Good morning everyone. I'm Scott Stoner, Director of Programs and Resources for AAPAP.  We hope you've been enjoying the conference virtually thus far. Welcome also to our second annual Five Minutes to Shine presentation. As those of you who were here last year know, last year's theme, conference theme, was shine. So we decided, well, why not do Five Minutes to Shine and extend our Bishaka Shaka approach that we do in a Saturday Plenary and bring it home to artists and members and just see who we can attract to bring in a best idea. And it was successful, we felt last year, so we're doing it again. And it also coincides with this year's theme, which is, of course, together. So it's bringing us together for that. So I'm not going to say much more because we have a moderator this morning, the lovely and talented Alicia Anstead actually who has worked very, has spent a lot of time working with the folks you're going to see with their presentations. It's not easy to do this. It's not easy to do something in Five Minutes, no matter what your idea or your message is. But she has done Yeoman's work in helping to craft these presentations with our finalists. And as you all know, the audience is going to vote at the end of these presentations on the presentation they think should go next door to the awards luncheon at noon and be presented to everybody at the awards luncheon. So Alicia Anstead is a journalist, a writer. She's a co-producer. For us here at APAP, she is one of our co-producers and technical director for the keynote plenary sessions and editor, of course, of the Inside Arts magazine. So Alicia Anstead. Thanks, Scott. Thank you, Scott. And welcome, everyone. It's so great to see so many of you here. Those of you who have your smartphones and are on Twitter and Facebook, it would be awesome if you sent something and invited more people to join us, even those of you who are watching on television. This event relies on critical mass to make decisions about who advances to the next level. So we'd be delighted if you shared that information with others who are with us in the room and beyond. This is a wonderful process. I'm not going to take too much time telling you about it, but each person today is going to speak for five minutes only and tell you a story about something brilliant in their career, something that is a shineable moment that we hope you can take home with you as an act of inspiration or something that helps you do more of a brilliant way as well. And we're going to just kick right off. Let me make sure I've told you everything that I need to tell you. The really key part for you as an audience member is to vote, and you should have a voting in the room and we'll tally them at the end and whoever advances to the next level will be giving this presentation in front of the entire membership, board of directors and others in the room when we go to the awards. So that's a really special event as well. We hope those of you in the room can join us for that. I believe there are still tickets available. Is that right, Scott, for the awards luncheon? There are. So it's going to get very quickly. So we're just going to kick off. I'm not going to do long bios for anything that will be up on the screen. You can Google them on your time and find out more about who they are. And I think you'll learn an awful lot about them in just five minutes. So we'd like to begin with Ariel Foster, a partner and design leader at each collaborative architecture. I love going first. Okay. I think we're ready to go. Oh, nope, that's not the first slide. So my name is Ariel Falstow and I like to think I have one of the better jobs in the world as an architect. I get to work with folks like you designing places for theater, music, dance and art. We focus on the intersection of arts, culture and public space, which gives us a chance to observe the world of performance from a different vantage point. For instance, dinner before the show. When I say that, I'm sure everyone here understands what I'm talking about. I'm sure everyone here has a memory connected to this phrase. It brings to mind a uniquely Broadway New York yet ubiquitous experience anywhere in the country. Have a nice dinner somewhere near the theater, skip the coffee and dessert, rush off to the theater for the first act. Dinner before the show. It's really quite a wonderful idea and it perfectly describes this unique relationship between food, performance and public space. I don't know that my slides are progressing, but ah, there you go. It's actually a very powerful idea. We know the experience of performance happens well before the curtain goes up. And when we all think about our audience, we should not only be thinking about their appetite for Shakespeare, but also their appetite for wine, cheese, Scotch, soda or even juice boxes. One of my most vivid memories of food and performance happened while I was traveling through Spain almost 20 years ago. I was a lot younger. I know I look young, but I was a lot younger. I was in Madrid trying to get to Portugal. I was tired, mostly broke and discouraged when I realized just how difficult it was to get to Lisbon from Madrid, especially when you're broke. Luck would have it that Vim Vendor's new film, Lisbon Story, was playing at this little movie theater near the hostel I was staying at. This was my consolation prize. Now, any American who has seen a movie in Europe will understand one fundamental difference about movies here versus there. Alcohol. It wasn't just the beer I was watching. I was having while in the lobby bar with a few locals. It was the beer I was enjoying while watching the movie. It confirmed one thing for me. Beer is better than soda. And for the first time, I realized that many of the cultural differences I was experiencing first began with their relationship to food. I never made it to Portugal, but I got in the great film An Elastic Memory. Today, audiences are changing and the experience of performance for those audiences is changing. Performance has become more accessible and is now reaching out to a broader demographic. Young, old, rich, poor, mainstream, avant-garde, performance has opened up for everyone. And so each of these different audiences expects a different experience. There's the dinner before the show model of Broadway, but if you're going downtown to the flea theater, it's a drink, a show, and a drink. If you're going to the Summer Film Festival at Bryan Park, it's also different. It's a picnic and a show, which is often preceded by a stampede of blanket throwers trying to get their space on the lawn.  Think about your audience and think about your lobby and public spaces. The nature of the theater lobby has come a long way since those 19th century theaters. Today, your lobby is everything to everyone. It's your first impression, your intermission space, your fundraising gala dinner space, your pre-performance or post-performance lecture space, your digital interactive space. Most importantly, it's the first opportunity you have to reveal the mission of your theater to your audience. What do you want to tell them? At LCT3, on top of the Vivien Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center, this is on the roof. There is no stage door, right? So audiences and artists inevitably find their way to the same lobby, the same bar, and the same outdoor terrace overlooking Lincoln Center. This is not a bad way to start and end a performance. As architects, we see and are part of the creation and revitalization of many theaters, performance venues, and performance venues across the country. And I think we're entering a new era of performance, food, and public space. Food culture is big, and whether before, during, or after the show, food and drink will always play a huge part in that experience. Our cultural venues are now the progenitors of a new type of public space, one that has the opportunity to connect people to culture in new ways. Theaters, performing art centers, libraries, museums continue to evolve and create places for conversation and a sense of community. Our collective experience of theater, dance, or music may culminate with a performance, but it often begins with a house salad and may even end with cocktail. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up is knitting songs with opera singer Melanie Gall. And if you want to move the stand away, that would be great. Thanks. All right, I'm ready. My sister is a crazy knitter.  There was bird watching. There was scrapbooking. And then one day, the sticker machine and the double-sided glitter tape disappeared. I started tripping over pointy sticks, balls of wool, and yes, knitting.  We're roommates in New York, and in our apartment, we have a yarn swift, a ball winder, six bags of full-sheep fleeces, and over 300 balls of yarn. I'm a freelancer, and I don't have a lot of time for extra hobbies. And at first, I was resentful about how my sister's hobby took over my entire life until I found the first knitting song. It was an accidental find. I was programming music into a music library database looking for songs, and I found this song called, and then she'd knit, knit, knit. Went like this. He'd take a hug, then he'd hug her some more, and she'd knit, knit, knit, knit. It was adorable. And just like in New York, in your apartment, when you see one mouse and you know there are probably a dozen more, I thought maybe, maybe there were more knitting songs out there just waiting for me to find them. Five years later, I have found over 100 knitting songs. 100 knitting songs from libraries, from antique stores, from private collections. So what does a girl do with a binder full of knitting music? Well, at first, I thought I'd perform them in a concert setting like a classical recital. But my sister paused and counting stitches long enough to look up and suggest this music was written to engage the knitters. So let them knit. I wrote a cabaret featuring these knitting songs. A cabaret where knitters were encouraged to knit. They get a ticket discount if they bring their knitting. We leave the house lights on halfway so they can see what they're doing. And I bring extra knitting. I bring scarves that I hand out. People stitch away at them and they're later donated to charity. The results have been interesting. I mean the knitters love it. They knit a sock. They watch a show. The scarves I've passed out have been stitched on from dozens of different hands, from hundreds of different people all over the world. Instead of strangers in a theater, there's a sense of community being built together. However, even though it usually goes well, I mean sometimes non-knitters take the wool. Once there was this hipster type guy who didn't know how to knit. He took the ball, he took the yarn and he just sort of held it in his hand and turned it around. But there have been issues, like counting stitches. So one time I was singing knit one. And you could clearly hear in the audience someone going 51, 62, 184. And then there was the incident of the mitten. In my show, I knit a mitten and I sing a song about the mitten. So there I was about to sing working on my mitten when all of a sudden in the front row a woman stood up. She said, honey, you dropped a stitch. Let me fix that. I'm not kidding. She came on stage, took my mitten, it was like the stage was like this, came up, took my mitten back to her seat, stood there and it was so awkward. But eventually I had to sing the pretty little mitten that kitty knit with no mitten. Metal knitting needles are incredibly loud when they're dropped in a theater. Especially when they roll all the way down the aisle and they're followed by a knitter trying to get them. And often knitters think they think that since they're knitting at a show and the show is about knitting, well, that they are a vocal and very, very involved, very involved part of the show. About a month ago I went up to visit my grandmother in Toronto.  And I stood there watching my grandmother, my mother and my sister knit and I started to think. Because her husband, my grandfather was a big band singer in the 1940s and growing up I was always the girl who had inherited the voice of the family. But watching all the stitching going on, I thought that actually there was another tradition being inherited. A knitting tradition, who knew, a one that brought my sister and me together.  And, well, I'm on it. Thank you very much. Thanks so much Melanie. Next up, excuse me, is Carolyn Surrick, a musician and poet with, and she's a musician with ensemble galilé. Good morning, my name is Carolyn Surrick and I play the viola de gamba with ensemble galilé. A little over six years ago I started going to Walter Reed to play for wounded warriors and their families. And on the very first day that I went, I went to Malone House which is like, it's like a really nice hotel, only everyone there has visible or invisible injuries. And I sat in the corner playing the viola de gamba thinking, what was I thinking when this really nice young man rolled up in his wheelchair and started listening.  And he told me about the day that he was in the back of the truck in Iraq and an improvised explosive projectile came through and blew his leg off and the thing that I will never forget is that he did not lose consciousness. From the moment it happened until he got to the aid station 11 miles later, he was awake and it was this, he's an extraordinary person. It was amazing and so then I played for him some more. He turned to go to lunch and he turned back and he looked at me with the biggest smile on his face and he said, ma'am, this was a once in a lifetime experience. So I got home, I called my friends Sue and Ginger and I'm like, we are doing this every Friday and they're like, okay, we're in. So I'm going to tell you about some of the things that you'll hear if you volunteer to work with wounded warriors and you'll hear a soldier who was first deployed in the First Gulf War and then Bosnia and then Korea and when she was sent back to the desert for the second time she suffered from severe post-traumatic stress and was met a back from Baghdad to Walter Reed and when we first saw her she would just walk by. It was like we didn't register that we were there. We're three people playing music, didn't register. After some months she would sit down and many, many, many months later she said to us that she had been a dancer before she was a soldier and that as a dancer she always had music in her head. She listened to music all the time. It was a complete part of her life and that after her injury she couldn't hear music anymore. Literally she didn't hear us as we passed by. She could not bring it to mind and what she said was that we gave music back to her and that music gave her life back and you'll hear a child say we play twinkle twinkle little star when the kids come through and I was alone one day and I finished playing twinkle twinkle and I said to the little girl are you here to see your daddy and she looked up at me and she said my daddy got dead and my granddaddy is here to take me home today and you'll hear a man say he's my brother. He was in a three truck convoy in Afghanistan. They had an IED so big that everyone was killed except my brother and he was without oxygen for seven minutes and the doc said he would never walk, he would never talk, he would never feed himself and he took his first step last week and so I said to this badly injured man in the wheelchair would you like to hear happy or sad music and he said to me quietly and clearly sad. So for the next 35 minutes we played the most beautiful sad music that we could think of as he sat tilted back in his wheelchair with his eyes closed. So I'm asking you to join me in changing the world and to send your artists into the community and if they say that they don't play background music this is what background music can do because the day after Major Nidal Hassan opened fire at Fort Hood and shot 38 people was a terrible day at Walter Reed and it was a terrible day because Nidal Hassan had been a psychiatrist at Walter Reed and my friend the sniper who had spent his entire adult life as a special forces sniper who when he was blown up in Baghdad lost the vision and hearing on his right side and the use of his three fingers on his left hand and he'd been a right-eyed left-handed shooter the day after Major Nidal Hassan opened fire was a terrible day because my friend knew that anywhere he was in the world he could be in the sights of someone else's sniper rifle. He and his three friends stayed at the Viola de Gamba and their talk was crazy, it was disturbing, it was paranoid but there was a safe place for them in the world that day and it was sitting with music. So please want to do oncology and they don't want to do pediatrics and they don't want to do wanted warriors just place them in the lobby of your community hospital and I promise you that they will change the world and the world will change them. Thank you. Thank you Carolyn, thank you very much. For those of you who are just joining us you're in the five minutes to shine session and I seem to be shining in front of that light right now myself and I want to welcome you and also encourage you to use our voting sheets which our volunteers and colleagues are handing out as you walk on to the next level later today to present his or her presentation at the awards lunch in front of our membership and board. So we look forward to seeing who your favorites are and tallying them at the end of our presentation. So now it's time for Illusionist Vitaly Beckman. Hello everyone. You can start the slide please. You know since I was a kid I wanted to turn my back because I was born in Soviet Union. That's me. And who knew that today I would look like Seinfeld or that I would sound like Borod. Okay, you know when I grew older my family moved to Israel and later I moved to Vancouver. I've always felt that the world could be a better, happier place if people could love what they do and do what they love. And I just like it but I'm truly passionate about it. I discovered that when I was 15 I saw David Copperfield show where he did a lot of grand scale magic like he made airplanes, trains disappear. He also did something small with just a couple of rubber bands and I was trying to figure it out. Now at first I couldn't but then I thought how would I do it if I had to show it to someone. So I tried and it worked. My mom was impressed. Actually my friends actually loved it too. And I started to come up with my own ideas. I realized I have the ability to create new illusions to bring imagination to reality. But my parents from Soviet Union they were very practical. They said we would like you to get a real job. So for four and a half years I studied engineering in Technion which is like MIT in the US. I don't know how I got my bachelor's degree because I skipped at least half of the lectures. And my favorite book from my first year in engineering was Stanislavsky's An Actor Prepares. Whenever I did not skip a lecture I chose to study the lectures performing skills rather than to listen to what he was teaching. One time during my job in very brief career in engineering my boss calls me and says Vitaly I heard you do magic at work. I'm like yes that's true. Could you show me some? You know finally I got the courage I quit my job and I moved to North America. At the airport you could see my weeping parents crying girlfriend but I was smiling. You know living overseas was not easy but my imagination illuminated the path because what I saw in my mind was so beautiful I was determined to make it real and share it with the world. I saw things like making drawings and pictures come to life. I wanted to put audience members inside a painting. I also wanted to amaze people in the most personal way possible.  Some of my visions were these gentlemen holding onto his driver's license. Some of my visions were not only impossible they were also illegal. But you know coming up with ideas is easy. It's making them real that took me years. And it's because there are no guides how to make them real. Usually I come up with ideas that have never been done before that are impossible to begin with. So it's simply working by trial and error whether it takes five months or five years. I don't care until it works because when I finally perform it for an audience and to them it feels like true wonder and for me all that effort is truly worth it. And you know I think you know my parents today they're my biggest fans. A lot of my colleagues mentioned to me that I inspired them with my original creations and I think you should be happy that I'm not an engineer as well. Because I think you should be happy I'm not building your bridges but instead I choose to bridge reality and imagination. Now every time you give life to an idea I feel more alive and that idea is now a part of me. And if you have an idea a dream and if you have the passion and the drive to see it through you can turn it into a picture a plan and then that plan can turn. Thanks very much. I bet Siob can't do that. Just guessing. Next up is Lynn Newman and she's going to tell us a story. Is this on? We're good to go? Let's roll guys. In 2006 I adopted an eight year old golden retriever Labrador mix named Sunny. When you have a dog you suddenly become aware of what's on the ground because their nose is always down there trying to put something in their mouth and not be in their mouth. In looking down I realized there's a lot of trash on the ground and most of it's plastic. Sunny and I used to go to Prospect Park in Brooklyn which is eight blocks from my apartment to play every morning.  Some days there'd be six pieces now multiply that by 13,000 miles of sidewalk in New York City that is an insane amount of trash. What happens to it? Well street litter ends up going down storm which combines with your sink and toilet water on its way to a water treatment facility plant. During heavy rains which are now the norm the system overflows spewing trash and sewage into local waterways. This then follows currents and ends up either back on land or in an ocean's gyre. Now plastic doesn't biodegrade it might break into smaller bits but it doesn't ever go away. I was realizing this is a crisis and I was developing an obsession. Now I'm a choreographer so how I internalize and make sense of things is through creation so I decided to make a piece. I reached out to the Earth Institute for help with research and began collecting plastic six pack holders which would serve as the basis for the costumes. I worked with three local pizzerias and in three months we had collected 5,000 of them. I also began thinking how can I reach more people with this important message and my answer was take the work where people and trash are. So I wrote some grants to take our work outdoors several came through and the dancers and I began traipsing to Manhattan Beach and Coney Island to rehearse and in dancing on sand we began to unearth generous amounts of trash again mostly plastic. I signed up as a coastal cleanup volunteer and along with performances organized people to come and pick up litter off of the beach. The turnout for these events was amazing more than we'd ever seen in a theater. Okay we were a little trashy but it was important work. The following year we repeated the projects and thanks to a feature in the New York Times our numbers that showed up were exponentially greater. Now by 2001 I was connected with national and international organizations addressing water and plastic pollution. I even organized a trash tour of New York City for the BMW I'm left. Created a character called Polly Etheline that was performing at cabarets and symposiums around the city. And then my phone started ringing. Can artichoke dance company come and perform for National Water Dancers Day or for a benefit for the plastic pollution coalition? My volunteering my time was one thing but committing my company meant resources and I needed to make a decision about what direction we were going to take. I kept thinking about people who would stop and watch us take a picture or video engage us in questions about our work lend their hands to cleaning the beach or even join us in dancing. I realized this is where my passion is and I had to dive all in. So today artichoke dance performs a lot in highly public traffic locations. We've altered our mission and we're working with environmental agencies internationally and nationally who support our work. Rather than clamoring to get butts in seats we're performing for thousands who probably would never ever know who we are or what we do. We've engaged people in environmental activism and introduced them to dance. We've learned how to navigate crowds and draw them along. Our current challenge is to figure out who exactly that person taking a picture is and what the benefits we have are for them. But one thing is certain my work has changed and I have too and it's all because I started looking down. Sunny passed away during Hurricane Sandy. A couple days later I took her favorite toy to Prospect Park but it was barricaded so I approached a park's employee explaining my dog had passed away. I just needed to take this tennis ball and throw it around where we used to play. He explained that there were falling limbs and it was just too unsafe for me to go into the park. And then he looked at my face and said wait a minute you're that woman who does performances about trash. I saw you guys dancing at Coney Island when I was there checking out things at the park one day and saw a bunch of volunteers picking up the beach. He said go ahead but just be careful. Now he didn't know Sunny or how she had initiated that work but he did know me and what I did and the value I had and that never would have happened without Sunny or the passion she inspired in me for reaching out and picking up. Thank you. Thanks Lynn. That story always chokes me up when I see that dog. What is it about an animal right? So Lynn gave nifty bottle which is not a bottle it's not plastic and I'm sure she would like to encourage you to use similar products when you're drinking your water or in my case after this show vodka out of this. So I hope you're all voting I hope you're paying attention to who your favorite person is and the favorite story that you're hearing and that you'll let us know before you leave who that is so that person can progress to the next stage of our process with five minutes to shine. Our next speaker is John Slade. Ready John? Go. You ever doubt your next step or the next word out of your mouth? I used to do that all the time in school I used to think of the cool comeback when I was walking home not wanting to do any good. So but I was saved when I was 12 years old from terminal shyness by a drama teacher who looked like Abraham Lincoln only it was a woman. And her name was Patty Lumen and Patty Lumen said this is drama and speech so this will be about finding your voice so try on as many voices as you want until you find some that you like and that was brilliant because she knew that most of us were coming there for that not to become actors but to find our authentic voice that maybe would speak up for us in real life. And I had an actual conversion experience right there sitting on the floor listening to her talk which I wasn't getting in church or Boy Scouts or anywhere else when Miss Lumen unpacked our town for us and revealed that the stage manager might be God. And I said these people are talking about some of the same stuff I'm thinking about if that's what they talk about in drama class sign me up. So in senior year though I went to another school the teachers are way more uptight there but I got to play Henry Drummond and Inherit the Wind and Drummond gets to say some incredible things about evolution and religion and an opening night well we had a triumph but the second night the largest and most conservative church in our town closed down our production reportedly I brought this on myself because I said hell and dam and they explicitly told me not to but I knew there was a bigger reason so that evening I went to the evening service of that church I'm still wearing my big red galooses from the play and I said I'm here to see Reverend Brimley and they said alright and they led me back and I faced Reverend Brimley and I had nothing to say all I could think of were the words from the play and that didn't quite seem to fit so where was my voice and the answer is that it hadn't evolved yet it was trying to but it would take a little bit of time eventually I would become an actor I would marry an actor we'd give birth to little actors and then when I was 50 years old I often became a drama teacher and I would tell my kids this class will be about finding your voice and that by that time I had found a voice that I resonated with in Walt Whitman the bearded bard of Breaking Bad I just loved his music and his poetry and I found a way to get it across to high school kids Whitman is a very, very hard cell one girl said ew I don't like him he celebrates himself that's so conceited I'm not even kidding I said well what he's celebrating is is he just like you you know he's made of the same stardust and he's pointing his way back to the garden she said you mean he was a hippie I said no he was a rapper I am the poet of the body and she said did he sound like that I said yes he did to them and so in that instant I had found a way to teach Walt Whitman and you should just hear 30 kids rapping I hear America singing it's just glorious but in 2012 they handed me my pink slip declining enrollment but after I retired Whitman would not leave me alone in my head I kept hearing the song of the open road we must not stop here so here I am two years later with all of you I'm bringing my Whitman play with me and carrying my old delicious burdens I carry them with me wherever I go but see Walt Whitman is such an optimist that I am looking at the world now through Whitman's eyes and did you know that Whitman is a self-proclaimed evolutionist and when you take the long evolutionary view trends seem a lot more hopeful so yes I am trusting that Whitman's bigger transcendental vision and my wife Lori and I now have followed Walt out onto the open road and it is leading somewhere my passions have all flowed together and if Reverend Brimley were here right now I would find my voice and say sir your creation story is true but partial creation is a continuing miracle and I am living proof of it I lost my job it caused an evolutionary crisis but as a result of this I am happier than I ever have been in my life I'm 66 years old and I am a work in progress and aren't we all? Thank you John very much Isn't it extraordinary what you can do in five minutes and what you can learn from a story in just five minutes it's really been such a privilege for me to walk through these stories over a period of a couple months and then to hear them with you today Jay Ruby is our next and final performer presenter and just a reminder to vote you should have your ballots with you and we will collect them as you leave the room when we're done today and Jay take us out Yes I am ready red ropes between us crawling between necessity and compromise and cross-cultural collaboration I grit my teeth bite my tongue and think I hate this red rope it's useless it's not a question of our vocabulary it's a borderline cliche and as a director I want to get rid of it five performers faces full of sweat and dirt and exhausted from acrobatic stilt walking stare at me in frustration four weeks down one to go my company the carpet bag brigade is rehearsing and developing a performance with Nemcatecoa Teatro from Bogota in the small mountain town of Columbia it's the middle of a long day the sun is heating up young children pour into the courtyard as the after school program begins it's getting noisier next week we present our work for the first time and the following week we present at the Aburo Americano festival the cast is nervous especially our colleagues from Bogota me too and the performer asks can we just get rid of this red rope two weeks earlier I introduced El Guzano the caterpillar a series of synchronized movements requiring performers to crawl rhythmically on the ground on and around each other with their stilts on it was sweaty, dirty and difficult work especially on concrete and asphalt initially the performers resisted the movements are awkward it's hard to do it hurts it will take a week to get three good minutes when Fuentes the director of Nemcaracoa Teatro tells his crew we are not here to do what we know but to try what we don't know Nico is my colleague and co-director of the Dios de la Adrenalina project he introduced the red rope insisting on its inclusion because of its metaphorical meaning to the topic we are exploring the impact of contraband cocaine on each of our societies no one in his company is more than two degrees of separation from an experience of violence through narco trafficking some are closer to negate the rope is to negate their desire to express that experience it must be included so I smile probably a grimace and respond no we need to use the rope our theater companies specialize in acrobatic stilt walking exchanging the craft of our technique we develop a model of collaboration with two directors two companies a bilingual spoken word artist and three Andean musicians it's complicated and there's a lot of moving parts it's not about aesthetics and results it's about broadening and understanding diverse narratives and making time for our necessities to be discovered and space for them to coexist and evolve with time and space we connect the states into an elaborate floor dance with acrobatic stilts illuminating the path of a plant often misused for power with time and space the red rope unravels connecting us to the suffering we each inherit living in a labyrinth of misunderstanding through sustained contact we disengage the traps of habitual narratives we understand the necessities of the other it supersedes any narrative we try to tell it becomes the narrative we live bridging a cultural divide transforms our circumstances it reconfigures our personal limits allowing spectators to witness two cultures in the act of reconciliation the felt experience of how trust functions shifts perception changes habitual social narratives are uprooted making space for new ones to arise crawling on asphalt with stilts and clinging to red ropes was the gauntlet we had to run to affirm our trust in recognizing each other's narratives but the essential act in our creative process is transferrable it is the will to listen and affirm diverse narratives if creative work is to approach the cultural divides engulfing our country and our world it will serve us well to sustain engagement in which cultural reconciliation overrides aesthetic achievement in terms of value so if you're not voted please do that before you leave the room I if you know that could be part of our annual next year call for applications and join us in the same process next year we'd love to have more voices and more of you on stage thank you very much for being here we hope that the conference and that you'll vote before you leave and could you just join me in thanking our presenters again today


Hi there, my name is Clayton. I'm a teacher here in Japan. I'm actually a teacher in a city called Himeji. I want you to look at this real quick. Yeah, I don't have that back in America. I didn't have that at home. And the reason I get to enjoy all this is because I am TEFL certified. Now, in the beginning, I didn't think that was that important. I speak English, I'm American, listen. But I've had very scholarly students ask me questions about English grammar. Explain what a type 2 inseparable verb is. And the thing is, now that I've got my TEFL certificate, I can explain those things. I can teach them. When those kids hit me with those good questions, I can provide them the answers they deserve. I'm really happy about that. That's offered me a lot more opportunities here in Japan. I'm really lucky to have that. So if you're thinking about it, go ahead. Get the certificate. Take the time. Learn the material. It will benefit you a lot in the future. That's all I have to say about that. Good luck.


The first national negotiation for cancer drugs in China has been successful in reducing the prices of two targeted anti-cancer medicines, TAMS, iCotinib and Gefitinib. This has led to increased usage of these drugs, as well as a decrease in the costs of both drugs. Further price negotiations are needed to ensure that more medicines with clinical benefits are included in reimbursement schemes, so that patients can have better access to essential treatments. This article was authored by Tsong Huang, Carolina Ong, Hei Shuerjieng Wushour and others.


if there is one thing the narcissist doesn't want you to do it's got to be this but it is also something that you should do if you want to regain your power if you want to get your power back because you met the narcissist they targeted you and you ended up liking them a lot but that is not a good thing when you like a narcissist when you fall for a narcissist because as soon as that happens that's when you lose your power because many of you you are liking them too much and too soon you're very eager for something to happen and you're risking everything on this one person when you should be exploring other options but I understand how it happened to you because they swept you off your feet they made you become very attracted to them to where you were always accessible to them you were at their back and call because you felt as though you had found someone who could be something very important to you at times you felt happy excited eager and enthusiastic and you may have mistaken it for love but it was actually just infatuation you were infatuated with them but unknowingly to you they were just sitting back and observing how they were getting to you emotionally how they were affecting you because you ended up liking them a lot so much that you were willing to overlook certain things such as their mistakes their bad behavior because you like them and you want to show them that you can cooperate with them that you can tolerate certain things and that you are the best choice for them too but the problem is you act before an appropriate time you reveal your intentions to them far too soon and by doing that you've already made a big mistake because now they can hold you out they can refuse to accept it if in their minds they think it's not good enough they can refuse your offer your proposal and then choose to wait for a better one because you've disclosed your intentions far too soon you have overreacted and the problem is that once they see you are willing to hand your your power over to them so soon of course they're going to take advantage of it they're going to exploit it but fortunately there is a way for you to get your power back and if there's one thing they don't want to see you do it is this and it may also be something that you don't want to do because you really like and want them but here it is the one thing they don't want you to do and quite possibly the one thing that you may not want to do it's to just let them go but i know many of you even though you've already witnessed their bad behavior you don't want to let them go you don't want to walk away but guess what by you not doing that it's given them the advantage over you you are keeping yourself locked into something that is not serving you because you're choosing to stay and that is what they will use against you when they see that you're really into them when they see that you're afraid of walking away because you fear losing something good by doing that you're handing your power over to them because they can already see that you are liking them far more than you actually should because what have they done for you they haven't made any effort they haven't given you anything of value that would justify you being deeply involved in them in the first place so of course they're just going to sit back and feel like they can play with you they're going to feel like they can they can engage with you for enjoyment and recreational use rather than for a serious or practical purpose they will feel like they can do things that give them the advantage over you where they can spin things into a different direction because they've got you open they've got you interested and you are completely committed to them you're in favor of them and you don't want to walk away because you feel like if you do walk away then you're going to lose something good and then someone else might have it someone else might take your place you need to wake up and realize that you are being tricked you are being deceived because if you look at it you don't even have anything if you walk away you're not losing anything anyway because you don't even have any information about them when was the last time you actually sat down and had a meaningful conversation with them I know for most of you probably never so you don't even know what this person is going to be like you don't know how they're going to treat you all you've got is just their words and anyone can just tell you what they think you want to hear it doesn't mean that they're actually about that for real so instead what you need to do is look at how you're being treated right now see that you're being hurt and then when you see that it should make it much easier for you to walk away for you to let them go and when you do that it will make them ablation ineffective then they can no longer use you or control you because that's all they're really wanting to do that's all they're really looking for when they target someone when they choose a victim it's all about how much are you going to tolerate how much unfair treatment are you willing to put up with because yes they do know that what they're doing is unfair they just don't care they just want to see how are you going to react to this are you still going to stick around and if you do then I know I've got you under my spell I know I've got you wrapped around my finger to where you're completely under my control because the narcissist yes they are always testing you they want to see if they have an advantage over you because they already know these things that they are doing to you they know that you should be walking away they know that you should be letting them go they know that you should run away and never look back they know that you should not put up with the things that they are doing to you because they are fine with you walking away they really don't care if you go because all that's happening when they're doing that is they're just weeding people out they're just getting rid of people who are not suitable for the position that they are looking to fill because all they're trying to do is find someone who is stupid someone who is going to be their doormat their fool an idiot and they're going to find someone like that by eliminating people who are not willing to tolerate their behavior so they already know exactly what they're looking for and they will test you to see how much you're willing to put up with to see if you're going to be a suitable victim for them and as soon as they try to do that you need to go you need to leave them just cut them off forget about them because you could be sure that these things that they are doing to you these things that you don't like if you stick around there's only going to be more of that to come it's going to get far worse they're not just going to change and become who you want them to be become a better person just because you've decided to stay no if you stay that then signals to them that you're okay with what they're doing you're okay with their behavior so then they're just going to ramp it up it's only going to get worse once they know that you're willing to put up with it so you've got to get yourself to a point where you're fine with leaving and never looking back without questioning or second guessing yourself because when you leave they may try to come back they will want to test you to see if maybe they've pushed you too far they will want to see if you're really done so they may even apologize they may promise that things will change they may use future faking but all that's going to happen if you give them another chance they're just going to know that they've got you they've got you right where they want you so what you've really got to do is just show them that you are not willing to play their childish games show them that show them that they've blew their chance and then all you've got to do is just keep it moving you shouldn't even be talking to them but if you are you've got to demote them from that higher position that they once had with you stop taking them so seriously treat them as something you just use for your own enjoyment for recreational use something that you just engage in when you're bored because they have shown you already that they are not deserving of a higher position with you they're not deserving of better treatment they've shown you that with their actions so you've got to demote them and put them down to a position a level of treatment that is more suitable for them based on how they choose to behave with you because they should never have done what they did to you they should never have tried to test you so you've got to deal with it like that because they will test you and you've just got to respond to the test in the right way by cutting them off walking away and letting them go and by not questioning or second guessing yourself because by doing that that is how you will get your power back and not only that it will prevent you from getting caught up in things that are not going to be any good for you that are not going to serve you but I know sometimes it can be difficult to see the difference between what is good and what is bad because they don't do it in the beginning they wait until you like them enough and then they get you because then they know you like them and they just want to see how bad do you want me how much can I push you let's see how strong you are that is why you've just got to walk away because these games these tests they're never going to end they're going to keep testing you they're going to keep playing these games and it's just going to get worse you're never going to be at peace you're never going to be at rest you are always going to be on edge waiting for the other shoe to drop you're never going to feel safe you're never going to feel comfortable as long as they're around you as long as they're a part of your life so cut them off walk away and continue along your journey and don't ever look back let them find someone who's more suitable for them let them find what they're really looking for a fool a doormat someone who's willing to play their game because that's all they're going to find when they run these silly games when they give you these stupid tests I mean you you should already know what kind of person they're going to find when they're doing that I mean of course they're not going to find anything good because what kind of person is going to stick around when they're doing that it's not going to be anyone who's strong confident believes in themselves and has a purpose no of course not that type of person is going to walk away and find something else so yeah in the end that's what they end up with and good luck to them let's see how they get on with that leave them to it and you move on and you find someone who is more like you someone who believes in themselves and values themselves someone who practices self-care and self-love someone who is strong and confident you walk away you move on and you find someone like that someone who will compliment you someone who you can build with because that's the type of person that you deserve so you've just got to move on and find someone who is more like that and when you do you will realize why it never worked out with a narcissist you will realize why so yeah I wish you the best on that I'm sure you all can and will find someone who can compliment you in that way and yeah I mean you all can know that you have the awareness of this of what to look for what to avoid now you can run your own process of weeding people out who are not fit for the purpose that you're looking for because now you know how to deal with it so yeah that's it for this video thank you all please give it a thumbs up down below if you enjoyed it share your thoughts in the comments and you all have a great day I will talk to you in another one


Good evening, everyone. We're all set to begin tonight's 2017 Citizens Police Academy graduation program. Tonight's program is being aired live on several Durham television networks. At this time, I would like everyone to stand for the presentation of colors by the Durham Police Department's Honor Guard and the singing of our national anthem by Kimberly Walker. You may be seated. Good evening again. My name is Officer Curtis Knight, one of the coordinators of this year's Citizens Police Academy along with Officer Lawrence Brown. He's standing up in the back over here. What a fitting way to start the Celebrate National Crime Prevention Month. Tonight, we want to take the time to honor 22 residents who've taken their time to come out and spend seven weeks together to learn more about the operations of the Durham Police Department and its employees. At this time, it is my pleasure to introduce Captain Walter Tate, who is the commander of the Community Service Division, who will welcome you formally. Captain Tate. Thank you all tonight. As you said, my name is Captain Walter Tate. I'm the commander for the Community Services Division. First, I want to thank you for coming out tonight because you could have been anywhere, but you're here with us tonight. So I do thank you. At this time, I would like to recognize any elected officials that may be in the building. If you would please stand. Elected officials. I also want to thank Officer Knight, Officer Brown and Ms. Kimberly Walker, our PIO office for doing such a fantastic job with this class. This is something that started in the mid 1980s and has evolved into something beautiful. I also would like to thank the instructors that gave their time and provided presentations to the class. What we do in our Citizens Police Academy is the cornerstone of our community police and for Durham Police Department. It just shows how we can work hand in hand with the community to solve problems. It's very informative, very educational. And with that being said, speaking of education, the person that I'm about to announce is big on education, big on training. And I think that there's one speed to really describe this person and this fast goal as far as the leadership and the expectation is very high. So without further ado, I would like to bring to the podium Chief, Sarah Lynn Davis. Well, we just move according to the program. How's everyone tonight? Good. Thank you, Captain Tate, for that introduction. I really appreciate the work that you and your team do on a daily basis to ensure that folks really understand that community policing is at the very heart of the Durham Police Department. So good evening, everyone. Good evening. It's so quiet in here. I'm not used to quiet celebrations. So it's okay to clap. It's okay to smile and laugh. This is an exciting time. I already mentioned Captain Tate, but I also want to thank the officers as well. Officer Brown and Officer Knight, you all do phenomenal work. And of course, no one clapped for Kimberly Walker. But did you know she could sing like that? We always miss that opportunity to celebrate in her talent because we always take consideration of the ceremonial aspect of the posting of the colors. But Kimberly always sends chills up my spine when she sings. Thank you so much. So once again, we gather to welcome another Academy class into the family of the Durham Police Department. But I think I'd be remiss if I did not take a moment for us to acknowledge the tragic events that have most recently occurred across our nation and its territories, the destructive flooding in Houston, Texas and other portions of our country, the devastation wrought by the hurricanes in Puerto Rico and other parts of the Caribbean, as well as the most recent tragedy, the senseless tragedy in Las Vegas, Nevada. I firmly believe that despite the divisions that are prevalent in some of our public discourse, we are people of one nation and a tragedy for any of us affects all of us. Our hearts, minds and fervent prayers most certainly go out to all of those who have been most directly impacted by these recent events. And now on a more uplifting note, congratulations to our graduates. Your participation. Yes, it's OK to clap. That's right. You all take instruction very well. Your participation in the Citizens Police Academy is a demonstration of your interest and commitment towards the betterment of your community. I'm confident that your Citizens Police Academy experience gave you new insights into the inner workings of the Durham Police Department. You've met many members of our dynamic and diverse workforce, and I trust that you have a newfound appreciation of DPD employees who serve with expertise, commitment and professionalism. One of the key components to our success as a law enforcement agency is through our unwavering commitment to community engagement. What what does community engagement mean? One author tells us that community engagement is a framework that seeks to better engage the community to achieve long term and sustainable outcomes, processes, relationships, discourse, decision making or implementation. This concept is based on principles that respect the right of all community members to be informed, consulted, involved and empowered. Your participation in the Citizens Police Academy is a shining example of community engagement. There is a recurring theme in public discussions regarding law enforcement that there is a strong desire for the police to connect more directly and less authoritatively with the communities that they serve to establish a relationship. The Durham Police Department prides itself on the relationships and partnerships that we have built throughout this great community. The city where great things do happen. These relationships and partnerships were built in a variety of ways through crime prevention programs and initiatives. The establishment of a community policing philosophy baked into the organization, the partners against crime program, the establishment of various neighborhood packs within our city, our police athletic league and various other community based initiatives. The Citizens Police Academy is just one of those efforts, which is intended to further connect with our residents to build and strengthen relationships with our residents. Relationships are built on understanding one another. You have been afforded the opportunity to view life through the lenses of our police employees, and it is our hope that this experience has instilled in you some level of understanding that will further cement your relationship with your new DPD family, your police department. Your presence in this academy is, in fact, an act of community engagement. And a continuation of the many relationships that have been built over the years. It is only through our relationships and our partnerships with our residents that we can hope to achieve our shared goal of a safer and more secure community where all people can live, work, play and thrive. We want to encourage you to share your experience and what you've learned with your friends, family and neighbors. And we thank you all for your participation and your continued support. Thank you and congratulations again. Thank you, Chief Davis. Each year we select a couple of attendees to share their experiences during that time during the Citizens Police Academy. This year we selected four speakers to just reflect and give you all a little insight on their time in the academy. Our first speaker tonight is Mr. Michael Johnson. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, chiefs and distinguished guests. I'm Michael Johnson. I live in District 4 and I'm also a Durham Police Department employee. I've been with the Durham Police Department for a little over three and a half years. So I count it an honor and a privilege to be able to speak before you tonight. Just bear with me. I'm a little nervous and when the chief came up, she said, what are you being nervous about? I was like, I'm graduating, I'm graduating, I'm graduating. I'd like to give a special thanks to Officer Brown, Officer Knight and Ms. Walker and all of those that work behind the scenes and make the Citizens Patrol Academy a success. And also a special thanks to my family for allowing me the time to take part in coming out Tuesdays and Thursday nights. Officer Brown taking extra snacks home. Thank you. Those extra snacks went a long way. They went a long way. So tonight I would like just to talk to you about a few takeaways. I appreciate and valued doing the Academy and I will come to you from my first perspective as an employee and then from a citizens point of view. At first I was a little apprehensive and attending as an employee. I didn't hear coworkers talking about it. So I was like, I don't know, but I'm so glad I did. I am so grateful I did.  We have what? A B-shirt? What's a B-shirt? Oh, well, I didn't know canines cost that much. I was like, wow, canines cost that much? And no matter how the employees, 9-1-1, they're not stressed out all the calls and things that they have to go through. I was like, it was just like, wow. But most of all, it was nice to know our police department is tops. You know, tops in the nation, not just tops in the state. It's tops in the nation. And where people come out or officers come out to train, they get the best training in Durham. 9-1-1 centers top in certifications. Highly recommended teams, the crisis intervention, hostage negotiation forensics, and the list just goes on. We at the Durham Police Department, we got it going on. I'm just saying, we got it going on. And I'm just so thankful for that. So, but most important, as a citizen, now knowing the many additional programs we as citizens of Durham can take advantage of, it was enlightening, you know, including the Police Athletic League, which my children took part in playing baseball and soccer and, you know, they're still playing soccer in high school and baseball in middle school. So it was the beginning of their athletic career. The great program, where I was kind of disappointed to find out it was ending, but where one of my sons was able to go to Washington, D.C. with a police escort for his entire states, everywhere they went, they had police escort to all the attractions and everything, riding, you know, it's like you're saying, I was riding through the city like if I was president.  So, in closing, I'd just like to say thank you, thank you for allowing me this opportunity. Now I have a deeper sense of pride in serving my fellow officers and DPD employees, but I must get the word out so change can come, letting my friends and neighbors and brothers, my peeps, know to get involved. This is where change can take place to clear the air, remove the frustration, and gain an understanding of what the Durham Police Department is all about. So, thank you again. Okay, sorry. Thank you, Michael. Our next speaker tonight is Mr. Andrew George. Tough act to follow on Michael, that's great. So, as Curtis said, my name is Andrew George. I'm currently a graduate student in biology at Duke University. I live up in district two by the regional hospital, bought my house about four years ago. Before that, I lived downtown at the Old Bowl building, but as Chief Davis mentioned, when she visited our class, rents a little high downtown, so I decided to move out of the district, or the district five. Being a grad student, we don't get a lot of chances to get outside of the academic bubble, and a lot of my friends or other graduate students often ask, what are you doing? How did you hear about the Citizens Police Academy, and how did you get involved, and why did you wanna get involved? And for me, and for a lot of others, I think it has a lot to do with the discussions that are happening around the country about what the role of the police department is, and I wanted to find out more about what Durham Police Department thought their role was in our community. And so I often was, or in order to come up and speak, I was asked to talk a little bit about what I learned. And so we had so many sessions, so many good talks, so many people that came through and expressed their passion about the department and what they worked on individually. And every one of them, I learned something from. But I've only got three minutes, so I won't talk about all of them. If you wanna learn, do the Citizens Police Academy. So, but I will highlight two. They may sound simple at first, but I'll go over it a little bit more. Being a police officer is hard. It's the first one. And then the second is it takes a village. So police forces a constituted body of persons empowered by the state to enforce the law, protect property, and limit civil disorder. One of the heaviest burdens that a police department carries is that it is the sole purveyor of the legalized use of force. We do and should hold them to the highest standard of conduct precisely because of this reason. During the academy, we were able to experience through a training simulator how quickly the decision of if and when to use force must be made. We watched as an officer went through a number of scenarios that involve different uses of force. And luckily for us, we were able to rewind each situation and replay the tape again and again to understand and think through each decision made by the officer. Unfortunately, that is not a luxury that the officer has to make in real life or gets in real life. Our group had a very active discussion about the officer's choices and whether they were justified or not. And it was interesting to see the dialogue and they were very open to discussing what did you see? How did you see it? Was it different than me and could I do better? Then it was my turn to wear the belt. So two of us got the lucky or unlucky opportunity depending upon your perspective of putting on the belt and trying it out for ourselves. Before the academy, I didn't know any police officers. I didn't understand the burden of what a police officer goes through. The simulation that I was selected to respond to was an active shooter on a campus, which as I told you, I'm a graduate student, so for me it was a very interesting experience to say the least. I didn't know what I would do. I didn't know how I would respond. I didn't understand what it would mean. Having gone through that simulation gave me a new appreciation of the reality of what the everyday job of a police officer is. And for the rare but even ever present horrible things that happened, including what happened earlier this week in Las Vegas. The difficulty of their job became apparent during my rod along a few weeks ago as well. Through the course of the night, we responded to a variety of calls from something simple as a noise complaint, keep it down, to the drunk driver who drove through a group of people waiting in line at a food truck at the Luna night club where seven people were injured, four of which were transported to a hospital, two of which were critically injured. This was just one night of the many that will weigh heavy on the mind of an officer over the course of a 30 year career. I know for me, the simulator, and that night I couldn't sleep for two days.  As I said before, it takes a village. There are many, there's more than meets the eye when it comes to the police department, Michael being one of them. The outward phasing individuals that many of us interact with, or in my case, try not to interact with, the patrol officer. But after going through this, it became obvious that there are so many more people that are integral to keeping the department running smoothly and keeping our community safe. You have the counterparts, the fire department and the EMS who work with the police department to secure the scene and treat the injuries that are bound to happen on a daily basis. You have the persons telling them where to go, the dispatcher and the 911 operators. All of these people have thankless jobs. Their day to day usually involves 12 hours of seeing or talking to people on the worst day or worst moment of their life. We had the opportunity to tour the 911 call center to see these people in action. And as Michael said, they don't crack under pressure. Are we learning about the many screens that used to coordinate the response? I couldn't help it over here. One of the operators was walking through someone help, walking through someone through how to help their friend who had overdosed. Couldn't sleep again. It was through all these experiences that I saw how difficult your guys' job is. In the face of being underpaid, overworked and underappreciated, it doesn't matter if you call 10 times a day, 10 times the next day, or 10 times the day after that, there will always be someone there to pick up the phone and help you on your worst day. I would like to close by thanking all of the sworn and non-sworn individuals for what they do every day. Here in Durham, I didn't know much about the police academy before I started our police department, but I have a greater appreciation for what you do on a daily basis. I would specifically like to thank Officer Armstrong, who gave me a ride along and listened to all of my questions. I'm sure that was a pain, but he did it with grace. And then finally, I would like to thank Officer Knight and Brown and Ms. Kim Walker. And I would like to also say that if we had known you'd had that voice, you would have started every session singing some song. I will put that in my survey. Thank you, Andrew. Our next speaker tonight is Ms. Sheila Coleman. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. Thank you. My name is Sheila Coleman, and I'm a healthcare consultant with special interests and expertise in healthcare fraud and abuse. I'm a native of North Carolina, and my family and I have lived in Durham since 2004. We have one adult son and four grandsons, so you can imagine our interactions with law enforcement is of great concern to me as a mother and grandmother. One of my grandsons, Justin, who is here with us tonight, has said to me since the age of two, he calls me Yaya, and he says, Yaya, when I grow up, I want to be chief of police. I'm going straight to the top. So we want to thank Justin for his love of community service at such an early age. Thank you, Justin. I love you. Now as for me, I've always had a healthy respect for law enforcement, but honestly, I cannot say the same for some of my family and some of the people that I know in my community. So I decided to attend the Citizens Police Academy, also known as the CPA, with the desire to shift that paradigm in order to learn more about the overall operations of the Durham Police Department as well as to be able to share that experience with some of my family and others in the community. I can truly say that attending the CPA has been one of the best decisions that I've ever made in my entire life. This evening, I would like to thank you for the opportunity. And before I do that in great detail, I want to share with you three of the insights of the many positive insights that I learned from the CPA. One of the insights that I learned from the CPA was from Corporal Drew, who gave a presentation on the recruiting process for the Durham Police Department. After the presentation, one of our classmates asked Corporal Drew his opinion of what does it make to make a great or good police officer? And without any hesitation, Corporal Drew said, there are many qualities that make a great police officer, but in my opinion, there are two that are needed. The first one he said is heart. Now, what do we mean by heart? He went on to say, you have to have a heart to be a police officer. And that means you have to have a heart to serve your community. The second quality that Corporal Drew said was, you need integrity. Now that got my intention working in healthcare fraud and abuse. He says that integrity is just another word for honesty and having a great moral compass to do the right thing. So it doesn't matter if your shooting skill is 80%. It doesn't matter what your analytical skills are. If you do not have a heart to be a police officer, if you do not have honesty and integrity, you have nothing. So in saying that, for me, I decided to say, well, you don't just need that for a police officer. You really need that in every profession, in every facet of life. And so that was one of the insights that really struck close to me in knowing that the Durham Police Department is now making an effort in teaching and training, not only about the analytical skills and sharp shooting, but also teaching the recruits, trying to weed them out to say, look, we're looking for the best. We're looking for the best that's going to go out there and represent our community and not only represent our community, make a bridge so that the citizens can know that they can trust us. How awesome is that? The second insight that I would like to share with you that I learned from the police department is that the police department has a crisis intervention team, a team that is formed or was formed since 2007 and has over 245 trained officers who have gone through 40 hours of training to learn specialized training in order to do crisis management for those individuals who may encounter the police department with mental health issues. How awesome is that? How awesome is that that the police department here is saying that we recognize that of all the citizens that are arrested, many of them have mental health issues and really should not even be going through the criminal justice system. And if we can find a way to circumvent that and give them the help that they need rather than placing them in jail, this shows some of the great things once again that the Durham police department is doing and it really struck to my heart in doing so. Lastly, one of the things that struck my attention was I did not know that there is an organization called You and 5.0. That is an organization that was created by Deputy Chief Beverly J. Council who retired from the Durham police department and she created this program to address the rise of deaths that were occurring during interaction between law enforcement and some of those in our community, particularly African-American citizens. The primary objective of You and 5.0 is to promote mutual respect between law enforcement and the citizens with the ultimate goal of sharing information and interactive techniques as to what we as citizens should and should not do. Listen carefully, should and should not do, say and should not say when we are involved with interaction with law enforcement. While I already knew some of the points that were outlined in You and 5.0, I can honestly say some of them I did not. As an example, in 2012, I was rushing down highway 70, I believe, to my parents' home on the Eastern Shore. I just learned that my parents' home had been destroyed by Hurricane Floyd and I just got off an airplane and away I was going. And lo and behold, who is behind me? My first instinct, because I grew up in a small town, was to reach over and do what? Grab my purse and reach for my license and registration. In the You and 5.0 program, I learned that, oh no Sheila, that is not what you should do. You need to sit tight, your hands should be on the steering wheel and visible at all times until that police officer tells you to move. You can best believe I got that now. So I will now be able to take that and all of the other helpful information that I learned from the Citizens Police Academy. Lastly, I would like to thank all of those involved for the opportunity to be a participant in the 2007, I'm sorry, 2017 class of the CPA. Again, it has been a rewarding experience and I thank you. Thank you, Sheila. Chief Davis, have you had the opportunity to meet Justin? Okay, don't let me forget, because I made him a promise that I was gonna introduce you to him once we finish. Next speaker, our last speaker is Mr. Richard Kaneki. Well, of course, everyone has pretty much said everything wonderful about the department, so I'll do the best I can. I wanted to take a minute to introduce myself a little bit to you. I'm Richard Kaneki, was born in Alaska. I want you to pay attention to the geography here for a second, because it's a joke at the end of this. Grew up in Chicago. I got an architecture degree at North Dakota State University in Fargo, North Dakota. We moved to Minnesota, Minneapolis area, lived there quite a while, and then we moved to North Carolina. My wife has been after me for 36 years to move somewhere warmer, we finally did. So we're not really Yankees, we're Midwesterners. There were three things that prompted me to apply for the Citizens Police Academy. After the idea popped into my head by a cleverly placed ad cut out for the Raleigh Citizens Police Academy that my wife had put a little blue star on and say it's set on the table for me, so she led me here. But I wanted to get a feel for the police side of what we see in the news every day. As you all know, we see a lot more video in the media of negative encounters. We've seen very few videos of wonderful encounters. And I think I had us feeling in my heart about how things were going, and it wasn't good. And my perception of the police departments was tarnishing. So I thought it would be a good idea to see from your side of the window and look at that. And I learned a lot from all of you about that and that there's another side to every story and another perspective. So I also wanted to learn a little bit about how my role as a citizen could contribute to the welfare of the police department. And when you move from a long distance from a place that you've lived a long time, like Minneapolis, you kind of get here and you have an empty wagon, right? Don't have a church home right away, don't have other organizations and things that you were doing. So I'm hoping that I can be part of this going forward in some way. And there's one little last selfish thing and that is I'm working on a medical murder mystery and I'm hoping I can call you all when I need some guidance on the plot. Like many people here, I was taught about how to interact with police when I was at a young age. My dad taught me that. And he told me, and so did my mom, if you're ever in trouble, look for a police officer. Go to them, you'll always be safe. And I'll tell you, you can tell by the advice my dad gave me when I was a young guy that it was advice from a bygone era. He said, oh, and by the way, if you ever get stopped by the police and the weather's bad, like it's snowing really hard or it's raining, get out of the car and go to them, right?  Well, you know, I never did do that. And of course now I know a lot better than to not ever do that. And to wait for proper instruction and follow those. I've always had a positive view of police. I think we all know that not everybody has that same positive experience. So what did I learn through the academy? I think one thing for sure is that there's a whole lot more to policing than dialing 911 and waiting for the patrol officer to roll up in your driveway. I really had no concept for all of the various things that happen in the background. All of the departments, all of the units that are there to help us be safe and to protect the community. And I don't know why, but I keyed on B-Cert too because I guess not every community has one, has that unit. And so that was one of the things I learned. One of the other speakers mentioned how super the Durham Police Department is. And I too keyed in on the fact that 911 folks have got three certifications simultaneously and have had for a number of years that makes them one of three in the nation that have that. So when you think about what Durham has done with the limited dollars that you're given, I would say that the money is very well spent. It's a department that I think we can all be proud of. And I certainly am. Another thing that I learned was that in personal interactions with the police during this whole period, that even though the minimum requirements to enter the academy are there, right? Many, many of the officers I spoke with have advanced degrees of one kind or another from criminal justice to masters in psychology. And if you don't think that a patrol officer who's driving around in the car with a master's in psychology, I met one. So there's a lot of capability and a lot of people give time of their life to better their themselves. And then they bring that back to us in their community service. Another thing that I learned was that this police department holds itself accountable. When you don't like the interaction you might have had with a police officer, you can file a complaint. They had forms in our book. You can, here, hand these out. If you wanna file a complaint, you're welcome to do that. Something that surprised me was every single one is followed up on. Every one has contact made.  And those file, those complaints are finished, closed out, and then they store them for 30 years. So I think that they take feedback from the community very, very seriously here. And that's something that I think we can all be proud of as well. So although no department is perfect, I think this one works hard at always trying to improve, no matter how good you ever get. So lastly, I would like to thank chief and the command staff and Kimberly Walker and officers, Knight and, oh geez, Brown, sorry, man, for the opportunity to be part of the academy. Thanks very much. Thank you, Richard. At this time, I would like to welcome Administrative Services Bureau Assistant Chief, Ed Sorbus, to present special recognition to the Citizens Police Academy faculty. Thank you. I get a fun task tonight. I get to present the Citizens Police Academy faculty awards. It's important to note that this year marks the first time the academy has presented special awards to presenters who facilitated academy sessions. Academy coordinators, officers of Brown, Knight and Kim Walker are committed to finding new ways each year to continually strengthen the Citizens Police Academy, certainly recognizing their peers for their professional expertise and support of the academy is one of those key elements. The first recognition, the CPA Above and Beyond Award, is decided by the academy coordinators. This year's recipient is the Durham Police Department's Training Division. Captain Wrights, please come forward on behalf of the staff. This award reads, the CPA Above and Beyond Award is presented to the DPD Training Division in recognition of extra efforts made and exceptional professional training and instruction in the Citizens Police Academy that are contributing to greater understanding of the challenges of policing and stronger police community relationships. Award of the fifth day of October, 2017. The second faculty recognition is based on feedback and insights provided by the members of the graduating class. Nearly all of the graduates stated that choosing a best session was nearly an impossible task as there were many presenters and sessions that stood out. However, the 2017 CPA Most Engaging Session and Faculty Award is presented to Elizabeth Poole and Chandra Fullard of the Durham Emergency Communication Center. This is Elizabeth Poole. I don't know that Ms. Fullard was able to attend tonight, so okay, so please accept on her behalf. Let me read some of the excerpts we get back from some of the graduates. One stated, I was very pleased with the time they took at the communication center to explain in detail what the dispatchers go through. The emotional level they encounter with every call, the amount of training was astounding. They are two behind the scenes heroes. Another person said, the presenter stood out, who stood out for me was Elizabeth Poole. She showed great enthusiasm for and knowledge about her job. Her presentation was professional, clear and very interesting. She related well to the class, answering questions with ease and grace. After her presentation, it was amazing to be able to visit the 911 Center with Chandra Fullard and observe a small slice of its action. Both Ms. Poole's presentation and the visit to the center were informative and made me appreciate all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes to make our community safe and welcome. Congratulations to the faculty award recipients and especially to the graduating class of 2017, Citizens Police Academy. Thanks Chief Saras. At this time, we'll begin the presentation of the certificates to the 2017 Citizens Police Academy class. We had a total this year of 22 graduates. Unfortunately, we have four that couldn't make the program tonight. At this time, I'm gonna ask the executive command staff to come forward. And I'm gonna ask the members of the graduating class to stand in alphabetical order please. Certainly, this was a great sacrifice of time on their part. The academy lasted seven weeks, as you've heard and the requirement to graduate, which we strictly adhere to, you must attend at least 10 of the 13 sessions. And this class I think has had the best attendance rate of any that we've had in recent years. So give yourselves a hand. So as I call your name, please come forward to receive your certificate from Chief Davis and to shake the hands of the executive commanders. Charles Anderson. It's not here tonight. Joseph T. Biondi. And we're gonna take a group photograph after the program. So because we're on live television, we're gonna forego the individuals at this point, okay? All right, our next graduate is Tracy D. Leggett-Brag. Our next recipient who was unable to attend is Martha Brim. And next we have Sheila J. Coleman. Charnetta Cooper. Chris Dove was unable to attend tonight. So next we have Christina Fieria. Matthew Filter. Andrew George. Roslyn Hunter was unable to attend. Michael A. Johnson. Richard M. Konecki. Shannon Leskin. Isabella Lima. Marta Molina. Ronald Roddy was unable to attend tonight. Trisha Reisner. David Stinson. Jamie Tindall was unable to attend. Kevin T. Walls. Last but certainly not least, Elizabeth Harper-Winer. Let's give our graduating class another round of applause. Graduates, please be mindful that immediately after we close the ceremony, to meet us in the front for your class photo, okay? Thank you. At this time, I would like to welcome patrol services division assistant chief, Todd Rose, who will be given the closing remarks. Good evening, everyone. My name is Todd Rose. I am the assistant chief for patrol services. I might get the honor to give them the closing remarks tonight. Once again, let's give our graduates another hand. We're very proud of you. Really would like to thank you for devoting your personal time to come out and come to the academy. It means a lot to us. I know it'll mean a lot to your families that you're trying to get involved in your community. We sincerely hope that you gained a better understanding of the way the Durham Police Department operates and whether some of our units operate. We encourage each of you to be an ambassador for the Citizen Police Academy. Please go home and share your experiences with your family, friends, and neighbors, and let's see if we can fill those seats for the next academy. This academy would not be very successful if we didn't have the dedicated people that run this thing every year. And we would like to formally recognize you've heard their names tonight, but we would like to formally recognize the Academy coordinators, Officer Lawrence Brown and Curtis Knight, outstanding job, the Citizen Police Academy lays on film Walker, the support staff, which is Mrs. Celeste Edwards, right sitting right there. And we really would like to acknowledge the Durham Police Department's honor guard for participating tonight. Thank you very much. And also the City of Durham Public Affairs Office who gave us this wonderful venue and allowed us to be on TV. Please give them a round of applause. We thank all of you for coming and joining this celebration with us tonight. Please join us in the lobby for refreshments. Everyone, please have a good evening and drive safely. Goodnight.