O'Neill not distracted from home goals despite European riches

SOCCER: IT TOOK almost a decade-and-a- half of participation in the competition now known as the Champions League before a League of Ireland club made it through a single round. Back then, though, it didn’t really matter quite so much; the hope was to get a glamorous draw. During those 14 years the likes of Manchester United, Atletico Madrid and Sporting Lisbon all came and played in front of packed houses.
Now, it doesn’t matter too much who a club ends up playing as long as they make it to the group stages; glamour is just the icing on the cake. Prize money and a share of the television pool is what clubs are after.
So, even before the draw is made for the next round this week in Switzerland, the players and officials at Shamrock Rovers know this evening’s game against FC Copenhagen in Tallaght is right up there with the biggest games in the history of the club.
Fans might well point to the matches that have won or lost the club titles or cups in Ireland, but never has the team gone into a game where victory will mean more than doubling the club’s income for the entire year.
The contrast is illustrated elsewhere by, say, Tommy McConville’s miss against Celtic in 1979 when a goal would have put Dundalk into the quarter-finals of the European Cup. What was at stake was putting a great club out of the competition and making history for Irish football, but Dundalk might easily have made less money in the next round than they did against the Scots. By the time Shelbourne played Deportivo La Coruna in 2004, on the other hand, pride and history were a part of the mix, but the primary concern was the €6 million or so a place in the group stages was reckoned to be worth to the Dubliners.
For Rovers, going out of the Champions League this evening will mean a place in a play-off round of the Europa League, where a win would give them the chance to qualify for that competition’s group stages and a guaranteed €1 million in prize money plus various add-ons.
Eliminate the Danes, though, and the bottom line for the Dubliners will be at least three times that amount: each of the participants in last year’s Champions League play-off received over €2 million, after which the winners went on to the massively lucrative next round while the losers were parachuted into the Europa League group stage and so received that €1 million-plus.
“There’s a huge amount of money at stake,” says Rovers manager Michael O’Neill. “That’s the imbalance. The money on offer to the club through European football as opposed to domestic football is not comparable. Yet you need to be successful in domestic football to have a chance at the European money, so that’s why out focus is never to be taken off domestic side of things.
“Still, the club has everything to gain. We’ve put together fine squad of players and done it within a strict financial plan so success will all be an upside for us.”
O’Neill admits while he and the club’s board are keen to take on the “fantastic challenge” qualification would bring, there would be a “certain nervousness and fear”, of all the various hurdles that would have to be overcome during the coming months.
Supporters dream in these situations enough revenue can be generated to make their club dominant at home and capable of further progress abroad, and certainly Champions League group stage football, which might increase turnover from around the €2.5 million mark to something like six times that figure, would have the potential to do that.
Going out this evening and then missing out on the group stage of the Europa League, on the other hand, would have no major long-term impact, while even the €3 million-plus, that would result from the team successfully navigating its way along one of the middle paths would require some serious decisions to be made about how best to move forward.
“All of these things are what-ifs,” he says. “They’re not things I am banking on. But in any case I don’t think it would lead to us changing the way we would run the club. There are things we would like to do to improve in all areas of the club and we would have to look at them, but I couldn’t see me saying, right, we’re going to double our wage bill now. That’s not going to happen.”
Source http://www.irishtimes.com/

Study: Many Vermonters pass up home energy savings

By DAVE GRAM
MONTPELIER, Vt. -- Ludy Biddle spent about $4,300 on insulation and air sealing to make her 18th-century Shrewsbury, Vt. home less drafty in winter, and she's cut her heating bills by more than half.
As executive director of NeighborWorks of Western Vermont, she's on a mission to get others to do the same. But she remembers her own initial misgivings on doing work that could save money and reduce greenhouse gas emissions tied to climate change.
"I really didn't believe that there could be much to improve our situation," Biddle said. "I' just assumed a house as old as mine couldn't be improved."
New research indicates Vermonters could save more than $800 million during the next 20 years and could generate jobs in the home improvement industry if residents would invest in insulation, new windows and other measures designed to keep homes warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer, according to the Middlebury-based High Meadows Fund. The typical homeowner could cut costs by 30 to 50 percent.
High Meadows, a nonprofit devoted to environmental stewardship and economic vitality, released a group of studies Monday that examine ways to get more Vermonters over the sorts of misgivings Biddle described and get the work done to improve the energy efficiency of their homes.
"It is not lack of funding that stops many homeowners from improving their energy efficiency," said Gaye Symington, executive director of High Meadows. "It is a lack of demand for what they consider a complicated process with unknown benefits. We need to make energy efficiency easier to see and do."
"Many Vermonters have started down this path with a home efficiency audit but don't go through with the recommended improvements because one step doesn't easily lead to the next," Symington said. "Not only are they forgoing potential savings of $800 to $1,100 a year, they're also missing out on the more comfortable home if they had finished the work."
People in the energy efficiency field talk about the "conversion rate" - the percentage of people who pay $350 to $500 to get a home energy audit done and then go ahead and get the work the audit recommends completed. That latter step can cost several thousand dollars but can save more than that in the long run.
NeighborWorks has a conversion rate just shy of 50 percent, which Merrian Fuller, an energy efficiency researcher at the LawrenceBerkeley National Laboratory in California, said is high by national standards, though not the highest she has seen. Fuller said she had seen conversion rates ranging from 10 percent to 65 percent.
HighMeadows commissioned three other entities, the statewide energy conservation program Efficiency Vermont, the Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School and the consulting group Regulatory Assistance Project in Montpelier, to look at ways to improve follow-through by homeowners who get audits.
Among the recommendations made by those groups:
_ Energy efficiency should be easier to see. For example, a home's energy profile could be disclosed when it is sold, much like the miles-per-gallon sticker on cars.
_ Financing should be available to more Vermonters, including renters, with simple, quick loan applications that have attractive terms and conditions.
_ Outreach efforts need to be consistent and coordinated among various partners, including community organizations, private businesses and Efficiency Vermont. Biddle said a key to her program's success has been follow-up calls to homeowners who've had audits to find out what they need to take the next step in getting the work done.

Old & alone in JB nursing home

By Benita Aw Yeong
In A nursing home in Johor Baru, a 90-year-old woman waits patiently for a visit from her family.
Her memory isn't the sharpest.
When asked if she has had visitors in the year since she moved into City Heart Care nursing home, she was silent.
The assistant admin manager of the home, known only as Ms Abi, shook her head in response to this reporter's question.
Madam Kong A W is one of 14 Singaporeans who live at the nursing home, said the owner of the home, Mr Jeremy Yeo.
Most enjoy visits from their families who live across the Causeway. The nursing home is a 30-minute drive from the Woodlands Checkpoint.
A typical nursing home in Singapore charges about $1,000 a month for each patient.
A check with four JB nursing homes indicated monthly fees ranging between $610 and $800 for a month's stay.
Mr Yeo, a Malaysian in his late fifties, claimed that Madam Kong's family stopped paying for her nursing home bills after her son died.
Said Ms Abi: "She (Madam Kong) has not asked about her family, and we have not told her. To her, we (the nurses and caregivers) are her family."
When The New Paper on Sunday visited the nursing home two weeks ago, Madam Kong was chattering incoherently to nurses in a mixture of Malay and Hokkien.
Around her in the room, other patients watched TV from their beds.
Outside the window in the yard, a visitor, a woman in her 60s, was feeding a patient.
Madam Kong's face lit up when she was offered some traditional Chinese New Year peanut cookies from a roommate, a Chinese Malaysian in her sixties.
"Kamsia, kamsia (thank you in Hokkien)," she said.
Said Mr Yeo: "I cannot put her out on the streets, can I? It's not right to throw her out."
While he said that her case is exceptional, he also revealed that he has "two or three" other similar cases involving patients whose relatives stop paying for them to be kept in the nursing home. These other patients are Malaysian, he added.
Mr Yeo said Madam Kong was first admitted to the nursing home on June 29 last year.
As she is bedridden and requires a higher level of care, her stay at the home should cost $800 a month.
He said that Madam Kong's son and daughter-in-law paid $900 for her first month's stay there, and then only $400 the following month.
But soon after, Madam Kong's daughter-in-law called the home to inform Mr Yeo that Madam Kong's son had died.
He said: "The only time I saw her and her husband was when Madam Kong was first admitted.
"She called some time later to say that her husband had died, and that she had no money to make any further payments."

Host a music festival in your home

Caroline McGhie uncovers homes where owners, in harmony with their grounds, create noteworthy summer events . 

By Caroline McGhie

On a hot summer Sunday afternoon, Jonathan and June Harrison’s garden fills with villagers in straw boaters. Picnic rugs are spread out, hampers are opened, wine glasses tinkle and June starts dispensing hot dogs in the barn. Then the members of the Chicago Jazz Band tune up their instruments and away they go, foot-tapping to big-hitting show songs, crooning through old pre-war favourites.

The house lends itself to musical jollity. It is a pretty three-bedroom period farmhouse called Arnold Yoke in the village of Leeds in Kent, known for its picturesque moated castle. It has a one-bedroom cottage too, but the party backdrop is provided by the beautiful gardens, paddock and barn. “We can always go into the barn if it rains but it isn’t always used as people come and put up their own gazebos, and when the rain comes down the umbrellas go up. This summer we had a beautiful sunny day,” says June.

“We have lived in the area since we got married three decades ago and over time we have raised money for local hospices and village causes with our musical events. We started with safari suppers so lots of people got to know each other,” says June. “I do hot dogs, home-made cakes and cups of tea. One year a local dramatic group came and did a version of ’Allo ’Allo. We have raised £40,000 over the years.” And the summer jazz concert has become a village tradition.

The house, priced at £1.15m by Knight Frank (01732 744477) has just gone under offer but to June’s joy the buyers look likely to continue the musical tradition. “They are known to do things for their parish, the wife is very musical and the husband is a passionate gardener,” she says.

“A property can be charming in itself but the owner’s interest adds to the atmosphere,” says George Berry, the selling agent, who confesses that he played the part of Lieutenant Gruber in the local production of ’Allo ’Allo. “A property takes on the personality of its owners and attracts like-minded buyers.”

This is music festival season. Away from the hurly-burly of big public events, others take place privately, organised by home owners who have the right kind of showcase houses. Sometimes the combination of talent and setting is just too good to resist.
Ellie Philp’s 18-year-old daughter Darcie has played the harp since she was nine. Each year Darcie is one of 10 harpists who gather in the hall of Netherton House, near Newton Abbott, as the Exeter Harp Orchestra prepare for the Devon Performing Arts Festival in Exeter. “People always say they make the sound of angels,” says Ellie.
The classic wisteria-clad house is full of quiet grandeur, with six bedrooms, servants’ quarters converted into two flats, a swimming pool, and a charming timber chalet in the gardens which run down to the River Teign. A little jetty is rented from the Crown Estate and along the bank you can walk all the way to Coombe-in-Teignhead.
“It is lucky we have a lot of space. There is room for the harps in the hall which is extremely large,” Ellie adds. She is now selling at £1.75m through Fulfords (01392 660007) and Savills (01392 455745) because it is just too large for the two of them and Darcie is about to leave home for university.
They even have a “harp car”, a Mondeo estate (without wheel arches or boot lip so that it can swallow the harp easily), to transport the instrument to the concerts, balls and weddings at which Darcie plays.
Setting is everything. At Pump Bottom Farm in Appledram near Chichester, Julian and Kathleen Moores are celebrating the 20th anniversary of their Blues On The Farm annual June weekend, voted Best British Blues Festival 2010.
“It started with a private party. We had a little marquee and friends, including Gary Brooker from the band Procul Harum, and he said this is a fantastic setting for music. People would pay to come. We thought why not?” says Kathleen.
It was the early Nineties. The couple were apple growers wanting to diversify so they began to produce cider and apple juice and got into the music scene at the same time. “It just clicked. We could sell our cider to the festival goers,” she says.
At first they had to persuade the musicians to come and play. Now the likes of Georgie Fame, Long John Baldry, Bill Wyman and Jools Holland, as well as Brooker, are keen to perform. This year they hosted 8,000 people over the festival weekend, including many campers.
Local suppliers of curries, hog roasts, fish and chips and burgers come to sell their wares.
Pump Bottom Farm also hosts corporate events and weddings for those who want less formality and more of a good party.
The Moores want to retire so they are selling the festival as a business, with 38 acres, their Cider House restaurant, farm building and four newly built oak frame holiday cottages for £3m through Chesterton Humberts (01243 531010). “If we had to sell the house as well we would – it would be selfish not to – but we hope to spend a year or two in it first,” says Kathleen.
Opera or operetta
Access to tickets to dress rehearsals of Garsington Opera’s 2012 season come with this brick-and-flint cottage with four bedrooms, three bathrooms and walks in the grounds including the lake and deer park on the Wormsley Estate in Buckinghamshire. Garsington moved its shows to the estate, home of the Gettys, this year. A beautiful kabuki inspired opera pavilion is to be built every summer to house the singers, the orchestra, the stage and the terraces. The cottage is available on a long let at £3,495 per month through John D Wood (01865 311522).
Riverbank House at Ferry Lane, Shepperton in Surrey, was rented by Arthur Sullivan while he and his librettist W S Gilbert were preparing their shows for D’Oyly Carte who built the Savoy Theatre to show their work. It witnessed many parties and informal rehearsals and Sullivan would retire here after having temper tantrums with Richard D’Oyly Carte whose house was on a neighbouring private island. Shepperton Studios’ proximity has attracted many showbiz personalities – Frank Finlay, Edward Woodward, Bernard Braden and Barbara Kelly have all lived here. John D Wood (01932 842323) is selling at £1.1m.

Alzheimer's nonprofit goes independent to keep money closer to home

When you give to charity, would you like to know where your dollar goes? One nonprofit here at home wants to make sure that happens.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) -- When you give to charity, would you like to know where your dollar goes?
One nonprofit here at home wants to make sure that happens.The Eastern Tennessee Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association says its staff, volunteers and mission will stay the same, but its name is different: Alzheimer's Tennessee, Inc. The group severed its ties to the national Alzheimer's Association as of August 1.
"When we looked at everything and looked at the amount of funds leaving the area, we determined that it would be more beneficial to our families for those funds to remain local," said Executive Director Janice Wade-Whitehead.
Wade-Whitehead says the money they raised, a nickel at a time, was leaving East Tennessee. The group drew the line when faced with sending 40 percent to the national Alzheimer's Association in Chicago.
Mary Lyn Goodman knows the faces of Alzheimer's. "You sort of go from being in their arms, and in their car, to supporting them," said Goodman. "That's kind of the way the tide turns with this disease."
Her father died from Alzheimer's five years ago. Her mother battles dementia. For the last 12 years, she's turned to one place, now called Alzheimer's Tennessee.
"It's the same faces that are with the organization today that I connected with then."
On the website Charity Navigator, you can see how your dollar is being spent at thousands of charities. Using tax returns, the site rates the organization's efficiency and capacity to do good work.
Ranking organizations from poor, where the Alzheimer's Association came in, to exceptional -- like Second Harvest Food Bank or KARM.
Wade-Whitehead hopes more local money will make it easier for them to provide help. "Those dollars they give need to be spent very very wisely because they are becoming increasingly harder for people."
"We can be very nimble in terms of responsive to their individual needs," she said. Families receive assistance through their Helpline, care consultation, support groups and adult day programs serving Knox County.
Goodman says is good news for families like hers. "That kind of peace of mind is really priceless when you are trying to navigate with a family member, you know for your parents. That did everything for you. You make to make sure you do everything for them," she said.
Click on the link above to learn more about Alzheimer's Tennessee, Inc. You can also call (865) 544-6288 in Knoxville and (931) 526-8010 in Cookeville. You can also click to go to charitynavigator.org.
Source http://www.volunteertv.com/

Kegel-ing up with the Kardashians: Kris Jenner turns her incontinence into a money spinner

By Daily Mail Reporter
A week after exposing Kim's psoriaris condition and discussing 15-year-old Kendall's use of birth control on their reality show, the Kardashians have gone even further.
Family matriarch Kris Jenner revealed in tonight's episode that she suffers from incontinence, and was frequently shown dashing to the bathroom - and not quite making it in time.
But ever the opportunist, the 55-year-old manages to turn the unfortunate bladder problem into yet another money spinner, landing a gig as the face of Poise pads.

A week after exposing Kim's psoriaris condition and discussing 15-year-old Kendall's use of birth control on their reality show, the Kardashians have gone even further.
Family matriarch Kris Jenner revealed in tonight's episode that she suffers from incontinence, and was frequently shown dashing to the bathroom - and not quite making it in time.
But ever the opportunist, the 55-year-old manages to turn the unfortunate bladder problem into yet another money spinner, landing a gig as the face of Poise pads.

A defiant Kris says: 'I don't have time to go running to the doctor just every time I have a leak.'
But the businesswoman eventually relents and goes to see her doctor with eldest daughter Kourtney in tow. 'This is an old person problem,' she says. 'I feel like I'm being betrayed by my own body.'
The doctor confirms that Kris suffers from stress incontinence and recommends kegel (pelvic floor) exercises to manage the problem.

But the business-minded Jenner, who acts as the family manager, decides to turn lemons into lemonade.
She announces to her daughters that she has been named as a spokesperson for Poise.
'I called them and told them about my problem and asked if they wanted to play ball,' she tells them.
'I'm going to embrace this. Guess who has the last laugh now ladies!'
Kris lands an ad campaign for the company and is filmed posing as Rosie the Riveter (an American icon representing women who worked in the factories during WW2).

Khloe says this is typical of her mother, whose attitude is, 'Let's not make it a problem, let's make money.'
Indeed, Jenner told the Hollywood Reporter recently that the mantra paid off when the family was facing Kim's sex tape scandal in 2007.
The family were already in talks for a reality TV show when the video emerged, but their fame sky-rocketed as a result.
Of the pornographic video, 'I thought, "Oh well, there goes the reality show,"' Jenner, who makes ten per cent from her daughters' earnings, said.

'But you can either be a problem maker or a problem solver. And I'm a problem solver.
'My job as her mom and manager is to take care of the problem - whatever it is.
'I had to cry and get upset in the privacy of my own room and then come out and help her, because she's my daughter. What good is it for me to berate her?'
'All I knew was that I had to make some lemonade out of these lemons fast. Real fast.
'My job was trying to take my kids' 15 minutes and turn it into 30.'

Eventually Vivid had to pay Kim a reported $5 million to sell the tape, which became one of the company's best-selling DVDs in ten years.
And in an early episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Kris and Kim clash when the mother encourages Kim to take a lucrative deal posing naked for Playboy in the wake of the scandal.
'People are going to think, "All she's good for is taking her clothes off,"' Kim said at the time, but eventually relented and posed for the magazine.
Meanwhile, Jenner's daughter Kendall and Kylie got a stern lesson from their father Bruce in not being so spoilt in tonight's episode.

The teens were shown refusing their food because 'It's not my fave,' texting at the dinner table and leaving the family dinner to go out with their friends.
When the girls steal Bruce's credit card to go shopping, the former Olympian can't take it any more and decides to take them to a homeless shelter to give them some perspective.
'Kendall, 15, and Kylie, 13, have been very blessed, we've given them everything they want,' he says. 'My responsibility as a parent is to show them what reality is.'
Speaking to the girls, Bruce says: 'You don't understand the value of a dollar, so we're going to see something that will put you life in perspective and maybe you'll appreciate your life a bit more.'

Kim reveals that when she was their age, her late father Robert Kardashian took her to Skid Row in Los Angeles to show her how privileged her life was.
At the shelter, Kendall and Kylie are shocked to meet a girl who lives with her entire family in a room the size of their bedrooms.
'It's kind of eye opening,'; Kylie says. 'Their whole home is the size of my bedroom. Their whole life is in that room, that is so sad to me, that people live their lives in this tiny space.
Kendall adds: 'The girls at the shelter showed us what life could be, and made me really appreciate everything we have.'

In the Biz: Local home design and consultation service launches, Young entrepreneur starts computer biz

Local design service launches

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Local business owner Dawn DiLorenzo woke up one day with an epiphany. Three days later, armed with freshly printed business cards, DiLorenzo dove right into the launch of her new home decorating, staging and color consultation business Locust Grove Designs.
“I was doing (design) work for free all the time for my friends and I thought, ‘What am I doing? I could actually make some money with this,’ ” DiLorenzo said of why she chose to start a home design company.
DiLorenzo moved to the area 10 years ago to pursue a job in sales management and earned her bachelor’s degree in management and business from Skidmore College in 2005. After graduation, DiLorenzo met her husband in Saratoga Springs and once the two got married, DiLorenzo decided to pursue her passion for home décor.
“I don’t have a deep background in design other than my two personal historical preservation projects,” DiLorenzo said about how she first got involved with interior decorating.
DiLorenzo worked to renovate a small Victorian house in Saratoga and is currently working on a historic preservation project on a 211-year-old farmhouse in Charlton, where she resides with her husband and two little boys. Although she runs Locust Grove Designs from home, DiLorenzo said she mostly works in Saratoga Springs and tries to stay within Saratoga County for projects that range from staging (sprucing up a house before it’s sold) to color and redesign consultations.
“I’ve mostly been working on redesign projects,” DiLorenzo said. “I think because of the economy, people don’t have the money to go out and buy new furniture or remodel their kitchen. I’d say 90 percent of what I’ve done is going in and working with what they have to create their space within their budget.”
DiLorenzo loves to make clients feel good and uses a creative eye to make what’s old become new again. After a successful first few months, a notice in the Charlton town newsletter about the Return the Favor program caught DiLorenzo’s eye.
“I thought that it seems like a great thing to do to help our servicemen and their families,” DiLorenzo said about signing on with Return the Favor, a program run by the Saratoga County Veteran’s Discount Program that works with local businesses to provide discounts on goods and services to military veterans and their families.
“I feel like I have a gift and I want to help people with it if I can — if I can help someone sell their home and make them a lot of money, that’s something I’d feel good about,” DiLorenzo said of why she chose to partner with Return the Favor. The partnership allows veterans a 20 percent discount on all of Locust Grove Designs’ consultation and design services Continued...
Source http://saratogian.com