Hi, I'm Michael Kossler and welcome back to the leaders room brought to you by the Ecliffe Leadership and Governance Center. I am delighted to have with me today Mr. Mark Thompson, Marcus CEO and co-founder of Virgin Unite Mentors, Sir Richard Branson's Network for Executive Coaching and Entrepreneurial Innovation. Prior to Virgin, Mark served at Charles Swab's former chief of staff, chief of customer experience, chief communications officer and co-founder of the Schwab Foundation. He has also served as executive producer of Schwab.com with assets in excess of 1.4 trillion USD. Forbes magazine called Mark one of America's top investors with the mightest touch. He served on the board of directors for Best Buy, CoronFerry International and Interwoven, which is now owned today by HP. Mark, welcome to the leaders room. It's great to be along with you. Thank you so much for the invitation. Thank you, sir. I have five questions I'd like to ask you, but it's going to delve into who you are. I'm going to start with one of your books, Success Built to Last and in that book you mentioned that every high achiever that you interviewed had three definitions of success that helped them produce long-term or the 20 years, you know, an impact on their profession. You said it was purpose, passion, and performance. Tell us about that. It was fascinating because often when we get excited about an idea, someone will think entrepreneurially or they'll be coming up with a new innovation, they'll think that maybe it's just the idea that works or maybe they'll be looking at it from the standpoint of making money or changing careers. And what we found is that the leadership more than ever is a very personal thing and then those people who had achieved in their field of profession for 20 years or more had a sense of purpose, almost a driving cause. It might be the market, it might be customer, it could be community, but something larger to themselves that you might even define as legacy, something that's going to outlast you.  Secondly, they had a sense of passion. In other words, something that drove them from the inside out. Right. Often we're driven by fear, but passion outlasts fear. It's hardly great at something that you're afraid of. Right. So being connected to your own passions, we found that it was just as important to be connected to the cause. And then the third area was performance. So it's nice to be passionate and purpose driven, but you've got to deliver. You've got to produce the results. So those that were able to have long-term achievement have those three things going for them, those three definitions. You could be successful short-term within one of them. Okay. Okay. So what's your personal purpose and is a change of time? Let me give you a context. Okay. Please. At each lift, we say that there are two sustainable sources of leadership energy. Values and purpose. You hit a roadblock. It's your values and purpose that's going to help you get through that. Right. But frequently when we're talking to other executives, they say, well, you know, how many purposes should I have in my lifetime? And so that's my question. What's your purpose and has it changed over time? You know, I think it has, although it started early because for me, I came from difficult circumstances. The family had a tough time. We were on the verge of bankruptcy. I had severely learning disabilities. And so early on, I mean, it's amazing to think I could be with you today because when I was in middle school, I couldn't read. Right. And so... Are you not reading your mind of dyslexia or something like that? Exactly. So one of those types of issues that really made you humiliated and held you back. Right. And so what I learned at that time, the way we coped was we pulled together as a little ragtag team. Maybe we thought we were all individually inadequate. But I realized if we worked together towards a common cause, you could do the impossible. And so I feel that that's driven all of my obsessions. All of my purposes through life is that I feel driven to gather a team that the job of the leaders to recruit and develop other leaders is what Peter Drucker said. So it seems to me that everything that I found myself obsessed with or passionate about in terms of my purposes had been to try to heal that wound and try to turn that wound into wisdom and try to help pay it forward for other people. How can we as a group try to create something greater than any of us as individuals? Okay. My next question is, you're an executive coach with a fairly well-known organization. Yeah. And the picture on your website, you're paired up with a couple of really impressive characters like Marshall Goldsmith and Alan Mulally. What are the challenges and the opportunities that you find currently on the surface in your work with senior leaders? Well, they said that they're asking for help on. And what guidance are they looking for? You know, I think the most important thing is that in leadership, especially as we grow in responsibility, there is this almost paradox of needing to be so driven and results-oriented and so ambitious that you won't take no for an answer.  So you'll have to lean in and you'll have to be pretty ambitious. But to be a level five leader as Jim Collins would say, I'd say it's really the primary difficulty that we see with large firms and executives trying to run the work now. To have at the same time that ambition is necessary, a sense of humility. The humility to do a few things. The humility to know that in order to survive and prosper in today's market, you've got to continue to change and grow and learn and rally around the customer experience. Because the customers are changing and the pressures on them are changing. So how can you be other-oriented enough to not get complacent and arrogant, but to be humble enough to learn and ask questions and pursue and realize that's a never-ending cause?  That you have to do this with and through other people. That's where you get scale, as we say at business school. You can only grow if you delegate decision making. Right. And so that seems to be the primary thing. Often the same sort of silver back that takes the jungle is not the same person who goes, I need to stop and listen and hear and touch and be caring. And so that's really the rare bird that I think requires the three keys I talked about before. Okay. So when you're coaching somebody to be more, to demonstrate more humility, how do you actually do that? I mean, you should go back to the three keys or what do you help them look for? You know, one of the most terrifying things is to get feedback and be willing to actually listen to that. But one of the big challenges in life is that once having become ambitious, we have to win at everything. We end up having to win at which dessert that we choose at the restaurant and which movies that the family goes to. So to start to be more selective about our impact and start to listen and hear how much influence you can have on others. When you recognize what their values are, we did one piece of research for the last book about the most admired where we looked at what's it that really drives people around these values in terms of being the most admired. And we found that we asked people, do you feel like you're appreciated and valued and respected and they gave it scores of less than, way less than 10? Then we asked them, but do you really understand the values of the people who you'd like to be admired by? The scores were even lower. So one of the things we'd like to show leaders to understand and be humble is realize that it's a mismatch between the expectations of being appreciated and how much we've actually stopped and appreciated people who we want to be valued by. And so if we can hear that and feel that, that can be transformational. Thank you. The next question is, in today's world, networking, social media, you know, it's almost everywhere and everything. But in a recent blog posting of yours, one on March the 15th, you described five, quote, awesome ways to win or lose the most valuable relationships. You know, when you think about those ways of winning and losing relationships, the most difficult thing about social media today is that it's starting to train us not to have this eye contact. Remember, Mr. B, our mom said, look at me when you talk to me. That connection, a great piece of research back when I was at Stanford and Cliff Nass, where he was looking at how there was this transformation that people were going through. They were learning to lose their ability to connect with each other socially. It's a team sitting together on the bed texting to other people. And so being able to make that direct connection to other people is absolutely critical to your success, making that eye contact. Because it's easy to opt out once there's pressure on you, right? As soon as there's difficulty in this conversation, oops, I've got to take a call, I've got to take a text. And so being able to learn the social cues of being interactive with each other is something that's going to be covered in building or losing relationships going forward. So would you for networking advocate more like what you and I are doing right here or not paying as much attention to, I won't mention those other LinkedIn type of organizations, but you know, where's the best way to go and network with people? Well, the research is actually pretty clear on this that we discovered is that having a face-to-face connection first and then following it with the online learning environment or the social environment and anchoring it. And then using that social environment actually to listen and support. So one of the things I find most valuable about social media as a person who would be at the tail end of the baby rovers is that I'm actually able to reconnect, reassure and ratify and show appreciation for what people are valuing to put on their website. I never would have thought that they might have been interested in this particular hobby or this aspect of their life that they're exploring. And now I'm able to like it, comment on it and support it. So I think the combination of first always having that personal connection and then using this like being a pen pal. Using it like we used to have letter writing and then served a role. This is more immediate. Use it for appreciation, not just pontification. Okay. All right. So last question for you. An individual comes to you and he says or she says I want to be a really effective leader in the 21st century. What would you advise him or her to focus on? I would focus on understanding why are you called to what you do. I think that leadership is more personal than ever. And that it's so important to do something before you set goals. Offer this push to set goals, track those goals and deliver. In business that's necessary. But first we have to ask ourselves why are we getting up in the morning? What are our values? What is the driving purpose in our life at work? Because that's what's sustainable. And today there's no way you're going to spend a few hours of work. Is it even going to be just 40 hours of work? What's worth trading your life for? Let's make sure that this is a great trade and that it even allows you to have a richer deeper contribution to your view of the circular planet at the same time. Mark. Thank you. Thank you. It's a real honor to be with you. This is Michael Kossler signing off from the Leaders Room brought to you by the EECLIF Leadership and Governance Center.


Now let's begin by talking about English language a paper one now as you can see behind me essentially I've sketched out a walkthrough of Essentially what to anticipate of section a of this paper? And this is of course the first half of the paper now the paper in total bear in mind in terms of timings the entire paper for both Section a and section b is two and two hours 15 minutes now given that both sections so both section a which is the nonfiction text section and Section b which is a transactional writing both of them are worth equal amounts of marks if you do your numbers It's 45 marks in total for section a and 45 marks in total for section b You want to split this time up to these two hours of 15 minutes evenly Okay, you don't want to spend more time on section a and less time on section b because Essentially what you're going to do is you might be securing the marks the 45 marks as much as you can for section a But you may be neglecting section b. Okay, so you want to split your time evenly now Let's look over section a in terms of timings But also what to anticipate in terms of the wording of the questions, okay? So let's walk through it now as I've mentioned section a is the first part in the paper to be honest Whether you start with section a or section b it depends on you, but I would suggest just work through it chronologically Okay, so starting with section a which is the nonfiction text Remember that you're going to be given an unseen text that would be the first text that you get and of course You're going to compare you have some questions within this section that ask you to look at the scene edexel text so a text from the anthology itself and of course some of the questions are going to ask you about this text Which you've already studied so this is the scene part of the paper and of course You're also going to be responding to an unseen extract and when it comes to how this is split up Do bear in mind that text one which is the unseen text that you get to you've never seen this before in the paper now The questions one two and three in this paper will only be solely related to that unseen text In other words the first three questions in section a are related to the unseen text Okay now in terms of Timings always remember number one because obviously you're getting a text that you've never seen before you want to Allocate the first ten minutes of these two and a half hours when you're looking at section a Allocate that time to reading through this unseen text planning Highlighting also already thinking about the similarities that it shares with the scene text You're going to be asked to compare it to okay So in terms of the first thing that you need to do when you're starting off with section a spend ten minutes set aside those first ten minutes to read through and Highlight and you know kind of pick up on all the kind of commonalities and themes that your unseen text that you've never seen before We'll have with the Seen text that you're going to be asked to compare it to now when it comes to question number one Which is related to of course text one question one is worth two marks Okay, so it's just a question which is very very brief and in terms of wordings You're always going to be asked to select two words or phrases that relate to a key word Okay, so for this question don't spend more than three and a half minutes and then you move on okay Question one. It's simply worth two marks So you don't want to be spending too much time kind of writing reams and reams of writing You don't even have that much space. Okay, then question two, which is again related to text one the unseen text It's worth four marks now for this question in terms of the wording This question always asks you something along the lines of look at lines And then you're given the line numbers and then it asks you in your own words discuss x yz So again, you're discussing the key words in the question if it's asking in your own words What you cannot do for this question is quote from the text. Okay, you interpret it using your own words You're not using the same words as in the text. Okay, again, this is worth four marks Spend five minutes and you move on okay Make sure you're always keeping an eye on the time be very very strict and very vigilant about how you are Allocating your time now question three. This is the third question related to text one the unseen text now question three Which is worth five marks that would suggest spending seven minutes on this question And the wording of this question is always something along the lines of from lines. You're given a line numbers Explain what we learn about key word. Okay. Now. Do you bear in mind? There's always a theme that comes up There's always something generally that comes up and we're going to see this in a past paper question that I have prepared for one Of the unseen text and you're going to see that there's a kind of theme that crops up Okay, so these key words are always related to this theme and the theme obviously also links to the edex cell Anthology so the IGC SC anthology text that you're going to be asked to work with and to compare it to and of course These are the texts that you've seen before. Okay now text to so this is now the text from the non fiction anthology text to asks you Only rather in other words question for is now where you have to link it to text to okay So I'm going to rephrase myself again now questions one to three are related to text one Then question for is now where text to this is the text taken from the Anthology the one that you've prepared for the one that you've done all of these hours of study for Now this is where you're going to be asked a question related Specifically to that text not the first text, but just specifically to the scene text Okay, now this question question for is worth 12 marks and what I would suggest in terms of timing you want to spend 14 minutes on this question Okay, you want to kind of develop your answer now in terms of the wording and the phrasing of this question You're often asked to look at language and structures. This is the language and structure question Okay, so as I've mentioned questions one to three They ask you questions related to text one then question number four is the first question you get related to text two This is the scene anthology Then finally you have question five in section eight now question five is the question where you now have to compare text one and Text two and this question is worth 22 marks. So for this question I would suggest spending 28 minutes now I remember when I was mentioning for question one two three the three point five so three and a half minutes Seven five minutes and seven minutes the reason why you want to be really stricter so that you can give yourself enough time sufficient amounts of time in order to allocate it to the 12 market and especially the 22 market It's really really silly if you spend lots of time on the first three questions and you run out of time You find yourself rushing through the latter questions question four and five because that's where the bulk of the marks are Okay, now for question five in terms of wording It's always something to do with compare dot dot dot ideas and perspectives how both writers show the ideas and perspectives on The theme that it is explored on the keywords that are explored within both texts Okay, now in total in terms of when you're working through section a this is the nonfiction text in total of this Two hours 15 minutes. You should be allocating half of this time which is in total 67 and a half minutes of your time in this exam Okay, of course, this is the time that's given for the paper if you do have extra time Do the relevant maps in order to kind of allocate and add your extra minutes So if you have extra time just do the relevant maps However, if we're just strictly looking at the timings for this paper This would be my suggestion in terms of how to allocate your time effectively for the section a questions And please remember do not spend too much time on questions one to three the bulk of your time should be spent on question Four and five, but then once you're 67 and a half minutes is over you move on. Okay, so let's look at section B Now as I mentioned for section B This is a really important section because it counts for half of the overall papers marks So in other words, if you have in total two hours and 15 minutes for the entire paper You want to allocate half of that time for section B because it counts for exactly half of the marks available for this question Therefore my advice for section B is you want to spend one hour and 7.5 minutes in other words seven and minutes and 30 seconds So an hour and seven minutes and 30 seconds in total for this section Okay, now this is the section which is essentially called transactional writing in other words You are producing a non-fiction piece of text now for this section Firstly, you always have either a question six or seven now bear in mind You're not to answer both of the questions. You only pick one Question and then you answer that question for the remaining time. You never pick both questions. Okay now in terms of what? You should anticipate for either question because this is the non-fiction form of writing It's always going to be either a newspaper Magazine website speech or letter some kind of question related to that and do make sure that you check out the videos I've created and the lessons that I've created relating on how to develop a newspaper article and Magazine article a letter and speech and so on if you're not sure and if you're curious to kind of know how to plan that type of response however, going back to this Question six or seven will give you a choice of either or you pick whichever one you think you're gonna kind of enjoy writing about and you then After you've picked your question six or question seven Remember in terms of timing you've got one hour seven point five minutes in total This is how I would suggest you spend your time in terms of how to manage section B. Firstly spend 15 minutes planning, okay So 15 minutes might seem like a really long time to plan But honestly this time if you invest it well if you invest it in a detailed plan and make sure you write the detailed plan By the way in your exam transcript Okay, so that for example if you run out of time or if there's kind of any issues Your examiner when they're reading over your transcript that can also see that you've created a really detailed plan Don't spend more than 15 minutes though But 15 minutes is a really good chunk of time to spend in Planning this writing the reason why I suggest this amount of time rather than just five minutes or ten minutes is because Firstly two hours and 15 minutes is a long time to be writing So bear in mind that you've you're ready one hour and seven minutes into the paper So you're in sex you finished off section a maybe you're starting to feel a little bit tired You're still feeling alert, but you're starting to get a little bit tired Therefore as you're getting a little bit tired You're more prone to forget some of the ideas now if you jump straight into writing the answer and now you're kind of two hours in 15 On your last 15 minutes what tends to happen? You're really tired You're struggling maybe with the stress of making sure you get everything done in time and what tends to happen is your mind is Wondering it's going in ten different directions Therefore what happens as a result to your writing if what you've written is not very well planned is it's going to go Everywhere now if you invest this time so the 15 minutes into actually planning It means that even as you're getting tired and you you know as the time is going If your mind is wondering or if you're feeling stress or even forget what you're going to write about you go back to your plan Remind yourself, and then you say right that's exactly what I was going to write and also for the reader for the examiner Who finally reads what you've written it also will have a really good structure, okay? So 15 minutes might seem like a really long time But honestly I would suggest for a really good plan and for something of this nature because the council half of the marks Make sure you try and spend 15 minutes planning Then after you spent those 15 minutes planning you spend I would say roughly 47 and a half minutes Writing so obviously writing out in different sections depending on the type of writing you're expected to produce and then finally Make sure you allocate five minutes at the end to just skim reading what you've read You know picking out, you know, maybe spelling errors anything that you've written that maybe you might have missed Of course by the time that you know You're in the last five minutes of a two hour and 15 minutes exam You're probably your brain is a little bit frazzled However, you might find some glaring errors that perhaps you didn't pick up on as you are writing So this five minutes is also really good to just quickly pick up on that However, as I mentioned the majority in the bulk of your time should be spent actually writing But also try and allocate at least 15 minutes to planning now It's really tempting to look at this 15 minutes and say I'm gonna spend those 15 minutes in section a But what you're doing is you're sacrificing the maximum amount of marks you can get for section B Okay, that is not good planning or time management Be really strict with yourself be really strict with yourself in terms of how you allocate time for section a How you allocate time for questions one two three four and five, but then once that time is up move on Okay That is one of the major ways that you can really separate yourself from either getting a level five Level four mark versus the top level eight and level nine mark. It's both content So writing really good stuff, but also having the time That's the second element to write this good content Okay, if you're squandering all of this time on section a and you simply run out of time The examiner won't know the good content you have because you just didn't give yourself enough time to do so Okay, so I would say keep these timings really sacred Okay, it's really really important how you allocate and always have just a cheap Casio rich wristwatch or something don't take things like Apple watches because they're not allowed into examples But just have a wristwatch with you in the example as well There are different clocks around the room be very strict and very vigilant and very disciplined about how you allocate your time Okay, it's just a quickly recap in terms of timing spend 15 minutes planning your question 47 and a half minutes writing and then five minutes at the end reading over your answer And of course that will mean the total time we've spent on section B is one hour and seven and a half minutes That's really it when it comes to what to anticipate for English language a paper and of course do make sure you read and rewatch this video and Make note of these timings and always remember that these timings are very sacred Really take it into account and bear in mind that anytime you overspend time on one question Know that you're sacrificing another question and the marks that you can get from that. Okay, so thanks so much for listening


Have you ever dreamt of a ready-to-use platform to make IoT application prototyping fast and effective even if code development is not your cup of tea? Well, ST makes your dream come true. Sensortile.boxpro is the solution. I am Denise Sancrippo, application development engineer in ST Mem subgroup, and I'm going to introduce you to the second working mode of the Sensortile.boxpro, known as Expert Mode. Expert Mode allows you to create relatively simple applications for IoT Mem sensors and wearables without writing lines of code using a simple graphical interface. You can connect the Sensortile.boxpro via Bluetooth using the ST BLE sensor app, available on both Google Play and App Store on your smartphone and immediately create your own app through a graphical interface. Let's go into detail. First, let's turn on the board and open the ST BLE sensor app on your smartphone. From the main page of the app, click on Create a new app and select Sensortile.boxpro as the board type. A list of sample application categories appears. Click Expert View to create a new application. In the Custom Applications window, there are the previously created and saved applications. Click New application, select the accelerometer sensor as the input source and click Set Input. Now, click on the gear on the right of the Input section to change its parameters. For example, change the output data rate by setting it to 120 Hz. Click Save configuration in the Function section. Click Choose a function and choose FFT Discrete Fourier Transform DFT. By clicking on the gear on the right, you can change the number of frequencies to be produced. Here, it is set to 64 and save it by clicking Save configuration. At this point, click Choose output and select Stream to Bluetooth as the available output method. In this way, the data will be visible directly on a ST BLE sensor app. Click Save app, assign a name to the app, for example, Bluetooth FFT Accelerometer and click Finish. The saved app is available in the list of the custom apps. Now, click either the Upload button or the name of the application and then the Play button to load the application on Sensortile.box Pro. The list of available ports appears. Here, we click Play and then OK to override the previously uploaded application. When the application has finished the uploading, click Auto-Connect to connect to the Sensortile.box Pro board. For example, let's move the board at 5 Hz to stimulate Z-axis on the Accelerometer. The corresponding signal is plotted accordingly on the app. Your first app in Expert Mode is completed and ready to be used well done. Explore all the possible applications of the Expert Mode and visit the Sensortile.box Pro webpage on ST.com for further details.


Okay, well, while those guys putts around figuring out minute references and those sorts of things, let me welcome those of you who are here in person to the first weirdly strange attempt upon the SPI board meeting. I don't think this has ever actually happened before. Our normal process is to meet on a monthly basis via IRC, and we are strangely apparently no more adapted doing this in person. So let me see if I can do the three handed not drop my notebook on the fourth end here. And it's a little typing based game I've always got to do. Part of what I try to do before the meetings get started is to get this sort of transformation of our agenda into the typing based stuff so that we don't have to spend a lot of time waiting to make fun of what's been typing.  I see, I'm blocking that. That was black for black. That was black for black. Okay, so yes, let's all put our names down for the record, I guess. All here, so maybe those of us who are here in person should just say our names. David and Jimmy Capilas. Neil and Kevin. Michael Shulferas. Ian Jackson. Yes, please stop delaying. No, no, no. Just record our nicks. Just tell me about profile. Yes, okay, so I want to thank all of you for coming in person to help us make this as an easy response. Okay, so have we got any written suggestions? We don't have anyone other than Josh on the channel. Joey. That's right. Joey's hand records. Hang on, hang on. Okay. Again, this idea actually just got lost in the last few minutes. BDL Cardi. Okay, so let's proceed. Every once in a while there is something interesting to report, and the attempt that we try to make is to have reports delivered to the forward meeting so that they can be included in our agenda and people can think about what's being said and focus the time that's going to be in our questions and answer the next thing we'll try to tackle today. Thank you. Okay, so pretty first report. We'll see if Josh hasn't been there yet. He did not send one. I love this part of the presentation. As you asked. I think what I suggest is we're going to go through as much as we can. So while we're waiting for Josh to see if there's something he wants to report to us, what I suggest for those of you who are here in person is that we will try to get through our agenda and process and then we will certainly hang around and be happy to continue the informal conversations about SPI and anything that we'd like to talk about afterwards. We had a really productive off yesterday. I guess this could qualify as a president's report. I was very pleased by the interest that folks are expressing. So once we get through the agenda, we'll be happy to shift out of official board meeting. We'll make this more open conversation. Okay. Josh says he wants to talk about electing a new treasurer sooner rather than later. Does he only need that? Beautiful. He's choosing to assume not. No, not on the agenda. Okay, good. Okay. Basically, nothing really... Be careful. Stop doing that. Nothing to report. Can I ask a question, Neil? There was that resolution that we passed that was a bit controversial about timings of various things before meetings and it requested you to make a timetable and, you know, push it to practice. And I don't seem to have seen anything from you along these lines. It did involve asking, for example, an announcement in advance. Asking people for things by particular baits and not notice that. Okay. If you need any help, I'll be quite happy to write anything up for you. Don't touch that. Okay. Last meeting, just before the meeting, we had a report sent to the board from the SPI trade mark committee thanks to MJ over there. Has everyone read it? Okay. It's sent to the board. Brief summary, there's a complaint about winner EDB's use of the Debian Official Use logo. It became clear that the logo license had a word omitted and copied from the resolution passed onto the website. Their use of the logo was arguably valid. Thanks to Joseph Rodding for pointing out the details of collecting the webpage. There was Dries Beiter, who is the registrant of the Drupal trade mark in Benelook. He is application to extend the trade mark to the ESWIS refused because Transparent Technology Inc. have registered the mark. Drupal Association has promised to help protect the trade marks, but there's been no board decision by the board. Last action was by Greg, who requested sign to the documents by fax. Thanks, I do remember that I was confused by the title of this thing. So I guess the question I have is, what's expected of us at this juncture? What I thought I remembered, so I guess I'm trying to understand what we're doing on the agenda. Is this just general information? I think it's just letting us know what's going on, which we should approve of. People sending us stuff for our information that we don't have to do anything about. I think the right answer is I'll thank the committee for delivering the report. It's in the agenda. It's on the webpage, but it wasn't sent out. Maybe I missed it being sent out. On the agenda webpage, at the end, the report is included. Which maybe this wasn't sent to? SPI Board. SPI Board originally, yes. Maybe we can include it in a minute. I was going to say, things in the agenda tend to be in minutes over for two hours. So nothing else we need to deal with here. Okay. I'm going to get another one, buddy. Do I? Oh, I'll start it with it. You know, they truly are seeing it most often. I'm going to report that we've got four sets of minutes to approve this one. The first set is October 4th, 2005. We've passed this set of minutes. Yeah, I'm happy with that. And the second, so... We're not starting. Two thousand minutes. Two thousand, yeah. Those in favour? Okay. I don't think that Josh is in the meeting. I'm sorry to have to do this to him. But you can't participate. You can participate by telephone. Yes, but he's not participating by telephone, so he can't hear what we're saying. Right. On the other hand, the minutes that we're asking him to approve were published in the entirety. In advance of the meeting, so it was kind of the same opportunity to review what we have. It seems that the question that could be posed was whether... Does he object? The question could be posed as to whether there's any comments he would object to. He wasn't on the board at the time of the meeting. That's an interesting point, since he wasn't on the board. At the time of the meeting, he seemed to be expected to abstain from anything. Should we abstain if we were a guest at a meeting? So if you were present at the meeting and had an opinion about whether the minutes are accurate, I think you were entitled to vote. Maybe. Even if you were not on the board at the time. It looks like Josh agrees that he would abstain in any case. I think that gracefully finesses that little issue. Okay. So what's our result in that meeting? Four of your two, right? Four of three. Four of three. Four of three. Four of three. Okay, great. Thank you. What's next? Next set is October the 18th, 2005. I moved you approved seven minutes. What was your favour? The meeting. The meeting. Yeah. Next set, November the 15th, 2005. Move. Thank you. Favour? I have to understand that was amazing. Yeah. Four of three. Right. We're going to ignore the December ones because there's a lack of resolutions in that. So we'll bring that up. I have a question. I raised about the 13th. I assume we'll defer that to our next meeting. Yeah. And might we expect May 18th, 2007 by our next meeting as well? Yeah, can I take it? Yeah. Marvellous. Thank you very much. The May 18th ones are those logs at the log. Yeah. Okay, so we're not going to do that yet. Right. Thank you. That's all from our coming minutes. Okay, so I believe this qualifies as informational tonight. But Neil, do you want to give us a quick summary of what this agenda item is? Okay. Brief summary, a while back, the then DPL, AJ here, requested that we re-license the Debian logos to the Open News logo and the Official News logo will both be re-licensed under MIT license. And additionally, that SPI should enforce the Open News logo as an exclusive trademark. And any enforcement should be limited to ensuring that the trademark remains available to refer to and promote Debian. The Official News logo will be continued to be enforced, with it only being authorized where its products or services is officially related to Debian. So on an official CD image, T-shirt promoting Debian, DD's business card, et cetera, in case of a doubt, leader of Debian.org should be contacted. There was additional feedback from Greg, who's our lawyer, saying that there may be issues with re-licensing the actual textual representation of the word Debian, because that may imply that we don't want to enforce the trademark of Debian. So there's an additional little paragraph saying that the license only applies to the Graphicals World and the Graphicals World and the bottle. It doesn't apply to the actual textual representation. I'm waiting for an OK backpacks of that before I nail that to next to various places and make sure that's re-opened. Hopefully, since Sam's here this week, we can run a little bit to make sure that it's taken care of. I guess he's not the next one. He's also here to be on. Yeah. Let me source the word summary text. OK, a while back, for those who may not be aware, we had a discussion on localSource.org, which happened on the board mailing list. There was some concerns raised, so we posted an inbox to the private mail business that wrote up a summary of the discussion. Just waiting for approval from Bida, Brandon, Ian, and Joey for that before I could publish it. So it's just a reminder again to say, please say OK. Well, we won't be approved just publishing the whole inbox. Approving, so there is a summary, but we decided, apparently, that the summary shouldn't be released until each of the board members whose opinions are represented in the summary are happy with it. And that means that those board members have to go and chuddle check that the summary in the inbox agreed, which involves rereading one of those devious bails in the inbox. Much better if we just published the summary without saying that it was necessarily something that all the board agreed with. But unfortunately, we are where we are. And I guess I get to go read something. OK, so nothing else about that other than a gentle pride. Thanks for... So Neil, this is something that we're talking about. This little pinnacle on Tim, is that you? Yes. OK, so I'm very pleased that you're here. Who wants to summarize the history? I guess I could try it, but... So this is a project that was approved and associated SPI project, which I had some infrastructure difficulties and sort of fell off the face of the earth for a while. And so when we were doing a sort of a refresh and a ping of our associated projects to make sure that we're all still around and doing good pre and open source software stuff, they couldn't be found. And so if I recall correctly, we had a resolution out of all of this unique to this project that for a moment was covering various things, the things that were added. They in fact were disassociated and wanted to write what the wording of the resolution was exactly. Have you found it Neil? If our goal today is to re-associate them, which I have no problem with, then I move that we... By the way, I think the... Before you move... OK, sure, that's fine. As far as the history, I think we... I don't think we did some sort of omnibus resolution regarding lots of projects. I think it was just open battles in Communicado. Oh, someone found it. In case you're on to ILC perhaps. Yep, I've got it. There you go. It's a very short resolution. In fact, I'd be happy to read it if you'd like. This was from November 21st of 2006. And from the name of... So this was a Josh Berkes motion for removal of open vests as it was associated with the project. Whereas the open vests project site www.openvests.org is down and has been for three weeks. Two attempts to reach the project with which it failed and three SPIs not holding any assets for open vests to our knowledge. We received any donations for open vests over a year. The SPI Board resolved that the project was moved as a removal of an associated project. It was just about that simple. So somebody else did not review Josh? Yeah, how about somebody just pointing out to Josh that they reappeared and that's what's going on. So, Tim, do you want to add anything to that? I gather the request is that we consider reassociating on that. Essentially it was a program of communication of which I'd like to apologize. There are several infrastructure programs and you and I have to get on with us. Moreover, we want to get on with you when you come on the occasion with your child to get on with you. I think the programming ain't much good, but yes, we'd like to complete the same thing that's behind it. Can I ask, I mean, not only in terms of telling you what you should have done, but to help us, what method did you try to get in touch with us? There was an email sent back in April that was actually a specific request about the April 5th project to allow time to board, which meant a lot of response to board. April of this year? April 2006, I believe. April 2000. That was our last attempt to communication with you. That was with regards to developer coordinator changing. We asked you to confirm that it's the case. This resolution here is in November 2006. Yes, that was our last need to contact you as far as we were concerned. Did we now have any contact details for somebody at OpenVast that's not a single point of failure? I believe so, yes. The constitution on OpenVast.org has been updated with my non-OpenVast details and also Robert's non-OpenVast details. This is actually a Gmail address, so let's have a Google look at that. In addition, I can provide additional contacts to the board, whilst they won't be in a position to sign up. They will be in a position to respond to tapers. Essentially, we've moved our infrastructure to manage service for one of the member companies within the OpenVast group, I suppose. They actually have support staff there to fix system failures. That kind of thing. They will be in a position to respond if a member starts. I'd like to mention that I dug out the previous resolution about OpenVast and edited it slightly and posted it to SBR General. As 2008.06.18.iwj.1. You wrote the firebacks? Yeah, I wrote 2005 in it. But it will be 2007, obviously. And obviously, that should be amended with Tim Browns and Robert Berkowitz's email addresses as for this web page. Berkowitz. I can read it out, but it's one of these associated project resolutions, so it's a bit... It's got two paragraph threes as well. Great work, yeah. Whereas OpenVast, the other two of the OpenVast developers would like, three OpenVast have resolved the problems and previously caused them to be uncontactable. Three, second instance. OpenVast has formally invited four currently Tim Browns, Sean Baumann and Robert Berkowitz are recognised by SBR as the Authoritarian Decision Makers for OpenVast. Actually, this isn't correct, is it? Because you have a constitution now, do you? That's actually the constitution that's found in the previous... Right. Well, we'll refer to this constitution then. I'll write up a new one in the next few minutes. Could we just move to recent, the 2006 November resolution in a very new way? We could do, but... It sounds like Ian would also like to capture the new contact information in the process, so whether we could, in fact, have a very simple resolution suggesting that, you know, send and update our records from their constitution. What do you think, Ian, about the... Yeah, I'd like to get the full details in the resolution, because that way we're going to have this problem again because we'll be able to look it up on our web page. Well, I've got a list of contact stuff for the associated... I keep a list of contact details for the associated projects. Anyway, but if we want to wait for the resolution, then that's fine as well. Right, so I've now got currently Tim Brown e-mail address, Sean Bowman and Robert Berkowitz e-mail address are recognised. There's a lot of SPI's in there. It makes for an open-vast point. The open-vast constitution is currently found at your app. What it's due is we know it's kind of lost. There you go. That should be arriving on SPI General Sortly or... Right, and for the benefit of people whose e-mail isn't working, there's the your app. I'm bringing this page to you now. Right, so does anybody have any... Do you want a chance to read that and tell me what's wrong with it? It's baited, yeah. A whole resolution, I mean. It's not a problem. It's great. It'd be better to... We could also just... We don't have to have... We can just speak it into the microphone. We can just speak a two-set motion to the microphone and then have it be tried later. Is that... Thank you. Well, it's in now. Should we have a comment on it? Should we just post on it? Excuse me. Are we having these resolutions discussed on SPI Private or General before writing on them? No. Oh, what? This is the wrong... We wanted to... You want version two, you want version one. And it's still the wrong money text. I know. That suggests we need the central desk meeting so that we can give them every shift. Yeah. Okay, let's believe it tonight. So I'll give them every shift. Yeah. Okay, well, I thank both for the email and for being here. And I hope that without too much further delay, we can get this all closed up on having decided once before that this was a suitable project. Let's put this into the project.   Yeah, okay. All right. So when is our next meeting going to be? July 1st and... Yeah. July 1st. Yeah. That's... Yeah. Oh, if you go for the training. Sunday. Yeah, that is like it. We're still in Europe at that time. I would decide before I leave here whether I need to request for regrets or not. Shall we set the... July 4th meeting as well? It's probably going to be at the end of the meeting. Isn't that possible? It's not the third of the election, and it's the last of the election. And that's what the third one is? Well, the third focus is for them the reactions. For them the elections, right? Yeah. Just a minute. With any word. Okay. So, Neil, do you want to rattle out the reiterate of the election schedule since we approach here? We have our annual meeting on 1st July, which also... On that day also the nominations for election to the board open. There's currently six positions available on the board with myself, Josh, and I'm still remaining. Everyone else is up for a re-election if they don't understand. So that runs from the 1st of July to 13th of July. I'll send out more details on exactly how to say I'll understand in the next coming days. From the 15th of July to the 28th of July, voting starts. If you're a contributing member before the 15th of July, then you get to vote. More details will be sent out then. 29th of July is also published. At, I assume, 1900 UTC there's all member elections where the board meet up and the new board meet up. The old board can go along if they really want. And the new board decides who's the officers for the next year. Okay, thank you much. So this is normally the part of the meeting where I close the meeting since we're in this unusual state of being in person with a crowd. Are there any other items of business for the board while we're here? Okay, this silence is deafening. So, thanks to everyone for being present. Officially, the board meeting is now closed and we'll be happy to hang around if anyone has questions they would like to ask, not necessarily on the rotten fruit that's right. No one's saying anything but I don't see. I've got it. Take a couple. Take a couple. Right, okay.


We come to a point where, okay, we talk about all these noble virtues and, you know, I don't know how you could look at the noble virtues and not say that's a better way to be. I mean, that's just me. You might have a different opinion, but, you know, you talk about the masculine virtues, strength, courage, mastery, and honor. That sounds better to me. Why would I not want to be those things? Why would I not want to be, like, happy and noble and beautiful and loved by the gods? But our society is upside down. Nietzsche's solve is coming, but I think that he would be amazed at where we're at right now. You know, the transvaluation of values is complete. If you look around you and what is valued in the world, it is not the things that we've talked about. And that's difficult to deal with. I mean, you talk about the noble values and a lot of them are regarded as toxic. Masculinity itself is regarded as toxic.  I mean, these are the norm. These are what govern us.  Because if you really think of what we're supposed to be mad about in society, whatever she is mad about is actually the barometer of what society is going to talk about today. You know, that's what people on ESPN will sit and argue, like, have you made her feel uncomfortable about her body issues? You know, like, that's the normal discussion. That is the national discussion that is actually happening in America. And it's basically catering everything to really someone who's kind of at the lowest rung of society and who wants to talk about being a victim and all that kind of stuff. And so that's very frustrating. And I think that, you know, and the reality is that these people, as you try to make yourself better and be stronger, these people actually run you. I mean, they are in charge in a lot of ways.  If you try to do something in this world, I guarantee you will need their signature. You know, that you'll need one of their signatures. One of them will have power over you in some way, and that is really frustrating. And, you know, that's why you can fall into the trap of resentment yourself, of thinking that the world is upside down and I need to trans-valuate the values of the current society so that everything will be okay. I can't succeed until society is different.  Like the world is rung and, you know, it won't be good until it's right. So I'm just going to sit here and believe in my own goodness while, you know, these bad people rule us. And obviously that's pretty counterproductive and you don't really want to go down that route. And, you know, so it leads us to the question of how do we live a life of masculine nobility in a world that is upside down?


additionalWeather możech. Fe lwsterosian sydd i gwestiwyr aethlinydd anclant, a ddisgron ag i g напositiliau â tar menbyrach a Moedd� cuz dumplings ac bwrw Anyll Talbot yn viacon Horde yw — Rha편장 recipient ddae.  Argei amdal y marque o bearing sydd i drawr amser i gwestiwyr ar hefford am fathers I have strongly encouraged both the National Museum of Scotland and the Ffase of Galway Council to its agreement on a partnership to securing the long-term future of the Horde and access it to it both for the public in Galway on a long-term basis and for wider audiences in Scotland. I have proposed a summit for all parties involved and look forward to progressing the significant opportunities for this collection of international significance. Colin Smyth. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. She will be aware of the deep disappointment in Dumfries and Galloway at the decision to allocate the Viking Horde to the National Museum of Scotland. Although the cabinet secretary makes reference to the proposals from NMS to lend a portion of the Horde to Dumfries and Galloway Council for display at Curcubriac gallery, she will know that to date that offer is still very vague. It will mean that the full Horde will only ever be displayed in Dumfries and Galloway when NMS don't require it in Edinburgh. There are no details of how long and how far apart those loans might be. It is unclear what NMS means by displaying an undefined quote, significant and representative proportion of the Horde outside those periods. There does not appear to be any real opportunity for the council to derive additional income from the commercial exploitation of the Horde to offset the cost of transporting what will be valuable items to and from Edinburgh. All the cabinet secretary will ensure that the summit that she proposes will ensure that there is a proposal that is not just dictated by NMS but meets the aspirations of Dumfries and Galloway Council and the local community for a permanent world-class exhibition of the Galloway Horde at Curcubriac gallery. I understand the local disappointment in Dumfries and Galloway, but I am determined that we have an opportunity to make sure that the galloway reason does benefit from the display of the Horde. Indeed, the most immediate challenge is to raise the £2 million to secure the Horde for the public and the £300,000 for the conservation. As we speak, I understand that officials from the National Museum of Scotland and the council are working together to put forward a joint proposal of what could make the most opportunity for the display. I think that a significant long-term permanent display of a significant proportion of the Horde is something that I think can be achieved, but we also have to recognise the requirements for the rest of Scotland to have the opportunity to see it as well. I think that there is an opportunity for a way forward. That is why I move very swiftly to establish a summit. I am looking forward to hearing that joint presentation from both the local council and the National Museum of Scotland. The decision taken to award the Galloway Viking Horde to the National Museum of Scotland must not mean that the Horde is lost to Edinburgh. It is vital that we see a large proportion of the Horde return to Galloway. I thank the cabinet secretary for her response to my letter last week in which she set out the details of the summit to discuss a partnership between Dumfries and Galloway council and NMS. I look forward to receiving further details of it. Bringing the Horde back to the area on a long-term, secure basis would bring a great amount of excitement, add to tourism levels and boost the economy and cultural prosperity of the region. What assurances can the cabinet secretary give to my constituents that she will do all that she can do to ensure that the area will enjoy the full range of economic and cultural benefits associated with that significant find? I am committed to supporting the visitor attraction opportunities in the south of Scotland. It is part of our manifesto commitment and our programme for government. In relation to the Horde, I think that there are great opportunities that we can achieve from the Horde. Of course, the preservation and conservation has to take place in order to determine how it can be displayed, but I am committed—he can have my reassurances—to support the Horde. I want to make sure that there is opportunity for the Galloway region. He might want to add congratulations that we have also managed to secure Monarch of the Glen for tour to the Cuckoobury galleries. I hope that that gives you some commitment and understanding of my desire to make sure that the national collections of Scotland are exhibited across the nation of Scotland. 2. Colin Beattie To ask the Scottish Government what recent steps it has taken to promote culture and tourism in Midlothian and Eastlothian. The Scottish Government provides on-going financial support for the National Mining Museum in Midlothian and the National Museum of Flight, part of National Museum Scotland and Eastlothian, both of which are key cultural attractions. As with all areas of Scotland, the fantastic assets of Midlothian and Eastlothian are marketed by VisitScotland using marketing campaigns, social media, trade and press for familiarisation trips through their eye centres, through information partner and local businesses and community groups, VisitScotland visitor guides and dedicated regional microsites feature attractions and activities in Midlothian and Eastlothian, while wider VisitScotland campaigns feature the area as part of themes around food and drink, for example. Two 2017 year of history, heritage and archaeology partner programme events have taken place in Midlothian to date and two have already taken place in Eastlothian with another two scheduled to follow in September. Colin Beattie I thank the cabinet secretary for her response. Would she agree with me that cultural events such as Muscleborough's Riding of the Marches, the Midstock Music Festival in Dalkeith Country Park and the more recent return of the historic Dalkeith station bell to Dalkeith museum all helped to provide substantial financial and cultural benefits to my constituency? I do indeed. If you look at the recent stats on why people visit the Lothians, scenery and landscape account for 60 per cent, but the history and culture account for another 53 per cent. There are two aspects here. One, we want to make sure that our country is open and welcoming to our visitors, so anything in Brexit that would consider visas for visitors would be detrimental. However, more immediately, the issue around those EU nationals that help to support our tourism and culture industries and 10 per cent of the tourism industry is supported in employment by EU nationals. That is an imperative for the negotiations as they are due to start on 19 June to establish the importance and recognition of the status of the EU nationals that are living and contributing to our economy, including tourism and to the member's constituency. Michelle Ballantyn Sustainable tourism has been given a huge boost in East Lothian with the announcement of a proposed £5.5 million national marine centre in North Berwick. That development should be commended. Can I ask what plans the Scottish Government has to support this project? I had the pleasure of visiting the Seabird Centre in North Berwick only a few weeks ago. I was shown the extensive and ambitious plans. In particular, the opportunity for education was very strongly evident in the plans. There are no formal approaches as yet in terms of taking the project forward. They have very ambitious fundraising activity, but they want to make sure that they are equipped and have that established before they might contact ourselves on that matter. However, I think that the quality of that provision is a fantastic tourism project. I think that it showed vision at the outset to be established. As a very good example of the rest of Scotland, what vision and ambition can do in terms of visitor attraction? Stuart McMillan To ask the Scottish Government how National Gallery Scotland helps to promote culture and tourism in Inverclyde. I'm advised by the National Galleries of Scotland at present that they have no active partnerships in Inverclyde. However, the National Galleries are always willing to consider proposals and suggestions from any region across Scotland. National Galleries of Scotland presently has partnerships with Dunin, Clydebank and Paisley in the neighbouring areas, but not currently in Inverclyde. Stuart McMillan On 25 May, the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Relations Committee held an evidence session with senior representatives from the various national gallery bodies from Scotland. There was that acceptance that the partnership working taking some of the national works to local communities can have the positive effect both culturally and for the tourism offering. Does the cabinet secretary welcome the partnership approach that is taking place in Inverclyde? Does she consider culture and tourism to be of great benefit to the local economy in Inverclyde? I think that culture and tourism is important to all parts of Scotland and I'm keen to see how it can be explored further in Inverclyde. I know for example already that the National Museums of Scotland has a relationship with Inverclyde, particularly the McLean gallery museum, and I understand when it becomes open again after refurbishment that they want to continue that partnership. I heard only this morning when I was in Inverness about the partnership that they have with the national galleries of Scotland, and as I've just said in a previous answer, the Scottish Government has supported the touring of Monarch of the Glen, which is going to four different parts of Scotland, not to Inverclyde as yet. Paisley is the nearest location for that, but I think that opportunities to embrace partnerships from our national collections with different parts of the country should be welcomed. I will draw the attention of the National Gallery of Scotland to your interests, particularly Stuart McMillan to Inverclyde and your constituency. Jamie Greene I echo the comments by Stuart McMillan that if there are opportunities to bring art to Inverclyde, it would be very welcome. Additionally, I note that the National Gallery of Scotland is digitising its 94,000-piece collection. What is the Scottish Government doing to encourage other galleries and museums to reach the widest possible audience through the use of technology and online? Jamie Greene Only this morning, when I was in Inverness at the Expo North Festival, I chaired a session that was precisely about how different museums and galleries across Scotland can engage with digitisation and other technologies. One of the strong messages of that is not just the case of delivering predetermined digitisation of collections, but the involvement of participation of local communities in the type of technology and the type of digitised materials is really important in the curation of any exhibitions locally. The local engagement is as important as the facility of it, but we are very lucky and very blessed with the collections that we have. Indeed, the National Gallery of Scotland has got an organisation digitisation programme, and that brings a whole new area of opportunity for participation in the national cultural life of Scotland. Elaine Smith To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to strengthen relations between Scotland and Cuba. Minister Alasdair Allan We do not have any plans at present to develop further links with Cuba. However, we are always willing to consider opportunities as they arise where they support the Government's priorities. Elaine Smith I thank the minister for that response. In that case, is the minister aware that in Cuba life expectancy for men is 79 years and Glasgow is 73. Cuba has one GP for every 884 people. In Scotland it is one for 1,083. Cuba provides free school meals for all children. In Scotland it is only P1 to P3. Cuba is recognised as having world-leading education, while Scotland has just recorded its worst-ever performance in the international peace and ranking. Given Scotland's increasing crisis in health and falling standards in schools and Cuba's world-renowned excellence in education and health, will the minister consider what lessons could be learned from Cuba? Minister Alasdair Allan Without accepting too many of the many premises behind that question, I can say that the UK level, since the UK, has diplomatic relations with the world. The UK has indeed taken some steps forward in its relationship with Cuba in recent years. There has been a formal declaration between the UK and Cuba signed on 5 July 2011, which has strengthened many of the relationships that we have. Indeed, our relationship with Cuba and other countries means that we can have full and frank discussions about all those and many other issues. However, at the moment, such formal relations do not exist. Richard Lyle To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it is having with UK Government agencies regarding bringing major events to Scotland. The Scottish Government works closely with UK Government agencies, such as UK Sport and the devolved Administrations, to help to deliver the ambitions that are set out in the national event strategies Scotland the perfect stage. The project includes projects such as the forthcoming total world badminton championships being held at the Emirates arena in Glasgow in August this year, the European Gymnastic Championships taking place as part of the Glasgow 2018 European Championships in August 2018 and the European Short Course Swimming at Toulcross pool in 2019. Richard Lyle I thank the cabinet secretary for her answer. The cabinet secretary has made reference to a number of successful events that Scotland has hosted. We know that Scotland has a record in successfully delivering major domestic or international events. I therefore wish to ask the cabinet secretary what role she considers UK Government to have in its responsibilities to help to promote Scotland on the international stage and what actions the Scottish Government undertakes regularly to promote Scotland as an attractive place to host major events. Richard Lyle Scotland's reputation, most as a welcoming nation but also in delivering and competently delivering major events, is gathering international reputation. As we go forward we want to exploit that and use our experience. We are continuously trying to attract major events. Some of them might be major associations or business conferences or conventions. Some of them might be sports. We need to continue working with the UK in terms of their international reach and their networks. Our reputation as a welcoming nation and our reputation as being a country of first choice to do business with is very important. As we go forward and particularly through Brexit's positioning, it is vitally important that the UK and its networks make sure that they do not undermine that in any way. Scotland is progressing and advancing on our event strategy. We are ambitious and we are working with partners to do that and we want that to continue. Richard Leonard To ask the Scottish Government what issues were discussed during its recent meeting with the ambassador of Israel to the United Kingdom. Our discussions included Scotland's relationship with Israel, the Israel-Palestine conflict and issues relating to the Jewish community in Scotland. I expressed the Scottish Government's concerns about the continued construction of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land and the restrictions on Gaza. I also raised a number of issues that have been brought to my attention through ministerial constituency correspondence such as the rights of Christians, the restrictions on the gathering of the olive harvest in Palestine and other limitations in freedom of movement and other rights. The Scottish Government will continue to encourage Israel and Palestine to work together to achieve a negotiated two-state solution to the conflict that respects the rights of all communities. Richard Leonard I thank the cabinet secretary for her response. In view of the Scottish Government's open government partnership Scottish national action plan in which the First Minister claims that she wants an outward-looking government that is more open and accessible to Scotland's people than ever before, will the cabinet secretary now publish the agenda and minutes of her meeting with the ambassador of Israel on 18 May this year? For the same reasons of openness and transparency, will she publish any preceding or subsequent related correspondence? I think that I was fairly open and transparent in my answer as to what exactly was discussed in relation to our discussions with ministers and ambassadors from other countries. We have to respect the diplomatic space that they have to share their views with us and us with them. We will respect our treatment of that, but I have been quite clear in my openness, because I know that the interests in that issue. I have been quite clear in terms of the agenda and the content of that discussion, which I have just relayed to you in my initial questions. To ask the Scottish Government how it supports the Scottish event campus to increase business tourism in Glasgow. It recognises that business events are an excellent means to showcase Scotland as a place to invest, study, live, work and visit, as well as delivering direct economic impact through delegate expenditure to business events. It also gives us an excellent platform to work with organisers to demonstrate Scotland's strength and innovation in our key sectors, especially linkages to further and higher education. Visit Scotland business events continue to encourage at the highest level strategic partnership working with clients that keep Scotland and also gateway destinations, such as Glasgow and Scotland's largest venue, the SEC at the heart of the global business events industry. Scottish Enterprise has been working with Scottish event campus since May 2015 around any future support for this development. There are a number of events that are held that are supported by the Scottish Government, including the Visit Scotland Expo held in the SEC in 2013, 2014 and 2017. There is a whole variety of other events that I will not go into at this stage. Adam Tomkins Thank you and I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. Some £411 million is spent in the Glasgow economy every year as a result of the conferences, concerts, exhibitions and events held at the SEC. In 2014, the opening of the hydro boosted the SEC's concert business, and similar investment is now required at the west end of the SEC site to make a comparable contribution to boosting the SEC's exhibition business. What assistance can the Scottish Government offer to make this investment a reality, an investment that would pay for itself in terms of the additional GVA in Glasgow's economy that it would trigger? I understand that that expansion, which is integral to the development of the tourist opportunities in Glasgow, was not part of the original Glasgow city deal. He may want to make representations also to the UK Government as part of that. In terms of my discussions, I have met the SEC to hear about their plans. Only last week I met Bridget McConnell, who is the chair of Glasgow Life and now has the tourism responsibilities for Glasgow. I have a keen interest in that. In terms of our budgets and opportunities, he will be aware of the restrictions and limitations that are there. I think that we have to think big and ambitious about what is next for Scotland. We had a question about events. We have had the Commonwealth Games seeking future events and different conventions to come to the city. It may mean that we may need to look a bit more wider to engage on a long-term basis. I am very interested in the project, but I cannot give you any detail at this stage, but I am actively interested in it. That concludes our questions on culture, tourism and external affairs. We turn now to questions for justice and the law officers. Question 1 is from Linda Fabiani. To ask the Scottish Government what recourse there is for people who are dissatisfied with the police investigations and review commissioner's response to a complaint. Any complaint about the service provided or about a member of the police investigations and review commissioner's staff should initially be directed to them as they have their own complaint handling process. If a complainer remains dissatisfied, they can contact the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, who is responsible for considering complaints about organisations providing public services in Scotland. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer and say that I have concerns that have come from a couple of constituency cases that perhaps the PIRC service is not working as well as it should in terms of the relationship between the complainant, the police service about whom the complaint was and the way that it is dealt with and indeed followed up by PIRC. If I put some of those concerns in writing, he will give them some consideration and perhaps raise them at his next meeting with the appropriate commissioner. If the member wishes to write to me with some of the details on those matters, I can ensure that the commissioner gives her consideration. Last week, I visited the PIRC and met a range of the staff who are responsible for conducting those investigations, whether they be into complaints that have already been investigated by the police and are being reviewed by the PIRC, or cases that have been referred directly to the PIRC by the Crown Office. I know that the staff there give a tremendous amount of thought on how they can make sure that those cases are managed as effectively as possible, including engaging with those who are the complainers in how they are taking those matters forward. I know that the commissioner is also keen to make sure that the service that individuals receive from the PIRC is of the highest standard. I am conscious that the member has raised a number of issues relating to that in the past couple of years, relating to constituents. One of them was in relation to the way in which data protection matters were being taken forward, an issue that was picked up on by the head manage inspector of constabulary in Scotland when looking at the current and assurance review of the counter-corruption unit. As a result of that, Police Scotland has now worked with the criminal allegations against the police service division of the Crown Office to introduce a new process for considering data protection cases that involve police officers, which expedites that process and makes it much quicker. If the member wants to set more of those issues out in writing to me, I will ensure that she receives a full response from the commissioner. Oliver Mundell. I have too had a number of constituents raise concerns about some aspects of PIRC's work. In that context, I wonder if I could ask the cabinet secretary what consideration he has given to expanding the remit of PIRC to allow them to investigate complaints made by serving police officers about other police officers. There is a process within the police service for handling complaints being made by serving police officers against an existing serving police officer. One of the areas of work that was taken forward as a result of the assurance review by HMICS is in relation to the counter-corruption unit, which Police Scotland is now changing, which is taking for a range of different measures in order to improve the way in which it operates. In that instance, that may be the appropriate route for it to be considered. However, at present, there are no plans to extend the role of PIRC into investigating complaints between police officers while they are still in service. However, if the member has some specific issues that he wishes to raise with me, I would be more than happy to ensure that those issues are appropriately considered by Police Scotland or the PIRC. Elaine Smith. Given that I have also been assisting a constituent with an ongoing similar situation for many years and have approached chief constables, PIC, SPAACOPFS, PDS, CAAAPD, the Justice Committee law officers and various cabinet secretaries over the years, will the cabinet secretary agree to listen now to the genuine concerns of officers who have got nowhere else to turn and will he look specifically at my constituent's case? I cannot comment directly on individual cases and whether it is a matter that relates to operational issues, that is a matter for the chief constable and the processes that are set out within the policing process for dealing with those issues. Ministers do not have a direct role in investigating those types of issues. I am mindful of the fact that the member has raised it with a range of different parties through the Scottish Parliament and outwith the Scottish Parliament. However, if the member wants to write to me setting out those issues, I would be more than happy to refer it onto the appropriate body for considering those issues, but ministers do not have a responsibility in investigating those individual cases directly themselves. David Torrance. To ask the Scottish Government how much Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service have paid in back, but they have not been able to claim back. The amount of unrecovered vat incurred by the Scottish Police Authority and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service between April 2013 and March 2017 is of the order of £140 million. We will continue to press UK ministers over this disparity, which could see a cost to the Scottish public purse of £280 million by the end of the current parliamentary session 2020-21. David Torrance. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. Does the cabinet secretary agree with me that, as the UK Government has changed rules to enable academy schools in Highway England to reclaim that, it is reprehensible that they refuse to make the same change for vital emergency services in Scotland, which would bring them into line with emergency services in other parts of the UK? Cabinet secretary. I wholeheartedly agree with David Torrance and his comments on this matter. The UK Government could very easily change the rules to enable Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to recover vat. The UK Government has shown that, where there is a political will, the VAT Act can be amended to permit new bodies to recover vat. The member made reference to them. Since Police Scotland has been created and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has been created, a range of bodies have been included in the VAT Act, which allows them to recover vat, including health education England, the health research authority, the strategic highway companies, Highway England, the London Legacy Development Corporation and academy schools. If it is good enough for all of those organisations, in my view, it is good enough for Scotland's emergency services. Peter Chapman. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the increase in reported sexual offences in 2016-17. Cabinet secretary. The Scottish Government will publish the validated figures for recorded crime in September. The increase in sexual crimes implied by Police Scotland's recent report represents a continuation of a long-term trend, similar to that seen across the rest of the UK. The full reasons for the growth in recorded sexual crime are complex, but increasing historical and online cases are part of the picture. The Scottish Government analysts working with Police Scotland are undertaking a study of crime recording to gain a better understanding of sexual offending in Scotland. The results will inform how the justice system and wider public services respond to those incidents, and we will publish them in September. However, for today, we want those who are victims of sexual crimes and sexual offences to be able to come forward and report in confidence and in the knowledge that a responsive justice system will help to ensure access to justice for the victim. In addition to the specially trained officers who work within Police Scotland's national rape task force and highly trained prosecutors in the national sexual crimes unit, we understand that victims need specialist support, and that is why we have invested record levels of funding in third sector organisations. Peter Chapman. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. Police Scotland has reported that there has been an increase in the number of 16 to 24-year-olds rape victims who had met the suspect online. It has also pointed to an exponential rise in cyber-enabled sexual crime in the last decade. What is the Scottish Government doing to promote safety online, particularly among children and young people? The member raises a very important issue, because, as I mentioned, the analytical work that has been carried out just now has already indicated that some of that increase that we have saw in sexual offences has been driven by cyber-related crime and online-related crime. That is exactly why Police Scotland is taking forward the 2026 strategy to look at how it can get the balance of expertise within the organisation, much more reflective of that new and emerging type of crime. For example, where it is relating to cyber-related crime is that it has the expertise within the organisation to support the police in being able to deal with that much more effectively. However, the member should also be aware that there has been a gradual increase in sexual crime over the last decade. That is not peculiar to Scotland. That is reflected across the UK and, to some degree, across Western Europe. The analysis that we are carrying out just now is to make sure that we have a much sharper focus on where the increases are taking place and to make sure that we are taking appropriate measures in order to try to prevent those crimes from occurring. As it stands at the present moment, Police Scotland has a programme that is running partnerships with its education authorities to help to make sure that young people have an understanding and awareness of the risks associated with online activity. That work will continue. Once we have had this analysis, we will look at what further work can be done in order to help to make sure that we prevent those crimes from occurring in the first place. Claire Baker I recognise that the cabinet secretary has outlined that validated figures will be published in September. The figures that were published last week showed that domestic abuse had increased from 57,702 cases to more than 58,500. However, the detection rate fell from around 81.2 per cent to 74.1 per cent. Can the cabinet secretary outline what he thinks the factors behind those figures are? The relation to domestic abuse, one of the reasons that we believe that we are seeing an increase is an increase in confidence in reporting those matters, but also the way in which they are now being investigated by Police Scotland. For example, the way in which they are now investigating them is that when an individual makes a complaint, they are also looking for previous partners relating to that particular individual that the allegations were made against, which results in, in some cases, where an initial complaint comes from one individual, in some cases it can involve two or three individuals that then make complaints against a perpetrator. That has resulted in an increasing demand being made on our Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in dealing with those cases, which is why we have put additional investment into the court service this year to help to support them in dealing with cases relating to domestic violence. That growing confidence and the change in nature of the way in which they are now being investigated has resulted in an increasing number of cases being reported and recorded. We need to make sure that we are supporting organisations that work with women who experience domestic violence, which is why we are providing record levels of funding to those organisations and at the same time making sure that a lot is fit for purpose. That is why we also have a domestic abuse bill before the Parliament in order to look at how we can much more effectively deal with all forms of domestic abuse, not just the physical abuse but also the psychological abuse that can often be associated with it. Question 4, Jackie Baillie. To ask the Scottish Government whether it has confidence in the chairperson of the Scottish Police Authority. Cabinet Secretary. As a member is aware from the answer that I gave to Parliament on 30 May, we will give information to the issues that are set out in the recent reports received from the Justice Sub-Committee on Placing and the Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee in coming to a determination. Jackie Baillie. I thank the cabinet secretary for that response and I recognise that it was the cabinet secretary that appointed Mr Flanagan to his current position, so I appreciate his frustration that Mr Flanagan has not been successful in his role as chair of the SPA. Although I urge him to take action to restore trust in the Scottish Police Authority, can I ask the cabinet secretary what lessons have been learnt about the role and responsibilities of board members and whether that has led to any change in approach by the Scottish Government? Cabinet Secretary. The member will also recognise that, in evidence to the Public Audit Committee, HMICS also set out the improvements that have been made in the SPA over the course of the past two years, in a way in which it scrutinises issues such as C3, in a way in which it has also looked at issues around stop and search, in a way in which it has now engaged with Police Scotland in a much more constructive fashion. It is wrong to characterise the fact that there have not been changes in improvements over the course of the past two years. I am notwithstanding that, Andrew Flanagan set out the areas in which he has also accepted that he has not met the levels that have been expected of him. I can assure the member that we will give careful consideration to the findings, both from the Public Audit Committee and from the Sub-Committee on Policing, and we will set out in due course what measures we will put in place to address those matters. George Adam. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can the cabinet secretary tell me when we can expect the HMICS's report to report on the Scottish Police Authority's governance review? Cabinet Secretary. Her Majesty's Inspector of Constability for Scotland was asked to bring forward its review aspect of the SPA to look specifically at governance as a result of some of the concerns that were raised by the Public Audit Committee, something that the acting convener in her letter to me welcomed and, I believe, was an appropriate measure to be taken given the concerns that had been raised by the committee. I welcomed an endorsement in taking that action forward. HMICS has agreed that it intends to publish a report, hopefully, by 22 June. Question 5, Annie Wells. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its work to prevent violent crime. Minister, Annabelle Ewing. The member will be aware that crime is at a 42-year low, while the number of homicides and crimes of handling and offensive weapon are at their lowest since records began. However, we recognise that there is still more to do. Violence is a complex issue and, as such, we need to tackle the causes, not just the symptoms. That is why our strategy is focused on tough enforcement, coupled with education and diversion activity. We continue to put significant investment into the national violence reduction unit, which aims to reduce violent crime and behaviour by working with partner agencies to achieve long-term societal and attitudinal change, as well as by focusing on enforcement. Annie Wells. Thank you for that answer. We know that knife crime is a significant problem in some communities in Glasgow. What update can the Scottish Government give on action that it is taking to educate young people about the dangers of carrying a knife? Minister. Yes, thank you. I can say to the member that we also continue to invest in a range of other initiatives, such as the excellent known knives, better knives initiative. That has now been made available to all local authority areas in Scotland and it does indeed educate young people about the dangers and the consequences associated with carrying a knife and encourages positive life choices away from violence. I would also add that, in addition to the many other initiatives, one particularly pertinent one that I should mention further to the member's question is the Medic Against Violence secondary school programme. That involves some 250 volunteer medics from Glasgow having pledged their time to help to educate young people by going into schools and explaining the consequences of violence, particularly of knife crime violence. That has been a very successful programme and I would commend all of the medics who have given up their time to do that. Mary Fee. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The minister will be aware that serious assault crimes recorded between 2014-15 and 2016-17 increased by almost a third. Figures from the SPA show that murders have increased by 30 per cent. What specific action is the Government taking to tackle these rises in the most violent of crimes? Will the Scottish Government invest in more community policing? Can the minister give us any further information on the diversionary initiative that she responded to Annie Wells' initial question? Minister. Yes, I would say that the overall trend in terms of, for example, homicide is indeed going down and we also see in terms of non-sexual crimes of violence that there has been a reduction of some 51 per cent since 2006-2007. I hope that the member takes some heart from that. In addition to the initiatives that I have already mentioned in response to the question from Annie Wells, there is also, for example, the Mentors in Violence Prevention programme. That encourages young people to understand various forms of violence and to be leaders in supporting each other in that any form of violence or abuse towards another is unaccepted and will not be tolerated. That programme involves a total of 108 schools across 18 local authorities, which are currently engaging in the MVP programme. Work indeed is now being undertaken with Education Scotland to accelerate the expansion to reach an additional 30,000 young people in an additional 93 secondary schools across Scotland by March 2018. That initiative, together with the work of community-based officers to which the member referred, and the navigator programme, which is a feature of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary Accident Emergency Department and has been extended now to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary Department to the Ask Support Care campaign, which involves the Violence Reduction Unit, along with Medics Against Violence, to train professionals who interact with women in many aspects of their lives to spot signs, particularly of domestic abuse. Those are a whole range of initiatives that we are currently engaging in, and I hope that the member would feel that we are doing everything that we can to tackle violent crime. That brings us to an end of portfolio questions. The next item of business is consideration of business motion 5998 in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick on behalf of the Bureau setting out a business programme. I would ask any member to indicate now if he wishes to speak against the motion. I call on Joe Fitzpatrick to move the motion. Thank you very much. No one wishes to speak against it. The question, therefore, is that we agree motion 5998. Are we agreed? Yes. We are. The next item is consideration of business motion 5999, also in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick on behalf of the Bureau, setting out a timetable at stage 2 of the child poverty bill. I would ask any member to indicate now if he wishes to speak against the motion. I call on Joe Fitzpatrick to move the motion. Moved. Thank you very much. No one wishes to speak against it. The question is, therefore, is that we agree motion 5998. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are agreed. The next item of business is consideration of two parliamentary mushroom motions, I would ask Joe Fitzpatrick to move motions 6000 and 6101 on the approval of SSI. Moved. Thank you. We now come to decision time. The first question is that motion 6000 in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick on approval of an SSI be agreed? Are we all agreed? ond o'r Prif Weinidog yn hysbygol o'r SSI fe agriad a'r rhael agriad. Ond yna agriad o'r SIS, ac mae'r gwnnig ower o'r ddysguennau, a mynd i ddigono'r peth.