me to life. Great. Are there TSO, Anika? That's you as well. All right. So we had our meeting was this past Thursday and it was nice. We had a overview and by Town Manager Backelman and discussion around the proposed, sorry, the, I just went blank. I'm sorry, universal composting. So we had a really nice discussion around that and really, you know, thankful for the manager's updates and also the councilor's sponsors and all of the work that's gone in around that. We also had an overview and discussion of the proposed water and sewer bylaws that was led by Superintendent Amy, Assistant Superintendent Amy Rather and would like to thank her. She's kind of an honorary member of TSO. Thank her and Anna for all of their work around that. And then we also had as we're past tonight some great discussion around the appointments that Paul Backelman had put forward. Really a great range of people. I believe there were at least two that were tri-lingual, great, you know, age variation, you know, economic and ethnic backgrounds. All over the boards. It was really nice to see that type of diversity coming in. And I'm sure that all of them will have a lot to add to those committees. So thank you again to manager Paul Backelman. Did we just lose a councilor? No, we're fine. Thank you. I thought we just, somebody just logged off and I saw, wasn't sure. Are there any liaison reports? Happy. A really quick one on CPA because they actually succeeded in going so long that I didn't watch the last hour or so of the meeting after four hours. But one comment I wanted to make on the amazing staff we have, they had way more with these two terrific housing projects on their plate and other worthwhile. It looked like they couldn't do it all. And he came in along with Dave Zomac in a way to finance it with a path forward to give them some choices they didn't think they had and watching that when you talk about, it wasn't even a cobbling together, it was saying, you know, they don't really need this much because we had this much money over in ARPA and we can do this. And together it gives them enough money. So that left them with changing their votes about some projects because they thought they had to choose one or another. So just kudos to your staff, Paul. It wasn't even a, you should do this. It's like how you could do it if you wanted to do it. He really stayed neutral, but it was fabulous to watch because the committee was literally grateful. They said, oh my gosh, this is great. When CPA comes before us, I think we're gonna all wanna hear a little bit more about the magic, Paul. Pam Rooney. Hi, I have been willingly and diligently attending planning board meetings. There has not been that much in the way of policy which would take our time. And usually it's, you know, 1130 at night. So this is just a nice early evening to bring you up to date to some of the incoming things that the planning board, excuse me, the planning department is working on as reported. And the design guidelines for the town center are something that were requested and desired several years ago. There is an RFP that is drafted that would get a consultant in to do this work with lots of community involvement. At the same time, another wonderful grant came through that has to do with sidewalk and public space improvement for $75,000 that the department obtained. And so the revision of the RFP for the larger design guidelines is going to try to incorporate the additional money and the additional scope that the $75,000 can afford. The Boltwood garage is a question that has come up a number of times. Can it be added to? And apparently the contract has been signed with the engineering firm that actually designed Boltwood garage to begin with that answer is not back yet. The question about evaluating other alternative sites for parking garage has not been started. It was deemed not a, it's a voluntary thing by the planning department rather than a directive from town council. So at some point it would be appropriate to have town council vote to ask them to kindly look at alternative sites. All that said, I would note that the planning department lost two staff members within the last couple of months and they are down to two whole people, the director and senior planner, which means there's a huge burden put on these two people. So things I think will need to take their time. Great. Any other liaison reports? Okay, then I'm going to move on. We don't have any minutes tonight. I'm going to move on to ask Paul. Is there anything you'd like to report on? So two things, one is I will be doing a written town manager report monthly from now on just to sort of, because it takes a lot of time to put them together and it seems to make more sense because so much I think if you noticed that a lot of it was repetitive and so doing it monthly I think it will be better use of time. We're also setting that out as something that people can subscribe to and if they would like to receive it we send it out automatically. The second is I appreciate Pam bringing up the staffing challenge for the planning department. We lost two very highly qualified planners. Both went to better jobs, one went to MassDOT making significantly more money and then Maureen who's had a long conversation with her she was really torn about going but she had the opportunity to become planning director for the town of Montague and so she loves working here but this is just an opportunity in her career that she had to follow I think and I appreciate it. I supported her actually on that but it does mean as Pam said there's two staff left if it's a four person department it's Chris and Nate and we're triaging that like because neither of them expected Ben and Maureen did not think the other ones was leaving when they were pursuing this so and just in terms of the grants they are great grant writers but those are the folks who were writing a lot of our grants so that's gonna come to a halt because we have to digest a lot of the stuff that we brought in and quite frankly the state was pushing out a lot of money in the last few months so we went to be there to grab it and be receptive to it but given the staffing challenges I think we're gonna have a hard time seeking more grants at this moment until we bring new people in but I think we'll get some really quality people it's a great department to work with and we're in a good location to attract really quality people so it'll be a challenge for a bit though and I appreciate it Pam noting that. Are there any questions of the town manager? Kathy? Just I have a really quick one Paul I don't know whether we have ever or in your experience are there people that are experienced at grant writing for municipalities that could be hired on a temporary basis just on a you know and I don't know how that might work but because I totally agree there are things rolling out and I don't wanna miss you know the scan. There are people who do that there are people who previously worked for the town more likely we would use them for writing opinions because writing opinions or decision or not opinions decisions for the ZBA and playing board takes an enormous amount of time so utilizing people who can listen to a recording and then do the first draft of a decision is probably the best use for our consultant and Chris has started to work on that and getting somebody online to help with that. Dorothy? Do we have any formal goodbye ceremonies for staff that leave? I mean you know but some really good staff is leaving and retiring and I'm just kind of hoping that we can celebrate them in some way. Yeah so the staff tend to do that for themselves quite frankly I mean there will be an event tomorrow for Maureen and it's potluck we don't put you know the town doesn't put money into these events that's not really what taxpayer give us money for and so you know the but this town hall is pretty good at doing potlucks and so they'll do that I think tomorrow is the day from Maureen's farewell and it tends to be more of a staff oriented event that the department organizes on behalf and they know and they're closer to the individual they know what the individual wants. It's you know if we had someone you may have a person retiring after 35 years of service come the spring we might want to do something a little bit bigger for something like that. Well just just let them know that they will be missed. Exactly. Yes absolutely. Anna. Yeah this is a really really important critical question Paul I'm curious what you plan on bringing to these potlucks. I'm just kidding you don't have to. Well you know it's interesting because I they had what they have a it was food day for the first floor today and I asked Sean what he brought and he said he was instructed to bring hot chocolate from Dunkin Donuts so that's usually where where are That sounds like people don't really trust Sean to I actually do have a real real question. When you're recruiting for these you said that we typically have a broad applicant poll which leads me I know we have a wonderful new human resources director do you do any sort of data collection on the diversity of our applicant polls that we get here and are those reports. Yeah so they do if people self identify they can collect that data we can see what kind of that what kind of information is available it's a really good question. I'm not saying it's necessarily something that council needs to be involved with I was I was more curious from your end if that's something that I trust that we get amazing applicants and I'm curious about about that element. So there's two things one is applicants and one is how are applicants treated and so we have a standard and we were starting to go through this a little bit more in detail before the previous HR director left about we had a policy of anybody who identified they as a person of color or or another way we'd interview them automatically so there was no pre-judgment so everybody would get an interview and then there was we were having discussion some people thought that was not appropriate and almost and so it's just sort of a frank discussion about is that really the best way to do things or not and we're trying to learn a lot from the Dorian Huntingham who was on the call tonight. She's really good at recruiting and interviewing and we're learning a lot from her in terms of how the school district does it. The school district does a really terrific job at recruiting and in hiring so. Thank you. Any other questions. All right. Then we're going on to town council comments and I did submit a presentation. It was covering two months. If I were to direct you to focus on anything, it would be the summary of the comments. That are the discussion that we had with Joe and Mindy. We tried to be as comprehensive about that as we could. And that was very recent and helped provide some guidance, particularly around the issue of the transfer fee. So are there discussion, are there questions about that, Michelle? I don't have questions about that particular piece, but I do have two requests on the. Report itself. Is this okay? Okay. So I see that under the town manager and other town staff, I think it's page two, but I'm having a hard time. You. I think put in the four meetings that happened with the police department, two of which counselors attended if my dates are matching upright. So I'm wondering, or I'm requesting that you would add some language that would make it knowable by the public that. In those two meetings on December 1st and 2nd, counselors were in attendance. Or if there's some other place where that should go. Maybe that's a better option. And then the other request is just like with the meetings with Joe and Mindy, I would like to see a bulleted. Summary of the discussions that occurred in the meetings with the embers police department. And again, so that it's transparent to our community. Given those meetings happened. I think there was a concern. That those meetings were not known by the public. And so I think it would help if we were able to provide. Just some summary basis for what occurred in those meetings. Thank you. I'll have to do that. Obviously as an end to the report. Thank you. Other other questions or comments. Okay. Then the next item under the president's. Report is. Before I go on to the role of the. No, actually, let me go on to the role of the town council president and vice president. This is something that the council has done every year. So it's not like all of a sudden a new item. We've always asked the president. To talk about their role and answer questions. And the vice president, the same thing. My response is to go back to the charter. And then in addition to that, by looking at my report, you get a sense of what I do as president. And I've been doing those reports now for about a year and a half, I think. I've been doing that. I've been doing that. I've been doing that. I've been doing that. I've been doing that. I've been doing that. I've been doing that. I've been doing that. I've been doing that. I've been doing what I do as president. And I've been, I've been doing those reports now for about a year and a half. I think there may be. A year. Like something like that. So. I guess at this point, I'd ask if there are questions. The reason we do this is because on January 9th, we must elect. President and vice president of the council again. I think that's a good question. This is a way of understanding what you're looking for. So I guess we'll start with questions on the role of the president. Michelle. I have a quick question. I was looking at the charter that the, the excerpts that were in the packet. So this is per the charter. Are you asking us to look at. What are the rules and regulations? I don't know. I would like to consider what is in our rules and regulations. I know it's what's here supersedes that, but. I've actually included excerpts from both. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Cause there's a whole lot in the rules as well. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Okay. And. I'm not seeing any hands or questions at this point. So in the meantime, I'll just ask on a, if you would like to talk particularly about your role. And besides the fact that it's to fill in whenever I'm not able to. Which, you know, I got to talk at the dog park opening, which was great, but feel free to go on vacation more. So. My husband's suggesting it. You know, I mean, I think that the role of the role of vice president is very vague in, in its definition. And so I think what I've sought to do in this role has been to sort of expand a bit on. Not on the definition obviously is that's defined by the charter, but as presiding in the absence of the president. I get a sentence, but also to think about, you know, how do we ensure that there's, there's another voice at the table and given the limited. Limited scope of the vice president by definition. You know, trying to, trying to have someone there to support as well as challenge Lynn in, which I do believe I do both in meetings that you attend, as well as, you know, supporting you in. Agenda setting, et cetera, et cetera. So the role itself is, is sort of what you make it. And I've very much enjoyed it because I think that it's been a a big learning journey, which has been great. So for example, one of the things that Athena, Athena, excuse me, Anna has done is she now joins us for the monthly meetings with Senator Comerford and Representative Dom. And we actually along when I can remember asking people what things they want to make sure we cover. Anna contributes significantly to that agenda. She also participates in agenda setting meetings when she can and finalizing agendas. And also in rehearsals when she can. Those are places where I think that. Anna's input perspective and, you know, different ways of looking at things have been particularly valuable to me. Kathy. I have a question of both of you and also a comment. On agenda setting, you started a practice of asking counselors if they would like to attend some of the agenda settings. And I have raised my hand and my husband says, don't you attend enough meetings and wonders why I'm doing this. But I found them extremely valuable for at least a couple because there was a more of a discussion of what was possible to get done. And what was the most urgent to be on the next agenda, you know, and so Anna just on how much that's been a learning curve. And so I think that's a good practice. And I guess if you could think of ways of. If people want to allowing a few more opportunities, so would it be impossible to have two counselors there in addition to the two of you, you know, and so I think that's a good idea. I think it's a good idea to have a little more to hear those discussions. It's a bit from the building committee when we're doing agenda setting with the designer. It's funny at what people are ready for what they're not. And getting a, when will it would it be ready? So it's, it's a plant, you know, it's not making decisions. So that was one. And then opening up the meetings with Joe and Mindy. But I've sent all my thoughts about the school and state financing and I've tried to steer away from others. I've sent them through you rather than directly. And in the first years, I sent things things more directly had the thoughts about tax policy and got direct responses. So I don't know how much they like it coming through a channel. So they're not getting each of us versus cultivating those relationships is a good thing to be cultivating, not mixed signals and or opening up some of those meetings. So is it, if you meet X monthly doing it every quarter. So again, it's a, it's a question rather than a strong suggestion. Just on the first one, I, I personally have no problems with counselors attending. We just have to watch forums, forums of committees of the council and forums of the council. I, I find it actually very positive in terms of the input and understanding what goes into setting up agenda. I'm looking around. I know several of you have attended this last year and I don't see any reason to change that. And if we can do two counselors as well as on and myself and not have a quorum of the committee. I'm looking at Athena. She's rolling her eyes. So. Athena, you want to speak to this. I think when we get to 2023. We can all work with the new president to see how we want to set that up. I did send a poll at the beginning of this year and we had various counselors join us for several meetings, but there were plenty of dates that we didn't have counselors attending. So it's sort of as a, you know, as counselors want to attend, we fill those dates up. So if there are particular counselors that want to make sure they're on the list for next year, they're welcome to email and, and that'll be a good reminder. It's a good reminder. Thank you, Kathy. To remember to set that up for next year. Okay. So on the issue of the meetings with Joe and Mindy, I think adding a whole lot more people would not work if we were going to have a meeting with them about specific topics. We might even just want to schedule it as a council meeting and have them come to the council meeting. They would love to be invited. And maybe that's something we should discuss with them when the group meets in January. So I would, I would agree with that. It's really the calls with Joe and Mindy are really kind of running down a list as fast as we can and in a very limited amount of time. And so because we, we build up a lot, I think it would be a great idea to actually ask them to join us for a meeting so that we can and have that be a regular practice. Yeah. Once or twice a year to at least to do that. Yeah. Okay. Are there other comments? All right. Yes, Michelle. Thanks Lynn. So if, if we have. Recommendations about. How the meetings are being run or how we might have shorter meetings or any one of those things. And we want to somehow get those incorporated is the time to address those after the election happens in. January with the new president and vice president, or is the time to maybe send them to you now and then. You know, I think either time is fine, but I think part of the reason we have this discussion is so that people understand what the expectations are of the position. Okay. I see a town room. Yes. GOL is charged with an annual review of the rules, just as a reminder that that happens every year. I think it's a good opportunity to make some of those changes and suggestions in terms of rules. Did you hear that Michelle? I did. Yeah. Thank you. That's helpful. Yeah. Okay. Are there other comments? Thank you. So I have one other point that I just want to bring out from the charter and that is. Each of you, we all each of us serves on committees. Those committees continue until a change is made in the earliest. Any change would be made would be by the second meeting in January. And I've also had a counselor asked whether or not we might relook at liaison appointments. But all of that is what gets discussed on January 9 after the election. Okay. Thank you. But if there was any question is why do I still serve on this committee until whenever? And the answer is until January 23rd, you still serve on that committee. Because I know you're calling meetings and working on stuff. Are there any other questions or comments? I can talk a little bit about future agenda items. Athena. Can I make a very quick announcement? Please. I'm really pleased to say that our council committees are all staffed with minute takers and we'll have a new minute taker here with us at council meetings starting in the new year. So thank you for welcoming them so warmly so far. Great. And thank you for spending time hiring them. Anika. I was just going to add that I forgot to thank minute taker. What is I forgot her first name. Last name is Miller. Kelly. Yes. I forgot to thank her in the report. Thank you for that reminder. So you've already had one of the new minute takers at TSL. Yes. Excellent. So on terms of future agenda items, let me just find my. So on January 29th. I mean, January 9th, I'm sorry. Athena, we agreed we do not need to do a public forum regarding the park grant. Okay. Okay. There's the election of officers. There might by that point be a presentation regarding the strategic agreement with UMass, but we're not, we won't know until they let us know. There's a discussion regarding committee appointments and also liaisons. I clarified earlier that we do not need to revote rank choice voting submission to the legislature. Mindy clarified that for us. We do not need to revote rank choice voting submission. So the purchase of the property on main street will is coming from the finance committee and ready for action. The fee or transfer of property might be ready for discussion. We'll see. And the town and there will be a recommendation from the finance committee regarding the park grant. And then obviously the town manager's goals. And beyond that, are there any other comments? Counselor comments at this time. Pam. Could someone just give a recap, very brief recap of what the MMA annual meeting is all about. And, you know, what would one gain by actually going to it? I'm going to call on any counselor who has been because we have not had an annual meeting in person. Since two. 2019, no 2020. We had one and then the state closed down. So. Counselor want to volunteer. I've been to all of them, but. Andy. I've been to all of them as a counselor plus I was to a number of them, a select board member. So. I find that they're very helpful. In a couple of respects. One is that it gives the opportunity to interact with people who do similar work in other communities who you don't normally have an opportunity to meet. It takes a little bit of personality of your own to be able to see that. And there's a counselor from another city that's of similar size. When I stopped and talked to that person and asked them. What their experiences are and what the challenging issues they confront. There is a difference that we always have to remember and that is that. There are few cities in Massachusetts that have town managers, most of them have mayors. And the relationship between a mayor and a council is very different from our experience. So you do need to be careful of that. The other thing is that there's none that you should look at the. Announcement in the MMA website about the. Sessions that are being offered. There are sessions that are. Provided that are put together by people. Who give a lot of thought to what they are going to present and. Have very good discussions and it's the opportunity to really learn. About what other communities are doing. And how. How it's taking place. And I will recognize the fact that. My first exposure to. Composting as part of. Collection was that. There was an MMA session on it that I attended a number of years ago and I was on the select board. And it was something that stuck. And. So you do learn things. As to what's going on in other communities. And frankly. For most of us, if we go as a group. We end up getting together socially a little bit. And see each other. In a non-meeting. Context in. That actually has the tremendous bonding. Capacity. Amongst the group that's coming from. Here so. Those are what I observe is the benefits of going. Dorothy. Well, Alyssa was the great guide. The first conference. And she suggested. Come on Thursday night. And. So that you're able to register on Thursday and you're there for everything. Right and early on Friday. Where Friday morning is speeches, speeches, speeches. Then it's the woman's lunch. And then it's very interesting as Andy was saying, very interesting workshops afterwards. You know, you know, you know, you know, other towns are doing the same things you are doing, or other towns have new and interesting ideas like turning old fire stations into theaters, which I'm still waiting and hoping to do. So they, you know, just kind of wait on that. There are also. Speeches from the, the elected officials. There's business meetings. Oh, and one of the workshops is on PFAS and how to deal with that problem.  Interesting little things that you might be interested in using, which they give out free. So it's a nice hotel. The Heinz convention center is convenient. And, you know, when I was there, totally immersed in the conference. And then if you want to see more of Boston, you do that afterwards. So I'm, I can't come Thursday night because I was just given a class which meets Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And the second class of the semester will be Friday morning. So we will teach that early morning class and then zip there and be there, hopefully by the woman's lunch. So I look forward to it. And I hope it doesn't get canceled. Yeah, it did at the last minute last year. Man to Joe. Dorothy mentioned the vendor thing. One of the things I find valuable is being able to talk to the vendors.  Not people necessarily selling the municipality stuff, but state agencies. So you can talk to the MSBA folks. You can talk to the MBLC folks. You can talk to our town attorneys. And ask any questions you want, which is something I always hunt them out for. You know, and so, so just being able to have those conversations with entities is really helpful. And I just wanted to, you know, like for MBLC to ask them why this procedure or what can you do, then you can have that direct conversation with them. I've always found very helpful too. Anika. I just wanted to add that Angela Mills has been really helpful with offering to, you know, help sign us up. Those of us that haven't had the experience to know, like what our must do is, we can do that. Yeah. Okay. Any other counselor comments? Any other future agenda items? I'm going to make it. It's going to be under nine o'clock gang. Yes. I want to wish you all a happy holiday. We started yesterday with Hanukkah and we move on to more of the Christian holidays and Kwanzaa and whatever you and yours are concerned. Happy holidays. Happy holidays.


Tantor Audio, a division of recorded books, presents Curse of the Gypsy by Victoria Hamilton. Narrated by Danielle Cohen. 1. Hit me again, Ossay! the Marquis of Darkfell roared, his fists raised, his biceps bulging. I dare you! Ossay Botin, stripped to the waist, dark skin glittering with sweat in the brilliant Yorkshire sunshine, circled his employer in the dusty stable yard behind Darkfell Castle. A ring of jeering, cheering, cat-calling grooms and gardeners stood around them, betting on the outcome, the odds favouring the Marquis at more than two to one. But Darkfell, crouched and still feigned. Sample complete. Ready to continue?


Hi, I'm Mike Predko, Chief Designer for Mometix, and Mometix is a company that's mission is to interest and excite students in STEM, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Mometix's roots go back to 2001, where the founders started a robotics activity at the Ontario Science Centre. Over the next 10 years, we worked with over 12,000 students and their families, and working with over five generations of robots. From what we learned, we decided to create a company that was just devoted to this activity. And the reason for doing this is quite simple. 40% of the jobs in today's workforce require advanced math and science at the high school level. The middle school interest in STEM, the students about to go into high school, their interest level is at an average of 17% overall, 26 for boys, and girls are at one third of that at 9%. This is reflected in the high school enrollment rates for the different academic levels in math and science. Over the 10 years that we were working at the Ontario Science Centre, we learned a number of things. One of the first ones being is that people are very positive about robots. It's something that interests everyone. Over my life, what I've discovered is that everybody is interested in robots and dinosaurs. That's something that when you say either one, you catch people's attention. And I like to joke that the reason why I'm working with robots is because I don't know how to make dinosaurs. It's a great way to bring, when we talk about robots, it's also a great way to bring parents into the educational process. It's a very positive activity where parents can work with their children and learn with them at the same time. I just cautioned is that parents will be a bit nervous because they are learning something new and will be concerned that their roles as parents may be served by an activity where they're shown to be not experts or whatever. So when you're working with that, you want to be careful about that. But when you are successful, it's really amazing. And we'll talk a bit more about that as we go through here. But over the years at the Science Centre, we've worked with four generations of participants in our programs. And it's quite an amazing thing to see great grandparents on the floor with their great-grandchildren learning about robotics. It's a very powerful activity. When we talk about, I talked about us having five different generations of robots. And one of the things that we discovered is building a robot tends to be a problem. We talk about having a workshop where we say, or an activity where you're going to build a robot. When the robots have been built in almost everyone's minds, they take the position that they're done. They've built the robot, and that's the end of the activity. And it's unfortunate because while there is some learning in terms of the mechanical aspects of it, putting something together that's a positive experience, it should only be the beginning of the journey, and not the end of the journey that happens. The other aspect is, and we talk about different products that we want to work with in terms of building, such as we did work with Mindstorms for a bit, is Mindstorms is an incredible product. It really is amazing. But when you look at the robots or the models, robots, whatever you want to call it, the Lego site, what you very quickly discover is you try to create on your own is they can take up to 20 hours to build. So not a really long time for a kid to do it. Now a number of them will be successful at that. And what we found is at the end of the process is they've done it, again we have the same thing with the build, they get it working, they like to see it work. But they're not interested in taking them apart again, there's something that really kind of surprised us. And Mindstorms can be a problem in the classroom or anything that's being built because it does take up a lot of space when they're partially built. They've got to be put together and work through that. Also problem we talk about building, building can be a problem depending on the robots because a lot of times when working with that you're working with chemicals in terms of glues, lubricants in some cases, sharp tools, knives, screwdrivers, clippers, it all can be a problem. And then hot tools, namely soldering irons. We found that we just will not solder with students as we work through them. It's a distracting and somewhat dangerous activity. Then when we actually have a fully assembled robot we really found a lot of really magical things happened. Children or students were much more willing to try different activities and experiment with the robots. Much more so than with the robots that they had built themselves, which seems counter-intuitive but again it goes back to the ideas that when you're told the activity is to build something and you've built it you're done. Also having a fully assembled robot means that you have more time to teach concepts and a fully assembled robot allows you to pick and choose your concepts to make it age-appropriate for younger students. Another important issue that we learned and are learning again as we'll talk as we get through this video here is the importance of having homogeneous computer systems when you're working through this type of activity. When you have one type of computer system you're going to get the same problems. You're not going to have different issues with different programs than previously loaded on the computers. Just something to watch out for. In 2001 we formed Memetics as a start-up as I said to interest and engage students in STEM. We took what we had learned from the previous ten years as well as the five generations of robots we used from the volunteer program to create our own robot which we call the Jade Robot. This robot here as you can see it's called a track differentially driven robot. What makes it unique is that it has all the sensors integrated into it again going back to the need for a fully assembled robot. It has all aspect light and object sensors. It also has a user interface built into it and this user interface allows someone to experiment with the built-in programs of it to see how robots work. Light following, line following, object avoidance. As well as using it there's several different ways of programming the robot on the robot itself without using a computer and these programming tools are actually very sophisticated. And finally this allows you to configure the robot for different operating modes as well as connecting the robot up to a computer using a Bluetooth interface for downloading programs and controlling it remotely. The robot can also be programmed using USB but when we did our initial user testing during the design process we found that users overwhelmingly preferred Bluetooth. In fact we couldn't find anybody who preferred USB because it means that there's no hooking up a wired connection. You're just putting the robot down on the floor running it, there's a problem stopping it, changing it, working it. It's actually a much more efficient process for program development for the robot. One of the things is you can program the robot in scratch. This is something, I guess going into it, being an engineer, being someone who had worked a long time, really felt that scratch was something just for an introduction to programming and robotics. One of the things I've discovered is it's a very very useful tool at the professional level for creating programs that are very sophisticated but can be created and edited very quickly without a lot of the frustration of dealing with a text-based language. One of the things you might be looking at is when you look at the picture of the jade robot is that there's no shell on it. As a startup, of course, we were told that we had to have an iconic plastic shell for the robot. What was interesting and maybe a bit ironic was the industrial design process that we worked through was to take their designs to 200 customers, in this case we identified teachers as the customers, to show them what the robot could look like and what would they prefer and what would they like to see in it. It was fascinating for us because along with that we took a hand-wired prototype robot to show the user interface what we wanted to do with it. Literally all the teachers pointed to the hand-wired robot and said that's what they wanted for their students. They didn't want something that was covered because they felt that there's too much technology today that is hidden, it's essentially arcane to the students and it's somewhat scary. It's having a product that has the componentry visible that the students can touch, can see that it's labeled. That is actually a very positive aspect of the jade robot and one that we've never had anybody go back and say that was a mistake. Having said that with the plastic cover is the jade robot is very tough and I really recommend any kind of robots being used in the classroom should be tough.  As I said, even though the componentry is visible on the jade robot, it actually is a pretty tough little beast. Since 2013 when the jade robot first became available, we've been bringing it and program materials to various schools in the greater Toronto area. In that time we've worked with about 3,000 students of varying grades from grade 2 up to grade 12. In saying that because as hinted above, we discovered the greatest age group for the opportunity for what we were doing for changing their attitudes was the middle school grades 6 to 8. In these, this is the age range that studies show kids are making a decision about what they're good at as well as what do they want to do in their careers. So it's something that we can, that, you know, we really, it really is the right point for making that difference. Also is very interesting for me was to see how well girls performed, especially relative to boys of the same age. You know, trying to remember back when I was a 12 to 14 year old boy, I didn't see any real difference in maturity or skills of girls at that age, but there really is a big difference. And this is an opportunity or this is a situation where girls will perform at least as well as boys and give them a very positive feeling about STEM and their ability to succeed in that. We also talk about grades 6 to 8. We also, in Ontario, we have different programs in the curriculum that we can work through here very efficiently. For grade 6, this is the Earth in Space Science Strand. And working with this is introducing the Jade Robot Programming and going to a cumulative project having the Jade Robot being used as a science probe looking for water on another planet. This was done during the spring of 2015 when the Curiosity Rover was discovering water and showing water on the Earth's surface. So this was actually very relevant and a very positive activity, one that they can work with. For grade 8, robots work very well for the system strand, explaining the interrelation between the physical world through mechanical devices and sensors leading back to control systems and how they work and how you create things that respond in a purposeful manner. A big part of this is setting up these programs with a strong cross-curricular component. Grade 6 classes, while we were working through there, we were working through grid and matrix lessons and math. Having a cumulative project in both cases brings in an English component as well as something that they can research at. We also focus on the soft skills, such as project management, teamwork, and problem solving. Art is something that robots actually excel at and is something that gets students very excited. They have a lot of fun. And again, it reinforces a lot of the things that we're talking about before. If we talk about the math in terms of the timing and the distance being moved for drawing, for the science, and how things actually look, how arcs are produced on that, it really is great to watch how the students get excited about this. As I said, we worked with over 3,000 students over the last couple of years in various classrooms. And I wanted to kind of share some of the things we learned. For the pre-high school grades, we found that students were most successful when they worked in teams of two. This was something we had investigated in the Ontario Science School, a science center programs that worked with their science school. And we worked with robots, with a single robot, with individuals or teams of two, three, and four. And we found that two is the most positive. And that's something that we're working with here as well. For high school students, a ratio of one robot to every student works best. But the work that is being presented to them is much more advanced. I talked about the importance of having homogeneous PCs. And really, things work best when you have the same PCs with the same operating systems. And this is something that just simply is not possible in today's classrooms. For that reason, I highly recommend, regardless of the system being used, that sometimes spent in the classroom understanding the systems, which ones work best, and the procedures before you have any students present with you. To keep kids interested in presentations, I found incorporating characters from popular culture to be helpful in catching the students' eyes and holding them there. I've gone through a number of different cartoons and their characters, and found that Futurama works best. Amazingly enough, I learned that Lego Harry Potter should be avoided because it distracts the students too much. The results that we're seeing are amazing. We are changing students' attitudes towards them. We survey all students, taking the 40% number of jobs that require advanced math and science as our target. We found that boys' interest in STEM goes from 26% to 62%. And we're really gratified to see that girls' interest reaches 63%, bringing them on par with boys. These results were borne out with two all-girls grade 8 classes we worked with in the last school year. Before a program, 25% of them were enrolled in advanced math and science for grade 9. After the program, the remaining 75% changed their enrollment to take advanced math and science. When we ask students on a scale of 1 to 5 if they would recommend the program, we get an average of 4.7 or better. Typically, robots in the pre-high school grades are only brought out to students as an enrichment or club activity. This is really unfortunate because doing this only interests 17% of kids that would be considering this type of activity to begin with. All students can benefit from this and gain a new appreciation of STEM, encouraging them to learn more about it in high school and consider it as a career. It must be recognized and emphasized that the purpose of these robotics programs that I'm talking about here is not to turn everyone into mathematicians, doctors, or engineers, but to give them a different perspective on STEM as well as give them some practical experience in it so that they can consider it in their future lives as well as use the skills and knowledge that they gain in their later careers. I should also point out that the programs that we're working with are for all students. This is not something that we're just doing as an enrichment activity for a few kids. It is something that we are doing for all students and seeing these tremendous results. I thank you for listening to what I have to say. I'd love to talk to you more about this. If you have any information about what we're doing, if you have any questions or comments, please contact me. Again, thank you for your time, and I look forward to talking to you.


So, we don't really have a name for this show yet. We don't have any cool opens or music. We don't even have a teleprompter. But I thought it was important to be able to get this show in front of the community as soon as possible given my video from this last week. And I think the best place to start with that would be launches. Liftoff occurred at 1910 Coordinated Time Saturday aboard the Majestic Delta IV Heavy from Space Launch Complex 6 at Venedburg. That is a 71-meter-tall rocket with three hydrogen-fueled aeroget rocket-dine-built RS-68A main engines. The Delta IV Heavy rocket is the largest vehicle in United Launch Alliance's inventory. It's only flown twice from Venedburg before, once in 2011 and another time in 2013. Those missions are believed by analysts to have delivered new keyhole, or KH-11, electro-optical recon satellites into orbit. There's a little bit of confusion over whether this payload was actually KH-11's spy satellite. It's an unexpected orbit targeted by the Delta IV Heavy, which raised some speculation that this rocket might carry a radar imaging satellite, or perhaps a stealthy payload designed to evade tracking from the ground. And China's off to a solid start this year. A solid-fueled four-stage Long March 11 rocket fired four satellites into orbit at O5-42 Coordinated Time, Monday, from the Jiquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China's Inner Mongolia region. This added two spacecraft to the Chinese-owned Jilin-1 Commercial Earth Imaging Constellation and deployed two small-sets on tech demonstration missions. Jilin-1 satellites are owned by Cheng-1 Satellite Technology Co., a commercial spinoff of Chinese Academy of Sciences. They've launched 12 satellites in this family since 2015. The Earth Observation Platforms are designed to collect high-definition video, colored pictures, and detailed hyperspectral imagery of Earth. Some secondary payloads, LingQui-1A is the first test satellite for a planned constellation of Earth Observation and Data Relay Satellite. The other payload, Xiaoxing-103, is a tech demonstration satellite to verify radio communication and small remote sensing experiments. Moving from rockets that have just recently launched to a rocket that we'll unfortunately never launch, that's the StratoLaunch Medium Launch Vehicle. When you think StratoLaunch, you probably think about that gigantic airplane, the largest airplane by wingspan in the world. And that part of StratoLaunch is still happening. But the whole point of that giant plane is to strap a rocket to it and launch it from the air. It's that rocket that's changing again. Now, here's a quick history lesson. StratoLaunch started in 2010, but actually wasn't announced until 2011. At this point, there were three primary companies working together to create the whole system. Scaled composites who would build it, Dynetics who would do the system engineering integration and testing, and SpaceX who would design and build the Falcon 9 air rocket. Now, the Falcon 9 air rocket was to be a four-engine variant of the Falcon 9 system that we know and love today, specifically designed for use on the StratoLaunch Carrier aircraft. It was designed to have a payload to low earth orbit of around 6,100 kilograms and was initially designed for satellites, but they left the possibility open for a human variant too. While the demo videos of this system showed the Falcon 9 air with five engines, StratoLaunch actually confirmed it would have four Merlin 1D engines. Due to the specific needs of an air launch rocket, there were some elements that didn't really fit in line with where SpaceX wanted to spend engineering and development time, so StratoLaunch and SpaceX ended their partnership in 2012. Then in 2013 it was announced that Orbital Sciences Corporation would be the new provider with a new variant of the Pegasus rocket called the Pegasus II, also known as the Thunderbolt. Specifically for StratoLaunch, this rocket specs were very similar to the Falcon 9 air with 6,300 kilograms of payload to low earth orbit, but this time it would be solid fuel on the first and second stages and the hydrolox third stage. And in early 2014, Aeroget Rocketdyne was even contracted to build six of the RL10C-1 dual motor liquid engines for this vehicle. And for a few years, everything seemed fine. But then in 2016 it was announced that StratoLaunch would be moving away from the Thunderbolt and over to the now Orbital ATK Pegasus XL rocket. This is a currently operational rocket, not a new one custom designed for StratoLaunch like the previous attempts. Typically the Pegasus XL rockets launch from a Lockheed L-1011-100 tri-star airplane. But now it would be tasked with also launching from the StratoLaunch plane, but instead of just one Pegasus XL at a time, StratoLaunch could deploy three rockets into different Orbital planes. Then a wild shift back to custom rockets, this time designed in-house by StratoLaunch. In 2017 it was announced that StratoLaunch had signed a space act agreement with NASA's Stena Space Center to test a new in-house built engine called the PGA. Those are the initials of the company founder Paul G. Allen, who passed away in 2018. These engines would be used in the rockets that were announced in 2018 called Medium Launch Vehicle, or MLV, that have a low Earth orbit capacity of 3400 kg. There was also the Medium Launch Vehicle heavy that would be able to deliver 6000 kg to Leo and a reusable crewed spaceplane called Spaceplane. They brought in Jeff Thornberg, who worked on NASA's J2X engine as well as the SpaceX Raptor engine, and even test-fired the pre-burner at Stena Space Center on November 2, 2018. These new in-house rockets would be added to the lineup in addition to the Pegasus XL, so customers had four options to choose from. But it was not to be. Now the news part of this update. Late last week, it was announced that StratoLaunch would be moving back to what is now the Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems Pegasus XL exclusively, and some of the teams working on the in-house rocket program would be laid off. In other words, no more Medium Launch Vehicles or Spaceplanes. It's been a wild and crazy ride for the rocket passenger of the StratoLaunch Carrier Airplane. Sounds like the plane itself is progressing nicely. On January 9th, it was announced that the Carrier Airplane performed its fastest taxi test to date, reaching a top speed of 352 km per hour, which also had the plane briefly lift the nose gear off the ground. We'll keep watching with keen interest the progress of StratoLaunch and its rocket passenger. I have even more rocket news this week. Relativity Space has won a contract with the U.S. Air Force to build a new launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It will be developing on the old Launch Complex 16 spot. This agreement allows Relativity to proceed with construction of things required to launch their Terran-1 rocket, including the ground systems, hangar, transporter, erector, propellant storage and payload processing facility. A Launch Complex 16 was built in the 1950s for use for testing of the Titan I and II missiles. It was later then transitioned over to NASA to support the Gemini and Apollo programs, although nothing actually launched from there it was just used for testing. It then transitioned back to the Air Force to be used with the Pershing missile, the last launch of which was conducted on March 21, 1988, and then the very next day the site was deactivated where it has been sitting dormant ever since. Now Relativity is another small space launcher entering the market. Their Terran-1 rocket is unique in that they want to be able to 3D print the entire launch vehicle. They created their own 3D selective laser sintering system with the awesome name of Stargate. The goal is to 3D print 95% of the launcher, including the engines, by the end of 2020. For those familiar with 3D metal printing, you know how insanely slow the process can be, but Relativity hopes to eventually be able to print a complete vehicle within 60 days. That's right, an entire rocket 3D printed in 60 days. The engines for the Terran-1 are the Aeon-1, which are designed to have over 68,000 newtons of force at sea level and 86,000 newtons in a vacuum. It's a Methilox engine, and like the launcher, completely 3D printed as well. This isn't a paper engine either. Relativity has completed over 100 test firings of the Aeon-1 engine at the NASA Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The Terran-1 rocket is a two-stage launcher. The first stage will use 9 of those Aeon-1 engines, with the second stage using only a single Aeon-1. The payload to low-Earth orbit is currently slated at 1,250 kg. They're hoping to get launch complex 16 operational around the end of 2020. This specific launch site will be good for low and mid inclination orbits, but will likely not be used for polar or sunsynchronous orbits. For that, they're looking at a second launch site elsewhere, but that's not yet been announced. If you're thinking to yourself, holy cow, that is a lot of launches from the Cape. You've got SpaceX, Blue Origin, United Launch Alliance, and now you're adding relativity to the mix. Aren't those other larger launch providers going to bump relativity out of the way? Where relativity says they're not concerned, Cape Canaveral has been working hard to be able to support up to 48 launches per year, which is nearly one per week. And at that flight rate, they should be able to support quite a few different launch service providers. For now, at least. If you're interested in learning more about relativity space, we actually had CEO Tim Allison last year to talk about what they're up to. Hit up tomorrow.space orbit 11.19 to watch the full interview and we'll make sure to get Tim back on as soon as they get closer to launching their Terran 1 rocket. I do promise we're going to have more than just rocket news in this space news program. It just so happens that it's another rocket news story. Against the space launch system, the test article has entered the test stand. The liquid hydrogen tank structural test hardware for the space launch system has made it over to the test stand 4693 at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama on January 14th. This is a 45 meter tall test tank, which is structurally identical to the flight version of the liquid hydrogen tank used for space launch system. This tank can hold over 2 million liters of liquid hydrogen sitting colder than negative 250 degrees Celsius. It's designed to undergo the stresses of launch here on the ground so engineers can look for any issues and validate that the design holds up to the expected stresses of launch. They'll push and pull on the tank itself to simulate said launch stress. The liquid hydrogen tank makes up two thirds of the core stage for space launch system. Once combined with its liquid oxygen tank, the center core will stand over 65 meters tall and 8.4 meters in diameter. And these two tanks work together to feed the four RS-25 engines or those old space shuttle main engines at the base of the booster. Add to that the dual five segment solid rocket motors and you have a rocket with over 39,400 kilonewtons of thrust at sea level. Test stand 4693 in and of itself is a bit of an interesting story too. This stand was designed and built specifically for SLS. It stands 67 meters tall and 35 meters wide. There's over 2,460 tons of steel superstructure in there and a 5 meter thick concrete foundation with 835 tons of steel embedded in that. So it's a massive structure designed to absolutely punish the core stage. To do that, there are 38 hydraulic cylinders or load lines each weighing between 227 and 1,451 kilograms. They are then positioned along the tank and can provide up to millions of kilograms of crushing force and over 150,000 kilograms of shearing or side force. All of this while the tanks are filled with cryogenics to simulate what it's like while in flight. They then attach specialized instruments to grab over 3,500 different measurements such as temperatures, pressures, imaging, strain and deflection. Test stand 4693 is designed for the space launch system liquid hydrogen tank specifically and 4697 is for the SLS liquid oxygen tank. 4693 started construction in May 2014 and was completed December 2016. From here it will take up to four months to complete each tank's tests in a series of about 30 different scenarios. Now assuming the tank passes, that will get us one step closer to the first launch of SLS, NASA's next generation heavy lift rocket. Let's close this out with a happy news from space that's not a rocket story. And that is Hubble's working again. On Tuesday January 8th, Hubble telemetry circuits detected voltage levels outside of a predefined range on the Wide Field 3 camera. Clearly in English, one of those sensors on Hubble said that voltage on the camera was either too high or too low and both of those scenarios can be very bad for electronics. The onboard Hubble systems autonomously suspended operations of the camera as a safety precaution. As engineers dug into the issue, they found that the voltage levels actually appeared to be within normal range but the data coming back from the telemetry circuits themselves, that was all out of whack. They called up their friends at their local help desk who had them turn the telemetry circuits off and back on again. After resetting the circuits and associated boards, some more data was captured and it was decided that we're go to turn the Wide Field 3 camera back on again. Then at 1700 coordinated time on January 17th, Wide Field 3 camera completed its first science observations after the outage, bringing it back to full operational status again. A bit about Wide Field 3, it was installed on Hubble during the last servicing mission in May of 2009. It has taken over 240,000 observations to date and is the most used instrument on Hubble's current complement of sensors. There have been over 2,000 peer-reviewed published papers from just the data on this one sensor alone and much like a JPL designed Martian Rover, Hubble is in its 29th year of its 15-year designed lifetime. I look forward to seeing what new wonders we're able to grab from Hubble's continued use. Let us know what stories you would actually like us to pull forward into this week's live show. If you're watching on YouTube, you can vote, I don't know, I'm not good at this, so over here, over here, you can vote, you can vote. On what story you'd like moved forward and we'll discuss that on this weekend's live show. We'll probably push that over to Twitter as well. This is our first news segment so we're not entirely sure what the process is going to look like. Speaking of it being the first news, I know it was a little bit rough. I probably was speaking too fast. We don't have any shiny new intros or anything like that and we don't even have a name for it so I would love your ideas as to what we call this segment. I don't want to call it space pods so leave it in the comments, what should we actually call this? Something more fun than just space news. And don't forget to hit up our live show this Saturday at 1800 universal time. The easiest way to remember that is to hit subscribe and that bell icon on YouTube so that you get a notification as to when we go live. It's a great place for everyone to get together, have a social fun little party for an hour to celebrate the awesomeness that is the cosmos. I look forward to seeing you there.


Iodegi, the Deputy Country Director of SOS Children's Village, an international non-governmental family and child focus organisation, in an interview list that the major threats of family and system in Nigeria are confronted with today and how it impacts on national development. The economic front, you see that our country currently, the challenges we are facing is a threat to families and ultimately to children. On the other front, like I mentioned, last year there was a huge disaster as a result of the flood that we had in the country that affected about 30 states in the country and that was a major event that separated families that brought about untold hardship on families and these are also parts of the things that families are confronting. We at SOS Children's Village, what we do is to continue to provide a nebulous environment for children to grow, which essentially is talking about families. We believe that children should be able to grow in their own families and that where this is not possible for certain reasons, a very suitable option should be made available. Well, the Deputy Country Director of SOS also bear his mind on Child Rights Act of 2003, which the National Assembly has begun the process of review. The legislature is looking at reviewing the Child Rights Act, which is very old, so I think we should start by commenting that effort. However, this is a call that the review should be holistic. We should look at all matters. The Child Rights Act is that legal to add a federation that looks at matters that relate to children and one area that also needs to be looked at critically is the issue of alternative care, which was not effectively dealt with in the original documents. So this is a call to government to also look at including alternative care matters, which looks at vulnerable children who are not able to live with their family. How can they better be cared for in other arrangements that there is need to deal with the issue of institutionalisation, which has been shown not to be the best for children? So there is a call on the government to please make this review holistic. This is an opportunity we have to do something for the children. So we are calling on them to do more than just changing a few things, but looking at the holistic review of the documents for the betterment of the Nigerian child. Hello, hope you enjoyed the news. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.


We don't control the vast majority of stuff that goes on in this world That was a tough pill for me to swallow because I'm somewhat of a control freak But we control how we respond to it. How many of you have children? How many of you were children? Okay, yeah So at some point you can probably relate to the fact that you either had a parent say this or you've said this yourself Because I just bust out laughing when I say this to my kids now Like you don't control Luke you don't control what your brother Jack does But you control how you respond. Yes, I know you didn't want him to bite your neck But there's nothing we can do about that now So how you choose to respond and whether you punch him or bite him back now that's on you So the world is always going to throw things at us and there's going to be feedback given to us at all times Because life is nothing more than a series of at bats Everything we do is just another rep It's just another at bat and every at bat we get gives us some type of feedback And if you want to be a high performer if you want to be a high achiever if you want to raise your game Then you have to choose To take every single thing that's thrown at you and use it in a way that serves you and moves you forward Instead of choosing to use it in a way that cripples you and moves you back Feedback in and of itself. Please know is completely unbiased It's sterile It's not positive or negative. It only becomes positive or negative when we as human beings choose To associate emotions to it when you can Depersonalize it and step away from all Feedback from a personal standpoint and say what from this can I use to make myself better and choose that consistently as opposed to How can I use this to regress and move back? You'll be well on your way to being a high performer and the choice is always always yours basic, right? Definitely not easy when Jack bites Luke's neck for him not to turn around and punch him is a really really hard decision for an Eight-year-old to make but it's one that I'm trying to condition them to understand that that is not a knee jerk response That is a choice


Hello friends, welcome to the session. I am Malka. We are going to discuss pair of linear equations in two variables We have to solve the following pair of linear equations for the elimination method and the substitution method Now our given equations are x upon 2 plus 2 by upon 3 equal to minus 1 and x minus y upon 3 equal to 3 Now let's start with the solution by elimination method.  Now let this be our third equation.  On adding these two equations we get x upon 2 plus 2x and 2y upon 3 will cancel out with 2y upon 3 and this is equal to 5 This can be written as x upon 2 plus 2x equal to 5 this implies x plus 4x upon 2 equal to 5 on cross multiplying we get 5x equal to 10 this implies x equal to 2 Now We'll substitute the value of x equal to 2 in equation second. My question second is x minus y upon 3 equal to 3. Now we'll substitute the value of x equal to 2 in this equation. This will give us 2 minus y upon 3 equal to 3 this implies minus y upon 3 equal to 3 minus 2 this implies minus y upon 3 equal to 1 this implies y equal to minus 3 Thus x equal to 2 and y equal to minus 3 Now we'll see the substitution method. Now we'll see the substitution method our equations are x upon 2 plus 2y upon 3 equal to minus 1. This is our first equation and x minus y upon 3 equal to 3 This is our second equation now From equations second we get x equal to 3 plus y upon 3 Let this be our third equation. Now we'll substitute the value of x in equation first we get 3 plus y upon 3 into 1 by 2 plus 2y upon 3 equal to minus 1 this implies 9 plus y upon 3 into 1 by 2 plus 2y upon 3 equal to minus 1 this implies 9 plus y upon 6 plus 2y upon 3 equal to minus 1 this implies on multiplying both the sides by 6 we get 9 plus y plus 2y into 2 equal to minus 6 this implies 5y equal to minus 6 minus 9 this implies y equal to minus 15 upon 5 this implies y equal to minus 3 Now on substituting the value of y equal to minus 3 in equation third we get on Substituting the value of y in equation third which is x equal to 3 plus y upon 3 we get x equal to 3 plus minus 3 upon 3 this implies x equal to 3 minus 3 upon 3 this implies x equal to 3 minus 1 this implies x equal to 2 hence x equal to 2 and y equal to minus 3 is the required answer Hope you understood the solution and enjoyed the session goodbye and take care


Hi, welcome to Sunday Morning Coffee. Today, we're gonna talk about the topic of make or break. This Sunday Morning Coffee episode is being recorded on the autumn equinox. So we are in September and we are stepping into the autumn, the fall season here, at least in where I live here in the Midwest in the United States. And that creates just a huge shift. So there are some kind of poignant things, I think, that are ingrained in us as people as we grow up, right? The different stages of life, the different times of our lives. We kind of create a rhythm and starting of the school year is one of those things. Even as an adult, don't you kind of feel that little nudge, maybe a little pang of anxiety or excitement, freshness or newness at the beginning of a school year? Even though you might not even have children or grandchildren for that matter, there still is this reference of that experience in your life. And right here, right now, with the energy of autumn and fall, as the leaves begin to turn here and the weather becomes a bit more cooler, somewhat still up and down, perhaps. But the wind just has this, the air just has this crispness about it. And there's moisture in the grass and around, it seems. It becomes sort of this sense, there becomes this kind of sense or essence from the earth of savoring the moments, savoring these days as the trees start to shed their leaves, they start to just drop them. And sometimes all of a sudden it's really quick and abrupt. And other times they just hang on, hang on as long as they can. So it's like the earth invites us to feel the moments, to really cherish the moments that we have that remain during this cycle of our lives. Whatever cycle you're in, whatever stage of your life you are at, you might be at a crossroads. You might have just completed a massive transformation or transition and are now in the integration stage, or you might be just on that doorstep, contemplating whether you're going to turn that knob, open the door and step over that threshold. In psychic work and healing work, we often talk about these moments, these threshold moments. And in particular, the autumn equinox, where if you study the Celtic Wheel of the Year, or the High Holy Days of the Year, that energy of this time really is a pause.  Regardless of that, there is this time that is a pausing time to afford you this chance to reflect on all that has unfolded during the months of this calendar linear mind brain-focused year. Yeah, like that? Did you like that? I just gave a nod to your brain in this calendar year. And yet beyond that, from this time, this season last year, where were you in the fall of 2022? Of this time last year, as I'm recording this in 2023, so much has unfolded and transpired. You've had last Thanksgiving. You've had last holiday season, Christmas, or whatever holidays you observe in December and November. And you've had the start of the new year and the celebrations and potentially all the birthdays that you've had with family and friends and loved ones in your birthday, all these different celebrations and these mile markers. And maybe there's been graduations or ending of the school year or weddings or births or deaths. Take a moment to just feel that. You have this opportunity right now. There are so many things that have the opportunity to gift you with the making of you or the breaking of you during this last year. So the points that really major day or major month or major year, you can celebrate. You can acknowledge that and be grateful for. I have so much gratitude and open-heartedness and feel that amplify those making moments, those creative moments, those just beautiful synchronistic times and the breaking points. And recognizing that you have been brought to your knees at moments and for some of us very harshly, for some dark nights of the soul, for some new experiences and changes in our bodies or changes in our mental health and for the first time ever, getting those formal or official diagnoses so we can get the medication that we might need to help us through this time. Yeah, I can relate. And those breaking points give us the power and the ability to hold ourselves, to love ourselves. The breaking gives us the opportunity to go so deeply into the truest, rawest, purest form of ourselves that we must hold and love ourselves during those times and in the tenderness and the sacredness of them, and it's horrific because it hurts and it's numbing and it's confusing and dark and it feels like it will never pass and then moments come through shards of light to give us hope, to inspire us, to move us toward the light and into more moments of making, into moments of becoming and creating or re-creating ourselves because we had the opportunity in the breaking times to connect within our spirit and our soul, not just from this mind. The mind really is fabulous at controlling and navigating life in its structured form, but when it comes to relationship and heart-based knowing, it knows nothing, it doesn't know, it freaks out and instead it backs off, it detaches, the mind steps forward in judgment and self-sabotage and creating disconnection within ourselves and separating our heart, separating our soul and taking power, taking charge and focusing more on making as in achievement, as in results, as in outcome, as in the drive for recognition, acceptance and belonging. Through the mind's eye, that is all external by how much money is in your bank account, by what you do for a living, by what your house looks like, by how your children are raised and dressed, by where you go to church or if you even go to church. These are all pieces of what our mind has attempted to work and hold on tightly to in order to help us stay safe, help us stay alive, to survive life, but yet the depths of the breaking points the mind cannot control, it must totally surrender. It must totally surrender. I've heard this before, maybe you have that, you have to have a breakdown, to have a breakthrough, sometimes you have to just let yourself not rationalize your feelings, stop doing that, please stop, stop, stop doing that, stop trying to put your feelings into a category of good or bad. This is a good feeling, this is a bad feeling, this is just feeling, this is sensory emotion, this is information. My neurodivergent friends, you understand this is over stimulation externally and yet in the heart space the empathic nature of who you are is creating the opportunities for you and I have set opportunities a hundred times in this audio. But it is true, that is the place, that is the threshold to show up for you. Other people cannot show up for you when you are not holding your authenticity in your hands, in your heart. Your mind is not authentic, it cannot be. Your mind is not vulnerable, it cannot be. It knows not these things that are required for human relationship and deep, profound connection. If you want to be known, if you want to be seen, if you want to be heard, if you want to be heard, you must speak from the energetic support of the essence of the heart and of the soul of who you are and this is authenticity and vulnerability. This isn't sharing a story about yourself or reflecting upon a life experience in a way that the mind has purely rationalized it. This is about understanding that some things cannot be reasoned there are not reasons for things happening the way they do. There are unexplainable things. There are mysterious things that the mind will never be able to process and come to terms with. So I invite you in this make or break discussion today to look back over this year and give yourself this pause to consider all of the ups and downs that you've been through and just to embrace and give yourself a huge hug for how you have navigated and moved through. This is not about being evaluative or analytical.  It's not about rational and reasonable and practical. It is about understanding and it's about compassionately knowing thyself and I am in this place right here right now today and I feel it and I'm passionate about this. We are all at different places on our journey. You might be at a making place or at a breaking place and the truth is we're at both because both can be true at the same damn time. You can be making while you're breaking and in order to make sometimes you got to break right. Think about it when you're redoing some furniture okay you have old furniture and you're going to make it into something new or you're going to refinish it or repaint it you got to scrub it all down you got to sand it all down get it to those bare bones of the wood green in order to be able to refinish it because you got to break it down in order to make it into what is next and we are in this space don't skip to what is next you will not be fulfilled you will not be complete you will live the same pattern over and over and over again and this time of the autumn equinox this time of the fall gives us the moments to let go of the patterning of the skip ahead of the okay what's next oh well that's not working so what's next you've got to give yourself this time this is where the healing happens is the place in between the making and the breaking and it's not linear it's happening at the same time it's dynamic it's body, mind, spirit, energy the making and the breaking and the pause this space right here right now is where the healing happens so make, break, heal break, heal, make this is how it works this is the natural rhythm of things making and breaking and healing making and breaking and healing this is the cycle of life the death, the life, the rebirth the life the death, the rebirth do you see can you feel this I really hope you can I'm literally sitting on my bed in the townhouse nobody is home I'm flying solo as I often do here and I feel okay in the alone and in the silence and the quiet after several days here I can sometimes get in this state where I don't actually feel like leaving or going out or going to do things I almost feel just like I should cocoon in this solitude so I have to really encourage myself to get out to go out into the world besides just going for a walk around the neighborhood so today I am going to go out I'm going to celebrate the earth energy I'm going to accept her beautiful invitation to feel the moments to make this day an opportunity for me to to be within myself and also externally within the natural world I'm going to go and walk a labyrinth I do that often I love to do that I shouldn't say often I do it also I do it on I tend to do it on holidays like Celtic holidays and things like summer solstice and autumn equinox and also at times in my life when I just I'm in a transition state and I want to honor myself or I'm working through something and I don't need my brain to derail me because it does it finds the rational answer and the truth is if I was focusing just purely on rational answers to things I would not have the life that I have this beautiful dynamic incredible depth of experience and relationships that I have I would not have the friends I have I would not have the partners I have I would not have the children I have things would be so different and so disconnected and cold and unemotional and as I look back over this year at this time I've certainly experienced a depth of emotion so much so much so much that at times it is deafening to the point of numbness I recognize that my body has definitely bore the brunt of it it has held me and been strong for me and asked me for guidance and assistance and more care and tenderness and I have rejected it a lot I have said no to my body and yes to other things to help the feelings not be so intense you know and the body is not the villain it's not the enemy it is really the vessel our sacred container and so today I'm going to walk with my body and help her to feel the freshness of this pause while I connect with the emotional awarenesses of this place of this threshold and of the past year and all the things that have transpired and my brain will serve me it will be in devotion to my body my brain will be in devotion to my heart as I write in journal after my walking experiences today after my labyrinth visit to give the deeper connection between all the parts of who I am body mind heart and soul and I invite you to give yourself time and even if you're super busy today and you running the kids and you have family commitments or or you're working and you just don't have the ability or you just had surgery and you just physically can't I invite you at some point to just take a couple moments to quiet yourself to close your eyes to feel into your body to touch your heart and acknowledge your heart acknowledge the emotional journey you've been on this year whether you've chosen to accept the emotions or have pushed them away or successfully shoved them into your body because let me just be clear as an empathic Claricentium being you have done that and I know because I've done it too and yeah I'm psychic and yeah I know energy and I do it too it's like a natural instinct to just swallow that emotions because they're just that's what we're taught that's how we function in the world when we're highly sensitive people and we're bumping around in the world that's what we do but we don't have to do that today and it's not about digging deep and pulling out all the feelings it's about just taking this moment closing your eyes for just a second or staring at the ground putting your hand on your heart with me just put your hand on your heart with me and take a nice breath and first exhale exhale come on I need to hear you just exhale exhale make some room in that beautiful body of yours that vehicle that has served you so much and now take a nice big breath and fill her up hand on your heart and a soft long exhale very gentle very tender let the air exhale and release from the body hand on your heart feel your heartbeat hold your hand on your heart until you can feel it what a beautiful gift this life this heart in your body this energetic chakra heart the essence of who you are beating in alignment partnering with your physical human body for your well-being today for your healing for the opportunity to show up and to make your life today nice breath in exhale out this is Bridget thank you so much for listening today to Sunday morning coffee I appreciate you here on the podcast and for following above life channel on YouTube remember you can inspire your spirit you can receive the hope that is available to you this is your life after all and you get to live it just live it thanks for being here


have heat at the town hall hi randy turn off the heat upstairs we'll do say thanks bye