This lecture is part of an online Galois theory course and will be about the Frobenius endomorphism, or possibly automorphism. So first of all, we just look at the case of finite fields. So suppose r is a ring of characteristic p. In other words, p is equal to zero, where p is some prime 2, 3, 5, whatever. Then we know that in this ring, if we define phi of a to be a to the p, this is actually an endomorphism of the ring because a plus b to the p is a to the p plus b to the p, and a b to the p is of course a to the p times b to the p. So for finite fields, so if you look at the finite field fp to the n, then phi is an automorphism. It's obviously injective and the field is finite, so it must be a bijection. And we saw earlier that it generates the Galois group. For general rings or even fields, the Frobenius map need not be an automorphism. For instance, if you look at the field k of x for some field k of characteristic p, then the image is contained in k of x to the p, which is definitely smaller than the field k of x. So this map is not in general an automorphism of a field. Well, it seems as if the Frobenius automorphism or endomorphism is only used for characteristic p. I mean, if you're in characteristic zero, then this construction just doesn't make sense. However, there is a way of getting a Frobenius automorphism in characteristic zero. And this gives one of the very few easy ways of constructing explicit elements of Galois groups. I guess the other easy way is to use complex conjugation, which is a sort of analog of the Frobenius automorphism for infinite primes. So let's do the easiest case. Suppose we have a Galois extension of q, so q contained in m. And we're going to assume that m is a finite extension. And the problem is to find elements of this Galois group. Well, we suppose that m is given by polynomials. So we take polynomials over q and quotient out by some polynomial f of x. And we're going to assume that f of x has integer coefficients and has leading coefficient one. So it's equal to x to the n plus a n minus one x to the n minus one. So one plus a naught, where the a i's are integers. And the idea is we want to reduce m mod p. Well, this makes no sense because p is invertible in m. So there's no central way to reduce m mod p, where m is a field of characteristic zero. However, instead of defining m to be the rationals module of this, we can define an integral form of m to be z of x modulo f of x. And you can see that this is now a free z module as a z module of rank n. And now we can reduce this mod p. So, for example, we might take f of x equal x squared plus one here. And then m would be the Gaussian, the field of Gaussian numbers. But here, z of x modulo x squared plus one is just the Gaussian integers z of i, which we can reduce modulo primes. We're also going to assume for simplicity that all roots of f are in the ring r. And the second assumption we're going to make is that we assume f is separable modulo p for some prime p. So what does this mean? It means it's got no repeated roots modulo p. So we recall from that a polynomial f has a discriminant, which is a product of the differences of the roots possibly squared. And you see, this is none zero if f has no repeated roots. Now, in the case of our polynomial f, the discriminant is some element of the integers because we can write it as some polynomial in the coefficients of the polynomial f with integer coefficients. So its discriminant is in z and all we're asking is that p does not divide the discriminant. So in number theory, we say that p is un-ramified. So if you've seen the phrase un-ramified in a number theory course, it's essentially this condition that it doesn't describe the discriminant. There are some slight differences. We're not bothered to assume r is integrally closed and so on, but never mind that. And now we can form the ring r modulo p, which is going to be fp of x modulo f of x. Now, we notice that f is irreducible over z by assumption, but need not be irreducible mod p. For instance, if we take f of x equals x squared plus one and we take p equals five, then f factors as x plus two, x plus three mod five. So if we reduce the ring r modulo p, we can ask what it looks like. Well, f factors in fp of x has f1x, f2 of x and so on. And notice these polynomials are distinct and in particular they're co-prime because we assumed that f is irreducible modulo p. So by the Chinese remainder theorem, fp of x modulo f splits as a product of fp of x modulo fi of x. So this is just a product of finite fields. If f has multiple roots mod p, then more complicated things happen. We don't want to worry about that now. Moreover, if alpha one up to alpha n are the roots of f in r, then we can look at the images in fp of x over fi of x. And they must be distinct because we assume that f is separable modulo p. So in particular, any automorphism of the ring r, which was z of x over f, must act, so it permutes the fields fp over fi. And if it fixes, so if it maps say fp over f1 to itself, it must act non-trivially on fp over f1 unless it is the identity on r. And this is because if it's not the identity, it's a non-trivial permutation of the roots of f in r and must therefore be a non-trivial permutation of the roots of f in fp because we can identify the roots of f in r with the roots in here. Similarly, any two automorphisms of r mapping say fp over f1 to fp over fi, so that should be fp of x, that should have been an fp of x, it should all have been fp of x. So if it maps that to fi, if these are distinct automorphisms, must be distinct homomorphisms from fpx over f1 to fpx over fi. Well, what's the point of all this? Well, now we're going to count the automorphisms of r. Well, the number is going to be at most the number of maps from f1 to fi, where we sum over all i, which is going to be at most the sum of the degrees of the fi over the constant field fp, which is equal to n, which is the degree of f, because the product of the fi is just r modulo p, which has dimension n. On the other hand, the number of these automorphisms is equal to the order of the Galois group of qx over f, which is equal to the degree of f, because we assume this field was a Galois field. So all of these must actually be equalities, because we're assuming the extension was Galois. So what can we deduce from the fact that these are equalities? Well, first of all, all the fields fp of x over fi of x are isomorphic, because there must be the maximum number of maps from f1 to fi must actually be the degree of fi, which is positive. And secondly, we see that the subgroup of the Galois group mapping, say, fp of x over f1 of x to itself maps onto the full automorphism group of fp of x over f1 of x. In particular, we now get to the key result we really want. The Frobenius automorphism, which maps a to a to the p of, say, fp of x over f1 of x is the image of some element of the Galois group of q of x over f of x. Because we said that any automorphism of this field has to lift to some automorphism of r, and these are all induced by automorphisms of the Galois group. To summary, under the assumptions we put on f, we get an automorphism fi of r, which was z of x over f of x, or for that matter, q of x over f of x, for each factor of f modulo p. Here, as usual, we have to assume that p doesn't divide the discriminant of r and all the other assumptions we put on it. So this automorphism fi is also called a Frobenius automorphism. Notice that it doesn't raise every element to its p's power because that's only an automorphism mod p. However, it does raise elements to a p's power modulo p. So let's see an example of it. So here's an example. Let's take f of x equal x squared plus 1, so roots are plus or minus i. And let's find primes p with f separable. And that's quite easy. Any p not equal to 2 will do. For p equals 2, this polynomial becomes inseparable. For any odd prime, you can see its derivative is a multiple of x. So what does the automorphism do? Let's call fi p the Frobenius automorphism corresponding to p. Well, it must map i to plus or minus i because these are the only two roots of x squared plus 1. Now the elements plus or minus i map to the finite field f p x modulo some factor of x squared plus 1 mod p. They sort of map injectively to this. And on this finite field, the Frobenius automorphism takes a to a to the p. So in particular, these fourth roots of unity are going to map to fourth roots of unity in this field. And in this field, it must map i to i to the p. So it must have the same action here. So fi p of i is equal to i to the p. And let's see what consequences this gives. So we've got this Frobenius automorphism fi p of q of i maps i to i to the p. So let's see what it does. Well, if p is congruent to 1 mod 4, the Frobenius automorphism p of i is equal to i because i to the 5 or 9 or whatever is just i. If p is congruent to 3 mod 4, then the Frobenius automorphism of i is equal to minus i. So it's complex conjugation. Well, if the Frobenius automorphism fixes i, then it acts trivially on the field where we've reduced c of i modulo something. So this implies that x squared plus 1 splits mod p because the field corresponding to any factor of this must have its Frobenius automorphism acting trivially. So it must just be the finite field of order p. On the other hand, if 5p is minus i, the Frobenius automorphism is non-trivial on this field. So this implies that x squared plus 1 does not split. Well, x squared plus 1 splitting mod p means minus 1 is a square. And x squared plus 1 not splitting means minus 1 is not a square. So from properties of this Frobenius automorphism, we've got the result that minus 1 is a square mod p for p odd is equivalent to saying p is congruent to 1 modulo 4, which is a well-known result you come across in a number theory course. So here we see it's a consequence of looking at the Frobenius automorphism of the polynomial x squared plus 1. Okay, next lecture we're going to be looking at cyclotomic polynomials, which have roots that are roots of unity. And we're going to be using the Frobenius automorphism in order to prove that the cyclotomic polynomials are irreducible over the rationals.


The European Union raises serious concerns about detentions of independent journalists in Azerbaijan. The European External Action Service issued a statement on the recent detentions of journalists Ulvi Hassanli, Sevinj Vagivgizi, Mohamed Kekalov, Aziz Orijov, Rufat Muradli, Nagiz Absalamova, Teymur Keremov, Ibrahim Humbatov and Hafiz Babali. It is noted that human rights, including fundamental freedoms and the rule of law, are important elements of the relationship between Azerbaijan and the European Union. In this context, the recent arbitrary detentions of journalists Ulvi Hassanli, Sevinj Vagivgizi, Mohamed Kekalov, Aziz Orijov, Rufat Muradli, Nagiz Absalamova, Teymur Keremov, Ibrahim Humbatov as well as Hafiz Babali raise serious concerns about the narrowing space for independent journalism and limitations to freedom of expressions in Azerbaijan which run contrary to its international commitments. The European Union also regrets the arrest of human rights activist Ilhamiz Goliyev and political opposition leader Tophik Yakublu and the decision to extend the pre-trial detention of distinguished scholar and activist Gubad Ibadoglu and of civil society activist Bakhtiyar Hajiyev. The European Union calls on Azerbaijan to release those imprisoned for exercising their fundamental rights and to ensure free and unhindered space for independent journalism and freedom of expression. This statement also says the EU remains committed to continue the dialogue and cooperation on human rights with Azerbaijan.


es reporting so it's simple you need to maintain the quality assurance but have it sort of simplified and more clear cut but also I'll go back to the point of you're probably all familiar with the diagram or the illustration of equality against equity where you have sort of three different heights of children standing trying to go for a fence you give them all the same box not everybody can see over the fence equity is quite different and I think with child mining the vast majority of businesses are sole workers it's not high income profession people come into vocation to make a difference a lot of child mines can't pay themselves a living wage it was never credible to expect a child miner to be able to compete equitably in the market against the local authority against private nursery child miners need some form of affirmative action to enable them to compete need some additionality and that's a point we've made we advocated for and secured the action plan on child mining but that's stalled you know we've not really seen meaningful additionality coming through and I think my final point is just going back to sort of this prior neutrality from our point of view prior neutrality is not working after five years and we need to replace it with something else if the Scottish Government is wedded to it it needs to be enforced because the reality is when you have Scottish Government standing off you have cosless standing off you have a vacuum and that enables these problems to continue that we've had for the last five years we keep reporting them in our audit and then nothing's changing you know we get a policy but rebuttal response and the response to the Scottish Government is we're doing ABCDE we don't disagree with that they're doing ABCDE but if ABCDE are not directed at the big problems then that problem continues you're just going with the low hanging fruit you're actually avoiding dealing with a big issue and it may be because it's a challenge when you have a national policy it depends on local implementation it's a big issue you know we can't solve this here in that room here today but the reality is our workforce is declining and it can't be sustained okay thank you thank you thank you thank you very much john um i mean i realise it's nine years ago since the legislation was put in place now while mr mcallus is right told us he's only been at post for two years and i'm not sure how long the rest of you or the others of you have been but is it your understanding that your organisation or at least the sector was well consulted on when the legislation went through um because one of the things we're trying to do in the committee is look at how the finances were worked out at the time and could we do that better so i'm just wondering if if you folk were involved mr mcastle i think it'd be fair to say am i um organisational understanding before or took a post three years ago is that yes the the scottish government was consultative the extent which our views were taken into account might be quite different in the sense that would have been my next question yes um i think it's again child mining has felt historically as though it's fighting a losing struggle in the sense that you know when you look at the latest improvement service report you simply need to look at the number of children who are receiving funded ELC 70 percent are receiving at local authority nurses 28 percent in pvi only two percent child planning yes i saw in your paper you said two you didn't think two percent was a good enough not at all not at all have you got figured what it should be i think it should be far higher but what i'm meaning is that when you look at the fact that 1140 had to be delivered as a policy so you can see where the big numbers have been with local authority nurses private nurses child miners always sort of been struggling i think to have its voice heard within that much wider arena okay um ms brampton was your sector can i've consulted did you feel it 2013 um so it was before my time coming into the sector i was in schools at that time but um so i wouldn't like to comment on that but i think one of the key issues is in terms of thinking about this going forward slightly unrelated but the difficulties that we've alluded to today with local authorities making the decisions about the you know the rates and the fact that they're also setting the rates for themselves and they're in competition some way would it not be aspirational to consider looking at this in a totally different way and having a separate independent body that makes these decisions but i just thought i was mentioning that and you wouldn't be sure if that would point was raised in 2013 i wouldn't be sure but i know that members have been actively speaking about that recently that the tension between the role of the local authority in being the guarantor of quality but also being in competition in some ways has to be an ongoing tension that's very difficult to address so that's come up recently from members but i wouldn't be able to comment on before my time and mr broadbread i'm assuming you weren't around in 2013 i was but not an ndna i'll be honest but i do know that again there was lots of consultation activity that happened i would say that certain elements were outside of that so things like the agreement between cosler and scotish government in terms of the the funding prior to implementation that included the capital expenditure that was that was more of a kind of this is the decision that's been reached in the in the agreement between cosler and scotish government rather than there being a consultative approach i would say that other than our members were consistently raising funding issues as a concern for the implementation of the policy i mean historically the funding rates at that time were were really very low and we do recognise that the rates have increased by i think 26 percent from from the those those sort of pre-policy days also the 600 hours days but that was that was chronically low and so i would say yes consultation did happen and i know that our organisation and our members were involved in that but then when again when we've put forward our own evidence as Graham has suggested it wasn't always taken on board and the other thing that i do want to highlight from the time is there was a big focus on this being a big infrastructure project and a lot of money and effort being put into expanding those local authority nurseries which we raised concerns about at the time precisely because and i think it came up briefly in the previous panel new infrastructure you know although it's funded from capital budgets becomes a revenue issue in future years similarly you know that's that's the situation that we see now where and some of those were built or expanded on near to existing high quality provision and that wasn't always done in consultation that always wasn't always engaged with people would just see buildings how it start to appear so elements of consultation yes but there was things that just happened that that as jones said was done to the sector rather than consultatively game of these hand up to come back i'll come back i'll come back to you just in a second i just wanted to pursue that the capital which you mentioned mr broadbreak did you did you or your sector get a share of the capital funding that was available there some of it was available via via local some local authorities but nowhere near the same levels and i think i'm working off the top of my head and from memory i think we're talking of grants of up to 10 000 pounds where they were available but again there was a lot a lot of hoops to jump through which is to an extent understandable but where people were seeing millions of pounds being spent on other projects this felt like you know actually there was capacity within private and voluntary settings to expand and meet that need but again you know there was money available for that but nowhere near on the same scale and not in every area i would i would say again i'm working from memory there okay thanks mr mccarston thanks john and it's just picking up on jonathan's point i mean we would absolutely agree that it's very much been the experience of child mining that some local authorities went down the route of their own capital bill projects without looking to existing capacity i submitted a really detailed briefing paper in advance of this meeting lots of data in it but if there's only one statistic you take away from today please let it be this in our last audit in 21 and in our previous audits we asked how many local authorities had actually undertaken impact assessments of their own expansion plans on child mining only four of 32 have even done that okay i might come back to that in a minute while you're there then i was interested in this point and i raised it with the previous panel about the cost of different models and i'm assuming there's not a lot of difference but i might stand to be corrected between the private voluntary independent sector and the council if it's actually providing a nursery but for child mining i mean you've already said i think that the ratios are different that right so you you have lower ratios ie fewer kids per adult in a child mining setting compared to a nursery setting but you wouldn't have the same building you wouldn't have a manager or an office work or something like that so how do you see the actual costs panning out i think that the costs are different and we're needing to capture more information about that to inform our understanding in the sense that the cost collection exercise that cosla and improvement service undertook for ELC settings back in may they're only now doing that for child mining you know we've gotten to realise that yes you actually need to look at child mining differently to understand the costs meaningfully the last exercise that is for child mining was back about 2015 2016 and we've been able to support cosla so far on contributing to development of this latest cost exercise but from my point of view it's still not going to be meaningful in the sense that it's not capturing understanding about the hidden costs of delivering child mining as i mentioned you know there's so much work needs to be done unpaid in the evenings at weekends that's not costed we need to understand that similarly it's not just about the sustainable rates it's about the number of hours we need to understand how sustainable that is and again cosla doesn't want to get into that space so you know from our part of view we're really keen to capture up-to-date data i am to answer your question simply i don't believe child mining is more expensive you know anecdotal feedback from parents is defined at a very cost effective and need low cost for my childcare i think not enough is understood about it but equally there are additional pressures in the sense that when you look within a national stand for lc there's requirement for all providers to pay staff the real living wage and many child miners rely on unpaid assistance who might be a family member who will with drop-off pickup if they were then to start applying cost to those assistants again it might impact on our business so we need to capture more data and i think the more data we have then we could have an informed discussion with cosla and improvement service in terms of are the rates sustainable for child mining do the need to alter so i mean something like say a five percent admin charge or management charge to connect for the all that extra work in the evenings would that be the kind of thing you'd be looking for i think it'd be useful to include something cos again i mean if you look at a nursery model you know you will have managers practitioners you'll have administrators finance staff the child miner does everything on itself and you know that most of that is unpaid in the evenings at weekends it's not costed into the form of childcare and again what came through in the scottish government's financial health check last year was that the majority of child miners were actually holding their costs because child miners were affected so adversely by the pandemic you had a sustained periods where parents were required to work from home in furlough so you had a standard reduction in demand for childcare you know after the pandemic there's two most vulnerable forms of childcare or child mining in school age childcare and for that reason child miners don't want to put their costs up so if anything they're holding their costs and they're absorbing it you know it's fuel costs everything's going up just now it's even child miners involved so heavily in driving children around dropping off picking up so again it's different from the nursery model and that's what we've been trying to say to cause them improvements errors is you know please don't just keep as you've done historically applying a nursery model to child mining we need to understand child mining each form childcare is different mrs brunton i mean from your angle the costs in the different parts of the sector are they similar or how would you say that no i agree with what graham's i'm saying in terms of that and i think that that's a key issue that it's a sort of blanket approach applied to things without that recognition and again although i'm laboring the point but i go back to the fact that the local authorities are not demonstrating their cost basis so that's very difficult for the pvi sector to hear decisions made about their costs when there's not that active engagement so i think that's a an ongoing tension and i just i noted in the papers that in terms of going forward when agreeing financial mandates i think the key thing there it was talking about to put in place from the outset to monitor expenditure to ensure that the new policy initiatives are being appropriately funded and to really look at a consistent formula as opposed to basing allocations on cost estimates from the bodies themselves so i think it is that back to consistency of approach rather than the pvi sector constantly feeling they're having to justify costs and for the sector the last two years our costs have increased exponentially and as i mentioned earlier some authorities are not looking at an annual uplift or haven't given that so there there's that tension between what the local authorities are allocating and then what's then allocated to the pvi sector so i think there is then the sector is looking at the under threes and they're thinking how can they recoup costs through the non-funded hours that obviously they recognize the tension with that for parents and the difficulties that parents are experiencing at the moment so i think it's really important with the programme for government expansion we're hurting to hear and we're working with Scottish Government around what does that look like when we extend this programme we need to learn from what's happened over these years and not just replicate that going forward so i think it's so important to ensure that and in the earlier panel there was a discussion around family engagement and family well-being that's critical going forward as well not necessarily the same model will be relevant for the under for the twos and for the ones so yeah okay thanks much okay thank you very much that has concluded questions from the committee so i want to thank you for your evidence today we will continue our evidence taking on post legislative scrutiny of aspects of the financial memorandum next week when we hear from the Scottish Government at our final meeting that concludes the public part of today's meeting so the next item our agenda should be discussed in private consideration of our work programme so i'll now move into private session i'll just have a four five minute break to enable our witnesses and the official report to leave


This is the SF Productions Podcast Network. Altius, Fortius, Snowius. From the Bobculture Bunker, I'm Mindy. And I'm Mark. You can check out our audio podcast, How I Got My Wife to Read Comics on iTunes, or on our website SFPodcastNetwork.com. As we take this, the Winter Olympics will be commencing very soon, and I realize we've never really gone into them in detail on this show. We've talked about the summer games a lot, but not the winter games. Two points before we begin. As I have since 2012, I will be doing a daily blog of the games at SFPodcastNetwork.com. And there will be spoilers? No, I don't know. Yeah, who knows? And from here on in, we will refer to the games as the Quadrennial International Sporting Event, or QUICE. We don't want the IOC's lawyers all over us. QUICE. QUICE. The Winter QUICE has a predecessor. The Nordic Games, starting back in 1901, organized by a Swedish general and a charter member of the IOC. He tried to get winter sports into the QUICE, and was partially successful at the London QUICE of 1908. There were four figure skating events held then. Of course, it's an indoor sport, so it can really happen summer or winter. And Italian Count tried to get a week of winter sports added to the Stockholm QUICE of 1912, but was rebuffed due to a lack of facilities. He was able to get it included in the Britain QUICE of 1916, which was cancelled due to World War I. The 1920 QUICE in Antwerp included figure skating and the hockey tournament. That was the Berlin QUICE of 1916. Ah. By 1924, the IOC decided that a separate winter event would be held in France, where the QUICE was also held and run by the French QUICE Committee. It was a big success, with over 250 athletes from 16 countries in 16 events, and the big winners were Finland and Norway Big surprise! with 28 medals between them. A few notable people in events. 11-year-old Sonja Heine, or Heine, I believe, competed and finished last in ladies figure skating, but we will hear from her again. 11 years old. 11 years old. Because it really wasn't a sanctioned major event. Right. And so the rules were kind of higgly-piggly. The Canadian hockey team defended their QUICE win. They had competed in the 1920 summer games in hockey, and would win six of the first seven golds awarded in that sport. Pierre de Coubertin, the man who led the effort for the modern QUICE, gave a prize to the team who unsuccessfully tried to climb Mount Everest two years earlier. One of the awards was slightly delayed. Anders Hogan, who was recorded in fourth place in the ski jump, was given the bronze in 1974 after an error in scoring was uncovered. Why were they even looking at the scoring in 1974? Events included Bob Slay, Ice Hockey, Figure Skating, Speed Skating, Cross Country Skying, Nordic Combine, which is Cross Country Skying and Ski Jumping together. Ski Jumping, Curling, and Military Patrol. All of those are vaguely familiar except Military Patrol. Yeah, Curling was retroactively added to the official 1924 list in 2006 when that sport returned to QUICE. Military Patrol involved Cross Country Skying, Ski Mountaineering, which was Climb a Mountain with skis and then ski back down, and Rifle Shooting. It would eventually become the biathlon. Germany, who was banned from QUICE until 1925 due to their involvement in World War I, decided to hold their own winter event in 1922, the Deutsche Kampspiel. The IOC, who has a problem with competing events, decided to retroactively rename their 1924 event the first winter QUICE. The Nordic Games closed out after 1926 in response. In 1928, the second winter QUICE was held in St. Marie's, Switzerland. It was best remembered for a recurring problem in QUICE, the weather. The opening ceremonies were held in a blizzard, and then the temperature went up to 77 degrees, forcing the 10,000 meter speed skating event to be canceled. It's also remembered for the win by Sonya Hennie in figure skating at age 15, the youngest in QUICE history for another 74 years. 25 nations involved up from 16, Norway won the most medals followed by the US, Switzerland won only a single bronze, the lowest total ever for a host nation. Events included Skeleton, which is a smaller single person sled with a running start, and with demonstration sports, which are tryouts for possible later inclusion as official QUICE sports, military patrol, and SkiJoring. SkiJoring. SkiJoring is an event where one is pulled on skis over a frozen lake by horses. It's popular today in Scandinavian countries except snowmobiles are used. It was also mentioned in an MST short, Snow Thrills, and was called a safe and fun way to blow a Saturday or a knee. It never reappeared at QUICE. The 1932 winter QUICE was first held outside of Europe in Lake Placid, New York, USA. The games were officially opened by FDR, who was governor of New York at the time. Sonya Hennie was back and won her second figure skating gold. Eddie Egan, who previously won gold in QUICE boxing in 1920, won here in Bobsleigh, the only QUICE athlete to win in summer and winter sports. Speaking of Bobsleigh, the event was held two days after the closing ceremony due to warm weather. Virtually no snow fell for two months prior to the games. The onset of the Great Depression, along with the cost to send athletes to the US, reduced the country count from 25 to 17. The US won the most medals. Events included demonstration sports curling, returning from 1924, sled dog race, and women's speed skating. Two German towns, Garmisch and Partenkirchen, teamed up to run the 1936 QUICE. Berlin would hold the summer QUICE later that year, the only time the same country held both events the same year up to that point. Alpine skiing was an event for the first time, which is downhill and slalom skiing combined. Sonya Hennie made it a hat trick with a third-figure skating goal. She would go on to make skating-centric films in Hollywood and become one of the highest-paid stars in Hollywood. Her touring and merchandising made her up to $2 million a year, and that's in 1930's money. Back to QUICE. Great Britain upset Canada in ice hockey in the last 90 seconds of the game. Miracle on ice! 646 athletes from 28 countries competed in 17 events. Norway won the most medals. Events included demonstration sports, military patrol back from 1928, and ice stock sport, which is similar to curling, except it involves sliding a block of ice with a large handle on it. The 1940 QUICE was originally awarded to Sapporo, Japan, except they gave back the award in 1938 due to the Second Sino-Japanese War. Then the IOC turned to St. Moritz, who had hosted in 1928, but controversies between the IOC and the Swiss organizing teams settled that. Then the IOC turned to Garmisch, part-incursion Germany, who had just hosted. Then Germany invaded Poland, at which point the QUICE was cancelled for the duration of the war. The 1944 games were originally awarded to Cortina di Amprosa, Italy, but was cancelled as well. So then we move all the way to 1948 and return to St. Moritz. Switzerland was neutral during the war, and hence was a good place to renew QUICE. All the events were outdoors, which made some events problematic. Germany and Japan were not invited due to World War II. The European economy still reeling from the war resulted in a lack of spectators and equipment. The Norwegian skiers had to borrow skis from the US team. There were a few controversies. US bobsleds were sabotaged supposedly accidentally. Two US hockey teams arrived, one from the Amateur Athletic Union, AAU, and the US QUICE Committee, and another from the Amateur Hockey Association. Neither was allowed to compete for medals. Oh, didn't that happen? This is what happens, you don't have email. Norway and Sweden dominated speed skating for the first time since the rest of Europe had been preoccupied with the war. Dick Button won the Golden Figure Skating after completing the first double axle in competition. Today, a triple axle is common. Button would go on to a long career doing color commentary on ABC Sports. Berger Rood of Germany, who had won gold for ski... Norway. ...of Norway, who had won gold for ski jumping in 1932 and 1936, was a coach by this point who decided to compete himself at the last minute and got a silver after a 12-year hiatus. They couldn't do that now. No, no, no. 669 athletes from 28 countries competed in 22 events. Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland tied for the most medals. Events included skeleton back from 1928 with demonstration sports, military patrol, and winter pentathlon, which involved cross-country skiing, shooting, downhill skiing, fencing, and horse riding, which was never held again. They really liked that military patrol. They do. 1952 found Oslo, Norway, with the winter queues. Japan and Germany returned to the Games with a ladder using only West German athletes. East Germany refused to go as a unified team. The queues torch was lit in the fireplace of skiing pioneer Sondre Nordheim, and the torch relay was done totally on skis. King George VI of Great Britain died only eight days before the opening ceremony, so British Empire Nations wore black armbands there, and the Prince of Norway opened the Games instead of King Hecon VII in the UK for the funeral. Ice hockey was held in an indoor arena for the first time. Germany returned to dominate Bobsleigh, partly by having massive players average weight of 258 pounds, forcing the sports federation to impose a total weight limit. Norwegian truck driver Jalmar Andersen swept many of the speed skating events with the largest margin of victory in queues history. Greek slalom skier Antoine Miljordos fell 18 times on his run, crossing the finish line backwards. Now that's the agony of defeat. Yes. Women competed in cross-country skiing for the first time. Dick Button returned to win gold in figure skating, landing a triple jump in competition for the first time. Ice hockey was problematic. Canada's win over the U.S. was called fixed by local media as Czechoslovakia ended up in fourth out of the medals, a plot of the capitalist countries. Duh. The U.S. used body-checking, which was legal but not done by European teams. The Games ended with the flag, with the queues rings presented to the next host city, a tradition that remains today. 694 athletes from 30 countries competed in 22 events. Norway walked away with the most medals. Events included demonstration sport Bandy, similar to hockey, but with a ball instead of a puck. Mark, there's just too much on the Winter Olympics. I know, so I guess we're going to have to break this up into multiple episodes. In the meantime, you can check out our audio podcast, I got my wife's read comics on iTunes or on our website, sfpodcastnetwork.com. From the pop culture bunker, I'm Mindy. And I'm Mark, thanks for watching. Do you believe in miracles? Yes!


Hello and welcome to the Lowey Institute's Pacific Changemakers, a podcast where we discuss political and development issues with some of the Pacific's most prominent thought leaders. My name is Mihai Sora and I'm the director of the Australia PNG Network, a Lowey Institute project that aims to build closer ties between Australia and Papua New Guinea. Today we're very excited to welcome Oliver Nobotau, the new FTC Pacific Fellow for Papua New Guinea, joining the Low Institute for a year. We're delving into Oli's personal journey and getting his take as an emerging leader on key national and regional security issues. Oli, welcome. Thanks Mihai. Thank you for having me on the podcast. I'm really excited to be here and really excited for our chat as well as the year ahead with Lowey Institute. Brilliant. Let's start from the beginning Oli. Tell us about your roots and your early influences. Sure. So I was, I'm from Papua New Guinea. My father is from the autonomous region of Bogenville. My mother is from West New Britain. I was born in Germany. My father was a diplomat. So I spent, I was born in Germany and I did some of my early schooling years in Australia when my father was posted here, over in Canberra. I completed my middle school and high school in Papua New Guinea and I went on to obtain my Bachelor of Laws at the University of Papua New Guinea when I graduated in 2019. And what drew you into a career in law? I guess the idea for me was to have a career or a job that really focused on helping people. At the time I felt that law was the best career for me to pursue that. This passion as well I guess is one of the underlying issues why I'm also quite keen on the FDC Fellowship that I'm a part of now because I think it promotes a very unique opportunity to contribute not only to the development of the Pacific but in terms of the literature as well. I think PNG people and I think Pacific society as a whole were naturally orators so there's not much written history that's in the books for people to access so being able to contribute to this to this literature and on I guess contemporary issues as well I think is a unique opportunity so which is why I'm pretty excited about that. And after all the many many years of law school and all of the many many essays did you dive straight into a job as a lawyer? Yeah so after attending and obtaining my Bachelor of Laws I had to go to the post Graduate Legal Training Institute to get admitted to the bar that was also in 2019. Shortly after that I was lucky enough to get a job with the Office of the State Solicitor in the Department of Justice and Attorney General back in PNG. This within OSS I was attached to the International Law Division and I dealt primarily with legal matters concerning climate change, national security but also having the opportunity to work on a broader range of legal issues such as migration reform for instance. Sounds like very exciting issues to jump into particularly for a young lawyer. Can you talk us through some of the highlights of some of the exciting moments in your work whether it's in climate change or in national security as well? Yeah sure I think each of these areas have their own sort of special set of experiences and I was quite lucky to be able to be exposed to them. I think one of the biggest takeaways is being able to meet with many of the technical I guess bureaucrats working in these areas back in the government. Very capable people and you get to learn a lot from them especially in the technical side of things. Under with climate change throughout I guess my I think it's a relatively short career I've been able to assist the climate change and development authority the main agency dealing with climate change of the PNG government. I've assisting them with some of the climate initiatives that are in place such as developing the enhanced nationally determined contributions which are submitted in 2020 by PNG. Also attending COP26 in Glasgow part of the government delegation at the time giving legal advice to the delegation and I was also initially on the team that has been drafting PNG's carbon market regulations which sort of sets up the domestic regulatory framework for carbon trading. And that's in terms of climate change in terms of the national security that's a whole sort of different ballgame altogether. I've had the opportunity to deal with some of the security practitioners within the government so the role that I played as a senior legal officer at the Office of State Solicitor really has you putting in input and drafting texts for bilateral agreements and arrangements between countries and also assisting the negotiating teams when it comes to negotiation of these contexts. So some of the highlights I believe during the time include the three security arrangements that were entered into between PNG in the United States for instance like the 505 agreement, the shipwright agreement and the defense cooperation agreement more recently as well was the bilateral security agreement between PNG and Australia which assigned in December last year. I've also been lucky enough to attend some training in this area as well. Most notably at the Daniel K. Annoy Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies. I attended a course in 2022 and was lucky enough to get invited back to play a facilitating role as an alumni seminar leader in the first iteration of the course in 2023. But in the security space there's a lot of opportunities to do many different things. One of the highlights I think as well which is a pretty fun story was during the 2021 riots in Solomon Islands the PNG police was going to get deployed to Solomon Islands and it required I guess to the extent that my role provided sort of an arrangement in place between both countries to enable the deployment of the PNG police and one time we had we had to go and visit Solomon Islands and we got on it was myself and some other government officials I guess I won't name them here but we got on a small little six-seater plane that was being flown by Tropicare and then we flew from Port Moresby to Honiara and I remember vividly sort of seeing the views at the time where there was smoke that was sort of blowing into the air when we landed there was nobody on the runway nobody was at work so we just sort of had to land and figure out where to go sort of where to park the plane really so we we got there and then we met with the officials that we needed to meet to within a couple of hours and then we flew out again so that was sort of a bit of a little surreal experience as well but really an opportunity that presented itself because of the work that we were doing it but quite a dramatic story so what did it feel like flying over Honiara you would have seen some of the some of the imagery that we've seen in the media you know burning buildings and scenes of scenes of people running about in different directions what was it like when you guys were landing were arriving in Honiara yeah I think it was pretty much the same you know I recall flying over and seeing a building on fire the smoke going through the air and it was just sort of right next to us where we were about to land land the plane the streets are relatively empty I think most of the fighting had already taken place and prior to us landing there was an Enugini flight with PNG police personnel that had gone to sort of secure the area so it was quite it was it was relatively quiet by the time that we arrived there so but it was it was definitely some unique scenes that you don't usually see so between climate change and regional security you've had the privilege of working on some of the most important issues in our region today what are the topics what are the themes that you're most passionate about well thanks I think in terms of what I'm most passionate about it tends to stem I'm heavily influenced by the work that I did in OSS and that's to do with climate change and security so I guess you know while I'm here during the fellowship I plan to conduct research in these areas for climate change particularly in terms of climate induced migration I think that's a real issue and sort of examining the government policies and strategies that are in place to deal with persons who are displaced because of climate change this has already happened in PNG on the ground in Bougainville with the Cutter at islands and there are different challenges that are unique to each country for example in PNG the complexity of the land tenure system it it makes it it it introduces a bit of a barrier which has to be an obstacle that has to be overcome when you're thinking of relocating people because the land is owned by the traditional custodians of the land it's not as simple as getting people and relocating them to a separate place so it has to be it if not managed well it could be a potential for conflict the social issues that need to be managed well by the governments and how has the issue of climate change affected you personally I think in terms of my personal experience I sort of grew up mainly in the urban areas and I would go back to the rural to my villages where my parents are from not that often but when you do you get to notice that there are many differences to the environment when you go back for instance some of the creeks or watering holes that you would enjoy sort of swimming in when you were younger start to get smaller and I I guess that sort of happens too when you gain weight and get a little bit bigger but you know they they tend to dry up some we're having some of those problems with their drying up as well as with the food you enjoy a lot of food that you have fond memories of like when you're when you're younger and as you get older some of those crops just not growing as well as they used to one of the biggest things to that I sort of take away from this is that the phenomena of climate change is it's observable by people in the rural areas and they can see what's going on the unfortunate thing is without I guess the proper awareness they don't know how to address it how to deal with it and sort of and you know more importantly how to adapt to the change in climate to ensure that their livelihood is preserved as well so it's it's something that I care deeply about and this is why I want to I guess delve more into the research around this area of course and climate change for so many communities as you say it's a lived experience and what's really important is to be able to connect those communities with data with access to policies to decision makers to international efforts as well that put pressure on governments to take more ambitious positions and identify how to mitigate or relieve the problems in those communities absolutely tell me a bit more about your interest in security the other half of your of your career so far yes the security as well it's sort of it sort of follows the same track for me my interest in it really spurred from the work that I was exposed to and I really got to understand security as an issue as something of prominence and national security I guess to that degree when I got to work with some of the security practitioners in the government so I think what's needed in this area is to engage in more dialogue on security threats and the issues that we face because it's getting more complex it's no longer just traditional security threats or a non-traditional security threat for instance climate security economic security internal security as well which which is something that needs to be managed by governments but people need to be aware of so I hope to sort of contribute to a deeper understanding of that and also how cooperation not just within government domestically but regional cooperation as well can help to try and address these threats and mitigate these threats I guess I also have an interest in Bougainville because my father like I mentioned is from the autonomous region of Bougainville so I'm hoping to contribute to the literature on that and the thinking around that I think that there's large potential for I guess it's social and economic future and that needs to be managed noting the history that's behind what's happened on Bougainville I think this needs to be properly managed and addressed in a manner which prevents further conflict from taking place as well and yeah so I mean back home there are different ways I guess that we can contribute I guess in development as well myself and a few colleagues have gotten together and sort of in the process of incorporating an association that can sort of provide the platform for younger professionals that are from Bougainville to assist and carry out some projects back home which contribute to development and so I guess I guess that's sort of the work that I'll be doing but through a different range of mediums hopefully like a podcast dialogue some more articles under the interpreter as well so yeah there's a there's a lot to talk about here and bringing it back home for for a minute we saw some terrible scenes of unrest in Port Moresby in January this year now you were still living in Port Moresby at the time what was that like for you as as a resident as a young person as a future leader of Papua New Guinea yeah to be honest it was it was definitely surreal it was something that was unprecedented that hasn't been experienced before if I could describe the feeling during the unrest I think it was quite tense it was unsettling I guess there was a bit of a sense of a feeling of hopelessness at some stage especially on the first day because I think the realization was setting in to a lot of people that you know there was an absence of I guess law enforcement and civil authority so you couldn't rely really on anyone to keep the peace and it was sort of like an every man for themselves mentality so you know I guess the the impact on the community there were people I guess it was a traumatic experience for everyone and there are some people who suffered you know losses personally I really feel for the business community that suffered majority of the loss the damage that was done today infrastructure I think the numbers that have been quoted recently that they would require around 358 million Kina I guess to restock and rebuild their businesses so they've they've suffered a lot in terms of that a lot of jobs have been lost as well the perception of government after after the unrest the narrative that was developing for a long time was not something that was quite you know in my view in a positive light and I don't think the management of the of the unrest is something that helped the perceptions of people in the government I can you know you can appreciate that it's not a very easy task to deal with but I guess you know the government has done what it can do you know but people I don't the general sense is people aren't too happy with how it was being managed and if we consider I guess the effect of the unrest and the trajectory of the country there was a lot of optimism when we started off the year with a lot of the projects that seem to be coming online one of the main ones as well within the first quarter it was anticipated that Pogara would come back online but I don't I don't think that these the unrest will essentially prevent the projects from taking place but the trajectory of it has definitely been affected and it may be a deterrent for I guess new investment into the into the country but only time will tell another issue as well I guess we consider as the social trajectory because I guess at the end of the day the destruction was caused by people and not you know it wasn't like a natural disaster or an act of God or anything like that so I guess that's a cause for concern as well I think socially people need to start looking at what we can do to address that and sort of turn that I mean use this to turn this into more of a positive direction socially. Thank you for sharing that. Now Oli you were in Canberra last week for Prime Minister James Marape's state visit you attended a state dinner you witnessed Prime Minister Marape's historic address to the Australian Parliament and you had a chance to get up close and personal with Prime Minister Marape and you even had a brief chat with him now it's quite rare for a young person to be able to speak directly to their national leader tell us what that was like. Yeah so it was it was it was a very fun experience it was my first week at Lowy so it was quite jam packed as well so they had the they had the dinner that was hosted by Prime Minister Albanese on the Wednesday night the address to government on the Thursday morning and then the ANU address as well on the night so the dinner was quite fancy as well I think it was one of the fancies that I've been to I mean you were there so I think yeah I think it was I think it was a great I think it was a great event definitely the feeling in the room was that it wasn't it didn't seem too official I think there was some it was a bit of a warmth in the atmosphere and it just felt like it really speaks to the relationship that exists between Australia and PNG the parliamentary address as well I think was delivered quite well by the Prime Minister regardless of whatever the opinions that people may have of him I think it's important not to take away that this is a historic moment between both countries and I think the Prime Minister did a good job in addressing the parliament not as a Prime Minister but like as he mentioned the chief servant or as the mouthpiece for a nation and I think it's really elevated the the relationship between both states as sovereigns to the highest degree so what I mean when I got to have a chat with him as well after his annual address he was he was very nice I think what struck me the most is that he's quite approachable I think he's we had two chats with him we had one chat first and then we were able to circle back again and then talk to him once more so I think what struck me the most is that he was very approachable when I first saw him he was chatting with I believe UPNG students who are currently doing like exchange program with ANU so yeah I think I think he was very nice he was kind about you know just openly having a chat so it was it was a good experience and how important do you think the Prime Minister's visit was to progress the relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea I think it's I think it is quite significant you know especially when you consider sort of what's at play I guess domestically the politics there are really kicking up and for him to be taking you know taking up the invitation and visiting during sort of such a time I think it speaks to how he views the importance of the relationship between Australia and PNG and I would like to think that this is something that has really cemented the relationship between both countries as well what I would like to see I guess is to possibly if we could have this be a recurring sort of event maybe once every decade or so to sort of just sort of reinvigorate the the bilateral relations and cooperation between both Australia and PNG and it'd be great to get invited again to the state dinner I'm sure yeah very nice yeah the food was pretty good now you know stepping back a little bit there's certainly a lot happening in Papua New Guinea the year kicked off with some unpleasant scenes of violence there was loss of life there are political fluctuations there's rapid progress on bilateral security agreements big regional issues coming up climate changes is approaching as a regional issue as well as Australia seeking to host a COP meeting with Pacific Island leaders there's a lot of flux in the region and people sometimes say when they when they look at Papua New Guinea and its trajectory that it's difficult to stay optimistic when you think of the scenes of violence reports of corruption and and generally the tough conditions that people live under in the country how do you stay optimistic as a young Papua New Guinean yeah I think yeah what you're saying is right and I think one of the best ways to stay optimistic is to have hope which is very it's it's a lot easier said than done I guess in the circumstances but I think at the moment the younger people and the younger generation that are sort of coming up are very much more aware of the issues that are going on and they have access to abundance of resources to assist them in figuring out how to fix the problems and to sort of change the trajectory that we're that we're sort of currently on I think it requires the way that I guess I would stay optimistic is you need to also recognize that it's not something that's going to be fixed by one person but it's going to be fixed when everybody decides to work together not only as individuals but I think across all sectors so if you think about government civil society private sector as well I think we all have a role to play in contributing to how this this country recovers and the trajectory that we're on I think we need to learn to sort of cooperate with each other but also get very creative understand the systems that are in place and get creative in figuring out how we can solve the issues and we need to have a clear vision of where we want to go and then from that point on we can start making the steps and taking the necessary steps to sort of move towards I guess the PNG and the potential that we have there I believe the actions that are happening now are not necessarily detrimental to the amount of potential that we have but it is detrimental to the manner in which all the opportunities that we currently have available to actually tap into this potential that we have I think it's also very important to know that a lot of the times PNG is there's just a large number of internal issues that we always deal with and thinking of things at the national level international level cooperation is also very necessary we can't fix our problems ourselves and I think we need to always be open to assistance and learning from other countries as well and there are people who want to come and assist us in this sense and I guess this is this would be a good time to sort of draw back on the significance of the relationship between Australia and PNG with what just happened I think Australia has shown that it is a very competent and trusted partner throughout the years PNG is still the largest aid recipient of Australian aid money as well you know so I think we have to realize that yeah we can't fix the problems ourselves but I think we should be open to a lot of regional cooperation in dealing with the issues that we face sort of on the ground I recall Prime Minister Marappé's remarks among the things he said was for Australia contribute where you can leave the rest to us and hope you're such a precious commodity so Oliver Nabatao thank you for sharing some of that hope with us today thank you for sharing your story and giving us your time I'm Mihai Sora director of the OSPNG network at the Lower Institute this episode of Pacific Changemakers was produced by Josh Goding thank you for listening and we look forward to joining you for the next episode


Yeah, so I started coaching. It's been a little over a decade now in 2011. I played a few years of college soccer at the university level. And then once I stopped that, immediately got into coaching, started with the U11 boys team. And then from there, I've been with a few different clubs done a little bit of high school coaching too. And then while I've been doing that, you know, was also working with some other companies doing some private training and things like that as well before I started on my own. Cool. So what made you start your own thing then? What was the motivation behind it? I think it kind of got to the point where, you know, I've had seven, eight years coaching experience. I've been doing a few years with some of these other companies doing the private training, the small groups and stuff. And I liked that. Of course, it's great to have a team and have that big term project. But I like working in smaller groups and doing more specifically skill, skill, technical skill-based training. So I kind of got to the point where I was taking more responsibility, kind of getting more ideas for the business I was working for. And with various things happened, I kind of just decided to go out on my own. I was like, if I'm doing most of this anyway, if I'm communicating, finding new business, things like that, I might as well, you know, take the jump myself. So I eventually did informally kind of the beginning of 2020. And of course, the pandemic kind of coincided. So, you know, we tried to move through that. And then summer 2020 really hit the ground running. That's awesome. So tell us a bit about Transform Soccer then. What does your company specialize in? Yeah. So we do soccer skills training. We work mostly with kids aged from like eight to 16 roughly. And we do a lot of technical skills. So within the soccer space, a lot of dribbling, passing, receiving, shooting work, basically trying to be offering supplemental programs for kids who are already, you know, on teams and things. We work with everything from, you know, brand new players at a rack or intramural level, up to players who are, you know, more, more experienced and have been travel at higher levels too. And kind of all with the goal of being able to instill a passion for the game. I think that's critical. If you want to have results with players, they've got to love it and enjoy it. And then trying to create really courageous, technically gifted, creative players too. So, you know, that's the goal with all the programs that we run. That's awesome. So what do you have a particular age group that you like to work with? I'd say probably best suited with that like nine to 12 range, for whatever reason, the majority of the teams I've coached in the past have been in that range, have done some high school, you know, teenagers and things. But I do like that group. I think it's, for a lot of them, you're working with pretty foundational skills.  And also with those players in kind of the eight, nine, 10 range, that the imagination, the creativity really comes out a lot. So you introduce one thing and they just run with it. And so it's really rewarding to see that. And just like kind of the energy and the silliness and things with those ages, you know, tends to work with my personality too. So that's the foundation of players we work with, but really open to, you know, a wide range. That's awesome. So you are a current client of our program. How has your business changed since you became part of the program? Big time for sure. Much more organized, although it's still a long way to go and the organization side and something Ben is always hammering on because it really is the foundation of your success of how organized you are and just being productive on a daily basis. So definitely more organized. I think I also think more long term as I have been a part of the group over the past like year and a half or so, definitely develop a bigger vision for myself and what the company can do as well. So that's been great just being in that environment. I think feeling supported like when I first started, I didn't really have a business background. I didn't, you know, I've been with some other companies, but some things they did work and I adapted that some things didn't. So I was kind of, I felt very lost a lot at the beginning of my business. So just being able to come into the group, see other coaches succeed, get that, you know, personalized feedback from Ben on a weekly basis, either in the group calls or just being able to write my questions in the forums and things like that was really helpful. And it helped me get to a stage where I have much better boundaries with my clients. I have more committed clients. I really love working with the players and families, you know, who come to us at transform. And a lot of that has been through creating these processes and also standards and expectations that has come from being a part of the group. So it's been a huge influence and helped me to be accountable as well, you know, to follow through if I'm talking about something, then to follow through with it as well. That's fantastic. So tell us a bit about, because you mentioned committed clients, right? And that's something a lot of coaches so how important is having committed clients in your program? Yeah, I think, I think it's key for a couple of reasons. I think just starting like what is the core of any private training business? It's got to be certainly that relationship, that trust, that mentorship between the player and the coach kind of starts there. After that, you've got to be getting results, right? So if players are getting better, you know, that's the key. And in order to do that, they've got to be bought in, the parents have to be bought in, you know, to see that long-term growth and commitment. So certainly, you know, if you're getting people who just want to try it out for a day, or I used to be able to offer, you know, these like 10 session packages, right? Which I thought was great. Well, for some people, 10 sessions takes two months. For some people, it takes 10 months. And so if I'm working with a kid every six weeks or twice one week and then don't see him for three months, we're not going to see growth there. It's not going to be consistent. And at the end of the day, that reflects poorly on me for a couple of reasons. One, the parents are like, we just paid all this money for a private trainer and little Johnny hasn't gotten better. So you haven't had that consistency and commitment. They're not as likely to share, you know, as we'll talk about it and things like huge part of this business is referrals as people telling teammates, friends, neighbors, you know, about your business. So that's huge just to get your results. And then, of course, after that, we talk about the financial side, sleep much better, you know, much more security in the fact that I know I've got someone that's locked in for two months or three months and I can plan ahead right now. I'm in a position where, you know, some of my groups are already like filled up through December through March. And so I kind of have that security and people are locked in. So the commitment is huge. Like I said, both for getting the results, but also for you personally as a business owner, you know, have people who are committed and you attract generally better people that way to who really want to be with you long term and see it as a long term process. So can't really underestimate the commitment part. That's awesome. So tell us one obstacle you were facing before joining our program. What was the biggest challenges you had? I think a big obstacle, and it still is to an extent, time is a big one. So I have a day job. So I've been running transform soccer in the evenings, you know, I'm fortunate I work remotely. So as soon as I get out, I just log out of work. I'm in the car right away, right? Or and on the way to sessions, I'm on a sales call or I'm talking to a parent. And then weekends, I've got games, you know, in addition to what I do with Transform, I coach a team. So we've got games on Sundays, you know, 25 weeks out of the year. So time has been an obstacle. So certainly being part of the group, you know, talking to Ben and taking those courses, seeing organization is so important as well, how to be, you know, really methodical with the day to day, but also different promotions and programs that I'm running. That's really been key. And then the fact too, that I didn't really have the background to know what decisions to make. I didn't have that business background really.   So that's something that fortunately has gotten better. And we'll see about the timepiece going forward. But that's always been a challenge. But in a way, it's an opportunity because I have to focus on things that are, A, I really enjoy doing, players I really enjoy working with, and then things that are going to be, you know, at the end of the day, most profitable as well, to keep moving forward, to make sure that all the sacrifice I'm given with my time and efforts, you know, are being rewarded. So that's definitely been in an obstacle for sure. So you've been part of the program for a while now. So since you've joined, what's been your best month so far? Now, you don't have to tell us financially, in terms of adding clients, what's been your best month? Honestly, I think this month, like September 2022 has got to be up there. You know, previously it was kind of around March, I think it was March 2020. That was because of a couple private clients, one or two team training clients. And like I ran a clinic at the time, was my biggest clinic. I had like 28 kids, right? This month in September, not only do I have, now we're not only myself, but a couple other coaches, we're offering this type of skills training for two local clubs. So we're working with upwards of 30 teams a week. You know, we're seeing 250, 300 kids throughout the course of the fall. So there's that. But also we just ran a clinic last week, 61 kids, it's the most we've had in a clinic so far. And that's been while I've pretty much scaled all of my private one-on-one training back. I have one private training client. So between that and I ran a promotion for our small group, we run two small groups for an hour each every Friday throughout the year. I did a promotion for that kind of like beginning of September and was able to sell 10 spots in that. And just from those efforts in that momentum added like three more packages to that too. So it's good timing that I'm talking to you today because it's this month that we're wrapping up. I would say it's been the biggest so far after a quiet summer really. So it's been pretty exciting to see when you get organized, certainly within this business and probably sport by sport, it can vary. You do have some seasonal adjustments. So September, big time that gains start and things like that, at least in the US in the fall. So a lot of people are looking for that training, sockers on their minds. But I think all those things come together with like the organization and kind of that forward planning that I had, you know, seeing the results of fortunately. Now you mentioned that you're doing some working clubs. Is that under your own brand? So yes and no. So I've got one team that I'm like the coach of. I run the sessions and I run games. That's with a separate club and I'm with them like 10 months through the year separately. There's some other clubs in the area. They're volunteer run. They have a lot of parent coaches who either don't have the time to plan a lot of sessions or maybe they do and they don't have a ton of background in playing the game, but you know they want to give their time. They want to be involved in their child's life and support and stuff. So we're able to come into these clubs and say, hey, we've got not only myself, but a few other coaches who have played the game and can teach those key technical skills. We provide in most cases like small groups. So we'll take a few players at a time from the session so that we're not totally interrupting the coaches regular session. We're not, you know, kind of pushing them to the side, but we just want to support and supplement. So we've been doing that. This is the second season now that we've we've been doing that with this particular club. And then there's another club that's more on a team by team basis, you know, some of them look for outside trainers. So we're able to provide that. And I think, you know, to anyone out there watching this, like if you can get in those type of situations, that was really how I got started to an extent. When you're in front of 15, 20, 30 people, you know, that's what you want. You want to have contact with a lot of people. So it's a good place to start for sure. And a nice way to be involved in kind of a community level two and not just, you know, in your own little, you know, sometimes with the 101s and privates, it can feel like you're in this kind of secluded little world of training, but we're able to get out there and see all different ranges of players and different families and stuff. So, you know, it's hectic out there on the fields and you've got a couple of hundred kids at a time.  That's awesome. So, a lot of coaches ask us, how do I get involved in a local club? Now, what's the one piece of advice you would give? What's the first step to building a relationship with a club? Yeah, I think trying to make initial in-person meets. I'm fortunate, like some of these relationships have been a few years in the making with, you know, for example, people who have worked with the private or the small group settings and now they're said, hey, come to my kid's team or this and that. I think if you don't have necessarily those relationships, if you're going in with no real network, one thing to offer certainly is free clinics. So, you can go to a club, you know, in the soccer world, I'll always do these shooting clinics. I'm sure for different sports, you can find that key skill or something that you're good at and is valuable. You would offer that and it doesn't need to be a huge commitment on your side. Maybe an hour and a half or an hour clinic once or twice a year, as long as you can have people sign up through your own registration process so that you're able to gain people's contact. You know, if I'm doing that, it's something that came, you know, directly from then is you get these signups, try to get on a five-minute phone call with parents to say hello, tell them a little bit about what you do just to make that connection. People really appreciate that. And then when you do get into the, you know, the top funnel type of things with, you know, bigger teams and clubs, then the more committed, the more interested kids and families, they're going to find their ways into your other groups and things. So, I think offering things for free, like offering that value for free is one of the first things I learned and able to do that. And if you do a good job of that, then you won't have to offer yourself for free too much longer. So, I think, you know, without any connections, that's part of it. And then, yeah, I guess just trying if you can even just get in with one team and maybe it's not a clinic, but like a free session or something like that or reach out to some of those coaches. In a lot of these cases, if a coach is coaching a team, they probably have their child on the team and they would love for, you know, to join maybe one of your clinics and camps so you could always, you know, invite and give them a special offer or something like that to get them involved and just start to get the ball rolling with that. So, it can definitely be, you know, a great way to supplement the business. At the same time, I would offer a warning to coaches like what I have learned myself, you've got to have your terms and conditions and your standards because and you've got to try to try to have everything like written down and certainly noted down because the thing with dealing with volunteers, they're given their time, but they have jobs, they have families, all these things. So, your business and what you're doing is probably the 10th thing on their list and they're most people not super planned out in advance. In a lot of cases, some clubs we work with, you know, they rent fields on a seasonal basis. So, sometimes they lose their field because La Crosse needs it for this season or whatever it is and they can't plan long term. So, I think it's a great part of your business, but just kind of be cautious about putting too much if you're at a more mature stage because it can just be, you know, difficult and trickier compared to a one-on-one client where you've got a family who's really bought in and it's like, hey, we're going to make this three-six-month commitment and we can make it every, you know, and it's one person you're talking to, but certainly, you know, so just keep that in mind as a warning. Things like rainouts and how you're going to figure out makeup sessions and things like that. How are you going to make up a session if, you know, right now we're dealing on the east coast of the US, like we're getting less daylight, so are we shifting times? Are we cutting it down? So, just try to think of some potential challenges and pitfalls and get ahead of them and talk openly and honestly with those coaches, but if you do that, you know, it's really awesome and rewarding way to, you know, connect with a lot of people to build your other programs too. That's great piece of advice there. So, where do you see the private training industry going in the next two to five years? I think it's a great question. I would say, you know, I'm banking on it going well. I'm banking on it growing, so that's certainly what we hope and probably most people out there, you know, watching would think the same thing. I think at least in the soccer realm, you're dealing with a couple of things. One, we've got the World Cup this year, on the men's side at least. In the US, we're fortunate the women's team is always hugely successful, so we have such a strong women's game in the US, but on the men's side, it's continuing to grow, and I think especially in a few years, 2026, the US is going to be one of the host countries, so that's a great opportunity. We're going to see so many more kids playing soccer, so on the soccer side, that's great and exciting, and I think too, more people are, you know, we're kind of in a culture of one personalization, customization, you know, for a lot of people, they're going to want that specific one-on-one training for their child. That coach, like mentorship type of relationship is so valuable. You know, I see it myself, like I mentioned, I coach a team, right? So I've got 11, 12 kids at a session, and at a game, I can only spread my attention and my individual feedback to so many kids, and there's different goals within a team session. I'm worried about set pieces, and I'm worried about formation, and teaching, you know, this big picture stuff, but all of those kids need the one-on-one attention, right, for individual skills, for anything they're struggling with, so I think it's just something that's going to become more and more common, and more kind of commonplace, but at the same time, and this is something that Ben has certainly talked about and put out content about as, you know, it's becoming more competitive. In my area, Philadelphia area, we have a lot of, you know, really big mega clubs, right, and they can just decide, oh, we're going to run a small group program or a skills program, and they do a lot of them run them on a Friday or something like that, and or local, you know, we've got the union here. They run amazing youth grassroots programs. It's tough to deal with that when they can, you know, they, you can't beat that brand, right, and I'm sure a lot of people around the U.S. or different areas, you know, you're in London, right, how are you going to compete with like the Arsenal soccer schools or Chelsea or whatever it is, right, and that brand, but at the same time, I think if you are organized, if you're, you know, planning in advance, if you offer quality, if you're getting results, if you're really building relationships with players, you know, the companies like us and, you know, the private trainers on a more individual level, or maybe you've got a core of two to three coaches, I think they'll be fine. I think, you know, there's going to be tougher, it might be tougher to find some opportunities on a big scale. Like I mentioned, even the team training, I see that adjusting in my area, but there's going to be opportunities for you if you, you know, can connect with players, if they have a good time, if they're getting results, because you can, you can offer to the point of the customization, the personalization, like that relationship is something that, you know, sure they might see the Philadelphia Union logo and they go watch them on the weekends and maybe there are some opportunities to interact, but at the end of the day, like how much attention and personalized feedback and things like that can be offered. So I think there's definitely going to be opportunity opportunities for, you know, companies and private trainers, just through the relationships and then, you know, the quality of programs you can build, you can get much more niche and really in depth with things beyond what some of the bigger names can offer. So definitely some threats, but absolutely opportunities, especially on the soccer side of things as I see it. Completely agree. So talk to us a bit about how, how are you currently where they're coming from? So most of us are coming through, for the most part, through referrals and other people, you know, who have worked with me in the past. I have a referral program for my small group. So if someone refers a friend, they get a bonus or they get a credit towards a program, same thing with all the private clients. And, you know, and parents notice when it's something I didn't really realize at first, but, you know, like you're working with a player who, if you start month one, they can barely kick a ball and then month three, their scoring goals are at least like showing just like the confidence can switch so quickly in a kid when they get more of that, that personalized type of feedback. And other people see that, like other parents will see it and they'll ask and they'll talk to the parents of players you're training. So word of mouth, I think, especially in an industry where you're working with children, like parents have to trust you, right? Parents have to trust you, mentoring and like teaching their child. So there's no better way, even if you have like the nicest social media, which absolutely has its place, you know, at the end of the day, it's like, oh, if your teammate or your best friend has worked with the coach, you're going to trust them, right? And you're going to know from their, from their feedback firsthand. So that's a big part of it. So I think trying to incentivize, and this is something, again, I learned 100% from Ben and these calls in the group is trying to incentivize people to spread the word, which they will generally do anyway. But just to keep it top of mind is huge, you know, for our clinics, I think a huge reason that we just had this, you know, record setting clinic a month ago, or a week ago rather was because there's a buddy rate. So if you sign up with a friend, you're getting a discount, right? So automatically, people are going to tell friends about that because why not? So that's definitely huge. And that's where a lot of clients come from. And then after that, I would say as far as like the social media goes, probably Instagram has been most successful for me personally. One thing I did, and this I definitely recommend to newer coaches, go to all your local clubs, local teams, high schools, whatever it is, and just start following parents. And Ben makes this great point all the time. It's not necessarily as important to be putting out like flashy contact for the players. That's the tricky part with this industry is you're training the child, but you ultimately have to to convince and and and and sell to the parent, right? So like that's that's always the tricky balancing act. But what I did is just start following people, maybe 10% of them will follow me back.  So part of my promotion and part of some of these pushes is, you know, people if I'm been following parents and seeing, you know, they're they do have soccer players or they're at local clubs or they're commenting on the local clubs posts and things like that. Just a quick message, say hello, you know, and and I've had some success from there too. So definitely something that, you know, to keep in perspective, it can be a good option. But but nothing's going to replace the, you know, the word of mouth and referrals. And I've been fortunate that that's really, you know, kicking in at this time, not only with parents, but coaches too. So I'm fortunate there are a few other coaches in the area who, you know, I've known in the past who trust me, who know that I'll get results with their players. So if a parent comes to them and asks, you know, do you know anybody for private training, they're happy to refer them to me. So so that's been great. You know, and it's really helped to to grow my business over time and currently, you know, seeing the rewards of that. So what's the minimum commitment that you look for when new clients join your program? So I've got for the private one on one training, it's minimum three months. And there's kind of a, you know, it's kind of locked in, like we're going to start week one, we're done week 12. And within that, you know, we're going to try to make up as we can, but we try to get as consistent of a schedule as possible, which, you know, everybody's in a different scenario. So it can be a challenge or maybe it's easier for you to do that. But that's the minimum. It's the three months on that side for the private training. I used to sell like six packages or like eight packages or something. And as I mentioned, you get all different ranges of commitment. So definitely recommend the timepiece to make sure again, those committed clients, something that at first can seem absurd to think that someone would commit to that. Or for me, I've had a few six months clients still not quite to the 12 month threshold yet. But I mean, people in the group, they do that. And they've got those 12 months clients. So for the group program, our small group, that's a minimum eight week commitment. So a lot of people do start with eight weeks, and then they'll extend after that. Cool. And you're seeing the clients every week, right? That's right. Yep. So it's weekly, like our small group, it's very predictable. It's every Friday at the same time, either six or 7pm, you know, at the same location. And then, yeah, with the private training, we try to schedule that. I try to get out at least a month in advance, get everything scheduled. And yeah, we're training every week with those programs. Good, good. So Andrew, where do you see your business in the next five to 10 years from now? So eventually, like I mentioned, like currently still, it's something that I'm doing in evenings and weekends. So eventually having it, you know, go all in and trying to get to the point, you know, where I'm comfortable with that. Certainly want to continue, like right now, I'm in the process of adding a few coaches to help me, because we're at the stage where, you know, it's more opportunities that I can really take on and keep myself healthy and motivated.  It's not right to the players when you're getting burned out. So you can't really give the best that you've got. So definitely working on finding a few really good partners in this area, in the Philadelphia area to continue growing with. And then longer term, I'm trying to do more live virtual training. This is something that started during the pandemic lockdowns, you know, right when I was starting the business, I was supposed to be working with a team for like 12 weeks in person, we couldn't do that. So we pivoted, we use Zoom, and it works so well. And I've done anything from teams to like private one-on-one training, kids get better, kids improve, parents don't have to drive anywhere, you don't have to drive anywhere, you don't have to pay for space. No such thing as a rain out, right? So if our groups get canceled because of weather, well, we're going to pivot to virtual, that's built into our terms and conditions. I'm not extending another week, we're not taking time out of the calendar here. So we're getting it done. So it's been something that's been really effective. And I'd love to be able to grow it to a point where we've got a global community of players giving access to more players. It's also coaches from around the world too, I think there's just so much potential in that and being able to make an impact and really build a community. So trying to do both and hopefully five to ten years, it'll be a space where right now you don't really see much, but it might be a little more practical and seem realistic hopefully from some of the more pioneers of it. So yeah, that's kind of the goal. Longer term, definitely nothing will replace that in-person type of relationship of being able to really show and connect with a player in the same place, but we have the technology and tools to still do a pretty great job of it and to be effective. So that's kind of the longer term vision that I've got, but got to stabilize all the in-person and make sure that's really quality first. So that's the goal. Awesome. So when I ask you the final question, this is a two-part one. I always like to interview with these questions. First one is what does failure mean to you? And the second one is how important is taking risks? Okay, awesome. Great question. It's interesting that you're turning that on me because it's something I talk about all the time with my players, right? And I'm sure a lot of coaches out there, you know, I say a lot, you got to have the courage to take risks and to make mistakes. It's the only way we learn. So I think for me, the only thing I qualify as failure, I kind of mentioned a little bit earlier is like the inaction, the decision to do nothing. You got to at least try something. And I think also for me, if I know some days where I'm just like not doing the basics of not being organized, not having my schedule planned out in advance, you know, those little things, that's when I feel that it doesn't necessarily have to do with my performance like of like, I don't see it, I used to, but I've kind of come to a stage now like, if I get on a call with a parent and I feel like, you know, we have a good conversation, I share my philosophy, you know, the options we have, and they talk and it seems like a good fit and they ultimately decide not to go for it. I used to take that very personally. Over time, through a lot of repetition, I don't really see that as a failure. I just see it as all right, that just not the right fit, at least right now or, you know, maybe in the future. So failure, I think is more the inaction piece. And as far as taking risks, like I think you never really know until you try. I know it's a, you know, the old adage, but you've got to be unwilling to try things and in some cases, you know, just kind of plan as best as you can certainly and try to do all the things you can that are within your control. But at the end of the day, you know, there's a lot outside of it too. So you've got to take the risk, you've got to learn my answer two years ago, five years ago would be much different and get caught a lot in that overthinking and stuff, but you just got to try it and, you know, just kind of see what works and that's kind of the fun part. When you look back over time, it doesn't always feel so in the moment, but certainly, you know, when you can reflect and see like that's, you know, how it came to be. So definitely take those risks. And I think within the risk, you got to have like a growing vision for yourself, you know, so and have some goals that you can look towards and always try to keep that vision of what you can do and offer to the players in your area and how you can work with players. Keep it growing, but to your point, you're not going to get there if you stay within that comfort zone and things like that. So definitely great, great question Leo. Perfect. All right, Andrew, well, fantastic. Thank you for jumping on here, sharing your story. For sure. I'd love to in 12 months time, have you back on, see where you are in 12 months time. Yeah, that'd be awesome. I follow you because you're part of the program. So I know that you're working hard and your program's growing. So keep it up. Thanks again. Thanks again for jumping on. Absolutely. And I enjoyed it, appreciate it. And yeah, we'll see you in one of the calls sooner or later. Take care, Andrew. Cool. All right, see you.


Most advice on making money is a lie. The truth? Practice your skill until you're too good to ignore.