Ladies and gentlemen, and everyone joining us on livestream, welcome to this press conference here at the World Economic Forum on Africa 2015 in Cape Town. We're announcing today a partnership between the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and the Motsepi Foundation. And joining me here, I'm pleased to introduce Hilda Schwab, Chair and Co-Founder of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, and Dr. Precious Maloy Motsepi, the Co-Founder and Vice-Chair of the Motsepi Foundation. Also with us on the podium is Catherine Milligan, who directs the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. And we'll be hearing from both Hilda and Precious about their foundations and what the partnership means. I'm going to start by asking Hilda just to outline a little bit about the work of the Schwab Foundation and what it does, and also what it does here in Africa and why this partnership is so important. Hilda. First of all, I would like to go back to 15 years ago when the Schwab Foundation was founded. The reason for that is that the World Economic Forum is a partner, is a podium for decision makers from business, government, civil society. And we thought that it would be important to integrate people who work on the ground, on the grassroots level, and went out to look for social entrepreneurs who have created viable, big organizations. This is the background. And of course, we are working together with partners. And Precious and I, we met last year in New York. And I was impressed about her commitment and about her entrepreneurial drive. And we started to explore a partnership. And we met again in Davos at the World Economic Forum when we finally outlined how this partnership could be built up. Now, we have a common vision to accelerate social entrepreneurship in Africa. The Schwab Foundation has been active in Africa since 2000. We had a couple of, at the very beginning, many big social entrepreneurs that we awarded with the prize, as you have just seen in the last half hour. And the Schwab Foundation has the largest network of late-stage social entrepreneurs in the world in the meantime. And more of 70 social entrepreneurs are based in Africa or have significant operations in Africa. And the Motsepi Foundation, on the other hand, you will hear from Precious certainly, has a long-standing commitment to entrepreneurship and economic empowerment in Africa. So now that the World Economic Forum has been recognized as an international organization for public-private cooperation, it is an ideal platform to bring talented social entrepreneurs who have created proven, cost-effective models together with decision-makers in government and in corporations who have the resources and the infrastructure to take those solutions to scale. Hilda, thank you very much. Precious, can I ask you just to tell the viewers and people in the room a little bit more about the foundation and what this partnership means from your perspective? Yes, thank you. So the Motsepi Foundation was founded in 1999 by my husband, Precious Motsepi, and I. We subsequently joined the Giving Pledge in 2000, which is a group of families that have pledged to give half of their family wealth to help the poor. Our foundation was started because we believe that we need to help the poor, the marginalized and unemployed to contribute towards the upliftment of their living conditions as well as their living standards. So we work in three main areas. Globally, we have contributed towards research in HIV as well as in cancer, trying to find a cure for HIV by 2020. We also contribute towards Africa as a continent. We have given to the countries that were affected by Ebola in the last year. We gave to three countries. We also donated to the African Union in the quest to fight Ebola in the region. In South Africa itself, we work with communities. We have pledged over the next three to four years 500 million rents towards programs that are sustainable and also towards programs that are in areas that we think are very important to help Africa to become economically savvy and sustainable. We contribute towards education, and in particular, we're looking at areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics because we believe that this is an area where we will be able to absorb a lot of the jobs that are necessary, jobs and skills for Africa in the coming years. We focus on jobs for youth as well as for women. We focus on cultural and sports and recreation areas, and we also support religious organizations as well as traditional leaders. The reason that we felt that the partnership with the Shab Foundation is important is because, as I have already said, that entrepreneurship is one of those areas that we believe on the continent will help to create the jobs that we need. The Shab Foundation has established the sector of social entrepreneurship over many years and has excelled in this sector. We believe that by participating, by partnering with them, we will be able to identify social entrepreneurs on the continent who need to be showcased, who need to share their knowledge as well as their expertise with other entrepreneurs that are coming up on the continent. We also believe that they serve as amazing role models for entrepreneurs on the continent. As part of our partnership, we will be also looking at research around the field of social entrepreneurship, particularly in assisting to scale small social entrepreneurs to another level. I'm very excited with what Hilda is introducing, what she calls systems entrepreneurship, because I believe that is one way that we can make sure that the social entrepreneurs create more impact. The other area of partnership will be around promoting and helping with scholarships for social entrepreneurs who will be studying at Harvard University in a program that is specifically and tailor made for social entrepreneurs. Fantastic. Hilda, can I just ask you just to give us a little bit more detail on that partnership? Yes, well, I announced our partnership. I'm delighted. This will be a three-year, one million Swiss francs partnership between our two foundations. And we will advance the social entrepreneurship agenda in Africa. Raise awareness, as Precious said. Engaging media. We will celebrate proven social innovators like we did just now. And we will continue a yearly selection and award process in South Africa and in other African countries. The grant will also be used to contribute to the global knowledge in the field. We will do case studies together with universities and research on best practices. We can also provide a scholarship to African social entrepreneurs. Social entrepreneurs who are based and who are working in Africa. We have a possibility to send the social entrepreneurs to a Harvard executive education module at the Harvard Kennedy School on social entrepreneurship as system change. And we are really concentrated, focused on system change because it is absolutely crucial that all the good work that the social entrepreneurs do in one country or in one region be elevated to the next level and are starting to spread and to become big. And this is with help of governments who understand what it is all about and especially without corporate partners at that time. I am very grateful for this partnership. Thank you. Precious. Both foundations really have built social entrepreneurship. Now it's an accepted term. It's a term a lot of people use to describe what they're doing. But actually when you both started your foundations it was a concept that was barely heard of. So what you're talking about in this partnership is really developing it with an African focus and helping highlight the key African players and do the kind of research in business schools and universities that's going to help provide this kind of backbone of knowledge for anyone wanting to go into the field. So it sounds very exciting. Yes, it is very exciting indeed. As I said, we believe that social entrepreneurs can really make a huge contribution towards poverty alleviation on the continent. Job creation towards finding solutions to very difficult challenges on the continent. We've just come from a plenary where the presidents were talking about Ebola and how we find and create systems that will help us to prevent future pandemics. And from what I've seen, the network of social entrepreneurs that in the network that the Shrock Foundation has started, we have incredible innovators. These are people who look at problems, analyze data, put together solutions that will be relevant for the context within which they work. Thanks to both of you and thanks to Catherine for joining me here. If you have any questions for either Precious Hilda or for Catherine, you just raise your hand and just let me know where you're from and your organization. We have a very brief window with them before their next engagements. So if you have a question, please pop your hand in the air and we can discuss a little bit more about the social entrepreneurship and what's said to be foundation. I have a question for both Hilda and Precious, which is from your perspective, what are some of the most exciting projects coming out of social entrepreneurship in Africa? You just mentioned the need for looking at Ebola. I just wonder, Precious, is there anything particularly from your experience that you think really is something that the media should be showcasing a little bit more or learning a little bit more about? There's quite a few projects. Our partnership is new and I think going forward, what we will bring to the party is being on the ground, really identifying those social innovators and bringing them to the light, you know, identifying people who do amazing things on the continent. I was just in meetings earlier with somebody who told me about also in the energy space, solar power, lights they use for very pro-communities and rural places where using these lamps they can light up the whole village and that creates an ecosystem around itself because not only are women able, not only do they feel safe within the community, they're also able to prepare food and meals for their families. Children are able to do homework later. There's a sports center where children can play, you know, late after school, so the issue of darkness is completely eliminated just using this one simple system that is, you know, solar powered. And I think there are many, many examples of social innovators who come with unbelievable solutions to local problems and using local context. Hilda, you've just been announcing some of the winners, but I mean is there anyone who, to your mind, is not getting some of that light shone on them from African social entrepreneurship? It's difficult to say because there are so many fantastic models in being in healthcare or in agriculture, for instance. There are social entrepreneurs who work on tools, little tools that are very easy to handle and very easy to repair and that bring a big, much more income for the farmers. Education is another very, very important thing, as we heard in the plenary session, of course, skills development. And there are many social entrepreneurs who work in that field. It's unlimited, almost. So we really have a variety of fantastic social entrepreneurs who do great, great jobs. Catherine, can I just bring you in on that? Yeah, just quickly to add, you know, there are a few here present today. COVID-19, Samir Heiji, Martin Fisher, Catherine Lucy, for members of the reporting press who might want to talk to a social entrepreneur and unpack what does this mean and what are they living day to day? I'd like to come back to something that Dr. Precious mentioned earlier about serving as role models and sharing their knowledge and expertise because that's something that we are really excited about, that the partnership is going to help us further. And it is very much around this concept of a system entrepreneurship and system change. And by that we mean, and I can take Kickstart, I can take the Vision Institute that COVID and Brian Holdren have advanced. You know, they reach 200,000, they reach a million, but the need is so much greater. They need to 60 million farming families who need access to irrigation tools. How do you bridge that gap? You cannot do it through direct organizational growth. It has to be through collaboration and partnership. So this question around how do you influence that broader system in which you work to have that level impact at a much faster pace than we've been able to do so far? And it's very exciting. I think it really is cutting edge. It's where the sector is going. And I'm just thrilled to see that, you know, we are leading that initiative and that effort among this community right here in Africa. Thanks. All of you, if we probably have time for a quick question at the back. Philanthropy forum. And you're both shown such extraordinary leadership in this regard. I'm wondering if there is a way that you will be sort of finding platforms for systematically connecting these innovators to other philanthropists and social investors who often complain about the lack of a pipeline when, in fact, there's some pretty remarkable people that you have identified. There are a couple of meetings between philanthropists. I think Katherine has even participated in some. Maybe you can say something about it. So this is really exciting. We have piloted a few workshops at World Economic Forum meetings. I would be very open to exploring other opportunities. I think that both philanthropists and impact investors are increasingly exciting and excited in these models. I think it's a question also of ensuring that it's not just about firm level impact, but particularly when you talk about this system change, that we are educating the donor community as well, and that we are helping them understand that there is sometimes a preference for direct programs, right, and that you can demonstrate the impact of it. But this system level work sometimes involves advocacy. It sometimes involves sort of business development with corporate partners. It's a little bit harder sometimes to bring funders around to understanding the value of it. And yet the payoff, the potential payoff, is so much bigger. That's an agenda that, you know, we're very excited to drive forward. And I'd love to pick that up with you. And both of our, all of our panelists have got packed agendas as I'm sure you have this meeting. So if we have time, we can probably squeeze one more question in. But otherwise, I'm going to call proceedings to a close and look forward to you taking up any questions with them outside the meeting in the next day and a half. Thank you for joining us. And I hope you'll be interested to find out more online about this partnership between the Schwab Foundation and the Motsobi Foundation. There's a press release available just outside. Thank you all for joining us and see you at the next session.


Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we are going to discuss about the upcoming elections of Punjab. To discuss the issue we have with us, Prof. Chamanlal. So, welcome to NewsClick, sir. We have seen that Punjab has become a triangular fight now between Arm-Army Party, Congress and Shivamali Akali Dal and BJP. So, what do you think, what would be the outcome of this triangular fight? Actually, it's very difficult to say at the moment. It looked like about few months ago as if AAP has a sort of edge over others. But few months, you know, happenings within the AAP and outside the AAP has somewhat changed the situation. So, at the moment it's difficult to say whether Congress has a friend or AAP has a friend. But still it looks like AAP has slight edge over others. So, you mean to say that Shivamali Akali Dal and BJP are not coming back technically. It's fight between Congress and AAP. Actually, out of this election BJP as single party would be the biggest sufferer in my opinion. Because Akali's may come with certain seats. But BJP may not be able to, you know, get... Last time they were 12. Still last time they had got 19 out of 23. But this time they are hoping to retain 12. But I don't think that they will be able to retain that. They may get reduced to 3, 4, 5 or whatever. So, what do you think, what's the reason behind this setback to BJP especially? No, what happens is BJP's main, you know, area of influence is towns and with the, you know, small businessmen etc. In both these things, AAP has cut down them and he will Congress has revived certain influence over them. And this demonetization and all that, that will certainly, you know, hit them. But if we look at the Chandigarh elections recently, the local body elections, BJP has gained lot of seats there. They actually won in Chandigarh. But Chandigarh is different than the other part of Punjab. Chandigarh is not as part of Punjab as yet. Although it's considered to be, it should have been a part of Punjab. Chandigarh is a different kind of thing. Chandigarh is a middle class area and moreover, you know, influenced by media a lot. And then generally what happens in local elections, the ruling party always has an advantage. So, that's how they have got. But in other parts of Punjab, they do not have that much kind of sympathy or anything. So what do you think, what are the core issues on which these elections will be fought? As we should have been attended to. The biggest thing, although the drug problem is getting this kind of centre force. But drug problem is a symptom. Drug problem is not the root problem. Root problem is unemployment among youth and frustration among youth not having any positive outlet for life. And that takes them to drugs. So nobody out of all these three parties, none of them is paying much attention to that. And second most crucial problem is presentries in detainees. There's an agrarian crisis. There are presentries in serious crisis. Actually, Punjab is the, I think, number two or three state where every day presentries are committing suicide. Every day. I don't know how many people know about it because National Peoples are not even published their papers. But Punjab papers every day on front page, there is a news of one or two presentries committing suicide because of indebtedness. Now people, you know, these political parties have become just used to it. They have a kind of cliché about it. And none is paying any serious attention. And this government, central government particularly and even the earlier government also. They're so insensitive to the presentry that none of them, and AAP was expected to focus on this issue. But AAP is also now for the last few months, whatever they're doing in Punjab, that is not much different from what a college or Congress or BJP is doing. All same kind of floor-crossing, getting people from a college to AAP or getting from Congress to AAP or even from BJP to AAP. But there is no kind of moral or political standards being maintained by all three parties. So if we look at the pooch condition today, it looks like Congress is the strongest force among all these three parties. So it's merely anti-incombency or something else also. You see, anti-incombency is certainly there because the last 10 years, they have, you know, kind of looted Punjab. They have used government to promote their business interests. And it's a very sad part of the thing. And this is perhaps the worst in Punjab. I don't think that in other places. Maybe in Karnataka, Adinagumleti kind of people have been doing this. But here, the whole, you know, the hotel industry, the transport industry, this being Badal's family business, which is being coated with the states, which they're holding the power. And that is one part which people feel so upset and offended. So when we talk about all these three parties, what we forget is that BSP had a strong presence in Punjab and also the left parties. Do you think there will be any important force? No, actually BSP could never become strong in Punjab. In one election in 1992, when major parties, you know, major one party, Pauli's boycott the election. That was the only year when there was just 31 or so, you know, voting. That time they have won about nine MPs. But other than that, and there was one election in which they won about two MPs also, two or three MPs. Just one or two elections. Other than that, and that time Kashi Ram was alive. Kashi Ram actually had won from Punjab once. This people's lives are getting to such a degrading, you know, and there the left should have been the people's voice. But in Punjab, sadly, left is almost standalone.  Then CPI, then CPI ML, Liberation. These four parties had a kind of front. But now in this election, the four parties have been sustained. And these three parties are together. ML is not part of that. There are certain left groups, which generally do not participate. They are campaigning for Noota. So they are mass peasant groups, which are helping the peasantry in crisis. But that is also a very limited kind of, you know, what they do is Barthi exam union. There are two or three groups, what is Ekka, what is Uraha, and they are very radical groups. And what they do when there are some peasant commits suicide, they build a huge movement, and they get a leave for their family five times a month. That's the only way they are trying to help them. But in elections, they keep a loop, or they are, you know, going for Noota. But that is the mass-based groups, which should have been, you know, approached by the left front. And these four should have been together. They should have tried to get along some separate groups, which have a progressive background, that is, like Patellas MP, Dr. Dharmil Gandhi, etc. They should have formed a broad-based front. And they should have consented upon to have a presence in the assembly. Even the smaller number of people are there. That should have been given them certain credibility. If they have got five, seven MLAs in the assembly, and they have been able to raise, you know, peasantry issues, youth issues. That should have made people feel that, yes, they are our real, you know, hunderd or something, real sympathizers. That's all the time we have for today, sir, and we'll be coming back to you on such issues. Thanks a lot. Okay. Thank you for watching NewsClick and keep following us.


There was a setup! Jimmy Ross lives to see another day, my boy! That was a setup! That whole thing was a setup! I love it, man! There was a setup the entire time! 10 out of 10, my boy. 10 out of 10. Oh! It was a swerve! My God, bro. He was playing bro the entire time!  You said son of a... Why they shocked?  You hurt! You guys are awesome. Stay clutching. Stay rogue. Appreciate it. It's over. So he just let... They let him just easily come in.  Bro, I tell you, bro. The chat not liking that, bro. I was hoping they would... The thing is, they didn't need him to win the rumble to have that match. Y'all seen the clips. How excited we were on stream when Brock Lesnar lost the WWE Championship because of Roman Reigns and Paul Heyman turning on him and screwing him out of the title. We were elated. Dub was happy. It was a good time. Drew Billy was in a good mood. It was great. And then later on that night in the Men's Royal Rumble entrance number 30 you hear Brock Lesnar's music and then you can see the disappointment. But maybe there was a little bit of hope. Maybe, just maybe he won't win the match. But once again, we're talking about Vince and WWE and his love for Brock Lesnar and wanting to have Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns have their match at this year's WrestleMania. So it was kind of plain to see once he came out there at number 30 he was going to win the match and you saw our disappointment when he actually won the Men's Royal Rumble match. I'm going to get into all that. This is going to be a good one. It is actually 3.36 in the morning. Just came from Dub's house. I got to bring this video to you guys. Because I got to really get my thoughts out before I go to bed. Let's get right into this video. What's good y'all? It's your boy Ross. Back at it again with another video. So got to get my thoughts and opinions on the 2022 Royal Rumble this year. This was a okay Royal Rumble. I will say this. I think a lot of us can agree the women's Royal Rumble match was a lot better than the men's for sure. I'm going to go down through the list of the matches what I thought and what the potential outcomes may be leading up to Elimination Chamber and leading up to WrestleMania this year. But first and foremost before I get into it I just want to thank everyone that was a part of our stream we had I think the most viewers we had at one point was 4k. 4,000 of y'all joined the stream was going crazy in the chat. We had a great time and we're looking forward to doing a lot of stream reactions of the Elimination Chamber later next month. So be on the lookout for that. That's going to be fun. But yeah, if you missed those streams man make sure you guys definitely check it out check them out. Try to be there for them if you can. The stream is still up so you can definitely go watch some of the highlights. Someone has graciously time stamped some of our reactions to some of the stuff that happened at the pay-per-view. So definitely go check it out on the inter clutch ENT main page. But first things first let's start with the first match. I'm going to try to go in order. First match being the Universal Championship between Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins. I will say I was not expecting this match to start it off. You kind of knew something was going to happen since they were starting off the match. But nevertheless it was in my opinion the best match of the night and for multiple reasons. Can we first acknowledge the fact the challenger usually comes out to the ring first and then the champion. But this time Roman came out first and Seth came out to the shield music with the shield gear through the crowd and Roman was pissed and I loved it only because what Seth has been trying to do he's been trying to get into Roman's head.  The mind games I thought that was dope that was very entertaining and I was looking forward to how this match was going to play out and I want to say for the majority of the match Seth was always ahead of Roman mentally knew what he was going to do he had some good strong spots but Seth always stayed a step ahead and if you guys watch the stream I called it Seth was trapped in the guillotine hold. I called this spot Seth trying to edge his way to the ropes to break the hold and I said if I'm Roman I do not break the hold. I put I'll keep that hold on even after the five count and that's exactly what he did. Roman made it roll the best way we love when he goes roll he went mega roll and he was choking Seth out. Bill had already rung. Roman got this qualified champion's advantage he doesn't lose the title he knows that it's a heal like thing to do Roman is a heal so what he did made sense in his character he choked him out he sent him to the gulag. He was not letting go of that hold. Not only did he send him to the gulags he did something that I thought was pretty cool it's a callback to when Seth hit him in the back with the steel chair when he turned on the shield Roman got the chair went out went outside the ring got the chair went back and hit him in the back while Seth was getting up and then as he was you know laid in some good chair shots he's about to leave he's like no no no I'm not done with you yet and beat the living crap out of him to the point where the chair was deformed and warped then walked up the ramp right this is what I do this is I took care of business I love it that was great I know some of y'all already oh he still he couldn't beat Seth it's part of a storyline that probably they're going with and it just it makes sense Roman is a heal y'all he's going to cheat to win sometimes and this is one of those situations where Seth can say you couldn't beat me so they can continue the few which I actually hope they do so this was that started off the show great I love that some of y'all may not like it some of y'all want to set the win but it's not Seth is not beating Roman especially not this rogue Roman he went mega rogue I love it that was great that was a highlight for me the best match of the night I enjoyed it I enjoyed it man so that's my opinions on that and of course they're probably going to continue the few at some point but I'm going to get into my theories on that towards the end of this video so I want to say the next match was the women's royal rumble and it was quite enjoyable to see some of the people we haven't seen in a while like Michelle McCool what I really thought Mickey James being the impact women's champion or what not her being there while having the championship on her that was cool you don't really see Vince McMahon allowing other champions into his company so I thought that was cool you know they're kind of taking a page out of AEW here because AEW does the same thing so to see that I thought that was dope to see Mickey James out there of course you saw a lot of jobbers and people free agents and stuff but once Rhonda's music hit I knew it was over I made a video a couple of days ago the rumors of Rhonda coming back and I said if Rhonda comes back she's winning and I was hoping maybe Bianca Belair could pull out the win I know a lot of you guys want to live to win but once I heard Rhonda's music it was raps it was done it didn't matter who was in that ring Rhonda was winning obviously Rhonda did end up winning the women's royal rumble and it looks like most likely she's not going to face Charlotte because Charlotte that's not the money match we all know what the money match is Rhonda, Becky, no Charlotte this time just them two have it should originally been and I think that's going to be entertaining I believe she's going to be on Monday Night Raw so she's probably going to have something to say that's going to probably bring some views in I know some people are like damn that's kind of messed up for all the women that are there but we know that's the money match for WrestleMania Rhonda, Becky that's the money match that's the match that people are going to really want to see I want to see it just one on one just off the promos alone they're back and forth I think it's going to be very entertaining I want to see how the characters are going to be if they're going to keep Becky Lynch's heel I think most likely they will and I can see maybe Rhonda being a face in this situation I don't know because of course some of us fans remember the shit she was talking on social media about wrestling fans so I didn't forget about that it will be interesting to see where they take their characters but we know that's the money match that's a main event match depending on how they book it if it's trash whatever but it just depends on how they book it from now to WrestleMania next match after that what's the piss break match Becky Lynch vs. Dewdrop I didn't care about that match if you cared about that match cool for you sorry you can say that's disrespectful I mean we was watching it we was also looking at the chat and engaging with the chat getting food, getting drinks that's the piss break match do anything other than watch that match I didn't care I didn't even know it was a match on a card until I checked like a few days ago I didn't care we knew Becky was winning Dewdrop was not winning the Raw Women's Championship didn't care about that match it was whatever probably shouldn't have even been on the card would have made the show a little bit shorter that match should have not been on the card but the next match Brock vs. Bobby Lashley of course if you watched the stream he didn't say nothing until the match was over and it was just me and Brandon holding it down on commentary on the live stream I will say this for those who were so excited and I was one of those people that was potentially excited first time ever dream match promo package they had for it built it up like something epic that match was not epic until Roman came out I'm gonna just keep it a stat there was a cool moment a couple cool moments I wanna say Brock suplex and Bobby and then Bobby returning a suplex to Brock I thought that was cool after that it kinda it kinda hit the usual rock beats it just once the referee got knocked down I knew there was gonna be some interference I was thinking it was gonna be the Usos but when Roman came out there Spear brought to oblivion and then Paul Heyman gave Roman the title the WWE championship to hit Brock Lesnar over the head with it it was like beautiful it was all part of their plan to screw over Brock Lesnar including Paul Heyman and a lot of you guys have said it you know we felt it was gonna happen this was all kind of a big plan and Paul was just playing rock which made sense there was little plants and seeds here and there about it so I enjoyed that that made the match and then of course Bobby Lashley getting the pin 1, 2, 3 granted Bobby really didn't look that strong against Brock I'm gonna just keep it a stack he didn't look that strong against Brock at all I think that was a wasted opportunity they really didn't go all out like they should have for that match but either way it was just to set up another another situation so once again Bobby Lashley is the WWE champion and it'll be interesting to see who he faces at this year's WrestleMania but yeah I'm okay with that decision Brock was not supposed to win the championship anyway at WWE day 1 he wasn't even supposed to be the champ they just had to pull an audible well they didn't even have to pull that particular audible that's neither here nor there but it works out they're not doing the unification of the titles and you know you kind of know what happened at the end that was the highlight of that match Roman going extra rogue again taking care of business taking matters into his own hands it was all part of the plan and Paul Heyman was in on it so it's gonna be interesting to see what happens on Monday night and Friday nice SmackDown so they do have some intrigue coming out of this pay-per-view then after that match was Miz versus Edge in Beth Phoenix I didn't really too much care about this match was it enjoyable yes it was this match was actually somewhat enjoyable it had some cool spots it was cool to see the double spear on Miz to see Beth and Edge hit Beth Phoenix finishing move together on both opponents I thought that was pretty cool it was some cool moments but let this few be done Edge is already beating Miz twice let's get Edge into another meaningful feud I'm done no more of that so that was it was serviceable but after coming off that high of seeing Roman screw over Brock it was kind of hard to follow that in my opinion but it was what it was it wasn't bad but it's nothing that you will go back to this pay-per-view to watch be honest with you so and then we get to the fans which was it was hella lackluster it was some cool moments bad bunny coming out there doing some nice wrestling moves once again for someone that's not a wrestler he shows up and impress he shows out and impress every time Johnny Knoxville that was a cool little moment Shane being in there that was kind of thrown together it was a shock to see it was kind of cool but at the same time it was a waste of a spot and I believe Shane eliminated Kevin Owens if I'm not mistaken I was like yo what the fuck is Shane doing out here you coulda gave that spot to anybody else AJ Styles coming in at number one hoping he was going to be the iron man of this match did not happen Kevin Owens had the crowd was behind him too he did not end up winning it Drew McIntyre making his return I didn't think he was going to make his return so soon but to see him there he got a nice reaction ultimately it didn't work out once Brock Lesnar's music hit at number 30 it was done though and I was hoping maybe just maybe they could pull a swerve what would have been great is the last two people were in the ring Brock Drew they have history Drew eliminated Brock Lesnar in the 2020 Royal Rumble he eliminated Brock Lesnar and then ended up winning that same Royal Rumble to face him at WrestleMania and obviously the pandemic happened wasn't in front of a crowd trying to suck to recreate that moment was cool and I was hoping if they do it they could just be a dope swerve maybe potentially give Drew his moment but once again Vince loved him some Brock and Roman Reigns as his main event so once you really think about who's in the ring you kind of knew what was going to happen there obviously Brock Lesnar wins the Royal Rumble and you know who he's going to face it's kind of obvious he's going to end up probably facing Roman Reigns at this year WrestleMania and I made a comment earlier in this video Seth is not done yet I personally would love and I think this would be great if Seth got inserted into that match and made it a triple threat match yes you can say we've already seen Roman main event WrestleMania in a triple threat match and it was great but this would be even better only because Seth has history with Roman Brock has history with Seth Roman has history with both of them if you guys remember at WrestleMania 31 Seth cashed in his money in the bank briefcase to win the WWE championship at that WrestleMania he stole the championship from them pretty much and it comes full circle another WrestleMania they main event all three guys in that match sign me up I don't want to see Roman vs Brock again there's only so many times we can see that and I think the better story to tell Seth has a point you can never beat me I've already proved I've beaten Brock before I've beaten both of you guys before actual in fact I've beaten Brock at WrestleMania too and you haven't done Roman so I think that would be cool that would be a great story to tell I don't know just that triple threat match sign me up I don't know how to get to that I know the elimination chamber is coming up next so maybe Seth can insert himself because I believe whoever wins the elimination chamber they get to face the champion I believe so that's how the stipulation should be so correct me if I'm wrong if Seth gets an elimination chamber and wins you know he's going for Roman if they set it up that way I'm all for it that's cool sign me up I think that would be a better main event and I think we all as fans would like it because the possibilities now it increases who do we have win I still think probably Roman will probably end up winning but still it would be a fresh match up that I think the fans would love the story is there it's there so but overall this pay-per-view was okay at best it was okay and that's probably a it shouldn't be okay for a royal rumble it was just like it was cool it was what it was it had some high moments and had some very low moments the men's a royal rumble was definitely one of those lower moments and do drop in Becky Lynch that was a kind of a low moment in my personal opinion and also the fact that UFC individuals have pretty much taken over WWE the former UFC champion and Ron Derrause wins the royal rumble former UFC champion the Brock Lesnar wins the men's royal rumble UFC WWE that's what happened at this pay-per-view but comment down below are you guys okay with how these matches ended up are you guys looking forward to what's going to happen on Monday night and this Friday night coming up also are you guys intrigued in the Seth Rollins Roman Reigns Brock Lesnar match for the Universal Championship let me know down below I want to get your thoughts and opinions let's have a discussion let's have a conversation with a crazy video and if you haven't already man just hit the like button I'm staying up late for you guys it's almost four o'clock in the morning I'm about to go edit this video before I even touch a pillow before I even go to bed because I want to make sure I get this out to you guys as early as possible whenever you guys see this video hopefully you guys will you'll probably be watching this on Sunday so thank you guys so much for all the love and support on this channel roll up to 70k, appreciate y'all kicking with me see y'all in the next one


Hello, so today's YouTube video you might notice is a little bit different because there's somebody here with me! Hurrah! This is Lyra and she'll introduce herself in a moment but first of all today's video is about fidgets that you can use in the classroom quietly and the reason that I'm making this video is because I was looking for one and there wasn't one and I thought who do I know who's an expert in such things and I thought of Lyra so tell us a little bit about you and then we'll go into the fidgets. I am Lyra, I am 12, I'm autistic and I find videos really helpful like these sorts of ones. Excellent, so we're going to talk about like that you've got lots of fidgets haven't you? Yes. But today we're specifically looking at a particular category. Yes, so they're like quiet ones that you can use in a classroom without like disrupting other students. Yeah because the thing is it's really important if you're going to get a fidget that you're going to use in some way to help you to regulate that you find one that works for you but it also doesn't drive everyone else completely back to you as well. That's quite important isn't it? Also if kids are watching this if you can find quiet ones then it tends not to annoy your teachers as well. Yeah and so then they're less likely to take them away from you which is a good thing. Yeah. Right so what are we looking at first Lyra? Stretchy frogs. So they're like these little like stretchy frogs and I went through a phase of like only ever use like literally I would have one of these with me at all times. I still use them a lot but they're just stretchy because look I have I have like a lot of frogs. So what's so good about these and how would you use it in a classroom? They're very quiet and they're very like fidgety but they don't like like if it's because I know that some people they like don't like things looking like fidget like this isn't technically like this isn't advertised as a fidget toy it's like just a toy which I like to fidget with. Like it was in a party bag? Yeah I think I got it in a party bag and then I love for them. And you've got also something else in here what's this?  What Lyra is category number two? Category number two is like chewy so I normally have a chewy with me. They're like a little silicon thing and there I have ones on a string so you can put them around your neck and then they and then you can just chew them. This one is softer and then I have also got I have other ones as well but these are the ones I just could find. So then I have this one but they're like this one is smaller and it's softer and then this one's bigger and it's a bit harder and then also I have it's just you know the like poppy appeal bracelets and stuff it's just like one of those ones but it's one Mum found. It's actually from Prusap and there will be people from Prusap probably watching this so that's the people referral unit. It says it on it. Yeah you're really important I don't really know what you do but I care about you. She chews you.  And another thing with the like softer and harder chews just to be aware of is that so some people need harder chews and some people need softer chews some people if they had a soft one they would just chew through it really quickly but also when you start with chews if you've not used them before then you're like hard. Yeah and yet but also your muscles are a bit weak and as they build up then you kind of need slightly harder ones because you get super strong mouth. I need to let Buddy in he's scratching at the door. Now we have Buddy as well. Yeah he's a great fidget toy. I was trying to persuade her school that they should have a school dog at the moment. Or let me bring in Buddy. Yeah. Right next.  Yeah good tip for anyone who's struggling with trichotillomania or hair pulling that you can get a similar feeling kind of from the Coosh. Okay so next we have like tangles I really like tangles there's loads of different types so there's like normal ones and they're just like sort of and like you can attach and attach them but they're like uh how do you describe a tangle? Just show them there's no real so it's it's just like sort of a circle which you can like twist and fidget and stuff and so this one's a textured one but you can get totally plain ones and then I have this other one which is different I used to have two but I lost the other one but it's like a bit squishy and it's got like bumps on it and it's thicker than the other one and so I really like this one because it's just like another fidgettiness because like I like squishing it I also like biting it and last but not least what's the final category Lyra? Putty I have loads of putty but these are like three different types well they're not different types are they they're all Aaron's thinking putty yeah but like three different sorts of like categories in there okay Aaron's thinking putty Lyra has been importing from America for years but finally now we have it at our local toy shop yeah it's amazing and they also have the giant squish mellows also amazing also amazing okay so first of all we just have like the classic so this is like this is the wizards wand um it's glow in the dark it's thinking putty but it looks like this it's very pretty it's purple with gold specs in it this one uh and I like putty because they're very stretchy and you can make things with it so yeah I like this one and then I like putty as well you always used to nick my putty yeah so then we have this so this is like a medium-sized tin sort of so that's like a bigger tin you can actually get even bigger tins but they're like weird mega ones so then I have this putty it is a sensory putty and it's like it feels a bit different to the normal ones because it's like more kind of fluffier feel it feels different oh yeah it's very different yeah but it's still nice don't you think yeah it's a bit less sticky actually yeah and it's like it feels a bit more like slime then the last one is a mini one it's very pretty this one so I take these ones to school because they're like smaller mini because compare this to this one to this one it's like quite different yeah you can put in your pencil case can't you yeah I put them in my pencil case so it's very pretty it's purple with like kind of iridescent like good work Lyra lovely vocabulary and it feels very nice and I like how it looks as well and it's little so it's easy to take everywhere this has got bits in yeah I know look at it it feels sounds a bit of interesting right but shall we say goodbye for this one now and maybe you know if you guys enjoyed Lyra's video then give it a thumbs up and uh let us know that you'd like her back Ellie was hovering in the background somewhere so she might be up for making one sometime too as well yes thank you so much Lyra for being the guest star on my youtube channel today thanks for having me mother I was forced into this yeah child labor child labor I don't get paid anything I genuinely don't get paid why do you think all the putty comes wrong me I've been paid for it all yeah true I wasn't actually forced into this that makes it sound even more like a monster okay on that note I think we should go thank you Lyra


Welcome to the video abstract of our recent paper entitled the model-based cell number quantification using online single oxygen sensor data for tissue engineering perfusion biorectors. We would first like to explain you about the need for cost-effective monitoring tools in biorectors and then we would like to introduce you to our newly developed method for the non-invasive and online quantification of total cell number in a biorector. Robust automation of the cell culture process requires monitoring and control of the critical culture parameters. However, current biorectors are still very black box and have limited monitoring capabilities. Although multiple sensors are available that allow us to get information from the micro environment inside the biorector, there are still limited monitoring tools that provide us data on the tissue construct quality such as cell number or metabolic activity. In this work, therefore, we developed a monitoring tool that allows us to quantify a large range of cell numbers inside the biorectors by combining a data-based modeling approach on data from a single oxygen sensor and step changes in the perfusion flow rate. 21 scaffold combination with different total cell numbers were perfused in the biorector system. The oxygen concentration at the inlet of the perfusion chamber is kept constant with the aid of an oxygenator and the oxygen concentration at the outlet of the perfusion chamber is registered with an oxygen sensor. Note that there is only one sensor used for this approach. The aim is not to use the difference in oxygen concentration over the perfusion chamber as a measure for cell number, but instead we make use of a dynamic flow rate. By applying step changes in flow rate, the dissolved oxygen concentration per unit volume of medium is altered due to cellular consumption proportional to the residence time of the medium in the scaffold. The resulting dynamic oxygen response to the perfusion rate can be measured by a single sensor at the perfusion chamber outlet. This dynamic oxygen response could be modeled with a data-based model of which the steady-state gain parameter can be directly correlated to the number of cells present in the perfusion chamber. The dynamics described by the steady-state gain parameter of the data-based model was also interpreted in a mechanistic sense with a model that links a drop in oxygen due to the step change in flow rate with the number of cells in the scaffolds. So in conclusion, the data-based mechanistic modeling approach combined with step changes in the perfusion flow rate allows for an accurate quantification of a broad range of cell numbers within a perfusion biorector. And this in an online and a non-destructive way. By using only one oxygen sensor, this approach both combines accuracy and cost-effectiveness. In addition to the non-invasiveness and the relative simplicity of this setup, the approach used here is generically applicable in different culture applications, for example in different biorector types or with different cell types. And this makes it an interesting tool for quality control. As the field of tissue engineering matures and the transition from bench scale to large-scale industrialized production takes place, a new set of biological and technological challenges arises. The steady increase of early and late-stage clinical trials involving cell therapy applications as well as the presence of approved pioneer commercial cell-based products in the market strongly indicate that the cell therapy industry is on its way to evolve into a novel healthcare sector. To this end, regulatory bodies such as the EMA and FDA are raising the importance of enhanced process understanding through improved monitoring, being key to achieving high-quality tissue engineered end-products. According to the bioreactor system of choice, different strategies may be followed to extract the maximum amount of information non-invasively, taking also into account economic feasibility. To be able to achieve this, it will be necessary to develop online tools and data-based modeling approaches following the so-called quality-by-design approach that will enable meaningful online monitoring of critical quality attributes over time.


Welcome to Sheboygan County Government working for you. My name is Adam Payne, Sheboygan County Administrator and co-host of this program with Chairman Tom Wagner. As you know, every month we strive to focus on a different department, a different department head and their roles and responsibilities. And we've got a new one for you today. I'm very pleased if you haven't met Mr. Todd Richter, our new Veterans Service Officer. Todd, welcome. Thank you, Adam. He's not new to Sheboygan County as you're going to learn, but he certainly is passionate about Veterans and their families. We're so pleased he's part of our management team. Todd, please begin by just sharing a little bit about yourself and how long you've been working in the Veterans Service Office. All right. Well, real brief. Back in 1994 after high school, I knew I wasn't college bound, but I wanted to do something with my life. I joined the military and I was basically to get the college benefits and then move on with life and do great things. And then I found myself at 22 and a half years and retiring from the service. And there was an opportunity to come and work as the Assistant Veterans Service Officer for Sheboygan County. So I saw that opportunity. Didn't really think I had what it took to make the cuts into the final draft. And the next thing I know, I started in with the Veterans Service Office about five years ago. I grew up in Sheboygan and then my journey has taken me over to the Middle East on three tours, the Persian Gulf twice. I've been to Germany stationed on the West Coast and Washington. And that's a brief summary of where I was and here I am today. And very brief. I can only imagine serving abroad like that and the experiences you've had. You may be new as a department head and a leader in your position, but from a standpoint of perspective and things you've seen and done, not everyone can see things through your lens. It's amazing. It is. I've had a lot of great mentors along the way that really helped me get through and become the person I am and get to where I am. So I was very thankful for all the good leadership that I had and still have up to this point. So Veterans Service Officer very recently, but you've been in the office now for five years? Yes, that is correct. And what's the mission of the Veterans Service Office? Serving those who served. And could you touch on the primary roles and responsibilities or some of the programs that you help administer? We work on multiple layers of government. So the big ones we work with with the federal government would be the mortuary or fair side, the compensation and pension side, and then the health care side. And then at the state level we do health benefits as well. And then we also work with the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs in partnership on various programs to ensure that the benefits are getting all the benefits they deserve. So annually, about how many veterans and family members come to our office or contact you for assistance? Last year we had just over 1,600 veterans come in for appointments and walk-ins. And that varies month-to-month and day-to-day. And when you think about the veterans in this community, the family members in this community, obviously that's a lot of people coming in going or needing assistance. How many staff do you have that support the office and assist people? There's myself and then I have two other full-time employees. And then I also have a third person who works through a federal-funded program. And she does clerical work and helps us with our day-to-day business. Yeah. Well, very important work and obviously serving some wonderful people who have earned it. And I know Charlene Cobb, some of our viewers might recall Charlene Cobb, our former veteran service officer. She as well was very passionate about helping veterans and their families. And I may be hitting you with a question you don't have the exact figure on, but about how many veterans do we have living in Sheboygan County? The last census that was taken, we're just shy of 7,000 veterans in the county. So 7,000 veterans and then of course their spouses or family members. So serving quite a few people in the community. We usually say when people ask that question, it's usually anywhere from 14 to 21,000 people that were helping in the county because generally there with every veteran there is a spouse and at least one child. So we do cover that gamut. And are you finding the veteran population is going up or is it going down? According to the statistics that are out there, it ebbs and flows. Right now we're in a small recession. Back when I started in the office, we were right around 9,000 veterans. But a lot of the downsizing is due to our World War II and Korean veterans passing away. Yeah, and so important that people talk to those individuals and get some insight before it's too late. So the mission, serving those who served, when we established our county mission statement maybe 20 years ago and every department put together a mission statement and we had a lot of input from county board supervisors and others. I always thought the veterans office mission statement was one of the best. Short, sweet to the point and people can remember it. But you touched on it a minute ago, some of the programs and services that you offer, but what are the challenges of serving those who have served and making sure you're reaching out and getting information to them? The way that the federal VA changes how they operate, updating forms, requirements that have to be met in order to be eligible for some programs can be challenging because they're not always up to date with what they want to do. They'll come out and say we're going to start doing things this way and then it kind of falls to the wayside. For instance, we have a program that's starting June 6th for veterans, but only the people in Washington, D.C. know about that. They're not releasing any information until June 6th, so then we're going to be behind the eight ball trying to catch up and figure out what's going on with these programs. It's not always that way and sometimes the way if budgets are passed or not passed, right now the state for instance is facing a program, it's called the Veterans Outreach and Recovery Program, that is transitioning into LTE positions right now, waiting for the state budget to get passed. It plays a crucial role because it helps our office immensely. Having a small budget, we're very limited as to what we do and we get very creative on how we handle these situations, but having the state there to help us takes a lot of pressure off of us and helps our veterans in ways that we may not necessarily be able to help them otherwise. So obviously there's state support, there's federal support, there's different players to work with but you've got to be communicating and as we all know sometimes things trickle down from Washington slowly or you need to wait for the information before you can pass it on. Absolutely. And I've also heard over the years that many of our veterans, they're very proud of their service and they're just wonderful people and sometimes I've heard that they might be a little reluctant to pick up that phone or stop by the office and ask for help. What's been your experience there? That is a very true statement. Veterans by nature are proud people. As a veteran you're trained to help those who need help and you don't need the help and it's just kind of ingrained into you that that's your mission is to always move forward, always help those in need and at the end of the day when I don't know how or why it came to but we always have this mentality that there's somebody that needs it more and it's not true and I'd like to dispel that because by not asking for the benefits that they deserved, that they fought for, that they enlisted for, we can't show the federal government, the state government, the county government that we need these programs that are in place or we need these tools to help us do our job. So we spend a lot of time educating spouses more than the veterans because the spouses pay particular attention and help us and understand that we need the benefits that are out there. We need these guys to come forward and gals to come forward and get these benefits started so we can show the need and get the care that is needed for the veterans and their families. So rather than thinking of it as a helping hand, it's almost better to think of it as something they've earned. Absolutely. And in some cases have given the ultimate sacrifice for. Final question before I turn it over to Tom. Certainly as you're well aware and our building services department is well aware, we had a transition where your office was relocated from the Sheboygan County Courthouse Annex where it had been for decades to over to the Aging and Disability Resource Center in Sheboygan Falls. Tell us a little bit about that transition when the move occurred and how it's benefiting our veterans. The move occurred back in March and I think it was a cruel joke that it was probably the coldest day of the winter that building services had to come in and get all our stuff out and take it out to the new building. So we're very thankful and appreciative that building services and their staff were able to help us with that. One of the projections and hopes that we had by moving out to Sheboygan Falls trying to get more centrally located in the county was that we would attract some of our older veterans or the ones that didn't want to necessarily traverse into Sheboygan and we've seen that immensely grow since we've been out there. Our numbers have almost doubled on walk-ins on a daily basis and our appointments are up to about 20, anywhere from 20 to 25 appointments a week now since moving out there. So it was a positive move and it's a positive reflection and what we can do to help our veterans and better serve our veterans. Outstanding and I know also one of the other attributes that Tom and the county board were excited about was just that cooperation with the Aging and Disability Resource Center because many of the veterans are older and there's programs and services there that can be helpful as well. That actually started on the first day we were out there. We got introduced to the staff out there and we immediately made that connection and started working back and forth with each other. So that was another huge positive that came out from that move out there and we shared the services and we're in collaboration right now and a few things we're going to try and do moving forward to help each other out and maybe reduce some costs for upcoming years so that we can better serve the veterans and their families. Outstanding. Thank you, Todd. Tom. Welcome, Todd. Thanks for coming. Thank you. I can't help but talk about it. Just say something very quickly about when you talked about the veterans, you know, somebody else needs it more. My dad was a World War II veteran and he had a situation where he probably should have done something with, you know, but he was doing just fine in his son and his exact line was to me, was somebody else needs it more than me. You know, and so he chose not to go forward with it and that would not be unique to him is what I think. Right. Especially from that generation in particular. So we've got a lot of these important holidays. You know, certainly we just had Memorial Day, we've got Veterans Day and we have one big one coming up, 75th anniversary of D-Day this week. Why do you think it's so important that we take a moment to think about the veterans and in particular those people who gave the ultimate sacrifice on some of these days? I see in life today that we move at such a fast pace that if we don't take a pause and reflect on where we came from in order to get where we are and to move forward, we're going to lose the sight of what happened with the veterans that gave the ultimate price because it was when they enlisted, you didn't get to enlist, I want to go into a war, I don't want to go into a war, I want to serve only during peacetime or not, you signed a contract and then as things transpire, they just move forward and go from there. So moving forward, you know, we definitely want to make sure that we're taking care of our veterans and try and change the attitude, if you will, that there's somebody that needs it more because they serve their time, they wouldn't go to work and say, you know, I'm here, but I don't want to collect a paycheck. They earned it, they deserve it, we want to get it to them. In particular, when we talk about Memorial Day, I think that one gets misinterpreted sometimes. You want to talk about that a little bit? Yes, that one does get misinterpreted. A lot of times it comes back to thanking all the veterans instead of remembering the veterans that paid the ultimate sacrifice and it kind of gets into a gray area too where some people think it's the ones that paid the ultimate sacrifice on the battlefield or those that just were lucky enough to make it back and then just pass on in later years. So it is important that, you know, we distinguish the difference between the days, we take the moment to reflect and thank the veterans when it's appropriate and pay our homage to the veterans that came before them. You talked earlier about how many veterans are in Sheboyin County. What about veterans' organizations? There are multiple veteran service organizations and there's different ones that are popping up. For instance, AMVETS, the local chapter, actually just turned in their charter and through attrition it was going to happen anyways because they're from the Vietnam era and that was the only requirement that you had to meet to get in there so they did that. But the big ones that we work with a lot in the area are the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. How can people get more information about either your group or veterans' organizations if they need that? They can definitely go online and take a look at the different organizations. Some of it is as clear as muddy water so we would just recommend that they just either call or stop into our office. We have a list of all the local commanders for all the different posts. We can go over the different requirements for the different groups and point them in the direction that they feel best to go in. I'm really glad to hear that you're getting a lot more walk-ins than that because that was the hope, but it's a hope. It wasn't like we had all this study and all this data out there and it would be a guarantee. There was a thought and also with the collaboration out there too, that's just great. Thank you for your service. Absolutely, it's my pleasure and thank you for all the support. You're welcome. So back to the veterans' organizations a little bit. Todd, if you don't mind me raising it, I know you participate in a veterans' organization. In fact, I understand you're very active and you're helping spur-more membership. Share a little bit about your experience there and help encourage other veterans who aren't part of an organization to consider doing so. One of the big things that all the service organizations are facing right now is recruiting the younger members. I use the term recruiting loosely. We're not looking for a lot of commitment. The big thing, I'm a member of the American Legion, the local post 555 here in Sheboygan. Our focus is family because we understand to get the younger members in, they're young, so they're going to be working second shift or they're going to be in school. They're going to have young kids. So the family focus is what the big thing is. That's where we're going to get these younger members in to continue on this tradition. And the big focus after that is getting back into the community and giving back to the community. It's because of the community support that we're able to come to work. We're able to help provide services for the veterans and their families and those in need. So community service and family is the big focus and that's how we're going to move forward in helping grow these organizations. I think that's common for a lot of service organizations but I've occasionally gone to the Plymouth Post and been asked to be a speaker there and I've always really enjoyed those evenings. You know, there's a drink or two and then dinner and fellowship and then I'll give an update for 10 or 15 minutes but one of the things I've observed each time is it is an older crowd. It's more of a senior crowd and there don't appear to be, just as I'm part of Noon Rotary or Winooski Bowman, there don't appear to be a lot of young people joining and I gotta believe from any of the service organizations that's a concern if you're not seeing new people coming in and helping and being part of that fellowship. Absolutely. I think some of the problem is, and it's just my thoughts and opinions on it, is that we're still doing things just because we've done them that way. We're not taking that step forward. We're not taking our blinders off and looking forward and saying, okay, we're gonna move into the future but how do we take that step into the future? And I think that's starting to break down and people are starting to understand and realize that we can't do things the way we've done them just for the sake of doing it. Well, if you are watching this or if you know a veteran, I think I've yet to meet anybody who wouldn't like to have more friends and doesn't enjoy fellowship with folks that you can relate to and share stories and all these veteran organizations I think are so valuable. As you know, we have the Legionnaires supporting our youth government day every year and we get six, eight of the Legionnaires at least to come out and sponsor high schools from around the county and they learn about the roles and responsibilities of county government and also get an appreciation for all the job opportunities at Sheboygan County. So it's a wonderful day and our Legionnaires deserve so much credit for not only that public service but as you said, many of the other service projects that they get involved in. So if you aren't involved or you know someone who potentially could benefit, Todd would be a great person to talk to because he certainly can provide some insight and maybe even help while this is one that might be better suited for you. And of course with 26 of them, they're located throughout the county. Absolutely. I would highly encourage anybody who might be thinking about it or maybe hasn't really thought about it just come down and do a little fact finding. We're not here to recruit. We're not doing high pressure sales. We're just here to inform and educate. Yeah, terrific. Well, back to where we started. You know, you started a little bit about your mission to serve those who served and your roles and responsibilities, the different programs and you really did give that a nutshell overview because I know there's a lot of depth and it's so helpful to have a county veteran service office to explain those federal veteran administration program services.  Touch on the economic impact over the years that the veteran service office makes on this community. I know in 2017 through state and federal funding or benefits that we brought in over $30 million to the county. And then in 2018, they just released the statistics not too long ago and we had jumped up another $5 million. So last year we brought $35 million of compensation and pension benefits and education benefits into our county. It's $35 million coming into this community to support veterans and their families. I mean, that's not an additional $35 million. That's the growth of these revenue, these services over time, right? Correct. But it makes a real impact. It does. It really does. And moving forward, we strive a little more each day and I think we're going to see those numbers going up now that we have more access to more of our veterans that are out there. When I started here, Jim Riesenberg was our veteran service officer and I always had such respect for him and just a hard-working, passionate person. Of course, Charlene Cobb then came aboard. She was with us for, I think, about 10 years. Yes. And very passionate about veterans. I see that same passion in you, Todd and your co-workers. And one of the stories I always appreciated, Jim, Charlene, or you sharing, is when you have a veteran or a family member come in and they could use some help. They've earned these benefits and they could use these benefits. And because you assist them with filling out the applications and know who to get them in touch with and know what obstacles to overcome, all of a sudden people are getting real help in the form of sometimes some significant revenue to help pay those mortgages or get food on the table. Do you find that that's something that happens daily, weekly? What's been your experience? Again, it depends on the season and what the economy is doing as well. Now that there are jobs out there and people are able to work, we're not seeing it as heavily. We're in the last few years, there's been more need for assistance going in. Now our big need has shifted and focused more towards getting our veterans to medical appointments because they're older and they don't necessarily want to try and get through the Milwaukee traffic in order to get to see their doctor and traverse safely. Is that where most of the veterans go for medical services around here, Milwaukee versus Green Bay? It's kind of broken up, one by personal preference and two where is the provider at. They are still trying to grow the Green Bay VA clinic, but for instance, cardiology or oncology, they would generally have to go down to Milwaukee because that's where they are. One of the great things about that is that they actually work with the medical college and freighter doctors, so there's a lot of talent on there serving our veterans. Thanks. What are some of the new initiatives? You're a new department head, you're not new to the office, but every new leader brings in different ideas and approaches. In the few minutes we have remaining, what are some of the new initiatives or any new program or service that you're looking to offer? One of the things we do right now as we offer, we have a volunteer group of drivers that take veterans to and from the Cleveland VA clinic here. I'd like to expand that program to the state and Milwaukee, and I've started talks with the aging and disability resource center to try and make that happen because the services offered in Cleveland are very basic, so as we talked about before with some of the specialty care, that they're going to need to go to other facilities, and depending what the procedure is or what they're having done, they may not be able to drive after so, you know, try and help the ease of the family, so people don't necessarily have to take time off of work to take mom or dad down to or from an appointment. We'd like to offer those services and help the families out that way. Wonderful, wonderful. I see the aging and disability resource center has two new vehicles there that they're ready to get fired up and work with you on this. That'd be terrific. Absolutely, I've been working with Marie and Tracy and we think we've got about all the bugs worked out and we're ready to move forward with it. One of the things that we need though is some volunteer drivers. I was just going to say, you might want to put a plug in for that, so if someone wants to help veterans and their families with these medical appointments and they're willing to spend some time driving, being a driver, who do they contact to get more information? They can contact our office and then depending on how they want to volunteer, we can get that ball rolling. And if we have viewers or if our viewers know veterans who aren't savvy with the computer or are getting on to a website, where are you located and do you have a general phone number that you can share? Yes, we're in the aging and disability resource center out in Sheboygan Falls. Our number out there is<PHONE_NUMBER> and I ask that you just give us a call. Or get an appointment or get the question answered that you have and make sure you're taken care of. And the aging and disability resource center in Sheboygan Falls, if they're not familiar with that or your new office, it's right off of Highway 32 there, across from what there's a bowling alley there, right? Yes, our physical address is 650 Forest Avenue and that's right down in the industrial park right off of Highway 32. And that phone number one more time please.<PHONE_NUMBER> Well, I hope you got a little better appreciation for the very important work that is conducted in our veteran service officer. We're so pleased that Todd Richter is with us. We had such a smooth transition. Todd was able to work with Charlene for a number of years and knows these programs like the back of his hand. He's got a wonderful team that he has surrounded himself with and we really welcome your calls and your interest and certainly if you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact Todd and his team. Todd, thank you so much for your nice overview. Thank you. Thank you, Todd. Thank you. So again, thank you for joining us and if you have questions, check out that website or contact that number and until next month when we have Aaron Brault here, our Planning and Conservation Director, I hope you have a wonderful, safe summer. Be careful out there with all the road construction. I had a friend say to me the other day, we should have gone into the barrel business. Whoever came up with it, doing quite well for him or herself. Absolutely. So be safe out there. Take it easy. Thanks for joining us. On behalf of Tom Wagner myself again, thank you. Take care.


Hello artist! I can't wait to share with you the surprising results I achieved using pan pastels with soft pastels. Now pan pastels are very different from regular soft pastel sticks. They're like compacts of gorgeous color. They work great to use as an underpainting when combined with soft pastels. And what surprised me with this particular painting is how great they worked on this particular surface that I chose. Another great thing about pan pastels is you don't need that many colors because they're mixable. That's so exciting. Alright artists, are you ready to go? Come on in the studio and let's get started. So pan pastels really are like a little compact of color, almost like a makeup compact. They have their color numbers on the back and I love that you can arrange them in these little palette trays. They actually you can put them right up on your easel. I often clip the palette tray right to my painting board and paint with them right next to my surface. And yes I do have a lot of colors but the neat thing about pan pastels is you don't have to have so many colors because they are mixable. Now that's not the topic of this video but I'd love to know if you would like a video describing and demonstrating that further. Let me know in the comments. Pan pastels are applied with these really fun applicators. They come in all shapes and sizes and they're pretty affordable too so I'm gonna be sharing more about that in the lesson. Before sharing all of the products I'll be using for this painting tutorial I wanted to share this gorgeous reference image. I got my reference image from unsplash.com, a great site for copyright free reference images and I like to create these collections of photos of a particular category. This month's theme in Monet Cafe is marshes and we're having so much fun over on my Patreon page creating marsh paintings. They're doing such fabulous work. I wanted one of my marsh scenes to be sunset and vibrant and gorgeous colors so I found this particular reference image and I thought I could really punch it up with some color vibrancy and I thought doing the underpainting with pan pastels would be fun and effective. Here are the colors that I chose for my underpainting. I went a little overboard with colors because I had them but you don't need this many. You could really use just three values. Now the magic surface that makes this work so well is pastel matte. I'm using white because I want the vibrancy of these colors to show and pan pastels apply beautifully to the surface because it's rather soft in texture. It comes in various colors as well. For my initial sketch I'm going to be using a marker. Yes I discovered not that long ago that markers work great for sketching. I like how they stay put and don't smear or bleed when adding other products. Oh and here's something very important for your product list. It's this fabulous tea that I discovered recently. Someone shared with me this company it's called Ticino and these two flavors are fantastic. Just had to share. You know it is Monet Café. And here on the Monet Café version of this tutorial things will be sped up substantially. If you're a patron of mine you'll also get a slower version as well. And if you would like to become a patron of mine it's super easy. Patreon.com slash Susan Jenkins. It's only $5 a month. You can cancel it anytime and you get all the extra goodies I'm always talking about. Plus it's a great group of artists and I get to see your work as well. So I'm just getting this sketch in and I'm keeping it very simple. This is a pretty simple landscape anyway. Your horizon line is almost in the middle and then you've got a big grouping of trees on the left. Some smaller trees on the right in the distance and some marshy grasses in the foreground and your reflections of course. And your reflections are basically just a mirror image of what's above the waterline. So I'm just getting in a general idea and keeping this basic is a good idea to get started. Alright here's one of the applicators and I reuse these. You can actually wash them and but I'm kind of lazy sometimes so I just wipe them off on a roll of paper towels and these are some other applicators you can use and I use these a lot. You can tell by how dirty some of them are but that's for work that's a little bit more specific and I'm just doing an underpainting. So I'm just gonna be using the round sponge type of applicator. But here's my bag. No it is not squash soup. This was me repurposing some ziplock bags. But here you can see a little more closely at the different shapes of the applicators and you can buy refill packs of these as well. So pan pastels are just really fun. Now here I am with my one applicator. You can see it kind of cleaned off good because I'm just getting a nice smooth application of this kind of beige-y color and if you're a patron of mine you'll get all of my color numbers for these pan pastels that I used. So I'm just kind of blending my sky right down into the background and I'm going to get some of these pretty golden colors in the sky as well. I'm just giving some general gestural marks as to where some of these warmer and darker value colors are in the sky and you can see how it blends so well. Now let me talk a little bit about what was the surprising result. You know that's the title of my intro to this video. What was surprising to me was how softly these apply to pastel matte, this particular surface. I don't think I've ever tried using pan pastels with pastel matte. I don't know why I've been painting for so many years but I've typically used it on color fix or other pastel surfaces that are not too gritty. I find this doesn't work well on pan pastels on say UART paper and it's because it is so sanded, literally like sandpaper and so the applicators just kind of catch on that gritty surface. Now you can see I decided you know me I love punching up color. I didn't want to just make this golden you know just like a pretty golden scene. I was seeing some pink colors in the sky and in the water as well so I decided let's just have fun and make this a really golden magenta type of scene. I'm using purples for the darker value for the reflections and the trees. I do add a little bit darker value soon but this is similar to what I always talk about when we're using regular soft pastels at a stage that's called the block end stage. We're not trying to create individual anything other than shapes, big shapes and big forms and general colors and values. It's really more important to get your values correct more so than your colors and value is just how dark or light something is. So that's why I said early on that if you had three values say you had one of those darker purples that I have you have kind of a middle value magenta and a yellow for the sky you could really get a lot accomplished with an underpainting too and like I said pan pastels are mixable so even if you get a little compact of white and black you can make your values darker or lighter and again that's a whole another video so let me know if you'd like something like that that would be fun to create. So now I'm just getting in a little bit more of the sky between some of the trees and again if you're a patron of mine I'm going to give you a video where I just slow everything down and you can see this process a little slower along with this video for some commentary. Alright so I've got to get a little bit of a darker value for some of these trees so this is a pretty dark you can see some of the color numbers there extra dark actually it's kind of a purplish blue and I'm just getting some more of that into these trees that are above the water and then I'm just going to kind of blend everything in a little bit. Now an underpainting I talk about a lot I do under paintings a lot I find it gives such a great foundation for your painting and in this case it's going to provide that underlayment of vibrant and warm color. Now the first set of pastel soft pastel sticks that I will be using are the Jack Richardson they're called Richardson hand rolled pastels it's their set of 40 it's the landscape set I'm using some of these peachy tones that pretty gorgeous pink and it has some beautiful blues along with kind of some warm browns that's kind of the colors I'm thinking of this is another great set it's the Sennelier half stick 40 half stick set I love these colors you can instantly see how vibrant they are I use this set for an entire painting sometimes and I'm just getting in some of my distant trees now notice I'm layering that pretty blue over and some of that magenta over what I'd already laid down but I'm not making a really hard stroke part of soft pastel painting is allowing your colors to peek through as you add layers so that's why a soft touch is really important to develop and that's the reason why because most people ask the question why do you do an underpainting like I did with these hand pastels if you're just going to cover it all up because pastels are an opaque medium in other words they're not see-through well they're not if you press super hard but if you have a light touch like I'm trying to do here I had a um an imperfection in my paper it's like a line but I just worked around it I think I had bent my pad when I was traveling one time but as you can see that magenta is still kind of showing through some of this blue that I'm laying down because I'm not pressing really hard and that's why an underpainting can be very crucial and important to allowing some color I think of it as the colors vibrating because they're they're they're not mixed together in a traditional form like when you take you know red and yellow and you in acrylic for example and you mix them mix them to death they'll turn into an orange but I like it better when the colors just kind of interact with each other without you know blending them like crazy and that's what happens with soft pastels as you layer gently and softly one color over another it starts to vibrate and have this really beautiful color interaction all right so you can see I I'm not using the colors that are necessarily in the reference photo and I do have videos on it was like a couple of videos back that I talked about kind of how to do that and it really just has more to do with paying attention to the value the lightness or darkness if you squint your eyes and look at the my composition isn't exactly the same as the reference image but look at the general lightness and darkness of my painting right now and the reference image you can see the skies are both light the water is both fairly light the trees in the foreground are darker the distant trees are a little lighter so it's all really about value then you can really get creative with color all right so now I'm adding a little bit of that fun lightness to the sky and letting the pastels blend themselves I don't like to over blend things other than an under painting often will blend it you know the pan pastels that I use they kind of are nice and blended anyway because of the applicator that I use but uh other than an under painting I don't like to do too much blending you'll see me in a minute use a chamois cloth uh like you dry your cars with to do some blending but I prefer really to let the pastels blend themselves and they will do that eventually as you add layers now I'm doing what's here called um sky holes and it's a negative painting actually oh here's my chamois cloth I'm I'm doing this more in the distance to create a softness because things get a little more blurry far away and I'm using it to blend my reflections with reflections you really just want to pull those reflections straight down with some sort of blending tool I did soften these trees a little bit I kind of wish I hadn't done that and that's a benefit actually filming yourself a lot you get to rewatch what you've done and think what you would or would not do again and I've darkened a little bit of the sky I like my upper sky to usually be a little bit darker in value it kind of pulls the eye in and adding some more of these pretty light colors from the Richardson hand rolled landscape set and just creating a little drama in the sky but can you see how my colors in the distant trees and the trees in in general are just so much punchier in color and we definitely have that gift or ability as artists to use our artistic license here you can see I've done more of that sky hole carving into the trees let me talk about that a little bit more as I paint what we typically like to do to have your trees look very painterly and believable is create more I don't want to say blobs but tree shapes in general we're not worried about branches and leaves and then later you carve the sky into the trees you shape the tree line after the fact and allow some of the sky to peek through you can kind of see how I did that so now I'm just having fun bringing some of this magenta color I think that's a yeah that's a Jack Richardson the set is actually called Richardson hand rolled landscape set 40 I believe and it just had really some beautiful colors and you know I like to the painting at this stage I do this a lot note to self I always say back away step away from your painting and this is advice for you guys too and give yourself just some time away to come back and look at it with fresh eyes often I am on crunch time to get tutorials out and things so sometimes I don't take my own advice very well but hey do as I say not as I do I always hated it when parents would say that it's like no you should do what you say there I go in one of my tangents but as you can see I've gotten in some of the um wispiness of those marshy grasses and I'm continuing to just develop the sky adding a little bit of that drama of color and can you see how the pastels are definitely starting to blend themselves occasionally I'll use my pinky and do a little bit of blending but I would say this is kind of one of my favorite stages of this painting look how loose it is even before I add any of the glaze of flatness on the tops of the water so you guys might want to keep that in mind especially my patrons if you want to just make this more of a little bit more abstract and very impressionistic painting so now I'm going to start adding some of those blues on the water that's going to give that feeling of flatness now I sometimes have a little bit of a challenge with this if my painting surface is not super flat because what we're trying to do is create a super flat stroke you see I've added a little more darks to the foreground trees there and a little bit more in the reflection blending the reflection a little bit with my finger I realized I needed a little bit more contrast dark values to get down at the base of those trees where it's more in shadow and that's the chamois cloth again that actually blends a little bit better than my fingers did I added a little more dark down into the grasses the marshy grasses in the foreground and now I'm going to start taking some of that sky color into the water basically what happens with water is it will reflect what's above it and so I'm kind of creating a mirror image with the colors that are in the sky and it's again going to give that drama and I don't know just dramatic color and and I like this stage too this is kind of nice and now is when I'm going to flatten that water out with just some of these really light very horizontal and light strokes of some of this blue and again I want you to take my advice based on me being able to go back and and look at this video keep this very minimal I think I overdid it with some of the blue that I added on top of the water so if you're patrons of mine I know I'm going to get to see some of your work keep that in mind and oh man I can't wait to see what some of you guys do with this so you see I keep working with the blue and I do that sometimes I just start fiddling with stuff and more and more and more but I liked it better before adding too many of those horizontal marks of that pretty blue across the water now also too I like to add a little bit of like a break of water around areas where the water might be lapping against the shore so that's why you see a couple of little lighter areas of like breaking water it adds a little interest to things and these last few minutes that you'll see during this painting process is really just me trying to enhance the composition with what I call punching up color adding little places where I feel like I can give some dramatic color and mark making to just enhance the composition and to intrigue the viewer to say hey looky here or hey look at the sky over here and it's really a way that you can pull your viewer into what you see as beautiful in this image adding a little more dark around that shoreline to kind of curve the viewer right around into those distant trees and and kind of having fun this is this is when it gets to be a fun stage for me when I'm painting while I'm adding my finishing marks I wanted to share a little bit more about pan pastels and if you wanted to try these maybe some suggestions of how to get started. Dick Blick has a great selection of pan pastel sets and tools and palette trays and more and you know you can get started very simply you could even get a little five starter set they have a few of these this is the five blue starter set it even comes with those little tools you see there for about $25 here's another small set available and if you get serious about it and you want to get a little more this is a set that I think is beautiful I love the fact that it has your primary colors for mixing and some punchy colors as well and some blacks and whites for getting lighter or darker values of a particular color. Now I always like to say I don't want to be a product pusher I just like to share with you the things I learned and some of the products I use and techniques but you could totally recreate this painting using regular stick pastels you could do the same thing with similar colors or again just three values and blend them in with regular pastels I do happen to think though that these pan pastels on the pastel matte is just such a soft beginning so I was very pleased and happy with those results I'm definitely going to use this technique again so you know I love sharing that's just you know what I love doing for many years since I started doing this sharing on youtube many years ago all right so let's take a look at this final painting and by the way they always look a little bit more drab the way I have my camera off to the side whenever I get my camera right in front of the painting they seem to be more rich and vibrant and if you've watched this long here on the Monet Cafe channel would you be so kind as to give this video a thumbs up and leave me a comment that always helps for this video to be shared more on youtube and if you're a patron of mine on my Patreon page oh my goodness I already can picture what some of you guys are going to do with this it's just such a great little family of artists we have well it's good to be a big family but a very precious group of artistic souls all right everyone as always God bless I mean that and happy painting


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