Hello friends. Myself, Professor Narendra Katikar, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Valachand Institute of Technology, Solapur. Today I am going to present a topic design of plastic part. The learning outcome for the same at the end of this session student will be able to design the plastic part. The content for the same will flows likewise. Introduction, Essential Factors of Part Design, Plastic Part Design Methodology and Approach. Case Study, A Bottom Leg Support of Steel Chair, Design Procedure, Final Drawing of the Part with the Dye and References. In the introduction, let us see the some of the points for the discussion, plastic material. Now, as we can imagine and we are in experience that many of the material, metal, non-metal has been now replaced or tried to be replaced with the means of plastic material. This is just because of its very numerous advantages over the metal, non-metal, etcetera from the expectations of the particular part to be worked in a ideal working environment like thorough transparency through to the thorough openness, weight to strength ratio, easily moldable properties and so many others. Thus, the need of plastic material products is going to be increased day by day. Now, regarding the plastic part manufacturing, as we know there are number of processes machines which are be there for production of plastic part manufacturing. According to the specifications, the plastic parts are going to be considered for design in consideration with manufacturing constraints. Now, the basic concept of design that is as like our general mechanical design for any particular part of the machinery or mechanical element, the same procedure is going to be there for the plastic part manufacturing. Now, essential factors of part design, different factors used for part design in general for any material, let us recall an end list, the same will be applicable for the plastic part design. Now, let us see those in detail the plastic part design methodological approach, step wise procedure for development of plastic part, those are as follows defined requirement and service conditions, design to get specifications and selection of materials that is for trials, decision about manufacturing process and detail. Let us see the design rather the plastic part design with a case study. Case study for bottom leg support of a steel chair, problem statement, a product has to be designed for assembly of steel chair of a 7 kg bed having a 4 leg supports requires plastic bottom support bushes, this is to avoid noise during the handling and scratching marks on the ground during the pulling and pushing, the plastic bush has to fit it to the pipe leg of chair by a 4 mm diameter, fully threaded slotted cheese head screw to the pipe 50 mm diameter with a flat support on the ground, this is the problem statement. Now, let us proceed with the iterative process of plastic part design. This is the sketch which is initially to be imagined the flat bottom, the plastic bush support 5 4 mm screw is the requirement and 50 mm diameter for the steel pipe that is of the leg is given one. Now, the decision about to manufacturing details, it is a medium carbon steel die and let us consider with the previous knowledge and experience that it is to be manufactured through the means of injection molding. Now, in the step 2, let us see the 1 chair that means there are 4 bushes, the weight of the chair is 7 kg, the weight of the average person is 70 kg, total weight is maximum about 77 kg, each bush loaded with the 77 by 4 that is around 20 kg, pipe diameter is about 50 mm, hence bush diameter is about 25 let us say 26 mm, the even complete number, the hole is through the hole is through and for the height 10 millimeter and let us start our now designing. This is the preliminary sketch, very cylindrical in nature and let us consider 11 mm, then 4 millimeter hole for the screw, then 11 millimeter and then let us height is the 10 millimeter to accommodate the screw, the wall is of 11 millimeter to bear the load of 20 kg. So, the calculation about the that is 94.98 millimeter square, then let us calculate the sigma, sigma is 20 kg divided by the above figure and it comes out to be 0.210 kg per mm square, the factor of safety we are considering the 2 times and for PVC, we are selected the material PVC, the tensile strength is 450 kg per mm square, the softening point for the same is 75 degree Celsius, shrinkage is about 0.5 to 0.7 degree Celsius, this is the ready-recognized data which we had got. The uniform wall thickness is to be there and it is considered about 2 millimeter, then the geometry is varied likewise, but this is not feasible for manufacturing point of view. Now, the design demands the horizontal insert and shutoffs, hence to modify. Now, the geometry has been redefined this redefinition with the experience and knowledge itself. Now, the iteration moves with the further, here 4 mm hole is in the boss, so guideline is L is equal to 4D, if hole diameter is less than 4.8 millimeter and L is equal to 6D, if it is more than 4.8 millimeter. Our constraint on the length is 10 millimeter, so L is equal to 4D, so thus D comes out to be 2.5, but our requirement is D is equal to 4, so strengthening of our wall of the boss is required. Parting line decision and according to the modifications has to be done. Now, for parting line we can observe that the bottom most part surface is considered for the parting line and considering the 4 mm particular hole at the center to accommodate the screw, the geometry has been modified, the uniform 2 mm thickness for the job is there. Now, the further process now the in the further step strengthening of the wall of the boss, we have to provide the ribs. Now, the guidelines for web design is as follows, the rib thickness must be less than the wall thickness, the rib thickness must be about 60 to 80 percent of wall thickness, let us consider about 70 percent. The rib thickness is 0.7 into wall thickness that is 2 millimeter and rib thickness is about to 1.4 millimeter. Now, taper provision for the walls is with the ready rickner that is 2 degrees. For example, tan 2 degrees is to be there then how the x dimension is calculated that they are shown x by 10 and likewise 3.49 millimeter on one side. Likewise calculation of all the taper diameters are dimensionized and it can be shown over there. At the end we can see over there that the provision of shrinkage allows to all the sides that is about 0.6 percent. So, part drawing is finalized and modified dimensions are shown over here, the part geometry ultimately the cavity is shown over here in the two halves, parting line is shown over there, ejector pins also shown over there and you can observe that the sectional front view as well as top view. This is the die assembly without obviously the gating system and at the end of this particular design rather the manufacturing the plastic part design which we had considered as a case study. The part will be visualized something like this. You can observe the four different views for the plastic parts. This is our expected output the hole is at the centrally located four ribs, uniform thickness and taper geometry and little bit radiance radius given for at the every end corner. The references for this particular presentation fundamentals of plastic mold design by Professor Dr. Sanjay K Nayak Tata McGraw-Hill publication New Delhi. Thank you.


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Good morning and very glad to be here and give you the industry view of this Horizon 2020 and what we can create here in Europe. I'm coming from Kone. Kone is a Finnish company but globally based and we have our research center all over the world. Europe is the main but of course we have also Asian R&D centers and as mentioned before innovation is coming as well from there. We have a vision in Kone. Our vision is to provide best people flow and I will try with my presentation to link this vision with what Europe could play and where Europe could play a big role in this vision. This percentage represents the total volume of elevator escalator that are today present in the world. So we have around 11 million of equipment in the world and 51% are based in Europe. Clearly North America, South America and as well Asia are playing a big role into the growing but the base of our equipment is in Europe. Some predecessor here mentioned about the society changes. What we are looking as a mega trend are very clearly linked and we have aging population, we have safety, safety that need to grow and there is a need of safety and of course efficiency, sustainability. How we can turn this into a renewal of our industry. Kone is known as an industry leading company and recognized for its innovations. As said mentioned before Kone is committed to offer innovation through people flow and solution to make this traveling between building possible and in a smooth way. I have put here a short timeline that is starting in 96. Why 96? 96 is the date when Kone introduced and revolutionized this industry introducing a completely new concept in the industry. I'm not now going into the details of the innovation but why I want to put all the innovation here in this timeline up to today is because most of those innovations are related to modernization. Modernization is something that we can boost based on what I show before and based on the picture that I mentioned before 51% of equipment are based in Europe and based on the fact that we need to improve eco-efficiency, we need to create safety more and more than what it was before and we have this mega trend of aging population. This is going to boost this industry specifically in Europe because modernization, replacement of all the equipment is creating this demand. What is the way of innovation and ideas that we see from our perspective? What I'm here mentioning as a past is nothing related to that need to be changed or whipped out. This is a base where we are building our future and we are having in the past innovation contest patenting it's still a very high level activity, basic research something that we cannot avoid, we need researcher and the networking was in for like with external world was limited with selected partner and most probably in the vicinity industry. What we are going in the future and what we are doing already is that innovation should come through partner, customer and something that is very typical for us is users. Many of you, most probably everybody of you using elevator escalator and as well building doors, coming into building this one and that is where we can capture the innovation. Specifically in the country where these mega trend are boosting the needs. Open innovation it's something that we are using very much in these days and with external work with other companies. We have been discussing here earlier about aviation. We are moving people as well and we can see a lot of synergies. I put here an example as a PHEMEC that is a consortium happening in Finland where we can have all the different companies creating innovation. We are also together with the academic world building this innovation labs. Innovation labs is something that we truly need because in these labs we can experience our users feedback and inputs. Idea generation is something that is happening everywhere and internally external of our industry and our own fields. I have listed the way how to make this happen. How to create these future innovations. We need structural changes and to create these structural changes we need to cluster and create a right partner or partnership during the all innovation phases. We know the true innovation we have different phases and starting from the basic research to the development of products and to the industrialization. Through the different phases we can create a different partnership and get the best out of this partnership. I have seen mention also several times the speed. Speed is something that is needed not to make things faster but to increase the speed of what we are doing. We know that the world is changing. The needs of creating new solutions is very high in the agenda of everybody. So the speed to make the changes and to create the strengths and to answer to the strengths is something very important. We need to faster and widely create this partnership. It's something that in Kone we truly believe that this is the way. How we are building and how we are creating the understanding of these people flow. How a company can contribute successfully to urban development and when I was saying before with customer and user it's really it's really the way that we are able to create this urban development. Urban means all the cities urbanization needs as well in Europe even if the industry of construction is not in the boosting phase. We have a lot of infrastructure that are renewed. A lot of public buildings that are changing the usage. So these people flow is something that could really create something different and something that could boost our industry more. Understanding the cycle of buildings. Buildings are changing. Building need to be renewed. Building have different needs during their life and this is something that need to be understood together with public sector together with investors. Understanding our customer challenges. It's not something that we can build alone but we need to understand the challenges of our customer and help those challenges to be answered. In technology our approach is related to people flow and everything that we are doing guides are there. As I mentioned and summarizing collaborating closely with customer, user and partners enable customer and user driven innovation. Creating the best available elevator escalator and automatic building door technology as a foundation of innovation people flow solution. Utilizing the last technology and this is something very important here together with efficient process and state of the art together with partnering together with university together with institutes and together with public funding. This is enabling us to boost this industry specifically in Europe. Kone is manufacturing the products together with our partner and we strongly believe that the manufacturing of people flow solution is something that could be beneficial for Europe as well. How I want to summarize in my last slide how we are creating this boosting in our industry. We need to know what we are looking for and we can show our interest of emerging needs. We need to have more idea, we need to have more mind and we need to have different mind. This diversified boosting it's very important. We need to work with all the industry with all the possible customer needs and with public. We need to change the perspective. That is something that will always boost our industry. We need to change our perspective. We do not have to look our product as product but we need to look our product as a solution and how those solutions are enabling our industry boosting. One important thing is that to create this we need talents and talents that are available to work with this kind of solutions and with this kind of vision. So this is my way of seeing these people flow boosting in European contest.


Good afternoon. I'm Sonia Schuyler and I am a member of the Board of Directors of the League of Women Voters of Vermont and I'd like to welcome you to this information meeting about non-citizen voting. I want to thank our co-sponsors, the Chittenden Asylum Seekers Network, and we have Jan Stanbauer and Hannah Martin here from that organization. The University Unitarian Universalist Church Justice Team here and Bernie Carver is here representing that. I should have checked that and we have Kate Hepner from Town Meeting TV and we want to thank the Fletcher Free Library and Barbara Shatera who helps us schedule programs here. The League of Women Voters has not taken a position on the ballot item in Burlington. We do have a committee that has been studying non-citizen voting and our presenter here, Marguerite Edelman, has been chair of that committee and we thought this would be a good time for the residents of Burlington to share, to learn from the information that the committee has gathered about non-citizen voting. We'll have the presentation first and then there'll be time for questions afterwards. Marguerite, I should begin by saying that I'm not a lawyer and I'm not an expert necessarily in this topic, but it has fascinated me because I am a Winooski resident and as you know Winooski did pass non-citizen or resident voting last year and we had our first election with non-citizens. So for me the the topic has become very interesting and I've set up my Google Alerts and almost literally every day I get something extremely thought-provoking, controversial on this particular topic. So we thought that it would be a good idea since the League hasn't taken a stand to present a more factual kind of overview of what's happening at the national level historically and here particularly in Vermont. So I just want to begin with the whole area of the history of non-citizen voting in our country and as you know, you know the legal women voters is very concerned about voting and has studied that topic for a long time and voting used to be primarily restricted to white male property owners. They were the ones who got to vote and race, gender, class, non-citizenship were often factors that mattered in who could run for office, who could vote and etc. It's interesting to note that basically since 1926 over 40 states or territories have at some time given non-citizens some voting rights at the local level and some or all elections. So this is not a new concept historically. What is important to note in the US is that federal law prohibits non-citizen voting in federal elections only. Okay, so that is set by law. But some state constitutions, actually no state constitutions, specifically allow for non-citizen voting and that's an important consideration as well. They don't deny, you know, they don't say that non-citizens can't vote, in some cases can vote. But some interesting things have happened within the last, I'd say, months. Both Rhode Island and Connecticut have proposed laws in their state legislators that would allow municipalities and or the state itself to allow non-citizens to vote. And in Connecticut, the legislator who proposed the bill is including illegal immigrants, which is rare in this country anywhere. In most places, it's legal residents or legal individuals. Illinois Senate has also proposed a law that would allow parents and guardians who are non-citizens and have school-aged children to vote in school elections. And that was just proposed as well. So there's three states that are making statewide action or trying to, obviously it hasn't passed yet, that would make major changes in voting in those particular states. So there are state constitutions that ban non-citizen voting. And five of these states have only banned non-citizen voting within the last three to four years. Those states are Louisiana, Ohio, Colorado, Florida and Alabama. Both Arizona and North Dakota have had a ban on non-citizen voting for a while. So now we have seven states, and it's interesting. It tells you what's happened politically, that it has become a very hot topic. And that we expect that we're going to see even more states proposing legislation to ban non-citizen voting. So there are states that don't have roadblocks to non-citizen voting, basically have a couple of things that they need to have. So the municipality can actually expand voting rights in local elections if there's no explicit state constitutional or legislative impediment. And so long as local jurisdictions have the power of home rule. And that's the concept of state rule, home rule, kind of balancing the levels of power within government. Some states require that changes to local charters need to get approval from state legislators. And I'll talk a little bit more about that. But Vermont is a good example of that when I talk about the process that Winooski and Mount Peale here had to go through. So states that have smooth sailing, in other words, there are no impediments at this time. Two municipalities passing their own voter qualification laws are Arkansas, Illinois, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Washington, and Wisconsin. So those are the states where there are no real impediments. That doesn't mean that if they decide to do something to allow non-citizen voting at a statewide level or even a municipal level, that they wouldn't end up with lawsuits just as we did here in Vermont. The states that have roadblocks to non-citizen voting are 11. And some of those are the states that have recently passed legislation to change the Constitution to ban non-citizens from voting. And that's Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, DC, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Ohio, and North Dakota. So where non-citizen voting is being considered or has already been approved. Boston, Massachusetts right now is seriously considering, like New York City did, non-citizen voting. And there are a number of groups that are working on the issue there. Chicago, Illinois, Portland, Maine. And in Portland, Maine, the commission, let me get my glasses. The Charter Commission has already approved non-citizen voting, but it still needs to go through a process before it becomes an actuality. San Jose, California, Worcester, Massachusetts. And I would also add besides Worcester, there's Amherst and Cambridge. The problem in that state is while they have approved non-citizen voting at the local level, it's just sat on deaths in the legislature and hasn't been through the entire process. So while they've approved it at the local level, it hasn't gone anywhere. Syracuse, New York, and Washington, DC. Interestingly enough, Washington, DC did pass non-citizen voting within their city municipality. In fact, one of the articles I read said that Washington, DC actually has more voters in Vermont, more citizens and voters in Vermont. So they should just definitely get their rights to vote because they can't even vote in federal elections yet. But they are looking at non-citizens and they have approved giving non-citizens the right to vote. This is one of the most controversial areas. If you haven't heard the House pass, because in Washington, non-citizen voting needs to be approved by the federal government. So the House has already voted against it. We don't know if the Senate's going to take it up or where it's going to go if the Senate passes it. So at this point, it's just kind of in limbo. So some of the US cities with non-citizen voting are 11 cities in Maryland. What I find really interesting is that Barnsville in Maryland gave non-citizens the right to vote since 1918. Somerset in Maryland was 1976 and Tacoma Park was 1993. Which tells you that in some places this has not been controversial and it's been going on for quite a while. The two cities in Vermont, you know, Winooski and Montpelier, and they're relatively new on the scene. We're lucky that the Supreme Court here in Vermont just ruled that it is not against the Vermont Constitution for the two cities, Winooski and Montpelier, to have non-citizen voting. In San Francisco and Oakland, non-citizens can only vote at this point in time in school board elections. That was what they wanted to be able to give non-citizens the right to vote in. And that has been challenged in court, but it has not, interestingly enough, stopped the voting practice. So they've been able to continue to vote there until there's a resolution in the courts. In New York City, on the other hand, the voting rights that were given to non-citizens and passed in New York City are presently in appeal. And those individuals, non-citizens, will not be voting until that appeal is resolved one way or the other. So there is a lot of money being spent on lawsuits. So non-citizen voting, this is also fascinating. So you get a sense of how absolutely diverse the whole issue is and how it's done in different parts of the country. In some cities, non-citizens can only vote in school elections. Sometimes they can only vote in city elections, and sometimes they can vote in both. And in some cities, non-citizens can run for local city council and or for school board positions, and in others, they can't. And we'll talk a little bit about Montpelier and how it differs from Winooski. And I don't know if they'll be the same issue. I don't think so in Burlington. So one of the things that cities that decide to go through this process look at is immigration data. You know, we have representatives from various groups here today with information about immigrants in our area and in our state. And this is some interesting data for Vermont. So 4.4% of residents are immigrants, 2% of immigrants are non-citizens, and that's approximately 12,000 people in our state. And the top countries of origin, this really fascinated me. Number one was Canada, which makes sense when you think about it. And then you had Nepal, Jamaica, Philippines, and Bosnia, and Herzegovina, I can't say that very well. So that gives you a sense that, you know, it's not all that you would expect. In our community of Winooski, we have a large African population, so it does differ across the state and in various communities. This also was surprising. More than 9 in 10, 92% of immigrants reported, self-reported speaking English well, or very well. And 50% of adults had a college degree or more. So that was a surprising fact, too, because there's many assumptions about who are these individuals, you know, and what are their education levels, what do we know about them. And in Vermont, we only have 20 DACA recipients. So Montpelier was the first city that actually approved non-citizen voting, and these are their eligibility requirements. Once again, both cities in Vermont require you to be a legal resident of the United States. So any person may register to vote, they have to be a legal resident of the U.S., a resident of the city of Montpelier, and 18 years of age or more. And they have to take the voter's oath. Non-citizens can also run for local offices, but not for the school district positions nor on school district issues. And the reason is that Montpelier school district is Roxbury, Montpelier. So it's a dual school district between two different communities. And because of that, Roxbury would need to approve the same things that Montpelier has approved in order for non-citizens to be able to vote in the school district. And there's some people who would like to see that happen. So what does the city clerk require to do? They have to keep a separate voter registry of non-citizens. And they have to treat and maintain the registry in the exact same manner as the voter checklist. And they have to develop the necessary forms that are needed and the procedures for implementation. Non-citizens get a separate ballot. They get a different ballot because in town meeting day, the March election is the one in which most of the issues that non-citizens can vote on will be on that particular ballot. Although there could be some in the general election and at other times of the year. So this is a history of Montpelier's non-citizen voting. It came up the charter change in November of 2018 to allow non-U.S. citizens to vote. And it won by 65.7% of citizen voters because it took citizens to allow this to pass so that non-citizens could vote. And currently in Montpelier, nine non-U.S. citizens are registered to vote. And in the 2021 town meeting day, only five non-U.S. citizens actually voted. And Winooski, my hometown, it's a little bit different and we'll talk about that. So Winooski's all-resident voting really was a result of some of the things that we know about Winooski. That it's part of the larger Burlington metropolitan area. It's one of the most diverse communities in Vermont and in our region. And that more than 20 languages are actually spoken in our school district. So Winooski facts about the population is the total population is 6,131. 5,041 are native U.S. citizens, 472 are naturalized citizens, and 618 or 10% are not U.S. citizens. But predominantly legal residents. So the estimated household income and living in poverty is just some general facts, but they're kind of interesting when you look at Winooski in relation to the rest of Vermont. So the process in Winooski, and that actually should say Winooski, is that we started with a charter commission that looked at the issue and studied it, just kind of like the League of Women Voters does. They studied the issue, whether it was feasible. They had a number of individuals, including non-citizens on the charter commission to talk about the issue. And then the council had to vote on it to put it on the ballot. It went on the ballot, and current citizens who could vote had to vote on the question to allow non-citizens to vote. Then it had to go to the legislature, the House and the Senate for approval, and then to the government, governor, and then all resident voting could be developed and done. Now, another way you can get the item on a ballot, if you don't go through a charter commission within a city, is through a citizen petition to put a question on the ballot, which is what I think was done the first time they tried to bring that issue up in Winooski, and it did not pass at that time. So it's interesting that, you know, there's more than one way to bring it to a city council. So all resident voting is pretty similar to the Montpelier, except that individuals can vote in the city and in the school district elections and run for office in both. They also can vote, and this may be true in Montpelier, I believe it is, on things like the water district, the solid waste district, and other larger districts that include that community. So the politics. The Winooski charter vote was in November of 2020, and it passed by 71% of individuals who were citizens. And the charter changes were approved by the Vermont House and Senate, but the governor vetoed the charter changes, and his argument was that it was unfair to have different voting rules in different communities. The House and the Senate overrode the governor's veto, and like Montpelier, the GOP filed lawsuits against the city. The lawsuits were dismissed, and the Supreme Court, which recently resolved the case in here in Vermont, said it was not against Vermont's constitution to have non-citizen voting. So Winooski undertook, and a community is not required to do those. Winooski does far more than Montpelier does in this area. Educating non-citizen voters. So Winooski, because it prides itself on its diversity, it has a mission around inclusion, its higher diversity and inclusion coordinator, has actually put all the ballot materials in eight languages. They've done community presentations with translators from the Association of Africans living in Vermont and from some of the other community groups from various communities here. They've done educational videos, and they've done outreach to those immigrant associations. This is not a requirement at all, but Winooski has gone probably above and beyond. So Winooski's first election with all resident voting was in 2022. On election day, 17 non-citizens voted. They were very proud after coming out of the polls that day. The number of registered voters that we have in Winooski was 5,218, but the number of people who actually voted that day was 938. And I'd say that's a real problem still. I think the league would admit too that citizens not voting is really a shame. We just don't get the turnout that I think we should have for local elections that deal with so many important issues. And the total number of non-citizens who are registered to vote right now in Winooski is 56. So this kind of come now to what I call where the discussion can begin. Representing and have collected all the pros and all the cons that we've heard of. And I'm sure there's more. And in this case, we'll start with those arguments against non-citizen voting. So one of them is non-citizens will have to self-identify, which could put them at risk for immigration action. And I'm not going to explain further on these. I just want to present them. The county clerk becomes a keeper of immigration info, which could make it difficult if the federal government were to ask for the info and that resulted in deportations. And citizenship is a privilege and it comes with the opportunities of voting, which shouldn't be given to non-citizens. This is this and the next one are probably the main arguments that we hear around the whole issue of non-citizen voting. Voting is a right for citizens and many non-citizens eligible for citizenship are motivated to apply for citizenship in order to vote. Issues faced by non-citizens are different from those of citizens and more appropriately addressed by citizens. Non-citizen voting might encourage those who are here illegally to register as a legal non-citizen resident and vote. Non-citizen residents who may not speak English or be able to read could have their votes easily manipulated by others. Large numbers of non-citizen residents voting could change the outcome of an election. Non-citizens may move to communities that allow non-citizen voting, changing the culture and the nature of that community. And procedures for non-citizen voting cost the community money, including lawsuits, translations, interpreters, processing separate photo registration forms, reconfiguring web pages and more. Then the arguments for non-citizen voting are as follows. This first one is one of the major ones that we hear, the idea of no taxation without representation. Non-citizens own property, they pay taxes, they contribute to our local economy and should have a voice in local government. Non-citizens are affected by policies and actions of municipal and county governments the same as citizens. Non-citizen schoolchildren are affected by policies and actions of the school district. The citizenship process is costly, takes many years and has an application backlog of over 15 months. Our local economies depend on immigrant and refugee labor. Workers should have a say regardless of citizenship. Non-citizen participation benefits all community members. Non-citizen voting was common at the local, state and even federal level in the U.S.'s first 150 years. In some countries, residency, not citizenship, is seen as a measure of being a legitimate stakeholder in a community. Voting rights are part of the social contract. A just government rests on the consent of the government governed. The vote helps guard against discrimination and bias, often a consequence of political exclusion. The majority of Vermont's immigrants are educated and speak English. Voting participation is correlated to the voting rate of one's parents. Since obtaining citizenship takes many years, the sooner parents are allowed to vote, the more likely their children will later become voting adults. So that's kind of a quick summary of the pros and cons. And there are some additional issues that I just want to bring up because they could form an interesting, really interesting discussion. And some of these you may be familiar with, some not. Pregnant foreigners can, and usually these are people with money by the way, because you have to have money to do this. Travel to the U.S. on a visa and have their baby here. They rent a hotel room, maybe down in Florida for three months, have their baby in the U.S. and then their baby is granted U.S. citizenship by birthright. So is that really fair? Legal non-citizens are subject to selective service and can be drafted. I didn't know that. Why can't they vote if they can give their life for the country they reside in? And a non-citizen can serve in the U.S. military, but U.S. citizenship is not guaranteed to them for doing so. Should it be? Many states don't have meaningful residency requirements for citizens to vote. 23 states have no residency requirements, and most others have around 30 days. And the U.S. allows citizens, U.S. citizens, to hold multiple passports as do many other countries. Should they be allowed to vote if they are residing in another country? So to me, these are additional questions to add into the loop of the pros and cons. I would have to think about some of these a lot more, but to me they're really fascinating. I forgot all about the birthright issue, and I didn't know about the military service issue. I know for a fact that my daughter holds both a Canadian and a U.S. passport, and I believe she voted in both U.S. and Canadian elections. So I'm not going to say whether I think that's right or wrong, but I think it raises some interesting questions. I think that would open us up for discussion if people are interested in talking a little more. I'm Bernie Carver. I'm here representing the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Burlington's Immigration Justice Team. Quite a mouthful, I must say. Anyway, as the name of our group implies, we're about justice for immigrants. And I think many or perhaps most folks don't realize what a broken immigration system we have. Asylum seekers who are in this country legally quite often have to wait five years to have their case adjudicated, and the process of citizenship would be on top of that. So you can be here a long time without having the privilege of voting. And it was interesting to me that Boston is one of the areas considering this. I lived in Boston for about six years, and people like to say it's where the American Revolution started. They just did the paperwork in Philadelphia later. But as many of you recall, they had a Tea Party there, which was about taxation without representation. So this is one of the fundamental grievances that helped start our country, I think, and a big issue for me. And then some folks might say, well, why don't they just become citizens? And our politicians like to say we're the greatest country in the world, which in some ways is true. We have the largest military and the largest economy for now. But in a lot of areas, we are outliers. Gun violence, for example, comes to mind, or health care, or prenatal care, or child care for children under the preschool children. So there are lots of reasons people wouldn't want to be a citizen and maintain their citizenship where their friends and families are and where they're from. Yeah, I would just add on the cost of getting citizenship. It's between $750, $60 to $900. And as you said, you have to wait, even with legal residence status, up to five years. And then the application backlog after you've actually applied could be another 15 months.  You'd have to forfeit the whole citizenship process and start again. So it's an extremely long and cumbersome process. And if you're an individual who also needs English to take the English part of the civic test, there could be waiting lists to get into a class for English. I'm Jan Steinbauer. I'm the chair of a local nonprofit that's now a 501c3. We're about three and a half years old here in Chittenden County. Chittenden Asylum Seekers Assistance Network. And I just want to clarify about the length of time. The five years is probably about right for those who are in the defensive track. Not all. Some can be a little faster if they were in what's a special thing called the dedicated docket. But we are working with supporting a one woman who has been waiting at least seven years and probably would be 10 years because she's in a little different track called the affirmative. These are folks who are have come into our country on a visa of some sort, study, work, travel. And then they have the right to claim within one year that they cannot go back to their country of there's fear for their lives or political things have happened that they cannot go back. And it takes a lot longer. You know, the backlog is it's getting worse and worse for that. And so that's a long time I think of this individual. I mean, she is educated, spoke English well, got training in Boston. You know, she probably drew your blood at the hospital and she was working here if you ever get that taken. I mean, there are people who are serving us all the time and are involved. So at any rate, it's just it's a long time to wait before you have any right to do have any say in the local matters at all. Anyone else. What I will say is that I have an information sheet of lots of resources on non-citizen voting. So if you're interested in getting more information, the information sheet is on the league table. And I have a sample registration form for non-citizens for both Montpelier and Winooski. So if you'd like to look at that, you can as well. Gene brought the actual resolution that Burlington is considering. Let me grab my glasses. You might have seen it, but I'll read it. So the charter change is, shall the Charter of the City of Burlington, Acts of 1949, number 298, as amended, be further amended to add Section 8A, Requirements for Legal Resident Voters Who Are Not Citizens, to Title II, Article IV. Qualifications of voters to allow legal residents who are not citizens of the United States, but reside in the United States on a permanent or non-temporary basis, in compliance with federal immigration laws, to register as legal voters for City of Burlington and Burlington School District local elections, and to vote for local officers and on local public questions provided such residents are at least 18 years of age, reside in the City of Burlington, and have taken the voter's oath. So that's what people will be voting on on Tom Meeting Day here in Burlington. Thanks for bringing that. And Gene brought also some sample ballots, so you can take a look at the ballots as well. So I think that's it. I want to thank everyone for coming. And hopefully we'll let you know when this will be airing on Tom Meeting TV. Thank you for taping us today.


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Hey, hey team, thanks a lot for being here. In case you didn't know, you're director of the Air National Guard, Mike Lohk. This exercise is all because of you. When we brought cargo into this country, we trans-loaded it from C-17s to C-130s to disperse it out. We're actually running inner theater airlift, so all the supplies and everything else need to move around. It's because of an air-tasking order to U.S. Assets. We didn't lose a single cornet, and those are all the fighter movement missions, also C-17 air refueling, because we had it staged from the northeast through Iceland, through the UK, and then on over. The F-35s, bringing in 5th gen and 4th gen assets together. Bring those pieces together in parts. Distributed network. This network is not only distributed around Germany. It's distributed to you safety network, the one that we actually share with our coalition allies, and then actually to Finland, Sweden, UK, all secure, all on a NATO secret backbone. And so what you may or may not be seeing, depending on where you're at, is the ability to disaggregate air power from very different locations, to aggregate it together in an exercise that has a northern complex, a southern complex, and a western complex, or eastern depending on how you look at it. Three times a day. So we're actually doing the cycles and repeating those, and putting a group of fighters, airlifters, because we're integrating fighters and airlifters, 5th gen and 4th gen, okay? Air refueling assets together to deliver air power. You know when CQ Brown, General Brown came over and took over, accelerate, change your lose. Agile combat employment. Air power anytime, anywhere. This is the largest exercise that the Air National Guard will do this summer. I definitely need your feedback on if you like being together as a National Guard to bring air power together, because as we modernize the force, biggest, my number one goal, modernize the aged equipment that's out there into things F-35, F-15EX, N-GAD, what's next, post-block F-16s that are fully modernized, with things like ASA radars, with the self-protection, with the jamming, and then bring newer C-130Js, newer tankers KC-46 on board, and bring Abel to bring that all together. 43 states have participated. 43. That's an amazing Guard Nation story. With that, we're also doing some new concepts with our ground forces, our TACP Enterprise, our STS, Special Tactics Squadron Enterprise, our Rescue Enterprise. We're actually doing ground-enabled air superiority, getting into locations where they have threat systems, and actually pumping those into the link to get targeted by the fighter pilots sitting behind me. Those things don't happen without us coming together in a large group, so I can't say enough thanks, and I mean that. Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule. I know if you're in school, hey, thanks for finishing up the semester. The first thing you're doing is not going to Cabo, okay? You're coming over here to Germany. If you're a family man or woman, and your kids are now out of school, you left them at home. You left your spouse at home. You left your loved ones, and you came over here to deliver air power. As you look to the future and what's going on east with Ukraine and Russia, you can tell that if we're ever called to do this, especially defend every inch of NATO, this team will have practiced it. So I do want to thank you for everything that you've done. Also, thank your families. For those drill status guardsmen that are taking time off, okay? When you go back to your employer, talk about the air power you delivered and why it's necessary to train.  So no kidding. Talk about it. Engage. Engage not only with your local communities, but engage why air power matters for America. It's huge. I take this back into the Pentagon with me and I talk about a transatlantic movement and what we've done. I said, and oh, by the way, it can be trans-pacific. It doesn't matter. Whether it's China or Korea or Iran, it doesn't matter. We're going to continue to deliver air power, and this is the group that's going to do it. So thank you for all you do. I really do appreciate it. All right. Hey, folks, go guard. Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhardtz, okay? Chief staff of the German Luftwaffe. His brainchild, when he took over the position, he said, we need to do two things. One is have an exercise here on Europe that does a transatlantic partnership. Two is we need to make sure that the readiness of our air forces. And three, he was tired of watching the Army run around and defender series ground combat. When he goes, we lead with air power. So Ingo, great partnership. 19. So Senator Mike Diane Friends, I would say, from the guard. I go by Vega. And I'm so thankful that you are here, that we have this exercise. The signal we are sending is really strong. It's NATO signal. And the signal is if you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us. And together with the United States, your great country. And that's exactly the signal we are sending in these two weeks to Russia. So at the end, the message is don't mess with us. I'm really grateful that you are here. And I wanted to give everybody of you something, but I can't. So I hope you feel it on our being a host that we are so grateful. And we want to give something back that you made it here to Germany, this strong signal being our strongest partner. And I hope you feel that every day in the air on the ground from our support from our being a host, that you really have the feeling, oh, wow, they want us here. And talking to some of you yesterday and even today, I got I get really the feeling that's that's the point. We still have a week ahead of us. So, yeah, we still have to do some good flying and continuing to send the signal. And your general talked about it. Yeah, it was my idea in 2018. But to be honest, it really didn't kick off the way I liked it. And then general for effort, he was the defense attache in Washington at that time and he connected us and we immediately felt it is the right time to do something like that. So when when your commander kicked in, we made this thing big. And after Putin attacked Ukraine last year in February, it got bigger and bigger. And now it's my people sometimes they don't call it the air defender anymore. They call it good killer. So it really got big. And it's due to your leadership, Mike, you in a person. I met a lot of leaders throughout the world in my military career. But it's it's really, really rare to meet somebody like you, a character being in front of his people, but leading from inside and you made this all possible. So I want to give you something and normally we exchange points and all the other stuff. But I have something that is really, really on the way of patience. It is the highest medal of the German armed forces. We call it the honor course of the armed forces in gold. So that is our highest medal, which you can get as a military person and you will deserve it. So I will read it down. I have to read it down in German. That's formal stuff. And if it is all okay with you, please go to attention. This is actually not my word. It is, it is for all of us collectively. In our national guard. So thank you. Thanks. Thanks for all you do. Keep up the great work. And like I said, go guard.


If you need Madden's 21 Coins for anything, make sure to go to BuyMutCoins.com It's cheap and reliable and my code MMG is 20% off Everybody always asks, where's Wheel of Mott? They never ask, why does your family hate you?  I taught her a new trick, you guys ready?  Where's your winner? Where is it? Where's your winner?  Luna, give us your only fans a like Luna, come here We're never getting her only fans a like Can I ask a serious question? This is totally unrelated to Wheel of Mott How is only fans a thing? Like, I get that it's a thing But do you know anyone who has ever paid money for an only fans? I feel like if one of my friends actually purchased only fans Then I would just bully him into the dirt Like, that's just what a good friend would do I mean, I guess if you didn't You might not tell your friends for that reason But I don't know anybody who's done it I just don't These girls would go on TikTok and show like four million in earnings Just like, from who, bro? From who, who? Alright, that's unrelated Why don't I get into the video?  A free safety, a cornerback? Three times Mmm Three times store bags is actually great right now Especially considering how many tolls How many tolls How many tolls How many holes Around this team Yo, I will say minor depression though I've already taken all my NFL playoffs Ultra Elite Packs So instead I'm gonna go the offense, defense, elite fan I've never opened this I think I'm gonna choose offense For all three of these And then hopefully get some offensive linemen Or do I choose defense? Oh, Kirk Oh Oh That was such an L I guess I'm just gonna open totally random packs I'll go in all pro The packs and stores right now are an L That's a bummer David Johnson, Brian Ellen If Fetty's actually in upgrade So I'm cool with that Shaq Lawson, minor upgrade Wow, this is like L season dude Right tackle is nice I might as well take Shaq Lawson I have one more pack Wow, I was in such a good mood And I'm just gonna get these trash packs And just gonna bum my mood out I'll go NFL playoffs packs I should have done this in a start So I'm guaranteed an 87 plus in these But whatever Kamek I got who? Rashad Fettel, he's a corner Bet I'm sorry, choose fans And I'm gonna piss off Man, I don't know how that is Sorry, I don't bandwagon hard enough, I guess Hey, let's tell these in You know, I'm kind of complaining But at the start When everybody's bad This is kind of cool Look at that Because that's gonna take my overall up Rob Havenstein Whatever his name was It's gonna take my overall up here So Rashad Fettel I put him at backup strong safety That's because Jamal is my sub linebacker So he comes in at linebacker a lot Rashad Fettel should still get some playing time, I think And then I did get a new left end Dexter Lawrence He won't see the field too much Because T.J. Wyatt's pretty much gonna be in that position But and then Shaq Lawson And Shaq Lawson will come in here where Derek Tuzka is Honestly, not bad I'm kind of pumped right now, let's go I still have huge detact of liabilities Whenever we see Robert Windsor's bad day Jishan Cornell Jason Cornell And then Shaquille Korderman Kind of ugly, but we're in 84 overall That is the quickest that we have kind of recovered our overall I'll say that Alright, so that takes us to our second spin Certainly not as hot as the last episode Last episode we were hot with the spins But we still got chance We still got chance Yes, sir Team of the Year Rando on offense This is actually an awesome spin We get one random team of the year offensive player The odds are kind of stacked against us Most likely we're gonna get an offensive line Because there's five all-in Tight end One wide receiver One quarterback, one half back, one fullback So it's like a 50% chance we get all-in But honestly, I don't care Let's go Team of the Year Rando Offensive Player Yay You know what? Exactly You know what I said? It's most likely an offensive line But it was offensive line 96 overall is what it is So I'm happy Also, I can bump Ragnar down to like left guard or something So my only liability on the offensive line now is Charlie Heck I didn't happen to pull another offensive lineman at all, did I? I pulled Bryan Allen See, because look, I started by newest And Ragnar was here and Haventstein's here So in between there, I must have pulled Bryan Allen somewhere Do we put him in for Charlie Heck? You know what? Yeah I'm gonna put him in Bryan Allen is in Cool So we're sitting on an 85 overall team This team is really ugly I'll say that It's kind of pissing me off how ugly it is But we have threats We have a mediocre slash kind of good offensive line And defense doesn't have nearly as many holes So I feel pretty good All right, and before I forget I gotta do my challenge wheel Hopefully it's not anything with the read option Do I kick kick no? I need an interception and a touchdown with Dion So I think the touchdown part of this is easy Quite easy to get the touchdown with the wide receiver, Dion But am I gonna be able to pull it off with prime time DB? That's the question Digs Josh Allen, DK Metcalf Okay, winnable So the big thing here is gonna be lurking with prime time We just gotta like Oh shit, I thought that was a run That's so open He's got like 50 yards in the opening play All right We gotta find a way to lurk Oh, that's actually a run this time And it's going for 10 Not the hottest start Just gotta make the big lurk here with prime time Oh, oh I wish I could say I meant to do that I really do and I wish that was prime time walking that in Because our challenge is daily to be complete The hard part of this is getting the defensive interception But hey, I like starting out a game 6 to 0 All right, let's let TJWag get some pressure And let's use prime time to his abilities Oh, that is so open Come on, prime time I know we got it in ya I'm not on prime time Oh, let's go, Aaron Doddhold Playing this deep Does he go, where's he going? Where's he going? Where's he going? Where's he going?   Ooh, my home's gonna have so much room here, bro Can I get inside of this?  Oh Big hit, I'll take it What are you looking for here? Nothing is open Let's go Aaron Donnell just havin' his way back there Unstoppable force is activated All right, prime time Oh, God, that route It's just dotting me up all day today I keep thinkin' it's crossers and he throws it He's puttin' together a slow, methodical drive here Whoa Oh, my God, that's so open Touchdown Great play I don't even know what I was in My defense was tired as hell, though I know that much All right, my homes will take off For some really solid yardage here That's our last time out, though We pretty much have to hit a deep corner row I'm just lookin' for Darren Waller on this That'll put me in field goal range potentially Oh 52 yard field goal, can we hit that? I mean, it says we can, I don't know I don't know, man This is the downsides of using Ocho Sinko Got it! Let's go! 19 to 14 Oh, and I started ball I wasn't even...    Oh, bad ball Bad ball in my homes Let's see if Dalvin can just punch this in I'm gonna give him a couple fake audibles And we run the dive Cause dive isn't inside zone, right? Inside stuff doesn't... Dalvin! Fucking reach for it Shit's so obvious You know I'm just gonna scramble this right at the middle I don't think this is man coverage Oh, okay There's the blitz That's easy 20 to 27 Read option, Josh Allen Gets absolutely swamped by TJ Watt Second and 20 See what he wants here I'm on prime time, baby Yes! Denzel Ward gets another interception Unfortunately, we want these going to prime time But whatever They can get two interceptions for Denzel It was a good prestige, I guess I'm just gonna chew clock and kick the bill Two possession leads Very, very, very important here Gonna snap this at four I love those blocks, gentlemen And Dalvin always finds a way to push forward, dude Third and three We're looking for... Ooh! I'll take a touchdown if I can have it Dominated his user He's gone! It's a rage quit! Hey, I'll take a rage quit spin, baby Let's go! This whole time is very much challenging I could just go for the rage quit wheel F***!  Team of the year has made my life so amazing I get Eddie Pack from the training store Which is the team of the year fantasy pack Who do I get? It definitely won't be offense I'll definitely let it be defense I think we bring back Jesse Bates He had an awesome season earlier in Wheel-O-Mut Team of the year fantasy pack Maybe I won't get Jesse Bates Maybe I'll pull some bullshit and grab someone else Honestly, none of your linebackers are great users I don't like Lovante Davies too slow It's Martin Davies too slow And Paul Max and Eddresher, so That's not really on the table I'm going Jesse Bates I already passed up on him once When I was supposed to get him And I took Darren Waller instead So I'm going to repent that sin Alright boys, 86 overall Team of that 98 GMO Adams Jesse Bates now Secondary's looking great I'd love to get Bradbury out And I'd love to get Rashad Fenton out So that I have a good backup When the boys get tired Patrick Willis was pretty abysmal that game Shaq Lawson too We got to do something about these two And then offensively, what I don't have right now Is like a really, really God-tier wide receipt Sometimes honestly, he's good His catching stats aren't very good And he's not fast enough It sounds stupid because he's so fast But I'll work on that But for now I feel great I'm so pumped with how we've been playing 2-0 to start this new season Hey, I will see you boys in the next episode Thanks for watching as always Peace


an agenda of thought leadership in this country, particularly in Ireland's place in the world. So naturally, right now, this is a very interesting time to take up this position. And I just want to describe briefly what we do. 80% of our work is our speaker program. So we have, as I said, distinguished panelists here from all over the world to provide their perspective, provide context for policymakers. It's really great to have them. And 20% of what we do, as you'll have seen as you walked in, is our research program, our papers that we produce and policy options for decision makers. And we don't want to overstate the role that we play, but we believe that we play a very important role in the robust and open democracy in Ireland. But what we don't want to be is an echo chamber. We want to provide an open platform for diverse views. And we have achieved that, I believe, very successfully over the years. We don't want to simply hear the same voices all the time. We want to hear diversity within this room. And that is critical for our reputation. It's critical for our independence. We are honored to have a very distinguished board here at the Institute. And Catherine Day joins us here, who will be on the first panel, Mary Cross and others who are on our board. We also have John Brutten on our board, Brian Cowan, Pat Cox, Patrick Honohan, Frances Ruan, Anna Weir chaired by Rory Quinn, and Peter McClune, I see in the corner, and Connor Brady, who will also be chairing one of our panelists this morning. Finally, one last point I wish to make is on our funding. We are funded by our members exclusively. One myth I would like to dispel is we do not have any EU funding here at the Institute, which isn't to say we wouldn't like to have EU funding. We simply don't have EU funding. We don't have any Irish government core funding either. Some of the government departments are our members. So we rely on our membership for our funding, and I think that contributes in no small way to our independence and the reputation we've built up over 30 years. So with that, it falls to me to introduce Declan Keller to make the opening remarks this morning. As I said, Declan Keller is the Irish permanent representative to the European Union and has been retained there for a further period for various obvious reasons. He's former ambassador to China, and he was also the ambassador to the EU Political and Security Committee and has a very industry perspective in that regard too. So with that, ladies and gentlemen, hand over to Ambassador Keller. Thanks Barry for those very warm words of introduction. I didn't recognise myself for a minute, but Barry has said who I am. I'm the permanent representative Ireland. Let me just briefly, for the benefit of everybody here, explain what I am and what we do at the permanent representation. Essentially, the permanent representation is Ireland's largest overseas mission. It is an all-of-government platform. Every government department is represented in the permanent mission. And we are in the front line, if you like, of promoting, protecting, pursuing, and pushing forward Ireland's interests in the European Union. We do that through the development of close links with the European Commission, with the Council Secretariat, with the European Parliament, and the range of institutions, and of course the delegations of our fellow Member States. Every Member State has a permanent representation like ours. The mission of the representation is essentially, as I say, to protect Ireland's interests. It's a negotiating job. It's a Ferrero Rocher-free zone, if I could put it like that. And we are deeply and umbilically linked back, in the first instance, to the Taoiseach's office, to the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and of course to the departments, all departments of Finance, Justice, Agriculture, who have business in the European Union. I say that just to give an introduction to where we are on Brexit. I just say that it's just over a year ago since the British referendum took place, and the preparations at government level, across government, have been taking place intensively even before that date. The aims have been twofold in the broadest analysis. First, to ensure recognition of the unique circumstances on the island of Ireland by our partners in the EU, by the EU institutions. And secondly, to hardwire our issues into the thinking and activities of the EU institutions and of our EU partners. And I think it's fair to say that that, we're in a very preliminary phase, that has gone well. In addition to, we have been contributing to EU thinking on the future of Europe, because as a distinguished journalist who's sitting here in the third row said yesterday, we shouldn't only look through Brexit goggles. There is a process going ahead on preparing and equipping the European Union for the post-Brexit situation. So what have the results been? In the first instance, our issues have been prioritized, and there is a recognition, and it's there in concrete terms, that resolution of the core Irish issues is of paramount importance to the whole of the withdrawal process. And secondly, there is a commitment to imaginative and flexible solutions. Now, as I say at home, there has been and continues extensive coordination and internal analysis, and an extremely sophisticated communication strategy too as well, which I think has been very effective with our EU partners. Abroad, ministers have engaged very intensively with their EU opposite numbers, a political and also an official level. And in Brussels, we worked very closely with the Council Secretary yet to bring forward the guidelines, and the guidelines for the negotiations were approved by the European Council, that is to say the heads of state and government, of the 27, not including British, on the 29th of April. Following that, a slightly more operational version of the guidelines called the Directives was approved at ministerial level towards the end of May. And I think it's worth just for calling, because people talk about status, people talk about what you're going to call the solution in Ireland. But as the Taoiseach said in Brussels last Friday, what matters is what's in the tin, not what's written on the side of the tin. And the ingredients are, if you like, absolute respect for the fabric of the Good Friday Agreement in all its parts, a paramount importance of protecting the achievements, benefits, and commitments of the peace process, recognition of the unique circumstances on the island of Ireland, and in consequence of that, the need to have flexible and imaginative solutions, the need to avoid a hard border, and also in the Directives, which I said was a slightly more operational version, is full respect for the common travel area, and also awareness of the challenges posed by transit and trade issues more generally. So that's where we stand, plus one other thing, the European Council has approved a statement which says in the event of the Good Friday Agreement procedures leading to unity, then the territory of such a united Ireland would automatically be a member of the European Union. I just digress in that briefly, think back 27 years to the unification of Germany, and in a sense there's a parallel with that, the process for an enlarged Germany maintaining its seats at the UN and the European Union. Now, a unified Ireland is not something for the short term at all, but it was important just to ensure that that potential uncertainty was addressed. I also would say, because I've seen in the media the view that it was not important, it's actually very important, and also when you consider that 27 years ago the Germans had on their side, one, the German unity was a matter of geopolitical importance, which Irish unity is not a matter of global geopolitical, it's not a global geopolitical issue. Second, Germany was occupied and there was a new treaty which basically supervised the withdrawal of the occupying powers. Third, four of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council were those occupying powers. So the German situation was different, but it was also a useful parallel and a useful model. The negotiations started just, I think exactly a week ago, if I'm not mistaken, and they've started in a reasonably benign way. The British have changed their position, softened their position on sequencing, softened their position on the cycle of negotiations, also have been more explicitly supportive of transition. And all of these are elements that are important to Ireland because what we want to see is a post Brexit snapshot of the relationship between the EU and the UK, which is as close to the pre-Brexit snapshot as possible. Our issues, and again, this is at our request, are not going to be considered in one of the working groups. The working groups are going to look at the financial settlement, citizens' rights and some administrative issues. The Irish issue is an issue of fundamental importance and will be dealt with at a higher level. I won't go into the details of the various new bodies that have been set up on the side of the council, that is to say all the member states of the EU in Brussels, but just to say that my committee, the Committee of Ambassadors, will be weakly involved in this. We have set up a working group to look and prepare specific sectoral areas. Mr Barnier will report systematically both to the Committee of Ambassadors, to the working group, to the Council of Ministers, and to the European Council, the heads of state and government. And it is an extremely close and very positive relationship. I just want to emphasize that that the Irish concerns are absolutely understood and we maintain daily, twice thrice, four times daily contacts with the Barnier Task Force and with President Tusk's people. The sequence will probably, if things work well, we will have a series of four monthly cycles of work before the October European Council. At some stage around then, the European Council will have to decide whether sufficient progress has been made to move to the second phase. And the second phase concerns the framework of the future relationship and that will be issues such as trade and what possibly the eventual landing zone might look like in terms of an agreement between the EU and the UK. From an Irish perspective, we are flexible on this. We want to see a quick move to the second phase because we do not want the negotiations to get stuck and we certainly want to see a harmonious relationship in due course. That is, however, let me emphasize that our points are very important to one of the three key issues and we will want to see progress in the first phase on that. I think that's what I would just say now, Barry, just to set the scene. One thing, and I say it because I'm sure it'll come up in subsequent discussion, our goal is to avoid a hard border. Our goals are obviously to protect the single market. We want a close agreement with the UK, but we do have a series of uncertainties and the uncertainties there, I mean, one uncertainty is in Belfast. It's the fact that we don't have an executive and the importance of this, let me give an illustration of this. Last October, the late Martin McGinnis and Arlene Foster sent an extraordinary clear and well-argued letter to Theresa May which set out the position of the Northern Ireland Executive. Without an executive, we can't rely on the same focus coming from within the parties, within the system in Northern Ireland. We want to see the executive up and running and as quickly as possible. Secondly, I'm not going to talk about the supply and confidence arrangement between the British government and the DUP. I don't have anything particularly to add on that, but there are two other uncertainties. Number one is the uncertainty in the House of Commons after the election and you hear talk from, you know, remainders and let's revisit things. We should be careful not to speculate too much on that, but the most important uncertainty is the lack of clear focus from the British side themselves at the moment. And I think nobody would deny that, that we don't yet have, I mean, they may have put their first paper in by the time I finished speaking, but we have seen nothing from them so far which sets out what they want and how they propose to achieve it. And let me just emphasize that there's a tendency to assume that, you know, it's for Ireland and for the EU 27 to come up and find a solution as if Brexit was like a shower of rain or a dose of the flu. It wasn't. It was a decision by the British. It was not an Irish decision. It was not an EU decision. And certainly the Irish government has made clear that the British side have responsibilities in this area as well. I think that's where I leave things just as the opening remarks vary and I'm sure my panelists will say far more interesting things, but I just wanted to share those points to set the scene right at the start. Thank you.


Welcome back to another Apple's NTR's vlog. It's Monday and it is 27 degrees Fahrenheit and we live in Which is like a it's like a lower northern Arizona City, it's October 30th It's the day before Halloween cash. Are you excited for Halloween? My voice sounds all It key because we slept with the window and the fan on when to open in the fan Which was really difficult to get out of bed this morning. How about you? Were you cold last night or warm? You had lots of blankets on huh and your fan was on but your window wasn't open, huh? Anyways, it is the day before Halloween We are heading to school at 647 in the morning, and it's real cold and That's okay. We're excited. We have lived in the Queen Creek Valley area Which is like Phoenix for the last five years and Down there. We don't get fall. We get a summer and fall And the fall does not it's not real fall it's just It's just cold for like two weeks and then it warms back up and then it's done But here in Prescott we get all four seasons and they're beautiful and we get to enjoy them Including the sicknesses that come with them Well, it's just hot there, baby. It's the desert so Today at school I'm gonna be setting up for a haunted scavenger hunt, which is like a Super duper easy day it takes so little time to set up and it takes so little time to do Basically, I print out a series of 20 cards and I get them from super teachers calm So for next year if you're planning a Halloween thing like and you just want to do something kind of fun It comes with like 20 cards that just kind of give you like Halloween facts like arachnophobia is the fear of spiders and Pump there are blank blank blank many pumpkins sold each year Like it just gives you facts about Halloween and then the kids have to answer a specific question based on the cards It's basically like a task card activity. However, how I do it is I hide them around the room Out of plain sight so they can't just see them from like plain view and then I completely black out the room With either black trash bags or black butcher paper And then I put like little tea lights around and I do like spooky sounds and like a haunted house on the TV And they have to bring a flashlight in To use to be able to read the cards and then answer the questions and as they answer the questions When they finish if they get them all right they get a piece of candy So it's just kind of a fun activity to do when Like energy is high because it's almost Halloween. In fact, I used to do this on Halloween But our Halloween in our district is a PD day They do it on purpose to let the kids out early, which is really cool The kids get out at 11 20 in the afternoon and then teachers go to a professional development day Until three three thirty so it's a really nice way to get the little kids out and to be with their families on Halloween So anyway, we won't really have time for any of that tomorrow on Halloween. So today is Halloween And my kids are at specials. We just did our like costume parade, which was so fun We got to parade around the whole school and show off our costumes and cheer for all of the other costumes And it was just a really good time. I am miss frizzle For obvious reasons. Um, but today is like a super short day. We are only in school until 11 20 and so, um Between specials and recess we're really only in the classroom for like an hour and a half So this morning we started out the day by just watching the nightmare before Christmas We got permission slip signed brought in and then After recess, which is what's coming next we will do a little bit Of a lunch party. So we have like snacks and popcorn Um, and the kids will just pull out their normal lunch and then they can come up and get like snacks and treats And that's pretty much it. And then the rest of today Is pd day for teachers And it is going to be hosted at our school So we will have all of the elementary teachers from the district coming here And we'll be breaking up into collaborative teams. So I'm assuming I'll be working with I usually go with the la group because I teach social studies, but Um, we will see so I'm kind of perplexed. I'm I'm looking at my calendar and Trying to plan out the rest of the quarter And what I'm going to probably do Is focus on science monday tuesday wednesday And then focus on social studies thursdays and fridays And that is because I want to be able to completely fit in Everything that I want to do for the rest of the quarter I'm finishing up my energy unit this quarter next quarter. I will do earth science. So we'll do erosion weathering um rocks earthquakes all of that and so I just want to utilize the quarter as best I can and then do a small social studies unit And i'm going to be doing meso america again And i'm trying to decide maybe you guys can help me because I do have like two weeks until I actually start doing social studies because we have so many weird like Like next week we have veterans day. So we're off thursday friday Um, and so we only have three days of school that week and then after that We have Thanksgiving, which is another two-day week. And so I'm trying to decide if I want to Do a paper version Of so this is the resource. Let me just turn you around. Okay So this is the resource. I have it. I purchased it from tpt. It's by um I forget student savvy Yeah, student savvy is meso america powerpoint and it comes with a bunch of different things. So you can do a digital Um interactive notebook, which I might end up doing I'm not positive This might be a better way to track everybody like just to make sure that they don't lose stuff And it will save paper Um, or I can do it where all the students have access to this virtual experience and then they do like, um An interactive notebook, um on paper I don't know. I'm kind of in between like I want to make them this But it's also going to be a lot of cutting and gluing and whereas this is more just typing, which I know isn't as like In the moment, but I feel like it would save time and since I'm only doing social studies two days a week What I could do is I could present this one this version um, and then they would Complete this version on their own. Um, and we would only do this two days a week. So You know, we would go through each of these pages Um, and then They would just turn this in at the end And I would throw in some other things like I like doing the Mayan like I like doing like the role play stuff where we like write a narrative a day in the life of a Mayan person Um, I just don't want it to be boring. Um, but it is just two days a week So we'll see. Um I feel like this would just be a really easy way to Like incorporate it if I'm just doing it two days a week Um, and then potentially have them Do like a narrative at the end like a day in the life of and they could choose a Mayan or an Aztec Or an Inca person And then watch the road to El Dorado. Um, so this will take us pretty much all the way up until Christmas break Um, which would end that would be we'd have to finish Like The 20th of December because then I would want to have all my grades in and done So I'm contemplating doing this or I can easily use our Social studies curriculum Which is digital. Um, it's just a lot more like reading Which wouldn't be bad, but also has them like mapping um and It goes into Like it has a lesson on the Maya Um But again, it's a lot of reading uh slideshow video More reading um Looks like there's some vocabulary games And some notebook stuff Um, so I don't know. I'm gonna keep looking through this. I have it like I said I have a couple of weeks Before I decide I feel like this would be more engaging um and This would be a little bit more I don't know. I feel like trying to use this this one Like it's my first time using it. I don't know. I should probably just explore it a little bit more This I've done for the last like four years. So I know how this works. Um, I know the best way to deliver it And it might just be easier for me to do this Plus it's all on google classroom. So if a kid's like missing a page, I can just Have them go do it rather than them fiddling around with the paper one So I think I'm gonna I'll probably end up doing this one The digital notebook, but I'll probably go through and delete a couple of slides. I don't know. We'll see Um, and then I'll throw like I said some other little things in between like depending on how quickly we go um, so yeah These are all the things to consider. Um, so realistically if I do this I'll have two Potentially like so I'm mapping myself out for having two to three days for each mystery science lesson that I'm gonna do eight days Maybe more to complete the unit, which I feel like if I was gonna do Like in the past I've done this unit for like two weeks ish So I feel like it should be fine. I should have plenty of time um and you know Hopefully Like I said, I've I've mapped out like Like for this week. I have lesson five teetering between two days if we finish it in two days If I use the two days and I finish in two days then great done If I need the third day for science great, I can use it But if we finish on time then I could easily start Doing the social studies on wednesday um And then you know fill in the gaps on friday, so it just kind of depends on how it goes I mean if I if I schedule it for two days, then at least I know how much time I have and then if I have more time Um, or whatever I can always like throw it in here Or I could always use wednesday for like an alternative activity like I could do like task cards or like Model buildings or projects on wednesdays that are related to science or social studies So um, I think that this will be a great way to kind of split them up rather than doing Like a couple more weeks of science and just like trying to rush through it Um, and then trying to do social studies at the end So I think I'm gonna just do that and call it a day. Why don't we climb these rocks up here? All right guys, so it is thursday evening What? Well, is there you gotta catch it? Um, we just cash and I just left school. I had tutoring and we came to the property This is our land. Um We're meeting here to That looks suspicious We're meeting here to put our address sign up because we're gonna start having subs coming here in the next couple days to start Breaking ground on building our house Scott and I would really like to start doing like a family vlog We have a channel. It's called apples in the badge And it'll be linked down below. It's also in my other channels Um, but we want to start documenting like the process of building a house and all of that I touched it Weird So anyway, this is our land.  So Are you getting cold? I have a coat for you in the car. Yeah, this is our land Um, I don't want to go down there Well, I mean just go and see Yeah, let's go see Finds me of the camp out. I was trying to pound stuff into the ground for the tent Bigger ones, honey. Big as you can carry without dropping it on your foot Worth a shot. All right, let's get bigger rocks. That'll do donkey Okay, kash you want to screw it in there? No, it's fine. It's fine where it is, baby All right, you guys we have made it to friday Um, today we're doing some mystery science challenges with the energize everything unit And it is the day that the kids create the spin-o-matic The twist-o-matic, sorry Unfortunately because it's friday. We didn't have enough time to really finish it. So I have half a mind to Only go through a little bit with my other two classes And then have them do the lab on monday Just so that everybody's in the right place. Oh my gosh. I'm so out of breath Um, but anyways it's going great so far. Good morning. Um, but I wanted to show you guys a bump date So we are 20 weeks on sunday and Little man Is growing a lot I actually just scored like a ton of maternity clothes from a girlfriend of mine She and her sister-in-law Both just wrapped up a few pregnancies And they gave me two huge bags full Pants leggings t-shirts tank tops long sleeves sweatshirts It's like, oh my gosh, you guys saved my life like The amount of money I would be spending on maternity clothes Is like it's zero now So i'm just really excited. Um That I don't have to spend all that money on those because They jack up those prices so much because they know that pregnant women have to buy them like there There's no getting out of it So anyway, i'm sitting at my desk if they're at specials right now. I have about 25 minutes left And i'm just gonna enter some scores Um into my grade book and then I am working on my schedule my agenda slides for next week Next week is only a three-day week because of veterans day. It's really cool They give us thursday off for pd day And then friday off for veterans day So technically like we only work thursday and we're just gonna be grading um some writing assessments And then we are actually going to disneyland For kash's birthday because his birthday is on wednesday next week. So that's super exciting Um, we'll probably do a disney vlog on our family channel and um Yeah, so it's been a great week so far. I feel like this week I finally have like hit My groove and I think it's because I decided to just go ahead and use mystery science something i'm used to using Because it's so easy. It's so user friendly um And I just feel really good about it. I don't feel stressed. I don't feel rushed Um, so I think it's gonna be really good