Felly, rwyf wedi cyfnod hynny'n gwybod wedi bod yn bwysig o gwybod yn ymgyrch, a byw'r ddwyllgor cyfnodol yn y Llyfrgellach Fynghorredol. Oherwydd, gwybod yn ymgyrchu'r dfynol, ac yn Catherine ac yn ymgyrch, Andrew, ac yn ymgyrchlu'r ddwyllgor cyfnodol. Ond oeddwn ni'n gwybod yn ymgyrch ymgyrch ar yr hyn o'r adrwng. Ieithio ddiolog o'r ymgylchedd ymlaen, eich eithaf hefyd, mae eich dweud o gweithio'r gweithio, ac mae'n rhai gweithio'n dweud o y cwmposon, o'r 10 cwmposon o'r dweud o'r dweud o'r ddimnigol. Daerwy'n oedd yna ddim ni'n dweud o'r ddimnigol i'r dweud o'r ddimnigol o'r ddimnigol, oherwydd o'r ddimnigol at gyfnodd y cwmposon o'i dweud o'n dweud. Listen into each person's turn and the principles of the dialogue are like a thinking pair, but the time will be taken on the same topic will be short and they'll be frequent turns back and forth whilst we do our thinking. So Andrea, what do you think? I think it's really nice to have this space to do this reflection. a we've been on such a journey and we don't often stop to do this reflection on how far we've come with thinking environment and thinking cultures. I was reading back through some material we've shared previously at a conference around our initial kind of the start to our journey and it just reminded me of how we started so small just you and I Catherine, you know, really trucking away at this and taking every small win as a big win to where we are now and I think we were really brave and courageous in the start because we really believe in this practice and we know that the best thinking is done when those components are held in place and people have that space to think and we've seen that develop over the past maybe three phases now we decided to call them maybe not years yet but kind of three phase cycle of where we've got to which move from just getting people to experience it and Chloe reminded me just before we started the recording about you can read material on thinking environments but you've got to be in it to kind of feel that power of it and feel what that space is like when someone holds it and facilitates that with the 10 components in place to sort of where we are now which is really thinking about meetings culture and staff voices across the organisation and embedding that in what we do. What do you think? So I think in terms of an organisation our starting point really was that we were working quality and our vision was to embed a culture of kindness and support and the college values are kindness, humility and excellence which is a bit of a no brainer in terms of thinking environment because that just encompasses the whole ethos of those values. So I think initially when we came together we thought we were the only ones in the college that had practised in a thinking environment and I knew a lot of people external to the college in further education that were using the thinking environment and obviously through lockdown the wonderful joy of fee was born and the ideas room which anybody could go to but we wanted people in the organisation like you've just said to feel that and that's where we started really and I think we went round in big circles for a little bit what should we do where should we start it's so big the organisation is so big thinking environment so big where do we actually start and then we just said oh let's just let's just let's just stop talking about it and let's just get on with it and that was the first thing we did we we offered ideas rooms to staff to just come along that be in the space have that space to think share ideas but importantly I think learn to listen to each other it wasn't just a practice of he has a space for you to come and think but but come and listen to your colleagues come and share that space come and come and support each other to do the thinking to to do the work so I think and I mean that was that was a little while ago now and it and some weeks were successful and some weeks we just sort of got together and reflect and thought oh nobody's coming or nobody's showing any interest and and I think you said Andrea at the time well one more person's been so that's a small win and and you know that's something we need to take forward it's it's going to be a slow burner but but we are going to get um we are going to get the word out and we are going to get where we want to be with this work what do you think I think we yeah I think we bang dad rum once we got brave and we banged on about it and we talked to people about it and I mentioned it in meetings and you took it to people because we wanted people to hear about the thinking environment and the ideas room and how they could be heard and we tried lots of different strategies didn't we through ideas rooms maybe just for leaders and managers and and all and all the while it's been a bit of a learning journey for us to develop our practice and and think about our thinking environment kind of facilitation as well but we had to go at it in bits and I think it can sound like such a humongous task to develop a thinking culture and organisation but it is about exposing people to it cleverly talking about it banging the drum so remember after we'd sort of tried ideas rooms and we put lots of information out we always shared about joy ff going on in the evening and we wanted to do something big and I remember our conversation about how do we get this out there how do we get people to just know about it experiencing you've got to be in it we thought about video in an ideas room we thought well that's probably not gonna you know support the ease of a space if we're recording it um and that turning point then of really banging our drum with senior leaders and saying look this this is something where you can hear staff voices where um you know you can get their input and ideas especially if one of our values is around unity and so we were really brave and we asked for thinking rounds to be within staff conference so all the staff across the college and we knew I think didn't with it we'd set the rules of the space but that maybe we didn't have time to really go through the components and how how that should work but we went at it and we provided the rules with supported managers so they could all facilitate thinking round and some were really successful and some maybe broke the rules but what it did was let people know about that practice let people know about that work and when we got that feedback from construction how powerful that space had been and how they'd heard from staff that have never spoken up before I think that was our you know this is it now that was a real turning point was um and it was just you and I wasn't it and a couple of people in our team so that day meant that it would just switched a little light on on people's radar about thinking environment and maybe there were a couple more people starting to bang that drum because they'd experienced it what do you think I mean that yeah that was certainly a turning point and I think our initial goal for for the work was that everybody knew what it was so that if if we asked anybody you know if you heard of this they could you know they could have they could they could hazard a reply to to what it was so it so you're right the first the first sort of way was was getting the information out there getting the getting the ripples and then the second goal was for everybody to experience it and I think from that day when we'd just sort of gone for it and done it on mass that we then tried to incorporate it into everything that we did all all staff staff interactions so um from one to one staff interactions and and and holding a space for for people to think you know however briefly to supporting managers to use it in meetings and in their staff time to to hear those voices to the training that we developed using it in our professional development opportunities with with staff and just going around the college and particularly at construction you know people say what's this thinking thing or you know that thinking thing that you do and just just raising that that that curiosity about what is it how can I be involved people are talking about it and how can I be involved and we began to find more more advocates didn't we when we began to find more more people in corners that oh yeah you know I've done that I know about that and and and bringing bringing people with us and and I think then the next phase was to keep that momentum going because I think we'd gathered some momentum and to then bring leaders and managers into the into focus and because we felt we had we felt we had to buy in from senior leaders but but but more of the talk was was across you know rather than down through the organization so targeting leaders and managers and you know with the fabulous Lou mycroft who who came in and did some work with our leaders and managers and Brian Croft who did some work with myself and Andrea on the thinking partnership and through the the ETF stuff the Skylarks and the north staff programme we we sort of pushed forward with that and and at each stage I think we've had a a really good think about right what have we achieved where are we up to and when we've taken a pause like we are now it's it's it's to look back it's just you don't realise how far you've coming out and and even though it feels like we've just been chit chipping away we've made massive progress in a in a short time and I think I think now there's more talk about it more people know what it is more people have experienced it it's now about empowering others and and giving them the confidence to to take it forward which I think we're starting to see um what do you think I think we've come really far I'm really proud of us um thinking back to when we've had the kind of difficulties in in getting thinking environment to be explored or push back around thinking environment um and I remember a particular kind of workshop I was hosting and I was facilitating a discussion and I am now at the point of my practice where facilitating discussion for me means thinking round and in any meeting I mean I you know I want to hold those components in place and it frustrates me when it's not and it's just free conversation but facilitating that discussion and saying I'd like to do the thinking round and you know people people held the rule of knowing to interrupt into a point but I could see frustration in people because they weren't getting validated in their thoughts or they have to not they couldn't give their validation to others that they agreed with them or I thought of that too um and I remember coming away from that thinking you know why would people frustrated do they not have the information how do we what's the best place to start it's chicken and egg with this do we go at the information this is what it's all about this is what it means and then expose people to being in that space but you need to be in a space to experience it to appreciate it and I remember that vividly um and I think now we continue with that we continue to be brave and I felt a real shift in us from saying oh can we can we try thinking round or we'll have a go at a pair to just been brave in that and say thinking rounds in this meeting then we're going to go for a pair we'll do some fashion thinking um and I think appreciations always will more for recently has got quite embedded in what we do whereas previously that might have been that oh should we have a bit of appreciation um so I think the organisation now is at a point where they expect some facilitation of thinking environment within what we do and now like you said with the leaders and managers you know we did a piece of work where we were brought into fantastic training and development um programme for all leaders and managers in our organisation to learn the basics but also think about writing questions that um provide opportunities to explore possibility um because you know the task the day to day tasks you've got to do in FE and all across all education you just spend time doing the stuff but not thinking about the best stuff to do um and that's where it gets monotonous and hard work so we've wanted to give our leaders and managers the opportunity to be exposed to thinking environment learn how to facilitate basic building blocks of a thinking environment but also pose the right questions when they are facilitating thinking rounds um and I think that was the right next step for us and because they now have those building blocks I think they're at that stage that we were maybe at near the beginning of do our day throw a thinking round in here um you know am I able to run a thinking pair um but they'll get there with that work and it's practice isn't it and it's I guess now opportunities or maybe yours facilitating opportunities for them to practice um thinking environments within their teams with us there was um something that I wanted to mention around staff voice how we throw out surveys for staff voice and we get answers back to the questions that we want to ask but actually never maybe really hear what people think ideas suggestions solutions um and how thinking environment is that next step isn't it for that unity that really clear value that we've got and there needs to be more of that in an organization not people's feedback on a sliding scale but hearing voices footsbar for the soul I think somebody wants to describe it as in our organization to be in a thinking environment category which is lovely what do you think yeah no I think you're right and I think you just made me think about challenges because you know there has been challenges and there's been I suppose people that have felt threatened by it you know like like you said that some people initially didn't want to take their turn and why you're making me take my turn and what do you mean I can't speak when I want to speak and it is a practice and and we are I guess going into phase three and and the practice even though this is what we've introduced this is what we've introduced with kept practising we've kept the practice we've kept bringing it and and like you said you know we initially if if we suggested it people would roll their eyes and shuffle in their seat but now they yeah I'll sit back and wait for my turn because because I'm going to have that space and they almost invite and welcome that space now to to do that thinking and you know particularly only Tuesday this week I was doing some thinking pairs at construction and and the joiners and the plumbers were kind of you know what do you mean you want to sit and want to sit here and think for three minutes and I'm not asking you to talk three minutes I'm asking you to think and some of them for the whole three minutes we just had silence for three minutes and I just had listened to that how wonderful is that how wonderful is that with no noise we're all just thinking um and we can all just you know move on to what we need to move on to next so I do feel that that people are really embracing it and and I think moving forward in in in terms of saturation and momentum we do need to attack the meeting's culture and our meeting's culture is not different to to many others you know with time time is precious and we often maybe get together when an email will do it but but how could we be more effective in that space um and use that time more effectively to to hear from everyone and to generate that that best thinking so that we can move on to what we need to do and we're not rushing in and we're not jumping from one thing to another but we're taking that time to think um that quality of thinking that Nancy Klein talks about before we can do do the work Andrea what do you think all of the above I think I think next it's the meetings and I think the key thing is practice what you preach we practice it in our meetings we do rounds we set questions if it's a big thing to think about we do pairs first we come back we do freshest thinking and I think if people can you know the first step just start with that how are you round that practice of care at the beginning of a meeting and a closing round with what's live in you that's a first step on this kind of journey um to hear from everybody in the room just want to appreciate Chloe and Sheila thank you for your generative attention while we did that thinking and Andrea I appreciate you Chloe and Sheila I appreciate this space to be able to reflect on our journey and Catherine I appreciate your camaraderie in this


Welcome to the NTN Nightly. I'm Nisha Charles. This edition stops stories. The role of public servants in transforming the public service is underscored at a highly successful retreat. Investing in Lucia is rolling out strategies aimed at improving the Ireland's investment fortunes. The Eastern Caribbean digital currency soon to be in play. All that was the latest in youth development, sports and the NTN The role of public servants in ensuring professionalism and effective service delivery in their day-to-day duties was highlighted during the recently held staff retreat for staff of the Department of the Public Service. More in this report from Jelita Pizza. The retreat is important as it enables us to pull back from the day-to-day work and spend some time thinking about the bigger picture. The permanent secretary was at a time addressing staff of the Department of the Public Service at a staff retreat held at the Royalton on Friday, October 4th 2019. The retreat was a mix of fun and the presentations of critical messages such as the importance of professionalism and efficiency in the delivery of services. Staff were called upon to reflect on their presence modus operandi and together charted a way towards the renewed thrust and vision for the public service in general. Your role in this process is critical and over the next few weeks your managers will engage you and at the end of the process your contribution to the bigger picture will be part of the submission of each unit. Rest assured that your managers will be held accountable. I want to remember this is our journey our future we must be all in. So we need your participation we need you to actively participate in the exercises your managers will engage you in. Guest speaker at Friday's retreat Geraldine Lendor Gabriel challenged the staff to embrace the concept of branding and to carry the brand with distinction. I am hoping that beginning today those of us who have never thought of what our personal brand is will not only understand what it is but we will begin to carve a way to ensure that we have an effective brand. It is a process of marketing people and their careers as brands you'll understand that so when you come out of the public service you are carrying a public service brand you'll understand that good whether you like it or not this is what you're carrying and I know that this can become the greatest brand in this country but we need to believe it and we need to work towards it so your marketing your careers on your brand it is an ongoing process of developing and maintaining a reputation and impression of an individual group or organization you'll hear that good an ongoing process so even if those in the past had done a job which we are not happy with or we are happy with what will determine our brand is not the past but how we move forward. The department of the public service is currently undergoing a comprehensive review of a strategic plan which will guide the work program for the next three years. This year's retreat was held under the theme service delivery on your reality. Julia Peter reporting from the department of the public service communications unit. Investing Lucia is ruling out several strategies aimed at improving the island's investment fortunes following its rebranding. Tunel Norville has the details of the refined approach. Foreign direct investment contributes significantly to St Lucia's revenue. Minister for commerce industry investment enterprise development and consumer affairs Honourable Bradley Felix elaborated on this at the rebranding ceremony of investing Lucia. Honourable Felix indicated that over 1.5 billion US dollars in foreign direct investment has been committed to come to St Lucia over the next two years. At the forefront of the generation of foreign direct investment is the official investment promotion agency investing Lucia ISL. The repositioning of ISL coupled with transformational projects will set the island as a leading investment location in the Caribbean over the next five to ten years. ISL's chairman of the board of directors Pinkley Francis highlighted the entity's strategic focus using a five prong approach. Even as an IPA we successfully enacted the methodologies and operational changes for all five of those prongs. We are just one national agency in its mosaic. Like all our partner agencies we depend on our ministerial stakeholders for governance guidance and posting legislation and given the final approval. This is why there must always be an overarching vision. A national development policy that tackles at a macro level our national development goals and give not just investment Lucia but all of our national agencies the ability to do more than facilitate but focus and proactively solve problems. The overarching vision and mandate must be transcend any regime change. It must be patriotic and non-partisan. The chairman explained that the new direction taken by ISL is guided by one simple question. What kind of St Lucia do you want to see in the years to come? He explained that all St Lucians play a part and have a say in the kind of country they want to live in and should take that responsibility very seriously. We will become the Singapore of this hemisphere in terms of efficiently run public services, infrastructure, clean, safe and smart cities. We will become the Romania of the Caribbean in terms of having 95% of our citizenry owning land and property and having economic security for generations to come. And speaking about owning land, one of the strategic initiative of investing Lucia is to ensure that every St Lucia has the opportunity to own a piece of land. ISL is expected to roll out a number of initiatives geared towards engaging nationals and creating opportunities for employment, ownership and investment locally. The official launch of investing Lucia's rebranding was held on Monday 30th September 2019. For the Government Information Service, I am General Novel. The Electoral Department has taken an invaluable step towards innovation in St Lucia's electoral process. Anise Antoine explains. In commemoration of International Democracy Day, the Electoral Department is hosting an exhibition to showcase the work of the organisation throughout St Lucia's 40 years of independence. The exhibition highlights the stages of modernisation, including the process of registration, the voting process as well as election results from 1979 to 2016. To mark the occasion, a Lymphia Lionel Assistant Chief Elections Officer noted that amnesty is being granted to persons who have lost their national identification cards. We're trying our best to give back to St Lucia's because we have persons coming here on a daily basis that are complaining with their ID cards, are stolen, persons took their back, they don't know where they put their ID card so we've decided to do an amnesty for two weeks and this two weeks amnesty starts from the second of October and ends on the 15th of October so you have persons coming here to replace their card and what they need to come into electoral get a statutory declaration form. That form has to be filled out by a justice of the peace or not you public. They have to put a five dollar stamp on that form which they purchase from a post office to pass what size photo and they have to work with their birth certificate. Lionel noted that one of the objectives of the exhibition is to sensitise the public on the difference between the NIC number and the registration number. The number here which is highlighted right here on the left-hand corner of the card is your NIC number or your national ID card number. To the back of the card you have your registration number. The electoral department has also launched a mobile app to simplify processes for the electorates including information on the change of name and address processes. Kenya James is the network administrator within the electoral department. The key thing is our votes to search. Voters can make you so that you will get your name as to where you vote and are you registered as well. On there you'll also get information about, like I said, all our exercises come in the sizes as well. We also have an interesting feature here that countdown to elections. Well that will be after the prime minister has made the announcement and it also links the exhibition commenced on the 2nd of October and will end on the 15th of October 2019. From the government information service I am Anisia Antoine reporting. The digital currency pilot project within the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union, ECCU, is inching closer to becoming a reality. The DXCD CARIB project as it is called was launched in March of 2019 and seeks to reduce cash usage within the ECCU by 50 percent, promote greater financial sector stability and expedite growth and development of member countries. Eight months into the pilot project, governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank Timothy Antoine says the project is gaining interest even outside of the region. The ultimate goal he says is to include as many people as possible in the financial system. I'm shocking that that may sound. There are many people in this region who do not have bank accounts. That may surprise you. And by the way, let's we wonder why it's so difficult for them. It is not so easy to open and maintain a bank account. Bankers are not visioning for you because truly it's not your fault. You're responding to imperatives along the AM and CFU front. Bottom line is that they are more people than you would think. I've seen a number but I will not quote it at this moment who do not have bank accounts. Part of this challenge is to broaden financial inclusion. You cannot be an active participant in the economy and fully benefit if you're not included in the financial system. The project will be executed in two phases development and testing for about 12 months followed by rollouts and implementation in four pilot countries for six months. The project is entering its user interface and testing phase. The digital currency will be used through the DXED Carb App. How do you actually use this DC dollar? Simply you have to go into the App Store, download the app, the DXED Carb App. You will then be connected with partners, financial institutions, mobile wallet providers. You scan to make the payments. The payment is recorded and then your account gets deported, the vendor gets credited and you get a confirmation at the end. Pilot countries include St. Lucia, Grenada, St. Kitsa Nevis and Antigua. In St. Lucia, partner institutions include Bank of St. Lucia Limited, CIBC First Caribbean International Bank, Monopo Credit Union Limited, and Surgical Finance Inc. Project implementation is anticipated for March-April 2020. And this is the NTN Nightly, Ryan O'Brien is up next. When the authority of the heads of government of the OECS and its other ministerial councils meet and adopt policies for the organization, they rely on the OECS commission to transform these into action. The OECS commission is the secretariat of the organization, a grouping of officials headed by a director general, mandated to implement the decisions of the governments but also empowered to make recommendations on the strategic directions of the organization. The OECS commission organizes needs, prepares budgets, conducts research, undertakes projects, negotiates for and represents the OECS member states. It is organized along several components. There are the commissioners from each member state who along with the director general form the commission that oversees the work programs. There are also technical divisions with specialized units between them, as well as diplomatic missions in Brussels and Geneva. All these complement each other to make the OECS commission the engine of regional integration in the Eastern Caribbean. The OECS has a proud past and together we are working towards a brighter future for all our citizens. For more information visit www.oecs.org Welcome back. We join Ryan O'Brien for the latest happenings in youth development and sports. Thanks Nisha. Welcome everyone to your segment from the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports on the NTN Nightly News. I'm Ryan O'Brien. Assistant Youth Officer in the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports Shirley Ann Cyril-Meyers has started a music and arts program among an initial four schools on the island. Meyers told NTN Nightly how this initiative came about. Welcome to my position at the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports in June of this year. We have implemented music on the arts programs within the primary and secondary schools and we have identified four schools, two primary to secondary schools and Boccage being the first school of interest. Meyers also reflected on the first activity held at the Boccage secondary school. Choirs and vocal training and Boccage is here today with an enrichment program doing music education, doing character building with resource persons that is coming to do their presentations, etiquette and we have quite a few activities planned for today's program. This initiative is a collaboration among various ministries including the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Creative Industries and Spearheaded by the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports. As the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports enhances its youth worker program, a number of the island's youth workers have presented their quarterly reports. Jameson Rene Youth Worker in Choiselle spoke to NTN Nightly news about programs conducted in his community. The camps I helped to facilitate and also with a group I'm working with Atlas will also be the panel discussion which went more around sexuality, bullying, gender roles and yes. Rene was confident the programs were beneficial for those involved. It's really amazing to see what people can do and what they're doing right now to try to improve on the youth building the youth in St. Louis, I'm pretty confident. Youth Worker based in Choiselle, Jameson Rene. And before we leave you some results and in the schools under 15 netball, Thursday, St. Joseph's Convent defeated Leonès Comprehensive 42-19, Wednesday, the Ira Simmons Secondary 1 over Cicero 23-11, also on Wednesday, Archipel secondary got the better of Barbano secondary 25-8 and on Tuesday, St. Joseph's Convent also chopped up victory 25-1 against Cicero. And that's your update from Youth Development and Sports for today. I'm Ryan O'Brien. Thanks Ryan. The Department of Home Affairs and National Security is calling on the citizenry to equip themselves with knowledge of human trafficking. There is an ongoing campaign which has resulted in growing awareness on this issue and there is a hotline based at the police control room of the Royal St. Lucia Police Force. By simply calling 847 or TIP at any time, the public can report cases of suspected human trafficking. The call by the department follows news from Port of Spain that a sting operation by the Special Operations Response Team had uncovered what can only be described as modern day slavery. Trinidad and Tobago officers on Wednesday rescued 69 people, four of them women, who were being held captive in cages at a church along the eastern main road, Aruca, Trinidad and Tobago. The men and women all Trinidad and Tobago nationals ranged in ages 20 to 60 years. The church they were imprisoned at is a rehabilitation center. The Department of Home Affairs is urging all St. Lucia's to utilize the information tools that the Trafficking in person secretariat has developed for the purposes of building awareness. The St Lucia website on human trafficking is anti-traffickingslu.org and stave us the NTA nightly. Up next, Primers Hutchinson is here with the NTA Nouvelle-Arcueille. Welcome back. We join Primers Hutchinson for the NTA Nouvelle-Arcueille. The government's information agency GIS has signed a national television program for the NTA, for the Nouvelle-Arcueille, and for Primers Hutchinson. The Ministry of Health has made three steps to continue to act in order to address the problems of trafficking in the country and establish a protection assistance, which is generally the case in the country. Minister of Construction, Ivo Daniel, explicated the march Minister Jacques Agapouin to address the strikes of the poor to his countrymen. The young people started fighting around the Bs and the Minister of the Kaisol also addressed the better system to control the traffic. Mr Daniel declared that he needed to correct the situation of the poor to the poor. Giants ou Néa ou FASI, c'est Marco Planque qui a existé présentement. Il y a aussi plan pour établir ce système liémané très tôt. Il y a un leuré who, pour un casque-touille, leuré Jeremy et grand chemin John Compton. C'est vraiment un bay à y asser à Stackie. Il y a déjà un consultat, puis une compagnie c'est un Trinidad. Excellent, merci Daniel. Je supposé que vous fassiez aussi le mon survey à Van Nuell dans les salaries. Sikode Daniel declares that the government has to follow the United Nations to ensure that the ministry establishes the best way to protect its country. Plan is to try to save millions of citizens in the best way to protect their country. Sikode Daniel declares that the government has to follow the United Nations to ensure that the ministry establishes the best way to protect its country. Sikode also declares that the government has to follow the United Nations to ensure that the ministry establishes the best way to protect its country. Sikode also declares that the government has to follow the United Nations to ensure that the ministry establishes the best way to protect its country. The government has to follow the United Nations to ensure that the ministry establishes the best way to protect its country. The government has to follow the United Nations to ensure that the ministry establishes the best way to protect its country. Sikode also declares that the government has to follow the United Nations to ensure that the ministry establishes the best way to protect its country. Sikode also declares that the government has to follow the United Nations to ensure that the ministry establishes the best way to protect its country. Sikode also declares that the government has to follow the United Nations to ensure that the ministry establishes the best way to protect its country. Sikode also declares that the government has to follow the United Nations to ensure that the ministry establishes the best way to protect its country. Sikode also declares that the government has to follow the United Nations to ensure that the ministry establishes the best way to protect its country. The ministry establishes the best way to protect its country. The ministry establishes the best way to protect its country. Sikode also declares that the government has to follow the United Nations to ensure that the ministry establishes the best way to protect its country. The ministry establishes the best way to protect its country. The ministry establishes the best way to protect its country. Sikode also declares that the government has to follow the United Nations to ensure that the ministry establishes the best way to protect its country. Sikode also declares that the government has to follow the United Nations to ensure that the ministry establishes the best way to protect its country. Sikode also declares that the ministry establishes the best way to protect its country. Sikode also declares that the government has to follow the United Nations to ensure that the ministry establishes the best way to protect its country. Messierfield Primus and here's a look at what's happening to us weather-wise. Cloudy at times with widely scattered showers and possible thunderstorms over the southern portion of the Lesser Antilles. Elsewhere, fair to partly cloudy skies with a few showers. The inter-tropical convergent zone is expected to remain active over the southern portion of the Lesser Antilles. Two tropical waves located over the eastern and far eastern tropical Atlantic are moving westward, near 15 and 12 miles per hour, or 24 and 19 kilometers per hour respectively. The tide for Castries Harbor was high at 206 p.m. and will be low again at 737 p.m. The tide for Vierfort Bay was high at 313 p.m. and will be low again at 904 p.m. The seas moderate to locally rough with waves and north-easterly swells 5 to 7 feet or 1.5 to 2.1 meters. Small craft operators and sea bathers are advised to exercise caution due to rough seas. The sun will rise Friday at 5.54 a.m. And that brings us to the end of the NTN Nightly. Join us next time at 7 p.m. with a repeat at 7 a.m. You can also catch up with us anytime on the St. Lucia Government Facebook page or YouTube channel. I'm Nisha Charles.


Everybody, this is Christian Buckley doing another MVP buzz chat and I'm talking today with Keith. Keith, how are you doing? I'm doing great. Thanks, Christian. How are you? I'm doing well. It's doing, it's just the start of a new week, ready to get going. So much to do, so much to do. But besides that, so Keith, for folks that don't know you, who are you, where are you, and what do you do? Yeah, sure thing. So as you say, my name's Keith Aderton. I'm a business applications MVP. I've been an architect and developer for about 23 years now, mostly with Power Platform recently, as well as Azure and .NET. I'm also a LinkedIn Learning Instructor. I co-organize a user group here in Scotland, the Scottish Power Platform user group. And I get up to a few other things like speaking and blogging and all kinds of things as well. But I'm based here just outside Edinburgh in Scotland. Ah, yes. Well, that's, so I've talked about with a few other folks that have interviewed. So I'm, you know, more than 50% of my, on both sides of my family are Scottish. And so there's some Irish in there where the last name comes from. But yeah, I've got like 15 generations outside of Glasgow, like never moved. The people just stayed there. The Richardson people just did not leave. They were, you know, right there, but so I've been up in that area. I love that, that part of the country. So I lived in Seattle for 12 years. So I like the rain. I like the wind. You'll be welcome here. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's, it's in my roots. It's in my DNA to like that kind of weather and things. So what's exciting? Well, I always like to ask, like, what was your origin stories at MVP? So what was your path to becoming an MVP? Yeah, you know, that's an interesting one because I think for many years in my career, I've been a .NET developer. I used a few other text acts as well. But it was really only in the last couple of years or so that I'd started speaking. I'd seen a few presentations over over the years. I've been to a few really good tech meetups and user groups. And there was one in particular, someone called Pete Gallagher did a really good presentation with a robotic arm and he created a simple blazer app and you signal on to control this robotic arm. And it was a bit more tangible, a bit more hands on. And I thought, oh, robotics, that's cool. That's really interesting. So it inspired me to try and brave it and give my first speaking gig. So I pitched a few talks, got one accepted. And that was the start of it, really. And since then, all the talks I've been doing since the beginning was to share information with others. So one of the things I talked about was I was new to Microsoft certifications. And then I realized that some of the virtual training days, you get free exam vouchers. I thought, I wish I'd known that before I paid for my first one. So the first talk I did was just to share that knowledge and save people sort of paying if they have to and sharing different learning resources and things. And it just really built from there. And I think it was maybe six months to 12 months in doing speaking and other things as well that I realized there was this award called the MVP. I wasn't aware of it before. And yeah, I just learned more about it. It wasn't something that I deliberately focused on, I would say. But it just sort of, the more community work I did, it just kind of naturally came away, which was a lovely surprise, I have to say. That's very cool. And I'm interested to know how you got involved with the LinkedIn learning side as well. Yeah, you know, it's one of your previous guests there, Greg Assotti, who's an Azure MVP, also based in Scotland. Not too far from me, actually. And when I started trying to learn about newer technology like Azure and a few cloud compute and a few other things, it was actually Greg's blog where we were sharing these different learning materials and things. And it was actually through learning about that on there and getting connected with Gregor. And then I think after a period of time, I noticed Gregor was a LinkedIn learning instructor. I'm naturally quite curious slash nosy. So I was like, oh, Gregor, that's cool. How did you go about that? And what's the experience like? How did you enjoy it? And he had really positive things to say about it. So we talked more and more. He connected me with his manager that he deals with at LinkedIn. We just had like a discovery chat to get to know each other and then took it from there. So yeah, it's been a really good experience so far.  Like how come they've got this setup? Like what can I do? Go and ask those questions. I mean, as MVPs, I'm just true with LinkedIn learning, but any aspect of the Microsoft ecosystem, you know, you see somebody who's doing something like, even if you're not yet qualified or ready to jump into that role, go ask them about it. Like how do I get started? What are the things that I need to be doing? And then the hard part, do those things. Yeah, you know, absolutely, I completely agree.  And as you say, if you just go out there and ask them bump into someone at a conference, say, what do you do?  You know, most people are going to be nice and responsive and you never know who you'll bump into as well. But I can highly recommend that to just as you say, reach out on Twitter, LinkedIn, however you can connect with people online. And you'll find most people are just willing to share the information and help others out. Yeah, well, what I find too with having run user groups for more than two decades now is that you have a lot of people that were like, hey, I'm really interested, I'm excited by this. I want to get involved. And then you never see them again. And one of the things that I tell people is that you need to show up, you need to be there, you need to be accountable for the things that you sign up for and then just be consistent in showing up. And that's something where, I mean, with user groups, like I helped start the SharePoint Saturdays a lot of people are familiar with. So I was attending a lot of these on the East Coast. And like, why aren't there any of these on the West Coast? And so I helped start up some of the first ones on the West Coast. And I was starting them in other cities that I knew people, I had networks, I had lived in some areas. Sacramento is a great example of that. I had no intention of running it. It was then finding people to take it on and own it and drive it. And as soon as I found those people, I just was able to let go and they just took off with that. So for people that want to know how to become an MVP, I mean, one of the first things I say is like, go participate and be an active member of your community. And after you've been doing that for six to 12 months, if you're showing up and helping out and haven't been added to the board or some subcommittee, helping organize things, then you're not helping enough or asked specifically to be added to those things. Because as a user group, a board member, if somebody came to me and said, hey, I really want to get involved and do something, we have plenty, we can assign things to give them to do. And we know something about a person very quickly if they do it or disappear. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So I would say, you know, being accountable, as you say, communicating well as well. It might be you're doing cool things, but unless you feed that back and keep people updated as well, that they may be unaware of that, or sometimes I've seen duplication of effort to people in the same team do things because they've not coordinated something as well. And I think going back to the user groups that you mentioned there, Christian, some of the things I'm doing like the user groups, blogging, and even the LinkedIn learning, which, you know, let's be fair, that's a paid gig. So it's not quite an MVP activity per se, but I'm getting out there doing lots of different things to see what works well for me. So me, I like helping people first and foremost. I'm fairly creative, you know, whether it be doodling or music or whatever the case may be. So sometimes I find a natural fit with some things more than others. You know, I like to present something that's a bit more creative, a bit more quirky and fun. And with the user group that I'm co-organizing with at the moment, with two other great people, you know, I'm the one who's doing some of the graphics and logo work and kind of, you know, the kind of quirky things we'll use as the marketing or to get the word out there. So it's about finding that natural fit for you and it'll likely be that, you know, I'll do a few things and discard a few, but stick with my favorites. That's a good fit for me. Well, that's always what it is. Another thing I say all the time is about developing healthy habits. I mean, some people say, I'm deathly afraid of presenting in public. Like I could never go and do that. That's fine. You don't have to. There are MVPs who never present. They prefer to be background players. They prefer to, well, one person in, I think of it, I was, he's one of my go-to SharePoint experts, hates presenting and is just very active in the forums, answering questions there. So doesn't create, blogs sometimes rarely, never creates a video asset, never presents in public, but is heavy duty invested in the forums, like daily is in there. So there are different ways to contribute. So I'm interested too.  Like what is your focus? Like what are you passionate about? What are you writing about, speaking about, and, you know, what topics, what technologies kind of drive you and motivate you? Yeah, that's a really good question because for me, it's been a mix. I think when I first started doing the speaking, it was about the certifications, and I was having the perspective of someone new to that. But I thought that was kind of a valid perspective as well, to say, well, here's how I got started. I learned a couple of things the hard way. I want to share them so you don't have to, if you're starting out. It's always great to share your journey and don't worry about that somebody else has written about that and done that because you have your perspective, you have your background. Somebody might connect with you that might connect with somebody else's, that you're not connected with somebody else's information. So it's, you definitely need to go through that. So, all right. Complete, no, I completely agree. And actually somebody did contact me recently saying, you know, I want to do some YouTube videos, some YouTube shorts, just little quick tips with Power Apps, which is really where my main focus is at the moment. They're saying, but I think 90% of people will know this anyway, but I'm like, put your spin on it.  This would be useful. They haven't seen it yet. They may not have seen something by, you know, quote unquote, a bigger name that has been published two years ago. So go ahead and put your thing out there or put your spin, you know, make it unique to you, the way you would present it. And you know, I'm glad that some people have actually gone ahead and done that rather than say, well, I've done a quick Google, I've been on YouTube, I've seen that done before, I won't do it. You can still do your own take on that. And as you say, everyone's got a valid perspective and something to offer as well. It could be the way you word it or the way you demonstrate it. It's like, ah, that's clicked for me now. I see what they've done there. And I've certainly had that experience myself as well. So yeah, the main thing for me at the moment, business applications, but mostly the power platform is my focus. The biggest part of that for me is Power Apps being a developer for so many years. And that's really, there's a lot of skills as some people say pro-coder or professional-coder, but because I've done that for over 20 years, that's a lot of skills and design patterns I'm able to bring to Power Apps. But then there's so many other people in the community who bring lots of really important other perspectives that I don't and they have business domain knowledge or other knowledge or automation knowledge. And we can also fuse it together and work together and create things that I just couldn't buy myself. Great UX and UI experiences, I just can't hold a candle to. And it's great because I'm always learning to. So that's great. No, and this is another important thing too is that identifying other good content and then commenting on that or referencing that in your own content. There's some people like will reach out to me and is like, hey, I really liked what you said here, can I quote you? And I'm like, hey, if you're properly citing me, you don't need to come ask my permission to quote in a not for profit blog posts around that. I don't know what the rules are but they're different in other countries. But generally you don't need to do that. Like I will go in, I do now AMA videos to the group of friends and we have like little blog posts. Again, these are all free, we're not making money anywhere off of that. And at the bottom of it, we have references of all the materials, the other websites, the videos that other people have done that help answer those questions and we provide those links. And so we have those track backs to other people's content. So that's another great way that you can, certainly raise visibility is by citing the work of others that have come before you. And it's, again, add your spin, add your flavor to that, your perspectives. But you definitely want to mention others, especially other MVPs. MVPs love that. Yeah, they do. They do and that's a great way of doing it as you say, having those references, citations and sometimes it might lead you to a blog where the blog as a whole has so many other posts that are really, really valuable. But if you just neglect to mention the reference or you forget to whatever the case is, other people may be missing out on all that valuable information. So yeah, that's a really great way. And even calling people out, I'll try and do that when I do a post now. And again of, hey, there's someone in the Power Platform community called Christine Kolodzeski who does really good UI UX work. And she has awesome social marketing for her stuff as well. She does. It's one of the best that's out there. It's really slick. It's really impressive work and she shares so much and so many others do too. You know, she has things on GitHub. She runs different programs. She's got one at the moment, which is just kind of, she's setting different challenges with CSS and other things. And she's got a gallery on the website showcasing all this work with links to their profiles. I think that's great. I love stuff like that. And she's funny. So I always appreciate that too. Absolutely.  One of the things is that you can't look at all of the great work others do and think, oh, well, I just can't do it. The imposter syndrome runs high within the MVP community. Like don't worry about that. Share what you do.  That's some of my first advice for people to say, well, I'm not yet an expert in the technology. So, you know, no one can be an expert on everything. The people that you think are experts will think that they're woefully underprepared to speak on a number of different topics. We're constantly learning and exploring and sharing our journey. We were not always correct on the things that we share. I mean, again, it's based on our experience. So I love it when people, again, doing the AMAs, the experiences all the time, people that would respond and say, it's like, well, I found this other way. You didn't mention this. I'm like, that's a great point. We didn't think of that in our discussion. It's not that we, you know, if we had had that person there, we would have had that also covered. But yeah, so be constructive in your feedback is what I would hope for most people commenting. I try to do the same thing. It's not just to go in, hey, you've got it wrong or you missed this piece. It's more of a, hey, that's great what you've added. Here's something else that adds on to that. That's the right way to approach that. I'd agree as well. There's a really good way of giving constructive feedback, as you say. There's many other ways of giving feedback or criticism as well. And I actually had a good one a few months ago where I wasn't an MVP at the time. Not that it matters, but someone else was and they give some criticism of a blog post I'd done. But they did it really well.  And I didn't at the time and it was actually really valuable because then I'd learnt something. So I'd shared my perspective, they'd shared something and I was able to actually modify the post and include some of that feedback so then everyone can get the benefit of that advice. So it's all just one continuous learning journey for me. So I welcome it, it's great. That's a great point. And I love doing that too, do the same thing where somebody will come in and say, he didn't think of this, look, comment within it. I leave the comment and I'll put in there and say, hey, update on this, got his feedback from John Smith about this, he's spot on, here's what this is, point to this, this other blog post, whatever it is. So that people again can see the journey, see the process that you went through like kind of leading there. I think that's fantastic. It's important to do that. You hear this all the time, you know, show your work, going back to elementary school, show your work. You may know the answer, yeah, but it's good to show your work so people can help them along the process. Because the problem is, especially when you're talking about the business applications, problem for a lot of people, I would still argue there's not enough beginner's content out there for Power Apps and Power Automate because it's such a, you go in there and I've built up ticking classes and knowing, you know, like building the SharePoint components of something easy, I can do that with my eyes closed, but when it gets into some of the syntax and the logic around the solution and going in between is like, that's not my world, not a code or not a programmer. And so having more of that kind of content. So you have to be careful not to jump past those, you know, elementary to immediate, you know, the kind of the mid-level steps to the advanced, you have to walk people through that. And I think that's again, there's a, I still say there's a huge opportunity for people that wanna become an MVP to do nothing but introductory 100, 200 level content. I mean, I think the greatest need is in that area. The danger for an MVP, I'm sure you've seen the same thing is that we get bored with the old stuff that we've been playing with, we wanna play with the newest technology, talk about the latest greatest and it gets up into that 300, sometimes 400 level topics and we lose all of that content. It's great for the nerds, for the MVPs, for the experts, but we lose the majority of the audience. And so we walk through. Absolutely, yeah. I see your point there is, you know, give me the shiny new tools. You know, I've done this for a few years. I've, you know, maybe mastered it to a level. What's the next step for me? What's the next thing to move on to? But yeah, as you say, you know, there's maybe, you know, quite likely a big opportunity there for getting people started and, you know, a good case in point with the Power Platform is, you know, one of the main business drives for it is that there are so many developers or let's say makers required going forward because so many apps or things going digital are required. So, you know, if we've got this big intake of people or career switches moving to using things like the Power Platform and or Dynamics, then yeah, there's certainly gonna be the demand for that kind of content. So absolutely, yeah, watch this space. Yeah, always lots to do. Well, Keith, really appreciate your time today. I always like to ask, so for folks that wanna follow you, get in touch with you, where are you most active in the social realm? How can people find you? Yeah, sure thing. If anyone wants to connect with me, LinkedIn and Twitter, I'm probably the active two channels that I use the most. Always happy to help people. If anyone wants to get started with Power Platform, anybody wants advice, I do help on the Power Platform Community forums as well where I can. But yeah, I'd say LinkedIn and Twitter are the top two for me. Excellent. Well, Keith, really appreciate your time today. Great meet you. My pleasure. Thanks, Christian. Thanks so much.