Hi, I'm Jay Fiedel. This is Tink Tech, the 9 o'clock clock on a given Thursday, and we're initiating a show called The Movie Show with our movie reviewer, George Kasin. Good morning, George. Nice to see your smiling face. Good morning, Jay. Good to see you. So you looked at and really appreciate the time you spent in it. Reviewing the movie called, it's a serial called The Underground Railroad. It's particularly appropriate right now because we've had a lot of news about June 19th. And in fact, Governor E. Gays signed a bill and President Biden's about to sign a bill designating that a holiday both state and federal. So it's appropriate that we talk about The Underground Railway because it is about slavery in the 19th century in the south, and taking the railroad, so to speak, to the north. So can you give us your impression about this movie? Some people said it was unnecessarily violent. You think it was? That was one of the points I want to make about violence in movies, on all shows, TV, movies, and how it anesthetizes those in our society who have some mental issues. So I really would agree totally that we have to try to see if we can get less violence. There was a lot of shooting, killing. And as I said, when these young people and older people who have issues see that, they get anesthetized that killing is okay. So definitely I agree with wholeheartedly on that question. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I saw, I didn't see as much of it as you did, and I appreciate you looking at it. But I thought that this was interesting and different in the sense that you got to be in the environment of slavery. You got to be next to, with even thinking in the mind, to the extent that was possible of a slave on a plantation in those days. And it was much more graphic than I had ever seen before anywhere. It was much more troubling, actually, because it's one thing if you're reading a book and they tell you that there were brutalities, but if you see them, and certainly this movie, this serial, did show brutalities to you. What did you think about that? Was that accurate? Was that appropriate? I think that the atrocities were accurate. The timing was not accurate. And some of the other historical facts that are really peripheral to the main issue of how brutal slave slavery was. And as a former history teacher, I'm very hung up on accuracy, historical accuracy. And I'll get sensitive because of what happened to my family in Turkey, and then the way Turkey has been altering historical record. And then there was two Israeli historians last year corrected everything. They wrote a book. So I'm very set. Now, the issues I have is that, for instance, South Carolina was depicted as less horrendous for slaves. But that was not the case. South Carolina was more onerous than North Carolina. So that was only one of it. And also, maybe I should get on a tangent, there was no railroad. There was no underground railroad. It was only alluded to that, that it was, you know, there were all these halfway houses that would be protecting slaves as they went to the north or to Canada. And there was nothing underground except maybe from occasionally. So those were the main things. That really lost credibility for me. Because I say, are you kidding me? Who in the world could have built a railroad underground that was not, you know, visible, was not known? And went all the way that way. That was ridiculous. It was, you know, it was a play on words to start with, but here it was a completely unexplained, completely fictitious idea. And I said to myself, gee, how much of this can I believe if they're creating it out of whole cloth that way? There was no, it was a conceptual railroad all the way to Canada. But it wasn't actual. Can you imagine who was going to do that? Who was going to, you know, dig all that soil out secretly and get a locomotive underground? How do you do that? It was the author of the novel, who used to believe this when he was a small child. So when he wrote the novel, he wanted to project that into his novel.  But that was the main thing that both you and I sort of feel that it's sort of, that's when I first started seeing it, you know, the brutality was very real. But it sort of left a credibility to me because they're depicting an underground railroad when there was none, you know, so it just made me laugh. But as you said, that was the initial thing that I questioned the credibility. And then I went back and researched South Carolina, North Carolina, the first Georgia where they started. And then from North Carolina, they went to Tennessee, they jumped over Kentucky to Indiana. And then there was that Valentine's Farm massacre of this more affluent, beautiful farm, right? But that wasn't accurate. That the reality happened in Tulsa in Greenwood in 1921, which was way after the Emancipation Proclamation, Juneteenth, all of that, right? And so even in 1921, and to this present day, presently, Republican legislators, legislators are trying to do Jim Crow laws to restrict lack and other brown, you know, minority people from voting. So we're in 2021, which is 100 years after 1921, when there was that horrible massacre of affluent black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, we're still dealing, and we're still dealing with black people being shot. I mean, George Floyd, it was with a policeman, but there was this other runner, nice young black guy, was running in his neighborhood. And these three white rednecks, I hate to say white, but they shot him just because he was running in the neighborhood. So I'll be quiet now. But that's the point that there's, as you said, there's credibility issues. The other thing I wondered about, and you must have questioned it yourself, is that part of the early episodes on the series involved a community in Atlanta, which elevated former slaves to lead an elegant life. They were well dressed, they went to balls, they ate like kings.  The only thing, and this was really nefarious, the only thing was that they couldn't have kids, they couldn't get married. They had to stay in this kind of static arrangement, where they were like on display as successful former slaves. It was nerve wracking to watch it because you knew that all around, this is antebellum all around, there were horrible things going on, yet these people somehow had found a niche of affluence in Atlanta. Was there any truth to that? It was in South Carolina when they had gone from Georgia into South Carolina. From my perspective, there was no truth to that at all. Because as I said, South Carolina, the slave laws were more onerous against slaves than even in North Carolina, which is also onerous. So that was total fantasy. I mean, the author of the novel did a lot of this, you know, it was fiction. You know, the basics are important that it was so, it was brutal, it was horrible. But these facts were like you said, it wasn't even in Georgia, it was South Carolina. And yes, they were in finery and they were having a beautiful life dancing. She and her first boyfriend that, you know, that he looked like he was part Native American, you know, all of that is just all fantasy. I mean, other than the basics, as you said, of the brutality of slavery, a lot of the historical facts were all, you know, I mean, and plus, not only do you have the author of the novel, plus the screenplay, it was changes. And then the producer and the directors, they also made changes to make it more, you know, appealing or more interesting. So the facts were sort of, but that was South Carolina, but that's that was not in the movie, but that was not the facts. That's totally, you know, bogus. It's very troubling. It's very troubling because a lot of people may not see the distinction that you're talking about. They may say, well, okay, it's, you know, it's realistic enough that I believe it. And it must have happened to something like this. And so, okay, I'll accept this as my history lesson for today. But that's very misleading, because it isn't true.  And therefore, I mean, me, I begin to question, you know, the whole premise, because the underground railroad in American history was a real thing. And if I don't know the difference, I say, that's interesting the way it worked here. These are really interesting things. But I don't think it portrayed itself as fictitious. It asked you to believe. My my issue is as its former teacher, high school and junior high school social studies teacher, these kids or even adults are going to see this thing, believe it's true, right. And, and they're going to think that that that Valentine's farm that massacre happened before the Emancipation Emancipation Proclamation before Juneteenth, right, 1862-1965. And, and they're going to think it happened in Indiana, when it happened in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921. And then so many other facts that that are like just not true. And then, and the kids are going to believe that there was an underground railroad actual trains underground. And this is, and this is what they're going to believe in a teacher is going to ask them, you know, maybe they're going to study under slavery. And these young kids are going to think that there was actually an underground railroad. So I mean, that's why I'm, I was initially very uncomfortable with all these lack of historical veracity. But the basic idea, as you said, it's important for the public to know how brutal slavery was given the recent political climate where they're trying to, you know, changing history that there are these people that say the Holocaust never happened. My family in Turkey, that it never happened. You know, this is all, you know, that's why I believe in historical veracity so that young kids don't get the wrong idea. Well, you know, the problem is, if I tell you there's a railroad where there wasn't one, if I tell you about a community in Atlanta where it really wasn't like that, if I tell you about, you know, the Valentine farm issue that didn't happen until 1921 in Oklahoma, I am undermining your understanding of history. And if you lose confidence, okay, in what I am rendering to you, then maybe you don't accept, and some people would probably take it this way, then maybe you don't accept, you know, the underlying story that you and I both found credible, that is that there were atrocities on these plantations. And then the whole thing lose, the whole thing loses credibility. And then, you know, young person says, well, you know, this is television, I can't believe anything on here.  And so, and then of course, you have this really troublesome aspect about American entertainment slash news where you don't know which one is which, and you don't know which one is accurate and not accurate. You don't know whether you're getting a straight poop. And this is troublesome. I don't know how we fix that, George, but this movie is an example of how you can get off, may I say, I have to say this, off track. Very good. That was definitely off track. Well, you know, part of it too is this, I mean, if you watch the Cable serials, you say, my goodness gracious, there's a whole generation of people coming up into the movie industry that really know how to make high value productions, you know, the lighting, the color, the sound, it's beautiful. And it actually adds to the credibility, even if you shouldn't be giving it all that much credibility. And you say to yourself, this is really entertaining, engaging, very watchable. It's a work of art. It's what it is. It's a work of art. And you can take that same team and you can give them a script that is completely untrue and have them produce it in a way that appeals to people and where everybody going to go and watch it. I don't know, this is also troubling to me. I'd really rather watch an old fashioned black and white documentary that doesn't have this high value aspect to it. And then I would be educated, although maybe not so much entertained. No, true. I mean, the acting was superb. That South African actress did Korra. She was phenomenal. The bad guy that was trying to, you know, slave catch her. He was really good. They were all great actors. And as you said, the scenery, absolutely fantastic, beautiful, you know, pictures and everything. But as we said, the veracity was there.   Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. This was, I mean, this was stressful.  So it was crying. But so I mean, I like these 40 movies like Casablanca and all these other movies that were, you know, pleasant. But as you said, fake, there's a fakeness there. And it's pervading our society today.  So I mean, that's why this movie sort of got under my skin. And would you say this is a fake movie? I would say there's a lot of historical inaccuracies there, especially when you said Atlantis, you know, South Carolina, that those black people enjoying themselves dancing on the ballrooms, that was totally bogus. I mean, that might have happened, you know, maybe in the north, because New York, New Jersey was states, but by 1800, they didn't have slavery anymore.  You know, my mother was from Patterson, New Jersey, she was raised there.  I mean, they're neighbors, you know, I mean, Patterson had a very early black community, and they became like, like I was alluding to in an email, my mother at 18, she wasn't Native American, but she was modeling as a Native American for this artist, Ralph Armstrong, who did talent of girl pictures. And she had a appendicitis. So her brothers didn't want to have a regular appendicitis operation. So they found this black doctor in Patterson who had finished medical school at 58 years old, right? And he had perfected a buttonhole appendectomy. This is back, my mother's born in 1911. So this was in the late 20s, right? Like right when she was modeling, when she won the Arthur Murray Beauty Contest, that's how she got into modeling. This guy showed up. And it was 1929. And gave her that buttonhole appendectomy. That's the kind of black people there. And when they moved it from Patterson, they got, my family got wealthy, that five bright cleaning stores within 10 years. And then they moved to Montclair. And Montclair also had affluent blacks. So when you have that kind of a difference, right, the North and the South, the South Ku Klux Klan, black people still getting lynched. And it was much better than New York, New Jersey, I mean, for blacks. That's why they all left the real underground railroad. They got to Canada because there was freedom. And then they could meet their own level of rise in the society where there weren't being unnaturally being held down. And then when I lived to Long Island, like I was saying, Rochelle Griffiths gig, her mother was white, her father was black. They lived in the white neighborhood. They didn't live in a little, the black enclave we had in our community, which was the same, same kind of houses, you know, it was just a separate black neighborhood. George Griffiths gig was a building contractor, very well known, very well respected. My mother had him was going to have to put an extension in our on our house.   And she's an attorney now up in Westchester County. And she's very successful. That's what you have when you don't hold to that's not to say they're, you know, what's interesting is you had the plantation experience in the south that was built in by the founding fathers. They could have done the 14 whatever the was the 13th amendment long before 1865. But they didn't do that. And they built slavery, baked it into the country. And for 80 years between 1780, something, when the Constitution was written originally and then 1865, that's a long time. And in that period, one interesting thing happened. It was the the Clotilde experience where the ship was on 60 minutes. The ship was the last slave ship in 1808. Why? Because Congress had outlawed bringing new slaves to the country in 1808. It was against the law. And so the whole thing was like baked in it was the slave owners said, oh, that's okay, we'll just have them have a lot of children. And we'll build our inventory of slaves that way. And they kept on doing it. In fact, it got worse in my observation. Not that I was there, but in my reading anyway. And so what you had was really two different worlds. And economically, the slave owners were very wealthy because they had these assets that kept on working for them. And the children kept on working. And it was, you know, the cost of their labor was free, essentially, after you paid for them. And the product was huge, depending on how much you pushed them around. And so a whole civilization developed down there. And these guys felt more and more strongly about it as you get to the Civil War. And the Civil War was about slavery, really. And they tried to perpetuate it. It was very important to them. And they never really accepted the result of the Civil War. And they beat the federal reconstruction. They collapsed by the end of the 19th century. And we had the Ku Klux Klan re-emerging in the 1920s right around the time of the Oklahoma incident massacre. So somehow the whole notion of slavery and the distinction between black and white is it started with the Constitution and it continues till today. And one of the story I want to mention just to provoke you is that although there was no slavery in the non-slavery states prior to the Civil War, there was plenty of racial discrimination, racial hatred. And there was an incident that took place in 1863 during the Civil War, during Lincoln's attempt to terminate slavery in New York City. It was a hot Saturday night. You know the story? It was the New York riots, August of 1863. And there was some issue about the draft. And the Irish community, which was fond of drinking in bars on Saturday night, it was a Saturday night, were very excited about this rule that had come down from Washington, the proclamation, I guess, on how you could avoid the draft by paying some money. And they couldn't afford to pay the money. They were ticked off. And this somehow transmuted itself into a race riot where on Saturday night, they went out and looked for blacks in New York City, New York City, not a slave state. And they hung them from the lampposts. It was wholesale lynching in New York City. And unforgettable, really, when you think about it. But it's an example of, okay, we don't have slavery, but that doesn't mean that we don't have anti-black sentiment. And so going to Canada was a better bet, because I don't think they had the same level of anti-black sentiment. But all this has to be seen as part of American history. So the movie touches on a number of things. And I think the great loss here is that, you know, the movie doesn't give you the context.  That was in the north. That was a non-slave state. But you know, one of the other things what you alluded to about New York, in Philadelphia, the two Hawaiian princes that eventually became Kamehameha IV and Kamehameha V had gone to Philadelphia with what was his name, Judd, you know. And they were treated very poorly, because they were dark skinned. And that left a very bad mark with them. And it really, really affected the history of Hawaii, because they became very anti-American, while their uncle, Kamehameha III, was very pro-American. Because of the treatment they received in Philadelphia, on some train they were told that they can't, you know, they would, because the conductors thought they were Black. So it really left a mark on the Hawaiian kingdom as well. So slavery, bad, bad thing, and impacted our history here too. So leave it at that. Yeah, well, so the movie is, I guess it's a contribution of a couple of points that you may not have been thinking about, such as the brutality of the plantations. But it really doesn't help us understand the enormous implications of slavery. I mean, this is not that long ago. And when you think the Reconstruction failed, in a hundred years ago, there were racial massacres in this country, all in extension of the same kind of slavery thinking. When you think that right now, the South is filled with white supremacists who vote for Trump. You know, we still have the legacy of slavery. It is baked into the American exceptionalism. And I don't know, does the movie help us understand that, George? Does the movie help us come up with a solution on this? The one thing that really left in my mind is before that massacre in the movie Valentine's Farm or in Greenwood in Tulsa, that basically when Black people are not held down unnaturally, they will rise in society. And from my own experiences and my mother's experiences, that's when you have assimilation. So when there's less racism. But I mean, that movie alluded to that a little bit with that South Carolina, that was not true. But then up in Indiana, that there was that maybe after, maybe a little before, but after, you know, emancipation, proclamation, and whatever. But it's like when Black people assimilate into society and you get to know them.  So the movie showed a little bit of that, how, you know, the high, the beautiful ballroom dancing. But it's that, it's that just like so many other ethnic groups, you know, and racial groups, when they rise, they become assimilated, you know, like my parents came from overseas and we assimilated us. So that's the key that a little bit of that Valentine's farm, a little bit of that fake thing from South Carolina is was important. And, you know, it wasn't only that they couldn't have children in South Carolina, they were doing experiments on Black people like that Tuskegee thing, where these Black men were dying. So they were using them as experiments, you know, similar to Dr. Mengele in doing the Nazi era. Right, in the name of science, yeah. Exactly. And that's what they were doing. That was what was being depicted in that South Carolina, which you thought was Atlanta. But I mean, I mean, the time frame is wrong. The location is wrong. Underground railroad, which does not exist, the very little underground, it's all fake. So getting back to what you're saying is that we're not there yet. I mean, bottom line is we had a Black president, a Hopper Black president, and we're still not there. Black people are still being shot in the streets, right?  And we're not there yet. And I think you alluded to that. We're not there yet. We're now in 2021. And there's still what's going on right now as the whole Jim Crow laws, the Republican legislators are in Georgia and Arizona, they're trying to cut Black and Brown people out, you know, through Jim Crow laws. So I'll leave it at that. Well, I'd like to add one for your consideration. And that is this, if you're going to make a movie that pretends to be historical, then you've got to do the research. And you've got to be faithful to the history. It would not have cost these filmmakers anything to be accurate. You know, pick the wrong state, why do that? Pick the wrong time, why do that? They could have had a very good movie if they'd only done their homework. And I think the net effect of it is to lose confidence in the movie and the movies, misunderstand American history, they would have done a much better job, made a much better contribution if they had only done their homework. What do you think? I couldn't more totally agree with you that that was the problem with this series of 10, that so much historical inaccuracies that anybody, any educated person, you know, I was a history teacher, so that was my forte, right? That would know that this is bogus, but the unsuspecting uneducated public would believe that this is true and have a totally distorted perception, even though the basics are important to show the brutality. You know, I couldn't agree with you more, a little bit, and they didn't even care to do research. It was all fantasy, and it was the author that started off, you know, as I said, his childhood understanding he portrayed it in this novel, and then screenplay, you know, the person who did the screenplay, and then the director and the producers, they played with the truth. And it was really bad news, as you said. I mean, a little bit of research would have had a really good movie. Thumbs down, then? Thumbs down, George. I would say thumbs down to some of the presentation, but the basics of showing that brutality to the public was good, and as you said, they really showed you could actually, I mean, it was breaking my heart. I was getting very upset because it was so real, the brutality, but couldn't agree with you more. I mean, I would say thumbs down, but with reservations, there's pluses to this movie. I join you in that, George. Good review, George. Thank you very much for the review of the movie. And we'll be back in a week or two with another one, probably completely dissimilar, but equally incisive. Thank you so much, George Kasin, the movie show. Aloha. Aloha.


My name is Jagdish Patel. I live in Carbridge with my wife. I had a transplant in August 2011 Before the transplant my life was really bad. I couldn't feel better at all. I could not eat and I was struggling I had to go for dialysis three times a week Monday, Wednesday, Friday four hours every section The dialysis was really tough in the beginning is okay. The life after was really bad I was feeling really, really worse. That was a life. It was a struggle Transplant took in a Cardiff University Hospital They are very good, very good staff and very good surgeon and everybody's and they look after him so well I was quite unusual to have a life donor. The life donors are very rare but I was very grateful for his His donorship. We need more and more people to donate the organ in our ethnic community I like to tell people or the families to come together and talk about it And I would like to see more more life donors come forward people can survive on one kidney and there's no No problems for anybody if they come forward be fine Since the transplant The life has changed I am feeling a lot better the few few months has been bad But obviously since then it's been very good. I could know what is whatsoever


So, this is the Central Florida chapter, if you will, of TechSoup, and Tech for Good is a program under TechSoup, and so is NetSquared. My name is Aretha Simons. I am the Central Florida community organizer for NetSquared, and again, we are program under TechSoup, and NetSquared is a global network for Tech for Good. You'll see that hashtag Tech for Good meetup groups, and TechSoup is a non-profit that helps other non-profits either get, implement, or use technology, and I hope you are taking advantage of TechSoup. I mean, so many non-profits that say, no, I never heard of TechSoup. There's all this software and products and services that you can use, and it is a global network. NetSquared, this community that we're in, that we're doing today, it's in 128 cities in over 41 countries, so I know we're doing Central Florida, but there's some people who join us from other countries, from other cities, so this is a community that you can be a part of. You can be a part of the TechSoup. You can be a part of the Georgia group if you see a topic that you like, just jump in and become a member and, you know, get all the knowledge. And as I said, it's a global network. So here, I want to share a few things with you about the NetSquared community. Again, we welcome everyone, so again, there are people from other groups that join us. We do put community first here at TechSoup and then NetSquared. We're here to support each other, so we share knowledge, resources, information, and you know, as nonprofits, we are always trying to build stronger communities. And TechSoup does that by giving technology as one of the tools that they use. So with this forum today, we're going to invite everybody to participate. You can type in a chat room because everybody has something to contribute. Even though we have, you know, expert speakers that come, you may know something, you may have worked in the field. Sharing knowledge, just type in the chat room. And one thing I do want everybody to remember, we treat everybody with kindness and respect. So that's one of the philosophies of TechSoup. So I do want to say that we need your help. I need your help. We need event producers. We need people to market it, share this information, get it out on your social medias to your friends, your family, especially those who are in the nonprofit community. We need a welcoming crew. We need somebody to be in that chat room. Welcome to everybody to be a moderator in the chat room. We also need note takers because afterwards we like to put notes up and, you know, highlights on a blog. So anyone can plan an event. If you have ideas, if you want to speak at one of the events, we do this monthly. Just type in the chat room, say, hey, I have a topic I'd like to share. Or I know somebody who'd be a great speaker to share their information. And again, I invite you to speak anything to do with technology that nonprofits can use that would be great or any consulting that you do. So I told you about NetSquare, but let's talk about TechSoup a little bit more and how it connects you either with donated products or discounted products. If you've ever looked at TechSoup, it's TechSoup.org. There's tons of software and even hardware. There's headphones, there's laptops, refurbished computers, and so much more on the website. So please, please take advantage of it. Again, some of it's free, some of it's at low cost. This is just an image of the 100 partners that we have. Just a few of them are listed, Microsoft. We're on a Zoom platform. You get a discount on Zoom from Microsoft. I know they're giving office for free and even their cloud-based system. You've got Amazon, Adobe, DocuSign, there's hundreds of them. So go in and take a look. What you do is create an account and you have to be a 501c3. Once you put your information in, you have access to all this information and these wonderful partners. So please do take advantage of it. This is just an example of what TechSoup has. If you have a staff of 10 people, this is some of the technology you can use. The retail price of buying all this software would be over $2,000. And with TechSoup, you'd be in a member, you'd just pay $201. So I mean, that's a steal. So that's just kind of some of the information and some of the technology and tools that you have with TechSoup. So I'm going to talk about some of the upcoming events real quick. Next month, we are almost into March of 2021. Next month, talk about March already. We're going to be talking about how to transfer from your nonprofit into a sustainable business. And then in April, we're going to be talking about social media tunups. I know we all need a tune up on social media. I do.  And so if we want to keep our nonprofit out there, keep our image fresh, we do need kind of a tune up on the social media side. So enough about me. I want to welcome our speaker for today. That is James Alexander. And I want to tell you a little bit about him. I got to read his bio. I got to read a few things. His bio is extensive. He has a master's degree in communications and a bachelor's in broadcasting. He's been a producer for shows that air on the Today show. He's been a producer at the Daily Buzz. I know some of you in the Central Floyd area, you remember the Daily Buzz. He's interviewed multiple people, including celebrities. Russell Simmons, Ron DMC, The Backstreet Boys, Robin Thicke, Trey Song, you name it, John Legend. There's so many people. But he's also interviewed our local nonprofits. I have seen his shows. I've been a guest on the show. And so I wanted to talk with him about how nonprofits can kind of get their message out there and how they can obtain media to spread their message. So I want to welcome James Alexander to TechSoup Today and Next Square. Thank you so much, Jane. I'll stop, share my screen and put you up here. Awesome. I got you. I did it. I know you were looking forward. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us this morning. And I'm very excited to be talking about nonprofits. As you know, as Aretha knows, I'm a Schreiner as well. So I'm the director of social media for the state of Florida, for the Schreiners and for our bigger organization. I am the associate editor of our digital magazine. So I do quite a few things outside of being an entrepreneur and speaker and so on and so forth. So yes, television has been a labor of love. It's been crazy to start off the news in Baltimore that I moved here to Orlando for that little known show called The Daily Buzz, which transformed my life for the last, well, I was there for 10 years. So I've done that. I've produced commercials. I've done a lot of something, everything. Even done the, well, we don't even have it anymore because of the pandemic. We used to do movie junkets where they would send me out to California or New York. And whenever they would come out with a movie, I got a chance to see it before everyone else and also interview the stars of that movie as well. So yeah, it wasn't fun. Leave me. It was okay. It was okay. I had to sit in the makeup chairs, wait to be called. It was like a cat-a-claw. So yeah, but my love, one of the reasons totally about this, I love nonprofits. I mean, it's what I'm, it's a major part of me. And one of the things that we do on the Shrine level, in fact, I had to come up with the entire infrastructure for our whole marketing, branding and so on and so forth for the state of Florida is that we took a step back and we prioritized where we would make the most impact. So, you know, online was for us. Although, yes, I know how to do television. I still have connects and television and a lot of stations around here in Central Florida and New York. That wasn't our first, that wasn't at the top of the list. And I caution anyone who has that at the top of their list that they must be on TV. There are several ways to get on TV, but if you dominate the internet first, you'll be able to make that transition to TV. What we have done, what we have done in the state of Florida is we've partnered with Google. So we are a certified community partner with Google. With that comes a lot of opportunities to learn how to kind of market ourselves online, especially through the biggest search, I mean, database in the world, which is Google and how we can do it just there, but also coming in and understanding the whole landscape of marketing when it comes to social media as well, it's just a combination of the two to get us out there. So when you started this journey, it has not been easy. And what I would say is, if you are about to do this, there are some things that I want you to definitely master before you start spending money because a lot of nonprofits, they have limited budgets.  So there's a few things that you should do. One of the first things is, have a meeting with all your stakeholders, okay? Meet with them, decide what course of action you're gonna take, okay? I wouldn't even talk about money first, let's decide what platforms are we gonna be a part of. A lot of nonprofits as you see are basically a part of everything. But the problem that that is, you wanna see where your demographic is coming. You know, every nonprofit is different and they're the people that they service or they're trying to get in front of, it's kinda different. I can tell you right now, we have Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, okay? Those are the massive ones. Yes, we have our website, but those three are the massive ones, but we've also talked about TikTok, doing things on TikTok. Because TikTok is a massive platform and people are looking for information. And what, you know, the history that we have will play well on TikTok. If anybody has a TikTok account, you will see some of the different videos and then they give document, it's like a documentary style, like very quick videos, part one, part two, and so on and so forth, right? So, you know, one unique thing about our history is that we are, if you go back to Supreme Court ruling, we're responsible for making sure that there are black fraternities and sororities in existence to the day. It was a landmark ruling in our favor. And if we had lost, there would be no alphas, alfalfa alphas, alfacapa alphas. I mean, excuse me, aka's, don't let me get in trouble because I tell to us and we say it correctly. I don't want to get in trouble. I love all my divine. I love y'all, but yeah, so that's just history. So when you look at our vice president, Kamala Harris, and she belongs, she's a aka, right? Yes, and I want to ask you something. So you're mentioning, you know, social media and those are definitely ways. When you try to get on TV or getting your messages out through TV, do they look at that?  Do you have a lot of views? And when you were thinking about having someone on your show, that was a nonprofit. What was the first thing that you did to search that nonprofit? I looked at the content first because I'm a little bit more sensitive than nonprofits because I belong to a massive one. So for me, I don't want to look at content and what the impact was. All right, so if you're dealing with someone that's not like me, you got to look at numbers. What numbers do you have? What impact do you have online if I partner with you? Because essentially this is a partnership. You think it's not, you think you're just appearing on television, but I'm giving you credibility using my time, my money, my airwaves to give you credibility to your nonprofit. So when you look at this in its entirety, it is a great partnership because what you want to do is make such an awesome impression on that producer, on that news director, on that assignment editor. I'm talking about television-wise that they are more likely to allow you to come back. Right, so the numbers are going to speak volumes. So when you go to your social media, when they go and research you and they figure out, all right, so they have a hundred people on social media, maybe not. If they're doing an event, who's all involved? Is the mayor involved? Is the chief of police involved? What big names do they have involved? And don't take it as disrespect if they do come to your event and they interview those big names and interview you last. Because those are the people in the community that are easily recognizable and you're a, you know, you're using that example kind of like a startup. So they're going to ask why are they partnering with you? What's the significance and so on and so forth? And that's important, but that's great. But if I have somebody that has 5,000, 10,000 people online, whether it's Facebook, Instagram, or, you know, any other platform, I am looking at, okay, this is a major one. Now, there's a pitfall with that because you have so many people. Is this going to be a commercial or are they really promoting something that's going to impact the community? And that's where you kind of draw the line.  They, you know, it became a fine line between commercial and actual news. You know, if it lends itself to being a commercial or for that organization, then that's airtime you can pay for. So, you know, that's, it's a fine line, but if you find the right people, you make the right relationships. And that's what it comes down to. Ultimately, you make the right relationships. You're able to get on television. But again, I'm gonna be honest with you, I would not do that first. I would just build up my base and do things online via social media, email newsletters, my website, drive people. I would do webinars, you know, something in, something along that nature in order to bring people to your page and just build that base up. Then when you call in the television and you call in the radio or you call in all these other places, you're able to do some things. I mean, I'm gonna be honest, I'm gonna ask this question of everybody. Have you guys started your own podcast? I'm gonna allow you to unmute yourself. And I do want you to know, this is gonna be like interview style. So feel free. I'm gonna let you ask questions live. You don't have to come on camera, but this is a great time to, you know, ask questions and get information. So how many of you have a podcast? You can unmute yourself. No one has a podcast. No one has a podcast.  You can do an interview or you can do a Zoom interview. So we know what we're doing now and put it live on Facebook, live on your social media channels, even on your YouTube page. You can do that stuff. Start filling, look at it as documenting your process, documenting what it takes to be a, what the nonprofit is doing basically. What it takes to be a volunteer to nonprofit, what it takes to run it and so on and so forth. People like seeing that, why? Because it gives you credibility. They see where their money is going. I'm like, oh, okay. You know, if I donate to, I'm just pulling out, if I donate to Karen, right? I hope I'm saying it correctly. If I'm not, I apologize, love you. But I've donated to Karen. I can see that if I get $5,000, what she's gonna do with it, based upon what I've seen through her videos and I listened to on her podcast, when I wake up to the graphics on her Facebook page and the events that she has, I see what kind of impact $5,000 would do for that nonprofit. So now you're giving people more visuals. As you know, we are more visual. I mean, as, I would say this, and you gotta look at it too as a, I know we're nonprofit as a business, okay? And you're trying to get people to donate to you. Back in the day, I wanna say 2000 to 2004, it was three times.  As far as businesses, the same thing with business. You are more likely to buy something. And that's essentially what you're doing. When I left, it was up to 12. And I was 2014, when I left the Daily Buzz. I kind of ventured on my own, started producing other stuff and started my own company in the healthcare. Now it's upwards of 20. So you're saying you need to be in front of their face at least 20 times? That's why you see retargeting. Like when you visit a website, even on your phone, you will go to another website, another website, another website, but you will see on the side some sort of commercial or advertising from a website you visited two days ago. There's technology out there, retargeting, so on and so forth.  The same thing we're going through with one of my companies, my CBD oil company. We have marketing to where it retargets, but we're also on more than, we're on more than 6,000 websites. And what we're doing as far as our marketing. So, when you look us up, you should be retargeting, retargeting, retargeting because we want you to buy. And that's kind of how you have to look at this. All right? You may not have the money to make that happen, okay? Because it's expensive. It's not cheap, but what you can do is put up enough content, enough shareable content. And that's one of the things I want you to keep note of. Shareable content is the best content you can have. Why? Because it's shareable. It's self-implanatory. And I tell you this, why, I tell you this because one person can share content to 20 or 30 pages. That person, whoever's one of those pages, if they have five, 10, 15, 20,000 people, if it comes up early enough, depending on when it comes up, then you have those, that many eyes that are looking at it and interacting with it, that are commenting on it. All that data can be seen through your back portal when you do Facebook. So when you look at that, you say, okay, I'm making an impact. And you can kind of decide whether or not to put like a donate link and so on and so forth in that content, which should be great. Because now you have an opportunity to these people who may answer you to say, you know what, I want to donate. I like what she's doing. I like what he's doing. I want to donate right now. And you just made it easier for me to donate by providing a link. Go to the website. I can see everything. And boom, it's there. So with that being said, you really, really want to create shareable content that's going to help you tremendously. On our page for the Shriners of Desert of Florida, Prince Charles Shriners, if you want to go look, it's nothing but community work. It's a ton of community work. We do seminars. We do, you know, we talk to Google. We talk to different business leaders. We've had investing groups. We've done a lot of things as we provide content, not only for, we provide content for everybody. So it's content for our members of our organization and also content for those who come to our page and kind of say, oh, okay, this is what you guys are into or actually helping everybody and you're providing, you're becoming a resource. So shareable content is key, but you have to develop a plan. I'm saying all this stuff and why I'm telling you this, you have to sit down, develop that plan, get a calendar and really a social media calendar and lay out what you want to see over a month. And you can automate this stuff.  You get what I'm gonna come up with today. Nope, you can plan a month out. There are different websites, apps that you can use in order to do this and you kind of go from there. And I'm wondering, actually, Aritha, do you guys have under TechSoup, do you have Canva? No, Canva is its own platform and it's free anyways. Well, they have a page session. They have the, I know they have a higher level where you can create because I have that as well, but I don't think Canva is one of our partners. Okay, okay. If you can afford it, I gotta get the list of what TechSoup has, but if you can afford it, Canva Pro is a great opportunity to create great content without spending a ton of money. You can embed videos, you can do presentations, you can do a plethora of things and you can publish directly from Canva to your social media pages. So I would advise to jump in that, to give the look and see if you can do it and anybody can do it. I mean, it's easy stuff. You also have music on there too, but yeah. Yeah, it is. I think you gave great advice to social media calendar because a lot of times we get busy and we get distracted and we was like, oh, I did it Monday, I forgot to do it Wednesday. So having that calendar and those other platforms that you can automate it. So that's great. And Canva, yes, it definitely is good when I've been using it for a couple of years. It's good when I've used the pro, then I went back down to the free because I've learned some other websites but that's great advice. Anyone have any questions for James? You can unmute yourself and for free to ask any questions at this time. You've been sharing a lot.  I remember when I had a nonprofit and I actually got my first chance to be on TV, it became a good problem because then I wasn't ready for some of the other things that people wanted me to do. Be careful what you get blessed with. You pray for it and you got it. Exactly. I think, yeah, I mean, that make sure you have the infrastructure in place to handle, it depends on where you go to. So make sure you have the infrastructure in place to handle that onslaught of inquiries as to what you're doing, how people can be a part of it, how they can support and so on and so forth. And like you said, it's a good headache, honestly. You have the opportunity to really expand, right? And that's great, but if you don't put it together in a way that allows for that, people don't even feel that you're unorganized and then they're gonna look at us like, oh, maybe I shouldn't be a part of it. You remember, people are always looking for opportunities to say, no, they're all constantly, constantly, like the first thing is, no, I wanna do it. I don't wanna be a part of it. Then when you show them things, sometimes they still may say no, but at the end of the day, it kinda, as you continue to do things, let me go out and participate. Let me be a part of it. And once they started to join it, they started telling their friends, their friends started telling their friends and so on and so forth. It's just like Yelp reviews. I had the Googles, one of our Google digital coach for the desert of Florida, she was telling me that she will go to different products or different services. And if she saw her friend like it, then she wouldn't question it at all. Okay. She wouldn't question it, but she didn't see anybody that she knew liked it or she would scrutinize it, highly scrutinize it and then make a determination whether or not she would want the services and so on and so forth. So, I just tell you, just be prepared for everything because even with, I know we talked about television and so on and so forth, but social media too. I mean, you just don't know. I mean, you can raise an easy million dollars through social media. You can do it within a couple of months. Yeah. It's so easy to do. Sure. Definitely the future. Well, I know we have a small and mid-sized nonprofits here. Okay. You talked about social media and you just mentioned the Google platform that you use. Can you tell us more about that? Okay. Yeah.  They don't even have the program anymore, but I'm a graduate of Google Accelerate, which is a marketing kind of, it was like a marketing school, sort of speaking, you go online, you learn how to do all the marketing, you graduate with a certificate on digital marketing and so on and so forth. And they've changed so much with the algorithms and so on.  I'm gonna stay away from that. But I knew Google did a lot of stuff with the community because they're always trying to expand, right? So I asked the question, what can Google do for me? What could it do for my organization? And it turns out Google can do quite a bit. And once you become a Google partner, there are numerous things that you have access to. And there are numerous people that you have access to. And it's a great thing. So Google for us has, we're still unraveling it, right? So I still have meetings with the digital coach. I'm still going through the community. We have a 501c3 for the state of Florida and we also have obviously nationally we have it because we have over 265 different temples across the US. We say temples, but it's not religious, remember? But we have 265, not excuse me, across the world because we have organizations in Japan. We have sites in Japan, South Korea, Kuwait, Bahrain, the Kingdom of Bahrain all the way across the US, 48 different states. So we're kind of large, right? So for us, it became important to look at our footprint and to partner with somebody that will allow us to expand that footprint and expand, well, help us to get into people we haven't been in front of and introduce ourselves to new people. So Google has been a basically has been a great opportunity and what I can do everything, what I'll do, I'll send it to you, I can't do it right now, but I'll send you the, I'm looking at the message on track and sorry, I'll send you some information on, I'll respond to that in a second. I'll see you some information on the Google person in the community and that way you can share with everybody so they can see it as well. So the question is, yes, I reached out to Google, Shriners, who is a Shriners? Okay, so we are the ancient Egyptian Arabic order, nobles of the Mystic Shrine, North and South America and its jurisdictions incorporated, Prince Hall, Shriners. Prince Hall, we named that because Prince Hall was the first man of color to become a Mason, actually, because it's preregistered to become a Shriners, you have to be a Mason and he did it so we could bury our dead and that was way before we had the United States was even born. So we go way back, but the Shriners, what we do, there are two organizations of Shriners. You have the ancient Arabic order, nobles of the Mystic Shrine, which is known, who are known for the Shriners hospitals, they do a lot of events, you see a lot of guys riding around with the cars, doing the parades and so on and so forth. They used to do a ton of golf tournaments and so on and so forth, but you see their headquarters in Tampa, actually, you go down there and here in Orlando, you have Bahia, they've expanded, they used to have, not too far away in the mainland, actually, one of the, they're not headquarters, but their temple was in Mateman, but I think they left that one. It is a massive nonprofit. Yeah, yeah. That's really all you need to know, is it? But I just want to say, I want to say this, yes, that's true, but on our side, we help out St. Jude, we have National Diabetes Initiative, we sit on a board for the American Diabetes Association. So we do quite a few things. We have youth groups, we do mentors, we do a ton of things in our community. So yeah, two great organizations, but that's what Shriners are. Marguerite, you put a question in there about Google, the Google platform, you have problems with your G Suite, and you say you spent hours on tango, and I'd like to know if you contact Google, because I know the G Suite was kind of a new thing. I don't know if they worked out all the kinks, but I would definitely like to know if you were able to work out that with Google. And he mentioned Google, I don't know if many of you have applied for the Google grant, because we're talking about marketing and getting your message out, apply for the Google grant, who gives $10,000 to nonprofit 501C3s, and it's advertising dollars. People pay money to be at the top of the page whenever you look up something, but Google is giving nonprofits $10,000 and advertising dollars. So make sure you look for that, apply for it, and then you have to keep up with it, because you can't just apply for it and just let it sit. You have to go on there, and fill out everything they ask for. They ask for your keywords. They ask you to put in information. You have to do that on the monthly basis. Otherwise, they'll think you're not doing anything. So make sure you look up the Google grant. And G Suite is a part of TechSoup's platform, so you can go on there and get that for free. And also Microsoft Office, you can get that for free, but...  How many people know about Google AdWords? Yeah, well, we do know about it, and we did get that grant, but we are so small and spread so thin we were not able to take advantage of it. And when we got the free G Suite account, which we did, then we tried to connect our G Suite to Microsoft Outlook, which is where everything else lives, and it suddenly decided to disconnect itself. And we spent hours and hours with them and could never get it reconnected and finally just had to give up on G Suite, which was very painful because our current email server gets blocked a lot of times. And so I'd love to go back to G Suite, but we don't know how. I guess we need technical support to help with that. Well, I'm glad you told me that because I would definitely share that with our team. That's feedback, they like to know at TechSoup what problems that our partners are having with the partners who provide products for a nonprofit, but I definitely would reach out to TechSupport through that platform that you use. And can you stay in touch with me through the Meetup Group and let me know how it works out? And I see your email in here, but just send me an email. Question. Okay, I would love to do that. Marguerite, were you assigned anyone from Google once you did that? Assigned a special person? No, no, we never were. And we could never really get any response from Google and maybe we weren't doing it right, but when we started dropping email messages, we panicked and went back to a previous email provider. I can understand. All right, so I'll share with Aretha, our person and what I'll do is I'll start asking questions as to why that happened. That would be great because we would really, really like to take advantage of this whole Google nonprofit thing and we're pretty much Google people, except that I'm an old guy and I run my life through Outlook. And so there's that conflict all the time. Okay, okay. I mean, the reason why I asked everyone about AdWords and thank you Marguerite, I just wanted to, you know, you guys be careful with that. AdWords, your budget at $10,000 is gonna go out the door in a few days, depending on how you do it. But AdWords is a, yes, it's a great platform and there's so many different tools within AdWords, AdSense and so on and so forth, but there's so many different tools within there. You're looking at specific words for your nonprofit. I mean, it could be a great tool but your budget can go pretty fast depending on how it goes. So usually, yeah, I'll talk to Rita about it and what can I go from there as far as trying to figure out if we can get you somebody that can help out, okay? That would be great. Thank you. So Sabrina asked, how can she get G Suite for her small nonprofit through TechSoup? You go to techsoup.org, I put the website in the chat room, you set up an account, it's free, upload your information and then you have access to all of the 100 partners. Also, you know, look for software, there are grant software in there. There's all kinds of technology and products and services that you can use.  Any other questions? I'm gonna interested in knowing what platforms everyone is on right now and how many numbers do you have? What do you mean? What platform is everybody's on right now? Social media? What platform do you guys utilize? Okay, I'd be happy to talk about that. We're very active on Facebook. We have two Facebook pages, FL Greenway and SJR, the number two, the letter C. Those are both our Facebook pages and they're very active. And then our website is Groupal and we have a lot of trouble with Groupal, needless to say, but it's a very extensive website and that's pretty much getting started with Instagram but not enough time. I have no idea how to start a podcast and we are just launching a big trail alliance partner program and would really love some help with spreading the word about that launch. And also we are having at Enterprise Museum which is a little bit north of Orlando. We're having the Lost History Week in March which focuses on quite a bit on indigenous people, removal and African history that was through a grant with Florida Humanities. So we're very busy but really not technology enabled enough at this time. Okay, so here's a couple of tips. As far as your Instagram page, just create the page and you can link up your Instagram and Facebook so that takes care of itself. So whenever you post online Facebook it automatically goes to Instagram so that's what, no, and so yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm like, oh, I got too many inspirations in my head. So yes, everything, we link up everything. Actually, we also use another app. We use HubSpot, we use a couple of other things too to kind of link up everything it makes it easier for us. The only thing I'd say we've done is Twitter because that's a one-on-one conversation and that could be, that takes a while to monitor. Okay, so with that being said, so that handles your Instagram part, it's easy. You can go back door, Google, go to your settings and you can do it. Ashley, for the password for Instagram, connect everything, you're good to go. Your podcast, you can do your podcast straight from your phone. All right, you have to do is go into the, what do you have, you have the iPhone or you have the Android? Android. Okay, okay.  Okay, now I'll go back to you. No, so you can go to a place to work and you can download an app to do your podcast which you can link to your Facebook page and it'll take care of itself. So everything, just know that everything is pretty much, everything can be integrated. So you don't have to worry about having to post to each page, each social media site, each platform and so on and so forth. No, you can link them all together and you don't have to worry about it and you can do your podcast from your phone. Okay, you're literally, you can sit in your car and do a podcast. I hear what you're saying but I have no idea how to do it. So maybe offline somebody can tell me how to do it.  Remember back in the day we used to do, you know, our voice recorder for our voicemail. One of the people like, you know, we used to play music back outside. Maybe that says me, I'm old. So you gotta be ready for a podcast because it's like everything. Once you start it, you gotta be ready to keep going. So wait till you're ready to get in that space and then you do that. Somebody asked what else can you implement into your business for more exposure? Before you answer that question, somebody asked what's the podcast app for Android that you mentioned? I'm sorry, I wanna mute and unmute because I wanna make sure I hear everything I wanna need in the background to distract anybody. So what we're gonna do, I want everybody to break out their Android phones and you can break out your iPhones right now. We're gonna do this right now because I want you guys to be on top of this. Click on your Play Store, okay.  Okay, so many different things you can do on here. So many apps and so on and so forth. All right, what do you guys see on your podcast? Unless, I'm sorry, somebody said something. Just keep going. Oh, okay, okay, I thought I heard something. I see about a million podcast apps. Yeah, just go through the steps if you want it. All right. All the time. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Yeah, so okay, so when you get to the, when you do your podcast, all right? So you have the podcast player, podcast app. You have your podcast app pack, all these things. Podbean, every one of these apps that you will see, you can create a podcast on, okay. Which one do you recommend? Somebody said, what was the one that you recommended for the Android? Anchor, yeah, I have anchor. I haven't used that much, but I have anchor. So the type in podcast app, or type in anchor. Sorry. Okay, okay, so let me go to Ms. D's question for the sake of time. She wants to know what other ideas do you have to implement into your business for more exposure? What ideas can you get about, you said social media, you said podcasts. We said you're doing social media, you're doing podcasts, you're doing digital marketing. Basically you're, we're just talking about Google ads. I think you should look at every other platform that's out there as new that you can capitalize on, honestly. Get one of your younger volunteers to jump on it, like TikTok and so on and so forth. Outside of that, if you look at, in order to expand, I mean, look at partnerships, research, what companies you can do real partnerships with, start introducing yourself to those companies. And every company, every major company has a nonprofit arm. So yes, there's gonna be a lot of competition when it comes to that. But a lot of companies do a lot of nonprofit work and want to partner with nonprofits, but they haven't been presented with the opportunity to do so. So search within your community first, then go up. And you can partner with these different corporations. They're looking to give out money, especially at the end of the year. So yeah, so that's one of the things, I think a lot of people, we're talking about media, but a lot of people don't do the homework on that. And the worst thing you can do, and this is a life lesson, is go to a company at the last minute and ask for money. Develop that relationship now. Remember, you're like, yo, we need a $2,000 when we can help us out. They know you, they know what you're doing. So your ability to get that money goes up because you developed that relationship. So that's about it. That's priceless. Anybody else have any questions before we, in this session, don't forget to sign up for our next sessions. I'm opening the microphone. You have opportunity to ask questions. James, I wanna thank you for your time as well. Somebody just typed in a new question here. Let's see. Thank you, Sabrina. Dr. Sabrina said, thank you, this is great. Thank you for coming on. Anybody else have any questions, any comments, any feedback? Okay, well, this has been great. I wanna thank everybody for coming on. Was that, did you have a question? No, this is mother. I'm just proud. Okay, okay, great. All right, great. Welcome to town. Thank you. Marguerite said, this is great. She need more details. So we'll be in touch with you, Marguerite. And again, sign up for the March TechSoup, how to develop a sustainable nonprofit and then do the social media tune up in April. So I will see you all back next month. Have a great day. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.


X is rolling out audio and video call capability, at least to some users. Some X users reported a new notification when opening up the app that says, audio and video calls are here. There's a new enable audio and video calling toggle with the app settings. You can turn the feature on and then select who you're comfortable with using it with. X hasn't officially said more about the audio and video calls feature, or if it's going to be available to non premium users.


In summary, mesenchymal stem cells, MSCs, are adult stem cells found in multiple tissues, which possess regenerative and differentiation capabilities. These cells have been studied extensively in the field of regenerative medicine, and have shown promise in treating a variety of diseases. Recently, the International Society for Cellular Therapy, ISCT, issued guidelines for isolating and characterizing MSCs, which has led to the development of more consistent and reliable protocols for obtaining MSCs. This has allowed for greater understanding of the biology of MSCs, and has enabled the development of clinical trials using MSCs for a wide range of diseases. This article was authored by Tiziana Squallaro, Gianfranco Paluzzo, and Umberto Galdorizzi.


So photosynthesis has three main stages or parts and we're going to do, I'm going to show you what those parts are and then we're going to look at how a photosystem comes into the mix. First of all, you have what are known as the light reactions and these include the photosystems. Two photosystems, photosystem two, of course, and photosystem one. And then the products of both of those go into the so-called dark reactions, which do not necessarily take place in the dark and that includes the Calvin cycle. We're going to start our process by looking at photosystem one.  Photosystems are found embedded in the wall of a thylakoid. So I'm going to go like this, not in the wall of the chloroplast, the total chloroplast, it's in the wall of the thylakoid. So this is the thylakoid space. Are you cool with that? And I'm just going to blow this up a little bit. A space is relevant, but I'm going to blow up, I'm sorry because I just can't help it.  That rat-her, that box is rat-her. And let's do, let's make my, this is actually my little photosystem visual here for you. And so I'm going to make a dot in here so you can see that, oh yeah, that's the photosystem. And this is my stroma, which was basically the chloroplast cytoplasm, and this is my thylakoid space. Okay, so are you oriented to what I'm looking at? The photosystem itself is nothing more than a bunch of pigments including chlorophyll and others that are embedded and set up to essentially, this is how I visualize it, they're essentially set up to funnel energy into this like center, like a reaction center of the photosystem.  I draw it like this, this is totally not an accurate like depiction of a photosystem, but I draw it like this because I can imagine like little photons of light coming in and being captured and like being funneled, really truly funneled into the middle and then all that light energy is collected and you will see the amazing thing that happens when we do this. All right, let's start looking at photosystem 2.


Yeah, good morning. Good morning, friends. Good morning, Dave. All right, so let's just give the others maybe about half a minute and then we will get started. So I think you can begin. I just would like to request one of us with the Arren. Arren, could you lead us in our world, friend? Let me pray. Lord, we thank you for this day. Lord, if you cannot learn, we ask your supernatural wisdom to understand your living world. Lord, enable us all to grow more in the EHJ as we call deep in your living world. So, Spirit of God, come and reveal us the truth. So I pray in access in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you, Arren. So we will start off from Acts chapter 9, where we were at in the last class. We were talking about the supernatural encounter that Apostle Paul, his Roman name is Paul, but, you know, he was family, like referred to as Saul in this chapter. We talk about the encounter that he had with God. So we saw how he was a persecutor of those who followed the way and the way was the movement that started out, you know, that included people who believed in Jesus and Jesus as the Son of God. Part of the Holy Spirit was manifested through these people. They were moving in science, wonders and miracles. And the others called them as people belonging to the way. So this could be one of the earliest ways in which disciples of Jesus or Christians or believers were addressed. So at that time, they were not called as Christians. They were not called as, you know, you don't see other terms. But we just see the term those who belong to the way. And we saw how Saul was very, very zealous to persecute these people. One of the reasons we also said that he explains himself in other scriptures where he says he wanted to serve God and passionately defend righteousness. So in his mind, when he was persecuting those who belong to the way, he must have thought that he's doing God's service. Okay, so he did it with that attitude and that intention. So, you know, we are understanding that Saul was passionate. He did want to do righteousness. But it's just that he didn't understand the Lord Jesus by the Holy Spirit. So he was going in the direction opposite to what God really wanted him to follow. So we will continue. We were at verse three, I think so. Yeah, no, we've touched on that as well. We said that the Lord Jesus meets him and speaks to him on the road to Damascus. And he says, you know, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And then, you know, Saul asks this question. I think that's why we stopped by persecuting me. And Saul asks these questions to this voice that is speaking to him. He says, who are you Lord? And God answers the voice answers, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the courts. So he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what do you want me to do? Question number two. Okay, then the Lord said to him, arise and go into this city and you will be told what you must do. So notice here, when the voice comes, obviously, Saul is curious. He wants to find out who is this, who is speaking to me and from heaven. So he had that sense of reverence and he is addressing that voice as Lord, you know, who are you? Who are you Lord? So that much he understood that this is not an ordinary voice. So, you know, this is kind of the important question that every human being needs to ask, isn't it? You know, when God encounters us, when we hear the word of God, when God's spirit is ministering in our hearts, so that question comes up, who is this, who is Jesus? And in many ways, that's the question that leads us closer to God. So like all other human beings and, you know, people who are on a quest, Saul asked the right question, who are you Lord? And I think God must have been happy that he asked this question. And then he says, Jesus introduces himself, says his name and in those times, there were so many different Jesuses. That was a common name that people use. But still, you find that the Lord Jesus, when he introduces himself, he doesn't say, oh, I'm Jesus of Nazareth. But because Paul was zealously persecuting his people, Jesus's people, you know, it's a given Jesus thought, Jesus knew that he would understand if only the name Jesus was mentioned. So the Lord Jesus replies to him and he says, I am Jesus.  And before that, he had already said, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? So this is how the Lord Jesus introduces himself to Saul here. And he also says, it is hard for you to kick against the goads. So in those days, this expression was understood by Saul. So they used to use some sticks which are known as goads and these sticks would restrain the feet of oxen. When people were leading oxen in a certain direction, they would use these goads to direct them. Now, if the oxen kicked against the sticks or goads, it's like the oxen, they are resisting the direction in which they are being led. So what was Jesus telling Saul here? Saul here, he was saying that I am leading you in a certain path and maybe God being God, he knew all the excuses or the thoughts that Saul had within himself which would prevent him from following Jesus. So Jesus says, don't even try to resist me. Basically, that's the point. So that's what Jesus is trying to tell him, don't try to resist me. Or in other words, he says, it is hard for you, you are that ox and I am leading you in a certain direction. If you try to kick against what I am doing, it's not going to succeed. So don't try to resist the work of God. That's what God was trying to tell Saul. Now, when Jesus spoke to him and he was making his intention clear that he is going to communicate what he wants Saul to do. And I'm sure by now Saul had the awareness that whatever he was doing till now was not correct. Because Jesus from heaven is speaking, if this Jesus was a human being, how is it that he is still alive? How is it that he is able to speak from heaven? So he must have got the point that all these believers, he has persecuted, we don't know the numbers but so many believers, he imprisoned them, he beat them. And now in those experiences, he must have understood a little bit about this Jesus. I'm sure they would have shared with him. He was also there when Stephen was martyred. So Saul had an idea about who this Jesus is but maybe in his own heart he had not resolved that Jesus is the Messiah. As the Jew, he must have had his own ideas and said that Jesus doesn't fit the will. But the moment the voice from heaven said, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. He connected and said, oh my goodness, this is the Messiah. This is the person that I have been hearing about. But this is the person whom all these people whom I persecuted have witnessed about.  You have had the question all along, without all along, but it dawns on you that this is it. This is the Lord. So that was the moment during Paul's encounter which he had. So we see here that he was trembling and astonished it seems. Because in those moments he realized that the campaign of hate and the campaign of revenge that he was taking against those who followed Jesus. It was all a big mistake. He was trying to work against God. So he is trembling. He has made a mistake now and zealously he has made that mistake. So he is trembling and he is astonished. Now could it be because of this supernatural encounter, you know, there is a voice speaking from heaven that itself is, you know, something that will cause awe. A sense of wonder in us. It could be both. One could be that the way in which God spoke to him was amazing. Secondly, he realized that whatever he had been doing in his life till now it was not correct. So he is trembling. He is astonished that this Jesus is truly the Messiah. And he asked that second question. He understood. Okay. Now that I have met God and he is telling me not to resist him, there must be a direction. There must be a path that he has cut out for me. So I better find out what that path is. So he says, Lord, what do you want me to do? Okay. This is what every human being needs. Who are you Lord? Once you understand that he's God. Second, what do you want me to do with my life for you? So I'll ask that question. Then the Lord gives him an answer. What does he say? He says, Arise and go into the city and you will be told what you must do. Okay. Very interesting answer. The Lord Jesus gives it. Now we might think that when you ask this question, Saul is asking about his life. Okay. What does God want me to do with my life? But Jesus is giving an answer which has to do with the next step. And then we realize that sometimes that's all God wants to communicate to us. You know, when we talk about the prophetate, how God speaks, God might tell us the next step. Okay. And when we follow the next step, it will take us on our path to reach the destiny. So God may not always give us the full picture.  Now you are going to do all these things for the kingdom of God. So his whole life and the vision for his life, that was not revealed to him. But how is God actually speaking to Saul? He's giving him the next step and he's saying, come on.  So that is exactly what Saul does. And even in our lives when God is, you know, we have a big question about the future, God might just say one thing, one step for us to follow. Now we know that Saul was a leader. He had taken the letters intentionally from the high priest and he was moving towards Damascus and other places to persecute the believers. So he was not alone. He had others with him. Verse 7, we notice what happened to the people with him. And the men who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one. So this again is something that we can wonder about. How is it that Saul saw light? But the people with him never saw it. We don't know, you know, why something like that could happen. The common experience which he had and the people had, it says hearing a voice. So they too must have heard the voice of Jesus and probably whatever was spoken by Jesus and then, you know, Paul's response as well. So they knew where Saul had to go. Now what was the condition of Saul after he had this supernatural encounter? You know, Saul, obviously something happened to him. We'll read the next line here. It says, then Saul arose from the ground and when his eyes were open, he saw no one. So that's what happened to him.  You can't see anymore. You can't see clearly. You stabilise. But in the case of Saul here, the bright light, the way it affected his naturalisers, he could not see anybody anymore. So he went blind. But because these people had heard the voice of God and what was spoken between Saul and God, they lead him by hand and they bring him into Damascus because he's not able to go on his own. Okay, based on that experience, that supernatural experience which he had, one is he was not able to see and it affected him so deeply that we read that three days he was without sight. All right, but he did not eat or drink. Okay, so the supernatural encounter must have startled him. Now what are the reasons that he got startled? The rain which got encountered him and also I told you that he must have been, you know, so terrified that he had been persecuting God's people all these days. So in his heart, right, we don't know all the things that were going on. But you know, we understand that those days the Jews used to fast and they used to pray to see God. So maybe Paul was in that place where he wanted to see God. He wanted to just cry out to God with all the doubts, the confusion in his heart and just set aside food, water and just look to God and ask him the same questions which he had asked God and said, Okay, now that you're speaking to me, what do you want me to do? So it shows a genuine change in the heart of Saul. Now, suppose the change was not genuine, what will happen?  So what? I'll just go about doing what I need to do. But the encounter touched him. It impacted him. So he was in a place where he had to process things internally and see which direction God is going to lead him in. Okay, now also, you know, as we look at this encounter that Saul had, you know, in the book of Acts, we will see different kinds of people. If you recall, when we talked about Acts chapter 8, over there we saw Simon the sorcerer. He was such an influential person in the city, in the region of Samaria and he encountered Christ. He gave his life to the Lord and then later on, you see Philip talking to the Ethiopian eunuch, another influential person and that person gave their life to Christ. Now, this is a completely different individual, a persecutor. Okay, somebody in authority can an individual like this have a genuine heart transformation. You notice that it has happened. So, you know, today as we look at people all around us, we can judge them in different ways and wonder, can God minister to those who are following, you know, Simon the sorcerer. He was following the occult. But God touched his life. Ethiopian eunuch, you know, in charge of the treasuries of the Queen of Ethiopia. So today, maybe some big minister or somebody, can God touch that person's life? Why not? Now Saul, somebody who is going against the work of God, today we might look at some people and say, look at them, they are passionately opposing the work of God. How can God touch this person? Right? And they even would be leading this movement against the people of God. And we might totally dismiss that person and say, never. God will never bless this individual. God can never work in the life of this individual. But see what God did. God encountered a persecutor, Saul. Okay. That really shows us. Wow. In the book of Acts, God is touching lives of all kinds of people. So there is no limitation, you know, as to who the Lord can minister to. So today, if God puts everyone in our hearts, we too can pray for them. Don't wonder, can God touch that person's life? Is it possible? Yes, it is possible that God can encounter Saul. He can encounter anybody. Okay. So the people with him, they helped him to come to Damascus over there. Saul was blind. He was seeking God. That is what we understand from, he didn't eat, he didn't drink. He was seeking God. Since a change of heart was happening, then what happens next? There was a man, he was a certain disciple, it says, from Damascus by the name of Ananias. Okay. Have you heard Ananias before? Have you come across this name before? In the book of Acts, just, okay, yes, where have you heard this name? Yes, are you all awake? Okay. Dave says, beside Paul, okay, yeah, he ministers to Paul. Okay. Yes. Have you heard? So far we have touched on this name actually. Not able to remember, do you know, like Acts chapter 5, we said Ananias and Sapphira, those who lied to the Holy Spirit and died. Can you recall now? Okay. Okay, good, good, good. Yeah. So even there we saw our name Ananias, but you know, that's a different Ananias. Don't confuse this individual. This is a disciple from Damascus. Okay. And God is speaking to this disciple in a vision. See God speaks in different ways, isn't it? And we have, we have, in the case of that Ananias story, we saw how Peter rebukes him. There he had a word of knowledge. God spoke to Peter through a word of knowledge. How does God speak to this Ananias who is from Damascus? He gives him a vision. He gives him a vision. God speaks to Philip. Go and overtake the chariot. Okay. So you see, God is communicating like some words in his spirit. So God is communicating. Remember when we talked about the Acts of the Apostles, I told all of us that this is actually the Acts of the Holy Spirit through the life of the Apostles and believers. So it's like the Holy Spirit is directing. The Kingdom work in the book of Acts. So the Holy Spirit is speaking to a man called Ananias and telling him in a vision, right? What to do? So today we too have the same Holy Spirit and the work of the Kingdom is being orchestrated. Can we also have the experiences similar to the book of Acts? Very much because the Holy Spirit continues to speak to us. At the language of the Holy Spirit, you remember Peter stood up and he said, this is that. Okay. I had in the experience that people had that day they were speaking in tongues, but Peter preached and he said that, look, in the last day, God said he would pour out his spirit. And what will people flow in? Dreams, visions. These are all communications of the Holy Spirit.  And today we can also ask God, but the way you gave a deep thought to Ananias, he is giving us. Just think about Ananias. He is not being addressed as an apostle in the city of Damascus. You know, nothing great as far as position is concerned. He is a disciple, but is God speaking to a normal believer? Yes. And God is speaking through a vision. So, we too can trust for today. We could just be going about our lives and God can give us a dream. He can give us a vision. He can give us an instruction the way he is going to instruct Ananias. And that's the beauty of God. He ministers to all his children. What did God tell Ananias? See, I really like this. Earlier when he spoke to Saul, he said, Saul, Saul.  He spoke the name. Okay, and that is so special. Now, the vision, you know, Ananias hears. Ananias, the name of that individual. And Ananias also responds. See, when God speaks to us, we need to respond. Saul responded. Ananias says, here I am, Lord. Okay, it sounds like a very biblical response. Because earlier in the Old Testament, you know, here I am, Lord, send me. You have prophets responding like that. So, Ananias seems to give the same answer. Here I am, Lord. So, Ananias knows, okay, I think this is an assignment. God wants me to do something. And so God said to him, Arise and go to the street called Strait and inquire at the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus. For behold, he is praying. And in a vision, he has seen a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him so that he might receive his sight. So, this is unusual. And I'm sure Ananias understood what God was trying to tell him. So, God came in the address.  Okay, the road that has this shop go there. So, very specific directions Ananias is getting from God. A street called Strait. So, what is this? This is a word of knowledge. Did Ananias already know the place or he did not know the place?  So, he can tell us exactly where we should go or what we should do. So, a word of knowledge is apparent in the vision there. And he tells him, you go to, it's like saying go to door number 345 where, you know, Mr. John lives and talk to John. So, exact address of an individual. So, inquire at the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus. Now, this is the difficult part. Till now, I think Ananias would have been like, yeah, okay, I can go. I can go to commercial street. You know, door number 3, you know, whatever, 349 and meet Mr. John. Not a problem, God.  And you could put a name to it. Like if you have a persecutor, suppose there is a persecutor whom we know that our entire region is kind of shivering under the works of that persecutor. Everybody will know who that man is. And Ananias, he would have already known who Saul of Tarsus is. Now, it's like sort of dangerous. Okay, God, I can go there, but God is telling him Saul of Tarsus, he is the person. Okay, he's there and he's praying. So, it doesn't connect. How can this persecutor be praying? So, I'm sure there was some confusion that Ananias must have experienced. And in a vision, God also tells him that you have a vision. I am speaking to you, Ananias, but I have also given a vision to that Saul of Tarsus. And I have, you know, it's like confirming the appointment.  So, in the vision, God is confirming the appointment. And he's saying, you know what Saul has seen in the vision? He has seen a man and specific name. Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him so that he might receive his sight. Okay, so what do you think the response would have been of Ananias? Well, he could have been really scared and thought, I will not go to Saul of Tarsus. Okay, God, excuse me, give another Ananias this vision, send that person, I'm not going. Okay, but thankfully Ananias doesn't do that. Okay, he goes, obviously that's why, you know, in the vision Saul has seen Ananias coming and doing this. So, Ananias with all his reservations and doubts still signs up for the assignment. So, verse 13, Ananias answers. He says, Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name. But the Lord said to him, go, for he is a chosen vessel of mine to bear my name before Gentiles, kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for my needs sake. So, it's like what Moses responded, right? Moses at least directly he gave an excuse and said, no, I can't speak God, you know, and it angered God that Moses was trying to resist what God was telling him to do. Ananias is kind of coming to that complaining mode. Okay, but he builds it up and he says, God, you know, this man, this persecutor, I have heard about him and we already knew it was in the newspapers that, you know, they are coming to Damascus.  You know, they are going against us or they will rush into people's homes and they are going to capture the ones who believe in you and all. So we already knew the agenda a lot. So he's trying to explain to come to a place where he might say, it's too dangerous.  God understands our, you know, our fear. Okay, already in the vision, God has clarified to Ananias, he's saying, look, Saul of Tarsus is praying and that's hard to believe, you know, for a man. In his mind, he must be imagining, oh, this man called Saul of Tarsus, he's like this. He's a very, like a fierce, you know, kind of a persecutor. He's coming and his face must look all angry and all of that. But God in the vision clarified to him, this man is praying. Okay, so that itself is God trying to help Ananias to understand, look, listen to me. Okay, I am working in this person's life. You do what I'm telling you to do. So God convinces him further and he says, he is a chosen vessel of mind. Isn't that crazy? You think God persecutors are not choosing you. They're going against you. Why are you choosing persecutors? But that is the way our God works. Okay, in this case, did Saul choose Christ? No, God chose Saul. Did we choose God? Yes, we responded to the gospel message, but we know scriptures tell us that we love because he first loved God. He chose us, he appointed us to bear fruit in his name.  But God says about Saul, he's a chosen vessel of mind. So God has a plan, even for the so-called evil people. According to our judgment. And what is the plan that God had for Saul to bear my name before Gentiles? So more specific. Remember when Saul asked God, Jesus the question, what do you want me to do, Lord? For whatever reason, Jesus never told them all these details. But Ananias is getting the details here. Chosen vessel of mind bear my name before the Gentiles. Who else? Kings and the children of Israel. So God is revealing the nature of Saul's work to convince Ananias and say, look, there is a purpose. There is a plan that I have for this man's life. Or I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name sake. So it's as if Jesus had already chosen Saul as a minister. And the zeal with which he was going in the opposite direction, that was going to turn around. And we will now see the same Saul with the same zeal. Maybe even more zeal working in the direction of the Jesus who spoke to him on the road to Damascus. So Ananias had great clarity in the vision and God told him, I want you to do this. What does Ananias do? He was 17. Ananias went his way and entered the house. That's all God wants from us, obedience. Okay. Yes, there are doubts in our hearts, but when God is saying something, we have to move according to the leading of the Holy Spirit. So obedience. No wonder God picked Ananias. Maybe God knew his heart and thought, okay, there are so many believers in Damascus. I know Ananias is obedient. Let me speak to him. So God spoke to Ananias. And what Ananias went, he did it. And he went to that house, Judas house and there just the way Saul saw in his vision. A man is coming by the name of Ananias and laying hands on him. Ananias did that. And what does Ananias say? He says, brothers Saul. Wow. Until now, discussing with God, you know, I know about this man, Lord, he is a persecutor. But what changed? Now that he has met Saul, he uses the title brother. Okay. So in the early church, usually they would say brother for someone who is born again. So it was settled in Ananias heart that Saul has now become a believer. So without any fear, just think about it. He's laying hands. Suppose Saul's heart was not changed. How can Ananias lay hands on a persecutor? How can you call a persecutor a brother? A brother, but God confirmed all that settled all that in his heart.  He's so sensitive. He understands, you know, the condition of our hearts. Sometimes he is very patient with us when we have doubts also. So all the doubts and fears which Ananias had, how can I go? Oh Lord, God settles that. When Ananias goes, he's going confidently. He's laying hands on Saul, the persecutor and also calling him as brother. So brother Saul, oneness, it recognizes that this person is now born again and part of the body of Christ. Second, this shows the love that the believers had for one another. Now, Ananias assumed Damascus. This new believer, he's from a different place, but you see the body of Christ. You can be from here, there, different churches, different places, but there is a bond of love within the body. We are all part of the body of Christ. Okay, that bond of love is coming through when Ananias addresses Saul and says, come on, you are now part of my family in Christ. You are now my brother in Christ. Still, you know, three days back, three days back, you were an Anani, but everybody who accepts Christ becomes a part of the body. Okay, so he says, brother Saul. And it's also in a loving, encouraging way. Now Saul is blind and Ananias knows that he's blind. So that is that compassion. Oh, three days this man has not been able to see. You know, may the Lord heal him, may the Lord give him back his sight. So there's all that coming through just with that one-term brother. When he addresses Saul, so he says, brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me. That you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. So Ananias also recognizes his own assignment. You know, when God sends us somewhere, there is something he wants us to do. So Ananias says two things here. One is that your sight should come back. Okay, and the other is that you should be filled with the Holy Spirit. This is the reason the Lord Jesus has sent me to you over here. And he had already laid hands on Saul here. So then what happens? He says, immediately that fell from his eyes something like scales. And he received his sight back once and he arose and was baptized. So when he had received food, he was strengthened. Then Saul spent some days with the disciples at Damascus. So the supernatural healing of Saul's sight took place when Ananias ministered to him. Now, why did Saul go blind? That's a big question. We don't know. We really don't know. But in other places where Saul explains himself, in the book of Acts itself, you will find that when he is talking about his experience and his transformation, some people use the word conversion. He says that he encountered a great light in the midday. And that light could have been such that it blinded Saul. I mean, we don't exactly know why he went blind. But he went blind and when Ananias ministered the scales fell off and he was able to see, to confirm his faith in the Lord Jesus, just like all the other believers. When Peter preached, he would preach the message and then he would call people to respond. And after people responded, what would they generally do? Be baptized in water. So truly, Saul has had a transformation from the inside out. And that is why he is healed and at the same time, he goes in for the water baptism to confirm that okay. My old life is gone. Here I am, a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and I am going to follow Jesus. So he was baptized and all this happens in Damascus. So the believers in Damascus, they are sure that this persecutor has turned around. And after the healing took place, you also see that he received food and he was strengthened. So whatever he was seeking God for, he must have prayed and said, Lord, I want my side back. I also wanted to show me what to do and God answered his prayers. So usually, in the Old Testament, you see so many instances of the people of God fasting and praying. They seek God and when they get the answer, the fasting is over. Similarly, here he eats his food and he was strengthened. So that's about how God ministered to Saul and that beginning as a believer. That journey is initiated in Damascus. So it's very encouraging for us to know that God could actually bring such a transformation in the life of somebody who is a persecutor. So what I'll do is maybe I'll just take some of your comments here because this is about the transformation of Saul.  What else? What else about the way God sent Ananias? Okay, Dave says it gives hope true. So we can pray. If God put somebody, you could pray for that person no matter how far away from God that individual may be right now. But you see how God encountered, do we know that believers during that time with praying for others? Of course, it was a praying church. So a lot of people would have prayed for Saul. Now that could also be one of the reasons why God actually ministered to him. So what we'll do is let's stop at this point. We will come back together and then we will continue. We'll read a little bit more about what Saul does in his journey and then move on to reading other miracles that God does through Apostle Peter in the same chapter, chapter 9. So at this point we are going to take a break and we will come back together soon. Thank you. Thank you everybody. See you after the break.


What's the book of James? It's a letter to those who feel scattered, too faced, pushed down, or taken in by empty promises. It's a warning to succumb to these forces that divide and entice at your own peril. It's a plea to live out your faith. Be generous and compassionate to the poor. Tear down every wall of division, every hierarchy. Listen to others first, second, third, and then speak. Good begets good begets good. And it's a promise that this faith-filled endurance is not meaningless. It is a chrysalis where something beautiful is gestating even now in you and in the world.