Hey everybody, welcome back to another edition of a week in Geekdom Geo here. We're back with another haul video, a lot of cool, exciting items to take a look at. So let's get started with the manga. Continuing my Dark Stalker's collection, I picked up Dark Stalker's Red Earth Maleficarum. I hope I pronounced that properly. From Bami Ito, I'd love that this is a spin-off from the Dark Stalker's franchise, starring Morrigan of course, but it also features characters from Red Earth, another underrated and forgotten Capcom series from the 90s. I love Dark Stalkers and it's great to add this to my ever-expanding collection of Dark Stalker things. So yeah, great art, fantastic little book, I'm really happy that I own this. Finally, I picked up Shigeru Mizuki's Nononba. I've been tracking this down for a while. I think I bought it from Books a Million at retail price. I love the idea, the concept behind this book, the fact that Mizuki took all the stories that his grandmother told him and can sort of turn it into this amazing manga, Gekiga collection is so impressive and awesome. I love it and I highly recommend it. One, if you're into Gekiga, two, if you're into Yokai and three, if you just want something out of the norm, get somehow familiar because at the end of the day we all have stories similar to this, right? Oral traditions passed on from older members of our families. So over the holidays I decided to start getting a couple series that I've been wanting to collect but I for some reason or another forgot to start getting. Now I know this is going to be difficult because the last two volumes I want to say of I Am a Hero are very difficult to come by. They're out of print so hopefully we get those printed or I can find copies in the wild for cheap quote unquote. So nonetheless I picked up I Am a Hero, the omnibus editions. I started out with the first three really looking forward to reading this. I know the basic premise of it being a zombie survival story but I actually don't know much about it. I've been spoiler free in regards to I Am a Hero. I'm excited. The art looks great, fresh, clean and I actually really like the dimensions of the book. They feel nice on hand. Really cool. And I kind of forgot I was collecting the Fist of the North Star series. I picked up the first hardcover and I totally forgot last year to pick up the second one. So here's that. I did order the third one but it was very recently so it's not on this video. Here is more Fist of the North Star goodness right there. We've been enjoying this just full of testosterone with batbacks apocalyptic health scapes. I love it. And in a totally opposite move here is Yona of the Dawn Volume 4. I told you guys last year that I was going to make it a goal in 2022 to get as much of Yona of the Dawn as possible. The art is always beautiful and I'm looking forward to making sort of a late first impressions video on my thoughts when it comes to Yona of the Dawn. Similar to I Am a Hero, here we have another series that I've heard about for ages and I sort of forgot about it until recently after having read Shuzo Shimi's The Flowers of Evil I wanted to get more Oshimi books. I wanted to own them physically so I started picking up happiness volumes. This shouldn't be too much of a problem to get. I got the first three right here and it's a vampire story and knowing Oshimi it's going to be very mind bending and psychological which is my kind of jam and hopefully it has a premise somewhat similar to Tokyo Ghoul. I'm not a huge fan of Tokyo Ghoul but hopefully I like this a lot more. And continuing another series that I collected the first three volumes early last year I want to say. Here are volumes 4, 5 and 6 of Inio Asano's Dead Dead Demons Destruction, Day to Day Destruction or however you pronounce that. Really looking forward to doing a full read through as soon as possible and I ordered more volumes as of recording this haul video for you guys so yeah I'm really excited to catch up on this series. Which as of this video is wrapping up and I want to say with 15 or 16 volumes total? I might be mistaken on that but I think it'll be just slightly over the volume count of Pumbun, making it Asano's longest running series so far. From Kyuhayashita I got Daidark Volume 3. Now this took forever to ship. I made this order at the beginning of December 2021. I don't know what happened. I guess the holiday sales, it took forever to ship. I was worried because a lot of items were going out of stock at right stuff so I didn't know if they were going to get to my order in time. Apparently maybe that's what happened. I'm not too sure. I love these volumes. They're so nice and compact and really unlike everything else on the shelf. I mentioned on the last haul video that I was finally getting into Battle Angel Lolita. I debated for years if I wanted to get the heart covers or not then I realized I don't really have the space for them and I'd rather have these compact smaller editions. Just 6 volumes and I got the first two on the last haul. Now here is Volume 3. I ordered Volume 4. 5 and 6 should be around the corner in the upcoming months and we'll have the first series on hand so that I can do a proper video on it and talk about it with you guys. Here's one of my favorite romcoms. It is Rent a Girlfriend Volume 10. I love this series. Great art and a really funny story with characters that you know can be frustrating at times but also really wholesome and nice and funny and like I've said before I appreciate the setting of it. It's a romcom and it's not in high school with teenagers. I really appreciate that. Makes me enjoy this a lot more. Mesa and Iikoku Volume 6 of the Collector's Edition. Really awesome. I have to admit I've not started this yet but I plan to real soon because hey, 6 volumes that's a ton of material to get started right? I believe it's going to be 10 volumes total. I'm not too sure about that so you might be correcting me in the comment section but yeah, this looks fantastic and I cannot wait to dive in and enjoy a cool, nice romcom drama, Slice of Life. Here is that time I got reincarnated as a slime Volume 18 which I believe were caught up with the Japanese releases so there won't be any more slime manga of the main title because there are a lot of spin-offs of the main title in quite some time. And I'm excited about that because I can read this chunk. I believe I read the first 10 and haven't picked the series back up again so now I'm going to check all of this out. And the art on this is just cool as hell man. I love the character designs in the manga. Can't wait to catch up with this. Here is Frieren, I hope I said that right, Frieren Beyond Journeys and Volume 1. Everybody was hyping it up when it was first announced. The premise looks interesting. We follow the elf mage Frieren. She defeated the demon lord with her companions or party and elves naturally live a long life so what happens after her party is no longer here and how does she carry on? I'm doing the book of the service right now but trust me it's pretty awesome and I do like this series. I ordered Volume 2 but unfortunately did not arrive for this haul video. Here is Vinland Saga Volume 12. Not only was this book delayed three times I want to say, first it was October then November then December. I can't wait to catch up. I'm still behind on the series but you know I've talked about it at length in these haul videos. I love the art and the historical fiction aspect and the character and all that stuff.  Now a little something different for you guys. Here is my Godzilla art book from Kaida Yuji. This is pretty interesting.  I placed this order at the start of November and it was delayed a month and it shipped separately from an order that I placed on December on write stuff. It took a while to arrive and when it did all I got was an empty box. I was immediately furious at what happened thinking okay either this ripped and the book fell out at some point in transit or it was ripped. We saw what was inside and stole it. You can think of many scenarios but unfortunately we're never going to know. Something happened mid-transit and the book was lost but what I found really ridiculous and sort of like adding insult to injury is that I still got the box because it had my address on it and the USPS workers told me to file a claim so I did. I emailed the route insurance service from write stuff and they were kind enough to work on the case almost immediately that same day. I spoke to one of their customer service individuals or whatever and I sent in all the pictures and filed the necessary things for it and they asked me for either a replacement or a refund. They asked for a replacement because I want this book. I love UG's artwork it's just emblematic and awesome as a Godzilla fanboy. I got to have it. His first English art book so it was really special and I really wanted it. So long story short I did get the replacement they shipped it took a while they really took their time to ship it and I finally got it and it is awesome I love this book. All of the story is for me at least route I think is worth adding to your orders just to be sure. Now for something a little bit lootish if you will here is the art of Creon I hope I said that right a really awesome artist that I found online I'm a huge fan of his art and I saw that he I was jealous of all those original pieces they were a little bit out of my price range but he announced art books specifically for the year 2021 so I went ahead and ordered my copy straight from France which was awesome and as you can see lots of wonderful illustrations from gaming franchises to comics to anime and manga so that's why I'm featuring it here I just really like the art and I highly recommend checking out Creon's artwork on social. Moving on to the anime portion of this video here we have Zombieland saga season one I know this came out ages ago and I talked about it on the channel when I did my seasonal review I loved it season two made my list of the best anime of 2021 so for some reason I just forgot to pick it up and during the holidays I think it was on sale on Amazon instead of 48 I want to say it was close to 30 bucks or less something like that ordered it got it really awesome excited to add it to my collection and here is the digital code if you guys want to redeem it sailor moon sailor stars or season five part two finally this puts an end to my collection of sailor moon you might remember a couple actually a while ago since 2020 I've been getting or maybe before that I don't know I have to double check when the first box arrived but it's been a while since I've collected Sailor Moon Blu-rays I don't have the movies and I'm not really interested in the crystal series I like owning the original I'm excited that I own all five seasons but we're not cheap most of them I had to wait for sales to pick them up others I waited for deals on Amazon or I think one or two I bought from eBay from sellers offering them for cheap so yeah I know nonetheless I'm excited to own this classic series on my anime shelf and not gonna lie a lot of memories collecting these titles of stuff that happened throughout my life in the past couple of years so it's it's a little bittersweet to cap this off same with Inuyasha from last month those two shows mean a lot to me so it was pretty special to me and bittersweet to finish collecting them here is akudama drive on blu-ray one of my favorite shows from 2020 an original anime series that I highly recommend if you like cyberpunk if you like like quentin tarantino movies mixed with I don't know blade runner I think you would get akudama drive I highly recommend it studio bureau knocked it out of the park with the animation I just really enjoyed the story and the characters on this one and once again here's the digital code if you guys want to redeem it now here is another of my favorite shows of 2020 it is the anime adaptation of the korean manhwa tower of god really enjoyed this made a review on the channel here if you want to check it out loved it I hope we get another season you know they haven't announced anything but I'm pretty hopeful I thought it was pretty successful and I think mostly everybody enjoyed it right so yeah this is another of the crunchy roll originals program they partnered with vis to release it on home media which is awesome I love it and just like with inspector this has the full season all 12 episodes on blu-ray and inside you can see here a cool poster of the key visual for the series next up another lewd purchase if you will I'll make no excuses I really enjoyed this I thought it was hilarious super raunchy but at the same time fascinating to look at this was interspecies reviewers here is the steel book I thought it was funny yes this has a lot it is heavy on the not-safe work but it is on purpose it's this sex comedy it's not trying to disguise itself as something else so yeah I love that at least the cover for it and the back as well is safe for work if you will of the steel book and inside even the inside you get a really heavy book as an extra which has storyboard art as well as background artwork and a small chapter from I don't know if it's from the manga or a new chapter made by the creator I have to double check on that but still really awesome that I own interspecies reviewers on blu-ray finally for some live action stuff here is a run from Akira Kurosawa this is the best by limited edition 4k blu-ray looking absolutely phenomenal from studio canal if I remember correctly and yeah just another classic kurosawa movie that I really wanted to own I was going to get the blu-ray edition but then I read that the resolution was pretty crappy and people recommended me online to get the 4k from Europe but and I know 4k's are region-free but I held off and then I found out a couple days later that we were getting this you know 4k steel book for November I got it from a seller on ebay if I remember correctly I didn't actually buy it from Best Buy directly but nonetheless I got it for around the same price and it shipped and I got it here is Zadom the 30th anniversary edition this is awesome you might remember a couple months back I picked up the second movie the first one was on this little licensing loop and we were still waiting for it to be released and I got the second one just in time because the first one was announced and I was super excited ordered it as soon as possible now I have one and two on blu-ray format now this one I'm always a little bit hesitant to talk about on the channel because I really do not want to talk about the creator and the disgusting human being that he is and I don't want to support his work or anything but I got to face facts that Kenshin is a huge part of my childhood and one of the things that got me into anime and manga as a whole and this is the live action adaptation of Rune Kenshin here we have the first three movies that were released on blu-ray I got them through right stuff on their holiday sale I think they were below retail price so I was excited for that because I have heard nothing but great things about it with a really nice cinematography and choreography and the acting and all that stuff so I'm excited that they finally got an anime or manga adaptation right over in Japan so I was excited for that now I can separate the work from the artist and again a lot of people worked on this that have no problems that committed no crimes so I just see this as an adaptation and that's it and I can enjoy it but yeah I don't tend to talk about the creator on this channel so let's get that finally for my samurai blu-ray collection here is Takashi Mika's 13 assassins a really kick-ass movie that I've been wanting to get for a while for for a long time ever since the start of last year I've been wanting to add it and for some reason I just kept putting it off and forgetting about it and recently I saw it I think it was like 10 bucks on Amazon or something and I picked it up so yeah I hope this gets a boutique release at some point because it's just pretty bare bones it's just the cover and the disc by itself that's pretty boring so that's it that's all I got for my manga and anime slash movie haul of uh 2022 January 2022 but also contents from December so thank you everybody for tuning in thank you for liking commenting subscribing and being a part of a week in geek them I truly do appreciate it if you guys want me to review any of the products featured on this haul let me know in the comment section down below so that's it I gotta go god bless stay safe I will catch all of you on our next video


Hi everybody, it's Simon at MixUp Craft. Thank you for watching my video today. We're going to be taking a look inside kit number five from the Papercraft Society. So this one dropped through my door and I've been itching to look inside. I do have a slight idea and you'll see why in a moment, but anybody that's not aware of what the Papercraft Society is, it's a monthly papercraft kit that you can subscribe to. You can subscribe month to month. You can do quarterly, six monthly or yearly. I think if you do yearly and six monthly and probably quarterly as well, it works out slightly cheaper per box than if you were to just do it month by month. But it's a beautiful box and you can see here everyone that comes through is slightly different and the colours and the patterns on the outside are an indication of what's to come inside. So you get a nice Velcro opening and this one here is time to make the Magic Happen Let's Craft and this is from Ruth. So you get your envelope, which is the best part I say. And then I did, like I said, have a little peek inside. I'm just going to take out that piece there and then put the box to one side. Okay, so here is the envelopes. This is what you get in every single box and on the side it will say Papercraft Society. This one says box five and it's by Ruth and Mackie McCartan. So let's have a little look. Again, nice Velcro fastening and then you have your dies, your stamps and any kind of like stencils or templates and your embellishments and things like that is usually in here like toppers and things. So first of all we've got the stamp set. Now I did do some inspiration for the booklet so I was asked to use the stamps and they're really lovely to colour because they were more of a block stamp. There's not too much detail in them. You can see here you've got that lovely champagne bottle and the glass there of champagne next to it. The sentiments are nice because they are, again, they're what's the word, a block so you can colour them inside. You can see there just the outer edges of each letter and then you can colour inside. You've got some flowers there. Love the bow, it's a really nice size bow and the tie. You've got a necklace, piece of birthday cake, lovely tipped cake there as well and you've got the pocket as well because there is a nod towards more of the masculine cards in this one which I think is really good because it's something that there isn't a lot out there in terms of inspiration I don't think. So to have a whole kit that has a lot of inspiration for it however there is also inspiration for you know anybody really so it's a good one. So that's your A5 stamp set and then you've also got two pieces of acetate here. If you've seen the unboxings or any of the inspiration already because it does you know they do kind of tease you on their social media channel you would have seen some of the boxes.  So it's a really nice size to do so I actually made these cards without a die and you know you can do it but because you're working on angles sometimes and you've got to get your points lined up you know it can not always have the perfect finish so when you've got a die you're certainly going to get that so yeah I'm looking forward to using the die because that wasn't one of the cards that I was asked to do because we usually get given a brief and they'd like us to focus on certain ones so I'm just going to close that there because I've just noticed that there's a glare I'll take the plastic off in a minute but it shouldn't be too much of a problem. You've got balloons, nice big-sized balloons here, the stars, flowers and it's all those same kind of images that you've got here which they've then done in the dies as well and you've got sentiments that say time to and then it says party and celebrate so you can choose and then you've also got you so you can have celebrate you which is nice then then you've even got like the stamen detail there for inside the flower so there's lots of it and this was nice because I did use this this tiny die here you actually put towards like the top left of the balloon then when you die cut it it will cut that shape out and then if you die cut another balloon in white and put it behind it you'll get that white come through and it looks like a highlight and it gives the balloon a dimension without it actually really having it so it's a nice little addition I did like that okay then down here we have a template here so this is to do a pop-up box card so you have a tuxedo style pop-up box you've also got a standard pop-up box again I'm aware that this is let's pop it on to this fine let's take some of the paper and then I can show you so let's do the papers well now I've got them out look at the colors they were great really did enjoy them it's so different to what I've got and I just I think they're really really nice so you've got stars stripes you've got some swirls and then like a zigzag kind of Chevron kind of effect there but if I just put this against that there it's a bit better but you can see these lines so this is your template so you draw these lines and that would be your score lines this is for another pop-out feature again and then it's even got your tab pieces here you can just make them out but all the instructions and everything are all inside the booklet which I will show you in a moment so that is everything in your envelope and then inside the tissue paper always keep my tissue paper we've got these bits here so I'm going to take this out so we have some ribbon it's like a silver satin ribbon which is nice these are beautiful I did get to use these ones these are circular really dimensional you can see they're really raised and then these ones here are more flat but they're faceted so again they catch the light really really pretty then you get your ink cubes so we've got a deep navy and like a wine orangey more of a I guess it's kind of like terracotta and then you have your card here so this one is an adhesive guide so this is quite handy so we've not we always get a different guide so some's got like your mat sizes some's card sizes so this one's adhesive guide a simple guide to the glues to use in your projects and then it just basically tells you then which ones that you they recommend to use on different surfaces and fabrics that's that one then you get your cardstock so you got your paper and this is now your card so let's have a little look no we've got two in that kind of terracotta we've got two in the blue or navy it's beautiful colour and then we've got two in white so you've got eight pieces of a five thick card stock there really lovely and then we have our booklet so okay so here is Ruth and then inside you have a welcome you have your contents and then you have a five minute interview with Ruth and then what's in the box oh it looks like there's two of those because I didn't take them out of the plastics you get two of those topper pieces there as well that's one thing I will say I think they're pretty generous with what you get inside the kits so here we have for the boys so this is the tuxedo style card so anybody that's not you know kind of familiar with this style it's a great box shape and it folds flat as well so you can fit it into an envelope but you can see here the stars you can see there like the party swirls the balloons you know all those cuts pre die cuts and things really fun and those colors are just so they just really pop and then you've got step-by-step the pictures on how to put everything together these ones I really love and I'm going to go and do some of these myself so this is you wear it well and these are dimensional makes for men inspired by the tuxedo box concept so I imagine yeah this whole black side piece here looks like if I just grab it looks like one side of like the die so whether they've used that as maybe just like a template and then that's folded over yeah it wouldn't surprise me if that's what's happened there and then you can kind of fold it so like I said the inspiration I think it's very good this one I love I think that's brilliant really like right down to the it's like a double breasted jacket there with the four buttons so I think that's really cool and even the way that the ties are stamped on that that card there as well I think it's really cool and then we've got close up so it does show you how to make it stamp the bow tie onto white die cut one tuxedo panel card panel and trim from the bottom so it is yeah clever so just shows you different ways to use the the dies and then that's that one and then this is one of the ones that I done so this was just they wanted me to just do it and they wanted me to work with the the stamp as being the main focus so I colored it using the inks and then I just brought in the yellow was just one of my own but yeah just use that terracotta color there stamped the stars use the acetate to create an art shape and I show you how to do that but again I just really like coloring that but you color that in pinks and you know yellows and purples and you know you can start to bring more of a feminine touch to it as well and then this was another one I done so this was the pop-up card using that pop-up mechanism that I showed you and I just die-cut and will stamped you know a few of those bottles and the balloons and just had a real nice pop-up of bottles and I just thought it was really fun yeah just really like it and then you've got the surprise there and it's got a nice front as well so if you didn't want to keep it displayed open even when it's closed you've just got that little cluster there and I use the stars and things like that but again it shows you how to do that with the supplies and then this is that box one so this is that template so you'll create this style and then again it shows you how to do it and then other things that you can do so it's another version using the flowers to use that tuxedo and then that's the stamped flowers to create an easel card then you've got quick makes I've really like the quick makes and this is that white so you would think that that there has just been drawn in with maybe like a paint pen but it's not it's that tiny die that's been die cut on the yellow and then the balloons been die cut again in white and just stuck behind it I really like that little feature it's those tiny little details that I really do enjoy and then you can see the pocket there just use using the stars and even with the the bow there because although it's a bow tie it can you know again color it in you know more feminine colors and you've got a nice bow to put on anything you want it's just a nice embellishment and then craft sash top picks for masculine make so again if that's something that you make a lot of and you struggle then they've got some ideas for you and then this one I really like as well and this is by Nikki I love the way she's done the balloons there and use the white that was the cardstock as a as a natural highlight so just by using those ink cube colors she's just not gone right into the middle but it actually makes the balloons look like the lights it in them I just think it's really clever again they're really nice with the little cluster and she's done that as an open so it's a gatefold I wonder what she's actually called that one hasn't got a particular name I don't think Nikki just looks at techniques that you can use the two hybrid ink pads in the month's box so I do I really like that style and then here so this is by Carol really fun I like that style so it's like a concertina it doesn't really say again the what that kind of fold is but it's a concertina style fold and this is a teenage style birthday card I think they've nailed it I think that really would work really really well and again I love that when it's folded that's the effect that you get cool and then top five products my scoreboard I've got that one love the glue I've got very similar stamping platform and I've got the Gemini so I agree with you Ruth and then you just finish your booklet there okay so that is the contents of box 5 this one's already gone out to all the subscribers you can't actually get this one however saying that they do sometimes put them on the website if they've got stocks left for individual purchase so keep an eye out and I'll share the links below but you do have 11 days to subscribe for the next kit and that is by the original kit designer which was Christina Griffiths so if you enjoyed the first one which was extremely popular and then you're going to love this one if you just love Christina's styles then you're really going to enjoy box six you can see the colors and look inside it's beautiful pastels and things like that so it's going to be yummy and yeah so that's everything if you want to see more of these kits now you're kind of thinking actually it might be something I like I'll share my whole playlist of every single one that they've released so you can get to see all of the goodness inside and yeah decide if it's like something you want to do go from there kits are great I really like kits because I think you know where you are you've just got the kind of certain amount of supplies and everything matches which is always a good thing so anyway I'm going to go thank you for watching and I'll be back again soon with another tutorial bye


What is going on guys? Welcome back to the channel critical overload here So we'll be talking about the strangest trilogy in this video here again today, and I'm gonna be talking about Renny Harlan's comments on bloody disgusting Slash film and comic book Mostly slash film and comic books Those are the two most recent ones I'm gonna be talking about and I'll leave links to both articles in the description But it would appear that we have another cinematic universe possibly on our hands Now I do want to start off by firstly again addressing that I thought that the clip that came out over the weekend from New York Comic Con I thought I was solid enough and effective as it was an adequate enough clip to release could they again have released something better Sure, is it completely full of suspense? No But what was captured and what was shown and Madeline's performance to me was enough to start showing How they were letting you get immersed and become curious about what's on the other side of that door The music chiming in and then just allowing all of those things to really hone in on the terror of it all Maybe it's gonna be more effective in complete context When we see the movie obviously, but I like how they were relying on mostly those aspects rather than just having Cheap jump scare tactics not to say that it was completely immersive, but it was very immersive Compared to some of the other things that come out that rely on cheap jump scares Also the poster that came out. There's actually two posters that came out I think these are some pretty cool posters that have come out over the weekend as well You guys can let me know what you think about the clip What do you think about the poster down in the comment section below? But starting off with the comment he made with slash film Rene Harlan says so the opportunity the chance of a lifetime to take a film that you love be able to Remake it and then answer some of those questions that I think all of us who enjoyed the original were left wondering like why Who were the strangers? Why did they do this? Is this completely really random or is there something behind this or at least some reasons why somebody is a senseless horrible serial killer? And maybe more than anything exploring that if one of the characters indicate in this case the main female character played by Madeline Pesh if she lives through this, how does this experience of horrible senseless violence? How does it affect it personally and physically and how do you continue with your life the chance to explore that was just too much to Pass I was absolutely determined to do this after I read the script and I said this is just an opportunity I cannot pass by doing justice and doing on to the original film was of course the most important thing So me being a fan myself I knew what made the first movie tick for me And I wanted to offer the same experience to the fans and to the people who are new to the whole concept We didn't go with the sequel We didn't explore that in any way so for us the original film is our Bible and our second and third movie explored The hypothetical case of what happens? What if the first movie just continued and then in there? What happens to Madeline Pesh's character? How did she change? What is she going to do? What's her journey from here on? now again in theory Not all of that sounds bad, but when considering what made the strangers Stand the test of time for a lot of horror fans It sounds like perhaps your trilogy the only one that people might find to be worthy of being Associated with the original movie could be your first one if you're going to spin The second and third film may be teetering a little bit too much on what's making those people tick rather than leaving it a mystery and letting that kind of build up and be part of their mystique that Classic iconic line because because you were home if we're going to be teetering off into reasons beyond just because you were home You could be stepping on a lot of the aspects of what made that original stand the test of time That's not to say it again. The trilogy can't be great, but are you missing the point of that first film? I can't knock a lot of people for thinking that you are then he goes on to say this With a comic book he said thanks for asking that question because I definitely see more movies And it's almost like that's why I don't even call it a trilogy I call it the first three movies of the strangers universe and the way the third movie ends if people thought that the original Movie ended in a titillating or titillating way because Liv Tyler sort of gasping the end of that and you question like did she live What happened if you thought that was thought-provoking I think when the third movie ends you're like, oh my god What's gonna happen now? Now he did also say this was what I discussed in a few days ago He said he cannot wait to make the next three movies. Those are his specific words More or less, so I hope that he actually knows what he's doing. I'm not necessarily even excited for a stranger's universe I think the word universe after the announcement of Halloween cinematic universe and after what we already have with Marvel and DC Announcing universes like this might be just a way to overwhelm certain people When they see that word because of how we're already deep in a lot of universes when it comes to Marvel DC and The choose your own adventure that already exists with the Halloween franchise in its current state With the strangers taking a page out of cinematic universes possibly It just sounds like you're teetering away from the purpose of that original movie And again, that does not mean that your three movies can't be great and the cinematic universe can't be great They could be full of classic slasher films that I'll enjoy revisiting for many years to come. However I'm a little on the fence because one it seems I already know that Madeline is gonna survive the trilogy It seems that I already now know that you're going to be teetering into territory that goes against what the first movie represented and possibly even doing a inferior justice or Doing a lackluster sequel to that original movie because apparently keep in mind It's in the same universe. Is this really a remake? We don't we won't know until I guess the movies come out because one of the stars I've talked about this in another video. They're telling us this is in the same universe So are you going to be shedding light on what those strangers in that original movie were up to if you do? That could be another strike against you it all comes down to what does this all look like in context of what we see on our screen if you Actually do indeed start giving reasons as to who the people in the original film were that could either backfire or it could be something great I think what will really save this is if you just mostly rely on that other aspect that he's hyping up That has me excited don't dive into too much of what the strangers are who they are why they operate stuff like that Little nooks and crannies of it all sure I can accept that But diving into it full force and it may be making them some people from the dark web Let's say and again, it doesn't mean that it won't be well received It just feels like is that really necessary because it'll chip away at the mystique of what was presented in that original movie And you could argue that's kind of what people say happened with Michael Myers You kept getting installments that completely showed that they do not understand what Carpenter was going for in that original movie When you want to introduce things like thorn Introduce all this supernatural stuff and give us concrete answers I think you should try to preserve the mystique of the strangers and not do that rely on mostly giving us that story You were talking about secondarily a character who we explore how this impacted her where she goes from here That type of stuff. I also want to just circle back really quick My comment about knowing that Madeline possibly is gonna survive the whole trilogy I don't mean that in a way to suggest that that means that this is gonna be Poor trilogy because we know the final girl will survive the final girl actually could still end up dying. I just have Reservations and I'm hesitant to even think that because of the way Rennie Harlan has talked about the trilogy and the outcome of the trilogy and Where it could go from the trilogy. I do want to say this If anything it would at least give us a character that we can root for get behind Understand where she's coming from really invest in her journey and then still go from there Even if it kind of eliminates the suspense because I know she's gonna survive all of the trilogy Let me know what you guys think about this down the comment section below If you haven't already of course make sure you subscribe turn on post notification name is a video in the description I've linked some social media accounts. I'm on Facebook Twitter Instagram You can message me there, of course Let me know isn't the movies news or reviews you like me to cover in the future and with all that in my guys I will see you in the next video


All right, good afternoon everyone. Thank you for joining us today. We are just a little bit after 2 o'clock, so appreciate all of you for joining us on this Friday afternoon. My name is Kyle Tweet, and I'm the communications and outreach coordinator for the Vermont Department of Labor. I have a few folks with me here today to talk about work search. For those of you that joined us last time on our session on Monday, this session will be very similar in terms of the information that our speakers will provide. Really just providing an overarching description of work search and what it means for you as unemployment insurance claimants and what to expect, whether it's the requirements of work search, how you can prepare and of course what resources the department has to offer. Just a few housekeeping items. For those of you again who attended last time, this session will be recorded and we will be posting it onto our YouTube channel so you can view this following today's event. We also have a number of other events next week, so I would encourage you to check out our website. If you're an unemployment insurance claimant, you likely received an email earlier today with more information on all those events. Those include how to enter a work search, which will be a step-by-step overview of the information that you'll need as well as getting more into the topics that we talk about today. So with that, I'd like to introduce, actually I'll jump into how to enter your questions. You will be entering questions into the chat and I will be monitoring the chat function and then asking questions to our speakers as time allows. So please, if we don't get to any of all questions, please know that we are seeing the questions that you're posting into the chat today and we'll be working our best to address as many as possible in this session as well as subsequent sessions and information that is on our website. So again, thank you again for joining us and I will take this opportunity to introduce our speakers today. We have Cameron Wood once again who's joining us. He's our director of unemployment insurance for the department, as well as Cindy Robillard who's representing our workforce development division today. So with that cam, I think I will kick it over to you. If you want to just provide a quick overview of unemployment insurance perspective and then we'll send it to Cindy and then we'll kick it back over to you just for some more, get into more detail. So with that cam, I will send it to you. Sure, good afternoon everybody. As Kyle mentioned, my name is Cameron Wood. I am the unemployment insurance and wages division director for the Department of Labor. Happy to be here this afternoon. For us here at the department, especially unemployment insurance, we're excited to be back in this position. It's been a very long 12 to 13, 14 months under this pandemic. As many of you who may be joining us if you've been on unemployment for this period, you probably recall that we suspended the work search efforts back in March of 2020 in response to the governor's emergency orders and in addressing the pandemic response. And it has been a very long, long period. But we're excited to be here, being able to re-institute work search, all the information that we have from our medical professionals and from trying to coincide with the governor's reopening plans. We're able to re-institute a work search effort at this time. And we want to acknowledge that the primary goal for the unemployment insurance program is really re-employment. Our primary objective for individuals who are on the unemployment insurance system is to help them get re-employed and help them get re-employed into a job that will be able to sustain them moving forward. So with that, we recognize that we also need to protect people who are still in a vulnerable state. We are still coming out of this pandemic. We are on a trajectory into the governor's reopening plan, but we still recognize that the pandemic is still ongoing. There are still individuals who remain vulnerable to COVID-19 and we want to adjust our work search efforts to be able to recognize that and to be able to account for those situations. So our goal is to get people back to full-time employment. We have exceptions here. We'll get into here in a little bit as part of the presentation for exceptions for people who are still vulnerable, taking care of children, been recommended by a healthcare provider to remain out of the workforce, et cetera. The other goals here for us in reinstituting the work search are we want to ensure that individuals who are filing for benefits have enough of a runway to get back to employment. We still have the extension programs and the additional benefits that we're providing to individuals on unemployment, but these programs are set to expire in September and there's no indication at this point in time of an extension, but some of the COVID qualifying scenarios will also sunset after the period of emergency is over and or during the summer period when school closures, when school is not in session. So for a lot of individuals who are on unemployment, we want to give them the runway appropriate to help them get back to work. We don't want people to be in a position where we get to the end of the summer and they are scrambling to try to find employment when their benefits are gonna be set to expire. The last thing is we obviously want to protect our employers. Without employers, we wouldn't have an unemployment insurance program and we have a lot of employers out there with a lot of job openings that we recognize needs support during this period to ensure that as we come through the recovery, employers are able to recover, bring people back, continue to provide jobs to individuals. So again, hopefully they can meet the primary goal of the unemployment insurance program, which is getting back to re-employment. So with that, Kyle, I'll turn it back over to you and looking forward to here in a minute, jumping into some of the specifics about our work search efforts. Great, thank you, Cam. Sydney, I'd like to turn it over to you really quick before we send it to Cam just to provide an overview of workforce development services. Sure, thank you, Kyle. And thanks for asking me to be here today. I'm really excited to be able to represent the Workforce Development Division, which is a separate division within the Department of Labor, but we work very closely with the Unemployment Compensation Division. And so basically our role is to support you on that runway or that on-ramp that Cameron mentioned to make sure that you know what resources are available to you to support your re-employment planning and efforts. And as we move through the presentation, I'll be able to give you a few specifics on some tools that we know are very helpful. And I guess I just wanna kind of give an overarching, make an overarching comment, which is it's a really good time to be an active job seeker making a work search. We know that there are a lot of jobs, quality jobs in Vermont right now, high quality, high well-paying jobs that represent a real variety of industries and represent different skills and backgrounds and interests. So we're looking at currently a little over 6,000 jobs that are out there and we just really want people to know that we are here to support them as they make connections to those employers and make sure that you're feeling confident and ready to do so. So we'll get into some really good tools a little further in the presentation, but just happy to be here. Thanks. Thank you, Cindy. So Cam, I guess, why don't we start getting into a little bit more specific? I guess if you could just provide an overview for folks, what is it that's happening on May 9th? We've made the announcement that work search is being reinstated, starting on Sunday. What does that mean for folks next week and what are they gonna have to do and what could they do between now and then? Kind of what are the steps? And I think just clarifying for folks kind of what they need to do and when might be an helpful way to get things started. Yeah, absolutely, Kyle. So we know that many individuals who are still on unemployment may have never been on unemployment before. And so again, because the work search has been suspended to this period, they may not understand how the process works. For everyone, keep in mind that the week of unemployment for our purposes begins on a Sunday and ends on a Saturday. And for every week that you file unemployment, remember that you're filing for the previous week. So the work search goes into effect beginning next week, beginning May 9th. However, remember that your weekly claim that you file next week will be for the prior week, as I just mentioned. So you will need to report your work search beginning on May 16th, which is the week that you would file your claim for the week of May 9th. So you have to do your work search next week, but you will report that work search for your weekly claim that you file beginning May 16th. And remember that you can file from Sunday through Friday and you do not have to do all of your work search in one day. We actually recommend in a lot of instances you stretch out your work search. But again, going back to my opening remarks, the goal is to help get re-employed. So we hope that all individuals are looking for full-time employment throughout the week, but the requirement is, if you're required to look for work, you're doing three job contacts every week. And Kyle, I don't know if this is an appropriate time to dive into more detail. I'll turn it back over to you, but just as a general matter, remember that you're reporting your three job contacts on your weekly claim, and your weekly claim is always being filed for the week prior. So you will have to report these work search efforts on May 16th for next week. Yeah, I mean, before we start getting into exceptions, because I know that continues to be a big topic, you know, what are those, what is considered from an unemployment insurance perspective to be a valid job contact? I guess if you could kind of hit on that, and then we can kind of pivot into, you know, some questions as well as, you know, exceptions as a whole. So I'll talk, and yeah, we'll go into more detail here about what a work search actually means. For starters, keep in mind that you have to register with the state's Vermont Job Link, and Cindy will get into Vermont Job Link in a little more detail, but just keep in mind that the first requirement is you have to be registered through the state's job bank system. And if you are not a Vermont resident, if you are filing in Vermont, but let's say you've moved to another state, you have to register with the job bank system that exists in that state. And so that's the first requirement. And know that that's a tool you can use to help search for work. And Cindy will get into more detail about what employers have available or jobs that you can use in using Vermont Job Link to look for employment that's available through that. But you have to register with Vermont Job Link. Secondly, again, as I mentioned a second ago, you have to do your three job contacts. And what does that mean? That means that you have to actually apply for a job, picking up the phone and asking someone if their hiring is not itself a job contact. If the employer says, yes, they are hiring, you can then ask them how you go about applying for work with that employer. If they allow you to do it over the telephone, then that can count as a job contact. If they require you to go online and fill out an online application, then that's how you have to conduct that job contact. What I'm trying to get at is the distinction between asking someone if they're hiring versus actually submitting an application for a job. And to be considered a valid work search, you have to do the latter. So if you call an employer and they say, no, we're not hiring, that would not count as a job contact. You have to actually apply for a job that is available. Keep in mind that a few of the requirements that we have in place, you cannot apply for the same job in a five week period. So if you apply for job A with an employer, you cannot use that same application or apply for that same job over a five week period with that employer, okay? If you apply for a restaurant job A with employer A on one week, you can go apply for another restaurant job, server job, whatever the position is with a different employer. You can't go back to the same employer and apply for the same job within a five week period. You can go back to the same employer and apply for a different position, but you cannot apply for the same position with the same employer within a five week period. Outside of that, it's really about looking for jobs that you are qualified to perform. That's what we would expect. You have to have the skills and the knowledge, the experience to do the work that you're applying for. And the examples I usually use for people are, if you're applying for a profession that requires a license, you can apply for that job unless you have that license in order to do so. So if you're applying to be an attorney, you need to have a legal license to practice. Same thing if you're applying in the medical field. You have to have the qualifications in order to do the work that you are actually applying for. Other than that, as long as you have the knowledge, the skills, the experience, et cetera, to do the work, then that would be considered an acceptable and a valid job contact. Kyle, thank you. Yeah, that's great. Certainly a lot of questions, we appreciate that. One thing I just wanna add really quick, if you are thinking about typing a question in the chat, feel free to, as you're looking through the chat of people who have already asked questions, there is a thumbs up button. If you see that and you are thinking of asking a very similar question, it's very helpful to me as I'm monitoring just to know that it's a question that is of high importance to you all as viewers. So, Cam, why don't we transition into exceptions to work search and to those that may not, that may be exempt from having to do a complete work search. So certainly a lot of questions around schooling and childcare and medical issues and all of those things, I think we've said as a department if you have a COVID qualifying reason, I guess if you can just go into a little bit more detail about some of those things and what folks really need to know about what that means from an exemption perspective. Absolutely, so I'll start by talking about the COVID qualifying circumstances and then we'll also get into self-employment in the PUA program. Keep in mind that we're trying to be as consistent as we can between individuals who are filing on regular unemployment or the PEUC program and individuals who are filing through the PUA program. For starters, we recognize, as I mentioned in the opening remarks that some individuals are still in a vulnerable situation as it relates to COVID-19 and their current economic circumstances. So what we're doing is we're making changes to our claimant portal to ask specific COVID-19 related questions and we are not at this point going to mandate work search efforts for individuals who've been identified as having a COVID-19 qualifying circumstance. We will be looking to roll out some expectations for those individuals as far as looking for work or preparing to re-enter the workforce when their COVID qualifying scenario ends, but for right now, the following individuals will not be obligated to look for work beginning on Sunday. So first, for individuals who have an underlying health condition where they have a recommendation from a healthcare provider to remain out of the workforce. This also applies for individuals who are the primary caregiver for someone who has been recommended to remain out of the workforce because of an underlying health care condition.  We get a lot of questions about this. I've seen a lot of questions in the chat asking specifically about your individual circumstance and what I can tell you is we're not medical professionals here at the Department of Labor. So we're not going to be able to tell you whether your specific underlying medical condition will allow you to take advantage or allow you to claim that you meet the circumstance. What you need is a recommendation by a healthcare provider to remain out of the workforce or to remain in some type of quarantine or isolation because of your vulnerability and your need to not re-engage in the workforce. We got a lot of questions when we did that last town hall about this, about what type of documentation do you need. Keep in mind the UI program is really a self attestation program. So we're going to ask you the question on the claimant portal. Do you meet this circumstance? And if you answer yes, you do, you won't be required to do a work search. However, you also need to understand that if we go back and we're doing a review of your unemployment insurance claim and we identify that you've made this attestation that you need to remain out of the workforce because of a recommendation from a healthcare provider, we may ask you to provide us with that information. And so at that point, you're going to need to provide us with some type of documentation from your medical provider telling you that you need to remain in isolation or you need to remain out of the workforce. You can't go back to work yet because of an underlying health condition that makes you vulnerable to COVID-19. So again, I can't tell you whether your specific circumstance falls under that criteria. What I can tell you is you need to have been in contact with your healthcare provider and they need to provide you with that recommendation that you should not go back and look for work. You should not be involved in the public because of your underlying health condition. Just being concerned about COVID-19 is not in and of itself a justification. What we are hearing from our medical providers as an administration and as we're trying to move forward with the governor's reopening plans, individuals at this time can safely go back to work and employers are required to adhere to the federal and state guidance as far as ensuring that their workforce is safe. And keep in mind, if you go back to work and your employer is not complying with those recommendations from the federal and the state government about how to operate a workplace safely, you can quit that job as long as you've brought those concerns to your employer, you can quit that job and potentially still collect unemployment insurance. So where I'm getting at here is all of the evidence is telling us and we are in a position to now require individuals to begin to look for work because all of the evidence that we have together tells us that individuals can get back to work safely at this point in time. And so having just a general concern about the COVID-19 circumstances and about potentially contracting COVID-19 is not itself a qualification to identify that you have a recommendation to remain out of the workforce. You need to have a specific recommendation from a healthcare provider that you need to remain out of the workforce. So that's the first two, I'd say the first two qualifying scenarios. Again, either you yourself have an underlying health condition or you're a primary caregiver for somebody who has an underlying healthcare condition and you need to remain out of the workforce. Number three, individuals who their school is closed because of their child's school is closed because of COVID-19 or their childcare location is closed because of COVID-19. And so for these individuals, if you have a child or someone who under 18, you're the primary caregiver for them and their school or childcare remains closed, those individuals will not be required to look for work at this point in time. We get a lot of questions about this as well. Well, what about if my school is closed for one week, open for the next week and there's a one week on, one week off type of cadence and what we would say to that individual, very similar to what I was identifying with the first two criteria. There is no black and white rule. There is no one size fits all here. It's really gonna depend on your individual circumstances.  And so I've received a lot of questions in the previous town hall that we did. I've seen some in the chat come through. If your school is open, but you have decided to homeschool your kid, your child because of concerns about COVID-19, that itself is not qualifying and you would be required to look for work. Now, if your school is closed for a week and you have to have your kids at home and you do not have additional childcare opportunities for them, you would not have to do work search for that week. But if the school is open the following week and your children are going to school, then you would need to do a work search for that week. I know that there's a lot of frustration about this because it's individual circumstances and I've gotten a lot of feedback from claimants who are frustrated because they would have to look for work one week and not the other week. But what I can tell you is, our goal here at the Department of Labor is to make sure that you all are recognizing that there are plenty of job opportunities available and these qualifying circumstances will expire in the coming weeks and months. And so we have to get individuals back into the habit and into the expectation of looking for work. For example, on the school closure, it says that your school has to be closed because of COVID-19. Well, we're coming up on the end of the school year and so if you do not have childcare during the summer that would not qualify you to continue to be waived from work search. So we're trying to get individuals to understand that the law is relatively narrow in a scope about what is eligible, what is not eligible and we're also trying to support individuals in getting back to full-time employment as quickly as possible. There is nothing that prohibits you as a claimant from looking for jobs that allow you to work virtually, for example. There's nothing that prohibits you from being very honest as you're looking for work and telling employers, hey, the school that my child goes to is closed every other week and I don't have childcare for that individual. Therefore, I can only work every other week or I can only work during these periods because of a school closure. We're not asking you as claimants to be dishonest with employers. We're actually, we would advocate that you are upfront and honest about your current circumstances but we have to tie it back to what the law says which is your school or daycare is closed because of COVID-19. And so in the circumstances where it's not closed because of COVID-19, the unemployment insurance program requires that you'd be able to work available for work and actively seeking work. And so we have to, we're in a position now where we need to reinstate those work search efforts. So again, I know there's a lot of frustration about especially this provision. I'll go back to what I said at the beginning. A concern about COVID-19 in and of itself is not a qualifying circumstance and you would have to look for work. But again, keep in mind you can be as flexible as you want with your work search efforts as long as you have the qualifications to do the jobs that you're applying for. So Kyle, I just wanna make sure I got all of them quarantining family members, underlying health conditions, school closures, et cetera. These same provisions are gonna apply in the PUA program. Individuals who meet those qualifying scenarios will not be required to look for work if they're filing in PUA. Individuals who do not meet those circumstances will be required to look for work in the PUA system. The last remaining exception that I'll mention are for individuals who are self-employed or independent contractors who are filing for PUA.  There's a specific question that we've added to the portal. Do not have it in front of me, unfortunately, we'll make sure we provide that information to claimants next week on the additional town halls, but essentially at the end of the day, if you're a self-employed individual and you're still filing in PUA, we want to make sure that you understand that you are engaging in economic activity, you're advertising for your business, you're applying or you're submitting bids for contracts, et cetera, I mean, you need to be re-engaging with your business activity to get back to full-time employment, so you no longer need to file in the PUA program. I remember seeing earlier in a chat that someone said they're self-employed and they're not working and they have no intention of doing a work search, can they still file for PUA? The answer in that case would be no. If you're a self-employed individual, you've identified a self-employed and you need to be engaged in economic activity to re-engage your business, and if you're not doing that, then you would no longer be eligible. Keep in mind, you can answer the question how you deem it appropriate given your circumstances, but as you're doing your work search efforts, you need to document them, you need to have records of them because if we come back to do a review of your work search activities, we would expect you to be able to provide us with documentation to support the situation that you're in. So Kyle, with that, I'll turn it back over to you for now unless there's anything I missed. No, thanks, Cam, I appreciate it. Again, I wanna remind folks in terms of how I am going through the chat, I am giving, in terms of prioritizing the questions that we're gonna cover today, I'm gonna give priority to the questions that have the most likes, if you will, so the most thumbs up. So please make sure before you type a question in the chat that the question has not already been typed. So with that in mind, I'm just gonna go ahead and start looking at the most liked questions. Cam, honestly, like the top five questions that we have are around suitable work and what if I am, there's no jobs in my field, over qualified for my position, I have to, I mean, I saw somebody saying that, I'm in higher education or I saw somebody saying that, they work in the physical health fitness industry, they've been really working toward that, the jobs that they were applying for are 25% less than what they typically were making. A lot of those different things and we might jump over to Cindy for some of this as well, but I just wanted to get your perspective on some of those suitable work conversations, just get a little bit more context from the UI perspective about suitable work. Yeah, absolutely. And the other aspect of this gives me an opportunity to bring up, I think, or the 10 week return to work rule, which I saw a few questions coming through related to that and also some part-time work questions. You know, I'll start with the suitable work, again, we try to be as flexible as we can with individuals. We're not here to tell you what job you need to apply for. We're not here to necessarily tell you what jobs you can't apply for or must apply for. At the end of the day, the requirement is to be actively seeking work. And we do that by requiring you to submit three job contacts. If you personally don't feel that you meet the qualifications for a position or a position is not suitable for you, we're not obligating that you apply for it. What I can say is that, you know, there are, and Cindy, I do not mean to steal any of your presentation here, but, you know, there are over 6,000 jobs currently available in our Vermont job link system, which we know does not include all the jobs that are available in the state or within our region. So I know that there was a little frustration from some claimants on our last town hall about, you know, maybe there aren't jobs available in your particular region for the profession that you currently work in. And, you know, my immediate response to that would be, we have a workforce development division that is here to support you in potentially looking towards a different profession. If there are zero jobs available for you in the work that you're looking for, then you need to expand the work that you're looking for. And I know that that can be frustrating for claimants to hear, but at the end of the day, again, our role in the economy, in employment is to help individuals get re-employed. And so if you have zero jobs available to you in your profession, then we need to talk about moving you into a different profession. And we have resources available to assist you in doing that. For example, if you are in an approved training program that's gonna put you into a high demand occupation, we can help assist you in that training program and in paying for that training program. And we can also wave work search if you are in a training program to get into a high demand occupation. So if you can't find jobs for yourself in your profession, my first, my comment back to you would be, you need to be in contact with our workforce development division so we can get you into a profession that is a high demand profession and we can assist you in doing so. Again, a few other pieces, and Kyle, if there's specific suitable work questions, I'm happy to jump into them. Really, we allow you to look for the work that you deem to be suitable as long as you have the requirements or the qualifications to do the work. Outside of that, the region you wanna look for work in, the hours you wanna look for work, all that is really gonna be up to you. We're pretty flexible. A few other things I wanna mention, the 10 week return to work rule. There is a rule in a department policy that if someone has a return to work date within 10 weeks of their initial claim, they're not required to do work search. We've gotten a lot of questions from individuals who say, I'm working part time because my employer hasn't fully reopened, my employer anticipates fully reopening in July and hopes to bring me back full-time then am I required to look for work? And the question would be, is the return to full-time employment within 10 weeks of your initial claim? And if you just filed an initial claim within the past few weeks, then it's likely within the 10 weeks and you can have your employer report that return to work date to us and they can do that on our website. And then you would not be required to look for work. However, if it's beyond the 10 week period, then you are obligated to look for work. And again, keep in mind that our goal is to help you get re-employed. And I know that everyone's individual circumstances are different and we want the rule to be individually tailored to ourselves but unfortunately we can't administer a program that way. So what I can tell you is we're not asking you to lie to people. We're not asking you when you're looking for work. Let's say you're working part-time. You're working 20 hours a week and you're hoping to get back to 40 hours a week in July or August. When you're doing your job searches, you can tell employers that, you know? I'm looking for part-time work. I have a 20 hour a week job. I only need 20 hours a week and I only need it between now and July. And you can be honest and we would consider it a valid job contact if you apply for a job and the employer asks you if you're able to work and you tell them that. I am able to work but only 20 hours a week and only through August because I'm going back to full-time employment. That would be a valid job contact. We would not count that against you. So the role of unemployment is to help individuals get back to work and we incentivize people to work part-time. If you're working part-time, you can use your part-time job as a job contact, okay? So when you're filling out your weekly claim, if you're already working one hour a week, 20 hours a week, 30 hours a week, you can use that as one job contact. If you're working two jobs, you can use that as two job contacts. Maybe you're working one job 10 hours a week, one job 20 hours a week but you're not quite back to full-time employment. You can count both of those as a job contact and you would just enter them into the claimant portal as a job contact as you would. Your employer's name, your supervisor, their contact information. So we want to incentivize people getting back to employment and we allow people to collect unemployment while they're still working part-time. Granted, they don't make a certain amount of money. I mean, when you make two times your weekly benefit amount or more than two times your weekly benefit amount, you would no longer be eligible. The other thing I'll mention is the, I think this was a question that came up earlier. The $300 is available to you if you're collecting partial unemployment. So you're able to go back to work 10 hours a week. You're still able to potentially collect unemployment to help supplement the wages that you've lost and you still get the $300 supplement. So we don't want people to be scared in taking part-time employment and you shouldn't be expected to quit your part-time job unless you so choose. We're not mandating that you quit your part-time job and go look for full-time work. We're asking you to go look for work that will help supplement your part-time position and hopefully in doing so, you're able to find a job that is even better than the part-time job that pays more. There was one question I saw come through and it commented that employers aren't paying enough. The wages aren't enough and I don't know what field you're looking in. I was only able to see it briefly come across the feed but what I can say is we have a minimum wage that's set by our state legislature and I apologize if the work you're looking for you don't feel as sufficient at an hourly rate but again what I would do in that instance is I would tell you contact our workforce development division. There are plenty of jobs available in high-demand occupations and we have the resources and the funding and the programs to help you get retrained into those professions and again we in a lot of circumstances can waive your work search while you're doing that. So if you're going to training full-time to get into a high-demand profession you don't have to be expected to be looking for work at the same time. So there's a lot of resources that we have available to people in those circumstances. So I hope that helps and provides a little bit more clarity on the part-time work and the suitable work and the 10-week return to work rule. What I can say is for some individuals if you're working in a profession that is still at a reduced capacity it all depends on your individual circumstances. If you're an owner of a business if you're self-employed in PUA again you can continue to file in PUA as long as you're taking steps to try to promote your business advertising remaining open, et cetera. If you're an employee of one of those professions again I'm not asking you to disregard your profession but what I am here to tell you is we need to find you employment between now and when your chosen profession can bring you back to full-time. Thanks, Gam, I appreciate that. I think now is before we go to Cindy so Cindy if you want to queue up and kind of get ready. Cam I guess just from a lot of questions about individual circumstances is there any direction at this point? I know we are for what folks should do if they have very specific questions about their circumstances. I know at the end of the day we're really instructing people to think about their individual circumstances and if they have an exception if it's a COVID qualifying reason. Is it best to contact the Clayton Assistance Center or the Call Center? I know we're gonna be putting out a lot more information in terms of FAQ documents and those types of things on our website. I'd also give a plug for those of you on PUA and for other specific requirements and exemptions we're also gonna be doing some sessions next week about that as well. So more information to come but Cam I guess if there's any additional resources that folks should take advantage of before you go to Cindy just one to give you an opportunity to highlight those. Yeah, so we have information available on our website. Hey Cam, I muted you on accident. Okay, okay. We have information available on our website. We're going to continue to update that information based on these town halls. I know that I can see just here 69 published questions. Obviously I haven't been able to get to even a fraction of those. So we know that information is being requested and we'll be looking to update our website or FAQs to reflect these. So keep an eye on our website. We're gonna also try to push this information out to claimants via email. As Kyle mentioned, we will have some more targeted town halls available next week. So please jump back on. But what I can tell you is our staff are not gonna be able to answer your specific circumstance. And I know that you're frustrated to hear me say that. What I can't tell you is if you're saying and I have no idea if this is the case, that I haven't seen across this come across the feed at all, but if you're saying I have this individual health condition, I have asthma or I'm predisposed to this circumstance. If I get sick, I have this past history with respiratory illness. Our staff are not gonna be in a position to tell you, yes, that means you don't have to look for work. That's not our role. We can't do that. What I can tell you is what the law allows us to do. The law allows us to say, if you have a recommendation by a healthcare provider.  Our staff can't tell you that. We're not medical professionals. If you go to your healthcare provider and you tell them, doctor, I have this underlying healthcare condition. I'm concerned about getting back into the workforce because I feel that if I contract COVID-19, I'm in a vulnerable position and I can't, my risk at that point is heightened from contracting COVID. I need a recommendation. Do you have a recommendation that I remain at home? And you have that assurance from your doctor. That's what we're gonna look for. If we get to a point of examining your work search and you're claiming that exemption, that's what we're gonna ask. Do you have a recommendation from your healthcare provider to remain out of the workforce? There was a question in here. I did see it was someone who asked, you're working part-time and the days that you're not working, you're taking care of an elderly family member. You need to have a recommendation from your healthcare provider that getting back to full-time employment would put the family member you're taking care of at a heightened risk because of their vulnerability. I would potentially push back on you a little bit to say you're already working part-time. So what I can tell you is you have to remain able to work, available to work and actively seeking work. That's the underlying requirements of the unemployment program. We've been able to get around that because of the pandemic and allow people who have underlying health conditions to remain at home, who are having to take care of their children because of school closures, et cetera. What I can tell you is these exceptions are going to go away in the very near future. I don't have a date to tell you when they're going to go away, but for people who are taking care of their child, schools will be closed within the next month and a half because of summer break. And then at that point, your qualifying circumstance no longer exists for individuals who have been asked to quarantine because of a recommendation from a healthcare provider, for example, that has been extended by executive order by the governor during the period of emergency. And I know that the goal is to try to get back to a reopening by July. So that exception may no longer exist come the summer. And so I can't answer your individual circumstance. Our staff will not be able to answer your individual circumstance. What we can tell you is what the law says. And if you have a recommendation from your healthcare provider to remain out of the workforce at this time because you have an underlying health condition or because you're taking care of someone with an underlying health condition, we would consider that to be sufficient to allow you to use that exception. Simply saying that I tend to be sick and I feel like I'm immunocompromised and I'm concerned about contracting COVID-19 is not gonna be a sufficient justification because that's not what the law allows. The law does not say you cannot look for work because you're concerned about COVID-19. So again, I know that that's gonna be frustrating because people want their individual questions answered. And what I can say is please put your questions in the chat, we download these chats, we look through them, we update our FAQs to try to reflect information that we gather. But we have to just advise you what the law is and then try to provide as much context in detail as we can. Again, I would just say that if individuals ask me about their particular circumstance, I'm gonna go back to them and say, the law says that if you have a recommendation from a healthcare provider, then you can remain at home. And if you have that, you feel that you have that, then you can check that qualification and you wouldn't have to look for work. Outside of that, you have to look for work. Nobody's telling you what work you have to look for.  You can look for other work, maybe virtual work, could be telework, could be in a field in which you're able to be outside where there's less exposure to transmission as long as you have the qualifications to do the work that you're looking for. If you feel that you don't or you feel that you need support or training in a new profession, that's where our workforce development division comes in. And Kyle, that may be a good segue to kick it over to Cindy. And I apologize that we're at 2.54. I've taken up a lot of the time Cindy and I apologize for that. Yeah, Cam, I definitely a hog of time but I think great information nonetheless. So appreciate you going into that little detail. And Cindy, I guess really, I mean, from a Vermont job link perspective, I'm happy to share my screen here in a minute. Just in terms of, what is Vermont job link? What resources, a lot to cover in a handful of minutes here. But Vermont job link and what opportunities do folks have to offer? And I know last time we talked a little bit about the different Vermont job link is just one resource. But Vermont job link also is the requirement for people on UI.  But certainly just if you can kind of go through the resources from a workforce development perspective. Sure, yeah. So the workforce development division is really, the function, the main goal that we have in serving Vermonters is to help them transition to employment and match job seekers with employers. So job seekers with jobs. And Vermont job link is the tool that we have to do that. And it also is the required tool if you are an unemployment claimant. I'm looking right now at a question in the chat about, what about using other search engines and tools? Those are fine. And we would encourage that as part of an overall re-employment strategy. But having the job seeker account in Vermont job link is something that you are going to need to do if you are drawing unemployment benefits. The benefits of doing that and having that account are that you can enter some information about yourself. You can create a resume if you don't currently have one. We have, there's a tool function to help you through that process. And most importantly, you then have access to all the information about the jobs that Vermont employers are posting. So again, we are working really hard with the business community to encourage them to post their job openings with us, give us as much information as possible so that it's right at your fingertips as you start this job search process. So I will say that for those of you who have used Vermont job link in the past, maybe since you've used it last, we've undergone a pretty significant upgrade to that system. And so when you log in again, it's gonna look a little bit different. Kyle's scrolling through it right now. One of the things that you may need to do is reset your password, which happens if you have not been active in that system for a period of time and our staff in the resource centers are available to help you do that. And so, as you scroll, you can see many options that are available. There's a calendar of our events. You can look for different tools, assessment tools and community resources that are available and you can make connections to those. So again, it's a requirement, but it's also something where the searching there is easy and it really can be a very, very useful tool. Yeah, I can see that Kyle's actually doing a little bit of filtering right now and demonstrating a job search. So he's basically, I think, drilled down to just show the number of jobs in the state of Vermont, which is showing right now about close to 7,000 jobs. So, but then there are ways you can streamline and filter that even further. You can search by keywords, you can search by regions and how far you're willing to travel. So if you need assistance working with Vermont JobLink and it's just not super comfortable for you to be able to use that system, that's when you want to make a connection to one of our resource centers. And all of that work is being done virtually right now, but we are available as easy as a phone call or an email to walk you through and really support the, getting you in here, getting you comfortable with it and having you get the most out of the Vermont JobLink tool. So the only other thing I just wanted to touch on briefly and we've heard a little bit about it, but we're here to help you transition. So, if you're feeling really stuck and you're not feeling like you know where, what direction to head in, the workforce development division is really the, we're charged with making sure that we have, we support you in transition. So we can help you look at what your transferable skills are. What are you really good at? What parts of the work that you may have done in the past could take you in a new direction? What are your interests? And then as Cameron had mentioned several times, helping you understand like what are those high demand jobs? We have a labor market unit that works really hard to collect a lot of information about the high demand jobs that are out there and what the requirements are for those jobs. And in some cases, it may mean that you do need to upgrade your skills or get some training or, whether it's a short-term thing to get you a certificate or another credential of some kind that will really lead you to that next best opportunity for you. So that's what we're here to do. And so we, you know, our staff will ask you lots of questions and try to get to know you and we really wanna support where you wanna go. And the final thing I'll just say, there's a lot of resources and I don't really have time today to talk about all of them, but just know that, you know, that's our role is to really connect you to resources, funding, training opportunities, training providers and good jobs and help you get matched up. The best way to make the initial connection with us right now is to go to our website. Kyle is showing on the screen a web form that you can complete. And it really just helps us to know where you wanna start. What is it that you would like to us to know about you so that we can match you with one of our career specialists in the field and be able to, you know, really set the groundwork for a really good conversation. So by completing this form, it goes behind the scenes to our staff who then, our management staff who then assign it to one of the folks in their region to, and then then you would hear directly.  So I guess what I would kind of wanna close with is, you know, if you're feeling very uncertain about, you know, the next step or what it's gonna look like, I think taking the first step of completing the form is something that, you know, do it and let us see where it takes us. And the only other thing I wanna mention is that there's been quite a bit of conversation about part-time employment. You know, employers are pretty flexible right now and it may very well be that, you know, in the past it wasn't easy to fill in and create part-time opportunities that kind of worked well together, but I think we are seeing, you know, maybe more opportunity for that. So if you have that part-time job that you love and you're really committed to and you wanna stay with, that seems like a really good plan and it's very possible at this point that we may be able to find that additional part-time employment that might help pull it to a full-time kind of benchmark and get you where you need to be. So we're here, we're here to support you and we really, you know, we want you to take advantage of the many resources that are available. So and making that initial connection is the first step. So I think that's what I've got, Kyle, unless you have any questions. No, thank you so much. I think that is probably, you know, really good from your perspective. I know we're right about three o'clock, you know, I'm happy to kind of go through questions, but I wanna be conscious of our speaker's times as well.  We are gonna be doing a specific PUA session next week on the 12th, which I believe is Wednesday. So I would encourage you to tune in then.  I think we'll go through more on that in terms of our part-time session on the 11th, which is next Tuesday, as well as exemptions and suitable work. For those of you that have been asking questions about, you know, how, you know, what information am I gonna have to put in, you know, when I enter a work search? I think it's very valid, you know, a lot of questions indeed others are like one click and apply now. So, you know, certainly, you know, how do we get that information and what information is actually required in order to enter a work search? We'll be going over that on Monday. Again, all of these sessions will be recorded and added to our YouTube channel. I've been putting a lot of that into the chat. So I would encourage you to check out those links. All of this though is available on our website. Again, we'll be updating this page, this unemployment insurance work search page in the coming days and weeks. I did just want to reiterate something Cam said at the top. Again, work search is gonna be reinstated on May 9th and that is gonna be searching for work for the week ending May 15th. But you won't actually be reporting that until the week starting May 16th. So, you know, you'll be starting your work search, starting to look for work between May 9th and May 15th, but you'll be reporting that, you know, starting the 16th and you'll have to do that before you file your weekly claim for the week, for that week as well. So again, this is for the benefit week ending, you know, May 15th that we're referencing when it comes to the reinstatement of work search. So with that, I want to thank everybody for joining today's session at the height. We had about 200 people joining us. So I want to thank everybody for jumping on to listen more. As I said, we'll be having, you know, multiple sessions next week, as well as more to come in terms of information. Again, the best resource is gonna be our website as well as our social media channels. And please stay tuned on your emails as well. We'll be sending emails directly to claimants with more information as it becomes available. I would encourage you to reach out for those of you that are, as Cindy said, just not, you know, 100% comfortable or, you know, kind of, you know, wondering what steps to take from a work search perspective, reach out to our workforce development team through the links in the chat or contact your local American Job Center to learn more about the resources in your local area. So again, thank you everybody for joining us today. We look forward to seeing you next week at some of our sessions. I hope you have a great weekend until Mother's Happy Mother's Day. Thank you so much.