Most people mistakenly believe that purchasing insurance through an insurance agent is more expensive than purchasing it directly from an insurer and this can be a major oversight. Insurance agents do not cost more; they can help you find insurance discounts!Insurance specialists know what insurance package to write your policy under. This skill can prove to be very important when it comes to insurance discounts. A surprising amount of insurance seekers do not know that indemnity companies base their rates based on varied factors. The same person can find a relatively low rate with one company and a relatively high price with a different company just based on the differing items each take into consideration. Knowledgable insurance agents can tell what company would provide the best rates for each consumer and save you the inconvenience of comparing rates.Insurance Professionals can guide you about how to lower rates. By having intricate knowledge of how the insurance ratings work, an agent can inform you what choices you have for saving money, like taking a safe driving class. They can also advise about raising or lowering coverage to lower prices. Insurance brokers know how valuable low premiums are to their customers, and they are always willing to help you save money. Brokers will become aware of price affecting changes as they become available and will notify you accordingly. A majority of brokerages, for instance, will check competing rates for their clients every renewal. That way if another company is able to reduce your premium, they will let you know about it at once. This is the sort of experience that will only be known by a local broker familiar with the insurance marketplace in your area.In my opinion the greatest feature provided by a local licensed agent is the knowledge they offer to be sure you are not inappropriately covered. Having appropriate coverage can keep you out of the poor house. It could be the most important choice your family will ever make.
Surveys of self-employed individuals consistently show that one of their major concerns is the ability to buy affordable health insurance. One in 4 self-employed persons has no health insurance today even tough more than 70% of these people could afford to buy high quality health insurance if they had an effective buying strategy.1. Have a budget and set realistic expectations. Realize that the purpose of insurance is to cover unexpected and otherwise unmanageable expenses. Most good plans cover “ordinary and necessary medical expenses” but not your health club membership. Look for coverage that provides protection but avoid being drawn in by the marketing sizzle. Do not buy health insurance with the primary intention of picking up the cost of your existing ordinary medical expenses like prescriptions, routine dental care and annual check-ups. Health plans exist for almost every budget. Remember that no one is excluded from receiving medical care for an acute condition because of the type of their health insurance plan, but rather medical treatment may be denied because they dont have any insurance coverage at all.2. Realize that there are trade-offs in every health plan. The lowest priced high quality health insurance plans excluded coverage for pre-existing medical conditions and require periodic re-enrollment. It is often better to take the less expensive insurance any pay for small uncovered expenses yourself. But if you need to find full takeover coverage, then you cannot expect to be offered the insurers lowest rating.3. Think short term. Most individual health insurance policies for self-employed persons actually stay in force less than a year. Buy the plan that offers you the best deal right now and do not worry about whether it will be available in a year. In 12 months, a whole new generation of health plans will be available. It would not be smart to keep the same plan for more than two years because new plans are evolving rapidly. A plan that you bought more than 2 years old would not likely represent the best value for you today. 4. Use student medical plans and foreign travel plans if you qualify. These plans offer better deals than traditional coverage.5. Choose a higher deductible. By taking a $1000 deductible, you will save more than $1000 in premium payments over a year’s time. This should be an easy decision from a mathematical viewpoint, but still many people buy policies with a low deductible. It makes no financial sense to pay an insurance company $1000 in premiums for medical care that you could buy for $600 cash.6. Choose indemnity type coverage and avoid HMOs. This lets you and the doctor that you choose maintain control of your own medical care. This saves money in the long run by allowing the best course of treatment from the outset of any medical condition.7. Use the Internet. Technology now allow for online pricing and enrollment with policies issued within 24 hours. Savings have resulted in lower premium prices. Some plans offer premiums as low as $25 per month for catastrophic coverage for young people.8. Avoid the scams. Unfortunately, self-employed individuals are a prime target market of numerous health plan marketing scams. State insurance departments continuously shut down disreputable plans, but new ones sprout up just as quickly. Well-established and reputable health plans are obtained from well-established and reputable distributors. Good health plans do not use multi-level marketing schemes. All individuals handling your health plans enrollment should be licensed, bonded and insured. Beware of individuals who claim that they do not need an insurance license in your state or can not provide evidence of errors and omission coverage or a bond issued by an insurance company. Remember the old adage if it sounds too good to be true. This certainly applies when shopping for health insurance.
There are quite many people who assume that custom home building is expensive and therefore decide to buy ready-to-move-in flats and condos. But this is not true. Home building can be affordable and can be easily customized to fit within your specific budget.
For affordable home building, you can start looking for home building design ideas and plans on your own instead of hiring a professional to do the same. Engineers who provide home construction plans and lay-outs usually charge a good amount of fees. The Internet is flooded with home construction plans in traditional style, neo-classical style, Edwardian style, European style, modern, contemporary style, and much more. You can choose the one that suits your specific housing needs and lifestyle. Another way to save on your home building is to explore various options available in the market before deciding on any individual thing. This will include your choice of construction material, such as bricks, cement, wood, glass, steel, aluminium, and fiber. Choose the construction material that is the cheapest of all, and at the same time, is durable, easy-to-maintain, and long lasting. Follow the same when deciding upon the flooring material and material to be used for windows, doors, and walls of your home. You can buy tiles made of sandstone, limestone, and many other artificial, man-made materials, if you can’t afford to buy marble and granite. Such tiles look as pretty as the ones made out of granite, though they are cheaper in price. Similarly, for the windows and doors, you may go for vinyl as it is cheaper than real wood. For affordable home building, you may also hire a professional home construction company. A home construction company has years of experience in residential home building and is therefore able to offer quick and efficient results to its clients. As it will handle everything on its own, you can ensure that there are no unnecessary wastages. An experienced home construction company knows from where and how you can get the best, yet reasonably priced home construction and home decor material. You can have a luxurious home without spending all your hard-earned money. For affordable home building, as well as luxury home construction, you may log on to mervynstores.com Here you will also get cheap modern home furniture and cheap home appliances.
Two inquiries into the seizure of Royal Navy personnel by Iran in March 2007 have found that the capture was not a result of “a single failure or any particular individual’s human error, but rather of an unfortunate accumulation of factors” and that there was a “collective failure of judgement” in allowing those involved to receive payment for discussing the event with the media.
The first report, by Lieutenant General Sir Rob Fulton, looked at “operational circumstances, consequences, and implications of the detention of the personnel”. The second, by Tony Hall, former BBC Director of News and now Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House, examined the Ministry of Defence’s (MOD) handling of the media attention in relation to the incident and has been published on the MOD website. The report by General Fulton is not available to the public, as it is classified because it deals with operational issues.
General Fulton identified weaknesses in training, communications and the handling of intelligence and suggested improvements in training for boarding operations.
The Hall report found that the poor judgement in allowing members of the armed forces to talk to the media was not the failure of a single individual, but Defence Secretary Des Browne accepted this as his responsibility, and has apologised for this error. He said that personnel would not be allowed to sell their stories in future.
In a statement to Parliament, Des Browne said that the Ministry of Defence were committed to implementing the recommendations made in the reports and that he expects “the great majority to be implemented by the end of this year”.
One hundred and twenty detainees at an immigration removal centre in Oxford, UK, are on hunger strike. The protest started when some detainees refused breakfast on Wednesday 14th June 2006. A letter from the hunger strikers explaining why they are seeking to draw attention to their plight in this way has been reproduced in full below.
Those detained at the centre are mostly men who have sought asylum in the UK and whose asylum applications have been rejected. These people are then held without knowing how long they will be detained for – some end up being held for many years while awaiting deportation.
The removal centre, known as Campsfield, or Campsfield House is approximately 5 miles north of Oxford and has been in operation since 1993. It was managed on behalf of the UK Government by Global Solutions Limited, until may 2006 when it was taken on by GEO UK, the centre has a capacity of 198. Only males are detained at Campsfield.
According to the campaign group Barbed Wire Britain Over 2,600 individuals, mostly asylum seekers, are detained indefinitely in the UK without trial and with no automatic right to bail.
There have been reports in the UK press of the state taking people to detention centres without notice, in the early hours of the morning using excessively heavy handed tactics, taking children out of schools and separating families.
Many UK people and politicians express their disgust at the way detainees are treated, yet it continues. Perhaps this action by the detainees themselves will further highlight their plight and result in more UK electors writing to their MPs and demanding improvements to the way in which rejected asylum seekers are treated.
“We are detainees at Campsfield removal centre in Oxford. Most of us have been here for a long while now. There are people who have been detained for up to two years and down to three months. We are cramped in here like animals. We are treated like animals and moved around different detention centres like animals. The immigration service have taken husbands from their families and taken people who ran away from persecution in their various countries, and dumped everyone in here.
Once you are put in here the immigration service forget you. There are detainees who have applied to go back to their own countries that are still being held here for months without any news about their cases, just so that the private security companies get more money.
Detainees are asked to seek asylum and then refused. The immigration service also ask detainees to apply for bail. When you get a bail hearing date all of a sudden they serve you with removal papers that are not valid. There are many of these situations. In most cases the immigration service don’t take you to your court hearings. And then they tell the judges you refused to turn up, just so the hearing goes ahead in your absence. Many detainees have been served with removal papers and travel documents but nothing happens on the removal day.
Campsfield has become a slave house. We detainees are treated like slaves, to do odd jobs for officers. Detainees are handcuffed to see doctors or dentists in hospitals or clinic appointments. We have some racist security officers who make racist comments to detainees and go out of their way to make you feel like committing suicide. Detainees have to be at the point of death before they get to see the doctors.
The food is not worth eating. Even dogs would refuse to eat what we eat. But we don’t have a choice; every single day we eat the same food (the food we eat is rice, chicken, sandwiches, and left-over eggs)”.
“120 Immigration Detainees on Hunger Strike at Campsfield IRC” — Oxford Indymedia, June 14, 2006
Men can choose from many hairstyles. Aside from those that has been famous for some time, some hairstyles will work better for others, for the reason that people have different shape faces and lifestyle. Therefore, here are a few hairstyles that men can take into consideration.
The Buzz cut
The buzz cut is really the most uncomplicated cut without a doubt; this cut is a simple selection that will definitely go well in making a man’s jaw line appear a lot stronger. In addition to that, you can hide the receding hairlines and even those unwanted bald spots..
A hairstyle that is best for men that have a round or oblong face, and will add up a classy, organized confident and in charge persona.
This is a hairstyle that has a messy but structured appearance, along with a heavy top-layered look, which makes it a hairstyle free of maintenance. The great beauty of the long and layered hairstyle is the assumed look that you have not put any effort with it.
This hairstyle will suit men that have square, oblong and rectangular faces. You can be the next Johnny Depp with this look, creative, down to earth and definitely trendy.
The Textured bed head
A hairstyle that was trended by David Beckham, with that delicately tousled look, which had begun from a simple and clean man’s haircut. The sides and the back are shorter, while the left is longer at the top. A hairstyle that is in fact simple and stylish, all you need is pomade; add your careful flow and volume your hair to the top and you have it!
The square faced men have the blessing of wearing this hairstyle best. Trendy yet somehow refined, and even if it is, a hairstyle that is a bit rebellious but it still is classy.
The Curls
The curls are a hairstyle that is being embraced for quite some time now, especially for men who naturally have curly hair. Before men who had curly hair did whatever they can to straighten out their hair, but now they have learned not to fight against their curls but instead to go along with it. There are long and disheveled cuts for those who have the bigger, looser curls, and for those who have short, they can try the one length tidy cut for tighter and smaller curls. You can apply some texture cream, pomade or mousse if you are ready to go.
Any type of face shape can pull the curls hairstyle, but it will depend upon the size of your curls, and if it will be proportional to your facial features.
These days, there are a lot of hairstyles to choose from, and what is good about men’s hairstyles is that it will always evolve, and would be a revolution, so it is rather safe to expect that you can keep the hairstyle you have chosen for as long as you like.
File photo of Fleetwood Mac from 2009 Image: Matt Becker.
Pop band Fleetwood Mac has cancelled its upcoming tour of Australia and New Zealand following diagnosis of their bassist John McVie with cancer.
The tour was expected to begin on November 10 at the Sydney Entertainment Centre and continue through the Hunter Valley, Geelong, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth over the following two weeks.
The band’s spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg did not specify what type of cancer Mc Vie is receiving treatment for, nor did she comment on the extent of the disease. A statement on the band’s website apologized to fans for the cancellation of the tour and explained that Mc Vie has been scheduled to receive treatment for during the scheduled dates.
“We are sorry to not be able to play these Australian and New Zealand dates,” the statement read on their official Facebook page. “We hope our Australian and New Zealand fans as well as Fleetwood Mac fans everywhere will join us in wishing John and his family all the best.”
Fleetwood Mac had just finished touring Europe. The band is scheduled to perform in Las Vegas on December 30.
Russ Aegard is running for the Green Party of Ontario in the Ontario provincial election, in the Thunder Bay-Atikokan riding. Wikinews’ Nick Moreau interviewed him regarding his values, his experience, and his campaign.
Stay tuned for further interviews; every candidate from every party is eligible, and will be contacted. Expect interviews from Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, New Democratic Party members, Ontario Greens, as well as members from the Family Coalition, Freedom, Communist, Libertarian, and Confederation of Regions parties, as well as independents.
Sunday, Wikinews sat down with Australian blind Paralympic skier Jessica Gallagher and her guide Eric Bickerton who are participating in a national team training camp in Vail, Colorado.
Wikinews reporters LauraHale and Hawkeye7 interview Australian Paralympic skier Jessica Gallagher and her guide Eric BickertonJessica GallagherImage: Australian Paralympic Committee/Australian Sports Commission.Eric BickertonImage: Bidgee.
((Wikinews)) This is Jessica Gallagher. She’s competing at the IPC NorAm cup this coming week.
Jessica Gallagher: I’m not competing at Copper Mountain.
((WN)) You’re not competing?
Jessica Gallagher: No.
((WN)) You’re just here?
Jessica Gallagher: We’re in training. I’ve got a race at Winner Park, but we aren’t racing at Copper.
((WN)) So. Your guide is Eric Bickerton, and he did win a medal in women’s downhill blind skiing.
Jessica Gallagher: Yes!
((WN)) Despite the fact that he is neither a woman nor blind.
Jessica Gallagher: No, he loves telling people that he was the first Australian female Paralympic woman to win a medal. One of the ironies.
((WN)) The IPC’s website doesn’t list guides on their medal things. Are they doing that because they don’t want — you realise this is not all about you per se — Is it because they are trying to keep off the able bodied people to make the Paralympics seem more pure for people with disabilities?
Jessica Gallagher: Look, I don’t know but I completely disagree if they don’t have the guides up there. Because it’s pretty plain and simple: I wouldn’t be skiing if it wasn’t with him. Being legally blind you do have limitations and that’s just reality. We’re certainly able to overcome most of them. And when it comes to skiing on a mountain the reason I’m able to overcome having 8 per cent vision is that I have a guide. So I think it’s pretty poor if they don’t have the information up there because he does as much work as I do. He’s an athlete as much as I am. If he crashes we’re both out. He’s drug tested. He’s as important as I am on a race course. So I would strongly hope that they would put it up there. Here’s Eric!
Eric Bickerton: Pleased to met you.
((WN)) We’ve been having a great debate about whether or not you’ve won a medal in women’s blind downhill skiing.
Eric Bickerton: Yes, I won it. I’ve got it.
((WN)) I found a picture of you on the ABC web site. Both of you were there, holding your medals up. The IPC’s web site doesn’t credit you.
Jessica Gallagher: I’m surprised by that.
Eric Bickerton: That’s unusual, yeah.
((WN)) One of the things that was mentioned earlier, most delightful about you guys is you were racing and “we were halfway down the course and we lost communication!” How does a blind skier deal with…
Jessica Gallagher: Funny now. Was bloody scary.
((WN)) What race was that?
Jessica Gallagher: It was the Giant Slalom in Vancouver at the Paralympics. Actually, we were talking about this before. It’s one of the unique aspects of wearing headsets and being able to communicate. All the time while we were on the mountain earlier today, Eric had a stack and all he could hear as he was tumbling down was me laughing.
Eric Bickerton: Yes… I wasn’t feeling the love.
Jessica Gallagher: But um… what was the question please?
((WN)) I couldn’t imagine anything scarier than charging down the mountain at high speed and losing that communications link.
Jessica Gallagher: The difficulty was in the Giant Slalom, it was raining, and being used to ski racing, I had never experienced skiing in the rain, and as soon as I came out of the start hut I lost all my sight, which is something that I had never experienced before. Only having 8 per cent you treasure it and to lose all of it was a huge shock. And then when I couldn’t hear Eric talking I realised that our headsets had malfunctioned because they’d actually got rain into them. Which normally wouldn’t happen in the mountains because it would be snow. So it was the scariest moment of my life. Going down it was about getting to the bottom in one piece, not racing to win a medal, which was pretty difficult I guess or frustrating, given that it was the Paralympics.
((WN)) I asked the standing guys upstairs: who is the craziest amongst all you skiers: the ones who can’t see, the ones on the mono skis, or the one-legged or no-armed guys. Who is the craziest one on the slopes?
Jessica Gallagher: I think the completely blind. If I was completely blind I wouldn’t ski. Some of the sit skiers are pretty crazy as well.
((WN)) You have full control over your skis though. You have both legs and both arms.
Jessica Gallagher: True, but you’ve got absolutely no idea where you’re going. And you have to have complete reliance on a person. Trust that they are able to give you the right directions. That you are actually going in the right direction. It’s difficult with the sight that I have but I couldn’t imagine doing it with no sight at all.
((WN)) The two of you train together all the time?
Eric Bickerton: Pretty well, yes.
Jessica Gallagher: Yes, everything on snow basically is together. One of the difficult things I guess is we have to have that 100 per cent communication and trust between one another and a lot of the female skiers on the circuit, their guide is their husband. That’s kind of a trust relationship. Eric does say that at times it feels like we’re married, but…
Eric Bickerton: I keep checking for my wallet.
Jessica Gallagher: …it’s always about constantly trying to continue to build that relationship so that eventually I just… You put your life in his hands and whatever he says, you do, kind of thing.
((WN)) Of the two sport, winter sports and summer sports person, how do you find that balance between one sport and the other sport?
Jessica Gallagher: It’s not easy. Yeah, it’s not easy at all. Yesterday was my first day on snow since March 16, 2010. And that was mainly because of the build up obviously for London and the times when I was going to ski I was injured. So, to not have skied for that long is obviously a huge disadvantage when all the girls have been racing the circuit since… and it’s vice versa with track and field. So I’ve got an amazing team at the Victorian Institute of Sport. I call them my little A Team of strength and mission coach, physio, osteopath, soft tissue therapist, sport psychologist, dietician. Basically everyone has expertise in the area and we come together and having meetings and plan four years ahead and say at the moment Sochi’s the goal, but Rio’s still in the back of the head, and knowing my body so well now that I’ve done both sports for five years means that I can know where they’ve made mistakes, and I know where things have gone really well, so we can plan ahead for that and prepare so that the things that did go wrong won’t happen again. To make sure that I get to each competition in peak tone.
((WN)) What things went wrong?
Jessica Gallagher: Mainly injuries. So, that’s the most difficult thing with doing two sports. Track and field is an explosive power; long jump and javelin are over four to six seconds of maximum effort. Ski racing, you are on a course, for a minute to a minute and a half, so it’s a speed endurance event. And the two couldn’t be further apart in terms of the capabilities and the capacities that you need as an athlete. So one of the big things I guess, after the Vancouver campaign, being in ski boots for so long, I had lost a lot of muscle from my calves so they weren’t actually firing properly, and when you’re trying to run and jump and you don’t have half of your leg working properly it makes it pretty difficult to jump a good distance. Those kind of things. So I’m skiing now but when I’m in a gym doing recovery and rehab or prehab stuff, I’ve got calf raising, I’ve got hamstring exercises because I know they’re the weaker areas that if I’m not working on at the moment they’re two muscle groups that don’t get worked during ski. That I need to do the extra stuff on the side so that when I transition back to track and field I don’t have any soft tissue injuries like strains because of the fact that I know they’re weaker so…
((WN)) Do you prefer one over the other? Do you say “I’d really rather be out on the slopes than jogging and jumping the same…
Jessica Gallagher: I get asked that a lot. I think I love them for different reasons and I hate them for different reasons so I think at the end of the day I would prefer ski racing mainly because of the lifestyle. I think ski racing is a lot harder than track and field to medal in but I love the fact that I get to come to amazing resorts and get to travel the world. But I think, at the end of the day I get the best of both worlds. By the time my body has had enough of cold weather and of traveling I get to go home and be in the summer and be on a track in such a stable environment, which is something that visually impaired people love because it’s familiar and you know what to expect. Whereas in this environment it’s not, every racecourse we use is completely different.
((WN)) I heard you were an average snowboarder. How disappointed were you when you when they said no to your classifications?
Jessica Gallagher: Very disappointed! For Sochi you mean?
((WN)) Yes
Jessica Gallagher: Yeah. I mean we weren’t really expecting it. Mainly because they’ve brought in snowboard cross, and I couldn’t imagine four blind athletes and four guides going down the same course together at the same time. That would be a disaster waiting to happen. But I guess having been a snowboarder for… as soon as we found snowboarding had been put in, I rang Steve, the head coach, and said can we do snowboarding? When I rang Steve I said, don’t worry, I’ve already found out that Eric can snowboard. It would have been amazing to have been able to compete in both. Maybe next games.
((WN)) So you also snowboard?
Eric Bickerton: Yes.
((WN)) So she does a lot of sports and you also do a crazy number of sports?
Eric Bickerton: Uh, yeah?
((WN)) Summer sports as well as winter sports?
Eric Bickerton: Me?
((WN)) Yes.
Eric Bickerton: Through my sporting career. I’ve played rugby union, rugby league, soccer, early days, I played for the Australian Colts, overseas, rugby union. I spend most of my life sailing competitively and socially. Snow skiing. Yeah. Kite boarding and trying to surf again.
((WN)) That’s a lot of sports! Does Jessica need guides for all of them?
Eric Bickerton: I’ve played sport all my life. I started with cricket. I’ve played competition squash. I raced for Australia in surfing sailing. Played rugby union.
((WN)) Most of us have played sport all our lives, but there’s a difference between playing sport and playing sport at a high level, and the higher level you go, the more specialized you tend to become. And here [we’re] looking at two exceptions to that.
Eric Bickerton: I suppose that I can round that out by saying to you that I don’t think that I would ever reach the pinnacle. I’m not prepared to spend ten years dedicated to that one thing. And to get that last ten per cent or five percent of performance at that level. That’s what you’ve got to do. So I’ll play everything to a reasonable level, but to get to that really, really highest peak level you have to give up everything else.
((WN)) When you go to the pub, do your mates make fun of you for having a medal in women’s blind skiing?
Eric Bickerton: No, not really.
Jessica Gallagher: Usually they say “I love it!” and “This is pretty cool!”
Eric Bickerton: We started at the Olympics. We went out into the crowd to meet Jess’ mum, and we had our medals. There were two of us and we were waiting for her mum to come back and in that two hour period there was at least a hundred and fifty people from all over the world who wore our medals and took photographs. My medal’s been all over Australia.
((WN)) Going to a completely different issue, blind sports have three classifications, that are medical, unlike everybody else, who’ve got functional ability [classifications]. You’ve got the only medical ones. Do you think the blind classifications are fair in terms of how they operate? Or should there be changes? And how that works in terms of the IPC?
Jessica Gallagher: Yeah. I think the system they’ve got in place is good, in terms of having the three classes. You’ve got completely blind which are B1s, less than 5 percent, which are B2, and less than 10 percent is a B3. I think those systems work really well. I guess one of the difficult things with vision impairment is that there are so many diseases and conditions that everyone’s sight is completely different, and they have that problem with the other classes as well. But in terms of the class system itself I think having the three works really well. What do you think?
Eric Bickerton: I think the classification system itself’s fine. It’s the one or two grey areas, people: are they there or are they there?
((WN)) That affected you in Beijing.
Jessica Gallagher: Yeah. That was obviously really disappointing, but, ironic as well in that one of my eyes is point zero one of a percent too sighted, so one’s eligible, the other’s just outside their criteria, which left me unable to compete. Because my condition is degenerative. They knew that my sight would get worse. I guess I was in a fortunate position where once my sight deteriorated I was going to become eligible. There are some of the classes, if you don’t have a degenerate condition, that’s not possible. No one ever wants to lose their best sight, but that was one positive.
((WN)) On some national competitions they have a B4 class. Do you think those should be eligible? In terms of the international competition?
Jessica Gallagher: Which sports have B4s?
((WN)) There’s a level down, it’s not used internationally, I think it’s only used for domestic competitions. I know the UK uses it.
Jessica Gallagher: I think I… A particular one. For social reasons, that’s a great thing, but I think if it’s, yeah. I don’t know if I would… I think socially to get more Paralympic athletes involved in the sport if they’ve got a degenerative condition on that border then they should be allowed to compete but obviously… I don’t think they should be able to receive any medals at a national competition or anything like that. So I was, after Beijing, I was able to fore-run races. I was able to transition over to skiing even though at that stage I wasn’t eligible. So that was great for us. The IPC knew that my eyesight was going to get worse. So I was able to fore-run races. Which was a really good experience for us, when we did get to that level. So I think, with the lack of numbers in Paralympic sport, more that you should encourage athletes and give them those opportunities, it’s a great thing. But I guess it’s about the athletes realizing that you’re in it for the participation, and to grow as an athlete rather than to win medals. I don’t think the system should be changed. I think three classes is enough. Where the B3 line is compared with a B4 is legally blind. And I think that covers everything. I think that’s the stage where you have low enough vision to be considered a Paralympic sport as opposed to I guess an able bodied athlete. And that’s with all forms of like, with government pensions, with bus passes, all that sort of stuff, that the cut off line is legally blind, so I think that’s a good place to keep it.
((WN)) Veering away from this, I remember watching the Melbourne Cup stuff on television, and there you were, I think you were wearing some hat or something.
Jessica Gallagher: Yeah, my friend’s a milliner. They were real flowers, real orchids.
((WN)) Are you basically a professional athlete who has enough money or sponsorship to do that sort of stuff? I was saying, there’s Jessica Gallagher! She was in London! That’s so cool!
Jessica Gallagher: There are two organizations that I’m an ambassador for, and one of them is Vision Australia, who were a charity for the Melbourne Cup Carnival. So as part of my ambassador role I was at the races helping them raise money. And that involves media stuff, so that was the reason I was there. I didn’t get paid.
((WN)) But if you’re not getting paid to be a sponsor for all that is awesome in Australia, what do you do outside of skiing, and the long jump, and the javelin?
Jessica Gallagher: I’m an osteopath. So I finished my masters’ degree in 2009. I was completing a bachelor’s and a masters. I was working for the Victorian Institute of Sport guiding program but with the commitment to London having so much travel I actually just put everything on hold in terms of my osteo career. There’s not really enough time. And then the ambassador role, I had a few commitments with that, and I did motivational speaking.
((WN)) That’s very cool. Eric, I’ve read that you work as a guide in back country skiing, and all sorts of crazy stuff like that. What do you do when you’re not leading Jessica Gallagher down a ski slope?
Eric Bickerton: I’m the Chief Executive of Disabled Winter Sports Australia. So we look after all the disability winter sports, except for the Paralympics.
Jessica Gallagher: Social, recreational…
((WN)) You like that? You find it fulfilling?
Eric Bickerton: The skiing aspect’s good. I dunno about the corporate stuff. I could give that a miss. But I think it is quite fulfilling. Yeah, they’re a very good group of people there who enjoy themselves, both in disabilities and able bodied. We really need guides and support staff.
((WN)) Has it changed over the last few years?
Eric Bickerton: For us?
((WN)) Being a guide in general? How things have changed or improved, have you been given more recognition?
Eric Bickerton: No. I don’t see myself as an athlete. Legally we are the athlete. If I fail, she fails. We ski the exact same course. But there’s some idiosyncrasies associated with it. Because I’m a male guiding, I have to ski on male skis, which are different to female skis, which means my turn shape I have to control differently so it’s the same as her turn shape. It’s a little bit silly. Whereas if I was a female guiding, I’d be on exactly the same skis, and we’d be able to ski exactly the same all the way through. In that context I think the fact that Jess won the medal opened the eyes to the APC about visual impairment as a definite medal contending aspect. The biggest impediment to the whole process is how the Hell do you get a guide who’s (a) capable, (b) available and (c) able to fund himself. So we’re fortunate that the APC pushed for the recognition of myself as an athlete, and because we have the medal from the previous Olympics, we’re now tier one, so we get the government funding all way through. Without that two years before the last games, that cost me fifteen, sixteen months of my time, and $40,000 of cash to be the guide. So while I enjoyed it, and well I did, it is very very hard to say that a guide could make a career out of being a guide. There needs to be a little bit more consideration of that, a bit like the IPC saying no you’re not a medal winner. It’s quite a silly situation where it’s written into the rules that you are both the athlete and yet at the same time you’re not a medal winner. I think there’s evolution. It’s growing. It’s changing. It’s very, very difficult.
((WN)) Are you guys happy with the media coverage on the winter side? Do you think there’s a bias — obviously there is a bias towards the Summer Paralympics. Do the winter people get a fair shake?
Eric Bickerton: I think it’s fair. It’s reasonable. And there’s certainly a lot more than what it used to be. Winter sports in general, just from an Australian perspective is something that’s not well covered. But I’d say the coverage from the last Paralympics, the Para Winter Olympics was great, as far as an evolution of the coverage goes.
((WN)) Nothing like winning a medal, though, to lift the profile of a sport.
Jessica Gallagher: And I think that certainly helped after Vancouver. Not just Paralympics but able bodied with Lydia [Lassila] and Torah [Bright] winning, and then to have Eric and I win a medal, to finally have an Aussie female who has a winter Paralympic medal. I guess there can be misconceptions, I mean the winter team is so small in comparison to the summer team, they are always going to have a lot more coverage just purely based on numbers. There were 160 [Australian] athletes that were at London and not going to be many of us in Sochi. Sorry. Not even ten, actually.
Eric Bickerton: There’s five athletes.
Jessica Gallagher: There’s five at the moment, yeah. So a lot of the time I think with Paralympic sport, at the moment, APC are doing great things to get a lot of coverage for the team and that, but I think also individually, it’s growing. I’ve certainly noticed a lot more over the past two years but Eric and I are in a very unique situation. For me as well being both a summer and a winter Paralympian, there’s more interest I guess. I think with London it opened Australia and the word’s eyes to Paralympic sport, so the coverage from that hopefully will continue through Sochi and I’ll get a lot more people covered, but I know prior to Beijing and Vancouver, compared to my build up to London, in terms of media, it was worlds apart in terms of the amount of things I did and the profile pieces that were created. So that was great to see that people are actually starting to understand and see what it’s like.
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