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Home Food for Thought The Konkan Coast St. Aloysius College, Mzngalore
St. Aloysius College, Mzngalore
St. Aloysius College, Mangalore.
What the College Has Come to Be:
.... the greatest glory of Mangalore, let us say it humbly and thankfully." This was what Fr. A. Ambruzzi s.j. the tenth Rector of St Aloysius College, Mangalore, said of it fifty-two ago; and now, in the centenary year of the College, the writer of the present history has no hesitation at all in saying it again;
In the course of a hundred years, St Aloysius College has traveled (as it were) very far. In 1880, it was only an Upper Secondary School meant to prepare students for the Matriculation Examination. Functioning in a single building, it counted on the opening (January 12, 1880) a hundred and fifty students on its rolls and just two teachers (Fr. Jos Willy s.j. and Scholastic Postlewhite s.j.) on its staff. It grew to be a Second Grade College in the third year. In the mean time, in the fifth year, it had come to have a Middle School (or Lower Secondary) Section added on to its Upper Secondary Department. In the twenty-eighth year, it came to have a Primary Section tagged on to its Middle School Department.
Now, in the centenary year, the world of St Aloysius College includes in its grand sweep a First Grade Day College, a First Grade Evening College, a High School, an Evening High School, a Higher Primary School (or Middle School) and a College of Business Administration. Having nineteen buildings of its own (including among others the Centenary Commemoration Building the College Students' Recreation Centre, the old Academy Hall, the College Auditorium, two workshops, the buildings served as Staff Quarters for a good number of the College teachers, three blocks of the former "Down College" providing residential accommodation for quite a few Middle School teachers and other employees, the three hostels and the former Boarding House where the vocationalised courses are currently held) the College now counts 4,591 students on the rolls of the several institutions in its fold (as against the original number of 150 students) and 148 teachers (as against the original number of two teachers)!
Yet, even in the centenary year, after the College has come to have such a plurality of buildings, when one says, "St Aloysius College," what invariably "flashes upon the inward eye" (bringing to the mind Poet Saldanha's lines quoted above) is that 1885 building on the top of Edyah Hill, 'the Acropolis of Mangalore', that old two-storeyed building 496 feet long, with the magnificent Chapel and the ornate Academy Hall (each 118' x 50') at it two ends, and the Tower rising from its middle, the whole edifice designed somewhat after the Oratory of St Philip Neri in Rome. This happens because, for long years, with its tower it was the tallest building in Mangalore; and though, in course of time, taller buildings have come up on all sides, to this day it is the College tower that rises higher into the Mangalore air than any other building in the city on account of its natural advantage of being perched on the top of Edyah Hill. Moreover there is nothing else comparable to it in terms of majestic lay-out and sheer size in Mangalore.
But what is really pertinent to the present history is not the physical eminence of the College but something else, viz., the fact that the physical eminence is symbolic of the educational eminence that the College has come to have in the district, symbolic of its great age, of its immense prestige and of its very impressive record of service to the district.
In a hundred years, how many able priests, administrators, diplomats, politicians, judges, advocates, doctors, engineers, scientists, industrialists, manufacturers, businessmen, civil servants, men of the Defence Services, teachers, writers, journalists, artists and social workers has not the College given to the country? Therefore what the College has meant to the country in general is not irrelevant to a consideration of what the College has come to be. But, in relation to the second element of the title of the present history, what is more important is what the College has meant to Dakshina Kannada (South Kanara) in particular.
If today Dakshina Kannada is an honored name on the map of India, it is chiefly on account of its spectacular progress in education; and this progress is to be reckoned not merely in terms of the large number of the Primary Schools, Secondary Schools and Colleges (both those given to general education and those given to professional education) in the district, nor merely in terms of the very good examination results in these institutions (always above the State averages), but also and chiefly, in terms of the catholicity, modernity and urbanity of the people of the district and their admirable enterprise. The credit for this progress must largely be given to St Aloysius College. For one thing, it was the only First Grade College for men students in this district for nearly sixty years; for another, when the district went in for a rapid multiplication of High Schools and of Colleges in the first four decades and the next two decades respectively of this century, the first contingents of educational personnel in these institutions had to be, by and large, the products of St Aloysius College.
Even when their subsequent streams of educators did not inevitably have to be Aloysians, these institutions continued to be indebted to St Aloysius College: in another way: they chose to emulate it in some important matters. Thus Dr T. Madhava Pai, himself an Old Boy and the far-renowned maker of the vast and varied educational complex at Manipal, who founded not only several Professional Colleges of acknowledged excellence but also six very good Colleges of Arts, Science and Commerce (including M.G.M. College, Udupi, the most formidable rival of St Aloysius College for the title of the College par excellence of Dakshina Kannada) always looked upon St Aloysius College as well worth the tribute of emulation. We have it on the authority of a bulletin of Manipal Academy of General Education that, "to Dr Pai, the educational activities of the Missionaries were a source of inspiration; and today the managers as well as the teachers in his institutions hail the premier college of the district, viz., St Aloysius College, as a model institution so far as academic standards and discipline are concerned. Although each one of these Colleges has its own individuality, each secretly cherishes the desire to be compared (of course, favorably) with the College on top of Edyah Hill." (- Italics, the Editor's comments.)
It would be easy to pile up the evidence of the excellent image that the College has projected of itself in the public mind in the course of a hundred years. But, for want of space, the present history has to be content with just one more piece of evidence. Rajesh Mallya, a mere High School lad, gives this interesting piece of information in an article in The Littleman: "There was a time when the boys of St Aloysius were admitted to medical colleges in Ceylon without being required to take the Entrance Examination, which it was necessary for the Ceylonese and other boys to take." Of course, the High School lad, being unexposed to the sophisticated requirements of documentation, cites no authority for his information. The present writer, however, likes to believe that the lad's information is correct. Even if it is not so, it should serve at least as a pointer to the splendid image of the Alma Mater in popular imagination and also to the very understandable proneness of her admirers to invent legends about her, seeing that her reputation is so good and so well-founded that almost any legend about her would gain credence.
How the College Has Come to Be Such
Before turning from the foregoing summing up of what the College has come to be, to chronicling proper, it should not be out of place to dwell for a while on how the College has come to be such. From the beginning, the Jesuits trained their sights very high. They always had very great solicitude for the spiritual and material good of the students entrusted to their care. Consider, for instance, their reason for choosing to have only the Fifth, the Upper Fourth and the Lower Fourth Classes (i.e., the three classes prior to the Matriculation Class) in the opening year: "It was considered prudent not to start with the Matriculation Class, as our want of experience of Indian examinations might have lessened the chance of passing for prospective Matriculation students."
Further, the Jesuit Fathers insisted on regularity of attendance, good conduct and application to studies. In the first decade in particular, this was an uphill task, given the situation that neither the parents of their scholars nor the scholars themselves used to be sufficiently appreciative then of the value of regularity in attendance at college. The first Annual Report of the second Rector Fr. Cavadini (the Report for 1885-86) has this lament: "We have to complain of irregular attendance in not a few cases." The adverb "still" reveals what the situation must have been during the Rectorate of Fr. Willy earlier. Fr. Cavadini's second Annual Report shows how he would not give up the fight against irregularity; for, accounting for the decrease of the student strength during the course of the year, the Report says: "Some were dismissed on account of their irregularity, others left. Most of the latter belonged to that class of traveling-scholars who, by joining one school, then another, then a third, avoid indeed the strict measures of school discipline".
But such firmness paid good dividends, apparently; for, after Fr. Cavadini's term, the Annual Reports lament neither about irregularity nor about the traveling-scholars traveling away from the Aloysian measures of discipline. In fact, since then student enrolment has always kept mounting, and the cry has ever been "Still they come."
More than these measures of discipline, and also more than precept (such as Fr. Cavadini used to place before the parents of his scholars in his Annual Reports), practice and example must have begun to tell before long both on the scholars and on their parents; for, from the start, the Jesuit Fathers laboured with utter dedication. Consider, for instance, how Fr. John Sergeant and Fr. Ryan dispensed with the luxury of "joining time" when they arrived at the College on January 29, 1880, notwithstanding the fatigue of their four-week voyage from Europe: "As we (i.e., Fr. Sergeant and Fr. Ryan) arrived about midday, the midday meal (we were all hungry) received our first attention. During dinner, Fr. Maffei, who was waiting to take up his work at Jeppu, and had been teaching for a few days until our arrival, asked me when I should be ready to begin school work. I answered, 'As soon as you like, after dinner.' Accordingly, just before two o'clock, we were taken to the College .... That afternoon was spent in preliminaries. Next morning Fr. Ryan was sent round the corner of the bungalow and I was installed in the front verandah," to teach the two classes accommodated there.
Again, consider the following from the pen of the same Fr. Sergeant:, "My first day of teaching was a most pleasant one, and a type of all the days I spent in teaching till I left India. I never had a dull day, and until my health failed in 1886, I doubt if I was absent from class for a single hour during the whole period of six happy years."
The example of the Jesuit Fathers in not being absent from class except when their health failed has been naturally very telling,. Hence the lay teachers, too, have generally been very scrupulous in this regard. The Casual Leave account of many a teacher has remained not drawn upon at all, in many a year. Many a teacher has retired without getting to know the rules concerning such varieties of leave as Commuted Leave, Half-Pay Leave, Extraordinary Leave, and what not. Hence Fr. A. Ambruzzi's observation in the Annual Report for 1935-1936: "It is a most pleasant duty to thank all the members of the teaching and clerical staff for their unstinted labor throughout the year. In spite of family and other difficulties, some did not absent themselves from work for a single hour." Hence, again, Fr. A. P. Menezes observation in the Annual Report for 1962-63: "This Institution has not lacked devoted teachers who joined service when young and who have grown old with it. They love teaching so much that they would not appreciate the cancellation of even one working hour in a term. Their first and last lesson is a lesson in discipline and order. The younger men too have quickly fallen in line with the old and imbibed the same spirit of devotion to work and personal interest in their pupils."
The results of examinations have been consistently good, especially after the first decade. In the first decade, when the students had yet to appreciate the value of regularity, the examination results used to be, as Fr. Cavadini put it in the Annual Report for 1885-1886, "not exactly what we might have wished for." But early in the second decade, the examination results began to be good; thus the Annual Report for 1892-1893 notes: "The results of the B.A. Examinations were highly satisfactory, the percentage of passes being greater than that of any other college in the Presidency." Since then the examination results have generally been what we have wished for.
The question arises whether this has been on account of the careful selection of students both for enrolment and for taking the public examinations. The hundred years of the College have, by and large, passed without such careful selection. . Fr. A. P. Menezes disposed of this question very well in the Annual Report for 1962-1963: "There has been much mud-slinging at private colleges by responsible persons and by sections of the press, of late. If the private colleges secure good results, this is attributed to the fact that only students who secure a first class in the S.S.L.C Examination are admitted to these colleges .... Suggestions have therefore been made that at least 25 % of the seats in private colleges should be reserved for third class students! At the risk of offending some people and tiring others, may I indulge in a bit of statistical analysis. Of the 442 candidates who appeared for the P.U.C. Examination from this College, 16 were repeaters, 88 had secured a first class in the S.S.L.C, 142 a second class and 191 had just a third class (some after more than one attempt). It is not surprising that, of these 191, 95 failed. But you may be agreeably surprised to learn that, of these 191, 42 secured a second class, and 4 even a first class. Of the 142 candidates who had secured second class marks in the S.S.L.C, 53 obtained a first class!"
In the following year's Annual Report, Fr. Menezes came out with further statistical information tending to the same conclusion: "Lest our success be attributed entirely to careful selection of students at the time of admission and a more careful selection of candidates for the public examinations, let me tell You that, out of 503 students on the rolls in the Pre-University Class, 499 were permitted to appear for the examination; and out of these 499, 122 (i.e. 25 '/,,) had only third class marks in the S.S.L.C Examination, and 65 of these had passed after more than one attempt."
What then is the secret of such, success? "A simple word summarizes it: WORK, tireless efforts of the Principal to maintain order, discipline and regularity, tireless efforts by the teachers to . impart excellent instruction and serious effort by every student.
I do understand that work is irksome, and discipline more irksome still. But there is no alternative road to success. The Romans were very realistic when they used the term 'discipline' to signify not only what we generally mean by that term but also the study of any subject, implying thereby that the two cannot be separated." (-Italics, the Editor's)
There is an obvious question that arises in this context: how come that even across a span of a hundred years the lay teachers on Edyah Hill have, by and large, been men of such dedication? The answer is two-fold: for one thing, the dedication of the Jesuit Fathers themselves has been infectious; for another, that very dedication has made the Fathers careful, in the first instance in selecting the lay staff, and thereafter, in approving of their performance as probationers. Every Rector of St Aloysius College has done these two things without fear or favour, not having an axe to grind.
Mr John Monteiro, who in the sixties was a probationary Lecturer in the College for a year, and who has been a successful journalist since then, bears frank testimony to this in the course of his reminiscences appearing in one of the Centenary Bulletins: "I have to be grateful to St Aloysius College for much, not in the least for helping me to discover my vocation. After my post graduation, the College was kind enough to offer me a Lectureship. The students were, by and large, tolerant and courteous. So was the Principal. But the interests of the students came first with him. He was firm in telling me at the end of the year that teaching was not my vocation. This from a Principal who bears my own surname and who is the brother of one of my close friends. But he had to weigh the interests of one against those of so many eager students entrusted to his care. This Principal, who has now retired, is one of the people whom I meet faithfully every time I visit Mangalore. The incident reflects the integrity of the Jesuits of St Aloysius College."
This integrity is something that cannot be enough praised, as should be evident from the contrast presented in the following dismal narrative: (a) We are now living in very bad times when corruption is mounting highland mounting fast in our society; employment in the public sector (not to put it more pointedly) is more and more coming to depend upon payments made under the table to sundry personages. (b) There is worse to follow: as employment in private educational institutions is now as gainful as that in government educational institutions, increasing numbers of the candidates for such employment seem to think that, if they must pay the customary "prices" for employment in the public sector, they might as well pay the like prices for employment in the private sector too. Towards the end of his term as the Principal of a private college, the present writer himself found candidates for employment as Lecturers in his College offering not only to give donations to the College, but also to make payments under the table to him if only they would be selected for employment; a few had even gone to the length of making the offers in writing, in the covering letters appended to their applications; such "prices" are offered even for employment in Primary Schools nowadays! (c) The worst part of the narrative is here: already there are Managements, (even in Dakshina Kannada,) that have been caving in before such offers so that the !jobs in such institutions go not to the best-qualified and the most competent but to those who pull their purse-strings the widest.
The integrity of the Jesuit Fathers of St Aloysius College is the only explanation for the phenomenon of their getting such dedicated lay teachers right through a hundred years. Let it also f be said, and not merely in passing, that the lay teachers too have been as much men of integrity as they have been men of dedication.
Having said so much of examination results and of the underlying dedicated effort, it is now necessary to make it clear that the College has not been merely an examination-oriented institution. It is not as if, in a bid to keep up the high academic standards, the Jesuit Fathers have lost sight of the need to work for sound minds in sound bodies. Athletics and games have ever had their due importance in the College; and the students on its rolls have distinguished themselves in the district as much by their proficiency in games as by their proficiency in studies.
Cricket was developed very early as a St Aloysius College specialty by Fr. Ryan s.j. one of the earliest Jesuits who laboured in the College. At Oscott, he had been dubbed Public Man, "the term applied there to the best all-round student."' On Edyah t Hill, "the Public Man of Oscott would take part in Badminton, Tennis, Football, Running and Jumping to show how it should be done. But Cricket was his great game. He stood at the wicket in his lovely white soutane, and showed what 'Forward Play' meant ' and what 'Drive' meant. Cricket was in its glorious days when the College team under Fr. Ryan pitted itself against Military Officers, European Officials and Planters .... The history of cricket at St Aloysius College might fill a whole volume. But as Dr L. P. Fernandes of Kankanady said recently, if Fr. Ryan had not started cricket in 1885 and earnestly promoted it up to his death, St Aloysius College would not have achieved its unique record in cricket."'
Hockey, too, soon became as much the forte of St Aloysius College as cricket. Right through the century, the students of the College have had a hectic career of winning trophies for the College in the matches and tournaments relating to different games. Fr. Joseph A. B. Coelho s.j. the twelfth Rector of the College, stated the St Aloysius College policy in regard to sports and games very well thus: "In Jesuit education, play has its rightful place after study, and with a view to better study".-2
Nor have the Jesuit Fathers at St Aloysius College lost sight of their responsibility for the development of leadership qualities in the students. As early as 1895, the College went in for a Debating Club. Since then the co-curricular activities have been greatly diversified, as should be evident by and by, from the chronicling proper. The amount of money that now goes into student activities in the College might well make old-timers wince. It is significant that, among the prizes awarded at the College Associations Day Ceremony in recent years, there has been one for the Best Outgoing Student. It is a prize awarded by the Staff of the College Department and is meant for a student of one of the Final Year classes who excels in conduct, in studies and in either sports or extracurricular activities. It does credit to the St Aloysius College scale of values that such a prize has been conceived of.
When the country became independent in 1947, and an awakened social conscience called for a change of attitude on the part of the haves towards the have-nots, the College encouraged the students to engage themselves after working hours in social work among the poorer sections of the society. Thus was born the Social Service League of the College during the year .1947-1948. The League went on diversifying its activities from year to year so that within a few years its activities came to include adult education at night in a plurality of centers in Mangalore, the adoption of specific villages for rural development projects, medical relief work in leper asylums and colonies, work camps during vacations and so on. Latterly, with the Government of India itself getting the colleges in the country to implement the National Service Scheme (i.e. the N.S.S.) under the supervision of the appropriate universities, the old Social Service League has made way for the N.S.S. Unit of the College. The work of the N.S.S. unit serves to make the young realise the dignity of labor, to bring home to them the problems and needs of the poor, and above all, to develop compassion in them.
Right through its first century of existence, the College has striven to give a good moral training to the students and to prepare them for their proper places as citizens of this great country. By means of the Sodality (which has been there right from the start), the Students' Missionary League (i.e., the S.M.L., which came later on) and the Catholic Service in the University (i.e. the C.S.U., which came in the sixties), a determined effort has been made all along to give the Catholic students the firm spiritual grounding so necessary for a Christian life. Annual Retreats for Catholic students have been a special feature of St Aloysius College. In recent years the closed retreats, the C.S.U. cells and leadership camps have been additional facilities for the Catholic students to practice their religion.
Hence Fr. A. Ambruzzi very rightly made this claim for the College in 19-)8' "The College has ever maintained its tone of a thoroughly Catholic Institution. No one has failed to recognize this-from Cardinal Lepicier, who felt at home in the Catholic atmosphere of the College, to the last non-Christian pupil who, on first crossing the thresholds of our classrooms, hears the prayer we address to God our Father and to our Heavenly Mother."
Nearly half a century later, Fr. A. P. Menezes had no hesitation in making the claim again: "In all the activities of the year, we have not forgotten the raison d'etre of the Institution. St Aloysius College was established to provide the Catholic youth of S. Kanara with a sound liberal education. Although no discrimination is made of caste or creed at the time of admissions, or during the year, we have felt justified in giving additional facilities to our Catholic students in the practice of their religion."
It is small wonder then that the spiritual atmosphere of the College has proved congenial soil for vocations. The following statistical information (up-to-date in 1955) is significant: "No less than a hundred of its pupils have entered the Society of Jesus; 50 have entered other religious orders; about 450 are either priests or are preparing for priesthood."' If the present writer had more up-to-date information, it would be more impressive indeed.
Space must be found. here for a detail (very rightly figuring) in the 1946 Report on the New Extension Scheme of Fr. Jos. A. B. Coelho for the College Department: "Bombayites were glad to hear that .... the Catholic student was intently national and non-committal, and that the non-communal atmosphere in the College was responsible for the election of Catholics as Presidents of the College Union for three years in succession."
As for the non-Catholic students, their moral development, too, has been taken care of. As early as 1897-1898, Fr. Frachetti the fourth Rector, introduced the teaching of what he called General Ethics - it used to be a course in Practical Philosophy conceived for the benefit of the non-Catholic students. The teaching of General Ethics has continued to the present time, though with a change of name; it has latterly been called Moral Science. It has always made the desired dent on the taught., What Dr Taxeira, the then Bishop of Mylapore, said in 1929 (at the Prize Distribution Ceremony in the College) still holds good: "As to the non-Christian element in the College,, I understand that it compares well with the Catholic in the practice of the civic and natural virtues, another index of the efficiency of the educational endeavor here."
Apparently the leaders of the Catholic community in Mangalore were among the first people in the country to feel the need for modern education imparted especially by a body of religious men who could very well be trusted to set about the tasks of education with utter dedication. Being aware of the excellent work done in education by the German Jesuits in Bombay, the Belgian Jesuits in Calcutta and the French Jesuits in Trichy, they petitioned the Holy See "as far back as 1858,114 and prayed that the Mangalore Mission be handed over to the Society of Jesus so that the very Society that had been doing so handsomely by Bombay, Calcutta and Trichy might do likewise by Mangalore.
The 1858 petition was followed by further petitions during the next twenty years. At long last, in 1878,5 Pope Leo XIII acceded to the request and issued a Brief assigning the Mangalore Mission to the Society of Jesus "mainly with a view to start a College;" and then "Very Rev. Fr. Beckx, the then General of the Jesuits, assigned the Mangalore Mission to the Jesuit Province of Venice.


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Today, it's No. 2 seed Carl Monday, who has gained a bit of notoriety around here, taking on notorious technophobe Ricky Manning, Jr., cornerback for the Chicago Bears.
It's a No. 2 vs. No. 15 battle; will we have a Iowa State-Hampton? Let's dig so deep into the faceoff that we won't be able to tell which end is up.
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I had a corner shack for a few years; had a big cheap desk from an office store that was L-shaped and fit in the corner. I sat in the center of the V, transceiver and PC monitor in front of me; keyer and paddles to the right, PC keyboard slightly to the left of center; power supplies, LP filter, and some other stuff on a small bookcase on top of the desk, to the left. Worked pretty well, all in all. ("Your mileage may vary!") GL!
I was checking the Ikea website. They have a very long, on both sides, corner desk, with a sunken keyboard option for the computer.
I just bought a Commander HF 2500 amp, and a Yaesu FT 1000, so I must be sure it is deep enough.
Plus, I have a very deep Dentron 160 meter 2kw antenna tuner!
Check the computer rack/shelving at www.globalindustrial.com you can get them in 3, 4 or 6 foot widths, a counter top, and as many shelves as you want.
Peruse eHam [Spotlight] and [Shack Showcase]pics,all kinds of corner set ups.
Draw out what you want on paper. A simple sketch.
You ask for advice -- You can fit an awful lot of stuff on a 24" deep top. That being said, imagine knocking together some 2x4s to form a 22" or so frame. It's just a rectangle. Cut some 2x4 legs approximately 28" long. Buy a nice sheet of oak or birch 3/4" plywood. You get 2 sections 24"x96" out of that if you can use a circular saw -- if you can't call a friend who can.
Sand the boards, stain, brush on some Polycrylic or similar -- on a sunny day you can have this thing built in no time as the coatings will dry quickly. Make the corner either an "L" or if you want to get fancy you can cut a 45 degree piece to give you some more depth in corner.
When you want a hole through top to drop cords, drill a 2" hole wherever you want.
Put the 2x4 sections together with 3" decking screws so you can change it easily.
Screw the top down in the corners and maybe 1 in middle with 1.5" decking screws.
Cheap. Sturdy as can be. Changeable. And you built it yourself. Ten times sturdier than anything ikea thought of making.
Simple. Build it yourself. Have something to be proud of. Then get on the radio.
If you live in a larger town or near one you might check out L shaped desks at used business furniture places. If you have the room you can also look at the U shaped units. I have seen these units go for low cost compared to new.
I have the L shape and it supports my FT-950, an SB-1000 amp and AT2K tuner stacked, my PC, PS and room to write and have extra desk space for what I need.
If you wish if you look at the bottom of my bio you will see my setup. I picked that particular desk up at Staples as a closeout for under $200 and it's very sturdy.
Whatever you do, keep weight in mind of the different units you may want to stack and where. A lot of the furniture made today will not handle the weight of a SB 1000 (example) unless it's right over a leg.
Yes I have lots of experience with junk furniture in the past.
The desk shown in my bio was a closeout at Staples, a good buy, and built very nice.
I did install an additional L style metal bracket under my stack for additional support however.
"Peruse eHam [Spotlight] and [Shack Showcase]pics,all kinds of corner set ups."
Where do you find "Spotlight"??
Spot light gallery on the top right of eHam home page, same for show case gallery pics on right hand bottom of page. Many station pics, several with corner set ups. Hope you unstuck from that corner soon.
Well remember, when operating in a corner it is required in the FCC regs to wear your pointy little dunce cap!
Great setup, John. I have the legs and other parts for a bay like that, bought for a few bucks from a local company going out of business, and have been thinking of using them to rearrange my station. The gray metal legs are 32" high, though, and of course for the work surface one has to add the thickness of whatever is used for a desk/workbench top. That's several inches higher than a normal desk, I think. Can one adjust for that simply by raising the chair?
If the bench/desktop is higher, a higher chair helps, but you also need a foot rest then. Sitting in a chair that's a few inches too tall for your feet to comfortably sit on the ground is, quite literally, going to be a pain.


We are a friendly and thriving church in the town centre of Gainsborough in a beautiful Grade I listed building. If you would like to find out more about the history of our church please click here.
Our church is open every day and alongside our regular acts of worship we have a very popular café that is open Monday – Saturday. Visitors are always very welcome perhaps to find a quiet place for prayer and reflection, to look around at the inspiring architecture, or just to have a cup of tea!
We are a Eucharistic community and our worship revolves around our weekly sharing of communion. Our main service is the 10.30am Holy Communion which we celebrate according to Common Worship using appropriate seasonal settings. This is a sung service supported by our organ, choir and music group. The magnificent Walker organ is situated on the balcony over the main inner door and is played before and after the service. The music group is led by the pianist and usually consists of flute, clarinet and french horn.
We aim to make our music as varied as possible, choosing hymns of different styles from various sources. Two contrasting settings are used for The Eucharist. This is usually done on an alternate week basis. The Wiltshire Setting is played by the organist, and the New Raemoir Setting is accompanied by the pianist.
There are two choirs, a Junior Choir and a Senior Choir. The Senior Choir, consisting of members of our congregation, helps to lead the singing at the main service, and particularly during the administering of the bread and wine. The Junior Choir is formed from children from our own local primary school. They usually sing in church on the first Sunday of the month and on special occasions.
Other musicians in our congregation are encouraged to help lead worship at other times as appropriate.
Details of our regular worship can be found here.
As well as our programme of worship there is a range of activities and groups available which can be seen here. We also hold a number of concerts throughout the year and have strong links with the Church of England Primary Schools in the town.


Minimizing Stress and Reducing Demands on Board Members.
If board members are maxed out with handling owner calls, complaints, unpaid assessments and more, it may be time to turn over these responsibilities to an HOA management company. You may not even be able to find owners willing to serve on the HOA board. In this case, you have no choice but to turn to a community management company.
Acquiring and Maintaining the Required Level of Industry Expertise.
The right management company will be well versed in industry issues and have the experience necessary to manage your community efficiently. A professional management company will know the ins and outs of collecting unpaid assessments, legal matters, maintenance issues and more.
These two benefits alone create an attractive scenario and make the internal – external management decision somewhat easier. However, HOA board members need to realize it won't be a hands-off relationship. Board members still need to stay on top of budgets and services. Proper oversight is necessary for any relationship to run smoothly. Continue to read the Associated Asset Management Blog for information about Community Management.
Continue to read the Associated Asset Management Blog for information about Community Management.


text:
Ioan-Mihai Popa (n. 10 august 1950) este un deputat român în legislatura 1996-2000, ales în județul Mureș pe listele partidului PDSR.

Legături externe
 Ioan-Mihai Popa la cdep.ro

Nașteri în 1950
Deputați români 1996-2000
Politicieni români din secolul al XX-lea

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Moren education stands on the principles that explore the essence of learning, and incorporate those principles into the classroom.
Based on our long-term plans and goals, we've developed a strong system to make Moren's vision a reality. The following are good examples of our individualized teaching methods. Our teachers use various methods based on students' level of participation and class size.
The learner is an important resource in the process of learning, and is therefore capable of sharing and directing.
Subject matter gains primacy over that of the learner.
An interactive classroom will have more student talk and less teacher talk. Students are given the opportunity to interact with teacher and with other students.
The students are expected to construct knowledge and meaning out for what they are taught by connecting them to prior experience.
It makes the teacher connects what he/she teaches to other lessons of the same subject or connects his/her lessons with other subjects thus making his/her approach interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary.
It will welcome group work, teamwork, partnerships, and group discussion.
It requires the individual students to work by themselves.
The teacher directly tells or demonstrates what is to be taught.
The teacher guides the learner to discover things for himself/herself. The teacher facilitates the learning process by allowing the learner to be engaged in the learning process with his/her guidance.
The learning process itself takes into account not only the academic needs of the learners, but also their emotional, creative, psychological, spiritual, and developmental needs.
The teaching-learning process is focused on solving problems at hand. Time is spent on analyzing and finding workable solutions.
Chinese parents always encourage children to study abroad when their children have not prepared enough.
It creates a lot of problems in the family because the chidren are too young to study abroad. Problems include lack of family education, lack of Chinese basic education, and high tuition. Moren education helps students out of those types of situations, and helps them go to unversity abroad.
Students not only can finish normal Chinese education, but also experience a fully diffierent culture, and be acpeted by their dream university. Also, every student who graduates from the American program can obtain a certificate to show they have completed American high school courses.


UXBRIDGE, U.K. June 26, 2012 – The U.K. Cabinet Office's Government Procurement Service (GPS), has selected Xerox U.K. as a supplier for Managed Print and eCommunications Services. Xerox is included in GPS' new Wider Public Sector Print Service Framework agreement.
The framework, with an estimated value of £6.5 million this year, will run for three years and is set to deliver cost efficiencies in print services to public sector departments including local government, the education sector, NHS and the police force.
Xerox will work with departments to rationalise and improve communication channels aligned with the GPS' goal to deliver additional cost savings of 19 per cent across the wider public sector.
As a partner to the U.K. government and public sector for more than 35 years, Xerox helps government departments simplify their document supply chains, removing duplicate business processes and achieving savings in cost and time. In 2007, Xerox began work for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and within three years made improvements to the entire document supply chain, equalling a 21 per cent reduction in costs and 66 per cent reduction in wasted print.
Xerox signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Cabinet Office to deliver savings to the Government as part of the Efficiency Reform Group's deficit-reduction programme in 2010. In March this year, as part of an estimated £150 million two year multi-supplier framework agreement, the U.K. Government named Xerox as sole supplier for a limited range of multi-function devices and one of four suppliers of managed print services and a wider range of multi-function devices.
Xerox already provides technology, document management and business process outsourcing to a wide range of public sector organisations such as the Department of Work and Pensions, Worcester NHS Trust, Manchester City Council, Newport City Council, Sandwell Council, Scottish Police Services Authority, Kirklees Council and UCLH.


text:
A Treaty to Slow Deforestation
(Photo: Ingrid Lobet)
Cutting and burning trees releases more greenhouse gases than all the vehicles driving around the world, so protecting the world's tropical forests was high on the agenda at the UN climate talks in Poland. As Living on Earth's Ingrid Lobet reports, the indigenous groups most affected by deforestation haven't yet had a place at the table when decisions are made about climate policy.
CURWOOD: It's Living on Earth. I'm Steve Curwood at the United Nations Climate talks in Poznan, Poland.
[SOUNDS OF MARCHERS CHANTING AND DRUMMING]
CURWOOD: Young people have filled the streets of Poznan several times in recent days to urge governments to move forward, on all fronts on climate change.
And increasingly, attention has been turning to reducing forest destruction and degradation, known in the lingo here as REDD. Here to give us a closer look at how forestry is playing a key role in climate negotiations is Living on Earth's Ingrid Lobet.
LOBET: Hi, Steve.
CURWOOD: So Ingrid, the notion that protecting forests could help fight climate change goes back to the earliest climate negotiations, but it never made it into the original Kyoto accord of 1997. What are people saying now about forests getting back on the agenda?
LOBET: Well, as it becomes clear that climate change isn't just something in the future, but already in the present - there's the growing sense that slowing tropical forest losses is a must. Consider that chopping and burning of tropical forests releases more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks driving around the planet. And deforestation might be slowed down a lot quicker than changing the whole car industry.
CURWOOD: Now I understand there have been some big announcements from Brazil and Peru on this?
LOBET: Yeah, just a few days ago, Brazil became the first major-emitter, developing country to take on targets to reduce greenhouse gases - they said they'd dramatically cut deforestation - and considering that Brazil and Indonesia together are responsible for about half of those forest emissions, that is a big deal.
Peru has also followed with a goal to get to zero deforestation.
[POLISH YOUTH ORCHESTRA: "OYE COMO VA"]
CURWOOD: Wait a second, Ingrid - are we in Peru?
LOBET: No we're in Poland. That's a youth orchestra playing Tito Puente to a large group of people gathered for a full day focused on forests.
LOBET: This was only the second time there's been a day devoted to forests and it drew nearly a thousand people. A lot of scientists and reforestation and agriculture experts. Not so many people who actually live in the Amazon and Indonesian forests. That's been a tension throughout this year's talks. But there are also increasing points of agreement in this crowd about how to address deforestation.
NILES: It is clearly one of the most devastating land use phenomenons on the planet.
LOBET: John-O Niles, director of the nonprofit Tropical Forest Group, points out deforestation isn't just the world's second largest source of greenhouse gases.
NILES: It is the largest source of species extinctions, it can have massive health and human impacts, it destroys biodiversity, biochemical diversity in species that we've yet to even discover.
LOBET: So as scientists find there's less time than we thought to avoid real climate disruption, people have gotten really interested in actions you can take that have a more immediate effect. Martin Parry is a research scientist and co-chair of last year's climate assessment.
PARRY: We've left ourselves a lot to do in a short time. To cut 1990 level emissions by 80 percent by 2050, starting now. We cannot possibly achieve this mitigation target without transforming global forest trends.
LOBET: Climate experts have long understood that forest emissions are a major part of global warming. But the whole question of land use, tropical and temperate forests became too complex to get consensus in earlier climate change talks. Since then, the desire and willingness of many tropical countries to address forest emissions has been growing.
Many take heart that if you can pay people who live in or near the forest to protect the trees, it holds the promise for addressing global warming, deforestation and rural poverty - all at the same time.
[SOUNDS OF PROTEST: "NO RIGHTS, NO REDD!"]
LOBET: But as interest in reducing emissions from deforestation grows, so have concerns about it. Here in Poznan, several indigenous groups protested when language explicitly recognizing indigenous rights didn't make it into official proposals. Instead, indigenous groups were invited to give input to the next stage of the talks. Jorge Furagaro, an Amazon leader from Colombia, said what's essential is that indigenous nations aren't just consulted about carbon-storing projects, but that they can veto them.
FURAGARO: [Speaking in Spanish] Through interpreter: What we don't want to see is negotiators coming down here, going around our leaders, to community members who don't read or write and then saying, "Look I've got their signatures."
LOBET: Many of the forest experts here say projects to store carbon in trees must not restrict poor people's access to the medicine, food, and fuel that they get in forests. They also shouldn't create incentives for governments to take control of native land.
EHRHART: This man is being arrested for going into a forest reserve.
LOBET: Charles Ehrhart is with Care International.
EHRHART: This is exactly what concerns many indigenous peoples and local communities. They're worried that what REDD carbon finance is going to do is provide the state with resources they have been previously lacking to enforce their claim: what you're going to see is carbon conservation enabling a fortress forest approach.
LOBET: Sunita Narain, director of the Indian Centre for Science and the Environment warned that the very idea of a global market in forest carbon is a mistake.
NURAIN: Let us be very clear: We should not let the self interest of countries who could not reduce emissions at home, and wanted a cheap deal, consulting companies, banks, to do creative carbon accounting, to do what is today being called counterfeit carbon currency creations. Forests are about survival of large numbers of poor people. This is not a resource that we can allow the world to play around with.
LOBET: Even if wealthier countries do pay a lot to tropical forest nations, more than they first imagined, avoiding deforestation and degradation may still be both cheaper and quicker than changing industrial systems. And that's why many people, including Lars Lovold of Rainforest Foundation Norway, are hopeful. He's been working with indigenous people on rainforest protection for 30 years.
LOVOLD: Suddenly we are willing to put money behind this on a totally different scale than before. We are now talking billions of dollars. This is a totally new situation, which actually makes it possible to protect forests.
LOBET: And Steve it's that possibility, of more attention and more money, that makes this issue hopeful despite the controversy.
CURWOOD: So Ingrid, how far does that hope carry us toward a real agreement? We're in Poznan right now. In just a year, in Copenhagen, they're supposed to come up with a full treaty.
LOBET: Well there's a large and growing number of people who want forestry issues to be part of the world's united climate effort. So it's looking a lot more likely they're going to find a way to make this work.
CURWOOD: Thanks, Ingrid. We'll be checking in with you on these forestry issues again come January. In the meantime, thanks for coming to Poland.
LOBET: My pleasure.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Kids aren't the only ones in the family that can benefit from playdates. Parents need leisurely interaction with adults, too, especially moms or dads who primarily stay home with kids.
Combine your exercise time with social time and join a soccer, softball or bowling league. True, it may be one more commitment to squeeze into your schedule, but you'll enjoy the spirit of camaraderie that comes from being on a team. Plus: uniforms!
If you've always had a flair for the dramatic, considering audition for an upcoming community play. You'll hone your skills, meet new people and have a new hobby to add to the pesky "activities and interests" area on your resume. Bonus points if you've got a tween or teen that wants to do the play with you.
I have a friend that regularly gets together with her foodie friends for a night of gastronomic bliss. Each person brings a dish that corresponds to a specific theme, such as all things pumpkin in November or fresh spring salads in April. They sample dishes, swap recipes and stay late catching up on each other's lives.
The best time for personal time is early in the morning when no one is up to whine when you walk out the door. Recruit a few neighbors to meet in the wee hours of the morning and walk or run while ruminating aloud about the world's problems — or at least discuss yours.
Book clubs are hardly a novel idea, but they're still a great way to boost your reading time and get in some friend time, too. Pick books around a particular theme — parenting books if you want to relate better to your kids or chick lit if you need an escape valve from real life. Invite people in your neighborhood you'd like to get to know better or that friend you'd like to see more of.
Everyone has to eat, so why not plan a lunch meet-up once a month with other like-minded moms? If you've got young children, takeout at the park may be the best bet. For moms with older kids, meet for a meal while the kids are at school. Regular girl's nights outs are always a good option, too.
Sometimes social time happens organically, like when you're early for carpool pickup and your friend happens to be there too. But often, if it's not written down, it won't happen. So grab your calendar, text or call some friends and start penciling in some fun.