Okay. See one of the principles of faith which the Lord Jesus talks about in Mark chapter 11. Mark chapter 11 verse 22, have faith in God. Verse 23, for assuredly I say to you whoever says to this mountain be removed and be cast into the sea and does not doubt in his heart but believes that those things he says will be done he will have whatever he says. Verse 24, therefore I say to you whatever things you ask when you pray believe that you receive them and you will have them. Okay. At the outset just wanted to say that you know this whole premise you know of faith and walking in faith and this thing of declaration you know is based on relationship first of all right. It's not a formula. It's based on intimacy with God. It's based on relationship and from that place is where we pray from that place is when we declare in faith speak out the words of faith. Now that's the first thing for us to remember right. The second thing is that faith speaks or in the sense when you believe in your heart and it has to be in alignment or what we speak has to be in alignment with what we believe in our hearts right because our words actually I would say betray what we actually believe in our hearts and we might say one thing you know we might say that yes this is who I am this is what I believe in this is what I do but when it comes to a pressure situation what comes out of our heart or what comes out of our mouth the words that we speak is what we actually believe. So that's what the Lord Jesus addressing is saying you know who was say you know have faith in God and then he's talking about the words that we speak of the words that come out of our mouths and then he's saying you know that the principle is this how God is a design this is how God is you know design things to be that but when we believe in our heart and we need to declare with our mouth that there will be change right and starting from the time we were born again that's that is how it is right when we believe and the greatest change of all happened when we did that right we passed from death to life and so if we have any doubt about oh does faith work or you know about speaking in faith and it seems like too much of you know too much of you know thing that wishful thinking you know how can I even how can it happen just go back to salvation this is how it was right we believe we spoke we we confessed and we passed from death to life right so so that is that is what it is so so just to remind ourselves that what we believe in our heart and what we confess with our mouth has to be in alignment so for us to remind ourselves and say okay if there needs to be an adjustment let me go back to God let me go back to his word let me spend time in his word let me spend time in his presence and make that check and make that alignment in my heart right so that the words that I speak also will be will be in alignment with in line with what I believe in right okay so let's let's just pray Father we even as we come before you this morning Lord we we draw near in faith Lord as your word says that when we draw near to you Lord you draw near to us Lord and when you draw near Father God we experience your presence we experience your touch Father God this morning I pray that there will be this drawing near Lord and I pray God that as we draw near in faith Lord that the words that we speak Father God the words that we declare out of our mouth Lord will be in alignment with the faith that we have in our hearts Lord and I just praying God that Lord if there needs to be an aligning Lord in our hearts Father God what we believe Lord and Lord and who we believe in the extent to which we believe all that Lord I pray let there be change and let there be increase Father God and Master God pray that let your word change us let your word Lord nurture or maybe be nurtured by you the words that you speak of our God and let faith rise in our hearts even today Lord pray for the impossible God faith for the challenges that we might be facing or God faith for the breakthroughs that we might be Lord expecting Father God Lord we pray Lord let faith rise in our hearts Master even as we Lord receive your word God and I pray that the words that we release would be faithful words the word declarations that we make or Father God would be in alignment with your word God would be in alignment to the true nature of who you are God and yeah maybe have breakthroughs I just pray for a release of breakthroughs among us Lord personally Lord and and as the families that we represent the master we pray that may they be breakthroughs may they be Lord the breakthroughs Father God for which we've been waiting for years God may they be breakthroughs let the barriers be broken down in the mighty name of Jesus even as we pray Lord we believe that we have received the things that we have prayed for so that we might see the manifestation of it God we thank you we thank you that it's everything is based on our relationship with you Jesus we thank you Lord you are a heavenly Father we thank you in Jesus matches name we pray amen amen okay oh yeah thank you it's good okay so we are coming to the last few topics in biblical preaching and so we today we're going to look at a few more things just want to remind us again to to work on the sermon topics sermon title you know online students just fill up the excel sheet so we can start I'll just give a date and then we can start right okay so we're looking at you know what are some tips to effective or confident speaking I'll just go through a few of these these are practical you know very practical things not really chapter and verse okay by this person called Alan Morton first thing is preparation of course you know if you're when you are prepared you are at peace you are confident not confident to the point of not having any kind of you know slight nervousness or a little bit of anxiety you know how will it be received you know that kind of a thing is normal and in fact it's helpful right for us to be alert for our bodies to be alert for our minds to be alert so that that's even helpful but not preparing unless you know it's it's like an it's like an emergency or you put on a spot and there is a need and somebody says you know please share a word and then you know not coming prepared it actually puts us in a place of disadvantage right and also again preparation you know sometimes when we have those emergency kind of situations you know God's grace covers it right God's grace covers it God's grace empowers us the spirit of God empowers us gives us inspiration and so on all that is there and when we say preparation it's not just the content but it's also mainly the heart right because problems very clearly the place the preparations of the heart belong to belong to man right when the answer of the tongue comes from the Lord right preparations of the heart yeah so so the preparation of the heart is our responsibility really right so so that's the thing okay so one is preparation practice okay so it's good to you know as we start out it's good to practice you know and then practice meaning just to speak speak out just to share you know when we are not used to speaking publicly when we hear our own voice it sounds very strange right and especially when you keep hearing it for like 10 minutes 15 minutes it sounds even stranger right because you're not used to that right so practice helps practice you know nowadays you can even record it play it back listen to it and see how it is so practice helps okay if there are mistakes if there are gophubs one thing is to persevere through that okay which means don't give up just the first time second time third time you know don't give up right press through I remember the first time public speaking in school you know the whole thing was a very different experience because you know you are so used to sitting at the desk and looking at one face which is the face of the teacher right and two pairs of eyes that's it suddenly I came forward and they were I think that time we had about 55 to 60 students in the class so you can imagine right so you know 59 pairs of eyes looking at me and of course throat went dry nothing came out you know thoughts went mind went blank and all that happened so yeah so so you know thing is to when we prepare also you know to to just tell ourselves hey it's going to be it's going to be like this this is the view from here this is how it's going to be right and yes there could be mistakes there could be gophubs you know so the thing is to persevere you know not give up but you know make those corrections and persevere so you know TRI is a good acronym to work on take action review improve like take action improve review improve the review is to think through okay could I have made it differently could I have spoken it differently could I have explained it better you know should I you know did I did I make a mistake in sharing certain things all those things you know just to review okay right we looked at sermon construction and we looked at the outline okay now all that is valid okay but in our minds you know after we prepare the sermon outline the introduction the main points the illustrations etc just in our minds to keep it keep the whole format as as simple as this which means that I'm going to tell the tell the congregation what I'm going to talk about right I'm going to talk about it and then I'm going to tell them what I have talked about which means you summarize it right so introduction is okay this is what we're going to talk about and the main body is what you are actually talking about and at the end summarizing you know a summary or review of it is this is what we studied just now this is what we looked at so in our minds if we keep it you know it's so simple and clear right so it's not really cluttered up public speaking again is you know it's it could be something that people okay some people might say I don't like it at all I I don't enjoy it but once they do that then they realize they hate this is something that I like this is something sharing especially sharing the truth of scripture is something that I enjoyed doing right so it is a pleasurable experience and our personality who we are comes through when we share okay we could be very serious we could be very research oriented we could be you know where people who really get to the depth of things asking questions etc so our really our personality comes through when we share like it could be funny we could be serious whatever it comes through and there's nothing wrong in it there's nothing wrong in it because God's word doesn't get diluted by man's personality because God ordained that the truth of scripture be shared through through the humans through human beings right it tells Jeremiah you know I put my words in your mouth and you speak it so Jeremiah had a personality like he was called at the weeping prophet right so he would he would you know be moved stirred up moved by the whole surrounding and situations and so on but God shows to speak through you know his personality as well right okay yeah so this is something that the seventh one projection is something that we can practice in the sense as part of our preparation to visualize okay this is how it will be when I go up front and look at the audience right this is how it's going to look and this is how I'm going to speak right you you play it in your mind this is how I'm going to speak and this is how I'm going to stand this is how you know I'm going to sound like and you know I will I will do this right so it becomes you become even more confident right see we don't want to be proud right but we definitely have to be confident right the message is worth being confident about right because Paul says you know that you know in the first question second question he talks about that is made us all sufficient and for this thing we are confident as ministers of God because the sufficiency comes from him right so we it's good that we deal with all those things that hit at our confidence that undermine our confidence okay so be strong in your identity go for it and be passionate about it right if you're not passionate about the message what you're sharing then I think we need to deal with it okay why is it it's it's it seems a bit boring right right through you realize that oh it's a bit boring why is it is it because I've not really come to terms with it I've not you know internalize it or I don't believe in it right all those things are there right so you know think about it be passionate in your in your communication right so as you reflect as we improve you will also make progress right that's the thing and perfection you begin to perfect how we are preaching how we are sharing it that's a few practical things but I really like to you know go into this next section which is ease to affect to preaching okay so the first thing is really to pray that's the starting point pray receive from God pray prepare our hearts many times you don't feel like you don't feel like preaching okay at the place where you are because because of things that are happening around because of challenges because of you know because of situations whatever is there you know so all that seems to affect us influences so we're not like you don't feel like preaching or whatever kind of ministry right you don't feel like sharing you don't feel like leading but we need to come to that place of being ready right so many times Sunday morning just going there I don't like gosh I wish someone else would preach today I wish I could oh I wish someone else would lead worship today so I have to lead worship and pray and preach so I wish someone would do you know either of that you know sometimes I think and then just quickly make that adjustment no no no you know I'm a child of God you know I'm a minister minister of Christ and a channel of his blessing to many people you know the our declaration it really helps you know I just I do that and I say you know I'm a child of his blessing to many people so and when we declare that we make such faithful declarations it changes temperamentally we are change particularly even you know there's a lot of strength okay so pray the Lord will give elimination the Lord will give inspiration will be so surprised what the Lord can put into our hearts right because it's from him the truth you know he just just flows out of him and he knows the situation he knows the people better than ourselves right so depend on him for utterance depend on him for the Lord to prepare the hearts of the people right so so that's the thing many times you know what we yeah people come and then we find that it's a struggle struggle to relate struggle to connect right so pray that the hearts of the people will also be prepared they also go through challenges like this last Sunday just day before today one of the worship team members like I didn't know like came we did everything and when we're doing the review found out that her child was actually the whole night I was unwell fever and whatever and so in the morning she came to church she was tired and also not emotionally not in a place to sing right but then that time of prayer that we had just before going into worship that really helped her and then lifted all those burdens off and so on so yeah so pray for you know if there's a team there's an audience pray for them pray that the Lord will move prepare deal with certain things okay we can also pray for protection the Lord's protection over our hearts over our minds okay from being distracted and from all those distracting thoughts and an accusation from the enemy okay so you realize that only when you're getting ready for a ministry you know time like preaching or maybe leading or whatever it is you get all these distraction get all these distracting thoughts you get all these accusing thoughts even right I think I've shared right I just go and stand in front of the mic and then suddenly this thought comes a did I switch off the stove you know I boy was boiling the milk but did I switch off the stove today switch off the geezer you know did I lock the car you know all these thoughts come and then I just decided okay it doesn't matter it doesn't matter if the car is not there it doesn't matter if the geezers you know burnt out does not matter I'll deal with it after this right so my mind is going to be focused on what is at hand I'll deal with all these other things later after this is done so but once I made that decision suddenly realized that these thoughts are not coming there anymore right so yeah so pray for protection and also prepare for you know all these kind of things anticipate and prayerfully reject Satan's accusation okay okay I think second thing we saw right whatever we are stating whatever instruction or points we are stating as a sermon point I back it up with scripture okay when you say back it up with scripture we're saying okay let it be based on the word of God right let it have a strong base because the word of God has eternal value so whatever ideas that we are sharing unless it's an opinion okay if it's an opinion we can say okay this is this is just my opinion my idea my suggestion but if it's eternal truth of God's word that we are sharing then we can draw attention to where it's written and so people can also see it for themselves you know or maybe put it on the screen so see it for themselves they can read it for themselves and be convinced convicted because it's eternal truth of God's word because you know we would have left after the message right but what remains with the others is the word of God right which the Holy Spirit will continue to work on you have just sown the seed of God's word right so yeah so back it up with scripture otherwise it could be presumptuous it could be opinions and yeah so do that if possible include humor because especially when it's humor meaning you know maybe a joke or two don't fill it with too many funny things but you know then people will laugh at the joke enjoy the joke but forget why you crack that joke you know it was you know it was sometimes we do that right we see the ad nice ad but what what product was it what service was it you know he doesn't we don't recall that so we don't want that to happen right so yeah so if it is your personality you know be funny in that you know if it's your personality to be funny in a very I don't a very bubbly manner extravagant manner extroverted manner do that if you want to be funny in a very quiet way you know that's how you are that's how you talk be that so don't try to be something else or someone else right so that's the thing then it will actually backfire okay okay both one is to taste ourselves so what do we mean by that and I'm sure you know as we you know as we the first few times when we when we shared the word we realized that you had some five points but you spent a lot of time on the first point because you liked it so much right you just wanted to explain it and then you want people to get it and you you loved it yourself so you spent you know so much time on that first point then suddenly you realize hey there's four more points and you just had to rush through you know just mention it and you know rush through or just read it out and go through and say yeah I really don't have much time right so plan that see yes it is possible that even as we're preaching we feel the weight of the Spirit's prompting to stay on something to emphasize something and you realize that okay God wants you know there is a need in the congregation for this to really be you know given weightage there's a need there maybe there's one just one person but then there's a need there so stay there go with the flow and maybe there are certain things which you could just mention and go on but be aware of that mindful of that you know let it be a sensitive thing that you're led through rather than you know that you's not even thinking about it and then you know you've stayed somewhere and you wasted time and suddenly you have to rush okay so plan on pace yourself your rate of speech you know etc okay right any any questions yeah Francis I prefer any message like if we prepared a message it's one person we can use that if we can preach the same message in another when you or another meeting yeah absolutely absolutely and then if you if you feel that that's relevant and and many times it will be so you know you prepared your teaching something and yeah maybe it's the same same audience right maybe you've prepared you've shared something and then maybe six months down the line nine months down the line you know you want to maybe share that again re-trade the game and kind of build on it right so yeah by all means and maybe there are some certain certain things that that are added to what you or you want to add on to what you share that's also fine or it could be you know different audiences different congregations and this is something that you know the Lord wants to emphasize or this is the only message you have go ahead do it in a prayerful way and it'll be a blessing so yeah so that's the thing so let it not be for want of preparation you know I'm not prepared anything the only the only thing I have so let me do it I mean it can happen once or twice but then let it not be for want of preparation but definitely we can repeat a certain message someone else's message doing what someone has prepared or someone has preached and it right right right yeah you can you can as long it see it has impacted you right and so you know it can be a blessing to people like for example there's this illustration which is highly impactful for me this is by I think it's I figure the name of the person okay I'm not getting the name but then he gives his illustration okay he talks about going to an art museum and looking at a picture okay and this this page look at a painting what is yours to a gallery so art gallery sees the painting the painting is two chess pieces right two chess pieces there and the title is checkmate so this person is actually a chess grandmaster he goes there he sees that and then he says checkmate is what final move right in chess checkmate is that's it the king does not have any other option but in the game that's it so it says checkmate and that was the move there King there and then the other piece there whatever but then he looks at it long enough and he says hey the king has another move he studies the chess board he looks at it and he says you know the king has another move and so he talks about that to his audience and he says the king has another move in your life you know you might think it's checkmate it's over game over the king has another move in your life so I mean that stayed with me right for a long time it just stayed with me and I used it many places we used it and people you know kind of testified and said hey that's a that's such a blessing because this guy was really at the end of the line it was the last few days of the year he had actually lost a job a lot of things happening you know is trying to get married and then they're coming you know all those things are there lost a job so didn't know what to do and just sitting in that position it was between Christmas and New Year right last few days of the year and then and then he heard this and he said he went back and then he like got a job I think then after that he came and testify saying you know that was really a blessing so by all means reuse whatever has blessed you you know and I'm sure that law will give additional insight right to whatever you've heard how it has impacted you could be different so that could be an additional insight as well okay so how long should your message be short and sweet short and short messages are very difficult if it's you know five minutes ten minutes see whatever message you're preparing is ten minutes it's difficult right because you can have a very you know long conversation can just go on 40 minutes you know go for a walk everywhere you can talk about look at the breeze etc it's fine but then if you want to make you know very succinct points it's going to be challenging so that's the thing think about it but sometimes it's it's all you have like 15 minutes it's all you have 10 minutes might be all you have so it's it's good to prepare a head and just state it right and state state choose your words carefully and and see how it can make maximum impact right sometimes you don't have to be long drawn just state it you know and then you know like people normally say 20 minutes is what the full attention maximum attention that people can give okay 20 minutes there's a lot of things that depend based based on that like I don't know if you heard of the promoter method of working or studying which is like every 20 minutes you take a break for five minutes every 10 20 minutes so they say 20 minutes but you know you can't always just you know let's say you're doing a study you're doing a typical Sunday sermon people have come right it's it's the only day for really studying and together as a congregation so we might have you know maybe an hour so the thing is every 20 minutes see that there is a transition okay so there can be a pause they can be a change a transition into something else so if it's if it's one hour you know it's like three sections right you break it up make sure that 20 minutes there is a transition or 15 minutes there is a transition right maybe an illustration something that will bring the attention back you can think about it right okay eye contact how important is it look into the eyes of the so what happens if there's no if you're not looking at the congregation or you're looking at your audience we won't know whether we're listening that's one thing they may or may not listen right that's the thing so so I contact you know enables us to relate to people it builds a bridge builds a connection right so eye contact is good right and like I said there could be certain cultures which feel challenged when you look into the eyes right so be mindful of that like maybe they feel they maybe they turn their eyes away so don't be put off by that right see when you're when you're there up front ministering you're there as a spiritual leader or as a representative so you know they look up to you as a leader and that's fine so maybe in the in the cultures they may not reciprocate with direct eye contact be mindful of that and it's fine right so let it not rubble you let it not throw you out right okay voice how should your voice be how large how loud should it be how soft should it be okay should be loud throughout that you're you know going bang bang bang see the loudest of our voice is good it should be I mean for audible it so that it's audible like the last person furthest away they get to hear it's audible for them right if it's if it's too loud it's a problem right it can weary the people tired people get tired it's too loud you know one of the methods of torture right in the prisons in order to get the truth out of prisoners you know prisoners of war is loud very loud sirens and music incessantly you know just blaring it just does something it breaks down the will of the person so you know so we need to be mindful right let's not be loud throughout and then it's it's it's act people are in pain actually but at the same time if it's too soft it's a strain for people you know what did he say what did she say no this is asking I missed that what did they say right so let it be not too loud not too soft and also if voice if what we are sharing it's going to be in a monotone what does monotone mean mean same same maybe same volume same pitch same tone right it's not going up it's not going down it's the same yeah same note it's like the pads yeah same same note you know just saying yeah good morning everyone I'm glad to be here today and so good and we are studying biblical preaching initially you'll be curious so what is it's nice way of speaking and then suddenly you'll feel like your eyes are closing as you're listening okay it's nice I just feel like a lullaby so soothing and you want to close your eyes so what happens is there's a lapse in attention in people when they hear a monotone like I think I've shared the story I forget where I've shared but I remember once after a Sunday service this person came I came up to me and said buster that was nice content I liked it but can you alter your voice you know you were saying you're saying same thing like this and I felt very sleepy he was very you know he was very direct and I'm glad that he was direct enough to say that you know after the service he came and said you know I was feeling very sleepy so I think and then he felt very bad that he said that I'm sorry buster I didn't mean but I just wanted to say it and apologize etc and I said no no thanks thanks for you know giving such a direct feedback helpful I'll try to change so yeah so so this will help right our voice it's a it's important thing you know because you're communicating it's like tuning an instrument right it's like being effective that's it the downside of it is that we can use all these things that we're talking about either to communicate effectively or to manipulate right so we should be mindful am I manipulating people what is manipulating you want the desired reaction you've already decided you know I want to make people cry today right so you're you know just doing everything and your voice is also you know and you're also you know crying and see that's that's the thing if you should not manipulate you don't want to manipulate that right you you communicate like whatever reaction that whatever the content of what you're communicating definitely will elicit the response right it could be a response where people are saying I don't believe in that or maybe they're still are they angry or people can you know it witnesses to their heart of their in agreement so that's the response all people are moved right so all these responses are possible but you don't manipulate it okay it's very very important yeah especially if you are very influential and and all that do not manipulate you know things like I want to I want people to contribute more I want people to you know they're offering you know all that because unfortunately people do that in ministry in church is so cool etc so yeah okay question okay when we are when is when there is a emotional talking and all in between some pastors used to cry I mean it's not intentionally but it will come the tears will come and some pastors intentionally also they do I saw so many pastors in our side also they'll preach every sermon they'll cry is that a manipulating only that person can say actually sometimes it happens to me in the sense you know I get choked up I'm not able to share and stuck and then that happens so so it is it's true it can happen and like you said you know when you're saying something and then intentionally they are doing that then it's not good like we don't know we can think like it's it's their style of preaching let the pastor will cry the whole congregation yeah maybe it's a style but it's not a healthy thing right it's maybe it's a style they don't even realize it maybe it's a condition respond from the congregation you know but yeah yeah all those unhealthy things are all part of that so so we don't want that you know it's not that you know there should not be any emotions that's not God has created us to be people emotional people you know emotions of joy emotions of you know like excitement about something and also you know to be moved to cry to be yeah crying not from a point of sadness but even the fact that you know you experience the presence of God so you know so all that is possible yeah but when it's done in a manner to get a reaction to move a congregation then it becomes a manipulation so yeah that's a thing yeah it's embarrassing in the sense even for the congregation let's say the person is very disconnected from the message that you're sharing okay very disconnected and then you are moved personally and they are unmoved they're like why is this person getting so emotional about you know something something so simple like for example I'll just tell you one Sunday morning all our outreach pastors that come so I think that it's is it on yeah it's on okay you know it's sorry okay so one Sunday morning our outreach pastors had come and they were visiting South location and then we said okay let's let's just call them forward and pray so let's call them forward and some of them were there I think maybe five or six of them so call them forward and then started to pray yeah as I started to pray I just started crying right and I just couldn't go beyond the thing first I had to really wait control you know myself and then had to do it so you know it just became a very spontaneous thing there's nothing about the people or the prayer whatever that needed that kind of a thing so people are all thinking you know what is wrong right why is he crying why what I just felt I don't know one is one is a strong presence of God and I just moved by the fact that you know just looking at them these were all different people different places the ministry I don't know it was a combination of all that so people can be disconnected they might be wondering you know why is he so but then you as a person you might be going through a lot right might be going through the same not difficult things but then you know maybe God is dealing with you maybe God is doing something all that happens so yeah okay um sorry okay okay gestures posture body language okay now this is something that others can actually give feedback about okay so we can be see normally as a as a person as people when we talk we talk with a lot of gestures yes or no right maybe if you know if you if you ask you to just sit like that and talk to the other person about about your life various things you will still maybe shrug you will you there will be gestures that come across as a natural response to what you're saying okay so the thing is to be that when you're sharing your natural gestures to be free enough to communicate with those gestures but the problem is some gestures can be distracting right maybe a person is constantly I don't know maybe scratching the face every time okay then it's a distraction right maybe you're doing that or maybe you're checking your pockets something like that or you're fidgeting with maybe you're wearing a tie you're fidgeting with your button and you know when people notice that and people get distracted so we can say okay you know just like I I'm just talking about myself because these are corrections that I made right so I had this problem of tilting the pulpit okay so everything is there so I just you know lean on the pulpit and tilt it so you know my family my wife and daughter they said please don't do it you don't know when it'll fall we're just thinking you know maybe you're going to tip it over you know don't do that right so so things like that okay right okay just one last thing and then we'll see never disqualify yourself as a as a as a preacher as someone who is bringing you know we say you know I don't know I didn't prepare I'm just coming I'm just saying something I hope you are blessed don't say that or you know I don't have much to say I just have very simple things but I don't know how you how you will take it you know don't say that right so don't put yourself down or you can you can say no I don't have much experience in preaching but still I'm coming no you know you're there been given an opportunity just share yeah use it just share you don't have to just say a lot of things about yourself how great you are how wonderful you are nothing you just go go ahead speak right so yeah so don't disqualify yourself or the content of your message you know like sometimes we disqualify what are some ways by which we disqualify the content we say okay this is just very simple you might have heard it thousand times but you know listen to it again or you know things like that okay okay okay we'll continue in our next class so eight things that we looked at okay we'll stop here right okay thank you God bless


Hi everyone, Sean with jaspyscasebreaks.com here doing 2020 Bowman Draft Jumbo and 2019 Bowman Chrome HTA choice Two box mixer where each spot gets you two random teams number two So the way this works 15 spots all-card ship everyone gets two random teams in MLB. Please note All teams may not be represented with autographs between the two just heads up This includes one box of 2020 Bowman Draft Jumbo and one box of 2019 Bowman Chrome HTA There you go. So here is the customer list from Ross Gimbal down to Ross Gimbal in last spot mojo And since every spot gets you two teams and you double up the list and Here is the list for the teams the Diamondbacks down to the Nationals one other thing that we're doing tonight We're giving away an additional hundred fifty dollars in break credit three spots fifty dollars each That'll be a separate randomizer at the end of the break with the original 15 names in the list Where top three names at the end we'll get fifty dollars each so Here is the randomizer dice roll for the first randomizer for the break itself one and a five six times six in final time from John Danine down to Ross Gimbal so six on the randomizer six on the dice Robert nothing huge just a triple booklet autograph of Wayne Gretzky Mario Lemieux and Bobby or and then six times on the teams as well one two Three and six then final time from the Mets down to the White Sox So six times there six times on the dice like I was like whoa So John Danine with the Mets Tony Barkley with the Orioles Ross Gimbal with the Cubs Matt Arnold with the Dodgers Bradley Zickerman with the Blue Jays and the Rays Matthew Shearer with the Cardinals Bradley Zickerman with the Rockies Ross Gimbal with the Red Sox John Danine with the Diamondbacks Matt Arnold with the Pirates Ross Gimbal with the A's Randy Lew with the twins Brett Myers with the Cardinals or sorry with the Mariners I don't know why that red office Cardinals to me Meggie Marino with the Padres Ross Gimbal with the Tigers and the Nationals Nicholas Buccello with the Reds Meggie Marino with the Astros Nicholas Buccello with the Phillies Bradley Zickerman with the Braves Tony Barkie with the Royals Matthew Shearer with the Rangers Ross Gimbal last spot mojo with the Marlins Randy Lew with the Indians Jason Sievert with the Brewers Ross Gimbal with his other last spot mojo spot Los Angeles Angels Brett Myers with the Yankees Jason Sievert the Giants and Ross Gimbal Last spot mojo again Chicago White Sox there you go So that is the list your chances for trade window is open right now Let's put this all on screen boom So trade window is open for you guys Big rig is offering up the Yankees for the Royals Royals Tony if you're in here Yanks for anything else at all Brett give me another 10 seconds. If not, we're gonna go ahead and print and rip But try to trade pin trade mojo go five four three Two and one So no trades Okay, cool. So here are our boxes, we're gonna start with bowman drafts and then go towards Bowman chrome. It's only a three box three card break That's still awesome. We'll save that to the end. There is our final list all on camera So try to trade couldn't trade mojo for you, but you guys it's the last break on the schedule. So You getting your orders in so we can go through the orders after this and Good luck Cade Cavalli for the Nationals Ross gimbal Hans Kraus for the Rangers Matthew Shearer Justin Fosquay Purple to 250 for the Rangers Matthew Shearer and our first auto blue wave auto Garrett Mitchell for the Milwaukee Brewers 144 out of 150 Milwaukee Brewers Jason Siebert Heston Kirstad for the Orioles Tony Barkey Bryson Stott to 499 for the Phillies Nicholas Pichello Austin Wells for the Yankees Brett Myers Ronnie Mauricio for the Mets John Denine Nothing close. I Got 16 orders. I'm sure those are all going towards something. I think there was some stuff that was pretty close pretty quick, right? Is anything listed as sold out that all those 16 orders went through them? Nico Holscher for the Rays Bradley Zitraman Alex Santos for the Astros Meg de Marina Shailang Lears for the Braves Bradley Zitraman Corbin Carroll for the Diamondbacks John Denine Spencer Torkelson for the Tigers Ross gimbal Okay, cool. Yeah, I was like I know that some of the stuff is close It's like there's no way there's almost 20 orders and nothing was Had sold out And I'll add another one of those sockets in the store as well guys Like I said, that's from a fresh case so we can do the six times tonight or five more times Including the one that's already sold out Spencer Torkelson Refractor for the Tigers Ross gimbal Mark Lariah for the Twins Randy Lou and Trey Cruz Bowman first auto refractor also for the Tigers to $4.99 and Ross gimbal Robert Hassel for the Padres Meg de Marina Zach Meen for the Rockies Bradley Zitraman Takoa Robi, sorry Green Paper to $99 for the Rangers Matthew Shearer Tanner Burns for the Indians Randy Lou Ryan Murphy for the Giants Jason Siebert I'm good Rex. How are you sir? You're looking good today Hope you're feeling good too Zach Veen for the Rockies Bradley Zitraman Spencer Torkelson for the Tigers Ross gimbal Casey Martin for the Phillies Nicholas Bicello Daniel Cabrera for the Tigers Ross gimbal Patrick Bailey sky blue for the Giants Jason Siebert Lil Sparkle for Mark Vientos and the Metz John Denene Hayden Cantrell for the Brewers Jason Siebert Jaren Duran for the Red Sox Ross gimbal Zach Veen for the Rockies Bradley Zitraman How'd that Cinnamon Toast Crunch do for you?  I think you had a Who do your teams in this? Indians You had some I think you've hit a couple of things already A couple refractors maybe maybe some numbered stuff That's what they're talking about in the chat Check with people in the chat and see what they're trying to get done Burl Careway for the Cubs Ross gimbal Ethan Hankins for the Indians Randy Lou and Dachston Fulton Bowman first refractor auto to 499 for the Miami Marlins Ross gimbal Last spot mojo Heston Kirstad for the Orioles Tony Barkie So we shouldn't expect any more autos Unless we get extra Which I think you tops if we do But we can take a look and see if we can get more color Big names Jordan Blazovic to 499 for the Twins Randy Lou Reese Hines for the Reds Nicholas Bicello Josh Jung for the Rangers Matthew Shearer That's crazy man That's so cool Sammy Infante for the Nationals Ross gimbal Tyler Saunders from for the A's Ross gimbal Addison Coffey to 150 For the White Sox Ross gimbal Case Williams for the Rockies Bradley Zitraman Brady McConnell for the Royals Tony Barkie Spencer Torkelson for the Tigers Ross gimbal There you go That was 2020 Bowman Draft You have 20 foils Rex How much do those sell for? No, there's Garza There's 16 orders Who was trying to get stuff done? Was it Ozzy? Ozzy were you trying to move stuff? Were you trying to figure out what to what you wanted to get into? Garza is trying to figure out too No, I know I know I know you're asking See there you go Ozzy Garza There you go So Garza wants to know what's going on Ozzy You want to get something done Why don't you guys see what you're trying to do? There you go Josh was there So each one has Okay One guaranteed Well that's pretty cool And 2019 Bowman 2019 Tatis rookie Autos Plus all the other Bowman first Starting off with Peyton Henry Bowman first auto Philip Milwaukee Brewers Jason Siebert Bowman first auto Robinson Ortiz For the Dodgers Matt Armond And Final Auto Looks like it's a refractor Is Isaiah Gilman Bowman first Refractor auto to $4.99 For the New York Yankees Brett Myers Tried to trade Couldn't trade Coming through at the end Nice refractor Bowman first there for you Brett And there you go guys That was the break Let's give away some break credit And wrap it up So here's the original customer list from Ross Back down to Ross Original 15 names Remember top three after Three out of three six times $50 and break credit each Good luck Sixth and final time Congratulations Ross Gimble And Bradley Zitterman You three Are getting $50 and break credit each So Bradley since you got two spots We'll send you one break credit of $100 Ross you'll get $50 there With your last spot mojo spot too Six times on the randomizer Six times on the list And there you go guys That does it That was 2020 Bowman draft Jumbo and 2019 Bowman Chrome HTA Choice Two box mixer number two Where each body got you two random teams From jaspyscasebreaks.com I'm Sean jaspyscasebreaks.com Thanks for hanging out See you next time


Cellulose nanocrystals, CNC, have unique characteristics that make them widely applicable in diverse fields as a liquid crystal forming material due to their light weight, special optical properties, non-toxicity and biocompatibility. The left-handed cholesteric phase structure of CNC-based LC has corresponding unique optical properties, and the preparation of CNC is discussed. The three stages of forming LC phase in a CNC-based aqueous suspension are also described. However, pristine CNC-based LC can be brittle and non-uniform due to several reasons, which can be overcome through various methods. Optical applications of CNC-based LC films in anti-counterfitting, colorimetric sensors, and composite devices are considered. This article was authored by Xiaoyao Wei, Tao Lin, Min Duan, and others.


Well hello again everyone and welcome back to another episode of Retro Tech. Today I've got an unboxing for you. So in the past I've done unboxing videos of Sony PVMs and it's been about a year and now I'm going to unbox another PVM. This is a Sony 2030 and again I have ordered the 2030s online before and had some success with them shipping properly and some that were destroyed during shipping. So today let's take a quick look at the box. You can see the outside of it, how it managed to survive a little bit of its trip from California. We're going to go ahead and open it but I do have to warn you I'm not feeling too great because they pretty much made their own boxes here. It looks like it's a nice big 24 by 24 cube but it's actually 24 by 24 by 12s rectangular boxes that were pieced together to make this one. So I'm not sure even what side it shipped up or down or you know right side or wrong side because there's no markings on the outside of this box. Now I did try to reach out to this seller and say hey you know I've made quite a few videos and how to pack these things properly. Would you like any tips? I never heard anything back. So hopefully they knew what they were doing and didn't just destroy this monitor. Without wasting any more time let's go ahead now and open the box. All right so I'm just going to start by of course cutting the tape at the top. You can see on the other camera here it was actually shipped upside down and that means there was no padding on the bottom of this over brother except for these two priority mailboxes which uh okay I don't know how really so much protection that has then we've got the foam or not even foam these are just some bow wrap around the outside so I hope for the best. I feel like it's been collapsed or anything's cracked I've been shaking loose uh power cable it has seen some better days and look at that mess. Oh holy moly everything else appears to be like it may have survived this trip. Let's just look and see what else we got in here for packing materials because it doesn't seem like a whole lot and it's really not.  So thank goodness the students probably get destroyed unless it doesn't turn on because I don't really believe this would have met I don't think this would have met any of the requirements that FedEx has for shipping. Anyway let's fire it up and see if we can get a picture. Let's go ahead now and run a test simple power on test it's plugged in and I've got composite running to it now out of my Super Nintendo. I don't want to push it and try anything else yet we'll just do a simple composite test see if anything shows up here on the screen look at that that's a really good sign okay so see I bought this monitor pretty much untested the person who sold it to me set it powered on and that was it we've got red green and blue colors stable screen might just need a little bit of adjustment but yeah see I've got some yeah let's see okay look at the vertical hold button was just a little bit off but other than that just a little bit of a pin cushion adjustment on the corners definitely needs that there's a couple more adjustments on the geometry but overall it looks like it survives and and passes the test well sometimes you just get lucky and I feel like that's the case here I don't think that this would have been enough packaging to get any kind of coverage from FedEx if it would have been damaged so I'm thankful that it isn't I've seen monitors packed a whole lot better than that get damaged a whole lot more on a lot less of a journey against this one came from California so it came a long way and FedEx did a surprisingly good job of making sure it didn't get damaged even though it wasn't packed to what I would call high standards I did make a buy it now offer on ebay on this monitor and I think I paid about $240 to have it shipped to me but you can see it has a lot of work to do some calibrations I don't think any parts are going to need to be changed however I will take an opportunity to make a fresh new video about the 2030 coming up and we'll get this one looking great and have it ready to be used thanks again for watching make sure you're subscribed and hit that bell notification so you can catch all my great retro and crt related videos and I'll see you next time with some more retro content


Welcome to the British Library and to UNFINISHED BUSINESS, the new exhibition. It's here, it's happening. It's here at last. My name's Biro Lats. I work in the cultural events team. We're really excited to be kicking off with this next event, which is an exploration of how Africa is represented in education, art and literature. It's an association with the Black Curriculum and Myriad Editions. A little bit of what we like to call housekeeping now. If you look below this box, you can see that there's a section for questions. You can send those in at any time. Above me here is a feedback section. We'd love to hear what you think. Also you can buy books and you can donate to the British Library, which would be very nice. The chair for today's panel is Lavinia Stenet, a writer, historian and the founder of the Black Curriculum, a social enterprise set up to address the lack of black history in the UK curriculum. So I'm going to hand over to you now, Lavinia. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to New Justice of Africa. Tonight we're joined by contributors Annie, Ade, Goretti and Zekiswa. So let's just dive right into it. I'm going to introduce everyone on the panel. Good evening. How is everyone doing? Good evening. Good evening. Good, good. So this is the, I guess, the penultimate day before the light changes. So we want to be able to kind of bring the light into this conversation and share also the education around New Justice of Africa. So today Margaret Busby's landmark anthology is the epitome of intergenerational sisterhood and has provided us with foundations for a remarkable conversation surrounded race, gender and resistance. With Busby's legacy, it is immortalised by continuing to push the conversation forward and assess readers to continue to celebrate her work and the generous gift to the world. So first I'm going to introduce Annie. Annie is an actress, director and writer. Annie, can you give everyone a wave? Hi. And she has worked in radio, TV and films and theatre. She appeared earlier this year in Inua LLM's Three Sisters at the National Theatre. She is currently lecturing at St Mary's University in Twickenham and is directing students at Radder. Annie's poems and short stories are published in various anthologies and her plays produced in the UK. She has just finished her novel, Congratulations, Breaking the Malfur Chain, which is to be published in 2021 and it was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish College Fiction Competition. So quite a lot and an extract from her novel is also championed by Mirad Editions in the first novel competition of 2018 and she is also working on her second novel, Ominarah. So welcome Annie. I will now go on to Goretty. Hi Goretty, how are you? Hi. Hiya, so Goretty is one of Uganda's leading novelists. She holds an MA in creative writing from the University of Kwazulu Natal, South Africa. Her first novel, The First Daughter, was published in 1996, followed by Secrets No More in 1999, which won the Uganda National Literary Award for Best Novel in the same year. In 2002, she published a novella, Whispers from Vera. Her third novel, Waiting, was published by the Feminist Press in New York in 2007. In 2014, she published her essential handbook for African creative writers. She has also published several short stories in children's books and was recently also appointed a member of the Commonwealth Foundation Civil Society as part of their governing board. Welcome Goretty. Thank you. So our next contributor is Zekiswa. Zekiswa, hello, how are you? I'm very well, thank you, how are you doing? Great, great, awesome. So Zekiswa is a South African writer, editor and publisher of Born in Zambia, raised in Zimbabwe and currently based in Kenya, but who considers the whole African continent her home. Her debut novel, The Madams, was shortlisted for the 2007 K-Sellows. Now you've got to correct me now. Duka Award in 2007, her third novel, Men of the South, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize Best Booked 2011 and Herman Charles Bosman Award. In 2014, she was named Africa on the Africa 39 list, which categorises 39 Sub-Saharan African writers under 40 with the potential and talent to define trends in African literature. In 2015, she won the K-Sello-Duka Memorial Literary Award in London Cape Town, Joburg, and she has written three children's books, and she's also the founder and curator of artistic encounters, the virtual literary events, and also the founder and editor of the Afro-Young Adult Anthology. She is the co-founder also of the publishing house, Piwapo. And yes, thank you so much. So, we are clearly in the presence of greatness. And last but not least, we have Addy. Addy Solanki is an award-winning British Nigerian playwright, screenwriter and academic. She has an MFA in film from the University of Southern California where she was a Fulbright scholar, and she has a BA honours in English literature from Sheffield University. Her award-winning plays include acclaimed Pandora's Box, which won the best new play nomination of the West End, and she was shortlisted for the $100,000 Nigerian prize for literature, which is Africa's biggest literary award. She's also conducted the most recent play, The Court Must Have Had a Queen, which premiered at the Hampton Court Palace in 2018, and she's also written for The Guardian, The New Statement, Art Monthly, The Times, The Voice, and BBC Radio 4. Wow. So, I'm ready to get into these questions. Thank you, everyone. We'll start with Annie. And Annie, could you tell us more about the depictions of gender in your writing and plays and why it is important that a range of narratives are centred? I wrote about both genders, but I must admit that I tend to write more from the female point of view. I think that it's important that as women we tell our stories ourselves. Most of the time we hear from and about the men and their point of view. And I think that women have their stories too. And these are just as important. And more and more black women stories are coming, being shown, being produced, being published. And this is what has happened with the new daughters of Africa anthology, where Margaret Busby has been able to get over 200 black women to have their stories told either through poetry or short stories or extracts like mine. My novel, Breaking the Map of Chain, which is based on Sarah Forbes Bonetta, has two female narratives, sisters captured during this slave trade. And it was important for me for us to see their different take as women living first in Africa and then later on in Victoria and England, where they lived completely different lives. One as a maid and the other as a princess, the Goddaughter of Queen Victoria. It's important for me that we learn our history, that children know of our history and that we have it available for both the boys and for the girls to feel that they are represented. So my difference of gender is both but fewer towards the female gender. Thank you, that was perfect. So thinking about Breaking the Map of Chain and also understanding that our children need to know our histories, Garethian, want to go over to you and ask you about what ways Ugandan politics has influenced your writing and how do you think the two are synonymous? First of all, I really think that for us writers there's definitely a mix of politics and writing and that the act of writing itself is political because if you consider why we write or why do I write, it is to express our opinions and through a particular point of view. So that's already a political act because you are not just expressing your opinion but you are persuading the world to look at it from your point of view. Then the other reason is to question or interrogate the status quo. So for me that's already an act of political act and then there's freedom of expression which as writers we practice every day. It's a political act as a human right. It's ingrained in laws of our countries. So I also regard that as a political act and the themes. If you look at the themes which we write about, we write about race, about gender, war, inequality, identity, migration, love, sex. Even when I look at love and sex, I keep thinking that it's the way these two are regulated. So you are not free to love the person that you really want to.  There is some regulation somewhere on these acts. So for me, I regard that as a political act. For my own writing, I write about all my writing is based on the political realities of my country which is Uganda. I write about war particularly how devastating the devastating effects of war on women I write about patriarchy questioning men's privileged position in society. And sometimes I feel that I don't really have the luxury or the privilege not to write about these issues. Wonderful answers and it's really interesting to reflect on the inextricable nature of politics from our writing. We can't divorce the two. So thinking about themes, I want to move on to Zekiswa and understand more about your work and how your work is particularly informed by African concepts of time. So could you tell us more about that? Well, I just... There isn't really like anything major to tell about it. I think the work itself speaks for itself, but I'm genuinely... I think the second part of that question that you're asking was what are the lessons we can use? We can learn by using African ways of understanding the world and I think the major lesson that one can learn from is I think in all our communities, wherever we are from, there's a concept of humanity, humainness, ubuntu, as we'd say in South Africa, o unu, as we'd say in Shauna. And I think the major thing that we can... A lot of us know it, a lot of Africans know it, but perhaps our leaders need to know it. Our leaders in Nigeria, our leaders in South Africa, our leaders in Zimbabwe, our leaders in Diakongo and all over the continent. So perhaps maybe from our literatures what our leadership could learn. Well, maybe from our literatures, our leaders should just... Our leaders should just read more so that they learn humanity and they learn what we know. Absolutely. I think it couldn't be any more crucial in this society that we have today that our leaders are informed by African ways of seeing the world. And thank you for also bringing in some Shauna there as well. So, Addy, I'm going to move to you. And could you tell us more about some of the pivotal changes that you have seen with Africa on screen? There are lots of changes. The one I'm going to focus on is the increasing the number of protagonists, which is always of interest to me. I made a choice, as Annie has said in my work, I'll always centre African, mainly African female, but African and Black African heritage characters. So it's been remarkable that in the last two, three years there have been, I think, there was one weekend this year when out of all the films released one weekend, there were maybe 10 new releases and three of them were Black films, African films with Black protagonists. I think it's extremely important that we focus on not just having lots of the talents of Annie's people, the actors on screen, but the roles they're playing. That, for me, is the paramount issue. In recent times, in the last month, I think, we've had the first, well, it's not the first, but a screenplay written, a film with the screenplay written by a British Nigerian very young woman, Rocks, which came out maybe two, three weeks ago. And that was a coming-of-age type story, a group of young teenagers in the area where I'm speaking to you from, Hackney. I live 10 minutes from Dolfston where a lot of the filmmaking was done. And it was really moving to watch a story about young women, the sort of women who we walk past on the streets. I see them on their way to school, to see their lives put on screen. It shouldn't be remarkable, but it actually is a sad measure of our society that there is really still almost headline making. A year ago, another film that I found very moving for a similar reason is we've often seen the trope of the white saviour in our African storytelling. And I really enjoyed The Boy Who Harnished the Wind, the story that, I think it was Chewetel, Egyaforth Direct. And that for me is the exact type of story I want to see and write, which is about a black saviour story, a young Malawian child who's struggling in his community and uses his wits, his smarts, his ingenuity to solve a problem. So I'm really excited to see that trend, more and more black protagonists, and we can't have this conversation without talking about the impact. Whatever we think of the whole Wakanda notion of Black Panther, which was, first of all, a really big budget, Disney blockbuster superhero. In terms of genre, it's not the first superhero film, but I think it's an important addition to the repertoire of African storytelling, that the amount of energy and time and passion and love, and it was a really brilliant work of fiction. To see that level of investment in African storytelling is remarkable, and it obviously pays off because the audiences came in droves. It was a huge box office success on the list of the top 10, I think, most highest gross in films in the world. So I think having black protagonists in all sorts of stories, low-budget independent affair, but also blockbuster affair is a really welcome trend that I applaud and want to contribute to. I think it matters for several reasons. I think as pure entertainment, I've always been very keen on storytelling, which is about entertaining people. But as some of the other panellists have said, we also do obviously want to educate. When I think about the horror of George Floyd's murder in America earlier this year, there is a link between the level and the scale of black protagonists in fiction and the way in which our lives are treated in real life. If we are low value in the fiction chain, if we're never the centre, if we're only ever supporting characters or subsidiary characters, that does, I'm not arguing it makes all the difference, but it feeds into the way we're, if you like, evaluated and treated in real life. So I think African protagonists are really important and the lack of them in the past has devalued our lives and the increase of them is helping to not just tell our stories, entertain and make money for film companies and studios, but it's also contributing to a better society. I genuinely believe that. And by the way, obviously we all know what the protagonist, but just we do, but for the audience, it's the person who is the beating heart of the story. It's the person and it's often the white male who is 25 tall, James Bond on the screen and this is the person who holds our attention for two hours or three hours, whatever it is, or 13 episodes if it's a TV series or 20 episodes. So you can see the importance of us valuing ourselves and putting ourselves as we do as writers into the heart of our own storytelling and sharing our important in that role with the rest of the audience. In fact, you know, so often when we talk about the white savior trope, they're always, I always think, descendants of Tarzan. You know, the idea of the king of the jungle is a white guy. So thank God we're seeing Africa, not just as a backdrop for these kinds of, you know, different white stories, but Nollywood has been a massive contributor to countering that. We mustn't forget because I live in the West, I may always focus on Euro and American stories, but Nollywood has done an amazing job in obviously centering black stories. I contributed to Nollywood. Nobody blinks at the idea of a black protagonist. Wonderful reflections. I think it's really important that we have a range of narratives and we're at the heart of that in terms of storytelling, as you say, particularly with black protagonists inside the continent also outside of that as well. So thank you, Ellie, for your contributions. It's a perfect segue back to Annie. So Annie, could you tell us more on how you direct your work to navigate past linear narratives of loss when showcasing the complexity of African cultures and histories? The linear narratives present stories in a logical manner, you know, by telling what happened from one point to the next in time. It goes in the straight line, but most of the time our stories ourselves go backwards and forward. So African culture and histories are complex and they're embedded in our very being. So when I'm writing a story that's based with African or black characters, their lives are not linear. Their stories are not linear. So it becomes part of a non-linear narrative that goes backwards and forwards and does some flashbacks and it has memory. Our memories, we still have our ancestral traumas within us, but as we grow, as our children grow up in the diaspora, they are forgetting some of those memories. They don't share as many. So through our writing, through our stories, we have to tell them some of those stories, which means that even if the story is based on the present day, we have to go back and bring in some of our traditions, the things that we eat. When I'm writing, even though I'm writing in England, I tap into the memories that I have of being in Africa, of feeling the sun on me, of the smells, of the stories that my grandmother gave me and of the losses. We are filled with the losses of our ancestors and when we go into things like Black Lives Matter, it does matter because up until 2015, the government was paying from our taxes to the people who were recompensed for their slaves. So it's not something that's passed. When George Floyd's policeman knelt on George Floyd's neck, it reminds us of the things that happened to our ancestors. It's not so far away that we don't feel it within us. When our sons walk down the street and they have a hoodie, they're going to be stopped, and you're told where are you going because you're in a good area, all of these things go back to the memories that we have of our ancestors. Our stories are not linear. They are non-linear. They have to go backwards and forwards, and we have to see where we are going and to rejoice in the things that are changing, but not enough of it is changing. So I just feel that it's imperative that we teach our children. And as an adult, I don't believe in Black History Month. Our history is all year round, and it's not Black History because our history is white history. They came to Africa and took our people, and the riches that they have come from that, so our stories intermingle, and they go backwards and forwards. So when I'm writing, I want to showcase that complexity of the culture and the histories and how it goes backwards and forwards to the present day. That was beautifully put. Thank you. Thank you very much. I think it's really key that insight that we have to sustain that cultural imagination, as well as memory through kind of thinking about storytelling and also narratives around cultural history that go backwards and forwards. So thank you very much. So Goretti, this is really interesting because you've just spoken about passing on that legacy towards young people. So how are you currently working with young writers through your platform to extend their imaginative expressions of Africa in their representations? My platform at the moment is the African Writers Trust. So this is the organization that I founded in 2009, and basically the idea behind African Writers Trust is to bring together and connect African writers and publishing professionals in the diaspora and those on the continent. So we do this through trainings, mentorship. We run an international writers workshop. I'm in the conference every two years and we also run creative writing and publishing and editing workshops. So we work with young writers across the board. We work with writers who are focusing to develop their craft to higher standards or those who want to self-publish their works. We also work with writers who want to develop a career in the industry because in Africa it's so difficult to draw the line between who the writer is, who the editor is, who the publisher is, who the marketer is. It's usually one person wearing all those hats. So we work with all these writers who want to do different things with their craft. From my experience, there is an abundance of stories. There's no shortage of stories on the continent and talent and best skill. The main issue is the lack of the input of a professional book editor or publisher. So the stories are on one hand, but who comes to develop them to competitive levels, to cross the T's and dot the I's, as they say. That is what is generally lacking. It is a critical shortage of professional book editors on the continent. So how we usually address that is to invite the experts in the industry to come and mentor and run these editing and publishing workshops and work with these young writers. So in the past 10 years, we've worked with Ella Wakatama. I'm sure she's known to many of us. We've also invited Margaret Busby. She was in Uganda in 2016 to run an editing and publishing workshop and also to mentor. And as you said, to try and extend the imaginative vision of these young people. So the connection between the writers from the diaspora and the writers on the continent, I believe has contributed to expand that imaginative vision of the writers who remain on the continent. I should also mention that we've also worked with Jacob Ross, originally from Grenada. So that's what we've been focusing on. Thank you very much, Goethe. So there's a cross territorial exchange there with mentors for young writers. And for those that didn't catch the platform, the platform is African Writers Trust, and that's African Writers Trust, and you can find that online. So moving over, thank you very much, Goethe, to Sikiswa. We want to know more about your work, particularly made in SA. So that's South Africa. Local expressions appear in the dialogue of your work quite a lot. How can other writers showcase the complexity of language in their work? What advice do you have? Firstly, may I just say to Annie how much I absolutely enjoyed reading your excerpt and I'm looking forward to your book. I just needed to say that. That's the fun girl. But regarding language, I've always been fascinated with language and I always try to play around with it. And the reason I write and the reason I read is I read to entertain, but also to educate. So I like it when people read my work and they're able to place themselves, they're able to maybe not understand that particular word, but if it's put contextually, they can get it. But there are also certain things that are so quintessentially African that I enjoy using them in language. For instance, in a lot of our countries where the expression, we never walk a lot. We walk and walk and walk and walk. And I like the idea of that. I like the idea of hearing the smell. We know what hearing the smell means, because of the senses. So I am constantly with language, perhaps just always trying to reimagine and centre. Because so often we've centred whiteness, we've centred the West. I'm so often trying to centre us to say our story is meta, but how we speak, our language also matters, who we are. So I was talking to a friend and I said my characters. I never mentioned that I have somebody is black in a book because I'm black. So that is the centre. But I might mention that somebody is white because that's the other in my world. So it's just the needing to centre yourself, to centre your humanity. I was telling somebody at some point in time that they did a review of my first novel and the White South African woman and they said the first black woman chic literature. So there are all these compartmentalisations and I wasn't very happy with that. And she didn't understand why I was unhappy with it.  So I'm not the other. I am the centre.  And so it's very interesting to figure that out, but yeah. Amazing. Thank you so much for reminding us of how to centre ourselves and our humanity in our work. And we are slowly kind of running out of time but we will walk and walk and walk until we can then get more information from some of the other panellists with their questions. So one of the questions I actually have for Addy now is kind of around centering that humanity. So the theme of migration is interwoven throughout Pencara's box and some of your other work. Can you walk us through how this informs identity and the theme of identity in your work? Well as far as I'm concerned every single story is about identity. I don't know why the label is attached more to work by black people, African people, women, et cetera. When a Russian novelist or a French novelist writes about their heritage and their experience that's identity. So I've got no problem with writing identity. I just wish we'd be aware more or whatever every story is an element, an expression of identity. So I've always, the opposite of my sister from South Africa I've always lived in the West and I've always been what's been designated a minority but I've never felt that. I've always been conscious of being part of a global majority and even if numerically in England I grew up in West London, Notting Hill even if in England we were a numerical minority in Labyrinth Grove I wasn't actually aware that we were a minority I know it sounds ridiculous but there was such a world we lived in the world there were people from everywhere and it was actually only when I went to university where there was a numerical black people were a numerical majority so my work has always explored being African in the diaspora and Pandora's Box is my first play and it addressed a particular aspect of that diaspora experience which is you know the adeganes and ecstasies of raising children in the diaspora you want to connect to your home and your cultural family and world and country and you're also part of this country and what sorts of creative tensions does that throw up? So for me it's like my life I don't imagine I can write any story I could, I've been commissioned to write stories which don't deal with identity and diaspora but in terms of my experience it's so central the idea of always you know suitcase is always ready in the sense that my mother was always saying oh I'm going to go back to Nigeria so we always had this sense of being permanently temporary I wouldn't actually say that's necessarily a good thing but it's a part of my experience which is so part of my life that it's integral so in Pandora's Box it's a mother who's wrestling with whether or not to take her British born and she's also British born child she's wrestling about the choice about taking him back to school in Africa which as we all know many African parents in the diaspora do this if the child is having trouble as often young males sometimes run a cropper in this society for reasons we needn't go into here so it was a story which was inspired by a friend of mine and I was quite amazed at the extent to which it really connected with Asian audiences with Eastern European audiences it was quite a universal diaspora story how do we raise our young in a foreign land even though it's the home country of the mother it's still in the sense her second country so I think it's for African heritage writers and many of the books many of the pieces the extracts in Margaret's book speak to this experience of diaspora because we're global citizens and wherever we find ourselves positioned we're always looking to Africa because it's our homeland in lots of ways even if we never lived there I've never lived on the continent of Africa I've worked in Africa I've contributed to lots of African projects but I've always lived in either England and for a while in America so yeah, the idea of migration and I also think a lot about what will my son's children and his children be like that's something I'm beginning to think about in terms of the kinds of stories of diaspora they needn't just be about now what will the future of our diaspora be? I think those are interesting areas to explore too Definitely I think our young ones definitely need to start thinking about that themselves as well and that phrase that you mentioned permanently temporary resonated very deeply and the work the Black Curriculum does it really kind of grapples with those themes of identity so thank you for drawing our attention back to the fact that everyone experiences that as well I'm going to come back actually to Goretti and I want to know from you how optimism shapes your work I think if I remember correctly it was Desmond Tutu, Bishop Desmond Tutu who once said that we have to be prisoners of hope and I think whenever I'm doing my work it keeps coming back to me because giving up is the easier option I've worked on the continent I've been promoting literature and African writers for the past over 20 years and every time I think about giving up I always come back to that we have to keep up the hope we have to be optimistic but at the same time I want to believe that things are much better now than when I first published my first novel which was in 1996 there were virtually no support structures for writers the publisher who published me was the only publishing house in Uganda and now when I look through the past 15 or so years there are really a number of literary and publishing initiatives that have come up on the continent I can just mention a few there is the Archive Festival in Nigeria Hagaisa in Somariland there is a bantro in South Africa and then the Ugandan International Writers Conference which I organise in Uganda every two years there is Hoosa Press in Rwanda we know Kasawa Republic Press in Nigeria so I think things are beginning to look a little much better than they were about 25 years ago but I also look around and think that some things have actually remained the same in the past 20 odd years that I've been doing this work because most of these initiatives that I mentioned they are almost all of them are donor driven which indeed is a threat on itself and there is still virtually no support or very minimal support for arts and still a struggle as it was for me 20 years ago to raise the funds I need to run my work Thank you very much so whilst there is a sense of things changing there is still a lot of futility and instability with the structures that support writers and I think that is really crucial in terms of the work that we are putting out and what that means for our society so I want to move back to Zepiswa to understand within this society that we are speaking about what are some of the successes that you witnessed in writing and depicting polygamy? I've never written about polygamy and I don't know about any successes in depicting it My country's biggest polygamist or most famous Jacob Zuma probably can't tell you of any successes in polygamy if you look at his life so no I don't know Thank you for that I think one of the things that we want to move forward in thinking about is inspiration so if you could touch on some of the inspirations around your work that would be really good for some of the panellists to hear and also the audiences as well Well, suddenly Amad Tidw has been a big influence on me her outlook on the continent and the diaspora her panafocanism her feminism Maryse Conde is another very important literary figure to me and then the people like Zexm Da who is immensely generous he reads he comes he engages with your work in a very generous way so yeah I've been very lucky and of course Margaret Basby she is one of my major inspirations when I started setting up my publishing house because I loved what she did when she had Alison and Basby one of the most memorable books and I watched this movie at least twice twice three times a year and I read the book just as often the Spook who said by the door which was the first book that she published so yeah but yeah, I'm very lucky every woman and every man most writers that I've encountered have shaped me in some ways the amazing writers have made me want to become a better writer and the terrible ones have made me learn how not to be a writer so I guess you learned to be a writer thank you, thank you very much I do at Margaret Basby are inspirational very inspirational and Addy, if you could tell us more about Phyllis in London which is a story that you wrote why have you focussed on cross-national narratives about black people and why is that important to you I think you have mentioned before about the expression of identity and black protagonist but specifically how are those narratives also very important as well well Phyllis is a project I've been working on for several years and I've got a feeling I'll do the play in a couple of years and I may do a screen version of it and there are all sorts of ways to tell her story for those who don't know Phyllis Wheatley was an African-American enslaved woman who came to this country in 1773 to publish the first book of poetry by an African in English I always stress it was the first book in English not the first book written by an African obviously we have African languages and books were published but 1773 is a moment a landmark in British literary history American literary history African literary history from that point of view and she's fascinating to me as a diaspora writer because she came to London because although she was born in Africa and kidnapped from there trafficked to America and enslaved was heralded as a prodigy and celebrated while she was still enslaved and came to England because for lots of reasons they wouldn't publish her in America I studied as a writer in America myself several years ago so 30 years ago I was not in the same position obviously I wasn't enslaved but I was an African writer abroad and she came here to do a publicity tour of her work I know it does sound really contradictory how can you be enslaved, how can you be a celebrity how can you be a prodigy but this is all the madness of what slavery really was of course people who were genius before they were enslaved didn't just evaporate so her story is one that fascinates me from that point of view obviously as an African woman writer in English she's one of the mothers of my writing tradition and also I'm interested in her because it's a way to explore this question which has been central to my work how far do we embrace our trauma and tell our trauma and dramatise it I think struggle isn't all our history is about but it's a key part at least in our encounter with the West and I think the struggle has given us as African people really extraordinary narratives but we don't want just trauma narratives so we often hear people especially around films like 12 Years of Slave oh we don't want to hear any more slave stories I really fundamentally disagree with that I don't think stories about racism are depressing and un-empowering of themselves is how they're told I think we can tell stories about enslaved people which are tales of resistance and resilience and overcoming of all the obstacles that are in obviously there and I also think something much more fundamental I don't think there's ever has been there's ever been any shame in having been a slave and we shouldn't I certainly don't feel it's our fault is the obvious word and so the sense of shame that we sometimes exhibit when stories about enslaved people come up is unnecessary I like stories about the past because as in the case of the Phyllis Whitby story they really teach me about today I actually couldn't understand certain things that happened in contemporary life until I began researching and exploring Phyllis's story and then it was like oh hey presto now I get it I actually understood my times and the place and time I find myself in by going back to the depths of slavery the 1770s slavery was at its height and illuminated my life today as in Phyllis wasn't published in America because it wasn't what a black person was supposed to do they knew she'd written the books they tested her they knew she had the talent but they just thought oh no it's not right and doesn't that feed into some of the experiences we have in the west today certain things that are deemed not right for black people to be doing is still a feature of our lives very powerful and thinking about Phyllis's story as well as the linear narratives that we spoke about earlier Annie what are your hopes for the future of British theatre well British theatre at the moment is in difficulties shall we say because of the pandemic there are not there's no theatre that's open properly they're just starting I'm so looking forward to next weekend going to the national theatre to see Death of England by Roy Williams and Clinton's diet the wire because it's sort of saying we have a future but our future is going to be very different to the future that we have now I don't suppose that we're going to go back to the kind of lifestyle that we had before you know I think that it's going to be that we are so lucky in a way that we have the internet the young have the ability to do things that my generation would have been stymled if this had happened 30-40 years ago we have means of looking for different ways of bringing theatre and the arts at the moment I'm directing a zoom play of Wellesha Inker Death of the King Horseman which is on Sunday and the ability to have a cast from different parts of the country to come together and to rehearse and to perform means that there is some hope there have been lots of short plays on from people's homes and from small studios this whole thing of doing the socially distanced theatre is working for a lot of people I went to see something that this theatre was putting on and it was done in a basketball court of course in the winter you can't do that but we're being adventurous and we're being innovative and there's hope I think that we'll have the theatre that we had before for a long time I don't see the west end with the visitors all over the world coming to see our shows it's going to happen but I think that smaller theatres are going to happen we needed, we saw what happened when we first went into lockdown and how all those things that were filmed were sort of gumbled up in no time at all we see how some of the shows just videos for posterity are being shown and we see them of course when we first went into lockdown they showed a lot of things for free which is fine but now thank God they're beginning to charge for it so that people who can take part in it can be paid because a lot of us are not having any funds either way we're not furlored we have claimed universal benefits and so on and it's not just the actors it's the stage hands it's the costume people the make up and so on that makes up the theatre it's the restaurants around the theatre and so on we're all in a difficult position and we're just hoping that things will change but it will never get back to what it was it might come back and it might be going we might have it going parallel but it's online as well as the live theatre but live theatre in some form will be there but it is very difficult and a lot of people are suffering and a lot of people will be out of work and they might try to do what we were told we were supposed to do go and find and train for other jobs where are these other jobs there are no other jobs and people will want entertainment they do want music they do want theatre because it's good for our mental stability so we are we are essential workers in a lot of ways and please God let the theatre continue and music continue and live theatre absolutely I think it's really really interesting that we've just reflected on a reality of precarity and we just don't know what's going to happen in the future but at the moment we have such wonderful contributions from you all and also a reminder that people will come to listen to education and to ways in which we can think about the world to represent black people and black contributions to the world in a better light so thank you very much for your contributions we have about seven minutes for questions so to the audience please submit all your questions using the question form we have wonderful panelists and we'll be able to take them so you can use the question feed and I will be able to read them out so we have one question so when you're writing your questions if you could pose it to one of the panelists that would be really helpful but I'm going to pose this one to everyone so how can we use online resources to benefit black history and learning are there free platforms we can access with our children in our schools and where can we go to hear those oral histories and stories Annie discusses so I'll leave that for everyone if we can respond in two minutes under two minutes so that we can get other questions in that would be great so that is online resources I think you're the one with your work you do as a black curriculum you're the answer we'll hand that over to you Lavinia okay cool I'll join you all some of the online resources include animations that you can find on YouTube there are also an array of videos on YouTube as well that document the experiences of black people in Britain in the early 1900s and also the early 20th century too and I think it's really important to start with visual elements as well as books as well there are a number of courses that you can take online available under black history I think it's black history books and also by Robin Walker who is now offering online courses as well for everyone to educate themselves on black history Instagram is a great learning tool I think we've all seen over the course of the pandemic everyone sharing loads of these infographics about this so you can access not only archives but also information on Instagram a few of the accounts that I know of are black in the day there is also another page called Free Black Uni which are doing an amazing job at the moment in boarding it out but I'm not going to spend too much time discussing that I would suggest people go to your website because that would be an absolute treasure trove I imagine you're being too humble so the Black Curriculum is a website that you can check out theblackcurriculum.com and we're having a rate of resources that we will be developing over the next couple of months that include black British history yeah thank you thank you Addy for the shout out cool so are there any other questions currently we are having problems and getting questions in don't be shy people just comment on one thing that's interesting in terms of the stage I've been thinking about this for a long time just connected to the issue of black protagonists I'd love to hear any thoughts I really relish any opportunity to see wonderful actors in any role but I often worry about sometimes the thing that's called colour blind casting may be detracting from original new material which is if you like about African subjects and stories if there's no question coming through that's something I think we should also think about in the context of this conversation about African representation when you put a black body on stage in the form of actors like Annie of the calibre of Annie and they're doing a role which is wonderful and they're doing a great job I think of Papa Essidu when he did Hamlet extraordinary performance I think Hamlet for me has never been performed so brilliantly and I've seen about 30 or 40 productions and the question still remains what happens when that body is emptied of its own history and heritage I'd like to just say something about that I think that we have for too long bow down to black American play we have so many very good black British writers and unless unless their plays are done we will not become part of the canon and we will have to keep falling back another thing I love Shakespeare, I teach Shakespeare and I think it's fine for us to I think that for us to represent ourselves and where we stand as black British in England is vital for young people to come and see themselves when we did Three Sisters although it was based on Chekhov's Three Sisters after it was moved to Biafra the number of people who came and then brought their parents or brought their children because they were learning about Biafra and about the history of the connection between Biafra and England, Biafra and the rest of the world and it was absolutely amazing to some people to come on to go to the theatre and see 18 black people on stage all British presenting some British and black history I see Lavigne wants to say something I'm just coming because all the questions are coming in so a question for any quick we have two minutes and we're going to watch the Wale Srincher production this coming Sunday and another question for all the panellists where is the best place to start when exploring African female writers and who are the must reads The zoom thing is on Utopia Utopia Theatre if you go to their website you can see how to get a ticket for Sunday at 4.30 Wale Srincher get of the King's Horseman that I directed with Mojitola talking about where they can get about black female writers they can go to there's some anthologies that will give you an idea of what place they are and then you can get to some of the female writers but there are people like Winston Pinnock there's a day here there are Paulette Randall there are so many of them I could give a whole list but go online and find out there's actually the National Theatre has something called Black Theatre online which is a portal that also is a good resource and I can see Utopia Utopia is a fantastic resource and so is the Dotson of Africa which is the original so if you get new Dotson of Africa this is an amazing resource to start with and I've been doing since March an online libfest a virtual libfest as a response to the pandemic called Afrolid Sons Frontiers and it's got writers in English and in Portuguese and in French from all over the black world whether it's Brazil or you know Angola or Cameroon or you know just all of us so that's another place you can just check it out on www.AfrolidSonsFrontiers.com and you'll see a lot of women writers thank you one more question from the Margaret Busby so she said what she wanted to say thank you all for your wonderful contributions to the anthology how do you all feel about having helped the book to happen in collaboration with myriad editions who have put on this amazing event with the British Library and so has and enabling one student from Africa to have a free course of study how does it feel 30 seconds each I think it's just so wonderful because everything we're doing in the anthology with this talk with the work Jonah and the other the team at the British Library with what you're doing at the black curriculum all of us we're saying in our own different ways black women's voices and lives matter so to put our energy and the wonderful resources the money that's coming from this book into fueling the development of the talent of another black woman whether she's a writer, a scientist a botanist we don't really care but she's contributing to making the world a better place so I think it's just a great honour and privilege to be part of this thank you Margaret it's a wonderful thing to be able to do I got into the novel for the anthology because myriad did a competition which is the first novel edition which I won and if it wasn't for that encouragement I would not have been among such amazing writers so to have the opportunity for somebody else to come from Africa to have some training in England and to have that opportunity is absolutely wonderful and I'm thrilled that I'm able in my small way to make that happen hi Margaret hi Margaret thank you very much thank you for coming to Uganda and for us it was a great opportunity it's very inspiring and please come again I know we went dancing and would like to do that again thank you thank you Goethe and to Keiswa and we'll end I think it was an absolute honour to be part of this project of course my big fantasy is where we all over this continent maybe some of the money that's used on weapons that end up killing us by our governments is moved so that it goes to books so that more people can benefit from the scholarship like this one so thank you very much Margaret it was an initiative and was an absolute honour to be in this book I know a lot of my writer friends who were very envious that they didn't make it so yay me can I just quickly add although we now have two daughters of Africa Margaret you can't rest for more than a few more weeks we want number three okay we're looking forward to the same volume yes please number three thank you all for your contributions this evening for all your wonderful work we'd love to continue the conversation and please to the audience and the panellists please continue the conversation online and you can find the handles for my additions and also the British Library on Twitter where you can continue the conversation but thank you each for your contributions and we hope that you all start your learning with daughters of Africa and have a lovely evening thank you thank you good evening everyone bye bye a huge thanks to our brilliant panel and special thanks to myriad additions and to the black curriculum and thanks to you for joining us please do check out the rest of our events program for the unfinished business exhibition