LuLaRoewas founded in 2013 by Mark and DeAnne Stidham, husband and wife. By 2017, the California-baseddirect marketing company had approximately 90,000 independent contractors selling their products.

They went from startup to over $1 billion in revenue in less than four years. And with that came a lot of challenges, growing pains, and learning.

I had the opportunity of interviewing various members of LuLaRoeto better understand:

And to be clear: I have no affiliation with LuLaRoe. I received no compensation for writing this article. I'm a writer, psychologist, entrepreneur, and reporter of entrepreneurship.

A Challenging Industry

LuLaRoe is one of many "direct selling" companies, wherein independent contractors become sellers of LuLaRoe'sbrand and products.

This industry has many pros and cons. A major con is that such companies can be viewed as pyramid schemes or "get-rich-quick" shams.

There is a lot of hype in this industry for multiple reasons. One reason is that, in all reality, some people do make tons of money. As an independent business owner, if a person has a platform or is good at selling, they can choose their own hours and make an incredible income.

However, this isn't always the case.

One of the initial challenges LuLaRoe faced during their explosive growth was that many people came in with the false pretense that it was going to be "easy."

Perhaps some of the independent business owners touted the ease with which they were making money by selling LuLaRoe, but LuLaRoe as a company cannot control that.

Therefore, many people became sellers during the extreme growth wave and were disappointedby the challenge of running a business and selling products.

Entrepreneurship is hard. Let's just say it.

Selling not only takes guts, but it requires a reason for selling. If you have a "why," you can do any "how," as the saying goes. But when you were led to believe you'd make tens of thousands of dollars without much work, you've been sold a lie.

There have been multiple lawsuits against LuLaRoedue to people being upset, believing they were going to get rich quick, and finding it wasn't that easy. TheStidhamsand their LuLaRoe team have had to weather extreme challenges and continue to do so, as theypush their mission forward.

And without question, LuLaRoe admits to having made plenty of mistakes. No business owner has ever not made lots of mistakes, especially in the midst of such growth.

There are many detractors who want to see LuLaRoe fail. This isn't surprising when something grows so fast and is so successful.

LuLaRoe'sMission

TheStidhams are deeply spiritual people who believe their company has a bigger "mission" than selling clothing. As their website states:

"Our Mission is to create freedom, serve others, and strengthen families through fashion. It's a community where lives are being improved through love, purpose, confidence, trust & growth."

They believe that LuLaRoe is simply a platform for helping people gain skills and abilities for self-reliance and personal freedom. They believe in human agency and have a desire to helppeople gain greater freedom, autonomy, and confidence.

In order for people to have more freedom, LuLaRoe wants their sellers to take more responsibility for themselves.

Being an entrepreneur and improving your life requires taking on greater responsibility. In the words of Strategic Coach founderDan Sullivan, "All progress starts by telling the truth."

LuLaRoe is simply a vehicle from their perspective: a vehicle for helping people take ownership and responsibility for their lives and a platform through which that can happen.

They want to do good in the world.

Whether it's an individual, a single mom trying to raise a family, a wife and mother supporting the family's income or a family working together full time, they genuinely want to offer an opportunity for people to improve their lives.

In every conversation I've had with any member of the LuLaRoe team, the conversations have centered around their mission, values, and spiritual beliefs.

How to Be "Successful"?

I asked various members of the team what they believed would make someone successful, whether that was a single mom trying to make ends meetor someone trying to make millions.

Here's what they told me:

Currently, there are approximately 25,000 independent business owners selling LuLaRoe products. From LuLaRoe's perspective, their mission is to help these 25,000 people improve themselves and create greater freedom in their lives.

Fundamentally, theLuLaRoe team sees the company as an education and personal empowerment platform more than anything else.

It will be interesting to watch as LuLaRoe continuesto weather future storms. The team is committed to their mission.

Entrepreneurship, especially during rapid growth, is an extreme, challenging, and rewarding journey.

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

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From Startup to Over $1 Billion in Less Than 4 Years. Lessons and Growing Pains - Inc.

Pianist Robin Sutherland, who was a mainstay of Bartlesvilles OK Mozart festival in its early years, returns to Tulsa this weekend as the guest artist of Tulsa Symphony.

Sutherland, who has been described by critics as the perfect Mozart pianist, will perform the Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor with the orchestra, which will be led by guest conductor Gerhardt Zimmermann.

Last year, Sutherland retired from his position as principal pianist for the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, a job he held for 45 years. He joined the orchestra in 1973, when then-music director Seiji Ozawa created the position of principal pianist for Sutherland.

Sutherland became known to Oklahomas when he was a regular performer at OK Mozart, serving as the orchestral pianist for the Solisti New York orchestra and performing as a concert soloist and in chamber music settings.

He last performed with the Tulsa Symphony in 2015.

The concert will also feature the Overture to Berliozs Beatrice and Benedict as well as the Concerto for Orchestra by Lutoslawski.

Performance: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 16, at the Tulsa PAC, 101 E. Third St.

Legally Blonde

The fall 2019 class of Theatre Tulsa Academy, the companys interactive theater training program for youths, will present the full-length version of the musical Legally Blonde.

Based on the novel by Amanda Brown and the film adaptation that starred Reese Witherspoon, Legally Blonde is the story of Elle Woods, a seemingly superficial sorority sister who decides to enroll in Harvard Law School to win back her upper-class boyfriend.

She is at first ridiculed for her ambitions, but soon she is tasked with defending a woman accused of murder, and Elles unique field of expertise helps to win the legal, as well as the romantic, day.

Legally Blonde is an excellent story of personal empowerment that our teen actors were really enthusiastic about, said Jarrod Kopp, executive director of Theatre Tulsa. We have loved producing a show about being a success while staying true to yourself, even when others dont believe in you.

The Theatre Tulsa Academy series of shows features youth-oriented and junior versions of popular musicals as a supplement to Theatre Tulsas regular season of mainstage shows. Theatre Tulsa Academy produces four additional works per season.

Kia Hightower, recently featured in Theatre Tulsas production of The Drowsy Chaperone, directs a cast that includes Ella Phillips as Elle, Bailee Washington as Margot, Jameson White as Serena, Anabel White as Pilar and Otto Alonso as Emmett, with the role of Warner shared between Zachary Kirchhoff and Kolby Cardwell.

Performances: 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 15; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 16; 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 17, at the Tulsa PAC, 110 E. Second St.

Daddy Long Legs

Jerusha Abbott has earned the unfortunate title of Oldest Orphan in the John Grier Home along with the responsibility of making all the preparations for the monthly meetings on the homes trustees. But after one such meeting, she is handed a letter. One anonymous trustee will pay for her college education on the condition that she write him regular letters describing what goes on in her life.

So begins Daddy Long Legs, a musical based on the classic 1912 novel by Jean Webster that in turn has inspired at least three films, the most famous being the 1955 version that starred Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron.

This musical by Paul Gordon and John Caird will have its Oklahoma debut in a production that stars Margaret Stall (Theatre Tulsas Beauty and the Beast) as Jerusha, and Samuel Briggs (American Theatre Companys Sunday in the Park with George, Tulsa Operas Carmen) as Jervis Pendleton, the young man who becomes something a rival for Jerushas affections with the unknown man she calls Daddy Long Legs.

Performances: 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, Nov. 15-16, 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 17, at the Lynn Riggs Theater, Dennis R. Neill Equality Center, 621 E. Fourth St.

The Harlem Quartet

The Harlem Quartet, which the Cincinnati Enquirer praised for bringing a new attitude to classical music, one that is fresh, bracing and intelligent, will conclude its time in Tulsa with a Sunday afternoon concert presented by Chamber Music Tulsa.

The quartet will perform music by Bolcom, Debussy, Lpez-Gaviln and Brahms. Sundays concert will be preceded by a talk by Jason Heilman, host of the radio program Classical Tulsa on KWGS (89.5 FM).

Performance: 3 p.m. Sunday at the Tulsa PAC, 110 E. Second St.

Teletlsa

Jose Zorillas play has been a staple of Spanish theater for more than 150 years and is regularly performed as part of celebrations of All Saints Day, Nov. 1.

Tulsas Latino theater company, TeleTlsa, is presenting a new version of the classic Spanish play Don Juan Tenorio, adapted and directed by Tara Moses. Don Juan takes the story of the arrogant and frivolous Don Juan and sets it in modern times to address such themes as agency, accountability and the dangers of machismo culture.

Performances: 8 p.m. Thursday-Friday, Nov. 14-15, 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 16, at Living Arts of Tulsa, 307 E. Reconciliation Way.

Heller Theatre Company

Heller Theatre Company will present the final performance of The Deaths of Sybil Bolton, David Blakelys stage adaptation of Dennis McAuliffes book about his investigations into the life of his grandmother, one of the victims of the Osage Reign of Terror in the 1920s.

The company will follow that with the latest installment of its Second Sunday Serials, in which excerpts from short plays are performed, and audience members vote on which stories they want to hear continued.

This week will feature the latest episodes of Shatterproof by Andrew Nichols and Josh Gammon and Future Projections by Bailey James, as well as new plays Wallaces War by Dale Hink, Hot Water Chocolate Cake by Jordan Clark and Kid Dixon by Quinn Bailey.

Performances: Deaths... 2 p.m. Sunday at the Lynn Riggs Theatre, 621 E. Fourth St.; Serials, 8 p.m. Sunday, at Studio 308, 308 S. Lansing Ave.

World Stage Theatre

Love, Loss and What I Wore by Nora and Delia Ephron is a collection of monologues and ensemble pieces about women, clothes and memory covering all the important subjects mothers, prom dresses, buying bras, mothers, hating purses (did we mention mothers?) and reasons for wearing only black.

Kathryn Hartney directs a cast that includes Sally Ruth Allen, Danielle Balleto, Charity Crawford, Shadia Dahlal, Kathleen Hope, Angela McLaughlin, Kelli McLoud-Schingen and Paula Scheider.

Performances: 3 p.m. Sunday Nov. 10 and 17; 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 15; 3 and 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 16; , at the Tulsa PAC, 110 E. Second St.

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Arts Scene: Sutherland to play Mozart with TSO - Tulsa World

You are walking down the street. A homeless person, ragged and with a sagging expression, holds out his dirty, cupped hand to you. Do you give him a dollar? Whether you do or not, you are likely to wonder how he or she got that way and ponder what good a dollar will do. In either case, you have briefly connected, however unwillingly, with another human being who represents perhaps the major urban issue of our time. New York City has some 70,000 homeless. All but several thousand have been shunted off into temporary shelters or safe havens, so they are not visible beggars on the street, yet they have no bed, bureau or bathroom to call their own. Consider this: At least one out of every 100 of your fellow citizens is in this predicament.

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Of course, it could be worse. There were more people actually sleeping in the streets in the 1970s and 1980s before the city was pressured into building additional shelters and affordable housing. And the shelters and flophouses that existed then were often frightening places. Today, the city spends billions annually to try to ensure that the homeless are adequately cared for. But it is never enough. Each year the numbers of homeless increase.

So how does one help individuals out of homelessness? There are structural meanseconomic, social and politicalthat must be improved, certainly. Better and more decent affordable housing, more jobs and improved social services all must be promoted. But these are goals that the city has been grappling with for the last 30 years. The Bloomberg administration even went so far as to pledge that it would eliminate homelessness through a program of rent subsidies and other reforms. (It failed; its policies ended up making the availability of rent subsidies much worse than before.) The progressive De Blasio administration has made no such rash promise, recognizing the complexities of a situation in which every homeless individual, family and child has a right under the New York State Constitution to shelter; every temporarily sheltered person has a need to find permanent housing; and every landlord has a need to find a fair return on his or her real estate.

The testimonies in Susan Celia Greenfields Sacred Shelter: Thirteen Journeys of Homelessness and Healing suggest there may be another important way to approach the alleviation of homelessness, by encouraging the growth of life skills empowerment programs such as have been initiated by faith-based organizations in New York City in the past 30 years. This book will not give statistical insights, but it does provide success stories. It contains true-life narratives told by 13 formerly homeless individuals who have turned their lives around through participating in one of these programs, along with the reflections of a dozen individuals who have helped organize and run them. These are accounts of abandonments, molestations, knifings, robbery, beatings, rape, prostitution, slander and addictions that were precursors of homelessness. Yet they end as tales of redemption for 13 people who have moved out of pits of hopelessness into lasting commitments of love, gratitude and service to others.

Among the stories presented here is the gripping downhill tale of Rodney Allen, who, after losing his daughter, wife and job to addiction, simply gave up. When he no longer could make the rent and found the locks changed on his Queens residence, he simply took the R train to Madison Square Park and stayed. For months I sat in Madison Square Park. I sat on different benches. On Twenty-Third Street and First Avenue you could take a shower twice a week. But everything else I did in the park. I ate soup from the Coalition for the Homeless. The people from Midnight Run brought food and clothes.... I didnt venture out of the park.... I became glued there. Until, that is, he was coaxed into entering a recovery program at All Angels Church on the Upper West Side and eventually was reunited with his daughter.

There is the story of James Addison, whose discovery as a young man of his mother lying in the courtyard in a pool of blood, a death by suicide, propelled his descent into a life of drugs, petty theft and a homeless shelter. Today, he is an inspiring leader in an East Harlem program, having confronted his past, made amends, graduated from a life skills program and been ordained a minister.

There is the story of Edna Humphrey, raped many times as a teenager by her mothers boyfriend and in shelters for 14 years. In the life skills workshops I learned how to budget my money.... I graduated in 2005 and told my story at the ceremony. Afterward, a lady came up and said, You made it through all that? I dont know how you could make it, but you did. Today, she is engaged in a range of volunteer activities. I love doing things to help people, she finishes.

Deborah Canty was similarly abused at 10 years old. Today, Deborah is another leader in the East Harlem program with James Addison. Then there is Michelle Riddle, whose fathers illness undid her to the point of turning to prostitution. Today, she is a great-grandmother who proudly ends her life story of hardships with a paean of gratitude to God for the good things that have been done for her.

These are stories of great pathos that the editor, Susan Celia Greenfield, a professor of English at Fordham University, has carefully curated and shaped for clarity and effect, always with the storytellers sanction. All of the narrators bear witness to the value of the life skills empowerment approach. In the introduction, Greenfield provides a succinct summary of how this approach was conceived and developed by religious leaders in the 1980s, in the aftermath of extended City Hall protests and sit-ins.

Marc Greenberg of the Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing and George Horton of New York Catholic Charities were among the first to begin planning its curriculum. Both have stories in the book. The programs, according to Greenfield, usually involve a 12-week curriculum and include individual mentors, workshops on healthy living and social justice, counseling on how to get housing and techniques for restoring confidence and working on personal goals. One of the main components of the program involves every participant sharing a version of his or her life story.

I myself have witnessed the power of these programs, if only tangentially. As an Ignatian volunteer, I attended some sessions of an East Harlem program that began somewhat earlier than the life skills programs. It uses similar techniques but does not have a formal curriculum. It calls itself Life Experience and Faith Sharing Associates (LEFSA). It is now informally affiliated with other life skills empowerment programs and is sponsored by the Sisters of Charity of New York. The weekly meetings I took part in were attended by 40 to 50 homeless individuals. They had both a spiritual and a personal empowerment context. Following prayers and singing, there was typically some discussion of a religious reading. There would then ensue an often vigorous discussion of a life skill such as self-discipline or perseverance (usually self-selected by the group at a previous meeting). Each participant would then be asked to name an attribute that is particularly striking to him or her, like patience or fortitude.

Every time I participated, I was impressed by how motivated and enthusiastic participants became. LEFSA also replicates these meetings for clients in some of the citys shelters. It has hundreds of graduates who meet in monthly reunions as well as in Christmas and summer celebrations to reconnect with the program. I observed that LEFSA is very popular and effective in motivating clients to begin more formal life skills training, as well as helping many to navigate the hurdles of the affordable housing bureaucracy. All of its leaders are formerly homeless persons, and they include two featured in this book: James Addison and Deborah Canty.

If anyone has come to doubt that God is at work in the trenches of the poor, that redemption is possible for anyone, here is a book to refresh their convictions. Hopefully, this book may also serve to inspire the creation of more programs like these life skills empowerment programs.

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How can we solve homelessness? Listen to the people who have experienced it. - America Magazine

Big Tech seems to be loved and loathed in equal measure. Governments across the world are grappling with how to rein in its perceived excesses from how it uses our data to what we are permitted to say online. The same governments also want a piece of the next tech phenomenon, and for the next tech hub to emerge in their jurisdictions. So what is it about Silicon Valley that has led to its global dominance? Now that the likes of Facebook and Google are playing a central role in our politics, what makes them tick? And how will they weather the emerging backlash to tech? spiked caught up with Margaret OMara, the author of The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America, to find out more.

spiked: We often think of Silicon Valley and the tech boom as the story of programmers in their garages. Is that an accurate picture?

Margaret OMara: Yes and no. Its only part of the story. The garage has been mythologised as the birthplace of tech so much so that museums about tech in California have mock-ups of garages. Actually, what really made Silicon Valley and turned it from an agricultural valley in California into an electronics hub was the Second World War and the Cold War. US governments were getting into the technology research-and-development business in a very big way, and into the electronics business, too. The computer industry as we know it was developed with the patronage of government entities often the military. The army, the navy and other branches of the armed services funded laboratories and universities.

In contrast to Europe, a lot of the US states money was flowing into these industries indirectly. It was the 1950s, the age of Senator McCarthy and the witch-hunts against communists. The whole purpose of Americas Cold War was to fight the socialist Soviet Union. And so a giant government scheme to build up computing power and electronics was not going to fly politically. Instead, the government spent money via defence contracts and higher education, all in a very decentralised manner.

And this is where the garage comes in. Hewlett-Packard was founded in a garage in 1939, as was Apple in 1976 by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. They were in California, which had also made massive investments in education and in infrastructure roads, bridges, suburbs that are built out, making it a very easy place to live. There was a great deal of federally funded and private-industry research happening that was all concentrated in this one place.

Wozniak and Jobs are products of the Cold War environment, even though they dont see themselves as Cold Warriors. Wozniak was the son of an engineer at Lockheed Martin, the aerospace and defence corporation. Lockheed was the biggest employer in the Valley from the 1950s. Jobss father got a job as a technician in a laser company. Wozniack and Jobs grew up in this very highly technical environment.

Nevertheless, they didnt see themselves as particular friends of the government, or as having anything to do with the defence complex. The personal-computer movement that later became an industry had a politics that was very much in opposition to the great military-industrial complex of the 1950s and 1960s. It was driven by young people who reached adulthood during the Vietnam War. They encountered their first computers in the form of these giant mainframes that were controlled by university computer labs. And they asked, why should the establishment have all the computing power? They said we should take this marvellous power, and turn it away from being tools of war to making it tools of personal empowerment. Put a computer on every desk, connect the computers through wires so we can talk to one another, and then all the great injustices in the world will be erased, they thought.

That seems hopelessly idealistic now. But really, its that techno-optimism that has driven Silicon Valley for decades. Its the origin of, say, Facebook wanting to make the world more open and connected.

spiked: Has that optimism faded in the wake of the backlash to tech?

OMara: There are a lot of people in the Valley who are questioning what they had once earnestly believed. They really believed that tech was going to make things better. And now thats being challenged. But then there are others who feel that tech is just misunderstood and those tend to be the most powerful and wealthy people.

When I started working on The Code five years ago, it was a whole other world: Obama was president and it was all a big love fest between politics and tech. And now, the pendulum has swung so violently in the other direction maybe not in the Valley, but certainly in Washington, DC and in much of the outside world. People say, Burn it all down. Its terrible.

Silicon Valley hadnt paid much attention to politics until recently. They thought it was irrelevant to business when, of course, now it has become deeply relevant. The regulation of tech is going to be a defining conversation in American politics for the next decade not just in Washington, but in state capitals too. European laws are already having a material effect on what happens here, because these are global companies.

spiked: How did Silicon Valley become woke?

OMara: Silicon Valleys politics are quite complicated. They are partly a reflection of northern California and Seattle, which are very liberal places. The other thing that is important to these companies is recruitment and retention. There is fierce competition for top-quality employees, many of whom care about LGBT issues. They want to know if a company marches in the Gay Pride parade, what sort of maternity and paternity leave it has, and if it is making the world a better place.

The amount of employee pushback and anger that weve seen in the past couple of years has been unprecedented. I have never seen white-collar workers stand up and complain to this degree. In part, this is because, in most industries, when you dont like an employer you leave for another company. But the largest companies in tech all having something that might be compromising, that goes against their Dont Be Evil image which is the old slogan of Google.

Google actually has the most severe problems. In part, because it has really tried to build a whole culture around its Dont Be Evil image. Workers came to Google for that culture. And then they find out that Google is involved in building drones for the military or is paying off sexual harassers, and so on.

The leaders of the tech firms, on the other hand, are trying to tread an apolitical, neutral line, but are doing so very, very clumsily. Their personal politics for many of them lean Democrat or lean in a more liberal direction. But when conservatives have chastised them for seeming to be biased against conservatives, they have really jumped a little too high and have overcompensated.Like all CEOs of global companies, they are trying to make sure that whoever is in power is on their side.

For instance, Donald Trumps vendetta against Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is starting to have an effect. Microsoft was recently awarded an incredibly lucrative Pentagon contract when Amazon was the presumed front-runner. We dont know what the decision tree was who knows what is going to spill out of the White House. Whether or not there was a connection to Trump in that case, people are starting to think that if you get on the bad side of the White House that could have an impact on your business.

spiked: Has Big Tech helped make working conditions more insecure, especially with the rise of the gig economy?

OMara: This is the manifestation of some very long-term trends. The public likes to think tech is more different than it actually is. Even the companies that present themselves as iconoclastic and counter-cultural Apple being Exhibit A are just like conventional corporations in many ways.

Historian Louis Hyman has argued quite compellingly that the American economy has been veering towards temporary and gig labour for both white-collar and blue-collar work for quite some time. This is part of a bigger story of the restructuring of American capitalism since the 1970s, in which the old models of secure lifetime employment, unionised work and benefits worked very well. The 25 years that followed the Second World War were pretty darn terrific for the United States, in part because all of its major industrial competitors including Britain were literally in rubble. When Japan and Germany managed to rebuild themselves, they started eating Americas lunch.

We had this golden moment in which business was doing well and employees were doing well. But when that started falling apart, American employers started figuring out ways to cut costs. By the time we get to today, we have these software platforms that have made it remarkably easy to have an incredibly flexible workforce. This has arrived at a time when many workers jobs are already precarious and temporary, which means that taking on extra gigs as an Uber or Lyft driver starts making sense for people. So the software has arrived at a point where the labour market is very well primed for it.

Margaret OMara was talking to Fraser Myers.

Picture by: Jim Garner.

Original post:

The Cold War roots of Silicon Valley - Spiked

Grande Prairie Volunteer Services Bureau logo.

Congratulations to the winner of Octobers Volunteer of the Month Draw Gary O! Gary was nominated for his volunteer work with St. John Ambulance, read Garys nomination at http://www.volunteergp.com.

Volunteer of the Month winners are awarded a $100 Gift Card from Tim Hortons!

The staff and board of the GPVSB would like to thank Tim Hortons for helping us fuel the volunteers of Grande Prairie and surrounding area.

Steve Shumate

GPVSB recognizes Steve Shumate. Steve volunteered for the 2019 Street Performers Festival as part of the Safety Patrol team where his happy spirit and dedication to help out wherever needed ensured the festival ran smoothly and safely. His efforts were appreciated by all. Thank you for all your hard work, Steve!

Wendy Trepanier

Grande Prairie Council for Lifelong Learning nominates Wendy Trepanier! They wrote, Wendys support has helped her learner to move from a Beginner ESL level to Pre-Intermediate level. This is a great accomplishment for an ESL learner. Thank you very much Wendy for your support to our organizations vision.

Denny Coogan

GPVSB recognizes Denny Coogan. Denny volunteered for the 2019 Street Performers Festival this past July and we appreciated all of their help with the festival. We couldnt have done it without you, thank you Denny!

Kelly Hollahan

Special Olympics Grande Prairie nominates Kelly Hollahan! They wrote, Kelly has been a coach and volunteer for over 13 years. She represents the organization at a high level of standard helping with everything from coach and athlete training to trade shows. She is very valued.

Adelaide Bartel

GPVSB recognizes Adelaide Bartel. Adelaide volunteered for the 2019 Street Performers Festival in several different roles where her cheerfulness and incredible dedication to help out wherever needed ensured the festival ran smoothly and safely. Her efforts were appreciated by all. Thank you for all your hard work, Adelaide!

Looking for volunteer opportunities in Grande Prairie and surrounding area? Visit https://gpvsb.volunteergrandeprairie.com.

FREE courses for individuals 18+ to develop skills and look for employment.

11/12

Job Search Techniques 9 a.m.-NoonIntroduction to Microsoft 1 p.m.-4 p.m.Personal Development 1 p.m.-4 p.m.

11/13

Career and Information Planning 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

11/14

Personal Empowerment 9 a.m.-NoonGet a Job Using Social Media 1 p.m.-4 p.m.Writing Effective Resumes and Cover Letters 1 p.m.-4 p.m.For more information and to register call 780-538-2727 or visit https://wired2hire.ca/events.

In recognition of Remembrance Day the GPVSBs office will be closed Monday, Nov. 11. GPVSB Representatives will be laying wreaths at the Revolution Place Remembrance Day Ceremony and the Jubilee Park Cenotaph Remembrance Day Ceremony. Both Services are scheduled to begin at 10:45 a.m.

Join us on the morning of Dec. 5 for our International Volunteer Day Celebration Breakfast. This free event celebrates the volunteers in our community and around the world. The 2019 Volunteer of the Year Awards will be presented during the Breakfast! Stay tuned to @gpvsb on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for updates.

GPVSB

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Tim Hortons Volunteer of the Month - Alberta Daily Herald Tribune

By BruceSheppard*

Many claim to write with authority on the topic of wealth, and for those who are wealthy, or aspire to be, this thought piece will either resonate or it wont.

Wealth means different things to different people. For some it is a state of mind. For others it is experiences and knowledge, or the joy and richness of relationships. The most identifiable by all is the tangible measurement of wealth, money and assets.

The only truly wealthy are those that have elements of all of this, however the most critical one is state of mind. If you do not think you are wealthy, no amount of knowledge, experience, cash, assets or relationships will make you so. I guess we have all met the fortunate discontents in society.

So how about I try to define wealth as a formula:

Wealth = (attitude* (knowledge + experience) *networks) + resources.

I view money as an addition not a multiplier to wealth. The exponential impact on wealth for me is experience and networks levered with attitude. It may also be better to think of resource accumulation as the result of attitude knowledge experience and networks.

As the saying goes, money is not everything, but the corollary that it beats the alternative is also probably true. Money however certainly does not bring you happiness, nor does conspicuous consumption. How many first class cruises can you endure?

If the passage of others is a guide, I with this as my guide, examine the components of my formula.

Attitude

If your parents instilled in you self-confidence, a desire to try the unknown, a sense of independence and the courage to make decisions and not sweat the little things or overly worry about things when they go wrong, they have probably done you a great favour.

If in addition they have given you a work ethic, determination, along with a good dollop of thrift, then they have doubled your attitudinal gift.

And if also by passage of birth and upbringing your mouth was free of a silver spoon and if this instilled in you a desire to improve your own and your familys lot, then likely they have delivered you the last component, ambition.

So key characteristics:

If you dont have the right attitude you can learn it, but it is much harder because these attitudes have to be behavioural and instinctive.

Knowledge

Education has its place, but the perpetual student accumulating PHDs would likely have a single dimensional view of knowledge, deep and narrow. Rich in its own way, but those who become wealthy across all facets of wealth acquire a wide range of knowledge across many disciplines, an awareness of what they dont know, and the knowledge of where to find out.

Knowledge comes from many sources, formal courses, wide reading, trying things, and conversations. One of our graduates, who years after leaving us, sent me an email saying he learned more in his year with us by osmosis, and being exposed to how we problem solve and think than he had learnt before and that in his new job he was ahead of his peers by a wide margin. He had the openness to absorb ideas, toss them around in his head, challenge them, filter them and apply them. Knowledge only flows when you are around people who are prepared to share and if you have an open challenging mind.

Experiences test and refine your knowledge. Over time, right, wrong and grey appear clearer.

Sometimes knowledge comes from unexpected circumstances and occurs in spades when you least expect it. For ten years I ran the New Zealand Shareholders' Association, and in that time I meet many CEOs, Chairmen and Directors of large organisations. I had no idea of their thinking and the environment in which they operated. I judged them as idiots based on the poor outcomes achieved by them compared to the outcomes that were being achieved by small, well-run businesses in the SME sector. They took the time to educate me, and I them, and we all ended up better as a result of it.

A number of them I now do business with. The conversations around commonly held issues that you will have with others not only widens your knowledge, it leads into the next element, networks.

Networks

To build deep networks requires you to talk with people and exchange ideas. Then finding something tangible to do with each other to demonstrate to each other common views, values and purpose, and when you do this, those networks become, what I ridiculed in public companies so roundly, your very own old boys and old girls clubs.

Without deep wide and trusting networks it is almost impossible to scale knowledge. Without engaged relationships it is impossible to achieve much at all. Many hands make light work!

In terms of the importance of networks a conversation with a public company director went like this.If you think you are so underpaid for the risk you are taking, let someone else do it, plenty are willing.

After much banter, it came down to this.I do this because if I didnt, I would not be connected and I would lose my sense of purpose and relevance.

Everyone has many networks, clubs, sports teams, families, professional associations, work mates, shared businesses it goes on. Each relationship is in context with the only common denominator being you. If you can plug these multiple networks into each other with multiple points of contact they become stronger.

Have you read the book Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell? One interesting story in this book was the story of a small American town. It had a population that lived longer than anyone else in the world. Was it environment? Was it genealogy? What the hell was it? It came down to the fact that the population cared about each other. They all addressed each other in the street. They all knew each other, they were all connected. In short, the town was one big supportive network. The people had somewhere they belonged.

Successful people create these though consistency and by being authentic. Networks require trust.

Resources

Resources are more than a score card. They are the underpinning in a tangible sense of your security, and an enabler of the choices you wish to make. To some, control over resources is power, for others its security. Some simply see it as a game to get more. As I have said before, that which you chase runs, so for me the pursuit of more for its own sake is pointless. Wealth without purpose is to shun the privilege society has given you. In itself to me this is a breach of trust. More on purposeful wealth another time.

If resources enable choice and freedom, then the first level is to have enough to live. Until you have this, you will never have freedom or choice, unless your wish is to live on the street (its own freedom). Enough in this context that you can live as you wish until you live no more. This number is not that hard to work out. The hard bit is defining how you want to live. Some need a really big number, others very little. But getting to the freedom of having the security to cover yourself without having to do anything at all is immensely liberating. The more you wish to consume the longer it takes to get to the first level of actual freedom which then enables you to really make choices.

Then your choices fall into; do something useful, purposeful, or one of two basic approaches to power.

In terms of power, one approach is characterised by the description f**k off money. This is enough to tell anyone at all to go away you dont want to deal with them and if necessary defend that decision. This is about personal empowerment. It allows you to be authentic, in that you dont have to grovel to others, it allows you to prune your network to those who matter. If you have a bit more than this level of economic power you transcend to what is called f**k you money. This is the level of wealth that allows you to exert power over others.

You have enough, you can do what you wish, and you have no desire to exert power over others, because your self-confidence and freedom is enabled to the point where the thought of exerting power over others is pointless.

You have reached the point and mean it when you say,Its not the money, its the principle.If you think many say this and mean it, you are wrong. It is for the vast majority the money, not the principle. You get to judge character in adversity and disputes. I have seen a fair bit of that too.

*Bruce Sheppard is founder and managing partner of accounting firm Gilligan Sheppard. He's also the former chairman of the New Zealand Shareholders' Association. This article first appeared here and is used with permission.

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In the first of a series of articles on wealth, Bruce Sheppard probes what wealth actually is and details how he measures wealth through a formula -...

Presented by Nandini Sikand in Partnership with the Theater at the 14th Street Y, RIYAAZ/PRACTICE is a collaborative production that brings together four east coast contemporary dance companies, Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company, Courtyard Dancers, Sattriya Dance Company, and Sakshi Productions. After a successful run at the Facing East Festival in Philadelphia, Riyaaz/Practice takes the stage at the Theater at the 14th Street Y for a limited engagement Friday, November 15 - November 16.

Using bharatanatyam, kathak, odissi and sattriya as foundational training, these companies will present duets, trios and group pieces that embody the notion of intentional, daily practice. Riyaaz is about our lived experiences. It disciplines the body and the mind and habituates us to movements, words, expressions. Riyaaz, an Arabic word, is foundational to the practice of dance and music in India. It is about entering more deeply into communion with the body, with the self, with other bodies, and communities around us. It is ultimately about the constant process of polishing and stripping away of the unnecessary, including the ego.

The vision of D.C based, Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company is to explore and present dance in its complexity and multiplicity, celebrating tradition while constantly creating new vocabularies in movement and dance. Dakshina means "offering" in Sanskrit and Dakshina offers artists and communities the unique opportunity to experience dance as a movement that links the arts, cultures, and social causes.

Courtyard Dancers is a nonprofit community-centered arts organization (with branches in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Kolkata) interested in developing the art of Kathak as cultural literacy and empowerment. It is a collective for whom dancing is a form of civic engagement connected to the traditional arts of India but within contemporary aesthetics and progressive politics.

Sattriya Dance Company is a labor of love for sisters-in-law Madhusmita Bora and Prerona Bhuyan. The Philadelphia-based company's mission is to promote, document and spread awareness about Sattriya. The company has performed in festivals such as World Music Institute, Battery Dance Company's Erasing Borders and the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival.

Founded in 2008, Sakshi Productions is a neo-classical Odissi and contemporary dance company based in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Sakshi performances center personal histories, gestural vocabulary and evocative images, the dance as a lived experience of performer and witness.

Venue: Theater at the 14th Street Y, 344 East 14th Street, New York, NY 10003

Dates: November 15, 2019 at 7:30PM; November 16, 2019 at 1:00 PM & 7:30 PM

General Admission: $25; Students/Seniors: $20

Running Time: 120 Minutes with one intermission

Tickets: http://www.14streety.org/riyaaz

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RIYAAZ/PRACTICE Opens This Friday At The 14th Street Y - Broadway World

Yesterday I shared part 1 of my interview with literary agent Iris Blasi of Carol Mann Agency about getting your nonfiction manuscript published. Today, Blasi discusses the specifics of selling memoir as a genre, author submission deal breakers, and how authors can best position themselves to get signed by an agent.

You mentioned memoir, where youre basically selling yourself. Is memoir different in terms of what it takes to sell one?

The ways memoirs are pitched to agents and publishers is different. Generally in the nonfiction world, books can be sold on proposal. Thats the summary, comp titles, marketing and publicity section, about the author, annotated table of contents and a couple sample chapters that show how you would do this if you had an advance and a book deal. The flip side is that on the fiction side, the vast majority of fiction is sold with a completed manuscript.

The only nonfiction that is usually sold in its completed form is memoir. The idea is that when you get an advance, you need time to report on the subject. Memoir is a lived experience that youve already had, so you wont need the advance to do that kind of heavy lifting or international global travel, whatever the case may be. And with memoir, you cant just promise I plan to look at X. Any acquiring editor would need to know the full arc of that story, just as they do in fiction.

There are lots of rhythms of memoir that mirror fiction writing. You hear people say my life is so crazy, people always say I should write a book. Memoir is tricky because you have to give people a reason to care about your story. It cant just be that its wild.

Hachette Books

You can see that successful memoirs tap into something thats happening, something thats topical or a universality of a lived experience. Stephanie Lands Maidfelt incredibly timely to me with a lot of the topics were confronting in the political realm. Its the same thing were asking for in all kinds of books. Its not just,This is a good book. Its, Why does it matter to us right now?

Readers have so much to choose from. Theyre not just choosing from a wide array of books. We have to get them to choose a book on top of cooking something for dinner or watching a movie or bingeing something on Netflix. Why are we going to publish something? We have to explain to the reader why its worth their investment of the 8-12 hours that it takes to read a book.

Do you have any other memoirs that are the kind of storytelling you would want to publish?

Buzz is actually a perfect example: Its a nonfiction journalistic approach to a topic that arises out of Hallies experiences. She talks about a formative experience seeing a sex toy for the first time, and she also delves into her tenue during grad school selling for a local in-home sex-toy sales business. You understand in the book why she cares so much about that subject matter.

Another favorite book I did in that vein was Peter Rudiak-Goulds Surviving Paradise: One Year on a Disappearing Island, which used Peters experience teaching English on a remote atoll in the Marshall Islands too talk about the threat global warming posed to the already precarious existence of these low-lying islands.

I love in particular books that are a hybrid of memoir and something else. Bill Hayes has done this kind of thing repeatedly by interweaving a personal narrative with a larger reported piece. His book Sleep Demons is a favorite of mine in which he co-mingles his own battle with insomnia with the scientific history of sleep research and clinical sleep disorders. He tackled the subject of blood in a similar way with Five Quarts which addresses the subject through the lens of living with his partners HIV status.

Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevichs The Fact of a Body maps the legal case of a pedophile murderer against the authors own history of sexual abuse and family secrets. Or I think, too, of Maggie Nelsons The Red Parts, which is nominally an account of the author attending the years-delayed murder trial of her aunt, but also delves into a meditation on memory, the fallibility of forensics, the grieving process, the justice system and moreits like Joan Didion meets Making a Murderer. Or one of my favorite books ever, Walter Kirns Blood Will Out, which is nominally a memoir about Kirns experience with the con artist who posed as Clark Rockefeller that is really an incredible rumination on identity and class. I think that the most exciting memoirs tend to do more than one thing.

What do you see in proposals thats a deal breaker?

Mass submission. Digital technology means you can send your manuscript to every agent who is alive and thats never a wonderful idea.

How does an author know an agent is the right fit?

Its somebody who understand what youre trying to do, who sees your vision, is passionate about the book. Nobody works in publishing for the money. You have to have that genuine enthusiasm. When you look at books that are successful, its because they all caught early, and that germ of excitement has to come at the beginning of the process. Its contagious. The author is excited about their work, they find an agent whos excited about it too, they make an editor excited, the editor gets their editorial board excited, and the publicity and marketing and sales teams all get excited.

People often ask how much I think a certain book can sell for. Publishing is very unpredictable and I never promise. People think a book is their get-rich idea. It can take a couple books to get to the level where they want to be. Not everybodys first book out of the gate will be that bestseller. Youre looking for somebody whos willing to put in that work with you.

All literary relationships are at the end of the day partnerships, but the editor/author relationship can feel more transactional because the publishing house is paying the author to write a book that they will then publish. The agent/writer relationship can feel a little bit more like being in the trenches together. You have to think about: who do you want down there with you?

What can authors do to best position themselves to be signed by an agent?

I want to work with authors who have not only lofty goals but an idea of the pathway to get there. They need to understand the building blocks. Im going to then meet them halfway by show up with all of the tools in my own arsenal so we can create this empire together. Agenting feels much more like being on a team with somebody because my financial future is very directly tied to theirs. I need to be working with people that I 185% believe in.

Thats what happened with Lindsay Goldwert. I reached out her in early 2018 because I admired her writing but I also just really respected her hustle. I wanted to know what book ideas she might have floating around in her head and how I could help make that happen.

Tiller Press

The ideas we originally talked about werent even the book we wound up selling: Bow Down: Lessons from Dominatrixes on How To Get Everything You Want, which will be published by Simon & Schuster imprint Tiller Press in January 2020. But when Lindsay said she wanted to write a book about what professional dominatrixes can teach the rest of us about confidence, power, and happiness, I was on board, and the book turned out so incredibly. Its a modern empowerment primer for women, but its also such an intimate and thoughtful look at Lindsays own evolving views on personal power and self-confidence. And its funny as hell. Theres no one else who could have written the book the way she did. Im so excited to see what Lindsay does next. I believe in her so much that I will back her on literally whatever she wants to do.

As an editor I would get letters from authors saying, Im looking for an agent. As an agent, I get people saying, Im looking for a publishing house. That automatically shows me theyre not paying attention to who I am and what I do. It starts with the little things. Use my name.

Im so public with the things I like in terms of my literary tastes. Take two seconds and look onTwitterorInstagram. Are we connecting with something there? Do you know any other books Ive ever published? Do you know other books that our agency has published? We have a 40-year track record with a authors including Paul Auster, Tim Egan, Erin Brockovich, Queen Latifah, DMC, Kitten Lady, Pusheen, and The Oatmeal. Its a huge range.

Is there any book weve ever published that you admire? Its helpful to know that, as not only does it mean that youre paying attention and that I should then pay the same amount of attention in response, but it gives me an idea of what youre looking to do so I can then have a clearer idea of what I can bring to the table to help you get there.

How much back and forth and revising of the proposal usually happens? What can they expect after you sign them as a client?

Because I come out of an editorial background, Im a very editorially-focused agent. I would say signing is just the beginning of the process. We would work together to make this be the best that it can be, whatever that back and forth involves. It may take months to get to the point where we feel right about submitting it.

It may not be just about the manuscript. It may be platform building. Because I also have experience in publicity and marketing (my last in-house position was a hybrid role where I was both Marketing Director and Senior Editor), that kind of coaching and consultation is something I offer that is somewhat unique to me as an agent.

We want to make sure the whole package looks the way its supposed to before we approach the publisher. Does that mean setting you up with a speakers bureau to book some speaking gigs? Does it mean that I help you write and place a high-profile op-ed before we submit the proposal to publishers? As an agent, I am on board for a clients whole career, so we can talk and strategize about some of that long-term planning as part of the preparation of a proposal.

What kind of timeline can they expect from signing with you to hearing back from publishers?

The submission timeline is as unique as every book. Id say generally it can be between one and six months, depending on what shape the proposal is in. You have to think about the timing of the rhythms of the publishing year and when the right time to go out with something is. Sometimes it does take a long time. My colleagues have worked with people for two to three years before they went out with a selling proposal. That can also happen. Its generally worth the time it takes for the book and whole pitch to become the best it can be. If youre looking for a get-rich-quick scheme, I would advise not writing a book.

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How To Land A Literary Agent, According To Iris Blasi Of Carol Mann Agency (Part 2) - Forbes

Invest/13 November 2019, 09:00am/Jason Liddle

In less than two months the next decade will be ushered in. While it presents us with an opportunity to examine the decade that passed, it also allows us to look forward and consider which trends will transform the local and global asset management industry.

There is growing consensus that sustainable investing is going to become a mainstream discipline and a key trend in the 20s. Regulators across the world have already set their expectations for the industrys players with requirements of greater transparency, investment process integration and reporting.

Sustainability factors have also shown evidence of enhancing performance within integrated investment processes over those that do not while avoiding risks that may not have been avoided otherwise.

The FSCA clarifies that ESG factors also relate to the advancement of B-BBEE

In June 2019 the FSCA issued Guidance Note 1 of 2019: Sustainability of Investments and Assets in the context of a Retirement Funds Investment Policy Statement. In conjunction with Regulation 28, it states that a fund should considerall factorsthat may materially affect the long-term performance of any asset it invests in. Environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors, alongside economic drivers, do not form the exhaustive list of sustainability factors.

The Guidance Note states that, in respect of domestic assets, ESG factors also relate to the advancement of broad-based black economic empowerment.

The expectations from the regulator are that a retirement funds process will be able to test areas of evaluation, monitoring and active ownership in pursuit of its sustainable investment objectives.

Trustees need to select fit-for-purpose strategies

There are various strategies that can be called on when implementing a sustainable investing framework. Retirement fund trustees will require a complete understanding to select asset managers and strategies that are fit for purpose:

Negative screening:An investor purposefully filters out the companies/entities that they deem to have a negative effect on society. This approach may exclude industries involved in tobacco, thermal coal, arms or gambling. Norms-based screening is related in approach but excludes companies that break international conventions.

ESG integration:This approach is the most commonly used. Traditional investment analysis and decision making at the individual instrument level is augmented with ESG performance indicators. Another related approach, the best-in-class ESG overlay, tilts towards specific ESG scores relative to the overall market or industry peers within a quantitative or index approach.

Thematic investing:As the name suggests a specific sustainability theme is selected, such as climate, housing or water, based on a financial/economic motive or clients need to align the portfolio with their specific values.

Impact investing: This approach places money with entities that intentionally target measurable social or environmental projects with direct impact.

Asset managers need to take active ownership

While the challenges are significant, the leading sustainable asset management practitioners will develop an authentic and credible approach articulating how sustainability is rooted in their investment philosophy. Evidence-based proof of its integration in their investment approach, process and outcomes should support their credibility.

Active ownership is a key area within the framework where engagement, intervention and voting act as the voice of the investor. While comprehensive proxy voting guidelines/policies and a disciplined and robust engagement approach are the table stakes, influence over the decision-making of the companys board is the ultimate desired outcome.

Sanlam has continued to provide a respected voice on behalf of our clients for many years targeting better outcomes. Trustees need to avoid thinly resourced functions that focus more on compliance and instead employ authentic practitioners that drive a mandate to activate, enable and equip investment professionals in making better decisions, using a sustainable investing lens. Sanlam Investments has and continues to invest in new tools and the right talent to harness ESG data and drive our internal research.

Asset managers will also look to differentiate themselves by expanding their ESG investment process reach to all asset classes an important requirement or expectation from the regulator.

PERSONAL FINANCE

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Sustainable Investing: A trend that's here to stay - Independent Online

The Southeast is the battleground in the latest wave of radical attacks on abortion access. From Georgia to Alabama, and now to South Carolina and Tennessee, we are confronting increasing threats to our safety, bodily autonomy and human rights.

But the Southeast is also home to a diverse, vibrant and growing movement of people and organizations who are coming together to ensure that our society protects and respects the dignity, health and human rights of all peoplein every community across our region.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bxh-Scsgy3x/

The stakes couldnt be higher. As it stands, South Carolinaranks43rd in maternal mortality and 46th in health outcomes for women. Next door, Georgia has even worse outcomes,rankinglast in maternal mortality with 46 deaths per 100,000 live births. In Tennessee, 85 percent of recent maternal deaths were found to bepreventable; black women in the state are more than three times more likely to die from pregnancy complications than white women.

All across the Southeast, people are suffering, and even dying, because they lack access to reproductive care. Restricting access to abortion only puts more peoples lives at riskespecially folks who already face barriers to healthcare, including young people; people of color; people with disabilities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer people; and people living in rural areas. But in each state where abortion threats loom, coalitions are gathering forces and fighting back.

The Southeastern Alliance for Reproductive Equity (SEARE) is a new regional coalition of reproductive health, rights and justice organizations anchored by Healthy & Free Tennessee, SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW!, SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective and the Womens Rights and Empowerment Network (WREN). In collaboration with many other organizations and other state-based and regional coalitions across the region, we are aligning our efforts to strengthen our work across reproductive health, rights and justice. As a multi-racial alliance, we have intentionally rooted our alliance in thereproductive justiceframework, which was created by Black women 25 years ago and demands that all people have the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children or not have children and parent children in safe and sustainable communities.

We know that to make this vision into a reality in our region, we must work together more collaboratively across geographic and movement boundaries. Crucially, we must diagnose and dismantle systems of white supremacy that perpetuate harm to communities of color and other marginalized people. Through SEARE, we will more deeply reflect on how white privilege affects our organizations, our movements and our communities. We will share our resources and expertise with one another, and we will facilitate closer connections and coordination. We must uplift and invest in innovative grassroots work, particularly work that is being led by people of color, young people, gender-marginalized and other people most affected.

Despite the vocal opposition to abortion bans being voiced across the country, and the majority of Americanssupportingthe right to abortion, legislators across the South are moving quickly to deny people the autonomy to make personal healthcare decisions and access to the resources and services needed to thrive. With the current make-up of the United States Supreme Court, we know that these state-level bills could escalate and set in motion sweeping and severe consequences across the country.

Now is not the time for fear or complacency. Now is not the time for us to retreat to our silos. Instead, it is the time for organized resistance and collective action. With access to abortion under attack like never before, we must come together to speak up.

The South has always had something to say. As a united movement, SEARE will ensure we are heard.

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Inside the New Coalition Fighting for Reproductive Justice in the Southeast - Ms. Magazine

From One Woman to Another, a five-part series co-produced by artnet News and Mark Cross, features intimate, candid conversations between eminent women at the pinnacle of the art industry and a mentor or protg of their choosing, paired with original photography by David Lipman.

In the final installment of the series, artnet News contributor Maria Vogel interviewed artist Sophie Matisse and her daughter, the fashion designer Gaa Jacquet-Matisse.

Painter Sophie Matissethe granddaughter of the towering Modernist Henri Matisse and step-granddaughter of pioneering Dadaist Marcel Duchamphas a bond with her daughter, Gaa, that defies the typical mother-daughter relationship. Not only do they share the weight of great expectations, considering their lineage; they also have chosen careers that speak to their shared belief in staying true to themselves, which affords them a special kind of bond.

Though different in their demeanors and individual pursuits, they are self-described best friendsand, more than that, Sophie considers her daughter to be a mentor, and her closest confidante.

We spoke to the two about the special nature of their unwavering support of one another, how they have seen the art world change, and how they would advise young women entering the culture industry.

Tell me a bit about your backgrounds. How did you both fall in love with art? Do you remember the moment you connected with art significantly for the first time?

Sophie Matisse: Needless to say, I have a family thats submerged in the art realm. While I grew up with that, I was kind of sheltered from it too. My father wasnt a huge fan of making it a big deal. He had to grow up with ithe was closer to the fire, so to speak. So I kind of had a protected childhood, which I feel blessed to have had.

As a child, I had learning issues that I think can be attributed to a speck of dyslexia. Because of that, I realized anything that was expressed in an art form was much more fluid and natural for me. It was a language I stuck to because it was so convenient.

Gaa Jacquet-Matisse: With my mothers entire side of the family being artists, and my parents being painters, I was immersed in the art world from a very young age. I remember whenever we would go to galleries and museums, I would always run to the first bench I spotted, because I knew we were going to be there for a while.

I think because I had front-row access to the art world since day one, it definitely took me a little while to truly connect with art significantly. For me, it wasnt until I began my first artistic explorations through acting at 16 that I began to really engage with art. Afterward, I remember going to a small Matisse exhibit at the Jewish Museum in New York, and the paintings moved me in a way that I had never felt before. Each brushstroke was so powerful, and I finally felt a connection.

Sophie, its interesting that you described Gaa as your mentor for this project, instead of your protg. How would you describe your relationship? What have you learned from each other over the years?

Matisse: Gaa is so different from me, but we have a lot of similarities, too. I love her freedom and audacity. Shes unafraid and ready to go out there and conquer, and has been like that ever since she was a kid. I have a lot of admiration for that, and its something Im much slower at doing myself. In certain situations, I ask myself, How would Gaa respond to this?

We both have different elements that we bring to the conversation. I have more experience, but she has a depth of thinking that, in my opinion, is very developed. Were always in touch, and weve always been very tight because her dad [Alain Jacquet] was very busy as an artist, always traveling and spending a lot of time in Paris. It left us together, just the two of us, much of the time. We are very tight, still; she could even be a sister in some ways. Theres a particular closeness there thats not always what you get with kids. But, at the same time, she always felt free to go out and face the world.

Jacquet-Matisse: My mom and I have always been super close. Shes right, it was always the two of us, with my dad being a bit older and living between Paris and New York. Shes always been my best friendand, I think because of how young she is at heart, we were always able to have fun and the best time together in virtually every situation. I feel so lucky to have been raised by artist parents who were so openminded. I was never pushed into doing something I didnt like, and had the freedom to explore whatever I wanted.

Sophie Matisse. Photo by David Lipman.

What are your driving forces as women in the art world?

Matisse: Its important to mention that I really was very inspired by my dad. Hes not in the art worldhes a private artist and inventor, but he wasnt involved in the art scene, per se. He was always making things and making things possible, and it gave me such an incredible feeling of empowerment in the sense that whatever I wanted to do was never out of the question. Anything felt possible.

After my dad, my other major influences would be Marcel and [Henri] Matisseyou cant escape it! If Matisse felt a little heavy-handed, Marcel served as a lightweight, cheerful person to think about. Growing up with my grandmother, who carried and channeled his spirit, was a beautiful experience on a simple and pure level. That was a real blessing, and it gave me permission to stick to art that was close to the heart. Of course, Matisse is always there, like something that is still beating, always alive.

Jacquet-Matisse: My family is a huge inspiration for me. There are so many artists in it, and the way they work with so many different media is really fascinating. Im also inspired by tribal artists from all around the world, and by ancient crafts and objects. Its so beautiful to see what global artisans and cultures have been producing for thousands of years. They have unique senses of color and texture.

Tell me more about your individual artistic pursuits. What are you working on now?

Matisse: Ive been creating stop-motion art films. They contain little storylines with chess pieces as characters, almost. There are no words, but little moments where theres an actual emotional feeling between two pieces. I think its interesting and beautiful, in terms of timing and movement. Its quite fun to doa tedious thing, but very rewarding.

Jacquet-Matisse: I never really got into the arts, aside from acting, but Id say my primary form of artistic expression is fashion. In the past year, Ive created my own accessory line, AA. I play with different textures to create unique, one-of-a kind pieces that celebrate the female form. I really love creating and playing with color.

Aside from AA, I also work as a stylist, wardrobe consultant, and personal shopper, which allows me to play with fashion even more and help people feel more comfortable with themselves. How we dress is an outer form of representation of the self, and even though some would certainly say its on the superficial side of things, when you feel good in what you wear, it affects the energy you put out into the world. Some people have a harder time finding clothing they feel good in, and I love helping them with that.

How do you feel about the idea of striking a work/life balance?

Matisse: I feel like I just stepped out of that mode of feeling that I had to be on it all the time. The pressure from the art world is too distracting; my life is busy as it is.

These days, I choose which openings I attend and how I spend my time more carefully. Art is all around me all the time, and Im constantly looking at things that show up in what I do. Its important to not get too sucked into itto stay grounded and aware of whats meaningful to you, what actually makes a difference in your life. Sometimes that can get a little cloudy. Its important not to let the outside world assume too much control, and to maintain a connection with your inner self.

Jacquet-Matisse: I think its very important to have a work/life balance. Because I dont have a nine-to-five job, I have a lot of freedom to decide how I spend my time. When I dont work for a long period, I feel frustrated, and that affects my personal life. The same goes for when I work too hard during shorter periods of timeit becomes exhausting. Its all about finding a rhythm that works for you, and making sure that what youre working on has some relation to what you love doing in life.

Gaa Jacquet-Matisse. Photo by David Lipman.

What do you hope to see changed in the art world 10 years from now?

Matisse: Its disheartening that some people are drawn to price tags instead of the art itself. Thats a shame. Sometimes you see artworks that go for astronomical prices that dont make sense, and sometimes you see something thats really great sell for a tenth of that price. On the other hand, the money issue has also brought art into a bigger realm, with more opportunities for artists all over the world, which is extremely important. We can learn a tremendous amount from other cultures, and thats wonderful. I hope that the art industry continues to become more and more open, dissolving borders and just letting art and artists exist.

Jacquet-Matisse: Although I am not personally very involved in the art industry, I have seen how things have changed in the past 20 years. With the internet and social media, certain artists have risen to the top very fast, sometimes simply by doing what they know will sell. I hope in 10 years we can go back to the authenticity of the art world of earlier times, before social media and the idea that likes on Instagram equate to someones worth.

What advice would you give young women who are hoping to have careers in the art industry?

Matisse: The most rewarding thing is to make art that resonates with oneself. If you can afford to make art that speaks to your heart, its far more interesting and rewarding than any financial thing. Theres fantastic work being done, and you can tell when its from the heart. Stick to what resonates within you as much as possible, because its a losing battle if you dont.

Jacquet-Matisse: I agree. The most important thing when creating art is to do it for yourself, and to stay true to yourself. When you start making something in order to please an audience, it becomes something completely different.

Photographer: David Lipman

Art Director: Yulu Serao

Stylist: Melena Lipman

Hair Stylist: Rudy Martins

Makeup: Tina Bech

More:

Stick to What Resonates Within You: Mother-Daughter Duo Sophie and Gaa Jacquet-Matisse on How to Thrive in a Changing Art World - artnet News

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Last year, giving to nonprofits was up by an average of 4.5% nationwide. But here in Santa Cruz, donations to the nonprofits participating in our holiday giving campaign Santa Cruz Gives grew by 19% in 2018 over the previous year.

The message has come through loud and clear: people in Santa Cruz County care about improving and uplifting their community, and they have chosen Santa Cruz Gives as a vehicle for being a part of that positive change.

So we are thrilled to announce that for 2019, we have expanded the number of local nonprofits accepted into the campaign. In previous years, we were wary of growing too fast, and overreaching beyond what this fledgling charitable project was capable of sustaining.

But you have sustained this effort, and driven it far more quickly than we imagined when we first conceived it. If we reach our goal of raising $300,000 between now and the end of the campaign at midnight on Dec. 31, then Santa Cruz Gives will have raised more than $1 million for local nonprofits in its first five years. That is an incredible testament to the spirit of giving in Santa Cruz County.

The bold growth of this program would not have been possible without our partners at the Volunteer Center of Santa Cruz County and Community Foundation Santa Cruz County, and our business sponsors Santa Cruz County Bank, Wynn Capital Management and Oswald.

Most of all, it would not be possible without you. So please give generously to our participating nonprofits. Read about all of them hereboth their mission statements and the projects they will fund with the money raised through Santa Cruz Givesthen go to santacruzgives.org, our easy-to-use website that lets you give conveniently and securely to all of your favorite causes.

Organization Mission: We create and support one-on-one mentoring relationships that ignite the power and promise of youth. We have served more than 7,000 local at-risk children, providing a crucial foundation at a critical time in their lives. Mentors make Santa Cruz County a safer and healthier place by helping children make better decisions, which increases their chances of staying in school and decreases their challenges with substance abuse, teen pregnancy and the criminal justice system.

Transgender Matching Program and LGBTQ+ Service Expansion

Our local agency, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Santa Cruz County, is the first and only agency in the entire nation to have a Trans Matching Program. We began matching transgender youth with volunteer transgender adult mentors in 2015. The program now serves as a national model.

Using our proven mentoring model, volunteers receive in-depth training on how to support these youth, who routinely face pervasive injustice, bias and mental illness in their daily lives. Research shows a quality mentoring relationship reduces the risk of suicide in the trans population by 50%.

We want to expand our efforts in the LGBTQ+ arena through training, roundtables and enhanced match support for all of our mentors, our matches and for other youth-serving organizations in the community. Discrimination and bias often begin in childhood, as LGBTQ+ youth explore their gender identites. They are at high risk of harassment, physical and sexual violence, and suicide. We work with this underserved population in close partnership with other agencies.

We grasp that gender identity can be fluid, and providing deeper support for all LGBTQ+ program participants will improve outcomes for youth we serve. Our volunteers are trained when first matched, and many matches last for well over five years. We must update our training so that long-term volunteers are prepared.

Organization Mission: The Bird School Project aims to inspire and equip both students and teachers to love, study and steward their local environment.

Creating Leaders for the Environment

In 2020, Bird School Project aims to unify youth leadership around a vision for lives that are relaxed, mentally resilient and less distracted.

The Bird School Project provides educational experiences to students directly on their schoolyards, making nature and a bit of wilderness easily revisited, leading to appreciation, inquiry and stewardship. Students grow an appreciation for the unexpected and a love for nature.

The main goal is to deliver a four-week, eight-lesson life science unit on birdingincluding guided, on-campus bird walks; use of binoculars; close examination of museum specimens; and the use of a field journal in which students learn to record their observations creatively.

Students build skills in focus, direct observation, meaning-making, arguing from evidence, and collaborating with peersand benefit further from the research-based, proven healing effects of time spent outdoors. Observations of real-time happenings in nature generate a sense of connection with other living organisms and lower stress about school, peer groups or family life among diverse youth.

We provide programming countywide, but focus in the Pajaro Valley on middle school students. Their school schedules allow for few opportunities for field trips, and programs like ours are needed to connect students with their environment.

Organization Mission: CASA of Santa Cruz County advocates for children, providing court-appointed volunteers so each child in the Dependency Court system feels cared for and connected with the people, families and resources they need to heal and flourish into adulthood. CASA empowers volunteers to directly influence life-changing decisions affecting children in dependency (foster) care.

Be the Voice for a Child in Foster Care

CASA of Santa Cruz is seeing more children under the age of 3 entering the foster-care system. This is where CASA comes in: We recruit, screen, train, and supervise volunteer advocates to work one-on-one with children and their families to support reunification or permanent placement into a safe and healthy home. Advocates get to know their childs situation and needs, help caregivers access resources to meet those needs, and advocate for the childs best interests in court, community and school settings.

They build strong relationships with the family and work with a CASA advocate supervisor to create an advocacy plan for their child. They provide regular reports to the court, which the judge relies upon to inform life-changing decisions for children in foster care.

Our advocates understand that children experience great trauma as a result of entering the foster care system, provide them with a warm layer of support, and connect them to resources to benefit their development and well-being. CASA is the only organization with volunteers officially sworn in by the court, acting as advocates for our areas youth.

When a case opens in Dependency Court, the focus is on the parents/caregivers gaining resources to help meet their case plan, but a CASA volunteer focuses on the child. While they may support the entire family, their priority is the child. Advocates are assigned to the childs case until the child is placed in a safe, permanent home and the case is dismissed.

CASA children have a higher rate of adoption than those without an advocate, are less likely to return to the system, are substantially less likely to spend time in long-term foster care, and are more likely to become healthy adults who break the cycle of abuse.

Organization Mission: The Coastal Watershed Council was formed to address the declining health of watersheds connected to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, with a mission to preserve and protect coastal watersheds through community stewardship, education and monitoring. Since 1995, CWC has educated thousands of volunteers and thousands of students to monitor water quality, enhance habitat and protect the natural resources along our Central Coast.

San Lorenzo River Health Days

Santa Cruz formed because of the San Lorenzo River. The river remains our primary drinking water source, and is designated as a critical habitat for threatened and endangered species of fish.

Most locals agree that our community deserves a healthy river ecosystem surrounded by safe and inviting parks. With your help, we can make further progress toward a vibrant riverfront.

CWC is asking for support for River Health Days. We will engage volunteers, including youth groups and corporate teams, to remove invasive species and replace them with native plants.

In addition to improving ecosystem health, these community work days reintroduce families and youth to the river through meaningful, positive experiences in nature. Last year, 674 CWC volunteers contributed 1,782 hours of work and planted 2,120 native plants, replacing 6,450 square feet of ice plant.

Organization Mission: Community Bridges envisions a thriving community where every person has the opportunity to unleash their full potential. We believe that when we work together, anything is possible. Our family of 10 vital programs across 20 sites meets the needs of nearly 20,000 local children, families and seniors each year with essential services, equitable access to resources and as advocates for health and dignity across every stage of life.

Food Stability for Homeless Seniors

In 2017, 39% of homeless people in Santa Cruz County were over the age of 50, and 70% of homeless deaths were people over the age of 50. For the past five years, Meals on Wheels (MOW) for Santa Cruz County, a program of Community Bridges, has seen an increase in homeless senior participants at Louden Nelson Community Center.

While MOW has been providing meals five days per week to eligible older adults (more than 650 warm, nutritious meals per week), to address food insecurity among the vulnerable homeless population, we have begun to assemble weekend meal packs that provide at least two nutritious meals.

We are asking Santa Cruz Gives donors to join MOW efforts to ensure that no senior goes hungry, and support our goal to ensure that homeless seniors attending Louden Nelson will have nutritious meals on the weekends in 2020.

Funding will provide participants two shelf-stable mealsmeals they will not be able to receive otherwise because most dining facilities are closed on weekends.

Organization Mission: To create lasting oral health for underserved children and adults.

Give Kids a Smile Day

There is nothing quite like a toothacheit is all-consuming. Toothaches are the most common reason low-income children miss school, and theyre largely preventable. You can help make prevention more common than treatment, so that children are able to focus on school instead of a toothache.

Give Kids a Smile Day provides free dental care for uninsured kids who would otherwise fall through the cracksfamilies who dont qualify for public insurance and cant afford expensive or even discounted dental care. The need in Santa Cruz County is huge. Two out of three people with public insurance (and many more low-income, uninsured residents) are not receiving dental care.

Dientes aims to create healthy habits and positive experiences with the dentist. With your generosity, we can prevent expensive treatment in the future and help kids continue good oral health throughout life.

Your support is needed to get rid of toothaches, so local kids can get back to being kids.

Organization Mission: Farm Discovery empowers youth and families to regenerate healthy food, farming, nature, and community in the Pajaro Valley. We improve personal and community health and our impact on the Earth by building collaborative agricultural, ecological and social systems.

Farming and Environmental Education Internship for Local Young Adults

Many local farms cannot find skilled labor locally and must hire workers from outside the area, even while the Pajaro Valley is home to the largest family-owned organic farm in the U.S. In addition, our most food-insecure members often work in agriculture or are the children of agricultural workers.

We address both issues by offering Santa Cruz County youth an opportunity to learn to grow healthy food through a 10-month paid internship that inspires them to pursue careers in agriculture or environmental education. The students gain a unique set of skills aligned with Next Generation Science Standards.

Interns will spread their knowledge in the community by teaching thousands of local youth through our field trips and summer camp programs, passing on the skills to grow their own produce, along with cooking and preserving, tackling two major skill sets to benefit younger students and their families.

The interns finish the program with various levels of mastery of skills, such as propagation, cultivation, soil fertility, pest management, and post-production that Farm Discovery is uniquely suited to provide with access to Live Earth Farms 150 acres of organic productionan inspiring learning space.

Organization Mission: Food, What?! is a youth empowerment and food justice organization. At FoodWhat, youth cultivate their well-being, liberation and power by engaging in relationships with land, food and each other. Youth from Watsonville to Santa Cruz join the FoodWhat Crew through our spring internship, summer job training and fall project management programs. Within the supportive space of FoodWhat, youth grow, cook, eat, and distribute farm-fresh, organic food while addressing local food justice issues.

Youth-Powered Farm Stand For Community Health

In our project, FoodWhat youth gain real-life work experience by running a prescriptive farm stand in partnership with Salud para la Gente and Lakeside Organic Gardens. Salud health care providers prescribe patients with diabetes a voucher to the youth-run farm stand stationed right outside the clinic.

Some of the produce at the stand is grown and harvested by FoodWhat youth, and some is donated by our partner farm. At the farm stand, clients choose from an abundant selection that includes rainbow carrots, broccoli, chard, cucumbers, cauliflower, peppers, and tomatoes.

We cannot overstate the importance of this aspect: Local youth combine training with their lived experience to address needs in their own neighborhoods.

The new project increases FoodWhats distribution by over 2,000 pounds to those with the highest need, and is an opportunity for youth to support patients as they build strong habits around accessing healthy food, integrate this food into their familys diets, and create a community space at the intersection of youth power and community health.

Organization Mission: To inspire all girls to be strong, smart and bold, and to respect themselves and the world around them. Girls Inc. serves 1,700 girls in 41 schools with trained professionals (often older teens), who mentor them in a safe environment. Girls are inspired to pursue secondary education, develop leadership and decision-making skills, serve their communities, and acquire the ability and wisdom to lead healthy lifestyles.

Growing Together

The relationship between a girl and her mother is so powerful, it affects everything from her health and self-esteem to setting the stage for all relationships throughout her life. Communication can be a common challenge for young girls and their mothers. As girls go through puberty and related physical, mental and emotional changes, the challenges can escalate.

We hope to assist by supporting girls and their mothers or another significant adult with our new program: Growing Together. Its designed to increase positive communication between girls ages 9-12 and their mothers, or possibly a sister, aunt, grandmother, or father.

Your gift will support girls in Santa Cruz County for a weekly get-together for four weeks to share activities aimed at learning about values, body changes, health and hygiene, nutrition and exercise, goals, problem-solving strategies, conflict resolution and positive communication.

Girls Inc. teaches girls to set and achieve goals, boldly confront challenges, resist peer pressure, see college as attainable, and explore nontraditional fields.

Organization Mission: Local and vital, Grey Bears promotes nutrition, activity and social connection as a recipe for healthy aging. Our vision is that all seniors live healthy, meaningful lives. Grey Bears has evolved into one of the most efficient and resourceful food distribution, reuse and recycling nonprofits in the U.S.

Engage at Every Age

Grey Bears is a nutritional lifeline for 3,800 low-income seniors, families and veterans, delivering weekly brown bags full of fresh produce and healthy staples to Santa Cruz County aging adults. Additional daily food distributions and 40,000 hot meals served annually nourish thousands more. It all adds up to more than 2 million pounds of food distributed each year.

Hundreds of volunteers enjoy more than 20 volunteer opportunities. Their service makes our programs possible while cultivating social support systems and health benefits for both volunteers and participants. Weekly classes include tech help, Spanish, cooking, chair yoga, fix-it clinics, and luncheon events designed to keep seniors active and socially engaged, and help them age with joy, grace and dignity.

Organization Mission: Groundswell restores coastal ecosystems using nature-based solutions. We are a constructive group of ecologists, naturalists, educators, and community dedicated to designing and building habitat that makes our coast better for nature and people. We prioritize restoration that increases biodiversity, coastal resiliency, and expands community outreach. We harvest local seeds, grow native plants, then plant at degraded habitats in need of stewardship. We are small but mighty, making this work happen by pulling together an amazing group of committed volunteers, teachers and K-12 students from all over Santa Cruz County to participate in the full cycle restoration process. Groundswell has rebuilt habitat resources and restored over 11% of the Santa Cruz coastline, including well-loved beaches like Seabright, Natural Bridges and Davenport Landing.

Saving Santa Cruz Monarchs

Monarchs are on the verge of collapse, and have declined 99% on the West Coast since the 1980s. Santa Cruz is a monarch hotspot where Lighthouse Field State Beach Park is home to the second-largest overwintering population of monarch butterflies in California.

To save Santa Cruz monarchs, we want to continue to lead the community in enhancing this critical habitat. We can do this together by building nectar resources, optimizing overwintering grove conditions and curbing predation. We steward the grove ecosystem and have led students and community volunteers in this effort.

We need your help to continue this critical work, as well as to expand to other overwintering sites in Santa Cruz. Monarchs are at the heart of our community and an important part of our tourist industry.

Organization Mission: Our Mission: In the soil of our urban farm and garden, people find the tools they need to build a home in the world. Our Vision: We envision a thriving and inclusive community, workforce, and local food system. We Value: The capacity of every individual for growth and renewal, the joy that comes from growing and sharing healthy food, the well-being created by vibrant social and natural ecosystems.

Two Steps Closer to Home

The Homeless Garden Project (HGP) is building a new, permanent home, Pogonip Farm. Located within the City of Santa Cruzs Pogonip greenbelt, our new 9-acre farm will triple our capacity to transform lives and build community connections. Serving as a national model, Pogonip Farm will be the heart of HGPs dynamic agriculture program for people who are experiencing homelessness. We help to transform lives by finding homes, providing job training, teaching skills, providing volunteer opportunities, and stewarding land through organic farming.Last year, 100% of our trainee graduates obtained stable employment and stable housing, and more than 7,000 pounds of fresh, organic produce were distributed to nonprofits throughout Santa Cruz County, feeding 2,500-plus people. Strong bonds are formed by our community of volunteers, interns, customers, and trainees that break down the profound sense of isolation felt by many people experiencing homelessness.

Please consider making a gift toward one-time costs to build the Farm Center at Pogonip: an administrative and kitchen building, a barn, and greenhouses.

Organization Mission: Homeless Services Center partners with individuals and families to create pathways out of their homelessness into permanent housing.

Youth Rapid Re-Housing

The number of young adults experiencing homelessness in Santa Cruz County has grown more than 30% in the past two years. Many homeless young adults were emancipated from our foster care system, and have little or no familial support.

Imagine prepping for your first day of school or a job interview without a place to call home. With your support, we can help 100 homeless young people ages 18-24 get off the streets and into permanent housing.

All of our programs operate with a housing-first methodology: to quickly move people experiencing homelessness into permanent housing, while providing support and services to help them stay housed as they work on achieving goals. Our programs save the county millions of dollars in emergency services every year, while also saving lives.

We believe our community is innovative enough, committed enough and compassionate enough to build a future in which every young person has a home. Your gift can help us guide more youth to develop good lifetime habits.

Organization Mission: The all-volunteer Live Like Coco Foundation helps local kids grow up healthy and with opportunities to pursue their dreams. Our foundation is named for and inspired by Coco Lazenby, a self-described book lover, cat petter and environmentalist, who was killed in a car accident in 2015 at age 12. To honor Cocos bright spirit and big heart, our foundation works in four areas that made a difference in her life: literacy, nature, health and wellness, and funding for extracurricular activities.

Continue reading here:

Santa Cruz Gives 2019: A Guide to Holiday Giving - Good Times Weekly

Never stop learningleaders learn every single day, we all do. Remaining humble, seeking guidance when needed, and appointing or delegating others with expertise is critical to ongoing growth as an individual and a collective group. The smartest leaders hire smart people and place them in roles that will enhance the success of theteam.

As a part of our series about strong female leaders, I had the pleasure of interviewing Fiona Bruder.Fiona is the Executive Vice President of Client Success George P. Johnson (GPJ). With nearly 30 years of experience, Fiona is a seasoned marketing executive and expert in experiential marketing and program development. Based in New York, she manages a team of marketing leaders in more than 34 countries and is responsible for overseeing and managing the agencys key global accounts, including IBM, Redhat, Facebook, Macys and AMEX while leading GPJs offices in Boston, New York City, and Austin. Fiona is proud to serve as executive sponsor of the GPJ Women Employee Resource Group (ERG), one of the employee-led groups that foster a diverse, inclusive workplace aligned with organizational mission, goals, and business objectives. She is also a dedicated ally to the House of GPJ, the companys LGBTQ+ ERG. Since joining GPJ nearly 20 years ago, Fiona has created, produced, managed and optimized event portfolios for some of the worlds leading brands including, IBM, P&G, MasterCard, Conduent, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR). She is an active member of the Forbes Agency Council and outside the office, Bruder serves on the board of directors at Girls Inc. Westchester, a 100-year-old organization that inspires girls to value their whole selves, discover and develop their inherent strengths, and receive the support they need to navigate the challenges they face.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a bit about your backstory? What led you to this particular career path?

Having graduated from Fordham University with an MBA in Marketing, I had an idea early on of what I wanted to do in this industry. When I started out, event marketing was not its own category yet, as marketing at large certainly was not what it is today! Nevertheless, the one thing that has remained a constant imperative, despite the shifts across the industry and changes throughout society, is human engagement. In order to be successful, you must have a clear understanding of how people interact, learn and engagewhen you combine all of these elements, you get the recipe for what we do here at GPJ with experiential marketing.

Its the ongoing focus on human engagement that drives my perpetual dedication to this business, especially since experiential gives us the ability to create an environment that offers a multi-layer impact. From the bottom line of the business, to the industry at large, to society as a wholethe work we do truly matters. Quite a few of our clients at GPJ parallel our legacy and tenure in the business, and like us, such brands have the symbiotic ability to continually reinvent and remain ahead of the curve at every touchpoint. We are constantly challenged to stay at the cutting edge and have developed the ability to reinvent ourselves and our industry while creating things that have never been done before.

What is it about the position of vice president that most attracted you to it?

First and foremost, I have profound respect and loyalty for GPJ, and having been here for more than 18 years, its where I have laid a large part of the foundation of my career. We started as a family business and grew into an employee-owned enterprise that does groundbreaking work across the globe. We are offered unparalleled autonomy and empowerment within our careers; at GPJ, the people, our diverse backgrounds, and each unique viewpoint are encouraged and welcomed. Moreover, our global staff has exceptional cultural intelligence that allows us to both think big and execute locally relevant programs, and with this, we continue to be afforded the opportunity to create over and over again.

Ive remained passionate about my career growth largely because of my desire to optimize my effectiveness across the board and create a platform for others to grow and advance as well. As a female leader at my company and industry, I have the opportunity to elevate other diverse voices, invest in robust company culture, and create tangible change in our industry.

Most of our readersin fact, most peoplethink they have a pretty good idea of what an executive does. But in just a few words can you explain what an executive does that is different from the responsibilities of the other leaders?

The most effective executives continuously challenge themselves while holding the responsibility of looking at the business from every anglethe marketplace, clients, strategy, culture, and so on. Leaders are charged with maintaining homeostasis across the business while making incredibly difficult decisions. Its the art of balance. Internal success is one thing, but its important to note that were also responsible for keeping our finger on the pulse of larger trends within business operations, our industry, and society as a whole. This means constantly learning, putting yourself out there by asking questions, and remaining open to constant growth. The opportunities to learn are everywhere for me, whether thats through trade shows, at conferences, or through travelI take the key learnings and act on them. I also ensure I share what Ive learned with others along the way (whenever applicable).

As a leader, fluency in all aspects of the business is critical, but even more important is putting the right people in appropriate disciplines to elevate skills and satisfaction. Notably, only the strongest leaders will hire the smartest people in the room. Even though an executive may spend a great deal of time focusing on bottom-line results, its imperative not to lose sight of the creativity that is built within the DNA of the work. The most strategic aspect of being an executive is to study all angles and potential impact of stakeholders, and then be decisive. Every second of every day involves vital decision making, tough decisions most often, and then course-correcting as needed.

What is the one thing that you enjoy most about being an executive?

I enjoy the autonomy to make my own decisions and the authority to help people break through the noise. In my position, I am privileged with the ability to elevate peoples voices, concerns, and work, and certainly, the easiest part of my job is providing this type of support and encouragement! Its always my goal to raise others up, so I will encourage individuals to step out of their comfort zones to show them their maximum potential. When leaders do this, it is essential to create a safe environment for employees to pressure test their abilities. Its amazing what people can accomplish when given the confidence and opportunity to challenge themselves and embrace and learn from their mistakes.

What are the downsides of being an executive?

The downside is timeexecutives would be quite pleased if there was a way to control time throughout the business day. Prioritizing is key because the to-do list does not endthere will always be something to do because that is the nature of our roles. Leaders drive change and impact. Its what we should expect and quite frankly, enjoy! By motivating others and creating a highly productive work environment where people feel valued and satisfied to come to work, youll see results come to life. Be patient though, and know that if you really want to motivate someone, you first must understand what makes them tick.

What are the myths that you would like to dispel about being a CEO or executive. Can you explain what you mean?

Someone once told me before a large speaking engagement that I appear as if Im never nervous. I think this is a common misconception about executives or business leaders. Its my job to make our employees feel confident, and of course, there are moments when nerves set in, but an unspoken part of the job is to remain a steady hand under pressure. Were in such roles to make tough decisions, to put ourselves out there, and to remain calm, cool, and collectedthats what the job requires.

Another misconception is that when making decisions, executives dont take all parties into account. The reality is, every decision is based on what is best for the greater good of the company, the people who make up the company, and the stakeholders. The people are at the core of every decision.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by women executives that arent typically faced by their male counterparts?

The unfortunate truth is that women typically face more scrutiny in the workforce than their male counterparts. Every frustration, challenge, or let down may transform into an opportunity to be perceived as emotional. Contrarily, men in high-rank positions who demonstrate decisiveness are praised for their ability to lead and delegate. When men lean into their emotions, they tend to be embraced for their empathy. For example, not too long ago, a female political leader was deeply criticized for showing emotion while an iconic male political figure became even more adored when he shed a tear. Absent of any bias, working in facts alone, its evident that there is somewhat of a reaction safety net for men that isnt quite there yet for womenthough its being built!

Women are under unique pressure to keep their professional image top-of-mind at all times, and while weve come very far, we havent reached equality yet (we will certainly get there though!). In reality, there is no one correct way to operate in business. Weve seen problematic behavior stemming from male-dominated industries, giving rise to movements like #MeToo, #TimesUp, and beyond, and assumptions behind leadership tactics are always changing. There is room for leaders to be vulnerable, for emotionally intelligent solutions to problems, and for plenty of women in leadership roles.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

I think the best experience I have had in my career at GPJ was partnering with IBM to launch their first presence at SXSW. It was a non-traditional experience and full-on takeover. We partnered with the executive team to define a new standard for success, address how the IBM brand would show up in this type of environment, and build a concept that would engage a new audience. I remember the moment we realized there was a line around the block and we were absolutely giddy that we had just experienced a new level of success!

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

No one is perfect, we all make mistakes, and as youll see in my favorite quote belowits not about the mistake or failure, its about how you get back up, how you rebound, and how you apply the lessons learned in the most effective way.

Years ago, while here at GPJ, we were expanding globally and we were so focused on consistency that we were pushing a local message into a foreign market. The foreign team clarified that our message had a very different meaning and intent when translated, and would be offensive to the audience. It was a lesson I learned earlyengage the markets, understand cultural nuances, gather input, and re-calibrate as needed. When disseminating critical messages to target audiences, its not only about cultural intelligence and being business savvy, its also important to consider regional and local impact as well.

What is the most striking difference between your actual job and how you thought the job would be?

Looking back from when I started years ago, the industry was starkly different. The competitive landscape, the role of events in marketing, the actual definition of an event! Throughout this evolution, society and culture have transformed in tandem. I always had a vision for success and mentorship. I intended always to lead with confidence and humility, and to work for an employer that supported and embraced diversity and inclusivity. Im not quite sure I knew, to the extent, how valued my voice would be, how valued every voice would be, and how engaged the world would become.

The value of personal connections, relationships, and most of all, communicating effectively while ensuring all parties feel supported and heardespecially at GPJ, is absolutely unprecedented.

I knew when I joined GPJ I was working somewhere special, but to also have benefits like Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) for women and for LGBTQ, ownership of the company through our ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan), and endless ability to create as a global teamthis has been an absolute joy to witness unfold and to be a part of.

Certainly, not everyone is cut out to be an executive. In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful executive and what type of person should avoid aspiring to be an executive?

There are definitely key attributes that are innate within leaders, such as a desire to lead and empower; a persistent thirst to learn and grow; an ability to communicate, inspire, be decisive, and own accountability; and a passion for excellence that cannot be compromised. When an individual has these qualities, its likely he or she will enter a leadership role at some point in their career. On the contrary, for people who avoid teamwork, speak and rarely listen, and strive for success on an individual scale without integrating the greater group into the missiona permanent leadership role may be difficult. Though, its never too late to change!

What advice would you give to other women leaders to help their team to thrive?

Every role and company is different and every person is unique, so there is not a one-size-fits-all answer, rather, there are several pieces of advice Id love to share:

Always act in the way youd like to be perceivedif you see yourself as a leader, act as a leader. Be respectful, listen, learn, mentor, and communicate with as little doubt as possible, and assume your role as leader.

Find your passionwork life balance is always going to be a challenge, especially for women. To help mitigate the struggles we face here, try to find a job and position that you are truly passionate about. If you do this, youll go to work everyday feeling satisfied and fulfilled, and ideally will be able to create a solution that amplifies the balance in your personal and professional life.

Never stop learningleaders learn every single day, we all do. Remaining humble, seeking guidance when needed, and appointing or delegating others with expertise is critical to ongoing growth as an individual and a collective group. The smartest leaders hire smart people and place them in roles that will enhance the success of the team.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are?

That would be, Maureen McGuire, the former Vice President of Integrated Marketing Communications at IBM. She was my client early on in my career and she held such a great balance of being an engaging and empathetic leader while assuming her leadership role in an authoritative and direct way. She commanded a room, leaving every meeting or seminar with each person feeling like they had a personal discussion with her, and she challenged her team and agency to push outside of their comfort zones. I have often thought of her approach to leadership and how to apply those lessons to my work.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

Not only have I personally focused on this, I am fortunate enough to work for an employer that embraces philanthropy and offers a wide range of programs for which our parent company, Project Worldwide will even match contributions and efforts for, around a multitude of causes. Supplemental to our philanthropy, we have also launched Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) as a part of our ongoing diversity and inclusion mission. ERGs are formed by employees based on topics and issues they feel are most pertinent. Once formed, employees request an executive sponsor to support the group through various initiativesI am the executive sponsor for GPJ Women and the LGBTQIA group.

In addition, outside of the office, I have had the pleasure of serving on several school boards including the PTA (Pleasantville), Pleasantville Community Scholarship Fund, and Pleasantville Fund for Learning. I also serve on the board of directors at Girls Inc. Westchester, a 100-year-old organization that inspires girls to value their whole selves, discover and develop their inherent strengths, and receive the support they need to navigate the challenges they face. Most recently, I held storytelling training with a group of Girls Inc. members and helped them develop their narrative and presentation skills for the annual gala.

What are your 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

It would be a global empowerment movementinspiring girls across the world to be strong, courageous and bold and to relentlessly gain the most valuable asset: knowledge. We need to commit as leaders to embrace and empower our young women and create equal opportunities for them in our organizations.

Can you please give us your favorite Life Lesson Quote? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Vince Lombardi said, Its not whether you get knocked down, its whether you get up. I love Vince Lombardi, not just because I am a Fordham alum, but because he has always summed things up in a simple and honest way (In great attempts, it is glorious even to fail). For me, Lombardis message is all about resilience. You can not learn unless you are willing to fail. This is something I always embraced and also have encouraged with my team.

Note from editor: We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them

First lady or not, I would still love to have lunch with Michelle Obama. Ive had the pleasure of seeing and hearing her speak and have also read her bookthis woman is truly focused on positive change. She used the cards she was dealt to make the most of every opportunityleveraging her and her husbands platform to drive change for education, healthier children, and female empowerment.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

More here:

5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became an EVP with Fiona Bruder, of George P. Johnson (GPJ) - Thrive Global

During a five-day South American trip to promote womens empowerment, Ivanka Trump was greeted like a head of state everywhere she went.

At lavish banquets in her honor, she was toasted by the presidents of Colombia and Paraguay. People tracked her motorcade with their cellphone cameras as she was met with military bands and red carpets. A U.S. Air Force jet was dispatched to transport Trump and a delegation of senior U.S. officials, all of whom including the deputy secretary of State were diplomatically outranked by the presidents daughter and formal advisor.

American aid efforts to help poor, disenfranchised women around the globe are nothing new, typically involving grassroots work that generates little attention. Rarely have they involved the diplomatic trappings, designer clothes and U.S. Secret Service protection that Ivanka Trump brings to her pet project, which is amassing a total of $1 billion in both taxpayer and private corporation money to train and provide credit for female small-business owners around the world.

The South American trip renewed questions about Ivanka Trumps unusual role as a privileged first daughter and the effectiveness of her empowerment campaign in an administration that some see as hostile to womens issues.

Since joining her fathers administration, Trump has struggled to find her niche in a White House decidedly more conservative than herself. Helping women around the globe may have seemed like a safe and somewhat apolitical haven.

Trump launched the Womens Global Development and Prosperity Initiative, a program she will promote this week at the U.N. General Assembly in New York. She traveled to Ivory Coast earlier this year to help to push through a law to allow women to own property. In the U.S., she has launched a job-creation program.

No question, her high profile, personal charm and famous father have drawn far greater attention to the cause by both the media and foreign governments, whose leaders are unlikely to brush off the daughter of the U.S president.

The No. 2 at the State Department, Deputy Secretary John Sullivan, said her star power and policy knowledge are a powerful combination. She is a White House official who speaks with great authority on the presidents policies, he said.

But the 37-year-old, who has no previous experience in leading such a massive humanitarian program, has so far not managed to win over those who wonder whether her work is a vanity project to further her personal ambitions or a true commitment to helping disenfranchised women. They say her work largely bypasses sensitive but critical issues, such as healthcare, reproductive rights and violence against women.

Ivanka abroad seems to be Ivankas platonic ideal of herself: doing things that are considered patriotic but not overly political, important but not controversial, and personally on-brand, writer Monica Hesse said in a scathing column in the Washington Post.

Richard Painter, a former ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration who is highly critical of President Trump, said the main problem is whether her appointment as a special advisor is even appropriate in the first place. The Justice Department said hiring her did not violate nepotism rules.

It is extremely unusual, Painter said. What is our image abroad when you have the presidents daughter running around handling the kind of portfolio that has been handled by the first lady going all the way back to Eleanor Roosevelt?

At times Trump has had to fight for a place on the world stage or rely on her fathers connections.

Most famously, earlier this year she awkwardly tried to join a conversation on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Japan with then-British Prime Minister Theresa May, then-International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde and French President Emmanuel Macron. She appeared embarrassingly out of her league.

Her father frequently gives her a hand, sometimes introducing her on foreign trips as on equal standing with U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo, raising eyebrows about her status and aspirations.

And some of her accomplishments have been questioned. For example, critics noted that the Ivory Coast law permitting women to own property was already in the works well before her visit, and that the same measure also effectively outlawed same-sex marriage, defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

With reporters in South America, Trump preferred to avoid talk of politics and focus on the stories of the women.

We are here to confirm our commitment to some incredible women entrepreneurs, Trump said in Bogota, her first stop on the trip. We are proud to play a small part in women building their families, their businesses and ultimately their societies.

In Asuncion, the Paraguayan capital , Trump joined President Mario Abdo Benitez for a sumptuous luncheon with a Champagne toast.

Trump listened to stories from Paraguayan women, mostly speaking in the indigenous Guarani tongue, about their struggles in attempting to start businesses. She visited a coffee shop run by women who told her it welcomed members of the gay community. Trump smiled politely and said the shop was indeed a special place.

On stops in the remote rural towns of Jujuy and Puramarca in northern Argentina, and in the Colombian capital of Bogota, the agenda was similar. A formal dinner with Colombian President Ivan Duque balanced with a chat with Argentine seamstresses and bakers. In her convoy of armored SUVs, Trump also went to a strawberry farm, about an hour outside of Bogota, owned by a mother-daughter team who benefited from a U.S. Agency for International Development loan and who now supply a national chain of restaurants called Crepes & Waffles. In contrast to her father, Trump showed herself on the trip to be gracious and friendly. Her activities were carefully choreographed and her aides fiercely protective. She is steadfastly on message, preferring photo-ops to political debates.

But she was also willing to laugh at herself, as when portions of her green designer dress in Bogota floated up around her face in the wind, making her look like a giant lily pad; or to relax and let her hair down as when a market vendor in Asuncion grabbed her and began dancing to a Paraguayan ditty.

In the most emotional part of the trip, Trump traveled to Colombias border with Venezuela, to the town of Cucuta, where tens of thousands of Venezuelans fleeing the poverty, violence and hardship of their homeland have ended up. The Trump administration supports the overthrow of Venezuelas socialist president, Nicolas Maduro.

At a migrant camp for women and children, Ivanka Trump embraced several mothers who told harrowing tales of escape.

Andry Rodriguez, a 12-year-old boy in a wheelchair, his legs as skinny as curtain rods, told Trump how he wanted to be a veterinarian and missed the dog he had to leave behind in Venezuela. His mother, Wendy Quevedo, said she pushed the wheelchair across Venezuela for a week to reach Cucuta. The account clearly moved Trump, who repeated it several times throughout the trip.

But this too brought criticism of Trump: How could she show sympathy for distant migrants but not speak out against her fathers policies that deny similar people asylum or refuge at the U.S. border?

Migrants are the same all over ... people who have lost hope, said Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council. I dont know if its hypocrisy ... but it is irrational and counterproductive.

Painter, the lawyer, said, This was pure PR, just trying to put a humanitarian face on the Trump administration, glossing over [the policies]. This is not going to change policy.

Speaking later to two reporters accompanying her on the trip, Trump said the difference was that the Venezuelans want to go home, not to the United States.

For the empowerment project, Trump is able to marshal resources as only a presidents daughter can. Her delegation included Sullivan, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the acting president of the Overseas Private Investment Corp., the federal governments financing arm. Trump calls it a whole-of-government approach that is rare for such projects and should improve its chances for success.

But critics say any holistic approach to womens empowerment must also address the fundamental obstacles of health and reproductive systems.

Working within an administration that refuses to finance agencies globally that even mention abortion, Trump has largely accepted the policy rather than challenge it. Her three pillars for womens empowerment make no mention of health, reproductive rights or violence against women, which is endemic in Latin America.

Instead, she focuses on economic policy, hoping that she can muster bipartisan support in Washington and produce concrete results instead of political fighting. Her team says other U.S. agencies can address health.

But Beirne Roose-Snyder, policy director for the Center for Health and Gender Equity, an organization that advocates for women and the LGBTQ community, said omitting health in discussions of economic empowerment was a gaping hole.

Is this going to be good work that just happens to have a lot of [political] baggage from being associated with Ivanka Trump, Roose-Snyder asked of the initiative. Or is she going to [discredit the cause] in an administration that is systematically hostile to women?

Others suggested Ivanka Trumps efforts are being used to whitewash the administrations record on women and human rights.

The question is how does this comport with the administrations other actions, said Melanne Verveer, executive director of Georgetown Universitys Institute for Women, Peace and Security and a former ambassador for womens issues under the Obama administration and at the United Nations.

Theyre doing this at the same time as they are proposing cuts for the development budget, for womens health, for Central America, even climate change, which effects whether women can farm their land, she said. Its all related. How does this fit in the administrations overall commitment to womens empowerment?

Wilkinson was recently on assignment in South America.

Continued here:

Ivanka Trump brings 'star power' to global women's empowerment. But is it helping women? - Los Angeles Times

A young girl named Hannah eager, dutiful, pubescent wants to shave her legs, having long observed the womanly ritual of body hair removal. But when she does, something goes wrong. Her hair gets longer and longer and longer. It becomes unmanageable, difficult to hide. She swaps her razor for a pair of scissors, but inexplicably and almost instantaneously, the strands grow, grow, grow several feet in length. Hard as she tries, nothing changes. Frantic and confused, she eventually confides in a so-called friend who then spreads the news to the whole school, ensuring Hannahs complete ostracization.

A lesser known Dr. Seuss book? An early draft of Rapunzel? Not quite. I wrote The Hairy Leg Story in a blue plush Soccer Rocks notebook in 2002, at the age of seven. It is written in a below grade level and unintentionally direct style, featuring zingers like No one liked her anymore. The end. Most of the words are spelled wonderfully wrong, like some pre-standardized-English manuscript (the actual title is The Harry Leg Story), and it follows a plaintive diary entry about a classmate named Hannah (not a coincidence) surreptitiously borrowing and breaking my beloved pencil sharpener.

I came across The Hairy Leg Story when I was at my parents house this winter, sorting through an inexplicable number of empty shoeboxes in my childhood bedroom. Like most things recovered from childhoods dustbin, it seemed pretty ha-ha funny until, at least, I found myself thinking a little too much about it. Because when I did, the story of Hannah and her hair became a story of a young girl who observes feminine rituals without understanding their nuances. Shave, but dont tell; shave, but dont be the first or last middle schooler to do so. Look perfect, but dont be vain; be perfect, but dont let anyone know you had to try.

Selections from the text. Sarah Bochicchio

Selections from the text. Sarah Bochicchio

The women her mother, older sister, and grandmother around Hannah shave their legs to remove traces of the hairs origins, to escape a natural process under the guise of achieving a more natural, permanent state. Hannahs downfall was not only in having the hair, but in having admitted that she tried (and failed) to remove it, confirming its existence on herself and others, thus breaking the coolish code of silence around the performance of feminine immutability. Then, as punishment for her blunder, she was handed the sense of shame and lack of control many people feel around their bodies. It is a feeling, much like the growing hairs, that escalates in ways she cant yet fully process. For there is no corrective, no happy ending once Hannah makes her decision, its traces are forever with her.

Reading The Hairy Leg Story, I found a seven-year-old innocently processing her world as she saw it, learning that women could not falter, did not have space to practice or be flexible in their femininity. The time-worn link between the body and self-worth, the limited ways in which women are allowed to be imperfect these were ideas that I had touted, however unwittingly. Cross-legged between dusty boxes, I awkwardly shuffled around in my skin, trying to roll off their continuing hold.

In the past few years, the body positivity movement and fourth wave feminism have resuscitated and encouraged ongoing progressive conversations around body hair acceptance. Billie, a razor startup, has broken an advertising taboo by actually displaying body hair, to remove with their products. Writers and podcasters like Haley Nahman and Quoi de Meuf have thoughtfully addressed their own complicated relationships to shaving. Celebrities like Miley Cyrus and Emily Ratajkowski have dyed their underarm strands bright colors or broadcasted their under-hair out of protest and personal empowerment. I began paying increasingly close attention to how body hair is or is not represented like Sally Rooneys description of a pre-sort-of-date body in Normal People: Her legs are shaved meticulously, her underarms are smooth and chalky with deodorant, and her nose is running a little.

Mostly, I found myself ruminating on a painting I first remember seeing in 2015, when it was on loan to the National Gallery: The Woman in the Waves (1868) by Gustave Courbet. In the painting, a Venus-like figure stretches from the sea, her back slightly arched against a rock. Seemingly alone, she fixates on something in the distance, beyond our line of vision. A sober sky contrasts with her luminous flesh; the waves lap her torso. A repetition emerges the ruffle of the waves, the mass of her curls, a tuft of underarm hair. When I saw it a few years later, back in New York, that was when I really saw it, and since, I have never been able to stroll past without feeling its jolt. As I was turning over my personal history, the painting and my slowly developed awareness felt emblematic of the long narrative in which my crummy story and I were merely bullet points.

Gustave Courbets The Woman in the Waves. Courtesy of the National Gallery

When Courbet revisited the female nude in the 1860s, women had become, in the words of literary critic Franoise Gaillard and translator Colette Windish, an obsessive presence depicted through generic representations relying on extremely narrow conventions of female beauty (see Alexandre Cabanels The Birth of Venus, for example). Unlike many of his contemporaries portrayals, Courbet challenged the idealization of the body, presenting realistically molded, often hairy women in his finished works. Most famously, in Lorigine du monde (The origin of the world) (1866), he frankly depicted female genitalia and pubic hair stripped of their classical significance, the truncated limbs and unsettling pallor framing an almost-pornographic closeup (the hair, like the pose, strikes an erotic note). His radical departure from the norm, of course, generated some vitriol a contemporary French writer described one of Courbets nudes as ugly enough to be unappetizingto a crocodile.

In Courbets rendering of a traditional Venus, he cropped the image to focus on the upper body, concentrating on the hair against her translucent fleshiness, her flesh against the subdued horizon. That repetition of the ripple the waves, the curls, the silhouette gives way to a sense of kinship between its appearances. How natural these things are: the perpetual creasing of the ocean, unkempt hair frizzing in humidity, those bristling underarm strands. The subjects moment of apparent privacy offers an instinctive display of body hair and breasts; the woman could, at any point, become aware of being watched and lower her arms over her chest. What, Courbet seemed to ask, made this ginger ruffle any less real than the surrounding landscape or her sinuous form? After centuries of depilation and epilation and coiffing, why had the absence of body hair become its standard?

To Courbet, the presence/absence of body hair was an art historical question, in a way that my seven-year-old self could obviously not have understood. But however Courbet likened underarm hair to a bobbing wave on an aesthetic and intellectual level, this aspect of an adult body is all too often deemed unnatural. A century and a half later, his painting still surprised me, as did a photo of Julia Roberts at the Notting Hill premiere, Sophia Lorens revealing halter situation, Thodore Chassriaus Baigneuse Endormie (1850), Billies lovingly persistent fuzz-flaunting, and pretty much any photo associated with the Free Your Pits movement. When I saw Nike post an underarm-bearing ad in April, the pose still felt bold (obviously, Instagram commenters offered friendly advice: wax your armpits or personal hygiene has left the building).

In our affectless Instagram scrolling, as in Courbets time, the distance between image and reality has almost become an expectation. It isnt only the erasure of body hair that is so harrowing, but the contradictory American eroticization of hair on a womans head and the assumption aided by our complacent acceptance of the artificial that both can escape criticism. The examples are endless, but the upset around one Instagram user accidentally bleaching off her head-hair comes to mind. Compare that with those Laser Away commercials wherein Bri, a model and Bachelor contestant, insists, Laser hair removal is probably just the best thing Ive ever done for myself. Laser Away tells me how easy and time-saving laser hair removal is, assuming I somehow forgot that the easiest, cheapest, most efficient option is to do nothing.

These preoccupations establish a heritage to be passed from generation to generation, from sibling to sibling, or from advertisement to household, instilling a false reality that never quite leaves us. When/if tied to shame, the pressure to alter body hair transcends outward conformity, aesthetic preference, or even self-discipline. It becomes a coercion that alters the way we perceive ourselves, how we navigate the world.

Because as much as I wish I could dismiss my childhood scribbles as satire or pure regurgitation, at some level, I must have believed their moral. As the youngest of three girls, hair removal was, at best, a haunting chore I clearly recall my sisters venturing in and out of the waxing salon, purchasing more shaving cream and, at worst, a weapon of critique. On occasion, my mother would reflect on my grandmothers untouched leg hair as an example of matrilineal disinterest in feminine grooming; my mother shaved because thats what normal people do. Between hushed comments and eavesdropped gossip, I registered a sordid shame attached to woolly legs and the palliative a razor could provide. No one remembers my penning the story, but I can see myself wedged in a middle seat of the family car, asking for spelling help, then proudly reciting the tale to a laughing audience.

Around the same age that I wrote The Hairy Leg Story, I saw a toy razor in the supermarket and asked my mom to buy it for me. It was a practical blue-color, crafted in angular, thin plastic, and in the bathtub, I used it to practice the motions I had seen in commercials. As soap bubbles welled around me and my fingers wrinkled to prunes, I dutifully stroked my legs with the fleck of plastic, clearing away rows of shaving cream, one by one. Probably so that when the day came, I could avoid a fate like Hannahs.

See the rest here:

The hairy morals of my childhood - The Outline

HRDQ, a leading developer of experiential learning resources for soft-skills training, announces that an informative webinar titled "What Does Your Coaching Style Say About You?" will take place on Friday, Oct. 4, at 2 p.m. EDT.

WEST CHESTER, Pa., Sept. 24, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ --HRDQ, a leading developer of experiential learning resources for soft-skills training, announces that an informative webinar titled "What Does Your Coaching Style Say About You?" will take place on Friday, Oct. 4, at 2 p.m. EDT.

This free webinar will teach attendees how one's personality style affects coaching behavior. With the knowledge of your coaching style, individuals can better understand why they behave the way they do, learn how to adapt their behavior to improve interpersonal relationships, develop rapport, and ultimately, become more effective coaches.

"Coaching relationships are extremely important in an organization, and this webinar gives professionals the opportunity to expand their knowledge on both coaching effectively and communicating better with employees," said Bradford R. Glaser, HRDQ President and CEO.

The webinar will be presented by Alberta Lloyd. Ms. Lloyd co-founded and was Vice President of Coleman Management Consultants, Inc., (CMC), based in Atlanta, Georgia from 1980 until August 2013. The firm worked with organizations to assist in utilizing their human resources to their full potential. Over the years Ms. Lloyd provided services such as: specialized training for women and/or minority professionals; diversity awareness and skills training; personal empowerment training for executives, managers and the general employee population. She conducted employee opinion surveys, worked with Diversity Councils and Affinity groups within organizations. As needed she completed Mediation services and was trained in the facilitation of Coaching and Learning Circles to teach the skills of Peer Coaching. She also provided individual and group coaching for over one hundred high potential employees in one organization.

This webinar is based on the HRDQ product What's My Coaching Style. This tool is a self-assessment that reveals a dominant preference for one or more of four personality styles: direct, spirited, considerate, or systematic. "What's My Coaching Style?" is appropriate for anyone looking to improve personal or coaching development. It can be used as a standalone training assessment or it can be incorporated into a more comprehensive coaching training program.

Register for the webinar here: http://bit.ly/2kWPPAS

About HRDQ For more than 40 years, HRDQ has been a trusted developer of experiential learning resources that help to improve the performance of individuals, teams, and organizations. It offers a wide range of reliable, research-based training materials, including assessments, games, and customizable programs on in-demand topics such as leadership, communication, and team building.

Originally posted here:

HRDQ to Host Webinar on 'What Your Coaching Style Says About You' - Yahoo Finance

30 years ago today, a 23-year old Janet Jackson released her groundbreaking, GRAMMY-nominated fourth studio album, Rhythm Nation 1814. The chart-topping 20-track epic not only shook up the music world with its futuristic, raw, industrial soundscape, it also paved the way for socially conscious pop at a poignant time. It followed 1986's GRAMMY-nominatedbreakout hit album Control, which was the first time Jacksonwas given creative control over her music.

As with its predecessor, Jackson worked with GRAMMY-winning musical powerhouses Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, diving deeper into the collaborative co-writing and co-production process they had established. On Rhythm Nation her professional and personal empowerment shines through as she reflects on the madness of the times, and it still hits today. Unfortunately, her message for a safer, more equal world is still is a relevant today as it was then. It's definitely time to revisit the powerful album and take its words and rhythms to heart.

The year was 1989, and the first mass-shooting since the dawn of CNN (in 1980) had, understandably, shaken up the American public, Jackson included. The horrific, racially charged attack took place at an elementary school in Stockton, Calif., leaving five of students dead and 30 other people injured.

On Rhythm Nation 1814's heart-breaking 11th track, "Livin' In A World (They Didn't Make)," Janet echoes the tragedy in the chorus: "Livin' in a world that's filled with hate. / Livin' in a world where grown-ups break the rules / (And they're just) Livin' in a world they didn't make / Payin' for a lot of adult mistakes. / How much of this madness can they take, our children?"

The song ends with gunshots and children's screams, as a clip of a reporter announcing the news of the shooting pulses in and out of the track, fading into the background, almost like an additional, jarring interlude. This specific tragedy may have faded from our social memory, but, even more tragically, sounds eerily similar to breaking news in 2019, and to the countless shootings this nation has endured the past 30 years.

"The fact that the lyrics remain relevant is a bit of a disappointment actually. It means we haven't moved too far away from the prejudice, ignorance, hate and racial bias that we spoke about 30 years ago," Jam recently told Billboard. Yet just because it's downright sad that we're still here doesn't mean we don't have the ability to truly move forward and grow as a nation, for everyone.

"I still believe the power of music is the healing force for all things. It transcends language, race, age, and unites all the commonalities that we have. It's necessary like the air we breathe and we're going to continue to use our gifts to try to change lives in a positive way," he added.

Jam also spoke to her far-reaching influence on music, beyond her unmistakablepop footprint, over the years:

"Janet being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was well-deserved. So many of the trends in music today and the idea of female empowerment on all musical levels owe so much to her. Her innovations in staging, from her headset microphone to the elaborate arena size theatrical sets, and groundbreaking music videos incorporating innovative dance steps have been, and are still being, emulated by all artists across the board, not just rock n' roll. TheRhythm Nationalbum was designed to use music to inspire and inform people."

It's safe to say that the album did, and still does, make waves. The album hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200, seven out of eight of its singles hit the Top 10 and the album and singles earned seven GRAMMY nods across two shows. At the 32nd GRAMMY Awards, in addition to the trio all earning Producer Of The Year (Non-Classical) nominations, the 30-minute album visual won Best Music Video, Long Form.

"I feel that most socially conscious artistslike Tracy Chapman, U2I love their music, but I feel their audience is already socially conscious," JacksontoldRolling Stone in 1990. "I feel that I could reach a different audience, let them know whats going on and that you have to be a little bit wiser than you are and watch yourself."

Maybe we just need to play it a little louder.

MUNA: "The Most Radical Thing You Can Do Is Believe That The World Can Be Saved

Read more from the original source:

Janet Jackson's Iconic 'Rhythm Nation 1814' Turns 30 Today & We Still Have Work To Do - Recording Academy | Grammys

Religion News

Services and studies

Dayspring Church Apostolic Worship begins at 11:15 a.m. at the church, 2127 Doctors Park Drive, Columbus. On Sunday, the church will be inspired by, Transformation or Desecration? This is taken from Daniel 12:11, the abomination that maketh desolate set up

Every visitor will receive a free gift. The Sunday education session starts at 10 a.m. and covers Moses at the burning bush, as shared in Exodus 3:1-10.

Bible Study is at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday and is a group empowerment study sponsored by Heart Changers International on depression, stress and grief with handout questions. These help build personal empowerment.

Bible study will be at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday and builds on the message from the previous Sunday with handout questions.

Prayer of Power starts at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday and is preceded with requests and instructions on prayer. The Celebrate Recovery session starts at 6:30 p.m. for about an hour.

Ignite is the Youth Growth Session that happens every third Friday.

Information: 812-372-9336; dayspringchurch@att.net.

East Columbus United Methodist Morning fellowship time begins at 9 a.m. in the foyer with beverages and light snacks. Worship begins at 9:30 a.m. Sunday service at the church, 2439 Indiana Ave. Pastor Ann Thomas will bring the message from Luke 16.

Children can receive their own message at Childrens Church. A staffed nursery/toddler room is available during the morning service.

Sunday school will begin at 10:40 a.m. for all ages and Bible interests.

Pastor Thomas will deliver the message at the 6 p.m. evening chapel service.

Tuesday afternoon Bible study begins at 1 p.m. in the chapel. The group is studying Philippians.

Wednesday evening Bible study begins at 7 p.m. in the chapel. The group is studying 1 Corinthians.

All are welcome to join any of the Bible study classes.

J.A.M. (Jesus and Me) elementary-age (K-6) youth group will meet 6 p.m. Wednesday in the youth center.

Fairlawn Presbyterian Worship begins at 9:30 a.m. led by the Rev. Elizabeth Kirkpatrick, followed by fellowship time.

Child care is available during Sunday services and second hour studies.

A mens breakfast is 7:30 a.m. the second Saturday of every month for men of all ages.

The Last Fridays Bluegrass event is 7:30 p.m. the last Friday of every month. All are welcome to bring an instrument and play along or simply enjoy the music.

The church is located at 2611 Fairlawn Drive in Columbus.

To contact the church or for more information: 812-372-3882 or office@fairlawnpc.net.

First Presbyterian Worship begins at 9:30 a.m., at 512 Seventh St., Columbus. The church welcomes Abby Mohoupt as guest preacher on Sunday. Her expertise and passion about justice and care for the earth will inform her sermon on the story of creation found in Genesis 2:4b-25. She will lead a special Sunday School class after worship.

Infant and toddler care is available 9:15 a.m. to noon.

The mens and womens support groups meet on Fridays at 7 a.m., and a second mens support group (working age men) meets every Monday at 6:15 a.m. People in the community in need of a meal are invited to Hot Meals offered at 5 p.m. Fridays (please enter through the glass doors on Franklin).

First Presbyterian is an LGBTQ-friendly church that is open and affirming to all. Information: fpccolumbus.org.

First United Methodist On Sunday, at the 9 a.m. traditional service and the 11 a.m. celebration service, the Rev. Howard Boles will deliver the message, The Values by which We Live: Mercy, at the church, 618 Eighth St., Columbus.

The scripture will be Luke 16:1-13. Sunday School begins at 10:10 a.m. Child care is available during both services. Sunday school for all ages begins at 10:10 a.m.

Information: 812-372-2851.

Flintwood Wesleyan On Sunday, the Amplify (non-traditional) service begins at at 9 a.m. with Sunday School classes at 10 a.m. in the regular rooms. The Well (traditional) service starts at 11 a.m. Both are in the main sanctuary and led by the Rev. Wes Jones, senior pastor.

The Prayer Team meets at 8 a.m.

Sunday evenings Celebrate Recovery begins with a meal at 5:25 p.m. in The Friendship Center and the meeting starts at 6 p.m. in the main Sanctuary. The public is invited to attend.

Connections, a ladies study group, led by Pastor Teri Jones, will start Monday and will meet at 10 a.m. in the Friendship Center. Beginning in October, the group will meet the second and fourth Mondays at 10 a.m.

In the Beginning meets at 6 p.m. Tuesday in The Friendship Center. New members are welcome to join.

Wednesday activities begins with a meal at 5:30 p.m. The program, iKids (Ignite Kids) On Fire For Jesus! starts at 6:15 p.m. This program is for kids in Pre-K through the sixth grade. If your child needs transportation, call the church office. The bus will run on Wednesday nights. The prayer team meets at 6:30 p.m. in the Prayer Room. Youth meets at 6:30 p.m. downstairs in the church. Bible study is at 7 p.m. in the sanctuary.

Thursday: Cub Scout Pack 588 will meet when events are scheduled and Boy Scout Troop 588 will meet at 7 p.m.

Information: 812-379-4287; flintwoodoffice@gmail.com; flintwood.org.

Grace Lutheran The message on Sunday is Men, Women, and the Order of Creation, based on 1 Timothy 2:1-15. Worship is at 8 and 10:30 a.m., with Sunday school for all ages at 9:30 a.m.

A School Days themed church potluck is set for noon Sunday. All are welcome.

Alpha, an introduction to the Bible continues 6-8 p.m. Tuesday with the topic Why and How Should I Read the Bible?

The Searching Scripture class continues 6-8 p.m. Tuesday with the topic The Ten Commandments.

Mens Bible study will be at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.

The church is located at 3201 Central Ave., Columbus.

Information: gracecolumbus.org; 812-372-4859.

Old Union United Church of Christ Sunday service is at 10 a.m.; Sunday school is at 9 a.m., followed by fellowship at 9:40 a.m.

Scriptures for Sunday include Amos 8:4-7, 1 Timothy 2:1-7 and Luke 16:1-13. The message is Living Prayerfully.

The church is located at 12703 N. County Road 50W, Edinburgh.

On Oct. 5, the church will host the Thankful Hearts in concert.

Information: Old Union United Church of Christ on Facebook.

Petersville United Methodist The Rev. Stormy Scherer-Berry will present her sermon, Generations of Love: Blessing, at the 9 a.m. worship service Sunday. Scriptures from John 1:16 will be shared by the liturgist Deb Loper.

The emphasis will center on blessing one another so believers can answer Yes to the question, Have I helped them to be fully alive?

Teresa Covert will give the childrens sermon and special music will be shared by the choir. Fellowship will follow the service.

The Monday night Bible study classes meet at 6:30 p.m. Bakers Dozen meets at the home of Larry and Connie Nolting, and Journey meets at the home of Chris Kimerling.

The Sit and Stitch group will meet at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Nolting home.

Choir practice is held at 6:30 p.m. at the church Wednesday.

Prayer Time, led by Barb Hedrick, will meet at 10 a.m. Thursday.

The church is at 2781 N. County Road 500E, Columbus.

Information: 812-546-4438 or 574-780-2379.

St. Paul Lutheran Pastor Doug Bauman will deliver the message Sunday versus Monday based on Amos 8:4-7 at the the 8 and 10:45 a.m. services Sunday at St. Paul Lutheran Church, 6045 E. State St., Columbus.

Christian education classes for all ages begin at 9:30 a.m. Vicar Daniel Fickenscher will lead worship at the 2:30 p.m. Spanish service with Spanish/English Sunday School following at 3:30 p.m.

Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts and Cub Scout troops meet weekly at the Church. To learn more about Girl Scouts, contact Crista Burbrink at 812-216-1982; to learn more about Boy Scouts, contact Jamie Richardson at 812-603-0266; to learn more about Cub Scouts, contact Jeff Tobias at 812-343-9804.

A celebration of St. Michael and all angels will be held during regular worship services on Sept. 29 with short meditations on a festival of hymns depicting angels during the church year.

Information: 812-376-6504 or stpaulcolumbus.org.

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbus The message at the 10 a.m. service Sunday will be We BelieveWhat? by the Rev. Seth Carrier-Ladd, who will discuss the varied individual beliefs in the Unitarian Universalism church.

The church is located at 7850 W. Goeller Blvd., Columbus.

Information: 812-342-6230

Westside Community Pastor Robert Vester will lead the service at 10 a.m. Sunday at the church at the corner of 46 West and Tipton Lakes Boulevard. The childrens program for birth through sixth grade meets at the same time as the 10 a.m. worship service.

WCC offers a number of Bible studies and small groups.

Information: 812-342-8464.

Wilson Chapel Christian Union Sunday worship service begins at 9:30 a.m. The pastor is Jon Merrifield.

Sunday School classes meet at 10:30 a.m.

Praise Team practice is at 6 p.m. on Monday night.

Faith In Action, a community outreach program, meets at the Family Life Center at 6 p.m. on Wednesday evenings for a time of prayer before going into the local community to share Gods love.

Wilson Chapel Christian Union church is located on State Road 7, one mile south of the Bartholomew-Jennings county line.

Information: 812-579-5317.

Music

First United Methodist The church will host a free concert in the sanctuary as part of its Fridays@First series at 7:30 p.m. Friday. The concert will feature Arkady Orlovsky on the cello, and Tamara Orlovsky on piano. Doors will open at 7 p.m. and donations are appreciated.

The church is located at 618 Eighth St., Columbus.

Lowell General Baptist The church will host a hymn sing at 7 p.m. today. Jerry Caudill and Boys will be the featured singers.

St. Paul Lutheran An organ concert by assistant organ professor Stephen C. Price, of Ball State University, will be held at St. Paul Lutheran Church, 6045 E. State St. at 7 p.m. Oct. 4. All are cordially invited to attend.

Events

Community Church of Columbus DivorceCare, DivorceCare for Teens and DivorceCare for Kids will be offered for 12 weeks beginning Sept. 24. The sessions begin at 6:30 p.m. The divorce ministry is part of the Tuesday Connection series.

The church is located at 522 Seventh St., Columbus. To register or for info: 812-348-6257, cccolumbus.org.

East Columbus Christian The church presents Fuel on Wednesday nights, which includes a free meal and Bible study from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. It is located at 3170 Indiana Ave., next to Columbus East High School.

First United Methodist On Sept. 25, Learning Tree Preschool will host World Fest in the First United Methodist Church parking lot, 618 Eighth St., Columbus.

All are welcome to celebrate the rich heritage and cultures of families and friends who attend LTP through music, food, dancing, arts and crafts, games and more. This free event for all ages begins at 5:30 p.m. Rain location will be Fellowship Hall inside the church.

Flintwood Wesleyan Today, the youth will have a Kiss the Critter Outlaw Edition fundraiser. In-law pairs will compete. The one with the most money collected will have to kiss the surprise critter. Voting will take place up to right before the critter is revealed. Other activities will be happening throughout the day.

The last Open Market for the season will be 8:30 a.m. to noon Oct. 5. Local artisans will be set up as well as vendors selling food and produce.

The annual Harold Carr Memorial Golf Scramble will be Oct. 19. If you want to sign up early, contact Gary Carter through the church office. More details will be announced.

On Oct. 31, the church will host Trunk or Treat during the time established by the city of Columbus for trick-or-treating.

The church is located at 5300 E. 25th St., Columbus.

For more information, call 812-379-4287 or visit flintwood.org.

St. Paul Lutheran The churchs early childhood ministry will host the 13th annual golf scramble today at Shadowood Golf Course, 333. N. Sandy Creek Drive, Seymour. Sign-in will begin at 8 a.m. with a shotgun start at 9 a.m. Entry fee is $240 per foursome or $60 per individual and includes continental breakfast, practice balls, green fees with cart, lunch and prizes. Call 812-376-6504 to check availability.

St. Paul Lutheran Churchs annual Harvest Fest will start at 4 p.m. Sept. 29 at the Schroer Ranch, 9846 E. County Road 50N. Activities for the afternoon include apple bobbing, hayride and volleyball. A hymn sing and youth-led devotions will precede the 5:30 p.m. pitch-in meal (meat, hot dogs, drinks, table service will be provided). All are invited to attend.

South Central Indiana Christian Mens Fellowship 6 p.m. Sept. 24 at United Christian Church, 7810 W. State Road 250, Paris Crossing. Dinner 6 p.m., followed by 7 p.m. meeting. Meal: fried chicken and trimmings, cheesy potatoes. Johnny Johnson will be the speaker. Women invited to attend this meeting.

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Religion news Sept. 21 - The Republic

MARTINSBURG Leaders from various nonprofit organizations and boards came together during a community forum Tuesday evening to discuss diversity and personal empowerment in the Eastern Panhandle.

Damien Wright, chairman of the Berkeley County Diversity Council, said the council invited several representatives from different organizations to share what they are doing in the community to bring about change. He added a main goal of the meeting was to show the community which resources are available and how they can get involved.

Zakeem McGill, president of the local NAACP, said the most important thing the community should take away from the panelists at the event was the importance of volunteering what time they have big or small to ensure their neighbors are being treated with the respect they deserve.

I feel like Im preaching to the choir, because I think everyone here (Tuesday) can agree our climate is hostile to people of color, LGBTQ, women, people with disabilities, and its very disturbing, McGill said. The only thing that could benefit all of these organizations is if more people get involved. There is a role you can play, small or large, theres something you can do to directly address the distress that many in our community face everyday. You could be that one person in someones day that makes them feel like theyre not alone, that theres someone who understands the pain and stress theyre feeling.

The panel also discussed the growing homeless population, which Wright described as a huge issue in Berkeley County, and how Luci Hernandez, of Catholic Charities of West Virginia, and her organization are working to help these individuals find their footing again.

Hernandez said the group offers case management services, a personal care closet, which the community can help keep stocked through donations, and a refugee and immigration department to help those who are vulnerable, but said even when people are stabilized, the groups efforts dont stop there.

Even if these people are stabilized and they are safe, we just let them know we are still here if they need us, Hernandez said. We step back and let them do their thing, and we will assist in any way we can. We want to make sure our clients have access to the needs, but we also try to see where we can fill in gaps no matter how many times they come back to us.

Nancy White, who is with the Martinsburg Initiative, said the groups goal is to provide support and information for all areas of the Eastern Panhandle, including fields such as the police, schools, public health and community partnership. White added the group is working specifically with the unintended victims of the opioid crisis in our area through trainings offered free to school officials and the public, to help children of those abusing drugs to create a stronger generation.

The panel also featured Jodi Westrope, of the Parent Educator Resource Center, and Brandy Beery, of Peoples First of the Eastern Panhandle, who shared their individual organizations goals of empowerment to children, parents and individuals with disabilities.

Visit the Berkeley County Diversity Council Facebook page for more information on the group, meeting schedules and the organizations featured at Tuesdays forum.

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Diversity Council forum calls public to action when it comes to volunteering - Martinsburg Journal

Sean Fowler :: Special to the Hartford Courant

Salsa Socials on Pratt Street in Hartford draw large crowds and add to the sense of the citys revival, but not all boats are rising.

A quarter century ago, downtown Hartford was 8/5 rather than 24/7. People drove in for work or UConn games and then headed back to the suburbs. It was hard to even buy a cup of coffee on weekends.

That has changed.With 1,500 new apartments completed or in construction, a new UConn branch, new transportation options and minor league baseball, the downtown area is coming back to life.

But just blocks from the theaters and elegant restaurants are some of the poorest neighborhoods in the state.

New Haven has followed a similar path.

A massive investment by Yale University that began in the 1990s has helped turn downtown New Haven into a destination, with the states tallest residential building, a second train station and a host of hip bars and restaurants.

But though Yale also made some neighborhood investments the Elm City also has struggling areas. New Havens poverty rate of 25.6%, according to the U.S. Census 2017 American Community Survey, trails only New London at 28.3% and Hartford at 30.5%. The number refers to those living below the poverty line, set at $24,860 for a family of four.

This is a local version of a national problem.

Former industrial cities that were thought dead have risen like Lazarus, drawing young people, small businesses and trendy amenities. But the revivals of Baltimore, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and (even) Detroit, as with Hartford and New Haven, have been uneven within their boundaries.Some downtown districts thrive; many other neighborhoods, almost invariably poor, minority enclaves, are left behind.

So the challenge: How can cities share the new-found wealth, bring some of the downtown prosperity to distressed neighborhoods, and revive themselves in such a way that all residents benefit?

Inclusive revitalization defined by The Urban Institute as overcoming economic distress in a way that provides the opportunity for all residents, especially historically excluded populations, to benefit and contribute has become a hot topic among people who study urban policy, the subject of research papers, symposia and a well-received new book, The Divided City: Poverty and Prosperity in Urban America by planner and author Alan Mallach (Island Press).

The issue is important to Connecticut because better functioning cities mean more opportunities for residents, more local commerce and a stronger state economy. It could help reverse the growing jarring chasm between the haves and have-nots.

According to an analysis of the 2013-17 U.S. Census American Community Survey by the New Haven-based nonprofit analytics firm DataHaven, the 10 poorest census tracts in the state are in Hartford (4) Bridgeport and Waterbury (2 each) New Haven and Meriden (1 each). In 2017, the average family income in these areas was $29,000.

The 10 wealthiest tracts can be found in Greenwich (5), New Canaan (3) and Darien (2), The average family income in these gilded swaths is $490,000, 17 times that of their neighbors in the bottom 10. That ratio has almost doubled since 1980, when family incomes in the wealthy tracts were a mere nine times higher than those in the poorer areas.

Allowing this gap between the rich and poor to worsen raises a critical issue of fairness, said Mallach in a recent telephone interview.

What is a just society? What is a just city? he asked, adding that our failure to address the issue is a recipe for a (citys) future that is unhealthy, problem-ridden and dangerous look at Chicago and Baltimore.

Stephen Dunn :: Hartford Courant

In 2009, the city of Hartford released results of a survey about downtown real estate vacancies that showed that 21 percent of all units were vacant. This photo, taken on Pratt Street, showed the significant number of vacancies in that part of the city alone.

White Flight

Though the states large cities have endured weak leadership from time to time, their decline in the mid-20th century was mostly due to factors beyond their control.

Factories closed or moved. Post-World War II prosperity and a new highway system spurred (overwhelmingly white) flight to the suburbs while mortgage redlining and other policies such as exclusionary zoning kept most minorities in the cities. Most of the populous cities (except Stamford) are geographically small 18-20 square miles and have much tax exempt property, a distinct disadvantage in a state heavily reliant on local property taxes.

The cities became home to concentrated poverty because of policies that encouraged concentrated poverty, said Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin in a recent interview.

And yet, as former Hartford resident Mark Twain might have said, reports of the cities demise were greatly exaggerated. Attracted by the traditional advantages of cities economy of scale, variety, entertainment, convenience, human contact, etc. people and businesses began moving back, but not to all neighborhoods.

Sharing the revival is a challenge. Along with providing basic services, Bronin is pursuing several inclusion strategies. One is to get downtown right. This means renewing downtown in a way that engages its residents as well as visitors, and that has jobs and small businesses opportunities for residents.

New Haven Mayor Toni Harp

Another is to build on strength, to invest in or near existing nodes of neighborhood development, from the conversion of the former Swift gold leafing factory to a food services job site in the North End to improvements the Upper Albany commercial corridor and the mixed-use development of the Coltsville complex in the South End, among others.

New Haven Mayor Toni Harp has an array of neighborhood projects underway. One, Downtown Crossing, is traversing and developing the Route 34 corridor that walled downtown from the struggling Hill neighborhood for decades. Now the Hill neighborhood becomes part of downtown, Harp said.

Another inclusion effort she described is a city partnership with Southern Connecticut State University and Gateway Community College to train city residents for jobs in the citys expanding biotech sector. There are others, including a worker-owned cooperative laundry to support the local hospitals, based on Clevelands remarkable Evergreen Cooperative.

We really try to make sure development goes on across our entire city, Harp said.

Are efforts such as these bearing fruit in Connecticut?

Some, but not a ton, according to a Brookings Metro Monitor study released last year. The study rated the countrys largest 100 metros on improvements in inclusion (along with growth and prosperity) in 2015-16, based on median wage, employment rates and number of people living below the poverty line.

The results were not spectacular. The New Haven, Hartford and Bridgeport metropolitan areas finished 54th, 72nd and 80th, respectively, on inclusion.

Solutions

As the Brooking study indicates, a lot of metro areas struggle with inclusion. For example, Mallachs book looks closely at Pittsburgh and Baltimore, both of which especially Pittsburgh are widely considered comeback cities, and finds their revivals are limited to a handful of neighborhoods.

But some cities are heading in the right direction.The Urban Institute released an extensive study on inclusion in 2018 titled Inclusive Recovery in US Cities. The researchers zeroed in on four cities Lowell, Mass., Columbus, Ohio, Midland, Tex., and Louisville, Ky. that outperformed their peers on inclusion as their economies improved.

They attribute the inclusionary success of these cities to some combination of eight factors.The first three bold leadership, a shared vision and partners in all sectors are essential to any successful urban revival effort.

Tom Condon :: CT Mirror

The plaza in Lowells national historic park, which was once an abandoned textile mill.

But economic revival by itself doesnt necessarily lead to more inclusion. Sharing the wealth may also involve a variety of other factors, including the ability to leverage community assets and advantages.

Every city has distinct assets. For example, turning a sows ear into a silk purse, Lowell readapted abandoned textile mills into a National Historic Park combined with residential units and office space.

Successful inclusive growth also involves the ability to think regionally.This would be a novel experience for Connecticut, which does not have regional government, but it is done in other parts of the country.

The rationale for regionalization listen up Nutmeggers is this: Fragmented regions, with multiple governments working in isolation, can slow economic growth, lead to fiscal disparities, and impede service delivery, the study says. Louisville merged with surrounding Jefferson County in 2003, which catapulted it from the 65th to 23rd largest city in the nation, slightly lowered the cost of government, and supported economic growth and regional inclusion.

Disenfranchised communities must also be allowed to build voice and power, experts say. At the time of the 2003 city-county merger in Louisville, civil rights groups successfully pushed for new district lines to preserve African-American representation in the new city council. And Lowell welcomed what became the countrys second largest Cambodian population, understanding that they would help the local economy.

Reframing inclusion as being essential to growth is also important. Louisville has been working for decades to desegregate its public schools, an effort that has been good for recovery. By maintaining diverse schools, Louisville has been able to maintain its tax base, as residents are not hollowing out the city by relocating for schools, the study observes.

Finally, cities interested in inclusive growth should develop policies and programs that support inclusion in education, housing, economic development and fiscal incentives. These can range from college aid programs, affordable housing with access to jobs as well as training for the jobs that are available.

The key, said Mallach in a recent interview, is to focus intently on the needs of the people who have been excluded.

He said some people from difficult neighborhoods have been beaten down and suffer something like PTSD. He pointed to a Minneapolis job preparation program, Twin Cities R!SE, that offers both personal empowerment classes as well as skills training to get people into the workforce.

Its not as much the money as the mentality, he said.

The Cities Project, a collaboration between CT Mirror, Connecticut Public Radio, Hearst Connecticut Media, Hartford Courant, Republican-American of Waterbury, Hartford Business Journal, and Purple States, will publish periodic articles exploring challenges and solutions related to revitalizing Connecticuts cities. Send comments or suggestions to ehamilton@ctmirror.org.

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Reviving cities must include the excluded - The CT Mirror