Thank you all for coming out to the membership seminar for 2023 national convention. I am so Excited to see you all here Hello So hopefully everybody is enjoying themselves here in Atlantic City We had a couple little challenges, but I think you all being the resilient folks that you are overcame Adapted right just like we did in the military So I really appreciate you all for being here making this such an awesome national convention experience for both of our Recurring members a recurring attendees and the folks that this is their first time Come into a national convention. So Just want to say a quick thank you For most of you that know me, you know a couple of things about me one That I'm a huge Star Wars nerd, right? Secondly, I was in the Marine Corps from 1996 I'm so proud of my inner Marine. I keep it in case and all this cushion so it doesn't get scratched But one of my great philosophies is that the way you get cool gifts is to be easy to shop for Right and my good friend dad from the great state of Massachusetts brought me a nice Beverage it's a pale ale drinking corans So I'm going to enjoy this later. So thank you dad Real quick I want to take a moment to introduce my Inner membership committee for this most recent membership here They're seated to my left and right. So of course our chair Matt Kempman from Wisconsin To his right Johnny Walker from Minnesota Penny Brown from Nevada and Shannon sander from the great state of New York, please give these folks a great round of applause for all the work So I just have a ton of stuff to try to get through today an awful lot of stuff. So This presentation really is going to feel like you're drinking at the fire hose I promise you as now is our my DAV dot org and Membership portal seminar that we did on Friday. That's posted in the app We'll make sure all the seminars are posted at DAV dot org as well So feel free to review them. I know a lot of folks like to take pictures of different Of different slides and whatnot. We will share these slides just sands the video just because those are too Too large to email, but these videos will be made available to you I was a little quick on the trigger there, but this is my direct information Do not hesitate to email me or give me a call that number goes right to my desk I want to hear from you if you have suggestions if you have needs I want you to be wildly successful in all that you do on behalf of membership recruitment for DAV And you deserve to be supported in every way possible for all the great work that you do for us every single day So again, do not hesitate to reach out. I probably got the easiest email I always say this the easiest email and DAV dwells at DAV dot org So please don't hesitate to reach out Just want to real quick touch on large memberships madness. It was a great success again this year again, we're just trying to get back to organic recruiting but the only thing the only memberships that count on this are Electronic memberships, so whether you're using recruit a lawyer or just going to DAV dot org and signing somebody up All electronic mechanisms work for March membership madness Please please You know especially for your department leaders out there rally your troops in the chapters to the cause It's a great way to remind folks to start recruiting in order to make your membership goals We don't want people waiting until the end of May to try to make their membership goal, right? So this gets them keyed up for that a little bit sooner And it's just a fun way to instill some competition and camaraderie, you know So we got those beautiful trophies for both the tournament champion and the MVP but we also have iPads that we try to give away to individual folks that recruit 25 or more members So please please take advantage of that is both, you know on behalf of the department And that camaraderie but also as an individual effort. So this year we had Our tournament from March 9th through March 29th, and our winner was a great state of Illinois Lend of Lincoln and our MVP was Wyoming. So let's give those two departments a great round of applause Recruited lawyer go to DAV dot org or I'm sorry go to DAV dot org slash warrior If you haven't already done so put in your membership number hit return the validate button there will Highlight so you can verify your membership number if it comes back It doesn't recognize it make sure you put it in right if you have problems subsequent to that give us a call At headquarters and we'll get you square away But this is the easiest way to recruit that you can possibly recruit You can get a link that you can text folks that you can share on your Facebook page and on your Twitter feed We've got QR codes now that you can get you can use a specific QR code link if you're going to DAV dot org Go to member resources and scroll down You'll see a tile that talks about Business card and station area you can use that code to have your recruiter warrior QR code on your business cards It's all great stuff really appreciate it That was an idea that came from multiple members. So and we just had a lot of wild success There's a QR code on there that you can use to add to your signature blocks and your correspondence all sorts of stuff So leverage that bad boy in any way that you can if you think of a new creative way to do it Please you know share because a rising tide lifts all boats and we'll help each other out Also, just want to quickly remind you of our recruitment points So, you know and again a common theme with me you'll hear online online online, and I know some people aren't As comfortable with that, but we want to do everything we can we can to encourage folks to sign up a line if you sign somebody up online you can get up to three recruitment points if You'll sign them up with a paper application. You only get a maximum of two. So Let's make sure we get folks signed up online. There's two things that happen when we do that There is a greater proclivity for people to pay for their full-life membership out of the gate If we sign them up online with the credit card Also, if they sign up with an installment plan, then it's fire and forget, right? We don't have to send paper statements out every quarter to them that costs Organizational resources just that act alone, especially the way postage keeps going up and whatnot But the if it's fire and forget there's a much greater Potential that they will convert to full-life membership. So that's what we're really ultimately looking for You can sign folks up for as little as $10 a month right now. So With the recruiter warrior link you can share the link on their phone you can share the link on their phone and You know they can put their credit card information in their own mobile device So they're not putting their credit card information on yours. Okay, that's the way to do it But these points we had to make a decision a few years back to ensure that we expire them any rewards program has to expire It becomes too much of a red on the ledger, right? So We expire our points on a three-year rolling basis. So once they've gone through Three membership year ends that following membership year end that we Prosecute at the end of the membership year June 30 July 1 those points will then come off So spend your points when we redeem your points. We always do the oldest points first, okay? So I hate that we sometimes Expire points that folks didn't use so remind all your counterparts out there use their points You can go to DAV store.org There's a great catalog and give Jesse or one of the folks in procurement to call back at headquarters and they get you set up to use your points Just quickly talking about goals and hot lists as a reminder So the goal now again is you know, we shifted that paradigm a few years back So instead of just using some arbitrary percentile increase for the chapter Now we actually try to base the goals for your chapters on a real-world metric Not every chapter is created equally when it comes to the potential for new members residing in that area a The chapter in Colleen, Texas has a lot more low-hanging fruit If you will then the chapter in Eastern Rhode Island, right? So the chapter in Colleen, Texas has a much greater obligation to DAV to recruit those members So their goals are going to be higher naturally so Anything you can do leverage these tools that we're sharing with you. Please get out there and recruit But the goals are now based on our on our hot list You know chapters and departments you got to get those from us at headquarters We want to leverage technology to ultimately just be able to Automatically distribute them to you but for right now just give us a call shoot us an email at membership public At dv.org and my team will get that out to you right away The only thing that you've got to provide us is the zip codes of your jurisdiction and we will get that hot list to you, okay? All right, if you were in the business session this morning, you heard Rob Reynolds talking about the dues increase That'll come on January 1st 2024 We've got to do this. I know you feel like maybe we just increased dues just a few years ago We hadn't had a dues increase prior to that for 19 years. That's not sustainable We have to do this to stabilize And improve the health of the life membership fund, right? So the life membership fund for those that you who may not know when we collect dues at headquarters We put them into the life membership fund and then hopefully with our investments in the portfolios that are involved there Those dollars will multiply and and we'll be able to have a lot of cash to send back out to the field On a per capita basis so that our local leaders you can help us figure out where the gaps in service are In your communities because again every community isn't created equal when it comes to this stuff. So You know, we definitely want to get back to full distribution We've been on reduced distribution here for a few years now But if we didn't do that the life membership fund would have been depleted or would be depleted a lot sooner than What we would anticipate it. So I understand it's tough. I understand You know, it's a difficult thing But we've the way to solve this is to recruit more folks That's one that's the biggest single thing we can do is to get more dues into the life fund to get us Back to normal operations with that And despite the increase, we're really still the best deal in town I've got some numbers up there from some of our counterparts, you know, even at 325. We're still going to be a great deal And as I mentioned earlier, this is a great time to recruit every time we've had a dues increase in my tenure We've seen a boon in recruitment because people are trying to sign up before the price goes up, right? And they're very smart to do so also remember if someone signs up as a as a member On installments, we will continue to honor that price. So if someone signs up for 300 bucks in December Once they pay off $300. They're a full-life member. Okay, there's no sliding scale So get out there and recruit recruit recruit I'm gonna talk a couple about a couple of things here That I went over in the mydavi.org seminar I know we've got some competing Seminars going on at that time and not everybody was able to to make it But I just wanted to make sure I re-emphasized a couple of things everybody should be Registering from mydavi.org whether you're a department officer or not There are things that are particular to you as an individual member in mydavi.org making payments on your memberships Requesting new membership cards completing a transfer form Also, remember that the iteration of mydavi.org that you see today Will probably be a lot different a couple of years down the road as we continue to make enhancements, right? But in order to do that you need you can see the registration link here Or you can just go to davi.org on the top right of our newly designed website, which is awesome Click on member resources Scroll down past the tiles and right there you'll see the Registration button and the sign-in button for mydavi.org But this as registration literally takes you know a minute to fill out. It's just some basic information But just ensure that you're utilizing the correct membership number for those of you like me that have multiple memberships in DAV You want to you make sure you're using the one that you would potentially leverage as an officer of the chapter or department if If that's a direction we're going in especially Because everything keys off of the particular membership number that you're using to register from idavi.org, okay? It's a two-part registration So you're going to fill out that registration form and submit it You'll get an email that looks something like this back that tells you hey Thanks for your registration. Give us a couple few days to validate you into the system And then you'll be ready to rock and roll and then after that one two three days depending on when you When you filled out the registration You'll get another confirmation email saying okay now You're ready to to get busy in the system and then you'll use the username and password that you created when you registered To sign in and gain access to To all the information that you could possibly want Again, I'm not going to go into detail on on every one of these tiles But you got a lot of different information that you can have access to just as a as a basic member Including updating your service record to make sure we got all of that information appropriate Changing addresses whatever you got to do but the kind of the two important tiles to officers Are the report repository And what I'm going to talk about here a minute the officer election report tile But real quick just an update on the report repository Again my DAV is roles-based so things will open up and then close down for you They'll be on the screen or not depending on your role within the organization The report repository again is one of them So it's only accessible by department of chapter officers. So think about the classic Officer election report everybody on the left side of the report and the officer authorized to receive Those are the folks that have access to the report repository. This is completely up to date now every single report Plus some that you had access to in the legacy membership system. You now have access to through my DAV dot org Report you didn't have was the historical Population summary. So if you want to know, okay, where did we start with goal for this membership here? You want to pull up the historical population summary for January or pardon me for July 1? That's the beginning of the membership here And you can see what your goal is then you can run a current population summary and see the difference of what you've recruited since year and our year beginning so Again, you know department in chapter chapter officers see that you can download these in what's called An Excel, but it's really just kind of a faux PDF, right? It's got nice pretty headers. It's very presentable But you can't sort those columns and whatnot, right? So if you want to be able to sort columns do things like mail merge you want to download it in a CSV format It'll still use Excel to open it up But it just won't have the pretty headers so that you can sort your columns and do all your stuff Separate active from inactive whatever the case may be depending on the report that you're looking at So again, you know all the old reports are available now plus the historical pop some So I'm super excited to talk about this and hopefully you're just excited to hear about it Officer election reports are now going to be completely online So no more paper You know, yeah go ahead and applaud for that. This is a great win for us You know, we're really starting to see this technology get leveraged On behalf of our membership duties It's coming to fruition. It just takes time as we've sorted through our new system and the thing I want to Remind everybody of and I said this the other day the old legacy system. You could do a ton of it But it broke a lot. It was a 30 year old platform We had been tweaking that thing for 30 years could joling as much as we possibly could But you know at the end of the day, you know the old saying put a lipstick on a pig That's where we're at with it. So it just takes time We've been in the new system for not even two years yet, and we're already killing it. We really are I know there's some things we still want to get out of the system and we will I want them just as bad as if If not as worse than you all do but just a quick review of this because I did mention it the other day essentially When you log in if you log in as a chapter officer, you're gonna see a screen that looks like this If you log in as a department officer, you'll see all you can you'll see that you'll have a drop-down that shows all of your Chapters in your jurisdiction. Okay, so as a department officer, you can submit reports on behalf of chapter officers So if you've got somebody out there that's not technologically inclined don't know the laptop whatever We don't want to discourage them from being part of the process Just because we are going to drag DAV into the 21st century kicking the screaming if necessary We don't want to leave those folks behind but we are going to be leaning on the departments to help Expedite and facilitate that process. Okay, so if they need to submit a report to you and you turn around and submit it on their behalf, that's great But essentially we were able to populate all of the officer reports for all the different organizations going back 21 years So you'll be able to see all of your reports going back And that's what those views are and then you'll see the 2022 2023 Report there on the screen. You can either revise that or view it so the revised button I'm really excited about because now you don't have to send in a whole new report just to fix one thing So if you guys vote to decide to change your meeting time, you can just revise that on a port resubmit it You're good to go. Right? You like that, right? Yeah Once you start a new report once you start a new report that Revised view will be just view from that point on while we're reviewing and approving the new report So the way we're going to handle security with this First of all that two-step validation process into the system, right? We're going to know who it is that's submitting reports But also when a report is submitted by an officer An email will go out to all the other officers to include the department ORF So people will know when a report is submitted and when a report is approved. All right, so there's complete transparency there if if a chapter's whole Officer court is wiped out for some reason everybody gets mad and resigns or you know, we've had things like that happen We've all seen it but If something happens like that and the department comes in and gets these squared away and gets a new line new set of officers installed They'll just submit that first report on their behalf. Okay And then again all those new members that are on that report will get an email saying the report has been submitted The report has been approved everything else stays the same the Amount of time that you have to submit reports Subsequent to the installation of officers all that stuff same part and stays the same And you heard also with the reading the constitutional bylaws changes. There's some housekeeping items that they're changing to make all this kosher So the other thing here's the organizational details Where you can you know establish your your time and place of meeting all that good stuff But I am also super excited about this aspect You will never need to have somebody's membership number in order to put them on an officer report again all you got to do is Look up their name and as you're typing in their name the the system will let you know who in On the chapter membership list matches that and you'll select it right from there And it'll it'll populate all of their information as appropriate So also what that means is we get an awful lot of reports and headquarters the paper ones where somebody's Installed an officer of a chapter that doesn't even have a membership to that chapter so You know it happens and again paper right so that's another reason we want to get away from that The more human interaction or is this stuff they're more likely hooded there is a mistake So you'll never be able to have to worry about submitting somebody erroneously on an officer report so What's that? Hand up Yes, so and I only let you interrupt my seminar because you bought me this tasty breakfast She was just she she was just asking if the adjunct would be able to make corrections and the answer is yes So yeah, super excited about offers officer election reports when we get back home My IT folks should let me know that we're ready to To roll that out as soon as that happens. I will send out an email to our all of our department Commanders and adjuncts letting them know that that has now occurred and hopefully Everybody gets that it receives that information with great joy And doesn't hesitate to call me if they have any questions or concerns I am certain that I'm gonna get an awful lot of phone calls when that first happens And I am willing to take any phone call You know that you got any questions that you guys have except I want to use paper So that's the only one I don't want to hear so some other exciting news I'd hope to have some working Examples of this but who here by a raise of hands uses DAV's membership portals still a good number, okay? Hopefully this time next year when I say who is using DAV's department in chapter websites just about every hand will go up We are redesigning finally the technology is there the Bandwidth is there for us to finally Rignite our online presence with DAV department in chapter websites So this is going to be what the main landing page looks like You see at the bottom left you'll click on that Use a couple of different ways to search for a local for the department or a local chapter And it'll take you take you directly to their To their webpage You'll the department will as will national have the ability to disseminate information through the websites and You know push information out to the field So this will be another avenue through which we're sharing information local chapters will have way more capabilities ultimately than what you have with the with the membership portals currently and They will look modern and sleek and you'll have some options to Choose the the look and feel of your website, but We're just super excited about this and again. I'm sorry. I don't have a working Working example for you, but These are just over the horizon. I'm hoping at most a couple of few months away. So Super excited about this Now I'm really excited about this, you know, you've heard a consistent conversation piece you heard national executive director of National Department executive director of the National Headquarters Cody Vemboxel in his remarks today talk about the crucial necessity for us to reinvigorate our recruitment efforts and the Intermembership Committee For two years has been working on this. So I also want to thank Our last iteration of the Intermembership Committee. They did Yeoman's work on the so well We had some things kind of artificially get in our way Our redesign of our website and some other stuff We had to wait to make happen because we wanted to make sure that the links are pointed in the right place, right? And that that website redesign is just amazing if you see people from our Communications team, please thank them for that. That just really pluses up our professionalism and the look and feel of the AV but With respect to them to the member recruiting resource What this is it's your one-stop shop for everything that you need to recruit a new member the toughest part of Recruiting for most people I think and I've been doing this for almost 28 years now is Starting the conversation, right? A lot of you are CSOs DSOs in areas You know that you encounter a lot of a lot of folks that are eligible for membership And so maybe it's a little easier for you, but for our average You know grassroots folks it can be tough to answer some of these tough questions that people Have today when you're trying to recruit them into an organization like DAV Back in the day there was the sense that it's a sacred obligation for you to be a member of DAV And I still feel that it is but current younger generations We have to make them understand the value of DAV membership how it protects them and Why we are organized the way that we are so the idea there's two pages here And this is the digital version. I'm gonna take a moment of Privilege here and kind of pop out of my presentation so We'll have this organized on DAV.org and we'll also have instructions to you that shows you How to add this to the home page of your iPhone or your droid device so that this information will be one click of a way one click away When you encounter somebody that's eligible for membership when I was a young NSO Ken Wolf the former National Service Director pounded into us that we should always have a membership application on us Wherever we're at If we're on vacation somewhere you should have a couple applications in the trunk of your car, right? Well now here in the digital age It's possible that you always have an application on you whether it's recruit a lawyer or whatever the case may be But this resource is totally at your finger will be totally at your fingertips So this will hopefully be out here in just a matter of a couple of weeks to you and again We'll send out a memo, but you can see here that you're scrolling up and down and if somebody says If somebody says hey, why do you have oh? Didn't change. I'm sorry This is defeating me here getting Defeated by technology. Sorry. I was still in his interview there They didn't care anything I appreciate Come on Of course, it's not working It worked earlier So anyway, the idea is that you That you You'll have this resource at your fingertip and you'll be scrolling up and down and if somebody says why does DAV have Membership views, okay You'll click on the hyperlink in the membership dues Such an annual launch the membership dues video for DAV So you'll have a little blurb there that you can just articulate The information to them why does DAV have membership dues and if you need further support You'll be able to launch that video so you're not struggling to answer any particular question So what else does DAV do? We'll have information on patreon bootcamp and our van transportation network all that good stuff, right? So it will all again just be a click away It helps support you through that that recruitment process plus there will be a Paper companion for this and I know I said I don't like paper, but I also know that there's some folks that struggle with technology So there'll be a companion piece to this that will be it'll have the same information But instead of having the hyperlinks And it won't be as robust as the digital digital version But it'll still be pretty good instead of having the hyperlinks It'll have a QR code that somebody can pull out their camera take a picture that are Hover over that QR code click the link that pops up and it'll launch the same video So it'll be a nice recruitment resource to have wherever you're traveling You know will continually make enhancements to it the inner membership committees last year in this did your did amazing work On this so please give them a round of applause Sorry for the technical difficulty there my tea guys fire It's been a minute. I've gotten a lot of questions. You see I'm wearing a Warriors Club shirt here And it's been a minute since I've talked about this directly As part of a seminar just because we've had so much other stuff that we've had to cover but the Warriors Club was rolled out a few years ago and it is an exclusive Opportunity for DAV's full-life members. We did some analysis back when we were looking at this and you know When you look at the data, it's clear one of the biggest groups of supporters of DAV are DAV members So we decided to offer them a specific opportunity Once you're a full-life member to donate to the DAV and this still you know has all the benefits of What you would have if you donated to any other charity with it being tax exempt all that good stuff But sorry tax deductible but the big The big reason for this the motivation here is to again help Stabilize the life membership fund so we can hopefully at some point in the near future rather than the distant future Get back to full distributions But it also helps again support DAV at the local level so If you donate $21 a month, you know rehab and counseling programs or Vans transportation network all of these initiatives that come out of headquarters a Big chunk of your Warriors Club donation goes to support that and This awesome Warriors Club swag we make it available twice a year exclusively to our Warriors Club members We'll send out a a email to those members a couple of few months before mid-winter conference and then a couple of few months before National convention so you have time to order your swag and get it back to you and tie in time to promenade around and make everybody jealous with this awesome emblem so hopefully We can get a bunch of folks to sign up here if you go to DAV org And again member resources Scroll down until you see the fundraising tile the link to join Warriors Club and make a $21 a month or more donation Is there and if you sign up here? I have a special piece for you You can go to fundraising. So if you think about the will call desk downstairs, but here on this deck the same place, right? That's where fundraising is if you sign up here or you're already a member of William Warriors Club We've got awesome Warriors Club pins for you Here's a nice gift. So I encourage all of you to do that And as always I try to save a bunch of time for questions, but we're kind of coming to the end here I also did want to remind you all of our member advantages You know a couple of years ago, we would have a baker's dozen or so worth of Vendors that we Individually negotiated deals and discounts for our members with that took a lot of time energy and finance to do And because of some other restrictions and being a nonprofit it was tough to advertise for all those folks And even though some of them were kind of throwing the kitchen sink at us We discovered that you know, it was tough to really kind of zero in on specific benefits that Our members were looking for I mean identity guard was one of our partners and they gave us Everything they bent over backwards for us and hardly, you know, just a handful of our members signed up so it's important that we have a large breadth of Discounts and benefits for our members And as a member of either DAV or auxiliary they're both eligible for this If you go to the DAV dot enjoy my deals comm you sign up with your membership number you create a Password you use an email address. That's all you need the membership number validates you into the system And then you go out on your iPad or your telephone and you in the joint store in the Apple store You look for that my deals app you'll sign in with your Your email address and user username or pardon me a password that you just created and you will have a DAV branded my deals experience And there are literally thousands of discounted Opportunities in there not just from national and regional brands But I have discovered that they negotiate with the mom-and-pop pizza shop around the corner You also have a way if you have a favorite pizza shop that's local to you or something else You can refer them to Access that's the company the vendor we use for this And they will reach out to them and try to get them signed up for discounted services through my deals So I mean literally thousands if you're planning a trip to Disney World or Going to Vegas or whatever You know try to try to use these if you got to send your wifey or Your mom flowers or whatever it might be use one a hundred flowers through my deals The the great thing about this not every program because it just depends on the one-on-one deals that they have But a lot of the stuff especially as it relates to travel when you use the programs through my deals on member advantages Not only are you getting a discount with DAV is also getting You know a piece that action so that we can further fund DAV's free programs and services So it's a win-win win all the way around so please take advantage of member advantages It's just our way of saying thank you for being great I think the greatest membership base in all not just via so's, but any organization I love you all you guys do such amazing work And this is just our way of saying thank you for that as well as thank you for all the hard work That you do every single day on behalf of disabled veterans and their families, so please take advantage of this I Want to I haven't shared this in a while, but I usually have two or three videos that I put throughout my Presentation but again, we had so much to cover today, and I want to be sure to save time for questions, but I Just loved to wit Jones to death. He's a photographer for Well, he was a photographer for Rolling Stone magazine for 40 years if you picked up a Nat Geo in any time in the past 50 years you probably saw his work But the guy just does amazing work and he has a real unique perspective on teamwork And how we can help one another and I just wanted to share this with you if you've seen this before Please bear with me, but it's been a minute since I've shared it with with you know an audience this big So I hope you all enjoy this You know my very first published photographs were on the pages of the National Geographic I Still find that hard to believe I mean it was crazy, but that's what happened. I was 26 years old Bob Gilca the head of photography at the geographic Called me back to their headquarters in Washington, DC to give me my marching orders And I remember I remember standing in the lobby of what they call Explorers Hall And I was looking at at giant globes and dog sleds and submersibles and flags planted on Everest and and surrounded by the most beautiful photographs I'd ever seen in my life How was I gonna prove that I was worthy of working here? And then I was taken upstairs and into Bob's office Bob Bob was a blunt man Just straight and to the point and honestly a little scary Well that morning I was completely unprepared for what he said to me He stopped me cold. He changed the way I did everything from that day forward He looked at me from over his desk and he said You know do it The people who photograph for this magazine are the best in the world. You don't have to prove yourself. I Don't have to prove myself. I mean honestly, that's all I've been thinking about since I got the assignment You don't have to prove yourself. He continued But by God every day you had better improve yourself The words went in Don't prove yourself Improve yourself Bob was still talking. He said, you know, I want you to spend your time every day trying to be better than you were yesterday If you learn something that'll help the others will then share it that way we'll all get better faster Don't prove yourself improve yourself Otherwise you're fired Big first lesson Right out of the blocks. I don't know how many times I've thought about it how many times I've acted on it since that day at Bob's office Don't prove yourself improve yourself And you know living that lesson I've come to see that life really is a lot more about cooperation Than it is about competition It wasn't proving myself or taking others down that allowed me to succeed it was simply consciously continuously improving myself Refining my skills honing my wisdom focusing my vision ultimately The only person I was trying to surpass was me don't prove improve great stuff, huh Of course, nobody in this room is getting fires that may be me. I don't know but You all do terrific work all year long If you're doing something that's successful, not only do I want to know about it, but I want to make sure that you're sharing that technique or Chachki or whatever you got going on that seems to have folks responding Tell other tell folks about it network. I ask for ideas You know again, I showed you my information my direct information I say that and I would get a smattering of calls or emails But not nearly as many as I probably should do not hesitate to reach out to me I am I'm here for you if there's anything that I or anybody else at headquarters can do for you Please do not hesitate to reach out Membership takes the no wrong door approach if you call me asking a question that I don't know the answer to I promise I'm gonna get you to the right person. Okay with a warm hand


Felly, mae'r ystod o'r cyfnod yn gweithio. Mae'n gweithio gyda'r cyfnod yma yn gyfnod Paul Conroy, ysgrifennu Pa orsiynau Pall yng Nghymru, i'r Glasgol a'r gyffredinol yw ystafellol yng Nghymru. Felly, yr hynny'n ymwneud ar y parlyfodion diolch gael eich cyfnod i'r ffwrdd ymddangos cyfnod i ddim yn gweithio eich gwaith. Yn ymwneud yma, dyfodol yma yn gweithio ar gyfer ac mae'r dysgu sydd wedi bod yn ystod pethau cwbiol ac mae'r syflaen gan eu ddweud yw'r cyflodd. Dyma, yma, sy'n cipwyd successorol gyda'r sydd am fawr ac yn ei wg dweud sydd hynny'n garchol gyda hwn i gyd yn barth. Ac yn ddweud yn Llywodraeth Gwbeldolion Gwbiol a'r byw sy'n rhai i'r ffordd mlyneddol gyda'r ddigonol i gynnig unig wedi'u ddweud yr unrhyw pwyngfyrdol, rhai i'r gilydd ychydig I wish I could make a difference and made things better. Together we share a vision and a dream of a better world, of a safer, more prosperous and kinder future. The electorate place their trust in you. The gospels gave a description of how Jesus took three of his closest disciples into his trust at the top of Mount Tabor, where he was transfigured in their presence and shone with his glory. In this moment Jesus showed them their future and through them he was showing us our future too. We have all of us, women and men together being made for glory and glory is our future. The glory of God is not, however, only something that awaits us in the future. It becomes visible every time we make a pledge for parity, helping the poor, assisting the disabled, providing for refugees, saving children from exploitation and abuse, sheltering the homeless, promoting equality of opportunity. In so many ways, God's plans for us are our plans for ourselves. God's hope for us is our hope for ourselves. As our elected representatives, you have a unique responsibility and opportunity to help us all to let the glory of God shine out in the society that we want to build. There is surely no greater ambition than enabling women and men to be more fully alive. This is a divine ambition, a name that we share not only among ourselves but with God, who, for this reason, raised Jesus Christ from the dead. I conclude with some words of Pope Francis, who is full of hope for the glorious and transfigured future of humanity, encouraging us to discover our glory in the mercy that God shows to us and in the mercy that we show to each other. May we become the voice of every man and woman and repeat confidently without end. Be mindful of your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old.


there are two general concepts of torts. The first is the legal wrong that someone suffers because of someone else's actions. The second is the benefit that comes to the tort-feasor from the wrong that he does to another. From long before the American Revolution, these had been separate in the English common law, even being handled by different courts. The first had been addressed by courts of law, the second by courts of equity. To some extent, these are still separate today because of having different evidentiary requirements and different legal remedies that the courts can apply. A man's neighbor children who are minors borrow his car without permission and take it around town, giving their friends rides wherever they can. If they have an accident and the car is damaged, it is a tort in law. The man suffers damages to his car and can sue them in tort to recover those damages. Then again, their adventure can be advantageous with several of their riders paying a few dollars each. When the neighbor children return the car, they leave half the money on the seat for the odor. The man suffers no damage but comes out ahead through their borrowing action. It is still a tort of wrong against the man to take his car and he can sue in equity seeking remedies such as unjust enrichment. The courts then have two separate purposes to serve and both are based on justice. The one is protection of the victims from losses due to the acts of wrong against them. The other is discouragement or prevention of the wrongs as a public service. The action in law requires victims to prove that a wrong was done to them and that they suffered loss. The remedy is restoration of the victim by satisfying so far as possible the losses suffered. The American legal system has bridged between law and equity with both the concept of pain and suffering as elements of loss and with punitive damages. The value of pain and suffering is subjective and cannot be proven to any dollar amount. It is a way to hold the tort freezer accountable for real but unquantifiable damages. Punitive damages provides an answer to corporate protections, situations where a tort freezer acts as an officer of a corporate effort such that the corporation commits the tort instead of the officer as a person. Collecting recovery of proven losses from the corporation often does not serve justice as one who caused the damages protected from the consequences of the tort. The concept of punitive damages are also available to address acts in tort that are so anti-social in nature that simply paying the losses is not a detriment to the ones who do wrong. Actions in equity often differ and give different remedies and the plea is not for simple restitution. The action in equity can even be entered as an injunction to discourage the tort that has not yet caused damage. The American courts strongly favor actions in law where damages to be addressed are well defined and actions of the court prescribe. Actions in equity are common law actions seeking justice and domestic tranquility instead of simple application of legal codes and legislative mandates. Still, the continued support of equity actions is universal, supported by both leaders and citizens and the American legal system is arranged to handle both of these actions. Actions in equity always involve judicial decisions. It is the search for justice in legal application where the restitution action of the court does not serve the people. A state legislature decides to buy textbooks for all state students in public schools not having the money to do so they determine to tax the peanut industry which has been doing very well economically. The law to do so passes over the strenuous objection of the peanut farmers and the industries that make and sell peanut products. It will destroy the livelihood of a quarter of a percent of the people who have been profiting well on this industry and will either force many of them out of their businesses or impoverish them. The legislation is legal in terms of the legislative process. It is just unfair. It is wrong against the few for the benefit of the many. The action is in equity seeking an injunction to prevent the law from being given effect. It is here that the question of fairness and justice can be adjudicated within the court and an order may be issued to stop the implementation of that tax until there is a court determination of its meeting the legal requirements for justice and equal protection of law. There has been no tort committed by the passage of the law but there is a promise that there will be a tort based damage unless the action is halted. The action is in equity. For tort lawyers, engagement and justice conflicts is a blood sport with them as higher champions to carry the strength of their clients causes into the arena of the court. One side will win, the other will lose. Tort law does not promote win-win situations. Yet they are peaceful settlements in terms of those who have disputes to settle but they substitute conflict between legal champions. The combat is just as real even if no blood is spilled upon the floor. It is just a combat that is maintained by our legal system even if the outcome is delivery of a publicly appreciated level of justice that cost has been very high. The courtroom is a theater where the conflict is played out and satisfied. Those who would have their issues settled in court face the very real cost of supporting that combat. If they do not know the rules that will be applied and few do other than the judges and lawyers who practice tort law they need to hire a legal champion.  It is such an expensive process that the very cost of pursuing court involvement is recognized as legal damages. Many times the very threat of legal costs is so great as to bring the parties to private agreement to settle their differences. That has become a recognized aspect of the value of the court system that it is so expensive that it is often better to accept than otherwise unacceptable settlement than to enter into the courtroom theater. It is such an expensive process that it probably would not work at all except for the recognition of legal costs as part of the damages suffered by the victim of a tort. The shifting of costs to the loser of the court contest skews justice in favor of avoiding the increased damages of seeking justice through the courts. The lesser costs of legal settlements drives less certain applications of law and equity to settle out of court at less expense but also with less assurance that justice and fairness will be served. And then we have to address insurance, the non-party party to the tort, who will be a party in the legal actions. Even simple matters can become immediately and horribly complex if some insurance carrier has paid a claim to one of the parties and takes their place in the suit or becomes the wronged party. They can pay the legal fees of the side they represent, minimizing damages in a way that skews the findings of justice. The involvement of the insurers interferes with economic responsibilities. We have a corporate insurer who interferes with the traditional application of justice. Perhaps the worst example of interference is through medical malpractice where the insurer takes economic responsibility for non-negligent torts of the medical provider. What then is the service of justice when the tort-feasor has no detriment to the commission of future torts? The cost will be borne by the insurer who will then spread that cost among all insured providers. There is little in terms of justice to be served in equity when the insurance provider is the one who is punished for the wrongs of the tort-feasor. This is the nature of legal malpractice insurance as well. The lawyer who enters into this legal arena of a courtroom faces another who is every bit as determined to win. If there is a loss and justice is not served, it is likely that the attorney will be blamed for the loss and may be sued for damages incurred as a result of the unsuccessful legal action. The court action declares winners and losers of tort actions. There are almost always those who are unsatisfied with the outcome and have the urge to seek legal restitution for the damaging expenses that are incurred in an unsuccessful legal support. The courtroom supports combat and combat is never neat or settled. There are always questions of what would happen if it was a little different. There is then also a chance for the losing side, half of those who go into court, to satisfy wrongs having some basis for complaint. This is the system we have. It works to some good effect but is horribly expensive to use. It is accordingly most used but where those damages are severe or the need for the use of authority of the court is great. Lesser matters are subject to alternative agreement just to avoid the damaging costs associated with our legal systems handling of torts. It is indicative that avoiding the courts is a value in itself. The purpose is not serving justice and domestic tranquility through operation of the courts, so much as forcing people to resolution outside of the courts. Still, courts are there to handle the really critical issues. Courts are there to handle equity when there is no other good alternative. It is there to address justice and public tranquility when it is government that would act against its own public purposes to the harm of its citizens. Even being unwilling to recognize the sovereignty of the citizen, our courts do act to protect citizens from the more obvious challenges of abusive, unfair, or otherwise forbidden government actions. The drawback is that handling disputes and protecting citizens from torts are not accepted as the mission of the courts. They serve only the people who come to the courts seeking services. The courts only take action when there is a citizen who makes a formal demand for service. Otherwise, the actions of the sovereign government they serve go forward without any real legal restraint, and wrongs against the citizens go unresolved. But then the process of legal justice is itself a barrier, a cost in time required to make the demand in the form of and substance demanded by the courts as a basis for its involvement. There is a high cost of legal process that discourages the use of the courts. Whether this is or is not a service is not a given. It depends upon your personal sense of values. This is one of those issue-based disagreements. Whether the justice is served is worth what the citizen user pays, plus any tax dollars committed to the court operations. It is a serious question. This is one of those services that, if you really need it, it is there. If your need is less, then it may not serve you at all, or even be a detriment to your just cause.


Please join me for a moment of centering silence and now please remain seated as we sing our in-gathering hymn number 349 the words appear in your order of service. First Unitarian Society of Madison this is a community where curious seekers gather to explore spiritual, ethical and social issues in an accepting and nurturing environment. Unitarian Universalism supports the freedom of conscience of each individual as together we seek to be a force for good in the world. My name is Karen Rose Gredler and on behalf of the congregation I would like to extend a special welcome to any visitors who are with us this morning.  Newcomers are encouraged to stay for our fellowship hour after the service and to visit the library which is directly across from the middle doors of this auditorium. Bring your drinks and your questions. Members of our staff and lay ministry will be on hand to welcome you. You may also look for persons holding teal-colored stoneware coffee mugs. These are FUS members knowledgeable about our faith community who would welcome visiting with you. Experienced guides are generally available to give a building tour after each service so if you would like to learn more about this sustainably designed addition or our National Landmark Meeting House across the parking lot please meet near the large glass windows on what's your left side of the auditorium immediately after the service. We welcome children to stay for the duration of the service however because it's difficult for some in attendance to hear in this lively acoustical environment our child haven back in that corner and the commons area outside the auditorium are excellent places to go if a child needs to talk or move around. This service can still be seen and heard well from those areas. This would also be a great time to turn off any devices that might cause a disturbance during the hour especially cell phone ringers please. I'd now like to acknowledge those individuals who help our service run smoothly. On sound this morning is Mark Schultz and Smiley is our lay minister for this service. Karen Hill is our greeter. Helen Dyer and Doug Hill are our ushers. Jeannie Hills and Sharon Scratish are making coffee and lemonade back in the kitchen for our hospitality hour and I believe Mark Hoover will be the tour guide. We'll meet you over there. Please note the announcements in the red floors flyer which is an insert to your order of service. This describes upcoming events at the society and provides more information about today. I do have one announcement to read specifically and this is from Leslie Ross our children's education director. The children's religious education program is only two teachers shy of being fully staffed for the classes that begin next week. Please consider signing up to join a team of three other teachers to help bring our liberal religious education to our children. We need one compass points teacher at 9 a.m. and one by Balodian teacher at 11 a.m. If you are interested please find Leslie in the commons or way down at the end of the commons at the education table after the service to volunteer. Again welcome. We hope today's service will stimulate your mind. Touch your heart and stir your spirit. Thank you. People take vows obedience even vows of silence by choice to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way to locate the most ten I invite you to rise and body or spirit for the lighting of our chalice. Please join me in the words of affirmation printed in your program. The work of the world is as common as mud botched it smears the hands crumbles to dust but the thing worth doing well done has a shape that satisfies clean and evident Greek emporers for wine or oil hope evases that held corn are put in museums but we know they were made to be used the pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real and now on this fine Labor Day weekend I invite you to turn to your neighbor in exchange with Emma warm greeted if we have some children among us at this second hour they would like to come forward for the message for all ages and I can tell you that as of Friday this is a clean carpet that all the carpets clean all throughout the building good morning everybody's back in school right yeah is anybody here in the second grade this year you're in the second grade okay you know I was in second grade once hard as that might be to believe and when I was in the second grade our whole grade school put on a class you know a great school play you know a big play up on a stage there were lots of people singing and acting and I actually had a part in that play when I was in second grade you know how many lines I had to memorize one now that play was about a man named John Chapman who was a rather strange and remarkable fellow and John Chapman lived almost 200 years ago and a lot of people if you ask you know do you know who John Chapman was they would say no because they actually know him by his nickname what other people called him and what other people called him this is a hint as to what they called him it's a banana an apple right so who am I talking about Johnny Appleseed have you heard of Johnny Appleseed well this was the play that I was in it was about Johnny Appleseed and Johnny Appleseed one artist thought he looked a little like this you can see he's kind of a strange man because what is his hat it's a saucepan because he would wear this is hat but then at night when he would be camping he would use the saucepan to cook his food so it doubled as both a hat and a saucepan so that was Johnny Appleseed and he was born in Massachusetts which is near the Atlantic Ocean about a thousand miles from here but when he was about 18 years old he left home and he started to walk west toward Wisconsin but he didn't make it all the way to Wisconsin he went to Ohio and there were not many people living in Ohio at that time the first pioneers were just starting to arrive now Johnny didn't really have a job that he was going to in in Ohio but he did know how to do something he had been taught by this other man called a nursery man how to plant and to prune and to take care of trees and the trees that he really learned to take care of very well were apple trees now there are a lot of stories about Johnny Appleseed and most people kind of think that he traveled around with this bag of seeds and he would go up to farmhouses and he would offer these seeds to people so that they could plant apple trees on their property but that's not really what he did what Johnny did is that he planted whole big orchards of apple trees himself and then he would build fences around his orchards to keep out the deer and the rabbits and the other wild animals that might eat those tender little apple tree shoots and then he would find a farmer who might live next door and he would say to the farmer I'll make a deal with you we can share the profits from these apple trees if you will look after them while I go out and I plant more orchards and every once in a while maybe a year or two he'd come back to those orchards and look to make sure that the trees were still growing the way that they were supposed to but otherwise these other men would just kind of look after his orchards so what he would do then is that when an individual when a farmer wanted to have an apple tree they would pay the farmer and Johnny Appleseed to take one of these saplings these small apple trees they would dig it up and they would replant it on these farms and that's how he made his living so he had all these orchards all over Indiana and Michigan and Ohio and by the time Johnny Appleseed died in 1847 he had 1200 acres of orchards 1200 acres and he never picked the apples and used them himself he just sold the trees to other people that when the trees got big enough they're the ones that harvested and used the apples now even though he had all this land and all these apple trees Johnny Appleseed lived a very very simple life he would walk around to all of his orchards barefoot and he would always camp out in the countryside and like St. Francis of Assisi who you may know about he was also a very sensitive soul who really really cared about other living things other animals and even about insects so there's one story about Johnny Appleseed one night he was camping out it was kind of cold outside so he got some wood and he made himself a fire to keep warm but he noticed all these little insects were kind of circling around the fire and some of them would actually get burned up by the flames so he would immediately put the fire out and he said to himself God forbid bid that for the sake of my comfort my fire should destroy any living thing so he just sat there in the cold all night rather than burn up a few mosquitoes that's pretty sensitive isn't it now although the places that Johnny Appleseed traveled way back then were still full of Indian tribes and the Indian tribes didn't always like all these white settlers coming in the Indians never harmed Johnny Appleseed because he respected the way that the Indians live and they said we cannot hurt Johnny Appleseed because he's a man a white man who has been touched by the great spirit and here's a little picture of Johnny Appleseed talking to an Indian chief again this is kind of an imaginative picture nobody took a photograph of it now Johnny Appleseed actually had another job that he did that was just as important to him as growing apple trees he was a preacher and he was known for being very intelligent and for his great speaking ability and over the years with his preaching he converted many Indians and many settlers to the faith that he believed in and that faith was very similar to universalism but it wasn't called universalism it was called Swedenborgianism named after a man named Emmanuel Swedenborg and like the universalists Johnny Appleseed believed that God was infinitely loving that he just loved all creation and that salvation was available to anybody no matter what faith they belong to or what they believed well we grow a lot of apples here in Wisconsin and they're starting to show up in our farmers market so the next time you bite into a Macintosh or an empire apple grown in Wisconsin you might think that some of those apples may be the great-grandchildren of the trees that Johnny Appleseed planted 150 years ago so that's our story about Johnny Appleseed today and you're not going to be eating apples in summer fun but you're going to be eating something else that's really tasting so we're going to have have you go out to summer fun as we play you out with a little bit of traveling music Peter Frazee is the author of a book entitled for futures a book about how automation will change America and in this book Peter Frazee says that work is really about three things the means by which the economy produces goods the means by which people earn an income and an activity that lends meaning and purpose to many people's lives we tend to conflate these three things Frazee says because today we still need to pay people to keep the lights on so to speak but in a future of abundance you wouldn't need to do this and so we need to think about ways to make it easier and better for people not to be employed not to work Frazee belongs to a small group of writers academics and economists who have been called post workists people who welcome and even root for an end to labor American society Benjamin Honeycutt says has this irrational belief in work for work's sake Honeycutt is in a story at the University of Iowa we believe in work for work's sake he says even though most jobs are really not very uplifting a 2014 Gallup report of worker satisfaction found that as many as 70 percent of Americans do not feel engaged by their current job and honeycutt says that if a cashier's job at a store were a video game grab an item find the barcode scan it slide the slide the item onward repeat again add in for an item then critics of that video game would call it a mindless activity but it's a job and politicians praise its intrinsic dignity purpose meaning identity fulfillment creativity autonomy all of these things that positive psychology has shown to be necessary for our well-being they're absent in the average job in the second reading in a somewhat different vein perhaps a little more encouraging Scott Russell Sanders essay woodwork while never becoming a carpenter I learned a great deal about the meaning of good work from building houses and helping my father in his shop and I carry those lessons with me into the trade that I did eventually take up the trade of writing and I came to believe that a writer like a carpenter ought to make useful and durable things with a respect for materials and craft with an eye for beauty as in carpentry so in writing one ought to make tight joints clean lines avoiding showy ornamentation and cheap tricks and no matter how polished the surface of your work there ought to be substance underneath what you build ought to last bearing up under rough weather and the abrasions of time you ought to give the work the best that you have without holding anything back and that work ought to give you in turn the pleasure of exercising your full strength and knowledge and skill if work is going to fill our souls and not merely our bank accounts that it should serve some real human need it should offer nourishment or shelter knowledge or consolation instead of gimmicks and gadgets and sops for our vanity good work leaves the world enriched and not diminished good work allows us to express our beliefs as well as our talents and thus to play our small part in the sustaining of creation now I would like you to rise once more in body or in spirit as we sing together him number 312 some of you may have even read it but there was a length the expo say that appeared in the New York Times three weeks ago about Amazon Amazon that highly successful company this behemoth in the retail economy whose market value has now surpassed that of Walmart and according to Forbes most recent listing America Amazon's founder and CEO Jeff Bezos he is now the fifth wealthiest man on the planet but for Amazon's employees life at work can be brutal Bo Wilson says that nearly every person I worked with I saw crying at their desk he worked in book marketing from what the Times reported most Amazonians labor in an atmosphere of perpetual fear the company employs a strategy described as purposeful Darwinism with low performers cast aside in annual staff callings and some of those terminated the authors wrote suffered from cancer some had had miscarriages other personal crises they were edged out rather than given sufficient time to recover the Amazon workplace is extraordinarily competitive even cutthroat many of those interviewed called it a river of intrigue and scheming as individuals conspired with others to undermine a co-worker or to boost their own stock with their superiors more than a few described being sabotaged by negative comments from unidentified colleagues with whom they could not argue needless to say turn over at Amazon is rather high there is a pattern of burn and churn with a five-year retention rate of 15% Amazon is okay with moving a lot of people through in order to identify the superstars to whom they offer incredible opportunities VJ Rajendra a high-level manager conceded but Amazon may be an exceptionally demanding and stressful environment to work in but in America today work is not for many a pleasant or fulfilling experience a Gallup survey conducted last year found that 90% of the world's workers who were queried said that they either were not engaged or actively disengaged with their jobs and as you heard earlier even despite their off-praised work ethic 70% of Americans don't feel satisfied with the work that they are paid to do from a qualitative standpoint work for many is profoundly disappointing Barry Schwartz says you enter an occupation with a variety of aspirations aside from receiving your pay but then you discover that your work is structured so that most of those aspirations can never be met so pretty soon you lose your lofty aspirations and with them a significant chunk of your motivation to do a good job as conditions in many workplaces have deteriorated and as compensation in real dollars has declined collegiality that has suffered as well since 1998 reports of rude treatment received at a typical weekend work have risen from 25% to over 50% and according to a 2013 John Templeton Foundation Survey Americans are less likely to express gratitude at work than at any place else in their life experience now of course if one is unhappy with their present job circumstances well he or she can always explore alternatives right Robert Markowitz was a successful young criminal attorney working out of a well-appointed office in Palo Alto California but the stress was taking a huge toll on him both psychologically and physically and so after a few years to the surprise of his friends and the chagrin of his parents he up and quit you are ruining your life you know that Robert's mother scolded him but after a period of discernment Markowitz discovered you know he really really liked entertaining young children so he went to clown school learned to be a clown and then he pulled out his old Gibson guitar practiced became a singer-songwriter who for the last two decades has performed at parties in schools and at other kid-friendly venues I wear jeans he says I do not frequent Nordstroms but most of the time these days I really like waking up in the morning now as a successful attorney Markowitz had a lot going for him he had social status professional stature high-income and in terms of today's prevailing social standards Markowitz he had it made but ultimately those rewards just didn't matter enough to him he was depressed with his life he was disillusioned with his profession the longing to act meaningfully in our work is as stubborn a part of our makeup as any appetite we have for status or for money Alain de Breton writes he goes on it's because we are meaning focused animals rather than simply materialistic ones that we can reasonably contemplate surrendering the security of a career to help for instance bring drinking water to people in rural Malawi or we might quit a job in consumer goods for one in cardiac nursing a stories like Markowitz's are not exceptional but I think that they are relatively rare because a lot of people don't have the versatility the wherewithal the courage to simply make that leap into an entirely different livelihood so most of us are going to have to come to terms with the work that we are already doing which may be hard but what can help is the realization that with practice with practice this same work can become a vehicle for our spiritual growth and our personal development in the world of work there is no guarantee that a high status high paying job will reliably produce sustainable satisfaction or provide us with a rewarding life experience in fact payoffs such as these can inhibit can limit our ability to find meaning in and through our work the perks and premiums of high level jobs become what they call golden handcuffs that keep us trapped in a role even as our dissatisfaction with that role continues to mount but if if as Elaine de Botan argues if we are as much meaning focused as we are materialistic beings we are wise to try to look to our work to satisfy that craving people who are employed full-time spend more of their waking hours at work than anywhere else and as Americans we spend more hours in harness than the citizens of any other country in the world so yes there is meaning to be had in family life and in friendships in community service in creative hobbies in child rearing but why should work where we spend so many hours be bereft of such opportunities the kind of work that we perform may not really matter all that much although the average individual might imagine that certain callings like teaching or healing are more likely to produce the meaning and purpose we crave than others but then here is Jean Kincaid Martine she worked in an office kind of a pedestrian job and she often dreamed of doing something more stimulating more fulfilling but at the same time Martine knew that her approach to her current job was really leaving something to be desired so one day she was reading and she came across something that the novelist Henry James once said take what is there and use it take what is there and use it without waiting in vain for something else so she told herself to dig deep into the actual and to get something out of that this undoubtedly is the right way to live and so Martine began to practice I'd call it a spiritual practice attending to her business to her responsibilities hour by hour minute by minute often failing starting over again and again but determined to make of this ordinary work something extraordinary something as Scott Russell Sanders wrote something that has substance underneath that leaves the world enriched and not diminished Martine was now working with intention intention an important concept here when we begin our work day what is our intention for that day and for that work what is it that our heart wants us to do with that work what's it telling us to do and if before we step out of our house and into the workplace we set aside a few moments to set our intention and then resolve to follow through on that for the next eight or ten hours our efforts are likely to be more fruitful and more personally meaningful so for example a few years ago researchers at Yale University interviewed custodians at a large hospital interviewed them to see how they felt about their job a custodial work is is messy you can imagine what it's like in a hospital the pay is modest and the position status it's pretty much on a par with orderlies or the people who work in the kitchen and yet when they were queried many of these custodians reported a high level of satisfaction why was that it's because they perceived themselves to be part of a healing and caregiving team now they weren't required to do so but they would all often help patients and their families to find their way around in this complicated hospital probably a lot like the one across the street they would strive to calm patients before they underwent stressful procedures by telling jokes or with just casual banter in other ways they would seek daily to comfort the afflicted and these custodians assume these responsibilities which were not in their job description freely and without any extra compensation but as one of them said it's what gets me out of bed every morning it's what I enjoy the most about my job remember your core intention and shape its expression to the real circumstances that you find yourself in my adored founder of the liberation life project counts as us so if you want to be a healer but you're working in a supermarket greet each custom with kindness and compassion bring that healing energy into the job if you if you do your job with the right frame of mind and if you focus on your positive intentions then you can be a healer while you're working in a food store and this in turn will make the work more purposeful more fulfilling all work contains drudgery wendell berry once said the issue is whether or not it holds meaning and as for the drudgery at least some of that can be relieved if not completely eliminated through the practice of mindfulness in her book real happiness at work Sharon Salisbury co-founder of the insight meditation society Salisbury identifies a few of the more prevalent work-related maladies that make our jobs less pleasant and less fulfilling than they ought to be first there is mind wandering the inability to maintain focus on the task at hand feeling good about what you are doing for a living depends more on our moment-to-moment experiences than on the prestige or the high pay Salisbury says and so it is important to try to stay on task longer and to be less distracted by the surrounding environment and this is where a meditation practice can help mark lesser is a Zen teacher in the CEO of an executive coaching firm and he recommends that if you want to maintain your focus in your concentration take small mindfulness breaks from time to time and that will support those intense efforts and keep the distractions at bay so you've been working for a couple of hours get up spend a minute or two in walking meditation or mindfully nibble on that granola bar in your desk short moments many times is what one Tibetan teacher puts it a second related hindrance is attention deficit trait ADT which has become more and more prevalent in workplaces like Amazon where employees have to cope with the constant relentless input of information never in history Salisbury says has the human brain been asked to track so many data points smartphones tablets computers that for many of us function as electronic umbilical cords they exacerbate that problem information overload compromises our ability to attend and yet if you ask them many workers will say hey it's not a problem for me I'm really good at multitasking but unfortunately a growing body of evidence disputes this according to Salisbury multitasking can stimulate us into mindlessness giving the illusion of productivity while stealing our focus and harming our performance many studies seem to substantiate that claim and so there was one executive of a multi-billion dollar consumer products company who tested that thesis he was frustrated with all the multitasking that occurred at the staff's weekly planning meetings so the executive placed a box outside the door of the conference room into which all participants were ordered to deposit their electronic devices they could have them back when the session was over the change he said was a challenge initially employees were like crack addicts as the box was buzzing with incoming calls but almost immediately the meetings became more productive and within a month the time that they spent together solving problems was cut in half there was more presence among the participants there was more participation and as the culture shifted they were all having more fun boredom that's another problem that Salis our work experience but most of the time boredom arises not from having too little to do but from disinterest in and disengagement from our activities and so the antidote to boredom is not to find some new and novel project to work on rather as Jean Kincaid Martin discovered in her office job the solution is to dig deep into the actual and get something out of that or as the founder of Gestalt Therapy Fritz Perls put it if you're bored you're just not paying attention the more we learn to attend to what is before us regarding it with fresh eyes with what the Buddhists call beginner's mind and the more interested in and the more curious about our work we will become and it is impossible to be both curious and bored at the same time finally our work experience can be tainted by communication patterns that sabotage collaboration and collegiality now studies have shown that the workplace climate has gotten considerably worse in recent years Christine Porath a business professor at Georgetown says that incidents of incivility have notably increased with over half of employees reporting at least one episode of incivility in the course of a typical week this is not an insignificant problem because there is good medical evidence that rudeness and incivility and abusiveness that these cause employees to lose focus and it weakens their problem-solving ability you can't solve problems if you're constantly anxious and over the long term workers in difficult social environments suffer from higher levels of obesity cardiovascular disease diabetes ulcers exposed to too much negativity too much incivility porath writes people contribute less and they lose their conviction about their jobs and so the importance of skillful sensitive communication cannot be overestimated and this requires that we develop habits that will promote civility that will promote trust and greater self awareness is the key to this you know one study indicates that in our face to face interactions 55% of the emotional meaning of a message is expressed through body language 38% through the tone of voice we use only 7% through the words that we utter and so if you are not aware of your physical response to someone Salzburg says it's going to be hard for you to gauge your verbal responses so here too a spiritual practice can be very beneficial as we become more adept at identifying and setting our attentions and we're skillful at monitoring our emotions in our body language then we will increasingly be able to hit the pause button before complaining or coveching or venting to a co-worker and we may also begin to employ certain strategies that will serve to combat in civility are we tempted to send a self-righteous scathing email to a co-worker send it to yourself first says Michael Carroll put yourself in the place of the person that would eventually receive that email then see if you want to send it in the same way and Sharon Salzburg says always remember that with each email set with each call that you ignore with every negative water cooler conversation or alternately on better days with every pat on the back every supportive smile every task that you undertake to help somebody else with every action that we take we are sending love or suffering into the web that connects us all keep that in mind and because so many of us do spend so much of our day gainfully employed or perhaps if we are retired and volunteer roles it behooves us to put some good spiritual practices to work in the workplace and as we do we may find that our non-work life begins to improve as well when Matthew Fox asks when are we happier than when our work is a joy to us and a joy to others when indeed blessed be at the man and there's now time for the giving and the receiving of the day's offering and our gifts will be shared with ICWJ which works hard and diligently to increase compensation benefits and workplace sanity for people in our larger community please be generous whether each week is a community of memory and of hope and to this time and place we bring our whole and sometimes our broken cells we carry with us the joys and the sorrows of the recent past and we seek here a place where these might be received and celebrated and shared and so today we remember two of our members who passed away this week Steve Anderson after a recurrence of cancer and Angie Volcker there was a memorial gathering in Manona for Steve this past week but we hold the friends and family of both of these individuals in our hearts today on a more celebratory note we would acknowledge the wedding this past month of Han Wong and Kerry Earhart Kerry is one of our board of trustees members a wonderful celebration here in the meeting house about a month ago and then I would on a personal note celebrate the fact that my brother and sister-in-law will be here later today to celebrate with my wife and me my mother's birthday which occurred a couple of days ago and then one other person entered in the book to please should we all keep the refugees in Europe the refugees fleeing Syria in our thoughts and if there are opportunities for us to help materially we would hope that some of us would do so and so in addition to those mentioned we would also acknowledge any unarticulated joys and sorrows that remain among us but that remained again unspoken we hold these with equal concern in our hearts let us quietly for a moment in the spirit of empathy and hope so by virtue of our brief time together today our burdens be lightened and our joys expanded please turn now to our closing hymn number 289 please be seated for the benediction and postlude may the light of your soul bless your work with love and with warmth of heart may you see in what you do the beauty of your soul and may the sacredness of your work bring light and renewal to those who work with you and to those who see and receive your work may your work never exhaust you may it release well springs of refreshment inspiration and excitement may you never become lost in bland absences and may the day never become a burden may dawn find hope in your heart approaching your new day with dreams possibilities and promises and may evening find you gracious and fulfilled may you go into the night blessed sheltered and protected your soul calm and renewed blessed be and amen


Sam here with LaytonSportsGuard, 23 tops, pristine, baseball, hobby, two box break, number one, random division style. So look again at your random results. As always, you can find those on the website under the results tab, as well as the link in chat. Here we go. Jeez, that's a start. God. Jared, Jared W, are you in chat still? Please tell me you are, Jared. Please, Jared. Starting off, we've got Marcus Simeon and Peter Lanza. Liebertorre Thompson. Cutch. That's a blue going going gone, Mike Piazza, 275. Annalise, and Annalise Francisco Alvarez going going gone. What's up? I think Jared's right now. Kyle Stowers and Andres Jimenez. Ale Central. Pulsar around the diamond, 299. Ale West. Tony Gwynne and CJ Krohn. And Ale West there. And down goes Anthony Brown. Michael Harris, so a snap. Bernie Williams, Purple, J-Ram, 299 for the Guardians. Jim Tome and Jazz Chisholm. Uh-oh, Muff, Vaughn. It doesn't matter, though. And Vaughn Grissom. Fresh Faces, Ale, or NL East. Sammy Sosa and Orange, Oscar Gonzalez, Ale Central to 25. Oswald Parazzo, Ale East. Rookie of Fresh Faces. J-Ram, Ale Central. Christian Yelich, NL Central. Blue is Caleb Killian, NL Central to 75. Gold, Ale East. John Carlos Stanton, 16 of 50. Ravens, Orange, Shambles.  Bass Otto, Ale West, Corey Lee. Nice one there. Grats on that. Hi, Shelby. And Orange. Mike Trout, 24 of 25. Oh, snap, Otto. Ale West. Let's go. Congrats, Jared. That will play just fine. Mike Trout.  Let's get after it. We're going fishing today, Donnie. We're going fishing. I've been a good one to do things. Well, oh, snap. No, the... Oh, the reel. Yeah, true. I feel like I haven't seen a reel in a while. I know. Well, it's kind of hard now with, because I can't go off-camera unless I go like way, but yeah, I can't go off-camera really. But you weren't going off-camera last time? I was when I used to do it. I used to go like further back and then slowly go on-camera. No, I never paid for this. Yeah. I didn't like how Sam just don't want those things. Here we go again. Snell. What up, Snell? Spencer Torkelson, Dan's V. Swanson. Doing good. What up with you, Snell? Serving. Christopher Morel, NL Central. Fresh Faces. John Moncada. Blue, Chipper Jones. Two, 75, NL East. Michael Harris, Rookie. Whoa, NL East. Big Poppy going, going, going. Trey Turner. Purple, Freddie Freeman to 99, NL West. Bobby Whit, Fresh Faces, A.L. Central. Some meaningful football. There's Von Grissom and Edgar Martinez. Because he could be in college. True. Probably is watching, I'm assuming college. Hey, Chipper Jones. You know what I'm very excited for? For our Saturday nights, Donny. It's going to be the University of Hawaii. They're going to really give us some good football. Let's go. Yeah, mine's so pumped. Let's go. John-Carlo Stanton and Alex Bregman to 75. The Rainbow Warriors really subli us with some good, extreme late-night entertainment. Francisco Lindoro, snap. Can't wait for them to play Ohio State and just get wracked. Yeah, honestly. I guess they would play Ohio State at Hawaii though. Gorman and Jose Berrios, yeah, probably not. A.L. East, nice one there around the Diamond. Joycey Otto. Can't wait to see them play like Florida, Atlantic or whatever. Joshy, on there you go. Juan Soto, going, going, Juan. We're Tulsa or something. Willie Mays, N.O.S., Jeter Downs, A.L., or N.O.E. East. Gold Jonathan India, going to the N.O. Central to 50. This one here, N.O.E. East, Rookie, Max Meyer, 14 of 15. Got a Cody Clemens, Rookie Otto, N.O.E. East as well. Grats on that. And going to the A.L. West, Shea Langleers, 57 of 99. Grats on that. Quick recap here, everybody. Got Orange, Oscar Gonzalez to 25. Jose Berrios, A.L. East, that's A.L. Central. Andres Jimenez to 99. Cody Clemens, we've got a Corey Lee, Shea Langleers to 99. And Orange, Mike Trout, O.S.NapAuto, 24 of 25. I'll do it for the break, guys. Thanks again for the film. Coming up next is Finest.