So welcome to this webinar about preparing an application for the North Central Region SAIR's research and education grant program or for the partnership grant program. I'm going to go over a few general slides about SAIR and about North Central SAIR to give you an idea about what we look for and what reviewers are looking for in proposals. And then I will go into some specifics about each of the grant programs. And I'll talk about what reviewers are looking for in each of those grant programs. And we're doing this on both those grant programs because there's a fair amount of overlap in all that information. And also it can be a good strategy. You are allowed to apply to both grant programs. And you might think about whether your project fits one or the other, or maybe if there's one aspect of your project that would fit one of the programs and another aspect that could fit another program. So if you are in the right place, if you are located in one of the 12 upper Midwest states or tribes or nations that share geography with those states, and if you want to share sustainable ag information or do research on sustainable ag practices in one of those states. So we go from the Dakotas down to Kansas and across that southern border to Ohio and the states and tribes and nations that are north of that in the United States. I am going to go over that information and then hold questions. Hopefully for later, I know everybody is muted at this point when we go to questions. You can either unmute yourself or you can put questions in the chat. So Aaron Schneider and Marie Flanagan are helping to host this webinar today. And we appreciate you taking the time to follow. I do go through the information pretty quickly, but these but PowerPoints for each of the individual programs along with notes, which basically repeat what I'm saying on the webinar are also on our North Central Sare website. So you can go back and review some of this information there. We do currently have four grant programs open. The other two grant programs that are open are the Farmer Rancher Grant Program and the Youth Educator Grant Program. Aaron Benjamin is the coordinator for those programs and she'll be presenting webinars about applying for those in early October. So you can go to our North Central Sare website and sign up for those if you're interested in those grant programs. I am Beth Nelson. I direct the North Central Region Sare Program. And then I also directly coordinate the Research and Education Grant Program and then I co-coordinate the partnership grant program with my colleague Rob Meyers, who's located at the University of Missouri. And contact information for us will be on the last slide. And you are welcome to contact us, especially with specific questions about your idea or your concept. Let's see. I think I'm going to go ahead and have Marie put up the first slide, which just kind of gives our general statement about the Research and Education Grant Program. So it's a competitive grant program that funds collaborative teams of scientists, farmers, institutions, and educators who are exploring sustainable agriculture through research projects or through education demonstration projects. We do use a pre-proposal process and I'll talk a little bit more about that. Those pre-proposals are due Thursday, October 5th at 4 o'clock p.m. Central Daylight Time. And so please make note of that and close a business time or almost close a business in the Central Region and get your project in by then. You can go to the next slide, Marie. Then I'm also going to be talking about the partnership grant program and that's intended to foster cooperation between agricultural professionals and small groups of farmers and ranchers to catalyze on-farm research, demonstration, and education activities related to sustainable agriculture. And those proposals are due October 19th, also a Thursday at 4 o'clock p.m. Central Daylight Time again. Those have a maximum amount of 50,000. And the research and education grants have a maximum amount of 250,000. The partnership referred to in these projects refers to the partnership between the ag professional and the small group of farmers. And we usually require three or more farmers to be working with the ag professional on that. You can go to the next slide, Marie. So we are the North Central Sare Region Sustainable Ag Research and Education Grant Program. And that is actually a USDA program. And we are part of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, or NEPA. You can go to the next slide, Marie. We fund grants and outreach to advance sustainable innovations to the whole of American agriculture. And so you can tell that's a pretty broad charge. So we cover a lot of territory in the topics that we fund. You can go to the next slide, Marie. We like to think that we are a different kind of federal grant program. And I like this slide because it kind of highlights some of the ways that we think we are a little different. So we have been around for about over 30 years. We were started as a decentralized program that just means that we have four different regions, science-based, grassroots, practical, problem-solving, and inclusive competitive grant making and outreach program. So I just want to break that down a little bit. So we are science-based, but we do farmer-driven research. That's that grassroots aspect. And it is practical problem-solving research. So we recognize that basic research is critically important in agriculture, but we fund applied research. It's just not, we don't fund basic research, we fund applied research. So we're looking for projects that might be implemented on farmer's fields in the next few years. And we seek to be inclusive. One of the ways that we do that is, I told you, we're governed by an administrative council, and that's made up of farmers and ranchers, researchers, extension educators, non-profit personnel, also state and federal government personnel. So really kind of a wide range of people and expertise. And that's one thing to remember when you're writing your proposal, is that you won't necessarily necessarily have a group of people that have specific expertise in your area reviewing your pre-proposal or your proposal. So you want to make sure you don't use jargon, you explain terms, not necessarily for a general audience, but for a general agricultural audience. We are a competitive grant program. So we generally get about 150 proposals, or pre-proposals, I'm sorry, and fund, invite 30 to 35 funds, 16 or 17 in our research and education program. In the partnership grant program, your odds are a little better. We usually get about 40 to 50, and we fund 20. So that's one reason to consider perhaps applying to both if you can make your project work that way. You can go on to the next slide, Maureen. We are primarily a grants organization, but I just want to quickly point out that we have a lot of materials available for your use as well that are based on the results that have come from the many grants that Sarah has funded over those 30-plus years. The bulletins that you see here are available for free online as PDFs to download. The books mostly are also available as PDFs to download, or you can order print copies at fairly reasonable prices. The bulletins, especially if you're an educator or if you put on workshops, you can order bundles of those bulletins for free that you can distribute at workshops. So I just wanted to make you aware that those resources were available. Next slide, Maureen. So talking about what Sarah is looking for in projects. So we emphasize in sustainability those three major aspects of sustainability, social, economic, and environmental. So when you submit your pre-proposal or your proposal for the partnership grant program, you'll want to be telling us how your outcomes address NCRSERS outcomes, which are improving the economic viability of farmers and associated ag businesses, sustaining and improving the environmental quality and natural resource based on which agriculture depends, and enhancing the quality of life for farmers, ranchers, communities, and society as a whole. And on the next slide, I just want to comment that we realize that we have not always been great about emphasizing the social aspect of sustainability, and we're trying to do a little bit better at that. If you were trained in agricultural sciences, you may not have had a lot of exposure to social sustainability either. And so we've had some SARE resources recently developed that this is a short bulletin that you can find at this link that helps you understand and measure social sustainability. It's very short. I feel it's well done. It's a great introduction to social sustainability. And so I wanted to make sure you knew that was available as a resource as well. Next slide. I already said we have a very broad short charge, and so we have funded projects in integrated pest management, in marketing, in specialty crops, cover crops, and soil health, pastured livestock and grazing systems, urban ag, pollinators, broad range of topics. Again, you just want to bring it back in your proposal to how this addresses the outcomes of North Central Region SARE. Next slide. So I've already told you about four of the grant programs that NCR, the North Central Region offers. And if you go to our website, again, we have pretty good web pages for each of these grant programs. So Farmer Rancher and the Youth Educator Program are also open now. We're talking today about the Research and Education and the Partnership Grant Program. The Graduate Student Grant Program and the Professional Development Program, those calls will come out in February, and those proposals are usually due in April. The Professional Development Grants are train-the-trainer grants, but again, more information about those grant programs are on our website. Next slide. So these are some of the specifics about the Research and Education Grant Program. Again, it is a pre-proposal process, and the pre-proposal is fairly short. Basically you're just pitching the concept to let the reviewers know how this fits with North Central SARE's outcomes and what the impact might be on sustainable agriculture in the North Central Region. The grants themselves are for $250,000, and you can have 10% of that as during costs. But the pre-proposal does not require a budget. You'll have to sketch things out, obviously, to figure out an estimate for the cost. We do ask that you indicate the range of funding you might be seeking. I think the categories are like zero to 50, 50 to 100, etc., but you don't have to submit a budget, which makes the pre-proposal a little easier to prepare. The term for Research and Education Grants is 36 months. We do have a long-term funding option. That's primarily it. It means that you can get funded for the first cycle of three to four years and then get another cycle of funding without having to go through the pre-proposal process. It's a little complicated to explain. I do have a slide about it I'll go through quickly. If you are considering applying for that, there's just a checkbox on the form where you can say long-term, I will tell you that our reviewers are really looking for projects that can't yield outcomes in the first three to four years. They're generally projects that take a lot of time to set up, either by building relationships or by setting up a long-term crop rotation or agroforestry. Those are the type of projects. If you're considering applying for that, I would suggest you give me a call to talk over your idea. Again, the projects can be for research or they can be for education or demonstration projects. We do insist on outreach for all of our programs. Even if you're doing a three-year research study, at the full proposal level, you have to outline what you are going to do for outreach. You do have to share the information that you are gathering. The pre-proposals again are due October 5th. We invite about 30 to 35 pre-proposals to develop full proposals and we'll be funding, we have funding for about 16 proposals this year. Another point that I'll show the timeline later, but funds for the R&E, because we use a pre-proposal process, it takes a while. The funds that you would be applying for in October of this year will be available to start November 1st of next year. There's a year delay in when the funding starts. I think you can go ahead and move on to the next slide. This is just about the long-term funding. It is reviewed by a specific team that looks at the long-term funding. You do need to include a strong justification for why it requires long-term funding. We note that most projects will lead to another project. When you get to the full proposal, you're just submitting for that first three-year cycle, but you have kind of a work plan for the other cycles. Again, I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about that. When you apply at the pre-proposal level for long-term funding, the review committee may come back to you and say, they may say this is a good long-term proposal and this fits our criteria and invite you to submit as a long-term funding in the full-proposal stage. They might say not a strong long-term, doesn't justify long-term funding, but you should apply in the short-term at a full proposal and invite you for a full proposal as a short-term. They may say, yeah, the way it's written, it's not long-term, could be, and then you have to make the decision at the full proposal level whether you're going to apply for a long-term. At that point, if you submit as a long-term project as a full proposal, you will only be funded if they approve it as a long-term project. Like I said, it's a little bit complicated. It's less risky to say that at the early level, but you do want to make sure that you have a project that basically fits those long-term funding criteria. So please contact me if you're planning to do that. Next slide. So I just want to tell you a little bit about the review process. For the R&E pre-proposals, they're reviewed by our administrative council and they're reviewed in small groups that are loosely based on expertise and topic. And they basically are scoring on relevance to sustainable agriculture in our region and farmer engagement. So all of our projects require farmer engagement, again, because we fund farmer-driven research. They will be looking at your methods and approach, but there's less emphasis at the pre-proposal level on the technical aspects. And you'll note you don't have a lot of room. You can't put in tons of details about methods and approach. But you do need to kind of say, at least your treatments, your experimental designs, some of that, because they just want to know if your approach is likely to yield a solution to the problem you're addressing. So they just want to know that your approach is likely to be successful. Next slide. These are now the specifics about the partnership grants. So these are grants for up to $50,000, and they are two-year duration. Again, they can be research, demonstration, education, or even marketing. And they involve a team of three or more farmers or ranchers. In, I guess I would say rare circumstances where it's maybe a new area or there really aren't three or more farmers or ranchers working in that area. We may allow you to have fewer farmers as part of the partnership. But again, that would be something you should contact us for. And they're led by an ag professional. And we kind of envision this program as being something where a group of farmers say, boy, we've heard about this idea. We weren't just not sure it'll work on our farm, but we don't want to write a grant about it. And they approach an extension educator or a nonprofit person who works at a nonprofit, and they actually write the grant and kind of coordinate the grant. But the work is done with the farmers and the ranchers. And again, those are due October 19th. You can move on to the next one. We do broadly define ag professionals. This might be one of the most common questions that we get about this program is, am I an ag professional? So contact us if, if you are unsure. But I would say that if you're on this webinar, you likely are an ag professional so they can be extension educators or university educators or researchers, nonprofit personnel, agency staff, certified crop advisors or other ag and natural resource consultants, farmers and ranchers.  But again, if you have questions, just give us a call. Next slide. So I want to talk to you a little bit about successful proposals. Some of these should be self evident from what we've already discussed. So they should demonstrate relevance to the north central region and specifically address our broad based outcomes that are based on social, environmental and economic outcomes. And I will say that, especially for the partnership grant programs, a smaller amount of funding, we completely understand you may be emphasizing economics more or environment or social more, but you should at least be thinking about how your, how your project will lead to outcomes in those other areas. And critically, you must involve farmers and ranchers in your project. If you, if you're at a stage in the research where you can't, it may be that it's just not a good fit for this program. So you don't, we like to have you identify the farmers and ranchers at the pre-proposal process for the research and education grants. For the partnership one, you actually have to have letters from the three participating farmers. And what we say in the, are any pre-proposal is if you can't name them yet, let us know why and what your approach is to be able to get those farmers. And you may not have all of your farmer cooperators lined up, but in that pre-proposal, you sure want to show that you have the capacity to involve them. And at least a few of them are already engaged in the project, because again, we fund farmer-driven research. Next, next slide. So I'm, I'm repeating myself, but again, you want to discuss what the impact of your work will be in the north central region by addressing specifically and CRSAIR's proposed outcomes in economic, environmental, and social sustainability. You can go to the next slide, Marie. And you want to have clear outcomes. And I'm going to say a little bit more about outcomes. I think there's sometimes misunderstanding about outcomes and results. So your outcomes are what you want to happen as a result of having done the project. And if you've done program logic models, you know that we talk about short-term outcomes, which are basically changes in learning or attitudes or skills or longer term outcomes, which will be changes in what your, your audience does, so how they've changed their behavior. So I want to just mention a little bit more about what the difference might be in those outcomes, whether you're doing a research project or an education project. And Marie, I think you can move to the next slide. So in an education project, so the example I'm going to use is doing post-harvest handling workshops. So you are going to basically, the idea, if you're doing that either for the research and education pre-proposal or for the partnership grant, you're going to be spending your time doing that, doing that education, doing the outreach, basically, or the education on some kind of a practice. So since you're going to be able to do two years or maybe three years worth of workshops, you will have an opportunity to follow out and see if people have made behavior changes. So if you're doing a post-harvest handling workshops, you might, in the first year, you know, you can do a survey and find out that farmers have learned post-harvest handling and packing techniques for sales to institutions. And then you could follow up six months to a year later to see if they have changed the behavior. So your outcome could be farmers will use post-harvest techniques and increase sales to institutions. Next slide. So generally, outcomes do refer to your outreach portion. So if you're doing a research project and you're going to be doing three years of gathering research information, like I said, we do insist on outreach.  But you might wait until you have two or three years of data to do that. And so you may not have the time to follow up on action outcomes. So you can say what you think they will be, but we understand that you may not be able to really follow up and guarantee that farmers have changed those practices based on the research results you presented in the third year. So the example I give is if you're doing a research project and you're going to look to see if landscape diversity influences pollinator population on vegetable crops. So your learning outcome is you're going to be sharing, you may collect the data for two years and then you attend a conference and you share what your results are up to that point. So farmers are going to learn how diverse landscape influences a number and type of pollinators. The action outcome would be that they're going to actually maybe plant biodiverse plantings to increase their pollinator population based on your results. But we don't expect you to be reporting on that. You won't have time to do that in your three-year proposal. So that's just a little bit about how you frame the outcomes that you're going to put into your pre-proposal or your full proposal for the partnership grant program. Next slide. So the pre-proposal application for the R&E grant as well as the proposal application, all of our grants go through our online submission system and there is a link for that in the calls for pre- proposals and in the call for proposals. We suggest that you maybe work this up as a word document before you go in and then you can answer the specific questions. The call for proposals does have all of the questions that you'll be asking the online system, but you can go into the online system at any point and that's at projects.sir.org. I gave it away and then I'll show you at the end some of those screenshots for some of you who want to go into it and actually we may have a few of them here for registering as well. You can go on to the next one. So the first thing you need to do is make sure that you download the call for proposals. Most of the information that's in there, I'm going over in this webinar, but sometimes there's extra information in there and you want to make sure you have the current call for pre-proposals. I've had instances where someone was using an old one and was just completely caught off guard when there was a new question. Usually they're very close to what the previous year was, but you need to download the new one. If you go to our website north central sir.org, click on research and education grant. You can download that sample, that call. Actually this one shows the sample call. The current call for proposals is on that website right now. Most of you have already seen it because I think that's probably where you registered for the webinar as well. Same for the partnership grant program. You'll go to the partnership page at north central sir.org and download the call for proposals. So that's the first step. Next, this is just the one for the partnership grant program. So again, this is applying for a grant making sure that you're in the right spot. These are resources that you can use. This is to get you to more information on the websites about the research and education grant program or the farmer rancer grant program. And again, it's going to look a little different now that we have those grant programs open. So one really important resource for you is your state coordinator and you can go to, again, north central sir.org, click on state programs and you can find the contact information for your sir, state coordinator. And then they often will look over your pre-proposal discussion idea with you. Sometimes they can be helpful if you're not sure they're farmers and ranchers working in an area that you're interested in or you need additional contacts, they might be able to hook you up with some of them. And they're just a great resource. Sometimes they will even read through a draft. They're not going to edit or do heavy, heavy editing, but they often will try to read through your draft and see if you're on track with what Sarah reviewers are looking for. So make sure you take advantage of that. Next slide. This is just how you get into the system. So it's projects.serr.org. And this is where you do apply and you do need to go in here and create an account. But the other thing that you want to do is look up past serr projects to see how your work differs or builds on past projects. And again, that idea of how it differs. So we do recognize that sometimes, especially a project that's environmentally dependent. So project on cover crops in Michigan may be very different from a project on cover crops in Western Nebraska. We recognize that. But you should note that, you know, Sarah has we funded these projects, but our area is different because we have a very sandy soil or, you know, something like that. So or you want to say they showed this, but we want to go beyond that and do something else. So we have all of our serr reporting is in a project database at projects.serr.org. And you can go to search projects and you can go to the next slide. And you can enter in a keyword either under project title or under project reports. And it will pull up a whole list of projects that have been funded in that area. I think the next slide maybe shows the list of cover crop proposals from 2017 to 2022 that we have funded in our region. And you click on those links and you can pull up the report. So it's good to know what we've already funded, especially recently. And you can find that at projects.serr.org search reports. So next slide. So these these are just the categories I took. These are in the call for proposals. These are the sections for the RNA pre proposal body. Again, it's pretty simple. Project summary objectives, outcome relevance, method approach, farmer rancher engagement and your team. You don't have a lot of room to put in team members, but you should list the name their expertise. And that doesn't have to be credential. It can just be what their experience is in that area or why what what they will be doing on the project. You'll have we would have more room to do that on the full proposal. But we just want to know that you have the right team members together to to do the work. Next slide, please. These are the proposal sections for the partnership grants a little more involved, especially you do have to do a budget and a budget justification. But again, relevance objectives. What are your activities? And we do ask you in the partnership one, because it is a full proposal, you are defining what the ag professional is doing and what the farmers or ranchers are doing. Again, you should go to talk about what the previous research on the topic is, especially in the SEAR grant system, what your outcomes are and what you expect the impact will be your budget. You do have to attach resumes. There's a signature page that's needed, and you need the letters from your participating farmers. Those are uploaded as attachments to the program. The animal welfare statement, and most of you might be familiar with that. If you're working with animals, you usually need your institution to sign off on animal welfare or provide a different kind of statement. That is not needed at the proposal level. You can wait to see if you're funded and then get that week. It's called I a cook institutional animal care committee. And there's also some other paperwork. If you're working with human subjects, but again, those are the kind of things we can approach if you're funded. Next slide. This is the timeline for the grant cycles. So again, this is for the 2024 research and education program. Pre proposals are due the 5th. February is when the applicants are you'll be notified if you're invited to submit a full proposal with the full proposals due in April. Committee meets to review those and the AC approves it in July. We award and notify you whether you've been funded or not in August. And then you go through a budget review. The funds are available November. So your project cannot start before November 1st. And then the timeline for the partnership grant program is on the next slide. So those again are due October 19th by four o'clock p.m. Central Time. So five o'clock Eastern, three o'clock Mountain. I hope I said that right. Early February is when you will be notified and the funds are available for the partnership grant program in April. So that's another reason to consider the partnership grant program is that they're available for this next growing season. The research and education full proposal funding will not be available for the next growing season. And I think you can go on to the next slide, which contains the contact information. So again, I coordinate the research and education grant program. So if you have questions about preproposals, you're welcome to contact me. I will take general questions about applications. But if you have specific questions about your idea or your or your topic, you can email me or call me and arrange to set up a time to call. Rob Meyers does co coordinate the partnership grant program. He will be on sabatic leave this month. So if you're going to be, if you have questions this month, you probably should contact me first. He might be responding to some email, but he's trying to focus on a sabatic project. And so contact me first after October 1st, he will be back in the office and you can be reach him. I do also want to note that for that full proposal and some institutions also for the pre proposal, you do often have to go through your administration, especially if you're at a college or university, you have to go through your grants office. And that sometimes can take a while. It may take as long as a week. So while we say the deadline for the application is the 19th, you do have to upload a signed page from your grants office, or if you're at a nonprofit from your financial person that goes with the application. And so leave plenty of time to do that. So even though the partnership grant program applications are due the 19th, you might need to have that into your administrative office, your grants office by the 12th, or maybe even earlier in some cases. So make sure you find out about that ahead of time as well know who needs to sign off on it and how much time they need. Next, I think the next slide is questions unless I've missed something. Yep. So again, you can go I know I went over things pretty quickly. Again, most of this information is available in the PowerPoints that are on our website. But if you have questions about applications, you are welcome to either unmute and ask or if you put them in the chat, Aaron or Marie can funnel those to me. Thank you for your talk, Beth. That was really helpful. There's a question in the chat from Catherine DeLong. It says for the partnership grants, can we work with non operating landowners? Or is it preferred to work with the operator? Hmm. So so, call me. We do recognize if the non operating landowner is making a lot of the decisions about conservation, you know, implementing conservation measures and that. We maybe would say that is eligible. And I would just suggest that in the application, you make sure you justify that as well. And the non operating landowner would have to write a letter. And so they could say in that that they their lease or their contract, you know, stipulates these conservation measures or whatever. So they actually are making the management decisions on the on the cropland or for the pasture. The next question is what percentage of the partnership grant budget should go to the farm partners? So it depends on the work they're doing. So they there is not. We don't have a guideline and I haven't seen reviewers come down too heavily on that. We do understand that part of the funding is going to compensate the ag professional for the time they're using to coordinate. But if you have them doing on farm research and they're spending a lot of time implementing the research, if they're if they are collecting data or those type of things for all ser projects, we generally recommend that you estimate hours and try to compensate them at about $25 an hour. So there's not a total that's assumed. But you should be compensating them fairly for the time you're expecting them to put in. The next question is, does the R&E pre proposal need to go through University grant office before submission to Sarah? It depends on your university. So at Minnesota, it does not. If what Minnesota tells us is if you don't are if you're not submitting a budget, we don't need to see it. I've heard of one institution. Now I can't remember who it is who wants to see it no matter what. But in general, so check with your grants office, but because you don't have to supply a budget, you're just indicating a range of funding. Most institutions don't require that you go through the grants office. So check with your grants office. Next question for the partnership grant, a budget needs to be submitted and a budget justification. Can you please explain the latter? So the budget, you will see when you go into the online system, and actually, we can look at that a little bit. I should say to the PowerPoint presentations that are online actually walk through the application process. So you'll see screenshots of the budget process. So in the budget process, you have to put in the amount and then the justification is not necessarily why is this necessary for the research. But we do want to know what it's for and how you came up with that number. So if you say I want $5,000 for travel, and we realize you're making gross estimates, but we need to know how you're estimating that 5,000. So if you're saying, well, when I go, I'm going to do a workshop, I'm going to need two hotels. I'm going to, you know, it will probably be a 300 mile trip mileage reimbursement per DM. So you put that calculation in there in the budget, that's part of the budget justification. And again, we do have some screenshots of that and some samples of that in the PowerPoint that's online. And call us if you have questions. Are there any special considerations for revising and resubmitting proposals that were rejected in previous grant cycles? That's a great question. And it's not necessarily that you get extra points technically. And that's maybe the wrong word to use. So we don't, we wouldn't score that. But I will tell you that they do give consideration to projects that have come back and addressed reviewer comments. I think both the pre-proposal and the partnership program have a part that says, is this a resubmission and give you a section where you can show how you've addressed reviewer comments. And I have found reviewers really can focus in on that. And part of their comments will often be, I think they did a really nice job of addressing reviewer comments. And I do want to say that we recognize that sometimes there may have been a reason for what you were doing and your your reaction to the reviewer comment may be to say, well, we considered that, but we didn't do it because X, Y, Z and that's equally valid. So it just gives you a chance to kind of react. And one of the big hints I give, especially in research and education proposals is to make use of that extra space you get for commenting about how you've responded to reviewer comments. So I do I do think there can be an advantage to coming back and addressing those comments. Next question for research and education grants, what type of farm partners can we work with? Small urban farms or only large acreage farms? Yes. All farms. You can work with all farms. So and I one thing I should note is that we have a very liberal definition of farmers and ranchers in the north central region. So we define a farmer or rancher as someone who grows crops or raises livestock, especially as a business. But there is not a dollar amount there. They don't require to submit a schedule F. We don't have those kind of requirements. So we're a little bit more liberal with our definition than the traditional USDA definition. And I think you probably answered that with this last question. But for research and education, do farm partners need farm numbers? So no, they just have to be growing a crop or raising livestock. So yeah. Next question, where can we find more information on allowable costs for the partnership budgets? Can budget be used on plants, hiring personnel, equipment, etc? So yes, to most of those equipment is kind of and again, that's in the call for proposal. So I didn't go over much of that at all in this, but it is in the call for proposals, what are not allowed costs and what allowable costs are. So most things are allowed except equipment. And if you're talking major equipment and we define that as over five thousand dollars, we generally don't fund that, especially equipment that's going to last beyond the use, the grant term. Things that are under five thousand are considered supplies and materials. So those can be in your budget. We don't fund purchase of land or infrastructure. So building, you can't retrofit a building, you can't build a new building. It has to be mobile. We have funded things like putting up a high tunnel as long as it's technically mobile. So can have cement footings.  Sometimes we have to ask it, or if it's going to be used for another purpose, we might ask you to prorate it. I will say some of those expenses are things that we work out after you've been funded. We have never rejected a proposal out of hand because it had unallowable costs unless there was a way we just couldn't work it out. And it was the whole proposal. So some of those small things we can say like, well, you can't you can't pay for that, but we can change it. Another thing that people get caught up is paying for food. And we say that you can pay for a meal for a workshop, as long as there's programming before or after. So it has to preserve continuity of the meeting. So it would be hassle to hassle to send everybody out to get lunch and then bring them all back. So there has to be programming before and after. I don't know if I covered all of that question or not. But again, look at the call for proposals for the partnership grant program, and then contact me if you have some specific questions about charges. That's the end of the questions that were listed in the chat. I am would invite anyone at this time if you have a question that you're not comfortable putting in the chat to go ahead and unmute yourself and ask that question. There's another question in the chat. Our grant administration administration staff effort allowable costs or are those indirect only. So they so if it's time for the ag professional or for the researcher, that is allowable. But if it's things like you want to pay, you know, you're covering office rent or something like that, that is not that has to come under that 10% indirect costs. That's so things like office, general office supplies, office rent, you know, unless they're playing completely devote personnel that it's not completely devoted to the project or you have to allocate the time they'll spend on that project. That might be allowable. But otherwise, most administrative costs come under that 10% indirect. And again, that's something if you have a cost in there that is has to go under indirect and you're funded are grants and contract person works with you on your budget to just revise that. Another question. What do projects usually use funds for that are not the 10% percent? I would say mostly personnel, probably. So if you are doing a partnership grant program, we would maybe pay, you know, part of the ag professionals time for the work that they're doing. And so that's kind of grants administration, they're applying for the grant, they're going to be coordinating the grant, they're going to be writing up the reports and we don't that's those are direct costs, though, of the report. So I think those are most of the things. Sometimes if there's something that is needed that is really specifically for the program, I know we've had some education projects where they've had iPads that they're some of their students, their training need to have. Those are those are things that we have allowed that don't come under indirect costs. But again, call me if you have questions about that. I don't have any more questions coming through the chat right now. So again, we give you our contact information so that you feel free to contact us. So please reach out if you have questions. And I am going to I'm going to keep Marie and Aaron on. If those of you have already been in the projects.serr.org, you don't want to you don't need to look at the screen the screenshots just got about five slides, I think, of screenshots coming up that we can go through. So thank you for making the time to be here. Contact me if you have questions and we look forward to getting proposals from you. Marie, why don't you line up the screenshot for the projects.serr.org. All right. So this is again, you go into projects.serr.org and you either have to create an account. Or if you've already submitted a grant in the past, you can just log in. And so you click on one of those two and we'll just go to the next screenshot. If you are making a new account, you have to fill out the information that has the red asterisk found by it. And I will note that in order for us to kind of track our progress and how well we're reaching communities that have been historically underserved by USDA programs. We do collect demographic information when you first register in the system. It is in no way connected to your proposal at all. It just helps us kind of track who's applied for program what groups have been applying for programs, whether we're reaching people and whether we're giving sufficient information that they can be successful in getting grants. So I always in our system, you have to usually go down to the bottom and look for that register thing to advance you to the next page. Sometimes it's not all that obvious. So you click on register and you will have an account. You can go to the next slide. You're going to start a new grant proposal. And again, this is for all four regions. So on the next slide, you'll see you have to choose the north central region and you're going to want to choose the correct program. So again, we have four programs that are open right now. So you're going to this one is choosing the pre proposal for 2024. So you would click on that to begin a new proposal.  So you're going to fill in the title, the description, the description is just something that our search engine uses. So it's really short. And your title should be descriptive, but not too long. And then you'll see under proposal requirements and you you can go through these in any order. One caution I will give you is the way our system is set up under WordPress. It doesn't save as you type. You have to hit save. So if you are typing and you've typed in a paragraph and the phone rings and you get distracted and get logged out, it's not going to save what you have. So please remember to save often so that you don't lose paragraphs that you're very carefully crafted to put in there. To do the cover information, you just click on that section and you go to the next slide. You just hit edit. And as you're going to put in when your project starts the end date, whether it is a resubmission or not, whether you're focusing on historically underserved farmers and ranchers and if so, how? So there's a whole series of questions on that. You can go to the next slide. Once you've completed those, you will see. So these are the four sections that you do for the partnership grant. So there's a cover institution information, which is kind of your grants, administration or your organization. Then the proposal body itself, the attachments and the budget. And once you've completed all of those, you will not have the red, the red asterisk by them. That tells you that you've completed all the information and the submit proposal will be highlighted. Otherwise, I think it's there, but it's not dark green. So once everything's completed that's required, you'll be able to submit your proposal. And so you hit submit. And you also can unsubmit your proposal if you find you've made a mistake. And I should say you should you should have someone else proofread your projects. You know, we we try to be understanding of mistakes, but I know that sometimes reviewers when there are a number of typos or those types of things do get annoyed. So have someone proofread. But if you find mistakes, as I just found in this PowerPoint presentation right before we started and had Marie correct it, you can hit on submit proposal, but you need to make sure that you resubmit it before the deadline. And I think go to the next slide, but I think that might I guess that's it. So you do get just a note that says you have successfully submitted. And I'm sorry, I don't have the individual budget application screenshots in there.  And again, if you have questions about what's needed in that area, just contact us. I'll just say thanks and we look forward to getting your proposals.


There's a reason why Xtrades is currently the fastest growing application on the market for sharing financial ideas. With over $2.5 million paid in the last two years to contributors, users are flocking to see what trades the top traders on the leaderboard are sharing in real time. If you're looking to grow your reputation as a trader on the internet or discuss your trading ideas with other reputable investors, click the link below and get connected with a trading mentor today completely free of charge. Alright, what's up everybody? This is Alex from Xtrades and welcome back to another weekly trade ideas list and also an index overview. If you're new to these, we go over some economic data, go over the seasonality real quick and then we also go over some charts for individual tickers and also indexes using technical analysis. So for this week, we do have some data, some actually pretty important data. Monday not so much factory orders, always a hit or miss. I really wouldn't pay too much attention to this one. And then Tuesday most importantly is going to be the U.S. Services PMI and the ISM Services and also the Joltz job openings. So this is going to be a big mover has been very recently, especially the Joltz job openings. So pay attention to those especially. And then Wednesday, ADP employment hasn't really been moving us. U.S. Productivity doesn't really move us. And then U.S. Trade Deficit doesn't really either. So Wednesday is probably going to be relatively quiet. Thursday, usual initial jobless claims, wholesale inventories and consumer credit probably not going to move us too much. And then Friday most importantly, this is the biggest data set of the week. We have the consumer sentiment at 10. And before that at 8.30 in the morning, we have the non-farm payrolls, the unemployment rate, U.S. hourly wages, and also hourly wages year over year. This is going to be extremely important. So pay attention to these especially. We want to see the labor market cooling down and onto the seasonality. This is actually the new December Almanac chart for the last 21 years worth of data. This is from Almanac Traders Twitter, go check him out. He also creates the Almanac books. By the way, they're like little calendars that give you probabilities on the market. It gives you data because you look cool little quotes, all types of stuff. So go check it out. It's called the stock Almanac and they drop one every single year. But you can see the first half of December looking pretty choppy pretty much all the way up into the midpoint of the month where you can see after 12, 15 options expiration. That's kind of when we start to see that bid up in the market on everything. And these are multiple indexes. You can kind of see everything going in sync towards the midpoint of the month here. So it looks like it could be relatively quiet. We're going into the fourth tomorrow. Looks like there's a little uptick, nothing crazy. Then you can see small caps, the Russell 2000 kind of does get a little pullback right here and pre-election years, according to these red dots. And also maybe a little pullback for everything right here towards the 12th to the 14th. But no big pullback or anything by any means. You don't see any major drawdown here. Markets do look a little bit overextended. So I could see us pulling back maybe a little bit more than what this is showing. More than the average, just due to how extended we are. And really it would only be technical. It wouldn't be a big pullback by any means I don't think at the moment. But this kind of just tells me to be cautious. Maybe they'll start looking for too crazy a momentum until after the 18th year. Seasonality only does so much. This is kind of just giving you a little outlook and it's just another piece of info you can add to your arsenal. So that's for the seasonality, looking relatively choppy all the way up into the midpoint of the month. Moving on to the setups. We'll try to get over these pretty quickly. Make them as clear and concise as possible. As well as give a nice little outlook on where I think these are going. So we got MOS here. This is Mosaic. This is actually a really good play during 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. As you can see, this thing went crazy and slightly due to supply chains and other factors. Basically every single commodity went up in the world during this. But now it's kind of starting to get towards the bottoms here. As you can see, I mean, it's been having a pretty rough year for the most part minus this little run from June up into August. It's been kind of in a downtrend. Now finally starting to poke out here. We really need to see it get over 37.42. You can see that's this resistance right here. So resistance right here, but we are poking out of the downtrend line. So looking pretty bullish one, two, three, four, almost five tests here just on this downtrend line now starting to close outside of it. So it is confirmed to break out here. We do want to see it get over that 37.42, of course, in order to go higher. So need to get over that 37.42, make a base, fill up all this free space, maybe get back up to 40 flat. That will be a psychological level. So definitely watch that. If it can break out, that'll probably be the main price target, 40 flat, something around it. Don't always have to go to the exact penny because you can get screwed by doing that. Just make sure, you know, if it keeps going up, you just keep taking profits along the way. You're not being too picky about your price targets, not getting greedy, etc. And then obviously 40 is a pretty good shot. I mean, it's measured out. That would be a almost 7% move to get up to 40 from this area. So that's why you want to be taking profit on the way up and realize that 7% is a pretty big shot up to 40. So it could take some time. I don't think it's just going to get up there in a week. And then you can see the movie gaverages looking pretty good. You got the 9, 21, 50 all in the same spot here acting as support. Another price target you could do as well, this 200 EMA is going to be right here. That's always a good price target. So it's going to be like 39 area. It's going to change every single day, obviously, after each one day closed. So just watch the 200 EMA have that be your first price target, maybe as well as make sure you're waiting for it to get over that 37, 42, or if you don't want to wait for it to get over 37, 42, buy time on your contracts. That way, if it does pull up into 37, 42 and sees resistance, you do have some time on your contract to deal with any drawdown risk, or it's not as bad for long-term contracts. So that's for MOS, looking at calls, key break over this resistance, main price target, 200 EMA and also 40 flat risk off. Obviously, if it goes back within the downtrend line, simple as that. And for our next ticker here, we have BMY. This is actually a pretty clear bullish falling wedge. You got to test one, test two. Looks like it didn't really reject the test three that much. But either way, it's still breaking out of this little wedge. Looks pretty nice. You have two short term peaks. You got one at 51, 74 and another peak at 53, 55. So definitely want to watch those areas. It probably try to get up to this point, maybe find short term resistance there. And then there's also that other point just above it at 53, 55. You want to watch that area as well. If it can stay broken out like this, as well as we do have the movie gaver just kind of in the way. You get the nine, you get the 21, still trending below all of them. You want to see price closing over the 21, which is the second one right here. If it closes over that 21, it can get up to 51, 74. If it can get over 51, 74 and get up to this 50 EMA, this green line, as well as the 53, 55 area. You also have a positive KDJ to the upside. So that's a good sign. Osculators are curling up. So it looks pretty good for a potential bounce. Somebody actually asked a question about this one. So I added to my radar because I thought it looked pretty good. I think there is a bullish RSI divergence on it as well. So I don't really use the RSI too much. But if you go check it out, it's probably making lower lows on price as well as making higher lows on the RSI, which is a bullish divergence. So go check it out. This is BNY looking at calls. Want to see that close over the 21. Watch this 51, 74 as resistance, as well as 53, 55 and the 50 EMA as well. So it'll probably give you about six percent to the upside if it can get up there. Obviously, it could take time just because we do these every week. Doesn't mean your price target is going to get hit in one week. So I mean, we just had a play on WFC that didn't even play out the week after we were looking at it. It actually did it the week afterward and it just ran heavy. Wells Fargo did amazing the past couple of weeks. So it just took a week. So even though we're reviewing this this week, it could chop out, stall out, maybe pull back and back test and then run the week after. So just keep it on your radar by time on your contracts. If you have to deal with any drawdown risk, give it time to fart around at lows is what you want to do. More time on your contracts, the better for options. So BNY looking at calls, be patient, make sure it stays broken out. Obviously, if it starts going back within line, probably think about an invalidation level, main invalidation level, probably under forty eight twenty five starts breaking under those lows or this trend line support, it's probably going to be no good anymore. It'll probably keep trying to trend lower. So just watch that level as well as your short term resistance points. If it gets over this fifty three fifty five, that's a pretty good shot higher.  There's a little gap right here. So if it can get over that big upside potential and next we're looking at BABA so last week or I'm sorry, maybe it was a couple of weeks ago. We did have this on the list because of this quadruple seven support level from over here and you can see it bounced pretty good for a couple of days. He probably could have gotten a nice two day swing trade on this or some type of day trade just off these little bars right here. So there's a nice little counter trend reversal. It didn't get up to our eighty seventy seven gap, though, which I was looking for the gap resistance as a price target. But, you know, in this market, you just got to be quick. I mean, if it gives you a quick bounce like this, just take the profit, honestly and just make sure you're paying attention to the closes. It starts not looking as bullish on the close. Like if it's not looking like these bars or fish is not looking that great, it could be good to just go ahead and take your profit or cut whatever you got to do because it could be trying to make a lower high to go lower, especially if it's trending under the movie averages like this. You can see it's just been under the nine and the twenty one. So if you're going to go counter trend and buy down here, you want to be selling at the movie averages as well as looking for a close over these. You want to start seeing price closing over these for a classic uptrend signal. And Bob, I just hasn't been able to do that yet. But now it's at an even lower spot. Look how far price is away from the nine EMA and also the twenty one. This is a very far extension below the movie averages. So you want to see it pop back up here, maybe come back up for a mere regression. That'd be nice. And you just sell again at the, you know, around the nine and twenty one EMA area. It looks like there's a seventy four sixty eight support here. I have marked this little red zone, but I don't know where this one came from. Let me see if I could zoom out. We could find it. OK, yeah, it's this base right here. This November twenty twenty two. And also this little base low right here is probably what we are watching. You might want to see Bob, I get back above that. If we go over to it, this is the base right here. You got a short term bottom, short term bottom to gap up. So this is that seventy seventy four sixty eight. So we want to see it get above that. And that will probably have some pretty positive momentum. It looks like this Friday bar. It's pretty nice. It looks like it's trying to signal a potential bounce or some type of reversal. But obviously it probably need to get over that seventy four sixty eight as well as get over probably this little candle high right here. I can start filling up that free space. And then overall, I mean, you probably want to watch the lows of these little candles from when we were watching it a couple of weeks ago. It's going to be at seventy six fifty six overall. I mean, that's probably the max high I could see for right now. If you can get over the seventy six fifty six, there's that triple or I'm sorry, the quadruple seven level above that. So those are the two levels of upside I would be looking for.  Keep it under seventy two twelve. If it starts busting under this weak low of this specific daily bar, maybe time to, you know, just look at something else or maybe wait for it to get back over again if it starts breaking under this. So that's for Baba looking at calls. Just be cautious under a pretty good downtrend as well as under some just some short term supports as well. Want to see it get up back over that seventy four sixty eight. And last but not least for our individual tickers, this is going to be a short or a put trade. This is Boeing. This is a big rally based drop zone. So last week, we were looking at a rally based drop zone on Roku as well. But it was able to blast through that. Obviously, Roku was more consolidated. It kind of had like a little flag and we needed a little bit more confirmation from it before trying to go short. And it didn't even give us a chance to do that because on Monday, it instantly broke out. I gapped up. I had a big morning in the pre market as well. So it's kind of off limits for me to begin the week. So I didn't take any shorts on Roku or shop last week. And I did mention you probably want to wait for like some type of one day bar signal to show you that it's reacting to supply or it's going to reject. And it just didn't do that. And it broke over the invalidation levels, had a really good week for the bulls. So you can look for shorts in this market, but you want the right signals and we didn't have the right signals last week. So I didn't take any of them. But it's always good to keep it on your radar just in case, especially when the market is getting this overextended. You got the indexes up near resistance points. Fifty two week highs, everything you could think of. And when we started getting up here, had just started getting cheaper and put start getting cheaper. So the cost for insurance is cheaper and it's a pretty good deal. That's why it's good to maybe have a one or two shorts on your radar just in case the indexes do pull back because then the broad market would probably start trying to pull back as well. Boeing this week, I want to see a pull up into supply. That's going to be at two thirty seven fifty. So if I can get up to two thirty seven fifty and find a rejection point off that, I'd probably try to come back down to this two thirty level. And another thing for Boeing here, you can see it's very overextended over its nine and twenty one EMAs.  And sometimes when price gets a little bit overextended over these nine and twenty ones, it needs a little more regression to come back down. Let price catch back up to the moving averages and kind of just stall out a little bit. So I'm not necessarily saying Boeing is just going to totally collapse at this level. It could probably just be a short term pullback if it can get up to this two thirty seven fifty supply. It's also a rally based drop zone. So just keep it on your radar if it can get up there. And as well as the maybe the Dow Jones industrial average, if that index starts pulling back and maybe see a rotation out of it for some reason or really if you see any broad market weakness. I mean, this could pull back even without hitting supply. So just make sure you're paying attention to those indicators as well. But I do like this if it can get up to this zone. And then you start looking for resistance for a short term pullback. Nothing crazy. I want to see it get back down to two thirty maybe maybe even the one day nine EMA and at that point I couldn't project it any lower because I'd have to see it break the one day nine EMA. So the one day nine and also two thirty are probably just the lowest I'm looking for right now, assuming it can get a pullback here. But just make sure you're waiting for it to get up here first. Wait for it to get up into supply or wait for some type of weakness in the indexes. It starts taking out the low of Friday. So it starts taking out two thirty one thirty eight as well as two thirty. That's a pretty good signal to reverse down head into the nine EMA. So either wait for it to get up to the supply and start looking for resistance up there or wait for it to flush under the two thirty or the two thirty one area, which is Friday's low. And those are the two easiest signals to look for some type of reversal and as well as not get stuck in the middle here. So this for Boeing looking at puts, like I said, just be patient. Either wait for it to get up into supply, a few more points to the upside or wait for it to start breaking under Friday's low as well as this two thirty maybe. All right. Not to the indexes for spy last week. We were focused on this four fifty three sixty seven. Obviously, it had broken out. So this was Friday's close on the twenty fourth. So we were briefly over it. We closed over it, relatively bullish. And I just mentioned you probably want to watch four fifty three sixty seven as a back test level and you wouldn't want to get too bearish until it started breaking under that. And the max upside I could see was the four fifty nine forty four, which is obviously this peak right here. And we were able to hold the four fifty three sixty seven back test very cleanly. Obviously, it just comes from right here. It's as simple as that.  And we pushed all the way up on Friday to four fifty nine forty four. So it got the max price target to the upside and wasn't able to break under that four fifty three sixty seven focus level to the downside for bears. So it was just a strong back test level as well as QQQ did the same thing on three eighty eight. But now we're actually a little bit over extended, I guess, for the most part. We weren't able to close over that four fifty nine forty four on Friday. So we will need to see some type of close over that. And then there's one more level above that, just a few more points. It's the March twenty twenty two peak and so that four sixty two seven. And that's coming all the way from over here.  So that's going to be a huge level to clear. It's also a little supply zone. So four sixty two is obviously the max high I could see this week. If it can get over that four fifty nine forty four, which it kind of had a little bit of trouble on Friday. You can see it rejected off initially and then it just kind of came back up. So it's just a small stall out, nothing crazy. I definitely wouldn't just ape into puts here just because you saw this little one point rejection of four fifty nine forty four need to see way more evidence. You got a really nice bullish bar here. So got to be really careful. But this four fifty nine forty four could turn into something if it starts stalling out too much and it keeps failing to break over that for a couple of days. Obviously, it could stall out here. Try to pull back in the four fifty three sixty seven and the max low. If it does that, just the same four fifty three sixty seven. So that's your trading range. The four fifty three sixty seven back tests that we focused on last week, as well as the four fifty nine forty four max high. Also this previous fifty two week high that we were focused on last week as well. So with a max upside of four sixty two oh seven. So your resistance is here. Four fifty nine's max peak at four sixty two. If it breaks out of that with a max low of four fifty three sixty seven. If it rejects. So I got to look at all scenarios, bulls and bears because it's the market. Anything could happen. That's why you wait for your confirmations. That's either going to be a break over this resistance or some type of rejection signal on the one day or maybe a good one hour bearish and golfing bar off the resistance, something showing you evidence that we're going back down to four fifty three sixty seven before you just go insane into puts. So that's the levels, guys. Four fifty three sixty seven max low if it sees downside and four sixty two oh seven for upside. I just can't see higher than that four sixty two for now. You know, if it does get over that. You could probably start looking for more, obviously. You need to zoom out for that. There's a all time high of four seventy nine ninety eight. So and then there's looks like there's a little peak right here at four seventy three twenty. So it could be a level of focus. But right now you need to see it get over that four sixty two oh seven to even start thinking about that. And I really don't feel like it's going to do that this week. But we'll see. You never know. It's the stock market and on to the QQQ. So last week we were just focused on this three eighty eight level. And I mentioned that it could just be a good back test level.  And then basically just follow that all week. You can see we really didn't do much. Here's Monday. And then this is the highest we went was on Wednesday up to three ninety four. And we kind of just chopped after that. If I go down to the 15 minute here, you can see that three eighty eight level was great for day trading. I mean, it kind of pulled into a little 30 cents short right here. Had a nice rip pulled into it on Tuesday. Another nice rip. Gem or area right here as well. Nice little push to the upside. Had a nice gap up on Wednesday. So this three eighty eight back test that we were focused on last week was really good for day trading this week, which is all I was focused on for trading QQQ really being able to buy off the three eighty eights. And also just kind of staying a little bit more bullish above three eighty eight just because it's a really good back test level. And we actually broke under it briefly on Thursday. It looked like we could have gone lower. But then Friday when Jerome Powell came out, he really wasn't that aggressive about loosening financial conditions. He wasn't really saying much about the yields going lower. He didn't really seem like he was too concerned about any of that. Maybe you just didn't want to move the market, but he did. Anyways, people took it optimistically and we had a pretty good day on Friday. I literally all like the zombie companies, all your high growth techs, all types of companies, just even like trash companies, everything kind of ran. I think people are looking for those high beta names because the indexes are kind of lagging, right?  Mag seven already had a great run. Spy kind of had a pretty good week. But obviously it didn't really go beyond maybe like a 1% move. And then you got these high growth names, high beta names going 10, 14, 15% to the upside. And so people are looking for more movement elsewhere because volatility is so low, indexes are slow. And you're kind of starting to see that volatility in the small mid caps. But for QQQ this week, it's the same thing, same story. We really didn't close that much different from there's last Friday's close is at three eighty nine. We closed at three eighty nine ninety four. So it's really unchanged. Three eighty eight is still the focus. This little one day bar does look pretty good for a little push up. Obviously, I couldn't really see higher than that three ninety four fourteen. So if it did decide to push up, that's probably the highest I could see just for right now. But as long as it's staying over this three eighty eight, I kind of have to stay bullish. And you could see there wasn't a single close under the three eighty eight last week, even on Thursday. It closed right here at three eighty eights, even on Friday. And you can see it dipped under both Thursday and Friday. We still remained close on the one day over three eighty eight. So that's the important context behind this. Even though it dipped under it, that doesn't mean anything. You could catch a short term move, short term scout to the downside under three eighty eight. And that's about it, because it looks like it just closed right back over. So the one day close under is extremely important before you start flipping bearish and make sure you wait for that. And this is kind of proof because I didn't get a single close these past couple of weeks under this, not even on this bar. And we dipped under it right here. And you did have one close under right here after the rejection. And then I kind of stalled out. But either way, regardless, if it does the same thing and just closes under and stalls out, you need to wait for that three eighty eight close under before being too bearish, probably even wait for it to get to the gap area. That's all I could see for this week. Just three ninety four fourteen, which is the Wednesday peak from last week. And I'll need to see a break above that to really project any higher. There's obviously a one point two seven two percent Fibonacci level at four hundred thirty nine. So that's an area you could watch after that. And that's about it. So just pay attention to three eighty eight, wait for the close under if you want to be too bearish. Otherwise, it looks like it's trying to push up. You got the nine EMA right here. It's a higher low potentially. And it could just push up to the short term resistance right here. So that's for QQQ. Just be careful. Stable over three eighty eight, wait for the close under before getting bearish. And last but not least going on to the VIX. So last week we were focused on that twelve seventy three, I'm guessing. This has kind of been the focus the last couple of weeks. It's twelve seventy three. So we closed under that and I mentioned I could see it maybe popping back up over that to kind of fake everybody out because he had a little bit of capitulation here. He had volatility closing at fifty two week lows. And then Monday, actually, it went all the way up to thirteen twenty five. So if I go show you here, it did shoot back over the twelve seventy three like I expected it to. So here is last Friday's close. And I mentioned in our video last week that I could see it just shooting back over to kind of fake people out. And in order for them to keep taking the market higher, they kind of do have to bring volatility higher. You need to see it go back up, kind of fill these gaps down. And it makes it easier for them to kind of pump the market up when they have a big gap in the VIX like this and then they can just crush volatility. And that takes the markets higher. So that's kind of why I expected it to shoot back over. I need to see more signals for it to expect really any crazy move in volatility. And obviously we did get like maybe one or two days closing above thirteen. But it really wasn't anything special. There really wasn't any follow through. You can see we have one close over twelve seventy three, which is our triple bottom lows right here on Wednesday and actually ran up to thirteen forty. There was just a little bit of volatility, I guess. I mean, there were small pullbacks in the market. If we go look at the fifteen minute on spy, there was like kind of like there's a pullback here on Tuesday, a big one. VIX actually ran up a little bit on that. And then VIX here on Wednesday, I mean, this thing gapped up and filled the whole gap down. So there was pullbacks in the market and you could make money on puts and volatility did increase a little bit, but it wasn't anything significant as well as we didn't get that close under forty three sixty seven. So it's kind of the same thing this week. Like we closed at twelve forties last week. We closed at twelve sixty two this week. I kind of feel like it will need to get under the twelve forties completely for the market to kind of boom higher than this impulse candle. It already has from Friday. So we need to see the break and close under that. And then obviously we'll need to start closing back over twelve seventy three again probably for a few days at least at least one good close over it. And that could send volatility higher up to the fourteen tens. But you are at a stall point here, guys. Volatility is kind of at a stagnant level. I mean, it's that fifty two week lows. You got people loading up insurance at the cheapest levels in a really long time. So that could be why it's kind of stalling out here. And you haven't just seen a straight flush down to the two thousand nineteen of twenty twenty lows, which is that eleven forty two. So you have had a week of stall out here after basically a whole month of volatility crush. So just keep watching that twelve seventy three, guys. Make sure you wait for volatility to start closing back over that before getting too bearish in the market.  You had one good push up to the thirteen and then it was just another fixed crush. So you do want to see good evidence before making any crazy decisions, maybe one, two, three, four good closes over twelve seventy three can give you a good signal that volatility has had it back up. As well as pay attention to the moving averages. You haven't had a single close over the nine EMA on the one day, probably since this October twenty seventh on the Friday. So it's still just trending under, you see this big wick here. This is actually a fake wick. Did not signal really any real volatility on Tuesday. So I think it was a glitch or something. So don't pay too too much attention to that. Just know that price is still trending under the nine. It's still closing under the nine. So it probably needs to see that close back over the nine, which is your first moving average right here in order to start going higher. Otherwise, it's going to keep following the trend, guys. It's just like a stock. I mean, the VIX falls moving averages pretty good. Even though you're not buying VIX shares or anything like that, it does kind of move opposite to the market. And as well, it's just probably computers, programs to, you know, trade really VIX options or SPX puts SPX calls based off the VIX because connected. SPX options are connected to the VIX. So it's going to follow moving averages. It's going to follow support kind of as well. And there's evidence of that. Really any volatility extreme point, just pay attention to. And the closest one right now where we are to is twelve seventy three. So we need to see getting back over that. If you want to see volatility higher as well as keep seeing this trending under the nine EMA in order to go lower down to the next low. But this eleven forty two is the lowest I can see it. If it does want to keep going lower, who knows how long that will take because it's already so low. So that's the video, guys. Hope you guys enjoyed. Make sure you like, comment and subscribe to our extra YouTube channel. I'm going to get this chopped up, sent out. I love you guys and I'm out.


Mobile phone filmmaking, so you can do that for journalism or for making films and so on. So I've been doing that for the last six months or so. Essentially just making films and whatever you want on your phone. And I thought that there's some possibilities. That's why I said possibilities in 4K. I haven't had a chance to practice this in an English language classroom yet. But so I just kind of... Maybe that's something you guys can think about. So just why smartphones? So there's like... Basically smartphones, most of us have it in our pockets. They allow us to do... To film a thing, to edit a thing and publish it. And just a few years ago, like this would cost loads of people. And that's gonna be very expensive and take a lot of time. So I guess that is a huge change and it's a huge thing. I think people coming of age nowadays, this is like a natural thing for them. But for older people, this is like a massive change in me. So it is a kind of big thing. I guess these are probably just a few examples. Just this is a film made, I think two years ago. It was all shot on the iPhone. I think loads of films are shot on the iPhone now. So this one is like properly edited and so on. Like this is a proper feature film, but it's just an example of a mobile phone. I was just searching for this kind of culture of people doing comedy. Like internet comedians. And actually these guys are from the Philippines. I was kind of... These guys are making a joke, you can't hear the sound. And it's said in the classroom as well. But people just basically like little groups of comedians that make little things themselves. So this is kind of like the sort of low budget kind of quick and simple kind of thing. I was following mostly like a lot of American guys who kind of started, I guess, for whatever reason, but it's kind of... I just noticed that in other countries it's happening as well. This is an American guy. Yeah, basically they have them in formats. The history of it was... Yeah, there was certain apps that were built. Now they're often on Instagram and so on. But basically they make comedy things or lots of other little things. And... Yeah, it's worth... Just to say... Just to say these people generate incredible massive views. So yeah, that's just an example of some of the stuff that people all over the place are doing. So it just has a type of English language teaching. So I don't... These are just a few ideas that I thought of. When students, if they were to do this, if they're scripted like a comedy or whatever else, or a journalism thing, they'd have to script it out maybe in a team and they'd be writing out the scenarios and all this kind of stuff. They'd have to study it. It would be kind of a studious thing and they'd practice it and perform it. And it's like a physical thing which a lot of people would look at and give feedback to. And it's also just a bit of fun. And there's lots of... It opens new social doors for them or whatever. But there's loads of... There's quite a big filmmaker community and lots of things are going on. So people would have the opportunity to go and do other things. These are just a few... The total basics that I would do... So there's an app in your phone called Kinmaster, which only does that to them. But one which I use is that which is free and it works on Android and iPhone. So that's like an editing thing. And then, you know, a real thing for the kind of thing. Something called the five-shot method. Some guy kind of came up with it. But it's basically like a kind of for dummies thing of like shooting a scene. Five-shot means like when there's an action going on, you shoot it from five different angles. Like, you know, at the hands on the face. And then you kind of plug them together. And that can be a building block. So basically, if, for example, you as a teacher were to get your students familiar with these two kind of concepts, then perhaps, like, this was just an idea I had of maybe a lesson plan. Say, like, if you had a block of time for trying to do it, it's not very well thought out. So maybe you guys have different ideas.   Then how I would do is I would form, like, a class into a team. It's like, you know, of two to four people, maybe, to make a film. And then get them like brainstorming and all that kind of stuff.  A script is one thing. And then a storyboard. A storyboard is like, it's like a kind of pictures or whatever, like what the different scenes are. So, and then shoot it. Then edit it. And then do, like, a kind of show and tell kind of thing. I think of different steps, like, for example, this up to here possibly could be done in the classroom and here as well. I mean, you could do this all in one kind of go. I guess if the thing gets, if you're kind of shooting something which is kind of more complicated, the editing thing can take a longer time. It's like a simple thing that potentially they could, and if they're well-practiced, I guess, as well, they could, like, potentially do it in the classroom or something like that. And then, I don't know, just if you had some kind of experience, like, I guess you guys would know better, but you could be, like, plugging into those different sections or whatever, like learning outcomes that you want, like how to get them to practice this or that, this or this. And that's it.


Howdy how's it going? My name's Daffy Chappy and I'm gonna bust your holy nuts because this week I'll be ranking each and every one of the spells on the cleric spell list so that when you go crossing your T's and stabbing out Eyes you can do it knowing that you've been optimized by Daffy Chappy as always keep in mind that a lot of this is just my opinion So if you feel like I was unfair to one of your favorite spells get over it loser. Everybody hold up I'm recording this while I'm sick So you're not getting my traditional snake oil salesman voice But luckily for you the only thing you have to be sick of is sick of not having an encounter for your next session and the ibuprofen for your worries is out of the box Encounters for fifth edition with this book the nasal congestion of your D&D games will be cleared away Replaced by the sinus satisfaction of using somebody else's better ideas and while the time for discounts on the upcoming nerd Archey the convention has come and gone You can sleep peacefully knowing that your chance to meet a hopefully not Flu-ridden D and daddy of your dreams is still possible via the pledge manager nerd Archey made four nerds But with out of the way let's begin So the cleric is one of the main spellcasting classes in the game being known as the holy hoe to a godly pimp daddy And the thing that makes their class so much more versatile than other classes is the fact that the cleric has access to its Entire spell list as in it can swap out spells However, it wants at the end of every long rest this means that for this list spells that have a very limited or Situational use will be given a lot more of a past since who cares that water breathing spells barely ever come up If the cleric can just take a little nap and wake up with fishgills for everybody It also means that the spells with more versatility baked into their kits aren't getting a shiny gold star just for taking a little bit of everything They're gonna have to get a real job like I do also unlike wizards who go to war in their pajamas Clerics decided to actually bring fighting equipment to the cave filled with soon-to-be eunuch bugbears So clerics don't have a problem being on either the middle or the complete front line So your spell choice should reflect that if you want to be a mid-liner You should take spells that require concentration and just try to maneuver yourself away from harm's way I know it's tempting but don't take a melee oriented spell if you don't want to be there in the first place Plan for success not for failure But if you want to eat yourself like a Eucharist wafer then you should take melee Fighty spells instead of concentration spells because you do plan on getting hit and concentration spells tend to not survive repeated blows to the head You can get away with taking one or two if you want to use them for one or two turns But definitely don't rely on them unless you're staying ranged when in doubt You can check your subclass to see what that kilt is built for if you get the potent spell casting feature later down the line Then your cleric is meant to be a rangey boy But if you get divine strike then that subclass is meant for face-punching of course You can just ignore all of this and play your cleric however you want But I want to give new worshipers out on their first mission the best fighting chance that they've got but that is enough prep talk Let's jump into it starting with the cantrips Guidance if you're looking for a last cantrip to pick up this is okay light star light star bright Help me kick some ass tonight mending the swap out spells rule doesn't apply to cantrips But this spell isn't the worst thing to have anyway resistance is plus a joke to you sacred flame People haven't realized that this just isn't as good as Toll the dead and you only need one damaging cantrip spare the dying Completely useless stop taking the spell and just buy medicine kits. They do the exact same thing and you get to keep a cantrip slot I'm not talking to you grave cleric thaumaturgy the I'm a cleric cantrip that lets you do cleric key things almost useless But fun told the dead better than sacred flame except against undead which the cleric can beat anyway Oh, no, the enemy is resistant to necrotic better use my cleric brand hammer instead word of radiance It's useful if you plan to get surrounded, but you have to work harder to make it good first level bane It's good against enemies that you're tired of hitting you but not as good as bless It's better than bane because you'll use it longer since enemies die and you don't plan to ceremony a nice fluffy spell It won't serve you well in combat, but it's really good for fleshing out your character command all rise And get down create or destroy water. Do you need water?  Hey, I don't see the enemy. Can you ping him? Thank you healing word Don't use the spell unless someone is bleeding out You can use cure wounds for anything else inflict wounds if you want to be melee This is a pretty great rescind gun protection from Evelyn good great for when the devil has you thinking gay thoughts purify food and drink This will never happen, but it's too because it's possible Sanctuary if it's good enough for Kingdom Hearts It's good enough for you use this on someone you don't want in the fight But want to keep alive shield of faith always useful for making the tank a little more egregiously tanky second level aid Even when you have it, you don't really want it augury It's pretty fun to ask your God for advice not enough people know you can do this blindness slash deafness deafness is nothing Blindness is everything calm emotions. It's a way to diffuse and encounter peacefully But who's gonna do that continual flame when your friend doesn't have dark vision and you can't be bothered to cast light enhance ability It's decent utility, but nothing special fine traps perception is just easier gentle repose I don't know when you're ever gonna need this, but you have it for when you do hold person Literally never a bad time to have this less a restoration not good enough to have it all times But you just need one long rest locate object once again You don't really ever need this but there's nothing wrong with it prayer of healing eat your heart out mask your wounds protection from poison Poison silence you don't have counter spell, but you do have this Spiritual weapon one of your best battle spells because you can just keep using it as a bonus action warding bond Be wary while using the spell not to cast concentration spells afterwards That's just double the consaves zone of truth admit it. You liked rise of Skywalker. Didn't you admit it? Damn you third level animate dead resurrection by Reaction Beacon of hope you won't really use this often it lasts for one minute and you'll always find something better to do on each turn But Stoker's you get to come up with your own curse pretty spiffy clairvoyance They say that clerics can't be spies, but God is always watching create food and water I don't know from what hellscape that food is appearing, but you should thank God for it daylight Okay, sure.  I would very much like that giant butt cloud to go away. Thank you fame death Remember kids when you're in trouble act like you were killed and it'll be all better cliff of warding religious Organizations should not be left in the possession of explosives and magical detonation machines life transference You have other better ways of healing than forcing people to drink the blood of Christ magic circle It's an anti-sea bear circle mass healing word It's like healing word but better meld into stone in case you were wondering just how Jesus got out from behind that rock Protection from energy. You will never have this when you need it and then you will take it and then you won't need it anymore Remove curse.  Sure, they'll come back, but not before everybody else is dead control water Sure death ward pretty great to put on your friends, but let's be honest. This one is yours divination Once again, these sorts of spells are great to use But no one ever uses them for fear of upsetting the big D and daddy freedom of movement for when you want to get out Of traps guardian of faith. I can't stop feeling weird about how it just does 20 flat damage But hey, it's 20 flat damage locate creature You'll need it when you need it and quote the raven never more stone shape fun with clay That's as much as you'll get out of the spell hope you don't like fourth level spell slots fifth level Commune take the spell force your dm into an awkward position do it contagion This spell is great And you should take it just because one of the effects is named slimy doom dawn fuckstrod Dispel evil and good fuckstrods minions flame strike and fuckstrods house Geos mind control is a staple of any good church greater restoration It's like lesser restoration, but greater hollow a fifth level spell slot that doesn't go away super fluffy And it'll make you feel like a cleric holy weapon It's in a weird spot where it expects you to be in combat, but it also is a concentration spell At least you can use it as a flashlight insect plague You can be like Moses suffocating innocent people with bees legend lore another information spell These are never not good mass cure wounds It's like mass healing word but healer planar binding most creatures don't appreciate being bound to your service And they will make a point of letting you know that later on in life raised dead bring people to life What's not to love scrying remember kids? God is always watching even when you think you're alone six level blade barrier You don't get many crazy spells that do good damage. So take him when you get him create undead. This is not this is not your job This is the exact opposite of your job bind the path never needed it never will this is the lowest to I could ever give Forbidden DMs remember that this spell exists harm not getting any originality points for your name But this is an okay means of bringing somebody to heal without killing them heal from the makers of harm heroes feast use for role play and role Play only you don't need a six-level spell slot for good berry planar ally, okay?