I think, Wendon, you can start the live stream. Okay, we're live. All right, hello and welcome to the Community Foundation Affairs Committee office hour. I'm Cornelius, and I'm handing over directly to Jackie, who's our facilitator. Let me see where Jackie is. Hello. Hi everyone, and welcome. This is the first office hour for the Community Affairs Committee, and we are so happy you could all join us, and welcome to those of you who are watching after this has been streamed. So I will hand over to Shani to begin the welcome message and for everyone to introduce themselves, who's here from the Board of Trustees. Thank you so much, Jackie. Hello, everyone. Good evening, good day, whenever this meets you. I'm so happy to first be here, but also to be hosting the first office hours of the new Board Committee called the Community Affairs Committee. This is an experiment that we're having, so please bear with us. We're going to learn from this experiment, and we're counting on you to let us know what works and what doesn't, as you may know, we have asked the community to send us questions in advance. Jackie will later on talk a bit about how this office hour is going to work, but for now, I want to take one minute to introduce the rest of the trustees that are here, and some staff that are also here with us today. So as I said, I'm Shani Evenstein-Sigalov. I'm from Israel, and I've been a trustee for over a year and a half now. I'm the chair of the Community Affairs Committee, and I'm very happy to let the trustees introduce themselves quite quickly. So we'll begin with Isra. Do you want to quickly say hello and where you're from? Yeah, hey everyone, my name is Isra El Shafi and I'm from Bahrain. I joined the Board in November, 2017, a few months after I gave a keynote at Wikimania Montreal that year about some of my human rights work. I'm also the chair of the Product Committee as well, where we work closely with the Chief of Product Officer to help assess and explore current and future product development efforts to continuously grow and improve. Thank you. Thank you so much Isra. James. Great, thank you. So, James Heilman, I've been on the Board of Trustees now off and on for six years, and I'm a long-term Wikipedia, and I've been editing Wikipedia for about 14 years. Back to you, Shenin. And James is the chair of the Special Projects Committee, also very modest. Is Maria with us already? We'll go behind you. Hi, Shenin. Can you hear me? She froze for me, I think. But I can go ahead and introduce myself. Hi, everyone. My name is Maria Cefisari. I'm the chair of the Board. I am from Spain, and I am one of the community-selected trustees on the Board, and I've been part of the movement for over 15 years now. Thank you so much, Maria. Is Nat here? After this with us today, first is Amanda. Is Amanda here? Hi, Shenin. Hi. Hello, hello.  Yeah, hi. My name's Amanda Keaton. I'm the general counsel of the Foundation, and I'm also a member of the transition team. It's nice to see everybody today. Thanks, Shenin. Also with us. Thank you, Amanda. Always also with us today is Margo. Margo, can you quickly pop in to say hello? Hi, everyone. My name is Margo Lee. I've been with the Foundation for about two months. I work closely with the Board, and I think we may have skipped Raju. Oh, I called him, but he didn't answer. Raju, do you want to pop in and say hello? Hi, Shenin. I heard you call Nat, and I figured I'll take my turn. Hi, everyone. Raju and I have been on the board for about four years now. I'm in the audit committee and the HR committee and also quite involved with the next ED and CEO search as well. So I'm really glad to be here. And Shenin, thanks for doing this. I know things are not particularly quiet at all in Israel right now, so I really appreciate you doing it. And I also see Frederick and Tito and also Mayur on the call realize that things are pretty awful in India for friends and family and all of that. So I appreciate you guys being here. The Foundation has, I think, about 16 staffers in India. So we are doing a lot to try to make sure that they get some help and medical kits and things like that. So I appreciate all of you joining from that region. Thanks. Peace and coming together and the stopping of violence everywhere. And of course, for people to get vaccines and for COVID to be a bit for everyone to be in a better place in terms of health. And so thank you all for joining. And I'm going back to staff and I'm going to introduce Mayur. Mayur, can you say hello? Hi, everyone. I'm Mayur and I am the director of movement communications. I'm new to the foundation and movement communications is a new team in the foundation. And hopefully we'll talk more about it later during these office hours. Thank you. Thank you, Mayur. And Kim. Hello. Yeah. My name is Kim. I work these days on preparing board elections also movement strategy and community love in general. Thanks. I lost Kim. I'm hoping Maggie is still here and that you can hear me. I am. Shani. Thank you. Thank you, Mayur and Kim. Hello. Shani, the bad news, I think is you may be cutting in and out for people and somebody ping me because it may be that if you turn off your background, your connection with you better. I don't know, but hi, everybody. I'm Maggie. I'm the vice president of community resilience and sustainability. Some of you know me already. Those of you who don't, I hope you will soon. Thank you so much. Can you hear me?  Okay. I'm switching off my camera. Hopefully it's going to be better. Let me know in the chat if not. I'd like to say thank you. Have worked for quite some time to make today happen. And I just want to extend a huge thank you from all of us to them. And I'll cut it short because I am not sure I'm heard properly. Back to Jackie. For facilitating this event. Hi, well, again, I'd like to say thank you everyone for joining us on this first office hour. And of course technology, right? Like to like to give us grief all the time. I am Jackie. I am a board election facilitator and I'll be facilitating this office hour. The first 45 minutes will cover updates from the community affairs committee and questions sent by the community in advance. The final 15 minutes will be an ask us anything format with questions. And then we'll have a live participation. Questions will be asked in real time in several locations. YouTube, the Wikipedia weekly Facebook group. The Wikipedia general chat telegram group. And the office hour discussion page on meta. For those in the zoom room, you may raise your hand using the feature or using the little function that I will put in the chat. Here. There we are. So you can do that there. But before we get started, I just want to make sure that we have time. Let's keep it concise. And also I need to remember this myself because I am a native English speaker. To speak more slowly because not everyone has the same comfort level with English. Now, before we begin, I have to share some boundaries for this office hour. We will not be able to respond to comments or questions that are disrespectful to people on this office hour. But I believe we can discuss things in a civilized manner and respectful way, even if we disagree on certain topics. That is something we will not compromise on. And also a side note, please familiarize yourself with universal code of conduct. Now let's begin. Well, the CSE community affairs committee. Commit to organizing its events across rolling time zones to make sure that we have time and diversity for contributors. Thank you. Jackie. The quick answer is, yes, we are committed to making this much more diverse and inclusive than the first trial. So different languages offering translation. We just want to make sure that we're not wasting. The sources. So for the next ones, we will be asking that people request in advance the language they want translation for. And assuming we have at least five members requesting this, we will do our best to have live translations for these people. We're also committing to translate any communication. We any written communication in at least more than English, right?  And I will pause here and would like to introduce you again to Mayor to tell you a bit more. And Shani, the internet problems, I think continue a little bit, but I know colleagues are documenting some of this. So if you're, you know, struggling to follow, it will be written up as well. Shani was saying earlier and just to sort of, I said in my introduction, movement communications is a new team in the foundation. If we were a Wikipedia article, we're a stub at the moment and hoping to kind of improve and builds as we go along. And one of the, one of the things we really want to do as a team is think about how can we support equity in how the foundation communicates. And Shani was saying, for example, you know, these officers, they're an experiment to start off with, but we want to really work hard to try and make them more accessible to people. That means obviously across time zones, languages, but also thinking about other ways we can help people engage in the movement and how we can create sort of two-way dialogue so that, you know, people can engage in a medium that's most comfortable to them. Part of this very practically, we're hoping that starting in a few months time that we would have multilingual staff based closer to the communities across different time zones so we can kind of scale up our connections with the movement. Another sort of small flavor of what we're trying to do to sort of make it more accessible to people in different languages, et cetera, about all the things the foundation does is that very soon we're hoping to do a series of sort of short videos explaining what are the foundation's plans for next year followed by more opportunities like this where people can ask questions, they can discuss with the staff sort of responsible for particular areas of work. And yeah, we'll continue the thinking, we welcome ideas and actually a lot of these ideas are coming from some of the focus groups that the movement communications team ran earlier in the year. You can read up more about them on meta and we're hoping actually to be able to share some of the findings we had about how can sort of communications from the foundation help support the movement better very soon. So yeah, watch out for more from us, bear with us as this is an experiment and as we kind of build and improve things. So yeah, on the research report I can confirm it is actually with translators so we're as hopefully you'll start to see trying to live the research findings ourselves and make sure that the research is available. Because for those who might know about it the focus groups also invited participation in different languages so we had people participating in the focus groups in French Arabic et cetera. So we want to make sure we translate the findings back into those languages so that we can check with the participants whether what they said is fully captured. So yes, but translations do take time. But we are weeks away now. Thank you so much, Mayor. This is quite exciting. And I hope this will create. Dear Shawnee, I'm so sorry. I believe that you've cut out again. Okay, with interest of time, I'm just going to go ahead on to question to Shawnee. I'm sorry about your connection. The community tech team plays a vital role that is essential for community success. What is the plan to scale community tech to continue to be able to meet community needs as the movement grows? Thanks. I can take this on. It's really great that people appreciate the work that the community tech team has done. And acknowledge the vital role that it plays. The team has grown over the years. When we started the team in 2015, it was just three people. Now there are nine people on the team, including a designer and a QA testing engineer. And what the team works on is determined by the wishlist survey. So there are vital tools that need support. Then definitely let us know on the survey starting in late November. We rely on your input to explore and to prioritize these needs. In addition to the community tech team, we've also got the anti harassment tools team, which has recently been upgrading the check user tools and the blocking tools. And a new offshoot of this team, the trust and safety team. Is going to spin up in July. So, and that team will, you know, work on more projects related to user privacy and safety specifically. Later this year, we're also planning to establish a new moderator tools team with a broad mandate to identify and address the needs of experienced contributors on medium sized wikis and help them adapt to the needs of the community. So we're going to start investigating these user needs soon. So if any of you at the office hours who have ideas and suggestions, maybe we can connect them with the, the product manager. I'm sure it would be super helpful, you know, to find out what people think the biggest needs are. And as mentioned earlier, we are really relying on, um, and trying to keep the process open and inclusive of your feedback. Thanks. Great. Thank you for that answer. That was wonderful. Thank you. Now question three. When the endowment is big enough. Would you announce to the cultural sector, the movement has the funds to guarantee the survival of wikimedia commons and wiki source. And definitely. I'll take that Jackie. Even though the endowment free dates my joining. As part of the audit committee, I have a window into that. It's a great question, right? Because the reason why the endowment was created. Was to get past this, um, survival mode, which was dependent on, uh, us kind of trying to raise money year over year. Um, and we've been very good at it, but it doesn't mean that, um, we will always be successful in reaching our annual goals. So the idea was to set up an endowment that's separate, which can, where we can anchor it some, um, bigger donors to put money aside. And the idea was that it would generate its income once it's fully funded. And that way we are balancing the, um, annual asks that we go out and seek with this, uh, stream of money that we can then cushion. Or giving. We'll never kind of walk away from. Annual fundraising, right? Because that's the bulk of what we do. Um, but the idea is that this would also supplement that. And when fully funded. Um, the endowment will definitely allow us to ensure that a portion of the annual fund. Um, the endowment will definitely allow us to ensure that a portion of the annual operating costs, um, and needs for projects and missions, including commons and Mickey source, uh, would be funded. And I think the idea is to get us away from thinking that will this survive or not survive. And to have some visibility into, uh, how we can support it for a longer time. I never used the word indefinitely because none of us is indefinite in anything, uh, but in the foreseeable future, I think that is the goal to provide that support. Thank you. All right. Thank you for that answer. I just want to take a second and say that these are wonderful questions. So thank you to the people who reached out to submit the questions and please in the future, if you have questions, feel free to submit them. Um, this is wonderful, uh, to hear these sorts of questions. So let's go ahead and go to, um, a very common question that has been heard quite frequently. Uh, about meeting notes. Um, why are meeting notes only available from the audit committee and not all committees? I'm happy to take that one. Thank you, Jackie. Um, it's true that, um, we don't really have a standard practice for publishing committee minutes minutes. Uh, the committee, as Jackie said, does publish the minutes, but other committees like HR. Uh, or the product committee do not. Um, there are reasons for this. At the beginning of each year, committee chairs, uh, can make a determination on whether they want to publish or not. And, you know, it's, it's, um, reasons cited often have to do with the ability to discuss issues three during the meetings, right? Add in an aspect of publishing and, you know, a public communications aspect to the minutes. Uh, it would increase, uh, the burden of drafting and approving them. But I think that when we get this kind of questions, uh, regarding, you know, the publication of, of community meetings. Um, I think at the heart of it, uh, the deep question is how does the board or how can the board improve its approach to community communications? And that has been, um, something we have been trying to improve upon in the last couple of years. Um, I think people have seen, for instance, in the last, um, few months, how we've been trying to integrate, uh, community input with the work of the committees. For instance, the, the BGC and the entire discussion and conversation on, on the, um, pathways for the, for trustees selection, right? Um, we're also trying with this kind of experiment with the community first committee and the office hours. So we're trying to get to the heart of the matter in a different way. And, um, hopefully this helps us to try to, um, improve transparency and engagement with the community. And also that, you know, community members, just, just the people who have joined today, uh, get to know us a little bit, a little, a little better. Um, get to engage with us and, um, you know, see what we think and, uh, just interact with us. And I think this is one of those fantastic opportunities. Thank you. And now I think this is a great next question. Um, so how is the search for a new CEO going? And there's a second part to this one. So let's start with the first one. How is the search for a new CEO going? Jackie, why don't I take this, um, uh, even though, um, several board members here are also actively involved in this process. Um, I'll give a little bit of a quantitative and then a qualitative answer as well. So this was always going to be like a four to six month process. Um, given, um, the importance of, uh, this search, given the global nature of the search. And, um, I would say that about a month and a half in, it's going quite well. The reason I can say that is, um, there's a lot of interest in the opportunity, um, uh, Wikimedia and Wikimedia, uh, both are seen as, um, high impact and critical in these times. Uh, and so as a result, there's been a lot of incoming, um, interest in at least wanting to have the preliminary conversation, get a little bit more information because we did put out a detailed job description, but obviously, uh, candidates, um, who are thinking of throwing their hat and tend to want to talk a little bit about it. Um, I think the last count, uh, close to 450 different levels of engagement and conversations have happened. Um, we are in the process of like then kind of bringing that down to probably a few dozen. And then, uh, within that, there'll be some more conversations to try to bring it down to a manageable number of people to then kind of get into deeper conversations. Um, uh, just the qualitative, just so that people get a sense of, um, the profile or the nature of these, uh, potential pool of candidates. We put a lot of, uh, intentionality in connecting with leaders with deep experience in the global south. Um, as a result, um, I think the conversations have been pretty good, um, Asia, Africa, um, uh, Europe, Southeast Asia, and, uh, Latam as well. I must confess and say we haven't really gotten any meaningful interest out of Australia. So that's one of the few continents where we haven't made much progress, um, though I'm not particularly fussed about that. Um, while it might seem not so to us, um, in the scheme of things, um, the foundation is a fairly large nonprofit. So a lot of the leaders we are talking to, um, are coming from complex governance and stakeholder, whether it's volunteers or chapters, environment. Uh, these are people who have also been involved in global, uh, somewhat policy work, not as much advocacy because we don't necessarily do a lot of advocacy. Uh, and many of them will still have some learning cups, right? We are not going to find the perfect candidate who checks off every single, uh, box as well. We've also connected, uh, with leaders in bilateral and multilateral and government spaces. Um, leaders who have experience at leading at scale, leaders who bring a lot of good communication skills. Um, a real understanding that the role here is to connect with the community and kind of, um, be open to, uh, absorbing what the community is saying and then translate that into making sure that we have the right resources. So it's a fairly complex nuance search, but as a group, we feel pretty good about the range of candidates that have expressed an interest, uh, the early conversations are ongoing and will continue to update the community. Um, and the staff, of course, um, as to as, uh, more of these conversations happen. Uh, but we are very much still thinking that the timeframe that we had first set out, um, about six months. So maybe September, October is when we would, um, get to a point of like, uh, having, uh, candidates, but in between there's going to be plenty of steps of communication as well. Um, the good news for us is we are, um, doing the search at a great position of strength. Our 20th birthday was like a significant, uh, factor. We have the 2030 strategy in place. Obviously a lot of execution and a lot of how we get there is still the opportunity and challenge. So we are finding candidates excited about, um, the fact that there is a roadmap. There's a lot of community conversations and buy into that roadmap. And people are looking forward to engaging with us to see how they can help us, um, uh, take this forward. Um, so feeling pretty good about it right now. Thank you. Thank you for that, that answer. That's wonderful. So many, so many good conversations and, um, that's, that's really great that there's a lot of interest and things are moving forward. Wow. So here's the second part of the question. How will this affect strategy? This has been something that a lot of us have been deeply involved with, uh, in the community, um, board members, staff members for many years now. So how will this impact strategy? I think, um, as I kind of touched on it a little bit, uh, in my previous answer, it doesn't, it doesn't, right? It doesn't in the sense that we are in such a strong place in terms of having a vision. Um, so much of this community conversations the last two years have led to, um, and I have a roadmap and a 2030 plan, uh, prioritization. Lots of these are continuing to happen. Uh, so in that sense, it won't affect strategy. Uh, obviously, um, having a, uh, ED and a CEO in place, um, means that some of the longer term decisions that we need to make, um, uh, can also move forward. But very comfortable with where we are in the process, um, uh, between the C team, particularly Amanda, Robin, Jaime, um, and then there'll be actual operational folks like Maggie and everybody else. It's business as usual. Um, and so in that sense, um, it is not slowing anything down. Um, and people we're talking to people are coming in or coming in with, um, their eyes open, right? That this role, um, is, is about, um, looking at what the community wants, looking at the vision and what we have set out and helping us get there, um, in a meaningful way and supporting whether it's fundraising or technology, privacy, code of conduct. So it's more of a support function. So in that sense, I'm not seeing, um, um, that this, uh, transition affecting, uh, long-term strategy as well. Obviously strategy is never static in the sense that year or two from now there'll be new challenges, new opportunities. So the ED and CEO will play an active role in that. Um, but, uh, there's no, the change in leadership here, uh, wasn't really about a change in strategy, right? Um, an existing leader, um, feeling like they've done a lot and wanting to try other things in their personal and professional life and us feeling pretty good about where we are and saying that, um, uh, we can move forward and, uh, let's begin the search for a new leader. So, um, things are not going to be significantly different. Thanks. Great. Thank you for speaking more directly to that. I really appreciate, uh, your answer. I'm sure that others out there do as well. So let's go ahead and keep on movement strategy. There's a question about how much should we spend on movement strategy? Either James or Maria can take this one. I'm happy to take it. Um, unless James wants to, to discuss, but yeah, um, generally speaking, uh, movement strategy was about 1.6% of the total expenditure of the foundation since the work launched. Uh, more or less hovering at around little bit above 1% the past couple of years. So since we began in, in fiscal year 1617 to fiscal year 1920, uh, it would be, um, around 5 million, um, US dollars. Great. Thank you so much for that. All right. Now there's, um, there's been a question here about the progress towards creating a movement charter and a global council. Could someone speak to that? Can I interject? Uh, and somebody slapped me down if this is out of process, but I kind of like to say something about the, how much we spent on movement strategy and the increasing difficulty of measuring that. And now I've raised that. So is that okay? Yes, Maggie. Go ahead. Thank you. I just wanted to say that, um, I've come up with my own little catchphrase because I like to do that. I'm starting to think of movement strategy as the water we swim in and the air we breathe. I mean, we agreed that this was the most important work to do for the movement. And it should really be just about everything we do. And I think increasingly, particularly as I'm part of the annual planning process for the foundation, I see movement strategy everywhere. Just all of it, you know, as we, as we are looking at increasing funding towards emerging communities, that is movement strategy. So in many ways, I think it's going to become increasingly more difficult to say we've spent X on movement strategy because more and more movement strategy is everything. So sorry for the interjection. I just felt like it was, it was important to potentially point that out. I will now subside some embarrassment. If I may jump in Jackie, I think from a board perspective, this is one of the most important things we will do. So, um, it's never been a fun question of like saying, do we have enough money to spend against movement strategy? It's always been of saying, what does the movement strategy need to be articulated, get the word out to get the community engagement? And I don't think resources have been a constraint at all. And won't be honestly, because it's the most important thing we do in coming years. So we could try to figure out a way to add up and do a lot of accounting and say, this is exactly how much we're spending, but I think the another way to look at this is to say, does the movement strategy work need or have all the resources it needs? And I think the answer to that continues to be yes, resounding. Yes. Thanks. I think that those additional answers really provided more context. So thank you both for providing that. So let's go back to the question that I mentioned before you all had to add that content. What is the progress toward creating a movement charter and a global council? Maggie, can you please take it? Sure can.  Okay. So this is a major commitment right about foundation and the community resilience and sustainability team over this quarter and moving very firmly into the next fiscal year, which begins July 1st. So the intention is to start doing the conversations around the movement charter drafting committee and how we can make this work happen. We're hoping that we will have a very solid understanding and cross my fingers, maybe even a start towards getting the drafting committee in place by the end of June. That may be a little ambitious because time moves fast and it's already halfway through May, but as soon as we possibly can, we're hoping to have a drafting committee idea put together. And we're hoping to provide some support to the drafting committee through a professional consultant on what it is to craft a movement charter. And then we hope to have the movement charter worked on through the next parts of the fiscal year. We hope to be able to have lots of consultations with community about how this will work, about what ratification will look like, about how we make sure that it's truly representative of the broader movement and put together the global council based on the outcomes of that. I'm sorry I spoke too quickly. I get excited and I do that. If anybody needs me to slow down and say anything over again, please just tell me. Great. Thank you everyone for these submitted questions and topics ahead of time. I think now is time. Shawnee, do you think to move next to the ask us anything portion of the office hour? Yes, let's please do. Great. So again, friends, you may ask questions wherever you are and that might, we have people who are watching those channels. So for you, that might be YouTube. That might be the Wikipedia weekly Facebook group. That might be the Wikimedia general chat telegram group. And that might also be on the office hour discussion page on meta, or if you are present in the room with us, you may either raise your hand or do this in a chat. And we will get you in the queue. All right, in the zoom room, nose back there, please. Go ahead. And again, let's keep it concise. In the interest of time, please. Will do. I did also just email this. So please remove that from that one. So my question is thus, how would the WMF improve cases where a WMF team just fails to answer questions, or indeed even refuses to say they won't answer it. But the project continues to give an example. The IP masking project has had pending questions of WMF legal for well over two months, but our only point of contact is not in that team and it feels mean to keep shouting at him when it's clearly not his fault. Can I ask you maybe to phrase that question a little more simply because we do have some folks on the call who are not native English speakers. So could you phrase that a little more simply, please? Okay. So without example, how would the WMF handle just getting teams to talk to the communities when they aren't answering questions they've been asked when they the teams aren't answering questions that they the teams have been asked. In this case, the team itself, the team running, sorry, let's start again. Sorry. The tech team is nicely communicative, but the questions are of legal and they're waiting on legal and legal aren't answering the questions. Okay. So I'm, is it okay with y'all CAC if I take this one, even though I don't, I mean what I'm actually going to say is beats me, but I want to say it a little more eloquently than that. So as I've been working at the foundation for nearly 10 years now and I started with a job trying to improve communication between the foundation and staff, it quickly became obvious to me that one of the biggest challenges we had is that staff are not able to answer questions as quickly or sometimes even as often as the community would like because they're, they're working. And that is not to say that answering community questions isn't important, which is why we have a whole bunch of facilitators who do exactly that, but I happen to have some insight into what the lawyers do. And these people are pretty busy. So there's a lot that goes into when questions are answered and how and where they're asked. And yeah, Shania saying in the side, we're hoping that the communication strategy will help having clear places to submit questions to and knowing who to talk to. So if a question appears on a meta page for a lawyer, for example, the lawyer being asked may not know the answer. They might have to go after other people to chase it down. They may have to consult. They may have to analyze what is legally risky to say in public. There's a lot of complexity to answering questions. Sometimes it isn't obvious to the people who are asking them. So, and when you add all of that, they also have contracts to process and legal demands to answer from lawyers in other countries. It may simply be sometimes that we just don't have the systems in place for people to be able to answer in the timely fashion necessary. So probably I should have let Mayor handle this because the communication strategy may well provide a solution. Mayor, do you have anything to add? Just to emphasize the last part of that point. I imagine. Yeah. Any responses, particularly for the legal nature. There might be things that they can't say, and they can't say that they can't say, and you won't know that they can't say that they can't say. So it's just, I can imagine with legal things, there are certain things that, so I think the answer to the question is in the question that maybe if it's a legal thing, then they can't say. That might also be, and I don't, I know nothing about this particular case, but I'm just guessing if it's a legal question. I would like to add to these two great comments. Yes, sometimes legal responses take time and they're not, they cannot be super immediate because there's a need to consult. But also, and I understand how frustrating it can be that it's been 10 weeks and there's no response. Perhaps because of the times in which we are in currently, I would ask for a little grace. There is, there are backlogs right now. We come from a very difficult year. And the teams like everyone else in the world have been struggling and trying to do their best. So I know that two months may sound like a lot. But it's, it's beyond it being a legal question. There is a human aspect there of asking for a little bit of extra patience in this particular context we're living in. I just wanted to mention it. I think to Raju here, I think to Shani's point as well, the CSC can become an additional layer if something feels like completely bottlenecked and no answer is forthcoming, good to flag the CSC and then we could see what, usually there are always good reasons for it, but sometimes it could have slipped through the cracks or something. But so I think that could also be an additional level of bringing a response back. Great. Thank you everyone for those responses and thanks to Knows Bag Bear for that question. Let's go ahead and go on to another question that was received. How much have we managed to adapt to the strategy in regard to how the pandemic has come to change how we interact? Is that more simply how much has the pandemic changed the way we meet regarding the strategy? I'm happy to take a stab at it and people can absolutely join their voices afterwards. The pandemic has affected how we talk and discuss about the strategy a lot. I mean, we've, we've been a movement that's been doing the bulk of the strategy work in meetings, in person meetings, in person conferences. We met to be able to discuss because oftentimes a weekend in person can be much faster than a series of emails over the course of a few weeks. And suddenly we cannot travel anymore and we have to move online, right? And it comes with a huge set of challenges. I know that there was a lot of zoom fatigue at the end of last year when we're having the global conversations related to strategy because it's difficult to do many hours in front of a screen. The time difference becomes a huge issue because you want to be as open and available to everyone. And it's really difficult to achieve because what it's, what can be 3 p.m. for a person, it can be 4 a.m. for another, right? It's been really challenging. We're not the only ones who have been facing these challenges. And I think something we've been trying to promote is how do we make sure that we can still have all the voices in the conversations that we don't lose people just because time availability has become an issue as well. There's less availability. People are going through a global pandemic. Time has become something that's pretty scarce, particularly for folks in certain communities, right? Depending on which months, even we were at, there were certain communities that were more or less affected. We've tried to move forward as much as possible so that we didn't come to a complete halt. The conversations have continued happening, but it's true that it has been a very challenging time. And trying to not lose voices, trying not to lose perspectives has been one of the greatest challenges we've been facing. And also, it also matters that, you know, we've been having these conversations as well in English, right? Happening as exclusive in English. So we try to provide translation. We try to make sure that we're having the documentation out as soon as possible as well so that people can access it. But at the end of the day, it means a lot of time. And again, that's right now, that time can be very scarce for a lot of people. So it's been challenging. Just to kind of broaden that answer, Raju, again, it's not just the movement strategy. And as James put in the comments, I think it's affected everything. I'll give you a simple example of some of the challenges, which could explain why some responses might be getting delayed. One of the great strengths of the foundation, particularly for our tech team, has been that, you know, we are mission-driven, you have high impact, and you can work anywhere you want to. That worked beautifully as well as it could in attracting strong tech talent, because we don't really pay the kind of salaries that tech companies pay, because people could work in North Carolina, wherever they wanted to. But once the pandemic came along, and everybody went online, every company out there said you can work wherever you want. So all of a sudden we are seeing significant challenges to our ability to attract people to kind of put against some of the priority projects that require tech. So in a way, it's affecting everything we're doing, some things for the better. For example, even if we, when we go back to live Wikimanias, I think the ability for a lot more people around the world without worrying about visas and passports and travel can now join. So I think some kind of positive elements will come out, but there are other areas where we're going to be challenged in how do we attract and retain staff, and one of the core benefits of working for the foundation is kind of leveled out. So a lot of work to be done in taking the lessons from this past year and applying some good ones and trying to kind of see what makes sense and what doesn't. Thanks. Thank you for the answers. I'm going to go ahead and I'm sorry, I think I missed some questions from raised hands in the room. My view didn't allow me to see you. So sorry about that. So I will go to Ferros and then we'll do, and pardon me, I don't know how to say your username. So I'm just going to go for it. There's field checkers or yours field checkers. And then Chico. Hi, Richard Nipel, user Ferros coming to you from Brooklyn, Brooklyn, I want to thank, thank the staff and the board for working on the, on the board elections and thinking about it a little bit creatively this time and having, you know, the consultation about different, different ways of approaching it. We had an approach that sort of came up in one of the March meetings about having support for, for board candidates and potential board candidates. And the idea was of having, thank you, thank you Jackie for posting that, of having maybe some peer mentorship from board members or from former board members to give some, a little bit of a culture of invitation. So people who might consider running, might talk to someone who served in the role and get, you know, feel that it's a real thing, feel that something that might be appropriate for them. And I've invited some people to participate and thank you to, to those who have, and I wonder if, if, if, if some folks, especially the board members on the call, might be interested in participating and helping to have, you know, maybe short mentorship sessions with potential candidates, particularly trying to emphasize outreach to underrepresented communities. Because I do think one of the weaknesses of the elections in recent years has been, has been the candidate pool and expanding the candidate pool might solve some of the problem, not all of it. Thanks. Okay. I believe that Shawnee has posted in the chat, in the chat, maybe her connection is not so good right now. Said that this needs to be discussed internally. We'll do that and get back to you. So let me just go ahead and go to. The first bill checkers. Good evening. I'm Jonathan, which can be pronounced as first bill checkers. Question for, for the board. Please, can we have a visual search routine on Commons? I search routine where we can say, please can we show us what images look like this image, either the one that's on Commons or one that's off it. So we can say, So we can say, okay, we have a photograph of this particular building that we can't use for copyright reasons. Do we have one of the same thing on comments or something similar to it? With, you know, Gene Trialman here, you know, one way I have personally addressed this issue is simply using Google image search.  Whether or not we should build something like that internally, I, you know, I'm not a tech person. I have no idea how difficult that would be to build or whether or not, you know, there's an open source, you know, open source software already available that does this. So I'm not 100% sure if this is something we could easily do internally. Thanks, I'll go play with the Google image search, see if that does what I want. All right, great. Now I'd like to invite Chico to ask your question in the room. Hey, my question is a little bit more challenging and I understand we won't have definitive answers here, but I want to ask on Raju's point that you mentioned that more companies are allowing for remote work now. And one of the things that strikes me that would improve WMF's ability to hire people would be to stop the practice of moving salaries based on the person's place of residence. So basically WMF pays very differently based on where that person, that staff or contractor lives and so my question is what's the board thoughts on that even after the pandemic and more remote work becomes more widespread. Thanks Chico, Raju here. To be honest, it's not the level of granularity that the board, this board typically gets into, right? Where our role is to say, ask the questions about is there anything we can do to help if we are facing challenges to staffing retaining asking questions about if the retention rates are falling or if some priority projects are slowing and saying if the issue is people then asking the question about what can we do to help? Is it a bottleneck of resources? But happy, I think one of the staff members should take this idea back to Robin who heads up our talent management. Obviously it involves making a decision that is long term because these are decisions you don't wanna make on a tactical basis. So I think it's a suggestion that the staff can take back to the TNC team. Thank you though for suggesting a way to deal with it. Well, thank you everyone for joining us for this first office hours and hopefully this will be the first of many. We're going to go ahead and wrap up the recorded portion of this office hour and have a simple chat afterwards that's going to be just a more relaxed format. So please, if you were able, stick around but this will not be a recording portion. Thank you so much for joining us. I'll try to see if you can hear me now. Can you say I'm out of all at all? You are currently. Awesome. So I just wanna take a moment to say thank you again. This has been a long time dream for me to have this channel between the board and the staff. Shani, I believe we've lost you. Perhaps turn off your video for this closing. Can you hear me better now? Yes, there you are. We need to incorporate some...


Internal Revenue Service IRS tax news. IRS nationwide tax forum kicks off July 19th and you best be there or the IRS may kick you off. Just kidding. I don't even know what that means. But first, an attempt at a joke.  Eating me out of house and home.  Except that this administration drives you out with inflation. That's inflation for ya.  Somebody's getting fed. Please stop stuffing your face.   You don't understand, Mom. You just don't understand. And you're like, but wait a second here. I saw you. I saw you taking a shot. Like five seconds ago, throw my own food in my face. But they're like, no, you don't understand. It was Putin. Come here from Russia. And then he colluded with like that guy that runs the gas station down at the corner. They're totally the ones that threw your own food in your face. And you should totally be pissed at those food throwing people. I don't buy it. I don't buy it. I don't buy it. I don't buy it. I don't buy it. July 14th is the last day to register for all 32 webinars. IRS YouTube video on down below for the 2022 IRS nationwide tax form. There's a link to that here. IR 2022-134 July 11th, 2022 Washington. This Thursday, July 14th is the last day for tax professionals to register to attend the 2022 IRS nationwide tax forum and have access to all 32 webinars, including a keynote address by IRS Commissioner Chuck Reddick, updated on tax law, cybersecurity, practitioner ethics and more. There's even more than those wonderful topics when you go to this event. The 2021 virtual event is being held over a five week period from July 19th through August 18th. Webinars will be live streamed on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of each week. You still have Monday and Friday as well as the weekend, which you would normally have to rock and roll or whatever. To guarantee access to a webinar registration must be completed a minimum of three business days in advance. Participants who register after July 14th will not have access to the full lineup of webinars. You want access to the full lineup? Let me tell you what, practitioners are encouraged to view the forum schedule. There's a link to that forum schedule here and course descriptions. There's a link to the course descriptions and you're encouraged to click those links as they state to plan their experience. For more information to register, you can visit IRS nationwide tax forum and there's a link to that here. Tax forum virtual expo included with their registration. The attendees may also visit the forum's virtual expo with dozens of exhibitors representing tax and business services, IRS associate and partners, and key IRS offices and initiatives in the quote IRS zone end quote. It's like the end zone, but it's the IRS zone. So the expo will be staffed from noon 2pm and three to 5pm Eastern time every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, as we said before, giving you that Monday and Friday for those long, super long weekends, permitting attendees to interact with exhibitors. However, registrants will have access to most expo context 24 hours a day from the entire length of the forum. Focus groups and digital product demos. That's going to be interesting stuff as a special feature of the 2022 forum. The IRS invites attendees to participate in one or more virtual focus groups. Focus groups are arranged around the following topics. So this is the focus of the focus group, if you will, hence the name of the focus group. Improving the taxpayer experience and IRS services, improving the taxpayer experience and IRS outreach. We certainly need some focusing on those with those get some groups together on those things. Tax pro account and business online account, digital asset transactions, tax treatment of retirement distributions, Affordable Care Act forms, IRS online accounts, responding to IRS correspondence audit notices, taxpayer civil rights, are your clients receiving the services they need, online tax tools and resources for refundable credits to pass the present and the future. That's the catchiest name of all of them for a creative name on that one. So in addition to our focus groups, the Office of Online Services will conduct demonstrations of the IRS tax pro and individual online accounts, demonstrations live of IRS stuff, continuing education CE. So this is what people are really looking for, right? Finally, just tell me how many, how many credits can I get on this before I get into my long weekends on the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Attendance at any of the 2022 nationwide tax form webinars qualifies as continuing education CE for enrolled agents, certified public accountants, annual filing season program participants, California Tax Education Council, CTEC participants and certified financial planner CFP. Note, with four seminars this year presented in both English and Spanish, participants can earn up to 28 continuing education credits. That sounds good. As long as I got those long weekends in there. Attorneys, please check with your state bar to determine whether participation in the IRS nationwide tax form seminars qualifies for continuing legal education credits. Visit the CE and CFP certification page. There's a link to that here for more information. Registration information. Here's what you need people to get this done. For more information to register online, you can visit IRS nationwide tax form. There's a link to here. There's links to that other stuff, all the stuff that I said there's a link to. It's on this page and there'll be a link to this in the description.


Welcome everyone and happy Sabbath. Welcome to the fifth lesson of the fourth quarter of the teens cornerstone lesson 2023. From the orchestra, we have Seed on the piano, Amy on the violin, and from a wonderful panelist, we have Jabari, Elsie, and Misiti, and our wonderful teens teacher. My name is Mikael Flex and I will be taking you through the mission story. But before we do that, let's have a word of prayer. For in just name, we thank you for this wonderful day. We ask, O Lord, that as we go through this lesson, your will will be done, O Lord, and your spirit may come to everyone, and that everyone who's watching may understand. For this I pray, in just name, amen. Bringing Father to church, that is the title of today's story. It talks about a six-year-old girl who loves the Sabbath. Her name is Mehfumal. Mehfumal loves singing about God. She loves reading Bible stories, and above all, she loves praying to God. But she noticed that her mother was not happy because her father was not in church. He was at home, and she also noticed that the mother was not sleeping very well. She had nightmares at night. Now the father came home and asked, what's wrong? Why don't you sleep well? The mother replied, we might be married, but we're not united. Puzzled, the father asked, what do you mean by this? Mehfumal also wondered what mother meant. She said, the mother, despite everything you have provided for me, I am still not happy. At church, we are taught that we should pray together, read the Bible together, and above all, we should go to church together. Now, father frowned and said, it isn't important to go to church together. Mother was very sad, and she did not know what to do. All she could do was cry. Now, when Mehfumal saw her mother crying, she also became sad. Came to her mother and said, mother, have you talked to God? The next time Mehfumal saw her mother cry, she asked again, mother, have you talked to God? Hearing this, mother finally prayed to God, and while she was praying, she came up with a brilliant idea. She called Mehfumal and said, Mehfumal, I want you, every Sabbath, to go tell your father what you learned at church that day. To the first Sabbath, she came and she told her father what Abraham, how he was a man of faith, and everything God told him to do, including getting out of his home, and he did without questioning. The foreign Sabbath, she also came and told the father about how Jesus was baptized. Two years passed, and Mehfumal kept telling father what she learned at church. Father still did not come to church. Now, Mehfumal reached eight, and she was finally invited to speak at the church. Every children will participate in the children's Sabbath, and Mehfumal will preach. She came to her father and invited him, and father did come to church. Although he did come late, he still heard the little girl preach. Mehfumal spoke to the parents and told the parents, father and mothers, to go and teach the children how to pray. She told the children that they should also be praying for the parents. Now, when they came back home before bedtime, Mehfumal came to her father and said, Father, before you go to work, you dress nicely and dress so you're not late. But when you came, when you invited to church, you did not come late, you did not come early, and you still did not dress up that night. Then she prayed, please God, don't give up on my dad, save us, amen. Oh, the father was heartbroken crying. And the next time, he did come to church. And the Sabbath after that, he gave his life to Christ and was baptized. Now, the Sabbaths continued, and they were very happy. The Bandar, the father, and Mehfumal all at once. Part of this quarter's 13th Sabbath offering will help open a seventh day Adventist school in Mehfumal's home country of Cameroon, where children will be able to learn about the good who hears prayers. Thank you for planning a generous offering next month. I'm going through lesson five, titled, Trading Leaders. And here with me, I have a wonderful panel made up of Mona Lisa to my furthest right, Jabari right next to me on the right. I have Misati next to me on the left, and Elsie Dahmer at the very end. And I begin by asking my brother, Jabari, to take us through the key text and the what do you think section. Jabari, go ahead. So for the key texts, we have to one of them, first Samuel 8, 19, and 20, which says, but the people refused to listen to Samuel.  And for the second one, first Samuel chapter two verse seven, which says, the Lord sends poverty and wealth, he humbles and he exhorts. So for the what do you think section? Would you rather depend on how God leads you or on how human culture leads you? Over here, we have three examples and for each, we should see what God's plan is and man's plan. So for the first, if someone's tempted to retake revenge on someone who has wronged you. So teacher Eugene, what's God's plan? In the Bible, we read that vengeance belongs to the Lord. In the book of Romans, the Lord will repay. So God's plan would always be for us to commit ourselves to him. Like his son, Jesus Christ did when he was crucified. Remember the prayer he prayed for the people who crucified him. He said, father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. So that is the posture for God and that should be our plan as well. Okay, and man's plan, what's the human attitude towards getting back to Samuel? I think we're very vengeful at our core. What do you think, Ms. Arte? I absolutely agree, because as human beings, it's always that you want to get back that which someone stole from you or how someone wronged you often. Like, how can I suffer alone? No, let's suffer a lot of us. In the book of John chapter three, we read that this is the condemnation of the world. Light has come into the world, but men prefer darkness. And in the case of revenge, men prefer vengeance. But they've always said when you embark on a plan for revenge, dig two graves. So it's a very dangerous path as well. Well, for the next example, if you attempted to gossip, what's God's plan, Elsie? If you attempted to gossip, I think God's plan would keep away from fellow gossipers and work in the right path. You see a group of people, for example girls, common in girls' high schools, during break time or lunchtime, find a group of three girls and they're gossiping. The thing you'd like to do is join them, but what God is asking people to do is to just walk away and pretend they're not there, find something else, do something even more constructive than joining them to gossip. Well, for man's plan, I think I can answer that. Well, human beings usually, by nature, we really want to know what someone has done, what's happened, so we really shouldn't. So really, when someone has, as people call it, tea, you really want them to tell you what they do. In fact, you can even nag them so you have to know. Yeah. Lisa, any thoughts before we move on? Sure. I was going through a few Bible verses and most of them are found in Proverbs that speak about, like, Proverbs 16, 28 says, a perverse person starts up conflict and gossip separate close friends. The words of a gossip are like choice more self. They go down to the inn most parts. They say, usually, the tongue is the smallest organ of the body, but it's the mightiest weapon. And the Psalmist says in Psalm 141, I believe, set a guard on my tongue. And, you know, guard the doors of my lips. That would show God's plan, but as humans, he is sweet when soft cold. But let's know what the Bible, or that's not God's plan for those who walk in his footsteps. OK. For the last example, we have being tempted to steal something you want but cannot afford. So Teacher Rijin, what's God's plan? God's plan, when we attempted to steal, is contentment. I think it's Timothy, who was a letter by Paul to Timothy, where he wrote, Godliness with contentment is a great gain. So God's plan is for us to be happy with what he has already given us. And quite honestly, he's given us a lot, right? If you look at our lives in comparison to the lives of many others, we are privileged. And because of all these graces God has given us, there's no reason for us to desire something that belongs to someone else. So God's plan is always contentment. But it's very hard to be content when our eyes are always looking over the fence, right? Maybe you guys live in neighborhoods where the walls are too high for you to see. But it's very hard to avoid seeing the prosperity of others.  One example that comes to mind is the story of Joseph and his brothers. Joseph had a dream, right? And him and his brothers were stars. His parents were the sun and moon. And then the stars came down to bow, right? The only thing his brothers saw was the bowing parts. They did not recognize that they were also stars, right? So we can miss our gifts by comparing ourselves to others. Comparison is the thief of joy.  So contentment is God's plan. Oh, and man's plan, he said, would you like to answer that? So man's plan would be, take it. I'll have it for myself. That is, or you would actually, you'd find a way of acquiring that good by fraudulent or corrupt means. Because if you really want that thing and God knows the desire of your heart, that you desire such a thing, God would make a way for you to acquire it by honest means. But of course, the heart is wicked.  But then, so in other words, you'd look for corrupt means to acquire that same good.  And I think that's often, like, the way of man. Couldn't agree more. Just to add a little wisdom there. Life is a journey where we learn to develop the ability to pay the price, all right? Otherwise, you'll go through life as a window shopper. With nothing in your bag, right? So even though we want things, we must ask ourselves, are we ready to pay the price for those things? Because if you are, eventually you will have it. Before we go into the story with Misati, let me just say one thing from our key text. Israel's era, in asking for a king who was forgetting that they already had a king. And in the book of Hosea, chapter 13 and verse 10, the prophet of the Lord says, I will be your king. Where is any other that he may save you in all your cities?   So this shows us something about God that God desired to be the king over the children of Israel. And he was actually hurt when they asked for a king because he thought he was their king. So sometimes we can clamor for people to lead us to influence us, but God wants to be the main influencer of our lives. So Misati, please take us into the story. So jumping right into the story, we look at Samuel and Samuel is anointing Saul. So God had made it clear to Samuel that Saul would be the king. So Saul, Samuel goes up to Saul and takes olive oil and pours it on his head. In the moment Saul is anointed, Samuel indicates to him that I want you to fulfill very specific instructions, very specific. So he would go on to Gibeah. Then at Gibeah he would meet three men. The first man would be carrying three young goats. The second man would be carrying three loaves of bread. And the third man would be carrying a skin of wine. So what would happen is that Saul was to be given two loaves of bread and then he would accept them. Then after accepting the loaves of bread, he would go even farther. And as he went farther, he would meet some priests. And these priests would be sort of, they were like a band. They had liars, they had harps, they have stuff, so they were like a band. Then Saul would be enjoined to these people and would begin to celebrate and even prophesy. So he would begin prophesy. It all seems like he would start to speak in tongues, maybe. But he would prophesy. He would prophesy with these people and then his heart would be changed. So Saul goes his way and this time, remember we're not at the point of the ban of Herem and King Agag. The guy's quite obedient at this point. So he goes out and he follows exactly what God wants him to do and at that time, the signs are fulfilled in that day and Saul's heart is changed. The man's a changed man at the end of that day. Then someone goes on to the people and says, I want to bring you all together, gather here. And as they gathered there, they did their things and the tribe of Benjamin was picked. And within the tribe of Benjamin, the clan of Matri was picked. And within the clan of Matri, Saul, son of Kish was picked. Then Paul was like, where is Saul?  He's hiding with their food and stuff. He's hiding with their tent gear. Okay, that looks a bit sketchy. It's like, why is the king among supplies? Then he will go for him. And then when he enters, everyone stunned. It almost feels like they hadn't noticed him before. Maybe he was obscure. But when he enters in, everyone's shocked. Why? Because he was ahead and he was ahead taller than even the tallest man there. He was in essence a goliath of over them. He just looked huge. And Paul like, yes, this is our king. Because people will look at the outside. So Paul like, yes, this is our king. Then someone asks them, will this man be your king? And he says, yes, he shall be our king. Wow, it's a fantastic story, guys. So out of the story now, we'll begin with the second question. What prompted the people of Israel to want a human king? What do you think, Elsie? I think the Israelites, first of all, there's this thing that my mom normally tells me. When you associate yourself with the world too much, you begin to want what they want. And some people might think that's because I'm relating with them. It's easier for me to save them. But in essence, when you let them more, the more you lose the savior's touch. So the Israelites, when they were among the heathens, they saw that they had kings, but then they have no king. They only have maybe judges and God is the supreme leader. So the more they intermitted with those people, the more they stayed among them, the more they lost focus. And the more they continued wanting to be like them. They wanted to be like other nations more and more and more until they decided, no, we don't want some of them as a priest, our judge, we want a real king. So I think that's what prompted the people of Israel to want a king. Yes, I couldn't agree more. The Bible says do not be conformed to the world, but be renewed in your mind. And I feel like imitation in many cases is suicide because you deny yourself your own personality. And it is very true that it is very easy for us to be drawn away by the world. When we look at how they live, we want to be like them, not realizing that we are called to be a peculiar people. Amen. The next question we could ponder over is the second last question. Why was Samuel so specific in the instructions that he gave to Saul? Annalisa, what do you think? Thank you for the question. Samuel was acting on behalf of God. And from the very onset, even in the Garden of Eden, we see God as a God of order. He's always very specific with the instructions he gives. To Adam, he said, do not eat from this specific tree in this specific location. And through when you go even with Abraham and the building of the Tabernacles, it was specific even to the curtain that was supposed to be in the temple.  And I believe Solomon was acting on that premise that my God is a God of order. There's a way he likes to do his things and we have to keep his instructions to the latter. Thank you. Amen. And lastly, in what ways do you think Saul had what it took to lead a group of people? In what ways did he not? Misati. So the way I see he had the capacity to lead people was with his tenacity. The way he would always pursue things to the very end, the particular story that stands out in my mind is a time where his father's donkeys were lost. And what he did is he went out and he searched for those donkeys and never stopped until he found the donkey. That's sort of like endurance, perseverance, going for exactly what he needs. That's a positive thing, as I see it. But now on the flip side, if I look at the tests that Saul was subjected to, I can see here that maybe he had an issue following instructions to the latter, like specific instructions, he had an issue.  He's king, we can keep him alive to torture him a bit. Let's keep people who look okay, who look nice. And at that point it was like, God, maybe you never meant everyone, you know? Like, it's not everyone, just dons who look like this. They don't look that nice, but animals that don't look as well. So I think that's an issue he had. He was not able to follow instructions to the latter. Wow. I would say in the ways in which he did not have what it takes to lead, is that he cared too much about people. He was a people pleaser, and there's a quote I love by Ravenhill, Leonard Ravenhill. If we displease God, does it matter who we please? And if we please God, does it matter who? We displease, right? So I think that's a lesson we can take from here.  And we know that is how our politicians roll. You know, that's how our celebrities roll, but that's not how children of God are supposed to be. Maybe we can read one punchline and then move on to the quotes from Patrick's and Prophet's Jabari. Please read us the last punchline, verse chronicles, 29 verse nine. And it says, the people rejoiced at the willing response of their leaders for they are given the freely and wholeheartedly to the Lord. David the king also rejoiced greatly. Amen. This is wonderful. The people rejoiced because of the given of their leaders. Leaders have an impact on us that is so powerful and vast. The sins of the great command imitation, and so do their virtues. So whenever you guys end up in leadership positions, even those who are watching, if you end up in a position of leadership, remember that people are following you. And the example you give will follow them through life. Two major sins that appear in this story are envy, jealousy, and pride. Else we'll take this through Tuesday and Thursday that highlight these two sins. Elsie. All right, maybe before we proceed there, I wanted to add on the second last question we did. Why Samar was so specific on the instructions he gave to Saul. Imagine you've been anointed by God, yes? And then someone tells you everything that is going to happen in the minutes to follow. You might, first of all, I think, okay, I've read Samar that Saul before he was anointed was not, I don't have to say this, but he was not in Jesus' holy, like he was not fully converted. And so when Samuel gave him those instructions afterwards and he saw them to actually come to pass, he was like, and now it's God who's anointed me. So it was a way of affirming Saul and telling him, yes, it is you, you are the chosen one. And then when all those things happened, he went on to prophesy and dance with those guys in a kind of celebratory mood that all these things have happened and I knew it's God who's done it for me. Amen. Yes. Now to the Tuesday part, I'd like Jabari to read for us Proverbs chapter 14 verse 30. Proverbs? Proverbs chapter 14 verse 30. Let me jump in, because I find this very fascinating, that a sound heart is life to the body, but envy is the rottenness to the bones. Interesting, let's dig deep. All right, so the flashlight section gives us some insights from inspired commentary on the texts we have been studying. Now Ellen White uses a few words that are interesting, jealousy and envy, and this are the first two that jump off the page. Do these words have any meaning in your life? As a woman, and I know we men can be very jealous of each other, even in school, like whatever happens to you, you get a good grade, there's always that girl at the back of the class who just like, funny, she thinks now she's the best at school, she got a 19 cam, or when you're elected into the student's government, they're all hating on you, so jealousy and envy as a woman, I, it is, it is part and parcel of my life. So Eugene, what do you think? Yeah, envy is ignorance, I've had it said, and it is because when we are envious, we do not see ourselves, and the blessings that God has given us. And then also, envy is natural to all men, everyone has envied, envy is as early as three and two. If you wanna see envy, just put two kids in a room, take one toy and give it to one of the kids before long World War Three happens, right? Envy is innate, so we all need help with envy, and I think the best way to overcome envy is to acknowledge it and to celebrate people, even when it hurts, right? We just had a wedding here, and I'm sure there were people in the crowd picturing themselves on the podium, right? Rehearsing their vows, even though they don't have a ring yet, and that's okay as long as after the wedding, you compliment the bride and groom and congratulate them. It's very hard to congratulate people, especially when you want what they have. But here's the thing, God will often give you, give someone else what you want before you to test you. And it will often put you under someone who you're going to replace, like David was put under sore. So it's usually a test. I'm to the next question, and the next two questions. Have you ever asked for things out of jealousy or envy? And have they ever been the motivating factor in purchasing something or saying something or looking or acting in a certain way inside of you? I think those are really loaded questions. Asking, I think I see someone with something, I'm like, I would really want that thing. I really, really want it. Nothing's jumping to memory immediately, but yes, I am so sure I've ever asked for something. Is it a good time to ponder what motivates us to do the things we do? But usually a negative outcome occurs when we do something out of jealousy and envy. And I can always testify of this. Anything you do out of a bad motive will always go southwards. No matter how hard you try to make it appear as if, oh, I'm an angel, I'm just pushing them well. But if you're jealous or if you're envious in your heart, it always comes out in the end. I don't know how, but it just does. Even to use that very same analogy of where you put two kids in a room, give one a toy. I think envy is where one kid is like, why them? That's envy. Although now being happy for someone could we play together? That's right. It's great you have the toy. Now, are you open for us sharing the toy? I respect the ownership of the toy. I'm happy you have the toy. So I'm like, could we play together with the toy? I think that's like overcoming envy. Wow. Any thoughts, guys? I see you guys nodding, but what are your different thoughts? Well, I was just thinking about like what usually happens with iPhones, right? Wow. You know, you find someone with maybe even an iPhone 14, months later, they've bought the 15. And it's just months later and the iPhone 14 is perfectly fine. The only reason why they're buying it is because they've either seen someone with it or they want the status from having that thing. I didn't even know they were at 14. They left me at 10. Wow. Yeah, that's true. We live in a very materialistic culture. But we buy things because other people have them or because we need them. That is very true, yeah. I have a question. Yeah. Does when you act on something or to the question, the motivating factor of something, are you looking or acting a certain type of way? When you look or act that specific way, does it have to come out of envy or it could come out of a wish? Sort of mentorship or motivation sort of. Is it possible to wish something for yourself without being envious or jealous of those people? Yes, it is possible. Paul tells us in the book of Corinthians, corvette the best gifts. So it is possible to corvette something without a motivation of envy. Envy is not wanting the other person to have it. See someone with really nice hair, you're like, I wish they didn't have the hair. That's envy. All right, admiration is getting the same hairstyle and saying to people, I saw it first with, she motivated me to, you know? So that is better. Envy is when you don't want them to have it. That's pretty bad. Thank you guys. On to the Thursday section. If you have the book or a computer available, you can read the chapter 60 of Projects and Profits. And here you will see that there are many mistakes and character flaws that King Saul exhibited during his reign. One of them was during his pride or in his pride, he ordered his son Jonathan to be killed. And what happened is that when the Israelites were fighting against the Philistines, and the Philistines were in a certain plane, yes? And Jonathan and his emperor had gone to kind of conquer. And they had decided to conquer because Jonathan, because God was with Jonathan and he had given him victory to some extent. And then when Saul saw this, he also took his army and said, we let us go and to Dambarisa Collections when finish everything. And when they went there, they did wonders. They killed and killed and blood and flesh and everything, it was very messy. And Saul was angry and he said that I don't want my army to eat. Now this was out of selfish ambition because he was saying that I don't want my army to eat because after doing all those things, it's not right for us to just plunge into eating. It was kind of glorifying himself and his army. It was not to glorify God, it was to glorify himself to kind of punish his army, saying that we could have done better. So you're not eating until I say so. So he stabbed them for a day. And after stabbing them, he allowed them to eat. And what Jonathan did not know, he was that Jonathan didn't know that his father had told people not to stab. So he was walking around in the desert and he saw a, what do you call this? The honey. Honeycomb. Honeycomb, yes. So he takes honey and then Ananyok, okay. This is a bad word. Ananyok, see you are okay. It's not a bad word. You can find the English equivalent. He was snitched on. He was someone snitched on him. Someone snitched on him and said, oh, I'm going to tell on you too, your father. You took honey. So that person goes and tells the father and then the father is like, ah, my son.  He wants to show people, yes, when I say things, I mean them.   So in his pride, as King Saul, he should have been so by enough to be like, okay, he didn't know.  I don't have to kill him. But in his pride, because he wanted to show himself, to show himself to people, he had to say, oh, I am the real OG. Whatever I say is done. So in his pride, he exhibited a lot of pride in that moment. Now, when we continue with this part, it says you should have already thought about these characteristics. You have, that would make you a great leader. Now, take some time to think about these aspects of your character that are not so great. And what can you do to eliminate those character traits that you might have been more, so that you might be effectively more sorry, so that you might be used more effectively by God. This is, it's our self reflection. You know your strengths, right? Everyone knows their strengths here. I don't know, maybe you're, you know yourself. For me, I know myself, you all know yourself.  And you know them, and you know that they can make you not be a great leader if you want to be a leader, or they can become an obstacle for you from getting into heaven. So it's our self reflection mode. So you know yourself, think about it, pray to God about it, prayer helps, it can testify. So it's, you look into yourself and you ask God to help you through this, because heaven is real. Wonderful, wonderful. I didn't want to stop you, very wonderful. Yeah, just to close off, we have to be careful not to be around people. Who make us feel like we always have to prove ourselves. I feel like Saul had a lot of yes men around him, and the pressure that was put on him to prove himself made him to make blunders. We see the same blunder done by Herod in the New Testament, where he asks for John the Baptist's head, because he didn't want to go back on his word. So we should be very careful about the people we put around us, because they can lead us to serious sin. And then in thinking about our weaknesses, later on we'll see Saul spare Agag, and I think the lesson is, sometimes we can spare a little sin in our lives that ends up being the weakness that brings our leadership down. One of the quotes I love is by Murray McShane. He says, the greatest gift I can give to my people is my personal holiness. And that applies for a pastor, for a CEO, for a mother, a wife, a father, a husband. The greatest gift you can give to your people as a leader is your personal holiness. Because when they fall from such a height, the fall is great. But when they succeed, the success trickles down to all the people who are being led. So as we close, maybe we can have a final word from all of us, and then I'll close with a prayer. If you have a final word, that is, you don't have to have one. Thank you. From lesson five, I learned three aspects. One, as Christians, sometimes we take the value of God's humanity or the value of God's love in our lives that we miss His divinity. And two, despite the trenches that we dig for ourselves, God will still come down there with us if we but call on Him. The idea is to recognize that I have fallen short and I need to call on God. He'll take away that rejection that you made and change your life or something. And the most important thing is when our prayer, when prayer becomes a habit in our lives, miracle becomes a lifestyle. Well, okay, what I've gotten from this discussion is that envious people will always end up somehow leading someone else into envy. Because let's say, for instance, you really want, maybe a phone, it's just a phone, right? Yeah. So when you finally get it, you're over the moon. And you want everyone to know that you have that phone. So whenever you put it in your pocket, you make sure it's in the smallest pocket, camera app. So everyone knows it's a knife hole. So out of that, you actually make some, sometimes it's even obvious that this person is trying to show off, they even point to places with their phone. Like, yeah, but well, out of that showing off, people will obviously also want that phone now. And when they get it, they'll be doing the same thing as you are. Cause if you look at really wealthy people who built their wealth justifiably, they're not very sure if people, the people who are showing are the people who you hear in debt. They have problems with tax institutions. Yeah, but if whatever you have is not out of envy, it will be better for you and for other people. Because if you're not showing off, people have nothing to be jealous about when it comes to you. That's fine. Sure enough, people have nothing to be jealous about. I look at the richest men in the Bible. One thing I end up noticing, yeah, these were not men who bragged earlier. These were typically very humble men who knew how to use their wealth for beneficial means. Then I look at Job, I look at Abraham, and I look at the whole range, and I'm like, you know Job was a very humble man. The guy had a nice life, it was very humble, because he judged with integrity, was credible, honest. As he even went to the degree of saying that, may God's mighty, if I did not, if I in any way denied that I could have given, or that I did not strengthen the will to me. I know some of the people who wish to model. For me, I'm just going to, as a prayer, to ask God to not give me too much that I forget who he is, and not to give me too little that I forsake him and say, oh, I'm also not going to start worshiping you, so I just go. So for me, I'm just going to ask God, even, I hope he has great things for me in the future, when I rise there in leadership positions, that I don't let the power and the pride change me. Instead, even in those places of, I don't know, power and might that I may still remember him and thank him for what he's done for me. Yeah, as a prayer, because I'm not scared. I've seen too many people get changed by power. So, hopefully, thank you in advance, God. Oh, yes, that's a brief prayer. Our Father and our God, we thank you once again for orchestrating this meeting in your providence. May the lessons we've learned remain with us for the rest of our lives, and may they bless many others. For Jesus' sake, and in Jesus' name we pray.


What's up everyone? Takedown here. Welcome back to another video. Recently I just got some very exciting news about me returning to work and I wanted to share with you guys because everybody that follows my career journey videos and checks out all of those ones, they've been asking me recently, what am I doing? How do things go? What career path am I choosing next? And we've been talking about that today as well as what happened yesterday when I received the phone call from work. So I'm pleased to announce that I am going to be finally returning to work. It's been about a year and a half now out of work. It has sucked. I have had here in Canada, they did give Serb, so I was lucky enough to be able to qualify for that. And I've been on EI ever since. My EI is supposed to run out in September, so it's perfect timing that they're calling me back to work now. Now, they're going to be opening the casino here in Ottawa, the Hard Rock. They're going to be opening at 50% capacity on August 16th and by September 1st, they're hoping to be at fully open. And I know that sounds crazy that the casino has been closed this long. In the US, since Hard Rock does own it, the US has been open for months and months. Other casinos in Ontario have been open for a couple months now. It's just ours. They had to wait. I don't know if that's because where we're located or the reason behind it. I'm not sure, but it took a year and a half for us to finally announce a reopening and I was lucky enough to be called back. Now, I am going to be going in for one training shift prior to the 16th. The one training shift, that way it doesn't affect my EI or any of that. I'll still be able to claim my EI in that, but going in for one training shift and then it should be back on the 16th starting once again. Now, again, I'm going to be working security overnight at the casino. It's going to be a challenge at first. Not only getting back into work after a year and a half, but with how I am now, I'm not 100% set that I want to do nights. I'm excited to get back to work, to be back at the casino, to be back doing nights, but I don't know how long I want to do nights for. I know since I'm at the bottom of the sonority list, being able to get afternoons, which we call swings or days, is going to be extremely difficult, even though eight full timers left and a bunch of part timers left and are not returning. It's still going to be hard for me to move away from nights based on my sonority, and I do need to get as many hours as I can. I might as well stick with nights. That way it's not split up where it's a day shift here, a swing shift there, a night shift there. It might be hopefully five days of night shift a week at the casino, which will be amazing. I'd be gladly happy to do that. The only reason I think it will be a little bit difficult is I'm in a happy relationship now. Me and my girlfriend, we have plans to move out together. This is going to help those plans, help me get enough money that we should be able to do that within the next year or so, but it also does scare me because instead of me having all this time to spend with her and her family and my family, now I'm going to be working and having to spend time after work, but also make sure I have enough sleep to go into work the next nights. So it is going to be challenging at first, but definitely we are going to make it work. I do need to find work. Again, I just don't know how long I want to do nights for. I love working nights at the casino. It's a lot of fun. A lot goes on and it's better than swings and afternoons. And days in my opinion, just because the atmosphere for mornings, it's more older people coming in the casino and it's more medicals for that reason, which I hate medicals. I'd rather kick people out that are drunk or not aren't supposed to be there. And that usually happens at night shift afternoons. You're just way too fast. You can't even catch your breath. So nights are what I prefer right now at the casino, but again, I don't know how long I want to do, want to do nights for with a bunch of people leaving. I don't know. Maybe it'll be better to do swings now or days or maybe it'll just be a nice change of pace. But again, based on seniority, I don't know if I'll be able to achieve that's one thing I've been considering. Actually, I've been considering a few things for a while now. One is to get my real estate license. That's something that interests me. I don't know if how good I'd be doing in that field because that'd be a complete change in my career path. I decided to hold off on that because it is about $6,000, which I do have enough saved. It's just, I don't know if I want to fork that over. If I don't know if I'll do it or like it. The other option is to do my use of force training because a lot of security jobs here in Ottawa are requiring that's that's something that I found out. I was supposed to have that work and they provide it at the casino. I never got it, so hopefully in a couple months they'll be able to provide it for me and I won't have to pay for it out of pocket. The only thing is doing it now. You can do it online for some reason. Doing use of force online makes no sense to me but it'd be an option for me if I did it myself. I think I might just wait for work. Another option is my private investigators license, the dual license. I only have the security guard one so I would have to take the exam, do the course for private investigator, do the exam and then write the provincial exam again I believe and then upgrade my current license to the dual one. That's an option because I see a lot of jobs there. About 20 to $30 an hour at the casino right now I'm making 19 so for now at least my plans are to stay at the casino doing nights for as long as I can. At the time that's the site closed was almost near one year. At that time I was really close to being done with nights just mentally, physically. Having a year and a half off was nice to spend time with family, with my girlfriends and everything going great there but now going back to work I want to do nights but I don't know how long I'll mentally want to do nights for it does take a toll on you. You don't get too much time to yourself and your first off day is always a rate off because you usually sleep most of the day which hopefully I'll still be able to do stuff so when it comes to me buying and selling because as you guys probably see on the channel I do buy and sell. I sell on eBay, Facebook Marketplace, do buy things to flip for profit. I will have to do that. I'm obviously going to still do that because I love doing that, love getting the extra money and especially if it's Facebook Marketplace I don't have to claim it on taxes, don't have to deal with fees, don't have to deal most of the time with shipping but it is a lot of fun and I get extra money so I am going to be doing that still but on the side with this. I'm going to be returning to part time like I was before so I could get two shifts a week, three, four, up to five shifts a week but it's not guaranteed I'll get five shifts a week since I'm part time I might start with two shifts a week but since they're just opening back up so many people left I'm sure I'm going to get the hours that I was used to before. That's at least my goal right now. I'll let you guys know in the future if I am getting my hours or what's going on at least me returning to work I am going to have once again hopefully some funny stories now whenever it comes to stories about work there is confidential issue I'm going to have to change some details, names, stuff like that but I will try to give you guys some stories and stuff like that that happen while I'm at work but hopefully I'll still be able to buy and sell flip for profit on the side make some extra money work three to four shifts a week that's my goal five shifts would be amazing but three to four shifts a week and then I'd have a couple days where I could make sales and buy things to flip that'd be awesome but also I want to make videos for you guys because I love that YouTube right now for me generates roughly 200 to $300 a month which is not a lot but it definitely does help especially since I've been off the year and a half it does add up and it is awesome that I get so much attention and so much love and support from you guys that's why I want to continue making these videos and that's why I want to share this video of what I plan on doing if I'm gonna be staying I'm obviously returning to work but for how long right now it's kind of unknown but I am thinking private investigator I am thinking once it does open up again corrections I did apply to Brinks but I don't know if they're just not hiring right now my application has been sitting for a long time if you guys want I did get requested that I make a video talking about Brinks how to apply or any armored car here in Canada to be armored guard for an armored vehicle how to do that I will make a video on that very soon I just wanted to share that I'm returning to work and that there's more videos to come about my career journey it's just been a while a lot of things weren't hiring here in Ottawa for security other than minimum wage which I just couldn't accept that right now I'd rather stay on EI and wait and hold out for something that was better and I did and that was me returning to the casino and that's going to be awesome it gets $19 an hour great benefits I'm glad to return but I do want to have a plan B of if I get tired of it what will I want to do kind of things so thank you guys for all of your love and support along with this career journey and now you guys know what I'm going to be doing with buying and selling that's going to be really part time after I get back to work and also with me doing YouTube I might have to reduce it down to two videos a week instead of the regular three videos a week we'll see I do have enough that I can do videos for months and months now but how much time am I going to have to record once I'm back to work who knows I really want to spend time once I'm back to work my free time I want to spend that with family so hopefully I'll still be able to buy and sell hopefully make videos but I'll let you guys know in the future thanks for listening thanks for watching I'll see you guys in the next video peace