DIY Vermicomposting - A Worm Farm on a Budget

Have you wanted to set up a home worm farm, but been put off by the high cost of purchasing one of the neat "designer label" multi-tiered "vermicomposting" kits, promoted by garden centres and mail order companies? Well, let's cut through the crap! - ITS ACTUALLY NO SECRET !!! -You can easily make your own DIY three bin kit for a just a few dollars and your worms will be as happy as little pigs in the yellow stuff, with no big bad wolf in sight. Moreover, you don't need to be an expert handyman to achieve this!

Hardware stores, supermarkets and camping outlets sell tough, general purpose black (opaque) plastic storage containers for a very reasonable price. These are usually tapered so that they can be nested to facilitate stacking on the retailer's shelves and come with a "snap-fit"ce lid. For your worm farm, you will need three of these tapered containers (but only one lid). For a simple home worm farm I would advise going for 12 gallon (45 litre) containers. Typically, they will be about 15 inches deep (400mm). You can go smaller, if you want. In the first storage container, drill a 3/8 inch (15mm hole), centrally placed, in the side of the bin, just above the base. Insert a ½ inch (12mm) cheap plastic barrel or irrigation tap (with washers) into your hole and tighten fast with lock nuts - make sure you get a good seal - test by filling the container with tap water. This container is to be the lowest one in your stack and will retain the highly nutritional "worm tea" leachate, that will start dripping down from the composting bins above. Worm tea is a valuable liquid organic fertilizer, that can be diluted and used directly on your organic vegetables.

The two upper bins will actually hold the worms. They are to be identical and are prepared as follows : -

DIY Vermicomposting - A Worm Farm on a Budget

Drill a pattern of ¼ inch (6mm) holes across the entire base of each container for drainage and to allow drainage and the upward migration of the compost worms, these holes should be regularly spaced at approx two inch (50mm) centres in either direction. For aeration, drill two rows of ¼ inch (6mm) holes at two inch (50mm) centres, in a continuous band around each of the bins. This band of holes would be about four inches (100mm) below the top rim of the bin. It is not essential to drill holes in the lid, which is closed tightly over the upper bin. as you should get enough air through the sides. You first set up the lower (sump) bin on bricks or blocks, allowing enough space to tap off the fluid from beneath it. Choose a shady location for the worm farm (in a shed or garage, if you are subject to frosts). The second and third bins are "nested" within each other and dropped into the sump bin. To maintain a working space for the worms, and for accumulation of compost, you need a few spacers or packers of about six to eight inches height, between the two upper bins and some smaller packers of about four inches in the lower (sump) bin. You can use wood blocks or sealed food jars for packers. The packers also prevent the tapered worm bins from jamming together. To prevent "nasty bugs" from squeezing in between the bins, you should close (caulk) the small gap between them with strips of shade cloth, or mosquito netting.

Now you are ready to go into production. Space prevents us from giving fully detailed notes here for the fine points of operating the system, such as choosing and feeding your worms, eradicating pests and maintaining the worm farm etc - you can visit our website for this information. However, just make sure that you cover the following points: -

Set up your worms in the top bin with a good (damp) fibrous bedding (or even shredded newspaper) and after a few days you will be ready to start feeding in your kitchen scraps. Cover the food with more bedding material to discourage pests and keep the lid closed. Make sure the worm farm is never allowed to dry out, by sprinkling water over the bedding periodically, if there is not already enough moisture coming from the food scraps. When the top bin has been fully productive for a while, the worms will multiply and compost will be start accumulating from the worm castings. When the quantity of compost is meaningful, stop putting feed into this bin and swap over the upper two bins by putting bin No 2 to the top of the stack, with bin No 1 now in the middle. Set up this new top bin with clean bedding, a small amount of the old castings and immediately start feeding your kitchen scraps into it. The worms will naturally migrate upwards towards the new food source, leaving the lower bin with only a few stragglers and ready for the harvesting of your compost within about three weeks after the swap. All you need to do is to keep repeating the process of alternating the top two bins on a regular basis, taking out the compost, whenever it accumulates, and tapping off the worm tea from time to time. Use both products in your garden and grow delicious fully organic vegetables and stunning roses. Sit back and enjoy the fruit of your labours - your worms are doing most of the work anyway!

To see a detailed diagram of this simple worm farm, as described, and some illustrative photos, you can visit our web site at http://www.working-worms.com/

Happy worming!

DIY Vermicomposting - A Worm Farm on a Budget
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Ant Coe has a degree from the University of Cape Town, South Africa and is passionate about promoting the use of cheap solutions, for the various problems facing poor communities in Africa. DIY worm farming or vermiculture is one such proposal. Few poor African communities can afford the high cost of commercial fertilizer and worm compost is an excellent source of free organic enrichment for school and village gardens. Visit his website at http://www.working-worms.com/ for further information.

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What is Community Counseling?

The term 'Community counseling' is widely in use nowadays. You can find several instances on the Internet or on television about different community counselors that are working for this society to help people live their life in a better way. Working as a Community Counselor is one of the top career options available for people who are in love with society and teaching people the right way of leading their life. If you are looking to become a community counselor then it is important for you to understand what community counseling is all about.

Community counseling is a form of counseling in which different counselors work with families, individuals, couples and also communities in one or the other way. Community-counseling is generally conducted to prevent a problem and assist in setting prevention programs in different communities. The community counselors also advocate different social changes to assist their patients and clients at the large. Community counseling is actually a different form of counseling in which not only people are taught about different right or wrong things but there also shown the right ways so that they can live their life peacefully and happily.

Community counseling is carried by community counselors who are trained to work in different kinds of settings like:

What is Community Counseling?

-Schools and hospitals
-Family services and mental health agencies
-Department of the veteran affairs
-Private industry and businesses
-Behavioral health agencies including the evaluation, training and abuse programs.
-Insurance companies and private practices.

There are a variety of community counseling programs in a number of universities and even on the Internet that will help you in attaining the right kind of information and knowledge to become an accredited community counselor.

These various community counseling programs will provide you with the information to tackle different sections of the society using appropriate means and reducing the disturbance produced by violent and mentally challenged people. After earning your degree from these community-counseling programs you can get a job at one or the other agencies mentioned above to practice as a community counselor.

With the increase in the development of psychology, it can be seen that people who are interested in this field are finding variety of new options to enhance their careers. Community counseling and psychology aims to improve the condition of the community by giving therapy, supportive counseling, linkage and referral, advocacy and various other services as demanded.

The services provided by community counselors can be done on one on one basis, groups to adults, adolescents and families. In these community counseling programs the students are taught to provide an access to the public towards an affordable and effective counseling that is culturally appropriate and physically assessable.

In order to become a certified counselor you will have to have a graduate degree in the requisite field. Most of the under graduate colleges provide a great educational base to a psychology student like bachelor of science, bachelor of arts, degree in education, counseling, psychology or social work.

You can also improve your education by achieving a master's of art degree or masters in education in the similar discipline.

So, if you are looking to make your career in community counseling in psychology then you are not only going to work towards a noble cause but you also can experience a great growth in your career as well.

What is Community Counseling?
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7 Steps Effective Strategic Planning Process

This TQM article provides an insight of a typical Strategic Planning Process that was used in several organizations and proven to be very practical in implementation. the key processes of this typical Strategic Planning Process are lined up into 7 steps. Detail of each steps are illustrated below:-

Step 1 - Review or develop Vision & Mission

Able to obtain first hand information from various stakeholders (Shareholders, customers, employee, suppliers communities etc).

7 Steps Effective Strategic Planning Process

You may use templates to evaluate how the stakeholders think about your organization. To find out whether their action are aligned with the organization's objectives.

To review or develop company's Vision and Mission with the involvement of other stakeholders to ensure it is still current with the business changes and new challenges. Also use this session as a mean for communication.

Step 2 - Business and operation analysis (SWOT Analysis etc)

One of the key consideration of strategic planning is to understand internal (own organization) Strengths and Weaknesses as well as external Threats and Opportunities. These are commonly known as the four factors of a S.W.O.T. analysis.

Involvement from various stakeholders to provide their points of view about your organization is key. In the process, you will gain better buy-in from these implementers of strategies and policies.

Step 3 - Develop and Select Strategic Options

You may use templates to develop several key possible strategies to address the organization's objectives. More important, these possible strategies are develop based on the inputs from stakeholders (step 1) and Business and Operation analysis (step 2).

It is often several possible strategies are developed and everyone of them seems important. Since it is quite normal that an organization would have several key issues to tackle, you will be able to use a proper tools to select a few from the possible strategies. You will b e able to apply several prioritizing tools as introduced in this step.

Step 4 - Establish Strategic Objectives

During this step, you will be able to view the overall picture about the organization and able to select a few strategic options objectively. Template may be used to understand various strategic options, set key measures and broad time line to ensure the selected strategic options are achieved.

While it is quite common that measures and timeline is given by top management, it is the intention of this step 4 that these measures and timeline is SMART . What it meant was Specific (S), Measurable (M), Achievable (A), Realistic (R) and Time-bound (T). when the strategic options are SMART, it will help to ease the communication toward the lower level of the organizational hierarchy for implementation.

Step 5 - Strategy Execution Plan

Many organization failed to realize its full potential of its strategies are due to weak implementation. In this Step 5, a proper deployment plan is developed to implement these strategies.

Step 6 - Establish Resource Allocation

Very often, management team assigned selected strategies to key personnel and left it to the individual to carry out the task. While most organizations operate with minimum resources, it often ends up work overloaded by individual.

Step 7 - Execution Review

One of the key success factors for an effective strategy deployment is constant review of its progress and make decision for any deviations to plan. It is vital to decide what to review and with who the review is done. New decision may be required as the status of the strategies progressed.

In summary: Follow this 7-steps in Strategic Planning will ensure various options are considered including its execution, resource allocation d and Execution Review. This 7-Steps form a complete cycle for new or existing Strategic Planning initiatives

7 Steps Effective Strategic Planning Process
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About the Author: Dr. LM Foong, PhD

He writes and prublishes TQM articles, ebooks, case studies, trainer manual and other TQM Related information made available at the http://www.tqmcasestudies.com Resource Center in Total Quality Management

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What Should You Do With Your Parents' Home If They Are Put Into Care?

Putting a loved one into care is an incredibly emotional and stressful experience; I know, we had to do make the decision on behalf of my mum when dad was suffering with Parkinsons and dementia.

In mum's case we were lucky, she could still afford to stay in their home even when paying for dad to be in a special care home. As mum's home was big enough to create a bedroom downstairs and we had a loo on the same level, eventually as dad's illness progressed, we were able to bring him home for the last few months.

However, not everyone is as lucky as we were so I've written a quick guide to different circumstances you may find yourself in so you know what options are available to you and you can try to work out what the best thing to do is.

What Should You Do With Your Parents' Home If They Are Put Into Care?

Lone parent goes into a residential/nursing home or hospital temporarily

Firstly, despite some horror stories, if your loved one is in a home or nursing home for however long, no one can force you (or them) to sell the property. However, what will happen is if your parent is getting financial support to help for care at home, that money is likely to be stopped after four weeks of being in hospital.

It is important to remember if you have a loved one in temporary care and they are feeling poorly and frail, what happens to their home while they are away could be quite stressful. As a result, it is a good idea to put their mind at rest and either discuss a plan of action or let them know what you are going to do.

Sadly another fact of life is that if your parent hasn't been very well, and especially if they are suffering with any dementia related illnesses, that they have managed to keep up to speed with all their bills such as phone/gas and electricity/TV licence etc. Check with each service what you can do to keep the power/line active while keeping the bills as low as possible.

Whatever you decide, the first thing to check is your parent's home insurance. If the property is going to be unoccupied for more than 30 days and you do not advise your insurance company, the insurance may be invalid. Speak to the insurance company to see what you can do or go to specialist companies such as Towergate who will insure the property cost effectively.

Once you've sorted the insurance, then it's important to decide whether you are going to leave the property empty or whether another family member might stay there (who your parent will trust) or you can consider renting the property out.

Leaving a Property Empty Long Term

If you leave the property empty, then follow our 'empty property checklist' to make sure that you keep it as safe as possible for when your parent returns:-

Empty Property Checklist

1. Make sure the property is insured for being empty for more than 30 days (or whatever the current home insurance covers).

2. Turn off the gas, water and all plugs so the property is kept safe.

3. Cancel or redirect as many deliveries as you can, such as milk, newspapers or other mail.

4. Ensure you have an alarm or something that would alert YOU or neighbours if they are around, that the property was being broken into.

5. Either ask a neighbour/friend to visit the property a couple of times a week or do it yourself and ensure all post is read and throw away (or cancel) anything that is no longer needed.

6. Make sure that the curtains or blinds are closed/opened regularly.

7. Enhance security by having lights/radio etc coming on at different times of the day.

8. Ensure that the garden is kept in as good an order as possible. Contact 'Help the Aged' as they may be able to suggest a good value gardener that's been checked by them.

9. In summer months, be on the lookout for unwanted visitors such as ants.

10. In the winter, check that the boiler still works.

Finally, when your mum or dad does come home, check the place over thoroughly a few weeks or so beforehand, especially if your parent may need some help or changes to the property post nursing/hospital care.

Renting an Owned Property

If you want to rent a property out, you are likely to have to do this for six months or more. You will also need to incur costs to let the property legally such as:-

Energy Performance Certificate Gas Safety Certificate Electrical Safety Certificate OR self certifying that the electrics are safe

You also need to bear in mind that if you take a tenant on, you will need:-

1. An up to date tenancy agreement.
2. To protect deposits in a tenancy deposit scheme.
3. To carry out credit checks on the tenant.

You can legally do all this yourself, but if it's your first time, it's wise to use a recognised service as otherwise you may fall foul of the law or end up with a tenant that causes more hassle than it's worth.

When the tenant moves in, you'll need to:-

1. Make sure all furniture and appliances are checked independently to meet fire safety legislation.
2. Have an inventory, ideally from a member of the The AIIC.
3. Secure specialist buy to let insurance to protect the property from rogue tenants and any damage.

Finally, remember that any excess rental income versus allowable costs your parent receives could be taxable, so you'll need to check this out too!

What to do if a lone parent is moved into a residential/nursing home permanently

This is such a tough time for everyone. Sometimes it's a relief all round, other times it can be very tense. Depending on your circumstances, you have two courses of action: to sell the property or rent it out.

Whether you decide to rent out the property or sell it often depends on three factors:-

1. Is your parent 'happy' to let go of the property or do they still think they will come home at some stage? This can be the case especially if people have dementia.

2. The state of the market. If the market isn't particularly buoyant, for example at the moment, then it might not be the ideal time to sell.

3. Whether you and your parent want to sell the 'family' home.

Essentially, if you haven't already, you'll need to deal with issues such as 'Power of Attorney' to allow you to take over your parent's affairs. The Alzheimer's Society explains this quite well, although your parent doesn't need to have dementia to have a Power of Attorney, but you will need their consent.

It is important to speak to your parent on a 'good day' and ask them what they would like to do, explaining all the different options and the pros and cons of each of them.

Pros and Cons of Different Options

Buying your Parent's Home
You might decide to rent out your own home (or sell) and buy your parent's home instead as it might be bigger, and just what you are after. Before you do this, you need to talk to a legal expert and an inheritance tax expert to find the best way for you to do this, for your circumstances.

Sometimes this option can be a real bonus to a parent as when they come to visit they are still coming back to their own home. However, it's more complicated if there is more than one sibling.

Pros
Your parent can come back for visits to their own 'home'.
May mean you secure the property you want for your family.

Cons
Difficult option if you have brothers/sisters as you might not be able to agree on a fair settlement.
Need to seek tax and legal advice which will cost several hundred pounds.

Equity Release
If you don't want to sell your parent's home now and renting it out won't cover care fees, then you could consider releasing some equity until you decide what you want to do longer term.

For more information about equity release, read our Equity Release guide. Make sure that any company you contact about equity release is a member of SHIP.

Pros
Relatively easy and quick to secure funds
Can help if money is tight during a stressful time

Cons
Can be more costly than selling up or renting
It's not an instant solution, so will take some weeks to set up

Selling your Parent's Home
In some cases you may have little choice but to sell the home to help fund your parent's costs of being in residential/nursing care. There have been some media reports of people having to sell their homes to fund their hospital care.

Pros
Makes a clean break with the home so your parent can move on.
The money can help support your parent while in care, helping to choose which home they go into.

Cons
May be too stressful for your parent to let go of the property.
If selling in a poor market, it may mean that it takes a while to sell the property and you have to sell at a discount to find a buyer.

Renting out your Parent's Home
This might be a good option if your parent hasn't yet accepted that they need to sell their home, or it's the right thing for them. It may also be helpful if the market isn't very good and it's taking some time to sell a property.

Pros
Leaves your options open so you have some time to decide what to do with the property.
Can help fund care costs if required.

Cons
Renting a home requires checks and changes to the property and will incur costs prior to renting.
Tenants could cause problems or damage the property.

What are your options if you have one poorly parent and one well parent?

On the one hand this can make things easier, as often, the parent who is well will be able to help make the decisions and they will often want to either stay in the home or move, so it takes renting out of the equation.

Ideally you'll need to discuss with both parents what they want to do, but it's important not to rush into anything. Many people making decisions at times like this when stress levels are high, end up making the wrong decision and then incurring more cost later on as they 'change their mind'.

As a result, it's important to consider lots of questions and then decide on some options which, ideally, can be trialled.

For example, when you have two parents, one of whom is ill either temporarily or long term, it's important to think through not only the next few months and the next year, but also what happens when only one parent is left. A hard thought I know, but it's often what people don't think through and the consequences of not working this out can incur further unnecessary costs later on. I know this is hard to do, but some may be better off staying in their own home, others may be better off downsizing and some may be better off moving close to a family member.

Top 10 Things to Consider when one parent is poorly or needs care

1. How 'attached' to the area are your parents? Are all their friends there? Do they have hobbies such as bowling/theatre nearby that they would miss if moved?

2. How adaptable is the home they are in? Does a downstairs bedroom/bathroom facility exist or can it be created?

3. Is it possible or practical to have care at home in the short or long term? How much would this cost?

4. Are there people nearby that can help in an emergency?

5. If one of your parent's is a carer of the other, how would you manage if they became ill?

6. If your parents do trade down, what equity would be left over after the sale to buy another home?

7. Would an ordinary property be OK or would your parents benefit from retirement living in specially built properties or warden aided facilities? What would be the additional costs of this type of property?

8. What facilities would the new property need to have? What is it likely to cost?

9. If a parent needs regular hospital/residential care, what transport facilities would be required long term? A car may be fine now, but can your parents get their easily by public transport/taxi?

10. How much can you as a family help with the care, what's practical, what other help and support can you secure?

There are lots of organisations that can help you with these decisions, for example 'Help the Aged'. Alternatively, your local social worker should be able to help and you should be allocated one during your loved ones stay in hospital or care. It's important to liaise with social workers as they understand the rules and regulations of funding short and long term care, and what other financial or home support help you are entitled to.

What Should You Do With Your Parents' Home If They Are Put Into Care?
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I am one of the UK's top property experts being regularly quoted in the press including the Telegraph, Independent, Times, Daily Mail and Express and have appeared on BBC2, featured on BBC Radio 4, Channel 4 and a number of local BBC Radio stations.

I have been a consultant to the property sector for a number of years and renovating properties for over 20 years. I have also written a number of books, including four for Which? - Buy, Sell, Move House, Renting and Letting, Develop your Property and the Property Investment Handbook.

For answers to all your property questions, contact me at Designs on Property on 0845 838 1763 or visit our website and blog using the links below:-

http://www.designsonproperty.co.uk/

http://factsnotheadlines.blogspot.com/

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Personals Like Craigslist - But Better!

If you go looking, you will find personals like Craigslist all over the internet. Most sites offering online classifieds have a personals section nowadays. They all suffer from the same problem, however. And this problem will usually result in you wasting time and often losing money.

This article is here to give you fair warning about the drawbacks to using these internet classifieds and also a solution that is a much better alternative for you to find a date or casual encounter.

The problem with personals like Craigslist is the huge number of con artists using the service to market dating products. If you post a personal ad, you will receive dozens, sometimes hundreds of responses. The majority of these emails will come from clever internet marketers, posing as attractive women who want you to join a dating service in order to meet them.

Personals Like Craigslist - But Better!

Some of those emails will come from real women, true, but how are you to tell which ones are real and which are fake? There is no way. Which means, though the personals at Craigslist are a good concept, they tend not to work for most of us.

The solution that most people overlook is to use a big-name dating service. Most people are put off by these services because they think you need to pay to use them. Not true. You only pay for premium features. And, let us face it, if you do pay for premium features, that is probably a small cost to pay for what you get.

And what do you get? Well major dating sites are personals like Craigslist in many ways. You can join for free and use many of their services without cost. You can make searches of people in your area and read what they are looking for.

You get a lot more, though, than that offered by personals at Craigslist. You get real people, no internet marketers trying to con you; you get to see who is online and who is offline; you get to contact people with instant messages; you get to add them as friends and view their photo albums.

So, all in all, they represent a much better alternative. They offer far more features, many of them offer free accounts, and when you get an email from a woman you know that she's real, and not some clever con artist!

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Now that you know about personals like craigslist, you can get a free account here: Personals Like Craigslist. They are one of the most visited dating communities on the planet.

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Best Places to Retire For Affordable Golf Course Living

Today, more and more avid golfers who are approaching their retirement years are growing increasingly concerned that the current economic crisis in this country might perhaps force them to abandon the idea of finding a place to retire on or near a golf course. True, for many golfers, their shrinking 401 investment portfolio and uncertain financial status might necessitate that they forgo the luxury of an expensive luxury home on the fairways of a prestigious private country club.

However, with careful planning, a willingness to downsize that dream retirement home and the investment of some time and effort in pursuit of an affordable place to golf, it is still possible to find a very well-priced and inviting home in a golfing environment that most retirees would consider as fitting their requirement for the best place to retire.

In fact, in nearly every area of the U.S., there are a number of communities with a ready supply of affordable retirement housing with challenging golf courses, both private and daily fee public facilities. Furthermore, with most new master planned golf communities, developers are drastically reducing prices in an effort to boost falling sales, and higher-priced golf properties are more reasonably priced than any time in recent memory.

Best Places to Retire For Affordable Golf Course Living

Even with these circumstances, retirees who want to live where they can spend their leisure time on the links would be well served to explore certain towns and cities where golf is a major focus and therefore where housing inventories and prices are more attractive. Here are a few suggestions where, not only are prices for retirement housing extremely reasonable, but also there is an abundance of good, quality golf courses which can be enjoyed at very moderate rates.

It may be surprising to some to discover that the most affordable retirement destinations are often located in or near what are also some of the most popular and best known golfing communities. Among such places is Pinehurst, North Carolina, long considered to be one of America's great golf resorts and home to a number of residential golf course developments, including the prestigious Pinehurst Club. In spite of the fact that most homes along the fairways can be pretty pricey, there are also a large number of resale homes and condos available at any given time for less than 0,000. In addition, several of the communities in and around Pinehurst and the neighboring small towns of Southern Pines and Aberdeen still have affordable building sites and resale homes.

Golf is also a major attraction in the mountains of western North Carolina, but here the price for homes and home sites located within a golf complex are among some of the highest in the country. However, if one looks a little closer at small towns like Brevard, Boone or Waynesville, or others around the Asheville area, single family homes are reasonably priced and yet not far removed from good golfing.

Most golfers are familiar with the golf courses that abound in and around the area of Hilton Head Island in coastal South Carolina, and while the home prices on the Island itself may be above the reach of the average retiree, there are a growing number of retirement communities in neighboring towns such as Bluffton with affordable homes, some of which feature golf courses as part of their amenities. South Carolina's best known golfing destination, Myrtle Beach and the Grand Stand, a sixty-mile strip filled with oceanfront hotels and golf courses extending into Brunswick County, North Carolina, still attract an increasing number of retirees who have found the area meets their requirements for their best place to retire.

Georgia and Tennessee, two other Southeastern states with moderate climates that permit golfing almost ten months out of the year, are both home to small towns noted as being highly desirable retirement destinations for golfers. Several designer courses, bearing the names of Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, have been carved out of the Georgia rural landscape along Lake Oconee. Initially, these developments were executive-style luxury communities, but a recent trend has been the arrival of new retirement properties, spearheaded by a Del Webb complex with a varied selection of affordable home designs near the picturesque small town of Greensboro.

And perched atop Tennessee's Cumberland Plateau, Crossville, which bills itself as the "Golf Capital of Tennessee," has been a major destination for retirees for the last thirty years. Lured by the presence of a number of affordable residential golf communities, the absence of a state income tax, a low cost of living and a thriving small town economy, retirees have made Crossville a major retirement and golfing destination.

Best Places to Retire For Affordable Golf Course Living
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e-Marketing Strategy: 7 Dimensions to Consider (the e-Marketing Mix)

What is e-Marketing?

e-Marketing is still quite a controversial subject to talk about, since no one succeeded to unify the various theories around it; however there is one thing upon which there is no doubt - that e-Marketing first appeared under the form of various techniques deployed by pioneer companies selling their products via the internet in the early 90's.

The frenzy around these new marketing techniques created by e-tailers and supported by the internet rapidly gave birth to a new dimension of what we knew as Marketing: the e-Marketing (electronic Marketing).

e-Marketing Strategy: 7 Dimensions to Consider (the e-Marketing Mix)

There are many definitions to what e-Marketing is, the simplest and shortest one being formulated by Mark Sceats: e-Marketing is Marketing that uses the internet as manifestation media. A working definition is that coming from a group of CISCO specialists: e-Marketing is the sum of all activities a business conducts through the internet with the purpose of finding, attracting, winning and retaining customers.

e-Marketing Strategy

The e-Marketing Strategy is normally based and built upon the principles that govern the traditional, offline Marketing - the well-known 4 P's (Product - Price - Promotion - Positioning) that form the classic Marketing mix. Add the extra 3 P's (People - Processes - Proof) and you got the whole extended Marketing mix.

Until here, there are no much aspects to differentiate e-Marketing from the traditional Marketing performed offline: the extended Marketing mix (4 + 3 P's) is built around the concept of "transactional" and its elements perform transactional functions defined by the exchange paradigm. What gives e-Marketing its uniqueness is a series of specific functions, relational functions, that can be synthesized in the 2P + 2C+ 3S formula: Personalization, Privacy, Customer Service, Community, Site, Security, Sales Promotion.

These 7 functions of the e-Marketing stay at the base of any e-Marketing strategy and they have a moderating character, unlike the classic Marketing mix that comprises situational functions only. Moderating functions of e-Marketing have the quality of moderate, operate upon all situational functions of the mix (the classic 4 P's) and upon each other.

1. Personalization

The fundamental concept of personalization as a part of the e-Marketing mix lies in the need of recognizing, identifying a certain customer in order to establish relations (establishing relations is a fundamental objective of Marketing). It is crucial to be able to identify our customers on individual level and gather all possible information about them, with the purpose of knowing our market and be able to develop customized, personalized products and services.

For example, a cookie strategically placed on the website visitor's computer can let us know vital information concerning the access speed available: in consequence, if we know the visitor is using a slow connection (eg. dial-up) we will offer a low-volume variation of our website, with reduced graphic content and no multimedia or flash applications. This will ease our customer's experience on our website and he will be prevented from leaving the website on the reason that it takes too long to load its pages.

Personalization can be applied to any component of the Marketing mix; therefore, it is a moderating function.

2. Privacy

Privacy is an element of the mix very much connected to the previous one - personalization. When we gather and store information about our customers and potential customers (therefore, when we perform the personalization part of the e-Marketing mix) a crucial issue arises: that of the way this information will be used, and by whom. A major task to do when implementing an e-Marketing strategy is that of creating and developing a policy upon access procedures to the collected information.

This is a duty and a must for any conscious marketer to consider all aspects of privacy, as long as data are collected and stored, data about individual persons.

Privacy is even more important when establishing the e-Marketing mix since there are many regulations and legal aspects to be considered regarding collection and usage of such information.

3. Customer Service

Customer service is one of the necessary and required activities among the support functions needed in transactional situations.

We will connect the apparition of the customer service processes to the inclusion of the "time" parameter in transactions. When switching from a situational perspective to a relational one, and e-Marketing is mostly based on a relational perspective, the marketer saw himself somehow forced into considering support and assistance on a non-temporal level, permanently, over time.

For these reasons, we should consider the Customer Service function (in its fullest and largest definition) as an essential one within the e-Marketing mix.

As we can easily figure out, the service (or assistance if you wish) can be performed upon any element from the classic 4 P's, hence its moderating character.

4. Community

We can all agree that e-Marketing is conditioned by the existence of this impressive network that the internet is. The merely existence of such a network implies that individuals as well as groups will eventually interact. A group of entities that interact for a common purpose is what we call a "community" and we will soon see why it is of absolute importance to participate, to be part of a community.

The Metcalf law (named after Robert Metcalf) states that the value of a network is given by the number of its components, more exactly the value of a network equals the square of the number of components. We can apply this simple law to communities, since they are a network: we will then conclude that the value of a community rises with the number of its members. This is the power of communities; this is why we have to be a part of it.

The customers / clients of a business can be seen as part of a community where they interact (either independent or influenced by the marketer) - therefore developing a community is a task to be performed by any business, even though it is not always seen as essential.

Interactions among members of such a community can address any of the other functions of e-Marketing, so it can be placed next to other moderating functions.

5. Site

We have seen and agreed that e-Marketing interactions take place on a digital media - the internet. But such interactions and relations also need a proper location, to be available at any moment and from any place - a digital location for digital interactions.

Such a location is what we call a "site", which is the most widespread name for it. It is now the time to mention that the "website" is merely a form of a "site" and should not be mistaken or seen as synonyms. The "site" can take other forms too, such as a Palm Pilot or any other handheld device, for example.

This special location, accessible through all sort of digital technologies is moderating all other functions of the e-Marketing - it is then a moderating function.

6. Security

The "security" function emerged as an essential function of e-Marketing once transactions began to be performed through internet channels.

What we need to keep in mind as marketers are the following two issues on security:

- security during transactions performed on our website, where we have to take all possible precautions that third parties will not be able to access any part of a developing transaction;

- security of data collected and stored, about our customers and visitors.

A honest marketer will have to consider these possible causes of further trouble and has to co-operate with the company's IT department in order to be able to formulate convincing (and true, honest!) messages towards the customers that their personal details are protected from unauthorized eyes.

7. Sales Promotion

At least but not last, we have to consider sales promotions when we build an e-Marketing strategy. Sales promotions are widely used in traditional Marketing as well, we all know this, and it is an excellent efficient strategy to achieve immediate sales goals in terms of volume.

This function counts on the marketer's ability to think creatively: a lot of work and inspiration is required in order to find new possibilities and new approaches for developing an efficient promotion plan.

On the other hand, the marketer needs to continuously keep up with the latest internet technologies and applications so that he can fully exploit them.

To conclude, we have seen that e-Marketing implies new dimensions to be considered aside of those inherited from the traditional Marketing. These dimensions revolve around the concept of relational functions and they are a must to be included in any e-Marketing strategy in order for it to be efficient and deliver results.

e-Marketing Strategy: 7 Dimensions to Consider (the e-Marketing Mix)
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Otilia Otlacan is a young certified professional with expertise in e-Marketing and e-Business, currently working as independent consultant and e-publisher. She developed and teach her own online course in "Principles of e-Marketing" and is also a volunteer Economics teacher.

You can contact her via her personal website at BRAINmarketing.net [http://www.brainmarketing.net] or check out her latest developing Marketing resources project at TeaWithEdge.com

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