Radio waves are part of the electromagnetic spectrum, which also includes X-rays and visible light. Generation of radio waves uses the relationship between electricity and magnetism. If an electric battery and a magnetic compass are joined in a circuit, whenever you complete the circuit, the compass needle moves. The magnetic field that has been created can also be detected in another circuit placed near to the first. This is how radio waves travel across space. With powerful transmitters, they are sent very long distances and picked up by an aerial on the receiver. To send complex signals, a sine wave can be used, which is continuously changed through modulation. The height or amplitude of the wave can be varied or its frequency. The number of wave crests per second which is counted in hertz. The varying pattern carries the message. The wavelength is the distance between wave crests and is typically hundreds of meters for radio waves. But the frequency is millions of waves per second because radio travels at the speed of light. There are very many radio waves all around us, so a receiver must have a tuner in order to isolate a particular signal, as well as an amplifier to make it stronger. Modern digital radio breaks the signal into pieces coded as numbers which are reassembled into sound at the receiver. They are transmitted across much wider frequency bands than analog radio. This gives a more reliable signal and it means that one digital signal can carry many programs at the same time. Radio frequency bands are allocated for different purposes. Television for example uses higher frequencies than radio broadcasting. ITU is where international agreements are made about allocating frequencies for the many services that use radio today, including mobile phones and other devices.


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Europe starts in Aveiro I would like to invite you to visit our city Aveiro is the city of canals in Portugal and we love to be European citizens and we'd like to receive you in our city It's the same to say we receive you in our Europe Welcome!


Hi, I'm Kate Young, and you're listening to This is Purdue, the official podcast for Purdue University. As a Purdue alum and Indiana native, I know firsthand about the family of students and professors who are in it together, persistently pursuing and relentlessly rethinking. Who are the next game changers, difference makers, ceiling breakers, innovators? Who are these boiler makers? Join me as we feature students, faculty and alumni taking small steps toward their giant leaps and inspiring others to do the same. I started diving in 2000, goodness it's been 21 years now since I've been in this sport, but there has been a lot of adversity that's happened, a lot of heights, triumphs and a lot of defeats as well, but I think all of that encompasses just a good athlete journey. The most decorated Purdue University diving Olympian, David Bodaya, joins us on this episode of This is Purdue. I'm going to be honest, we did this interview prior to the US Olympic Diving Trials in Indianapolis in June, prior to David placing third, just missing the cutoff to head to what would have been his fourth Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, prior to knowing that two other Purdue divers would be going to the Olympics instead of David. But as I listened back to this interview with David, it was amazing how much of it foreshadowed the adversity he would soon face at these Olympic Trials. So now we're pivoting. We're telling the story of Purdue diving legend David Bodaya and the legacy he's left at Purdue University. We'll start at the beginning. David takes us back to how his diving journey got started. The goal was when I was seven years old, watching the 96 Olympic Games was to make it to the Olympics. I was doing gymnastics at the time. I was doing other sports and I wanted to achieve this dream that I had a little bit. I know it'd be in a sport called diving that I had never heard of before. Some friends introduced me to the sport and I guess the rest is history. David has four Olympic medals, including one gold, one silver and two bronze. He went to Beijing in 2008, London in 2012 and Rio in 2016. During training for his fourth Olympic Games, he made the switch from the 10 meter platform to the three meter springboard. I did the past three Olympics on the two meter platform. I did an individual event and then synchronized event with somebody else trying to mirror image each other. Platform is difficult in that it's scary. There's a lot of fear that's involved because you're 33 feet up in the air, three story building, diving head first at 35 miles an hour. And so I think the anxiety for that fear is different than what you experience on springboard. Three meter is not as scary, but one of the hardest things on the springboard event is there's a variable now where something underneath my feet is moving. That creates anxiety of itself, but you know, the switch happened just after the Rio Games. I took a year off and then decided to make one more push towards another Olympic Games. And it's something that I did while I was at Purdue, competed for swimming and diving. And I never really got to see what my full greatest potential was on this event and wanted to see what that looked like with my career. I'm 32 now, and typically they say your prime's 23, 24. So I'm older in the event. And so I've noticed recovery is a lot harder to do. If I have an injury, it takes a little bit longer to overcome it. But with springboard, there's not as much impact on your body. So it's a little easier to train than it was on the 10 meter platform. When David won gold in London in the 10 meter platform, he finished ahead of a world champion from China and a UK hometown favorite. It was the first Olympic gold for the United States in diving since the 2000 Summer Olympics, plus the first Olympic gold in the 10 meter platform by an American male diver since 1988. David talks about this gold medal winning moment. Take us back to the London Olympics. What did you feel like when you emerged from the pool and had that gold medal dive? I think one of the coolest things in competition that an athlete can experience is when they're in the zone. There's a ton of movies that depict it quite well. And, you know, when you're in a competition, one of the things that I've learned and that really came together in London was really just keeping these blinders on. So I had a routine that I would do, you know, I would sit, I would play Tetris and listen to music when it was about time for me to go. I would get warmed up. I would go see my coach here at Purdue, Adam, and then I would get up to the platform. But really, you hear the noise of the audience, but you have your blinders on. And so my focus is just tunnel vision where I'm just strictly focused on what I'm supposed to do to taking off this platform. And I never looked at what place I was in. If I made a dive, that was extremely well. What scores those were. So at the end of it, I was just hoping to be, you know, top five. You know, I felt good during the competition that I turned around. My name was on the first place tag right there and was in shock to say the least. One of the coolest things that I've heard, one of the best quotes that I've heard actually is from John Wooden, who UCLA basketball coach also a Purdue basketball player. He said, if you focus on the things that you can't control, it adversely affects the things that you can control. And so really, when I'm going into a competition, whether it's in London or Rio, ultimately I have no control of what my competitors are going to do or what the scores are from the judges are going to be or what place my name is going to be on the award stand. So what I can control are the six dives that I do in competition, doing them one at a time. And so for me, it's not helpful to know exactly where I'm at in that competition. And every athlete is different. It's just something that you have to learn for yourself in competition. David tells us what it's like to train for the Olympics for days, months and years, only to have it all over within a matter of seconds. That's years of work. And then, you know, your dive is what, like 10 seconds? Yeah, maybe. How do you feel when you're on the diving board at the Olympics about to do this dive that you've trained so many years for? Yeah, I think that's probably one of the best things that I love about competing is that pressure that you get because you're training four to five hours a day, five to six days a week, 300 days a year for a matter of eight and a half seconds and a competition and that can go really well or it can go really bad. When I was younger, working on that mental game, that allowed me to want to step up to these high pressure situations and actually one thrive in it, but also enjoy it. I don't think most people would say they enjoy pressure, but I think it's a challenge and I think that is what I like most about it. But there is no other feeling than standing up on a string board after training years and years and years in front of thousands of people and having millions of people back home or watching this. If you stop and think about it for a second, it's not good. When I'm in competition, it's really I put my blinders on. I think about what I'm supposed to do in that moment, not dwell in the past and not get anxious for the future about what's going on here now. Following the 2016 Olympics, David knew he was either going to retire or take a much needed break just after the 2016 games. I knew that when I was either done or I needed definitely take a break. I hadn't had anything longer than three months since I started my diving career. For me, that was to take a step back. I really wanted to be done and or take this break because it was what people were telling me that I should do.  You should probably move on with your life. And so I I started to believe that like, all right, yeah, maybe you're right. I've always been interested in real estate. And so I just after the games, studied to get my license and started buying and selling for a little bit and realized I was listening to these other people telling me what I think I should do instead of I'm still healthy. I was still in really good shape and I still had a drive to do it. So I can't redeem the time that I've lost. I don't want to go 10 years from now and say what if. So I decided to try to do both and one of them had to let down the other because it was too stressful. So I decided to put a pause button or hold on real estate and pursue this Tokyo games full-time. He took the plunge and started training for Tokyo. As this summer Olympic games grew closer though, the entire world was put on hold. The COVID-19 pandemic postponed the 2020 Tokyo games, the first such postponement in Olympic history. David tells us about why he started welcoming adversity into his training and how it prepared him for something massive. Something like well, the biggest competition of his life being postponed. Every single one of us has experienced their plans not being fulfilled. If anything this past year during this pandemic has taught us that we can plan something, but we need to have it with an open palm because it could change in a blink of an eye. But when I look back at my career, one of the biggest challenges I had early on was a fear of 10 meter. And at a young age, I started working with sports psychologist. An outcome goal is what I ultimately want to accomplish. The process is how I was going to get to that point. Another way is relaxation of individualization. And when you look at adversity, I think one of the biggest things that you learn from it is from mistakes and early on in my career I had plenty of those and one of the things that I don't think I was the most talented diver physically, but one of the things that I worked on was how can I prepare and out train everyone else mentally. So I was start to invite adversity into training. And so whether that would look like my teammate standing behind the board trying to distract me or we would turn music up loud so I would get distracted that way or just from experiencing competitions. But that was one of the things that I trained really hard on early in my career. So now fast forward, you get news that the Olympics has been postponed and it's just another way to toughen up and figure out how to get through this mentally. Obviously it was a struggle. One of the things that we did during pandemic and during the lockdown specifically was we made our home kind of my training facility. So I brought mats from Purdue University over to my house and I did my flip training on the ground there and I took over my kids trampoline and did training there and I mean you make it work. If something's important to you then you're going to figure out a way to make it happen. And this was one of those things that it was important to us. So we needed to make sure we were staying on top of the game. And you just mentioned your kids, you know, you travel a lot. I'm sure previous to COVID that is. But what was it like, you know, being home more and how did that kind of impact the way that you thought about the Olympics? The nature of my job is not just diving in the pool as a professional athlete. I'm going to sponsor events where maybe I'm doing a keynote speech for a conference that they're doing or a meet and greet in Texas or whatever it might be going into 2020. We knew that it was going to be extremely busy. I would be home and then on the road again, but with the lockdown and created an opportunity where I got to just be home with my kids. I think when they think back of what the lockdown was like for them, it's going to be a totally different experience than what most of us experience. They're going to see mom and dad are home and we're going on picnics and hikes and go to the creek and jumping on the trampoline and just all these quality time activities that we wouldn't have normally got to do. Right. Absolutely. I know I always think about I go on walks at lunchtime now and we got a dog and there's just so many things that I don't think would have happened had all of this craziness not happened. It's kind of nice. Like life can slow down a little bit and I think when you stop and I guess breathe and all the worries or stress that you might have if anything this past year has taught us to just stop for a second and just be thankful for just the here now. David recently appeared in the weight of gold in HBO sports documentary exploring the mental health challenges that Olympic athletes often face. Olympic swimming legend Michael Phelps served as an executive producer on this film and legendary athletes like Apollo Ono, Sean White, Lolo Jones, Gracie Gold, Sasha Cohen and more went into great detail on the dire mental health situation amongst these elite athletes which heightened with the postponement of the Olympics. I really wanted to do my research here so I watched the documentary and wow I think so many of us myself included assume these top tier athletes are rich famous and well really happy. In reality these athletes are facing loneliness depression stress over things like income and family life and the pressure of being the best. I truly recommend you watch the weight of gold for yourself. It's powerful and it shines an important light on mental health struggles that even and maybe especially gold medalists face. What was it like sharing those really intimate details of your life with the world? When I was approached about this documentary with Michael Phelps one of the things that I wanted to do was to be able to share struggles that athletes, elite athletes have. And one of the goals that I had when I wrote my book greater than gold and 2016 was to just share that your struggles are the same as mine and this is how I got through it and hopefully that's an encouragement to somebody else. But I think it shines an important light on you know depression doesn't discriminate and it's okay to ask for help and one of the ways that you know I've seen success in that is having people around me a tight knit circle who one is going to hold me accountable but two is also going to listen to my struggles and my fears so that I might go on the right path at a young age. I put so much hope in this destination of if I get to the Olympic games then I'm going to experience fame and riches and success and at the end of those games that was the exact office of what I thought I wanted. And so that left me into a deep depression and I think not knowing what my purpose was so before I would say diving is who I am. Now I say diving is something that I do it's not who I am and going forward my purpose is not just to win the Olympics but also to live out my faith. As he mentioned David wrote his first book greater than gold in 2016. It details why David bought into this American dream that fame wealth and success would satisfy him and how he came to the realization that none of these things actually made him happy and fulfilled. One of the things that I tried to do in greater than gold was to kind of lay out look we all have faults and failures and you can either let that consume you and listen to the thoughts and the lies that are coming into your head or can do the opposite. You can look at it and then move on from those mistakes and then also learn how to when these lies come into my head how do I speak truth into them so that they are not dominating me and so there's a number of topics in the book that is helpful for whether you're an upcoming athlete or someone who is just trying to look for ways to just move forward with your goals. Right and I know especially with the boom of social media you know you're comparing yourself to other people and even people like you who are gold medalists Olympic athletes people would be like oh that guy has it all together he has everything and your goodness your whole point with this is kind of to say no and shine that light on that so that's really special you've talked so much about the pressure since coming out about your depression and mental health and everything has the way that you've trained changed at all. No I think because that was a battle you know I think that's one of the forks in the road where it's a roller coaster ride when you're trying to train for the Olympics where you're trying to figure out what you're going to do after college there's a lot of high highs and a lot of low lows and you learn from those mistakes and if I was dwelling on it I would allow it to define what it looks like for me to train but that was in the past doesn't mean it can't happen again but we're trying to be diligent and just trying to get better every day whether that's in the pool or outside of the pool. High highs and low lows I'm sure the day that David finished third at the Olympic trials by a small margin was a low low for him but Boilermakers keep going and David keeps going following his defeat in June David released the following statement on his Instagram. The pain of defeat that's sports for you a roller coaster of highs and lows I couldn't help but leave the pool last night filled with joy. It's easy to let yourself go down the path of things you could have done different. It's good to learn from your mistakes but dwelling on them will leave you discontent and that is not how I want to end my fight this week. You have two choices in these moments stay in defeat or move forward. I choose to move forward with joy and contentment. David also said his daughter Mila greeted him at home with the question. Have you ever caught a firefly? He says that simple question put everything into perspective for him. David and his wife Sunny who he met while attending Purdue still live in the Lafayette area even after they both graduated. He explains why Purdue has always felt like home to him. Before I decided to come to Purdue one of the things that I was I didn't want to come to Purdue because it was so close to home. Once I got to campus and met the team and met the people who were in the athletic department and walked around campus to see what it would look like academically. It kind of just felt like home but I knew that I wanted to continue to pursue my diving career after I graduated and so we made Purdue our home and that my wife's family is all from Lafayette area and my family is now in Lafayette and so this is where we wanted to raise our kids and build our home and I think being on campus every day Purdue just makes it easy to accomplish your goals and what they have to offer even post collegiate career. And after all of the highs and lows wins and defeats David will be home for good now as a full time assistant coach with Purdue swimming and diving. He tells us what he admires most about his relationship with Purdue's head diving coach Adam Soldati 10 time Big 10 diving coach of the year. I think what makes Adam unique and why he's had so much success at Purdue I would challenge he's probably one of the most successful coaches at Purdue University if not the Big 10 just the awards that he's won and what he's produced. One of the things that stuck with me before I decided to come to Purdue he met with me and he had said you know David I'm not going to promise I'm going to make it Olympic champion but what I can promise is I'm going to create an environment where a champion can be made for me. I was like OK well that's not a hard sell you're not going to say you're going to make me Olympic champion. But when I stepped back for a second like he was going to quit me with every single tool that I needed to be able to accomplish that goal. And I think what's unique about Adam is that he pushes you as an athlete but he cares more about who you are as a person outside of the pool than who you are inside of the pool. So he's trying to develop a male or female to have character whether that's in competition or in the classroom and I just can't say enough good things about the guy. And what about the legacy and impact this Olympic gold medalist has made at Purdue. You've trained at the Burke Aquatic Center for years.  I think when they approached me with the idea of like we're going to put like your picture up and then some accolades and I was like oh that's pretty cool. And then I walked in and I was like holy cow. It's like the whole wall and the divers tease me like this is your shrine now it's put things out from under like it's hilarious how much bigger I thought it would be but you know I think that just speaks to one of the things that I experienced on the podium in London was it's hard to explain but when you're on the podium there's a wave of emotions that come in and the only thing I could think of was like this wasn't just me in this moment to get me to this point you know Adam had to sacrifice had plenty of teachers who had to help me through this and trainers and family members and one of the coolest things was when I was on the podium listening to the National Anthem we had my family my fiancee at the time Sonny who's now my wife all to the left of me and on the other side was a whole John Purdue Club congregation and so it was like the people who helped get me to this point are now you know kind of encircling me and we're good to celebrate this special moment with each other. David also shared some advice for incoming Purdue students and especially his future diving mentees. I think if you went back to my academic advisor she is still here and Nicole McKinney she would say this kid's not going to make it after his freshman year. I think you're just thrown into it and you're like how do I balance life. I think every freshman experiences this but because I had the resources that Purdue like Nicole McKinney to help I just kind of figure out this is what needs to happen it can seem overwhelming but why do you break it up like let's figure out this class and then this one and then prioritize your time. But I think the resources that was available to myself and then other athletes and students allows you to be able to pave a road for success. Yeah and I'm glad you highlighted that because you think about the normal freshman coming in and it's a lot. That's a ton. You're away from home and you're on your own and multi-tasking and then you throw in all of the training that comes with being an athlete at Purdue so that's not easy I'm sure. I think it's helpful that someone else is struggling with you so I think when you feel like you're struggling alone it's hard to accomplish something but when someone is there that can empathize with your struggle and makes it a little bit easier to come out of the I guess the darkness that it could be and not being afraid to ask for help. I've been able to be around multiple waves of Purdue divers and I think one of the things I tell them is to go talk to your professor like just go up and introduce yourself day one. It's going to be awkward out of all get out but if you can have a relationship where you're communicating back and forth they see that you're caring about what you're going to do in this class. I think it just helps that much more. We've talked about David's experience at the U.S. Diving Trials but who is going to Tokyo for Team USA? Purdue's diving dynasty once again came out on top and you will see two Purdue divers at the Olympics. We caught up with Purdue alum Brandon Lociavo who is heading to his first Olympics at the Morgan J. Burke Aquatic Center. What does it mean to him to hear the word Olympian? I mean it was a unreal experience and I'm excited to go to the Olympics. I think I'm still a little bit like on cloud nine I'm just kind of like floating around and you know doing all these interviews. I'm excited to get back to training and then I look forward to the experience of actually being in the games and kind of seeing this like dream come into fruition. Brandon an NCAA champion continue to train here at Purdue before going to Tokyo. He tells us what it means to him to represent Purdue and the U.S. I mean it's just an honor to do it for such a great school and then to add to the reputation especially just like what Adam has created at this pool is just unbelievable. I mean it's just an honor and I'm super excited to do what I can for the country and Purdue. The opportunities they gave me in the first place let that be on the academic sphere. The professors that I've met that have pushed me outside of the pool. It's just amazing. I mean if anything I can do to give back to Purdue I would gladly do it. So just having the opportunity to represent Purdue as an Olympian just means the world to me. Along with Brandon Purdue diver Tyler Downs is making his first Olympic appearance after winning the men's three meter springboard competition at the U.S. diving trials. It's clear why David is an icon and why so many Purdue divers look up to him. Tyler told NBC Sports after his Olympic trials win. I think David is a legend. He won gold in London three Olympic games. He's an amazing person as well a really great mentor. Here's Brandon again. Yeah Dave's always been like the ultimate goal is to get to where he's been. I mean it's one thing to be an Olympian. Yes, but to to win the Olympics and to show how dominant he is on the Olympic arena is just unbelievable. I think my favorite part is like when you see him at the Olympics he looks like he's at a regular meet. And I think that's something I've always looked up to is the sheer confidence he has. I mean it just looks like he's just floating through the competition. He just enjoys every moment and so at some point I was like I need to strive for that mental clarity of what he has and so it's an honor to dive below him and then to strive for him. I think Brandon says it best about the Purdue University community. Purdue let there be alumni that aren't here and then the divers that are here right now. They push each and every one of us and it is unbelievable. It's an unbelievable family. Purdue has eight athletes going to the Olympics in Tokyo as of early July. Two divers Brandon and Tyler as we mentioned one swimmer one volleyball player and four track and field athletes. If you'd like to learn more about Purdue's presence at the Tokyo Olympics please visit Purdue dot University slash Olympics. Thanks for listening to This is Purdue. For more information on this episode visit our website at Purdue dot edu slash podcast. There you can head over to your favorite podcast app to subscribe and leave us a review and as always Boiler up.


So again, I'm Jenna Koloski and I'm with the Council on Rural Development. I'll be facilitating, but really this is kind of an open discussion. And I would say for those of us on the call that are visiting team members, I think because we have kind of a smaller group, like feel free to chime in on the conversation broadly too. I don't feel like there's a need to kind of hold off until the very end. But I'm going to be walking through a series of questions. This forum is going to start actually by hearing from Zach, who's down in the Randolph area and a founder and leader in the RASTA organization. And he'll be able to share a little bit of what's going on in that region. And one of the goals of this governor's action team is to share strategies across different counties. And to, you know, you may in these conversations I've seen in one county, you know, they're talking about we really should learn about building connections between universities and child cares and schools. And then talk to another county and they're doing just that. And so what an opportunity to share that between the regions and showcase what's going on. So we'll hear from from Zach briefly. And then we're really just going to dive into a conversation around arts and recreation in Washington County. I'll run through a series of questions to really look at what are the challenges today? What are maybe some vision points in this area? What would we like to see? And then I'd love to hear what's going on now. What are you seeing in the region today? And then you think about some ideas for the future. And I guess we're a smallish group, so feel free to unmute whenever you can use the raised hand function to join in, if you'd like.  If you also can just unmute and shout or chime in, whatever works is fine or wave at me. I think that's all for just six. Gary is capturing notes. We are going to be following up with all the notes from the forum. We'll also be following up with a survey if there's additional comments that you might have or if there's others that you want to share the survey with and opportunities to time as well. I feel like as we have a smaller group, I would love to actually just go around and do intros and kind of their name and any affiliation or where you're located or whatever you want to share briefly, within reason. And maybe because we all have different configurations on our screen, I'll just go through person by person. Amy, do you want to start with an introduction? Sure. Hi, everybody. I'm Amy Cunningham. I live on Elm Street here in Montpelier. And I'm Deputy Director at the Vermont Arts Council. Happy to be here as a resident and a visiting team member. Well, serving in both roles tonight. Great. Caterina. Hi, everyone. I'm Caterina Lusias. I'm an outreach representative for Senator Sanders. Senator Sanders has always appreciated the arts and recreation. It's part of what makes Vermont Vermont. And I'm a born and raised Washington County resident from war in Vermont. I now live in Bolton, so I'm just over and grew up. My parents run a theater company. So the topics of today's session are near and dear to my heart. Great. Thanks, Caterina. Lydia. Yeah, I'm right here in Montpelier on Pleasant View Street. And I've been sheltering at home. Yet I'm a performer who performs less here and more around the country. And I do. I have a lot of students that travel to me here and they haven't been doing that. I'm also a composer. And so, yeah, I'm really interested in all of in all of this and how to how to really connect now to to what's going on right here. I've done a lot of work with a lot of the organizations on mission statements, and it seems like going into that is and kind of reconsidering the new the new mission as we have kind of a new a new on that is an interesting thing to do. I had for lunch, oh, thanks, Lydia. We'll get let's get into that a little bit more when we start to think about what's going on today and into the future. Let's get through our intros first, though. Let's go, Senator Perchley. Thanks, Jenna. And hi, everybody. Yeah, I'm Andrew Perchley, State Center for Washington County. Live in Montpelier. Right now, I'm actually in Marshfield, however. And yeah, just happy to be here and listen and be part of this discussion. Great. Thanks, Gary. Hey, everyone, Gary Holloway. I'm a downtown program manager with Department of Housing and Community Development. I live here in the Town Hill neighborhood of Montpelier. Been here for about six years now. I work pretty closely with communities across the state doing a variety of community economic development. As it relates to this committee, we actually do quite a bit around the arts, creative sector and connection of recreation to to our centers. And recently, in the past six months, I've been doing a lot of work with the governor's action team staffing that and really helping to support communities as they recover and businesses as we're trying to position and get back on their feet. So really glad to be here and participate in this conversation. So thanks. Thanks, Gary. Commissioner Snyder. Good evening, everybody. Mike Snyder, Commissioner of Forest Parks and Recreation. Also the chair of VOREC, the governor's initiative for economic development throughout the recreation. Really happy to be here. I've done many big fan of VCRD and very grateful for their ongoing excellent facilitation of things like this and outreach. So happy to help and looking forward to a good conversation. Thanks. Thanks, Zach. Hello, Zach Freeman. I'm in Braintree, Vermont, just outside of Randolph. And I'm the Randolph Trails Director of the Rochester Randolph Area Sports Trails Alliance. And we've been around for about seven years now, six or seven years. And we are a multi-use trail organization placed in the Rochester Randolph area, mountain bike trails, backcountry ski trails, hiking trails. And we were the recipients of the first ever VOREC grant last year. And we are implementing that currently. And that will be some of the highlights that I'll share with you guys this evening on this call. So it's great to be here. We'll hear more about that momentarily. Peter, do you want to introduce yourself? Sorry, I caught you when you were looking away. Yes, thank you very much, Peter Anthony, sort of local government geek. I've been on the council, mayor, virtually any volunteer or activity you can think of recently was elected to my first term in the legislature, representing the city of Barry. And my interest in choosing this breakout session is I just think the city of Barry has some mostly entertainment assets, the most prominent of which, of course, is the opera house. But we have, you know, fledgling museums and galleries and so on. I just don't think for some reason or another they've caught on. Maybe it's because we're so close to Montpiedere. Montpiedere is so rich with lots of cultural venues. We sort of get overlooked. So I'm trying to figure out how to how to plant the flag for our own, if you will, ownership of those assets. Yeah, well, I really want to dive into that. That's really interesting. You know, we were, VCRD was about to launch into a big community visit process in Barry before the pandemic hit and it was just heartbreaking to have to to put that on pause. So I'm interested to hear more about what you're thinking about there in Barry. Paul, do you want to introduce yourself? Hello, everybody, I'm Paul Gamble with the Community Engagement Lab and I'm in Montpiedere and we help schools and communities with creative projects that help them envision and make change around some challenging social questions. And so we're really excited to see how the arts can help with resilience and recovery and we're all in. So looking forward to this conversation. Awesome. Thanks, Kim. Hello, I am Kim Bouldock. My family owns Bouldock Metal Recycling here in Middlesex. I am here this evening representing as chair of the Central Vermont Chamber of Commerce. We're very interested. We have continued to communicate with our membership throughout the COVID shutdown. The resources that are available for businesses, whether they be arts, recreation or a shop, brick and mortar. And one of the things that we would like to also continue to focus on is promotion of our members as a tourism and a recreation and an arts resource. So it's kind of a two pronged approach, both for the consumer and the business offering. And one of the things that we've struggled with. Look, Kim, Kim, I hate to cut you off, but I really want to save our time for getting into some of the challenges and ideas to dig in a little bit more. So hold on to those thoughts. And I just jotted down a reminder to come back to you on that. But let's hear from Matthew and Katie. You're like, and then we'll come back to that. I know that both of you have shaky internet, but give it a try. Matthew. Yes, OK, I wasn't sure who was going first. I know, I was not clear. Good evening, I'm Matt Barowitz. I'm an economist with the Vermont Department of Labor. My passion is arts and music and but for professional sake, I'm very interested in the recreation aspect of the Vermont economy and how COVID has disrupted it. So I'm very just interested in the discussion of people who are passionate about these topics and how they come together. And really in some ways are celebrated in some circles as being an economic driver and others are actually forgotten about as an economic driver. So when we're speaking about like the arts and very and things like that, it was those things that are so important to communities. So thank you for having me. Great, thanks. And Katie, we lost Katie. I hope she didn't mean to hit unmute and hit leave instead. That's happened before. And yeah, well, let's dive in a little bit. I just what an all star team here for this conversation. And I love the kind of mix of arts, interest and recreation and dress. So I think this is going to be really a conversation. But why don't we have Zach pick us off? I think, you know, with each of these breakouts, we ask somebody to come on and just showcase the work that's going on in their region. And when I think of recreation and even tied in with entertainment and music and arts in some ways, I don't think there's a better example than the work that Ross was doing. Thanks. So Zach, why don't you share a little bit about what you're what you've been up to? So you got to thank you very much. Yeah, it's an exciting time in Randolph. It's been it's been a great few years since our club launched in 2014. We've had projects right out of the gate that have kind of helped propel the organization forward very quickly. And so growing up here in Randolph and forum and raised strong roots, strong ties to the community here has very much helped the progress as well of the work that we've done. The highlight, though, recently was the VORAC grant that we won. We are very proud of that. We we used that to then build on the momentum that was already started here in Randolph. And so a few of the things that we that we really hit on were the local businesses, the the connections between the businesses, the connections between the community members and really getting a sense of ownership as a part of the growth of recreation. It wasn't just a separate organization that was kind of doing their own thing. We really dove deep in the community and got a ton of community support right from the get go. And so I think that's really helped propel the projects forward very quickly. And the VORAC grant was just kind of the icing on the cake as of recently. We already had some great projects in the works with some private support and some public support as well. And then the VORAC steering committee, I believe, saw that support that we've that we fostered in the in the years leading up to the VORAC grant and that helped the steering committee choose Randolph last year to then help kind of push Randolph over the line. And and I tell you that the the excitement around the VORAC grant win has really helped this community even prior to the the the pandemic pandemic, for sure. We started off impact country skiing. That was our first project, the Braintree Mountain Forest. And then we quickly moved on to the branding gap, which is the very first back country ski project on any national forest service land in the US. So it was a groundbreaking project of its kind. And then we rolled into multi-use hiking trails, mountain biking trails, both in Randolph and Rochester. And then it grew from there. We we got some private support here in Randolph from a gentleman who bought a chunk of real estate here in Randolph right in downtown. And we renovated a very old house that some feel should have been pushed over the bank because it was such an eyesore in downtown. And we renovated the place into a into a shining star of downtown. It's beautiful. It has the the rural feel, but it has a fresh new look to it. And I was lucky enough to secure two owners that now run a mountain bike gear shop called the Gear House in Randolph. And then that's also paired in the same building with the Rasta Trail Hub room. And that is a showcase room that highlights all of our clubs trails, both in Pittsfield and Rochester, both summer and winter and in Randolph as well. So it's kind of a one stop shop for folks that come to town that are looking to recreate they can go in there and discuss trail options with the shop guys and then go in and grab grab a free map and check out the the larger trail maps and the larger trail infrastructure that our club has built over the last six years. And with that, the energy that that project brought to Randolph is it's hard to put a finger on, but it sparked all sorts of exciting other projects in the arts community. There's now an arts council in Randolph. They're doing some some exciting murals. There's some some shows and some entertainment that we've partnered with as well. And prior to the covid pandemic, there was a big increase in events I hold a series of events, one of which is the Braintree Bluegrass Brunch series where we combine arts and farms and and recreation as well. Unfortunately, we've had to scratch all of our events this year, but we're excited for next year for sure. We're we're we're all kind of itching to get back together and see folks face to face. And so, yeah, so going forward, I think that we we definitely are building on the momentum. This is kind of a small speed bump right now, as far as volunteerism goes, but the projects are still going going full steam ahead and it's very exciting.  It doesn't really matter what industry you're in or what political background you believe in, recreation brings everybody out in the woods. And it makes you feel good. And so I think that we're really hitting our stride here in the center Vermont area and in Randolph. So. So much, Zach, I appreciate that. And I am I always think of Tim Tierney, who any of you probably know and who was one of the founders up at the Kingdom Trails Network always says it starts with thinking about, like, what do we want? What do our residents want? What do we want for the community? Not, you know, how are we going to attract people to our area? And it's about creating what you want in your community. And I just feel like Rasta has just really done that and created a sense of community and excitement around around the region. So I'm really great. Thanks for framing that up. And I hope you'll hang out for a little while and listen into the conversation and reflect at the end. So so let's dive in. Like, using that as some some framework, an example. I know there's great work going on in Washington County as well. But let's start with I hate to be kind of a downer, but why don't we start with thinking about, Gary, I'm going to flip the question. Sorry to mess with the carving. But I'm going to I want to start actually thinking about challenges. What what are what are you seeing as the needs today? Where are their gaps? What's missing? What's getting in the way of maybe achieving what you might want to and want to be funny? Does anyone want to start with sharing a challenge? I will get in the room as no one. Everybody's afraid to get together and you can't get together. And that's that's a huge challenge for us, because volunteer workdays, no one showing up for volunteer workdays, where in years past, we'd have 40, 50 folks that would show up for a volunteer workday and the same thing with events, too. I think it's a strange time to meet. Absolutely. Well, so people even in out doing outdoor work, people aren't showing up for. Yeah. Well, Lydia, you had a hand raised. Yeah, I would say one challenge is what I would call virtual fatigue. Mm hmm. There's just so many meetings and so many events that are online. So many of my colleagues are doing concerts online. I've had things presented online and there's an audience. I've had colleagues, events presented online and there's an audience, but it's smaller than it would be. And at first, you know, back in March, there were lots of people and colleagues said, wow, this is great, and it's dwindled.  But yet there's fear and there's not only fear, but there's, there's blame too. You do get together. Well, who's going to point at me and say, you're too close. If you can read my shirt, you're too close. And and that's a real concern. So when getting and they're also a side of virtual fatigue, there's too many people who are all buying for the same grants, whether those grants are for X, Y or Z, whether whether they're recreation oriented, whether they're performance oriented. If you got in to to them early and you are a known factor that it might work out for you. But if, if, if not, or you don't quite know the ropes, a person or a group might be scratching their head and and get discouraged. So I would say just fatigue in general, especially that that virtual fatigue all the way around. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Lydia. I think virtual fatigue, that's a very real thing. I think you're absolutely right. Kim has your hand up and then we'll go to Amy. Go ahead, Kim. I think the one of the biggest challenges that we have is communication of the events, of what's available. You know, it's a whole new ball game. All of your communication has to be done online, social media. The radio stations are exhausted from being asked to do things for free. So I think one of the biggest things is figuring out that if somebody is willing to go out there and host an event, how should they advertise it and how can they communicate that it is happening? Yeah. Thanks, Kim. Amy, you're going to say something? I just wanted to piggyback on two really great points that Lydia raised and on the one other aspect to virtual fatigue that I found is we've got like arts and cultural organizations in the state that have pivoted to use the very overused word and have put on some like world class programming virtually, which is awesome. But suddenly when your platform is virtual programming, you are now competing with the Lincoln Center.  And so anyway, that's just a putting a fine point on one point that Lydia raised and then the other notion around the competitive competitiveness for grants and opportunities. I've in the folks that I've been talking to, individual artists, folks in small creative businesses and in arts and all kind of all manner of nonprofit organizations, it could be a full time job just to try and navigate what's out there and who you apply to and for what and how I mean, I know there's so many different opportunities, whether they're statewide and they're national. And I know so many people are completely overwhelmed by what's open and what's eligible and how you make your way. Just just translating it all. Yeah, thanks, Amy. I hadn't thought of it that way. That's an interesting concept that being virtual, it's like opens up the competition that suddenly everyone's live streaming for free and you're not getting the same local audience. Andrew, thanks. I just kept on thinking of opportunities, but when I think of challenges, I think it's how do we develop more community leaders like Zach with Rasta? I think of the work in this playing field and Marfield area. We have a similar mountain group, mountain bike group that Sarah Galbraith has been really one of the organizers. I don't do a lot of trail mountain biking, but I like to go to their events just because they're fun events. And, you know, there's a Phoenix who's on the event in another group that did the hitching post. They're just people that are following that advice of what do we want? And then they just do it. They're not trying to attract people. And so that makes it fun. And I talk to a lot of other people that have interesting ideas, but they feel like they're not leaders, that they they don't know how to get their idea out or that nobody will come or they don't want to speak in public. So I think we need to get more people feel comfortable that they can lead a small group because you don't really need many people to start. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great question. How to support and foster that kind of leadership. Paul, you're on mute, Paul. There we go. Picking back on on Andrew, one of the things I've noticed and what we struggle with is they're kind of these pockets of excellence and kind of exemplars popping up of doing really interesting different ways of making it work, you know, around social distancing and how do we bring people together and how do we create energy? But they're not communicating with each other and kind of sharing out. So one of the challenges we have in organizing artists is just how do we how do we start sharing with each other what's working and kind of in a almost a lab experimental way. So we have a learning community building up around good ideas and, you know, so people can be inspired to adopt what works for them in their world. And that whole communication thing that Andrew was talking about, I think is really critical. Hmm. I love that. That sparks for me, like just in thinking about our community work and community visits and how to engage people in thinking about the future of their communities. We're having to really rethink how to do that. And so I'm intrigued by that idea of having some kind of workshopping together with other groups. Any other challenges that folks want to share before we move on to thinking in the future? Katarina? I just have a question kind of going off of what Amy was talking about. Our office heard about a lot of particularly artists, but it seems like it would fit into the recreation employment or, you know, workers as well that a lot of artists are self-employed or only have one other employee. And so they were navigating not only the federal assistance for businesses, but also the art specific grants that were available for coronavirus relief. And I'm just curious, you know, from your networks, is that commonplace? Is that often happening with the recreation world, the art world, the entertainment world that you all work with? That's a good question. Amy, you probably have an answer to that. I don't know if others want to chime in too, but why don't you go ahead, Amy? Well, I think, yeah, it's been a kind of dual lanes for these sole proprietors, micro-businesses, to figure out, you know, there's the PUA and there's things that are available for self-employed folks that have never been available before because of CARES Act. And then there is, and I think, you know, ACCD has been rolling out a number of different programs that fit lots of people. And so there's the emergency economic recovery grants for some sole proprietors, and then there's the new embrace grants for micro-businesses. So, yeah, I think we're trying to translate for folks as best we can, and we're realizing that this is like a wake-up call for a lot of small businesses, small, you know, individual artists or folks to, and small nonprofits, frankly, to get real clarity around their business model and because the stakes are higher now than they have been before. So it's, yeah, it's been a lot for people to juggle and navigate. Yeah. Peter and then Zach. Yeah, thank you. I have two, well, first off, an opportunity that befell the Opera House. They were planning to renovate and the COVID essentially shut them down. So they said, well, let's renovate now instead of next year. So they're taking advantage of the downtown, which is great timing for them. I'm afraid financial planning went out the window, but they're going ahead and doing it. I want to sort of do a little future casting. Barry used to have its own ski area, a rope tow, the only rope tow I know that survived to this day is out in East Corinth. And alas, it died of lack of attention in the 50s, basically late 50s and the rise of media attractions for kids and so on and so forth. It ultimately was completely destroyed by the agency of transportation, which built a highway right through it called Route 62. My future casting point is if we are, we Vermont are successful in encouraging people to move back downtown, we're gonna need way more easily accessible recreation venues near downtown than we have now. Now, if you want to recreate and you live in the city of Barry, you hop in the car, you go to, I don't know, Calis, I don't know where, the valley, if that's not reasonable or to be encouraged 20 years down the road, then what is it? We have some public lands, but less than we should have. So I guess I just feel like trying to hold on to undeveloped land very close by urban centers is really a priority that I don't think anybody's really put their finger on. Most of the time we're talking about unfragmented forests for deer and bear and whatever, but if most of the people are in future gonna be gathered near small cities and urban centers, I really think that the bear will be fine. The question is, how will people recreate if they can't go far from Barry, Montpelier, wherever the settlements are, what are Barry? Yeah, yeah, I think that's a really interesting reflection. Yeah, I remember, I don't remember when it happened now, but there was a session, I think that Gary and his team and I think Forest Parks and Rec were kind of coming together. Is that right around like thinking about public space and downtowns and how they connect and economic development? Like I vaguely remember that right before the pandemic or something like that, but I did the interesting point and I think it's something that communities are kind of starting to think about more and more, that kind of easily accessible. Yeah, those were the conversation in Bradford that we had. We actually switched to doing a virtual meeting. We were planning on doing it in person, but there's a lot of conversations around the utilization and expansion of municipal town forests around the state and how they are a real asset. And there's some great examples in this area. Montpelier certainly has taken advantage of utilizing some of the town forests as well as in Barrie, Little River and the access there for cross-country skiing and mountain biking is really huge. So it's great to see that we do have some of that and I agree with you, Peter. We need to continue to try to protect some of this land and think about that for the future. That was a really good point. And then that might just add to it. That's been wanting to timing, go ahead and say it. There's a lot to say. No, but to your point, I think that's a very valid point. I lived out West for a long time and as some of you might have experienced out West, there's a lot more open space to access out there is endless and there's a lot more opportunity to recreate and you look at Vermont and Vermont is primarily privately owned land and it's sometimes a challenge to convince a landowner that it's a benefit for the community to open their land for trails and recreation and public use. And I think one thing that Commissioner Hanford has said to me is, and I fully agree with this is that hopefully at some point, the state would reevaluate the current use and the program and if there's a slim chance of recreation being able to be one of the current uses for somebody to help conserve the land, I think that would incentivize a lot more private landowners to allow more public recreation on their land and hence being able to expand local trail networks like in Randolph, we only have a couple of tracks of town land that are both very small that are close to downtown. And so we rely heavily on private landowners and thankfully we have some great ones around here that are very receptive to trails on their land, but it's a challenge, it is. And I think that growing those opportunities and incentivizing landowners will be a huge step forward in the year. If I can intervene just for a moment, there has been a discussion in the legislature about adding and not for recreation purposes, but for carbon sequestration, that is to say, adding that as an ingredient to incentivize participation in current use. So it seems to me, it would be an easy stretch to wed sequestration and recreation as a joint gain for criteria to qualify for current use status and not just forest and ag. Yeah, I feel like we're diving a little deep into maybe some actual future ideas, which I love, but I do wanna, I wanna stay with the current topic and Mike, your hand is up and then I think Lydia had a hand up as well. Thanks, and as a veteran visiting team member I'm trained to do more listening than talking. And so, as I said tonight. Okay, I sense that from you, Janet, but I think Representative Anthony raised a really great point. You're all clearly, it's resonating on just the idea of the access, especially to developed areas in developed areas to recreation areas and other places. And so I just wanna flag that Zach did a nice nod to the VOREC initiative and the grants. Maybe if there's time, I just wanna say I'd be happy to explain for folks what that is and what those grants are because they are exactly intended to do that, to help local communities who have decided to turn and face their recreational assets, to develop them, to create them, to acquire greater access, to give them a little bit of boost that they, but for this funding, they might not make that project happen. That's the whole point, that's the conceit. And so if it's helpful, I'm happy to give some background or as a follow up as a resource, there's a lot there and it's exactly the intent and why it's been so well-received is to help local communities who are choosing outdoor recreation as another thing to leverage in their community for wellness, for economic development, for connectedness in their communities. There's a lot there. I wanna make sure folks know about it and can get access to it because it's directly linked to what Representative Anthony is asking for. Yeah, I think that's true. And why don't we take a second towards the end to dive a little bit into that and I can also dig up a link too to share it in the chat as well while we're talking. I think that's a great idea.  Yeah, I did. I don't know if anybody here, I don't think anybody here was from East Montelier, but if you are aware of the East Montelier, Adamant Trail System, that is actually a terrific example of this in motion. Now, as I said, I live in Montelier and I used to love, I still love going to the parks around here. However, I have a number of friends who have actually voiced concern and complaint lately of people letting their dogs run and then running after them, bumping into them, running and breathing on them and feeling that their health was being risks and whatever, just being too close. I have felt great, great fallacy and contentment going around the East Montelier Trail System and going into Adamant and just I've been able to go miles and miles and that's all private land. But that private land, there are people all have given in to that. Now, there are little tiny maps at the beginning of the trails but my knowledge of that is word of mouth. So I'm not sure if any of you know that there is some central depository of where that is and certainly if everybody knew about that then all of a sudden those would be crowded too. And it's not like a big mountain biking kind of thing. They're also not vast trails. They're foot trails and you can run and hike on them. But so I don't know if we can think about that and why that works because I don't really know the full history of it. I know some of the history of it. It's an interesting question about that kind of if more people knew about it would it become more of a risk in terms of navigating that in social distancing? I know here in Huntington we have some pretty amazing mountain bike networks around us and we've never seen use like this on the trails. It's pretty amazing. Hinesburg Town Forest, Cochrane's places like that. All right, Katie, you've got a hand up. Go ahead. And then I want to shift to a different question here. Katie, are you there? Not hearing from Katie. I'm like, Katie's having some internet issues. Katie, if you can hear me, go ahead and type what you want to say into the chat and I'm happy to, oh, it's gone. All right, well, why don't we shift to think a little bit about, I'm just curious. We don't have to spend a lot of time here but shifting from challenges and this is a big shift but I'm interested to hear like if you think about in an ideal world as we think about like a lot of people talk about this as an opportunity for renewal, right? We're facing a crisis. We want to come out on the other side of this even better than before. Like what does that look like in Washington County? When you think about the arts, recreation, entertainment, what is your vision for what is needed and what that could look like in the region? Does anyone have reflections to share on that, Andrew? I'd like to see every town basically have their own group working on this. I mean, Montpelier and Barry have their kind of downtown and business and arts kind of work but I'd like to see more of the work that happens on the grassroots level in all the 18 towns of the county where people are really just doing what they want to do as you said from the Kingdom Trails example. I think that would be the kind of vital activity that we need to see this really show that we're back and getting stronger than we were before. Yeah, I love that.  Yeah, just real quick. I would just expand on what Andrew said and think about attractions not so much being clustered but really decentralized that is to say every community has its own pride of ownership of a particular venue whether it's recreation, arts or a mix of the two. And that's a sort of as was mentioned a sort of centralizing and energizing focus for every community rather than everybody sort of going to Barry to the opera house once a week and then disappearing back into callus. The point is that everybody have their own kind of venue and pride in that venue. Yeah, thanks Peter. Katie, you wanna try again? Yes, thank you for your patience. It's okay, we all understand.  I went to two national service programs an AmeriCorps program and an AmeriCorps VISTA program. Both are very engaged in arts and recreation and I introduced myself in the chat and listed the organizations in Washington County where we place people but I'm really curious and to see how AmeriCorps can help in these smaller communities create and support organizations. I'll be writing our grant for next year starting in about a week and as Katrina probably knows there's something in the legislature right now in Congress called the CORPS Act which wants to really increase the number of AmeriCorps members across the country and a lot of the focus is gonna be dealing with the impact of COVID and how we have the communities become more vital and how we sustain things. So I'm really interested to know if there's a place for that for folks in your communities. We currently have somebody in Randolph at RICDC. We have someone at the Mocculier Community Services Department. We have people at mentoring organizations in Washington County in schools so and the People's Health and Wellness Clinic so really interested in if there is a place for AmeriCorps to help be part of this. Thanks, Katie. I love that. I wanna get into that a little bit more when we think about kind of more specific ideas that folks have thought to share but I think just generally that's an exciting concept. AmeriCorps was my introduction to Vermont. Katie, I started here as an AmeriCorps member with the Green Mountain Club about 11 or 12 years ago. So I value that program and with it.   Hi there. One of the goals that we've had for a very long time and it's funny how it has shifted since the start of COVID is competing with Chittenden County, making Washington County because so much of what happens happens in Chittenden County and now focus on being outdoors and having the open spaces has revived an interest. And so one of the goals that I've heard mentioned is developing each town's own center of arts and entertainment but also aligning those so that when people are given a choice they remain in Washington County and spend their dollars rather than traveling to Chittenden County for entertainment. Yeah, thanks, Kim. Um, Paul? Yeah, I think one of the things that is an exciting opportunity right now, maybe more than ever is the chance to use the arts as a way to come to know each other better. And I'm thinking about participatory arts where people are brought together to make something or to participate in a creative process and through that process they discover new things about their neighbors and themselves and they get a chance to make something they care about that reflects their values. And we talked to a lot of colleagues around the state that are really seeking new ways of doing their work and not going back, new ways to have the arts be central to community life in a way that it hasn't been before. And it also ties into this notion of kind of a creative reimagining of what we wanna become. And there's a, I think there's a real, at least from the people we're engaging with, there's a real hunger to find ways to engage with each other and to build that shared vision of where we wanna be going. And of course, no one is better at this than VCRD. Or Vermont, yeah, VCRD, right. You got it right. So, speaking to the choir with everybody here, of course, but I think we have a real opportunity to be intentional about how we activate artists who are arguably one of the hardest hit groups. Suffering through COVID and the loss of total devastation of all income for many artists. And to leverage that asset into a kind of organized reimagining of where we wanna be going. I mean, that sounds huge, I know. And it sounds, when I say it out loud, it's a little woo-woo-wee, but that is the inherent in the power of creative process. And I think we've all experienced that in our lives when we've been involved in making something we care deeply about with other people and that it can be transformative. So as we look to how we chart our next steps, I think there's a real opportunity for the arts to play a central role in that. Thanks, Paul. I think that is a really beautiful vision. And honestly, I think maybe it would sound kind of woo-woo like seven months ago, but I do feel like in my experience, it feels like that's where people's kind of, where their heads are, kind of. It's kind of like, what an opportunity to reimagine where things could, what our values are, how we come together and what Vermont can be in the future. So I think you're right. Amy, go ahead. And then Zach, I think was wanting to say something as well and then we'll shift. Go ahead. I'm just gonna piggyback super quickly on Paul's beautiful vision and just like, I think it's really concrete and realistic and I wanna tie it back to what Katie was saying. There's lots of, I've been a part of a lot of conversations and maybe you all have too, looking back at the New Deal and things like the WPA and the Federal Writers Project and different initiatives that brought all kinds of cultural workers to bear to rebuild community in all kinds of different ways. And there is some movement afoot around getting more AmeriCorps folks out in the community that Cores Act and then there's also a proposal related to that around an artist core, which some states have adopted in different ways. So, and I don't think any of this has to be specific just to artists, but I think that I would, I would echo Paul's big vision. Thanks Amy, I love the idea of an artist core, arts and recreation core or something like that. That's great. Zach, you wanted to say something? Yeah, I give the CRD a lot of credit because you guys came to Randolph two years ago now and you really sparked a lot of fire within the community and was able to bring people together that had remote ideas and kind of give that unified voice bringing folks together in one room that maybe otherwise wouldn't speak together or they might just see each other in town. And I think that that really kind of kickstarted a lot of the momentum that we're feeling still in Randolph despite the pandemic. And the arts, the recreation have been two really strong suits in Randolph that have really helped propel a small town on the right track. And the other thing too is based on that, the big push that we're all seeing about people moving to Vermont that can now they figured out that they can work remotely and it works and it's fine. They can kind of live their rural dream now and work remotely. So I think we're all feeling a little bit of a trickle of people moving to the communities because of arts and recreation. And the freedom that somebody now has that they can work remotely, they can start to live maybe some of the lifestyle and the dream that they've dreamt of that their job held them back from because they had to be in the office. I know for a fact that here in small Randolph and Braintree area, we've had people that have moved here because of the new trails, both for hiking, mountain biking and skiing that can work remotely. And they love Chandler Center for the Arts and they love the small town feel. And so I think that it doesn't take a lot of energy and momentum to get some attention and small growth is good growth for sure. Yeah, thanks Zach. And I just want to say I don't take any credit for all the amazing work you guys have been doing. And I ran, I think there were 250 people that showed up for that first event in Randolph. So that's a lot of credit to the energy that was already there and the work that you and Miles and everyone else did to get people to that event. So we made a provided a backbone that you guys did a lot of the late work there. But yeah, I hear what you're saying. I think it's excellent. Paul, your hand is up and then I want to shift to another question. Yeah, I just wanted to jump on another soap box for a second. There's a whole powerful cohort of people that I would love to see helping in this conversation. And that's our young people. And right now our schools are in crisis. There's a learning system crisis right now that is exacerbated by the pandemic. And I think there's a real opportunity to bring young people into this conversation of what we want to become and where we're going and have them be part of the solution making process. So they're not observers but really active and they've got so many great ideas. And you know, they're the future. Literally, so I think we need to be, I'd love to see three young people on this call. You know, I'd love to see, and I know you guys would too, but it's the kind of thing we have to be very intentional about building that participation. Yeah, it takes some very targeted connection. And I think you're absolutely right. So I do want to hear, maybe we can just kind of touch on this question briefly, but are there things going on today? Recovery strategies, things that are being implemented in Washington County today that anyone wants to showcase in terms of recovery and response. And this is both to like share with this forum, but also, you know, we're capturing this for the action team. We're sharing with the agency and with the governor. And I'd love to, if there are things going on in Washington County I'd love to hear interesting strategies that are happening today. Has anyone seen some creative solutions emerging, Amy? I know I'm talking too much as a visiting team member, but I'm wearing my hat as a Montpelier resident. I feel that you are also a Washington County resident. Yes. So the Art of the Kent, which is one of my favorite cultural events of the year in Washington County, the Kent Tavern in Calis opens up for a month in the fall and they bring in, they beautifully curate a collection of Vermont artists in this like unbelievable treasure of a historic Tavern. And it's in Kent Tavern in, you know, Kent's Corners in Vermont, so in Calis. So it's gorgeous.  So they're doing out, they're opening outdoor sculpture show out there. I mean, they always have an outdoor sculpture component, but they're just like playing with themes of pivoting and corners.  And it's gonna be open for a couple of weeks. Very cool. Can't wait to get out there. That's great. Are there things that anyone wants to share about what's going on today? Andrew? I've been impressed by the folks that can't meet in middle sex. I don't, it's been doing, it's like an example of a small place. You don't think of middle sex as being a center of arts, but it's the locals that just said, hey, we got this space. How can we do things that we wanna do that are fun and funky? Now I went to the Guinness Book Record largest smore event they had there. I missed that one. That looked like fun. Yeah. And they just do crazy stuff. And if you drive by there, you see all that kind of art and sculptures that they have happening. And it just seems like a really local grassroots folks having fun, but it's starting to take off and help the businesses and the business of helping them. And I just see a lot of potential for that kind of activity. Yeah, that's very cool. I have also noticed the growth there. Anything else people wanna add? Lydia? This isn't happening yet, but I just had a, I don't know if anybody else has had the blessing of the ice cream truck come to their neighborhood. So, you know, in my neighborhood, we have so many musicians right across the street for me, I've got Dave Keller. And my son and I are playing a lot together and we're improvising and doing, you know, like wonderful things, we have a fun deck. And so I can just see like sending the ice cream truck around and everybody who can do anything, just schedule lists and get out on your deck, your driveway, whatever, and play a song, whatever it is that you can do, get up there and do it for the, for when the ice cream truck is coming through, just schedule an event where everybody who can do anything comes out and does it, but give them a reward for it, like the ice cream truck. So the people, let me just get this straight in your vision, the people that are playing music are playing for their ice cream. That's the good idea. That can't really be economically feasible for the, you know, the poor people. For the ice cream truck.  Fun events, you know, it's just sometimes break the monotony with fun live events. This is not a virtual event. This is socially distanced. And there's a common thread, it's the ice cream truck. I love that. Thanks, Lydia. This would be a creative group. I have a list of hands raised here and I was just taking a moment to jot down that Matthew said that Kat Wright's gonna be at Camp Mead this weekend on my notes here. I would see you, Paul, Katie, and then I saw Zach's hands. Go ahead, Paul. Yeah, a double shout out for Camp Mead and Russ Bennett's work there and such a perfect example of how you can bring people together safely. Paul, who is it that's leading some of the work there? Russ. He's the co-owner of Camp Mead and he's an acclaimed festival scene designer. And so he is kind of the brainchild behind most of the Camp Mead stuff. But this weekend's experience with Kat Wright's also a fundraiser for the Food Bank and Hunger Free Vermont. And so really doing cool work there and all the circles are painted on the lawn and there's a big stump and you get your stump number and you know exactly where to go and it's all socially distanced and there's the huge pizza oven and every Friday and Saturday night they're doing live music and stuff. So Friday and Sunday night, excuse me. What I also wanted to mention is a project we're connecting into, which is a, it's a statewide mural project, community mural project that'll be having communities come together and do the kind of creative visioning I was mentioning and resulting in a community mural that can be then transported to Montpelier for a statewide gathering next summer that we're involved in helping organize. So that kind of collective creativity that was very localized that expresses, you know, Montpelier's vision for the future through a facilitated process and creates a mural and then bringing all the murals together from around the state to see where the connective tissue is where the ideas are resonating on the future we want. So that kind of synergistic creativity is really percolating up, I think. What a cool project, thanks Paul. I'm excited to see the results of that. That sounds really neat. Katie. Hello again. Some of the things that I've seen over the course of dealing with COVID is at Wonder Arts, which is located in Greensboro, which is an arts organization and an organization that helps people develop entrepreneurial skills. One of the things that they did is they opened up their internet to everyone in the area so people could come to their parking lot and use their internet for free. So thinking of ways that you can combine other things with the arts to draw people in, they also have some wonderful programs to help people develop arts and have a lot of equipment that's open. There was also a great makerspace in Burlington and Wenduski, they just did a big community mural that they finished right before. It was finished, I think, as COVID stuff was happening. And then there's a school and outdoor organization in Addison County called the Will Will Foundation that has both preschool and high school that's always outdoors and do a lot of work. And then they also have a combination with the arts. And every year they do massive community art projects there that are really wonderful. So even in this very rural community, they are there developing all sorts of kind of art that brings the community in, at the same time doing really good things like having a wood bank for low income people as well. So there are lots of models of things. And somebody earlier said one of the issues was that people just didn't know about all the wonderful stuff that's going on. Yeah, thanks, Katie. Well, I'm mindful of, we're actually quickly gonna run out of time here. So I do wanna devote a few minutes to just thinking about future opportunities too. I mean, I've captured some that we've already touched on certainly around engaging youth on where we're going, some of these creative ideas for socially distanced events. And somebody I captured some of the conversation early on about current use and kind of opening up private land for public recreation. So I captured some of those ideas, but do people have other ideas that you wanna share in thinking about what is still needed regionally, locally? What would you like to see from the state level? Would love to hear your ideas for the future as we think out towards recovery and kind of ongoing renewal and resilience. Zach and then Lydia. Great, thank you. In Washington County, you guys have three very solid trail organizations, Mamba, WADA and the Mad River Riders. And the reach that those three organizations have within the recreational world is very broad. And they draw a lot of users in and I would highly encourage anybody in the arts and that realm to try and reach out to these organizations and co-host events because nothing goes better than arts and recreation and beer and food. Everybody loves that. And I think that if you guys were able to leverage the amazing work that those groups are doing right now and try to piggyback on to some of that stuff, you guys would see some great success as we've done here in Randolph and it's really worked for a small town and you guys would just do that much in pattern because you have a lot more resources there. Yeah, that's a great suggestion. Oh, and Lydia, you were next. I don't know if there could be any initiative for web, for web services for artists because there are a lot of artists who are really trying to get their website going and as they are not having a lot of work right now, they're kind of trying to figure it out themselves. I know that I'm actually one of them. I have a nice website, but I have a storefront that's really not so good. Like I have people buying sheet music from me every week but they should be buying it from me every day and multiple times a day but they can't find it because it's just under functional and I'm not doing it because I'm trying to find other solutions but I'm not as bad off as other people who just don't even have the skills to get their websites going and I just wonder if there could be like a, I imagine that this wouldn't be a very large monetary output at all just to have like a resource for artists to go to to get that kind of stuff going and maybe there is so just how to get that out there for artists. I'm seeing in the chat that Amy has just plugged in and it looks like they're starting to work with a group on just what you're describing and agreeing that it is in fact a big need.  Yeah, sorry. So one of the things is knowing what we're talking about having these functions, having knowing what's available for a location.  So there's not a lot of opportunity for any outside entertainment. If we were talking about getting together with one of the mountain bike associations, where would that happen? Knowing what's available. We are very lucky. Farfield in Waterbury has a huge facility. There are 10 companies that know the location, you know, so there have been the flea markets and they've been doing some practice things with some bands and stuff. So a resource to know what sites are capable of handling a socially distant event would be wonderful. Yeah, that's a great thought, Kim. I think you're right. I think many of us have found ourselves searching for that kind of thing online so that that would be helpful. Any other ideas? Good. Well, it's just, I just want to, I think it's really important to be clear. I mean, I think the point is sound and really valid, but I want to be clear. We worked extremely hard to open state parks this year. We're very proud of what we did. We had to not, we couldn't offer all of our facilities. So enclosed spaces indeed were closed this year, but our outdoor pavilions covered spaces, open air, they're open and we're making them available to folks and, you know, the parks themselves are open. And even during the unoperated season, which will come after Indigenous People's Day, they're still open and available. And we are making that known. And so it's a point of pride for us. We feel good about playing that role. And I just want to be clear, we kept the state parks open. We had to delay the opening and it's gone very well. And we're going to continue. We're working with some communities and schools to provide some of our spaces to school groups for learning as what outdoor learning as well as outdoor recreation and art. So we're here and we're ready and we want to help and the best way we can with safety in mind and appropriate precautions. Yeah, well, thanks. I appreciate that. I know I've spent more weekends this year than ever before at State Parks in Vermont. And I certainly value what you and your team have done there. Thanks for that. Any last thoughts? Actually, we should shift to hear some closing thoughts from our visiting team soon, but I want to make sure we're not missing anyone that wants to share some last ideas or reflections. All right. Well, hearing nothing. Why don't we take these last 10 minutes to just shift and hear from our visiting team just some reflections on the conversation. Any last resources that you want to mention? Let's maybe, Catarina, who want to start with you and I'll kind of go around my circle here. Sure. So thank you everyone for sharing all of your thoughts. This is much different than other sessions that I've attended with VCRD. So I really enjoyed being able to fully, well, virtually, but also participate in the conversation rather than listen. My thoughts are the theme that I heard throughout our conversation is that we want to have a condenity associated with each of our regions, or, you know, Washington County, but also the towns within the county. And how do we do that? I think that we're all still grappling with that, but Vermont is well known for being creative, you know, having recreational, you know, being known as a leader in recreation. And it's important to make sure that everyone's included in the conversation of what we want to look like. So I think that creativity, innovation, and continuing to be bold is what I kind of heard in that. Zach, I really liked your idea of the collaboration between recreation. It seemed like we were having sort of two strings of a conversation, but pulling that together, I think is exactly what Vermont is and resonates with so many people. I don't have additional resources, but I want to be in the conversation in the future. Awesome. Thanks so much. Amy? I will try to keep this super brief because I already talked a lot, but I just really appreciate the opportunity to have a conversation with arts and outdoor recreation together because I think talking about them together is really useful in a lot of different ways. And an example of that, that I think has been really fruitful is we did a fair amount of creative economy research up in the Northeast Kingdom and came up with an action plan for moving the creative economy in the Northeast Kingdom forward. And the number one priority was, you know, collaboration with outdoor recreation and finding those opportunities. There's already a lot of cool stuff happening, but the opportunities for cultural resources, performing arts and creative businesses, including design businesses to work, I mean, work more intentionally with the incredible outdoor resources up there. I think that's a great model that we can take on in Washington County. I think as we think about the creative sector and outdoor recreation together, I like, I mean, I'm biased, but like those are the two things that are gonna lead the charge forward for Vermont's future. I mean, as we think about like, what makes people want to come here to visit and spend some tourist dollars? What makes people want to think about moving here? What makes people want to consider staying here? I think that arts and culture and outdoor rec is where it's at. So as we envision a new future for Vermont that hopefully includes more people, I'm also really excited about how our sectors can intentionally work to be very inclusive. And I am, I guess as an outsider who's been here 20 years, I know like my children or great grandchildren will be Vermonters or however that goes. I think, I know we joke about that a lot, but I think our sectors have a great opportunity to get really ahead of the game in terms of very intentionally welcoming the new people who we want to stay here, who are from all different kinds of backgrounds. And I think the future of this state depends on that. Yeah, thanks Amy. Zach, do you have some last thoughts to share? You got to unmute yourself first. There we go, thanks. Everything that has been said tonight is great. It's great food for thought, there's great action items. I think it's really, really, really important for us to focus on our smaller, more rural communities because there's a lot of amazing people that are hiding in the hills here in Vermont that sometimes get overlooked. And I think small communities, just because they're rural, they sometimes do get overlooked. And I think back to the VORAC grant, huge props to the VORAC Steering Committee and Commissioner Snyder out of a list of 29 communities across Vermont, they chose Randolph as the first place winner. And that showed strong belief and support for us of very small and rural community, and it's worked. And so I just encourage all of you guys to look outside of the Montpelier, the Waterbury and the Valley, all those other communities, you go up into Callis and East Montpelier and talk about creative people hiding in the hills, just look deep in the hills. And if you create the space and welcome the right people will come and it'll work. Great, thanks, Commissioner Snyder. You've got the last word, I think. Yeah. Well, I don't know that I have anything unique or new here but I'll try to sort of, I'm really kind of blown away as a couple of thoughts to share and reflecting back. This is great, I really appreciate it, thank you. And as I listened to the sort of challenges listed, I couldn't help but sense at the same time people are identifying arts and outdoor recreation in particular as solutions to all of the challenges, really, we have our own challenges, but I think that's noteworthy. Just this idea of the power of arts and outdoor recreation, notable things like to develop a sense of community and excitement, pride of place and ownership, getting to know each other. Andrew talked a couple of different times about these small locals just doing what they want and having fun. I just think there's so much enormous power in all of these. There's a thread that runs through all this and I'm glad that Amy went to the phrase creative economy because as we took the Vorek team around the state over a couple of years and listened, this came up, that there's this incredible power possible, sure, in outdoor recreation, but especially when combined, and we heard this from locals, combined with the working lands and the creative economy, an outdoor economy, a working lands, a farm and forest economy, rural Vermont, with arts locally made, that's our unique competitive advantage, folks. It can't be outsourced and as Zach says, it's the people hiding in the hills and we need to leverage that advantage. It is the solution to so many problems and we have it right here and it's starting to coalesce. So I'm really thrilled. It's just all validating and verifying, affirming of some nascent kind of concepts here and I think this is our chance to, is it Paul who said to, I loved this, the chance for a creative re-imagining of what we want to become all over the state locally. Here, here. Yeah, yeah. Actually, I said you had the last word but Gary's been capturing notes here and I overlooked you and sharing. Did you want to share some reflections too, Gary? Did you lose us on the screen? Sorry, I was trying to pull I had too many screens open and I was trying to copy the closing and then I lost my tab here. You get that, well, yeah. Okay. Thanks, thanks, Jenna. This has been great. Small but powerful group here. It's been fun to listen to this. I oftentimes or all the time participate in these meetings outside of my own community. So it's kind of fun to be working with this community visit in my own neck of the woods. And really it reminds me of why I enjoy living in Montpelier and Washington County because we're such smart, thoughtful folks who really care a lot about, obviously in this conversation about the arts and recreation, we spent a little less time talking about entertainment but it's okay, it all kind of relates to that. I just want to hit on a couple points that I heard and kind of really resonate with me and has really happened over during this COVID time in the last six months where we've all had to kind of step outside our box and meet people virtually. I've never worked so much with people I've never met in person before in my life. And it's been really interesting in a lot of ways. What I'm hearing you all say is these partnerships what's happening, I think Zach touched on this with the amazing mountain bike and recreational organizations. If we could just tap into the work that we're doing in the arts sector and the creative sector and really tap into those other organizations and kind of cross pollinate our ideas and bring them together. I heard that loud and clear and I think there's a real good opportunity there. Also, what I was hearing was embracing the people that are coming into our communities. And I know that's kind of a hot topic right now is we kind of cringe and see out of state plates coming into our communities rather than kind of be fearful of that and be embracing of that because I too am a flat lander at one time and moved up here and like to think that I've offered something to the community and to the state. And so I think we need those fresh ideas. We do need more volunteers. We are, there is fatigue, virtual fatigue and actual physical fatigue with volunteerism. So I think it's great if we can embrace that and a lot of you touched on that. And the other thing I'll just mention because I do know we need to jump over is thinking about consumer confidence and just confidence as general community members getting out in the public that we need to start to look at creative ways to transform public spaces not just temporarily in COVID but permanently like how can we enjoy the winter months outside downtown of our communities? How can we enjoy outside trails if we don't ski or we don't mountain bike? Like how can we appreciate those spaces and encourage folks to get out and kind of socially distance themselves and weave art in with it? So anyway, just a few observations. I really appreciate listening to all of you and look forward to seeing you all around in the woods. Thanks, Gary. I appreciate it. I think that you're bringing something to the state. Thanks. I've just heard from the other groups that they're heading back to the forum. Mike, did you have a last thing you wanted to... Yeah, if I could. I'll be brief and it's not about getting the last word at all. Just I really meant to, this is like the most important thing to me and I failed to say it. As I listened, there's an emphasis on creating access particularly when Peter Anthony was talking about that locally and we're big on that in the Vole Rec Initiative. We have this tag, if you're out, you're in. And what we've realized more recently is that to some extent we're only talking to people who are already out. We need to turn and face and be open and inclusive to people who are not comfortable in the outdoors. Do not feel welcome. It's not their thing. It doesn't look like them. And frankly, I have a suspicion that that may be true in the arts as well. That we need to be open and inclusive and bring in these young people and people who don't look like us or me or aren't the norm. And that's true in mountain biking and it's true in the arts. I hope you welcome that sentiment because I think it's really important for us to understand it as we've learned this lesson in a difficult way in the outdoor piece and we're trying to change. Thank you. Yeah, thanks so much. Well, thanks everyone for a great conversation. Appreciate all of your input. Gary's captured it all.  You'll see in the chat, I just posted a link for that closing session but it's the same link you use to get to the opening. So wherever you started, you can head back there but you'll just wanna leave this one and then join that one to join us back there. So see you there in a second.