Part of what makes Stanley Subaru great is the commitment Subaru owners show us. We got a digital postcard from Subaru owners Linda and Larry. They spent three weeks cruising around Wyoming and Montana in a rental car, and nothing less than a Subaru would do. Here they are posing with their borrowed Crosstrek.
Thanks, Linda and Larry! We look forward to having you back in Maine!
We have a few new Crosstreks available if you're feeling like a look. They're great cars, and at the moment, we've got one last Crosstrek hybrid on hand.
When we're not here, a few of our favorite things are playing sports with some other great members of the community, supporting local institutions that help our neighbor Mainers, and of course, competing a little. In fact, last Saturday, we participated in a tennis tournament that helped out Maine Sea Coast Mission's EdGE youth achievement program. We took second place. So close!
Coming this Saturday is the 17th Annual Shoodic Scramble, a golf tournament to benefit the Eleanor Widener Dixon Memorial Clinic in Gouldsboro, Maine. We'll be doing a few holes over at the Grindstone Golf Course in Winter Harbor, and it being another Wellness Wednesday and all, we wanted to talk a bit about the health benefits of playing a round or two!
Science Daily has an article from 2008 which laid out research done in Sweden. The cool thing about it is that researchers looked at the health benefits of golf specifically in a cross-sectional study of 300,000 Swedish golfers.
From the article:
Golf can be a good investment for the health, according to a new study from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet. The death rate for golfers is 40 per cent lower than for other people of the same sex, age and socioeconomic status, which correspond to a 5 year increase in life expectancy. Golfers with a low handicap are the safest.
...
Golf players have a lower death rate regardless of sex, age and social group. The effect is greater for golfers from blue-collar professions than for those from white-collar professions. The lowest rates are found in the group of players with the lowest handicap (i.e. the best golfers).
"Maintaining a low handicap involves playing a lot, so this supports the idea that it is largely the game itself that is good for the health," says Professor Ahlbom
Harvard issued a release a few years before that which agrees. One caveat mentioned by Harvard Health? Just like you would before any exercise, a few minutes of active stretching will reduce the risk of injury.
Because we can't get excited enough to have fun for the public good, we will also be golfing at the Kebo Valley Golf Club for Birch Bay Village's Memory Care Unit on September 23rd where there will be raffle items, a 50/50 drawing, and a putting contest. We'll also be participating in the George Stevens Academy's Duane B. Gray '64 Memorial Golf Tournament on September 28 at the Blue Hill Country Club.
We are sponsoring the hole-in-one prize at all our tournaments. So, in addition to activity, helping our community, and competition, we are also big fans of prizes, because, really, who isn't?
We hope to see you at any (or all!) of our events.
In other big news that's a bonus to health, all Subaru models have earned the 2014 Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's TOP SAFETY PICK, and three of them earned the IIHS's TOP SAFETY PICK+. That's exciting, and it sounds very impressive, but what does that IIHS designation mean?
In the IIHS's own words:
To qualify for 2014 TOP SAFETY PICK, a vehicle must earn good ratings in the moderate overlap front, side, roof strength and head restraint tests, as well as a good or acceptable rating in the small overlap front test.
To qualify for 2014 TOP SAFETY PICK+, a vehicle must meet the TOP SAFETY PICK criteria, plus earn a basic, advanced or superior rating for front crash prevention.
Models that earn TOP SAFETY PICK+ or TOP SAFETY PICK are the best vehicle choices for safety within size categories.
The three Subaru models that got TOP
SAFETY PICK+ also happen to be our three most popular models, the
Forester, the Outback, and the Legacy. And not only that, but our
vehicles are rated best even among the TOP SAFETY PICK+ vehicles. And not only THAT, Subaru vehicles earned the highest crash avoidance and mitigation rating of any vehicle in each of their categories. No other vehicles in Subaru categories earned the superior badge.
