We love our sports on this section of the web and 2017 is an epic year for this passion. There are so many incredible sporting events happening around the year annually and you’d be crazy to miss out on some of them. Here are the best global sporting events you can start getting excited about right now.
Tennis Is Back
Yes Wimbledon will be kicking off in a few months and that means we can look forward to everyone getting out there and taking to the courts. As for the tournament itself, it will be interesting to see who comes out on top. England will obviously be hoping that Andy Murray will rise to the challenge once more but it’s definitely going to be a heated competition.
Formula 1
The F1 season began in march and will race onwards until late November. Lewis Hamilton has already won the Chinese Grand Prix and we’re sure he’s hoping to pass the finish line first in a few others as well. The races are always worth a watch, if not just for the insane crashes.
The World Cup Begins
Of course, the biggest sports event that starts this year is the world cup. The qualifier matches are being laid out right now to find out who is going to make the final cut. Will America make it through again? Is Scotland in with a chance? And does it even matter when Brazil are sure to wipe the floor with every team? If you’re interested, do make sure that you check out the infographic below for the full knockout stages.
Getting kids interested in sports and fitness at a young age puts them on a good path for later in life. Staying fit and lean is important for overall health, plus competition can help to teach them how to be gracious whether they win or lose. If you want to keep it fun and keep kids active, here are a few sporting activities to get kids up and moving.
Throw a Sports Day Event
Maybe you’re planning for a community event, or for a child’s birthday party? Throwing a sports day event is a great option. Running, skipping races and relay are all solid sports day activities- great for getting kids up and moving about. But be sure to add in a few fun and silly races too to break up the day. Three legged race, egg and spoon race and sack races are all fantastic ones to consider for a few laughs. Don’t forget plenty of prizes, you could even have custom medals made up and present them after the event.
Set Up a Team Sport
To rev up the competitiveness and for even more fun, how about signing them up a team sport? It could be something casual like a game of football at the park, most recreational areas also have basketball courts. Alternatively you look for classes at sports centres. Cricket, hockey, even water polo are good choices. Again having prizes for the winners will make everyone work that bit harder, plus it’s an opportunity for kids to socialise and mix with others their age too.
Go Trampolining
Trampolining is so much fun it hardly feels like exercise. Yet it’s an incredible cardiovascular workout. Plus it helps to tone and strengthen muscles, as well as teaching kids balance and control. There are trampoline parks dotted around all over the place, these have things like foam pits and other fun things to do too which all burn through kids never ending energy. Plus they’re positioned in a way that it’s impossible to fall from the trampoline so no spotters are needed. On the other hand, you could always see what lessons are available for their age group local to you.
Ice skating is a lot of fun, and improves balance. It also tones the legs and gives the heart and lungs a workout too. Ice skating is something you can do with all the family, it’s a real treat for kids and is great exercise without it feeling like it at all. For tweens and teens, many ice skating rinks have disco evenings which again is a chance to socialise as well as get some exercise in. If you want the competitive element, book them in for ice skating lessons. Competitions in this sport are about as cut throat as it gets, and can teach a lot of patience and self discipline.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will know that technology is evolving at lightning speed! In fact, things are moving on so quickly that today’s gadgets will often feel “out of date” by tomorrow! Of course, it’s not just gadgets and electronics that are evolving all the time. The way that we connect to the Internet is also changing, and for the better, I’m pleased to report.
These days, you can now have high-speed Internet access on the go thanks to 4G or LTE mobile networks. But, what about at home? Well, there have naturally been some improvements on Internet speeds there too. Nowadays, fiber connections are the ones to go for in the quest for super-fast surfing. If you’re still using old DSL technology, now’s the time to upgrade to the 21st century! Here’s why you need fiber Internet in your life:
The thing about fiber Internet is that you don’t have to worry about constant drops in speed or even disconnections. You can enjoy always-on Internet using an infrastructure that is light years ahead of copper wire technology! Plus, fiber enables you to have faster Internet speeds than traditional DSL connections.
Affordable high-speed Internet
One of the concerns that many people have is that high-speed Internet access is only available at a high cost! Thankfully, the price of fiber Internet has come down in recent years. It’s now just as affordable as standard DSL broadband. In fact, in some cases, it pays to upgrade as it’s CHEAPER!
Buffering is a thing of the past
Let’s face it; one of the reasons why people go online is to stream multimedia content to their devices. Downloading movies always sucks with DSL connections because there are the buffering blues that you must endure! Good news: you’ll never have to wait for ages for a movie to download thanks to fiber! So, whether you watch opera on demand or listen to music on Spotify, content will get delivered to your devices immediately.
Perfect for multiple users
The chances are high that you’re not the only person in your household that wants to use the Internet. One of the selling points of fiber is that many people can simultaneously use it to download stuff without any lagging problems.
Do you enjoy playing multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft or Grand Theft Auto V? If so, you will no doubt want a stable connection with zero lag for co-operative gameplay. Why settle for second-best when you could get a simple upgrade to fiber Internet?
Free Internet voice and video calls
Do you hate paying for your phone calls? Who doesn’t! These days, you can access a variety of online services that allow you to place voice or video calls. For such services to work at their best, it’s vital to have a high-speed and reliable Internet connection such as fiber.
The busier our lives become, ironically, the harder it is to stay active. If you’re one of the many sat at a desk for hours every week, you may be worried about the amount of exercise you’re getting. It’s difficult to fit it all in, but there are some things you can do with the family to ensure you stay active. Take a look at this top ten list for keeping your body busy, as well as your mind.
Get Outdoors – We aren’t always lucky enough to have good weather in this country but when we do, there are lots of activities that the whole family can enjoy outdoors. Some of these include a bike ride, a long walk, water sports and you could even make the most of the snow by going sledging! If you’re not used to getting out and about, you may need Big 5 Sporting Goods coupons to save some money on active wear.
Take up a new hobby – If you’re stuck at the office all week, you’ll want to find something that will relax you, as well as keep you active. Golf is a great solution to this dilemma. It has everything you need; fresh air, exercise and relaxation. You can find out morehere.
Join some classes – If you have young children, they may already be in weekend or evening exercise classes. Perhaps they do martial arts, football or dance classes. Have you ever thought about joining them? Most classes will offer an adults only version of what your child does or even family sessions.
Housework – Doing the housework can really kick up a sweat. It may not be as fun as going for a bike ride but it will certainly keep you active. Put some music on in the house and get the whole family involved. It’s killing two birds with one stone.
Work exercise – You may think there’s nothing you can do about your lack of exercise while you’re at work but there are ways to change that. Getting up and going for a walk or stretching at your desk keeps your blood flowing. Some people go as far as taking an exercise ball to work with them. Why not find out more aboutwork exercise?
Eat healthily – There’s no point in planning extra activities into your timetable if you haven’t got the energy to do them. We all need the right fuel to make sure we can get through the day without needing power naps. Introducing more fruit and vegetables into your diet and taking a multi-vitamin should do it.
A family dog – Having a dog means you’re forced to go out for walks daily, whether you want to or not. A dog requires exercise and it can be a great motivator. They’re also fabulous family pets – they’re loyal, loving and protective. However, if you’re not at home most of the day, you need to research which breeds don’t mind being alone for a few hours.
There are many people that are staunch believers in thatbusiness and the arts do not mix. They are too different and that having a business temperament hampers your creative processes. Likewise, having a sense of creativity in business may make you veer too far off the beaten track. These are both far from the truth, and in fact, one can help the other! So if you are working on developing a business in the creative sector, or you are looking for ways to increase your sense of creativity in running a business, take heed from these pieces of advice.
How can you expect anybody to work with a creative flair if they don’t feel they are allowed to express themselves? Good art is all about that, and it is very hard to accomplish. You may reinforce the notion that your employees can express themselves freely, but it doesn’t mean that people will actually do it. The key is to create the best environment for ideas and opinions to flourish. A lot of workers are used to the idea that they could be punished severely if they express an opinion that is too candid, or if you, as the leader of the business, will appear too sensitive to criticism. So the first place to start is with you. Learning to take criticism and ideas that may be a bit too much for you to bear is the first step to getting everyone in the organization to be on side. You will find some people that are too forthcoming with their opinions also, and this is a great thing to encourage. Another way to encourage this would be to have days where people are giving notes. Pixar does a notes day, where people are doing just that, and this may be a way to get people who are not so keen to express their opinions to give honest feedback on the company. It’s a difficult thing to get the ball rolling, but once people feel comfortable in revealing their true opinions, it will improve the company, and it will get people to work together with more zest.
Outsourcing Is Not A Bad Thing
Depending on where your business is in the development stage, outsourcing may be a very necessary thing to do. It all depends on what skill sets you have in your midst. Running a creative company with the type of contacts that may only specialize in the arts means you may be stuck for accountants and IT specialists! There are manyIT services for smaller companies that you can call on to help install a basic network and give you advice on what systems are suitable for the type of work you do and if you need any additional programs. For example, accountancy packages or programs to do the back office functions, such as automatic email responses.
There are many who feel that outsourcing is something that detracts from the permanent members of staff, which is why it is viewed as a bit of a bad word in some circles. But if your business needs the help to get on its feet, then outsourcing is the help you are very unlikely to survive without. Luckily now, there are many outsourcing websites that showcase people who have very specific skills. If you need someone to do a certain line of code that builds your website a certain way or you need someone to translate some very technical text into Swahili, you are able to find these people who you can pay for their services. If you are in a tight spot and need to get something started very quickly, it means that based on your budget you can pay them accordingly and you don’t need to take anybody on permanently for those tasks. As soon as they are completed, it has been a useful help for you to get onto the next stage of unveiling your business.
A creative culture is not one where everyone works by themselves. It is dynamic and requires a lot of collaboration. As a result, give praise where praise is due. Some people like to be actively praised in front of colleagues, while others prefer to be given feedback in a private way. Find out from your staff what method they would like and when they have exceeded expectations you can congratulate them in a manner befitting of their personality. It entirely depends on the workplace culture. If people work in groups, public praise will work well in front of colleagues, but people that work individually may not appreciate being singled out for praise, especially if one person receives praise while others may get a haranguing which could upset the apple cart! Nor is it handy to dish out praise at every turn, you want your workers to work hard, not rest on their laurels. Of course, being encouraging reflects well on its leaders, and you need to strike a right balance, especially when it comes to working with creative types who may be of a sensitive nature. But this is something to apply in every type of business, not just creative-based ones.
As a way of encouraging creativity, managers need to be agile themselves in order to get the best out of their employees. Flexibility is of the utmost importance when dealing with a group of creative types, and each challenge needs to be met head on. Personal and professional challenges can clash heavily when trying to develop a creative environment because people may invest much more of themselves into an artistic role than they would, say, an admin role. And as creativity thrives on the generation of ideas, you may want to allocate your time to factor in opportunities to have brainstorm sessions and have a shorter period of time later on to refine these ideas. The old adage in writing is don’t get it right, get it written, so this may be an approach you would wish to take on board. Creativity and business do work together well; it is more about the right balance that suits your workplace. The yin and yang can be balanced!
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