Some Thoughts about Volunteers

A volunteers’ sense of companionship can strengthen the local community spirit, and as you’d expect it will fulfill the volunteers’ goal of helping their local needy. But how do you actually schedule this? You’ll find it’s easier to volunteer when an event has been organized for you. And as we hardly need to point out, if volunteering becomes a team effort with friends from work, it’s likely to be more enjoyable.

Responding to this issue, a number of socially-conscious firms are developing organizing points encouraging their employees to support the community through volunteer activities. One of the more significant examples is Adaptive Marketing LLC of Connecticut who also offer shopping and financial benefits programs including 24Protect Plus (MVQ*TWENTY4PROPLUS) to consumers. Fortunately, company supported volunteer activity is more than blood drives and annual charitable giving. The employees of Adaptive Marketing have been given the chance to take part in a full range of community initiatives. In these cases, the times, locations and dates of the events were posted, making sure that employees knew what to expect, and how much time it might take precisely.

There should always be a choice between initiatives, naturally. Employees of Adaptive Marketing can select from a great many volunteer initiatives. Earlier projects have ranged between areas as diverse as education for children and young adults, green awareness activities, and events helping local theatre. Adaptive Marketing’s staff members are certain to have something they enjoy to volunteer for, ensuring they’ll spend their time productively and happily. A regularly scheduled day or a big one-off event - this is how a business tends to organize volunteer initiatives like these, perhaps at a local school or the homeless shelter in town. Staff may well say they have no time to give, though it would be rather surprising if they seriously can’t set aside the resources to help at one instalment of a long-term project. Turning their profit-making skills to the benefit of the community around them is a long-standing tradition at many companies. Community goodwill is created by the projects undertaken by Adaptive Marketing’s staff, and the staff of companies like it, over the course of these company sponsored projects. Something that volunteer activities are sure to do is leave your staff feeling good about themselves, the end result of which is a motivated company. Creating the opportunity to help employees become volunteers is its own reward.

There Are Various of Young Women Experiencing Yaz Side Effects

Yasmin oral contraceptive, most generally known as Yaz, is also referred toYasmine, Yas or it’s generic name Ocella. Yasmin is the foremost selling oral contraceptive in America. It has since been established that the widely used contraceptive pill can cause serious health dangers. Yaz side effects are liable for inducing gallbladder disease, vein thrombosis, other forms of blood cots, even pulmonary embolism. With misleading claims in their adverts, Yaz was marketed towards young ladies who had no idea exactly what kind of chances they were taking with their lives. This is why Yasmin has presently been sanctioned by the Food and Drug Administration and have been asked to make correct advertising changes.

Plenty women have endured Yaz side effects. Yasmin side effects stretch from seizures, organ failure, and the ultimate side effect, death. For ladies that have been effected from taking Yaz contraceptive pill or know someone who has, you may be worthy to damages for pain and suffering. Due to incorrect claims and not disclosing the full possible risks, the manufacturers of Yaz led various of young ladies to believe Yasmin oral contraceptive were the complete answer for their contraceptive pill only to be subjugated to side effects that could possibly have killed them.

If you are using Yaz and are feeling any of the side effects, then you could join many adult females in a legal case against the drug producer for lack of experience in recognizing that some side effects might have occurred. Some notable side effects include blood clots, heart attack and injury to the heart, seizures, PE-pulmonary embolism, DVT-deep vein thrombosis, cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, injury to the kidneys or even kidney failure, injury or failure to the gall bladder, the liver, and the pancreas. Death also falls in with the possible side effects of this oral contraceptive.

Setting aside the Time to Volunteer

Volunteering; coming together as a community, and supporting the nearby needy. The obvious problem is that freeing up the time to volunteer has been known to squander some of that valuable free time.

This is a call for other companies to follow the lead of firms like Connecticut’s Adaptive Marketing LLC. As well as financial and shopping benefits programs including 24Protect Plus intended to benefit consumers, Adaptive Marketing handles the organizational necessities to give its employees more time to help the community. Luckily, company-supported charitable work has grown beyond once-a-year charitable giving. Tennis shoe recycling initiatives and more active work like tree-planting events - these and other activities have been arranged for its workforce by Adaptive Marketing. Once all the pertinent information - time, date, location, type, et cetera - had been posted it is a simple matter for staff to set aside the time they’d volunteer and how they’d be using it. Making sure volunteers have their say in which drives the company supports is also important. Employees of Adaptive Marketing, the firm who developed the program 24Protect Plus, can choose from a number of drives. Previous and current projects have included work in areas as diverse as education for children and young adults, green programs, and events helping local performance art. A volunteer who takes pleasure in his task is an effective volunteer, consequently, by providing such a variety of programs Adaptive Marketing ensure that progress can be made in a great many areas.

Most often a company sponsored charity project - fundraising with a local school, for example, or helping out at a homeless shelter - is either done on a regular schedule or as a one-off event. This means that if you can only find some hours to assist at a Saturday morning park clean-up, there’s still a chance to contribute.

We’re sure you know a number of examples of companies supporting the citizens of their hometown. The good worksefforts of the employees at firms such as Adaptive Marketing spread precious goodwill in their home community. Helping around your hometown leaves you feeling a lot better about yourself - exactly what you need, of course, to get employees motivated both in their regular work and their volunteer activities. By now, we think, the rewards for everyone involved of a company-supported volunteer drive are ought to be self-evident for everyone.

Henman Hill

It’s the last days in June which can mean just one thing. Wimbledon has arrived! It’s the two weeks in the calendar where people begin to dig out their tennis rackets, find their whitest whites and game the inescapable showers to exercise their back hand and volley. Man and Van Wimbledon is committed to giving out the most able and value for money service addressable even when SW19 stuffed with tourists. Man and Vans, London’s high ranking light removal service, is grounded in South West London and in truth enjoys helping its neighbors with any light removals they may have. Man and Van Wimbledon could be too busy to enter the courts this summer but here at Man and Vans head office we’re exceedingly excited about Wimbledon’s new Centre Court protective roof. Although Man and Van Wimbledon will work in the storm, Rafael, Roger and Andy have never been too keen to brave heavy rain. Fortunately this yr there’ll be no need for Cliff Richards’ services as, from the 17th May, Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Association has been using its new retractable roof. Health and Safety tests on the court were taken by the tennis heroes Andre Agassi, Steffi Graf, Tim Henman and Kim Clijsters, who enjoyed an exhibition game of mixed doubles as the well timed rain patted the roof as it retracted.

Ken Mehlman and the Republican National Committee

Kenneth Brian Mehlman is a Republican, an attorney and a former campaign operative in numerous Presidential election campaigns including those of George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole and George W. Bush. He is recently the Global Public Affairs’ head and managing director for private equity investment company Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Company.

After the 2004 elections, wherein Ken Mehlman was the campaign manager for the Bush-Cheney re-election, he was chosen to be the chairman of the Republican National Committee, replacing Ed Gillespie. He was officially appointed chairman in January 2005.

The Republican National Committee, also known as RNC, supplies national leadership for the United States Republican Party. It functions as a developer and supporter of the Republican political platform and election strategy. It also organizes the Republican National Convention.

After the 2006 general election in January, Ken Mehlman announced that he would not want to be re-elected for another term as the chairman of the Republican National Committee. He served the Committee for only two years.

In that same year, Senator Mel Martinez was said to replace the former RNC chairman.

The 62-year old Martinez used to work under President Bush’s Cabinet as the 12th Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Solar Power for Homes – Cost Effective Means for Power to Your Home.

Are you tired of anticipating the costs from your current electrical bills? Have you considered alternative means for generating power to your home? Using solar power may be one way for you to generate electricity to your home while cutting costs. Using solar power allows you to take control of the electricity in your home.

Not only do you have clean energy in your home, you also have a means to effectively power your home. This is a means for generating efficient and effective means of energy. You could either transform your home or have a home specifically designed for solar energy. You may receive tax and federal incentives for using solar power to be generated into electricity.

With the information building supporting global warning, solar powered homes are one means of deescalating this situation and adding an effective means to power your home. With the rise in technology we can see that using solar power for homes can lead to a cleaner and healthier environment. Your home can have it’s similar appeal and look while enhancing the use of natural resources to maintain your level of living. Solar Power for homes is a key step into using technology and the sun for effective living means.

Active Citizenship Goal Delayed by Lack of E-democracy Vision

People and e-democracy
The idea of e-democracy was supposed to be that people could influence the decisions affecting them by using new technology to make their voices heard. This would create “active citizens” who would take a greater part in their local communities, leading to more consensus and harmony all round. Great idea, but in practice the idea is still very much an ideal.

Reflection! without technology
Did you ever try to find a book in Foyles bookshop in the days when they displayed them by publisher? A thorough search for a book on paintings by Matisse would need visits to seven sections on two different floors.

Constructive searches
Finding out how you can influence decisions on, say, crime and policing is a similar exercise on the web. First you need to know that local authorities use the word “consultation” to describe the process of asking people for their opinions about issues (and many people don’t know that). Then, if you live in London and want to search for consultations on crime, you might look on the Metropolitan Police website, any one of the 33 London Borough websites, the Greater London Authority site, YourLondon.gov.uk and several others, about forty altogether. On each website, the search usually throws up hundreds of irrelevant pages and documents as well as those you want. Well, speaking for myself, I’d love to be an “active citizen” but right now it’s just too much of a sweat to be worth the effort.

Using the technology
Like so many of the promises of new technology, the problem with e-democracy is not with the technology itself - that’s the easy bit - it is with the human factors behind it. The technology will allow people to easily find consultations and to respond to them online has been around for a few years. A new initiative announced in July in the London Connects newsletter for a London-wide system will potentially make it possible for someone living in Hackney to find information about consultations on community planning in their area, consultations affecting their children’s school in Islington and public transport near where they work in the City, all from any one of the London websites listed above.

Driving change
In technical terms, setting up such a system is now easy, but whether it will be adopted by local authorities is another matter. Central government has taken a lead with the Implementing Electronic Government (IEG) process, which encourages and, to some extent, requires local authorities to acquire such systems.

The need and the business case
Some regional partnership bodies like London Connects are playing a healthy role in championing these ideas and Partnership Manager Andres Crespo has endorsed the “e-consultation management system (eCMS)”. As he put it, “Innovative, cost-effective and efficient ways to carry out consultations are pivotal in capturing the lost voices of our 21-Century citizens. A common e-consultation system for the whole of London, such as the one proposed by CommunityPeople, is long overdue”.

The right prospective
But many council officers still remain sceptical about e-consultation as a concept. They see it as an add-on rather than a replacement for the traditional methods of consulting with the public. They often believe that it will create more work, because they find it hard to see what off-line work it could replace. Some officers even claim that e-consultation is expensive, although a quick look at the figures shows that this view can only be justified if e-consultation really is an additional expense rather than a replacement for off-line methods. For comparison, the London-wide eCMS system would cost a London Borough about the same for a whole year’s worth of consultations, as just one postal survey for a citizens’ panel.

Getting the mix right
The fact that over a third of the population still do not have access to the web, the so-called “digital divide”, is often quoted by the traditionalists as a reason for rejecting e-consultation completely. The implication seems to be that we must use the web for everything or for nothing, but it doesn’t take much imagination to see that different media are appropriate to different kinds of people and so, for consultation, a mixture of online methods and traditional ones is probably the best way to go. Many older people will only feel comfortable with paper or come to meetings while most young people will only use the web.

Cost benefits
If making changes in local government practice is like wading through thick mud, the largest quagmire in terms of the adoption of e-consultation has to be budget setting. The traditional methods of market research such as on street surveys, public meetings and focus groups cost something whenever they are run. Double the amount of consultation and you double the cost. This means that budgets for consultation tend to be associated with projects, i.e. with the individual consultations, rather than being treated as infrastructure costs. But the main cost of e-consultation is in development and maintenance, not activity. So although the adoption of a new e-consultation management system might save a lot of money overall, whose budget is it going to come out of if the savings are from many separate budgets from many different departments? Don’t look at IT, they never had a budget for consultation in the first place!

Allocating the budget
The implementation of electronic methods in local democracy needs a shift in thinking at a high level, high enough to allow some restructuring of budgets. Departmental heads need some vision in this area.

Driving change
But perhaps overall, the rate at which I can realistically become an active citizen depends on one key group of people: the “e-government champions”. These are the people within each local authority given the task by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister of pushing through the various e-government initiatives. They are the chief head bangers with the job of banging together the heads of the council officers to get agreement on adoption of electronic methods.

At the end of the day
Most people probably don’t care whether it comes about through vision or banging of heads, or even whether it is called “active citizenship” or some other buzzword. They just want to have an influence on the decisions that affect them without too much sweat - and without too much delay please.

© Eric Sutherland
http://www.ghostwriter.dsl.pipex.com

Interest in politics came from R&D projects and obtaining government grants or other forms of help. Now the fight is on since the socialist European Union/Commission has produced to much RED Tape to encourage entrepreneurship and the UK Government has just dropped it on us, along with more of their own acts. Studing Cybernetics and Management led me to read books by Stafford Beer and Peter F. Drucker, one of Druckers’ most recent books Post Capitalist Society being very relevant to the way all Government’s should think about changing their interface with society and the world at large. After consideraable exchange of views with different Goverment departments and Ministers had a refereed article produced in the Journal of Strategic Change titled Local Government, University and Management Education for the 1990s.

Dafur Emergency: A Challenge To Civilisation

With pain rocking through my whole body today, I cast a bitter glance back at what I called, the ‘tragedy of Dafur’ and decided to settle accounts with my fellow Africans on this matter.

President Omar el-Bashir has twisted history, invented a distortion in African lexicon and rammed it through our throats. Every mention of anything Sudanese these days sounds much more like ‘Sadness’, and every picture of the attrocious genocide of Dafur seems more like hearing or seeing the destruction wroth by ‘Sulphur’. Anytime I hear the word ‘Janjaweed’ it connotes an imagery of ‘Ganja-weed’ i.e Marijuana, no wonder, the trails of this militia of shame that diplaced 2 million people, leveled an estimated 2,000 villages and killed over 180,000 so horrified the UN that it had to stridently call for their trial by the International Criminal Court.

The Sudanese leader has suceeded in his 16-year rule, in turning Sudan into one of the poorest countries in the poorest continent in the world: one of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Sudan is now a giant Ghetto dotted all-over with refugee camps hosting millions.

The death of John Garang last Monday, in an helicopter crash would not change the tempo of the silent revolution that would end dictatorship and bring lasting peace to the 40million people of Sudan.

It is however a discernible and irrepressible truth that the insurgency by black Africans of Dafur, in February 2003 against alleged discrimination and oppression by the Khartoum government was the trigger.

This was one battle too much for a regime whose bucket was already overflowing with multiple conflicts, particularly, the two decade fatricidal war against the Southern Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA)led by Garang.

That battle exposed the under-belly of the Sudanese dragon and stopped the full-fledged speed of the Sudanese government from being the continental capital for the ‘Axis of Terrorism’ in Africa.

That battle sent the regime scampering for a desperate balance by hastily coming to the negotiating table and conceeding partial autonomy and power sharing with the SPLA.

It is now certain that the janjaweed and all its vicious attrocities of rape, murder, etc. has failed to break the will of Dafur for freedom, autonomy, democracy, peace and deverlopment. The bell tolls for the 16-year rule of el-Bashir. What Dafur started, Dafur would complete: and that is to sweep oppression and dictatorship off the landscape of Sudan- our Sudan.

Aderemi Ojikutu (Aderaskeey) is a Motivational Author and Youth Mentor. He is a minister of the Word of God. A political economist and political leader. He is President of the TREASURE WRITERS CLUB in Nigeria(http://ryze.com/go/Aderaskeey). He is also the current President of the National Democratic Forum (N.D.F). He was National Mobilisation Officer of the National Association of Nigerian Students (N.A.N.S) for several years. A revolutionary of over two decades, he was also the political secretary of the defunct Nigerian Labour Party in 1989-1991.

How the Poor Were Lost

When the poor were the majority.

The poor in developed countries like the USA and UK are now a minority, though up to maybe the 1950’s or 1960’s they had been a majority.

While the poor were a majority their main problems were simply economic poverty and economic exploitation. Government bodies manned by the upper and middle classes understood this sufficiently to be able to handle the poor with some appropriateness, if not always entirely to the poor’s liking. The votes of the poor majority were basically sought with a policy mix of small economic titbits and nationalistic policies.

The poor becoming a minority.

In the USA by 1950, and the UK by 1960, growing economic prosperity saw the numbers of the poor begin to fall until soon they became a minority. This was helped by more enlightened government policy, and was good for the many that then escaped poverty. Unfortunately the remaining poor as a minority were to face seriously increased problems.

There were two main reasons why the modern minority poor in advanced countries faced increasing problems. The first was that the poor soon had more complex, though supposedly helpful, welfare systems applying to them and giving them new problems – and also as a minority they now also hit new minority social exclusion problems. The second main reason the modern poor in advanced countries faced increasing problems was that they became less seen and less understood by the governing upper and middle classes, so their governing became wildly inappropriate and plain wrong.

How affluent governments lost their poor.

When the poor in developed countries became a minority, democratic political parties began to see their votes as unnecessary, though the poor are a socially significant minority whose misgovernment can seriously undermine society.

Majority middle-class issues became prioritised, for example huge anti-tobacco-smoking resources being applied by government and employer bodies but much less on drunkenness, drug-taking or weapon-carrying – pushing many from cigarettes to these. Socially tobacco is a small undesirable but the available alternatives for the poor are really much worse. And some of the health problems of smoking may be due to inhaling cigarette lighter flints rather than inhaling tobacco.

All government, charity, employer and other bodies being now run by a middle-class having no real understanding of modern poor minority problems has led to many policies affecting the poor becoming totally inappropriate. And developed countries prioritising middle-class issues and worsening the position of their poor minority are in effect doing a Nero and ‘fiddling while Rome burns’, but their governments basically lost the poor.

Re-finding the poor.

In developed countries now, those producing policies are educated professionals with little or no experience of the poor today, and they may commonly have correct general theories but often be missing the correct practical detail needed for correct modern policy making for today’s minority poor. They urgently need to find and involve the tiny handful of street-wise professionals who somehow do happen to have substantial real experience of today’s poor themselves – but as yet they are totally unaware that this is needed.

Or if modern affluent middle-class government cannot find a way to better govern their poor and other minorities, then perhaps modern democratic government will demand less middle-class officials. Maybe a percentage of politicians should not be elected, but instead be randomly selected from elector lists ?

Vincent Wilmot currently lives in Grimsby UK and has several interesting websites including http://www.social-exclusion-housing.com

Social Security Rant

As the Baby Boomer Generation continue to get older, one of the hot topics will continue to be Social Security. Critics claim that Social Security is going bankrupt, and that it needs to be privatized as soon as possible, or people will lose their benefits. This rant examines if Social Security needs to be privatized, and if it is actually going broke.

Thanks to various search engines, and thanks to the Information Superhighway, there is much data to suggest that Social Security—even at the going rate—will be able to pay full benefits at least until 2032, and some research indicates it could survive as long as 2042. Also, seventy-five percent of Social Security funding comes from the payroll tax, which guarantees that Social Security will never go broke. The trick is—in about thirty or forty years, to come up with a system to make up the other twenty-five percent. Those who like to crunch numbers, and those who are familiar with the mathematical formula claim that a raise in the payroll tax by two percent—one percent by the employer, and one percent by the employee, will guarantee the survival of Social Security until the Second Coming. Analysts like to stress the fact that a tax increase—no matter how meager it may or may not be, is not the only solution. With the advancement of technology and medical science, people are living longer than they ever have before. Also, various amounts of disease have been quelled. About ninety years ago, the number one killer in the world was Spanish Influenza. Today, the flu is no longer a serious threat. Also, polio used to be a scourge on society, but these days, that disease has been virtually eradicated off the face of the planet. Thus, it makes sense that the retirement age will—and should—be raised to about 70. Actually, seventy years of age is not old. In fact, it is about the average age, in this country, and well below the average in many industrialized nations in the world.

Of course claiming that Social Security is under-funded is not telling the whole story. Let us look at the facts. So far, on this war on terror, the United States has spent over 300 billion dollars. If that amount is divided by the present population, that equals to about a thousand dollars for every man, woman, and child in the country. Also, do not forget about the hundreds of millions of dollars that “loaned” to other countries in the world. Instead of saying, “Social Security is going broke because of the population”, the correct statement should be, “the president believes that there are more important things to spend money on rather than insuring that benefits will be around for years to come.”

Whenever Social Security Reform is mentioned, there are always a select few that love to clamor that the system should be privatized. Statistically we know that people spend more than they save. If Social Security should be privatized, what about the millions of people that do not have a bank account? Should those people automatically receive an account? And who is going to make sure that these people get an account–the federal government? That would defeat the purpose of privatizing Social Security in the first place. It’s kind of like saying, “let’s fix our brakes so we can take the car to the mechanic so he can fix the brakes.”

I could do a lot of research and list a lot of data and list a lot of references, or I could use history and common sense to prove that Social Security should never be put in the hands of a private institution. It is certainly true that there have been many government scandals that have cost the taxpayer billions throughout the history of this country. The failure of the Savings and Loans is one example, and the list is quite lengthy. Also, there have been many scandals in the private realm that has wiped out the life savings of countless people. Enron is just one example in a list that I am sure is exhaustive. Thus, the conclusion is that history shows that it government bureaucracy is safer than the private realm, thus leave Social Security alone.

About the Author

I like to discuss politics and history. I have two college degrees in those disciplines. Please stop by my site sometime at (www.xtraxtrzxtra(dot)com.)