Moving in High School Essay

Still, the thought of moving and starting over at a new school sent chills down my spine. And to my surprise, that’s exactly what happened. My mom had been laid off for over a year and had finally found a Job in a town about 45 minutes away from our home. It all happened so fast. I was about to become a senior in high school. I was so disappointed and angry with he thought of changing everything and leaving all that had ever known. It wasnt Just my high school that I’d be leaving. I was also enrolled in the Business Administration program at a local tech center. Going there was my favorite part of the day. I loved my accounting courses and my teacher made everything interesting and fun. It was leaving this program that felt the hardest, even harder than leaving behind friends I’d known since first grade. Luckily there was the opportunity to go to a different tech center that offered a similar program. Trying to get my head around moving, I visited the high school and the tech center where I would be continuing my classes. I must admit that I was still very frustrated, so it was difficult to see the opportunities the new schools offered. It was so different from my previous school that it felt like a whole new universe. To make matters worse, the school had a different credit system which made me question whether or not I would be able to graduate on time. In fact, it seemed pretty hopeless. The first day of school, as expected, was strange. Students were all excited to see each other after three months. while everyone else was concerned with catching up with friends, all I really wanted was someone to talk to me. Even if It was simply to ask who I was and what I was doing there. Things continued to be awkward during the first few days. Some people stared, and to others, I was invisible, but eventually I started talking to people in my classes, who turned out to be much nicer than I expected them to be. I also started making friends with the other students at the tech center – mainly because we already had so many interests. like accounting, business. and entrepreneurship, in common. As It turns out, changing schools my senior year wasn’t as bad as I had always thought it would be. Even though I’m no more popular than I was at my old school and, I went from being in a couple to being single (but that’s another story), changing schools turned out to be a great opportunity to make new friends and to collect new – and different – memories. But more than that, moving to a new school right before senior year made me realize that nothing is permanent and it’s given me the confidence to know that I can make new friends, pursue my academic interests, and develop new hobbies, regardless of my social environment. It’s funny; I hear a lot of ‘Of2 my Trlenas talk aoout now worrlea tney are aoout leaving tnelr Trlenas to go away to college and question about whether theyll be able to do it. Me? I’m not worried, because IVe already done it. And it turned out Just fine.

Godiva Chocolates Essay

A family by the name of the Draps began creating these amazing, little chocolates in Brussels, Belgium in 1926. Pierre Draps, in particular, was the man behind the chocolate. He started selling his chocolates to local shops to get business going. After World War II, Pierre’s son, Joseph, took control of the business. Joseph wanted to open a store of his own and asked his wife for insight on a name. His wife recommended the name â€Å"Godiva,† after the Lady Godiva who was famous for protesting high taxes by riding her horse nude through Coventry, England. After the opening of Godiva in the Brussels’ Grande Place, the Draps family realized that it was a huge success. With that being said, it was decided to expand the business, and more stores were opened throughout Belgium. Joseph’s idea was to have his company be a â€Å"premium chocolate company. † He wanted to use the most classy and elegant advertisement, as well as packaging. The family strived to have smooth, rich, and delicious chocolate. They decided they would only use the finest of ingredients, found throughout the world, to ensure the best tasting chocolate. At first, Godiva started off with a rich chocolate shell, filled with basic â€Å"ganache,† which is rich chocolate fudge, or a hazelnut praline filling. As time went on, the Draps began to create many more flavors and textured chocolates. The most famous chocolate creation was the Comtesse. This chocolate was made particularly to rejoice the Lady Godiva. It consisted of a creamy chocolate center with either a milk or dark chocolate outer layer. After the Comtesse came the Autant. The Autant was a chocolate leaf shaped milk chocolate that was hand-decorated and filled with a coffee-chocolate cream. This chocolate was made to honor the opening of the production â€Å"Gone With the Wind†, in 1939. There were several other chocolates designed and created to recognize a certain date or event; the Fabiola was a chocolate that was created in 1958 for the engagement of Queen Fabiola and King Baudouin I, the Golf Ball was a chocolate created to recognize Belgium’s King Leopold III passion for golf. In 1958, the Godiva company expanded to Paris and then to the United States. While expanding, the company also decided to invest with Pepperidge Farm and Campbell Soup. In 1972, Godiva finally opened its first store in the United States. The store was located in a high end part of New York City. Being a company that focuses on elegance and perfection, Godiva displayed its products as if they were diamonds, shining in their cases. Creation of New Products In the early 1990’s, the chocolatiers realized that they needed to keep up with the latest trends. Godiva introduced the Cafe Godiva portion of their company in 1993. The Cafe Godiva brought a variety of coffees, chocolate liquors, cocoa mixes, single serving pastries, and also cookies. With this new product line, Godiva saw a huge increase in their sales. Though Godiva is a European chocolate company, it was understood that Americans enjoy sweeter chocolate than most Europeans. Europeans typically eat a richer chocolate that is not very sweet at all, but actually considered â€Å"intense. † Godiva realized that tastes change over time. Currently, Godiva is adjusting its product line and are incorporating more European-like chocolates. Godiva is also changing most of its chocolates and candies. Instead of the outer shell being thick, Godiva is thinking about thinning the outside. The Chocolate Making Process The making of the delicious Belgium chocolates begins with the cocoa bean. After the beans are harvested, they are dried and carefully inspected for good quality. The beans the Godiva uses are considered to be the best of all the cocoa beans. They are shelled to expose cocoa nibs, which are then baked to release their intense aroma. After the beans are ready, the next step is to create the cocoa liquor. The chocolate liquor is the most important part of the chocolate making process, after all, that is where the chocolate gets its entire flavor. The liquor is created by grinding the nibs to a point when liquid begins to evolve. The liquid is extremely fine and consists of cocoa butter and cocoa particles. When creating the fillings, Godiva refuses to use any preservatives and artificial flavorings. Separating them from other chocolate companies, Godiva uses Grade A dairy butter and heavy cream to create their creamy and delicious fillings. Godiva is well known for its beautiful and unique shaped and designed chocolates. This was intentional; Godiva wants their products to be recognized when they are seen. Their shapes, molds, and designs represent everything there is to fine chocolate. The â€Å"Look† of Godiva In the initial openings of Godiva stores, the stores were designed to look similar to a jewelry store. There were pink marble counter tops with black lacquer, representing a very clean and classy look to them. In 1994, the company decided to take a risk and redesign the stores. The new stores would consist of bleached wooden floors, creamy white counter tops, and cherry wood cabinets. This new design was created to show a more welcoming and cozy feel to customers. As the new design was taking place, Godiva changed their set-up of their display. There were new single serving chocolates put out for the customer to browse at, as well as their prices. Instead of having their store look appealing to only the â€Å"wealthy† population, the store was recognized but all chocolate lovers. Thought Godiva changed the look of the interior of the store, their â€Å"perfect chocolate† image still remained. The expressed their image through creative advertisement and packaging. The advertisement campaign that Godiva uses is called â€Å"silhouettes. † Their chocolates are packaged in a way that looks appealing to the eye, using warm colors for all their packing. The packing consists of an assortment of golden boxes, ribbon, silk flowers, collectors’ tins, and colorful wrapping paper. Today, their famous assortment is known as the Gold Ballotin. This assortment is available in seven different sizes, and is used for all occasions and events. The Ballotin is a gold box with the Godiva logo located on the top of it, followed by a gold silk ribbon wrapped around it. Godiva named their assortment the â€Å"ballotin,† after the French word â€Å"ballot. † The world in French meant small package of goods for sale. Godiva Today Godiva has continued to expand their company worldwide. In 2009 Godiva began opening stores in Malaysia, Singapore, and even Taiwan. More recently, Godiva opened its first store in Turkey in September of 2010. The most recent event and accomplishment for Godiva is the opening of a Cafe Godiva in one of London’s well respected stores, Harrod’s Department Store. Today the Godiva name and brand is well known, respected, and loved in over 80 countries. Godiva now owns and runs more than 450 stores around the world. At all the stores, you are able to find an extensive selection of chocolates and products. With that being said, Godiva is able to suit anyone’s needs and give you the best of Belgium, all the way from New York to Taiwan.

Not sure Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 5

Not sure - Essay Example The Navigation Act trade law that was passed by the British parliament in 1651 mandated that the colonists only sell their products to Britain. Furthermore, the colonists were required to pay soaring taxes on goods imported from Dutch and France. Nevertheless, these policies ensured that the colonies and Britain benefited equally. Despite the numerous trade restrictions imposed by the British government the colonial merchants thrived. In 1754, the French and the English were embattled in a war for the control of North America. It is necessary to note that ‘the French also had colonies in North America during the 1600s and 1700s.’ The British and her colonies defeated the French in 1763, taking almost all of the land occupied by the French. Another impact of the victory was that it created tensions between the British colonies and the ‘motherland.’ Great Britain had incurred huge debts in fighting the war. The colonies also benefited from the victory; therefore, Britain felt that it is necessary for the colonists to aid in paying the debts incurred during the war. Therefore, the Stamp Act came into force in 1765. This law required all colonists to pay taxes in order to get an official stamp on newspapers, deeds, wills and other printed material. This move by the British government to impose taxes outraged the colonists in America. In addition, throughout history they had never directly paid taxes to the British government. Their argument was that the Stamp Act desecrated the natural rights of colonists, and they resolved that the British government was wrong to tax them without representation. According to the British system of governance representatives of citizens in parliament, defined the tax rates agreeable with their people. However, in this case the colonists had no representatives in parliament, and thus they saw it as an act of injustice that ought to be resisted (Bailyn). This tax laws fostered the growth of hostility between the colonists

People V. Lavalle (NYS Dealth Penalty) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

People V. Lavalle (NYS Dealth Penalty) - Essay Example d to death but he filed an appeal before the New York Court of Appeals and argued that in view of deadlock instructions of the state, the death penalty was not valid as per Article 1, Section 6 of the state’s constitution. The New York Appeals Court held that section 400.27(10) of New York’s Criminal Procedural Law was not constitutional. The New York Court of Appeals gave this ruling because of contradictions arising from the situation that the sentencing judge had the authority to decide amongst two options. The sentencing judge could impose death penalty or life imprisonment without parole. If the decision amongst the jury became deadlocked the judge was required to convict the offender to 20 - 25 years life imprisonment with parole. LaValle argued that because this third option was less severe relative to the other two, judges were pressurized to reach a consensus although some were not in agreement for the death penalty. Because the state’s deadlock instruct ions are unique there is no immediate impact on the death penalty in other states. But the case reveals how judges are pressurized whereby they are forced to impose the death penalty (Heller, 2008). The decision of the New York Court of Appeals presented the state legislature options to reinstate the death penalty or reinstate the death penalty in a modified way. The legislature decided to make a review of the state’s death penalty statutes by seeking wide ranging opinions from the public. From the wide ranging comments and opinions received from several reputed people and law experts concerns became apparent about the impending legislative changes. It was argued that legislation giving judges only two options by way of death penalty and life imprisonment without parole would not be constitutionally valid because prosecutors would seek elimination of parole possibilities by putting a death notice before the judges (Lentol et al., 2005). The New York State legislature could have redrafted the death

Media Audiences Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Media Audiences - Essay Example There is also the importance to differentiate between mass audiences that are broadcast to and the niche audiences involved in narrowcasting. In terms of subjectivity, there is the impact on the audience members by the membership of the pre-existing group including gender, religion, education and nation. It may also be defined in regard to a mainstream audience for the narrowcast media. This imagined mainstream is what elite and sub-cultural forms do define them. It is a socially constructed phenomena. In contrast to the critique of mass society, the culture of mainstream is not addressed to an audience that is homogenized as it is diverse and made of different multiple audiences that come from various demographic groups whose mode of engagement might have. This makes it appealing and also commercially lucrative. It may be hard to define, and its meaning normally shifts in accordance to its usage. Appreciating mass audiences will offer that opportunity of resisting adoption of the media’s terms as our own. Audience size together with commercial profitability is construction factors in mainstreaming though it should be understood independently. Though mainstream media are known as an object of passionate feelings, it is what that moves most of consumers to participation (Newma n, 1). Mass audience as included in the definition for the mass communication has distinguishing factors that include: it is heterogeneous in composition, composition of individuals is that of those who do not know each other, members of the mass are spatially separated, and the mass has a loose organization and leadership that is not definite (Napoli, 7). The new mass audience considers the mass audience as both the receiver and the sender of the message. An economist Dalls Smythe 1977 stated that the act of consuming media included a form of labour that is wageless engaged by

Global Water Crisis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Global Water Crisis - Essay Example It is the only natural resource that is consumed by all the living beings. Its significance is evident from the following quote of the former Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Anan who stated, â€Å"No single measure would do more to reduce disease and save lives in the developing world than bringing safe water and adequate sanitation (Water: The Crisis of 21st Century, 2007).† Where water gives life it can also take life if it is contaminated. Millions of people die every year due to diseases caused by contaminated water. In fact to be more precise 80% of diseases in the world are due to contaminated water. 90% of waste water is released without proper treatment and poor quality of water causes approximately 50-100 lacks of deaths every year. Poor water quality leads to the death of one child in every fifteen seconds and 25000 people die every day due to malnutrition (Water: The Crisis of 21st Century, 2007). Thus the importance of clean water becomes self evident . In this paper I intend to discuss the looming crisis caused by water shortage at the global level. I have chosen this topic because its importance for all living beings cannot be ignored. All living beings are dependent on it for their survival and for this reason it must be preserved for our future generations. I intend to highlight the present situation related to water shortage. I also intend to reflect on the consequences and causes of water shortage. For this purpose I have chosen to review the relevant literature to support my argument. Towards the end I will conclude with some suggestions that could prove useful for the preservation of water resources for our future generations. Currently our world is facing serious threat of water shortage in the twenty first century. The Toronto Star (2002) quoted the figures from a report published by the United Nations in which it has been discussed that currently 1.1 billion people have no access to clean drinking water,

Teachers Collaborating to Help Students with Epilepsy Research Paper

Teachers Collaborating to Help Students with Epilepsy - Research Paper Example While this collaboration holds weight on all instances, its significance increases substantially in instances of extreme difficulty, such as presence of illnesses in students. Epilepsy: Epilepsy is a brain disorder characterized by repeated seizures over time. Seizures are sporadic episodes of perturbing brain activity that causes changes in attention and behavior. Defining Seizures: Seizures are caused by abnormal electrical activity in the brain. The symptoms and affects of the seizure will depend on the area of the brain affected. The organ which is affected depends upon what part of the brain is affected. Seizures are classified into two types: Focal seizures and generalized seizures. Focal seizures start in any one area of the brain and may or may not spread across other areas of the body. Generalized seizures result from abnormal neuronal activities on both parts of the brain. Simple Focal seizures are guilty of causing unusual sensations, movements and feelings; however, they are not the cause of loss of consciousness. Complex focal seizures can be the cause of loss of consciousness and can produce dreamlike experiences or repetitive behavior. The area at which these focal seizures begin is what defines these seizures. E.g. Epilepsy of the temporal lobe originates on the temporal lobes of the brain (National Institute of Health, 2007). Generalized seizures are known to cause massive muscle spasms, loss of consciousness and falls. Generalized seizures have several subtypes. Some of the key types of generalized seizures are: Absence Seizures: Absence Seizures are characterized by symptoms that cause victims to stare into space or jerking and twitching of muscles. They are known to start during childhood or adolescence. Tonic Seizures: They cause stiffening of muscles. Clonic Seizures: This form of generalized seizures causes repeated jerking of movement on both sides of the body. Myoclonic Seizures: Myoclonic seizures cause twitches, jerks, and sporadic mu scle movements in the upper body, arms and legs. Atonic seizures: Loss of normal muscle tone which can lead to sudden drops of the head is caused by atonic seizures. Epilepsy, which is characterized by Seizures, is also divided into different types. Several syndromes of epilepsy are identified by researches; while some of them are recognized as hereditary, the causes of other syndromes are not known (Wyllie, 2007). Epileptic syndrome classification uses the terms symptomatic, idiopathic and cryptogenic. Seizures that have a known underlying cause are characterized as symptomatic. Idiopathic seizures are seizures which do not have a known cause. Cryptogenic seizures are seizures which have a suspected cause but the cause is not known for certainty (National Institute of Health, 2007). Location Related Epilepsy: This form of epilepsy consists of focal seizures. This form of epilepsy constitutes an EEG pattern, characteristic of focal electrical abnormality. The prognosis of location r elated epilepsy is very difficult and depends upon location of the brain abnormality (Engel, Pedley, & Aicardi, 2008). West’s Syndrome/ Infantile Spasms Infantile spasms fall under the symptomatic generalized epilepsy. They are found mostly in children of the age from 3 months to 3 years, associated with sudden epileptic flexor spasms and extreme risk for cognitive impairment. During the episode, the affected child may suddenly flex his limbs, flex forward at the trunk and cry. This episode is transient,

Economics of Environment and Energy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Economics of Environment and Energy - Essay Example This applies especially to those who only view environmental concerns, as anti-economic Transitioning to a low carbon economy is indispensable if the world is to continue uninterrupted by environmental degradation. Researchers have made a prediction that continued greenhouse gas emissions would result in a rise of temperature by 6Â °C before 22nd century. This temperature rise will result in problems such as drought and floods, global instability, public health related deaths and rampant migrations of people. All these problems will befall the world community including the UK. For the world to avoid these disastrous effects, global carbon dioxide emissions must fall to at least 50% below the levels of 1990 by the year 2050 (DECC, 2011,pp 3). This will ensure that world temperatures will not rise more than 2Â °C. In some past UN talks, the European Union promised to cut carbon dioxide emissions to 20% below the levels of 1990 by the year 2020. To reduce carbon dioxide emissions and fund emissions cuts in developing countries, the European Union has created the world’s largest emissions scheme (Leticia et al, 2012). The transition to reduce carbon dioxide emissions will happen but not without challenges. The UK will face the challenge of getting alternative energy sources that are environmentally friendly to run industries. Climate change needs urgent solutions to prevent ecological catastrophes, political and economic instability, and human suffering. According to Lund (2009, p.88), efforts to minimize greenhouse gas emissions will provide international security and improve energy, new economic opportunities, a fair society and a better environment. This paper will deal with energy consumption trends and prices in the UK, role of competitive markets in delivering the low carbon economy and government’s intervention in fostering the economy. The trends in energy consumption and prices have been on the rise in the whole world with the challenges of employing the use of environmentally sources of energy. Energy production of 2010 was down by 5.3% compared to the 2009 production in the United Kingdom (DECC, 2012, pp 2). Energy consumption normally becomes high during cold seasons, and thus in a cold year we expect a rise in energy consumption. This happens because people use lots of energy to keep warm their dwellings during cold times. In 2010, the final energy consumption rose by 4.4% while primary consumption of energy was up by 3.2%. However, the primary consumption on the temperature-adjusted basis fell down by 0.4 per cent. This happened because the average temperatures of the year 2010 were 1.1Â °C below those of 2009. The year 2010 saw the UK remaining a net energy importer, importing 28 per cent of its energy requirement. Because of reduced nuclear output due to outages, imports of liquefied natural gas increased. The tables below show the final energy consumption in the year 2010. By users Sector Percentage Transport 35.0 Domestic 30.5 Non-energy use 5.5 Iron and steel industry 1.0 Other industries 16.5 Other final users 11.5 By fuels Type of fuel Percentage consumption Natural gas 33.0 Electricity 17.5 Petroleum 45.5 Others 4.0 The final total energy consumption was 159.1 million tones of oil equivalent. From the tables, we can see that UK had increased dependency on fossil fuels, and the transport sector was the leading consumer of total energy consumption. In the fourth quarter of 2011, total energy production fell by 13% as compared to the productions in the

Literature review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Literature review Example This paper aims to analyze the literature available on the concept of customer satisfaction; hence it is divided into two major sections for the purpose of defining a flow. Initially a very concise review of the concept itself is provided, in light of the literature available, it is then extended to cover and analyze in detail the parallel notion of service quality which is often at times considered to be in correlation with customer satisfaction. The second section focuses on the specific service industry aspect of E-banking services, the service itself is explained and described, followed by an analysis with regards to service quality in the E-banking sector, and furthermore in order to narrow the case in focus, the service quality of E-banking in the Saudi Arabian banking sector is taken under consideration. All the analysis is in light of the literature available with regards to the topics under study. ... tion as a concept has occupied a unique position in marketing practice and research on part of the academia, since the initial research and study undertaken by Cardozo (Cardozo, 1965) on the topics of customer efforts, their expectations and most importantly their satisfaction. Regardless of the fact that the researchers and analysts around the globe have put in great effort and numerous attempts have been made at defining the notion of ‘customer satisfaction’ and its measurement, there still exists no consensus amongst them. Customer satisfaction is most commonly regarded as the post consumption feeling and the evaluation on part of the customer about a particular product of service (Gundersen, Heide and Olsson, 1996). It is a judgment based on evaluation of the pre-consumption expectations from a product/service and the performance of the product on that scale of perception according to the post-consumption experience (Oliver, 1980). The concept which is most widely ac cepted and related to customer satisfaction is the concept is the ‘expectancy disconfirmation theory’, this was a theory devised by Oliver who claimed that satisfaction level is the gap between the expectation and the actual performance of a product. ‘Satisfaction’, which is regarded as the ‘positive disconfirmation’, occurs when the product’s performance is better than the expectation, while on the contrary, when the performance is less than the expectation then it is termed ‘negative disconfirmation’, or in simple terminology as ‘dissatisfaction’ (McQuitty, Finn and Wiley, 2000). Studies throughout time have shown that customer satisfaction has a major impact on business results, and it has been claimed that customer satisfaction has a positive relation with business

The Concept of Human Rights Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

The Concept of Human Rights - Research Paper Example   Theory of human rights is explored in terms of the three generations theory suggested by Vasak. Finally, the place of human rights and various controversies related to their violations in the modern world are discussed. Human Rights Most often we hear the phrase â€Å"human rights† when someone talks about the protection of human rights in the modern world. Indeed, as Hafner-Burton & Tsutsui observe, â€Å"the protection of human rights is one of the most pressing and yet most elusive goals of the international community† (Hafner & Tsutsui, 2005, p. 1373). Claude & Weston, too, admit that the idea of human rights â€Å"has found its way around the globe†, so that every day people are reminded of its importance (Claude & Weston, 2006, p. 3). In the United States, people demand that the homeless get better condition, health insurance be fit for all, torture be brought to an end on the military bases; in Brazil and other countries, the indigenous peoples fight a gainst colonization of their lands and their dispossession; Tibetan monks resort to demonstrations to stop the Chinese from meddling with customs; Cuban people petition for just elections and free speech; the Burmese challenge enslavement practices used by the country’s government to force them construct a gas pipeline which belongs to one multinational company, etc. All these issues are classified as human rights (Claude & Weston, 2006). The fact that people all around the globe have to deal with it evidences its universal character and capacity to impact people’s aspirations. Yet, what exactly is â€Å"human rights†? This paper explores the concept of human rights in relation to its meaning, origin, history, theory, and place in the contemporary world. The Human Rights Concept The concept of human rights is based on an understanding of human rights as – literally – the rights that a person has because of being human. Hence, human rights are exerc ised universally by all people as well as they universally hold against any other person or institution. Human rights, believed to be the highest moral rights, regulate basic structures and major practices of political life; besides, in everyday situations, they are known to have an advantage over other claims of moral, political, or legal nature (Donelly, 2003, p. 1). The universality of human rights is their distinctive feature. As ideal standards, or in the word, human rights have been accepted almost in every country, since all states proclaim adherence to the international norms of human rights on a regular basis. However, these days the concept of human rights is more often spoken of in relation to human rights violations. Constant reports in the media about people becoming victims of state regimes suffer from â€Å"crimes against humanity†, injustices, and cruelties. This is the modern discourse of human rights and it is predominantly legal (Freeman, 2011, p.9). Freema n argues that legal understanding of human rights and turning them into an exclusively technical term by lawyers has led to the distortion of this concept.  Ã‚  

A Missionary Who Transformed a Nation Essay Example for Free

A Missionary Who Transformed a Nation Essay When Englishman William Carey (1761–1834) arrived in India in 1793, it marked a major milestone in the history of Christian missions and in the history of India. Carey established the Serampore Mission—the first modern Protestant mission in the non-English-speaking world—near Calcutta on January 10, 1800.1 From this base, he labored for nearly a quarter century to spread the gospel throughout the land. In the end his triumph was spectacular. Through his unfailing love for the people of India and his relentless campaign against â€Å"the spiritual forces of evil† (Eph. 6:12), India was literally transformed. Asian historian Hugh Tinker summarizes Carey’s impact on India this way: â€Å"And so in Serampore, on the banks of the river Hooghly, the principal elements of modern South Asia—the press, the university, social consciousness—all came to light.† 2 Who was William Carey? He was exactly the kind of man that the Lord seems to delight in using to accomplish great things; in other words, the kind of person that most of us would least expect. He was raised in a small, rural English town where he received almost no formal education. His chief source of income came through his work as a cobbler (a shoemaker). He had an awkward, homely appearance, having lost almost all his hair in childhood. Upon his arrival in India and throughout his years there, he was harassed by British colonists, deserted by his mission-sending agency, and opposed by younger missionary recruits who were sent to help him. Despite these setbacks, he became perhaps the most influential person in the largest outpost of the British Empire.3 Carey didn’t go to India merely to start new churches or set up medical clinics for the poor. He was driven by a more comprehensive vision—a vision for discipling the nation. â€Å"Carey saw India not as a foreign country to be exploited, but as his heavenly Father’s land to be loved and served, a society where truth, not ignorance, needed to rule.†4 He looked outward across the land and asked himself, â€Å"If Jesus were the Lord of India, what would it look like? What would be different?† This question set his agenda and led to his involvement in a remarkable variety of activities aimed at glorifying God and advancing His kingdom. Following are highlights of Carey’s work described in Vishal and Ruth Mangalwadi’s outstanding book The Legacy of William Carey: A Model for the Transformation of a Culture.5 Carey was horrified that India, one of the most fertile countries in the world, had been allowed to become an uncultivated jungle abandoned to wild beasts and serpents. Therefore he carried out a systematic survey of agriculture and campaigned for agriculture reform. He introduced the Linnaean system of plant organizations and published the first science texts in India. He did this because he believed that nature is declared â€Å"good† by its Creator; it is not Maya (illusion) to be shunned, as Hindus believe, but a subject worthy of human study. Carey introduced the idea of savings banks to India to fight the all-pervasive social evil of usury (the lending of money at excessive interest). He believed that God, being righteous, hated this practice which made investment, industry, commerce, and economic development impossible. He was the first to campaign for humane treatment of India’s leprosy victims because he believed that Jesus’ love extends to leprosy patie nts, so they should be cared for. Before then, lepers were often buried or burned alive because of the belief that a violent death purified the body on its way to reincarnation into a new healthy existence. He established the first newspaper ever printed in any Oriental language, because he believed that â€Å"above all forms of truth and faith, Christianity seeks free discussion.† His English-language journal, Friend of India, was the force that gave birth to the social-reform movement in India in the first half of the nineteenth century. He translated the Bible into over 40 different Indian languages. He transformed the Bengali language, previously considered â€Å"fit for only demons and women,† into the foremost literary language of India. He wrote gospel ballads in Bengali to bring the Hindu love of music to the service of his Lord. He began dozens of schools for Indian children of all castes and launched the first college in Asia. He desired to develop the Indian mind and liberate it from darkness and superstition. He was the first man to stand against the ruthless murders and widespread oppression of women. Women in India were being crushed through polygamy, female infanticide, child marriage, widow burning, euthanasia, and forced illiteracy—all sanctioned by religion. Carey opened schools for girls. When widows converted to Christianity, he arranged marriages for them. It was his persistent, 25-year battle against widow burning (known as sati) that finally led to the formal banning of this horrible religious practice. William Carey was a pioneer of the modern Christian missionary movement, a movement that has since reached every corner of the world. Although a man of simple origins, he used his God-given genius and every available means to serve his Creator and illumine the dark corners of India with the light of the truth. William Carey’s ministry in India can be described as wholistic. For something to be wholistic, it must have multiple parts that contribute to a greater whole. What is the â€Å"whole† to which all Christian ministry activities contribute? Through an examination of Christ’s earthly ministry, we see that the â€Å"whole† is glorifying God and advancing His kingdom through the discipling of the nations (Matt. 24:14; 28:18–20). This is God’s â€Å"big agenda†Ã¢â‚¬â€the principal task that he works through His church to accomplish. If this is the whole, then what are the parts? Matthew 4:23, highlights three parts: preaching, teaching, and healing. Because each part is essential to the whole, let’s look at each one more carefully. Preaching includes proclaiming the gospel—God’s gracious invitation for people everywhere to live in His Kingdom, have their sins forgiven, be spiritually reborn, and become children of God through faith in Christ. Proclaiming the gospel is essential to wholistic ministry, for unless lost and broken people are spiritually reborn into a living relationship with God—unless they become â€Å"a new creation† (2 Cor. 5:17)—all efforts to bring hope, healing, and transformation are doomed to fail. People everywhere need their relationship with God restored, yet preaching is only one part of wholistic ministry. Teaching entails instructing people in the foundational truths of Scripture. It is associated with discipleship—helping people to live in obedience to God and His Word in every area of life. In Matthew 28:20 Jesus tells His disciples to â€Å"teach [the nations] to obey everything I have commanded you.† Unless believers are taught to obey Christ’s commands, their growth may be hindered. Colossians 3:16 says, â€Å"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom.† Healing involves the tangible demonstrations of the present reality of the Kingdom in the midst of our hurting and broken world. When Jesus came, He demonstrated the present reality of God’s Kingdom by healing people. â€Å"The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are rais ed, and the good news is preached to the poor,† was Jesus’ report to His cousin John the Baptist in Matthew 11:4–5. Jesus didn’t just preach the good news; He demonstrated it by healing all forms of brokenness. Unless ministry to people’s physical needs accompanies evangelism and discipleship, our message will be empty, weak, and irrelevant. This is particularly true where physical poverty is rampant. The apostle John admonishes, â€Å"If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth† (1 John 3:17–18). Here’s a picture of the basic elements of a biblically balanced, wholistic ministry: First, there are multiple parts—preaching, teaching and healing. These parts have distinct functions, yet they are inseparable. All are essential in contributing to the whole, which is glorifying God and advancing His Kingdom. Lastly, each part rests on the solid foundation of the biblical worldview. In other words, each is understood and implemented through the basic presuppositions of Scripture. In summary, preaching, teaching and healing are three indispensable parts of wholistic ministry, whose purpose is to advance God’s kingdom â€Å"on earth as it is in heaven† (Matt. 6:10). Without these parts working together seamlessly, our ministry is less than what Christ intends, and will lack power to transform lives and nations. To comprehend the nature and purpose of wholistic ministry, two concepts must be understood. First is the comprehensive impact of humanity’s spiritual rebellion. Second is that our loving, compassionate God is presently unfolding His plan to redeem and restore all things broken through the Fall. When Adam and Eve turned their backs on God in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:1–6), the consequences of their sin were devastating and far-reaching; they affected the very order of the universe. At least four relationships were broken through the Fall. First, Adam and Eve’s intimate relationship with God was broken (Gen. 3:8–9). This was the primary relationship for which they had been created, the most important aspect of their lives. When their relationship with God was broken, their other relationships were damaged too: their relationship with themselves as individuals (Gen. 3:7, 10), with each other as fellow human beings (Gen. 3:7, 12, 16), and with the rest of creation (Gen. 3:17–19). The universe is intricately designed and interwoven. It is wholistic, composed of multiple parts, each of which depends on the proper functioning of the others. All parts are governed by laws established by God. When the primary relationship between God and humanity was severed, every part of the original harmony of God’s creation was affected. The results of this comprehensive brokenness have plagued humanity ever since. War, hatred, violence, environmental degradation, injustice, corruption, idolatry, poverty and fa mine all spring from sin. Thus, when God set out to restore His creation from the all-encompassing effects of man’s rebellion, His redemptive plan could not be small or narrow, focusing on a single area of brokenness. His plan is not limited to saving human souls or teaching or even healing. Rather, it combines all three with the goal of restoring everything, including each of the four broken relationships described above. Colossians 1:19–20 provides a picture of God’s wholistic redemptive plan: For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in [Christ], and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Emphasis added) God is redeeming all things. Through Christ’s blood our sins are forgiven and our fellowship with God is renewed. And not only that—we also can experience substantial healing within ourselves, with others, and with the environment. The gospel is not only good news for after we die; it is good news here and now! The task of the church is to join God in His big agenda of restoring all things. We are â€Å"Christ’s ambassadors,† called to t he â€Å"ministry of reconciliation† (see 2 Cor. 5:18–20). In the words of Christian apologist Francis Schaeffer, we should be working â€Å"on the basis of the finished work of Christ . . . [for] substantial healing now in every area where there are divisions because of the Fall.†6 To do this, we must first believe that such healing can be a reality here and now, in every area, on the basis of the finished work of Christ. This healing will not be perfect or complete on this side of Christ’s return, yet it can be real, evident, and substantial. Preaching, teaching, and substantial healing in every area where brokenness exists as a result of the Fall—in essence, wholistic ministry—is the vision that Christ had and modeled for us on earth. It was the vision that set the agenda for William Carey in India. It is the vision that should set the agenda for our ministry as well. When Jesus sent out His disciples on their first missionary journey, â€Å"He sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sickâ⠂¬  (Luke 9:2). Yet today it’s common for Christian ministries to separate the twin ministry components. Some focus exclusively on preaching, evangelism, or church planting, while others focus on meeting the physical needs of the broken or impoverished. Typically these two groups have little interaction. This division is not what Christ intended. By focusing on one to the exclusion of the other, ministries are limited and ineffective in bringing about true, lasting transformation. The Bible provides a model of ministry where preaching, teaching, and healing are, in the words of Dr. Tetsunao Yamamori, â€Å"functionally separate, yet relationally inseparable.†7 Each part is distinct and deserves special attention and focus. Yet the parts must function together. Together they form a wholistic ministry that is both powerful and effective—a ministry able to transform lives and entire nations. The work of William Carey in India gives historical testimony to this fact. According to theologian David Wells, preaching, teaching, and healing must be â€Å"inextricably related to each other, the former being the foundation and the latter being the evidence of the working of the former.† There is a story told about the subject of the following sketch which may be repeated here by way of introduction. It is said that long after he had attained to fame and eminence in India, being Professor of oriental languages in the college of Fort William, honoured with letters and medals from royal hands, and able to write F.L.S., F.G S., F.A.S., and other symbols of distinction after his name, he was dining one day with a select company at the Governor-Generals, when one of the guests, with more than questionable taste, asked an aide-de-camp present, in a whisper loud enough to be heard by the professor, whether Dr. Carey had not once been a shoemaker. No, sir, immediately answered the doctor, only a cobbler! Whether he was proud of it, we cannot say; that he had no need to be ashamed of it, we are sure. He had out-lived the day when Edinburgh reviewers tried to heap contempt on consecrated cobblers, and he had established his right to be enrolled amongst the aristocracy of learning and philanthropy. Some fifty years before this incident took place, a visitor might have seen over a small shop in a Northamptonshire village a sign-board with the following inscription: Second-hand Shoes Bought and Sold.WILLIAM CAREY.| The owner of this humble shop was the son of a poor schoolmaster, who inherited a taste for learning; and though he was consigned to the drudgery of mending boots and shoes, and was even then a sickly, care-worn man, in poverty and distress, with a delicate and unsympathizing wife, he lost no opportunity of acquiring information both in languages and natural history and taught himself drawing and painting. He always worked with lexicons and classics open upon his bench; so that Scott, the commentator, to whom it is said that he owed his earliest religious impressions, used to call that shop Mr. Careys college. His tastes — we ought rather to say Gods providence — soon led him to open a village school; and as he belonged to the Baptist community, he combined with the office of schoolmaster that of a preacher in their little chapel at Moulton, with the scanty salary of  £16 a year. Strange to say, it was whilst giving his daily lessons in geography that the flame of mis sionary zeal was kindled in his bosom. As he looked upon the vast regions depicted on the map of the world, he began to ponder on the spiritual darkness that brooded over so many of them, and this led him to collect and collate information on the subject, until his whole mind was occupied with the absorbing theme. It so happened that a gathering of Baptist ministers at Northampton invited a subject for discussion, and Carey, who was present, at once proposed The duty of Christians to attempt the spread of the Gospel amongst heathen nations. The proposal fell amongst them like a bombshell, and the young man was almost shouted down by those who thought such a scheme impracticable and wild. Even Andrew Fuller, who eventually became his great supporter, confessed that he found himself ready to exclaim, If the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? But Careys zeal was not to be quenched. He brought forward the topic again and again; he wrote a pamphlet on the subject; and on his removal to a more important pos t of duty at Leicester, he won over several influential persons to his views. It was at this time (1792) he preached his famous sermon from Isaiah 54:2,3, and summed up its teaching in these two important statements: (1) Expect great things from God, and (2) Attempt great things for God. This led to the formation of the Baptist Missionary Society; and Carey, at the age of thirty-three, proved his sincerity by volunteering to be its first messenger to the heathen. Andrew Fuller had said, There is a gold mine in India; but it seems as deep as the centre of the earth; who will venture to explore it? I will go down, responded William Carey, in words never to be forgotten, but remember that you must hold the rope. The funds of the Society amounted at the time to  £13 2s 6d. But the chief difficulties did not arise out of questions of finance. The East India Company, sharing the jealousy against missionary effort, which, alas! at that time was to be found amongst the chief statesmen of the realm, and amongst prelates of the Established Church as well as amongst No nconformist ministers, were opposed to all such efforts, and no one could set his foot upon the Companys territory without a special license. The missionary party and their baggage were on board the Earl of Oxford and the ship was just ready to sail, when an information was laid against the captain for taking a person on board without an order from the Company, and forthwith the passengers and their goods were hastily put on shore, and the vessel weighed anchor for Calcutta, leaving them behind, disappointed and disheartened. They returned to London. Mr. Thomas, who was Careys companion and brother missionary, went to a coffee-house, when, to use his own language, to the great joy of a bruised heart, the waiter put a card into my hand, whereon were written these life-giving words: A Danish East Indiaman, No. 10, Cannon Street. No more tears that night. Our courage revived; we fled to No. 10, Cannon Street, and found it was the office of Smith and Co., agents, and that Mr. Smith was a brother of the captains; that this ship had sailed, as he supposed, from Copenhagen; was hourly expected in Dover roads; would make no stay t here; and the terms were  £100 for each passenger,  £50 for a child, and  £25 for an attendant. This of course brought up the financial difficulty in a new and aggravated form; but the generosity of the agent and owner of the ship soon overcame it, and within twenty-four hours of their return to London, Mr. Carey and his party embarked for Dover; and on the 13th June, 1793, they found themselves on board the Kron Princessa Maria, where they were treated with the utmost kindness by the captain, who admitted them to his own table, and provided them with special cabins. The delay, singularly enough, removed one of Careys chief difficulties and regrets. His wife who was physically feeble, and whose deficiency in respect to moral intrepidity was afterwards painfully accounted for by twelve years of insanity in India, had positively refused to accompany him, and he had consequently made up his mind to go out alone. She was not with him when he and his party were suddenly expelled from the English ship; but she was so wrought upon by all that had occurred, as well as by renewed entreaties, that with her sister and her five children she set sail with him for Calcutta. Difficulties of various kinds surrounded them upon their arrival in India. Poverty, fevers, bereavement, the sad illness of his wife, the jealousy of the Government, all combined to render it necessary that for a while Carey should betake himself to an employment in the Sunderbunds, where he had often to use his gun to supply the wants of his family; and eventually he went to an indigo factory at Mudnabully, where he hoped to earn a livelihood. But he kept the grand project of his life distinctly in view; he set himself to the acquisition of the language, he erected schools, he made missionary tours, he began to translate the New Testament, and above all he worked at his printing press, which was set up in one corner of the factory and was looked upon by the natives as his god. Careys feelings at this time with regard to his work will be best expressed in the following passage from a letter to his sisters: I know not what to say about the mission. I feel as a farmer does about his crop; sometimes I think the seed is springing, and then I hope; a little time blasts all, and my hopes are gone like a cloud. I preach every day to the natives, and twice on the Lords Day constantly, besides other itinerant labours; and I try to speak of Jesus Christ and Him crucified and of Him alone; but my soul is often dejected to see no fruit. And then he goes on to speak of that department of his labour in which his greatest achievements were ultimately to be won: The work of translation is going on, and I hope the whole New Testament and the five books of Moses may be completed before this reaches you. It is a pleasant work and a rich reward, and I trust, whenever it is published, it will soon prevail, and put down all the Shastras of the Hindus. The translation of the Scriptures I look upon to be one of the greatest desiderata in the world, and it has accordingly occupied a considerable part of my time and attention. Five or six years of patient unrequited toil passed by, and then four additional labourers were sent out by the Society to Careys help. Two of them will never be forgotten, and the names of Carey, Marshman, and Ward will ever be inseparably linked in the history of Indian missions. Ward had been a printer; and it was a saying of Careys, addressed to him in England, that led him to adopt a missionarys life: We shall want you, said he, in a few years, to print the Bible; you must come after us. Marshman had been an assistant in a London book-shop, but soon found that his business there was not to his taste, as he wished to know more about the contents of books than about their covers; so he set up a school at Bristol, mastered Greek and Latin, Hebrew and Syriac, and became prosperous in the world; but he gave up all to join Carey in his noble enterprise, and moreover, brought out with him, as a helper in the mission, a young man whom he himself had been the means of converting from inf idelity. Marshmans wife was a cultivated woman, and her boarding school in India brought in a good revenue to the mission treasury. His daughter married Henry Havelock, who made for himself as great a name in the military annals of his country as his illustrious father-in-law had won for himself in the missionary history of the world. The jealous and unchristian policy of the East India Company would not allow the newly arrived missionaries to join their brethren, and they were compelled to seek shelter under a foreign flag. Fortunately for the cause of missions, a settlement had been secured by the Danes at Serampore, some sixteen miles up the river from Calcutta, and it now proved a city of refuge to Englishmen who had been driven from territory which owned the British sway. The governor of the colony, Colonel Bie, was a grand specimen of his race; he had been in early days a pupil of Schwartz, and he rejoiced in knowing that the kings of Denmark had been the first Protestant princes that ever encouraged missions amongst the heathen. He gave the exiled missionaries a generous welcome and again and again gallant ly resisted all attempts to deprive them of his protection, declaring that if the British Government still refused to sanction their continuance in India, they should have the shield of Denmark thrown over them if they would remain at Serampore. Carey determined, though it was accompanied with personal loss to himself, to join his brethren at Serampore, and the mission soon was organized in that place, which became, so to speak, the cradle of Indian missions. It possessed many advantages: it was only sixty miles from Nuddea, and was within a hundred of the Mahratta country; here the missionaries could preach the Gospel and work their printing press without fear, and from this place they could pass under Danish passports to any part of India. There was a special providence in their coming to Serampore at the time they did; for in 1801 it passed over to English rule without the firing of a shot. They were soon at work, both in their schools and on their preaching tours. Living on homely fare and working for their bread, they went forth betimes in pairs to preach the word of the living God, now in the streets or in the bazaars, now in the midst of heathen temples, attracting crowds to hear them by the sweet hymns which Carey ha d composed in the native tongue, and inviting inquirers to the mission-house for further instruction. The first convert was baptized in the same year on the day after Christmas. His name was Krishnu. He had been brought to the mission-house for medical relief, and was so influenced by what he saw and heard, that he resolved to become a Christian. On breaking caste by eating with the missionaries, he was seized by an enraged mob and dragged before the magistrate, but to their dismay he was released from their hands. Carey had the pleasure of performing the ceremony of baptism with his own hands, in presence of the governor and a crowd of natives and Europeans. It was his first recompense after seven years of toil, and it soon led the way to other conversions. Amongst the rest, a high-caste Brahmin divested himself of his sacred thread, joined the Christian ranks, and preached the faith which he once destroyed. Krishnu became an efficient helper and built at his own expense the first place of worship for native Christians in Bengal. Writing about him twelve years after his baptism, Car ey says, He is now a steady, zealous, well-informed, and I may add eloquent minister of the Gospel, and preaches on an average twelve or fourteen times every week in Calcutta and its neighborhood. But we must turn from the other laborers and the general work of the mission to dwell upon the special work for which Careys tastes and qualifications so admirably fitted him. We have seen that his heart was set on the translation and printing of the Scriptures and to this from the outset he sedulously devoted himself. On the 17th March, 1800 the first sheet of the Bengali New Testament was ready for the press, and in the next year Carey was able to say, I have lived to see the Bible translated into Bengali, and the whole New Testament printed. But this was far from being the end of Careys enterprise. In 1806, the Serampore missionaries contemplated and issued proposals for rendering the Holy Scriptures into fifteen oriental languages, viz., Sanskrit, Bengali, Hindustani, Persian, Mahratta, Guzarathi, Oriya, Kurnata, Telinga, Burman, Assam, Boutan, Thibetan, Malay, and Chinese. Professor Wilson, the Boden Professor of Sanscrit at Oxford, has told us how this proposal was more than ac complished: They published, he says, in the course of about five-and-twenty years, translations of portions of the Old and New Testament, more or less considerable, in forty different dialects. It is not pretended that they were conversant with all these forms of speech, but they employed competent natives, and as they themselves were masters of Sanscrit and several vernacular dialects, they were able to guide and superintend them. In all this work Dr. Carey (for the degree of Doctor of Divinity had been bestowed on him by a learned university) took a leading part. Possessed of at least six different dialects, a thorough master of the Sanscrit, which is the parent of the whole family, and gifted besides with a rare genius for philological investigation, he carried the project, says the professor, to as successful an issue as could have been expected from the bounded faculties of man. And when it is remembered that he began his work at a time when there were no helps or appliances for his studies; when grammars and dictionaries of these dialects were unknown, and had to be constructed by himself; when even manuscripts of them were scarce, and printing was utterly unknown to the natives of Bengal, the work which he not only set before him, but accomplished, must be admitted to have been Herculean. Frequently did he weary out three pundits in the day, and to the last hour of his life he never intermitted his labours. The following apology for not engaging more extensively in correspondence will be read with interest, and allowed to be a sufficient one:— I translate from Bengali and from Sanscrit into English. Every proof-sheet of the Bengali and Mahratta Scriptures must go three times at least through my hands. A dictionary of the Sanscrit goes once at least through my hands. I have written and printed a second edition of the Bengali grammar and collected materials for a Mahratta dictionary. Besides this, I preach twice a week, frequently thrice, and attend upon my collegiate duties. I do not mention this because I think my work a burden — it is a real pleasure — but to show that my not writing many letters is not because I neglect my brethren, or wish them to cease writing to me. Carey was by no means a man of brilliant genius, still less was he a man of warm enthusiasm; he had nothing of the sentimental, or speculative, or imaginative in his disposition; but he was a man of untiring energy and indomitable perseverance. Difficulties seemed only to develop the one and to increase the other. These difficulties arose from various quarters, sometimes from the opposition of the heathen, sometimes from the antagonism of the British Government, sometimes, and more painfully, from the misapprehensions or injudiciousness of the Society at home; but he never was dismayed. On the contrary, he gathered arguments for progress from the opposition that was made to it. There is, he writes a very considerable difference in the appearance of the mission, which to me is encouraging. The Brahmins are now most inveterate in their opposition; they oppose the Gospel with the utmost virulence, and the very name of Jesus Christ seems abominable in their ears. And all this is the more remarkable, when we remember that he was by nature indolent. He says of himself, No man ever living felt inertia to so great a degree as I do. He was in all respects a man of principle and not of impulse. Kind and gentle, he was yet firm and unwavering. Disliking compliments and commendations for himself, it was not his habit to bestow them upon others. Indeed, he tells us that the only attempt which he ever made to pay a compliment met with such discouragement, that he never had any inclination to renew the attempt. A nephew of the celebrated President Edwards called upon him with a letter of introduction, and Carey congratulated him on his relationship to so great a personage; but the young man dryly replied, True, sir, but every tub must stand on its own bottom. From his childhood he had been in earnest in respect to anything he undertook. He once tried to climb a tree and reach a nest, but failed, and soon came to the ground; yet, though he had to limp home bruised and wounded, the first thing he did when able again to leave the house was to climb that same tree and take that identical nest. This habit of perseverance followed him through life. One evening, just before the missionaries retired to rest, the printing office was di scovered to be on fire, and in a short time it was totally destroyed. Buildings, types, paper, proofs, and, worse than all, the Sanscrit and other translations perished in the flames. Ten thousand pounds worth of property was destroyed that night, no portion of which was covered by insurance; but under the master mind of Carey the disaster was soon retrieved. A portion of the metal was recovered from the wreck, and as the punches and matrices had been saved, the types were speedily recast. Within two months the printers were again at their work; within two more the sum required to repair the premises had been collected; and within seven the Scriptures had been re-translated into the Sanscrit language. Carey preached on the next Lords-day after the conflagration, from the text, Be still, and know that I am God, and set before his hearers two thoughts: (1) God has a sovereign right to dispose of us as He pleases; (2) we ought to acquiesce in all that God does with us and to us. Writing to a friend at this time, he calmly remarks that traveling a road the second time, however painful it may be, is usually done with greater ease and certainty than when we travel it for the first time. To such a man success was already assured, and by such a man success was well deserved. And it came. When the Government looked round for a suitable man to fill the chair of oriental languages in their college at Fort William, their choice fell, almost as a necessity, upon the greatest scholar in India, and so the persecuted missionary became the honoured Professor of Sanscrit, Bengali, and Mahratta, at one thousand rupees a month. He stipulated, however, that he would accept the office only on the condition that his position as a missionary should be recognized; and he took a noble revenge upon those who had so long opposed his work, by devoting the whole of his newly-acquired salary to its further extension. His new position served to call attention to missionary work; and by degrees a better feeling sprang up towards it both at home and abroad. Carey and his companions were at length able to preach in the bazaars of Calcutta. Fresh labourers had come to India. Corrie, Browne, Mart yn, and Buchanan were stirring the depths of Christian sympathy by their work and by their appeals. Grant, Wilberforce, and Macaulay were rousing the British nation to some faint sense of duty; so that when the charter of the East India Company came to be renewed in 1813, the restrictive regulations were defeated in the House of Commons by a majority of more than two to one. In the very next year the foundations of the Indian Episcopate were laid; and in the following year Dr. Middleton, the first Metropolitan of India (having Ceylon for one archdeaconry, and Australia for another) was visiting the Serampore missionaries, in company with the Governor-General, and expressing his admiration and astonishment at their work. Distinctions crowded fast upon the Northamptonshire cobbler. Learned societies thought themselves honoured by admitting him to membership. He had proved himself a useful citizen as well as a devoted missionary. He had established a botanic garden, and edited The Flora Indica; he had founded an agricultural society, and was elected its president; he suggested a plantation committee for India and was its most active member; he collected a splendid museum of natural history which he bequeathed to his college; he was an early associate of the Asiatic Society, and contributed largely to its researches; he had translated the Ramayana, the most ancient poem in the Sanscrit language, into three volumes; he was a constant writer in the Friend of India; he founded a college of his own, and obtained for it a royal charter from the King of Denmark; and in these and other ways he helped forward the moral and political reforms which have done so much for Hindustan. He was one of the first to memorialize the Government against the horrid infanticides at Sangor, and he lived to see them put down. He was early in the field to denounce the murderous abominations of the Suttee [sati], and to oppose to them th e authority even of the Hindu Vedas, and he had the satisfaction of seeing them abolished by Lord William Bentinck. He protested all along against the pilgrim tax, and the support afforded by the Bengal Government to the worship of juggernaut, and he did not die until he saw the subject taken up by others who carried it to a triumphant issue. What would have been his devout gratitude, had he lived to see the last links of connection between the Government and the idol temples severed in 1840, and Hindu and Mohammedan laws, which inflicted forfeiture of all civil rights on those who became Christians, abrogated by the Lex Loci Act of 1850! What would have been the joy of Carey, of Martyn, or of Corrie, could they have heard the testimony borne to the character and success of missions in India by Sir Richard Temple, the late Governor of Madras, at a public meeting held last year in Birmingham! He said, I have governed a hundred and five millions of the inhabitants of India, and I have been concerned with eighty-five millions more in my official capacity. I have thus had acquaintance with, or been au thentically informed regarding, nearly all the missionaries of all the societies labouring in India within the last forty years. And what is my testimony concerning these men? They are most efficient as pastors of their native flocks, and as evangelists in preaching in cities and villages from one end of India to the other. In the work of converting the heathen to the knowledge and practice of the Christian religion, they show great learning in all that relates to the native religion and to the caste system. They are, too, the active and energetic friends of the natives in all times of danger and emergency. So far as to the character of the missionaries. Speaking of their success, he said, It has sometimes been stated in the public prints, which speak with authority, that their progress has been arrested. Now, is this really the case? Remember that missionary work in India began in the year 1813, or sixty-seven years ago. There are in the present year not less than 350,000 native Christians, besides 150,000 scholars, who, though not all Christians, are receiving Christian instruction; that is, 500,000 people, or half a million, brought under the influence of Christianity. And the annual rate of increase in the number of native Christians has progressed with advancing years. At first it was reckoned by hundreds yearly, then by thousands, and further on by tens of thousands. But it will be asked, what is the character of these Christian converts in India? what practically is their conduct as Christians? Now, I am not about to claim for them any extreme degree of Christian perfection. But speaking of them as a class, I venture to affirm that the Christian religion has exercised a dominant influence over their lives and has made a decided mark on their conduct. They adhere to their faith under social difficulties. Large sacrifices have to be made by them. The number of apostates may almost be counted on the fingers. There is no such thing as decay in religion, nor any retrogression towards heathenism. On the contrary, they exhibit a laudable desire for the self-support and government of their Church. I believe that if hereafter, during any revolution, any attempts were to be made by secular violence to drive the native Christians back from their religion, many of them would attest their faith by martyrdom. Carey was not the man to wish or to expect that Government should step out of its sphere in order to enforce Christianity upon the natives. Do you not think, Dr. Carey, asked a Governor-General, that it would be wrong to force the Hindus to be Christians? My Lord, was the reply, the thing is impossible; we may, indeed, force men to be hypocrites, but no power on earth can force men to become Christians. Carey, however, was too clear-headed not to see, and too honest not to say, that it was one thing to profess neutrality, and anothe r to sanction idolatry; that it was one thing to abstain from using earthly power to propagate truth, and quite another to thwart rational and scriptural methods of diffusing it. And he was too much of a statesman, as well as too much of a missionary, not to see that in respect to some tenets of the Hindu system it would be impossible for the Government eventually to remain neutral, inasmuch as they subverted the very foundations upon which all government is based. Such was the man who in the sequel won deserved honour even from hostile critics, and earned high encomiums from even prejudiced judges. Well might Lord Wellesley, who was, perhaps, the greatest of Indian statesmen, say concerning him, after listening to the first Sanscrit speech ever delivered in India by an European, and hearing that in it Carey had recognized his noble efforts for the good of India, I esteem such a testimony from such a man a greater honour than the applause of courts and parliaments. Still, amidst all his labours and all his honours, he kept the missionary enterprise distinctly in view, and during the forty years of his residence in India he gave it the foremost place. Several opportunities and no small inducements for returning to his native land were presented to him, but he declined them all. I account this my own country, he said, and have not the least inclination to leave it; and he never did. To the last his translations of the Scriptures and his printing press were his chief care and his chief delight. He counted it so sacred a work that he believed that a portion of the Lords-day could not be better employed than in correcting his proof-sheets. In his seventy-third year, when weak from illness and old age, and drawing near to death, he writes, I am now only able to sit and to lie upon my couch, and now and then to read a proof-sheet of the Scriptures; but I am too weak to walk more than across the house, nor can I stand even a few minutes without support. His last work was to revise his Bengali Bible, and on completing it he says, There is scarcely anything for which I desired to live a little longer so much as for that. He went back to Serampore to die; and he died in the presence of all his brethren. It must have been a touching sight to see Dr. Wilson, the Metropolitan of India, standing by the death-bed of the dying Baptist, and asking for his blessing. It bore witness to the large-heartedness both of the prelate and of the missionary, and was a scene that did honour alike to the living and to the dying. Carey in his will directed that his funeral should be as plain as possible; that he should be laid in the same grave with his second wife, the accomplished Charlotte Rumohr, who had been a real helper to him in his work; and that on the simple stone which marked his grave there should be placed this inscription, and no more.

Roles of a financial manager

Roles of a financial manager Introduction Of The History Of The Function And Qualifications Of A Financial Manager First we need to understand the term ‘financial manager, Brealey, Myers and Allen (2008, p.6) referred this term to anyone in an organization who is specialized in finance and responsible for the companys investment or financing decision, large corporation may name it as ‘controller, international conglomerates even appoint a Corporate Financial Officer [CFO] to be responsible for corporate planning. History Of The Financial Managers Function Ever since 1900s and even after the Great Depression in 1930s, the primary role of a finance people was only a descriptive discipline on bookkeeping which means accurately recording all transactions related to the payment of suppliers, billing of customers, and handling of cash passing through the accounts department and issuing periodic financial statements. Until late 1960s increased competition in industries forced financial managers to shift their focus towards evaluating investment opportunities and making decisions on the choice of assets and liabilities necessary to maximize the companys value. The 1970s and 80s was a period of increased international competition, CEOs became concerned with operational efficiency to cope with the fast growing market, this included the accounting functions which was streamlined and required to reach out to becoming a profit center for the whole organization (Besley Brigham, 2005, p.6). This transitional shift was gradual and finance managers r oles are no longer stuck solely to the accounting functions, hence a new operational trend brought in a new breed of heavily educated controllers profession with MIS training and computer systems operational capabilities to bring forth efficiency and accuracy in management reports and analysis versus the old accounting systems. Olley (2006) quoted a study by the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) [The Practice Analysis of Management Accounting (1996)] which mentioned that since the mid 1980s, management accountants have transitioned from the traditional role of being a ‘number cruncher to an internal management consultant and decision-support specialist. Over the century, finance manager has risen to a highly educated, professional and useful positions in the entire corporate structure. Qualification Requirements Of A Financial Manager [FM] In normal practice, a finance manager has to have ACCA/ HKICPA or degree in accountancy or financial planning academic track record or even a chartered accountant qualification, who may possess a minimum of 10 years experience in accounting and financial planning. The traditional career path towards a Financial Manager was through the accounting clerical ranks, then move onto being an assistant accountant and accountant. Other recruiters would prefer one who has been an auditor as this experience allows the individual a wide exposure to auditing and learning from different industries, knowledge of financial situations and how to avoid human or systems errors, so that the person is more affluent on how to manage a smooth transaction flow. Expectations From Corporations, Job Description And Key Attributes Of FM Expectations From Corporations The functions, levels and scopes of responsibilities of financial managers can be very different depending on the size of organizations. For large corporations, the generic role is highly focused on strategic analysis while for smaller organizations, the role could only be more concerned on the collection and preparation of accounts and ledgers. Michael Page International, one of the worlds executive recruitment agent, posted a front page headline advertisement in Classified Post of South China Morning Post on 14 November 2009 in the need of a Chief Financial Manager. The advertisement stated the incumbent will be an integral part of the senior management team, report to the Managing Director [MD] with the ultimate responsibility for the control of the global finance operation of a new venture. The person will need to manage the cash situation of each branch of the business and exercise the financial strategy across multiple locations and will need to build the necessary reporting, risk and control frameworks. The person also needs to prepare analysis and financial models and ensure compliance to corporate policy and national accounting practices. In addition to technical finance advice, the incumbent should possess strong commercial acumen and will work closely with the MD on strategic growth and development plans for the b usiness, furthermore, to liaise with shareholders, key investors and build relevant banking relationships. The client expected someone with experience working within an entrepreneurial environment and display the ability to be part of a dynamic team. Allicolven, another executive search consultant, listed the criteria on its advertisement in JobsDB (13 November 2009) that the applicant has to provide value-added insight into opportunities and risks, responsible for completing the statutory consolidated financial audit for the organization, as well as ensuring the impeccable application of global accounting policy issues for the company and its subsidiaries, the development and maintenance of global controls surrounding treasury and cash management. The client required from the incumbent excellent leadership, proven understanding of regulatory capital issues and align with regulators, excellent communication and command of English and Chinese. These advertisements include all the criteria this paper aims to discuss on and one can easily see the challenging roles of a finance manager nowadays which exceeds the normal accounting functions already. Job Description Of FM Typical work activities, stated in the Job Description of a Financial Manager in JobsDB (9 Nov 2009), Prospects (16 Dec 2009), and Careerplanner (16 Dec 2009) are summarized below, with each requirement stating clearly a standard that has to be met and how the results of the good work would impact the organization: Manage and oversee the daily accounting functions to ensure relevant accounting activities are handled in compliance with the regulatory requirements and group accounting policies and maintain the highest standard; Coordinate and execute all financial related activities in the groups businesses to ensure the proper financial management and minimize the financial risks; Assist the top management to formulate strategic and long-term business plans; Monitor and supervise the month-end closing to ensure all management reports are tendered on time and with accuracy; Prepare and review monthly financial charts for all offices, debrief the financial data and results into business implication to relevant divisional heads; Compile various periodic analytical reports and hold discussion meetings with department heads timely to alert them of the updated business performance; Liaise with external auditors to ensure annual auditing is performed smoothly; participate in the group internal audits to ensure proper control procedures are in place; Monitor cash flows, oversee the total funding, predict future trends of cash and fund management to optimize the benefits of the companys fund usage; Establish the annual budget program and financial models to sustain a smooth and comprehensive process; Handle taxation and legal matters; Review and implement efficient and effective internal control system, make recom- mendations on existing work procedures to improve efficiency. Set up accounting software to ensure it meets the corporate accounting requirement; Supervise the accounting staff locally and ensure the accounts department is well managed, liaise with overseas accounting heads to make sure appropriate guidance and directions are given. Assist in appropriate recruitment and provide coaching and training programs to staff members and conduct performance review for them; Work independently, when applicable, take the initiative to provide input on process improvements as it relates to reconciliations; Develop network and relationships with community and external contacts, such as customers, auditors, solicitors, bankers, brokers, creditors, insurance companies and statutory organizations. Provide assistance and solutions to them whenever necessary; Analyze and keep updated of changes in legislation, financial regulations, competitors move and market trends, research and report on factors influencing the organizations business performance and advise the management accordingly. The Key Attributes And Competencies Required For FM It is almost a prerequisite for a professional finance manager to be analytical, rational, cautious and meticulous yet possessing a macro view of the whole accounting picture, ethical, risk sensitive and inquisitive to detect fraud in any areas in the organization. General personal attributes such as being hardworking, independent with initiative, responsible and accountable, well organized, efficient, timely, cost-effective, self motivating, willing to work under pressure are expected. In addition, management skills to enhance productivity of the accounting team, interpersonal skills in proactively communicating the financial facts and findings to the management, coordinating with other department personnel and decision makers, and being a team player would be most appropriate and eligible to be a finance team leader. Typical Accounting Roles Of Financial Managers And The Critical Aspects Gitman (1992, p.8) defined that financial management is in the arena of business management, dedecated to a careful selection of sources and prudent use of capital, with the aim in enabling a spending unit to move towards the direction of reaching its goals. The duties and responsibilities of financial managers vary with their specific functions and position titles in different organizations, this includes being a controller, treasurer, credit manager, cash manager, internal auditor, taxation manager, risk and insurance manager. Each of these functions has their critical aspects and prime objectives. Function As A Controller Controllers direct and compile the preparation of financial analysis reports concluding and forecasting the organizations financial status. These analyses include income statements, balance sheets, continual review of revenue and expense trends and analysis of future earnings. Controllers provide periodic compilation of business cycle forecasting statistics and periodic calculation of a standard set of ratios for corporate financial performance and regulatory authorities. Controllers make financing decisions typically including should the company raise funds by borrowing short term or long term debt or by selling stock and equity, timing to pay dividends and timing to sell the debt and equity. The long range plan should include a listing of capital investments required and calculate the economic benefits to attain the revenue and profit objectives. Brigham Ehrhardt (2002, p.502) mentioned clearly that effective capital budgeting and funding allocation including cash management, budg eting, sourcing and requirement can improve both the timing and quality of asset acquisitions, all of these decisions affect the investment profile of the company hence impact the shareholders value. It is common that controllers oversee the accounting, audit and budgeting, logistics departments and are responsible to communicate any financial variances and adverse trend results to management, along with recommendations for improvement. With regards to budgeting, Mason (2007, pp.121-123) briefed that a controller should determine various budgets on sales and revenue, revenue expenditure, profit and loss, capital expenditure and cash budgeting. The prime purpose of budgetary control is to maintain expenses to be spent within the limits of income. As the budget is set, a controller must control costs and management overheads and allocate the costs accordingly. Figure 1.0 illustrated basic elements of management overheads, listing clearly actual expenses versus the budget assigned. Function As A Treasurer Treasurers are responsible to oversee the organization cash, execute capital-raising strategies to support expansion of the company. Basically, as Brealey et al. (2008, p.6) mentioned, treasurers look after the investment of funds and manage associated risks, supervise cash management and deal with merging and acquisition activities. To ensure tasks to be properly processed, they need to maintain relationships with bankers, stockholder and other investors holding the companys securities. An example of Allied Air Products, given by Besley Brigham (2005, pp.690-691) which issued different classes of securities because the finance team was aware that different investors had different risk and return trade off preferences, so to appeal to the broadest possible market, Allied offered securities to attract as many different types of investors as possible. Besides, different securities are more popular at different points in time, the company can issue whatever is popular at the time they need money. A wise strategy that takes advantage of market conditions can lower a companys overall cost of capital. Function As A Credit Manager Credit managers have to tailor make credit agreements that concerns the indebtedness limits, evaluate the credit applicants, ensure that the company maintains a fixed amount of working capital to cover the companys operating cash needs. Primarily, they monitor the companys issuance of credit, develop credit rating criteria and determine the ceilings, establish an accounting system for the sake of banking transactions (Van Horne, 2002, pp.449-459). Furthermore, they are responsible to review the collection reports, status of outstanding balances, then arrange to collect debts of past-due accounts or submit the delinquent accounts to solicitors or outsourced agencies for collection. This role ensures the company to have valid funds for the operation and arrange new sources of finance for a companys debt facilities. Function As A Cash Manager Cash managers monitor and control the flow of cash, control check stock, signature plates, separate the responsibility for the cash receipts and bank reconciliation functions, process all accounts payable and receivables, and cash application transactions in accordance with rigidly defined procedures. Petty cash authorization and usage is to be supervised, recording incoming cash payments and verify amount of cash discounts taken. All above measures have to be scrutinized to ensure proper cash in-flow record and usage to meet the business and investment needs of the company and avoiding the risk of committing fraud if the operations are not monitored well. Least to mention, cash flow projections are required so that the management needs to determine if external loans are needed to meet the cash requirements or if surplus cash can be invested in other interest-bearing instruments. Cost accounting and Inventory accounting is another major role of Cash Managers, they need to conduct job or process costing and verify the inventory valuation, because inventories form a link between production and sale of products. Van Horne (2002, p.463-465) explained that cash managers measure the benefits of inventory versus the cost, like account receivables, inventories hedging should be increased as long as the resulting savings exceed the total cost of holding the added inventory. Other than paper work, cash managers have to coordinate periodic physical inventory counts, audits and allocation methods, and provide periodic compilation and evaluation of the inventory costs. Function As An Internal Auditor And Coordinator With External Auditors The scheduling and management of periodic audits within the company lies upon the shoulder of the Internal Auditor. The preparation of audit reports and communicating the findings and recommendations to the management and board of directors is essential. Without saying, they are responsible to assist the annual external auditing. Auditing for fraud especially for small scale transactional fraud is difficult, so by observing the environment, the managing persons accountabilities and employee lifestyles may help in detecting unnoticeable fraudulent act. American and European based corporations have their own internal auditors who perform ad hoc auditing within the corporation worldwide at least once or twice a year. Function As A Tax Manager The reporting requirements of all governmental authorities have increased significantly and become more complex, so it becomes mandatory that companies comply with the changing federal and local tax laws and regulations. Tax managers handle the tax filing and reports for the organization so they must be familiar with tax laws and report timely to the Inland Revenue and tax authorities. Profound knowledge of and experience in international business and personal tax laws will help in this role although company may hire external tax consultant or tax attorneys. Tax managers should review the annual and strategic plans to develop the tax jurisdiction and liabilities for each period, develop tax shelter policies, research the foreign tax consequences of the business plan, recommend actions concerning all tax adjustments and at times, defend the company in respect to disputed tax matters. Eun Resnick (2001, pp.475-486) recommended some measures to be taken by tax managers, such as acceler ating deductions which involve depreciation, making use of local and foreign countries tax credits, avoiding non-allowable expenses, increasing tax deferrals and obtaining tax exempt income to use the excess tax savings in other forms of investment. It is critical that the application of tax laws must be considered in many day-to-day operating decisions, setting up business operations overseas, utilize tax havens, consider personal tax situation when hiring expatriates which will help to avoid paying excess taxes by the company or individuals. Function As A Risk And Insurance Manager And Liquidity Crisis Manager Risk and insurance managers oversee the operations, projects and production programs to minimize risks and losses that may arise from financial transactions and business operations. They need to manage the insurance budget, analyze and measure risks of the investments, direct operations of brokerage firm which were commissioned in buying and selling securities, insurance negotiations, and finally select the insurance brokers and carriers. Establishing procedures for custody and control of assets, records, loan collateral, and securities, review reports of securities transactions and price lists is critical to ensure safekeeping and analyzing the market conditions. Rowe et al. (1994, pp.383-386) suggested risk managers to work on the capital cost overruns, nationalization of facilities as some countries may nationalize certain industries with little or no compensation to the previous owners, ecological costs notably in the asbestos and tobacco industries, sales fluctuations, market gr owth rate, companys market share, investment required, cost of production, raw material scarcity, deterioration of margins for competing products, and technological advances. They would identify the key variables that have impact on the business decision, after all, a long range plan should include an in-depth assessment of the risks that may occur as a result of the business plan. If impending problems are predicted, company can avoid going into involuntary liquidation. Functions Specifically Required In Financial Institutions Financial managers who serve in financial institutions, such as commercial and investment banks, finance associations and credit unions, oversee a variety of functions, including loans, trusts, mortgages, futures, lines of credit and investments. They must be highly familiar and operate in compliance with the State laws and investment regulatory rules and always keep abreast of the fast growing array of financial services and products. Arnold (2005, p.627) suggested that managers have to evaluate and examine application, approve or reject, lines of credit and commercial, real estate and personal loans, they also need to be aware of, and assess the international risk that arises due to foreign currency exchange rates and inflation rates, economical and political situations which may impact the local and foreign countries bonds requisition. Liability Responsibility Financial manager, regardless of the functions above, should monitor the accruals, take a standard review of customer advances in the closing procedure if the company regularly deals with a large amount of customer deposits. They should plan the current and long-term liabilities, such as accrual for bonuses, commissions, property and income taxes, royalties, unpaid wages and vacation pay, warranty claims, by period, in addition, they can analyze each way to reduce the companys obligation such as using just-in-time inventory methods to reduce accounts payable and arrange for a good payment terms for product or materials purchase and update the projected debt status to the year-end closing (Spiceland et al., 2009, p.358). A cautious procedure and alertness will assist the companys growth with little draw back. Organizational And Strategic Roles Of A Financial Manager As computerized systems are unanimously used in corporations, so finance managers can utilize more time in establishing strategies and implementing the short and long term goals for their corporations. As Part Of Management With Management Skills A Financial Managers function can be very distinct and like any other department manager, a finance manager needs to have general management skills such as A) Planning on what work is to be done and the completion schedule in the accounting department, especially in the timely processing of transactions and guiding the budgeting process; B) Organizing the financial tasks, office management, and software, hardware utilization; C) Directing the department work to ensure it operates in an orderly manner; D) Measuring the performance of all key aspects of the department to ensure that performance meets or even exceeds the standards set; E) Delegating work to accounting subordinates and F) Process controlling and constant reviewing if assignments are completed with accuracy and within the time frame; F) A finance manager must have a good knowledge of both company and industry operations in order to know how they impact the operations and new strategic move of the organization. As A Strategic Business Partner Any business decision, in particular the crucial strategic move, cannot dart ahead if without assessing the financial implications. This extends the domain of a finance manager to be involved in strategic business management. To compete successfully, a company must analyze its cost position relative to that of competitors, finance manager will play a strategic role here to provide competitive-cost analysis, if all competitors costs are researched, the company can project future price levels, anticipate competitors moves, prepare countermoves, and assess the potential of its strategies for success. Van Horne (2002, p.199-200) interpreted competitive-cost analysis begins with an analysis of strategic cost-driving factors which determine a companys relative long-run position. The initial question is to determine which costs are relevant in a strategic sense, should the company ‘do the things right by cutting costs in the short run or ‘doing the right things to position the o rganization for long term cost advantages by exploiting opportunities for excess returns. Rowe et al. (1994) had a good insight by raising a number of questions while revealing the financial analysis, the manager should ask if the new strategy is appropriate given the companys current financial position in the industry, do we have the financial resources to initiate the strategy, are financial resources being allocated correctly in order to achieve the strategic goal, should acquisitions be considered, should outsourcing be considered. Finance manager can help in companys growth by determining a wise use of the strategic funds (which is total funds available minus the baseline funds) for purchase of new tangible assets such as facilities, equipment, and inventory, to increase working capital, and to fund direct expenses for research and development, marketing, advertising and promotions and even for mergers and acquisitions. As Corporate Policies Writer And Evaluator Being cautious and versatile in the financial principles and discipline, knowing a thoughtful planning would affect the strategies of the company, finance manager should initiate the details of all procedures, the authorization and limitations of peoples act, regardless such act is aggressive or ignorant, into written polices and procedures. Such policies can include the operation of the accounting systems and statements issuance, the inventory purchase and control, capital and asset investments, human resources compensation plans and expenses, capital evaluation and auditing control measures must be enacted into a procedural manual for all divisional managers to follow suit. Besides, authorization and procedures of credit and collection policies, dividend polices with regards to the dividend amount and payout timing must be thoroughly documented and regulated because rightful process allow less human error or falsified ethics, avoid paying excess tax which would overall influence th e level of a companys accounts receivable. A good policy and practices impact the quality of the trade accounts, increase the companys branding and competitive edge in the market. Handle Mergers And Acquisitions And Consolidations Financial managers have an essential function in mergers and consolidations, in global expansion and related financing. The primary motive and purpose of merging two companies is to increase the value of the combined enterprise. Say if company A and company B merge to form a company C, and if Cs value exceeds that of A and B separately, then synergy exists and such merger should be beneficial to both As and Bs shareholders. A recent headline is Bank of Americas [BA] 2008 acquisition of Merrill Lynch which made BA the worlds largest wealth manager. Both Brealey (2008, p. 883) and Brigham Ehrhardt (2002, p.970) cited on the same record breaking example of AOL spending a significant amount of USD156 billion in acquiring Time Warner, aimed to create a company which offer consumers a comprehensive package of media and information products. Financial managers possess extensive and special knowledge in the areas of risks reduction, valuing the targeted firm, compliance of merger regulation s, international foreign exchange, tax considerations, analysis of the companys current surplus funds, merger analysis of benefits of the complementary resources of income, and last of all provide a post-merger report. Without the merger analysis by financial managers, these merger and acquisitions and consolidation in the market would not have been active worldwide, especially in the USA. Maximize Shareholders Value A competent finance manager should act in the interests of the companys owners and shareholders, maximize current wealth and profit of the organization by increasing the companys market value. To do so, monitoring the equity of the organization in terms of debt and credit is important, because investors expect a high return on the capital invested in terms of dividends, minimized liabilities and a maximized stock price. Brealey et al. (2008, p.22) explained that the real assets of the organization need to produce sufficient cash to satisfy bankers debt, so the capital budgeting responsibility of the finance manager plays an important role to calculate how much money the company can invest and into what kind of assets that could be predicted to earn the most and fastest, and diffuse all concerned risks. This measure is to ensure enough flow of money from investors into the company is well utilized and then maximize the return back to them to satisfy the shareholders. Summary With any and all of above accounting and organizational functions that Financial Managers have to perform and fulfill, it is almost imperative that they should take the initiative to advise, make recommendations for improvement to the management on all financial related matters. Acting as a counselor and invigilator of senior management is critical and affect the survival of the company. Prince (2005, p.15) quoted an example on the CEO of Kmart who exercised extensive high spending manners, extravagances and received excessive executive compensation in the cost of the corporation finally led to the bankruptcy of the company in January 2002, now became a subsidiary of Sears Holdings Corporation. Likewise, General Motors Company [GM] which was ranked as the largest US automaker, filed for liquidation in June 2009, finally assisted by US â€Å"Governments Troubled Relief Program and commenced its reorganization since July 2009. On the other hand, the low resource utilization manner of Murdoch (Prince 2005, p.15) was advised to use the high value assets to offset News Corporations debt, eventually, the company was spared liquidation due to the financial approach. Nowadays Financial Manager Versus Traditional Accounting Manager And The Challenges Accompanied With This Role There is a growing realization that a Financial Manager is no longer called on only to process accounting transactions and issue financial statements when these tasks require detailed technical knowledge but no considerable management or analysis skill. Instead, the modern finance manager or controller must exhibit additional mastery of a multitude of management skills, so that the accounts department runs in an efficient and effective manner, offers a detailed analysis of financial statement results, recommends improvements, and monitors the activities of other departments and perhaps even manages the computer systems in a smaller organization. They should no longer focus on the paper driven reports, so modern finance managers need to radically change the finance report styles and to be efficiently generated by the computerized systems. Financial managers need to cope with the competitive advantage, add values to the corporation, and advance into the use of electronic spreadsheets for financial analysis, target costing, disaster recovery planning, fraud prevention plan, inventory valuation, activity-based costing and budgeting, outsourcing information systems security and software package integration. Nowadays finance managers should utilize the analyzed information to strategize plans to maximize profits and act as business advisors to top management. Global Expansion And International Financial Management Globalization is a trend where business enterprise can search for lower production and labor costs complemented with high quality merchandise and production efficiency, companies may have a need to broaden the markets, seek for raw materials and new technology. Kim Kim (2006, p.4) defined globalization means integrating the world marketplace and creating a â€Å"borderless world† for goods and services. In the era of heightened global competition, international finance managers have to be a strategic partner by starting off to consider the external environment in terms of economic situation, the current and future stage of the business cycle, entrance of the new competitors, political