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My Depression Was the Worst It Has Ever Been During My Pregnancy
What is a time of joy for many women was my darkest hour.
So, I've been cleaning out my closet, and -- come to find out -- I'm a hoarder! A pants hoarder to be exact.
Somehow, in the past eight years I've managed to move myself four times, two times out of state, and retain all my pants, sizes 2-18.
As with many women, my relationship with my body is complicated. My weight is finally starting to stabilize after about two years of steady but uncontrollable weight loss, and with it my the peace with my body that has been so hard to come by, is stabilizing too.
Judgment is a funny thing. You cannot live without it. It can be positive or negative but it has the ability to propel us forward. Like mistakes, it's what you do with it that counts.
The story of my body has been rife with judgment.
I'm so deeply saddened to admit that I have hated the skin I'm in many times in my life, and it didn't always have to do with fat.
While writing as the Inbetweenie Midwife, I wrote, "...take a look at the time line of your life and ask yourself if your best body and best person walk hand in hand. In my opinion they should."
You see, when I found my best person, I was at the heaviest I'd ever been. And I LOVED it. I felt feminine, curvy, powerful. For the first time in my life, I didn't give a flying fuck about what my mother, my father, my friends -- ANYONE thought about me.
When I looked in the mirror, I saw a person who decided to take control of how she felt about herself -- her life and her person, and was choosing to love her body. I let the judgment go and made the conscious decision to start paying myself the same kindness that I paid my loved ones. I surrendered the battle -- I let myself win.
No longer was my body something to be conquered by my will, but a conduit through which I could experience all the good things -- food, sex, laughter, touch, even pain.
I'm so lucky. I had a window of about three years in which I feel like I skipped around in a sensual haze. Yes, there was stress, anxiety, worry in my life, but very little of it had to do with my size.
Then things changed. I got sick. I was forced to change my diet. I moved away. And as my life changed, so did my body, it began to shrink.
It felt like the ultimate betrayal when the 190-something pound body that I had come to love and feel beautiful in started to melt away. Me, my physical self, the being I present to the outside world was disappearing. I felt like I was clutching at sand. I felt a mounting sense of dread.
I think I'm being honest when I say it had very little to do with fat or thin, but with control.
So looking at all of my pants, laid out on the floor in size order from largest to smallest, I'm looking at me -- my story. The story of how I got to where I am, the body I'm in, and how finally I can love and marvel at the one body I have in this life. It's all I've got.
Size 2
I had just moved to L.A. from St. Louis for graduate school.
Amidst learning a new city and desperately missing my boyfriend, I was, for the first time coming to grips with the fact that I suffered from severe anxiety, depression and OCD. Everything was a number -- size, grades, cracks in the ceiling, times I opened and closed my bedroom door before I went out in the morning.
Eating wasn't really on the agenda. Coffee, booze and comparing myself to my oh-so-perfect peers was, however. I received so much praise and adulation for how tiny I was.
Size 4 and 6
The realization that the numbers on my pants were sliding up. I didn't think much about it, in fact I sort of welcomed it. My best friend told me, jokingly in a bar, that she was amazed at how skinny I was and that I looked, "a bit like a bobble-head." I have a giant head, no secret there.
Though I was receiving regular treatment for my anxiety and depression issues, it was as if the harder I tried to fix myself, the harder I fell. On a daily basis, I secretly hoped I would slip in the bathtub and break something or get hit by a slow-moving car just so I wouldn't have to deal with my increasing fear that I was an incompetent hack who had tricked the university into accepting me into their program.
I thought about dropping out every single day, and actually wept in the department head's office. He told me to find a new career. Thankfully, I did not.
Size 8 and 10
My favorite pants didn't fit. The ones I had paid full price for at fucking Anthropologie.
I was consistently eating solid food again and had recently obtained a car, so all my walking had gone out the window. I often drove myself the five blocks to work when I was running late.
I went to the Ann Taylor Loft looking for pants, and was thrilled to find pants that fit me in a single digit. Then the lady at the store told me about vanity sizing. Why the fuck do they do that? I was so dismayed.
I went home that night, lay flat on my bed and obsessed over the fact that my hipbones, the ones that used to stick out prominently when I would lie down, were disappearing.
I remember going to rehearsals at night for my first major play in LA and seeing my reflection in the dance studio mirrors. There were bumps and bulges where before that had been none. My face was rounder, and though my cheeks admittedly had some color and brightness to them, all I could think about was how the last thing that people complimented me on -- my size -- was slipping away.
I never really heard the praise that that production awarded me.
Size 12
Something changed. I think I just got fed up with feeling like shit.
One of the department heads requested that I meet him in his office to talk about my thesis production. At the time, I had no clue what I wanted to do, I honestly was only pretending to care about it. He proceeded to ask me the question that may have changed my life, "Do you think you're being properly represented?" My answer was a resounding NO.
NO, this sad, pathetic, frightened person isn't me.
NO, I don't like how I'm conducting myself.
NO, I am not happy with the direction I'm headed.
The world opened up.
Size 14
Things sped up around this time. I graduated, I got a job, I found my LA family. I met an amazing woman -- a sister, a soulmate -- who pushed me over the body-acceptance precipice I was toeing up to. She gave me permission to love my body. Fat or thin, I opened my eyes and for the first time saw beauty not only in myself but in the myriad of sizes and stories around me. It was one of the most thrilling times in my life.
And with this newfound acceptance of myself and others, my rotten little heart found all sorts of room for new and wonderful people and experiences.
For the first time in years, maybe ever, I felt sexy.
Size 16 and 18
Many have asked if in this period of my life I was just letting my body go while my heart and brain gallivanted around the town. No, I was actually paying attention to what I ate, and exercising regularly, more than in years.
I don't have a real explanation for my weight and size at this time, I don't really need one, but all I know is that I felt good. I felt like ME more than ever. I know many could argue that I was living a life of excess and that's why it felt so good, but I would take that joy and fulfillment any day if the only "toll" was bigger pants. I can only speak for myself.
My doctor at the time told me, "I could tell you to lose weight, but you seem healthy and are active, so I cannot in good conscience tell you to fix anything." Some have said that is bullshit, but I am grateful for those words.
Sizes 16, 14, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4.
I got sick. For a time I feel like I lost myself. The friend who taught me to love my body pushed me around in a wheel chair for three months -- she held me up literally and figuratively.
As I watched my body shrink, there were times I felt like a newborn horse, all legs and arms and no real sense of myself in space. Those feelings of self-hatred and betrayal began to creep back in. But what I've came to slowly realize was that what distilled in me at size 14, acceptance for all "creatures" great and small, was still there, still accessible, if not in a different shape.
I still had, and have, the responsibility to love my body, and respect myself. It's not always easy, as the curves have been replaced with angles, and the weight has been replaced with lightness. Sometimes I look longingly at old pictures and miss that woman.
However, body acceptance holds no reservations. Fat, thin, tall, short -- in order to sustain as a happy, fulfilled person, you've got to learn to love yourself without qualification.
I'm learning to love my angles now -- my collarbones, my cheekbones, my now-little belly. Upon weeping to my friend about how I felt like I was losing myself, she made it so simple for me, "You're still you! You'll just have an easier time finding the clothes you like! Enjoy! As long as your beliefs and your politics never change, no hidden number on the inside of a pair of jeans can change that. Cut out the tags!"
But I don't cut out the tags. I like the tags. They are a reminder of the journey I've taken, and that, vanity or not, the possibilities are infinite.


text:
- Simple Issue Coverage
- Why Get An Instant Quote?
- When To Use An Agent?
- Back to Home
Let's Encrypt is an automated, and open certificate authority (CA), provided by the (ISRG)to create a more secure Web.
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A simplified issue whole life insurance policy is another name for a no exam life insurance policy. You can get whole life insurance quotes online instantly.
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A Study conducted by LIMRA and Life Happens.org showed that when you are forced to deal with an insurance agent you are less likely to get coverage. Getting an instant quote online also gives you the ability to get coverage immediately and avoid medical exams and the normal 8 week process to getting covered.
We created a whole report about how dealing with agents and getting endless calls can affect your insurance buying decision, we named it the 100 Calls of Doom.
Getting a quote and applying for coverage online is much easier than it has been in the past and much easier than you think, below we lay out the simple process that can get you on your way to being covered.
To complete the 1 page online application you will need your basic info such as your Adress, Date of Birth, SSN or ITIN, Height, Weight and Marital Status.
You will need only their Name, Benefit Percentage, and Relationship to you. Additional beneficiaries can be added with just a click.
You can pay securely with your bank account or with a Visa or Mastercard. You will need the account number and routing number for your bank account if you choose that route.
You should use an insurance agent only for obtaining more complicated help, an insurance agent isn't needed to apply for coverage and to get a quote. Check out the below main things you should reach out to an agent for:
If you need help with completing your online application please feel free to reach out to us and we can assist you with the process.
If you need more information about how a product specifically works and what the features and benefits are and maybe any specific limitations the policy may have, give us a call and we can assist you.
When you need assistance with filing a claim, feel free to reach out to us and we can assist you with this. Please make sure your loved ones have all of our contact information as well.
Security You Can Trust.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
News Release
Public invited to join Manchester College
students for movie, Burn After Reading
The dark comedy Burn After Reading is coming to the Manchester College campus for two screenings on Saturday, Dec. 13, and the public is invited.
The popular 2008 spy film shows at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. in Cordier Auditorium on the north side of campus. Admission is $2 for students and the public.
The Coen brother movie stars Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich and Tilda Swinton. It is about what happens when an ousted CIA official's memoir accidentally falls into the hands of two gym employees. The movie is sponsored by campus Conference Services.
Dec. 1 , 2008
Office of
Public Relations
News Releases
About Manchester
Mission Statement


text:
Loanhead Primary pupil Mhairi Ross almost burst into tears when she discovered she was to be crowned this year's Gala Queen.
Mhairi (11) will be joined by classmate Robbie Neave (11), who will be the Herald.
The crowning lady will be Jennifer Bernard, who has been a teacher at Loanhead nursery for 36 years.
When Mhairi opened the gala letter mum Karen said: "There were tears in her eye. It was a moment I'll never forget. It was overwhelming for us as parents."
Full story in this week's Advertiser. On sale now.


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To Exhibit His Love through Service
The Adult and Local Mission Committees develop service opportunities to increase awareness of the church family's involvement in missions. The links below will direct you to various opportunities for you or your children, both here in Nashville and beyond.
Adult | Young Adult | College | Teen | Children & Families
Our committees seek both short-term service opportunities as well as those with ongoing needs that enable the development of longer term relational partnerships. Extended building projects have included mission trips to Jamaica, Haiti, Mexico, Belize, Rwanda and Kenya. A relational trip is made each year to Cuba as well. Depending on availability of medical staff, the church sends a mission team to the Dominican Republic to serve in San Juan de la Maguana near the Haitian border.
Local service projects have included home builds with Habitat for Humanity, Affordable Housing and the Down Syndrome Association of Middle Tennessee. Other hands-on service ministries include the weekly hosting of 14 men through Room in the Inn each Wednesday during the months of November – March, the feeding of the homeless on the second Wednesday of each month at Downtown Presbyterian Church and a bi-monthly dinner for residents of Nashville's only shelter for homeless families, Safe Haven Family Shelter.
Additionally, First Presbyterian Church hosts semi-annual blood drives enabling members to give a personal gift of life to those in need.
Join us as we seek to exhibit His love through service and pray for God's guidance about your participation.
Rev. Dr. Sandra Randleman
Pastor for Congregational Care & Missions
Mike Crout
Missions Coordinator


text: The perfect winter warmer – this celeriac, kale and potato gratin is creamy, hearty and makes a great side dish for a roast dinner. Prepare in advance by following the recipe until it's time to bake, then refrigerate for up to two days before reheating at gas 4, 180°C, fan 160°C for 30 minutes, or until golden. Preheat the oven to gas 2, 150°C, fan 130°C. Combine the cream, milk, garlic, sage and mustard in a pan. Heat until just coming to the boil, then remove and season with a little freshly grated nutmeg. Discard the sage. Meanwhile, blanch the kale for 1 minute in a pan of gently simmering water, then drain and refresh in cold water. Drain again, then dry with kitchen paper. Grease a baking dish with butter. Pour in a little of the cream mixture. Top with a layer of celeriac and potato, season, then top with a little kale. Repeat until all the ingredients are used up, finishing with a layer of the cream mixture. Cover with foil and bake for 1 hour 40 minutes. Heat the grill to medium. Remove the foil and finish off under the grill, until golden. See more Dinner for two ideas


text:
Zac Efron to be honored by Maui Film Fest
Actor will receive Shining Star Award opening night, June 16WAILEA, Hawaii -- Teen heartthrob Zac Efron will be honored by the Maui Film Festival in Hawaii later this month with its Shining Star Award.
The star of "High School Musical 3: Senior Year" and "17 Again" will accept the award June 16, the festival's opening night.
Festival director Barry Rivers says the 22-year-old actor is an "exemplary shining star."
Rivers says this year's mantra is "Trust the Future," and Efron is an actor with an extraordinary career behind him and an even more brilliant one ahead of him.


text:
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text:
This is a reputation loan to increase my creditably.In case I require a larger loan later on down the road. I understand this is a big jump from 0.8BTC, I am hoping you can put your trust in me as I have had no problems in paying my other loans before the due date. I will be paying back this reputation loan from my mining, currently mining 8 TH's. I mine just under 0.1BTC a day.This loan will be paid off within 6 months. I am going to use this loan to purchase computer components to build computers to sell to clients. Also going to see if Bitbond will allow me to take out a concurrent loan this time. I want to try to limit the time your coins are tied up. I hope you guys are ready to make some interest on your coins lying around. Thank you for reading, hope you invest
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text:
The Instigator
Pro (for)
14 Points
The Contender
Con (against)
0 Points
Alchemy is in fact real.
Post Voting Period
The voting period for this debate has ended.
after 2 votes the winner is...
|Voting Style:
|Point System:
|Select Winner
|3 years ago
|Post Voting Period
|1,801 times
|Debate No:
Debate Rounds (4)
Comments (0)
Votes (2)
Round 1: Acceptance
Round 2 Pro: Opening Argument
Round 2 Con: Rebuttal
Round 3: Rebuttals
Round 4: Closing Statements
Resolution: Alchemy is in fact real.
Alchemy: The process of turning invaluable metals/elements into gold or other highly valuable metal/elements
As an Organic Chemistry student and Physics enthusiast, I feel the need to defend my brethren of the Middle Ages, the only interesting part of history to me. Good luck to any opponent who chooses to accept. Dost thou accept?
Rules: You must follow the debate structure. The definition given is indisputable.
~Pointless Picture~
I do not have a preference. I am simply doing it for fun!!
Thank you for accepting this challenge.
My argument will be three fold. One from a single displacement reaction via oxidation/reduction, nuclear physics, and finally metallurgy.
What I will do is take reactions that have indeed taken place (and give proof of such) and compare the relative value of the atoms in the reactants to the products. Note that the practicality and cost of performing the reaction do not matter. Only the value of the reactants compared to the products and possibility of the reaction matter.
Argument 1: Single Displacement Reaction via Oxidation/Reduction
* Means that there are calculations to back it up if the opponent so desires. These are rather simple, and I would much rather have the opponent do it themself before criticizing me of not providing proof. All the information to do the calculation is given in the sources or the periodic table of elements.
Balance Chemical Equation: 2 Al + Fe2O3 -->Al2O3 + 2 Fe
Description: Aluminum foil reacted with iron (III) oxide yields aluminum (III) oxide and elemental iron.
Ratio of metal reactant to metal product: For every 1 atom(s) of Al, you produce 1 atom(s) of Fe.
Price: The price of Fe2O3 and Al2O3 are negligible.
*Price of one mole of Fe: $0.249 USD
Source: http://wiki.globalmarket.com...
*Price of one mole of Al: $0.0464 USD
Source: http://vincentmetals.com...
Outcome: Net gain in value
Possibility: First rationalization for this reaction is done by looking at the electromotive series.
Elements higher on this chart have less affinity for electrons. This table is almost directly related to the value of each element also. Metals that hold onto their electrons incredibly well (i.e. Gold) are more valuable than metals that don't hold onto their electrons well (i.e. Nickel). Because of this, they are less susceptible to rusting. Back to the point, this reaction is thermodynamically favorable. The voltage of this cell demonstrates whether or not this reaction would spontaneously occur. In fact, it does. The voltage would be *1.23. This is positive representing that it occurs spontaneously and equilibrium lies far towards the products. Entropy is almost completely arbitrary for this reaction since you don't gain or lose any liquids or gases.
Notice that this reaction is not limited to aluminum and iron. You could replace these with a gold salt and any metal above it on that chart. Gold salt is much more valuable (than rust) however since gold is almost always in its neutral metal state.
You could also reverse these reactions using electrolysis, however you need an energy source and I digress.
Argument 2: Nuclear Physics
I am by no means a nuclear physicist so this will be more generalized than my previous argument.
Reactions: Production of Super Heavy Metals. Please go to this link to see the reagents and products: https://upload.wikimedia.org...
This reaction was performed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory according to
https://en.wikipedia.org.... 3 or possibly 4 atoms of Ununoctium have ever been made.
*Price per atom of Californium: Negligible but to be sure I did the calculation, 1.12 E -14 USD
Source: http://www.therealbest.com...
Price per atom of Calcium: Negligible
Price per atom of Ununoctium: Priceless due to its rarity, difficulty to create, and scientific research possibilities with just a single atom of Ununoctium.
Argument 3: Metallurgy
Reaction: To simplify it, 7 Fe + 1 C (solid, normally graphite or coal) --> 1 "Steel" (7Fe:1C)
Description: The metal, steel, is composed of iron and carbon atoms. The carbon used in the reagents is normally graphite. Diamond could potentially work but it would be much more difficult to break the bonds in the diamond structure which is an entirely separate topic. Here is a picture describing what the sea of electrons surrounding the iron atoms with carbon "stitched" in.
For ultra high carbon steel, the percentage by mass of carbon is about 3% according to https://en.wikipedia.org.... I used this to calculate the mole to mole ratio of iron to carbon. With the carbon embedded inside the metallic structure, it strengthens the metal significantly making it more valuable.
Therefore, with this reaction, you produce a metal with higher value than what you had originally. Due to these three reasons, Alchemy remains true and is done every day. Thank you and good luck.
phantom14450DEX forfeited this round.
phantom14450DEX forfeited this round.
phantom14450DEX forfeited this round.
No comments have been posted on this debate.
2 votes have been placed for this debate. Showing 1 through 2 records.
Vote Placed by Death23 3 years ago
|Who won the debate:
Reasons for voting decision: Con forfeited. Note: The use of "invaluable" in Pro's given definition for alchemy seems odd.
Vote Placed by philochristos 3 years ago
|Who won the debate:
Reasons for voting decision: Con forfeited. I'm not sure how the first argument works since neither Aluminum nor Iron are highly valuable. You didn't define alchemy as "producing metals that are more valuable than what you produced them from." Rather, Pro defined it as producing "highly valuable metal/elements." So the third argument seems wrong as well. The only argument that seems sound is the second argument. But it doesn't matter since Con forfeited.
You are not eligible to vote on this debate
This debate has been configured to only allow voters who meet the requirements set by the debaters. This debate either has an Elo score requirement or is to be voted on by a select panel of judges.


text:
(Reuters) - Liberty Media Corp will buy a 27 percent stake in Charter Communications Inc, signaling Chairman John Malone's return to his roots in cable television and a renewed appetite for consolidation in the sector.
Chief Executive Greg Maffei said Liberty sees opportunities in U.S. cable and that low interest rates made the deal attractive. Private equity firm Apollo Management was also in a "selling mood," Maffei said.


text:
Graham Reid | | 1 min read
Right from the start, Jack White was a shapeshifter, sometimes a garageband rocker, at others a raw blues player or a guitarist conspiring with his inner Jimmy Page to give Led Zeppelin a run for their money.
He could sing what sounded like a tossed off children's song (the delightful We're Going to Be Friends) or dig in deep as an inspired rock star for whom the spotlight of fame beckoned.
This excellent double disc turns the attention another way in stripped back material which appeared in other versions for the White Stripes, Raconteurs or on his solo albums Blunderbuss and Lazaretto.
This is White (and sometimes Meg on percussion or other sparingly used players) on acoustic guitar exploring the songs as they came to him, sometimes twisting them in a new way (the bluegrass version of the Raconteurs' Top Yourself) or channeling the spirits of long-gone bluesman who inspired him. And much more.
Were you aware he'd written a Coca-Cola commercial (Love is the Truth) a decade ago?
Apparently the video only aired once and the song has never appeared anywhere previously, until now.
Here too are spare versions of Well It's True That We Love Each Other with Holly Golightly, Never Far Away from the Cold Mountain soundtrack, and Jack and Meg with Beck on Honey We Can't Afford to Look This Cheap from their 2007 single,
The first disc is mostly just Jack (with Meg in attendance on percussion) on White Stripes material (We're Gonna Be Friends is even more delicate, like something off McCartney's first solo album) and the second brings in other players for acoustic band sessions, among which is a fine fiddle'n'banjo version of the Raconteurs' lengthy Carolina Drama.
Beautifully packaged with all the lyrics and a liner essay by Greil Marcus (who slightly perversely writes about a Son House song -- which White loves but doesn't cover -- as the pivot of his thinking about Jack).
Sometimes artists release live albums or stuff from their vaults simply as a stop-gap measure. In rare cases – Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Amy Winehouse come to mind — the rehearsals, acoustic sessions and whatnot are actually worth hearing.
Jack White, especially on the first disc here, is in that company with this collection.


text:
Usher Would Appreciate It If You Bought Dinner for Once
Plus: DJ Shadow sells out, kind of, and Art Brut's Eddie Argos has a message for Martha and the Vandellas.
1. Usher, "Trading Places"
In this leaked track from Ush's upcoming Here I Stand, he switches roles with his girlfriend, asking her to take him on a date and "order Chinese food right before you do me." [Boss Blue Music]
2. Lindsay Lohan, "Bossy"
On Lohan's new track she claims, "If I want it, then I get it — now." Mink-wearing club kids can probably back her up on this one. [Beeb Blog]
3. Rolling Stones, "I'm Free (DJ Shadow Chase Bank Remix)"
First came the Nokia promotion, and now we find that Shadow took a crack at remixing the Stones for Chase, but they ended up using another version in the commercial. Does it count as selling out if they pay you for doing nothing? [Party Ends]
4. Middle Distance Runner, "Momma"
Whoever handles Hallmark's TV-advertising account will get really excited when they find out that MDR has created a Mother's Day song, until they find out that while awesome, it's more hilarious tantrum than sweet sincerity. [Pasta Primavera]
5. Everybody Was in the French Resistance … Now, "Hey It's Jimmy Mac"
Art Brut's Eddie Argos paints Martha (and, presumably, her Vandellas) as melodramatic in this response to their classic "Jimmy Mac." "If that's your attitude," he says. "I'm never coming back." [Pitchfork]
—Ehren Gresehover


text:
Warrington coach Tony Smith hailed a top all-round performance from his side as they edged closer to a fourth Wembley appearance in five years with an emphatic 44-24 Tetley's Challenge Cup quarter-final win over Huddersfield.
The Giants, a point ahead of the Wolves in Super League, had high hopes of ending their seven-match losing run at the hands of their opponents but they were blown away by the home side's flying start.
Check out our new live sport blog here
Warrington never looked back after establishing a 20-0 lead after 25 minutes and clinched a semi-final clash with Hull after winger Joel Monaghan scored tries either side of half-time.
Rochdale Hornets are stung by absences: Ian Talbot
Marwan Koukash shouldn't be treated as the cash cow for the sport
"It was a good performance all round," Smith said. "I thought our defence was outstanding right from the off and we showed some good skill and scored some really good tries.
"We knew Huddersfield would have a real shot at it and we had plenty of people tell us that too so it fuelled the fire.
"We did a pretty good job for most of it. There was a period when we got a bit sloppy but I like the way we responded.
"We were on the back of an 8-2 penalty count and that's a big issue for us but, to be able to handle that and come back strong, showed some character."
Former Huddersfield captain Brett Hodgson was once more the scourge of his old club as he recovered from a head knock to play a key role in the victory, as well as kicking six goals.
"It was one of his best games this year," Smith said. "He was terrific at the back."
Huddersfield briefly gave themselves hope when quickfire tries from Shaun Lunt and Dale Ferguson enabled them to cut the gap to eight points but they paid a huge price for a series of handling errors and trailed 44-12 until Jermaine McGillvary and Scott Grix scored late consolation tries.
Giants coach Paul Anderson admitted his side had saved one of their worst performances of the season for their biggest test.
"We never gave ourselves a chance," he said.
"At the start of the game we completed three out of 12 sets and found ourselves 20-0 down. When we had a period where we went six out of six, it became 20-12 but Warrington went away and scored a try just before half-time.
"I still felt we could compete and get ourselves back in, but the first time we got in a position to score we dropped the ball."
In the semi-finals, Wigan or Widnes will play London Broncos while Hull are set to face Warrington.


text:
b. Feb. 1, 1963
d. Nov. 30, 1996
Daughter of Wayne Orr & Betty Lou Crowley
Contributed on 6/29/11 by lroslund
Email This Contributor
Record #: 80036
On this site you can upload gravestone photos, locate ancestors and perform genealogy research. If you have a relative buried in Arizona, we encourage you to upload a digital image using our Submit a Photo page. Contributing to this genealogy archive helps family historians and genealogy researchers locate their relatives and complete their family tree.
Submitted: 6/29/11 • Approved: 7/1/11 • Last Updated: 3/24/18 • R80036-G80036-S3


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Your Scene
May 4 Ralph Velasco of Newport Beach returned last month from an 11-day trip through South America that took in a lot of territory: Uruguay, Argentina and Chile. One of the highlights of the drive from Chile to Argentina was this slithering crossing of the Andes on Ruta 60. "There are 28 curves on this road," Velasco said in an e-mail, "and it's amazing to see 18-wheelers try to pass each other going up the hill." His camera? A Nikon D70.
Ralph Velasco
Copyright © 2018, Los Angeles Times


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Banco Macro Announces Results for the Second Quarter of 2011
Aug 04, 2011, 05:01 ET
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, Aug 4, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Banco Macro S.A. (NYSE: BMA; Buenos Aires: BMA) ("Banco Macro" or "BMA" or the "Bank") announced today its results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2011 ("2Q11"). All figures are in Argentine pesos (Ps.) and have been prepared in accordance with Argentine GAAP.
- The Bank's net income totaled Ps.257.8 million in 2Q11. This result was similar to the Ps.257.7 million in the previous quarter ("1Q11") and 16% higher than the Ps.222.1 million posted for the second quarter of 2010 ("2Q10"). In 2Q11, the three-month annualized return on average equity ("ROAE") and return on average assets ("ROAA") were 24.7% and 3.1%, respectively.
- In 2Q11, the Bank's net financial income was Ps.675.1 million increasing by 6% compared to 1Q11. In the first six months of 2011, Banco Macro's net financial income (excluding income from government and private securities) was 64% higher than in the first six months of 2010, showing an improvement of the financial income quality.
- In 2Q11, Banco Macro's financing to the private sector grew 12% or Ps.2.2 billion quarter over quarter ("QoQ") totalling Ps.19.9 billion, excluding liquidity administration credit lines. Both consumer and commercial loans continued showing growth. Personal loans and credit cards loans rose 13% and 24% QoQ, respectively, while overdraft and documents grew 38% and 13% QoQ, respectively.
- In 2Q11, Banco Macro's total deposits grew 5% QoQ, totalling Ps.26.5 billion and representing 82% of the Bank's total liabilities. Private sector deposits grew 4% in 2Q11, led by transactional deposits which increased 11%.
- In 2Q11, the Bank's non-performing to total financing ratio improved QoQ to 1.5% and the coverage ratio reached 158.2%.
- Banco Macro continued showing a strong solvency ratio, with excess capital of Ps.2.0 billion (20.0% capitalization ratio). In addition, the Bank's liquid assets remained at an adequate level, reaching 42.4% of its total deposits in 2Q11.
- A longer version of this press release with detailed information is available on our web site: www.macro.com.ar
A conference call to discuss this press release will be held on August 5, 2011 at 12:00 p.m. Buenos Aires time (11:00 a.m., New York time), with the presence of Jorge Pablo Brito (Member of the Executive Committee), Guillermo Stanley (Board member), Guillermo Goldberg (Deputy General Manager) and Jorge Scarinci, (Finance and Investor Relations Manager). Dial in information:
(877) 545-1415 (Within the U.S.)
(719) 457-2693 (Outside the U.S.)
Conference ID: 4385552
In Buenos Aires:
Jorge Scarinci, CFA
Finance and Investor Relations Manager
Tel: +5411-5222-6730
E-mail: email@example.com
visit our website at: www.macro.com.ar
SOURCE Banco Macro S.A.


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text:
David Arndt may have stumbled into his first banking job more or less by accident while pursuing a youthful dream of being a ski bum in Colorado. But he became a financial advisor to professional football players by following a deliberate play-by-play strategy he concocted that has been working out as well as Eli Manning's winning drive against the New England Patriots in Superbowl XLII.
Arndt was 19 back in 1993 when he left his home in suburban Minneapolis and took a leave from the University of Minnesota. The gopher state may get a lot of snow, but the few available hills on the prairie leave would-be skiers spending most of their time riding uphill on a T-bar. Arndt wanted the mountains and powder of Colorado. Needing a job there to support his habit, he followed the recommendation of a friend who knew someone at a bank and he hired on as a teller. "It was a great job for a skier," he explains. "Bankers' hours meant getting off early and there was no work on weekends."
But it became more than just a way to pay for skiing. Later, back in Minnesota, he decided to pursue a career in the financial world. That meant majoring in economics, which he did locally at Augsburg College. But it wasn't until he graduated that his plan came together to combine his love for sports and his budding career in finance. Arndt came up with the seemingly far-fetched idea of being the financial advisor to the Vikings football roster.
An athletic guy himself, though not big enough for football, Arndt grew up a Vikings fan. He also had a few friends who played hockey and had turned pro. Armed with that background, he felt confident he'd be able to connect with the Viking players if he could just get close enough to them. The plan: get hired on where they did their banking. "My friends and family all told me how crazy I was," he says. "They said, 'these guys are so untouchable.'"
But things were moving in the right direction. The repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in the late 1990s opened the door for banks to engage in insurance and brokering, so Arndt got his insurance license, picking up other needed licenses along the way. Then he started looking for a bank that would be near the Vikings. When an opening appeared in 2005 for a financial advisor at the US Bank branch in Eden Prairie, home to the Viking practice facility, he jumped for it and snared the position.
As it turned out, the Eden Prairie US Bank branch is where a lot of Vikings deposit or cash their paychecks. "You could pick out the football players pretty easily," Arndt says with a laugh. "They're usually a lot bigger and taller than the rest of the clients. So it was easy for me to walk up and make small talk about football, cars, houses and stuff. And I'd invite them to go golfing. I'm pretty good at golf." And as a side note, he doesn't lose on purpose ("It's better to win, so you're respected.")
Initially, he says the Viking players—mostly younger guys who were not the top-paid players on the team—were hard sells. Big money is new to most of them, and many, straight from the city, can be understandably skeptical about a smooth-talking guy hitting them up about taking charge of their money.
"But then I had a big break," he recalls. "About three years after starting working with the rookies, I developed some relationships with some key workers in management, and they invited me over to talk to the team about managing their money, improving credit scores, and so on."
From that point on, young players started listening to him and even seeking him out, though he says picking up new clients from among the new players remains a "constant effort." And it's one he has to maintain because so many of his young clients get traded or have to leave the game and end up moving away.
Arndt says that the young players who are his clients—earning perhaps $250,000 or $300,000 a year on three-year contracts—need a lot of advice. He notes that the average player's tenure on an NFL team, before injuries often force them to retire, is just three and half years. "It's the nature of the business," he says. "These players are a lot more disposable than the key players. The coaches just use them to take the heat off of the key players." At the same time, he says, the young players are hanging out with the players who are earning upwards of $20 million to $25 million on five-year contracts, and there is a certain social pressure to spend like their wealthier peers, which can make $300,000 disappear very quickly.
And it's not all about investing either. "The first question I get from a lot of these guys is about credit and buying a car," says Arndt, "so we start out very basic. I typically share the statistics with them about injuries and I try to tell them they need to prepare. Some say they want to go back and work at their colleges, but many haven't finished college so that would be hard. I find myself doing a lot of life advice. With these kinds of people as clients, you have got to be able to offer broad advice—not just financial advice. I have people talking about child care, helping with sisters or brothers. A lot of these guys feel like they've won the lottery, but they come from poor families and have lots of people leaning on them for help."
Cedric Griffin, a young cornerback for the Vikings, came to Arndt for financial advice after hearing about him from other players who were already clients. "David was very confident and easy to understand. He was very down to earth and willing to explain how things work," says Griffin. "David explains all aspects of a situation.…He explains things so they make sense as to why an investment plan will work, and why it's a good investment. He's helping put me in control of my financial future."
While Arndt's focus is on building his football client base, he says it only represents 10% of his total clients, most of whom come to him through referrals from other clients. His rule of thumb is to look for a $250,000 minimum investment. But sounding more like his ski bum alter-ego, he adds, "I don't turn people away who are investing less. I make exceptions. I have to think about my karma."
Investment strategies, he says, vary widely depending upon the client. "We do a comprehensive financial plan to start out. A guy who can anticipate $28 million in income (he has a couple such players on his client roster) thinks differently from a guy who's earning $250,000 a year," he says.
When it comes to risk, while pro players all take tremendous risks with their bodies, Arndt says athletes generally don't have big financial risk appetites. "They see investing as gambling." That's especially true for the veterans who've been playing for six or seven years. "They see the end coming," he explains.
In general, he says players at first are "very guarded" in discussing finances, "but once you get to know them, they're easy to talk to. They're all down-to-earth, good people."
That's probably a good thing. After all, what does an average-sized financial advisor do if an angry defensive tackle storms into the office after a big plunge in the market has erased 5% to 10% of his stock portfolio? "It happens," says Arndt. "But I tame them with my knowledge."
While his marketing focus is still on football clients, as evidenced by the signed team pictures that line his office wall, Arndt says that focus has helped him with his broader business. "Eden Prairie has a lot of wealthy corporate executives living in it," he says, "and having the football clients helps with them. I have COOs, CEOs and a few marketing executives." One big plus: "I can get special access on the field!"
As for his long-range plan, while he has made it to the goal of being a financial advisor at a lot of the Viking bench, he's still midway through that drive downfield. "This is a work in progress," he says. "I'd like to have a few of the Viking coaches now. That's an area I want to work on in 2012. And I'd like to expand to hockey."
And what about the Twins baseball team? "Baseball is a harder game to penetrate," muses Arndt. "Those guys get their advisors at such a young age, you'd have to begin working them in college. Also it may just be cultural. Football guys switch FAs like cell phone service, but baseball guys stay with their advisor."
Name: David Arndt
Bank: U.S. Bancorp Investments
Location: Eden Prairie, Minn.
2010 production: $350,000
2009 production: $340,000
2010 AUM: $75 million
2009 AUM: $70 million
No. of branches serviced: 1
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text:
WWF UK is pleased to have an opportunity to
submit this evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee. WWF
UK is part of a network with 52 offices working in over 90 countries
around the world and was directly involved in the 1992 UN conference
on environment and development in Rio de Janeiro. We have been
working with partners in developing policy and activities for
the WSSD for the past two years.
There is no doubt that the last ten years have
seen an increase in environmental degradation[10],
a growth in absolute poverty and greater inequity in and between
countries, in spite of the many fine words promulgated in Rio.
Thus the picture as we work towards the Johannesburg
Summit is largely unchanged from ten years ago. The same problems
exist and sustainable development is still the goalto improve
the quality of human life for this and future generations while
living within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems.
Globalisation is now the overarching context in which development
is occurringone that was not addressed in Rio. The need
to ensure that globalisation works for and does not undermine
sustainable development is the new challenge.
How the UK is formulating its own contribution
to the World Summit, the nature of this contribution and the range
of stakeholders involved
1.1 We believe that the Prime Minister was
the first Head of State to commit to attend the World Summit,
thus providing an important lead to others. DEFRA and DFES have
provided funding for schools initiatives through WWF and RSPB
in order to engage young people. The main instrument through which
the Government has engaged with other members of civil society
is through UNED-UK which has been running a multi-stakeholder
process in order to identify UK priority areas and actions for
the Government to take forward. There is of course a danger in
relying on any one outreach method which may not capture all the
interested parties which is why we also welcome DEFRA's support
for the UK Development and Environment Groupa working group
of BOND which brings together development and environment NGOs.
Through this process, the UK Government has also invited NGOs
to participate in the UK delegation for the WSSD preparatory committees.
1.2 The Prime Minister has also spearheaded
five sectoral initiativescovering water, forestry, tourism,
energy and financial services. While progress has been varied
on these so far, we do welcome the concept of partnerships for
sustainable development, which are indeed highlighted in the UN
process as one of the anticipated outcomes. Any such tri-partite
partnerships should, however, have clear and monitorable targets
and should not be seen as a excuse for government inaction or
1.3 There has been a sad lack of interest
in the Summit by the general public, not helped by the lack of
media debate. Where there is awareness that the Summit is taking
place, it is still seen by many as a "green" or environmental
summit. This points to a clear need for the Government to bring
sustainable development home to the electorate and, using the
media and other routes, generate some interest and excitement.
The lead up to the Summit presents an ideal opportunity to reinvigorate
public commitment to sustainable living and to generate a better
understanding of the ways in which consumption patterns can be
changed to improve citizens' quality of life.
1.4 The Government ran a debate on its sustainable
development website preceding the UN/ECE preparatory meeting in
September 2001, but there were few responses. Perhaps this reflects
the limitations of such a medium to reach the majority of people,
particularly without accompanying promotional materials. DEFRA
have themselves acknowledged that involvement of society at large
has been poor to date.
1.5 We welcome the establishment of the
Cabinet Committee to coordinate work on WSSD, but we feel there
is still a lack of engagement by some key departments, such as
the Treasury and DTI. With DEFRA leading on the Summit there is
a risk that sustainable development is seen as an issue about
the environment and is not mainstreamed across government, nor
at the heart of government policy.
1.6 The Government has articulated some
core issues that it would like to take to WSSD and these, for
the most part, fit well with the priority areas that are emerging
from the UN process. But its issues currently lack plans and targets
for actual commitments in Johannesburg, whether in terms of implementation
of Agenda 21 and agreements since Rio or new commitments. The
Government agenda should include actions it will be taking at
home as well as those it will be helping to deliver internationally.
1.7 At the very minimum, by the time WSSD
takes place, the UK Government should have ratified the agreements
made since the Rio Summit, including the Kyoto Protocol and the
Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. Principle
10 of the Rio Principlesaccess to environmental information,
decision making processes and access to justicehas been
encapsulated by the Aarhus convention at the European regional
level. The UK Government still has to ratify this and we would
urge quick ratification. It would seem a principle to which the
UK Government should commit and encourage others to do likewise.
The ideas are being taken up at a regional level by other governments
to set in place similar regional conventions.
1.8 There are a number of key issues on
which WWF expects the Government to make specific commitments
either before or at WSSD. These include the following:
Energy. This is fundamental to economic
and social development and yet there are 2 billion people without
access to basic energy services in the developing world. Access
to basic, clean energy services is essential for development and
poverty alleviation and provides major benefits in the areas of
health, literacy and equity. The domestic target of 10 per cent
of energy provided by renewables by 2010 is a useful first step
and we support the PIU's recent report which called for this to
be extended to 20 per cent by 2020. We would urge the UK Government
to make a similar commitment to promoting renewables as part of
the development agenda. Therefore we are calling for the Government
to commit to targeting 20 per cent of its energy sector lending
and support in the form of guarantees via the ECGD to renewable
energy development and energy efficiency programmes. We are also
looking for a commitment to promote this target in all International
Financial Institutions which the Government supports.
Forests. The UK Government was instrumental
in encouraging commitments at the G8 Ministerial in 2000 to ensure
government procurement of timber from sustainable sources. Nearly
two years on, no progress has been made. The Government has not
even decided how it will make good on this commitment, even though
it could wield its considerable purchasing power in favour of
sustainable consumption and thus demonstrate a major leadership
role within the EU. The UK Government is, however, to be commended
on playing a part in looking at the widespread problems of illegal
logging by sponsoring workshops on forest law enforcement and
governance in Asia and Africa and looking at ways of promoting
certification and chains of custody. The UK Government is also
sponsoring a workshop on forest landscape restoration this March
in Costa Rica, prior to the UN Forests Forum meetingwhich
is an important approach to restoring environmental degradation
and building natural capital for people, livelihoods and ecosystem
integrity. In the UK, the Forestry Commission is undertaking an
independently reviewed audit of progress since 1992 on its contribution
to the sustainable development agenda in England, Scotland and
Chemicals. Exposure to hazardous chemicals
continues worldwide and many of the chemicals manufactured and
used in the EU and globally have not been tested adequately. The
UK should take the lead in the EU at WSSD pressing for nations
to agree to bring further chemicals under global controls and
to work together as a matter of urgency to identify which chemicals
warrant such controltaking into account the precautionary
Sustainable homes. The Government could
highlight its unique contribution to the above international commitments
by demonstrating a strong domestic agenda at WSSD in the form
of a commitment to develop one million sustainable homes in the
UK by 2007. Such a commitment would demonstrate the UK's willingness
to take action at home to reduce the overseas impact of its consumption
patterns, for example in relation to carbon dioxide emissions,
minimising the use of toxic chemicals and the sourcing of timber
from certified well-managed forests.
Freshwater. About one third of the world's
population lives in countries with moderate to high water stress
and 1.2 billion people lack access to safe drinking water. The
management of water resources is a critical issue for WSSD. Integrated
River Basin Management (IRBM) is now widely accepted as the most
appropriate approach to address the sustainable management of
the world's limited freshwater resources. It starts from the perspective
that healthy ecosystems are the basis for ensuring reliable supplies
of an optimal mix of goods and services from the freshwater environment.
WWF is urging the UK Government to implement the EU Water Framework
Directive as a good example of freshwater management and to extend
these principles, as indicated in the Bonn Freshwater Meetings
in December 2001, in its funding for development in other countries.
Support for transboundary river initiatives to develop agreement
amongst all users, while maintaining the integrity of the ecosystem
in the long term are of particular importance because conflict
over water resources is increasing in many parts of the world.
WWF is also asking the UK Government to endorse the report of
the World Commission on Dams and to adopt its guidelines.
Marine. At a WWF conference about preparations
for WSSD in March 2001 the Prime Minister committed to launching
measures to improve marine conservation here and abroad, including
a series of marine stewardship reports. WWF has welcomed the forthcoming
marine stewardship report as an important initiative, but the
status of the report and any measures it proposes remain unclear.
The Government's current position for WSSD on marine matters is
good, but there is little evidence yet of a translation of statements
and announcements into clear policy proposals which would create
the necessary framework for managing the marine environment in
a holistic way.
1.9 The role of the devolved countries of
the UK in the WSSD process is far from clear. In order to demonstrate
that the UK is bringing government closer to the people and to
foster a strong sense of ownership of the agenda at the local
and regional level, the inclusion of devolved administrations
in priority setting and in UK delegations should be a key aim.
Initiatives in the devolved administrations (see paras 3.4-3.11)
complement those of Westminster and could, if taken as part of
a package, demonstrate a much stronger commitment to sustainable
development by the UK as a whole.
1.10 The First Minister in Scotland, in
his first major environmental speech on 18 February, indicated
his intention that Scotland should be represented at WSSD at the
highest level. WWF would welcome any clarification the Committee
can secure from the Government that the heads of devolved administrations
will, indeed, be part of the UK's delegation to Johannesburg.
1.11 In Northern Ireland little has been
initiated by Government although it part-funded a conference in
September 2001, organised by Sustainable Northern Ireland Programme
and WWF, at which a broad section of civic society formulated
a NI contribution to the UK national progression, fed back through
UNED. The NI Department of Environment has also been very co-operative
in supporting the WWF Our World schools challenge. The long overdue
consultation on a SD strategy for NI will begin in March 2002.
The NI Civic Forum has embraced the SD agenda and devoted a full
day's plenary meeting to its consideration in February 2002. It
has now initiated research to assess progress in NI since Rio
and make recommendations to Government.
How the UK is helping to raise awareness of the
Summit in other nations and facilitate contributions to the proceedings
2.1 The Government has provided funding
for the South African government, through DFID, and funding for
southern civil society participation in the process, through FCO.
This is obviously important and welcome. In terms of other governments,
we are aware of contributions from Sweden and Denmark to help
facilitate the process in South Africa and for coordination amongst
NGOs in north and south.
2.2 There has been a serious lack of links
made between the Finance for Development process and the WSSDalthough
to some extent this is now being rectified at a very late date.
It is clear that Agenda 21 cannot be implemented and that the
Millenium Development Goals will not be reached without a real
commitment to additional finance and resources. So far, the Financing
For Development process has signally failed to encapsulate the
concept of sustainable development throughout its deliberations
and its six focal areas. In order to give real hope for outcomes
at WSSD, ministers attending Finance for Development meeting in
March should endorse the principles of sustainable development
to achieve poverty eradication, equitable economic growth and
environmental integrity.
2.3 Four EU member states have reached or
exceeded the pledge for 0.7 per cent of GNI for overseas development
aid. The UK Government should not lag behind but should make a
commitment to achieve this target by the end of this parliament
in order to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals of which
the costs are estimated to require a doubling of ODA. It is to
be commended that the Government recognises that effective aid
should build on recipient country development priorities, but
also concentrate on lifting people out of poverty and maintaining
the environmental resources upon which the current generation
and future generations depend for a healthy and good quality of
2.4 In this respect, we welcome DFID's partnership
with the European Commission, UNDP and the World Bank in producing
a consultation paper on "Linking Poverty Reduction and Environmental
Management" as a contribution to WSSD and look forward to
positive policies for simultaneously addressing poverty and environmental
2.5 In terms of the EU, the Commission Communication
on the External Dimension of Sustainable Development, which is
also intended to provide an EU agenda for WSSD, has finally been
presented. It is disappointing in terms of a credible and sound
strategy to promote sustainable development and contains nothing
new to end the overexploitation of natural resources. There are
very few measurable targets and it is mostly a summary of existing
EU programmes and policies. Regarding ODA, it sets a target for
the EU at 0.33 per cent overall, well below the UN commitment
of 0.7 per cent.
The extent to which the UK Government has adequately
monitored UK progress on sustainable development and the issues
mapped out in Agenda 21 since 1992 as part of its preparations
for the Summit
3.1 The UK Government produced a strategy
for sustainable development following the Rio Summit and this
was updated in 1999A Better Quality of Life for All, accompanied
later that year by a set of indicators to monitor progress. The
report in January 2001 showed little change on the groundsome
of the were trends good, others neutral and others were becoming
worse. We are not convinced that the choice of indicators truly
reflect sustainable development progress when they include resource
efficiency indicators that do not acknowledge increases in consumption,
thus offsetting any apparent gains made. The sustainable development
strategy for the UK is also weak on the international dimension,
failing to include indicators to reduce our environmental and
social impacts on other parts of the world and thus the sustainable
development options of others. In contrast, the Welsh Assembly
has adopted Wales' ecological footprint as one of its eleven headline
indicators (see paragraph 3.3). Interestingly, the footprint indicator
in Wales has generated more interest than all the others put together.
Further, one might question the UK Government's definition of
sustainable development which includes the maintenance of high
and stable levels of economic growth. Economic development has
to take place within the carrying capacity of the planet, and
with regard for the options of future generations, and cannot
continue to grow beyond this threshold which we have already exceeded.
3.2 The UK Government has been active within
OECD-DAC in identifying and promoting key principles and mechanisms
for developing and implementing a national strategy for sustainable
development. The Committee might like to assess to what extent
these principles were followed in the adoption of the UK's own
strategy. These are: integration of economic, social and environmental
objectives, and balance across sectors, territories and generations;
broad participation and effective partnerships; country ownership
and commitment; developing capacity and an enabling environment;
and focus on outcomes and means of implementation.
3.3 The Committee might like to consider
the roles of the Round Table on Sustainable Development and now
the Sustainable Development Commission and to evaluate the influence
their advice and reports have had on UK Government policy. The
UK Sustainable Development Commission has been set up both to
advise and to audit government progress on sustainable development.
Thus it is also important to audit the activities of the SDC and
their impact on government policy on behalf of UK stakeholders.
The limited remit of the SDC, in terms of only covering the domestic
agenda, severely restrains its ability to tackle some of the areas
where the UK has the biggest impact on sustainable developmentthat
is on developing countries, in terms of trade and consumption
patterns, in particular.
Progress in the devolved administrations
3.4 In Wales, the requirement to publish
a Sustainable Development Scheme was incorporated in the Government
of Wales Act 1999, which established the National Assembly for
Wales. The legal status of this Scheme, and the requirement to
consult and review, makes this initiative unique. The Assembly
is adopting the global footprint approach as a headline indicator
for its sustainable development measurement. The Assembly will
be releasing its "Year 1" Report on its Sustainable
Development Scheme and its indicators at a joint conference on
Wales' contribution to WSSD with WWF Cymru and Oxfam on April
17. WWF Cymru will be jointly publishing a report on the footprint
of Wales with the Welsh Assembly in time for this conference.
3.5 In Scotland progress on developing a
comprehensive Sustainable Development Strategy has been frustratingly
slow. It should be noted however that the First Minister made
an unprecedented commitment to "step up the action"
on sustainable development in February 2002. This was warmly welcomed
by WWF and is seen widely as the beginning of concerted action
in Scotland to make a real difference to preparations for the
Summit. See appendix 1.
3.6 For some time the Scottish Executive
have worked with a strategy to address Waste, Energy and Travelbut
this has been rejected by stakeholders as unconvincing and lacking
credibility (see appendix 2, Reality Check Report, WWF October
2001). There are still no indicatorsand very few targets
for measuring progress have been adopted. It is almost impossible
to gain a rounded view of progress in Scotland due to this lack
of a strategy with measurable indicators. On the WET strategy,
levels of climate emissions have not been significantly reduced
with waste production hardly reduced and recycling rates at a
very low 6 per cent.
3.7 In the first Partnership for Scotland
agreed by the Labour and Liberal Democrat coalition in 1999, a
clear commitment was made: "We will integrate the principles
of environmentally and socially sustainable development into all
government policies . . . We will work to promote environmentally
and socially sustainable economic development." The Scottish
Parliament has in place a "sustainable development"
mechanisma policy memorandum to assess effects on sustainable
development attached to each piece of legislation. Research carried
out for the organisation Scottish Environment LINK reveals that
such an assessment had been included in 18 bills introduced by
the Executive before 26 January 2001. But in 12 cases, including
bills on education, finance and feudal tenure, the assessment
was a simple statement that the bill would have "no effects"
on sustainable development. A few assessments suggested that the
legislative change would have a positive impact, but even they
were "shallow", according to author Hazel Clark. "There
appeared to be a lack of consistency in the vision of sustainability
underpinning the statements and in the main there was generally
a failure to consider the comprehensive implications of bills,"
she concluded. The solution, she recommended, was to strengthen
the assessments by introducing minimum criteria, scrutiny and
expert assistance.
3.8 During 2001 a series of "Future
Scotland" seminars and an e-consultation by a coalition of
partners including the Executive and the Scottish Civic Forum
reached a new audience but revealed that it is hard for people
to connect with sustainable development. The consultation process
raised the themes of recycling; the potential of renewables; changing
lifestyles; community development; transport; education/public
awareness; energy efficient buildings; resource use/efficiency.
The results of the consultation will be used to inform the Scottish
contribution to the UK report.
3.9 A seminar hosted by the Scottish Executive
with key stakeholders was held in December 2001 to assess progress
on sustainable development and preparations for the World Summit.
A note of this meeting is attached in appendix 3. This noted the
that lack of a comprehensive strategy was holding back action.
Its main conclusions were:
3.10 There was support for a major conference
to be held in Scotland in May/June 2002 inviting key representatives
of different sectors (eg waste, energy, travel, food and tourism)
to present the current situation in their sector, identify how
the sustainability challenge is to be met and the partnerships
that will be needed to effect change.
3.11 In Northern Ireland, progress on producing
a sustainable development strategy has also been frustratingly
slow but progress is being made on green procurement policies
by the government agencies. The NI LA21 Advisory Group made its
final report to the NI Environment Minister in September 2000,
which summarised the breadth of sustainable development/LA21 initiatives
that have been generated in NI among all sectors of society. Most
progress has been achieved by local authorities and the community
sector. The Civic Forum report referred to above will build upon
and update this report. Every Council has made a stated commitment
to LA21 and sustainable development, but implementation is more
fragmented, although some Councils have made significant advances,
including sustainable development indicators and annual monitoring.
The Executive in NI has not yet perceived sustainable development
as an issue of importance; its promotion falls to an under-funded
and under-staffed section of DoE which is already crippled by
a backlog of infrastructural shortcomings leading to the threat
of EU sanctions for missed deadlines on Directives. In effect
the sustainable development agenda is being driven by local government
and NGOs.
22 February 2002


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4. Build a Movement
When we think about the word movement, what images come to mind? The US civil rights march on Washington, that ended with Martin Luther King, Jr. giving his "I have a dream…" speech; Germans from east and west climbing up and pulling down the Berlin wall; Gandhi, in his white robes, marching with hundreds of thousands of working class people across India; Nelson Mandela speaking to hundreds of thousands after his release from imprisonment on Robben Island.
But movements aren't just about marches and speeches and breaking unjust laws (though those are all important). They're also about building trust, leaders, and sustainable organizations that can win the solutions we want. The raw materials of movements are campaigns, leadership, trust, and a certain sense of moral solidarity. The focus of a movement is solving a deep-rooted cultural problem. Movement-building requires three big pieces:
1. Organizing for big change – we're talking transformational change, not just winning a single campaign.
2. Bringing new people on board – Our first instinct when organizing is to first start with people we know. To bring new and diverse people on board, we must take a step further and engage in deep listening and collaboration with other people and organizations.
3. Ensuring a sustainable movement through trust, commitment and leadership – Movements that succeed are ones that last years. Building trust, commitment–and especially leadership–from the ground up, is critical.
It's easy to forget about these three pieces while in the heat of organizing a campaign or big event. Since most movements go on for years (and often decades), it's important to balance the need for short-term campaign wins with the long-term vision of the movement. In the sections below, we'll give you some ideas and tips on how to integrate movement-building into your day-to-day organizing.
Organize for Big Change
We've all had that conversation with a friend or colleague that ends this way: "Well deep down, the real problem is…" Even though they might be right, getting into an ideological argument over which is the deepest problem that ails humankind (of which there are many) doesn't usually help us do organizing. On the other hand, we've all worked with groups that are focused on one event or on solving a very small problem, and seem somewhat adrift in the vision department. It's easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day of campaigning and organizing, or get distracted by tasks that seem to need immediate attention, and forget that we're in the middle of a crisis and an opportunity to wean our country off of dirty energy. That's why we need to keep reminding ourselves that this is a transformational movement—a mass movement to significantly change the direction our civilization is headed.
Articulating and sharing a bold vision of what your local group (and the broader movement) is hoping to accomplish in a few months, years and decades is a great way to get everybody on the same page right at the start. Telling your personal stories that display your values are great ways to get this process started. Sometimes, it's useful to discuss your goals as a group, and write down local, state/province, national and international goals, where applicable:
|6 months
|1 year
|3 years
|5 years
|State / Province
Remember that a movement is diverse—there are many paths to reach the same goals—and that cultivating diversity at the strategic level and at the personal level is important to building power. Being a movement-builder and an organizer means keeping your eye on the long-term ball while taking advantage of immediate campaigning opportunities, whether they are elections, dirty energy fights or building solutions from the ground up.
One thing is for sure: balancing what may seem an impossible goal with the immediate steps that need to be taken to get there is an art—one that is both difficult and intensely satisfying.
Bring new people on board
Our tendency when we organize anything is to work with the friends we already have, in the networks we already know about. And that's a very good idea—it's how everyone starts. But you can make whatever action or campaign you're planning far more effective if you work hard to reach out to people you don't already know. This sounds like common sense, but it doesn't happen often enough.
Look for shared passions. When we need help with something, we turn first to our friends, then to a wider circle of people who are still within our comfort zone. Sometimes they are friends of friends, but sometimes it's the people who share our faith, our associations, our passions who can help even more. It's important to include people who share your vision for a better world but choose to arrive there by different channels. While it's understandable to feel shy with strangers, there's also much to be gained from reaching out.
Ask for help early. Whenever you ask people to participate, it holds more meaning when they have had some say in how the event unfolds. The earlier you pull people into the decision-making, the more likely it is that they will become a new ally to work with in the future—even if your event is planned on a snappy timeline.
Think like a fellowship. Diverse collaborations work better as a team than as a hierarchy of leaders. If nothing else, that diffuses any issues about whether one organization is more in control of an action than another, since at least some of the people involved will probably represent some sort of institution in your community.
When inviting people to participate, ask them to be your fellow organizers. Share responsibility. You'll also be more likely to pull in people who will pitch in because they want to rather than because you asked them for help.
Go local. After you have your list of fellow-thinking groups, you may still want to look for ways to get more people involved in what you're planning. Find the other groups in your community who have regular meetings. The group should have a goal that doesn't conflict with what you're doing and an infrastructure with a track record of success. That way, you kill two birds with one stone—not only will you connect with people who are active in your community and have an established network in place, but you get to extend the reach of the climate change movement by contacting a group less tied with it already.
Do easy favors easily. Look for easy ways to help the people who help you. If you ask a local group to donate money or services to your event and they ask for something easy in return—like publicity—give it. For example, you might ask an outing club to help spread the word to their members or a local band to provide a sound system. They might say yes, but on the condition that you put their logo on your website, the kind of thing that helps them and doesn't hurt you. Say yes, and fast! In fact, don't even wait for them to ask. Offer it to them first.
Doing favors is also a good way to quell tensions. If you have created a webpage for your group or action, it may have a blog or other venue for writing under a byline. When that person—we all know one—insists on making a political speech during your logistical meetings, ask him or her to write an article about it so that everyone can have the opportunity to hear and consider the point. The chance to be heard in public will often be enough to get everyone back to work on the tasks at hand.
Take-home message: You need to have a leader to get thing things started, but the realization that you don't always need to carry all the weight, and that others are committed and responsible, means that you can feel confident that there will be someone else to take the reins in the future.
One of the things we have learned is that you can become acquainted with folks by going to parties with them or sharing a common interest. But you become friends with someone by working with them and depending on them—as you and your fellow organizers will discover.
Running Meetings and Delegating
Start out by having a planning meeting well ahead of time. Invite all people who might be interested to get involved in the planning of your event and your local campaign, and brainstorm what kind of action you may want to host. Often, an event can be a great focal point for bringing diverse groups and individuals together to collaborate. Here are some tips on getting people involved:
Make it personal. You can find interested folks by sending emails or text messages to your friends, talking to people in your workplace, school or place of worship, making announcements at meetings of related groups, or putting up posters in key places with meeting information. By far the best way to get somebody to come to a meeting is to ask them personally: a one-on-one conversation is more effective than a group email or putting up lots of posters (though those help, too).
Unlikely Allies. Reach out to the usual suspects to get involved – your local environmental or conservation group – but also think about faith groups, sports leagues, schools, civic societies, labor unions, and other organized groups in your communities that may want to get involved. Attend meetings of other groups you think might want to get involved and pitch in to help with their work, then be sure to announce to everybody there how to get involved with your climate activist group.
Run a good meeting. There's nothing worse than sitting through a meeting where one person talks the whole time and nothing gets done. There is an art to running an effective, dynamic meeting. Here are a few tips that will help you get the job done:
- Make sure to have an agenda with approximate times for each item, and circulate it ahead of time. Leave enough time for others to make their points, but try to stay on schedule. Circulate the agenda before the meeting, and ask for input.
- Assign somebody to run the meeting (a facilitator), and a note-taker to write everything down and distribute the notes to the group. The facilitator and note-taker could be yourself, but it's often better to delegate those tasks to somebody else who may not be distracted by other leadership tasks. Sometimes it may be appropriate to agree on hand signals ahead of time to make sure that the conversation moves along.
- Listen, understand and share ideas with others; understanding is different than agreeing, so you should learn to understand and accept even opposite opinions. The leader uses his/her heart as well as his/her head. The leader has an open mind and is nonjudgmental but rather accepts others for what or who they are.
- Stay positive and have fun. Smile at everybody. It makes communication much easier. It is very important for the leader to enjoy what she/he is doing, and to have a sense of humor. She/he has a humble spirit and can laugh at him/herself.
- Circulate the notes after the meeting, with action items delegated and clearly highlighted so that people on your team will know exactly what they need to do before the next meeting. Decide on a next meeting time.
Delegate. Make sure everyone goes home with something to do – and be sure to follow up with those people who were assigned a role or responsibility. Setting deadlines and goalposts along the way can help you and your team succeed–it may seem awkward at first, but your friends and colleagues will love the feeling of accomplishment after a job well done. (See the Build Leaders section for more tips on delegation.)
Be equal. You may have learned about the issue first, and called the first meeting, but make sure that you treat your fellow organizers as equals. Each person in your group has talents or skills that will be critical to the effort; let them take responsibility for parts of the planning process and make sure to include everybody.
Learn from your mistakes. It's ok to make mistakes; the important thing is to learn from them. Make sure that the whole team also knows about your mistake so that they don't repeat it as well. A leader will be criticized from time to time, and she/he should accept it and act upon it. A leader is not expected to know everything, but is able to learn from others, especially his/her teammates. The leader has faith in people.
Make it fun. Fun is probably our number one strategy. People are much more apt to be a part of the effort if they're likely to have a good time doing it. Good ways to keep morale up are to work with others, bring food and beverages to meetings, be positive and creative about your planning (no idea is too crazy!), hold meetings outside, and try opening or closing meetings with a song or game.
Build Leaders
So many of us who are passionate about climate change don't think twice about putting in long days and long nights thinking, strategizing and working to solve the crisis. It's that energy and commitment that forms the heart and soul of this movement. But too often, especially after a particularly arduous event or campaign, we find ourselves "burnt out," having to deal with flagging energy and passion. Sometimes, life events happen that we can't even predict that might get in the way of our organizing.
As you become an experienced leader in this movement, it's incredibly important to bring others around you into leadership as well. Often, it will be easier for you to accomplish a discrete task much more quickly than somebody less experienced than you. However, the more you impart your experience and train others to do the work that you've been doing, the more impact you will have. Simply put, the art of leadership and means multiplying your ability to make change by effectively managing others, and helping them become leaders.
Here are a few tips on how to build leaders:
Assign roles. Everybody likes to feel important, and most people tend to invest more in the work, if they have specific roles and responsibilities to fill. You don't need to do this at the first meeting, but it's often useful to identify a media coordinator, spokesperson, logistics, fundraising, partnerships and team coordinator (to name a few).
Bank on existing skills, develop new ones. People on your team will have a variety of skills and experiences. Before assigning roles, take the time to meet with each team member over coffee or beer and learn about their lives and what brought them to this work. You'll be surprised (and they may be too!) by how many skills they can bring to your team. If you have specific skills that might be useful for your team, take the time to coach one or more people to fill those roles so that they can develop new skills, and you can grow your team's effectiveness.
Be explicit. We're nice people. We care about the planet and each other, and often, we don't want to seem "bossy" in meetings or as part of our organizing. Now is the time to get over that fear. To be an effective leader, you must be very clear about what you expect from others. More often than not, we don't have high expectations of our team-members, because we don't know if they're committed, and we compensate by not asking a lot from our team members, or asking in a mushy, unclear way. Instead, the best way to respect peoples' time and skills is to talk with them, figure out how much they can accomplish, and ask that they complete a task or responsibility by a specific date. Be respectful, courteous, and always openly accept feedback, but make sure to be explicit about your expectations.
Listen. This is perhaps the most important management skill. Practice active listening. Get to know your team members and find out what they bring to the table, and what their hopes and dreams are. If your team members and volunteers are feeling stressed, find out why by holding a meeting or talking with each person one-on-one. If you find yourself talking a lot, take a step back and let others participate–encourage those who don't speak to step up and offer their thoughts.
Generate trust. Corporations are built on money. Movements are built on trust, which bonds us together much more strongly than money every could. Trust your co-organizers and team members to have the right intentions and do good work. If you start from a place of trust, people will feel comfortable joining and committing to your team.
Foster creativity. Encourage your team to take the time necessary to brainstorm any ideas, no matter how crazy they may be. Even as you stay focused on key campaigns and goals, creative thinking can help you and your team stay engaged and develop new and exciting ways to tackle challenges.
Manage, don't micromanage. As leaders, we often think we're experts at everything. But let's think about that for a minute: if I'm an expert organizer, wouldn't we have won national climate legislation years ago? Wouldn't my community be 100% clean energy right now? As managers and organizers, our focus should be on sharing skills we do have, and learning skills from others. Try to delegate responsibilities or roles instead of delegating tasks. For example, ask a team member to take on the responsibility of designing, printing and posting flyers around town, rather than describing exactly how you want the posters to look, which print shop to use and where exactly to post the flyers. You'll save yourself a lot of stress, and at the same time give opportunities for your team members to be creative and develop new skills.
Get Creative
"Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it." – Bertolt Brecht
Why art? Art is about communication. We use art to explain, both to ourselves and to others, what is happening on our planet. Art can change the way a person or a whole society thinks about something. Both art and creativity have the power to reach people in new and exciting ways. We are often bombarded with facts, rhetoric, campaign slogans and data — yet sometimes this important information alone does not motivate people towards social change. We need to try something new. Let's get creative.
Creativity has a long history as an integral part of every social movement. Think about the freedom songs of slaves, the powerful music that transformed the way the western world viewed itself in the 60s, or the grafitti that spread across Cairo during the 2011 Egyptian revolution – creativity is how we express our world-view, and how we share that with others. Art helps to visualize (or to put into words) a common thought held by a society.
Art as Uniter. Art has the ability to bring people and groups together. Working on a common project is a great way for people to physically work together to make something real happen. This sense of working towards a common goal can be a great tool for bringing different people and diverse groups together. When people are working with their hands on a project, they have their minds and mouths free to talk to each other in a relaxed and communal atmosphere. This is a great resource for growing your team and creating a space for people to communicate to each other about the different projects they are engaged in.
Art as Motivator. The climate crisis isn't going away anytime soon. We need to make sure our movement continues to enjoy its work so that it can continue for the important years ahead. Being creative keeps things fresh, and most importantly, fun! Art and creativity are great ways to keep people motivated. Organizing a group to make art for a project, campaign or event is also a great way to pull new people into your projects and to bring in new creative energy.
Art is lasting. One more great thing about creating art is that it is long-lasting. A mural painted on a wall, for instance, can last years and be seen by thousands and thousands of people- just by being where it is. A song can spread far and wide, and powerful images get picked up by others and used in other actions and even other continents.
Art is inviting. If people see a beautiful image as part of an event or on a poster advertising the event, they are more inclined to be curious and ask what is happening and to want to participate. By making actions visually inviting, it is sending a message to people that this movement is something exciting–something that they want to be a part of. In the words of Toni Cade Bambara, activist writer and teacher, "The goal of the revolutionary artist is to make revolution irresistible."
Art and Organizing
We have already talked about what art and creativity can do in a general sense, now let's look at a few specific ways in which using creativity can help you in organizing an event or in bringing together a community.
OUTREACH (before an event). One major way in which creativity can play an important role is in outreach before an event. Creative projects have the ability to generate a buzz around themselves, so making something even a little abnormal might help to get people talking about your event before it happens. Consider doing a creative stunt the week before the main action to get some press before the upcoming event. Invite the press. Getting some exciting pre-event photos into a local paper is a great way to get the word out!
Grow your team. A creative project can be used to grow your team and bring in new people. Asking people to help paint signs or organize a concert, might be a way to engage people for the first time in organizing. This is also a way to integrate new people quickly into a team, as it gives people time to casually talk, listen, reflect and laugh while building trust and community. By working constructively on a project, its easy for people to feel like they have created something tangible, and to leave with a sense of accomplishment.
Get Creative, Get Press
Photo – If your aim is to get into the newspaper, think about what "photo opportunity" you can create to ensure that press gets a great image or organize a specific moment during the action that can visually capture the essence of the whole action. By creating a strong visual, you also have much more control over how your event gets represented in the press. Making a visually exciting image improves your chances of getting covered, and colorful images look great online!
Video – Video can be one of your strongest and most important tools. Always assign a specific person to document (both with video and photographs) any action, and identify someone who will take responsibility for editing the clips. The quicker you can get a video out after an action, the more impact it will have. Nowadays, its common that many, many more people see a video of an action than the action itself, so it is worthwhile to think about the video as an important part of the project.
Sound – If you're aiming to get on the radio, think about how to make your event sound dynamic. Making drums out of buckets, asking people to bring pots and pans, or making marrachas by putting small rocks, rice or beans inside soda cans will make a great background sound for a radio interview and will help to amplify the number of people there.
Basic Tools for Creative Change
As creative communicators, there are endless tools at our disposal to create art that can amplify our message. Here are a list of some of the most common (at least in our team's experience) tools used by people to communicate for social change. Note: All of these tools can be made using recycled or repurposed materials – especially cardboard.
Banners – Perhaps the simplest way of communicating. This is basically just writing your message very large so it is easy for people to see, both in press photos and on the ground. Think carefully about what message you put on your banner, keep it simple and understandable. For many people, this is all they will see. While you want to make sure this is clear and easy to read, don't be afraid to make it creative – that will help it to stand out (People see banners all the time – make yours pop out). The more beautiful it is, the more likely it is to get photographed and the more depth and context it can give to the words written on the banner. (Tip: Don't put dates on your banner so you can use it again and again).
Stencils – Stencils are a great way to reproduce an image multiple times. This technique can be used for groups to make their own t-shirts, to make flags, or to paint directly on walls. you can find some pre-made stencils at 350.org/350-stencils
Songs/chants – Never underestimate the power of a good song or chant – they can last for years and spread quickly. Make up your own and see where it goes! Create new words to a traditional or popular song. This is also a fun project to work on while you are doing something else in a group, such as traveling somewhere, or anything physical that allows your body to work while you sing and talk.
Puppets/Masks – Masks and puppets can be easily made to communicate in an entertaining way. Puppets can interact with each other as theater or can stand alone and still communicate clearly (imagine a puppet local politician holding a bag of money). Puppets look great in photos, (and politicians hate seeing themselves depicted at protests).
Team Work: Creative Campaign Brainstorm
The purpose of this exercise is to imagine real world examples where different forms of creative messaging and communication might benefit our movement and specific projects you plan to work on.
|Total Time: 30 minutes
|1. Gather in your team. Timekeeper begins keeping time.
|5 min
|2. Answer: what real-world creative approaches can you imagine for projects you'll work on or for the climate movement more generally? Brainstorm. Open discussion.
|12 min
|3. Select 1 or 2 ideas the group is most excited about and decide what the next steps are to make the idea real — who will organize the efforts, what materials are needed, how will you access materials, etc?
|10 min
|4. Select ideas to report back to the rest of the group
|3 min
Write (or sketch) your artistic ideas here:
Other resources:
- Banner Making Guide: http://www.350.org/banners
- Franke James's "6 Tools for Climate Change Art:" http://www.frankejames.com/debate/?page_id=6012
- eARTh guide: http://earth.350.org/get-involved/make-your-own-art/
- Artivist Guide (coming soon!)
Continue to Step 5. Build a Campaign…or go back to Step 3. Tell Your Story