مرحباً جميعاً جميعاً، نحن here I'm joined by a great brother of mine، ما شاء الله، عباس، كيف أنت عباس؟ الحمد لله بارك الله فيك. So today I have the honor of bringing you guys a student, ما شاء الله، of جميعا أبن السعود، نه؟ Okay so yeah you guys know how it goes. You guys know how it goes. How I learned Arabic stories is like the name of the interviews or the series of the interviews that we're doing. In case you didn't know our bus. So yeah I mean you guys know how it goes. I ask people who went from not knowing Arabic to knowing Arabic about how it was before. How it was throughout learning and how it is right now. In شاء الله. So yeah first of all I will ask you عباس إن شاء الله. If you can you know give us some background some context about yourself. What you do what you did. Who are you? Okay Praise to you to Allah سبحانه وتعالى and peace of blessings upon our messenger. I'm blessed to be on the bus. I'm blessed to be on the bus. I'm ready for all your efforts. It's a pleasure to be in your company today. Basically I'm 25 years old. I'm a student in رياض. I've been there for the past 4 years. The program is the first 3 years to study Arabic. Arabic معاد which is an institute.  Which is the faculty of شريعة حديث. And you choose and so on. So praise to Allah I've been there for the past 4 years. I finished the معاد. Now the first year of my studies in the faculty. I'm from London. So praise to Allah I'm just a bit by my background. No. Okay. So going straight into the questions. Before learning Arabic. Before learning Arabic. But after you decided that you wanted to learn Arabic. What kept you up at night? Like eyes open staring at the sitting. So praise to Allah since I was young. I used to go to the madrasa which is to learn Quran. And the religion from a young age. And I'm a parent. In London right. Yeah from young. So praise to Allah I used to go to some Medina graduates. About 3 of them. And one sheikh that graduated from رياض. So they had an institute. Where they used to teach us Islamic studies. Quran and Arabic. So I see them. I used to think wow. They learned the religion of Allah. And how it's been in it. And how they were teaching the youngsters. And when I was young I was about 13 or 14 at that age. At that time. I think I would love to be like these sheikhs here. And how they had the knowledge I had about the religion. Especially Quran. And when I was young. Since I was young I had a passion for Quran. I used to think to myself. Wow. Allah is telling us some stuff. I don't know what Allah is saying. But I feel the energy. I feel the beauty of the words. Yeah. If Allah سبحانه وتعالى send the Quran Arabic. So if I don't learn Arabic. I'm not going to understand what Allah is trying to tell me to say. So that's what really pushed me. When it comes especially like the love of the Quran. Kept me. Which to learn Arabic. So that's the main thing that kept me up at night. Because to learn the Quran. And the religion of Allah. Allah سبحانه وتعالى. That's something that I really. I am always impressed about the Somali community. You know. I mean. They could be. They could be as. I'm me as you want. But the Quran is always the Quran. Yeah. The kids always go into madrasas. And they always memorize the Quran. Insha'Allah. No. So learning right when you got to. Since you already mentioned it. You learned Arabic in the. In the Mahad of the Jamia. So when you. When you reached there. And you know. You was about to start learning Arabic. Because you didn't learn Arabic in the madrasa. When you was younger. Right. No. Okay. So what was you afraid of. Like the main things that was. Making you. Afraid of. You know. Your journey in the Arabic language. The main thing that got me. I was kind of afraid is. You know. When you go. When you learn a new language. The first thing that comes to your head is. If I say this. Are people going to laugh at me. If that happens. Like. Like. So that's the main thing that I had. By the same time I was thinking. For me to learn. I have to make mistakes. And if I can. Like. If you want to do something. You have to. For the mistakes. Then you're going to learn. So I thought. Same time. That was. I was scared of that. If I say this. And because I went to Saudi Arabia. And I was thinking. If I say. Are they going to laugh at me. They might think. This guy. Shakespeare. Error. Try to speak. First time. Stuff. So. That's the main thing. And also. That's. That's the main thing. Just. Just. Being scared of falling into mistakes. And it's. It's a. It's a. It's a human thing. So. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. That's funny. Because in Egypt. I mean. It sounds like this to them. Like. Like. something. Of your Arabic. Something. That's all I know. You know. And it's funny. Because how it keeps happening. Like even. Right now. That I just got here tomorrow. I feel. Like. I remember. When. I was looking for an apartment. I went into. Like. A real estate agency. And. And I was here. They always. On the ground right. So it was a bunch of. Of people. I stepped in. As. As. كل شخص يفعلون بأنه يتحدث about what is he talking about and in Egypt it's even funnier because Egyptians are known to be even when you go to Mecca they are the loudest of the people and they are always funny even in the Arab culture they always have the most TV shows and comedy shows and stuff and so I was in Egypt it happens that he happened actually this actually happened I went into a taxi first of all I have two stories the first one I was in a taxi and I asked him to turn off the music and even the way I said it right now it was kind of like you know kind of like Ammi and he was like I can't even Arabic I don't understand and then another time I went into a store like a bakala as they say in Saudi as well and I entered and I asked for salt I said السلام عليكم هل عندكم من الملح هنا he said ساق الله العظيم يا شيخ عايز يا طيب he said ساق الله العظيم which is what they say after he finished resigning the Quran and then they say طيب what do you want I said الملح لديك ملح ملح I said الملح لديك ملح so you know like classical Arabic is always is always a quote-unquote funny nowadays you know so okay so what were you not not knowing Arabic what were you angry about and who were you angry at if there was anyone that you was angry at I was angry at myself for actually no point emphasis when I was young to actually learn Arabic that's the main thing it can't be no one else but myself and the second thing is the first thing who was angry at and what was the second one what was you angry about like something that kept happening and because you didn't learn Arabic that made you frustrated something that kept happening was I kept to read the Quran and I understand what I was saying that's what everyone says yeah that's that's that's that's one thing and especially listen to like scholars and not knowing what they're saying at all so even someone who used to come to London I was and I used to think and they used to be translators I was thinking I wish I understand what the sheikh was saying directly instead of someone being in between us so that was that was the thing I was really really upset with that yeah that's one I mean that's the main the main two mainly now in the West when scholars come in and you just have to wait until he finish explaining whatever page of the book for the translator to do his best really to try and make you understand what he said so okay so all right so what was well you you already answered this this question I was about to ask you what secretly you desired the most of learning Arabic and you said kind of like you wanted to you was looking up to these students of knowledge who came back from from overseas so so let me go into the next one what was the turning point or you know whatever happened that made you say okay now I really need to learn Arabic or was it you know no I was cool so I was thinking I talked to him about Medina and the stories that I had stories about Medina and I said I had the story that I used to tell him about Medina and listen to this sheikh we see that scholar that scholar I knew the scholar's names but I was thinking I've never seen him before and like oh Subhanallah I have to go like they had a big تاثير on me especially when he goes was it going to go seek knowledge in general especially the Arabic so they had a big effect on me and a couple of friends that I knew left that left from you London that I went to go study Medina though they had a big effect on me as well so so it was kind of kind of gradually kind of thing yeah as a graduate thing yeah yeah especially the stories of Medina that they really actually or I really really like forced me to go and yeah I was thinking on Arabic yeah definitely okay so what was the timeframe in between you deciding that you want to study until you actually you know got the opportunity to to go to رياض time frame was maybe about one year or two years of that one I want to really mention on YouTube and about sheikh and scholars and a lot of lessons they see online and then coming down to London that from me seek knowledge I thought that's it I have to leave I have to go seek I have to go I have to get accepted I have to find a way out I have to find a way out I have to find a way out I have to find a way out because the teacher makes everything easy you understand it the teacher makes everything difficult that's going to be hard I've seen some of it that when they when they hear Arabic Arabic can't stand it just it's too much and then you tend to realize if you ask them it goes back to the way the teacher went through because well what we went through in the محاد in the industry in رياض and Arabic faculty was it depends the teacher some teachers will come to you and when they when they're when they're teaching the subject they stand it completely even grammar you know how grammar is in Arabic is really it's difficult yeah you get it you make you understand everything this is the grammar they screw about it's like that subject and then the semester after that you have another teacher makes everything difficult if you can forget this I'm giving up but the method that we used to have was what especially one teacher I really really liked when these we teach Arabic from the from the get-go in the محاد because his method was I'm not going to teach you no grammar we're going to take words every day we're going to take words and we're going to point it to the sentence and then we're going to start having conversations with the same words using the words so that's the best method I've seen for myself personally and people in my class that benefit from and at the end when you finish all that and we used to go in the which is the محاد was four levels so the first two levels if it depends every time you change the teachers so when I have that teacher he supports in groups we speak have conversations using the same words that we learned then after that gradually you'll teach us grammar grammar will come at the end so that's the best method I've seen personally and I've seen a lot of people when it comes to teaching Arabic a lot of people I've seen in the West especially when it comes to Arabic they start with grammar which is I disagree with you should start the person start with words in English for example when you're teaching a person in English you don't start with grammar no use them word in sentence day by day then you see them gradually learning and then after that you can speak with the grammar definitely I completely agree with you because I mean that's as you know I have an online program Arabic online program and that's what we focus on we focus on learning the language not learning you know aspects out of the language to understand the language which is like for example grammar and morphology and stuff like that so and I know for a fact that these how you learn a language because I you know I've learned French out of you know not me not being native at it I've learned English like right now I'm speaking in English I have learned English and I know what was the process of it I didn't go into I mean even right now if you asked me to be honest I couldn't even tell you nothing about nothing about grammar or anything like that you know I mean in terms of like in the Arabic language I mean in the English language so it's definitely learning vocabulary and learning how to communicate and this is what I tell my students because at the end of the day you you know if you learn Arabic for your Dean you want to learn you want to be able to read the books to go to the sheikh and ask him what does this mean and be able to understand the explanation in Arabic what he's trying to explain to you in Arabic and most of the time that doesn't have nothing to do with you knowing you know if you say كان محمد عالمان it doesn't have nothing to do with you knowing if this is more for you know yeah so definitely agree with you man so for how long did you study well how long was the program for Arabic it was it's 3 years but the 4 levels just take 2 years so there's another something called diploma which is after just extra but the main whole faculty the whole institute was 2 years so you didn't take the extra diploma no I didn't take it no what was your feelings throughout you know when you like in throughout those 3 years what was the feelings like feelings were it was mixed emotions feel like sometimes I want to give up I say I'm in a photo book so I say I'm done sometimes happy sometimes it was stress especially exam season so it was mixed feelings I can't say it was 24 7 go down 27 bad but it's seeking knowledge in general for you like you mentioned before the main thing for us to seek knowledge to learn Arabic is not just because it's for the sake of it the main thing is to learn our religion that's it what people think when it comes to Arabic only for Arabic for you to learn your religion and grow gradually and learn from the scholars and sit down with them like you mentioned go straight to them you have to learn Arabic or you're not to learn Arabic you're being a stranger in your religion definitely that's the main thing everything I'll message you it's called Arabic so you have to go you can't really read English books for the rest of your life okay while learning the Arabic language do you have aha moments and I don't know if you guys understand this term in the UK like aha moments for example for me it was like when we when we were studying and we learned الماضي المضارع والأمر how do you even use the أمر and then I understood the أمر how to use it and then I was praying once and I said اخفر لي اخفر لي and then I was like aha now everything makes sense because I have been saying رب اخفر لي all my life since I started practicing but I never knew what it was until I actually learned Arabic you know the tense of the أمر so do you have any kind of moment where you was like okay this meant this okay this meant that there were but that's a question I need to think about the answer for that there was but I'm literally disnowing my head now when I think about I'm sorry about that so what was the daily what was that you always had with you while learning the Arabic language daily books daily books in Arabic or in English if it was in English if it was in Arabic but you know for example for me at least I always had the the dictionary the Arabic dictionary and and my which is where I had all my all my words and verbs that I did memorize already that's why I couldn't go anywhere without those books in my bag in my bag the main books I used to have was translation always in English both sides and which is I used to have the the main books especially the writing books I used to have anything I used to for example I used to write it down so yeah that's the main books I used to have so if you were to rate your conversational skills from 1 to 10 without being humble what will you say Arabic is the language if you're not speak like using Arabic you're going to forget a lot of stuff I would say 8 so I mean with you I feel confident that we can I mean we can I mean we can I mean we can I mean we can إن شاء الله أسألك سؤال واحد بالعربية و تجب عليه إن شاء الله so ما ما نوع الفصل الذي كنت تفضل هل كان جماعي أو جماعي أو خاص و طبعا أظن أن أنكم ما كنتم تضرسون خاص لا ما كنتم نضرس خاص كنا خلال 20 طارب تقريبا كنا في الفصل أنا أفضل خاص بعض الأحيان عم مثال إذا لدينا إختبار يعني أراجع أفسي ثم أذهب إلى أستقائي و نراجع معهم فهذه الطريقة أفضل خاص من المؤمن طيب أخير إن شاء الله طيب أعتقد أنه أعلمات أخير في العلمات الأربية أعلمات أخير يجب أن يكون أخير يجب أن يكون أرمي يجب أن يكون أرمي يجب أن يكون أرمي نعم يجب أن يكون أعلمات أخير لكن كما قمت بأمور عندما تبدأ كذلك لا تفضل when you gradually pick up then you can go deep into it يجب أن يكون أرمي أرمي أمر وزيد حسنا كيف حقا لديك أعلمات الأربية و أعلمها في حياتك و كيف تفضل now كبير الحمد لله أستطيع أن أفضل كبير أفضل القرآن فقط أن أرمي كبير لديك أعلمات و أفضل قرآن و لديك أعلمات لديك أعلمات إلعبوا المستقبل كبير كبير كبير هل تريد أن أرمي أريد أن أبدأ now لا تريد أن تفضل فقط أفضل فقط أفضل now فأرمي نعم ، لذا this is actually the last question is what will you advise for the person that knows and acknowledges the importance of learning Arabic and he wants to learn but doesn't know you know where to start or just a general advice for anyone who is willing or wanting to to learn the Arabic language جرنال اضافيسه first make your attention clear for the sake of Allah that you want to learn Arabic so you can uplift the ignorance from yourself and to learn the religion of Allah سبحانه وتعالى and learn the way of a messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم I will say you know a lot of people when it comes to you learn Arabic and some people can leave the country and go ايجبت but some people can't so those that can't don't act like that I can't do nothing like I mentioned of course you're doing I'll definitely I'll definitely find courses online like you just mentioned you can say at home you can gradually like learn one to one with you I'll definitely definitely the internet these days you can learn a lot of stuff I know it's good and it's bad and it's good but there's so much good on the internet you can learn like from the roots even now even some schools they used to believe that going online and it's haram videos now they see big effect it has on people and then that said they tend to go back so definitely because you know that the thing that online can do has a big effect so I'll definitely recommend to find online courses that are convenient for you for your time and because a lot of people might be working and it's hard for you to go seek knowledge and some people even some but as I know personally they will love to seek knowledge but they have to look after the parents family to the oldest so I would say recommend your course 100% 110% yeah that's definitely I mean technology right now man it's crazy man I mean for myself and I will be honest when I started practicing it was only because of you remember roadside to Islam yeah it was a video I mean the stories for me coming from Spain where there is I mean we don't have communities like you guys have in the UK or you know in France in the US in Spain literally I still don't know a brother I still don't know a brother in Spain that I can that he can relate to me in terms of you know or scholars or whatever it may be it's super rare you know I mean so so technology I mean social media and stuff like this definitely you know and there's something that I was about to ask you as well if you don't if you if you see yourself maybe in the near future teaching online or you know benefiting people or yeah you know yeah definitely one of the main things I want to do just why not man why not but as Mr. Salah Salan said see it's a person when he leaves things consistent chariots it's beneficial knowledge man so I definitely definitely definitely would love to teach on Arabic online so in the near future I'm 100% Insha'Allah so would you like to to let people know where to find you if they would like to contact you or for what I want yeah on Instagram AbbasKadeef we're going to have Insha'Allah in the description Insha'Allah yeah on Instagram email so yeah mainly Instagram okay Insha'Allah so I mean we we we done with this with this interview man it was a it was a blessing having you on honor how are you today in here likewise everything good what are you doing keep up so guys all the viewers thank you for tuning in thank you for watching again if you guys would like to give us feedback or something that you didn't like or suggestion whatever you may be living in the comments below and tell us what do you think about learning Arabic in the journey and if you would like to as well jump in an interview just leave it in the comments contact me getting touch Insha'Allah والسلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته


Welcome to the First Unitarian Society. I'm Roz Woodward, one of the worst associates at FUS. I'm joined today by Drew Collins, Linda Warren, Heather Thorpe, Daniel Karnes, Stephen Gregorius, and the Lindbergh family who will lead our chalice lighting. Robin Chapman, Nancy Cross Dunham, Kathleen Ernst, Jeffrey Glover, Hannah Pinkleton, Claire Box, Patricia Stinger, Bobby Zaynor, Anne Schaffer, and Hannah Lee will share in today's reflection. We're so glad to have you join us this morning. Though not together here in our beloved meeting house, we remain tied together through bonds of community and affection. At FUS, we gather to grow our souls, connect with one another, and embody our UU values in our lives, our community, and our world. We have a special announcement this morning about our children's religious education program. Hi, I'm John Ryder. And I'm Terri Felton, and we've been teaching CRE classes at FUS for a number of years now. Yes, I taught mind, body, soul a few years ago and also exploring our origins. And then this year, I'm going to be teaching mind, body, soul again. And I've been basically following our daughter through starting with the kindergarten classes, kindergarten, first grade classes, second, third grade classes, and the fourth and fifth grade classes. And then this year, I'm going to be teaching Building Bridges, which is sixth grade class. So it's been really fun for me to teach for a number of reasons. One is it feels really good to know them, kind of giving back to our, to the First Unitarian Society and our faith community and helping volunteer and work with our kids. The kids are really fun because it's fun to watch them grow up during the year that we're working with them. And then also kind of following them later on and see what kind of really great people they're becoming. So I like being a part of that, helping grow our future leaders within our congregation. And basically same for me because I've really enjoyed watching the kids grow, especially since I've seen a lot of kids in the classes. Since I'm following my daughter, I've seen kids follow along with them. So I've watched a lot of these kids since they were, you know, six years old all the way now into going into sixth grade. So it's been fun to get to know these kids as they're growing up and learning with them and learning from them. And one of the things I love about teaching too is that I'm always learning something new. Every year I learn something new in the curriculum and some things that are just really fascinating that I never, ever knew about Unitarian Universalism or even just some history. There's a lot of history that you learn. And I know you learned a lot of science stuff when you did the- My high school class. Well, and also the- Oh, the exploring origins, which is, yeah. So it's great, you get to learn. Like while you're teaching, which is really cool. And Karen and Leslie make it really, really easy. The curriculum is right, is there for you. Like you don't have to really prepare anything other than read it and figure out what you're gonna do with it. But it's all there, all materials are there and you have co-teachers that you can work with. You're never doing it by yourself. And if you're in the team, so you've got basically four teachers for each class. So two teachers, you have basically two classes per month that you teach. And only one of them, you're really the lead teacher. The other one, you're basically the community lead, which means you're just kind of rounding up the kids and doing more of the community building stuff. And so you're really only in charge of like one lesson per month. So they make it really easy. Another part of that is it's a really good opportunity to get to know someone else in the congregation a lot better, make some new friends from being teachers in the class. And so I think that's another great part of it is being more involved in meeting new people. Yeah. And the volunteer dinner is super awesome. Like there's, it's catered. You get great food and there's beverages and you get to sign up for a massage. It's all free and it's awesome. Yeah. FUS really shows that they appreciate their teachers. So if you can join us to become teachers too, you can help out everybody in the congregation and you can get some good rewards from that, even if it's personal rewards, but also a really great dinner out of it, which is a really good time. And we're all cool people and you can be part of our club. Yeah. So hope you'll join us. That would be great, please do. We warmly invite you to join in the virtual coffee hour immediately after today's service. The information for that will be on your screen again after the postlude. I invite you now to take a few deep breaths to be present here together to bring ourselves fully into this time we share. In a remarkable nod to the future, Queen Elizabeth I of England assured access to the British countryside in perpetuity by ordering footpaths to be commonly held. Those same paths continue to snake through woods, fields, moors and bogs by royal decree. When the passage is blocked by a hedge or wall, a landowner is required to provide a way through or over and so there are styles. I love them as a child growing up and still do. As well as access to the next leg of a journey, they provide breathing room, a place to gain height, consider where one's been and force a pause before embarking on the path ahead. FUS has grown and changed in the last few years. Under the wise tutelage and guidance of our two interim ministers and the steadfast leadership of our beloved Kelly, well supported by the faithful staff and board, we've weathered some pretty stormy seas and made it through to welcome team Kelly. I believe we're better for the journey. The fact that pandemic was thrown into the mix was an extra challenge to an already taxing transition. We need to pause, take stock, lift ourselves a little higher, give ourselves space to grieve, to think about what might be left behind, what changes and what to carry into the future. This service is intended to be a metaphoric style. We've come to a pause where the past and future meet at a turning point. Who better to capture the substance of this moment than some of our resident poets? They were asked and they've literally stepped up to the podium. Our reflection today is a composite of those responses. So put a foot on the style, lift yourself up and think with them about what to leave, grieve, adjust to and welcome as we move ahead. I invite you now to light a chalice or a candle at your home as the Lindbergh family shares words of affirmation. We light this chalice to find inner peace, love for each other and faith in ourselves. Also to be welcoming to whomever we meet and kind to all living creatures. So gather around this light of hope as we share this time together. Please rise and body and our spirit to sing with me hymn number 300 with heart and mind. Book is called The Magical Yet. I never really thought about yet as a magic word, but this book changed my mind. It's by Angela D. Turleys and the art is by Lorena Alvarez. There are days when your dreams haven't come true or you're upset by the things you can't do. If you've lost or failed or cried just a bit, you're tired of waiting, ready to quit. Like that shiny new bike you couldn't ride and it didn't matter how hard you tried. You couldn't pedal and you couldn't steer and you couldn't get that bike into gear.  No way, not never, no riding for you. You'll walk forever. Don't give up now. There's a major game changer, a most amazing thought rearranger. Someone to show you how good you can get. Now introducing the magical yet. With this yet's magic, you can begin to see that you're going beyond where you've been. There are so many things that you've learned to do when you didn't know that yet was with you. Like when you babbled before you could talk or how you crawled before you could walk. Yet's a dreamer, a schemer, a hopper, a trier, a maker, a doer, a gotta get flyer. This yet finds a way even when you don't and yet knows you will even when you think you won't. Like that shiny new bike that you couldn't ride, hop right back on with the yet by your side. Yet doesn't mind warm ups, fixes and flops, do-overs, redo, stumbles and stops. Yet knows there's mistakes, some big and some small, with yet you're sure to get over them all, pay the kazoo or play the bassoon, jam with the yet and you'll soon be in tune. Try skateboarding tricks like the Ollie heel flip. This yet can get you to the championship. Tongue twisters twisted your tongue in a knot, yet says keep trying and practice a lot. Be patient, yet can't do all overnight. Some things take months or years to get right. But if you keep leaping, dreaming, wishing, waiting, learning, trying, missing, with the yet as your guide along the way, you'll do all the things you can't do today. Now you're bold or brave or starting to see with yet, you can get where you want to be.  You're not just riding, you're getting quite good. But don't stop now, you've got so much to do. The good news is that yet grows with you. So no matter how big or old you may get, you'll never outgrow, you'll never forget. You can always believe in the magic of yet, the end. I invite you into this time of giving and receiving where we give freely and generously. Your offering sustains and strengthens first unitarian society and our work in the world. You'll see on your screen that you can donate directly from our website, fussmedicine.org. You'll also see our text to give information there as well. We thank you for your generosity and your faith in this life we create together. I'm going to Chapman, happy to be among the poet's welcoming team Kelly to the first unitarian society. Reading my poem about Betty Graham, wife of the Unitarian minister in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where I grew up, the blue hat. Now, while so many of our daughters are dying because they are not thin or young or beautiful enough, it is the blue hat I want to explain, a royal blue fedora that I bought because I knew Betty, fashion coordinator of the town's largest department store who dressed in vogue magazine styles and feather boas in the middle of Tennessee Hills and denim-dressed Unitarian wives. Betty wept at the beauty of her husband Arthur Sermons and decorated her Christmas tree with red velvet ribbons and came to mom's funeral in a black humberg with chantilly lace drape and silk pajamas and a choker of crystals. Betty, who was the first to have watermelon placemats and real candles and a rod iron chandelier who looked me over as I swung my legs on the turquoise love suite and said to mother, what are we going to do with her? Betty told me I would be beautiful with the right clothes and a little older and gave me a cashmere sweater for college and false eyelashes for graduate school and said, sex was wonderful. And when a stroke shut Arthur down, except for a little roar he could make sometimes when he heard her voice on the phone, Betty believed that behind his immobile face and arms and legs, his mind raced on, got 24 hour a day care and a hospital bed, played McNeil Lair news and his favorite videos every evening, wearing her best red negligee to climb in bed with him for an hour or two. Tell him about her day, the way she'd chat with her friends at work about what Arthur had thought of the last foreign film or the latest political news. For seven years before he died, this blue hat honors Betty. What I'm learning about grief, Nancy Cross Dunham. What I'm learning about grief is that it need not be a heavy gray shawl to wrap myself in, clutching my arms tightly across my chest, nor need it be a granite rock that I should try to push away. Neither is it at least no longer a vast dark ocean ready to pick me up and slam me down without warning. What I'm learning about grief is that it is not me but that it offers to become a friend. A friend who will lightly lay a hand on my shoulder when tears come in the dark.  A friend who can still hear the music of our life. What I'm learning about grief is that this friend doesn't intend to leave me, but promises to hold my hand to carry my memories. A friend who will bear witness to my love as I venture toward the next day and the following night. Good morning, my name is Kathleen Ernst and I'd like to share with you a poem from my collection Balancing, which is about 19th century immigrant women. Facing forward, in the old world, Amal muttered prayers over trenches of Ludovisk peered at the sky and sniffed the air to decide when to plant potatoes, counted coins before Birgit shopped. She tended her hearth as she'd been raised to do, an endless chain of chores and worn-fingered women doing them. In the old world, when the hungry time came, rye crop blackened with rust, children whimpering, Amal said, we will go. Birgit wept to leave her mother and sisters, lefts and cod, smoke-stained village, mossy gravestones, all she knew. In the new world, walking west, Birgit bore weight, an unborn child in front, toddler on her hip, worry. When the oxen foundered, she nodded her mother's kale seeds and candlesticks into the shawl tied over one shoulder and hefted the rifle, too. But in the new world, Birgit walked with a step lighter than heels rubbed raw, feet on fire, muscles ache, sunburned skin. She walked toward the prairie, the unexpected promise of possibility, new grace in her heart, a life not defined before her wedding day. While Amal trudged behind, dragging an anvil of gnawing doubt and fear, missing his father, looking over his shoulder, but looking forward, too, toward the woman he once knew, wondering what he'd lost and how she came to find it. Feeling change, surprising in spring to see winter aconite trade places with snowdrops. How plants change without my knowing, without help or thought from me. The sun rises over the lake, north of Pine on Mid Isle. Arcing south to Birch, near Eagle Point, as day, light moves long to short. Chubby newborn fingers reach out, touch, feel, explore. Years later, sinewy hands create poetry, music, memoir. As an octogenarian, time changes. Fashionable footwear becomes functional. Bike trips gear down to walks. Ahead it seems nearer, sooner, closer, still there is time. Plant a sapling oak that will grow, change for someone without my knowing, without any thought of me. Claire Box, who wrote this next poem, is recovering from a recent move into a new apartment and a broken ankle. She asked me to read it for her. I don't know by Claire Box. A short trip from Boston to Provincetown, so often made in those twin engine, to solo piloted planes. So often I thought I knew when we would arrive what the weather would be like. So often a 20 minute flight. And today I asked to sit next to the pilot. He says it's so boring to be a passenger, much better to fly. Years of wanting to sit next to him where I could grab control. At minute 11, we enter the fog. And I don't know what is one inch in front of me surrounded in that thick white. I don't know if there will be another plane ahead, although the radar indicates not. I don't know where this will end, or if it will end, or if we'll fall into nothingness. The thrill of not knowing or the tedium of thinking I know. I shout, I don't know. And it becomes even more thrilling. I don't know if we'll land. I don't know if I can finish this line. I don't know what is beyond this fog. I don't know if Alice will be waiting, smiling with hugs. I don't know. As the blinding white yields, and then the spit dunes and the tower of Provincetown become visible. But it's so important, so important that I want to climb back up into the pure white truth of I don't know. Patricia Stinger. This poem, Basho's Pond, draws inspiration from a famous haiku by the renowned 17th century Japanese poet, Basho. Here's the haiku. Old pond, a frog jumps in, the sound of water. Basho's pond. Beyond the abandoned prairie, old forest surrounds a glacier formed pond. Green darner dragonflies skim past a bed of reeds. On a half submerged log, a frog croaks, breaking the ancient stillness. Then jumps with a splash, sending ripples in widening circles. A tufted titmouse, the voice of spring, with insistent sound calls out. Then silence, the deep silence of all that lies hidden at the edge of the water. Together may we approach the mysteries, the sunlight, the shadow, listening, attentive to what may emerge. A poem for First Unitarian Society entitled New Beginnings by Jeff Glover. New beginnings come what may happen nearly every day. Opportunities appear, holding goodness, rarely fear, that encourage us to stay well refreshed and on the way to a future bright and near where we'll see and often hear new things coming to our lives that open us and may surprise for an ever better day that speaks with confidence to say, forward, enter times with grace, full of promise, many ways. The open door from the summer of 2018. May I go inside with you or must I stay in the car? Stay in the car comes the teenager's quick retort. Darn, why did I even give him a choice? Oh, sorry, I'm going in, it's too hot out here. I'll sit in the corner, no one will even know I'm there. His eyeballs roll, I leg behind him into the shop. No corner, only a row of folding chairs behind four skilled barbers. Snipping, sponging, spritzing, my curiosity percolates in this hallowed space. Male clients of varied ages sit before a mirrored wall. I slept down, leaving two empty seats between us. Next barber up beckons him. Be cool, look away. Toddler with a fade stud sparkling in one ear slides off a leather throne, gambles over and climbs up into my lap. Much like my distant teenager did not so very long ago. Barber finishes way too soon, nods and smiles at me. Does he sense my pleasure? I didn't stay in the car. The door opens, we walk through it. The driving range, thunk, thwap, colump, whirly gig of clubs, arcing, circling. Hope is the mantra of the swingers. Hope for a solid hit, for a straight shot, for a long distance. Hope that when the little ball lost through the air, it will take the soul with it. Soaring into the clean air, soul and ball. Kabam, whoosh, thwump, whirly gig of clubs, arcing and wheeling. Hope's for a low score, few putts, no lost balls. Hope's for a cleansing, a releasing, a studying, a gathering of hopers, a Sunday afternoon in the sun, souls and balls. Kabam, thunk, swingers seeking focus, a moment of perfect connection, a mantra of hope. All the experiences that heal and harm that impact us and those we love. We share them here, knowing this community holds all that is in our lives in love. This week, we light a candle for Alyssa Ryanjoy and her family. Her grandmother Rosemary died a few weeks ago. Grandma Rosemary married Alyssa's grandfather and her grandmother, after her grandmother passed away when Alyssa was four years old. She shared her generous heart with all seven of her grandfather's children and 17 grandchildren. We light a last candle, representing the cares of the congregation that remain unspoken. Amen and blessed be. At this turning, here now, we come to an end and a beginning, cycles, phases in our growth, markers of our being, deposited in us like the rings of a tree, to be read into the story of our life together around whatever hearth or campfire gathers us, reminding us of all the ways in which we belong to one another. We honor whatever was lost in our passage and celebrate joyfully what we have gained, how our long journey has ripened us. We recommit to our dreams and their work and greet what is being born with hearts opened by what has gone before. In praise that it is so. The benediction is by Eric Williams. Blessed is the path on which you travel. Blessed is the body that carries you upon it. Blessed is your heart that has heard the call. Blessed is your mind that discerns the way. Blessed is the gift that you will receive by going. Truly blessed is the gift that you will become on the journey. May you go forth in peace.


how's everything going into peer guys? It's the peerless. Nice. I'm excited for our next session. I'll bring us back on track as always. Yes. Today we're going to be doing a deeper dive, or not today, right now we're going to be doing a deeper dive into WHM, the C-Panel server. Yeah. C-Panel server is fun because that's actually where everything lives, I guess. Can you take us deeper? Well, I guess. So what you're looking at right now is, as we said, the server. So that's where all of the accounts live. That's where all the settings for the C-Panels are controlled. We're going to go into that. And it's a really useful space to just get an overview of account statistics for a particular account, but also to make sure that everything is aligned, I would say, on a per-account basis. For those of you who have had domains for a while, this will actually look a bit different. And that's because WHM C-Panel has just changed the theme. So just know that that is something we are tracking and aware of. But as always, you can keep that search bar in your back pocket. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff over on the left-hand menu. But the search bar is generally the way that we recommend to go. You're not going to need most of the tools on the left-hand bar. So just searching for what you need is going to get you there probably faster than trying to navigate back and forth. I would say, though, that we should start with list accounts. List accounts is probably the single most useful page in all of WHM, because it is exactly what it says it is. It's a list of all of these C-Panel accounts. I do want to make a differentiation here between the number of users that you have and the number of C-Panel accounts that you have. So in WordPress, in WHMCS, you'll see a list of everybody who's ever signed in by a single sign-on. That's not what this is. This is everybody who has a C-Panel account. In the WordPress session, we talked about how you get that, how you go through the actual account creation process. These are people who've done that. Right. So then when we say you have up to 500 accounts in your domain of one's own setup, we're really just looking at that number, how many C-Panel accounts you have, not how many people have interacted with your system. In fact, we recommend keeping those records in WordPress and WHMCS around, but this is the only number that we're focused on keeping curated over time. I do want to note that terminated accounts are taken off the server. They don't no longer count towards that number. The number goes down if you terminate an account. If you suspend an account, it's not gone because you might want to unsuspend it at some point in the future. So that still counts towards the number, and you see those suspended accounts are highlighted in red. We're going to pop into I Love Domains, which you may remember from the WordPress session, just to see exactly what WHM can tell us about an account.  So we talked about how signing in through WordPress, switching to the user can get you sort of an on-the-ground look at what a user is actually experiencing. Signing in as an admin gives you so much power. IP address, the username for the account, contact, email, the day it was created, where it lives, and quota, disk usage, and package. Let's look at those. We may also touch on the theme paper lantern quickly. So the quota is up to how much space an account is allowed to use on the server. So this account could use up to 500 megabytes at a time. It's not. It's using 67 megabytes because we installed a WordPress site and not 10 WordPress sites. But sometimes you get accounts that are a little bit heavy hitters. People who are doing archival work who need to store a bit more stuff on their account. And there you can go in and you can change the quota. Lauren's opened up the little menu that lets you change the password, the contact email, things like that. Changing the quota says, all right, your maximum is no longer 500 or 1,000 or no longer 500 megabytes or a gigabyte, 2 gigabytes, whatever you have as the default. We're going to turn that to a higher number. So yeah, we're going to give about 2 gigabytes. And that means that that user now has lots more space to play with. So if you wanted to install, I don't even know how many times 67 goes into 2,000, a lot of WordPress sites, just so many for some reason. Empty ones. Now you can do that. But 30 times 30 times. That's that's I have to be useful, you know, yeah, but you always are. But, you know, sometimes you just generally have a group of users that need a little more space. So maybe your faculty, you're expected to be putting a little bit more onto their accounts than the students are. You don't really want to go in and modify the account for every faculty member individually every single time. And that's usually where packages come in. So you see that package WordPress in the class in the classroom. And that's what we call it on this server, your packages may be named something a little bit different. But what you can do is you can set up a particular package and say everybody who whose account comes with this package comes with these default settings. So the faculty package may have five gigabytes of space, whereas the student package only has one or something like that. And you, Laura. Oh, I was going to say that. Yeah, that's a great point. That's where we can really start to determine or set up different versions of cPanel, right? So not only can we talk about the different functions in cPanel and tweak those on a per package basis, we can do that for applications. And then we can also do that for just the cPanel account itself. So disc quota, FTP accounts, bandwidths, whether or not they can have subdomains or add on domains, obviously, because this is a demo school, we have a really kind of limited version of cPanel that's available to users. On your end, you might see something a bit different. I will say in terms of disk space, we kind of recommend that you don't set unlimited disk space because you'll have a couple heavy hitters that will eat into server resources. So even if you want to give the idea that they have unlimited storage and give a larger amount, still set a quota here, I think that will benefit you in the long term. And try to keep that as unified as possible. It'll be a good kind of like alarm bell when you find that they're, oh, they're using 5 gigs or 10 gigs, even if that's quite a bit more than everyone else, you can at least go, hey, something's up here, and maybe we need to look at the account. And they'll get automatic email notifications that say, hey, you're at 75%. You're at 80%.  That's what the email says. It's weird. This is like step before rehab. This is your warning, clean up your act. So anyway, you can go through here. You can change the package name. Again, like Pilots said, WordPress in the classroom is something very specific for this demo school, but you can have a student versus faculty or advanced versus beginner. And we find that this is a really helpful way of distinguishing two types of experiences in C-Panel, as opposed to just making a lot of one-off changes, because three years down the road, you know, that's going to be a lot to keep track of and maintain. And we find that if you just have two or three different tiers of domains, that's a much more manageable way of administering it long term. So just something to keep in mind, you can always check to see what package a user has, you know, directly from that list accounts. You can see by default, everyone's given the WordPress in a classroom package. So I could very quickly, you know, switch someone's package by modifying their, it's actually called a plan here, which is so weird. I've always thought that's so strange for WHM to call it two separate things in the same window, but you could change someone's package from WordPress in the classroom to advanced, for example. If I wanted to edit the package more directly, I could search edit package, and that will pop up right here. So I'm going to click edit package, go back to that WordPress in the classroom, and that will take me back to that window where we just were. So you could make changes to an existing package. I could also add a new package. And this is something that Reclaim can help you with. So that's kind of a good rule of thumb for WHM anyway. We give you the keys to the kingdom, but in fact, we would recommend that you work with us and just let us know what you're thinking about and what you're hoping for, and we can help you set these up, you know. So don't feel like you have to be in the server doing a lot of work, you know, most of your work will happen in WordPress anyway. So for now, this is one of the places where you would make changes. You can also update the feature list that's associated with a given package. So I'm going to view the default feature list here. It's associated with feature manager, so if I searched that in the search bar, that's what I would see. And this is where I would make changes to the cPanel icons that are available to users. So I could come into the search bar, search email, and go in and start turning off email associated icons. There are more available that aren't called email like auto. There's a couple, I think box trapper, for example. There's a couple. So for instance, if you want to turn off the email section, just let us know we can take care of that for you, but this is where you would make those changes. So just going into feature manager, choosing the feature list that you want to edit that's associated with a certain package and doing that there. The other thing you can do actually is edit the types of installatron applications that are available to each package. And I know we're talking about different tiers here. I have this all documented. We'll make sure to put it in Discord for you. But if I come to access control here, you can see this group section at the top, and I can actually create different groups of applications and then assign groups to certain cPanel. So I have this really easy way to, you know, configure each of those tiers for a given cPanel. And access control is where we would check those boxes for the applications that are available to end users. One of the interesting ways this is used in practice is, for example, UNLV, they will have it so that when a user logs in, they basically have a completely stripped down cPanel with only access to the file manager and WordPress. And then you can continue to un, you know, how would you say peel the onion so you can give people more complicated things? I mean, it's a matter of building up packages based on what you expect your community to be using and how you want them to use it. The thing is, is it's not automatically mappable. So some of that will be you changing the package for specific people should you choose or a whole group of people. So keep that in mind. But it's powerful. Yeah. So, Jen, while you were talking, I pulled up this screenshot of a very stripped down cPanel so you can see, you know, there it is possible to do that if you're just wanting to provide access to just WordPress, for example, that's something that we can set up absolutely. What else? I'm trying to think here about, you know, what else we could touch on paper lantern, but if there's something a little bit closer to hand, well, maybe an install Tron show them where they can set some of those settings that when you're in WordPress or something else, like do backups, like, you know, do I want to automatically update all plugins, all themes, you know, latest version of WordPress, etc. Yeah, that takes place in install Tron. Again, you would just search it here in install Tron. If I can spell it correctly, install Tron applications installer. That's where we're going here, the editor window for install Tron. And I go to features and you can see all of those settings that exist here. So for instance, when someone is going to install an application, do we want to prioritize the www version of that domain or do we want to provide it, you know, or do we want to, you know, let folks decide between HTTPS and HTTP. Honestly, I can't, you know, I wish I kind of like the idea of just disabling HTTP, but I know that can bring about a whole other set of troubleshooting problems. So we do keep both there. You can scroll down here and say, you know, when do we sending emails to folks by default from install Tron? You know, do we want to give the option for folks to enable WordPress multi site, things like that, that all happens here. But again, as before, if there are certain settings that you want to remove, just let us know and we can help. The other thing that I think is really cool about install Tron is you have the ability to see the applications that are installed on the server outside of the accounts that they're in. So we're in a demo school right now. So you can see a lot of those have been suspended or, you know, or just sort of exploratory sites. But I love that you can go through and see, okay, how popular is Omeka right now on our demo school? And I can see some of those that exist on the server, a whopping seven applications out of 170. So it kind of gives you a sense of those ratios early on, too. It's interesting here, too, because you mentioned this a bit. But if you look at the featured applications in community building, again, you can remove many of these applications if you want to strip down just even the offering with an install Tron of what people see. A lot of people say, you know what, we don't want e-commerce applications as part of our rollout. So there is a way for us to remove entire swaths of applications from install Tron should you need to. So just let us know. They are all related, aren't they, Lauren, between like changing the package, adjusting the features, and then making sure install Tron can reflect that pretty well. There is a kind of like a process where they're all related. So again, if you have questions about that reach out to us, we can help you navigate that, but also know that you can have applications that only start and are afforded to a few people, not to mention spots applications and some other custom stuff we do. Yeah, it's kind of always a really dependent on exactly what your school's objective around bringing this on is. There are definitely folks who want those applications there just so people can get familiar with what's even possible, even if they don't use all of it or none of it or most of it, but it's also a lot of things to look at and be totally not can be is, I think, if you're new to it, just really overwhelming when you're first starting. So there's definitely more than one way to look at that. And that usually is wrapped up in support conversations too, where we say, okay, what are we willing to offer versus what are we willing to support? And I think those two can be separate answers. I've seen some domain schools that will say, we're going to give you access to everything, but know that we're only going to support WordPress, Omega, Drupal, and Scalar. And that's it. And we have to make our own choices like that, even with reclaim hosting, because there's no way that you can be an expert in every application. So I think that's a really good point. And I think when people come to us, one of the things they ask is, how do we communicate to our community what we're expected to support and what we are? Well, if you have that question and you're afraid that someone's going to install like Nuke PHP, which hasn't been updated, I think, for a long time, I believe, it may just be like, we're going to leave that one out, or we're going to leave swaths of the mountain, keeping the ones we're comfortable with. So again, a case by case basis. But given that we have a little bit more time for this session, I wouldn't mind getting back into WHM and just showing you a couple of options you can do right from that list bar on a particular account, which I think is quite slick. So if you go into WHM, and you go into I love domains, for example, which, you know, back to that list tool, that's where you'll spend most of your time if you're ever in WHM, and that could be a big if. But if I go to I love domains, you'll notice next to it, there's a plus button. And that plus button has some actual functionality that we will see again in WHM CS. And you'll see it will say, change quota, change plan, modify account, also terminate account. There's also a place where you can decide to suspend or unsuspend the account and leave a little message. Well, those functions are actually also available to you in WHM CS. And one of the things we'll repeat again in that session is, you know, before you terminate an account, or suspend an account here in WHM, it might make sense to do that from WHM CS, because it reinforces something we already mentioned in the first session was basically that's a really good accounting and log of everything you've done in WHM. WHM CS keeps a sophisticated log. So you have those same functions from WHM CS. And I would recommend actually early use WHM CS to do stuff like suspend, terminate, or other kind of functions that might have a long term tail that you want to refer back to and say, Oh, did we suspend this? Or Oh, did we terminate this? Yes. That's a great point, because I think I love that you have the option to do that here in a pinch. But, you know, we'll show WHM CS and best practices where you should do everything there first to keep the record book.  I also it is worth noting that this C panel icon, I think Pilot mentioned it earlier too, will take you directly into the C panel account for a given school. So if you're not school for a given user. So if you happen to be here and want to pop into their C panel account quickly to see, you know, what apps they've installed, great, but just know that this is not the version that the user sees. And I'll be honest, when I first joined Reclaim and was looking at WHM for the first time, I didn't even know that this could take you into the C panel. So it took me like years to learn that it's embarrassing actually. I love that it's a it's a column called C panel and every like if you're not looking at one account like we are, it's just the same logo over and over again. Who designed this? How does that make sense? And it's interesting too, because some of the things you can do in WHM, you actually can't do in WHM CS, for example, you can't change quota in WHM CS, but you can in WHM. So keep that in mind. If you ever want to do a one off change of a quota for a faculty who went over as Pilot addressed brilliantly goes over the 500 megabyte mark, you can only do that in WHM on a case by case basis or by using the packages. So, you know, but the packages you can do inside of WHM CS. So yeah, you can basically determine what packages you want to have here and then you're able to tweak that in WHM CS. So yeah, once you have domains set up and configured the way that you want it, once you have C panel looking the way that you want it, the need to come in here is becomes less and less because you can suspend and terminate in WHM CS. You know, you can change the look and feel of C panel from WHM CS in that way, and you have your record there as well. So, you know, you don't really need to be in here as often as you think, but we of course want to make sure you have, you know, the resources available to you to make changes and be in here as you need it. Yeah, I find that WHM in general is more the layer of reclaim. Should something go wrong with your server? Should we need to, you know, look at something with DNS or refresh that? We'll often spend our time in WHM, whereas a lot of the work you do, even just long term for record keeping and account management, might be useful to learn and get a sense when we talk about WHM CS, but the two are directly related. And the last thing I'll say here, just as we're leaving or before we wrap at the very bottom of the list accounts page, you have that download all records to a CSB file. So, you have a really nice way to grab a list of C panel accounts, which is awesome. Reclaim can also provide this list for you at your request. So, know that that's possible, and we'll talk about last login scripts and things later on when we talk about analytics and assessment. But for now, if there are any questions about WHM, like I said, we'll put some stuff in Discord, different documentation and resources available. But if you have any questions, just list them in Discord now. And we'll also have time for Q&A, of course, later today too. Great. Yeah. WHM full life.


Well, hello and welcome to the official AFC Bournemouth podcast coming to you, as ever, from Vitality Stadium. Now our job here is to bring you closer to some of the personalities connected to the club throughout the course of the season or the off-season in this case. Now for those of you who haven't listened before, my name is Zoe Rundle and I'm part of the media team here at AFC Bournemouth. As ever, I'm of course joined by my colleague Neil Parrott, who's been covering the cherries for over 30 years and continues to be a fountain of AFC Bournemouth knowledge. Neil, we're in the middle of the summer break. Not much has been going on, has it? I'm fairly quiet, actually. Zoe has, as per normal during the summer, just the change of her head coach, England losing the first Ashes Test match pre-season and just about to start, so it's all been going on. Well, it's going to be really, really exciting over the next few months and the season ahead and we've got a really exciting guest here today. I've got no doubt there's going to be a lot of laughter over the course of the next hour because this guest lives and breathes the cherries. She's been a core player for the women's team ever since 2017 and she's a huge part of the club. Now without further ado, we're delighted to welcome Katie Scadding onto the official AFC Bournemouth podcast. Katie, it's great to see you. It's great to have you here. Tell us how have you been? How's your summer going? Yeah, it's been good. It's been a nice deserved break. It's quite a long season but it's even better that the sun's shining and we've managed to have some well-deserved time off. Just tell us about that sun shining because, first of all, you look very, very tanned. Where have you been? Yeah, so I've been living it up in Spain and Portugal for three weeks, playing beat soccer. So the off season, try and make the most of it and play the sport that I love that is still football but not on grass on sand. So just tell us a little bit about where you've been and what you were doing and how it all panned out over there. Yeah, so I'll go out there and play for one of the Spanish teams who play in the Spanish League. So they have three sections that they call phases. So the first phase was in a place called Rosas. So we were there for three to four days, then head down to Cacarés and then the third phase isn't until July, so hopefully go back out there and fingers crossed we'll finish in the top four, currently sitting third. So yeah, it's a great experience all around.  Tell us about that. Yeah, so it takes me back a while. I think it was my first season within the women's game and it was in a cup final and the game was neck to neck. We were playing money fields and I'd come out for a 1v1 and knew something bad had happened but didn't believe that I'd broke my wrist and just thought I'll be all right and carried on playing. Just kept asking the ref how long was left knowing that I was in quite a lot of pain but I think there was about eight minutes and just the excitement of being in a cup final just got me through it and luckily we won so it was worth every minute. You've also got a Wembley appearance on your CV. Tell us about that one. Yeah, so that goes back right to the start from when I can remember being at this club. I was at Broadstone Middle and we were in the school's competition and the final was at Wembley and we played a school from up north that had never even heard of the area that they were from and we beat them in the final 1-0 and that was the start of it really. I think that was the first time I put on a ball and a shirt as a player and haven't looked back since. What was the experience like of playing at Wembley? Did they make it two or three pitches on the main pitch? So we just had one seven aside pitch sort of in the middle and our parents and close friends were sat in the executive area. So it was just surreal even being surrounded by that many seats. They weren't filled up but it was still a great day out and at the end obviously we won. So walking up the stairs and lifting the trophy was unbelievable and one that I remember every year. We played, it was in May and I still come May every year and I look back and I can remember those special moments. Now another very special moment for you. You've got a European Championship winners medal. Just tell us about that. Yeah, so again goes back to Beach Shocker. It was my first tour to be selected to go away and just the experience was incredible. I didn't play that tour but just to be around it and have the experience of being in a different country and obviously in a competition that is quite big and known. So yeah it was just really good and I'm grateful for the opportunities that football brings whether it's on the grass or the sun. Now away from the pitch you're also a coach with the Community Sports Trust. Just tell us a little bit more about you know how you're working week looks because that obviously involves a lot of weekend work, evening work that sort of thing. Yeah so work full time for the community and have been there a while and I started as a little 16 year old girl on an apprenticeship and yeah I've just gone up since and worked my way into full time and you know different sessions every day. Like no day looks the same and really enjoy it. Seeing the smiles on the kids faces when we come into their school just makes their day and I remember when the community used to come into my middle school and they'd bring power strike down and things like that that you just will always remember as your school members. I remember I think my first year here was also your first year as an apprentice. I remember coming to a school with you and Steph Small another one of our AFC Bournemouth women goalkeepers and it was great to see you know you girls out there engaging with the local community. How much do you feel you've grown as a person and your confidence has been boosted in the last sort of six seven years? Yeah definitely I think some people won't believe it but I'm matured as a person off the pitch massively but even on the pitch and I think it's just down to the experiences that the club's given me. But yeah I love what I do and hopefully continue to do it forever. You were named the PFA community champion for AFC Bournemouth in 2021-22 that must have been a great honour and testament to the work that you do. Yeah definitely I didn't expect it at all I don't I wasn't even sure that I knew the award existed especially not at our level but you know to be noticed and of the work that I'm putting off the pitch and on the pitch for the community it's nice to get something back but it's not the reason to do it it's the reason you do it is because of the love and enjoyment of it so to be recognised just means that a little bit more.  Yeah definitely to look back from when I started at an under 16 to now regularly playing in the first team I think it just goes down to the connection that the club and the community have and it just has evolved each year there's always something exciting going on and whether that's in the plans or not it just keeps going and there's always something to look forward to. Just to give people a flavour of what you do you are here now doing this podcast between sessions so tell us what you've done this morning and what you're doing this afternoon so people know. Yeah so like I said every day just looks different this morning we had a group from kinsen primary come in and they're all young carers so outside of their school life they've got it tough at home and they just came in to have a little break and we gave them a tour of the stadium which they're really appreciative of and then obviously what we all love doing is getting out on the grass and playing some football and then I've got a little break now which obviously brought me here to the podcast and then head off to lily put after school club to teach the kids football in year two so yeah. Brilliant now we're just talking about how the setup has evolved what about the facilities can I remember sort of first team players talking about you know that when they used to train at chapel gate and places like that and now we're looking at a state of the art training ground being built nearby what what can you remember about the facilities when you sort of first came in? Yeah definitely so when I first started we didn't really have a base we were just training we trained at the stadium we trained at campford magna on the 3g and our games just used to be sort of here and there but obviously especially this season we've been more based at the club and we've had more opportunities and just to be at ringwood where the community and currently the women's team are based it just shows that the way it's going of even being thought of to have that facility and be able to play at the same place every week. And now you're in the national league which is the fourth tier of the women's game and you finished fourth in your league last season a lot of really young players were given their debuts that must have been a really encouraging sign for the future. Yeah definitely I think it just goes to show of the pathway that we have here and that the credit to the club and to steve of of what they've developed here but yeah credit to them as well you can't just walk into the first team you've got to work hard and I think they've done that since they joined the club so they deserved it and I think it would be a good step in stone for their careers. When I say young players there's the rule that they're not allowed to play until their 16th birthday in the first team I think that's what I know that's right so when I say young players I'm talking about 16 17 I mean you're only 21 you must feel like a veteran. Yeah I do joke around that how I've become one of the so as they say senior players I still don't believe it I think I'll get on better with the 16 year olds I definitely feel a lot older I think it's good to have that balance in the team of the younger ones and the older ones that are more experienced and I've just sort of been sat in the middle but it's been quite nice to be recognised as one of the senior players and I think that just goes down to the club and how long I've been here and that could be some of the 16 year olds in a few years down the line. Now you captained the team a couple of times last season that must have made you feel incredibly proud. Yeah I think it's one of those that you don't really look into but come the day when Steve says you're going to be the captain for that game and stuff like that it's just nice to be recognised especially when the club means that little bit more to you know does make you look back and appreciate of what you've done and where you've come from but I think whether you've got the captain's armband or not everyone has different roles and responsibilities and to be that team leader on and off the pitch is just nice. Now am I right in thinking that you went to the same school with Kelly Fripp, Caitlin Elliott and Wally Gadwell? Yeah correct so I went to Corfields school. That's amazing I mean you know to have four girls from the same school all in the local area as well playing for the same team you know representing AFC Bournemouth what an accolade that is. Yeah definitely Kelly was the year above me but I don't really remember coming across each other at school and obviously Caitlin and Molly are there or they're just finishing from there so yeah I actually didn't know that Molly was there until the other week when we would just happen to talk about schools and she said and both of us were a bit shell shocked that we had been at the same school and some of the teachers are still there just shows of how like a small and close place Bournemouth is. Now in the league this season it was a tussle between Cardiff City and Exeter for that one promotion spot Cardiff got it in the end but would you like to sort of see a second promotion spot be given in the division because it's so competitive there's so many good teams and to be fighting for one space is is tough. Yeah I think it's definitely tough and I know there's been a few things on social media and the leagues have been talking about it to try and change that. For us last year we finished second and for only one team to go up it's heart breaking really for all of the work that you've done for the season and knowing there's only a ward if you get to the top but even more so you look at Exeter this year and they finish on the same points as Cardiff but just to miss out on goal difference I think just to keep the women's game growing it just needs to be two up and two down just to keep the leagues flowing but there's definitely a good competition in it and hopefully soon it might be that two can go up into the next league. You're mentioning that year that we finished second I mean in the end it came down to that one game against Cheltenham really at the end of the season that it was neck and neck and to define a league on on one game is you know after such a long season you have two teams that are out performing the rest it's it's tough to take isn't it? Yes definitely harder to take when you know it's down to one game and you can feel the pressure but you also know that the other result needs to go your way and sometimes the luck of the draw doesn't but you know we've all still got that goal in mind and hopefully this year will be the year that we can push on and keep developing. Now you've just answered my next question actually you've got three new teams joining the division this year Bridgewater, Abingdon and Torquay so what are your hopes for the season? Yeah definitely I think we've all got the same ambition us players to the coaches and the club we want to thrive and keep pushing on as much as we can and I think the new teams coming into it just makes it a little bit more exciting. We've come across Bridgewater before in pre-season friendlies I think we've played Torquay a while back when I first started within the women's team and then Abingdon as well we've played them within the southern region so I think it again just brings good competition and hopefully we can stick to our goal and get that completed. Your boss Steve Kuss is old club Torquay as well so I'm sure he'll be looking forward to a trip down there. Yeah definitely I know that club means a lot to him and it obviously was the start of his career but I know deep down that he'll want us to beat them and hopefully that we can give him that result. Now I know you're very modest and you said that you didn't really want to talk about the Hampshire Senior Cup final but we're going to have to because it's very a big chapter of your last season. For anybody listening who doesn't know what happened Katie saved three penalties during a penalty shootout win against Southampton in the final Fratton Park and she scored one herself. Let's ask you about the 90 minutes first was one one a fair reflection? Yeah I think so you know is a team that we hadn't come across before so we knew it was going to be a tough challenge but we were also excited for it. I think the first 20 minutes we won our best and knew that we were going to have to graph to get the result and we went one nil down and I think it just shows what we have as a team to mentally battle and to just keep working to get that result and the game finished one one and we all knew that there was no extra time and it was straight to penalties and yeah. Now you nearly saved the first two penalties in that shootout getting a hand to the first and powering the second into the reef of the net. Being ultra critical should you have done better with either of those? Yeah definitely I've watched the videos back a few times and I was so annoyed but I try not to look back because on the day we got the result but had it gone the other way thing I would have continued to beat myself off about it. Now after your first save you then took your penalty before taking it am I right in thinking you poached your tongue out with someone? Yeah I think someone had given me a signal in the crowd and I just thought I've got to play along with it here don't let it get into the head and just gave them a bit of a look and gave them the tongue. Did they react? I think they just laughed and just sort of looked at me like what was I doing but it all worked out well. Now did you volunteer to take that penalty after the 90 minutes or had you kind of pre-planned who was going to take them before before the game? Yeah I think it's um we had trained on the Sunday before and the game was on a Tuesday night so we had had a few penalties just in training um and then come the end of the night minutes Steve had his list of people that wanted to take it and there was a few that didn't want to go in the first five and obviously being well as they say so one of those senior players I felt like had to step up and um first second and third had been taken and everyone sort of just looked gormously at fourth so I took took it forth and luckily connected with it well and it hit the back of the net. Now it went to eight eight what was going through your mind when you walked into the net when it was eight eight with that knife pen well it wasn't the knife penalty because you'd already saved a couple but what was it like what was going through your mind when that person stepped up to take that final penalty? Yeah to be honest I hadn't I'd lost track really of what was going on there had to keep off skin the referee um sort of what was happening now and I know that we had scored and that if they missed it would be game over because it was sudden death and the player that um stepped up was my teammate at Bournemouth under 16 so um I know that she was gutted and messaged me after but to save the penalty I think gave me sigh of relief for everyone um also knowing that if they'd scored that one we would have had to go back to the start and um I think it was KJ who would have had to step up again so I'm glad we just did one round and not two. For anybody listening who hasn't seen the penalty shootout log on to afcb.co.uk because it is fantastic and I've got to ask you really high quality penalties from both teams? Yeah definitely I think when there's 17 penalties and not one individual missed the target just is you couldn't really write it and some of the penalties that hit the back of the net from us and from the other teams were great strikes and penalties is never a nice way to go out of the competition but when you win it it means that a little bit more. Just given name check to the people who scored it was you Katie James, Molly Clark, Helen Blizzard, Maisie Smith, Kelly Fripp, Caitlin Elliott, Molly Gladwell and Lucy Cooper all scored how did the celebrations go that night? Yeah definitely they didn't go as wild as probably some people thought you know we had work the next day I think some of the girls even had an exam for their GCSEs so they were short and sweet in the changing room but we had the karaoke machine on and everyone was singing and dancing and yeah it was a great night and one that we'll always remember. I think that just sums up you know at the moment where the women's game is and you know we watched the men's team here week in week out and then you've got players representing the women's team who have GCSEs the next day they've got work the next day you know it's quite a commitment and we're going to come on to the commitment a little bit later but it is you know it's you give up a lot of time to play for this club. Yeah definitely but we all know it's worth it and what we get back just makes it that little bit better that we know whatever we give we'll get something back. Of course the other thing you've got to remember is there's a lot of people in there who can't celebrate by drinking champagne or anything like that as well. Yeah there was unfortunately for us that were over 18 there was no champagne but the Luke's aid and the water was flying around the changing room. I can imagine you were front center stage of those celebrations knowing what you were like. Yeah I was there a little bit especially with the water just telling myself that it was champagne but to be fair KJ was up on the changing room dressing table as you say and having a little boogie up there so let her have a limelight for a few minutes. Now another really memorable moment from this season was when you played Maidenhead United here at Vitality Stadium in April you obviously paid at the stadium before but what was that like there was a big crowd here compared to what what there has been before. Yeah definitely again it's one of those that we'll look back on and playing at the stadium is so special to all of us but when you've been here for seven seasons it is really rewarding and again the crowd made that experience 10 times better to have almost doubled in fans from last year just shows how much the women's game has grown and I think that's down to the lionesses and their success in the Euros but it's just good to see that it's still affecting our level and that hopefully we can keep progressing. Yeah we're going to talk about those lionesses a little bit later on but being an AFC Bournemouth fan can you sum up how it feels you know to be walking out here at Vitality Stadium wearing the badge. Yeah definitely I remember coming to the games with my uncle and Mark Lufa who also works at the club and every now and then I used to come in sit in the north stand and you know watch Bournemouth playing sort of league one and to know their journey that they've had to be a part of that and then have my own journey within the club and be able to come out to as we know it as Dean Court and the Vitality Stadium just yeah one of those that will always look back on and have lots of photos and memories from that day and even better when we get the good result. I suppose you can almost draw parallels between the journey that the men's team has been on over the years and the journey that the women's team is now on you know trying to rise up through the divisions trying to get to the top tier trying to make a name for for the team there's a few parallels there. Yeah definitely I think obviously you can never compare the men's and the women's games but the journey we're trying to go in the right direction and I think that we've got the men's journey to follow and I know that they've done the club proud so hopefully we can continue to do so. Who are your cherry's idols? Yeah so I think when I go back to saying that I used to come to the games used to be the goalkeeper Jalau and I know he's at Newcastle now with Eddie so it's nice to still be able to follow his journey but he was the one that I looked up for and was obviously in the same position as I but even more so now probably Mary up so know that she's had a massive effect on a lot of people especially on and off the pitch. I don't think her career has been the easiest but it just shows the strong person that she is to dig deeper and I think that some of us can compare to that and yeah she just keeps you going and one to look up to that's also in the women's game and is succeeding. Now the women's setup here has made enormous strides under the community sports trust and it's now being bought under the direction of the football club. This is a huge statement of intent from the owner what's it like as a player to hear this news. Yeah definitely I think the community have done so well of supporting the women's team and I know that they're still supporting it but to be taken under the club is just again down to the growth of the women's game and we're really excited to see what that has in future for us as players. As Zoe said about the commitment earlier on not including your job role here as a player just give us a run through of how your week goes concluding with the game on a Sunday. Yeah so we train sort of two to three times a week in the evening so you've obviously got to be committed to be there to train and not just individually but to be there as part of the team and then obviously games on a Sunday whether they could be home or away. I think our furthest trip was Cardiff and down to St. Austel so I'm glad we haven't got to do a Cardiff this year but I think it just comes down to the commitment levels of us players but also of the club and Steve and Matt as well that put in the same amount of time that we do and hopefully you know we'll always be committed and we'll keep growing forwards. Everybody comes to the Premier League game sees the players over there with the nice cars and wages this that and the other but what a lot of people don't see is teams like the women's team and the youth team turning up here at six o'clock in the morning getting in a mini bus and driving in here there and everywhere so you really have got to throw yourself into it. Yeah definitely and I think I've always said to myself you know whatever you put in you're always going to get back out and you know when we've got to go on a Sunday to Cardiff um there and back in the same day it's it's tough but when you then get to play at the Vitality Stadium it all comes down to that and you do the dirty work to get the good reward so. You're now playing your home games at Ringwood Towns Long Lane just tell us a little bit about what's happening there there's been a new development and a new hub. Yeah I think it's exciting as well um they obviously cracked on with a 3G pitch straight away so that we had a home to train at um all the time and the pavilion is underway I believe and um they just look after the facilities really well there and I think since we've been at Ringwood weekend we count them that's been our home um we've had a lot more spectators come along week in week out and um we've had a couple hundred at each game and we're really appreciative of that. Now eventually the women's team will be using the club's new training ground I appreciate that you won't know too much about this just yet we don't quite know how it's going to look and how it's all going to work but it's a another really exciting development isn't it to have every one kind of in one place first team academy women's team it kind of creates this one club mentality a little bit more. Yeah definitely I think um everyone knows about the one club mentality and that everyone's on the same path and it's a everyone that supports the club or that works within the club knows that it's it's more than just a club it's a family and a home to a lot of people and I think that will just um show that even more of everyone being in the same same place and ultimately achieving the same goal. Effectively you could be sort of in the right the right club at the right time because Zoe's touched on the the training ground the new owners bringing the the team in house if you like it's such an exciting place to be at the moment in the women's team. Yeah it's definitely exciting and I look back from when I first started of what we had to what we've got now and if I looked back at seven years ago I wouldn't have even thought that there'd be talks of us at the new training facility and even playing um on the pitch but it just goes down again to the growth of the women's football and it's really nice to see that the club are doing their part in to help us do that journey. I think it's it's fair to say that in seasons gone by with rivals so close to Southampton and Portsmouth who are in a league above you that there would have been a tendency to lose players to them as they progress but hopefully now that that won't happen as much as it has in the past maybe. Yeah definitely I think you know all the clubs are on the same page they want to be playing at the highest league possible and these days you need a club like Bournemouth to back that and let the journey sort of take its toll but yeah it's just an exciting time to be around the club but it's even more exciting when you've been here for so long and you can see the journey. Something else that must have impacted on you is the success of the Lioness is winning the Euros last year the World Cup taking place in Australia in New Zealand starting next month. How how have you found this has impacted on you as players if you like? Yeah definitely I think before sort of they went to the Euros you'd hear of the women's team but even their support that they would have it would never be as many as they've had now they've had sellout crowds sort of fixed or after fixture so I think it goes down just to the whole growth of women's football across the world and yeah it's just nice to see and it gives us something even more so to look up to. So with all the growth that's happened with people coming to to the games has that come down to your level as well have you seen more people at Ringwood? Yeah definitely I think when we first started and we were based at Ringwood we probably had sort of around a hundred whereas now week in week out sorry we get a couple hundred and it's the same faces that we see and throughout the different weeks and depending who we're playing we'll get some new faces and it's nice that we tend to see the same ones come back and even sort of going back to my job when I go into schools and sort of they'll recognise and notice that they were at our game at the weekend it's nice to see. Where do you see yourself in five years? Well hopefully still here but I'll just try and take each season as it comes and just take whatever is thrown at me and just take every opportunity with both hands. Now we always like to get some supporters questions in Katie and we've had some in for you first one is from Steve who are the worst and best dressed teammates? Oh it's a tough one we only usually see each other in a training kit but I don't think I can say a worst dressed but best dressed just going to go with Molly Clark. Okay John wants to know what you eat before a match. It's always pesto pasta my favourite. And Brian is asking if you have any superstitions? I'm not too big on superstitions but I'll do it day in day out and it always like left sock first left shin pad first and then left football boot which I'm really surprised because my left foot is horrendous but it's always been the left. It's funny every time you ask that question about suspicious people say no I haven't got any but I always put my right boot on first and that is a superstition. Now David is asking what colour boots do you wear and what colour boots would you like to wear as a goalkeeper? Well I've always been either a black boot I think I pushed the boat out last year and had grey boots with a bit of yellow and blue on but they have just released the new sort of old-school TMPOs and their orange and I have been tempted but I'm not sure they'll go too well with the new kit. I've got to ask as well when you're playing beach soccer you play at barefoot so is the ball modified presumably to you know so it's not as hard to kick? Yeah I don't there's not really much different in it. It's got a bit of extra padding but you sort of just get used to it and yeah you adjust quite quickly when you're on the sand quite often. Well our final question is from Sarah also about beach soccer where is your favourite place that you travelled to play beach soccer? I think it would have to be Saudi Arabia we went there in November and it's one of those that you probably wouldn't just visit for a holiday but just the culture and the experience was definitely out there.  It would probably be Netto you know same position and I just love his celebration photos. Is that something that you're going to get involved in on the AFC Bournemouth women's pitch? Yeah I might have to try it I gave it a little go at the Hampshire Cup final but I think I need to up my game. Now tell us your favourite takeaway. It's probably I wouldn't know if you class it as a takeaway but it's probably Nando's. It's not it's never as good when you take it away but it's a great meal. I'm going to put you on the spot tell us a joke. Oh I don't think the joke that I've got in mind is very appropriate. I'm going to have to pass on that one. For the sake of the reputation of the AFC Bournemouth podcast I will allow you to pass on that one. Thanks. Now I know the answer to this one hair in a bun or hair in a ponytail? Oh hair in a bun. The buns developed over years and I think it's still got a bit of work to do but I couldn't deal with a ponytail any longer it just blows in the face too often. Scoring a penalty or saving a penalty? I really did enjoy scoring a penalty and having that little bit of strikers glory but it's got to be saving a penalty as a goalkeeper. Favourite cherry's game? That I've played in or? Let me ask you both. Favourite cherry's game you've watched here and favourite one you've played in? Favourite one I've watched was when Bournemouth beat Liverpool 4-3. I came here as part of the women's team and that was the game that we got chosen to watch and yeah it was one that I remember and I think everyone is still shocked by that result. And favourite one I've played in it would have to be the Hampshire Cup final. Biggest achievement? Biggest achievement. Probably especially on the grass playing at Wembley it was always something that I wanted to do as a little girl and even now just being able to walk out on the vitality pitch again comes down to that. Morning person or night owl? Or it's a tough one. I'll probably go between the two but I'll probably say night owl. Favourite holiday destination? Oh I went to Cape Verde a while back and it seems to be up there of one that's got lots of memories so I'd definitely like to go back. Tea or coffee? That's a tough one. Being English I feel like I should say tea but since being out in Spain coffee has done it.  Thank you so much for sitting down talking to us about your work on the pitch and off the pitch and we're really looking forward to seeing what you girls can achieve in an exciting new era for the club. Yeah thank you very much and thanks for the support that we continue to get on and off the pitch. Now if you've enjoyed listening to our podcast we would love it if you could like and subscribe on whatever platform you're listening on. We'd also be so grateful for any shares on social media so that other fans be it AFC Bournemouth fans, women's football fans or just the general football fan can enjoy it too. Our thanks again to Katie Scadding and from Neil Parrott and myself Zoe Rundle. Thank you for tuning in to the AFC Bournemouth podcast.