Hey there friends, thanks for checking in. We've been hearing a lot about Liberty safe and how they betrayed the Second Amendment with their recent actions I dug into this a bit and I wanted to find out more about it Is this real were they in a position where they had no choice? But to cooperate was there an actual warrant for the safe and what exactly happened that transpired all this hatred toward Liberty safe and the more than I found out This thing is horrible Liberty safe put the Lib and Liberty by their their actions and how they cooperated with the FBI What happened was the FBI had a warrant for a J6er's property not the safe So they enter the property and they see that there is a Liberty safe there They then contact Liberty safe and say we need the access codes Nobody knew that Liberty safe the company kept backdoor access codes to the safes even the electronic keypads have Access to them through what Liberty safe keeps for every safe sold So they they have a serial number. They're able to provide an access code that nobody knew they had and They gave it to the FBI now the warrant was for the property. It was not for the safe They voluntarily gave it to the FBI and the FBI accessed that safe That is the problem But the more I dug into this the more that I learned that Liberty is very anti-2a The company Monomoy who is an investment firm out of New York owns Liberty safes The CEO of Monomoy is a man named Justin Hillenbrand Hillenbrand is a supporter of anti-gun Democrats 4,600 to Barack Obama John Federman Raphael Warnock Mark Kelly all these people totaling thousands of thousands of dollars donated to anti-gun liberals and And they say well, we're very 2a they put a statement out that said we had no choice It was it it was a warrant. It wasn't for the safe It was for the property and they keep backdoor access codes that nobody knew So that is why so many people who own Liberty safe feel violated by the company. This was never revealed It's not supposed to be this way But yet Liberty safe takes it upon themselves to keep access codes just in case now in their statement They said well We have denied law enforcement on occasions because they didn't have the correct paperwork Well, guess what they didn't have the correct paperwork Liberty safe Just butt-lighted themselves and people are called for boycott and then you you reach some of these Liberal written articles. They say oh, there's the Maggard Wright again boycotting because something they don't like yeah Well, I wouldn't like it if I knew that the saint that I purchased had backdoor access codes that could be given up on a whim not even a Search warrant for the safe, but the property and that is the problem to top it off the CEO the head of the company Donates to anti 2a people. This is why people are calm for boycotts with Liberty safe They are anti 2a what they did and how they reacted is inexcusable in my opinion And I understand why so many people are upset with this and why so many people who own Liberty safe feel violated the safe that they have with their own Combination code call it whatever you want. It's not there's only Liberty safe keeps those and will give those up in the case of a red flag law a Something else that they want access to the safe some type of warrant Let me say this if a judge Signs a warrant for a search of a specific thing and you have that information You you have no choice or you'll get hit with obstruction but In the case of Liberty safe, they shouldn't have that information and they do they have access codes And this is the problem with the way they handled this Search warrant. It was never for the safe It was for the property and the CEO and that company has donated multi thousands of dollars to anti 2a Liberals this is the problem the boycott Israel. I truly believe that liberal Liberty safe Bud-lighted themselves and they are going to feel the heat Fourth coming if you like videos like this, please subscribe and share I always appreciate thumbs up button Thanks for watching and you guys be safe


Today it's a great honor to be privileged to be able to host the 78th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor commemoration. We'll have approximately 150 guests to include four Pearl Harbor survivors with us today. Personally this is a tremendous honor to be able to take the time to remember those that perished on December 7, 1941 and to honor the four survivors who will be with us today. Being young at that time I wondered how I knew enough to do what I did to know to escape. And a lot of them didn't of course. And I think of them. My ship they lost over 400 some of them in. And that thing could have been me. I think it's a tradition that should be carried on. The United States should never forget what happened on this day. And I think the Navy should continue it. It was a good ceremony. We recognized all our troops that were lost in Pearl Harbor and also lost in the Pacific and Asian War. And I was out here today to recognize all my men that didn't make this trip. And as I can say it's God, duty, honor, and country. I think this is a great day for us to remember the past history of the United States and what happened up to Pearl Harbor Day. When we trusted everybody and let them get away with everything. We've not got to keep our guard up, not let it down.


Good evening and welcome from the National Archives in Washington, DC. I am Brianne Robertson. I'm an education specialist with the National Archives Museum. I am joined this evening by National Archives volunteer and former Holocaust Museum teacher fellow Cynthia Peterman, and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum educators, Christina Chavarria and Eric Schmaltz. We want this session to be as interactive as possible. You will have two ways to participate. You can use the Q&A at any time to ask a question or share a comment, and you can participate in the polls that will pop up during our presentation. So let's get started. We'd love to know where you're watching from. Please take a moment to share your location in the Q&A box. So I listed a few already. I'll mention a few more as they come in, but we'll go ahead and get into our program. With the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics just a few months away, we're excited to take this opportunity to reflect upon an earlier Olympic meeting, which took place in Berlin, Germany under the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler in 1936. Responding to reports alleging human rights violations against Jewish people in Germany, a variety of stakeholders including American athletes, Olympic organizers, government officials and the general public debated whether the United States should boycott the event. Some argue that going forward with the games would show support for Hitler and the Nazi government, whose policies of discrimination they argued were against the Olympic ideal. Others argued that politics had no place in sport and boycotting the games would deprive athletes of an opportunity to represent their country and compete for a medal in their sport. Tonight we will discuss resources and strategies for teaching about this difficult history. We're honored to partner with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum to provide historical context for the boycott debate, and to introduce ready to use teaching materials from the exhibit Americans in the Holocaust, and from history unfolded and docs teach catalogs of records and activities. First we'll hear from Christina Chavarria and Eric Schmalz, program coordinators for education initiatives at the Museums Levine Institute for Holocaust Education. Christina and Eric, over to you. Well, thank you so much for inviting us to be a part of this webinar. I just want to tell you a little bit about the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. We are located on the National Mall and we are the nation's living memorial to the Holocaust that inspires citizens worldwide to confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity. Through our William Levine Family Institute for Holocaust Education, we are the global leader in advancing the relevance of the Holocaust to new generations. And we are also a trusted provider of quality Holocaust educational resources to school administrators and teachers. The museum has created an online exhibition we've created several actually, but in this case we have created an online exhibition and resources around the 1936 summer Olympic Games that were held in Berlin. And joining me here today is Cynthia and Brian mentioned is my colleague Eric, who's going to also talk about the resources that we have so Eric. Tell us a little bit about the resources that the museum has that can provide the historical content and context on the 1936 Olympic Games. The Holocaust and Psychopedia articles provide historical content and context about Americans attitudes towards participating in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. Articles in the Holocaust and Psychopedia include a brief overview key facts, photos and videos. This article about the movement to boycott the Berlin Olympics of 1936 contains critical thinking questions you can use with your students. Christina, now that we know a little bit more about one of the resources available. Could you tell us a little bit about Americans attitudes towards Germany hosting Olympics. Sure Eric, and this is an excellent question and our online resources around a theme called Americans in the Holocaust includes public opinion polls that were taken in the 1930s and 1940s. And these public opinion polls reflect the mood and the attitudes that Americans had toward what was happening in Nazi Germany. So, for historical context around the opinion poll that we're looking at in 1931 Germany was awarded both the summer and the winter Olympic Games, and for 1936. So they were both held in Berlin, but as persecution of German Jews and other groups escalated ahead of the Olympic Games, various American individuals and organizations called for a boycott of the games. So, this opinion poll that we see here that's taken in 1935 over a year before the games took place, asked Americans the questions that we see the question that we see here. And you can see the response about 57% of Americans polled felt that the US should not boycott the games and prominent figures such as Avery Brundage who was the head of the US Olympic Committee at the time also felt that the US should compete in the Olympic Games. Thank you Christina for that explanation. To understand how and why the Holocaust happened. We have to understand the role of anti Semitism. But before we do that, how did we define anti Semitism. How did anti Semitism player role in some athletes decision to boycott the Olympics. Thank you for asking that question it's it's especially critical today that that we understand the definition of anti Semitism. So anti Semitism is defined as prejudice against or hatred of Jews athletes particularly particularly American Jewish athletes at the time. We had different responses to anti Semitism, and it influenced their decisions in different ways whether they decided to participate in the Olympic Games, or not participate. The museum has so many primary source documents for you to use in your classroom. And to help your students think critically about history, and one of the primary source documents that's included in our online exhibition on the Nazi Olympics Berlin 1936 includes oral testimonies. So right now we're going to listen to the oral testimony of Milton Green. Before we listen, let me just tell you a little bit about Milton Green. He was a young American Jewish athlete who was training to compete in the Olympics, and he was facing certain pressures. Before we listen to his testimony, think about the pressure that he faces and from whom, and think about in the influence of his response to the pressure. And then we are going to put a question right now in the chat. As you're listening to his oral testimony, think about your response and please feel free to answer your response to this question. What role does anti Semitism play in Milton Green's decision, his decision whether to whether he's going to participate or boycott so let's go ahead and listen to his testimony. The online exhibition also has some testimonies from black American athletes as well. And it also has political cartoons and other primary sources and we also provide the historical context so whenever you're ready, whenever it's working brand thank you. But to note, we also have the transcripts of his oral testimony as well. If students would like to read along with it. That's also very helpful for them too. I was always interested in athletics. And I knew that I was a pretty good athlete. I was captain of all the track teams since I was in grammar school. I've been always thinking and wanting to be in the Olympics. Of course that was my hope to be in the Olympics. I had held the world's record in the High Hurdles and also the Harvard Jail record in the broad jump. And I was watching the performances all over the world. I knew that I'd qualified because I won the preliminary events. There was some publicity in the Boston papers about my roommate and me, Norman Connors. There was a picture of us winning six gold medals in the Harvard Jail track meet. Rabbi Levy was the head of the Temple of Israel in Boston, a reform temple. And he was well respected all over the United States. And he had seen the publicity and knew that we were potential Olympic candidates and said he'd like to talk to us. I was confirmed at Temple of Israel and naturally when they asked us to come, asked me and Norman Connors, we agreed to come. I didn't know what they were going to talk about except that something about the Olympics. They told us about the terrible things that were going on in Germany and the Nazi regime. And it was a shocker to me and Norman. They suggested that it might be a good idea for us not to go to the Olympics because of all these problems and to sort of register our objections and sort of boycotting the Olympics. And we were quite taken back about that thought. And they tried to explain to us that we would never regret if we did take that action to boycott the Olympics. And that meeting really turned us around because we were horrified of the terrible things that were going on in Germany. Both Connors and I decided that we would boycott the Olympics. We just felt it was the right thing to do. I spoke to the track coach at Harvard. We told him about our intention and he tried to persuade us not to do it. He said he didn't think we'd do much good and we should try to go to the final tryouts and try to make the team. But we didn't want to do that. After we boycotted the Olympics, no one came to speak to us or asked us if we would make any statements about it. And I don't think anyone knew particularly that we did boycott it. I think back on making that decision and whether I would have won a silver or gold or some sort of a medal. And every time I go to the Olympics, no, I've been to three of them. And I watched, I particularly watched the high hurdles and the long jump. And I picture myself as maybe having won a medal on it. Thank you for playing that, Brienne. So let's just look at the question again. What role does antisemitism play in Milton Green's decision? Well, what was his decision? First of all, what did he decide to do? And what role did antisemitism play in his decision? So we're going to look at the Q&A. If you want to write your responses in there, that would be great. Thinking about what antisemitism is and what role it plays in his decision making. Okay, do we have any responses? I can't see it clearly. Let's see in the Q&A. Okay, thank you, Ian. It made him not want to go. Because of the things that are going on in Germany with German Jews, with the Jewish population, yes. It plays a role. And think about how that his decision, you know, think how young he is, you know, and to realize that this is happening in the world. And so in protest, he decides to boycott the games. He decides to not go. Let's see. I think we have a couple of other responses. Taylor, he decided to not go to the Olympics in Germany because of what was going on and he also tried to boycott the Olympics also to itself. He did not, not only did he not participate, he didn't even attend the games. Nobody really talked to him. Thank you for, for also adding that detail, Taylor. Nobody talked to him after because of others not thinking that it should have been this way. Because again, you know, we look at the opinion poll and most Americans felt that we should not boycott, which Taylor is making light of. So, you know, he went against the more popular opinion. And, you know, without even really thinking what role it would play in his future. So, again, you get a very personal perspective by listening to his oral testimony, he's Jewish. He's an American. And this is his way of maybe standing with his fellow athletes who are Jewish, even if they're from another country. Thank you so much for these responses. And, and as Brianne also writes, you know, he thought it was the right thing to do by boycotting the games and not participating he felt he was doing the right thing. Thank you so much for sharing these responses with us. And so, just looking again at the opinions of American citizens, we've, we've done some work on this and some research. Eric, tell us what were the opinions of minorities regarding the debate to boycott the Olympics and in particular Jewish American groups and also black Americans. Thank you for that question Christina. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum has collected much evidence about how minorities in the US responded to the Olympics debate. The history unfolded US newspapers in the Holocaust website has over 50,000 primary source articles. Some of these articles show what Americans could have known and how they felt about the 1936 Berlin Olympics. So, let's, let's take a look at one of these. Christina show us an example of one of the primary source articles available in the history and folded website. So Eric, we're looking at an example now from the Jewish press and in particular publication called the Jewish transcript that was published in Seattle Washington. This political cartoon was published three weeks before the American Olympic Committee voted in favor of the US participating in the Olympic games. So if you look very closely at this political cartoon, you'll see that one of the figures in the window is German Jewish athlete Gretel Bergman. And if you watch the behind every name video. This video helps students to better analyze and contextualize this cartoons message. She was not allowed to compete in the games because she was Jewish. So, you have these two sources of information you have this one primary source document, and then the animated video that tells her story more fully. You'll also notice that there's a quote at the bottom of the cartoon from Brigadier General Charles a Cheryl. He was an American diplomat and he was an admirer of Adolf Hitler and you're, you're going to hear more about him. And he actually met Hitler prior to the games to try to persuade Hitler to allow one Jewish athlete on the German Olympic team. So Helene Mayer, a German Jewish Spencer was allowed to compete in the games and you see a figure named for her in the cartoon as well. So, based on the cartoons title and knowing the background information of each figure in the cartoon. What is the attitude and you can put your comments your response to this question in the Q&A. What is the attitude of the Jewish transcript toward the upcoming Berlin Olympic Games. How does the Jewish transcript feel about the upcoming Berlin Olympic Games, according to this political cartoon. You have questions in the chat and you can put your response in the Q&A. Okay, so it's just, it's just a friend, and Ian says this is just a front, and it might not be the same in Germany at that time. So addressing I mean that the title itself says a lot about the attitude of the Jewish transcript toward the games it's just, it is putting on that front and it, yeah it's it's not positive at all. These aren't going to be goodwill games necessarily the way we often think of the Olympic Games it's just showing one thing while other things are happening in Germany, aside from the Olympic Games thank you so much for your responses you you all are really strong in, in what you're talking about the resources and these are all actual parts of the lesson, the lesson plans that we have all of the questions that we're asking you. So, history and folded the history and folded website also contains articles from the black American press, and a lesson plan that asked students to examine responses to the Holocaust among black Americans. So let's talk about this letter that appears in the lesson plan. Thank you Christina and before I do, I just think it's so powerful that we have these documents where we can either hear or see a printed the voices of these individuals as they're expressing their thoughts. This is one that really resonates with me. This is a letter printed in the Chicago defender, the letter writer Charles W Harris of New York City indicates that the Jewish Jews are being mercilessly persecuted in Germany. Harris argues that participation in the Olympic Games would be an endorsement endorsement of Nazism. The history unfolded database also includes articles from black Americans pointing out the hypocrisy of asking black American athletes to participate in the Olympic Games, while they experienced racism and discrimination in the United States. We have many other resources available on our website to help teach about the 1936 Berlin Olympics. We only had an opportunity to share about just some of them right now, we will provide links to these additional resources and a follow up email. We thank our friends at National Archives for inviting us to participate in this webinar and our colleagues at the National Archive will share more of their resources with you. Alright, so thanks to Christina and Eric for that terrific presentation. I'm showing you here, you know, one of those articles from the Chicago defender that could be found on history unfolded. This evening, Cynthia Peterman and I are going to keep the conversation going by focusing on National Archives materials and strategies for discussing the 1936 Berlin Olympics with your students. Archival records are great primary sources to introduce in your classroom. And there are different methods in depth of analysis on the grade depending on the grade and the abilities of your students. The important part of teaching this history is to help students understand that sporting events continue to be platforms where athletes and others can call attention to unfair treatment and discrimination, both on the playing field and in the world at large. The 1936 Berlin Olympics is a historical example, but one with important lessons for the struggles we continue facing today. So let's begin with a poll. Do you currently teach with primary sources? So I'll give you just a few seconds to go ahead and put in your answer for us. And it looks like, now some of you are still answering. So it looks like we are split about two thirds. We've got, you know, some of you do already teach with primary sources, but the majority of you don't yet.  The National Archives holds millions of records that are created or received by the US government during and after World War Two, that document Nazi war crimes, wartime refugee issues, and activities and investigations of US government agencies involved in the purification and recovery of looted assets, including gold, art and cultural property, as well as captured German records used as evidence at the Nuremberg International Military Tribunals. We not only hold these records, we provide access to them. But the 1936 Berlin Olympics were held several years before the United States entered World War Two. What did Americans know about what was happening in Germany? And what debates were they having about how the country should respond? Now, when working with students, this is where I usually ask them to help define the Olympic Games. They usually state that it is a global sports competition. And with this shared understanding, we can begin to dig into the role that politics and diplomacy can have in such an event. So how would one go about introducing the boycott debate to a classroom? As with anything, we need a hook. What part could connect with students? What is familiar to them about boycotts? At its basic level, a boycott is a form of protest. Often when a group stops buying goods or cooperating with a policy to express their disapproval. Students may already be familiar with other historic protests, such as the Montgomery bus boycott, which protested forced segregation on public transportation during the Civil Rights era. The Olympics, though, happen only once every four years and often take place in a foreign country. What would a boycott even look like at an international level? The Olympics are important athletic events in which many different nations come together peacefully and in friendly competition. However, as early as 1933, with preparations underway for the Berlin Olympics, disturbing reports about the German Reich's unfair treatment of Jewish people had reached the United States. These included setting up the first concentration camp at Dachau, boycotting Jewish businesses, barring Jews from professional positions. But some of these reports came from US diplomats stationed in Germany, including George Messer Smith, Consul General in Berlin, who frequently reported to the State Department on the deteriorating situation in Germany. As we've already said, a debate was growing in the US over whether or not to send a team to Berlin. In 1935, Brigadier General C. H. Sherrill, whose name appeared in that cartoon that Christina and Eric shared. He was former US Ambassador to Turkey and member of the International Olympic Committee's Executive Board met with Adolf Hitler to ask if Germany intended to prevent Jewish athletes from participating in the 36 Berlin Olympics. After his meeting, he wrote a letter to President Franklin De Roosevelt, describing what he believed was a successful meeting to allow Jewish athletes to participate in the games. In a moment, we will explore the letter in some detail. All right, so before we start analyzing this letter, we should take a minute to introduce you to the National Archives document analysis worksheet. Using these classroom ready PDFs will provide you with a tool for organizing your students work with primary sources and enable you to provide formative assessment as they study. The National Archives provides primary source analysis worksheets on the agency website archives.gov and on docs teach. These printable graphic organizers are available for many types of primary sources and are presented on two levels, novice and advanced. So let's take a look at the worksheet for analyzing a written record and we have a link for that dropped into the chat. As you can see this worksheet leads the student through the process of analyzing a primary source document by starting with observations and moving on to increasingly interpretive and open ended questions. Approaching a primary source in this manner enables students to base their interpretation on a foundation of factual evidence. Over time, applying the process as set out in the worksheet will help them to internalize a methodical approach to analysis that will serve them well when facing other primary sources. So Cynthia back to you. Thank you Brian. Begin by asking students. Oh, we need to see the next page. There we go. So this is the letter that General Cheryl sent to President Roosevelt. So begin by asking students, what is the first thing you notice about this letter, very confidential is handwritten at the top. Why might this letter be considered highly sensitive. When we look at the language here on the first page. We see that Hitler received Cheryl for a private meeting at his home in Munich in late August. This was not an official meeting. They did not meet in a government building, and Cheryl did not represent the US government. So, so what, what is Cheryl's goal or purpose for writing this, this letter. Here we need to pay special attention to the handwritten section at the end. The fact that it is handwritten is already an important clue, since it suggests that Cheryl added details after the main letter was typed. So what new information is included about the 1936 Olympic Games. Upon his return to his home in France, Cheryl wrote privately to President Roosevelt secretary, Marguerite le hand about the meeting, his impressions of Hitler, and his confidence and Hitler's promise to allow Jewish participation. You can see the reference in the excerpt on your screen. This letter is multiple pages. So for the purposes of this webinar, we took the liberty of highlighting a few quotes. Take a few seconds and read through them. How would you summarize Cheryl's overall opinion of Hitler, and what evidence does he provide to support his view. Feel free to type your responses in the q amp a box. So we have a comment. He praises Hitler, either Hitler has him fooled, or he's incredibly naive. Well, that's an interesting comment, because we're looking at this with modern eyes. And to see a letter that has such praise of Hitler seems a little shocking. In addition to that, it's a very good reminder to students that this is still early on in the period that we would later call the Holocaust, and many did not yet perceive Hitler as a serious threat. In addition, this is one piece of a larger story, albeit an important one. As a result of Hitler's promise, the IOC voted to hold the games in Germany as planned. So what questions do you have that this primary source doesn't answer. What evidence does the writer present that you should fact check or verify is true. What other perspectives should you get. Please keep these questions in mind as we continue our discussion today. Another terrific resource that I want to introduce this evening is DocsTeach. This is the National Archives online tool for teaching with documents. So we just dropped a link in the chat if you're not familiar with it so you can click through. It provides access to thousands of digitized documents and related student activities, including the Sheryl analysis that we just completed. And when you register for a free account, you can save primary sources, browse activities created by other educators, review student responses to DocsTeach activities, and create your own teaching activities. I encourage you to explore the different activities there. Some are designed to help students focus on the details. Others will help students make connections between documents. There's one for sequencing, one for thinking about how documents support different historical interpretations and more. Some activities will work better shared on a smart board or as a shared screen during a virtual class session. Others may work best assigned to students to complete on their own or in small groups. So now let's go ahead and dive in and look at more documents together. Different sources reveal a range of perspectives and arguments both for and against an official U.S. boycott of the 1936 Olympic Games. The First Amendment to the Constitution provides citizens with the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. The examples here are exactly that. The first is a letter from a private citizen to the president of the United States. And the second is a letter from a senator to Secretary of State Cordell Hull requesting guidance on the federal government's official position so that he could respond to petitions from his constituents about the proposed boycott. Petitions are a great primary source to bring into the classroom because they can help personalize the issues. Looking at different petitions together, whether it's in a gallery walk or other activity can also give students a chance to analyze arguments. As we consider these two letters, I want you to consider the following questions. What is the author's motivation for writing? When were they made? How does the writer make his case? And what elements of persuasive writing do they employ? So one thing before we go and look at each one individually, I want to point out here as they're side by side, is that you notice that the date for the one on the left is December 9, 1935. And the date for the second one is January 13, 1936. So these letters are really written just only about a month apart, so they're pretty close in timeline to one another. So I know that these are kind of hard to read on the screen, but to make it easier for you, we've added some call out arrows and to kind of highlight some of the pieces that we would hope that you and your students would gather together. So with the first petition, this is correspondence from Senator Augustine Linnigan, and so we see here that his motivation for writing is that he had received a telegram from his constituents in Connecticut, asking whether he supports the boycott. And he wants to know the official US government stance on this issue. Now, he makes his case here, so he's writing to the Secretary of State, Cornell Hole, and he is really establishing his credentials in a number of ways. One way is that he is using, we look up at the top here, Senate stationery. It has letterhead that is saying that he is part of the United States Senate. He is calling attention to the reasonableness of his request by employing a calm professional tone in his writing. He also explains that he's writing on the advice of fellow members of the finance committee. So suggesting that he's not the only one who is wanting to get clarification on this issue. And then he does exert a little peer pressure to the Secretary of State. He says in his letter that he has already replied to his constituents once with a statement denouncing quote, all intolerance and I think that it's important that we note that language there all intolerance. And he stresses that a dozen or so American politicians recently had made public statements in support of the boycott. So you can see sort of where he himself is leaning, but he is really wanting to urge the government to make a statement so that he can be representing the government stance and the response to his constituents. The second petition that I want us to look at together here is this one from a private citizen named Aaron Gamsey, and this one he sent directly to President Roosevelt. So he is a private citizen in New York, and his motivation for writing is that he recently read an alarming newspaper report about the situation in Germany. And he wants the United States to boycott the Olympics. So his strategies for trying to persuade the President Roosevelt of his view are and we see it a couple different ways. The first of which is that he attaches that same newspaper article to his letter he wants President Roosevelt to read it for himself. And when we look at that newspaper article, there's actually a lot of information that is included in there. This newspaper clipping talks about closed borders in Germany, the way that Jewish people are being stripped of their passports, that kosher meat is forbidden, certain professions are being closed to them, and that Jewish people are also enduring harassment and vandalism in Germany. So Gamsey is arguing that US participation in the Olympics undermines the events spirit of peace and sportsmanship that that is this diplomatic event where different countries are coming together in a spirit of togetherness. And he even employs some harsh emotional language so he is riled up.  So as this comparison activity demonstrates, there is value to sharing petitions with students to forge that connection to real people in the past, and also to show them examples of how people from the past demonstrated civic responsibility and worked to make a difference in the world. More advanced students at the high school level, for example, can go even deeper into the public debate by evaluating multiple documents and placing them on a scale, depending on the stance and arguments each presents. When engaging directly with primary sources, students will begin to understand what Americans knew about the Nazi regime's anti Jewish legislation, and the Roosevelt administration stands about the role of politics in sports. Now we don't know if President Roosevelt ever replied to Mr. Gamsey, but the archives does have Secretary of State Cordell holes response to Senator Lonergan. In this brief one page letter, whole explains that the US government is not in charge of deciding whether to send athletes to the Berlin Olympics, but that this responsibility belongs to the American Olympic Committee, a private organization. As such, whole argues that the federal government should remain silent, and so that it does not influence the outcome. The question around sports and politics, and specifically whether the two should mix is an issue that continues to inspire debate in the present day. What do you think, let's do one last poll. Maybe we'll give it another minute to see if others would like to participate. I'm answering the question whether the government should play a role in deciding whether to send a team. Right now, the more than 50% have answered yes, but it's fairly closely divided between those who think that the government should play a role and those who think the government should not play a role. The United States did send a team to the 1936 Berlin Olympics. While the success of the African American sprinter Jesse Owens during the games contradicted the Nazi regime stance of white supremacy. Many view the Olympics as a huge propaganda win for Germany. The administration remains steadfast in its determination that the Olympics were about sports, not politics. As one possible extension activity, your class can analyze photographs from the 1936 Berlin Olympics and discuss the ways the Nazi regime exploited the event for propaganda purposes. So as you have seen the National Archives has many records, documents, photographs, films, recordings, and together with the Holocaust Museums exhibition Americans and the Holocaust, as well as history unfolded, provide an excellent primary source, many excellent primary sources for this teaching this topic. We are so pleased that you have joined us for this webinar this evening, which is part of an ongoing partnership between the archives and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Our contact information is included here on the screen. We hope that you'll stay connected with us and consider joining us again at one of our upcoming events. We'd now like to open the floor for questions from you. So, I think, at least one question I see already. Cynthia, I am going to direct this one to you, because I know that you did a lot of research collaborating with the Roosevelt Presidential Library so the question is, would it be useful to go to the Roosevelt Presidential Library or the Eisenhower Presidential Library to research the Holocaust? Or are the National Archives and the Holocaust Museum the federal sites to go to for research on these topics? Well, that's a good question and it gives me an opportunity to let people know that the Presidential Libraries are part of the National Archives collection of resources and libraries. The FDR Presidential Library is a great resource. A lot of the records that they hold have been digitized and are easily accessible. I would also encourage if you're doing research on the era of the Holocaust to consider not just the Roosevelt Library, but the Truman Library as well, which offers a tremendous number of original records in digitized format that you can use. Alright, so I want to now extend this conversation and ask our colleagues over at the Holocaust Museum. If you can sort of elaborate a little bit more for us talking either about the resources, archival resources that might be available for research at your museum, but also like let's talk to us about other types of teaching resources that are available in History Unfolded on the History Unfolded website. Thank you, Brian. I guess I would answer that question with that. Yes, it would be, I think, useful to certainly look at our US Holocaust more on museums collections. We have a lot of materials, not only on the 1936 Olympic Games and the Boycott movement, but on many topics throughout this entire time period, obviously focused on the Holocaust, but we have a lot of materials and an online collection search. So that would be a great place to start and you don't even necessarily have to leave wherever you're tuned in from as long as you have an internet connection. The museum does also have a research center. The, the Chappelle research center is a really good place for scholars and other researchers if there are materials they can't find on the collection search that are available digitized trying to digitize more materials. But that would be another place for any serious researcher who's trying to get their hands on either original materials or microfilm materials, other materials, and then we have a library at the museum as well that has some materials. There's a lot of different options there. I've mentioned the Holocaust and psychopedia so certainly our museum is going to be a great resource on this topic and other topics of the Holocaust. When it comes to history unfolded in particular. This site originally started as a crowdsourced initiative students contributed articles, and we have articles that represent many different types of local newspapers around the United States. Some of the articles are written in other languages besides English. So we have Spanish language articles, Italian and German and so that's another, you know, really interesting opportunity there. Some of the articles from Christian newspapers, labor newspapers, I mentioned the black press articles, college and university newspapers. The website also includes additional lesson plans, one looking at how young people responded to the events of the particular college newspapers and a reaction by individuals on college campuses. One of the other lesson plans looks at a reporting on the MS St. Lewis, which was a ship that had German Jewish refugees and came to the country and was not able to embark the passengers in Cuba and went back to Europe. We have a lesson plan that looks at how three different Spanish language newspapers reported on those events. So it's fully bilingual as well. And some of the additional teaching resources on the website include a click through guide of how to read a newspaper from the 1930s and 40s because we found in creating that history unfolded project that many students are not familiar with the layout of newspapers from the time period and that's been a really popular resource. And one of our most recent resources we created is a teaching guide for short activities that teachers can use introducing either primary source newspaper analysis or comparative analysis or understanding historical context, using these newspaper articles from the time period so I definitely encourage people to check out the website and go to the teaching resources section. For some reason, I don't know why I'm not showing up but I am here and I just wanted to add to Eric, to what he shared. We have several introductory lesson plans if you are new to teaching about the Holocaust. We have lesson plans that that give you a great introduction. One day we have a lesson plan for that if you have two to four days. We also have lesson plans for that we also have lesson plans on using diaries, how to use diaries to teach about the Holocaust we have a guide for literature. We also have a lesson plan that looks at the challenges of finding a place of refuge, and it uses many primary source documents the documents that you need to come to the United States and documentation that you needed to gather if you wanted to leave Germany. I also want to point out that we have interactive timeline activity lesson plans we have a general timeline activity of the Holocaust. We have a timeline for Anne Frank, we know you know and Frank is one of the most popular her diary is one of the most popular text to use. And I also wanted to mention, if you, if you are looking for teacher professional development in the summer. We have the belfer national conference. This conference is a three day asynchronous conference that is free, and you can watch it at any time. Because it is asynchronous, you have up to six months to watch it. We provide continuing education units. We're certified I believe in all 50 states for some of the territories, and we will be introducing new resources at the belfer conference. And so, yeah, I think my room is too dark it got very dark in here. But anyway, I apologize that you cannot see me, but we will share that information to send the link to the belfer national conference for you to take part in it if you're looking for more teacher professional development. Wonderful. Thank you so much. I think, you know, one thing that I want to highlight before we close out our conversation for tonight. This evening we really focused on the 1936 Berlin Olympics but obviously the exhibit that we were pairing archives documents and the Holocaust Museum is Americans and the Holocaust so can you just speak briefly about what other topics are covered in that exhibit. Well, if you all don't mind seeing me. Yes, absolutely. We look at immigration, immigration is a huge theme. We mentioned the lesson plan it's called challenges of escape. We also have the animated video series it's called behind every name so the Gretel Bergman story is included in there, but we also look at four other stories of other individuals who are trying to come to the United States including Anne Frank's family, and the primary source documents that go along with their story. We also look at the debates to enter the war should we enter the war or not and of course that debate ends on December 7th and 1941. And we also look at the United States responses governmental responses as well. If you Google Americans and the Holocaust, it'll take you to the webpage that we have on the initiative, and at the side you will see the teacher resources and lesson plans that we have that go with it. Well, thanks so much for the archive side of things I just want to give another plug for docs teach our online tool for teaching with primary source documents. We do have on our popular topics page links for World War two and underneath that we do have the Holocaust. And we also have a section for sports which is where some of our Olympics things are housed, but we have activities and primary source documents they're connected to what we showed you this evening. We also previously have partnered on a webinar about immigration and refugee issues connected to the Holocaust so you can be sure to check those out there on docs teach. We at the National Archives have some summer institutes coming up. We have one that is in connection with the National Portrait Gallery that is teaching with primary sources and portraiture that will be coming up in late July. But you can always stay connected with us through our quarterly education newsletter and see what's on. So with that, I want to give a sincere thanks to Eric and Christina from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum for sharing their resources and knowledge with us tonight. To my colleague Cynthia for co presenting about National Archives, and to all of you for giving up part of your Thursday evening to join us and discuss this important topic. So thank you very much and good evening.


We'll start our meeting back up. We have Jennifer Holler with us and Gus Sealick from VHCB. And they're with us this morning to discuss farm labor housing and housing in general on farms. And I guess Gus, back a week or two or three ago, we had Dan Baker in from UVM and Buster Caswell, I think. And I don't know if you've received any of the information that Dan presented to us on their research and follow up from his research. But what it showed of the committee was that we're really slacking on farm labor housing, overcrowdedness, some poor conditions, and he has the numbers. And so we dug into that a little more and found that there's USDA has a federal program that has two or three different sections or segments to it. And Michael O'Grady, our council person, has done some research on that. And I guess what we wanted to chat with you about is because you're the guy that does the housing stuff and actually has a couple of dollars to do it with. If we could put something together on a trial basis maybe or something to try to move into that area to some degree to get some of this farm labor housing updated and have it so it's presentable. So when we bring immigrants in, these foreign workers, at least they have a decent place to be able to live while they're here. So I don't know if you folks have thought about that, Gus. I bet you have. And get your take on it. So I'm familiar but not intimately familiar with Dan's research. And this is a longstanding issue. And I really think it goes to a broader issue of how Vermont manages quality in housing and enforces codes generally. And I think there's discussion of that going on in the state house as well and has been for quite a number of years. From our perspective, what we did, and I actually had a meeting with Secretary Tevitz and his team on this issue a couple of weeks ago, last year we commissioned a report on farm labor housing works in mid-April. A fellow named John Ryan and an associate of his has been working on it. And Dan's research is part of his report. So I don't have the preliminary discussion with John about a month ago. And what he said to me was that the number one thing we really needed to focus on, some kind of revolving fund to help repair housing that's in poor shape. And so I think that's one of the things that we are planning on. We always appreciate the opportunity to bring federal money into the state and leverage it as much as we possibly can. I understand, but I'm not an expert here, that there have been a number of barriers in using the rural development programs. But we would be happy to experiment with trying to work with rural development and with the farm community to bring those funds in. There's both an onsite farm labor housing program. I think that's been used more. And I think the offsite program has never been used in Vermont. And that may also go to the status of some of our farm laborers in terms of that. So those are some of the barriers. But I think we definitely would like to move ahead on the repair side of things. And we would be happy to look at whether there's a way to help farmers use these resources. One of the issues I think with the loan program is what happens to the housing if you don't have the circumstances of the farm change and you don't have the need for it for farm labor. And I don't think USDA looks kindly on leasing it out to people other than farm workers or retired farm workers. So that's been one of the barriers. And there are statute, our fund, we're supposed to use invest in housing that will be permanently affordable. And that sometimes causes people to say, well, we don't want your money in the deal because we want to be able to do something else with the property down the road. But having said that and knowing that the governor's recommendation is quite large this year and he wants us to focus on workforce among other things. And farm labor is absolutely part of our workforce. We would appreciate the opportunity to make that a part of the focus of our work in the coming year. Lastly, I would say to you is we will need, you know, as you know, we don't do this work. We work with community-based partners. So I've begun a discussion with the Champlain Housing Trust, which works in Franklin County and Summon Addison County, managing a repair program. We were going to design this guss for Orleans and Essex County, not Franklin and Chittenden County. Well, I, no, I was going to- Bobby, you represent two Franklin County towns. Yes, I was going to remind you of that. And also say the other organization I've begun the discussion with is Rural Edge, which obviously covers Orleans County. Yeah.  So we've begun that discussion. One of the things John said to me is this is an issue that really needs a champion. It's probably going to need outreach from the co-ops and support from them as well to make something good happen. Yeah. The, Michael, you want, did you want to run over a little bit about what you learned from your quick research that you dug up? So Gus this morning, Jen, this morning, I talked with a staffer at USDA Rural Development's Vermont office. And she specifically does the rural housing and rural repair grant program, not the farm labor program. And she basically said that the rural housing and rural repair would not be ideal because one of the eligibility requirements of that is that the properties owner occupied. And that basically eliminates the ability to use tenants. But we started talking a little bit about the farm labor program, which she is not the most first in, but she gave the issue of on-site off-site. She referenced the fact that there is a citizenship requirement. But she said for the on-site program, they don't really run into that much in Vermont because they provide the assistance to the farmer, who's the owner of the farmer. But I'm looking at the requirements right now and the way that they define a domestic farm labor is require citizenship or in the states legally. So I have to track down with the head of the Vermont farm labor program that requirement. But one of the things that she did say is that nonprofit associations can apply for this assistance and then use the money according to the criteria for the program. From what I'm looking at, the rules, that seems largely for the off-arm program, for the off-arm housing, and then you have the citizenship issue again. So I think there's a little bit of a labyrinth that I need to figure out on how this could work. That's what I know. I think the important thing, Michael, that you found out this morning is that, gosh, there is money available. Yeah, that's the important thing is there's federal money available.  If any of you guys on the committee have questions, just Chris. Michael, the owner occupied, you used a phrase that was said something like the property. I guess, you know, it seems to me that the property in many cases is owner occupied, but the building is probably not. And I just wonder if I'm hearing a distinction there or that's just wishful thinking. So under the rural, I'm looking at the rural development single-family housing direct home loan program. And this is for construction or purchase of a single-family home. And one of the eligibility requirements is that the applicant needs to agree to occupy the property as your primary residence. Okay. Yeah, I think we're more, I'm at least thinking of repairs and upgrades. Yeah. Gus, when you conserve a farm, is there a discussion or requirement around code at that moment? There is not. Often the buildings are excluded from the easements and there is not. I would say to you that in general, you know, Vermont's approach to code enforcement is pretty lax. And, you know, I know lots of people don't like the heavy hand of government, but I think this is a place where, whether we're talking about on-farm housing or rental housing in general, we probably need a higher degree of oversight than we currently have across the state in all forms of rental housing to help people focus on the things that they need to do to keep people safe. Yeah. Gus, would you need any, if we were to pursue this or if you were to pursue this, would you need any language changes or anything or could you just, with your jurisdiction, move forward? Well, in general, what I'd say is that we are, from the governor's proposal, we're already asking for some language changes. And I think the house is reacted, the other body's reacted well to that, just for flexibility so that we can spend money in the conservation and agriculture areas. And I think in terms of, we may decide, but I think we have a little time to ask you for a little bit of language that would just give us some flexibility about running a repair program where we may not get permanent affordability and that kind of thing. So we may ask you for a change or two that would go with this special appropriation in order to stand up a repair program, but let us get back to you on that as an issue. And Jen, I think, has a thought on the language in front of what you're now. Good morning, Jen Haller with VHCB. VHCB doesn't require any authorizing language change, which this falls, you know, within what we are authorized to do under a statute. But as Gus mentioned, there is the $20 million in one time funding that the governor recommended as an increase for this year. And as the budget was submitted, it said that that was all to be for housing initiatives, but we've worked with the administration and committees on the House side on language that would allow us to use up to $5 million of that for conservation or farm and viability program activities. And so we would hope when the budget comes over to the Senate that you might be able to ask the Appropriations Committee to support that. That said, if that funding comes through that gives us the resources we need, and we don't need anything specific around farm labor housing, and that's our intention to do that. One other thought I had was that the, I know that when you were working with the CRF funds, you found a way to get some assistance to people who aren't documented or who might not qualify for the federal funds. But the beauty of the VHCB state dollars is that we will have the flexibility to help that housing regardless of the status of the residents there if we do set up a revolving fund. And then the last thing I'll mention is that the report that we've commissioned will be done on April 15th, just as a reference point and can share it with you at that time. And I don't know if it'd be helpful, but Linda has a copy of Dan Baker's report that she could forward you folks. And it's always most helpful if we don't have to do a lot of language change and all that. The important job, and I know Gus and we understand is get the work done, get the job done and get the bases covered. But I think I feel that if we could get a bunch of this federal money to do some cost sharing that it would make your dollars go a lot further. And we'd get more work done with less of our state dollars and do you see nonprofits can apply for that? So could you apply for that Gus or would you have like Roll Edge and those people apply for it? That's usually how it works is that they're really in the communities and they're the direct interface with the people who are going to end up in the housing. So that's usually how we would do it. We could be the applicant, but I think it would be more effective if people who are not based in Montpelier but based out in your communities actually are the applicants for those funds. I do need to just give you a caution. And then I'll tell you what I hope the antidote is going to be is that role development is a pretty rigid agency. They're not usually very flexible under the before the Trump era they had a director who was interested in granting waivers and doing lots of demonstration projects. So I'm hoping that now that we that we have a new secretary at USDA, we're going to get the same approach where they're going to do demonstration programs and they'll waive some of their rules. But if we go with the rules that are in place, there's a reason there are reasons that these programs and particularly the offsite program has never been used in Vermont that are hard to overcome. So it's going to take some, some of that kind of work to really pull those dollars in. I'm committed to trying to find a way. We actually got them for the first time anywhere to grant a waiver so that we could do replacement replacement homes and mobile home parks on least land with when Secretary Vislac was in office previously they'd never done that before. And that's what it's going to, it's probably going to take that kind of creativity that we didn't have in the last four years to use that program. And, and who, who does that does do you, do you lobby our congressional people to put something in the budget bill or, or how does, what do you do you're taking to get the waiver. Well, it, it's what I would call a conspiracy of goodwill. So there's a good idea at the community level. The congressional delegation might send a letter to the secretary or the head of rural develop the rural development office. You know, last time around Ted Brady was the State Director and he was interested in lots of experimentation. We don't know who the new State Director is going to be but if you get a good person in that job. Everybody just sort of saying this is a great idea let's give it a try. But we haven't had to have things in the federal budget bill to do that when we were able to get those those waivers. We just needed somebody really willing to try something new. Yeah, well, that's that's good Chris. You mentioned that this issue really needs a champion and I have a feeling this might be it. We, I think the folks assembled here, you know, I'm not sure where else we look for a champion. One of the programs as I understand it that exists already as a federal loan program so low interest, 1% or something. Is there, do you think, and I say this with the context that we're all trying to figure out more options and smarter people than me are going to pull some ideas together but one of them is that we would take that program and buy down. That effectively becomes a zero interest loan program for our farmers or, you know, even though 1% pretty darn low. Do you think you have the flexibility for that kind of approach or is that part of this that's just going to have to be evolving as the budget moves forward. Every farm is different and as you know some some farmers are pretty cash crunched right now given the state of the economy so I think whenever you're asking somebody to take on more debt, even at 0%. It's a, it's a challenge and I think that's why the chair is saying, you know, can you, can you put your money together with this so that further lowers the amount of debt that they need to borrow in total. 0% is good, but you know if you're if your cash, if your cash flow is really tight. That's a, you know, then investing in a new home can be difficult, you know, in my experience, lots of farmers have been very happy to buy a used mobile home and say that's good enough and I think that's a piece of why we're hearing that there's a real need for repair because if you buy an older home, you always have issues. And, and I think that just reflects the fact that you know the price of milk is constricted. Some people have lost milk contracts. Other people are at the beginnings of their careers in agriculture they're you know and it's a takes a lot of capital and a lot of to be a farmer in the next days and and people are pretty well leveraged. So I think that's, that's just generally a big challenge. And I do think most farmers want their labor living on the farm, or very close by. Thanks. So you, we kind of are you talked about and I think we kind of talked in down in in the other room that I'm in about sat in the side and given you flexibility already on the Senate side with that 5 million. We, we still want to do conservation things where it's a good deal for us. And, you know, stuff isn't getting any cheaper, even though there's doesn't seem to be a lot of money around and, and how much do you have any idea what we, we could even think about putting together for this, this little housing deal. We, you know, the budget numbers all changed pretty fast as the administration put its budget together. But I'm inclined to think that, you know, repair fund in the first year in the neighborhood of a half a million dollars and let's see how it goes. And I could be persuaded that it ought to be a little more a little less. We don't want money just sitting in the bank we want it to flow out. But, but that, that was my initial thought, but I haven't even proposed that to my board I have mentioned that as a number to Secretary Tabbits. And, you know, so we want to get something started and see how we can make it work. Well, we talked earlier before you came along and we figured if we could get some federal match money to go with some of your money, you know, somewhere between five and 500 and a million dollars but yet make sure that you have the progression of moving that back if things, you know, they don't move along like they should, then you just go put it back into regular housing or whatever. That sort of approach, you know, that's the sort of thing we would do is we don't we don't want money sitting in our bank account that doesn't do for monitors any good. And so, but I thought, you know, if we get a half million dollars on the street and it moves quickly then you add to it and if it is sitting there maybe you pull some of it back. And we'll see what what the take up is is going to be.  You're really doing pretty good with it in the bank. Well, the interest rates have gone down. It's even more. I've gone down but again we always want the money back in the communities. That's where it was. Jen, Mr. Chair when I was racing to make all my points earlier I could it look like it look like my cat a couple questions and I want to be sure that Gus and I don't miss those if he has questions for us. My only question was about whether or not you need flexibility in that 20 million for the ready fund or to use any of that money for ready or is that going to be taken care of through your base. We run that because we run that through the farm and forest viability program the language says that we can use up to 5 million for conservation activities or farm and forest viability program activities so that covers ready. It could be more explicit but our intent would be to expand that. That's all I needed to want. And guess why you're with us. Didn't. Did we talk down in approach about doing them to 275 for ready on the fast track budget part, or did we not. We didn't and I'm not I don't think that that's necessary at this point, I think we're, you know, we were a little slower on ready this year because the staff was so busy with a CRF program help and farmers access those grants so that's a second half of this year activity rather than the first half when they were focused on CRF. Yeah. And to to move to move this forward and to help the farm labor housing coalition people should be able to let them know that that there's going to be some. There's going to be some movement on this and should we get a letter from you get or do us do a letter and send it to them. Well I I traded emails with Mr. Caswell a couple day at the beginning of the week he sent me one and I sent him one back. I'm happy to write you a letter, and you could then share it with him, or write to write to him and copy right to you and copy him on it, and that'll do the. But if you want to do something or official. I don't really need to up here. Maybe Brian champion with like a letter that he could put in the front page of the banner, helping him down in Bennington County. And Senator Sears have a little thing going about who gets above the phone in the paper. And so I'm just kidding. No, if you just do that guess that would be that would be fine. Yeah. Anything else from any of the committee members. No. Did you have any questions for us on any of the, you know, any of the projects or issues, anything we can help you with. You know, I think our key issue is just going to be the flexibility. And as, as we said, the other body seems to be supportive of that at the moment, but we wanted to make you aware of it. Just, yeah, we were, we were very grateful that not just did the House Ag committee support flexibility, but the House General and Housing Committee also supported the flexibility. So there's a recognition that, you know, our rural communities need help. And through the viability program and the ready program, those are ways to help rural communities, along with our conservation work. So, well, we certainly all we certainly all have to work together to make the most of what we have. Yeah, if there are no other questions. I think Jen had one other point to make. I'm just going to, in case it's helpful, just going to note that the fast track bill the CRF bill does have money, CRF money to be allocated to VHCB for housing and I just want to clarify that that specifically for housing the homeless related to the pandemic we would not be able to use that funding for this particular purpose. And then the 20 million in one time funding the governor recommended is for all that broader range of housing needs whether it's home ownership or rental housing. And that's what we would be able to use for the farm labor housing so just because there's multiple bills moving this year I thought it may be helpful to make that distinction. So that would be the July one funds right. 20 million would be the July one funds yes and there's and there's a CRF money in the fast track bill about to land and send it appropriations. I don't know when you get out from town meeting break that that has money for housing but that's very specifically for homelessness related to the pandemic. And how, how long do you think it would take us our agenda for like roll out your champagne housing or any of those groups to get geared up to try to get this some federal money going. I hope will be hard at work on it this summer. So the July one date would not mess anything up then. No, because they we want we want to get that federal money if we possibly can. Yes, we do. Yeah. So, and you're going to talk you or Jen or somebody's going to talk to those groups right about. We will. Yeah, yeah, I've already begun a discussion with both of them. Yeah, and we participate in that loose stakeholder group that Dan and Buster talked to you about we've been we're part of that group. Yeah. And they're where the study coming to. Yeah. I think, I think everything I think my gaze going quite well. Well, I'm glad to hear that and I hope the whole committee goes well that you have a wonderful break next week. Yeah, working hard and and I hope you can get away from zoom at least a little bit. Won't that be a break. Well, thanks a lot. Gus and Jen, and you'll have a break with us out of town so good luck to you. Okay. Yeah, thanks a lot. Okay, yeah. So I think committee. I think it's strange how we do stuff and then the Ag department kind right in and gets going on it was pretty good. We all get to pulling that buggy in the same direction there we may get something done. The, but that I think Gus has got a good handle on it. The Linda you're going to send Gus that report. Yeah. Yeah, good. Any other comments from anybody. I don't know if, if, if Bakers, if we ought to get him tuned in so that he pushes the coalition to push to get stuff rolling or.  I think, I think for my money, we got to just keep an eye on it and not let it drop. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, we'll, we'll review it then from time to time. Check in with, of course they aren't going to do anything till July by the sound but these housing agencies, they've got to start applying for some of this, this money or it'll be gone and they won't be, it won't be there. Anything, Michael from on your part that we need to think about or do or look at. I can't think of anything I'm still going to try to track down the farm labor person in Vermont housing person in Vermont. But just looking at the rules, the federal rules for that it's, it's going to be hard. The nonprofit has to certify that it's going to comply with all the tenant housing requirements. And there's a, there's a citizenship requirement for that. And so it's, it would be tough for that nonprofit to do that and then. Are you basically, you know, a significant portion of the farm labor community in Vermont might not qualify. You talk about, we talk about that Michael, but I was reading this morning that down in freaking Texas, they've gone through and rebuilt whole apartment houses under farm labor housing and you know, Well, that's, that's the off farm multi unit program. But that's more stringent I thought you said it is, it is, and they're down there redoing whole blocks. So I, I don't, I, you know, I can't comment on how they're doing it, but I look at those rules and I still follow up, I think it's going to be, it's going to be difficult. Well, that's Washington for you. The seasonal employees that come on visas, they would still qualify. But you have to be, you have to be in the United States legally. And I thought, I thought earlier you said something to the effect that if the farmer is the owner of the property and it's only for farm labor tenant housing. There's the off farm where, where the, the nonprofit organization can be the applicant. But then there's the on farm where the farmer is the applicant. Yeah. And so the person I talked to this morning said that they just look at the eligibility requirements for the farmer. Right. So on farm might not be as much of an issue, but you're not going to be having the nonprofit being involved in that application. But that's alone. But that's alone. So we got to figure out how to get around who's going to be doing the application to have on farm.  They like to have it all possible. So. So we got to figure out some way to fix these, who's going to apply for the money to fix on farm properties. Yeah, and, and you're going to, you know, I'm looking at what one of the requirements is for both programs that's an occupancy restriction and it says an eligible household domestic tenant. That is a, is a domestic farm labor. Yeah. And so domestic farm labor is defined as, as meeting the citizenship requirement. So I, I have to dig into this more. Yeah. Well, you know, I think we, we certainly have time. I was wondering from the other day when we decided to talk about this this morning, if, if a group like Farm Bureau or roll Vermont or no fa, or, you know, if those nonprofit groups like that would be interested in participating in helping out with, with farm labor housing at all. And, you know, just thought I'd run that by the committee and, and, you know, Jackie or, you know, Maddie or some of them might, they might be interested in, in helping to put, put this together to some degree. Again, and then Chris. Yeah, thanks Bobby. I just actually we all just got an email from Jackie Folsom saying that she's going to work with Vermont Farm Bureau to get the word out whatever funding is available so you can bet they'll be working on it. Yeah. And Chris. I think it tastes something similar. I think Gus was saying, suggesting that co ops as partner but but it's more in the vein of what Brian just said of, of telling folks what we end up doing rather than brainstorming with us, although maybe to extent they're watching, you know, we clearly need the help. Michael, any sense of whether or not folks at the agency are also I mean, this is complicated and hard enough that we haven't done it to date right that it so so that always suggests to me it's not a new problem. We haven't focused enough to to address it yet but I wonder if, rather than only ask you to do the brainstorming if if there are folks that you're might be aware of over the agency that are looking into it they've now stated this as something they're trying to work on as well. I can always reach out. I probably start with Deputy Secretary Eastman and see where that goes. I think that'd be smart. Certainly. You know any help we can get from any direction. You know, like I said, the main thing is to get the work done not not play in the mud all day get out there and get it done. So anything else guys. Also, also. Well, I think then we'll we'll call it quits and see you at 1130 on the floor. Chris, we better check with Linda to see if she's heard anything back. Yeah, right. I have not seen my want to follow up on that. Michael you don't know anything about that stuff do you. I'm sorry I was looking at an email. Could you repeat the question. This is to get bill numbers for our two committee bills. We have the bill numbers we just that they weren't they came in late and I think they're trying to get them on the calendar today but not sure. Do you know what they are Linda. S 100 is the education bill and S 102 is the other one. So, yeah. So, deep what we want to do Michael is, is s 100. It hasn't been posted on the calendar. And I think there's a motion that you can make. Prior to posting on the calendar, you know you stand up. I move that we move committee. Committee bill s 102 education for further review. And, and we, we just needed that language to conform with our rules and rags and. What, yeah, Michael, it's not really a question for you is it. No, it's basically you stand up and you you move at the bill be committed to whatever committee you wanted to be committed to. And, and secretary bloomer will be able to advise you when and how to do that. Yeah, I'll call bloomer right now. And we've got an hour and I'll have him email you and I the specific language I have a feeling it's pen suspended rules to pending entrance on the notice calendar refer blah, blah, blah. Yeah, yeah. I'm happy to, to contact bloomer and get him to email you and I the language we need to use. Yeah, that sounds good. So, have a good hour offer.


Welcome to JSA TV and JSA Podcasts, the newsroom for telecom and data center professionals. I'm Jean-Max Lim and joining me today is Dean Boyle, CEO of EcoSense. Dean, welcome to JSA. It's been an eventful year. How are you doing? Yeah, I'm all right, yeah. Thanks for the call. No worries. Look, you work in a very particular and very interesting space and the space that we are wasting a lot of resources on because a lot of operators don't have visibility into it. So let's dive right in. How serious is the problem of energy waste or cooling resources being overused due to the lack of visibility into the infrastructure? Yeah, it's a good question. And it's definitely a huge problem in the industry. And sadly, it's one that isn't going to get any better unless we start addressing the challenges. And there's some very simple, low hanging things we can do to improve the situation. I mean, even this week, obviously, it's a very timely discussion. This an IPCC report, which has been well documented. Some very scary quotes in there about rapid, large-scale reduction in greenhouse gases. And it's almost impossible to turn back the clock very shortly unless we do something almost immediately. And again, it well trotted out stats, but data centers. It is well known that data centers are already established as one of the world's highest collectors, consumers of energy. So again, I think everybody realizes that data centers are a huge energy consumer, but there is not enough activity going on to resolve that. And just things that we are very closely involved with on our side is the cooling side of it. So again, fairly well known in the industry, but roughly 35% of energy in a data center facility is taken up by the cooling load. So anything that can be done to reduce that element again makes a significant contribution to reducing carbon and hitting our carbon targets. But one of the reasons why there hasn't been a lot of or not enough work done in this area is that it's particularly difficult to do it without access to proper data sets, without some intelligent analytics, without just giving the operators and the owners a little bit of help to make those decisions and to see where changes can be made. And again, one of the issues that we see quite a lot is traditional software platforms in the data center space of which there are a number of different types, but they're typically there to provide mission critical failure alerts or basic trending data with a minimal number of sensor points. So it's just not helpful enough when you're trying to find areas of inefficiency when you're trying to hit an energy saving target carbon reduction target, or trying to find identify areas of wastage to release some capacity. And again, just back to echo sense that's absolutely the area that we're targeting and definitely where echo sense can make a difference. And we routinely take out fairly significant chunks of energy up to 30%. So fairly routine we get involved in those kind of things. So yes, it's a big problem. Yeah, this is interesting. I mean, and it's so so factual so point well at the moment with the new climate report that came out with some very scary figures. So we will definitely have to do a little bit to help the planet. Let's talk about your sense you've already mentioned a little bit about it, but let's talk about your sense because I remember you were probably the first one that I've ever seen using VR in the data since I think there was back in 2016 we went to the Excel. And that's when I met you. I mean, talk us through the brand talk us to you've seen this opportunity very early on for sure, because you started in the meat to 2010, early the most talk us through your sense what you do how did it come about what why that logo that you got behind you with the leases and give us a quick like overview of the company. Okay, so one of the best decisions we ever made was have the gecko as our logo get more interest and more requests about the logo than anything else. So maybe we should just start selling geckos. So we're a UK based business, developing or developed a software platform called Echo soft critical, which is today deployed at customers all over the world. And I think there's most regions of the globe that we cover these days either directly or via a fairly extended partner network, very close tie ins with some leading universities in the UK. So do some fairly cutting edge research on machine learning analytics, virtual reality and just crunching large data sets also gives us access to some of the best people coming off the production line. Everybody feels like a youngster but we get access to the best mechanical engineers best software engineers best hardware engineers, and definitely are they are significant contributor to our business. And what I can say, what I can sense was set up to do is is to use new technologies embrace new technologies be disruptive in the industry which a company like echo sense has to do. And really just challenge the way that data centers were being managed how they used for driving efficiencies for managing capacity for managing change for being able to spot risk. And it again back to existing incumbent software systems of which there are many types we were just really trying to challenge how they work and deliver a bit more granularity using the very latest technologies. The latest technologies around cloud around IoT sensors, virtual reality as you mentioned Joe machine learning analytics, there's some very nice technologies security enhancements. There's some there's some nice technologies now which which echo sense of course is based on which allows you to take very, very detailed granular multiple data sets. And then apply some machine learning analytics to deliver very tangible recommendations but again it's a lot of existing systems historical systems they are normally quite technical quite complex to use so we're trying to use the technology use the latest gaming technologies for example in the interface using the VR as you say, and just trying to make very complex PhD level analytics on mechanical on electrical workloads on airflow, but but give them in a very simple intuitive lightweight infrastructure that multiple stakeholders facilities management companies, multi tenter facilities enterprise customers Kolo, they can all get the benefits and use a very simple set of analytics to deliver very tangible benefits. And, and ultimately deliver three things it's it's always a risk reduction so spot areas of risk spot where things are trending in the wrong direction and been able to predict things before they happen and do some preventative maintenance. But then of course the payback comes in the form of significant energy savings which is the payback to put these kind of systems in and energy is always the is always the headline, but more and more again with power densities with difficulties of getting power in some regions. It's about optimizing those environments for from a capacity perspective so make sure you're using the capacity as best as you can find areas of inefficiency to allow you to, as I say to run these spaces more efficiently and get more more into the wide space ultimately. And that's ultimately what I go sense does. If we look into first in the compacts not packs. Do you have some ballpark figures or percentages of how much you help to save in a normal data center. Yeah, I mean on on average, and we work in fairly large data centers, every data center type halls are 300 racks up to the 10s of thousands of racks in the very big facilities and over a sample of 100 data centers that we've worked on. So it's a 30% cooling a energy saving across those benefit across those sites with some customers seeing significantly in advance of that 4045% saving so very significant obviously depends on the type of environment type of customer, the particular parameters that they've got. But those energy savings are usually substantial. And as I mentioned earlier, it's energy, typically the headline, but the things that are byproducts of the software of this type of system. It is the ability also, once you've got that granularity of data and that intelligent processing of data is the tangible benefits also around removal of risk identification and removal of risk, and that that capacity management. And again, it's okay taking significant chunks of energy out or delivering the benefits that I mentioned but you of course have to deliver it at a with a compelling ROI for the customer to, to of course afford it so it's been there's been a lot of work done on these types of systems and we are no different to really getting a compelling ROI so often it is less than a year and very rarely is ever above two years. Again, some of the challenges from customers very big customers will be challenged more and more to again introduce a bit of innovation, a bit of disruption around the funding model commercial models so the ability to offer OPEX type models where the service the software is funded out of energy savings so there's actually no upfront cost customer gets a saving and all that the benefits we've talked about, and it's funded entirely out of the energy savings so we're getting more and more that type of request. That's interesting. I was actually going to pick up on the customers as well I mean you've been going for six seven eight years now. And I mean, at the time I remember the first time we spoke at the conversation was even around like our customers willing to have small sensors deployed into the data center for example. What was the customer journey been like since then over the last three years, and also in terms of acceptance of having these new software and these new deployments in within the data center space have this in the benefits. Talk us through the customer journey and the acceptance of what you're doing. Some customers have absolutely embraced it they have CSR targets, corporate targets to deliver energy savings be energy efficient have significant energy targets, but then I've also got some operational challenges they want a bit of help with. So we have some well documented case studies. Again, you can't talk about all customers in our industries that every vendor has the same challenge, but the ones that we have got some very public case studies does some amazing work across across large chunks of their estate so digital realty interaction. So we've gone to Daisy where we deployed our technologies across their states and deliver some fantastic energy savings, plus the operational benefits of visibility risk and capacity. I think the market is definitely starting to wake up a little bit to innovative technologies challenges always been some of the big incumbent players, of course claim that they can deliver a lot of that very granular benefit. Not the case at all. So they they are very good at the alerting side of it as I mentioned earlier some of the trending but that granularity of data to produce actual energy savings and commit to those energy savings and deliver it. Very tangible savings that they often are not able to do that and it needs a disruptive player disruptive technology like echo sense and echo soft to do that. And to be honest, because some of those technologies that some of the big operators deployed have clearly not delivered the kind of things needed to run an efficient lean operation and deliver the benefits and deliver the capacity and energy benefits. I think it needs disruptive new technologies. As I mentioned earlier the new technologies available cloud technologies, new breed of software new breed of analytics like like echo sense and other vendors. I think it needs that innovation to really be disruptive and deliver the changes that some of the traditional players are just not able to deliver. So it has been a challenge but please to say that most of the vendors are slowly coming around to it now. It seems to be going well and looked in has you now getting to the first decade of operations is not that far away. I mean, what's what's next what you plan your UK based business. Are we looking to intercontinental expansions I mean we are still, I don't know if it's safe to say coming out of cove it but we are still going through covids which has boosted the business as well. I mean, what is the business working on for the future for the next two years. So a few things so naturally as a very ambitious scaling business like ours in geographical expansion has to be right at the forefront so we've recently taken on. Some employees incorporated in the US taken on VPS sales in various regions so a pack mere US getting some business out of Africa. Some Latin American countries so starting to geographically spread and get global reach. I think it's a given really for any kind of ambitious business like ours, but where where we're really driven and where business like echo sense that that I say that disruptive innovative business. It is of course always around the technology and the business models and customers that we've got our own pipeline of work that would see us going for a long long time but customers naturally give you another set of challenges and things they want to see. Together into a coherent roadmap. So we see it will always be a focus of ours is around the optimization that's putting the power of PhD skill sets mechanical electrical skill sets into a set of very simple intuitive easy to use analytics and interface cooling advisor which allows a customer to make those changes in a very dynamic and data center environment without the need for consultancy led engagements. Cooling advisor will always get a lot of focus and then the other big one for us in terms of technology is around the capacity management so again just challenging the way things have always been done with lots of manual methods or complex spreadsheets or real DDSIM type systems just doing again a very lightweight capacity management purely for the mechanical electrical side. We are working quite a lot on on the whole capacity management side of it and introducing some fairly significant functionality in the next six months towards the end of the year, which allows you to model and simulate some of the big central plant systems. And then finally, we will also expand and grow and help spread the message with technology partnerships so couple of very nice technology partnerships in the pipeline, a recent one that we've announced with an asset management company called assets buyer, which again is just challenging traditional ways of managing mechanical electrical and the IT side of it into a new breed of DDSIM tool, which collectively we can deliver so again I whilst we we are very good at what we do in different areas where we can collaborate and have some very nice technology integration. Well, I mean they all sounds very exciting because I mean, going circling back towards the beginning of our conversation when I met you as a very, very beginning. I think it was only a handful of you guys still working in the company at the time so it's grown a lot since then. But then if people want to find more information about ecosystem reach out, maybe read those case studies that you mentioned before as well. Okay, so delighted to have a conversation with anybody that the website echo sense.com naturally a great source of information so products, benefits, use cases. We also try and do a lot on thought leadership and explain our methods, the results we get and how we go about that. So we publish a couple of really nice white papers that are on there, one about AI machine learning to deliver optimization one about the energy saving work that we talked about. So the website's always the first source on the great source of getting information. So also a couple of very useful videos on there to give a high level summary of the software, give you some of the key features and just show you how it can help. The other the other outlet for us is LinkedIn we do a lot of work on LinkedIn and all product updates, partner news, new white papers or etc are always on the LinkedIn and we'd always encourage people to follow the company LinkedIn page. Naturally of course we've got various sales people direct and extended partner network will be delighted to help and register software demo or meet up or have a call and please just get in touch with one of the regional sales team or one of our global partners by the website. A lot of things that avenues to getting touch. Definitely always. Dean Boyle CEO Fico since thank you so much for talking to us. And thank you to our viewers for tuning into JSA TV and JSA podcasts and don't forget to check our social channels for more content. Until next time. Happy networking.