Have you ever wondered why we use terms like "gut-wrenching," "heartache," or "hurting my feelings" to describe our emotional state?
The brain and the body are inseparable.
Pain is the body's way of saying "something is not right – please fix it!" Expressions such as those above are more than clichés. When we experience emotional stress, our bodies react automatically and instinctively, in ways we are powerless to control. Emotional pain or stress can cause symptoms such as muscle tightness, increased heart rate, headaches, rapid heart beat, clenched jaw, upset stomach, shallow breathing, shortness of breath and more. Studies have shown that emotional pain involves the same brain regions as physical pain, which suggests the two are connected. Emotional pain actually triggers these physical reactions. So although you might not yet have consciously acknowledged that you are upset, the body will definitely point it out! The physical symptoms don't go away until the emotional issue is resolved.
So why is it important to treat the body and mind together?
I have two primary reasons. First, it's not always easy to acknowledge or name the things that cause us emotional pain. We have a marvelous built-in set of defense mechanisms to deny or minimize that pain. But the body can't hide the symptoms of pain. Our bodies are like a cockpit dashboard that displays information about what is going on inside the mind. A holistic approach allows me to "read" the body, looking for subtle physical signs of emotions that are being suppressed. This is important, because emotion denied does not go away. It simply finds a place in the body to curl up and wait. While it lurks, it waves physical red flags such as headaches or back aches or a clenched jaw. The way to conquer unacknowledged pain is to confront and work through it. I use the clues of the body to help me work back to the emotional cause of the pain and thus resolve it.
Second is the issue of long-term emotional health. My goal is to help patients become more conscious of the emotional difficulties that brought them to me in the first place, and more capable of dealing with them effectively, both now and in the future. Our culture teaches us to suppress many of our feelings. But if suppression is our primary or only way of dealing with feelings, it can be extremely unhealthy for the mind and the body. I help my patients understand how to manage emotions, finding appropriate ways to express or contain them, so that they may live more satisfying lives. One way to teach those skills is to teach awareness of the body and its dashboard. You might not immediately recognize or realize mental pain, but you can't ignore a chronic headache or upset stomach! I will help you learn to acknowledge these clues and go back to the emotions that cause them before they get out of control.
What kind of results does this integrated approach provide?
The most obvious result is a substantial change in your life and in your perceptions, attitudes and openness to the world around you. But you may also see change such as pain relief, reduced dependence on drugs, increased energy, healthier sleeping and eating patterns.
I invite you to contact me, and we can discuss the signals your body and mind might be sending.
You can learn more about how the body and mind are connected by looking at some of the resources I have listed.
1. a mound of rough stones built as a memorial or landmark, typically on a hilltop or skyline. A prehistoric burial mound made of stones.
"Traumas provoke emotional reactions in proportion to the degree of threat and horror accompanying them. One way of dealing with these intense emotions is to look for scapegoats who can be held responsible for the tragic event. Family members and other sources of social support can be so horrified at being reminded of the fact that they, too, can be struck by tragedies beyond their control that they start shunning the victims and blame them for what has happened" (p. 27).
Researchers in the area of trauma recognize the "universal desire to see, hear and speak no evil" (Judith Herman, 1992, quoted in van der Kolk, p.28) and have identified typical patterns and predictable apologies that emerge after every atrocity which reflect this desire. One needs only to review news articles and "Comment" sections on-line regarding the sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church and Penn State University, to name just two institutions that have been in the news, to see multiple examples of these tendencies.
My intent in writing these blog entries is first and foremost to honor and remember––remember patients that I have worked with, people that I never met but whose stories touched me in some way, family members and friends that have suffered along with victims of trauma, and those who try in ways both big and small to make a positive difference in the lives of others. Dr. van der Kolk's words made quite an impact on me. I want to remember both what people have gone through and the strength and courage they have shown recovering from traumas and other wounds in their lives. By doing so and sharing what I have learned, I hope to honor them as well. If these entries provide something useful to even a few, it will be well worth the effort. As I write, I will of course keep people's identities confidential. If I incorporate examples from my work, I will do so in ways that protect the identity of those involved.
*van der Kolk, B. A., McFarlane, A. C., & Weisaeth, L. (Eds.). Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body and Society. The Guilford Press: New York. 1996.
Welcome to my blog. This is my first entry and I want to introduce myself and say a little about my reasons for writing. I plan to add entries, on an occasional basis, related to my areas of practice and the range of patient needs that I work with.
I've been working as a psychologist and psychotherapist for nearly 35 years. While that fact alone doesn't make me an "expert" or even remarkably qualified to comment, my experience has provided countless opportunities to become acquainted and deeply involved with many wonderful and courageous people. I mean courageous in the sense of the ability to do something that frightens one or strength in the face of pain or grief. These individuals and couples have motivated me to keep learning, to keep dealing with my own issues and growing in ways that help me help interact with them more deeply and therapeutically. In this process, I've learned more than a few things along the way that I hope may be of benefit to those who read this blog.
During these 35 years, like most therapists, I've listened to such a variety of stories, problems, heartbreaks, tragedies and accomplishments. I've helped people wade into the dark recesses of the psyche and, more importantly, to find their way out when they couldn't do so on their own. It has been a great privilege for me and immensely satisfying to help them resolve problems, recover a firm "footing" in life and learn to live with greater freedom and health.
I've also been "in the other chair" in my own therapy and body-centered work during my own dark times and as an integral part of my training. Being a patient and struggling at times with emotions, with depression and despair, and with other issues in my life has "taught" me at a level that formal education just cannot duplicate. An immensely valuable aspect of being a patient is experiencing that therapy really does work. Recovery is possible. I hope that my articles and posts will reflect both these professional and personal experiences.
"The goal of all therapy is to help a person increase his capacity to give and receive love––to expand his heart, not just his mind" (Bioenergetics, 1975, p. 89).
His words resonated with me as did his attention to what was happening in the body as well as in the mind. If I am successful at helping people achieve this primary goal, then, by definition, we will also accomplish the other, more specific goals relevant to each individual.
"We don't think ourselves into a new way of living; we live ourselves into a new way of thinking"
A compassionate therapist who provides individual and group psychotherapy to adults; marital counseling; and supervisory services for other mental health professionals through his private practice, Integrative Psychotherapy. His work covers a broad spectrum of patient needs, including depression, anxiety, substance abuse, chronic pain, and domestic/sexual violence. Dr. Weiks is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Michigan Group Psychotherapy Society and is a training faculty member of The Radix Institute.
Copyright © 2018 Integrative Psychotherapy, PLC.


IPOs came roaring out of the gate in 2018, only to smack into a long-awaited stock market correction. Nonetheless, signs for some sectors, such as tech, remain encouraging. Seeking Alpha notes that "The tech sector's average return is 25% from IPO," and The New York Times forecasts an "IPO wave" in Silicon Valley.
Making those offerings work, however, can depend on an often overlooked ingredient: executive thought leadership.
A recent conversation with Moira Conlon – who as President of strategic communications firm Financial Profiles has helped a wide range of companies through successful IPOs – revealed four key considerations for leaders dreaming of public offering nirvana.
Established thought leaders need not be so quiet during IPO quiet periods.
Sharing your best thinking simplifies a complex IPO sell.
Visibility creates essential management credibility.
It's not enough, however, to simply publish white papers or corporate blog posts. Turning your intellectual capital into real currency requires conveying the power not only of your thoughts but also of the thinkers behind them. Ideally your C-Suite will be a consistent public presence via videos, podcasts, bylined articles, speaking engagements, webinars, and even books.
Thought leadership gets people to buy because it doesn't sell.
Providing helpful industry insight and information draws people to you. They get to know you and your thinking. They see for themselves the value you offer and, in essence, begin to sell themselves.
Thought leadership can't be an after-thought.
In short, if you run a company looking to go public in the future, establishing yourself, your leadership team and your company as leading thinkers in your space can provide major advantages. The key word, however, is "establishing." It takes time and consistent effort to establish awareness, credibility and (hopefully) a following as a true thought leader. Which means that there's no better time to start that effort than right now.


The Lab. (2018, August 25). European Medialab Praxis, . Retrieved 10:26, April 18, 2019 from http://wiki.europeanmedialabpraxis.net/index.php?title=The_Lab&oldid=1319.
"The Lab." European Medialab Praxis, . 25 Aug 2018, 17:24 UTC. 18 Apr 2019, 10:26 <http://wiki.europeanmedialabpraxis.net/index.php?title=The_Lab&oldid=1319>.
European Medialab Praxis contributors, "The Lab," European Medialab Praxis, , http://wiki.europeanmedialabpraxis.net/index.php?title=The_Lab&oldid=1319 (accessed April 18, 2019).
European Medialab Praxis contributors. The Lab [Internet]. European Medialab Praxis, ; 2018 Aug 25, 17:24 UTC [cited 2019 Apr 18]. Available from: http://wiki.europeanmedialabpraxis.net/index.php?title=The_Lab&oldid=1319.
The Lab, http://wiki.europeanmedialabpraxis.net/index.php?title=The_Lab&oldid=1319 (last visited April 18, 2019).


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Home › Investor relations › Corporate governance › Directors
Clive Bannister
Rathbones Group Plc - Chair
Clive was appointed as chair on 12 January 2021.
He started his career as a banker at First National Bank of Boston in 1981 in Boston and London, and in 1984, he joined Booz Allen & Hamilton as an associate and became a partner in the financial consulting practice in 1990.
In 1994, Clive joined HSBC Investment Bank as Director and Head of Planning and Strategy in London with a remit to help with the integration of part of James Capel. He moved to New York in 1996 to be the deputy CEO of HSBC Inc and Head of Investment Banking in the US. In 1999, he was appointed Chief Executive of HSBC Group Private Banking and subsequently became Group General Manager in July 2001, and Group Managing Director in 2006 on the Executive Committee, of Group Insurance and Asset Management at HSBC Holdings Plc. In 2011, Clive was recruited as group CEO of the Phoenix Group, the UK's largest life and pensions consolidator. During his time at Phoenix Group, a series of successful acquisitions were made, including AXA Wealth, Sun Life, Standard Life Assurance and the acquisition of ReAssurance from Swiss Re. Clive is currently a chairman of the Museum of London.
Paul Stockton
Rathbones Group Plc - Group Chief Executive Officer
Paul was appointed chief executive in May 2019, having served as managing director of Rathbones Investment Management from May 2018. He was previously group finance director from 2008 to April 2019.
Paul qualified as a chartered accountant with PriceWaterhouse in 1992, subsequently taking up a position in New York before returning to London in 1996. In 1999 he joined Old Mutual Plc as group financial controller, becoming director of finance of Gerrard Limited in 2001. In 2005, two years after the sale of Gerrard, he left to work initially for Euroclear and, subsequently, as a divisional finance director of the Phoenix Group. He was formerly a non-executive director of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
Jennifer Mathias
Rathbones Group Plc - Group Chief Financial Officer
Jennifer was appointed to the board on 1 April 2019.
Jennifer began her career on the Lloyds TSB Finance graduate scheme following her graduation in 1995 and qualified as a chartered management accountant in 1999. At Lloyds, Jennifer held a number of senior management roles and worked closely with the board-level team of the Lloyds TSB Group, and was a member of the Corporate Banking and Wholesale Finance Executive Committees. In addition to her position as a finance director of Corporate Banking, Jennifer spent three years as head of Credit Risk & Compliance for the Commercial Banking division of Lloyds TSB. In 2012, she joined Coutts as the global chief finance officer, and in 2015, she moved to EFG Private Bank (UK), where she was chief finance officer and deputy chief executive officer.
Sarah Gentleman
Rathbones Group Plc - Senior independent director (subject to regulatory approval)
Sarah was appointed as a non-executive director in 2015 and chair of the Remuneration Committee in June 2017. She was appointed as a designated non-executive director for our workforce engagement in 2019 along with Colin Clark.
She started her career as a consultant at McKinsey & Company and then worked for several years in the telecoms and digital sectors, latterly as chief financial officer of the LCR Telecom Group. In 1999, she joined the internet bank Egg, the internet banking subsidiary of Prudential, where she was responsible for business development and strategy. In 2005, she joined Sanford C. Bernstein & Co, the institutional research and trading arm of Alliance Bernstein, as a banking analyst covering the European banking sector. Sarah is an adviser to early-stage technology companies, and non-executive director of Engine B Ltd.
Terri Duhon
Rathbones Group Plc - Non-executive director
Terri was appointed as a non-executive director in July 2018 and is chair of the risk committee.
Terri graduated with a Maths degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is currently a non-executive director on the board of Morgan Stanley International where she chairs the risk committee and is also chair of Morgan Stanley Investment Management Limited. Terri is also a non-executive director Hanover Investors Ltd and, an Associate Fellow at The Saïd Business School at Oxford University and on the MIT Corporation Visiting Committee. Previously, Terri sat on the boards of CHAPS Co and UK Operation Smile and was a founding member of the Women's Leadership Group for the Prince's Trust. As an executive, Terri held a number of senior roles at JP Morgan and ABN AMRO before setting up her own consultancy firm.
Ali Johnson
Ali joined Rathbones in April 2016 and was appointed company secretary in May 2016. Prior to joining Rathbones, Ali spent nine years as director of company secretarial services at Signet Jewelers having responsibilities for a wide variety of areas and functions during this time. Ali graduated in Law and is a Fellow of Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators.
Dharmash Mistry
Rathbones Group Plc – Non-executive director
Dharmash was appointed as non-executive director on 5 October 2021.
He is currently a board member of The British Business Bank, Halma plc, BBC Commercial Holdings, Blow Ltd and The Premier League.
Dharmash started his career with Procter & Gamble on their graduate programme and then went on to become a brand manager, followed by a period with Boston Consulting Group. He spent eight years in the media as Group Managing Director of EMAP Consumer Media and EMAP Performance.
Dharmash is an experienced technology venture capitalist, entrepreneur and non-executive director. He was formerly a Partner at Balderton & Lakestar, leading investments including Revolut, Glovo, Infarm, Blockchain.com & Lovefilm amongst others. Prior to this he was Group MD of Emap Consumer Media, where he co-led the delisting of Emap PLC from the FTSE 100. His prior board NED positions include: BBC Executive Board, Hargreaves Lansdown PLC & Dixons Retail PLC.
Iain Cummings
Iain was appointed as non-executive director on 5 October 2021.
Iain is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales with over 35 years of experience working in the financial sector.
He was a partner at KPMG for over 24 years working with banks and other major financial services firms in both audit and advisory roles including three years leading KPMG's banking audit practice. His audit roles included large firms in the investment banking sector and listed firms in the wealth, asset management and insurance sectors while his advisory engagements focused on aspects of risk, regulation and internal audit.
He also served for a number of years as Chairman if the ICAEW Financial Services Faculty's Risk and Regulation Committee and as a member of the ICAEW's Technical Strategy Board.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Javier Fernández-Samaniego is Managing Director of SAMANIEGO Law, an alternative Iberoamerican law firm specializing in technology law and dispute resolution. Javier has over 20 years of experience in business law and his international practice focuses mainly in Commercial/IT disputes (international litigation, arbitration, and ADR) and negotiations and major Tech & Privacy projects (new cloud and big data business models, outsourcing transaction, data protection review programs, etc.). Javier has vast experience assisting European clients in their expansion in Latin America and US clients in their European expansion. Career: 2017: Launch of Samaniego Law, 2005-2016: Founding and managing partner of the Spanish office of Bird & Bird and head of its Commercial, Dispute Resolution and Information Technology teams. 2000-2005: Head of the IT and Communications at Linklaters. 1996-2000	Head of Technology and Data Protection team at Spanish firm Cuatrecasas. 1995-1996: In-house lawyer at the CDTI (Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology), European Space Agency representative in Spain. Academic degrees: Business Administration & European Law European Business Certificate, Universitá Politechnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy, 1994 and Law Degree: San Pablo CEU University Madrid (Spain), 1993. Javier speaks Spanish, English, French, and Italian.


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We are present in multiple heartlands of Pakistan - The company is further strengthened - Pak-Qatar Family is recipient of several domestic and international awards - Pak-Qatar is the first dedicated Takaful Group - The company vision - Pak-Qatar Family Takaful Limited - Incorporated in 2006, and beginning
Pak-Qatar Family Takaful Limited
Pak-Qatar Family Takaful Limited, the pioneers of Family Takaful, is a progressive and a technology-driven Shari'ah Compliant company providing innovative Takaful solutions in Pakistan. The company is the fastest growing Family Takaful operator in the region.
Incorporated in 2006, and beginning operations in 2007, the company is registered with, and supervised by, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP). An independent Shari'ah Advisory Board chaired by Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani certifies all products and operations for Shari'ah compliance. The company is rated A minus (having Stable Outlook) by JCR-VIS Credit Rating Co. Ltd.
Copyright © 2015-2016 Pak Qatar Takaful Group
Powered by: Pak Qatar IT&S


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Why Joe Biden thinks he's never too old to be your president
Nicole Gaudiano
Dirck Halstead/Getty Images; Howard L. Sachs/CNP/Getty Images; Nathan Howard/Getty Images; Rebecca Zisser/Insider
If Biden wins a second term, he would be 86 when he leaves the White House.
As the oldest sitting president, he's raising concerns about how long he can continue governing.
But allies say he's motivated by his agenda, patriotism and stopping Trump's return.
Read more from Insider's "Red, White, and Gray" series.
REHOBOTH BEACH, Delaware — About six years ago, Joe Biden and an old friend were talking about what they planned to do with the rest of their lives.
Biden, then in his early 70s, was finishing his second term as vice president. He had already decided against running for president in 2016 after losing his son Beau to brain cancer. Political retirement seemed imminent.
But his friend says he'll never forget Biden quoting a line from a Dylan Thomas poem about defying death: "Do not go gentle into that good night."
"It was a window into how he views his role," said his friend, a former staffer who was granted anonymity in order to speak candidly about the president. "As long as he feels like he's healthy and capable of contributing, he's going to do that, and he's not going to go quietly."
Biden, of course, would run for and win the presidency in 2020. And now at age 80, he has become the first octogenarian in office and a Rorschach test for the effects of aging on a world leader.
Republicans have questioned Biden's cognition, even if he's less than four years older than former President Donald Trump, who has already announced he's running for president again in 2024.
"Nobody believes that Biden's going to run again," Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas told Insider in late spring. "He's obviously diminished and not able to do the job."
But allies insist Biden is still the guy he's always been, capable as ever and the right leader for the moment, regardless of his age.
Insider's "Red, White, and Gray" series explores the costs, benefits, and dangers of life in a democracy helmed by those of advanced age, where issues of profound importance to the nation's youth and future — technology, civil rights, energy, the environment — are largely in the hands of those whose primes have passed.
Across a half-century in federal politics — a 36-year Senate career representing Delaware, two terms as vice president, and three bids for the presidency — Biden has outlasted many of those he leaned on and grew up with in private and public life. He's tragically lost a wife and two children. Only two other men from his freshman Senate class are still living, and they're both in their early 90s, having long ago left politics. His longtime chief of staff, who succeeded him in the Senate, has literally written a book on retirement.
Yet Biden heeds Thomas' poetic words: "Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
He has said he intends to run again in 2024, as long as he's in good health. He expects to make his decision official in early 2023. If he wins reelection, he would be 82 on Inauguration Day — becoming the oldest sitting president and breaking the record he set in 2021 — and 86 upon leaving office.
"If Joe believes that he can continue to contribute and move this country forward, he'll do it again. And he should," said South Carolina state Sen. Dick Harpootlian, a Biden donor and former state party chairman whose wife, Jamie Lindler Harpootlian, is the Biden-appointed US ambassador to Slovenia.
Biden's allies say he's motivated by advancing his agenda, by his sense of obligation to the country, and by fighting the same forces that got him in the 2020 race.
"He sees himself as wanting to do everything possible to stop Trump's return," Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, told Insider.
Biden has already cheated death by surviving brain aneurysms at 45. "It just makes you think about ... every single day, you don't know. You'd better take advantage of the day," he told me in 2008 when he was running for vice president.
If Biden is thinking about age now, he doesn't seem focused on it as a barrier.
He loves to tell the story of Satchel Paige, a longtime Negro Leagues pitcher who debuted in the American League at 42 and once threw three scoreless innings at 59.
Last year, Biden visited the Vatican and shared the story with Pope Francis, who at the time was nearly 85 and six years older than Biden.
"How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?" the president said, quoting Paige. Biden added with a smile, "You're 65, I'm 60."
Then-Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware addresses Drexel University Alumni in 1974. Biden was the youngest US senator at that time.
Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
'Watch me'
Age has been a part of Biden's story for decades, ever since Delaware voters first elected him to the US Senate in 1972, days before his 30th birthday.
He is the sixth-youngest person elected to the chamber. As Biden wrote in his 2007 memoir, "Promises to Keep," he looked so youthful that the secretary of state at the time, Henry Kissinger, once mistook him for a staffer.
Biden used his age to his advantage to win that race. He ran ads that pitted his generation's ideas against those of an opponent more than 30 years older. One ad boasted that Biden "understands what's happening today" — a not-so-oblique suggestion that his Republican rival, incumbent Sen. J. Caleb Boggs, did not.
Decades later, in 2020, Biden said on ABC that it's "a legitimate question to ask anybody over 70 years old" whether they're fit and ready to be president. Responding to Trump's attacks on his mental acuity, Biden said, "Mr. President, watch me."
As evidence of Biden's command, allies point to legislative achievements during his administration. He signed a bipartisan infrastructure law, huge climate and healthcare legislation, a law to bolster the US semiconductor-manufacturing industry, an expansion of healthcare for veterans exposed to burn pits, and significant bipartisan gun-safety legislation. US drones took out Al Qaeda's leader under his watch.
Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat who's emerged as a leader on gun-control measures, said Biden's experience matters, adding there are people in their 40s "who couldn't pull off anything close to what he's done." Murphy described Biden as "nimble" and credited him with knowing when his team should step back from day-to-day negotiating with Congress.
Murphy said that after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, Biden was part of the White House's "very hands-on role."
"He learned from that experience that obviously did not result in a bill and recalibrated," Murphy said.
But Biden's accomplishments have often been overshadowed by the ongoing legal drama and related defiance of the man he defeated to win the White House. Republicans have gleefully seized on Biden's verbal misadventures, such as when he called his vice president "President Harris" or when he sought out a dead congresswoman during a news conference, asking "Where's Jackie?"
They mocked him for falling off his bike in June in Delaware — even though Biden got back up, talked about gun control, and then rode away.
They blame him for inflation and crime. They say he's "hiding" from journalists because of his infrequent news conferences and one-on-one interviews, though he's had more than 250 impromptu exchanges with reporters.
"The person in the Oval Office is not the Joe Biden we knew in the Senate," Cruz, who ran for president in 2016, told Insider.
Biden's gait is undoubtedly stiffer and his hair whiter than during his Senate days, which ended in January 2009 when he resigned to become Barack Obama's vice president.
When an Associated Press reporter talked about getting gray hair, Biden jokingly replied: "At least you're keeping it. I'd settle for orange if I had more hair."
But Biden notably fielded questions from reporters for more than two hours in January on legislative priorities, inflation, foreign policy, and COVID-19. He was upbeat during a news conference after the midterm elections, saying he is "confident" his policies were working and "I'm not gonna change."
"I just don't buy that Joe Biden is, you know, a doddering old man," said Jeff Weaver, a senior advisor to Sen. Bernie Sanders, who ran against Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary. "If that's the message of the Republicans, I mean, it's false. Whether they can sell it to the American people is another question."
President Joe Biden drives the Ford's new all-electric F-150 Lightning in Dearborn, Michigan.
Nicholas Kamm / AFP via Getty Images
'He's engaged'
People around Biden take pains to show he's fully capable of doing the job the presidency entails.
Cedric Richmond, a former senior White House advisor, told Insider that Biden is "handling a grueling schedule," sometimes requiring 10- and 14-hour days, and reading a fat briefing book each night to prepare for the next day.
"In meetings, he's asking detailed questions, thorough questions, because he's already read the briefing material," said Richmond, who's now a Democratic National Committee senior advisor. "You have to be prepared when you meet with him. And he's going to quiz you on what's there: How does it affect the American people? The average person? How does it move the agenda forward? Are there any consequences? What kind of studies have been done?"
On domestic and international trips, a White House senior aide said, staffers often give Biden scheduling options, and he takes on the heaviest load. "We'll say, 'This piece isn't necessary, and you don't have to do this event, and you could probably skip that,' and he'll say, 'No, absolutely not,' and wind up putting it all back," said the aide, who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.
Khanna said he isn't concerned about Biden's age. "He'll call if he watches you on a good television appearance or will remember things that you've said to him about priorities," the congressman said. "He's engaged."
Joe Biden and his son, Beau, in 2008.
PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP via Getty Images
Staying engaged is an implicit part of a promise Biden says he made when Beau was coming to terms with dying.
Beau, who died in May 2015, asked for his father's word that he would be OK, Biden wrote in "Promise Me, Dad."
"It didn't mean I had to run for president," Biden said on "Morning Joe" in 2020, "but he was worried I'd walk away from what I'd worked on my whole life, since I've been 24 years old."
Biden, especially of late, appears particularly engaged in efforts to stamp out the possibility of a nation again led by Trump.
In a September primetime speech from Philadelphia's Independence Hall, Biden targeted Trump and declared that MAGA Republican "extremism" threatened the country. The president made the comments shortly after Trump told a radio-show host that he was "financially supporting" people accused of crimes related to the Capitol riot, adding that he would look "very favorably" at pardons for them if he were to run and be reelected in 2024.
"He sees Trump and Trumpism as an existential threat," said Biden's friend, who defined "Trumpism" as "mindless craziness."
"He sees Putin and Putinism as an existential threat," the friend added. "And he thinks — and I think he's right — he's the best person to deal with both of those issues."
Then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden (L) and then-President Donald Trump speaking during the first presidential debate at the Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, on September 29, 2020.
Jim Watson, Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Biden has said he was persuaded to run in 2020 when he heard Trump say there were "very fine people on both sides" of a violent clash in 2017 between white supremacists and counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left one woman dead.
Khanna, before Trump launched his campaign, said the expectation of him running again was "weighing" on Biden.
"It's not just the next generation of Republicans," Khanna said. "It's someone who literally has done so much destruction, damage to our democracy."
Doug Brinkley, a presidential historian, said that as Biden enters the second half of his first term, he likely has a "messianic streak, a feeling that 'the country needs me.'" Democrats are united in their opposition to Trump, Brinkley said, and "Biden's the one that can say, 'I already slayed that dragon, and I'll slay him again.'"
But Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado, who challenged Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary, said that running for president is "a rigorous thing — it's a hard thing."
Biden "turned out to be the one person out of 330 million people that could beat Donald Trump, and he has my gratitude for that," Bennet said.
Asked whether he wants Biden to do it again, the senator demurred.
"That's for him to decide."
If Biden has a fountain of youth, it would be found in Delaware, his Joe-asis.
He's traveled there more than 50 times during his presidency, according to Mark Knoller, a former CBS News reporter who has long been tracking presidential data. It's where he sees friends and family and goes to church. It's where buildings and sandwiches are named for him, where he's still getting takeout from the Charcoal Pit in Wilmington, where people know him as just Joe.
"Every time I get a chance, I go home to Delaware. You think I'm joking. I'm not," Biden said in February.
Biden sightings have long been a regular part of life in the tiny First State. On a recent visit to Rehoboth Beach, I was greeted — and searched — by Secret Service agents outside a bookstore. The first lady, Jill Biden, was inside shopping.
"I'm on vacation," she said when I asked if we could talk. "I'm not even me."
First lady Jill Biden shops at a Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, bookstore on July 30, 2022.
Nicole Gaudiano/Insider
Rhett Ruggerio, a Delaware lobbyist and former national committeeman for the state Democratic Party, last saw Joe Biden in May at the graduation ceremony at the University of Delaware, where Ruggerio is a consultant. Biden was there doing what he does: greeting people for a couple of hours, asking things like "how's aunt so-and-so" as his staff was telling him to move on, said Ruggerio, who was a friend of Beau Biden's and helped him win his attorney-general race in 2006.
Ruggerio described the idea that Joe Biden is diminished or can't remember things as "bull crap."
"He was just in his glory talking to people that he has some association with," Ruggerio said. "I was observing it and thinking, holy crap, he is still the way he's always been, where he's super interested in a person, he wants to know the details, and he wants to make a personal connection, and it's real."
It's a BFD when Biden's in town. Sen. Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat who has been working alongside Biden for nearly half a century, once missed his train to Washington, DC, and had to Zoom into a Senate hearing because Biden's presidential motorcade had snarled traffic in Wilmington. At Rehoboth Beach, where Biden keeps a vacation house, a banner airplane that wasn't supposed to be flying recently caused a stir, Ruggerio said, and a military jet like "something out of Top Gun" flew over his house, spooked his dog, and "scared the shit out of everybody."
As we spoke, Ruggerio noticed Secret Service agents peering through the window of the Robin Hood restaurant where we were eating. We later learned the first lady was heading to the bookstore across the street. We agreed that the White House bubble must be killing Biden.
"He lives off of that, the interaction with people," Ruggerio said.
At the Delaware State Fair in Harrington, Darlene Cox, a retired state employee, showed me a 2019 picture of herself with Biden. She said Biden won her over decades ago when, about a year after their first meeting, when she was pregnant with her youngest son, Biden remembered to ask whether she'd had a boy or a girl.
"That's amazing to be able to have that rapport with people," she said.
Cox said people are painting Biden as "an older man that's senile" and it's not true. "If he's willing to run I'd support him," she said, "because I truly believe in Joe."
But one of her sons, D.J., a tractor-trailer driver who at the time was running for Kent County recorder of deeds as a Democrat, felt differently.
Strolling the fairgrounds in his campaign T-shirt, he said he was feeling the effect of Biden's low approval ratings on his own campaign. "It's made it harder, yes," he said.
D.J. Cox said that while he thinks Biden is "still Joe" and still capable, he worries that Biden's age is a problem.
"How can a politician represent me and my family when they're that old?" said Cox, who ultimately lost his election. "You can't be as sharp as you were at 50 and 40."
Laura Najemy, an attorney from Wilmington who supports Biden, said the president could get beyond questions about his age by showing at the end of four years that people are living better, are safer, and have a better chance to save money.
But she also said Biden should hold more live press conferences to show that he can handle scrutiny.
"It's very hard to argue that your opponent is not able to handle the pressure of being president when he's very clearly handling a press conference well, with grace and humor and very knowledgeable insight about the issues," Najemy told me during an interview at the state fair.
In Newark, Delaware, at the Biden Welcome Center off I-95, some travelers expressed sympathy for Biden.
Patricia Mantoan, 51, said she was glad to see his name on the center "because he's getting, I think, a tough rap." She added that age doesn't matter and that "of course" she would vote for Biden again.
Andrew Beyea, of Odenton, Maryland, said Biden has good goals but is a victim of a polarized political environment.
He voted for Biden in 2020, but would he again?
Beyea sighed deeply.
"He's really old," he said. "I don't know how much left he's got in the tank."
'Healthy' and 'vigorous'
Biden's latest publicly released medical report, from November 2021, described him as "healthy" and "vigorous" and said he was "fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency."
Kevin O'Connor, the presidential physician, also said Biden was being treated for atrial fibrillation and gastroesophageal reflux that causes him to clear his throat more often. He said that Biden's gait appeared "perceptibly stiffer and less fluid" than in the past and that Biden experienced spinal arthritis.
"Old age should burn and rave at close of day," the poet said. But for how long?
The average life expectancy for a 65-year-old American man in 2020 was 82.
Surveys have shown that, as presidents and senators serve into their late 70s and 80s, most Americans support a maximum age for elected officials. Most Democrats and independents who lean toward Democrats have told pollsters they don't see Biden as their strongest 2024 candidate. A Reuters/Ipsos poll in November found 46% of Democrats said Biden may not be up to the challenge of running in 2024.
"With this disappearing middle class that we've got going on, I don't think he and a lot of the other politicians in his age range really understand what that looks like as a young person with that being your future," Winchester Kelly, 29, a Democrat from Richmond, Virginia, visiting the Delaware State Fair this summer, said of Biden.
Many politicians in Biden's age group are "out of touch with what young people need financially," she said, and Biden would get a "resigned sort of 'this is what we got'" level of support if he runs again.
Biden, who declined through the White House to be interviewed for this story, bristled when a reporter asked about a New York Times/Siena College poll in July that found nearly two in three voters who indicated they were planning to participate in the 2024 Democratic presidential primary said they wouldn't want Biden to be the nominee.
"Read the polls, Jack. You guys are all the same," he said, approaching the camera. "That poll showed that 92% of Democrats, if I ran, would vote for me." (The poll suggested he would get 92% of Democrats' support in a matchup with Trump.)
People in Biden's close circle are "absolutely not" telling him to take it easy, a senior White House aide told Insider.
"I would pity the person who would say to him, 'You should think about slowing down,'" the aide said. "He is as aggressive as ever."
But outside of his close circle, people around Biden's age are increasingly concerned about a second term.
David Gergen, 80, a former presidential advisor, questioned whether it's "appropriate for the country's sake" to have a president in his 80s. He told Insider that Biden and Trump should both sit out 2024 and let a younger generation step up.
"What if we're going to be in a fight over Taiwan?" said Gergen, who served under Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton. "Do we really want somebody in their 80s who's making those calls about what to do? I don't think so."
Gergen said he is also worried about Biden's physical health at that age.
"What happens if Joe Biden has a heart attack? What happens if he has a stroke?" he said
Robert Reich, who served as the labor secretary during the Clinton administration, wrote for The Guardian in July: "It's not death that's the worrying thing about a second Biden term. It's the dwindling capacities that go with aging."
At 76, Reich said he was "feeling more and more out of it." He blamed his generation of leaders for having "f*cked it up royally."
He concluded: "Joe, please don't run."
In 1995, another towering figure, South African President Nelson Mandela, faced a similar decision: run for a second term, or retire.
Mandela chose the latter.
"I don't think an octogenarian should be meddling with political affairs," Mandela said. "I would like to give over to a younger man. I will be available for advice if they want me, but to occupy a position as a head of state, definitely, I won't take that risk."
'I ain't dead yet'
Presidents tend to "cling" to power, Brinkley said. Lyndon B. Johnson, the last president to opt out of running for a second term, in 1968, was in a "disastrous situation" during the Vietnam War.
"Being president is in Biden's DNA," Brinkley said, adding that roles such as as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee or even as vice president were "stepping stones to the ultimate achievement."
"The idea of relinquishing power by Joe Biden over the age issue is extremely remote," Brinkley said.
In 1988 and again in 2008, Biden tried but failed to win his party's nomination, and he didn't abandon the idea of running in 2016 until close to the end of his vice presidency.
Johanna Maska, an Obama White House aide, remembers Biden as vice president "just going around and chatting with people" — and talking for hours with political donors about running for president.
"Everybody knew he wanted to run, and a lot of people didn't think he was the right person" because of his performance in Iowa, said Maska, now the CEO of the Global Situation Room, a public-affairs agency.
Biden concluded after his son died that he had run out of time to launch a winning 2016 campaign — a decision he said months later that he regretted. By the time he ran in 2020, journalists were asking about his exercise routine and the possibility of a maximum age for candidates.
"What the hell concerns, man? You wanna wrestle?" he told a reporter in 2019 who'd asked whether Biden would release his medical records "to address concerns."
"I think you guys are engaging in ageism here," he said in January 2020 during an interview with The Times' editorial board. "Now look, all kidding aside, I don't think they're — the voters will be able to make a judgment."
During that interview, he complained that he was being declared dead politically despite leading in the polls.
"Guess what?" he said. "I ain't dead. And I'm not going to die."
—New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) January 20, 2020
Unauthorized T-shirts and hoodies with this quote — as well as a picture of Biden in his signature aviators licking an ice-cream cone — are available on Amazon.
While campaigning in 2020, Biden called himself a "bridge" to a new generation of Democratic leaders. But he never defined how long that bridge would be. He told ABC that he didn't mean he was running for only one term, just that he was committed to building the Democratic bench.
To run for office and be elected so many times shows that "you're very competitive," said Jim Manley, who was a longtime aide to Harry Reid, the late Senate majority leader.
"And it's going to take a lot for you to, you know, take a step back and/or step down," Manley said.
Maska, the former Obama aide, said that while Biden was a "good solution to Trump," it's time for new Democratic leaders.
"He's been a political leader longer than I've been alive. And I have a son who's now 10," she said.
But Ruggerio, who has known Biden for more than two decades, said he doesn't see the president passing the torch in 2024.
"I just think it's ingrained in him at this point," he said. "He's been elected since 1972, when he was 29, and now he's going to give it up?
"I don't see it happening," Ruggerio added. "Why should he?"
This story was first published on September 13, 2022.
POLITICS How the US government has become a gerontocracy as the gap between old leaders and young Americans grows wider and wider
POLITICS How the mind of an 80-year-old president is biologically different from a 45-year-old president's
POLITICS Watch how Joe Biden has aged from 1974 to 2022
POLITICS What it's like working for lawmakers whose golden years are clouded by power struggles, rumors of senility, and constant second-guessing
NOW WATCH: Watch how Joe Biden has aged from 1974 to 2022
Joe Biden Donald Trump Beau Biden


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Paula Kent Meehan
Photo: Bill Knapp
A thousand mourners gathered on July 5, 2014, at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, to pay their respects to Paula Kent Meehan, who passed away on June 23, 2014. A dedicated philanthropist, Meehan was a generous contributor to numerous UCLA programs. Most recently, she donated $500,000 to establish Paula's PetPal Place within the UCLA People-Animal Connection Program. The new service will allow patients who are hospitalized for extended periods of time to reunite with their own family pets in a specially designated exterior space at Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA. Meehan, founder of Redken Laboratories, used her success to the benefit of people and animals.
Elizabeth Smagala Tate passed away on June 8, 2014, at the age of 38, after a 13-month battle with breast cancer. She attended the UCLA School of Law and met her husband Phil Tate during her time at UCLA. After graduating, she worked for two members of Congress and California Gov. Gray Davis. Most recently, she was in-house counsel at Kilroy Realty Corporation. Smagala Tate grew close to her care team at UCLA Breast Center, Santa Monica, during her treatment, and the family generously requested gifts in her memory to support the center.
On April 8, 2014, Robyn Faye Weinstein passed away at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. The daughter of Susan Pondfield (William Mentlik) and the late Dr. Mark Weinstein, she also is survived by siblings Dr. Stacey Weinstein, in residency at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Carly Mentlik and Jacob Mentlik. Robyn Weinstein's family created the Robyn Faye Weinstein Memorial Fund for Liver Transplantation as a lasting tribute to her life and to her unending desire to help others. Contributions of family and friends will help other liver-transplantation patients have a bright and productive future.


Love your videos on youtube Dill. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Which sarms should I stack with my test cyp 200mg a week?
Im looking to lean out and also heal up a recent shoulder injury.
I have 4 bottles of gw501516 from you already.
you are very welcome! let me know anytime you have further questions!


Nowadays we have an incredible quantity of goods and resources available that humankind has never had before, but everyone can see how food, social inclusion and equity, decent job, access to education and many more other rights, are commonly very far to be of everyone.
According to the 2018 World Bank report, the climate change could force over 140 million to migrate within countries by 2050 and from many parts, the voices call to create new walls, to fight and kill the 'invaders' and to continue to stress the planet with uncontrolled extractions, emissions and or any other kind of activity able to make someone more and more rich.
Any occasion for these groups is good to invent a conflict, to produce more weapons, to move the pure madness to the power, to increase intolerable inequalities in the distribution of wealth, to make discriminations, to create new walls and new barriers and to block the free circulation of ideas, values and individuals.
And what is our role of educators? Do we have any duty against all this? Do we have any obligation to talk or to think different from others? Are we anymore able to distinguish among a tv show and the real life?
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This past weekend's Higher Dimension Encounter Conference held at Faith Factor Church in Niagara Falls, Ontario was a great success, and a blessing for the Region. Hosts Apostle Victor Phillips and his wife Pastor Victoria Phillips welcomed speakers Dr. Mike EfeZino from Glory and Peace Church, Winnipeg, Dr. Charles J. Sathmary of Chapelhill Ministries, Oakville, Rev. William Areloegbe, Texas, Dr. Gary Whetstone of Jesus Experience, Delaware, and special guest speaker Dr. Morris Cerullo.
The conference was a great source of encouragement and impartation, as the speakers focused on the power of the Holy Spirit, that empowers and changes every situation, while revitalizing and increasing our faith in Christ Jesus. It was a time of healing, breakthroughs, miracles and prophecy.
If you are ever in Niagara Falls area, Faith Factor Church is a place that you will find an atmosphere richly charged with the presence of the Holy Spirit. You will have the opportunity to interact with people of like precious faith who will encourage you as you develop lasting relationships.
In 1993 he suffered a massive strokes, and given little chance of survival he called out to God, and miraculously God restored him out of an impossible situation. This was to be the first of 14 supernatural healings attributed to the loving and healing power of almighty God. In total Charles suffered 8 strokes, four massive, and four T.I.A.'s (Transient Ischemic Attack), two different cancers, including a bronchial tumor, reportorial collapse, the closing of the whole in his heart (which is medically impossible), and the latest miracle, totally healed of an extremely painful Intestinal Ischemia (or Abdominal Stroke) when God commanded him to get out of his bed and walk.
Charles has devoted himself to encouraging and challenging others to embrace practical biblical truths and its application. He is a witness to thousands of healings as God continuously uses him to pray for the sick, and see the miraculous happen in their lives.
So don't miss this time of faith building and healing as Charles ministers Saturday July 14th at 10:30 AM.
Chapelhill International Ministries is pleased to announce the appointment of three new members of its Board of Directors. Joining the Board of Directors are Carlos Garcia, Ellen Hickton, and Juan Flores. The Board provides leadership for carrying out the Ministries mission through our various initiatives. " All three of our newest Board members embody the true spirit of unity in Christ, a commitment to the furtherance of the Gospel, and Christian values; each of them bring their unique talents and energy to the table. We are very fortunate to have them by our side as we continue to accomplish our mandate and advance the Kingdom of God for His glory." Rev. Dr. Charles J. Sathmary, Executive Director.
Carlos Garcia, Chapelhill's newest board member, is a Senior Technologist with Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario. Carlos brings a wealth of committee and board experience as V.P of Membership for OPSEU, JHSC and others. He is devoted to his faith and as such, has and continues to service in the local church in various capacities.
Carlos Garcia will assume the role as Director and Chair of our Planning Committee, and will serve a three year term in this position. The Planning Committee is a vital part of the ministry in regards to oversight of initiatives, outreaches, events, scheduling, associations and affiliations as well as determining budgets.
Ellen Hickton, of Oakville, Ontario, and graduate of Masters College, (formally Eastern Pentecostal Bible College) joins the Board as a committee advisor for Operation Christian Card, an outreach to the homeless; conducted every Christian Eve. Ellen will serve in this capacity for a t hree year term, as she and the committee look to expand the ministry to cities all over North America.
Ellen and her late husband John Hickton, have always had a special heart for those less fortunate, and have demonstrated their love and compassion through this special ministry. Thus, we are honoured to have such a prayerful individual as Ellen join the Chapelhill family.
Chapelhill is pleased to announce the addition of Juan Flores to the Board. Juan will assume the role as Chair of the Outreach Committee, and will also serve a three year term in this position.
Juan brings an invested interest into the position as he himself has been a beneficiary of an outreach program. His drive and determination will ensure our outreach programs around the world will have the desired impact in people's lives and for the Kingdom. We look forward to his leadership in this newly created role.
This weekend, Toronto was blessed to have Dr. Morris Cerullo in town to impart to the body of Christ as well as church leadership. The 87 year old evangelist and prophet, who is also celebrating 72 years in ministry was in town to promote his last crusade in Canada this coming October, and to show his appreciation for the out pouring of love and support he has received over the many years, and especially recently.
Over a year ago, Morris Cerullo was sent home to die from an incurable flesh eating disease called Vasculitis. This disease attached his right leg eating away at his flesh, and also leaving his right leg paralyzed. Bedridden, unable to walk, and with no help forthcoming from the doctors, God miraculously healed him. Dr. Cerullo said " when God healed me, I crossed over into a fresh anointing and experience with Him". Then he said, that God told him, to show the world the miracle God preformed in his life, and in doing so the miracle working power of His presence will be there for all those in need.
Revitalized and recharged Dr. Cerullo has been travelling the world honouring God, by displaying the miraculous and praying for the sick. During this time his heart for souls has always been at the forefront of his heart; and because of that desire, God has released him to conduct his final four crusades, of which, one will be in Toronto this October.
Today the world says goodbye to a dear friend, and brother in Christ Jesus. He now takes up new residence in glory, where peace, love and joy and the eternal presence of the Lord are with him. I know Billy is exactly where he wants to be, as I remember, not too long ago his grandson Will asked a group of pastors not to pray for his granddad if they got word that he was in poor health. He said, his granddad was looking forward to going home and being with the great love of his soul.
William Franklin Graham Jr. was an American Christian Protestant evangelist and an ordained Southern Baptist minister who became well known internationally after 1949. He has been called one of the most influential preachers of the 20th century. Billy Graham was known for he large outdoor crusades, in which millions gave their lives to Christ.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family, and all those who knew and loved him.
The legacy left by Billy Graham will continue to bear fruit for generations to come.
Reverend Charles J. Sathmary, Executive Director and Senior Pastor of Chapelhill International Ministries has been invited to appear on nation's longest running Christian television program 100 Huntley Street. Charles will sharing his amazing testimony of how God has miraculously healed him multiple times from strokes to cancer, and how his total faith in God was the key.
If you, or someone you know has been believing for your healing, be it physical or emotional, please don't miss this program. It will encourage you in new ways to increase your faith, to trust in the promises of God, while developing a conquering faith that leads to victory.
Tapping is set for this February, with the broadcast date sometime in March. Keep checking this page for more details, and please keep Charles in your prayers.
Dr. Morris Cerullo makes, what might be his last visit to Canada to conduct The Toronto Night of Miracles this June.
Dr. Cerullo has served God for 70 years, preaching, teaching and evangelizing around the world. Millions under his ministries have come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and countless more have received miraculous healing through this anointed ministry.
Only recently at the age of 85, brother Cerullo did battle with a deadly, incurable disease, vasculitis, which ate away at the flesh of his leg and left it paralyzed. Morris Cerullo continued to stand in faith for his healing, even when the doctors gave him little hope; but he received the greatest miracle ever in his life. God fully healed him and restored the flesh back to his leg. " I can't wait to share this with all our friends and partners in Toronto this June" said Dr. Cerullo via video recording to a partners meeting in Toronto.
The Toronto Night of Miracles – June 9, 2017, 7 PM at Canada Christian College, 50 Gervais Drive, Toronto, Ontario.
Kenneth Copeland arrives in Toronto this June to conduct The Toronto Blessing Explosion. This will be an amazing time of spiritual blessing with Kenneth Copeland, as he immerse those in attendance in the Word of God, sharing 50 years of faith filled Ministry.
"I have picked this spot to become a fountain, to become an explosive outpouring, that will consume all in its path with glory, the peace, the anointing and goodness of God" says brother Copeland. God's people are rising up, a new breed of believer is in the land, standing in the authority of the Kingdom, and declaring the blessings in Jesus name.
Be a part of this life-changing opportunity to bask in the anointing and victory as Kenneth Copeland blesses Toronto during this wonderful time in his ministry.
The Toronto Victory Campaign, June 29 – July 1, 2017 – Attwell Centre Toronto – 272 Attwell Drive, Toronto, Ontario.


Chachalacas Water Park is granted fun for children and adults! At Chachalacas Hotel we have the only Water Park in Veracruz, a place where you can enjoy a Wave Pool, Water Slides, Swimming pool for kids and common areas for the whole family.
Also, the Water Park has direct access to Chachalacas Beach (only weekend), so you'll have the advantage of having the unique attraction of the Veracruz beaches at your total reach.


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When computer programmer Merle Knotts retired, he decided he was not going to just sit around, not on a couch anyway. Instead, in 2007, he set out from his home in Marietta, Georgia, to cycle to Oak Harbor, Washington and attend his 50-year high school class reunion. Though his wife, Jan, accompanied him driving an RV support vehicle, at 68 years of age some would say that he was being too ambitious. But he did just fine in spite of a 2004 titanium knee replacement. In addition, Merle was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1980, and at one point in his life was unable to walk. He wrote, "My MS has settled into a mostly sensory impairment pattern, leaving me free to get around and do almost anything I want to do. I feel blessed that after nearly 30 years of having the disease it seldom involves my motor skills."
Nonetheless, we can only admire Merle's pluck and enthusiasm.
During the course of his 3,420-mile journey he raised more than $14,000 for the Georgia Chapter of the Multiple Sclerosis Society.
Merle was riding a Catrike equipped with 3 chainrings, 9 freewheels and a 3-speed hub, giving him a grand total of 81 gear choices. He said that Missouri was the only state where he used the full range of gears from first to eighty-first.


Surround your activities with these lil' keychain's. Simple powerful energy bombs, held by a mantra and a crystal - - cleared, charged and ready to amplify what surrounds them. Silver with matte white protector paired it with a Multi Fluorite to absorb and neutralize energy and stress. Each tag comes with a gold key ring + a dose of high vibrations.
- Silver tag "Travel light, live light, spread the light, be the light"


cleidocranial dysostosis (kly-doh-kray-niăl dis-os-toh-sis) n. a congenital defect of bone formation in which the skull bones ossify imperfectly and the collar bones (clavicles) are absent.
"cleidocranial dysostosis." A Dictionary of Nursing. . Encyclopedia.com. 26 Apr. 2019 <https://www.encyclopedia.com>.


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Learn and discover
Hear from the source
Your guide to the new standards for pets in South Australia
03 Aug 2017 2 min read
Buying a new pet in SA? You can now rest assured they're raised in acceptable conditions. Here's what it means.
Pets are part of the family, with more than 60 per cent of South Australian households having a family pet.
Whether it's a dog's warm welcome home or a cat's snuggles at night, or even a parrot's catchy morning tune, pets are such an important part of the lives of the majority of SA families.
The new standards for breeding and trading pets in SA will ensure they are bred and sold with care.
Here's the low-down on the new law
As of the start of August this year, the South Australian Standards and Guidelines for Breeding and Trading Companion Animals came into effect.
These standards set a minimum to ensure the health and welfare requirements of companion animals are met.
The standards apply to anyone who breeds or sells pets in SA, including at pet shops, shelters, dog and cat breeders or any other person selling a pet.
They must ensure that the housing, husbandry, veterinary care and living environment provided to the animals for sale, and their parents, meet these standards.
The standards target puppy farms and people who put profits before the welfare of animals for sale, and will be regulated under the Animal Welfare Regulations 2012 and enforced by the RSPCA.
Ask to see paperwork before you buy
The standards require the seller to provide the buyer with paperwork about caring for the animal, information about the type of pet or breed, and any legal requirements or medical history.
New animal breeding standards
What's next for pets?
The new breeding and trading standards are one of many changes being made in SA to ensure the welfare of our dogs, cats and other companion animals.
The changes are the most significant to our companion animal management laws in more than 20 years.
For all the details on the new breeding and trading standards visit our website.
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Because Linux is a multiuser operating system, security is often based on accounts. Each person is provided a user account (see Chapter 7, "Managing User Accounts," for details), and each user account is a member of one or more group accounts.
The group accounts are used to provide access or apply restrictions to user accounts that are members of a group. This access/restriction can be applied to files, directories, or other operating system features. By using group accounts, you can easily apply a security policy to multiple user accounts.
In this chapter, you learn more about the concept of group accounts. You also explore how to create, modify, and delete group accounts.


When you're browsing a fitness magazine or the interwebs for diet and fitness information you will no doubt be exposed to pictures of fitness models.
In some cases the models are in an ad openly endorsing a given product like a supplement or workout system or device, but in many other cases the models are simply displayed within articles about training or nutrition. In both cases we learn to associate the look of the model to have something to do with the information we're reading.
2006 - Laurens First Photoshoot ever!
This can be very misleading if you don't know the story behind the picture and the model in that picture. In todays podcast you'll get to know the model in the above pictures and the story that goes with them.
Lauren Jacobsen is a national level figure competitor and has been working in the supplement industry for the better part of the last 10 years. She's knows what goes into making a professional ad and photoshoot both from the marketing side and the model side. She has been a model in multiple photoshoots and today she will reveal some of the 'secrets' behind them.
When it comes to fitness photoshoots a picture is truly worth 1000 words, and today those words are going to be Lauren explaining to you what really goes into a photoshoot and the look of a fitness/figure model.
Pursuing the goal of a better shape and a better feeling body is always a good thing, it will give you a sense of self confidence, and a feeling of empowerment but you have to do it for yourself and on your terms. You can do a competition if you like, or you can simply book a photoshoot and do your best to get in your best shape. With a little insight and effort you can have a professional looking photoshoot just like Lauren.
Going through the process of preparing for a photoshoot may show you once and for all that you can get your body to look every bit as good as a figure model if you want to. But the key is that it's got to be your choice and on your terms.
Listen up ladies, because this is going to be very revealing about what really happens in the competitive realm of figure and fitness competitions as well as the behind the scenes look at photoshoots and what you're really looking at in magazines and online.
It's a big reminder to never compare yourself to anyone else besides yourself…and especially not to a picture of a fitness model that you've never met in person.


After a moment of uneasy calm, Boko Haram on Friday resonated its season of anomie detonating a suicide vest at a crowded market in Gombi town in Adamawa state.
A vigilante leader confirmed the incident saying that 20 people including the bomber died in the explosion.
The military authorities at the 23 Armoured Brigade in Yola is said to be making deployment.
(NEMA) Abdulkadir Ibrahim, said that eight people died while 27 others sustained different degrees of injuries.
they ran in panic, with traders abandoning their stalls.
Gombi was recaptured from Boko Haram in 2014 and since then, the terrorists have made several failed attempts to recapture the town from the Nigerian army.
However, despite successes, the sect is still far from being eliminated.


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Who names their dog Booger? {Groomer Has It}
Mario DiFante is a "Mobile Grooming Consultant" who is also the executive director of "Pet Fashion Week." It was Mario who judged the Quick Sniff Mobile Grooming Challenge. Jorge, who was last weeks winner, picked Jonathan to be his partner. Actually, It would have been more fun to see how they got these vans messy in the first place than to watch the contestants clean them. The interiors were so nasty that Jonathan scoffed, "I do not go around cleaning up after people. It's not my job."
Jorge (about Jonathan): "It's hard to fit yourself, and him, and his ego in a small place. I thought I would have to hose him down at some point."
When time was up, Mario inspected the trucks literally with a white glove. I think Mario would have been more disgusted with the condition with Hell's Kitchen. Kathleen and Artist won the challenge and received a mobile GPS as a reward.
At dinner that night, Kathleen and Jonathan made fun of groomers who put plastic flowers in their vans and according to Kathleen, "happily wear polyester." Artist said he never wore a uniform and Jonathan said that wearing a black tank top isn't appropriate if your dealing with certain types of people. Jonathan's dress for success attitude didn't impress Artist who said he would work at a Humane Society for free.
Watching Jonathan and Jorge navigate the streets of Los Angeles in a mobile Grooming truck was like watching Dumb and Dumber. Apparently Jonathan will hire his own driver in the future because he doesn't drive, he grooms. Jorge's comment was hilarious: "We are from New York. We don't use maps, we just tell the cab driver where to go." Jonathan and Jorge made all of their appointments on time (barely), and managed to put a hole in the roof of their truck in the process. But they figured they would be OK because they would not be judged on the condition of their vehicle.
At judging, Jonathan said, "There was a low hanging branch that did hit the top of the van." Apparently Jonathan thought he was in Narnia where the tree branches have minds of their own.
Jonathan also trimmed a dog's ears wrong. Interestingly, this was the same mistake that sent Jasper home, but this week Jonathan won–go figure. However, the judges determined that Kathleen's made two fatal mistakes when grooming Eloise, the Coton de Tulear 1) Forgetting the Kwik Stop and 2) not letting the client know that the dog's nails could bleed afterwards.
Kathleen bowed out gracefully; she was smart enough to know not to say anything bad about Artist, who is quickly becoming the show's unsung hero.
Honestly, I have to admit what bothered me the most about this episode was that General Hospital actress Kelly Monaco named her French Bulldog "Booger." Who names a dog Booger? Kelly looks too young to remember Curtis Armstrong's character of Booger from Revenge of the Nerds, so what's up with that name? It was funny, however, to see Karen "Doc" Halligan ask with a straight face, "Was this Booger's first grooming?" But it would have been even funnier if they groomed Pink's dog whose name is "F**cker."
I'm still rooting for Artist to take the title!
Photos: Narnia's Creepy Trees, Coton de Tulear, French Bulldog, and Curtis Armstrong, the original "Booger" in Revenge of the Nerds (1984).
1 Comment	| blogs, Controversy, Dog First aid, Dog Grooming, Dogs, Entertainment, Groomer Has It, Humor, Karen "doc" Halligan, MAD TV, opinion, pets, PJ Bottoms, Pop Culture, Reality TV, Revenge of the Nerds, tabloid press, talent, Television, TV Appearances, Uncategorized	| Tagged: Booger from Revenge of the Nerds, Coton de Tulear, Dumb and Dumber, French Bulldog, General Hospital, Groomer Artist, Groomer Has It, Groomer Jonathan, Groomer Jorge, Groomer Kathleen, Hell's Kitchen, Humane Society, Kelly Monaco, Kwik Stop, Mario diFante, Mobile Grooming Consultant, Narnia, New York, Pet Fashion Week, Pink, Pink's dog, Quick Sniff Mobile Grooming Challenge, Revenge of the Nerds	| Permalink


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Which Platform is Right for Me?
Posted in Platform Talk
The engine behind every ecommerce site is its platform. In modern retail, selecting a platform is one of the most important decisions a merchant makes in the course of their business. The platform needs to suit their business needs today, yet have room to scale. Given that retailers will be working and growing their company with the platform for years to come, how do they choose the right one?
In this Recommerce episode, you'll learn:
How businesses at different stages of ecommerce maturity should think about platform options.
Why emerging retailers should think about Minimum Viable Product (MVP) first.
Key differences between a SaaS platform, like Shopify, and a self-hosting platform like Magento.
Nuanced considerations between Shopify, Magento, and Big Commerce platforms.
Welcome to Recommerce, a podcast for ecommerce wearable brands navigating technical complexity and change, brought to you by Command C.
Sara Bacon: Hello, I'm Sara Bacon, the founder of Command C. I'm here with Tiffany Kuchta, our tech lead.
Tiffany Kuchta: Hi everyone. This week we're going to talk a little bit about how to select the right platform for your ecommerce site.
Sara Bacon: Tif, a client comes to us saying that they need a new site. Where do they begin in terms of selecting a platform that's going to meet all their needs and be nimble enough to scale?
Tiffany Kuchta: Oh geez, that is the million dollar question. I think there's really two types of this particular request. The first is someone who's coming to us because they're building a site for the first time. They've never really done ecommerce before. Maybe they have some retail experience or maybe their product has been in retail for a while, and they're looking to expand in ecommerce, but this is sort of their first trip to the rodeo and they don't really know what to expect. Their understanding of what they need is somewhat limited to what they've experienced from other similar ecommerce platforms. They may or may not have some existing operations tools that need to be integrated with, but because this is the first time, everything is kind of fresh and new and more flexible.
The second type of this request comes in when we're talking about a client who has all of their ecommerce ducks already in a row, or they've been in the ecommerce space for a while. They have a sense of what works and what doesn't work, and for whatever reason, they've decided that what they currently have isn't working, and so they're ready to re-platform, or they're ready to upgrade the platform that they're currently on, or make some other kind of shift. But they have existing structures and those existing structures are in a lot of cases immutable. We can't change them. We can't tell them they have to use a different 3PL (Third-Party Logistics Provider). We can't modify the ERP. At that point in time, we really need to enter into a lot of discovery in order to determine which of these two types of projects we're working with. Then within that, what things does the ecommerce store need to connect to in order to maintain and to sort of provide only good disruption to the business?
Sara Bacon: Yeah. I think that there's also sort of this in between client who has a successful ecommerce store already, but is either looking to rebrand themselves, or to try out a new market, or to try something a little bit different, which is also I think an important thing to understand because that client might also still have some of these immutable things like an ERP, or other underlying foundational business and operations piece that can't change. But I think it's also important to acknowledge that there's also an in-between client. I think what we would recommend for them is also very specific to the fact that they're trying something new. What it comes down to is: are you trying something new? Or are you recreating the same thing on a more optimized platform, or with automation in place, or something along those lines? I think those are kind of the key differentiators. Are you doing something new, or are you doing the same thing, but looking for an optimized solution to do that same thing?
What it comes down to is: are you trying something new? Or are you recreating the same thing on a more optimized platform, or with automation in place, or something along those lines?
Tiffany Kuchta: Definitely. The people in that in-between group, they tend to sort of contain characteristics from both places. For example, one of the things that we would definitely recommend for somebody who's just entering into ecommerce is to consider an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) approach that allows them to get to market and start collecting data about how people actually interact in the ecom space with their product. That's a similar thing that I think we would recommend for someone in that in-between group that's trying something new. I mean, personally, those are some of my very favorite projects because they have the predictability of an established business model along with the flexibility and the excitement of a Kickstarter campaign. These ones are really, really fun to work on, and they do have a very different sort of approach that lets us possibly take an MVP. Whereas with an established ecommerce brand, there really isn't a world in which you can go to market with something that isn't at least as polished and final as what they had previously.
Sara Bacon: Yeah. The difference that we're talking about between these two approaches is 1) starting with something that's more lean and scaled back, what we could call an MVP. Or 2) going to market with something that is flushed out and feature rich because you've already proven that those features work and are core to your business model. If we're talking about this MVP approach, how do we help clients define what that MVP is? What's the benefit of going to market with an MVP versus something that's fully-flushed out with all the bells and whistles? I can see the logic in "I want to make a splash here, I want to come to market with the thing that's going to get everyone's attention and make them buy from us." What's the difference between those two things?
Tiffany Kuchta: I think that that can be driven a lot by budget and risk tolerance. In a perfect world, yes, we all go to market with the product that does all of the things that we need it to do. But the reality is that's often not an option for either a second brand that's just releasing, or for a brand that is brand new. Additionally, going to market with a list of features that you have made assumptions about is and can be really dangerous. It's not only dangerous for your pocketbook, because obviously it costs money to build those features. Then the features exist and you don't know how people are going to interact with them. But you also risk not allowing the product to be the thing that sells the product. That goes into a level of business understanding that I, as a tech lead, typically don't get involved in, but it's important to consider because you can build anything you can think of. I think the speed of technology has proven that to us. You can build absolutely anything, but making assumptions about what that should be shouldn't be the way that you decide to build it.
Going to market with a list of features that you have made assumptions about is and can be really dangerous….You risk not allowing the product to be the thing that sells the product.
Sara Bacon: We've identified that there's these two types of clients depending on where their business is. We work with a number of different platforms, but the two that we work with the most tend to be Shopify Plus and Magento, which have some pretty core differences. Let's talk about how the differences in these platforms might correspond to the two different types of businesses that we're talking about here.
Tiffany Kuchta: Yeah absolutely. I think that the first most important thing to understand is that we're talking about the difference between a hosted platform, so software as a service (SaaS). Here you're paying a subscription fee, and all of the core code that runs that shopping platform is outside your control and hosted and maintained by the provider. Shopify is that. Then the alternative to that is, for example, Magento, and Magento can be self-hosted. There are also some advanced hosting options with it. We could spend seven podcasts just talking about Magento, so I'll curb myself back a little bit there. But, it's a platform for which you are responsible for the infrastructure. You are responsible for the maintenance. You are responsible for the system security.
Yes, it comes with a great amount of flexibility. There are no limitations. We're not limited to what we can do with the core code. It's open source, so we can do anything with it. Even the enterprise version, once we have it, can be modified to do anything and can be extended to do anything. But at the end of the day you're responsible for all of that. Magento is not a lightweight. It's a big somewhat labyrinthine application that requires a development team. It's not something that I would ever recommend you take on if you don't have technical folks on staff who can be responsible for it in the long term. On staff or contracted, but you need people with expertise in that platform to do it.
So I think the line becomes really clear. If you're just getting into eCommerce and you're not really sure, and you don't have a high need for customization, the investment in Magento may not make sense for you out of the gate.
Sara Bacon: What if you have a fairly decent need for customization? I mean does that just mean Shopify is not going to work for you? What's the limit there in terms of how far can I push this thing?
Tiffany Kuchta: That's a really good question. I think it's tempting to think of the security and the self-containment of a hosted platform as a huge limiting factor. Unfortunately, or fortunately rather, it's not the case. Shopify, for example, has a super robust API. We can do a lot to extend it. We can build applications that communicate with it and that sort of work outside of it. The line comes, in my opinion, based on again your budget. At a certain point when we have done so much work to extend something, it may not have made budgetary sense to choose it for its less expensive startup cost. That's where I think that line comes into play. That's why technical discovery is so important to identify what are those things that would require hours and hours of development work to tack on to something like Shopify that maybe you would already either have out of the box with Magento or be able to readily add.
It's also tempting to assume that a hosted platform like Shopify is going to require you to rely on a lot more third-party providers, that you're going to need a lot more apps. As it turns out, with Magento, despite the fact that it's self-hosted, we're not editing the core. We're not changing core Magento functionality. We're using the tools that they've given us within the coding standards to extend that functionality anyway. Because that's the case that means that we don't want to reinvent the wheel any more than you do. If there's a good solid extension that accomplishes what you need, that extension is going to get installed. Now you're in a slightly different situation and it's backwards from what you might think. Shopify, for example, polices and monitors its app ecosystem. Those apps don't get there unless someone from the Shopify team has said it's okay for them to get there. Additionally, you have sort of guaranteed support from them.
This is something that the Magento marketplace has come a long way in, but you can still readily get extensions that do not guarantee you support and that you don't really know anything about how they were built. At that point, you're potentially leaning on a developer to analyze the code within that extension and you're sort of six to one half dozen of the other at that point. I think that it is a bad idea to make your sole deciding factor how many extra apps you're going to need to make the platform work because it's really, in practice it's not that much different between the two solutions.
Sara Bacon: Yeah. I guess that's bringing up for me something that I see a lot, which is I think that there's, I don't want to say a myth out there, but I see a pattern with more enterprise-level clients thinking that they can't use Shopify because it's too low grade a solution for them. I mean even beyond the myth that it's not flexible enough to them. I think that there's just kind of like this notion that as an enterprise level client I need to be on Magento, and likewise for the opposite as maybe a startup I need to be on Shopify. I think that that's flawed thinking, but a pattern that I see over and over again. How do you help clients get past that notion? What's a scenario where an enterprise level client the best platform for them really is Shopify Plus and not Magento?
Tiffany Kuchta: I think an easy scenario for that is when their ecommerce specific needs are not that unique, they're not needing to build on a ton of extra applications. At that point what you're really looking at is just sort of brand recognition. Like you said, it's that idea that Magento is for enterprise and Shopify is for little startups that are selling one product. The fact of the matter is that Shopify's ecosystem is incredibly robust and very reliable, and you don't have to manage it. You don't need a 10 person IT staff to manage your AWS cluster so that Magento doesn't fall down when you get 500 orders in a second. You don't need that.
Sara Bacon: I think what you're saying and sort of my perspective on this is that the focus should be on the needs, not the level of enterprise you are. I see that getting confused a lot.
My perspective is that the focus should be on the needs, not the level of enterprise.
Tiffany Kuchta: I think so, too, and it's sort of my favorite thing to – complain is maybe too strong of a word, but we'll use it anyway – my favorite thing to complain about is self-prescription. Without the technical underpinnings to understand why one solution is better for you than another, choosing a solution without that information might land you in the wrong bucket. That doesn't always mean it's a catastrophic mistake. I mean so you landed on Magento and you didn't really need it. What that means is you maybe spent a little bit more money to get it there and now you have some longer-term maintenance that you have to deal with. There were trade-offs, so it's okay. But at the end of the day, you weren't operating with all of the knowledge you would have needed to make the absolute best decision for you in either the short or the long-term in that case.
Without the technical underpinnings to understand why one solution is better for you than another, choosing a solution without that information might land you in the wrong bucket.
Interlude: You're listening to Recommerce, a podcast for ecommerce wearable brands navigating technical complexity and change, brought to you by Command C, a development team that saves ecommerce retailers from outdated tech and ineffective operations with a strong focus on Magento and Shopify Plus. You can learn more about how we help at commandc.com.
Sara Bacon: Alright, so pivoting a little bit. Say that we have gone through a technical discovery with a client and everything about this client says hosted platform. They don't need super intense amount of customization that really makes Magento feel like the right choice for them, but within the hosted platform world there are some fairly comparable platforms. The two that we encounter most frequently and work with most frequently are Shopify Plus and Big Commerce. I think maybe the more nuanced question is how do you help a client decide whether Shopify Plus or Big Commerce is a better solution for them when those solutions are pretty comparable in nature?
Tiffany Kuchta: Yeah, and they really are. Before I jump into answering that, one thing that I just kind of want to bring up is that we keep talking about customizations and I want to clarify that I'm not talking about what it looks and feels like on the front end. All of those platforms can really truly be made to look and for the most part function in any way that you can imagine. We're not talking about the difference between picking a cookie cutter theme that 500 other people have versus something that your designer brought to us and we built for you. This is not what we're talking about when we say customizations. When we say customizations we're saying, let's say you need to build a full-scale model that implements a configurator into your site. That kind of level of functionality may help to drive the platform decision based on what your specific needs are.
Sara Bacon: Yeah, good clarification there.
Tiffany Kuchta: To go back to your original question though which is, how do we pick between these two or more hosted platforms that are relatively similar? There are some key differences and I think that's where to start. The key difference that I see between Shopify and Big Commerce has to do with faceted search. What we mean by faceted search are the filters, the filters on the side of your categories page that help users to narrow down and drill down into the product set that they want specifically. Think about Amazon. Every time you've ever shopped on Amazon, you get this really robust set of filters that is generated based on the page that you're currently on. I firmly believe it uses a whole bunch of other stuff to add things to that column, but we just talk about that filter list.
The key difference that I see between Shopify and Big Commerce has to do with faceted search.
In Magento, it's called layered navigation and it just kind of comes out of the box. In Big Commerce, it's faceted search, and it's there for you. You can assign product attributes to be filterable in this manner, and you can also specify the logic by which those get filtered. With Shopify, those filters are tag driven out of the box. Not only are they tag driven, but they also have, because they are tag driven, they have a very specific way that they function out of the box. What that means is that if I want to see products that are green and red, I can absolutely pick both green and red, but it is going to show me only products that contain both of those colors, so only a green and red plaid shirt, whereas a faceted search that uses a different query for searching might serve you a green shirt, a red shirt, and a green and red shirt. This is sort of tag based out of the box, but Shopify can absolutely be extended to handle all of those filtering scenarios.
It's just something to remember that if faceted search is really important to you, but not so important that you want to spend a lot of time and effort getting it set up and rolling, then that would be one thing that I would consider. Shopify also uses collections for managing products as opposed to a true category hierarchy. What this means essentially is that all of your product categories are at the same level. There aren't really children of one another. In practice, this almost never matters. Although in theory, you can see that the difference is that you basically don't have a tree structure for your products anymore, you have kind of a set of groupings. Collections can also be really flexible and add a lot of flexibility because it forces you to think about your products in a slightly different way, and so there are pros and cons to both of those.
Those are the two biggest things that I see. As far as reliability goes, both platforms are extremely reliable. Pricing depends on your unique needs. We won't get into that here, but they're both worth considering. Ultimately, just like the decision between a hosted platform a not hosted platform, what you're looking at is an ability to understand the technical needs of your project to determine where it will best fit.
Sara Bacon: Great. Well, thanks for another great chat. I'll talk to you next time.
Tiffany Kuchta: Sounds great. Thanks.
https://commandc.com/updates-to-shopify-admin/
Updates to Shopify Admin
Published onMay 2, 2016 by Melissa Eggleston
https://commandc.com/shopify-meetup-durham/
Shopify Meetup Durham
Published onMay 16, 2017 by Nicole Reed
https://commandc.com/our-real-world-experience-with-shopify-plus/
Our Real World Experience with Shopify Plus
Published onMarch 16, 2016 by Melissa Eggleston
Published on May 2, 2016 by Melissa Eggleston
Published on May 16, 2017 by Nicole Reed
Published on March 16, 2016 by Melissa Eggleston


What can health promotion bring to your business?
Sickness absence costs UK businesses £14 billion a year, with musculoskeletal disorders and work related stress being among the top causes of absenteeism. A healthy, motivated workforce has been proven to result in not only cost savings but higher levels of productivity which is fundamental to an organisations success. Implementing health programmes in your business doesn't have to be expensive, time consuming or complicated. It's a preventive, promotional strategy that can help you to reduce sickness absence and inspire greater commitment and efficiency among your workforce.
Why is there a need for health promotion?
Approximately 11.3 million working days were lost in 2014 due to work related stress, depression & anxiety.
Smoking, alcohol & substance abuse – we can educate employees of the side effects, provide carbon monoxide testing, offer support and discuss substance misuse in the workplace.
Movewell – leading an active lifestyle.
Thinkwell – Building mental resilience, work life balance and relaxation techniques.
Eatwell – Nutrition, weight management and portion sizes.
Support for musculoskeletal problems – we can undertake ergonomic assessments, advise changes to the workplace setting and raise awareness about reducing prolonged sitting and poor working positions.
From a simple initiative to the development of a wellness strategy, health promotion at Staywell is designed bespoke to your company and employee needs. We work in partnership with you to develop a targeted approach that will make a real difference.
It is important that you can identify the main business objectives that will underpin your wellness programme so we can prioritise your organisations key needs and identify the interventions that aim to deliver the greatest impact.
For full scale programmes we offer the option to conduct a pilot programme with a small percentage of employees before committing to a full roll out.