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Max Hirsch (1871-1959)
Max Hirsch
Max Hirsch and his son Harold Hirsch were responsible for building one of Portland's most famous businesses and helping to create a sportswear industry. Max Hirsch was a first-generation German Jewish immigrant to Portland who in 1907 purchased Willamette Tent & Awning from a Portland businessman and turned it into the Hirsch-Weis Company. Building on the success of his father's company, Harold grew his skiwear line into White Stag, one of the largest skiwear companies in the world.
Author » Zeb Larson, Ohio State University	Published: May 22, 2014 Updated: November 07, 2014
Max Hirsch's Early Life
Max's Entrance into Business
Hirsch Family Life
Harold Hirsch's Early Life
Harold at Dartmouth
Harold Returns to Portland
Selling White Stag
White Stag Takes Off
Changes in Skiwear
Harold's Personal Life
Max Hirsch (born March 9, 1871, Frankfurt am Main; died May 28, 1959, in Portland, Oregon) and his son Harold Hirsch (born September 3, 1907, Portland, Oregon; died July 4, 1990, Portland, Oregon) were responsible for building one of Portland's most famous businesses and helping to create a sportswear industry. Max Hirsch was a first-generation German Jewish immigrant to Portland who in 1907 purchased Willamette Tent & Awning from a Portland businessman and turned it into the Hirsch-Weis Company. His son Harold began making ski clothing after learning to ski while attending Dartmouth College in 1929. Using some capital given to him by his father and some spare floor space in his father's factory, Harold eventually grew his skiwear line into White Stag, one of the largest skiwear companies in the world. When the company went public in 1958, its annual earnings were approximately $14,000,000 ($106,000,000 in 2010). This article will examine the legacy that Max and Harold Hirsch created in business, in Oregon, and in the culture of skiing.
Max Hirsch was a first generation German immigrant to Portland whose family came from Frankfurt. Born in 1871, his formal schooling had ended when he was 13 years old, but Harold described him as an autodidact who read voraciously and was well-educated in history and economics. Max Hirsch choose to move Portland because of family members that already lived in the city, including an aunt, Jeannette Hirsch-Meier and his cousins Ludwig and Leon. Harold's reminiscences of Max paint a picture of a man with diverse interests: "My father's interests were primarily the community, philosophy, the humanities, charitable interests, both Jewish and non-Jewish…"[1] Max's children remembered him as having high expectations for those who worked for him but in turn was extremely fair towards his employees and made time for his children.
German-Jewish immigrants were part of a second wave of Jewish immigration into the United States that arrived in the United States in the years after the Civil War. The number of immigrants was considerable, and as a consequence, neighborhoods of German Jews began springing up all over the United States. One economic historian, Richard Zweingenhaft, noted that these immigrants overwhelmingly middle-class entrepreneurs. This group also tended to succeed in business, with Zweigenhaft noting that "Proportionally speaking, in no other immigrants' group have so many men ever risen so rapidly from rags to riches."[2] The German-Jewish community in Portland was largely from southern Germany and was close-knit.[3]However, they made efforts to blend into the dominant culture. When Harold learned German, it was not from his parents but from a Prussian governess the family hired.[4]
Max immigrated to the United States at the age of fifteen. When he arrived in the United States in 1886, he spoke no English and relied on support from relatives in Oregon. An aunt, Jeanette Hirsch Meier, was involved with the Meier & Frank Department Store and brought Max and his brother Leopold to Portland.[5] Through his aunt, Max found work at the Meier & Frank Department Store in Portland and remained with the company for nearly twenty years. He rose through the ranks of the store and was superintendent by the time his son Harold was born in 1907. While working for Meier & Frank, Max sent money home to Germany for his sister Eda. Yet Max ultimately left Meier & Frank because he didn't believe that he could rise any higher than the position of superintendent and he desired a better job; Harold recalled that this was a very difficult decision for him because he felt loyal to the store, but his ambition won out.[6]
Max Hirsch married Clementine Seller, who was from a German Jewish family that had immigrated to Boise, Idaho to run a retail crockery store. Like the Hirsch family, the Sellers were from southern Germany, near Frankfurt. Clementine was well-educated, having been sent to a Catholic seminary and then to Frankfurt for a "finishing" education.[7] They had two children: Harold and Helene.
After leaving Meier Frank, Max's next venture was the purchase of the Willamette Tent & Awning Company. WT&A had been founded by E. Henry Wemme in 1884 and had repaired sails for ships traveling the Willamette River, which flows through Portland, later on moving to tents and other canvas products. By 1907, the company had fallen on hard times due to a nationwide recession and Max Hirsch elected to buy the company from Wemme with his brother Leopold.[8] Wemme's secretary, Henry Weis, helped Max and Leopold form the necessary capital to purchase the company. Weis was the only one of the three men who had any familiarity with manufacturing canvas or selling canvas goods. Max became the president of the company, his brother Leopold became the vice-president and Weis remained as secretary. As implied by its name, the company's chief products at this time were tents and awnings, mostly for commercial enterprises such as logging camps. Harold Hirsch recalled that after a fire in Nome, Alaska wiped out many of the homes, the Hirsch-Weis company ran triple shifts to supply tents to the town before winter set in.[9]
WT&A's entrance into the garment trade occurred because many of their customers were logging companies. WT&A's original market had been sails for ships; however, this market had declined. Because logging was the chief industry in the Pacific Northwest at the time, Max began designing products specifically for loggers. One item which loggers wanted was waterproof clothing because of the rainfall in Oregon and Washington. However, raincoats of the era, known as "slickers," were a poor choice because they had no porosity at all; heat would build up in the jacket and were extremely uncomfortable to work in. WT&A devised work clothing that was waterproof and durable but with fabric that could still breathe, allowing people to work in them without overheating. These items became known as "Tin Pants" and "Tin Coats."
These were two-ply fabric canvas that was dipped into boiling paraffin. The paraffin would harden on the clothing and would remain waterproof. However, the paraffin would also form minute cracks which would allow heat and moisture to escape while remaining watertight. They were nicknamed "Tin Pants" because they were so rigid that loggers joked that you could stand them up before going to bed and they would remain upright.[10] In an interview with the Oregon Historical Society, Harold believed that it was his father Max who pushed to develop water-repellent clothing for loggers.[11] Another popular WT&A product was the Apple Water Bag. The bag was layered in such a way as to allow a small amount of water to escape and collect on the outside. It would evaporate, keeping the rest of the water in the bag cool.[12]
As the company moved into the 1920s, the focus increasingly grew on outdoor clothes, the most famous of which was the Cruiser Stag. This was a heavy wool melton coat with lanolin still in the wool to repel water and rapidly became popular with hunters.[13]Hirsch-Weis's reach was largely confined to the Pacific Northwest and Northern California, where the company maintained contacts with logging commissaries.[14] The company received some outside attention through catalogs. Max received a letter from one hunter in Pennsylvania claiming that the Cruiser Stag was the best jacket for a sportsman he had ever owned and requests from hunters in the Adirondacks for jackets.[15] Nevertheless, Hirsch-Weis remained a distinctly regional company, confined to the American West.
In 1907, the Hirsch family lived at 88 NW 21st Street in Portland, between Everett and Flanders streets in what is known as the Alphabet District.[16] Beginning in the 1880s, the Alphabet District had been home to Portland's well-off families, several of whom were Jewish.[17] The family had a comfortably upper-middle-class existence with a governess for Harold and his sister Helene and several servants. Harold's first memory of Portland was of Theodore Roosevelt laying the cornerstone for the Multnomah Athletic Club in 1911.[18]
The Hirsch family was close with the other Jewish families in the Portland area, which at that time was a relatively small community and which Harold recalled as being somewhat "clannish." Harold described his childhood as happy and he had a particularly close relationship with his father, with whom he shared interests in history and philosophy and whom he confided in until the end of Max's life.[19] The family belonged to a Reform Jewish congregation, and Harold noted that he and his sister were raised "with a feeling of religion, more the feeling than the structure" and that he never had a bar mitzvah; nor did he learn Hebrew.[20]
Despite the positive relationship with Max, Harold alluded to conflicts between himself and his father when he grew older, noting that he "aggravated the life out of dad!" Harold recalled his father as a busy man; in addition to his business, Max was president of the Beth Israel Synagogue, a stockholder in the Jantzen Knitting Mills Company, and worked as a booster for the city of Portland.[21] His mother did not work but was president of the Council of Jewish Women and participated in a number of Jewish charities.[22] As such, Helene and Harold were often left in the care of a governess. The family's Prussian governess abused the children, once pushing Harold's face against a kettle full of boiling water.[23] Harold remembered that after the governess was fired he began having behavioral problems.
Max Hirsch was a political conservative, though Harold recalled that Max loved Theodore Roosevelt and proudly voted for him. He spent much of his time in the 1940s and 1950s campaigning for a simplified income tax plan.[24] While Max appears to have privately opposed the New Deal reforms in the 1930s, Harold also remembered that his father would not tolerate any criticism of a current president regardless of who occupied the office, including Franklin D. Roosevelt. Patriotism and a fierce loyalty to his adopted country appear to have guided Max more than anything else.
At the turn of the century, Portland was a small city experiencing rapid growth. In 1900, the population of the city stood at 90,426 people, but in 1910, the city had grown to over 207,214 people. The city was not especially diverse, and during World War I anti-German sentiment surged in the city. After the war, the Ku Klux Klan came into the state and became a powerful force in local politics, at one point reportedly claiming 35,000 members in Oregon.[25] Helene Hirsch recalled a Klan parade by the family house sometime in the early 1920s.[26] That being said, Harold only recalled a few instances of overt prejudice growing up in Portland.[27] In Portland, German-born Jews had been present as early as 1849 and assumed important roles in the city's merchant class.[28]
Harold initially went to Lincoln High School in Portland, but eventually was sent away to Moran Private School outside of Seattle, Washington. He later recalled this happened because his grades were poor at Lincoln and his parents feared that he wouldn't get into college. Moran was a school modeled along the lines of a military boarding school, and Harold seemed to respond better to the level of discipline there. While there, he met a physics teacher named John McCrillis, a Dartmouth graduate and skiing enthusiast. Harold grew close to him and was first inspired to apply to Dartmouth because of his teacher. McCrillis also had some interest in anthropology and inspired Harold to study the subject.[29]
Perhaps most significantly, McCrillis introduced Harold to skiing. Harold's first skiing experience was not a positive one and nearly ended with an amputation: he went with classmates on a skiing trip to Mount Rainier, and cinched his boots too tightly. When he tried to take them off, he discovered that he had almost completely cut off the circulation to his toes. Once the circulation was restored, his feet swelled up and he had to be carried off the mountain and taken to a hospital in Seattle to save them.[30]
Based on advice from McCrillis, Harold decided to apply to Dartmouth College. It was traditional for wealthy Americans in the west to send their children to the great universities in the east because of the belief that it was better for building connections and had superior schools. To be sent to school on the East Coast was in and of itself a sort of social education, one which Harold's parents wanted him to have. Helene Hirsch was sent to Wellesley for college. Harold's parents encouraged him to stay at school during the vacations in order to meet his classmates' families and build a network.[31]
Harold loved Dartmouth and was motivated to pursue academia while studying there. He majored in anthropology while he was there and his liberal arts background would remain with him for the rest of his life. Indeed, it seemed to inform his way of looking at long-term trends in the marketplace. Nevertheless, he also remembers Dartmouth as the first place in his life where he experienced anti-Semitism first-hand. Harold recalled the fraternity rush at Dartmouth negatively, noting that few fraternities wanted a Jewish member. There was one Jewish fraternity at Dartmouth at that time, Pi Lambda Phi, but Harold felt that he would be narrowing himself socially if he were to pledge to a Jewish fraternity, though he eventually did so. Outside of the fraternity life, Harold associated with both Jewish and non-Jewish men.[32] Studies on anti-Semitism at universities, and especially at Dartmouth, reveal a double standard toward Jewish students, with students from German backgrounds—who tended to be upper-class and more anglicized—often being treated better than students from Eastern European backgrounds, and especially those who came from poor and middle-class families.
Harold became more interested in skiing while at Dartmouth. The oldest recreational skiing club in the United States had been formed in Berlin, New Hampshire, fifty years earlier.[33] Skiing at Dartmouth was popular in part thanks to simple necessity, as the fastest way to move around in the winter was on skis. Harold recalled using skis to go from class to class during the winter. Cross-country skiing, downhill skiing and a now-obscure sport known as skijoring were popular at Dartmouth. Skijoring was Harold's favorite; the sport involved yoking a man on skis to a team of horses which he would guide using reins. Contrary to some stories, Harold was never actually on the ski team at Dartmouth and downplayed his skill as a skier, though he skied recreationally throughout his life.[34]
Dartmouth was home to a German-born ski coach named Otto Schniebs who was a friend of John McCrillis, Harold's mentor at the Moran School. German and Austrian émigré ski coaches were critical in stoking the popularity of skiing in the United States, a trend that would only accelerate in the 1930s. Schniebs had already set up a skiing school in 1927 near Waltham, Massachusetts and with McCrillis wrote "Modern Ski Technique," the first instructional book on skiing that was reprinted several times. Harold met Schniebs while he was at Dartmouth, possibly through McCrillis, and Schniebs would unofficially endorse and sell White Stag products later in life, helping to spread the repute of the company.
In the early 1920s, skiing was still a relatively novel sport in the United States. Skiing had originated in Scandinavia, not as a sport but as a means of transportation in the harsh northern winters. By the middle of the nineteenth century, skiing was becoming known to the world at large, and Europeans living near the Alps began skiing recreationally. In the United States, skiing was adopted in New England, first as a means of transportation and later as a sport, and it was most popular in this part of the country. Elsewhere in America, skiing existed where Scandinavian immigrants had settled.[35] Skiing had some limited use as transportation in mountainous areas or for particularly cold places, but as a sport, it had very limited appeal. Throughout the nineteenth century, most Americans could rarely afford to travel, meaning that leisure sports such as skiing remained a pastime for the wealthy. Trains would open up some areas for skiing, but again, this remained limited to affluent Americans. Furthermore, ski equipment was extremely primitive. Many of the clothes had to be imported from Europe because there were few American manufacturers, and the facilities for skiing were rudimentary if not non-existent.[36]
Some of the necessary preconditions for the take-off of skiing emerged in the 1920s. A new generation of skiing enthusiasts from the Alpine regions of Europe moved to New England.[37] Dartmouth became the site of one of two critical ski clubs in the Northeast, the other being the Lake Placid Club in New York. Dartmouth founded the Outing Club in 1909, which became a model for other universities that built ski clubs.[38] Skiing became one of the premier attractions of Dartmouth, in fact; when the founder of the Dartmouth Outing Club wrote an article on the club in National Geographic, freshman applications tripled.[39] The students at these university ski clubs formed the nucleus of consumers and buyers of ski goods that would become so powerful in the coming years.
Dartmouth was the first place where Harold was aware of a potential market in skiing gear. His father's company had begun producing outdoor jackets and clothing in the 1920s and Harold decided that these jackets were better outdoor jackets for skiing than what he could find in New Hampshire. He ended up ordering extras and selling them on campus, where in turn they were so popular that the skiing stores in Hanover started stocking the jackets.[40] The Hirsch-Weis Company was selling its jackets to hunters and sportsmen nationwide at that time and they proved to be popular in New England, largely because they were water-repellent and warm. Hunters wrote to Max Hirsch and asked for additional coats to be distributed around the country.[41]
Facilities for skiing tended to be rudimentary at best and non-existent in most other cases. Even popular locations, such as Mount Hood in Oregon, had few places to ski: Hirsch remembered borrowing a forest ranger cabin on the slopes of Mount Hood that was nearly always buried under snow just to ski down the mountain once.[42] Chairlifts were a novelty in the United States and did not appear for skiers until 1936, when the first one was built at Sun Valley in Idaho.[43] The 1930ssaw the beginning of ski resort construction, with one of the most famous nationwide being Timberline Lodge at Mount Hood, though it would be another two decades before the Lodge became a profitable enterprise. Again, this was the product of sponsorship by the federal government: the WPA had built Timberline Lodge.
Harold graduated in June of 1929 and headed to Oxford University for a semester to begin graduate studies. At that time, he hoped to become a professor of anthropology. However, the Great Depression loomed on the horizon, and when Harold returned home in December of that year, a number of factors led him to stay home. He wasn't confident that he could find a job in academia or even make it through the rest of his schooling. Furthermore, his family's financial circumstances had been hurt by the onset of the Depression. Though his father apparently never admitted it to Harold, his mother Clementine admitted that his father was worried about having to spend the money for Harold's graduate education. Max Hirsch had been slow to get to invest in the stock market, but at last he was persuaded to and had ended up buying stocks on margin. While he had not been driven into bankruptcy like many of his associates, the crash of the stock market and the ensuing recession had hurt the family. Furthermore, WT&A was financially hurting from the depression, and Harold felt guilty taking his father's money at such a difficult time.[44]
Based on this, Harold elected to remain in Portland. Max offered Harold a job and $75 a month ($955 a month in 2010), at that time a considerable sum for a person with little experience. Harold was first put to work in the cutting room of the Hirsch-Weis plant and was there for several months until an industrial accident nearly severed his finger. He was then moved to the shipping room and worked as a clerk for a time.[45] By this time, the company had been renamed the Hirsch-Weis Company and was moving deeper into the business of making work clothes, selling work shirts and overalls for carpenters and painters. It had increased production of what they called "domestics," which were generally meant to be household linen goods such as bedsheets. Part of what helped tide the company over in the lean years of the Great Depression was Portland's red light district. "We even went so far as to call with our lines of domestics on red light houses and flop houses and hotels…their credit was good," Harold Hirsch later recalled.[46]Nevertheless, times were very difficult, and at one point, Max Hirsch made the decision to liquidate Hirsch-Weis if business did not improve within six months.[47]
Portland was hit hard by the Great Depression. Oregon had traditionally been a Republican stronghold, and in 1932, many Oregonians were skeptical of Franklin Roosevelt's promises of federal action. Portland's mayor, Joseph Carson, personally stopped New Deal initiatives in the city and spoke out against the Works Progress Administration. However, 40,000 Portlanders were on relief by March of 1933, with so-called Hoovervilles springing up along the banks of the Willamette and over a hundred people living underneath the Ross Island Bridge.[48]
Harold worked in his father's company, gradually becoming more familiar with the garment trade. By 1930, he seems to have been thinking about getting into manufacturing ski clothes. In an interview with his sister in 1989, Harold explained that "I figured that somebody in the United States ought to start making ski clothing. Up till that time... most of our ski clothing, was either imported from the Scandinavian countries or from Switzerland and Austria and was very expensive, and the Swiss ski clothing was a little gimmicky… So I started to make a few ski jackets."[49] Skiing was becoming popular at Mount Hood, which was only a couple of hours away from Portland.
In interviews with Harold, it seems apparent that others did not take his ideas very seriously. Harold said that Max "thought I was crazy…Dad never felt that I would make a practical businessman and that I was, as I said, an intellectual and an esthete." It was the height of the Great Depression, and the idea of selling "luxury" sporting goods must have seemed like a wild idea. Yet, despite these apparent reservations, Harold noted that Max was willing to give his son's idea a chance. He was even willing to give $1,800 ($23,500 in 2010) to get started, which Harold retrospectively noted was a lot of money in 1930.[50]
Harold enrolled in a night school to learn pattern making after he realized that nobody quite knew how to make the clothes that he envisioned. Initially, his working space was a corner of the Hirsch-Weis plant where he was given a few sewing machines and left to his own devices. The company was in tight financial circumstances and was unable to spare anybody else to help Harold sell his products. His first jacket was based off of an existing Hirsch-Weis coincidentally known as the "Cruiser Stag." This jacket, made out of densely woven wool and with lanolin in the fibers to repel water, was made into a solid color.
After Harold was able to produce his first batch of clothes, now it fell upon him to begin selling them. At face value, selling these in the midst of the Great Depression seems nigh-on impossible. Yet Harold's first sale was to a ski club in Bend, Oregon, and soon after he picked up a contract to sell uniform coveralls to ski operators at a ski lift in Yosemite Park.[51] The progress on these sales was slow and involved long hours driving up and down the West Coast, usually sleeping in a touring car. In those years, Pendleton Woolen Mills, Jantzen and Hirsch-Weis were the three major apparel companies in Oregon, and their salesmen frequently collaborated. Hirsch traveled with salesmen from the other companies, often sharing the same car, and they passed off tips to one another on potential sales as they each struggled through the lean 1930s.[52]
Many of the buyers were the ski clubs and small sports shops that catered to the small clique of skiers in those years. Yet the bigger and more affluent sports retailers were also carrying White Stag gear in those years, such as Abercrombie & Fitch in New York and Von Lengerke & Antoine in Chicago. It was in 1931 that Harold decided to name his company White Stag, after recalling some advice he had heard in Business Administration One at Dartmouth. Companies who had a name which was tied to the logo became more identifiable, and White Stag was a literal translation of Hirsch-Weis.[53]
What helped Hirsch to succeed in those years? He identified several of the factors late in life. He had virtually no domestic competition in the early 1930s. Harold commanded a large share of the market by virtue of there being few other competitors. By 1933, there were only 3 skiwear apparel companies in the country: Slalom Skiwear in Vermont, White Stag in Portland and Sun Valley Skiwear.[54] Some of the reasons he identified were no doubt sentimentalized and reflect Harold's own love of skiing. For example, he theorized that people went skiing during the Depression to get away from troubles, and while there's some truth in that, broader socio-economic reasons were at play. Industrialization had helped create a class of consumers and higher wages coming from factories helped create a growing class of people who, for the first time in history, had disposable income. As employers moved towards eight-hour workdays and forty-hour work weeks, employees now had time to spend on leisure pursuits.
Since the 1880s, Americans had been concerned over the consequences of urbanization and removal from nature. American society had largely been rural in the nineteenth century, and as people spent less time in nature, there were growing concerns around public health. One element of this concern led to the creation of the Boy Scouts to provide boys with opportunities for direct encounters with nature. As adults had more spare time, however, they also began increasingly looking to leisure activities and sports.[55]The New Deal fed into this concern as well. The Works Progress Administration allocated 30 percent of its budget toward recreation projects, including parks, ski runs, fairgrounds and playgrounds.[56]
In interviews in the 1980s, Hirsch said that he believed that the class structure of the United States was changing during the Depression. The growth of the middle class and the creation of the forty-hour work week left Americans with an increasing amount of time that could be spent on leisure activities. In Harold's words, "here I go with my sociology again—the socioeconomic emergence of the middle-income-bracket class" changed the consumer market considerably.[57] People with leisure time could begin to take up hobbies and outdoor sports became extremely popular.
Harold also noted that the make-work projects of the Great Depression were a tremendous boon for outdoor sports. The issue of accessibility had always handicapped the popularity of skiing. In the 1930s, however, the federal government heavily subsidized road-building. It also subsidized recreational facilities in state and national parks after a study by the government found that there was a tremendous lack of outdoor recreational opportunities available to people living in cities.[58]
Cars were improving in these years as well and were becoming more affordable, allowing people to easily get outside of the city. New balloon tires could handle difficult roads more easily without bursting, allowing for longer trips than were previously possible. What happened as a result of federal investment, advertisement in magazines such as National Geographic, popularity among university students, and better cars was a massive boom in outdoor sports: at the height of the Great Depression, visits to national parks tripled, and hundreds of state parks were built or expanded upon.[59] Likewise, skiing, which had only a few thousand practitioners at the beginning of the 1930s may have had as many as two million fans at the end of the decade.[60]
Events in Europe also fed a skiing boom in the United States. Many refugees from Nazi Germany and people fleeing Austria after its annexation by Germany came to the United States with a background in skiing and other winter sports. As historian Annie Gilbert Coleman noted in her history of skiing, émigrés greatly fed the popularity of skiing in the United States by becoming ski instructors and bringing expertise about the sport to the United States.[61] Some émigrés who arrived in Portland went to work for White Stag, while others went into business independently as manufacturers.
White Stag continued to function as a subsidiary of Hirsch-Weis during these years. Harold quickly realized a problem of running a division that only produced skiwear: its demand was extremely seasonal. By 1935 or 1936, he realized that he was going to have diversify the products that he offered to people if he wished to run his own business. Hirsch chose to start making women's sportswear out of army canvas, which was soft, pliable and porous and which the Hirsch-Weis company had in abundance; thus, "sailcloth became a standard fabric in the women's sportswear industry."[62] Pants and swimwear were soon being designed and sold by White Stag.
Sportswear at this time was still a relatively novel concept, especially ready-made sportswear. Upper-class Americans had traditionally had clothing custom-made for them, and the middle-class used old, second-hand clothing for sports. Having clothing that was fashionable for sports proved to be extremely popular. Harold's philosophy behind these clothes was relatively simple, predicated on the idea that "function is the father of fashion."[63] This was an idea Hirsch spoke about frequently in later years, specifically about the conditions in Oregon that necessitated the creation of these clothes. This is obvious in his first ski jacket, which was simply adapted from a logging jacket that Hirsch-Weis had been manufacturing.
General sportswear proved to be extremely popular. Harold designed what he called a "four-seasons jacket," meaning it could be worn the whole year round. The four-seasons jacket was conceived by tinkering with the fabric used in an Anorak that White Stag made and Hirsch successfully convinced the A.G. Spalding Company to begin carrying these jackets. Spalding at this time had 130 stores across the nation and was one of the only sports retailers, helping White Stag reach a national audience.[64] Harold began marketing White Stag in sportsmen's periodicals such as Ski Week, Sunset and Trails magazine, all of which enabled him to reach a previously unavailable market.[65]
World War II temporarily put recreational skiing on hold. Gasoline rationing hurt skiing tremendously as it limited people's ability to travel to resorts while the limits available for raw materials hurt manufacturers. Harold spent the war years working for the federal government as an advisor to the Quartermaster General on cold winter equipment. The U.S. army maintained several mountain divisions for use in Italy and elsewhere and Harold was a consultant for designing cold weather gear. He didn't remember his time working for the government very fondly, as he noted that there was a tremendous amount of red tape and bureaucratic inertia to move through in designing equipment. "It took months and months to get that stuff adopted, even though it was designed. The fact of the matter is that most of the people who had to do with passing on the adoption didn't know anything about ski equipment, and they were hesitant."[66]
Max Hirsch spent the late 1930s and early 1940s working as the head of the Oregon Émigré Committee, working to bring Jewish refugees into the United States. The committee had operated in an informal capacity since 1934 and Max was tremendously sympathetic to the plight of those living under persecution in Europe. Jewish refugees faced considerable hurdles before and during World War II. Immigration quotas had been set in place decades before and prospective refugees required sponsorship. The Émigré Committee was one of many such committees that sprang up around the United States, providing sponsorship, housing and employment to new arrivals. The volume of people was considerable: from January 1 through June 30 of 1940, the OEC dealt with 98 émigrés.[67] The size and scope of the operation increased after the war, when increased emigration to the United States was approved by Congress and Portland saw the number of émigrés increase nearly 70 percent in 1947.[68] Max retired from the committee only in 1948, having served as its chairman for fourteen years.[69]
Two émigrés who went to work for White Stag because of Max Hirsch were the Markewitz brothers. Harold recalled that the two brothers, Fred and Martin, had gone from Europe to Shanghai to Canada while being sponsored by Max (Shanghai was a common port for Jewish refugees because of its status as an open city).[70] Fred went to work for White Stag in 1948 and transferred to its Hirsch-Weis division in 1950, where he was in charge of marketing its outdoor goods such as tents. He became president of the Hirsch-Weis division in 1960 and retired in 1976 as a chairman and consultant to Warnaco.[71]
When the war ended in 1945, skiing finally began to take off as an extremely popular sport in the United States, and the time Harold had spent marketing White Stag would now pay dividends. In 1944, the Hirsch-Weis company acquired a manufacturing plant in Kingston, New York to begin supplying goods to the East Coast.[72] It was in1945 that the Hirsch-Weis Manufacturing Company was reorganized. The canvas products division was separated into the Hirsch-Weis Canvas Products Company and retained a factory in Portland, while the Hirsch-Weis Manufacturing Company was renamed the White Stag Manufacturing Company. The Hirsch-Weis division remained a component of White Stag and went on to produce backpacking goods for the company, especially tents. In 1946, net sales for the company were $2,900,651, equal to $19,100,000 in 2010.[73]
The war itself fed the popularity of skiing in the United States, as Harold noted that veterans of the 10th Mountain Division were some of his earliest and most avid consumers.[74] From 1945until 1966, when White Stag was sold to Warnaco, the company experienced unprecedented growth and grew to dominate the field. By 1958, White Stag had become a publicly traded entity and had separated from the Hirsh-Weis Manufacturing Company which it had outgrown. Harold states that the reason for the sale was that the firm needed outside capital; it couldn't continue to grow safely by relying on loans from banks and he believed that making the company public would make the company safer.[75] Its sales were approximately $14 million a year (or $106 million in 2010 dollars), making it the largest skiwear company in the United States. That same year, the company reported that it had a total number of 3,500 employees working at plants in Portland, Amsterdam, New York, Richfield Springs, New York and San Francisco, making it the second-largest apparel company in the nation.[76] Several years later, it acquired plants in Georgia, further increasing the size of the company.
Max Hirsch continued as honorary chairman of the Board of Directors of White Stag until shortly before his death on May 28, 1959 at the age of 88. Newspaper obituaries lauded his numerous civic achievements, such as his work for the Oregon Émigré Committee, his commitment to hiring African-Americans and other minorities, his work for the Portland Chamber of Commerce and his political activities.[77] Fittingly, one of Max's last acts appears to have been hiring an assistant for Harold to remain organized.
There were substantial changes in fashion surrounding skiwear after World War II. Harold's earliest products had been wool melton jackets that were water-repellent and well-designed from a skier's perspective, but which were not necessarily "fashionable." Indeed, they were designed with function in mind and had been adapted from earlier work clothes' designs. Furthermore, while the wool ski clothes were warm and dry, they also tended to be somewhat baggy and would flap in the wind while a skier was in motion. Even the colors tended to be darker earth tones, more in line with workman's clothes than fashion articles.
Fashion would change with the advent of so-called "stretchy fabrics" and the commercial availability of nylon, which came into wide usage after World War II. Stretchy fabrics could create a sleeker, more streamlined appearance and would highlight a person's physique: in essence, they drew on sex appeal and could be fashionable. Harold noted that ski clothing did not need to be bulky if it was properly insulated, meaning that there did not need to be a tradeoff between warmth and style. Likewise, he was never shy about the importance of sex appeal in apparel. In his own words, "The strongest set of supports, however, for the apparel business, whether at the mass production level or the one-of-a-kind level is that we are appealing to two important basis instincts: sex and vanity."[78]
Harold had brushed up against the idea of skiing as fashion early on in his work with White Stag. Harold had experimented with stretchier wools such as gabardine, but gabardine proved to be a poor choice because it eventually lost its elasticity.[79] Harold was in particular advised by other fashion designers such as Ruth Altman that stretchy fabrics would be the wave of the future and that he had better begin mass-production of stretchy clothes. Ruth Altman, an Austrian refugee from Nazism, was responsible for first bringing these brand-new fabrics to the United States. Before, when ski clothing was solely functional, it only appealed to ski aficionados. Now that it could be sexy, it could be sold to everybody.
Beyond all of these changes in fashion was the truth that Harold seems to have first grasped in 1929: Americans had more leisure time and income than ever before, and that meant that sports like skiing would become more popular in the coming years. The years from 1945 to 1973 saw the largest economic growth in history up until that time, and a newly enlarged middle class could spend their money on skiwear, among other things. The prosperity of the post-war years ensured that people would have the money to buy his products; he acknowledged this in a speech at a groundbreaking in 1961, saying "We recognized the fact that Americans in increasing amounts would each be working less hours per week and earning more money per hour, hence would have more leisure time with more money to spend on leisure pursuits, clothing and equipment."[80] Harold's original observation that one simply couldn't run a company manufacturing skiwear and sit idle eight months of the year was correct, and to this end, the company began offering sportswear that could be used year-round.
Throughout these years, White Stag continued to expand. Then, in 1966, Harold and his family sold their stock in the company to the apparel company Warner Brothers (which became Warnaco in 1968), making White Stag one of its subsidiaries. They chose to do so for a few different reasons. One was simply a desire for greater capital, which they felt was only possible through a merger with a larger company. Another was Harold's advancing age, as he felt that he was becoming too old to lead the company and possess the same levels of entrepreneurship.[81] His children were not interested in running the company either, leading Harold to believe that it would be better off in the hands of another company. Finally, it seemed to be the next step to help the company grow. He continued to work at White Stag and Warnaco as a director until 1978, when he finally retired permanently from the business.
White Stag continued on as a subsidiary of Warnaco for another two decades and was successful until the end of the 1970s. By 1972, White Stag's annual earnings were approaching $60,000,000 a year, equivalent to $243,000,000 in 2010. However, the recession and the inflation in 1979 heavily damaged the company's business, and the anemic economy in the early 1980s did not help the company's recovery.[82] The manufacturing had been gradually moving out of Portland throughout these years, leaving only the administration of the company, and by 1986, even this was gone. Then, in 1986, Linda J. Wachner engineered a hostile takeover of Warnaco and streamlined White Stag along with several other companies into a new company, Authentic Fitness Corporation. This last company failed and Warnaco filed for bankruptcy in 2000. The White Stag trademark was sold to Wal-Mart in 2003 and is now used on a line of women's clothing.
Why did White Stag collapse? Warnaco, it seems, did a poor job of fostering support within the company in the 1980s, bringing in executives unfamiliar with apparel and dismissing long-time White Stag employees. In a letter to Warnaco executives in 1984, employees wrote that "What we want to get across to the Board of Directors is that they took a 100 year old company and managed to run it into the ground in 8 months. We employees think it is grossly unfair that we should have to pay for such mismanagement."[83] Harold noted that Warnaco was overly centralized in how it administered the company and tended to ignore the advice of those at White Stag who had more direct experience in the field.
In 1934, Harold married Barbara Honeyman, a woman from Portland whose family owned the Honeyman Hardware Company.[84]There was some controversy in Harold's family about marrying a Gentile, though he overcame this through sheer persistence.[85] The couple had two children: a son, Fred, and a daughter, Janet. Barbara converted to Judaism for Harold, though in later interviews he described her conversion as largely "lip service."[86] Harold divorced Barbara and married Elizabeth Conklin in 1949.[87]
It was in the postwar years that Harold acquired a reputation as a dedicated philanthropist. This was likely a trait that he inherited from his father who was also noted to spend his time in philanthropic pursuits. Harold sat on the Board of Trustees for Reed College from 1956 onward, served as a commissioner to the Port of Portland, financially supported the Japanese Garden and founded the Jewish Historical Society of Oregon, among other activities. Paul Bagdon, president of Reed College, paid tribute to Hirsch after his death by calling him "Mr. Portland."[88] Politically, Harold was apparently a conservative, though he was also the head of the Portland chapter of the "Republicans for Adlai Stevenson" in the 1950s.[89] While he was retired, he was frequently a businessman-in-residence at business schools, where he would poke fun at his own lack of business education: "My sole exposure was a course in elementary economics 49 years ago which emphasized the supply and demand curve…I'm the worst-schooled business specialist you'll meet. [I'm] a western boy with a Dartmouth college liberal arts background— I never went to business school."[90]
When asked toward the end of his life if he had ever regretted selling White Stag, he responded "had I known what eventually evolved, I might not have done it."[91] He believed that the company's products were unique to Oregon: the first stag jackets had been made for loggers and hunters in the Northwest and Harold was adamant that the company belonged in Oregon. Its aesthetics were born in Oregon, a point Harold almost belabored throughout his later life. Notably, one of White Stag's fellow Oregon apparel companies, Pendleton Woolen Mills, is still in operation today and remains within the family that founded it. Another Oregon company founded by an immigrant entrepreneur stepped into the void left behind by White Stag: Columbia Sportswear.[92] In 1984, Columbia's earnings were around $3,000,000 ($7.19 million in 2010 dollars). By 2001, it was the largest retailer of skiwear in the world.
Harold Hirsch passed away on July 8, 1990 after a long battle with cancer. His obituary noted his role in creating White Stag and jumpstarting interest in skiing and sportswear. His philanthropy was discussed as well as his involvement with Reed College and Dartmouth. The obituary also noted that he had racially integrated Portland's manufacturing plants during World War II and did so again when White Stag expanded into the South during the 1960s.[93] All of these are legacies left behind by Harold Hirsch, and skiing proponents paid him tribute when he passed away.
Harold's impact on skiing was considerable. He certainly had the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time: he met John McCrillis, one of skiing's most famous advocates early in life, he had his father's resources to draw on, he had good advice to adopt the latest European fashions in skiwear, and he had the good fortune to enter skiwear when virtually nobody else was selling it. It's reasonable to imagine that if Hirsch had never gone skiing, somebody else would have filled the void and sold the clothes that he made: the market was there, after all. Whether they would have done so during the Great Depression is another question entirely. Harold had a unique view on the market in the United States that was likely a product of his Dartmouth education and liberal arts background. Whereas other businessmen would never have pursued ski wear in the 1930s because they believed the market was too poor or too limited, Harold recognized the structural changes occurring in the American economy and saw an opening. He didn't create skiwear or interest in skiing in the United States, but he certainly fed into it, and it's difficult to imagine the postwar years without a company like White Stag.
Yet perhaps the most visible legacy of White Stag, at least for Portlanders, is the famous White Stag sign on the Portland waterfront. The sign had originally belonged to the White Satin Sugar Company, which rented a floor from the White Stag building. In 1957, they sold the
sign to White Stag which then renovated the sign to show the White Stag name and logo. Harold's wife suggested that they plant a red light on the deer's nose every year at Christmas, a tradition which has survived to the present. When the company moved out of its building in 1972, there was discussion of tearing the sign down to preserve the historic character of the waterfront, but popular outcry in Portland saved the sign and had it designated a historic landmark of the city in 1978. Today, it is simply the "Portland, Oregon–Old Town" sign.[94]
[1] Harold S. Hirsch, interview by Helene Hirsch Oppenheimer, 1990, SR 2831, transcript, p. 10, Sound Recordings Collection (hereafter OHS Sound Recordings Collection), Oregon Historical Society, Portland, Ore.
[2] Richard Zweigenhaft. "American Jews: In or Out of the Upper Class?" The Insurgent Sociologist 9.2 (1979), 25.
[3] Hirsch interview, SR2831, p. 15.
[5] The Oregonian. "Max Hirsch-Obituary." Saturday May 30, 1959.
[6] Hirsch interview, SR 2831,16.
[7] Harold S. Hirsch, interview by Michael O'Rourke, 1989,SR 358, transcript, p. 20, OHS Sound Recordings Collection.
[8] "Manager's Statements and President's Reports 1908–1911," Document Case 1, Hirsch-Weis Company Records, MSS1436, Oregon Historical Society, Portland, Ore.
[10] Hirsch interview, SR 2831,48.
[11] Mark A. Gullickson, "Work Pants Worn by Loggers in Western Oregon, 1920–1970,"master's thesis (Oregon State University, 2000), 16.
[12] Hirsch interview, SR 2831, 47.
[14] Harold S. Hirsch, interview by Shirley Tanzer,1977–1978, SR 354.1, tape 5, side 2, transcript, p. 10, OHS Sound Recordings Collection.
[15] Harold Bomberger to Max Hirsch, July 26, 1929, folder "Correspondence, 1929–1947," Box 2, Hirsch-Weis Company Records.
[17] National Park Service, "National Register of Historic Places–Alphabet District," 5.
[18] Hirsch interview, SR 2831,2.
[19] Harold S. Hirsch, interview by Janet Hirsch Willis and Fred Hirsch, SR 357, tape 3, transcript, p. 3, OHS Sound Recordings Collection.
[20] Hirsch interview, SR 354.1, tape 3, side 2, transcript, p. 10.
[21] Hirsch interview, SR 354.1, tape 3, side 1, transcript, p. 3.
[24] "Portland Manufacturer Launches Campaign for Simpler Tax Forms," The Oregonian, February 5, 1956.
[25] Eckard Toy, "Ku Klux Klan," The Oregon Encyclopedia, accessed December 18, 2013
[27] Hirsch interview, SR354.1, tape 3, side 2, transcript, p. 13.
[28] See "A History of Jews in Oregon, 1850–1950," The Three Rabbis: Three Men, Half a Century, One Community, Oregon Public Broadcasting, accessed December 18, 2013.
[31] Hirsch interview, SR354.1, tape 3, side 1, p. 6.
[32] Hirsch interview, SR354.1, tape 3, side 2, p. 15.
[33] Nansen Ski Club, "History of Nansen Ski Club," accessed December 18, 2013.
[34] Hirsch interview, SR 2831, 52, 54.
[35] Annie Gilbert Coleman. Ski Style: Sport and Culture in the Rockies (Topeka, Kan.: University of Kansas Press, 2004), 16.
[37] John B. Allen, The Culture and Sport of Skiing (Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007), 213.
[40] "Ski Business Week Vail, Co., 11/28–12/1/1979," folder 19, box 3, Harold S. Hirsch Papers, MSS 1819, Oregon Historical Society, Portland, Ore.
[41] Bomberger to Hirsch, July26, 1929, Hirsch-Weis Company Records.
[42] Morten Lund, "Timberline Lodge," Ski Heritage Journal, June 2006, 33.
[43] Idaho State Historical Society. "Sun Valley Ski Lifts," Idaho State Historical Reference Series, no. 974, July 1977, accessed December 18, 2013.
[46] Hirsch interview, SR 357,tape 4, transcript, p. 35.
[48] William G. Robbins, "Surviving the Great Depression: The New Deal in Oregon," Oregon Historical Quarterly 109 (Summer 2008): 311–317, 313.
[51] Oregon Historical Society, SR 2831 55.
[53] Hirsch interview, SR2831, 56.
[54] Seth Masia, "Whatever Happened to Wool?" Skiing Heritage Journal, Dec. 2002, 31. This article incorrectly claims that Hirsch was from Seattle.
[55] Foster Rhea Dulles, A History of Recreation: America Learns to Play (New York: Appleton Century Crofts, 1940), 185.
[56] Susan Currell, The March of Spare Time: The Problem and Promise of Leisure in the Great Depression (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), 51.
[58] Neil Maher, Nature's New Deal (Oxford, Eng.: Oxford University Press, 2008), 70.
[59] Maher, Nature's New Deal, 73.
[60] Dulles, A History of Recreation, 361.
[61] Coleman, Ski Style,53.
[63] See "Assorted Speeches Inc. the President's Speech to public stockholders, 1957-1976" folder, box 2, Harold S. Hirsch Papers.
[65] See "Misc. Correspondence1930s–1960s" folder, box 2, Harold S. Hirsch Papers.
[66] Hirsch interview, SR 2831,155.
[67] "Report," July 9, 1940, "Committee on Placement" folder,Oregon Émigré Committee Records, ORG 12, Oregon Jewish Museum, Portland, Ore.
[68] "Meeting Minutes, June 16,1947," "Committee on Placement" folder, Oregon Émigré Committee Records.
[71] "Ex Hirsch-Weis Chief Fred Markewitz Dies," The Oregonian, Feb. 27, 1986.
[72] "Prospectus: White Stag Manufacturing Company," folder "Historical Reviews and Financial Reports," box 2, Harold S. Hirsch Papers.
[73] "Prospectus: White Stag Manufacturing Company," Harold S. Hirsch Papers.
[74] "Ski Business Week Vail,Co., 11/38-12/1/1979," folder 19, box 3, Harold S. Hirsch Papers.
[75] Hirsch interview, SR354.1, tape 5, side 2, 11.
[76] "Merger Puts White Stag Near Top in Field with Line of Sports Clothing," The Oregonian, July 10, 1958.
[77] "Max Hirsch: Obituary," The Oregonian,May 30, 1959.
[78] "Speeches by Harold Hirsch," box 2, Hirsch-Weis Company Records.
[79] Morten Lund, "Ruth Altman: An Artists' Life in Skiing," Skiing Heritage Journal, June 2008, 23.
[80] "WS new plant ground breaking 1961," folder 2, box 3, Harold S. Hirsch Papers.
[81] Hirsch interview, SR 357,tape 8, p. 27.
[82] "Is White Stag Owner Leaping Ship?" The Oregonian, Dec. 17, 1984.
[83] Harold S. Hirsch, "Letter to The Board of Directors for Warnaco," Dec. 7, 1984, folder "1984-Rough Times #49," box 3, Harold S. Hirsch Papers.
[84] Hirsch interview, SR354.1, p. 37, tape 4, side 2, p. 37.
[87] "Reed friend Elizabeth Hirsch dies at 88," Reed Magazine, Feb. 2000, accessed December 18, 2013.
[88] Hirsch interview, SR 2831, preface.
[89] Hirsch interview, SR 357,tape 5, side 2, p. 11.
[90] "Harvard Business School-exec. Lecture, 10/4/76, box 3, Harold S. Hirsch Papers.
[91] "Harold S. Hirsch, Oregon Business-Civic Leader, Dies at 82," The Oregonian, July 6, 1990.
[92] Anna Accettola, "Gertrude Boyle," Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present. Accessed April 7, 2014.
[93] "Harold Hirsch, 82; Started White Stag, Sportswear Concern," Associated Press, July 8, 1990.
[94] Edwin Battistella, "White Stag Manufacturing," Oregon Encyclopedia, accessed December 18, 2013.
"Max Hirsch." (2020) In Immigrant Entrepreneurship, Retrieved January 18, 2020, from Immigrant Entrepreneurship: http://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entry.php?rec=202
Larson, Zeb. "Max Hirsch." In Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present, vol. 4, edited by Jeffrey Fear. German Historical Institute. Last modified November 07, 2014. http://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entry.php?rec=202
"Max Hirsch," Immigrant Entrepreneurship, 2020, Immigrant Entrepreneurship. 18 Jan 2020 <http://www.immigrantentrepreneurship.org/entry.php?rec=202>
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Parties are supposed to be fun, not scary—but trying to start a conversation in a room full of total strangers can be harrowing. Fear not, though: with the right tricks, you can not only survive, but actually enjoy yourself.
We've told you how to survive a party as an introvert. But even extroverts can find parties challenging if they don't know anyone. How do you mingle? How do you fit in? For shy people, introverted or extroverted, this scenario can be a nightmare. It might not even be a party. It could be a workshop, a networking event, or any other situation in which everyone seems to know someone but you. Here are a few tips and methods to help ease the anxiety—and maybe even have a little fun.
This tip may not work well at events, but at parties, it's a lifesaver. Once you arrive, find the host, and offer your help. It's a polite gesture, and it gives you something to do. Even if the host doesn't need any help, he or she may sense your apprehension and give you a task to keep busy. A good host will probably also introduce you to a few people so you can get the conversation going.
Ask to chop some veggies, plate some food, or play bartender. It'll keep you occupied, you won't feel as awkward, and it will get your mind off the stress.
Thought Catalog also suggests bringing something that needs to be prepared. This automatically gives you something to do once you arrive. You don't want to spend the whole night making lasagna from scratch, but a little guacamole won't take long, and it gives you a chance to ease into the party. It might even be a good ice breaker; people may wonder what you've brought. You can explain to them what it is, what you're doing, and how they can make it themselves.
When you arrive, it's easy to grab a drink and immediately retreat to the corner, where you feel safe. But you may be surprised at how people respond when you're open about your vulnerability instead.
Find another shy, solo guest and laugh about the fact that neither of you know anyone. I tried this at an event recently: I found another guest who was alone, asked if she knew anyone, and we both admitted how overwhelmed we felt. From there, the conversation naturally progressed. This made it a lot easier to mingle with other people, too, because we did it together.
On the other hand, it might be easier to approach an outgoing person. If you can find the life of the party, chances are, they'll be pretty open to chatting you up and introducing you to other people.
if you see a pair of people talking, the chances are that they arrived together and know they should be mingling. Or else they've just met and are, in the back of their minds, worried that they're going to end up talking to this one person all night. (You've just made it easier for one of them to exit.) Either way, they're relieved to see you. And your chances of having a decent conversation are better, because now you're talking to two people, not just one.
It's a tactic we've mentioned before, and, obviously, your mileage will vary. Everyone's personality is different, and the type of party or event might matter, too. Feel out the vibe, then find the strategy you're most comfortable with: finding a shy person, talking to the life of the party, or approaching a pair.
Whichever you choose, it helps to be open about the fact that you don't know anyone. Other guests will usually feel more inclined to include you. It's a social gathering, after all.
Get on the periphery and listen. When there's a lull, break in by elaborating on the topic or asking a question instead of stating an opinion right away. For example: "You got mugged in Miami? That happened to me too!" What if you get the dreaded blank stares? Be patient. They may just need time to finish what they were saying.
This is another technique I tried at a recent networking event, where I knew no one. I hovered near a small art display and waited for people to walk by and talk about it. When they did, I subtly made my way into the conversation. You feel slightly creepy at first, so make sure your input comes naturally. For example, if someone had said, "that art is pretty," and I turned around, looked them in the eye and said, "I also think it's pretty," that might have been slightly awkward. Instead, two women approached the display, made a silly joke about it, and I turned around, chuckled, and we started a great conversation. The whole thing was very natural.
No art display? Try something else. If you're helping the host prep food, you could interject in a nearby conversation. Do the same while you're grabbing a drink or getting a snack.
Ask a question: This is an easy way to start a conversation, because the response is necessary. Make sure it's an open-ended question that can't be answered with a simple "yes" or "no." Or, if it can be answered with a simple yes or no, make sure it allows for a follow-up.
Occasion, Location: Use the "Occasion, Location" rule to kickstart a conversation. Ask about the occasion or the location of the event. You probably don't want to go with the cliche, "come here often?" But "have you ever been here?" might work. "How do you know the host" is always a good one, too.
If you want more specific opening statements, check out these 10 great conversation starters. Readers have also shared some of their favorite ice breakers here.
Share small details until one of them sticks: Once you've gauged each others' interest with a bit of small talk, you'll probably find there's one topic that piques both your interests a little more than the others. Latch onto it and dive a little deeper.
Arm yourself with relevant topics: Whether it's current events, or just some fun background about the event, prepare yourself with a couple of interesting topics, then find a way to weave them into the conversation.
React to what a person says in the spirit in which that that comment was offered: If they tell you a lighthearted joke, respond lightheartedly. This keeps the conversation enjoyable and simpatico.
Ask "getting-to-know you" questions: It's important to ask the right questions. You want to get to know the person you're talking to, but make sure the questions you're asking are also relevant and appropriate. Take a genuine interest in learning about the person.
Don't dominate the conversation: This is probably a no-brainer for shy folks, but sometimes it's easy to start rambling when you're afraid of any awkward silence. If the other person hasn't said anything in a while, it's time to stop and check yourself. If someone feels they're in a one-way conversation, they're probably thinking about how to bail.
As we've mentioned, this is a really liberating way of looking at the situation. It applies well to life as a whole, but it's also great advice for a party.
Going to a party or event alone sounds intimidating, but it doesn't have to be. Prepare yourself with a few methods for starting a conversation, and you'll be fine. Once you find just one person to talk to, the whole situation becomes a lot easier. After a while, you may even forget about how awkward you felt.
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An Apology And Clarification From Us.
Posted June 18th, 2012 by Karl & filed under MailBigFile, MailBigFile News.
We've seen a few responses to our Redesign Competition in a manner that we did not expect. The competition itself seems to have upset some people and caused some unrest from within our following. Obviously, this was not what we intended when we came up with the idea for the competition.
So I feel it prudent not only to firstly profusely apologise for any offence we have caused but also to explain and clarify what the competition was actually all about. I think the problem here is not so much the competition itself, but the way it has been put across to our customers.
The general feeling we're getting from the twitter comments, comments on the blog and emails we have received is that some of you feel incensed that we expect you to completely redesign our website for an iPad. Some of you also find the promise of promoting your name on the site if we use some of your work also insulting for the same reason.
The issue here seems to stem from how we read it and thought we meant, to how it has been perceived by our users. We didn't want you to completely overhaul our website. This is precisely why we're not offering a larger sum of money for the competition. In fact, we only expected people to spend a few hours at most working on some concepts and ideas for a redesign. Out of all of these ideas, we would then choose the best one and we ourselves would do the actual redesign of the site.
We were also hoping to incite some excitement and interest at being able to be a part of our work for those who use our site. Yes, we could quite easily just go ahead and do a redesign ourselves or ask a company to do it, but we figured that as our user base also consists of such professionals who obviously enjoy using our service, who better to ask for ideas of how to make it more appealing and user-friendly than those who use it already?
However, that all seemingly got lost under the idea were simply looking for work on the cheap in an attempt to exploit our current user base. Again, this was never at any stage our intention. We simply wanted people to put forward some ideas they may have had for the site to help us improve it for them and, in return, we would offer an iPad to the best design. We even thought it would be a good idea and, quite fair, to reference those whose work we used on the site if we did use it.
Once more we would like to apologise to all and sundry for any offence we have caused.
P.S. As a further point mentioned to me by our Managing Director. There will be a winner of this competition, someone will win an iPad. However, we might not actually use any of their design ideas on the site if we feel they're not suitable. If that is the case, then we will instead then go to an agency and ask them to redesign the site. If this happens, this will actually cost us more in the long run. So why do it? Because we wanted to involve our users. We thought that would be the better way to do it.


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The "LA PUNTA" Art Laboratory collaborates with the First and Second Degree Secondary Schools for the diffusion of the calcographic engraving and the pictorial subjects, through projects for the knowledge of the territory and multidisciplinary. Meetings and publications have been held in various schools of Friuli Venezia Giulia and Veneto (Italy).
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Balance leads to breakout for Vikings offense, Kirk Cousins
By BRIAN HALLOctober 22, 2019 GMT
Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins (8) reacts after a touchdown by running back Dalvin Cook during the second half of an NFL football game against the Detroit Lions, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2019, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Duane Burleson)
EAGAN, Minn. (AP) — With a chance to drain the clock and preserve Sunday's win at Detroit, the Minnesota Vikings lined up on second down with three tight ends next to the offensive line; eight players with their hand in the turf to block for running back Dalvin Cook.
The Lions reacted to stop the run when Kirk Cousins pulled the ball away from Cook. With just one single defender deep, Cousins connected with Diggs for a 66-yard pass, the longest pass of the season for Minnesota, down to the 4-yard line to effectively end Sunday's 42-30 victory.
The Vikings are making it difficult for opponents to decide what they want to try and stop.
Cook is leading the league in rushing after finishing with 142 yards against Detroit, while Cousins now leads the league in passer rating (114.3) and yards per attempt (9.1) after the best three-game stretch of his career.
"We got them at the end right there," Cook said. "That was a great play call by coach, man. But we kind of like baited them into it. They kind of knew the run was coming. They thought we were going to run the time out. We got the one-on-one coverage with Diggs and he took the top off once again."
Cousins' deep pass to Diggs was the final pass attempt of the game for Minnesota. Two plays later, Cook ran in his second touchdown of the game and all that was left was four kneel downs for Cousins on the final possession.
The final totals for Sunday: 37 runs for 166 yards and 34 pass attempts for 337 yards.
"I just felt like when the play calls were coming, I was in agreement with them so many times feeling like it would give us a great chance," Cousins said after the game. "We were running the ball proficiently and when you do that, I think it helps a play-caller, it helps the quarterback feel like they have the wind at their back a little bit."
The Vikings' balance has led to their breakout. Minnesota has 106 runs and 90 pass attempts during a three-game winning streak.
Meanwhile, Cousins became the first quarterback in NFL history with at least 300 yards passing and a 135.0 passer rating in three straight games. Over that stretch, Cousins has a passer rating of 142.6 with 976 passing yards, 10 touchdowns and just one interception.
"He's playing the best I've seen him play since he's been here, obviously," coach Mike Zimmer said after Sunday's game. "It's a credit to offensive coaches — what they're doing. I feel like we are playing to his strengths."
Playing to Cousins' strengths means using play-action passing. Cousins was 13 of 18 for 209 yards, three touchdowns and a 150.2 rating on play-action passes against Detroit, according to Pro Football Focus.
The past three weeks, Cousins has a 157.2 rating on play-action, completing 32 of 42 passes for 592 yards and seven touchdowns without an interception, according to Pro Football Focus.
For the second time this season, Zimmer said the Vikings' coverage wasn't tight enough on receivers. Quarterback Matthew Stafford threw for 364 yards and four touchdowns to Marvin Jones. Zimmer also echoed the sentiment after the loss at Chicago.
"We had to make some adjustments at halftime because we weren't covering enough," Zimmer said Sunday. "We can play a lot better than that."
Adding to the balanced offense Sunday was the increased usage of tight ends Kyle Rudolph and Irv Smith in the passing game. The two combined for 10 catches on Sunday after totaling 16 catches through the first six games.
Rudolph has been complimented for his blocking early this season, stepping in for tight end David Morgan who's missed the entire season with a knee injury. On Sunday, Rudolph had five catches for 58 yards and scored his first touchdown of the season.
With Zimmer saying coverage hasn't been tight enough, it's natural to look at cornerback Xavier Rhodes. Rhodes is a two-time Pro Bowl selection, 2017 first-team All-Pro and the team's top-paid cornerback, accounting for a $13.337 million cap hit this season.
Two of Jones' four touchdowns on Sunday came with Rhodes in direct coverage. On Jones' final score, a quick goal-line pass where Jones ran to the outside and simply turned in front of Rhodes, the cornerback yanked off his helmet in frustration.
Adam Thielen caught a 25-yard touchdown pass, on play-action from Cousins, for Minnesota's first score, but he injured his hamstring and missed the rest of the game. With a short week, his recovery will be watched closely.
Thielen hasn't missed a game in his career, playing in 87 straight. While the Vikings didn't practice on Monday, they had to send in an approximated injury report and the team said Thielen wouldn't have practiced.
Defensive end Everson Griffen, who left Sunday's game but returned, also wouldn't have practiced Monday with a quad injury. Defensive tackle Linval Joseph was listed with a knee injury and wouldn't have practiced. Minnesota said defensive tackle Hercules Mata'afa (neck) and Rhodes (hip) would have been limited.
Linebacker Ben Gedeon missed Sunday's game with a concussion, but he was listed as a full participant.
1: According to NFL NextGen stats, Cousins was pressured just once on his 34 dropbacks on Sunday. Cousins wasn't sacked in the game and has been sacked just once the past two games.
The short week for a Thursday home game brings many reunions. Cousins will be looking to keep his roll intact against his former team in Washington. The Vikings defense will also see familiar faces in Redskins quarterback Case Keenum and running back Adrian Peterson.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


As most of you know, we travel a lot with our dogs Icy and Phoebe so we're always on the lookout for the best dog friendly places. I'm delighted to introduce you to Nichole, my Guest Blogger from DogVills . Nichole is the Editor In Chief at DogVills, a blog about all things dog, including dog training tips, dog health tips, dog news, dog recipes and more. Nichole loves to travel with her dogs too and she has graciously offered to share some of the Most Popular dog friendly National and State Parks in the U.S. So, Take it away Nichole!
"I love taking my dogs on outings with me! I'm always looking for places like hotels, restaurants and stores that allow dogs so that I can bring them with me everywhere I go! While I'm used to the challenge of finding indoor spaces that allow pets, I was shocked to discover how difficult it is to find dog-friendly national and state parks!
Did you know that most parks either have very restrictive pet policies or ban them entirely? In some parks, you can't even drive through the entrance with a dog in the car! Don't worry, though, we've rounded up the top dog-friendly national and state parks in the United States to make planning a vacation with your pooch a little easier!
There are 60 national parks and over 10,300 state parks in the United States. Together, they spread out across over 18 million acres! While the vast majority of them don't allow dogs, there are a few that welcome our canine companions! Just remember that even the most dog-friendly national parks have rules about where you can take your dog. Make sure you learn and follow them, so these parks don't have a reason to ban dogs entirely.
Acadia National Park- Acadia National Park, established in 1919, is in the state of Maine, just southwest of Bar Harbor. The park sits on 49,075.26 acres and sees approximately 3,509,271 visitors annually. Arcadia National Park features an array of lakes, mountains, shorelines and woodlands.
Badlands National Park- Badlands National Park, founded in 1978, is found in southwestern South Dakota, near Rapid City. The park sits on 242,755.94 acres and sees approximately 1,054,325 visitors annually. Several movies have been filmed in the Badlands National Park, including the 1990 Dances with Wolves, the 1997 Starship Troopers and the 2007 National Treasure: Book of Secrets.
Cuyahoga Valley National Park- Cuyahoga Valley National Park, conceived in 2000, is based in northeastern Ohio, along the Cuyahoga River between Akron and Cleveland. The park sits on 32,572.35 acres and sees approximately 2,226,879 visitors annually. The national park features more than 125 miles of hiking trails, as well as an array of caves, rolling hills, waterfalls and winding rivers.
Grand Canyon National Park- Grand Canyon National Park, originated in 1919, is set in northwestern Arizona, in Coconino and Mohave counties. The park sits on 1,201,647.03 acres and sees approximately 6,254,238 visitors annually. The park's main feature is the Grand Canyon, a gorge that was carved out by the Colorado River.
Great Sand Dunes National Park- Great Sand Dunes National Park, founded in 2004, is in south-central Colorado, in Alamosa and Saguache counties. The park sits on 107,341.87 acres and sees approximately 486,935 visitors annually. The national park is home to North America's tallest sand dunes, reaching heights of 750 feet.
Mammoth Cave National Park- Mammoth Cave National Park, formed in 1941, is situated in central Kentucky, in Barren, Edmonson and Hart counties. The park sits on 54,011.91 acres and sees approximately 587,853 visitors annually. The park surrounds parts of the Mammoth Caves, the world's longest cave system, which measures 405 miles in length.
North Cascades National Park- North Cascades National Park, created in 1968, is positioned in Washington, in Chelan, Skagit and Whatcom counties. The park sits on 504,780.94 acres and sees approximately 30,326 visitors annually. North Cascades National Park features an expansive glacial system, forested valleys, numerous waterways and rugged mountain peaks.
Shenandoah National Park- Shenandoah National Park, established in 1935, is situated in Virginia, surrounding part of the state's Blue Ridge Mountains. The park sits on 199,217.77 acres and sees approximately 1,458,874 visitors annually. Shenandoah National Park features some impressive waterfalls, ranging in height from 28 feet to 93 feet.
Yosemite National Park- Yosemite National Park, founded in 1890 is set in California, in Madera, Mariposa and Tuolumne counties. The park sits on 761,747.50 acres and sees approximately 4,336,890 visitors annually. The world-renowned park is famous for its biological diversity, clear streams, granite cliffs and sequoia groves.
Zion National Park - Zion National Park, conceived in 1919, is found in southwestern Utah, in Iron, Kane and Washington counties. The park sits on 147,237.02 acres and sees approximately 4,504,812 visitors annually. The park features 4 life zones: coniferous forest, desert, riparian and woodland.
Abilene State Park- Abilene State Park is in Taylor County, Texas. The 529.4-acre park features camping areas, hiking trails, picnic areas and a swimming pool.
Hot Springs State Park- Hot Springs State Park is in Hot Springs County, Wyoming. The 1,108.67-acre park features hot springs that constantly flow at a temperature of 135 degrees Fahrenheit.
Huntington Beach State Park- Huntington Beach State Park is in Georgetown County, South Carolina. The 2,500-acre park is popular for its large sandy beach and countless wild birds.
Itasca State Park- Itasca State Park is in Becker, Clearwater and Hubbard counties, within the state of Minnesota. The 32,690-acre park is home to more than 200 species of wild birds.
Lost Dutchman State Park- Lost Dutchman State Park is in Pinal County, Arizona. The 320-acre park is named after the legendary Lost Dutchman Gold Mines.
Oak Mountain State Park- Oak Mountain State Park is in Shelby County, Alabama. The 9,940-acre park is home to the Alabama Wildlife Center and the Oak Mountain BMX Track.
Tuttle Creek State Park- Tuttle Creek State Park is in the state of Kansas. The 1,200-acre park features an artificial beach, camping sites and nature trails.
Remember, the rules vary at each of these dog-friendly national and state parks, so make sure you take the time to learn them! We want to be considerate pet parents so we don't ruin the fun for anyone else."
Thank You for sharing all this great pet travel information Nichole! It will be so helpful in planning dog friendly vacations to National and State Parks. I'm glad you included the point of following the individual rules for each of these parks, as they do vary and most have some restricted access for dogs. One example is that Grand Canyon National Park allows dogs but they don't allow them to hike down the canyon with you, dogs must remain up on the rim.
I hope you enjoyed Nichole's dog travel post as much as I did. You can read more from Nichole on the DogVills blog. Happy Trails & Happy Tails!!
You may also like these Icy and Phoebe approved DOG FRIENDLY TRAVEL DESTINATIONS!
Have you been to any of these parks with your pet? Tell us about it in the comments, we LOVE hearing from you!!
Thanks so.much for sharing Denise!
Such a great list! Thank you and I also shared! Very helpful!!
Thanks for sharing Joely! I'm glad you liked the list, I was happy to have it as a guest post.
Jack loves running around parks, forests, woods and if we lived in the States I'm sure he'd love a chance to visit some of these listed.
Yes, I'm sure he would enjoy any of these. I'm hoping to get to Acadia this Summer, if I do I'll surely be blogging about it!
Hopefully we'll be in Acadia later this month. I know the dogs will love it!
Oh how fabulous, I'm dying to go there! We are planning to go sometime this Summer as well - paws crossed! If you go I hope you'll blog about it, I'd love to hear all about your trip there.
I love this post. It is so important for people to know where they can take a dog and not get yelled at or grumbled about. Dogs need some fun too!
I have not been to any of these parks with our dogs, but I have visited several with family or friends. Fantastic list that I'll need to keep in mind for future travel ideas. Years ago I hiked into the Grand Canyon for several days. I'd love to visit again with the pups to do some hiking along the rim. I'd also love to explore Lost Dutchman State Park. Actually, I've got several Arizona State Parks on my list for fall day trips or overnights. I even bought their park pass since we're out at Catalina State Park so much.
What a wonderful list of places! Ia am pinning this to keep for future use and to share! Thanks!
I love that so many parks are dog friendly. To me it says that society is gaining more respect for pets and is recognizing they are indeed family members. Thanks for great info!


text:
11-13 YRS (3)
Animal Stories (6)
Humour & Jokes (3)
There was an old lady who swallowed a mozzie.
I don't know why she swallowed that mozzie...
She's gotta be Aussie!
Aussie animals beware! An old lady is on the loose in the Australian bush and she has an unstoppable appetite! No-one and nothing is safe!
This fun and quirky, tangled take on the original nonsense rhyme in miniature format is sure to delight readers today.
There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Mozzie
Crumble,P.
There was an old lady who swallowed a fossil.
I don't know why she swallowed a fossil... That's colossal!
The old lady's made an amazing discovery! Now she's on the hunt for more prehistoric snacks and not even the biggest dinosaur can stomp out her giant appetite. Surely she'll explode!
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fossil
There's a surprise party for Zebra, and all his friends are passing the message along.
But when the message gets mixed up, there's confusion, chaos–and lots of fun.
What the Fluffy Bunny said to the Growly Bear
It's time for an egg hunt and the Fluffy Bunny is leading the way. Can the Fluffy Bunny's animal friends follow his directions to jump, bounce and skip their way to find some sweet, colourful and delicious eggs?
What the Fluffy Bunny Said to the Hungry Hippo
It's the final day of school holidays and the only thing Simon Sidebottom wants to do is enjoy his last hours of freedom. But Simon's mum has other plans, and they all involve shopping for school shoes with Simon's snotty-faced little sister. And then a funny thing happens...
A hilarious, gross, laugh-out-loud, choose-your-own-adventure book.
A Funny Thing Happened to Simon Sidebottom #1
On one Christmas Eve
As he did each year
Santa crossed the equator
To the Southern Hemisphere.
But this year, Santa decides it's too hot to deliver presents. He grabs a surfboard and heads out to catch some waves...
Can Trev, his old ute and a flock of emus save Christmas Day?
Santa's Gone Surfing
There was an old bloke who swallowed a present.
I don't know why he swallowed a present...
Now that's not pleasant!
The old bloke has swallowed one of Santa's presents! Keep an eye on your Christmas tree and guard your stockings, because now he's on the hunt for more Christmas snacks!
There Was an Old Bloke Who Swallowed a Present
On the first day of school,
my teacher said to me,
"Raise your hand if you have to do a wee."
Starting school has never been more hilarious. Join Australian musical theatre and television actress, Penny McNamee, for some joyful sing-along fun.
On the First Day of School + CD
Kevin has some new playmates. They are cute and cuddly and they're here to stay... but not if Kevin has anything to do with it!
See what happens when two adorable kittens barge into Kevin's life and make themselves at home. How will this fussy feline cope?
Cat Wants Kittens
Kevin doesn't want a pat. He doesn't want a tickle. And he definitely does NOT want a cuddle.
There's absolutely no way this hilarious cat is going to change his mind about that... Or will he?
Cat Wants Cuddles
There was an old bloke who swallowed a bunny.
I don't know why he swallowed that bunny...
Crikey, that's funny!
The Old Bloke is loose on the farm, and all the animals are on the menu! Can they catch sight of the master of disguise in time to avoid being his lunch? Surely he'll explode!
There Was an Old Bloke Who Swallowed a Bunny!
No matter who you are, where you come from, where you live, what you look like, who you love, whether you are small or tall, whether you walk or run, this book celebrates the richness in our differences and the joy that… WE ARE ALL EQUAL!
Includes a stunning new poster celebrating Harmony Day!
We Are All Equal Plus Poster


text:
Carl Müllerhartung (Stadtsulza, 19 de maig de 1834 - Charlottenburg, Berlín, 11 de juny de 1908) fou un compositor i director d'orquestra alemany. Primer estudià teologia, però no trigà a dedicar-se completament a la música, i fou, de 1857 a 1859, director d'orquestra del teatre de l'Òpera de Dresden, sent més tard director de música del Seminari d'Eisenach. El 1869 dirigí l'Òpera de Weimar, on fundà el 1872 una escola de música. Deixà sonates per a orgue, salms, cors, cants litúrgics i una Theorie der musik, que havia de tenir molts volums, però no assolí només que el primer: Harmonielehre (1879).

Bibliografia
 Enciclopèdia Espasa Volum núm. 37, pàg. 267

Compositors alemanys del Romanticisme
Directors d'orquestra alemanys
Morts a Berlín
Compositors de Turíngia

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Outspoken - A leading patient advocate is calling for more continuity of the carers who help those with a terminal illness.
But she remains the spokesperson for the Auckland Women's Health Council and has put out its regular newsletter while receiving chemotherapy and organising her affairs, including helping family members prepare for when she is no longer there.
She is well known in health circles as an advocate on women's issues, and for her evidence-based, forthright approach.
She said being "bolshie" has served her well as a patient.
"If I don't get to see the same person I make a bit of a fuss. Given that it's pancreatic cancer and I don't have time to muck about I'm not at all backward in sticking up for myself and saying 'this is what I need'.
"You need a relationship, a safe, trusting environment and a relationship with someone who knows you in order to start discussing end-of-life care.
"And I know from many of the focus groups and the meetings I've attended on cancer services that a lot of people don't get the kind of care and support."
End-of-life and palliative care were under the spotlight last year as Parliament's health committee considered a petition seeking legislation to facilitate voluntary euthanasia under certain circumstances.
"I think it's absolutely vital that people facing the end of their life have access to that kind of care.
"We've got a long way to go and there's not a lot of informed consent going on in some of these services either."
"We've got all the forms but whether it happens in practice...," he said.
Ms Williams said her own experiences in accessing contraception and in childbirth generally made her passionate and resolute.
"It made me determined to try and find out how these decisions were being made and who was making them, because there was a lot of stuff you were told you could and couldn't do, which didn't turn out to be right.
"There was nothing written down but they made it sound like there was some kind of tablets in stone written about the way you were supposed to behave as a mother."
She was also involved in landmark events surrounding the so-called "unfortunate experiment" involving delayed cervical cancer treatment at National Women's Hospital in the 1980s.
Afterwards, and following the Cartwright Inquiry, she became the first patient advocate at National Women's Hospital in Auckland.
Sandra Coney, who wrote the 'Unfortunate Experiment' article with Phillida Bunkle for Metro magazine, said women's worries about childbirth escalated during the women's movement in the 1970s.
She agreed with Ms Williams that childbirth was depersonalising for many women.
"Husbands couldn't come in at a birth, if the child was sick in hospital the parents very often couldn't visit the child, the children weren't allowed in to see the new baby, and in those days the mother might be kept in for quite a long time."
Asked about the maternity system now, Ms Williams said she believed it was one of the best systems in the world.
"We have choices and we have good competent care. Yes things can go wrong during childbirth like any other procedure that takes place in a hospital setting but our statistics are really good when you look at other countries."
However, she said women "have lost faith ... in their ability to give birth and lost control over the process".
They both said of particular concern was the "medicalisation" of childbirth, seen, for example, in the steadily rising rate of caesarean births and frequent tests during pregnancy.
A district health board's accidental release of information about women who had had abortions is a shocking breach of privacy a women's group says.
A women's health advocate says a Government inquiry should be held to determine whether regular breast screening is necessary for women.


Birmingham Monarchs fell to a second Midland League Gold Cup defeat on Sunday as Coventry XL Motors Sabres took an away win at Perry Hall Playing Fields. Whilst the senior team held its own it was yet again the lacking depth in the junior team that cost the team deeply.
Two youngsters were thrown into the junior team due to late unavailability of two more experienced riders and as expected they were out of their depth against a strong Coventry Junior side. Such was the dominance of the visitors youth team, they dropped just three points all day.
This put all the pressure on the senior team, however with 2017 British Champion Myke Grimes, as expected, top scoring to keep his team firmly in the driving seat throughout. The Monarchs senior team outscored the visitors, but Mitch Barlow for was a revelation for the Sabres, helping to keep his team in control of the match.
For the Monarchs Ricki Johnson was immense racing to a superb maximum and had solid support from Mark Winwood, Chris Timms and Nathan Groves.
Paul Timms suffered a heavy fall in Heat 16 that required a trip to the hospital with knee pain, however, thankfully, we are glad to report that he was allowed to go home with no lasting damage and nothing broken.
BIRMINGHAM MONARCHS 92 V Coventry 107 – Nathan Groves 11+1, Chris Timms 11+3, Ricki Johnson 16, Paul Timms 4, Mark Winwood 13+1, Ewan Hancox 8+1, Jake Steel 2, Izzy Buet Gannon 7, Logan Hughes 4, Charlie Buet Gannon 7, Connor Steel 9.
Monarch youngsters rode at Leicester on Saturday in the Ross Mee Invitational and had some success. Connor Steel took victory in the U14's which was a great achievement given he was racing some older riders. Charlie Buet Gannon took 3rdplace after a faller allowed him to finish on the rostrum.
Samuel Price took 2ndplace in the U8's whilst Issy Buet Gannon was 3rdin the U10's her biggest achievement to date. Jake Steel rode in the Junior event and took 3rdplace in the B final.
This Saturday sees the final round of the Eurovets series with Mark Winwood currently leading the series so one big final push required to take the title which won't be easy with several home track specialists expecting to make his job much harder.
On Sunday Birmingham entertain Leicester in Gold Cup action in Perry Barr with several fixtures still to run throughout October.
Training continues on a a Tuesday and a Thursday from 6pm until end of October. Newcomers of all ages and abilities are welcome to come and have a go.


Therapeutic apheresis does not have to be scary! Jeff Winters helps us understand the essentials of this ever-expanding part of Transfusion Medicine.
It is very common for trainees and practitioners of Transfusion Medicine to be uncomfortable with therapeutic apheresis (TA) procedures. Since TA is not always performed by Transfusion Medicine personnel in all hospitals, we may never really be involved in it (or have, at best, limited exposure). As a result, the whole process may feel like speaking in an unfamiliar language. Standardized exams, however, may demand that learners be very familiar with details therapeutic apheresis.
Fortunately for us, Dr. Jeff Winters, director of the very busy therapeutic apheresis service at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, is an enthusiastic and willing guide! In this episode (the first of two on this topic), Dr. Winters takes us on a detailed tour through the basics of this sometimes mysterious-sounding discipline. He covers theoretical and practical aspects, and shares the secret of where you can find a truly AMAZING educational resource that you can and should get your hands on today. You will end this episode with a much clearer picture of how to approach these patients, and hopefully, you'll be ready to dive even deeper into therapeutic apheresis (which you will get the chance to do in episode 026)!
DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed on this episode are those of my guest and I alone, and do not reflect those of the organizations with which either of us is affiliated. Neither Dr. Winters nor I have any financial disclosures relevant to today's topic.
The images below are generously provided by Dr. Winters.
Schwartz J et al. Guidelines on the Use of Therapeutic Apheresis in Clinical Practice-Evidence-Based Approach from the Writing Committee of the American Society for Apheresis: The Seventh Special Issue. J. Clin. Apheresis 31:149-162, 2016.
Can you clear one thing, that 30% saline in start of procedure and 70% albumin at the end of procedure . Is it like this??
The standard is that the replacement fluid should consist of 70% albumin and 30% saline. As the albumin is a colloid and does not redistribute from the intravascular space while the saline is a crystalloid and does, give the saline in the very beginning of the procedure so it ends up in the waste bag with the albumin (usually 3% human albumin) for the remainder. This way, you minimize redistribution of the volume out of the intravascular space and minimize hypotensive reactions.
Dr. Jeff Winters not only delivers a great discussion, but also manages to find the time to respond to a question on my site! Thanks, Dr. Winters, and thanks for the question, Dr. Khan.
Great information. Dr winter is the best teacher.thanks Joe for getting Dr winters to us.was great to hear from him again.
Glad you enjoyed it! Dr. Winters is indeed a fantastic teacher, and I love his enthusiasm!
Angelito, if you mean "TTP" then you can find the answer (which is "there is no maximum") in Episode 26 of the podcast, where Dr. Winters discusses TTP. If that was not your question, please let me know!


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Chocolate is one of the most delicious things many of us can think of. It is a lovely present for almost all possible occasions - due to the fact that it has lots of tastes, forms and design ways, it has become a universal treat and gift. If you are a real chocoholic or you would like to present it to a special person for any reason, you should undoubtedly visit the website of Chocolate Trading Company. Be sure that you will have a wonderful opportunity to buy many exquisite chocolate products at lowered prices in case you use a special Chocolate Trading Company discount code.
The company boasts a truly extensive range of chocolate bars, boxes, hampers, hot chocolate and many more chocolate types, including personalized chocolate in case you'd like to make a great surprise to your loved one. See also champagne and wine section, a bottle of which could be a nice addition to your sweet gift. The good news is that you have an amazing chance to purchase all these high-quality products at a great discount. Just grab your Chocolate Trading Company voucher and enjoy shopping for something really tasty!
True chocolate lovers will find numerous decorations, chocolate modelling and baking tools, which will help you to create delicious masterpieces that melt in your mouth. For people with a special diet, Chocolate Trading Company has something to offer as well - see sugar free, gluten free, vegan and other chocolate types and enjoy your favourite food without any trouble! Your wallet can avoid unnecessary problems as well - make use of Chocolate Trading Company voucher codes and forget about overspending!


You can get to about 80 screenshots from this page.
These are screenshots of a Linux distro that I'm building. Note: Everything shown in the screenshots runs from a keychain-size Flash stick. For more information, click here.
1. General — Desktop, etc.