So welcome everybody. I am Sandra Amar and I'm your local TechSoup Connect host, which is a program of TechSoup. TechSoup Connect is a global network of tech for good meetups and we're all over the world and it's a non-profit that helps other non-profits get implemented and use technology effectively as TechSoup Connect. A little bit about me. I've been hosting these types of events and webinars for the Ontario chapter of TechSoup Connect for about just over two years now. I started just as a pandemic hit so I didn't get to do any in-person events but maybe one of these days that'll change. I work in technology, I work full-time and I also on the side do consulting for small businesses and non-profits and as well as a whole bunch of training. I am also currently the national president for the One Parent Families Association so I understand the difficulties of working as a non-profit and getting tech to work for you. A little bit about our community values. If you haven't been here before we welcome everybody and we put our community first. We're here to support each other in order to build stronger non-profits and technology is one of the tools we use to help you build stronger non-profits. We're happy to invite participation. We all have something to learn from each other and obviously you should go without saying we treat each other with kindness and respect. A little bit more about what TechSoup can help you with. TechSoup can connect you with a whole bunch of different donated and discounted products. These are just some of the examples and some more examples of what you can get through TechSoup and this is an example of just how much you could save by going through TechSoup as opposed to purchasing these items individually through the retail channel. If you need additional tech help feel free to check out the forums on TechSoup.org. They're a great resource where you can share information and get the questions answered on a host of technology related topics. As I mentioned if you are interested in hosting an event like this as we're moving into kind of live things if you're in the Toronto area which is where I am if you have any venues that maybe we could use for an in-person meeting I'm open to starting to have conversations like that as well. There is one more event happening on June 22nd all about digital transformation and it's going to be a really interesting topic so keep an eye on your email for that if you haven't already it is posted on our Ontario chapter event page at events.techsoup.com and with that I will stop sharing and hand it over to our guest of honour today who we've already learned so much from this year we've had you hear a few times now Omar but I will let you take it away and tell us a little bit about you and teach us about you an exciting thing. And hello everyone it's really my pleasure to be here with you today and I'm really passionate to share my understanding about the digital social enterprise. So my name is Daniel Omar I'm a part-time professor at the University of Ottawa and Royal Military College and I'm also the founder and executive director of two companies Vectors Group and Vectors Institute both focusing on the needs of non-profit organizations. So they are both social enterprises they are registered business but they function as a social enterprise because it's also our passion to support non-profit organizations and charities and today I'm going to talk about social enterprise digital social enterprise. I know you have heard about social enterprise but today I want to highlight the advantages of digital social enterprise and give you some practical tools that you can use to develop your business plan for a digital social enterprise. If you have any questions please jump in it's not a big group so feel free to jump in and ask your questions or if you have any comments please feel free to join. I may not be able to see the chat box messages some drive will appreciate if you can help me with that but I'm switching to my presentation now and I will not have access to the chat box or limited access. Okay so digital social enterprise the big question is why do we need this digital social enterprise we are a charity we are a non-profit organization enterprises for businesses why do we need it and the answer is simple actually to create some additional funding resources for your non-profit organization and even when you are in good stage good positions in terms of funding social enterprise can still be a good option for your sustainability and to mitigate risks in the future as there are different options donors corporate sponsors crowdfunding grants events and traditional fundraising channels and digital social enterprise is one of the newest ones relatively newest ones and today I'm going to focus more on digital social enterprise but some of the content is definitely related to social enterprise and I will briefly explain why digital social enterprise is more promising than a classical social enterprise. The first reason and this is basically the summary of the following couple of slides the first reason is this is a growing market and I'm going to show you some numbers which will definitely convince you that this is a big opportunity and the second reason is the government support you might have seen some government grant opportunities and you will see more grant opportunities in the near future that encourage non-profit organizations and charities to have their own social enterprise to be more specific so the Canadian government and non-social finance fund which is in total 755 million dollars so this is the money for non-profit organizations and charities to establish or to grow capacity to develop capacity in social finance market so the term social finance market is too generic but it basically means there will be funds to support your social enterprise investments and one of the practical implementations of the social finance fund is investment readiness fund so they open this fund a couple of times a year and it looks like they will continue to offer this fund until the end of 2023 and potential extension to further years but now they started with 50 million dollars program to help non-profit organizations to build capacity so investment readiness means that this is a term for businesses not for non-profit organizations it used to be but the world is changing now non-profit organizations and charities they also need to be investment ready so investment ready means people will make donations to you corporate sponsors will fund your cause they they will put money and you can even do some joint business together this is not just for business it's also for good but it's literally the same thing convincing the funders and the investors that you are the right organization for them to so the government has a clear and highlighted interest in funding social enterprise ideas and now the first word digitalization so digitalization is creating a second economy that is vast automatic and invisible in our daily life you i'm sure almost all of us use digital channels very commonly so not only we use the social media or internet or Netflix or other digital products but we also use it to purchase our needs and more and more people use internet as their primary source of procurement or purchase so they're right bringing about the greatest societal of people since the industrial revolution and this is not a promise only for the businesses or the government it's also an opportunity for the non-profit organizations and i'm going to show you some numbers to convince you that it's a promising opportunity now those are the e-commerce sales by country as of 2021 i don't have 2022 but you can imagine that the numbers will just increase and if you look at canada we spent over 44 billion dollars for e-commerce and when you have a digital social enterprise you can literally sell products all around the world you don't need to limit yourself to your country you can literally target global markets and another interesting statistic is about the growth of the e-commerce so as you can see north america the growth rate the annual growth rate is over 18 so this means every year we will use e-commerce or digital platforms more and more and this also means we are going to use the classical traditional platforms less and less because the total amount of money is limited and now it's shifting from traditional markets to digital markets and again maybe it's a good time to remind her this market is not just for businesses okay so we know that nearly one million businesses compete on e-commerce maybe over one million now globally but this is so big this market is so big there is also big room for non-profit organizations and charities to start their own digital social enterprise also to promote their charitable activities but today's focus is business or social enterprise so this is a big opportunity for non-profits and charities to generate some additional funds through internet and it's not only the businesses when you look at the government index OECD digital government index i don't want to go into details but i want you to notice that canada is in the top six okay canadian government this means canadian government prioritizes digitalization so when government prioritizes digitalization it also means that future grant opportunities will focus on digitalization more and more grant opportunities will focus on digitalization digitalization is a broader topic and i know you are familiar with it but our focus today will be on digital social enterprise but having a digital social enterprise would also make you ready for other digital opportunities it will build a capacity that you can communicate with your funders and governments and for future opportunities for future digital opportunities and so the solution the the practical tool that i came up with is i like using the abbreviations and then the abbreviation of the seven rules of thumbs miracle m i r a c l e and i'm going to briefly explain what they mean the first one is the mindset okay then so i have been working with over maybe nearly 200 non-profit organizations and over 1000 non-profit professionals they are amazing people i love all of them they are amazing people but they don't have the business mindset most of them and they don't have to right because this is not the nature of their work they need to know how to help people how to listen to people how to understand their needs and how to develop the solutions for the community but the life has its own roots so any non-profit organization if they want to survive they need to comply with the rules of new worlds and this new world requires sustainable funding structure so social enterprise is even inevitable step for all non-profit organizations so non-profit leaders they need to adjust their mindset and maybe think like a business person in certain cases the revenue of the digital social enterprise will go to the charity that's there is no no question about this but when you operate the social enterprise you need to think like a business person and this mindset also requires adjustment alignment and flexibility because rapidly changing market environments and technology related industries means that social enterprises must swiftly adjust to market challenges so something that works today may not work next week and this is the nature right so this is the nature of business world you have to be flexible you need to be dynamic to respond to the dynamically changing needs of the customers and in digital markets this is even much more difficult but one big advantage non-profit organizations and you have is you are closer to the people you know what they need you have supporters and imagine there are two sellers and one of them is is owned by a charity and the other one owned by a global company i will prefer the one that works for the charity right because this way i can get the service or good that i want in the meantime i can also contribute to a charity so if conditions are equal if the price is equal if the quality is equal many people will prefer your digital social enterprise so you have a bigger advantage when compared to the other businesses as far as you can compete in terms of price in terms of quality and in terms of customer expectations so the mindset this is a big question okay so i took those two pictures one of them is a boat and the other one is a train the train is a much safer platform much safer vehicle because it has this railroad and it has limited flexibility but it is safe but on the other hand if you try to become a boat then you literally have no limitations you can go all around the world without following any predefined path but of course it's more risky so there is a saying Einstein saying i like this very much that said he says the safest place for boats is are the harbors right so in the harbors they are safe but the boats are not designed to stay in the harbors so the safest action for non-profit organization or charity is to rely on government grants or individual donations and don't do anything else but this strategy will not bring them anywhere and this strategy will not ensure sustainability or growth and with after the covid you must have noticed that many organizations struggle to find additional funding resources and social enterprise seems like the the best option and most sustainable option because if you have a profitable social enterprise then you don't need to worry about grants you don't need to worry about individual donations you and you have the flexibility to use that money as there are limitations about government grants or charitable donations but for social enterprise you're bored and you will have the flexibility you might enjoy but this mindset it's easy to say of course there are several questions who when where how why what and you can add more questions to that and when you look at the statistics there are some scary numbers 80 percent of the businesses fail in the first five years and this ratio is even bigger even higher in the social enterprises because many social enterprises are operated by people who doesn't have the business background or business mindset and there are people try to operate them as a non-profit and eventually they lose money and they fail it's this number is also valid for any businesses shall this prevent us from taking any further steps no it shall not because there are also good numbers and I want you to look at those numbers okay and and the names so in 2018 if you look at the top 10 companies in the world Petro China Exxon and none of them are except Microsoft most of them are non-digital companies but when you come to 2018 you can see the big change now the top 10 is occupied by digital companies or the funding or the financial resources for non-profits are shifting from traditional markets to digital markets and this is where you should be this is where your strategies should target so the next step the next letter in the minor miracle is the idea so what can you do okay let's do let's start the digital social enterprise but what are my options is Amazon the only option to sell stuff is Shopify the only option you have no they may be good options but then you're not limited with them there are different types of products or that you can offer so just to give you an idea like you can offer free services and get earn money through other channels like advertisement or corporate sponsors or you can offer on demand services subscriptions peer-to-peer e-commerce freemium so you start with a free version and then to get the premium version you have to pay extract there may be some open sources so if you can generate some visibility some some action on a digital platform then it has a value this is something you can sell you can use advertising or you can use some hidden revenue tactics so I don't want to spend too much time in details but what I want to highlight here is there are so many endless options for your non-profit organizations you have to be creative and innovative and you will see lots of business opportunities for your social enterprise I want to share a couple of social digital social enterprises that I know so shop or good is a zone by a Canadian charity women multicultural resource and counseling center in Duham and this is their platform they recently launched it it's similar to Etsy or Amazon and there are private vendors but the private vendors are from underrepresented communities okay so when you purchase something from this platform certain percentage goes to the charity and and and the remaining part goes to someone who's in need okay so this this is a good feeling because this way you help one charity and one person in need at the same time while receiving your another platform is online food bank so we have over 3000 food banks in Canada and online food bank is the only digital version okay so it's it generates money it's not free but we all know that it's for a good reason another one is a charity fight this is a digital platform for non-profit organizations to promote their services and they have a membership fee so they are a service provider just extra right so TechSoup is a non-profit organization but it generates some revenue not and this is a perfect example of digital social enterprise so in terms of ideas I also want to share some additional options so website social media platforms they're not the only options now there's another trending topic actually it's already very popular and we all use it the applications instead of websites some companies focus on applications and if you look at the 2020 numbers or the past you can see the increase in number of applications and number of gains so can a non-profit organization sell a game application yes why not so social enterprise is independent from the mandate of your non-profit organization you can open a factory you can open a restaurant you can develop a game application it doesn't matter as far as it doesn't conflict with your overall values you can literally do any business to generate revenue for your non-profit organization just just like private sector there's no so just to give you an idea of case or what type of applications can you develop lifestyle mobile apps so let's say if you are a religious organization for example you can people can use your application to get received daily motivating messages or some I don't know they you can develop applications for live scribe social media mobile applications well this is already a mature market I don't think any non-profit organization can compete with Facebook or LinkedIn or Twitter but maybe in your local area you can have a social media platform that that can create some revenue for your organization utility mobile apps it gives you the impression that everything that can be taught is already taught right but this is not true because we when we look at numbers we can see this increase in the growth of digital market increase in the number of applications this is a huge and your organization can be there too games entertainment mobile applications this is the most the biggest market and if you have the capacity why not this can be your market as well productivity mobile apps and news information outlets mobile apps I don't know it may or may not be related to the non-profit sector where you can come up with a news application specifically for the non-profit sector why not because do you know any application that focuses on non-profit sector I don't recall maybe there are but I don't recall maybe they didn't do the marketing very well yet but this can be a good opportunity and if you start thinking in this area I'm sure you will come up with much better ideas so that the next letter in the solution is the idea and I want you to look at those numbers okay so because numbers are convincing so we when you make a digital social enterprise decision it has to be related to numbers for your charity it has to be related about the impact but for social enterprise it's all about profitability because if it doesn't generate revenue for your non-profit organization then there is no point to start a digital social enterprise so we specifically need to focus on numbers seven people seven billion people worldwide are using mobile devices okay and almost all of your clients your beneficiaries your donors your sponsors they use digital mobile devices mobile app downloads number is over 258 million okay so this is a big number and you can be you can get your share from this page and the total monetary value of this market is 157 billion every year people spend 157 billion dollars worldwide okay and the next item next letter is R okay so next item is resources and those are the resources you need to be you need to make ready before you start your digital social enterprise your finance your HR your physical space information stakeholders and leadership okay so you can start it literally you can start the business in 15 20 minutes in Canada officially but what is next you need a person to operate to run the digital social enterprise and it's starting a digital social enterprise without completing the resources is like a car with a missing tire okay so you will absolutely fail if you have the finance if you have the HR but if you don't have the stakeholders if you don't have the product if you don't have the leadership that can guide that can lead your digital social enterprise so before you launch it you and this is important okay because many organizations they like the idea and it's like a bent wagon they just okay we need to have a digital social enterprise and they start it and after a couple of months they fail because they don't they they are usually not prepared enough to launch their digital social enterprise okay so resources they must be ready before you launch it and of course after launch your resources must be ready it must be continued to be ready this is the only way to make it and the next stage is action okay so where are you going to start how are you going to operationalize your digital social enterprise you start with the idea solution so what is the need and what is your solution to it okay it's like business investment and then you do some research before you jump in and this research can take a couple of weeks can take a couple of months and in some cases it may even take a couple of years so McDonald's for example when when they first before they opened their first store in Moscow they spent six years for feasibility analysis okay so some research some preparation period may take longer but in your case I think you definitely spend with these couple of months to make sure that your idea is the right solution for the market but this is not enough then you need to have a validation stage okay before you publicly announce it you can try it in a smaller circle and then make some adjustments before you officially launch it and when you launch it you need to brand it okay so shop for good have you heard about shop for this is because they didn't do branding and marketing enough okay and when there are billions of web pages and there was no way for us to know all of them or find them so they you need to brand yourself and market your digital social enterprise and the next stage is funded okay so even the social enterprises they need some initial capital they will not generate revenue the first day will take some time and during this time you need to fund your digital social enterprise and once you have the fund then you need your structure your system you form your teams and then only after then you launch your digital social enterprise and this is the action phase so this is a model developed for business model development okay so it's a very it's it's an academic study or a practical tool that that you can use to develop business models and business models is also a term originally developed for the business world but now since we are talking about social enterprise we can use the same term and the tool in the nonprofit sector to okay so let's say you decided to start your digital social enterprise what do you need to start what are the questions that you need to answer how can you be sure that you talked about everything you need to we made some ideas like we need to think about finance what are my products i need to think about space etc etc but i want to make sure that i don't miss any important detail so conva model convas model is a practical model uh and a good starting point and i will and it has nine areas that you need to and four of them are about your capabilities and and the the others are related to to the value created for your stakeholders and those are important areas to answer now so i gave an example here this is about wikipedia which is a nonprofit organization so the first section first question key partners who are your key partners if you are in Ottawa for example in the start of it should be your key partner if you are in Ontario provincial government should be your key partner or united way should be your key partner who's your key partner because when you need support you want to make sure that you have strong partners of course when available when you have them but when you fill in this form this convas model you will easily see whether you are ready or not if you don't have key partners and maybe it's not a good time to start your digital enterprise okay and the second question is what are the key activities what do you offer what do you want to do you cannot just say okay i'm starting in social enterprise you have to be very specific i'm going to sell ice cream so this is my key activity i'm going to sell the best ice cream in toronto okay so um it's up to you how you feel in this but at least there has to be something that makes true makes sense to everyone and the next question key resources okay what are your strengths so how what are like your finance i mean a very critical position we have 1000 volunteers we have a social media account that is followed by 50 000 people while those are key resources that you can put in this list just to give you the confidence that you need to take the name and if you continue with the other sections value proposition what is the value proposition of wikipedia access high quality content deliver your knowledge to many people this is for wikipedia okay but for your organization what is the value you offer so in my example the value of i offer is the most delicious ice cream in toronto right so this is my value and remember we are talking about the social enterprise not your charity because the value that the charity offers is different than the value that your digital social enterprise will offer ice cream is okay for a business but ice cream is not okay for a charity right so you need to separate your social enterprise and charity this is really important because if you merge them then your social enterprise has a high risk to fail but it will also affect your nonprofit organization and then customer relations relationships so how are you going to communicate with your customers and you may even start from an earlier stage who are your customers okay so who do you think will come to your website or who will download your application you need to think about that too and the customer segments well this is related to the previous question but it makes sure it ensures that there is no gap in your business plan you think of everything that matters for the success of your digital enterprise so for wikipedia it is mass market but in your case you can target huge or you can target mothers you can target children so you have to but when you follow this guideline it forces you to answer all questions and see the gaps if there are any and the next one is the cost okay and this is probably the most important component is business mindset many people many entrepreneurs and many social entrepreneurs start with thinking about how much profit can i make oh my god i'm gonna make one million dollar but this is not the right point to start you need to think about the cost because if you can save the cost you can generate profit and increase your revenue and this column model just encourages you to think properly and follow the right steps and then revenue steps i think this is the biggest one where is the money where will you get the money because now we are you don't for your digital social enterprise you don't have donors you don't have government grants you don't have grants and you may not have corporate sponsors so you need to answer this question where is the money and if there is no answer then it's not a good investment it's not a good entrepreneurship now the next letter is c continuity okay you you start your digital social enterprise and one week later your board members wants you to report how much money you generated and the answer is zero right so you cannot generate revenue in one week it takes three years in average for a business to set up and the social enterprises are not the exception so you need to give three years for a social enterprise to fully become set up of course after first year you may target the break even point but first year you might you may definitely lose money but to get the actual results you definitely need to rate minimum three years and so at the early stages of your products there will you can expect a big increase but you have to be realistic there is a maturity level and after this point you cannot grow your business and just like any other business digital social enterprises also have it and after certain time they are not feasible anymore so you also need to have an exit strategy when the time comes and this may not be an academic input but based on my former experience I can definitely put this in my list luck is an important component sometimes you do everything right where you may not get the results and you may have some different explanations but I call it luck estimated number of e-commerce sites 12 million to 24 million in total okay less than one million of these sites sell more than one thousand in here so one thousand or less is not a feasible entrepreneurship it's not good for your digital social enterprise so you try to be in the first one million out of 24 million investments this seems like a scary percentage but on the other hand you have this capacity you have this team you have the comport and you are living in one of the best countries in the world in terms of opportunities for digital social enterprises so when so you need to be aware that you may fail there is no guarantee to succeed but if you succeed this is a perfect solution for funding of your non-proliferation and good business doing right things being professional and being institutionalized will increase your chances to succeed and the last one is careful management of available resources and we call it economy but you can also use efficiency or effectiveness of your organization so reducing the cost optimizing the expenses increasing the profitability and doing the marketing and branding and having the right product determining the right price anything you can think of to make a business a regular business to succeed are all applicable to digital social enterprises as well so this is so those are the seven steps of successful digital social enterprise and this concludes my presentation here and now i'm gonna stop sharing and answer your questions or listen to your comments if you have it's very informative it's a lot like running but it's like running your own business it's not just it's and it's a bit of a different mindset for from the non-profit world where you're thinking about how you're gonna do good for people it you really need to focus on the business aspect to make it work absolutely and there there may be a misinterpretation or oversimplification of social enterprise idea you may be an amazing leader amazing non-profit leader but it doesn't mean that you will be able to operate a digital social enterprise as successfully as your non-profit organization it's you may be a good pilot but you may be a terrible captain so those are different things yeah a different skill set and a different approach similar but different but yeah exactly i haven't seen any questions come through the chat if anyone has any questions or wants to come off mute and ask them directly or discuss anything we can perfect i believe you're going to share the presentation as well sorry if anybody has any questions please feel free to reach out to me or anybody in my team we are a social enterprise we do a lot of pro bono services to non-profit organizations we will be happy to support your causes thank you so much it was great to have you here again and i guess with that we'll sign off and thank you everyone for joining us have a good day


The Oscar goes to A.R. Rakhman. I don't know who he is. I've never heard of him. He's one man. It's never a cake walk with him. He doesn't do what you tell him. I don't know of any other composer who's really like him. You can always tell one of his songs. He seemed to go from western to Indian and back to western classical. Flash is obviously going to be of Sare Gama or Dore Mi Fa. It's not Sufianna who starts singing so slowly that you think you'll be late. How much do you love music? Tremendously. I wouldn't have been here otherwise. Okay, do you love me? You want me to say that and you want me to show that?


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So, you know what you're doing with it? No, I don't. People's majors, they thought of six questions. Oh, okay. My name is Cece. I'm a political science major and I'm a sophomore. Awesome. Okay, so now we're going to bring them out. My name is Sarah. Cece. Nice to meet you. I'm a Pisces. A Pisces? I'm a Pisces. You are? What's your favorite library to study at? Worcester. Okay. Because you can bring drinks in. Prefer luxury hall? Prefer... It would be Stanley. Just because it's very new. I like it. Okay, so what does a Friday night look like for you? Honestly, because I'm really tired during the week. My preferred Friday night is just like chilling and just eating good food and then going to bed at like 11 or midnight. But if I do want to go out and I get a text then yeah, I'll go. I'll stay in and just chill. How much do you care about money? Like what do you mean? Are you someone who like splurges?  Yeah, I'm more of a saver. But then like if I reached that goal then I'm more willing to but I don't usually because I usually talk myself out of it. I'm like, oh that's just way longer. Yeah, it's just a perpetual cycle. That's spending a lot of money. What's your relationship status? Single, which is great. Honestly, I agree. I agree. I think, I don't know if it's just like the Pisces because I'm also Pisces. See Integrated Biology? Okay. So I'm going to say she's Integrated Biology. Here you go. Thank you. You're next. Awesome. I'm Ryan. Nice to meet you. Okay, so what's your zodiac sign? Okay, so that's like astrology. I'm a Gemini. Same birthday as my newest. Wow. Everyone judges Gemini. Yeah, apparently we're narcissists. And I'm not going to say that's entirely false. That's a conversation for another time. With my therapist, let's just continue. What's your favorite library to study at? Honestly, like libraries for the most part make me like tense. I don't like studying on Candice, but if that was forced to, I would go to and get stuff done there. What's your preferred lecture hall? Again, not really a preference. They all just bring back PTSD, but if I had to choose one, I'd say wheeler because I feel like I have history and character. It's the next lecture hall. What is a Friday night look like for you? Friday nights are similar to most of my weekends. I don't do much. Chill at home, watch TV and yeah, just chill. Netflix? Yeah. What do you care about money? I wouldn't say that I care enough that I would sacrifice pursuing my passion, but for the most part I am pretty frugal and conscious about it. Okay, yeah. What's your relationship status? Single bears, let's go! I think, I don't know, you seem very unique. Thank you! How you don't really like a lecture hall or your preferred library. I'm going to go with interdisciplinary studies. Okay, yeah, there you go. So you need major, we'll see how it goes. We'll see how it goes. Here you go. Nice to meet you. Okay, so what is your Zodiac sign? I'm a Capricorn. Okay, what is your favorite library to study at? So I actually live in Blackwell, do you know what that is? Everyone knows where Blackwell is. Yeah, so we have my study room, so what's your preferred lecture hall? My preferred lecture hall. I think Wheeler because I'm in a lot of classes, a lot of people. That's a big room. I'm always there as close to my dorms. You're in the auditorium. What does a Friday night look like for you? Friday night? Okay, so yesterday, this Friday I tried to work for a little bit, like homework, but then my friends came. How much do you care about money? Money? I love money. I'm here at Berkeley. It's like make money. So, yeah, money's good. I love Capricorn. I respect that, honestly. What's your relationship status? Relationship status is taken. Oh, he's taken. I think I'm going to go with data science. But I'm going to say data science. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Okay, so what is your zodiac sign? Stereotypical Aries. What's your favorite library to study at? If you have one. I feel like libraries is not what we think of it. I don't know if I study enough to have a favorite one. Moffit. Moffit? Okay. I feel like that's a good answer. Classic answer. What's your preferred lecture hall? Becauching because it's the closest one to my apartment. Oh, you're living on our side. I love becauching. What does a Friday night look like for you? I think my mom watches these videos. Mom, on a Friday night, I'm studying a lot. Of course. Going to bed super early. Drinking lots of water for bed. How much do you care about money? Okay, so I want to say that I don't care about money. Well, obviously everyone cares about money. If any of you all say that you don't care about money, you're lying. I know that everyone cares about money. But yeah, I mean, I wouldn't stop my passion. Actually, that's a lie. I would probably try to choose a different career path. Well, because if you don't have money, then that's going to be so bad right now. Yeah. I care about money. I'm going to say that. Okay, what's your relationship status? Single. Nice. I'm going to say because I saw the Alex Wilpert video and why? I feel like media studies, you can make a lot of bank there.  There you go. Thank you. Nice to meet you. So what's your zodiac sign? I'm a cancer. Wow, so you're a water sign. I'm a Pisces, so fellow water sign here. What's your favorite library to study at? I would say Doe. It's really pretty on the inside. It's too pretty for me to study in there. I was like the ceiling, everything. What's your preferred lecture hall? I would say inside that. Are you usually in there? Yes. Cool, cool. If I go to class, then yes. Cool. What does a Friday night look like for you? Well, I just like getting a good dinner with friends because there's super good food around here. How much do you care about money? I would say like 70% I guess for the future obviously I'm making money but I guess as of late now I'm made for payment I'm like paying for experience because you're like in peak time to have fun without our best lines. Wow, you're so thoughtful. What's your relationship status? Dingle. Dingle, okay. You're really thoughtful, so I'm going to say you're political science because I'm really thoughtful and I'm polysophistic. I'm CC. You should. What's your zodiac sign? Leo, another first. Okay, and what's your favorite library to study in? I don't love libraries but the library will come and you'll like that one. What's your preferred lecture ball? I like being billed by everyone else. Billers are just a spider ball. Billers nice. I've never had a class in Campbell but every time I go in it's super pretty. Yeah, okay, Campbell. What does a Friday night look like to you? Once a year with my friends. And how much do you care about money? I care but I feel like as long as I have enough to take care of myself, I'm good and I'm able to express but not necessarily. Okay, yeah. And what's your relationship status? I'm also civil. Okay. Dingle a bunch here. I'm going to say I'm a mechanical engineer. I might have to like rearrange. Okay. CC by the way. What's your zodiac sign? I'm a Libra. Okay. And what's your favorite library to study in? I'm not huge on libraries as well but if I have to do a group project or something like that, probably Kresge because it's the most you can do just whatever. And what's your preferred lecture hall? Probably Jacobs. It's like the bougiest of all the Latin science as far as I can see. Yeah, okay. Okay. What does a Friday night look like to you? I didn't see for a while. Yeah, obviously studying and just going hard studying for midterms every Friday night without sleeping at 9.30 and not doing anything fun as my dad does say. Sweet. You're welcome mom. How much do you care about money? I think there's a lot more important things in life than money. You have to like live, obviously but beyond that I think it's more about what you do with your money that you don't need. Yeah. And what's your relationship status? Wow. Wow. I'm going to give you atmospheric science. There you go. I got to move before I see. Let me see. I think everything looks good. So you don't want to attend to the rearrange? I think I might switch these two. Okay. Um I think I'm just going to go with that one. I'm just going to switch. Lock it in. So now if your major is wrong switch with the right person. I don't know. Okay. Close. You're just going to close.


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Welcome to ongoing general election coverage by Town Meeting Television. This is one of our series forums. We're bringing you in advance of the general election in November. Town Meeting TV host forums with all candidates and covers all ballot items you will see on your November ballot. Town Meeting TV election forums introduce you to community decision makers and connect you with issues that shape your local community. If you're watching this live we welcome your questions on<PHONE_NUMBER> and you can watch live on Town Meeting TV on Comcast channel 1087 and Ballington Telecom channels 17 and 217 as well as online on youtube.com Town Meeting TV. Alright, without further ado I will introduce your candidates for tonight and they will then give us their opening statements. On my immediate right I have Tiffany Blumlee and I also have Gabrielle in the middle, Gabrielle Stebbins and then I have Tom Lakata and I will invite Tom to begin with his opening statement. You have a minute. Oh sure. So why I got involved in this race is because there's kind of an unspoken elephant in the room and a revolution is defined as a kind of change in government or substantial change in society or culture and that's what we're going through right now. Black Lives Matter, critical race theory. These are all Marxist in origin. The founders of Black Lives Matter are on tape acknowledging that. Critical race theory started out in 1989 at a Wisconsin convent. Richard Delgado and Kimberly Crenshaw are two of the progenitors of critical race theory and Richard Delgado wrote a book, Critical Race Theory, an introduction which I read and he says that he quipped how fun it was that a bunch of Marxists were in an old convent conjuring up critical race theory. So my two opponents here are they're very much in line with both critical race theory and Black Lives Matter and we have to have a really public conversation about that. It's being taught in our schools now, it's being taught in our government offices and it's really a rejection of our principles in both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as well. Thank you very much. Actually, I had you open your statement without reading you what the question would have been please tell us why you're running or your experience, the experience you bring to your position and what will be different and what would you do if you get this position. So you've answered it really well and so I will now invite Gabrielle. Thank you. Thank you. So it's been a real honor to serve south end of Burlington for the last two years. It's been a unique first term for both Tiff and I both because everyone in the building knew that we needed to work together to help Vermont through this pandemic and also because we had just unprecedented federal dollars coming our way. We were able to pass an 8.3 billion dollar balanced transformative budget that did not raise taxes and if a budget says what you care about in terms of policy, here are some of the things we care about. 138 million in community workforce and economic development to grow jobs, 92 million for affordable housing, 215 million for climate initiatives, 50 million for higher ed so that folks can actually rebuild our economy, 96 million for broadband, 114 million for water quality because we do need clean water, 26 million in long overdue increases for community health and social service providers, 40 million for public transportation and the list goes on. We did so much but we have so much more to do as a working mom of a 5 and a 12 year old. I know that we have a real opportunity to take the additional federal dollars coming our way through the Inflation Reduction Act and to make sure that we really address the key issues that I'm hearing from constituents which is making their lives more affordable, addressing public safety, addressing childcare, mental health considerations, education, how to change our high school with PCBs, economic development, climate change, those are the things I'm hearing my neighbors say they want us to work on and if you look at our track record, you can take a look at StebbinsforVT.com and you'll see what we've been up to. Thank you so much, Gripira and next we have Tiffany. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for the invitation to do this. I jumped in the race having never thought I would go into politics because we were in the middle of a pandemic and all of a sudden conversations started to change. We started to change the way we thought about who's essential as a worker, right? We understood childcare really as an economic lever and not just as an issue for individual families to try to figure out and I think we became way more aware than we ever have of just how many people lack housing and so your question was about what would change for people in the district and as Gabrielle mentioned, I think we passed an enormous number of pieces of important legislation over the last couple of years and so while in the state house, I think I'm most proud of having helped, you know, pass a pension deal that nobody thought was going to be possible. A thousand dollar child tax credit for middle to low income families with children under five, we put $92 million into housing and we passed two critical constitutional amendments but that's not all you do, we sit in Montpelier so I've worked with 35 households to help them get their unemployment insurance checks to resolve issues with the Department of Labor to find out who was dunning them for the $50 because they weren't identified and finally, you know, both Gabrielle and I have prioritized maintaining consistent relationships with people in the City Council, people on the school board so that we're aware of what's happening in our community so this is the work, I've loved it and been honored to do it and I hope I'll have a chance to do it again. Thank you. The next question is on education and we'll have Gabrielle answer this question. The Legislature can make impacts on how education is funded statewide. Do you see the need for changes to find how we fund education and how would you use your office to move changes forward? So one of the interesting things that I did not know when I actually got in the State House is my day job is as a clean energy expert for a firm based in Heinsberg that does a lot of national consulting and so I know a lot about that world but what you realize when you get in Montpelier is that your constituents come to you with issues and they say this is critical and so one of the things that I'm really proud about is the fact that I had several constituents come to me and say you need to fix how we have not updated how we weight what it costs to educate our children. We all know it costs more to educate a high school student if you need to have a chemistry lab or you need to be able to teach high level advanced placement mathematics or three different languages compared to like second grade but we had not updated those weights in 20 years so the Burlingtonian representatives and senators and many many others across the straight rural communities you name it worked together to make sure that we took care of the kids who had not yet for 20 years been getting what they needed. So out of that there was a lot of discussion about how do we pay for this. The system is way too complex. We have a lot of Vermonters who are land rich and cash poor and we really need to reassess that property based approaches. There is a bipartisan study group going on currently. The report's supposed to come out soon and I will definitely be reading that and looking into that. I do want to note that one of the things I've heard from a lot of neighbors is the concern about PCBs and how to pay for our high school. Standing at the polls in August there was a teacher there who said I know we need to get our kids out of Macy's but it is so expensive to pay our bills right now. So I am really looking forward to what Tiff said working with our city counselors, working with our school board, working with other Vermont school systems that are having their schools tested right now for PCBs and they're finding out that they're going to have a problem too. So we need to bring back school construction aid and a whole lot of things and I'm sorry I talked too much. Thank you. I'm done. You're okay. And I will ask Tom to respond. Sure. Right now primarily the school funding goes to teachers unions and the administration. It goes to teachers and then it goes to the Progressive Democrat Party. Over 90% of teachers in the unions money goes to the Democrat Party. It's almost like a syndicate right now. And the children and the families aren't really their last in line. So my funding solution would be to fund through families and parents and let them decide where they're children, what's best for their children. So school choice would be among my top issues and try to get the politics out of education. Thank you so much. And I will now allow... We worked in tandem on this question of school funding as it relates to the waiting. And so I don't have much to add to what Gabrielle said. I guess I want to... Your question was about funding. Right. And I think what I'd just like to say is that I think our schools are under tremendous pressures right now. And it's... You know, you look at the number of vacancies that exist. I think COVID has had an extraordinary impact on schools. The pressure on teachers and administrators has been phenomenal. And I'm married to somebody who runs a school and that is a... It has been exhausting for everybody. I think that we... There are teachers who are leaving not just because they are exhausted though but because they're afraid for their personal safety given this state's gun laws. And so given what has happened around the country. And I'm really proud of the work we did to shore up teacher pensions because it is a promise that we made and it is something that everybody could agree to. Even the administration reps until they didn't. Okay. I'm going to have you hold on to that because later on we'll be asking you a question about the gun laws. For right now, I will move on to the third question and I will have you begin by... It's on healthcare and by answering the following question. We know about the increasing cost of healthcare and what it's putting pressure on the Romanters and the state-wide economy. And I heard you mention about COVID and you know how it's sharpened our focus on inequities. And what do you think is the next thing for healthcare to do as far as changes in Vermont? And please be specific. Well, I'm not an expert in healthcare but I have tried desperately to learn as much as I can about it because I think it's one of the most critical issues that we face and it affects the budget in all kinds of ways. And the question is written really is about how do we reduce the burden of healthcare for families and individuals and so I'll start with my premise that that is that guaranteeing access to quality healthcare is one of the primary responsibilities of government and we've already affirmed this in creating Medicare, Medicaid and Dr. Dinosaur. And so I've had struggled to learn well, what can we affect in the state versus what is really a federal issue that we can't influence? And so here are a few things that we can do to try to lower costs in Vermont. First, we can create, we can reduce our reliance on traveling nurses and temporary personnel by creating the workforce that we need and the legislature appropriated money to do just that and we'll need to do more. We've got to start to move away from paying for procedures versus because that incentivizes the high cost procedures and it disincentivizes primary care, pediatric care, geriatric care. We're a small state and we don't have to have four hospitals that specialize in this kind of surgery or that kind of treatment. So we need to incentivize coordination and perhaps even asking hospitals to stop doing certain things. And then finally, we have to enforce some continuity in terms of pricing because as the state auditor said, you can pay either $4,200 or $2,600 or $1,600 for an MRI depending on where you go and that doesn't make any sense to me. This is obviously something that you're very passionate about but you're going to allow Gabrielle to respond and remember you have a minute and a half. Okay, so building off of what Tiff said, actually for the past five years we've been really looking at how to reform from what you were talking about procedures which another word for it is fee-for-service model to a value-based model in which providers are paid for for the health outcome. And I think we are seeing real progress in this area in terms of Act 167, which we passed this past year, to try and keep chipping away at what the challenges are. Unfortunately, we're still just chipping away at it. And in terms of how to address affordability, one of the things that viewers should definitely know is that for some of you, if you're, let me look at my notes, if you're purchasing through Vermont Health Connect or directly through MVP or BCPC or if you're uninsured, ARPA has subsidies based off of your income level to help you pay, to help you reduce your premiums. Again, federal support, not a tax increase for us Vermonters and really helpful for folks who are struggling. And the other thing is access that Tiff mentioned. And one of the things that we worked on going back to economic development is putting $12.5 million into nursing labs into trying to really boost more educational opportunities so that we can see a lot more public health providers out there as well as some changes in telehealth that we allowed for so that more people could get quicker and solid access to healthcare when they need it rather than waiting, waiting, waiting. Thank you so much for your response. And now I invite Tom. Okay, thank you. What was the question again? The question is about the increasing cost of healthcare and what the pressure it's putting on the Vermonters and the state economy. And we also talked about COVID and how it's sharpened our focus on inequities in healthcare. And so what do you think is the next thing for healthcare to do? What changes does Vermont expect to see? So it was several decades ago Vermont once had a plethora of insurance companies. They had a dozen, two dozen insurance companies. And then I think it might have been under the Howard Dean administration that Democrats put in all kinds of regulations and now we only have two or three substantial insurance companies. And because they're so small, essentially they're just administrative agents of the state. And so now we have more or less a state-run healthcare system. And if you would free up the healthcare market, bring in more insurers, bring in more competition, it's well known that competition brings prices down and it will bring quality up. So we need to deregulate the healthcare industry and not make it a monolithic government-run healthcare industry. Thank you. And now the next question is about criminal justice reform. And I will have you respond first and then Gabrielle will follow and Tiffany. Okay, and remember you have a minute and a half because we have a bunch of other questions. I've been good on time. Okay, so how does Chinden County address crime? And is there a problem with policing that needs reform? How would you address community safety? So those are three questions. Yeah, the problem isn't with the police, the problem is with the culture. The community policing was more or less doing well. And then it was probably the advent of the George Floyd murder followed by Black Lives Matter and Antifa and then critical race theory and the culture shifted. And so then they defunded the police, the progressive Democrats, these two young ladies here were behind that whole movement. And so now we have poor police morale, we have a lot less police. Prosecutors like the progressive Democrat, Sarah George, doesn't prosecute them anymore. Most of them are, many of them are not funded by George Soros. And so there's a whole culture shift that has to be turned around. And these are all again, I mentioned revolution in my opening statement and this whole movement is antithetical to our constitutional republic and it needs to be addressed. Thank you so much for your response. And now the floor is yours. Thank you. And to viewers, I really encourage you to look at our track record because much of what Tom is saying is inaccurate. So please check out Stebbins for VT, check out our voting records. Quite a bit of is inaccurate. I do want to say it was, I was glad to see the Vermont Criminal Justice Council that their work is working in terms of decertifying a Williston police officer who had quite a, quite clearly quite a long history of issues being rising up. I do want to say also that I've heard from a lot of neighbors that public safety is one of their top concerns right now. There are two things that you do to reduce crime. One is catching the criminal activity immediately, which you can only do if you have enough police officers. And two, making sure that there's a quick process through the courts. And our courts right now are really backed up. We have neither of those. So we do need to continue the work of the Vermont Criminal Justice Council, but we also very much need to support our public safety providers and enhance the system with mental health providers and address the substance use challenges as well as the housing challenges. Thank you so much. Well, I'll offer a little bit different perspective. So I've been involved in the criminal justice system for about 20 years at both ends. So Vermont works for women trained women to go into the field of law enforcement and we also offer training programs for women who are in prison. And so my perspective on this is informed by these different experiences and everything that I've read that is, everything that I've read suggests that communities are safer when there's economic opportunity, when people have access to quality health care, when there's access to education, when public spaces are well maintained. Now, aside from petty theft and property crimes, actually police statistics reflect a consistent downward trend in the number of violence incidences and in terms of the police activity. But what's gone up are mental health crises, requiring police attention as that's doubled since 2012 and the number of drug overdoses which has gone up 72% over the last two years. So if we feel unsafe, I think it's in part because the social safety net is fraying. And what can we do? We can address those very issues, particularly mental health and substance use. Okay, so they're related. Okay, thank you so much for your response. And now we go to question number five. And it's on the ballot issues. And I will begin with you, Gabrielle, to answer this question. And Tom will follow and you will follow. The question is two constitutional amendments. Constitutional Proposition Two and Proposition Five will be in front of the voters this November. Do you support or oppose? I support both of them. And I want to say that there unfortunately have been a lot of erroneous, completely not factual statements made about in particular Proposition Five. The exact word is that an individual's right to personal reproductive autonomy is central to the liberty and dignity to determine one's own life course and shall not be denied or infringed unless justified by a compelling state interest achieved by the least restrictive means. I do believe each of us should be able to make our own reproductive decisions. And with the change at the Supreme Court, this has become even more important. This proposal essentially will maintain the current status quo. We have not, nobody can have an abortion past 21 weeks and six days. The process goes through an ethics review. It only occurs if there's a fetal abnormality or if there's a maternal risk. So much of what you're hearing, please know it's inaccurate. And with regards to Proposal Two, you know, it's a loophole. We need to close a loophole which still allows slavery in Vermont. Thank you so much for your response. And Tom? Yeah. Article 22, the Constitutional Amendment, personal reproductive autonomy, what does that mean? It's deceptively vague and it was purposely written as deceptively vague. Gabrielle said we should have, we should have be allowed reproductive rights. Okay, so what about a man? The amendment doesn't mention a woman. The amendment doesn't mention abortion. So what if a man says I want that child? Does the court say that the man's reproductive rights surpass that of the woman? That is not what the language says. There are so many unwanted children that the man could definitely adopt one of the thousands of kids. So the man could stop the woman from having an abortion? The man can work with the woman. Can the man stop? That is not what the language says. It doesn't say he can't, though, does it? That is not what the language says. You know it's deceptively vague and you're kind of admitting it right now. No, I'm not. As well, the personal reproductive autonomy, could that mean that you could have human cloning? Could you have a three DNA child? Let's say a gay couple, two men want to have a child, and they have a surrogate mother, and right now the science isn't there. And so one of the men will have the DNA of that child, but what if it's possible in the future to have a three DNA child, the DNA from both of the men and the mother? Is that ethical? Should the people debate that? This constitutional amendment could supersede democracy. It takes the decision out of the people and it puts it into the courts. And that's why this very deceptive language will never reach the people. It will always be a decision of the courts and outside of democracy. Thank you for your response. I will give Gabrielle Patty seconds if she has something to say. If you do not, then we'll move on to Tiffany, please. I would love to hear what you have to say. Really, I don't think you're interpreting this language correctly. So I'll leave it at that. I think you and I agree on this issue that what we would be putting in the Constitution is in current statute. And the reason we're putting in the Constitution is that Congress right now is debating whether a bill that might limit abortion at, you know, 15 weeks. And that violates at least the principles that are in our own statutes. I fully support both. The constitutional amendment process is really deliberative. It takes five years from the time you start to work on it to getting it approved by two different legislatures. And then it goes to a public vote. So I feel that the people of Vermont will speak to this and I think they will support both of them. Thank you so much, Tiffin. I'd like to respond to that. Tiff said that the federal law may ban abortions after 15 weeks. And if they actually did that, the supremacy clause supersedes the Constitution. So that amendment would not have, would not have supremacy over the federal law number one. And then you said the, you said the amendment is already, is already a bill and it's not. That personal reproductive, I mean Act 47 allows unregulated, undetermined abortion right up to nine months. Okay? It does. And so this amendment isn't necessary because it's already law that you could have an abortion up to nine months, which is a monstrosity. You cannot have an abortion up to nine months. Yes, you could. No, you cannot. Yes, you can. That is the law. And that's what, and that's what the amendment says. Okay. Thank you so much. I, obviously this is not something that we can solve tonight. And I'd like to be able to cover the questions that we have on hand. So I'm sorry to just bring you back to the next question, which is actually something I'm very passionate about. And it's about the language access and I will allow Tiffany to respond first and then Tom and then Gabrielle. And the question is what is the value to Vermonters in supporting language access to information about health, local government, and education issues? Yeah. I loved that this question was included. It, I didn't fully appreciate prior to the pandemic how little the state has had invested really in translation in providing language support for immigrants who don't speak English as their first language and the role that the Language Justice Project provided in disseminating information about COVID. I thought, I mean it was remarkable and it happened so quickly and that opened my eyes as a campaigner because I thought, oh no, I need to find out what languages are spoken in our district so that our campaign materials could reflect that. The city of Burlington, 12% of residents speak a language other than English at home. We've adopted a language access policy as a city. The state needs to follow suit, I think. There were two bills and one in the House, one in the Senate. They didn't get a hearing. There was a lot going on last year. So I am hopeful that, well, I plan to be a cosponsor of a bill to do just that at the state level. Thank you so much. And who's next? Who? Okay. Which one? You can go Gabrielle. You can go. You know, we have so many Vermonters and so many programs welcoming refugees to our state who are becoming part of the economic fabric of our state from migrant farm workers to some of the teachers in my daughter's who, you know, she goes to school here in Burlington. We can't say please come. Please be part of our community and then not be able to communicate. And we have to decide which way we want it. Do we want a Vermont that is growing, that is economically diverse, and that is communicating both ways? Or do we just want to say welcome but then you're on your own? And I prefer the former. Okay. Thank you so much for your response. And Tom. Okay. I'm not familiar with the term language access. So maybe you could kind of interpret that for me first. What do you mean by language access? Perhaps one of you would like to respond. What do you think? Well, language access meaning giving people who don't speak English as a first language access to vital records, information about health, information about, you know, the city government and filing forms. Et cetera. It's not discriminating based on one's first language. Does that answer your question? Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, I would think firstly, I would think technology could solve a lot of it, right? There's, you could speak into a computer now and ask it to interpret that into another language. So I think that the technology should be there to do it. Okay. Thank you for your response. And now we move on to the next question. We don't have too much time. We have question seven asking about community access currently funded primarily by cable customers and revenue for community TV is in decline. How would you see the legislature supporting community access TV such as provides for this forum? So do you want a response? And then Gabrielle and then Tiffany. Oh, sure. Thank you. It's being funded right now through cable, cable revenue, correct? I'd have to look at the, I like to know that the viewership of this shows like this and see how many people are actually watching it. I would start there. And then in conjunction with that, I would look at the budget, the state budget and see if prioritize things like healthcare, criminal justice, media, et cetera. And make a decision from there. Thank you. Do you have a response? Yeah, I mean, having public opportunities to participate and listen to discussions like this is critical. And particularly as more and more people are getting their news from channels that aren't news like social media, it becomes even more important. I think there's a real opportunity to look at, you know, some of what we're seeing. We just had $94 million through broadband to look at how we start to develop longer term financial planning. The fact that the FCC voted to, you know, basically reduce over time what the cable expenditures would be to community access should be reassessed. And how can we re bolster that bigger picture? Understanding also that the digital age and how we communicate is changing. So when there is change, when there is market change, we're going to see new opportunities for new income streams. And that's one of the areas that I think we need to actually identify. And if the FCC isn't going to change their decision, then where are new alternatives coming from the new markets that we're seeing? Thank you so much. Tiffany? Yeah, I really, we haven't even talked about this, but I do agree with you about that. And so my dad had, there was a community access station in Arizona where we grew up and he was a lawyer and he did this thing called law talk. And he would present issues that would often be really, they would seem overly complicated to people who aren't lawyers. And he would explain certain things. And one day we were on the street and somebody came up to him and said, hey, I got to thank you for that, that session on, you know, contracts. And, you know, there were a couple of things that I was able to ask the question and I avoided a big problem. And I said, well, all of a sudden it dawned on me, wow, TV could serve a public purpose. You know, it never thought about that because it was entertainment to me. And this station and others like it have did that in COVID, they stepped up and you were the, you were our source of information. And our way into government meetings that by definition had to be on Zoom. And so I, yeah, we have to figure out the business model. Thank you so much. Next question is citizen legislation. And I'll begin with Tom and then you'll finish. All of the questions here in reflects complex system issues. And this year the legislature will see a big turnover in elected officials. Can a part-time citizen legislature in Montpelier do the job needed for Vermonters? Oh, I think so, yeah. If anything, I would shrink the amount of time legislatures are in office. We don't need to grow government. We need to shrink it. And we need to build out the private sector. Okay. And so civil society is defined as that space between the individual and government. So civil society comprises all the volunteer organizations, churches, civic organizations. And that's the part of our culture and society that we need to grow. And we need to shrink the government. Okay. Thank you so much. Gabrielle. Well, so we definitely, definitely need to maintain all parts of society. If it's, you know, businesses, if it's various civil society nonprofits. I do think, though, at the core of government is that we are supposed to have a three-part system of checks and balances. We have the judiciary branch. We have the administrative or the executive branch. And then we have the legislative branch. Right now Vermont is very off kilter. We have an executive or administrative branch. And it doesn't matter if you're Democratic or Republican with like 6,000 full-time employees. And then we have a legislature that's in session, volunteer, pretty much, I mean, like no staff, January to mid-May. And, you know, this worked when we were farmers. And all we had to do was milk our cows January to May. And there were like eight kids at home. And maybe you got one piece of mail by horse like once every six weeks. It doesn't work anymore. And which is why you heard me reference all of these studies and these reports. I do think challenges are becoming more and more complex. And I do think we do need a full-time citizen legislature and not citizen. Well, I think we need a full-time legislature. And, you know, one way we could do that to make sure we're not actually raising taxes is you cut it in half. I really, if Vermont wants to continue to see the thoughtfulness and the due diligence and to make sure that we actually have a balance of power across the three government branches, while also having for-profit businesses involved, nonprofit schools, then we do need to actually have folks who can do the job and focus full-time. As a working mom, it is very, very challenging to do this, but we need all voices. And if we want diversity, we've got to reassess the model. Thank you. Well, I was just going to say that diversity, I mean, study after study after study has determined that diversity in all groups, organizations is critical to high-functioning. You get the best results when you have a diversity of views and experiences and from which to draw on. And we're not going to get that in the current form. And we've had a couple of studies come out making recommendations that would, I think, help to diversify the legislature economically, economically, racially, and experientially. But we haven't been able to do anything about it. It's tricky for legislators to suggest paying legislators more or giving them health insurance or fill in the blank. So we have come almost to the close. And I think that it would be a good time for everyone to have a closing statement. And then we will be happy to close the session tonight. Really good discussions we had tonight. And let us begin with Tom with your closing statement. Oh, sure. So Tiff just mentioned how wonderful diversity is. Basically, in Montpelier, you have a monolithic party, a monolithic ideology, progressive Democrat. It leans heavily socialist. And so if you want diversity, you will not vote for either of these two young ladies and you'd vote for me. I would preen a different perspective. I have some private sector experience. I have some social service experience. And I view the world very differently if you watch this whole interview debate tonight. I view the world very differently than these two. And so I would bring diversity and a new kind of thought into Montpelier, because right now it's really a monolithic pool and it's not going to change until you stop voting for the progressive Democrats and bring some common sense back into Montpelier. Thank you. Gabrielle, talk about your priorities when you get into office and what are you going to do, what's the most important thing for you to do? So Vermont's a small state. 650,000 people or so are the size of Boston. We need to be strategic and wise about how we want to grow and how we want to support Vermonters in being able to live in an affordable, gorgeous state and being able to have health care access and child care. We have been very, very responsible passing balanced budgets without raising taxes. And I really encourage you to check the facts and look at my website, look at TIFS websites. And we do have some session reports that you can take a look at that show you actually factually what we've been up to. And I just want to say I currently work, you know, for a for profit I work in business. I've also taught violin students in underserved schools. I've done human rights research in South Africa. I've worked on water quality. I've been a park ranger. All of this is bringing diversity. And I think I want to say one more thing, which is there have been a few comments about socialism being bad. And the reality is we have roads. We have I-89 because we've all pulled our funds to work together. We have schools because we've pulled our funds. We have Medicare. We have Social Security because we've pulled our funds. So let's remember really when we work together, we do best. We have a minute for you. I don't think I need a minute. It's been a real privilege to better understand how things work in Montpelier. There is, we have robust arguments in our committees and on the floor all the time. And there is a diversity of opinions in Montpelier. And I certainly don't see the Democratic Party as being monolithic. There are times when we need to come together. The caucus almost always votes 100%. This is my turn. Yeah, thanks. Anyway, I hope that you'll give me another two years. And we'll keep in touch as you have been. Well, thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you all for coming in tonight. Thank you for tuning in to Town Meeting TV, which is the ongoing coverage of statewide and regional candidates and volunteer items. You can find this and more forums on www.ch17.tv. And don't forget to vote on or before November 8th. This year, ballots will be mailed to all registered voters in the state and to confirm you are registered. And we will be receiving a ballot at home. So visit the Secretary of State online portal at mvp.vermont.co. Thank you so much for watching and sharing Town Meeting TV. And if you're not already, please subscribe to our Town Meeting TV YouTube channel. Thank you so much and have a good night.


Today, I got back cards from PSA. What's up, guys? We're back with another PSA return video. And yes, these are always very emotional. Either we're angry, we're sad, we're very happy, you know, stuff like that. We do have a giveaway before we get into the emotion, though. I'll be giving away these three cards. All you have to do is like this video, be subscribed, and let me know your favorite card graded. What do you think about the grading process, all that stuff, because I know you guys have an opinion on this. First, we're gonna go to the part where I pre-graded every card in here. I think there's five total cards, and then we'll flash back to where we're actually opening. Let's check out these cards that we're gonna be grading. First off, we have the Serpent Night Dragon. You guys saw this in the mail video. It's been a while probably by the time you actually see this, because this will all be in the same video. But man, this card looks really nice, check it out. The front surface looks really good. The sintering looks pretty good. The back surface looks awesome. This guy has a potential PSA 10. I'm gonna predict that we get the PSA 10 on this thing. I think it deserves it. It's a pretty nice card. Let's leave it back up. Next, we have a Blue Eyes Tune Dragon. So if you look at the sintering on this one, this is not completely perfect. It's a little bit thicker on the left side. However, the surface looks really nice. The secret rare looks really nice. The back, oh wait, whoa, what is that? You guys see that? Oh, there's like a dent or something in it. Maybe we shouldn't grade this guy. I don't know, maybe we will and see what happens. I don't know, it would probably get, this is one of the things that would probably end up getting it like a six or a seven if you guys see that. Maybe we should test it out and just see what it gets. So it has a little bit of a dent in it. Nice secret, we'll find out. I can't tell if it's a dent or if it's just like a line. All right, so with that, honestly, I'm gonna predict, I think we're still gonna send it in just to sort of an experiment for fun. I think it's gonna get like a six to seven. My official prediction, I'm gonna go with six on this thing and we'll see if it comes through and is accurate. Next, we have a Thousand Dragon. This is faded, so it'll be interesting to see what it gets. Last time we submitted faded, we got a six on our gate guardian. We'll see if that happens again this time. There's a little bit of a splotch right there. You guys can see it's like not as faded right there. And then the rest of the card's pretty faded. So there is some silvering up top. I think that's probably gonna take off of it. Secret rear is pretty nice. Is that a little, what is going on over there? Maybe a little line right there. And then the back surface is pretty nice. So honestly, I'm gonna guess because it's faded, there is silvering. I'm gonna go with an eight, that's what I'm gonna guess. Next, we have a Time Wizard, another faded card. It's gonna be interesting to see how they grade these. On this side, there's a little bit of splotching right there. You guys see that? Not sure exactly what's going on there, but the faded stuff often has some weird stuff going on with it. The back surface is pretty nice. I think that, okay, we get those off. The back surface looks pretty good. Overall, this card's pretty nice. I think it's gonna get a nine due to whatever is going on right there with those dots. And also it's faded, so I think nine is what we're looking at. I'm gonna go with nine unless they knock it down to an eight because it's faded. And finally, we have the one and only Secret Rare Genzo. The sintering is a slightly off. It's still not too bad on this guy, so maybe he has the chance at 10 sintering. Secret, the surface looks good. Secret Rare looks awesome. The back looks pretty good. Pretty nice. Trying to see if I can get everything. There's a little bit of a spot right there. I don't know if I can get that off. All right, I'm not sure exactly what that little dot is, but it doesn't seem to be coming off, so we have a pretty nice surface other than that.  I don't think it should be any lower than that. It could possibly even squeak out the 10. It's a pretty nice condition in Genzo first edition. So we will see what we get in this same video, so stick around. All right, guys, you guys saw what I predicted for the cards. They were all in pretty good shape. Some of them better than others, so let's see if we can get some pretty nice grades here. I don't know, can we, can we not? Sometimes we get good stuff, sometimes we don't. It can be a little tricky opening this up. And here's my PO box, by the way. Yeah, don't worry, that's my PO box. And that is in the description if you guys are looking for it. Let's remove the cards. Five card order. So it looks like PSA is sleeving all the cards now from now on, and this was an express order. It wasn't the super express where you get the nice sleeve. They're kind of a crappy sleeve, but still a good start. I think, which one do we start with? So the first one, is that gonna be the serpent knight? We're about to find out, I don't know. No, that's the Genzo. Let's save that for last. Okay, let's go. Genzo last. Let's take these out of the little sleeves because we want to be able to see everything, see what we think about the grade.  I think all of these, where did these come from? Might've been from a collection, I can't remember. Let's check out the back. The back, we're gonna check out every inch of these cards. You guys know how we do it. Sometimes people are like, hurry up and show the grade. I'm like, just use the skip button. That's the best thing to do if you don't like what we're doing here. But I like to check them all out. I know a lot of you guys like to check it all out and see if we think the grade was fair and all that stuff, so that's a little scuff there. This card looks pretty nice. Is this a serpent knight dragon? The serpent knight dragon was nice. Yes it is. The serpent knight dragon was really nice. How's the centering look here? Pretty good. Pretty good, it's slightly faded, which is cool. I love this card. I do not own this in PSA 10. I did sell one of these for a guy though. I kind of wanted to buy it, but I was like, we have this one, maybe we shouldn't. Let's see, what do we think? The corners here, I mean, this card looks good. I think I predicted a 10 for this. Here we go. Yes, we did get a 10. Yes, so now I have the blue eyes tune dragon and the serpent knight dragon. I thought this was a really, really good candidate. This card looked really, really good. The values are not crazy on this card compared to like blue eyes tune. I think it's around like a thousand dollars. I could be wrong. It'll pop up on the screen, you guys will know. But I think this was well worth sending in. Okay, a good start. We love to see that. I thought that was probably the strongest card I graded, so there's a good chance that could be our only 10. Hopefully not, because I think these are all in pretty good shape, but we're about to find out. I think they're still in order. So the back corners, wow, that is a sharp corner there. That looks good. That looks good. That looks good. Oh man, okay, service is very hard to tell within the case, but I know all these services are really nice. So we have, ooh, the blue eyes tune. How's the centering on it? If anything's gonna do it in, I think it may be centering. It's not that bad actually. It's not that bad. A little bit of a fade on this one. Let's check the corners. That corner looks good. We'll see if the corners look any different because I think I checked out the corners in the pre-grade as well.  That looks pretty nice. Surface looks pretty good. You guys will have seen a much better look at the service in the pre-grade. Let's see. Do we miss something? No, was this the one that we found something and we're like, uh, yeah, I think this, well, I hope it was this one. I think we found something and we're like, wait, is that a ding in there? The pre-grade, you guys will have seen it.  It's been like a couple of three weeks ago, I think when I sent these. Maybe there was a little thing on it? I can't remember. I can't remember. So I'm just gonna assume that that was okay. Six, oh man. If there actually was a dent, it makes sense, but ooh. That's painful. That's painful, a little painful. That's okay. We already do have that in 10. So not like the biggest deal ever, but there's always a six. Every time there's a six. Or on to the next one, who cares? We're moving past it. All right, so we got that corner, that corner. Man, that card looked minty too. So I must have like a ding or something. Wait, whoa. Wait, what is that? Is that a ding or is that a, is that the sleeve? You guys see what I'm talking about? I gotta look at it in the other light. You guys see that? I can't tell if that's a sleeve. It could be the sleeve, I'm not sure. This is over the thousand dragon. I remember that this one was not perfect. It did have something going on with it. Maybe that's what it was. The top, the edge, maybe like slight whitening there. Corn is like decent. I feel like this could get like really low because it's a faded card.   Let's see, I, eesh. Okay, I don't know what this is gonna get. I hope it's really nice, but we'll see. A nearmint's mint eight. I actually think I predicted an eight. I think I predicted an eight on this. So that seems pretty fair because it is fate. I mean, I wouldn't say fair, but I understand why they did it because with the fate, I think there was a couple of things on the surface. That's probably why I got the eight. This card is really nice looking though. I really, they just a nice display card. So okay, not too upset with that one, but I think I understand why it got an eight. Two more cards. I know we have Jinzo obviously. We saw that earlier. I don't remember what the other card was. What was it? Time wizard, it was time. Oh, I think it's faded too. So we'll see if they give it an eight too. I hope not. I don't have a time wizard PSA 10. So that would be a card that I would love to have, especially this coloring. It's going to be tough. They don't often grade these faded cards as 10s, which a lot of people will say, oh, they shouldn't, but this is actually how they came out of the pack. The factory had low ink. You know, it's actually a known thing and it happens with a lot of metal raiders cards, a couple of LOB and some other ones around there, but a really beautiful card. The surface is great on this card. The sintering is a little off a thing. I honestly, with how they graded the other one, I think that we have a chance of getting an eight. I would hope that it's better than that, but we'll see. Nine, okay, that's not bad actually. That's not bad. If this was not faded, I bet I would get it 10, but I think the fading really does factor into what they think about it a lot of the time. But man, that is a sweet nine. I will take that. I don't actually own this in a PSA nine or eight or anything actually. So I might actually keep this one for the collection or just go, I think I might keep a thousand. Because a lot of people are interested in those. I got to decide if I want to sell them or not, but man, that time wizard looks really good. Okay, on to the Genzo. So far, we've gotten a 10, nine, eight and a six. So let's hope that this is not a seven. It's just another 10. Let's get our first repeat as a 10. So, okay, top left, top right. Hopefully that's on the case it is, okay. And then bottom left, surface appears to be really good from what I can tell. Let's go like this. And well, okay, sintering looks pretty good.  Secret Rare looks good. Beautiful, beautiful card. We love to see that. Genzo PSA, what is it? Nine, 10? I don't know, I have not looked. So hopefully it's a 10. Hopefully it's a 10. Okay, let's see if we can see anything on the surface. Looks pretty good. I don't remember what the pregrade was. It's gonna be hard to get a 10 on this because oftentimes when they have the big cards, it seems like less likely to get 10. Let's see. Mid nine. Oh, okay. Okay, we got a nine on this one. That means at least it wasn't like a six or something. And I still, the sintering is definitely not perfect on this card. So that is, if you guys check down here to here, it actually goes off-sinnered pretty badly. So I think that that's pretty fair grade based on the sintering. I think the rest of the card is very minty though. Just a really good one. I still have my 10. So I don't need another 10 theoretically, but very, very good card. Pretty good return overall. We did get a new card in my collection, PSA 10. So I'm extremely happy about that. We got a nine. We got this card.  The card looks absolutely awesome. We got this, looks awesome as well. And then mystery with this one, but I'm pretty sure I maybe found something in the pregrade that's winging a bell. I'm not sure if it's true or not. Hope you guys enjoyed this PSA return video. It's always fun to see these cards come back and hopefully I'll be able to grade more when they lower the prices. So hit that subscribe button if you wanna see more. Shout out to TCU, trusty cards, Tonefo show, Tomato Juice, Noah J. Stanley, Mike Nance, maybe Gekko, Duelist Kingdom cards, and Spanky McFarland. Thank you guys for supporting the channel and I'll see you guys next time. Peace.


Vicky La, everyone. My name is Alexander Emig, alias AI24 and I'm displaying now my presentation. Hopefully in presentation mode. I don't read every slide. I don't want to exceed 10 minutes. So if you want to read the slide, you can of course pause the video and read the slide. Linguistic diversity, is it at the core of the Wikimedia? Partly yes, partly no. Yes, of course, as Singapore shows. And I want to show, with using Singapore as an example, as starting point, how diversity, linguistic diversity can be managed. The background is research I did with my research partner, Gyptangelo, looking at bachelor final thesis texts of Japanese students for CS students. And one student had the topic, Crazy Rich Asians. And it's very interesting to see why she chose this topic. She writes, I've been to Singapore twice and I was deeply impressed by how it succeeded as a multicultural country. Thus, I thought there would be a lot to learn, but how to succeed in a multicultural world. She looked in the film and of course the characters are very important. She analyzed my five characters, but three are in the main here. Rachel Chu, the main character, Nicholas Yan, her lover, potential husband, and Eliana Yan, the mother of Nicholas Yan. That is the scene where Rachel meets her potential mother-in-law for the first time. And some of the tensions are also displayed here and also the differences in language. For the students, Rachel was the eloquent intercultural speaker. While Eleonore was in traditions and couldn't break free. And I think that is too short because there's a development in the film, of course from Rachel, but also from Eleonore. And important are two parts, a margin game and a ring. The ring is actually the engagement ring of Eleonore and she loves it. She wears it constantly and it's a beautiful ring, not this one. It's for a couple of reasons I couldn't use this ring from the film. And the game, at the end of the film, Eleonore and Rachel meet each other somewhere accidentally. And they have a margin game with two other players when they're displayed. And they talk about their different life philosophies. And for Eleonore, the family, especially the education of kids, is the center while Rachel thinks that profession is also very important, equally important. And for me, it's very difficult to say who won actually this margin game. Maybe Rachel, but I don't play margin. But Rachel did, of course, hold a ground. And at the end of the film, a very comical scene, Nick asks Rachel again. Rachel had turned Nick down before the margin game. But then Nick is persistent and asks Rachel again the end of the film. And Rachel refuses again with the same arguments. But Nick says, please listen to me 30 seconds. And then he shows the ring. And that is Eleonore's ring. And this means Eleonore changed her mind. She agrees with the marriage. And that is, of course, Hollywood happy end. And here the mediated tools, mediation tools are the ring, of course, and the margin game. The margin game, which shows displays the Chinese background. Not very deep, but the game itself is deep, but it shows it more. And the ring is, of course, a symbol for marriage. And there are more and more deeper research about mediation. But I only want to show how it can work. And, of course, mediation is also done at Wikimedia in 2023. And this displays the potential t-shirt. I hope I will find time to make one. And that is also mediation. It shows common ground for all of the participants. And that is important for networks. Also for networks inside the Wikimedia, like EZEP is one. Networks need stories. While institutions have a more fixed, constant rhetoric. That's not from me. It's ATY, the reddit in control. And we, as EZEP participants, need common stories. And this storage can also be created, interestingly, also through research. And that was only, yeah, I wanted to show how this could be done using Singapore and also, of course, Wikimedia as a research tool, as a background for doing this. I hope it was somewhat interesting. Thank you very much. See you around.