Latest news with #NACs
Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Meet the heavyweight who teaches sign language
'Amazing' Grace Buckle is a unique boxing talent. Her recent win at the National Amateur Championships (NAC) confirmed her status as the best female heavyweight in England. But as well as an accomplished star in the ring, Buckle is also a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter. Her signing skills are an inextricable part of her remarkable story. "BSL helps you read body language," says Buckle. "I get a sense of where people are going to hit me, what they are trying to do, where they are targeting." The child of deaf parents, BSL was Buckle's first language. "It was mainly a single-parent household," says Buckle. "I would support my mum by answering phone calls and reading letters." "Of course, I could take advantage of this," she adds. "When I was misbehaving at school, teachers threatened to call home and I'd reply, 'Go on then'." As a BSL translator, Buckle is already at the top of the game. She teaches BSL and has no doubt about the value of the classes to her own career. "All teaching is symbiotic; it makes you reflect on what you know," she says. Encouraged by Miriam Dubois, who is deaf and the sister of British boxing royalty and world champions Caroline and Daniel Dubois, Buckle's BSL skills were recently put to use at the Royal Albert Hall, where she signed the all-female card headlined by Natasha Jonas and Lauren Price in February. Buckle also signed at Daniel's spectacular knockout victory over Anthony Joshua at Wembley last September. From dragging tyres up hills in South London to a gold rush and signing ringside at some of the biggest fights of the past year, the 33-year-old has come a long way in a short time. Buckle's boxing and BSL life have seamlessly moulded together, but she came to boxing late just three years ago. The Covid pandemic proved a pivotal moment, tying together different aspects of Grace's life. To combat the isolation of lockdown, Buckle began online – and then in-person - fitness sessions designed to piece together community spirit for groups such as the Deaf Ethnic Women's Association (DEWA) in north London. Instruction, counting down and motivation all came with new challenges. Along with the greater use of visual aids, the key to successful sessions, explains Grace, was the ability to demonstrate and emphasise exercises. A rare positive legacy of the pandemic was the passing of the British Sign Language Act 2022, which made BSL one of the recognised languages of Great Britain. When she first won the NACs in 2023, Buckle was a novice boxing out of Miquel's gym in Brixton. Her triumph at the NACs, when she beat Emily Asquith, a European champion at youth level - despite only having one amateur bout and a handful of white-collar fights under her belt - provided the foundation for a rapid rise. Buckle subsequently beat the Kazak Lazzat Kungeibayeva, previously a gold medallist at the world championships, at her first overseas tournament for England. She would go on to win the 2023 Haringey Box Cup, another NAC gold medal in 2024 and the Golden Girl tournament in Sweden in 2025. "You do get natural born fighters," says Quinton Shillingford, Buckle's current coach. "It's not just a question of technique and motivation, it's about whether you keep coming forward when you are hurt and have taken a shot. "Grace's mum and dad are both deaf and I know she takes inspiration from them. "She's always saying 'my mum is so strong'. She knows the difficulties they have had to navigate." Back in the ring, Buckle has not had things all her own way. A loss to Celine Lee-Lo of New Zealand at Haringey last year was the catalyst for a move to Shillingford's Heart of Portsmouth gym and her triumph at this years NACs. "I used to think it was a cliché, but there is a lot of wisdom in the idea, 'that it's not a loss, it's a learning'," Buckle says. The heavyweight division is generally the glamour weight class in boxing, housing the biggest stars and attracting the most attention. The UK's biggest attractions of recent years has been Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury's run as heavyweight world champions. But the women's weight category that has hitherto been neglected. There are no women's categories above middleweight in the Olympic Games, but there is a potential path for Buckle through this year's World Championships to the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2026. Perhaps after that the opportunity to turn professional? "Interest will grow in the heavyweights for the same reason as the category attracts attention for the men because you might see a killer knockout," Shillingford says. Clarissa Shields became the first undisputed female heavyweight champion in February. The self-proclaimed GWOAT of women's boxing, her win could well prove to be the start of an exciting new era for a women's weight. Shillingford says Buckle can be the female heavyweight hope in the UK. "Grace has ability, athleticism, and an incredible willingness to learn. Everyone talks about it," says Shillingford. "She can achieve whatever she wants to put in." Boxing schedule and results 2025 Watch every Born to Brawl episode Notifications, social media and more with BBC Sport
BBC News
28-04-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Meet the heavyweight who teaches sign language
'Amazing' Grace Buckle is a unique boxing recent win at the National Amateur Championships (NAC) confirmed her status as the best female heavyweight in as well as an accomplished star in the ring, Buckle is also a British Sign Language (BSL) signing skills are an inextricable part of her remarkable story."BSL helps you read body language," says Buckle."I get a sense of where people are going to hit me, what they are trying to do, where they are targeting."The child of deaf parents, BSL was Buckle's first language."It was mainly a single-parent household," says Buckle. "I would support my mum by answering phone calls and reading letters.""Of course, I could take advantage of this," she adds."When I was misbehaving at school, teachers threatened to call home and I'd reply, 'Go on then'."As a BSL translator, Buckle is already at the top of the game. She teaches BSL and has no doubt about the value of the classes to her own career."All teaching is symbiotic; it makes you reflect on what you know," she by Miriam Dubois, who is deaf and the sister of British boxing royalty and world champions Caroline and Daniel Dubois, Buckle's BSL skills were recently put to use at the Royal Albert Hall, where she signed the all-female card headlined by Natasha Jonas and Lauren Price in also signed at Daniel's spectacular knockout victory over Anthony Joshua at Wembley last dragging tyres up hills in South London to a gold rush and signing ringside at some of the biggest fights of the past year, the 33-year-old has come a long way in a short time. From online fitness classes to a boxing gold rush Buckle's boxing and BSL life have seamlessly moulded together, but she came to boxing late just three years Covid pandemic proved a pivotal moment, tying together different aspects of Grace's combat the isolation of lockdown, Buckle began online – and then in-person - fitness sessions designed to piece together community spirit for groups such as the Deaf Ethnic Women's Association (DEWA) in north counting down and motivation all came with new challenges. Along with the greater use of visual aids, the key to successful sessions, explains Grace, was the ability to demonstrate and emphasise exercises.A rare positive legacy of the pandemic was the passing of the British Sign Language Act 2022, which made BSL one of the recognised languages of Great she first won the NACs in 2023, Buckle was a novice boxing out of Miquel's gym in triumph at the NACs, when she beat Emily Asquith, a European champion at youth level - despite only having one amateur bout and a handful of white-collar fights under her belt - provided the foundation for a rapid subsequently beat the Kazak Lazzat Kungeibayeva, previously a gold medallist at the world championships, at her first overseas tournament for would go on to win the 2023 Haringey Box Cup, another NAC gold medal in 2024 and the Golden Girl tournament in Sweden in 2025."You do get natural born fighters," says Quinton Shillingford, Buckle's current coach."It's not just a question of technique and motivation, it's about whether you keep coming forward when you are hurt and have taken a shot."Grace's mum and dad are both deaf and I know she takes inspiration from them."She's always saying 'my mum is so strong'. She knows the difficulties they have had to navigate."Back in the ring, Buckle has not had things all her own way.A loss to Celine Lee-Lo of New Zealand at Haringey last year was the catalyst for a move to Shillingford's Heart of Portsmouth gym and her triumph at this years NACs."I used to think it was a cliché, but there is a lot of wisdom in the idea, 'that it's not a loss, it's a learning'," Buckle says. The next heavyweight hope? The heavyweight division is generally the glamour weight class in boxing, housing the biggest stars and attracting the most UK's biggest attractions of recent years has been Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury's run as heavyweight world the women's weight category that has hitherto been neglected. There are no women's categories above middleweight in the Olympic Games, but there is a potential path for Buckle through this year's World Championships to the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in after that the opportunity to turn professional?"Interest will grow in the heavyweights for the same reason as the category attracts attention for the men because you might see a killer knockout," Shillingford Shields became the first undisputed female heavyweight champion in self-proclaimed GWOAT of women's boxing, her win could well prove to be the start of an exciting new era for a women's says Buckle can be the female heavyweight hope in the UK."Grace has ability, athleticism, and an incredible willingness to learn. Everyone talks about it," says Shillingford."She can achieve whatever she wants to put in."
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Sens. Mike Lee, John Curtis and Rep. Mike Kennedy introduce a bill to block ‘Wall Street' control of Utah public lands
Utah Sens. Mike Lee and John Curtis were joined by Utah Rep. Mike Kennedy in sponsoring the Natural Asset Company Prohibition Act, Tuesday. If passed, the act would prohibit any Natural Asset Company or similar organization from 'making agreements affecting land, water or natural resources in Utah.' NACs, structured as corporate entities, 'assign financial value to ecosystem services like carbon sequestration, water purification, biodiversity preservation, and soil health,' a press release from the lawmakers said. Bill sponsor Curtis said, 'Wall Street shouldn't be allowed to dictate what happens on Utah lands just to satisfy ESG mandates.' Public land, he continued, supports ranchers, energy production, conservation, families and more, and the bill 'ensures that investors from New York or foreign capitals don't get to lock up Utah lands and cut off access to the people who depend on them.' The Intrinsic Exchange Group and the New York Stock Exchange jointly proposed NACs in September, 2021, to act as an investment vehicle by tapping into the Green industry. Companies could buy the rights to natural assets, including on public lands, and then try to attract private investment that would keep the land as-is. The Land Trust Alliance, an environmental group, describes these sort of natural assets as 'carbon credits, biodiversity credits, water or soil conservation, forest preservation and associated sustainable economic activities such as eco-tourism.' Excluded from natural assets are 'mining, unsustainable agriculture and timber harvest that erodes important environmental qualities.' However, after being met by significant opposition, the New York Stock Exchange withdrew its application to the Securities Exchange Commission in January 2024 to establish NACs as a viable trading asset. NACs can pose a threat to economies that heavily rely on agriculture, energy and timber, since they can restrict the productive uses of the land for the sake of eco-preservation, the sponsors of the bill said. Lee, as chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said NACs 'pose a direct threat' to Utah's energy, agriculture and recreation industries by 'enabling private and foreign investors to seize control of the very land that our communities depend on.' Similarly, Kennedy said NACs 'threaten Utah's rural economy by allowing private interests to lock away farmland and natural resources.' Kennedy currently serves on the House Natural Resources Committee. He said the legislation 'will help to protect Utah's land, economy, and rural communities from such overreach.'
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Sens. Mike Lee, John Curtis and Rep. Mike Kennedy introduce a bill to block ‘Wall Street' control of Utah public lands
Utah Sens. Mike Lee and John Curtis were joined by Utah Rep. Mike Kennedy in sponsoring the Natural Asset Company Prohibition Act, Tuesday. If passed, the act would prohibit any Natural Asset Company or similar organization from 'making agreements affecting land, water or natural resources in Utah.' NACs, structured as corporate entities, 'assign financial value to ecosystem services like carbon sequestration, water purification, biodiversity preservation, and soil health,' a press release from the lawmakers said. Bill sponsor Curtis said, 'Wall Street shouldn't be allowed to dictate what happens on Utah lands just to satisfy ESG mandates.' Public land, he continued, supports ranchers, energy production, conservation, families and more, and the bill 'ensures that investors from New York or foreign capitals don't get to lock up Utah lands and cut off access to the people who depend on them.' The Intrinsic Exchange Group and the New York Stock Exchange jointly proposed NACs in September, 2021, to act as an investment vehicle by tapping into the Green industry. Companies could buy the rights to natural assets, including on public lands, and then try to attract private investment that would keep the land as-is. The Land Trust Alliance, an environmental group, describes these sort of natural assets as 'carbon credits, biodiversity credits, water or soil conservation, forest preservation and associated sustainable economic activities such as eco-tourism.' Excluded from natural assets are 'mining, unsustainable agriculture and timber harvest that erodes important environmental qualities.' However, after being met by significant opposition, the New York Stock Exchange withdrew its application to the Securities Exchange Commission in January 2024 to establish NACs as a viable trading asset. NACs can pose a threat to economies that heavily rely on agriculture, energy and timber, since they can restrict the productive uses of the land for the sake of eco-preservation, the sponsors of the bill said. Lee, as chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said NACs 'pose a direct threat' to Utah's energy, agriculture and recreation industries by 'enabling private and foreign investors to seize control of the very land that our communities depend on.' Similarly, Kennedy said NACs 'threaten Utah's rural economy by allowing private interests to lock away farmland and natural resources.' Kennedy currently serves on the House Natural Resources Committee. He said the legislation 'will help to protect Utah's land, economy, and rural communities from such overreach.'
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Ideas offered for boundary, structure changes for Frederick neighborhood advisory councils
Frederick's neighborhood advisory council system could see significant changes designed to generate more community engagement and improve communication with city officials. One proposed change is volunteer liaisons to communicate with the city about neighborhood issues. Changes to the number of neighborhood councils and boundaries for them could also be considered. A committee formed in 2023 to revamp Frederick's neighborhood advisory council system outlined its recommendations in a public meeting Feb. 27. Currently, there are 12 neighborhood advisory councils. Each is supposed to provide a forum for people to communicate with the city about their neighborhood, according to the city website. Each council represents a different part of the city. The NACs were originally created in 2002 and were supposed to hold monthly meetings. However, the councils each have differing levels of participation and engagement, City Council President Katie Nash said in an interview on Wednesday. Some meet quarterly, some meet more often, and some hardly ever meet, she said. 'Just yesterday at a NAC 7 meeting, we had a gentleman — he's been a resident in the city for 40 some years — ask what the NAC program even is,' NAC 7 Coordinator David Firman said in an interview on Wednesday. NAC coordinators are in charge of helping to organize each individual NAC. The reason for the meeting Feb. 27 was to gather input on potential changes to the number of and boundaries for the NACs. However, the meeting was the first time many NAC leaders heard the Ad Hoc Neighborhood Engagement and NAC Committee's proposals to improve engagement and communication efforts, NAC 7 Coordinator Missy Conner said. Conner said she has participated in her local NAC for around nine years. 'I was very impressed by the amount of work the committee had put into it,' she said in an interview on Wednesday. One of the things that used to help drive participation at NAC meetings was the Frederick Planning Department's community outreach meetings, Conner said. The outreach meetings used to be presented before each NAC to hear feedback from the community on new building developments that affect an area, Conner said. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, individual outreach meetings with each NAC stopped in favor of a single monthly outreach meeting for new developments across the city, she said. One of the proposals outlined by the ad hoc committee was to bring back the community outreach meetings at a local level and allow liaisons of the NACs to attend planning meetings earlier in the development process. The proposals also called for: • Each NAC to appoint a volunteer liaison dedicated to communicating with the city • A board of the volunteer liaisons to meet regularly, discuss NAC engagement and relay relevant information from the city to the NACs • Each NAC to maintain pages and share local information on social media • The city to provide funding to advertise for NAC meetings via signs, newspaper ads and more • A city official to post agendas and minutes for NAC meetings on the city website • A city official to disseminate the concerns of the NACS to the city Overall, the proposed ideas are meant to update a system instituted when the city was much smaller, ad hoc committee member Gayle Petersen said. 'It's currently not an organized system, and it's not representative of a city [approaching] 100,000 people,' Petersen said. The liaisons added by the proposed system are meant to improve communication between the city and the NACs, Petersen said. However, ad hoc committee member Lance English said the proposed changes added a layer of unnecessary bureaucracy. The NACs should instead be consolidated and streamlined, and volunteers should not have more work added to their plates, he said. The then-Board of Aldermen approved a charter change in September that mandated the body have five district representatives and two at-large representatives, a change from its previous five at-large members. The new districts for council members to represent were approved by the City Council in February. English said the number of NACs should be reduced and their boundaries should align with the City Council districts. Currently, the city has one employee dedicated to communicating with all 12 NACs — Chowan Brightful, the city's community engagement specialist. 'The whole idea of reducing the number of NACs was to relieve pressure on the city liaison,' English said. City Council Members Donna Kuzemchak and Nash both said they are not currently in favor of further expansions to the city's communications department to account for communication difficulties with the NACs. The communications department has grown in recent years, and the city still has not solved some of its communications issues, Kuzemchak said. Nash, who attended the Feb. 27 meeting, said the purpose of the ad hoc committee was not to draw up boundaries for the NACs to align with the districts, but to find ways to improve the NAC system in general. That could mean changing the boundaries of the NACs, but not necessarily, Nash said. All of the proposals are just ideas, Petersen said, and she welcomes feedback. Nash said she would like to have a change to the NAC system finished by the end of the current City Council term in November. The City Council Government Operations Committee will have a discussion of NAC boundaries under the new legislative districts in a 2 p.m. meeting on Thursday at Frederick City Hall, according to its agenda.
