What's up everybody, it's Jay-Z over at jazzyoverjasmiescasebrakes.com 19-20 Panini Donner's Optic, two-box mega-box break, number three picker teams. And again, everybody has the opportunity to win the Pelicans. All you have to do is buy one team or one spot in this break. So at the beginning of the break, you randomize the Pelicans to one lucky customer. The more spots you buy, the more entries you get. One team body goes one entry, two teams body goes two entries, et cetera, et cetera. And there you go. So I just copied and pasted the names in the break into this list randomizer. And again, let's roll it. Five out of five, ten times. Good luck. Name and number one gets it. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. And what was it, a ten? Yes, ten times. Jeffrey, Myers, there you go. Congratulations. No, Jeffrey's not a one-spotter. Hey, all it takes is one, Anthony. That's what we always preach. I mean, obviously, the more spots, the more better odds you get, but all it takes is one. Jeffrey, out of ten times, you just won the Pelicans in this two-box mega. Congratulations. Oh, snap is the weekend really coming out in this freaking American dad episode. I've never seen this one before. He's actually singing. It does happen, I know. Lately it has, right? Oh, this is a 2020 episode of American Dad No Wonder. Here's the two mega boxes. You don't have to say that, so you're not going to get blocked, but you need to chill, okay? You need anybody arguing in the chat for little reasons that don't even matter. All right, here you go.  I already came back with a band yesterday, Derek. I haven't really seen full-long cartoon like TV shows or animated shows in a while. I've seen Rick and Morty before. I don't know why I've never really gotten into it, but I like the show, though. I think it's really fun. The ones that I've always just struck my interest was Bob's Burgers. And honestly, I like American Dad a lot, but yeah, I still haven't really seen lately a lot of them. I've been more into like, I used to like watching like Fresh off the Boat a lot, Black-ish. Obviously Dave has been the one I've been really into right now with the season finale being last week or this past Tuesday or Wednesday, but I'm going to get back into watching some of these shows. Black-ish, you know which one actually is better than Black-ish guys? It's Mixed-ish. I don't know if you guys have seen that one. Mixed-ish is a really, really good one. Zach Morris is the dad. I forget his real acting name, but it's Rainbow's dad. Is there going to be a new Game of Thrones? Oh yes, I've seen that one too, Nick. I've seen like two episodes. Yeah, that was a good one, too. It's literally like Black-ish. Like real-life stuff. Larry Bird. What's the new Game of Thrones going to be about? Is it going back in time like, like the Harry Potter with the Fantastic Beasts? I heard about that director directing Star Wars now. Bell Targaryens? Damn. It's going to take a place hundreds of years before. Well, that's what I figured. That's the only thing you really could do, right?  Jason Tatum. Man, not much craziness out of these mega-boxes yet. I'm still grabbing the same ones from the case, too. I'm going to hit something, Monstros. Let's see what this is in those pink facts. All it takes is one hit, right?  So, guys, that was the break. This was a two-box mega-box break of Optic. Basketball. JapaneseCaseBricks.com. I'm telling you guys, just something crazy hiding in these boxes. I just know it. Hopefully, we get another one going. Number four should be posted up soon. Appreciate it, guys.


Today we continue working on an attentive healing, attentive focus of competition healing for IGP Shutsun sport. Session number two I want my dog to be more focused and keep the focus much longer just so you understand what I how I divide the healing exercise in general. If you think about it in the healing exercise we want the dog to do so many different things one is to look at us all the time be focused attentive second the dog needs to know the position where the front aligns with with your leg right so that's one position another position the dog is long it has also rear so the rear should stick out too much or be too close to you so he needs to also understand where to keep the rear how to control it and of course the dog needs to move along with you not too fast not too slow and then the dog needs to know to sit for the basic position when you stop so there's so many exercises that we need to teach the dog but all of it crumbles if the dog doesn't keep focus if the dog can be attentive enough to perform this exercise for that reason I do not feed my dog into the position I teach my dog to focus first and after that then I gradually progress but if I don't have the focus of the dog the rest doesn't to me it doesn't matter because once the focus is gone the whole position is gone and attention of the dog is gone so you have no kind of control needed for the competition that's the reason why I train the way I train that's the reason why I don't feed my dog into position I want my dog to learn every portion of the exercise and know it well and once the dog is ready then we progress so today you'll see I always have the flat color but mostly what's new today is that I have a leash on the choke chain and today if I he needs correction he will be corrected and so what I want to do today is that I want him to sit there wait for me and I encourage the dog but then sometimes I keep a pose because my goal is to make my dog sit next to me and stare at me for one minute without me saying anything so the dog needs to get to that point before I'm ready to move to the next level that's my target and I'll show you how we progress to this target and then after that you you keep practicing until you can have the dog for a minute looking at you okay let's start I have a stick cheese which is very convenient for that exercise because I'm simply just feeding the dog from my hand and it's not too sticky not too greasy and he likes it so it should be okay all right look very good look very good look very good look good look no look good very good good look I rewarded right away because when I moved my hand he kept looking at me look he's doing it very well good so he's now getting that he doesn't need to look at the hand but he has to look at me very good good look good look and now let's keep the pause good look very good good look one again good look good yes good that was very good good very good good boy so as you can see he holds it for about 15 seconds now and I'll progress the same way I always feed from the top the dog now knows not to look at the hand and I keep repeating command look I rarely use it once I would get to healing but at the beginning especially when we start moving with the dog forward helping him know that he shouldn't look down he should keep looking at you helps if you have this command look that's the only reason why I have it so it's kind of a transition command for me that I don't use for too long but it helps the dog and I hope you'll progress with your dogs soon and happy training


Good morning, John. This video has spoilers through the end of season three of The Good Place. The Good Place has a good show about four not-very-good people who have died and ended up in a very bizarre afterlife. Through its first two seasons, the show explored really deep questions, many of the same ones we've been dealing with as humans for thousands of years, but then in season three, as The Good Place is good at doing, it swerves on ya, and suddenly the show isn't about how to be a good person, it's about how to be a good person in 2019. Earth is a mess, y'all. Spoiler's in earnest now. The bad place is going to get all of them eventually. Even your precious pee-pee king, Doug Forsett. In season three, we find out that everyone goes to the bad place, even the guy who knows the rules and has been doing everything he can his whole life. The proposal here is that the modern world is so messed up, you can't live in it without being a bad person. The last time someone got enough points together, The Good Place was 521 years ago. This is kind of a rough thing for me to hear personally because, like, I kind of believe it. The bad place isn't tampering with points, they don't have to, because every day the world gets a little more complicated and being a good person gets a little harder. For more than 10 years, one of the central themes of this channel on YouTube has been to engage with the complexity of the world. But if you do that, what you find isn't that everything's bad, it's just that nothing's all the way good. The book that you love that was written by a misogynist, the terrible things done in the name of your religion, the historical atrocities that, like, all of society is based on and that you may still benefit from. Every beautiful, genius expression of human creativity and hard work has a dark side.  Now unlike Jason's friend Big Noodle, and I love the Big Noodle allegory, I'm the kind of guy who actually has time to figure out whether oat milk is better for the world than almond milk, it is. But what does better than really mean? What's this scale here? How bad am I if I choose to drink almond milk because I like the taste better? And how much worse is that than, like, being mean to a friend or, like, putting Sprite in my water cup at McDonald's? The good place's answer is the accounting department. Beings who judge every action you take and determine how many points you get or lose. Anastasia in the stuff vegetable department. We've got Hector over in American Coins, and my dear buddy Matt in Weird Sex Things.  The math is cold, objective, and airtight. Maybe it is in their universe, but it is not in ours. One thing the internet has been really good at for certain people is highlighting all of the many ways unintended harm can be done. For others, oddly enough, it's been really good at insulating them from that. It's almost as if the internet amplifies your world, dear! But for people who are open to the complexity, the reality of reality is just way too complicated for the accounting departments of our brains to handle. It's almost as if utilitarianism relies on a hyper-individualist worldview that isn't reflective of reality. Individuals make decisions. I will never say that's not the case. But there are many decisions that are much harder than others and that have much greater costs associated with them. Themes of Season 3 quietly but geniusly highlights that our current system of consumerism-fueled pop utilitarianism mostly isn't a tool we're using to make the world a better place. It is instead a way to rapidly and inaccurately judge the goodness and badness of ourselves and each other. So here are four really important things that I learned from this very good content. One, not everyone has the capacity to weigh every choice they make and that does not make them bad people. Two, it is harder to be the kind of person who seeks complex truths rather than retreats into simple lies, but it is also better. Three, morality should only be one part of that curiosity because if it is only about morality, then you only view the world through the lens of judgment. And number four, our accounting departments will always be flawed and so we should not judge ourselves or others as if they are not. John, we are down to just two days of pizza mess. I will see you tomorrow.


Wel, mae'n gweithio, mae'n dweud i gael i'w wneud o'r sgolwgr ymlaen. Felly, mae'n gweithio'n gweithio, y Prif Weinidog, Harold Macmillan, dwi'n cael ei ddweud o'r ddysgu'r politicau, a mae'n dweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud o'r ddweud. Ifour votes in the House was suddenly called for and all the timetabling was thrown into disarray, it seemed a very good example of what events really mean. But all the politicians put a great effort in to make it here, and I'm hugely grateful for that, particularly clearly, the Chancellor, because without him it would have been a difficult evening. But the consequence of this, just to forewarn you, is that instead of having a break between two speeches, you're going to have the delight of two back-to-back moments. So then by the time you get to the main course, by Jerv, you'll be ready for it. But I mean, it is absolutely terrific that so many of you have come tonight. A few weeks ago, I actually visited Greenwich and I went to see the Cutty Sark, the Maritime Museum and the Observatory. And if you haven't been, I would really recommend it. It shows the United Kingdom as a great trading nation. It's a wonderful record-breaking clippership on display, the power of the East India Company, which you see in the Maritime Museum, a company born in London, which actually dominated international trade. And then the innovative skills of UK engineers and scientists at their very best, solving the problems of timekeeping, of longitude and navigation on the high seas. It truly is an example of Great Britain, and it's memorable, and I have to say it's also inspirational. Now tonight, there are many captains here of industry, I have to say, rather than of warships. But, well, sometimes both actually, I'm thinking about it now. But many of you in the period, having had a period where you've chartered courses for their business and in recent years, the challenge of navigating through what have clearly been some pretty choppy waters. Now during the journey, as we've watched this, some of the captains have sadly been washed overboard. A few vessels have floundered, but most are still plowing on, cautiously but quietly confident, I think now of reaching a relatively safe harbour. And as business leaders, it's been hard going. But at least we weren't the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Officer on the watch in swirling economic fog, boarding, I have to say at the outset, a pretty creaking craft, which was listing on departure, shipping, we are told, in more water than it could reasonably pump out, winds that have only blown in the face and rarely in the sails, and a crew sometimes sailing under different colours. And be calmed waters, making that forward progress pretty difficult. So certainly not a luxury cruise. Now the Chancellor has been strapped to the mast throughout, but we are particularly grateful therefore that he made the time to join this evening. And I and I know everybody is hugely appreciative, Chancellor. Thank you so much. Now clearly, this hasn't been the voyage to the new world, which we'd all hoped for, all of us had hoped for, three or four years ago, that the sunny uplands remain a pretty distant destination. But we are not sinking. And the crew, as I go around the country, is clearly mostly in good heart. And we still are one of the fastest ships in the European convoy. And as we assess progress over the last 36 months, it is important that we do so, I think, dispassionately, not politically. And to benchmark both performance and, importantly, our expectation of what good looks like against those that are truly our economic peer group and not the more fortunate outliers. So in the real world, how are we doing? Well, in truth again, I think better than many of the headlines would, in fact, have us believe. Since taking up the role of President of the CBI just two years ago, much has changed in both the political and the economic landscape. Europe has slowly edged forward from really what was a basket case on life support in intensive care as we all saw it, now getting to the stage of being in fragile recovery, but still in recovery. And I think we all have to hope that that convalescence continues because it is for all our sakes. America has had the most remarkable transformation boosted by cheap shale gas. And it's once again demonstrated that as an economy, it may occasionally be down, but it certainly isn't out. And it may just be with the help of, I think, the mighty dollar printing press. It might just be the Western engine of growth that helps pull us all out of the difficulties. Looking a little bit further afield, Japan stagnant now for many years, now deluges its economy with new money. And in that case, hoping inflation may well awaken the sleeping giant. And in parallel, China and India simply power on at enviable levels of growth. At home, a return to growth has been challenging with living standards under pressure and debt levels remaining stubbornly high. Recent signs, I think, have been encouraging, but risk remain from inflation at home, which we must be careful and thoughtful about, and the macroeconomic changes abroad. But nevertheless, progress is being made. Politically, we've witnessed the changing of the guard in China with fortunately no change in policy. We've also seen the second term of the president in America, sadly with no real sign of political harmony. But we've also seen turbulence throughout much of Europe and yet no absolute certainty of economic recovery. At home, the government has obviously battled in the face of adversity, and the opposition has morphed from what was seeming originally to be disarray, to a more confident and a more credible alternative. And competition, as I well know from the energy business, and I'm looking at the energy secretary when I say this, is always a good thing for the consumer. Now, in the spending review, we've been very clear, we must learn to live within our means, and the ring fences that we have put around certain parts of our economy must not be the license for inefficiency. And as a nation, I do believe there's a growing recognition that we are entitled to nothing. The welfare cannot be provided without wealth creation. And a grudging acceptance that austerity at home and exports abroad must be the twin-track solution to the problems that we have. And I think that across the piece now is generally understood to be the way forward. And in this regard, political and economic opinion remains, I think, to be fair more divided in detail than in principle. The CBI position with no political alignment and only a pro-business focus has been clear in its belief that financial rigour is the bedrock of recovery. We have been unwavering in our support for this policy throughout my presidency. And while siren voices may suggest relaxation in the words of Baroness Thatcher, this is no time to wobble, George. And with the powerful support of members, we've been equally clear with the government as to the needs of business. Reduced taxation and regulation, improved education, scoping an industrial policy, not meddling in remuneration, speaking up for business at home and supporting business abroad. And to be fair, government has consistently responded, lowering taxes, both corporate and personal, reducing regulation, supporting sectors and not picking winners, encouraging diversity and discouraging greed by dialogue and debate rather than simple legislation and dictate. Our criticisms, rarely on policy or mindset, have focused pretty much on presentation, which has sometimes been rather clumsy, and execution, which has been invariably slow. But without doubt, the voice of business from the CBI has caught the ear of government, and the direction of travel, whilst never fast enough, has been both positive and welcome. May it continue to accelerate with less words, fewer new initiatives, and more action. But whilst much around us has remained troubled, there have been real achievements to celebrate, the renaissance of the automotive industry, now a net exporter, hardly credible a decade ago. The strength of our pharma, food and technology businesses across the world, our creative industries who continue to beat Hollywood at its own game. We've witnessed growth in our exports to growth markets with very strong support from a refocused and re-energised foreign office, which has been hugely beneficial to industry large and small in their efforts to export across the world. Investment in aerospace, funded by the Treasury, following a dogged and determined campaign by Vince Cable and Biz, it's a case that has been made well worth being made and won. And that's very much, I think, to our collective advantage. All these steps really supporting the creation of 600,000 jobs in the private sector, we still need more to tackle unemployment, which is still a tragedy, but in turn helping to cushion what is a painful transition, an inevitable painful transition from public to private sector across the country. So with all the success stories, what is the missing ingredient? And the answer, of course, is it's that simple thing which is rock solid confidence. And confidence everyone in this room will know is the catalyst to growth. It is the trigger that ultimately liberates cash from balance sheets and it encourages management to take risk. But it's a feeling, I mean it isn't a fact and it's essential, therefore, that we are all vocal government and business about the successes we have achieved. We have to drown out the commentators that revel in our difficulties and disappointments and ensure that business is valued as a key contributor to our well-being. Banging the drum for business, large, medium and small is in all our interests. Now there are, of course, weak spots and there are four key areas that remain for me as the to-do list for those that follow. First and foremost, it is this relentless focus on execution. It's something that every businessman knows is the difference between giving an order and seeing something actually happen. Driving plans for quick wins and fast starts. Dropping departmental barriers that frustrate delivery and neutralising rivalries. And at the same time helping to refresh a whitehall culture from playing safe to making it happen. And that's in energy, in defence, in transport. It's part of re-energising business, government and the civil service working in the same direction with the same energy and drive. Second, greater focus on construction and infrastructure. Attracting private funding, refasing expenditure to front load activity. Building social housing. Creating jobs and generating activity. Funding for lending has undoubtedly helped. It was a good idea and it's trickling through the economy. But ranking our priorities, driving progress, shoveled in the ground, as John would say, not words on the page. This is the way forward. My third point is really continuing an existing theme. It is driving the export agenda. Opening aviation capacity, loosening visa controls, sensibly and thoughtfully, with continued sales support at the top level, which I have to say we have had. But continuing that, greater directional guidance at the entry level for businesses that are just finding their way and financial encouragement to do this at all levels. Nurturing old relationships, rebuilding the transatlantic links, expanding in new territories, business and government working together to export in the nation's interest. The escape route from our current dilemma, which must remain our priority. And finally, visible engagement with Europe. Building alliances with common cause. Identifying changes for the benefit of all. Arguing the case from the core, not the fringe. Business and politicians having the courage to challenge the conditions, but the belief to champion the cause. We have clarity on process. We still have uncertainty on outcome. The fences have been erected and it is our responsibility to work and articulate the case as to how we jump those fences and overcome the hurdle. Now these issues I think mark the crossroads of our future. A role which I see as linked to an improved Europe through a domestic infrastructure, road, rail, air and of course the ports, efficiently connecting us to a wider global marketplace. And in the doing of that, our expectations of growth must be grounded in the realism of our neighbourhood economics. But our ambitions must be driven by the opportunities that clearly exist beyond. And to return to where I started in Greenwich, we must become again what we once were. A trading nation with a glorious track record with the skills and determination to build a prosperous future in the UK, in Europe and indeed across the world. Now my time as president of the CBI has taught me much. It's shown to me the resilience of companies. I think very encouragingly the sheer enthusiasm and determination of business leaders. I've also seen the value of collective endeavour and the benefits of constructive engagement with government and opposition. And not for the first time I've been reminded that the person in the chair is actually only as good as the executive team in the office. And I've been particularly fortunate to work with John and the leadership group throughout my time. And I thank them all for that. As I draw to the end of my period, I have to say it has been an absolute privilege to serve. And it's been a pleasure for me to work with so many of you over the last two years. And I thank you for all the support you have given me. And finally, I wish my successors and my break, John and the team every good wish for the future. I also wish the economy to gather a little wind in its sails. And for you all, the members, a return to well-earned and well-deserved prosperity. Thank you so much.


There's quite a few staff members at Bemidji State University who have talents that stretch beyond the classroom. That's why every year they have the Midwinter Interlude exhibit to display their work. Our own Sherelle Moore introduces us to a few of the artists for this week's in focus. Midwinter Interlude is kind of to give a little bit of brightness and color in the middle of this midwinter blouse. Deb Kruger came up with the idea for the exhibit in 2009 when she discovered there was a lot of artsy people on the BSU campus. It was then brought to the Ramsey Gallery in Bridgeman Hall. The exhibit is now in its ninth year and still going strong. We have painting, woodworking, we have a ceramic tile that was put in repurposed wood. One of our professors does duck decoys. There are several people who do photography. Myself, I do fabric bowls. It's kind of a fabric collage thing. The one that we have on New Zealand right now, that's just a fabulous, that's a storybook. And it definitely tells a story. Father and daughter duo Michael and Mallory Herbert took a spring break trip to New Zealand last March. They had a full Lord of the Rings experience and of course documented the entire thing. For any Lord of the Rings or Hobbit fans, we were able to experience the different scenes and settings that you saw in the films themselves. So we took some pictures and placed them side by side with different scenes in the films. It was fun to see the actual, you know, Frodo and Milwell's home and visit their houses and have a little dance around the party tree at night. Eighteen artists and five musicians are featured in this year's Winter Interlude Exhibit. Most of the ones who are here today told me that their art started out as more of a hobby that grew into something more. I've enjoyed making these for my family members and been doing it for, oh, the table is actually for about ten years now. I've got my drawing here, it's a minimalist that attempts to catch the essence of objects. I do photography and this year I tried a metal photo, so it's a photo on metal and with the lake it's just shimmery and nice and I really love it. Some say the exhibit is a fun way to make a big campus seem a little smaller by bringing you closer to the people you work with. It's a personal thing that we're putting out there for people to see, I mean especially for different faculty and staff members, you don't really get to see the different interests and hobbies that they have. To know that somebody else is a quilter or that somebody else is a painter, it really creates a connection on campus that's outside of your work dynamics. Reporting from Midgee with this week's End Focus, Sheryl Moore, Lakeland News. The Ramsey Gallery has opened seven days a week from eight in the morning to ten at night and the Midwinter Interlude Exhibit will be up until April 9th. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.


What's up, everybody? Jason here for Jasper's casebase.com. We'll give away a thousand dollars in break credit, guys. All you have to do is buy two or more teams in this break. In this 2021 Panini Chronicles basketball 40 box cereal break. Pikachu is number one. Remember, all cards ship. And again, guys, buy two teams. You get one entry into that giveaway. Four teams gets two entries, six teams get three entries. Top two names each. We'll win $500 in break credit. And here we go. Actually, sorry. Let's switch scenes. First of all, this cereal box case. And here are the customer names as well. I got in. If you have a little character sign, that means you won that from a team random as well. This is all about. So this one says, look for cereal box exclusive totally certified rookies. Look for the hottest rookies and 25 cards per little cereal box. Well, it's Chronicles. Compared to just rookies and stars, at least Chronicles obviously has different variations of products that they obviously kind of test out and don't make for basketball, which they might make for football, you know. So I'd expect it to be a little bit better. I mean, we also could have had just a do-do case to it here, since it is a cheaper retail, retail product. But I would expect this one to be a little bit better. Just because of that. I ripped this off already. Oh yeah, I guess I did. All right, here we go guys. First 20. And there will be a lot of rookies. Just mainly be looking for some of the top ones and potential exclusives as well. Le meleu. I think these are the certified exclusives right there from the product run. So of course you won't be able to Tennessee top a lot of these cards just because there's just so many of them. But just like the top, top ones. And I think that's the exclusive you're looking for, is the totally certified. Man it quickly. Nice little bit of top in red, totally certified. And I haven't seen a numbered card yet. Totally certified. Nice Le meleu right there. Honors. Nice wise one there. And Bane. So those are the totally certified exclusives. You can only find them in the cereal boxes, so I'm putting them down there to sleeve them. A lot more Le meleu than Anthony Edwards I'm seeing too. And there's one. That's an RJ Hampton Purple to 49. So we got a nice numbered one there. Orlando with that one. That's Alan Murdock. Let's continue on guys. Nice Cole Anthony red too. Pukku. Nice blue Acoro to 99. So these are the exclusives in this guys and as you can see they are going to dish out a couple numbered cards. Which again you can only find in cereal boxes. That's usually how they get you to get it. Nightbot's not getting any love. But Nightbot's already all out of giving out love sport part. We used an abuser too much. That's why it was only a June thing. You guys took too much advantage of her. Only using her when you guys give one giveaways. She said I'm out. I'll drift the next 20. It's like 7 o'clock. But before 7 o'clock. Cause I never fixed the camera settings. The boxes there. Here we go guys. Second half. Onyeka number to 49. Oh Justin. Sorry about earlier too man. My wife was talking to me about something. And I muted it and then I lost a little track of the chat earlier. But I did not see that. You tell me that all those ACC teams that are trying to join the SEC. And it almost has. I haven't used it. I've just been giving mine to my sister and my mom. But I think it expires in like three weeks. Finally. I think we got it like the first week of August. So. It is finally coming to an end. But that means that they joined the SEC. Is it only for football or is it for all the sports in the program? It's like all the sports in the program right? Mucho. And Fio Maladone purple to 49. I don't know. One or something. That would be nice. Basketball would be crazy you know. Last five right here. Last box right here guys. Good luck. See if we can get one more numbered card maybe. James Harden to Brooklyn update. And we did. Malachi tonight. All right you guys. Well again. Toronto of course has a ton of rookies and a ton of different products. Fortunately we can't potentially even top load every single rookie. But we managed to get a couple numbered cards here. Fio, Malachi, Onyaka, Isaac Cora, RJ Hampton. And of course a lot of the big top rookies like Lamello and Anthony Edwards. So I'll personally leave that right now. Let's just switch scenes and do the giveaway now really quick. So again it was a thousand dollars in break. I think that's why a lot of people actually bought in right. So that's what I'm saying Justin. All these conferences that are just kind of in the out there. They just need to just get together. Just create two mega conferences. And that's it you know. All right so again we're going to alphabetize the customer names. Top two win $500 each. All right so let's see. Allen got two. And one of those from Fillers. Brian got two. Chris Perry got two. So that's one each. Christopher just won. Diego with two. So that's one. Greg with two. Han with four. So that's one and two. Jeremy poor with four. Yeah instead of power five go to like power two or power three or something like that you know. There's still enough bowl games to go around. It's just that now like it just means all the other teams that are not part of the bigger conferences have no shot. I like making a power. I'm making a New Year's Eve six bowl you know. But I think at that point that's what you just have to do. And maybe you make it a tournament style too. Like playoffs you know. Just drew this Cody. It just seems like it's going to head that way eventually. All right so there you go. 15 names. Or 14 names out of the possible 15. Let's get a list and a roll. Nice roll it. Two and a six eight times. Good luck top two and five hundred one. Two three four five six seven. And eighth and final time. Boom. Chris parent in hand. There you go. Five hundred dollars each to you guys. I'll send that out to you. Jasper's case breaks dot com.


So, I would say if you have the ability to create merch, then I don't, I feel like why not, you know what I'm saying? Because you never know. You might feel like it's too early, there might be somebody right now that will boss with you. I would say as far as I started to run like merch-based advertising and starting to try to sell stuff, I would wait until you get an audience set of, I would say maybe like 100,000 people to 40 million people because then, or at least let me say, this is how I probably would do it is because you're still pretty much like building up, you're still trying to build like pretty much like customer loyalty, like brand lawyers and all this stuff. So, I would say like hit those people with like a couple of retargeting ads, you know what I'm saying? Either with a couple of different songs or a couple of different pieces of social content, so you can very quickly start to try to identify like who are either your super fans or have the most potential to be super fans, you know, and you'll be able to tell based off of like people who you can see are engaging with stuff the most. Once you've done that a couple of times, I will honestly try to do like a lead based campaign before doing a merch campaign, so like doing something as simple as either trying to get them to give you their email or trying to get them to give you their phone number. And then using that to let you know if it's a good idea to try to go hard selling merch, you know what I'm saying? Because like you, if you have 100,000, 40 million people audience that and let's say you want to campaign and you can only get 50 emails, they'll let you know that like, all right, these people that you hit aren't engaged enough yet to try to win a merch campaign.  Now it makes sense. They'll start planning out for an actual like merch campaign, you know, with the whole shebang email, email blast and retargeting as text blasts, all that stuff. But like I said, I am a big fan of if you have the ability to comfortably create merch and it's something that you can do and set up, then I always say like go for it because you never know. You know what I'm saying? Like ultimately you never know. They might be smart right now. Like you might not be able to sell, you know, 100 t-shirts yet, but you might be able to sell 10, you know what I'm saying?  So I'll say that if you have, if you can do it comfortably, you know, go for it. If not, then I would rather you spend your energy on retargeting ads and then doing a lead generation campaign at some point once you have a pretty good audience set. Wow. What's up, it's Brian man, Sean. And if you got value from this video, we got a ton of value to offer you in bramannnetwork.com. It's completely free. The link is in the description if you want to talk with us directly or some of the people in our community in between videos so you can ask questions specific to you or hop on one of the live sessions that you see on the channel when we're speaking with other artists, bramannnetwork.com is the place to go hop into our app is really dope and you get access to free courses as well. But it might not be free forever. So hurry up and get in there before I change my mind.


Do you know why ecologically sensitive zones are called shock observers? To get clarified, do watch this video. See Ecosensitive zone is defined as per the National Wildlife Action Plan 2002-2016 issued by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. It says that the land within 10 km of the boundaries of national parks and wildlife sanctuaries is to be notified as eco-fragile zones or eco-sensitive zones. Do you know that this 10 km rule is implemented as a general principle? So the extent of its application can varies with location. It means that areas beyond 10 km can also be notified as eco-sensitive zones by the Union Government. This is done when a particular area holds larger ecologically important sensitive corridors. Now let's see why they are created. See according to the guidelines issued by the Environment Ministry in 2011, eco-sensitive zones are created as shock observers for the productive areas. It is created to minimize the negative impact of certain human activities on the fragile ecosystems. Furthermore, these areas are meant to act as a transition zone from areas requiring higher production to those requiring lesser production. Now you may ask, will these guidelines hinder the activities of people living near the productive areas? See the guidelines clarified this also. It says that the ecological sensitive zones are not meant to hamper the daily activities of people living in the vicinity of productive areas. But they are meant to guard the productive areas and refine the environment around them. And going a step further, the guidelines listed the activities prohibited, regulated and permitted in an eco-sensitive zone. And the Chief Wildlife Warden can group the activities under these three categories. I have given here a list of activities that are prohibited, regulated and permitted in an eco-sensitive zone. Please go through it. Now we will see the recent Supreme Court judgment about eco-sensitive zones. On June 3, 2022, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court adhered a PAL which sought to product forest lands in the Neelgris in the Tamil Nadu. In the judgment, the court said that 2011 guidelines issued by Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change is reasonable and the Supreme Court directed all states to have a mandatory one-kilometer eco-sensitive zones from the demarcated boundaries of ivory-producted forest land, national park and wildlife sanctuary. It also stated that no new permanent structure or mining will be permitted within the ecological sensitive zones. Apart from this, the Supreme Court added that if the existing ecological sensitive zone goes beyond one-kilometer buffer zone or if any statutory instrument prescribes a higher limit of ecological sensitive zones, then such extended boundaries shall prevail. So this is regarding the Supreme Court judgment in conducting the ecological sensitive zones. I hope you have got clarity over ecologically sensitive zones and why they are called as shock absorbers. See, environmental related topics are more important in UPSC film's perspective. To know more about the environmental related kind of affairs, watch the Hindu News analysis of Shankar A.S. Academy regularly. Thank you.


Welcome everyone. It's Friday the 27th or almost out of January, which is good. Well, it's never good to lose days, is it? But it's moving along, and it's great to see the sun shining, and we've got some good people to hear from this morning. So welcome, and we'll introduce ourselves. We've got three new members, Gus, and then you'll introduce yourself and our crew, and we'll get started. Morning. Brian Collamore representing the Rutland District. Irene Renner, Chittenden North, including Fairfax. Brian Campion, Benedict Kelly. Rich Westman, well, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, Senator. Bobby Starr representing the Orleans County District. So welcome, Gus. Thank you for the record. I'm Bess Selig. I'm the director for the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board. And I want to introduce a few folks who are here with me. Pauli Major is our policy director. Some of you may have come across her when she was working for the last four years with Senator Lakey. She joined us this fall, and we're delighted to have her. Also with me is Aces Melia, who is the director of our ag program. And who's Gleason, who some of you have met before, who is the director of the farm and forest viability program, which also oversees the Rural Economic Development Initiative. And I'm not sure we'll get into as much depth as you're going to want to on some subjects today, but I thought the assignment was particularly for new members to give the broad overview of the organization and our general role. Although I've known Senator Campion for a few years, I think it was the first time I've ever had a chance to be in a committee room with you. Maybe finance, maybe finance. Rarely in my hands, in a cave. But we did come across each other in a great event over in Shaftesbury when we opened some houses. So with that, Pauli can help me screen share, because this is not my skill. It's not your computer. It's not my computer. Let's move on to the first slide. Senator Campion is also the chair of education on the senate side. So we did, we worked the two committees quite a lot together on the universal school meals program. He liked that. He enjoyed the ag committee so much. Well, I'm a big fan of the chairs. He wanted to join up with us, so it's pretty nice to have him as a member. Yeah, and I'll say that I have been invited to be with two of you in the institutions committee this afternoon. So some of this may get repetitive, but you're going to enjoy hearing from Stacey and Liz this morning and not this afternoon. So I hope it won't be super repetitive, but let me start with the mission statement. And I need to acknowledge that this mission statement was put together when Senator Starr was representative. Senator Starr and Chair of the House Ag Committee and Senator Westman was also in the other body and was one of the original sponsors. The lead back then on this program was Representative Jean Ann Duffy from Milton. And it was a broad coalition. I think there was something like 28 House members, maybe it was 18 House members and nine Senators because the legislation was introduced in both bodies that supported it. But fundamentally, we are asked to focus on the dual goals of protecting Vermont's agricultural land, forest land, while also providing affordable housing because it's of primary importance, not just by themselves, but to economic vitality and quality of life. And when you go through our presentation, we'll talk a fair amount about how we see our conservation mission as being essential to the economy of the state. And there are some things we define as part of our conservation work like the farm and forest viability program, the ready program that people, Neil Wunderbilt told me we ought to rebrand because we're doing a fair amount of economic development for rural communities. Vermont's also had a long term land use policy that goes back to something from the 1930s called Countryside Commission, which basically said, our land use policy really needs to reflect compact settlement surrounded by a working landscape. And some of you will recall that some years back, the Council on Rural Development did a public opinion survey in Vermont and asked them what their values were. And 97% said the working landscape. That's whether you grew up here or you came here, but that landscape, whether you're getting food from it or recreation, or you view it as important for climate mitigation is why so many of us look to be here. And so the aerial you're looking at here is the North Bennington Shaftsbury line. And I'm not going to show the pictures today, but I often show three pictures of how that community has used our support over three decades. And the very first thing that happened was back in the early 90s Stanley Tools left Shaftsbury. The employer and community group came forth and said, we want you to help us buy a house. And the house they wanted us to help them by was owned at one time by the poet Robert Frost and they turned it into a museum and they wanted there to be a reason for people to come to Shaftsbury. A decade after that, you see the body of water there is Lake Parran and a group of locals had bought a bunch of land around the pond and they didn't want to develop camps all over it. They wanted to turn it into the Lake Parran recreation area and in two different conservation deals, they said, we said, okay, we're going to help you and there is a beautiful recreation area there. And this is about, I would say, a seven minute eight minute walk from the village in North Bennington. They also held out five acres because they knew that the community was going to need housing and it took another 12 years. But Shaftsbury changed its zoning to allow 25 homes on that five acres and apartment complex. The village of North Bennington extended its water line to them and the town of Bennington, its sewer line, in order to have that compact development. And so people of modest means can live in that community. They are just a few minute walk from the Lake Parran recreation area and a short walk into North Bennington, the library, to the elementary school. So that just is an example. We can't be in Shaftsbury every year, but periodically we get to small towns as well as large ones. This is our, just a few things in the Northeast Kingdom about our work and you're looking at Lake Manfromegog and on the left is the old convent and Sacred Heart High School. And after years of trying, the nuns have made a deal with a group called Rural Edge and we'll build 26 apartments in and around the convent this year. And there's room for hundreds more units on the site. And Newport would like some home ownership along with rental housing. So I think over the next decade, we'll probably be three or four projects there. Great. And at least at this point from up there, you can see down at the lake. It's a beautiful spot. And if you've never been up there, you can see the church in the big picture. Well, the building on the left is maybe, yeah, and it's to the left of the church as we're looking at that picture, maybe a minute walk. I mean, it's right in the same basically parking lot and a lot of room. It's a pretty big plot of land that's going to go with school and the sisters where they live. It's really a great project for that spot. And it's sad idle. It's been more than 10 years. And that's a hallmark of our housing workers to take white elephant properties and turn them into usable assets for the community. And, you know, we were at an old school in Senator Collins District. It's kind of turned into housing about a year or so ago. And on the right, what you see is a trail. And that trail is on the Bluffside Farm, which the Vermont Land Trust bought from the Scott family a few years ago. And they thought they'd just flip it to a young farmer. But the more they talked to the community, the more they realized it was a great place for education because it's not far from North Country High School. And they've had students work in there. And then they also recognized that there was a recreation need. And Newport has really struggled before the EB-5 scandal, but since then. And what we ended up helping them do, and we'll talk about this more in the Senate institutions today, is we helped them through our ready program and through a special appropriation that former Senator Flory had arranged to build a bridge that connects this farm to Crowdy Beach and downtown. And then at the other end of the farm is the BB Rail Trail, which goes to the Canadian border and beyond. So while some people would think about this as a recreation project for Newport, it's going to be a way for cyclists to really enjoy the countryside and hopefully for Canadians now that the border's reopened to be bicycling back and forth across the border and into downtown Newport. The trail across the border goes all the way up through to, well I think it goes up towards Sherbrooke. And then it does cut off and go the other way as well as to the eastern part of Quebec. What are those little, I don't know if they're ridges or? It was a river track. So those are ties maybe? It's a beautiful trail now. The bridge is gorgeous. I have a picture before it opened to the public. I was visiting with Senator Starr and Representative Marc Cot. And it was one of those hot days in July where you were just so sure through just standing still. We're looking pretty tired that afternoon. Housing programs. For those of you who are new to us, there's no kind of housing that we don't do. So we've worked with manufactured home communities. We are working on home ownership. Our primary work is in rental housing. Since the pandemic, there's been a focus on helping people move from or unhoused into permanent housing. And we played a major role in that throughout the state. And happy to talk more about that with any of you and your constituents on a different day. There's been a lot of talk and the governor's talked about diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. And one of the ways we have tried to work on that these last couple of years has been to establish a program to improve the quality of farm worker housing around the state. We're working with the Champlain Housing Trust that has a partnership with UVM Extension. And they've approved funding for 21 farm worker housing rehab projects that will house 100 folks and there's more on the way. I do have to say and we'll talk more at the end of this. Our budget may not, the budget proposed by the governor may not allow us to continue that program next year at its current level. But we would very much like to, we think it's really important. Do we get a chance to adjust? We do, near the end of the session. Yeah, yeah. We've worked on all kinds of conservation. I know we are the clean water service provider. We're linking them for Magog area. That was something A&R came and asked us to do an MBDA decline to do it. We're involved in recreational lands. Across the state, in Senator Collamore's district, we were, we had a great celebration of the Jim Jeffords State Forest a few years ago. I know that I was showing a picture of Verde Mountain one year in the other body and Representative Helms said, oh, I shot a deer there once, so I'm not all good about that. And we have other programs. You know, we've worked with, again, in terms of economic development, we've worked with Kingdom Trails on their first several acquisitions. Most of their land has been by permission. And that's a great thing that landowners are willing to let them use it. But it becomes so popular that I think they felt they need to own some of the land themselves because sometimes it gets to be too much for private land. That's really big up in St. Jay, Lyndon, Dirk. They attract thousands of bikers here. Big picture and you'll get our annual report next week. This is what we've done over the last 18 months for the funds that have been provided to us and leverage achieve. And where this pre-pandemic, the homes and apartments number would have been in the 300 unit range. So a lot more activity than usual. We're going to talk today about our development rights program, our farm and forest viability program and the rural economic development initiative to some degree. But we describe our program impacts more and more as being rural community development and downtown revitalization. And a big part of our work is helping young farmers get on their first farm. The picture, by the way, just in terms of serving rural communities is the town of Westford and we help them get a town forest. It's adjacent to their elementary school and for Westford, I think that's quite a turnout. So the community was really excited about that. You had a good turnout. I do want to say, and this goes back to the beginnings of the program and to the overall mission. Senator Westman and I were part of a delegation with the House Ag Committee in 1988 when the program was just a year old. And the American Farmland Trust took us to Massachusetts and Connecticut that had more mature development rights programs at that time. And it was a really instructive trip for me as somebody who didn't come with an ag background, both because I got to spend a day and a half with people and back then the House had lots of farmers in the House and I could hear their stories and hear about their lives and their struggles. But as we traveled, there were several lessons that the Massachusetts and Connecticut folks talked to us about. One was, don't try to save a farm in every town. Support farm communities. Because when you do that, you're going to support the infrastructure that supports those families as well. And I remember our very last farm in Connecticut and it was basically surrounded by suburbia and lots of traffic. And that message from that follow was just really loud and clear about when you have lots of neighbors, what they want from agriculture is different than when you have a farm community of neighbors and how far it was machinery on the roads and people buzzing by fast and dealing with odors and all that. So a big part of our work has been really to invest in our strongest farming communities and they're now large plots of conservative farmland. We'll talk in a few minutes about the viability program and we are actively and have been for 20 years working on helping people for whom dairy is not the way they're going to make their living in the future. But we are also seeing lots of large farm operators by conserved parcels and it is of great economic value to them to not be paying full development value for land. So I'm going to leave this slide. I just say since you brought it up what I've seen in my area is conserved land, particularly conserved land in flood plain that now is there's a 35 acre piece behind me that went up for sale while the large farmer paid $5,000 an acre. And it's very hard for anybody new to pick into farming with that kind of price, with the price of equipment. And I think from my vantage point the question comes up what do we want of agriculture and how are you thinking about the future going forward around that because agriculture is becoming cornered by those very large producers and that's it and I'm not sure that that's what we want the next generation. I think you're asking exactly the right question and we have been struggling with this over many years. So the first 15 years of the program what we did with our ag easements was to have a right of first refusal and then we introduced beginning around 2000 or 2002 this option to purchase an ag value but as we talked to the farm community back then what they said to us was we don't want you to interfere in sales between farmers. So while we have this option and we've never had to exercise I think that the issue of how do we get the next generation into agriculture has become a harder problem to solve because we've seen big farmers out compete young entrepreneurs for land and they need the land, it's staying in agriculture but it isn't the kind of agriculture that we had 40 years ago where you could have a small operation. When we began this work 100 cows was a pretty large farm. There weren't 1200 cattle farms like that. So we have trust and we have focused a lot on how do we help the next generation get onto farmland. We introduced paying what we call an option to purchase an ag value. I think one of the lessons we've learned over the years is that it's good to conserve even though we might have a 600 acre parcel we might want to conserve it in smaller chunks and I think we're going to need some additional tools that help the young farmers get onto farms. There's a provision in the federal farm bill for the matching funds we use and every dollar we spend on development rights is matched by a federal dollar called buy or protect sell that would allow a group like the Vermont Land Trust to buy the farm, hold it and then resell it. And I think we're going to need going forward more provisions and stronger provisions around affordability. We use a model in our housing work where people share appreciation with the non-profits and they don't fully benefit at full market value when it's time to sell. And I think how we do that and we want to do the sensitivity to the concerns of farmers I can't tell you we've yet to do that out exactly how we ought to do it but we've been involved in lots of farm transfer work to young farmers over the last few years. I don't know if any of you have been at the market at the corner of Route 2 and Route 100 and be in Middlesex but the story there is a young couple and Liz can tell the story better than I so I should say probably a little bit not a lot but we helped them buy their first farm, we helped them buy their second farm we gave them a business plan to open that market and it's a terrific market we're doing great work so we have to focus more of our efforts on how do we get the next generation into agriculture at a price point I think and development rights is once new it won't be the only two way Yeah, it's been a pretty good ride though I mean we've conserved a lot of good agricultural land and now we've got to keep farmers on that land farming Whatever it takes to keep it open and productive For me the crisis is in the small firms Yeah, it kind of hasn't hit the big farms as hard as the little ones but you take a say when it does get there because it will get there you know you start taking a 12 to 2,000 cal herd farm with 3 to 5,000 acres and it's going to go bust I mean we're talking some serious serious money even with the development rights gone to keep that farm so somebody can go in there and buy it but if we can we should keep what we got there and by the end, thank you Gus Any other questions right now for Gus? Okay, Stacy? Yep, thanks Morning Morning, thanks for having us Great to see everyone So Gus did a great job cuing me up to talk with you about our agriculture program My name is Stacy Cevula and I'm the agriculture director at the HCB I've been in that post for about 2 years So I have to say this is the first time I've been in the state house because I was a pandemic hire So I'm just going to start off with kind of a broad brush overview of our program and then go into some more details about some recent projects that we've funded So since we were established back in 1987 we've helped conserve almost 800 farms across the state which is around 171,000 acres so definitely something we're proud of and our partners are proud of but definitely have more work ahead of us In the last year and a half we've helped conserve 24 farms across the state which is around 42 acres and we really can't do this work without our partnerships So we work probably not surprisingly do you really closely with Vermont Land Trust as the biggest land trust in the state and they have a wonderful ad program and have spent a lot of years building that program and adapting it to some of the challenges that we talked about earlier around trying to target smaller farms and helping the next generation get on land So we're really proud to be working with them and then also our federal partner the Natural Resources Conservation Service So as Gus mentioned they are typically providing a match 50% of our typical project is being funded with federal dollars which is just phenomenal without that program we wouldn't be able to do this work so very grateful for that and for the great team at the state NRCS office So at this point in Vermont we have protected about 20% of our ad land and a lot of that has really been the cream of the crop, the best crime and statewide important agricultural soils We still definitely have more work to do A couple of things I want to mention I'll talk more about in my next slides but probably not surprising to you also a big part of our work throughout our conservation work but also with our ad projects is focusing on water resource protection So you know with all of the talk about concern about both Laysha Plain and the Formagog and pollution and concern about ag's role and that this is something that we also take really seriously with our projects and as do our partners so with every farm project that has any kind of water resources on it we're making sure that the streams have vegetative buffers if there are wetland areas those are set aside and that agricultural activities can happen there and then another piece of that is also at times restoration projects so often our land trust partners are talking to landowners and connecting them with federal state partners or funders who might be able to help them do restoration work like tree plantings and things like that so it's all holistic and it all connects together and then as Gus has already talked about and we'll talk about more as Liz will as well is that conservation is really a great tool for getting land in the hands of next generation and keeping these farms active and viable can I ask the 20% does that include forest and land too? my understanding yeah I think it's taking into account the whole farm so obviously with most farms there's a sugar bush or other piece of forest land yeah it's a good question alright and I'm a little worried about time so I may and may not get through all the land I don't want to short change Liz so we'll just keep an eye on it and please do ask questions as I go so just wanted to highlight a couple of recent projects that we funded so in the upper left corner Wildstone Farm and Palomal this is a small farm a great example of a really successful productive small farm they are organic veggie operation and one of the oldest or actually the oldest certified organic farm in Bunington known in the community as being great mentors to young farmers coming in and this was a relatively small grant for us and I think also it's nice to see that we funded both smaller farms like this as well as the big operations and the next farm I'll talk about is the set Ted the set and the shot with the this one is hot off the press our board just funded it yesterday it was awarded $733,500 for this 200 acre farm that's in Fairfax it was a conventional dairy up until about 15 years ago and Ted and his wife Chris ended up selling her as it just became too difficult to financially for them to keep going but at this point we're very, very excited this is a common theme too to be able to use the funding from the Bellarites to bring new life into the farm so they have a growing sugaring operation they've got some beef cattle they have ideas for some other diversified enterprises are hoping to bring on to the farm and so they actually another cool part of this project is they are really excited to learn about our farm and forest viability program and I've already called up Liz's team to ask about getting business planning help so that's a common thing when we see where folks learn about our other programs through conservation which is great and then folks on the right Bowmeard farm that they are Hannah and John Boyle and that's one of their little boys they are face up in Fletcher this is another transfer situation where it was a dairy farm owned by the King family for a long time and there was a death in the family and they decided at that point that they needed to sell and ended up transferring the land to this young couple who's doing a diversified operation they were at the time on just 10 acres of land more of like a homesteading operation and running the space and needed active land and so Vermont Land Trust connected them with the King family and now they're running a pasture race pork and chicken operation there it seems like we've had Mrs. Doyle we've brought her in to testify is it her husband does some carpentry work I think he's so dispensing as well we're going to invent something else but he was really tuned in to what they were doing on the farm did a thing up job that's great great to hear like when farmers are advocating for these programs too great and so a few more slides to share so the gray dairy farm is an example of a large commercial operation I believe one of the largest dairy farms in the state up in the northeast kingdom so they at this point are milking about 4,500 cows quite a bit of land in the area and this was an example the farm is there on the right that they recently purchased so that farm was owned by some other state landowners who weren't really using it to its full potential and it came on the market and the grays jumped on it that would be great for them to be able to have such a nice large tract of land and not have to rely as much on lease holdings which is really common too and so the sale of milk rights helped them be able to afford that purchase the other thing that's really neat about this project and I think is indicative of a lot of our ad projects is that there are strong community benefits to this land so this property historically has been used by local folks for recreation, hunting hiking, cross country skiing and so as part of this easement there is public access for recreational purposes and the grays are happy to continue that and have been maintaining those trails Is that located near the home farm or? It's a couple miles to like the southeast of there I believe I haven't been on their home farm so I can't say it was sort of deep but it's not far But they go way up into Essex County through the woods they have their own farm road through and so it's a good big operation Yeah, definitely Being in the family college for generations a great family Yeah and then let's see, last but not least the Sats family and this might be a familiar farm to some of you it's actually called the woods market garden and so this farm was owned at one point by a representative Bob Wood Just south of Yeah, so he sold the land to John Sats in the year 2000 so quite a while ago and evidently representative Wood was not a huge proponent of conservation and didn't want to go through that process himself but but he ended up selling the farm to John's this young farmer John Sats who did want to go through conservation and knew that that would help keep the farm more affordable for him and did that with from outland trust initial project we were involved in but then fast forward to now John Sats had acquired some additional land next to the original farm and wanted to conserve this new tract of land so approached BLT about going through that process and actually in this situation it has a sad story the reason that the Sats family in part wanted to go through conservation the second time was to set the farm to be transferred to someone new so John was very ill and ended up passing away and so his wife Courtney wasn't able to keep the farm going and so being able to protect more of the land and also add this farm did not initially have the option to purchase the agricultural value that Gus was talking about and so we were able to purchase retroactively which then brought the purchase price down for the next farmers to come in so definitely a sad story but I think that Courtney Sats feels good knowing the land is going to remain in farming and they've got a young couple coming in who will run a very similar farm operation this farm stand if you're known it's run over at 7 a million cars go by every day and it's very popular so no doubt that they'll get success with that I'm just going to interrupt for a second because some of you do represent quite well and though philosophically he was not a big fan of the government buying development right after the farm was sold I was talking with him one day and I said how are they doing and his reply was I just wish they'd asked me to help before so he was quite delighted with the farm and stayed in production he was always in good heart thank you for that and I go okay so last but not least wanted to just again highlight water quality and how important this is in our agricultural work so here is the language that was added to the beach to be enabling legislation back in let's see 2012 with this purpose related to water quality which really gave us even more more impetus to go out and be able to fund projects that highlight and emphasize water resource protection and so as I already mentioned we are always looking at farms from the perspective of there are waterways we've got to have them buffered their wetland areas are going to be set aside and have special protections in the easement so people being able to work with our partners to do restoration work so I see this as it's a really great opportunity especially when you talk about transferring land from one generation to the next with the easement these kind of water quality protections would not happen any other way so it's a really good tool to be able to facilitate that and then the other thing that we're able to do is connect folks with our water quality grants program through our viability work so Liz will probably talk more about that but we have a grants program for land owners who are implementing different water quality like infrastructure improvements like someone who has newer storage problems and these infrastructure upgrades we can help fund that and it typically gets matched with state and federal funds so I'm happy to I know I zipped right through that I'm happy to answer questions from folks you did too good a job on all questions thank you very much of course from a financial perspective development rights generally are not less than 30 or 40% of the value of the farm these days and often well over 60% so from a financial perspective which the squirrel farmer needs to start does this make a financial sense it's a big help in lowering the cost we're freeing up capital that people use to invest in water quality to invest in expansion to invest in storage and that's a program that's 50% matched so you know we're getting a dollar for a dollar to help and it's a good thing we got that land conserved because we saw what happened during the pandemic with people coming up here buying everything in anything site unseen so no I guess we'll continue to grow something in Vermont and besides houses so thank you very good good morning thanks everyone for having me I'm Liz Lisa and I'm the program director for the farm and forest capability program here at VHCB which also includes our rural economic development initiative which Gus mentioned and I'll touch briefly on later but mostly going to focus on our more ag specific work just wanted to go backwards a little bit to some Stacy's slides because many of the photos on here many of these farmers are folks who have been through both our business planning program or farm transfer planning program with the farm viability and conserving either at the same time either because conservation leads to them realizing they could enroll for business planning or because through their business planning or transfer planning process they realize that the way to make this viable moving forward is conservation so both the Sats family and the folks who are taking over Woods Market Garden we've worked with Wildstone Farm Boneyard Farm these are all farms that we've collaboratively worked on both in the conservation department and in the farm viability work so bumping ahead the farm and forest viability program started its life as the farm viability enhancement program was the initial name is 20 years old so about 15 years into the HCB's tenure we added on this program and the rationale behind that was we've been conserving land we knew we needed conservation as a really important tool to keep farmland open and available but that wasn't solving all of the challenges that farmers were facing there was still a lot to overcome and we knew also that if there wasn't an additional set of supports that many people might not even be able to afford to farm on the land that we have conserved so there's a lot of amazing work going on in Vermont to help support farmers in so many ways and what we added on was a really in-depth high quality business planning program so for farmers and later on about 10 years ago we added forest businesses people could enroll they get matched directly with a really skilled advisor someone who understands the production side who understands the financial side who understands the market side they can kind of bring all those skills together and support farmers and forest businesses to plan for the future since we started 20 years ago we've worked with about 900 businesses we started off working with between 10 to 30 businesses the first couple years at this point in our in-depth program typically enroll 50 to 75 new people in any given year and then we're working with an additional 100 or more either previously engaged and coming back to more for more services or getting a little bit more light-touch work so we're touching hundreds of farmers a year through this program and dozens of dozens of forest products businesses and I guess one thing I'll also say about our program model is that we don't have those advisors on staff at BHCB we contract with a really great network of other organizations and private consultants who have really built a very unique skill set around this farm business planning this we work with the integral sector UVM extension the center for an agricultural economy and hard work land for good which is actually a New England wide organization and several other smaller organizations and each of those have a team of one to sometimes five or six people like at UVM who are farm and forest business advisors who come with a production background which is really meaningful many of them have run their own farms or other kinds of businesses but bring a deep sort of financial and planning skill set and can help businesses make really high quality plants for the future just this past year in our more in-depth work we worked with 154 businesses and combined that represents about 460 jobs and 334.7 million in sales so it's a pretty significant economic footprint per year our general rule of thumb is that in any given year about a third of the clients we're working with are in some way engaged in transfer planning that's just the very beginning stages of saying we know at some point in the next decade or even two decades this is going to happen and we'll start thinking about the pieces to put in place or they're actively closing on selling a farm or business to a new generation it's all across the map we do help a lot of people as part of that business planning program to access financing whether it's grants or loans and really this program is very established the business advisors in their program have really built deep skills and we see pretty significant economic results in addition to improvements in quality of life and ability to take a day off and ability to go to your kids soccer game we see that this past year 71% of clients reported an increase in their sales to their overall gross income and 60% of those clients also increased their net income and this isn't on the slide but last year in 2022 I think we had 13 businesses that when they enrolled actually had negative net incomes they were actively losing money nine of those 13 a year to two years later had gone from negative to positive so we work with people who are doing well and want to improve and we work with people and really needing to get in the black that's a good question does Lisa own her property now I see her up there is that a lease? I believe it's inserved and she owns it that's a great example she was on lease planned for a long time like a decade so when this farm came available it's what we call a farm and access project she applied we work with the development some of the development rights there later on they think of farm so that farm now forever when she sells it what may or may not happen to the land just so I can better there will never be houses built on she sold the development there was an option to purchase at ag value I believe also I'm going to have to double check that no that's helpful though for me to understand a great local example of somebody that was leasing for a long time and Lisa's food is incredible that she grows and it's really expanded over the past 15 years she's a really amazing farmer amazing yeah thank you yeah we work with her on business planning around the same time going through conservation and looking for land so we can really get in deep helping people look for a new parcel where farms are a good fit for them help them put together the financing all that stuff and it helps the people that did on that as well to retire with some money and dignity and in a great young farmer moving on and able to make a living but she loves to do it that's a great story well a couple I'll just quickly touch on another aspect of our program which is making grants Stacey mentioned our water quality grants program that's been funded through the capital bill part of the state's clean water budget we had a long history of making grants directly to farmers we tend to have a little more flexibility with what we're able to fund compared to some other state and federal programs so the point of having a small but mighty water quality grants program at BHCB was to help people fund projects that might not score well at NRCS or agency of ag but we still meet really meaningful or to help people be able to access those more complex funding sources because they need the match so we're working really well together with NRCS and the agency of ag and with people doing other innovative projects to really improve water quality whether it's through infrastructure for manure or better grazing practices and when we've been able to and when there's been enough funding we also run something called implementation grants so for folks who've recently worked in our business advising they identify a list of projects through that process that are vetted and have been sort of decided on and prioritized with their advisor and they can apply to us for funding to implement some of those projects so a lot of the examples I'm going to show later on are people who have been through our planning program and then immediately are able to access a small grant to help roll out a project Adams turkey farm is one of those there in westford this brings me back to my roots for a little bit my grandfather ran a chicken processing plant in the south for years and there's not many around here in Vermont but this is one of them Southern United States not Southern Vermont I forget which states sometimes Southern Vermont is Southern United States well depends on where you're sitting South of here quite a bit but yeah in westford they did business planning business have been around for 30 years they've never really done a lot of deep planning for the future we helped them improve their record keeping and separate out their personal and business finances and then they got a grant to help add some value added products including pet food which is actually a pretty interesting market Tyler Riggs LSF forest products up in Fletcher did business planning with us many years ago and then re-enrolled he wanted to sort of double to triple his production he makes I think mostly pine and hemlock boards and also works really closely with timber framers so we work with all different kinds of forest products businesses from loggers to small mills to woodworkers and processors who are processing much a little product a couple other quick stories very far up in west fields they have a young son they're an example of someone who started planning really early to think about well we're not ready to retire yet but we actually want to think about this before we have to retire tomorrow which is how most people usually operate and so they started to put the pieces in place whether their son wants to take over he's in his early 20s now or whether they want to sell it to someone else it is conserved the law Mike was page boy here quite a few years to come and heading again down south but staying in Vermont evening song farm we've worked with them over many different years to grow to get through the pandemic their business planner John Miller from NOPA who was in here the other day testifying on organic dairy really helped them through some tough times as they were trying to pivot during the pandemic they had young children it was just a really challenging time so and as you've seen this is a lot of different kinds of farms there hasn't been a dairy yet we work with a lot of dairies but we work with a lot of other kinds of businesses to all kinds of scales from quite small to some of the larger businesses and we do really believe in this program that a diverse set of farms of all scales and types and sizes is really where we need to go as a state I'm just going to skim through the rest of these really quickly this is another example of a farm transfer to conserve farm we've been working with a younger generation Jenna, Baird and Jacob to buy the farm from their parents from Jenna's parents just highlighting the organic dairy issue going on right now as you all heard on Wednesday there's really quite a crisis in organic dairy and we've recently over the past couple years worked with about 38 organic dairies 26 of whom were farmers transitioning from Horizon to another market including the Lins here in Walden just might be losing battery but I don't know if we can get through the next couple minutes during 2021 and 20 late 2020 to 2021 we launched actually a new entirely separate wing of our program to support folks through COVID and we actually worked with an additional 600 farm, food and forest businesses through that really short term super quick needs based kind of emergency response work all different kinds of businesses and the Rural Economic Development Initiative which was created about five years ago in this wonderful building is designed to help small communities and working lands and outdoor recreation enterprises access complex funding sources we do this all the time on our farm and forest business planning program now we do it both with farm and forest businesses and also all different kinds of small communities the Arlington Common Wellness Center community based wellness center with all different kinds of businesses and community spaces so far we've used about a little over $500,000 in state funding to help communities access over $10 million in grants so it's a small wing of our program but very has a really high impact on these small communities mostly under $5,000 these are a couple of value added producer grants which is a really complicated USDA grant that we've helped farms get a sweet round and run them up people and then just really quickly I want to highlight the major growth that we've seen over last year and this year was directly due to increased state investment in this program historically about FY 18 through 21 we were typically working with 100 to 180 businesses a year and that would cost us this is in our overall program budget specifically for business planning putting out between $600 $750,000 in contracts every year last year we put at $1.3 million to business advisors to be on the ground with businesses and that's going to impact both last year and moving into this year 318 farm and forest businesses so really major growth and we really appreciate that support and same with REDI over doubling the number of community supported a year I'm just going to interrupt for one second to say two things, one is the picture there is exactly I think the kind of situation when Senator Westman was speaking to the young couple getting on the land getting business support but the other thing I need to say is that last year in Senator Westman's other committee our base funding was brought up much closer to what some of you know as the property transfer tax level this year's proposal reduced that back where we were three years ago if that were to happen our overall funding is fine because there's one type of money but if that were to happen we could not maintain the growth in either the REDI program or the farm viability program that we've experienced so back a few years prior funding was just reminding me though we put our funds in it didn't work we swapped it out and put general fund back well no you and the other body both under the year before we put you've given us both ARPA funding and one time general funds but last year what you specifically did I think Senator Kitchell talked about this the other day was under the property transfer tax law we should get about 27 or 28 million we were getting 11 and a half last year you increased that to a little over 20 the governor's budget brings it back to that 11 and a half million dollar level and gives us 10 million in one time funding for housing so all I'm saying to you is I get that but we did give ARPA money that was difficult for you to deal with you have more flexibility yes you did absolutely but I think that was primarily at that level things not on what I call the conservation community development just saying for these programs to maintain the current level of activity we can't do it if we go back to that prior level of funding and I think this is the kind of work that speaks very specifically to your concern that we work more with small farms and work on getting people into ownership and deal with that crisis as well as working with small rural communities that have a lot of needs and don't have staff to go do the work so that was the point I wanted to make that Senator Kitchell talks quite often when we're talking about ag stuff and DHCB all that ready program has worked over the years and the ready program for you folks is we set that up and gave Gus a little bit of money and in the first year I think kind of what we gave him a couple of them or something and doing good things getting while bringing money into the state that was last set on the table of a lot of federal agencies and I noticed on the slide it's grown quite a bit and we would be happy to take it up another notch I have had a conversation given the governor's proposal of the budget with the agency of the administration about administering a sub grant for that help to rural communities work governor wants to do and they're quite open to that so maybe we'll get it made up some other way but not in our base budget so that's our concern is that we don't love it's nice to know what you're going to have from one year to the next this one time stuff that could go away well we know it's all going to ratchet down there's no question we do have a large pipeline of opportunities in front of us in both housing and conservation more than you will be able to fund no matter how generous you choose to be and this really reflects I think often the work of your constituents so Senator Westman can tell you that it took ten years to turn Green River Reservoir from an idea into a state park with lots of local folks really working on it Paul Hannon and I met with Morrisville Water and Light when he was the Forest and Parks Commissioner around 1990 1989 and we didn't get a deal done for another decade but if you want to find a beautiful place to spend the summer's day there's no better place so lots of future opportunity I know you're at time and I guess I just want to say since we've turned 35 years and three of us have been around all that time this slide just tells you what has been done over those 35 years what's that still in on the far left the gorgeous building is the Putnam Block in Bennington and when we had the ground break the upper floors have been vacant since the 1970s this is right at the corner of 2009 did you recognize that? I noticed he said the most beautiful place to spend the afternoon of their life for me I'd rather be on the water than upstairs it's made a big difference it's making a big difference and the fellow who's the head of the Bennington Bank spoke at the groundbreaking and he said this is a project there's no economic sense in the world that made all the community sense in the world to not have this hulking structure in the middle of downtown but I think it does make economic sense because you know it has brought back reasons for people to swing downtown stop, have a cup of coffee spend some money it's bringing more feet on the ground if you will that's helping other businesses it wouldn't cash flow by itself I think that was his point and just I just want to note on the far right is the Chapit family dairy which when I met Rich Chapit around in the early 90s he was buying his first farm and when he built his first barn it was in the middle of a recession in the early 90s and it was actually the largest construction project in Orleans County that year and he is now among the large farmers in Vermont he used these programs to get to that place to be a large farmer who employs quite a number of people and what's really great about that farm he's got about 5,000 acres that are all contiguous so he isn't traveling 20 miles and off the farm to get the feed it's now it was well planned out but BHCB in the land trust everybody has worked very well and Rich is very happy with the help they've received and the very smallest part of our work we see in the middle 81 historic buildings restored for community use and there's a picture of the Paulette Library but Senator Westman is familiar with the old range in Morrisville that's now a great center for the arts that kids enjoy working in every day so if you have a community that has such a building where they're trying to figure out what to do with it that's exactly the sort of thing that we provide some funding for and that the ready program assists and then the big picture number I just want to tell you when the founders of this work first came to Senator Starr and Senator Westman 35 years ago they said we're going to leverage public funds and they didn't know how I mean we had dreams but you've invested about $400 million in this program over 35 years and your constituents have raised another two more than $2 billion now from philanthropic funds from community fundraising from federal funds, from private investment to make all this work happen across the state so thank you very much I know we're at time we're happy to come back and give you more detail on the ready program and the farm viability program and when you have a concern Senator Westman, Senator Starr just gave me a referral from the town of Wellington this morning where we think we can be helpful if I'm not at the building if Holly is please let us know and if neither of us are here make our phone right please we appreciate your time this morning and my goss is in your almost homes I have but it's you know it's been good I don't know if we ever had a bad year we had hard years we had hard debates we had various times when we first began this program and Senator Westman will know this we had skepticism in the farm community about whether this was a good idea or not representative Wood wasn't the only person who was unsure that selling development rights would ever be a good thing for the ag community so we actually yesterday our board met yesterday and a lot of people helped us in the early years we had an ag advisory committee as Mike Claudette who some of you know yesterday with him and his brother Tom to buy development rights in order for John a fellow named John Lucas to buy one of their parcels and he's a first generation dairy farmer getting into the business so anyway he was a great help well he's up to good work and we appreciate it you know if we never be an assistant we'll call you know you call us too if we have an issue you're around enough so we will stay in touch thank you all very much thank you it's great we got a couple of young institutions keep on going thank you good to see you thank you all thank you very much oh oh you've got there should be your momentary the battle we could take apart okay


Like many of you, we have been so troubled by recent events in our nation. Our hearts break for the fact that people of color everywhere continue to be subjected to racism, bigotry, prejudice, and fear. This behavior goes against our core values of fostering a supportive and inclusive environment. As an educational institution, we have a responsibility to our students, employees, and community to be a part of the solution. We are committed to partnering with others throughout the Wisconsin Technical College System to facilitate meaningful social change. We recognize there is significant work to be done in this area. Yet, together, there are things we can do to stop racism and hate. All people deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. Words like civil unrest, black lives matter, we back the badge, racial injustice, social injustice, blue lives matter, or militia police. All of those words are becoming way too familiar with all of us, especially for us right here in Kenosha, Wisconsin. You know, our Kenosha campus is only blocks away from where Jacob Lake was shot by a police officer, causing major civil unrest, not only in Kenosha, but across the nation. You've seen the images burned out buildings. We're challenged now in our community to have deep conversations around what it means to respect and honor all citizens. Gateway Technical College believes in and supports the Working as One platform. It allows us a voice to learn more about our community, to learn more about each other, and find ways to put action steps in place so that we can become a part of a stronger and more resilient community. It only happens through voice, through your words and your actions. Working as one means that we stand in a united front against discrimination and racism of every form. We must band together in our efforts to acknowledge bias, to leave assumptions at the door, and to support our community and each other in a meaningful way. By identifying and seeking to understand how the various social identities, such as race, gender, sexuality, and class contribute to systemic oppression and discrimination, is important work. Work that we must join effort in. I believe that each person brings value and this is our opportunity to reduce barriers and increase opportunities so each can provide the value freely for the betterment of society. I challenge you to discover the power we share when we work as one to better understand this concept as we create inclusive spaces that assure everyone, students, faculty, and staff that their stories matter, that they are welcome, and that we are committed to their success.