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Prophet Abraham

God made a good world. A very good world. He placed Man in it in order to fill it, guard it, keep it, and rule over it. Adam and Eve, seduced by the serpent, rejected God’s wisdom and goodness and turned to their own way. They rebelled and fell into sin, and as a result, God began a total war against human flesh. By flesh, I mean human rebellion, corruption, and pride, and all of the distortions of God’s good world that flow from these. God is at war with human sin.

In Genesis 3, death enters the world, as Adam and Eve learn that they will return to dust and ashes. But in the midst of the God’s judgment, there is also mercy and hope. God promises that a male child will one day crush the serpent’s head and put the world to rights. In Genesis 6, we see God’s total war against human rebellion as he cuts off all flesh in the flood, preserving a small remnant in the ark. And then, beginning in Genesis 12, God makes promises to Abram involving a good land, seed and offspring, blessing and hope for the families of the earth.

Last week we saw the ratification of this covenant in the covenant sign—circumcision. Circumcision, I argued, was a symbolic death so that God’s people were not swept away in God’s total war on flesh. It’s a cutting of the flesh that signifies a renouncing of all confidence in human flesh, human power, human ability. And this covenant sign separated God’s people from the surrounding nations who lived under divine condemnation because of their great evil. And last week I said, it’s no surprise that the separation of God’s people with circumcision immediately precedes divine judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah. Like the Passover, God puts a hedge around his people before the angel of death comes in judgment. In the next two weeks, we’ll explore this story.

In Genesis 18, we find Abraham and Sarah at a tree in Mamre, where they’ve been since Genesis 14. Yahweh appears to Abraham at the doors of his tent along with two men whom we later find out are angels (19:1). Abraham welcomes them and they share a meal together, as they are passing by. Yahweh reiterates the promise that Sarah will bear a son in one year. Sarah overhears, laughs in disbelief, and is gently rebuked by Yahweh. Then, when the two angels leave to go on their way, Yahweh decides to let Abraham in on his plans for Sodom and Gomorrah. The two cities are about to be destroyed for their great evil. Abraham then begins to debate and apparently argue with God about his plan, eventually persuading God to forego divine judgment if there are ten righteous people in the city.

Problems in Genesis 18

I want us to focus on two big puzzles in this passage. First, is Yahweh not omnipresent and omniscient? In 18:20, he says, “I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.” What do you mean you have to “go down and see”? Can’t you see from here? Can’t you see from heaven? What do you mean “if not, I will know?” Don’t you know now? Aren’t you all knowing? Aren’t you everywhere present?

This puzzle becomes particularly troublesome when we set in the wider context of Scripture. Listen to the following crystal clear affirmations that God knows everything.

Psalm 147:5:

Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure.

Psalm 33:13-15:

The LORD looks down from heaven; he sees all the children of man; from where he sits enthroned he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth, he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds.

Hebrews 4:13:

And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

And then Psalm 139 which celebrates both God’s total omniscience and his presence everywhere.

Psalm 139:1-18:

1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me!

2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.

3 You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.

4 Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.

5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.

7 Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?

8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

9 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.

11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,”

12 even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.

13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb.

14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.

Not only that, but Genesis 18 itself testifies to God’s omniscience. When Yahweh tells Abraham that he will return next year and Sarah will have a son, Sarah listens from inside the tent. She laughs internally, saying, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?” (18:12). And God knows her thoughts. He doesn’t need to ask her. He doesn’t need to go inside and see. He just knows. Even when she denies it (“I did not laugh”), God demonstrates that he knows everything by saying, “No, but you did laugh” (18:15).

So, given the clear testimony that God is present everywhere and knows everything, why does he present himself as though he needs to come down to investigate whether Sodom and Gomorrah are as bad as he’s heard? That’s the first puzzle.

The second is this: Does Yahweh really not know what justice is? Does he need Abraham to instruct him? Listen to Isaiah 40:13-14:

Who has measured the Spirit of the LORD, or what man shows him his counsel? Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?

Who taught him the path of justice? Apparently Abraham did. What’s more, is Abraham being insubordinate here by presuming to tell God what righteousness requires? And the real kicker: if we’re supposed to follow in the footsteps of our father Abraham, are we supposed to imitate this bargaining and negotiating with God? Is this how we should pray?

Priest, King, Prophet

To resolve both of these puzzles, we need to remember what we’ve seen about the difference between priests, kings, and prophets in the Bible. Priests are servants in God’s house. They are doorkeepers. They’re God’s bouncers. They guard the sanctuary and protect it from encroachment. Adam was called to work and keep, or work and guard, the garden, and he failed in his task. Priests are responsible for guarding the worship of God, and thus Abraham, in establishing altars in the promised land, acts as a priest.

A king is not merely a servant in God’s house, but a ruler over God’s house. If priests are bouncers and servants, the king is the maitre’d. The king rules in wisdom, discerning good from evil, applying the word of God in unusual circumstances. If the priest guards the sanctuary, the king guards and protects the land, the kingdom. And so, Abram, in rescuing Lot from the confederation of kings and discerning between the good king and the wicked king in Genesis 14 acts as a king.

A prophet, however, is more than a servant and more than a ruler. The prophet is the friend of God. Yahweh has a Divine Council, made up of angels (like the two with him here in Genesis 18). A prophet is one who has been admitted into the Divine Council. Like Joseph in Pharaoh’s court, or Daniel in the court of Nebuchadnezzar, the prophet is the advisor and councilor to the King of kings. Amos 3:7-8 “For the Lord GOD does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets.” The prophet doesn’t just execute a part of the plan (like a priest) and he doesn’t just administer the plan (like a king). He knows the whole plan. He’s in on it. In Genesis 15, we saw Abraham as a prophet, as God revealed to him the future plan for the people. Here in Genesis 18, we see that there’s even more to being a prophet. In Genesis 15, Abram heard the plan. In Genesis 18. Abraham contributes to the plan. In Genesis 15, Abram believed the plan in silent faith. In Genesis 18, Abraham talks back. Look carefully at Genesis 18:17-19:

17 The LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, 18 seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19 For I have chosen [literally, known] him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.”

God won’t hide his plans from Abraham because he has chosen/known Abraham, and Abraham’s calling will be to teach his children the ways of Yahweh, what doing righteousness involves, all so that the promise may come true. This means that Abraham needs to learn what the way of Yahweh is. What does it mean to “do righteousness and justice”? There’s no formal, written law yet. So Yahweh must teach Abraham about righteousness and justice.

 How will he teach him? By revealing the plan so that Abraham will understand the ways of the Lord, the character of God and his righteousness. Revealing the plan for Sodom is designed by God to provoke a reaction in Abraham. God doesn’t just inform Abraham; he invites him in to the deliberations. The information is an invitation. And Abraham responds. In 18:22, when the angels are dismissed to continue their task, Abraham still stood in the presence of the Lord. More than that, he “draws near” to God.

And now perhaps we see why the all-knowing and omnipresent God speaks as though he needs to go down to investigate Sodom. He reveals himself in this way in order to invite Abraham into the discussion, in order to provoke the questions, in order to teach Abraham the ways of the Lord, so that Abraham can be a true prophet, a true friend of God. In other words, God, who is the all-knowing, omnipresent author of this story reveals himself to Abraham as a character in the story. And he does so, in order to grow Abraham up into maturity, that he might be qualified and equip to stand in his council and speak in his name. If you’re going to be God’s mouthpiece, you must know God’s mind. If you’re going to be a prophet, you must learn to pray and intercede like one.

And I highlight prayer and intercession here because a) Abraham intercedes for Sodom in this passage, and b) in Genesis 20, Yahweh connects the vocation of prophet to prayer and intercession. King Abimelech has taken Sarah into his house and God has punished him for it. God tells him, “Now then, return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live.” Abraham is a prophet, which he means he intercedes in prayer for people.

Prophetic Intercession

Now we normally think of intercession as something that a priest does. And priests do intercede. However, priests intercede according to established rules and rituals. They offer the sacrifices in precisely the way that God has commanded. They don’t innovate or get creative or question the methods. They do simple obedience. Prophetic intercession is more than that. It’s knowing the character of Yahweh, knowing his ways, knowing him so well that you plead for people based on God’s character despite what circumstances and events seem to suggest.

Prophetic intercession is bold intercession; a prophet boldly approaches the throne of grace as God’s friend, as God’s co-worker, as God’s advisor, as one who knows the mind of the Lord. The prophet knows that “Behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face,” and so the prophet asks, prays, even demands that God unveil his smiling face, claiming the promises of God on behalf of the people. We see precisely this type of intercession with Moses, after the people sin with the golden calf. God moves to destroy the people, and Moses intercedes for them, reminding God of his promises and his mercy. We see it in the prophet Habakkuk, who wrestles with God’s judgment on Israel through the Babylonians. We see some of the same deliberations in the books of Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel.

And again, the purpose of this intercession is to instruct Abraham in the ways of Yahweh, in doing righteousness and justice. It makes no sense to think that Yahweh himself has forgotten the ways of Yahweh. But he presents himself this way in order to help Abraham grow into maturity. When I am playing a game of baseball with my sons, and I’m trying to get them out, I don’t play with all of my skills. When I’m pitching, I don’t throw as hard as I can. I throw it hard enough so that they can hit it, and I throw harder as they get better. I veil some of my ability in order to help them grow into true athletes. That’s what God does here. He veils his omniscience and omnipresence in order to draw Abraham into the discussion. And I suspect that Abraham knows this, just as my boys know that I can throw harder than I do when I’m playing ball with them. Abraham knows that God has already determined what will happen in 400 years. Of course, he knows what’s happening down in Sodom. The veil that God puts on is an invitation. It’s God saying, “Are you ready to get in the game?” And so Abraham draws near and intercedes. He enters into the drama. I want us to notice three aspects of Abraham’s discussion with God.

1)    He appeals to what he knows of God’s character. “Far be it from you to sweep away the righteous with the wicked. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” This is a lesson about justice, so Abraham appeals to God’s justice.

2)    Abraham is not insubordinate, but humble. “I am but dust and ashes.” “Don’t be angry, and I will speak.” He knows that he’s pushing things. He’s talking back to God. But he’s not doing so with presumption or anger, but with deep humility. “I know that I’m but dust. I know that it’s the wicked who shake their fists at you and provoke your anger. I’m coming with open hands, a lowly heart, but I’m still speaking.”

3)    This is not a negotiation. We initially think of it as such, as though Abraham is bargaining with God over whether he will destroy Sodom or not. But there are no offers and counter-offers. Abraham doesn’t say, “What if there are 50?” and God counter with, “What about 25?” Every request Abraham makes is granted immediately. 50, 45, 40, 30, 20, 10. If this is a negotiation, God is a terrible negotiator. But it’s not a negotiation. It’s a lesson in the ways of the Lord.

So what does Abraham learn here about the ways of the Lord, about God’s justice, about what it means to do righteousness? He learns that God is righteous. God will punish the wicked for their grave evil. Justice will come from the Judge of all the earth. But more than that, he learns that God loves mercy. God is eager and willing to show mercy to whole cities of wicked people. All you need is a ten righteous ones and a friend of God, a prophet, who is willing to intercede.

I want to close with two applications—one for us as individuals and one for us as a church. As individuals, we learn from this passage what God calls us to grow up to maturity. God welcomes our prayers. He wants us to talk back. The Bible is filled with godly men and women who begged, pleaded, even demanded that God make good on his promises. Just read the Psalms. When you look out at the world, when you look at your life, and what you see doesn’t seem to fit with a righteous judge of all the earth, God is inviting you to draw near, to approach his throne, to pushback on the frowning providence.

So we should follow in the footsteps of our father Abraham here. We should grow up into maturity like he does. Which means, we should begin with basic obedience and worship. You can’t reject the worship of God and then talk back. If you do, that’s simply presumption and pride and rebellion. But if you worship, and if you believe the promises, and if you seek to walk in wisdom and faithfulness where God has planted you, and if you find yourself provoked by the circumstances and providence in the world, then answer the invitation. Boldly and humbly, as dust and ashes and as a friend of God, approach the throne of grace in order to learn the ways of the Lord by speaking, by interceding, by pushing back against providence. It’s a fine line to walk between “Thy will be done” and “Far be it from you,” but that’s where God wants to take us. You and I may not be there yet; we may have work yet to do in the foothills, where we simply need to learn to confess our sins and thank God for our daily bread. But God is calling us to draw near.

As a church, we see the importance of Christian witness in a society. We see more clearly why God has placed us here in these cities. God says that he won’t wipe out the city for the sake of ten righteous people. And if we put this passage together with things that we’ve learned previously in Genesis, a picture of God’s judgment on nations and the role of the church becomes a little more clear. We’re told in Genesis 15:16 that the people of God won’t inherit the promised land for 400 years because the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. This implies that iniquity is something that completes. Human sin fills up the cup of God’s wrath. When the cup is full, God pours it out and makes us drink it. Here in Genesis 18, we find out that Sodom’s iniquity is complete. Their great evil (Genesis 13:13) has produced such an outcry that God’s death angels are on the march. God’s total war against flesh is coming to Sodom. And yet, we find that, in the midst of that judgment, the faithfulness of a handful and the prayers of one man could stave off judgment, because our God loves to show mercy.

Next week when Pastor Jonathan preaches on Sodom, I have no doubt that you will hear similarities to our nation, to our state, to these cities. And when you look at the great evil of America and you ask yourself, “Why does God delay his judgment on such evil?”, remember this story. There may still be ten righteous people and a prophet in America, and that’s holding back the floodgates of judgment. And if you ask, why? Why does the presence of the righteous and the prayers of the prophet hold back judgment, I’d suggest that that presence and those prayers open up another possibility for destroying flesh than fire and sulfur, or hurricanes and wildfires. The witness of the church and the prayers of the righteous might lead to repentance. That’s why we’re here, seeking the good of these cities. God has placed us here as salt and light. The faithful presence of God’s people holds back the judgment of Almighty God. And so we ought to do righteousness and justice, walking in the ways of Yahweh and praying big, bold prayers that God might turn these cities from their wickedness and blessing might flow to all the families of the earth.

The Table

 Which brings us to the Table. Here is the Table where the Righteous Judge of all the earth does right by showing mercy to great sinners. There was once a cup of God’s wrath, filled to the brim. And Jesus drank it to the dregs. Now this cup is no longer a cup of wrath, but a cup of salvation, a cup of blessing, a cup of mercy. At this table, we see the intercession of Jesus, our priest, our king, and our prophet, who ever lives and pleads for us. Here, we remember that for the sake of one perfectly righteous man, one perfectly faithful prophet, God does not sweep us all away for our rebellion, corruption, and sin. Instead, he welcomes us in. He invites us to worship him, to be his sons and daughters, and to become his friends. Here, the living God shares a meal with us. So come and welcome to Jesus Christ.


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Apple joins the $700bn club… on its own

TECH giant Apple, the world’s most valuable business, is the first company to be valued at $700bn (£446bn) after its share price rose one per cent in New York. The iPhone maker’s worth is now higher than the GDP of all but the top 19 countries in the world.

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Donate to Animal Services

Help the Animals Fund

Animal Services has a trust fund for financial contributions and uses such gifts for purchasing supplies and services not provided by the City's operating budget. As a municipal agency, contributions to Animal Services may be tax-deductible because they are used for public purposes pursuant to Internal Revenue Service Code, Section 170. Donors should consult a tax advisor to determine if part or all of their contributions are tax deductible.

Some examples of supplies funded by your donations include an anesthesia machine and scavenger system and an autoclave for our clinic, which enable our veterinary unit to perform greater volumes of spay and neuter surgeries. We have also used donations to purchase "Adopt Me" vests for shelter dogs and table throws and tents for off site adoption events and festivals. Such items help highlight particular dogs or promote the adoption program in general. The off site adoption events and festival appearances are important in stimulating adoptions, generating public awareness of Animal Services' programs, and building community support for saving more lives.

Contributions may also be used to help support additional veterinary services at the Animal Services Center. Although the City employs a full-time Shelter Veterinarian and two full-time Veterinary Technicians, Animal Services establishes contracts with local veterinarians and veterinary technicians to provide coverage for absences and weekend and after-hour shifts to ensure that sheltered animals receive quality care. Such contract work also enables Animal Services to provide more spay and neuter surgeries for owned pets through the Low-Income Spay Neuter (LISN) program.

You can donate to the Help The Animals Fund right now using your credit card.

                                 Donate Now Button

Honoring & Memorial Gifts

Remembering or honoring an individual or pet with a gift to Rochester Animal Services is a meaningful way to acknowledge someone significant in your life. Special occasions such as birthdays, weddings, anniversaries or holidays are other times when donations can be a meaningful gift. To make a gift in honor of someone online, click the donation button above and please send a message to explaining the purpose for your contribution and to whom acknowledgments should be directed. If you would prefer to mail a donation, please send a check made payable to Rochester Animal Services to:

     Animal Services Center
     184 Verona Street
     Rochester, NY 14608

Estate Planning

Your support for Rochester Animal Services reflects your commitment to helping people and animals in our community. Including a gift for Rochester Animal Services in your will or by beneficiary designation establishes a legacy of your love for animals, addresses pet homelessness and ensures that shelter animals receive enrichment and quality care for generations to come.

Options to consider:

  • gift that cost nothing now (e.g., name Rochester Animal Services in your will or trust or by beneficiary designation)
  • gifts that may reduce your taxes (e.g., retirement plan, insurance plan, real estate, stocks)
  • gifts that may earn you income (e.g., Charitable Remainder Trusts)
  • gifts that make an impact now (e.g., transfer of stocks, real estate, IRA Charitable Rollover, cash donations)

Please let us know if you’ve included a gift for Rochester Animal Services in your will or trust or by beneficiary designation. Providing us with documentation is the best way to ensure that you wishes are honored.

If you have questions or would like to discuss any of these options, please contact the Director of Animal Services at 585-428-7274 or

Fun Racing & Fundraising

Join Rochester Animal Services and the Verona Street Animal Society (VSAS) for The Fast & The Furriest® on the first Saturday in June. The event features 10K and 5K road races, a 1-mile dog walk, pet festival, and live music. The purpose of the event is to raise awareness and funds to support spay/neuter, adoption, foster care, and other programs provided by Animal Services. To learn more about the event and how you can get involved visit, call 585-237-8366, or email

Wish List

RAS welcomes donations of a variety of items that help to maintain or improve the care and comfort for animals while at the shelter. Our wish list includes the following items for the various programs:

 Animal Care

  • 6-foot leashes
  • Martingale Collars, adjustable - Med & Lg
  • Professional grooming clippers
  • Easy Walk Harnesses - Med & Lg
  • Pet shampoo
  • Pet carriers
  • Training crates

  • Pet Ear Thermomotor
  • Powder stain remover
  • Distilled water
  • Cotton swabs
  • Puppy training pads
  • Chux/underpads
  • Baby food (meat varieties only)
  • 3 fl oz paper cups
  • Hypo-allergenic, fragrance-free baby wipes
  • Kitten & Puppy milk replacement

Community Outreach

  • Collars
  • Leashes
  • Training crates
  • Pet food (unopened)
  • Puzzle feeders
  • Enrichment toys
  • Dog house kits
  • Metal food/water bowls
  • 2 gallon buckets
  • Dog runners

  • Scented liquid laundry detergent
  • Liquid dish soap
  • Pet-friendly ice melt
  • Lint rollers
  • Brooms
  • Laundry baskets
  • Plastic storage bins with lids
  • 10' x 10' pop-up tents

  • Squeeze Cheese
  • Nylon bones
  • Puzzle feeders
  • Enrichment toys
  • Fruit-scented air fresheners
  • Extracts (Vanilla, Cinnamon, Clove,
    Peppermint, Lavender, Lemon, Strawberry, Coconut)

  • Canned dog food
  • Bully sticks
  • Pig ears

Transfer & Transportation

  • Unopened cat food
  • Cat litter
  • Gas cards and pre-paid credit cards for volunteers to
    transport animals to distant shelters
  • Collars
  • Leashes
  • Pet carriers and training crates

Through the PetSaver Shelter Feeding Program, Animal Services feeds Fromm Family Dry Pet Food to all of our animals in the shelter. Pet foods from other manufacturers may be provided to our pets in foster care or to our Community Outreach Program.

Give a pet a bed cat-bed-2

kurandabed2Our dogs and cats love to sleep on Kuranda Pet Beds, but we do not have enough for everyone. If you would like to donate a bed at a special wholesale price for a shelter cat or dog to sleep in comfort, please click on the link above.

For more information about how your donation can help, please call (585) 428-7274 or email the Animal Services Center.

Community Partnerships

Animal Services establishes partnerships with local businesses, foundations, and individual philanthropists to enhance care for shelter animals and bolster operations. Partnerships may involve in-kind contributions, program sponsorship, naming rights, event sponsorship or operational support. To learn more about opportunities, email the Director of Animal Services.

The City of Rochester is grateful to PetSaver Healthy Pet Superstore for its donation of all of the cat litter and Fromm Family Pet Food used at the Animal Services Center. This support enables Animal Services to purchase veterinary supplies and shelter enrichment items that would not otherwise be possible.


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Clinton-Baden Community Center

485 N. Clinton Avenue

A full listing of all of the City's aquatic opportunities is available at

Note that the closest public library to this Community Center is the Central Downtown Branch at 115 South Avenue.

Download Baden St. Pool Schedule>>>
Mon. - Fri.,  Sept 10 - June 14
For more pool information call: 428-6908

-Indoor and outdoor basketball
-Sports fields
-Game room
-Large Meeting Room

 For more information about Recreation facilities and programs, visit


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Please have the social worker or health care professional assigned to your child fill out these necessary forms and fax or mail them back to us.   The “Patient Information Form” must be completed by a health care professional in order for us to process a request.

Our board will review each application as soon as they are received. Social workers will be notified if the CJR Memorial Foundation is able to assist. We cannot guarantee every need will be met but will help however possible based on priority and funds available.

Eligible expenses will included but are not limited to:
Travel Expense

To date, The CJR Memorial Foundation has supported families of critically ill children from across the country.


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Discussion » Dota 2 » How to find a player's role

  • Kr1mm1L
    Kr1mm1L wrote:
    Hi Guys,

    I've been wondering about this topic and with the new head hunter/recruitment positions introduced, I thought this would be a good time to write the article.

    Basically it's about finding a players natural role, meaning that their play style and personality fits a role which they implement without even knowing it.

    We can all be handed a role, which we must master, by our captains/managers etc.
    We could be happy with that, but does that role fit you as a person and how did the captain and manager decide to put you into that role?

    I think the way teams are spawned, is by someone saying..."Hey, I'm a good carry. Maybe I should start a team?"
    They will then proceed to post threads stating that they are looking for a few support players and maybe a mid?

    This isn't always the case, but I suspect that it's always something along those lines.
    I don't want to create a huge article about suggesting how to create a team, but rather how to build a superior team out of the resources available to you. Looking at your players play style and personality.

    We need to create a fixed process where new recruits and even current members could go through to either "discover" your role or show recruiters how you perform in a role.
    These results could then be compared to other players to find the better player.

    Currently the only methods we have to our disposal are to test for carry and mid lane potential, and maybe supports.

    On each of the following roles/positions we can do the following tests:
    To get most of these stats, we need to play numerous games, which take quite a lot of time.

    * Last Hit/Deny statistics
    * Determine if the player can actually carry a team and do they know where they should be in team fights
    * How does the player act during or before a team fight.
    * Dotabuff.com statistics to check game averages and records.

    * Last Hit/Deny statistics
    * Let recruits play mid only, mirror mode to determine the better player. This will need to be done with various heroes to get a more accurate result. This will also show how players control runes and their average aggressiveness.
    * Play a few games with them, to determine whether they are the type of player that will move to gank side lanes and how effective that are at it.

    4/5 Support:
    * How does the player stack/pull effectively on both radiant and dire.
    * Where are the player's GOTO ward spots, we all have a natural spot to place wards.
    * How often does the player ward?
    * Will the player exclude himself from team fights to rather plant wards?
    * Is it basic instinct for the player to buy courier, smoke, wards and support items like Eul's or     Guinsoo?
    * Will the player look after himself or the team regarding spells and item priority?
    * Does the player know how to exclude himself from experience range and initiate ganks?

    I feel that the players and their play style decide your teams strategy, for example.
    * Players that love items and don't play aggressive will result in 40min games.
    * Players that are extremely aggressive, but love items will result in shorter games, but more lost fights?

    Basically it all comes down to how aggressive a player is, how they prioritise items and sacrifice position/advantage to save a teammate.

    Here I've mentioned a few roles and checks I do to determine a player's role, but this system takes a lot of games and time.

    I would like to hear your suggestions on how we can decrease the time needed to determine a player's role and also how to effectively compare player A to player B.

  • Kr1mm1L
    Kr1mm1L wrote:
  • Connor BS
    Connor BS wrote:
    Pretty indepth KrimmiL, I noticed the 4/5 on the Support section. Many members of our clan do not realize that that is in refrence of farm order and role within team. It's a little old, but people should check this out for a basic run down HERE

    quick summary

    1-Carry (most important)
    2-Usually Mid (usually builds initiation and survivability)
    3-Offlane (focuses on teamfight items, like pipe)
    4-Support (focuses on items like mech, and buys wards when 5 cannot, etc.)
    5-Hard support(wards, smokes, and couriors are the name of the game. You should be happy if you have 450 boots at 14 mins.)

    The highest number deserves the farm in the lane.

    Mid ganks for the offlaner. Mid, now in a new lane, has priority farm over 3.

    5 stacks and pulls lane. 4 wanders over to let the carry free farm an empty lane. 4 now has the privalage of last hitting every single jungle creep.

    Whatever lane a carry wonders into, he should now be doing the last hits (that includes you NP in the jungle, if the carry wants that minotaur, you better give him that minotaur)

  • Kr1mm1L
    Kr1mm1L wrote:
    Thanks for the reply connor.
    I didn't think about mentioning the 1-5 ranks, suppose it would be better fit in another thread.
    This and some basic knowledge which we all know, but have probably forgotten or forget to apply "under pressure".

    This being mentioned, I remembered that this must be the reason why nobody wants to support.
    Although supports can make or break a game, nobody wants to play the support because we all want items and kills.

    Although I agree giving the 1/2 Roles the kills and Exp so that they can carry the game faster is important, it is just as important to let supports get some shine.

    I've noticed that in the most where we're behind is because the supports couldn't get their Mek, Pipe, Mana boots, etc... before 10mins, which means that the supports don't really mean much, except for the one or two slows/stuns which they can't afford to miss.

    Like you said, this chinese system is quite old, but it really does simplify the way we should think about our roles.
    My improvement on this system would be.
    1. Carry
    2. Mid
    3. Offlane
    3. Support
    3. Hard-Support.

    With the "new" meta fast paced games are in the order of the day, and letting your supports get some farm once in a while really speeds up everything.

Please login to post a reply to this thread.

A Brief History: Clan Dream

Clan Dream was founded in 2009 by Caesar Rex and EvilGummyBear. Recruited into the Rome Total War Clan 'OTD' only a month apart they quickly became friends and formed an unlikely duo which they nicknamed the dream team. They reached the highest rank of Pendragon within a year and at that time they started looking outward. Trying something different. Breaking the mold as they say.
The Dream Team thus became the clans official name. Eventually it was changed to Clan Dream Team and then in 2015 it was shortened further to allow the community aspect to shine through.

A clan and community built on friendship and fun.

So sit back, enjoy the games; GLHF

email: caesarrex@clandream.com

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text:
Make your own Drinking vessels

Drinking vessels
Robin Gates

For over 1,000 years, through Viking and medieval times and into the Tudor age, mariners drank and ate out of wooden pots and bowls. So here is a simple step-by-step guide so you can make your own proper wooden drinking vessels. All you need is a small log and some simple hand tools. I am using wild cherry here, sealed with a mixture of walnut oil and beeswax, which is both food safe and insoluble in water and alcohol.

Wooden drinking vessels are the antidote to nasty acrylic yachtie-style tumblers (see p82!) for people who wish to drink authentically on their boats. They have as many advantages today as they always had: good insulation, they are nicer to drink from than glass or ceramics, let alone plastic, and they don’t break, they don’t crack and they float!

Step-by step guide

Drinking vessels 1. Axe away the bark and sapwood
Drinking vessels 2. Round with the draw knife
Drinking vessels 3. Plane to finish

Drinking vessels

4. Saw to pot length
Drinking vessels 5. Plane the base and top
Drinking vessels 6. Bore out the centre
Drinking vessels 7. Enlarge hole with a chisel
Drinking vessels 8. Smooth rough edges with a hook knife
Drinking vessels 9. Round off the drinking lip with a piece of rolled sandpaper
Drinking vessels 10. Seal with walnut oil and beeswax

Drinking Vessels

11. Bottoms up! (filled with stout in this instance)

Dont forget to follow Classic Boat on Facebook and Twitter

You can buy the latest issue of Classic Boat magazine here


text:
C l e a r  O b s e r v a t i o n s, by Paul Olivier
They are Just temporary blurps; the important observations are in the articles, right side above.
What do they call them?
Time didn't stand still while I have been of line and many important events have taken place. Reelection of the transform America pres. And things are heating up momentarily even more. Egypt's new pharao, Libya's Benghazi debacle and Seria's uncivil war are showing that the concept of Civil Society has not penetrated in those regions.
However more locally Occupy whatever and New Black Panter are no examples of civil society either. But what do you expect from a secular Gov. school system. The Republic was intended for a moral people. God help us now the majority has lost that status!
One Fact: Government are people too; just like companies are people. And the only two remedies, when Government peoples are not acting in the interest of "We the People", the only remedies are elections and the legal system. You have seen how that worked out for us. Both cost large amounts of money. The government people use tax-money, your money. And that has to stop. But how?

The following brief I had on ice.
Sociology, politics uses with mischievous intentions the term demographics to indicate, divide and categorise people. There is a number of individuals to be categorized as psycho, logic or not so much. Those people have particular individual perception of reality; all perception of reality is a priori individual. But let not count those psychos out just yet. They may be on to something!

These individuals, I mean to indicate here, are mixing their individual perception of reality with phantasy fed by whatever choice of facts and fiction there is available in books and media at this or any time. In this way they are not different from anyone else.
What set them a little apart is that they believe in extraterrestrial mutational influences of the human race. What set them further apart is that they see these mutations in the external appearance of other people.
Wether these individuals have psychic ability or not is hard to prove or disprove.
Thus far my consideration of these people was mostly dismissive as nutty, because of the UFO connection. However after putting two and two together, I get it now and give them the credit they deserve.
Here is why:
Saul Allinsky dedicated "Rules for Radicals" to Lucifer. Jesus called Lucifer "the old snake, the deceiver".
It now start to make sense: You want to know what those people with these particular individual perception call these perceived mutants? They call them REPTILIANS!
Now you understand! They see the snake in some (many ?) people.
In my view, it is a most fitting name for Marxists, communists, socialist, liberals, atheists, progressives and the like.
And this name does not exclude any other offspring of Satan. And if you can't see the snake yourself in the face of the local, state or federal reps of "We, the People", use the aforementioned names to indentify and disqualify them for any official positions.

With your vote you can send them home.

The Veil of Wealth Envy.
Youth is by nature idealistic. It is also handicapped by minimal wisdom. In this age government education does'nt give youth chances to develop common sense.
Their indoctrination with secular Marxist theory from those schools has clouded their mind with the veil of wealth envy that does not allow a clear view of reality.
The historical process, called culture, that over hundreds of years produced among other, institutions we call banks, is for the youth of -occupy whatever- a dirty word.
If they had fully developed common sense it would let them understand that the banks have money because account holders put it there rather than under their mattress and additional making use of the offered services and bennefits.
It would also let them understand that all those small account holders make it possible for banks to loan larger amounts for the purpose of establishing or expanding businesses who can gainfully employ or make it possible for individuals and families to buy a house or a car or maybe farm equipment or a (worthless?) college education.
Common sense would also let them understand that their has to be some reasonable expectation that those loans will be paid back to the loaners.
And that there is risk involved in loaning. That therefor most loans require collateral. The car or the house someone buys can be repossessed if the agreed payments are not forthcoming. And as we recently learned, the decrease in home value is also a decrease of the collateral value and thus increases the chance of a loss, if the debter walks away from the property.
It all worked reasonably well befor the government meddling disrupted the common sense process with the goal to get in favor of particular constituencies.
After ninety, and more, years of progressive regressive scheming to change a free civil society and bring free citizen into servdom of controling central government, we have again a load of dumbass youth, as if history didn't tought us that there is no better societal system than the free enterprise one, guarantied by the US Constitution, Live Liberty and the Pursuit of Private Property.
Remember that the word Property was replaced by Happiness, only as a compromise to not legitimise slavery.
Also remember its a thief that takes someone else property. Marx, Lenin. Stalin, Mao, Castro and some smaller demons tried -the property is theft- doctrine, wich is not even working for little children. It leads to a lot of crying and on global level to over hundred million of deaths. Even the Chinese are now back at understanding the incentive of private property.
The Orator-from-Teleprompter-in Chief, Big Brother Barry, is not content with the harm he did thusfar to the World economy. He wants more of other peoples property to dispense to his associates.
The veil of wealth envy that clouds the mind of the -occupy whatever click- is not unwelcome to him. After all, he would not have been elected without the votes of the useful idiots.
The destructive regime wants to continue its power; it has designs in place; the flash-mobs where a test-run; the summer of 2012 will be hot; the Wallstreet occupations are a training for anti free enterprise conformity. The ignorant are happely indoctrinated by demagogues with intentions, carrying us to harmfull outcome.
Will we be able to avoid a Blood Red October? (We did,)
On The Equality Myth.
The judgement of the Fed. Judge Vinson that the Health care law, popular called "Obama Care" is unconstitutional, may have brought the US Constitution in focus for a wider circle of citizen. The unfortunate situation exist, that a large voting constituency, which is without a clue how unique in whole of human history, the Country and its founding Documents are. Those ignorant people live in the notion that the nation is one "Democracy" among others. They need to read "The 5000 Year Leap". by W.Cleon Skousen
The US Constitution is inseparable from the Declaration of Independence and The Bill of Rights. It contains that very much mentioned and much misunderstood "that all men are created equal". I assume that there is much written about (and I didn't read), but if approached with common sense, (I did read the booklet of that title), it means that everyone is created as the product of intercourse.
And there the equality ends. This is what equal under the law is derived from. Even the petri-dish conception needs the female body to allow gestation to birth. Thus you are equal born from a mother body. That is how Nature transfers life, or if you understand, that is God's Nature or the Nature of God.
After birth, and some level of maturity, the possibilities are open to the individual to pursue what the "live and liberty condition" has to offer for pursuing happiness (property in any form, such as spiritual, mental as well as physical). But immediatly after birth the differences become manifest: primary male and female. Other inequalities appear, but primary is male and female.
A very wise man told us that not all people are equal and that there are three kinds of people. First there are people who are good for the World. Second there are people who don't make a difference. And third there are people (who are so bad) it would be better if they would not have been born.
You understand how unequal after birth the outcome can be. Thus secondary three ways good, bad, indifferent (or both side of the borderline).
Life and freedom invite to foolishness. Picking and choosing from what is around someone is a risky proposition, especially to the immature and those expected to be mature.
There are the wrong roll-models and the false teachers, the know-all philosophers sociologists psychologists, the Profs & Drs. of such and so and scientists with an agenda, the artists poet musicians of absent morals. And than the self-serving politicians. All together quacks! Deceivers and or fools. Thus there are the wise and the grades of unwise, and the strong and less strong, mentally and physically. Silly to go on. Only one more: everyone can have an opinion: equal true or important? Not even in your dreams.
Back to Equally Born from Mothers. The founders of the US of A where living among common sense people. But during the last 150 years of Marxist-socialist mind-bending, by Lucifer's underlings minions, (previous mentioned!) many have lost awareness of such simple truth.


text:
You never give up

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text:
Member Product Promotion Platform for Associations

Written by on February 22, 2013 in Search Management Strategies, Service Offerings, Uncategorized - Comments Off

Trade associations are always looking for ways to continue delivering value added services and remain relevant to their membership. They need to find innovative ideas to promote their membership cause and also new ways to connect buyers and sellers of their membership products.

The era of publishing and distributing hard copy product directory has gone the way of Yellow Pages and is no longer very effective. Associations must embrace and harness the world of social media and instant search results to find the modern consumer and connect them with their membership.

To remain viable during 21st century, associations must learn to leverage their unique knowledge of their industry and create dynamic platform for connecting suppliers and consumers. Thanks to advances in cloud computing and search technologies, what used to be cost prohibitive service can now be launched quickly and cost effectively.

Membership product promotion may not have been the primary mission of many associations in the past. However, the realities in 21st century are changing fast and associations are looking beyond printing directories, organizing annual meetings and advocacy in order to remain relevant to their membership who are struggling to remain competitive in this age of mega cyber malls, social media and search engine optimization.

Introducing – Membership Product Promotion Platfrom (M3P)…read more

Comments are closed.


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Home > News > Content
High Quality Fishmeal Is The Best Source Of Protein For Weaned Piglets
- Apr 02, 2017 -

Early animal nutrition status will affect the late growth and development. Weaned piglets stage is a critical period of pig growth and development. Its intestinal function development is imperfect, digestive enzyme secretion, in addition to the existence of environmental stress, weaning stress and other factors, therefore, changes in diets will affect the growth and development of weaned piglets stage.

Fish meal is a high protein content, high digestibility, rich in various amino acids of high quality feed. However, due to the raw material source and freshness of fishmeal and the processing technology (such as temperature), the palatability and digestibility of different fishmeal are very different.

Common soybean meal digestion and absorption rate is high, amino acid composition is good, rich in resources. However, because it contains a variety of anti-nutritional factors, such as protease inhibitors, lectins, etc., easily lead to young intestinal allergies, inhibit its growth and development.

Flaxseed meal is rich in protein and dietary fiber and other nutrients, rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids. However, the flaxseed meal contains linen and other anti-nutritional factors, carbohydrates in the gel up to 80g / kg. Linjiao plastic absorption capacity to increase viscosity, on the one hand to form a layer of protection of intestinal mucosal biofilm, on the other hand reduce the feed nutrient digestibility.

In terms of growth performance, premium fish meal is the best protein for weaning piglets. Premium fish meal protein quality is good, piglets absorb high utilization rate. The growth promotion factors such as trimethylamine and taurine in fishmeal promote the growth and development of piglets. Ordinary soybean meal contains soybean antigens and other anti-nutritional factors, so that the length of piglets intestinal villi decreased, the structure was destroyed, crypt depth increased, leading to reduced digestion and absorption of nutrients, intestinal infection increased the probability of harmful bacteria. Therefore, the average weight gain ratio of piglets in the ordinary soybean meal group is the highest, and the performance of piglets in the sub-health state is correspondingly decreased.

Piglet digestive tract in the rapid development, disease resistance is low, intestinal immune barrier is not fully established, by weaning stress more likely to cause pathogen infection and diarrhea. Appropriate increase in fish meal content will reduce weaning piglets diarrhea rate, to protect the pig's intestinal health.

Premium fish meal improves the ratio of lactic acid bacteria and E. coli in pig manure, which may be related to the quality of fish meal. Protein quality poor linen meal protein digestibility is low, undigested protein into the posterior segment of the intestinal tract can easily lead to excessive breeding of harmful bacteria.

The plasma albumin in fish meal and soybean meal group was lower than that in linseed meal group, and the level of animal health was better than that of linseed meal group. Ie dietary protein sources affect pig serum albumin levels. Plasma albumin can not only maintain the plasma colloid osmotic pressure, as well as decomposition of amino acids, synthetic tissue protein and decomposition of energy and other functions.

High quality fish meal is a good source of protein for weaned piglets, which can increase the average daily gain of piglets and reduce the ratio of material to weight. The premium fish meal is beneficial to improve the content of lactic acid bacteria in weaned piglets relative to Escherichia coli. The advantages of high quality fish meal piglets in growth performance still exist during the subsequent growth process.


text:
The flip side

Sara Hope swapped her role as internal coach at KPMG for the life of an independent, while Louise Buckle stepped into Sara’s shoes after seven years of successful independent practice. Six months on they share their insights and experiences

Wow I’m surprised,” said Louise Buckle’s supervisor as she announced she was moving into an internal coaching role at KPMG after many years of successful independent practice. “Congratulations, about time”, was the typical response to Sara Hope’s news that she was leaving the same organisation to go independent.

What did people’s responses to our news tell us about the journeys we were about to embark on?

One of the primary reasons for employing internal coaches is that they understand the business, environment and context in which their internal clients operate. One stated benefit of using an external coach is that in lacking context-specific knowledge they bring a fresh pair of eyes.”

In our post-credit crunch world there is increasing interest in the development of internal coaching capability to get more value from coaching spend. Yet there is also a sense that this is a second-best solution – an economic necessity.

Unlike in many organisations where internal coaches coach as an extra to their ‘day job’, at KPMG coaching is the day job. KPMG in the UK has employed full-time professionally qualified coaches in its coaching faculty for nine years. They are embedded in the business with a line to the talent function for professional support.

Our hope is that through the sharing of our personal stories, best practices can accumulate as the dialogue progresses.

Frisch1, 2 suggests that as internal coaching defines its practices more clearly, internal and external coaching will be viewed as “two sides of the same coaching coin, realising greater benefit for organisations committed to the development of their human resources”.

The art isunderstanding the reality of what it’s really like depending on whether you are heads or tails.

Louise’s story: Outside in…

The lead coach role at KPMG seemed an ideal opportunity to integrate my OD sensibilities and systems perspective with my love of coaching. It was the perfect job. Six months on it still is.

The implications for my practice are much clearer now. I am absorbed in organisational life and am truly seeing coaching focused on business as well as individual needs. The scale of activity is impressive and I am busier than ever. I have wondered though if this isn’t at the expense of some of my cherished beliefs about coaching and best practice.

One of the implicit expectations of an internal coach is that you should be able to work with pretty much anyone on anything. Internal coaches haven’t felt the same pressure to develop a ‘signature presence’ as externals facing a competitive market. At KPMG we are learning to value this individual coaching voice. As internal coaches we broker as well as deliver coaching. Understanding how to differentiate between coaches is an important skillset.

My clients clearly recognise my multiple roles. As an external my presence as a coach was clear. Now my coaching client or their sponsor may also be a stakeholder, co-worker or even in management. I am a manager and a coach. Clients have expectations about my organisational knowledge. I have authority to say yea or nay. Crucially, my performance ratings are now based on client and stakeholder feedback. All this makes supervision vital if I am to avoid colluding with prevailing thinking for political or personal expediency.

Being free at the point of delivery there is always more we can offer to support the business than we have the time or resources to deliver. So I have found myself challenged to own the coaching priorities and say no to clients. I hadn’t appreciated until recently what impact this would have on client behaviour. One was getting so much out of it that she didn’t tell me she was leaving the company until after our last session, for fear I would cancel it. It made for a surreal session.

Contracting needs to be even more explicit as an internal. Recently a client asked me what I am performance-managed on in order to understand my accountabilities. In a culture where targets so often drive behaviour it was an intelligent and fair question.

How can a coach be there for the client if they are targeted with a particular outcome, say, retention? Internal coach performance indicators need to balance the relationship with the need to measure business value.

The most interesting change for me has been to my internal clock which guided me through my two-hour sessions. I didn’t need to look at my watch. I am now learning what one hour and an hour and a half ‘feel’ like. I am a novice again, not sure of where I am in a session. Work expands to fit the time available. Two hours now feels too long. I realise I can do good work in shorter sessions.

My beliefs about what constitutes good coaching are being changed, not by a change in the client, my underpinning philosophy or new skills. My KPMG clients are similar to the clients I had as an independent. The change I am experiencing is driven by my context. The internal role provides different demands. I am enjoying taking responsibility for the impact of coaching in a strategic sense. It is the start of a whole new journey as a coach. It is very exciting.

Sara’s story: Inside out…

One of the most fascinating parts of my journey as a coach has been transitioning from being an internal coach to an external coach and, in particular, noticing the complexities surrounding both roles.

Being a full-time internal coach at KPMG was a hugely enriching and rewarding experience, but I was becoming increasingly aware of the importance I attach to my own growth and learning, both as a coach and a human being. I was hungry for more, and gaining further experience in a variety of organisations appeared to be a natural next step.

Towards the end of my time as an employee, I began to notice some of the beliefs and assumptions I held about what it would be like to be an external coach. My purpose here is to share some of the realities of that journey and the insights that have emerged.

The biggest change is the importance of my appreciation of the context in which my clients operate. On reflection, perhaps I began to take for granted the value of knowing the KPMG environment, the way the business worked and the politics, which my clients found beneficial.

I also recognised that with the right support and supervision, this could be well managed. In contrast, my growing experience in a variety of businesses is also enabling me to appreciate the value of breadth and the need for a coach to be aware of the considerations of coaching in a business.

As an external coach, I have been reflecting on how I demonstrate the impact of my coaching on the wider system. For example, I may be working with one or two clients in an organisation and am keen to explore what a good outcome will look like from the perspectives of each of the stakeholders, and how the coaching is integrated into the system as a whole. This has reinforced my belief about the importance of excellence in contracting so these kinds of questions are explored upfront.

While many of the issues clients come to me with are similar to those as an internal coach, I concur with Louise’s experience that the client values the time to think, whether this is with an internal or external coach. There appears to be an appetite in organisations for good quality coaching and I think the challenge becomes how to enhance the development of that capability internally when someone may only be coaching as a small part of their role.

I acknowledge that even where a highly experienced internal coaching function exists, there will always be managers and executives for whom external coaching is the most appropriate choice. Having experienced being a professional internal coach and now an external coach, my curiosity has been drawn to noticing how much our beliefs about external coaches compared with internal coaches may be based around perceptions. As Kampa and White(3), cited in Feldman and Lankau(4), point out, there have been no empirical tests to determine if specific skills or backgrounds make any actual difference in the effectiveness of coaches. The experiences of Louise and myself suggest that for the client to gain value from the coaching relationship, they want a coach who is experienced, skilled, who will listen, challenge and give them space to think. Does it matter whether this is an internal or external coach?

In my own experience, I am still the same coach, albeit with increasing breadth and a greater appreciation of the need to flex my coaching style so that it becomes meaningful in the context in which my clients operate. Working in a variety of sectors and industries has enabled me to recognise that one size doesn’t fit all – at a macro level it’s about choosing a model of coaching that is aligned to enhancing organisational performance, and at a micro level, selecting the most appropriate coach for the job. What is best practice in one context may not be best practice in another.

Learning points

  • Internal coaches may deliver more hours than external coaches or significantly less depending on the way coaching is set up. They may have a coaching brokering role too.
  • Internal coaches have strengths and philosophies that underpin their work and guide their practice, just like externals.
  • How an internal coach is performance-managed will inform their behaviour (and their clients) just as business interests will for an external.
  • Contracting has different challenges in different contexts. As an internal, how do you ensure the client understands your place in the system? As an external how do you connect with their system to meet organisational as well as individual needs? Internal and external coaches are two sides of the same coaching coin. But the world can look very different depending on whether you are heads or tails.
  • The unique complexities and dilemmas of being an internal coach need to be addressed and explored during CPD/training interventions. One size doesn’t fit all. What is best practice in one context may not be best practice in another.

Sara Hope was an internal coach at KPMG for eight years before she left to become an external coach last year.

Louise Buckle was an external coach for seven years and joined KPMG as a lead internal coach last year.

  1. M Frisch, “The emerging role of the internal coach”, in Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 53 (4), pp240-250, autumn 2001.
  2. M Frisch, “Extending the reach of executive coaching”, in The Internal Coach Human Resource Planning, 28 (1), March 2005.
  3. S Kampa and R P White, “The effectiveness of executive coaching: what we know and what we still need to know”, in R Lowman (ed), Handbook of Organisational Consulting Psychology: A Comprehensive Guide to Theory, Skills, and Techniques: pp139-158, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002.
  4. D C Feldman and M Lankau, “Executive coaching: a review and agenda for future research”, in Journal of Management, 31 (829), 2005.

Coaching at Work, Volume 5, Issue 5

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Gold Prices Surge Nearly $20, Silver Rallies, US Coins Up

by on November 19, 2012 · 0 comments

layers of gold

Gold, silver and other precious metals surged

Gold prices jumped nearly $20 Monday, more than erasing losses from last week. Silver, platinum and palladium rallied as well.

Precious metals were lifted, opined analysts, as optimism grew for a U.S. budget deal. That limited safe-haven support for the U.S. dollar and inflated riskier investment appetites as U.S. stocks enjoyed one their best trading days in months.

Gold prices for December delivery surged $19.70, or 1.2%, to settle at $1,734.40 an ounce on the Comex in New York. Intraday trading levels were from $1,713.40 to $1,735.50. Gold prices last week fell $16.20 or 0.9%.

"People are in a ‘risk-on’ mode as they expect Washington to come up with a solution" on the so-called fiscal cliff, Adam Klopfenstein, a senior market strategist at Archer Financial Services Inc. in Chicago, said in a telephone interview that was relayed on Bloomberg. "The situation in the Middle East is also putting some bid under gold."

In other New York precious metals futures prices Monday:

  • Silver for December delivery soared 81.9 cents, or 2.5%, to close at $33.189 an ounce, trading between $32.285 and $33.210.

  • Platinum for January delivery closed at $1,583.80 an ounce, advancing $22.00 or 1.4%. The precious metal ranged from $1,559.60 to $1,584.70.

  • Palladium for December delivery rallied $18.85, or 3.0%, to $645.30 an ounce, trading between $626.45 and $646.25.

Last week silver declined 0.7% while platinum edged up 0.2% and palladium jumped 2.5%.

London Bullion Prices

London precious metals were also higher Monday. In contrasting the latest PM fixings:

  • Gold prices added $17.00, or 1.0%, to $1,730.50 an ounce,
  • Silver gained 40.0 cents, or 1.2%, to $32.67 an ounce,
  • Platinum climbed $18.00, or 1.2%, to $1,572.00 an ounce, and
  • Palladium advanced $19.00, or 3.0%, to $642.00 an ounce

Prices were mixed last week with gains of 0.3% for silver and 1.8% for palladium and losses of 1.4% for gold and 0.3% for platinum.

US Bullion Coin Sales in November

Gains on Monday for bullion coins from the U.S. Mint were limited to American Eagles. Gold Eagles climbed 1,500 and Silver Eagles advanced 32,000. Both increases are on the modest side for a start to a new week but sales during the first half of the month have been exceptionally high.

The following table lists the newest daily, November and year-to-date bullion sales as published by the U.S. Mint.

US Mint American Eagle and Buffalo Bullion Coin Sales
  Daily Sales November Sales YTD 2012
$50 American Eagle Gold Coins 1,500 53,000 517,500
$25 American Eagle Gold Coins 0 3,000 66,000
$10 American Eagle Gold Coins 0 4,000 70,000
$5 American Eagle Gold Coins 0 20,000 300,000
$50 American Buffalo Gold Coins 0 8,000 115,500
American Silver Eagle Coin 32,000 2,297,500 31,245,500

America the Beautiful 5 Oz. Silver Bullion Coin Sales
  Daily Sales November Sales All-Time Total
2012 El Yunque National Forest 5 oz. Silver Bullion Coins 0 1,800 19,900
2012 Chaco Culture National Historical Park 5 oz. Silver Bullion Coins 0 1,800 20,000
2012 Acadia National Park 5 oz. Silver Bullion Coins 0 500 22,300
2012 Hawai’i Volcanoes 5 oz. Silver Bullion Coins 0 5,000 20,000
2012 Denali National Park 5 oz. Silver Bullion Coins 0 2,500 15,000
2011 Olympic National Park 5 oz. Silver Bullion Coins 0 0 85,900
2011 Vicksburg National Military Park 5 oz. Silver Bullion Coins 0 0 39,500
2011 Chickasaw Park 5 oz. Silver Bullion Coins 0 0 29,700
TOTAL 0 11,600 252,300

Bullion sales above are in the number of coins sold, not the amount of ounces.

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Friday, March 4, 2016

Navy Veterans Want Navy to Fight For Them After Agent Orange Struck

Sick Navy vets hunt for decades-old records to prove they should get Agent Orange benefits
The Virginian-Pilot
By Mike Hixenbaugh
Charles Ornstein
Terry Parris Jr.
1 hr ago

“It's hell,” said Ed Marciniak, of Pensacola, Fla., who served aboard the Norfolk-based USS Jamestown during the war. “The Navy should be going to the VA and telling them, ‘This is how people got aboard the ship, this is where they got off, this is how they operated.’ Instead, they put that burden on old, sick, dying veterans, or worse – their widows.”
During the Vietnam War, hundreds of U.S. Navy ships crossed into Vietnam's rivers or sent crew members ashore, possibly exposing their sailors to the toxic herbicide Agent Orange. But more than 40 years after the war’s end, the U.S. government doesn't have a full accounting of which ships traveled where, adding hurdles and delays for sick Navy veterans seeking compensation.

The Navy could find out where each of its ships operated during the war, but it hasn’t. The U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs says it won’t either, instead choosing to research ship locations on a case-by-case basis, an extra step that veterans say can add months – even years – to an already cumbersome claims process. Bills that would have forced the Navy to create a comprehensive list have failed in Congress.

Some 2.6 million Vietnam veterans are thought to have been exposed to – and possibly harmed by – Agent Orange, which the U.S. military used to defoliate dense forests, making it easier to spot enemy troops. But vets are only eligible for VA compensation if they went on land – earning a status called “boots on the ground” – or if their ships entered Vietnam’s rivers, however briefly.
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Tuesday, November 22, 2016

7 veterans commit suicide every 10 days in Arizona

Report: 7 veterans commit suicide every 10 days in Arizona
Daily Courier
Scott Orr
November 22, 2016
“This is one thing that a veteran should not feel like they have to do on their own.” Nicholas Wood
PHOENIX – Between January 2015 and June 2016 — an 18-month period — 393 veterans committed suicide in Arizona, according to a report issued by the Arizona Violent Death Reporting System on Thursday, Nov. 10.

And, although the study does not provide hard numbers on Yavapai County, it does show that the suicide rate for veterans in the county is 76.2 per 100,000, which is slightly higher than the average rate statewide.

Some of the smaller counties have higher rates, with La Paz recording 146.3 suicides per 100,000, and Maricopa and Pima counties coming in just below Yavapai County, with 75.8 and 72.0, respectively.

The goal of the study is to aggregate data from county medical examiners and law enforcement to help detect trends in veteran suicides, and also homicides, with an eye toward preventing them in the future, said David Choate, associate director of the Arizona State University Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety.
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Monday, 1 April 2013

FreePP; a free voice, mms and sms App for Android devices and Windows Phone

FreePP; a free voice, mms and sms App for Android devices and Windows Phone

The world is just getting better and users continue to get goodies.  FreePP Inc has launched this very good App for Android called the FreePP.   This nifty little App can deliver voice over IP with ease.

FreePP is a free VoIP and multimedia SMS application that works across all platforms. You can enjoy FreePP on your Android phone and any other smartphones and tablets with any OS.
Wherever you are, as long as you are connected to the internet through WiFi or 3G, you can have one to one/one to many free voice calls, free texts, free picture sharing and messages with FreePP users around the globe.
Four main functions of FreePP:
1. Voice call: excellent voice quality that makes you feel like chitchatting with friends who sit right next to you!
2. Multimedia message: With FreePP, real time sharing is just within a click! It’s fun and convenient. You can send texts, emoticons, pictures, voice messages, and other files to your FreePP contacts.
3. Many to Many group chat: FreePP enables a friendly group chat environment. Now you and your friends around the world can easily share lives through texts, voice messages and pictures.
4. File sending support: FreePP android version supported send for files, music, movies and many other types of files that transferred freely between Android phone! It’s make you convenient to work, share and play anywhere.

Remember once you and your contact are both on FreePP, all your calls, texts, and multimedia messages will be free! International calls or calls across different devices/platforms would no longer be a trouble! They are still free. However, if you are calling someone who is not a FreePP user, you will be charged by local operators and  No missed messages: FreePP remains active even when you are not using it. You would never miss a single call or message. When your phones are turned off, notifications will arrive when you turn them on.

Give it a try on Google Play  Windows Phone also has a version which you can download from here, it works on Windows Phone 7.5 as well as 8.

Please post your comments regarding this App.

Vijay Prabhu

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So we proposed a new volunteer strategy and policy, and new committees for Welfare, FE, HE, Union Development and Society & Citizenship ("Zone Committees") that would have involved staff, officers and students from local students' unions. These less formal committees would have led NUS' work in a particular area, scrutinised the work of full time officers and worked with unions to deliver campaigns and programmes of work

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Does this not explicitly disenfranchise people who are not specifically interested in one of the five zones?

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ADDRESS:East of Chuangye Street,Taian City, Shandong, China

How to avoid failure of fuel injection pump and injector
Jun 11, 2018

The development and use of injection pump test rigs is very important. During the development of injection pump test rigs, there are many issues that warrant attention:

Adjust the injection pump test bench injection advance angle. The injection advance angle changes, most of which is caused by the loosening of the screw of the high pressure pump connecting plate. The injection advance angle should be recalibrated. After adjusting the injection advance angle, tighten the high-pressure pump connecting plate bolts to prevent loosening.

Check and adjust the injection pump test stand. According to experience, as long as the use of diesel is carefully managed, the injection pumps and injectors rarely malfunction. If individual cylinder injectors are poorly atomized and do not burn well, they should be calibrated.

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What is Companion Care?

two woman smiling

What is Companion Care?

As we age, circumstances that limit our ability to get together with our love ones and friends on a consistent basis often impact an individual’s well being and creates a void in a person’s social life.

For many families, Companion Care Partners LLC fills this void by helping families who have a loved one who may live alone or maybe isolated from love ones for a period of time throughout the day with companionship.

Companionship care can help your love one stay mentally healthy and alert by engaging in converstation and with stimulating recreation activities. It provides a valuable social benefit by decreasing isolation and helping reduce depression caused from being alone.

Why Choose Us?

Our Mission Statement

We, at Companion Care Partners LLC are committed to providing outstanding care and services to all of our clients. Our company is built on the principles of fidelity, justice, integrity, and honor; at which each and every client is treated with these principles. We strive to deliver high-quality cost effective care one interaction at a time.

Our services

We take pride in…

  • Socially engaging your love ones at home
  • Accompanying your loved one to social events
  • Being a companion who listens, cares and shows compassion for your love ones in your absence.

Companion activities we support:

  • Art projects
  • Reading
  • Gardening
  • Crochet
  • Knitting
  • Board Games
  • Card Games
  • Attend social events
  • Assist with daily errands
  • Movies and TV shows
  • Lunch and dinner dates


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How BT uses data analytics to cut down engineer call-outs

The telecoms company uses the Cloudera platform powered by Apache Hadoop to drive efficiencies in its use of engineers and reduce nuisance calls.

Tom Macaulay Dec 19th 2017

BT is turning to big data analytics to cut down on unnecessary engineer dispatches, improve broadband performance and reduce the occurrence of nuisance calls.

The telecoms giant runs a Cloudera enterprise data hub powered by Apache Hadoop that allows it to quickly analyse data from millions of users.

Data stored in Hadoop gives BT the ability to analyse network characteristics to identify whether slow internet speeds are caused by a network or customer issue. BT can then evaluate whether an engineer is likely able to repair the problem. The company claims that this enhanced understanding of performance problems has saved the company millions of pounds by reducing the number of unnecessary technician dispatches.

It has also helped them create new services for customers, such as "View My Engineer", the SMS and email alerting system that lets customers track the location of Openreach engineers. The company next plans to add predictive analytics to improve vehicle maintenance.

"We think it's been about a times ten return on big data across a whole range of different projects," says Jason Perkins, head of business insights and analytics architecture at BT.

Those projects range from analysing how regional weather variations affect infrastructure performance to identifying the reasons for spikes in call centre volume and reducing nuisance calls.

"We were able to use a big data approach and machine learning to filter out those calls, which were becoming a major problem," says Perkins.

"It's dramatically reduced the number of nuisance calls and freed up bandwidth, which is really important for us as well. It's had a great impact for the customer as well as they're getting a lot less noise in their lives."

The Cloudera platform

The Cloudera enterprise data hub (EDH) is a commercial platform for big data management that provides a unified view of customer data stored in a Hadoop environment.

BT’s previous extract, transform, and load (ETL) processes were built on a traditional relational database that was struggling to process BT’s vast volumes of customer data spread across different siloes.

The distributed nature of Hadoop lends itself to this kind of data problem, and helped BT process five times the volume of data in a third of the time that it could on the old system. The result was a return on investment of between 200 and 250 percent within one year of the deployment.

"We found £1 billion of extra revenue by getting our data in order,” Perkins claimed. “That's a lot of change to find down the back of the sofa."

The hub forms part of a multi-purpose analytics architecture at BT that also includes a data lake, an enterprise data warehouse that supports business intelligence and marketing, and an analytics sandbox where they can test new ideas. There are currently 50 such experiments running in the sandbox, which can quickly be retired if they fail or put into production if they succeed.

BT ensures the data is used responsibility through usage policies and techniques such as encryption capabilities, differential privacies that edit the raw data, and digital watermarking to trace any data that comes out of the BT platform.

“The big data platform is enabling us to bring the data together, but also add the smarts on top of it, whether it be machine learning, AI, the self-service capabilities, whether that's data prep or data visualisation. It's allowing us to give that information to our users so they can make much more informed decisions.”

Why Cloudera?

BT also investigated data services offered by Hortonworks and MapR, before plumping for Cloudera.

"We thought Cloudera was a leader," says Perkins. "We were not just looking at that time, but we were trying to look forward, which is always hard, but we thought they had the best mix.

"They had some great use cases where other companies who we admired were using them, which gave us the confidence that they'd be a great partner for us, and we had confidence in their plans going forward.

"When you're going for what was at the time quite a small vendor, you're always worried about mergers, acquisitions, what's going to happen to this company when we've got all our data invested in it. Those were important considerations at the time."

Perkins now wants to integrate sensors in its fleet of vehicles that can support predictive analytics to identify vehicle failings and exploit new capabilities such as streaming analytics, machine learning and iterative processing.

"The whole point of having all this data is to make the customers' lives better," he says. "If you can understand it, we'll be able to get away from customers having to ring us up to tell us about their problems. We'll know about them, we'll be fixing them before they tell us about them. That's the ambition."


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Blizzard Announces Diablo 3

Blizzard Announces Diablo 3

Published On June 28, 2008 | By Console Monster | News

Today, Blizzard Entertainment finally got rid of the mystery and unveiled Diablo 3. For days, Blizzard teased fans, leading to wild speculation of what their announcement could be.

Stay tuned for all the latest news about Diablo 3.

Originally Written By: Art

About The Author

Console Monster is an independent gaming website that is dedicated to the Xbox and PlayStation gamer. Established in 2005 our team of UK and USA volunteer gamers bring our readers regular console gaming articles. If you are looking for a platform to get yourself heard, we would love to hear from you!


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Merry Christmas from the Monster Staff

Merry Christmas from the Monster Staff

Published On December 25, 2006 | By Console Monster | News

On behalf of Anthony, Russ, Barrie, Lee, Toby, James, Art, Steve, Michael, Chris, Luke, Arthur and, of course, myself, I’d like to wish all of 360Monster’s visitors a very Merry Christmas.

In between tucking into your festive turkey, why not check out our latest Podcast, check out our verdicts on the biggest releases this Holiday in our Reviews or just hang out in our Forums.

Originally Written By: Scott Webber

About The Author

Console Monster is an independent gaming website that is dedicated to the Xbox and PlayStation gamer. Established in 2005 our team of UK and USA volunteer gamers bring our readers regular console gaming articles. If you are looking for a platform to get yourself heard, we would love to hear from you!


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The 29-year-old singer was spotted at the vigil being held for the 12 people who are confirmed to be dead at the time of writing, when a faulty fridge exploded inside the 27-storey apartment building and set the entire block ablaze in just 15 minutes.

A Twitter fan account for the singer tweeted the news in the early hours of Thursday (15.06.17) morning, and claimed the star was ''hugging everyone'' and doing her best to ''comfort them''.

The user - who goes by the name @AdeleUnion - wrote: ''Adele is at currently at Grenfell Tower asking if anyone needs help that was affected by the fire

''Adele was going around and hugging everyone she could to comfort them (sic)''

Twitter user @FourMee also tweeted about Adele's appearance, and shared an image of the star at the vigil.

They wrote: ''Adele near the #Grenfell Tower in an Abaya. Respect to you. (sic)''

And the same user took to Instagram to share a collage of images of the 'Hello' hitmaker, where they also claimed her husband Simon Konecki had joined her.

They captioned the image: ''Just spotted @Adele and Simon Konecki visiting the Grenfell Tower, she was dressed in an abaya. Respect to both of you. #Adele#grenfelltower #simonkonecki (sic)''

It isn't the first time Adele has shown her respect after tragedy has struck London, as back in March she told fans in Auckland that she wanted to be at home after a terror attack left four dead and 40 injured when a car drove into pedestrians on Westminster bridge before a man climbed out of the car and stabbed a police officer.

She said at the time: ''Today there was a terror attack in my hometown of London. I'm literally on the other side of the world and I want them to see our lights and to hear us.

''It's very strange not being home, all I want to do today is be at home with my friends and family. All of them are fine but there are four people the death count was four at the time who aren't fine so let's dedicate this to them tonight.''


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Brad Pitt goes to therapy every week following his bitter split from Angelina Jolie.

The 54-year-old actor has also quit drinking alcohol and is doing his best to be a better man and a good father to Maddox, 16, Pax, 13, Zahara, 12, Shiloh, 11 and nine-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne, over a year after splitting from their mother.

Asource told Us Weekly Magazine: ''He goes to therapy every week and is mostly interested in learning and bettering himself as a man and father.''

The 'World War Z' star prefers to keep things ''private and safe'' when he has visitation time with his children, but he would love to spend more time with them.

The insider said: ''Brad doesn't go out much with the kids or leave the house. But Brad would definitely like to spend more time with them than he does.

''He prefers to keep things very private and safe. It's his sanctuary and just being there is where he finds peace.

''He has projects around the house and is always making things or changing things around.''

As well as spending time with his children, Brad is reportedly reconnecting with old friends including 'Fight Club' director David Fincher and make-up artist Jean Blac,k as well as visiting galleries and concerts.

The source said: ''They've always been loyal to him and were there for him when the marriage ended.

''He visits galleries and goes to a lot of concerts.''

The 'Moneyball' star previously admitted his drinking became a ''problem'' after the breakdown of his marriage.

He said: ''I can't remember a day since I got out of college when I wasn't boozing or had a spliff, or something. Something. And you realise that a lot of it is, um --cigarettes, you know, pacifiers. And I'm running from feelings.

''I'm really, really happy to be done with all of that. I mean I stopped everything except boozing when I started my family. But even this last year, you know -- things I wasn't dealing with.

''I was boozing too much. It's just become a problem.''


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Miley Cyrus has retracted her apology for posing naked in Vanity Fair when she was 15.

There was public outcry in 2008 when the then star of Disney Channel's 'Hannah Montana' kids TV show posed for photograher Annie Leibovitz topless and wrapped in a bedsheet, causing Miley to release a statement apologising for making a poor judgement.

But Miley, 25, has apparently changed her mind, tweeting a picture of the front page of the New York Post's coverage of the scandal at the time, captioned: ''IM NOT SORRY F*** YOU #10yearsago [sic]''

In the accompanying 'Vanity Fair' interview in 2008 Miley was asked if she thought posing topless aged 15 could be seen as controversial. She was quoted as saying: ''No, I mean I had a big blanket on. And I thought, 'This looks pretty, and really natural.' I think it's really artsy.''

This sparked a media frenzy prompting both Disney and Miley to release statements saying sorry for the shoot.

Disney said at the time: ''Unfortunately, as the article suggests, a situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines.''

Miley's words upon the matter were: ''I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be 'artistic' and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed. I never intended for any of this to happen and I apologise to my fans who I care so deeply about.''

After leaving Disney, Miley has gone on to appear completely naked in her video for single 'Wrecking Ball' and shock with her racy red carpet outfits and garner likes on social media in various states of undress.

Miley - who is engaged to actor Liam Hemsworth - was apparently enjoying a trip down memory lane on Twitter as along with the Vanity Fair snap, she posted a series of old photos of herself as a child.

In the cute smiley snaps, Miley reminisced about, ''Being extra AF!'' and ''Feeling Myself''.