It is said that one of their meetings in the gymnasium, Scipio and Hannibal had a conversation on the subject of generalship, in the presence of a number of bystanders in that Scipio asked Hannibal whom he considered the greatest general, to which the latter replied, Alexander of Macedonia. To this Scipio assented since he also yielded the first place to Alexander, then he asked Hannibal who he placed next, and he replied, Paris of Iparus, because he considered boldness the first qualification of a general, for it would not be possible he said to find two kings more enterprising than these. Scipio was rather netled by this, but nevertheless he asked Hannibal to whom he would give the third place. Hannibal replied, in a different world, one where I had not touched the face of darkness, I might have said myself, or even as a young man I conquered his spania and led an army across the Alps, the first since Hercules. With this Scipio smiled and asked again, so then who stands after Paris of Iparus? The men who felled Hyperion. Excerpt from SCP-3813 Welcome to Object Class Explained. In this series I do a deep dive into the lore of a particular SCP related topic and try to give you an abridged version of the story, twist, or even just the details.  If you'd like to check out other declassifications you can check out a link to the declassified subreddit in the description below, and if you'd like to support this kind of content on this channel definitely head on over to Patreon and become one of my patrons. For as little as a dollar a month you can help ensure that this kind of content keeps getting made and there will be a link to that in the description below. In that vein I'd like to thank Samuelism who has pledged for $10 and Faye who has pledged for $5. Let's get started. SCP-3813 is a massive mechanical superstructure located beneath the Tyrrhenian Sea near Rome, Italy. While the majority of the superstructure is buried beneath the seafloor, a significant percentage can be accessed by divers. The interior of the structure is a partially submerged network of corridors and passageways. The description of SCP-3813. So this is a giant elephant that has been held together for two millennia by sheer force of will, and the man at the center of it all is Hasdrubel, brother of Hannibal. But the machine itself has roots that go back further and perhaps deeper than you might expect both in history and on the site. You see the genesis of the ideas behind SCP-3813 can be found in the collaborative work of DJ Cactus and Twisted Gears in their 001 proposal, The Broken God. If you're familiar at all with that SCP you might recognize some elements of it in SCP-3813. I mean they're both about giant mechanical monsters, there's a link to Robert Bumaro, and obviously the Church of the Broken God is involved. But SCP-3813 differentiates itself in a couple of important ways. First of all it's rooted in an actual recorded historical incident. Hannibal might not have attacked Italy with a giant mechanical elephant, but he did attack Italy. And the battles between Carthage and Rome were legendary and storied. So while Rome did eventually come out on top, Hannibal's forces actually came very close to conquering Italy. However, in the world of the SCP Foundation, part of the early success of that attack was the usage of SCP-3813. There are some hints as to the source of the anomaly throughout the work, but little true explanation in the work itself. This is my design. Some of the earlier drafts of the article included information about where Hyperion came from, but I felt that the explicit nature of the information spoiled a little bit of the mystery. Also, I suppose it's important to mention here that I'm one of the co-authors of the article. What's on the page is what's on the page, and you can draw your own conclusions from that, but I can tell you that there's a reason why Bumaro is the person these documents were recovered from. The Church of the Broken God has, after all, been around for a very, very long time. Now this colossus sits in the sea, waiting for the arrival of an army from the north. The garrison has erected catapults and entrenched the shoreline, but what might do men have in the face of such unstoppable hate? Xaitis. An excerpt from SCP-3813. The thing about SCP-3813 is that it needs people in it to continue to function. This is a pretty basic thing that's not explicitly described in the article itself. When it was first created, of course, it was more than capable of independent operation without literally integrating those who were operating it. But as it sustained damage and over time, people on board began to die. Machines began to claim bodies of the dead, and eventually, those of the living. Hasdrubal was the man in charge of the beast and had a place near the central power core. In the closing lines of the article, you start to get a good sense of what's going on, but it's impossible to really determine more without the foundation sending in more people, and they definitely don't want to do that. Hasdrubal, by the by, as mentioned earlier, is the brother of Hannibal, and he did in fact die during the Second Punic War. The actual historical circumstances of his death are much different than what is stated in the article, but given the suppression of information about the giant robotic elephant he commanded, this is hardly a problem of historical accuracy. What drives him to madness and eventually destruction is the death of his son Hyrum during a battle. It is a singular event that leads to Hasdrubal's reckless charges into Roman lines and into Roman camps. While the Romans could not take out this monstrosity in a straight head-on battle, attrition was enough to lower its effectiveness over time, using it as a battering ram against the Roman forces after the death of his son, eventually caused the thing to start to fall apart, and when it did try to retreat to the sea, its legs were tangled up in ropes and cables, and it stumbled, and then it sank to the bottom of the ocean, and it, the dead it carried, and the living two stayed there for almost two thousand years. They say Hyperion has descended upon Rome, and Rome will welcome him. As Apollo did to Helio, so shall the might of our Republic do to this bastard god. Marcus Claudius Marcellus. It is at this point that the foundation comes to learn about this object, before any of its real history was understood. It didn't recover the documents immediately, after all, it was just some partially submerged metal object in the water off the coast of Italy. The foundation sends in three people from an MTF stationed in Rome, this, by the way, for a variety of reasons is a serious mistake.  The internal structure of SCP-3813 is a maze of machinery and submerged passages, and along the way the foundation divers run into machine monsters that swarm them, and they try to run away, and somehow they end up even more lost. When they finally find a way out, it's far too late. This thing has been down here for two thousand years. It's not about to let the newest living beings that it's seen get away, so it drags them back in, and one of them comes face to face with Hasdrubal, and, well, you know what, I'm going to play the audio from the ending right now. Noscarum, Lestorat Manasi. Noscarum, Noscarum! I don't know what you're saying! His flaming robes streamed out beyond his heels and gave a roar as if of earthly fire, that scared away the meek ethereal hours, and made their dove wings tremble. On, he flared. The Fall of Hyperion, a dream, by John Keats. So I remember when we were first starting to write this, and the concept was we just wanted to create as complete of an article as we possibly could, as much of a multimedia article as we could, and I think it succeeds mostly. I mean, it's at plus 130 right now, and while that's nothing to sneeze at, I think most of the folk involved in its creation were probably a little disappointed that it didn't do better than that. I mean, the authors for this piece are myself, DJ Cactus, Zang, and The Vulgan. Most of the primary writing was done by DJ Cactus and went sitting, and then I did a ton of editing, rewriting, and additional writing. The art in it, which is incredibly detailed, and just incredible in general, was done by Zang, and the voice acting was contributed by Vulgan and myself. Now both Zang and Vulgan were part of the process of creating the article, but we did run into some serious issues with the wiki, and heck, even some of the wiki staff, because of the scope of the collaboration, as the kind of thing that hadn't been really done this way before. And there's a strong undercurrent of devaluing, non-writing-based contributions to articles. I mean, if I were to say that Zang had contributed nothing but art, which she didn't, by the way, or that Vulgan had only contributed acting, which he didn't, by the way, there would be a pretty good chance that people would be outraged that they were somehow listed as co-authors and given equal billing to myself and Cactus. And in fact, that's actually visible on the discussion page, even when myself and Cactus made it pretty clear that both of those people had contributed. You can still see lots of people still angry they were listed. I even got two messages from different members of staff trying to get me to tell them exactly what their contributions were, in a way that very much seemed like they were trying to evaluate if we had listed them as co-authors correctly. I'll only bring this up because I know a lot of writers like to watch my videos and plenty more aspiring SCP writers also watch. You need to value non-writing contributions equally to writing. Acting is creating, and making art is creating. They are neither more nor less valuable than putting words down on a page. Anyway, that's all for today. If you'd like to see more videos like this, hit the subscribe button, and then hit the notification bell next to that so you will be notified when I post new videos. And follow me on Twitter at D. Samarian for updates as well. Finally, become a patron at patreon.com forward slash D. Samarian. Thanks for watching.


On June 4th, 2023, the Ohio Army National Guard held a retirement ceremony for outgoing State Command Sergeant Major Sheldon Chambliss at Beatler Armory. Sergeant Major Chambliss served over 35 years as a soldier in both the active duty and the Army National Guard.  Our guest list included five retired Ohio Army National Guards, State Command Sergeant Major, as well as various leaders from both Ohio and Michigan. I imagine if there were a picture of military bearing in the dictionary would be his, because he just so represents that. The occasion closed out with a laugh, while during the singing of the Army song, a picture of young Command Sergeant Major Chambliss was put up on the video screen for everyone to see. Reporting for the 196th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment in Columbus, Ohio, I am Sergeant Carl Mason.


Hello friends and welcome back to another episode of bought the t-shirt podcast I'm your host former Ruins Commando turned adventurer Chris through all and today. I have an absolute pleasure Anton Sheller Panoff is a very good friend brother of mine and We're gonna have a chat Yes, there's so much to say about Anton so in a in a short sound bite Anton is Siberian Probably the only Siberian I know There are not that many of us. There are only 30 million of us. Is that all? Well the Russian Federation something like 150 million people and Siberia which is if you look at the map it's one-sixth of all dry land in the world It's only 30 million people More than I thought well very low population density and you've got Tigers there saber-toothed tigers or is that a thing of the past? Oh, yes, I think the saber-toothed tigers are have left us during the last ice age About eight thousand years ago. You still have some Siberian tigers in the Far East near the Chinese border the area that's It's called Manchuria and Yeah, but they're in danger They're not very many of them.  Yeah, bit like the polar bears. I'm really well Yes, very much and actual bears So in Siberia you still have some bears wild bears Some wolves as well and yeah bears brown bears do now again due to the destruction of habitat and climate change They are wandering in two towns and again eating eating out of bins. Yeah, they're starving They're losing their habitat. Have you seen that video? There's some YouTube clip of a guy in the wilderness Some reason something's telling me he's Central European on What we used to call Eastern European, but he actually goes up and kicks a brown bear and then it promptly Runs away a few yards and then it turns around and savagely attacks him. Well, why why would you do that?  It comes to mind. That's a that's a strong word. Yes so As I say a little brief bit of background on Anton Fascinating man probably one of the most fascinating and knowledgeable individuals I've ever met a Oxford University graduate and Think it's fair to say although he'll always be humble on this one of the countries or the world's leading Authorities on prison reform So this is You want to go kind of kind of you to say? Yeah, I think there are well, there are people who know a lot more than me But I have had a a career in the field. So I know a little bit. Yeah What would you say? What's the kind of how is that in a nutshell? What wider prisons really reforming? Well, because prisons have Four stated goals So first of all, let's jump back a little bit. There are several types of prison Systems in the world and they're partially characterized by the cultural setting and they're partially characterized by by their history So you've got Some systems in countries which used to be colonized by European countries in the global south which have inherited a lot of the old Colonial style Legislation you've got a very violent prisons in places like Latin America. You've got post comic the post communist space where the system was set up to Extract as much economic Function out of individuals and she's slave labor and then after communism collapsed There wasn't really very much to replace it. So these are transitioning systems. They're trying to find their direction now What what are they for? How do they work with people? Then there are still communist countries like China where again the system The system is different. What we have in let's say northern Europe and Northern Western Europe and the US and some some some other similar Similar countries, maybe or ECD countries. I think that's a it's a reasonable grouping is a is a fairly it's a fairly recent phenomenon. It's only about 200 years old Before that imprisonment was very different, but this notion of Contemplation and reform is Is an end and isolation is something that says fairly recent and obviously is now endemic to The biggest prison system in the world, which is the United States has got over two million prisoners Although it has been going down a little bit over the last last few years It's very similar in the UK and other northern European countries And whilst they take us likely, you know, you hear about Scandinavian countries being very liberal That's true up to a point, but I think I think in my experience the differences between prisons are marginal So that's a little bit of context of what we're talking about. We're talking about these northern hemisphere Let's say or ECD country prisons like the US and the UK and other parts of Western and northern Europe Maybe some other countries like So in these places, let's see if I can get this right prisons have Four stated goals, right the first is Vengeance I somebody did something bad and society for individuals want to extract revenge The second is deterrence So if you do something, you will go to prison prison is not a nice place So don't do this thing that will lend you in prison The third notion is what we just touched on rehabilitation that, you know, the idea that if you take somebody Somebody somebody to prison to prison, you have the chance to offer people education and employment training and maybe Treatment for addiction, whatever. So that kind of rehabilitative notion that Victor Victorian very strong strong and sort of in the Victorian Victorian consciousness Kind of quaker sort of Protestant thing and then finally Isolation so what if you take a person who is Deemed dangerous out of society and you isolate them in a secure setting then they're unlikely to cause harm To the outside world, right? So these are the four stated goals. This is what Pretty much all western northern European systems you find this in the political rhetoric You will find this in a mission statement. And so very various reflections of those four Goals in different combinations. Some countries might Might some jurisdictions might press more on the deterrence side. Some might Focus more on the rehabilitative side, but you will find some elements of those four in in all in in all prison system Missions Now the truth is that you know, I can say hand on heart universally all prison systems fail in the first three of those completely and in the fourth one Almost completely or partially So let's take them one by one. Yeah, please do Let's look at punishment if something bad happens to you or your family And then something, you know, some kind of sanctions is imposed on the person who did this Does it, you know, does does it make people feel better probably not like it's it's unlikely, you know You always hear, you know, this person didn't get a lot enough sentence Or this person didn't go to the right kinds of conditions. The conditions are too lenient or it's the wrong kind of regime Partly it has to do with the way it's communicated communicated in the press one of the trade-offs for having a free press in a democratic society is that That press is going to say what it likes in order to Make itself popular in order to engage the audience and so on. So there will be sometimes exaggeration Sometimes playing on a maybe not exaggeration, but but highlighting a certain thing or playing on certain emotions You know a lot of it is very emotional. So does it achieve the desire for vengeance? I would argue not and perhaps your audience might Like comment on this on on the script and and and disagree with me and I think I would welcome the debate So secondly, what was the second thing that I said? Is it uh deterrence with the second thing deterrence? does the idea of Criminal sanction deter crime? Well, I mean there is actually there is a book here on my my shelf by tom tyler Which I would recommend. It's called White people obey the law Look it up Uh, it's it's it's it's it discusses this at great length And I think the answer is no. I think you know if we talk about for example And I hope you'll come to this a bit later in the conversation somebody who is suffering from addiction And they need to find financial means To be able to pay for some substance Or indeed if they are intoxicated Is the notion of going to prison likely to prevent that person from Committing some kind of offense to either require something or to act out It's not with it. No and the fact that we have Crime and the fact that we have High rates of re-appending you know up to two-thirds in most OECD countries northern european countries Uh, I think shows that the deterrence aspect of criminal sanction criminal justice sanction doesn't work Let's look at rehabilitation. Can we just say that that there's so many people I don't know if you can say it's a majority, but there's so many Young people I for me, it's young men who I've worked with in the past That are filling up the prison system the drug offenses Related to addiction You need to remember addiction is a mental health condition. So it's it's technically an illness, right? Well, let's also not forget that up to a quarter of new Opiate addictions for example are acquired are acquired in prison For example, so it's not just that people are going to prison for drug offenses actually Quite a large proportion of people who go to prison also acquire new addictions when they come there so we're criminalizing people for being unwell, which is Pretty great. It's quite draconian when you when you look at it, right? Well, we can talk we can talk about mental health and How I have worked In some countries and in some settings where I think I think there are some not good but helpful solutions to some of those issues so we can we can touch on that a little bit later going back to your So rehabilitation. Well, that's it's it's exactly your point Uh that we already started talking about this Does prison rehabilitate? Well There might be there might be some single figure individual cases And these do tend to be quite high profile cases uh where people say yes, I've You know gone straight or whatever the phrase is I have achieved this and Is that down to the prison system necessarily is that down to people's experience of the prison system? Maybe down to negative experiences But does prison rehabilitate? Well, look at the reoffending rates. We're offending rates are up to two-thirds and that's that's the detected ones Look at the new addictions which are acquired in prisons Look at the violence which occurs in prisons. Is it a rehabilitative environment Somebody who has been to prisons in over 20 countries and their work with justice systems, you know all all over the world in different continents I again would argue it's certainly not I'm sure your some members of your audience might disagree and again I would I would welcome that that debate and people may have different experiences and finally the The isolation aspect is sort of the you know if you if you get somebody who is dangerous and you put them in You isolate them. They can't commit for the crimes. Well Maybe up to a point maybe some prisons succeed in this Uh, or in some cases it's successful But you know, you look at some of the highest profile crimes Even of the last 10 years like the terrorist atrocities the madrid bombings the train bombings and madrid the terrorist atrocities That was all planned from inside prisons If you look at the fact that mobile phones And other communication technologies in them if it's very easy to bring them People do acquire mobile phones in prisons This I this isolate this concept of isolation is becoming less and less Can I just chip in there and I just want to talk from my own experience It's back along. Um I kind of have my brushes with a law um And without going into too much detail, it's it's subject for another another day But I was very lucky.  You're putting them and we've got to remember without trying to upset people here, but but Prisoners very often are the victims too victims of childhood. Yes. Yes mental health There is a There is nobody is just a victim or just an offender or just a hero Or whatever. There is a huge overlap and I would say the majority probably more than 50 of people in prison have been victims of Crime and quite serious crime themselves It goes much it goes much higher for women who are in prison more than two-thirds of women have been victims of also so violence sexual violence physical violence And so and also we have to remember that quite a large Proportion of young men men in prison also have traumatic brain injury as well, which is a A major factor one of us. I think my point was Chucking all these young people who are in themselves victims in a cage With Say for example lifetime offenders who don't see any way out of crime Is in Inducting them into this lifestyle that maybe had they had the shock that I had They would have well, so there is a lot there. So let's let's let's unpack all of it. Let's let's let's patch on your last point first the idea of lifetime offenders, I think we need to separate Out the person who is who who who has a who has a lifetime of offenses And the person who has a life sentence Now people who have life sentences, which is usually for very serious crimes like murder Actually from experience and a lot of prison staff will tell you this they actually have quite a lot to lose because they Hope to be out on license at some point in 20 years time. So they have a lot to lose. So generally They're seen as a more stable group Of prisoners. They seem as a more stable A population where upon maybe some younger men Whoring for a short time Maybe less they may be less stable But you know, I have heard it said by some prison officers that actually so-called livers in Later in their sentence if they're mixed with a more short term younger prisoners They actually have a stabilizing influence Because they have more to lose and if something kicks off as there's trouble of their problems. It's bad for everyone Uh, it has a negative input for everyone. So so these these prisoners might exercise a kind of A bit of a strain So so so that that that's that's that's that's that's one difference Whereupon as you say a lifetime of crime a lifetime of offenses, I think that's something different That's somebody the point the point I was making is more You know, you're putting these guys that were that have made one crime. It's a one-off If it was dealt in the right way, they'd probably be put off crime for life and and and if they were supported to this And and and possibly either Uh, so so so let's let's let's let's go back to what you said about the court appearance. So, uh, the way People go through life and the way people interact with the state including at the extreme end, which is the justice system Is usually via a series of crisis points And the crisis points in terms of criminal justice are possibly the point of committing the offense The point of being arrested The point of appearing in court the point of being sentenced the point of going to prison The point of being released from prison. These are all transition points. These are all crime crime Like little wake-up calls. They can be little wake-up calls, but also those points. Unfortunately It's where people pass between different Agencies and different system and a lot of the time they don't they don't meet up a lot of the time There is no continuity and there have been various attempts in england over the last english wales Over the last 20 years the idea of the not national offender management service Originally in the early 2000s. It was actually to have end-to-end sort of case workers From the very early stage of somebody's Journey through the justice system towards their Exit from the system, but that never really happened. The national offender management service ended up being just another sort of triangular structure Which didn't achieve any of those four stated goals that we discussed at the beginning of this conversation But yes, so I agree It's these crisis points are Can be wake-up calls But they're also the points where people can fall through the cracks Between the different agencies between the different systems very much. So I think I think have we addressed Yeah, no, I think those three three different things we have. I mean america's system is Is it better to say it's one huge failure or? The u.s. Don't they imprison more people? I think shawnat would would tell us more about this So the u.s. Is the highest in prisoner in the world In terms of episode numbers the u.s. Holds something like a fifth or a quarter of all prisoners. It's over two million prisoners um And also in terms of the prison population rate. I would need to look this up. There is a very A helpful resource online if your audience would like members of your audience would like to look this up It's called the world prison brief online And it's a project that I worked on many many years ago Maybe 15 years or more 20 nearly 20 years ago and it continues to be published by a What part of the university of london the institute for criminal policy research? ICPR and it's it's a data from the last however many 20 or 30 years For every country it's got the prison population the prison population rate the proportion of remand prisoners women prisoners children in in the prison systems there and attracts both the rates and And absolute numbers as well for for every country in the world almost every country in the world So yes the u.s. Uh, it reached A peak about 10 years ago over two million prisoners and then the absolute number has stayed stable But the rate has gone down a little bit because it's the population has grown So the rate has gone down a little bit, but it still remains I think the number one Big big country the one number one big country country, which in prisons Which in prisons people there might be some small island nations which Kind kind of because they're such small countries and they have like some big Spike at a particular moment that might distort the top 10 a little bit by the u.s. in terms of Continuity it is it is number one, but the thing with hyperincarceration is It leads to a crisis it leads to a public health crisis It leads to a mental health crisis it leads to a public finances crisis because prison is very expensive And if you look at the u.s. The u.s. Spends something like five times more on its prison systems Then it doesn't hire education, right? so So these crises result in Some very negative outcomes of course, but they also In particularly in the u.s. Actually I have observed this and I've worked with a few states in the u.s. They do produce a real can-do attitude in terms of trying to solve these problems um And I believe the the technical term is burning platform innovation So when the thing that you're standing on is on fire you figure you quickly have to figure out a way of Getting off the thing or putting out the fire so a whilst I would say a lot of the United's or a lot of the states in the u.s. Remain in a crisis. We've also seen some very innovative approaches Uh, I would highlight the experience of new york both city and state which has managed to Reduce dramatically reduced its prison population and reduce crime at the same at the same time I would highlight missouri, which actually quite a long time ago By but more than 20 years ago pioneered a fairly unique approach to youth justice So the missouri model of dealing with the young people who enter the justice system is is is a very interesting one So yes, there is a lot of harm being caused by hyper incarceration not just in the u.s. But elsewhere, uh, but also the crisis lead to innovative approaches because If you think about people who go to work in the justice system A lot of people well like yourself chris you have worked as an addiction support worker Uh in the past, uh, it's people who want and obviously a lot of the people you work with Or some of the people were justice involved. Oh, no massive age He's handing glove in a lot of scenarios And and you know, why why did you why did you go into that because you wanted to help people? And it's entirely possible that somebody with your experience might have been working in the prison as well So, uh, yeah a lot of people who walk who go into the justice system Some of them go into it possibly for similar reasons and people go into the military and that they want to keep society safe Either from you know, people go into the military because they want to keep society safe Their country safe from external threats People who go into the justice system To work in the justice system want to keep the country that's their community safe from crime. So maybe there is that Driver other people going people who work in education people for drug support workers Uh and social workers and others Going because they want to help people they want to help people get better. They want to help people Improve their lives have better outcomes and and and the mixture and the mixture of the two as well You know, it's not just what I know I'm conscious of our time here folks. So I'm just going to move this forward a bit, but I just wanted to um My experience of working with young offenders Uh Was a fascinating one But and it was very rewarding in a way as part of a university placement I put in for an organization run by a fellow former marine who was In a nutshell without being too specific. He got a team He got someone within the prison to pick The young men Who he deemed were looking for a way out of their their criminal past Many of whom had uh We're recovering from addiction So I went to work with them at a Let's say an old manor house that was up on Dartmoor These 30 lads were there And they were getting shown some sometimes simple things like how to wash how to cook um basic life skills And I went in as part of my university placement for three months On the first day I just explained who I was a little bit about my own. Um, you know Yeah, I say criminal Well, you're your background. Yeah, and and and how I I I turned it around and I showed some photographs with my travels and Again cutting a long story short The Response I got was phenomenal the effect I could have As a as a positive male role model, and I think there's a clue there in this There is actually a word for it as well Pro there's the technical term. I'm sorry to be democratic. Uh, pro-social modeling. Yeah, it's called So you've got antisocial behavior and so on and then you've got pro-social Yeah, and people don't call it that because it's a bit of a technical term, but that's what you are doing So, I mean a lot of these guys were obviously lacking a positive Ro male role model in their lives And I was able to come along and not just be a positive role model, but I guess use my people skills to to really push the right buttons and Had an amazing result the first day together Or the second day, for example, we took some sports and played football And we agreed and this is my marines background coming out Now the losing team would have to jump in the lake and this was the middle of winter and there was this boggy marshy lake And we played the game my team. I was captain of one team. We won The other team all started good luck. Yeah, the other team all started. Oh, we've got to jump in the lake and They're walking down this in trepidation slowly and then I just winked at my team and said And we just ran past that we're all dived into this lake Completely against all health and safety that you you have these days And once the lads of the losing team saw us running down they all ran down and we're all we're all swimming in this in this bog basically and Just a simple act like that gave to these guys their dignity their respect their hope for the future love And a feeling of accomplishment of achievement But i'm gonna Move on now because i'm I am conscious of the time. I got to get a train back to glimmer by the way folks. We're in top them now um So can you explain your t-shirt? Ah, yes, so I am wearing an old t-shirt. It says uh red army rc red army riding club uh My brother chris here and I are both members Of this motorbike riding club. It is a charitable and social Club we we love riding but and we love partying but we also Try to do our bit to give to give something give something back to society And we've just had a very successful fundraiser for A small charity here in north london called out and about and it works with students from A special school who have severe and complex multiple complex education and mobility needs And it takes them this charity takes them on trips to nature to the forest to the seaside to cultural events And unfortunately this year they've lost a couple of major donors And they were worried that they might not be able to Take some of these young people to some of the trips that they so cherish And we stepped in and we raised over a thousand pounds. Well, no, no, no, we are the people Our friends our community has very generously donated over a thousand pounds things We're up to something like one thousand two hundred fifty pounds if you include gift aid So, uh, it's it's a really great feeling and hopefully this charity will be able to run The trips that they wanted to this year Yeah, that's that's one of the Anthrop does an amazing job of organizing this every year It means an awful lot to these small charities And they should just say that i'm the chaplain of the red army riding club Yes, and chris chris's function, uh in this club Is uh very much it's the word chaplain doesn't mean it's a religious Role it means that chris Thank you bud, right? Uh chris chris's role is to Provide a pastoral support to other members like myself To talk to us when we think that there is something we need to to talk through Our thoughts are feeling sometimes No, not not every not everything is loveliest and positive all the time and chris's Role which she does amazingly well is to support the other members of this or this motorbike riding club. So briefly Three questions Most inspirational person Oh, that's a very very tough one. I I am I am tempted to say you but uh, I think that's uh Yeah, I think I think that's that's possibly a little bit too sycophantic. He's only human. Um, yeah, I'm I'm just human um There are many inspirational people Uh, but I think in terms of what we're talking about today, which is justice reports I would say it's uh, my first my first boss which is uh baroness vivian sterren and she was for uh, over 20 years She was the director of a charity called the national association association for the care and resettlement of offenders Necro and in the late 90s for her work was awarded First the cbe and then was elevated to the house of lords as a crossbench as an independent beer uh, and uh, she and her husband professor and recoil uh Well kind of shaped shaped my early career and and taught me so much. So In terms of justice reform what we're talking about, I would say Baroness vivian sterren and professor and recoil Both incredible people now retired, but but still still still active still working a worthy cause so Most influential or inspirational book Other than eating smoke. Are they eating smoke or 40 nights? That's another uh, very powerful book. Um Again, it's it's impossible to it's impossible to to to say what's the most inspirational book. Can I recommend one book? It's a it's a non-fiction book Uh And it's by a guy called Matthew Crawford who is an american motorbike mechanic actually he was he worked for a conservative think tank work He got a phd from A university in the u.s Worked for a conservative think tank for about six months and was basically didn't like it because he was He felt he was being made to produce evidence To order kind of thing Opened the one-man motorbike Repair shop works and motorbikes and writes very good philosophy. I think in my opinion So I would recommend his book the case for working with your hands Uh And the subtitle is why office work is bad for you and fixing things is good Uh And I think this this might appeal to some to some of your audience. I think it's it's very love it already Matthew Crawford final question Film That's uh, baby. That's that's again. That's another that's another huge question. Uh, in terms of one that you've just really enjoyed in terms of uh, a film which I think is both Great art and very entertaining for me. And it's a film that stayed with me Maybe a bit strange Batman Returns The second Tim Burton Batman film with Michael Keaton as Batman Batman returns I think it's it's stronger than the first one in which of course Jeff Nicholson famously upstaged Michael Keaton as the Joker Uh, and yeah, I think I think it's a it's a it's a darker. It's a more Artistic film, but it's also very very entertaining and you know, I I love the Batman comic books and I think Batman Returns. It's a film which I I returned to I've seen it more than once It's Batman Marvel or I I think Batman is DC. DC. That's right. It's it's it's a Tim Burton film brilliant Okay Dear friends, thank you for watching Anton. We've been a cracking guest. Thank you. We will uh Pick this up next time. I hope so. We've got lots more to talk. We can talk about our snowboarding adventures Been pretty pretty amazing some interesting injuries Yeah, I don't know whether you can see the scar scar there quite a lot of titanium and the bones as a result and also Anton's going to tell us about his 3000 mile road trip on your motorbike Around Europe last year. Yes. I could solo around Europe of which there will be a book coming out I hope so. Yeah brilliant Anton Thank you very much brother. You really appreciate it Friend, thank you for watching my video I'm the only person I know That has ticked every item off my bucket list and I did so coming back from chronic addiction with no help from anybody Now I want to pass those skills on to you But I can't help you unless you help me and hit the subscribe button So please do so and let's go and smash this world together


Here we are zooming into Mesia 74, a stunning example of a grand design spiral galaxy that is viewed by Earth observers nearly face on. Its perfectly symmetrical spiral arms emanate from the central nucleus and are dotted with clusters of young blue stars and glowing pink H2 regions of ionized hydrogen. Tracing along the spiral arms are winding dust lanes that also begin very near the galaxy's nucleus and follow along the length of the spiral arms.


So you're going to step up, you're going to find out where that aircraft is at, you're going to sight in on that aircraft, you're going to pull and depress that trigger for three to five seconds and wait for that missile to fire.


This episode is brought to you by the free downloadable e-book Terrorism, Exile and the Path to Freedom. Dr. Michael Yusef uses his first-hand knowledge of the Middle East to uncover the shocking history of radical Islam and discusses the only way to save our Western civilization as we know it. Download your free guide now by clicking on the free stuff link at MarlarHouse.com. Offer expires Friday, March 31, 2017. I'm Darren Marlar and this is your Daily Dose of Weird News. There is a report that NASA has invented an age-reversing pill that they would give to astronauts traveling to Mars. Mars? How about taking care of Earth first, huh? Seriously, who wouldn't immediately sign up for a prescription for age-reversing pills? Twitter is exploring a subscription-based option. So does that mean you'd have to pay to get Trump's tweets, or do you have to pay to block them? Amy Schumer has backed out of the starring role in the live-action Barbie movie, and parents around the world rejoice. The NFL's VP of Football Operations, Troy Vincent, says the NFL's competition committee is exploring ways to make dangerous hits result in immediate ejections and possible suspensions. While at the same time, victims of those dangerous hits will also be suspended from their brainstems. A UK reality TV show sent contestants into seclusion in the Scottish Highlands only to have them return to find the show had been cancelled. Oh, hey, can we get a Scottish Highlands show for the Kardashians? NFL owners Monday approved the Raiders to move to Las Vegas by a vote of 31-1, with only the Dolphins voting against the move. Apparently Miami doesn't want Vegas in the NFL, they would like to remain the most insane city in the league. The newly unveiled statue of Shaquille O'Neal outside the Staples Center is suspended 10 feet in the air. Even from that height, though, Shaq still insists the world is flat. An Idaho motorist is blaming a car crash on Bigfoot. She claims to have hit a deer in an accident that was caused by a Bigfoot sighting. She says she saw a Sasquatch chasing a deer on a stretch of U.S. 95. She adds that the creature was shaggy and between 7 and 8 feet tall. Bigfoot then went back for the roadkill deer and would also like to thank that lady for the help. Jeb Bush feels that President Trump has become a distraction. Whoa, somebody please check my pulse right now. I just agreed about something with Jeb Bush. During his White House briefing on Monday, Trump spokesperson Sean Spicer had something likely spinach stuck in his teeth. So now we're all going to call him Spinach Spice. Former Vice President Joe Biden claims that he could have won the 2016 presidential election. Well, maybe so, but seeing as how you chickened out before the primaries, I guess we'll never really know now, will we Joe? And the final four is set. The games have not even started and already there's controversy. Apparently somebody stole Tom Brady's bracket. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up and be sure to subscribe if you want to see more. And click that little bell next to the subscribe button so you can be notified when I post new videos. For Daily Dose of WeirdNews.com, I'm Darren Marlar.


How would you say that our relationship has changed from baby one to baby two? Let me think about it. Do you know what changed? I do know it's changed. The fact that you don't have a thought about this is crazy to me. What's changed? You tell me, I gotta let you answer. What's changed to you? No, I already have my answer. I need to know what yours is genuinely. This video is brought to you by Squarespace, an all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting out or managing a growing brand, Squarespace makes it easy to create a beautiful website or engage with your audience and or sell anything from products to content to time, all in one place, all on your terms. Go to squarespace.com slash shambudy to start your free trial, no credit card required. And when you are ready to launch, make sure you go back to squarespace.com slash shambudy because that is how you get 10% off the purchase of a website or a domain.  What you gonna do with this camera? Who's coming to your birthday? What a list. Okay, that's your style. I'm trying to go for this. What do we think? Doing too much? I don't think people want you playing with that. You heard me tell Zyla. Are you making cupcakes for your birthday? That's the script. Kevin, what are we doing? First of all, we're making cupcakes for Riley's birthday. We? Yes, Riley's birthday, not my birthday. It's actually my birthday too. It's the day I gave birth. But it's not your birthday. It literally is. It's my birthday. Your birthday is April 2nd. Yes, that's the day that I was born into this world. I now have three birthdays. How does it feel, three years in the game? It's wild. It doesn't make sense. Sometimes I'll be looking at her like, No, you're three?  Like this is crazy. It's still surreal. It doesn't make any sense. Yeah. I don't know what happened. I'm old. Yeah, we aged a lot. I got crinkles. My skin is starting to crink. Why you call it crinkles? It's crinkles. It's called wrinkles. It doesn't need a remix. It's crinking. How would you say that our relationship has changed from baby one to baby two? Let me think about it. Do you know what changed? I do know it's changed. The fact that you don't have a thought about this is crazy to me. What's changed? You tell me. I gotta let you answer. What's changed? No, I already have my answer. I need to know what yours is genuinely. I genuinely don't know how much it's changed from baby one to baby two. I can't say more than an appreciation of the delegation between who's watching who at what time. I think that that's the major change. It's just fair. I think that our relationship has a thousand percent improved. That's saying a lot because we were in a good place. Jared and I have been together for eight years now. We have never broken up in that time. We've never really gone through a really tough time in our relationship. There's been phases where it has felt like argument or more frequent. But I think that since having Ziya, it's so much you and me versus problems.  It's you and me versus whatever problem is there. So if it's like, okay, it's Jared and Shan.  Okay, it's you and me versus how do we fix that? All right, cool. You have to go and do this thing for work. Okay, it's you and me versus how do we manage to figure out our life so that can happen? So I think after the first, it was kind of you versus me. I'm trying to hold on to my identity. You're trying to hold on to your identity. We're both trying to figure out who we are as parents. And it's a struggle that happens to find our balance and to make our needs met. But I do now feel like we're working cooperatively together in a way that we just work before. Overall, I think Ziya just allows us to still be us without it being like demanding us to be so different than our natural selves. Yeah. Whereas Ryu is like, no. Why do you think that a lot of dads really struggle to find equal footing in the parenting game? I'm asking you this as somebody who I think is at a really good job at doing this. So as I was saying to you guys, I recently used Squarespace to purchase a site for our professional emails and for our production company. And then I also use that same website, their domain shared entertainment.com to start their appointments feature, which has been a game changer for me. I thought I needed an assistant at one point, but this just makes it so easy to manage. Now, Squarespace provides everything you need to manage your business to accept secure payments to send automatic reminders. And of course, to beautifully showcase your services and more using their website platform. But it's so much more than that. And speaking of beautiful, you really have to check out their fluid engine. This is their next generation website design system that allows you to unlock unbreakable creativity from your browser or do it all from your phone. Lastly, if you have been considering doing merch like I have and top of next year, y'all hold me to it. I really think I should do this. I think that I've got some interesting things to share with the world. That's me saying it. Squarespace can help you do that. They can actually help you to design your products, handle production, inventory and shipping. Again, when we think I want to do it, but I don't know how or with who, see if Squarespace can fill that gap for you. Again, e-commerce, I can go on and on about their services. So if any of this has piqued your interest, go to Squarespace.com slash Shambhudi to start your free trial. No credit card required for this. Just play around and see what's options, what's available for you. And when you decide you want to launch what you have made in your free trial, go to Squarespace.com slash Shambhudi and get yourself 10% off the purchase of a website or a domain. You know what? There is a balance to be had here. Like there is a truth that where men need to step up more, right? But there's also like on the other side of it, our entire programming is like told that men don't have instincts the way moms do. That we're not connected to the baby or what it needs as much because you're breastfeeding and you have an intimate relationship, biological relationship with the baby just from breastfeeding and how much you guys are communicating to each other. So I think there's a lot that's like, maybe I don't know what to do and I should just lean on the mom. And then also too, it's like, you know, you carried the baby for nine months, you gave birth to it. There is a little line where it's like, I got this. Or if we are going to do something, there's like a lot of micromanaging. Pour the milk this way, put it this way, have it at this temperature, shake it that way. Feed her like this, you can't feed her like that. So there's a lot of things that go into why the dad made to be like, you know what, I'm going to let you leave baby. You got this and I'm here to support. This conversation around partnership and reaction to kids is so common in my circle. Like as soon as women, yeah. You guys will be talking about it. I'm like, that's why I believe in conversations because I'm just like, I got to get out of here.  So I'll be around with the kids and I just be hearing all yappy, yappy, yappy. I think you guys relish in that you're better at it than us. And you make sure that we know that all the time. But make sure to step up. I agree. I agree. I don't want to get attacked here. I agree. Do you think that I make you feel like you're not as good as a parent as me? No, I don't feel that for me. I don't feel that. Anymore. There was a time where I was part of the moms going to be like, I know. I think that a lot of people genuinely don't know how to. And they're just afraid that the kids are going to get bored. The kids are going to get hurt. They're afraid that they don't know what they're doing. And they feel like, well, the other person can just do it better since it might as well go to them. You just have to sit in it. It's not easy to watch kids, especially not for a long period of time. So I think that having two where we became more split, where it's like, you got one, I got one, and then both of us, okay, cool. We had to figure out techniques for each kid, which allowed for an easy trade off. So I just think the time that you put in is what makes you good. And if you are afraid to put in the time because you don't think that you're good, it just becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think it just keeps getting better. I mean, that's the positive thing to me. At the end of the day, we're getting more the hang of it and they're becoming more themselves and more enjoyable to be around. Because let's be honest, you don't have anything common with a baby. You don't. You might think that you have snuggles in common with a baby, but very few babies actually like to snuggle. So you guys just like to do totally different things. And it takes a while before you have genuinely enjoyable times with the kids because you're doing something that you both love.   So we're getting to a place now where Ra-Yu likes to cook and she likes some of the movies we like to watch. We like some of the same games. I can really get into the imagination games so can Jared. So it's getting a lot more fun. I will say too, when Ra-Yu was first born, I was like, I'm not ever going to talk to her like she's a baby.  And I'm here like, Ra-Yu. I'm just like, who am I? Who did I become? Why am I doing this baby talk to her? But what you realize as a parent is that you get to see the joy on their face when you're getting into your weird characters with them. And that is more worth it than like my own idea of what I should be talking to my child like. One of my favorite slogans that Jared and I say all the time is life is long. I think that's something that you realize with the kids is like, life is long. We're going to have time to talk like adults. We're going to have time to be strict about getting to school on time. We're going to have time to really get heavily into sports or whatever. Like life is long. It's okay if in this phase right now we're talking like toddlers to you. It's kind of fun. So I think that a lot of the strictness that I had before being a parent is because I'm like, you have to parent one way.  And it's like, no, it's a long time with this person and a lot of time with this person. Like you can evolve and you can adapt. You can switch things up and then nothing wrong with that. Now, Jared Brady, I know that you don't like to give advice. But if you were to give a reflection on how you can maintain a healthy romantic partnership through the trials and tribulations of not just one baby, but two. What would you say? I would say you need to really seek out someone you can bounce off your feelings with, not your significant other. It needs to be someone who is wise enough to give you sound advice. We've experienced having a baby. So you have the hindsight to be like, that first year was a very heightened emotional year. It was hard for us to work through any normal problems, let alone things that came up that were really heavy problems during that time. And there should just be grace in space and somebody to bounce off your feelings with that can kind of be like talk you off the ledge or get you to look at the situation with a different perspective. What would you say? I think the thing that can cause the divide should also be the thing that brings you together. I'll say this in two parts, because I think after having one kid, I used to be hyper vigilant about us doing things together with Ryu, like both of us going to the park. And now in hindsight, when I see two parents of one kid at the park, I'm like, why doesn't one of y'all stay home and catch up on Netflix?  And especially if you acknowledge that the two of you are already so strained, if one person can take the kid and the other can have a moment and you can have that in equity, it's a really beautiful thing. But nonetheless, I think at least 25% of the time doing things together and delighting in your creation together, delighting in that person that you are raising in this world together. One thing that I love that you and I do, which we never had a formal conversation about this, but Dr. John Gottman talks about the importance of bids in relationship. And that essentially is when your partner asks for your attention, you give it. You're not like, oh my God, or annoyed, or saying no, or like pushing them off till later. You and I are really good at, if someone says look, the other person looks. And we really do that a lot with the kids. Like look at her smile, look at this, look how she's dressing, look at how she's walking, look what they're saying right now, look at what they just did, and look at this video. So I think that's something that can be really, really special that just reminds you like, we're in this together and gosh, isn't it beautiful? Yeah, it's a good advice.


So I'd like to, this was just a bit about meaningful work and the platform and I'd like to just transition over to digital transformation and what it is to some extent and from there on we'll talk about what that process of skilled volunteering looks like and how to get from that A to Z and then start the next stage of more skilled volunteering. So digital transformation is really affecting all of us today. These are some of the areas which we found that are most in need for nonprofits to start looking at, analyzing and finding out where they can really benefit from digital transformation in these areas. So in marketing that might look like digital advertising, segmentation, really optimizing their websites and landing pages, building funnels for donors to go through and for human resources that might be hybrid or virtual offices, engaging with employees, especially in creating equity, diversity and inclusion across these online spaces, just quite difficult. For operations, there's new business models that are available now to try out, being able to measure that client experience and be able to deliver your programs online. With technical infrastructure, some examples are being able to access employee and client and donor data and generate insights, making sure that your systems are cyber secure as well as effective with finance and fundraising, new channels every day, gamification of finance and fundraising, cryptocurrency or some really interesting new trends. And with impact measurement and communication, being able to tell your story on these digital platforms, being able to measure the progress and also set KPIs. And talking to nonprofits, these are some of the challenges that we've been able to help them work through, but also recognize the immense amount of expertise that is available in these areas, within nonprofits and also within volunteers and companies. So I will now kind of talk about some of the benefits of transformation and some of the challenges. So really being able to transition over to some of these digital technologies can lead to resilience and flexibility. You can really increase value to your audiences and even scale your impact at different levels. However, it is expensive. Building websites can cost a lot of money, for example. There's a steep learning curve in terms of all the available technologies. There's so many technologies every day, like what's the right one for me right now and what's the right platform to use, for example. And then it always requires building and updating and optimizing your system. So there's a continuous work that needs to happen every year or every month. So one way to address this challenge is by really looking at skill-based volunteering. And so I'd like to talk about what skill-based volunteering is. And it's really aligning a volunteer skills and experience with the task at hand and increasing the value, thereby increasing the value of the volunteer's time and impact. So you might know this as pro bono. It's definitely a type of skill-based volunteering. And it can really be centered around knowledge. So just knowing what's the next step and sort of what a traditional consultant might help you with and or also an implementation where you have a project that's defined and it just needs to be completed or a mix of both. And today I'm gonna walk you through a resource called capacitycommons.org, which I will make sure to link at some point and send in the resources. But this is a really great website which just really walks you through the A to Z of skill-based volunteering and how to get started and how to engage effectively. The other thing I'd like to add is skill-based volunteering is one solution to addressing this challenge. It's definitely possible to hire freelancers, agencies, and even interns. There's many grants available for these activities. And some of the advantages of skill-based volunteering is they tend to have many years of experience in what you need. But the limitation might be a lower weekly time commitment and turnover as well. So for the rest of the presentation, I'm gonna go through the six-step process that is adapted from the seven steps of capacitycommons that will kind of explain to you how to kind of approach skill-based volunteering at your organization. And I'd love to see sort of, feel free to ask any questions at any point and would love to hear your experiences through these steps or any other frameworks that you've been using. So the six steps are first to prepare your organization, scope out the opportunity, source the volunteer or the team, implement that project, and then evaluate the results. And then six and seven is really celebrating and repeating. Seven is, there's like the seventh step in the capacitycommons, but we've just kept it down to six for this presentation. So step one, it's preparing your organization. So really identifying readiness and high priority areas. So some questions to ask yourself is, is there a need for more capacity in my work and where is that need? Do I have the bandwidth or does my already have the bandwidth to engage with volunteers because it does take time to recruit, to manage and to again, do all the steps in the six-step process. And is there buy-in for my colleagues? Will they be able to support the volunteers if I'm not able to work with them? And is this something that my organization is ready for right now? How we can help as meaningful work is you can definitely call our team. We have a worksheet and checklist you can go through and also complete our quick needs assessment to identify some areas where skilled-based volunteering might be a good fit for you.  You can go from the operational perspective where you're looking at all the different key functions of your organizations and figure out where there is growth needed or within that, or are there any problems you're facing? The other way to look at it is maybe through a traditional role perspective. So you might look at the different departments of your organization and identify, talk to the members who are working on these aspects and say, what's missing right now? What would you need to achieve that next step in performance or maybe ways to identify what that next step could be as well? So from step one is just making sure you're ready, making sure you have a need for it and the capacity to engage. Step two is around scoping the opportunity. And so here's some questions to consider when you are trying to have a better idea of that area of say it's marketing and you wanna roll out the next marketing campaign, you might wanna think about these questions. What is your organization's core need? And this is different from the goal. So the core need might be something around, say your organization really wants to engage with the audience, with a specific audience that you haven't been able to engage with. That could be a core need. And the project goal would be how can you specifically engage with that audience? So the reason the core need is there is because there might be many ways to achieve the core need and perhaps the solution that you've proposed might change a bit depending on the input from the volunteers. But defining that project goal is really important and also going back and forth with the volunteers once they get started on that project goal is a really interesting exercise. Then you wanna talk about what are the phases? What are that interim milestones and deliverables and how do you define success halfway through the project or all the way at the end? And maybe it's a few months or it's a few weeks long or maybe it's just a one-time advising session. Either way, you can approach them quite differently but you still would want to think about what success looks like for you. And then what is a range of acceptable timelines? And you might have an ideal timeline which you should definitely communicate but also think about the time it takes to maybe find the right volunteer or any sort of contingencies along the way if something were to happen with communication or what's a volunteer, do you have a plan to kind of some wiggle room in that timeline? And what roles do you need? How many volunteers, what skill sets and how much capacity? So maybe if you're planning out a volunteer campaign or sorry, a marketing campaign, for example, you might want to have one session for advising with an expert in marketing and then have another project based on implementing those recommendations. This could be applied to any other area of the organization as well. So how can we help as meaningful work? You can definitely speak with a member of our team to value, assess and map out the project. And these are also really cool steps. So valuing means what would be the time, the value of that time that is provided to you as an organization. That's a nice way to measure sometimes the impact that could be created. Being able to assess and get some feedback on this project plan is super important as well as really mapping out the project so you know exactly how the deliverables and tasks flow from one end of the project to the other. And I love Eli's comment here about, yeah, it does look like putting together a job description for a contractor with maybe a bit more detail. We can also help with breaking out a big, a large project into smaller chunks suitable for skill-based volunteers. Something to think about due to capacity. And we also have posting templates on our website. So it actually comes with some pre-filled phases and milestones for the most common opportunities that you can then modify just so it takes some burden off you as well. So now that we've scoped out our opportunity and just to add to this in the capacity commons website you can have many detailed exercises for each of these steps. So I'd really encourage you to check that out once you do start skill-based volunteering. So talking about sourcing. So now that we have the opportunity sourced and scoped out, sorry, the opportunity scoped out we wanna figure out how to source the opportunity and get the right volunteers to do the job. So there's a few ways. You can definitely make a posting on your website and share it through your social media, a LinkedIn, or job postings is another good example of how you can get it well known. You can reach out to your contacts and a different volunteer networks that you're a part of. You can also reach out to companies. So some companies will have programs that are really specific and some might be more general. I know for example, Traction on Demand has a program where they'll help with your nonprofit with Salesforce implementation and that's a really focused program that you can apply for. Whereas other companies might be open to more of a free form arrangement if you do engage with them. You can also post on govolunteer.ca and local volunteer centers. They often have nice databases where you can post. There's also other similar companies to us which include Volunteer Match, do some good and purposely in Vancouver. They can definitely check out. In the States, there's Cashify, which is a really cool website which looks at engaging with skill-based volunteers. And finally, you can also do this your main for work and I'll just chat about our process and how it works on our end. So once you have your scope of opportunity, you can create that through our templates or on your own. We'll work hard to really match a volunteer or a team to you. So we have some automated matching based on our algorithm, but we also have people in our team that are able to talk to companies and find that a great volunteer for you. And just to be clear, we don't just work with companies, but we also accept individuals, volunteers who are at any stage, maybe they have some career experience, they have some minimal experience, but they might be working right now, they might be switching jobs. They're also really keen to volunteer. They can also join the platform as well. We then review applications from volunteers. So that would be on your end. You can see everyone who applied to that opportunity. There's a quick 15 minute feasibility call that you can arrange just to make sure it's a good fit and then you can start the opportunity. And one thing to note is we're always improving this process. So if we notice that it's taking too long to match, we'll try something new to really accelerate that timeline, such as maybe the future being able to reach out to volunteers directly with your ask as well. So before starting, now that we have sourced the volunteer, before starting, there's a few questions you might wanna ask yourself. So what information does a volunteer need to start and who do they need to talk to? So making sure if you're the project manager, you have the capacity to work with this volunteer or team or you have the right person, the right people in that conversation. Does a volunteer have any obstacles and something you wanna check in with every week? What have you been doing and what are your obstacles? And then is a volunteer comfortable with the commitment and the work environment and do they have any access needs to consider? So this is super important just because it's really great to be clear about the commitment and what's available and have that supportive environment as much as you can. I just wanna answer the question, does meaningful work do any initial screening of volunteers? And yes, we do. So volunteers are all required to insert their LinkedIn. We will do a little screening of sort of their past experience and we will not verify them until we have sufficient sort of evidence to prove that they are really capable of doing great work and are trusted. We also do verify non-profits and companies as well and work really closely with them before accepting them to the platform just to make sure everyone's on the same page. And yeah, just to answer the question, can startups utilize a service? Yeah, definitely. So startups on the company side, you can definitely go in and volunteer for startup non-profits. Definitely, we have a lot of startup non-profits on our platform that really benefit from the service. And if you're like a startup company that is looking for help, if you're for-profit, we don't really facilitate that, but you can use other services like RIPE and where you can work with students through those platforms. We definitely work with startup non-profits to accept volunteers. Yeah, so the next step is really again, managing progress. So once you got the opportunity started, you want to start managing progress. So do you have a process to document those learnings? Every step of the way, every meeting, are you kind of coming out with these little nuggets of you're always coming up with these little nuggets of really good information? Do you have a way to really document that, those learnings through those meetings? Being able to track the volunteer's progress. So once you've set out those milestones and deliverables, are they being met? Are adjustments needed to those? And thinking about how you can hand off the project after the completion, who's gonna take on the next steps? Finally, just a feature, the volunteer hours and notes can also be tracked in meaningful work, so you don't have to worry about that on your end of things. All right, so the last bit of the presentation is around measuring and celebrating impact. Once the volunteer opportunity is done or even once it started and you've reached a big milestone, it's super important to start measuring and celebrating that impact that's created. So a few questions to consider. And I put these steps together because they're actually really closely related. Was the project goal and metrics of success reached? So those things that you said out in the beginning where they actually reached, did you come up with new metrics based on the progression of the project? And what was that impact? Could you measure in hours? Could you measure it in those metrics that you've came up with in the beginning? Were you able to serve more people? Were you able to save money? These are some ways to start measuring impact. And then how can you tell the story of this project? And how does it relate to your audience? So this is really a creative part of the process and definitely the more storytelling you can give, the more images, the more video, the more powerful it can be to your audience and more relatable. And we're kind of recognize the work of the volunteer or the team. So it's really important to always recognize folks that are able to contribute and some ways you can do that would be maybe giving them a recommendation on LinkedIn or sharing the project. And I'll talk about how we can help you facilitate that as well. So our process to measure and celebrate impact is once an opportunity is completed, you have the opportunity to give some feedback to the volunteer and create a shareable impact story. And recognizing that you'll have so much work to do, you probably don't wanna create so many of these stories, we have, we'll have sort of a lot of the work filled out for you from that initial posting and you just need to give a little bit of feedback for the volunteer. Volunteers can also give your organization feedback as well and create the shareable impact story that you can then put out on social media and it's just a public link to a website and it has all sort of the details, a bit of the story behind the project and or advising session or event. And you can put it out there. If you need some help with measuring impact, we also have a workshop for that where we really look at some multi-step kind of process. You look at sort of your theory of change, identify some of those core metrics that really matter to you and how they align with some of the global metrics that you might be working towards as well. Again, I just wanted to share one story that I think maybe is a little unconventional but I thought it was a cool story to share. So we worked with Habitat for Humanity Greater Vancouver and actually they came to us with an ask of, we need some drone footage recorded for some of our builds that we're doing and being able to tell the story of the land that is there. So they were able to recruit a skilled volunteer, Ben, who is actually able to, he has his own drone company and he joined our platform and he recorded some drone footage and they were able to use that into a video where they were able to start launching a campaign to build housing in Coquitlam. So this is what an impact story looked like, just a summary of that impact story here and some really cool video that Habitat for Humanity is able to produce and tell that story. So definitely check out there in their pages. It's really cool storytelling that they do. So after the opportunity, it's really important to reflect how did the process go, what needs to change for next time and then can you start including skill-based volunteering into your strategic planning? So recognizing that as a resource that your teams can use moving forward. Maintaining a relationship with past volunteers, definitely being able to re-engage with them if they're open to it. It's always great to bring people on again because they have that in-depth knowledge of your organization and maybe they'll start with skill-based volunteering and move on to a board role or a committee member role. I know personally I worked a lot with the Starfish Canada and they work with environmental chain makers across Canada and helping them build their platform and give them a voice. And I started off just as kind of a skill-based volunteer as a judge for one of their programs and I moved on to becoming a board member and really getting into their equity, diversity and inclusion work. So that was a cool pathway for me. And after my board term, I'm back to being a skill-based volunteer for them. And then one cool idea would be just to really send an update on that project you worked on, maybe six months or one year down the road just to see how their work has impacted the organization because I think that feeling of impact really just keeps on giving. And finally, working with companies. So we have companies on the platform and they have volunteers and this could lead to you working more closely with corporate social responsibility departments and actually building partnerships. So most of the company entities are headed by an HR manager or a CSR manager, a corporate social responsibility manager and they can see all the postings and the nonprofits and it's an opportunity to connect with them and build partnerships. And again, when you're building partnerships, it's about understanding the key decision makers and what their needs are, what your wins are and what their wins could be through a potential partnership. So just some questions to kind of reflect on post this presentation is where are your biggest gaps in capacity? Where do you see potential projects or advising sessions? And how might you work with companies in the future and what might that look like? So just some pieces to sort of thinking about moving forwards. And Jason has a question about, do you get requests from orgs for ongoing tech support type of help? Yeah, we definitely do. And we can definitely try to break that down more into sizable projects or it could might be an ongoing role, a long-term role. Cool. And a question from Joe. How do you recruit volunteers to the platform? Do you have partnerships with corporations or are you more focused on recruiting individuals? And what does that typical time commitment look like? Yes, so we are definitely doing both. We believe it's important to engage with companies, but it does take some time in terms of getting them to adopt a program. So that's why it's sort of, we do a bit of both. And the typical available time commitment, it looks like around five hours per week for some of the five to 10 hours per week for a project, face volunteer, and for an advising session, it would be just sort of a couple hours a month as in a mentorship capability. Yeah, and many volunteers have sort of paid volunteer hours from their organization. So this could be maybe 20 to 40 hours over the year as paid volunteer time that they can take off. And so that depends on the organization or the employee, but that's something that they are able to use. What are some of the things volunteers have had working with a nonprofit that you can recommend we work on? Yeah, so I think some issues that we've had as well as I think issues or recommendations. Yeah, so some issues around that. Some issues could be around communication. So when you are doing the initial feasibility call, just being clear about what you need and what that commitment would look like and just making sure the volunteer is comfortable there. I think that's key and just being able to communicate with them about timelines and when you're going to get back to them and sticking to those has been some issues that we've encountered in the past that we were still working on. Some recommendations. Again, I think some of the things, okay, got you, that was an issue. And some things that volunteers have done successfully in the past. So we've definitely had a lot of marketing advisors. So for example, Orbus Canada wanted to really market their flight for the blind charity event where I think they get companies to kind of pull the plane as a team building activity or fundraiser, but they wanted to do it online this year. And so we had a marketing manager at Maximizer, which is a Vancouver company, come in and give them some really cool ideas as an advisor. So that was really successful. And this person, Nicholas, he's been able to help many other nonprofits as well with advising. We've also had some team-based opportunities around marketing and building up content and campaigns as well with Harmony Movement in Toronto. Another example of a cool project, again, with the drone work, as well as some HR advising. So helping with online volunteer recruitment and setting up volunteer recruitment policies. So that was from Sage Vancouver. They were able to provide some support there to the UBC environment nonprofit. Yeah, those are just some examples. There's definitely more that can be explored and we'll definitely reach out to make sure we can help meet those needs. What are some suggestions for attracting younger volunteers? Yeah, so that's a great question. I will think about that. I think attracting younger volunteers is possibly about understanding what their interests might be and being able to, I think, tell the story when you're creating and posting. So something I forgot to cover was when you are creating that posting, are you able to tell the story of the impact that will be created? So I think when folks are able to see that, if I do do this work, this is the impact that will be created. There's a story behind it, something I really care about, making the sort of job posting more interesting and engaging can definitely help with that. Yeah, and then second question, what percentage of volunteers between 18 and 30? I think most of our volunteers are sort of between, I would say, 25 and 50 in terms of our volunteers. I don't have an exact breakdown by age, but I can definitely look into that. And right now, we are sort of being able to onboard roughly 30 to 40 volunteers per month and that's sort of right now, but we are aiming to grow a lot in the fall once things start to get back to normal. Cool, there are a bunch of more questions, but I just wanna talk about some next steps and then I'll get to the rest of the questions. This is a question in a group. Thank you so much, everyone, for diving right into the chat and we'll definitely come back to your question. Yeah, thank you. So I just wanna talk about some next steps, which could be getting started with meaningful work. You can definitely go to our website, app.me4.xyz or app.meanfultech.ca. They both work. We just have two, one for the .ca domain. Be able to then go and then review sort of this talk, go to capacitycommons.org. There's tons of awesome activities on there. You can stay tuned for a recording of this presentation, a worksheet and a checklist. And there'll also be an invitation to book some custom workshops, which we offer on a sliding scale in equity diversity inclusion, impact mapping and navigating grants and online tools. Yeah, so thank you. This is some of our team here and you can definitely contact us at these email addresses and we'll get back to you. But yeah, I will kind of continue to answer the questions. Whoop, oh, we just lost him. I'm sure he'll jump back in a moment. But yeah, it looks like my next question is coming in actually from Alex. Alex, I'm gonna give you the possibility of coming in on Mike if you want to actually ask your question because I think it's a bit longer here. So I'm just gonna go and give you those powers. And yeah, and from here, we can certainly try and add others to have the presenter mode on. So if they want, they can come on camera and ask the question directly. I got lost for a second, but I think I'm back. Excellent, you're back. So I think we've still got two questions coming up here. I know we've got one here from Alex right here, which is sort of, I recall from a former. If you wanna read that out again, that'd be helpful. Cool. So Alex says, asking, I recall from a former slide, you work with Do Some Good for access to organizations full of potential volunteers. It's in value add and working to do some good as opposed to directly with meaningful work. As an organization, I think we would be more interested in being actively matched with potential scale line and value aligned opportunities for staff and volunteers as opposed to a broad volunteer posting, both important. Yeah, so Do Some Good, I mentioned, we don't have an active partnership with them, but I just kind of mentioned them as another option to check out as another option to post opportunities. I would say the sort of value add in working, Derek, I think it might be, if you're looking for skill-based volunteers, volunteering specifically, I think meaningful work might be a good place to start out with. And then if you need additional help, you can definitely check out Do Some Good. Yeah, just wanted to mention that as another option. As an organization, you'd be interested in, yeah, I think meaningful work would be really cool to try out, especially as a company. And we can definitely chat about that for your unique organization. And the other thing is that nonprofits might be accepting help, but I think nonprofit organizations are so diverse and many of them have staff that wanna give back and give back to other areas and other nonprofits. So we can definitely keep, you know, add you in as a company or as an organization. And we're kind of working on that wording just to make it more inclusive and make it accessible for all organizations to engage with however way they want to engage. And do I charge fees? Yes, so with nonprofits, for folks or organizations that are looking to accept help, we do not charge fees for companies, for-profit companies, we do charge per employee fee. And that's to help them set up that employee volunteer program with these opportunities that are often quite hard to find and quite hard to scope out as well. So we do charge on the company side, but it is free for nonprofits as well as individual volunteers. Amazing, great. That's really helpful to know and makes a pretty low barrier. So I've got another question that's come to me and for the rest of you, throw your questions into the chat in the meantime, will I basically take up this last two minutes? So when you're bringing someone through a project, what is the most common obstacle that leads to a stalled project? Like what are the things we should really watch out for? So I think that setup is really important making sure that you have that plan of how you want the project to proceed. Often you might start with a project and it doesn't have that complete plan or deliverables and the volunteer might get a little confused on how to proceed and they might not actually meet what you were expecting. So keeping that communication crisp and clear is super important as one of the, I would say probably one of the primary things is just communication and being able to communicate which is hard in this online world. So hopefully we are also building a bit more features in the future like chat just to make, to keep that flow more active. But for now we try and kind of nudge both the volunteer and the organization every week or so just to check in. And I've got a follow-up question here around fees. So regarding fees as Alexa, do you charge on the company side for when the company is seeking volunteers or when the company is looking to offer volunteers or both? Like how does that work? Yeah, so just to like clarify on the fees, we charge companies when they are looking to build a volunteer program and find opportunities for their staff. So for a company that's a subscription program where employees can enter in and they can volunteer and they can track their impact and they can find these meaningful opportunities and the company can kind of share that impact to their channel. So it's more for being able to create an employee volunteer program is what we charge for and everything else around that is free for the nonprofits. So what's your ability to scale right now? What if like all, you know, all 21 people right now come to you and say like, yes, I want a placement. Like where are you at right now in your ability to like actually do that matching? Is it sort of restricted in these early days how does that work? Yeah, so definitely we have been able to create matches for many of the opportunities. It is a little restricted. It might take maybe, you know, two weeks one to two weeks to find that right volunteer. But as we kind of grow on both sides it'll be much faster and easier to create that match just because we'll have that available database. So it's sort of a, in a way it's a marketplace the more it grows, the more faster and more variety of folks will be that are ready to help at any moment. So basically everyone here should go get that account created make start that process because of that will sort of help turbo charge the marketplace and, you know and you get to take advantage of the fact that there is this process you can follow as opposed to having to like sort of manage a whole new pro bono volunteer process yourself without having like all destruction best practices built around it. Exactly. Thank you. So we have four minutes left, which means I want to just do a final closing statement but Raj, thank you so much. Really excited to hear about this new platform especially that is coming out of here in Vancouver in the lower mainland. So it's nice to see like, you know a cool new platform emerging here. And if anything ever goes awry we know we can always like show up at your doorstep and like knock on the door and get your attention. Oh sorry Raj, we've got perfect back. Always available for any emails or any questions and yeah, I'm just going to pop some links into the chat and then also keep an eye out because I will send Eli some resources to send out to everyone here. Thanks so much, I really appreciate it. So keep your eyes on your email inbox. So here's what the future looks like. September is going to have two events because we're just busting with good ideas that people have been coming to us with awesome proposals. So in September 9th, we're going to be looking at a number of different no code tools that you can use to start doing automation within your work. So that'll include some platforms like AirTable it's going to include Zapier and it's going to include a couple other basically free or low cost tools you can use to start automating your workflows to make yourself feel a bit more productive because we'll have lots of busy work to be done in our lives. And on September 14th, we're going to bring back a repeat presenter who's going to talk about Google Analytics. And it's a big terrifying beast of a product but here's the secret, you don't need to know all of it. We're just going to show you the 25% of it that's actually useful for you to start measuring your impact and answering the core questions about what are people doing on your website? How are they interacting with you? And we'll just ignore the stuff that doesn't apply to you as a nonprofit and is the kind of thing that's only thing that like people who have a giant full-time team doing this kind of work need to focus on. So that is going to be the future. And before I let you go, of course, I want to ask once again for your contributions. So if you've got a great event idea that should be happening in the future, let us know or if you want to get involved in any way, reach out to me and I would love to put you to work. But with that, let's let it go. Like, you know, you can move on with the rest of your day, really grateful for your time and we'll have the recording and all the other materials coming back at you within the next couple of days by Monday for sure. And let me hit that stop recording button. Boom.