A “Flash Mob” is on its way to Omaha.
Dozens of northeast Ohioans are on a bus chartered by the Browns’ Josh Cribbs, taking the 14-hour road trip to support the Kent State baseball team at the College World Series.
They departed Friday morning from Brooklyn, greeted by Cribbs as they arrived to board the bus.
“We’re going to be 50-deep in the stands cheering for our Golden Flashes and making sure we bring home a World Series championship,” Cribbs said.
It’s a long way to Omaha, but the Kent State faithful are eager to watch the Flashes make history, appearing in the College World Series for the first time in school history.
“I decided to go because I love sports, specifically baseball, and I just graduated Kent in May so it was fun to see it all happen,” Michelle Martinez, a fan taking the bus, said.
Chris Meluch, a spring 2011 graduate, still follows his alum’s sports and is pumped about the trip.
“It’s amazing,” Meluch said. “There is so much Kent pride going on.”
Cribbs is a Kent State alum himself, setting records as the team’s starting quarterback from 2001-2004. In 2005, Cribbs was signed by the Browns as an undrafted free agent.
“I was a fan just like they are now. The fans drive my motivation,” Cribbs said. “I feel like without them there would be no me.”
Cribbs and his site TeamCribbs.com put together the bus, opening a limited number of seats to the public. For $150, fans got a hotel room on Friday night, ticket, beverages and snacks on the bus.
They also got a shirt that says Flash Mob, Omaha 2012 on the front and Team Cribbs on the back.
"$150 for all that is included is unbeatable," fan Kyle Chaboudy said.
He said they've been partying since leaving Cleveland, while Martinez said they’re playing games for Josh Cribbs autographed memorabilia through the ride.
“Kent State, they’re going to do it big. We’re doing it big for them,” Cribbs said. “We’re gonna be out there in numbers, in Omaha, Nebraska, and bringing home a winner.”
The Golden Flashes take on Arkansas in their first game Saturday at 5 p.m. A team gets eliminated after losing its second game in division play. The winners of each division play a best-of-three series for the College World Series title.
Source: www.msnbc.msn.com
Jude Law and Judi Dench confirmed for season of plays at Noel Coward Theatre - Daily Telegraph
Speaking about the launch of the Michael Grandage Company and its first run of plays, Grandage, along with his business partner, producer James Bierman, said:
"“We are delighted to announce a programme comprised of new writing alongside the classical and twentieth century repertoire.
"This unique West End season brings together writers, actors and other artists in a single venture over fifteen months dedicated to presenting work of the highest quality."
Over 200 tickets per performance will be available at £10. As Grandage and Bierman explained:
"At [the company's] heart is a commitment to reach out to as wide an audience as possible with over 200 tickets for each performance at £10 – over 100,000 across the season and through our schools’ and access work we aim to appeal to new theatregoers and help build audiences for the future."
Grandage, 50, was previously attached to the Donmar Warehouse, where he produced 66 plays during a 10-year stint as artistic director, winning a plethora of awards in the process.
Bierman worked as a producer at the Donmar during Grandage's tenure as artistic director, where he helped orchestrate several multi-award winning productions.
The Michael Grandage Company's season at the Noel Coward Theatre will begin with Privates on Parade on 1 December 2012.
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
Kent council boss made redundant after 16 months gets £420,000 payout - The Guardian
The former boss of a Conservative-run council received a £420,000 payout when she left the authority after just 16 months in the job, it has emerged.
Katherine Kerswell was made redundant from Kent county council last December just over a year after introducing a £340m cuts plan that will see 1,500 staff leave the council in the next four years.
Kent council initially refused to divulge the terms of her redundancy package but was forced to publish the payout this week under recently introduced local government transparency rules.
Kerswell, who joined the authority as managing director on a £200,000 annual salary in March 2010, received £589,000 in total remuneration last year, after her pay and pension contributions were taken into account.
She was the architect of a controversial savings programme known as the Change to Keep Succeeding plan, which will see 1,500 staff leave the council by 2015.
Kent said it had decided to abolish the position of council chief executive, and said Kerswell's role would not be filled. It decided instead to place the management role in the hands of the council leader and a senior team of directors. "Removing chief executive posts is what more and more councils should be doing," Carter said.
But trade unions asked why the council had hired Kerswell on such extravagant terms if they knew she would only be in place for a short term.
David Lloyd, secretary of the Kent local government branch of Unison, said: "When the previous chief executive left why didn't they do a feasibility study then of whether another CEO was needed? It's bad planning by the politicians."
He added: "Feelings are running high locally. The anger I'm picking up is with the council, not Katherine Kerswell.
"So many people here have lost their jobs. It's frontline staff and low-paid women workers who have taken a hit, and it doesn't seem fair."
The redundancy payout was defended by the council leader Paul Carter, who said employment law and contractual obligations dictated the size of the payout. Carter, who appointed Kerswell, said her departure "would save a fortune in the long term".
It is understood that soon after Kerswell's appointment relations soured with senior Tory group councillors who were said to be unhappy at being excluded from top-level decisions. "She had contrived to upset a lot of councillors. They felt she tried to bypass them a lot of the time," one local source said.
Unison said it had concerns that in the absence of a chief executive the council would now become a "politically run" council with no separation of political leaders and officials.
But Carter said: "Our council is now being guided by officers who have worked their way up and know what life is like from a Kent taxpayers' perspective."
The council said it had saved £1m in senior staff salaries over the past year, as a result of the reorganisation. But its draft annual accounts reveal that it paid out over £10m in severance payments in 2011-12 as nearly 1,000 staff left the authority. The council's former finance director Lynda McMullan received a £179,000 payout.
The government has consistently attacked high salaries paid to local government chief executives. The communities secretary, Eric Pickles, has called for authorities to abolish the chief executive role as a cost-saving measure.
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
With Justices Set to Rule on Health Law, 2 Parties Strategize - CNBC
WASHINGTON — House Republicans are not waiting for the Supreme Court verdict on the new health care law to plot their strategic response. If the measure is not thrown out entirely, House leaders plan to force a vote immediately to repeal the law to reinforce their deep opposition to the legislation, opposition that has become central to their political identity.
The emerging game plan for the Republicans who control the House is just one element of the coordinated planning by groups on both sides of the issue as the Supreme Court ruling approaches as early as next week. The Republican National Committee, in consultation with Congressional campaign offices and Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, is readying a war room. The National Republican Congressional Campaign has mounted a petition drive for repeal, complete with a function to allow signers to watch their faxed petitions arrive over the Internet.
At the White House, which has much riding on the case, top officials continue to project confidence that the court will rule in its favor and that the administration will move on to put the law into force. But White House allies and advocates of the new law do not necessarily share that view and are gearing up in the event of an unfavorable decision.
Representatives of groups favoring the law from crucial political battlegrounds converged on Washington this week for two days of meetings to coordinate their political response at the behest of Families USA, one of the law’s most stalwart defenders. Democratic aides on Capitol Hill are readying a comeback intended to force Republicans to show their hand on the issue of the uninsured.
House Democrats have been issued a “pocket card” to carry with them, spelling out in big numbers how the law has already helped people: 86 million who have received free preventive care, 105 million who no longer face a lifetime cap on benefits, and as many as 17 million children who can no longer be denied coverage because of pre-existing health conditions.
And the health insurance industry has started a lobbying and social media effort to drive home its contention that popular regulatory provisions in the law cannot survive if the Supreme Court strikes down the mandate that all Americans buy health insurance.
“Our focus is making people understand the inextricable link between the coverage mandate and the rest of the insurance regulations,” said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, the industry group behind a campaign known simply as “The Link.”
The Supreme Court’s decision is expected as early as next week but more likely the following week. Rarely in the high court’s history has a decision had so much riding on it, for the economy, for the vast health care industry and for the nation’s body politic — from the White House race to the 435 House campaigns.
After a burst of prognostication around oral arguments over the health care law, known as the Affordable Care Act, groups on both sides have fallen back into a state of nervous anticipation. No one is certain how the court will rule, or how the politics will shake out in the aftermath.
Lawmakers, political strategists and activists are preparing for three contingencies: the court upholds the law, the court invalidates the insurance-purchasing mandate but preserves most of the law, or the court throws out the law, President Obama’s signature domestic achievement. In the event that the law it is crippled or eviscerated, the contest will be to ensure that the other party is held responsible, not only for the popular provisions that are lost but what comes next for the 46 million Americans still without health insurance.
Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader, said that unless the court throws out the law in its entirety, House Republicans intend to push the issue back to the floor of the House and call for its repeal.
Since Republicans believe that health insurance companies are contractually obligated to maintain some of the most popular provisions, like allowing adults under age 26 to remain on their parents’ health plans or ending lifetime payment caps, until the next open insurance enrollment period, they contend there will be less pressure on Republicans to produce the “replace” part of their promise to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act. Republicans say their view was bolstered by recent signs from the health insurance industry that they will retain some popular benefits.
“I don’t think we would take the step of countering with a comprehensive, thousands-of-pages bill like Obamacare, no,” Mr. Cantor said. “I don’t think that’s what the country wanted. I think that’s what scared so many people.”
After a repeal vote, Republicans plan to first let the dust settle. Then, Mr. Cantor said, they would move forward incrementally with bills to allow the purchase of insurance across state lines, to loosen restrictions on consumers wishing to change insurers, and to bolster tax-preferred health savings accounts. When several Republican lawmakers suggested popular parts of the health care law would be maintained, conservatives loudly revolted. Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio stepped in to say the law must be wiped clean before any next steps are taken.
A senior Republican House aide said it was up to the White House, not Republicans, to produce a contingency plan for those left behind by a court invalidation, like the thousands of sick people or consumers with pre-existing conditions in new federally backed high-risk pools.
Even before those moves, advocates are trying to seed the political battleground. The conservative group American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS began a $4.6 million advertising campaign against six Democratic Senate candidates on Wednesday, including an attack on Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota centered on “Obamacare.”
On the other side of the issue, Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, said advocates of the law from the most politically important states are gathering to coordinate messages for the week ahead. The most important task is to impress on voters that the court’s ruling will likely have no impact on the heart of the health care law — health coverage to the uninsured, started in 2014, through the expansion of Medicaid ![[cnbc explains]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_scHVRKm5VP0eAiLkXI6FE7VY-EnVQsHBG1iZrAfk2HVFJvs956PWYbxvuGhzMMswNwu-zi9Lj9xjW_zJ-SGIoQPtWmpTcbWHaMZ3cmWEscF2nhIzcAYTA_t4wrrVs8oflBNOYHQv9q7JP-CD7ccRy0gpaBFOhiZIZdDzUvjDwmtScUxsdKx5AhNSgvDmVAiw=s0-d)
The Supreme Court may well toss out the mandate to purchase insurance, and without that mandate, two of the most popular regulations may have to go: the ban on denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions and an end to variable insurance rates for different populations.
“If the court invalidates the mandate and invalidates those two key insurance market reforms, we need to make sure the public does not see that as meaning the law is killed,” Mr. Pollack said.
Source: www.cnbc.com
Samantha to make Sussex bow - thisiskent.co.uk
CRICKET: Samantha Wright, who plays regularly for Bells Yew Green in senior men's cricket, as well as Hurst Green on Sundays, has been selected to play for the full Sussex women's team against Essex in the ECB County Championship on Saturday.
Wright impressed against Trinidad and Tobago last year in her friendly debut, but this selection, alongside four regular England players and the England Academy captain, is an excellent achievement after she helped Sussex U17 to gain the national title last season, her third national title since 2009.
It is reward for an impressive all-round start to the season, in which she has taken 14 wickets with her off-spin, backed up with hard-hit runs and eight catches.
Source: www.thisiskent.co.uk
Kent’s new healthcare model praised by health secretary Andrew Lansley - Kent News
(l-r) Dr Chee Mah, chairman of South Kent Coast Clinical Commissioning Group; Dr Joe Chaudhuri; health secretary Andrew Lansley; KCC leader Paul Carter; Dover MP Charlie Elphicke; and leader of Dover District Council Paul Watkins
By Marijke Cox, Reporter
Friday, June 15, 2012
8:00 AM
Kent Health Commission model could become leading example for the rest of the country
A pioneering new health and social care model which promises patient power and bespoke services could become the national beacon for a new type of healthcare.
Health secretary Andrew Lansley paid a special visit to Dover to launch the Kent Health Commission’s first report, a radical document looking to transform the way people are cared for in the county.
It looks to combine health and social care budgets to commission new services based on patients’ needs.
Among the recommendations is a major shift to community healthcare, where people receive support in their own homes or community.
This would be through the development of community hospital facilities and services in local areas meaning patients can avoid unnecessary long journeys to acute centres.
It could also lead to more district nurses, more occupational therapists, physiotherapists and intermediary care beds, and a whole range of services to support patients in their own home.
The document recommends shifting power to patients, enabling them to make informed choices about what is best for them, when and where to be treated and what treatment to receive under the principle “no decision about me without me”.
Self-management, such as telehealth where people can manage long-term illnesses themselves at home while still being monitored by professionals, is also at the heart of the recommendations.
Kent Health Commission said the leading principle should be that services are centred on the needs of patients rather than the organisations that deliver them.
During his visit, Mr Lansley said he welcomed the “bold move”.
“I welcome this report and the work underway to make sure the new health reforms provide the very best health and social care services for the people of Kent.
“I have asked for further updates on how these recommendations will be put into practice and the improved services that will be offered to local people with a view to using the health commission as a model for other areas to follow.”
Leader of Kent County Council Cllr Paul Carter established the commission, bringing together GPs, Dover MP Charlie Elphicke and Dover council leader Paul Watkins.
The report focuses on Dover and Shepway as templates for the proposed shake-up, which could release more than £59m a year in Kent – an average of £5m per district.
Cllr Carter said the commission supported radical and bold changes in the way primary health care is delivered.
The Tory leader, who admitted there were currently massive pressures on the system, said: “We want to cut bureaucracy and combine health and social care budgets to commission new services based around patient needs.
“Working together, we will commission new community health support that will transform the way people are cared for.
“In meeting local need, new local commissioning arrangements will make sure that ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’.
“Using a whole raft of services to support patients in their own homes, we are looking to avoid unnecessary hospitalisation, particularly for patients with long term illnesses.”
This first report looks to support GPs, who have been given power over commissioning under the new national health reforms.
Kent Health Commission says it wants to help give GPs freedom and flexibility in their new role and for an exciting new market in health provision to be developed.
It also wants pooled commissioning between health and social care to speed up.
Chairman of south Kent coast clinical commissioning group Dr Chee Mah said those involved believe the collaboration will have a great impact, providing the best possible health and social care services.
Dr Joe Chaudhuri called it an “ambitious and exciting” initiative.
He added: “Strong, trusting relationships among different agencies are key and the fact that we have a shared vision gives me real confidence that we can achieve our collective ambitions.”
Source: www.kentnews.co.uk
Former council boss who left half-way through her four year contract receives £420,000 in one of the biggest local authority payoffs - Daily Mail
- Former chief exec had led major shake-up of the way the county council was run
- Council has now dished out more than 600,000 to pay off last two chief execs
- Authority has paid out 10.08m in 'exit packages' to staff made between 2011-2012
By Phil Vinter
|
Big pay out: Former Kent County Council chief executive Katherine Kerswell who has received a 420,000 pay off from Kent County Council
The former boss of Kent County Council was handed 420,000 of tax payers’ money as a payoff just over two years after the man she replaced was given a 200,000 golden goodbye.
It has emerged that Katherine Kerswell received the 420,000 sum, one of the biggest ever payouts to a senior council manger, when she left her post as chief executive in controversial circumstances in December last year.
When combined with the 139,806 in wages she had earned as well as other contributions in total she was paid 589,806 over the course of her final 12 months with the local authority.
Ms Kerswell finished her post when councillors decided to scrap the post of chief executive to 'save money'.
News of the pay-off, revealed in the county council’s statement of accounts for 2011-2012, follow the council’s decision to award Peter Gilroy, the man Ms Kerswell replaced in 2010 a 200,000 pay off.
The council’s former environment and regeneration officer Adam Wilkinson also received a huge 365,000 payment when he quit in 2008, a year after he had taken up his post.
Mr Wilkinson's figure amounted to a 1,000 ‘bonus’ for each of the 365 days he had worked for Kent County Council.
In total the council paid out 10.08m in so-called 'exit packages' to staff made redundant or who left by agreement in 2011-2012.
The amount included a payment of 172,000 to the authority’s former finance director Lynda McMullan who left the authority in September last year and now works for the National Audit Office.
It also covered the redundancy costs of 779 staff and a further 226 departures that were mutually agreed and commitments made to cover costs of staff due to leave this year.
Expensive business: Kent County Council headquarters. A total of 10.08million has been paid in 'exit packages' to staff between 2011 and 2012
Robert Oxley, Campaign Manager of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: 'Kent County council has a history of handing our extraordinary pay-outs for its senior staff with scant regard to value for taxpayers’ money.
‘Councils may have a legal requirement to make a redundancy pay-out but this latest sum is staggeringly excessive.
‘Councillors need to scrap the overly generous contracts that make these deals possible before any more money is blown on gargantuan redundancy payoffs.'
According to the Tax Payers’ Alliance the council employee with the largest remuneration package in the UK in 2009-2010 was Peter Dolan, chief executive for South Somerset Council who received a 569,000 pay off package.
In 2010-11 was Ian Drummond, the Executive Director of Special Projects at Glasgow City Council, received 450,628.
At the time of Ms Kerswell’s departure the county council’s Conservative administration insisted at her departure was related to a re-organisation of the authority and that the chief executive role had been discontinued in order to make savings.
However, there was speculation that Mrs Kerswell, who joined the council in March 2010, had fallen out with the Conservative leaders.
She had led a major shake-up of the way the county council was run under what was known as the 'Change To Keep Succeeding' programme.
That involved a major cull of senior directors that some opposed.
Mrs Kerswell, who was paid just under 200,000 a year, joined KCC in March 2010 from Northamptonshire county council, following the departure of former chief executive Peter Gilroy.
History: The council gave the chief executive who Ms Kerswell replaced a 200,000 pay off
The county council has previously refused to disclose details of the pay-off, saying it was subject to a confidential agreement.
But under new transparency rules on top executive pay, the details have now had to be reported.
In a statement, the council leader Paul Carter said: 'Removing chief executive posts is what more and more councils should be doing.
'Employment law and contractual obligations mean we have to pay significant redundancy costs, but it will save a fortune in the long run.
'Our council is now being guided by officers who have worked their way up and know what life is like from a Kent taxpayers’ perspective.'
He added: 'The highest paid staff in local government are valuable, experienced people but when savings need to be made I think taxpayers would rather see cuts to management than to frontline staff.
'Kent is putting its faith more and more in the talented people who actually deliver good, frontline services and streamlining management tiers.'
He added that KCC was now spending 40m less on pay for staff and that the re-structuring of senior directors had saved 1m alone.
Source: www.dailymail.co.uk
Etchingham - Village at the coalface - thisissussex.co.uk
THE quintessential Sussex village: the white weather-boarded cottages, the ancient and venerable parish church, the river meandering gently by... and the disused coal yard.
Situated at the eastern edge of East Sussex, Etchingham appears at first sight to be a "ribbon" development on the main road linking the county town of Lewes with the main London to Hastings route.
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high hopes: Colin Phillips, chairman of de Etchingham CIG, the company that aims to turn the coal yard in the village into a car park
But the village is actually an ancient settlement beside an old drovers' road, a community already thriving by the Middle Ages as an important trading route.
So the advent of the railways in the Victorian era made this an obvious choice for a station on the mainline rail link.
Etchingham's picturesque Victorian station nestles beside its level crossing at the edge of the village, in the green valley of the River Rother. The next landmark to be seen on entering the village, whether by road or rail, is the former coal yard, disused since the 1950s and left to become an overgrown, neglected eyesore.
Recent regeneration has seen the conversion of the old stationmaster's house into a thriving bistro, and the redevelopment of the village shop.
So extra parking for users of the shop and bistro was naturally suggested at the coal yard.
The de Etchingham Community Interest Group had been responsible for setting up the Bistro@thestation, and proceeded to submit plans for the coal yard conversion, which were approved earlier this year.
Chairman of the group, Colin Phillips, said renovation of the former eyesore was always envisaged as part of the overall regeneration plan, providing an opportunity to complement the village's new hub, based around the station and bistro, the shop, church and children's play area.
In addition to the planned 15 parking spaces, the old coal yard will now house Etchingham's first recycling point, landscaped with trees and a garden forming a natural meeting point in the village, with its own boules area.
Delays have inevitably occurred and problems arisen with this project, notably after concerns over the decontamination of the land, given its former use. Testing is rigorous and standards are exacting, of course, but the necessary procedures have been implemented to facilitate full clearance and resurfacing of the ground.
The level of community involvement in this project is high. Regular bulletins on all the redevelopment projects are provided to residents, while local groups are active in helping to clear the area of debris, and the village Brownies have been allocated an area in which to cultivate its own garden.
With the opening of this new facility planned for later this year, those involved are justifiably proud of their transformation of an outdated, contaminated coal yard into a green and eco-friendly modern amenity.
An example of what can be achieved in turning vision into reality, by really getting down to working at the coalface.
Source: www.thisissussex.co.uk
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