Meet the Conference Team!

Amy Pressland

My name is Amy Pressland. I am one of the Sport, Gender and Media conference (10^th March 2012) organisers. I am currently in the final year of my PhD at the Centre for Women’s Studies (CWS) at the University of York. My research focuses on the representation of sports/women in British contemporary middle-brow print media. My personal interest in the media coverage and representation of sportswomen stems from feeling frustrated at the lack of reporting by national newspapers on female elite athletes. I am an athlete myself; I compete in long-distance swimming races and triathlons. I have always been an active person and was part of most of the team sports at school. I believe sport is a fantastic activity through which participants can learn more about themselves, how to treat others, and improve their health and wellbeing.

I came up with the idea for the Sport, Gender and Media conference, partly influenced by my own research, and partly with an aim to provide a platform to widen participants’ knowledge of the key irsues within the study of sport, gender and media and inspire further investigations. My fantastic co-organiser, Geneva Murray, also studies gender and sport at CWS and is passionate about creating a ‘space’ where scholars and students alike can discuss and share ideas around this topic. We feel that opening up a dialogue on sport, gender and media is particularly relevant because of the proximity to the London Olympic Games in 2012.

M. Geneva Murray

I am thrilled that the Centre for Women’s Studies at the University of York is hosting a Sport, Gender and Media conference, and that I get to be involved in the co-organization of it. I am nearing completion of my PhD at York and I am still as much in love with my topic today as I was when I chose it. Utilizing theories on the institution of heterosexuality, I conducted a qualitative study on all-female roller derby which evaluated the way in which derby aligns with or challenges heteronormativity. I formerly played roller derby with the Leeds Roller Dolls as Toxic Pink Stuff, and currently help train York’s new roller derby team.

I think Amy Pressland said it all in explaining why this Conference is important! I hope to meet all of our readers on 10 March 2012! In the meantime, enjoy the blog.

Natalie Stokes

I’m excited to be part of the conference because sport plays a major role in my life.  I think sport has the potential to empower and challenge people to achieve and experience life in ways they never thought possible!  En route to practicing medicine, I am obtaining an MA degree in Gender, Violence and Conflict at the University of York as a Fulbright Scholar from the US.  I enjoy nothing more than a good sweat before the sun rises!  I love challenging myself through powerlifting, rock climbing, and mountain biking – among other things. 

Abigail Tazzyman

I am a first year PhD student in the Centre for Women’s Studies at the University of York. My research focuses upon female cultures of body management; that is the methods utilised by women to alter their physical appearance. This will entail consideration of woman’s negotiation of their physical body and personal body image with their enactment of alteration and the physical body image they aim to achieve through this. I have had personally an on-going relationship with sport from a young age, once an avid swimmer I now climb, hike and mountain bike. This conference is important to me on several levels; my own personal relationship to sport, my interests in female body image and the presentation of the female body, combined with sport still being (at both amateur and a professional level) a deeply gender divided arena. The conference thus represents for me a forum where issues which I hold as important can be discussed, debated and challenged.

Nicole Zarafonetis

I am currently in my first year of her PhD at the University of York at the Centre for Women’s Studies. Originally from the US, I enjoy a variety of sport, particularly swimming and softball. When I'm not advocating for gender justice, I like to spend my spare time working out at the gym.

Evangeline Tsao

I am currently in my first year of a PhD in the Centre for Women's Studies. I am passionate in photography and I am glad to have an opportunity to capture the wonderful moments of this conference. I am not good at sports myself, but I do enjoy swimming and biking for leisure. Occasionally I try new things, and I finally did my first rock-climbing this April at Sheffield - with some screaming and swearing in the process, and feeling absolutely great afterwards. I personally hope that this conference can give me more confidence in doing sports and hopefully I will start to like running, or have a chance to challenge myself with other sports that I have never done before. I suppose carrying a huge camera and running around can be considered as some kind of ... exercise.



Amy and Geneva are delighted with the support they’ve gotten from the Centre for Women’s Studies and their fellow students. This is not an exhaustive list of the support team, and more names may be added, but you will be hearing from all of the above on the blog and in various online campaigns.

MU bungkam Chelsea 3-1

Senin, 19 September 2011 08:29

 
Jakarta - Manchester United membungkam tamunya yang juga musuh bebuyutannya Chelsea, pada big match yang berlangsung di Old Trafford, MInggu malam ini, dengan skor besar 3-1.

Chris Smalling langsung menghentak di awal pertandingan setelah membawa MU unggul 1-0 di menit 8. Sekitar 30 menit kemudian, Nani menggandakan keunggulan United menjadi 2-0.

Chelsea makin tersudut setelah Wayne Rooney mengkreasi gol ketiga MU di menit 45. Baru satu menit kemudian Fernando Torres memperkecil keunggulan MU menjadi 3-1.

MU hampir saja memperbesar skor jika saja penalti Rooney di menit 57 bisa merobek jala gawang Chelsea yang dijaga Petr Cech.

Dengan kemenangan besar ini, MU memantapkan posisi di teratas klasemen sementara Liga Inggris,
dibayang-bayangi Manchester City yang malam ini hanya mampu bermain imbang melawan Fulham.

Fulham berhasil menahan Manchester City yang sudah unggul 2-0 lewat kontribusi Sergio Aguero.

Fulham tidak menyerah dan dua gol dari Bobby Zamora dan Danny Murphy memupus peluang City untuk meraih tiga poin guna memantapkan posisinya di puncak klasemen.

Di pertandingan lain, Sunderland menyusul langkah fantastik Tottenham Hotspur yang menang besar 4-0 atas Liverpool, dengan membenamkan tamunya Stoke City juga dengan skor 4-0.

Sunderland sudah unggul di menit lima dari tendangan Titus Bramble. Menit 11, Black Cats menggandakan gol dari sundulan Jonathan Woodgate.

Berikutnya, Craig Gardner dan Sebastian Larsson memantapkan kemenangan 4-0 Sunderland atas Stoke City.

Ferguson Damprat Putri Dalglish

Jumat, 16 September 2011 | 07:56

MANCHESTER - Permusuhan antara Manajer Manchester United, Sir Alex Ferguson, dengan Kenny Dalglish (Manajer Liverpool) bisa mengarah ke pribadi. Pasalnya, Ferguson mendamprat putri Dalglish saat sesi wawancara.

Insiden ini terjadi seusai pertandingan Manchester United lawan Benfica di Liga Champions yang berakhir 1-1, Rabu atau Kamis (15/9/2011). Ferguson tampak bersikap ketus saat
diwawancara Kelly Cates yang juga putri Kenny Dalglish. Cates merupakan reporter dari ITV.

Cates saat itu menanyakan apakah tentang situasi penjaga gawang MU. Pada partai lawan Benfica, Ferguson menurunkan kiper Anders Lendegaard yang ternyata tampil mengesankan. Sementara kiper utama David De Gea justru dicadangkan.

Ditanya soal kiper, Ferguson langsung menunjukkan kemarahannya kepada Cates. Cates menanyakan  apakah permainan bagus Lendegaard akan membuatnya dalam dilema dalam memilih kiper.

Ferguson lalu langsung menjawab, "Tidak sama sekali. David (De Gea) akan bermain pada Minggu ini. Itu pengertian yang sudah kami buat sebelum pertandingan ini (lawan Benfica) dan tak akan berubah."

Sebelum Cates mengajukan pertanyaan berikutnya, Ferguson semakin marah dan mengatakan, "Saya tak tahu kenapa kamu menanyakan hal ini. Kamu hanya mencari hal-hal bodoh!"

Cates tampak tersinggung dan terpukul. Kemarahan Ferguson kepada Cates itu bisa membuat Manajer Liverpool yang juga ayah Cates, Kenny Dalglish, ikut tersinggung.

MU akan bertemu dengan Liverpool pada 15 Oktober di Stadion Anfield.

Dre@ming Post______

Sebring EXPO: 2.5 Perfect Days

I am ready to commit homicide on the wireless in this place I'm sending - or attempting to send - from.  More later, as I start for the third time in three days to get a single blogpost to upload after hours of working on it!  Computers!  A pox on all of them.

I'm posting this now without pictures.  If the *&$% thing will stay connected long enough to update the post with pics, I will...assuming it will even publish this!
Okay, on to the good stuff.
Sebring is alive and well and gliding along better than ever.  More than I can say for the wireless where I've tried to post since Thursday night, so today (Sat), you get two point five posts for the price of one.
First bit of news: Opening day Thursday was the best attended in the show’s eight year history (not five years as I doofishly reported the other day).  Aiding and abetting: beautiful, absolutely beautiful weather.  No hurricanes, no clouds of leaflets from Republican Presidential hopefuls, just a lavishly enjoyable (for us snowbirds at least) 70 degrees, with a steady 10 knot wind a good part of the day, followed by a crisp, clear night.  Thank the Maker.

Your humble and now very frustrated blogster took full advantage of opening day by spending almost half of it shooting and flying the new BRM Bristell S-LSA (yes, it’s ASTMified).  A very, very sweet ship.  Think second generation Piper Sport nee SportCruiser, since the low-wing monoplane bears a design familiarity of clean, attractive lines and is, if not a sibling, certainly a cousin to that seminal Czech design.
Bristell designer Milan Bristela is here at the show with John Calla to give the airplane some street cred.  Milan co-designed the original SportCruiser and is full designer of this new airplane.  Clearly he’s incorporated many things we’ve all learned along the way, including about the roomiest low-wing cockpit, at 51", I’ve had the pleasure to fly.
That’s just frosting on the cake, though: if the SportCruiser/Piper Sport is a light, playful airplane that lands itself, rolls around the sky with enjoyable and docile characteristics, the Bristell really feels like a GA airplane.  All three axes are beautifully harmonized, the stick feel and responsiveness are both muted and lively.  I mean it’s neither twitchy like a spring colt nor sluggish like a one-track dray horse, but both smooth and firm in control handling, and wonderfully quick to jump to your commands.
Many thoughtful features like a painted sun screen built into the canopy top, 600 lb. useful load, lovely aerodynamics, 1000+ fpm climb, sturdy, sturdy tricycle gear, outsized GA-robust landing gear with Goodyear tires, very lively nosewheel steering (a little too twitchy, but as my endlessly energetic demo host, former C-130 Special Ops driver John Rathwell was quick to tell me, a simple tweak is in the works for that), and all in all, quite an airplane.

European LAMA board member Jan Fridrich catches our low photo pass at Sebring.  Thanks Jan!  Nobody ever shoots the photographer!

I’ll properly flesh out my positive impressions when I write the pilot report.  For now let’s say this creation of Mr. Bristela is a solid, mature, sophisticated design with many fine details, it’s very comfortable, most certainly enjoyable to fly, and beautifully finished inside and out.
Alright, that’s way too much for an airplane blog post so let’s move on:

FK12 Comet folds its wings.

I spent a very interesting hour with Roger Crow, a 35-year Air National Guard fighter pilot and law enforcement aviator who briefed me on how his Echo Flight Resources company out of Tulsa has transmogrified a Flight Design CTLE into an aerial surveillance platform, complete with a highly sophisticated aerial video ball turret camera that’s controlled by a John Law techie in the right seat in pursuit of people doing bad things.  I’m hoping to do a story on it for the magazine: a fascinating look into how useful LSA are at dramatically cutting costs without compromising performance one bit over similarly equipped Cessna 172s and 182s, and helicopters, which cost a whole lot more to operate than a CTLS.  He’s winning over converts with law enforcement orgs across the country, because he’s one of a small club and speaks the lingo.

Randy Lervold showing how it's done.

At the annual LAMA dinner Thursday night, it’s prez Dan Johnson and his lovely wife Randee along with a host of sponsors and volunteers and new Sebring fearless leader Jana Filip put on an excellent feed, a raffle of prizes, and a presentation by EAA’s new President, Rod Hightower, followed by an excellent video short from EAA’s superb video department.

Day for night

Friday, although no official numbers were in as I dragged myself off to dinner and to rescue my newly arrived roommate, P&P publisher Mike McMann, from being GPS-lost in the crocodile-infested badlands east of Sebring, looked to be another record day.  Lots of folks walking around, kicking tires, taking demo rides throughout yet another gorgeous day.
Highlights for Friday included catching up with Charles Stites of Able Flight, that wonderful organization that underwrites, with four types of scholarships, the flying dreams of disabled people.  Seven more dedicated and determined people, including a deaf woman and a multiple combat amputee successfully negotiated Sport Pilot training to defy the odds.

Roger Crow's CTLE

As I told Charles after the update, I always feel better after talking with him.
Another guy who always lifts my spirits is Boris Popov, founder of BRS parachutes.  Boris and I go back more decades than either of us care to acknowledge, when I first began extolling the virtues of the ballistic ‘chute concept he successfully brought to market.
How good would you feel to wake up every morning and know something you created had incontestably saved hundreds of lives over the years.  Yeah.  Way cool.

Sebring Expo showgrounds above the CarbonCub SS

By the way, forgot to mention feel-good band Ravi performed for the exhibitor’s reception Wednesday night and also at the LAMA dinner.  The band’s namesake Ravi tours the world performing original songs, conducting clinics and lecturing on crucial issues facing the music and aviation industries – two groups you don’t often see conflated.  A talented and engaging young pilot/musician, you can find out more at www.theRaviator.com.

And th-th-that’s all folks.

The twin brothers Hansen and the twin brothers Hansen (one father’s sons are also twins) of Hansen Air Group demonstrated changing the cockpits on the sexy FK12 Comet from a single canopy to two-holer and also folding the wings, all in about five minutes.  Hansens the younger performed the operation as the elder sibs “supervised”.

I’ll be flying the Comet tomorrow for a future report.  What a very cool bipe indeed.
Finally, because it’s bed time for yours truly, Randy Lervold of Cubcrafters and his superb pilot Clay (didn’t get his last name) helped me get an air2air session with their wildly popular Carbon Cub SS.  The light couldn’t have been better, and ditto goes for the formation skills of both pilots.  Every formation shoot ought to go this well.
Here’s a sample, judge for yourself.
Tomorrow, looking forward to shooting my old friend the Flight Design CTLS, thanks to another old friend Tom Peghiny.  The CT sports a new dual-panel SkyView deck.  Managing Director of the successful European company, Matthias Betch, is in town for the show.

Should female boxers be required to wear skirts?

This week, the Amateur International Boxing Association (AIBA) is meeting,
and will be discussing many important issues leading up to the London 2012
Olympics - the first Olympics in which women's boxing will be featured as a
sport.  Chief among the topics for discussion: should the female boxers be
required to wear skirts?


Seriously.


At a time in which the sport of women's boxing is taking a large step
forward into the spotlight, the AIBA has taking the focus off of the sport
and the achievements of the athletes and honed in on the maintenance of
traditional gender roles.


Athletics are traditionally a masculine stomping ground, and thus
incompatible with constructed ideals of femininity.  As more opportunities
for women in sports becoming available, many female athletes are pressed to
navigate their identity to balance their athleticism and femininity.
Women's sports are still in large part neglected by the popular media, and
when featured, the athletes are often subject to sexualized and
objectifying language.


Perhaps the AIBA believes that feminizing the athletes will help to
popularize the sport of women's boxing, among the more masculine sports in
character?  [In the same way sports teams have made it 'ok' for women to be
avid fans-and buy tickets and merchandise-so long as they buy the pink
colored team jersey].  Even if this is being done in the interest of
attracting a greater fan base, it does a great disservice to the athletes
who will be competing in these historic Olympics games by taking the focus
away from athletic feat.


As British boxer Marianne Marston aptly stated, "I feel I have more
important issues to deal with in women's boxing, the acceptance of women's
boxing...than whether they should wear skirts or not."

CubCrafters Delivers #200

Savvy companies find a way through even the worst of economic times.
Case in point: CubCrafters has just delivered its 200th LSA.
The Yakima, Washington-based LSA maker thus secures bragging rights, at least for now, for being the top US-made producer of ASTM-certified Light Sport Aircraft, eclipsing its Cub clone rival American Legend out of Texas, which has led the pack for some time.

Photo courtesy CubCrafters

 Coming just a couple days before Sebring's US Sport Aviation Expo kickoff on Thursday, the news should be welcome to industry watchers and potential buyers eager for a cheerier outlook.
The company offers two Cubalikes: the Sport Cub S2 (100hp) and the Carbon Cub SS (180hp, and what a climbout monster it is!)
The company started up in 1980 and recently added 15,000 square feet of space to its manufacturing facility.
And yes, they are a-hirin'.
Keep up the good work, you guys!

SEBRING EXPO Kicks Off Next Week!

The show I look forward to the most every winter is the Sebring U.S. Sport Aviation Expo, the premier gathering of Light Sport industry vendors in America.
This is the fifth go round for the expo; each year it offers more pure fun for LSA pilots present and future.
This year sports a noticeably upscale look, with new management (show founder Robert Woods remains very active in the show) and a stronger promotional flavor.
Major sponsors this year include our own Plane&Pilot!
The four-day gathering, which kicks off next Thursday, Jan. 19, promises to be the biggest show yet. 
Lots of return and new LSA exhibitors, display booths with the latest hot gear, and symposiums, including the new Bristell low wing monoplane and Pipistrel Sinus 50-foot span motorglider, both of which I hope to fly for future reports.

The new Bristell will be at Expo next week.  Photo courtesy BristellUSA

Avionics leader Dynon will hold full on classes to teach the many ins and outs of its powerhouse SkyView EFIS display... for free!

Dynon's SkyView

 EAA's new head honcho Rod Hightower will speak at the annual LAMA dinner Thursday night.

EAA's Rod Hightower to speak

There's a ton more things to talk about, check it out right here for all the details.
If you've got a hankering for early Spring- style LSA tire-kickin' and demo flying, program Sebring into your GPS and get on down thar!