Thursday 31 December 2009

Things You Need To Consider When Choosing A Warehouse

By Richard Davies

With the enormous growth in city population, living area of city apartments and residences is decreasing drastically. However, we are increasingly buying new household items under the influence of consumerism and availability of easy cash. These opposite factors have resulted in a dearth of space needed to store domestic and office items, and this scenario has set the cash registers ringing for the storage industry.

It is good to be cautious when choosing a warehouse for storage of goods. There are many types of storage service providers out there, and you should go for the one that has the appropriate facilities in place to ensure that your valuable items will be cared for properly. Here are some necessary considerations that you must take into account while selecting a warehouse.

The most fundamental purpose of a good warehouse is safety. To protect your valuables against the possibility of being stolen, there should be sophisticated security systems in place inside the warehouse. You will generally find good quality security systems like CCTV cameras, door alarms and electronic locks inside a good warehouse.

Your articles need to be guarded not only from thieves but also from fire. Warehouses are notorious for mishaps caused by fire, and so fire fighting devices to ensure protection of your articles must be present at the warehouse. The warehouse should have alarms that would go off at the slightest indication of a fire, and the storage areas must be constructed of fireproof materials.

Your articles should also be guarded against the extremities of weather. Weather becomes a critical factor if you have stored precious items like antique furniture or paintings that can absorb the moisture from the air. If you have pharmaceuticals or hi tech appliances to store, then they must be protected from extremes of temperature as well. The warehouse must be equipped with climate control technology to regulate the atmospheric conditions at a desired level that is required for ensuring safety of your articles.

Another natural factor that your articles need to be protected from is a pest attack. Pests are almost undetectable and can cause irreversible harm to things like wooden furniture in a very short period. Hence pest control activities must be carried out regularly inside the warehouse by making use of pesticides and spraying disinfectants.

Finally, the employees of the warehouse must be cooperative and willing to help. In most cases they will be engaged in loading, transportation, and unloading of the items, and if your articles get destroyed in this process then it becomes irrelevant how good the storage facility is. Thus, the workers must be skilled in goods handling and should truly care for your valuables.

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About B1G1 - A New Global Giving Service

By David Anttony

Buy1GIVE1 is the home of transaction-based giving.

STOP. Take a breath. And imagine you were part of a world where every single transaction made a difference.

Imagine, for example, you bought a TV, and automatically a cataract-blind child got the gift of sight. Automatically. Or imagine if today you purchased a cup of coffee and someone in Africa got access to clean, pure water as a direct result. Again automatically.

It's all happening right now. Already Buy1GIVE1 (B1G1) has become a true global giving 'village', bringing together businesses, their customers and worthy causes in a way that's never been done before.

It's happening globally, every second, every day and in every way with a staggering 556 projects already underway and making a difference.

That's because in the Buy1GIVE1 world, every single transaction, be it buying a cup of coffee in Cape Town or renting a car in Reno (and everything in between) gives back in a well-defined, resonant and measurable way.

Nowadays, when both corporations and charities have seen a decline in gains and donations, cause-related marketing seems to really be catching on. Cause-related marketing is a business scheme involving a partnership between a company with a product to trade and a charity with a cause to advance. As opposed to "corporate philanthropy," which simply includes a company making a tax-deductible charitable donation, cause-related marketing benefits both the company (by helping to increase sales, and therefore, profits), and the charity (by bringing in donations and calling attention to the cause.)

You buy a book, a tree gets planted. You dine out, a child is fed. Buy One Give One - simple. The list goes on forever and the giving simply happens automatically, every second, every day and in every way.

And it is beautifully simple. Buy1GIVE1 is now becoming a global movement as more and more businesses jump on board and enjoy the incredible benefits of transaction based giving.

In Buy1GIVE1, they make it a point that in many, many cases, the consumer is not just involved in CSR initiatives on a day-to-day basis. Buy1-Give1 generates solutions to that and it does it every second, every day and in every way.

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What Makes It Very Important To Let Professional Designers Create Your Corporate Brochures

By Jacob Lee

When you have a great offering but you are still not making profits, it is time to re-evaluate your go to market strategy. A good way of achieving this is through a corporate brochure, which informs the customer about the highlights of your products and services and differentiates them from the competition.

It is usually advisable to design a brochure that makes smart use of graphic design, thus making it both appealing and professional. The best way to provide information is to use designs along with text, which will stay in the recall of the customers for a longer period. This leads to the need for an expert brochure designer.

It is true that you can design a brochure yourself if you are technologically savvy, but it will take a lot of time for an amateur to come up with a good company brochure with graphic design. While you struggle to make a high quality brochure, you may come to understand that you should rather give your time to other aspects of your profession and give this assignment to someone who has experience in it.

Commercial brochure design services are not very high priced and even small businesses can afford them. A pro designer would ensure that the material of the brochure is appealing and relevant to help the client realize the benefits of your services or products. He would have a large number of choices, both for layout and graphic design, which can easily be moulded to suit your needs. Moreover, through his contacts with other service providers, he will be able get the brochures printed at much lower rates, thus cutting down your costs.

You as an amateur will not know as much as a professional brochure designer would about brochure designing. Therefore, it will be best not to do a job for which you are not well equipped, and instead find a good designer. This is what businesses called outsourcing for higher quality and much dedicated expertise but guaranteed to be on a lower cost.

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What Is The Relevance Of The Rites In A Buddhist Funeral

By Danny Wong

One of the most widespread religions on earth, Buddhism derives its main principles from the preaching of the Buddha. People who practise Buddhism are expected to display boundless love for all and try to realize the Ultimate Truth.

Buddhist funeral rites are also based upon these basic principles of the religion. After the death of a person in a Buddhist family, certain rites have to be followed in order to ensure that the departed soul is elevated to a higher stage in afterlife. Prayers are chanted calling upon the good energies associated with the dead person for his or her ultimate deliverance from this life cycle.

The first stage in funeral rituals is that of giving the body a traditional wash. The second stage entails invitation of monks, who chant from religious scriptures and thereby help the soul in finding eternity. The monks recite those sermons of Lord Buddha that talk about the significance of practising mercy and kindness. In the meantime, the body is prepared for the last journey. The relatives normally place some coins in the casket along with the deceased. This is for enabling the dead person to pay and go across the River of Three Hells.

The casket is then placed before the altar at home for the loved ones to pay their respects. While friends and relatives give condolences, visitors are expected to pray for the dead person. The ceremony is accompanied with chanting of relevant sutras by the monks. Once the chanting is complete, people bow at the altar to pay their last respects. As the visitors begin leaving, the family members present a gift to each other to display gratitude for sharing their sorrow.

After these rituals are carried out, the body may then be either buried or cremated in accordance with the beliefs of the family members. In all, the rites aim to bring a sense of acceptance and peace to the bereaved family while praying in order to elevate the dead to a higher state of knowledge and enlightenment.

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Primary Duties Of A Funeral Director

By Alvin Cruise

The main task of a funeral director is to take care of everything from the ceremonial rituals of the funeral.

There are four essential tasks of a funeral director, they are: (a) transporting the body to the mortuary; (b) embalming and readying the body for service; (c) preparing for the services for friends and family to pay their last respects to the deceased and; (d) the final act of burial or cremation as per the customs of the family.

These duties cover a wide variety of tasks, including arrangement of hearse for transporting the deceased, deciding the place and time for memorial service and also sending obituaries in the local media as well as the newspapers. In addition, funeral directors also take care of things like arrangements of flowers and bouquets for each service, embalming and clothing the body, arrangement for shifting of the family and relatives from one service to another etc.

A funeral director has a lot of responsibilities other than the ones mentioned above, including performing the essential paperwork formalities as required. He helps the relatives in obtaining a death certificate. He also acts as a facilitator for settling claims of insurance for the family as well as helping them take benefit of schemes like seniors' burial support. He also helps in clearing annuity and pension money, if any, of the deceased to the dependants of the deceased and assists the family in assessing the costs of the whole funeral service.

He also has to coordinate with a number of professionals to perform his jobs in a proper and systematic way. He has to interact with doctors, priests, casket makers and flower sellers, all with equal ease.

Finally, it is important for funeral directors to work beyond their normal schedule and offer comfort and solace to the suffering family of the deceased, in order to help them tide over their grief. Though it is a critical aspect of the job, some funeral directors tend to ignore it as a peripheral responsibility.

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