Education Essay

Step 1. Create a short answer (150-250 words) to each of the following questions. 1. How do social interactions among people in locales help define community?  2. How do schools help to shape the local boundaries of communities and the identity of community members?  3. Although schools and the communities they serve are closely entwined and community development is in the best interests of schools, why may school leaders be hesitant about involving schools and students in important community development roles? 4. Of all social institutions, why might schools be best placed to catalyze community development?  5. What are some likely results of school consolidation in a rural community or urban neighborhood?  6. Beyond the socially integrative functions, what distinct local economic roles might a school have in a rural community or urban neighborhood?  7. What characteristics of a well-planned school-community partnership project would indicate it is mutually beneficial?  8. How might a community or neighborhood development activity reinforce what is ta ught in the public school classroom?  9. What barriers might a community development organization expect to experience when seeking to partner with a public school or school district?  10. How can service learning and place-based education serve to facilitate a  viable schoolcommunity partnership and accomplishment of local community or neighborhood development needs? Step 2. Discuss your responses with a group of 4 or 5 classmates. SOAR ACTIVITY 15.1 SCHOOL-COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS Step 1. Contact your local elementary, middle and high schools. Step 2. Interview the principals about their partnerships with community organizations. Step 3. Have them describe each activity and assess the benefits to the school and community. Step 4. Compile a list of all the organizations and institutions involved with school programs. Step 5. As part of this project, prepare a list of recommendations for improving schoolcommunity partnerships in your area. LIFE Activity 15.1 Here are some examples of school-based service learning projects: 1. Drop-out prevention: A service-learning project focused on drop-out prevention might coordinate schools with local businesses to partner at-risk students with job shadowing and mentoring opportunities with local business leaders/members. These connections will help build bridges between schoolwork and work â€Å"in the real world,† and develop stronger ties between schools and local business, better meeting the needs of each while providing important opportunities to at-risk youth. 2. Subject-specific service-learning: Science and reading provide two examples of subjectspecific service-learning. Connecting college students majoring in science with schools to tutor K-12 students can create opportunities for hands-on learning during or after school hours. This might involve engaging in environmental projects, such as local water quality testing, cleaning of local stream or river beds, or wildlife conservation efforts. Similarly, college students majoring in language arts or reading might provide tutoring services during or after school for at-risk students, assist in running family literacy programs after school to engage parents in literacy efforts, and/or read to students at the elementary level. 2. Building school-community connections: Students plan a school-community day, in which school staff, community members, and students organize, run, and attend a school-community fair. The school can set up exhibits of student learning and projects students are engaged in that connect to the community. Community leaders can set up exhibits featuring ways they have been or would like to be involved with the school and with students. Local businesses might provide food and donate prizes or items for auction. Students at the school can perform music or showcase artwork. This would also be a good venue for team-building exercises between  community organizations and businesses and school staff and leaders, culminating in competitions with awards. These are only a few examples. We want to emphasize though that effective service learning projects are not â€Å"paint by the numbers† efforts, but are directly shaped by and responsive to the individual needs of local communities. That said, examples are useful, but ultimately your best guide is the community that lies before you. REFERENCE MATERIAL ON EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY SERVICELEARNING Syllabi: Literacy Tutoring: Principles and Practice (Syracuse University) http://www.compact.org/syllabi/syllabus.php?viewsyllabus=407 Service Learning in Higher Education (Vanderbilt University) http://www.compact.org/syllabi/syllabus.php?viewsyllabus=663 APPENDIX: Additional Resources to Learn about School-Community Partnerships for Community Development:  NOTE that the following descriptions have been taken directly from organization websites and have been only slightly modified, if at all. Associations, Organizations and Centers Center for Place-Based Education http://www.anei.org/pages/89_cpbe.cfm The Center for Place-based Education promotes community-based education programs. Its projects and programs encourage partnerships between students, teachers, and community members that strengthen and support student achievement, community vitality and a healthy environment. Coalition for Community Schools http://www.communityschools.org The Coalition for Community Schools represents an alliance of national, state and local organizations concerned with K-16 education, youth development, community planning, family support, health and human services, government and philanthropy, as well as national, state and local community school networks. The Coalition advocates for community schools as a means to strengthen schools, families and communities and improve student learning. Rural School and Community Trust http://www.ruraledu.org The Rural School and Community Trust is a national nonprofit organization addressing the crucial relationship between good schools and thriving communities. It also serves as an information clearinghouse on issues concerning the relationship between schools and communities, especially in rural contexts. School of the 21st Century. Linking Communities, Families and Schools http://www.yale.edu/21c/index2.html Based at Yale University, the 21C program develops, researches, networks, and supervises an educational model that links communities, families, and schools by transforming the school into a year-round, multi-service center that is open from 6 in the morning until 7 at night. The core components are affordable, high-quality child care for preschool children, before- and afterschool programs for school-age children; and health services, referral services, support, and guidance for parents of young children. Schools and Communities http://www.enterprisecommunity.org/programs/schools_and_communities/ This webpage of Enterprise Community Partners documents and disseminates the nation’s current efforts to combine school reform and community development. Web-based Documents and Material Local Governments and Schools: A Community-Oriented Approach http://icma.org/documents/SGNReport.pdf (International City/County Management Association, Washington, DC , 2008) Provides local government managers with an understanding of the connections between school facility planning and local government management issues, with particular attention to avoiding the creation of large schools remotely sited from the community they serve. It offers multiple strategies for local governments and schools to bring their respective planning efforts together to take a more community-oriented approach to schools and reach multiple community goals-educational, environmental, economic, social, and fiscal. Eight case studies illustrate how communities across the U.S. have already succeeded in collaborating to create more communityoriented schools. Includes 95 references and an extensive list of additional online resources. 40p. Report NO: E-43527 Reconnecting Schools and Neighborhoods: An Introduction to School-Centered Community Revitalization http://www.practitionerresources.org/cache/documents/647/64701.pdf (Enterprise, Columbia, MD , 2007) Provides an introduction to school-centered community revitalization. Part 1 presents the case for integrating school improvement into community development, drawing on the academic research linking school and neighborhood quality as well as early results from school- centered community revitalization projects across the country. Part 2 presents the core components of school-centered community revitalization, including both school-based activities and neighborhood-based activities. The final part of the paper illustrates the diverse approaches currently being taken to improve schools and neighborhoods, drawing on the experiences of eight  school-centered community revitalization initiatives in five cities: Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, and St. Paul. 30p. New Relationships With Schools. Organizations That Build Community by Connecting With Schools. Volumes One and Two  http://www.publicengagement.com/practices/publications/newrelationshipssmry.htm (Collaborative Communications Group for the Kettering Foundation, Nov 2004) Case studies of organizations that establish strong connections between communities and schools using many different entry points. Includes a profile of New School Better Neighborhoods, a nonprofit intermediary organization in Los Angeles that works to design schools that serve as centers of communities. The organization brings together community stakeholders to plan multiuse development that combines residential, recreational, and educational use of scarce land in densely populated urban areas. Schools, Community, and Development. Erasing the Boundaries http://www.practitionerresources.org/cache/documents/56274.pdf Proscio, Tony (The Enterprise Foundation, Columbia, MD, 2004) This describes the results of efforts in four neighborhoods in Baltimore, St. Louis, and Atlanta to connect community-based revitalization initiatives with school reform programs in the same neighborhoods. Chapters include: 1) Building and Learning Go Seperate Ways; 2) The SchoolCommunity Alliance in Practice; 3) The Developer as Educator; 4) Housing and Economic Development. 39p. Using Public Schools as Community-Development Tools: Strategies for Community-Based Developers http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/publications/communitydevelopment/W02-9_Chung.pdf Chung, Connie (Harvard University, Joint Center for Housing Studies, Cambridge, MA; Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation. , 2002) This paper explores the use of public schools as tools for community and  economic development. As major place-based infrastructure and an integral part of the community fabric, public schools can have a profound impact on the social, economic, and physical character of a neighborhood. Addressing public schools, therefore, is a good point of entry for community-based developers to place their work in a comprehensive community-development context. The paper examines ways in which community-based developers can learn from, as well as contribute to, current community-based efforts, particularly in disinvested urban areas, to reinforce the link between public schools and neighborhoods. Furthermore, the paper considers the policy implications of including public schools in comprehensive development strategies, and asserts that reinforcing the link between public schools and neighborhoods is not only good education policy, but also good community-development policy and practice. An appendix presents contact information for organizations participating in school and community linkages. 55p.

Baderman Island Expansion

Several methods of expanding a company exist. The Baderman Island resort is looking into different options to expand their operations. This paper will explore the subject of the three main options; acquiring another organization in the same industry, going public through an Initial Public Offering (IPO), and merging with another organization. Additionally, it will provide analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of each option. Finally, it will provide a recommendation regarding which would be the best option for Baderman Island Resort to use to expand its operations. Acquisition Baderman Island Resort may expand its operations by acquiring Atlantis Resorts to increase growth and market share. Baderman Island would have to purchase Atlantis Resorts stock or assets. This expansion strategy has strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The strengths of an acquisition include the potential to acquire more revenue to lead to yet more growth. Other strengths include financial leverage, lower cost of operations, and increased market share. The weaknesses of acquiring Atlantis resorts include the high cost of acquisition, intangible costs, legal expenses, and possible devaluation of the organization. Opportunities created by the acquisition include the additional resources provided by the Atlantis. Expanded productivity also results from a successful acquisition. Threats also exist in an acquisition strategy. Management of the two companies often struggle over who will run the organizations and its departments. An acquisition also creates higher employee turnover because of employees unhappy with the new organization. This in turn creates hiring costs. IPO Offering To expand their resort operation, Baderman Island may explore various financial opportunities to achieve their strategic goal. The first option available is to issue an IPO. An IPO is a distribution of public stock to the open market for the first time (Keown, Martin, Petty, & Scott, Jr, 2005). Baderman Island would sell new shares to the public to generate the appropriate capital needed to meet their operational/financial goals. An IPO offering could finance the expansion plans for Baderman Island, but they must review both strengths and weaknesses that exist before making a clear decision. By selling shares in the organization, they can use the newly generated funds for research and development for the organization, to pay off an existing debt, or to bring public awareness to the organization, all of which are strengths gained from the IPO offering. By issuing an IPO and obtaining outside investors, it will force the organization to become financially transparent to their investors. Additional disclosures will need to be provided, and the organization will be forced to follow rules and regulations established by The Security and Exchange Act of 1934 and commit to periodic financial reporting (Keown, 2005). They must make this information available to investors, employees, and competitors. This additional work and required open disclosure of confidential information might be viewed as a weakness or intrusion to organizational privacy. Baderman Island management must look at the opportunities for each of the options for growth. Pursuing an IPO will provide the influx of money needed for expansion, a higher industry profile, and a greater opportunity for stock investors. The pursuit of an IPO has various results that could threaten Baderman Island’s organizational and financial goals. By issuing public stock, Baderman Island will have to comply with stringent reporting to the SEC that may reveal important company information to the competitors. Last, the addition of stockholders will restrict certain control of major managerial decisions. Merger A merger is yet another avenue Baderman Island has at its disposal to expand its business. Mergers create a number of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. A SWOT analysis of using a merger to expand operations follows. A strength from performing a merger is the ability to acquire a company’s unused debt. â€Å"Some firms simply do not exhaust their debt capacity. If a firm with unused debt capacity is acquired, the new management can then increase debt financing, and reap the tax benefits associated with the increased leverage† (Keown, 2005, pp. 23-4). Another strength is enabling Baderman Island to remove an ineffective management strategy or team. Baderman Island has the option to decide who stays with the merged company, and who is out the door. Often times, a weak management leading team is the problem the organization has not evaluated for its mediocre success. â€Å"The merger of two firms can result in an increase in market or monopoly power. Although this can result in increased wealth, it may also be illegal. The Clayton Act, as amended by the Celler-Kefauver Amendment of 1950, makes any merger illegal that results in a monopoly or substantially reduces competition. The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission monitor all mergers to ensure that they do not result in a reduction of competition† (Keown, 2005, pp. 23-4). Weaknesses of a merger for Baderman Island are the many distractions that rise to the surface. Employees may show concern with the future of his or her employment, rather than concentrating on the job-at-hand, thus causing lower production and quality control. Baderman Island is vulnerable to losing customers during the merger. Consumers may question whether or not the previous company will conduct business in the same way in which he or she has become accustomed. Some opportunities for Baderman Island would be to reach customers where it may not have previously. New markets, cash, revenue, and capital are available to Baderman Island to complete its expansion. Finally, threats in an acquisition mainly take the form of other competition. Multiple resorts exist and are always on the lookout for new competition and what they are doing. Baderman Island must stay vigilant with maintaining a sound management team, to steer clear of a larger resort organization trying to merge with it. Recommendation The suggested option for Baderman Island Resort to take at this point is to merge with a larger chain of resorts. According to the several blogs available on the resort’s site, there is room to upgrade in virtually every aspect of the resort including service, amenities, and reservations. Upgrading these systems seems to be a necessity. Merging with a large resort would not only bring financial stability, but also the management skills present in such large chains would alleviate many of the issues found in the resort. Conclusion This paper explored the three main options for the Baderman Island Resort to expand; acquiring another organization in the same industry, going public through an Initial Public Offering (IPO), and merging with another organization. Additionally, it provided analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of each option. Finally, it provided a recommendation regarding which would be the best option for Baderman Island Resort to use to expand its operations.

Bacardi Breezer and the Marketing Mix

Bacardi Breezer and the Marketing mix Following the success of Bacardi rum, created in 1829 (Smith, 2002) the company decided to diversify in 1994 launching Bacardi Breezers. These are â€Å"refreshing blend of Barcardi rum, fruit juices, exotic flavourings and sparkling mineral water† (http://www. thedrinkshop. com/products/nlpdetail. php? prodid=410) Bacardi were the first to launch ready-to-drink alchopops and are currently the market leader in the segment.The Bacardi Breezers come in many different flavours such as watermelon, orange, line, pineapple, peach, grapefruit and cranberry. Bacardi also more recently brought out a half-sugar range with zesty lemon and raspberry flavours. Its fun colourful packaging with the distinctive bacardi logo is perfect for its target market of 18-24's. I do feel that Breezers may possibly be aimed more towards females with how colourful the alco-pops are, however that does not mean to say that Breezers don't appeal to males.The packaging i s the same for all bottles except the colour of the smaller labels determine the flavour of the alcopop being consumed. The bottles tend to only come in two different sizes, the smaller 275ml bottles which are most popular with the on-trade but are sold by both, and the 700ml bottle sold only by the off-trade. The 275ml bottles are also only available in 4 packs whereas competitors such as Smirnoff Ice sell 12 bottle packs.The â€Å"core† benefit of Bacardi breezer as a product is that it gets the consumer intoxicated, however this is not the only reason for consumption. When planning a product the core benefit is turned into an actual product, which then become the tangible benefits â€Å"they need to develop product and service features, design, a quality level, a brand name and packaging. † 1 (Armstrong, G. (2009) Marketing An Introduction. Essex, Pearson Education. ) So bacardi breezers product feature is its pre-mixed contents, its service features being helplines .Its design being more colourful than Bacardi's previous products makes it more attractive to the younger market its aimed at. Bacardi have set themselves a high quality level, â€Å"Breezer made the decision to maintain its premium pricing to reinforce its quality positioning and thus kept its price at the top of the range† (Case Study information. ) Having already established a brand name as Bacardi, Breezers packaging is very different to the core products as its fresh and modern rather than aiming for the more cosmopolitan market.For Bacardi's Augmented benefits however these are harder to distinguish as there is no need for installation or very much after sale service, although they do offer a warranty if you are not satisfied you can return the packaging and they will try to rectify the problem. Original Bacardi rum has a much simpler packaging which aims to interest its target market of women aged 25-39. In comparison to Breezers it is much more sophisticated and doesn 't have the playful edge that is associated with Breezers.In my opinion Bacardi rum is more likely to be seen is cocktail bars and contemporary pubs, whereas Breezers are spotted in nightclubs and consumed by a younger group whilst getting ready for a night out. Bacardi have also diversified into other pre-mixed drinks and introduced Bacardi Siler targeted at 21-27 year old young professionals enjoy being in a bar situation but don't necessarily like beer. (http://directmag. com/mag/marketing_million_push_rolls/) This also includes the mojito range which I feel makes it again more sophisticated than Breezers.Price is the amount charged for a product or service, the following table shows prices of the off trade for Bacardi Breezers. This indicates a competitive pricing strategy as Bacardi have set premium prices compared to some competitors in order to maintain the quality level expected of them and also the image of a better product that competitors, however they tend to be around t he same price as Smirnoff Ice and WKD in order to not be under-cut by these same quality competitors.Therefore Bacardi take note of what their direct competitors are doing and to an extent follow suit afterwards. It is clear that as market leader there is enough demand for Breezers at a premium price to its lower quality competitors such as Caribbean Twist. It is hard however to determine the definite pricing strategy for Breezers as there isn't enough widely spread information about Breezers marketing strategy this is because they are a private limited company and does not have to publish this information. The prices of on-trade prices vary widely from ? 2 to ? 3. 0 however most on-trade companies do not freely advertise their prices and therefore have more choice as to what to charge. It is clear however that in a social environment such as a nightclub prices will be higher than that of the off-trade as you are also paying for the experience. The on-trade tend to use value-added p rices in order to make more of a profit. Through research I have found that there are few pubs which actually sell Breezers over the counter, but almost every nightclub sells them which further indicates that Breezers are targeted at the younger market.The off-trade distribution channel for Bacardi Breezers is Producer -; Distribution centres -; Retailers -; Consumers. This is only a short channel of distribution, the reason for this is that Breezers do not need to go through many processes to be produced and therefore all production is in house. I feel that Bacardi could not use a distribution channel of only Producer -; Consumer as it is not that type of product and this way of distribution would not provide enough opportunity for marketing.Supermarkets such as Tesco can also benefit from economies of scales due to the size of their organisations and can then pass some of these savings onto the consumers. The on-trade distribution channel is Producer -; Distribution centres -; Who lesalers -; Retailers -; Consumers. The on-trade have a longer distribution channel as they will have wholesalers, this is due to the lack or storage for nightclus and they will also then benefit from economies of scale.The Breezer advertising campaign is very similar to that of WKD one of their competitors, Bacardi's slogan is ‘Bacardi Breezer: there’s Latin spirit in everyone’ (Cozens, 1999) whereas WKD uses â€Å"Have you got a WKD side? † (http://www. dooyoo. co. uk/drinks/wkd-blue/1305067/). It is clear that there is a huge focus on promotion for Breezers, this is known from the fact that they launched a ? 5. 6m advertising campaign in 1999.This was their main promotion of Breezers since the launch and this was what established the widespread product knowledge of Breezers consumers. Bacardi also used advertising to keep themselves ahead of the competition, â€Å"they ensure that they spend more on advertising and promotion than any of their rivalsâ⠂¬  (Case Study information). This means that if consumers are seeing more promotion from Bacardi Breezers, they will stick in their mind more than competitors such as WKD and therefore means that they will be more inclined to buy Breezers rather than its competitors.Bacardi Breezer – Segmentation and Targeting Bacardi Breezer, as said previously, targets 18-24's specifically those who are party-goers. This target market I feel do not have very much brand loyalty, this is due to the fact that a vast amount of this market are students and tend to change their buying habits very often. This means that it may be difficult to keep the same customers, which is why Bacardi need to constantly innovate and also advertise as much as possible.Their characteristics are the common interest in socialising and wanting a fun young alternative to beer and wine. Bacardi segments their market using their packaging for instance 18 year old will want the smaller 275ml bottle when they are out d rinking in pubs and clubs whereas 24 year olds would want the larger 700ml bottles that are available to put in their fridges at home. This means that they have different advertising campaigns for each size as they are aimed at different market segments.Bacardi uses the marketing mix by having different size bottles for their market segments and therefore having different prices as both ends of their target markets will have varying amounts of disposable income. Bacardi also use different types of promotion for the two alternatives in order to enable them to gain the interest of as many consumers as possible. Finally place is very important to how Bacardi targets their consumers as the younger end of their market buy more from the on-trade with the older ones purchasing increased amounts from the off-trade.

Fallout Book Report Essay

P.S. I am sorry the summary is so long but I wanted to make sure everything in the book was covered and there being 3 people makes it 2 times longer. The novel is a memoir of the lives of three children of a meth-addicted mother, Kristina, and how her addiction affected their lives. They now live in different homes, with different parents, as well as different last names. Each of them has a different story, some more fortunate than others. Hunter knows about his sisters and new younger brothers, while Summer knows about her brothers and Autumn knows nothing. It starts with Hunter’s story; adopted and raised by his biological mom’s mother and stepfather. He refers to his adoptive parents as â€Å"Mom and Dad.† He works at a radio station in Reno, Nevada. His girlfriend, Nikki, supports him in everything he does. As Christmas approaches, he is living with Nikki and having relationship troubles. Hunter is doing drugs more frequently, and cheats on Nikki with a persi stent radio groupie. All the while, Hunter is feeling like a piece of him is missing because of the lack of knowledge about his father. When he sees him, he knows, but his father is the date of his coworker, Montana. Hunter then gets drunk and calls Brendan (his father) out on his actions about how him raping Kristina produced Hunter. Once that situation is in the past, another problem occurs, as Hunter is approached by Nikki, who hears a voicemail left by Leah on Hunter’s phone about the cheating incident. He is kicked out of Nikki’s house and takes the guestroom in his parents’ house because, thanks to Kristina, his two younger brothers, David and Donald, have moved in and taken his room. Shortly after Hunter has moved back in, he is notified that Kristina will be spending Christmas with them. Autumn’s story takes place at her grandfather’s house in Texas. Her OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) and frequent panic attacks make her a loner at school, so her best friend is her Aunt Cora. Although she promises Autumn they will always be friends, she is wooed by her massage therapist professor and taken away from her. A new boy comes to her school and is immediately taken with her. She has a hard time opening up to him and even tells him her parents are dead. His name is Bryce and he ends up being Autumn’s first boyfriend, first kiss and first time. When her aunt announces her engagement, the happiness she gets from her new boyfriend fades and she feels alone. Desperate to make sure he stays with her, she has sex with him without protection. Realizing that being drunk makes everything easier to deal with, she begins drinking to make herself feel better. Her father’s and grandmother’s interruption at Aunt Cora’s wedding only makes things worse, bringing her past to her present; then, Bryce finds out her parents aren’t dead. Devastated about the lying, Bryce leaves Autumn, and to make matters worse her drinking has gotten out of hand and she is almost raped by the groom’s cousin, Micah. The wedding ends when Autumn realizes how lonely she is and begins to wish she is pregnant, and her father finds her and tells her how she came to be. In the process, he convinces her to go to Reno for Christmas to see the mother she never knew. The California foster system took Summer away shortly after living wi th her father when they were abandoned by Kristina. She knows everyone in her family except for Autumn. Her father’s ex-girlfriends have molested and used her, causing her to be thrown in different homes with different problems. Her life is pretty stable in one home until one of the meth-using girls that also lives there molests one of the younger girls; it hits close to home and she is unable to control her anger. She gets in a fight with the meth girl and ends up getting sent to live back with her father and his girlfriend of the moment. The day after the fight, her boyfriend, Matt, saw her face and offered no sympathy, so she ran to his best friend, Kyle, who always showed interest. She ends up cheating on her boyfriend with Kyle by having sex with him. She knows that Kyle uses meth and other drugs but his loving nature has drawn her in. When he and Summer confront Matt about their newfound relationship, she sees the side of Kyle she never wanted to and realizes his addiction and anger may cause problems. The living conditions at her father’s house aren’t the be st; the constant smoking irritates her asthma and as Thanksgiving approaches, she starts to miss Kristina. She calls her, but can’t remember why; she was blown away by her mother’s selfishness and when her father is drunk later that night, he reveals that Kristina only cares about herself. Her father being drunk proves to be a much worse situation than just spilling the truth; his drinking costs him a DUI and he loses Summer. She is sent to another home in Fresno. Leaving her boyfriend and life behind, she is unwilling to move far away. When she gets to her new home, she is immediately taken aback by her new foster father. His demeanor worries her and makes her wonder what secrets the other girls in the house might have. She knows from experience not to get close to the other girls in the house, but one of the girls tells Summer her secrets and becomes attached to her. During the few days Summer is there, she hides her cell phone and planned to meet Kyle. When she sneaks from under her foster sister’s watch long enough to escape, she ends up running away with Kyle for Christmas—he is so in love with her that he even attempts to stop using meth for her, which means suffering through withdrawal. She and Kyle save up money and live out of his car while they head to a ski lodge, where Kyle plans to work. The stories collide when Kyle and Summer get in a car accident and the closest place to them is Reno, Nevada. Summer ends up calling her grandfather to pick her up from the hospital the morning after the blizzard hit and the accident happened. Hunter is out picking up Kristina and his grandfather from the airport after spending the early morning making up with Nikki. He knows that things won’t quite be merry and joyful Christmas morning with the whole family being together. Autumn and Trey show up before Summer gets there and when Trey sees Kristina, they are immediately drawn to each other and spend most of the day before dinner talking to each other. Summer tries to be sisterly to Autumn and Autumn doesn’t know what to make of all of it. When dinner starts, David asks when he’ll be going home and Kristina says she doesn’t know; Donald gets angry and tells her he never wants to go back—that he never wants to be with her again. Hunter is the first one to jump up when Kristina acts offended and he yells at her, telling her the only person responsible for what happened to her was her. Summer jumps in the argument too when Kristina begins to complain that she doesn’t have the resources to take care of her kids or give them a good life. The book ends with a newspaper article saying Marie Haskins has put her new book ‘Monster’, on indefinite hold while Kristina is undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. At this point, Kristina has reunited with her husband, Trey, and with her resources, she is trying to make her life better so she can be the mother she has never been. I can’t personally connect to this book but I can emotionally connect to this book. I have a friend in my life that I like a brother to me and he has parents just like hunter, autumn and summer. Drugs are a very personal matter and mess up your life more than anyone can know until it happens to you. I felt what he felt becaus e he is such a dear friend that all I could do was worry about him and wonder how he was doing in that new foster home he was moved to. I always heard all about the stories and the way he was in the foster home. He said it wasn’t easy and it was painful to know that everyone he loved had bailed out on him. He soon developed many of the problems these kids experienced with drinking and doing other drugs. This life isn’t easy from what I have heard. This book is very easy to relate other books by Ellen Hopkins because all of the books I have read by her seem to be about drugs and complications in life including hardships and suffering. I don’t really watch movies in this type of subject but I did hear that there is supposed to be a movie coming out based on the crank series by Ellen. I’m not sure whether it’s out or not but the books are great and movies tend to ruin the reading of the book. Both crank and glass led up to this point in the book series and was consistent throughout the storyline of all three books. There is so much drug abuse in the books and making right decisions is not one of Kristina’s strong points. I believe that the theme of this book is that drugs can ruin lives especially to the young girls out there. The plot of this story is to tell a story from the perspective from the 3 abandoned children that Kristina left behind. There storied tell about the hardships they went through and how life was for them during this painful teenage years. Even though the plot wasn’t very funny, it is very intriguing and interesting to find out what makes people do this to their own children and why they do the things they do. This story is told from the three kids point of view. And it switched off every so often so it was very suspenseful. The setting of this book is in three different places considering the three different points of view. Hunters’ setting was in Reno while Autumn’s setting was in Texas and Summer’s setting was anywhere the foster system took her. In my personal view the climax of the story was when all three of the children met for the first time and got to be a family together. In conclusion, I would recommend this book to anyone that enjoys reading this type of book seeing as how it has sex and drugs in it. I would definitely restrict this book to anyone under the age of 15 or 16. This book is a lot more profane then the others and I feel that you should be at least old enough to understand the meaning and why the book is how it is. Not many people judge books but I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants a good read and interesting enough to make it to when you put the book down you can’t wait to pick it back up. I truly feel her books are amazing and make you see how messed up some situations are.

Strategic Public Relations Plan for Tesco Assignment

Strategic Public Relations Plan for Tesco - Assignment Example An application of SOSTAC is applied here to Tesco. SOSTAC is a strategic marketing process introduced by Paul R. Smith (1990). This is being made a model in marketing throughout the business world. It has many features that involve SWOT, 5Ps, Marketing Mix, and other marketing tools. TESCO sees to it that it helps British shopping public. Tesco aims to make shopping simpler, more convenient and affordable for the customers. If these issues are directly addressed, customers reward the company with their loyalty. The company aims to communicate to the customers through its many subsidiaries, benefiting customers wherever they shop. Consumers have an easy way of switching between stores, that is, they choose to shop in a different store from one month to the next. They have a wide range of retailers to choose from including Wall Mart/Asda, Saisbury, Morrison, Waitrose, M&S, Somerfield, Aldi, Lidl and Netto, other smaller supermarkets, Costco and Makro, the Co-Ops, Symbol groups, and thousands of independent retailers. (Talking Tesco) TESCO then is in a very stiff competition. The management has to apply an effective PR strategy to cope with the challenges. Everyday too, the organization has to apply innovations to its various marketing infrastructures to be able to satisfy customers. Application of SOSTAC starts w... situation, the question that needs to be asked is "Where are we now" This means analyzing the entire organization, on how it has gone through after years of operation. Situation After its founding in 1919 by Jack Cohen, then the first Tesco store opened in 1929 in Burnt Oak, Edgware, North London, the organisation has grown into a large business venturing not only on food but also on electrical goods, clothes and other services such as insurance, banking, etc. It has 30 distribution centres, of which six are dedicated to non-food and clothing. It is now the largest online grocery shopping service in the world. Fourth biggest online retailer in the UK, behind Amazon, Dell and Argos. Its revenues grew by 29.2% in 2007. Tesco.com, the online shopping alternative accounts for 66.2% of all UK online food and grocery shoppers. (Datamonitor.com) The 3,262 stores wordwide go through multiple formats including: Extra, Superstore, Metro, Express, and Fresh and Easy. Tesco is now the leading retailer in the UK with about 30% of the total UK grocery market, and the largest food retailers in the world employing about 318,300 people. Tesco 2007 profits exceeded 2.55 billion. (Datamonitor.com) Marketing Mix applied on Tesco The Marketing Mix model (also known as the 4 P's) is used by marketers as a tool to assist in defining the marketing strategy. Marketing managers use this method to attempt to generate the optimal response in the target market by blending 4 (or 5, or 7) variables in an optimal way. It is important to understand that the Marketing Mix principles are controllable variables. The Marketing Mix can be adjusted on a frequent basis to meet the changing needs of the target group and the other dynamics of the marketing environment. (12 Manage website) PRODUCT The

Increasing Of The Self-medication Level And Its Dangerous Essay - 1

Increasing Of The Self-medication Level And Its Dangerous - Essay Example The country has witnessed a situation in which people buy and consume drugs without a prescription from medical practitioners. The danger with this culture is that parents are adopting the culture oblivious of the future behavior that their children will adopt following the use of drugs over the counter. Gup highlights the dangerous approach that parents adopt and indicates that the system â€Å"devalues talking therapy† and consequently results into other approaches of treatment, which he calls self-medication and indicates that the society has made this approach â€Å"perfectly acceptable.† Based on Gup’s statement, the society engages in self-medication without assessing the dangers involved in their actions. In effect, children will adopt this practice as conventional or standard practice since their parents make it deeply rooted in a family setting. To highlight the dangers posed by this practice, drug dealing can be said to be a practice that originates fro m the self-medication that the American social practices. In this regard, the fact that drugs are sold without a prescription can make drug dealing become normal since self-medication is the order of the day. In effect, I agree with Gup when he indicates that his son’s behavior mirrored the society that the young people grow in whereby â€Å"Big Pharma itself prospers from the off-label uses of drugs, often not tested in children and not approved for the many uses to which they are put† (Gup). In this regard, it is evident that large pharmaceutical companies rake in billions of profits each year by selling drugs without proper regulatory measures in place. From this practice, youths who peddle drugs to society behave in a similar way to these pharmaceutical companies since they sell drugs that are illegal and are harmful to society. It is common knowledge that most behavior that humans adopt is learned from various settings.

Larson, The Transformation of Mrs peters; An Analysis of A Her peers ( Assignment

Larson, The Transformation of Mrs peters; An Analysis of A Her peers ( Literary Analysis ) - Assignment Example ly from both primary and secondary sources and inclusion of direct quotations and assertions from the characters which makes the story fascinating and offers the audience an inordinate opportunity to see the internal thoughts of various characters (Showalter 121). To substantiate claims and offer a profound understanding of why Mrs. Peters changed, the author summarizes ideas from secondary sources, names the author in a signal phrase as well as include page numbers in interpolation. Through Elaine Hedges’ analysis, it becomes ostensible that the sink, the stove, dirty towel on a roller, and the bucket of water were all symbolic (Diana 32). They indicate how women’s role was confined to the house and Mrs. Peters has her involvement with this. Mrs. Peters herself discovers the motive for the murder; she spots an empty birdcage, poorly sewn stitches, dismantled hinges and door, a strong indication that the murderers were violent. During Glaspell’s time, women were awfully confined and a patriarchal society, and were not allowed to leave the house. They resulted to keeping birds that would help them counteract monotony. The empty birdcage draws diverging interpretation from both Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale for they knew very well what it meant (Diana 33). The author’s insinuation of the state and role of women in the then society helps us understand the reason for Mrs. Peters’ change and have a profound understanding of the entire s tory. The world of women was criticized and trivialized by men. They could hardly see the wisdom and intelligence that the women possessed. Through this, the author offers a profound explication of how men belittled women and questions the ideals that the society was based on. In a topic sentence towards the end, the author articulates that by the end of the story Mrs. Peters had been transformed from a law abiding citizen to one who mutely censured and snubbed the law. To typify the point, he goes ahead to provide evidence of