Books by Mark Davis

Instant rapport with the audience. They are smiling, leaning forward, ready to listen.Fear stops people from public speaking. Everyone wants to be liked, but the pressure gets in the way. So we avoid it.In a speech, presentation, webinar or even a casual conversation, we have just a few seconds to prove we are interesting and valuable. How can we capture our audienceís attention immediately? By mastering our first 20 seconds.We can forget about fancy tricks, jokes and manipulation. By using any of the three major openings in this book, we can confidently start our speeches and presentations without fear.Our obligation is to get our audience to hear, believe, and want to be there. After that the rest is easy.Mark Davis is a public speaking coach and keynote speaker for business conferences, in addition to conducting public speaking workshops. Tom "Big Al" Schreiter speaks to network marketing groups around the world.

A stranger has comeTo share my room in the house not right in the head, A girl mad as birds - Dylan Thomas, 'Love in the Asylum'With the advent of 'care in the community' for the mentally afflicted, the self-contained villages for the apparently insane have now been consigned to the history books. These once bustling Victorian institutions were commonly known in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as the 'county asylum' or the 'pauper lunatic asylum', and were an accepted and essential part of society for nearly two centuries. It is difficult to believe that, in 1914, there were 102 such asylums, accommodating over 100,000 patients, the majority of whom lived their entire lives under care and treatment. In 2014, with the exception of those that have already been demolished, these buildings now lie empty and derelict, or have been converted for contemporary living. Through this photographic book, we journey into the inner sanctum of a world of lost dreams, where hope was more often than not unwillingly traded for an uncomfortable acceptance.

Evolution of the Modern Sports Fan: Communicative Approaches analyzes the modern understandings of fanship in an age of mega-media influence by putting in conversation scholarship about fan traits, psychologies, and behavior inside sport and beyond.

The type of system we are interested in is a discrete-time or sampled-data system where the relation between input and output is (at least approximately) linear and where additive random dis turbances are also present, so that the behaviour of the system must be investigated by statistical methods.

Almost forgotten by time, tucked away beyond the sight of the passerby, there is a little piece of old England, which was for many years a forgotten wilderness. If it were not for a weather-beaten plaque on the gatepost few would realise that beyond the rusted gates there lies, in unmarked paupers' graves, 2,861 former patients of the once formidable Menston Asylum. To be admitted to a lunatic asylum in the nineteenth century was fraught with danger, and in many cases meant a life sentence hidden away from society. It is estimated as many as 30 per cent of the asylum population was incarcerated incorrectly and up until 1959 there was no form of appeal. Looking into the faces of the long dead, the forgotten former inmates of this once bustling institution, it is impossible not to feel a certain sadness at their plight. Abandoned by an intolerant society and their families these people all had one thing in common, when death came there was no one to shed a tear or collect their remains. They were given a pauper's funeral and forgotten, until now.

Prior to the nineteenth century, Bradford was very much a backwater. After that it was to become the metropolis of the worsted industry and enjoyed a prosperity scarcely equalled by any other portion of the kingdom. It was said at the time that the real energy of Yorkshire centred in Bradford. The times of growth were astounding and in 1897, when the town received its city status, Bradford truly was magnificent.Wherever you go in Bradford you cannot escape its rich industrial past. Many of the old mills remain, either converted to housing or awaiting demolition. Bradford Through Time goes to show us in many ways what we have lost, many of the older images display a way of life that appears rich and energetic with a real pride. You may be forgiven for thinking in some cases that we have gone backwards and not forwards in time.

Bareboat Charters