Well I will say good morning and good evening to people from all around the world who are joining us today and also to those who are not able to join us today but who have asked for the recording and we know you'll watch it when you do wake up and sorry that we can't find a time that works for everybody but I'm trying to alternate them so we capture everyone but I'd just like to say welcome to this very informal seminar hosted by the Urban Cycling Institute. Thanks Marco for having us. I'm Roxanne Boe. I'm the executive director of CanCycle, the Cambridge Cycling Campaign in the United Kingdom. This concept just started as a few of us wanting to get together and have a chat and it just seemed that everybody wanted to get involved in our chat so now we've just opened it up to everybody but I'll just remind everyone we're being recorded after our presentation and our questions we'll switch it off if we've got time so we can have a bit of a discussion at the end as well but I will start by introducing our guest speaker. We have Simon Monk who is the infrastructure campaigner, Cycling Infrastructure Campaigner for London Cycling Campaign and Simon we caught up in February you came and spoke at CanCycle's monthly meeting and none of this was included. Straight enough. The world has changed a little bit since then. I know I know I'm so glad that we got you to Cambridge while we could but you know Simon's work in London particularly on the Walthamstow Mini Holland which Simon will talk about and his campaigning work I think represents a real turning point in London Cycling and Cycling Infrastructure and I think that that has helped set the stage for what we'll talk about today and the amazing activity that is happening in London. Where are we at the moment? We are in a new golden age of cycling apparently according to the Prime Minister of the UK. So on the I believe just the 6th of May we had Boris Johnson announced in Parliament this new golden age of cycling and I don't think anyone was expecting such a bold statement in British politics to be frank we're all jumping up and down would you agree Simon? Yeah absolutely you know it's interesting time so we're for the UK so one of the one of the things I'm no doubt we'll talk about is the fact that we're in compared to most other European cities compared to most of the global cities in London we have an incredibly fractured kind of political strata as it were so we have 33 boroughs then we have a regional mayor then we have English control then we have UK etc and it's just an incredible moment where everyone from the top all the way down to the bottom are all basically saying the same thing that's that's really never happened before so for the Prime Minister to come out and say it's a golden age for cycling and for then Grant Shaps and the Transport Minister to kind of put out the guidance he has done and essentially every every English council must you know do loads of stuff for walking cycling during this crisis and then for the mayor to say what he said and then the boroughs etc you know that's that's like it's like the planets the stars have aligned for a moment which is quite strange yeah absolutely and and that that announcement as Simon said it came then with further announcement from our Secretary of Transport of the two billion fund for cycling including a 250 million pound emergency fund and that sounds like lots of money but actually it's money that had already been announced several times really this money's been recycled a few times and no one's actually seen any of it but again it sounded different this time because it came with government guidance and this guidance was quite strong saying things like measures should be taken as swiftly as possible and the government therefore expects local authorities to make significant changes to their road layouts to give more space to cyclists and pedestrians and again we've never had such strong wording or instruction from the top and we've now seen it filtered down to local authorities in in a range of ways some have taken to it a bit more than others here in Cambridge we're having lots of fabulous press releases but not really a lot of action yet but in London things are happening and so Simon how did we get to this point I now hand over to you what happened in the past to help things happen now and what's going to happen in the future over to you cool do you want to do want to hit the next slide so by the way by the way before we go off this slide that this is lovely that was a lovely picture of Lambeth of a payment winding that got done in Brixton which does incredibly narrow payments and almost instantly local local community folks just got out and did that so that was just a spontaneous kind of expression of happiness and love and hope and whatever so it's a very lovely picture cool so if we jump on to the next slide a little bit about myself really so I'm Simon Monk the introduction campaign of London site campaigners as Roxanne introduced me very kindly I'm also a resident in Waltham Stowe in Waltham Forest which is a north east outer London borough kind of suburban area of London and from about 2005 I was a campaigner volunteer in Waltham Forest while also being a journalist and Waltham Forest was an utterly unremarkable suburb of London for at the time you know in many ways it still is but but in many ways it isn't so at the time you know that the council attitude to cycling was well we gave you one of those boxes at the front lights what we call an ASL or advanced stop line we gave you one of those boxes what more could you possibly want we just don't understand you cyclists you just you just want want want want want and you know never satisfied so cycling in in that bit of out of London was was hairy to say the least you know it was only for the fast the fit the confident the fearless people like me in other words he'll cycle despite conditions and kind of possibly may have mental health issues and challenges because of our willingness to cycle in in almost any conditions but the mammals you know middle-aged men in lycra as as we call them so so what changed well around about 2007-2008 I was just getting mightily hacked off as were some other campaigners with this council attitude and we did something about it I did a thing called Movers and Shakers where we spent a year getting council leaders out on bikes I'm gonna I'm going to by the way take complete credit for everything that's happened in London since 2005 so just just for everyone to be aware of that but there we go so around 2008 2009 we did a thing called Movers and Shakers where we got council leaders out one on one and bikes and suddenly doing that led some of those council leaders to go from well we gave you an SL one more could you possibly want to oh okay we can see that giving an SL wasn't actually very useful and didn't really get your advice and we had the council leader was in his mid 60s I think at the time right down Liebridge Road which is the most dangerous road in the whole or was the most dangerous road in the whole of the area and the one used by most cyclists as a commuter through route was was one of the most horrific rates and he rode he you know to his credit he rode down the road in his mid 60s having not been on a bike for a decade and I think that led to a real kind of moment where that the council really understood what was going on and that led to the 2012 action plan around the Olympic Games we got a little bit of money from from London to do a few things and essentially the council leader by that point sat down and said well what is it you do want what do what is it you cyclists want that then led to things like 20 miles an hour for the whole borough the 10 worst junctions the borough fixed etc and that then led to the Mini Holland bid Boris Johnson in 2013 announced a program for the London boroughs to bid out of London to bid for the Mini Holland funding in the end three boroughs got Mini Holland funding I get very emotional about this as you probably hear so I may cry I may ramble that is the way of things but we got 30 million for for water forest is one of the three boroughs and since then what's happened because of the political will that had been generated in Wolf Forest is we became essentially the gold stand for London the schemes that are now in and you can probably see some of them on the screen these are roads that are very near my house right you know right now and absolutely quite spectacular at the moment to see these schemes have become the gold standard for London they've become the gold standard for the UK we've had visits so so my colleagues in more for a cycling campaign who also deserve massive credit as to cost a thousands but Paul Gaston on Dan Kelly who who helped get these schemes and keep these in his campaigners have since gone on to do like a hundred plus tools including I took around a bunch of folks from Bogota we've had people in Japan Denmark with a Dutch engineers come over which is quite strange so there's just been a huge shift in in in perception of the area and more importantly as well as the international plaudits and acclaim these schemes have resulted in just huge amounts of people walking cycling and a wide range of people which is really important so Liebridge Road which is a bottom right-hand corner and is on my is on my profile picture like you can see it in the background behind me and that Liebridge Road scheme you know I'm quite often now riding along there at the moment and you'll see women in hijabs you'll see people with trikes family bikes so that was that was mini Holland and then from the mini on the start the success of the mini Holland schemes I then went from that to work at London Sighting Campaign in parallel and if we switch from that slide to the next please rock Sam in parallel London Sighting Campaign we're also up to a bunch of stuff in around 2012 2013 they ran that way in 2012 they ran the Love London Go Dutch campaign which was probably one of the most successful cycling advocacy campaigns ever and it took Boris Johnson who was the mayor at that point to then become a mayor who wasn't just talking about blue paint which he had done up until that point but to start to build the Cycle Supplyways this is a picture of the North South Cycle Supplyway it is at Blackfriars Bridge the the handful of schemes that we had in before the crisis under Boris have been dramatically successful and and they are again a tale of I think campaigning advocacy we have campaigned for these we campaigned for this directly we asked for specific schemes and got them what we've also done and I guess the theme of this entire presentation is really about political will and that's I think that's what's really important for me to talk about and refine myself that I'm talking about is that Boris went from blue paint to Cycle Superhighways and went left office in London and went to become Prime Minister to usher in a golden age of cycling under this situation so we have created a situation where our advocacy LTC but other organizations as well have created a situation where politicians in London cannot and will not openly say I hate cycling or cycling's rubbish or we're not going to do anything for cycling etc in fact the argument over separate space for cycling is basically one the argument over kind of the need for cycling is one the yeah the argument is one and indeed really the question is definitely like how fast we go how bold we can be etc but politicians really understand now the situation and kind of embrace it in a very real way and we then in the run-up to city calm we ran a campaign called time for cycling pretty much everyone signed up to triple the mileage of protect space on main roads and deliver a mini hold in every borough city has pretty much gone on to do arguably everything he said he would it's a it's a kind of there's been some spin around what he's done but let's make no mistake what we've seen is a massive expansion of the cycle network in London under his four years and we've seen a roll out of schemes into boroughs and we've seen a load of other stuff in that period what we've also done is we've really cemented our role I think there's LCC do more do better be brave be bold you know it's great keep going etc that has led to the mayor's transport strategy which is a really bold document but also to embracing concepts like low traffic neighbourhoods which which weren't pioneered in water forest but were very much part of the the wolf and forest kind of experience and we've seen that political will now start to also drive out into other boroughs so that has resulted very much in in what we now started to see in the street space band this this is by the way this is a picture of a parliament fairly obviously a parliament square has a cycle superhighway one of the one of the two and a half core routes that london had during Boris go straight through parliament square this was I think last monday last monday was the highest ever higher rate for Santander high cycles are docked central london higher schemes are booming at the moment and this is what the streets look like right now in central london in outer london as well so where i'm based there is just incredible amounts of family cycling and and we are in a situation now you know one of the things that I keep saying to everyone including all the politicians and we're in a situation where we have a momentary glimpse of the future we want in many ways you know we don't want corona virus we won't don't want you know the in the uk the highest death rate in europe but we do want the clean air that has come with the crisis we do want to retain the walking and cycling rates that we're seeing and in fact we kind of have to say in london is a very large capital city spread out across miles and miles and miles and as a result we have very high distance commutes those commutes now will not be done on public transport tfl estimates that around 15 percent of its previous maximum capacity will be available to people to get on buses and tuit london moves at the moment or it did before the crisis on the bus and on the tube that's how most london's get around so millions of those daily journeys will now no longer be available because of social distancing for the foreseeable future so we face a very very stark situation which is right now this is what central london looks like if I go out to leverage road I will be passed by children on bikes I will see people riding around who just were not on bikes before I can see NHS key workers getting to the local hospital you know to work and stuff other this is a glimpse of a future that we want but the cars are coming back every day and with them in a respiratory crisis comes the pollution so and obviously you know we are pretty much tracking you know two graphs as the cars rise the number of people willing to cycle and in current conditions goes down so we've been given this glimpse and we're fighting and talking to politicians all the time about saying you have a real choice now either you do this stuff fast or this all disappears and all this stuff disappears very very quickly this this is a street space plan and I think all of this leads directly to this which is that the politicians as I said are very much important and our role now I think our role has been much more oppositional in the past and much more kind of punchy and you know kind of there's been a bit of attack politics politics at times and there's needed to be you know so we've needed to do demonstrations that's needed to happen quite a lot we needed to do big mass rides we needed to do all sorts of things that is less our role at the moment on certainly on a regional basis on the london wide basis we have an alignment of political will and as a result the mayor came out with this street space plan really you know and again this followed directly from our calls and other organizations calls to say this is what needs to happen you need to do this stuff and you need to do it fast as a result what we have is a plan that shows that that is modeled by TFL to result in up to a tenfold increase in cycling now we currently have I think it's about seven hundred and thirty thousand daily journeys on bicycles and the the modelling is for a tenfold kilometer increase so that could mean say a five-fold cycling increase and loads of people riding from out of London who don't ride currently but we don't know exactly how it cuts cuts apart but but either way at the moment we're just under three percent mode share for cycling I always said you know I'm 50 now I always said I'd retire when cycling was a mass transport mode in London I'd be quite happy to go out bow out if we're well over 10 percent it now looks like we could be well over 10 percent in a year or two so that's quite a strange feeling but but a very good one so what you what you can see here on the left is is the street space plan the purple lines that are the are the new emergency routes that are planned to go in very rapidly now I believe but we have not had confirmed that this is just phase one this is what they're planning to do in the during the crisis in the current lockdown I in the next month or so I think there's more coming because this doesn't reach far enough out into out to London what you can also see is there's some grey and red and other lines those are our tube lines and fairly obviously right now we've gone from a situation where a lot of the cycling scheme and a lot of results that we were pushing for were about getting people to cycle to town centres replacing short car journeys etc and we're still trying to do that but we're now also very clearly from this map trying to replicate tube and bus routes because they won't be available and and what will happen is we've now faced a situation where if even a few percent people get into their cars that were on buses and tubes before we are utterly stuffed we're stuffed on congestion the whole city you know already runs at well under 10 miles an hour as the average speed central London I think it's about six miles an hour and you know someone I think there was a great headline someone said buses are now in central London buses are now running slower than a horse and cart during Victorian times so London already has a massive congestion crisis it can only get worse if people get into their cars even if it's only a few percent swap from bus or tube to cars but on top of that obviously air pollution will really hit as well and as I said before you know it looks increasingly like this this virus is both its spread and its lethality is exacerbated by high levels of air pollution London has some of the worst air quality in Europe so yeah we really need to get the scheme going so we're now looking at a scheme that not only aims to get short car journeys happening by cycle but also long tube and bus journeys happening by cycle so it's a very strange condition situation but a lot of these routes will be very viable after the scheme you know after the whole thing runs what you can see in the bottom right is in Tower Hamlets that is Old Ford Road and that is a modal filter or road closure or whatever you want to call it but basically as well as these as well as these main road track schemes the temporary track schemes that coming in and there are also now a whole there's a massive plan for low traffic neighbourhoods and in fact we're seeing multiple boroughs as well as TFL push these openly and talk about entire boroughs going low traffic kind of and major chunks of London so the streetspace plan talks about the city of London which is the square mile as it's also known our financial hub that going pretty much low car or car free on top of that we have numerous of the bridges in central London going car free we have big chunks of residential area going low car and these routes as well the issue and I guess finishing off really the issue now is pace so Paris has done you know the last I heard 35 kilometers of cycle track during the crisis as a temporary measure we've done about 500 meters thus far from TFL but we're now starting to see the boroughs pick up so I was saying to Roxanne just before the call started that we have last night Hammersmith the whole of Hammersmith gyratory went cycle tracks all around it now the plan originally for cycle way nine which is where that scheme where the area is was only to the northern side of the gyratory but but last night a borough and a borough that's not known for doing loads and loads of schemes has done the whole of the the gyratory so we're seeing boroughs now step up as well and some really surprising ones so I think if we jump to the next slide I think that covers most of the stuff that I was going to gibber on about I'm just checking my phone as well yeah I think I think other than to really say obviously the two remaining things I was going to say briefly one was that before we hand it over to questions and answers I think one was that that just before the crisis hit we published a report called climate safe streets which I think we're really really proud of everyone should read but it's about recommendations to make London streets or any big city streets carbon neutral by 2030 and and that's the point to make is as well as as well as this crisis hopefully bringing us a you know some some forward momentum to come out of this crisis not going back to the status quo but but we're moving forward we're also need to all recognize that there is a bigger crisis looming you know in the near future and that is the climate so so really if we come out of this crisis and go back to cars as they were not only have we failed on on pollution and COVID-19 and a second wave we've also failed on making sure that we use this moment to reduce our carbon emissions and the final point is free membership I'm just going to do a plug free membership for NHS workers and current offer for membership includes a free deloc a gold secure sold secure deloc and we're currently running an LCC advice line for anyone not just members everyone so if you're getting touched on Facebook Messenger or Twitter or email or phone or whatever we will quite happily talk to people in London or beyond about routes about you know how to lock your bike successfully about you know tips and whatever and riding etc so um so I think you know but most importantly any members you know anyone that gets involved it helps us do our campaigning work so that's our plug thank you thank you Simon for the third time um I know that was probably just the tip of the iceberg of all the work that's been done to get to this point and I'm sure the huge campaigning effort over the last few weeks and um and the plans for what we can see um and I through all of the things that I'm seeing popping up around the world and particularly around England I can't help but wonder have we actually had secret allies sitting in these boroughs sitting in these local authorities who maybe weren't um brave enough yet to put their hand up or they didn't feel that they would get that public support and they've just been sitting on this enthusiasm and these ideas and now they're just going for it do you think that's happening yes uh it's the short answer there are fairly obviously there are you know there are um there's always being support because you know this stuff makes sense you know so so sensible people do exist uh and and so there has always been support but the problem is it's the top you know so as as the earlier there is a theme to my talk and if there is a theme to probably everything I do um it is political will um and so what I think is this there's several things happening at once one is that we have been generating as and not just lcc cam cycle many others in many other cities have been working on political will and we've been getting better at it in a lot of ways um I think that's really important I think secondly you know certainly one of the stories in london which I haven't told today is about engagement and consultation we're learning rapidly how to actually talk to the public as are most of our councils and tfl and whatever you know one of the things we see in london is that the the vast majority of people over and over again in surveys say you know we we want more cycling we support cycling we want to get rid of cars use we want to cut guys so people generally and under get it they know they're breathing in lethal there they know that the inactivity levels are horrific they know that things aren't right um they know road don't you know they can't step out at a crossing without risking their lives so so they know that there are problems and they see that the problem then becomes when you say right okay you like cycling you want more cycling but we're going to put a cycle track on your road at the end of your street or we're going to close your street and then they go uh and it all gets a bit hairy so being able to talk to people engage with people to to bring them on that journey to say your abstract view is right but how do we translate that down to your street down to your area and having those conversations and learning those conversations the wall to forest mini holland was very much further I think has really helped people because so politicians increasing you know not only will people back the general but they'll back the specific and I think that's been really important but I also think you know this crisis very simply we've got local groups turning around to their politicians you know because as I said London is a patchwork we have the mayor controls five percent of the roads via tfl 95 percent roads are down to 33 boroughs that are all their own little fiefdoms some of those boroughs blatantly are not doing anything right now you know I think I've just seen Alex in the chat talk about Westminster um and and you know that's a really surprising kind of site to see Westminster Council openly talking about cycle tracks openly talking about schemes for those who don't know Westminster Council is infamously anti-cycling yet they are coming out you know now but the point is they've been prodded by a lot of campaigning work there are other boroughs that even further back behind Westminster in terms of not doing anything in terms of openly saying they're not going to do anything now our campaigners are out every day saying this is the traffic count on the main road this is a cycle count look yesterday from yesterday you've gone up 10% on motor traffic and down 10% on cycling you know how long are you going to wait is the pollution levels on your main road how long are you going to wait you know essentially we are now making the point very forcefully that a second wave a response to uh this crisis will be on those politicians you know and we will remember and i think there is some real power at the moment with advocacy because this crisis does genuinely represent a situation where if the calls come back it will be disastrous yeah i agree okay let's look at some of these questions well i think we've covered the question about about Westminster i don't know if you can expand on that do do you think they're there for real how have they finally been pressured into doing something after all that that resistance is it just this is the time do you think they'll backtrack on the temporary infrastructure or stick with it they're certainly they're certainly being very they're being very clear in their documents that all of the infrastructure they're going to put out is very temporary you know other boroughs the mayor are like this is a trial for a permanent scheme you know we're going to see if it works and make it permanent and Westminster still talking about we're going to see you we're going to roll it out now and then probably take it back later um they're not there yet but they have been brought along a huge distance um we we have uh in Westminster now campaigner Claire Rogers who uh was uh did a lot of work in Enfield she's been spectacular um at getting things happening and i think there's a coalition there's a Westminster Healthy Streets Coalition that has really made inroads uh in making the case but also again you know Westminster is i think facing a lot of other pressures as well you know what i'm seeing you know for instance is uh lots of people talking about SoHo as a fairly obvious area this is the heart of central London um an area of very narrow streets very narrow pavements huge amounts of employment um and loads of cafes and bars and restaurants it's nightlife kind of area um how that reopens with motor traffic you know it is just beyond any so i think you know again you're seeing Westminster businesses you're seeing the landowners and property developers you're seeing Westminster Healthy Streets you're seeing like noted local icons and things like that all saying we can't do this if the cars come back this doesn't work it just will not work so i think you know Westminster have some very clear pressure on them to move but i think they also have shifted you know they've for the last few years Westminster has been talking a very good game about air quality not doing a lot about it but at least talking about it a lot so it's getting that that will to then turn into action which you know hopefully we're still on so um a question from from Michael from an else one of the lcc groups Hounslow um do you anticipate many battles has that as they have been in the past for local road closures and filtering and i'll add to that as well um we know we've got the quiet ways program in London but often they haven't been particularly quiet so will we have these battles and will we see some of these quiet ways actually getting the interventions they need to to have proper traffic calming so i think there is again you know i think lcc's work means there is widespread recognition now amongst the boroughs that the idea of a quiet route is great but if you just try and build a route through a quiet you know you try and build a route and somehow magically cycling will happen here um but i think most boroughs get it but the issues yeah absolutely we're going to still see opposition but this is again this is the moment where putting in trial schemes like the town hamlets one on old four road you know that that scheme no one was expecting town hamlets to do it they've just done it they did it at a point where the traffic levels were still low enough that the rat runs weren't all back um and as a result people will have the chance to experience it there was a trial of schemes in woltham forest way back at the first low traffic neighborhood um and i think that trial really cemented in in woltham forest the the idea of these schemes people could actually get out and feel it they could see kids cycling about they could see people sitting on a bench having a drink in the in the summer afternoon you know etc so i think the trials is you know these schemes are going to be key to winning people over yeah i agree and we were i was chatting to marco about this earlier that i find sometimes one of the challenges with campaigning is people actually can't imagine what we're talking about and we forget because this is our bread and butter we're always thinking about this we have these amazing images in our mind of what life our lives and our streets could be like and people just can't imagine that but now finally we've given them this taste and we've sparked their imagination and now they know what we're talking about um and we have to help the campaign for it um we've got a a question from peter in melbourne um in australia in in regards to the covid 19 response from tfl uh do you know how they chose which streets to close and make bike only bus only etc you know what kind of tools were used is at low hanging fruit and i would probably add to that as well um one of my questions which is is this very much a temporary network or have you gotten you know do you think in the back of their mind they're thinking about how this works more permanently particularly balancing you you've got these cycle routes along the tube line are they going to feed into the tube line later or be irrelevant if the tubes start running um at capacity again so explicitly if you there is a tfl streets space i keep saying streetscape it's not a street space there is a tfl street space which is the name the plan uh web page so if you just google tfl street space whatever you'll find it um on that plan so we've gone from and that's one of the big shifts in boris's era um you know there wasn't a big data approach to this stuff it was just this makes common sense just do it um and that has certain how can i put it there's a certain charm to that there's a certain uh efficacy to just having someone who just says we're going to do this scheme this scheme works i know it works get on with it um what tfl have shifted to and the mayor's shifted to on will norman is a very much data-led approach so there is a thing called the strategic cycling analysis very much like in the uk we have a thing called the propensity to cycle tool um and and both of these are data-led approaches to travel surveys journey surveys stuff like that to say okay we know that there is a car journey from a to b that is currently under six kilometers that is done by lots of people who aren't carrying heavy loads that are are able bodied that you know it's interesting so these are journeys that should and could be cycled um and there's lots of them happening from point a to point b so let's make a cycle route from point a to point b um and so there's high potential for cycling along this corridor or whatever um london is in the strategic cycling analysis has already done this in general and what that route that set of routes looks like um is very much town centre town centre it's very much kind of not just these radial routes going into london which is what we were doing before it's also lots of orbital routes lots of other kind of into town centre routes um but you know now we've got this new so they've now done another big day trip so and if you look at this the street space guidance there's some really good stuff on there there's things like here's a main road that we think needs cycling but here's a bit of that main road which is wide enough um so we need to put in a bus own bus and cycle only section or we need to get rid of all the parking at that point or something like that so they've they've really done some great analysis of where high potential low traffic neighbourhoods are where there's too narrow for cycle tracks temporary side traces um some of these routes may or may not work in the long term but the mayor has been very explicit on that page you can it says all of this stuff will be monitored all this stuff will then be assessed for future permanent schemes so the idea is very much that these are going to be made permanent and ultimately the point is in London nearly all of the tube lines we're at or beyond capacity um you know one of the things I was in Barnett council a while ago Barnett are not known for being cycle friendly and what was really interesting was the conversation started to talk about cycling because they had seen the modelling from tfl about their tube stations and their tube stations are at capacity right now yet they are predicted to have huge amounts of growth of housing in Barnett so what happens when there's even more people you know tens of thousands of more people living in your borough and your tube lines are at capacity so actually replicating tube lines for instance in London makes really good sense anyway because people are fed up you know even before this crisis people are fed up of trying to squeeze onto a tube and being in someone's armpit for 45 minutes you know and and when you say to people you know you can you can basically get into a really sweaty horrible tube or you can get on a bike they say well we're not going to get on a bike because it takes hours and it's really dangerous but actually doesn't take hours you know most of our cycle routes are about as quick as the tube routes but it's the danger so get rid of the danger a lot of people can shift across excellent so another question from from Matt and I partly know this answer because I know you do some live stream videos once a week from your neighborhood but do you video your neighborhood cycling network to share with other boroughs to convince them how their areas could be rebuilt and I'd say even beyond other boroughs you know we're really hoping that what's happening in your backyard is influencing the whole country well I think it is but there is a I'm well I think we are right now seeing you know the negatives of British exceptionalism to be frank you know politically we have a tendency to think of ourselves as somehow a unique and superior country full of unique and superior people and that doesn't I don't think work very well when it comes to things like you know oh yeah we can go for herd immunity rather than you know actually doing the job of saving lives etc so we have we have some issues with that and I think the way that comes into the kind of cycle campaign and that and I really remember you know when we started doing the water boroughs mini Holland stuff we we had over and over again people saying well but we're not Holland you know you can't be a mini Holland in northeast London we're not Holland we're not Dutch you can't be Dutch as if the Dutch are some kind of alien species with like three arms or something and then we were like but hang on a minute actually really the mini Holland's a bit of a misnomer what we've done is we've taken low traffic neighbours which Hackney which is the next borough over has been doing for decades so we're doing something that's only two miles away a mile away and we're doing cycle tracks you know which you can find in Central London but I don't know but we're not Hackney as if the people in Hackney had three arms you know and then what I noticed was that we actually had old low traffic neighbours in in bits of all the forest have been put in the 70s and 80s and actually a lot of bits of the UK in the 60s 70s 80s people were closing rat runs for some reason that stopped but you can find in most councils you can find bits of quiet neighbourhoods that were done at some point where there was a rat run through it and someone just filtered it and so we we looked at that we were like but there's the Markhouse area he's actually filtered already I know but we're not like the Markhouse there are 500 meters away yes you are like the Markhouse people come on you know how close do you have to be and and we see that exceptions are all over so people go to all the forest and we've had the councils that don't really get here you know or they don't want to get here they've come towards us they've visited they've walked around and they've gone this is amazing this is lovely but you had 30 million pounds of funding and we were like but the low traffic neighbours bit is really cheap you can do this easily oh no no we can't do that why can't you do that why can't so I think the tools have been really important you know Paul and Dan I can't praise them enough for you know doing the amount of tools and we've had councils from all over the UK come and that has been a really visceral experience and there is a video there's an amazing video online if you just google five years of of Enjoy Wolfen Forest I think you'll you know there's a great great video that shows a lot of what's what's happened but showing people a video I'm afraid to say is isn't I don't think it's the answer if someone doesn't have political will before they see the video they won't have it after they see the video what you need to do is is find what motivates them and get them to care you know about cycling and the honest answer is cycling you know is I feel incredibly you know I'm quite glad I'm a cycling campaigner rather than you know campaign about other things because actually it's so easy to make the case on cycling it's such a win-win for everything you know so if you care about social justice cycling is an answer if you care about health cycling is an answer if you care about the environment cycling is an answer if you care you know so pretty much anything that might motivate a politician from the left or from the right from you know wherever they split on party lines or wherever they say there is there's a reason why cycling is actually quite an important thing to consider but you need to kind of unlock that in people somehow and videos don't I'm afraid do I wish they did we have to get them to the point where they start asking oh how do we do that and then we bring the video in but we've got yeah that point of asking that question don't we yeah and I think it's one of the things we're seeing in London at the moment right now is we're seeing lots of boroughs where the council has got kind of a medium level of political will and they turn around and say oh but my officer says no my officer says this my officer is that we can't do it because of his 50 reasons now officers are incredibly good at finding reasons if they don't want to do something but if a council really has political will the conversation doesn't become oh well I asked and they said no the conversation becomes I'm the cabinet lead on this I've told you can do that find me solutions it might not be exactly what I asked for but you're going to find me something that looks roughly right you know and and that the moment that you start having those conversations with council leads you know that you're on a good like that's when you're on the right road and it is you know at the end of the day political will is everything I think it you know it's easy to have words you know Westminster's got great words right now when I see schemes going when I see the program accelerating when I see actually things happening then I can say and then facing down residents and then facing down officers that's the moment which I'm going oh right that's what political will looks like yeah so a really really short answer for this one and then to the last question in the guidance that the government has released they have basically said if councils don't get on with this we're going to come and get involved do you do you foresee that that might happen for some of these reluctant councils or boroughs so it's a very different question to the simple the simple answer is so we have we don't just have a cycling prime minister his key transport advisor Andrew Gilligan is is famous or infamous loved or hated for his attitudes on transport and cycling he's a massive advocate of cycling whatever else you think of him if anyone is likely to come into a council and just take over it's probably Andrew Gilligan and whether that is even achievable or doable legally or whatever you know I think he's slightly under question but flip it I'm just going to rattle that saber as long as and hard as I can because because you know it's a lever that someone has given me I'm going to use that lever yeah so if we can't get that political will through our convincing arguments a bit of fear might bring it on board fear greed love hate you know what it whatever works really I'm a very much a by any means necessary kind of guide yeah right I'm going to make this one then the last question and it's from Marco and so where will the largest resistance come from and in the 1920 we also thought that city streets would never allocate car traffic roads were not built for cars and then hard to link up with much wider a much wider group of people to ensure a majority will keep fighting for it and and I see that as being you know where our allies and our alliances that that we can build and I'll say we're already seeing that internationally and nationally the amount of collaboration that is going on right now is incredible but we're still a bit in our echo chamber so how do we bring more and more people in your your ideas are probably as good as mine but you know build coalitions have a broad conversation bring residents with you you know talk clearly and simply and positively be a critical friend to politicians it's just all the the tools of campaigning that everyone is amazing at you know London is not uniquely brilliant at doing this stuff very obviously because we're not we're far from there yet you know but just keep doing all the stuff that we're doing and keep learning from each other I think it's probably the biggest key on this one I think there's so much kind of efficacy in good positive language I don't do enough of that but that is a really really positive thing I think coalition building is massively the key for us in certainly London where cycling has been viewed as this kind of alien thing and in the UK you know we are seeing huge gains from forming things like healthy streets or better streets group you know because who doesn't want a healthy street and who doesn't want a better street you know it's very easy to say well I don't like cycling but if you say you know I don't like healthy streets what you know you can't do it you can't you know so I think there is and I think you know having that coalition of social justice and green and you know all sorts of things but you know at the end of the day it does cross across so many lines you know it's great we have in in the UK we have a very strong labor cycles movement now but we also have quite a strong conservative cycles movement now so you know politically if you want small government and low kind of you know low public purse levels you know and you want an efficient population you know healthy population is a good thing so cycling is great that way you know so there are all sorts of ways to cut this and all sorts of people to bring in you know I just last night I was talking to a load of taxi drivers who are the biggest enemy for cycling in London you know and I was talking to them about the huge common ground there is between us and actually there is masses of common ground they might they're not going to agree on everything but they're going to agree on some things yeah absolutely we've got to look for those parts that we agree on and and build from there don't we yeah yeah excellent right well I'll say to everyone um I'm not sure what time we're finishing but we might have time for a bit of off the record chat but I'm just going to do the obligatory plug and before we do that I'll say thank you so much Simon for coming in and having a chat to us and it's such a crazy time so really really appreciate that you found the time and you know it wasn't particularly well organized this week because I'm also struggling with the campaigning but we got there and we know that this will reach hundreds of people online all around the world and I think that there was just so much to take from this today about just how do we actually convince people the right people so thank you as always Simon you are leading the way there and I will get this plug one moment I was told by George George couldn't make it today and it it turns out we managed to have almost a double booking there's two sessions today so if you didn't get enough this morning the Urban Cycling Institute has another webinar this afternoon if you're in Europe


All right folks as we talked to Tim or every Tuesday and Thursday at 3 30 p.m. Eastern time we have Tim on the line you can reach Tim at his website or dash oracle.com and we're gonna talk some ratios man looking forward to it Tim or good afternoon yeah good afternoon thanks for having me on again my pleasure man I was doing my program yesterday and I was talking about you know pretty interesting we talked to you last Thursday and we were referencing maybe Tuesday where this market will be it's held up pretty well man we're sitting just under 5100 right now I got your charts ready where do we want to kick things off Tim actually look this chart one is probably the most important one right now and this is the monthly SPX or the standard port 500 and goes back to about mid 2016 and what's what's going on here if you look up to the right where we are right now which is a upper right hand corner it's a Catholic pattern going on we're about basically 50% above the upper Bollinger band and that's kind of a on a short term basis that's kind of an exhaustion move to the upside if it's less than 50% usually there's not a problem the market is not really too exuberant I guess you might say they're going to move higher so I circled the times going back to mid 2016 the times when 50% of the candle was above the upper Bollinger band and every time that happened you know this is a monthly chart a lot of times the next month was a down month and sometimes the next two three months with down months but normally you get a bigger consolidation so why I really want to happen here is the market this month closes on what through well last day of the month is Thursday so I went for this month the month of February they actually close back on the upper Bollinger band which is right around actually I got the number right there it's 4 9 8 9 so basically 5 5,000 5,000 or a little bit lower ideally if that happens then the markets not really overbought would probably still move higher on a short term basis if it stays here then chances are much marked will be a down month so ideally if you really bullish want to be bullish short term you really want to pull back here over the next couple three days get around 5,000 or below and then from there we could probably keep pushing higher and the bottom window is the SPX VIX ratio it's on a monthly time frame and normally if the SP's make higher highs and that ratio makes lower highs you can have a short term consolidation and that's kind of what's going on here so I'd like to see the market pull back between now and Thursday and it's kind of doing it weekly or not or WEAK LLY weekly not week as in day of in number of days so lacking strength right yeah so I like to see a little bit of weekends here so if we do that then March there's probably going to be an up month so we'll see how it trades out so let's flip it to another chart number two here okay I got it up yeah yeah so the first chart we're looking at the monthly chart the second chart is the weekly chart so we're kind of going down in time and this is that ratio back on page one that was a bottom window the second window up from the bottom is the SPX ratio on a weekly time frame and the S&Ps to look over what's going on over the last since January basically the S&Ps have been making higher highs well this ratio just flip sideways here and that's usually kind of indicative of a consolidation sometimes they they snap out of it and start going higher we'll have to wait and see if that happens here but we can back off a little bit here anyhow the market one trying to point out here is not really set up to really go strongly higher forward short-term it needs a rest and needs a pullback of some sort kind of reset the market to build some strength going forward and I think you know the if the markets up every week it gets overbought and time frames and it and it actually consolidations are actually good in that it kind of builds energy for the next it builds more energy to to the upside so it's always just kind of do here the reason why I flipped a chart three real quick you're making a lot of sense to him even though this market just continues higher man I mean and we all know that parabolic markets are a little dicey man and that's I mean these runs are pretty extraordinary that we're experiencing right now so I appreciate you sharing this info go for it I got number three up there yeah number three so anyhow so the monthly charts is ideally you like to see a pullback around 5,000 a little bit lower nothing real significant nothing extremely bearish here but the market needs to build actually some fear in it you know Joe Granville back in the day he said you know the market climbs a wall of worry but you really define what a wall of worry is is basically fear in the market you have no fear in the market you can have you can have really have a setup for a debit saying market and the way I major fear is by the trend the trend is definition of a trend is advanced issues divide by declining issues divide that number by advancing volume divide by declining volume when now we do all that rigmarole anything above 1.2 you got more volume to the downside on downstocks and basically that's kind of a very scenario but fear is actually good for the market and at 1.2 on the trend close and above is when the down blowing is starting to increase on the downstocks you would think that would be bearish but actually is bullish I see we're kind of running out of time here but hang with us all right because I know we get a couple more charts we'll finish this up on the other side of the break okay all right so stay tuned folks we're coming back with 10 we're on chart three we're talking S&P we're talking VIX we're talking trend we'll be back in three minutes folks don't go away welcome back folks we got the S&P's just hanging around 5,085 we're positive by five points we're talking over and Tim or to remember you can reach Tim at his website folks or hyphen oracle com and let's pick up where we left off Tim all right chart number three like we said Joe Granville you know the really have a rally to continue you need a wall of fear or wall of worry I think he said per quote and I always try to figure out what's that mean so I went back and actually you use the trend to figure out when the trend is in a panic mode that's rings above 1.2 that shows more volume it's going into downstocks and upstocks when you know you think that would be bearish but actually is bullish and the more fear you got in market the more the stronger the rally thereafter and I got the kind of a short-term type indicators of bottom two windows are the three-day trend the next window up is that two-day trend okay normally anything above 1.2 in that range and both those two or three-day trends normally you're building energy for the next move up and all that pink area shade pink areas are when the two and three-day trend reach the rings of 1.2 or higher so right now we got trend on both of them just low over 1 1 1 1 0 6 you know it's 1 0 3 so we don't really have a lot of fear here in the market and we got a gap to go on the chart there kind of that blue area up there that's where a gap is in the market the bigger the gaps normally the big ones get filled the small ones a lot times don't and here we got a big gap comes in a little bit below 500 on the SPY's which is pretty good target on the monthly chart because I want the monthly chart by Thursday's close to close below 5,000 that would suggest we got it that the rally that started basically over the last couple of months could continue to save above what a bit above 5,000 where it is right now then probably marks will be down be a down month so we'll see what the next couple of days go it seems like short order here we got today tomorrow or today is almost over we got tomorrow and Thursday and if we get a decline fill that gap and close there chances are marks will be a high update and also I'd like to see that that the the two and three-day trend both get in on this potential pullback to get above you know 1.2 on average on the two and three-day average we do that I think we'll have enough energy that gap will find support in the market probably push higher all the way through March what way see that happens well I know you're not forecasted I was just gonna say it's interesting the last day of the month Thursday we get that inflation data so maybe that's an impetus to give this market a little oomph in one way or the other and we'll see but yeah if they get it gets oomph to the upside I think Mark will be down to the downside that I think that was especially if you get panicked in the ticks and trend also I want to point out back on February 13th I on the volume chart there I had a selling climax day and that selling climax flow has not been touched most selling climax flows get touched at some point that comes in around 482 doesn't have to be but most of those selling climaxes are tested well this one we tested you know there's maybe a probably at least a 60% chance that it will but not a hundred percent chance so it's something I watch for especially if you test that selling climax in a lighter volume it actually would be a kind of a bully sign especially if you get the trends two-day trend three-day trend above 1.2 you really have a good setup for another rally that could last a month or longer so I feel like where I am kind of right now I'm neutral I'm not real bearish here because I think the pullback will be done this week if there is going to be one it's going to be this week and if there's not one then I'm probably gonna stay neutral because that would suggest Mark could have some trouble especially we don't have enough energy which I call energy panic in the ticks and trends suggests the rally can continue here not to the rate it has without you need fear in the market to fuel a rally right now we haven't really had fear until basically back in look like about mid-January so we do for another fear gauge here to that lighten up a little bit or to ignite the market I guess you might say sure maybe a reason to give some I think we could see 5,000 on the S&P's I hope that area will come support sure maybe that gives people an impetus to buy is in a slight pullback versus sitting at you know 5100 and change practically as in a little lofty I think we all see that it might be a little lofty for sure reasonable yeah that's that's what I'm thinking so we got time to move on or you want we do we got a few minutes left man I got chart 4 up here right this is kind of a this is a weekly chart on the inflation deflation ratio and when the RFI of this inflation deflation ratio gets below 30 as I print this chart is 28.45 right now you're usually at intermediate term lows I marked them all with red circles and the dark red circles are times when we're gonna flip back and forth it a little bit okay flip to chart number 5 real quick I got them all ready we're there go for it all right to chart 5 if you look at the bottom chart on chart 5 it's the 50 day average of the up down volume and when that when the bold the bold areas on this chart match the bold areas on chart number 4 so you got two different methods settling the same bottom so I'm trying to point out okay so those are totally unrelated different type things yeah still pinpointing the same bottom what on chart number 5 what that bottom predicts a lot of times you go sideways for a number of weeks before the rally begins and on chart 4 a lot of times rally begins pretty much within a couple of weeks at latest sorry what is what is the bottom two different methods here on chart 5 what is the bottom that I'm looking at again I see gdx the moving average 50 is a and what is that what I'm looking at on the bottom there for chart 5 yeah chart 5 the bottom and the bottom window is the up down blind with a 50 day average okay cool so when it gets below minus 20 that seems to be the the depth of that indicator and a lot of times that's a low and I have marked where I think with red lines cross it out there when they come in and so we're we hit there actually last week now we're still down pretty low we're but minus 13 something but we hit there last week so even though the market pretty much hasn't changed much is making it attempt to test last week slow but we also now got the RSI the RSI is on a weekly time frame and the 50 day average is on the daily time frame but it's a 50 day average so that's almost what 21 trading days in a month so that's a little over a month of trading for that indicator get down below minus 20 so they're kind of bigger time time frames one's on the weekly one's on it almost a little over a month time frame so both of them are taking a little in this vicinity right now Tim that was nine that was that was what 20 minutes of action-packed info man I really appreciate it folks that was so much info always remember we archived each of these segments right on our YouTube page just search TFN we'll have this interview up with Tim right on that page you can reach him in his website or hyphen oracle.com Tim I appreciate it as always man look forward to talking to you on Thursday all right see you then thank you have a great one


Welcome to the program, Agriculture on the Move. My name is Filipe Sidney, your host. Today we will be discussing apiculture in St. Lucia. And of course, we are also looking at, first time in St. Lucia, we will be having a national honey show. You'll hear more about it with the persons I have in studio, which is next to me is Mr. Richard Mathias, who is the president of the Ainola Apiculture Collective. And next to him, everybody know Giles Romulus, who is the national coordinator for Jeff, UNDP, SGP, here in St. Lucia. He will tell you all about the acronyms after. Welcome to the program, gentlemen. Thank you, Sidney. Thank you. Jeff, I remember Romulus, we had Knowledge Fair. What's about three years ago? About two years ago. And that went very, very well. I must say it's a huge success. I know we have been trying to see whether we could have had it. But of course, COVID, of course, constraints. However, I'm very happy to know that there's something coming. And I need you to tell St. Lucia one. Since you have been looking at apiculture in St. Lucia, it's a thriving industry thus far. I need to know, we need to know more about it. But from your organization point of view, tell us about that program. Thank you, Sidney. Thank you for welcoming us back on your set. It's always a pleasure to be here with you. I think taking care of the nation through the quality and the quantity of food that we produce is always important. And just to go back a number of years, I returned to St. Lucia in 2011, 2012, to set up the Small Grants Program in St. Lucia. And you wouldn't believe it, Sidney. Within a month of setting up the structures, the very first ministry that came to me was the Ministry of Agriculture. Two of your senior officers, the Anthea Joshua, been one of them, came up to me and said, apiculture is suffering. How can you assist us in revitalizing the apiculture industry? When I explained to her that we work through civil society organization, she mentioned Milaflora. And she brought two gentlemen to my office, and I'll never forget this gentleman, Mr. Cheddy and Vavan. Those two gentlemen, I think we have to continue to recall them. You owe them, we owe them, and they're deceased, but wow. They're deceased, but they came and sat down in my office and told me about apiculture in ways that I never knew before. I already knew that we could fund apiculture for a biodiversity focal area. And after speaking with them, I went down to the Mabia Valley in their context and understood what they were talking about. And apiculture became, were part of the first two projects we funded for Saint Lucia in 2012. One was some Milaflora, and the other one was with the Disabled Honey Producers of Chouazale. So the very first introductory projects in Saint Lucia were apiculture projects. Since then, we have funded in excess of eight projects, nine projects in Saint Lucia, at planning grant and full grant phase, over $1.4 million of investment. We have helped to really revive a renaissance of the apiculture industry has occurred between 2012 and the present. Only this afternoon, I was on the phone of the Horizon Brothers. They're getting the final approvals for the solarization of their processing plant in Greece. So I expect to see invitations going out to the minister very soon from them to come and see the first solarized rural apiculture processing facility in Saint Lucia. And since then, we've worked with a number of groups. IAC came on the board, perhaps, we catalyzed the existence of Mr. Matthias. I think they came on board and we have been a lifeline to them in many respects. And what is exciting is that we have farmers who are at the primary production level. But what IAC and Richard and his group has done is to take us up the value chain to the precious production level of such things as propolis and epitoxins and so on, that can go from $30 to $300 a gram internationally. One of the points that one of the principles driving our program in Saint Lucia is to ensure Saint Lucia's own that value chain. Let's learn the lessons of the banana industry from the sugar period. Let us integrate research and technology into the apical chain industry so we can gain and we can benefit a lot more than we have had before when we had crops like sugar and cotton and bananas. The first issue, how do you get that involved in this? Ah, fantastic question. Why? After, I think it is, Richard, who brought up this idea to us. We were designing, continuing to invest in Saint Lucia and we thought that as part of our knowledge fair, which you mentioned at the beginning, you might have remembered we introduced and pioneered knowledge fairs in Saint Lucia two years ago. You remember we occupied the whole of the William Peter Boulevard, the Constitutional Parliament as well. Parliament as well. So this year we were hoping to have, and I must say that the administration at the time rarely lauded us at that. And we had the encouragement to do it again. So we were hoping to do the same thing, but COVID came along and we had to downsize. And Richard recommended the Honey Show as a way of building standards, lifting standards, promoting Saint Lucia as a center for apical chain new years, yes. And also helping us to promote the message of research and innovation of technology and so on. This would be a means of doing it. So what we have done is to integrate the Honey Show as part of our second knowledge fair. So in December, on the 9th and 10th, you're going to have basically two for one. You can go to the Town Hall, City Hall, where you have the Honey Show in full display and on Constitution Park, you would have 20 books displaying various aspects of apiculture, but some innovations as well. In fact, the first smart fad will be displayed for the first time in Saint Lucia using satellite technology to tell us about our fishing in our coastal zone. That is a separate program, but I'll leave you in one there for the time being. Until you sit on display. Is that the beginning of a continuation of Star Trek? Yeah. We are going where no one has been before. Not even before. Stay tuned. Not the final voyage, you know. I'll take you in voyage of the Starship and the Press. Well, as I move to Mr. Mathias, Giles and myself, and of course, we want the rest of Saint Lucia, to congratulate Mr. Mathias on his qualification as Master Beekeeper. I think that is about... About, about, about, about. Richard, tell us about this, this program, you know. I think you got it from the University of Dukone, right? Yes. It's an 18-month program, which integrates every aspect of agriculture, harnessing your skills in the craft, as well as zooming in on technology and how you can identify diseases, different techniques you need to look at, basic honeybee biology. You also need to look at food and nutrition. Reviewing the diet that bees eat and seeing what the importance of having a diverse diet for the bees, so that they can have the building blocks that they need for their dietary needs. So it's a quite intense, comprehensive, detailed and comprehensive program. You know, it was very intense at moments.  So it was quite an interesting 18 months. 18 months? Yes. At the end of it, I kind of missed it. Can you imagine? So what's the equivalent in terms of a degree? Is it a degree course or what it is? It's, I would say it's a degree program. It's something that it will guide persons to be able to function in the agriculture industry at a professional level, so that you can communicate with fellow beekeepers at a proper extension kind of level that you have the full knowledge of what diseases, what issues that they may occur with, and also how to help them to guide to run their business as well. It's also an important component of the program. So it's very specific to agriculture. It zooms in a lot of very detailed subjects that I could talk about. So moving forward, I mean, OK, are you going to keep that knowledge to yourself? Are you going to be engaging the municipal agriculture and farmers potential beekeepers in that regard? Yeah, well, I mean, prior to me doing that, I know that agriculture collective has always been working with beekeepers in the community and trying to assist them. I think 2020, we did our queen giveaway. We gave over a couple of hundred queens away to different beekeepers across the island. We've done a couple of sessions on colony expansion, how to guide beekeepers in how to expand in our colonies they have, queen rearing. So we've done a few programs, prior to me even completing that program. One of the things that we've done now, we've also been working with Mr. Robinson Jeff and the Jeff SGP family in the region. We have a regional project that's going on right now where we are helping the development of other beekeeping other islands as well as St. Lucia. I just came back from Anguilla and Tiga and St. Kitts doing some exploratory work with the beekeepers in those areas and to help them get move forward as well. So we're not only just through Jeff and Mr. Romulus. The ISC is not just a St. Lucia entity. We're a regional entity working in different islands with beekeepers across the region. As far as South is Trinidad and Guyana and as far as north as Anguilla, so far. Okay. You want to add anything on this? Your involvement? Oh, yes, definitely, definitely, Sydney. I wouldn't miss that opportunity at all. You might have recall, Sydney, in previous programs I told you we wanted to take St. Lucia to become the center for apiculture in the ISC. I made that very clear, this is my goal. This is the point at which my sites are set on. And for us to do that, we needed to support persons or individuals or groups that are pushing that boundary. We're no longer happy to stay at the low end of just harvesting honey from hives. That's not good enough. And we have to push our farmers to get involved in the science, get involved in the science. If we stay at that bottom, we're going nowhere. That's right, that's right. And that is one of the reasons we have supported ISC, continue to support ISC. And if this continues to progress, we will continue. Because what is happening there now, Richard has illustrated to us what can happen when you are sufficiently ambitious and you want to make the sacrifice and have the discipline of 18 months of hard work and so on. And therefore, at Cornell University, as you were telling us before, St. Lucia is the only one there if a daughter did. You know, I went first normal prize winners, why not first master beekeeper? And I want to laud him for that. Our country is moving, we have the potential. So we want people to rise from slumbering and emulate what he has done so that our industry can move forward. And that is the only way we can move from primary to secondary to tertiary level production. And that is our goal. We will continue to do this as long as we have. OK, we do for our break. You're watching Agriculture in the Move. Stay tuned. We'll be back soon. It's buzzing from the 9th to December 10, 2021, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Castries Town Hall. Hewanora National Honey Show, under the distinguished patronage of the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food Security, and Rural Development, Honorable Alfred Prosper. The National Honey Show categories are honey in a jar, beeswax, baking with honey, art, and photography, and the Best in Show Challenge Cup. The head judge is Sue Carter from the London Honey Show. This event is sponsored by IANOLA Apiculture Collective, Caribbean Youth Environmental Network, Ministry of Agriculture, GF, SGP, UNDP, SLHTA, and CCC. For more info, call 452 for 900 or 717-000. This is an activity of the GF, SGP, UNDP. See you there. Welcome back to the program. Agriculture on the Move, of course, as you have heard, we are talking apiculture. Those of you who don't know what is apiculture, we're talking about bee production, honey production, the raring of bees. And of course, it's a big thing in St. Lucia, and we will make it bigger and better with Jeff on our side. Yes, yes. As you heard, we are having our first honey show in St. Lucia, and that is organized and funded by Jeff. It's called the Iwanora Honey Show.  You're supposed to be the manager of the show, right? Yeah, I am the show manager. Okay, tell us about the show. We stole the tale. The Iwanora National Honey Show was a brainchild that we thought of, I think dating back to when we had the Congress. We wanted to include it in the Congress, but because of the initial phases of the craziness, we weren't even sure how we were going to... We were able to do the first virtual Congress at that time, which was quite an accomplishment. But anyway, we wanted to have the honey show then, and we couldn't do it. So what we did is that we started the wheels in motion to generate that interest and to generate the interest in the island. Displaying honey and putting it on show is something that is an international thing. It's very big in North America, Europe, any of the big honey production, honey producing countries. There's always a honey show where beekeepers show their honey quality and the different nectar tasting sources and to see if that can woo the crowd, woo the judges and get the bragging rights. I got the best honey for my region or country. And it's something that has been missing in St. Lucia and definitely the wider Caribbean that there hasn't been any honey show to speak of on a consistent basis to really encourage the beekeepers and have some event that the beekeepers could galvanize themselves behind. So we thought of that and it's not just a honey show. This is the schedule. It's not just about honey. We've got other areas of interest within the show. You've got, there are four different categories of honey judging. You've got light amber, medium amber, dark amber, which is the color of the honey. And you also have comb honey, which is a jar like this with a slice of comb inside of it. We have honey around it. So everything has to be matching. So if you do one jar, you have to have a matching jar. So you have to be identical in comb and presentation and the color of the honey. That level of sophistication. And then we've also got wax. Wax is something that is very important part of the hive system. So we have a competition where they're judging a block of wax between one pound or one and a half pounds in weight. They look at it for consistency, color, smell, and no debris or little dots in it. It's going to be perfectly clean block of wax. We also have candle making. There's a lot of people in St. Louis that make candles from bees wax. So two matching candles. It could be a plain candle. It could be a scent. No, not scented. Just plain bees wax. You have the what I think is going to be my favorite is the cake. We have the honey cake competition where we have a set recipe, which is on our brochure. You follow the instructions and you bake the cake to the instructions and we're looking for the best representation of that. So is that open to the public? It's open to the public. Anybody can go into that. So how would you get contact or what? I mean, you could call the Jeff office and register at the Jeff office. We have been doing outreaches. Outreaches. We just got our Creole English and Creole Advertisements out special thanks to Mr. Andrew Haynes, your A.K.A. That was really good, man. Yes, man. Yes. So we've got those out there and persons. There's a call to action. There's a telephone number you can pick up the phone and you can call it or you call me directly 717 or the zeros. And we can get email or registration form to straight away. But I really think the cake area is very good. That's interesting. You also have the baked goods. The baked goods is also another baked good with honey. So you can create anything you want. It could be a cookie, it could be a cupcake, as long as it has honey in its ingredient. And you can present the recipe for your creation to go with it. It could be anything you want, but it must have honey inside of it as part of the ingredient. That's an open. There's no set category. There's no specifics other than you present the recipe and it must have honey in it and it will be judged on its taste. We've got Chef Orlando, who will be leading the team on that one. OK. And I forgot to mention, most importantly, we've got from the London Honey Show in the UK, which is the most prestigious honey show in the world.  So it's not we have somebody of international prestige and talent who knows what they're doing, what they want to look for in honey. So if we can create this relationship with the London Honey Show, over time, I think, you know, next year, I would love to see competition from Saint Lucia go up to the London Honey Show and enter the international category. There we've had successful participants from the Caribbean in the past, from Trinidad, from Grenada, Dr. Valma Jessamy. She's she won it three times in a row and was able to keep the cup. So it's something that we really need to encourage our beekeepers to to up their game and get to the next level. You know, it's all well and good selling on, you know, your bottle of honey in a Campari bottle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's see. We need to move me on that, man. Yes, yes. So we need to. And through the Honey Show, it hopefully be a catalyst to do that, especially one of the categories we have is best commercial product. So how you actually sell your honey to the general public, it'll be judged and it'll be judged based upon that you meet the Bureau of Standards criteria for selling honey. So, you know, say it's very important that not only do we have the competition because anybody who ends the competition, this is a competition glass jar.  And in the day of competition in the morning from eight o'clock, you come and present your honey to the show secretary and the stewards, they will receive it and they'll pass it on to the judges for judging. So you have to come register and get your jar from from the office. Now, it's so it's very important that when you're into the commercial category, as I was saying, is that the commercial category is how you would sell your honey to the supermarket, to the drug store, to the general cut, to the general public. And there are rules and criteria per Bureau of Standards and the Ministry of Environmental Health, the Environmental Health Agency that you should align yourself to meet those criteria because remember, honey is not just something that, you know, it's a, you know, every boy is a historical thing, but it's a food product. And it should be handled with care and attention as a food product. So I think what we are hoping to do through this program is to really raise interest in the honey, raise interest in the byproducts you can get from the hive and also raise the general standard of honey production in St. Lucia that it's we are cut above the rest of the Caribbean. You know, so it all starts at home. And, you know, if you want to, you know, everybody says they want to sell the honey in America or they want to sell it in England. But, you know, you've got to beat the standard. Yes. And if we have a honey show of great calibre, it will help people to reach the standard. And it'll be very easy for them to make the transition to the international market. Great. Tell us about our patron. Yeah, momentarily, just a number of points. Yes. Those containers have been ordered by the project. OK. When people register, they get the containers. So you cannot come with your own container. Right. Yes. So it's part of the package that we offer. The next point I want to make is that you don't have to be a big keeper to participate. If you're an excellent cook, which is the point you was ready. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Yes. So if you work at Amar or Manees or at Kadas or wherever and you can make a cake and put honey in it, you can participate. OK. And if you can make a turkey. You can participate. Yes. Yes. So you see the diversity of possibilities that there are for people to participate. It would have been a good thing that the schools were in full, full. You forgot to. We missed out on one of the most art and photography. OK. So there is an art and photography section where you have to capture some subject matter related to beekeeping. So it could be a bee on a flower. It could be a beekeeper at work or just a picture of an apiary. There are three categories you've got for the general art. For the youth under 16 category. So a person is under 16 at the time of the show. They can enter a piece or painting or photograph of their own creation. And then for the fellows, the guy, everybody over 16 years old, we have the general competition where you can enter a nice exhibit of painting or rendering of your choice. And then we have the photography section where you can take a nice picture, which is open to all age groups. And you know, if you've got a really nice picture that you think that could capture the prize, go for it. So it's not just it's not just it's very diverse. And you know, one of the things from being in the beekeeper, I'm always out in beautiful environments. I'm always out in nice nature and atmosphere. And it's important that you encapsulate the honey is encapsulating the flavor of your country. The beautiful flowers that you see, the little resins, the bees captured to make the wax and so forth. It's all part of the ecosystem around you.  Participation, yes, at the show. Who are the persons that will be in terms of booths and being in the Constitution Park and also in the Town Hall? That's a good one for this one. The Constitution Park will be primarily grantees. But we also have other groups that will participate. Ika will be there, for example, the Department of Forestry, the Department of Fisheries will be there. We'll have groups from around the country. The Exports Solution will be there. So I've always come to the college because we are also integrating the research and innovation theme into the mini knowledge failure we are having. And all of those persons have confirmed the participation. The patron. No, no, no, I have to tell you your favorite booth. Two years ago, you know, which is what is his favorite booth? The Jameson? Aquaponics, man, you have to be not backing away. I know, I don't want you to tell me. I want to make Aquaponics a volume. You're right, I don't myself every day. Yes, man. And I was on the phone with Jameson this afternoon and he confirmed that he's going to be there. Beautiful. So I put a question to him. What if the fish finish where he got off? Yes, like the last time. Like the last time. Bring more fish. Bring more fish. So yes, I don't know where he got off. I was a lot too close though because we had just more time up in his left. OK, the patron, yes. We want to thank the Honorable Minister of Agriculture, Honorable Alfred Prosper for agreeing from day one to be the patron. And we want to thank the Ministry of Agriculture for contributing to this event. Not only the Ministry of Agriculture contributed by the Cassius Constituency Council under a worship... Ms. Lendo? Yes, Ms. Lendo. We want to thank the SNHDA, Nourany Aziz and his team up there for contributing. We want to thank CYEN, Caribbean Youth Environment Network. We want to thank IAC for contributing in a major way. We have other persons, the grantees that will be participating and so on. The Royal Ministry of Political Affairs will be helping us in security and so on. And I want to tell everybody that the Chief Medical Officer has signed off on, has signed on through the program and she has approved it. Oh yes, you're going to be... Your temperature will be... Of course, we'll have sanitizers at every booth. And the social distancing, that is crucial because it's the first time when you show. So people will want to... Yes, we're going to have notices everywhere and we limit the number of persons entering the auditorium at the Cassius Constituency Council and so on. So we will be controlling all of those things and so on. So, I mean, we can talk for the rest of the week if you want. Good things will come to an end. So we are at that point now, Mathias, I won't even ask you to say anything because we have reached there already. And like I said, it's on the 9th and 10th of December. What time it starts? 8 o'clock in the morning. Beautiful. Thank you gentlemen for being here. I am looking forward for this and I'll do some as you see my aquaponics and honey. Thank you for being here, Mathias. Thank you for being here, Mathias. You've been watching Adreculture on the Move. Thank you for viewing the program. And remember, agriculture is our business. Eat fresh, St. Lucia's best. Honey is better than breast. Oh, God. Time is up. Time is up. Goodbye. Adreculture on the Move. Adreculture on the Move. Adreculture on the Move. Adreculture on the Move. Adreculture on the Move. Adreculture on the Move. Adreculture on the Move. Adreculture on the Move.