of the representatives from the same members in the joint powers authority, but additionally has community members with diverse perspectives on beneficial groundwater use. And those include representatives from agriculture, the environmental community, the business community, rural residential well users, and public water districts. And then of course, the GSA itself has several staff and technical consultants that sort of carry out the various activities of the Groundwater Sustainability Agency, including the drafting of this Groundwater Sustainability Plan and generally carrying out the directors of the Board and the various public processes. Your representatives from the city of Santa Rosa and the Board of Directors, our council member, Todd Schwedhelm, who also happens to be the chair of the Board of Directors and also council member John Sawyer as the alternate. Of course, staff from Santa Rosa Water, including myself and Colin Close, who just heard of recently, from recently served on the advisory committee. Next slide. So very much windowed down, there are three steps here to achieving sustainability per Sigma. One, which occurred in 2017 was forming a Groundwater Sustainability Agency. Over the last couple of years, we've been working on step two, which is developing a Groundwater Sustainability Plan that complies with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. Of course, once that plan is adopted, we don't stop working. The next plan, the next part and the final phase is achieving sustainability and the implementation of that plan, which is to occur over the next 20 years after adoption of the plan. Next slide. So just again, staying at a very high level here. I know you all had a very in-depth study session in August, but Sustainable Groundwater Management Act does require specific elements be addressed in the plan before it can be submitted and approved by the Department of Water Resources. First, the plan must have very comprehensive descriptions of the basin and the aquifer, including the hydrogeologic characteristics of the basin, land uses, and many other important descriptors that can orient someone as to the existing conditions occurring in the basin. The plan must also identify goals specifically tailored to our local basin sustainability indicators and objectives that will address how the plan intends to meet the goals of sustainability on a 20 year planning up horizon and beyond. And then of course, the sustainability indicators and objectives will tell us how we're doing and how we'll prevent the groundwater basin from backsliding into specific undesirable results. And then the plan must lay out the various actions that the GSA will undertake to achieve the sustainability goals and that it comes in terms of projects and various management actions to achieve sustainability. And then of course, it must develop a wide-ranging monitoring plan to determine to help the basin and really identify how we're doing with achieving the goals outlined in the plan and ensuring the success of the plan to planning efforts. Next slide. So just sort of to summarize, many people may be asked, what are the effects of the groundwater sustainability plan on the city of Santa Rosa? First, it ensures the protection of groundwater resources into the future, ensuring a reliable groundwater supply, not only for our municipal customers, but the residents here in Santa Rosa as well as the region. There are some interconnections with land use planning. Of course, by law now, the city must notify the GSA of any proposal to substantially amend a general plan and must review and consider this plan, perhaps in any other adopted groundwater plans. And then of course, consider groundwater sustainability agency comments when amending a general plan. And then of course, groundwater users, there is the ability of the groundwater sustainability agency to enact fees to implement the groundwater sustainability plan on municipal and private wells. If you'll remember during the top period of this period where we are in the planning phase for the development of the groundwater sustainability plan, the cities agreed to partially fund the development of the groundwater sustainability plan and the county picked up the additional requirements for the individual well users in rural areas throughout the county. But however, fees to continue the implementation of this plan would be driven through a fee study that is currently ramping up again after the end of this fiscal year. And then of course, future projects, the plan has conceptual sort of potential potentially multi-jurisdictional projects that could be implemented to secure the groundwater supply for the future. The city has the opportunity there to participate in that and benefit from those projects. However, the plan does not tie the city to implementing any of these projects should they wish not to. Next slide. So just in terms of where we're at with the proposed adoption to find a groundwater sustainability plan, the Santa Rosa Plain Groundwater Sustainability Board of Directors will consider adopting a final groundwater sustainability plan on December 9th at one o'clock p.m. at a publicly not as tiering. Staff will bring whatever the APU's recommendation is to the council on November 30th and they can then provide direction directly to the city council's appointed board member on the Santa Rosa Plain Groundwater Sustainability Agents, Crown Water Sustainability Agency, that being council member Schwedhelm. So just a reminder by law, the plan must be adopted and submitted to the California Department of Water Resources by January 31st of 2022. Next slide. Just to kind of recap some of the public meetings regarding the Draft Groundwater Sustainability Plan, the Agents, the Groundwater Sustainability Agency did host two virtual public workshops in May and October of 2021. Those were to gather input on the drafting of the plan and actually in October a workshop was held subsequent to a public release of the Draft Groundwater Sustainability Plan. And then of course there have been routine meetings at least on a monthly basis of either the Board of Directors or the Advisory Committee as this plan has been drafted. And those have been open to the public as well. Of course, City of Santa Rosa, we have also held public meetings to gather input from our communities. That being the Board of Public Utilities held a study session on August 5th. And today we are asking for a recommendation from the Board of Public Utilities. A study session was also conducted on November 9th with the City Council. And of course we will be going with a similar request on November 30th requesting that they support the adoption of the plan. So next slide. So I just wanna point out that there were comments received during the comment period that was through the month of October. There were 17 individual commenters including the California Department of Official Wildlife, Community Alliance with Family Farmers, the Sonoma County Chapter, the Milo Baker Native Plant Society, and a statewide coalition that included the Audubon, Clean Water Action, Clean Water Fund, Local Government Commission, The Nature Concernancy, and Union and Concern Scientists, as well as Russian River Creeper and a letter of support from the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber of Commerce. Many of the comments, multiple comments were focused around the interconnected surface water, sustainable management criteria. If you don't remember, one of the requirements of the plan is that the basin is managed in a way that does not affect surface water and the ecology of the basin and the communities that rely on those surface waters that are interconnected with the groundwater basin. There were multiple comments from individuals pertaining to the chosen climate scenario for modeling the future water budget. Part of the plan required that a 50-year time scale projection for climate scenarios was included in the plan. The Groundwater Sand Village Seed shows to select the most conservative estimate, which subsequently included some very dry and very wet years. And so they chose that scenario. And so so many of the comments were focused on that as well. And then there were other requests for certain clarifying information and plan improvements, including strengthening of descriptions of the agencies and stakeholder engagement and tribal consultation. These all resulted in various improvements to the plan, including addition of maps and information in other descriptions to be responsive to some of these comments seeking additional clarity in the plan. So we can go to the last slide here. Very wordy recommendation, but I'll just try to summarize that Santa Rosa staff today are asking that the public utility, the Board of Public Utilities by motion recommend to the city council that the council subsequently recommends that the city Santa Rosa Plain Groundwater Sustainability Board of Directors Representative, Council Member Schwedhelm, support adoption of the Santa Rosa Plain Groundwater Sustainability Agency Plan at the December 9th public hearing. And that concludes my presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Mr. Martin. Any questions from the Board? If not, I'll entertain a motion. I'll move that the Board of Public Utilities by motion recommend to the city council that the council recommend that the city Santa Rosa Santa Rosa Plain Groundwater Sustainability Agency Board Member support adoption of the Santa Rosa Groundwater Sustainability Plan at their December 9th, 2021 public hearing. Second. I have a motion by Board Member Wright, seconded by Board Member Grable. We'll now take any public comments. If you have any comments, please via Zoom, raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. Secretary Aitha. We have no public comments. And there's no one in the council chambers. May we have a roll call vote, please? Chair Galvan. Aye. Vice Chair Arnone. Aye. Board Member Badenford. Aye. Board Member Grable. Aye. Board Member Walsh. Aye. Board Member Wright. Aye. Thank you. I'll take care of item 7.4. We'll now move to public comments, which is item eight. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. Secretary Aitha. We have no public comments. All right, we have no referrals. We have no written communications. Do we have any subcommittee reports? All right. Any Board Member reports? We'll move to the Director's Report. Deputy Director Savoni. Thank you, Chair Galvan. Just a quick update. A few weeks ago, Director Burt provided the Board with information about an urgent project at our Laguna Treatment Plant to install temporary air piping. The piping that supplies air to our aeration tanks is severely leaking and cannot be repaired. Over the last few weeks, we've had a contractor working to install temporary bypass piping to ensure that we are able to continue to supply air until a permanent replacement is constructed. Want to let you know that the construction of the temporary bypass has been going smoothly. We are nearly complete with the work and anticipate having an operating bypass system within the next week. I would also like to take a moment to express our appreciation to the Board and to all the staff in the water department. As we enter the holiday season and the end of the year is approaching, it is a good time to reflect on all the positive accomplishments of the year. The water team continues to show their dedication to Santa Rosa as another year passes. And Director Burke and all of the deputies are thankful to be a part of the Santa Rosa water team. The water team is incredibly resilient and continues to shine. And we would like to thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions for the deputy director? All right, we'll open it up for public comments on this item, item 13. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you wish to comment via telephone, please dial star nine. Secretary Aether? We have no public comments. Very good, thank you. That concludes our meeting. We'll adjourn the meeting. I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving. You'll probably be getting a notice shortly that the December 2nd meeting is going to be canceled. So we'll see you all again on December 16th. Have a good evening. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.


Hey, I actually own this. This is me. So if you don't have a Google My Business profile, you're just not showing up for 90% of the people out there. 90%? It's gone, right? Welcome to The Journey. I'm Neely. And I'm Morgan. And today we're going over the Beginner's Guide to Google My Business. So, Morgan, what is Google My Business? So Google My Business, or GMB, as the experts call it, you have to throw in some acronyms at you. Right. Google My Business allows local consumers to find your business on Google Web Search and Google Maps. It's a one-stop shop for all of your business information, and users love it. It's visual. It's tied to the map in the middle of the search results page. It's great. So when I do searches, I usually see only three businesses pop up. Why is that? That is known as the Google Local Three Pack. Basically, the best of the best businesses for that search result, the ones that have the most optimized profiles, the best of the best, they show up. They only show three. Sometimes it's three in an ad, but that's how you get to be there. You can click More Results, and then you'll see all of the Google My Business profiles for that search result. But yeah, that's the cream of the crop that show up in the Local Three Pack. I dig it. Awesome. So is this all something you can show us? Yeah, absolutely. Let's go check it out. Cool. All right, so let's take a look at Google My Business in action. Let's go to google.com to see what this looks like. You should search. How about dog groomers? Dog grooming? OK, so let's do a dog groomer in Phoenix, Arizona and see what shows up. Perfect. So the first thing you can see, this is the Local Three Pack that we talked about, which is the maps. Google, based on these three Google My Business profiles, these Google has indicated are the most optimized, the best answers for dog groomer, Phoenix, Arizona. We have the smelly dog, dog town, pet grooming, and the hairy dog. So let's jump into the first one to see what's so great about this profile. Other than the name. Other than the name. It's pretty darn good. So as you can see right here, the smelly dog, they have optimized their profile pretty, pretty well. They have their website link. They have directions because they have their address. Hours of operation. All it says is open now. An area of opportunity here is they could add full hours. So that way you can know, well, what if I want to go tomorrow or on Saturday? Why don't they close? You don't want to go too late? Right. So they're missing that, which is fine. But that's an area of opportunity to fix. You can also see that there are questions which people have asked. And then there's answers in addition to lots and lots of photos about the business, where it's located, what it looks like inside, some examples of dog grooming and haircuts, and what to expect if you were to take your dog here. That's so important, especially just how the outside looks. I don't know how many places I've driven past. And it's just a wild goose trace trying to find it. That makes it super easy for me. And the nice thing about Google My Business, and with the maps particularly, you can see where this business shows up. And maybe the smelly dog's too far away for you. So you can just click on one of the websites. I like hot dogs and cool cats. All breeds grooming. That seems more up my alley where I live. And then you can click and you can see if this is the right business for you. So one other thing to point out, we've been talking about you need to create your profile or claim your profile. Here's an example right here. All it says is dog grooming, and there's no information. It just has the location. Most likely, this was a user that just came in and said, hey, I've had my dog groomed here. A grooming place exists. But as you can see, there's no information other than the zip code. Literally nothing. So there is this button here that says own this business question mark. You can click it, and that's how you can start the process to claim your profile. If I were this dog groomer, I would for sure do this right away because there's so much information about my business that's not here and people are looking for. Right. If anyone goes and sees that, they're gonna think it doesn't exist and they're moving on. So that's all I wanted to show you. I just wanted to give you visually what this looks like on the search results page so you can see what customers are seeing for your business when they search for you. So that was an awesome demo. Thank you. But what about the audience at home? Why should they set up a Google My Business account? It gives you so much more visibility to your local business. 90% of the worldwide search traffic goes through Google. So if you don't have a Google My Business profile, you're just not showing up for 90% of the people out there who are searching. It's gone, right? Poof. And like I said before, having a Google My Business profile, it really is a one-stop shop for your customers to learn everything about your business. Everything. They love clicking on the pretty map and they click on your business then they get your name, phone number, address, hours of operation, reviews, star ratings and they can click and go to your website and check out photos of all your amazing products. Right. It's just, it's one link. But again, they don't have to go any further because all that information is there. And the last reason you should set it up is because you can tap into really cool analytics about people who are visiting your Google My Business profile. I love analytics, but what type of analytics? What can we see? So it gives you information about the number of people who are calling your business from that link or visiting your website, all sorts of stuff. All right, so you have me sold, how do we start? So the first thing you need to do is you need to create your Google My Business profile. Go to google.com slash business to create your profile or to claim your profile because sometimes you'll have a profile already created by other users and you need to claim that to say, hey, I actually own this, this is mine. And then on that, you're gonna put in some basic information about your website, the name, phone number, address. So the next step is you need to optimize your profile.  And Google doesn't like that. They want a fully optimized profile. I know you don't. So optimizing your profile means going in, adding photos of your business, putting your menu if you have it, responding to reviews, all sorts of things to really provide so much content and make that have tons of information. Also, if you have keywords that you're trying to target on your website for your businesses, you should probably sprinkle those in a little bit throughout, just a little taste of the keyword and that will help as well with your SEO. The more value you can add to that profile to get people to actually stay and look around, the better. All right guys, I hope you found this beginner's guide to Google My Business helpful so you can get started, start getting lots of business, checking out all those analytics, all the good stuff. Right, and if you've created your Google My Business account or claimed it, let us know in the comments below. Like this video, subscribe to the channel and ring that bell if you wanna see these videos first. This has been The Journey and we're signing off.


Hey, what's up guys? This is KurtzPyte. My friends call me Big C. I'm back in action today I'm gonna show you how to create a thumbnail a YouTube thumbnail for free using PhotoP or PhotoPia depending on how you want to pronounce it This is free photo editing software and this is part of our commitment at Freedom to help you become the best video editor You know using free tools everything we teach you is free So it's gonna cost you nothing to get started on YouTube. Alright, you'll see here that I've got an Elden Ring Let's play number one here background thing going on with the Elden Ring background blurred out We've got like a logo on the bottom right basically. This is a pretty good But not a you know, it's not gonna win an award But it's a good, you know YouTube thumbnail and I'm gonna show you how to recreate it for free So let's get started the first step here is I've got PhotoPia.com open But in order to create a new PhotoPia, I'm gonna go ahead and hit this plus button when I do that I'm gonna click here PhotoPia.com We're gonna go to PhotoPia.com and Presto. This is what you're gonna see the next step If you're following along you want to click on new project when you do that You're gonna see a whole bunch of templates on the right side, which you can scroll through We're not going to use any of the templates in this image or in this video part of me But just keep in mind that they are there and you can scroll through them if you want to What we want to do is we want to go ahead and create a new project So I'm gonna type in Elden Ring. Let's play Two I don't know something like that. Okay, the width is defaults to 1280 by 720 which is Acceptable for YouTube, but I prefer to use the wider size. So I go with 1920 by 1080 This is just because my screenshot is 1920 by 1080. So it's just nice and easy So I'm gonna let double I'm gonna left click on this FB event image Which means Facebook event image, but that doesn't matter what it says what matters is is 1920 by 1080 Which is 16 by 9 aspect ratio, which is what we want left click on create and Presto We've got an artboard with a nice white background. We are on our way The next step if you're following along guys is I'm gonna drag and drop our background image onto this So I've got it and I'm using a map for my for this video here So I'm a left click on finder and I'm gonna select this image if you look at this image It says 1920 by 1080. So we know it's the perfect size left click on it Drag and drop it on and Presto perfect You're gonna see these little bounding boxes so I can make it bigger or smaller if I needed to Let me show you what that looks like if I wanted like if I really wanted this guy in the middle here to be like a big Part of the the background image I can go ahead and adjust that but for this one I'm just gonna leave it as is But just keep in mind that you can go ahead and make that changes Once you've got the image placed and you know and you like where it is Right click on enter and that will place the image Also, keep in mind that I clicked on finder, but if you're on a PC you can click in Windows Explorer and it does the exact same thing It's all good. All right, so we've got our background image. We are on our way The next step is we want to add in the text So I'm gonna go ahead over to the left side here and I'm gonna click on this tee Which is really a text tool or they call it a type tool and Presto we've selected it and we're going to go ahead and start typing so we want to type in Elden Ring let's play number one something like that So I'm just gonna click here in the middle and it's not gonna look correct at the beginning But we're gonna fix it so I'm gonna left click and then I'm gonna type in Elden Ring Let's play number one and you don't see any of it and that is an issue But here's the issue. It is in black type or it's in black font So you see here when I go to the top up here, you'll see that it's selected as black or close to black It's a charcoal and it's a very small font. So I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna just click outside of it And show you a few things first off. It's created its own layer if we go to the layer panel here You're gonna see there's three layers. There's the background layer now And there's a layer on top of it which is the image and then there's this here little fancy Text which is completely wrong font and all that other stuff. Let's go ahead and fix it So I'm gonna double click on the T and what happens is this means you're selecting everything that you've typed or you all of your Text the first step is we want to change the color and the way to do that is to click on this little rectangle here This allows you to change the color of your type or the color of your text on the left click on it And we're gonna set it to pure white because that way we can see it and then so I've moved this circle from its original color down here someplace up to white So we just move that to the top and presto the text will be white and you won't see it yet But when I click the tool when I click out, you'll see bang now it is white. Let's go ahead and make some more changes I'm gonna double click on it again.  Why not send it, right? Isn't that what we say now? All right, cool. So we've changed the font size now. I'm gonna click out Click on my move tool again, and we're gonna see. Oh, this is looking pretty good I'm now gonna click on it and move it into the middle. All right looking good guys Still not what we had in the last one, but I'm gonna show you a few more techniques Well, I got you without hopefully boring you I'm gonna double click on it again Now I'm gonna go ahead and place my font or my cursor in the middle here, and I'm gonna hit enter So now they're on two different levels So now we've got a top line and a bottom line, and they are not centered correctly. We're gonna fix that So I'm just gonna move this I'm gonna select the move tool again And I'm just gonna move it into the center here You're gonna see a red line and when you see that red line that means it's in the exact Center, but you will notice that these paragraph or the the text is not really center aligned It's left aligned here, so we want to make it centered. So what are we gonna do?  It's kind of weird looking P, but it's a paragraph and When you click on there's character and paragraph when you're on paragraph instead of left aligned here Let's click on this one here. This is going to center align it, but it's also gonna shoot it to the left So that's okay So we've gone ahead and selected that and it's centered aligned. Let's close it and Bang, let's go back over here to the move tool and we're going to move it now back into the center And when you see the red line, it'll snap Now you also are gonna see here when I double click on it that we are using a font called luckiest guy That is not the font that it defaults to if you want to change your font And I recommend you do just click on this and scroll through here And you can just see here. There's all these cool different fonts. I like the luckiest guy It's got a cool look to it, but Again, you're not restricted to anything if you see a font that you really really like for example I don't know. Let's see if there's something really cool membro. What the heck is that? Okay, let's go with that see what that looks like. I'm gonna just click on the tool. Whoa. Hello. Okay. This is some sort of line art type font But just keep in mind you can change that so I'm gonna double click on it again And I'm gonna go back to luckiest guy. So what is let's go pop up up? L you see there we go But I want you to know that that is available to you for changing font So again just another technique that we've learned. Okay guys, we're still on our way But now you're gonna notice here and that the other one over here the background is blurred and this is a little bit This has got a cool neat effect where it's got a black outline and a little bit of a shadow To give it depth and this one doesn't have that yet. So let's just go ahead and add some production value The first step is on Elden ring here. I've now taken my off of the top layer We're going down to the middle layer, which is the image.  Let's go with something like Something like that so you can tell with an Elden ring image But it also allows you to have a high contrast the blur brings out the text so you can read the text a little better So let's go with a 6.8 blur. So what did we do? We added Gaussian blur to it. Okay, good So we've blurred out the image a bit. We've got a higher contrast ratio. We've got white against a darker background We're looking pretty good here. Let's go back now. I'm gonna click off of this So the background image is finished now. Let's go to the text again Selected the text and we're gonna add an effect or two to it We want to get that black on the outside and a little bit of that cool look So what I'm gonna do is I've selected the text. I have not double-clicked I've just selected the layer and I'm gonna go down to effect left click on effect And we're gonna go ahead and add a stroke to the outside and it's gonna look weird as heck on its original So this looks kind of generic, right? So we're gonna go ahead and make some changes So the first one is it's selected in red as the original stroke color. We do not want red We want black in this case.  Also, it's defaulting here to three pixels. I know let's go a little let's go to eight pixels So you can really see it. Let's sell it for this video. Okay, this will show the technique a little bit better now There are a whole bunch of options here But some of the ones that I want to show you is drop shadow if you like the drop shadow effect It looks pretty cool. If you like the outer glow effect It's very very subtle and you can adjust it, but let's go ahead and look at let's go ahead and look at bevel and Emboss is that the one we like? Yeah, that's the one I like there we go We beveled it and I'm an emboss. Okay, we've left clicked on bevel and emboss and This has added some depth to the text and it's given it a little bit if we zoom in a little bit You'll see here that it's given a little bit of a shadow and a shading to the inside of the font So it looks pretty good here So we've gone ahead to bevel and emboss and when you left click on that you're gonna see here that there's a few Different options, but let's go with the outer bevel now. I don't like the other bevel We're going with inner bevel looks good. So just leave it as is we're gonna go with a depth of 100% size Let's go ahead and increase it a little bit. Let's go to size 15 pixels Yeah, I'm gonna zoom in a little bit. Okay, and if you don't know where the zoom key is I'm using my touch pad or my keep my keypad but if you don't have that you can always use this tool right here that's a zoom tool and Presto we've gone ahead and that's maybe a little bit too much. Let's drop it down to about 12. Let's drop it to 10 9 pixels. Yeah, that looks good and Presto I'm gonna left click on okay And now you're gonna see we've got a pretty cool look of text and it's pretty visible It's against the pretty cool blurred background Maybe we want to increase the size a little bit I'm gonna double-click on it and you're gonna see the size button is stopped at 150 But you can dial it up. You could just either just scroll down and increase it to let's say 180 We need it 180 I like 180 Just type it in actually. This is the easiest way to do a 180 pixel Presto Done now. Here we go. We've got Elden Ring. It's in the center. It's against the right background We've blurred it. We've got a nice cool imbeddable effect. We've got a neat little cool Font that you know, you don't really use too often. Why don't we always go luckiest guy? That's the one if you want to drag and drop your channel logo back into the finder I'm gonna go ahead and go to the teaching one here, and this is the MGM logo that I'll use as an example I'm gonna drag and drop that on top. I'm gonna go ahead and select the move tool move it to the bottom here and Presto and maybe let's increase the size when I hover over the corners. You're gonna see that it goes double arrow Let's go ahead and just increase it I'm gonna hold down the shift key so that it increases in size proportionally and Presto this is a very cool thumbnail that we use during photopea It didn't cost us a thing and it looks like something I put on my channel Thanks for watching this guys ton more stuff coming up.


So I'm gonna tell you something we didn't organize or synchronize the fact that we're gonna have pink shirts on Yeah, he's from Ottawa. I'm from Toronto. He comes out of pink shirt. I'm looking like what the fuck, bro I don't know man. Is it great minds think it like or we're just like predictable that way. I think we're just crazy I'm crazy. I'm good with that. So what are we talking about today to one? Oh, well Well, you know what before I actually begin do a quick intro man. Who are you and what's your gist, bro? All right, Tuan Nguyen here from Ottawa, Canada and What I'm doing now is I'm focusing on building resources to help fathers crush it in business But also learn the tools how to connect it to the families and stuff like that So it's been something I've been doing on the side just for my son It was like five hours a week in May and it's grown so much right now that I make these freaking trips to Toronto to hook up with some boys here and girls of course to To learn from them because this whole thing is new to me and it's exploding On the side so need some help don't say it So you started saying you're helping fathers out in business. What got you into that in the first place? well, I kind of went through a divorce and I fell I fell apart and And then I bounced back and during the bounce back I was just sharing some of my stories through Facebook really that's all I was on to be honest But some my stories start spreading and dudes started reaching out to me and what I learned was that when I started opening up Men start opening up to me, too And that's what they said yo man like this is the piece we're missing and then I start hosting these meeting on lines to Google Hangout and I don't do that anymore, but it started that way and it grew to people all over the world Germany Switzerland, New York, and this is like voluntary basis once a month We come up with a topic and I bring in a bunch of boys together and all dads we talk about it And it start growing that my main business, which I work with dentists and doctors boring But you know, I have five staff with the the main business. It runs relatively smoothly Yeah, but my love is in this this movement, which I call do Buddha now Did he create it out of your own necessity going out of divorce or going through divorce? You know, I would say no it kind of happened organically interesting It started with a one guy in front of law laws or safe way Yeah, and we just started chatting and he's like yo, how you doing? I'm like yo, I'm doing great. What about you?  Yeah, so you know this guy though. Yeah. Yeah, we met through divorce class Yeah, and he read into me and I'm like yo, what's going on? I'm like I'm doing great He says well, what are you what are you doing because I feel like shit still Yeah, and it just grew from one guy and it went to three guys Yeah, and it became weekly meeting at a coffee shop and then I started learning that men Who heard about this didn't want to show up because they wanted to be anonymous. They were embarrassed So I said, yeah, why don't just host a meeting online? You don't have to show your face You don't have to give me give me your real name and some people would one guy. We still call him Gordy how Okay, that's what hockey player hockey player he signs himself as Gordy how yeah And now he's a positive contributor to the group Okay, but he hasn't you know really opened up to show us who he really is What would you share some of the most common things that you've heard or seen the man are suffering right now? I? Think I would say let's say three things. Okay, men are are feeling a bit of guilt Guilt, okay? Guilt one. Yeah, and it's because Specifically fathers. Okay, because they don't know how to connect or reconnect with people They've lost connection with hmm at first it starts with their kids It's always that you know they go to their kids and some they don't feel they can ever their own kids They lose the romance. So that's the other connection. Yeah, but then you find out that They lose connection with their friends. Hmm, like they find that their friendship has gone from deep to like surface level So but the way we do it. It's not like therapy. It's like pretty sexy. You know, we have a lot of fun We have you know, you know, well, they mean one thing that Everybody in the group has found beneficial Yeah, so I would say just mental models mental models. Okay. Yeah mental models on how to face different situations. Okay, and a mental model on Dealing with a lack of romance. Okay a mental model because it's always a dialogue in their heads So we start Sharing our mental models and processes how we think your own dialogues and the men in the group They're all shifting their dialogue. Mm-hmm And we dub that as mental mental models of how to process things because that's how dudes are They just process like one two three four. Sure, right? So Yeah, it's been so amazing that I've invested we talked about this earlier Yeah, I've invested on five new interns to work with me to do to take all my ideas And I'll put into content because we have so much content after a year and a half of this we have like insane amount of content that's so valuable and What I've learned is this is slightly going off topic for those guys. You're trying to scale. Yeah I'm hiring two high school students and two university students Mm-hmm and the difference I found was when I was interviewing these high school students I'm like, yo, can you do this like yeah, what about this? No, you like this. Yeah, like it's just real right straight to the point But these university kids they're they're don't get me wrong. They're smart Yeah, but they're now starting to do whatever they can to impress you sure. It's like, hey George. Can you do this?  Anyways, it is it is your bread to obey the rules And if you go outside of the box, you're punished. Yeah.    What do you think the number of applicants University? I think you know who closed down.   No school's crazy, man I know it's like they're like I'm sorry We can't give these students let they have an office to go to they can't work in coffee shops I'm like, what are you talking about? Right, I like this is you got all these companies who are allowing their their their staff to do this Yeah, and we're now we're giving the kids the early opportunity to say yo You create your own hours your own time learning your own pace do whatever you want but grow You know in your own freedom. So what advice do you have for anybody who's actually in university right now? I Would say challenge the rules. Mm-hmm. That's what I do. Mm-hmm challenge whatever norm they they provide in terms of This is how life is done. This is how business success is achieved You know, I enjoyed my university years But I have to say it's because I challenge what I learned was what I really grew. Mm-hmm, right? So I'm overall pretty non-confrontational guy, but like we said earlier I will challenge anything that prevents me from moving forward.  Let's say Canada?  Based on like students coming out of school and they're not productive and then I don't have just this is my issue Forget about just knowledge that you have I've talked to so many people and this is saying I have it's not my thing, but I heard it, you know Common sense is not common sense unless it's commonly practice, right?   You don't have to go anywhere just common fucking sense Yeah, so I mean I have a 13 year old at ten and four So this is my experience so far because I can't say I have the vision to see where the Academies gonna be in 10 years, but I can tell you where it seems to be going Okay, right my kid comes home and say yo how school and she's like it was okay Why I learned everything in 15 minutes and then I have to wait for the rest of the class to catch up the last 30 minutes It's been going on for two years So now I'm looking at homeschooling because I think I could help her or I'm looking at more focus school focus school Yeah, so and when I talk with my other friends parents, you know, they feel similar or sports Yeah, a kid is like crushing sports, but they have to wait for the rest of the the class to catch up Yeah, so whether it be sports economic doesn't matter, but I find that parents are now are considering more specialized You know focus education Kind of like private school, but not private school It's just it's just it's so different these days that you have that flexibility to mold your your kids education, right? Yeah, and challenge even what's going on because I challenge what's going on right now, but I see that trend I don't know where it's going to be But I know that all this amalgamation of schools putting kids into like 30 clouds, you know one teacher for the 32 Yeah, it's not gonna fly now and there's gonna be a backlash on it somehow and I don't know where it's gonna go But kids are getting dumber because yeah, not them. I think the whole world's getting these you know, yeah You know that documentary Idiocracy one of my favorite movies movie.  It's so true I I'm not you. I'm not high school educated college or uni I got kicked out in the end of grade nine and I barely even pass elementary school I'm just coming from like just basic common sense hustler mindset Yeah, and I'm just listening to people because I take the subway every day, right? So I get to hear overshadow people.  They're just getting so sheltered and sheltered.  Yeah, you know, it was me hustling. It was me realizing that you know If I didn't take life into my own hands, I would end up in the same in my case I felt bored same boring.  Yeah, and I thought really I hate this.  I'm running my own shop and then and I remember at the high point of one of our businesses We have DJ live Coming in who is our CTO this cool dope Russian guy is like What would you like to listen to dance music hip-hop trance? And then he puts on the DJ on one side and he starts coding on the other side And it's like so much fun. We could do your own thing, right? So entrepreneurship guys, it's the way it's the way I'm telling you it's awesome Well, that's the thing with entrepreneurship. It's it was always been like that. It's all idea of like entrepreneurs about business It's not it's all being self-dependent. Yeah, like if we go back before the industrial revolution Everybody was dependent on themselves. Yeah, you had to farm to get your own food or hunt to get your own food Or you have to barter and trade for example, everybody had their own blacksmith shop leather shop Meal salt place, etc. So everybody was hustling to survive. There was no government handouts. There's no organizations I was like, yo listen if you don't do this.  Oh, yeah, for sure So, I mean even with my kids right now. What's really cool is we have everyone has a gratitude journal, which is awesome Oh, yeah, but in the gratitude journal, they have a pain statement or a problem statement And they've been doing this 13-year-old ten years old They've had we're talking now over 380 days of pain or problem statement, which is a problem. They see in the world. Yeah, they would love the solution for that's good Yeah, that's really good. Oh man.  Yeah, and then the other one, which is a really cool girl She mows her lawn and we had our previous home had a pretty big lawn and then she gets she gets in she's sweating She's like there's got to be a more efficient way to mow the lawn. This is just like not right Yeah, right. I'm like you solve that problem.  Yes, and so that night that was our problem statement like there's got to be a better and more efficient way of cutting lawn Nice, right and so to me when you get into that kind of a mindset as opposed to like going get an education And learning what to be. I think that's where that's where the mistake is is they're teaching what we can be Versus what we can do. Yeah with with our lives, you know, I mean like how we could use our brains and solve things So yeah, those are like really cool things that I'm noticing right now trend learning I'm taking that to my business right now and it's it's doing amazing. It's just I'm just having so much fun with it Beautiful. So if people are like more interested into the dude Buddha and getting in contact with you So just dude Buddha calm, you know, and you could you know, there's a form you could fill out And I it all comes to me because it's literally just a one-person shop right now But it's growing like crazy and if you guys are our parents or your dad's or even if your sons or daughters You know share the site because we're getting so much amazing Lessons and tools and hacks to help. Yep. Just dad's become better dads. Beautiful brother. Yeah, man. Cool. Thank you for the opportunity Pleasure man. Thank you. Love you guys check out one. I put a link below this video guys. Peace That was fun never done that before


What's up and welcome back? I am so excited because we finally get to talk about the MLB this week Before we go any further with your trolling and your chirping and your DMs. Yes, I will state the obvious I'm an Astros fan and this is an Astros jersey But until I see how this team does this year without the little bit of extra help I'm gonna go ahead and rock this throwback Nolan Ryan not only because he's a badass because this jersey is thick now as a sports fighter We have to look at all of the variables. We're used to a hundred and sixty-two game season now It's down to 60 games You got to think about what happens in 60 games and the perfect example would be the last year 2019 World Series champs the Washington Nationals so like 60 games the Washington Nationals were 27 and 33 not too impressive take someone like the Rangers on the other hand they were 32 and 28 But they ended their season under 500 So I'm not saying that a favorite won't win But I am saying that the Unpredictability within a 60 game schedule should give you a little bit more value to look at than playing a favorite All right, so I have an American League pig and a national big pig My American League pig is the Blue Jays with big big plus money My national league pig is going to be the Diamondbacks also big plus. I'm not saying that a favorite won't win But I'd rather play a favorite when we have a real season of a hundred and sixty-two games instead of this unpredictable Sixty so one thing that doesn't make sense to me is how they're going to enforce this no spitting thing They're not allowed to have peanuts sunflower seeds tobacco and obviously spit not to mention the pitchers are not allowed to Lick their fingers. Is there going to be like a Karen on the sidelines like tallying up every infraction? Okay, next I will go with my prop of the week found for y'all of course on Fandle I took Jorge Solaire to lead the MLB and homers at the end of the season again The keyword here is value. So he's not a big name.  Alright y'all. That's all I have for this week I'm super pumped for MLB. So stay with me and let's make some money


So, my beautiful people, I am back with another Dying Light 2 video and today guys, I bring you the final, the one hidden inhibitor out of the total 126. How's it going guys? My name's DPJ and if you enjoyed the video, leave a like if it really helps out and if you like what you see and want to see more Dying Light, be sure to subscribe. So guys, join my discord link below to find people to play with, you know the score guys, join my discord, got a great Dying Light 2 community there, so check it out. Now, before we go any further, credit to TXMPerks for actually showcasing this to me. I appreciate that, so thanks a lot. Okay, so there are 128 inhibitors in total, which go towards your health and stamina scattered across the entire map, but one, it seems just one, is undetectable by that inhibitor detector that you have that tells you when you get near one that there's one nearby. So, there's one on the map guys, that is basically secret and if you're this person and you're struggling to find that very last one, well here it is guys, I got you covered. Okay, so pull up your map and you want to go to Saint Paul Island, the part of Central Loop. Right here, we have a dark hollow loot store, so you want to come here at night guys and you need to clear this building out, now the second room up or third room up, there will be two big old dirty zombie creature thingies that you need to take out, I just spammed my grenades guys, I just wanted to get this done, I just weren't jumping down and getting battered by earthquake and typhoon, so I just blew them up and just bombed them to death. And then there's a safe in that room which you have to lock pick open and it gives you the code for the chest in the room above and you'll see all that on screen now guys and you'll get the inhibitor, you'll notice as well, like I said there's no indication that it's an inhibitor, you'll get no detection, no ping, no nothing, so yes if you're missing one and you can't figure out where it is, then hey you have it guys and I hope the video helps you out. If you're a collector you may as well grab this while you're seeing the video because you may forget about it and when it does come to getting the 126 of them, you may forget. But yeah guys I hope it helps you out if it doesn't leave an like really helps me out and hopefully people I will see you on that next one.


Randolph school board and a chair of this board. He's a visitor, a guest. Isn't that nice. I'm Keith Hughes. I work for CTV and do a lot of the dual enrollment partnerships. I'm Amanda Mills Brown. I'm pretty sure we've met. I'm a pain mountain school district. No longer Williams Town School District. So we are one. So you represent both towns. Jason King old Randolph technical career center director, year four. You keep coming back. I do. Yes. Keep letting me come back. As our guests follow you, is there anything you want to add or say? That's your word. All right. So Jason has presented this in your profile a lot of depth. What can you add to it? What can I add? So what are important numbers here? Important numbers are numbers are up this year. We look on my first year we're at 164 and we hang a little downward below. We put a lot in the recruitment and we're at 152 for this year, which is really nice. I think that's a nice number for us. I think if we go past the 165, we run into some facility kind of stretch issues where there's only one toilet, not enough room in the cafeteria parking. You know, so I think this number is a nice number for us. We have some, you know, someone asked us what our percentages of students are. And right now we have 52% of Randolph juniors and seniors. We have 43% of Williamstown juniors. This would be compared to their total enrollment of juniors at their own. Okay, so there are 56 juniors at Williamstown High School. We have 13% of Williamstown seniors. The White River School, which is now South Royalton and Woodham Bethel. We have 30% of their juniors and 23% of their seniors. In Northfield we have 28% of their juniors and 25% of their seniors. So numbers can be deceiving, you know, when there's only 32 seniors and there's eight here or something. What else? The technical skill attainment that will change for next year. It's no longer right now for this year, our requirement by the agency of education. So those end-of-year exams are no longer required, so as internally we're discussing what, how do we know, what do we know, how do we want to replace that. We'll get to that in a second. We'll come back to that with our screen. We're really proud of our IRC attainment. As a center we obtain 95% of our students. Everyone got an IRC, so you think it'd be 100%, but it's 95% recognized by the agency of education. That's our highest attainment in the past three years. So we're really proud of that. And that's something that as a data measurement we keep striving for. And actually also the Department of Labor will be taking or the State Workforce Development Board is taking over the IRC portion of what IRCs are needed out in the industry. So that may change in the next year or two as well. Just about what, what is available. So it's sort of changing the benchmarks? Is that going to change the curriculum? It won't change the best marks, I don't think. It may change the curriculum a little bit because an industry sector might say we're noticing that students are coming out with acts. We'd like them to have that. We're not quite there yet. And neither are they, as far as what they're asking for. But as far as reporting we're still required to report to the agency of education that number. So are those self-administrated? Say that again? Who administrates those IRCs? Yeah. It depends what they are. So like we'll contract out on these dates for CPR and first aid and we'll have someone from the Red Cross come in and do CPR for state. When we do game of logging we contract that out. There are very few, we'll do our own tractor safety. Matt became, that teacher became certified. There are very few that we do on ourselves. Those are usually outside entities. And we use Perkins funds money to pay for that. Last year we spent close to $30,000. Our dual enrollment numbers keep growing, which we're really happy about. And our fast forward ticket. One thing we came into a bump with this year is last year VTC would accept a dual enrollment voucher for the short courses they run. So like meat cutting, cheese making, forestry. And the agency of education said they can't do that anymore because they're not credit-bearing courses. And that's a policy issue. So the legislature are the only people that could fix that policy. But I'm going to try and push some people in the ALE to address that. But that'll take a long time. So in the meantime VTC gave us a rate of $200 for a short course per student. And we'll find some line items to help pay for that. So the students, we have students now, we have four who are signed up to take the artificial insemination course at VTC coming up in October. So rather than having the students miss it completely, we just found a little bit of a way around it. I think it's a little bit of discriminatory. But they won't believe me yet. Student organizations, career technical student organizations, the number of students is growing. This year we're going to have a FBLA chapter out of the education program. And we had winners. Carlos is the digital film teacher. He had two state winners last year go to Louisville, Kentucky. So we're pretty excited about that. Yeah, I know we do. Our discipline data in there. This was our second year that we started tracking discipline counts. And it's just a way for us to also address what we think is happening and student perception and how may we react to such incidents. We'll do our six month graduate would be next month. When we find out what students who have just graduated, are they still enrolled or are they working? We report that to the AOE. I think in October we report that to them. What else? Then just some quick updates that weren't in the report that I'd like to show you. So we're at 152 students. Jen Joles, our guidance counselor, just put out the financial aid packet for seniors, which is a link also on our website. So as it gets updated, it goes live. We'll email that out to all parents and students. So it's a great welcome to the information as the FAFSA opens up October 1st. Yeah, Leo. And then I'm working through school messenger. Do you get those, Laura? Do you get emails from me? I do. You'd get those on Saturday. Okay. Amanda? Okay. I don't need that. You don't. Okay. So I'm in the process of the school district purchase this school messenger. Okay. And what I'm trying to do is figure ways to enter your email address that we have on file for you. And then every Saturday or Sunday, I send a weekly update to families. So we have about 112 that are signed up. By request. So when they do an application, we get their email. They don't give us their email. They won't get it, but there's an unsubscribed and subscribed way. And then I just try and send parents information about what's happening in the center weekly and reminders and dates. But I'll add the link to the financial aid packet. I have a link to our CSA. So I'll put you on that list. Yeah. And I'm trying to figure out a way to also add a picture, which will make it more exciting. But I haven't figured that out. It's good. It's not intuitive. It's not intuitive. And I think I'm somewhat tech savvy, but it's not. There's no like, you know, add a picture here icon. This year, we're continuing our food for thought. And so that's every last Friday of a month, every student goes home with a bag of food. And that's all through fundraising. This year, our business management class has taken that project over. Staff are still kind of advising, but the business management class, the goal would be they're going to figure out the cost, the marketing plan, the begging for money fundraising plan. And then the building trade students, they make those boxes so we can collect the food and put the bags of food in each program. We're hoping our graphic arts or film program will come on board and help us with the marketing campaign. So we're trying to include this and make this as a community project as best as we can. So we're starting again next Friday, the last Friday of September. We didn't do it in August. And then another update. And this is why that's the screen. We're redoing our tech project this year as a senior. Actually, it's not as a senior requirement anymore. We're requiring all students to do this. It's a college and career portfolio. I won't go through the whole package. I think it's best if you just read it. But what I really wanted to show you is this. This is a platform we're using. It's called Protein. It's through the UVM Terry Institute. It's a local Vermont company. And we've been working with Dean Gary for about a year now to make this happen. So it's free. Every student will have access. Yes, Williamstown and Northfield are going to use it as part of their students PLP process, which is nice. Yeah, which is nice because then as those students come to us, if they do, it'll be a continuation for them. And for us, what we're using it for, this is Ali's daughter's site because we haven't, our students haven't built their site yet. But if you're, if you're familiar with LinkedIn or Facebook, it's a very intuitive kind of platform. And what we're doing is students will have students might have projects, but we're calling them still learning the system. Students will have all their competencies from their program as their goals. And so this way, as they go out on co-op or if the student was here tonight instead of Carlos filming this, they'd be able to tag their competency to their evidence. And that's much better than anything else they can do. How do you know? How do I know if I go sign up with Leo, which I have done, but and he's my financial advisor, how do I know he's doing what he does? And this way he can picture that evidence and put it in this digital portfolio. With that, we're hoping by the end, students are seeing their year of a roadmap of how they got to the end outcome, but also most important, what are they doing with that outcome at the end? That's part of the goal work in this project. Are they going to college? Are they going to training school? Or are they having a job? And not the job that they can get right now without us. They're a career path job. So included in this are the transferable skills that the state requires. Communication, teamwork, leadership, they have to show evidence of all these pieces. And they're just going to build their own portfolio with this platform. All 152 students are going to be overseen by Jason Finley, our work based coordinator, but our English teacher, myself and Mr. Abadi, our student service coordinator, we're all going to have access to our guidance counselor so we can monitor. So this is basically a digital portfolio. Yes. Maybe I got something wrong, but is this instead of their project? It becomes their project. It becomes their project. Now the other piece that's a little different is in the past, we're still going to do the open house, where students have to present. So they're going to present their project, their portfolio, but they also have to pick a minor, what we're calling. When you were in college, you picked a minor, a minor in sociology. So now here they're going to pick a minor related to their program. If we use ag as an example, maybe the student's really interested in blacksmithing. So they're going to do a project from their program about blacksmithing, as well as the student's. So that will be something visible. Something visible. Okay. Besides what you looked on a Chromebook and trying to navigate your way through some kind of piece. So we're excited about it. We had Perotian come in and train our staff on August 31st and show us the platform. They came in yesterday and showed the students the platform. And then starting next week, we're going to go through the whole project with the students program by program and explain the platform to them. And then by October 1st, they should be able to log on and start building their portfolio. So every kid in a program would have the same goals listed. They will have their same three goals of academic, personal and career, and then moving down will be their program competencies. So auto might have brakes, engines, and then detailed out health careers, blood pressure, etc, etc. Which will help us answer the previous question. How do we know the students competent in their program? Before, they took this end of year exam and that was one academic way for students to say, yeah, I'm a completer. Now we're actually going the other way and saying, oh, I have to show evidence of all my completion. And then tag it to that. No, it's a great life skill. It sounds like to set goals and see yourself being able to sort of account for the way you're reaching them. Absolutely. And if I was a little more proficient, I could show you better examples. There's going to be some student reflection that they, you know, so I went, we're acquiring three job interviews. We're not job interviews, but career interviews. So if a student wanted to go into Liam's field, they may have to contact him to set up an interview. Rather than before it was about mentorship. Now we're asking students, how did you get where you are? What do I have to do to get where you are today? Because the mentor piece was a huge breakdown for us and students obtaining mentors in the background checks. We're getting rid of that. That was a distraction. But I also feel like if I'm in business management and I want to get to where Leo is, it's better that I meet Leo, not necessarily as a network piece, but how do I understand how do I get there? And what are the processes you went through? And then how do I do that myself? And that may be part of the goal system, which to me is all about the outcome after high school. And so then how, so a student is engaging in that, how does that student then sort of report or reflect on that? Yep. Or even record, you know, what would actually happen? So either with their phone or we have iPads they can check out, they can record and or videotape our interview, right? We'll train them what it means to be an interview or how to interview. What questions should I ask Leo if I want to get to this spot? Right now being in here or in our English class, we can upload that audio or video as evidence to this platform documentation.  Jason, just a question. That's basically setting the student up to be self reporting. Yes. Any verification from Leo? We haven't talked about or hoping their evidence is a verification. You know, the way I look at it is that's we should hear Leo's voice. That's the evidence there. The evidence they're going to have to upload is the verification. We haven't gotten to whether or not we want feedback. Really, I'm sure we'll get it from that person. But you know, previously there was a lack of accountability where a student just signed off on 30 hours. We'd have to verify that as well. I think that by how they have to load their evidence will become clear in that verification. At the same time, we've made a checklist of all the things students need to do in order to be complete and proficient in this project. They can't sign off on themselves or that only an adult. Jason, myself, Jim, Mike, you do that. And so as part of this portfolio, are they still expected or hoping to have a co-op experience? Yes and no. Those are, even before last year, the co-op was part of the senior project. Okay, but the co-op's part of their technical experience. Now, not every student gets to go on co-op because if I start as a senior, I may not have a year's worth of previous learning to go to co-op. What we do want is every student to do at least one to three job shadows in their field. So again, the mentor piece didn't work, but now we're replacing that with required job shadows. Some of that may be done here without having to have the student leave. So tomorrow we have V-trans coming in to speak to some of the programs. Students can document, videotape, ask a question, get some reflection, learn about that experience, upload all that to Protein. We may count one of those as a job shadow, not as a job shadow, but as an interview, excuse me, for that piece. So you can see in the project there's all sorts of requirements that they have to do in order to be following or creating their path, their roadmap to next year, whatever that may be. We're excited. I think our hope is it's going to lead to higher outcomes. I don't know better, maybe higher, different. I guess the question about my verification really was what is the standard for an acceptable interview, as opposed to saying, whoops, I just checked that box because I had an interview. What is the standard for saying it was an acceptable or an excellent interview? Sure. I think we're going to have to build that as we're flying that plane. We'll go through an acceptable, as we teach them when we have guests in here, what is acceptable behavior and responses to those questions. If they're the same process, how do I interview them? What questions do I want them to face upon? Why am I even interviewing you in the first place? So I think we'll build that as we go. There's some rubrics in there that we put in for scoring. And I think we'll know that as we see evidence of student work on that interview, we'll know, Paul, I'm really sorry that two minute video you showed of the interview isn't what we're looking for. Here's some feedback. You're going to need to go either back to that person or do another one. And this is what we want. Much like the first draft of the senior's final paper project, right? They do research paper, they submit it. Here, many are returned for more feedback, very few are given proficient on the first bill. I would say it's the same thing. And then the third piece of this is that we're starting a PTO. I don't know what we're going to call it yet. But next Tuesday, the 25th, we've invited parents, it's been sent out in all the summer letters to parents, the emails on the school messenger. We're trying to get parents to be more involved in our career center. And either as visitors here at the board meetings to help with thought, but the real outcome is to give them information about outcomes for students. So like today, I got an email from the agency of education about the new National Guard bill where students go through to the National Guard. It's basically a free college tuition. Do parents know that? It's the new laws of July 1st. I didn't have all that information. I would have better information to pass that along. But if we just mail it home, I don't feel like it just stops at the door. And if I just email it, I'm only reaching 112 people, adults and some of them work here. So it stops at the computer. So how do we get parents more involved in deciding the best possible outcome for their students? So that's our another way. Are you optimistic about? Am I optimistic? So I've asked, I started sending letters out in April, May, and I got like Lisa Jacobs and Ethan Butson, Bill and Jamie. And I got two responses. But then when we did our new student orientation night, we got at least another 20. Oh, that's pretty good. So I'm hoping, I don't know. I really don't know. Yeah, I hope that, I mean, it sounds like a great idea. Right. And I think I was clear that it's not their role to judge curriculum. They're not a school board. But we want, we want to know what's going on. What's missing from the Williamstown North Peel perspective? And how can we get students to have better outcomes? And I think there are all these wonderful things that we do. We fill all these board spaces up. But how do parents see that, know that, and then have that conversation with their own student? You get to those places. We'll try. I booked 10 months worth of time. So I'm available. But I think that's all I have. I had a question, which I don't see here. And I, but I saw it on the online report that you put in. And it was the sort of rapid decline of needs based families. It was down to 21% or something like that, which was free and reduced lunch, which seemed really low to me. Because I know the high school is more like 55. Is that, was that accurate number? I don't want to speak to a number that I probably don't have in front of me. Yeah. And the best thing I can do is get our current number 40. Yeah. No, it was just, I was looking, it was that it also had a great big decrease in kids on IEPs. And I'm surprised about that too. That has gone down. It's different by program. We can identify certain programs having a higher IEP rate. But free and reduced were usually anywhere between 30 and 42%. I think the trend right now is not necessarily to have students not be on an IEP, but from an IEP move them by the end of their senior year from an IEP to a 504. And last year we had at least three or four students over the course of the year have that transition. But I can get that number. Yeah. It was just a point of curiosity. Nothing more. I was surprised. But you know what's interesting is that families or students may refuse to do the free and reduced lunch forms because most of our students want that food.  Very few. And I think that the number last year was like on average 88% of students took it home with them. So it's interesting that at some point the form becomes in the way of access. We can't fill it out always for them. Anything else? Programs and enrollment is next. Okay. Do you want to give us a little update? Yeah. Where are we at? So we're at 152 students. Where's our enrollment? Advanced manufacturing. We lost one recently. So we're down to seven. But auto's still there in business. Instruction. We lost one in criminal justice. So we're down to 15 there. And when we actually gained one, we're up one in business. We gained a late start a couple weeks ago. But other than that, we're right there. We lost one student to a discipline issue. So again, I feel good about our numbers. How's the advanced manufacturing class going? It's going okay. I think the biggest drawback right now is so we have, and I thought you might want to take a peek and just at some point, but we have these two nice bridge port machines and a nice grinder. But the electricity isn't hooked up yet. And so the facility side of it is we need to catch up to just waiting for some electrical juice. Kids enjoying the class. I think they're enjoying the class, but they really would like those machines to in what they picture advanced manufacturing is, is to start working on those machines. They picture doing. But next week is a big advanced manufacturing expo in Essex and Burlington, I believe, that we're trying to get up to. And then October fifth is manufacturing day in the state. So we've invited to, we've been invited to a couple different plants to go visit or facilities. We'll take advantage of that. I'm encouraged that, you know, we lost one due to more of a personal life issue, not a educational issue. And that's okay, that's going to happen. It'll be nice this year when we recruit and we'll actually have a classroom set up for that as students can actually participate and go through. And that was one other question I was going to ask. So what do you, sort of for what, what, what reason do you attribute for your better enrollment? Was it better recruitment or different type of recruitment? Or do you think it's just an anomaly? I was asked that today at our Vermont Tech Directors meeting. And my real answer was our guidance counselor. We have, she's in her second year, fabulous. She brings all the teachers together. And I think her energy mixed with the teachers created a great recruiting environment. They are fabulous. We have a great team. You know, and so this is my fourth year. Three fourths of the staff are in their second, third, fourth year. We all started together. You know, yesterday we had the early release day, right? And so we were having our staff meeting wasn't going to start until 1245. We got done at 1130. And so I wanted to give them time for lunch. But maybe two people went back to their classroom to eat by themselves or to do work. Everyone else was in here as a group. And, you know, I was just surprised because I was like, the meeting's not starting for 45 more minutes. And they were like, yeah, we know. And they were here together working and eating. And I think I attribute that to the culture we have. And that students want to be here. And we try hard. We work hard. So today we met, we're going to do our Vermont Works for Women. We host our own Challenge Day or non-traditional programs. And females come into those programs. This year we have nine programs participating, which is fabulous. And we're working with Vermont Works Women again to make that happen. So this summer we hosted Vermont Works Women, well, in camp for a weekend in the I-Program. You know, if anything, we're short on space. We live off some more space to do a pre-tech program. That's coming down from, what is it, ACT? Well, it's H919, I think it is. And the state really wants technical centers to be in middle school starting in sixth grade for career exploratory. And we have a space for that. How do we, how do we either get them here or how do we get to Williamstown Northfield to do that? It's easier to do it random. But how do we, is a transportation issue? And how do we run a pre-tech program without adding here? Does Williamstown or Northfield really want us there to do that? Because now what we've done or what we plan on doing is we've got big goals, you know, over down up the road, you know, to really open up our opportunities for students. So, like, I can imagine us saying the same thing very soon. In both schools, well, that one space we have, we're now using it for, you know, this inter-district transplant stuff. And I think the next question to that is, what, you know, we identified that advanced manufacturing in this region is needed. And we're hoping those students, as they graduate, matriculate into the workforce in this region. But in the Vermont town pipeline last year, it worked very hard to work with all the construction and building trades programs throughout the state. And so that was a set curriculum. They're hoping that will pay off for more employed workers for their system. But yet the health care system still wants more people as well. And it was a strange number. It was like, that there aren't even enough graduates for the numbers that they need in the health care system to employ in the state. The sheer number they need is not even in the state. So we could add MedTep program or diagnostic program and probably fill it with 15, 14 students because we have a waiting list for health careers. But it may not answer that region's needs or Gifford or Central Medical Center or anything else. But if we had space, we probably would. All right, so still you here, your rectus report covered pretty thoroughly. Is there anything else you wanted to add? Our math teacher's working out really well. We're super psyched about that. She's teaching three different math classes and she's available for McEglacer and SAT and PSAT Health. And she's been in programs already working with her teachers on submitting them and teaching math. So we're excited about that. That's kind of what I got. So the superintendent's report is enclosed. He is not able to make the meeting tonight. He would generally talk about the financial reports as well. Is there anything you think we ought to note on the financial report? So Perkins was finally approved a week or two ago. So you were proof that as a board, we sent our application in. But then the state finally said okay a few weeks ago. So that's good. I think our line items are in order. I don't hear anything negative from Robin. So I feel good about the fact that if I don't hear anything negative from our business manager, we're okay. We follow our process and our procedure. And the next grant to come out was the state equipment grant, which should be available by October 8th. And we should be able to spend around $24,000 for equipment. And we have last year, you approved the innovation grant for the advanced manufacturing. And we have roughly 11,500 left. Can you have all the equipment you need? We're going to buy one more piece for that. But if I keep pressing Kevin, I'm going to tire him out. I have till May to spend it. So I'll spend it. But I think our other line items are in place. So next on the agenda is the consent agenda. The only piece under there is to approve the minutes of our last meeting. Most of us were there. So if you've had time to look it over, I would you need to approve this. So I need a motion and a second to approve the the minutes as written. Go ahead. I'll make the motion to approve. All right, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. We have no correspondence and other items I don't think unless you have something, you know. There's no executive session needed. Anything we should know for the next meeting besides the date? I would just say if there's any, you know, information you want that you don't think we're providing, please let us know. Happy to. Happy to provide. I would say by the February meeting, I would have a better example of student work to show you. I'm not sure November would be good, but the next definitely February. And so then the you'll still use that May date open house for the for the final. Absolutely. Anything else for many of you? Any questions or we can adjourn then at 6.38.


Maesbygol, wrth ystod, mae'r ystafun o illetiau gyda'r cyfforddant, a'r cyfforddant y mae'r cyfforddant â'r ystafun arall gyrtaeth deillad yng Nghymru yn Glashgawd. Darcien i gael i ddau amgwyddiant, amgylch i naddiad dros y bydderach o bwgybadau. Mae'n gweithio i digangu y bïdd hwn o defnyddol, ac mae hwn yn gallu i gael ar y bydderach. Bydd-eonwch, hefyd, oedden nhw'n gyntafol iawn i ddiwyddu'r bydd yn ddweud. Fel oedden oedd y bydd yn unrhyw mwy o'r stimulau. Gwg dim i gilyadu'r wych i mi yn rwylo i'r rydyn ni, ac mae'n gilydd maen nhw'n gychyd bach i bach i'u cyfrifysgiad newydd. Fydd yn ddiwyddu'r byd, mae'n ard程u'r byd i'r pethau, No word from the budget. This time a mirror was suggested and purchased and taken home. The same scenario happened for our further two weeks with a bell and a swing being purchased on both occasions. On the fifth week, the man entered the shop and declared that the bird had died. The stunned shopkeeper asked if any word had been spoken before its demise and the man replied that the bird had, yes, indeed spoken. Did you ever think of buying seed? The bird had everything to make its cage the envy of other birds, but it didn't have what it needed to keep it alive. St Paul gives the same message in his letter to the Corinthian Church. If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels but don't have love, I'm only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains but don't have love, I am nothing. This building is an amazing structure. This chamber is a place where I'm sure there is eloquent and intelligent debate taking place, but none of it counts for anything without love. The life of this Parliament, it seems to me, does not depend on the quality of the building or the clever use of facts and economics, although I'm quite sure that those are a tremendous asset. The life of this Parliament depends on you, its members, having a heart for people, a compassion for those in need and a desire to serve and strive for a fair and just society. Without that, the most eloquent words, the most knowledgeable words, count for nothing. May you be inspired in this coming week to serve as your heart guides you.


The month of November, Appropriately Coined Businessman has once again dawned on the business community. And it brings with it great exuberance and a myriad of opportunities for entrepreneurs at all levels of the business cycle. The Ministry of Commerce, Manufacturing, Business Development, Corporates and Consumer Affairs has been spearheading this well anticipated month of activities since 2015. This year's theme, actions today impact tomorrow, serves as an appeal for strategic action on the part of the business community to take advantage of the programs, projects and other opportunities available now to positively impact the enterprise's future. Businessman features a number of activities, including one, the hosting of the 15th annual St. Lucia Taiwan Partnership Trade Show, two, community business forums, three, the Government Procurement Symposium, four, the Business Banking Symposium, five, Crime Prevention Workshop, six other capacity building workshops. As you can see, the Ministry holds true to its core mission, which is to help businesses become globally competitive by facilitating continuous dialogue, training as well as financing and market research solutions that create real economic impact. It is on this proposition that the Ministry provides continued support to the business community with the expectation of economic milestones in the future. Therefore, it is no surprise that a feeling of jubilation overwhelms me as we enter this month of entrepreneurial activities. The Ministry believes firmly in the theme, action today impact tomorrow, by providing the necessary resources for requisite action today, so that the impact will be evident in the foreseeable future. The training and capacity building it provides, the micro, small and medium enterprises are not ends in themselves, but means to an end. This is from part of a Heculean effort to mobilize these businesses along the business life cycles. Let me take a line from a distinguished African offer. Idoui, who states that, when you do the things in the present that you can see, you are shaping the future that you are yet to see. You may ask yourself, what is the Ministry currently doing to adhere to this theme of actions today impact tomorrow? The Ministry of Commerce is highly instrumental in ensuring our manufacturers receive adequate support in their business cycles. Currently, the Ministry is preparing to launch the micro, small and medium enterprise loan grant facility, which is a $10 million facility allocated for financial and technical support to approximately 500 small businesses island-wide. This loan grant awards 70% grant and 40% loan to entrepreneurs with a viable business idea, whether to start a new business or to expand the current operations. In addition, the Ministry is collaborating with the Organization of American States, the OAS, in launching a Women Economic Empowerment Initiative to help women in the OECS region embrace the digital economy. This initiative is a 36-month long project funded by the United States to encourage women to be more cognizant of the possibilities and benefits of a digital economy. Currently, we are living in the digital era, thus providing women entrepreneurs with the technical skills now will enable them to compete and expand globally within the digital sphere. Furthermore, the Ministry Small Business Development Center launched the Young Entrepreneurs in Action Program designed to empower students and business owners to receive a mutual exchange of knowledge through a student internship program which took place throughout the month of August. Some 40 students in the fourth and fifth form at secondary schools throughout Centrucia were assigned to specific places of employment where they gained relevant job training in tandem with career aspirations, which proved extremely vital for their development as future entrepreneurs. This event was a resounding success, a win-win situation for both students and employers who in some instances adopted the ideas of these innovative and creative interns. Actions Today, Impact Tomorrow is manifested when micro-business owners, that is entrepreneurs with five or less employees, excel to small enterprise status, having between six and twenty employees and continue to rise from then on. Actions Today, Impact Tomorrow is highly evident when businesses take advantage of any opportunity made available by the Ministry of Commerce for their growth and future development. Therefore, I beckon members of our distinguished business community not to cower in the face of opportunity, but rather be embollied to seize it. When this month's calendar of events reaches you via email, WhatsApp, or other social means, I employ you not to make excuses nor procrastinate, but be ready to participate in these activities. I want to thank all persons viewing or listening. I cordially want to impress upon you that the action taken today, though sometimes miniscule in nature, can have highly salient and long-lasting impact in the future. These actions are needed for us to strengthen and sustain our MSMEs and to a greater extent the economy of our island, St. Lucia. With this, I bid you every success in your business endeavours and may God continue to guide us on this journey.