So, let us discuss now the first mechanism which is advection or sometimes is also known as convection. So, you consider a control volume at time t word there is a solute which is available in the control volume. As time t naught becomes t 1 and from t 1 to t 2 this whole control volume of the contaminants gets a place shift or it moves from one point to another point. So, this is how it shifts from one point to another point to another point. Now, this is the phenomena which is known as advection that means, the solute or the contaminant gets transported because of what? Because of the seepage or the seepage velocity along with the flowing fluid which could be water in response to a gradient and this gradient is nothing, but hydraulic gradient. So, if this is the case you are talking about advection or convection normally this type of mechanisms are defined by v s equal to k into i by porosity. What is v s here and what is eta or porosity? So, if you divide v by porosity v is the discharge velocity divided by the porosity it becomes your seepage velocity. So, which velocity will be more discharge velocity or seepage velocity seepage velocity. So, seepage velocity is higher than discharge velocity. Now, if a mass of solute and please note that this solute happens to be non-reactive. What is the significance of non-reactive? It has no affinity towards porous system clear. It has no affinity towards porous system. So, it simply migrates through it without stopping anywhere without changing its own form. Better word would be without changing its own form. So, form includes concentration also clear. So, if a mass of solute which is non-reactive it is a passive contaminant of a concentration C is placed at one end of a pipe or a control volume then in a given time it will travel a certain distance as a plug. Now, this is what is known as a plug let me without losing its entity or identity or the control volume of the surfaces it simply keeps on migrating from one place to another place to another place due to advection process. So, these are the attributes of the advection mechanisms. Now, the challenge is to find out the transit time. How much time it will take to move from one place to another place to another place that means, how do you obtain T 1 and T 2 and so on. So, the transit time required for a non-reactive solute to migrate through a saturated soil of thickness L would be what L upon V s. So, if you know the distance if you know the V s it can simply work out it is time is this part clear. Now, suppose if I change the word the transit time required for a non-reactive solute to migrate through a unsaturated soil then what is going to happen that means, your in your logic the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity will be more or saturated hydraulic conductivity will be more why it is so that is right. So, you are correct for unsaturated soils the value of k would be much smaller. So, if value of k is much smaller what happens for time the time becomes much more what is the meaning of this. This is useful for engineers or not useful for engineers when you are dealing with unsaturated soils. Suppose the contaminant transmits itself from point A to point B when the aquifer happens to be saturated the time taken is less and saturated when this system happens to be unsaturated time taken from 1.1 is a point moment is much much higher clear. Now, this is where I had told you sometime back that if you are dealing with unsaturated soils you need not to go for barrier systems provided you have characterized your soil mass very precisely and you know what is the hydraulic conductivity of unsaturated state of the soil mass and that is where most of us are trying to study unsaturated hydraulic conductivity of the soil mass ok. So, this is where the deviation is from classical geomechanics to unsaturated soil mechanics because most of the deposits most of the aquifers in nature are unsaturated what are tables are pretty deep. So, most of the contaminant transport is going to take place in unsaturated soils not in the saturated soils. This is part clear exactly because hydraulic conductivity of unsaturated soils is much much less. So, that means, the contaminant transport from one place to another place would be very slow because hydraulic conductivity itself is very slow, but suppose if you are not using the correct hydraulic conductivity which is unsaturated hydraulic conductivity what is going to happen you are going to over predict the phenomena which is not going to take place in nature ever. So, that is the reason people are now shifting from classical geomechanics to unsaturated soils where they want to establish all the properties to most precise state of the material which happens to be unsaturated clear. Now, a very long thinking here would be if your waste has enough energy thermal energy and if this migration is taking place through the porous system what is going to happen a saturated porous media may get altered into unsaturated state of the material. Now, this is what is known as a coupled phenomena that means, heat is migrating moisture is migrating even vapors may also be there. So, a lot of coupled mechanisms are going to take place simultaneously and I always like to give an example of the people who are working in the field of petroleum engineering where they try to take out petroleum from the deposits clear. Now, these deposits are mostly saturated in nature water saturated. So, that means, you think of a situation where the flow of gas is taking place and a fluid of different density is taking place through water saturated porous media. Till now you have been talking about only seepage through saturated soil mass consolidation through only saturated soil mass compressibility of saturated soils and so on, but then when you talk about the natural processes or more complicated processes where coupled mechanisms become essential for consideration. This is partly did you follow or not. So, you think of doing a consolidation test where the gas permittivity should be obtained from saturated clays. How easily gas is going to migrate through the saturated clay deposit alright. Now, my question to you is where you are going to do this type of an equation in real life modeling. Can you think of a situation where by simply obtaining B as porosity of the material if you know the k value what wonders you can do for the society just by using this equation. Ultimately what is the whole idea of studying the transport mechanisms at a given distance l after certain time t how much contaminant is going to get migrated which happens to be non reactive in nature. So, by using simple equations I can give the answer that down the line in terms of time or in terms of distance what type of environmental deteriorations are going to take place because of some industrial activity. Now, this is where what you have studied in your undergraduate can I model k layers of soil mass either in parallel or series. So, I can find out k equivalent of the ground or the sub soil I can use this in this model and I can work out the time or distance regarding a given situation. Of course, the condition is that the contaminant is transport is taking place just because of advection flow of water and contaminants happen to be non reactive they are not going to lose their entity. So, the scope of even advection analysis is also quite big. Now, this is what the real modeling is what a hydro geologist will be doing is there any way of measuring V s how would you measure V s under in situ conditions you cannot you cannot measure why do not measure it then you do not require to measure it you can get the equivalent porosity you can get the equivalent permeability you know what type of hydraulic gradients are acting and then you can find out the time for a solute to travel a distance L or vice versa is this partly. So, you need not to talk about or determine V s as such because V s gets nullified. So, V s is not a very important parameter there, but suppose if somebody is after you and he says no you have to find out V s how would you obtain under in situ conditions under in situ condition how would you obtain V s can you obtain K under in situ condition yes or no in situ hydraulic conductivity how would you measure how would you measure which test should be done Packers test Packers yes. So, you perform a simple Packers test and you can get the K value now if you know the K value if you know the hydraulic gradient you know the porosity you can work out V s that is right clear. So, either pumping in or pumping out test you can do to get the Packers permeability ok good. So, though it seems to be very simple, but applications and implications are tremendous is this part clear it is used for any deposit under in situ conditions of course, then by bore logging you should find out whether you have obtained the hydraulic conductivity or the discharge for a subsystem which contains soils or rocks. So, it depends upon if you can characterize the substrate the values which are going to get are nothing, but corresponding to that. Now, just to give you an idea about the representative values for effective porosities all soils clear would show you a very wide range of porosity 0.2 to 0.01 that is 1 percent to 20 percent approximately do you agree with this data or you think that this is not very correct. So, I think you can understand what is G C G P G M G S as W S P S M and S C M L M H what about this C L O L C H O H P T. What is P T? Peats O H organic soils of high high plus T index. So, as you transform from this to this state of the material what happens to the porosity this answers your point that there could be some dead ends and all in the materials which are fine grained. So, what is the meaning of this? It indicates that for these type of soils definitely you have to do micro structure analysis otherwise your porosities and the permeabilities may not be very correct because you have already studied that there will be meso micro and macro pores micro macro and meso pores in the fine grained material. Now, for rocks if you talk about the non fractured rocks and the fractured rocks there could be a situations where you can find out this type of range. The fractured rocks minus fractures highly fractured material. However, non fractured materials can also give you 15 percent of porosity. What is the porosity of basalt? Approximately granite, granite would be of the order of 8 to 10 percent basalt can be 15 to 20 percent, chocks would be 15 to 30 percent, sedimentary rocks will show you high porosities 25 to 40 percent and so on. So, this is a sort of a very rough indication of the state of the material and the corresponding porosity. Yes please I told you minus fractures minus fracture that means, though it is very fractured rock mass, but when you talk about see that is what actually I have been trying to tell you all the time. When you talk about the porosity if you include the fracture that becomes fracture porosity you are not talking about fracture porosity as at all. Most of the fractured rock masses will be very very less pervious, their porosities will be very less because of the weathering process alright. So, because of the weathering process what you will find is there will be fractures in the system which may attribute to overall porosity, but not at the micro level. So, this is a chart which is normally used for obtaining the effective porosities of the materials. Now, the question is how would you obtain the advective flux? So, it is very easy advective flux would not be J which is the mass of a fluid which is flowing through a unit cross sectional area in a unit time and this is nothing, but the discharge velocity multiplied by the concentration, where else you use this type of equation apart from geomechanics. Have you ever used this mass balance equation for determining something apart from geotechnical engineering v 1 into C 1 equal to v 2 into C 2 sorry cleared fluid mechanics exactly that is right, but v 1 into C 1 equal to v 2 into C 2 you have used in fluid mechanics for determining what for finding out the discharge through open channels. So, if you want to find out the discharge in an open channel what you do you take some salt put it here and down the stream at a distance you must measure the concentration if you know the concentration you know the v 1 v 2 and you can work out the discharge. So, that is the utility and you know beauty of this equation symbol equation. So, it is nothing, but the mass balance. So, velocity multiplied by concentration will give you now in geomechanics how we can extend this further we can use v equal to k into i and k into i into C is nothing, but your total mass flux. So, from one point to another point if your mass flux is moving what is the significance of this you think of a situation where your falling head test is replaced by a solution of sodium chloride which is permeating through the soil mass is this clear. Now, what I want to ask you is after certain time at the middle of the sample what is the concentration of sodium chloride it is not less or more what I am saying is if I want to ask if I want to determine how would I find it out. So, you have k into i into C you know what is the hydraulic gradient acting between the first half and the second half of the sample is this clear what is unknown is C. So, till now you have been plotting I variation with this sample you agree or no delta H upon L the variation is linear. Similarly, you can plot the variation of concentration within the soil sample the one end is exposed to 100 percent concentration of sodium chloride which is permeating into the soil sample. So, my question to you was what is the concentration variation of sodium chloride within the soil sample of length L is this clear you know hydraulic conductivity the same test which we have been doing to obtain k can be done just by replacing ordinary water with sodium chloride solution. You can take out the sample of the soil mass or the porous media you can slice it and find out the concentration of chloride ions at different depths and then you can do the profiling you need not to do this even if you use mass balance k into i into C at first point equal to second point equal to third point. You know the variation of hydraulic conductivity you know the variation of i you know the C values from the boundary conditions and you can draw the variation of concentration. Is this part clear most of the problems which are encountered in day to day life are being modeled by using these simple equations impact analysis of certain in activity on the environment.


Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome. This is Melissa Armel with Stocks. What should I'm here to review the spy? I wanted to take a look at the spy here today because we had a gap up this morning. And as you know, I trade and read gaps. So let's take a look at it. We closed here with the red body bar today, actually. So we had follow-through, which we really needed to see. And the way that we closed on Friday, we had to have follow-through up in here. Or we were gonna come all the way down in here. So actually, the fact that we closed with the red body bar today, bearishly in the look of the candlestick of the bar, this actually was a bullish move for the market overall in the day. Because if we had not done this, we would have continued to fall and proceed all the way down into this area. So I know it doesn't look great the way we closed, but the fact is this is bullish, okay? Because we closed on Friday at 206.52. We did exactly what we needed to do, which was to gap up, and it was a decent size gap up. And it was like $2.25. And this isn't a gap that I would have gone long. I mean, I wouldn't have gone aggressively long this gap. So this isn't like an intraday long here at all. But in the overall chart, this gap today cemented and just continues to confirm that we are in fact higher. It's a beautiful gap that just came into support and did a little teeny weeny, sell off on the intraday into the support. Let me just see where we closed. Yeah, so it's like 60-some cents. We held in the 50-pray moving average right in here. So once again, we're waiting, waiting, waiting. When are we gonna get up over the high? Nobody knows. Here it is. It's June 20th. I certainly thought that we would do this long ago. The way we started the year, though, when we dropped is just taking us a while to get up on over the high. The move up here actually happened very quickly. When we retested in February and bounced up and ran up here, it was almost like a vertical move. But then ever since then, it was about mid, actually, look at this, 420. April and May made a June two months. So for two solid months, we've been in this back and forth area. It looked like we were gonna get up over the high here beginning in June. I thought we would, but then we didn't. And when we came into here then, we just didn't continue higher immediately. So we'll have to see what we do now the next week. We got this week and we got next week until the July 4th holiday. Could we get up over the high before the end of the month of June? Absolutely yes. We got plenty of trading days left for that. Anything could happen. We got some big reports out Wednesday, Thursday, Friday this week that could move the market. And the fact that we gapped up today, I mean, this is just bullish. It's bullish. So I wouldn't have gone long intraday this at all. It just was a bad gap to play long intraday. But on the overall trend, it's the support, it's holding, it looks beautiful. It was a bullish gap that just confirmed that we're following through to the upside. I don't think we'd pull it down here. I never thought we would have, but we could have. It just would have taken us longer to get over the high. This looks good for the week to follow through in here. So I don't know where we open tomorrow. It's like a weird look here to this. We could just open neutral tomorrow, just rallying the live day up and then follow through. That would be the nicest thing for us to do. And then you could go along the market actually aggressively tomorrow. Today was not a day to do that. Have a great day, everyone. Email me at melissa at thestockswish.com. If you'd like more information, watch the spy. We could hit up on over the high and make a brand new all-time high before the end of the month. We got time to do it. But we're definitely holding and it's gonna happen soon. Soon! Have a great day, everyone. If you're interested in the Golden Gap class, it's this weekend, June 25th and 26th. Email me at melissa at thestockswish.com if you'd like to learn my method on gaps. It's the reason that I predicted this market so beautifully to continue to rally. And gap up like I did today. Have a good day, everyone.


Maxime, a smooth win with the black pieces. A good start to the trade-vice abroad chess festival. Yeah, definitely. I mean it's never easy to start a tournament with black.  But I managed that well today and at some point in the middle game, I managed to make him collapse and his position became very dodgy. Especially in such events, the first rounds are always a little jittery, full of accidents? Well, there are some accidents happening today, definitely. I know a few people who have made draws, I don't know if any of them lost. But yeah, I mean, our opponents are very strong players. Of course, they're not top of the top, but it's always a challenge to beat them. And in such an event before your first game, how much time do you spend in preparation? Well, honestly, the most important is to arrive at the game fresh. So, I mean, preparation is mostly about trying to find the lines that I like best to take my opponent out of his preparation. And if I manage that, then I'm pretty confident during the game. So, it's basically looking at his games, trying to find his weaknesses and sort of simply choose the line and refresh it in my mind. Right, very important advice to stay fresh. And we were talking to a Cobian earlier, and he said the same thing as you, that it's kind of important to get your opponent out of preparation.  You did that quite successfully, and then with the black pieces seemed to outplay him. Yeah, that was the general idea. But I mean, still, there were some points where it was not easy at all. And, you know, with a few great moves, I think he could have equalised at some point. But yeah, he needed those great moves. Right, well, congratulations on your first round win and we wish you all the best.


Okay, I want to welcome everybody to our Thursday, April 15th community chat. Today we have our special guest Amherst Recreation Director, our bills joining us. Welcome Barb and thank you for being here. Thank you for inviting me. Before we launch into questions for Barb and hear a little bit about her work in the recreation department. I'm going to allow your town manager to give a couple quick updates. Thanks, Brianna. So, well, since we're here with recreation, I want to lead with the congratulations to UMass hockey team for the being the NCAA men's hockey champions. Now they can't be a parade because that's not permitted under under the governor's guidelines at this point there they did when they arrived back on campus there was a jubilant reception for them. And I think the university is looking at some major celebration in September. And along those lines, it looks like all three of our institutions are looking to reopen as close to normal as possible come September. And so I think that's really good news for us. It speaks to the level of vaccination that's happening throughout the country and in our area. And also that, you know, our team at the banks community center has continued to run vaccine clinics I think we've done over 3000 vaccines so far. We do about, you know, it's meant we do as many as we get the vaccinate vaccine for it and we don't get enough supply and university also runs a clinic so if you're looking for a clinic they open their clinics at four o'clock on Fridays. So that's my quick update for today. Great. Thank you Paul I'm just gonna take a quick moment to remind our live attendees who are in zoom and also those on Facebook live. Please feel free to ask your questions and zoom you can put it into the Q&A or raise your hand we'd love to hear from you live. And then for those watching on Facebook live just put a comment into the stream and we will ask your question as well. So without further ado, Barb, would you mind introducing yourself. Hi everyone I'm Barb bills and I'm the director of the Amherst recreation department. I've been in that position for a little over the four and a half years now. And I, before that served as a program director when I first started and then moved up to the assistant director for the department but certainly it's been a very rewarding at their work for the town now for 21 years so it's been an extremely rewarding experience and especially these last four and other so as director so we really proud of where we've we've come and you know I will be I will be retiring shortly in May as well actually June but my last day will be May 12. So, I'm looking forward to that a new chapter in my life but also very proud of what we've been able to accomplish in the last four and a half years and we can talk more about that as we go on. Recreation director apartment that just rolled off your tongue like you've been saying that all along but that's brand new right. It is yes. Well as part of our strategic plan I'm sure that a lot of you are aware that the department went through a pretty extensive process and was facilitated by the Donahue Institute out of UMass, where we went to did a very strategic plan and now we have a good three year. If you will map for the future. And one of the things though that did come out of that strategic plan is that we should change our name and we got a lot of community input. And all of the aspects that we dealt, dealt into and investigated but the name change really rose to the top so we took care of that right away and we became Amherst Recreation. Officially a few months ago where it was approved by town by the town manager and town council was made aware of that I guess. So you're not still saying LSE like me. No, it's hard to get over that though, you know, I'm I'm I've been reminding everybody anytime they drop the LSE by accident and I've been putting in a plug for recreation even if I'm guilty of it. It's interesting I've had some meetings with the schools and everyone and it's just rolls off their tongue as well. They just completely have not used LSE any more just I find fascinating. So it's a good thing. That's a testament to how much sense it makes to have that be the name if it. Yeah, if it was easy to transition. So if you have attendees feel free to raise your hand or pop your question in here in the Q&A function I do see a number of Amherst Rec staff in here so feel free to raise your hand so we can bring you in and maybe you can say something about your time working with Barb or some of your I know we've we've been last last summer was a little bit different than this summer so can you talk about how you know spring and summer programming will look this year and maybe starting with youth sports and day camps. I think we're fortunate this year to be fairly close to where we have been in past years you know last year we had to make a number of accommodations but this year we'll be bringing back our day camps or summer youth sports programs. And we'll have activities for kids, you know at the golf course. Certainly the outdoor pools will be up and running, but there'll be COVID restrictions in place. The numbers that will be allowed to have in the day camps for instance will be less than we normally would be operating at about 50% less. And the outdoor pools were still not to the point where we can offer swim lessons but possibly later in the summer depending on you know how the state and how things you know they're their regulations what they put into place, and then how things are looking so we're hopeful. And the spray park should be up and running in June, which is exciting I know everybody is looking forward to to getting out there and enjoying graph park and the new playground in the spray park which is just terrific. And we'll be doing adult and youth education programs. Again, most of those will occur outside outdoors in different areas throughout town but things like yoga. Let's see we have the the Sandlot baseball program and those kinds of ones so we'll having that we're also going to introduce this year we're going to have an arts program for kids that it's an arts and science program. And that'll be happening as well and again those will be limited numbers because of our COVID restrictions but our staff has done a tremendous job I think of adapting and creating safe environments for children and and our other participants are adult programs that we have run so we've got good experience behind us and so we're moving forward and looking and looking forward to to offering all kinds of activities for the community. Are you seeing a bigger appetite for participants now you know coming into to the spring and the vaccine being rolled out do you feel that people are banging down your doors for activities or how is that looking. So what we found I think it's in the day camps particularly we've opened those up for registration and those are filling up quickly so there's clearly a need out there, whether it's childcare or kids just wanting to experience some socialization as well as recreation activities. So it's, yeah, I would say the demand is is going to be higher than normal this year and I think people understand that the numbers are limited. Again we're going to be operating some of these programs that 50% of what we normally have would have run them at. So there's one thing that I do on the on the regular is monitoring what people are searching for on our websites and it's you know seasonally it's always programs that have to do with Amherst recreation so this time of year, even now. Once we have that first warm day people are searching for pools and cherry hill so what will the pool schedule be the same as it has been in years past or will it be different or you guys still deciding on that. So we had a we had a pool schedule set we're going to open up Mill River pool earlier than normal. We're going to open that up on June 19. Again we won't have the swim lessons but we'll have a very similar schedule to what we did last year so we'll have lab swimming from let's say 10 to one and then open swim from one to 730pm we're going to go a little bit later into the evening. You know we understand that parents like you know they'll come home from work they want to take the kids out for a swim, maybe before or after dinner. And so we'd like to make that available to them as this year, which we weren't able to do last year so a little bit longer in the day and starting a little bit earlier. So we'll have four memorial will open up on June 26, and then the pools will stay open, both will mill river will stay open through Labor Day. Oh that's great. Yeah it's great I think we have that of course we have the waiter at mill river as well and that will open on June 9. Also, and those combined with the with the splash pad there'll be options for people to stay cool. You bet. And what about cherry hill that's one of the other, the biggest inquiries we get is, you know, is it open can I. How do I book it on my tea time and you guys have that system all set up it's really easy online so have you been having a big attendance that the that cherry hill as well. Well, yeah, especially the wolf with the weather being so warm. Initially when we opened we've been very busy which is great. We are, you know, we haven't raised our prices and prices are the same do you have to make a tea time as Rihanna mentioned so that's easily done through our website. And we will be offering a women's clinic the youth camp this year. Lots of good activities going on we have a women's league. So kind of a low key fund league for women and we also have a men's league so there is plenty for you know for everyone at all kinds of different levels you know we've always said it's sort of the course for everyone. And we've lived up to that mantra, which is good. And you had members help clean it up this year as a new new sort of initiative. Yeah, that's that's correct we, we had 25 volunteers and some members some not members just people who come and play and whether just really fantastic folks from our community who came out and you know raked and picked up debris and you know just help trim things up so it was great and they spent almost a good half a day up there and got a lot of projects done so we were really happy to have them. It's a true community golf course. That's right. So will people find you there in June. Quite possibly. So we have some questions and comments in the room. There was great skiing there this winter, regarding cherry hill. And a question I believe this is probably about the pool facilities, will the changing facilities be available. Yeah, that's a good question again we're still waiting for guidance from the state and they have that hasn't come out yet so we'll have more information and we'll be able to post that I would hope within a month or so. And that website. Sorry. Yeah, at our, you can always check our ways amherst m a wreck. And so last year the changing rooms were not available you could walk through them to get to the pool but you had to have already changed your clothes in advance. Because of concerns. That's correct. You could use the restrooms, but people would arrive in their swimsuits and would leave in their swimsuits. So stay tuned on that. Yeah. I'm wondering who that is in your background. Over there we've heard you have an office mate that's pretty famous or Barb think she's the star but she's not. What is that is that a big stall.  She don't don't let us keep looking at her move the camera so she steals steals the show for sure. I didn't even realize she was there. Oh, we've got a lot. We definitely Nicole says yay Queen Lana. She must be famous then. And then we have another question here when may, when is the new playground opening. You know, I don't have this specific day Paul, do you have any update on that. Yeah, so I think the goal is that for them to be complete with the construction around June 1. There's a few weeks where they have to let you know a little bit of grass to grow and there's some settling or something that has to happen, but really in, I'm guessing July or sooner if we can get it done. So it's moving around long really quickly and the crews were here as soon as the weather broke. And you know of course with any project they're always sort of things that you pop up and they're fixing them quickly, but it's been a pretty smooth project. From our perspective it's going to be a really great addition to the downtown it's on Kendrick Park for those of you who don't know. It will be a real anchor for that end of the community of the of the downtown area. And we'll be sharing a little photo update about the the prod progress a little later today so you can see. And I didn't know we were having these but the I guess you call them bull their boulders for climbing and and playing and so we'll be sharing a little update later today on our social media channels about Kendrick. Yeah that actually came out of some of the group meetings that we had people were asking for things that kids could do that were sort of more natural. It wasn't just plastic or metal climbing structures aren't there other things that you can just climb on and that was incorporated into the design. It makes a big difference a lot of the playgrounds and Sweden are like that with natural materials and it's really nice so excited to see that. So one thing we didn't talk about, which is an event that's near and dear to my heart are the annual fireworks and for the July celebration. Also something that's already getting searched for right now in April, any, any update on where we are with that or. Yeah, Paul you can jump in unfortunately this this year we're going to have to cancel again. We've been in discussions with the university and both entities have decided to get you know for from a safety perspective that this would be the prudent thing to do so we won't be having the fourth July fireworks this year unfortunately but I'm sure next year will be bigger and better than ever. 2022. Yeah, and most communities are not holding holding their fireworks this year some of some are delaying them some are putting back to you but it's there's so many uncertainties and you have to contract with things and for us we actually do. The recreation department does a lot of fundraising to help pay for the event. So if you don't get that started early you're not going to have enough money to put it on so it was the wisest decision was to declare that we weren't going to have fireworks in 2021. Well there's always next year. Right. Well one thing. Oh, go ahead. Yeah, but we did do winterfest this year as sort of a modified version which was kind of creative and exciting to see. Thanks to, you know, the bid in the chamber, we did a collaboration with them and, and we're able to do the drive through experience. We had all the ice sculptures we had over, I think at least a dozen ice sculptures on the common, and we counted unofficially about 2000 cars that came through which was pretty remarkable and I think people just loved it. It was just a great event and just really happy to be able to do something. Was winterfest. Did that come up under your rain? Barbara said is a town. I'm not that. Yeah, we started that I believe it was about 2008. And again, it was a collaboration initially with the chamber, the two to both us and the chamber and, you know, we were just looking for something that would bring people outdoors. Initially. And, you know, just basically a celebration of winter and it just grew grew from a one day event to a week long event with multiple, you know, community activities, a lot of different businesses would put things you know we had, and then we had nonprofits and you know we had the Amherst Cinema Center, we showed movies, the library got involved. So it became really a big, a much bigger event. And it was, you know, so hopefully we'll get back to that at some point as well. And what was your favorite ice sculpture. We were team unicorn in this house. I don't know. Let's see how that unicorn was pretty special. I think I'll have to go with you on that one. I was on the octopus. We can't all be right all the time fall. Well one thing that that I think is pretty notable and forgive me I don't know exactly what year it was but a couple years ago you and your team won an award for your outreach initiatives. And I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about what that was and what some of that outreach looks like for you. You know I see Nikki Sears probably speak to that as well I'll just do a quickie but you know if she wants to chime in, we can have her do that. But yeah we started different outreach programs that the various housing areas, apartment complexes in town, just trying to reach out some of the underserved kids in our community that you know through who had barriers to participating in our programs to basically give them sort of a taste of some programming and then hopefully bridge them into, you know other programs that we provide like our camps like our sports program so it has and it's continuing she's doing a, you know, really good job this spring she'll be doing some outreach programs again in person so that's that's moving along really well.  So the award was basically in recognition of that program, and that was through the Massachusetts Park and Recreation Association so yeah we were thrilled to receive that. Welcome Nikki, you want to introduce yourself. Hi, yes, my name is Nicola Belly, I'm the camp outreach and special events coordinator for in her recreation. And as Barb was saying we have been conducting outreach for a few years now and it is a bit different than it was pre coded but I think that we are producing. Every time there is an event, it's, you know, condensed into bags of 100 kids are given, you know, a fun activity, and they're always given a personalized activity book, and all the promotion to see where our other programs are when to sign up. And it's really great to just be out there and see the families and the kids that we do serve in our programming outside of, you know, a camp setting or a special activity. And, you know, just I'm excited to be like, oh hey, what are you coming, what are we going to see you again, what are you just saying so this spring we are going to use spring in a bag. And we're just working on that that'll be launched in May, and we'll be putting up a few of the housing community. Awesome. And I also want to say, you know, being a customer on the other end always had a great experience and felt so welcome with all your camp programming and everything you do a fabulous job. And, and you've recently joined our equity team here for internal staff trying to promote equity and inclusion in the workplace so we're really excited that all the experience that you bring in the work that you've done to that so we look forward to having you. Thank you. I'm very excited. All right, do you want to stick around on the chatter do you want me to hide you. I'll give you all the centers. All right, thanks. Thanks for popping up Paul do you have questions for Nikki. Well no not for Nikki but for Barb. Thanks for being here, Nikki. So Barb, as you reflect back over your career. What's your sort of takeaways and, you know, what do you think you're proud of and how you're looking towards retirement. Wow, that's, well I said this are very good question there are a lot of questions there. I think my most proud of, you know, I've thought a little bit about it. I think, you know, recently we provided this remote learning assistance program, and childcare program, and we, we, it was a huge deal for us. And I give a lot of credit to Grace Marsha, who, who led up that, you know, basically help direct that program and Nikki later came in and then offered a second presentation of that program. So just kind of the way we responded to the pandemic helping out in other departments. Certainly we were at Puppers we've helped the senior center some of the staff we've helped in some of the finance areas of the town. And also helping with, you know, the coordination of the health department of the vaccinations and so forth. So, a lot of that just real proud of my staff with they've responded. And just recently, but certainly, you know, that's sort of sort of recent kind of things that that come to mind but overall you know just. It's just been an incredible, you know, 21 years this has really been my sort of dream job to come to the started as a program director and have worked my way up and back to, you know, a position of director. Before this, before I came here, you know, I worked for the military in recreation I was a recreation director overseas in Japan and Korea. And so then I got away from recreation for a while and went into fundraising and and some other things and then came back 21 years ago so I don't know I just feel really fortunate also to be able to have served, you know, to live and serve, you know, your community is just that's what more could you ask for so that's about it you know really I I'm just really fortunate and grateful. Yeah, so I mean, you've been a joy to work with you know, and I agree with you that I have said this many times but the recreation LSEC staff has been just remarkable during the pandemic and and they have helped with the election. They've helped with finances staffing puffers pond setting up an entire learning center at the middle school and staffing that and you know, helping the health department, helping just the list goes on and the thing that was always impressive to me is that no one ever said to me said, you know, they were like, what else can we do where where do you need us and it was just every person in your department I think that starts with your sort of willingness to take on different things and helping to guide that so I just want to thank you for that but, you know, your whole career with the town I mean when I got here everyone had really high regard for you and the work that you did and so I was really glad that you were able to get become the director of the department and just, you know, rock solid department head and so and that's never had to worry about that, you know, like recreation took care of itself so it really appreciated all your work for the town. Thank you Paul it's been a, you know, it's also been a pleasure working with you. I couldn't ask for a better boss so thank you. Well I want to invite our attendees you know since we're coming down to our last couple of minutes that went quick barb didn't it. It did see I told you I would try to make it painless. I'd love to invite anybody in the room to kind of offer any last minute comments or questions I see we have a comment here. Sarah's glad to see that a multi use path will go all the way to graph park from East Hanley Road. So that's, yeah that's a really exciting project. Yeah, so we got a grant to do that. There'll be some major changes that there to help people cross west is it south plus on street west street there I think. So, and that will, that will work its way through the process. Okay, so last chance everybody. Questions comments. Tell us about retirement though that's why I want to know what do you do I mean I know you're you're an expert skier. What's good. Queen of the bunny slope baby. Oh you know I think I'm just going to start by just enjoying my first summer off probably since I was in junior high school so I'm just looking forward to taking a few months off initially and then you know go from there. It sounds good. I don't have anything that you didn't get asked today that you want to leave people with in the last moment or two and Paul the same for you. I think we covered pretty much everything in terms of our in terms of our programming so forth for this summer. I don't know if any of the other staff members who are here having or, or Sarah if you have anything to add from the commission standpoint. But I think we got it is Lana prepared for you to be home all the time. She's pretty uptight as you can tell.  I'm not going anywhere. I'm still living in Amherst so hopefully I'll see all of you. We might have to do some recruitment get you on a board or committee. Exactly.  That's a possibility. And I guess the one thing that I will add, you know, we're actively recruiting for a recreation director so that that position is posted up on our career portal amersome.gov slash jobs if you or someone you know is an amazing recreation type we'd love to have them apply. As much as as much as we don't want barb to leave we have to face reality. All right, so with that I don't see any other hands or comments. I want to thank barb for taking time out of her day to join us today for her what will probably be her last community chat and I've been here a few times but we'd love to have you back any other time. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Have a nice day. Thank you.


We will be recording this session, so if anybody has a concern, kindly let us know. We have started because of the fact that we have unfortunately other commitments. The discussion this morning is about leadership and women. Now, my first slide, I'm starting to ask the question, how do we define leadership? In the first place, leadership can be found in families, amongst friends, in communities, and inside and outside organizations. It can be with or without non-management responsibilities. In other words, it can be exercised by individuals at any level. For the purpose of this discussion, I want to focus on positional leadership. People who occupy positions of power that are recognized and rewarded in observable ways. I've identified two definitions of leadership. The first one that you see on the screen is the one by Miles Monlou, who is a very charismatic and religious leader, and did a lot of research on leadership. He defines leadership as the capacity to influence others through inspiration, motivated by passion, generated by vision, produced by vision and by purpose. The next definition that I have identified is from a more business-like person, George Carter, who defines leadership as creating a vision of the future and strategies for producing the changes needed to achieve that vision, allowing people around the vision and motivating them to overcome barriers and produce the changes needed to achieve the vision. If you looked at these two definitions, you would see that there are certain words that are repeated in both definitions. More importantly, the fact that you have to have other people to follow your leadership, you have to motivate such people, you have to inspire such people, and very importantly, as you continue to achieve this vision. In other words, you are on your way to achieve something. If leadership is, as it seems, so easy, I just want to check at this point, can everybody hear me? Can you just indicate in the checkbox? Because I didn't taste my voice, I'm a bit concerned. If leadership is, as it seems, so simple according to these two definitions, why in some circles does it seem it is for men only? No, it is not for men only. As you can see on the screen right now, there are beautiful pictures of beautiful women leaders. Because throughout history, from the farms of Egypt to the queens of England, women rules, rulers are found in nearly every culture, every religion, and in any time period. So it is important to note that leadership is not only for men. So I've highlighted these few women. You can see they are in Dira Gandhi. The first, and may I say, the only female prime minister ever for India. We have Johan Sanzuineke, who was the voice for human rights and freedom in Burma. Then we have the first and last queen of Hawaii. In the last picture, I will talk about last. And in the second row, we have a very impressive woman, in my view, in this field that up to today, people are saying technology and sciences are not for women. But this woman, Marie Karim, who won two Nobel Peace Prizes, her research contributed to the development of X-rays. And she battled all her career with sexism from her male counterparts. Emily Parkus, the political activist and leader for the British Suffering Movement, where they advocated for women's rights to vote. And then next to her, we have Eugene Charles, the prime minister of Dominica. And the common traits among these leaders are that they stood up for civil rights. They were political leaders. But most of them were silenced. But they didn't give up silence by either sexination or by putting them in under house arrest or exiling them. But they didn't allow to be silenced. The last one that I didn't talk about in the top right-hand corner is an interesting example that I took from the Christian history from the Bible. Many people who know the Bible would know about Moses. Many people talk about Moses led the people from Egypt. He was a great leader. And together with Moses, there was Aaron. But many people from the Christian movement, from the Christian religion, do not realize that the Bible actually talks about three leaders within that context. There was Moses, there was Aaron, and there was Miriam.  So with that statement, I want to say that women do not only lead or cannot only lead or are not only made to lead, but they are also made to be equal to men. Which brings us to the next slide. Just last week, the IPU and the UN Women, they launched the Women in Politics Map 2017. Now, this map, unfortunately, you cannot see all the details, but we have put this out on our social media last week. You will find it on our Twitter. So if you are interested to go to that link and go and look at the map in detail, the link is on girls' fires Twitter account. This map shows a slight drop in the number of countries with a woman, with women head of states. It shows a slow increase in the global average of women in Parliament and it shows a significant increase in women's speakers of Parliament. The IPU Secretary General said of this map that the power is still in the hands of men and that equal representation in positions of power is a fundamental precondition for effective and accountable democracy. Together with that map, on the day that they launched it, the IPU and UN Women put out a press statement and in the statement they said, women's political empowerment and equal access to leadership positions at all levels are interesting, fundamental to achieving the sustainable development goals. Now, we had a webinar a few months ago on sustainable development goals and we know that this is indeed very true because there are certain goals, goal 4, goal 5, goal 7 that speaks directly to women and what their contribution is in achieving sustainable development goals. So women's access to leadership positions at all levels are fundamental to achieving the SDGs in a more equal world. With limited growth in women's representation, advancement of gender equality and the success of the SDGs are indeed jeopardised. Next statement from the IPU and UN Women and I totally concur with that. Now, what are the advantages of women leaders? Why are they saying this in the previous slide that women's empowerment and equal access is fundamental to achieving sustainable development goals? You will see from the literature that I read the last one first on these three bullet points. It says, companies with at least one woman on the board had a higher return on investment than companies with no women on their board. This comes from a research paper in 2012. So this aligns to what was just mentioned in the first segment of the IPU and UN Women about women's imperative role in making sure that we achieve the SDGs. But if we go to the earlier two segments there from USAID, you will read that when 10% more girls go to school, the country's GDP increases on average by 3%. When women have the same amount of land as men, they say there is over 10% increase in crock yields. So these are very telling statistics and these are coming from reports that researched the influence of women in leadership or the impact it has when we educate women that's needed in leadership that is directly aligned to women's what I say characteristics or how women are put together. There are four things that I put there. First one, communication, the networking, relationship building and flexibility. Communication is part and parcel of a woman. A woman as within the family context is the person that is the main threat of communication.  So strong communication traits we have inherently as women. So that is a very important skill that is part of leadership. So why not use it as women? Networking. As a woman, we know that within the family context, it will be the mothers that will bring the families together. It will be the mothers that send out the messages. Relationship building is closely connected to that. And finally, flexibility. We all know as females that we are multitaskers. We can do many things at once. We can take care of our babies while we talk to somebody on the phone while we at the same time take care of the cooking and maybe sometimes burn ourselves at the oven, like I made you do. So if women does have the in-goal skills to become leaders, why are we not becoming? What prevents us from becoming leaders? There's many reasons. There's many reasons. I'll just highlight two. The one is bias in stereotypes. And the other one is work-life balance. I want to start with work-life balance and say, many work environments are not conducive for women to take up leadership while they are at the same time caregivers. Because if I'm, for instance, still nursing my baby, will my office allow me to come in later or to go earlier? Will they allow me flexible hours? So that work-life balance is something that many women are juggling with. And in the end, they would prefer to take care of the family than to both a career. So things need to change to allow women to live out their leadership capabilities while still taking care of their families. Then there is the issue of bias in stereotypes. Stereotypes mean it's a cognitive shortcut that categorizes people on the bias of characteristics of such a gender. So people may say, yes, she has a baby. She will not apply for that job. So they're just stereotyping you already. So there is that bias, also that leadership styles of women are different. Women does things differently. Now, I can tell you, as a person being in such a position for many years, yes, it may be true. But it is not necessarily true that it can make a difference in the outcomes. In fact, if it has to make a difference, I would say it will be overexciting as a women leader if your style is different than underperforming. What is the problem for me in this bias and stereotype? It's the fact that women understand themselves. We will not go out there and say, I am the strong woman, I can do this. We are very humble and we are very modest. And research shows that, in fact, there is a research paper from, I left it in my office now, which tells us that in research, the men, they would praise themselves while women didn't do that. And the researchers knew at that point when they did those interviews that these women are as good or even better as these men. So women should show that they believe in themselves. So because of these biases, women are not always valued in their teams. Next slide. Characteristics of a leader. This is, to me, a very important slide. And I have enlisted quite a number of characteristics of a leader. And I want to just elaborate on a few of them, not on all of them. The first one is focus. We all know that it has been said leadership is making sometimes unpopular decisions. So that is part of the truth. But this actually means because of that, you have to focus. Because if you make an unpopular decision, it is true that people will talk about it and people will not be happy. But if you are not focused, you will get distracted. So if you are a leader, you cannot major in minor issues. You have to stay focused on the major issues. And if you have taken an unpopular decision, take ownership of it as you make it work. The next one I want to highlight is the issue of confidence. A leader instills confidence and followership by having a clear vision and showing empathy in being a strong coach. You remember the first slide where the two definitions were about what leadership is? Both of those writers identified the vision. So the leader should instill confidence so that there is this clear vision to the followership so that the people that you lead know exactly what it is that we want to achieve. Transparency to me is a very important characteristic. As a leader, the only way that we can engender trust and buy from our team and from our colleagues is to be authentic. In other words, what they see is what they get. We cannot be today because the weather is, you know, it's cold outside now, I'm also like that. Tomorrow it's sunny, so I'm happy. So the followership should know that this is our leader, this is how she is. They should be able to read you because of your consistent and transparent behavior. Integrity is a direct reflection of the values that we embody as leaders. So focus on doing what is right instead of needing to be right all the time. So as leaders, we can be wrong and our followers can advise us and we should sometimes accept that, that sometimes we should accept that sometimes we can be wrong. So we should focus on that and that is integrity. Interpretation to me is critical to be a good leader. We are not self-made, but we are driven. On my journey as a leader, many people inspired me, they gave me advice and I was filled by my personal beliefs and my internal drive and passion. So that is why I'm always willing, sometimes people don't ask, but I'm always willing to motivate it and offer advice to friends and colleagues and family because I know the power of inspiration because I know that those people that I have met on my journey who inspired me allowed me to stand on their shoulders to see far. And so if people can stand on my shoulders to see far as a leader, I should also allow them and prepare to do things. The next one I want to talk really about is passion. You must love what you do as a leader. In order to be truly successful in something, you must actually obsess about this thing and it must consume you because you love what you are doing. So if you lead by such an example, your followers will not have the choice but following you. So there are all of these still to come, but I just want to talk about one last one because I see my time is running out and it is empowerment. To build an overachieving team, like I think we managed with the built inspired team, we need to delegate responsibility and authority. We need to allow our team here at call, our team individuals to do what they have to do and to take the responsibility for it. As a leader, you cannot run the show all the time and a person analogy that I can bring to the table in this is like, if you look at an orchestra, in an orchestra, there are many people playing different instruments. Each one doing his and her own thing but when they stand on the stage and they start and they deliver, you hear one beautiful sound of an award winning performance because there is that power within each person which was brought together and that is what a leader should do. Empower your people, learn to delegate, learn to trust, learn for them to have not only the responsibility but also the authority. I think I want to go to the next slide because I can speak for days on these issues. What can we do to nurture the leadership among the girls and women that we are working with? And I want to show you some of the statistics, some of the data, some of the results we got from the field on some, a few issues regarding who these women are that we are working with. When we did the baseline and the end line studies, certain questions were asked and you will see the difference on the slide here. You will see when we did the baseline study, we asked them what their understanding is of their social rights and you will see the majority lean from poor to very poor, over 60%. After we did the training and the imparting the skills, we now see that the majority of them lean towards the positive side where they say the training impact of their life to learn more and understand the social rights. So more than 90% say some impact and significant impact. But if you divide those two, you will see 55% of those same girls say this training had a significant impact on my understanding of my social rights. The next slide talks about bank accounts and we will see that 89% said they don't have a bank account but now we see at the end line the results that came in and we do not yet have all our results. This is a sample of what came in but of that same group, there is now an increase where while, yes, I do not manage this account 4.5% at the beginning, now 18.8% said I managed this account myself. So there's a huge change and shift in this. The next slide please. How would you describe your own ability to make decisions? This slide to me is very encouraging. And I must thank Cherise for putting all the data together that came in from you and also for Christina for making this beautiful slide to show to you how this change happened. When we did the baseline on them making the decisions, only 41% said good. Now 81% says good. But very good was 7% and now it's double, very good. So both good and very good, there's a double, there's an increase on what they were. Next slide. Participate in family decision making. Here again you will see 28% said they are somewhat empowered in making decisions in family and here you see the trend made an impact in them participating in family decision making. It changed to a significant impact of 51.6% says it made an impact. So they will now be able to make a family decision. We're not sure whether they will be empowered to make it but we know that they are the tools to be part of that. Next one. So what can we do to nurture leadership among the girls and women? Evidence by the previous slide, you can see that when we educated them, there is a difference. They need to be educated because some of these things they don't know. So they need to be educated so that they can through being educated empower themselves. That is very important. So we should continue to do that. And that is why wherever we can, we should educate women and girls as leaders. We should educate these group of girls not only to empower them in certain areas like skills, like sewing, or brick making, or preparing telephones, but also on the social rights also for them to know about their own yaw. Those are the things we need to educate them in so that they can feel confident. I did not talk about the confident characteristics but if you are confident, it means if you want to be confident, you should have that information that you can send and go out there and talk. We should continue to be bridge builders. A bridge builder is those of us who reach out to each other in the promotion of a common force. We should be bridge builders or women leadership. But role models is one of the things that apparently is lacking in many communities. If you remember the first, the second slide, I showed all these women from history who were there through all the ages, they are role models. But within your community, does the women have enough role models? I'm sure the answer is definitely no. Because in most cultures and traditions, we find that the man is in the forefront, the man is the decision maker, the man is the person that they will always see. So they think it is right that the man is the leader. We should come out as women leaders and be the role models and talk to them and inspire them and guide them and motivate them. And more importantly, we should use their stories and tell these stories to other girls and women who are not yet where they are so that through their stories, we can motivate more women to become leaders and we can nurture this leadership. You remember I said right in the beginning, we find leadership at different levels, within the community, within the family, within the friends, amongst the friends. So within that training circle, there are leaders, identify them, nurture them. Then I go to, I think, the last slide and I'm asking this question. I came across this thing many years ago when I had to make a presentation to a women at a religious gathering. And my question is, do women have a competitive advantage? What is this thing that women have that men doesn't have? So there's my answer. Men over the ages had position power and women had influence power. So what do I mean by this? Women were put together to be child bearers. So as a child bearer, you provide a nurturing and transforming environment for the unborn baby. So you influence that baby in many ways. I will not go into the detail of that. That is the one thing. When we look into the history and because this was a religious group of women I spoke to in the Christian religion, one of the things that I told them at that time, there is a story in the Bible about Jesus who turned water into wine. But why did he do it? He did it because his mother influenced him. She went to him and she asked him to do it. So there's many examples that I can show you within the community, within the politics. A woman influenced the decision of the man who sits in the position of power. In the households, in many households what cultural tradition? We know the man is the head of the house. We know in the community, the man is the head of that community. But when that man goes back, he speaks to his wife and she influence the way he thinks. He may not agree with it, but let me tell you this is exactly how it happens because he comes to this person that he trusts and she tells me and in that way you influence the person's thinking and that position basically is influenced by your thoughts. Now I want to ask all the women to stop using the influence power to both somebody else's position but to use your influence power to both your own position because you will be much stronger to have both position and influence power. Thank you. I think there are some minutes left. Some few minutes. We can now go for some questions. I hope everybody could hear me. Thank you very much. Everyone for listening. Thank you, Frances, for a very inspiring presentation. I think you guys have been posting some comments in the chat and I'm perhaps with Bob I'd like to share. Made a really great comment about how leadership characteristics that Frances were describing come from the inside and not outside. Perhaps you can share more about that. Thank you. Hello, Frances, how are you? Thank you for always inspiring us for so long. It's been like, you are the leader. You are the true leader. No doubt. We are so inspired by you. You are always inspiring but this characteristic and I have been looking at the slide. These characteristics are like as I have said it comes from inside. You don't have to rely on other sources. To become a leader. Like women also are always in our community. They already rely to go outside with some men. They have, they are in all decisions. The important decisions in their lives are influenced by the men. But these leadership qualities they can, they are like from inside. You can be confident from inside. You can be influenced. You can be empowered. And these all characteristics you can build inside. You don't have to rely on others. That's the best part. And influencing on the idea and on the nature, on the decision of men, this is so true. That is why I always used to say when a female can turn, like a wife can turn a man against his mother. So she can turn a boy again in a better way to the female, to have a more gender-equal society. So women should like do something of this. They can use their powers for this in a better way. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. Also, see we had quite a few comments on this idea of influence power. I see Arujiu really likes that point. Perhaps would you like to explain why you liked it? Hello, everyone. This is Arujiu from Vedari. Thank you, Frances and Krishna, for arranging this so informative webinar for us, because learning is always important. And I believe that we are always learning no matter at what stage we are. And actually, I really like this part because men are always taught to exercise power. So that's why we can say that they're always, you know, exercise power. They don't influence others for that. We have seen so many men leaders who are so great, but they don't have last long impacts on the society or on the people around them. But whenever we saw any women leader who has been given the opportunity to lead or who has been the person who is confident enough and empowered to lead others, is always leaving high impacts on the society regarding whatever she does, regarding women empowerment, regarding politics, regarding economic stability or whatsoever she does has long lasting influences. We can clearly remember the inspiring women around us, but whenever we saw men, we always see them exercising power and not rather than influencing others to follow them or take a very good lead. But women in 90% cases, we see that they are influencing others so much because women are always deprived, kept in a very shell kind of thing and they are not given an opportunity. So looking at the women leaders, we can say that yeah, they influence power rather than exercising it on others. Thank you. Thank you so much, Arouge, for that very insightful comment. Elizabeth, I also saw that you had commented on the influence power. Could you perhaps elaborate why you like it? Hello, everybody. I am in good conditions now to have comments. I just wanted to say that that's true. We have a power that we don't recognize and women should be aware of this capacity and power that they have to influence. And that's very true. I think it's patient. Perfect. Thank you so much. Realistine, your microphone is on. Did you want to comment? The Jewel, sorry, I'm helping to see it because I'm not sure whether you hear it. She wants you to talk. No, I hear you well. I had all the presentation and I must admit it's great. But I love the influence part because I can relate it down to my family. By your example, I could see my mom's influence on me and how I turned out to perform well in school because of the encouragement and the belief that she had in me, by simply telling me the words that you can do it, go for it, you know? So I think if this is all used so well, the influence power is a lot better and it can do wonders and turn most of things around. We just need to have the women speak out. Unfortunately, I was asking myself if the influence part of it is there, but the communication is a problem. For instance, like in Africa, women hardly speak in the public. It would take the women with courage to speak in public. Even the ones who are well-educated, most of them would tell you, it's not our culture to speak in public, especially where women in an event where men are dominant. So I think like the influence part of it and communication should be encouraged among women and we could turn a lot of things around. Perfect, thank you so much, Samela. Francis, C.S. posted a question for you which I read out. Out of your travel experience, you have some artists for women in developing countries. Yes, thank you for the question, but also want to respond to Samela's point about the communication. And thank you for those of you who have acknowledged and really owned the issue of influence power as women, but for the males, I acknowledge that because they can identify with it in their own upbringing and in their families. It is important that women encourage to use this influence power to influence the policies, the traditions and the cultures that prevent them from communicating. They prevent them from speaking in public. I know exactly what you are talking about somewhere in some cultures, not only in Africa, around the world, you will find that women have to be submissive, they shouldn't speak. And it is because of this that we have these women activists that we have organizations that progress. So in ADPP and in Pakistan Spark, in Bidari, who were started up not only about the children, but the children's rights to speak, women's rights to speak. And it is important that we have to be patient. This will not change overnight because it is deep rooted cultures that women are adhering to. But we hope in the next generation that these things will change because if I look at the millennials, those who were born just before we entered into this new millennium, they are quite outspoken and it's not that they disrespect the culture, but they are cognizant of the fact that we have to make a difference.  So allow us to speak. And that is why it is important to nurture leadership amongst the young women and girls and to see how we can change this paradigm and make the shift from women being in the background to come to the forefront. When I visited the different countries and what I've observed is that definitely the leadership, for instance, in Pakistan, of the human rights organizations, I can definitely say it pays off that the women are not so submissive. Despite all the traditions and cultures, you can see they are confident, they are strong because they know their rights. So it is important to know that these changes can happen, but it cannot happen if I'm not educated about my rights, if I don't know what it is. So in some cultures, even an educated woman may not know what the social rights are. She may be educated in a specific field, she may be a teacher, but what does she know about her rights? Maybe she was not exposed to such teachings. So it is important that we influence the minds, the education materials of these girls with the things that they should stand up for, the things that they should use to make a difference, because if we do not allow them to make a difference, as was said in the press statement, press release of UN Women and at IPU, then achieving the ACGs are in jeopardy. So we have a very important role to play. More questions? Hey, Francis, I think you had an interesting point about education material, and I know Mustafa had also posted a comment that, Mustafa, would you like to talk? Hello. Mustafa, how are you? Yeah, I'm fine, okay, so yeah, this is very, thanks Francis, it's a very nice presentation, especially that the last two points I like very much, it's a position and influence power. So these two should go together, and if, yes, if the position is not right now, for example, a woman, she is not in position, but she got the influence power. I think in different cultures, some cultures are very open, some cultures are mixed, and some cultures are closed, like our cultures. So in this type of culture, leadership actually is a matter, but they got the influence in power. So sometimes they don't use it. So what Francis said, I'm very much convinced that this is a way the woman can start, they got the influence power, and in every, they have a huge influence, they can change a lot of things. And also, since the culture is very much rigid, so there should be leadership. Otherwise, if the leadership, if the woman is not there, then it becomes very difficult. So in our country, since the prime minister, the speaker is there, they're the female, so they can influence a lot of things, and a lot of organizations now, the head of the institutions are female. So it was not the fact before. So I think it's a very nice point that influencing power and position, both are important for the cultures, like ours, because if you'd like to have a rapid change in this kind of societies, so it is very important. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you so much, Mustafa. Polizzi also posted a fantastic comment on education and training for women, saying that it needs creativity, complex, problem solving, confidence, and communication. Would you like to add anything to that? She's not online. Does anyone else have any other comments or questions? I see your mic is on. Did you want to comment? Yeah, I just want to thank you and Francis for giving a really nice response to my query, because the women from development sectors in countries like Pakistan and South Asia, they all look forward to those from the developed countries. So I think there's a need to break the taboo of silence, and South Asia could be right on track once we have educated mothers who can empower their girls, and instead of shunning the girls and asking them to sit at home, we can ask them to go out and explore the world for themselves. So overall, it's a good learning experience for me. Thanks a lot for arranging it for us. Thank you. I think I want to add to it a theory, but then I just noted, Mazih wrote something about role models, because my response actually to ASEAN, I will ask Mazih to speak after me. My response to ASEAN was also now to say, the issue of role models, and you who are the leaders within your organizations, it is important that you go out and become stronger role models, be more visible, and that you ensure that the girls and women in your training units, that you encourage them to become more visible, to become role models. And that is why I say telling the stories of them. So why do we think Malayla? Everybody talks about her.  She's become a role model. Everybody wants to aspire to have a courage. So if we put our girls out there on social media and about their courage, and how strong they are, don't you think other girls would want to aspire to be like them, to like them? And if they aspire to be like them, we will have many girls that will become stronger and become leaders. That is the effect of role modeling. If you see, and that is why all these years when we grew up, people would ask, who's your role model? And at that time, what is a role model? So it is also important that we explain and you would talk about a movie star and most of the children, myself, didn't have a clue, and I want to say my mom, my dad, because those are the people I admire to be and that is a perfect role model. But if my mom is very submissive and she doesn't talk, she may still be a good role model in certain areas. But we are talking here about role model in leadership, taking the lead, going out there and making a difference. Mzi, did you want to say something about it? Since I'm good evening everyone. Good morning. I just wanted to highlight two key issues that I am hopeful that we will take out from this presentation. One of them, which was, she has been articulated by the other speakers before me, is the issue of the power to influence that women have. I'm hoping that we have women leaders in the home, influencing changes, especially around traditional practices like the female genital mutilation in the role of women in the home, because that is where the confidence of a woman can start. But if the women as leaders in those traditional rights, as the ones that are perpetuating a practice that is not working, they are giving away the power and it's going to take us a longer time to achieve some of the emancipations of girls, children that you are aspiring to achieve. So I was wondering, you've been in India or Pakistan or Bangladesh, one of those countries, what has been the experiences of being defined against those issues? Thank you so much, Medhi. I think your audio at the end, cut in and out. Could you repeat your final question? I'm saying that it will be interesting to hear maybe in another conversation or in another session, how countries like Tanzania where I know that the issue of the genital mutilation is very large. How are the leaders, women community leaders standing up to those issues? And how do they want to reduce their leadership to overcome or to make an influence to change behaviors of men that are perpetuating a practice? Perfect, thank you so much, Medhi. Yeah, I think that's a really great discussion that we can continue to have later on the community of practice. You know, we have about three minutes left scheduled, but I think it's probably enough for one more comment. Do you want to say something? Thank you, Christina. I think we very good summary of the way forward by saying that the issue just raised by Zee is a question that I think Mustafa is the person bringing together the post webinar discussion in a blog. For us to pose that question there, just raised by Zee and see how we can further deliver it on it within the community of practice. I will definitely also make my contribution. So for us to see within our countries how women have used their influence power to make changes within traditional practices. And if we have a role in that, if we have a role in that, I want to conclude by talking about one of the characteristics which I didn't talk about Medhi's generosity. As a leader, it is important to be generous about giving of yourself. So give the best of yourself to build up others and help them grow as individuals. Do not ever hesitate to give of yourself to other people, sort of to become an organic person because the more you give, the more of you will be there in the world. In my previous life, I was a teacher and I always say as teachers, we are very privileged because we are influencing the world in ways we cannot imagine because each child that goes through your classroom doors that you teach, each of them, something of you goes into the child, something of you goes. So as your children leave your class, every year you have a new group, something of you goes into those children, they take that into the world. And so it continues. So your leadership, your goodwill, your integrity, anything that you can share with the girls, the boys, the community within you which you work, the organization, be generous, give that and we will all see in many, many years from now a much better world with many more leaders amongst the girls and boys who are now within our communities where we are having our sessions. I think that is my concluding remarks. Thank you very much for listening to me and thank you very much for your participation in the session, your contributions. As usual, we will share with you the webinar as well as the notes, the checks so that you can go through it again because some of you may not have read all the comments that came in. But thank you very much. Thank you to Christina for facilitating the session for making these beautiful slides for me. I did not make it. I delegated it and I used what is the characteristic of a leader empowerment and I empowered her to be her and I gave her not only the responsibility but also the authority. I did not change any of her slides except for the text that I've given her. So thank you so much, Christina. Thank you, Cherise, who has signed out of this role since Christina started for your model support here this morning to the team also and for being here. Thank you everybody for coming to the session. Enjoy your evening. Goodbye.


When it comes to effective air defense, one shot is usually all you have. Soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 188th Air Defense Artillery Regiment forward of the North Dakota Army National Guard came to Fort Bliss last month to take that shot. The shooters came to the borderland to fire their Stinger missiles as part of their pre-deployment live-fire exercise on the Fort Bliss training complex in New Mexico, June 22nd. As the DOD's premier joint mobilization force generation installation, Fort Bliss supports the deployment, redeployment, and training of total force troops hailing from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and four of five U.S. territories. After their ramp-up, the 1st of 188th will deploy to the National Capital Region to collaborate with DOD agencies as part of the integrated air defense system designed to protect capital airspace. The North Dakota Guard's most deployed unit, the shooters have been tracking targets throughout the global war on terrorism and contingency operations with 12 deployments since 2004. With all their training and tracking, the value of the opportunity to take that shot in a training environment and make it count, wasn't lost on the North Dakota troops. The weather has been pretty warm, way warmer than I'm used to up north. It's been a great experience. The training paid off for sure, made me more confident in engaging the actual aircraft if I needed to. Reporting from the Fort Bliss training complex in New Mexico, for the Garrison, I'm David Poe.