Wooden Folding Church Chairs

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Practical furniture everywhere, not just eyes

No one told you that the metal folding chair paved the way to sober. People will talk about meetings and steps, enlightenment and salvation. But few people mention that you often sit on cold, foldable industrial steel.

Last year I found my church basement spacious and familiar on a slate-grey early spring night, just like the night I went back to school when I was a child. I remember being defeated and feeling nervous. My anxious eyes made direct contact to avoid strangers looking back at me.

In this situation, when I lost my balance and felt upset, I instinctively looked at the first inanimate object I could find. In this case, it is an empty folding chair.

Folding chairs have an incredible ability to keep the people in any room equal. When everyone sits on the same chair and talks about the same things, there will be an inherent commonality. For the first time-when I was sitting side by side and side by side with more alcoholics, I realized that the struggle that I seemed impossible to accomplish was not single. The faces and stories in these meetings change every week, but I quickly learned that the metal folding chair, the feeling of unity is a heavy thing.

I once believed that folding chairs were cold by-products produced by the military or government for some ultra-tactical purposes. But after a few months of recovery, I learned that, at least in the United States, the design of modern folding chairs centers on the community.

In 1911,

Used in schools and churches. Alexander's design even has a book holder for people in the back seat, this chair is perfect for study, worship or chorus.

In 1947, World War II veteran, inventor and inventor Fredric Arnold (Fredric Arnold) further simplified the design and made aluminum fiber folding chairs more suitable for mass production. Arnold's design is rougher and stronger than today's metal folding chairs, but its guiding principle is complete: transform any inconspicuous space into a stage that can support a group of people together.

Ten years later, Arnold's company, Frederick Arnold of Brooklyn, produced more than 14,000 of these portable chairs per day. Folding chairs quickly became a must-have in houses, schools, churches and community centers around the world.

Folding chairs are relatively inconspicuous fixtures in daily life. They are one of the objects we have interacted with for many years, but may not have received any real attention or thinking. All industrial folding chairs look the same. The chairs in the basement of that Brooklyn church look like my high school chairs, my childhood church and almost all the other folding chairs I had to sit on.

When I heard people talking about alcoholism and sober experiences, I found myself sitting there every week until I never thought about it again. During the months of recovery, when I was struggling with the 12 steps of AA, I found that I wanted a sober path. This approach is not uniform and more personal to me.

In the industrial design boom of the middle of the last century, designers of that era began to use the concept of folding chairs, elevating them from simple origins to geometric curves, high-grade woods and smooth finishes. The famous German architect Egon Eiermann designed a 1950s folding chair in beech wood, which is now in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

Decades later, architect David Chipperfield created

, Is a noble, fiberglass reinforced version that you can buy in today's high-end decoration boutiques. Even Ikea, the affordable furniture giant, offers its own features on folding chairs.

with

Variety of styles, colorful colors, aesthetically pleasing, enough to win the favor of global fashion homes.

This modern folding chair has surpassed the original version, feeling more personalized and better designed. Designers know not to treat original concepts as rigid. Instead, as the greater cultural sense of design changes, they push it forward, and when they see a desire for folding chairs, this folding chair is unique to people’s personal tastes and preferences of. Finding the way to soberness can have a similar quality of "making yourself yourself".

In my previous attempts to quit drinking, I learned how long I have been sober to guide me. I have tried many ways to curb drinking: rejection, self-improvement, personal discovery, new hobbies-whatever you want. I eventually forced myself to attend the AA meeting. I'm not sure what will happen, but I find myself listening to the passionate stories of those who change. There are equal doses of warm, friendly and rigid personality; enough to make you melt in a chair and want to get out of the room.

Just like many other people find sober functions outside of the multi-step process, just like a designer chooses his own work from the original folding chair design to create his own version, I decided that my sense of sobriety will also be my own. Way to reflect.

Although I did not follow the 12-step plan or look for sponsors, I still occasionally attend meetings: I sit, listen and rarely speak. But sitting in that folding chair to absorb the story is more for me than I thought. I will walk out of the room with a new force. This prompted me to be open to the struggle of drinking, to express opinions that I could not express, and it made me involuntary. Moreover, the more time I open to friends and family, the more control I have in this struggle.

When I saw folding chairs in my daily life in offices, cafes, and hidden in the corners of art galleries, I couldn't help but think of how terrifying and humble it was when I stepped onto that short staircase for the first time. I can close my eyes and imagine that that big room is filled with small foldable furniture and friendly people. I can still imagine how the chairs are arranged in four rows to form an open square so that everyone faces each other. These details, such as the metal folding chair, are intertwined with my sober memory.

Last year, I have been thinking about sobriety and folding chairs, and how these two require that design and discipline can be as unique or unified as you wish. You can follow the blueprint (measurements, angles, books, steps), or break it yourself. Ultimately, this is about what works for you. But it turns out that designing your own destiny can be a powerful catalyst for change.

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There are 37 NC counties on alert, including Cumberland, Wayne, Wilson, Sampson and Edgecombe counties.

Release time: December 20, 2020 06:00:00

Update date: 2020-12-20 06:00:00

Release time: December 20, 2020, 6:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

WRAL State Capitol reporter Travis Fain (Travis Fain)

—Grandma looked at the borrowed tablet and cried.

The local school system now provides free internet, so this is not a problem. Evelyn Parker said the problem is that she doesn't know how to help her 9-year-old grandson or 16-year-old guardian (she is the guardian) log in to the online school.

She said, thank God for providing a learning platform for the First Baptist Church.

Like churches, libraries, and community centers in North Carolina, First Baptist Church works with the local school system to provide students with a place to go to school. Halifax County calls them "learning packages," and teachers there help a small group of students from folding tables to folding tables, from elementary school to high school.

Some people come because they do not have the Internet at home, which is a common problem in this rural county. Others, because they cannot do virtual school assignments, regardless of whether they have internet access.

Parker said this week: "I don't know anything about computers." "This has been a burden on me since (this study box opened)."

In total, the state estimates that 40% of North Carolina homes do not have high-speed Internet access because they are not accessible or affordable in their area.

Among them was Te'Navion Pitts, a housing project adjacent to the Enfield countryside without a study package in the First Baptist Church, and elementary school students saw his black and white reality.

He said: "I can't go to class. I just failed the fifth grade."

He will not be alone. Failure rate

in

.

This year attracts more students than at any time in a century.

The challenge of the rural Internet is no secret.

Companies that separate houses in farmland or mountains in sparsely populated areas of North Carolina cannot make money. status,

, Is the second largest rural population in the United States, after Texas.

When local governments tried to build their own infrastructure, Internet companies participated in the conference to suppress so-called unfair competition. legislature

Strictly restrict local authorities from providing the Internet.

The change is so effective that the North Carolina Public Utilities Commission can review its documents this week to say if anyone even asks for a try, the commission can approve new government-supported Internet projects if conditions are met.

No.

Instead, the government's focus has shifted to public subsidies for large and small Internet companies. In 2018, the legislature created the GREAT grant to pay for the last few miles needed to connect rural households. The program has invested $26 million, enough to connect an estimated 22,000 households.

Coming soon, but competition is still fierce. Of the 126 grant proposals submitted, another company questioned 51 of them and tried to block grants. Jeff Sural, director of the state's broadband infrastructure office, said that after the first round of elections, the state adjusted its requirements to make it more difficult.

The federal government also has countless money flowing across the country. Now Governor Roy Cooper wants to borrow $250 million for broadband expansion in North Carolina. This generational change will make high-speed Internet access more like a utility.

The proposal may not be dominated by the disgusting Republican majority in the legislature, but the Republicans in the General Assembly have prioritized broadband expansion for years, and the epidemic only made this focus more prominent.

Statewide, with or without wires, private companies are looking for solutions. East Carolina Broadband provides the Internet via radio signals and has cooperated with the governments of Jones County and surrounding areas to make its equipment work at a level that can work properly.

The Roanoke Electric Cooperative is adding Internet fiber to its service area, a project that may change the landscape of northeastern North Carolina.

Eric Cunningham, the head of the Halifax County Schools, said this week: "It all looks promising." "So, in five years, I have seen a lot. The momentum will not stop. We have already tasted it. After tasting the steak, it is difficult to return to Bologna."

The Halifax County School has more than 300 wireless Internet hotspots distributed around the county.

Most help students attend classes at home. Some powerful learning platforms, such as the platform of the First Baptist Church. Others went to a lot of parks, and they sound alike.

One was on a school bus parked at Dollar General, but the aging power supply of the bus has been cut off, so the county installed a router on the router and hardwired it into electricity.

Statewide, the government and private partners have distributed more than 84,000 hotspots in North Carolina, providing the broadband speeds needed for video chats with teachers who formed the backbone of online schools during the pandemic.

But the change is slow.

It was not until October that five learning pods were established in Halifax County, and the school system plans to add six more soon. Even the free internet is gone. Shelia Lowe, the Technical Director of Halifax County Schools, bounces daily between school buildings and learning pods, which are separated by miles of flat and lonely land.

When WRAL News visited on Thursday, Enfield's service was interrupted.

There are 2,194 students in the county, and the system office said that because of the hotspot, about 80% of them now have access to broadband Internet. Officials said, but some places just don't have cell phone towers, and free hotspots will not do any good to families there.

Assistant Sheriff Tyrana Battle said some students still receive paper bags from school and phone calls from teachers instead of chatting online.

When talking about hot spots, Battelle said: "These are band-aids." "We do need fiber here."

Despite connection problems, schools in Halifax County are only online.

Cunningham said he wanted to reopen but it was not safe. A beloved principal – the former principal of Halifax County –

Cunningham said he was opposed to COVID-19 and he could not persuade enough teachers to let them go back to the classroom to make it all work.

Cunningham said: "We are dealing with waves." Cunningham came to Halifax County from the Nash-Rocky Mountain School System in 2016. "One thing I learned quickly here is that the waves are big."

When Cunningham spoke outside the system office, volunteers distributed a few bags of Christmas gifts in the parking lot. Winter clothes and desks are also provided, and parents drive their children.

Like other school systems, Halifax also dispatches buses to transport meals throughout the county at lunchtime. One of them blocked a trail on NC Highway 125 between Halifax and the Scottish Territory on Thursday. A child rushed out of the house and ran so fast that he stumbled into the grass and gravel in the front yard of his family.

He suddenly popped and crossed the highway, then went home with a bag of food almost half his size.

The dim fluorescent lights in the temporary classroom of Shiloh Baptist Church in Scotland Neck still cannot fully enter the corner of the wooden wall.

Eight students sat in folding chairs, isolated from society, covered with veils, and the teacher and a primary school principal looked up at their shoulders. Some are on the computer. Two people use their mobile phones to make a video call with the teacher and work online.

Kayla Clark, a seventh-grade student, said the phone was not bad. She has the Internet at home, but prefers the Internet in the study pane.

"People," she said. "You have someone."

At the table, the second-year students focused on the computer screen.

"Ah," he said. "Mah-Ice. Mouse."

This is a reading exercise. There is a dial on Ziquanyang’s screen, he can change letters and create new words. The digital dial will click like a digital lock. When Jae Chuan asked Ivory Creecy, the coach of the Scottish Junior Leadership Academy for approval, his eyes were bright.

She gave him a thumbs up-probably a smile, although who could tell him what was under the mask.

When asked about the progress, Creech said: Progress.

She said: "This is a brand new thing." "But we really persevere."

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