Okay, you are in field guide to caring for developer 2.0. Your speaker is Allison Tarr.  She loves rock-n-rolly, boom-a-boops, and belly-parking, not necessarily out of order. As a result of her own experience combating stigma, Allison encourages more local conversation to provide additional resources to create safe spaces and sustainable spaces. Now working as an independent developer, she's been able to think cautiously to better health while advocating for changing how the tech industry approaches the mental health of the brand. So please join me in welcoming Allison Tarr. I love principal, thank you so much for joining me at the end of the day. I know you've had a lot of absorption of material and a lot of interaction, I know. As you mentioned that I'm an introvert, so I was like, you made it, everybody. We're going to go the distance, I'll see you all at the end of the morning, and then we'll all go home and crash. So while I'm talking to Tarr, I appreciate you coming out. So first, I kind of live for the developer, but really it's a bit more expansive than that. It's just the tech industry as a whole. So whether you're a developer or a designer, I think a lot of these things still speak to the industry at that part rather than just if you do cover them. And so first off, what we're going to talk about is that we're going to go over some statistics. We're going to go over some of the why's and how we can work towards changes in community. And it will be so dry, we'll have to make statistics. Tarr's the right amount of sprinkle with it. I'm biased, so there we go. So, hello, I'm Allison. You've already heard a little bit about me. You can follow me on social media and across the board with Allison Tarr. Some code, some feminism, avocado, belly part of the content, so if you're warned, it's a bit of a mishmash. I'm a feminist, I'm a writer, obviously a mental health advocate, many things. And one of the things that I want to go over before we dive in is that I don't know if anyone that is familiar with the podcast called Struggle Less. It's a podcast about appeals, so it's like right up my alley. Definitely my little house. But they have kind of a disclaimer at the beginning. So I'm not a doctor, a psychologist, a trained health professional, that matter. I'm just someone with early experience with mental health. So my qualifications are that I have a lot of feelings and opinions.  So on some of my content that's going to my personal story, symptoms and as such, I'm aware that like, depending on your own experience or where you're at or your own, or your own history could be potentially triggering. So if you realize at some point, this talk is just not your jam, you're just not happy with it. Feel free to use it as an exit, not about that, but you don't feel pressured to say, I won't give up at all. Just have to do what you do and take care of yourself. So a little bit more about me and my qualifications and freedom was talking to the forefront. I did not always work in tech, my background was in the arts. I had sort of a smattering of different job titles before I went into tech. I was a political teacher and then into the Puppet Studio. It's a winding road. So clearly I just coaxed that in its sacks, right? That's just a direct line from Puppets to coaxes. But I'm here because I want to help people feel less alone. I think it's not something that's discussed enough. I want to break down the stigma of talking about mental health and I want to bring it more to the fore of the community, especially within tech because in tech I find that there are certain things that are normalized and brought forward as a standard which don't necessarily need to be and that don't benefit people in the long term as far as sustainability. So as mentioned, I have lived experience in mental health. It started when I was a teenager and for a while I was written off as like typical teenage angst, I would say. So sort of just like, oh, check out this bill. It's just like I was having that like ACV, testing and valuing this time, shall we say. And maybe to be a joint grant is certainly not an easy road regardless of whether or not you're dealing with additional issues. But I thought that what I was dealing was normal because people around me normalized it as a phase that eventually would be over, which was good news for me at the time, but unfortunately it wasn't taken seriously in the way that I got immediate support to help. That being said, I was lucky enough and privileged enough that my support systems eventually were like, this isn't shifting and it's getting worse and worse. I thought of the thoughts of like suicidal ideation and things that I was thinking were normal and I just thought that I wasn't as strong as everyone else was. Because everyone was just like, this is a typical teenage thing. And I just was thinking, well everyone else must be having these thoughts too and we're just dealing with that fine or like trying out for teens, they're just dealing with it. For some reason I'm not able to, but really what I did was, is that well my thoughts were much different than like the typical teenage thought process and it was much more for the banks than all that. But that makes that ideally internalized to be, oh it's just me, like I'm just not strong enough to deal with whatever else seems to be fine, but like part of the course. And once diagnosed things became even a little more complicated. I was lucky enough to receive a diagnosis which I know there's a bit of pros and cons to receiving diagnosis from people. Like being put in a box is necessarily an ideal, but it's for me it was a beneficial thing because I, my mindset was like, I was raised with like, oh once you give a name to something, it's a lot more clear like where you can take it, it's a lot more clear like where we can move in this and there's probably a solution and some things will like, again, debug, I can figure this out. But the adults around me, their reaction was more complicated because basically I was told to not talk about it when they went, just like okay well now you have this thing, but like don't tell me all about it, don't mention it in your college essay or like applications, don't just like get this theory and they did it from a place of love because they knew that potential reactions and how people react, but also having that post on you from Grants in your life has like a long lasting effect as far as where do you then take that experience and again that internalization and the stigma of like oh wait, we're not supposed to talk about these things, it's just something that, maybe you talk about with your doctor, you're lucky and then you move on to sort of cope with it as you go. So I was told not to discuss it with anyone and that obviously helped with the last thing I know. So all of a sudden I had this issue and I wanted to work towards solving it, solving it. But instead I had to keep quiet about it and so that just added to the soft stigma. And so I had this diagnosis or diagnoses and within that I just, I feel like, and this kind of goes into the tech industry as a whole as well as far as identity, we're so reliant on our brains for our day to day. And that's how we make our money, is being able to solve puzzles, get to the bottom of our problems, like just really like get to the bottom of untangling these different things. But we're also so much more than that. So it's like we have these different parts of our identities that don't necessarily come up in our day to day as we code or as we disseminate or as we project manage. But there are these things that do come into play where it's like I'm more than just my diagnoses, I'm somewhat with depression and anxiety, with bipolar, but I'm also all these other things. And so since there's, with as with many people with mental health issues, and I have to acknowledge here that it's important to remember that mental health issues could be a diagnosis or it could be a situational phase. You could have had a loss. It could be something that's less what they would think to a long-term or chronic or ongoing and more situational. And that's still something that you don't necessarily need a quote-unquote proper diagnosis for and it's still a very valid experience. So like most people, we've been really asked to add to this story. So most recently a few years ago, I had a relapse which resulted in me attempting suicide and then being hospitalized. And that was a major wake-up call for me because I realized that you need to increase my vigilance around self-care and be a lot more aware as far as outside influences as well as my, what I was like promoting out or I would say for self-care. And maintaining a certain level of call in my own life and making deliberate choices and how I would carry those out with actual actions rather than being like my core values are X, Y, and Z. I can check from Toronto. So my core values are X, Y, and Z. And how do I want to relate those forward and actual and actionable tasks? And so that being said, I've had so many good times in the past few years. I traveled to New York and saw my brother, he married me. I have a niece now. I celebrated my birthday in New York City. I was at the Hartman Concert, which was maybe the closest to a religious experience I'll ever have. And I think none of these things I would have seen as possible, but I was in the depths of that place, of that darkness. And it's important to me because I deal with it every day and it also adds additional shifts to my day-to-day. And it did when I worked for an agency, it did when I worked for a small business and it still does now that I work for myself. And more so, I noticed it when I moved into the tech space because not all of those, the expectations of the tech space were not necessarily drastically different than that, say like another bank or another type of industry. But there were certain expectations there that made it even more difficult for me to adapt into and bring those elements of self-care into play. And it's also important, and I think it's, I just want everyone to talk about it more because I think, I know that it's not just me and I know that the first step is having these conversations and teaching people vocabulary, that how to talk about it and how to feel comfortable talking about it. Because that's the case a lot of the times, people just don't know where to begin, even though we kind of identify the people that's like, I know that these are the kinds of people to have these conversations with, but the people that you also know are saying that they just don't have the intel to take it further. So our communities and young tech industry, these are real issues that just aren't what you talked about. So one in five is that for the number of adults who are living with mental illness at any given moment of time, and that's not necessarily diagnosed, they could also be situational. So chances are, you don't consciously know someone in your life, I could be a woman in five. I'm an Allison. And now we're friends. I don't work 500,000 people in this working tree to do their right to help with you. And that's a lot of missing work. And these are just, keep in mind that all these statistics are from people volunteering as information. So these are people who are owning up to this rather than the actual statistics. So this could very well be a fraction of the actual people who are not owning up to the actual reasons for the missing work. So it's estimated that more than 50 billion dollars is the cost of the absenteeism and productivity. So whether health entails lower total medical costs and even if we don't want to, I don't want to make a blatant statement of about you, since we're all at a work camp, I feel like real human-to-human people as far as relating empathy. And even if you don't want to take it as a person-to-person hearing level, the cost of doing business, you're losing money by not supporting any of these values and endeavors within your employees. It benefits your employees to know that their contributions are value in a way where they're able to take care of their own needs and so they can actually keep contributing about your business and support us. So why don't we want to talk about it? We don't want people to think we're less than and I totally get that. I don't win this duffel, it's upside down. Like that's embarrassing. Yeah, I feel like I should have at least tried that. Wow. But we don't want people to think we don't know things. And so so much of our self-worth can often be tied to what we do when it's about knowing the code, about knowing we're positioning ourselves as the experts of our own start to meet. What you're using is that not getting to know all the things. And most of the time it would be super crazy if you didn't know all the things. It'd be kind of rough to hand out, yeah. And we all have our different strengths and weaknesses and that's what makes a strong team a strong team is being able to fill in those gaps and collaborate. And moments of varying lengths where we all doubt where we can look at these and our other team members are able to like lift us up in those moments and show us our strengths. So people aren't used to talking about it like I mentioned because they aren't very sure where to be yet, what questions to ask or if it's okay to discuss with you. And also if I can point out that sometimes it's not appropriate to talk about it in workplace. Like it's not your place to be asking those personal questions. And depending on the team structure and everything like it just might not be an appropriate thing. That being said, there's a difference between like being a bit intrusive and then or just asking someone how they're doing.  We're having some of the vocalists. Oh like are you feeling better? Yeah, I was having a rough day off when I'm back at business. Because I wouldn't have many issues being like oh I had a migraine and I couldn't come in. But having that extra comfort to be able to say yeah I just really needed to take a day for myself and I'm back, I'm ready, I'm like ready to go. The state of mental illness is that it comes with a sense that you shouldn't have it to be there. So that it's a bit self-indulgent or emotional competence or lazy of Adam. There's like tons of negative extras we can attach to it. So and oftentimes without the invisibility of the bit, without physical signs and symptoms people don't meet those new passions because we're so used to needing to see something to have to be able to prevent. And again that being said, so much physical symptoms can manifest from actual mental health issues. So awkward eyes, what does that mean? I saw so many people's faces drawn and I was like hey mom, don't worry because it's not that participatory. So how do people here wear contacts for glasses? I can see some of you are wearing glasses so don't feel like you can hide and be excited to be wearing my glasses today. So has anyone ever asked you would you just try staring at a marker? Would you try squinting? And then you wouldn't need glasses. I don't reach as far as comparison but as far as people approaching you and being like oh I mean like I was like no, I forgot something. Ask me if I've ever heard kale which is, that was a hilarious one for me because also I'm just like haven't you not heard kale this morning? It's everywhere. I've enjoyed it myself for lunch and it's delicious. I'm not into kale that way. All the records. So anyway, a bit of a reach but that's the sort of similarity of, we have expectations of certain things being fixable and certain things not. We take glasses, it's like of course, you get glasses, you make some correctional and then we move on. It's not, it's not anything to squint harvest on. Of these and other statistics they're also all feelable on how some help that work. And I'm not a designer so I just use this dramatic for various, this is a bit much, I don't know, I don't know. This is just a third problem, this is just a third problem in the 2016 survey, so across the time of 2017 I was like I'll do, this is Ted you're gonna put our formerly discussed mental health, like as a policy campaign or either a children's education and then the most places of business where it fell. So most of the players haven't, I see even the formal conversation, they don't have a policy in place, they haven't even mentioned it. And this one, I know the difference in numbers between the mental and physical here as well as the makes, because the difference in like, do you think it's got some mental health disorder with your employer or physical health disorder? The unshorterness of how to anticipate your employer or react also is really telling to me because that can be really disabling when reaching out for help or support. So the things that as someone with a mental health issue you're entitled to under reasonable accommodation, like a crisis attack, a high turnover race and people running out, it's not sustainable. The industry is expanding on an incredible rate which is great, or I think it's great. But it means people who are experienced to keep those rules of motion and people who are experienced to maintain levels of effectiveness in order to keep continued knowledge sharing. The tech industry won't be able to rely on an influx of new developers who work hard to the metal, work so hard, get burned out and then never get to the level of passing it forward and being senior jobs and lead jobs and passing down that knowledge to the new tech people. Elements of the tech industry that specifically lead to potential stressors, compressed deadlines, ambitious goals setting, certain stages last longer than anticipated so your pick-off is delayed but then your deadlines don't shift for some reason and the assets or feedback are given but those expectations still stay in place. Ambitious goals setting is a work towards meeting goals that are outside of your comfort zone whether that's skills related or time related. The constant review of work is something that I think comes up across the board whether you're a designer or a developer personally invested in your work it doesn't have to be a bad thing and how the review is handled and having that constant scrutiny it's really important to have it handled in a certain way and have that really clear-cut communication. Especially for freelance or co-workers and frequency back can really translate to self-doubt as well so if you're not, if you're in your own little vortex you can get real unsure, real vast about the current state of things because you don't have that present feedback. Also because you work with technology people assume who are constantly handed, constantly. I have to, I've lived on and telling two years ago, but I've just completely tried to avoid that. It can feel like we're on haul a lot of the time and this might contain more different answers as well because we're going through constant waves and if you're in a drought you might feel the pressure to respond more quickly because your account's been slow so it's a weekend, but it's still in response gotta get that hassle to it, gotta respond. This is a quote that no one's ever said. I totally understand all the latest technology systems and workflows in my industry and I think that the pressure to, we're at, everything is so constantly changing and it's important to keep up on the current state of things but it's also like jumping from a virus. You really have to get used to your age. Things are really interesting and inspiring. Otherwise, you'll get overwhelmed and by thinking and choosing you just basically won't choose you won't choose anything by choosing that name. Think it's better. So what is burnout? I have the opinion that burnout, because as anyone, you've called for the term burnout, floating around? Yes. I have the opinion that burnout is kind of a term that's mass creating as terms for larger mental health issues, it's easier to save burnout. It's just even though it's often depression as I stress this usually. So it can't be attributed to just one component. It can be a combination of many different things. Again, it doesn't necessarily mean it's a diagnosical thing. It's more like whether it's already situations where they expect to mention themselves. They never feel the work that they're doing is good enough. It's an advocacy, they'll never appreciate it. Having unreasonable demands placed upon them and our current roles that just aren't a big fit. Diminishability to take pleasure from activities. Difficulty absorbing new information for that hidden function and that worsening short-term memory. And also a lower ability to handle stress and issues that you might normally wouldn't face from. And this can connect with physical manifestations. So fatigue, headaches, irritability, reduced efficiency, and then increased errors. So burnout is more acceptable than the symptoms of mental illness generally. And then one of the things with the tech industry is that hard work beginning passion is over-emphasized. I'm really passionate about code, I love it. But I also like to think about other things. And I still care about code and I'm still super passionate. But I do like to poke out. The state that I am taking time to recharge on vacation, to take those health upgrades, to go set up in the front of the fresh air. Those people's jobs can happen right there. And so more and more of a time than themselves is in support or in courage. That it's a slippery slope when you let those happen. So Google did some interesting studies about what makes you good at thinking. And these were the five keys to a successful team. Psychological safety, dependability, structure and career, meaning of work, and then those are sort of self-explanatory. But psychological safety is one that we'll get into a bit later. So for this, these are just a cream of binary, true confession, of four job resources and good jobs. So for instance, lack of social support, the job control of not getting that feedback or just a little time pressure again. Good job resources, there's participation, there's a variety of things. You have autonomy or the choices that you're gaining, potential for qualification and support for colleagues. So there are ways of keeping up the don't fall workouts. Yes. The strategies that we can implement to those experiencing ongoing mental health issues also support those who are experiencing burnout or are on the verge of burnout. And then those off the overlap. So here are some strategies to test your goals. So it's important for psychological safety.  That's not a type of thing. So you want to be clear with your areas that still require explanation and that each team members and what matters. You want to create things that this is a puzzle, this is a new problem or a new problem. It's just a puzzle to solve. A combination of psychological safety and accountability is vital for teams to achieve their own potential. And it's really important to mark my favorite leaders in all of my jobs have done the modeling curiosity. They've asked a lot of questions as well as they've acknowledged that I'm not looking. There's nothing I know more than working when people were like, I don't remember doing that. I need to Google it and just be like, yes. We're all going, no way. That's an important thing to remember for helping those around you. You want to set boundaries. Know the person that's available to you as an employee. Take your vacation, please. And always come down to me when I work with people who didn't take all our vacation things. Communicate empathy and improve the model of your self-care strategies. I think that's the most important, especially if it's modeling on the top there. But if you don't properly use others, you need to sustain yourself first. Learning to be comfortable with saying that is also going to be about your degree. So don't worry, I'm not going to read it all. TLDR, I just was like, I can't choose to swipe away. Basically, sum up to get more effectively, prioritize your strengths and energy in a way that amplifies your efforts. So to help someone to the maximum that I would like to help them, I have to conserve my energy and other ways. And then I'm most efficient in the ways that I do not help people. I do remember reading it there, but I don't know through. Also, set aside time for learning. A seven-ideos or freelancers, I set aside a chunk of time. It's usually on Friday mornings or afternoons at the end of the week. Where I set aside my schedule of things that interest me, that I want to, it's good first, so it has been lately good. Because otherwise, I don't have the tenacity to do it out of hours and be sustainable as a person and still continue my work. So as I integrated it in part of my work day, I feel like not only am I respecting those factors for myself, but I'm teaching it as work to myself and I also take it more seriously versus that like puttering work. I have to train a lot for taking big cameras. Switch up working environments, co-working space maybe, if a coffee shop is really important. Also, non-pervasive interaction, very important. Make sure you keep up regular social engagements, but I refer to my non-tax friends as civilians. Like some civilian interaction goes a long way, whether or not it's just like you need that for a walk after work. So non-pervasive interaction. Uh-huh. Client matters should be around communication. Choose one, stick to it. I refer to friends who text, email, face cam, Slack, all with the same client. No, no, no, no, just choose one. Also, this texting business, don't text with clients. Just keep it all in like a brief spread somewhere. Like, concerns me. Seek out your questions and support us. If you don't have a little nice little pod of people to read them for, I totally recommend it. Once you're in that order text, you just want to reach out to someone and be like, I need help with this issue or like, oh, it's me slowly, what am I doing?  Similar to remote work, it's easy for seeing the doubt to your own. We're working within our own little bubbles. So that building a community, it's difficult to know what's normal or not. So you need to set the dates. You need to set your own normal and know what's right for you. Some employee strategies. Lunch and lunch or training sessions. So the expectations of people keeping up to pace with the industry aren't placed outside of ours. Pre-mortems and like most post-mortems from projects. Pre-mortems being like the project management stage where you talk about potential stomach blocks and things that you're worried about, things that you want to go over ahead of time that concern you. And then post-mortems where it's just like, it's not on the spot, you actually need to create a real safe space. The special code reviews. Celebrating non-feature work. So even if it's not something that necessarily would be like, check out this trust hands feature. Just celebrating everybody's work, even if it wasn't particularly jazzy. Credit dialogue with management is probably the most important thing. And management modeling would be yours. So management taking a mental health day. That would speak hugely. Like that would be such a great time. Also something else is fine for the future. So if your company can maybe do that and have that for part of their continued learning track that would be a great thing. So what are you going to do as a community? What are you going to do in mind of that? So you can raise your adversity, challenge stigma of talking about feelings, reduce stigma of agitation and disclosure, and support others in a sustainable fashion. And some of these strategies go fully to health. Stigma is going to prevent people from reaching out for help. And everybody needs such ranging different types of help. So I know support needs to portion in and out of the world. And quality of life. None of that is really what we want for our friends, our colleagues, our family. By creating spaces where it's okay for people to be vulnerable and to approach people for help and ask for those supports. We can then work on strengthening the supports that are provided. So a volunteer organization called resourcing of the office. And they do have some great resources they have for us. And also these three books that are geared towards employees and employers and then your HR professionals. And they're doing what you can and will do for mine. But they are really helpful as far as potential guidelines. And I know that management in particular has found to be generally helpful because they often don't know where to begin. So it's a nice starting point. That goes off. So we're taking the time to evaluate the issue. Whether you're doing something that's more long term or a bit situational or symptoms of a larger issue. It's important to take some time to look into it and reach out to support. Because we deserve to be happy and helpful. Because we're not just a co-worker community. I don't care about everybody. We've got all about fields. These are our resources. And if you're in need of further resources, I also have crazy amounts of academic documentation. I need to add a few more to realize to this list. Yeah, if you have new resources for something specific, feel free to reach out to me. And thank you. And also, as an entrepreneur, I also realized that I also say, any questions, I'm not the person that asks questions at the end of the talk. But I will be around to after this. And without the after purchase, I need to know the question. Or if you just want to fly totally anonymous and you know or tweet at me, I don't even need to know it's you. Thank you for coming. Literally to the end. Literally to the end of the talk. So we've got time for Q&A, if you have questions. I think it's a scared-full-off question. I hear a lot of questions, but they're worth it. What's W.P. Huggs? W.P. Huggs. W.P. Huggs is something started by a guy named me of South Africa. And there's a Slack channel, and it's specifically for WordPress and mental health. But I think it's because it's kind of a small version of people. And then I think we all kind of got busy. Busy freelancers. We haven't had much time to put back into it. But yeah, I recommend joining Slack community as well. So I got to have a quiet, but quiet. If you find tech industry might be more, I guess, explained in a bad way, individuals who might be virtually abusive, or emotionally abusive, if they're anything like that. Yes, I do find tech industry to be more common. I think a lot of things get sled, like a lot of things slide in exchange for that rock star developer vibe, unfortunately. I don't really know the solution to it. That it's not worth it, because I feel like they're kind of people with the same skillset. I just don't think that they are as loud as those other people. So I don't think that oftentimes in the pipeline that comes forward.  Yeah, and I think something that I've suggested a few of my friends' workplaces have started integrating is workshops and non-violent communication. And also because I don't think this allows people to potentially learn to communicate differently. It also really highlights individuals who are struggling with communicating to their team members in a certain way to management as well as their coworkers and people aren't able to follow the exercises in those patterns. And it kind of has brought a sense of awareness to those situations where they're like, oh, that's just so-and-so being so-and-so. I don't use real names. I don't know if that's any name I can use. I'm like, oh, no. I'm not thinking of a real person. If that's just so-and-so being so-and-so, it's still not tolerable, because if they're not treating their team members with the respect they deserve, it's not creating that psychological safety at all. And if you feel that any suggestion that you bring to the table is going to be critiqued, why would you need to bring a potential problem to the forefront if you know that you're immediately going to have something like, oh, I don't think so, because if you're going to be blamed potentially, it's like, why am I going to tell them this is going to be a problem? I'm like, it's not a safe space. The thing is also, too, is indicative of us to, as employees, be more tolerant of dealing with people with that in our industry, and sticking around in places like that too long versus saying management is not dealing with this, I should look for something else. I know I have personally experienced my problem too long in places like that, where I really should have left, because the environment wasn't indicative to what I was. And I've done the same work. And there's a difference as well, Jean, because you stick around and perhaps you voice concerns, and you want to see change, so it's like you have that little get-a-roo, OK, well, I'm going to wait to see what's instigated and what actually happens. But then I've also been in a situation where you do that, and you wait, and you're like, OK, I think my patience had on, like, in a minute. But when change isn't actually instigated, then I think the same is still sticking around, because it's just, I don't know, it's maybe just have the, it's more painful to see the potential for change and just not have them fall off the ground when you're having an other way, rather than that one thing. Yeah, it definitely has to, there's so much that has to come from, I believe, the management level to trickle down, unfortunately, like whether it's modeling behaviors or the tolerance level of certain types of communication or counter-advance. I mean, like I'm going to lay to what you're saying, I have the owner of your company working for you, I don't even want to work for your boss, he's so cruel and nasty, I wouldn't want to work for him, like, but you expect me to? Yeah, what? You're like, this is a counter-advance. That's, and that's an interesting, it's an interesting thing to probably call you, because the fact that they would want to hire someone and they see that, like, because to them, there's value there somewhere, but to have that somehow, I don't know, it's not overpowered by those other things that are so creative, which is interesting. And that's, I guess, the like finding a place where the values are actionable, they're actually walking the walk that they talk about, they're just talking to each other, to their own, but they're in it. Helen, do you have any questions? I have a question. Any other questions? How do you rate them to, like, S5 to your boss, how do you rate them? As far as the form and the tolerance? Yeah. I would totally recommend open source mental illnesses and handouts for that. It's a good kind of, I would say, a non-confrontational way of just being like, hey, here are these things, and it doesn't become a personal issue, so much as, like, these are some things, it falls in line with the nation's standard of, like, people of Caucasian, and, like, I want an HR to know more about it. Or you can have me send it to the public, I don't know, honestly, which I've totally done for people, I'm like, hi, I'm part of the awesomest outreach team. But I might not be good because if, if there's nerves around opening the conversation from the beginning, it's really great to present it just from a standpoint of, like, hey, I thought this was really cool for the company, as a whole, rather than making it more of an individual, like, with two fingers or whatever, just feels more safe, I think, for everybody.  Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Well, I'll just kiss him.


This fan crew, your video games crew. I'm a big fan. Oh, oh, thank you.  Ten dollars, ten dollars. No, I understand. No, no, no, we're friends, we're friends, we're friends. We're friends. What? There we go. There we go. There we go. There we go. I want to thank my coach. There we go, see? You know what I'm saying? There we go. There we go. Like, do you guys have, like, stations to record at? Yeah. We record it and then we give it to you and, uh, just take off. Dude, okay, that's sick.   Yeah, you can. Now I'm immediately gonna lose this. I won't lose this. I'm gonna put it in the bag. Hey, how's it going? Pleasure. Yeah, good to meet you. Hell yeah. Cool. So I know a little bit. Yesterday and Kenny held me out a bit too last night. Nice. And, uh, but Kenny and I just played together. Yeah. About 20 minutes. So you want to play training mode first and go over some stuff or you want to just play some matches and back and forth. So is training mode an equal? Yeah, I can do a dev mode and then get it in there. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I got it. That was sick. Because we didn't have that last night. You want Stick or Pad? Uh, it's equal. You want Pad or Pad? So did they go over all the fusions? Yeah, the fusions. And, uh, like what I need to practice is like literally how to chain my attacks together properly. Because one of the things I noticed is like, like let's say I'm playing Ori. Yeah. Like Ori is supposed to be really fast and fluid. Yeah. But whenever I was playing her, I felt like I was like, she's very resource heavy. Yeah. So like she does have incredibly good normals so she can like stop sign people. But like if she doesn't have, she has box fires so the orbs that float around you. Yeah. You can cancel that from any special or hit. So that keeps her movement fluid and you can do it on block or hit. So she has a lot of really good stuff on block to keep it going. Uh, do you know who you want to play as a secondary? Either Darius or Yasuo. Hey, either or. I love both. Well, as soon as you're Darius. Cool. Darius has the bleed mechanic. Yeah. You can bleed all your block strings cause red health. So it just drains their bar just from blocks. Yeah. With freestyle you can can shake twice so you can create very long block strings for Darius. Once he sets it up. She has the Orbitek. It's a neutral special one. She'll do the charge up. If you do it with three orbs, she'll spin them all out. But if you do her forward special one with a direction, she'll do that. So like you can do stuff like strings where you keep the pressure on, you get the hit, you get the combo. That's what I want to learn. I think the air combos are probably really, like they feel really strong. Yeah. So a good one with her is you do light, medium, heavy. So that'd be square triangle circle. And then you do down forward circle. So, so here's what I noticed last night. Down forward circle, it's, I can't hold it. Yeah, it's a low. And the reason that works is there's a defense mechanic in this game. If you hold back and block, and then you mash the dash button. Yes. So you call the assist and then you do neutral team and you'll handshake and take over. And in some fusions, you don't have to do neutral. But if you play two times assists, you have to do two assists before you would handshake by going to neutral. Mattering how many or fewer changes, the hit's done on it when she throws it out. So if it's three, you get crumbled. If it's one, you just get hit. Are we done? I have not touched this game. Pleasure, man. Yeah, for sure.  So here's what we're going to do. We're going to join them. And we're going to, we're going to double up here. We're going to play against the community. It's going to be sick. I'm very excited about the project now. It's very, very excited. I'm going to be like fighting against this stuff. So I'll let Kenny and the crew take it away. Let me know. We've got to see these hands if you guys want to fight. So here we go. There we go. There we go. There we go. Player three is very important. This is the, this is the little brother controller. It's not even plugged in. They got somebody playing in the back. Espan. Espan. Espan. Yeah. Okay, okay. Oh, here. If you can move around. Yeah. Okay. All right, all right. What's up, everybody? Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, we got unruly. And Espan ready to rock and roll. See what we can do. Get some matches going. Chad, I'm worried. No. And we're going to play Echo. My bad. No. You picked already. All right, guys. Here comes the first round. Yo, video games versus our fans. All right. Here we go. Everybody's throwing out the assist. We're going in real quick. This is for the overhead. Oh, my God. Nice launcher.  Okay. I'm going to knock him on the back. Oh, here we go. Nice helper. Nice air combo. Tries to get him on the block. Oh, Tries to flip it. Ooh. Try to get him with the air combo. Nice breakers. Keep them out. Okay, but this one is an assist launcher. Push the characters. Nice throw. Keep him in main. Now each other are actually watching each other trying to do. Another nice launcher. See if you can get some air combos off of that. Keep the pressure in the corner. Nice throw. See some assist in the map. Oh, throws out the projectiles. Super in-vict. Oh, there's an assist. That was a good difference there. Now it's all up to Echo. Echo does have. A last-hand assist. Last-hand assist. Ready? Ooh. Nice knockdown. Nice. Oh. Two, two, two, two, two. There's not a one much. Let's see if you can get a comeback. Nice in the corner combo. Almost gets the launcher. Oh, he put on the pressure. Super. Oh, okay. Oh, you guys. Last hit. Thank you so much. Oh. GG, guys. GG. That was the last one. Yeah. For sure. What do we got next? Blue.  Okay. So, let's see who we got. Who we got? Uh, who's got it? 30% down open right here. There you go. There you go. Okay, so right now there's four characters. They're obviously working on a lot more. You've got a nice mix on the other side. I don't know our case. I think one of the things, because I talked to, like, the lead champion designer, one of the things that they were saying is, like, it's not going to all be, like, just like top painters and stuff like that, right? Like soloing characters. So they're going to find ways to, like, have, and there's over 100 characters.  Lead characters right now, lead champions. You have to be creative about finding ways to implement a character into a fighting game. Where, you know, like, an ADC is, like, you're always ranked and you're shooting, right? But maybe it wouldn't be like that. It wouldn't be like that in Project L, right? So, something to think about. Maybe, like, in Ari, right? Ari is a ranged character in League, but she's, I mean, she's a quick fast attack, scratching and clawing, all that kind of stuff. And then her specials, she can, like, zone a little bit with that. Now we've got S-Fan and Simmons, crossover of the century. We need two more players. But you guys are kind of quiet. We need some, we need to hear some more. Okay. We do. There we go. All right. You guys are next. You've got to make that noise. All right, guys. Again, thank you to the Project L team for making this happen. They let us hang out. No video games. S-Fan taking on the community. It is awesome. I think this is super cool. So, shout out to them for letting us take over their booth. Thank you guys for hanging out. Thank you. We're here for you guys. Come on. Let's hear for the FGC. FGC. FGC. FGC. FGC. You know what I'm saying? Let me get a hat, bro. You know what I'm saying? The Project L, all these amazing players coming out. You know what I'm saying? The FGC is educating well. Here we go. You know it's team green. You know it's Simmons. You got that green. Here we go. Echo start now. You got S-Fan there. Okay. Gets the little time warp. Okay, nice block. Ooh, there's some pressure. But nice blocking with my boy S-Fan. Nice. Oh, punish. Doesn't capitalize. There we go. Let's see it. Ooh, the assist. The assist might have hit the combo drop. And sometimes you've got to be careful of this. The grids are too close. Nice crossover. Oh, there's the assist. Nice crossover. Nice crossover. Doesn't capitalize. Here we go. Oh, almost gets it. Got one orb left. Nice. There's the air combo. Simmons with the help. Okay, that was kind of nice. Here we go. My boy S-Fan, he's learning real quick. You know what I'm saying? Use the FGC. He's playing like killeristic in the past. But you know, this game, he's like, yo, I've got to get into this. Okay, there we go. Okay, nice. Simmons is now back up the homie. Okay, just misses. Right now he's at the 40%. He's got that extra damage and the extra dash. Okay. Backing up. Oh, Simmons begins caught. Simmons ready to dunk. He bar no bar, but still can do mad damage. Catches him. Oh, whiffs. Echo makes him pay. Nice old four-head combo. Nice. Use the rewind. S-Fan with the assist. Looking nice. Oh, there we go. There's the air combo. Oh, nice. With the slam down. And he's getting real close. Oh, my gosh, little super hits. We need a dunk from Simmons right now. But good pressure from Echo. Oh, nice assist right now. Let him have it. Do we see a dunk? Oh, there we go. Wow, that was to the wire right now. Simmons with the impossible dunk. Simmons has those fundamentals and the dunks. Nice cross-up right there from Echo. Throwing up the little boomerang. Oh, okay. Nice cross-up. Nice back dash. Get away by... Oh, look at that assist right there. That's something you can do. If your character has one of those assists, that crosses up, you can tag and you're like... It's almost very difficult to dunk. Okay. Team Green, last punish. S-Fan going all over the place. Okay, there we go. Nice assist by Simmons. Okay, here we go. Oh, this is the launcher. Okay, there we go. Oh, that's good to happen. Birthday Sims coming in. Nice pressure going on right now. Uh-oh. Very nice back dash. Another trouble. Oh, there we go. I'm telling you, he's got the fury. The fury gives you that extra damage. And, you know, you get that extra tag. That was actually... It's actually really good for Boxing. Simmons. Nice big dunk. Brought in his dunk. Okay, nice. Air to air. In-Simmons is favorite right now. The assist, the pressure right now. Jumps out of the way. Nice back dash. Okay, here we go. Trying to make a comeback right now. Oh, my God. Catch them both, but the character's already dead. Echo with the nice punish. Air combo. Bringing it down sound. It's a super, but this is like the in-sauce super. You get some actual crazy sauce. And right now... Oh, drops the combo. Almost gets hurt. Okay, so here we go. That's it. That's it. There we go. There we go. GG's. Press release in there. All right. We got some people who want to play next. All right. You guys got to get out of there. On the side over here. Anyone want to show our play? Okay. You see? Okay, we got an email. You got to get out on the next one. Oh, I just got word from the Project LT. You guys are a little too quiet, and we might have to leave. That's right. That's right. We want the other booths looking at what's going on over here. All right. So now we're going to get some devs, you know, on the team. We're not about to buy two devs. We bought them about a week ago. And they are destructive, man. Look at that. You know what I'm saying? Whoa. I'm going to need that. Okay. Here we go. I got team yellow versus team white. Okay. Like I said, you've got to pick the same color or I will escort you out the booth. You know what I'm saying? That's something you have to talk about when you get there. Color coordination is very important. Because look at how nice that looks. Okay. Nice to be done. Nice. Rushing in. That axe has got great range right there. He's a bit of slower side, but my goodness, man. This man can catch you with it. Easy. Okay. Nice one up. Nice throw. Oh. Oh, nice block right there. Oh. Doesn't... Oh, that's a fully capitalized right there. Very close. Echo is almost out. Nice block. Oh, just to get the punish. Kind of tough to punish. Puts himself at a good range. Pacing each other out. Yasuo in. Oh. Okay. Steve's got some more. But you know what we're saying? Yo, video games. Believe in Steve. There we go. Okay. 2v1. We can do this. Ooh. Open up this capitalized. There we go all. This is the launcher right now. Here we go. Okay. There we are. That's the air combo. This man hit practice mode. Oh. Oh. Oh. There's the tornado. Okay. Nice. You can get the orbs. Oh my goodness. That's going to be tough to... Sorry. Okay. All right. Here we go. Round two. Echo. Going up a little. Ooh. Okay. Nice. Drop the combo. Oh. Echo almost gets a bulk. Echo's a little tougher, man. He's short on the range. Ooh. My gosh. Nice. Oh my God. I'm missing the punish right there. Ooh. Okay. Nice. Okay. Here we go. Oh. Catch the assist. Sorry. It saves them. Oh. There's the super. They don't have it. Oh. Misses the punish. It's all good. Here we go. Man. We are not... Okay. Sorry. Coming in. Got a little bit of an uphill battle. Nice quarter pressure right now. Ooh. With the counter. Okay. He's at the 40%. He's got the fury right now. A little extra dangerous. Like Darius with the fury right there. That's something you want to be careful with. Just crazy damage. Oh. Almost gets the air combo. There it is. Nice. Okay. Okay. You got that? Okay. Here we go. Pass fan. Or actually... This is R. Okay. I got a little confused. There we go. There we go. Good GGs. GGs. There we go. There we go. I think we got some fans. Nice. Shout out to the Project L Devs right here. They're making this an amazing game. We're going to switch you though. Now on the State Team. We're going to have you... That way we can like it. Yeah. There you go. There we go. Simmings on this side. There we go. There we go. Okay. Like I played these guys. And you know. It's like they've made the game. And you know they've been playing it for a long time. Yeah. They got the run back man. They got to get the devs in here. You know. Show the devs some love. There we go. There we go. And you know. With sometimes like this. You got 2v2. Sometimes you want to have your homie. You know. Be the assist. You don't want to have some. You know. Sometimes if the matchup's bad. You make the homie. You know. Be the assist. I'm going to say right now. 2v2s are the most hikest thing you can watch right now. Oh yes. Oh yeah. 2v2 is the best thing about this game. I want to see. You know. Just like. You know. We can actually have tournaments. You know. 2v1. But we want to see all the 2v2s. You know. You know what I'm saying. So right now. We got a target station in the corner. That goes the last time. Right back down. Oh. With the. Mixed up. Oh. Etho. With that nice. What is the world. You're trying to push in the corner. But no. All right. Get some out. Nice. Get somebody in the corner. Oh. Good assist. Keep some in the corner. Oh. Push him up right now. Oh my God. Now he's got no dunks on that one. Oh my goodness. Put him back in the corner. All right. Air to air. Dude. It's Christmas right now. Right. Nice. Another corner push. Oh. He's in the back of the homing. Order. All right. What a surprise attack. Yeah. Right. I didn't see it coming. Oh. Oh my God. This is the punish right there. Oh. Nice flash. Oh. All right. They want to see some dunks. Oh nice. It's a note. He's got to survive. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. There we go. Gene Green. And it's Christmas up here. Right? Yeah. All over it. Oh. Nice back dash from that one. No break behind them. Oh my goodness. Switches me all over the place. Where is he? Oh. Oh my goodness man. I don't even know what's going on. Is that three characters now? Yeah. Right. It's like this guy like, you know. He can play. For a while. He might even help design this character. It is crazy. All right. Oh and here comes the hot sauce. Cinematic finish. Putting all into the ground. And flicker away. Nice damage. There we go. That's a person. Nice clock. What's going on? Oh my happy birthday. Oh my happy birthday. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Right now. The cross of overhead. Oh my goodness. Here we go. All right. Oh nice. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Here we go. Let's drop them back down. Oh my goodness. Okay. Okay. We're getting that run back. We made them ours. We made them ours. All right. All right. There we go. All right. One one. Down to the final round. Final round. Final round. Round three. All right. All right. I tried to get that assist. Just walk up to him and slap him in the face. All right. Just start swinging. Oh. With the axe. Oh my god. Everyone's screaming right now. And there it goes. You said no. No. No box. No box. Man. It's not by anything. No. Nice corner pressure. Oh. Nice. Woo. What the assist is happening. Yo. Synergy right there. So many characters. Oh. Okay. Good blocking. Right there. Any cameras on that. OTG. Oh. Drop the OTG. In the corner. Oh my gosh. Mixed in the air. Here we go. Oh. Oh.  Oh. Oh. That's right there. That's her chance. What's going on? All right. Garius coming in. He's going to see if he can get that shift. Nice assist throws in there. Nice assist. Garius getting her health back. It's still at that hook. Oh. And that is now the punish. Oh. Nice. Nice. A swing. Oh. Nice little air cover right there. Oh. Oh. Oh my goodness. It's almost done guys. Make some noise right now. There you go. Nice assist. Nice break them off. Break them off some. Oh. Here we go. He'll battle down. But he's got big damage. Big boy damage. Oh.  What? No. Nice breakers. If he can get this hit. Oh. Here we go. All right guys. We have a 15 minute march. We'll give you one last match. Thank you to Project L for having us. We went over our time but we had an amazing time right now. They let us, you know, Project L brought all of us together. Right. I did. I did. You know what I'm saying? This fan crew, your video games crew. I'm a big fan. Oh. Oh. Thank you. 10 dollars. 10 dollars. Oh. Oh. Oh. Sorry. No. No. No. We're friends. We're friends. Don't worry. Don't worry. We got, we got started, we got a special guest New Challenge. We have a special guest New Challenge. Bill's in less time. Oh. So like most... But you know how. So when the app... All right. So that's okay. All right guys. If you want to see, If you're cheering for Pokemon, Let me hear some no! Let's show some love. But yo. If you're cheering for Espan, Let's hear it. This is the best part, see people learn how to play the game and get good from the bottom to the top. And it's fun fact, this is kind of a run back from TwitchCon Paris, right, with this man like just stepped in front of the line, you know what I'm saying, so now there's some revenge going on. It's a fun Paris run back, there we go, there we go. I want to thank my coach. There we go, see, you know what I'm saying? There we go, one more round. And we coached him. There we go, there we go, yeah. Coach of the coaches. He's already pro. There we are, coming in with Zarius. Okay, gets out of the corner, three hits. Oh, oh, missed the puncher. Come on out of the deck. Alright, there's a switch up, almost gets it. Nice, nice quarter push. There we go. You were right in there. Oh, oh. Okay, here we go. Zarius getting in. Look at this man, he's got that game early right now. He's like, yo, he's getting serious, but he's serious. Nice air combo. Oh my goodness. Yo, we got professional game play coming right now. Oh my gosh. Okay, air counter. Oh, what the? Oh, nice air combo. Goes out the assist, pushes him into the corner. There we go. Alright, he's coming in. Nice, nice care of the switch. Echo is now in. Okay, back passion, nice. Very smart. Nice himself out. There we go. Nice. Oh, what the? Flash, another one. Oh, oh. Okay, get here, combo. Nice little slash into the program. Okay. He's like, oh. Alright, out. Let's go. He's got the rage mode. Okay, Ari's on range right now. Throwing those jabs, getting in there. Keeping them out. There's the speech. There we go. This is tech. Oh, right. She's got that crazy fast dash right now. Right now. Make some noise. It's almost going down. Alright, we got one more. We got one more. And yo, let's give some love. They are new to the FVC. We want to show some more. We want to show some love. So make some noise.  You know, spin to win. We'll see it. Oh, nice. First time victory right now. There you go. You need to make some noise. He's looking for his momentum. He's looking for his moment. Okay. Nice little back dash. Oh, gets it right there. Oh. Make some noise for Pokemon. Great. And yo, thank you. She didn't want to play, but yo, make some noise. Show some love. Make some noise for Pokemon. Yeah. Guys, thank you so much. We went a little over time, but we had to bring that out for you guys. Thank you guys. This is Joe Video Games. We got Espan. An amazing match earlier with Pokemon. So thank you guys so much. Have a good time. Yo, again, one more top of the devs. We got the grandest of them. Thank you. Thank you guys. Chad, I lost on purpose because she got us the VIP badges. Okay. That I lost on purpose. Come on. I was lagging. Internet. Hi. Guys, come on. So I hope you guys like Project Dell. That seems sick. I'm loving this. It's super fun. What I learned today is that I pretty much only know how to play Darius. But I really want to learn how to play Ari because Ari feels fun to play, but I only play Darius. Ramler only was good at Darius. But, yeah. Super, super good. YouTube, Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, S-Fan TV. Everything is S-Fan TV. Whatever it is. TikTok, whatever it is. Everything is S-Fan TV. Bye, everybody. We'll see you guys later. Bye, Chad.


Hi, everyone. I'm Deborah Borchardt with the Green Market Report, and it is time for another unboxing video. I've had so much fun doing these, and I hope you've enjoyed watching them. Remember to subscribe to our channel. It's free. This week, we're doing Nug Club. They did not pay for this video. They just sent us the Box of Goodies for free. They start out with, and first, this is a really quality, beautiful box just to give you an idea of how big it is. It starts out with this folder that's full of information about all the products that are in here, and then this is what the box looks like, so check that out. We've got this Flav rainbow. Look at that. Some sour gummies. Then we have Oasis Cannabis infused, hard sweet, and heavy hitter strawberry gummies that look so yummy, and then topped off by plus, there you go, plus gummies, watermelon. Now we get into the flour portion of the box. We have two containers from Sunspire Farms. There we go. Sunspire Farms. Check that out. One is glues, and one was churbalistic, so that sounds kind of fun. Then we have Clayburn Company. You can see that. This one is a sativa. It is called Pacific Sun. And then finally, we have this one from Dropout, and they sent a hybrid. So there's four jars in here. Just to kind of give you an idea of how much is in here, you can see there how much is in that jar. So kind of exciting. And then finally, a couple of little goodies here from Nug. They sent a lighter and some paper. So cool stuff from them. And that's it. That's the box. Again, they didn't pay for this video. They just gave us the boxes stuff for free, so we could show you, our viewers, what it looks like if you join them and get a box. Now you can see what a real box looks like. Remember to subscribe to our channel. It's free. And that's it. I'm Deborah Boardchart. Stay tuned until we have our next unboxing video.


Greetings friends. Welcome to CTUCC Conference Cast for March 29th, 2012, the regular podcast of the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ. Whoever you are and wherever you may be on life's journey at this very moment, you are welcome here. We begin this week's conference cast with this meditation from the Reverend Sarah Verrasco, Fairfield County Regional Minister. Mark tells of Jesus' institution of the meal we call Holy Communion in the 14th chapter of his gospel. How at the last supper he had with his friends before his crucifixion, Jesus took bread and broke it and gave it to his disciples and told them that it was his body. How after supper Jesus took the cup and blessed it and gave it to his followers and told them it was his blood. I've always been drawn to the sacrament of communion. As a young child I vividly remember being fascinated by the work of the women in the kitchen on those first Sundays of the month, carefully cutting the cubes of bread and filling the small glasses with grape juice. As an observer, this work looked and sounded very different than the cutting of the coffee cake and filling of the pitchers for afterworship. There was plenty I didn't understand at that time, but I knew what they were doing was important. When it came time for the sharing of the bread and cup and worship, a similar sense of importance was evident as plates and trays were passed with great care. The pace was slow, the music was gentle, and according to our minister, God was with us somehow in the bread and the juice. My connection to communion has really lasted my entire life, but it was only in the months following my mother's death that I began to understand from the inside out how Jesus could be present in the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup. You see there were a few select things that my mother and I used to do together on a regular basis. Go to church, go to the pool in the summer, go to shop right on Saturday mornings, deliver newspapers on Sunday morning, and share Hot Cross Buns in Lent. The last ritual on the list is the one that taught me about the power of communion. The ritual actually started on Saturdays in Lent when my mother would pick up a box of Entomins Hot Cross Buns, which were a special treat for when we got home. After the shopping and unpacking were complete, we'd sit down at the table and my mother would open the box. I'd point to the one that looked the best and she'd carefully remove it from the package, break it in half, and pass me my half on a plate. We did this every week between Ash Wednesday and Easter for as long as I can remember. It was our little ritual, it was special, and it was important to us. As you might imagine, there was an interruption in the weekly ritual in high school and college, but there was usually a Sunday when we were together and we would share our Hot Cross Bun without missing a beat. In the summer of 1990, my mother died, and the following winter I was in the grocery store and noticed the Entomins Hot Cross Buns. My eyes immediately filled with tears as I reached for the box and brought it home. And it was in the breaking of the bun that I felt my mother's presence and experienced our everlasting connection. I actually felt her smiling from across the table. How have you come to know Jesus' presence in the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup? Here's a prayer for this week. Thank you, God, for the many ways you feed us through your presence, in ritual, in story, in song, and in the everlasting connections we share with others. Please remember in your prayers as well this week the family and friends of the Reverend Dr. Gabe Campbell, former pastor of the first congregational church UCC of Stamford. He died on February 1st at the age of 78. In the news this week, over 160 people came to first congregational church UCC in Cheshire last Saturday for March in the Sun, a day of learning about ways to be church. During opening worship, participants took broken pieces of colored glass and fixed them to a very plain wooden cross. Brokenness transformed and redeemed to beauty. The theme of the day was change. As the Reverend Dr. Christina Lizardy-Hashby, UCC's minister for Christian faith formation research told worshipers in the morning sermon. Clicking to our own way, that is the brokenness we must be, that we know no other way of being church, which is another aspect of our brokenness. This is the message of lead, an in reality the central message that the church finds itself in the current event of age, an age that is not yet fully realized. In some ways, we don't know what to expect or what's coming, and that's part of the beauty of it. We simply know what we are called to do, and that story never changes. From brokenness to wholeness, from death to new life, from an old story to a new story. Let us believe that we're still speaking, still acting God above all. With over 80 on the waiting list for the event, planners are already at work on a follow-up program. We choose kindness. We choose blessing. We choose peace. We choose love. We choose Christ. We choose Christ. With those words, members of the first congregational church UCC of Stamford dedicated a giant rainbow banner, which now adorns the stone bell tower of the church, a symbol of affirmation and welcome. Trustee David Ventiner said in a testimony during worship, That rainbow banner there works in two ways. It's a proclamation of welcome to all the other welcome, but it is also a reminder to us and to God of His promise not to destroy unrelief. It's a prayer to Him to sustain this community, to not let churches die in our generation as the membership has been dwindling around us. So, and also to instead help us to reach out to where it feels abandoned, to help us satisfy the needs around us with good things. The Stamford congregation adopted an open and affirming covenant which affirms people into the full life of the church without regard to gender, age, race, or sexual orientation in 2007. Interim Senior Minister, the Reverend Dr. Jane Anne Groom suggested the placement of the banner, and despite practical obstacles with mounting it on the tower, congregational leaders adopted the idea eagerly. In her sermon, which reflected on the unbinding of Lazarus, Dr. Groom said, The world today is more welcoming than it has been, but as long as anyone suffers from homophobia, as long as any young person or old person for that matter struggles with this as an issue of their identity with feelings of self-hatred, there is unbinding to do. On the same morning, members of the First Church of Christ Congregational UCC in Men's Field prayerfully retired signs that have stood on the church's lawn for seven years, which disclose the cost of the war in Iraq. This done as American troops return home at last from that conflict. The signs displayed the number of Americans killed 4,486, over 32,000 of them wounded, and the estimate of over 115,000 Iraqi civilians who died in the course of the war. Two signs which read honoring the fallen and praying for peace remain. As Connecticut's General Assembly considers an end to the state's death penalty, Interim Conference Minister, the Reverend Charles L. Wildman wrote to authorized ministers and local churches of the conference last week asking for members to write their legislators and urge them to support repeal. Lent, he said, offers an ideal time to work for the abolition of Connecticut's death penalty. Wildman will join other ecumenical leaders in a stations of the cross march at 9.30 a.m. next Tuesday, April 3rd from Christchurch Cathedral to the State Capitol building in Hartford. Coordinated by the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut, the organizers invite clergy and lay people of all traditions to join. The march, in addition to remembering the progress of Jesus from his trial to his crucifixion on Good Friday, is also a declaration of our opposition as people of faith to the use of capital punishment. Delegates to the Connecticut Conference UCC have been on record opposing the death penalty since 1973. Other stories on our website this week include a profile of the Reverend Elizabeth Allen, pastor now of the Milton Congregational Church UCC, and the announcement that Associate Conference Minister for Generosity Ministries Patricia Bjorling will assume the duties of Connecticut's coordinator for our church's wider mission, the financial support from local churches to the conference and national settings of the UCC. And with the end of March at hand, we welcome conference archivist John Van Epps to the studio with this Touchstone with History. This month, we continue the story of our first four missionaries after 1812. From the start, the American Board of Commissioners identified four mission fields, people of ancient civilizations like India, China, and later Japan, people of so-called primitive cultures, American Indians, Hawaii, later Africa, peoples of ancient Christian churches in Turkey, and later Mexico and the Philippines, and fourth Muslim peoples, again in the Ottoman Empire and the Philippines. The first missionaries were all male except for those wives who had appointments with their husbands. The first unmarried female missionary was appointed in 1818 as a school mistress among the Cherokee Indians. Cynthia Ferrara was sent to Bombay in 1827 as the superintendent of female schools. These women were exceptions rather than the rule. It was not until about 1900 that women were given full missionary status. Reflecting the culture of the times, foreign missionaries were to be quote Anglo-Saxons. Nevertheless, one black missionary was appointed in 1836, four more in the 1880s, but no more until after 1915. From the beginning, evangelization was the primary focus of missions even for teachers and doctors. This changed by the end of the 1800s such that today most of our missionary work is in education and medicine. All told, over 6,000 missionaries have served in the past 200 years. Registration is open for summer conferences at Silver Lake, as well as for three retreat and work opportunities this spring. The Women's Yoga and Music Retreat, that starts on April 13th, Spring Action Weekend, running April 27th through 29th, and a new men's retreat called On the Edge of Fire, the weekend of May 4th. Learn more and register for these at silverlakect.org. Email, websites, and social networks, oh my, is the title for a daylong workshop on communications for churches to be held in New Britain on April 14th. Green Teams Unite gives local church environmental ministry leaders an opportunity to share stories and ideas in Middletown on April 21st. CET women of the UCC hold their annual meeting on April 28th. May is a busy month, boundary training for authorized ministers on the 3rd, the church historians workshop on the 5th. A still speaking presentation is also on the 5th, and the New England Association of United Church Educators event, Welcoming the Living Stone, runs May 8th through 10th in Craigville, Massachusetts. The 2nd annual Youth Revival is on May 11th, and the Spring Meeting of the Connecticut Conference featuring keynote speaker Lillian Daniel speaking on Why Church Matters is May 12th in Suffield. Sign up now for the National Youth event. This great gathering of youth ages 13 through 18 will be held July 10th through 14th at Purdue University in Indiana. We're taking registrations and granting scholarships. Sign up by May 7th to be on board one of the two bus trips to get young people to these five days of dynamic workshops, inspiring worship, hands-on service projects, and rockin' recreation and music. A service bus includes a stop in Cleveland, Ohio for a mission project and to tour the UCC's national offices. The express bus will leave a little later and go straight on to Purdue. You'll find more information at ctucc.org slash n-y-e. And you can always learn more about what's coming up in the conference at ctucc.org slash events. And that brings this conference cast to a close. Thanks to Sarah Verrasco for her reflection, the John Van Nepps for our Touchstone with History and to GarageBand for our music. Primary funding for conference cast comes from your congregation's gifts to our church's wider mission, basic support, changing lives through the United Church of Christ. This is Eric Anderson, the Minister of Communications and Technology for the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ, praying that your days as we enter this holy week may be filled with the presence, the guidance, and the grace of God.