Fyครwydrehu Fyrtaenwyraddod Spe iddyn nhw y ddatblygu llewar dwngh gael cwi mort, yr ythynas cymd swim olmai'n konkleo diwedd y prif ydw i'r credu ningwy ydach ac rwyfio hyd yn ddigon i'r ddatblygu folks, byddai presso y syllun neu ddweud sydd gyllid effeithido. Alison Johnstone, to open the debate. Ms Johnstone, seven minutes are thereby, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I welcome the opportunity to debate Scotland's food future in this chamber today, and thank colleagues who have made this possible by supporting the motion in my name. My motion highlights the work of the Scottish Food Coalition and its report, Plenty. The coalition is made up of several organisations, organisations whose contribution to improving the health and wellbeing of people in Scotland is wide and widely recognised and deservedly so. This is a landmark report, one that should be discussed far and wide, and then steps taken to implement. The report begins with a statement. We have plenty of land in Scotland and plenty of sea and plenty of skilled people, scientists and innovators. There's no reason why we shouldn't have plenty of good food for everyone here. It is absolutely the case that, as the report states, at the moment, our food system is characterised by inequalities and exploitation. Given the importance of food, it really is one of the few things that we cannot live without, our food system should be founded on the principles of social and environmental justice. A food system founded on those principles would help enable us to address inequality, climate change, declining wildlife, animal welfare and poor health. There may be some who are off the view that business, as usual, is just grand, but, if it is indeed the case that we are what we eat, then many people in Scotland are clearly not eating well. In a country with plenty of land and sea, why is this the case? Why is it the case that 65 per cent of people in Scotland are overweight or obese and that, in 2014-15, almost 120,000 people required emergency food aid and almost a third of those were children? The reliance on food aid takes place in a country that rightly celebrates its food and drink sector, yet the focus is very much an export-based one, with much ado around whisky and salmon, despite the environmental damage that fish farms create in Scotland, to boost the profits of companies, many of whom are based outside the country. I would like to see more of a focus on an agroecology approach and one that invests more in growing our organic sector. 15 per cent of Scottish households do not own cutlery, such as the concern about our food culture, that it is impacting terribly on our health, and leading consultants have coined a new term, diobesity, reflecting the relationship between obesity and diabetes. This epidemic, which has a global reach and impact, also has a very local one. It costs health and happiness, and, like demographic change and population increase, is putting our NHS budgets under increasing pressure. Corporations can and do make huge profits from dominating the food market, often with unhealthy food and unsustainable ways of growing and producing the food that we eat. The public purse pays for the pollution and ill health, and lobbying at the highest levels of government has created the perverse logic needed for our leaders to think that international deals such as T-Tip are a good idea for our food system. However, it does not have to be this way. We will all be aware of amazing projects in our communities. There is a fantastic collection of projects in community energy in the Lothians region, connecting people to Scotland's true food future. There are community gardens taking over grante and street corners to create mini gardens, vegetable plots and communal meals. The Broomhouse Health Strategy Group, the Pilton Health Project, is working with people on budgeting, on cooking skills, getting them more active in their daily lives and so much more. Crops and pots are building a more rural feeling from concrete patches down in leith. We can grow almost anywhere. The Serenians at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital and their Leith fair share depot and kitchen are doing an excellent job. They are helping people to learn to cook, to enjoy food together and to appreciate all the wondrous things that they can do. I visited a fantastic project in my constituency on Monday at Valfron, where they have a food connections project trying to encourage people to understand where they could food come from and how to cook it. I have now established a poly tunnel where they are growing their own materials for the kids to use. Do you think that that sort of project should be exemplified throughout Scotland? I thank the member for raising the subject. That is a fantastic example of just making the best use of land everywhere. If we can engage our pupils from the earliest stage in our playgrounds, then what better use of space? So much space is unused and it could be productive. Musselbarata transition town is another example. It is working wonders with a wee community garden by the river. Edinburgh community food is building a network across the city and there are many other groups doing a fantastic job providing emergency food relief. I would like to mention two transition Edinburgh south and the wonderful walled garden at Gracemount. Undoubtedly, there will be many more that I have failed to mention. They are all working wonders. Food should help us grow and get well when we are not. It should make us feel good. Really nutritious food helps us keep well. It gives us the ability to deal with busy lives no matter our age. It gives us personal resilience and local food networks are vital to develop resilience at a community level. However, we need to think about the future and about our ability to provide the food that we need closer to home. I spoke yesterday in the land reform debate about smallholder tenant farmer Jim Telfer, who feared who is in fear of losing the land that he rents and his livelihood as his land is the location of a speculative proposal for the film studio that has just been discussed in FMQs. Is his farm on poor quality land? No, it is on prime agricultural land and this, I hope, will be recognised, valued and the film studio built elsewhere. Obviously, Cumbernauld has been discussed, but Shofair, which is nearby, has excellent transport links in a school that focuses on the creative industries. The local damhead community of Rally Drown Gym campaigning hard. The vision that they have for the land where they live is that it should be formally recognised as Edinburgh's food belt. Think about urban crofts. Green belt land has never faced such development pressures, but we need to think about where the food citizens within and out with Edinburgh's green belt will eat, where that food is coming from, and the food belt is a compelling idea—a much better way of thinking about the value of our green belt and its benefits. Land in the food belt is a way to connect us to our food. Land here could have many more local businesses providing employment to people in cities and in more rural areas. For too many people, the green belt is a patch of land you commute through without much thought, but we can rethink this land. I hope that the minister understands the power of ideas and the power of money, because I learned yesterday that funding that has allowed Scotland's food coalition to form has been completely removed and that nourish Scotland's funding has gone from £90,000 to nothing. Nourish would like to tender for work, but it turns out that the only tender available to them is one that wraps up a massive amount of work on local food into a £3 million contract that is inappropriate for small and medium enterprise bidders. In closing, I congratulate and thank all those who are working to make us a better food nation from our school dinner to the soil association. Let's make sure that we are not just a well-fed but a properly nourished population, and I would be grateful if the minister could address in closing the funding situation that I outlined. Thank you very much. Any thanks. I thank you for time today. Four minute speeches please. Presiding Officer, I congratulate Alison Johnstone on introducing the motion. Also, all the local groups mentioned in the motion, especially those based on my constituency, which I shall talk about in a moment. Finally, the Scottish Food Coalition and their excellent report rightly emphasises the need to have the right to food in legislation. I hope that that will be taken on board by the next Scottish Parliament, and it also emphasises core principles of environmental awareness and sustainability at the heart of production. Unfortunately, the reality is very different. Instead of a right to food, we have an increasing number of food banks and unacceptable food poverty. That was highlighted in a recent report by the Pilton community health project, which is mentioned in the motion. Their report, Good Food for All, found that poverty and food poverty are intrinsically linked and that securing a fairer food system is very difficult in the light of very deeply rooted and persistent poverty. That is, of course, why that excellent project, which I have known for over a quarter of a century, has always emphasised the importance of dealing with the broader determinants of poor health and health inequalities, but it has also had excellent initiatives, specifically on food and other lifestyle factors. However, that report, which is certainly worth reading, also notes the rise in voluntary activity in helping people to eat and eat well. There are two excellent projects in my constituency that I want to highlight that do precisely that. The first is in the North Edinburgh area, and they work not far from the Pilton community health project, and they are the grant and community gardeners that Alison Johnstone referred to. They are local residents who are growing fruit and vegetables in several garden plots, some of them on the corner of the streets in the grant and area. There is an interesting point in the report that Alison Johnstone refers to in the motion from the Scottish Food Coalition, when they highlight the power of planning to ensure that bacon land is safeguarded for growing crops, and that is an important part of the subject. A great many positives are connected with the food growing in the grant. There is an educational dimension to it. Many people learn how to grow food and learn other information about food. In fact, the group had a 10-week course for local people specifically to encourage that knowledge. There is an opportunity to taste new fruits and vegetables, and it also builds up community cohesion. As people talk to neighbours, they may not have talked to before. As they work on the gardening, which of course is intrinsically healthy as well, they share meals with the produce and the volunteers distribute the food to a large number of families and volunteers. Crucially, it also has a strong environmental dimension. The aims include, and I quote, encourage care for the environment and awareness of local wildlife and biodiversity. The environmental dimension is also extremely important for leaf-based crops. Impots also mentioned in the motion that they educate people about the interaction between food and the environment, but it is even more important to put environmental sustainability into practice by growing food, planting trees and helping to reduce food waste and encouraging dietary change to reduce environmental impact and improve health. It is very grateful that they receive climate change funding in the past. The previous round has enabled them to build up a great team to establish infrastructure such as raised beds, sheds and a tree nursery and to build cross-relationships with the community. They have now put in another bid, and I hope that the minister will look favourably on it, since it is absolutely crucial to the next stage of their development funding, as it is essential to expand their community outreach, create habitats and, of course, continue to save carbon. For example, they work in local schools, hold community events and they are involving more and more people, increasingly more and more local people, but they need to have the further round of climate challenge funding in order to keep their excellent work going. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I have to say that I did not sign the motion, and one of the reasons I did not sign it is because I read the report, which is a very, very good report. For me, it is something missing. We need to have a stronger emphasis on where people are buying their food every day. They are buying them from the major retailer. We need to be a lot stronger on the major retailers and making sure not only that we have got better legislation, like other countries have, and better regulations, but that they sell local produce. That has got to be, to my mind, at the centre of everything we are talking about when we are talking about food. That is the reason. I am very much on the report, but I think there is not enough interface. I would agree with Alison Johnson. I am delighted that she brought it to Parliament. Let's take the statement that she talked about, which is right to start. We have plenty of land in Scotland. We do. With this Parliament, as Alison Johnson said, backing the Scottish Green Bill on land reform yesterday, more of this land will be used to grow food, and this is important. That is really at the heart of it. She said, as well, plenty of sea. The statement says that. We do have plenty of sea. Scottish Fisheries is back. I have been saying that for a long, long time. I have been working in the fishing industry for 30 years before coming to Parliament, but it is back both in quantities and in sizes. After the fantastic effort of our fishermen the last 10 years, the fantastic effort of this Parliament backing our fishermen, this Cabinet Secretary and the Scottish Government backing the Cabinet Secretary. We have good news there. Of course, it comes in the statement, plenty of skills people. That is important to realise as well. Our food industry in Scotland is part of our culture, is part of our universities, is part of our researchers. We are very much apt to do this, not only for export, but for local as well. We are fantastic experts in food production in this country from farmers, fishermen, scientists and innovators. I do agree with the end of the statement when it says that there are no reason why we shouldn't have plenty of good food for everyone. The solution is always easy, Presiding Officer. People are always the solution, so we need to talk about people and we need to understand more about food insecurity. I met a lot of people in my own region. For example, Dev Dev Somers is the chief executive of committee food initiatives in the north-east, CIFINE. It has got a fantastic organisation which develops more and more. It used to work for the Selenions, so it has been doing that for the last 40 years. It knows really what the food issue is and poverty is linked to it. In Peterhead, he has now since last October, the fruit mart, which previously was in the village alongside. The society shop is not only providing local produce as well, but it has got 17 people in the shop and is supporting employment guidance to address learning difficulties. There is a lot happening in the countryside, there is a lot of fighting in our cities and we really need to welcome that. Scientists are so important. Many of you will know, of course, Dr Flora Douglas from the University of Aberdeen, who comes very often to this Parliament and is so passionate about what food is and it is more than food, it is about our culture, about our society and how we see ourselves. On Tuesday night, there were Rob Gibson MSP who had food for thought, a fantastic event where another expert, Charles Spear, the chair of the Food Commission, was talking about the work and outcomes involving the school programme. As the Food Commission, I will recommend everybody to read the interim report of the Food Commission. It is a very, very interesting read. By closing, what I would say is that we need to have a different approach and that approach has got to involve everybody, involve businesses and our food producers. We need to buy local, buy Scottish, trust our farmers, trust our fishermen, trust our food producers, trust our experts, and we are not sure that we will have plenty of good food for everyone. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I come to this debate from a slightly different point of view having spent most of my life in the food production industry or the farming industry prior to becoming involved in politics. The opening of this debate, Alison Johnston used the phrase that, here in Scotland, there should be plenty of good food for everyone and I couldn't agree more. Scotland's farming industry is one of the most efficient and productive to be found anywhere in the world. The intensive methods that are used are high output, low impact methods, we have the highest standards of animal welfare to be found anywhere on the planet and we have a great deal to be proud of. That is why, although I have no wish to offend or cause any discord when others talk about organic methods, I do not object to organic farming, but what I do object to is the idea that somehow that method is better or more appropriate or worthy of greater support than the many traditional Scottish farmers using traditional Scottish methods to produce high-quality food and I will always defend them. Yes, I will. Alison Johnston I am sure that the member will agree that organic actually is traditional and I am sure that the member will agree that it actually could do with greater support in Scotland than it currently receives. I think that it is important to realise that if a particular method is productive and worthwhile, it should do so in a competitive environment with other methods of farming and we should demonstrate what is more effective by seeing what we achieve at the end of the day. However, let me continue. The truth is that there is a problem with food production and supply in Scotland and it is not at the far-mangend while there are problems associated with the returns that are gained from the marketplace and we must work to achieve more on that front, we are extremely good at producing food. In spite of the fact that many of us can criticise the supermarkets for much of what they do, the supermarkets themselves have an efficient method of distributing high-quality food to the marketplace. The food is produced and it gets to the shops where people can buy it. The problem is that not all people can afford to buy it and that is not caused by the cost of food. The truth is that food costs in terms of family income are about a tenth today what they were back in the 1950s, so food costs themselves are not the problem. The problem is that there are other costs that are in these family costs that are causing distortions. For example, food is a relatively insignificant cost yet housing costs are higher than ever. Fuel costs are high, transport costs are high, so as a natural result of that food quite often becomes a low priority although it is a relatively low cost. That is why so many of the organisations that have been mentioned today are so important to ensure that food is made available to those who find that food is the thing that drops off the table at the end of the day. As I said, I believe that we have a good system in place, one that does not need to be radically reformed from the bottom up but one that needs to be adapted to cater for the demands of that small minority who are currently suffering. I think that the charitable sector does an enormous amount of good work but we all know that that charitable sector should not be required to achieve those objectives, so while they do that, we can praise them for it. Let's find a way to ensure that, in the future, we can ensure that the best of Scotland's produce ends up in the hands of those who today, unfortunately, can least afford it. I welcome the coalition's important set of policy asks in advance of this next Scottish Parliament election. The fact that it is a combination and a coalition of environmental campaigners, anti-poverty campaigners, trade unions, farming and food producers gives us the impetus to think about food poverty, food quality and accessibility to food right across the political agenda and to think through all the key policy levers that we need to be pulling and putting into place. I want to make a quick side note in thanking Alison Johnson for getting that on our agenda today. I want to wholeheartedly agree with her about the funding for the project work that Norrish has been doing. It is crucial in terms of bringing together that agenda because it is cutting edge and setting a new agenda for the Scottish Government. I would be interested in the cabinet secretary's response in his closing remarks. I am almost tempted to get sidetracked by responding to all of Alison Johnson's point, but I am not going to go there today because it would get me too annoyed and I only have four minutes. I think that this agenda is important because it is bringing together fairness and social justice and applying that to the food chain and applying that right across our communities. It is totally appropriate that we are at the end of the fair trade fortnight. There are so many interconnections that we could be making, focusing on the rights of workers and food growers in some of our most disadvantaged countries on the fair trade agenda and bringing that close at our home. Thinking about the value that we give to food, thinking about the principles of fairness and social justice, they absolutely need to apply in Scotland too. I think that theme runs through Alison Johnson's motion today. It is good to see the coalition arguing for fair pay for those who work in our Scottish agriculture and horticulture industries. They are some of our lowest paid workers across the country. That is why Scottish Labour has campaigned so strongly—no thank you—for the agricultural wages board to be retained in Scotland. It has been a crucial way of preventing the exploitation of vulnerable workers, whether isolated workers in our rural communities or the particular challenge of protecting migrant workers. It has also been important in terms of the focus on health and safety, because those are isolated workers across our rural communities. It is significant that nourish and unite have argued together the importance not just of retaining the agricultural wages board but of the idea that we have a real living wage. In yesterday's land reform debate, we were delighted to see that the Scottish Government picked up the agenda of the issue of human rights and food security. That chimed very well with the motion that we have in front of us today, putting food security in as human rights. We now have the adoption of the international convention on economic, social and cultural rights, the voluntary guidelines on responsible tenure of land, fisheries and forests in the context of national food security. I would argue that that brings a new dimension to our food policy for the future. That is our challenge going forward. I want to welcome the work that has been done by nourish and the coalition to put that in a national context. I would also argue very strongly that we need to make the connections at a local level. I also want to celebrate the work that has been done by those local groups. In the Lothians, we have the Back Greens initiative in Gorgia and Daurai, which has transformed people's back greens and tenements and brought residents together. I also want to welcome the sustainable food cities initiative and to link in the work that has been done by our allotment growing networks. Let us look at challenging what is done for the future. There is a lot of work that needs to be done. I would like to see food growing in our schools and hospitals, linking into the eco schools movement and the community orchards movement. We need to think about how we use our urban land, but we also need to think about empowering people to be able to grow food. The allotments and gardens movement is a key way in which we can do it, and we need to tie that into community empowerment, health and wider food growing movement, which will help us to address the issue of affordable food and accessibility to food. It is the interconnection between those range of issues that will deliver on the fantastic work that has been done by the food coalition. I congratulate Alison Johnstone for bringing this debate to the chamber today, because it is a very important debate. I spoke recently in this chamber on the amount of food waste in question to the corporate body in relation to food waste in the Parliament itself, but we know that there is much more food waste taking place throughout the country, and although some of that food could be used to be given to individuals and families, clearly there are other issues that need to be dealt with. It is not just about giving leftovers to charities to patch up a failing system, it is about making sure that the system works for everyone in society. As others have mentioned, Scotland is a resource-rich nation, and, clearly, according to the Scottish Government, Scotland's farmable land amounts to roughly 5.6 million hectares, which equates to around 71 per cent of Scotland's total land area. It is an island nation that we are surrounded by sea, as others have mentioned, and we have large rivers and lochs that could provide plentiful food if we were actually to use those opportunities. However, clearly we have seen in terms of the debate today and taken, as I said, if Boyack said, I would not want to challenge Alex Johnstone here, but clearly there are issues in terms of what Alex Johnstone said and his contribution. However, the issues that we have got to identify, as well as the projects that have been identified by Alison Johnstone in her motion, there are a number of projects throughout Scotland that are working hard to try and make people aware of where the food on their plate comes from. However, it is not only hard to work to show them where it comes from, but it is encouraging them to start growing their own food. I recently visited a small project in Kurchaws, and it has a few raised beds, one polytunnel, and it is actually bringing in school children and unemployed, bringing them in there to give them the opportunity to start growing their own healthy food and showing them where that food comes from. We have also got the legislation that was passed by this Parliament in terms of community empowerment which said that we wanted to see the increase and availability of land for allopments. That is one way of taking forward the debate about people being able to not only access food but access their own food, grow it, be actively involved and understanding what the production methods are involved in that. However, there is another issue. That is the procurement policies that currently exist in Scotland. I have just met a group on Tuesday who told me that they still find it difficult to get into the procurement agenda, their projects, because of the way that the system works. If we can get local producers engaged in the procurement process that can supply to schools, hospitals and other public sector buildings, then clearly that would give the encouragement to develop those sectors and allow them to be actively involved in producing locally produced, locally sourced nutritious food. Comments have to be made about the other people who are working in the sector and food production. I would like to pay tribute to John Hancock, who is involved in the Commonwealth Orchard, who is a co-sponsor of the Parliament's apple day every September. He has attempted, on a number of occasions, to get fruit trees growing in common space, in schools and other areas to show children and adults that that food production could take place at a local level. Having those fruit trees in common space could help people to go along and help themselves to nutritious fruit without having that fruit travelling halfway around the world to provide that. We have to be bolder in the delivery of opportunities for communities to have the resources to produce food locally, and we need to work together to ensure that that works for the benefit of Scotland as a whole and end the situation with food poverty that currently exists in Scotland. I first begin by congratulating Alison Johnstone on securing this debate, which I think is a very welcome debate. It is very topical and timely. It is another illustration of the growing importance that we all attach to Scotland's food culture, our food systems and, indeed, improving our food culture and improving our food systems in Scotland. Likewise, the report, which is the focus of Alison Johnstone's motion, which is Plenty Food, Farming and Health in New Scotland, is published by the Scottish Food Coalition for a social and environmentally-just food system. It is also timely and is another sign of the momentum behind the food debate in Scotland. I want to say to the authors of the report that it is a first class report. I do not necessarily agree with absolutely everything in the report. Of course, it is talking about ways in which we can change Scotland's food culture and our food systems, which is something that is not going to happen overnight, but certainly gives us many ideas of how we can get a much better place in the future. I very much support much of what is in the document. Indeed, at my party's conference at the weekend, I spoke at a meeting that was hosted by the RSPB and, indeed, Nourish. There were a lot of common themes among all the speakers at that very well-attended event. It is indeed the case that, as a country, we celebrate our food and drink industry, our food and drink resources. We are a fantastic country when it comes to having the natural resources, the natural environment to produce the raw materials. We have our seas, our fertile land at a time when the rest of the planet is running out of fertile land, and we have the men and women with the skills to take the raw materials and turn it into fantastic produce that people want to enjoy in this country and overseas. That brings important economic value. Exports are an important part of that success, but it would be unfair to point out that Scottish Food Policy is all about exports, big business, salmon and whisky. They are immensely successful industries and, after all, we want people to be able to afford to buy food. They need jobs and we have those economic strengths that we should make the most of them in Scotland. However, a huge emphasis of Scottish Food Policy over the past few years has been on the other dimensions of food policy, which is the environmental impact, particularly at a time when we want to achieve our climate change targets, and tackling the irony that we have all this nutritious food that we are able to produce in our own doorstep. However, we have the record-breaking diabetes statistics that we wish we did not have at a time when we have all this healthy food but people are not enjoying it. At the same time, we have food poverty in Scotland, which is a mark of shame. Of course, the UK's austerity agenda is largely responsible for where we are with that at the moment. I likewise, like many other members, want to congratulate the many community initiatives across Scotland and charitable efforts that are taking place to ensure that people can access food at their time of need. Clearly, the answer to that is to make sure that people can afford to buy their own food in the first place, and the Scottish Government is also bringing forward funding to help those initiatives. However, even if you look at local food, that is something that is undergoing a revolution in Scotland at the moment. Again, it is being supported by the Scottish Government. We gave over £2 million between 2013 and 2016 to support many local initiatives across the country. Indeed, 140 initiatives have been supported through that kind of funding, ranging from community food initiatives to make sure that people can access food grown locally to food festivals and other food events that are taking place. They are very important in supporting the local food revolution that is taking place in Scotland. I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for taking the intervention. You mentioned all those small community projects, and they are tremendous, and the aggregate effect can be very impressive. What part should planning policy play in food production? For instance, should the Government not be allowing good agricultural land to be used for building? I welcome the fact that many of the initiatives that were mentioned by members during the debate have been put forward and supported and originated from the Scottish Government. For instance, planning policy and allotments is an issue that came out of a meeting that I had with a Fife council official a few years ago when he was telling me the difficulties that he had in Fife of securing land for allotments. We have managed to now change the legislation in Scotland to deal with those issues, and planning policy is at the heart of that. There are two or three issues that I want to touch on briefly before I close, which other members have raised. First, food waste. One of the ironies is that people cannot afford or are able to access good quality food at a time when, as a society, we waste a lot of food. That is a crazy place to be, given the impact that it has on its pockets, for households and its budgets, as well as the fact that it is bad for the environment, and that it is just a simple waste of a very valuable resource. The 2012 regulations that we passed in this Parliament now mean that there are measures in place to stop food waste going to landfill. At the same time, we have now set Europe's most ambitious target as a Government to cut food waste from Scotland by a third from 2025, and we are taking a European wheat in terms of tackling food waste. At the same time, it is also a global issue. At a time when people talk about GM, which this Government does not support as the answer to feeding more mouths in the world as a way to produce more food, as a planet, the UN report that we waste around a third of the food that we produce in the world. About 28 per cent, if I remember the statistic correctly, of our agricultural land is used to grow food that is wasted to 28 per cent. Clearly, to tackle food poverty or malnutrition around the world, we have to tackle food waste in a global sense, as well as in a Scottish sense. Two quick points are tackling all those issues at a European level. I agree that the common agricultural policy needs reformed. Indeed, if it was up to me, we would rename it a European food policy in other dimensions. The final point that I want to make is that food education, which some members have mentioned, is also crucially important. It is not good enough that young people do not know where the food on their plate comes from, how it was grown, the impact that it has on the environment and, most importantly, the impact that it has on their health. Only last week, I announced about £870,000 of new money for food education initiatives in Scotland. I was at Holyrood high school here in Edinburgh doing that, and that cash over the next year will support many food education initiatives working with teachers, staff and pupils in many of our schools. Over 300,000 pupils have already benefited from Scottish Government food education money over the past few years. Food education is key to changing Scotland's food systems, our food culture and creating a good food nation in this country. Many thanks and thank you all for taking part in this important debate. I now suspend this meeting until 2.30.


Hey, everybody, welcome back today to Retro Tech. I am Steve. And specifically, I want to go over a neckboard and how to service a neckboard with you. Now, today, we're going to be working on a PVM that's an M-Series, Sony PVM. And the reason I want to go over the neckboard is you could run into specific issues where you might be missing a color on your CRT or maybe you have some intermittent power issues or something anyway that might be interrupting your screen, whether it's with the colors. And there could be a problem coming from your neckboard. So the most common issues are cold solder joints, which just happen from heat and then cooling cycles over time, so as a CRT ages that can happen, as well as failing eye season resistors. Those are going to be the more common components that are going to give you trouble on your neckboard. There are a few capacitors on there and capacitor failure can be an issue. And then damage and transit. So you might have a very common, and neckboard gets damaged in transit or moving a CRT around, whether it's through shipment or whether it's just to move something personally, you can know a lot of times that gets damaged. So today, we're going to look at a good neckboard on a good working PVM and we're going to do some testing and then we're going to do the servicing. So we will need tools quickly. Then we'll need a screwdriver, utility knife. We'll need the replacement capacitors as well as a good desoldering tool. I'll be using the HACCO FR-301 quality soldering iron and then solder and flux alcohol for cleaning and RTV silicone adhesive at the end for reattaching our neckboard to our tube. So as I showed you on the test screens behind me, this one does not have any issues with color, but I've already been working on servicing it prior to this with the power supply. So we're going to go in now and just while we have it apart, service the neckboard while we're at it in our process of servicing the entire CRT. So first we need to take our shell off if you're just doing this by itself. That just means taking off the three screws on each side and then the four screws on the back and then slipping the rest of that cube off the PVM, slipping it back.  And here is the back of our wonderful Sony PVM CRT. However, if you're doing this on a different type of monitor that you can open up easily, it will look similar to this. And here is our neckboard. It's attached to the back of our CRT tube right there. And you can see that there are some spots that look they've been a lot of heat has built up over the years or heat will get in and out. This is a board that gets a lot of current run through it. And most of them are similarly designed. You may have a BVM that has, or even an Ikigami monitor that has a neckboard that has more of these components broken out onto other printed circuit boards. But this one is all on a one board and 95% of your monitors are gonna have a neckboard like this. Now to remove the neckboard, we're gonna first need to disconnect some of these connectors. And then after we get those disconnected, the first two are pretty easy. At the bottom, there is a ground connection. Now this could vary depending on what kind of monitor you're working on. And even sometimes the Sony PVM series neckboards can vary a little bit. I'm taking my utility knife now and I'm cutting the prior epoxy, which was applied around the connector between that little green spacer right here. So there's a little green spacer and then there's the glass from the tube and the pins and they go into this plastic connector right here into the back of the neckboard. And I'm taking my knife and gently going in there and cutting through that silicone that's already there. And then just wiggle and pull it out and you'll be fine. You'll wanna clean off the remainder of the silicone buildup on the back of the tube. And that way you just won't have a huge clop of that stuff when you go back and reapply your new silicone RTV because you'll need a good place to put it. And you could put it right back in the same spot it was as it was there, but just make sure you get it out of the way so you can get in here in service. And as well as not just services, we're gonna make sure we do a nice job of cleaning it. So now I've gotten it off the actual board itself. We'll take a closer look at the board. You can always reference the parts for your specific model with your service manual. This C board only has two capacitors in it. So we'll change those capacitors. And I'm also gonna reflow the solder on the larger resistors and the ICs that are on this board today. And that will be again, to make sure that we don't have any cold solder joints develop over time. So again, we're gonna use the HECO FR-301. This is my favorite desoldering tool. I'll be set it today to just over two. You could probably get away with setting it on to exactly because again, these older printed circuit boards, the older they are in age, then the more susceptible they are to heat generally. This Sony board is gonna be a nice board so it should be able to withstand some heat.  So again, just two capacitors in this one and just reference your service manual for the ones that are needed in yours. There's a closer look at this circuit board again with the capacitors gone. And you'll notice those ICs. Now those ICs, each controls an individual color and they are labeled with a part number and they'll go into the socket here in this C board or this neck board. And so if you have a color that has gone out, one of these components, these major components on this board could have failed or there could be a cold solder joint sometimes because these generate a lot of heat around all these components. You have four major resistors on this board which you can see are very high, elevated off the board. And so those will be getting really hot and then you've got the heat sinks, the follow up again with one with each color. And so again, if those fail, which you can pull them out of series and test them if you're missing a color, it might not be that your tube's bad, it might be that you have bad components on your neck board or even just a simple cold solder joint. Here's a look at the capacitor. Well, excuse me, B replacing. These are Nishikon Nu. They are 105 degrees Celsius rated. You wanna make sure that if you can, find 105 degrees Celsius rated and then you can even get in there and try to find extremely high life capacitor, sometimes up to 10,000 hours or more at 105 degrees Celsius, which is a very long time and should pretty much outlast the life of the tube in most conditions and scenarios. So just going in quickly here and using my soldering iron, a HACCO again, and I'm gonna have that set at 740 degrees on there. And as I go, I do like to use these alcohol pads and an old toothbrush and just clean off the majority of the flux because I do use a lot of flux. Now, you'll can see the way I solder is I generally tack those legs into place. I come back, I trim the legs and then I reflow the solder and then I ultimately clean off any flux residue with alcohol pads. So you can do this the way I'm doing it or really any way that you personally feel comfortable with soldering as long as you're getting a good, you know, flow of solder and everything's going all right and you have your own methods. You can definitely do this your own way. Now, as I said earlier, we're gonna go and before we test this board out, even though we've just replaced the two capacitors, I'll go in now and reflow the solder on the ICs as well as those resistors. And I'm just gonna use some flux and I've got my flux over here in my toolbox. I thought I'd just show you what I personally use. This is Alpha brand rosin paste flux and you can really use anything similar to this. It is like a plant-based rosin, so I use that. And then this isn't the exact size I normally use. This is actually larger diameter but I like to use the Alpha Fry rosin core solder. Just has always worked really well for me and I've never had any troubles with that solder. I have bought cheap solder before from just like an electrical hardware store and it was just terrible and wouldn't melt. So I immediately threw it away and never really used it.  So just going in right now and flowing the solder and flux on to those components we discussed. This is the third set and so just go through there and do that. And this will help extend the life of your monitor in the way that even without any trouble, this is just extending or re-solidifying those individual solder joints there so that you do have a solid connection. And if anything fails in the future, you can know that you've done this service already so you're pretty well set to say that your issue might not be coming from this board. If you have an issue in the future with color or something that you may feel like in the past have been dealt with on a board like this, you can easily eliminate that by doing this kind of maintenance when you're doing your maintenance on the whole monitor itself. Now, I'm gonna tell you, always go back and check your work. I did have some pieces of plastic, kind of brittle plastic on some of the little knobs on there that were for the potentiometers that controlled the screen. Now you can get to the back of it on this one with a screwdriver still. So I wasn't concerned that it broke off on the inside. It's harder to adjust from that potentiometer that way anyway. But just so you know that can happen, it won't affect the performance of the monitor at all. And what I'm actually doing here is in fast motion, I'm putting my multimeter to continuity and I'm checking the continuity with different points on the board that I would have soldered and making sure that there's continuity flowing throughout every solder joint that I touched on the board to make sure that I don't have any issues when I put it back together. So we'll go through now and I'll show you how to just set this right back on here. Before you connect it, you're gonna wanna make sure that you connect your cable starting from the bottom end first so that ground cable is easy to connect at the bottom. And then at the top you've got the multicolored cable. There is usually a little piece over here that is bendable that can hold the cable in place. And then you can slide your board up there and gently press it against the CRT. We'll show you that again from the other side. Just apply a gentle amount of pressure in the center as to not bend any of the, or damage any of the pins on the CRT itself because that can ruin the whole project if you push too hard or you bend and break one of those pins that will cause a lot of trouble. So right in here above where you'll see I didn't actually have the RTV here ready yet silicone. So that right there is where you'd reapply that silicone on top of that glass and in between there like it was when we originally took it apart. And again, that is called RTV, just the letter R, letter T, letter V, silicone adhesive and it will show you the high temperature RTV. There's plenty of brands of it. And so that servicing worked well. Again, you'll just wanna consider doing this if you have color issues or if you're already servicing your CRT. It's a good idea to change the capacitors. It could be very from two to sometimes I've seen up to 10 or so on that little PCB. But it's a good idea to change those capacitors as well as reflow the solder on those pivotal and vital components on that neckboard. Check your work. And you know, you've gone back and serviced it. So again, just like when you're doing the service or if you have a problem where you're missing a color and you think it might not be the tube. So as they do is just buckle it back up, put it back together. Now I did this in fast motion but I think this took me about three minutes to get this to slide on here perfectly. It can be a little bit frustrating. Just make sure that you take your time when sliding it back together like that because you could get hung up on some of the cables on the side from the inside of the PVM on the shell and pull something loose or you could be bending some metal in there. And you know, you wanna make sure that all the screws line up perfectly. And it's just putting back the six screws on the sides and then the four screws on the back. And that's all there is to it for reassembling the CRT and then it's ready to be used. And so this one again was a 14M2U. If you wanna see more, there's already a video about the power supply unit. Now I have serviced many of these before and I really love this monitor because I feel like it's a great entry level monitor but there are also still a large amount of them available. So even if you're not looking for a monitor, sometimes you can find one of these and they will have problems with them because sometimes they were used a lot. So I just wanted to document a way to go through and service each one of the boards. So the next board we'll be going to will be the main chassis. There will be also a follow up right up to this available on Patreon for any Patreons who are supporting the channel that way. Thank you very much. And again, thank you guys for watching today and I'll see you next time with some more monitors and some more retro content.


Ricky Fowler concedes a three-foot putt. 99% chance that professional's gonna make that putt, but the announcer literally says, this won't be conceded, no way. And that will not be conceded, no chance. It gets conceded, he's like, you're good. And what's to do is name Fleetwood or Fleetwood. He like is walking up to the putt, cause if he makes it, he makes birdie and grabs the hole and they win, basically. US stinks. Ricky says, you're good. And he's like, thank you. And the coyly walks, as soon as he grabs the ball and like Ricky doesn't, there's no take backsies. He did not pre-celebrate cause he thought Ricky might do the math in his head and like, wait, never mind. Put it back, put it back. Never mind. So as soon as he touches the ball, celebrates.


आप नाओ में आप बना है, अरी आप सास श्वौर बना अप देखौर बरुवणा में कर कईज़िन, आप तेर कीजन आप देख, में आप जबना दार बीश्ँं. नावगजो की आप ठीर की, अप प्रिना दायद, आप देखौर, महिन शबरू बारख at the country, our village, we have darkness, no light. इंदिन, टेक्निकल, और एकनोमिक कोईप्रेश्य। अईटेक is the flagship programme of the Government of India for capacity building in our partner countries. Since its beginning in 1964, over 200,000 professionals have benefitted from itech. Today we offer around 14,000 scholarships annually to 160 partner countries in about 100 premium Indian institutions. Itech covers both civilian and defence expertise, including going digital under e-i-tech. अग था, मुझे, ज़ा, अथी विज़्ा, बजा चाहाते, यह दो में, लागट ली अगी तो, लाओs is growing very rapidly and IT happens to be one of the most crucial component. The challenges that we are facing right now is really critical which is the human resource. The Indian government has helped us building this center of excellence in software development and training. This center will help tremendously to develop the human resource very much needed to contribute to this country's growth to the future. Almost every family in Iraq has either a missing person or a dead person. So it is important for them to find mortal remains of their dear ones and bury them the right way. We still hope they might come back to us by any chance. We always feel their presence around us. Our job is humanitarian. ITIC training built the capacity of our staff. We got more information, knowledge and exposure about DNA testing. Thank you very much. It was a very fruitful cooperation. At the same time, we feel proud for getting results. Conservation and restoration of the Thapurum temple by ITIC experts from ASEI is a fine example of our cultural cooperation to preserve civilizational ties with Southeast Asia. It's a very challenging work where man-made structure and nature are living together. To tackle this complex project, the Indian Institute of Technology Madras also undertook some engineering and structural studies. IIT Madras is proud to be associated with the Ministry of External Affairs Government of India in offering the ITIC program for professionals abroad. Since 2008, more than 840 rural women across the global south in 85 countries have been trained as ITIC solar mamas. These extraordinary women have been able to learn to fabricate, install, repair and maintain solar home lighting for everyone in their communities. Their ability to harness the sun has brought clean light to more than 240,000 people. It has led to acceleration of the sustainable development cause in communities across the developing world. I made it. ITIC is demand-driven, whether it is agriculture, rural development, governance, banking or environmental sustainability and climate change. Beside sharing our ancient knowledge in Ayurveda and yoga, ITIC also shares India's globally acknowledged expertise in cutting-edge scientific areas like artificial intelligence, big data and cyber security. Many years ago, I came to India as an ITIC trainee. Over the years, I have seen this ITIC program grown both in numbers and the scope. My own experience of ITIC has been very fruitful professionally and memorable personally. India's development cooperation is a key component of India's foreign policy. It is free from conditionalities and is strongly rooted in the principles of partnership, mutual benefit and solidarity. India believes that growth and prosperity of the world are indivisible. We all grow together. I am thankful to ITIC and India. I have learned from my experience of India. योभी इल ताख महाल एस तुबो मारावियोसो या लुब लु इंजीस कोछ्न्यो जानम दे खुलो मेत के लिए दूर्या में यहा हु यहा हु


The Association of Local Governments of Nigeria, ALGON, Oshun State Chapter has supported Governor Ademola Delikey for a second term in office, citing the People's Democratic Party's endorsement as evidence of the governor fulfilling campaign promises. The local government chairman endorsed the Delikey's administration's achievements in infrastructure, agriculture, and workers, as well as retirees, welfare. Our government made a pronouncement that is going to start the dualization of old garage to Lameco, this and that. The workers started already. Go to Ife, they are doing the same thing. Go to Ede, the same thing is replicated over there. They will be able to start the work in Ikerona as well very soon, the dualization. And I want to tell you, on the issue of heads, few months after the inauguration of Senator Ademola, they did rehabilitation of many head centers in Oshun. Ikerona is one of the key points. The Speaker urged party members to continue supporting the administration for more success and assured local government chairman to intensify rural development efforts to fodder Ademola Delikey's administration's grassroots agenda. Governor Senator Ademola Delikey wants to be given the ticket for the second term. That's why, on behalf of Agon in Oshun State, we are one no one, not just one represent. Go to me.


Another great Monday. It's going to be a really busy week, but we're starting off our Monday in our week with a really interesting, as we would like to say a big get in the, for the nonprofit show, we're going to be talking to Stacy Hengsterman, and she is the CEO of Special Olympics of New York. Fascinating discussion on how this organization has really grown and shifted and done all sorts of things during the pandemic. What it looks like to be a champion of nonprofit is something that Jared and I are always interested in. And so this is going to be a robust conversation. Again, we want to thank all of our sponsors without you, we would not be here having this discussion and so we are incredibly, incredibly grateful and proud that we have these folks that have been with us. Again, I'm Julia Patrick CEO of the American nonprofit Academy joined today by my interpret co host, Jared ransom the nonprofit nerd coming to us from the south so we're excited to get her in. Jared, I want to grow up to be you because you're always coming to us from different wonderful places and so this is a cool thing that we have you. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. It has its challenges, you know, but it also has it has its uphill up. I don't know like just the uplifting pieces as well but I too have been looking forward to today's conversation with you Stacy. Again, got connected through our Twitter feed so for those of you that may not follow us on Twitter. Make sure you do that but I'm thrilled to have today's conversation with you Stacy. We're going to talk about Special Olympics and in particular your chapter if that's what we refer to it as in the New York area so welcome to you. Thank you so much.  So thank you for having us and thank you your sponsors to it's great that you guys are able to do this. Well, thank you, you know we were talking in the shitty chat chat. You have seven chapters. Seven offices. Seven offices. Yes, in New York. Yeah, Special Olympics. Obviously I think everyone all of your viewers have certainly heard of Special Olympics it's been around for 50 years Eunice Kennedy Shriver started it a little over 50 years she just had her 100th birthday we celebrated. 50 years ago but she really started Special Olympics just to to it's really about inclusion through sports. So just giving an opportunity here sister had an intellectual difference. And she saw the isolation and the difference that she was treated and started this organization to just start including people with intellectual differences through sports so fast forward here Special Olympics New York one of the largest programs. We have, we work with over 60,000 athletes. We have seven offices throughout the state. And again, same thing we just it's authentic sports opportunities for people with intellectual differences competitions trainings, or sports organization but we're really also advocates for inclusion so inclusion in all forms of health, life, health and school and sports and social so that's what we do. And I have so many fond memories of Special Olympics I grew up in a very rural country town in South Carolina, but we did a lot of volunteering and I always say one of the reasons I got into this great work in the social profit sector is thanks to my mom and to our hometown because they actually they are school had us very involved in community service and I remember attending Special Olympics and are they called buddies I mean again it was like decades ago, but I really have such fond memories and this is like one of the first organizations that I ever volunteered with. I love hearing that we hear that all the time I think the Special Olympics movement has really touched people over the years. The things that I like to explain about Special Olympics and I just I'm on my third year, my third anniversary of being president and CEO was always a fan of Special Olympics. I also have a son, my middle son, my middle child, Alex has Down syndrome, and he was not part of the movement before I became president CEO and I think there's a couple reasons for that and Jared I think what you said about are they called buddies are just thinking about those events. I never really thought about Special Olympics all the time is being inclusive I almost just thought of it as charity which is there's nothing wrong with that. But I didn't realize how authentic it is. And it's so that's what I want everyone to know about Special Olympics, it's real authentic sports. So, you know, I cried I think the first competition when I saw our athletes lose I was like let them do it again and they're like that's not how it works. You know, this is sports. I did not get this job because my sports background me that out there. So that and also everyone thinks of the games they asked me when is the Special Olympics and what I want everyone to know is Special Olympics is every single day. My son is now in powerlifting, and he goes to train three times a week so that really for him is, you know, that's what Special Olympics is to him he might not ever make it to the big games, maybe he will. We'll see he has got some practice to do but really it's that it's that every day experience and competitions that are athletes like the most. That's an interesting thing because I have to tell you. I think of your organization as an event based organization that is like, you know, a one time thing. And, and so I really appreciate you kind of drawing that line through what it takes to get going and then the actual arc that someone might fall. We're not the only one and there's nothing I mean it is our games are so exciting and going from this past year, where we couldn't have our big games, I'm so I daydream about having fall games in October, our opening ceremonies and seeing it. And that's probably about 1200 athletes that will make it to the fall games, but you know we have 60,000 across the state so really is a small percentage, but such an important part because that's the culminating competition. You know, of all of their hard work and that's the gold medalists will come and compete regionally against others, you know across the state so I love them, I love everything about the games but I really love the day to day movement mission the most. That's fascinating. Well, I want to ask you another question because of the, the big Olympics. You know, that is such an omnipresent discussion this time of the year. During the summer, and you know the every four years we've had a lot of tumult because of the pandemic and we last week, we've had even more changes and information coming out. And you are not part of the Olympics. And so could you talk about how some of this pressure comes down on you is it a good thing is the bad thing, what is what is that external pressure look like. Yeah, I mean we, I certainly watch I feel for all those athletes because obviously we work with our athletes and how hard they work in their sport and I just I feel for them right now how isolating is now for them everyone is just all done with the pandemic but it can't be done because it's not over so you know we're watching next year is our USA is our world games which was postponed a little bit so we have that. And then we have our USA games so I'm almost grateful that it's not this year that we can you know watch but I do feel for all of the Olympic athletes out there that are competing without fans and doesn't seem like a big deal but it really is a big deal and not being able to have that full experience but their athletes and just like ours, they know what they have to do and I can't wait to cheer them on all summer and I hope everybody else does too. And there's no relation to these different are to these Olympics right they're very different. Now I am curious if the international Olympic impacts, maybe the special Olympics fundraising goals because I would wonder that, you know, as a bystander are really just having that thought it's like, Oh, you know, I would like to make a donation or I've been meaning to make a donation when the special events in our community is being held.  You got me. I think that's a great point. I do think that spirit of the Olympics, that fear of sports. Those fans certainly does benefit special Olympics I mean we are the only ones that are really allowed to use Olympics in our name. So, I mean, we're not connected in that way but we're connected in the same way as the movement and, you know, the, the, the love of competition. So that's it we know the mission is the same. Yeah, so I think it does benefit us just because you catch the whole spirit of the gold medals and you know I we have a fundraiser this week is the night of champion so it's all about champions. We want for special Olympics, kind of the world to do what they do for the Olympics, follow those athletes. So when we announce our athletes for USA games, you know it's really fun to just watch them train and get ready and follow them, just like we all have our favorite Olympic athletes, how great and ESPN helps us without bringing that to the living rooms to so everyone can have their favorite special Olympics athlete to. Wow, that's amazing. Now, talk to us a little bit about how your overall competitive sites, your programming and everything was impacted by coven I mean, New York was just the epicenter it got hit so hard so quickly, and they think the rest of us across the country, watched in horror but you also set the stage for how we were all going to have to adapt and change and I'm wondering what that looked like with all of your athletes and all of your programming. Yeah, it was, I mean just say it was hard isn't, you know, isn't enough right it just like you kind of forget how hard it was we were one of the we were the first organization to shut down I remember that phone conversation. And I remember thinking especially they're kind of crazy I was like it's, we're shutting down everything every practice everything all across the state, you know, even though Buffalo is so far away from New York, you know, all of that but it was just shut down, I think because of the people that we work with our athletes, they are a higher risk because of some health problems, and where they live and residential facilities and things like that we just had to be extra careful but it's shut down really overnight. And just like everybody else but you know we didn't know what we were really doing, you know we're people that like to see each other on the fields and the courts and the tracks and the pools. We didn't even do a thing by video not one thing I don't think we even had a board meeting that way so we had to get ourselves up and running pretty quick for our athletes that people with intellectual differences are so much more isolated than their neurotypical peers. And so we were worried about them and wanted to let them know we were here so we started doing workouts and we started doing, you know, fun Fridays and social things but then we were able to get their coaches to get training clubs online so by the end we were having trainings. We were having seasons at home, gave them activities that they could start practicing and then get better and better submit their scores and then division them off and then compete again so we were doing full seasons. So we'd never stopped, you know, obviously through furloughs, you know furloughs and watching our own operating budgets and making sure we were conserving as much as we could for this time right now. When we're back together, we want to be able to say yes to everything so we pay for everything for athletes. They don't pay for anything so I'm very, very proud of the organization and what they're able to do and I think, you know, our sponsors are partners, I think they really took notice on how hard we tried. We certainly did not get to everybody but we certainly did try. Stacy, one of the questions we like to ask our guest is what did you do during the pandemic in particular the global virus pandemic that has worked so well that you will keep and continue as a standard operating practice. Yeah, that's a great question we just had a staff meeting this morning and I had visitors, one of our sponsors came and surprised one of our athletes because he's going to be a coach for the USA games and those were start we're keeping those things like we are statewide so to connect that way by video. I think we will all I think we didn't really think about where athletes came from before they came to the fields in the courts. And I think seeing how many lived in residential facilities community group homes. And they struggled so much to have they couldn't do even what other athletes could do so we always want to have those seasons at home at school now so even if they can't get there for some reason there's always something virtual so I really see us. Keeping this virtual programming in addition to our we call it now on the field and off the field. So it's really a whole new thing for us, but knowing that we can't reach everybody in person ever. We're going to keep it up. I love that I think that's great and you mentioned that your board had never done virtual meetings. You moved your board meetings I'm assuming in your, your key staff meetings. How's that going and are you going to be moving that forward as well. We are, we're going to in October we're going back in person, I think we will probably, you know, certainly allow more video but as much as we got used to the video we're all a little sick of the video too. So, I think, you know, having seven offices obviously as an organization that didn't use any of them, especially in New York City you know with the high rents, it was do we need to have seven offices but I think for us we do. We are. That's the way we do our work so we do call everyone back to the offices in June. We're more flexible I think we're always flexible for our work, but I think we work best when we're together and I think we'll probably go back to mostly in person for board and staff this fall. Amazing. Amazing. Okay, I'm really interested now in the meat and potatoes because, you know, without money, we can't do our missions. So, talk to us about some of the robust changes that you had to make what worked what didn't as Jared asked what's moving forward. You know, because I hear you sound like a group that didn't just hit the pause button. Yeah, we didn't but we had to with fun, you know, we were very, very event driven and so it's some ways that works for us but it, you know, we, we, in some ways that was a struggle because we couldn't have event we just couldn't have events so gala and things like that. And the events that so we caught our operating cost drastically when this happened and I think that I'm glad that we did, we managed to kind of get every all the staff came back. Everyone's made whole but we didn't really know what was going to happen so we did that from the beginning. We learned a lot, I think, are I look at your backdrop of your sponsors and I just want to just shout out again to like our partners or what got us through. They stuck with us those having those larger partners that that appreciate your mission. You know, because we don't charge anything to our athletes or anything we start every January at zero. We don't have any recurring, you know, memberships or anything like that so, you know, we have a few grants and things that, you know, but nothing that can stay so it's all events for us, some larger grants some government funding but not very much. And we found that peer to peer, still, you know, when we could do our polar plunges we did some virtually, we did find that when we could venture out more people wanted to go do something and get out there. So, you know, our golf, our polar plunges which is jumping into cold water which I said I would never do and I did it three times during the pandemic because I just, you know, as a leader you got to jump in there and I actually had a fall. So, I have apologized for our development team constantly saying I'm sorry I kind of food this, but that's. And so we changed more of our kind of Gallup type fundraisers to golfing cycling, you know, getting out outside it was more safe for us and really relied on some of our bigger partners that helped us with those operating costs through the year. Wow. And you did those throughout the state you didn't just keep to one part of the state being you have so many offices, you had to kind of spread the, you know, the environment. Yeah, we all those offices they all do their fundraisers so New York City was obviously the one that you know we were just now kind of getting back to fundraising there. But no, we, you know, it was like George and Long Island I jumped in the ocean and it's, you know, it was, it was all over and that really, I think, you know, I kind of safer Special Olympics, it's, it comes in, it's $10 million it was before the pandemic now. We dropped down to about eight but we're climbing back up there again. I like to say it's in fives and 10s. It really is I think our mission really draws at the heartstrings of people, you know, you know, like Jared that have that nice feeling about it so when someone asked them to do it might be $2550 $100 we have, you know, thousands and thousands of those. But I think those mean a lot to us and I think getting the corporations in and giving them a, we call it a unified experience so we'll do bachi. And we'll play with the athletes on a unified team so not just having them volunteer but really making it meaningful for athletes to and we do have those so we're building a lot of those and I think. I think people really get us and they, I think now more than ever because I think the pandemic really isolated people and when they realize that there's still populations out there that are still isolated and we always have to reach out. I, people really want to help. And that social aspect is so so important. I was an athlete growing up as well and I actually remember. It was a special Olympics like it wasn't a normal game and nor I shouldn't say normal but it wasn't like a standard kind of like rostered game it was like the gold Olympics you know like it was the pinnacle. That's probably what you did yeah you probably did but being an athlete I know that there's so much more work, dedication mindset. You know that goes into preparing for that and I can imagine during the pandemic was really hard, but to see your community rally as so many of us have, but in particular for your community here Stacy throughout New York. How like heartwarming is that you know it's just so extremely heartwarming to see so many individuals come together during a really, really difficult time. It's, I mean it's everything it's beyond heartwarming it's just, it just makes you. I think everything is going to be okay and I think I, I'm so grateful for this job and for this mission because it touches so many people and I think once people get involved with special Olympics and they really know, you know, get what it's about like I think what I admire I even aspire to if that even makes sense because I know I'm the president and the CEO but I the volunteers, the coaches that they have that volunteer opportunity that they can really identify with in their life it's not just a day or or thing they are special Olympics coach, they are special Olympics health director clinical director, and I wish that I had that same kind of volunteer relationship that they have it really is unbelievable and like I talk about my son Alex is power lifting three times a week. I don't know if we should be that was the chibi chat child I just really wanted to say chibi chat chat too. It's always a fun word to say we always like to pepper it into so good job.  It's unforgettable. So, talk to us a little bit we don't have much time left but talk to us about the trajectory of what it means to go from being an athlete and athlete and training in the competitive process because I would imagine a lot of people think that you are fundraising for your like big event. Your Olympics but really it's a trajectory that follows the journey and all the costs associated with each athlete right. Yeah, so we are yes the big events are the most you know we have three. We have fall summer and winter games that we certainly fundraise for those are big biggest expenses. We have our USA games that we get together with all the programs across the United States. That's in Orlando next year it's so exciting. We're sending about 100 athletes down there so we have to fundraise for that we pay for everything and then the coaches and all that but we also pay for you know just the training space the gym space for the uniforms the equipment. Oh, all the PPE that we need so everything the transportation the hotels, you know all of that that's everything that we pay for and you know I think also it's just the. I think you all know from not for profits that people do like to pay for basketball and things like that but it's also just the operating expenses, you know the light bill. So, and the staff it's people person I could get 100 inquiries in a week through emails and it's hard if you have one person trying to match me. An example just because you have a disability doesn't mean I can just put you into any sport or you want to find a team that works for you that's in your age and your division and, you know with my son coming in. You know there might have been a track team in our town but he's you know he's not going to run track right or swimming so we really had to find it just takes a while so we need the staff to be able to provide that coordination with families and community agencies to find the right fit for these athletes so that's our biggest expenses people in it but it's our, it's our most important expense. Sure, sure. Well, I'm just been so honored to meet you and to thank you for this journey I just think that you know when Mrs Kennedy driver started this to think that this would get to where it is I'm sure she could never have seen this and to have, you know, professional leadership like you what an incredible journey that this, you know, 50 years and is not a very long time to create a global movement. No, it really is if you just, you know personally and professionally I look at it and even when I was in school which 30, you know, God, 30 some years ago. I really didn't I say that the first person I really knew I gave birth to and it just kind of, we just grew up different this is a different generation now it's a unified generation. We have, you know, unified sports and schools for half the kids have disability half the kids don't. So she really, it's, you know they call an inclusion revolution but that's really what she did just through the power of sports. I'm personally so grateful to her, but professionally I just think there's so much more to come when maybe there isn't even a need for special Olympics anymore because everybody is included into sports and I see it. I really do see the change from, you know, from when I was growing up to when my kids are growing up and it's pretty awesome. The foresight of that and to see the inclusion revolution. I love that terminology I'm sure it's not new to you but for us are for me want to speak for you Julia. I love that and we hear so many amazing nuggets throughout the years and you're right Julia a 50 year, you know really isn't that long when you look at that. I've seen you know special Olympics change because that was in the 90s that I was referencing, you know, like really being involved, and to see how the business model of the organization the growth across the nation has really changed it's just been phenomenal to watch and we are so grateful to have you on have your voice on as a representative of special Olympics of New York so thank you so much Stacy. Thank you, I knew it would be fun and it was thank you for helping us get our message out and thank you for all that you're doing. It's amazing here Stacy's information, their websites really great incredibly robust. When you look at all the things that this organization is doing you realize that it is not just a two week period of you know, fun and it is like grinding grinding work. And fascinating to see and I love that you introduced us to the concepts of how your organization really functions, you know, behind the curtain so to speak, because all of our viewers in the nonprofit sector know that you know we oftentimes are one thing, but it's really this trajectory that we have to, you know, battle through in order to get to that end point and so you shared with us some really amazing things. Check out special Olympics and why.org to see what they're doing and how they're impacting our communities. Hey, I'm Julia Patrick CEO of the American nonprofit Academy. I've been joined today by my nonprofit nerd, your nonprofit nerd, the nonprofit nerd, Jared Ransom, coming to us from the south. I've got it down after you know.  That's great. That is right. Thank you. That's like pretty damn impressive if I do say so myself. But anyway, we want to thank our presenting sponsors again without you we would not be here having amazing guests like we do. We're so so fortunate we have a big lineup of guests this week so you won't want to miss any of our episodes. And if you want to catch pieces from our archives or you want to research something you know we have now close to 350 episodes you can find us on Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Daily Motion, Vimeo, YouTube, we're kind of everywhere it's it's a little amazing but you can find us and we want to find you. We've launched a new show fundraising events dot TV just specifically about the business of fundraising events and all the things that go on. We always say from golf to you know gallows from ballrooms to barns we got you covered. So check out fundraising events TV with Jason champion. Wow. Okay, Jared. Great, great, great way to start off the week. I love it every week we have such amazing guests and I really like it when we start off with such a robust conversation like we did today on a Monday, or I like to say Monday because I think we should have just as much excitement. And as we start a week as we end a week so it is so important for all of us to continue doing the great work that we do so. Yes, thanks again to our amazing sponsors and to our amazing guests Stacy did for joining us today. We hope that you'll all come back again tomorrow to join us and until then, stay well so you can do well. Thanks everyone.


USS Nebraska received the 2013 Omaha Trophy in Bremerton, Washington Friday. The Omaha Trophy is an annual award given to U.S. strategic command units who demonstrate the highest standards of performance. The award categories are global operations, submarine ballistic missile, intercontinental ballistic missile, and strategic aircraft operations. As most people know, SSBNs have two crews, and this wouldn't be possible if both of those crews didn't work together as a team. And that really is the key to Nebraska's success. The blue crew and the gold crew really did work together as a team, without any rivalry or with a healthy rivalry at least, and really we're both committed to the mission more so than anything. I think that really is what brought it home. This is the second time Nebraska earned the award. From the Defense Media Activity, I'm Petty Officer Tyrell Morris.