Hi, Longmont. My name is Karen Stallard. I'm the membership director with the Longmont Area Chamber of Commerce. The Longmont Chamber has been working hard to support our local businesses and connect the community during this challenging time because we don't think that being physically distanced means that we can't still socially connect and support one another. So I'd like to tag in Jessica Wanasek, the Chamber Event Director, to tell you a little bit about what we've been up to. Hey, everyone. So the Longmont Chamber of Commerce has been hosting daily Facebook Live events Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. over on our Chamber Facebook page. We are featuring a local business or a non-profit while having fun interactive activities, giveaways, and just connecting with our community. We wanted to share the fun with you after the facts, so we are airing all of our episodes from last week with you here now so you can enjoy. And we hope that you see some familiar faces from around Longmont. And remember, if you ever want to see the live thing, just tune into the Chamber Facebook page at 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Or check out a themed list of businesses over on our Chamber website, www.longmontchamber.org forward slash llama is open. And find a business that you would like to support. Enjoy the show. Hello, everybody. Hello, hello. Come on in. We're going to give it a second or two.  Maybe grab a drink or two. We have kind of a fun, exciting Tuesday tunes and arts ahead of us this afternoon. So when you come in, comment and say hello. Like I said before, I hate feeling like I'm in here talking to myself. So it's always nice to see some comments. Let me know that you guys are here and you're watching. Share these videos. It helps share the love of our guests that we have on. It helps bring some awareness to the businesses that we're highlighting every day. So make sure to like and share these videos. It helps. Today, we are going to have a lucky winner, one lucky commenter. We're going to have a quiz towards the end of today's stream. And my guests and I are going to choose the winner today. And you guys are in for a really cool treat as far as the giveaway prize today goes. So you're going to want to hang in with that. If you want to see the list of businesses that we are highlighting and showcasing every day, go over to the Chamber website page that is www.longmontchamber.org forward slash Longmont is open. And you'll see on the different categories of industries that we are hoping to bring some awareness and showcase each day. So head over there. We're going to get started. My name is Jessica Wanasek and I am the event director at the Longmont Chamber of Commerce. We are here for Tuesday Tunes and Arts. So I see you guys coming on as you come on. Comment. Say something to us.  Tuesday Tunes and Arts is the day that we kind of highlight those businesses who are in some form or another the arts, whether it's painting or dance or I'm not going to give away today's special guest, but you're going to want to hang in there because I'm really excited about this one today. So with that, I am actually going to bring on my special guest and we grab him. So everybody, I would like you to say hello to Mr. Paul Williams with High Altitude Archery. Hi there. Hi Jessica. Hi everyone. How's it going? Hi Paul. How are you today? Doing real well. Thanks. Good, good, good. You're hanging in there, right? Absolutely. That's the name of the game right now. Right. As best as you can at least, huh? Yeah, absolutely. You know, and we're out here just trying to stay active and keep our apps on staying safe and healthy. Right. I agree. Well, I'm super excited to have you on. I shared with you a little bit about my history with archery. In my 100 years ago, I was a campfire girl. So I thought I was, you know, pretty good at archery myself, but I don't know if I tried it these days. I think everybody would be running for cover. It's probably not going to get, not be good. I don't know about that. I think you probably, you're just fine. Oh, kind of keep your arrows pointed down range. Everything worked out okay. And, you know, the most important thing really is just to have fun, right? You know, that's why I'm here is because I enjoy the sport and I really enjoy helping others learn about the sport and get involved in the sport.  I know I am. During doing these lives, I have like a huge list of, okay, once things are rocking again, I have a whole list of places that I'm going to be visiting when this is all done. So you're going to see me over there, you bet. Well, you know, it's actually one of those things that you can come out and do right now. We've gone to great lengths to make sure that our space is safe and healthy for everybody who wants to come visit. Even if we have to stay six feet apart and wear our face masks and everything, you know, all of our staff is issued with these face masks, which I'm not going to wear while I'm doing the interview. And our lanes marked off at six feet intervals.  And so we've been using that at the range too. Right. I know we just did a great feel good lie, feel good Friday with them live last Friday. So that was pretty cool. So we're getting a few people on here. Hi, Kelly and hi, Rachel. We're glad to have you guys with us. There's a few people out there who are watching but still haven't commented yet. So let us know that you are here. You guys, this is Paul Williams. He is the manager over at High Altitude Archery. So Paul, I like to kind of, I know some people know where you are and all about you, but I like to let the audience know the ones that don't know about you. Where are you located? Yeah. So we're right in Longmont, just outside of, you know, the kind of main street downtown district. If you're familiar with the area, you'll know the Sugar Mill is being one of the big landmark areas around. And we're just actually north of the Sugar Mill. So if you were to draw a line straight north between the Sugar Mill and Third Street, we're right there in the middle, right behind the Dodge dealership off of Third and Alpine. Very cool. Third and Alpine. I know right where you are. How long have you guys been around? Yeah. So High Altitude Archery as a business has been around since 2012. It was opened by John by the name of Tom Adjutant, who is a really exceptional archer and pillar in the community decided that he really wanted to have a great place to come and practice his craft, practice archery. In 2016, my wife and I purchased the business from Tom and we've tried to continue that tradition by primarily focusing on the sport of archery and the practice of the skills around archery with the appropriate equipment and services to support that. Very cool. Very cool. So I know you said that you're open now. Have you had to modify your hours or anything like that?  For sure. Yeah. Right now we're open Tuesday through Friday from noon until 8 p.m. Saturday from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Perfect. And then during that time you come in, we have open range hours for just shooting at the open range. We have also equipment available for purchase and we are offering private lessons at the moment. We also have a 24-hour access range. So if you want to come shoot but you can't make it between those times, we do have memberships available for somebody who might need to come at a different time. Oh, that's very cool. I love it. Okay. So with that you kind of led me into that. So I am besides the lessons and everything that you guys do over there, you also have a really strong retail scene over there. Is that right? You have like an online shop. We do have a small online shop and we also have plenty of, plenty more retail items here in the store, thousands of arrows. We have several dozen bows to choose from. And as well as all of the accessories, sights, stabilizers, arrow rests, arm guards, shooting gloves, other equipment that you might need, quivers, cases, etc. and targets if you wanted to set up a range in your own space. All that is available and it can be kind of intimidating getting through and that's why we have our staff here who is professionals in the archery world with our USA archery certifications as well as just a lot of experience and passion about the sport to help guide you through whatever you're looking for. Very cool. And you guys that are watching, if you want to head over to the website, you're going to want to go to www.highaltitudearchery.com and all of that information that Paul just shared is over there so you can feast your little eyeballs on that because I know it's a lot to throw at you during a live. So with that and without further ado, Paul, I'm actually going to turn it over to you and you have some fun stuff that you're going to show us today. Is that right? Yeah, that's great. I'm just going to turn around over here and I've got some equipment that I'd like to show. The first thing that I'm going to show you is just one of our standard recurve bows. This is the same bow that one of the bows actually that we use for our rental equipment. It's a Sammic Polaris bow. It's a great introductory bow. Comes with everything that you need to get started shooting and then it's real easy to use, real easy to handle in your own yard if you wanted or to have something here at the range. The shot process is pretty simple. Grab my arrow, attach my arrow to the bow. I make my three little fingers, one finger above, two fingers below. I'm just going to point that right down range, draw back, find my anchor right on my face and then when I'm ready I'm going to relax my fingers and let the string escape. And away it goes. That is such a cool sound. I love it. For sure. So that's a basic bow and that's what a lot of people start off with. It's what we start folks off with our classes and lessons. And even if you've never touched a bow before or if it as in your case it's been a year or two since you've blast shot. You can come on down and within 20 minutes we can get you to the point where you're shooting and having a good time with your family or just even by yourself. Just one of these really simple easy to use introductory bows. Nice. So as you viewers come on and Paul is showing us a demo of a little bit of archery. If you have questions for Paul shoot those in the comments and we'll try and get those answered as well. So again comment, let us know that you guys are here and if you have any questions let us know. Absolutely. I love answering questions about all this stuff. That's why I'm doing it. There's also other kinds of equipment that people use for archery as well. You know modifications to that basic recurve bow is this guy here. Holy cow. Yeah and this is an Olympic recurve right and it's very similar to the basic recurve. It still has limbs. It still has a riser and a grip. Still has a string right. It just has a couple of other bits on here. It's got a movable sight and a set of stabilizers that help to mitigate motion around when you're at hold. This is exactly the same kind of equipment that archers use when they're in the Olympics. That's very cool. The big difference between what you'd be shooting in the Olympics and what you're shooting here is here our range is set up for about 20 yards and that seems like kind of a distance but then if you are in the Olympics you'd be shooting 70 meters which is actually 77 yards or three quarters of a football field. That's so cool. What's that? What's that Olympic sport where they ski and then they have to shoot? What is that? That cross country? That's biathlon. That's a winter sport. In the Olympics it's done with a rifle not with a bow. Oh right. Persian of that and I think that there's actually a course, I want to say near veil that does that. Oh that's cool. We're getting a few. The Chamber of Commerce somebody posted said, I still remember your ribbon cutting where you shot the ribbon for the cut. That's pretty cool. Oh yeah that was a lot of fun. We had the ribbon cutting ceremony out here and we had it rigged so that the ribbon went over a balloon and we shot the balloon when the balloon popped the ribbon fell. Oh super cool. Yeah and we have a question. Karen is asking, is high altitude archery open right now? Yes we are open. We do have some modified procedures in order to maintain safety so we are open. Again our hours are from noon until 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and then 9 to 5 on Saturday and 11 to 5 on Sunday. During that time we're open for open range. We have private lessons available as well as our retail areas. We do have a reduced capacity right now so we do have six feet distances on the lanes marked out so that nobody would be shooting closer than six feet from one another and with that heart space is fairly large even with a reduced capacity we can get 19 shooters in here safely. Geez that's cool. And as I was mentioning before if those hours don't work for you we do have a 24 hour access membership. That gets you a little key fob which will open up the side door and into a separate area where you'll have a 20 yard range any time of the day or night. Just one of these little key fobs here. Nice. What is the longest distance that you have shot to like a target? Oh I'm not very ambitious about that. I've only shot about 60 yards but there's a lot of folks out there who will shoot 120 yards or more. In fact there are archery games that where the name of the game is distance. Two styles of archery one called cloud archery and one called flight archery. In cloud archery they use a target like a barrel or a flag that is out at some distance could be anywhere between 60 and 120 yards and you'll try to shoot closest to the flag and then the other one flight archery is simply distance the longest arrow from the starting position wins. So there's a lot of fun things you can do. A lot of times they'll kind of have those kinds of competitions as part of a part of a more traditional archery target tournament and then they'll kind of throw in one or two of those fun little tournaments just to have something to do during the when they're tabulating scores. So we're getting Kelly Mahoney asked do you usually host any leagues? You know we usually do. Any given time of the year we typically would have one or two league nights going on. Sometimes they're target leagues. Sometimes they are 3d leagues where we use foam animal or foam replicas of animals as targets right now though because of the social distancing requirements and not having too many people in one area. We've postponed those until later in the fall. We have more clarity about what's safe. Very cool. Nice would you have anything else you want to show us there Paul? Absolutely. So I showed you a couple of recurrents. We also have what's called compound bows.  These wheels are called cams and they provide a mechanical advantage so that a shooter can pull and hold more draw weight which gives you more power behind the arrow with less effort. And it's called a compound bow? It's called a compound because of the multiple different kinds of action on the limbs. These short little limbs here and this is an example of a bow that might be used for hunting or maybe somebody's first bow that they might own if they're just getting into the sport and wanting to get a compound. And it has a lot of the same kinds of components. It just has a different shape right? So it's got the limbs, it's got the riser, it's got an air rest, it's got a sight. It has a few extra things though. It's got this little loop here where we would connect a release to draw back and hold it with a mechanical release and it's got a peep sight that helps draw a line from where we're looking on the string to the sight so that we can be more accurate. This is just an example of one that you might use for hunting. Now with the compound bow, is it more tension do you get with the wheels or is it just more of a compact like it's all in a nice little package? You know it's both actually. So because of the shape of these cams up here you can draw and hold more energy than you can with just a basic recurve. Gotcha. And that gives you an advantage in terms of the amount of energy that gets put through the arrow and gets imparted onto the target as well as just basically being smaller in size. So you can see you know. Yeah quite a bit. And so like this is a lot easier if you were tracking you know an elk through the forest to get this around the brush then something like this would be not to mention that this bow here is 20 pounds and this one is 70 pounds so oh my gosh more energy.  Do you know? Yeah no she's the recurve. And actually the name is escaping me but the actress who played Katniss was actually trained by Katsuna Laurier who is an Olympic archer and up until recently lived in Boomfield. Oh nice. And then we have another comment. Hi Camillo. Camillo Panada says my boys love the kid classes at High Altitude Archery and they do great birthday parties there. Oh well thank you very much. That's pretty cool. Yeah we have a great time with the kids they really enjoy it. Oh I bet. So this is another kind of bow that we've got this is a target compound so it's similar to the other compound that I brought out except for that it's longer and it's got the long stabilizers on it as well as a site that's been optimized more for target usage. That looks like some serious machinery right there. This is actually my son's bow. Oh very cool. Yeah and so we have a lot of fun with that. But yeah we do we outside of outside of COVID-19 times we definitely do a lot of events. We do corporate team building events birthday parties. We've worked with scout groups in the past and these are all things that we love to do which right now we're of course trying to keep everybody safe and healthy so we're pulling back on those events but that is something that we will do and we'll continue to do once we have more clarity from the county about what safety protocols need to be in place. Well I look forward to that. Now when we were talking before going live you were saying something about you have an event coming up or a couple of down the road events?  Tom is actually a native of loveland and he runs a company that builds elk calls called mile high note game calls and he's going to be joining us to host a seminar on how to call elk in either for hunting or if you're just hiking and you want to get a little bit closer to the animals and have them come to you. Oh that's pretty cool are you gonna can you demonstrate an elk call? Oh no I'm not ready to do that sorry I'm actually not an elk caller we'll have to wait for Tom to uh but he's very impressive. You can't just go here Elkie Elkie here Elkie come on I just don't know how effective that is. I want to try that with Moose they tend to go the other way I yeah yeah Moose see me and they're like hey peace out that's pretty cool um when when are you hosting that elk calling seminar do you know yet? Yeah so the elk calling seminar we have it uh both a beginner and an advanced so the beginner seminar is on June 8th uh from 7 to 8 uh those tickets are actually going really fast like I said because just like everything else we've got to have a smaller number of people around and yeah so those you know that's actually filling up pretty quickly so if you're interested in that you should probably uh hop on over and and check it out uh and then we have an advanced elk calling seminar on um June 16th from 7 to 8. Very cool and on all that information is on your website as well the tickets and all that? Absolutely all that information is on the advanced part of our website okay it's there's a it's a nominal fee it's $10 to come in uh you get your uh with the in the beginner class you'll get an elk called uh as part of that entry fee uh and it's a practical hands-on uh type two class so we'll be making some noise. Nice nice well um with that so every day Paul um I've been having um my guest who's on helped me with um a daily giveaway a prize of some sort do you want to tell our viewers what today's uh giveaway is? Sure well what we'd like to do is we'd like to give away to one lucky viewer uh one hour private lesson for two people. Woo that is awesome and that would include all of your range access all of your equipment rentals and the hour with one of our highly qualified instructors. That is an amazing giveaway how how cool one of you lucky people out there and I see all of you so um now is your chance so I'm going to ask you a question uh Paul and I were just chit chatting a little bit so hopefully you were paying attention because uh this question is uh the first person who gets the answer correct in the comments uh wins that private lesson for two people at uh the high altitude archery okay. You're exciting hopefully everybody was taking notes right hopefully they're paying attention okay so here is your question what kind of animal call is Paul hosting a seminar in June we specifically said the kind of animal what is it ready set go put that in the comments and the first person who comes in with the correct answer will win that private lesson so I always feel like I need like a drumroll or something here right hopefully it's not so long that we need the jeopardy for you I know right hopefully they get it quicker than that so yeah he um we were talking about a certain kind of animal uh that you do a call for oh oh we have a winner it looks like Lenore Knox with Elk you are our winner our nation's Lenore yay good job that was some fast typing there Eleanor our Lenore I almost called you Eleanor oh close Kelly Kelly came in a second when saying a turkey not quite Kelly the answer was Elk so uh Lenore you are today's giveaway winner you won the private lesson archery lesson for two um so Paul I will get Lenore's information and I'll connect you guys and Lenore will get that information off to you so congrats to you big winner today and uh with that Paul I really want to say a big huge thank you for joining me today oh thank you it's been so much fun right I've had a lot of uh of these lives and I've learned a ton and so now I am super pumped to get over there and my kids uh both have an interest in archery too so I think you're going to be seeing us quite a bit over there for sure well sounds great I'm really looking forward to it I'm really looking forward to seeing all the viewers here too awesome thank you so much and you have a good rest of your day okay all right thank you take care all right so that was fun uh and Lenore you big lucky winner today uh private lesson over at the high uh high altitude archery you get a private lesson for two so make sure that you email me and you can email me at it's it's scrolling but it's also Jay Wanasek it's WANECEK at longmontchamber.org and we will get you connected with Paul to collect your prize um I'm I'm super excited I want to get over there right now and shoot some things so uh that is our Tuesday's tunes in arts today you guys are going to want to come right back here at 4 p.m. tomorrow for our Wednesday we shop and um my partner in crime Karen is going to be uh hosting another amazing retailer tomorrow and you guys all come back tune in for another chance to win um a really really cool giveaway and I'm going to tell you that right now it's a really cool giveaway for tomorrow so you're going to want to tune in 4 p.m. here otherwise we will see you I love you all thank you so much for supporting the chamber and all of our local businesses who are kicking butt right now so you guys be well and we will see you right back here tomorrow thanks


I've been married for six years with my partner Bruce. We met Alex actually three years ago when we opened up our relationship. We were just opening up our relationship because we had the level of trust that nobody else really had around us since we thought we'd make our life a little more interesting. So we started to maybe go out and date and try it and we realized after a few months that we were looking for a deeper, a deeper connection and something more than just you know I mean the odd hook up here and there and when we met Alex it just it really clicked and we started out as friends.  Yeah it was a learning experience like especially three years ago you've heard more about it now even in the last year that I've heard you know to me ever. I think experience really just, it speaks more than you know what I mean, a title. We all pick each other up in different areas, we all have different strengths and weaknesses that kind of you know you fill in these gaps for each other and that's the best part about it is we have this like this feeling of a family that we never really had kind of maybe from our own families growing up that we've created for ourselves. People's biggest misconception is that we're constantly jealous all the time of each other and that can be farther from the truth because we're all equal and we all get what we need from each other. We were completely transparent about everything in our lives and I think that's the only way that a relationship like this would ever work. Even if I go do a video at the studio or someone else I'm showing them everything, every message, everything I do, I want them to be involved, I want them to know because it makes me feel better. I would say definitely like walk before you run, try not to go too quickly into it I would say definitely try to open yourself up first, see if even a three-way you know any lifestyle is something that you could imagine yourself doing, maybe put yourself in some situations like that and maybe just do a little bit of research on it. Try to always be as honest as you can with your partners when you're going down this road because if you don't have that level of trust then you're not going to be successful especially in a volunteer job.


It feels like the world is literally moving under our feet, said supervisory board member Elisabeth McCall in our previous episode. She describes so well the pace at which we are moving towards an ever more digitalized world. And this brings me to our topic today, the digital euro. Because the way we buy things is no exception. The share of online payments has nearly tripled over the past three years. It's all moving so fast. Our grandparents use checks, our parents mostly cash, and we are happy to pay by card, phone, or even with our watches. New solutions pop up constantly, and at the same time, the only central bank money is cash. It is most secure, it guarantees privacy and flexibility. And this is what we want to offer with the digital euro. You're listening to the ECB podcast, bringing you insights into the world of economics and central banking. My name is Stefania Secola. There's a lot of interest in this topic, there are a lot of open questions, and there are also quite some misconceptions. So what I want to do today is take stock and bust some myths. With me is Evelyn Vitlox, who's leading the digital euro project here at the ECB. Welcome back to the podcast, Evelyn. Great to have you. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be back. We've reached an important milestone in the digital euro project, the completion of the investigation phase. And the governing council has just decided that we are moving into the next phase, the so-called preparation phase. This brings me to the first myth that I would like to bust. We will soon be able to pay with the digital euro. Evelyn, what does this decision mean? Thank you for asking the question, because it's indeed a question I get more often. So the decision that the governing council took is to move to a preparation phase, and that means that we will prepare ourselves further to be ready, if at any point in time a decision will be taken to issue a digital euro. Before the decision can be taken, a couple of things need to have happened. Most importantly, the legislative proposal, which has been proposed by the European Commission, needs to have gone through the democratic process and end up into a legislation. So and only after that, the governing council will consider to decide to issue a digital euro. So one of the important factors for a timeline that will affect when a digital euro could be there is the legislative debate. But we all know at least the people that have been working in payments is that developing a payment system and even more with a digital euro, we actually create more than a payment system. We really issue a new form of the euro. That takes time. So what we will do in parallel with the legislative debate and the process that is running, we will further prepare ourselves. And that will take some time. So the preparation phase that has now been approved will last for two years. And there we will focus on looking who could be the suppliers for the solution. And that will also inform on which technology the digital euro would be built upon. And in parallel, we will also further work on the design and standardization that makes sure that the digital euro can be accessed everywhere so that you can get it everywhere, but that also that you can pay everywhere in the euro zone. But it will take some time before we will get there. It sounds like indeed indeed. And today I can already pay digitally with my bank card, my phone or even the watch. So here is the second myth. There is no need for a digital euro. Evelyn, what do you say to that? Indeed, you have chosen your topics very well. This is asked a lot, but I think it's the wrong question. Because one of the most specific things of the digital euro is that it's central bank money. So currently you have two ways to pay. So either you pay with cash, which is a central bank money, or you put your deposits at a bank and then the bank allows you to pay with digital means. And now we're moving into an age where people pay more and more digitally. So this is not because the ECB is not committed to cash, but we see the preference of the people is to pay more digitally. And we believe that it's important that we make sure that also in the future people have a public means of payment and that they have direct access, like they have with cash to central bank money. So that would mean that towards the future there would be an additional choice. So either you pay with cash, you pay with the current solutions that are there from commercial private companies, or you can pay with a digital euro. It's also important to think the counterfactual, because if the central bank would not do this, and we continue the current development of the way we pay, which is more and more digitally, then towards the future the only way to pay would be with private means of payments. And we believe that payment is so important for all of us, that it's important that there is also a public good like the digital euro that can ensure that there is a high level of privacy that there is sufficient attention for financial and digital inclusion. So in short, that's the reason why it's important that we consider a digital euro and that we prepare ourselves for the future. Yeah, absolutely. And it looks like this is what is happening. Now, in the past, you also indicated how the digital euro would look like in previous episodes. And for the listeners, we will add these links to the show notes. The next myth is then a digital euro will ultimately replace cash. You mentioned several times it's not the case, but maybe you want to tell us a bit more about it. Yeah. Well, so we have been very explicit from the start, is that the digital euro will be an additional choice, so it will not replace cash. Cash is central bank money. So we love cash and we stay committed to cash. We have also even issued a new design for the bank notes going forward. So the commitment to cash is still there. But as I said, the end users, so the citizens and merchants more and more have a preference to pay digitally. And in some environments, you cannot pay differently than on a digital. It's very difficult to pay in cash when you order something online. So with the digital euro, what we want to do is to offer an additional solution, which I just explained in the other question. One of the most important features is that it's a public good. It's central bank money. But we also want to transport in its design some of the most valued features from cash. So one I touched upon briefly already. So we will make sure that we focus on a very high level of privacy. And we have currently thought about two types of digital euros. One would be an online one, which would look a bit like what people already know. But the other one would be an offline digital euro, which would be very much like cash. So it would mean that you would hold your digital euros either on your phone or on a card and that only by holding those two together with another one, the money is transferred from one device to the other. So then the level of privacy that we can deliver is very close to cash. That's one element of the digital euro and its design where we want to take the cash like advantages along. Can we say it's digital cash? And can we call it digital cash in this case? Yes. Well, we need to be clear that because it's digital, it cannot be one on one the same as cash. But with the design, we try to come as close as possible to cash while making it available in a digital environment. And is it secure, private and universally accepted like cash? Yes. And especially the last point is also very important. So we design it in a way that you can use it all over the euro area in a similar way. And that is true for person-to-person payments. It's true for payments in a shop or online or from governments and to governments. And we will make sure that you have only one payment method, which is then the digital euro, which you can use in all these use cases and in all these countries. And that is currently something that is not existing yet. Yes, yes. And the fact that it's so modern and progressive is super interesting and is what is bringing us forward and also is bringing me to the next myth. The digital euro is only for young people in big cities. For example, it excludes people who don't have a phone. Is that true? No, that's not true. So as I said, the digital euro would be like cash, really a public good. So financial inclusion is important, but we also very much look to digital financial inclusion. And we know that for some people, it's more difficult to go along with all these changes. So therefore, we also have really taken into the design that there would be ways for people that would find this difficult, that we can take them along. And one of the things is that also a physical card can be provided in order to do these payments, for example. But also that there would be in-person support if you want to start using a digital euro, for example. Interesting. I have another myth for you, Evelyn. The ECB sees what I spend my money on and it uses the data for all kinds of things. So some people are extremely worried about this, about privacy. You mentioned it before. But let's talk about these fears a bit more in depth. Will the ECB collect personal data with the digital euro? And if so, for which purpose? Well, thank you very much for this question. So no, the euro system will not be in need to have personal data. And the data that we would have in order to settle on transactions or to make sure that the money moves from one to the other will be pseudonymized. So that means that we can never connect it to any private individual. And the way we can do that is because the distribution will be going through intermediaries. That's a difficult word for banks or payment service providers. They would know who you are, but they would not share this information with the euro system that settles the payment. So in that way, we can deliver a high level of privacy. And as I said before, and I think it's an important feature, is the offline digital euro. There, even in the transaction, it would be like a bank note. So we hold these two devices to each other, so either a card or a phone. And then the money moves from this device to the other device. So it doesn't go over an internet network or a connection. So nobody will see it, like if I would give you a bank note from one to the other. And since I'm on the topic of offline, I want to put one additional, because in the last question you asked also on it's for people only in the city. And so that's not the case in general. It's not the case. But with offline, we also facilitate for more rural areas where there is not always internet connectivity, for example. And then with an offline digital euro, you can still pay. So with the design of the digital euro, we really make sure that you can pay everywhere in the euro area, even if there's no electricity or no internet coverage. So it's really inclusive for everybody. Exactly. I was about to say this means really inclusive. Yeah. And so let's go on a final myth then. The ECB is working on this all alone from its ivory tower. Evelyn, what do you have to say to that? Well, I can testify that this is not the case. So maybe let me start with the fact that the ECB is not on its own working on CBDC. More than 90% of the central banks worldwide are working on central bank digital currency. Some have already implemented solutions. Some are experimenting. Some are designing. So there are different levels. But actually, the majority, well, I should say, almost all central banks are looking in the topic of CBDC. So it's not something that we do on our own. Then since this is something for the euro area and it affects everybody's life, we feel that we cannot do this on our own and we're not doing this on our own. So in the in the last two years, we have very actively reached out to all stakeholders. So we have worked closely with the European Commission. We have gone to the European Parliament roughly every second month. We have also set up more stakeholder groups. So we work with the market advisory group where we have professionals that are there on their personal title to advise us on the design. And we work together with the European Retail Payments Board. And that's a mouthful, I understand. But it's an important body because there we have all the major stakeholders represented. So we have the consumers. We have the merchants. And then we have financial institutions being banks or non-bank financial institutions at the table. And also via the ECB we have also done four sessions with civil society organizations. So a large part of the work is really reaching out and developing the digital euro with all stakeholders involved. And in the preparation phase, we very much want to continue to do that. Absolutely, absolutely. Thanks, Evelyn. And before we wrap up, we always have questions for our guests. And that's for a hot tip on today's topic. So the digital euro. Evelyn, what do you have for us today? Thank you. Well, I thought about this before because it was not an easy question. And my answer is a bit wider than the digital euro alone. But my tip is the movie. Everything, everywhere, all at once. I'm not sure if you have seen it, but it's a very creative movie, I would say. Also picturing all kind of realities that there could be. And as you might know or might not know, is from my background, I'm a technical engineer. So I'm trained to be very analytical. But I have learned in my career that creativity is also very important. So with the digital euro, we need to imagine a future. And probably we don't know how the future looks like. So we need to probably imagine multiple futures. And from there, find creative solutions that would fit the needs of the future. So that was the tip that I wanted to give for today. Thank you so much, Evelyn. And this brings us to the end of the episode. I want to thank Evelyn Witlocks, who's leading the Digital Europe project here at ECB for this very interesting conversation. Thank you. Thank you, what a pleasure. Dear listeners, check out the show notes for more on this topic. You've been listening to the ECB podcast with Stefania Serkola. If you like what you've heard, please subscribe and leave us a review. And in the spirit of Europe, I'd like to end in Dutch this time and say hot horns. Until next time, thanks for listening.


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