Perkasie Parks Day to promote health and wellness
Posted: March 10, 2012 at 8:50 am
By Erin DuBois Journal Register News Service
The parks and recreation board is envisioning a health and wellness day to be held at Kulp Park on Second Street June 17, with June 24 set as the rain date. Visitors can participate in best-of contests in various athletic endeavors such as running or slam-dunking a basketball. Space will be available for rent to local gyms, nutritionist, fitness and health food businesses to promote their services.
Its yet another event trying to foster more use out of our best-in-class park system, Perkasie Parks and Recreation Committee Chairman Rich Brummett said.
Perkasies parks are one of the main reasons Brummett moved to the borough in 2005, and he joined the park board almost immediately after arriving. Although Kulp Park has tennis and basketball courts and a baseball field, it is underutilized by residents who do not participate in those sports. Perkasie Parks Day will allow people to see what the park system has to offer them, according to Brummett.
Limited parking near Kulp Park doesnt have to pose a problem for the event.
At a health and wellness event, wouldnt it be great if people had to walk a half mile to get there? Councilwoman Florence Frei said.
While the event will start small, the park and recreation board has big dreams for its future. The board is looking to local businesses to support the event the first year through sponsorships and renting vendor space. After several successful years, the board may ask for up to $1,000 in borough funds to expand Perkasie Parks Day into an event that incorporates other parks in the borough.
Were not hurting for ideas, Brummett said.
Businesses interested in sponsoring the event, renting vendor space, or providing demonstrations should contact Parks and Recreation Director Joshua Aniskevich at 215-257-5064 or parkandrec@perkasieborough.org.
In other news at the March 5 Perkasie Borough Council meeting, Continued...
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Perkasie Parks Day to promote health and wellness
Children's Hospital and city unite to boost health care in South Philly
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"Kids are generally healthier if their parents are healthier," said Donald F. Schwarz, deputy mayor for health and opportunity.
Schwarz said the idea came up in an unrelated conversation in the fall, when hospital officials asked if he knew of any property on South Broad Street to move their clinic, which now operates out of the former St. Agnes Hospital; the 30,000-patient practice is the fastest-growing of Children's 30 regional pediatric practices.
He did: The city's Health Center No. 2, near Morris Street just a few blocks away, was the second-busiest in the Philadelphia Department of Public Health's network of primary-care clinics. The roof leaked water, the original, 50-year-old windows leaked air, there weren't enough examination rooms, and the cost of renovations had been estimated at $7.2 million, just $3 million less than replacement.
And there might be possibilities for the outdated branch library and DiSilvestro playground on the same site.
"The possibility of integrating these three new facilities - health center, library, and rec center - would allow us to provide coordinated services that include much-needed health and wellness programming and literacy training," Nutter said in his prepared remarks to Council. "At the same time we will continue to expand the city's dental care, mammography, prenatal care, and a wide range of other children's and adult health-care services."
Under the conceptual agreement, the hospital will fully fund construction for a building that will house both clinics. The city will charge a nominal fee to lease the land.
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Children's Hospital and city unite to boost health care in South Philly
Senate Approves Retirement-Work Hybrid for Feds
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The Senate passed an amendment on Thursday that allows retirement-eligible federal employees to work part-time -- a move designed to offset the costs of economic-development aid in rural counties.
The measure, proposed by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., passed the Senate 82-16. It was put forward just hours before the vote as an amendment to the Surface Transportation Bill.
The American Federation of Government Employees feared that the amendment would result in additional, unneeded sacrifices by government workers in a congressional session that already has hit federal pay and benefits -- for instance with a pension contribution hike for newly hired federal employees passed in February as part of an extension of the payroll tax break.
While the change to federal retirement -- a phased, part-time retirement-employment concept -- may be acceptable to the federal-postal community after proper analysis and study, it is completely outrageous for federal and postal employees to be required, again, to serve as the automated teller machine for programs having nothing to do with deficit reduction, Beth Moten, AFGEs legislative and political director, said in a letter to senators on Thursday. She also complained that lawmakers had not made the text of the legislation available.
AFGE spokesman Tim Kauffman explained that the union was not necessarily opposed to phased retirement but took issue with the process of the legislation.What we really have a problem with is using the savings that would come from that proposal to fund yet another program thats unrelated to federal employees, Kauffman said.
Our opposition to the Baucus amendment is in how this assistance for rural schools is being paid for, Moten said. Federal employees have paid -- again and again and again.
National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley echoed those sentiments. NTEU supports a phased retirement program for federal employees on its merits, Kelley said in a statement Thursday. However, we do have serious objections to the use of the projected $450 million in savings from such a program for any use unrelated to federal employees. This includes the rural schools funding initiative.
The Office of Personnel Management included a similar proposal in its fiscal 2013 budget request. Easing older employees into retirement by offering a part-time work program would save the Obama administration $720 million during the next 10 years, the White House estimates.
Many federal employees are nearing retirement, so part-time work could pad federal agencies coffers if they did not have to replace these employees entirely. Under the proposal, part-time employees would receive partial annuities and could earn additional retirement benefits proportional to the amount of time they work. Older employees also would be required to mentor younger new hires and help preserve agency knowledge.
The Baucus amendments passage also stoked old AFGE fears of the Houses Transportation bill, H.R. 7. The most recent version of that bill includes a proposal to eliminate the Federal Retirement Employees Retirement System annuity supplement and changes the annuity calculation for new federal hires from one that uses an average of their three highest salaries to one that uses a high-five average.
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Summer Nights-Dream high 2 (ep 12) Ailee and Jr’s performance – Video
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PERFORMANCE/TOUR: Bernadette Peters at the Valley Arts Center
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There are singers and there are actresses; there are entertainers and there are stars. And then, there is Bernadette Peters. On Saturday night, the nonpareil Broadway artist turned the Valley Performing Arts Center into her own personal salon, with magical results.
From first entrance in a glittering lilac gown that looked as if she'd been poured into it, the diminutive Peters held the capacity crowd in thrall. Launching a jazzy Let Me Entertain You" with an insinuating focus toward the front row, Peters moved on to No One Is Alone" from Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods," and her delicately inward intensity hushed the house. Thereafter, she could do no wrong.
Visually, Peters has vaulted time with decades to spareher physical maneuvers atop musical director Marvin Laird's piano during Fever" were especially deliciousand her comic skills are undiminished, as when selling There Is Nothing Like a Dame" to the men on the aisle. Vocally, the ineluctable timbre remains essentially intact, any loss of belting power or metrical freedom trumped by a near-legit purity in her upper register and a still potent ability to locate a song's emotional content.
Musical theater material dominated the program, interspersed with delightfully spontaneous patter and gracious introductions of each member of the ace on-stage orchestra, including former Mouseketeer Cubby O'Brien. Her charming Mister Snow" from Carousel" and heart-stopping Some Enchanted Evening" from South Pacific" (both Rodgers and Hammerstein) were representative poles of Peters' art, but most of the program went to Sondheim, whose songs Peters has few peers at interpreting. Acknowledging her recently ended turn in the Broadway revival of Follies" (which is headed to L.A. minus Peters), she delivered In Buddy's Eyes" and an astonishingly intense Losing My Mind" with indelible character truth.
And her penultimate Being Alive" and exquisitely intimate Goodbye for Now" conveyed the axiomatic, one-on-one communication with an audience that defines a great dramatic chanteuse, and that certainly describes Bernadette Peters.
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PERFORMANCE/TOUR: Bernadette Peters at the Valley Arts Center
Jinny Ditzler: Personal Transformation: What's Motivating You?
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There's so much negativity flying around these days it's understandable and perhaps pardonable that even you get caught in its grasp. When it takes over, we quickly forget our worthwhile and meaningful motivations, and before we know it become part of the problem.
For example, the number of people involved in the blame game has reached astronomical levels. I can't believe what's happening between our leaders and would-be leaders! Few have much to contribute other than their latest sound bite about what's wrong with their opponents. Others jump on the bandwagon and start pointing fingers at them in print, on television and radio -- what a performance, Mr. Limbaugh!
But wait, what did I just do there? Wake up, Jinny: Is your true motivation to use this post to make others wrong and blame them? It sure looks like it, doesn't it? See how easy it is? Worse yet, I've just become part of the problem by adding to the poison that's pervading an environment in which too many good folks are already stressed, frustrated, unhappy, anxious, and afraid.
Becoming Aware of the Biggest Negative Motivations
Being a good human being -- the one you long to be -- seems to be getting harder and harder. You start the day with the best of intentions, and before you know it one of the tempting and destructive negative drivers has taken over:
I could go on, but you get the idea and probably have others to add to the list. I'm so disappointed in myself when I fail to catch myself in time. When I finally do -- maybe in retrospect, hours later -- I realize I've hurt someone, added to their burden, made them miserable, and increased their stress.
What's Possible?
Although I still fall into the pit too often, I'm starting to feel a sense of mastery over this costly, costly behavior. It is possible to gain control of our days and our destinies in ways beyond our ability to imagine.
I'm too embarrassed to tell you the pain I've caused others by forgetting who I am and what I'm here for. However, I will tell you that I'm learning. The results are making a positive impact on the difference I'm making to others and in the quality of my life.
I'm finding out that it's possible to step out of the rut of being right and to break the habits of a lifetime of being asleep at the switch and being part of the problem. This article is the first in a series about personal transformation, in which I'll be sharing what I've learned (and am trying to learn) about being more of the person that I know myself to be.
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Jinny Ditzler: Personal Transformation: What's Motivating You?
Champion helps launch NHS urine sampling device
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Peezy's Giovanna Forte says even random personal connections can make the difference between success and failure for innovative businesses
Two chance conversations ten years apart has led one business to launch an NHS approved device that will save women from the ignominy of weeing on their hands when providing urine samples.
London-based Peezy began selling its sampling system directly to NHS hospitals and GPs on March 1 after more than three years of trying.
Giovanna Forte, Peezys managing director, said her break came from meeting an adviser in 2001 and then bumping into her again at a trade show in Germany.
She (SNP: ^SHEY - news) recalls: Ten years ago I met through Business Link someone called Margaret Parton, who said this idea needs developing, do it. So I did and then I went to Medica (Frankfurt: A0REC2 - news) in 2010 and went to the UK Trade & Investment stand in Dsseldorf and she was there.
She said, 'What does it look like? Oh, its so beautiful. The people you need to talk to at the Department of Health (Euronext: IXSHL.NX - news) and in the supply chain, here are the five names.
I said 'I have been trying to contact those five names for two years. And she said, 'Its Friday now, call them after Tuesday. Low and behold it worked. Its all about finding a champion. It took her three phone calls to change the whole future of our business.
The power of personal connections was also evident for Peezys fund-raising, which has just closed at 1m twice the amount Ms Forte was seeking and attracting two Premiership footballers among her 48 shareholders.
My ex-boyfriends, ex-girlfriend introduced me to someone in the City who has single-handedly attracted the angel investors, Ms Forte said.
In total she has raised 2m to bring the device, invented by her GP brother Vincent in 2000, to market. During the first five years, Ms Forte explored the idea in her spare time, but has focused on the project since 2005.
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Champion helps launch NHS urine sampling device
Kids Educational Videos – Up In The Sky – Video
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What is Grovo? – Video
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Online English Lesson (Intermediate) – Video
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Online English Lesson (Intermediate) - Video