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Adolescent Risk and Vulnerability: Concepts and Measurement (2001)
Consensus Study Report
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Adolescent Risk and Vulnerability
Concepts and Measurement (2001)
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Consensus Study Report: Consensus Study Reports published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine document the evidence-based consensus on the study's statement of task by an authoring committee of experts. Reports typically include findings, conclusions, and recommendations based on information gathered by the committee and the committee's deliberations. Each report has been subjected to a rigorous and independent peer-review process and it represents the position of the National Academies on the statement of task.
National Research Council; Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education; Institute of Medicine; Board on Children, Youth, and Families; Baruch Fischhoff, Elena O. Nightingale, and Joah G. Iannotta, Editors
Adolescents obviously do not always act in ways that serve their own best interests, even as defined by them. Sometimes their perception of their own risks, even of survival to adulthood, is larger than the reality; in other cases, they underestimate the risks of particular actions or behaviors. It is possible, indeed likely, that some adolescents engage in risky behaviors because of a perception of invulnerability—the current conventional wisdom of adults' views of adolescent behavior. Others, however, take risks because they feel vulnerable to a point approaching hopelessness. In either case, these perceptions can prompt adolescents to make poor decisions that can put them at risk and leave them vulnerable to physical or psychological harm that may have a negative impact on their long-term health and viability.
A small planning group was formed to develop a workshop on reconceptualizing adolescent risk and vulnerability. With funding from Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Workshop on Adolescent Risk and Vulnerability: Setting Priorities took place on March 13, 2001, in Washington, DC. The workshop's goal was to put into perspective the total burden of vulnerability that adolescents face, taking advantage of the growing societal concern for adolescents, the need to set priorities for meeting adolescents' needs, and the opportunity to apply decision-making perspectives to this critical area. This report summarizes the workshop.
Behavioral and Social Sciences — Children, Youth and Families
Health and Medicine — Children's Health
Institute of Medicine and National Research Council. 2001. Adolescent Risk and Vulnerability: Concepts and Measurement. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/10209.
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Paperback: 978-0-309-07620-3
Ebook: 978-0-309-17036-9
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17226/10209
RESOURCES AT A GLANCE
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Front Matter i-xii
1. Adolescent Risk and Vulnerability: Overview 1-14
2. Perceptions of Risk and Vulnerability 15-49
3. Vulnerability, Risk, and Protection 50-72
4. Modeling the Payoffs of Interventions to Reduce Adolescent Vulnerability 73-108
5. Adolescent Vulnerability: Measurement and Priority Setting 109-144
Appendix: Workshop Materials 145-152
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Good news, coffee lovers. You can get free coffee at Wawa on Today (April 11). It's a day that fans of the popular chain look forward to every year.
I don't drink coffee, but, if you do, you're probably happy about this. I figured you'd be happy about this. Customers will be able to get a free hot coffee. You can get any size (up to 24 ounces).
Let's be real here for a second. There are Wawas everywhere, so you could probably get your 2nd cup for free on the next block. Of course, I am guessing that Wawas everywhere will be packed, so be patient.
I drive by a Wawa every morning on my way to work, and it's always packed.
Did you know this is the 55th anniversary of Wawa? Free coffee day is actually the way the chain celebrates its anniversary. I saw on 6ABC that Wawa wants you to use the hashtag, #WawaDay on today, when posting your free cup on social media.
Check out where all the Wawas in your area are by clicking HERE. Good luck waiting in line on oday to pour that coffee, and a special shoutout the employees who will be working extra hard.


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Fernando has two lottery tickets each from other lottery. In the first is 973 000 lottery tickets from them wins 687 000, the second has 1425 000 lottery tickets from them wins 1425 000 tickets. What is the probability that at least one Fernando's ticket win?
p = 93.3 %
Would you like to compute count of combinations?
What are the chances that the lottery, in which the numbers are drawn 5 of 50 you win the first prize?
Theorem prove
We want to prove the sentence: If the natural number n is divisible by six, then n is divisible by three. From what assumption we started?
5 cards are chosen from a standard deck of 52 playing cards (13 hearts) with replacement. What is the probability of choosing 5 hearts in a row?
From the urn in which are 7 white balls and 17 red, gradually drag 3-times without replacement. What is the probability that pulls balls are in order: red red red?
How many different triads can be selected from the group 43 students?
In army regiment are six shooters. The first shooter target hit with a probability of 49%, next with 75%, 41%, 20%, 34%, 63%. Calculate the probability of target hit when shooting all at once.
Class - boys and girls
In the class are 60% boys and 40% girls. Long hair has 10% boys and 80% girls. a) What is the probability that a randomly chosen person has long hair? b) The selected person has long hair. What is the probability that it is a girl?
If probabilities of A, B and A ∩ B are P (A) = 0.62 P (B) = 0.78 and P (A ∩ B) = 0.26 calculate the following probability (of union. intersect and opposite and its combinations):
We have n identical balls (numbered 1-n) is selected without replacement. Determine 1) The probability that at least one tensile strength number coincides with the number of balls? 2) Determine the mean and variance of the number of balls, which coincides.
Suppose that are three cards in the hats. One is red on both sides, one of which is black on both sides, and a third one side red and the second black. We are pulled out of a hat randomly one card and we see that one side of it is red. What is the probabi
One green
In the container are 45 white and 15 balls. We randomly select 5 balls. What is the probability that it will be a maximum one green?
The player gets 8 cards of 32. What is the probability that it gets a) all 4 aces b) at least 1 ace
Today in school
There are 9 girls and 11 boys in the class today. What is the probability that Suzan will go to the board today?
Normal distribution GPA
The average GPA is 2.78 with a standard deviation of 4.5. What are students in the bottom the 20% having what GPA?
A book contains 524 pages. If it is known that a person will select any one page between the pages numbered 125 and 384, find the probability of choosing the page numbered 252 or 253.
Here is
Here is a data set (n=117) that has been sorted. 10.4	12.2	14.3	15.3	17.1	17.8	18	18.6	19.1 19.9	19.9	20.3	20.6	20.7	20.7	21.2	21.3	22 22.1	22.3	22.8	23	23	23.1	23.5	24.1	24.1 24.4	24.5	24.8	24.9	25.4	25.4	25.5	25.7	25.9 26	26.1	26.2	26.7	26.8	27.5	27.6
Calculation of CN
Calculate: ?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Previous Adventure Team poll results are located here.
GI Joe and Me My relationship with GI Joe began around 1974 when I was a whopping four years old (just like the fuzzheads). All I got for Christmas that year was GI Joe because I had been bugging my parents about them since my best friend had gotten one. So, there I was, a young toddler with four or five Joes, a footlocker full of gear that I ripped out of all the bright packages, and a helicopter (still one of the coolest AT pieces). I was in heaven. Unfortunately, all of my original Joes, which had grown to over a dozen at their high point, are somewhere in the Caroline County, VA landfill about 20 years down. Oh well, other peoples' toys are filling that void now.
I rediscovered Joe around Christmas of 1996 soon after graduating from college. My wife and I were at Sam's Club and I saw one of the new Masterpiece Edition GI Joe Soldiers. I picked it up for $15.99 and took it home to play with it. It was a weird GI Joe with a bald head, but it had that certain familiarity about it. I jumped on the web and found out that not only were there these new Joes, but the Classic Collection was new, and there were still tons of folks out there collecting and playing with their Joes. I rushed back to Sam's Club and picked up about a dozen assorted ME Joes which were then down to $9.99 (I have since traded away all but a set of four in the boxes because they are just kinda neat shelf items).
More searching on the internet resulted in discovery of alt.toys.gi-joe newsgroup, affectionately known as the "Sandbox". This is a open forum discussion group about GI Joe (and his modern clones) and is inhabited by a generally great bunch of folks. I spend more time reading the "box" than I do my own email. I even got my first original Joe from a trade in the Sandbox.
Now, Joe has taken over a good portion of my life and a big portion of my house. I have over 100 150 Adventure Team figures, a handful of helicopters, jeeps, and other sundry vehicles and play sets. Most of them are pieced together sets and Joes that I managed to buy or trade for over the last few years. What can I say, Joe is Joe and there is nothing else out there like him. He stands for all those things that are so rare in our society now, like honesty, duty, sacrifice, and commitment. Anyway, enough of that babbling, that is where Joe and I stand.
So, like all fathers I know, you want your kids to share in some of the things that you love. In that light, a few years back during a deployment to Iraq, I spent some time online shopping and sent my kids a 40th Anniversary Joe Collection Christmas. Here are some pictures that my lovely wife shared with me since I missed Christmas at home.
Joes on the Living Room Floor next to a Christmas tree. Reminds me of the early 70s.
JD playing with his new Joes.
Andrew checking out his Joe loot and understanding firsthand the awesomeness of KUNG FU GRIP!
My collection started with the Masterpiece Edition GI Joes I talked about a moment ago. Then, I collected all of the Classic Collection releases for 1996, 1997 and 1998. At that point, my AT collection had grown to be rather sizable (about 20 figures) and I was running out of space and money. I knew that I couldn't have it all, so I liquidated my Classic Collection Joes through trades mostly, some sales (usually for a loss). I got rid of the last of it by giving half away to my younger cousins who still "play" with their Joes, and I sold the rest dirt cheap at our pre-moving yard sale. So, since about the beginning of 1999, I have been about 95% Adventure Team pure in my collection which has grown to be a little over 150 figures. Click on the My Collection link above to see more about my Joes.
This link is the most popular on the site. I have listed each uniform set by year and on each list what items complete the set. Each that I own has a picture of the actual item from my collection. Items I don't have are annotated so you can see what is missing.
This will eventually catalog all the non-uniform included accessory kits. Where I have the set, I'll post pictures of it with or without one of my figures as appropriate. If it has multiple pieces, I'll list those.
This link has pictures I've come across of some of the excellent box art of the Adventure Team.
A collection of the recent Reproduction AT Figures including the GI Joe Collector Club, Walmart, and Hot Topic figures.
Some Custom Mego Scale (8 inch) Adventure Team Joes that I pieced together.


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Irish Farmers Journal: a leader in the newspaper field
The title has grown its circulation, put up a paywall and remained a decision-making tool
Across the daily and Sunday markets, the volume of Irish newspapers sold has dropped more than 6 per cent over the past year alone. But the Irish Farmers Journal's circulation edged up 0.5 per cent
Laura Slattery
Thu Feb 27 2014 - 01:10
There is only one national newspaper in Ireland that has seen its print circulation grow both over the past year and since 2006. Owned by a trust, it reinvests the profits it makes in its community. Its journalists are specialists, and are promoted as specialists in their bylines. Confident that its information and expertise is too valuable to be given away for free, it is the only Irish newspaper to have a metered paywall on its website.
Where has it all gone right for the Irish Farmers Journal ? Last week's Audit Bureau of Circulations data was not exactly a joyous harvest for the newspaper industry. Across the daily and Sunday markets, the volume of copies sold has dropped more than 6 per cent over the past year alone.
But the Irish Farmers Journal 's circulation edged up 0.5 per cent to 70,496, with all of those copies actively purchased by its loyal readership – no "bulks" (giveaways). There have been ups and downs over the recession years, but it is still remarkable, given the carnage circling the industry, that the title's circulation is 5 per cent higher than it was 2006.
Or, to put it another way, "the voice of Ireland's farming industry" now has more than twice the print sales of another specialist title, the Sunday Business Post .
Irish Farmers Journal editor Justin McCarthy and commercial director David Leydon say it has survived the slaughter in large part because it produces unique content that is not just relevant to its readers, but key to how they make a living. "The issues we cover are related to on-farm profitability," says Leydon. "It's a real decision-making tool, a bit like the Financial Times ."
It is an analogy that explains a lot. And the Irish Farmers Journal is like the FT in another way, in that last December it erected a metered paywall. On Farmersjournal.ie, some news stories are marked "free", but much of the content has the label "Journal+". To access this material, readers must register. They can then read 10 "Journal+" articles for free each month before they trigger the paywall and are asked to pay for a subscription.
When readers subscribe to the digital product for €2.29 per week – lower than the €2.70 print cover price – they have full access to all content, including its "digital replica" e-paper, on all devices. Two other options link the fortunes of digital and print together in a convenient, reader- friendly bundle. For €3.26 per week, digital subscribers can pick up a copy of the paper in their local newsagent, while for €3.82 per week, they can get home-delivery.
"We hope that you can appreciate that employing a team of highly qualified specialists to gather and interpret information on your behalf cannot be done for free," McCarthy explained to readers.
The metered paywall is in its infancy, and it can be argued that what the Irish Farmers Journal has done is put a digital plan in place ahead of anticipated changes in customer behaviour, giving it a chance to smooth out teething problems. It has been lucky in one sense in that its readers have been loyal not just to the title, but to print. "There is no question that there is a slower migration to digital among the farming community," says Leydon. But demand is growing all the time, he says.
Indeed, this week's edition tells the story of a dairy farmer who, when he got the generator on his farm working after the recent power cuts, found himself simultaneously charging eight phones and tablets for his family and a couple of neighbours.
When it comes to metered paywalls in the Irish market, however, the Irish Farmers Journal is ploughing a lone furrow. Will non-specialist titles, including the big national dailies with urban, print-ditching readerships, return to the idea as a commercial route forward?
With regular commodity price updates, a bumper crop of classifieds and no need to spell out agricultural acronyms, the Irish Farmers Journal does have the advantage of being able to target itself at a core audience to which it keeps close.
But the "decision-making tool" principle can and does apply to other businesses. A savvy fashion magazine will make readers feel like purchase is essential if they want style edge. A decent entertainment website will know how to lure in users susceptible to cultural FOMO (fear of missing out). A strong news publication will find a way to persuade people that they will languish in non-blissful ignorance if they don't subscribe.
And a broader-focused publication that wants to counter "won't pay" attitudes to digital products should exploit all of these vulnerabilities, and a combination of many others. It must farm as much fertile ground as possible, under changeable conditions.
Audit Bureau Of Circulations DataIrish Farmers JournalDavid LeydonJustin Mccarthy
Elegant furniture or black hole? Why we want to love our TV sets even when they're off
BalconyTV: 'The Buzzcocks just looked at the balcony and went, 'where the f**k are we playing?' '
The Irishman behind the European Broadcasting Union's biggest deal: securing rights to the Olympic Games
Ad spending on Twitter falls by over 70% in December, data shows
Marketers urged to 'reset' approach to advertising amid Big Tech reckoning
Oscars 2023: After Andrea Riseborough's surprise nomination, academy meets to review rules


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Argentinas Stock Photos and Images
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People walking past Aguas Argentinas building in Buenos Aires
Madrid, Spain - March 5, 2015: An Aerolineas Argentinas Airbus A340 with the registration LV-CSX landing at Madrid Airport (MAD)
Aerolineas Argentinas airline plane at Aeroparque airport, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Argentina, Buenos Aires, Aeroparque, Aerolinas Argentinas Boeing 737 aircraft in Skyteam livery
Barcelona, Spain - August 10, 2017: Aerolineas Argentinas Airbus A340-300 with Skyteam livery approaching to El Prat Airport in Barcelona, Spain.
Mendoza, Argentina. 20th Nov 2018. Argentina vs México, friendly soccer match between both selected, Malvinas Argentinas Stadium of Mendoza Credit: Alexis Lloret/Alamy Live News
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Argentina, Mendoza Province, Maipu, Bodega Trapiche winery, one of Argentinas largest wine exporters
Aerolineas Argentinas plane takes off from the city of Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego. July 2019.
MALVINAS ARGENTINAS USHUAIA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, USHUAIA, ARGENTINA - NOVEMBER 2015. This small international airport was op
Buenos Aires, Argentina - March 18, 2019: Aerolineas Argentinas plane flying over Buenos Aires in Capital Federal, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Buenos Aires/Argentina - 29-01-2018: Boeing 737-800 aircraft of Aerolineas Argentinas approaches Aeroparque Jorge Newbery airport, Buenos Aires
Passengers disembark an Aerolineas Argentinas Boeing 747 jumbo jet airplane aircraft in summer sunshine Buenos Aires
London, UK. 25th October, 2019. Argentina's sail training frigate ARA Libertad has arrived in London for the first time in seventeen years. The tall ship sailed up the Thames this morning and docked at West India Docks, Canary Wharf. Credit: Rob Powell/Alamy Live News
Feb. 28, 2012 - Argentina's President, Mrs. Maria Estela Martinez de Peron at Government House working desk.
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Aerolinas Argentinas Boeing 737-700 approaching Buenos Aires Air Argentina South America
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Monument to the Spaniards (Monumento de los Espanoles) in Palermo - Buenos Aires, Argentina
Exterior of the Water Company Palace in Avenida Cordoba, Barrio Norte, Buenos Aires
La Casa Rosada, Buenos Aires, Argentina
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Perito Moreno Glacier - the third largest ice field in the world, a glacier located in the Los Glaciares National Park in Patagonia, Argentina.
USHUAIA, Argentina - An historic plane once used by the Argentinian Navy is on display next to the small aircraft runway at Ushuaia Airport.
Buenos Aires, Argentina - March 30, 2019: Argentine Army music band playing before a soccer match starts in memory of the Malvinas War fallen in Buenos Aires, Argentina
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Aerolineas Argentinas Boeing 747 Jumbo jet aircraft fuselage in summer sunshine Buenos Aires International Airport Argentina
Mar. 22, 2012 - For the First time Argentina's Feminine President headed the traditional fiesta Nacional ''25 de Mayo'': Buenos
'Lan' and 'Aerolineas Argentinas' airplanes parked in the 'Jorge Newbery' airport (Aeroparque) with the city in background. Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Russia's Maria Sharapova takes a break in her match against Argentina's Gisela Dulko
Sanctuary of Gauchito Gil, a legendary character of Argentina's popular culture, Rio Negro province, Patagonia, Argentina
a plate with some different empanadas argentinas, typical argentine stuffed pastries, on a white background
Director General of Rosoboronexport meets Argentina's Defence Minister
Argentina, Buenos Aires, Retiro, Museum Palacio Paz, former home of Jose Paz, founder of Argentinas La Prensa newspaper
USHUAIA, Argentina - A windsock blows in strong wind at Ushuaia Airport, Argentina.
Jorge Newbery Airfield
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September 2, 2012 London, United Kingdom: Argentina's Mauricio Ibarbure rolls the boccia ball with his foot as competition continues at the London Paralympic Games.
Mar. 27, 2012 - Argentina's President had to Resign. Buenos Aires, March 24th, General Marcelo Leavings-ton who was named President of the Argentine republic some 16 months ago by the military ''Junta'', was suddenly changed by the same Junta who obliged him to accept his resignment yesterday night. Here ex-President Leavings-ton leave with sad expression the government house at midnight.
Spanish Monument, Palermo district, Buenos Aires, Argentina, South America. Its full name is Monument to the Carta Magna and Four Regions of Argentina: it was completed in 1927 to celebrate the centenary of the May Revolution of 1810, marking the beginning of Argentina's independence from Spain. Date: circa 1930
Madrid, Spain - May 22, 2017: Aerolineas Argentinas Airbus 330 is landing in Madrid Barajas Adolfo Suarez airport on May 22, 2017. Aerolineas Argentin
Argentina's Perito Moreno Glacier and Lago Argentino in Patagonia viewed from the air
Main street in Argentina's southernmost town Ushuaia
The city of Ushuaia (Pop: approx. 40.000) capital of Argentina's southernmost province, Tierra del Fuego.
Argentina's second largest fishing port, Puerto Madryn on the Golfo Nuevo in the Patagonia region of Argentina
Close up shot of Echinopsis spachiana Cactus with thorns
Austral airline plane, part of Aerolineas Argentinas group, at Aeroparque airport, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Mendoza, Argentina. Parking lot with a winged statue near the football (soccer) stadium 'Malvinas Argentinas'
aerolineas argentinas aircraft being directed onto stand by ground crew at aeroparque jorge newbery aep airport buenos aires
"Aguas Argentinas" Palace facade at miday, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Feb. 29, 2012 - THEY DEPLACED ARGENTINA'S MILITARY PRESIDENT ONGANIA AND LATER ASSUMED THE POWER: Buenos Aires, June 10th: At Goverment House assumed the new military ''Junta'' who obliged to resign general Juan Carlos Ongania, when assuming the power in Argentina. They are the chiefs of the argentine navy Rear Admiral Pedro Gnavi (left, reading with glasses); army chief general Alexander Lanusse (Center, the tallest ) and aviation choef, Brigadier general Carlos A. Rey (the smallest, extreme right)
Mendoza Argentina El Plumerillo Aeropuerto Internacional Gobernador Francisco Gabrielli y El Plumerillo MDZ International Airpor
Argentina's Luciana Aymar celebrates after their semi-final at the London 2012 Olympic hockey tournament,
2011.10.16.055157 Jumbo Aerolíneas Argentinas Ezeiza
Biblioteca Nacional Mariano Moreno, Argentina's largest library, Buenos Aires
Poster in Ushuaia shows Mauricio Macri, unexpected winner in Argentina's presidential elections in November 2015, and his running mate Gabriela Michetti
Aerolineas Argentinas porcelain plates with logo printed, isolated on a white background
ROME, ITALY - JULY 11, 2013 - An Aerolineas Argentinas Airbus A-340 in preparation for take-off at the Fiumicino airport in Rome
Argentina's Lionel Messi during friendly match between the United States and Argentina at Meadowlands stadium on March 27, 2011
Aerial image showing the Aeroparque Jorge Newbery with mainly planes of AerolÃneas Argentinas, Aeroparque Internacional Ing. Jorge Alejandro Newbery
MADRID / SPAIN - MAY 1, 2016: Aerolineas Argentinas Airbus A330-200 LV-FVH passenger plane departure at Madrid Barajas Airport
Apr. 18, 2012 - Argentina's President gathers with his Command: The Argentine Military government headed by President Agustin Lanusse (seated in background) in one of his continuous meeting with the Commanders of the Army (left, center with moustache. General Lopez Anfranc the Aviation (just at right of Lamusse) General REy and the Navy, (at his Lanusses left) rear admiral Coda. Repeatedly President Lanusse informes the Nation that the armed forces will accept any result of the next presidential election take place on march 11th 1973
Mendoza Argentina Aeropuerto Internacional Gobernador Francisco Gabrielli y El Plumerillo MDZ International Airport Aerolineas A
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The Baldrige continuous-improvement program is prescribed by the state as a cure for troubled schools.
Catherine Thomas knows teaching grammar is not her greatest strength. But she's gifted at helping her students comprehend what they're reading.
The 4th grade teacher at Armijo Elementary School in Albuquerque, N.M., didn't reach those conclusions on her own, however. It was only after examining student-achievement trends—using a school improvement strategy mandated by the state—that her strengths and weaknesses in the classroom became clear.
"When the data is in your face, it's hard to argue with," she says of what is known as the Baldrige model of "continuous improvement," popular in the business world.
Teachers at the 450-student school, which until last school year was not able to make adequate yearly progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, aren't the only ones "drilling down" into the scores to see where they need to improve. Students in the high-poverty school are also setting their own goals and changing their attitudes toward learning, Thomas says.
Students are learning to follow the Baldrige model's steps of "plan, do, study, act," Thomas says. And throughout the year, they do a quick check that involves reviewing individual and classroom goals and what needs to be done to get there.
Other schools categorized for their low achievement as "priority schools" by the New Mexico Department of Public Education are having similar success using Baldrige principles. Of the 13 schools that came off the list of priority schools in 2005, nine were Baldrige schools, says Sally Wilkinson, the director of the Priority Schools Bureau, which focuses on schools in need of improvement.
The model draws inspiration from the criteria for the prestigious Baldrige Award. Named after the late Malcolm Baldrige, a U.S. secretary of commerce during the Reagan administration, the award was originally given to companies in the 1980s to encourage excellence in an increasingly competitive world market. More recently, its criteria—in areas such as leadership; strategic planning; and measurement, analysis, and knowledge management—have been applied to schools and other nonprofit organizations as well.
"The reception from those who have tried it and stayed with it has been very positive," says Laurel Moore, the director of Strengthening Quality in Schools, an Albuquerque-based initiative launched in 1992 that provides training in the Baldrige model.
New Mexico's interest in the Baldrige model dates back to 1991, when then-Gov. Bruce King established a business advisory group to spread the message of "continuous improvement" to the state's schools.
But interest in the model has increased significantly in recent years as the number of schools listed as being "in need of improvement" under state and federal rules has grown.
Now, schools on New Mexico's priority list don't get to choose which method they'll use to work toward meeting goals for adequate yearly progress, or AYP.
"If we're paying for it, and you're on my radar, you don't get a choice on that one," says Wilkinson, the former principal of a school that used the model.
Schools required to participate aren't the only ones interested in the Baldrige approach, however. There are about 100 schools on the list that will receive the training this fall and next spring. But last school year, more than 1,500 people from across the state took advantage of regional leadership training based on the Baldrige model, Wilkinson says.
By bringing school improvement success stories to the attention of key policymakers in the state, Wilkinson was also instrumental in helping to see that $8.4 million was included in the fiscal 2007 state budget for school improvement activities—the first time such programs have received state funding. Over the past two years, her office has evolved from a small initiative to a larger technical-assistance department that offers resources and provides "coaches" who actually become adjunct staff members at schools they are trying to help.
At Santo Domingo School, a combined elementary and middle school, implementing the Baldrige process kick-started additional improvements that are transforming the school community, according to Bryan Garcia and Richard Torralba, who serve as co-principals of the school.
Located on Pueblo land north of Albuquerque, the schools are leased to the 3,400-student Bernalillo school district by the tribe and serve an almost totally Native American population. The elementary school was required to begin using the Baldrige method in the 2004-05 school year.
The two principals decided that working as a team—and drawing from each other's strengths—could bring greater collaboration among members of the staff and continue the improvements made at the elementary level into the middle grades. Before, a kindergarten teacher would have had little knowledge of what an 8th grade teacher was doing.
"Now they know each other's role in the school, and that's a helpful link to student achievement," Garcia says.
While most of the achievement gains have been in mathematics, students are hitting their reading and writing targets too, he adds.
After just two years, the elementary school has "gone from 'in need of improvement' to a designation of 'none' [for not missing AYP], which is a good thing," says Garcia.
Because evaluating data is a critical focus of the Baldrige approach, the principals created what they call their "war room," where all the school's achievement data are displayed on the walls. Teachers meet there to discuss areas that need attention and plan intervention strategies.
Students, who make graphs showing their own scores, are also rewarded for improvement through an incentive program in which they earn "school dollars" to spend in the school store. But Garcia and Torralba agree that their students received the greatest boost from an assembly in which every student was given a gold medal because Santo Domingo was named a "school on the rise" by the state education department.
Garcia contrasts that event with a somber rally held three years ago in which the school community tried to persuade state officials not to take control of the district because of low achievement.
Benalillo Superintendent Barbara Vigil-Lowder—who thinks what Garcia and Torralba have done serves as a model for other schools—says she also notices a difference in the students.
"Three years ago, the students would walk with their heads down. They would misbehave. They didn't think they could do it," she says.
See other stories on education issues in New Mexico. See data on New Mexico's public school system.


Toronto toymaker Ganz (teddy bears, etc.) has a line of plush toys called Webkinz, which are apparently extremely popular (I don't have kids and don't know these things). I mention this here because today's Globe and Mail says that "Ganz's product is revolutionary: It's the first real-world toy that's essentially just a key to an interactive website." Each "pet" gets its own room online, and as the Ganz website says, "Earn more Kinzcash to add on more rooms and yards, so pets can play outdoors." Doesn't this sound like Second Life? In this case you can't use real currency to buy virtual currency directly. Instead you use it to buy more physical products: parents buy their kids additional Webkinz over time. In February, Webkinz.com had around 3 million unique visitors, which I find pretty impressive given that during the same month Facebook had around 17 million. Click here for the full story.
posted by Rohan Jayasekera | 3:44 p.m.
Webkinz even made it on the "The National" tonight. I do have kids and yes Webkinz is very popular. My 10 year old races home from school to jump onto Webkinz.com with the friends she just left from school. She plays right up to the time limit of the Rogers parental controls every day. It has pretty much displaced MSN messaging, which is generally a good thing.
And yes, as far as I can tell, it is just like Second Life for stuffed toys. The virtual Webkinz somehow earn Kinzcash and then can buy houses, furniture, food etc. One of them even recently got sick and there was some tension when the Rogers time limit ran out before the sickness could be dealt with. The Webkinz stuffed toys don't really serve any purpose other than to give the parents something to bring home from the toy store. Ganz could easily sell the virtual Webkinz directly on-line, if they don't already.
In all, a great piece of work by Ganz. Nothing really new here, but Second Life and stuffed toys brilliantly repackaged together.
Thanks for the comment, Gord. And I wonder how much traffic Webkinz.com has drawn away from Neopets. As one kid put it on cbc.ca, "webkinz are sooooooooo much coller than neopets because,the are much more funer and also,you get a stuffed animal!!!!!!!!DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!". Actually I just learned that plush Neopets (and other merchandise such as stickers) have been sold for years — but there is no tie-in between the physical and the virtual, which is central to Webkinz.


Inside Pre-Season presents the behind-the-scenes footage taken by out tunnel cam of the recent friendly.
Get the best behind-the-scenes access from Liverpool's final game of pre-season as Jürgen Klopp's side overcame Torino 3-1 at Anfield thanks to Roberto Firmino, Gini Wijnaldum and Daniel Sturridge.
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text:
ONE SONG TO RULE THEM ALL...
Hello, Dear Readers! Happy Monday to you all, and thanks for joining me for today's post! What is our theme this fine morning, you might ask?
One Song to Rule them all, One Song to find them
One Song to bring them all and in the darkness bind them...
OK, that sounds... a tiny bit sinister, but I promise it's not. What am I on about, you wonder? Well, the other day I was listening wistfully to my #BaBBook playlist (because it's probably the loveliest playlist I've ever made and I sort of miss it) and I tweeted a link to a particular track saying 'If you want to know what my Beauty & the Beast retelling feels like as a song, this is it.'
Then it occurred to me that actually, there's a song like that on the playlist for every book I've ever written, going right back to my very first YA novel that didn't even get published. One Song (if you will) that just summed up the atmosphere, the central character's struggle, the soul and feel of the thing for me.
Sometimes I got this wrong in my initial playlist and then got stuck and had to re-think because that key track acts as a sort of story linchpin for me, drawing all the other songs, other moods, other characters in towards that unnameable, ineffable thing that I was trying to get at with this particular story.
This struck me as kind of cool. And once I'd realised that, I thought maybe it would be interesting for Dear Readers to able to listen to these One Songs and compare them? So I decided to do a post about it, and here we are.
First up is the One Song for BLOOD MAGIC, which was the very first YA novel I ever completed. I sent this to every single children's book publisher in the UK, and two in Australia, and was rejected by all of them - but it was this book which caught the attention of my first first editor when it landed on the slushpile of my current publisher Walker Books, and launched me on my publishing journey. So it served a very useful purpose in the end.
It was a high fantasy novel about a young noblewoman with a magical ability so terrifying that it would have led to her instant execution if she was found out (which of course, she eventually was). She ended up saving her country and her King's life with that talent, but the story had a bittersweet ending, with her and her lover spared their lives as a result of the King's gratitude, but at the cost of being banished from their beloved home country. Along the way the heroine - Rialenthe, Countess of Kefari (*snorfle*) - lost her father and her best friend. Really, it was quite dark and I think the One Song definitely reflects that! It's Elysium from the Gladiator soundtrack by Hans Zimmer:
The next book is my first published one THE SWAN KINGDOM, which was a retelling of the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale 'The Wild Swans'. The song is called Cumulus by Imogen Heap, but I always identified it so strong with my heroine's character and her journey through the story from tentative, unsure, and afraid, to strong, beautiful and confident, that in my head the song will always be called 'Alexandra'. There's so much in this song that links to the way I feel about the book, and when I listen to it I imagine clouds passing over the sun, ripples moving across the surface of deep green water, and tall rushes singing in the wind.
Next up is DAUGHTER OF THE FLAMES - the book where I took the 'lost heir' or 'lost prince' trope and tried to turn it on its head by having the lost conquering royal hero who must reclaim their throne and bring balance to the Kingdom be a biracial girl with facial disfigurement and an awesome, disabled husband. I used a lot of the Gladiator soundtrack for this as well, but when I think back to writing it, the song I know I listened to the most, and which summed up the epic, tense, high fantasy vibe I really wanted was The Host of Seraphim by Dead Can Dance:
I wrote all the fight scenes to that - I probably listened to it over a hundred times just writing the final confrontation between the heroine, Zahira and the antagonist alone. Incidentally, the singer, Lisa Gerrard, is the same one you hear singing on the track Elysium above.
My third book, SHADOWS ON THE MOON, is a Cinderella retelling set in a fairytale version of Feudal Japan, where the heroine witnesses her family murdered and discovers she has a talent for concealing herself with illusions when this talent is all that saves her own life. After the shocking discovery of whom was responsible for the attack that killed her father and adopted sister, she becomes ruthlessly fixated upon revenge and decides to try to win the Prince's favour in order to use his political power to destroy her enemy.
This book actually had two really significant linchpin pieces - I think because it's so long and took so long to write. The way the heroine exchanges identities throughout the book probably has something to do with it, too. I thought long and hard about which song to include, but eventually decided to go with the first one, because I think the second is more about the mask that the main character is wearing (playing the part of a beautiful courtesan named Yue) in the final part of the book than the person she really is inside (a frightened, bereaved young woman named Suzume). So you get The Meadow from the Twilight: New Moon score by Andre Desplat. It sums up Suzume's desperate search for a place to belong, an identity that feels like it's hers, a family that's worth of her. Weirdly this isn't on the soundtrack that's on Spotify - I had to link to YouTube instead:
The next one makes my dilemma over the One Song for Shadows look like cake, though. It's FROSTFIRE, the companion novel to Daughter of the Flames, another epic high fantasy, this time about a young woman named Frost who lives under a curse of berserker rage that can be triggered at any time and which has ruined her life. In her search for a cure she gets tangled up in the conflict left over after the events of the previous book, and comes to love two men whose lives hang in the balance of that battle.
Now, when I first began writing this book, Frost was a boy. Love interest #1 (Luca) was a girl, and the third person in their triangle was a boy called Arian. But then I realised Frost had tricked me. I knew Frost was a tall, very physically strong person with daddy issues who wielded their father's axe, so I assumed boy, but actually the character was a girl. But I didn't see why Luca should have to change. So I wrote a lesbian high fantasy. But that version just didn't work for my editor - not because of the sexuality of the protagonists, but because in my eagerness to get my first queer love story right I'd focused on that romance to the exclusion of everything else and the voice, pacing, plot, other characters... basically nothing else really worked. So I ended up making Luca a male character, threw out the entire first draft and started again from scratch (I still think of this book as a queer love story, btw, since my head canon is that Arian is bisexual).
Throughout this whole process of changing genders and writing new books with the same title and character names, I went through many, many, maaaaany tracks which I thought might be this novel's One Song. But I didn't find it until midway through writing that final, definitive version. You can imagine my relief! It's The Gravel Road from the score for The Village by James Newton Howard:
This song still makes me tear up a little - it speaks so poignantly about Frost's longing and loneliness, her romantic, loving heart. Plus, there's a certain series of notes within the piece (near the middle) that sounds like the distant call of a lone wolf to me, and that's a very important image in the book.
Now onto the NAME OF THE BLADE trilogy! This is my very first trilogy and also my very first urban fantasy story. It's set in contemporary Britain and is the story of a British-born Japanese teenager who 'borrows' a priceless ancestral katana (a Japanese longsword) from her family's attic and unwittingly unleashes the Gods and monsters of mythical Japan onto the streets of modern day London. The book has an all PoC cast and includes genderfluid and gay characters, plus unexpectedly badass parents, smexy fox spirits and all kinds of chaotic shenanigans.
For a while I was a bit stumped by how to pick a One Song for the trilogy, since each of the three books had a different playlist and a different One Song. And this post is already long enough! But then I whapped myself on the forehead for being so dense, because there's always been a single One Song that I've returned to again and again that just sums up everything I love about the trilogy, everything that makes it special to me - the fast pace, the Japanese influence, the modernity - and everything that makes the heroine Mio (who hangs onto her sense of humour grimly by her fingernails to the very end) a unique character. Long time blog readers have heard it before - it's Paprika from the Paprika score by Susumu Hirasawa (again, not available except on YouTube - whydo you hate me Spotify?):
Finally, it's the One Song that started it all, the track that sums up the essence of BAREFOOT ON THE WIND, my most recent fairytale retelling and the companion novel to Shadows, set in the same Japanese influenced fairytale world of Tsuki no Hikari no Kuni.
This song sums up everything about my heroine, Hana. She's quiet and pragmatic, and just gets on with things - but underneath the matter-of-fact exterior there's such a painfully deep well of feelings which she's desperate to find a way to express. The narrative of the story and the deepening, changing relationships between her and the other central characters builds up inexorably towards a confrontation between Hana, a perfectly ordinary village girl who has only common sense, kindness, and determination on her side, and the monstrous magical forces aligned against her. This One Song really captures that sense of running out of control towards something that may be miraculous or fearful. It's Experience by Ludovico Einaudi and I love it:
I hope this has been as interesting for you to read and listen to as it was for me to write, Dear Readers! What a fun trip down memory lane. Read you later, honeys!
Labels: Barefoot on the Wind, BotW, Daughter of the Flames, FrostFire, Inspiration, life the universe and everything, Music, Shadows on the Moon, The Name of the Blade, The Swan Kingdom
FRAIL HUMAN HEART DELETED SCENES - TOGETHER AT LAST!
Happy Tuesday, lovely muffins! Welcome back!
Today I bring you a new page for the blog - on which all the Name of the Blade 'deleted scenes' (really bonus content specially written for the FRAIL HUMAN HEART blog tour) are now gathered together. Before you flick over there, just be aware that each scene is 100% spoilers. If you've read the whole trilogy or don't mind spoilers - proceed. Otherwise flee, flee, while you have the chance! Failure to heed this warning may result in wailing, gnashing of teeth and annoyed comments on this blog (but you will get a big fat zero of sympathy from me, so better not bother).
In other news, if you, like me, are constantly on the look out for cool geek-chic clothing, you might want to know about a great site I recently discovered, called Society6. I've only ordered T-shirts from them so far, but I've been delighted with the quality, selection and shipping speed of my orders. Society6's prices (including the cost of shipping) are reasonable, working out - once converted from dollars to pounds - at a bit less than fourteen pounds a shirt, which is the same or less than a lot of the far less interesting T-shirts you normally see in UK shops.
What's more, they have great unisex v-neck tops (I'm so sick of wafer thin, skin-tight 'girls' t-shirts, or boys ones that have such a tiny neck I can barely fit my hair through it) which are made of thick, snuggly soft brushed cotton.
Here's a selection of what I've bought recently (don't judge my spending spree - they gave me free shipping and a money off coupon, OK?):
And every purchase you make pays directly to the artist who designed the shirt! The site aren't paying me for this endorsement, by the way - I'm just overjoyed to finally find an outlet that carries the type of T-shirt I can happily and comfortably lounge about in all day, writing, without feeling like a slob. Now I can throw away all the thin crappy ones that have pointless love hearts or diamante butterflies on (OK, fine, I'll donate them to charity, happy?).
I've just broken 10,000 words on my Mulan retelling and am starting to find my protagonist's distinctive and - I think - compelling voice. I'm moving slowly on this book, moving tentatively around the edges of my fictional world while I continue to research Tang Dynasty China feverishly. I'll know when I've done 'enough' research when I've absorbed so much detail that I feel comfortable letting go of all my reference books and just inventing things in my fictional, fantasy version of China without checking.
I'm also moving slowly because, honestly, I hate writing beginnings. I'm hoping that by setting myself a target of between 600 and 1000 words a day instead of expecting myself to produce huge chunks at the outset, I can progress the story in a worthwhile way but avoid my all too common problem of having to chuck out the first 3-9 chapters later on when I revise.
It's going so well at the moment that I'm thinking of doing a sort of... Faux-NaNoWriMo this year. Not real NaNo of course. I've already started the book, which disqualifies me. Also, as long-time blog readers know, every time (every. single. time) that I declare I'm going to do NaNo this year, something awful happens to me. Flu. Prolapsed disc. Food poisoning. Family drama. No more of that! My NaNo will be informal and less ambitious - I'll just up my word target to 1000 words or more a day, six days a week, and try to significantly bump my overall word count by the end of the month.
Anyone who wants to join in with Faux-NaNo is very welcome to post their progress in the comments on my checking in posts - which I'll probably put up once a week.
What's going on in your lives - writing or otherwise - cookies? Let me know in the comments!
Labels: codename: DtH, FRAIL HUMAN HEART, Inspiration, The Name of the Blade
LIFE & DEATH BY STEPHENIE MEYER - MY REVIEW
Hello, Dear Readers! Happy Tuesday to you all. Before I move onto the main topic of today's post I just need to say a huge thank you to writer pals Emma Pass and Kerry Drewery, and to all the lovely writers (old friends and new) who were at the #UKYAX on Saturday. I think I can honestly say it was the most relaxed, happy book event I've ever been to. If any of you were there, Dear Readers, I hope you had as wonderful a time as I did. If not - try to make it next time! I certainly will :)
With thanks Kendra Leighton and Chelley Toy for the pics!
And now... My review of Life & Death by Stephenie Meyer (henceforth referred to as Smeyer in the grand old Zoë-Trope tradition) which is, in case you've been peacefully snoozing in a woodland grotto for the past week, a genderbent retelling of her internationally bestselling YA vampire novel Twilight. (Guys, you have no idea how hard I had to look to find a link that wasn't spoilery! I'm not going to spoil anyone with this review if I can help it, by the way - there will be spoilers, but they'll be hidden under a cut at the end so you can avoid).
Yes, that's right. Smeyer went ahead and did a genderbent AU of her own novel to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the book's publication. When I heard this I actually had to check the date because I thought it couldn't possibly be serious - it had to be April Fool's, right? But no. It was really true! And then I couldn't decide if I thought it was the worst train-wreck-you-can't-look-away-from idea ever or the best thing I'd heard since Taylor Swift released 'Wildest Dreams' on single. What? Just... I mean... WHAT?!?
Longtime blog readers know that in the past I have taken issue with Twilight (although that was before everyone else started making a career out of slamming it, by which point it seemed a little mean-spirited) and have on occasion chosen to use it to illustrate dos and don'ts of writing. So why would I be interested in buying my very own copy of a book in which the author had presumably simply pressed 'Find' and 'Replace' on the names and had the whole thing rebound for a quick anniversary cash-grab? Well, two reasons, muffins:
1) I genuinely enjoyed Smeyer's later novel The Host, and thought it showed a marked improvement in her ability as both a craftsperson and storyteller. I believed (rightly as it turned out) that she wouldn't be able to resist meddling in more than a superficial way with this new version of her story, and I wanted to see if she could substantially improve it.
2) I love fanfic! Some of my favourite fanfic is Twilight AUs where people change one significant detail about the story and make it awesome. If I'm willing to read it on A03, I should be willing to read the author's own take, right?
So here's the book's deal. Bella has become Beau (short for Beaufort, ikr) and Edward is now Edythe (ha ha ha. Ahem. No, apparently there was at least one real live person called Edythe during the period that Edward would have been alive, so... we just have to go with it. And thanks for that link, Sally!).
But Smeyer has done more than this. She has also changed the gender of almost every other character in the book, including all the vampires except one, a couple of minor non-speaking roles, and Bella - sorry, Beaufort's - parents, Renee and Charlie (and Phil). She states this is because she finds it tough to believe an unemployed father would have been given custody of a baby back in the 80s when Beau was born, and... eh, maybe she's right. What this change makes clear, though, is how dominated by male characters (major, minor and incidental) the story was previously. Life and Death feels stuffed full of women instead, which just shows how easily we forget that women are actually 52% of the planet's population.
Now, in Smeyer's interviews about this book, and in her author's note, she says that she decided to bend the genders (by the way, I'm using 'bend' rather than 'swap' to describe this because I think it better acknowledges that there are, in fact, more than two genders in the world) of her characters because she was sick of seeing people talk about Bella as a damsel in distress. She felt the character only got flak for being obsessed with love/sparkly vampires as a result of being a girl. I think she wanted to show that these choices in characterisation were nothing to do with Bella's gender and everything to do with being a human playing in a world of monsters and magic.
Did she succeed in this? Not really, to be honest. Not necessarily because she's wrong in her point about how we respond to male versus female characters, though. More on that anon. I think Smeyer's mistake is she fell into that trap herself - she even acknowledges it (albeit without apparently realising she's done so). She states straight out in her author's note that Beau's personality 'developed' differently than Bella's. Her opinion on this is that Beau is merely less angry than Bella, doesn't carry a chip on his shoulder like his female counterpart, and is 'more OCD'.
But Smeyer is wrong. Bella never came across as particularly angry or OCD (not loving the casual flinging about of this mental illness, btw, but we'll give benefit of the doubt and assume she really does mean her character has a very mild form of obsessive compulsive disorder, rather than that she's using the term to be cute). Bella never came across as having a chip on her shoulder. She never came across as much of ANYTHING, really.
Bella is a personality void in the story. A list of traits which the other characters respond to as if they were real, but which are never truly demonstrated to us, the readers, in a way that makes her feel alive.
And that is the main difference between Life and Death and Twilight. Because Beau? Actually has a personality.
Yes, the story makes it clear that he possesses the same rather generic list of traits which are all we really know about Bella - the clumsiness, the social awkwardness/shyness, the reserve, the apparent ingrained need to cook and clean, the liking for classic literature - but either because of a natural increase in Smeyer's skill or because she sympathises with male characters more (Edward was always her writer's pet, after all) Beau manages to seem like an actual person on the page.
Despite moaning about looking after his mother, whining about the move to Forks, failing to connect with Charlie, and mocking/snarking about his classmates in exactly the same way (sometimes in almost identical words) to Bella, Beau is immediately vastly more sympathetic as a character. At first I felt that this was my own internal misogyny (yes, we all have it) telling me that a boy in the position of caring for his mother since childhood, and forced out of his home by her all-consuming love for her new husband, was more interesting and worthy of respect than a girl in a similar position.
And perhaps that is partly true. But what is also true is that Smeyer's other changes, large and small, mean that Beau seems like a real, awkward teen, dealing awkwardly with being put in an awkward position. He seems to have some degree of inner life. He doesn't express himself with the same stilted formality that Bella does, doesn't seem to have his life on pause waiting for someone to come along and give it meaning. He demonstrates traits within the action of the story instead of relying on his narration to inform us of them. We can see that while he's shy and awkward, he's also an incredibly laid back type. He doesn't worry much about the future. He has a sense of humour that isn't limited to making deprecating cracks at his classmates. He's aware of his own faults but seems to have at least some sense of self and even self-esteem. Maybe this was how Smeyer always saw Bella. But at the time of writing Twilight she didn't have the skill to show us any of it. Now she does.
Something else Smeyer gets right in L&D is to immediately make explicit the fact that Charlie chose to leave Beau with Renee not because he believed it was best for Beau, but because he knew 'Renee needed him'. Charlie gets a lot of sympathy in Twilight because of Bella's apparent indifference to him. He's cast in many people's eyes as a perfect, loving father with an ungrateful, cold off-spring. Reading in this new version that Charlie prioritised the well-being of his scatty ex-wife over that of his small child, and that Beau consequently was balancing Renee's chequebook and doing her laundry as soon as he could add up and reach the buttons on the washing machine - and that Charlie knew this and approved! - makes Beau's lack of interest in his dad, and his abrupt, overwhelming attachment not only to Edythe (protective, caring Edythe) but to her helicopter family seem much more logical.
When Beau meets Edythe not only is his reaction to her much more immediately romantic - and less filled with terror and hurt - it is also intensely physical. Bella is obsessed with Edward mostly, it seems, because he was mean to her, and then saved her life and was mean to her again. When the realisation comes that she's in love with him it seems to come out of nowhere. But Beau is unequivocally obsessed with Edythe from the start because he finds her hot and sexy and gorgeous and just can't believe she might look sideways at a normal guy like him, and it's clear that he knows it's not sensible or healthy - but he still wants her any way he can get her.
Because of this vital, profound difference between Bella and Beau - not in their genders but in their characters - it's much more difficult to compare Twilight and Life & Death than it might first appear. Having a central character, a first person narrator, who is sympathetic to some extent (although his blithering on about Edith's perfection is as boring as ever) makes a massive difference in the overall quality of the book.
Onto the other vampires of the Cullen clan! Dr Carlisle Cullen becomes Dr Carine Cullen - a Grace Kelly/Marilyn Monroe look-alike, but even more beautiful (pfft). The maternal, beautiful Esme becomes gentle stay-at-home husband Earnest, whose looks aren't really mentioned. Rosalie becomes Royal, dubbed 'the golden quarterback and homecoming king' by Beau, and possessor of a surprising man-bun. Emmett is Eleanor, a terrifyingly aggressive foil for Royal. Jasper is Jessamine, feline and spooky. Alice is Archie, and somehow becomes far less extreme, far warmer, less shrill (I hate to use that word for any female character, but come on) and more interesting in the process.
It's really telling to me how, in attempting to preserve the pre-bend traits of the younger vampires in their new genders, Smeyer instantly makes them more interesting. When all the female vampires suddenly become animalistic, intimidating and not-to-be-messed with, and the male ones are mostly described in terms of their hair and beauty it makes you realise how strongly gender-essentialist the book was in the first place. But Smeyer does some rapid work on the backstories of some characters here too, because apparently it wouldn't do to give a male character a history of having survived sexual assault, or a female one a past as a (terrible amateur) vampire hunter. Would it? *Raises eyebrow*
As for Edythe - she initially seems the least interesting of the bunch, although Smeyer goes to a lot of effort to switch up the descriptions of her to make it clear that she's super feminine. Her hair is strikingly 'metallic', leading me to believe it's more bright coppery-red than that famously ambiguous 'bronze' ascribed to Edward. She's tiny, but as graceful as a dancer (a description previously reserved for Alice). Her hands are described as 'little' and her eyes are 'long', although she does have 'surprisingly muscular' forearms (natch). Beau towers over her. It almost seems fitting for such a fairy-like creature to sparkle in the sunlight.
As the book progresses onward, however, Edythe also emerges as a distinct character from Edward. Freed of the need to act the Bryonic, tortured hero, Edythe keeps her (audible to Beau, anyway) self-loathing and self-castigation to a minimum, exhibits some interest in Beau as a person rather than as the vessel for floral-scented tastyblood (with thanks to Cleolinda) and an impenetrable mind, appears to have a rudimentary sense of humour herself, and offers convincing emotional vulnerability that actually makes the sudden, desperate connection between the two feel somewhat realistic.
OK, she's the definition of a manic pixie dream girl, and OK, she indulges in the same sort of weirdo stalker behaviour as her male counterpart. But she actually seems sorry, which is more then Edward ever does. What's more, her inhumanity, her alienness, are so much better established that it feels much easier to accept that she cannot be expected to conform to human behavioural norms. Beau's easy and unquestioning acceptance feels more like a reinforcement of his irrational crush rather than a death-wish.
Less wholesomely, Beau's repeated and loving descriptions of the hollows under Edythe's cheeks, her 'sharp' shoulder-blades, 'thin' arms, the 'fragile' 'twigs' of her collarbone, her 'vulnerable' slenderness and the fact that he can count her ribs makes it clear that part of Edythe's beauty is severe emaciation (presumably from having been half dead of Spanish 'flu when Carine transformed her). Beau not only notices this thinness; he clearly desires it desperately. It's a facet of her appeal. Something deeply whiggy is coming out of the author's subconscious there and I think these parts should have been edited responsibly before the book was published.
Another interesting thing that swims to light in this new version is how truly odd and out of place it appears when everyone in Beau's life, including Charlie, seems fixated on getting him paired off with a girl and attending the dance. I honestly can't remember if this plot point was hammered home with such verve in the original book. Maybe it's not. Or maybe we're all just much more used to seeing girls pressured to fall in love and focus on romance and defining themselves by relationships (preferably with boys). All I know is that by the time Beau finally confesses his and Edythe's relationship to his father, I was starting to think that Charlie was caught up in some kind of mortal panic that his son might be gay. Leave the kid alone!
More messed-up stuff comes in the form of Charlie *not* bothering to sabotage Beau's truck when he thinks his son is going to sneak off, as he does with Bella's in the same situation. Apparently only girl children need their autonomy physically restricted, kids! I also remain baffled by how a vampire who has been eavesdropping on both humans and vampires thinking about and having sex for nearly a hundred years, apparently manages to know absolutely nothing about it - a fact of the story that sadly remains unchanged.
Cool stuff comes from the new Volturi, who have a different line-up and a totally awesome history that took me by surprise. If only Smeyer had used this version in the original books and allowed them to be multidimensional people instead of pantomime villains! Also, there's less pointed victim-blaming from Edythe for Beau. I wonder why...
And now: spoilers!
Labels: Books, life the universe and everything, Reviews, Writing
EVENTS, PINTEREST AND PLAYLISTS (oh my!)
Hello, hello, hello my magical muffins. A very happy Tuesday to you!
Last week I took part in a panel discussion on Diversity and Mental Illness in YA, at 7pm at Leeds Waterstones. The other authors were Martyn Bedford, Annabel Pitcher and Kim Slater. Each of us had written a book or books that had diverse characters and/or characters suffering with mental illness, and we had a great (somewhat rambling) discussion about our own personal reasons for writing about this, how we develop and research characters, and why diversity and the portrayal of mental illness or non-neurotypical people was important to us. Here's a reminder about my position on that from the archives, for interest's sake.
There was a great mix of people in the audience, and I was heartened that so many of them were young people (including some very focussed young writers). We were initially meant to each do a short reading of our books, and I had the first chapter of Barefoot on the Wind queued up on my laptop, but we ran out of time. I was equally relieved and disappointed! We did have time for questions from the audience, though, and I hope we gave out some helpful advice on how to get published.
As per usual, I forgot my camera (everytime! EVERY. TIME.) but thankfully the lovely Darren from Bart's Bookshelf was on the job, and he took these lovely shots:
That's the always wonderful Martyn Bedford on the far left, Annabel Pitcher to my immediate left, the delightful bookseller who arranged and ran the event on my right (I think her name was Tanya - I hope I'm right, comment and smack me if not) and Kim Slater on her right. And yes, I am making my usual selection of strange and awkward faces and gestures. It was a great time, and I'm very pleased to have been invited.
This is a reminder that if you missed the panel at Leeds, there's still the UKYA Extravaganza, where no less than thirty other fab authors - including Martyn once again, and some of my other very favourite people! - will all be gathered on Saturday the 10th. Tickets are free, but you do need to call the store to get one (I'm told there are still some available).
Please do come to this if you can, Dear Readers. It's like no other big book event you've ever been to; authors wandering around chatting to bloggers, bloggers making friends with readers, readers nattering to authors. It's totally friendly and informal, everyone should get a chance to meet and talk to everyone, there are loads of panels, and we're all bringing cakes and other food from home. And it's in a bookshop! Honestly, what more could you want?
The line-up has changed slightly since the last time I posted this, so here's the poster again:
Get excited. Get on the phone to the bookshop. And get down to Nottingham on Saturday!
In other news, I finished and returned my Barefoot on the Wind edits last week, so right now I'm mid-dive back into research (library fines, my lovelies. So many library fines) on my Mulan re-telling, and hope to start work on the actual drafting next week. Wish me luck! This book is going to be a huge challenge on many levels, but I've had such lovely support from people who really want to see this story told and I'm super excited. Anyone who would like to check out the book's Pinterest board can do so here - and this is the book's newly minted playlist!
This'll evolve and change as the characters begin to really come to life in my head, but it's what I'm going with for now (for some reason in this embedded player the songs have organised themselves in kind of a weird way, so probably best to listen on random).
Read you later, cupcakes. And remember, requests for future blogposts on any topic, or questions you'd like answered in a Reader Questions post are always welcome in the comments :)
Labels: BaBBook, Barefoot on the Wind, BotW, codename: DtH, Music, Photographs, Spotify, Writing
CLICHE KILLER: THE BIG ONE
Hello, Lovely Readers! Congratulations on making it to Friday once more. Last week I was a naughty, terrible writer-person and completely forgot about the post I'd promised to do on Friday for Author Allsorts (a revised version of my first Cliche Killer workshop) so this week I'm cramming both of the revised Cliche Killer workshops into one super ridiculously long essay and posting them together. Behold! THE BIG ONE.
Have a lovely weekend, my duckies!
DASTARDLY TROPES AND WHAT TO DO WITH THEM
Hi guys, and happy Wednesday! I'm back from a week off blogging (following ten days of blogging every single day for the FRAIL HUMAN HEART blogtour). The week before last I posted a link to my blog on the Authors Allsorts site about tropes and how I feel about them. That post ended up being really unexpectedly popular, and I decided it would be a good idea to copy and paste it here so that anyone who didn't have the time or ability to click through to the AA site back then can read it now, and also so I can add it to my All About Writing Page.
In the blogpost I also refer to a couple of other posts from the All About Writing page on how to isolate and kill off cliches. Due to popular demand, I'm going to be doing a sort of Retro-Friday thing - remember that? - over on Authors Allsorts after where I'll post a slightly updated version of those posts on this Friday (21st of August) and the Friday after (28th August), so I'll again post links here in case anyone wants to check that out.
And just a quick note to remind everyone that when FRAIL HUMAN HEART reaches ten reviews on Amazon, I'm planning to pick one of the reviewers to receive a very special, trilogy related present. We're up to six reviews at the moment, and I appreciate each and every one of them, my duckies. *Mwah*
Now without further ado:
DASTARDLY TROPES & WHAT TO DO WITH THEM
Tropes! Huh! Wha-aat are they good for? Absolutely nuthin' – say it again!
This probably sums up most people's attitudes when they hear the word 'trope'. It's become one of those buzz terms that is flung around in our discussion of books like a handful of annoying and unnecessary glitter, getting into the carpet and your hair and still gleaming at you from the crannies of your desk six months later even after you used the hoover in an attempt to get shot of it. People talk about tropes all the time, and their comments usually run along these lines:
Tropes! Tropes everywhere! This book would've been good if not for all the tropes! These tropes are so over-used! This book is the tropey-est of the tropey! TOO MANY TROPES!'
What is a trope? Let's consult Google for the formal definition:
/trəʊp/
noun: trope; plural noun: tropes
1. A figurative or metaphorical use of a word or expression.
"both clothes and illness became tropes for new attitudes toward the self"
2. A significant or recurrent theme; a motif.
"she uses the Eucharist as a pictorial trope"
That second one is the one most people are most familiar with. A trope is a recurring motif. A pattern within a story which we recognise as having a familiar form – such as the Beauty and the Beast story, or the Cinderella/rags-to-riches story, or the true love's kiss ending. More examples would be: the mother who sacrifices herself for her child, or the mild-mannered mother who turns out to be the murderer because the victim hurt her child, the climactic final showdown between former best friends turned enemies, the monster in the cave, cheerleaders and football players ruling the school, and love at first sight.
However, if you're a fan of the TV Tropes website, you'll know that these days pretty much anything any writer can ever do has been identified, codified, and is now considered 'a trope'. Stuff the majority of people have literally never even heard of ('You I shall never forgive!') has already become a tired and over-used trope to other people. The most moving, beautiful, shocking or gritty plot elements, the most fully realised and nuanced characters, the most heartfelt, raw pieces of dialogue. It's all been done before. Everything is now a 'trope'. Sorry!
*Blows the loudest raspberry in the world*
See, the problem with all this is that it seems the words 'trope' and 'cliche' have become interchangeable. And actually, they're not the same. Most people currently use the word 'trope' as if they universally regarded all tropes as a bad thing. Even in talking about the most original, unique and quirky stories, people will point out what they believe to be tropes, either somewhat gleefully, as if they'd caught the author out somehow, or wearily and with annoyance, as a 'shame', as though the mere presence of a trope had spoiled something that would otherwise have been good.
But if everything is a trope, what is a writer to do? Create a book in which nothing is predictable, none of the characters are recognisable, and everything is utterly original? This does seem to be the gist of the 'anti-trope' discussions you see, and it's a nice idea – if it were possible. But it's not. In order to achieve this you'd need to literally publish a book of random words strung together randomly. 'Nugget. Bumblebee. Scaffold. Fussbudget schaudenfreud; scrumpy marple Wimpole!' Not a trope in sight! But not entertaining. Not actually a story at all.
Why? Because HUMANS LOVE PATTERNS. Humans instinctively and automatically strive to make sense of the random and chaotic by sorting it into recognisable patterns, which is why we look at clouds and see dancing monkeys, turn the cracks in the ceiling to rivers, discover a face hidden in the wood knots on the back of the bathroom door, and mentally draw out the constellation of Orion in our friend's freckles.
You can't stop humans from being humans. You cannot alter the way the human brain works or how people perceive and conceptualize the world. People will find patterns. If they can find a pattern in the raindrops on their windowpane they can certainly do it for any narrative constructed by a fellow human being. Which means if you give them a story, they will find tropes. From the very earliest myth of Gods and monsters and creation that humans made up to explain the world to the latest bestseller on the NYT bestseller lists, the same patterns can be found, if you look hard enough.
Cliches can certainly be a bad thing (and for advice on how to kill them you can check out my posts here and here). They can stifle your story and characters and drain the life from them. They can be lazy, boring and even harmful.
But not all tropes are cliches, just as not all the vacuum-cleaners you might drag into your office to get rid of glitter are hoovers, even if the words are used interchangeably. In fact, tropes can strengthen a writer's work. How? In order to answer that, let's look at another word which I think has been forgotten in the shuffle:
/ˈɑːkɪtʌɪp/
noun: archetype; plural noun: archetypes
1. a very typical example of a certain person or thing. "he was the archetype of the old-style football club chairman"
2. an original which has been imitated; a prototype. "an instrument which was the archetype of the early flute"
3. Psychoanalysis; (in Jungian theory) a primitive mental image inherited from the earliest human ancestors, and supposed to be present in the collective unconscious.
4. a recurrent symbol or motif in literature, art, or mythology. "mythological archetypes of good and evil"
Well, would you look at that! Kind of a significant overlap, wouldn't you say?
An archetype is, in fact, a powerful device within the storyteller's toolkit, something which harks back to mythology, to our most primitive and instinctive understanding of stories, narrative, and how the world works. Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, true love's kiss… these are all in fact *archetypes*, patterns which crop up again and again because they have immense narrative force, because they appeal to something basic within almost all people. The aged mentor who passes on his knowledge to a young protegee before falling in an attempt to protect him is an archetype – it's powerful because we've seen it before, because we know we'll see it again, because it can be twisted and subverted and turned on its head and our instinct will still identify and understand it.
Now – let's be clear – just as all tropes are not cliches, so not all tropes are archetypes, either. There are certainly a raft of tropes that I would like to take gently by the hand, lead outside, and shoot point blank in the head with a sawn-off shotgun.
But they're probably not the same tropes that everyone else is always talking about.
You see, I honestly believe that many of the most hated tropes, seemingly cliched and well-worn, can be transformed into archetypes – primal and moving devices for plot and characterisation – if used *well*. Love at first sight can still thrill our hearts. The aged mentor's death can still move us to tears. The final showdown between former friends can still make our blood race. The monster in the cave can still send a chill down our spines, and true love's kiss can still be the most satisfying finish.
Of course there are people who will always loathe some or all of these, no matter how well a writer uses them, but that's individual taste: not the quality of work.
No, the tropes I'd like to lovingly feed into a blender are ones like… 'I'm telling a fantasy story, so I'd better set it in a vaguely imagined pseudo-European Kingdom in which people of colour and gay people don't and never have existed, and in which women are universally horribly oppressed and constantly assaulted and exist only to be rewards for or obstacles to the male characters, and all my heroes are strong manly straight white men'.
Amazingly, not many people talk about this sort of thing as either a cliche or a trope. In fact, plenty of people – the same ones moaning about 'yet another teenaged heroine in a Dystopian world!' – will defend this sort of lazy, cliched male power-fantasy trope. They will call it 'historical accuracy' even when wizards and dragons come into play, and despite the fact that it's actually not even faintly historically accurate. Why? Because it's a cliche that people feel comfortable with.
And this, in the end, is my main problem with our current discussion on tropes, cliches and archetypes. Too many people are all too ready to call out the cliche/tropes that are their own personal pet peeves – teenaged heroines, love at first sight, Cinderella stories – while failing to examine or even *acknowledge* the harmful and downright stupid cliche/tropes that they take for granted.
Violence against female characters (and only female characters) is seen as 'realistic' instead of as a lazy cliche. The lone black character (if we even get one) dying first is shrugged off as not important when it happens for the six thousandth time in a row. The cliche of the single QUILTBAG character (if we even get one) being a flamboyant gay male whose only purpose is to act as a faithful sidekick to a female character isn't even noticed. The Asian person (if we even get one) is, of course, a geeky IT whizz. The lack of non-binary or disabled characters doesn't register at all.
And in the end, the white, conventionally attractive, skinny heroine will always fall in love with the white, conventionally attractive, muscular main male lead once he's heroically overcome his story's trials and tribulations, even though he's treated her like a piece of furniture throughout, because otherwise what was the point of her being in the story at all?
THESE are the cliches and tropes that ultimately ruin movies, books and TV series. They stifle truth in our storytelling, kill off the evolution of our characters before they've even begun to grow, and place painful, artificial limitations on the kind of stories we can tell and experience. If we want to see rich, beautiful, moving, original stories then we all ought to spend a lot less time making fun of teenaged girls for liking love triangles (a classic archetype) and a bit more making fun of middle aged white men who introduce female characters with a loving description of their breasts (nothing but a sexist cliche).
Down with Dastardly Tropes, say I!
Labels: FRAIL HUMAN HEART, Giveaways, Inspiration, The Name of the Blade, Tips for Young Writers, Writing
Hello, lovely Readers! A flying visit to the blog today to offer you the link to my ranty post over on the Author Allsorts blog about tropes, cliches, and archetypes, and which ones should be taken outside and shot. Let me know what you think in the comments here or there!
Read you next week!
Labels: Rants, Tips for Young Writers, Writing
FRAIL HUMAN HEART BLOGTOUR: DAY #9
Happy Tuesday, Dear Readers! Today is the ninth and final day of the FRAIL HUMAN HEART Blogtour, and we are paying a visit to the frankly gorgeous website of the frankly gorgeous Daphne of Winged Reviews, where I ramble on at some length about my inspiration and initial creative process for THE NAME OF THE BLADE TRILOGY.
Nine whole days of blogging in a row! I'm not sure I've ever done that before - but it's been fun, hasn't it? Below is the round up of all the stops in the tour:
Day #1, Pewterwolf - Snippet from the book
Day #2, KitKatscanRead - Snippet from the book
Day #3, Feeling Fictional - Snippet from the book
Day #4, Teens on Moon Lane - Snippet from the book
Day #5, The Reader's Corner, Jack & Hikaru Deleted Scene - major spoilers!
Day #6, Luna's Little Library, Hikaru Deleted Scene - not really spoilery
Day #7, SisterSpooky, Mio & Shinobu Deleleted Scene - pretty spoilery!
Day #8, Serendipity Reviews, Detailed interview with Viv
Day #9, Winged Reviews, In Depth Inspiration Post
The number of reviews on the FRAIL HUMAN HEART page on Amazon has grown and I am so happy and grateful - thank you to everyone who's popped on to leave their thoughts and a rating so far. I'm thinking that once I get to ten, that's when I'll pick one person to win that really special super prize related to the trilogy, which will hopefully make their reviewing efforts worthwhile.
Also a quick reminder that not this weekend but the weekend before I totally overhauled and remade my website. The new one can be found at the exact same website address (handy, right?) of www.zoe.marriott.com, and I'd love to hear from you about it using the new email form or here in the comments. Do you like it? Miss anything from the old site? Is there anything new you'd like me to add? Let me know!
Finally, to ease the pain of the ending of this most magnificent blogtour, I'm going to be doing a guest post on the Author's Allsorts tomorrow called DASTARDLY TROPES in which I weigh in, at some length, about what is and is not a trope and how we should use or discard them in order to make our writing stronger. So if that's the kind of thing you like, pop in here again tomorrow for the link or else head straight to the Author's Allsorts.
Labels: Big Secret Project, FRAIL HUMAN HEART, Good News, Inspiration, The Name of the Blade


text:
Snowsport England is the National Governing Body for snowsport in England, and we're committed to inspiring participation in Snowsport at every level.
Inspiring participation in snowsport at every level.
Snowsport England strives to increase awareness of and growth in participation of Snowsport in England at every level. We will do this through increasing traffic to our Go Ski Go Board website by 5% per annum and by targeting Schools to increase the number participating in Snowsport.
Our membership, club and volunteers are crucial in supporting our network and sustaining growth in our sport and identifying and developing talent. We will continue to nurture and engage with our members and volunteers through specific programmes of activity designed to increase satisfaction levels.
PASSION IN PEOPLE
Our members, including all volunteers, are at the leading edge of all our activities and decision making. We strive to improve their snowsport experiences.
We promote the spirit, culture and family values of our sport by supporting our local and national communities.
TRAILBLAZING IDEAS
Forever on the lookout for new initiatives, piloting, national ideas, listening to the industry and pushing the boundaries of what we can and will achieve for the good of the sport.
GENUINE VOICE
We carry out our work with honesty, speaking up on important matters and tackling challenges with the same vigour as when we're out enjoying the slopes.
Our underpinning value is providing trusted leadership based upon good governance, promoting safe and challenging experiences across all snowsport disciplines. Inspiring participating in snowsport at every level.
Louise is joining Snowsport England with unique experience in sport, diversity & inclusion and health & well-being. She has extensive knowledge of the sporting landscape from grassroots participation to podium success. Working at the highest level of performance sport, Louise has attended the Olympic Games, World Championships & Commonwealth Games in support services roles. She has also worked for the English & Scottish Institutes of Sport and a number of sports governing bodies. Louise is an experienced leader and is currently CEO for a sports governing body.
Tim Fawke
Joined SSE in 2004 and appointed CEO in 2009. Tim is a former England and GB Squad alpine ski racer and coach. Initially joining SSE as Coach for the England Squad in 2004. Qualified to a high level Tim continues to be actively involved in the sport and is Chief of Championships at SSE's premier event in Bormio, Italy. Tim also sits on the Board of GB Snowsport as Home Nations representative.
Simon Levene
Finance Director / Deputy Chair
Joined the board in 2018. Simon is a Chartered Accountant who has spent most of his career as a consultant to large global professional and financial services firms. Simon has helped support the Suffolk Vikings Ski Team based in Ipswich for many years and still tries to keep up with his Alpine ski racing children on his snowboard. Chair of audit & Risk.
Chris Stroud
Members Director
Joined the board in 2017. Chris has recently retired from a career teaching Physical Education. He is a Snowsport England Alpine Level 4 Coach and Tutor, is an active skier who coaches regularly in the Midlands, and delivers SSE courses around the UK and in the Alps.
Morwenna Angove
Joined the board in 2018. Morwenna has over 30 years sales, marketing and operational experience spanning the drinks industry, travel and leisure. Appointed as Chief Executive of Chill Factore in Manchester, in 2010, Morwenna is passionate about making Snowsports accessible to as many people as possible.
Ian Davis
Senior Independent Director
Joined the board in 2017. Ian has many years experience of working as a town planner in organisations throughout the country. He was the Head of Paid Service (CEO) for Rugby Council for 10 years until 2016. He now works as a freelance consultant advising the development industry. Member of Audit & Risk and remmuneration committee.
Crispin Vitoria
Joined the board in 2018. Crispin runs a sports consultancy advising on all the commercial aspects of sport, including sponsorship. Previously Crispin spent 2 years setting up the grassroots of Superbike racing in the UK, he worked for a sports and entertainment agency in London and was the Head of Sponsorship for Macmillan Cancer Support.
Zena Huelin
Joined the Board in 2019. Zena is a former winter resort manager and seasonaire with a love for the mountains and outdoors. Passionate for snowsport to be accessible to the many. Zena and her family are involved with dry slope ski racing within the UK. She hopes to bring practical and day to day issues and solutions to the Board.
Oliver Mitchell
Joined the board in 2020. Oli has a range of experiences in sport development, having worked for a County Sports Partnership, National Governing Body and now within the Higher Education Sector. Having spent several years as the Education Development Officer for British Wheelchair Basketball and currently a Sport Development Officer at De Montfort University, Oli has plenty of experience of engaging individuals from across wide and diverse backgrounds and bringing them together through the power of sport.
Greg Sturge
Joined the Board in 2020. Greg brings breadth of experience, networks and insight from across the sporting sector. He started his career developing development and inclusivity programmes, alongside delivering national and international events including BUCS Alpine Championships and World University Games. He then managed National Governing Body partnerships at Sport England before joining Stack Sports, a leading global sports technology provider, as Head of Strategy. Greg is a keen recreational skier and passionate about increasing access and opportunities within sport.
Stephen Metheringham
Joined the board in 2020. Stephen has over 30 years' experience within the construction and fitting out sectors. A Chartered Surveyor for over 22 years, he specialised and has run a property taxation consultancy for the last 15 years. Stephen has been involved with UK grass roots ski racing since 2011 and is Chair of Ski MK Race Team and ERSA.
Joined SE in 2004 and appointed CEO in 2009. Tim is a former England and GB Squad alpine ski racer and coach. Initially joining SE as Coach for the England Squad in 2004. Qualified to a high level Tim continues to be actively involved in the sport and is Chief of Championships at SE's premier event in Bormio, Italy. Tim also sits on the Board GB Snowsport as Home Nations representative.
Jan Doyle
My role with Snowsport England involves Co-coordinating work programmes for the Sports Development Team and collating reports for Sport England regarding the delivery of the Whole Sport Plan.
Claire Pennell
My role within Snowsport England is to ensure that effective methods are put into place so that the company runs to its maximum productivity. My aim is to strengthen client / member relationships and ensure the successful continuance of business operations
Victoria Stonehouse
Marketing and Insight Lead
My role within Snowsport England is to raise awareness through delivering engaging marketing campaigns, digital projects, courses and events. By communicating and engaging with our members, I want to help increase the participation in Snowsport for anyone at any level.
Bridget Owen
Safeguarding Lead
Working within safeguarding for almost 20 years, my role within Snowsport England includes providing guidance and support to affiliated clubs, looking into any concerns and liaising with statutory services when concerns are raised. I am also responsible for maintaining our Advanced Standards in Safeguarding Children accreditation. I am also a County Welfare Officer for the ECB and am on the ECB Referral Management Group for safeguarding and child protection concerns.
Ian Findlay
Talent Lead
I've been involved in skiing for my whole life after learning to ski at Glenshee, Scotland. I've competed at a high level in Basketball and Mountain Biking but Snowsports has always been my main passion.
Ryan Grewcock
Coaching and Workforce Lead
I fell in love with Snowsports back in school. I have worked almost every role in several artificial ski centres across the UK. I have been involved in coaching and instructing since the mid-nineties and now Tutor courses for Snowsport England. My aim is to grow and develop the coaching schemes.
Luke Williams
Campaigns and Partnerships Lead
Snowsports is a relatively new venture for me but I completely appreciate and have experienced first-hand what the power of any sport can do for anyone. I hope to provide those who seek it the opportunity to get involved and stay involved with a sport as exciting as this; to set them up with a new hobby for life.


I do wish people were able to evaluate comedy beyond simply the crowd reaction, beyond the people going, "Woooooooo!" and be able to tell when the hooting and hollering is coming from someone pandering, and saying something everyone already agrees with, as opposed to a comedian getting that reaction from saying something startling, and original, and unexpected.
This is why the articles in the Rotten Library continue to be some of the most enjoyable, insightful things I read anymore. I won't delve into the various and sordid articles among the Rotten Library arcana, because part of the fun is finding out just what their mystery writers chose to cover. But to their credit, where else can you go to find articles on gnosticism, Krakatowa, D.B. Cooper, and the occasional cherubish, comic book-obsessed comedian?
Emergency 411 gives you the info on what to do when falling from a plane… without a parachute.
As for the title of this post, there was a friend of mine who got the same perverse glee rewinding a 5-second clip of Santa's Little Helper jumping up onto Homer's belly for a good 20 minutes. Dogs are just funny like that.


Kedi / Oscillocope Laboratories presents a Termite Films production in association with PK Film Investment ; produced by Charlie Wuppermann ; produced and directed by Ceyda Torun.
Special features: Feature-length audio commentary with director Ceyda Torun, Charlie Wuppermann and Mo Stroebe; making of; deleted, extended, and outtake scenes; theatrical trailer.
DVD, region 0, NTSC, wide screen (1.78:1); Dolby surround & stereo.
Turkish dialogue; English, French and Spanish subtitles, Subtitled for the deaf and hard of hearing (SDH).
Feral cats -- Turkey -- Istanbul.
Cats -- Turkey -- Istanbul.
Torun, Ceyda, film producer, film director.
Termite Films (Firm), production company.
PK Film Investment (Firm), production company.