The timeshare year is divided into seasons, it is these timeshare seasons which govern when you can use your timeshare. In the timeshare industry the seasons names can differ, instead of the traditional Summer, Winter, Spring and Autumn, most timeshares go by Red, White and Blue. This is the system used by Resort Condominiums International (RCI), although II(Interval International employs a moderately different system of Red, Yellow and Green, which for all intents and purposes works in the same way.

Red weeks are usually referred to as the “high season” due to the higher demand in these weeks. This usually ties in with the best weather and the summer holidays – so properties with two and three bedrooms during red weeks are like gold dust in the best resorts such as Anfi Beach, Gran Canaria or Sheraton Pine Cliffs Portugal. White (or yellow weeks to Interval International) are thought of as “medium season” and Blue weeks, or Green are low season.

Calling them seasons is slightly confusing though, rather than working like Spring, Summer etc, the dates of timeshare seasons can vary depending on the club and the developer who own the timeshare. For the most sought after locations in constant high demand this can vary even more. Gran Canaria is “red” or high season because of the climate of the area and its popularity throughout the year. Public holidays give great weight on what the type of week it is, in US resorts Independence day or New Years day in Scotland dictate high season.

The timeshare seasons used by RCI and Interval International aren’t the only systems used though, some developers choose to use their own classifications for seasons. Marriott Marbella Beach Resort is a prime example of this, its high season weeks are named Platinum time within the resort and as red weeks with II.

Fixed and floating weeks are also governed by these timeshare seasons. A fixed red week timeshare is a set date within peak season of a resort, but a white floating week can be any available week within the mid-season. Fixed weeks (sometimes known as units not only guarantee the same date of time of your timeshare, but also where your timeshare is located within the resort. For timeshare owners who wanted a particularly spectacular view of the sea buying a fixed unit is certainly the best option.

If you are in the process of selling timeshares or looking to in the future, it is the season (red, white or blue) which will be most important for its sale price (in addition to resort location, number of beds etc). Equally for those thinking about trading or exchanging their timeshare through RCI or other company the season of the timeshare has real importance in the “trading power” i.e. what you can trade it for.

The different methods for indicating timeshare seasons most often reference demand over any other factor, and are the best idea of price. The emphasis on date is not so important because there is no universal standard between destinations. If you are about to buy a timeshare at a particular club at a specific time of year it makes life easier if you establish the type of week first; that way a “2 bed high at Anfi beach” will mean much more.

Parents: we are shifting into indoor soccer mode this week for the winter. I wanted to take a few minutes to let you know how pleased I am with the progress your girls made this fall season. I think you should be very proud of how hard your daughters have been working this year.

Here is an important lesson that sports can teach us if we are willing to learn, and I am happy to say it’s a lesson I think your daughters are learning. Its one that I think should be reinforced.

There are games we win, and games we lose.

There are games we play well and games we don’t play well.

There is an important difference…

If we are in the right division, then our competition should be equally matched on a skill level so that the outcomes of the games are uncertain going in; These are the games and opponents who will push us to stretch just a little bit more beyond what we thought were our limits.

When we are playing well, we are trying our best to use our skills as individuals and as a team, and playing with good sportsmanship. wWe have to be playing hard, we have to be trying for the whole game, we have to face uncertainty and hardship and keep going.

That’s when we are playing well: when we can see the right play and try our best to make the right play, regardless of outcome.

As we improve in our technical skills we will be able to make those plays more and more often, which will cause us to win more, which will move us up into stiffer competition, where the cycle will continue.

The last game of the season for me captured the essence of playing well. Every single girl on the field that day was doing her best to play to the top of her ability. You saw them compete for the full game against a very good team. You saw them weather the attacking storm in the first half, and they not only didn’t break, but they counterattacked and scored the first goal. They came out in the second half and pressed the attack, using their teammates to combine with passes and created a good number of scoring opportunities.

They were not playing kickball; they were trying to play with patience and skill, even when under pressure. They never stopped running, even when they were out of breath. They kept trying to push on.

When I see that, when i see them trying to play the beautiful game with skill, as hard as they can, it really fills me with joy, because they doing what they are supposed to do. They are demonstrating a complete commitment to the team and themselves. They aren’t holding back. To be able to do that when the game is on the line, not knowing how it will turn out, but going for nevertheless, is the highest form of courage.

In my view, playing well (ie playing hard, playing with skill, playing with good sportsmanship, trying to make the right play as an individual and as a team) is more important than the specific result, even though I like to win as much as the next person, having been competitive in my life and in my profession since I was a pup.

There are games we win, and games we lose.

There are games we play well and games we don’t play well.

There are games we win, when we don’t play well, and those are dangerous games because we can learn the wrong lessons.

There are games we lose when we don’t play well, and these challenge our character: can we get back up and work on our shortcomings and take responsibility for ourselves and our results?

There are games we win, when we played well: that is the greatest joy and we have done that multiple times this year.

There are games we lose, when we played well: that’s what happened yesterday. There is no quit in our girls and they played some of their best soccer of the whole year right until the final whistle blew. Sometimes these are the hardest lessons to learn: that you can play your best and still not win that day. My task as coach is to help the girls see that difference, and use it fuel their fire to keep going, to keep improving, to respect the effort they made and to keep that effort alive in their practices and into their next games.

That’s what we will be doing in futsal: sharpening our individual skills, working on small sided games to improve our tactical play, and keep the momentum going from a good outdoor season.

Each and every one of your daughters has had a terrific season, and I know you are as proud of them as I am. We are going to have a great indoor season.

Thank you very much for the trust you have placed in me to coach your daughters. I promise to keep trying hard to live up to their example.

– Coach

The All-Star break has always been considered the halfway point of the baseball season, but the fact is that every team has played more than half of its games a week before that. A more accurate marker of the halfway point of the Major League Baseball season would be the Fourth of July.

Just here in 2016, every team has played at least 83 games, and most will reach ninety by the All-Star break. Two clubs, the Toronto Blue Jays and San Francisco Giants, have already played 85 games. By next Tuesday’s Midsummer Classic at San Diego’s Petco Park, both teams will have completed nearly sixty percent of their seasons.

The Fourth might be a better indication of the halfway mark of the season, but it provides a highly inaccurate picture of which teams will be champions of their divisions. Rarely do the teams in first place on Independence Day end up there at season’s end.

In the past five seasons, only nine division champions were in first place on the Fourth of July. The other twenty one division champions were looking up at at least one other team at the midway point, and some were even as far down as fourth place.

Back in 2012, not one of the teams in first place at the Fourth managed to win its division. Even more incredible, four of the eventual division champs (Detroit, Atlanta, Oakland and Baltimore) were in third place at the midway point that season.

The change at the very bottom occurs less frequently, but even so more than half of the teams in last place on the Fourth of July end up in the basement at season’s end. Of the thirty last place clubs at the Fourth of July over the last five seasons, seventeen ended up moving up at least one rung in their divisions.

For three of those seasons, exactly half failed to get out of the basement. But just two seasons ago, all six bottom feeders at the midway point finished ahead of at least one club in their divisions.

The odds are that whichever clubs are sitting on top on the Fourth of July will likely be replaced at the end of the season. That fact should change the way clubs have traditionally viewed the baseball calendar.

Instead of waiting until the mid-July All-Star break, the front offices of the teams should start preparing for the second half at least a week before then. First place teams right now have less chance of finishing on top than one of the teams currently chasing them, a scary thought for those general managers who have thus far considered 2016 a successful season.