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Gallery Training Dec18
Gallery 70+ Oct 2018
Gallery England 2018
As managers of the Wales Walking Football National Teams (over 50's and over 60's), we are delighted to welcome our colleagues in the Walking Football community to our website.
Hedley Austin, Martin Ransom
Wales Walking Football
walk, play and inspire
Martin Ransom
Over 60s Wales Walking Football
National Team Manager
Hedley Austin
Hedley has considerable experience of walking football (as player and manager) as well as extensive administrative and managerial experience outside walking football.
He spent his professional life as a Chartered Patent Attorney (working in Wales since 1984). He took up walking football in 2014 and has played with commitment and enthusiasm ever since. He has been a regular player in Swansea, Neath and Port Talbot, and was thrilled to win his first trophies in walking football at the age of 67. He has managed (and/or participated in) winning teams in tournaments at Bridgend, Llandarcy (Walking with Legends – as featured on Match of the Day), Cardiff, Pontypridd, Bristol and Brighton. He was (with Martin Ransom) the joint manager of the Wales over 50s and over 60s teams in the first ever Welsh Walking Football international matches (against England in Barry in September 2018), and is also a qualified Walking Football Association referee.
As a proud adopted Welshman, he is looking forward to facilitating the launch of a Wales over 70s team; he will also continue to work on the consolidation of the Wales over 50s and 60s teams that he helped to found.
Martin has extensive football related experience as a player, manager and referee. After giving up running football in his 30s, Martin successfully managed junior and youth teams for Neath Sports Centre (Cwrtherbert) for several years (winning the West Wales Cup and being runners-up in the Welsh Youth Team Cup).
Martin has been active in walking football since 2014 - and walking football has helped to give him a new meaning in life. Martin was a founder member of Neath Communities Walking Football Club, of which he is manager and a player; he has organised Walking Football events and sessions in cooperation with Celtic Leisure, Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council, Game On Wales. Hearty Wales and the Swans Community Trust.
Martin was (with Hedley) joint manager of the over 50s and over 60s squads at Wales first ever walking football international (played at Jenner Park in Barry in September 2018). He also helped to set up a successful Walking Football league based at Neath, and he organises weekly training sessions at the Neath Communities Walking Football home base in Cwrtherbert, as well as at Afan Lido.
Martin also has qualifications in football leadership, coaching, refereeing (including as a WFA tournament referee), safeguarding and first aid. He is qualified to work with people with disabilities and young people.
I would like to thank Martin Pritchard (over 50s manager) for the belief in me and in my vice captains; Steve Flowers and Steve Evans. I am excited and looking forward to working and playing alongside both as we strengthen our squads, grow the camaraderie and build for success. I also relish the prospect of working with all the coaching staff and management teams, as without their input and passion we would never have come this far.
With the amalgamation of the Welsh walking football squads, I now believe we will go from strength to strength, making a stronger more unified Welsh international squad that will carry the Welsh banner proudly into every tournament we enter.
Jim Gray 50+ Team Captain
It is a very great honour and privilege that I have been appointed captain of the Welsh over 50s walking football squad. When someone, as a child, starts to play any sport there is always in the back of their minds a dream to play at the highest level, today my dream has come true. Even if it has taken 50 years, it doesn't dampen the pride or passion I feel for my country.
John Rowlands 60+ Team Captain
Words cannot describe how extremely proud I am of this wonderful honour of being appointed Captain of the over 60's Squad.
Firstly and most importantly, a huge 'Thank You' to Alan Carter in guiding us up to and through our first ever Walking Football International against England, which was very much appreciated by all the players.
This is a Fresh Start for everyone as a 'Unified Welsh Team' from which I am extremely excited about, and really looking forward to working with all the players, as we now have a strong, talented and committed bunch of guys! Furthermore, I am looking forward to working closely with our V Captain; Michael Parfitt, Manager; Martin Ransom, Coaches and our Committee Guys, as this will be a Team effort, on and off the pitch and always remember - 'Together Stronger'!
Finally, never say never, as Walking Footballs Motto is 'Rethink Retirement' because it may have taken 20 years but I am now equal to my daughter, in sporting terms.


Wheat is a green plant, which grows up tall like a long grass. At the end of spring it forms a head of wheat, which has tiny white flowers. At the end of spring it dries off to a beautiful golden brown colour.
Wheat is the predominant cereal grown on Glenvar since 1981 and is planted on 50% of the arable acres. Up to 10,000T of wheat is harvested annually at Glenvar today. Our ideal climate enables an excellent wheat sample to be grown. Wheat is the most profitable and consistent grain in our rotation. Currently at Glenvar we produce predominantly Noodle Wheat. Quality assurance will help us produce an excellent product into the future. Wheat Straw is produced as a bi-product of wheat production adding value to the plant.
The bulk of Glenvar's wheat is produced for overseas markets, generally Japan, in the production of Noodles. A small amount of wheat is also sold locally to flour millers in Western Australia. The domestic market for wheat in Western Australia is very small hence overseas markets are targeted.


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Home » GOP limits CFTC budget, but Dems preserving Dodd-Frank
GOP limits CFTC budget, but Dems preserving Dodd-Frank
07/29/15 9:53 AM By Philip Brasher
WASHINGTON, July 29, 2015 – The Republican takeover of the Senate has all but ensured that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission will continue to face a tight budget. But so far, GOP senators have been unable to get Democrats to go along with any new changes in Dodd-Frank regulations.
CFTC's budget would be frozen at $250 million for the next fiscal year under a fiscal 2016 spending bill approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee last week, $77 million less than the White House request. House appropriators would provide the same amount as the Senate budget but would require the agency to spend a $5 million credit on its building lease to get the full $250 million.
The final amount that the agency gets for fiscal 2016 could change, depending on whether Democrats and Republicans reach agreement to increase the final levels for domestic spending. Democrats have successfully blocked appropriations bills from moving on the Senate floor because of their objections to the spending caps.
Democrats in both the House and Senate say the CFTC is getting the funding it needs to keep up with the complexity of the market and the added responsibilities the agency was given under the Dodd-Frank. "Dodd-Frank is the law of the land, and the CFTC, like every regulator, needs the resources to do its job," said New York Rep. Nita Lowey, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee.
Conaway: No increase for CFTC without Dodd-Frank reforms
House GOP forces through CFTC overhaul
House panel OKs CFTC reauthorization, but challenges loom
Still, Republicans have had no success so far passing a reauthorization bill that they could use to roll back some Dodd-Frank provisions, or at least to restrict the CFTC's rulemaking. Part of the problem the GOP faces is that although the CFTC's statutory authorization has lapsed, the agency doesn't need it to keep operating so there's little reason for Democrats to cooperate in writing a new bill.
The House in June passed a reauthorization bill 246-171, that would require CFTC to analyze the costs and benefits of all new rules. The bill (HR 2289) also would limit capital requirements for swaps dealers and exempt grain elevators and other agricultural interests that are managing their own money from having to maintain records of all forms of communications that lead to a trade.
Only nine Democrats voted for the bill, which the White House threatened to veto, and Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., has yet to schedule for markup. The committee's ranking Democrat, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, says the requirement for cost-benefit analyses is a non-starter for her. She also says the agency needs a bigger budget. "The CFTC has been given 700 percent more responsibilities and it's been cut in resources," she said.
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Philip Brasher
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Washington Week in Review: Jan. 15, 2021: Rep. Rodney Davis on impeachment, COVID aid, and biofuels
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If you enter your email address here, the handiness of technology will deliver posts to your inbox without me doing a single thing. Isn't that the neatest?
It will be slightly less random, and slightly more personalized to the audience I write my books for. You should check it out, especially if you're a girl still in school.
Just wanted to keep the few hangers-on over here in the loop. Thanks for sticking around! Stay tuned for puppy pictures.
I've got a website, ya'll!
Yes, I know that was a very funny joke. But miracles can happen!
I've been thinking about holes lately.
Everyone seems to go down a rabbit hole. But so many animals/things make holes. For example – the mole – think Wind in the Willows. Or, ostriches. Or those spiders that dig holes and cover them with a web. Ick. Or those ground aerating machines that punch little divets into the ground. The pegs on the bottoms of soccer cleats.
A lack/loss of something that used to be filling/filled in, and has been taken away. The lack/loss/emptiness of the hole means that the filling-in stuff has been separated from where it should be and put in another place.
~write about a character who is a magical bottomless pit. Where DOES all that food go?
~write about things lost, taken away, lacking, and what the flipside of that would be. For example – if someone dies – where do they go? If they leave a hole here, do they fill a hole somewhere else? If you scoop dirt out where does it get displaced to? Everything remains in balance. What WAS in the hole doesn't disappear when it's taken out, it has to transform or fill somewhere else. Think about a raindrop striking the ground and how it would look if you were an ant: it moves the dirt out of its way with the force of its weight/mass and the dirt splashes up at the moment the rain splashes down and the hole is created by the loss of dirt, and yet filled by the water, all at once.
That's all the Swiss cheese thoughts I have today. What are you pondering?
"I'm making a book," she said.
The pigeon on the telephone wire ignored the train chugging past. It was a regular and ever its whistle was not enough to distract the pigeon from tracking the houseboat's progress across the Bay.
Suddenly – had a gnat flown through its vision line? Had the pigeon blinked? – the houseboat was vanished; only a wide berth of bubbles left behind showing where it had been and where it had come from.
The pigeon turned its attention to the train and thought nothing more of the incident. It is debatable whether pigeons think at all in the first place.
"You don't know what my book is about," she said.
The Queen had heard of these contraptions; ships that humans called houses. Floating houses with all the things land dwelling humans possessed, but set afloat on the surface of her kingdom.
She wanted one. So she took one. The inhabitants: a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, a dog; all perished according to the report.
Really it wasn't anything like the report said.
"Something's wrong, Carl!" The mother screams. She puts the life jackets on the sister and brother. There is no life vest for the dog. The mother catches the brother staring out the window and she draws the curtains with a sharp click of the rings against the rod. She pushes the children toward the stairs and doesn't notice that he sister has unbuckled her life vest.
"Vera!" The father shouts down from the top deck.
"We are here. What is happening?" the mother asks. Her voice is strange; high and yet trying to be normal under circumstances that are not normal.
"Everything is alright," the father soothes. "Come on deck and –" the floor pitches to the left, nearly 90 degrees from what it was.
The father reaches for the mother. She pushes the son into his waiting arms and then the dog because it is closest and then turns for the sister, frantic. She does not see the sister.
The curtains and window are open.
*The sister scrambles up and crawls up the steeply pitched floor, clinging to the curtain rod like a monkey bar. A salty breeze wafts in – calm despite the chaos going on.
The sister brushes the curtains aside with a drawn up foot. She rests her legs on the sill and that takes some of the strain off her arms. She was never very good at monkey bars.
What she sees outside the window is beautiful and magical and she wants to be with it.
They see her and swim close. They open the window.
"I cannot swim," the sister whispers.
They smile and pull her through the window and into the Bay.
"Guess what it's about," she said.
"Yes, you do," she said.
It was like watching a movie at a 3D theater: you are part of the action, but still removed from it. You feel as if you are in the thick of it, but you know if you take off the glasses you'll be far, far away. If you keep the glasses on you can pretend whatever is happening is happening to you too, but you have the added comfort of knowing that you'll be fine, because you are safe in your seat. They aren't.
A long, handsome one of Them kissed the sister. Not like the father kissed the mother, but gentler. Not wanting anything; giving something.
Now, the sister could breathe underwater. There was no panic in her as she watched the houseboat sink. Past the sparkling green water. Past the grey bluing dark and then darker water. She can't see it anymore. It is gone. Her family is gone with it.
They swim away with her, at first towing her in their arms, then picking her up because she will not stop looking back at the place where it all disappeared.
"Why did you tell that story?" I asked.
"No one told me I couldn't," she said.
I only moved away from home in college, and I wasn't far enough to not go home every break. So, moving all the way down the coast is the first time I've moved away from home. That I'm counting.
Writing is a portable endeavor. You can write anywhere; you can write about anything. With the invention of the internet, submitting manuscripts and other work to editors, agents, magazines, anthologies, journals, contests – is easier than ever. You could be a nomad, and somehow eke out a life writing and moving aimlessly or purposefully across continents and oceans. It's been done.
But this move has prompted me to think about writers' roots.
I've begun this essay five times, losing focus in the details of moving and compensation for homesickness in my descriptions of the place I moved from and the place I moved to, however, those details aren't important. The question of rootedness is.
Do writers have to have some kind of roots in order to write well? As with most subjective questions – I think it depends on the writer. Even if you're the restless, non-committal type, I'm sure you've got some patterns to your system of living and being (even if it's just the fact that you don't stay in one place longer than three days, that would be a pattern). It's a human thing. Most of us have a source of stability that we cling to, whether it's a place, a routine or a person. The point of roots, taking the tree as an example, is to anchor/stabilize, and nourish us.
I souper-douper dislike change. I like everything to stay the same because it's secure and familiar and comfortable. Changing my environment has really shook up how I write. I'm figuring out how to write with intangible roots: routines instead of environment.
Most of us need the comfort and security of stability so that we can try new things and reach out for new challenges. When we don't have anchoring roots, we tend to search out familiar surroundings and situations. I stay at home, I try to find safe footing before I venture out and begin saying yes to new experiences and invitations. I'm cautious in new environments because I don't like them. Maybe there are people out there who can just go and adapt and still thrive. Pretty sure those people are called extroverts.
Since I've placed a higher value on my tangible roots to place, it's been hard to make intangible roots in other ways. I'm hesitant to make my roots to place again because we'll move in a year or so and I'll have to do it all over again.
TODAY YOU WILL WRITE SOMETHING.
This is not an artistic goal, and it isn't literary or profound, or even really a specific goal. But, it's the baby-step mark I set out to reach each day.
So, if I do end up getting a few scribbles down on the screen or page, it's a good day. I give myself a little pat on the back and have some fruit snacks.
Some may say that it helps when you make a vague goal without too high of expectations. I say that that is the lowest of my daily expectations for myself as a writer (As a human, I hope I at least brush my teeth and put on the requisite amounts of clothing before leaving the house). Every time I meet the lowest expectation, I step up to the next one, which is less general, and each level of expectations gets more specific the more I meet the general expectations. It's a great system. I'm always disappointing myself, and congratulating myself at the same time.
I've been finding that the more I read, the more I'm able to write. I was reading some JCO (as Joyce Carol Oates calls herself) today over my lunch break, and I read this following quote and thought: Yes.
I think the audiobooks are making a difference. I can hear the cadence of words more easily and "feel the beat" as it were. In this way, I'm able to ingest more words, and ergo, more words come out. And that's the goal: to get the words out. Some words. Any words.
To write, I must be full: of words, observations, emotions and experiences. So I spend just as much time living as I do locking myself away to write. Add in reading time and I'm basically spending an estimated tenth of my life, maybe an eighth, writing, while the rest is spent in absorption of Life in order to have something to write about.
It's thrillingly backward and fulfilling to say that part of my chosen career path is living fully. Unfortunately, they don't pay people to simply exist…so I have this thing called a day job. That's what pays at the moment, so the career path is still on its way. It will always be on its way, probably.
I HAVE WRITTEN SOMETHING TODAY.
See? I met the goal.


The last time you threw a successful party, you likely spent a good deal of time upfront thinking about the mood you wanted to create for your guests. The choices you made — music, food, lighting, flow, etc. — all played a role in putting your guests in a celebratory state of mind.
As it turns out, the same considerations that go into a successful party also apply to creating a successful in-store customer experience.
Every business has a mood, whether planned or not. What a person sees, hears, smells, touches or tastes in your business has a strong impact on how they perceive your brand, both consciously and unconsciously, and it directly impacts purchase behavior.
So how can retailers set just the right mood in their stores? First, recognize what's unique about the brick-and-mortar experience; unlike e-Commerce, a consumer's in-store experience is the result of the full range of senses working in conjunction with each other.
The way humans process visual information is incredibly complex, but sight can help set the tone of the customer's retail experience. What do you want customers to see when they first walk into your store? Think through traffic flow and how visual elements can help inform, educate, entertain and promote along the way. A recent POPAI study suggests that 82% of mass shoppers make unplanned purchase decisions in-store, while another study found that 68% of Americans say they've purchased an unplanned product or service because it was featured on digital signage.
Yet another study suggests that marketers using digital signage see an average sales increase of 28%. Capitalize on every visual cue in your arsenal to engage your customer in the shopping experience.
When a customer walks into your space, what do they hear and what do you wish they heard? Not surprisingly, the sounds we hear in a store play a big role in determining the kind of experience we have…and how long we stay. In one recent study, researchers found that different musical genres clearly shape different customer experiences. And in a 2013 Leger study, 72% of consumers ranked music as more important than décor. The music you play needs to connect emotionally not only with your guests but also must reflect who you are as a brand. (And by the way, it needs to be legally licensed for commercial use).
I smell. You smell. Your place of business smells. But is it a pleasant smell? And what does it suggest about your brand? Of all the senses, scent is the most powerful in terms of triggering emotion and memory. Long-term, researchers suggest that we're 100X more likely to remember something we smell than what we see, hear, touch or taste. Yet it's often a factor that brands overlook.
Scent can be used to enhance an overall brand mood, or it can be used to mask what might otherwise be perceived as a foul odor. Go beyond the simple goal of having a "pleasant" scent and instead think through how a scent (or even a custom scent) might be synonymous with your brand. Although certainly nice, a surf shop shouldn't smell like green tea, nor should a spa smell like surfboard wax (which smells pretty great in the right environment). Make it personal to your brand.
You know a party is going well when you see your guests talking and interacting with each other, when they help contribute to the energy and momentum of the experience. The same applies to your business. Creating opportunities for consumers to interact with the brand and with each other is growing in importance. Such interactions are a given in the online space, but as the online and offline worlds continue to merge, greater social interaction is increasingly an in-store expectation. Recently, retailers that embraced Pokémon Go saw an increase in foot traffic.
Letting customers interact and influence the music in real time, offering instant promotions to those using social apps in store, displaying live-feed hashtags or tweets in-store, etc. are just a few examples of ways to leverage online tools in an offline world.
Using sensory elements to think through every aspect of the Customer Experience and how that experience might best reflect who you are as a brand can be an extremely helpful exercise. Of course, while each element is important on its own, no one element works as well in isolation. It's when each component is working in tandem with others that you're able to truly merchandise in multiple dimensions. The right multi-sensory experience is what makes for a great party, what gets people talking, and what makes guests look forward to coming back again and again. It's also what makes a great in-store Customer Experience.
Scott Moore oversees marketing, public relations and advertising efforts for the North American and international businesses at Mood.


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In Development – Magic Effectiveness Project, Part 1 – RFC (Not That RFC)
By Alexander Shearer / July 6, 2010 October 11, 2019
There was an excellent response to last week's column. I think that makes a lot of sense – we all want to be able to not only succeed, but to do so in a way that relies on and plays to our strengths instead of forcing us to gut through things we don't enjoy. One of the strongest responses was, "Can you do more of this?"
I think that's an excellent idea. With that in mind, I'm embarking on a series of columns, snappily named the "Magic Effectiveness Project," to explore what Magic-specific strengths exist, with an eye toward helping all of us find the simultaneously most enjoyable and most helpful path toward improving our game.
Over in the science business, when a major funding agency is planning on supporting a new research initiative, they issue something called an RFC. Rather than the meaning you may be used to from Magic, this stands for "Request for Comments" (although my usual funding agency, the NIH, calls one of these a "Request for Information"). This is where the people at the agency present an outline of the project they're thinking of developing or funding, and then ask for comments from stakeholders. For example, if you check out the recently released National Algal Biofuels Technology Roadmap (note before clicking – that's a 7.5 meg PDF) you'll see my name in the (long) list of participants in a workshop after the Department of Energy asked for comments on their research plan.
For the purposes of any initiative about Magic, you're the stakeholders.
So the goal of today's piece is to outline what I'm thinking about doing, both to give you a preview of what you can look forward to and, more importantly, to solicit your comments and thoughts. Your engaged interest is important, as all of you are going to be important contributors to getting something useful out of all this. This won't be all I'm going to write about in the coming weeks, but it's going to be a recurring feature, and it depends on your support.
But first of all, let's look at why we'd even want to do this.
Why do we want to know how to be better?
Before we launch into trying to figure out a more coherent, positive approach to determining what make people good at something, we should pause briefly to ask ourselves why we want to be "better at Magic."
I've written before about playing to have fun. I think we need to emphasize that it genuinely is all about having fun, because there are few other legitimately defensible reasons for spending a ton of time on Magic instead of other activities. Calling event regulars "pros" and talking up the money one can win can while playing can make Magic sound like a career path, but in terms of time spent to the money you can pull in, there are many, many better ways to do it. To give a sense of the scale we're talking about, here are the nominal, pre-tax, Wizards-event-based earnings of the top ten earners from 2009:
Kibler, Brian – 51,700
Nassif, Gabriel – 48,710
Mitamura, Kazuya – 45,150
Coimbra, Andre – 45,000
Watanabe, Yuuya – 26,050
Scott-Vargas, Luis – 25,990
Juza, Martin – 24,700
Reitbauer, David – 24,600
Ikeda, Tsuyoshi – 24,300
Hebky, Michal – 21,800
Yes, there are other tournaments and side events where you can pull in some "income," but even these most successful earners didn't pull down enough money in 2009 to justify choosing to play Magic instead of spending the same time, say, investing, playing poker, or just doing a job.
And, of course, the typical prize money pulled in by the majority of PT competitors in a given year is nothing at all. Magic isn't a career path – it's an awesome hobby with the bonus that we can sometimes win some cash off of it.
So if it's not about Magic as a career path, what is it? Why would we want to figure out how to be better at the game?
Put briefly, getting better at the game is fun. Winning is fun, success in general is fun, and most to the point, understanding the path from where we are now to being better players is much, much more fun than banging our heads against invisible walls as we try to improve areas where we just aren't going to improve.
Magic is an intrinsically fun game, but we've all had the experience where we have a mismatch between our skills, our understanding of the game, and how it's working out in practice. Maybe it was that first time our friend busted out a land destruction deck at the kitchen table, or perhaps our first Extended PTQ where an opponent ran a Mind's Desire deck out against us. That second experience was mine, and it was both very confusing and informative – I realized I hadn't researched the format nearly as well as I thought I had.
As we saw last week, we primarily want to figure out the "best ways to get better" so we can reduce these disjunctions between what we want to do and what reality does to our plans, so that we don't have the mysterious frustration of stuff just failing.
So, being successful and having a clear path to success is fun. What do we mean by "success?"
Setting our definition of effectiveness and success
If we want to study strengths that we can focus on to achieve success in Magic, we probably need to define "success."
The definition I'm planning on using is utterly straightforward, but perhaps surprisingly flexible.
Success means winning.
Before anyone flips straight to the comments to write a rant, let's expand on how we want to define "winning." When I refer to winning, I mean winning at all competitive levels of the game, where "competitive" refers to play in tournaments with entry fees or other gateways (e.g. needing to win a PTQ to get on the Pro Tour), with defined play and deckbuilding rules and the general expectation that the players involved are operating to the best of their abilities within those rules. I'll further narrow this to just cover head-to-head formats, which allows things like Team Constructed from PT Charleston, but not any form of multiplayer free-for-all.
Lest this sound too constraining, consider that it includes these types of tournaments, among others:
(N)K events (e.g. the ChannelFireball Spring Series 5K)
PTQ
PT Public Event
MTGO PE
MTGO Daily Event
MTGO 8-4 Queue
Whereas it excludes pure kitchen table Magic, games in the various MTGO Casual rooms, and most multiplayer events.
If you're confused by the wide range of events I plan to include in this survey, consider that success means being good at what you do. Stepping away from Magic for a moment, it's possible for one person to be a very successful business executive, running a company, and another person to be a very successful A/V tech working in the same company. Regardless of how we might externally judge the person's success, we have to remember that they can be amazing at what they do, regardless of what they're doing.
Returning to Magic, that's why it's valuable to roam outside the confines of the PT and look at people who are consistently successful at FNM, or European Legacy events, or whatever their competitive avenue of choice is.
On the flip side, I'm choosing to leave "casual" gaming out of this survey because it's not really my interest and it's much, much trickier to define and track "success" at casual play. Are you a successful EDH player because you win a lot, or because the other people you're playing with like you a lot? Well, it depends on your group, right? In contrast, no matter what kind of tournaments a competitive player attends, it's easy enough to ask them the question, "Do you tend to win?"
So, to summarize, we are interested in players who frequently win prizes in head-to-head tournaments that have either an entry fee or some other gateway mechanism.
With that understanding in hand, let's move on to how this survey will be carried out, broken down into interviews, historical review, and analysis.
The interview portion
In last week's article, I presented some notional ways to approach understanding our own Magic strengths. If you took a crack at understanding your own strengths this way, most of them basically involved sitting down and asking yourself some questions about, well, yourself.
Unsurprisingly, a major portion of this survey will involve asking successful players to talk about themselves.
The original Gallup study that inspired last week's article did not actually come out of a rigorously pre-defined set of questions that were posed to highly successful people. In fact, there's no way it could have – the researchers involved did not know, starting out, what was going to promote success. Heading in blind, they could easily have discovered that the root of all success was buckling down and focusing really hard on fixing your weak spots. The discovery that effectiveness is born from building on our strong points was not a foregone conclusion.
My intent here is to put together a survey that features a series of "talking points," intended to spur the player being questioned to give more detailed answers than they might otherwise. This is going to be especially important because, as you'll have noticed from your local store and Rich Hagon's Magic podcasts, there are a lot of taciturn players in our community.
I am, of course, happy to have players just ramble on about themselves and their gaming experiences, but as a spur to richer replies, I plan on including questions like these:
What's your ideal tournament experience?
What's your typical tournament experience?
What's the best tournament experience you've ever had?
Conversely, what's the worst?
What's the best play you've ever made?
Did you think of it on the spot, or was it one you'd considered in advance?
How do you prepare for a tournament? Do you prepare?
How do you prepare for Limited formats?
How do you prepare for Constructed formats?
How do you pick a deck for a Constructed tournament?
If you had to play a Standard tournament tomorrow using a PTQ-winning deck from the last month's tournaments, which one would you pick, and why?
This is just a sampling of the kind of questions I'd like to use to provoke some more in-depth replies from our respondents. It's also an area where I would particularly appreciate comments from all of you. Which questions would you suggest as real conversation starters for your fellow players?
The historical portion
We're blessed with a wealth, or perhaps even an embarrassment, of tournament coverage. There's the official site coverage over at Wizards for the Pro Tour, GPs, and various Nationals, as well as tournament coverage on other sites and individual tournament reports. There are videos bulwarking all this text coverage, as I've highlighted before.
I'm proposing a general review of available tournament coverage in all these areas. As with the interview portion described above, there can't be a rigid plan going into this review, as we don't have an up-front idea what kind of patterns may develop. As I described last week, there are some strengths, such as Luis's consistent, crisp play, or Frank Karsten's thoughtfulness, that make themselves clear in the official Wizards coverage. I'm confident that additional strengths will arise out of these and other materials.
In addition to reviewing written and video coverage of tournaments, I'm also planning on taking a careful look at what people write about. As you may recall, one of the features of a genuine strength is not just that we're reliably good at the thing in question, but that we like to do it. Reasonably enough, people tend to write about the things they like. Even if Joe Magic Columnist says that a deep analytical approach to Magic is the only way to game, if he keeps writing about exciting snap-judgment moments and winning tournaments with no preparation and seemingly even less sleep, it's a fair bet that his strengths truly lie in that area, no matter what he tries to insist.
The plan is to put the emphasis on how players experienced success. The logic behind this is twofold.
First, a player having a successful run at a given tournament is probably playing to their strengths, whatever they may be. Although everyone needs a bit of luck to win, it's highly unlikely that luck can carry us through a tournament if we're playing against our strengths.
Second, while it's possible for a bit of bad luck to knock a player out of contention – after all, two losses means you're out of the running for an MTGO PTQ top eight – it's really unlikely for bizarre good luck to run someone up to the top of a tournament. In other words, a bad result can arise from two bad matchups, but a good result probably didn't come from having amazing matchups through the entire event.
As I mentioned earlier, it's impossible to go into this kind of project with predefined analytical categories. After all, if we knew all of the relevant Magic strengths in advance, we wouldn't need to carry out the analysis.
So what to do?
Eventually, strengths do need to be sorted out, clarified, and defined. As with most knowledge, if it can't be sorted out into some kind of useful categories, it's not very helpful when we try to apply it (to, for example, getting better at Magic).
This part is very notional right now, but in general outline, it works pretty much like how we can start to develop a structure for a web site via tags. I might, for example, watch some video of Frank Karsten playing and note that his play style is "deliberate," or perhaps, "thoughtful." These traits clearly show up again in Frank's writing, but I may also start to see them in interview responses from other active players and in game play coverage and articles from other players over the last several years.
Eventually, certain tags will likely show up as "frequent flyers" among successful players at all levels, and that informs us that they likely describe a particular strength that is relevant to Magic play.
Clearly, this is more about investigation of qualitative traits and less about finding statistical metrics. In other words, we're not going to come up with a magic equation predicting a winning player from their personality. Rather, our interest is in understanding the qualitative strengths that power effective players so we can identify the ones that describe us best, and in so doing, figure out a fun, engaging way to get better at this game that we love.
Your role in all this
In introducing today's piece, I described all of you as stakeholders in this process. As such, your input is essential. This, right now, is my Request for Comments. Do you want to make a suggestion concerning possible questions for interviews? Ways you'd like to see historical information addressed? Considerations for analysis? Thoughts about the structure of this survey generally?
If you have thoughts in any of those areas, I'd appreciate your input. You can write your thoughts in the comments below, or email them to me at magic(at)alexandershearer.com. The "official" comment period starts now and continues until the evening of Sunday, July 11th, although I'll happily accept comments after that – I'm just planning on releasing the survey questions on the week of the 11th, so input ahead of that date is most helpful.
In the meantime, I hope everyone is enjoying the M11 fervor. I'm personally pretty stoked by this new core set, and think in both this set and its immediate predecessor, Wizards has managed to truly revisit the feeling of opening a Beta pack from way back in the day.
Tags: Alexander Shearer, Improving your Game, In Development
Alexander Shearer
An avid deck designer and analyst, Alexander can always be counted on to thoroughly explain all the choices he makes in deck design. His strong background in research can be seen in the Magic Effectiveness Project, an ongoing attempt to classify what makes people good at Magic!
22 thoughts on "In Development – Magic Effectiveness Project, Part 1 – RFC (Not That RFC)"
mamurphy
This sounds like a promising project. I cannot think of much more that you have not already mentioned.
One question I am interested in for the interview portion is how people network with other (good/better) players they meet playing magic.
I have read columns here and elsewhere about networking and about its importance, and it seems like an important part of skill-improvement. It can be hard to identify and befriend good players at FNM and PTQs, and MTGO is even more impersonal — it seems easier to make friends in other areas of life.
YellowBear
This is a fantastic idea. I'm very excited to read these.
LotusHead
So what the hell is RFC?
Radical First Col;umn? What? I skimmed article twice.
(I am vintage player, so don't take this too hard, just wanted to keep up on my magic acronyms. What the hell is "I audibled this or IG or is it IE or what? I dunno…
Waiting for more draft vids. 🙂
Cloudscraper
RFC = Ragefire Chasm, clearly.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=rfc
tomlocke
I really like this project, so thank you. I would like to see a question more specifically targeting testing and a question investigating game state decisions similar for pv's mulligan situation. Which could also be a skill; I know I need to improve.
Pingback: MTGBattlefield
RFC is "Read the **cking Card" in magic parlance. you know, its what you say to someone who makes a bonehead play that doesn't work at all because the card doesn't do what they think it does.
Monk Realist
@LotusHead, dbg
Maybe you should RFA.
Coach McGuirk
Fantastic article, I love new aproaches to the game
Browndr
I noticed a distinct lack of MTGO 4322. Is that because you consider them casual or just not a high enough level of tourney for the purposes of this article?
Perhaps when going over the coverage, note how the successful player interacts with the opposition. It is certainly not necessarily the most above the board of magic talents, but presenting yourself as a good player and keeping up that level of intensity can lead your opponent to treat you as such and oftentimes give you games. The famous Saito slap comes to mind.
My article has yet to be printed on ML and is still in the administrative stages. As it stands, I may choose to change it, and, with your permission, perhaps just print the interview questions you come up to get them to a wider audience. I cannot think that my article will do any more than yours apart from that, so if this seems acceptable to you we can move forward along that avenue.
-Stacks
thewachman (Mr. Suitcase on the MTGCast network)
I plan on mentioning this on the next episode of Monday Night Magic. That episode will come out late on the 12th.
Jim Storrie
For me, being able to 'go infinite' at FNMs is success enough. It is unwise to think one will ever make money at this, but you can at least avoid LOSING money. Trade well, draft well, don't rip packs, and do your best to win often.
drawingdead
this is a good project. one issue id like to see addressed is whether people are taking the content being published on major sites (non coverage) as current tech. idk bout most people but i tend to use articles as a step behind where the meta should actually be. sometimes that works and others it doesn't which makes me wonder how often people use outdated lists and what their theory might be.
Jason Barnett
Possible questions to ask:
Are there any tells that you actively look for when playing an unknown opponent?
How do you build the mana base for your decks?
What are the most common gameplay mistakes that you see your opponents make?
How frequently do you bluff a certain card in hand? What are some of the techniques you use to make a convincing bluff?
Why do you think you've been so successful?
(that last question above was the last one that I thought about, but it seems so obvious to ask right?)
Guillermo Mercado
How long have you been playing?
What type of deck (and or colors) would you say you are naturally attracted to? (ie control, aggro, combo)
Are you good at math?
How much average time do you spend on magic per week? How much of it brewing, MODO, playtesting, thinking about it?
How much do you travel for magic? (ptqs, gps, pts)
Do you exercise, if so how much?
Do you go to school? (what kind of school)
What is your age?
Whats your diet like?
How much do you sleep on average?
Random Guy
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Gurugram, Feb 14 (PTI) A team of Class 10 students here has developed a portable, cost-effective and user-friendly device driven by artificial intelligence (AI) that may help correct the posture of those suffering from 'text neck'.
Excessive watching or texting on hand-held devices over a sustained period of time can result in a repeated stress injury and pain in the neck called 'text neck'.
The Posture Perfect Device developed by the students at Shiv Nadar School, Gurugram — Tanishka Sahay, Mavya Sachdeva, Aryan Verma and Tejasv Rastogi — not only sends alerts for sitting in a wrong position but also notifies the number of times people sit in that posture.


Currently, the first accelerator program in Israel is being conducted by the Agency for Science, Innovation and Technology (MITA). It involves 6 Lithuanian starters – "BalticPromo", "Biome", "Gasefis", "Innospark", "Parking Industries" and "Visela".
The aim of the program is to promote the growth of companies, the development of innovative products, services and technologies, the development of the Israel's market, cooperation with foreign partners, participation in international research, experimental development and innovation programs.
The "Start-Haifa" accelerator program has brought a large team of more than 25 professionals - experts, risk capitalists, investors, business leaders, business executives, technology and innovation developers, technologists and others - to work with the representatives of Lithuanian innovative business. The strategic partners of this program: Technion Institute of Technology, Haifa Seaport, Israeli Railways, Haifa Municipality, "Mati Haifa" Business Development Center, the Agency for Science, Innovation and Technology (MITA) and the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Lithuania.
The first days of Lithuanians began very active. Participants not only had the opportunity to get acquainted with the Israel's starter ecosystem, but also took knowledge of the best and best-known professionals in their field.
"This program is also unique because it involves thoroughly selecting individual practical exercises, analyzing each company individually, its advantages, needs and challenges. Participants have the exclusive opportunity to look at their work from other sources and get targeted expert advice on realistic, easily applicable product development, market opportunity exploitation and investor attraction opportunities. In addition, after the end of the program in Israel and after the business representatives returns to Lithuania, the participants will have an additional opportunity to continue their communication: in the wake of the issues related to the accelerated program themes, Lithuanian businessmen will be able to receive free consultations from the relevant field experts on a remote basis, "says Lithuanian starters accelerated MITA coordinator in Israel Viktorija Bražiūnaitė.
During the program of accelerated Lithuanian starters in Israel, the participants improve their knowledge of how successfully develop a business, which business model to use, what to change, how to properly use communication methods. The participants also explore the peculiarities of participation in international research, development and innovation programs, and develop skills for presenting themselves to potential investors and attracting funds for further successful product development.
Participants in the 1:1 session with relevant field mentors are advising on business and technological development, financial attraction, partner search (business or science), product development, market opportunities, "MVP" (active product), "POC" (concept testing), brand, intellectual property management, development and other issues.
A separate day is dedicated to getting acquainted with the starter ecosystem of Tel Aviv. Lithuanian business representatives will visit successful start-up technology and cooperation centers. Also, they will meet in a discussion with starters working in similar fields and will make useful contacts.
The demo day will be crowned on Thursday by the starters who will have the opportunity to present their activities to potential Israel's investors and partners.
Towards Sustainability: Bio-based Industries, Innovations and Key Partnerships Fostering Cooperation Between Europe and Japan: the Joint Call for Smart Water Management is Open Lithuania to host five international innovation events The Fifth 'Lithuanian-Norwegian Forum'19 & Matchmaking" turns the spotlight on sustainable economy and green solutions Lithuanian Innovation Forum INNOVATION DRIFT 2019: how will we change Europe in the next 10 years?


*FLORA'S BOX.: Of Shopaholics & Trips I Will Take..
Of Shopaholics & Trips I Will Take..
Shop, Shop, Shop around the Clock & Click. Online stores popping up wherever the eyes (sc)roll over. To keep track of them you might want to get this pinky booklette by Swedish publisher Archie Grand. As always the way to a new dress, bag, jewels or book is now too tempting and easy to proceed check-out with one-click-buy-buttons. Thanks to gracious Germans as the likes of BMW such a temptation shopping-trip might be yours for free.
Just entering yet another raffle that might get you into 'The Corner'. As one of Berlin's most sought after fashion-hotspots you'll find what you've been craving for and more on spot. Driving around the German capital in the brand new BMW X3 and staying overnight at Hotel the Rome. To enter the BMW giveaway game until 14th November just click here. The Shop, Shop, Shop around the Clock is just one Click away.


text:
Stjepan Oreskovic, PhD
Global Health Affiliated Faculty
soreskov@iu.edu
Stjepan is a full professor at the University of Zagreb School of Medicine. He is the founder and director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for HIV Strategic Information working with experts, scholars, and policymakers from 111 countries and educating more than 2600 students in the course of the last 15 years. (https://www.hivevaluation.org/about-us/). He was a director of Andrija Štampar School of Public Health.
He is a Principal Investigator (PI) for the Pfizer's GLOBAL GRAND PROJECT (2017 2023): "Varenicline Versus Cytisine for Smoking Cesation" a head to head multicentric multidisciplinary non-inferiority trial comprising teams of clinical, behavioral and data science experts from Harvard Medical School - Massachusetts General Hospital, University of Ljubljana and University of Zagreb Faculty of Medicine.
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04015414
He has led a range of educational, research, and consultancy projects and taught at the London School of Economics & Political Science, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Bocconi, Trieste, L'Ecole Nationale de Sante Publique and Ljubljana University. He is a Fellow at Harvard Medical School Department of Global Health & Social Medicine – Center for Bioethics (EXT) and at the Institute of Coaching McLean Hospital Harvard Medical School Associate.
https://scholar.harvard.edu/soreskovic/biography
Professor Oreskovic Co-Chairs the Data Science and the Right to Science Conference, aiming to develop a formatted interdisciplinary dialog between social, behavioral, and life scientist coming from a variety of disciplines (biology, bioinformatics, genetic medicine and neurosciences, sociology, psychology, bioethics and philosophy) to discuss, with representatives of international organizations and governments as well as other actors, including civil society movements, research networks and corporations, the possibility of a new framework for data science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and its application to health, medical sciences and biotechnological advancements.
https://dibss.org/
He has authored 156 peer-reviewed papers (Google Scholar: h-19 and i10-33 index) with leading global publishers, such as Springer Publishing, Elsevier Science, Wiley-Blackwell, and Pergamon Press, and has co-authored and contributed to 15 books published by John Wiley and Sons, VDM Verlag OmniScriptum, Cambridge University Press and others.
He also worked as a consultant for international organizations such as The World Bank, the EU Commission, and the World Health Organization.
Professor Oreskovic is best known for his projects fostering innovative health care interventions in the area of tobacco control, obesity prevention, internet addiction and HIV surveillance. His projects were featured in the Lancet and the BMJ. He has contributed to the leading international media, including Bloomberg, CNN, BBC, NBC, Huffington Post, Reuters, RTL and other fora.


there are two kinds of people in this world: epic ones, and the rest.
you may think you are among the epic ones, but you're probably not. Not to blame, it's hard to get into this category.
How can you distinguish those who walk along the most epic of the epic? how can you distinguish those who leave a stomp in history? how can you know, as fast as you feel them, that you're standing among an abnormal human being, way superior to you?
There a simple threat, a glimpse, that will tell you awesomeness is in there.
The epic god is walking the Earth in front of you.
Probably just once in a lifetime you may be able to see it: keep it in your mind.
1st: suit: awesomeness is nothing without a suit.
2nd: attitude: he/she knows he/she is epic, and so even the air they breath is epic.
nothing is more epic than a cow case.
hard to find, harder to see. Not many people are brave enough to buy one of those and walk straight on the street.
that's where epicness comes from.
if you ever see a wielder and not bow, be careful, you're standing in front of a living god and not paying respect.


text:
Cooper names provisional u-17 men's football squad
TT under-17 coach Shawn Cooper has named his provisional squad. Photo courtesy TTFA Media
Trinidad and Tobago's under-17 head coach Shawn Cooper has named his provisional 40-man squad for the 2023 Concacaf Men's U-17 Championship scheduled for Guatemala next month.
Cooper has been overseeing preparations of the squad for the past few months and is now focusing on the final leg of the build-up and is expected to name his final team in early February.
"We're coming to that phase of the preparations where precision matters and whatever we do is based on getting the best possible group of players in the final squad for the tournament," Cooper told TTFA Media.
"Of course there have been some minor challenges but this is not unexpected and we've worked around this so far. The next couple weeks will be critical because we are also awaiting further information on the availability of some of the overseas-based players due to commitments with their teams outside.
" But the group in training now has been committed, disciplined and driven towards not just making the final cut but also competing when we get to Guatemala. I think the effort given by all the players and staff needs to be commended so far but of course this is just the build-up towards the real thing in a few weeks, so have to be switched on throughout," he added.
TT open their campaign against Canada in Group F on February 11 before facing USA on February 13 and Barbados two days later. After group stage play, the top three nations in each group will advance to the knockout stage, joining the four 2022 Concacaf U-17 Men's Qualifiers group winners: Bermuda, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Puerto Rico.
The round of 16 matches will take place February 18 and 19, at both venues, followed by the quarterfinals (February 21 and 22), semifinals (February 24) and final (February 26) in Guatemala City.
All knockout stage matches will be played in a single match direct elimination format and the four semifinalists will qualify for the FIFA U-17 World Cup Peru 2023.
Provisional squad:
Goalies: Ailan Panton, Jaden Ottley, Thane Devenish.
Defenders: David Hospedales, Lyshaun Morris, Jaden Williams, Joshua Figaro, Josiah Connell, Kyron Joseph, Yohance Atherton, Darius Jordan.
Midfielder: Josiah Ochoa, Derrel Garcia, Isaiah Jacob, Raul Perreira,Kade Collier, Jeremiah Niles, Loga Maingot, Nathan Quashie, Aydon Caruth, Tau Lamsee, Seth Hadeed, Lindell Sween, Jeremiah Cateau, Elijah Hicks.
Forwards: Malachi Webb, Vaughn Clement, Michael Chaves, Andell Fraser, Jordan Ferdinand, Tyrell Moore, Brandon Dhanoolal.
"Cooper names provisional u-17 men's football squad"
General JN wins Sian Gold Sprint on Day 1 at Santa Rosa Park
Jonathan Ramnanansingh
Solozano hunting Red Force runs for WI Championship
THA gives $30k to netballers for trials, awaits documents from coach
Extra batting practice for Red Force


Copyright 2012 The Global Group - A Real Estate Network LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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The Global Group Network logo is a registered service mark owned or licensed to The Global Group - A Real Estate Network LLC.
The information set forth on this site is deemed reliable but is ultimately supplied by third parties to our employees (who in turn supplied it to us), we cannot represent that it is accurate or complete, and it should not be relied upon as such. The offerings are subject to errors, omissions, change of price, rental, commission, prior sale, lease or financing, or withdrawal without notice. All dimensions are approximate and have not been verified by the selling party and cannot be verified by The Global Group - A Real Estate Network LLC. It is recommended that you hire a professional in the business of determining dimensions, such as an appraiser, architect or civil engineer, to determine such information. The number of bedrooms listed is not a legal conclusion. Each person should consult with their own attorney, architect or zoning expert to make a determination as to the number of rooms in the unit that may be legally used as a bedroom. All data deemed reliable but is not guaranteed accurate.


Product categories of Indoor Decroative Machine, we are specialized manufacturers from China, Cold Adhesive Machine, Wrapping Machine suppliers/factory, wholesale high-quality products of Decorative Machine R & D and manufacturing, we have the perfect after-sales service and technical support. Look forward to your cooperation!
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Allied Associates is seeking a Junior/Mid-level Software Developer to develop and maintain data processing and analysis applications in support of a federal customer. Responsibilities include end-user support, application development and maintenance, testing and validation of software builds, and the identification of enhancements and improvements to the customer's data flow operations and capabilities.
The developer will also research operations, capabilities, and vulnerabilities for a variety of software components to include reverse engineering investigations and results documenting. Successful candidates will possess excellent documentation and communication skills as the position requires direct interaction with customer and engineer personnel of varying technical levels across different functions. The ability to take direction and operate independently as well as participate in team environments are necessary for this support effort.
The Software Developer will be responsible for using industry standard and proprietary tools and methodologies for using reverse engineering techniques to discover vulnerabilities in software and devices. They must understand network protocols and be proficient in Wireshark and be able to analyze TCP/IP communications provided by various network devices. The candidate will configure and provision computers, phones, tablets, routers, IoT and home automation systems. This position will also assist with the development of data analysis and other software tools to support work on these applications.
Bachelor's degree in computer science, computer engineering, or a related technical field.
2-5 years of experience providing software development support to customers in a dynamic, proactive, and operational environment.


Honoring individuals who have made significant contributions to the city of Santa Clarita may become a little more standardized if the City Council approves new guidelines during a meeting Tuesday.
The Santa Clarita City Council will be looking to discuss and provide direction for new guidelines and appropriate ways to honor individuals in the city through an Honor Court, according to a staff report.
The Honor Court concept was suggested by Councilwoman Marsha McLean in May 2015 in the absence of a formal naming policy, according to the report.
The court would give officials a formal way of honoring people by giving them a monument placed inside or in front of City Hall.
The proposed criteria would require the individual to have been a Santa Clarita resident for at least 10 years, they need to have made significant contributions to the development and growth of the city or it's institutions and lastly the individual needs to exhibit exemplary character and citizenship.
There would be no formal nomination process and all honorees would be suggested by the City Council or community members. The council would then approve or deny the suggestion. Should the person be approved, the council will direct city staff to take actions to memorialize the individual.
If implemented, city staff will also be seeking a consultant to create the new look and location for the memorials.
As of now, there are only three ways to recognize those who have given back to the community in a big way – the creation of plazas, the placement of memorials or by naming a city facility or amenity.
In Tuesday's city council meeting, the guidelines were not approved.


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text:
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text:
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Learn How To Bring The Film To Your Community
Featuring Secretary of Labor, Marty Walsh; NFL Pro Bowl Player, Darren Waller; Spoken Word Artist and Educator Joseph Green; WA State Representative, Lauren Davis; Community Outreach Volunteer, Roz Pichardo; and Boston Police Officer Josh De La Rosa,with Music from Sia.
The addiction crisis in America has reached a new boiling point, and courageous people – at all levels, from all walks of life – are rising to answer the call. Tipping The Pain Scale is a feature documentary film following individuals grappling with the current systemic failures of how we have dealt with addiction in communities and their journey to develop and employ new, innovative, and often controversial solutions to the problem. It is a quasi-anthology, weaving characters through their own stories as they connect to the issues plaguing all communities and the country in an urgent fight to save lives.
See The Film
With more than 100,000 overdoses in just the last 12-months, TIPPING THE PAIN SCALE, is a great way to catalyze a dialog on issues surrounding addiction and our collective response to this pandemic in your community. To help drive purposeful and meaningful conversations, the film will be exclusively available to educational and theatrical screenings upon release in 2022. Gathr Films & High Watch Media have teamed with Vivifi Films to work with you to screen the film in all types of environments and within budgets of all sizes.
Organizational Licensing &
Non-Theatrical Screenings
OBTAIN PUBLIC PERFORMANCE RIGHTS TO HOST A NON-
THEATRICAL SCREENING OF THE FILM:
The film team at Vivifi Films has partnered with High Watch Media to offer a variety of Public Performance Rights (PPR) allowing organizations, libraries, universities, and non-profit groups to exhibit the film to groups prior to the film's broader release. Whether it is a screening at a college, place of worship, treatment/recovery center, jail/prison, state legislature, or even in your home we have options available to accommodate your interests.
For Licensing Information
Community Screening Toolkit
Theatrical Screenings
YOU CAN NOW BRING THE FILM TO YOUR LOCAL THEATER THROUGH GATHR:
Vivifi Films has teamed up with Gathr Films to make bringing TIPPING THE PAIN SCALE to your local theater easier than ever. Gathr uses a "theatrical-on-demand" model where you can request a screening and they do all the coordination with the theater for you. You do not have to pay any sort of screening room rental or exhibition fee – you just promote the film to your network and community and get people to reserve tickets. Gathr screenings can only happen if a minimum number of people reserve tickets.
Get Notified of Screenings
Film Resource Partner
The film team has partnered with the National Non-Profit, Young People In Recovery (YPR), to provide resources to audiences on addiction and recovery issues and a place they can go to get involved. YPR envisions a world where all young people have the resources they need to thrive in recovery from addiction to drugs and alcohol. YPR's mission is to provide life skills and peer supports to help people recover from substance use disorder and reach their full potential.
Director, Producer, Editor
Jeff Reilly brings 20 years of experience as an editor, writer and filmmaker. He has received 2 Emmy awards, - Outstanding Editing and Outstanding Documentary Series, as well as a PRISM Award for Outstanding Documentary. His work has screened theatrically, including Diane, Generation Found, Trial By Fire and The Anonymous People, as well as on network television, including McEnroe/Borg (HBO), Believeland (ESPN), & Rand University (ESPN). His work has also aired on ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, EPIX, A&E, History, Discovery, Travel Channel and WeTV.
Greg Williams is the award-winning filmmaker of feature length documentaries, The Anonymous People (2014 PRISM Award for Outstanding Documentary) and Generation Found. In 2015, he produced the historic Unite To Face Addiction Rally on the National Mall when tens of thousands of people from around the world gathered to end the silence surrounding addiction. This was the first time major musicians, politicians, actors, athletes, models, journalists, authors, and advocates joined together in unison, to solve the most urgent health crisis of our time. The event was memorialized in a PBS special, The Concert To Face Addiction, that Greg produced. He also produced the launch event and companion TV special for the release of the first-ever Surgeon General's Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health, Listen: Facing Addiction In America when Viacom aired the special simultaneously on 11 of its cable networks, which was seen by millions.
Tim Grant
Tim Grant, Executive Producer at Vivifi Films, has had a long, successful career in the finance business after earning a bachelor's degree in Systems Engineering and an MBA, both from the University of Virginia. He is now in the position to devote his energies, resources and creativity to bringing to life films that seek to improve the world in some way.The word "vivify" means "to bring to life". As the name implies, the goal of Vivifi Films LLC is to identify compelling stories about important and timely issues affecting us today in the hopes the conversations and actions surrounding those issues can be advanced for the betterment of society. Shedding light on aspects of issues that may not be well understood, or where injustices exist, in order to change the prevailing perceptions or advance the general knowledge of important topics is the goal.He has teamed with film industry veterans to "bring to life" these stories, and has finished his first project, "Tipping the Pain Scale" – a redemptive story about addiction and recovery that highlights the change agents, many of whom have themselves been deeply touched by the disease of addiction, who are currently making a real difference. The characters in the film are courageous, innovative, committed and resilient heroes who work selflessly to improve the lives of the over 20 million Americans who live in active addiction today, the 23 million who are in long-term recovery, and the millions of their loved ones whose lives are also inevitably affected by this disease.
Laela Kilbourn
Laela Kilbourn has accumulated documentary feature credits including Best Cinematography award winner for Swim Team, and seven Sundance Film Festival competition premieres, such as DuPont-Columbia Journalism Award winner This Is Home: A Refugee Story, Peabody Award winning How To Dance In Ohio, American Teen, and Emmy nominated Word Wars. She was profiled in the ICG Magazine feature "Generation Next" and in Indiewire's "8 More Female Cinematographers You Should Know About". She also shot Sync Or Swim, winner of the Billie Award for Journalism from the Women's Sports Foundation, and filmed History's eleven part docuseries Sandhogs. She has worked on projects for HBO, FX, NBC, PBS, Netflix, Hulu, Epix, Amazon, AMC, A&E, TBS, Nick Jr., NickMom, ESPN, History, MTV, VH1, WeTV, Trio, TruTV, and TVOne.
Brendan Berry
Brendan Berry is a GRAMMY Winner, accomplished composer and producer born and raised in Washington, DC. Brendan has written scores for two theatrically released feature films, the award-winning The Anonymous People and Generation Found. Brendan has also written for commercials, dance companies, documentaries, web series', and TV shows including HBO's Vice and American Pickers on the History Channel. His professional career in music began as a performer, playing Bass at a young age, with the distinguished District of Columbia, Blue's Alley Youth Jazz Orchestra and a basement dwelling punk rock band. Brendan went on to receive his Bachelor of Music from the SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Music in Studio Composition.
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March 20th - March 27th, 2022
Malibu Film Festival
For Tickets & More Info
Thursday, April 7th @ 7:30 PM EST
Westbrook 12 W/ Jeff Reilly
314 Flat Rock Pl
Westbrook, CT 06498
Monday, April 11th @ 7:00 PM EST
NATCON 2022 Screening
Wednesday, April 13th @ 6:30 PM EST
Robinson Grand Performance Arts Center
444 W Pike St
Clarksburg, WV 26301
Thursday, April 14th @ 6:00 PM EST
Cinemark Boynton Beach 14
Saturday, April 16th @ 6:30 PM CST
Showbiz Cinemas Baytown
10550 Interstate 10 Service Rd
Sheraton Portsmouth Harborside Hotel
Portsmouth, NH,03801
Included with a Ticket to RICH Conference
Thursday, April 21st @ 6:30 PM CST
Cinemark Hollywood Movies 20
2101 TX-8
Beltway Pasadena, TX 77503
Thursday, April 28th @ 7pm EST
Sacred Heart University Community Theater
Hosted by Liberation Programs & Glorious Recovery
Saturday, April 30th @ 6:30 PM EST
Shawano Community High School
220 County Rd B, Shawano, WI 54166
Message Received
© 2022 Vivifi Films


Presentation of the project activities during the regional meeting of the headmasters of secondary schools in the diocese of Liège (Catholic education). The meeting was organized by the SeDESS (Diocesan Service of Secondary and Higher Education).
Thanks to this event, more than 70 headmasters have been invited to participate in the project or to exploit its results.


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Middle school is a time of change, challenge, and opportunity for young people. Addressing this directly, we strive to create a culture of collaboration, inclusion, and respect where students' strengths are recognized and their contributions are valued.
Unlike most urban settings where middle and high school students attend separate schools, our students in grades 6-12 eat lunch together, walk halls together and even share some classes. In this environment, middle schoolers feel safe and valued, and high schoolers cultivate maturity by developing multi-age friendships. The collaboration strengthens the academic climate and bolsters students' interpersonal skills.
Middle school academics are challenging and standards are high. Science and social studies are offered on grade level; math placement is by accomplishment, and literacy is taught in grades 6–8.
Lopez School also offers plenty of extra-curricular activities for youth including music, robotics, and sports for middles schoolers. No matter where a child is at, they are met where they are with something to engage them beyond academics.
Furthermore, honoring the full spectrum of learning styles, we take students off campus often. While outings vary by year, recent trips to Western Washington University, the International Children's Festival in Seattle, the Seattle Art Museum and a homeless shelter in Mt. Vernon offered powerful insights. Students also went mountain snowshoeing.
Reinforcing school-wide themes of collaboration, understanding and support, our middle school ends the year with school trips.


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2020 SEL Exchange
SUBSCRIBE: BE AN SEL CHAMPION
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Creating a Safe, Supportive Environment for Learning
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Rating Framework
Program Design and Implementation Support Tables
Evidence of Effectiveness Tables
Tables 1 and 2 rate preschool programs. Tables 3 and 4 rate elementary school (K-5) programs. Tables 1 and 3 present "Program Design and Implementation Support" ratings. Tables 2 and 4 show "Evidence of Effectiveness" ratings. A few programs provide lessons for both preschool and elementary-school students. For these programs, placement in just one set of tables or both was determined based on whether they conducted research studies documenting behavioral impacts in social or academic domains with preschool and/or elementary-school students.
The tables incorporate a standard set of symbols. An empty circle indicates a minimal level of a particular element. A half circle indicates an adequate level, and a full circle indicates the element can be found extensively in the program. Each of the levels is explained in greater detail in the following descriptions.
For some elements we use a check mark to indicate whether the element is present in the program or not. The content of the ratings is based only on a review of the preschool and/or elementary school materials even though some programs have materials available for students beyond fifth grade.
Tables 1 and 3 list programs in alphabetical order focused on program design and implementation support. These tables provide information about seven topics: (1) grade range covered, (2) availability of a grade-by-grade scope and sequence, (3) average number of sessions per year, (4) classroom approaches to teaching SEL, (5) opportunities to practice SEL skills, (6) contexts that promote and reinforce SEL, and (7) assessment tools for monitoring implementation and student behavior.
Grade range covered. For each program in the table, we list the grade levels for which there are classroom lesson plans and training materials.
Grade-by-grade sequence. Ideally, every student should receive planned, ongoing, systematic SEL education every year from preschool through elementary school. Some programs provide guidance and lesson plans for preschool through grade 5 while others only target a subset of grades or involve repetition if the materials are used in multiple grades. A check mark for this element indicates when the materials allow for sequenced programming for each grade level across the grade range covered. If this element is blank, we provide additional information about grade levels covered in the program description in Appendix A.
Average number of sessions per year. The program design table indicates the average number of sessions each year, where "session" is defined as a set of activities designed to take place in a single time period on one day. Programs vary in terms of the amount of class time they provide or require, ranging from 8 to 140 sessions annually. Some programs do not have a defined set of lessons, and instead enhance teacher practices and methods generally. For those approaches, number of sessions or length is not applicable, since the program is designed to change the overall climate and culture through ongoing classroom instruction. These programs receive a "not applicable" (N/A) rating for this element.
Classroom approaches to teaching SEL. We rated three primary research-based approaches to the classroom-based promotion of SEL.
Explicit SEL skills instruction. Some programs provide explicit lesson plans with content and instruction designed specifically to promote social and emotional skills. These lessons typically focus on teaching skills that can be broadly applied to a variety of situations such as making friends, working cooperatively with others, coping with stress, making decisions about potentially risky behaviors, and resolving interpersonal conflicts. Such programs may also include positive youth development efforts in domains such as health, citizenship, or character development or strategies to prevent problem behavior such as violence, substance use, or bullying. A program was considered an "explicit skills instruction" approach when it contained lesson plans and when coders could identify specific examples of where and how social and emotional competencies were explicitly taught.
Integration with core academic subjects. Some programs embed the teaching of social and emotional skills in a core academic subject. A program was considered "integrating with academics" when it had lessons that covered core academic content while also developing social and emotional competencies. For these, the core academic subject area is noted. For example, a program that integrates with English Language Arts (ELA) might use literature to promote perspective taking through character analysis, or it may ask students to identify alternative solutions or anticipate consequences of situations while reading. Many programs suggest optional strategies for integrating SEL into a core academic subject area, and this is noted in the table.
Teacher instructional practices. Some classroom-based programs focus on instructional processes, pedagogies, and management approaches to promote a positive classroom climate. These programs actively engage students in learning at the same time they support social and emotional development. A program was considered to promote "teacher instructional practices" when it focused primarily on creating a positive classroom experience through pedagogical methods or classroom routines. These practices (e.g., authentic praise, involving students in decision making) support positive relationships among teachers and students and foster conditions for learning.
Some programs use more than one approach, and the above categories are not mutually exclusive. For this element programs were rated according to whether they included each method as a primary emphasis.
Opportunities to practice social and emotional skills. Practicing newly learned behaviors is an essential component for developing social and emotional skills (Durlak et al, 2010; Durlak et al., 2011). Practice that takes place outside the lesson in real-world settings has the potential to be especially powerful. By definition all SELect programs provide students with opportunities to practice SEL skills. The rating for this element reflects the extent to which the programs provide active learning opportunities during or beyond classroom sessions. Programs received the highest rating if they provided consistent opportunities for practice of skills both within classroom lessons and beyond lessons in daily situations. Practice within the program typically includes role plays or guided self-management techniques. Practice beyond the program lessons includes applications of social and emotional skills to real-life situations, such as using self-calming or problem-solving skills during classroom or playground conflicts. The mid-level rating was given if programs provided these opportunities only during program sessions. Given the inclusion criteria, no programs received the lowest rating on this element.
Contexts that promote and reinforce SEL. Because of the importance of promoting and reinforcing SEL skills across multiple settings, each program was rated for the extent to which it provided practices for extending its concepts into four different contexts: (1) the classroom beyond the SEL program lessons, (2) schoolwide, (3) the family, and (4) the community.
Classroom beyond the SEL program lessons. All SELect programs include classroom-based lessons. Examples of practices that extend program concepts beyond the lessons include morning meetings, peace centers, and daily check-ins. These routines support SEL throughout the day in the classroom, particularly for those programs that contain explicit lessons conducted only at specific times in the day.
Schoolwide. Examples of schoolwide practices include creating a process that promotes collaboration among and between different classrooms, grade levels, or through engaging nonteaching personnel in activities to promote students' social and emotional competencies throughout the day.
Family. A program received credit for extending into the family if it provided routine "homework" assignments to be completed with family members or offered SEL workshops with training for parents about social and emotional learning.
Community. A program received credit for promoting SEL in the community if it provided opportunities for personal contacts, ongoing relationships, or interactive involvement of students and community members. This could take place in the classroom or outside the school building.
Assessment tools for monitoring implementation and student behavior. Programs sometimes offer tools to monitor implementation, either through teacher self-report measures or assessments completed by observers. Two columns in the table indicate whether or not each program provides these tools. The third column for this element indicates whether the program offers tools that can be used to assess the program's impact on student behavior.
Tables 2 and 4 list the programs in alphabetical order focused on evidence of effectiveness. These tables present information and ratings for four topics: grade range covered, characteristics of research sample, study design, and evaluation outcomes. Additional details about the program evaluations can be found in the individual program descriptions in Appendix A.
Grade range covered: For each program we list the grade levels for which there are classroom lesson plans and training materials. In some cases this includes middle and high school. However, the ratings in this Guide are based on a review of only the preschool and/or elementary school materials.
Characteristics of research sample: The ratings for this element reflect four characteristics of the study sample in the qualifying evaluations: the grade levels, the geographic locations (urban, suburban, rural) where the studies were conducted, student race/ethnicity, and the percentage of students receiving free or reduced lunch included in the study samples. Many of the preschool evaluation studies were conducted in Head Start programs. Given the income eligibility levels set by Head Start, we assumed all (100%) participants in those studies qualified for free and reduced lunch.
Study design. Ratings for this element are presented across two columns. They indicate whether there were quasi-experimental or randomized clinical trials and how many of each.
Evaluation outcomes: Evaluation outcome ratings are based on the outcomes reported in at least one qualifying evaluation study. The ratings for this element are represented in four columns. They represent the outcome domains that were reviewed for program inclusion. SELect programs had to demonstrate a positive impact on a behavioral or academic performance indicator in at least one of the domains[1]. A check mark indicates that a significant program effect was documented on an outcome in that domain as measured by observations, school records, or ratings made by teachers, parents, or students. The definitions of each outcome domain are:
Improved academic performance:This includes significant program effects on student academic performance (i.e., grades, test scores).
Improved positive social behaviors: This includes significant program effects on measures of positive social behavior (e.g., works well with others, positive peer relations, assertiveness, conflict resolution).
Reduced conduct problems: This includes significant reductions on measures of conduct problems (e.g., aggressive or disruptive behavior).
Reduced emotional distress: This includes significant reductions on measures of emotional distress (e.g., depressive symptoms, anxiety, or social withdrawal).
Because the purposes of the qualifying program evaluations varied, in some cases the evaluators may not have collected data on academic performance or conduct problems. The absence of a check for a particular outcome area may mean that a program has yet to assess its impact in that area.
About the CASEL Guide
History of Program Reviews at CASEL
Rating Tables: SEL Programs for Preschool
Evaluation References
Inclusion Criteria for SELect Programs
Rating Tables: SEL Programs for Elementary School
Nominate a Program
The Review Process
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The Dodos
Certainty Waves
Polyvinyl
by Ian Cohen
Open share drawer
After their longest break in a decade, the acoustic-and-drums duo return with hopes of reorienting their singular sound through the help of more electronics.
Featured Tracks:
"Center Of" — The DodosVia
Bandcamp / Buy
After a three-year absence, the Dodos singer and guitarist Meric Long has now released two albums in 2018. But the solo project where he swapped acoustic guitars for his late father's synthesizers is, somehow, not what he calls his "midlife-crisis record." Instead, that is Certainty Waves, the Dodos' seventh album. Before Certainty Waves, Long's midlife crisis was actually having no new record at all. The Dodos took their longest break in a decade after 2015's Individ and became true 30-somethings almost instantly—day jobs, marriage, fatherhood, getting really into electronic music. Though the usually prolific Long had plenty of ideas for a new Dodos record, he had no unifying direction or theme until the duo revisited their breakthrough second album, 2008's Visiter, for a 10th-anniversary gig. Like most modern folks suffering through a midlife crisis, he found both solace and inspiration in a younger version of himself that wasn't so self-actualized but wasn't subject to so many expectations, either.
This time, the Dodos set out to challenge their stereotype as that acoustic-and-drums duo, so apologies to anyone expecting a new "Fools." They're not completely ditching that configuration or simply giving the electronic experiments from Long's overlooked solo album, Barton's Den, the second chance of a more familiar setting. At Certainty Waves' best, the Dodos find new ground between those two poles by thrashing on organic instruments that imitate electro analogs like samplers, drum pads, and keytars. The guitars on "Forum" replicate strings and horns, maximalist signifiers that are otherwise unavailable to a hard-touring minimalist duo. "IF" invokes metal through proggy seizures and Long's ability to conjure both a saxophone and aluminum siding with his guitar. While Long has previously used loops to mesmerize, he exploits the minute gaps and flaws inherent in the looping process, turning split-second disruptions on "Coughing" and "SW3" into surprising hooks.
But this focus on sound manipulation and contrary motion ends up reinforcing the fussiness that has increasingly tempered the Dodos, even at their most explosive. Midway through the oceanic crest of "SW3," drummer Logan Kroeber suddenly switches the beat and can't stop toying with it; it's interesting if you like counting competing mixed meters, but it needlessly distracts from the biggest chorus here. Certainty Waves stalls thereafter: filled with interesting tones and nifty rhythmic tricks, the album's second half reflects Long's period of writer's block, effectively becoming the longest stretch of any Dodos album without a memorable melody.
Long's mild-mannered vocals and Kroeber's jittery rhythms are a constant, so everything remains immediately identifiable as the Dodos despite the synthetic textures interwoven into these nine songs. Ever since Visiter, they've absorbed shocks to the system again and again but remained steadfast. The sudden death of Women guitarist and temporary bandmate Chris Reimer informed the muted Carrier, while Long attributes the crackling urgency of Individ to the death of his father. Still, Visiter stands out within their consistently enjoyable catalog for being the least consistent and most surprising—an unalloyed mix of timely African polyrhythms and freak-folk wooliness, bowl-passing ruminations on the existence of God and one-minute shrugs about getting dumped.
Of course, the Dodos could no more replicate the innocent thrills of Visiter than they could will indie rock's return to a time when nearly all buzz traced to Animal Collective. But Certainty Waves is most rewarding in the rare times it accesses the same plaintive directness that allowed them to risk looking silly on charming trifles like "Park Song" or "Undeclared." "Now I forget all of the things I tried to remember" would be an accurate assessment of Long's uneasy relationship with the Dodos' past if it didn't show up on "Center Of," the truest Visiter throwback here—just a casually strummed acoustic guitar, a couple of chirping loops, and a rush of mounting drums, leaving nothing to obscure the light of Long's soul-searching.