Remortgage to extend your home

ADVERTORIAL FEATURE

With home values not increasing at the rate they were five or six years ago, homeowners are faced with having to find different ways to add value to their home. Many families are currently stuck in a situation where they have outgrown their current homes and face having to make children share bedrooms as the housing market makes it impossible to move.
With some families simply unable to afford the costs of moving house and others stuck in homes with little resale demand, the continued doom and gloom surrounding the UK economy will leave many feeling like there is little light at the end of the tunnel.
There could be one effective way of solving your housing problems, and it involves taking a leaf out of the property renovator's book. It's a well known fact that property prices in the UK are artificially high and that a £500,000 house would not cost anywhere near that much to build.
Customers with limited space can therefore remortgage their homes, releasing money to extend the property and increase its value in the process. Whilst every house will have a slightly different situation, the £10,000 average cost of extending into the loft of a house to create an extra room or two can add up to as much as £40,000 to the property's value, leaving you wondering why you had never thought to make such improvements before.
In some circumstances where you obtain a better interest rate on your new remortgage, the extra borrowing may not increase monthly payments at all. However, for most the new remortgage will cost slightly more each month but the additional equity gained by substantially increasing your home's value should leave you in a better financial situation in the long run, and in the short term you have a bigger house for your growing family to expand into.
With interest rates on remortgages at record lows because of the price war between lenders, now is a good time to remortgage, release equity and to expand. In a few years time, you will also find that the renovations you have made to your property will make it a more attractive property on the open market, increasing your chance of selling it when the housing market recovers.
If you are thinking about remortgaging make sure you get good remortgage advice about options available to you.
Source www.thisislondon.co.uk/

Home-grown oil is pressing for the culinary top spot

Generic Rapeseen Oil event at the Ivy in London Rapeseed Oil Producers and the panel
RAPESEED farmer Sam Fairs had been growing his crop for many years before he eyed a golden opportunity to maximise his return.
Eight years ago, the farmer, based at Heveningham, near Halesworth, decided there was more to this brash, yellow-flowered plant than as the hidden ingredient in one of our cooking mainstays - vegetable oil.
He took in the first of what has become a regular intake of gap-year students to look at the health properties of his crop and bought his first press to turn the small black seeds into a more refined product than mass-made cooking oils. By cold-pressing them, much more of the distinctive qualities of the oil, lost through other forms of processing, are preserved, he found. And he liked what he tasted - a subtle and versatile oil which could hold its own in anything from a salad dressing to a muffin. His wife, Clare, a talented cook, liked to experiment in the kitchen, substituting their rapeseed oil for butter as well as olive oil, so she found a long list of culinary uses for it which is ever-expanding.
Sam created Hillfarm Oils - now a very useful sideline to his 3,000 acre farm enterprise - bringing in an impressive 25% of overall turnover - eight years ago. He owns 100 acres of the 3,000 acres he farms, and the rest he either rents or contract farms.
The company makes and bottles rapeseed oil on the farm and more recently, has added mayonnaise products to its product range.
The enterprise employs six full and part-time staff, compared to just three for the entire agricultural side, so in a small village, it is already making an impact.
Other farmers began to realise they could be sitting on their own little goldmines and set up similar diversifications. And slowly, but surely, cold-pressed rapeseed oil oozed into the public consciousness.
But Sam and Clare felt more should be done to shout about this home-grown alternative to foreign imports such as olive oil.
They noted that even UK celebrity chefs were failing to take note that there was a tasty alternate at hand as they reached mechanically for their Mediterranean olive oil dispenser to garnish British dishes.
“We were the first in the UK nearly eight years ago now and we brought the Hillfarm Oils brand to the market and we just felt we just needed to do more,” explains Sam.
They decided they needed a national campaign - something which would feed into the debate about locally-sourced foods and would promote the health benefits of their oil versus the alternatives and persuade top chefs to think about using it.
With the help of Andrew Cook, a PR adviser, they managed to persuade five other producers to come and support the initiative so that they could promote it as a generic product. They wanted to show how, like olive oil, consumers could choose different ‘grades’ of the oil and that these had their own properties. With this in mind, they held an event at the top London restaurant the Ivy with top chefs, food writers and rapeseed oil producers to show off its many qualities.
The event included a panel chaired by BBC Masterchef’s Gregg Wallace, and including Sam, along with Dr Sarah Jarvis of The One Show and Daybreak, chef Adam Gray from Rhodes Twenty Four and Love British Food founder Alexia Robinson.
It was a great success, say the Fairs, who brought their children, Lottie 10, and Harry. The couple hope that it will be the start of a movement which will bring premium cold-pressed rapeseed oil into the mainstream consciousness.
“We want to get to the recipe makers and get to the chefs,” says Sam.
Rapeseed oil is already starting to make an appearance. Sam and Clare were thrilled when they noticed celebrity chef Jamie Oliver wielding a bottle they recognised as their own over a lamb dish recently, and they also know Raymond Blanc has used it.
But it has a bit of catching up to do: twenty-five years ago in the UK, they point out, olive oil was seen as a medicinal product to clean ears, and was a long way from being the universal product it is today.
“We have only had eight years. It’s introducing it to the chefs,” says Clare.
“This is what we are trying to get through to people. The whole point of going to the Ivy is to say this is an amazing product.”
She adds: “I don’t believe we could have done the Ivy event three years ago. I think slowly, slowly, and it’s happening now, people are looking out for cold pressed rapeseed oil. At the Aldeburgh Food and Drink Festival, the difference now: ‘Oh yes, I have got that in the cupboard.’
“It’s slowly changing but with the Ivy, and having a go at the chefs, it’s all hopefully working around different areas getting everyone to recognise cold pressed rapeseed oil.”
The British rapeseed oil industry is worth an estimated £5.9million and is said to the fastest growing sector in the culinary oil market. Buying British is one of the key messages producers want to get across, along with its value as a farm diversification.
There are also its properties as an oil. Premium British rapeseed oil contains 6% saturated fat, producers say, compared to 10% in sunflower oil and 14% in olive oil. It contains omega oils and vitamin A.
It is now a cooking oil of choice in a number of leading kitchens, including Rhodes Twenty Four, The Ivy, Morston Hall and Le Manoir Aux Quat’ Saisons.
A Hillfarm Oils, which does all its own bottling and sells it by the catering container as well as in consumer-friendly bottles, Sam crushes nearly 300 tonnes of seeds a year to make his product. From these, he produces around 300 litres a tonne.
The business has not been immune from the effects of the economic downturn, however, and its margins are constantly under pressure.
“Our sales are growing,” says Sam, but adds: “Our turnover is moving slower than it used to.”
But the Fairs hope to change all that by leading the way nationally in putting their product on the culinary map.
“We have never been to the bank and borrowed any money. It’s always been: ‘Let’s take the next stage’ and it’s taken us eight years to be where we are now,” says Sam.
From one press, they now have four, and along with that, the ability to increase production to meet demand.
“We have got a good set-up now where we could turn the presses up and probably do twice as much. We are looking to do that,” he says.
“By being the first to do some was to put yourself out on a limb. We did it because we didn’t understand why the premium rapeseed oil was not being offered.”
Source www.eadt.co.uk/

College Students Replace Poverty With Creativity

By  JENNIFER CONLIN
LIKE so many college students these days, Margaux Malyshev was desperate for cash.

“I did not want to ask my parents for more money,” said Ms. Malyshev, a sophomore at Northeastern in Boston, where yearly tuition runs $51,000 with room and board. A Craigslist posting for a hair model looked like an easy $250.
There was a catch. “To earn the $250, I had to let them do anything they wanted to my hair,” said Ms. Malyshev, who walked in with long, sleek blond tresses and emerged a few hours later a brunette with shaggy bangs and layers. “From now on, I plan to stick to psychological testing,” she said, referring to the roughly $20 an hour she often makes filling out university research questionnaires. (“Harvard pays the best in the Boston area,” she added.)
There is plenty of pain to go around in this economy. But college students, the generation facing the dual misery of unprecedented tuition levels and grim employment prospects after graduation, are feeling a special sting. As a result, penny-pinching and creative cash accumulation are becoming something like campus sports.
Mira Hager, a sophomore at Macalester College in St. Paul, carries an ample supply of cash from home so she can avoid the $3 withdrawal fees at local A.T.M.’s. She saved $300 by borrowing many of her textbooks from the library, rather than buying them. She also works a campus job nine hours a week as a building manager but has a better plan for next year. “I plan to work campus events, where you sometimes get free food,” she said.
Kasey Cox, a junior at the University of Michigan, brings a travel mug of coffee filled with her own home brew to the cafe she likes to study in and pretends she bought it there. She also frequently attends club meetings or seminars that provide refreshments, and she has an eagle eye for special offers. “On my birthday this year, I hit up five different places in town that give out free things or birthday deals,” she said.
Grigory Lukin, 25, the author of the 99-cent e-book “Going to College Without Going Broke,” recommends student clubs for more than the free food. When he was a student at the University of Nevada, Reno, he joined a community service club that held its annual meeting during spring break. “Our club had several sponsors, so we ended up paying just $20 each for a three-day weekend in a four-star hotel,” he said. “A lot of student clubs have these free, or almost free, trips, but they don’t like to advertise them for obvious reasons.”
According to Martin Dasko, 24, the founder of Studenomics.com, a Web site he started as a senior at Ryerson University in Toronto, there is no reason students should not be able to save money in college. “If students have time for Facebook and TV, they have time for a campus job,” he said. Mr. Dasko said his Web site gets between 1,000 and 2,000 hits a day, many of them from students asking about online jobs, like tutoring (for that, he recommends studentoffortune.com). “But I also get a lot of hits from students searching ‘free drinking’ and ‘how to date with no money,’ ” he said, laughing.
“Just get a job.”

From home to home on your holidays

THE HOLLYWOOD rom com The Holiday, starring Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet, may be something of a turkey, but it certainly makes the notion of house swapping most attractive.
The movie saw Diaz’s character swap her slick LA pad for Winslet’s Cotswolds cottage with, of course, each having the holiday of a lifetime as a result.
The idea of having a holiday in someone’s home while they have one in yours seems to be such a no-brainer you have to wonder why more people don’t do it, particularly now when we’re under the cosh of recession.
A desire to get value for her holiday money was certainly a part of Aisling Finucane’s decision to undertake her first house swap this year.
The 36-year-old speech and language therapist and her husband Alan had spent their previous summer holiday on a campsite in France, with their two small toddlers.
“That holiday cost us €3,000 and we weren’t happy that we got value for money. We felt very cooped up in the mobile home,” says Finucane.
This year she changed tack. “We still wanted to go to France, still wanted to go on the ferry and bring our car, but this time round we decided to do a house swap instead,” she recalls.
She signed up with Homelink, an international home swap agency with an office in Ireland, in March. By June she had found a family that wanted to swap their holiday home in St Nazarre, a quaint fishing town near Nantes, for her three bedroom semi-D in Raheen, Limerick.
“At the time people said to me, ‘Why would anyone want to holiday in Raheen?’,” she recalls. “But the way I looked at it, our house is half an hour from Shannon airport, an hour and a half from Cork airport and is on the gateway to Connemara and Kerry.”
Which is precisely how her French guests viewed it, using her home as a base from which to explore.
The Finucanes, meanwhile, had a fantastic two-week holiday in France. “The weather was lovely, the house was lovely and we were close to a beautiful beach,” she says.
“We also had an enclosed garden, so the kids could run around and I didn’t have to worry about them.”
They travelled with Celtic Link for €739. If you exclude the odd night out in restaurants, plus diesel, that’s just about what her fortnight in France cost her.
“The entire holiday cost us less than €1,000, a €2,000 saving on the previous year, yet for much more space and the comfort of a house,” says Finucane.
She’s now looking at swapping with families in Spain and Germany next year. Given the kind of savings involved, she might very well visit both.
THE FINUCANES’ experience backs up research from Love Home Swap, a new online home swapping company based in the UK which estimates that home swappers save an average of €2,500 by home exchanging instead of holidaying.
“In tough economic times, travel becomes a ‘nice to have’ and is often one of the first things people cut from their budget,” says Debbie Wosskow, founder of Love Home Swap.
“Nearly one third of Love Home Swap members tried out home exchanging because of the savings they could make.”
The good news for anyone considering it is that Ireland is already one of Love Home Swap’s top requested swap destinations.
Marie Murphy, who runs the Irish office of Homelink, is also seeing increased demand for swaps. She currently has a database of 500 active Irish users.
“Membership numbers dipped the year before last as a result of the start of the recession. People told us they wanted to stay local and couldn’t afford the air fares,” says Murphy, who is herself just back from a three-week swap in San Francisco.
“But last year our numbers came back up again as people told us they just couldn’t face staycationing two years in a row,” she says.
The couple she swapped with were travelling Europe, but didn’t even want to stay in her house. Instead, they simply wanted someone to mind their dog while they were away.The result was a Stateside holiday, touring California’s winelands, for a €650 air fare.
“We have so much demand for exchanges with Ireland right now that we just can’t match it. Demand is particularly strong from swappers in New Zealand and Australia,” says Murphy.
When you think of all the Irish people who must now have family that have emigrated to that part of the world, home swapping could be a terrific way to go and visit them,” she says.
All kinds of homes are required for swapping. “A guy just rang me, worried that his apartment in Dublin wouldn’t be of any interest to anyone. But the fact is that, if it is in a good location or close to transport links, lots of people will want it,” says Murphy.
“Families coming here tend to like to stay in family homes in the countryside or close to the coast, but couples and singles like to stay in cities,” she says.
However, there are downsides. In Murphy’s experience, problems typically arise where differing standards of cleanliness clash.
“It is very important that your house be clean and tidy. You don’t have to repaint, unless it is really grubby, but the kitchen and bathroom in particular have to be spotless,” she says.
Aisling Finucane came up with what seems like a very good solution. “I didn’t want to spend the run-up to my holiday running around cleaning up,” she says.
“Instead, I cleared everything into black sacks and put them in the attic and then hired a cleaning company to come in after we had gone to blitz the place for two hours, at €10 an hour,” says Finucane. “It meant I came back to a pristine house too, which was nice.”
HOUSE SWAPPING isn’t only about cheap holidays however. “If you have kids it can become a family affair,” says Frank Kelly, Irish boss of Intervac, one of the two big house swapping agencies in this country with about 300 members.
“My own first house swap was to a family in Sweden in 1973 and we still visit to meet one another’s grandchildren,” he says. “The people you swap with often become friends.”
The biggest demand Intervac has for Irish swaps has traditionally been from the US and Scandinavia. That said, swappers from European sun spots such as Portugal are on the increase too.
“They tell me they like a bit of rain for a week or two during their own hot summer, so the Irish weather is not a problem for them,” says Kelly.
He too believes the recession will encourage more people to consider swapping, but urges those considering it for the first time to take a flexible approach.
“Be open to going to places that you hadn’t considered. You are more likely to get a swap if you opt for something ‘in the region of Nice’, for example, rather than in Nice,” he cautions.
Equally, be aware that things can and do, if only sometimes, go wrong. “We had one lady last year who went to an apartment in Paris only to find it was already let out and the guy hadn’t bothered to tell her.
“When that happens the important thing is to contact us straight away and we will pull out all the stops to get you sorted.”
Intervac is considering establishing a fund to cover just such emergencies. In the main, however, house swapping works well precisely because it is based on trust.
Liam Harkin, a 47-year-old teacher from Donegal, learned all about the level of trust involved very early on. He went on his first house swap in 1996, six months after getting married.
“At first my wife wasn’t keen and was wary about having strangers in our home,” he says.Still, he won her over and the couple prepared for the big swap.
“I still get embarrassed when I think of it, but we took everything we thought was of value, which, of course, being so young, wasn’t of any value at all, and locked them into the box room,” he recalls.
“When we arrived in our 17th-century French villa to find it full of antiques and valuables, with even the computer still turned on for us, we were mortified.”
Since then the couple have travelled the world house swapping. They now have 18 swaps under their belt, three of which were in the one year.
“Once you house swap, you won’t travel any other way. In fact, you come to hate hotels,” says Harkin.
Interestingly, some of his family’s (he now has two children under 10) best swaps have been in Ireland.
“You simply pick a part of the country you want to see and you jump in the car. All it costs you is the petrol it takes to get you there.”
If that isn’t an Oscar winner of a recession-proof holiday, what is?
* homelink.ie
* intervac-homeexchange.com
* lovehomeswap.com
* homeexchange.com
* exchangeaway.com
* homebase-hols.com
* profvac.com
* exclusiveexchanges.com
Homing in make the most of it
* Be open to going off the beaten track
You’ll have more chance of success if you widen your sights. “We found Lake Constanz on the German and Swiss border by accident, just by being open to swapping there. It turned out to be a little piece of heaven totally undiscovered by the Irish. There wasn’t a pair of black socks or an eircom T-shirt in sight,” says Marie Murphy of Homelink.
* Communication is key
Take the time to discuss precisely what’s being swapped, and what is not, including cars. “The only difficulty we ever experienced was over cars,” says Liam Harkin. “We went to Italy and found we had been left the owner’s Fiat Cinquecento. Unfortunately, I’m 6 ft 4in and so that didn’t work very well. What’s more, when we got home we found our visitors had clocked up 4,000 miles on our own car.” These days he always checks what kind of car he is swapping for and agrees a mileage limit.
* Put the effort into the blurb you post about your house
“I made sure to sell our three bedroom semi-D in Raheen very well, pointing out four or five well-known tourist sites in the region,” says Aisling Finucane. “Overseas visitors will check these out online and it’s what makes them choose your house.”
* Be open to the additional cultural experience
“There is almost always a neighbour or a family member who will call in and show you the ropes, and on whom you can call if something goes wrong. What this also means is that you almost always get invited to dinners and barbecues too, which adds to the experience,” says Harkin.
Source www.irishtimes.com/

Not just Tupperware: the new home-selling parties

By Eithne Farry 

Home-selling parties are now the place to go for everything from vintage clothes to skincare. 

Neal's Yard Remedies

Clare Nolan's flat smells delicious, despite the fact that she has just moved in. 'Today is our first proper day here, and we thought it would be fun to have a party.' It's 11am and she is remarkably unruffled. An 'Aromastone' is sending wafts of essential oil into the air, a table near the window has an array of Neal's Yard products and we are perched on the sofa as Kim Tween, one of the company's top consultants, talks us through the range. Tween, who has a background in direct selling, has been with Neal's Yard Remedies for two years and makes enough money to have funded the new car parked outside Nolan's flat. It is her full-time job. She sets up six to eight parties a month, and earns between £2,800 and £3,000 a month.

'The starter kit costs £95,' Tween says, 'but you don't have to host a party yourself, if you don't want to. I love meeting people, and I feel passionate about the range, and with a party you can spend a lot of time explaining the benefits of everything; on a shop floor you might have only a couple of minutes.'

NYR consultants buy the products for 75 per cent of the price they sell them for. The difference in price is kept by the consultants as profit. All training is free. 'And hosts get a free gift,' Tween says, handing Nolan a jar of Jasmine Body Cream, as she launches into an introduction to the NYR ethos: no parabens, all organic, approved by the Soil Association and not tested on animals, 'only on willing humans'.

Tween dabs essential oil on to cotton buds and they are passed around for a quick sniff. Guests are warned about the dangers of alcohol in the things we smooth on our faces, and encouraged to moisturise properly. 'When you're young your cells are like grapes, as you get older they shrivel up like raisins,' Tween says as she demonstrates a five-minute skincare routine on a yoga teacher, Gemma McCoy. 'You're all worth at least five minutes.'

Sitting around the coffee table a little later, snacking on cheese and bread and hummus, Nolan's guests are chatting, with Tween on hand to provide helpful advice. Louisa Williams, an accountant, has taken the day off work to come along. 'It's a treat to come here in the morning. I wish I'd known about NYR when I was 20, instead of discovering it in my forties.' And Nolan is already in the mood for hosting another party. 'I have a school reunion coming up, so this could be good for getting old friends together.'
To become an NYR consultant or to find out how to host a party, register at uk.nyrorganic.com
Jamie at Home
Sarah Foister does an impressive whistle to summon us from the kitchen to her sitting-room to hear the introduction by the Jamie at Home consultant Lettice Hagan, and to watch a DVD that features the chef Gennaro Contaldo rustling up an exclusive Jamie Oliver recipe using utensils that are cleverly displayed in Foister's kitchen. 'Usually it's Jamie, but he was in LA filming the Food Revolution,' Hagan says. 'But the Christmas one is Jamie again.' The recipe is seasonal, as is the catalogue, which Hagan hands out. Back in the kitchen Foister is dishing up hot pizza to accompany the bruschetta and charcuterie that are already enticingly stacked on the table.
Hagan talks us through the display as we sip drinks. There are pizza wheels (£11), a six-sided grater (£18), a rolling pin with centimetre marks so you can measure your pastry (£17) and old-fashioned mixing bowls (from £18) that raise a murmur of appreciation. There is also a pass-the-parcel-style game, where a guest ends up winning a set of tapas bowls, and a raffle is held at the end.
Everyone is very taken with the Little Cooks range, which includes the Mamma Mia Pizza Kit, the Pat-a-Cake Kids' Baking Tin and Little Chef's Utensils, but people seem happy to drink and chat without purchasing anything, even though they've jotted notes in their catalogues. Hagan explains how you become a consultant. 'It costs £120 to join as a consultant and you receive £400 worth of kit. You need to have four parties in the diary to sign up, so that means four people who are willing to get friends over and host a party for you. In order to be active and keep your kit you need to make 1,000 sales, but that's easily achievable.'
Hostesses are paid in products, earning an average of £50 worth per party. Consultants earn 20 per cent commission on all sales at a party. After that, it's all incentive based – the ultimate one being to meet Jamie Oliver himself.
jamieathome.com
Stella & Dot
Emer Dewar, a freelance fashion editor, has just completed her sixth ‘trunk show’ since joining Stella & Dot, an American social selling company that launched in Britain in October. Founded by the entrepreneur Jessica Herrin five years ago, the company sells mid-priced, design-led jewellery and has an annual turnover of more than $200 million.
Herrin’s vision was to create a flexible, fun and family-friendly way for women to run their own business. To join as a stylist you must buy a £198 starter pack, containing samples of the company’s 10 bestselling pieces, plus enough catalogues and business supplies to see you through your first few shows. For three weeks after joining you have the option to buy more jewellery at a 50 per cent discount, while the ‘Jumpstart Scheme’ allows you £400 worth of free jewellery every time you hit retail sales of £3,000 for your first 100 days. For an additional £80 per year the company will set up and maintain an e-commerce website for you; in the States, 85 per cent of stylists have done so.
Stylists earn a minimum 25 per cent on every sale made, rising to 30 per cent when a £2,200 monthly target is met. The jewellery costs between £20 and £200. Average takings per party are £800, so the monthly target is a realistic one. Those wishing to treat this as a career can build a team of stylists, a percentage of whose sales they also earn. Dewar made her initial investment back with three parties.
Hostesses open up their houses, invite friends along and provide food and wine. They earn jewellery credits as a percentage of what is sold during their party. If anyone books a party off the back of theirs, they earn £20 in jewellery credits. ‘My first sale was at home,’ Dewar says. ‘I have consciously avoided calling on friends. For me this is about building a business, which means networking and expanding. I have two young children, with a third due any day, and I feel I can work this business into my life. It gives me the opportunity to create something while making time for my family.’ By Daisy Bridgewater
stelladot.co.uk
UpStyler
Ginny Hepburn, the host of tonight’s party, is steaming last-minute creases from a black floor-length frock. Her kitchen-cum-dining-room at her home in east London has been transformed into a little boutique. Antique lace collars are draped on chair backs beside old silk scarves, there’s a mirror propped against a wall, and there are clothing rails jammed full of vintage dresses and blouses. Hepburn, who used to work in marketing before having two children, now eight and five, was introduced to the UpStyler website by a friend. Upstyler.co.uk launched last year and sells a mix of vintage clothes, thrift finds from charity stores and new stock, with lots of suggestions as to how to style your own outfit to fit your look. Hepburn had the idea to bring rails of clothes to her home and sell from there to her friends and friends of friends. The idea has caught on and since starting up last November she has hosted about 20 parties at her own home and at other people’s homes around London. So far, she is a one-woman band operating alongside the website; the parties are publicised by word of mouth. If she holds the sale at someone else’s house, the hostess is allowed to keep an accessory or piece of clothing from the rail. ‘My husband works away in the week, the children are in bed and this is a good way of spending an evening, and making a little extra money.’
The stock, priced from £15 for a scarf to £150 for a collectable top, is sourced from upstyler.co.uk as well as friends and her own shopping trips. ‘I came back on the train from Hastings, which has great secondhand shops, with bin bags crammed full of stuff, and I can take, on average, £500 a party, minus the cost of the stock and food and drink and the 15 per cent commission to UpStyler.
There’s cava in the fridge, bowls of crisps and slices of bread and smoked salmon on the kitchen counter as Hepburn’s guests arrive. ‘I think people like the idea of recycling old clothes: it’s environmentally good, it makes economic sense, and it’s a move away from fast, throwaway high-street fashion,’ she says as she neatens up a 1950s apron.
All of which is true, but judging by the polite scrum of 18 friends – many of whom are working mothers who might not usually have time during the day to shop or to spend time browsing in charity or vintage shops – taking things off hangers, and sashaying towards the mirror, catwalk style, it’s the dressing-up aspect that makes this evening so much fun. There are giggles from the front room as women try on dresses and skirts, encouraged to go for outfits they wouldn’t normally choose. ‘I hate shopping,’ Dawn Morpeth says, ‘and I hate the changing rooms, but this is lovely and relaxed and glamorous; it’s more like a night out.’
The stock is varied to suit a wide range of tastes: a pussy-bow blouse, a severe grey dress with a high neck and a decorous pleated skirt, and a biscuit-coloured leather tunic that would suit Catherine Deneuve in Belle de Jour. It’s a fluted, elegant Ossie Clark jacket, priced at £150, that gets the most attention; it is passed from hand to hand and tried on by everyone. But it looks as if it was made for Kira Phillips, a filmmaker, who buys it after everyone else tells her she has to, even though she was reluctant at first. ‘I know I’ll be wearing it for the next 40 years.’
By the time I leave, Mel, a graphic designer, has bought a bold printed skirt, Gabriella has a leaf-print dress, and Joanna is holding a delicate pink hand-sewn blouse. The average spend per head was about £40, and Hepburn’s takings were £750.
Book your own UpStyler party: 07734-035515; fredandginny@googlemail.com

Earn money sit home offers excellent money making opportunities from the comfort of your home

The internet provides a platform which has a great potential for making money.
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Making a mint? Hunting the ‘fat cat’ social housing tenants

by Jon Land for 24dash.com in Housing and also in Featured
‘Rich’ tenants have become one of the targets in the Coalition’s drive to increase ‘fairness’ across the social housing sector. But is the Government right to embark on such a crusade and, more importantly, do these ‘fat cat’ tenants really exist? Kate Murray investigates.
What do union boss Bob Crow, ex-cabinet minister Frank Dobson and a London headteacher have in common? According to some politicians, the answer is that they are all paying far too little rent for their social home.
Just as ministers argue that it’s not fair that families on benefit are able to live in homes in areas that working households couldn’t afford, so, they insist, it’s wrong to expect tax-payers to subsidise those who earn more than enough to afford their own home in the private sector. 
Housing minister Grant Shapps claims a ‘pay to stay’ initiative, forcing the 6,000 tenants the Government estimates earn more than £100,000 a year to pay a market rent if they want to stay in their home, would bring in millions to build new homes.
Westminster Council, one of the most vocal backers of plans to charge high-earning tenants more, says that approach is right.
“It is fundamentally about fairness,” says Westminster’s cabinet member for housing Jonathan Glanz. “It is unfair that those who are earning significantly more than the average wage should be seeking subsidy.”
According to Mr Glanz, tenants should have the benefit of a subsidised home when they need it most.

“Many of us change homes throughout our lives as our circumstances change, whether it’s a promotion, a change of job or a change in family circumstances,’ he says.

“I don’t think many people are born and die in the same property. Social housing should facilitate and encourage that journey. People should have the benefit of subsidy while on lower pay and if they succeed - and clearly we hope they will - and find themselves on significantly higher than the average wage they should look at their choice again.”
But there is unease about the proposals on several fronts. Firstly, some find it difficult to square the messages on the issue of richer tenants with a drive to encourage more working tenants and tackle benefit dependency.
Westminster has announced it is redrawing its allocations criteria to favour working applicants.
Westminster’s Labour Group leader Paul Dimoldenberg says it’s ‘a complete mess’ that on the one hand the authority is giving priority for council housing to those in work but, at the same time it is targeting council tenants considered to earn ‘too much’.
“The real answer is to build more social rented homes for those families in housing need, instead of trying to shuffle a declining council housing stock amongst those the Conservatives deem to be ‘deserving’ of a home in Westminster,” he says.
Others also see a contradiction. “There’s this view now of social housing as a stop-gap measure, that it’s like the NHS and you use it when you need it. But it’s not like the NHS it’s your home,” says Phil Lyons, who is a tenant and chair of South Essex Homes. “They seem to be saying we want you to go out and earn a few quid - but not too much, don’t get ideas above your station. It’s so contradictory.”

Then there’s the very real issue of mixed income communities. For years now, housing providers have worked to create sustainable communities - and encouraging a mix of incomes has long been seen as a key element in achieving that.
So won’t introducing an income cut-off for a social rent discourage aspiration and further stigmatise social housing as an option of last resort?
As Mr Lyons puts it: “Older tenants remember the old properly mixed communities where you could be living on council estate, next door to a teacher or next door to a doctor. They would be earning considerably more than but that’s not a problem - that’s what people want. They don’t want to be segregated with all the poor people living in council housing over there.”
Backers of the scheme have insisted that - unlike suggestions when the idea was first floated - it’s not about evicting higher earners, but simply asking them to pay more if they want to stay. But even that has practical difficulties.
When he’s asked about whether his association houses anyone on a six-figure income, Bill Payne, chief executive of Metropolitan Housing Partnership, replies: “Do we house any chief executives or union leaders? I hope so - but I don’t make it my business to go and pry into what they earn.

“We have people who have been our tenants for 20 to 30 years - who would not aspire to them being better off? I suppose if the Inland Revenue was willing to share details we might get that sort of information, but I’m not sure that’s the kind of society people in this country want to live in.” 
Nonetheless Mr Payne acknowledges that there is a debate to be had about whether rents should vary according to income. That is certainly the view of Peabody Trust chief executive Steve Howlett.
“We do know there are people in Peabody who started off poor, but because they had a solid base for their home, they have been able to use that as a springboard into a better-off life,” he says. “We obviously recognise that we want people to do that, but we do want some way of ensuring that those people pay a fair price for their accommodation.
“We wouldn’t want to see them forced out because they bring something to the community in which they live but paying a fair whack would be a fair way of using the money to provide more housing.”
But just how much money raising rents for the higher earners would bring in is unclear, given that accurate figures on household income are difficult to verify.
Westminster has used figures from its housing needs survey to suggest that some 2,200 social housing tenants in the borough have a household income of more than £50,000 and more than 220 receive more than £111,000.
Nationally, analysis by the Human City Institute of Tenant Services Authority data suggests that up to 10,000 social households across the country could be on an income of more than £52,000 (see box).
But, as HCI director Kevin Gulliver explains, an extended family living in the same house could easily top that figure. He believes it’s wrong to suggest there’s a real issue with fat cat tenants.
“They talk about people on high wages like Bob Crow and Frank Dobson but what they do is deliberately obfuscate the difference between household incomes and wages,” he says. “The two aren’t the same.  You might have an extended family, which would mean you get a reasonably high household income but that doesn’t mean you would qualify for a mortgage.”
Even if richer tenants were encouraged to move or required to pay more, the number of new lettings created - or new homes built thanks to higher rental streams - would be marginal, Mr Gulliver adds. He estimates that assuming all of the 10,000 higher income tenants could be identified, the extra rental income would amount to £40 million a year, enough to build 500 new homes.
“When compared to ballooning council waiting lists, the extent of overcrowded housing, the 700,000 empty homes in England, persistent affordability issues in the home ownership and private rented sectors and increasing homelessness, the concentration of the social housing debate on a tiny number of marginally more affluent social tenants borders on the negligent,” he says.
“Massive investment in social housing is needed to tackle mounting housing problems and to kick-start the economy. Communities Secretary Eric Pickles, in his Right to Buy announcement during the Conservative Party conference, conceded that for every new home built two jobs are created. So such investment represents excellent value for money to the tax payer. Let's get the country building and working again.”
Rich pickings? Higher earners in social housing

• According to the Human City Institute analysis of TSA survey data, only 0.26% of social households have incomes of £52,000 or more. There are no figures for those with an income of more than £100,000.
• If the percentage with an income above £52,000 were extrapolated across all 3.9 million social tenancies (given that council tenants are marginally less affluent than the HA tenants covered by the TSA survey) just over 10,000 would have total net household incomes of more than £52,000. These households tend to be larger than the average and more likely to be living in the south-east.
• Just over 94% of social households have incomes below the average earnings figure of £26,000 per year and more than half have an income below half of that figure
• Only 2.2% of tenants in the TSA survey have savings of £16,000 or over and many of those are elderly people. Two-thirds of social tenants have no savings at all.
• Westminster’s housing needs survey suggests that the borough has 406 households in council homes with an income of more than £50,000 - and 2,237 in housing association homes. The same survey suggests there are no council tenant households with an income of more than £111,000 but 228 who rent from associations.
• This feature originally appeared in the November edition of 24housing magazine.

Editorial: Staying at home today's rebellion?

By Edmonton Journal
Stay-at-home adults are the new norm and in some ways a growing concern for their baby-boomer parents.
Ever more escalating numbers of 20-somethings are double-knotting the apron strings and choosing to lunch rather than launch; taking up space (and hot water) in the family home much longer than the previous generation.
Statistics Canada says 51 per cent of Canadians aged 20-to-29 are still bunking in their childhood bedrooms, double the number 25 years ago when the Internet and flat screens didn't influence the equation.
Back then, the accepted routes to independence were practically etched in a stone map: graduate from high school; proceed directly to a post-secondary institution and live in residence or spend one year on a full-time job while paying rent at home; save up enough money to move out; move out; visit occasion-ally; get married; have kids; visit occasionally.
But this erratic global economy bears no resemblance to its more regional and generous predecessor of yore, so the deal has changed.
If there is no way to lure junior to the end of the driveway prior to age 30, and/or if career prospects aren't what parents remember, then the new normal should call for a re-worked social contract that spells out the rights and responsibilities of two (and sometimes three) generations living under one roof. And speaking of contracts, drawing some terms up adult-to-adult could go a long way to fending off the rise in conflict that studies show is the most damaging product of the extended stay.
On the plus side, relationships between parents and maturing, stay-at-home children can become more in-depth and satisfying. And if junior buys the pizza and beer every now and then, even better.
Filmmakers Maria LeRose and Sharon Bartlett dove headlong into the subject of twentysomething children who come back to live at home for the documentary Generation Boomerang, which aired on CBC earlier this month. LeRose told the Toronto Star she was most surprised to find out that baby boomers who fled the nest a.s.a.p. in the 1980s and returned only to visit are actually the historical exception, not the rule. Bartlett said outward mobility was a product of the times and so too is this generation's hesitancy to depart, and willingness to return.
"We weren't better equipped," said Bartlett, who is 63. "We just lucked out. You could get a good job at 18, 19, 20, so you could leave home and make a good life."
But it's likely more than a want for money that has 20-somethings in the kitchen flipping pancakes when they ought to be out in the big wide world flapping their wings. Some seem to take longer to echo their parents' desire for a substantive career when a series of part-time jobs will pay the iPhone bill just as well, without all that time-consuming and yes, hideously expensive, education.
Some do not appear to crave the independence that comes with living on their own because a whop-ping measure of it has been provided by relaxed social mores. Yes, sadly, young adult sleepovers are de rigueur.
What will the fear-of-flying trend do to the new generation? Sociologists have their opinions, but not a wealth of relevant data. It could be that young adults all over the world are shucking adversity en masse, educated and bound together as they are by social media. Hey, if it's working for your Facebook friends in Europe, why not Occupy the Basement in Alberta?
But that would speak ill of their willingness to be accountable in the future and filmmaker Bartlett said these kids comprise the smartest, most socially conscious generation to come along yet, so the world is in good hands.
Boomers certainly have opinions, and since their names are on the mortgage, the impact on their lives shouldn't be lost in the shuffle. The fact is, middle-aged parents with their eyes on the traditional prize - a solid decade of peace and quiet interrupted now and then by a holiday visit from the grandkids - are struggling with the uncomfortable realization that their golden years have been hijacked and 60 is the new 50. Of course they could still get the last laugh - by changing the locks, flying to Mexico and spending the inheritance.

First time mothers warned over home birth risks

By Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor
First-time mothers who opt for a home birth are almost three times more likely to suffer complications than if they go to hospital, a landmark study has found.

 The study, the largest and most comprehensive ever conducted, also found that up to half of first time mothers were transferred to hospital while in labour from home and third from a midwifery unit.

Doctors warned that for women having their first babies, these factors should be taken into account when choosing where to give birth.

However the research found that women having their second or third babies, who were classed as low risk, were just as safe at home or in a midwife-only unit as they were in a hospital unit with specialist obstetricians.

Home births were cheaper for the NHS to provide and doctors said they should be encouraged for women having their second or third babies who had straightforward first births and healthy pregnancies.

Midwifery leaders said the landmark study would strengthen calls for changes to be made to NHS services to allow more women to give birth in midwife-only units or at home.

The research was conducted by Oxford University involving more than 65,500 births classified as low risk.
It found that rates of complications affecting the baby including stillbirth after the start of labour, the baby dying within the first week of birth, brain injury, fractures to the upper arm or shoulder during birth, and faeces in the lungs, were higher for first time mothers.
There were 9.5 such complications per 1,000 births for first time mothers having their baby at home, compared with 3.5 per 1,000 births to first time mothers in hospital.
There was no increased risk for babies whose birth was planned at units led by midwives, either ones that stand alone in the community or which are attached to a hospital, according to the report, published in the British Medical Journal.
The researchers stressed that giving birth is generally very safe as 250 babies suffered complications from the 64,538 births in the study.
Only 58 per cent of women in hospital had a natural birth without any intervention, compared to 88 per cent of women who opted for a birth at home and 76 per cent to 83 per cent of women who chose a midwife-led unit.
Professor Peter Brocklehurst, who led the study at Oxford, but has since moved to University College London (UCL), said adverse events are very uncommon.
"For every 1,000 women, 995 babies would have a completely normal outcome," he said.
Prof Brocklehurst added: "These results should reassure pregnant women planning their birth that they can make informed decisions about where they'd most like the birth to happen, knowing that giving birth in England is generally very safe.
"There is an increase in risk for first-time mums planning home births, but poor outcomes for the baby are still uncommon."
He said the reason why babies born to first time mothers at home suffered more complications is not known.
Maureen Treadwell, of the Birth Trauma Association, said: "These findings are useful but are based on a study of only 5,000 women in each type of midwifery unit and do not tell us how many babies died or were brain damaged in each group."
She feared that the government will use the findings as 'an excuse' to restrict women's choices to midwife-led units or home if they were classed as low risk, in order to save money.
The study showed that a home birth cost £310 less than one in an obstetric unit in hospital, while a birth in a midwife-led unit was £130 cheaper.
Cathy Warwick, chief executive and general secretary of the RCM added: "Where a woman having her first baby is considering birth at home, she needs to be aware that whilst the vast majority of babies will be well, there is a chance that wherever she gives birth, the baby may have a poor outcome and at home this chance is slightly increased.
"However, the need for medical interventions in labour, such as the need for pain relief, remains less than in a consultant-led unit."
Dr Tony Falconer, President of the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists (RCOG) said: “The RCOG has always supported appropriately selected home birth but this study has shown that first-time mothers wishing to deliver at home have an increased risk of poor outcomes for their babies thus raising questions about the right birth location for this group of women.
"In addition, the high transfer rates from free-standing midwifery units and midwifery units alongside obstetric units, for first-time mothers pose serious logistical problems.
“The case is different for mothers with no complications in their subsequent pregnancies delivering at home or in a midwifery unit. There is therefore a need to expand these facilities with appropriate midwifery staffing to improve women’s choices.
"This study supports the concept of configuring maternity services differently and the expansion of midwifery units should occur."
Public Health Minister Anne Milton said: “Every woman should receive the highest quality maternity care. This study will help NHS organisations around the country design excellent maternity services, based on what women want and need.
"This report gives valuable evidence on which to base decisions about the design of services, including the opportunities for women to choose midwife-led care in both free-standing and alongside midwife-led units.
“It will also help midwives advise women so that they can make the most informed choice about their birth setting.”

Making it home

By Tim Ghianni 

Soldiers are increasingly putting down roots in the Clarksville area, easing the economic strains once caused by extended deployments.

Medium skin fades are $11 at Bo’s Barber Shop on Fort Campbell Boulevard.
“That’s all the way down to the skin with a razor and then a fade,” says Ronnie Ward, the first barber on the left. His brother, Randy, is first barber on the right of the 20-year-old family business owned by mom Faye.
“She comes in here on Friday,” Ronnie Ward says. “That’s payday.” That’s the beginning of what Ward terms “standing room only” weekends for the 12-chair barber shop that’s open 75 hours a week, including buzzing Saturday and Sunday shifts.
For the last few months it’s been boom time at the shop, whose main customers are members of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) and other soldiers at Fort Campbell, including Maj. Gen. James C. McConville, post and division commander.
“He sits right here in one of our chairs,” says Ward, who attended a recent breakfast at which the general told the crowd the last 3,900 soldiers will be back by February’s end. That would bring the number of troops at the post up from the skeleton support staff of the full deployment of a year ago to about 30,000.
That number includes about 20,000 members of the 101st Airborne Screaming Eagles plus the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), aka “The Green Berets”, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, aka “The Night Stalkers,” among the elite who participated in Osama Bin Laden’s extinction, as well as the 52nd Explosive Ordinance Disposal Unit and other military forces.
And others come here to learn Air Assault skills from the 101st. A recent Friday night foray to downtown Clarksville included the sight of well-shaved and extremely well-oiled British soldiers offering curtsies and curses to passersby outside the historic Roxy Regional Theatre.
Ward, whose barber shop had to cut staff hours during the deployment, has seen a dramatic increase in business in the months since the soldiers began to return to post after revolving door deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
“We’ve worked through five or six deployments,” he says of the shop that’s been on “The Boulevard” – as it’s known in Clarksville – since 1991. “Probably 75 percent of our business is Army. Whenever they deploy, I know my paycheck cuts in half.”
But, due to planning and the fact the city has gone out of its way to become a home for military spouses and retirees, Clarksville didn’t suffer economically as much as it did during pre-9/11 deployments.
“We can certainly tell when they are coming back,” says Mayor Kim McMillan, who spent a dozen years in the state Legislature before running for mayor last year. “Obviously we have a wonderful relationship with Fort Campbell and military personnel. We are certainly concerned for them and their families when they are gone.
“That doesn’t mean the town dries up and blows away when they are gone, but when they are back it’s an added benefit and plus to our community. We look forward to when they are here,” she says.
“One of the things that I think is part of our community legacy is how Clarksville supports families of the military,” says James Chavez, president and CEO of the Clarksville-Montgomery County Economic Development Council and the Chamber of Commerce.
That support has kept the city’s economy from flatlining during deployments since 9/11 and “now that the soldiers are transitioning home for longer periods of time than we’ve been used to, it’s even more critical for our community to stand by the soldiers,” he says.
Of course, things like actual sales tax collections – the city and Montgomery County scored an all-time, one-month high of almost $5.4 million in August, up from just under $4 million in actual collections the August before – tell a part of the story. Of course, there is other growth in Clarksville – Hemlock Semiconductor is in the process of putting more than $1 billion into the construction of a plant to open next year.
But the boom times in general can be traced to the Army, with soldiers and their families buying cars, homes, shopping at malls, deploying to taverns and crowding restaurants while such discretionary spending diminishes elsewhere in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Chavez says the Army’s impact goes much deeper than the pocketbook.
“The first comment I would make is what having them back does for the atmosphere around here,” he says. “Even this Saturday, being out at the soccer fields (with his 11-year-old son) and seeing more and more military parents, especially dads who have been deployed now being able to watch their kids play soccer.” It’s an image he says he will savor forever.
Standing by the soldiers and their families has been critical in keeping the economy vital even while the troops have been involved in two theaters of war for the last decade, according to Don Jenkins, owner of Jenkins & Wynne, a Ford/Lincoln/Toyota dealership that’s been selling cars here since 1953.
The numbers of cars leaving the lot since the soldiers began the redeployment home is evidence of the GIs’ economic influence.
Jenkins says that is just one payoff of merchants nurturing military ties. Sure, there’s more money spent when troops are home, but economic ruin has been averted when troops are engaged in the Global War on Terror.
“Used to be when the soldiers deployed, their spouses and families would go home,” he says. “The (Clarksville Area Chamber of Commerce) has been very aggressive in recruiting companies that provide second jobs for households, and the post commander has encouraged the families to stay at Fort Campbell during deployments now.”
Car sales slow during deployments, he adds, but “the families are still here and they still need service on their vehicles.”
It’s a far different economic formula than what existed during pre-9/11 deployments.
“Business was abysmal,” Jenkins says of the periods when troops deployed to Desert Storm, Kosovo and other campaigns. “Every car dealer in town had a lot of sales people that had quit. We had shrunk our work forces. When the soldiers came back, we literally didn’t have enough salespeople to wait on customers as they came in.”
There are plenty more cars sold now than a year ago – sales are up by 25 percent, he says – but the strategy to partner with the soldiers and support their families has paid off practically and emotionally.
“This is not simply a business plan to encourage our military to stay here. It’s heartfelt by Clarksville people,” he says, noting that 40 percent of his staff is retired military.
The figurative wall that long separated civilian and military populations has come tumbling down.
“The whole time they are gone, we pray for them. They go to Sunday school and church with us and they go to our golf courses,” says Jenkins. “They are an integral part of our fabric in Clarksville. They are our friends. We don’t look at people as to what profession they have.”
Successful businessman Jeff Bibb, 57, a Clarksville native, testifies to the veracity of that “all for one” attitude that now prevails in his hometown. “I’ve seen it in our church,” says the longtime member of Hilldale United Methodist Church, which presides over a stretch of Madison Street in south Clarksville, near the neighborhood where he grew up.
“It was rare to have military families as part of our congregation when I was younger, but the combination of military, retirees and families make up a significant portion of the congregation now.”
The importance of the military payroll to the local economy can’t be overstated says former Mayor Ted “Wild Turkey” Crozier.
Crozier first arrived at Fort Campbell in June 1949, and spent several tours at the post, including his final duty as chief of staff of the 101st Airborne Division and Fort Campbell, before retiring in 1977.
A retired colonel, Crozier embraced military/community integration when stationed at Campbell and chose Clarksville as his post-retirement home.
Crozier and two of his late friends, retired Cols. Robert E. Jones and Art “The Godfather” Lombardi – dubbed “The 101 Mafia” by Gen. David Petraeus back when he commanded the division – recently were honored by the downtown Kiwanis Club for their efforts in promoting the 101st Airborne Division, Fort Campbell and the Clarksville-Montgomery County community.
Crozier eagerly discusses the importance of the military-civilian partnership.
“To give you an example, we are all crazy about Hemlock,” says the 86-year-old who served eight years as mayor, beginning in 1979. “They made a statement that a full employment of 500 will be a $50 million payroll.”
He then points to the influx of money from the troops: The most recent statistics furnished by Fort Campbell show the post’s total military payroll is about $1.4 billion. Throw in the pay of civilian workers and it pushes $1.7 billion.
“That’s a ton of dough,” Bibb says, adding it’s virtually impossible to overstate the importance of that military payroll to the community. But he also says the genuine affection for the post is genuine and enduring.
“Clarksville has extended a hand to Fort Campbell for the last 30 or 40 years,” by providing support, services, retail and housing, he says.
It has been a change in attitude in the old tobacco port on the Cumberland River. “When I was in high school and before that, during the Vietnam War era, you saw a lot of soldiers coming and going for a few months and they were out of here.
“With today’s volunteer Army, you have so many more people in the military who are truly career-oriented” whose tours at Campbell extend beyond combat training.
“As opposed to being here for relatively short period of time, people are assigned here for a number of years. We have a married military now. As opposed to just lighting here for a little while, you have families buying homes here,” says Bibb, noting that he and Frank Lott, his partner in BLF Marketing, have benefited by being able to choose employees from the rich talent pool of Army spouses.
Tom Denney knows about the city-Army partnership from both sides of the heavily patrolled fence surrounding the massive post that straddles the Tennessee-Kentucky line at Clarksville’s edge.
For 32 years, Denney served in the Army, retiring 23 years ago as a colonel.
“I’m still working hard,” as vice president for Coldwell Banker Conroy, Marable & Holleman Real Estate, chairman of the board of the Fort Campbell Credit Bureau and honorary colonel of the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade.
“My last tour at Campbell, I was the garrison commander,” the vital 75-year-old says. “That’s really like being mayor of the post.”
Rather than take an assignment in Hawaii back in 1988, he elected to retire in Clarksville.
That climate of both of the weather – “I’d served in countries where there weren’t four seasons and didn’t like it” – and the friendly civilian population contributed to his decision to stay in the Queen City of the Cumberland.
“It’s not the one-horse town it was back in the 1950s, when there were only 12,000-25,000 people,” he says. “Plus it’s easy living, close to a big city. It’s like living in a large-enough town that you have got all you need, but it’s just a short hop to Nashville.
“And it’s soldier-friendly. We like the guys. They are a major part of our complete economy. When their husbands or wives do go overseas, a lot of their families stay here. They are comfortable living in this environment.”
As a man who has served in outposts wild and tame, he finds his adopted hometown unique. “Every general, when they come in, they say this is the friendliest place we’ve ever been in the military.”
That’s not simple hyperbole, says Denney. “This is really a different place and people know it when they come here.”
Like car-dealer Jenkins, Denney points to the retiree part of the puzzle, in that many soldiers choose to live near Fort Campbell when their service is done for the same reasons he chose to.
That ongoing vitality, contributed to by the retirees and the nesting spouses, kept the real estate business here stronger, even in deployment, than in many other cities.
“A lot of these people who are coming back, many of them bought homes before they went, in case something happened to them, so their spouses and families would have a place to live,” he says.
With the ongoing rotation home “we see a lot of energy,” Denney says.
With expectations of being home longer this time, soldiers who spent much of the last decade in Iraq and Afghanistan now “are saying ‘If I’m going to be home two, three, four years … I’m going to invest in a piece of property that’s mine,’” Denney says. “A lot of them decide they are going to retire here when they are done, so they are buying their retirement home.”
Lt. Col. Frank Garcia, division public affairs officer, is among those pondering settling down here. He and his wife, Andrea, and their daughters, 14 and 12, rent in the Dunbar Cave area.
But the soldier, who spent about 2½ years in Iraq over the course of two deployments, finds Clarksville a uniquely good city for soldiers.
“It’s a wonderful place to live. Great quality of life, lots of things to do, with Nashville being as close as it is and LBL (the Land Between the Lakes, a 170,000-acre National Recreation Area) to the west of us for those of us who like to do outdoors things,” he says. “And the way the community embraces military members and veterans is a definite plus. There probably aren’t many areas near a military base that have this level of support from a community.”
About 14,000 soldiers and 13,000 family members live on the post when troops are home, Fort Campbell statistics show. The other 16,500 soldiers and 40,000 family members find housing in the community. Some choose nearby Hopkinsville and Oak Grove, Ky., with the bulk choosing Clarksville and Montgomery County, Tenn.
Soldiers use their housing allowance to find off-post accommodations and, if they choose to own, “they can purchase a nice home cheaper than they can rent one,” Denney says.
But even during the thick of deployment, his business didn’t die.
“Surprisingly, the housing market wasn’t slow, even when they were gone, because a lot of them have given the power of attorney so their wives could buy a house.”
It’s not been unusual for a soldier to buy a house, shopping over the Internet, even while on the battlefront.
David Greene, managing broker for one of the city’s two Crye-Leike locations and president of the Clarksville Association of Realtors, also talks about how soldiers sit in front of computers in Afghanistan or Iraq and shop.
“They know what they want and we help them narrow down what they want to see,” Greene says. “If a wife is not handling the business and you’ve got a single guy, he might have a girlfriend or a fiancé who might help. Or his father might come down and check out the house during the inspection process.”
For that reason, the city has remained a “fluid market,” although it did improve when the soldiers began rotating home this year.
Winter and spring the market was down about 15 percent, he says, noting that in the winter that was largely due to bad weather. But by July, during the thick of the homecoming that began early in the year, the market was up by 15 percent.
“You don’t get that kind of rebound normally. Some of that was because the soldiers had come home. Also the weather got better and that is our peak season.”
That growth continues into this fall.
“It’s always been a good market,” says Greene, adding homes typically remain on the market 90 to 120 days, much shorter than the norm in many cities and regions.
“We’ve been fortunate through the big economic downturn of ‘07-’08, and I think that’s due to our soldiers’ involvement in the community,” says.
Not all soldiers buy houses, though. Many, if they can’t be accommodated on post, rent apartments. And there aren’t many to spare right now. “Our multi-family living is running at very high occupancy,” the Chamber’s Chavez says.
Even those who don’t buy houses, buy cars. Car sales have climbed about 25 percent over last year, says Jenkins. “A lot of that is obviously when the soldiers come back from Afghanistan; many of them have looked forward to buying a new car and then going on 30 days’ leave.”
Soldiers, by the way, “love trucks. The Ford F-150 is a real favorite of the military. Ford Explorers, Fusions, Mustangs and Honda Accords and Pilots also are big. And Odyssey vans for the family.”
Yes, the soldiers do matter, but their importance far outweighs the dollars they spend, according to Jenkins.
“I see people in my lounge who have two prostheses,” he says. “These guys are here that have every right to have a chip on their shoulder and give up, but their attitude is incredible. It’s so uplifting.”
And never far from the minds of soldiers and civilians is that the 101st lost 139 soldiers, according to the official count released by the post, since March 2010 in Afghanistan. And scarcely a week goes by when more deaths aren’t reported. At the same time, scarcely a week goes by that isn’t highlighted by a cheerful homecoming celebration.
In salute to the soldiers, Jenkins and his staff wear red shirts every Friday, example of the sense of patriotism that – as much as the military paychecks – keep this city perked up, emotionally and economically.
“They are my heroes, man,” says barber Ward, as soldiers continue to come in for $11 medium skin fades.
He says he loves listening to the stories he hears from the lowliest enlisted man all the way up to the commanding general.
“They go over there and they live through unbearable stuff. While laying there on the ground with half a leg missing, they still got a weapon in their hand and they do what they do.”
Sure, some of them “are more personable than others” when they sit in the barber chair – or shop for cars or homes, surely – but that’s OK, because “they got a lot on their minds.”
As for the haircut itself, well, it’s more difficult than it looks to construct the proper medium skin fade. “It’s a lot harder to notice mistakes if you got a lot of hair. When you just got a little bit of hair, it’s easy to spot.”
An entire city and massive military post celebrate that medium skin fades are becoming more and more a part of Clarksville’s outward appearance.

How to make money with online Bingo

By By Rita Leahy
Playing Bingo successfully can be a great way to win a huge amount of money. However, going to regular Bingo events just isn’t worth the time and effort that it used to be. As a result, a vast number of people now play bingo online from the comfort of their home or office. Playing casino games like Blackjack, Roulette, Poker and tons of other games online has actually become quite a trend in recent times. What can prove tricky for people is actually learning how to win at these bingo events though.
When did online casinos get so popular?
Online casinos have truly become one of the most popular ways to win big money over the last decade. Even those people who have yet to visit a real casino have been going to online ones, principally because of the convenience offered. There are more than 1000 online casino websites available, all of which give you the chance to gamble your money playing bingo and a variety of other casino games.
How to make money from online Bingo
One of the most popular techniques employed by regular players in the world of online bingo is to constantly keep joining the rooms where there aren't too many people joining. Most bingo rooms have 30 or more people inside, so try going to the ones that have a lower amount of people involved. This is a technique used by countless people to boost their chances at winning. Bingo is more of a game of fate, but you can potentially win using these strategies. Another powerful technique is to play as many cards as you can while joining rooms that don't have as much gamblers. It's actually very easy to win when you combine these two techniques and, when done effectively, you can potentially win more and more bingo events online.
Are there significant chances of winning?
It all depends on how much time you dedicate to playing, as bingo is as much about fate and luck as it is anything else. However, you can increase your chances of winning if you simply implement the two techniques above as much as possible. The main reason why most bingo enthusiasts keep winning is because they are constantly playing and trying out different methods and techniques. So, you should really learn how to find out what works well for you. Try remembering exactly what you did the first time that you won. By remembering what you did, you can use that technique to win even more bingo games in the future.
Bingo is extremely fun to play in halls and local events, but it's even more exciting when done in an online casino. There are also many added benefits and bonuses that you can get online, so you can potentially make even more online if you are willing to put in the work. It really is just a case of implementing the tips above and throwing your hat into the ring as much as possible. Online casino reviews can help you to choose the sites you wish to join.

Home prices 'to rise 15% by 2016'

By STEVE HAWKES, Business Editor 

HOUSE prices will rise by 15 PER CENT in the next five years — despite fears of economic armageddon, a think-tank claimed last night.

Experts said Britain's chronic housing shortage would make up for any lack of demand.
The Centre for Economics and Business Research insisted that the fight for property being put up for sale would ratchet prices higher.
It's a huge boost for home owners — but risks pricing even more first-time buyers out of the market.
CEBR economist Charles Davis told Sun City: "There is a definite weakness on the demand side.
"But you can't get away from the fact that housebuilding is at its lowest levels since the 1920s at a time when the population is rising. The supply constraints will push up demand."
He has pencilled in a 1.6 per cent rise for 2012, followed by 2.2 per cent the next year and 2.6 per cent in 2014.
CEBR predicts a 3.2 per cent rise in 2015, followed by 4.2 per cent in 2016. The biggest increase next year is expected in London and the South East — at 1.9 per cent.
The predictions are a far cry from the boom years before the credit crisis.
Average prices — from one-bed flats to family mansions — rose by a staggering 190 PER CENT between 1997 and 2007.
The forecast came on the day when a Bank of England policymaker admitted the chances of the economy going backwards were now "50-50".
Ben Broadbent, one of the nine Monetary Policy Committee members, warned that Britain could fall into recession.
He said: "Clearly there's a risk of that."
HALIFAX — Britain's biggest mortgage lender — echoed the CEBR findings.
Martin Ellis, housing economist, said the property market would be "boring" but stable.
But stockbroker CAPITAL ECONOMICS insisted prices were still over-valued and a correction was "inevitable".
Paul Diggle told Sun City: "We believe prices next year will fall by five per cent and by another five per cent the year after.
"The UK economy as a whole is going to stagnate and a correction has to come at some point."
The French fancy M&S knickers
MORE than 1,000 shoppers queued for "sensible" knickers and sliced bread yesterday — as MARKS & SPENCER returned to Paris.
M&S opened a new 15,000 sq ft flagship store on the Champs-Elysees a decade after the firm retreated from Europe to save money.
Supermodel and actress Rosie Huntingdon-Whiteley, left, took to the red carpet in a chic Marks & Spencer dress to join chief executive Marc Bolland in welcoming the crowds.
He said: "What people want is choice, something very strong on price and very strong on quality. We offer real value for money, so really have the sweet spot here in France."
M&S's head of women's wear Kate Bostock was among the execs at the launch, despite rumours that she is keen to quit — this time for online rival ASOS. She said she was "disappointed" at reports claiming she is involved in discussions with the fashion retailer.
But sources claim she has also held talks with discount chain NEW LOOK in recent months.
Mr Bolland refused to comment. He insisted: "We have never commented. Kate is sitting right here with me."
A thousand people were queuing around the block by the time the store opened at 11.30am. One shopper, 18-year-old Sofie Klausen, said she was looking forward to trying "the scones and sliced bread".
Anne Froiderar, 28, said M&S was one of the only places locally she could buy ready-to-eat sandwiches and other food.
She added: "I also like the underwear — it was always very good quality, but not that sexy."
6 locos to battle the big freeze
NETWORK RAIL is preparing to tackle the big freeze this winter — with six souped-up locos.
Rail chiefs have transformed half a dozen old VIRGIN diesels and fitted them with hi-tech snow ploughs and de-icers.
They are primed and ready to operate in the South East from next week. Network Rail has given them the unfortunate working name of "SITT" — Snow and Ice-Treatment Train.
Finance chief Patrick Butcher admitted passengers may alter the name slightly if they have problems next month.
But he insisted: "We have done all we can to put ourselves in the best possible position this winter.
"Nature has a way of changing things but we are better prepared to manage any disruption."
Results yesterday showed Network Rail made profits of £1.2billion in the past year. It invested more than £2billion in the railways.
The company, which has responsibility for the track and signals, said 89.3 per cent of trains arrived on time over autumn — up from 86.5 per cent a year ago.
But it blamed cable theft for worse-than-expected punctuality between March and October. RMT union leader Bob Crow claimed cost-cuts had left stations unmanned and exposed to thefts.
3 builders in line for rail deals
THREE British construction firms were given a huge boost yesterday as CROSSRAIL handed out £300million worth of building work.
KIER featured in an international consortium that bagged the £200million contract to transform Farringdon station in London.
And both BALFOUR BEATTY and MORGAN SINDALL were part of a consortium handed a smaller £100million contract to build Crossrail station and rail platforms in Whitechapel, East London.
The contracts are the last big construction deals to come up for grabs on a project that aims to transform east-west commuter travel across the capital.
A total of £16billion is going on the project.
Kier chief exec Paul Sheffield said: "We're delighted to be a part of this major scheme."
Morgan Sindall said work would boost its coffers by £29million. The Bank of England on Wednesday warned its agents believed the construction sector was already edging back into recession.
Official figures yesterday said the sector shrank 1.9 per cent in September.

SOUTH WEST WATER owner PENNON revealed a 2.3 per cent dip in half-year demand as industrial and commercial customers cut back.
Green in Top talks on China
TOPSHOP billionaire Sir Philip Green is preparing to gatecrash China.
The retail veteran last night revealed his Arcadia Group had "started a dialogue" about taking his teen brand to the Far East.
He told Sun City: "Our thought is a national chain across the main and second cities.
"It wouldn't be a franchise — we would own it. But we're just looking whether to go with a partner or on our own."
Arcadia has 600 franchised outlets in 36 countries. Topshop launched in the States last year in New York.
A second store opened in Chicago in October with a third planned for Las Vegas in March.
Arcadia chief exec Ian Grabiner said the group was testing two or three "pop up" shops or concessions in other stores overseas.
Dixons' big hope for Xmas
THE last healthy electricals chain on the high street yesterday insisted shoppers WILL spend this Christmas.
John Browett, head of Currys and PC World owner DIXONS RETAIL, dismissed fears festive trading will flop as customers cut back.
He told Sun City: "There are still plenty of people shopping on the high street. It's tough but there's no evidence trade has fallen off a cliff."
Results showed Dixons' UK sales slumped five per cent in the 12 weeks to October 15. They were down ten per cent in the previous 12 weeks.
But Mr Browett said the group was gaining market share. American rival BEST BUY last month announced plans to quit the UK and COMET was sold for £2.
Including Europe, half-year losses were £25.3million — up from a loss of £6.9million a year ago.
British Gas bills add up profit
BRITISH GAS will publish how much profit it makes on its bills for the first time in a nationwide charm offensive.
The profit per customer will appear alongside the cost of Government green levies and transmission charges as British Gas looks to win back "trust".
The energy giant is also reducing its number of tariffs. Customers will now go through a three-step process — whether they would like a variable or fixed tariff, paper or online bill, and how they would like to pay, for instance by direct debit.
Boss Phil Bentley admitted some prices may rise as deep discount web offers go. But he said the company would be more "honest".
He added: "Customers are clear — they want simple tariffs, transparent bills and a fair deal on energy."

Tweedsiders hold on to home in for victory in cup cracker

KELSO, UNITED KINGDOM - 19 / Nov / 2011: RBS Cup - Kelso v Hawick KELSO,Poynder Park. FT Kelso 31 Hawick 25 Lewis Mallin goes over for Kelso's opening Try (Photo by ROB GRAY / digitalpic / freelance )
Kelso 31
Hawick 25
RBS SCOTTISH CUP
STUART CAMERON reports from Poynder Park
THE biggest crowd of the season at Poynder Park certainly got their money’s worth as Kelso caused something of an upset against Hawick in this RBS Regional Cup match.
The Tweedsiders proved last week against Gala that they are a formidable force on their home patch, only losing by two points against the team who were top of the table in Premier One up until a couple of weeks ago.
The Hawick boys were certainly up for this one. They were out to impress new coach Phil Leck and back up the long-awaited win against Selkirk seven days earlier – and they certainly gave their new boss a dream start, going ahead on four minutes through an interception try by flanker Keith Davies. Neil Renwick converted.
In contrast, it was a nightmare start for the homesters, losing key kicker Greg Ponton after just 17 seconds to a leg injury.
Former Hawick YM back row man Lewis Mallin soon drew the Tweedsiders to within two points, however, with a try of his own which Mark Chester goaled on eight minutes before Renwick restored the Hawick lead with a long-range penalty.
On the 20-minute mark one of the best moves of the game resulted in a try for Michael Robertson – in for Bruce McNeil who was ill – putting the Greens eight points clear and looking good.
But while Kelso have had big problems this season on the road with no wins at all, they have been very good at Poynder Park, and they were having a fair amount of success in the scrum against their opposition. Just before the break they fought back for a well-deserved touchdown from ex-Hawick back row man David Lowrie which was converted by Chester for the hosts to go in at the break just a point adrift.
It was another Lowrie – this time Stuart – who put Kelso in front for the first time in the match after the restart, driving over for a try created by the pack, and with Chester adding his third conversion, the Tweedsiders were beginning to get on top.
Hawick’s defence did look shaky at times and you could almost sense the confidence growing from Kelso’s players as they continued to find gaps in the opposition defence.
Renwick reduced the deficit with a penalty, but on 56 minutes Gregg Minto darted in for a bonus point try. Chester added the extras once again and followed it up with a crucial penalty before Keith Davies scored a try in the corner on the 80-minute mark (converted by Renwick) to make things interesting for the remaining three minutes of stoppage time.
But Kelso held on to the ball well and closed the game down.
Kelso, Hawick, Selkirk and Jed-Forest have all won one out of two games so far, leaving Gala unbeaten in their opening two matches. Melrose will start their RBS Cup campaign on Saturday against Kelso at The Greenyards, but on this performance that result is by no means a foregone conclusion.
Hawick have some tweaking to do, and coach Phil Leck will certainly be looking to plug those defensive gaps as soon as possible – but with Rory Hutton and Neil Renwick now back in place the future looks a bit brighter for the Mansfield Park men.
Kelso: G. Ponton; F. Robson, R. Minto, K. Utterson, G. Minto; M. Chester, A. Tait; K. Cooney, C. Riddell, S. Lowrie, S. Carnegie, D. Seed, I. Wallace, L. Mallin, D. Lowrie. Subs: J. Farries, A. Marshall, L. Mitchell, N. Trotter.
Hawick: N. Renwick; S. Bouglas, G. Johnstone, G. Hogg, N. McColm; R. Hutton, G. Cottrell; S. Muir, M. Landels, R. Sutherland, K. Willison, B. Keown, N. MacTaggart, K. Davies, M. Robertson. Subs: L. Gibson, H. Scammell, L. Armstrong, S. Anderson.
Source www.thesouthernreporter.co.uk/