australia have been relatively stable since 2006. This means there has been no change in the proportion of people who agreed that most people could be trusted.
This is consistent with the 2015 Scanlon Foundation national survey, which asked participants about levels of personal trust. They found that 45-55% agreed that 'most people can be trusted', at similar levels to the previous survey.
The Scanlon Foundation survey also found that the highest level agreeing that 'most people can be trusted' was indicated by those intending to vote Greens, with a Bachelor degree or higher, those whose financial status was self-described as 'prosperous' or 'very comfortable', and of English speaking background.
The lowest level of agreement was indicated by those whose financial status was self-described as 'struggling to pay bills' or 'poor', with education up to Year 11, with Trade or Apprentice qualifications, aged 25-34, and those intending to vote independent or a minor party.
In terms of trust in institutions, there is considerable difference between types of institutions. Lowest levels of trust were indicated in the federal parliament, trade unions and political parties. The highest level of trust was in hospitals and police, employers and the legal system.
Corruption has a corrosive impact on society. It undermines democracy and the rule of law, as well as distorting market forces and paving the way for organised crime and terrorism.
Although each has different functions, all states have agencies specifically established integrity agencies to counter corruption in the public sector. These include QLD, NSW, VIC, WA, SA and TAS. At the national level, there are no independent mechanisms supporting federal parliamentary integrity other than AFP investigations into criminal conduct.


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We want to be community players, and we want to have them come onto our lands. If they're going to use them, they have to use them responsibly. Otherwise, you jeopardize the opportunity. —Kim Christy
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Thirteen tons of garbage have been hauled out of the Lake Mountain area so far as part of a massive cleanup project to preserve the recreational area and its hundreds of petroglyph panels.
Lake Mountain, located south of Saratoga Springs and west of Utah Lake, is a popular site for shooting guns and riding ATVs where private lands, trust lands and Bureau of Land Management lands are intertwined.
"We're just simply trying to create a paradigm shift that demonstrates a better stewardship by us as managers, and especially as the recreating public, to protect the privilege essentially," said Kim Christy, deputy director of the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration.
SITLA and Utah County are working together with private landowners to curb degradation of the area due to undisciplined recreational use.
"It's a long process," Christy said. "It's been many years that it's brought us to this level, but we're committed to try and turn that tide, and that's what we're starting with in this project."
On April 7, SITLA closed public access to 1,450 acres of particularly problematic trust lands that were heavily abused.
Shooters in the area have left garbage and the items used for targets such as refrigerators, VCRs, mattresses, tires, paint cans and even a car. Christy called it a "staggering" and "horrific" problem.
The perimeter of the closed area will be aggressively marked with signs, and the Utah County Sheriff's Office is "serious" about patrolling the area and enforcing the closures, according to Utah County Sheriff's Lt. Yvette Rice.
Fines could be potentially tens of thousands of dollars, depending on the offense, Rice said.
"There can be significant consequences or repercussions for starting a fire or defacing property," she said.
Cleanup began a week ago with workers and volunteers from the Boy Scouts of America, the Eagle Mountain mayor, members of the Utah County Sheriff's Office Work Diversion program, private landowners and the archaeological community.
The area contains several hundred panels of petroglyphs, also called rock art, dating back 13,000 years to the Paleo-Indian people. The rock art tells the story of the area's inhabitants as they turned from hunter-gatherers to agriculturalists.
Nearly every petroglyph site has bullet holes from people both intentionally and unintentionally shooting at them, said Steven Manning of the Utah Archaeological Research Institute.
"If they're destroyed, then we don't have that chance to find out all the things about the people who lived here all these years," Manning said, "so it's an exciting place."
In May, a few hundred students will help clean up the dishwashers, chairs, computers and other shot-up items left behind.
The main culprits are "fly-by" shooters, not the core group of regular shooters, according to Dave Taylor, a shooter and outdoorsman from Herriman. Those who are really involved take care of the land, Taylor said.
"I've been complaining about it for years," he said. "I've told the shooters it's a matter of time before they start closing land."
Taylor said he visits the area almost every week with his kids or friends to shoot and enjoy the outdoors. He always picks up trash and takes it home, he said, but it looks about the same when he returns the next week.
"Having this land available, I mean private land, and for them to say you can use it, there's a responsiblity there, and on public land as well," Taylor said. "If we're going to use it, we need to take care of it."
More than 23,000 acres of trust land and thousands of acres of BLM land are still open for recreation, and restrictions will be relaxed as the project continues.
About 1.5 miles of roads will be decommissioned as part of the project. Christy said the ultimate goal is to create uniform loop systems of access, rather than spiderwebs of capillary roads that don't lead anywhere.
"What we're trying to stop is the people leaving the roads (and) creating new roads," said Utah County Commissioner Doug Witney. "You can ride. We're not trying to impede that. We're just trying to stop people from destroying land."
Stakeholders are hoping to let brush grow over the unauthorized roads, and they're working on putting in an organized shooting range by 2015 to encourage responsible shooting.
"We want to make a difference," Witney said. "We want to make a change."
Christy said it's also a matter of public health and safety. Some BLM land nearby was closed two years ago for similar reasons and private landowners were complaining about shooting at or near their homes.
Along the closed BLM land, Utah County is working on a 6-mile fencing project on state Route 68 toward Soldier Pass Road. Along the fence will be a green stripping project. Crews will tear out trees and reseed the area to keep fires from spreading and to protect range animals.
The Lake Mountain area is no stranger to fires as a result of undisciplined shooting, including a 2012 wildfire that burned 5,500 acres.
"We think this is a good start," Witney said, "and we want people to understand that this is their land. Why come out here and trash it?"
SITLA administers 3.4 million acres of land across the state. Christy said the agency needs to make sure resources aren't compromised for their beneficiaries — principally the public education system.
"While we don't have our allegiance to the public necessarily, we want to accommodate them," Christy said. "We want to be community players, and we want to have them come onto our lands. If they're going to use them, they have to use them responsibly. Otherwise, you jeopardize the opportunity."
Email: [email protected], Twitter: Madeleine6


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Second Acts / San Francisco's Carole Shorenstein Hays has built a career on Broadway by taking calculated risks
The dress she wore that night was very large, a billowing pink silk maternity gown designed by Pauline Trigere. Her speech was very short.
"I think I'm going to give birth right now," Carole Shorenstein Hays told a packed Mark Hellinger Theatre in New York on June 7, 1987, as a national television audience for the annual Tony Awards ceremony looked on. With that, she hustled offstage, a novice producer who had swooped into the hermetically sealed world of Broadway theater from San Francisco and spirited off a coveted best play Tony, the commercial theater's top honor, for August Wilson's "Fences."
It may seem like a lifetime ago, in a show business world of instant gratification and instantaneous memory loss. But for Shorenstein Hays, the San Francisco Best of Broadway producer who has defied all reasonable expectations to become a force in American theater over the past quarter century, "Fences" was the crucial, formative moment of her career. It came, characteristically, in a way that was at once overtly theatrical and internally multifaceted.
Her clearly visible pregnancy on that distant Sunday night -- she would give birth to her first child, Wally, two months later -- and unorthodox acceptance of the prize, something closer to a verbal spasm than a speech, only served to dramatize the improbable feat this short, soft-spoken and sometimes quite eccentric newcomer from the West Coast had just pulled off. Not only had Shorenstein Hays taken on a play no other commercial producer wanted to touch -- a long, emotionally draining drama about a black garbage collector set in Pittsburgh in the 1950s -- but she had done so under circumstances that seemed certain to doom the project.
Wilson's previous Broadway outing, "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," had been a box-office flop. Famously averse to cutting or revising his work, the playwright was teamed up with a formidable director, Yale School of Drama Dean Lloyd Richards, who was equally disinclined to make changes in an unwieldy script. Now some little California rich lady thought she could tell them how to improve on their work?
"Lloyd gave me the play because he thought I was a lightweight," Shorenstein Hays said recently. "I suppose he was right."
Night after night, by various accounts, this "lightweight" sat in San Francisco's Curran Theatre during the show's indifferently received pre- Broadway tryout. "I knew it wasn't working," she recalled of the play, "and I didn't know how to fix it." Her husband, psychiatrist Jeff Hays, had to roust her out of bed repeatedly to work through her terror and work on the play.
Eventually, overcoming her own withering self-doubt and trusting an instinctual, gut-level response that would later support a string of critically esteemed shows and win her the admiration (often grudging) of theater world peers, Shorenstein Hays insisted on cuts in the text and a new ending. She fired Richards from the production. Star James Earl Jones took over as de facto director. Wilson still wasn't speaking to her on the night of their Tony Award triumph. (The producer and the playwright have since patched things up.)
Vindication came not only in a strikingly improved, justly rewarded piece of theater but in the 15 months of strong box-office business that followed. According to John Breglio, the respected New York theatrical lawyer who has represented Shorenstein Hays for many years, "Fences" became "one of the most profitable straight (i.e., nonmusical) plays in the history of Broadway."
And then, just as abruptly as she had made her astonishing debut, Shorenstein Hays vanished from the Broadway scene. It would be a full decade before she assumed a primary producing role again in New York, with David Mamet's "The Old Neighborhood" in 1997. After the birth of her son in '87, followed by that of her daughter, Gracie, in 1990, Shorenstein Hays stuck close to home for years, driving the kids to school, walking the dog, tending to her family and the Best of Broadway series she presents with her business partner, Scott E. Nederlander, at the Curran, Golden Gate and Orpheum theaters in San Francisco. In a prescient series of real estate deals in the late 1970s and early '80s that cemented their joint hold on commercial theater here, the Shorensteins and Nederlanders purchased both the Golden Gate and Orpheum theaters and secured the master lease on the Curran.
The complicated, take-your-pick profile of Carole Shorenstein Hays -- as bold producer; wealthy dabbler drawing on her father's real estate fortune; astute judge of artistic merit; impatient guesser; serenely grounded wife and mother; reluctant socialite; steadfast friend and generous employer; temperamental flake; spacey dreamer; sly wit; controlling egotist; self- effacing patron -- had formed and acquired deeper shadings over the years. All these things and more have been said about her, many of them by those who know her well.
Her San Francisco neighbor, the actor Robin Williams, calls Shorenstein Hays "Mighty Mouse," this "diminutive, unassuming person who's really quite powerful and persevering." To fellow producer Jo Schuman Silver ("Beach Blanket Babylon") Shorenstein Hays is "Sis" -- "very funny, very bright, very intuitive and skilled at dealing with people. She's the best, most loyal friend in the world." The socially prominent Ann Getty finds her to have "excellent taste," balanced by an endearing flair for "the pettiest gossip."
Stuart Thompson, who has worked as Shorenstein Hays' general manager and occasional producing partner since 1998, commends her "affinity for artists. She really understands their process and knows how to talk to them." That was apparent at a restaurant dinner party last spring, when Shorenstein Hays sat next to "Topdog/Underdog" playwright Suzan-Lori Parks at the Hayes Street Grill. Shorenstein Hays co-produced "Topdog" on Broadway in 2002.
The two reminisced about a shopping trip they had taken and whispered about another play in which Shorenstein Hays was thinking of investing (Parks discouraged it). Then, when the subject of "Topdog" came up, Shorenstein Hays asserted to the table, "You never produce something because you think it's going to be a hit." That, in a phrase, captures both the privilege Shorenstein Hays enjoys as an independently wealthy producer and her commitment to putting art ahead of ticket sales as a measure of success.
Like "Fences," Parks' thorny postmodern vaudeville about two black characters named Lincoln and Booth had seemed a terrible bet when Shorenstein Hays backed its move from the off-Broadway Public Theatre to Broadway. Then the play won the Pulitzer Prize right after its Broadway opening, and sales zoomed. "Most of us are too cowardly and too commercial to take that kind of risk and produce that sort of theater," Broadway producer Barry Weissler says of his colleague.
But Shorenstein Hays didn't want to dwell on that at Hayes Street. She wanted ice cream, promising that she would eat the chocolate if Parks (who is black) ate the vanilla. "See?" Shorenstein Hays twinkled. "We can be each other." Her playful smile displayed a row of girlishly small teeth.
"I love this woman," Parks said, her eyes rolling. "She's totally crazy."
Jeanine Tesori, composer of "Caroline, or Change," the new musical Shorenstein Hays and others produced on Broadway earlier this year, observes, "It's interesting that she's so soft-spoken. That draws focus, just as it does when certain actors speak quietly on stage. She listens. She waits and chooses what she has to say."
Anita Waxman, who co-produced "Topdog/Underdog" with Shorenstein Hays, has a different view. "She's a very smart lady," Waxman says. "She comes from good genes. But she's not a team player." Another veteran Broadway producer, who spoke on the condition that his name not be used, says working with Shorenstein Hays was "the single most unpleasant producing experience I've ever had. She's a spoiled rich kid who walks in like the queen and doesn't care what anyone else thinks."
"She can be capricious and inconsistent, and her reticence can make her seem awkward," says Gail Browne, who worked for Shorenstein Hays as a publicist from 1985-2001. "But underneath it all, if she's demanding or frustrated, it's because she wants whatever she's doing to be the best quality. It's not about ambition or seeing her name in lights. She just wants it to be better. She wants it to be better for everybody."
"You start where you start and you go from there," Shorenstein Hays says of her career. It's one of her enigmatic gambits that can sometimes evaporate into an abstract mist and sometimes resolve with uncanny clarity. "What we do, it's very life-affirming," she continues. "I do believe that theater is a religion. It connects the dots."
Today, at age 56, with her children in their teens and Best of Broadway running smoothly with general manager Greg Holland at the helm, Shorenstein Hays may be as content, settled -- and energized -- as she has ever been. With major projects in New York and new initiatives in San Francisco, she is prominently positioned on both a national and local stage.
Unbowed by the commercial failure of her largest Broadway venture ever, "Caroline, or Change," Shorenstein Hays is bringing that show, a nuanced musical about a 1960s Southern Jewish family and their black maid, to San Francisco in January, following a West Coast premiere in Los Angeles. The high- prestige show, with book and lyrics by "Angels in America" playwright Tony Kushner and an eclectic, chamber opera-style score by Tesori ("Violet," "Thoroughly Modern Millie"), was a box-office bust in a four-month New York run earlier this year. Reviews ran from ecstatic to dismissive.
"Caroline" will arrive here as part of an especially choice Best of Broadway season. The 2004-05 bill includes pre-Broadway engagements of "Lennon, " a new musical based on the songs of John Lennon; "Jerry Springer -- The Opera," a heralded London hit about the American trash-talk TV show; and Dame Edna's recent "Back with a Vengeance." A new "White Christmas" musical is also in the mix. Due this December, on the current 2003-04 Best of Broadway season, is "Take Me Out," the lauded Richard Greenberg play about a gay baseball star that earned lead producer Shorenstein Hays another Tony Award (in 2003) for best play.
Coming on the heels of pre-Broadway runs for the musical "Wicked" and Baz Luhrmann's "La Bohème" opera at the Curran, such first-class productions affirm Shorenstein Hays' long-held conviction that San Francisco deserves to be "a theatrical destination, not just another stop on the road" for shows that can easily turn stale as they travel around the country. Even though she's presented them here for more than 25 years, the term "touring productions" makes her lip curl slightly in revulsion. Dutiful (and sometimes distinctly second-rate) copies of pre-existing musicals may be the meat-and- potatoes of her business as a theatrical presenter 3,000 miles from New York, but she'd much rather dine on something else. To Shorenstein Hays, Broadway at its best is a new play, directed, designed and performed by the best possible talent.
Back at work after losing (by various estimates) $2 million on "Caroline, " Shorenstein Hays is currently providing enhancement money for at least four different plays -- John Patrick Shanley's "Doubt;" Zach Helm's "Good Canary; " "Dirty Tricks," a John E. Jeter vehicle about the Nixon-era figure Martha Mitchell for Judith Ivey; and "Last Easter," a new script by Bryony Lavery, author of last season's "Frozen" on Broadway. Should any of these advance to Broadway, Shorenstein Hays is likely to step in once again as a lead or co- producer. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, she is backing a stage production of the popular children's book, "Holes," which she plans to mount for Bay Area schoolchildren at the Orpheum next fall.
Twenty-seven years ago, when her father, real estate baron Walter Shorenstein, handed her the keys to the Curran Theatre, few would have predicted her longevity or accomplishments. She's the first to acknowledge it. "I was totally unequipped," she says of her early days in the business. "I'd never hired anyone. I didn't know how a box office worked. I had no idea. If it weren't for my parents, I never, ever could have done it."
Carole Jean Shorenstein was born on Sept. 15, 1948, at Children's Hospital on California Street, the second of Walter and Phyllis Shorenstein's three children. She recalls her early childhood years, when the family lived in a Parkside house on 32nd Avenue, as "solitary. I lived in my own little world, putting on little shows" -- and dreaming of a glamorous world beyond. Her father remembers her glued to the television at night, while her older sister, Joan, studied. Her brother, Doug, is seven years younger than Carole.
Trips to the Curran for classic musicals like "The Music Man" and "The King and I" were magical interludes for a child who would one day book and present them in San Francisco. Leading a "normal life," she says, "seemed exceedingly tedious. That's never really changed."
Shorenstein Hays and others attribute her artistic yearnings, as well as an innate reserve and sense of loyalty, to her mother, a Kansas-born arts benefactor and a founder of San Francisco's Asian Art Museum. Mention of her mother, who died in 1994, brings a cloud of choking tears to Shorenstein Hays' eyes during a long conversation at her lodgelike second home near Lake Tahoe. (She lives in Seacliff, with a waterfront view of the Golden Gate Bridge, in the city.) When she finally gathers herself, she remarks that while her mother converted to Judaism, "she was never really accepted by my father's family. My mother knew how to keep her mouth shut. She didn't let things bother her, and she encouraged all of us."
It's simplistic to attribute Shorenstein Hays' business sense and financial means to her father and stop at that; in fact, the lines of influence run much deeper. "Walter and Carole," says her husband, Jeff Hays, "have similar minds." The couple named their first child, Wally, after the Shorenstein patriarch.
Sometimes the connections between father and daughter have had a mysterious, almost primal cast. When Carole first saw "Fences" at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, the turbulent protagonist's "very real dialogue" struck her immediately. "Troy Maxson was my father," she says of the play's black garbage man main character. " 'My gosh,' I thought, 'how did they get that?' Here was a character I knew and understood, that I empathized with very deeply. " By intermission she knew she wanted to produce the play.
A certain commercial instinct seemingly drawn from her father had surfaced early on. Walking from door to door in the neighborhood, Carole enjoyed selling things -- Campfire Girl mints, her own autograph with a backward "C." "I loved ringing doorbells and meeting people and taking their money."
She was, by her own admission, a poor student -- at Alamo Elementary, Presidio Middle School and George Washington High. "I honestly don't know how I went from one grade to the next," Shorenstein Hays says. By the time she was in high school, her family had moved to Seacliff. She spent her senior year at the prestigious Crystal Springs School for Girls in Hillsborough -- "because I thought it would look good on my engagement announcement," she deadpans. But it was there, she adds, that she "first encountered intellectual thought and people really dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. That was fascinating to me."
At New York University, Shorenstein remained an indifferent student -- so much so, she jokes, that when she got around to reading Ibsen many years later "it was like he was a new playwright."
"Carole has always been smart and sensitive," says the New York producer Liz McCann, who has known her for 30 years, "but there's also a real insecurity and shyness."
After spending as much time at Broadway shows as in the classroom in New York (she never graduated), Shorenstein began working her father's contacts for a job. She turned down an offer to book rock concerts for George Steinbrenner in Yankee Stadium, performed entry-level duties in legendary producer David Merrick's office and eventually went to work in Los Angeles as a movie publicist on the James Bond film "Live and Let Die."
The most important connection Shorenstein made in those years was with her father's friend and real estate associate Jimmy Nederlander, the old- school Broadway producer and theater owner who would later become her business partner in San Francisco. It was destined to be a fractious, enduring arrangement that wound up in court at one point and has in many ways defined Shorenstein Hays' identity, in both emulation and opposition, as a producer.
As his protege, she learned from a bottom-line businessman who understood the advantages of both owning and booking theaters. Nederlander played hardball with everyone, including his own partners, and derided Shorenstein Hays for taking on "Fences." He bitterly opposed a series of off-Broadway shows she mounted at the Marines Memorial Theatre in 1990-91.
Today, with Jimmy Nederlander no longer part of her day-to-day life (his nephew, Los Angeles-based Scott Nederlander, now works harmoniously with her here), Shorenstein Hays takes a long view of her onetime mentor: "I learned about the way business happens. I learned about sticking to your guns. I learned from a master showman." But Jimmy Nederlander also maneuvered around her, dealing with his perceived Shorenstein co-equal Walter instead of "lightweight" Carole, and never stopped calling her "little girl." When she asked him about budgets, "he told me the only budget I needed to worry about was at Tiffany's. Jimmy never respected me."
Eventually, the lack of respect was mutual. The kind of theater that increasingly interested Shorenstein Hays -- challenging, commercially risky straight plays -- made no sense to a producer who wanted to make as much money as he could on touring musicals and the occasional star-vehicle play. "The Nederlanders and Shorensteins came to those theaters with hugely different viewpoints," says Tony Reilly, who worked as Shorenstein Hays' general manager from the early 1980s through 1998.
Walter Shorenstein, who has built a real estate empire valued at some $400 million and continues to capitalize his daughter's theatrical endeavors, refines the point. "We've never looked at what Carole does as a profit center. We've looked at it as part of our contribution to the arts and the community. We've set aside certain sums for her to use."
It all sprang from a particularly low point in his daughter's life. Living back at her parents' house in her late 20s, she was adrift, "sleeping all day and doing nothing," as she describes it. "I was a mess. I had no direction." Her brother Doug saw her free-floating state of mind, in part, as a symptom of growing up in the 1960s. "My parents just wanted me to get out of bed," she believes.
Fate intervened. After the faltering San Francisco Civic Light Opera decamped from the Curran to the Orpheum, her father and Nederlander hatched a deal to lease the Curran from Bob Lurie. Two years later, they purchased and refurbished the Golden Gate. In 1981 they bought the Orpheum when the CLO folded for good. The Shorenstein and Nederlander companies remain 50-50 partners in all three theaters today. Several sources characterize it as a "forced marriage," albeit a prolonged and mutually profitable one.
Despite some big hits like "Annie" and "Hello, Dolly!", Best of Broadway rode out some rough waters in the early years. Shorenstein was an impetuous, volatile manager, and her attention was erratically engaged. More than once, she says now, she wanted to bail out. "I didn't like going to the theater. I didn't like what we were doing." Her father insisted the theaters were too valuable an asset to abandon.
In 1985, Carole's sister, Joan, a prominent CBS news producer in Washington, D.C., died at age 38 after a long, arduous bout with cancer. The following year Carole was married and soon began working on "Fences," the first theatrical project she cultivated on her own. Shortly, she became a mother. In a rush, it seemed, her world took on depth and dimension.
Bigger musicals brought bigger profits here in the flush 1990s. Following an abortive 1991 lawsuit, in which the Shorensteins tried and failed to sever their partnership with the Nederlanders, business took off. "The Phantom of the Opera" opened at the Curran in 1993 and ran for an astonishing five years. The Orpheum stage was expanded (at a cost of $20 million) to accommodate shows like "Show Boat," "Miss Saigon" and "The Lion King" that previously hadn't been able to play here.
By the end of the decade, Shorenstein Hays was back producing or co- producing one show after another in New York: "The Old Neighborhood," Eugene Ionesco's "The Chairs," Tennessee Williams' prison drama "Not About Nightingales," Patrick Marber's "Closer." Most of them had originated elsewhere and were well reviewed but remained unprofitable. "Proof," which finished in the black, was a notable exception.
With "Caroline, or Change," Shorenstein Hays moved to a new level. After providing the Public Theatre with significant enhancement money to mount the original production, she poured in more, while seeking other investors, for a costly new musical that almost no one thought had a chance in the marketplace. Two days before opening, playwright Kushner himself said he expected the show to "close in the red, probably substantially in the red." Advance sales were soft, and reviews of the off-Broadway production had been mixed. "Show me a critic who's ever changed his or her mind in public," Kushner noted. He was right on all counts.
Shorenstein Hays looked happily becalmed on the Broadway opening night of "Caroline" in May. Dressed in brown and white polka dots, she arrived at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre shortly after 6 for a 6:30 curtain. She drifted along a press barricade, fielding questions from print, radio and entertainment television reporters; posed for pictures with Kushner, Tesori and the show's director, George C. Wolfe; and took her seat beside her husband in the sixth row.
Later, at the opening-night party, she made the rounds graciously, giving and receiving hugs and trading in the kind of generic hyperbole that goes with the territory. Lighting designer Jules Fisher, who has designed hundreds of shows, told Shorenstein Hays that "Caroline" is "the highlight of my career." One of her co-producers, Freddy De Mann, vowed that he'd "happily do it all over again. I've never been prouder." It's all part of the business for a producer who would "rather be at home in my sleepers eating Cheetos."
Not that she's likely to be branded a junk-food slouch. As her own children have been educated in private schools, Shorenstein Hays has grown increasingly involved in the cause of public education, with the often neglected arts as a particular focus. Recent contributions of more than $1 million to the San Francisco Unified School District have, among other things, bought marching band uniforms for the Gloria R. Davis "dream school" in Hunters Point and refurbished a theater at Balboa High School. "It was a godsend," says Balboa principal Patricia Gray. "Carole's been with us all the way," adds school superintendent Arlene Ackerman.
In March, Shorenstein Hays bought out the house for a matinee performance of "The Lion King" at the Orpheum and donated all the tickets to San Francisco public school students, many of whom had never seen a piece of professional live theater. Scampering down a side aisle near the end of the second act, she scanned the faces of the rapt young audience and bubbled, "It's like Saturday at the movies when I was a kid." She later told a friend it was the single happiest day of her professional life.
In late August, a few days before "Caroline" closed, Shorenstein Hays was water-skiing across Lake Tahoe, skimming back and forth across a choppy wake on a 10-mile trip to a favorite beach for lunch. No, she said over sandwiches and grapes on the sand, she wasn't going back to New York for the closing. She had plans to hike up a 9,000-foot mountain the next day with friends.
Shorenstein Hays isn't fond of endings. Her least favorite stretch of the theatrical calendar is the Tony Awards week in June. "As soon as you win one," she says, "you've got last year's Tony." What she loves are first readings, those tentative first steps a playwright and actors make toward who-knows- where. In September, she flew back to New York for three delicious days of them.
"The thing I've found about the theater and theater people," she says, "is that there's a genuineness about them, a complete honesty about their insecurities, almost a one-upsmanship. You think you're a failure? Let me tell you about me. It's that vulnerability, that real understanding of what it takes to get up in the morning and do something that's in your head and that you have to get out of your head to do."
For someone who once had her own substantial difficulties getting out of bed, this fragility -- perhaps even as much as the financial resources she has to tap -- may get at her essence as a producer. It can drive people around her crazy. "Carole has exceedingly good taste," says her former general manager Reilly, who was very close to her for 15 years, "but she doesn't always trust it. She has no patience. She's generous in the wrong ways at times. She overdoes it." But it's also that very awareness of messy human striving and failure that plugs her into the things she loves and wants to produce.
"You have to hand it to her," Reilly says. "She's done some very brave things."
Carole Shorenstein Hays is first and forever a Broadway baby. Her Bay Area address and avowed interest in new plays have never yielded the kind of local play-development process or small theater laboratory many have urged a producer of her means to undertake. She prefers to produce in New York, capital of the American commercial theater. Almost all of her productions wind up in San Francisco later. "Fences" had a pre-Broadway run here.
Here is a list of the Broadway shows in which Shorenstein Hays has been involved as a producer. In some cases ("Not About Nightingales," "Take Me Out, " "Caroline, or Change") she was the lead producer. In others she played a lesser role as a co-producer and investor. Shows marked with a were nominated for best play, best musical or best revival Tony Awards. Shows maked with won the Tony.
"The Grand Tour" - 1979
"Woman of the Year" - 1981-83
"Can-Can" - 1981
"Oliver!" - 1984
"Fences" - 1987-88
"A Midsummer Night's Dream" - 1996
"The Old Neighborhood" - 1997-98
"The Chairs" - 1998
"Not About Nightingales" - 1999
"Closer" - 1999
"Proof" - 2000-03
"The Tale of the Allergist's Wife" - 2000-02
"The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?" - 2002
"Topdog/Underdog" - 2002
"Take Me Out" - 2003-04
"Caroline, or Change" - 2004
- Steven Winn


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VTB Bank, based in Austria, is serving as both lender and ECA facility agent to finance a purchase of new planes by Turkish airline Gunes Ekspress Havacılık A.S., also known as SunExpress.
The financing deal, guaranteed by SACE, will last 10 years and was used to buy three new Boeing planes, according to a press release on the VTB website. This is the first loan backed by SACE for a new agreement with Boeing, which will also open doors to future projects.
SunExpress, with locations in Antalya and Frankfurt, is a partnership between Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines. In 2015, SunExpress served more than 8 million passengers, according to a press release. Its network reaches 115 locations in Europe, Turkey, Northern Africa and the Middle East.


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At Y&L, we believe in giving back to the communities that we live and operate in. Those communities have been good to us and we feel it is our duty to give back to them. Our experiences have taught us that technology is an avenue to solving many problems, uplift sections of the community that need a path out and a catalyst to break the cycles of poverty. Balancing our business needs with our social responsibilities enables us to keep a long term perspective. We understand that "a rising tide lifts all boats" i.e. overall development of the community is in everyone's best interest, long-term profitability and value creation.
Our current CSR Initiatives…
Educate the Educators program
Educate The Educators
Over the years we have seen a growing gap between education and the technology needs of our clients. We created a program bringing together educators, with executives of local large public companies that are consumers of IT talent, in an effort to promote careers in IT. Our goal is exposing, helping and guiding school districts, especially in underprivileged districts, to incorporate a technology track in their curriculums and student advising.
The San Antonio Technology Ecosystem
Beginning in 2013, Y&L incubated a non-profit 501(c)(3) called SA-Tecosystem after we saw the need for collaboration in the splintered tech community in San Antonio. We pulled together a diverse group of local private and public sector CIO's, public officials, military personnel and educators to develop a cohesive technology strategy for the city.
Public Service
John Lujan, VP Sales Elected As TX State Representative
We realized that initiatives are better heard and implemented when members of the local government are on board. One of the founders of Y&L Consulting, Inc. ran for state office on an education platform. His motto is "Using Technology to Break Cycles of Poverty". He is currently serving as a Texas State Representative in Congress. He is spreading an understanding of the benefits of technology and tech jobs to communities that have so far not been exposed to it.
InnoTech San Antonio
Y&L co-chairs the Board and is a highest level sponsor of InnoTech™, the largest technology tradeshow in San Antonio. In this role, we help decide technology topics, introduce new research, organize events, speakers, and schedules.
IT Career Training
SA Business Journal Story
Technology jobs are high-paying jobs and represent some of the fastest pathways to prosperity. But all too often, these pathways are not illuminated for traditionally underutilized and disadvantaged youth. The IT Career Training program is focused on using entry level jobs like software quality analysts, help desk specialists, and social media engagement specialists as pathways into more advanced roles. This program focuses on minority groups, veterans, women, and other groups that are historically underrepresented in the overall IT workforce. In addition, as we see a large number of graduates with non-technical degrees but with an interest in technology, we created a "Retraining in Information Technology" program. In this program, we train young people in a variety of introductory technologies to have a career in IT. Our goal is to give hem real-world experience in technology projects and set them on a path to have successful careers.
San Antonio Entrepreneur Center
Y&L is a key sponsor and one of the founding members of the San Antonio Entrepreneur Center. This is a non-profit dedicated to fostering local tech entrepreneurs by providing low cost co-working space, legal assistance and a variety of support structures typically needed by startups and entrepreneurs.
SA Economic Impact Study
Y&L initiated and was a key sponsor and driver for the effort to perform a San Antonio IT Economic Impact Study. This study covers IT in technology companies, non-technology companies that are consumers of IT talent and technology in the local military establishment. The report was published as a joint venture of SA Tecosystem and the Economic Development Foundation (SAEDF) with support from corporate partners including USAA and H-E-B.
San Antonio Technology Museum
Y&L is a key sponsor of the initiative to create a San Antonio Technology Museum. This is a first of its kind in San Antonio showcasing the rich innovation history of SA in the technology space while also highlighting how those innovations have helped the US Armed Forces.
Habitat for Humanity
In addition to donating to large charities, Y&L also donates funds, equipment and resources to charitable organizations that are important to individual employees of our company. Some of the more well know charities we donate to include: St. PJ's Children's Home, The Shriner's Children's Home, NuHope (Haven for Hope Platinum sponsor), The United Way, and Habitat for Humanity.


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Brand new NF2 book by author Anna Lickley!
'Catch It Anytime You Can'
by Anna Lickley
Anna Lickley, age 38 from Yorkshire UK, was diagnosed with NF2 in her late teens and is the first in her family to have the condition. She has been profoundly deaf since 1995, visually impaired, and lives with other challenges such as balance loss and facial palsy. Anna's main interests include horse riding, travelling, reading, and of course writing!
Formerly Anna was a teacher/trainer in disability and deaf equality as well as teaching BSL. In July 2013 Anna was published in the collection of inspirational life stories 'NF2: Our Journeys' and since then has published her first novel 'Catch It Anytime You Can'. Can You Hear Us? were eager to know all about Anna's new book and her experience in creating it and were delighted that she took the time to produce this piece for us.
How did the idea of writing the book come about?
I remember the idea [to create the book] first germinating over coffee with a friend. She had recently published a book about her experiences with post natal depression. She encouraged me no end to write something and then later another friend suggested I start a blog about life with NF2.
The idea was that a blog would be easier and break me into writing. I loved doing the blog and found I had loads of ideas so I went on a writers' course where I was inspired to try writing a novel based around my blog posts. 'Catch It Anytime You Can' was the result.
I wanted to write a book aimed at people who know very little or nothing about NF2 or disability, which is why I have written it as fiction. My biggest aim is to raise awareness of NF2 in a totally un-medical and un-academic way. I hope that people read the book for the pleasure of reading a book and just happen to learn about NF2 in the process!
The book also has an excellent and informative appendix at the end, written by Dr Susan Huson, that fully explains NF2 to people who have had their interest aroused in reading about Nicola [the main character in the book]. We hope that people can get a full and accurate idea of all sides of NF2.
What is the book about?
Really it is about life with NF2 and also the affects diagnosis has on family and friends. It is written as fiction but the central character, Nicola, has NF2 and is based on me (only because I know me best!). I wanted it to be a true and accurate slice of NF2 life and so I wrote about real events. There are also things that I know are important to lots of us with NF2 that I have included in the book.
Other characters are based on real people but their opinions and background info is made up using my own observations and experiences of life.
I have tried to make readers laugh and then cry with Nicola through difficult times.
What is the key message of the book?
The key message, in a nutshell, is hope and the true essence of what hope is. It is about accepting challenges that no-one in their right mind would choose and then finding the rays of light and hope.
How long was the process between having the idea to seeing the book printed?
I started my blog in September 2010 and began writing the book in March 2012. The process of writing it and the ideas I had for its structure evolved as I wrote. It seemed to write itself once I got going and I finished it within about six months. The longest time was getting it published. It is very very hard to get even an agent as a first time novelist and so, impatient to have the book in print, I self- published through a publishers based in Huddersfield, West Yorks. It has taken over a year to get it in print.
How did it feel to finally see the book in print and what did it mean to you?
I love the way the book looks. My niece Lilian Baldwin did a fantastic image for the front cover, which we have called 'Holding Hope'. I feel immensely delighted to have it printed and to see people buying it. Profits from the sale of the book are going to the Neuro Foundation.
The book has been on sale for one week and we have already sold over 150 copies.
How will you publicise your book?
Currently I am mostly telling people about it on Facebook and hope that it will sell through word of mouth recommendation. The book has a FB page called 'Anna Lickley's Catch It Anytime You Can' and I hope that as many people as possible will like and share the page.
I also had an article printed in my local paper before the launch. It is on the web and the link is http://www.wharfedaleobserver.co.uk/news/news_local/10825833.Ilkley_woman_with_rare_illness_pens_novel/
Later, I will write articles and send them to magazines and other media to talk about the book and raise awareness of NF2.
I think the best way to get attention of NF2 is by highlighting the human side of it and I hope the book's central character, Nicola, provides that.
Where will you publicise it? Globally/UK only?
I am starting in the UK. It is currently listed on the Amazon European marketplace although I do have a view to make it available in the States; beginning publicity through Facebook and the American contacts I have on there.
When and how was your book launch celebrated?
I had a book launch party last week on Tuesday December 3rd at the Ilkley Moor Vaults pub. About fifty people came (mostly friends and family) and we sold almost sixty copies that night. I had a friend with me to help with communication and signed a lot of books!
What response/feedback have you had from your book? Could you supply some quotes?
I am really very pleased with the feedback. Before publication, I received some lovely comments and have put some quotes on the back cover of the book:
"Anna Lickley's book made me laugh out loud and cry out loud and challenged the whole way I respond to illness and disability." (John Turner, reader)
"Catch it anytime you can is very good, very funny and very sad." (Liz Jobey, writer and journalist)
"Reading Catch it anytime you can was one of the most moving experiences of my professional life." (Dr Susan Huson, Consultant Clinical Geneticist)
"Anna Lickley's marvellous book showcases a unique sense of humour that can bring you to tears." (Claire James, reader)
Other people who live in Ilkley and came to the launch have said that they were really moved by it and learned lots about NF2; which challenged any preconceptions about living with disability and serious illness.
All in all it is better than I could have hoped for! A book group in Ilkley has put Catch It Anytime You Can on their reading list and a practitioner of alternative therapies has recommended it for students to read who are studying and training as therapists at the college she went to.
You can purchase 'Catch It Anytime You Can' from any bookstore. It can also be purchased via amazon, where it is also now available for kindle. Search for 'Catch It Anytime You Can' or 'Anna Lickley'
Amazon Prime members can also borrow the book through the Amazon Lending Library, and anyone who has purchased the paperback version of the book can also purchase the kindle version for just 99p. The kindle version is available worldwide.