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A Publication of WTVP

Reconsidering Women’s Golf
To most women, a relaxing outing to socialize with friends and stay fit sounds like a great time. Yet too few women consider a round of golf to fit that description. As a result, many advocates for the game are trying to redefine it.

Noting a decline in women over the age of 18 playing rounds, according to the National Golf Foundation, some companies are remarketing their merchandise for women—specifically golf clubs. As golfers know, using the right clubs can make all the difference between playing the game once and making it a lifetime hobby. Yet trying to find golf clubs for women can at times be more discouraging than a double bogey. Rather than redesigning their clubs for women, many companies just make the men’s clubs lighter and offer a variety of pastel colors, but players will tell you that’s not enough.

Women golfers usually need lighter clubs, that is true, but they also often need shorter clubs. Other variations considered by companies like Nike and Callaway include the flexibility of the shaft, swing weights and lofts, according to bestladiesgolfclubsets.com. Callaway, for example, offers the i-brid for women, which has a base that makes it easier to swing and allows the club to sit on the green only at the angle that will guarantee a better hit.

Golf courses are also taking another look at their approach to women, according to the Wall Street Journal. For every four or five male golfers, there is just one female golfer. That makes signing up for golf classes lonely for the only girl! To that end, some courses are offering women-only lessons for a more relaxed setting, keeping their varying needs in mind.

Even with the overall drop in the number of women golfers, the sport is becoming more popular for young girls, and women are spending more money on the game than ever before, according to the National Golf Foundation. 


Avoid Cliques at Business Functions

At business receptions or dinners, especially ones focused on networking, be sure to avoid company cliques. It’s important to approach people you don’t know and take the time and effort to get to know them. If you notice your employees or subordinates sticking together instead of mingling with others, remind them why they are there. At dinners, encourage employees to sit next to people they don’t know and keep everyone involved in the table’s conversation.
Source: Business Etiquette by Ann Marie Sabath

 


Voice-to-Text Messaging
We’ve all been told how dangerous it is to talk on a cell phone while driving. Even worse is texting or emailing while behind the wheel—yet many continue to do it. Fortunately, Jott Networks has created a voice-to-text service that allows users to dictate text and email messages instead of typing them on a keypad. Users call the Jott service to dictate their messages, which are then sent through automated speech recognition software. Tricky messages are passed through quality assurance specialists to achieve the most accurate results. Jott then sends your email or text to the requested contact, and all you had to do was make a hands-free call. For more information or to sign up, visit jott.com.

 

 


My Faves

Chet Tomczyk, president and CEO of WTVP-47, has been active in public broadcasting since 1965 and has been with WTVP since 1994. The station broadcasts PBS programming and other national content and produces original programs for local audiences.

 

What’s on your iPod?
(First five songs to come up on shuffle)

1. Randy Newman “Harps and Angels Everywhere”—Newman has always loved to prick the balloons of social conservancy while still making a buck from “the man.” Nice to see that he has mellowed with age…but not too much.

2. Irish Rovers “Black Velvet Band”—I have been a sucker for Irish pub songs since my days at PBS in the 80s. I don’t know too many others of Polish extraction who know as many Irish lyrics as me…a small universe, to be sure.

3. Dean Martin with Kevin Spacey “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head”—A great song with clever lyrics and well performed on a “duets” album. Spacey works hard to make it happen…Martin just lets it happen.

4. Alan Jackson & Jimmy Buffett “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere”—My favorite summer anthem. All we Protestant work-ethic types can dream, but when the bugle calls, we’re in harness at the starting gate.

5. Gregorian Chant—Can you spell eclectic, boys and girls? Sometimes the soul needs to be soothed after a day of toil in the fields of not-for-profit. Nothing provides the balm more quickly than a choir of monks reminding you that there is a greater Presence.

 

Books That Made an Impact

Conversations with God by Francis Fernandez—great meditations to start the day.
How to Fix Almost Anything by multiple contributors—if you have a house, you need this book, or at least I did.
The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski—I can’t imagine life without art and science.
Brunelleschi’s Dome by Ross King—I think the Renaissance started with this one man.
The Boy Scout Handbook—the lessons of life learned at an impressionable time.

 


Save the World with White Paint

At a recent conference in London, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu put his weight behind a unique proposal put forth by researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California—painting the rooftops of buildings white. Most schoolchildren know that dark colors absorb heat, while light colors reflect it. Chu noted that such a plan would save billions of carbon dioxide emissions, roughly the equivalent of shutting off every car on the planet for more than a decade, in addition to cooling buildings and reducing the need for air conditioners.

 


Greening Corporate Travel

Earlier this year, more than 160 corporate travel executives and industry suppliers gathered in Newport Beach at the first-ever Green Travel Summit, a forum dedicated to discussing green travel strategies and their impact on corporate travel. Here are the top 10 issues identified by participating executives to take into consideration when looking at your own green travel initiatives:

  1. Where to begin. The single greatest challenge for many executives is identifying a road map of the process to begin greening business travel and meetings.
  2. Perception vs. reality regarding costs. Understanding the costs associated with “greening” is often at odds with the internal perception of the process.
  3. Overcoming resistance to change. In many organizations, corporate travel expectations are at odds with the change required to reduce the associated carbon footprint.
  4. Buy-in from senior management. The need to have top management support of related green initiatives.
  5. ROI. A better understanding of the actual ROI of greening initiatives and tracking tools to report ROI.
  6. Securing budget. In a tough economy, identifying and allocating funding for green initiatives is increasingly difficult.
  7. Reporting standards and metrics. As green travel programs are instituted, procedures, technologies, and standards to report progress are not clearly defined. 
  8. Greenwashing: truth vs. fiction. Cutting through the hype to achieve environmentally sustainable practices is increasingly more critical.
  9. Buy-in from both the planner and the supplier. Establishing acceptable standards and implementing them across the industry supply chain is needed.
  10. Communicating and educating all relative stakeholders. Once green travel policies begin to be implemented, communicating the program and the desired results to relative stakeholders is critical to success. iBi

(Source: Unicomm, LLC)

 

 

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