Non-Racing Writings
Audio |
Visual Images |
There are many reasons to vote |
|
Vote for a cleaner planet |
Earth, solar, wind power |
Vote for a safer world |
Two Military photos |
Vote for an affordable education |
Diploma & $ signs |
Vote for a strong economy |
Chart up, stock market |
a good job market |
Skyscrapers, Shake hands |
And the ability to afford a nice place to live. |
Apartment, living room |
The person who wins the Presidential election will make decisions that will affect every aspect of your life. |
Show all slides again |
Whether you choose Democrat |
Obama |
or Republican |
McCain |
The choice is yours |
donkey & elephant |
You have the power to help change the world |
Young group of people reaching toward the planet |
when you vote |
Voting booth. |
To find out where to vote in your area- visit vote411.com. That’s vote411.com. |
|
Vote November 4th . and make a difference. |
Vote button –November 4th |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Recycling at Rider University
by Robin Ervin
Several five-gallon plastic jugs of fresh yellow cooking oil sit in the food storeroom. Freshly prepared salads and pizza pies sit on warming shelves awaiting hungry students. Row upon row of soda in plastic bottles similarly waits in refrigerated units to be bought and consumed. They all have one thing in common; in a short period of time they will be considered garbage.
Daly’s and Cranberry’s use an average of 80-100 gallons of oil combined, each week. Once the oil was a clean, pretty yellow. Now it is old, brown and filled with small particles of food. Food that was once carefully cooked and prepped for serving to customers is now garbage because its shelf life time has expired. Plastic bottles of soda, now emptied, are tossed as refuse.
Everything that was so recently new is now consigned to the refuse heap as unwanted garbage. This is a major problem in the food service departments everywhere.
The food service department at Rider University however, is working towards leaving less of an impact on the environment and is making great strides toward sustainability.
The two cafés at Rider filter the oil twice a day to remove food particles and we replace the oil every three days, at the longest; earlier if needed. The used oil is then carried from the kitchen area in a pail to a container outside behind the café and deposited in an oil vat dumpster.
The black, 3 ft high and 3 x 4 foot in diameter, used oil container looks like a small square dumpster. A smaller sister to the large green 5 ft high 4x4 dumpsters used for trash and recyclables that are located nearby. There is one used oil container each located behind both Daly’s and Cranberry’s. Upon lifting the lid and looking inside the oil vat, no blast of noxious smell escapes as it would upon opening a garbage can lid. There is a barely noticeable smell when the container lid is lifted. The waste oil in appearance looks like a medium brown slightly lumpy goo, with the consistency of watery oatmeal.
The Waste Oil Recycling Inc. comes every two weeks with a truck, connects a vacuum hose to the container and vacuums the oil out.
Melissa Greenberg, Rider’s sustainability coordinator is the main person responsible for the recycling movement at Rider University.
“A lot of people may be surprised to learn is that all of our fryer grease is picked up for free by a company called Waste Oil Recyclers, said Greenberg. “They then convert the waste oil into biofuel for profit.”
Recycling the waste cooking oil is just one of the many ways that Rider University is becoming more planet-friendly. Old electronic equipment and computers are sent out to an electronics recycling company. Recycling bins for paper and plastic bottles frequent the halls of the campus.
As prominent as the recycling effort appears at Rider, Greenberg believes that more can be done. She and her staff are working at increasing students and faculty awareness on the impact they have on the planet and to show the campus ways to be more environmentaly-friendly both on campus and in their homes off campus.
One of the biggest problem facing Rider’s recycling effort is educating people about the importance of recycling and how to decide if something is trash or recyclable.
“It’s ridiculous how much trash goes into a landfill every week that could have been reprocessed into something useful!” exclaims Greenberg. “Sometimes individuals will without thinking throw trash into recycling or recycling into the trash. Sometimes it’s a matter of a person being unsure whether an item is recyclable, so they just throw it into the trash. “I’ve noticed that people on campus are doing a much better job sorting their
recyclables and being aware of the impact they have on the environment, but we still have a long way to go.”
Currently the sustainability office is having posters printed that will explain what can and cannot be recycled.
“These posters will be posted in every Greek house and residence hall,” explains Greenberg. “The posters will spell out what items are recyclable and what items are not.” “For example, we now collect plastics for recycling that have the numbers 1 thru 7 on them. These numbers can be found on the bottom of the plastic container inside a triangle.”
Along with these plastic containers, cans, bottles and almost any type of paper can be recycled. Items like pizza boxes, paper towels, napkins or tissues and food cans cannot be recycled.
The process of collecting the recycling starts with small bins that are emptied every day into the various larger recycling dumpsters behind the major campus buildings.
There are three main dumpster locations. One is behind Daly’s dining hall. One is behind Cranberry’s and the other is behind the campus. There are three large, green 4 X 5 ft dumpsters, two for trash and one is clearly marked for recycling bottles and cardboard.
Waste Management empties these recycling dumpsters four times a week and takes the refuse to a nearby recycling plant.
“We are doing a lot more than people think we are doing,” Greenberg said. “A lot of the effort is behind the scenes.”
Currently Greenberg researching a way to further reduce Rider’s impact on the landfills by finding ways to repurpose the campus’ waste food.
“One option would be to have it sent to a composting plant in Woodbridge NJ,” said Greenberg. “Another would be to buy a composting machine for Rider. The resulting compost could then be used on campus.” “Ideally, if we went that route, Rider could then either sell the remaining compost or ask the local farms if they would pick it up because if we started to compose our food waste, we would produce more compost than we could possibly use.”
References:
Melissa Greenberg, sustainability coordinator -896-5000 ext 7559
Email: megreenberg@rider.edu
K&K Industries Racing
50 Central Ave
Trenton, N.J. 08618
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Please Contact:
November, 28 2008 Tom or Robin Ervin
(609) 882-6172
Local Microstock Champion to Compete in 2009 Atlantic City Champ Car Race.
EWING, N.J. - Local microstock champion Tom Ervin will be entered in the upcoming motorsports extravaganza at Boardwalk Hall racing a K&K Industries #99x champ kart, according to a spokesman from the K&K racing team.
John Kazmierski, President of K&K Industries race team, recently purchased a champ kart for his driver to race at Atlantic City Motorsports show that will be held on January 16-17 2009. Ervin won the feature race in one of Kamierski’s microstocks at the Small Car Nationals at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City in Jan. 2006. In 2007, Ervin raced Don and Kevin Smith’s #49 champ kart at Boardwalk Hall and raced his way into the feature event.
“Last year was the first time I raced a champ kart.” Ervin states, “ This year, I hope to improve over last year’s performance.”
Ervin started racing for John Kazmierski’s Ewing based K&K Industries race team in 1989 at Pine Brook Speedway in N.J. Since then Ervin has amassed more than 100 feature wins and has won 24 microstock championship titles.
“I looking forward to seeing what Tom will do in my champ kart.” Says Kazmierski, “He is an amazing driver who can drive the wheels off anything.”
When not racing, Ervin works as the district media technician for the Lawrence School District. His wife Robin is a freelance racing reporter.
“The competition to just qualify for the Champ kart feature will be fierce.” States Ervin, “I’m just going to go out there and do my best.”
For further information contact K&K team owner John Kazmierski at 609 882-8927 or Tom Ervin at 609 882-6172.
By Robin Ervin (College Project written 2009)
TRENTON, N.J.- -Formerly known as the Sovereign Bank Arena, the Sun National Bank Center has made its name as an entertainment center for all ages and interests recently celebrated its tenth anniversary. The Sun National Bank Center hosts a cornucopia of cultural events that run the gamut, from children’s shows to Lingerie football. Some of the events that have appears at this venue include Disney on Ice, W.W.E. wrestling, rodeo, classical music performances by the Boston Pops orchestra, stand-up comedians, Trenton Titans hockey, off-Broadway shows, NCAA basketball and much more.
In addition to planning the coming events the staff also had to deal with the facility’s recent name change. Every item with the arena’s name on it needed to be changed; the building’s signs, staff shirts, brochures, promotional items and all the artwork that went out to advertise the upcoming shows in December and January needed to be changed.
The hours of work that has gone into changing the arena’s name is mostly unnoticed by the public. Those who drive by may notice that the name on the building has changed and think little more about the topic. The public thinks even less about the hive of activity that goes on behind the scenes to bring the events to the arena.
As the people stream into the center on the day of an event and eagerly take their seats, they talk about many things as they eagerly anticipate the beginning of the show. What not many people think about is what was involved in bringing the event to the center. The Sun National Bank Center is a success today because of the anonymous people behind the scenes who have helped make the Center the success.
Gina Solimando is one of a staff of dedicated people who work tirelessly behind the scenes to market and host the center’s events. Solimando is listed as the Public Relations/Group Sales Coordinator at Sun Center but her job entails a little bit of everything; marketing, PR, graphic designing, customer relations and group sales. The hours she works are varied and every changing. There is no set schedule, everyday poses a different set of challenges and she likes it that way.
“What I love most about my position is meeting various different personalities and the excitement of the various events, said Solimando. “While it’s sometimes a challenge but it’s never boring. It’s always something different. One day it’s a comedian, the next day it’s a Broadway show, the next, its girls playing football in their lingerie.” “It’s not unusual for our staff to work on up to ten different events in one day doing artwork, phones, press releases, mailing tickets and so on.”
“Doing the tenth anniversary of the Center was special for me both professionally and personally, Solimando recalls. “We had the press here for the street renaming outside the center and it was the same day as our W.W.E. event so we had some star wrestlers pose by the sign.” We made it this whole press conference deal, which was very exciting.” “On a personal note, I remember when the center opened. I attended the first concert here. While many of the staff commutes from Philly or Bucks County to here every day, I’ve lived in Ewing all my life.”
The challenge of doing public relations is that by its very nature, it can’t ever be the same. Even though the same event may come to the center every year, the event has to seem fresh, new and exciting. As exciting and fun it is to be a public relations person in an entertainment venue like the Sun Center can be, it’s is not without its difficulty and challenges.
The promoters of each event determine how publicity an event will have. For example, the promoter for the Lingerie Football League (LFL) wanted very little promotion. Other events like Broadway in Trenton have a lot of promotion.
“What was unusual about the LFL event was that the promoter didn’t want us to do any marketing of the event,” said Solimando. “They told us that the sales will come the week of the game. That’s the way it is sometimes.” Solimando pauses. “Sometimes the promoters just want to do their own thing.”
“In contrast, we’ve been very hands on with the Broadway in Trenton series,” said Solimando. “We’ve created all kinds of art for that and I’ve been writing all kinds of press releases to get people involved with it. We’re working on getting interviews and media hits on it (the series). That’s where a lot of my time is going now.”
Sun Center deals with all types of promoters from giants like AEG Live, which has many musical acts as clients, to small promoters of single acts. Comedian Jeff Dunham and the World Famous Lipizzaner Stallions are examples of events that are the sole clients of a single promotion company.
“It’s a challenge to learn the quirks of the various promoters and how they think and how they work,” said Solimando. “We have to coax the promoters, especially the ones we’ve haven’t dealt with before, into seeing that we know the Trenton area best and we know what works here, explains Solimando. “ We are a very unique market. Were not Philly, were not New York City. We get people from out of the area and they want to get something in the Philly paper and we have to say, ‘you can’t do that with us (the Sun Center).’ So it’s always a challenge to get through to the promoters and get them to listen to us.”
The effort that goes into creating customer-packed performances at the center starts with the process of scouting for acts and events to perform at the center. The artists who go on national tours do not just arbitrarily decide to play at the Sun National Bank Center in Trenton. The center has to approach the larger acts, make them aware of the value of bringing their show to the Trenton area and ask them to come to the venue.
“Our general manager stays on top of what events are starting their tours, explains Solimando. “It’s his job to approach them, make bids on why they should come here and ask them to come here. In contrast, the smaller family-type shows approach us to have their events at our facility because they know that we are here. They know this area and they know what we have to offer.”
Typically, the busiest time of the year for the Sun Center is from September until June due to the fact that many of the smaller acts the center hosts prefer to be outdoors in the warm summer months. Once an act agrees to perform at the Sun National Bank Center, the real work begins. The Center plans the events months in advance to make sure that everything will run smoothly at showtime and promotes each event according to the wishes of the event’s promoter.
Among the many events the marketing staff is currently working on are January’s Disney on Ice, the ICE racing motorsports show in February and the Harlem Globetrotters show in March.
The big payoff for all the staff’s hours of marketing, advertising and public relations efforts comes on the day of the event when the customers eagerly stream into the facility, line up at the concession stands and fill in the seats at the center.
“It’s a great accomplishment to look at the packed center and say ‘Wow! I did that,” said Solimando with a broad smile. “Generally, once everyone is in his or her seats we can relax. Our job during show time is actually very minimal, with the exception of media that may show up at the start of the show. We don’t do much other than meet and greet the customers. This gives us a chance to watch some of the shows and relax a bit unless a customer needs assistance. “
For more information about the Sun National Bank Center and its upcoming events, visit www.sunnationalbankcenter.com or call 1-800-298-4200