Life after a festival: local leadership and the lasting legacy of festivals

This article considers how local leadership capacities can be developed through locally organized festivals and argues that this skill development can be an important legacy of festivals. It draws on the case study of SnowFest, a festival held annually from 2000 to 2003 in a small rural town in New South Wales, Australia. It is argued that festivals provide a useful setting for the development of local leadership capacities. Through reviewing the events leading up to and following SnowFest it was found that seven followers learned new leadership skills through their involvement in SnowFest. Four of these followers had since moved into leadership roles in the community. The particular nature of the leadership of the SnowFest leaders was important in enabling followers to develop their own leadership skills. The article contributes to the growing body of scholarly work that argues the impacts and benefits of locally organized festivals can extend beyond the spatial and temporal limits of the festival event and therefore beyond the scope of typical evaluation tools. The findings of this study are particularly relevant to small rural communities that are negotiating major socioeconomic changes, where effective local leadership has been identified as being crucial to the success of bottom-up community adaptation initiatives

A case of community safety : displacing complex ‘social’ problems in Fortitude Valley

Public dialogue regarding the high concentration of drug use and crime in inner city locations is frequently legitimised through visibility of drug-using populations and a perception of high crime rates. The public space known as the Brunswick Street Mall (Valley mall), located in the inner city Brisbane suburb of Fortitude Valley, has long provided the focal point for discussions regarding the problem of illicit drug use and antisocial behaviour in Brisbane. During the late 1990s a range of stakeholders in Fortitude Valley became mobilised to tackle crime and illicit drugs. In particular they wanted to dismantle popular perceptions of the area as representing the dark and unsafe side of Brisbane. The aim of this campaign was to instil a sense of safety in the area and dislodge Fortitude Valley from its reputation as a =symbolic location of danger‘. This thesis is a case study about an urban site that became contested by the diverse aims of a range of stakeholders who were invested in an urban renewal program and community safety project. This case study makes visible a number of actors that were lured from their existing roles in an indeterminable number of heterogeneous networks in order to create a community safety network. The following analysis of the community safety network emphasises some specific actors: history, ideas, technologies, materialities and displacements. The case study relies on the work of Foucault, Latour, Callon and Law to draw out the rationalities, background contingencies and the attempts to impose order and translate a number of entities into the community safety project in Fortitude Valley. The results of this research show that the community safety project is a case of ontological politics. Specifically the data indicates that both the (reality) problem of safety and the (knowledge) solution to safety were created simultaneously. This thesis explores the idea that while violence continues to occur in the Valley, evidence that community safety got done is located through mapping its displacement and eventual disappearance. As such, this thesis argues that community safety is a =collateral reality‘

Learning fire investigation the clean way:The virtual experience

&lt;span&gt;The effective teaching of fire investigation skills presents logistical challenges because of the difficulty of providing students with access to suitable fire damaged buildings so that they can undertake authentic investigation tasks. At Charles Sturt University (CSU), in the subject JST415, &lt;/span&gt;&lt;em&gt;Fire Investigation Cause and Origin Determination&lt;/em&gt;&lt;span&gt;, the novel approach of providing students with a CD based virtual environment based on the scene of a burned down house, as an alternative to having them undertake investigation of a real fire scene, has been implemented. This paper describes a quantitative and qualitative study exploring the effectiveness of this teaching resource. A key finding from this study was that students felt that the virtual fire investigation task had important advantages over undertaking a real investigation task, even though there were some limitations in the overall degree of realism of the experience. The results also suggested that students found that the visual fidelity and navigation capabilities provided within the environment were quite adequate for carrying out their fire investigation activity. Importantly, students also felt that the ability to revisit the virtual scene as many times as they wanted, at a time convenient to them, gave it advantages over a real investigation task if they were to be provided with only one or the other.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;</jats:p

The early presentation and management of rheumatoid arthritis cases in primary care

Recent NICE guidance has emphasised the importance of early recognition and referral of patients with inflammatory arthritis so that disease modifying treatment can be promptly initiated. The timely identification of such patients, given the large numbers consulting with musculoskeletal complaints, is a considerable challenge and descriptive data from primary care are sparse. Our objective was to examine GP records from three years before to 14 days after the first coded diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis in order to describe the early course and management of the diseas

Understanding the information needs of users of public information about higher education

Report to HEFCE by Oakleigh Consulting and Staffordshire University. "This study's aims were to carry out research into understanding the needs of intended users (primarily prospective students but with some focus on their advisors and employers) of public information on higher education (HE). The work focussed on England, but also took into account Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland where relevant." - Page 1

Regional workforce futures: an analysis of the Great Southern, South West and Wheatbelt regions

The overall aim of the report is to provide an assessment of regional employment dynamics and future labour demand in the Great Southern, South West, and Wheatbelt regions. More specifically, the report: Examines the demographic and economic dynamics driving regional labour markets; Analyses the changing structure of regional labour markets in terms of sector and occupation; Identifies the major challenges facing employers in the regions; Develops projections of labour for demand to 2015 for sectors and occupations within the regions

Street Stops and Broken Windows Revisited: The Demography and Logic of Proactive Policing in a Safe and Changing City

This chapter examines the development of “order maintenance policing” in New York City. It studies the stop-and-frisk activities of New York City police officers by examining temporal and spatial patterns of stops from 1999, 2003, and 2006. Findings reveal that stop rates have increased by 500 percent since 1999 despite little change in crime rates Stop activity was greatest in poor and minority communities, and stop patterns were more closely tied to demographic and social conditions than to disorder or crime. The efficiency of stops, measured as “hit rates,” dropped considerably, with the sharpest declines occurring in minority neighborhoods. Overall, the findings illustrate that the racial-spatial concentration of excess stop activity threatens to undermine police legitimacy and diminish the social good of policing, while doing little to reduce crime or disorder

Knowing Where to Study? Fees, Bursaries and Fair Access

This study investigates the impact of financial considerations on sixteen to twenty year-old students’ decisions about participation in higher education. It focuses on intentions to live at home whilst studying at university and the extent to which bursaries influence institutional choice. The results are based on questionnaire and interview data drawn from a large sample of school and college students from two large urban areas in the Midlands

Strategies to address the complex challenge of improving regional and remote children’s fruit and vegetable consumption

Fruit and vegetables (F&V) are imperative for good health, yet less than one per cent of Australian children consume these food groups in sufficient quantities. As guided by Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), this paper aimed to: (i) understand key informant perspectives of the amount, types and quality of F&V consumed by rural and remote Western Australian (WA) children; and, (ii) determine strategies that could increase F&V consumption among rural and remote WA children. This qualitative study included 20 semi-structured interviews with health, school/youth and food supply workers, focusing on topics including: quantity and type of F&V consumed and strategies to increase children’s consumption. A thematic analysis was conducted using NVivo qualitative data analysis software (Version 10, 2014. QSR International Pty Ltd., Doncaster, Victoria, Australia). Key informants reported children consumed energy-dense nutrient-poor foods in place of F&V. Strategy themes included: using relevant motivators for children to increase their preference for F&V (i.e., gaming approach, SCT construct of ‘expectations’); empowering community-driven initiatives (i.e., kitchen gardens, SCT construct of ‘environment’); increasing food literacy across settings (i.e., food literacy skills, SCT construct of ‘behavioural capacity’); developing salient messages and cooking tips that resonate with parents (i.e., parent newsletters, SCT construct of ‘self-control’); increasing F&V availability, safety, and convenience (i.e., school provision); and, considering the impact of role models that extend beyond the family (i.e., relatable role models, SCT construct of ‘observational learning’). Overall, a comprehensive strategy that incorporates relevant motivators for children and families, supports local initiatives, reinforces the range of role models that are involved with children and creates healthier environments, is required to increase F&V consumption among children

The Impact of a Canine-Assisted Reading Program on Readers Needing Extra Practice

Canines can provide emotional support, create a nonjudgmental environment, facilitate positive social interactions, and shape student behavior. This study investigated the impact of a canine-assisted reading program on four second-grade students\u27 reading fluency and attitudes toward reading. Oral reading fluency (ORF) was measured using ORF probes, and students\u27 attitudes toward reading were measured with the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey. Although ORF skills did not improve significantly following the program, students\u27 attitudes toward reading did. Implications regarding innovative strategies for reading fluency programs, including canine-assisted methods, are discussed, with emphasis on the importance of maintaining reading enjoyment among readers needing extra practice