Showing posts with label Communities. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Communities. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Savannah, Georgia New Home Communities

Savannah is the largest city in the county seat of Chatham County in the US state of Georgia. Savannah occupies an area of 78.1 sq miles (202.3 km2).

Every year Savannah attracts millions of visitors, who enjoy the city's architecture and historic buildings. Most of the tourists flock to places like the birthplace of Juliette Gordon Low (founder of the Girl Scouts of the United States of America), the first African Baptist Church, Temple Mickve Israel which is the third-oldest synagogue in America, the Central of Georgia Railway roundhouse complex (the oldest standing antebellum rail facility in America) and several other places of tourist interest. Prone to flooding, the city of Savannah has a humid subtropical climate characterized by humid summers and cool winters.

The city of Savannah has a progressive economy and is the home of Union Camp, which has one of the world's largest paper mill. Even today, it is Savannah's largest employer. Gulfstream Aerospace company, which makes private jets is based in Savannah and there are also various other large industrial interests employing many in the city today.

Savannah, Georgia New Home Communities

If work or leisure beckons to Savannah, there are quite a few quality homebuilders here who can chip in to give shape to your dreams. Here are a few:

Hallmark Homes: Hallmark Homes of Savannah, Inc., Hallmark Homes Enterprises, Inc. and Hallmark Custom Homes, LLC. together form a formidable force and qualifies as the area's largest family of builders, offering custom and semi-custom homes from 5,000 to million in nearly every popular planned community in Savannah and the nearby towns of Richmond Hill, Rincon and Pooler, Georgia.

Savannah Pines Mobile Home Park:

Savannah Pines Mobile Home Park is ideally located in Garden City, in the scenic suburb of Savannah. Nestled among beautiful trees and a small stream, you can enjoy the tranquility of living in a mature community that provides an atmosphere of peace and quiet. Shopping, restaurants, movie theatres, video rentals, and golf courses, are all close-by. Even elementary, middle and high schools are easily accessible from here.

Konter Quality Homes: Konter Quality Homes develops neighborhoods and builds new homes throughout the metro Savannah area. As an industry leader since 1977, Konter Quality Homes continues to produce high quality homes for satisfied customers.

Savannah, Georgia New Home Communities
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New Homes Section is a one-stop destination to home builders, new homes for sale, and information about Savannah home builders. Quickly located new homes throughout the U.S. and discover information about pricing, floor plans, community locations and other features.

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Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Professional Learning Communities - What Are They and How Do They Work?

Professional learning communities are intended to promote collaborative learning between educators and other key people within the same work environment. It brings educators, administrators and other colleagues together to work as a group based on their field. Professional learning communities courses can demonstrate how working as a community not only enhances a curriculum, it improves the overall learning experience. By working collaboratively in this community, you are responsible for your own results. In professional learning communities the focus is on learning and performance rather than solely on teaching.

More specifically, professional learning communities are designed to yield results in student learning and achievement. This includes developing a school action plan specific to an educator's school site and classroom or area of expertise.

This reform-minded approach to the education system can be lucrative if practiced correctly. Some schools offer graduate courses about professional learning communities. This may help people interested in education to become aware of how to create more challenging curriculums and collaborative learning techniques and methodologies. This type of training can really transform a school or organization that may be ready for reform.

Professional Learning Communities - What Are They and How Do They Work?

It is important to know about the diverse teaching styles and explore your own learning style as well as how it impacts professional team dynamics and student/teacher rapport for essential learning. Another significant aspect of professional learning communities is how they affect the organizational management for both the organization and classroom setting. Certain education courses and books discuss the changing role of school restructuring and learning practices, as well as the conceptual framework and research behind implementing programs and practices that lead to highest student achievement and staff development in the most progressive educational settings. To make the most of a professional learning community environment it is essential to study this aspect as well.

Educators in this reform system use results-oriented action steps to clarify exactly what each student must learn, monitor each student's learning on a timely basis, provide systematic interventions, and use collective inquiry/feedback to create a collaborative atmosphere of continual improvement. The main goal of professional learning communities is to create a clear and compelling vision of how an organization must shift in order to help all students learn, whether it be a private or public school.

Some of the key objectives of professional learning communities are as follows. To clarify the purpose of educators and develop an action-based mission statement, to evaluate the importance of Systems Thinking and Constructivist Teaching within schools, and to clarify and reach consensus on what the students must learn. It is also important for educators in these communities to underscore the importance of meshing personal learning styles and create a safe environment for effective communication. Personal learning and communication styles play a key role in how effective the learning is because different learning styles affect group performance. Overall, it is clear that team learning can be extremely valuable to everyone involved including the students, educators, and the school. It creates a new environment where people can work together and understand which methods are useful and which need to be improved.

Professional Learning Communities - What Are They and How Do They Work?
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Teacher Education Institute (TEI) offers rigorous, graduate-level professional development courses for K-12 classroom teachers. For more about TEI, professional learning communities, visit http://www.teachereducation.com

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Monday, November 5, 2012

Retirement Communities: All-Inclusive Vs A La Carte

With an ever-increasing number of American retirees, which is poised for drastic growth acceleration over the next decade, what with the impending retirement of the bulk of baby boomers, new retirement communities-active adult and independent living, among other types-are cropping up left and right, especially in popular retirement destinations like North Carolina. This increase in North Carolina retirement communities can complicate an already challenging decision process. There are a few guidelines and user-friendly Internet resources that can make ease of identifying communities that meet certain criteria.

In choosing the right community for you or a loved one, one of the foremost decisions should be whether the prospective resident wants to continue supplying and preparing his or her own food or be served each meal in a dining room. Conventional all-inclusive independent living communities generally feature kitchenettes in their apartments, for snacks and small meal preparation, while serving breakfast, lunch (dinner) and supper in their dining room each day. These meals are included with resident rent each month, as are a variety of other features, typically including weekly housekeeping and scheduled transportation.

Contrarily, a new breed of independent living retirement communities is popularizing across North and South Carolina and all of the United States, one that offers its services and amenities, including meals, on an a la carte basis. In such a system, residents pay only for the services, amenities and meals they use, allowing them to choose what and when they want. With seniors paying closer attention to each expenditure due to the lagging economy, this concept has become immensely appealing.

Retirement Communities: All-Inclusive Vs A La Carte

Many North Carolina retirement communities have identified the appeal of this system, including a number of retirement communities in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Retirement Communities: All-Inclusive Vs A La Carte
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At The Manor in Charlotte, residents pay a much lower monthly fee than they would if they lived at a competing community-for a much brighter, more spacious apartment which features a full kitchen. They eat in the dining room when they prefer but have the choice to cook in the comfort of their own apartment when they would rather do so. This doesn't only help seniors preserve their nest egg; it helps them preserve their independence by allowing them to make their own choices without binding them to a particular system.

Choosing between an all-inclusive retirement community and an a la carte retirement community can cut your choices in half, getting you well on your way to narrowing your options down to the select few that best match your criteria.

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Thursday, September 6, 2012

State Power, Social Power, and Communities

The more I read, the more I realize the true secret to success in business and life is related to the strength of relationships within a person's community. The myth of rugged isolated individualism, although enduring, is, in truth, only a myth. Economic, educational, even political effectiveness are all improved when people work together. Please don't misunderstand me, I haven't turned to economic communism; however, I can understand better how so many have been drawn into this illogically evil doctrine. Specifically, most people, if given the choice between being alone or in community, will choose community, even if the association is Biblically wrong, thus communism's growth. In fact, a cursory look at organizations as diverse as communism, the mafia, and gangs will exhibit the enduring need for community.

Communities versus Individualism

If community is essential to human beings, then the question is: How do we incorporate community into a society without sacrificing life, liberty, and property? Since liberty cannot exist where the State dictates, the idea of community and freedom precludes State control. Therefore, free communities are a misnomer unless they are voluntary organizations. However, although the non-involvement of the State is essential, it isn't sufficient to create community. The other side of the equation is for people to learn how to work within a community setting. Consequently, the atomistic rugged individualism of American myth must be replaced by men and women who work within a Biblical framework of ordered liberty and love. In other words, the greedy, self-centered capitalist is not a true picture of a free-enterprise Biblical community. In fact, this caricature of American freedoms pinpoints what is plaguing America - the loss of community roots and liberty (Social Power), instead, replaced by today's (State Power) crony capitalism.

State Power, Social Power, and Communities

Murray Rothbard, the late dean of Austrian Economists, wrote in Conceived in Liberty:

With Albert Jay Nock, the twentieth-century American political philosopher, I see history as centrally a race and conflict between "social power" - the productive consequence of voluntary interactions among men - and state power. In those eras of history when liberty - social power - has managed to race ahead of state power and control, the country and even mankind have flourished. In those eras when state power has managed to catch up with or surpass social power, mankind suffers and declines.

State Power versus Social Power

In sum, wherever State Power flourishes, Social Power declines. Thankfully, however, the reverse is true as well. By standing on the shoulders of both Nock and Rothbard, we see that societies can be organized around two competing philosophical choices:

1. State Power: Top down external discipline and the subsequent loss of liberty endured.

2. Social Power: Bottom up internal discipline and the subsequent ordered liberty enjoyed.

The first option is the real-life history of America since around the Civil War, with State Power moving ahead and Social Power in subsequent decline. Since 1913, however, the battle has become a run-away drubbing with State Powers triumphing in the Federal Reserve Act, the Federal Income Tax amendment, and the democratic election of Senators. In truth, it's hard to fathom a worse mixture of federal legislation (for Social Power) in one year in one country than what occurred in America in that fatal year of 1913. In other words, 1913 wasn't just (to use Oliver DeMille's term) a freedom shift, it was a freedom rout. I look forward to DeMille's book 1913 which elaborates on these fateful events.

The second option is America's (and the West's) best hope for freedom. America needs a community restoration, starting, not from the top down (State Power), but rather, from the bottom up (Social Power), in order to revitalize America. Social Power is fueled by social capital - a sociological concept which refers to the value of social relations and the role of cooperation and confidence to get collective results in any endeavor - to paraphrase Robert Putnam, in is classic Bowling Alone. Putnam explains the key role of social capital, "A society characterized by generalized reciprocity is more efficient than a distrustful society, for the same reason that money is more efficient than barter. If we don't have to balance every exchange instantly, we can get a lot more accomplished. Trustworthiness lubricates life. Frequent interaction among a diverse set of people tends to produce a norm of generalized reciprocity." Furthermore, Putnam argues, "Does social capital have salutary effects on individuals, communities, or even entire nations? Yes, an impressive and growing body of research suggest that civic connections help make us healthy, wealthy, and wise. Living without social capital is not easy, whether one is a villager in southern Italy or a poor person in the American inner city or a well-heeled entrepreneur in a high-tech district." Social capital matters, in other words, both personally, professionally, and politically.

Social Capital: Turning Aspiration into Realities

Putnam goes on to list five specific areas where the trust and understanding inured by social capital helps translate aspirations into realities:

1. Social capital allows citizens to resolve collective problems more easily through improved teamwork.

2. Social capital greases the wheels that allow communities to advance smoothly through improved trust.

3. Social capital helps widen the awareness of fellow citizens that their fates are intertwined through improved understanding.

4. Social capital serves as conduits for the flow of helpful information and resources to accomplish community and individual goals.

5. Social capital improves individual lives through psychological and biological processes. In fact, numerous studies suggest lives that are rich in social capital cope with trauma and illnesses significantly more effectively.

America's Social Capital Decline

Even with social capital's overwhelming advantages, Putnam acknowledges its decline, writing, "Americans have had a growing sense at some visceral level of disintegrating social bonds." He explains further, "More than 80% of Americans said there should be more emphasis on community, even if it puts more demands on individuals." In sum, social capital isn't just the fuel for Social Power - a necessary check on State Power - but it also enhances individual lives through the sense of belonging engendered within communities. Strikingly then, the decline of social capital, not only attacks society's freedoms, but also attacks an individual's well-being. With so much to gain and so much to lose, why aren't more people focused on the restoration of communities throughout America and the West? That question will be the subject of further articles.

State Power, Social Power, and Communities
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Orrin Woodward 2011 IAB Top Leaders Award; NY Times, Wall St. Journal, USA Today, Money & Business Weekly best selling co-author of Launching a Leadership Revolution & Top 25 Leadership Gurus List. Orrin's blog is an Alltop selection and ranked in HR's Top 100 Blogs for Management & Leadership. http://orrinwoodwardblog.com

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