Internal Revenue Service RIS Tax News filing season 2023 has begun. Employer January 31st statement deadline almost here. Oh no! The IRS has once again unleashed another zombified line, known as a deadline to terrorize the American taxpayer. Kind of like Eric Swalwell releasing gas to terrorize Congress for kicking him off the Intelligence Committee. To ask the Ukrainians to help him cheat an election. And the complaint that I've heard from Republicans. Simply because he was humping a Chinese spy.  And uh, and you're claiming this is absolutely not. Total exoneration. Total exoneration. He's like, hey, hey, wait a second here. You don't understand. I was playing 3D chess on behalf of the American people with that Chinese spy acting as like a double-agent man. Honestly, I had that Chinese spy rocked around my little, well, it doesn't. We are, uh, we're going to slow it down one more time. Because I feel like if we see anything in your face, this would be how we know. The point is, this is outrageous. This is outrageous. If you're telling fate, let's take one more look. Ask the Ukrainians to help him cheat an election. You're going to regret all the extra time I now have on my hands after being kicked off the Intelligence Committee. I think he'll regret giving all three of us more time on our hands. But at the end of the day, our mission now is to restore the credibility and integrity of this institution. Speaking of which, do you happen to know where the nuclear codes are kept? Because, like, I got a date with this nice Russian hottie and she just seems to have an interest in this kind of thing. What? I can't use the nuclear codes because Hunter Biden is using them over at his dad's house to impress some Ukrainian prostitutes by sniffing Parmesan cheese off of them to blow their minds? Wow. Does that really work? Anyways, whatever. Honestly, isn't it funny how one day you're, like, in demand? But you just don't have the time due to being, like, on the Intelligence Committee. And then once you have the time freed up because you've been, like, removed from the Intelligence Committee, it's like, it's like you're totally not in demand anymore. It's just part of life's inexplicable kawinky dinks, I guess. Let's get to the news here. IR 2023-15, January 26, 2023, Washington. The Internal Revenue Service today urged employers to be aware of the January deadline to file forms W-2 and other wage statements. Filing these documents timely prevents late filing penalties for employers, helps employees file their income tax returns and prevents tax fraud.  So employers must file copies of their 2022 Form W-2 wage and tax statement. There's a link to that here in Form W-3, Transmittal of Wage and Tax Statements, kind of like the summary of all the W-2s, with the Social Security Administration by January 31, 2023. This deadline applies for all forms W-2 and W-3, whether filing by paper forms or electronically. Employers must also provide copies of B, C and 2 of Form W-2 to their employees by January 31, 2023. For more information on filing Form W-2, see general instructions for Form W-2 and W-3.  We have an income tax kind of system, of course. So the IRS has an interest in double checking that people are reporting their income. When you have an income tax system, the leverage from the government is actually on the payer of a transaction. So you've got the recipient and the payer of the transactions. The person that's receiving the money is getting income. The one that's paying might have a deduction, an expense, which could be deductible. The deduction is good for taxes, and therefore the IRS has the leverage on the person that may get the deduction. In this case, of course, the employer. And so they force the employer to give the W-2 not only to the employee, which isn't really their concern, even though obviously they're going to frame it as if it is up here. We're trying to help out the employees to make sure that they have the information. No, they want the information so that they could double check and look over everyone's shoulder kind of thing. So the point is, then they have to give the W-2 and the W-3 summary to the government as well as the employee. And then, of course, the employee, if they don't report their income exactly as it's on the W-2, then it doesn't even take like a person to figure out. You don't need a random audit to figure it out. They can put it through the machine and say, hey, look, this thing doesn't tie out to what our side of the W-2 says, and you'll almost surely get some type of notification. So clearly before filing your taxes, you want to have the documentation such as W-2s and 1099s because the government has those things. And if you report something different than what's on their side, then there's going to be an issue with it. This is also kind of why the government tends to, whenever you read some of these IRS articles, lean towards wanting the people in an employer-employee relationship. The kind of argument that they will make is that that's the best relationship for the employees. That's always the argument they're going to make. I'm not saying it's always a bad relationship, but it's not always the best relationship. The thing they want is to be able to force the employer to do things like report the W-2s and make the withholdings on the employee's behalf. That's obviously easier from the IRS's perspective than to have a bunch of individual contractors who they don't have as much leverage over because they're smaller type of businesses and so on. That's why they don't like gig works oftentimes. That's why they're not always liking cash-based businesses, salons, restaurants, and that kind of stuff. So in any case, use same employer identification number on all forms. Employers need to make sure the employer identification number, otherwise known as the EIN, on their wage and tax statements, that's the form W-2, W-3, et cetera, and their payroll tax returns, that's the form 941-943-944, et cetera, match the EIN and the IRS assigned to the business. So if you have employer information, then you need an EIN. That's your employer number that they need to tie in and everything's got to match out. You're a number to the government. If you have a business, then you want a business number because you don't want to be given out your social security number. And if you have employees, you have to have the EIN number to file properly with the IRS. So do not use a social security number, an SSN or individual taxpayer identification number, I-10, on forms that ask for an EIN. So the 941-943 and so on, 940, you can't really generally use your social security number there. You have to file for an EIN number generally, which is fairly easy process to do. Do not truncate the employer's EIN or the employee's social security number, SSN, on any of the forms. So you want to have the whole number on there because the IRS needs to know who they are so they can go after them. So if an employer used an EIN, including a prior owner's EIN on their payroll tax returns, that's different from the EIN reported on their W-3, they would review general instructions for forms W-2 and W-3, specific instructions for form W-3, box H, other EIN used this year. Filing wage and tax statements and payroll tax returns with inconsistent EINs or using another business's EIN may result in penalties and delays in processing and employer's returns. Even if an employer uses a third party payer, such as a certified professional employer organization, professional employer organization, or other third party, or a different entity within their business to file these documents, the name and EIN on all statements and forms filed must be consistent and exactly match the EIN the IRS assigned to their business. For more information on third party arrangements, you can see Publication 15. It's in Circular E, Employer's Tax Guide. Extensions. Employers may request a 30-day extension to file form W-2 with the Social Security Administration by submitting a Form 8809 application for extension of time to file information returns. You can do that by January 31st. However, they must meet one of the criteria on line 7 of Form 8809 to be granted an extension. For detailed information, you can see Form 8809 and general instructions for forms W-2 and W-3. There's a link to that here. Filing form 8809 does not extend the due date for furnishing wage statements to employees. Filing a separate extension of time to furnish forms W-2 to employees must occur by January 31st. Detailed information and instructions on how to file an extension of time to furnish forms W-2 to employees in the general instructions for Form W-2 and W-3. Electronic filing. The IRS and Social Security Administration, the SSA encourages all employers to e-file. It is the quickest, most accurate and convenient way to file these forms. Once again, they're pushing the e-file so all those thousands of new employees they got with all that money from the Inflation Reduction Act, which was an act that spent a whole lot of money, it seems like. They can just kick it and watch the money roll in and the forms get processed automatically in the machine system. E-filing is mandatory if an employer is filing 250 or more information returns. For more information about e-filing form W-2, you can visit SSA's business service online and employer W-2 filing instructions and information. There's links to that stuff here. There's links to this in the description.


Hi everyone, Joe for Jasby's casebreaks.com coming at you with a little team random that'll sell out gold standard pick your team 3 That's a half case from a fresh case coming up in the next video It's just a 10 spotter where there are 10 teams remaining. So we pulled those out Selling those spots now if you bought one of the first seven spots in this team random You're eligible to get an extra spot. So let's do that first So there's 10 total right here. There's the first seven right over there And that's the first I second eyes will be assigning you 18. All right, so for the extra spot Seven times six and a one top name after seven one two three four Five six and a one seventh and final time name on top is Is Mack there you go after seven You got an extra spot right there. So congrats to you now. Let's gather all your names Second dice roll with the full list. That's gonna be Two and a two for the hard way and we'll just match you up with the team in that order right there Good luck one two three and Four after four times. We got Anthony's name on top. So here's what you get matched up with Anthony With the Steelers Mac with the Titans Tim with the Falcons Alex with the Cowboys Patrick with the Panthers Alex with the Broncos Mac with the Cardinals and Giants Patrick with the Bears and Chris with the Browns As usual put that little rooftop symbol next to your name. So you know you won that in the filler We'll see in the next video for the break jazby's case breaks.com. Bye


Penboy Tapis NHS Penboy Tapis NHS Penboy Tapis NHS Penboy Tapis NHS Penboy Tapis, happy birthday to the NHS. I know first time the great work that you do. My mum was an auxiliary nurse in the NHS for 30 years. Carry on the good work and wish you a happy birthday.


Well, my dad, he rode one in Oklahoma with Dwayne Stamper, who was a horse trainer and became a family friend. But he did that and he came home and he said, I've had more fun than I've ever had in my entire life. I got on a cutting horse and I fell off twice. And again, I didn't even know what a cutting horse was. I thought it was some kind of rodeo thing. And he bought some and he located them with a trainer in Utah named Lawson Hadlock. And he brought the whole family up to Lawson's place and had us work this horse on a flag. I didn't even know what that meant at the time. And the horse's name was Docs Tom Tari, old gilding that won over 100,000. He'd been with the family ever since that moment until he passed. But got on a cutting horse and then I understood why he had so much fun. I mean, I've never tried crack, but it was an instant addiction. It is so fun, it's like riding a tiger. I don't know how else to put it. And I've had a lot of fun experiences through this recession and tightening of the industry and economy. There has been a top-loaded breeding to a select few stallions and hey, I'm a laissez-faire capitalist. So whatever the market wants to do, I don't want to have regulation. But that being said, shrinking of a gene pool to narrowing of the economics within an industry is negative. I mean, I can't say it any other way than that. I hope that people can be educated in the decisions they make rather than just following trends. And that takes time and effort and people really studying and being up to speed on things. I'm being very general when I'm saying those things because it's your money, it's your horse. You should be able to do whatever you want. But I just hope people know that there's real consequences to decisions. As a whole, I will tell you that my experience cutting horse breeders are exactly what you just laid out. They're making decisions because they want that freak and versus the thoroughbred industry that they make their decisions based on data and statistics and facts. They would rather have a hundred thousand dollar stakes placed that they have a certain degree of certainty that that's what they're going to get versus I'm only going to breed to have a Kentucky Derby winner. So cutting horse people, for the most part, they're breeding because they want the NCHA maturity winner and that's what they want. And they're going to go through a lot of cash until they get that. So that's fascinating. Why do you think it's so different in that way, in the way people approach breeding in the two industries? Well, again, my opinion, for a lot of people in the racehorse business, I don't know how to say this other than the way they say it, they're commodities. They're one step removed. They're one step removed. They're making their decisions based upon trying to have a gain versus a passion. And there's lots of racehorse people that are passionate, lots of billionaires that spend lots of money that they're not going to get any return. But for the bulk of the industry, it's people that I'm trying to make this work financially. For the most part, for cutting horse people, this is my hobby and I love it.


So I've got an interesting stock for you today it's one that BlackRock earned over one million shares in it's a penny stock it's one that's going to be receiving billions of funding in education in this particular sector okay we're going to go into this video I've got to say I'm not a financial advisor let's get right into the information okay and I am also involved in this sort of sector in the sense that I'm a teacher I'm involved in education and I do think that there's a lot of education stocks out there that do have a lot of promise and a lot of potential so we'll go through this one here so it's one that BlackRock earned over one million shares in and I see a lot of potential for this one to three to five x okay let's go into the information please do smash the like button okay smash the like button to help grow the channel as well let's get into it so top 10 earners of this one so you've noticed here that there's a lot of earners of this penny stock right BlackRock earned one million shares okay according to CNN business and you've also got a range of other institutions buying this penny stock now Vanguard did sell some of their shares but they still do earn a significant chunk of shares in this penny stock and of course many other institutions have been buying this penny stock as well so this is one that is growing okay this is one that I think's got a growing potential market but also growing as a company now you'll notice BlackRock they earn one million seven and seventy three thousand shares okay with a total value of two point two million okay now let's go also go into why I also think this stock might do well first of all we've got the 1.9 trillion stimulus and there's 170 billion dollars for education okay 170 billion dollars in k-12 higher education so this is an area that is going to get massive amounts of funding and I think with all that money circulating in the education sector a lot of these educational stocks are going to do quite well okay moving into this who are they so the company we're talking about today is called Boxlight okay Boxlight now who are they they are interactive learning technologies so it's a leading provider of interactive technology digital signage software and STEM solutions under its award-winning brands Clevver touch and Mimeo the company aims to improve engagement and communication in diverse business and educational environments Boxlight develops cells and services integrated solutions suite including interactive displays collaboration software supporting accessories and professional development services so one part I do like about this stock is that they have got a range of products but not only is it just products for having loads of products sake right they actually have integrated solutions so if they buy one product they can buy another product that actually integrates with what they've already got so some very interesting stuff involved in a massive growing area financial position now what is the financial position of this stock so they actually acquired Sahara in September 2020 so this combined companies on a pro forma basis generated sales of 129 million dollars in 2019 and then for one h 2020 53 million sales okay it's guided to 27 million in sales for q4 and it closed the third quarter with a healthy balance sheet including cash and equivalents of 10 million dollars inventory of 22 million dollars and working capital of 25 million so some very good cash position that they've got there they're in a good financial position as a company now moving into this what is some of the solutions that they've got so they've got whole class instruction okay modern technology that holds students attention and enhances group instruction they've also got classroom hybrid and remote learning so I do think online classes and online learning is going to continue to grow and I don't mean that just because of the current situation right I actually think into the future we're going to see a lot more online learning in particular courses that are that are specific to just online learning so you are going to see this grow and grow even more in the future I think with more online learning courses coming about and the solutions that this company can offer can help with that sort of approach but not just that they're involved in birth areas right they've got the remote teaching but then there's also the classroom teaching as well and the integrated solutions in the actual classroom now they've got STEM ready set build critical thinking and problem solving skills and professional development so essential training for reaching instructional goals as well very interesting stuff now what is it that they actually do what is the products that they've got now they've got an all-in-one cloud learning solution that helps keep learning engaging and consistent in traditional hybrid and remote classrooms tight integration with google classroom and microsoft this is really good you know it's it tends to be an integrated business very strategic in that sense that all their solutions can be compatible and be integrated with other types of softwares and platforms right which is really good to see teachers can enhance existing lessons with interactive questions and student collaboration save time with the library of k-12 pre-made classes video conferencing and private messaging grades automatically posted into the lms and as a teacher I've actually worked with some lms including canvas blackboard and moodle and I can tell you that having integration with this it saves so much time but it's also much better for people as well so looking into this it's got a lot of potential because of the integrated approach to their solutions it also won some awards here so a new product award winner and it also won a tech and learning award as well so there are award-winning business with their teaching solutions that they've got and the programs and the softwares and products that they are actually producing now what are some of their highlights so they've got a large growing market it is this is a market that's going to grow by the billions okay this is a growth market and with a growth market there's a lot of potential for them to capture a part of that market as a company they've also got a proven leadership team global brand recognition now this these areas are important so they have got a really good leadership team which seems to be that a lot of them have a lot of experience in the in the field in this area which is good to see you also got an outstanding partner network and customer base so they're involved in loads of different customers they've got loads of different schools and colleges that they're working with which is building their partner network so they're becoming well known in the industry which is really important really if they're the more well known they can become the more easy it is going to be to actually sell products they've got comprehensive integrated solutions suite so again a range of different solutions in their products but actually they can be used together to complement each other which is a really good kind of upsell of products that could be done and the need for disruptive thought leaders as well because of the fragmented market so they are I've got a lot of competitive advantage because they've already got a lot of these solutions it's just about now commercializing it and keeping to increase their customer base now the current price is set at two dollars and seventeen okay do smash the like button by the way if you're enjoying the video it does really help out the channel I'm really trying to get this channel up to fifteen thousand subs so if you could smash the like button to help us out I'm much appreciated but moving on to the price action and what I think is going to happen in terms of predictions here so it's at two dollars seventeen now the CNN analysts on CNN has got this at a low of five dollars a medium of five dollars fifty and a high of six dollars in the next twelve months now I actually see due to the exponential growth in this industry I actually see this as a potential five x stock okay and I'm talking in the long term I'm talking in the next two three to four years okay I could see this as a five x stock but I do see that in the in the medium term this could move up from two dollars to around sort of four dollars five dollars range okay now I do see that this has become very very cheap because why why is this become really cheap because of the recent market correction and because this is a kind of educational tech stock if you like this has been hit hard in addition to that it's a penny stock so it gets it hit even harder in a correction so this was actually trading at around over four dollars fifty around that price and it's gone all the way down to two dollars sixteen so it's lost pretty much you know a huge chunk of its value I see if you can get this one in around the range of one dollars eighty to two dollars twenty I see this as a massive buying opportunity to hold for the medium to long term for either to get towards that five dollar range or holding it long term for a potential five x on its current price point into the long term so this one's got a lot of potential I really do believe that I think there's a lot of stuff going on with this company with the facts that they've built some integrated educational solutions and the building up partnership you saw the financials there it's quite good and I do see a lot of potential and they've won a lot of awards as I've said with a lot of their learning solutions so again if you can get this at one dollars eighty to two dollars twenty I think this is a great buying opportunity it's only got a market cap of 110 million I do think it's got a lot of potential okay thank you for watching the video don't forget to hit that subscribe button if you knew we cover many penny stocks and growth stocks on the channel so do subscribe to the channel and don't forget to smash the like button and hit the notification bell so you never miss another video thank you for all the support on the channel and I will see everybody in the next one


Good news for Zodway Waybantu as she goes back to school. Zodway Waybantu finally goes to school after announcing in 2020. The entertainer shared photos revealing her excitement on the first day at school. Zodway has always talked about how she struggled her way up to the top in the industry without a formal education. Taking to Instagram, the dancer and businesswoman shared a photo of herself with coursemates in the classroom and captioned it with, She advises her son to be the best in school, as she was not chance to go through the four walls of a school due to her poor background.


So I got this interview question a few weeks ago asking me why integer underscore max is 2,147,483,647 and I'm not gonna say the name of this company because sure as hell I had no idea how to do this question and I had no clue why this was the case But they legit told me Afterwards that we can't hire you because you don't know why this is the case of integer integer underscore max is 2,147,483,647 So you know what I'm gonna do in order to show my revenge I'm going to explain to you guys why this is a case and Then you guys could like destroy in their next interview When people ask you this question because this is like a really stupid question to ask during an interview So let's actually explain why Okay, so first of all if you were gonna go on Google and you type in How many bites in a bit? How many yeah, how many bits in a bite how many bits in a bite? One bite is eight bits, right? So if you were to go to your notepad or whatever your thing is and you write one bite Is gonna equal To eight bits Okay, one bite is equally gonna equal to eight bits Okay, you guys understand so then what are you gonna do? Okay?  So if you use some math, right? Do some basic multiplication one integer is gonna equal to 32 bits Right One integer is 32 bits Based on four bytes because one four bytes four bytes times eight bits is gonna equal to 32 bits So if you go on Google now and you type in what is a bit? A bit is just a one and zero. Okay. It's a one and zero binary bit So now you're gonna wonder, okay, there's 32 bits. What am I gonna do? Simple you write. Let's just write down all the bits of 32 bits. So let's say one two Three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty and one twenty two Twenty three twenty four twenty five twenty six twenty seven twenty eight twenty nine Thirty thirty one thirty two Okay, there's 32 bits All right, now if you go to my video on how to convert binary to integer right how to convert binary to integer What you would realize is you have to add powers of two so before we add powers of two though in integers and computers the most significant bit this this one right here as We actually ignore this because this is just a sign. So this is the sign, right? It tells you if it's positive or negative So we're gonna actually ignore this. So now let's just write all the powers of two and just Just I'll just show you guys what I mean. So you have two to zero to the one To the two and so on and so forth until we get to the last one So let's assume we're gonna count this one. So if you were to count starting from zero It'll be zero one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen ninety Twenty one twenty two twenty three twenty four twenty five twenty six twenty seven twenty eight twenty nine thirty thirty one Okay It would be summation of zero to thirty one, okay, but we're ignoring this last one So we're actually gonna go up to two to the thirtieth Okay, we're gonna go up to two to the thirtieth this last one We're not gonna count because it just shows a sign in Computers so we don't actually care about this Go up to two to thirtieth So if you were to write a mathematical equation Assuming that you have a lot of good mathematics skills, which I don't know why this has to do with coding at all But let's say we have write a mathematical equation summation It will be two to the I Right because we're summing powers of two every time and we're gonna start from zero and then our last value is going to be 30 see it's 30 Okay, so now if you were to go on Google or unless you're just somehow a math genius or something You realize that the summation of k to the zero to the n of two to the k is equal to two to the n plus one minus one So if you were to plug in this equation, this will actually equal to let's actually move this to the side Let's move this over here, okay, I'll move it over here, okay Maybe over here over here over here. Okay, so this is going to equal to two to the n plus one so our n is going to be 30 so 30 plus one is 31 and Then minus one okay, right because from the summation two to the k of k equals zero to n It's going to be equal to two to the n plus one minus one. So in our equation. It'll be two to 31 minus one Now if you were to type on Google, what's two to 31 minus one? You get the number of two billion What is this two? two billion one hundred forty seven thousand four hundred eighty three and two billion one hundred forty seven million four hundred eighty three thousand six hundred forty seven So yeah, that's basically the gist on why this is the case so if an interviewer were to just ask you this question for some reason in Order to showcase their superiority over you and want to hire you based on how Arbitrary you know your powers of two and go ahead you will ace your next interview But until then you'll probably be screwed like me and the rest of the other people who don't know why this is the case But now you know So yeah, hope you guys enjoy this video ray come subscribe. I'll check you guys later. Peace


Some useful ideas for working with compound fractions. Any fraction can be multiplied by 1. One is any expression divided by itself, and if you multiply a fraction by its denominator, you can eliminate the denominator. It's also helpful to remember factored form is best, so unless you need to expand a product, it's best to leave it in factored form. So let's try to find this limit. So we note that our denominators are 3x-1 and 5, so if we multiply by 5 times 3x-1, the product of the two denominators, we can eliminate them both. So we'll take our expression, multiply by 5 times 3x-1 in numerator and denominator, and distribute. Now since we multiplied by 5 times 3x-1 to eliminate the denominators 5 and 3x-1, we should simplify the expressions with those denominators, but we'll leave the main denominator in factored form, so multiplying out our numerator and simplifying it. Now at our limit value x equal to 2, the numerator is 0, so we know it has a factor of x minus 2. In other words, it has to be x minus 2 times something, and that something works out to be negative 3. Now numerator and denominator have a common factor of x minus 2, so we can remove the common factor, and the algebraic expression is to find it x equals 2, so the limit is the function value, which will be, or let's find this limit. At x equals negative 1, the numerator and denominator are both equal to 0, and since we have a compound fraction, let's multiply through by the denominators. Now the best choice would be to multiply by x squared, which is the least common denominator, but let's use x times x squared, or x cubed, that's the product of the denominators. To emphasize an important point, you don't have to make the best choice as long as you make a choice, so multiplying numerator and denominator by x cubed. And again, the purpose was to get rid of the denominators x and x squared, so we'll multiply those terms out, but we'll leave the denominator with the main fraction in factored form. And to simplify our rational expression more, the numerator has a factor of x, so we could remove it, and remove the common factors, and our equality exists as long as x is not equal to 0. Now since we're concerned about the limit as x approaches negative 1, we only care about values close to x equals negative 1, so we can ignore what happens at x equals 0, and in the limit, replace the one expression with the other. So at x equals negative 1, the denominator is 0, so it must have a factor of x plus 1, and the other factor is x minus 1. We can again remove the common factor, and at x equals negative 1, the algebraic expression is defined, and so the limit is the function value, which will be...


Good production system. And the first presentation is from. I hope I pronounce your name correctly geese skill toys. Who is the head of unit for policy perspectives in the director general for agriculture and rural development of the European Commission. As you all know, a large part of the budget of the European Union is dedicated to food production systems. And the European Commission has a very important role in setting policies and priorities that deeply affect the way food is produced. We'll hear from geese skill toys who will talk about sustainable food systems, the European Union experience. Thanks a lot for accepting our invitation and the floor is yours. Thank you very much. I hope you can hear me well. Yeah, I will try to share my screen. Very good. Can you see the slides. Yes, perfect. Excellent. Thank you so much. It's really a pleasure for me to to have the opportunity to speak to you when and talk about sustainable food systems. Quite a switch from the very interesting scientific presentations that I was able to listen to before before your coffee break. And it's especially a pity I can't be there because I visited yes on several occasions and and really loved the city so it's a great pity that I have to do this from Brussels but that's that's the reality. What I would like to do with you is is in fact talk a little bit about the Green Deal which is in a way our main policy agenda, focusing on on transforming European economy in a sustainable way and then talk about what I would call three experiences or three aspects of this in in relation to food and in that context I will say a little bit about agricultural policy because as you already kindly did. I work in agricultural policy in Brussels so I have a bit more hands on knowledge about that aspect of the food system but but but I should like to underline right from the start already that when talking about a food system we really mean the food system all the way to the consumer and and beyond the whole circular food system. So I want to start with a with a picture of the boss, so to say Mrs. van der Leyen but but also because I think that she she made some very interesting choices and remarks already in December 2019 when the European Commission adopted the Green Deal, really putting the net zero ambition in 2050 as the overall ambition of this of this college with the Green Deal as the top priority, rather a different than previous European Commission so the, the whole issue of sustainability has changed also now biodiversity of course is really central to the work of this of this Commission and I think it's also important that in this quote that you see that talks about an ecological transition so really it's not a technological fix, but it's really a transition of our of the way we work, and she called it Europe's man on the moon moment in one of her speeches in 2019 and, and I think with that she refers to the importance of innovation of knowledge and also of technology in in this strategy and that's why I think it's very interesting that you are organizing this this particular session also with a strong focus on knowledge and science in in the in the challenge of finding sustainable societies. The Green Deal, there's a lot going on. I'm not a specialist in everything I will focus on what we call the farm to fork strategy which is really the, the food aspect of this, but the strategy is much wider you may recall, only two weeks ago the Green Deal was published what we call a Green Deal industrial plan for the net zero age, which is all about clean technologies and making sure those technologies are developing and staying in Europe. I think also what is important is, is to underline that you can see from all these initiatives that are part of the Green Deal that it's really about a growth strategy it's not about more regulation. Although, of course regulation plays a role, but it's really about growth and I think. The social sector would call this economic progress it's not growth, just growth, it's really trying to create a better economic outcome. Food is central to all of this food is central to all of this why because it's an enormously important part of our economy. If you, if you look at food agriculture, the food industry but also the whole restaurant you know, it's, it's the biggest sector of the European European economy with incredible challenges. First of all, there is the, the need to reduce the environmental and climate footprint of the food system. There are different issues like food waste. You can think of the, the issues of, of water pollution of air pollution. We've seen a number of slides demonstrating the damage can be done by intensive agricultural systems or non optimal agricultural systems to to our natural environment. The aspect of the food system that is it's very global. And that's also why the ambition that we have is not only to change the European food system, but really to reach out and we do this through bilateral contacts in our free trade as agreements that we are with a number of countries around the world. Sustainable food systems is an integral part, but also multilaterally. For example, the United Nations organized a sustainable food system summit in September 2021 and there's now a, a follow up to that and a number of coalitions so multilateral coalitions private sectors universities, states, countries, or working together on different topics from agro ecology to sustainable productivity growth, and many things in between. So, I think this global transition, where we try to lead and not try to impose is extremely, extremely important because as your presentations earlier have shown, this is really a global, a global challenge. It's an easy one so have to go step step by step. I think that the third point on this on this slide gives gives is links as to this economic growth aspect already. There's a lot about rewarding farmers for storing carbon had a whole carbon economy I think that's an opportunity for the food system. There's also a lot of opportunity in the bio economy. When we think about transitioning the economy to net zero in 2050. There's a lot of raw material biomass we need intelligence, a natural solutions to replace a lot of the chemical products that that we use so there's a tremendous opportunity for for for agricultural companies and for food processing companies to come with solutions that are part of a sustainable food system so of course then we move a bit beyond food but I think it's very important to highlight. And also within food itself there are opportunities. One of the targets of our food strategy in Europe is to grow more organic, not all of it organic, but we see a bigger place for organic farming why not only because it's good for biodiversity and it has other sustainability advantages but also because there is a market for this market that is I do recognize that challenge by the high food prices linked to the food inflation situation in which we find ourselves but even with this food inflation we still see a quite considerable amount. Maybe the last point on this is the issue of resilience and I think that that really is extremely important in our farm to fork strategy. This strategy came out in in May of 2020. So that was when we were in full lockdown. We're all working from home, and we were realizing how important a functioning food system is I think many of us for the first time were queuing at a shop to be able to go in to be able to buy food and our delivery and logistical systems were were under pressure. And I think the European food system got through this quite quite quite nicely and thanks also to to the hard work of many people in food industry, farming in retail and so on and so forth. Also thanks to to various officials in government agencies that were able to facilitate cross border trade, but it did focus a lot on this aspect of resilience how do you make sure that a food system is still in the storm. And now with the war in Ukraine, and with the pressure from from climate change which we felt last year with the drought and now also northern Italy of course but also France already facing an enormous rain deficit. We realize that this issue of resilience is much broader and really be a central feature of how we design a sustainable food system in the future. We want to dwell too long on the targets we set but you have to realize that when we started with this green deal and with this farm to fork strategy we said okay let's focus on a number of key objectives we want to reach and let's quantify them. What we say aspirational targets, they are targets that we've set because that focuses the minds and so a target on reduction of use of pesticides a target to increase the area farm organically reduction of antibiotics hugely important for the one health component of our green deal. Nutrient losses are already referred to that that reducing nutrient losses is critically important not reducing fertilizer gifts, plants need to eat but reducing the losses being much more efficient. Also, improving and increasing the number of landscape features as a proxy for for biodiversity and of course, in the digital age we need to make sure that the countryside is well connected to broadband so all these targets are to in a way focus our minds and focus focus the actions of public policymakers but also a private companies. I said I was going to talk about the EU experience, so I wanted to talk about three experiences and one one is actually to to underline that all this is this is this is new this green deal this is a new policy priority, but it didn't start in 2019 that this these graphs show changes in certain emissions over the past past two three decades, where you see in blue that the EU actually has been able for agriculture not the food system but for agriculture to reduce emissions in other parts of the world. This has gone up. Obviously, and I see that there's many scientists in the room you know you can play tricks with percentages so you know that percentages don't say everything, but I think what is important to realize is that many efforts have been made by by farmers by food companies in the EU to already address the sustainability challenge so we're on a path. And I think that's that's very important because one of the challenges of the Green Deal is not to set the targets is not to come up with the great hands, but it actually to implement them and to to bring everybody along we have nine million farmers in Europe, we would all like for all these farmers to produce more efficiently to produce with fewer emissions to produce sustainably. So we need to get them along we need them in fact to to believe that making those investments making those steps changing their practices is the right way forward. And that is why we have become an agricultural policy you chair you already referred to the significant budgetary allocations that go into that policy which is very important and now with a reform that we concluded in 2021, a larger much larger share of that money is actually going into practices financing practices for sustainable farming. So that that is that is key. I think another part of the. Let's see how there we go. Another part of the of the of the, the ongoing change is to look at demand and I and I picked up a slide here from our outlook report for 2032, which the European Commission, published in December, based on a modeling work on economic modeling work where we, where we show what we expect in terms of demand for, and in this case, meet livestock where we see a slight decline happening. So in the big discussion about livestock and meat consumption livestock being often in the place of criticism, even though we strongly believe that livestock has a place in agriculture has an important place in agriculture but needs to be sustainable needs to be part of a circle or agricultural system.  And talking about emission reductions that have happened talking about demand that is changing I think it's also important to underline that not everything is, what did I say in English hunky dory everything's fine. This is an important measure of of biodiversity trends which are not going very well, particularly here on farmland birds. So, we also have the message to agriculture to farmers that much more needs to be done so this first experience of the EU is yes. This has already happened I think the EU farming system is already performing extremely well at a global level in terms of sustainability but not enough. Not enough, but things are changing farmers are changing consumers are changing. The second experience. It's the the experience of implementation and this is a slide which has too many words, but all the, all the different bullet points relate to different legislative and non legislative initiatives that the European Commission is taking to change laws to change policies to help with this transition to a sustainable food system. In relation to sustainable food production. I already talked about the common agricultural policy we have an action plan for organic farming. You may have heard about the fact that we have proposed legislation on the sustainable use of pesticides, which has run into some discussion and opposition in the legislative branches here in Brussels. For example, nutrient management plans, also proposal on new genomic techniques to facilitate their use in the EU. We are also talking about promoting shifts toward more healthy diets, food labeling, for example, but also promotion program for agricultural products, and then focusing on sustainability we're reviewing our school and you helped finance school milk and fruit. Very important to also make sure that that is in line with our sustainability objectives and then of course, we are working also to ensure the sustainable sustainability is, you know, in the focus of food industry retail hospitality sector. The range of actions also for that part of the of the food chain. And we're working on overarching legislation, what we call a legislative framework for sustainable food systems. So there was a lot of legislative initiatives that sort of help frame this transition. In this list of initiatives, there is not even our very considerable research investment, for example, research investments and everything that has to do with with with food, food systems climate environment. Our horizon program, our soil mission I found the presentation of the American professor on on soil and regenerative agriculture very interesting and I think this is really also reflected in our in our research work on on soil. Many initiatives, but not always and that's why I called it an EU experience not always easy in in sometimes they say that making laws or making policies is like making sausages I don't know if that's a very appropriate. Link or an appropriate image but but it gives you some somewhat the idea that, you know, turning a green deal ambition into reality, you know is hard work, and also involves compromises but I think overall on the right track we are delivering and I think also as I said in my previous slides the consumers the farmers are also also delivering moving moving in the direction of sustainability. And then the last experience and this is the last point I will make it and I'm happy to take a few questions the last experience I want to underline is the experience of food security and resilience I already talked a little bit about resilience when I when I spoke about the, the impact of this farm to fork strategy in the midst of the covert lockdowns. And now we, we notice of course the importance of resilience in relation to climate changes, which is what this map shows the assessment of the potential changes in different parts of Europe in to climate change. But of course, what is also extremely important to mention in this context is the war in Ukraine, which has brought food security, really high on the agenda, food security, which has always been there, the European treaty, the Treaty of Rome, which contains a number of articles on agriculture policy that really have food security at their heart and these these articles from the Treaty of Rome have never been changed. They are still what we use to design our policies but of course, the world has become in a way more complex there are more things taken to be taken into account. The issue of food security is really driving also the the agenda and is driving also some of the tensions in the debate about sustainability. For example, there will be some who would argue that we need to produce a lot of food now, but this shouldn't go we would answer to the detriment of of our sustainability agenda, because we realize that this sustainability agenda is essential to be able to ensure food security in the long run. And in fact the European Commission did an analysis of this, this which was published in in January, drivers of food security, where we identified a lot of these, a lot of these drivers and these tensions, and what we are making is really trying to combine, combine the two to invest in more sustainable farming systems while at the same time, ensuring that food is that today and food is there also at a reasonable price with food inflation on average of 18% in the EU in December. We're really looking at a rate of food inflation that is very difficult for many poorer households in the EU. So, so this this dimension of food security not only availability but also affordability and and access in the long run, and the resilience of the food system are really aspects that that needs and must be integrated in in our work to develop sustainable food systems. So I hope with this short presentation, much less scientific than the previous ones I've been able to give you a bit of insight into the work we're doing on on on on on making making our food system or sustainable from the side of Brussels and I'd be happy to to take further questions. Thank you. Thanks a lot for your very comprehensive presentation. I'll start with the question myself. You showed us that globally Europe is doing much better than other large geographic areas in terms of the environmental impact of its agricultural system with a net decrease in emissions, for example. But that's measured on the total surface area that we use for agriculture and it doesn't tell us what the impact is on a per unit product basis. And one of the concerns is that we may decrease the impact on a per unit surface basis, but we may not produce enough. And so the net result of that will be that we'll have to import what we no longer produce ourselves from other countries that have a greater environmental impact and I remember hearing one of your colleagues in the commission that was saying that in order to make the farm to fork strategy. More effective. There was a thinking. So the commission was thinking about putting regulations on the food imports from other parts of the world. So that only food that is produced in a sustainable manner could be imported. Is that still on the agenda is that a concern or not. Very good. This is a good question. There's a lot to answer. So first on on the per unit emissions. So the fear would be that we would import products that would have a higher emission per unit from other countries. I always say that we have to we have to measure and know because it's not always a better in Europe. So let's let's take this from an international perspective. I think that that needs to be recognized. But for example on climate emissions we have been improving our per product emissions considerably. We've also been improving our trade balance. So we are exporting more. So so far the fear that we would be reducing production in Europe and importing more doesn't seem to hold true. In fact, if you look at the EU food imports. We're importing tropical products logically. And a considerable quantity of animal feed mainly so yeah and maze. So that that would be our weakness and another weakness would be the import of fertilizer and energy and that those are the weaknesses we identified in the context of the Ukraine crisis. So then to your last question, what is the are we going to impose regulation to avoid imports that are less sustainable while we're part of the WTO. The World Trade Organization provides us with a with a regulatory context which we will respect, which means that you cannot impose. And just like that requirements on on production methods, for example, and often an example that is used is for animal welfare, for example, but you can imagine all kinds of other things. There are a few areas where where the Commission is is thinking to to restrain imports, which is, for example, in the area of antibiotics, restrain imports is not the right word where we where we would apply rules that are already valid in the other imports, for example, because the in the area of antibiotics what we are fighting is the, the resistance to bacteria we don't want the antibiotics become less effective. And this is a global challenge. This is a global challenge where we believe that that it merits to be addressed also at a global level. Yeah, so that is a sort of reasoning we are we are developing on this on this area, but it's not the case that we are developing a blanket legislation to to block imports on the country in fact, in fact, by by we need trade that we don't believe that we don't believe in in in in restricting trade also because from the perspective of food security this would be unwise. It has been shown time and again that that if we restrict trade too much this is in the end to the detriment of food security. We need to work with partners globally to improve sustainability rather than to work only with restrictions. I hope this answers your question but we can discuss. I think you can organize a conference about this. Thanks a lot it was the answer was very complete thanks. Are there other questions from the floor or online. The question is the following. I mean I presume that the way organization measure the level of sustainability of some action in the food or in other issues is different from country to countries actually is different maybe from city to city. There is any effort or anything that you are you is doing to give a sort of to try a sort of unification or harmonization of what it should be the level of of measuring the degree of sustainability of the action. Thank you. That's very important and interesting. I think you can you can measure a different level so for the strategy as a whole. We are developing the measuring a methodology for our key targets. We are using a number of known indicators but for some areas we're also trying to develop new indicators particularly in the area of biodiversity which is very difficult to to measure specifically at a more aggregate scale. We are working on much more specific measurement and I'm thinking now. For example about carbon farming where we have proposed legislation that is in fact about how to measure carbon what are the methodology so that private investors who want to measure carbon is stored by farming activities that they know that what they're paying for is really happening and that we also as public policymakers know what's happening and this legislation is currently being being discussed and I think it's key and this is in fact this is the accounting system for carbon carbon farming that we are we are talking about so there we also have. We are trying really to to harmonize methodologies and other area of harmonization is related to labeling so one of the initiatives that we are trying to develop is a sustainability label there's a lot of labeling and obviously labeling. The big goal of labeling is that you try to learn consumers into buying more sustainable products but also companies to produce more of those sustainable products and and you need for label to be used on the internal market you need to harmonize methodology. And that is what we are also working at there are different initiatives in that regard and it's it's not so easy particularly also again in the area of biodiversity. For example, an organic farm can score well on on biodiversity can score well on a number of other indicators but maybe not on on on climate emissions because there's a lower yield so per product you will have maybe more emissions. So how to balance those different aspects of of environmental sustainability is is complicated so work is being is ongoing to try to find a good measure for for that and that would then apply for the whole EU market. I hope this. Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thanks a lot for your very useful intervention and I think we need to move on to avoid further delays. Thank you again for accepting our invitation. And before we move to the next speaker I just want to remind the participants.


Good afternoon. Welcome to third Thursdays. I'm glad for all of you who are joining us today for this conversation. Just a couple of housekeeping details before we get started. I'd love to have you introduce yourselves in the chat feature and if remember to send that to all or everyone, not just to the panelists. And if you have any technical concerns anytime during the webinar, you can send a chat message to the ambias host. If you have a comment or question for our speaker, we ask that you please use the q amp a feature, which you can find by hovering over the bottom of your screen. And I'll be watching for those questions and comments and we'll select the ones that I asked Diana. Please note that the webinar, including the questions is being recorded. Turning now to our conversation. Diana Risser is vice president for administration and she financial officer for ambias. She graduated from Bluffton University with a business administration degree, and received her master of business administration degree from Indiana University South Bend in 2007. She also received a graduate certificate in theological studies from ambias last year. Diana is in her third year as an ambias employee. And before this worked at Goshen College for 22 years. Diana is going to start by answering several questions I've given her ahead of time and then after that we'll have time for your questions and comments. Thanks Diana for being with us today. What would you like to tell us about yourself as an introduction. Well, thanks Janine for that introduction. I can add a few more details that might be helpful. I grew up in Middlebury Indiana, which is here in Alkirk County. So I'm an Alkirk County native and have spent most of my time in this area, both profess professionally and personally. Other than my times at Bluffton and also after college, I worked for five and a half years on year round staff at Camp Friedenswald in Cassopolis, Michigan. And so that is a place that continues to be near and dear to my heart. And I currently on the board of Friedenswald. And let's see hobbies. I enjoy reading, biking, volunteering. And I would be remiss to not tell you about my dog. Her name is Estely. I adopted her as a rescue dog about a year and a half ago. She's a six year old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. And I think she's about the cutest, sweetest thing around. But she does have her opinions and she's really smart. So I also spend a fair bit of time walking her we try to walk in the morning and the evening depending on the weather. So that's a little bit more about myself. Well, I will agree that she is one of the sweetest cutest dogs I've ever met. She is adorable. Do you want to say something about the, bring your dog to work days that we've been having at AMBS the last year or so? Yeah, after I'd been here about a year and a half. We, the president and I, Dave Buescher, were both our dog lovers and both have dogs and decided as a way of like building community we would have bring your pets to work so it doesn't have to be just dogs. It could be a different pet if you have a different pet. It has tended to be only dogs. So we usually have about six to eight employees who participate and bring their dogs at least for a portion of the day. And we gather in the courtyard for a little special break where we can meet each other and the dogs and share some treats. So that has been a fun thing. And I actually just added it to my to-do list like we need to have another bring your pet to work day. We haven't had one for a while. We try to do them about two to three times a year. Yeah, I also should say I'm my parents are Dennis and Alice Risser. My father is deceased. My mother lives in Goshen. I also have a sister Denise and a brother Eric. Great. So can you tell us a time, a story about a time when you experienced God in a powerful way? The story that came to mind was when I was working at Goshen College. As Jeanine mentioned, I worked at Goshen College for a number of years, serving in a variety of roles, the last five being vice president for finance. But back in 2012, I had the opportunity to lead a study service term, your unit with Goshen College to Nicaragua. And that's where Estely got her name, my dog. Estely is a town in Nicaragua. It's not actually where I lived, but it was a town that I visited and I just really thought it was beautiful, beautiful name. So I was a co-leader of SST unit, as they're called, with a friend of mine, Karen Swartz and River, and we were in charge of 22 students doing their cross cultural experience with Goshen College. And so we arrived about a month before the students were there and then we're there in country with those students for three months where the students do about six weeks of studying, mostly language study, but also culture and history and just immersing themselves in the country and then six weeks of service. I did not have a lot of cross cultural experience in my undergrad college experience. So in essence, this was my cross cultural experience as well. So fully immersion while you're leading 22 students can be somewhat challenging on its own. And I just remember being, I had a small group from my church who I knew was actively praying for me. And there were some challenging times when we had a mental health crisis with a student. We had some fresh frustrations behind the scenes with details working out or not working out. But I just remember I was very active in prayer during that time and praying for very specific things, having travel challenges and being like, you know, let us get here safely. Let us get here on time. Let the host family be ready upon our arrival. May all these arrangements that we've done at the last minute, you know, end up working out and may the students have a good experience. And so learning to plan and schedule and navigate in a culture that's a little more laid back than North America was definitely a learning experience. But just feeling sometimes a little bit in over my head and feeling like I really needed to have really needed to experience God. I'm seeing God work through the students and what really happened how they grew in the three months they were there and became more comfortable and confident. And the way I grew in my leadership. Carrie and I joked at the end that we by the end of our four months we finally figured out what we were doing and maybe we should do it again. Because now we kind of knew what was going on instead of feeling like sometimes we were learning right along with the students. So that just feels like a time, especially looking back where I felt just covered by prayer and protected from a lot of things that could have really gone wrong and really experienced God through the people I met and through the experiences we had in Nicaragua. So that's that was the story that came to mind. That's wonderful. I'm also interested in hearing a little bit about what attracted you to begin taking classes at AMBS. I know that we have this arrangement with Goshen College that makes it you know like a financial bargain, but what what in you said I want to try some classes at AMBS that then led to you getting the certificate, the graduate certificate and theological studies. I started taking graduate classes, seminary classes in 2014. And at that time, I had just agreed to be a high school youth sponsor at my church with a friend of mine, John circle, who now is a current AMBS student and will graduate as part of the graduating class of 2024. And it wasn't necessary, it was partly to be a little bit more prepared as a youth leader, but it also was a personal feeling I had of wanting to learn more about spiritual practices and faith formation. So I was wanting more adult faith formation than I felt I was getting in Sunday morning at my church. So I was like what are what are other ways that I can. I can experience some different ways of learning about spirituality I wanted to go a little deeper than just what was happening on Sunday morning. So I decided, you know, I can take some classes online. I am located in Goshen. I could get to campus to take some classes if needed. And so just started kind of dipping my toe in the water of taking what the one hour spiritual practices classes that were interesting to me. And then it was like, oh, you need to declare a program that you want to be in. And I'm like, oh, I, I wasn't really, I didn't really have a long term plan in mind. I was just kind of interested in taking classes. So I became officially, I guess a student in the graduate certificate in Christian spiritual formation at the time. I think now it's just been renamed graduate certificate and theological studies and you can design your own graduate certificate in a variety of ways. So I took classes off and on while working full time at Goshen College, mostly in finance and administration there as well. Had to take some semesters off depending on what classes were offered or what time I had. And got part way through a degree and stopped in 2019 when I had too many things going on and something had to give. And unfortunately seminary was what had to give. Unbeknownst to me, I my journey would end me back up here at AMBS anyway professionally. And one thing that attracted me to becoming part of the AMBS community as a, as an admin faculty member was knowing a little bit about AMBS and experiencing the community as a student. And looking for something that was a little bit smaller, maybe unmanageable. I was experiencing my Goshen College work in the midst of coven, which we all navigated in different ways. And it became I got a little bit overwhelmed and burned out. And finally decided I needed to make a career change. So I started exploring various options. AMBS is not the only place I considered, but luckily the door kept staying open for AMBS. And looking back on the other options I had, I'm so grateful that this is where I ended up and that I can serve AMBS in this way. So it felt like the job was a good fit for me based on what I had been doing at Goshen College. It's actually a very similar role. But a little bit, a little bit less complex based on AMBS being smaller and not having quite as many things going on such as athletics and property in Florida and things like that. Well, thanks for going ahead and answering the second part of that question. Go ahead and tell us about your role and what kinds of things you do as part of your role. Well, as you, I have a long title, Vice President for Administration and Chief Financial Officer. I'll talk about the Chief Financial Officer first. That's essentially keeping track of all the finances of the seminary. And it's slightly different than financial aid, which you might hear about from a student context, which is like when we're awarding scholarships to students and working with donors for endowed scholarships or other people who want to support students. There's a separate financial aid office that works with them and I partner with them, but I am paying attention to things like financial reporting, budgeting. I spend a lot of time with budgeting, monitoring how our expenses are going, cash management, keeping track of accounts payable and vendors. Keep working, partnering with the development office on donations and grants that are coming in and keeping track of all that money coming in in all these different places. And then also, as a nonprofit organization and BS does an annual audit, so we produce official financial statements that are as required by the Department of Ed since we are an accredited educational institution. So that is also a lot of work usually in late summer and early fall of finalizing all these financial numbers on an annual basis and working with the external auditors to do that work. But my work touches most of the other areas of the seminary, helping people come up with a proposed budget for a department, help them write a grant budget, giving them detailed information about expenses that they've spent as a part of a program. Just a wide variety of things. The vice president for administration role means that I oversee 6 departments as part of. And BS some. I won't say all of the non academic departments, but a lot of them there are still some other departments that I don't oversee. Particularly non degree programs and academic support and things like that, but I do oversee human resources. So payroll and hiring. And policies and all that work. We have a half time person who helps me in HR that I oversee and work closely with. Also, we have 1 person in the business office. So I work closely with her. On all the accounts payable accounts receivable student accounts. All that sort of thing. I oversee it. So Brent Graber and I work on it technology needs for the seminary and keeping track of all those details. Food service. We do have, we don't have as much food service as we used to have on campus, but we still do have regular food service or events on campus meetings on campus. We have at least a monthly community lunch. And we just hired a new caterer and residents who is starting here this week. So getting involved in my own hiring instead of just helping facilitate some hiring on campus. I also oversee our maintenance department. So we have 2 people in maintenance. So all the day to day things of keeping a campus running the buildings. The buildings maintained. We have student apartments on campus that we maintain all of those. So working with Norm and Orion in maintenance and what our needs there that we need to keep track of. And then also the front desk and housing. So Lindsay at the front desk. Working with student housing and their request for apartments and what, and she helps with some of the financial aspects as well. So my role is. I feel like I do a fair bit of supervision. I meet with those people, most of them at least once a month, but I have the open door policy. So sometimes I feel like my day has spent. Helping problem solve people will stop by with a question or need some information. Or we just had a payroll or payroll date was yesterday. We had a payroll issue that I was helping solve this morning. It's not really what I was planning on doing with my morning. But that's kind of the way it works out. So what are the things that need attention from the areas I oversee. I work with the academic Dean Beverly lap on adjunct needs, how we're budgeting for what our faculty needs are. Are we going to have adjuncts to help keep some of our courses and how we budget for that. And my role as vice president and CFO means that I also sit on administrative cabinet. So we meet every other week during the school year and talk about a lot of high level things. So that is, I think there's 8 of us on ad cabinet now led by the president. And so we have a regular agenda where we're talking about strategy about the strategic plan. About budget about brands. There's just a wide variety of things that we are, you know, managing the bigger picture of the seminary and all working together with. You know, enrollment development, church leadership center, our director of the campaign marketing, all getting together every other week. So preparing reports for them participating in those meetings. Is also a big part of my work. There are so many things. And you didn't even like mention the guest houses, which would be in that mix too right. And I know last year you were finding the kinds of furniture you wanted to put in the Trinity house that used to where Clarence and Alice Bowman had lived. You have 2 guest house on campus.  That we use for our programming. It's also available to other people to rent out as needed. We have people from MC USA offices use it occasionally, but our board members stay there. People in our ministry integrity circles. Some of our so far programs graduation. It gets fairly regular use pastors and leaders. So yeah, keeping track of maintenance needs there working with Lindsay at the front desk with reservations. Upkeep. Do we want to change around the furniture? Yeah, and Trinity house is a new thing that it was in process when I started 2.5 years ago. So getting that across the finishing finish line deciding what we wanted to really use it for how we wanted to. How we wanted to furnish it and how we wanted to handle reservations has been something we've been finalizing here in the last 6 to 9 months. Another thing I'm wondering about. Do you work with investments or. Does somebody else track the investments that am BS has. I'm actually very involved. Well, I would say I'm involved in managing the investments. Most of our investments are in our endowment, which is a long term investing for the very long term. And am BS partners with other men and I institutions. In the men and I education agency endowment fund. So we have pooled our endowment. Into a larger group of investments. To pool all our endowment assets together, which gives us kind of more buying power and can give us a higher returns. And so like the choosing what specific investments to invest our endowment in is actually the work of the investment committee. And so we work with evidence and then a foundation, they help manage our endowment. My role is essentially. Sending money as donors contribute to our endowed funds, sending money to the endowment and then also managing the payout that we get, which is a significant part of our budget. To calculate what is going to support our scholarships. What is going to support our other programs or oversight. I also do some short term investing when we have cash around to earn a little bit extra interest. And that sort of thing, but the main investing we are doing is with our endowment, which I have some good partners to help with that. One of the things that I've been so impressed is how you can communicate to our community. What your work includes and you used a number of little buckets to try to explain what your work involves and I wonder, could you share just a little bit of that like. So people get a sense of how you have worked with our community to understand your, all of the things that you have to pay attention to. I actually found at the dollar store some little buckets that I use as a as a prop so that I can explain these and the conversation actually started with the president when we were talking about. You know, finances is a lot more than just the annual budget and annual budget is a really important part of the seminary. And are we being sustainable in our budget from year to year, but we actually have. We have these 4 different buckets of money that I'm managing on a regular basis. So the 1st 1 is our operating budget. So here's my little bucket. Our operating budget are routine income and expenses donations to the annual fund tuition income endowment payout other income and then our expenses, which is mostly compensation maintenance programming academic programs that sort of thing. Now, so we're in the midst of a campaign. So what is our campaign contributions and those are supporting programs separate from the operating budget. So some of the work we're doing with our. Ethiopia program or Matt to Ethiopia program our program in South Korea. Those are not coming from the operating bucket. They're coming from contributed funds for the campaign. So keeping that separate and that reporting separate from operating. And then we have our endowment. So our endowment payout. Where's that money? How's money coming in? How's money coming out? How are we managing the payout that comes from that? Endowments are set to have money that stays in principle. And you use generally a 5% payout. To support our operations. So how are we managing that endowment? How are we trying to grow it? And what do we use the payout for? And then we also have a variety of grants that go in that bucket. We have actually 3 lily grants right now that we're managing as well as. Teaching faculty regularly get small research grants that they're managing. We've gotten grant support for the Benham West documentary. So trying to help people understand like, well, you're spending money from this bucket when really it's a program that's funded by this bucket. And so trying to keep the complexities of accounting out of people's minds too much because if I talk about too many numbers with certain people, their eyes kind of glaze over. So trying to keep it as simple as possible and both my parents were educators. So I think maybe this is where I get some of my. Like, how do you explain this as easily as you can to people who maybe don't have a mind for numbers as much as I'm used to. Thanks. That's been really helpful for all of us. I'm wondering if there's, if you could give us an example of something that you worked with while you've been at ambias that surprised you. Or something you've never done before you came to ambias, because a lot of, as you said, a lot of your work is similar to what you did at Goshen College. I would say one of the biggest things has been Canadian banking. We are a bi national seminary. So we are owned by MC USA and MC Canada. And we have a US dollar denominated bank account and a Canadian dollar denominated bank account and keeping those separate and accept being able to accept donations in Canadian money. And how we're just transacting business in two different countries has been very interesting and something new. I have learned we spent a lot of time jumping through a bunch of hoops with our Canadian bank account just to get my name on the account, for example. So, when there was a transition over two years ago, so working with two different countries and different bank accounts has been something that has been new and surprising for me. I've also been more involved in this role in international student visas. And I'm not directly involved in that the registrar takes care of all of that, but. And it's surprisingly hard even in this day and age for money to move back and forth internationally. So support that's coming for a student from an international place or them putting money on their account before they come as a student can be surprisingly hard. I'm not sure if that money gets to return to them if they don't use it all or they end up not coming that has been has taken a surprisingly amount of time in certain instances. So we are blessed to have a lot of international students on our campus right now, but helping them navigate in a new financial system and helping them get the support they need from variety of places has been surprising. Well, you're very gracious not to just name those things as headaches there. Because I know sometimes it's just very hard to figure it all out it's very complex. I'm going to invite our alumni who are present to start putting their questions or comments in the Q&A. As you answer this last question that I have for you, what is a dream you have for AMBS. My dream is that we continue to attract students who are interested in theological education, especially to campus we are really excited about our MDiv Connect program and the way it can really help train people who are, you know, already working in ministry placement or don't want to move to Alcarte, but and are really excited about the way our work is is really expanding globally. So how do we continue to attract students. I think one thing that I have a dream for too of course is financially we are getting ready to present our fifth year of a balanced budget to the board, which I'm really proud of and is something that has is really challenging in this day and age in the higher government and for seminaries especially. And so my dream would be that we will have the we have reached a place of financial stability, I wouldn't say we've reached a place of long term sustainability. So how do we continue to steward the financial assets as best we can. So we have a long term sustainability for AMBS. And really also that we can just live into our mission statement of serving the church and what is the church asking us to do how can we prepare leaders for the future church. And sometimes my work can feel very adjacent to that but it is the work that's kind of behind the scenes that helps the faculty be able to do their work in the classroom. So that people can be trained and can be effective leaders for the church. To me, I feel like that's something that AMBS has done well in our history. And I'm hoping that it's my dream that we can continue to do that in the church. I feel like we have been able to pay as nimble and kind of flexible as possible. And we need that in the seminary environment today to survive, I think if we aren't doing that and just saying this is what we offer and no one's interested in it. Then I don't see that as being sustainable for the future. So my dream would be a financial stability and sustainability and I work, I work hard on that every day because I want, I want AMBS to be here for the next generation. Thank you so much. We have a question from Eileen Sainer, who saw the announcement about the sidewalk along Benham Avenue. And she is asking how did that come about and what's the timeframe for that for the completion. And where exactly will the sidewalk be thank you Eileen that's an excellent question. Yeah, I can tell you about that. We, my understanding from Ron Ringenberg, who is my predecessor, I replaced him when he retired is this has been something we've been asking for for the South Central part of Elkhart. He said he went before the Common Council 20 years ago. This has been a project in the making. It was funded by the city in 2019 and then COVID happened. And so it's basically been on the shelf since then. Last year we were approached by the city of Elkhart saying this project is moving forward. And we would like to purchase an additional easement off of Benham Avenue because we're going to put a sidewalk there. So we sold a small strip of land to the city of Elkhart last year with the hopes that this project would happen relatively soon. The city green lighted this project for this spring. They held a groundbreaking right by our main sign on Monday morning with the mayor and public works people there and President Bush Art was there and our maintenance team. And I was there. Kicking off this project. We are supporting the project by agreeing to help maintain the trail. We will take care of snow removal for them for the city, which they are very appreciative of. It will be on our side of the street. So I think that's the west side of the street. And it's a 10 foot sidewalk so that it will be handicapped accessible. And we also can drive a pickup truck down it to plow the snow when we need to. And 1 feature that they are adding that we're excited about is. Lighting for the whole path that is powered by solar. So they're putting solar lighting. All the way along. So the sidewalk will run from the intersection of. Hiveley and venom. All the way down to Michelle Walker road. So this our whole section of Venom Avenue, essentially, and turn the corner on Michelle Walker road and go to the old farm apartments. The project officially started last Friday on March 15. The engineer told me that the contractor needs to have it done by May 31st. So they are on a tight timeframe every day I come to work. I'm like, you haven't started on it yet. I hope you can get this done in time. But it should be done by summertime. And so it feels like it's a long term time coming. We're excited to see the city investing in south central Elkhart. You know, we have provided a walking path through the front of our property through our prairie and along our lawn for people. Who prefer to walk to, you know, woodland crossing, which is the shopping complex that has like. The grocery store and things like that in it. And we see community members regularly using our walking path. We don't plan to get rid of that, but this creates a safer, more accessible plant. Access to getting to that part of town. We've seen people. Navigating on the road in ways they shouldn't be. And so this will be a safer option for the community and we're happy to be able to support it and get people walking across the front of our property and seeing more about the cemetery. Yeah, it's very exciting. And the groundbreaking was really cool to be there with all these different city folks who are very excited about it. Obviously. And Eileen says this is going to be a great service to the community, especially to the old farm apartments. I agree. And I know that in the last year before this project started, our maintenance team planted a lot of trees that will be not. They're not right next to the sidewalk, but kind of lining that area so that eventually they'll be shade along this path as well. Our maintenance director norm sender has gotten a lot of smaller trees that he kind of had in a nursery back by the maintenance building that they planted a string of those last spring. We also got a grant from the just packs organization that we used for a variety of things, including buying some trees to replace some old trees we have on campus, but also to plant some more mature trees. Also in that quarter along the sidewalk. So as those trees grow here over the next several years, it should be a nice shady path for people to walk on. I'm not seeing other questions yet. So I'm going to ask another one and I'll give folks one more chance here to get their questions in. But we, we in the last year received a really sizable estate gift, and you got the fun job of figuring out how that would be used. Would you be willing to tell us a little bit about how you decided what the different things that that estate gift would go towards because it really was exciting to be able to cover a lot of different needs here on the campus. Yeah, I'll see if I can remember. We plan on a certain amount of estate gifts every year in our budget and it's kind of a hard to know where we're named in a state gifts. How much will receive when that happens. And so we try to limit the expectation of how much we can plan on on a yearly basis for the operating budget. And so it's been part of our strategic planning work over the last several years to say, if we do have a significant gift. We don't want it to just go to plug a hole in the operating budget and then it's like gone very quickly is what it can feel like. How can we be more strategic about using this money. So we received a gift of almost $1.4 million from John and Irma Stitzman who were from Illinois and Canada. And he was totally unrestricted. We aren't sure, but we think it might be one of might be the largest unrestricted a state gift that we have ever received from ABS. And unrestricted a state gift means the donor has not given any direct designation of what we need to use it for. So they aren't saying you have to use it for scholarships. You have to use it for maintenance. You have to use it for something. So it gives the administration the discretion to decide where it's needed most. Our policy is that we put the first $15,000 of any estate gift into the operating budget. And then we decided, so I worked with Bob Yoder, our director of development and President Bushart to decide where else do we want to use this money. And so really we looked at the strategic plan and said, what could the strategic, what can this help us achieve from the strategic plan? One of the goals of the strategic plan is to create more long term funding for capital projects. We have an annual allotment that goes into a capital projects account to help fund depreciation, ongoing maintenance capital projects for our facilities. The transfer from the budget is not adequate for funding it on every year. So we use some of that money to put money into that account right now to help with some near term expenses. And then we also put money into an endowment for capital projects that will pay out to help support that transfer every year. So that we have more continued funding for the library heat pumps, which we just replaced, which were an expensive projects for sidewalk replacement for. I'm surprised how many things are going on behind the scenes here at MBS that need funding. So we created an endowed scholarship in the stutzman's name. We also added just to our general endowment. We also had taken out some loans for our latest solar project when we put solar panels on the roof of waltner hall we paid that off so we are now I'm proud to say a debt free institution. I'm very grateful for that it gives us again that goal of building financial sustainability for MBS really helped us get there. So I'm trying to remember, am I forgetting anything Janine, what we added to our reserves. I mean things that really help us be sustainable for the long term. It was really helpful. Did any of it go into the campaign. We did not use any of it for the campaign of the 1.4 million, just a little over a million went to the endowment, which is great to be able to have that much of a of a push to the endowment which then gives us pay out for the future. We're also trying to build up the endowment for our church leadership center which provides key non degree program education for. For the church, and that's 1 area that we're trying to prioritize some fundraising on for the endowment so we gave it kind of a boost with some of this money as well. Well, thank you so much, Deanna for answering all these questions. It's just really interesting to hear all of the things that you get to work with. And I want to thank you, our alumni for joining us today and for your continued support of ambias. I say this. Every time you are so important as influencers both your prayer support your financial support but also to encourage those in your congregations and your and your groups of friends to support the seminary as well. Also, to tap people on the shoulder to ask them, have you ever considered seminary take advantage of these options like Deanna has taken advantage of doing a graduate certificate to add to her MBA as well. So continue to encourage people if you know of someone you'd like to have us contact about seminary, please let me know and I'll be in touch with them. And I hope you'll also continue to stay connected to the church leadership center and the programs that are offered there and remember that you can always take classes if you're a graduate you have a special audit rate. So if you're interested in taking a class this summer or next fall, let me know. Next month on April 18 our third Thursday conversation will feature Mary Ann Weber director of enrollment. Thanks again for joining us today and thanks also to student Janet McGeary for providing the technical support for our webinar. This concludes today's third Thursday conversation. Have a wonderful day.