Back to the future
SANTA FE SPRINGS – What would you deem important enough to put in a time capsule? Would it be of sentimental value like a photo or piece of jewelry or historical like a newspaper? Santa Fe Springs residents will get a chance to voice their opinions today from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Sculpture Gardens, on the corner of Telegraph Road and Norwalk Boulevard. Those interested can fill out a suggestion form at a city booth. The city has received some ideas from residents. AD Quality Auto 360p 720p 1080p Top articles1/5READ MOREGame Center: Chargers at Kansas City Chiefs, Sunday, 10 a.m. “Some of the suggestions we have received include yearbooks from area schools, a city newsletter and other artifacts,” said Director of Library Services Hilary Keith, who is part of the committees overseeing the project. Members of the Santa Fe Springs Historical and the 50th Anniversary committees will review the forms and contact people if their ideas are approved. The capsule is part of the city’s 50th anniversary celebration. “The city wants to gather items to place in a time capsule and preserve for future generations,” she said. The stainless steel capsule will be placed underground at the Sculpture Garden with a bronze plaque marking the site in May of next year, said Eddie Ramirez, family services coordinator. The city received the 12-inch-by 18-inch-by-48-inch capsule made by Time Capsules, Inc. on Friday, and it will be displayed at the booth. “No items will be placed in it (today),” Ramirez said, “but there will be some items we have received on display.” “We want to depict life in Santa Fe Springs today, and in 50 years,” Keith said, “those who open it will see what it was like for us.” It will be buried in May and opened in May 2057. One of the items that future residents will see is the winning recipe from today’s chili cook-off. The contest, also part of the golden anniversary, will feature what is being advertised as the best chili in the city. To complement the variety of entries, free hot dogs and corn bread will be served to all. Call (562) 868-0511 for more information. sandra.molina@sgvn.com (562) 698-0955, Ext. 3028160Want local news?Sign up for the Localist and stay informed Something went wrong. Please try again.subscribeCongratulations! You’re all set!
17 August 2007South Africa’s once male-dominated construction industry has become attractive – and lucrative – for women, says Ingrid Verwey, specialist in contractor development at the Development Bank of Southern Africa and founder of the South African Women in Construction Association.Verwey said in a statement this week that the association’s database of women contractors had grown from 60 at its inception in 1999 to over 2 000.A 2005 survey commissioned by the body had revealed that, in Gauteng province alone, the association boasted seven member companies involved with in million-rand deals, 13 medium-sized construction companies owned and managed by women and 43 smaller companies that were gender-compliant.Women building houses in GautengEarlier this month, Gauteng Premier Mbazima Shilowa said that, since 2004, the provincial government had awarded tenders worth over R359-million to women-owned companies for the construction of thousands of houses.And this week, 50 houses built by three women-owned companies – Ndilekaluzuko cc, Kopano Creative Concepts and L&R Welding and Suppliers – were handed over to beneficiaries of the Gauteng government’s Doornkop Thulani Housing Project in Soweto.Gauteng Housing MEC Nomvula Mokonyane, who handed over the houses, said the companies were three of 10 women-owned firms awarded contracts worth around R200-million by her department in 2006.Skills developmentRealised that there was a need to build capacity and management skills for women in the industry, Verwey established the SA Women in Construction Association (Sawic) in 1999.The association works closely with the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), the Industrial Development Trust (IDT) and government departments to build up skills, create career opportunities, and provide networking platforms for women in construction.Skills development and business training courses are run throughout the year at the DBSA and by service providers such as PPC, the Cement and Concrete Institute, Rocla and Plascon.Sawic also conducts monthly provincial workshops to enhance the capacity of women in the construction industry.Verwey acknowledges that Sawic is in competition with other “women in construction” organisations, saying she believes that cooperation among these organisations is key to improving women’s working conditions in the country.SouthAfrica.info reporter Want to use this article in your publication or on your website?See: Using SAinfo material
Public housing in Colorado’s Boulder County not only took a green turn in 2009, it took a turn toward energy efficient modular construction.By late October, in the town of Lafayette, the county’s Housing & Human Services division had unveiled the tangible results of its Paradigm Pilot Project: a modular single-family home and adjacent duplex manufactured by project partner All American Homes and designed to deliver near net-zero-energy performance. As noted in a story recently posted by the Daily Camera, the long-term performance of the buildings and the collaborations and initiatives that brought the project to life could have significant implications for similar county projects in the future.“This was an experiment to see how well this comes together,” Scott Simkus, developer for the county’s housing department, told the Daily Camera. “This is the first time the factory has built a near-zero-energy project.”In addition to having well-insulated exterior walls and roofs, the Paradigm Pilot homes are sited to take advantage of passive solar gain and are supported by solar power and ground-source heat pump systems whose design allows the systems to be scaled up for larger modular-construction projects.The county also used Paradigm Pilot as a training vehicle for unskilled workers and partnered with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, HB&A Architects, Farnsworth Group, Lighthouse Solar, Major Geothermal, and All American Homes on a range of project priorities, from design to construction protocols to performance testing.
A LinkedIn message in my inbox invited me to contribute to an eBook on ways you can prospect without having to make cold calls. I declined the invitation.There are already too many voices telling you that you don’t have to do what you need to do if you want to build a pipeline, increase the velocity of your client acquisition, and win your dream clients. These voices have been so loud for so long that what they preach has decimated some sales organizations, who now have a passive sales force waiting for opportunities to come to them. They have hurt salespeople, and they have taken money out of their pockets—and out of their family’s pockets.Some of the voices have talked down cold calling as a way to sell fads that, like so many sales silver bullets, have never lived up to their overhyped promises. They set up cold calling as a straw man so they could reach salespeople and sales managers with new offerings that would eliminate a part of selling that can be difficult for salespeople. They sold their leaders the idea that a new communication medium would replace all of the others, even though this has never before happened (the phone didn’t replace face-to-face meetings, and mass media advertising and marketing didn’t replace the phone, and nothing yet has replaced word of mouth and referrals). All we have ever done is add new mediums.Others have trash talked the telephone as a way to get attention, using an anti-phone bias to collect leads from struggling salespeople and their managers. Lead generation is important, but trying to help people avoid what they need to do to succeed, to take care of themselves and their families, and produce results for their companies and their dream clients, is contributing to a problem that has now reached epidemic proportions.All methods and mediums for prospecting work, and some are faster than others. But for speed, nothing yet exists that beats the phone. Get the Free eBook! Want to master cold calling? Download my free eBook! Many would have you believe that cold calling is dead, but the successful have no fear of the phone; they use it to outproduce their competitors. Download Now
Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari on Sunday invited the Shiv Sena, the second largest party, to stake claim to form government, hours after the BJP declined such attempt.“The Sena will have to inform the governor about its stand by Monday (November 11) evening 7.30 pm,” a Raj Bhavan official said.In the 288-member Assembly, the BJP and the Sena each has 105 and 56 MLAs, respectively.Opposition Congress and NCP won 44 and 54 seats, respectively, in recent assembly polls. The halfway mark is 145.Mr. Koshyari asked Sena legislative party leader Eknath Shinde to “indicate willingness and ability” of the party to form government in Maharashtra, a Raj Bhavan statement said.The Governor had on Saturday invited the BJP, the single largest party, to stake claim to form government.However, with the BJP unable to muster numbers in view of the Sena’s stand not to support it on the issue of sharing of power and the post of the chief minister, the party on Sunday declined to form government.“The Governor has, therefore, asked the leader of elected members of the second largest party, Shiv Sena, Eknath Shinde, to convey its willingness and ability to form the government,” the statement said.With the BJP backing off from the race, the onus to form government now rests with the Sena, which has indicated that it might rope in the Congress and the NCP to prop up a government.Sena MP Sanjay Raut had earlier claimed support of 170 MLAs.