Hi everyone! Today we'll be talking about writing abstracts and we'll be giving you a few tips and tricks to writing a good abstract. So the first thing we'll go over today is what is an abstract. And so an abstract is generally a summary of your project, a summary of whatever you're working on. It's usually something very straightforward and to the point a very short paragraph. Describing your project. This is often a brand new piece of writing, so if you already have existing pieces of writing on your project or on your work, this is generally something that you write fresh. It's not something that you copy and paste from whatever you already have and use that as your abstract. However, it is a good idea to use your main body of text to organize your abstract. And we'll talk about that a little bit more as we go further into this presentation. And the purpose of an abstract is to attract your audience, to make them curious, to make them want to come and look at your poster, read your paper, listen to your presentation, basically come over and try to learn more about what you're doing. And these abstracts are usually limited to about 300 to 400 words. However, this can vary depending on the conference you're submitting your abstract to, the journal you're submitting to, your field. There are different things that dictate how long your abstract should be. So just check with your conference, your professor, or with the journal you're submitting to get the specific guidelines. And again, this can vary across disciplines. For example, in certain disciplines, an abstract may consist of a background, a thesis, any conclusion. Well, in others, it may consist of naming a specific subject at the beginning of the abstract, followed by a purpose for conducting the research on this subject and ending with some findings. And so now that we know what an abstract is, why would we want to write an abstract? And so writing an abstract is important because it allows us to describe our work whenever we're attending conferences or submitting a paper to a journal. And so journals and conferences often put together abstract books where they collect all the abstracts of the presentations that will be going on and put them together in one single book to make it easy to find certain presentations and I'll give you some more information on how they do that later in the presentation. And so another reason why we would want to write an abstract is because it's often used as the very first thing that the reader can look at in journals. And so this is a way for a reader to know what information will be presented in the paper and whether this information will be beneficial to them, whether it's what they're looking for, a very quick summary of some of the main findings or maybe some of the main methods. Depending on the type of paper that it is, the abstract will be different. And finally, another reason to write an abstract is it's a way to be able to present your work at conferences. Often conferences will request potential presenters to submit an abstract which is then reviewed and all accepted abstracts are published in an abstract book, as I mentioned earlier. And so this is a way for conferences to find speakers, poster presenters, workshop leaders, things like that. And so now we know why writing an abstract is important and so what goes into an abstract. And so the main elements of an abstract include reasoning. And what I mean by reasoning is why is this problem important? Why is this field important? Why should we care about the work that you're doing or the project that you are presenting on? And so that is followed by the specific problem. So you give a very general opening, very general introduction to the field and that's reasoning followed by a very specific problem or the project scope. And that's followed by some very simple methods and nothing too complicated because in the abstract some very simple methods that you use to address this problem. What did you find? What were your results? Again, very simple because the abstract is often short. Next thing you do is after you've stated your results is what do these results mean? You can hypothesize what you think they mean, try to interpret them. And one of the other components that often go in an abstract are the title. So the title is important because it is likely one of the very first things that the audience will look at. And so your title should be easy to read, simple, nothing complicated, try to avoid jargon because this is often what will call your audience over to look at your abstract. It should include the presenter's name so it should have your name on there if you are the presenting author as well as any co-authors who contributed to the project. And this last one here keywords. So keywords are important because as I was telling you earlier conferences often index abstracts according to subject and how they do this is keywords. And so often conferences will provide an index and in this index the audience can go through and look at keywords and find presentations that are listed under those keywords. So having keywords is helpful in the abstract and having the appropriate keywords is also important. So now we've gone over the key elements of the abstract. We can go through writing the abstract. And so when you're writing the abstract you start with a simple introduction that any scientist in the field can understand. So it's something very general, very broad. This is followed by maybe two or three sentences of more specific material. Something that a scientist within your subfield would understand. And again this is about two to three sentences not too long. The next few sentences again about two or three will be devoted to explaining the problem that is being addressed. What will you talk about in your paper, in your presentation, in your poster? What are you going to tell us? And this is then followed by any main results that you already have as well as a summary of what you did. And again these results are simple and the summary is concise, no jargon, easy to follow. So now that we know the components of the abstract and how you go about writing an abstract, we can go through an example of how you can write your abstract. And the way we recommend you do it is you can use an outline. Use any method that works for you however an outline seems to be pretty easy to do. And so when you have your outline the first thing you want to talk about is you want to give a very general statement about your topic. So as I said before, this is the very first sentence of your abstract. It introduces your topic. It introduces your problem. And you want to do this by using a very general statement, something that is easy for scientists and any people to understand and something that catches a reader's attention, that makes them want to keep reading your abstract and eventually go on to look at your poster or listen to your presentation or read your paper. This is followed by a more specific description of the topic. And by this I mean you're starting with a very general statement that any scientist can understand. This next few sentences again, two or three, consist of describing the specific topic. So if your first sentence is talking about the relationship between two things and their effects on something else then your next sentence where you're providing a more specific description would talk about how one affects the other or how one leads to something else or how they lead to the problem that you're going to be discussing. And then that's when you state what the problem is. So you're giving a general statement introduction. You're giving a little bit more detail about that subfield and then you're going on and just telling us what the problem is. And once you've told us what that problem is then you can go on to tell us what is the current state of the field? What is known? Are the current solutions to the problem? Why are the solutions not good? How does yours address the problem or how is your solution better than the existing ones? The next thing we'll do is you should look at how your field addresses this gap in knowledge and how does this relate back to that general statement? And so you're taking this full circle. You're starting with a very general statement. You are getting more specific. You're giving the problem. You're stating what your findings are and how you're filling the gap in knowledge and then you're taking it back to show how your findings or your new methods, if that's what your project is, is coming up with new methods, then how your new findings or methods help address this general problem and how this relates back to the general statement. Okay, so now that we have this outline here, let's try to write an abstract. And so what I have here is I have a sample abstract and you can find many examples of like these, like this one online. And in this first one, I have color coded the different sections of the abstract and we'll go through and I'll tell you what each section is answering. So the first part we're going to say, why is your problem important? Why is your topic important? And that's what this first part of the abstract here answers and it's one sentence. There is no jargon. It's easy to follow. It's easy to read. It's not too long. And it just gives a general overview about rising sea levels and climate change. And so it gives you a very general overview of what the topic will be and what will be presented in this abstract as well as in the presentation. And so this is followed by a small introduction to the field and so it's bringing in very specific examples. So West Antarctica was brought in the very first sentence so it's brought in again and it gives a more specific example of how floating ice shelves in the ocean contribute to other things and so on and so forth. And so this gives a more specific introduction to the general statement that was given earlier. In this next paragraph we have a statement of what will be covered in this paper, this presentation, this poster and it's talking about what was done. And so here it says that they use words like describe some physical mechanisms and so you know what to expect, what you're going to find and what specifically they're looking at in this paper. And lastly this ends with a short summary of the results and the conclusions. And so we started with very general statement, small introduction, a statement of what will be covered in the presentation, the poster or paper and it ends with a short summary of what was found as well as how this ties back to the general statement. And so we start with it is concluded and there it shows the sentence will show the results or the findings and it ends with why this is important. As shown here in this last statement, mechanisms are poorly understood. And so we started off by again going through with why something is important, the small introduction, what is a current state of the field, what you're doing and a short conclusion as to how your work addresses the gap in knowledge or provides a better method to solving a problem. And so you can use this method as well to write your own abstract, start with an outline. Usually I like to go back and write my paper first and then go back and write the abstract last just because I've already flushed out all my ideas. Everything is out on paper, everything's fresh in my mind and I can go back and write an abstract so that it's easier to tell you what I'm going to write about after I've already written it. And so these are just some tips and tricks to writing an abstract. Hopefully these help you. Like I said before, there are examples online, some really great examples of some really great abstracts. And so hopefully these tips help you out. And thank you so much for your attention.


Alright, so who would like to pray today? Can I pray, mom? Yes, please go ahead. Dear Heaven Father, we thank you so much for this wonderful morning. We thank you for the arrangement that you make for us that would be able to study your word. You tell us to study the word so that we can rightly debate the word of truth. Therefore, Lord, as we study this book of Acts and Apostle Paul's life, Lord, may we get out what you wanted us to get so that we'll be able to serve you on the earth. Later we'll be with you forever in eternity. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you, Charles. So the last class was more of an introduction where we saw what the book of Acts is all about. We saw that it was written by Luke, who was apart from many other hats that he wore. He was a travel companion of Apostle Paul and most likely he wrote it as a defense brief for one of the Roman officials to help Paul during his trial. And this was also most likely written somewhere between, somewhere like 65 to 70 AD is what people say. And we see here a wonderful account of the ministry of Jesus after his resurrection, followed by the empowering of his apostles and then the ministry of the apostles in Jerusalem and the regions around. So we will continue from where we stopped in the last class. There's also a question that we had in class that I will answer first and then we will get further into it. I think some camera is not, like I just request everyone, if you can, I mean as long as you are looking into the camera, that's fine. But if not, then it'll be good if you can put off your cameras, please. All right. I don't want the class to be disturbed by any movement. All right. Yes. So in the last class, Shri Kumar asked us about Matthias and he said that, is he on the call yet? Doesn't look like, but I'll go ahead and answer his question anyway. So he said that Matthias' name is not seen anywhere else in the New Testament, but strangely he is selected as the 12th Apostle in the first chapter of the book of Acts. And was Matthias present during the Passover meal that Jesus had together with his disciples? So the answer to that question is not very straightforward. When you read the accounts of the Passover meal, it seems like the 12 apostles were the one who sat with Jesus and had the meal. So Matthias is not counted in there. And that would be the answer, straightforward answer to his question whether Matthias was part of the Passover meal. So we don't see that. Now there are speculations that, okay, in the preparation of the meal, there could have been even though 12 disciples sat with Jesus at the table and they had the meal with him in the preparation of the food. Others could have been involved. And who those people are, we have no idea. Some people say that it could be women because women were known to prepare these meals. But it could also be someone else. So could Matthias have been one of those men who prepared the meal? You know, we wouldn't know the answer to this question. So that's what it is. And I mean, if it helps in some way to know whether Matthias was part of that Passover meal, then, you know, yeah, so I just wanted to answer that for us. Okay, so now going back into what we were studying, we said that Jesus spoke about the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. And if I may just say, Elisha, I think your camera is on. If you don't mind, if you could please have it on off. That would be helpful. Thank you. Thank you for your cooperation. So we said that Jesus spoke about the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. And after that was the promise of the Father that Jesus talked about. And he encouraged his disciples to wait for the empowering of the Holy Spirit before they went and did any work of the ministry. And then is the selection or you may want to call election of Matthias as led by the Holy Spirit. And later we see that the apostles, along with other disciples are gathered together seeking God for this gift of the Holy Spirit or the promise of the Father in the upper room. So that's where we are at and we will pick up from there. But before we get further into this, any thoughts, questions about what we have learned so far? Okay, how about, you know, why is it that Jesus asked his disciples to wait? Why couldn't they go and do the ministry without the baptism in the Holy Spirit? What do you all think about that? Pastor said the question again. I say, I said, why did Jesus want the disciples to wait to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit before they did the ministry? Why couldn't they have just blessed them and send them out? Because, you know, we have a huge task on hand, isn't it, to reach the ends of the earth and it would be good for the believers to start right away. Pastor, it is like two ways because it had already been pre-programmed by the Father. Before he went, he told them, wait until I send you the gift of the Father that he has promised. And then the blessing would work. It has the power, but he had again said that I'm not going to give you as often as I'm not going to give you alone.  They needed a helper to do that. And then again in the book of John, he said, when the teacher has come, he will teach you everything. So that means that the coming of the Holy Spirit, the waiting would now bring on board a teacher that would teach them some of the things that might have not been understood. Because there are some that are going to join the group when they had not seen Jesus. So they would now have the teacher in the group who would teach them. Thank you. Alright, thank you Charles. So you said two things that they were asked to wait. And secondly, that the Holy Spirit is that great teacher who would lead us into the things of God. And for these two reasons, the disciples had to wait. Any other reasons why the disciples had to wait? Yes, Christopher, before I come to you, I can see some answers on the chat and I will read it out. Asha says, I think because he was with them. Okay, so, alright. Subajit says, maybe because they need to be born again first, which was only possible after the crucifixion. Okay, and Kung says, with the Holy Spirit, we can do the impossible if it was just by us, it would not bear witness. Okay, thank you. Thank you for those answers. Yes, Christopher. Yes, pastor. So I think there was a void that was created when Jesus would leave. And that's why he really wanted them to have someone to be with them, to give them the power, to give them the strength to take the message across the different geographies. So for me, I think the point is that the Holy Spirit is, as mentioned by a few other people, that it is a blessing and grace that has been given to us to have the Holy Spirit. And that can potentially make us a lot more effective in preaching, teaching as well as in the healing of people who require that. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Christopher. Thank you for sharing your view and also for stating that with the Holy Spirit that we would be a lot more effective. Okay, so these are many of, much of what all of you all said is correct. We know that Jesus promised the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is also known as the promise of the Father. So in Luke 24, verse 48-49, there he calls this gift which would be given to the believers as the promise of the Father. This wasn't something new because later after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we will see today that Peter gives a sermon and in that sermon he quotes from the book of Joel and connects the phenomenon or the event of the baptism in the Holy Spirit to a prophecy of Joel. So Joel 228. So this was foretold about the gift that the Father would give his believers. So that is one thing. This was already something that God had planned. And based on what all of us said, I'm sorry, I'm just sharing a scripture here in the chat. This is from John chapter 16 and verse 7 from the NKJV version. It reads, Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away for if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I depart, I will send him to you. So the ministry of the Holy Spirit is beneficial for the equipping and the empowering of the believer. And that is the reason why Jesus wanted every believer to have the Holy Spirit. So that is one thing. But we also recognize that there are two separate experiences. One is the new birth in Christ Jesus, which is a product of the work of the Holy Spirit in any human being. So we cannot be born again without the work of the Holy Spirit in us. And in John 3, we see that Jesus talks about the work of the Holy Spirit. When Nicodemus comes and asks him, how can one be born again? So there are many other scriptures that tell us that the Holy Spirit is involved in the new birth. The second separate experience that we will see is the baptism in the Holy Spirit. So there are two experiences. One is being born again. And the second is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Now, in both of this or rather the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Now, where the disciples born again while they were asked to wait for the baptism in the Holy Spirit, the answer would be yes. Because if you look at John chapter 20, you see that Jesus breeds on the disciples and he says receive the Spirit in John chapter 12. And that is them being born again because before that, they were not born again. Jesus had not died yet and Jesus had not given his Spirit to them yet. But after his death burial and resurrection, he does this of breathing upon the disciples and that tells us that they were born again by the work of the Spirit. You know, breath will see later. Breath is Rua or it is related to the Holy Spirit in scriptures in many places. So the born again experience was something that the apostles had experienced and Jesus asked them to wait even after that and said that they need a separate experience. Which is the baptism in the Holy Spirit, which will empower them to do what they needed to do in the world. And that's why in John 16-7, he knew that it's advantages.  As you read about him, even in Luke chapter 4, when we read about the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness and he comes out of the wilderness. The scriptures tell us, I think it's Luke 14, where he came with the power of the Spirit. So the signs, wonders, miracles that Jesus was walking in were because of the Holy Spirit who was working in and through Jesus. So this is the reason why the baptism in the Holy Spirit was so crucial and Jesus knew that the ministry of the believers, though they could do ministry, they could go and speak about the Lord Jesus and all that he did and give a call for people to accept Christ, be born again. It wouldn't be as effective as God wanted it to be. And that is why Acts 18 says, And you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and even to the ends of the earth. So the power to be a witness with power is what Jesus wanted for the believers. Any questions, any doubts or can we move on from here if things are clear? I just wanted to clarify a past. Can we do the baptism of the Holy Spirit before the water baptism or before the person actually goes through that process of accepting God, accepting Jesus Christ? Okay. Yes, Christopher. Good question there. Can the Holy Spirit baptism take place before water baptism? Answer is yes. Okay, but the prerequisite is the person has to be born again. So if a person is born again, then one can receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit well before the baptism in water. So that is one answer. Then in what you just said, Christopher, you said being baptized in water or being born again. So actually both of these, one could be baptized in water, but they may not be born again.  So that's how being born again takes place. And what a baptism is our, you know, display of that decision which has been made. Okay, so water baptism in itself does not help one be born again, but water baptism comes after one is born again. Is that okay, Christopher? Yes, thank you. All right, yes, thank you. Okay, so it's good, you know, we are getting deeper into things here and it's, you know, really power packed. It's so hard to complete the book of Acts in three months. You can just stay there on each word and, and you know, it could take hours to just try and unpack all that, that one word has in itself. For example, you know, we said martyrs fought witness. So can we be a witness without the baptism in the Holy Spirit? We can, but with the baptism in the Holy Spirit, we become witnesses with power. And in Acts 1-8, he said, you shall be endured with power from on high. Power there is dunamis. Dunamis is what refers to the miraculous power of God. And so you see later on after the baptism in the Holy Spirit, the same disciples, you know, who were fearful, very confused, who did not have a focus in ministry, who were, you know, just getting by with regular life. Something happens to them. And in these 28 chapters of Acts, you see those same people making an impact among the people. How did that happen? That happened because the endowment of power from on high dunamis, you know, that made them a witness, the kind of witness that God wants here on the earth. Witnesses with power who can not just, you remember when we touched on the first few verses of the Book of Acts, what did we read then? We saw in verse 1, you know, the former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach. So teaching, yes, we will teach, but there's also the demonstration of the power and the glory of God, which is what God wanted for every child of his. And that is the reason why Jesus said, you wait. Don't go yet. You wait for the baptism in the Holy Spirit and then you proceed. You will be able to see a mighty impact wherever I place you. So we've understood now that being born again and being baptized in the Holy Spirit are two distinct experiences that every believer can experience. Okay, so from here we'll move forward. So we saw how in the last session when we were doing the last portions of Acts chapter one, we had the selection of Matthias and just put this in my Bible here, taking longer than I expected. Okay, so the choosing of Matthias and now we come to Acts chapter two and verse one. So you don't really see over there that, you know, anything else happened, the disciples were gathered together and the selection of Matthias happened. So that is the end of Acts chapter one. So in Acts chapter two, we have understood that the disciples are waiting and they're together, you know, seeking God because what did Jesus tell them?  And this is a great thing because, you know, it's a prophecy which will be fulfilled and we see the power of prayer. Okay, so just a digression. Even when we have a prophetic word from God, we need to pray through. And somehow the believers here seem to understand that they could have just thought to themselves that anyway, Jesus said in a few days from now, the Holy Spirit will be poured out on us. So let's just do whatever we want to do and, you know, if he has to pour out the Spirit, he will pour out the Spirit. It has to happen because God has spoken it, but that was not the attitude. We saw how they were all gathered together in the upper room and they were in a prayerful attitude. Okay, so that prayerful attitude is very important. Even when we know the prophetic word, we have to carry a posture of seeking God where we say, God, we know you have spoken, we know you will do it and we are waiting for it. And that was the way the disciples went about seeing this word fulfilled. So there was 120 of them in the upper room. They were gathered. So you had the disciples who had gathered there and you also had other believers who had been with the Lord Jesus from the beginning. So it is said that there were many women who were part of this group. There was the family of Jesus, the mother of Jesus, the brothers of Jesus. So they were all part of this 120 and they were waiting for what Jesus had spoken of. So the scriptures tell us when the day of Pentecost had fully come, the day of Pentecost was a festival that was held 50 days after the Passover. And at this time, the people in Jerusalem, the devout people in Jerusalem, they celebrated the festival of the first fruits of wheat harvest by tradition, by what God had asked them to do. So this is what would take place in Jerusalem. So Jesus, once he died during Passover, we know that he was resurrected and 40 days he appeared to the people and he ascended up into heaven. So it is something like 10 days of waiting. So once Jesus had ascended, these believers had to wait 10 days for this promise to be fulfilled. And finally, that day of festival came, but remember this, the disciples did not know that the baptism in the Holy Spirit would happen on this particular day. Who knows? They probably thought that the baptism would take place immediately or maybe some of them would have anticipated three. It might happen on the third day or it might happen on the fifth day. It might happen on the seventh day because seven is a number of perfection. They would have had their own views about when God was going to fulfill this promise, but he kept his word. He said in a matter of days, in a few days from now, it did happen, but it was 10 days since Jesus had ascended. So it again shows us about our attitude that we should carry regarding the prophetic word, stay in prayer, wait, be persistent, don't give up. What if those 120 people threw in the towel and said enough, it's not yet happened. When is God going to send his Holy Spirit? We will not continue in this way in prayer, but that's not what happened. They stayed on and they prayed. So the day of Pentecost had fully come. And again, one more thing that I want us to note here about the day of Pentecost is it was a huge festival for the believing Jews. So the believing Jews from far and wide were gathered in the city of Jerusalem at that time. So it was a season for travelers, many, many travelers. It would have been very crowded in the city of Jerusalem at that time. And we also have our 120 disciples here who are waiting upon the word of the Lord which was spoken to them. Then we see that they were all with one accord in one place. Very interesting, one accord, what does that signify? It signifies being together, it signifies togetherness of heart. So when they were in one accord, we understand that they were all in faith for what was spoken by God. It's possible for us when we pray together as a community or teams or groups of people that we could be physically present in togetherness, but not have the oneness of heart. But in this case, they were together physically, but they were also together in their heart. That is what one accord means. So they were gathered together in one accord. And another beautiful term that I want to use to describe this one accord in one place is unity. Unity perfectly describes what their hearts were like. They were hungry to see the manifestation of what God had promised, all of them fervent, honest in prayer, all of them seeking one goal. Whatever Jesus said about the Holy Spirit, we want it so that we can go out and be witnesses for this Jesus wherever he sends us. That's the way in which they waited upon the Lord. Let's continue. We see in the next verse and suddenly, so many a time, the fulfillment of God's prophetic word in our lives is like this. We are waiting on it and we may also think that, hey, has God forgotten, but then there are the suddenlies of God. This suddenly is not really a suddenly in the sense that God had spoken to them and revealed to them what is going to happen. So it wasn't a completely new thing which God did. They knew that this is supposed to happen, but the timing of when this happened was a suddenly. So I'll just come back to that suddenly. I'm looking at the screen and the chat here. There are some questions. If they are aligned to what we are discussing now, I will answer them. So Manohar says how we can clearly perceive that the person is baptized in the Holy Spirit. We'll have the answer to that Manohar as we go forward. Abhishek, Pastor, do we need to wait for the baptism of the Holy Spirit like the disciples? Excellent question. In fact, I was hoping that this question would come up when we said Jesus told them to wait. So I'll answer Abhishek's question and I think Manohar's question will be answered later. For us now Abhishek, we don't have to wait a 10 day period or any duration for the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Why? Why is that? When you look at the Book of Acts, you see that people were baptized in the Holy Spirit almost immediately after believing. So nobody practiced this waiting anymore. The only time we see the waiting is for the first baptism in the Holy Spirit which was in the Book of Acts, Acts 2. Beyond that, you don't see that example in the early church at all. Which is why we do not practice waiting for baptism in the Holy Spirit. So yeah, I think that in itself would answer your question completely. Is it helpful Abhishek or did you have any follow up questions to that? Okay, great. So I know that we have all these concepts where we think once you're born again, you need X amount of time before you can receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit. But it's really funny like if you look at, I think it's Acts chapter 10 where a person called Cornelius, who's a Gentile, here's the Gospel. He receives it even before Peter can lay hands on him while Peter is talking, he's baptized in the Holy Spirit. And Peter says at that moment, if God did not stop, like he gave these people the baptism in the Holy Spirit, why should we stop them from being baptized in water? So they go ahead and they get them baptized in water after that. So you see how God is working? God didn't wait, even a day for Cornelius and his family to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. So our answer would be we don't have to wait or tarry for the baptism in the Holy Spirit. The baptism in the Holy Spirit can happen in the next breath after one is born again also. Okay, so that's how it is. Yes, Shri Kumar, I see your hands raised. Thank you, Pastor. I agree with your point. But I have a small doubt on that. Even what you said is absolutely right. But I have seen many people even after taking baptism, they are not baptized in the Holy Spirit. Like, no, they're not praying in tongues. And that signs of the baptism. Is it because of the ignorance of the people? Or what is the reason that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not getting manifest? My second question is, I wanted to know that when the Apostles were there on the upper room, I want you to help me to understand this. They took the baptism of John the Baptist. And so now when you read the Book of Acts chapter 19, verse three and four, you will find that Paul also asked them that which baptism you took. And they gave them the baptism when then he gave the baptism in the name of Jesus. After that, they received the Holy Spirit. So is it possible that it is not in the scripture, but is it possible that the Apostles also took the baptism before they got baptized with the Holy Spirit? Hope you understood my question. Thank you, Pastor. Yes, thank you Shri Kumar. I hope I will remember it in order and answer properly. So the first one is you said, even when someone's baptized in the Holy Spirit, how is it that they don't manifest it, right? Yes, yes, yes. There's a big time like, I saw some people have not it like that praying in tongues is for my brother itself, it took around five years to get the baptism of the Holy Spirit, even though he took the water baptism, but it took a lot of time. My younger brother is still not baptized. So I saw so many other people also, they are not praying in tongues and the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not at all. But in my case, it was different. So I understand what you're saying. So yeah, I think in practice, you see different experiences that people have and the reason why some may not like people may go for the baptism in the Holy Spirit, they may not receive it for various reasons. Maybe they don't have a proper understanding because it all depends on faith. So if they don't have a proper understanding, many a time, like at least I have seen people come in knowing the theory of the baptism in the Holy Spirit, but deep within, they have some apprehension. They're not very open, like what if I get baptized, I'm not sure if I want to speak in tongues, I'm not sure if I want all this that is being spoken of. So we really don't know the internal state of mind of a certain individual, but I believe God is very gracious. So I don't know that there are many people like they go, and for whatever reason, they don't receive it even after prayer. But the right thing to do is to keep going back and praying for it, Shikman, because we see that this is the promise of the Father, which he wants for all his children. So keep going back. Like if you don't receive it, then keep going back. But if you have received it, then for someone to use it, or let's say with one of the basic gifts, which is the gift of speaking in tongues. We need to speak in tongues and take the initiative to do it because we will see later that even though the Spirit was poured out and the Spirit gave the utterance, it is the believers who spoke. So it took their will and their faculties for this language of the Holy Spirit to be heard from them. So yes, the Holy Spirit will give us but we have to speak. So as a believer, if I'm baptized with the Holy Spirit and I can speak in tongues, but I don't speak in tongues, it's not that the Holy Spirit is not giving me the utterance, but I'm not speaking. One has to take the initiative. So that is about your first part. The second part would be baptism in water. You're asking if the disciples of Jesus were baptized in John's baptism, which is in water and is of repentance. You don't really read that they were baptized and all that, but my assumption is yes, because Jesus himself was baptized. And whatever he did, he got his disciples to follow the same path. So it's most likely that all of these disciples were baptized in water. Does that answer your questions? My question is, I understood that. My question is, did they took another baptism in the name of Jesus? Because in the book of Acts, it says that in 1934, when Paul finds some disciples of John and later they tried to... Then he asked, did you heard about the Holy Spirit? And he said, no, no, then he gave the baptism in the name of Jesus. So my question is, did all those 120 people who were on the upper room, did they also took the baptism in the name of Jesus before receiving the Holy Spirit? That is my question. It's possible. Yeah, I would just leave it with that. Because we don't have one doubt. I was always in my mind that like last time I asked the Matias thing. This is also one of the doubt I have that whether they took that another baptism in the name of Jesus before the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That's my question. Because I know it's, as you said, we know that yes, they absolutely, they have followed Jesus and they took the baptism of the John, the baptism. But did they took the baptism in the name of Jesus? That is my doubt actually. Thank you, Pastor. Yeah, sure. Thank you. So it's possible, but we don't read about it. Yeah, that's right. Because of the... Based on Acts chapter 19, verse 3, 4, I asked that question because Paul gave the baptism in the name of Jesus to those disciples, then the Holy Spirit comes. So that's why my question, I connected that question. Okay. Thank you, Pastor. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Abraham, I see a comment here. Pastor, please, what is the right way to pray for someone to receive the Holy Spirit, receive the Holy Spirit, teach them first or just pray, even if they do not understand it. Okay. So my easiest answer to you, Abraham, would be to download the publication, Holy Spirit baptism, which is available for you in PDF form from apcw.org. forward slash books, and it will answer all the questions that you have here. How do we pray for baptism in the Holy Spirit? And how do we teach people about the baptism in the Holy Spirit? And I think by the time we finish Acts chapter 2, you will also have an idea, a slight idea about it. Okay. So I hope that's fine. Pastor, for, you know, positive of time, I don't want to go too much into just one concept here. Yes, Christopher and Maggie, we are stuck at Acts chapter 2 verse 1. Yes, go ahead, Christopher. Yes, Pastor. Actually, I have two questions. One is, if you could just share a little bit of your own personal experience after you got the Holy Spirit baptism.  And so I just wanted to understand a bit on that. The second thing is, and maybe it's a question you will answer later. But there are some people who have concerns about speaking in tongues and mainly because of the fear that the devil can influence a person speaking in tongues and influence a person when they're doing that. So they have some concern that they should even speak in tongues and they have that fear. So I just want to get some clarity on that. Yeah, sure, Christopher. So to answer your first question about my personal experience, I was born again, you know, around the age of 11. And since then, I had exposure because my mom would take me to all these meetings and I would see people, you know, speaking in tongues and so I had no, like mentally, I did not have any block about baptism in the Holy Spirit as a child. I also had some people prophesy over me. So I had a positive experience about the gifts of the Holy Spirit and I remember I think maybe I was 13 years old or something. So I went for a particular meeting and on the last day of the meeting, the preacher, he gave an analogy.  Just imagine that there's this huge tank, you know, up above. And for us to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit, you would just have to open the tap and to open the tap is to believe and to just open your mouth and words will come. And it was as simple as that for me. I just prayed and I just started flowing in speaking in tongues. So since then, you know, I have been speaking in tongues, but it's true that I did not have much understanding about the value of speaking in tongues. It was when, you know, I was in college that, you know, I heard a teaching about speaking in tongues and I realized at that time that God wants us to use the gift. Till that time, I would just randomly speak, you know, in a prayer meeting, you're there whenever. But after I heard the teaching is when I became more consistent and, you know, started using the gift regularly and came to know that, you know, it will build me up as a person and all that. So that's how it is Christopher. And the second question that you asked where people are afraid that when we pray and ask God for the gift of tongues that we might receive something from the devil instead. But, you know, we have to go by what the word of God says. So if you look at Matthew chapter 7, you know, that's the passage where Jesus says, you know, ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be open to you. For everyone who asks, receives everyone who seeks, finds everyone who knocks the door will be open. So it's, you know, the way of speaking is that Jesus uses the style of speaking in literature is one of convincing the audience because he's repeating the same thing. He's saying, if you ask, you will receive. So that's, that's the, you know, confidence with which he spoke about asking God. And as you go on further in that passage, he says that it has pleased the Father to give you the kingdom. Okay, and the kingdom is with the power of God, kingdom is associated with the power of God. And we know that he was actually telling the people that if you ask God for the Holy Spirit, if you ask God for the kingdom, you will receive it. So don't doubt one bit.  So Jesus literally is trying to convince the believer that you will receive, you know, God's spirit and his power. Don't doubt it one bit. So whenever we pray for the Holy Spirit, we can encourage the people and tell them if you ask for the Holy Spirit, you will receive the Holy Spirit. And the language which will flow out of you will be from the Holy Spirit. Don't ever have a single, you know, like an iota of doubt that what will come out of you will be of the devil. How can it be, you know, you ask God, how can the devil give you a language, you know, an unknown language. So I hope that helps, Christopher. Yeah, it's not just about the receiving part, but I think someone who has received it and then, you know, they start possibly, you know, getting in exhibiting the devil, like, you know, it doesn't seem to be coming from the Holy Spirit for someone who has received it already. So maybe there is, I don't know what. Yeah, yeah, I kind of get what you're saying. Sorry to interrupt you there. But the point I would make, Christopher, is when somebody is speaking in tongues, it's very hard for us to discern, you know, is this person speaking by the Holy Spirit? Is this person, because we don't understand the language, even by their expressions, it's very hard for us to tell. And so I think you all have learned this in the keys to supernatural ministries, ministry, wait for the fruit. The fruit will tell, you know, whether or not the, you know, that manifestation of the gift is from the Holy Spirit or not. So in that moment, it's very hard to tell, you know, is it from the devil? Is it from God? Does that make sense? Right. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Great. Okay. So we will take a break. Ten minutes. We'll come back at 10 or one and move past Acts chapter two verse one. Okay. So see you all soon. Hope you can refresh yourselves and be back. Thank you.


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I will call the transit commission to order for those in the council chamber. Would you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance? All right, okay members here, let me see who's all online Online we got Ryan chief Domikowski Trey not seeing Mike or the mayor or Charles at all, so Or who's caller would it someone just hop on the call? Hi, this is Roy all right Roy's here then all right sounds good Jeff. You're here, right? Yep, he's here. There he is chief is on yep Tray's on Roy and Ryan No, Chad's not on okay, sounds good Roy Yeah, okay. Is there a motion to approve the minutes from our November 17th meeting? Make a motion to approve the minutes motion by Dean All right, there's been a second any discussion on the minutes Seeing none all those in favor, please state aye. Aye. Aye Anyone opposed to chair votes? I the minutes are approved Alright moving along here 3.1 resolution number 143 2021 resolution authorizing the mayor to execute the 2021 general contract between Sheboyg County Health and Human Services Department in the city Sheboygan regarding transportation for elderly and disabled individuals I will turn it over to the transit director Thank You mr. Chair. This is the Agreement between Sheboygan County and the city of Sheboygan to provide Pair transit services on behalf of Sheboygan County. This is an annual agreement. I believe It's for about three hundred and sixty thousand dollars to provide pair transit services like I said Typically there's One or two revisions. This is the first hopefully there aren't any revisions after this but this was already taken up at council in January and just seeking the commissions support for this resolution and Recommending to console for approval any questions for Derek. All right. Is there most to approve? I'll make a motion to approve it second motion by Dean second by Mike any further discussion Seeing none all those in favor, please state aye. Aye. Aye Anyone opposed chair votes? I 3.2 resolution number 173-2021 resolution authorizing the appropriate city officials to enter into a grant agreement with the state of Wisconsin and to make Necessarily necessary expenditures under the grant agreement in order to take advantage of the state of Wisconsin folks waiting folks wagon mitigation transit capital assistant grant program That was a little mouthful there Thank you. Thank You mr. Chair. Yeah try typing that Several times in a in a grant application This is one of the one of the exciting grants that we were awarded in 2020 Back in 2000. I think 18 or 19. We took advantage of round one by being awarded one bus through the program Which we took receipt of last year In round two we were awarded six five six fixed route buses through the Same folks wagon mitigation program after talking with city officials. It was in our best interest to request and accept four buses By doing so in conjunction with the other six that we were awarded through other grant programs We would bring the remaining Total of ten buses that are under useful life in our fleet And replace all ten of them which would put us at a very good Situation as far as vehicles go so I'm talking with city administrator wolf We decided on four vehicles and so I did talk with department of administration officials We did work it out that we would accept four out of the six awarded And so they presented the attached agreement for those four buses Awesome That's a really great thing that we took advantage of any questions for Derek at all So be looking for your support of this resolution and recommending to counsel for It's approval of this grant agreement. Mr. Chairman. I move for approval Second motion by Mike second by Dean any further discussion Signed all those in favor, please state aye. Aye. Aye Aye Even opposed Chair votes aye, that's approved 3.3 third and fourth quarter and final 2020 reports for shoreline Metro in the parking utility Derek. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair In front of you in your packet is included the third and fourth quarter reports for transit and parking I didn't go into breaking out the quarters. I just kind of lumped it all together The long and short of it is is it was a very difficult year as it was for many city departments as well as private businesses Ridership was down in both of our services around 45 percent for the year Really disheartening in our organization our department after having Nearly a 54 percent increase over the previous eight years or so and encroaching on 700,000 Unfortunately the pandemic Cut us short by about half that so In front of you is again our report everything that goes along with lower ridership such as revenue our statistics as far as Revenue trips per mile. They were all significantly impacted As far as the good news I'll get to that and maybe our annual report but for now transit and parking utilities Revenues were substantially down Parking however did not fair as bad. We were able to recoup Rebound faster as far as that goes with revenues and things We did make a concerted effort in 2020 to reduce our expenses and try to really hold down hold down any Of the assessments that would be forthcoming As of last week we were able to successfully I think Come in well under budget for our assessments at least initially that will be Sent out a little later this year, so all in all we survived I think 2020 but looking to rebound in 2021 and years to come both in Revenue and ridership on the transit side and again revenue and Controlling expense on the parking side, so Here I'm just looking for your support of the report and your approval Mr. Chairman I move to accept the report Second second any further discussion or questions for Derek, I guess I just said what how our things looking currently with you Know is there been an increase now over the or as the weather kind of been Also a factor Ridership has been we've noticed increases here over the last six weeks eight weeks I think people's confidence returning to work Things opening up kids going back to school a little bit has We have seen the increases. We were running at 15 capacity For quite a while and we were actually encroaching on that quite a bit. So we did raise Our ridership capacity to 25 And that was done all about a month ago or so And so now with the students coming back and what next Monday? We expect that, you know, we might be budding up against that again, but we do have extra buses in place So we're we're pretty much set there, but we are seeing we are seeing people come back Which is good both on fixed road and pair transit.  You got to wait for the next one or have you had have you had any of those? They're very isolated the one we were at 15 It was it was an issue We were starting to get to a point where it was going to be a regular occurrence during certain parts of the day And and really to be honest with you We had to raise it because the weather winter is not a time where we want to leave people stranded So we kind of weighed that out and made it appropriate to raise it to 25 You know People take some of this stuff literally so if we have a marking of 15 on our buses and we put 18 people on there Just because it's really cold out or the weather is bad You know it tends to send bad vibes So we wanted to make sure that our message was clear that you know We were we were doing what was appropriate and safe at this time and that was increasing our Overall capacity so that all of our customers were aware of what our standard would be Any other questions for Derek? All right seeing none all those in favor of accepting the early reports, please stay die. Hi Anyone opposed chair votes aye 3.4 presentation of the transit parking utility annual reports Thank You mr. Chair. I won't go through these in depth for you, but I did want to just kind of highlight some of the Items inside our reports so in front of you again our annual shoreline metro report and our annual parking Report these were actually put out quite a bit faster and sooner this year with requirements from city administrator wolf and Including five years worth of data here. We chose to include ridership data for The transit part which I'll start with But really you know we we talked about it being a very difficult year But you know when you're in essential service and you're out there every day and you're providing services much like You know our police department fire many city services You know you you can't help but Wonder and see where the where the good things are and we had plenty of those things So I invite you guys to read through the report again. I'm not going to go through it You know word for word as I already stated ridership was down. You can see the figures on here On the front, you know, I'm really proud of my staff At shoreline metro and you as city officials elected And members of our transit commission. You have one heck of a transit staff They they fought tooth and nail. They were they were brave. They were dedicated. They were passionate You know, I have to say that I haven't worked with a better group of people During a different more difficult time in my short 13 years in transit So really proud of my staff and I want to say thank you to them and all the hard work that they did On the backside, you'll see the ridership data that had been trending Since 2010 Obviously again 2020 was a very difficult year, but we hope to rebound and bring those numbers back up There's inside the numbers for both fixed route and for metro connection for your review We had some new people join our team, which is on the left side of the back side So we're thrilled to have those four members on our team And then lastly I just want to highlight some of the changes that the transit commission had either blessed and approved or entrusted in myself and my team to implement and that was the elimination of Tokens on the fixed route transfer slips on the fixed route and then moving to a token less system on our paratransit I will say and and maybe Ann if she wants to join in You know anytime you you change things drastically and you kind of you know hit somebody and get them on a new Trajectory you always risk that it could go bad I think the impact of the elimination of transfers and tokens probably went over about as painless as possible, and I was really Really thrilled about that not only during a pandemic, but trying to mediate any issues that would come up from that I think passengers really enjoyed the fact that we coupled that reduction and that Elimination of the transfers and tokens with the new six pack At a reduced rate. We've seen day passes just sales go through the roof So so our passengers had responded very well We're in the we're in the middle right now of doing a brief survey with our paratransit customers And they've gotten about a dozen of those back so far. They've got another week or two to get those back but again Responses in relation to the changes and our COVID responses have scored very very high marks So a lot that relates back to 2020 so again great stuff out of the the transit department over the last year and Then if you allow me just to touch base on the parking utility We had also some good things happening again focus here try to be a little proactive and educate customers So my focus this year was the winter weather in spite of our recent expenditures in snow plowing And even fighting through the pandemic, you know safety was never a question We made sure that we took care of our customers parking lots things like that during the pandemic was also a first first color change of our permits every two years they they will go through a Cosmetic change so we moved away from the red and pink and we've got navy blue and sky blue now Permits have gone over. I think rather successfully and we continue to Enjoy the benefits of that again want to say thanks to our partners Otter Creek for providing floors again this year and then also our Friends at Town and Country Garden Club for planting we had another successful year in spite of the Challenging times, so thank you to them And then the last page our back page. Excuse me just talking about assessments by year per district So the the five year or they're about Timeline and information I chose to provide here were assessments by district By year per district and expenses by year per district again preliminary numbers for 2020 are going to show That assessments are going to be once again below budgeted and below what they were in 2019 And even to the point that pad won it was about $80,000 last year It's looking to be less than $25,000 this year for the assessments, so credit again my guys for you know really really trying to work through Challenging times and and you know kind of doing a lot more with a lot less so Those are the reports for your consideration mr. Chair there's any questions I'd be happy to answer those all right Any questions for Derek? Mr. Chair yep Derek last year we had some complaints from the people in the downtown pad, and I'm just wondering I mean you have brought the the the higher level of Upcost down Last year we ended up delaying payments and giving them some extra grace period you anticipate anything like that's going to be needed this year There we had a preliminary discussion if you remember mr. Mayor last year we had a little bit of snafu with getting out the assessments, I think the pandemic definitely played a little bit of a of an issue with that and then also You know with slapping somebody with a with a hefty-sized bill that perhaps wasn't as big the year before In the heart of a pandemic is not always the best thing to do So I think the the strategy again this year is that we we want to get our ducks in a row We want to make sure that not only are we sending out one invoice that's accurate But also I'm I'm going to accompany those invoices with a personalized letter that talks about our Our maintenance and our upkeep in the in the dedication of my crew to the parking utility To try to streamline some questions and and maybe issues that come along with it Certainly, I want to be able to take responsibility. I don't necessarily have to have people call the mayor's office or finance or Chad Peleshek's department and you know talk about those things. It's it's my group that you know maintains all this But I think preliminary right now. We're looking at extending that out and possibly looking at September deadline again If Chad's on the phone if he wants to elaborate on that he he may Okay, so Chad's not on but yes, I believe there's going to be something in the works for you mr. Mayor Good. Thank you for that report Any further questions for Derek? All right, seeing none. Are there any motions to accept the report? I'll make a motion to accept second motion by dean second by mike All those in favor of accepting the report. Please state aye. Aye Anyone opposed chair votes. I that is accepted Moving along 3.5 resolution at number 1 7 1 2021 a resolution Accepting and improving the revised public transit agency safety program for shoreline metro and placing on file Derek Thank you, mr. Chair for those commission members. I remember we did bring this plan to you last year in in 2020 Um, fta originally had make it had made it mandatory that uh, this needed to be in place mid-year through 2020 They then pushed it out with the pandemic To the end of 2020 and now we are currently sitting on an implementation date of mid 2021 So the opportunity was upon us to have fta review our Uh p-task for a pair or a public transit agency safety program And uh, so we did take advantage of that. Uh, we've been working with uh, jeff aji Ohio from bay lake regional planning commission who's on the phone. I'd like to invite him to speak in a second But we did have to make some significant changes We we were very thankful that fta did take a look at several sections and make some critical changes to it In the long run it will help us with our implementation of this very important plan But also it should spearhead any issues that we might have in future federal trinea reviews. So We we felt that the changes were significant enough That we would bring them for your attention Jeff, did you want to say anything about the the p-task and maybe some of the critical changes that were made? Yeah, it's been a while jeff Yeah, I I agree jeff. Thank you to you and your staff for assisting us Primarily the changes are contained in chapter three the safety assurance. It's the one chapter that most all transit agencies according to the fta review Struggles with and it's not that they're not doing it. It's Putting it into documentation format That will be easy and readily access accessible for future reviews of the plan So where we struggled was how we documented the things that we were doing so That was critical in in making this understandable and accessible for future reviews. So If there is no questions on it, uh, staff is recommending the acceptance and approval of This this resolution, excuse me regarding the public transportation agency safety plan and place the document on file just a note that Once the document is approved here and at the council level Then we will start our implementation of this and we will have this implemented well before the july 2021 requirement Even if there is an extension Mr. Chairman, I'd like to move that we adopt and accept the shabuagan transit development program and place it on file. All right Second a motion in the second any further discussion Seeing none all those in favor, please state aye. Hi Anyone opposed chair votes aye that is approved Thanks for putting in the work on that one All right 3.6 resolution number 172 2021 resolution accepting the 2021 2025 transit development program and placing on file all right In front of you is our latest transportation development program for years covering 2021 to 2025 I would like to defer to jeff to perhaps give an overview of this program But before I do so I I would just like to say I've really never been part of a development plan That was actually pretty much implemented before it was approved But due to the circumstances surrounding covet and uh, you know us really trying to Mitigate the exposures and the safety risks with providing public transportation Many of the items if you remember in particular transfers, which was brought to the commission level either I don't think it was last year. I think it was 2019 for approval You know, we ended up turning that around and and saying, you know, it's part of our tdp that You know, these are things that we want to do but we also need to do them sooner than later And so we were able to take advantage of not only planning but also implementing So it was it was a little unusual But nevertheless a very successful Development plan, so I'd like to turn over to jeff for his comments on the plan development school Thank you jeff for those comments Additionally, I'd just like to add that the tdp is is a planning document It's not actually required by fta, but it's strongly recommended that we go through these every Five years. We've actually had a little bit of a gap here close to four or five years between our last tdp but able to Finally get this one done after a couple years of working through some other issues Also want to remind that when you support the document and approve the document You're not necessarily approving the individual items inside the document jeff did talk about the recommended Alteration to our service day Those are things that we'd like to do but those individual changes Would still be subjected to either transit commission approval and or a public hearing Because it might impact our transit services to the magnitude that public hearing would be required So all i'm all i'm asking today is that you guys would receive the document and approve the document And then anything in the future that we bring forward or i'd like to maybe review this You know maybe at a future meeting and just kind of talk about the interest of some of the items that we haven't done yet and then Get a strategy together for that so today. It's just merely accepting the document and recommending it to counsel for approval and file All right, thanks derrick and jeff for all your work on that one Any questions for for derrick or jeff at all? Mr. Chairman i'd just like to thank jeff and derrick and the rest of the committee members that serve with me on that committee that Was a pretty extensive Set of meetings and i think we really produced a nice result and and give you a real roadmap for the future So with that i'd move to accept the report is presented All right, mike has moved to accept it second second by dean any further comments Seeing none all those in favor of approving the document please state i i Anyone opposed chair votes i that is approved. Thank you guys Move it along 3.7 directors report derrick Thank you, mr. Chair Before i get into the directors report i would just like to Wish a few members on the transit commission. Good luck in their primary elections today mayor van der steen and alder ryan sorensen and chief damagowski for school board so good luck to you guys In your primary elections today On the directors report a couple things that i'll probably go through maybe in a little bit more length But again in respect of time You guys can go back to this if you haven't read it yet and follow up with me with any questions Again, covet 19. Uh, we're we're operating a regular hours right now on weekdays We continue to do demand response only on saturdays We are We are hiring drivers right now. We're a little low So until we can kind of bulk back up We will probably be keeping our a pair transit service or demand response service only on saturdays And again some of these other items we continue to collect fares premium services that were implemented by metro connection customer for metro connection customers have been received well we've recently Implemented the federal mask order requiring all customers employees to wear a mask While on the bus and at our transfer station. So we we're working through that Currently we have no team members out due to covet 19 As a matter of fact since pretty much the beginning of december. We've been very minimally impacted so again, uh, thank you to transit commission for entrusting me to carry out some of the Day-to-day items that we've needed to do to keep staff and customers safe and then also To my staff for their dedication It's it's really shown so As far as cove it goes that's Pretty much all i'm gonna update you on we talked about the annual reports today. I've briefed you on the parking assessments for 2020 Again, those assessments will be coming out sometime probably about march with payment due later this year Happy to report. I'm number four. Our roof project is done. We have a new roof and decking So we're we're thrilled about that. So they'll give us some longevity on our building Our federal training review that was originally scheduled for last august Is now going to take place the week of may 17 through 21st virtually so we look forward to working through the challenges of that but Our last training review in 2017. We scored a perfect zero finding so Anytime you come out perfect. You got a target on your back, but we're up for it. So let's repeat Bus purchases as jeff said in our tdp review We are in the process of putting together orders for 10 fixed-route buses and two paratransit buses so That delivery could be as soon for paratransit buses as the end of this year and fixed-route buses by fall of next year Number seven town of shabuigan service. We've had some talks with some officials from the town about extending possible expansion of public transit to the township We haven't really gone into much detail at this point But wanted to make the transit commission aware that there are some preliminary discussions about Creating public transit solutions for the town of shabuigan. So again, I'll keep you posted as these things develop Parking utility team. We just had a little bit of a change over Congratulations to our parking lead Philip who retired last october and we've been able to do some internal promoting and then also some external hiring And we have a great team together for our parking utility And then lastly again, thank you to everybody On the transit commission My team city administrator will for your ongoing support and direction During this pandemic. I truly appreciate your trust and allowing me to run our organization The way that that we have been I think it's been safe. I think it's been productive And we're excited to certainly move past this pandemic and Continue what we were doing prior. So That's my director's report. Mr. Chair. I'll be happy to answer any questions Thanks, Derek for putting in all that any questions for Derek at all. Is there motion to accept the report? I'll make a motion to accept the report Second motion by dean second by mike any further comments Seeing none all those in favor of accepting the report. Please state. I hi anyone opposed. Hi Chair votes. Hi. That's uh accepted We've exhausted the agenda next meeting is tbd. Is there a motion to adjourn? I will make a motion to adjourn second motion by dean second by mike. All those in favor of adjourning. Please state. I I I Anyone opposed chair votes. I we're adjourned at 540. Thank you everybody


Everyone welcome to this special CUBE conversation. We are here in the Palo Alto studios of the CUBE. I'm John Furrier, your host here with Rehan Jaleel, former president and CEO of Elastica. Here to talk about the people first network and his approach and experiences in his entrepreneurial journey. Rehan, thanks for joining us today. Thank you so much. Thanks for inviting. So we were talking before we came on. You have a great entrepreneurial journey. It's a great podcast up on the mayfield.com website. Really a good story about what you've done. But you had a lot of different kind of experiences through your progression journey and entrepreneurship. You had some failures and some successes. And certainly now with cloud security is hot. I'm sure you're probably going to go on to another one, but what's it like right now for you? You just left semantic. You're kind of out on your own. That's right. Are you clipping coupons going to go to the beach and hang out? Are you working on a new startup? What's happening? Yeah, I think it's, there's a lot to do. Frankly for me, it's very important to actually understand some new problems that needs to be solved. Especially there's so much changing with AI and all the intrusions as you're seeing that that's breaches that are going on. There are no new problems to solve and that's where my head is. I'm not going to take too much of a break. I'm going to get going. Yeah, you seem eager to go. I mean, that's most entrepreneurs do that. Talk about, let's talk about some of the experiences you had on one of the things we were talking in about 14 of my cameras that back in the old days when before internet broadband wireless was hot, you did a startup around Y-Max which was early days of broadband wireless. That's right. And then you had some failures, successes but didn't work out. Then you had another wireless startup that was successful, that became part of that 4G movement. This is an example of being correct in the thesis but you picked the wrong door to go through. Talk about that journey because I think that time in history, this is around 2001 to 2002 just in three time frame. This was the internet was growing. Wireless, we didn't have the phones we have now, obviously it's smart phone in 2007, years later. That's right. This was pre-mobile boom. This was the beginning of the shift to broadband, true broadband. Now we see it everywhere LTE, 5Gs around the corner. This was a pivotal moment but for you, you were as an entrepreneur, you had the right decision, broadband wireless, but it was shifting. Feels like cloud today but I want to get into that journey. What did you learn? I think there were two very different companies. The mission of the first company which I joined as an employee, the first company, which was to take the high speed internet to the masses. In US and some developed world, they were DSL and cable kind of was coming up but that infrastructure did not exist in the rest of the world and the mission was that if we could take same level of high speed connectivity and enable it for the rest of the world, it'd be really cool and this is back in the day. So thesis was right and hence I joined that company and it was a lot of fun, I learned a lot but I think one thing you have to realize even in those times to do such a massive project and to go against some massive incumbents which exist in those ecosystems, the differentiation has to be extremely high and to create differentiation on the radio side of things is just very difficult and I think so and of course, at that time the economy took a bad turn and that company didn't have a significant big outcome. From that learning, I evolved the thesis that this technology needs to go mobile and this is again pre-iPhone times, it was Blackberry times. So if you were to go talk to investors and say, look the world is going to look like when we will have internet in our pocket, the people would smile at you, it's like what are you talking about, right? So even raising money for that was not easy and that was my first company that I started myself called Y-Chorus and thesis there was that what if you could have DSL type connectivity and literally all internet's power in your pocket? But the learnings from the first company were that if you go try to do that straight in the wireless side of things in a telco environment, the competition is going to be significantly high. The scale, the presence, the market power they have. And the purchasing cycle, most important is the purchasing cycles. People take time to, even if you come up with something really compelling, by the time it's going to be getting deployed, somebody will catch up to you. I mean just think about the time, this is the time for the folks watching if you're younger or even older like my age. Think about it, you didn't, I mean to actually have a phone in the car and surfing the internet didn't exist. I mean you could barely get emails just through a lower latency and a lower bandwidth. Internet tower, they didn't have the broadband. And so today we surf, watch movies in the car. So this was pre-broadband. So I remember the time when we were testing one router, it's like, look we're getting a ping back before we're driving down 101. It's like, that was like a miracle. Now it's now standard. This is when big shifts happen and a lot of people are comparing that kind of environment to what we're seeing with cloud computing now. You've seen Amazon Web Services, it's a $27 billion run rate, 47% a year. Google with great technology now entering in, Microsoft pivoting to cloud. Those are big players. And startups are now trying to figure out what you learned and how to not get in the way but also draft off the momentum. What's your view of this and what advice do you have for entrepreneurs that are out there? Because this is the number one question that I hear and I talk about with entrepreneurs either behind closed doors or on the queue. I think it's a blessing to have actually some infrastructure like that. But if you don't do it right, it could be a curse. What I mean by that is that you have to leverage something that is available to you and not trying to kind of reinvent, do something slightly better. So I think on the infrastructure side, you have to be very thoughtful on where you could potentially play and where frankly some of the big players like AWS or Microsoft and perhaps Google is going to be basically wanting to actually play themselves in that area. However, in said that, but the ecosystem and the layer of services that is made available, it's actually a big, big blessing for startups because all the value creation is kind of moving up the chain. And if you leverage that, then the cost of building startups and cost of doing new things is kind of gone down. So we did something very similar with Elastica which was all about security for the cloud, from the cloud. And if you didn't have that infrastructure layer available, the amount of money that would have required would have been significantly higher. So the cloud gets you scaled up, leveled up quicker, faster, go to market more agile and dynamic. And then you can wrap IP around those old tasks of provisioning servers. There's plenty of intellectual property that first you can put on top of it, but in a vertical fashion, at least for Elastica it was very much kind of a vertical solution of security for the cloud and SaaS applications itself. Instead of trying to redo your own servers and server stack and automation.  So you guys were successful with the cloud. Quite successful. And you sold that company to Symantec. What year was that? Actually, it was 2015, we sold it to BlueCoat. Oh, BlueCoat, okay, that was the BlueCoat. And the BlueCoat got acquired or, you know, by Symantec, but then BlueCoat management took over Symantec. And that was great. So we have like two acquisitions back to back. That's nice, it's a good experience. So I want to, before we move on to some of the things that are more personal, I want to get your take on an entrepreneurial dynamic that a lot of successful entrepreneurs take and I want to get your reaction to. Most entrepreneurs are very optimistic.  But they're also in discovery mode to validate their thesis and always kind of self-aware. But there's always the fatal flaw out there that potentially could be there. We talked about broadband wireless, directionally correct, good concept. Fatal flaw was the incumbents. How do you, in essence, debug a startup venture, venture architecture or venture plan? Because if there's a fatal flaw in that, it's like a bug in software. How is an entrepreneur, do you debug that? I mean, in your journey, as you had successes and you learned from some of the things that were teachable moments for you, is there a debugging formula? How would you react to that? How would you explain entrepreneurs? Because that's what they always are naturally doing. Where's the fatal flaw? Where's the fatal flaw? Yeah, I think, and it's, I think extremely important. So firstly, intellectual honesty in setting your own direction is very important. You certainly have to have the aspiration to go do something and have that as you go do it. But the same time setting direction is the most important thing. Or keep tuning the direction over time is actually extremely important. And then there is no one answer. The key thing is that if you're going to be building something, you have to see if there's going to be a big market for it. That's the first thing. And then when you're going to get there, how that option is going to be there? Would you have an advantage in adoption as compared to incumbents if they get there? So I think you have to have a thesis because you just can't always project the right way, especially in the enterprise side of things. And if you can actually crack that code, and then if when you do offer this to the market, is it going to be easy to adopt, easy to accept by the customers? And would it have some kind of effect of quick movement? I think you have to have all those right. And some trend, if it kind of gives you support, like when we built Elastica, there was this is the cloud is going to take over. The SaaS is going to happen. There was a tailwind for you. So it was a tailwind. So it happened interestingly at the times when we had the product. Same actually happened for Y-Chorus, interestingly, where the thesis that the need of very high speed internet to a mobile device, this is pre-iPhone times would happen. And luckily iPhone came on in around 2007 timeframe and we had the product which Telcos would have needed. And the iPhone came along and we ended up building one of the first 4G networks along with ClearWire in Southern California. So I think all these things kind of have to line up the market, big market timing, your strategic advantage, your acceptance, all these- The self-awareness is a great point. Also having versatility and having the skills to flex because to get all those things right, you're kind of juggling. Yeah. How that persists. Okay, I got to ask you about people first. What does people first mean to you? At the end, I think, frankly, that is the core, core of startups. And we've been kind of lucky within Elastica. Our main reason for success has been that the team that we ended up having and building over time, they not only had actually very good diverse skillset because Elastica required very diverse skillset from networking to cloud to AI to all those, but the chemistry between the team was also quite amazing. So I think if you understand that the, not only the people in the company and the dynamics within them is going to be, which is going to be required, then you start paying attention to the culture that goes along with it, right? So the culture of executing as well as doing it with kindness and humility along the way. Sharing the experience, the journey together, co-creating, kind of creating that super glue. That's right. And the culture. That's super important. Extremely important. What have you learned in your, over your journey around where it's worked, where it hasn't? Because a lot of people are trying to figure out that people equation. I mean, it's people, they really, if they sincerely believe they want to do it, but sometimes people don't know the playbook. Is there a playbook? Is there a, or people just go by their gut.  I want to get that right. We have a mission. We want to share that mission. What are some of the things that that entrepreneurs and companies can do, like immediately, that's easy to get going? I think being, is communication. And upfront, I think you to start communicating, not just in words, but in the things that you do yourself.  It actually really matters. And you have to, that actually is the driving force of actually starting a culture, I would say, in place. And then, if you observe any, anything that are working out, communication is going to be the key. You openly communicate. And do it in a way that it's not a hostile environment. I love your history. I love your background. My personal family is a family of immigrants that comes to the United States. You have a very immigrant story. Andy Grove was an immigrant, founder of Intel.  Entrepreneurs are who they are. But you have an interesting story where you came from, how you came to Silicon Valley. Tell that story. Yeah. So I was born in Pakistan. My parents were born in India. So they migrated to Pakistan. And this just happens to be that I came here for studies. Interestingly, I didn't know much about Silicon Valley, to be honest. And I happened to have a job in Sun Microsystem that happened to be in Silicon Valley. But when I came here, it was kind of a blessing. This is exactly where I needed to be. Because even when I was going to grad school, I had the aspiration to actually go do something on my own. But I didn't know how.  So I feel very blessed. And it really is a special place. And you have to kind of understand that vibe and culture. I want to ask you a personal question. A lot of entrepreneurs, if they can go to business school and get an entrepreneurship degree, some do. But I always have that debate. You're kind of born with this, kind of my philosophy. Some people might debate that. There's always a classic debate. Are you born with it or can you learn it or both? Some people know their entrepreneurs early young. Some figure it out like me when I'm in my 30s. Is when I kind of figured out that I have that entrepreneurial talent looking back at some of the things I did. When did you find out that you knew that you were entrepreneurial? And you wanted to build stuff on your own. You said, this is who I am as a person. What was that moment like? I think very early. I didn't have any doubt. This was undergrad times. Back in my undergrad school in Pakistan. I think I knew that I'll be doing something on my own. And that's exactly what I wanted to do. So how I would do it, what time it's going to be. I didn't know any of that. But I had this kind of some belief in my mind that I would basically build some things and build business around it. So it was quite early. I had a good time.  And when you came to Silicon Valley, what were some of the things you did? Was it like, oh my God, this is an amazing place or did you have to do some networking? What were some of the things that you did when you first came in to really kind of get into that groove swing, entrepreneurial groove swing? This is one of those times when Sun was an amazing place. I ended up at Sun Microsystems. And the people there were unbelievably talented. They have all kind of talented people there. So I think- Very entrepreneurial too coming out of Stanford. It's got McNeely, all the early DNA in there was all very entrepreneurial. Exactly. So I think that was again, a place where you could learn a lot, not just in technology, but actually how to solve problems, how to understand customer problems that you could solve and build new technology on top of it. So I think, and I didn't stay there that long. Within a couple of years, I decided that I need to go basically join a small company where I could do more things beyond just designing one aspect or just I was building microprocessor designs. Instead of just doing that, I could do other roles also. So I joined the Bordner-Rogos company, a part of that you mentioned. As an entrepreneur, one of the big decisions is who you're going to marry in terms of a VC or partner, financial partner. That's right. It truly is taking on a new partnership. And that's a big struggle. And I think we've seen the brogrammer culture certainly amplified as it's just recently past decade where everyone wants to go for the big valuations and think, oh wow, look at, I've only sold 15% of my company and raised 10 million or a big number. Look how great that is. But then you realize that when they come to board meetings. You got them a good valuation, but they're going to want to be receptive on the other side. So there's a dynamic in fundraising early on, not just market selection as a venture, but partner selection. Talk about how important that is, how you handled it, and advice for people thinking about selection of a financial partner. Yeah. See, in technology companies where you have to invest a bunch in R&D early on, you do need money. It's just the way it works. But money is not everything because right now at least today, money is kind of commodity. You can actually raise from many, many different sources, many different VCs. But one thing I've learned within startups is that any and all startups will have good times and bad times. We'll have doubts in a strategy and we'll have conviction. And when those times are not so good, you need people who you can just go talk frankly without worrying about it and without getting judged along the way. Trust. Trust is the key. So I think you pick people essentially based on how much you actually trust them, especially very, very early stage startups. And then as you go along, perhaps things change over time because over time with the company scaling, you may need a lot more money. But I think, again, people first, you want to partner with people you can actually trust. And the hard conversations sometimes you want to have, you want to be self-aware and that's always step one, but two, vulnerability and then partnering with a financial partner that's going to sit on the same side of the table at the right times. And maybe on the other side to be a counterbalance at the right times. And also when you need more money, they got to help you sell the next round too. There's a lot of things that they have to do. And the dynamic is critical. And you've had success with that. So far has been a success. Well, what's the big thing happening right now in your mind, just to kind of take it forward now as we look forward, you see a lot of cloud computing got a great experience with cloud. You've been successful. Cloud security is really hot. What do you see as opportunities in the cloud space as now that you got your entrepreneurial, 20 mile stare out there looking for opportunities, I'm sure you probably mean more security space, but in general, as an entrepreneur, what do you see as things that people can go after? Markets. In general, I say on the enterprise side of things, anything that simplifies work and automates it, whether it's using AI and whether you're using other technologies, software technology, I think that's where it's going to go more because of horizontal layers where you have big data platforms and you have infrastructure providers. I think they are doing a great job in enabling the ecosystem, but now we're going to see a lot more verticalized solutions based on machine learning and AI and automation. I think that's, we're going to see a lot more. There's plenty of opportunity out there. It's super early too, and you're very young. Do you agree with that? Absolutely. Yeah. Great. Well, thanks for coming in the CUBE conversation. Appreciate this part of the Mayfields. People first conversations. I'm John Furrier with the CUBE. We're here on Jalil, former presidency of Elastica, successful serial entrepreneur about to embark on his next adventure. Good luck and look forward to catching up. Thank you so much for inviting me. Thanks for watching. This is the CUBE Conversation People First Network. I'm John Furrier.