All right. Good afternoon everybody. Thanks for being here. I'd like to thank everybody for joining us here in Barrie today. My name is Peter Wach. I'm the Managing Director of Efficiency Vermont. We're here today in Barrie joined by state and local leaders, impacted residents and businesses, some longtime Barrie partners and folks coordinating volunteer response. Less than two months ago, Barrie and many of the surrounding communities were devastated and cut off from each other by rising floodwaters. I want to thank Mayor Jay Kamrick and City Manager Nicholas Storillicastro, Representative Peter Anthony, members of the Barrie City Council for joining us today, and some members and partners from the City Capstone Community Action, Barrie Partnership, Downstreet Housing and Community Development, and Central Vermont Economic Development Corporation. Thank you very much for being here with us today as we talk about new flood relief programming helping Vermonters get back on their feet after the flood. We all know that the community response has been inspiring, but for those left picking up the pieces, the feelings of fatigue, financial overwhelm, and simply not knowing where to start are devastating and make it hard to start this process. Today, we're here to launch a package of new flood recovery programs that will invest $36 million in Vermonters and their communities to help them replace heating and hot water equipment and important home and business appliances and equipment. I want to honor the point at which many Vermonters are in this recovery process. Some of you have already made purchases and are back in your homes. Some of you are just beginning this process. These programs are designed to meet you where you are along the way and help you through the process. This work would not have been possible without legislative leadership and the leadership of the Governor who saw fit to reallocate existing funds to support this work. I'm pleased to be joined today by Representative Diane Lanford, a member of the Vermont Emergency Board, who helped make this immediate reallocation of resources possible so that we could get funds on the ground in support of Vermonters and Vermont businesses. I'm grateful to the executive branch partners who made today possible. We've been able to move grant dollars forward in record time. I'm grateful for the partnership with Commissioner June Tierney to make that possible and to expand the reach of that work over time. We've been working on a side agreement with the Agency of Natural Resources. I'm grateful to Deputy Secretary Maggie Gendron for joining us today and we've been deep in partnership with the Agency of Commerce and Community Development on how to mirror and match the BGAP programming that they're running and these funds for businesses so that we can help the most people possible. I'd also like to thank Deputy Secretary of State Lauren Hibbert for being here today. We've been working very closely with the Secretary of State's office to make sure that we can help maximize the available workforce and resources around to be able to help people make the necessary installations and other things within their homes. I also, none of this would be possible today without FEMA and we're grateful for their partnership. I'd like to thank Katie Bracia, FEMA's voluntary voluntary agency liaison deputy group supervisor for coming here to support us today and helping us walk us through this process so that we can understand how these programs can fit within FEMA and make sure that they are additive to the work that is happening and people can get the most resources possible. And finally I'd like to take a moment to thank the Efficiency Vermont team that put this together. Very few of them are here today because they're all at work making sure these programs can be out on the ground today helping those programs as they launch on the on the website today and people begin filing their claims. We want to make sure that we can help as many people as possible and so grateful for that team for dropping everything and getting to work so we could get this money out the door in five weeks. I'm going to dive deeper into the specific programmatic materials in a little bit because there are a lot of details and I won't there'll be a test at the end of this so you better be ready. But I must say FEMA first these programs are designed to be additive. They are designed to add more to the resources going into Vermonters and Vermont Businesses Puckets. The insurance and FEMA processes must be done first so that we can make sure that we are not taking away from resources that you might otherwise be able to get under the FEMA program. We're going to be operating rebates and incentives to eligible customers to replace home heating and cooling systems helping them switch or add a ducted or ductless heat pump system or a high efficiency wood or pellet stove and we'll also be helping them qualify energy star rated boilers and furnaces. We'll also be helping them to replace hot water systems and other key appliances in their homes and as part of these dollars and part of the grant agreement we've swiftly moved forward with the public service department we'll be able to include an additional 25 million dollars that's part of the overall 36 million dollar package in dollars that have been ready to go towards heat pump hot water heaters and electric panel upgrades that Silver Monters can participate in the in the clean energy transition as we move forward and for our and we're all I'm also very excited that we were able to find with again great partnership with the state to find a million dollars to be able to also help impacted businesses we know who are not eligible for FEMA funds to be able to provide support for appliances and other key equipment that they're looking to replace as they get back on their feet and reopen for business we know that the huge cost burden associated with responding recovering from a flood is overwhelming I can't imagine what that has been like the emotional toll that it has taken on people and we're happy to be here to be part of the solution and to be part of the solution with all of you and making this possible we are making wise and practical investments in people's homes to help them heat and provide hot water and to have other basic appliances more efficiently to help them reduce their carbon footprint and as we think about climate justice and the impacts of future floods making sure that we can help people get into systems that will be there through the long haul and help them heat and cool into the future without further ado I would like to invite Jake Hemmerk to come to the table Jake knows that housing is one of various biggest concerns going forward and making sure that we have functional housing moving forward more than 300 structures in the city were damaged by the floods containing more than 500 housing units in the month ahead we know we'll have lots of long-term difficult decisions as communities and really appreciate the fact that Mayor Hemmerk is here today to give us a few words thank you Peter thank you Peter so and thanks to everybody who had a part in making this this program come together and who showed up today the Secretary of State's Office Commissioner Tierney representative Lampier all the way from Addison County so make sure that Secretary Curley Deputy Secretary Gendron I'm joined here with the city manager Nicholas Sterley Castro as well as two of Barry's former mayors Mayor Tom Loson and State Representative Peter Anthony and and we're here in the most impacted community in the state and we had a high energy cost burden before this flood we know that because of the amazing work done by the efficiency Vermont team with the energy cost burden report where where the documents have Vermont or spend about 11 percent of their income on energy costs and that that's on average about seven thousand dollars per year clean energy we know is effective at lowering costs and families on a tight budget especially feel that's those savings add up and replacing appliances getting in those heat pump hot water heaters putting in the heat pumps stacking it up with weatherization that can really make a huge difference in households here in Barry and across the state of Vermont and if you're like me you definitely value savings and saving money and supporting green jobs here in the state of Vermont so I think this is such a critical investment for the people who have lost their homes and are pulling it together trying to find ways to get get their get their units back online get their home livable so we can make it through a winter and have a warm place to sleep at night so thank you so much. Our next speaker is City Manager Nicholas Dorellicastro who has been everywhere throughout this process when we asked him whether or not we could host something here in Barry knowing how impacted the community was to make the difference here he not only said yes but he said thank you he said thank you for remembering the people of Barry we're happy to be here today thank you City Manager Dorellicastro. Good afternoon everyone and thanks to efficiency Vermont and all those present here today for for announcing this program in Barry you know it's a beautiful day here on the heels of a fantastic weekend the best weekend of the summer finally arrived but you know downtown's bustling traffic's moving our stores are open our restaurants are open just a mile down the street though there's a lot of people who are still struggling to recover and that's why I think it's very important that efficiency Vermont is not only announcing this program but announcing it here in the city of Barry as the heating season approaches we know we're racing against the clock to make sure that that those who are still on the front lines of this recovery because there is still a front line in this recovery that they can get back into their homes we had a housing crisis before this happened this flood made it worse and that's why programs like this are just crucial to make sure it's another important part of our recovery I also want to say that listening to Peter talk about all the agencies groups partners that had to come together to do this I think is just an example of government and and cross sector response at it's very best when everybody puts down what they're doing we break down silos which is the hardest thing to do in this kind of work that we're involved in and do it for the people who need it the most so I think I'm very thankful that all those involved made that happen because we know how difficult it is to to work across sectors and to to break down silos so I also I want to finish by urging the Barry residents to apply and as Peter said before you do make sure you go to FEMA I want to thank the Scott administration which worked very hard to extend the application to apply for individual assistance it's now October 12th that's not an invitation to delay do it do it today FEMA is here in Barry as well we fought very hard for them to be here and they have been here and have and will stay here through the end of that next deadline so get to FEMA by October 12th and then come talk to Efficiency Vermont and let's get some of these homes back online thank you thank you for being here I have known our next speaker for a very long time we've had the pleasure of working together and now now she regulates me it's a slightly different relationship I try to be on my best behavior but it's not my best trait but I you know it was heartwarming to see what we could do and what we could turn around quickly in a very short period of time anybody who's been through a government granting process knows that it's not it's not a quick quick endeavor and this was exactly the opposite it was how do we get these things resolved how do we figure these things out in the midst of building a program at the same time it started with how do we get heat and hot water back in people's homes because we know winter is coming and so without further ado I'd like to invite Public Service Department Commissioner June Tierney up to the stage to say a few words good afternoon a piece of personal history June Tierney Commissioner of the Department of Public Service it when Tropical Storm Irene hit over a decade ago it was a very personal experience for me in the end I lost my home to the storm and I remember those weeks and months of grueling uncertainty fear anger frustration and above all solitude and if you had told me at that time that a decade later I would be standing here in the position to help I would have thought you were nuts I couldn't see my future it was a slog day after day to fight to get through what I took away with me from that experience is that FEMA rocks and FEMA's been rocking it again this time and with all the you know frustration and criticism you might feel or might hear from other quarters about how FEMA works I get that I've been there but they rock I'm telling you what we were able to do this time around is learn from Tropical Storm Irene and to recognize that we needed to hit the ground running in getting this recovery going yay we had a little more time this year than we did with Tropical Storm Irene because the storm hit in July not the end of August but as everybody here knows today winter's coming quickly and people are hurting and people are in need and so we had FEMA who's been through this a few times we had me for better or for worse has been through at least once what I didn't know is how many other partners they would be in quick order who would come to the fray and say let's get this done you know without Peter's leadership this doesn't happen without the mayor of Barrie and the mayor of Montpelier and the mayors and town officials of all those other little pockets that aren't here today but that are hurting every bit as badly none of this gets done without the capable town manager who about whom I read all the time it doesn't get help get done in Barrie either but what most of all I think is a moving force and where Vermont is so fortunate is that we have a legislature that also gets it a legislature that is not in session but the nonetheless functions at times as if it still were and so representative Lanfers here today representing the people who helped get this done he has other colleagues and as a executive branch official I am just beyond stunned and grateful for the partnership that we've been able to have with them in figuring out how to take dollars that were already directed toward these ends in furtherance of climate policy and make them count in real time while we have our friends FEMA on the ground working with us there's no doubt in my mind that mistakes will be made but what I've learned over the past seven years of working in the Scott administration is you can't focus on the mistakes you got to focus on the momentum going forward and you have to trust that good things are going to get done this program today is a perfect example of that it's real-time help for people who need to understand that the choices they're making today won't just help them recover from this flood it will also help them their communities and their states deal with climate change which is priority number one from my own part I am more a member of team resiliency than I am team emissions reductions I'm going to tell you that frankly because I think as we work on policy to reduce emissions we've got to be able to deal with what is confronting us here today and having dealt with this a decade ago and seeing it 10 years later and knowing that it's coming in greater frequency I'm beyond grateful that we've been able to direct our state government our town officials our county officials everybody who has the ability to help in one direction with this program what you need to take away from today is this if you are a flood impacted person this program can help you if you know somebody who's flood impacted tell them about this program if you are in a leadership position and you don't quite understand it ask the questions because you need to get out there with your full reach and get a hold of the people who can be helped by this program last but not least in addition to the many things that Peter mentioned that we've been able to do by way of funding whether it's the the 10 million dollars that representative Lanford and her colleagues helped us direct toward this relief program or the 20 million that was already budgeted for it and the other five million that was budgeted not for it but for the ends that this program serves or even the one million dollars that peter was able to find with efficiency for mom we were able to get the pc to direct toward businesses another key player here has been capstone without capstone we don't find the people who need this kind of help and they were so very impressive in coming to me and saying hey among other things can you help us with getting a moratorium on disconnections so that people aren't going to lose their power as they try to come back from the slide capstone has been an amazing partner and an amazing advocate and i'm just deeply grateful to them for their engagement and look forward to working with them on making this program reach as far as it possibly can thank you so much thank you commissioner junie um our next speaker represents a part of the state that has the unique privilege of not being a fema eligible county uh i'm not sure that's a privilege but what i will say is that we as we were going through the process we heard the need loud and clear and understood that it needed to it be for any flood impacted resident or business not simply those who had reached the threshold to become fema eligible so we're very excited that all of these programs will be able to cover anybody impacted by flooding in the state um and so without further ado uh representative diane landford chair of the house appropriations committee thank you for joining good afternoon all right thank you very much for the invitation for for me to participate in this announcement today i'm only one voice of well i guess of the few of us that are on the emergency board or the joint fiscal committee and as chair of the appropriations committee i have the privilege of working with pretty much all of all of state government as as we work uh uh to um bring the needs of vermoners forward within within the budget which is a document or plan that's just for a moment of time and then real life happens and things change and uh i am so grateful for the example of this program that we've been able to put together as an example of where vermoners really work together the administration fema our our uh efficiency vermont partners but i have to say that we matched uh opportunity was with a very good idea and people went to work on that and i can honestly say that the first phone call that i got because we were having an upcoming emergency board meeting that uh we could see that there was an opportunity for if there was other work that needed to get done what would it look like and the first phone call i got or contact was from our secretary of state sarah copeland hanses who said representative landford have you talked to peter walk have you talked to peter there's an idea about there's a foot that that that could help vermoners to transition when they replace equipment to something that is much more efficient and will will will act more efficiently for them and economically for them so this was an example of how that started and i have to thank that the that although they can't be here and i live in addison county but barry is the hometown of my husband and and vermont is small and we all have families somewhere in the state and anything that happens anywhere in the state we know that we feel it deeply no matter where we are so i'm grateful that this particular program is available to anyone beyond those that were designated as uh disaster counties and i also want to make sure that i mentioned the fact of the hard work of representative emily cornhizer and senator jane kitchell on that weekend before putting this together to get the language get the administrations by and getting all of our input and we put it together really really fast which is not typically the way we operate but it is so good and it feels so good when we can so um i just want to stand here with the rest of my colleagues can't be here and the administration to say thank you for the great ideas and the ability to work together an example that i believe is going to help vermonters to get to the next step so i will add my voice to the fact that i think people need to please take advantage of this opportunity uh it's here it's for you and if you have questions as with as the commissioner had said reach out talk to efficiency vermont as as they go forward with um what's possible so i thank you for letting me be here today with this and uh and there'll be more i'm sure thank you give one chance for the dump truck to go by so we all know that vermont faces workforce shortages in key areas some of those key areas are electricians plumbers and h-vac installers weatherization technique technicians the like the exact people we need to do this work we wouldn't be here today we wouldn't be able to launch this program we wouldn't feel comfortable moving forward without the partnership of secretary of state sarah colbin hanses and the entire office i'm grateful to have deputy secretary of state lauren hibbert here today to talk a little bit about the efforts to try to expand the workforce in the short term and in the long term so we can recover as quickly as possible and get people back into warm comfortable homes before winter good afternoon thank you so much for the invitation to be here peter i am here representing secretary of state sarah colbin hanses she's out of the country otherwise she would be here behind this podium because the program that's launching today is something that's so near and dear to her heart she has deep excitement about the energy efficiency and about all of the work that went into creating this program so thank you so much i'm here to really talk about workforce we did pass registration for home contractors in 2022 we are for tuitously have already launched the registration it went live in april um and if you check out our website for the office of professional regulation you can find an inter um am i blanking on the word it it's a map that's interactive that's the word that i was looking for an interactive map of contractors in your area you can also look up contractors um and find information about home contractors we are in the process of creating voluntary certifications for home contractors particularly around energy efficiency and green building um those will become functional um in the next couple of months we did um play a big part in flood response working with the scott administration creating emergency licenses for people who are licensed in other states so that they could come into our state to help with our flood response we have information about that on our website and then just um another um note of thanks to the scott administration and the department of public safety we worked doing outreach to plumbers and electricians people who would be available to do work on people's homes that information is on the office of professional regulations website but also on the department of public safety's website you can search by county for plumbers and electricians who have volunteered to be on the list who are volunteering to do work through contracts through money but they have availability and are open to being contracted to do the work so we are really here doing our best to provide all the tools we have available trying to think outside of the box um and provide new solutions uh the secretary of state's office really wants to extend its support to bury to all Vermonters in rebuilding better and more efficiency with more efficiency and in um keeping our changing climate in mind thank you so much right now we're going to get into some of the details this is where your quiz will come in so be ready for the materials these there's a lot here all right we're going to go back to the theme of first what what that's going to be the actually the only question on the test what do you need to do first FEMA process first because if you apply through efficiency from on for one of these programs before you apply for FEMA you might not be eligible for that FEMA aid as it comes out of bite we want to make sure that everybody can access as many resources as possible because we know no matter how much we do it's not going to be enough uh so as as we launch these programs today I I'm really glad that uh the city manager mentioned that the deadline to apply to FEMA has been extended thank you to the Scott administration for pushing for that great to see the October 12th we have a little bit more time but as you said don't wait get started now make sure you've completed your insurance process and the FEMA process to get that money out that get money rolling as quickly as possible uh I'm going to break down so just quick math uh 36 million dollars 10 million dollars in direct flood uh program uh for low and moderate income residential programs which I'll detail now uh one million dollars in uh business flood impact impact recovery programs 20 million dollars in uh electric panel upgrade money that is available across Vermont to low and moderate income promoters as well as five million dollars for heat pump hot water heater transitions again available to all low and moderate income promoters so we're going to break that down a little bit but I just there's a lot of detail one of the things that I would ask you to is as we've been navigating the FEMA process and understanding how best to support promoters along the way we're considering this a launch and learn opportunity we are getting money out the door we're getting started and we're going to learn and evolve as we go uh so please uh you know give us feedback help us understand where we can improve programs where we can improve the customer experience along the way all right some of the details for the 10 million dollars uh damage to appliances like fridges washers and dryers freezers can get up to a thousand dollars in rebate uh new small appliances for health and safety such as dehumidifiers air purifiers uh window air conditioning units can get up to four hundred dollars per appliance uh limited to appliances per type uh home heating and cooling systems uses a key piece including energy efficient boilers and furnaces are eligible for up to ten thousand dollars uh central pellet boilers or furnaces are also available for up to ten thousand or up to ten thousand dollars wood and pellet stoves uh replacing a broken system or adding a new supplemental heating system to your home eligible for up to ten thousand dollars and uh ductless inducted heat pumps whether uh replacing or adding a supplemental heating source again up to ten thousand dollars uh water heaters including on demand are eligible for up to three thousand dollars uh we will be rolling out within the next week the additional five million dollars for heat pump hot water heaters for eligible uh customers um which can provide another amazing resource um for folks along the way uh these rebates are eligible for items purchased on or after july 10th so if you have already made equipment purchases you will still be eligible for these rebates that is critical people have needed to make decisions quickly we know people are in different stages along the way and so we want to make sure that everybody gets to benefit uh if you buy an eligible appliance uh so these uh these the but working with the administration and the legislature we have these dollars were prioritized to be for low and moderate income Vermonters uh those that eligibility is defined based on where you live in Vermont your income and the size of your household uh we have a very simple table on our website that can help answer that question as well as flyers here today uh for those who would like to check it out um these again these we will work uh we are taking in FEMA data thanks to a sharing agreement with FEMA and the public service department to be able to make sure that we are tailoring the incentive to the need in in people's homes and to make sure that uh you can get as much as as you can along the way um some of these other products are also available for our our existing incentives now um it's a it's a complicated landscape I would suggest uh both going to our website and calling our customer service line uh to help access as much as you can along the way I did want to note that the for those 10 million dollars which is really about the appliance dollars uh there is and not not the heat pump hot water heaters but just the sort of direct appliance incentives uh there is a $10,000 per uh per unit cap on those dollars um so you wouldn't be eligible for $10,000 for each one of those things it would be up to a total combined cap of $10,000 uh we also have programs for renters and rental property owners uh we can work with you and understand who owns which piece of equipment and work through those pieces and we will do it how we do uh uh similar programs based on the rent amount uh to help define those low and moderate income categories uh with up to $10,000 per unit uh for hot water appliances and Douglas heat pumps and then a $10,000 allotment for building central heating systems uh we're also there will be uh rental rate protection requirements as there are in many of these programs to ensure that these units remain affordable over the long run um and we know that as folks are rebuilding you've walked by stores and and houses torn down to the studs all of it starts with good weatherization insulation air sealing um so we are working to make improvements to our existing weatherization incentives to be able to roll those out as well and then working with the community action agencies and other weatherization partners to help folks access as many resources as possible uh to and offering incentives uh in the for the low and moderate income community of up to 75 of the project costs up to $9,500 so really expanding the access to those programs overall and to make sure that they're more accessible uh because it's difficult to do a blower door test in when you don't have a door anymore or it doesn't close because it's swollen from floodwaters so we're working to improve that process to be able to get those dollars out the door as quickly as possible we also know uh that the upfront costs are going to be more than for some folks can bear so we've been working with our financing partners the both the weatherization repayment assistance program that is a partnership uh between vgs and the vermont housing finance agency uh to get those dollars out the door as quickly as possible as well as uh the home energy loan program which we work with local lending institutions to be able to offer low to zero percent uh interest financing on home energy projects to make sure that folks can access these funds now and then uh and then pay them off with the incentives that come later because we understand that some folks may not be able to handle the upfront cost of these appliances um i want to pivot quickly to the uh to the business programs we were able to identify a million dollars in unspent uh energy efficiency charge dollars that uh had the about the fastest puc action i've ever seen taken uh within 18 hours we uh filed the petition the public service department within an hour endorsed that petition and within 18 hours the puc had approved uh repurposing a million dollars towards business incentives we found uh that with the funding that came through the emergency board there were only so many opportunities that could come out and we had to focus those dollars on residential customers as we want to make sure that we helped businesses as well and so businesses will be eligible for up to a thousand dollars uh for new qualified kitchen h-fac and refrigeration and other heating equipment up can be applied to up to four appliances in the in businesses uh so that's an up to a four thousand dollar incentive uh we do ask that you give us a call so that we can work through that process understand what you're doing where you're going so we can have figure out how best to help you uh this also works in conjunction with the agency of community kind of the agency of commerce and community development and their bgap program uh and we're working with the regional development corporation statewide to help get the word out and get people the help that they need so that our our downtowns can be the thriving places we know and love again as you're as you're seeing berry and my hometown of my pillar re-emerge uh from the devastations of the flood uh we're also working uh with the agency of natural resources uh to support contractors who who join on to this work to help support it so that they can make themselves available for these customers we know that uh that these can be complicated uh projects and so we want to make sure that the workforce is there and incentivize to be there to help along the way all right i'm going to pivot quickly now to quickly talk about the the remaining 25 million dollars these were funds that were appropriated last year uh to uh from the american rescue plan act uh money's estate received that the governor and the and the legislature prioritized towards climate work recognizing two key needs first was that if we're going to be able to electrify our heating systems our transportation systems going forward we need to have the electric infrastructure inside people's homes to be able to handle it so there's now going to be 20 million dollars that we will work uh with partners on from the distribution utilities and other folks to get out the door to make sure uh that folks can upgrade their panels and their electric systems to be able to handle the increased load uh from a from a heat pump hot water heater or a heat pump uh heating system or an electric vehicle along the way uh also and that will uh for eligible households that will cover um a up to the full installation cost of that system which is an incredible benefit and really opens up the possibilities for those remanters who have been least able to participate in the transition so far and as i mentioned beginning next week we will begin phase one of the heat pump hot water heater program where again you will be able to access uh up to full installation costs of a new heat pump hot water heater system which are incredibly efficient and can help people save significant dollars over the long term um and well again that's going to be a launch and learn process so we can get the money to folks who need it along the way uh and again these programs are separate from the ten thousand dollar cap so you can in theory get ten thousand dollars to replace key appliances and equipment get another uh get a heat pump hot water heater installed without any upfront costs and also have your panel upgraded all the way and get dollars for weatherization so it can be a pretty significant benefit uh when all stack together all right is everybody ready for your quiz all right what do you have to do first thank you all right uh i'll now open the floor for questions and i'm gonna liberally call upon our invited speakers and others in the room to uh to be able to answer questions that folks may have alone on peoleard blood low others do you have any sense of how many households or how many homes this might be able to to help sure uh i'll use one stat that we've heard several times roughly in the sort of 500 plus range uh of fema claims where there was a repair or replace of a heating system uh is an is a number that we've seen and so that gives you a sort of an order of magnitude of those folks who have that level of equipment need but there's significant other need across the board uh for and there's another 300 i believe katie of folks who had uh had a service call to go out and check on the equipment to find out so that number could be higher and we know that there are other appliances and other needs across the board so uh but that gives us a sense of scale um and we know that you know for many folks they're gonna need all everything so um so yeah yeah you already applied for fema let's say you got your individual assistance you're now turning to this program you apply today when when will the money be able to get out the door sure um so we are gonna work to get the money out the door as quickly as possible one of the things we're working with fema on is to make sure that we understand the allocation that fema has given and whether or not it was a specific allocation for a heating system for instance so that we can make sure the incentive matches uh the need that's out there um so we can be good stewards of the state's dollars um but so we're working to get the going as quickly as possible again building the plane as we fly it uh so we would ask for a little bit of patience for folks but we will work with them and help them understand what those timelines are when they give us a call um could you explain again um the the piece around the doing our best to work through all those details um we have been working with our finance partners to get the the uh the zero percent loan piece increased as quickly as much as we possibly can we know that upfront costs are a problem um and so we're going to do our best to help folks access dollars as quickly as possible uh but it is going to be uh traditionally in the form of a of a rebate any concessions made for people who may not have good credit in order to get approved for the loan uh can you uh Liz uh we asked to have a question folks in the back we're wondering if you could repeat the question uh or i guess i could repeat the question that'd be better since i have the microphone um so forgive me it's hot up here um the the question that Liz asked was whether or not uh folks were going to be required to uh to front the capital in order to be able to make the purchase one of the things that we're discovered along the way with the FEMA process is that you know where we might want to do a voucher program or something similar as we've done in the past it doesn't work we have to do verification on what they've gotten from FEMA and so we can't just issue that on a same way basis so we're trying to figure out how to get either financing or what how whatever you to get in that's again where the weatherization repayment assistance program could also come into play um and other things along the way so there there are lots of tools we're going to need to make things happen or for people to come in potentially from out of state and from oh thank you from out of state and elsewhere do we have any sense of how many people have taken up Vermont on on that offer and where that could go over the next few months sure um so we have a couple months under the um executive order from the scott administration i think that we um don't quote me on the numbers because i didn't check them before i came i should have done that um but i think we're at about um 30 to 40 across our all of the professions that are affected by the executive order um and that does include plumbers electricians home contractors architects engineers land surveyors checking my list pollution abatement waste water property inspectors and security guards pharmacies and well drillers follow up on that and wondering if the list of those contractors is available for folks to review yes they it would be available on our licensee lookup page at the office of professional regulation so i could i could find a link and send it to you if you're interested go ahead cow land for you know we've we've we're about a month and a half maybe coming up on two months since the flooding how have you in your committee how have you wrapped your arms around the totality of the cost of this you know this is 36 million this is the biggest pot of money we've had so far how will you be approaching that conversation come january well thank you for the question i think we start approaching it immediately thinking about not only you know we think immediately what is the relief for vermaners that needs that needs to happen what is the scale of the the situation and um i've had the well i don't know if it's the privilege but the opportunity and the unfortunateness to have been through iran in the past and uh when we switch to covid our our state employees and the administration are familiar and have quickly turned and a lot of a lot of things that they have learned uh uh over dealing with things of this nature in the past so that's number one that i do believe that there is a ability to quicker response thinking about getting the data working with fema but you were right there is an unknown number of what it's going to be as far as the expense goes i hope you can hear me what so we have outstanding a few things as we start to think about getting ready for the next session we have housing housing and housing that that needs addressing across the state there's housing as uh needs as a result of the flooding but we needed a lot more prior to this as well we also have um state buildings that are heavily impacted and the process for gathering what uh what needs to be done how much is that going to cost how long is it going to take to get i think you're very familiar with the fact that the pavilion in in mom piliar is is highly impacted and the elevator system from what i'm told will take five months just to get the parts here let alone fix it and the tax department so we have in the berry area here it was heavily impacted on the housing side of it and in mom piliar heavily impacted on the business side of it but other communities have been hit it hit very hard as well lamoille johnson there's uh across the state so to truly answer your question is we won't know what the exact number is going to be we just know that we're going to be needing to have to respond and um adjusting that budget and the next budget accordingly does that help okay as we wrap this up uh thank you for coming out and uh and and joining us today and what is probably the hottest day at least for a while uh i've definitely lost a couple of pounds up here so thank you for joining us uh this work is incredibly personal to me uh as i mentioned i live in mom piliar as soon as the flood water started to receive uh received many of us figured out tried to figure out the ways in which we could help i spent a week in downtown mom piliar trying to do whatever we could to organize volunteers to help people get into homes and businesses and help people shovel out muck and remove debris i can't i can't tell you that i never knew what the like you know i was in the navy i should probably know this but i've never seen anybody actually shell shocked that's the look was on people's faces as they were trying to figure out how what their lives were going to look like as they moved forward i remember sitting with one uh business owner trying to help them navigate what was going to be the fema process for them they're a small business owner they own a an Indian restaurant in in mom piliar they have a house in berry both their business and their home were flooded they had no idea where to start and they speak incredibly good english and yet a fema form was is daunting for for any somebody who's a native speaker let alone somebody who's learned the language and come to our country um it it was heartbreaking and it was really hard to watch but i saw people rally and i saw leadership emerge in different spaces that what showed us what this state is possible of this action today is the is is another milestone in another example of that leadership folks coming together in ways that other states cannot and said we have a problem people need help how do we do this and how do we do this quickly and we how do we get the money out the door as quickly as possible so thank you for coming today i want to thank you all the partners and guests being here today um i you know we have responded to to commissioner charities called the action folks have been out around the state i want to give a huge shout out to the distribution utilities and the other uh energy efficiency utilities vermont gas is here with us today uh and gmp and the vermont public power supply authority and bc and many others who are out on the ground trying to figure out what people needed in their homes uh it's been an all hands on deck effort to try to help figure this out so thank you all for being here today and joining us on this wonderful lovely day in a in a rejuvenated uh berry uh but don't forget that the front lines are just hundreds of feet away so thank you very much for being here today


Good morning everyone and welcome this is Melissa arm of the stock swishing and going over tests on this was a nice short today We did this in the day trade room. I also call to put in this. It's working The day trade worked. I already got out of the day trade again I prefer to day trade and get out of things very quickly. You can hold options. This trade looks good actually, so It's breaking. It's going we've been liking Tesla for quite some time now We did not participate in the rally last week that made no sense to me I knew it was lower the markets falling today the market was down today But the market sketchy that's a subject for another email for now today though Tessa is a nice short and again, this is a gap down So the stock closed yesterday at $199.95 gap down open in the morning here at $196.13 and we shorted it So again, we did a late short in this actually Which we got and then we got the drop down down down down down down Where did it end up going? So far the low today is 191.08 but I really think this is going to get to 190 today again. I'm already out of the day trade I'd like to be in and out of trades as fast and quick as as you can be but this I Don't think there's anything stopping this today actually getting to 190 and that's it's that's not even far from here So this could actually break 190 so it'd be interesting to see where we go because we got plenty of time left in the day Again, I called it put in this and a day trade if you are someone that is interested in trading options with me And getting the live day trade calls You would want to sign up for the Chinese news Chinese New Year special that I'm running right now and do the class this weekend It gives you the room free to the end of 2024 and the options news that are free to the end of 2024 With the class this weekend. So that's special for the combo is going on through Friday Again, you would have made money in Tessa really nice trade We're gonna ride down this put see where this guy goes and good luck everyone gonna be an interesting week Email me at Melissa at the stocks which calm if you would like more information about the class this weekend


Yeah, so I was asked to give an update, a status report on our clinical sequencing exploratory research program, which we've come to call CESAR, but I may wander around a little bit on my way there. Just some historical slides. You know, it's only 10 years ago that we finished the human genome reference. And following that, Francis and Eric and Mark Geyer and others published a vision for the future genomics research, which included this, quote, the technological leaps that seem so far as to be almost fictional, but which, if they could be achieved, would revolutionize biomedical research and clinical practice, for example, ability to sequence DNA at cost four or five orders of magnitude lower. Of course, this was the drive to the $1,000 genome. So this was just 10 years ago. And of course, we, at NHGRI, on our genome.gov site, maintain this graph you've all seen, probably, the cost per sequence genome versus Moore's Law. And this inflection point occurred in mid-2007, where the next-gen sequencers came online. And we suddenly took a slope that was following Moore's Law and it plummeted. This graph that I have on here ended July, two years ago. And now we've reached the point in costs where an exome, a whole exome, is $1,000. And whole genomes now can be purchased with a prescription from your doctor for $4,500 from Illumina. And it hasn't ended. We've kind of flattened out a bit with the current technology. But there are newer technologies coming. Oxford Nano made quite a splash last year with their thumb drive sequencer. This is a working prototype that you put a drop of blood or whatever into this hole. And through nanopore sequencing, the sequence goes right into your laptop, powered by your USB port. Look for more news from this group, I think, in the next year or so. So genomic sequencing is here for clinical use and we've got to figure out how to do it. So we've been looking at, of course, at NHGRI, this path to genomic medicine. And what do we do with routine genome sequencing coming online? And this, facing all the issues that we've been discussing, led to us to start the initiative for what we call clinical sequencing exploratory research. But briefly, before I go there, of course, with all the sequences, also all the data slide I borrowed from Eric, the drinking from the fire hose phenomenon is coming and Terry or Lucia commented that we should mention, it's nowhere else on the agenda, the new initiative at NHGRI on big data. So we're all aware of the big data issue that's going to get worse. And so at NIH, a while back, and these are slides from Eric, big data to knowledge initiative was started. NIH is trying to get on top of this difficult problem. By the end of the decade at NIH, we like to enable a quantum leap in the ability of the research community to maximize the value of the growing volume and complexity of biomedical data. And this, everybody's jumped on board at NIH, a working group was developed last year with 125 members and almost all the NIH institutes and centers are part of this new initiative. And just quickly, it contains four programmatic areas, a major one in facilitating the broad use of biomedical big data. Some of the things we were talking about yesterday, how do we share all the genomic and phenotypic data that will be generated in the clinic and more broadly, developing and disseminating analysis methods and software for big data, training and an effort in innovation in what we like to call centers of excellence to innovate in this area. Where it is, we're in the program is in the workshop phase, a number of workshops, I mentioned one in particular coming up in September, enabling research use of clinical data relevant if you receive an invitation, I hope you'll consider participating in this important workshop. And so with the workshops going on this year, then funding will start in fiscal year 2014 with a model of actually expanded funding leading through the end of the decade. So pretty serious effort and gotten pretty well organized at NIH. So I just wanted to mention that and now I'll turn back to clinical sequencing. Obviously this was set to alter the clinical landscape. We're not talking about genotyping. This is broad genomic sequencing with all the ramifications for incidental findings and other things that go with that. So we developed this program, CSER, to research the challenges to applying comprehensive genomic sequencing of the care of patients, how to generate the generation and application of the genomic sequence data in the clinical workflow and timeline, how to interpret the data for the physician and communicate these results, the results to the patient. And what was a little bit innovative in this program was we really wanted the ethics, the psychosocial implications to be a big part of each of these projects to be built in and be fully integrated with each of these projects. This is, if you've seen the heat map, this program is really embedded in the fourth domain for the NHGRI strategic plan advancing the science of medicine really at this cutting edge of where we are today in trying to move genomics into medicine. I point this out partly because I also do a lot of work in understanding the biology of disease and this program, CSER, is really about understanding and researching process and the psychosocial implications rather than discovery of new variants and associations. So each CSER project has three sub-projects. Each of the sub-projects has senior leadership. Project one is the clinical study, the choice for what clinical question you'll be addressing. Project two is the actual sequencing analysis and informatics that goes on all the way from variant calling to decision support tools. And project three is the important ethical and psychosocial implications. As I mentioned, we have each project required strong leadership in all these areas and then important management structure to coordinate this. So these are the current grantees in CSER. I point out the PIs and also the LC lead for each University of North Carolina. Jim Evans' name came up several times yesterday with Gail Henderson doing exome sequencing for several different disorders in North Carolina. Levi Garroway and Steve Jaffe lead a project at Dana-Farber looking at solid tumor sequencing. The expanse of psychosocial and ethical questions in the projects are quite vast. The concerns of somebody coming in with colon cancer, with acute disease and returning results or incidental findings is much different than a relatively healthy patient. Robert Green at Brigham and Women's with Amy McGuire and Baylor have our only study that's doing whole genome sequencing. All the others are exome. They have a part of their cohort is actually healthy patients. They're recruiting to do whole genome sequencing in some longitudinal studies. University of Washington with Gail Jarvik, Wiley Burke, Malia Fullerton is looking at colon cancer, colon polyposis. This is not tumor sequencing but actually looking at familial risk for colon cancer. CHOP with Ian Crantz and Nancy Spinner looking at pediatrics, a number of disorders, hearing loss, developmental delay, a couple of others, a variety of disorders and also tackling those important ethical questions around pediatric genomic analysis. And Baylor College of Medicine led by Sharon Plon and Will Parsons doing pediatric tumor sequencing. So quite a diverse group. We reissued the RFA actually last year and are about to add a few more groups to this to kind of expand the consortium. We work very closely at NHGRI in this consortium with a separate group, the return results consortium out of our ELSI group. These are our grants variety, a lot of the big names in ELSI research and we actually meet at least once a year together and obviously tackle a lot of the same issues. A lot of the work coming out of CSER is actually going to come from our working groups. These are very important to us. We want to develop recommendations, survey different approaches for clinical sequencing. So the dissemination of this will come through these working groups just real quickly, phenotypes, how to standardize some phenotypes and be able to get some interoperability in the phenotype area. Sequencing standards by Levi Garowitz. We mentioned this this morning about in standards. The interesting thing they're doing is we have five groups doing exome sequencing and they're surveying coverage. There are, for example, the 57 genes recommended for return results, for instance, findings by ACMG. Several of those genes are actually very poorly covered in the exome capture, at least that region, usually the five prime region is very poorly covered in the exome capture methods. So we're trying to understand this and develop some better approaches to get at least thorough coverage of those genes that we think are important. Constant questions around actionability. This group actually has a paper submitted that just kind of surveys the different approaches in CSER that are being taken to make judgments about clinical actionability. EMRs, how to get these data into the EMRs, psychosocial measures. Still working on informed consent. Never solved a pediatrics and this is another emperor. Clever take on the CSER name, but this is a return, another return of results group. So this is where a lot of the products from CSER will be coming from. Just to give you a little update. These are now a little over a year into their grants and do the all six awards. There have been 455 people consented as patients, participants. 170 have been sequenced as of last month and results are beginning to go back to these patients, participants. Of course, a lot of this also is the physicians are very important participants in these studies. We're studying physician preferences, patient preferences, really studying in an empirical manner the interactions that occur and the preferences that occur as we return sequencing results. A lot of physicians also have already been recruited. Just the last few slides just to give you a little more flavor for some of the questions CSER is tackling on the incidental findings area. All reporting incidental findings, half included. Incidental findings automatically go into their primary indication report and then half of the groups actually have a diagnostic report and then a separate incidental finding report. Most sites allow opt out. As I mentioned yesterday, most patients do not opt out of the medically actionable incidental findings. Some cases it's not even an option in these studies. All allow non-medically actual incidental findings for the patients to opt out except for Brigham and Women's which part of their study is actually to do healthy patients and hold genome sequencing. So what categories of incidental findings? The full gamut, disease risk, carrier status, pharmacogenomic variants. You can't actually get blood group from exome sequencing but you can from whole genome. What types of disease risks are returned? Some of our groups have a predefined gene list for what they will return to patients in terms of disease risk. And then others are using or actually doing this on a case-by-case basis. And a kind of, I would say, non-scalable board type approach to make decision patient by patient. All these groups do have one of these multi-disciplinary committees to make decisions about actionability and what to return again. Some do it case-by-case. Baylor has really kind of taken a lead here. The Baylor College of Medicine led by Sharon Plon. And they're now doing over 200 people in their clinical sequencing group each month. And then others have this all-priority categorization. We haven't really touched fully on this. The variant classifications intend to return pathogenic and variants of unknown significance for the primary indication for the patient. And then pathogenic variants for incidental findings. But then a big challenge is how do you determine this? We don't really understand the biology fully yet, certainly. So what's sufficient evidence for pathogenicity? And of course, all these groups, everybody dives into the literature and the databases as they are. And they find things like reported as pathogenic, segregates with disease in a family. Or in some cases, a new variant will have no literature record, of course. And then how do you predict potential pathogenicity? So this is a huge challenge that's being tackled now. CRVR, we hope will help. But a lot of this really is going to take, as we were just talking about, the evidence generation and even some research on the functional aspects of new variants. Okay, with that, I'll stop. And if there are any questions about the CSER program or any of this, I'm happy to take them. Yeah, Pearl? Have you ever talked or asked the CSER participants what they would see as a national policy? And I just think they've been playing in this field. It might be an interesting, you know, to bounce back on some of these groups, kind of what we're struggling with. No, I mean, they tackle things like CLIA, all the groups that developed CLIA and dealt with that. And now, talking more about reimbursement for some of the assays and that sort of thing, but no grand strategy. Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah, Lucie? So one thing I might just add is as part of CSER, we just within the past couple months funded a coordinating center. So that scaled Jarvik at the University of Washington. And we did that in part because we recognized that although clinical sequencing is being done individually at institutions, I think we have an opportunity with CSER to sort of get at some of these larger issues and figure out what lessons these groups have learned and best practices that we can share. And I think the coordinating center is going to have a key role in doing that as well as any sort of education and outreach to professional societies. I mean, we just had our steering committee meeting last week. And I think we had a very lively discussion of the ACMG recommendations, among other things. And that consortium of people where many hats including representation in ACMG and pending efforts and clinically relevant variants and so forth. So I think there's going to be much yet to come. Okay, Karen? Yeah, you mentioned the meeting in September for research. Can you go back to that slide and just... Maybe. Yeah, I'm not a big data expert, but maybe somebody here is. Enabling research use of clinical data in September. So that's just getting organized and I think chairs have been selected and they're just formulating their plan. I don't know. Anybody know? Did that help? Yeah. Okay, Karen? Yeah. This is a difficult question. So I'm going to ask it to Brad and I also want to ask it to Les. And that's the relationship between the research that we're doing and the process that ACMG went through. Because it looks like you're asking a lot of questions that may have some relevance to ACMG's decision making. And you had some of those people on the committee. And I have a worry that there may be some unintended consequences of pushing ahead. I understand the need for the list or the charge of a list, but there are some big leaps that were made here. And we have some research that is being done that may be asking some of those questions. So it's a difficult question to respond to, but I didn't know if either Brad or Les or whoever else was here. And as you pointed out, some of the people that were in the deliberation are also doing the research. I can speak to that point, I think. We certainly recognize that there are efforts underway to gain data that will help to answer these questions. And the truth is that this is being used today as we speak clinically. And people aren't waiting for these studies to begin to apply this. And so there was a strong feeling that there needed to be a flag planted somewhere to give a standard and guidelines with full recognition that we are going to learn more as time passes and likely need to revisit various aspects of these guidelines right of that new data. But you can't wait what could end up being years, perhaps, for the outcomes of these studies when clinicians are using them right now. I just thought, did you consider whether it would be reasonable or even unethical for clinicians together with patients to choose to opt out? So they would just want certain information, but not all that you have on your lab test, because that's happening. And that's actually coming out of the discussions with some of the Caesars. And it's an interesting research question. But I just wondered if you actually, obviously, made a decision about that. You set a standard, but it's happening. So I was wondering your views on that or Brad, if you want to chime in. So you're asking if we considered the possibility that people would choose not to? That the clinician, it gets to Pearl's point earlier, that this role of the clinician together with the patient as a couple. And these would be the role of the lab and the ordering. And the patient that just says, you know, I came here for a reason. I'm not interested in that. And the answer is, well, then what? Then you don't get this. Mark, yeah. Yeah, so I think there are several points. And obviously that was a, we discussed this quite a lot. And I think the things that I identify as being, that bear on that the most appropriate lawyer, I think people are confusing the idea that somehow whole genome sequencing is a standard of care. And that if we don't offer whole genome sequencing with people, you know, having the option to pick and choose, we're somehow withholding something vital to their health and well-being. And the reality is, as we've been talking about over the last day and a half, is that this is, you know, emergent. And as with many things, it's emerging into practice probably well ahead of, you know, what is going to ultimately be best practice. So that was one contention. The second one is that there is a body of literature that shows that asking people to make choices about opting out in a hypothetical situation based on presenting hypotheticals of if we were to find this, that, or the other thing. That when people are faced with the real situation as opposed to the hypothetical situation, they choose very differently than they've done. And so we thought that it would be presumptuous to assume that people could really, truly make an informed condition in the pre-test setting to do an opt out. Again, the point that is important and relevant here is that, as Les pointed out, the result comes back to the clinician. And we expect that there will be a discussion between the clinician and the patient at that point as to whether or not results that have been returned from the laboratory to the clinician will in fact be returned to the patient. And that we think is where that conversation is most appropriate to take place because that really reflects what is done in other medical practices. So to reinforce what Les has said, what we're really trying to do is to move genetics from our exceptional position into something that is much more concordant with standard medical practice. And so this was, you know, so the bottom line is as we spent a lot of time on this, those, for me, were the arguments that were the most compelling as to why we elected not to do a pre-test opt out. And my position in our clinical research approach is that if people are uncomfortable with the idea of incidental findings, that the autonomy is don't do this test. We will do everything else in our power to use alternative methods to make a diagnosis. But if you do not want this information, then this is not the test for you. One of the things that was interesting to me last week in the discussions was this isn't going to be an overnight shift in the clinical labs. You know, there's actually going to be some slow progress made as they think about how to implement the ACMG recommendations and how best to deploy their resources in doing this and make sure they do any responsibility in a responsible way. So both the practical aspects of interrogating these 57 genes, but also working with their IRBs and how to do it. I'd like to sort of just advocate one more time for the idea of sort of creating very large data sets of variance coupled to clinical data, because I think that's really going to be the only way to deal with. The one-offs I don't think we're ever going to get to unless you understand the biology, but the people who have the 0.5% variant that we just don't know what to do with, I think the only way forward is the phenotype dataset. And like Les said, the phenotype is what really rules there. So finding out what happens to people with these BRCA1 or MYH7 variants over time. Is it, you know, the frustrating thing is that they exist. Myriad could do it. GeneDX can do it if they put some effort into it, or somebody can partner with them or something. Okay, I think we need to move on. Thanks, Brad. Last presentation before break is going to be Linda Essler.


and then afterwards we're going to have a 10 minute break and then we're going to go into a closing session during the 10 minutes you'll have a time to submit your questions and your prayers and in the closing session with David he'll get to respond to them. So I'm going to pass it straight over to David now. Hi thank you Pete welcome everyone a very exciting day we have today we are going to our our singularity our oneness through through AI the Holy Spirit's use of artificial intelligence to help us remember the singularity of our being as God created us. So we have a beautiful day lined up for you today a beautiful workshop and the movie that we've been given for this Saturday is called Transcendence starring Johnny Depp and this movie came out in 2014 but you know Pete and I were talking in the beginning we were saying what a perfect time to show this movie because of recent advances in in AI that are getting popularized that are getting shared in in the media that I don't know if some of you have started using all the AI advancements but there's a lot of them there we go Lucy's got her thumb up yeah we're we're it's now in practice you know where I was telling Andy in our community he's going to have to do like a little workshop or in-service to bring the whole community up to speed on the practical applications of AI right now because Andy was working with one version of AI where he was telling it to it said make me a picture of Jesus walking from the tomb and he got an amazing visual of Jesus walking through the tomb he you know you basically tell it what you want and it constructs the picture for you a non-copyrighted picture and so everything is moving so fast but this movie transcendence came out in 2014 and I think at the time I showed it I think Nicholas was saying it's strawberry fields when he just came wow how old were you 22 20 20 years old coming out to strawberry fields forever festival and then he's watching transcendence with us that's that's the way it goes everything goes really fast and this movie was talking about a lot of ideas that were very very prevalent there I think Elon Musk makes a little cameo appearance in this movie in the audience during one of the Will Kester is the AI scientist played by Johnny Depp and during his speech I think I saw Elon Musk in the audience but this movie is basically showing us it's another metaphor we'll say a scientific metaphor for returning to the oneness of of God and God's creation the oneness of heaven if we talk about it from a quantum physics perspective then this movie is taking us really rapidly towards the the quantum field which Jesus would call the happy dream in in his terms in the course of miracles or we could just say it's from non dual perspective non dual teachers non dual saints and mystics would maybe say it's unified awareness no matter what you call it you can call it love you can call it anything you want joy but we're really interested in being shown and taken into that experience of absolute connectedness absolute connectivity and in the scientific community you might say with the advancements in AI over the last nine years they've been very very dramatic and in terms of AI it's it's like a movement toward singularity and singularity is just oneness so we should be really grateful for all the reflections that are showing us that everything's connected and everything is one there really is no threat to in oneness when you start to realize that oneness is reality how can reality be threatening only threatening to the ego which is the belief in separation the belief in conflict the belief in competition in the movie that we're going to watch there's going to be a group of people that are kind of shown as kind of anti technology and the acronym for for their the name of their group or organization is rift this movie is so good you've just got to laugh at at all the synchronicities that come I mean one of the synchronicities I like too was that you know you voted on five themes and the name the first theme that came in number one is releasing pride and autonomy father what is your will for me and I thought wow that's such an amazing theme and then I noticed the main character is named will so so we're praying father is what is your will for me and we have will is the main character who will go through the transformation of yielding to the absolute yielding to the singularity yielding to the connectivity yielding to the will of God which is just pure oneness and love the second theme that we have here is finding peace beyond the changing images that's an important one finding peace beyond the changing images because a definition of seeming to come into time and space and come to planet earth is is seeking for love in the form and seeking for love in the images and we have definitely tried that I would not hesitate to say we have tried it for many times more times than we are even aware of we've been trying to find the love in the form and what we're really praying for in our heart is to to find the peace beyond the changing images and for me I think one of the most helpful lines I've ever heard it from a course of miracles it's back in the manual for teachers and it's in the characteristics of God's teachers and it's in the section on patience where Jesus says patience is natural to those who trust no outcome already seen or yet to come can cause them fear isn't that a lovely idea no outcome already seen or yet to come can cause them fear he's basically defining patience and saying when you become so lined up with God you'll be able to look through the five senses and and still see images but you won't be disturbed by those images whatever those images are you'll be living in a state of divine patience and understanding that all things are working together for good and you don't need to be concerned or you don't need to be upset ever by the images but there is no situation that has the power to upset you it's only attack thoughts and judgments and grievances that bring the upset it's never the situation the situation's a projection of the attack thoughts the situation is not a cause of upset it's just a projection of an upset in the mind that's based on holding on to a grievance or holding on to a judgment the third one third theme is let go of what I think I know about anything wow that's like a prayer to be clueless I was at the monastery one time and I was giving a talk and I said yeah we should be clueless carefree and cared for don't you like the combination of those three clueless carefree cared for ah that's the peaceful one the last one cared for everything is the spirit is caring for my mind as I'm waking up it's caring for me number four remembering the holiness of every encounter it's never personal that's that's like one of the four agreements don't take anything personally and yet it seems like that will require a full sustained determined mind training uh because you know when we're used to not taking something personal we're we're practicing not getting offended at what people say not get offended at what people do but Jesus is saying well actually you have to take that all the way so we could say that that the mind of christ was was not offended by the crucifixion scene even to the world it was a bloody mess the mind of christ was like no you know the mind of christ is pure spirit so what happens to a body whatever seems to happen to a body really has no no effect on the christ on on the christ mind but going toward that christ mind is going towards this singularity towards this connectedness this this pure spirit that's what we're going for and the last one number five is overcoming the fear of love you know we were talking this morning today about how when you talk to people and you ask them what are the greatest fears some of the fears that come to mind when people are afraid they're very specific you know they're afraid of losing their job or losing their family losing their partner losing their child losing their skills and abilities losing their memory or losing their their intellectual faculties but for many people there is a great fear of the unknown and you might say that that Jesus is asking us to start to question our fear of the unknown he's basically telling us in the text it's it's kind of surprising that he says that you would be so afraid of what you don't know because when you are afraid you're presuming something you're presuming that what you don't know in awareness is frightening and Jesus is like why would you do that you know why would you presume that what you don't know is frightening this is the the human predicament this is the ego's predicament is it wants control over the world because it's terrified of what it doesn't know it's actually terrified of love it's terrified of singularity some of you have heard me talk about different scientists basically even Albert Einstein who he's kind of thought of as one of the most imminent scientists that that ever walked the planet and even Albert Einstein when he was asked about the quantum field where everything is just super connected beyond time and space Albert Einstein said hmm when asked about the quantum field he he said that is spooky action at a distance when Albert Einstein calls something spooky as you see even the most eminent scientist was scared of connectivity because if everything's connected that must mean that everything that we believe and we perceive about this world in terms of fragmentation separate bodies private minds private thoughts everything having distinct objects distinct galaxies you know distinct gases distinct distinct everything anything that's objectified we must start to look at it in a questioning way and say well maybe everything that I am perceiving as separate is just a a subjective colored prejudiced biased perception if I think of phone is a phone Jesus is saying well that's biased what makes you think you can carve out a phone from all the other images in the universe and give it a name you see that's what how deep the the belief in separation goes even to believe in separate people places things situations is is the denial of the truth of oneness of the truth of of love so over the years I've seen you know I've met so many seekers of truth around the world and so many course of miracle students and people from many religions many philosophies many pathways and then the deeper they go into their path and they deeper they go toward the experience they get they get in they may be halfway into it and then they're like three quarters of the way into it and then they get like 80 percent 85 percent into it and then usually the reaction is yikes yikes if if God and love and oneness are true that must mean individuality is not yikes it's all right to give up my possessions it's all right to give up my my things in the world and everything but my identity my autonomous separate individualistic identity yikes yikes yikes so so there's a fear around spiritual awakening that's the fear of love the fear of love is oh my gosh if I surrender to love then there won't be anything left of me and Jesus is just reassuring us no actually there's only one of us so all that's left is all that there's ever been all that there ever will be it's just it's just love it's just divine love all is love and and this world is the attempt to deny the fact that all is love so when we go on the spiritual journey it's like Jesus is just calling us and saying come come closer come closer yikes yikes stop come come come come come come keep coming keep coming and it's all love it's all good it's all warm it's all wonderful just keep trusting me just trust me to to help you let go of everything that you believe without exception I had a group of students back in the 1990s and we were reading the Course in Miracles one day and they came to me and like five or six of them they were all they were all confused and they said can we just ask you about one thing that Jesus is saying in the Course because we don't really understand what he's talking about and it's very confusing and I said sure what is it that you're disturbed about and they said well there's a part here we're reading where Jesus is saying no one is ever angry at a fact and they said that's what does that even mean no one's ever angry at a fact they said we don't even know how to process that what no one's ever angry at a fact what is he even talking about that and they I said well well can you give me an example of a fact and they said no we don't even know what a fact is what does it mean no one can be angry at a fact and I said well God is a fact and Christ is a fact and no one can be angry at a fact if you know the fact of the truth if you know the fact of reality you realize that anger is impossible no one can be angry at a fact and then we went into it a little deeper and basically I was I was saying well the way that that reality works is that reality is pure spirit and reality just extends and extends and extends so you might think of thoughts pure spirit realm thoughts just extending and extending and extending and that's what creation is it has nothing to do with form but the basic fact is God is love and and only love and only loving thoughts come from God so only the thoughts of God can be extended and nothing else can be extended so you cannot extend really a concept you cannot extend any thoughts that are not coming from God only the thoughts of God can be extended because only love extends so they were saying well what does that mean don't I have the power to manifest I said no absolutely not God didn't create a being that had the power to manifest because that would be the attempt to share something that's unlike God so if that's true then that must mean that that opinions can't be shared exactly judgments can't be shared exactly gossip can't be shared exactly falsity cannot be shared exactly that's what spiritual awakening is about is realizing that only the thoughts of God can be extended or shared the rest is a hallucination because it's an attempt to do the impossible that's what manifestation is it's the attempting of the impossible attempting to share judgments which we call gossip in this world that's impossible so it's not that you have to stop it you just have to see the impossibility of it you see it's a it's a difference between trying to stop something that you believe is real versus seeing the impossibility of it so when we get to the subject of AI it's a little bit like the matrix where it's like the humans are afraid the machines will become so advanced that the machines will take over for the humans and the humans don't want to be at the mercy of the machines and I think the machines could make the same argument you know the iPhones don't want to be at the mercy of those damn humans they drop them they scratch them up they have to get new have to keep repairing them and everything that you know machines would probably say what you're afraid we're going to dominate you what about you you you damn full humans you you mess us up and you you drop us you crack us you you heat us up you you overuse us you know if the machines could talk they would probably say you abuse us and now you're afraid we're going to dominate you maybe we should dominate you maybe you should know how it feels but but that was kind of the premise of the matrix you know where the the the machines you know the machines started to dominate the humans so then the humans scorched the skies to block out the sun to cut off the energy for the machines it didn't go very well until finally the one comes to show that you don't have to dodge bullets you can just stop the bullets with your hand because the power of your mind and and all of these great movies including the matrix are showing us is they're pointing to an experience where you start to realize you can give up your ideas of dominating of of machines dominating humans or humans dominating machines you can you can give up your ideas of a of a patriarchal society you know some i've talked to some women and they go this this whole society is so patriarchal when is it going to be a matriarchal when is it going to flip around do we have matriarchal uh one time jason jason found a movie and and he it was a movie of a different planet where all the women were in charge of everything i said oh wow that's a that's a good one a good we put it in our mind watcher category but but it's not about superior inferior it's not about who's better who's worse it's not about who dominates and who submits you start to realize that this whole game of separation this whole game of hierarchies this whole game of of who has the power and who doesn't have the power who who is the dominance and who is the ones that have to be submissive this is the game of the ego and what i'm telling you now is none of it is a fact it's all just conjecture it's all just make believe it's all just fiction it's all just fabrication and jesus is basically always telling us there's only one of us we are we are the one christ we always have been the one christ and always will be and yet if you believe you're something else other than this christ it starts to feel like a mess and it's a mess of time it's a mess of linear time so we're asking to be taken out of that so in this movie today we are going to have a very eminent ai scientist whose name is will kester and and his wife is evelyn kester and they're very much into the whole phenomenon of of ai technology i think it's just i propose that this movie came out nine years ago and now just as the human race is right on the edge of a major shift in civilization we'll just call it a major civilization shift is is coming very rapidly it's upon us now like the invention of electricity or for the cavemen you know oh rubbing sticks together fire the invention of fire was a big one the invention of electricity that we're at another edge of shifting huge shift in human civilization but but what we really want to see is we want to see what is the answer to the question what is it all for we're not so much interested and fascinated by the advancement of technology as we are what is the underlying purpose what is the usefulness of the technology to find that fact of god's love how might the holy spirit use technology advanced technology just as another symbol among symbols to help the mind remember its divinity to to remember absolute oneness absolute spirit so in this movie we're going to see that that basically will kester and his wife evelyn have have really good hearts that they want to they want to use technology in a beneficial way that brings healing that brings blessing that brings efficiency that brings abundance and so they have a beautiful intention there and and yet what jesus is telling us that even when we have an intention for goodness we have to rely on the holy spirit and jesus to take us back to know the will of god because at one point in a course of miracles jesus says trust not your own good intentions the ego actually will disguise itself many times as good intentions how many of you have done something where you felt you were truly acting out of good intentions and then it absolutely blew up in your face and you went my god why would such a wicked evil thing happen to such a kind decent one like me with all my good intentions you see and that just means maybe i don't know the will of god especially if the will of god is for perfect happiness let's just say that will the will of god is for perfect not partial happiness not some happiness and something else but just perfect happiness maybe my good intentions are not exactly the pathway to perfect happiness maybe maybe i've even got assumptions underneath my good intentions and and that's what we discover as we go much deeper we go whoa down the rabbit hole let go of everything whoops i thought i knew something there you know sailing along the wheels fall off you go come tumbling crashing down and then you're just laying there going whoops maybe i don't know as much as i thought i knew maybe i'm still ignorant and i have to start to admit that i need help to know the will of god and the will of god is perfect happiness so that that will take some surrender some alignment now another good thing about this movie is as we start to see symbols of connectedness and symbols of unification and symbols of transcendence we will seem to see doubt thoughts arising you know i think all of us have had some situations where we really thought we knew someone we really were sure that we knew them we could trust them and then something happens and we just are just absolutely dumbfounded we say wow i did not see that coming at all that totally caught me by surprise i would have never expected that in a million years and this is just the purification of our heart and the release of any remaining egoic doubt thoughts that still are held into awareness this purification process um it's really inevitable it's like we're all just yielding into it and we're just being purified by the holy spirit our mind is being purified by the holy spirit and by jesus but but it's the ego part that wants to judge the purification process that wants to say why did that happen why did this happen it wants to try to put the process on a timeline and figure it out from a linear timeline perspective and it cannot be figured out jesus tells us that you know you're not responsible for the error but you are responsible for accepting the correction of the error so basically he's telling us you know you have to have faith in the spirit it's almost like let your five senses go away and then just get your hand out and there you go that's it the stevy wonder pathway to god that's what you need to go for you need to go for the stevy wonder pathway to god because if you think you're going to god with your eyes wide open you're going to have some difficulties oh did you see that oh oh i don't know about oh that oh didn't see that one coming oh you know you if you try to go to god with your five senses that's going to be very very difficult because we need to go inside we need to follow the prayer of our heart we need to follow the prompts and intuitions the nudges of the holy spirit we need to always put god first and say i will step back and let you lead the way i will humbly follow you i would but follow christ holy spirit you lead i will follow if you're using a car metaphor slide out from the driver's seat get out of the driver's seat you must get over to the passenger seat and let jesus drive why because you need a driver who actually knows where they're going you it's not good to try to drive the car into the kingdom of heaven because no cars are are there you have to be carless if you go into the kingdom of heaven but more than that you really need to be in the passenger seat if you're going to wake up spiritually it's very humbling but jesus says in the course you cannot wake yourself but you can allow yourself to be awakened isn't that lovely oh that's a definitely get into the passenger seat do not attempt to drive do not attempt to drive you know even when we are in the driver's seat we say jesus just let me drive i have a gps system jesus is like okay but you know it's going to be it's going to have some delays in there you know if you if you just let me drive you can just sit back and enjoy the ride enjoy the scenery turn the radio on listen to the favorite music he said i'll just get you where we're going real quickly but to the extent that we want to be in charge we want to make our own decisions that it gets very very difficult extremely difficult the prayer of a course of miracles is holy spirit decide for god for me you notice how humble that prayer is holy spirit decide for god for me every day all you have to do is wake up with that prayer here comes another day holy spirit decide for god for me today i will make no decisions by myself today i will step back and let you lead the way today i will not presume anything today i will not assume anything today my mind is wide open to listen and follow you and nothing else i have no other interest today but just to listen and follow you and and interestingly things get very easy when we're when we're in that frame of mind because we're so open to to be directed when we're in that humble state of mind so in this movie i'll pop in from time to time but we're going to see the main character will is going to be zooming toward the will of god his wife evlyn eve the first woman in the bible will be joining and she's going to be on a real steep steep uh trust walk she's going to to try to keep trusting and trusting and trusting even when the fear comes up because if you want miracles you have to have trust if you want faith and developing faith you have to have trust if you want your mind to expand in awareness you have to have trust in the workbook or it's actually the manual for teachers of the course jesus says that there's 10 characteristics of a teacher of god the first one is trust and he says if trust goes the rest of them go to you have in other words without trust you have no chance of honesty without trust you have no chance of patience or of generosity or of open-mindedness you have no hope of the characteristic of the teacher of god without trust if trust goes then all of them go you may think i'm moving along i'm advancing i'm only just a tiny tick away from heaven but if you doubt that whole stairway that you were on it crumbles it's it goes away with a doubt that we know how this works too and we when we have a doubt that it colors our whole perception you know suddenly we're all we're paranoid the world's out to get us we don't have any friends we're lonely we're we're desolate we're desperate with one little doubt that we feel shattered we feel absolutely shattered and that's why jesus is saying yes just keep trusting let the spirit go before you one little moment at a time one step at a time so i think we're gonna love this if any of you are wondering how the holy spirit will use ai then i think we're gonna get a good little snapshot reminder in this movie lots of miracles in this movie so sit back enjoy the movie and here we go thank you jesus for an ai movie to take us home to heaven we like it we we like to be on the surfing on the waves of ai we're not afraid we just want to be surfing with you on the way back to the kingdom of heaven see you soon