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Mayor Eric Adams makes a workforce development-related announcement at Kingsborough Community College on Tuesday, March 29, 2022, ” Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office
Project I'm working on - taxidermy cougar skin headdress for Burning Man, complete with LED lights behind the eyes so that they glow bright yellow at nighttime on the Playa.
I've had a VERY interesting past year, and since I like to consider myself rather "in-tune" with the natural world, I pay very close attention to the animals which work their way into my life. I believe that each animal has a lesson to teach, and some higher power out there apparently thought that it was high time I learned the Lesson the Cougar.
My first year of college lead to a love-hate relationship with the town of Ashland, Oregon. I nearly died three times there, and almost lost my life once more in a car crash about an hour out along the California boarder. During all this mess, I turned to Nature as a means of self-healing. And throughout the whole process, I was visited numerous times by the Cougar.
They are like ghosts - I only actually saw just one.
When I first arrived at the University, there were warnings about lions in the hills. We were always extra-vigilant while running around in the woods near campus.
Ashland is a wild town, and it's obvious that animals and humans live in close proximity there. One cougar even dragged a fresh deer carcass right across the children's playground just up the street from my dorm. But I'd never felt the need to worry too much about actually being attacked by one. I was either walking around with Daniel, who carried a pistol, or I was packing a trench knife and pepper spray myself. I had the mentality of "It'll never happen to me. I'll never have to face off a mountain lion."
So when my life began to fall apart after the crash at the end of the school year, I did what I always do to make things better: I hiked off into the woods in the middle of the night and built myself a fire.
Though the park was littered with bright red warning signs about the cougar, I maintained the idea that I was invincible. So I built my fire, ate a small meal, and danced in the glow around the firepit to the sounds of Sublime and the Dirty Heads, trying to forget about the world of chiropractor appointments, incomplete grades, and people who didn't care. It was wonderful until the fire began to fade, and I was forced to find more wood.
I'd already had fires around that area of Lithia Park before, and had used up most of the good stuff within view of the firelight. So I turned on my headlamp and went out on a hunt for more, further up the hillside from the pit. It didn't take long to find a fallen log, but dragging it down the slope would prove to be a challenge, and since I hadn't eaten much in the past few weeks, I felt too weak to carry it. Nevertheless, I was able to begin collecting smaller branches nearby, and it was then that I started to feel as though I were being watched.
A moment later, a twig snapped on the hill above me, and I shined my light in the direction of the sound, only to find myself standing about thirty feet away from a pair of golden-white forward-facing eyes.
They moved; tilted slightly to the side, then fluidly shifted on lithe shoulders as I began shouting and stomping my feet, hand on the pepper spray canister. It moved about fifteen feet to the left of a big tree, then didn't move any further. My yelling and stomping had little affect on it otherwise. It was almost as though the cat were mocking my efforts.
But so long as I could see the eyes, I felt okay. I collected as much wood as I could and backed down the hill to my pit. Then, I built the fire up as big as I could and called anyone and everyone I knew on campus who had a car that could possibly come rescue me. I wasn't going to move away from that fire until morning came, unless someone was there to walk back through the park with me.
But given that it was about 3:00 in the morning, no one picked up, so I finally texted The Grizzly Bear though my bitterness toward him almost outweighed my will to survive the night. He replied that he would come get me, but he never did. He fell asleep again, and though I'm not normally a spiteful person, I honestly wished that I could deck him in he face for it.
Just as that thought crossed my mind, I glanced up the hill again and saw - much to my horror - that the mountain lion's eye-shine was gone. I was about the pick up the phone again and call the police, but a new text came in from my friend Isaiah. He was drunk, but said he'd drive carefully. He arrived at the firepit just as the last flames were dying.
We walked back to his car in silence, and though he was completely faded, he seemed to know that I didn't want to be alone in my room until morning. "Let's go camping," he suggested with a ridiculous grin on his face. I thought he was joking at first, but instead of taking the turn at my driveway, he went straight to his own dorm and packed up a couple sleeping bags and some munchies.
And so we spent the night huddled together in a cave in the woods, giggling like idiots about everything that had happened over the course of our first year together at SOU. Despite car crashes, nightmares that rendered me immovable and gave me bloody noses in my sleep, an encounter with a bear in the woods, an allergic reaction to peanuts, numerous humorous escapes from the cops, and now, my recent episode with the lion, I had survived.
I didn't think I'd go back. Not after the incomplete grades, the loss of my scholarship, and lack of funding. But I've decided that even though going back will be painful, it's something I want to do. So I'm paying for my own education now, at least for this semester. This will be a test to see if I want to continue attending college, or if I want to jump right into the workforce. Either way, I learned a lot from my time in Ashland, and I believe that it's where I need to be.
That mountain lion could have attacked me so easily that night. If it hadn't wanted me to see it, it wouldn't have snapped that twig, and it wouldn't have shown itself. I probably wouldn't be here. But it didn't attack me, and I feel grateful for that.
I suppose that it's a strange way of saying "thank you", but headdresses are a very spiritual thing for me, and creating them is a time-consuming task that allows me to think and focus on the animal beneath my hands. I also believe that wearing them as a tool of spiritual enlightenment is, by extension, the highest form of honor I can give the animal whose skin is being used.
Cougar wanted to teach me something that night, and when I go back to Ashland in the Fall, I'll be running around with a cougar on my head.
I have forgiven The Grizzly Bear now for most of the things he did. I have healed from the emotional scars left by the crash, and though I'm still healing physically, I forget about the pain when I've got my mind occupied on something else like the completion of this headdress.
I'm okay. I'm ready to go back. More than that, I WANT to go back, and I want to see another mountain lion in the hills, though hopefully not under such stressful conditions. We'll see how it goes. I'm verymuch looking forward to the first time I wear this thing once it's complete.
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A visit to the National Trust property that is Penrhyn Castle
Penrhyn Castle is a country house in Llandygai, Bangor, Gwynedd, North Wales, in the form of a Norman castle. It was originally a medieval fortified manor house, founded by Ednyfed Fychan. In 1438, Ioan ap Gruffudd was granted a licence to crenellate and he founded the stone castle and added a tower house. Samuel Wyatt reconstructed the property in the 1780s.
The present building was created between about 1822 and 1837 to designs by Thomas Hopper, who expanded and transformed the building beyond recognition. However a spiral staircase from the original property can still be seen, and a vaulted basement and other masonry were incorporated into the new structure. Hopper's client was George Hay Dawkins-Pennant, who had inherited the Penrhyn estate on the death of his second cousin, Richard Pennant, who had made his fortune from slavery in Jamaica and local slate quarries. The eldest of George's two daughters, Juliana, married Grenadier Guard, Edward Gordon Douglas, who, on inheriting the estate on George's death in 1845, adopted the hyphenated surname of Douglas-Pennant. The cost of the construction of this vast 'castle' is disputed, and very difficult to work out accurately, as much of the timber came from the family's own forestry, and much of the labour was acquired from within their own workforce at the slate quarry. It cost the Pennant family an estimated £150,000. This is the current equivalent to about £49,500,000.
Penrhyn is one of the most admired of the numerous mock castles built in the United Kingdom in the 19th century; Christopher Hussey called it, "the outstanding instance of Norman revival." The castle is a picturesque composition that stretches over 600 feet from a tall donjon containing family rooms, through the main block built around the earlier house, to the service wing and the stables.
It is built in a sombre style which allows it to possess something of the medieval fortress air despite the ground-level drawing room windows. Hopper designed all the principal interiors in a rich but restrained Norman style, with much fine plasterwork and wood and stone carving. The castle also has some specially designed Norman-style furniture, including a one-ton slate bed made for Queen Victoria when she visited in 1859.
Hugh Napier Douglas-Pennant, 4th Lord Penrhyn, died in 1949, and the castle and estate passed to his niece, Lady Janet Pelham, who, on inheritance, adopted the surname of Douglas-Pennant. In 1951, the castle and 40,000 acres (160 km²) of land were accepted by the treasury in lieu of death duties from Lady Janet. It now belongs to the National Trust and is open to the public. The site received 109,395 visitors in 2017.
Grade I Listed Building
History
The present house, built in the form of a vast Norman castle, was constructed to the design of Thomas Hopper for George Hay Dawkins-Pennant between 1820 and 1837. It has been very little altered since.
The original house on the site was a medieval manor house of C14 origin, for which a licence to crenellate was given at an unknown date between 1410 and 1431. This house survived until c1782 when it was remodelled in castellated Gothick style, replete with yellow mathematical tiles, by Samuel Wyatt for Richard Pennant. This house, the great hall of which is incorporated in the present drawing room, was remodelled in c1800, but the vast profits from the Penrhyn slate quarries enabled all the rest to be completely swept away by Hopper's vast neo-Norman fantasy, sited and built so that it could be seen not only from the quarries, but most parts of the surrounding estate, thereby emphasizing the local dominance of the Dawkins-Pennant family. The total cost is unknown but it cannot have been less than the £123,000 claimed by Catherine Sinclair in 1839.
Since 1951 the house has belonged to the National Trust, together with over 40,000 acres of the family estates around Ysbyty Ifan and the Ogwen valley.
Exterior
Country house built in the style of a vast Norman castle with other later medieval influences, so huge (its 70 roofs cover an area of over an acre (0.4ha)) that it almost defies meaningful description. The main components of the house, which is built on a north-south axis with the main elevations to east and west, are the 124ft (37.8m) high keep, based on Castle Hedingham (Essex) containing the family quarters on the south, the central range, protected by a 'barbican' terrace on the east, housing the state apartments, and the rectangular-shaped staff/service buildings and stables to the north. The whole is constructed of local rubblestone with internal brick lining, but all elevations are faced in tooled Anglesey limestone ashlar of the finest quality jointing; flat lead roofs concealed by castellated parapets. Close to, the extreme length of the building (it is about 200 yards (182.88m) long) and the fact that the ground slopes away on all sides mean that almost no complete elevation can be seen. That the most frequent views of the exterior are oblique also offered Hopper the opportunity to deploy his towers for picturesque effect, the relationship between the keep and the other towers and turrets frequently obscuring the distances between them. Another significant external feature of the castle is that it actually looks defensible making it secure at least from Pugin's famous slur of 1841 on contemporary "castles" - "Who would hammer against nailed portals, when he could kick his way through the greenhouse?" Certainly, this could never be achieved at Penrhyn and it looks every inch the impregnable fortress both architect and patron intended it to be.
East elevation: to the left is the loosely attached 4-storey keep on battered plinth with 4 tiers of deeply splayed Norman windows, 2 to each face, with chevron decoration and nook-shafts, topped by 4 square corner turrets. The dining room (distinguished by the intersecting tracery above the windows) and breakfast room to the right of the entrance gallery are protected by the long sweep of the machicolated 'barbican' terrace (carriage forecourt), curved in front of the 2 rooms and then running northwards before returning at right-angles to the west to include the gatehouse, which formed the original main entrance to the castle, and ending in a tall rectangular tower with machicolated parapet. To the right of the gatehouse are the recessed buildings of the kitchen court and to the right again the long, largely unbroken outer wall of the stable court, terminated by the square footmen's tower to the left and the rather more exuberant projecting circular dung tower with its spectacularly cantilevered bartizan on the right. From here the wall runs at right-angles to the west incorporating the impressive gatehouse to the stable court.
West elevation: beginning at the left is the hexagonal smithy tower, followed by the long run of the stable court, well provided with windows on this side as the stables lie directly behind. At the end of this the wall turns at right-angles to the west, incorporating the narrow circular-turreted gatehouse to the outer court and terminating in the machicolated circular ice tower. From here the wall runs again at a lower height enclosing the remainder of the outer court. It is, of course, the state apartments which make up the chief architectural display on the central part of this elevation, beginning with a strongly articulated but essentially rectangular tower to the left, while both the drawing room and the library have Norman windows leading directly onto the lawns, the latter terminating in a slender machicolated circular corner tower. To the right is the keep, considerably set back on this side.
Interior
Only those parts of the castle generally accessible to visitors are recorded in this description. Although not described here much of the furniture and many of the paintings (including family portraits) are also original to the house. Similarly, it should be noted that in the interests of brevity and clarity, not all significant architectural features are itemised in the following description.
Entrance gallery: one of the last parts of the castle to be built, this narrow cloister-like passage was added to the main block to heighten the sensation of entering the vast Grand Hall, which is made only partly visible by the deliberate offsetting of the intervening doorways; bronze lamp standards with wolf-heads on stone bases. Grand Hall: entering the columned aisle of this huge space, the visitor stands at a cross-roads between the 3 principal areas of the castle's plan; to the left the passage leads up to the family's private apartments on the 4 floors of the keep, to the right the door at the end leads to the extensive service quarters while ahead lies the sequence of state rooms used for entertaining guests and displayed to the public ever since the castle was built. The hall itself resembles in form, style and scale the transept of a great Norman cathedral, the great clustered columns extending upwards to a "triforium" formed on 2 sides of extraordinary compound arches; stained glass with signs of the zodiac and months of the year as in a book of hours by Thomas Willement (completed 1835). Library: has very much the atmosphere of a gentlemen’s London club with walls, columned arches and ceilings covered in the most lavish ornamentation; superb architectural bookcases and panelled walls are of oak but the arches are plaster grained to match; ornamental bosses and other devices to the rich plaster ceiling refer to the ancestry of the Dawkins and Pennant families, as do the stained glass lunettes above the windows, possibly by David Evans of Shrewsbury; 4 chimneypieces of polished Anglesey "marble", one with a frieze of fantastical carved mummers in the capitals. Drawing room (great hall of the late C18 house and its medieval predecessor): again in a neo-Norman style but the decoration is lighter and the columns more slender, the spirit of the room reflected in the 2000 delicate Maltese gilt crosses to the vaulted ceiling. Ebony room: so called on account of its furniture and "ebonised" chimneypiece and plasterwork, has at its entrance a spiral staircase from the medieval house. Grand Staircase hall: in many ways the greatest architectural achievement at Penrhyn, taking 10 years to complete, the carving in 2 contrasting stones of the highest quality; repeating abstract decorative motifs contrast with the infinitely inventive figurative carving in the newels and capitals; to the top the intricate plaster panels of the domed lantern are formed in exceptionally high relief and display both Norse and Celtic influences. Next to the grand stair is the secondary stair, itself a magnificent structure in grey sandstone with lantern, built immediately next to the grand stair so that family or guests should not meet staff on the same staircase. Reached from the columned aisle of the grand hall are the 2 remaining principal ground-floor rooms, the dining room and the breakfast room, among the last parts of the castle to be completed and clearly intended to be picture galleries as much as dining areas, the stencilled treatment of the walls in the dining room allowing both the provision of an appropriately elaborate "Norman" scheme and a large flat surface for the hanging of paintings; black marble fireplace carved by Richard Westmacott and extremely ornate ceiling with leaf bosses encircled by bands of figurative mouldings derived from the Romanesque church of Kilpeck, Herefordshire. Breakfast room has cambered beam ceiling with oak-grained finish.
Grand hall gallery: at the top of the grand staircase is vaulted and continues around the grand hall below to link with the passage to the keep, which at this level (as on the other floors) contains a suite of rooms comprising a sitting room, dressing room, bedroom and small ante-chamber, the room containing the famous slate bed also with a red Mona marble chimneypiece, one of the most spectacular in the castle. Returning to the grand hall gallery and continuing straight on rather than returning to the grand staircase the Lower India room is reached to the right: this contains an Anglesey limestone chimneypiece painted to match the ground colour of the room's Chinese wallpaper. Coming out of this room, the chapel corridor leads to the chapel gallery (used by the family) and the chapel proper below (used by staff), the latter with encaustic tiles probably reused from the old medieval chapel; stained and painted glass by David Evans (c1833).
The domestic quarters of the castle are reached along the passage from the breakfast room, which turns at right-angles to the right at the foot of the secondary staircase, the most important areas being the butler's pantry, steward's office, servants' hall, housekeeper's room, still room, housekeeper's store and housemaids' tower, while the kitchen (with its cast-iron range flanked by large and hygienic vertical slabs of Penrhyn slate) is housed on the lower ground floor. From this kitchen court, which also includes a coal store, oil vaults, brushing room, lamp room, pastry room, larder, scullery and laundry are reached the outer court with its soup kitchen, brewhouse and 2-storey ice tower and the much larger stables court which, along with the stables themselves containing their extensive slate-partitioned stalls and loose boxes, incorporates the coach house, covered ride, smithy tower, dung tower with gardeners' messroom above and footmen's tower.
Reasons for Listing
Included at Grade I as one of the most important large country houses in Wales; a superb example of the relatively short-lived Norman Revival of the early C19 and generally regarded as the masterpiece of its architect, Thomas Hopper.
A look around the inside of the castle / house.
The Library
Billiard Table
Seen before going up the Grand Staircase.
Ivanka Trump visited Lewis and Clark Community College's Godfrey Campus Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2018, to participate in a Workforce Development Roundtable hosted by Congressman Rodney Davis. Guests also took a tour of the college's state of the art Weber Workforce Center, slated to open for classes Aug. 20.
Photos by Tom Atwood, Tom Atwood Media
On Wednesday, June 28, FDNY First Deputy Commissioner Robert R. Turner II presided over a ceremony recognizing 21 Youth Workforce Development students for completing WEMSA (Winter EMS Academy).
Lluniau trwy garedigrwydd Alwyn Jones Blaenau Ffestiniog
Dylai unrhyw un sydd â lluniau o ddiddordeb ac yn dymuno iddynt gael eu harddangos ar y safle hwn gysylltu â mi drwy e-bost: cm.pritchard @ btinternet.com
Photos courtesy of Alwyn Jones Blaenau Ffestiniog
Anyone who has photos of interest and wish them to be displayed on this site contact me by email : cm.pritchard@btinternet.com
A slide from my presentation at TCEA in February 2006, "Cultivating Digital Literacy Through Blogging and Podcasting." (Available as an audio-only podcast and enhanced podcast.)
Also see www.speedofcreativity.org/2010/06/05/nclb-damages-us-educ...
A visit to the National Trust property that is Penrhyn Castle
Penrhyn Castle is a country house in Llandygai, Bangor, Gwynedd, North Wales, in the form of a Norman castle. It was originally a medieval fortified manor house, founded by Ednyfed Fychan. In 1438, Ioan ap Gruffudd was granted a licence to crenellate and he founded the stone castle and added a tower house. Samuel Wyatt reconstructed the property in the 1780s.
The present building was created between about 1822 and 1837 to designs by Thomas Hopper, who expanded and transformed the building beyond recognition. However a spiral staircase from the original property can still be seen, and a vaulted basement and other masonry were incorporated into the new structure. Hopper's client was George Hay Dawkins-Pennant, who had inherited the Penrhyn estate on the death of his second cousin, Richard Pennant, who had made his fortune from slavery in Jamaica and local slate quarries. The eldest of George's two daughters, Juliana, married Grenadier Guard, Edward Gordon Douglas, who, on inheriting the estate on George's death in 1845, adopted the hyphenated surname of Douglas-Pennant. The cost of the construction of this vast 'castle' is disputed, and very difficult to work out accurately, as much of the timber came from the family's own forestry, and much of the labour was acquired from within their own workforce at the slate quarry. It cost the Pennant family an estimated £150,000. This is the current equivalent to about £49,500,000.
Penrhyn is one of the most admired of the numerous mock castles built in the United Kingdom in the 19th century; Christopher Hussey called it, "the outstanding instance of Norman revival." The castle is a picturesque composition that stretches over 600 feet from a tall donjon containing family rooms, through the main block built around the earlier house, to the service wing and the stables.
It is built in a sombre style which allows it to possess something of the medieval fortress air despite the ground-level drawing room windows. Hopper designed all the principal interiors in a rich but restrained Norman style, with much fine plasterwork and wood and stone carving. The castle also has some specially designed Norman-style furniture, including a one-ton slate bed made for Queen Victoria when she visited in 1859.
Hugh Napier Douglas-Pennant, 4th Lord Penrhyn, died in 1949, and the castle and estate passed to his niece, Lady Janet Pelham, who, on inheritance, adopted the surname of Douglas-Pennant. In 1951, the castle and 40,000 acres (160 km²) of land were accepted by the treasury in lieu of death duties from Lady Janet. It now belongs to the National Trust and is open to the public. The site received 109,395 visitors in 2017.
Grade I Listed Building
History
The present house, built in the form of a vast Norman castle, was constructed to the design of Thomas Hopper for George Hay Dawkins-Pennant between 1820 and 1837. It has been very little altered since.
The original house on the site was a medieval manor house of C14 origin, for which a licence to crenellate was given at an unknown date between 1410 and 1431. This house survived until c1782 when it was remodelled in castellated Gothick style, replete with yellow mathematical tiles, by Samuel Wyatt for Richard Pennant. This house, the great hall of which is incorporated in the present drawing room, was remodelled in c1800, but the vast profits from the Penrhyn slate quarries enabled all the rest to be completely swept away by Hopper's vast neo-Norman fantasy, sited and built so that it could be seen not only from the quarries, but most parts of the surrounding estate, thereby emphasizing the local dominance of the Dawkins-Pennant family. The total cost is unknown but it cannot have been less than the £123,000 claimed by Catherine Sinclair in 1839.
Since 1951 the house has belonged to the National Trust, together with over 40,000 acres of the family estates around Ysbyty Ifan and the Ogwen valley.
Exterior
Country house built in the style of a vast Norman castle with other later medieval influences, so huge (its 70 roofs cover an area of over an acre (0.4ha)) that it almost defies meaningful description. The main components of the house, which is built on a north-south axis with the main elevations to east and west, are the 124ft (37.8m) high keep, based on Castle Hedingham (Essex) containing the family quarters on the south, the central range, protected by a 'barbican' terrace on the east, housing the state apartments, and the rectangular-shaped staff/service buildings and stables to the north. The whole is constructed of local rubblestone with internal brick lining, but all elevations are faced in tooled Anglesey limestone ashlar of the finest quality jointing; flat lead roofs concealed by castellated parapets. Close to, the extreme length of the building (it is about 200 yards (182.88m) long) and the fact that the ground slopes away on all sides mean that almost no complete elevation can be seen. That the most frequent views of the exterior are oblique also offered Hopper the opportunity to deploy his towers for picturesque effect, the relationship between the keep and the other towers and turrets frequently obscuring the distances between them. Another significant external feature of the castle is that it actually looks defensible making it secure at least from Pugin's famous slur of 1841 on contemporary "castles" - "Who would hammer against nailed portals, when he could kick his way through the greenhouse?" Certainly, this could never be achieved at Penrhyn and it looks every inch the impregnable fortress both architect and patron intended it to be.
East elevation: to the left is the loosely attached 4-storey keep on battered plinth with 4 tiers of deeply splayed Norman windows, 2 to each face, with chevron decoration and nook-shafts, topped by 4 square corner turrets. The dining room (distinguished by the intersecting tracery above the windows) and breakfast room to the right of the entrance gallery are protected by the long sweep of the machicolated 'barbican' terrace (carriage forecourt), curved in front of the 2 rooms and then running northwards before returning at right-angles to the west to include the gatehouse, which formed the original main entrance to the castle, and ending in a tall rectangular tower with machicolated parapet. To the right of the gatehouse are the recessed buildings of the kitchen court and to the right again the long, largely unbroken outer wall of the stable court, terminated by the square footmen's tower to the left and the rather more exuberant projecting circular dung tower with its spectacularly cantilevered bartizan on the right. From here the wall runs at right-angles to the west incorporating the impressive gatehouse to the stable court.
West elevation: beginning at the left is the hexagonal smithy tower, followed by the long run of the stable court, well provided with windows on this side as the stables lie directly behind. At the end of this the wall turns at right-angles to the west, incorporating the narrow circular-turreted gatehouse to the outer court and terminating in the machicolated circular ice tower. From here the wall runs again at a lower height enclosing the remainder of the outer court. It is, of course, the state apartments which make up the chief architectural display on the central part of this elevation, beginning with a strongly articulated but essentially rectangular tower to the left, while both the drawing room and the library have Norman windows leading directly onto the lawns, the latter terminating in a slender machicolated circular corner tower. To the right is the keep, considerably set back on this side.
Interior
Only those parts of the castle generally accessible to visitors are recorded in this description. Although not described here much of the furniture and many of the paintings (including family portraits) are also original to the house. Similarly, it should be noted that in the interests of brevity and clarity, not all significant architectural features are itemised in the following description.
Entrance gallery: one of the last parts of the castle to be built, this narrow cloister-like passage was added to the main block to heighten the sensation of entering the vast Grand Hall, which is made only partly visible by the deliberate offsetting of the intervening doorways; bronze lamp standards with wolf-heads on stone bases. Grand Hall: entering the columned aisle of this huge space, the visitor stands at a cross-roads between the 3 principal areas of the castle's plan; to the left the passage leads up to the family's private apartments on the 4 floors of the keep, to the right the door at the end leads to the extensive service quarters while ahead lies the sequence of state rooms used for entertaining guests and displayed to the public ever since the castle was built. The hall itself resembles in form, style and scale the transept of a great Norman cathedral, the great clustered columns extending upwards to a "triforium" formed on 2 sides of extraordinary compound arches; stained glass with signs of the zodiac and months of the year as in a book of hours by Thomas Willement (completed 1835). Library: has very much the atmosphere of a gentlemen’s London club with walls, columned arches and ceilings covered in the most lavish ornamentation; superb architectural bookcases and panelled walls are of oak but the arches are plaster grained to match; ornamental bosses and other devices to the rich plaster ceiling refer to the ancestry of the Dawkins and Pennant families, as do the stained glass lunettes above the windows, possibly by David Evans of Shrewsbury; 4 chimneypieces of polished Anglesey "marble", one with a frieze of fantastical carved mummers in the capitals. Drawing room (great hall of the late C18 house and its medieval predecessor): again in a neo-Norman style but the decoration is lighter and the columns more slender, the spirit of the room reflected in the 2000 delicate Maltese gilt crosses to the vaulted ceiling. Ebony room: so called on account of its furniture and "ebonised" chimneypiece and plasterwork, has at its entrance a spiral staircase from the medieval house. Grand Staircase hall: in many ways the greatest architectural achievement at Penrhyn, taking 10 years to complete, the carving in 2 contrasting stones of the highest quality; repeating abstract decorative motifs contrast with the infinitely inventive figurative carving in the newels and capitals; to the top the intricate plaster panels of the domed lantern are formed in exceptionally high relief and display both Norse and Celtic influences. Next to the grand stair is the secondary stair, itself a magnificent structure in grey sandstone with lantern, built immediately next to the grand stair so that family or guests should not meet staff on the same staircase. Reached from the columned aisle of the grand hall are the 2 remaining principal ground-floor rooms, the dining room and the breakfast room, among the last parts of the castle to be completed and clearly intended to be picture galleries as much as dining areas, the stencilled treatment of the walls in the dining room allowing both the provision of an appropriately elaborate "Norman" scheme and a large flat surface for the hanging of paintings; black marble fireplace carved by Richard Westmacott and extremely ornate ceiling with leaf bosses encircled by bands of figurative mouldings derived from the Romanesque church of Kilpeck, Herefordshire. Breakfast room has cambered beam ceiling with oak-grained finish.
Grand hall gallery: at the top of the grand staircase is vaulted and continues around the grand hall below to link with the passage to the keep, which at this level (as on the other floors) contains a suite of rooms comprising a sitting room, dressing room, bedroom and small ante-chamber, the room containing the famous slate bed also with a red Mona marble chimneypiece, one of the most spectacular in the castle. Returning to the grand hall gallery and continuing straight on rather than returning to the grand staircase the Lower India room is reached to the right: this contains an Anglesey limestone chimneypiece painted to match the ground colour of the room's Chinese wallpaper. Coming out of this room, the chapel corridor leads to the chapel gallery (used by the family) and the chapel proper below (used by staff), the latter with encaustic tiles probably reused from the old medieval chapel; stained and painted glass by David Evans (c1833).
The domestic quarters of the castle are reached along the passage from the breakfast room, which turns at right-angles to the right at the foot of the secondary staircase, the most important areas being the butler's pantry, steward's office, servants' hall, housekeeper's room, still room, housekeeper's store and housemaids' tower, while the kitchen (with its cast-iron range flanked by large and hygienic vertical slabs of Penrhyn slate) is housed on the lower ground floor. From this kitchen court, which also includes a coal store, oil vaults, brushing room, lamp room, pastry room, larder, scullery and laundry are reached the outer court with its soup kitchen, brewhouse and 2-storey ice tower and the much larger stables court which, along with the stables themselves containing their extensive slate-partitioned stalls and loose boxes, incorporates the coach house, covered ride, smithy tower, dung tower with gardeners' messroom above and footmen's tower.
Reasons for Listing
Included at Grade I as one of the most important large country houses in Wales; a superb example of the relatively short-lived Norman Revival of the early C19 and generally regarded as the masterpiece of its architect, Thomas Hopper.
A look around the inside of the castle / house.
The Grand Hall
Piano
Preparing young Queenslanders for life in the 1990s, we saw personal computers make their way into schools during the 80s with a strong focus on health, regional education and the arts by Queensland Education.
The photographic unit at the Premier’s Department, Office of State Affairs, captured a snapshot of various events, programmes and initiatives for school children throughout Queensland. This collection contains several arts, music and drama as well as students participating in computer usage.
In the early 1980s, several different computer manufacturers were vying for a foothold in the education market, Apple, Tandy, Atari, Sinclair, Amstrad, Microbee and many others. By 1985 Apple Macintosh was considered a standard system (alongside several others) for all states except Western Australia which adopted the BBC Model B and Microbee computer systems as a standard.
These photos are part are the photographic records held at Queensland State Archives, www.archivessearch.qld.gov.au/series/S189
1985
The discussion paper, Education 2000: Issues and options for the future of Education in Queensland was released.
The use of technology to enhance distance education, work in schools and educational administration was supported.
Approval was given for schools to alter the placement of the three pupil free days.
The Department of Education developed a policy on the education of gifted children.
The Special Education Resource Centres were formed as state-wide services, as part of the Division of Special Education.
Early special education officially commenced.
1986
The age of first attendance at primary school increased. Children had to turn five years by 31 January to be eligible for enrolment in Year 1.
There was an expansion of the curriculum in secondary schools and TAFE colleges evident in the further development of co-operative secondary-TAFE programs.
The Advisory Committee which reviewed submissions made in response to Education 2000 reported to the Minister.
The distance education trial began through the Mt Isa School of the Air.
A Preschool to Year 10 (P–10) Syllabus Framework was developed.
Endeavour Foundation schools transferred to Department of Education.
Policy Statement 15 Integration: Mainstreaming of Students with Special Needs introduced.
1987
Children had to turn 5 years by 31 December to be eligible for enrolment in Year 1 in the following year.
The Department of Education launched a series of documents entitled Meeting the Challenge which highlighted a corporate style of management.
The Department reshaped its central administration by strengthening the role of the Policy Committee, appointing a Chief Inspector and adopting comprehensive strategic planning processes.
In regions, initiatives were built on the commitment to decentralisation, while further devolution of responsibility occurred in the operational management of educational programs.
Two new education regions were formed (South Coast and Sunshine Coast regional offices).
The P–10 Curriculum Framework was developed and curriculum documents revised.
The Roma Middle School opened and catered for students in Years 4–10.
A post-compulsory college, the Alexandra Hills Senior College opened.
Two new centres of distance education opened at Longreach and Charters Towers.
1988
The Inspectorate was regionalised.
There was continued development of an integrated P–10 curriculum.
The senior secondary curriculum was broadened to cater for all learners.
Cooperative programs between secondary schools and TAFE colleges were conducted.
The use of computers and information technology in schools was given a high priority.
The Special Education Resource and Development Centres were formed as a consequence of the reorganisation of the Division of Special Education.
Individual education plans for students with disabilities were introduced as part of the new policy Policy Statement 16: Policy and Practice for Special Education Services.
The report National Overview of Educational Services for Isolated Severely Handicapped Children resulted from a Project of National Significance undertaken as a joint project of the Commonwealth Department of Employment Education and Training and the Department of Education Division of Special Services.
The Queensland School for the Deaf closes, as a consequence of decentralisation of services to students with hearing impairments during the 1980's. Programs for students with vision impairment were also decentralised during this period.
1989
A new Education Act 1989 was enacted.
The Department of Education's first strategic plan was adopted.
Decisions about school budgets were devolved to the school level.
There was an amalgamation of correspondence schools which became the School of Distance Education — Brisbane Centre P–12.
The first high school built to a new design opened at Bribie Island.
New prototype buildings for preschool, primary and special education units were assessed.
1989–1990
A comprehensive internal review of the Department of Education commenced through the consultation process, Education Have Your Say.
Professor Nancy Viviani reviewed Tertiary Entrance and produced the report, A Review of Tertiary Entrance in Queensland.
The Offices of Higher Education and Non-State Schooling were established.
The Department developed The Corporate Vision for Senior Schooling in Queensland to accommodate the diverse needs of students in Years 11 and 12.
The first entire primary school based on the new building model opened to students.
1990–1991
The report, Focus on Schools was released. A major restructure of the Department of Education followed.
The Public Sector Management Commission (PSMC) reviewed the Department of Education including its role, operations, responsibilities and management.
Greater responsibilities were devolved to 11 regions for resource, financial administration and human resource management.
A new English Language Arts Syllabus was introduced.
Priority was given to expanding languages other than English (LOTE).
The Viviani Report recommended the establishment of the Tertiary Entrance Procedures Authority (TEPA).
Consultants were engaged to assist in the development of an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) management plan.
The Equity Directorate (Workforce and Studies) was established. A social justice strategy was developed.
The PSMC developed guidelines for recruitment and selection based on merit and equity principles.
The inspectorate ended.
The report Focus on Schools recommended that a strategy for managing the integration policy in Queensland schools be developed as a matter of urgency, and that a state-wide support centre for students with low incidence disabilities be established. A restructure of the Department of Education followed.
Occupational therapists and physiotherapists were employed by the Department of Education to work in schools with students with disabilities. (These services were transferred from the Department of Families).
Policy Statement — Management of Support Teaching: Learning Difficulties (P–7) was introduced.
education.qld.gov.au/about-us/history/chronology-of-educa...
The ‘Wizard’s’ workforce
The workforce at the Fife yard consisted mainly of local Fairlie men. In the early years of the yard the remote village of Fairlie was almost inaccessible by land, and the majority of villagers were employed in the fishing trade. The establishment of the yard provided new employment opportunities and for the next 140 years the yard continued to be the main source of employment for the village’s men.
Yacht building was a seasonal occupation that ran from September until May. In the summer months orders for yachts ceased as the yachtsmen tested out their winter purchases. In order to earn a living during the quiet season many of the builders from the yard signed on as crewmen on the racing yachts, where they were able to use their deep knowledge to push the vessels to their limits.
At the close of the season the workers returned to the village and their families, hoping that the yard’s summer successes would ensure enough new commissions to fill their order books until May.
Workforce Solution of Tarrant County High School Equivalency Graduation fat Wilkerson Greines Athletic center in Fort Worth, Texas on June 4, 2019. (Photo/Sharon Ellman)
While the project meets all the requirements of the Living Building Challenge's Equity Petal, the project team thought more broadly about how The Kendeda Building could further equity in the built environment. The team partnered with Georgia Works!, a non-profit program that trains and employs economically disadvantaged residents of Atlanta.
The exposed wood floor/ceiling assembly, which is a key design feature of the building, was constructed largely by six Georgia Works! personnel. This provided them with valuable on-the-job training that helped them move their lives forward.
Attribution: Skanska
Wood report seeks 40 per cent reduction in youth unemployment by 2020.
The final report by the group tasked with helping Scotland develop a world class system of vocational education and training has been welcomed by the Scottish Government.
Cabinet Secretary for Training, Youth and Women’s Employment Angela Constance joined Sir Ian Wood, fellow members of the Commission for Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce and representatives from COSLA, at an Edinburgh school to mark the publication. Its recommendations include:
Youth unemployment should be reduced by 40 per cent
Enhanced careers education in Primary School
The opportunity to prepare for a Modern Apprenticeship (MA) in the senior phase of school
More support for employers to take on young employees
Closer links between employers and schools and colleges
Measures to improve gender balance in training
Measures to remove barriers for young disabled people, care leavers and black and minority ethnic groups taking up training opportunities.
The Scottish Government will respond formally to the report in the coming weeks, with £12 million budget consequentials already set aside for youth employment.
Speaking at Craigroyston Community High School Ms Constance said:
“Today’s report sets out recommendations to deliver a 40 per cent reduction in youth unemployment by 2020 and a challenging programme to transform the way we work with young people, employers, schools and colleges to ensure that all our young women and men have the choices and opportunities they need to fulfil their potential.
“Our young people are an enormous asset in helping us to achieve our aspiration to strengthen Scotland’s economy.
“Our ambitions to see significant improvements in our youth employment numbers go beyond a return to pre-recession levels when, during a period of growth, youth unemployment stood 7.7 percentage points above that of the general population.
“A substantial amount of activity to help young women and men towards employment is already in place, including our very successful Modern Apprenticeship programme, which has seen over 77,000 new opportunities in the last three years. Opportunities for All also guarantees every 16 to 19 year old the offer of a place in education or training.
“The £12 million we announced earlier this year will help accelerate progress, and we will discuss with our partners in local government how best that is deployed.
“I would like to thank Sir Ian, members of the Commission and all those who have contributed to this landmark report which both matches the scale of our ambition and clearly sets out the challenges we face in delivering it.
“There is now much to consider and we will work closely with the public, private and third sectors on how the recommendations could be taken forward. Our partners in local government have a pivotal role to play in tackling youth unemployment and will be very much part of this work going forward.”
I was out for a walk late evening yesterday and came across this new exhibit and thought it was quite interesting. Read the explanation in the lower right corner. It's just across Arch Street in front of the National Constitution Center.
United States Military District of of Washington Joint Armed Forces Color Guard present the colors, during the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) 2017 National Hispanic Heritage Month Observance event, in Washington, D.C., on September 14, 2017. September 15 – October, 15, is designated as National Hispanic Heritage Month. USDA employees are encouraged to take time to learn about the diverse cultures that exists within the USDA workforce. The keynote speaker is USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Eastern Business Service Center Director Willis Collie. Moderating the panel discussion is Foreign Agriculture Service (FAS) Civil Rights Office Director Adriano Vasquez. Topics of discussion included: Significant Contributions at USDA, Leadership Experience, Taking Charge of Your Career, and Work/Life Balance. Panelists include (seen from audience right-left) ARS Research Plant Pathologist Dr. Marcial A. “Talo”Pastor-Corrales, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) District Conservationist Heysha R. Cordero Rodriguez, National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) Editing and Imputation Branch Sampling Chief Mark Apodaca, and ARS Research Entomologist Dr. Fernando E. Vega. An award for Best Hispanic Employment Program Manager of the Year will be presented.
The event is sponsored by the Diversity, Recruitment, Work/Life Division - Office of Human Resources Management - Departmental Management; Office of the Chief Information Officer; Office of Operations; Agricultural Marketing Service; ARS; Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service; Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion; Economic Research Service; Farm Service Agency; Food and Nutrition Service; Food Safety and Inspection Service; FAS; Forest Service; Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration; National Agricultural Library; National Agricultural Statistics Service; National Institute of Food and Agriculture; NRCS; Risk Management Agency; and Rural Development. USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.