Well good morning everybody. Praise the Lord, amen. We are the New York Fellowship Choir and we're excited to be here with you. Can we just clap our hands and just give yourself a round of applause? Please welcome President and CEO. It is the Library's honor to once again host this important gathering. What a pleasure to come together with you all to celebrate the diverse faith community and your many contributions to our city. Similarly, for over 127 years the New York Public Library has been committed to offering free and open access to knowledge, to serving as a place where New Yorkers can share the ideas that knit our communities together. Inclusion, diversity, and respect have made our city the dynamic place we love. They have also made the library the essential institution of the day. These values saw us through the challenges of the last few years and continue to make us a safe place, the safe place for New Yorkers, hunger to learn. In a time when some would encourage divisions amongst us and would make ideas seem like threats, we welcome everyone to sit side by side with a desire to expand our knowledge and build a better, more connected world. Many of you are here to do that very thing this morning. We are all here together. And how fitting that we are here in this house, as we say, libraries are for everyone. When they deny the hard history, we present truth harder. When they ban books, we unban them. When they try to stop or block our programs or events, we defend New Yorkers and everyone's right to choose the programs and the way they want to attend and learn. We welcome you, Mayor Adams, with thanks for all you do, for all you have to fight against and all you are fighting for. And welcome all of you who also work every day to bring New Yorkers together and create communities of acceptance in our great and wonderfully varied city. Thank you for all you do. I'm so proud that the library's long-standing mission is aligned with your work, that we can gather here together as the foundation of civil society, that we will stay linked, arm in arm, open, and ready to serve the people that depend on all of us. We welcome all houses of faith, all people of all faiths. Welcome to this great house of learning for this great gathering of community. Blessings and good morning. Blessings and good morning, Lord. Thank you for allowing us to rise this morning with a safe arrival here, the opportunity to experience a brand new day. We're appreciative that we are still in your presence while here on earth. We're grateful that we are alive and exist. Thus, if we exist, you have a purpose for breath in our bodies and we thank you. May your purpose be fulfilled today with no derailment. This morning we congregate as believers in faith to trust you for your guidance through this day concerning our neighborhoods, our communities, our organizations, our businesses, and everything we are attached to. We ask that you release the angels to cover us, dwelling around us, fight for us in all of the needed locations, and stand guard through the day, deflecting all evil from our presence. Today, Lord, we seek your love to permeate through us in this gathering of peace. May your love saturate every bodily embrace in this building. May your love be infused in every conversation that is invoked among us, causing us to leave each other's presence better than when we had arrived. While we fill the seats with our bodies, become in this cheer, cause our presence and your presence to connect. Lord, we thank you for our fierce leader this morning, my name's St. Mayor Eric Adams. We thank you. We thank you for keeping his body healthy and strong. We thank you for his voice and his presence among the city. We thank you for a man with a heart that cares and seeks to listen to all citizens, regardless of ethnicity and faith background, as he represents the city and respects the faith of people. Bless all our political officials who represent us here in the city, Albany and Washington, D.C. We thank you for the meal that we have received. May it become nutritious to our bodies, making us healthy and strong throughout the day. And Lord, when we leave here, take us home safe and may the day be progressive, all of this we ask in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. I can see all different faces and clothes here. They reflect diverse ethnic villages and cultural backgrounds, as well as various lifestyles, experience and interest. And I would describe this as a vibrant, inspiring and a harmonious art of living. And this is what I believe New York City stands for, and this is what we as religious leaders need to encourage and guide people to see the beauty of diversity, the joy of living together, and the infinite possibilities of evolving as if you love the community. Please join me in prayer. Karma Kaya Buddha, how grateful we are to share this moment, feeling one another's presence and peaceful support. In this time of division, may our hearts join in solidarity to heal the wounds of conflicts and hatred by realizing that we are all interrelated. In this time of confusion, may we restore our Buddha nature, our enlightened nature, the source of love and grace to defeat all the darkness and ignorance in our minds and in our society. May all the challenges we face today become transformed into a stepping stone for our society and for us to learn and grow. May we work together to build a peaceful coexistence with our fellow beings in Mother Earth. Karma Kaya Buddha, may all faith leaders, elected officials and mayor-adams be protected and guided by wisdom and compassion to lead us to peace and justice. May we deepen our spiritual cultivation so that we can transform delusion into wisdom, greed into generosity, resentment into gratitude, discord into harmony, and hatred into love. Whatever our hands touch, wherever our feet reach, wherever our voice resounds, whatever our minds wish, may all that lead us to peace and harmony. Good morning. Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. In the name of Allah, the most merciful, the most beneficent. As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. God said in the Qur'an, O mankind, we create you from the single peer of the male and female and made you into nations and tribes that you may know each other, know that you may displace each other.  God command us in the holy Qur'an to respect all peoples regardless of their faith, race, or language. We are directed in more than one verses, not to transgress against the rights of the others. When Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa alih, migrant from the Mecca to Medina, he worked with the Christian and Jewish and respect their rights. He ordered his followers not to violate the rights of the people regardless of their religion. Another example we have is Islam, the successor of Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa alih, Imam Ali, which you can read about his story with the book Lost History, Michael Morgan. When he appointed his governor in Egypt, he gave him some advice. One of his advice, he told him, people are of two kind, either your brother in faith or you're equal in humanity. Our Lord, accept this from us. You are indeed to all hearing, all knowing. Our Lord grant us the good of this world and the hereafter, and protect us from the torment of the fire. Our Lord, do not punish us if we forget or make a mistake. Our Lord, we have believed, so forgive our sins and protect us from the torment of the fire.  Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Let us reflect upon a short passage from Psalm 133. A song of the sense of David. How good and pleasant it is that brothers dwell together. Yes, it is good and pleasant when we live together as brothers and sisters. There is no greater blessing than being able to join around one table as one community. But while it is a blessing, it is not easy. When King David wrote this prayer, he knew the unfortunate truth. Brothers and sisters don't always get along with each other. Throughout the book of Genesis, brothers and sisters fight with each other. Cain murders Abel.  Leah and Rachel wrestle with each other. Joseph's brothers sell him into slavery. And this is not just in the Bible. It is a reality in every place and at every time. To sit together as brothers and sisters doesn't come easy. For it to happen, we need to want it. We need to value it. We need to be committed to it. And I mention this because we live in a city of nearly nine million people. We live in this city, this wonderful city, where people from every religion and every country around the world live. And if we have nine million New Yorkers, we have nine million opinions, at least. And that's wonderful because diversity is a blessing. Yes, diversity is an incredible blessing, but only when people embrace it, only when they realize how good and pleasant it is that brothers and sisters well together. If we truly want this city to be a city of brotherhood, we need to do something about it. And that is my prayer today. Almighty God, inspire us to live together in peace and harmony. Show us how we can serve you together, as the prophet Safanya said, shoulder to shoulder, even when we find our own path. Open our eyes to recognize that unity is not the same as unanimity, but rather found in mutual respect. Teach us the lessons of love and may we follow the path of peace and goodness. Dear God, Master of the Universe, inspire us to dwell together as brothers and sisters, and may we continue to join together in the future in peace, joy, and happiness. Amen. Good morning, everyone. Buenos dias. To me it's an honor to be here this morning, and it's even a bigger honor to be able to pray in my language, which is Spanish. And I'm just going to give everyone in the room a little secret. If you did not know it, when we get to heaven, the only language that is going to be spoken is Spanish. Amen. So I suggest we stop practicing it for now. Amen. I declare in this moment a prophetic word about our home, and I pray for our mayor, Mayor Adam, thank you and I bless your administration. I bless everyone who has been elected to work under the administration of our mayor, and I declare in this moment a prophetic word, 29-2. When justice is in authority, the people are happy, but when injustice is resisted by the government, the people rise. Dear God, I declare in this moment and I declare that our mayor, that our time here in New York has arrived. I declare that our mayor is a fair man, a man who will not govern, a man who has been pierced in the heart of God. I bless our mayor, Mayor Adams, in this day, and I declare that you bless him, that you prosper him, my lord, that you give him health, that you raise him, that you bless him, and I declare in this morning, Jeremiah 29-11, that he says the word, that his plans, that his thought is to bless him, to prosper him, that he blesses him, that he be the plan of God, that he be the purpose of God, that he be declared in our city, in New York, in every county, in every corner of our city, that he be the plan of God, that he be executed in this city, and now I pray for my passion, and I pray for the migrants who are going through to reach our city, I pray for every migrant who is coming, who is crossing, my lord, that you bless him, and that we, the citizens of New York City, can have compassion, that we can bless those who are coming to this city, that we can bless them with our goods, my lord, and that we do not raise them as newbies, as men and women of this city, to be able to help all the migrants who are coming to our city, and now I pray, my lord, concluding with this prayer, asking, my lord, that you do not help people of compassion, my lord, men and women of faith, my lord, that we can conclude at this moment, that we seek to know the truth of your word, and to find a common ground between all the many traditions and religious leaders, and to recognize that we share a common humanity, and to be able to advance in this year, and to be able to bless every citizen of our city, my lord, bless our city, bless our government, our leader, that you have raised a fair man, and I bless the city of New York, in the name of Jesus, may God bless you, people. Good morning and namaste to everyone. I ask us to join in a very simple prayer this morning. O divine lord, this morning we pray that you do not keep us in the phenomenal world of unreality, but make us go towards the reality of the eternal self. Do not keep us in the ignorant state of darkness, but guide us to the path of spiritual knowledge. Do not keep us in the world of mortality, but make us go towards the world of immortality, self realization. Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti, may peace be with all. Thank you. Makora Haim, O God, source of life, creator of heaven and earth, in all its array, and creator of the first human being, Adam, from which we are all, all of us assembled here today, all of those who live in our city, from we are all descended from that first human being. May you grant us the ability to celebrate the diversity in this room and in this precious city of ours, people of all faith and colors, of all genders and sexual orientations, people striving to live lives of purpose and meaning, of freedom and dignity, of love and happiness. May we as leaders of all faiths express our commitment to the Holy Blessed One through our commitment to building a community in a city in New York that is most concerned about those in the margins of our society, those with no homes, no families, no citizenship, those who are vulnerable in all kinds of ways, physically, mentally and spiritually, those who lack food and safety, those who are more likely to end up in prison than in a job because they live in poverty or because of the color of their skin. May we have the audacity to dream of a city under Mayor Adam's leadership that is thriving, affordable, equitable and safe. May our city be filled with song and art and creativity and be a place that unites people from all nations in its dynamism and it being a destination to go for discovery, ambition and exploration. In these challenging times with so much uncertainty and violence and polarization in our world, may God give us the strength and resilience to have a vision for our city and then put our hearts and hands together to work on it, to make it a reality. Let us not be cynical. Let us not become complacent. Let us not be content with what is. Let us fight for what ought to be. This week in the cycle of the reading of the Five Books of Moses, we read of the High Priest, the Kohen Gadol, having a sign across his forehead that says, Kodesh Lashem, holy to God. May we see the holiness in each other and all those who live in our city and use our own service as leaders, not only for the good, but for the holy. Amen. So may it be. Infinite source of goodness, help us to see the good in ourselves, in others and in the world around us. Teach us to cultivate a discerning mind, to know right from wrong and to listen into love and forgiveness. Guide us to walk in your ways with integrity ever faithful to the promises our forebears made and may your come say new amen. Show us kindness on this day today. Give us strength God. It's indeed a wonderful morning and we have many things that we can give praise and say amen to our Creator for today. This interfaith breakfast has started approximately 20 years ago. We know that for a few years because of COVID we could not convene, but we are blessed today so that we can convene as one united voice. I officially welcome you and I thank our partners on Pastor Monroe's. I know you are here and Pastor Cabrera and Pastor Sargato and all of the members of our interfaith team worked so hard under the leadership of our Mayor Eric Adams to pull this event together. We know in government many times it's said that one has to separate church from state, but we have an administration that doesn't believe in that. We have a Mayor who you will hear from shortly who is definitely one of the chosen. He believes in what the faith-based community can do in partnership with government. He knows that all of the great initiatives throughout the course of our United States, if you look back at our historical plights and the goodness that has happened as a result historically in our country has always been driven by faith-based initiatives. When we look at our city we know that the former Congress member was a minister, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. He worked tirelessly to ensure that one of our hospitals in Harlem, hospital was able to integrate and bring in black doctors and black nurses. He fought valiantly to ensure that our train stations hired blacks as well. During the 20s when New York City was in a depression as a young man before he even entered the faith-based community he took shoes off of his own feet and coats off of his own back and gave out to the community. This has been the model of faith-based leaders. We have with us the illustrious Reverend Daughtry who has been a part of the civil rights movement from day one basically and still is. We know the power of the faith-based community. We have Rabbi Patasnik in the audience who has worked hand in hand with all communities to ensure that right is given to all. People are treated justly and fairly. So we know that in government we need our faith-based leaders. We need our chaplains. I'm a chaplain. How many chaplains are in the house? We need our chaplains to ensure that the good work done in government is coupled with faith. We know that our young people need to lean on the creator so that they can understand the values of being a person of faith regardless to whatever one's ethnicity is or one's religious affiliation. There are certain things that we all have in common. We believe in doing the right thing by our people. We believe in being honest. We believe in not stealing. We believe in not killing. We believe in doing everything that is good and just and that's what's important and this morning's breakfast lends to that. So our mayor as one of your team members who is a member of clergy, I'm on the lowest rung but I'm still a member of clergy, we thank you for finding it prudent and just to convene us. We find it prudent for you to understand the value of church and state. We thank you for when the naysayers were yelling at you and screaming at you and saying, oh forget about clergy, I was there I know. And you said, nah, you know your way. Nah, I'm not doing that. I was brought up in faith.  So I asked my brothers and sisters in clergy to keep us, our administration uplifted. We need the prayers. We believe in the power of prayer and we know the work of prayer. We also, yes, amen. Reverend Anthony, one of my mentors is in the house. We also know that when we pray in partnership, it sends a very clear and a direct message. And when we pray in unison, there's nothing better. So again, I welcome you. I thank you for all of the hard work that you do for our glorious city. And I humbly ask you that you continue because I already know you're doing it to pray for our administration. Every last single person in our administration, starting with our valiant leader, Mayor Eric Adams. Thank you. Please welcome the mayor of the city of New York, Eric Adams. Thank you. Thank you. It is clear that all of you are new because if you weren't new, you'll know the rule. You don't stand for me. I stand for you. I stand for you. But I am going to ask just people I have grown to adore and just love so much. I'm going to ask my team to stand up those who's in administration, Sue Adonis, Ed, Fred, this amazing team. You heard from my chief advisor, but also I have here my amazing chief of staff, Camille. I don't know if she is here. My first deputy mayor and just an amazing, amazing, amazing team. And I just cannot thank them enough. And I want to thank Dr. Marks for opening the library to allow us to come in. And a long time friend, Iris is here also. Congratulations. I saw your husband. He said you got a new grandchild. Congratulations to you as well. And just all of you who have been with me on this amazing journey for so many years. And I want to just touch on a few items and then allow us to really exchange greetings with each other. And I thought Pastor Pastora Rodriguez, what I do often that I would encourage you to do is to go into houses of worship that do not speak the language that I'm familiar with. If it's some I'm speaking Spanish or Greek, Coptic church or Sikh temple, go into those houses of worship and you will begin to fully understand how God do not speak with us in language. He communicates through our hearts. And I did not have to be fluent in Spanish to know what you were saying to me and understanding road of it. But this is an important time. And I say it over and over again when I wake up, it scares me that I'm not scared. I just, I do not wake up one day believing as mommy would say, baby, you got this, you know, New York is we got this. We got this. And you have to really transform from reading to believing. Regurgitate in a scripture or the Quran or a religious text is not believing. It is reading. And when you have gone through what I have gone through, you have to say to yourselves, there is no way that the creator has taken me this far to leave me. It's just not possible. The creator had the creator has so many times to leave me so many times to abandon me. But she has not. And I talk about this often that I want to share with this group. You know, when I was growing up in South Jamaica, Queens, I was learning how to box. And every time I would get in the ring, I would lose the fight. And my trainer will say, Eric, the problem is you leave your best fight in the gym and you're supposed to take it into the ring with you. And that is what has happened to many of us. The synagogue is the gym. The church is the gym. To seek temple is the gym. The mosque is the gym. You are there for training. You're not there to leave your best worship in the gym. Because if we are bringing our best fight in the ring, we would not have homeless in this city. We would not have a crisis of domestic violence. We would not have children because when we took prayers out of schools, guns came into schools. So the reflection point of today when we do an analysis of these and you get coming together is to state are we leaving our best fight in the gym? Are we finding ways to really take what we took in the gym and bring it into the real fight? Because the fight is in the Bronx where gun violence is moving to a level that is frightening for all of us. The fight is in Brooklyn in the Army terminal where we have several hundred young people, men who want to experience the American dream. The fight is in our senior centers where our elders are dealing with the issues of loneliness and no one is there to comroll their hair or put oil on their feet or just to sit down and communicate with them. The fight is in our shelters where if you grow up in a shelter, you are less likely to graduate from high school and if you don't educate you will incarcerate. The fight is in the foster care, six to seven hundred aged out every year. They're more likely to be homeless, unemployed, mental health issues. That is the fight. That's the gym. That's the gym. And I know so well about what it's like to take your practice in the gym to actually implement it in your life. I tell a story all the time growing up in our small storefront church. We used to call it the cheers church.  It wasn't big, it wasn't elaborate.   And those elders, those women of the church, who delivered food to our house. And then just to look in the boxes and notice that the boxes were open, half a box of spaghetti, half a box of cheese crackers, half a jar of oatmeal. And they didn't have money to buy us groceries. They gave us half of what they had.  Our response is not old. Because the old response is what I remember during Easter time, having the neighbors come together and leave six pairs of shoes and slacks on our back porch. I remember the old response of Thanksgiving leaving canned goods in a turkey on the back. I remember the old response of Christmas time wrapping up gifts. I remember the old response of just slipping $50 under the door and tell Mommy it was all right. I remember the old response, we become so modernized that our new response is to act like we don't see the despair that people experience in every day. We've become so hip, so cool, so Instagram-ish, so Facebook-ish, so Twitter-ish that we have tick-tock our way out of the humanity that we've always known. Then we say to ourselves, you know, this is what I find interesting, Sue. We say to ourselves, what's wrong with these children? Like, what's wrong with these kids?  Children look for indicators that are they moving in the right direction. You ever see a baby when all of a sudden they're doing something wrong and they look over and peep at you to see what's going on? Now when they peep over to see if they're doing something wrong, the parents are doing the same thing of what it is to be a parent. Be honest about it. Our children are getting up in the morning, on their way to school, they're stopping at the local bodega and they're getting gummy bears that's laced with cannabis and they're sitting in the classroom and we're asking why can't our children read and write, why don't they behave. We are destroying our next generation, destroying them. And we say over and over again, we need to build a world that's better for our children. No, we need to build children that's better for our world. And we have to be honest about that. And it means instilling in them some level of faith and belief. Ingrid was so right. Don't tell me about no separation of church and state. State is the body. Church is the heart. You take the heart out of the body, the body dies. I can't separate my belief because I'm an elected official. When I walk, I walk with God. When I talk, I talk with God. When I put policies in place, I put them in with a God-like approach to them. That's who I am. And I was that when I was that third grader. And I'm going to be that when I lead government.  And I want to apologize about being a child of God. It is not going to happen. We need to stand up for that. That is what has happened. And we need to be that every day. And watching Pastor Rodriguez, you can just watch her and see God. And we need to ask ourselves, do people see God in us? Do they see God in us? When you walk in a room, do people feel as though I've just been in the presence of God-like? When you sit down and make decisions, do people feel as though I've just been in the midst of a God-like feeling? Like how are people feeling when they're around each other? Because we are so caught up in the physical presence of individuals that we do not represent or understand the anatomy of your spirit. You cannot change the anatomy of your spirit because of the perfume or the suit or the tie you are on. If you have a spiritual ugliness, it will show itself from the inside out. And there may be some physically attractive people, but they are emotionally ugly. And you feel their ugliness every day and mean and nasty, just surrounded with all of this pain and want to be painful to you. And then get upset because you know how to smile. Blessings. That's what this moment is about. That's why we're doing this.  Some of you have heard it, but I want everyone to hear it. Rushing out of my door, knocking over glass of water, I took the sponge and wiped up the countertop. And what happens when you feel the liquid in the sponge is saturated? In order to get that saturation out, you have to do what? You got to wring it out. We are saturated with so much to spare. Every day or day, you can't pick up a paper without someone reminding you of the negative parts of our lives. You mean people every day and all they're doing is telling you what's wrong with you. All they're doing is telling you, you no longer look this way. You no longer talk this way. How bad you are. Listen to the negative sounds everywhere you go. Today is the day. We got to wring it out. You're not going to be able to receive the purifications of God's blessing if you keep your sponge saturated. Some of our souls are so saturated with despair and harm and pain. Today I'm saying to you wring it out. Wring it out. You can't receive what these imams, what these pastors, what these rabbis, what they're giving you if you're so saturated with so much to spare. Wring it out. Take a moment to start your day breathing. Start your day meditating. Start your day with self affirmation. Leave signs on your mirrors and on your windows of how beautiful you are and how God has not finished with you yet and how you're going to overcome. That's how you start the process of wringing out all of that negativity that you receive throughout the day. Before you go to sleep, wring it out. Say a prayer. Read a scripture. Listen to a positive quote. Do something kind for yourselves. Then when you wake up in the morning and start your day, start your day wringing it out. Say something kind to you. Tell people if you're going to bring me pain, bring it somewhere else. Bring it out.  You've got to wring it out. And then when you meet people in your life and you see they're bringing all of that drama, tell them, baby wring it out. Wring it out. Because we have to be reminded of that sometimes. And we've done so much together. But we're ready to take it to the next level. That's the moment we're here. Here are my three asks of you. One, breaking bread, building bonds. The 300 people we have in this room, our goal is to have 1,000 dinners across the city. 10 people at each dinner. No two people come from the same group background ethnicity. And to do something revolutionary, talk to each other. Share your cultures. Why do you worship on certain days?  What does Passover mean? What does duality mean? Why do you wear a turban, a kuffy, a yarmulke? Why do you pray several times a day? What is the sounds of the sirens in Williamsburg? But just talking and learning from each other. Because then the thousand turns into 10,000 ambassador doors for peace. And then the 10,000 people have another 10 dinners. And it's become a force multiplier. Because the real issue we have in this city is our failure to communicate with each other and know each other. It is a Shakespearean tragedy sometimes when I'm moving throughout the city and I'm in the midst of some of you. And I'm saying, wow, people don't experience this. When I walk into a Sikh temple or sit down at a sukkah or go into a Diwali celebration. Do you know how many people in this city have never left the geographical boundaries of the neighborhood they live in? And the geographical boundaries of the mindset, they only know people that look like them, talk like them, eat the same food, do the same things. That is a Shakespearean tragedy.  No, expand the beauty of this diversity. This city is so diverse and so much to offer. And you walk away with a healthy understanding. Let's do these dinners. Let's commit to a dinner, even if we do one dinner each in this room. That's 3000 dinners. The second thing is we want to communicate with you directly. We don't want other people telling our story. We want you to know the wonderful things that we are doing and the resources that your constituencies have available. People are not even aware of what we've done with childcare. Earn income tax credit. Your constituencies that are struggling right now can get hundreds of dollars back because of the success we've had in earning income tax credits. We want you to be part of that communication to give them the help you need. You have people among your group who are eligible for SNAP and WIC and seniors who are eligible for SCREED to keep their rents frozen so they don't have to lose the homes that they're in. But you're not getting that information. So we put in place a system where we want to communicate with you directly. We want you to sign up for that because the bearer of bad news is not looking to bring good news. And there are too many people who are professionals at bringing bad news because there's something exciting about bringing bad news to people just as an emotion of happiness is an emotion. An emotion of despair is also an emotion. And there's a lot of people that enjoy the emotion of despair. We need to now surround ourselves with those who enjoy the emotion of happiness. Sign up and be a part of spreading the good news. Affordable housing summit we were successful. Let's keep doing it. I want my faith-based leaders to be part of the housing that we're building. Mental health. What is the best way to deal with the mental health crisis we have than connecting people with the faith-based institutions in our city? Yes, we have professional operations that's doing this. And they have a role to play. But to stabilize it, we must have communities. That is the key to identifying when someone is going through a crisis to give them the assistance they need when they're part of a community. Do you know close to 50% of the people on Rikers Island are dealing with mental health illness? They should not be incarcerated. We need to find a better pathway to deal with the mental health crisis in our city. When you put it all together, put us on the pathway. And I'm excited about the tomorrows. And I see the excitement every day when I see you in the partnership that we've developed, as Ingrid stated, for many years ago. I'm here because of the faith-based institution. You do not take this journey on your own. I strongly believe in all my heart. God said I'm going to take the most broken person. And I'm going to elevate him to the place of being the mayor of the most powerful city on the globe. He could have made me the mayor of Topeka, Kansas. He could have made me the mayor of some small town or village somewhere. He stated that I'm going to take this broken child, this individual who is the epitome of the mistakes a human being can make in a lifetime. And I'm going to elevate him to the most important city in the country. There's a lesson in that. Far too often, we miss the lesson when God sends it to us. So when you can go from being where I was to where I am, we need to use it as an example for all of our children. If they were incarcerated, tell them your mayor was incarcerated. If they have a learning disability, tell them your mayor has a learning disability. If they are living in homeless shelters, we move from household to household until mom was able to stabilize, and even then it wasn't stable. Your mayor lived in that place. If it's domestic violence, he lived in a domestic violence situation.  That's only God. That's not man. That's only God. And so today, we proclaim that this city, New York City, is a place where the mayor of New York is a servant of God. Thank you. Continue to pray for us. Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor, and you may be seated before we never want to leave without a benediction. The benediction is the most important part of our breakfast. The mayor is going to be here, and he's not leaving.  You may be seated, everyone. We really want to thank all of you for coming today, and I want to really thank Mayor Adams for his commitment to the faith community. It's very important to understand in which New York City, again, we don't want to be a city that is so less city, not just about buildings, but about people. So we really want to thank Mayor Adams for expanding the Office of Faith-Based and really doing that work. Thank you again for that. In this work that we do with our Faith-Based office, really important to thank Commissioner Fred Kreisman and CAU for really supporting our office with personnel and resources. We want to thank you again, Commissioner Kreisman and your team, for really supporting the Faith-Based office as well. Thank you again. We have a few things to say to the faith leaders that's very important. As you heard, the mayor, as he spoke, a couple of things that's important. Number one, on your table in front of you, very important is our plan to support migrants coming into New York City. We really want to thank all of the faith community who have really stepped up and really helped New York City from the Faith-Based approach to really house migrants, and not only migrants but unhoused New Yorkers. And so this is nothing new to all of you. So I really want to thank the faith community who has stated that we are the most diverse religious city in America, and it is definitely represented to most extent here today in this place. One last thank you that we want to give not only to our sponsors who made this day possible, but also to really thank to our team at the Office of Faith-Based, Reverend Cabrera, Angelica Perez, and Faith Henderson. Thank you. One of our main tasks in the Faith-Based office is to maintain relationships with all faiths to make sure that number one, that every single faith in New York City have access to government resources. It doesn't, based on, we don't discriminate against any type of religious institutions. And so we have been working again throughout the year to support the toughest issues in New York City. Number one, we want you as faith leaders not to only engage with us once a year at this time, but the strength of our office, the strength of the work that we do, is based on our monthly individual meetings that we meet every month. Because faith leaders have to really deal with the challenges when it comes to gun violence. When we see even this week the amount of funerals that are being, as happening, faith communities are really caring for the families. We're really working with young people. You have after-school programs. We work with D.Y. City for the first ever to connect you with the resources. We are really working again to open up City Hall to understand that there is a connection between policy and people, and not just policy alone. The faith community is really the moral compass for City. And we want to thank the mayor for really giving us the avenue and the platform to be able to share your ILDs and your views of what New York City can be. So we are at a critical moment when it comes to mental health issues. We have had a few sign-on letters from clergy who talks about Rikers Island. We have all of the major issues that you can think about, what is affordable housing. In our role, it's not to prevent faith leaders to lose the prophetic voices in the City. It is that we want to let you know that the Mayor cares you and is always available to be with you, to speak, to organize, to disagree, to agree, to pray, to push, so that we can have a City again that all of us can truly live in and really do the work that is being done. On your table, we have really important, we want houses of worship all across New York City to adapt to shelter. It is called Love Dye Neighbor. It is this brochure that we have that if you are close to a shelter on House New Yorkers, we have over 50 congregations who are right now working on this plan to support migrants in the House, homeless individuals. And again, it should be done and it will be done and one through the faith community. And so again, I thank all of you and all of you in the administration, leaders and elected officials who were there here today. We are praying for you and we are continuing to be here for you throughout all the things that we're going to do. So again, thank you all so much. Thank you, Mosbis. Thank you, all of you who have come to join us for prayer. Today, what we're doing is stopping, reflecting as a city, to offer prayers and trusting God that he will hear the prayers in every language that is spoken today. Thank you again. I want you to stay in your place for benediction and then we'll have the choir who is going to sing a recessional song before you leave. So now we'll have the benediction. We are not only brothers and sisters in Christ. We are God's one holy creation and God lives in us. I am kindly asking you to stand for the benediction. Blessed is our God, always, now and ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, now and forever and to ages of ages. Amen. In peace, let us pray to the Lord for the peace from above and for the salvation of our souls. Let us pray to the Lord for the peace of the whole world and for the unity of all. Let us pray to the Lord for our country, the president, all those in public service and for our armed forces everywhere. Let us pray to the Lord for this city, for our mayor, for every city and land and for those who live in them. Let us pray to the Lord. Lord, our God, whose dominion is incomparable and glory incomprehensible, whose mercy is immeasurable and love for mankind ineffable.  O Heavenly Father, the true light that enlightens and sanctifies every man who comes into the world, let the light of your countenance shine on us that in it we may behold the unapproachable light. Direct our steps to keep your commandments and bless the food, the drink and fellowship of your servants, for you are holy always, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen. Mayor Eric Adams, may God bless you, grant you many years to serve the people of this city. May the God who is full of mercy and love strengthen you and give you everything you need to do this beautiful and blessed work. May God bless our religious communities of this city and grant peace, love and justice to this beautiful community. Thank you very much. May God bless us all. You may sit down. Thank you very much.


Hi! My name is Vera. I come from the U.S. and I'm living now in Chile. I'm so excited. I live in Santiago, which is this amazing city with more than like five million people and so many great neighborhoods and things to do. And I love it and I'm an English teacher. I just finished my 120-hour online TEFL certification course with the videos and tutor support and I just was so pleased with the content and the and just all the resources that that were provided and I get started teaching next week. Within days of finishing, I had two job offers and my first class is coming up and I just feel really prepared. I feel like I have the tools that I need and I have all of these resources that I can draw upon as a new teacher and so I'm excited. Thanks so much!


Hey guys, it's Nate, AKA The Foot Accountant. Welcome back to the channel. The market right now inside of FIVA 22 is absolutely mad. EA Sports compensated all of the people who packed the incorrect versions of the foot versus ice cards last week on Monday and on Thursday, and it is impacting the market like crazy right now. It's even dropping some other parts of the market because people are seeing these low prices on these cards as we head into Tuesday today and they're going out and selling what they have to go buy these ice cards because a card that they thought was cool or that they couldn't afford, now they can afford because these prices have dropped off so much. So that's the big news today, right? We'll talk about winter wild cards a little bit. I wanna talk about the Maguire SBC, the base mid, and some weak and weak rewards changes that are gonna be big for this game and those changes will take effect this Thursday when the season resets. But it was, I guess, technically yesterday on Monday was like the quietest day of winter wild cards yet. This Tyler Maguire SBC is nice. I think, yes, it's a very interesting card. The links are not that good. The low-high work rates, he was low-medium on his base card before this. I think everybody's looking at that 76 defensive awareness and saying that's just not good enough or maybe the 80 composure. But other than that, the card does look pretty decent and it's pretty cheap. So kind of a fun card from EA Sports. Now, I had talked yesterday about the Alwar SBC and I mean, I guess there's no schedule for when these cards could be released, like the leaks.  I thought Alwar was yesterday but evidently that is not the case. So later on this week, Alwar is supposedly coming. And we'll talk about what leaked SBC is supposed to be coming out today on this game as well. But let's get to the market because seriously, this is madness. This is like never seen before market content and market movements on this game. I really can't think of another time where EA Sports has messed up so bad and it's had such an impact on the market. Now, of course, last week we talked about when they had this mess up and we made a video about it and we talked about how it's gonna impact the market and EA is compensating people now. The compensations have happened, EA even tweeted out. They said, hey, we fixed this and everything's been sorted. So if you pack the incorrect version of a fire card or ice on Monday of last week or on Thursday of last week, you now should be compensated if you pack the gold Gabriel Jesus. You should not have his ice item. Now I believe that they are honoring the tradable versus untradable. So as a lot of people were opening Marquis matchups last Thursday and were opening tradable packs, this supply of tradable cards from this ice versus ice, the compensations that EA did, it's literally insane. It is literally insane, the supply on the market. Gabriel Jesus was 900,000 coins just a couple hours ago and I believe it was at like midnight to 1 a.m. U.K. time when these compensations starting rolled out and that makes a huge difference, right? Because there is a lot less percentage of the user base that is on this game when, during that timeframe, right? Of course, that's when there's a lot less transfers on the market and the main user base, Europe, a lot of the U.K. and the EU is asleep. Now this morning when this video is going up, it's kind of a different story. The people who were not on the market last night when the compensations happened, they're gonna be waking up and seeing this. So I think that's really gonna impact the market more today and we'll talk about that. But again, take a look at some of these price drops from these compensations that EA Sports did and we knew this was gonna happen, right? 900K for Gabriel Jesus.  Just literally a sharp drop off right away down to 570,000 coins. Now these cards have been bouncing around because periods of supply where people are listing them up, relisting, and then also people thinking that they're very cheap, too cheap and buying them, right? Gabriel Jesus went to 550K, rebounded to like 620. Now he's back at 575. I'm personally not touching these cards right now. I'm gonna wait until I see what happens into today on Tuesday because I honestly think there's gonna be another period this morning on Tuesday where a lot of people wake up and get on this game and they see that they have these cards and they go list them up. I think there's gonna be another round of pure supply and pure panic. Take a look at Adama, man. Adama went from 210,000 coins down to 130K, literally a 33% price drop off. This is like a legit market crash, like insane market crash type scenario on some of these cards, but it's not really from panic selling. It's literally from just supply because EA gave out the wrong cards this last week and now they're compensating people because of it. So guys like Jesus Valverde Correa went from 200,000 coins and is now down to 140K on the market. Joe Gomez's freeze card was, I mean, look at this card down over 130,000 coins. He was 420K yesterday. Right now he's under 300,000 coins for this item. People are gonna wanna buy these for their teams. There's gonna be a lot of people that want to buy these for their teams because they've dropped off in price so much and there's been people waiting for this opportunity. But here's how I imagine it's gonna go down. I think these cards are gonna go up in price, but I think what's gonna happen first is, like this guy, Jesus was 550, now he's 570. What I think could happen is people wake up today on Tuesday, they realize, oh my goodness, I have this Gabriel Jesus. They list it up again, take the coins. The people that don't wanna have the card, they take their coins. This Gabriel Jesus maybe has another bit of panic listing and his price drops for like an hour this morning on Tuesday and then rises up after that because also what you're gonna have today are a lot of people who see how cheap these cards have gotten and they say, oh my goodness, this is a card that I want to try and add to my team and now I can't afford it or now I'm okay paying this price for this card. I know that the Winter Wild Cards items right now are the new promo. They've got the kids all hyped per se, right? As we say a lot in the live streams, but that's the big promo that's going on. But there's still some really good cards in here that a lot of people would like to use. Gabriel Jesus, Adamatriere, right? Primarily links with the Zaha SBC that is out right now. Joe Gomez, right? For the insane value that his card is now. This is Val Verde, 450K for this card. It was once, you know, 600,000 coins. It's really, really affecting the market. So that's kinda how I think this might go down. If I were to try to trade with any of these today, I would say that the longer you wait into today on Tuesday, you know, I think you're really just gonna see a big dip in the morning for an hour or a couple hours, then arise back up because people are already starting to do some of this. I mean, take a look at the other version of Ice Jesus and the Fire version, right? The flip side, a lot of the Fire cards have dropped down and we talked about this last week as well. Fire Jesus was a million coins yesterday. He's 899, right? Fire Val Verde is down. I sold two Fire Kundays for 287,000 coins a couple hours ago. He's now down to 262. So these cards aren't even getting supplied on the market. They are just getting, they're dropping in price because people are seeing how cheap the Ice versions are. They're going and getting those since it's such a discount and using those instead of these Fire versions. And there's actually other cards on the market that are dropping in general because of this, right? I take a look at some of these wild card items like Jonathan David, 162K, that's down. He was 180 just like a couple hours ago before they released this compensation. And I'm looking across the rest of the market. Pogba is down a little bit. Rootiger is down a little bit. And it looks like people are really selling some of the cards from their team to go and try these versus players or to buy a versus player that they weren't able to afford before because of how cheap they have gotten because of this compensation. So again, it's just absolutely crazy. And if you really, really want these for your team, this is an absolute buy time. I really think that, yes, these cards have some insane supply now that might cause more extreme panic selling on them a little bit later on. But these cards were pretty rare to begin with, right? The Ice and the Fire cards, the Fire cards are still very rare and these Ice cards are gonna hold them and check a little bit. But these guys were only in packs for like five days, four days. So unlike a normal promo team, they didn't have all the lightning rounds, but now they have this crazy supply from the weird EA mistake pack situation. So if you do want any of these cards for your team, I do think that today, this morning is probably gonna be a decent time to buy just because you have this huge injection of supply, especially if it's a meta item, you're gonna see them kind of rebound and bounce back as people want to use them in their teams. So just a crazy situation with all these cards. Again, like Hazus at the moment, other cards that have dropped because of Hazus is like Timo Werner. Other strikers in the premium they kept dropped off. Timo Werner is 768K and yesterday, he was 850,000 coins. This card is just dropping off because this Hazus is becoming cheaper and people are saying, hey, I'm gonna sell my Werner to go get this Hazus. And that's why you're seeing even some of these winner wild card items drop off a little bit into today on Tuesday, just because the focus has transitioned to these cards that are crazy, crazy drop offs on the market. But those are all my thoughts on that. Let's talk about weakening reward changes. And you can actually see this if you go into the game.  And then I think you can go, yeah, champions finals preview. You can look in here and see the rewards. They have changed, right? They have changed. But what I'm gonna show you is this nice spreadsheet fixed up by a man on Twitter named a Praetorian, right? I'm gonna provide the link to this down below if you wanna take a look at it full screen on your own device after this video. But again, as you can see here, right? There were only like what, four or five ranks before. Now we have rank one all the way to rank 10. Rank one being the highest. Now you can see 19. You can see what happens here is that basically I think what they were doing with this foot champs rewards update in the structure was to make foot champs more competitive because it seemed like foot champs qualifying was the really hard part of foot champs. And then you got to the finals and it's like, okay, now I'm just here to get my eight wins or my 12 wins or my 16 wins and get out. And I think the 19 and 18 win thresholds should have been in the game from the start for those elite level players and have better rewards to get to at that top end. I also think that there's not very many players that hit this top threshold of 18, 19 wins anyways. But some of those guys that were maybe stopping on 12 or 16 wins are now gonna get some more beefy rewards, right? Two ultimate packs and a 50K pack, three of the team of the week packs tradable and then three player picks, 100,000 coins there for those cards, which is very interesting, or 100,000 coins of coin value back. Now let's talk about where most of us are gonna be at, right? Like the new eight win threshold is nine wins. The number of games in Weekend League is not changing. It's still 20 games, but if you get nine wins, you get 1,000 foot champs points, 25,000 coins, you get two player picks, you get one tradable team of the week pack, but now you get a 100K pack and a 50K pack. Before, for eight wins, I believe you got two player picks, a team of the week pack, 35,000 coins and a 100K. So they took 10,000 coins away from the coin reward, but they're giving you a 50K pack as well, tradable. So honestly, this rewards update is mostly a dub. It is mostly a dub. Yes, it does require you to get one more win technically, but if you're like an eight win player who's like, man, I don't really want to stretch for 12, now maybe you have another option to get like 11 wins. I feel like 11 wins is gonna be another place for people to try to get to now because you get that extra player pick and extra 15,000 coins and you get a ultimate pack instead of a 100K pack, which isn't that much of a difference, but you do get those extra coins and you get a third player pick. So I think nine and 11 wins is kind of for a lot of people that were playing the eight before, kind of gonna be the move, but the biggest dub about all of this is that yes, these rewards are changing and there's a little bit of change there and it may affect you, it may not affect you too much. I think the biggest dub you is this right here. As of course in season one, the qualification amount of champions qualification points to get into the playoffs was 1,500, then they rose to 2,000 for season two. For season three, they're lowering it to 1,250,000. Qualification points. So if you look at this graphic again, if you get 14 wins or above, that's basically auto champions playoff.  Still, you get 1,000 though if you're 11 or at nine wins. So I think this is just a W though and it makes sense for EA, right? Because we're entering the Christmas season, there's gonna be a lot of quote unquote Christmas noobs or people that get the game for Christmas and that's gonna bring some new people on the game and EA obviously wants to keep them entertained and not make it too difficult that they quit. So another W about champions playoffs is that there's 24 points needed now, or sorry, there's 20 points needed over 10 matches. So before playoffs, you had to go five and four, right? To get out and to move on to the finals. Now you get an extra game. So instead of nine games, you get 10 and you have to get 20 points. So you can actually, instead of going five and four in champions playoffs now, all you have to do is when is updates on Thursday, you just have to go four and six and this is gonna make this easier which is going to allow more people to get into the foot champions we can leak which might even make we can leak a little bit easier but I think it's gonna also motivate more people to play because of that and that's gonna of course bring some more coins on this game with the rewards, right? The rewards at the top tier, there's more team in the week packs, more ultimate packs. So that's gonna bring some more coins onto the market just via the rewards and that could cause some prices to kind of boost up even further on Monday mornings and during the weekend when people do get their rewards. So that's just a very interesting thing. Changes to weakening rewards, how it could affect the market. I mean, I don't think it's gonna impact it too much in reality except for the fact that more people are probably gonna aim and be able to get into the foot champions we can leak because qualifying is easier which again, I think that we would see the biggest market impact on rewards days and on the weekends because there'd be more demand for teams, for people that buy teams if there's more people that are playing in the weekend leak. So that's kind of the biggest W, I guess the biggest point of concern and things to talk about there. So let's look back at yesterday a little bit again on the market and then look into today on Tuesday as well. Again, the Maguire SBC was okay but the biggest SBC yesterday that everybody was talking about was the base mid icon SBC that returned the exact same requirements it's out for a week. Of course, after this SBC comes up like once or twice people like, hey, can you give us like a base or a mid player pick? Where's our icon player pick, right? This is the same kind of, I guess, strategy in the same schedule they did with the base icon upgrade. They started with the base. I think they released it three times before they released it during Black Friday is repeatable. So I would assume that we would get this base mid icon upgrade maybe one more week before they would go to a player pick or to a mid only icon upgrade. So that's just kind of something to kind of think about. But since fodder is so cheap, a lot of people went out and did this yesterday but fodder has risen a little bit on that higher tier range, right? I think the biggest increases in fodder that you saw were on the 86 rated cards and above. 88's went from 22K to 26, 27,000 coins. I think you're gonna see this fodder go up a little bit more today on Tuesday. And if the content is not insane today, probably gonna rise a little bit more later on today as well. 90 rated players, Ter Stegen was like 47K, he was 38K yesterday. So technically if you bought fodder when we mentioned it in last night's video, 84's were in the low 2K range, 85's were at like 6K apiece. That was kind of like the optimal time it seems, especially for this higher to mid tier stuff. Now your 83's, 84's and 85's are still relatively low, but it's gonna take more of the player SBC's or a party bag SBC to really get those to rise. So if you don't wanna hold on to fodder much longer and you wanna take the coins you could on some of this higher tier stuff, although I do think that it can go higher on this game. Now today on Tuesday, content-wise, what are we expecting? Well, our daily SBC, and I found this graphic on Twitter today by Ham's Foot, I'll leave a link down in the description as well, I believe that according to this, we are gonna get the Keynes SBC today, which is supposed to be a five star, five star center attack in mid in the Bundesliga. The links, again, don't look that fantastic, but five star, five star would be really dope on this card, especially with the stats, the face stats that this has could be a very interesting item. So keeping out for this SBC, and then it looks like we're getting our tomorrow on Wednesday, I would assume that is according to this is what it looks like.  So a lot of the cards that I bought that were League One, I'm still kind of holding on to, I've got some of the calls on my transfer list. Yesterday was a decent day for flipping, if you bought some cards in the Panic, I bought a mortgage at 9.07. Again, I bought those two Koon days that I mentioned at 2.55 and 2.58. I bought some in Babu's during the Panic for 1.15 to 1.17. I've kind of selling these at like 1.30 because I'm just a little bit worried about, again, the ice in Babu affecting this fire one a little bit. Oh, by the way, this Treyore got upgraded from an 86 to an 87. If you see him on a full bin pop of the page, that is because they officially got the W from UEFA. UEFA declared that competition a three nil, Stodd Renee wins and Spurs were not able to find a make update for that game. So that card is now up to an 87. And I still have some atolls here that I bought in the mid 60K range. So, you know, that's kind of just the market at the moment. Again, as I mentioned, you might see today still a few cards, like some of these Winter Wildcards still drop off a little bit. Like the Jonathan David that I was just mentioning, I'm kind of watching him again because again, with all of this league one hype that seems to be on the horizon and coming with the Alwar SBC and the Kaza SBC, I'm just keeping an eye on this card. I bought a couple at 170. He's even down from that now. Again, I think this whole ice compensation thing is changing things a little bit and taking the focus off of these Winter Wildcards items and putting it on those ice cards. So if this goes down any lower to like 160 or below, I might have to snag a few of them. I really might have to snag a couple because I think this could rise back up as people are really trying out this card and they really enjoyed it seem. So just keeping an eye on some of the Winter Wildcards for that sort of movement today. Very small chance for the party bag. If EA was to release a party bag, again during the week this week would be a time for that. But pretty soon we are gonna be focusing on the Winter Wildcards team too and then all the talk from there is gonna be focused on Winter Wildcards team too and then the foot champions and the milestone rewards. Again, we remember this happened once already this year when they gave out milestone rewards for division rivals because the season is ending. A lot of people were worried about this market crashing with those rewards and it didn't really. But of course we have a really sick promo team in packs right now. So we'll cover that a little bit more in tomorrow's video how that could be looking on the market. The Winter Wildcards probably are gonna take a wild ride in price on a Wednesday as they go out of packs on Thursday, a day earlier than normal. So that's the video for today boys. A lot of crazy stuff going on with these ice cards. If you wanna risk it and get involved with some of them, be my guest or especially if you just wanna buy one for the squad. Like I totally understand if you want to buy a Gabriel Jesus and add this to your team because his price is forever gonna be affected because of all the movements today. But still, I think that 500K for this card in the grand scheme of things is very cheap for the links that he provides for the card that he is, all of these ice cards are cheap at the moment because of the supply. So that's just the way of the land right now on the FIFA 22 Ultimate Team Market. But if you enjoyed this video, smash thumbs up on it, comment down below if you have any questions and subscribe if you're new. It's been Nathan Foot Account and I'll catch you guys later. Peace, out.


The main college of art in collaboration with Creative Portland and the Quimby Foundation is launching a professional development series designed to give professional artists the tools they need to succeed in the business of art. Tom talked with program director Jessica Tomlinson and artist Edwidge Charlot about the skills the new program will offer. Edwidge, Jessica, thanks for joining us. A lot of exciting things are happening at MEKA and there's a new series for artists coming up that is in a collaboration with other organizations including artists at work which is something at MEKA that people may not know about. So before we get into the see or talk about the series, Jessica do you want to talk a little bit about what artists at work are? Absolutely Tom, thank you. Artist at Work is a new initiative at Maine College of Art to provide our students and our alums with the critical skills, opportunities and experiences they need to be creative professionals in the world. And so we're offering them a professional development workshop series starting in October which is what we're here to talk about today. Great, yeah and I understand that's also a collaboration with Creative Portland and Maine Lawyers. Maine Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. We're very grateful for the Quimby Family Foundation for providing critical support to allow this collaboration to happen starting in October. And we do have a special vantage point because not only are you a faculty member but you're also an alum. Well, faculty is a little misleading. I'm an artist in residence in the printmaking department at MEKA and I have done some assistant teaching at MEKA but like you mentioned I am an alum so this is an especially great sort of initiative that the Maine College of Art has taken on is to continue the work that we've started as students to give us the skills to think about all the parts of being an artist, how to manage your taxes, how to promote your work and even getting legal advice on protecting our artworks to think about intellectual property as being something to think about. Somebody who is a working artist would know the kind of issues that artists face when they get out there so it's kind of a little surprising for me anyway to hear that lawyers are involved which sounds like a great idea. What was the impetus, what was the need that you saw that this series is hopefully addressing? Oh sure, there's a critical need for this information. So often the educational experience focuses on the studio skills which are of course the core critical skills that you need and then people say I didn't learn how to make a living as an artist and so we hear from our alums and we hear from people in the community quite honestly not MEKA graduates but other people who are here they need those critical skills to understand how to take their artwork to the next level to how to understand themselves as a business and so that's why it's a great partnership with business people with lawyers with accountants and artists to help provide that next step in the education of an artist. I suppose that this is open to any artist not just alum of MEKA, is that true? Absolutely and that's what's one of the best parts about this program is that it gives MEKA alums and current students an opportunity to network with other artists who are in the area. I mean as a marketing and networking event it's it's really really great and they'll be happening every second Wednesday of every month. And the first one's coming right up in October? October 10? Yes and so they're six to nine they're free for MEKA faculty, staff, students and alumni and it's ten dollars for others. The first one is grant writing for artists, the next one is pricing your artwork and the third come holiday time is doing your taxes as an artist. So those are the first three. So how's the response been?  So the way that it worked we actually did a poll of the community we had over 200 people respond to our poll about what kind of professional development programming they wanted to see so we're really thrilled that we're actually tailoring our programming to meet the community need. That's great so you know that those 200 people that responded to the survey obviously are interested in seeing this sort of thing. So you've got a lot of people signed up for the first event already you think? Yes there's a lot of interest. It's a critical issue. Grant writing for artists is again a skill that's not necessarily taught in art school and it's about making sure that you have the right portfolio put together to make your grant application appealing to the jury. Well there's a lot of things involved with that too because sometimes you need to have a 501c3 or an organization back you up with that sort of thing so that's a great way to get started with it. There's so much information that probably people want to know about this series is there a phone number or website or both that people can go to to get more information? Yes because this is an initiative that is spearheaded by creative Portland the website is portlandarts.org again that's portlandarts.org and there's information about the series and how to sign up in advance. And the name of the series that people would look for on that site is? Sure it's the professional development workshop series for artists. Okay at the Weege Jessica thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Thanks.


8 Important Tips for Good Classroom Management Classroom management begins well before the lesson commences and is vital so that the lesson can flow continuously without gaps, therefore, maintaining students' interest. 1. Seating Arrangement. Strategic placing of student seating arrangements can have a positive effect on the class in a number of ways, bearing a quieter student with a more vocal can have involved the quieter student and gain confidence from the experience. Placing the student's names on the chairs or tables can also help in a variety of ways it can save moving the students later for a planned activity such as pair or group work and the student's mix with different personalities. 2. Preparing Necessary Tools and Materials. Management of the lesson is maintained when the teacher has all necessary resources on hand so the lesson can run fluently as well as the students being equipped with the necessary items and any item the teacher wants the students to focus on to perhaps start the engage phase of the lesson. 3. Building Rapour. As the teacher you should put in some time and effort to learn the student's names and monitor each student's personality, some students are quieter in nature and by repeatedly asking that student to answer questions they may feel singled out or intimidated try to address all students equally and involve all in the learning activities which will increase student talk time. 4. Setting Rules. The teacher needs to be clear and concise when greeting the students and pleasant in nature when explaining the requirements of the lesson about to be given including any specific requests such as no mobile phone usage during class time and raising of a hand if anybody has further requests or questions during the class. 5. Eye Contact and The Right Voice. To begin the class the teacher needs to maintain eye contact and again speak clearly and at a volume, everybody can hear without being demanding or intimidating, provide variations in the learning process and encourage questions and opinions. Encourage all students to speak and ensure all students respect the speaker, wherever possible add humor to the class which will create a relaxed experience for the students. 6. Encouraging the Students Reg Warley. Following an answer or opinion of a student provide encouragement which may prompt other students to also have an opinion or comment If the entire class has comments or questions the class will learn without even realizing it and the language becomes fun to learn. The classroom can be a stressful place so the teacher must be aware when the students become restless and lose concentration perhaps request feedback from the students at this stage to regain involvement from those students. 7. Structuring the Lesson in an Interesting Way. Aim to maintain variety in the lesson so the energy in the class is evident if several students appear distracted or left out and are not contributing maintain the flow of the class and ask these students if they have any opinions on future lessons or ideas on subjects they may want to learn more about. 8. Dealing with Problematic Behavior. However many lessons in the classroom experience negative behavior with disruptive students. This is where classroom management is vital because of the varying situations. If this the disruptive behavior is observed early, non-verbal gestures towards the student can help so as not to disrupt the rest of the class. These gestures could be as simple as eye contact. Are you ready to teach English abroad? In conclusion, a classroom with a happy well organized teacher that has a good rapport with the students will create a relaxed atmosphere for the students to gain knowledge happily and grow confidence and actually enjoy learning. Speak with an ITTT advisor today to put together your personal plan for teaching English abroad. Send us an email or call us toll free at 1-800-490-0531 to speak with an ITTT advisor today.


September 17th every year was officially made a holiday in 2004 so it's actually pretty recent but it's a holiday where we remember the signing of the Constitution which is more and more of a big deal so I didn't even know this was a holiday up until a couple of years ago maybe two or three years ago something like that not not long and now that I know I try to celebrate it every year and remember there was a day in this country where after we fought a war and we gained our independence and we gained our liberty we sought to secure those freedoms and those liberties in our founding legal document which is the Constitution most importantly of course represented in the first ten amendments to that document the Bill of Rights which of course as you know is more and more of a big deal especially with this next election cycle coming up where the very foundations of our legal document are being called in the question most prominently of course things like the second amendment are being called in the question you have our good buddy Beto best of luck to you who wants the total confiscation of air 15 and the rest of them up there of course are on board with that or want a gun registry or whatever they want to start to the end of the second amendment but then of course there's much more subtle ways which your foundation rights are under attack and the fourth amendment is more and more getting called into question this day and age every time you go to the airport your fourth amendment is violated I have it and we all just go along with it right and then there are things like the electoral college which is again the thing that's being called in the question we should just get rid of the electoral college so the people who said we should get rid of the Senate because all the states are represented equally which is of course the point of the Senate or that maybe we should massively expand or decrease the size of the Supreme Court or maybe Supreme the Supreme Court justices shouldn't serve for life now as far as the size of Supreme Court goes there there's no number as far as I know that is listed in the actual Constitution I think originally it was 12 it was 12 justices and it's very over time but of course the life appointment is part of that founding legal document so I would encourage you today to go ahead and read your Constitution quit Google search and turn that up and remember that that is the founding legal document that protects in this country it's a wonderful document it's probably the greatest governmental document written in the history of mankind hands down I would be curious maybe the Magna Carta might come in second when they force the King to limit his power but other than that there's not a whole lot that's gonna come close so happy Constitution Day may you preserve the liberty that was one for you