Law - Civil Proecdure (Hong Kong) [4 Questions] Essay

Law - Civil Proecdure (Hong Kong) [4 Questions] - Essay Example 2). Ms. Cheung sought to have the proceedings stayed because of fundamental unfairness, stating that the conditions were appropriate to stay the proceedings in the interest of justice (Securities and Futures Ordinance, Cap. 571,  § 253(1(i); Jago v. District Court of New South Wales (1989) 168 CLR 23). In this case, the tribunal relied upon the rules promulgated at this time in Hong Kong Civil Procedure 2008, which states that â€Å"there are two distinct, though related, circumstances in which the action may be dismissed for want of prosecution, namely (a) when a party has been guilty of intentional and contumelious default, and (b) when there has been inordinate and inexcusable delay in the prosecution of the action† (Hong Kong Civil Procedure 2008, order 25, at 25/L/2). ... their death or disappearance are the most usual factors†¦in a case of prolonged culpable delay following long delays in serving of proceedings, the court may readily infer that memories of witnesses has further deteriorated in the period of culpable delay† (Hong Kong Civil Procedure 2008, order 25, at 25/L/7). Thus, the delay must result in the increased risk that the defendant will not have a fair trial on the issues or that serious prejudice will occur to the defendant as the result of the delay, because the witnesses will have decreased memories about the facts regarding the proceedings. The term prejudice has been construed to result when no witness was interviewed at the time the acts that give rise to the proceedings were commenced, so that the witness would have no way of refreshing his or her recollection about the events, or that a witness has since become unavailable because of advanced age or infirmity, and this witness would have been available but-for the inor dinate delay (Hornagold v. Fairclough Building Ltd. [1993] P.L.Q.R. 400). Further, the totality of the delay is not necessarily relevant in adducing prejudice to the defendant, but, rather, that any period of delay during any part of the proceedings would be examined to determine prejudice – therefore, if a proceeding began after a period of delay, then no action was taken thereafter, the court can infer from the delay during the latter part of the proceedings is enough to cause the dimming or memories such that the defendant would be prejudiced by the delay (Roebuck v. Mungovin [1994] 2 AC 224). Further, the defendant did not necessarily need to prove that he or she was prejudiced, and did not have to present to the court any example of a specific example of prejudice, ie, the defendant does

Improving Effectiveness and Efficiency of Sentiment Analysis

Improving Effectiveness and Efficiency of Sentiment Analysis Modha Jalaj S. Chapter – 1 1. Introduction: Big Data has been created lot of buzz in Information Technology word. Big Data contain large amount of data from various sources like Social Media, News Articles, Blogs, Web, Sensor Data and Medical Records etc. Big Data includes Structured, Semi-Structured and Unstructured data. All these data are very useful to extract the important information for analytics. 1.1 Introduction of Big Data: [26] Big Data is differs for other data in 5 Dimensions such as volume, velocity, variety, and value. [26] Volume: Machine generated data will be large volume of data. Velocity: Social media websites generates large data but not massive. Rate at which data acquired from the social web sites are increasing rapidly. Variety: Different types of data will be generated when a new sensor and new services. Value: Even the unstructured data has some valuable information. So extracting such information from large volume of data is more considerable. Complexity: Connection and correlation of data which describes more about relationship among the data. Big Data include social media, Product reviews, movie reviews, News Article, Blogs etc.. So, to analyze this kind of unstructured data is challenging task. This thing makes Big Data a trending research area in computer Science and sentiment analysis is one of the most important part of this research area. As we have lot of amount of data which is certainly express opinion about the Social issues, events, organization, movies and News which we are considering for sentiment analysis and predict the future trends and effect of certain event on society. We can also modify or make the improve strategy for CRM after analysing the comments or reviews of the customer. This kind analysis is the application of Big Data. 1.2 Introduction of Sentiment Analysis: Big Data is trending research area in computer Science and sentiment analysis is one of the most important part of this research area. Big data is considered as very large amount of data which can be found easily on web, Social media, remote sensing data and medical records etc. in form of structured, semi-structured or unstructured data and we can use these data for sentiment analysis. Sentimental Analysis is all about to get the real voice of people towards specific product, services, organization, movies, news, events, issues and their attributes[1]. Sentiment Analysis includes branches of computer science like Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, Text Mining and Information Theory and Coding. By using approaches, methods, techniques and models of defined branches, we can categorized our data which is unstructured data may be in form of news articles, blogs, tweets, movie reviews, product reviews etc. into positive, negative or neutral sentiment according to the sentiment is expressed in them. Figure 1.2.1: Sentiment Analysis Sentiment analysis is done on three levels [1] Document Level Sentence Level Entity or Aspect Level. Document Level Sentiment analysis is performed for the whole document and then decide whether the document express positive or negative sentiment. [1] Entity or Aspect Level sentiment analysis performs finer-grained analysis. The goal of entity or aspect level sentiment analysis is to find sentiment on entities and/or aspect of those entities. For example consider a statement â€Å"My HTC Wildfire S phone has good picture quality but it has low phone memory storage.† so sentiment on HTCà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¸s camera and display quality is positive but the sentiment on its phone memory storage is negative. We can generate summery of opinions about entities. Comparative statements are also part of the entity or aspect level sentiment analysis but deal with techniques of comparative sentiment analysis. Sentence level sentiment analysis is related to find sentiment form sentences whether each sentence expressed a positive, negative or neutral sentiment. Sentence level sentiment analysis is closely related to subjectivity classification. Many of the statements about entities are factual in nature and yet they still carry sentiment. Current sentiment analysis approaches express the sentiment of subjective statements and neglect such objective statements that carry sentiment [1]. For Example, â€Å"I bought a Motorola phone two weeks ago. Everything was good initially. The voice was clear and the battery life was long, although it is a bit bulky. Then, it stopped working yesterday. [1]† The first sentence expresses no opinion as it simply states a fact. All other sentences express either explicit or implicit sentiments. The last sentence â€Å"Then, it stopped working yesterday† is objective sentences but current techniques can’t express sentiment for the above specified sentence even though it carry negative sentiment or undesirable sentiment. So I try to solve out the above problematic situation using our approach. [1] The Proposed classification approach handles the subjective as well as objective sentences and generate sentiment form them. 1.3 Objectives: The objective of this research work is to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of classification as well as sentiment analysis because this analysis plays a very important role in analytics application. Till now Sentiment analysis focus on Subjectivity or Subjective sentiment i.e. explicit opinion and get idea about the people sentiment view on particular event, issue and products. Sentiment analysis does not consider objective statements although objective statements carry sentiment i.e. implicit opinion. So here the main objective is to handle subjective sentences as well as objective sentences and give better result of sentiment analysis. Classification of unstructured data and analysis of classified unstructured data are major objectives of me. Practical implementation will be also done by me in the next phase. 1.4 Scope: Scope of this dissertation is described as below. We are considering implicit and explicit opinion so sentiment analysis expected to be improved Analysis of unstructured data gives us important information about people choice and view We are proposed an approach which can be applied for close domain like â€Å"Indian Political news article†, â€Å"Movie Reviews†, â€Å"Stock Market News† and Product Review† so, with the consideration of implicit and explicit opinions we can generate precise view of people so industries can define their strategies. Business and Social Intelligence applications use this sentiment analysis so with this approach it’ll be efficient. Applications: There are so many application of Sentiment Analysis which is used now-a-day to generate predictive analysis for unstructured data. Areas of applications are Social and Business intelligence applications, Product reviews help us to define marketing or production strategies, Movie reviews analysis, News Analysis, Consider political news and comments of people and generate the analysis of election, Predict the effect of specific events or issues on people, Emotional identification of person can be also generated, Find trends in the world Comparative view can also be described for products, movies and events, Improve predictive analysis of return of investment strategies. 1.6 Challenges: There are following challenges which are exists in sentiment analysis are Deal with noisy text in sentiment analysis is difficult. Create SentiWordNet for open domain is challenging task i.e. make a universal SentiWordNet is the Challenging task. When a document discusses several entities, it is crucial to identify the text relevant to each entity. Current accuracy in identifying the relevant text is far from satisfactory.[5] There is a need for better modelling of compositional sentiment. At the sentence level, this means more accurate calculation of the overall sentence sentiment of the sentiment-bearing words, the sentiment shifters, and the sentence structure. [5] There are some approaches that use to identify sarcasm, they are not yet integrated within autonomous sentiment analysis systems.[5]

Adolf Hitler :: essays research papers

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler was born on April 20,1889. This was the beginning with horrible plans for power and control of other people.Some of the things that Hitler did throughout his life were very cruel things; first of all, he was a man who loved war and fighting. Second, he was in charge of putting all of the innocent Jews into Concentration Camps and killing them. Third, he wanted one dominate race of all the same kind of people. Fourth, he had a life long obsession with danger. Fifth, he blamed the Jews for the war debt and sentenced them all to die. So as you can see already Hitler was a very cruel person.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The fact that he wanted one dominate race was unbelievably true. First of all, the fact he would kill everyone one way or another that didn’t have blond hair and blue eye and was of German descent, was a frightening fact. The idea of this gives me quite a scare my self, because I have brown hair, and brown eyes and would I have been killed just because I did not Hitlers physical standards. Also Hitler himself did not have blond hair and blue eyes. Next, I don’t think that you should judge anyone by the way they look or what they do; that is very wrong. Hitler’s idea of one dominate race was a very bad one.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Adolf Hitler was born in an Austrian town known as Braunau am Inn. Hitler was the son of a man named Alois. Alois Hitler’s father was a Custom official’s, and his mother was named Klara. Alois was illegitimate, first of all he used his mother’s name, Schicklgruber until 1876, when he adopted the name Hitler. Adolf’s father was very strict with him, and ignored him most of the time because Adolf liked to dream. As you can see Adolf did not idealize his father very much, and his death in 1903 actually came as a relief to Adolf. Adolf really idealized his mother, whose death in 1907 had a traumatic effect on him. So as you can see Adolf lead a very mixed up childhood.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As Hitler grew up, he failed as a student in the classical secondary schools. This led Hitler to new opportunities, for instance his desire to become an artist. Adolf tried to pursue this dream but, was unable to attain admission to the Academy of Fine Arts. Since he was unable to do anything, he lead a shadowy, alienated existence in multicultural Vienna until 1913. Hitler was described as living his life in melancholy, aimlessness, and racial hatred.

Live Without TV Essay

When my family’s only television set went to the repair shop the other day, my parents, my sister, and I thought we would have a terrible week. How could we get through the long evenings in such a quiet house? What would it be like without all the shows to keep us company? We soon realized, though, that living without television for a while was a stroke of good fortune. It became easy for each of us to enjoy some activities alone, to complete some postponed chores, and to spend rewarding time with each other and friends. First of all, with no television to compete for our time, we found plenty of hours for personal interests. We all read more that week than we had read during the six months before. My father seemed to be addicted to newspapers during his free time at home. My sister and I had time to complete the book â€Å"Top 100 romance novels† that I had borrowed for three months and we had also shared our feeling together. We each also enjoyed some hobbies we had ignored for ages. My family went swimming every weekend and we found more interesting than ever before. In addition, my sister and I both stopped procrastinating with our homework. We realized that without television’s attraction, we could finish our homework faster and more effective. Second, we did chores that had been hanging over our heads for too long. There were many jobs around the house that had needed attraction for some time. The things we had to do were cleaning up our rooms, and then renewing them with paper-hangings. My father did laundry while my mother arranged the kitchen, and my sister and I took care of plants in the garden. We also had a chance to do some long-postponed shopping. Go shopping with family was my hobby and my mother had chances to buy some essential items. I bought some new English books and of course, some new short stories. And each of us also caught up with e-mail and did paperwork that was long overdue. Dad and mom finished their reports and our two sisters completed our presentations sooner than planned. Finally, and probably most important, we spent time with each other. Instead of just being in the same room together while we stared at a screen, we actually talked for many pleasant hours. My sister had an opportunity to tell about her short vacation with her friends to Nha Trang. We also shared our feelings about our daily work. Moreover, for the first time in years, my family played some games together. We reminded our memories with several games of chess with our own funny rules. And because we did not have to worry about missing this or that show, we had some family friends over on a couple of evenings and spent an enjoyable time with them. My parents had chances to chat for hours with their close friends and they found very glad. They were all proud of their children, their jobs and their happy life. Once our television returned, we were not prepared to put in the attic. But we had some sense of how it can take over our lives if we are not careful. We are not more selective. We turn on the set for our favorite shows, certain sports events, and the news, but we do not leave it running all evening. As a result, we find we can enjoy television and still have time left for other activities and interests.

Black People and James Baldwin

Deborah Lee Period 1 May 28,2012 Supplemental Reading Assignment A. The theme of Baldwin’s essay is equality. He establishes this theme in his essay with the juxtaposition of a poor white man and a black man. In this essay, Baldwin speaks of how â€Å"People are continually pointing out to me the wretchedness of white people in order to console me for the wretchedness of blacks. He says that people say that being black is not that bad because there are white people in the same situation and that there is still hope for the black because of people like Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis but it is still not something â€Å"to be regarded with complacency† because the situations of Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis are just rare. Equality in America at the time was possible with â€Å"determined will,† but still very rare. Another way James Baldwin established the theme of equality in this essay was when he mentioned the projects, more specifically, Riverton.Baldwin establi shes this theme of equality through mentioning Riverton for Riverton was a physical representation of the inequality of blacks and whites in America back then. Baldwin said, â€Å"The people in Harlem know they are living there because white people do not think they are good enough to live anywhere else. † There was going to be no equality if people were told to live in certain places because of their color. Baldwin also makes this theme extremely clear when he says, â€Å"Negroes want to be treated like men. † B.The tone of the essay, Fifth Avenue, Uptown: A letter from Harlem by James Baldwin and the tone of the poem, Theme for English B by Langston Hughes are similar. They are similar for both authors show that there is hope for equality through the tone of each text. In the poem, Theme for English B, Hughes says â€Å"You are white — / yet a part of me, as I am a part of you. / That’s American. † Hughes expresses that although he may be the onl y black person in his class, he is still American like the rest of the class and should be considered equal.The tone of the essay and poem is different from the poem Incident by Countee Collen. This poem’s tone is complete opposite from the other poem and essay for Collen uses more of a doubtful tone. This poem is more about just being sad and bothered that blacks and whites are not equal instead of being hopeful for the equality of the two races that is soon to come like the other poem and essay. C. The perspectives on race in these texts are different than in To Kill a Mockingbird for in To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus believes that there is good and bad in everyone and that nobody should be hated or claimed as all bad.In the book, Scout asks Atticus if it is okay to hate Hitler but Atticus says that you shouldn’t hate anybody, no matter how bad they are because there is a good side to them. This shows that Atticus’ perspective on race is different from the aut hors of the poems and essay for the authors believe that the whites are bad people because blacks and whites are not equal. While Atticus is just like the authors for he wants equality between black and whites, his perspective is different for he believes that this equality will be brought once the good side comes out of the white people.

Mutual Intelligibility Definition and Examples

Mutual Intelligibility Definition and Examples Mutual Intelligibility is a situation in which two or more speakers of a language (or of closely related languages) can understand each other. Mutual intelligibility is a continuum (that is, a gradient concept), marked by degrees of intelligibility, not by sharp divisions. Example and Observations [W]hat allows us to refer to something called English as if it were a single, monolithic language? A standard answer to this question rests on the notion of mutual intelligibility. That is, even though native speakers of English vary in their use of the language, their various languages are similar enough in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar to permit mutual intelligibility. . . . Hence, speaking the same language does not depend on two speakers speaking identical languages, but only very similar languages.(Adrian Akmajian, Richard Demers, Ann Farmer, and Robert Harnish, Linguistics: An Introduction to Language and Communication. MIT Press, 2001) The Mutual Intelligibility Test [The] distinction between language and dialect is based on the notion [of] mutual intelligibility: Dialects of the same language should be mutually intelligible, while different languages are not. This mutual intelligibility, in turn, would then be a reflection of the similarities between different varieties of speech.Unfortunately, the mutual-intelligibility test does not always lead to clear-cut results. Thus Scots English may at first be quite unintelligible to speakers of the various varieties of Standard American English, and vice versa. True, given enough time (and goodwill), mutual intelligibility can be achieved without too much effort. But given an even greater amount of time (and goodwill), and a greater effort, also French might become (mutually) intelligible for the same speakers of English. In addition, there are cases like Norwegian and Swedish which, because they have different standard varieties and literary traditions, would be called different languages by most people, including linguists, even though the two standard languages are mutually quite intelligible. Here, cultural and sociolinguistic considerations tend to overrule the mutual intelligibility test.(Hans Henrich Hoch, Principles of Histoprical Linguistics, 2nd ed. Mouton de Gruyter, 1991) One-Way Intelligibility [A]nother problem regarding the use of mutual intelligibility as a criterion [for defining a language is] that it need not be reciprocal, since A and B need not have the same degree of motivation for understanding each other, nor need they have the same amount of previous experience of each others varieties. Typically, it is easier for non-standard speakers to understand standard speakers than the other way round, partly because the former will have had more experience of the standard variety (notably through the media) than vice versa, and partly because they may be motivated to minimise the cultural differences between themselves and the standard speakers (though this is by no means necessarily so), while standard speakers may want to emphasize some differences.(Richard A. Hudson, Sociolinguistics, 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2001) Theres a fat man who comes in here with pills sometimes and I cant understand a word he says. I told him Ive got no problem with wherever he comes from but I have to be able to understand him. He understands what Im saying and he talks louder. I dont hear well, but it doesnt help anything for him to say whatever it is hes saying in a louder voice.​(Glen Pourciau, Gone. Invite. University of Iowa Press, 2008) Bidialectalism and Mutual Intelligibility in The Color Purple Darlie trying to teach me how to talk. . . . Every time I say something the way I say it, she correct me until I say it some other way. Pretty soon it feel like I cant think. My mind run up on a thought, git confuse, run back and sort of lay down. . . . Look like to me only a fool would want you to talk in a way that feel peculiar to your mind.(Celie in The Color Purple by Alice Walker, 1982.) Also Known As: interintelligibility

Comparison between Psychology and Psyghiatry essays

Contrast/Comparison between Psychology and Psyghiatry essays Many people think that psychology and psychiatry is the same thing. Most people fear being seen coming in or going out of a shrinks office. Society has given shrinks a bad reputation. To most people, seeing a shrink is a guarantee that they will be locked away in a dark padded room. Because of this fear, many people do not receive the help they need concerning their mental and emotional health. These people do not realize the difference between these two professions. Many people find themselves asking: what is psychology? They automatically assume that if somebody sees a psychologist, then they are crazy. This is not true. Psychology is the study of people: how they think, how they react and interact. Psychology is concerned with all aspects of behavior and thoughts, feelings and motivation underlying such behavior. Psychologists deal with the way the mind works. Psychologists usually are not medically qualified, and only a small handful of people studying psychologies work with patients. Psychiatry is the study of mental disorders and their treatment, management and prevention. Psychiatrists are medical doctors who have qualified in psychiatry. Many people mistakenly assume that psychologists are the people that deal with crazy or psychotic patients. But that is the job of psychiatrists. They deal with major mental disorders such as Schizophrenia, Asperger Syndrome and Trichotillomania. Psychology is a method of therapy for people. They are put in a relaxed environment and are asked to talk about what is on their minds. Psychologists help people grasp hold of their problems and fix it themselves. They help people discover why they repeatingly do the things that they do. Psychiatry, however, is more of a science driven profession. Psychiatry is the diagnosis, management and prevention of mental disorders. Psychiatrists study the brain and its functions, and diagnose the problem. They work with patient ...

Supreme Court Expands the Power of Eminent Domain

Supreme Court Expands the Power of Eminent Domain First Published: July 5, 2005 In its 5-4 decision in the case of Kelo v. City of New London, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an important, if very controversial, interpretation of the governments power of eminent domain, or the power of the government to take land from property owners. The power of eminent domain is granted to governmental bodies federal, state and local by the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, under the simple phrase, ...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. In simple terms, the government can take privately owned land, as long as the land will be used by the public and the owner is paid a fair price for the land, what the amendment calls, just compensation. Before Kelo v. City of New London, cities typically exercised their power of eminent domain to acquire property for facilities clearly intended for use by the public, like schools, freeways or bridges. While such eminent domain actions are often viewed as distasteful, they are generally accepted because of their overall benefit to the public. The case of Kelo v. City of New London, however, involved a new trend among cities to use eminent domain to acquire land for the redevelopment or revitalization of depressed areas. Basically, the use of eminent domain for economic, rather than public purposes. The city of New London, Connecticut developed a redevelopment plan city fathers hoped would create jobs and revive downtown areas by generating increased tax revenues. Property owner Kelo, even after an offer of just compensation, challenged the action, claiming that the citys plan for her land did not constitute public use under the Fifth Amendment. In its decision in favor of New London, the Supreme Court further established its tendency to interpret public use as the much broader term, public purpose. The Court further held that the use of eminent domain to promote economic development is constitutionally acceptable under the Fifth Amendment. Even after the Supreme Courts decision in Kelo, the vast majority of eminent domain actions will, as they historically have, involve land to be used for purely public uses. Typical Eminent Domain Process While the exact details of acquiring property by eminent domain vary from jurisdiction-to-jurisdiction, the process generally works like this: The property owner is notified by mail and will soon be visited by a government employee, often a right-of-way agent, who will further explain why the owners property is needed.The government will appoint an independent appraiser to evaluate the land and come up with fair price to pay the land owner for his or her land the just compensation.The property owner and the government may negotiate to come up with a final price to be paid the property owner. In some cases, a judge or a court-appointed arbitrator will be called in to oversee the negotiation.The owner is paid the agreed price and ownership of the property is transferred to the government.

Change Management Simulation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Change Management Simulation - Essay Example The lever that was pulled in week 1 was to tell a success story to Deborah Edge, Luke Filer, and Bob Ingram. The effect of this lever was that 2 people entered the awareness stage, and 1 person entered the interest stage. The rationale for this step was that these individuals were previously opposed to the process and such a move would gain their confidence. The next step was to get the CEO’s public support; the target was the entire organization. The effect was that four people entered the interest stage. The rationale behind this was that it would shift the organizational culture in favor of the project. The next step was to get consultant support. The effect of this was no noticeable effect. This was rationalized, as it would improve the project’s feasibility. In week 6 a pilot project was conducted; specifically targeted were Henry Adams, Deborah Edge, and Yao Li; the effect was that 1 person entered the awareness stage, 2 people entered the interest stage, and 1 pe rson entered the trial stage. The rationale for this decision was that it would demonstrate the project’s feasibility and begin the steps to establish the innovation. In week 12 progress reports were posted; this was targeted at the entire organization and had no noticeable effect. Again the intention was to advance the project and further demonstrate its feasibility to individuals opposed. The week 13 level was to provide internal skill building to Walt James, Diane McNatt, and Sam Puffer; 4 people entered the awareness stage. The rationale was that this would both gain support for the project and begin to establish the necessary intellectual infrastructure. Week 15 built on these earlier elements through attempting to build a coalition of support; still there was no noticeable impact on the project. Week 19 used the recognize an adopter lever on Henry Adams, again noticeable effect occurred. Week 22 implemented the ‘walk the talk’ level; this had a significant impact 3 people entered the interest stage and two people entered the trial stage. The rational was that this decision would demonstrate to the organization the plan’s action. In week 22 progress reports were posted again simply as a means of moving the project along. In week 25 an e-mail notice was issued and 2 people entered the interest stage. In week 26 the goals and deadline were accounted; 6 people entered the awareness stage, 1 person entered the interest stage, and 2 people entered the trial stage. The rationale for this was both to gain support, both also for the pure functional aspect of moving the project along. Week 30 implemented the ‘revise reward system’ level; 6 people entered the interest stage, 6 the trial, and 5 the adoption. Rewards are recognized as a prominent aspect of effective leadership and motivation. Week 42 implemented ‘walk the talk’ as a means of gaining further support; 4 people entered the trial stage. Week 46 conduct ed private interviews with four people as a means of gaining further development insight on the project; 3 people entered the trial stage, 1 person the adoption. Week 47 goals and deadlines were announced and 2 people entered the adoption stage. Week 51 further worked towards advancing the new aspects of the project by building a coalition of support; this had no noticeable effect. The rationale between week 62 and week 64 was to gain the organization’s complete support, as a result week 62 told a success story, week 63 conducted private

Slave Trade Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Slave Trade - Essay Example This paper discusses that while John Barbot account is from an active participant in slavery Mary Prince account is that of a victim of slavery. John Barbot played an active role in slave trade as he was an employee of the French slave trading company in the 1670s and 1680s, the slavery activities of this company were mainly based in West Africa; a region which by then was one of the major French colonies. His account is based on the experiences during the business encounters in which goods were exchanged for human beings, and he notes most of those sold by blacks were mainly prisoners of war. These were mainly captives during various war encounters or those held hostage when a given community raids its enemy community.  This study declares that  intended objects of were often tricked to transport goods to the slave and without their notice; they were sold and held captive. Barbot recalls a story narrated to him of a father who had supposedly tricked his son to sell him but since the son was able to understand the conversation later on conspired with the slave trader and convinced him his father was his slave and as a result the father was held captive.  John Barbot account underscores the absoluteness nature of kings that any suspicion of threat from his subjects resulted to them being sold out as slaves, whereby a typical example of a priest who was sold to Barbot following a king orders being given. Kings were always above everyone in the society and their word was final.... Barbot recalls a story narrated to him of a father who had supposedly tricked his son to sell him but since the son was able to understand the conversation later on conspired with the slave trader and convinced him his father was his slave and as a result the father was held captive. However, the son was met by black slave traders on his way home, the goods he had received from the sale of his father were taken and he was also sold as a slave. John Barbot account underscores the absoluteness nature of kings that any suspicion of threat from his subjects resulted to them being sold out as slaves, whereby a typical example of a priest who was sold to Barbot following a king orders being given. Kings were always above everyone in the society and their word was final. They even had responsibilities to organising raids in neighbouring communities with intentions of capturing slaves for sale. In the account it is also revealed that young children of both sexes are also sold by their neighb ours (Stearns 181). These children were usually captured and sold at certain times of the year when they would be sent at strategic positions by parents to scare the birds that came to damage crops. In addition, in order to avoid starvation during times of famine people also sold so as to get the necessary maintenance, thus, the business of slave trade business is largely associated with kings, very rich in the society as well as blacks. Mary prince commences her account on slavery by revisiting her childhood familiarities and later on embarks on her slavery involvements in the West Indies. While John Barbot’s slavery account is focused on West African slave trade, Mary

Healthcare Websites Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Healthcare Websites - Essay Example The Overall Ratings are again sub-categorized in to four. In the Health Inspections, Tacoma Lutheran Home has 5 out 5 in the quality rating system compare to Center’s 2 out of 5 stars. The statistics which may contribute for this rating is also given where Park Rose Care Center has 14 and Tacoma Lutheran Home has 1 as the total number of health deficiencies. Under Nursing home staff ratings Park Rose Care Center (PRCC) is rated with 2 out of 5 stars where Tacoma Lutheran Home (TLH) has 4 out of 5. In comparison TLH has 153 residents to PRCC’s 90 where Total Number of Licensed Nurse Staff Hours per Resident per Day values is high in TLH than in PRCC. Under Quality Measures both Nursing Homes have 3 stars out of 5. This comparison is based on the Long-Stay residents and Short-stay resident statistics. It very interesting to see the graphical comparison is also provided together with numerical percentages. In the graphical presentation the two nursing homes are also compar ed with the average of all Nursing Homes in United States in relevance to each factor. In the context of Fire Safety Inspections PRCC has 12 Fire Safety Deficiencies against TLH’s 7. Finally Nursing Home Characteristics are compared regarding the Program Participation, Number of Certified Beds, and Type of Ownership etc. It should be also mentioned the summarized table is also linked with corresponding detailed description of sub-categorize used for the comparison.

POLITICAL CONSPIRACY AND SLANDER Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 8000 words

POLITICAL CONSPIRACY AND SLANDER - Essay Example However, the investigations were unsuccessful in solving crimes of political slander or even to pinpoint the officials and organizations most probable to have been executors (Pfau 2005). Thus investigations of doubtful political incidents eventually came to be ridiculed as ‘conspiracy theories’ due to the fact that, after reviewing official accounts, they frequently apply vague proofs to hypothesize about threatening schemes and convoluted cover-ups (Goldzwig 2002). As remarked by Stewart and colleagues (1994), â€Å"a conspiracy may be real or imagined, but the process is the same; a chain of apparently unrelated events or actions is linked to reveal concerted actions and intentions to cause all sorts of social, economic, political, religious, and moral problems† (ibid, p. 3). Thus, it is at times hard to discern fantasy from reality. It may be hard to put off disorientation as well. This remains a reality. People of the United States are still prone to be victim s of suspicious events that benefit confer advantage to political elites, and still Americans lack means of finding out whether the events are inevitable incidents or, rather, crimes instigated or allowed by the authorities themselves (Smith 2006). Recent cases in point are the 2000 and 2004 election troubles; the failures of defense on the 9-11 attack; the chain of threats of terrorism circulated based on weak evidence (Katyal 2003). A number of these events were never scrutinized. Others were investigated shallowly. Even the September 11 attack, which gained the most elaborate and systematic investigation, was studied by political insiders who circumvented inquiring whether the incident might have been a conspiracy (Smith 2006). Nevertheless, elites exploited these incidents to defend constraints on civil liberties, a current strategy, and an American militarism, unparalleled for the United States, of preventive conflict (Melley 2000). To be certain, large portions of the U.S. pop ulation and all over the world think that the administration of Bush accepted and may have in some way allowed the 9-11 attack, yet these misgivings are only another group of conspiracy theories that create more issues than clarifications. To transcend incident-specific assumptions of government schemes, the discussion of political conspiracy and slander in this paper would employ social scientific premises for ideas into the widespread occurrence of state assaults on democratic principles and practices. Political Conspiracy and Slander in the United States Even though conspiracy theorists have been unsuccessful to build up a sufficient explanation of state crime, they are worthy of recognition for emphasizing a threatening possibility historically taken for granted by scholars. The latter have investigated different types of state criminality, but in nearly every instance the opportunity for government authorities in liberal democracies to undermine or challenge democratic principl es and practices has been overlooked (Pozen 2010). In criminology and sociology, a large number of studies on state crime have put emphasis on connections between subversive and public organizations, particularly the symbiosis that frequently emerges between organized crime and law enforcement agencies (Pfau 2005). Hardly any intellectuals in these disciplines have also investigated state criminality as a kind of political

The sense of taste Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The sense of taste - Essay Example Also referred to as gustation the sense of taste involves a complex interaction between receptors on the individual’s tongue and mental perception. As the saliva in one’s mouth breaks down food, the taste sense receptors in the tongue relay messages to the neurological aspects of the nervous system. As one might expect there are a broad array of receptors in this region, which has led some researchers to argue that there is actually more than one sense of taste; instead they contend taste constitutes a variety of distinguishable characteristics. For instance, of the most readily distinguishable receptors function to identify tastes for sweet, salty, sour, and bitter; another receptor, referred to as the umami receptor, detects the amino acid glutamate (‘Umani Taste Receptor’). There are a number of notable elements and features related to one’s sense of taste. One of the most interesting is that while all individuals are born with a sense of taste, l ike fingerprints all individuals taste receptors are slightly different. It’s also true that as individuals age their taste receptors will correspondingly change. At an early age taste buds function around the entire individual’s mouth, but as individuals age these surrounding taste buds shrink so that they are ultimately limited to predominantly the tongue (‘Taste’).

Strategic management Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 2

Strategic management - Case Study Example Focused differentiation: Nike also pursues focused differentiation strategy where it focuses on serving the sports segment by providing the best sports products than other players in the segment. Nike serves two major market segments: footwear and apparel market segments. Nike utilized its competencies in design and marketing to penetrate new market segments. The company’s business-level strategies changed competition in the industry in that the company significantly reduced the threat of competition through acquisitions. The company resorted to purchasing other footwear companies that offered substitute products, for example, the company acquired Converse, Hurley International as well as Official Starter among others. Nike has made its products unique from those of competitors and relied on innovation for new product development. This has enabled the company to venture new markets. The company has used its competitive advantage over other competitors to stay on top of the

The sense of taste Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The sense of taste - Essay Example Also referred to as gustation the sense of taste involves a complex interaction between receptors on the individual’s tongue and mental perception. As the saliva in one’s mouth breaks down food, the taste sense receptors in the tongue relay messages to the neurological aspects of the nervous system. As one might expect there are a broad array of receptors in this region, which has led some researchers to argue that there is actually more than one sense of taste; instead they contend taste constitutes a variety of distinguishable characteristics. For instance, of the most readily distinguishable receptors function to identify tastes for sweet, salty, sour, and bitter; another receptor, referred to as the umami receptor, detects the amino acid glutamate (‘Umani Taste Receptor’). There are a number of notable elements and features related to one’s sense of taste. One of the most interesting is that while all individuals are born with a sense of taste, l ike fingerprints all individuals taste receptors are slightly different. It’s also true that as individuals age their taste receptors will correspondingly change. At an early age taste buds function around the entire individual’s mouth, but as individuals age these surrounding taste buds shrink so that they are ultimately limited to predominantly the tongue (‘Taste’).

Iron Curtain, Marshall Plan and Berlin Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Iron Curtain, Marshall Plan and Berlin - Essay Example and military barrier to communication; it was established between the democratic countries like Western Europe and communist countries like Soviet Union. There was also an agreement signed for free access to Berlin (Berlin 1948-1949). Winston Churchill delivered his Iron Curtain speech which gave birth to cold war. The Iron Curtain speech was about the victory of America and the power they hold; he wanted peace and co operation with the United Nations. He wanted to establish a good relationship between Americans and Britain by calling them English speaking cousins. There will be a mutual security agreement and they will work together for establishing peace (Iron Curtain 1945-1947). He was in favor of America and totally against Russia which was a very strong starting point of the cold war which lasted for years. He threatened that the Western and Eastern Europe will get separated and this was the Iron Curtain which will be established. He wanted a defense pact and wanted to establish a proper military setup along with creating moral unity. Western foreign policies setup along with a vivid picture of cold war being established are few highlighting points of the Iron Curtain speech. Another important point was the Marshall plan or more popularly known as the European recovery plan. Marshall was not happy with the pace of the recovery of Europe post world war. He introduced programs for development of America and Western Europe. The basic requirement was here to build a better economic plan rather than fighting a battle against Russia. There was a chaos in Europe and the requirement was to eliminate causes of starvation, poverty and anxiety rather than fighting a war against Russia. The plan was directed to improve the economy. Some saw this recovery plan as an attempt to divide Europe and the main cause of the cold war however the Marshall plan was an extended version of the Iron Curtain whose major concern was to establish Europe after world war. Marshall Plan

Maintaing A Work Family Balance Social Work Essay

Maintaing A Work Family Balance Social Work Essay Achieving a balance between work and family is important to everyone. A balance between work and family responsibilities occurs when a persons need to meet family commitments is accepted and respected in the workplace. Helping people achieve a balance between their family needs and their work commitments supports productive workers as well as committed family people. Provisions to assist with the balance between work and family must be available to everyone in the workplace. However, not all people in the workplace will need to or wish to access these provisions. These provisions reduce the barriers that may prevent people from entering and remaining in the workforce. They enable people with caring and family responsibilities to have equitable opportunities to progress in their career in the same way as those without these responsibilities. Work and family balance provisions contribute to equality in the workplace by recognising that some workers have caring responsibilities. They enable those workers to have fair access to workplace opportunities. Work-family facilitation, or the extent to which individuals participation in one life domain (e.g., work) is made easier by the skills, experiences, and opportunities gained by their participating in another. Frone (2003) suggested that work-family balance likely represents multiple dimensions composed of bidirectional (i.e., work-to ­family and family-to-work) conflict and facilitation. Finally, Hammer (2003) called for an explicit expan ­sion of the work-family paradigm to include work- family facilitation. Unfortunately, work-family facil ­itation remains conceptually and empirically underdeveloped (Frone, 2003), and its distinction from conflict remains unclear. Background Work-family conflict is a form of interrole conflict in which role pres ­sures from the work and family domains are mutually incompatible in some respect (Greenhaus Beutell, 1985, p. 77). The conflict does not operate in one direction. Family sometimes interferes with work (FIW), and work can interfere with family (WIF). Further, some researchers suggest that conflicts between the work and family domains can occur when (a) time consumed by one role results in a lack of time for the other, (b) strain caused by the activities of one role makes it difficult to fulfill responsibilities in the other, or (c) in-role behavior in one domain is incompatible with the role behavior in the other domain. The time conflict is fairly obvious and probably most salient to us lay people (i.e., non ­work family conflict experts). So is strain-if were totally stressed-out at work, we may not be able to deal with our family responsibilities and vice versa. However, the behavior component is less obvious. It has been sug ­gested that we may sometimes behave in ways in one domain that is incom ­patible with the other domain, such that the behavior in question does not facilitate fulfilling ones roles in the other domain. For instance, being a per ­fectionist may be useful at work, but the same behaviors may lead to less effective parenting or in other ways inhibit one from adequately fulfilling family responsibilities. It should be noted that the conceptual grounding of time, strain, and behavior-based dimensions of work-family conflict have been debated. As Mike notes, they do not have strong empirical validation and may confound the work-family construct with its putative causes and outcomes. What happens if work-family conflicts are not effectively managed? Work-family conflict can result in a number of dysfunctional outcomes, including burnout, decrease in mental well-being, deteriorating relationships, and job and life dissatisfaction. Presumably in the hopes that a better under ­standing of the causes of work-family conflict will help people avoid it, con ­siderable research has been directed toward trying to understand the antecedents of work-family conflict. Some of the things that lead to conflict are fairly intuitive. For example, working long hours, long commutes to and from work, workload, lack of management support, job involvement, and level of importance assigned to ones work, all predict the extent to which WIF. Further, marital status, number of children, level of importance assigned to family roles, and lack of family support all contribute to FIW. Further, some people are more susceptible to work-family conflict than others. For instance, research suggests certain personality types are more inclined to experience work-family conflict. Neuroticism, Type A tenden ­cies, and negative affectivity are all related to work-family conflict. As one might expect, age also relates to work-family conflict. Theres initial evi ­dence that as we get older, we develop more effective strategies for dealing with these conflicts. Objective:-Both academic and corporate research are confirming the existence of work-to-family and family-to-work spillover and the importance of healthy work-family interface for families and businesses. This is to prove that there is a need of balancing work family in everybodys life irrespective of the work he/she is doing to maintain a healthy time table for the commencement of day to day activities.Our day to day schedule is becoming hectic.In such situation peoples are losing their temper, are into wrong doings of all sort.Schedule needs to made for maintaining a healthy Work-Family Balance.People are so busy in making money that they started neglecting their family.They start giving more importance to their work and no time for family.This should not be the case as all these make a man a mechanized robot.They began neglecting all social activities,as a result their family suffers or feel their absence and sadness fill their lives. Unhappiness creeps in such family and destr oys their life.We should keep in mind that Money is not everything in Life.Yes,we can say money as the need fulfiller.we can fullfill are needs with the money earned.But we should not be always money making oriented.If we neglect our family for making more money, then all money earned goes worthless ! So,apart from work giving quality time to the family is very essential. Work-Family Balance Work- family balance is a term that refers to an individuals perceptions of the degree to which s/he is experiencing positive relationships between work and family roles, where the relationships are viewed as compatible and at equilibrium with each other. Like a fulcrum measuring the daily shifting weights of time and energy allocation between work and family life, the term, work-family balance, provides a metaphor to countervail the historical notion that work and family relationships can often be competing, at odds, and conflicting. Sociologist Rosabeth Moss Kanter was one of the first scholars to critique the prevailing assumption that workplaces and jobs must be designed to separate work from family demands. She challenged this approach as being socially necessary for employee effectiveness in carrying out the dual demands of being a worker and being a family member. She noted that as employing organizations shifted to be more demographically diverse, these stereotyped views on appropriate work and family relationships needed to be re-viewed in order to prevent negative processes affecting individuals and groups who were demographically different from the majority. Women as a growing minority group in employing organizations were having difficulty rising up the hierarchy and being accepted as managers as they juggled employment, and caregiving and domestic demands. These same issues are still relevant to organizational studies today. Most men and women are juggling competing life demands outside of workplaces that still are largely designed based on a culture that work is the central role in employees lives, and a belief that workers should sacrifice family personal roles in order to be successful on the job. From Work-Family Conflict To Work-Family Enrichment: Competing Negative and Positive Views Traditionally, researchers have assumed a win-lose relationship between work and family and focused on work-family conflict, based on the belief that individuals have limited time and resources to allocate to their many life roles. Most research relevant to the notion of work-family balance has been conducted on work-family conflict, which can be viewed as the opposite of work-family balance. The construct work-family balance is a more positive way of viewing work-family relationships. It is consistent with the emergence of a new stream of research being promulgated by such writers as Greenhaus and Powell on work-family enrichment, the idea that work and family can also enrich and complement each other. Overall, research on work-family balance can be characterized as being organized along these competing positive and negative perspectives. Work-Family Conflict The negative perspective on balancing work-family relationships emanates out of role conflict theory, which Goode noted assumed that having multiple roles is distracting, depletes resources, and results in role strain and overload. With regard to work family roles, when employees try to carry these competing demands out while being embedded in traditional workplaces that are designed to support separation of work and family demands, they are likely to experience higher work-family role conflict. Greenhaus and Beutell wrote one of the earliest theoretical articles on work-family conflict. They defined work-family conflict as a type of inter-role conflict where work and family roles are incompatible and seen as competing for an individuals time, energy, and behaviours on and off the job. Their work built on earlier role theory by Ebaugh and others who defined a role as involving behavioural expectations associated with a position in a social structure. Early research on work and family didnt necessarily differentiate where the role conflict was occurring, such as whether it was due to an inflexible job (work to family conflict) or whether it was due to not having back up child care for when a child was sick (family to work conflict) Later Kossek and Ozeki conducted a meta-analysis reviewing decades of studies that show that life and job satisfaction for men and women is affected by the type and direction of these competing role dynamics. Given womens traditional greater responsibility for caregiving, work to family conflict was found to affect life satisfaction to a greater degree for women than for men. Job satisfaction for men and women was equally affected by family to work conflict. Understanding the type, direction, and source of the conflict can help organizations and managers design appropriate workplace interventions to support work-family balance. For example, having to work overtime on a job and being forced to miss a childs school event is an example of time-based work-to-family conflict. However, being absent from work because a babysitter did not show up is an example of time-based family- to- work conflict. For the overtime example, an organization might allow for just in time worker scheduling to allow those workers with the most interest in overtime to volunteer. In the other example, managing overtime wouldnt solve the babysitter not showing up. Helping the employee find back-up care for emergencies or letting them work from home once in a while in emergencies would. An example of energy-based family-to-work conflict is when an employee is too tired to work well in the morning because he or she was up all night with an ill spouse. An example of energy- based work to family conflict is when someone is too tired to cook dinner or clean the house, because of working too intensely on the job. In order to promote work- family balance to promote better energy allocation between roles, in the first example, the firm needs to provide dependent care support or leave from work. In the second example, the firm might need to increase staffing levels so the workload is dispersed among more workers, or provide stress management techniques that allow workers to take breaks. An example of behaviour-based family-to-work conflict is when one is so stressed from a family demand, that the individual is unable to concentrate at work or exhibits private emotions such as crying at work that would be more associated with the private sphere. An example of behaviour- based work- to-family conflict is when someone comes home and yells at ones spouse or kicks ones pet because of anger related to work. In these cases, interventions to reduce the stress in the particular domain where it is occurring would result in better work-family balance. Work-family enrichment. The positive approach to studying work-family balance emanates from Seibers role accumulation theory which assumes that having multiple life roles can be psychologically enriching, as long as the roles are ones that the individual has high identity with, sees of good quality, and reap rewards and life privileges. Under a role accumulation perspective, a person can achieve balance by being able to regulate and have greater control over when where and how invest time and energy between work and family to ensure that they perceive they are accumulating positive outcomes from both roles. The more roles one has that provide positive rewards, the better off an individual is, unless s/he has too much too do from the sum of these roles (causing role overload) or has too many competing role demands. The assumption is that work and family balance have instrumental and affective paths. The instrumental path focuses on how positive skills and behaviours and rewards from one domain (such as incom e, learning how to manage people or solve problems) can help one perform better in the other domain. The affective path focused on the degree to which mood and emotions from one domain can seep in and positively impact how one feels, acts and behaves in the other domain. So if someone has a good day at work, s/he comes home and are able to have extra energy and emotions to allocate to the family. Or if one has a wonderful family life, s/he is able to bring these positive emotions to work. A final set of studies focus on the processes of balancing relationships between work and family. Some writers focus on compensation- how having a better role quality and higher identity in one domain such as the work role may compensate for lower role quality and investment in another domain such as family. For example, an individual who highly identifies with work might invest more in work roles to compensate for a less fulfilling family life. Other writers might focus on segmentation and integration processes, the degree to which individuals have preferences for keeping work and personal roles segmented or integrated. Job and organizational design can interact with preferences for the enactment of life roles and management of the work and family boundary. A study by Kossek, Lautsch, Eaton on teleworking found that individuals who teleworked and adopted an integrative boundary management style were likely to experience higher work to family conflict but not family to work conflict than individuals who adopted a separation style. Their study showed that the more the workplace is brought into the home via job and organizational design, the more likely it increases work-to- family conflict, particularly for individuals who like to integrate work and family roles (say watching children while taking a work call). Cross-over effects is another new area of study: how the work-family balance of one family member such as a wife or husband may transfer over positive and negative relationships to the other spouse. For example, if a spouse has a good or bad day at work the balance of the partner may be affected. Direction Of Work- Family Interactions, Disciplinary Foci, and Levels of Analysis It is also important to note that research on work-family balance is grounded in distinct disciplines that are not well integrated, which influences the direction and content of studies focus. Besides generally designing research studies as measuring generally positive or negative outcomes from balancing work and family, writers in the field have tended to focus on either how work affects family OR how family affects work. This tendency to assume a particular direction of relationship has ramifications for the measures and outcomes studies. In several handbooks such as Work and Life Integration and The Work and Family Handbook, the editors noted that researchers who study how family demands are affected by work demands often use different measures and focus on different levels of analysis in assessing work-family relationships then management scholars who might study how work responsibilities are affected by being a parent or a spouse. One large cluster of studies focuses on how family demands affect work. Historically, much of the writing in the management and organizational literature followed this approach. A general assumption is that the more family and other nonwork demands and interests an individual has, the more likely work is going to be negative impacted. For example, researchers in this stream might measure the number of children an employee has, his or her marital status. They would then link these personal demographics to the degree to which a person experiences positive work attitudes (e.g., commitment, job satisfaction) and work behaviors (e.g., turnover, performance). The level of analysis tended to be largely individual and focused on the employees personal, family and work characteristics. The other directional group of studies examines the different ways work impacts the family. Writers coming from this approach tend to emanate out of psychology and sociology and belief that the structure, stresses, and demands of work can make it more difficult for individuals to fulfill their family responsibilities as well as experiencing job stress at home. Some people refer to this negative seepage as negative spillover from work to home. Writers from this perspective might measure the degree to which inflexible work hours, lack of supervisor support, job demands and the structure of the workplace, negatively impact family and personal outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction, equal participation in family and domestic roles, life satisfaction, work-life balance). Here the level of analysis tended to focus more on workplace, job and organizational level. Researchers also might typically study of the availability of policies to support work and family, and the degree to which organizational culture and managers provided a supportive culture and norms to facilitate use of policies as well as positive relationships between work and home. For example, an individual would not have to sacrifice their family life in order to get ahead at work. Moving From Study of Work and Family To Study of Work and Life Integration The future directions of the work and family field are moving from the notion of work and family balance and conflict to terms of growing acceptance of work and nonwork life balance or work and life balance. Such terms suggest that many employees, even those without dependents or visible forms of family related to caregiving can experience the need to seek work and family balance. It also suggests as men become more involved in caregiving and domestic roles and women more involved in work and breadwinning roles, conflict and enrichment may more strongly relate to the role an individual is enacting (e.g., caregiver or breadwinner) than gender. METHODOLOGY Managing Work and Family Surprisingly, our literature has more to say about the antecedents and con ­sequences of work-family conflict and less on strategies to effectively man ­age it. However, there are some studies that have explored this issue and just knowing what causes work-family conflict can lead to an understanding of how to effectively manage conflict. Carefully consider work-family issues when choosing a job. The prede ­cessors of this column once interviewed Kevin Murphy and asked him how he manages work-family conflict. One thing he did was to choose a job that would offer him flexibility to deal with his family life. For example, if a potential employer seemed less than favorable about bringing children to meetings, that wasnt a job he wanted. Admittedly, not all of us have so many options to choose from that we can afford to be this selective, but its cer ­tainly worth considering the type of environment that would be ideal and aiming for such positions. Be sure to find out how the organization youre considering feels about bringing kids into work or if there is a strict culture of coming in early and working late. If the organization frowns upon anyone leaving before 5:00 and you have kids that need to picked up from school, thats got to factor into your job decision or you could be facing years of con ­flict. Some firm s are family friendly while others have a reputation of not being so family friendly. Further, dont feel guilty or feel like you are settling by considering these issues. As Lillian points out, finding a job that allows you to meet your fam ­ilys needs is an issue of fit. We consider a host of fit issues when we make a job choice; why shouldnt we also consider how the decision is going to fit other aspects of our life? In other words, its important to take a holistic approach when youre searching for a job. Dont just jump on the most pres ­tigious offer or the one that offers the most money. Work-family issues must also be considered. Selection, Optimization, and Compensation (SOC). SOC is a life-man ­agement coping style for work-family situations. Although related, SOC is different from time management. This coping style consists of being more selective in focusing on a few goals, persistence in order to achieve those goals, and seeking additional resources (e.g., child care) to compensate for lack of time. Basically, it is suggested that those experiencing work-family conflict should take the time to evaluate which goals are most important to them and focus on achieving those goals. Take the time to evaluate your goals and if the activities you engage in on a daily basis help you to meet those goals. Does reviewing a textbook help you meet your goals, or is it a task that takes considerable time but does not help you make progress toward one of your goals? If a task does not help you make progress toward a goal and you have the ability to avoid it (i.e., its not a requirement of your job), dont hesitate to sa y no. Further, its important to recognize that you dont need to go it alone. You should find ways to compensate for lack of time. This may involve child care, paying to have your house cleaned, having groceries delivered to your home, or getting someone to walk your dog. Lillian points out that it may be easier for folks with money to compensate for lack of time because they can pay to outsource many of these things. Research shows that application of SOC in both the work and family domains leads to lower job and family stressors which lowers work-family conflict (in both directions). For a more detailed account of this strategy see Baltes and Heydens-Gahir (2003). Communicate your responsibilities to those at work and at home. As Lou points out, a very important part of managing work-family conflict is simply making those around you aware of your responsibilities. For instance, if you only have daycare certain times of the week and need to watch the kids when theyre not in daycare, tell your employer this schedule so you can be sure your home responsibilities are considered when meetings are arranged. You should have similar discussions with your significant other as well. There may be days he or she will need to make dinner or pick the kids up from school. Its also a good idea to talk often. Responsibilities at both work and home may change so its important to inform everyone when that occurs. Also, you may find some things are not working out and you need to devise a new strategy to accommodate all of your responsibilities. Time management. To minimize work-family conflict, its important to manage your time well. Im probably not telling you anything you dont already know, but let me add to this. Macan, Shahani, Dipboye, and Phillips (1990) suggest that time management can be broken down into three dimen ­sions. First, goal setting and prioritization involve daily decisions about what is most important to be accomplished. Second, the mechanics of time man ­agement include such activities as making to do lists. Finally, a preference for organization involves maintaining a methodical, organized approach to work. Just like the SOC model, the time-management model first stresses the importance of deciding on what goals are most important for you to achieve and making sure you focus on those goals Increase your social network. I know some of you are balking at this sug ­gestion. After all, if youre struggling to make time for work and family, how on earth are you going to fit a social life into the equation? Who has time for friends? Well, believe it or not, theres evidence that increased social support can help decrease work-family conflict. Further, Leslies own research sug ­gests that decreasing social involvement in nonwork activities actually leads to higher levels of work-family conflict (Neal Hammer, forthcoming). So, dont quit spending time with friends because you feel like you have too much to do at home and at work. Doing so could make you less effective in both domains. Future Research Trends Research on work-family balance is only likely to increase among organizational scholars. One reason for heightened interest around the globe in work-family balance today is changing workforce demographics. A general trend around the world is a gradual but constant growth in the labor market participation of women. Using the U.S. as an example, which has some of the highest rates, research by the Families and Work Institute shows that 83% of all two-parent families with children under 18 have both parents working at least part of this time. Another study by Cohen reports that half of all children under 18 will live in a single parent home for at least part of their childhood in the U.S. Besides individuals with children, work-family balance concerns affect employees in general. For example, research by the Families and Work Institute reports that one third of employees say they have to choose between advancing in their jobs or devoting attention to their family or personal lives and one third will have managed elder care- care for a parent over the past year. Another reason for growing interest relates technological transformations that have resulted in some workplaces operating 24-7 as well as the ability to telework and be constantly accessible to work and jobs by email and cell phone and pagers even when not formally at the workplace. With 24-7 operations, the definition of the typical workday and what work hours are normal to support work family balance are also likely to redefined. For example, a U.S. based view of a 9-5 Eastern time zone of normal working hours, may not provide balance for workers where it is the middle of the night in India or China. Future research on work family balance will focus on differences in cross-cultural perceptions, how needs for balance shift over the life course, and how different jobs, family structures, and demographic groups may vary in their access to, perceptions of and outcomes from the level of work family balance they are afforded on and off the job. Multi-level research integrating individual and organizational perspectives and measures, and positive and negative measures is also likely to increase in future studies. Job design and work and family rewards and resources are likely to become of particularly increasingly importance in studying work family balance and conflict with highest stresses at either end of the economic spectrum. Individuals in higher paid managerial jobs are likely to experience higher work conflict and a lower balance due to overwork. There will be too many work hours competing for individual time and energy and too high workloads. Individuals at the lower end of the economic spectrum will experience work and family conflict more likely due to a lack of flexibility and ability to control when one works and a lack of economic resources to buy high quality child care and dependent care. Thus, employees throughout the organizations hierarchy will experience lower work-family balance but for different reasons. This trend makes it critical for future research to not only measure conflict, but to assess the processes and reasons for conflict and the role of organizational and job structures, as well as family and social and cultural structures (such as how family responsibilities are shared or viewed as ought to be shared) in enhancing or mitigating conflict and balance. The more that workers have access to jobs enabling higher control how when and where they do their jobs and the amount of workload, and the more that communities are design to provider greater public and private supports to enable dual enactment in w ork and family roles, the more likely that members of society will have greater work-life balance. Further Readings and References Bond, J., Thompson, C., Galinsky, E., Prottas, D. (2003). Highlights of the 2002 national study of the changing workforce. NY Families and Work Institute. Cohen, S. (2002). Cohabitation and the declining marriage premium for men. Work and Occupations, 29,343-383.. Ebaugh, H. (1988). Becoming an ex: The process of role exit. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Goode, W. (1960). A theory of role strain. American Sociological Review, 25, 483-496. Greenhaus, G. Powell. G. 2006. When work and family are allies: A theory of work-family enrichment. Academy of Management Review, 31, 72-92. Greenhaus, J. Beutell, N. 1985. Sources of conflict between work and fmaly roles. Academy of Management Review, 10: 76-88. Hammer L.,Bauer T.  Grandey A. (2003). Work-family conflict and work-related withdrawal behaviors. Journal of Business and Psychology.17, 419-436. Kanter, R. (1977). Work and family in the United States: A critical review for research and policy. NY, NY: Russell Sage. Kanter, R. M. (1977). Men and Women of the Corporation. New York: Basic Books. Kossek, E., Lautsch, B., Eaton, S. 2006. Telecommuting, control, and boundary management: Correlates of policy use and practice, job control, and work-family effectiveness. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 68, 347-367. Kossek, E. E. Lambert, S. (2005). Work And Life Integration: Organizational, Cultural and Psychological Perspectives. Mahwah, N.J.: LEA Press. Kossek E. Ozeki, C. (1998). Work-family conflict, policies and the job-life satisfaction relationship: A review and directions for work-family research. Journal of Applied Psychology.83: 139-149.fol Pitt-Catsouphes, M., Kossek, E. Sweet, S. (2006). The Work-Family Handbook: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives, Methods, and Approaches. Mahwah, N.J.: LEA Press. Seiber, S. (1974). Toward a theory of role accumulation. American Sociological Review, 39, 567-578 Sources of Data(References): 1.Finding an Extra Day a Week: The Positive Influence of perceived Job Flexibility on Work and Family Life Balance. Published by: National Council on Family Relations Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/585774 2. The Impact of Job Characteristics on Work-to-Family Facilitation: Testing a Theory and Distinguishing a

The Diamond Essay -- Diamonds Jewelry

The Diamond Diamond is the best known gem. It is known as the â€Å"king of gems† for its brilliance and for being the hardest mineral on earth. (Foa, p.50) Its characteristics enable it to be used for many different purposes. Since diamonds are the hardest gems on Mohs’ scale, they make useful tools for industrial purposes, such as drilling hard materials. However, they are quite rare, which makes them very valuable. Their beauty and brilliance make them perfect for jewelry.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Diamond is made up of carbon. Another form of pure carbon is graphite. Graphite is the stable form of carbon, found at the earth’s surface. Despite the fact that they have identical chemical composition, the two minerals are drastically different. Diamond is the hardest known substance and is usually light colored and transparent, while graphite is greasy, easily powdered, and very dark in color. Diamond is the hardest gem on Mohs’ hardness scale and graphite is the softest. Diamond is very hard because of its dense packing and interlocking atomic arrangement. Graphite, on the other hand, although it is the same element, is more loosely packed and has a six-sided, layered configuration, which makes it soft (Pough, 1991). The differences between graphite and diamonds are accounted for by the conditions in which they are created. Diamonds form over long periods of time, between 100 km and 200 km below the surface. At this great depth, carbon gets a chance to cool very gradually, forming diamond crystals. When volcanic eruptions occur, magma carries the diamonds up to the surface of the earth. Kimberlite lavas carrying diamonds erupt at anywhere between 10 and 30 km/hour and increase their velocity to several hundred km/hour within the last few kilometers. (Pough, 44) At the surface, this lava cools and turns into Kimberlite rock. That is why diamonds are often found in kimberlite, a volcanic rock, which is often much younger than the diamonds themselves. All diamonds that are around today are at least 990,000,000 years old. If the same element carbon found its way to the surface, before it got a chance to form crystals and solidify, it would turn into graphite. Diamond crystals occur in a variety of shapes and forms. There are octahedral, cubic, and dodecahedral diamond crystals. The octahedral crystals are formed with eight sides, the cubic ones have six sides, and the dodecahedra... ...es where mining takes place, high quality diamonds are not abundant at all. On the average, a diamond mine yields less than one carat of diamond for every five tons of rock. Of this, on average, less than 20% is usable for gems and half of this is lost in cutting. (Arem, p.37) In order to be used in jewelry, after diamonds are mined, they must be cut. Because diamonds have such a high hardness, they are cut using other diamonds. What allows them to be cut at all is the fact that they do not have uniform harness throughout the entire stone. For example, the point of an octahedron is harder than the surface of an octahedral face. Therefore, when powdered diamond is used to cut a diamond crystal, the powder will always contain some particles that are oriented in a â€Å"hard† direction in relation to the crystal being cut. (Arem, p.38). BIBLIOGRAPHY Arem, Joel E. All-Color Guide: Gems and Jewelry. 2nd edition. Geoscience Press, Inc. 1992. Fisher, P. J. The Science of Gems. Charles Scribner’s Sons. New York, 1966. Foa, Emma. Pockets Gemstones. DK Publishing. New York, 1997. Pough, Frederick H. Peterson Guide to Rocks and Minerals. Houghton Mifflin Company. Boston, 1991.

Essay on the Metamorphosis of Fitzwilliam Darcy in Pride and Prejudice

The Metamorphosis of Fitzwilliam Darcy in Pride and Prejudice    Introduced to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice as a good-looking, self-absorbed aristocrat, Fitzwilliam Darcy experiences a change in his personality and character.   Falling in love was what Darcy needed in order to dispose of his existent views on marriage and money.   Although Mr. Darcy was well mannered, he did not know how to treat women with respect, especially those of a lower social status than he.   However, the love of Elizabeth Bennet changed his behavior forever.    Darcy's arrogance shines through at the beginning of the novel in his first appearance at the Meryton ball.   Speaking of Elizabeth Bennet, he so snobbishly set forth that she was, "...tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me" (230).   His feelings of superiority to the people of the town lend Mr. Darcy to be judged as a man with a repulsive and atrocious personality.   The women, who had found him dashingly handsome at first appearance, deemed him a man unworthy of marriage because he offered no positive qualities other than wealth and physical attractiveness.   Not only did Darcy refuse a dance with Elizabeth, but he made it apparent that no woman in the room met his standards of a suitable woman stating that, "...there is not another woman in this room, whom it would not be a punishment to me to stand up with" (229).   Mr. Darcy is concerned only with the wealth and social standing of the people in the beginning of the novel and will not even communicate with the p eople of the town as they are lower than him and undeserving of his presence.   However, as the novel continues on, Darcy becomes more and more accepting of the Bennet family, which he had formerly thought of as nothing ... ...ce.   Ed. Donald Gray.   New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996. Hennelly, Jr., Mark M. "Pride and Prejudice." Jane Austen: New Perspectives. ed. Janet Todd. New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc., 1983. Jane Austen Info Page. Henry Churchyard. U of Texas, Austin. 23 Nov. 2000.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   <http://www.pemberly.com/janeinfo/janeinfo/html>. Monaghan, David.   Jane Austen Structure and Social Vision.   New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1980. Poplawski, Paul.   A Jane Austen Encyclopedia.   Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1998. Reidhead, Julia, ed. Norton Anthology of English Literature vol. 7, 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000. Ward, David Allen. "Pride and Prejudice." Explicator. 51.1: (1992). Wright, Andrew H. "Feeling and Complexity in Pride and Prejudice." Ed. Donald Gray. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1966. 410-420. Essay on the Metamorphosis of Fitzwilliam Darcy in Pride and Prejudice The Metamorphosis of Fitzwilliam Darcy in Pride and Prejudice    Introduced to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice as a good-looking, self-absorbed aristocrat, Fitzwilliam Darcy experiences a change in his personality and character.   Falling in love was what Darcy needed in order to dispose of his existent views on marriage and money.   Although Mr. Darcy was well mannered, he did not know how to treat women with respect, especially those of a lower social status than he.   However, the love of Elizabeth Bennet changed his behavior forever.    Darcy's arrogance shines through at the beginning of the novel in his first appearance at the Meryton ball.   Speaking of Elizabeth Bennet, he so snobbishly set forth that she was, "...tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me" (230).   His feelings of superiority to the people of the town lend Mr. Darcy to be judged as a man with a repulsive and atrocious personality.   The women, who had found him dashingly handsome at first appearance, deemed him a man unworthy of marriage because he offered no positive qualities other than wealth and physical attractiveness.   Not only did Darcy refuse a dance with Elizabeth, but he made it apparent that no woman in the room met his standards of a suitable woman stating that, "...there is not another woman in this room, whom it would not be a punishment to me to stand up with" (229).   Mr. Darcy is concerned only with the wealth and social standing of the people in the beginning of the novel and will not even communicate with the p eople of the town as they are lower than him and undeserving of his presence.   However, as the novel continues on, Darcy becomes more and more accepting of the Bennet family, which he had formerly thought of as nothing ... ...ce.   Ed. Donald Gray.   New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996. Hennelly, Jr., Mark M. "Pride and Prejudice." Jane Austen: New Perspectives. ed. Janet Todd. New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc., 1983. Jane Austen Info Page. Henry Churchyard. U of Texas, Austin. 23 Nov. 2000.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   <http://www.pemberly.com/janeinfo/janeinfo/html>. Monaghan, David.   Jane Austen Structure and Social Vision.   New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1980. Poplawski, Paul.   A Jane Austen Encyclopedia.   Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1998. Reidhead, Julia, ed. Norton Anthology of English Literature vol. 7, 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000. Ward, David Allen. "Pride and Prejudice." Explicator. 51.1: (1992). Wright, Andrew H. "Feeling and Complexity in Pride and Prejudice." Ed. Donald Gray. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1966. 410-420.

Response Journal for “The Charmer” by Budge Wilson Essay

Budge Wilson’s â€Å"The Charmer† is a remarkable tale of loss, morality, and love. It is the story of how a young girl comes to realize that her devilishly handsome brother is nothing more than a charmer. It is set in a 1950’s Halifax home where Zachary, the narrator’s brother, repeatedly abuses his privileges and takes advantage of his family. Zack seems to believe that his looks will help him escape any situation he may find himself in. He uses his sense of humour and charm to manipulate his family and friends. Zack has a way of making those around him feel special, and uses this quality to his advantage. His sister, Winnifred, washes his bike and fetches his baseball glove just to see his â€Å"flashing Colgate smile† and to be called Posie, the nickname he has chosen for her to let her know that she has measured up. He is aware that the cake his mother has baked is not meant for him, yet he eats it anyway. He offers an insincere but convincing apology, and she starts to bake another cake. His family are his willing slaves, and it is only after the tragedy of Lizzie’s death that they finally begin to see who Zachary really is. Zack is the imperfect model son, but his family is too blinded by love to see his flaws. His fake apologies somehow manage to touch their hearts, and allow them to forgive all of his mistakes. Zachary steals money and alcohol from his parents, but manages to get away with it. He gambles and crashes the family car, but goes unpunished. He is â€Å"the only son, the only brother, the oldest child,† but even more than that, he is as the title implies, the charmer. Despite his good looks and charming personality, Zachary does not accomplish anything in life. At twenty-four, he still lives at home, still wolfs down chocolate cakes, and still borrows the family car. He spends his money on his girlfriends and his alcohol, and gambles away what is left of it. He loses job after job, and is becoming, if he is not yet, an alcoholic. Zack has so much offered to him, but fails to apply himself to improve his situation. However, he cannot be held entirely responsible for his failures, as his family holds some of the blame. If they had only shown less sympathy, and had seen past his false facade, he would have learned early on that he  could not charm his way through life. The conclusion of the story is quite ironic, as the narrator’s daughter displays the very same deceiving qualities that her brother was famous for. Winnifred describes her daughter, Lizzie, as â€Å"pretty and mischievous† and is aware that Zachary was the same way. She is reminded of the manner in which her parents treated Zachary, and learns from their mistakes. She refuses to allow her daughter to become what Zack has, and punishes her accordingly. To portray the themes of this story, the author used a number of literary devices such as, allusion, characterization, flashback and paradox. Allusion is clear as the author refers to Zachary’s â€Å"Colgate† smile, and to the famous people that Winnifred often sees on television. These stars include Clark Gable, John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Steve McQueen, Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Burt Reynolds, and Tyrone Power. Characterization is used to create Zachary’s character. The narrator says that her brother is charming, intelligent, and fun, but nevertheless a devil. Others say that he is sensitive, while he thinks he can escape any situation. He interacts with other characters, and uses them to further his own cause. The entire story is based on flashback, since the narrator is recounting the events of her childhood, and finishes the story by speaking of an incident that takes place when she is an adult. The paradox of this story is evident when the mother refers to Zack and says, â€Å"This is his way of coping. He’s probably suffering more than the rest of us.† The truth of this statement is highly improbable, since Zack seems to care for no one but himself, and does not even bother to visit his younger sister though he knows she is deathly ill. However, the character may be suffering emotional pain that his actions do not let on. â€Å"The Charmer† presents a timeless, captivating situation, which every reader can in one way or another, relate to. It is the tale of a sister, who sees her brother for who he is, and not who he pretends to be. It is a tale of a mother who cannot accept that her son is imperfect, and of a father who struggles to see past his own love for his son. Primarily, however, it is the story of one boy who ages into adulthood, yet does not mature, and who  hurts his family, yet feels no remorse beyond that which he pretends to.

Red Cross Report

2011 Trustees’ report and accounts Patron Her Majesty The Queen President His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales KG KT GCB OM Deputy presidents Her Royal Highness Princess Alexandra The Hon Lady Ogilvy LG GCVO The Countess Mountbatten of Burma CBE CD JP DL Honorary vice-presidents Lord Barnard TD The Rt Hon Baroness Chalker of Wallasey Sylvia, Countess of Limerick CBE Professor John McClure OBE Mrs Elspeth Thomas CBE DL Vice-presidents Mr Anthony Andrews Ms Angela Rippon OBE Mrs Maria Shammas MBE Board of trustees Chairman Mr James M. T.Cochrane Vice-chairmen Mrs Victoria Peterkin Mr David Fall CMG Mrs Stella Cummings (from January 2012) Treasurer Mr Russell Walls (until September 2011) Mr David Howell (from September 2011) Other trustees Mrs Sue Brown Mr Stanley Fitches MBE Ms Amy Foan Mr Christopher Hedges (until December 2011) Mr Michael Herriot MBE Mr Steve John Mr Afzal Khan CBE (until October 2011) Lady Lamport Dr Lise Llewellyn Mr Gordon Low Dr J. Kay Richmond (until De cember 2011) Mr Graham Stegmann CBE Mr Paul Taylor (from January 2012) Mr Keith Shipman (from January 2012)Senior management team Chief executive Sir Nicholas Young Managing director of operations Michael Adamson Director of international David Peppiatt Director of UK service development Margaret Lally UK director, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man Territory Norman McKinley UK director, Northern Territory Jean Henderson UK director, Wales and Western Territory Annie Bibbings UK director, South Eastern Territory Liz Page Director of communications Philip Talbot Director of fundraising Mark Astarita Director of people and learning Roger Smith FCIPD Chef de cabinet Caroline Leighton Director of finance and business development Rohan Hewavisenti Sub-committees Finance and audit committee Mr David Howell, chairman (from September 2011) Mr Russell Walls, chairman (until September 2011) Mr James M. T. Cochrane Mr Stanley Fitches MBE Mr Gordon Low Mrs Liz Hazell Mr Anthony Pott s Mr Peter Bluck Remuneration committee Mr James M. T. Cochrane, chairman Mr Russell Walls until September 2011) Mr David Howell (from September 2011) Mrs Victoria Peterkin Mr David Fall CMG Ethical review panel Mrs Stella Cummings Mr Steve John Mr Graham Stegmann CBE External auditors BDO LLP Emerald House East Street Epsom Surrey KT17 1HS Bankers National Westminster Bank plc City of London Office PO Box 12258 1 Princes Street London EC2R 8PA Investment managers Lazard Asset Management Ltd 50 Berkeley Street London W1J 8HA Legal & General Investment Management One Coleman Street London EC2R BlackRock 33 King William Street London EC4R 9AS External legal advisers Withers 15 Old Bailey London EC4M 7EG Young mother Pearl, 21, became a volunteer after she and her extended family received support from the Red Cross in South Africa 1 ContentsChairman and chief executive’s statement Our aims Emergency response Health and social care Building resilience: first aid and humanitarian education Plans for 2012 Review of finances Structure and governance Independent auditors’ report to the trustees of the British Red Cross Society 4 5 6 8 10 12 14 16 19 22 44 I don’t think I could have managed. To know I could always pick up the phone and talk with Sue made the world of difference Volunteer Sue Whalley helped Ellis Sheldon and his wife cope with illness in their remote country home Accounts for the year ended 31 December 2011 Thank you 2 British Red Cross Trustees’ report and accounts 2011 3 Chairman and chief executive’s statement This year has shown us how easy it is for a movement of people to change the world, for good or ill.Summer riots in the UK, financial protests around the world and the fall of governments in the Middle East and Africa – they all relied on an instantly connected network of people acting as one, quickly and powerfully. Part of the Red Cross’ mission is to mobilise the power of humanity. If chaos an d violence are unfolding more quickly, then so must our ability to harness that power for good, saving and changing lives in the UK and overseas. As always, our volunteers and staff were at the sharp end of crisis around the world last year, from drought and famine in east Africa to severe weather in Scotland. We remain realistic about the external pressures and challenges facing us.A key focus for us has been the way the coalition government’s reforms and reviews are affecting our work – most notably the NHS reforms, cuts in the public sector and the Department for International Development (DFID) aid reviews. We have continued to develop our health and social care offer to be more consistent, integrated and focussed on what NHS commissioners’ needs are likely to be in the future. This is just one way we are making sure that our services are available for people adversely affected by changes or cuts. We also obtained unconditional registration for our ambulance work from the Care Quality Commission, which ensures we can continue to deliver a variety of ambulance services independently across England.In November we transferred our skin camouflage service to a new home at Changing Faces, a charity specialising in disfigurement. Over the last 36 years, this award-winning service has helped tens of thousands of people cope with disfiguring conditions and blemishes and Changing Faces is well placed to develop the service further, ensuring it continues to have a great impact on people’s lives. We offer our thanks to the dedicated and skilled volunteers and staff involved. The DFID aid reviews, and the work of the devolved administrations, have shown an increasing focus on preparing for emergencies in the UK and overseas, which represents a significant opportunity for us.Our ‘Ready for Winter’ campaign to ensure that people are prepared for severe weather, launched in partnership with the Scottish government, is a good exampl e of how we are meeting it. In these financially challenging times, we must make sure we maximise our fundraising potential to ensure our financial sustainability. Our compact with our supporters is that, as ever, we will keep our costs under control and make efficient and effective use of all our resources. We, and the more than a million people we help each year, rely on their generosity and trust. Thank you to all of our supporters, partners, volunteers and staff members for their vital contributions in 2011 – working together, we saved and changed people’s lives around the world. Our aims Our vision is of a world where everyone gets the help they need in a crisis.Our mission is to mobilise the power of humanity so that individuals and communities can prepare for, deal with and recover from a crisis. As the UK’s leading emergency response charity, 3,500 staff and 32,500 volunteers pursue these goals both here and overseas. Our work includes emergency response , health and social care, and building resilience (including first aid and humanitarian education). We operate both in our own right, and as part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the world’s largest humanitarian network, which has around 13 million volunteers across 188 countries. Our corporate strategy, Saving Lives, Changing Lives, sets the framework for our core activities between 2010-15. redcross. org. uk/movement redcross. org. uk/strategyOur plans for 2011 included: > strengthening our ability to respond to large emergencies across the whole of the UK > strengthening the quality of our services for refugees and asylum seekers > increasing the reach and quality of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ disaster response > establishing our care in the home activity as the main focus of our UK health and social care work, integrating existing services with it where appropriate > building resilience, helping pe ople and communities prepare for and withstand disasters. James M. T. Cochrane Chairman of the board of trustees I feel I’m not only helping individual people, but helping the Red Cross and society in general After being made redundant, Ed Owen found a new lease of life as a care in the home volunteer Sir Nicholas Young Chief executive 4British Red Cross Trustees’ report and accounts 2011 5 Emergency response When an emergency strikes, we respond We launched seven emergency appeals in 2011, raising ? 21. 6 million to help people in east Africa, Japan, New Zealand, Pakistan, Turkey, the Libya region and the Ivory Coast region recover from famine, conflict, flooding and earthquakes. As tens of thousands of people displaced by civil war in Libya fled across the border to Tunisia in March, we sent experts in logistics and mass sanitation to support the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement’s response there. This helped prevent the outbreak of disease and sickness in the displacement camps.We also sent logistics delegates to support the Movement’s operations during violent clashes in Egypt and the food crisis in Kenya to make sure vital aid got to the people who new cases opened to help separated families get back in touch 610 30,000 people in the UK given first aid at 9,000 public events needed it, even in the most challenging environments. Following January 2010’s devastating earthquake in Haiti, we are halfway through a four-year recovery programme. Over the last year, we have helped 75,000 people recover their livelihoods through cash distribution, provided water and sanitation where there was none, and given 22,000 families safe and improved shelter. We started to build permanent housing to replace transitional shelters. In he midst of the recovery process, we also responded to a major cholera outbreak, treating 9,000 patients and operating five clinics and oral hydration units. Staff and volunteers responded to 4 ,200 (440 in Scotland) emergency response call-outs in the UK in 2011, in support of the emergency services. These ranged from fires and power cuts to an improvised explosive device in Omagh. The Red Cross volunteers provide an invaluable service to people at a time of great emotional need and stress. When they are looking after the families, it means the firefighters have one less factor to consider Mike Burroughs, Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service ?3 million released from our Disaster Fund to help people affected by conflict or disasters in the UK and overseas 6British Red Cross Trustees’ report and accounts 2011 When severe weather in Scotland in December cut off many vulnerable people in remote locations, volunteers worked around the clock to distribute relief and support the Scottish Ambulance Service. We completed various reviews to ensure we can draw in the right numbers of volunteers and equipment from across the UK to respond in the event of a large emergenc y. Around a third of our services for refugees and asylum seekers, which helped 35,000 people (570 in Scotland), 22,300 of them destitute, are now accredited by the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner, giving external assurance of their quality.We plan for the majority to be accredited by the end of 2012. redcross. org. uk/emergencyresponse redcross. org. uk/recovery I like the Red Cross because they give us biscuits and are teaching us how to improve our health James Losiru, ten, one of the children for whom our school feeding programme in Kenya is making a difference 27,000 people in the UK helped by us in an emergency 7 Health and social care We help vulnerable people recover from health or social crises, and live with dignity and independence in their homes We helped 397,000 people in the UK (28,000 in Scotland) this year when they could not cope at home alone, many of them after a stay in hospital or facing the risk of being admitted.This helped them retain their in dependence, and reduced admissions to hospitals and residential or nursing care. For example, our medical equipment loan service in southeast Wales made it possible for 280 patients to be discharged from hospital, averaging a saving of at least three bed days per patient. Ninety-one per cent of our health and social care service users reported that their experience was either good or excellent. We also began working towards the ambitious target of reaching 40 per cent more people in the UK with our health and social care services by 2014. As part of this work, we agreed 26 new health and social care developments in 2011. 75,000As the government progresses its social care reform agenda, we submitted written evidence to the health select committee, and developed proposals which will form the basis of an advocacy programme in 2012 to embed the voluntary sector’s role in tackling the UK’s care crisis. We work in partnership with other members of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement across 16 countries to help communities tackle health and social crises – from people living with HIV in South Africa to young people rebuilding their lives after conflict in Sierra Leone. For example, we support a Kyrgyzstan Red Crescent programme to help vulnerable women build their livelihoods and be aware of their rights. This work includes an advocacy element, which contributed to a change in the law this year, whereby marriage registration is now compulsory.Previously, traditional unregistered marriages had left women who had been left by their husbands with no legal rights or standing. wheelchairs loaned to people to help them stay independent I’m very happy for the Red Cross’ help as they taught me how to take care of the kids, demonstrating how to give the pills when they first started taking their treatment. They supported me until I knew what to do Patricia lives in South Africa and cares for her four grandchildren, aged bet ween one and four, all of whom have either HIV or TB 7,700 volunteers in the UK delivering health and social care 8 British Red Cross Trustees’ report and accounts 2011 redcross. org. uk/healthandsocialcare redcross. org. uk/uksocialcare ulnerable people in the UK used our transport service to reach medical appointments or get other help with daily life 34,000 Now I feel more confident about getting out – and it’s so nice not to be stuck in the house all the time Sight-impaired Brenda Hall, from Llanelli, was visited for several weeks by a volunteer to help build her confidence and remain independent 9 Building resilience: first aid and humanitarian education We make communities more resilient by teaching people how to save lives and encouraging them to take action to help others of our volunteers are aged 18-26 (6,600 volunteers in total) 20% people learned about humanitarian issues and international humanitarian law through our education programmes 183,300 370 ,000 eople in the UK took one of our first aid courses in 2011, 61,000 of whom were from vulnerable groups A survey we ran this year showed that just 3 per cent of the UK population would be willing to invest a couple of hours in learning first aid, and 64 per cent fear the responsibility of having first aid skills. So in September 2011 we launched Everyday First Aid, a free online resource providing the simplest way possible to learn basic life-saving skills. Featuring videos, animation and reallife scenarios, the resource has been viewed by 199,000 people since its launch and supplements our range of face-to-face training courses. Ninety per cent of people who have taken one of our first aid courses felt more confident in using first aidThank goodness I had completed the first aid course, as the knowledge was still fresh in my mind. I just stopped panicking and started to slap her back. In less than a minute she was okay again Sayma put her training from our first aid course for m inority ethnic groups in Edinburgh into practice when her threeyear-old daughter began to choke as a result; and 76 per cent were more willing to use those skills in an emergency. We followed this up with the launch of our first mobile app, so that Android, BlackBerry and iPhone users have access to the same life-saving information on the move. The app was downloaded 127,300 times in 2011 and 185,000 by March 2012.Over the summer, we continued our Life. Live It. campaign, aimed at equipping 11 to 16-year-olds with first aid skills. Through a cinema trailer shown before the final Harry Potter film, we showed 2. 6 million people how to save an unconscious person’s life by pushing them on their side and tilting their head back so their airway is clear. We also took the same message to youth festivals around the country, with a series of ‘silent disco’ events, reaching around 5,000 young people. redcross. org. uk/firstaid redcross. org. uk/everydayfirstaid redcross. org. uk/app 6. 4 million people learned about first aid from us through public or media campaignsI realised I’d basically have to save someone’s life, which was a bit of a shock early on a Wednesday morning While on her way to a GCSE English exam, Hannah Niesser used her first aid training to give chest compressions to a collapsed man 11 10 British Red Cross Trustees’ report and accounts 2011 Plans for 2012 In 2012 we have committed that: 1. We will ensure we are fully prepared to meet the potential emergency response challenges presented by a year of major activity in the UK, including the Olympics, Paralympics and Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. 2. We will grow investment in international disaster response and increase the reach and impact of resilience programming with International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement partners, particularly in Africa and South Asia. 3.We will teach first aid to 354,000 young people and adults, so they are more able, confident and willing to help someone in a crisis. 4. We will further strengthen the quality of our services for refugees and asylum seekers by achieving OISC accreditation for the majority of our services and seek institutional funding to meet some of the needs arising from the significant budget cuts of partners in the refugee sector. 5. We will continue to develop our health and social care services so we are on course to reach 40 per cent more beneficiaries by the end of 2014 with a choice of services that increase their ability to live independently for longer. 6.We will further strengthen our ability to measure the outcomes and impact of our work in the UK and internationally. Everything happened so quickly – it was really scary – so it was really good to have those friendly faces around Volunteers were on hand to provide mother-of-two Holly Gunning with emotional support and practical advice after her home was struck by lightning 12 British Red Cross Trustees’ rep ort and accounts 2011 13 Review of finances The organisation continued to grow, with total expenditure in 2011 increasing 16 per cent from ? 199. 2 million to ? 230. 9 million. This was supported by a 4 per cent increase in our total income to ? 213. 8 million. from regular giving increasing 21 per cent to ? 41. 9 million.Charitable expenditure Our charitable expenditure increased by 20 per cent to ? 159. 2 million in 2011 with the increase mostly in our emergency response activities. Continued support for the Haitian earthquake programmes, along with cash transfers made to support the Japanese earthquake response, resulted in our international emergency response expenditure increasing 74 per cent to ? 45. 4 million. We also invested further in our UK emergency response activities, increasing expenditure by 18 per cent to ? 24. 5 million. Expenditure on resilience programmes has increased 7 per cent to ? 39 million with the principal increase being in our work with National Societie s in other parts of the world.Our health and social care work is primarily UK-based and our expenditure on this activity decreased slightly to ? 41. 3 million. Expenditure on medical equipment services decreased by ? 3. 5 million to ? 12. 7 million due to the loss of a major contract for the provision of community equipment. This was offset by a ? 3. 4 million increase in our care and support programmes. Fundraising Voluntary income, which includes income from emergency appeals, fundraising, regular giving, cash donations and legacies, increased 10 per cent from ? 119. 9 million to ? 131. 5 million. Our individual supporters donated more than ever before, throughout challenging economic times, with incomeCharitable income Around 25 per cent of total income comes directly from charitable activities including first aid training fees, health and social care contracts and grants to support our international work. Our charitable income decreased 8 per cent to ? 52. 9 million, due to the loss of a major community equipment contract as well as a drop in grants to support our international work. Reserves Our reserves policy is set to ensure that there is no disruption of British Red Cross services in the event of an unforeseen reduction in income or increase in expenditure. The policy sets our minimum free reserves level at ? 15 million. As at 31 December, our free available reserves amounted to ? 41. 4 million (2010: ? 54. 7 million).We have changed many of our investments from equity to bonds to reduce the effects of market volatility on us. Together with tighter financial forecasting and reporting, this will enable us to plan for a lower level of reserves, allowing us to spend more helping people in need. This is consistent with our strategy, Saving Lives, Changing Lives, which outlines plans to draw down on our free available reserves by 2015. We plan to draw down ? 14. 8 million of reserves in 2012 and a further ? 6. 2 million in 2013. Pensions The British Red Cr oss operates two defined benefit pension schemes, which are both closed to new members. The net pension surplus reported in our accounts is ? 0. 7 million as at 31 December 2011 (2010 surplus: ? 1. million) and We prepare vulnerable groups, including women and children, for cyclones in Char Padma, Bangladesh the actuarial loss during the year was ? 1. 6 million (2010: ? 2 million gain). However, our latest actuarial valuations for funding purposes showed a net deficit of ? 4. 4 million. We also have contingent liabilities in relation to the membership of the Pension Trust’s Growth Plan. The British Red Cross has sole liability for ? 6. 5 million and joint liability with the Order of St John for estimated ? 3 million pension liabilities of the Joint Committee of the Order of St John of Jerusalem and British Red Cross Society. Investments As at 31 December 2011, we held fixed asset investments of ? 49. 1 million (2010: ? 58 million).Our investments reported net losses of ? 0. 6 million in 2011. An investment sub-committee of the finance and audit committee regularly reviews our investment portfolio and performs an annual review of our investment policy. Our investment objective is to seek yield subject to a requirement of capital preservation. The investment sub-committee has reviewed, and is satisfied with, the overall performance of the investment portfolio against its benchmarks. The British Red Cross will not directly invest in shares in, or commercial paper issued by, companies with a significant interest in the trading of arms or in the manufacture of tobacco products.However, it is recognised that the ethical investment policy cannot be applied when investing in pooled money market or investment funds. 14 British Red Cross Trustees’ report and accounts 2011 15 Structure and governance Legal status The British Red Cross was founded in 1870 and incorporated by Royal Charter in 1908. A Supplemental Royal Charter took effect on 1 January 1998 an d this was revised by HM the Queen in Council on 17 July 2003. The governing instruments under which the British Red Cross operates comprise this revised charter, the standing orders and other policies agreed from time to time by its governing body, the board of trustees.The legal objects of the British Red Cross, as laid out in its revised Royal Charter, are to provide assistance to victims of armed conflicts and to work for the improvement of health, the prevention of disease and the prevention and alleviation of human suffering in the UK and throughout the world. Organisation The board of trustees comprises nine elected members and up to eight members co-opted by the board itself. Newly elected and appointed trustees join the board at the start of the calendar year in most instances. Their terms of office last for three years, and they can serve two consecutive threeyear terms, after which they must stand down from the board for at least one year. A nominations group oversees rec ruitment of co-opted trustees. The recruitment of elected trustees is conducted via a national electoral college of eight volunteer council chairs. The board of trustees ratifies the result.The finance and audit committee oversees the organisation’s financial transactions. This committee has been given specific responsibilities and makes relevant recommendations to the board. While the approval of policy is a matter for the board, that body works closely with the chief executive and his colleagues on the senior management team, which is charged with the implementation of policy. A wholly-owned trading subsidiary, Britcross Limited, supports the fundraising activities of the British Red Cross. The assets, liabilities and trading results of this company, which is incorporated in the UK, are consolidated into the financial statements.The British Red Cross has eight Overseas Branches in British Overseas Territories and these have also been included in the financial statements. Th e British Red Cross is a member of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, with volunteers and staff contributing to a number of initiatives in both the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (Federation) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Volunteers carry out a wide range of activities, including responding to emergencies, first aid, delivering health and social care and humanitarian education programmes, supporting refugees and asylum seekers, and fundraising.Without them, we could not carry out this life-saving and lifechanging work. The British Red Cross has more than 320 charity shops across the UK documented management systems, processes and procedures. The system of internal control and risk management is designed to: > The finance and audit committee reviews risk and internal controls and receives regular reports from senior management. > The committee approves the annual risk-based internal audit plan, which cov ers major risks as identified by management and trustees. It receives internal audit reports, regular progress reports and risk updates. Internal audit reports identify areas for improvement in the internal control, risk and governance environment. gt; Senior management reviews key strategic and operational risks on a regular basis. They consider progress on mitigating actions, new and emerging risks, and opportunities. > Management identifies, evaluates and manages risks within their areas from planning to delivery of service. Progress is reported quarterly via Risk management Achievement of the charity’s aims and objectives entails taking risks. The system of internal control is designed to manage risk to a reasonable degree rather than to eliminate all risk of failure relating to achieving aims and objectives. The trustees are responsible for ensuring the charity has effective risk management and internal control systems in place.The board reviews significant risks and ens ures reasonable measures have been taken to manage risks. Senior management has responsibility for managing resources, monitoring performance, and establishing and maintaining effective internal control systems. This is supported by clearly > identify and prioritise the strategic and operational risks to the achievement of the charity’s aims and objectives; > evaluate the likelihood of those risks being realised and their potential impact; and > manage these risks efficiently, effectively and economically. The trustees are satisfied that appropriate internal control systems and risk management processes are in place.They consider that the following framework provides the charity with adequate measures to reduce the impact of identified risks: 16 British Red Cross Trustees’ report and accounts 2011 17 Independent auditors’ report to the trustees of British Red Cross divisional and departmental updates. This is analysed and reported to senior management on a regul ar basis. > Board sub-committees and management groups help identify, evaluate and manage risks relating to fundraising, investments, business continuity, health and safety, remuneration, major infrastructure and IT projects, and operational needs including health and social care, emergency response and the Olympics.Work in this area is continuing with an improvement plan to further enhance the effectiveness of risk management activities and ensure consistency in its application across the charity. The most significant risks to the charity include the impact of government policy including the spending review, fundraising, reputation, security and safety of staff and volunteers, safety of beneficiaries, workforce capacity and capability, management information, IT infrastructure and the challenges of operating major relief programmes. > prepared the accounts on a going concern basis. Financial statements are published on the organisation’s website (redcross. org. k) in accorda nce with legislation in the United Kingdom governing the preparation and dissemination of financial statements, which may vary from legislation in other jurisdictions. The trustees’ responsibilities also extend to the ongoing integrity of the financial statements contained therein. Trustees participated in a range of development activities during the year. From visits to British Red Cross areas, services and events, to external conferences, the British Red Cross ensures its board members are kept abreast of developments in the sector, as well as given the opportunity to broaden their skills and experiences to assist them in discharging their duties effectively.Trustees’ responsibilities The trustees prepare consolidated financial statements for each financial year. These give a true and fair view of the state of the British Red Cross and of the annual results. In preparing the financial statements, the trustees have: > selected suitable accounting policies and applied them consistently; > made judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent; > followed applicable accounting standards without any material departures; Public benefit The board of trustees has given regard to the legislative and regulatory requirements for disclosing how its charitable objectives (as set out in our Royal Charter) have provided benefit to the public.The board of trustees has complied with the duty set out in Section 4 of the Charities Act 2011, and that set out by the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator in the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005. This report outlines how our achievements during 2011 have benefited the public, either directly or indirectly. On behalf of the trustees We have audited the financial statements of the British Red Cross Society for the year ended 31 December 2011 which comprise the Consolidated Statement of Financial Activities, the Consolidated Balance Sheets, the Consolidated Cash Flow Statement and the relat ed notes. The financial reporting framework that has been applied in their preparation is applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice).This report is made solely to the charity’s trustees, as a body, in accordance with the Charities Act 2011 and the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the charity’s trustees those matters we are required to state to them in an auditor’s report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the charity and the charity’s trustees as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed. Those standards require us to comply with the Auditing Practices Board’s (APB’s) Ethical Standards for Auditors.Scope of the audit of the financial statements A description of the scope of an audit of financial statements is provided on the APB’s website at www. frc. org. uk/apb/ scope/private. cfm. Opinion on financial statements In our opinion the financial statements: > give a true and fair view of the state of the group’s and the parent charity’s affairs as at 31 December 2011 and of the group’s incoming resources and application of resources for the year then ended; > have been properly prepared in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice; and > have been prepared in accordance with the Charities Act 2011, the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 and regulations 6 and 8 of the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (as amended).Matters on which we are required to report by exception We have nothing to report in respect of the following matters where the Charities Act 2011 and the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (as amended) requires us to report to you if, in our opinion: > the information given in the Trustees’ Annual Report is inconsistent in any material respect with the financial statements; or James M. T. Cochrane Chairman of the board of trustees 28 March 2012 Respective responsibilities of trustees and auditor As explained more fully in the Trustees’ Responsibilities Statement (set out on page 18), the trustees are responsible for the preparation of the financial statements and for being satisfied that they give a true and fair view.We have been appointed as auditor under section 44(1)(c) of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 and under section 144 of the Charities Act 2011 and report in accordance with regulations made under those Acts. Our responsibility is to audit and express an opinion on the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and International Standards on Auditing (UK and Ireland). 18 British Red Cross Trustees’ report and accounts 2011 19 > proper and sufficien t accounting records have not been kept; or > the parent charitable company’s financial statements are not in agreement with the accounting records or returns; or > we have not received all the information and explanations we require for our audit.BDO LLP Statutory Auditor Epsom United Kingdom Date: 28 March 2012 BDO LLP is eligible to act as an auditor in terms of section 1212 of the Companies Act 2006. BDO LLP is a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales (with registered number OC305127). Guei, 24, was one of thousands of refugees from conflict in the Ivory Coast who the Red Cross helped with water and other essentials when they reached Liberia 20 British Red Cross Trustees’ report and accounts 2011 21 Accounts for the year ended 31 December 2011 Summary of income and expenditure for the year ended 31 December 2011 Consolidated statement of financial activities for the year ended 31 December 2011 2011 Total ? m 2010 Total ? m Unrestricted Notes ? Incoming resources Incoming resources from generated funds Voluntary income Trading activities Investment income Total incoming resources from generated funds Incoming resources from charitable activities Emergency response and recovery Resilience Health and social care Supporting the Movement Total incoming resources from charitable activities Other incoming resources Miscellaneous income Net gains on disposal of tangible fixed assets Total incoming resources Resources expended Costs of generating funds Voluntary income Trading activities Total resources expended on generating funds Restricted ? m 2 Income ? 213. 8m ca re in co m e E an me d rg re en co c ve y r ? 1 ry es 5. po 5m ns e R es ili en ce ac tiv iti es so ci al 94. 4 26. 5 0. 3 121. 2 37. 1 37. 1 131. 5 26. 5 0. 3 158. 3 119. 9 24. 8 0. 6 145. 3 S M up ov po ? em rt . 9 en ing m t th O e in th ve er st an m d en t Tr ad in g H ea lth 3 3. 3 14. 7 21. 0 0. 4 39. 4 3. 7 0. 8 0. 6 8. 4 13. 5 7. 0 15. 5 21. 6 8. 8 52. 9 9 . 3 15. 3 25. 1 7. 9 57. 6 .5 m Vo lu nt ar y 5m 6m an d 1. ?2 ? 8 . 8 31 ?1 ?2 ?7 m 6. m 0. 6 2. 0 163. 2 50. 6 0. 6 2. 0 213. 8 1. 1 1. 7 205. 7 44. 6 23. 6 68. 2 28. 2 31. 6 39. 7 2. 0 101. 5 2. 6 4 172. 3 (9. 1) (9. 1) 9 14 (0. 3) (0. 9) (1. 6) (11. 9) 7 7 110. 4 98. 5 0. 9 0. 9 41. 7 7. 4 1. 6 7. 0 57. 7 58. 6 (8. 0) (8. 0) 0. 3 (7. 7) 45. 4 37. 7 45. 5 23. 6 69. 1 69. 9 39. 0 41. 3 9. 0 159. 2 2. 6 230. 9 (17. 1) (17. 1) (0. 3) (0. 6) (1. 6) (19. 6) 155. 8 136. 2 40. 3 23. 5 63. 8 46. 36. 3 41. 4 8. 3 132. 8 2. 6 199. 2 6. 5 6. 5 (0. 2) 1. 7 2. 0 10. 0 145. 8 155. 8 Expenditure ? 230. 9m Su ca pp re ? 2 or . 6 tin m g th G e ov M er ov na em nc en e co t st s E an me d rg re en co c ve y r ry es po ns e C in os co t o m fv e o lu nt ar y ac tiv iti es so ci al Costs of charitable activities Emergency response and recovery Resilience Health and social care Supporting the Movement Total resources expended on charitable activities Governance costs Total resources expended Net (ou tgoing) / incoming resources before transfers Transfers between funds Net (outgoing) / incoming resources before recognised gains and losses Losses on urrent asset investments (Losses) / gains on fixed asset investments Actuarial (losses) / gains on defined benefit pension schemes Net movement in funds Total funds – 1 January Total funds – 31 December All the activities relate to continuing operations. R es ili en ce Tr ad in g 5m 6m 9m 9m 3m H ea lth ? 4 1. ?9 an d ?4 ?2 ?6 ?3 m 5. 3. 9. 7 22 British Red Cross Trustees’ report and accounts 2011 23 Consolidated balance sheet as at 31 December 2011 2011 ? m 64. 4 49. 1 113. 5 Current assets Stocks Debtors Investments Cash at bank and in hand 4. 2 30. 9 6. 6 4. 0 45. 7 Current liabilities Creditors: amounts falling due within one year Net current assets Total assets less current liabilities Creditors: amounts falling due in more than one year Provision for liabilities and charges Net assets before pension scheme s urplus Defined benefit pension scheme surplus Net assets 14 7 (20. ) 25. 7 139. 2 (0. 3) (3. 4) 135. 5 0. 7 136. 2 2010 ? m 63. 8 58. 0 121. 8 Consolidated cash flow statement for the year ended 31 December 2011 Notes Net cash (outflow) / inflow from operating activities (see below) Capital expenditure and financial investment 16 2011 ? m (13. 7) 3. 0 (10. 7) Decrease in current asset investments Decrease in cash 17 4. 3 (6. 4) 2010 ? m 8. 4 (19. 4) (11. 0) 9. 7 (1. 3) Notes Fixed assets Tangible fixed assets Investments 8 9 10 9 3. 3 29. 0 11. 2 10. 4 53. 9 Reconciliation of net incoming resources to net cash outflow from operating activities Net (outgoing) / incoming resources Depreciation charge Net gains n disposal of tangible fixed assets Increase in stocks Increase in debtors Increase in creditors Increase / (decrease) in provisions for liabilities and charges Net charges for defined benefit pension scheme Net cash (outflow) / inflow from operating activities Reconciliation of net funds to movement in short-term funds less borrowing Decrease in cash Decrease in current asset investments (6. 4) (4. 3) (10. 7) Losses on current asset investments (0. 3) (11. 0) Net short-term funds less borrowing at 1 January Net short-term funds less borrowing at 31 December 17 21. 3 10. 3 (1. 3) (9. 7) (11. 0) (0. 2) (11. 2) 32. 5 21. 3 (17. 1) 6. 7 (2. 0) (0. 9) (1. 9) 2. 6 0. 1 (1. 2) (13. 7) 6. 5 6. 5 (1. 7) (0. 4) (1. 5) 2. 0 (2. 2) (0. 8) 8. 4 11 (17. 4) 36. 5 158. 3 (0. 3) (3. 3) 154. 7 1. 1 155. 8 12 Funds: Restricted funds Unrestricted funds tangible fixed assets Defined benefit pension scheme fund Free available reserves Unrestricted funds Total funds 7 7 37. 7 56. 0. 7 41. 4 98. 5 136. 2 45. 4 54. 6 1. 1 54. 7 110. 4 155. 8 The accompanying notes form an integral part of these consolidated financial statements. The British Red Cross has not prepared a separate balance sheet for the charity as this is not considered to be materially different to the consolidated balance sheet. For and on behalf of the British Red Cross, James Cochrane Chairman, board of trustees 28 March 2012 David Howell Chairman, finance and audit committee 28 March 2012 24 British Red Cross Trustees’ report and accounts 2011 25 Notes to the consolidated financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2011 1. Accounting policies a) Scope and basis of the financial statements The consolidated financial statements have been prepared under the historical cost convention, as modified by the revaluation of investments at market value, and are in accordance with Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice (Revised 2005) (‘the SORP’), applicable accounting standards in the United Kingdom and the reporting requirements of the Charities Act 2011. The results and balance sheet of the British Red Cross’ subsidiary, Britcross Limited, have been consolidated on a line by line basis. Britcross Limited makes up accounts to 31 D ecember. Separate statements of financial activities and balance sheet have not been presented for the charity alone as these are not considered to be materially different from the consolidated statement of financial activities and consolidated balance sheet.The financial statements incorporate the results of all material activities overseas where the British Red Cross has operational responsibility. The results and net assets of Red Cross operations in eight British Overseas Branches have been included in the financial statements. (b) Fund accounting General unrestricted funds are available for use at the discretion of the trustees in furtherance of the general charitable objectives. A pension reserve is included within unrestricted funds to reflect the pension surplus. Restricted funds are donated for either a particular area or purpose, the use of which is restricted to that area or purpose. Such donations are principally for international purposes. c) Incoming resources All inco me is accounted for when the British Red Cross has entitlement to the funds, the amount can be quantified and there is certainty of receipt. Where income is received in advance of providing goods and/or services, it is deferred until the British Red Cross becomes entitled to that income. Unless there is evidence of uncertainty of receipt, residuary legacies are recognised from the date of probate where a reliable estimate of income can be made. Income from will or reversionary trusts is not recognised until the life interest has passed away. Income from pecuniary legacies is recognised upon notification. Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) appeal income is recognised to the extent that resources have been committed on programmes funded through the DEC appeals.Gifts donated for resale are included as income when they are sold. Donated assets and services are included at the value to the British Red Cross where this can be reliably quantified. Donated services from our volunteers are not included within the financial statements. (d) Resources expended and basis of allocation of cost All expenditure is accounted for on an accruals basis. Direct costs are those specifically related to producing the output of an activity, for example the costs incurred in direct contact with beneficiaries. Support costs are those which provide indirect support to front-line output provision – examples are central finance, human resources and management information services.Support costs not attributable to a single activity have been allocated on a basis consistent with identified cost drivers for that cost category such as staff head count, floor space and expenditure. Governance costs relate to the direct running of the charity, allowing the charity to operate and generate the information required for public accountability. They include the costs of subscriptions related to membership of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, as well as the costs of trustee meetings and internal and external audits. (e) Tangible fixed assets and depreciation All tangible fixed assets costing more than ? 1,000 are capitalised and included at cost, including any incidental expenses of acquisition and irrecoverable VAT.Depreciation is provided on a straight-line basis over their useful economic lives as follows: Freehold properties Leasehold properties > Shop premises > Other premises Freehold premises improvements Leasehold premises improvements Ambulances Other vehicles Equipment and furniture Computer equipment and software Freehold land Assets in course of construction 50 years the shorter of the term of the lease and five years the shorter of the term of the lease and 50 years ten years the shorter of the term of the lease and ten years seven years five years five years between one and three years nil nil (f) Pensions The defined benefit pension scheme current service costs, together with the scheme interest cost less the expected return on the sche me assets for the year, are charged to the relevant expenditure heading within the consolidated statement of financial activities in line with the salary costs of the related employees. The defined benefit scheme assets are measured at fair value at the balance sheet date.Scheme liabilities are measured on an actuarial basis at the balance sheet date using the projected unit method and discounted at a rate equivalent to the current rate of return on a high-quality corporate bond of equivalent term to the scheme liabilities. The change in value of assets and liabilities arising from asset valuation, changes in benefits, actuarial assumptions, or change in the level of deficit attributable to members is recognised in the consolidated statement of financial activities within actuarial gains/losses on defined benefit pension schemes. The resulting defined benefit asset or liability is presented separately on the face of the balance sheet.The British Red Cross recognises assets for its d efined benefit pension schemes to the extent that they are considered recoverable with reference to expected future current service costs for active scheme members. Pension costs in respect of defined contribution schemes are charged to the consolidated statement of financial activities for the period in which they are payable. (g) Investments Investments are stated at market value at the balance sheet date and the consolidated statement of financial activities shows net investment gains and losses arising from revaluation of the investment portfolio and disposals during the year. (h) Stocks Stocks are stated at the lower of cost and net realisable value. Provision is made for obsolete, slow-moving or defective stock where appropriate.Items donated for resale and distribution are not included in the financial statements until they are sold or distributed. Emergency stocks held for disaster response are transferred from stock to resources expended when issued from the warehouse. (i) Value added tax Irrecoverable value added tax is allocated to the category of expenditure to which it relates. (j) Provisions Provisions are recognised when the British Red Cross has a legal or constructive financial obligation, that can be reliably estimated and for which there is an expectation that payment will be made. (k) Operating leases Rentals under operating leases are charged on a straightline basis over the lease terms, even if the payments are not made on such a basis.Benefits received and receivable as an incentive to sign an operating lease are, similarly, spread on a straight-line basis over the lease term, except where the period to the review date on which the rent is first expected to be adjusted to the prevailing market rate is shorter than the full lease term, in which case the shorter period is used. (l) Foreign currencies The British Red Cross uses forward exchange contracts to hedge some of its known foreign exchange exposure. Transactions in foreign currencie s are recorded at the rate of exchange prevailing at the date of the transaction, except where a forward contract is in place, in which case the rate specified in the contract is used.Monetary assets and liabilities are translated into sterling at the exchange rate ruling on the balance sheet date, except where a forward contract is in place, in which case the relevant asset/liability is translated at the rate contained in the contract. Foreign exchange gains are recognised as other income and foreign exchange losses are recognised in the consolidated statement of financial activities within the relevant charitable activity expenditure for the period in which they are incurred. 26 British Red Cross Trustees’ report and accounts 2011 27 Notes to the consolidated financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2011 2. Voluntary income Unrestricted ? Regular giving Public donations, appeals and fundraising Service donations Gift aid Legacies Disasters Emergency Committee app eals Grants Total 41. 9 19. 0 2. 4 12. 3 18. 8 94. 4 Restricted ? m 26. 0 0. 1 1. 8 0. 9 8. 3 37. 1 2011 Unrestricted Total ? m 41. 9 45. 0 2. 5 14. 1 19. 7 8. 3 131. 5 34. 6 17. 6 2. 4 10. 5 21. 5 86. 6 Restricted ? m 20. 7 0. 1 1. 8 0. 6 8. 4 1. 7 33. 3 2010 Total 34. 6 38. 3 2. 5 12. 3 22. 1 8. 4 1. 7 119. 9 Costs of generating funds Voluntary income Trading activities 44. 3 22. 9 67. 2 Charitable activities Emergency response and recovery UK International 23. 1 44. 6 67. 7 Resilience UK International 25. 8 10. 8 36. 6 2011 Total ? m 3. 9 3. 1 7. 0 14. 9 0. 6 15. 5 6. 9 14. 7 21. 6 8. 8 52. 9 2010 Total ? m 3. 0 6. 3 9. 3 Governance costs 0. 2 0. 0. 8 Health and social care Medical equipment services Care and support programmes 0. 3 3. 5 3. 8 Supporting the Movement Total 7. 2 15. 7 14. 7 14. 7 6. 6 11. 2 17. 8 1. 6 37. 2 0. 6 0. 5 1. 1 0. 3 3. 3 3. 6 6. 2 17. 2 14. 0 0. 2 14. 2 10. 7 10. 8 21. 5 1. 7 40. 4 14. 6 0. 7 15. 3 11. 0 14. 1 25. 1 7. 9 57. 6 Total 220. 6 10. 3 230. 9 1 99. 2 Subscriptions to Federation Staff Fees to auditors for audit of financial statements Fees to auditors for other services Other 1. 9 0. 3 0. 1 0. 2 2. 5 0. 1 0. 1 1. 9 0. 3 0. 1 0. 3 2. 6 1. 6 0. 6 0. 1 0. 3 2. 6 Health and social care Medical equipment services Care and support programmes 11. 8 25. 9 37. Supporting the Movement 8. 9 150. 9 0. 9 2. 7 3. 6 0. 1 8. 3 12. 7 28. 6 41. 3 9. 0 159. 2 16. 2 25. 2 41. 4 8. 3 132. 8 2. 1 0. 3 2. 4 27. 9 11. 1 39. 0 25. 2 11. 1 36. 3 1. 4 0. 8 2. 2 24. 5 45. 4 69. 9 20. 7 26. 1 46. 8 1. 2 0. 7 1. 9 45. 5 23. 6 69. 1 40. 3 23. 5 63. 8 4. Resources expended Direct costs ? m Support costs ? m 2011 Total ? m 2010 Total ? m Legacy income is not recognised until the British Red Cross has entitlement to the funds, the amount can be quantified and there is certainty of receipt. The estimated value of legacies, which have been notified but not recognised at 31 December 2011, was ? 7. 4 million (2010: ? 9. 2 million) of which ? . 4 million (2010: ? 6. 6 million) are assets bequeathed to the British Red Cross, but subject to life tenancy. Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) appeal income is recognised to the extent that resources have been committed on programmes funded through the DEC appeals. Subject to our agreed allocation, the value of DEC appeal income not drawn down or accrued for at 31 December 2011 was ? 2. 6 million (2010: ? 5. 5million). 3. Incoming resources from charitable activities Grants ? m Emergency response and recovery UK International 0. 8 3. 1 3. 9 Resilience UK International Other ? m 3. 1 3. 1 Grants ? m 0. 2 6. 1 6. 3 Other ? m 2. 8 0. 2 3. 0 Supporting the Movement’ grant income is mainly from the Department for International Development (DFID). ?1. 2 million (2010: ? 1. 1 million) was received as part of our Partnership Programme Agreement (replacing the Strategic Framework Agreement), which provides core funding for our international work to strengthen further the effectiveness of the Intern ational Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement as a key pillar of the international humanitarian system. ?6. 0 million (2010: ? 5. 1 million) was received as part of our Institutional Strategy agreement with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), which provides funding for their programmes and operations.The charity v has supported our youth volunteering, Future Jobs Fund and National Citizen Service activities. The income for 2011 is ? 187,000 (2010: ? 90,000). The basis of allocation of support costs is described in note 1(d) and further analysis is provided in note 5. Our total resources expended includes irrecoverable VAT of ? 2. 9m (2010: ? 2. 1m). Included under 2011 direct costs are grants to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) of ? 20. 1 million (2010: ? 19. 5 million) and grants to other National Societies of ? 22. 2 million (2010: ? 6. 6 million). 28 British Red Cross Trustees’ report and accounts 2011 29Notes to the consolidated financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2011 5. Support costs by activity Cost of generating funds Emergency response Supporting and Health and the recovery Resilience social care Movement Governance 2011 Total 2010 Total 7. Funds Balance 1 January 2011 Net investment gain / Expenditure (losses) Actuarial losses on defined benefit pension Balance 31 December Transfers 2011 ?m ?m ?m ?m ?m ?m ?m 2. 6 3. 7 3. 6 0. 4 ?m 2. 4 3. 6 Total UK restricted funds Total unrestricted funds ?m Income ?m ?m ?m ?m ?m ?m Finance Human resources and central facilities Management information services Central management Total 0. 8 0. 6 0. 4 0. 1 1. 9 0. 9 0. 6 0. 6 0. 1 2. 0. 5 0. 9 0. 9 0. 1 2. 4 0. 4 1. 6 1. 5 0. 1 3. 6 0. 1 0. 1 0. 1 0. 1 110. 4 163. 2 (172. 3) (1. 2) (1. 6) – 98. 5 17. 1 9. 0 13. 3 22. 3 6. 0 45. 4 155. 8 3. 8 4. 9 14. 4 26. 9 46. 2 0. 6 50. 6 213. 8 (6. 8) (7. 2) (14. 2) (2 7. 4) (48. 8) (3. 0) (58. 6) (230. 9) 0. 1 0. 2 0. 2 0. 3 (0. 9) (1. 6) (0. 5) (0. 5) 0. 5 – 14. 2 6. 7 0. 2 12. 5 19. 4 4. 1 37. 7 136. 2 3. 4 0. 4 9. 8 Haiti earthquake Japan Other international restricted funds Total international restricted funds Disaster Fund Total restricted funds Total funds 10. 3 Support costs have been allocated on the basis of the accounting policy set out in note 1 (d). 6. Trading subsidiaryBritcross Limited, the British Red Cross’ wholly owned trading subsidiary incorporated in the United Kingdom, engages in the sale of cards and gifts as well as corporate sponsorship in aid of the British Red Cross. The turnover and expenditure included within trading activities are: 2011 ? m Turnover Expenditure Net income donated to British Red Cross The assets and liabilities of Britcross Limited consolidated within the balance sheet are: Current assets Current liabilities Net assets 1. 4 (0. 9) 0. 5 2011 ? m 0. 8 (0. 8) 2010 ? m 1. 4 (0. 9) 0. 5 2010 ? m 0. 7 (0. 7) – Restricted funds Expenditure plans have been agreed for all material restricted funds. Funds are held in appropriate asset categories in accordance with planned usage. UK restricted funds UK restricted funds include: > ? million of properties and other tangible fixed assets held for restricted purposes > a variety of local, national and European funding sources to deliver projects over the next 2-3 years > legacies with a geographical and/or service restriction. The balance of UK restricted funds is held for the provision of locally agreed services. International restricted funds Significant programmes of work are planned for the disbursement of international restricted fund balances as at 31 December 2011. Other international restricted funds include: > ? 2. 4 million of stock for international programmes > ? 1. 5 million represented by net assets of the Overseas Branches. Disaster Fund The Disaster Fund allows us to prepare for and respond to humanitarian d isasters abroad and in the UK.We fundraise specifically for the Disaster Fund and, as stated on emergency appeal materials, it can also contain funds donated to emergency appeals where we raise more than can be reasonably and efficiently spent on that specific response. 30 British Red Cross Trustees’ report and accounts 2011 31 Notes to the consolidated financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2011 8. Tangible fixed assets Freehold property ? m 45. 9 0. 1 2. 5 (0. 5) 48. 0 Vehicles, Assets in the Leasehold equipment course of property and furniture construction ? m ? m ? m 34. 2 0. 1 (0. 5) 33. 8 41. 2 0. 3 3. 5 (1. 1) 43. 9 0. 6 (0. 5) 2. 0 2. 1 Total ? m 121. 9 8. 0 (2. 1) 127. 8 9. InvestmentsFixed assets investments Market value – 1 January 2011 Additions at cost Disposals at market value Net investment losses in the year Market value – 31 December 2011 Cost – 31 December 2011 Total ? m 58. 0 3. 0 (11. 3) (0. 6) 49. 1 47. 1 Cost At 1 Januar y 2011 Completions Additions Disposals At 31 December 2011 Accumulated depreciation At 1 January 2011 Charge Disposals At 31 December 2011 Net book value At 31 December 2011 At 31 December 2010 13. 1 1. 8 (0. 2) 14. 7 11. 6 1. 1 (0. 2) 12. 5 33. 4 3. 8 (1. 0) 36. 2 – 58. 1 6. 7 (1. 4) 63. 4 The portfolio consists of the following: UK equities Overseas equities UK fixed income Market value 2011 ? m 7. 8 5. 9 35. 4 49. 1 Per cent of Market value 2011 2010 portfolio ? m 16% 12% 72% 86. 0 6. 3 43. 1 58. 0 Per cent of 2010 portfolio 15% 11% 74% 33. 3 32. 8 21. 3 22. 6 7. 7 7. 8 . 1 0. 6 64. 4 63. 8 The following investments represented more than 5 per cent of the value of the portfolio at 31 December 2011 Lazard Thematic Global Institutional Share Class Legal & General CAF UK Equitrack Black Rock Ultra Short Bond Fund Number of units 67,350 12,988,700 287,196 Market value ? m 5. 9 7. 5 35. 4 Per cent of portfolio 12% 15% 72% Current asset investments Royal Bank of Scotland Global Treasury Funds plc BlackRock – Institutional Sterling Liquidity Fund 2011 ? m 6. 2 6. 2 2010 ? m 4. 1 1. 0 5. 1 5. 4 0. 7 11. 2 Deposits Investment property in the UK Total 0. 4 6. 6 32 British Red Cross Trustees’ report and accounts 2011 33Notes to the consolidated financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2011 10. Debtors 2011 ? m Trade debtors Accrued income Other debtors Prepayments Tax recoverable Legacies receivable Total 4. 6 6. 9 1. 0 3. 5 4. 4 10. 5 30. 9 2010 ? m 6. 5 4. 7 0. 4 3. 3 4. 0 10. 1 29. 0 At 31 December 2011 Amounts expected to be incurred: – within one year – beyond one year 1. 1 1. 1 1. 3 1. 0 2. 3 2. 4 1. 0 3. 4 1. 1 2. 3 3. 4 At 1 January 2011 Payments during the year Increase in provision 12. Provisions for liabilities and charges Rehabilitation Leasehold commitments dilapidations ? m ? m 1. 2 (1. 2) 1. 1 2. 1 (1. 5) 1. 7 Total ? m 3. 3 (2. 7) 2. 8 All amounts shown under debtors fall due for payment within one year. 11 .Creditors: amounts falling due within one year 2011 ? m Trade creditors Accruals Other creditors Deferred income Taxes and social security costs Total 3. 3 12. 0 1. 2 1. 9 1. 6 20. 0 2010 ? m 2. 1 10. 9 1. 1 2. 0 1. 3 17. 4 The provision for rehabilitation commitments as at 31 December 2011 includes amounts committed in Haiti for livelihood grants. Leasehold dilapidations relate to properties where the British Red Cross has a legal responsibility as tenant for such costs. 13. Staff emoluments and trustee expenses Total staff emoluments (including casual staff) for the year were as follows: Salary costs National insurance costs Pensions costs 2011 ? m 68. 7 5. 1. 0 75. 6 2010 ? m 63. 0 5. 4 1. 2 69. 6 Movements in deferred income during the year were as follows: At 1 January Income recognised during the year Income deferred during the year At 31 December 2011 ? m 2. 0 (2. 0) 1. 9 1. 9 2010 ? m 2. 6 (2. 6) 2. 0 2. 0 The number of employees whose emoluments, as defined for taxation pu rposes (basic pay, vehicle and medical insurance benefits), amounted to over ? 60,000 in the year were as follows: ? 60,001 – ? 70,000 ? 70,001 – ? 80,000 ? 80,001 – ? 90,000 ? 90,001 – ? 100,000 ? 100,001 – ? 110,000 ? 110,001 – ? 120,000 ? 170,001 – ? 180,000 ? 180,001 – ? 190,000 2011 6 6 3 5 1 2 1 2010 8 6 5 2 1 1 1 –Five (2010: five) of the above employees have retirement benefits accruing to them under defined benefit pension schemes. The total cost of the contributions to these defined benefit schemes made by the British Red Cross for these employees was ? 106,000 (2010: ? 94,000). Thirteen (2010: fourteen) of the above employees are members of a defined contribution scheme. The total cost of the contributions to this scheme made by the British Red Cross for these employees was ? 81,000 (2010: ? 61,000). 34 British Red Cross Trustees’ report and accounts 2011 35 Notes to the consolidated financial statement s for the year ended 31 December 2011 13. Staff emoluments and trustee expenses (continued)The average number of full-time equivalent staff employed by the British Red Cross during the year was as follows: In the UK Fundraising Retail UK services First aid services International services Other Overseas International services Total employed by FTE Total employed by headcount The average number of volunteers working for the British Red Cross during the year was as follows: In the UK Fundraising Retail UK services First aid services International services Total Trustees’ expenses: Expenses incurred by trustees and reimbursed by the British Red Cross Expenses incurred by the British Red Cross on behalf of trustees Trustees’ indemnity insurance cover cost 2011 171 547 1,475 405 72 280 65 3,015 3,547 2010 147 544 1,417 379 66 249 54 2,856 3,364 14. PensionsNew British Red Cross staff are entitled to join either the Pensions Trust’s Unitised Ethical Plan or the Pension s Trust’s Flexible Retirement Plan. Staff had previously been entitled to join the British Red Cross Pension Fund (â€Å"UK Office scheme†), Scottish Branch British Red Cross Society Retirement Benefits Scheme (â€Å"Scottish scheme†) or the Pensions Trust’s Growth Plan. These three schemes are all closed to new entrants. UK Office and Scottish defined benefit pension schemes The assets of these pension schemes are held in separate trustee-administered funds. The schemes are subject to triennial valuations with the last full valuation being carried out as at 31 December 2010 for the UK Office scheme and 1 January 2009 for the Scottish scheme.These valuations were updated at 31 December 2010 and 2011 by independent actuaries on a Financial Reporting Standard 17 – Retirement Benefits (FRS 17) b