 I'm only introducing you guys. You know, it's like a sleeve-out right now. You know, I've never been to a doctor before. Now, I've had totally sawed around that person. I've been like, hey, I've never been to a doctor before. It's a, you know, in, uh, there's some of the body health. It's so nervous. There we go, Chess. There's a girl that had a condition higher than the average. The butt... The butt... The butt... The butt... The butt... The butt... The butt... The butt... The butt... The butt... The butt wrinkles are like that, crotch of arms are like... The calves are like... Welcome back from swimming, from eating, from hanging out with one another, and how awesome is that lake? It's amazing. It's warm, and it's lovely, it's refreshing, and we get to share it together. Thank you for being here for this next part of today's schedule. The next thing is, one of the things that NET does in one of our core principles, core goals, part of our core mission is advocacy, and that's very big. A big part of it has been explaining ensembles, just really advocating for the ensembles as a field, as a community. And there's a second part of the ensemble, which is being part of a national conversation of advocacy for the arts, advocacy for all those issues we care about, from fair, equitable wages to NEA support. Our interests in advocacy span a great deal of topics. And so one thing that NET has done in the last couple of years, and you may or may not be aware of it, so we want to take this moment to just make sure we can build in some conversation around it, is our advocacy efforts. We are members of the Performing Arts Alliance. The Performing Arts Alliance is comprised of arts organizations, networks, service organizations, across the performing arts who come together and collectively build strength and community around pressing advocacy issues. And you're here at my side is Christine Davis. Is there a better manager? Is that right? Is there a better manager for the Performing Arts Alliance? And so we're here to talk about some of this work. But before I do that, I just wanted to give a quick, just really short mention of why it was important for NET to join the PAA. And like I said, we've been members now for about a year and a half. And a big part of it was wanting to have our voice, the voice of this community, of the way that we create, of the way that we organize, of the values that we carry with us as these collectives, to bring that perspective to national conversations around advocacy, to be with our peers who are working on similar things, to build those relationships, to find those moments of overlap where we share similar concerns, similar values, and the realities of day-to-day life just keep us from picking up the phone and connecting around them. This is a built-in opportunity where we can come together and just hear from one another what we're working on, what the issues are, what opportunities are for collaboration and for moving things forward. And so in this short time that we've been involved, it's been really amazing. I've got to say, it's one of the most important things that NET is doing right now is being at that table and having that voice and making these connections, building those relationships with our peers. And so that's what led us there, and I think what's going to keep us there. And so to share out some of this information and to hear from you all to inform the advocacy work of the PAA, we've invited Christine to come here and talk with us and lead us through this conversation. So I'll hand it over to you. Thank you. How's everybody doing? Good. Post lunch, post swim, we're still hanging in there? Yeah. I have a question. Before, three minutes ago, who had ever heard of the performing arts alliance? That makes me happy. What did you hear? What did you know? It was in our packets. Prior to the packets. What did you know? There was somebody who gave a great presentation of roots a couple of weeks ago. What else did we know? Great email. Good emails. Net neutrality. Net neutrality. We'll make one. Good. So, as Mark said, performing arts alliance is a coalition of 15 different national service organizations. I'd like to talk about our membership by talking about the history of it. We about started in 1977. Originally at the table was the Association of Art Museum Directors, and the organization now known as the League of American Organizators of the Theater Communications Group, Dan's USA, and TCG. So, arts museums were there at some point. It was the American Arts Alliance. Change was made to focus just on performing arts, and then the membership was arts presenters, APAP, and still the League, and Opera, Dan's USA, and TCG. So that was sort of five categories of the arts. 2007, fast forward 30 years, membership started to change to incorporate organizations, NPNs, NPN in the house. NPN, NALA, National Association of Pino Arts and Cultures, we have NET, and Roots joined the same year in 2013, Alternate Roots. Now there's a lot of crossover here. Also, Chorus America, National Alliance of Musical Theater, Chamber of Music of America, Composer's Forum, basically more diversity within those major categories of the arts, but with those organizations came a larger constituency of artists, and the conversation at the time was still really organization speak, and issues were sort of framed according to what organizations were facing, but as membership changed, we were realizing responsibilities for how we talk about the issues that are on our platform to be more reflective of the fact that there are more artists, representative groups at the table. And then what else should we be aware of? We always have that federal platform. We get asked a lot how to pick what's on the federal platform. The issues that we advocate for in that packet, National Endowment for the Arts Funding, arts education, not just arts education funding, but also the treatment of arts education in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Currently known as No Child Left Behind that Education Law, how does arts education get treated in that legislation? Net neutrality, what does that mean for artists when finding regulations or out being put into play? Cultural exchange, we've had a lot of conversations about cultural exchange so far. I wrote them down because I knew I would forget it's post-lunch. Turtable giving, IRA rollover, tax deductible donations, and visa processing, those are issues that if anything were to happen to federal policy, every arts organization, it would have some kind of effect with giving, with bringing artists in to feel their season with perhaps even posting content like this if there was something blocking them from doing so through net neutrality. So those are sort of our standard issues that we know will always have a reach throughout the field. But the way that we talk about this issue seems to be reflective of the field and the way that they are playing out. When we realized that we had an opportunity to connect through artists, we said well instead of just sort of guessing maybe how artists might think about arts education or the NEA, we should just go and ask them. And when I say great, it kind of makes sense. So I say realize the opportunity. I'd say what, maybe almost two years ago, we divided our board into task forces to look at specific issues that we felt we could manage that we, within our resources, we don't want to, you know, everybody has sort of their level of expertise and we divided ourselves into a task force that would look at issues associated with independent artists and that's sort of where this project comes from. We would look at diversity and inclusion and how that plays out, not just within our own members' constituencies, but what does that mean for us as a collective of 15 service organizations? Where does that fit in our values and how does that play into our platform and our work? We're looking at where could we be effective in research in the arts and also in what could we do for audience development. So what we are doing today is a part of that independent artist's track. And we just want to take some time to talk as a group and then also talk in little groups about some areas around the room about different policy issues that are on our platform. And a couple of questions that were in your packet we want to get a little bit deeper into but overall we want to know what do you know about these issues, these federal issues. What do you care about these federal issues? Could be a lot, could be not at all. But what do they matter to you in your daily work? How does the NEA funding trickle down to what you do every day? How does a possible change in a charitable giving policy affect your donors and your work that you do? And also what else, what else should a national organization that represents the performing arts field be aware that it should be paying more attention to in its advocacy efforts? So that's what we want to talk about today. So that's a lot. Any questions for more? Thoughts? And thoughts? Just a quick question for you all. How many here self-identify as unaffiliated independent artists? Great. How many here identify as members of an organization? Cool. To piggyback on that, organization people, are you organizations of artists or organizations of administrators? Let's see, organizations of artists? And organizations of arts administrators. And we have a third category of cultural workers? Cultural workers. Great. Lots of thoughts. Maybe worth noting, in his comments, that part of the definition of ensemble as stated by NAD, which is the meeting, sort of specifically brings together artists and one of the same, or in these organizations, artists of often workers and administrators and vice versa. That's why it gets a little gray. Yeah. Okay. What I wanted to do next is to sort of give an overview of some of the federal arts issues on the platform. If you have your packet that came, I'm just sort of going to run through those and get some updates, because names are constantly changing. So as I mentioned, we have about seven issues that we consider to be sort of our standard platform always on the table. National Endowment for the Arts funding, and advocating for funding for that has been a major priority. Funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, trickles down the state arts agencies, trickles down to localities, and trickles down to people working every day. So when we see how that funding connects down through all different levels of government, not just the federal policy, but state and local, it's really important that it be protected at the source and that there is some federal arts body providing that leadership and that with the NEA in place, it's just an acknowledgement that it is important for the government to make an investment in the arts as we see how it affects the state and local. A lot of the arguments for the NEA being sustained are that look at the economic impact that the arts community makes. Investment in the National Endowment for the Arts spurs a lot of private dollars. So for example, organizations will get money through their states from the NEA and then have it matched. It allows for other people to see, oh well, if an NEA grant is supporting work, then there's a little bit of prominence there that helps with the fundraising. So that's some of the conversation around why it's important to support the NEA. Again, a part of these learning exchanges are that some of the conversation and we know that there is more for people who are doing work supported by that grant. What's the overlap with Americans for the Arts in this regard? Good question. Americans for the Arts, we work a lot with them. We do a majority of our work in coalition because it is huge and no one organization can take it on. Our particular platform is performing arts and federal policy issues. Americans for the Arts has a state network and federal and local and also visual and some smaller subsidiaries. They have a much larger, wider network. So we overlap. We work on their Arts Advocacy Day event. We're one of the natural co-sponsors that helps to put together the planning of the organization. So we overlap with a lot of the policy issues. Questions? Next up here we have Arts Education at the US Department of Education. I did talk a little bit about that but that issue is twofold. Not only do we advocate for the funding of the Arts in Education program in the Department of Education but also in the actual legislation that authorizes education policy. What's now known as the No Child Left Behind Act has for pretty much the majority of this year been up for rewrite in both the Senate and the House. They have been putting together different versions of the law that are looking at sort of the effects of the standardized testing and the stripping down of the school day and all of the standards and the scores and how that's affecting teachers' jobs. And what our concern for the Arts Education aspect of that is there's very specific language in the legislation that outlines what is considered a poor academic subject. There's literally one sentence with a bunch of different topics listed in it, mathematics and reading and social sciences and etc. And our particular coalition was very clear about the Arts needing to be stated and listed out in this sentence because if you're labeled as a poor academic subject it opens up a variety of areas for federal funding for programming in schools. So that literal listing in legislation is something that we worked on in coalition. Glad to say that when we saw the Senate's version of the their version of the No Child Left Behind rewrite, the new law, that particular sentence about poor academic subjects disobeyed arts. So that in that particular version of the law it would allow for arts education to be eligible for a variety of spending. So for example, Title I funding schools that receive Title I funding can use it to support their arts education programs. What is Title I funding? Title I funding is for... Oh, definition time. So Title I funding is for students for dis... I don't like the term. Disadvantaged. I don't like that term. But if you understand I'm trying to understand. Yeah, underserved for populations of underserved students. So it's a particular funding stream that allows for programming or... I don't like the term intervention. That's the term that's the language that could use but that's what that pot of money is for. And so with... See a hand. Yeah, for schools. It's for schools. For school districts and it's based on who is in this view of the school's population of whether or not they get that designation. So, yeah, you're welcome. Stop me if there's jargon. Please do, because there's a lot of it. So for example, I said that in the Senate's version of the bill there was that particular language about arts education. Senate creates its version of the legislation. The House creates its version and they have to come together. There are Senate and Congresses at recess right now and when they come back, I believe it's next week we'll see a lot more action of what happens with different versions of each bill. So that's a to-be-continued story but we like what we saw coming out of the Senate's version and we hope to see that in the final bill. Another issue on the platform, a pretty hot topic right now is the protection of performing arts wireless technology also known as white space. We talked about this at the session we did at Altit Roots and also at a session in Austin. Does anybody have any idea what that means? White space, can you hear the term? A couple people? Do you remember mid to late 2000s when TV was going digital and you had to get your digital converter box, digital box was going to work? The broadcast airwaves that TV was on before it went digital became vacant and television stations still owned them but in the 2012 Jobs Act Congress mandated that the FCC auction off those airwaves, those broadcast channels for new broadband technology that would meet that spectrum access to those airwaves function. So new mobile devices, new things that have not been created yet that there will be a market for. So operating on those television broadcast stations were wireless microphones that are used in the performing arts and as the auction begins I believe it's going to begin next spring there is a chance of wherever these whatever band of spectrum that the microphones end up in being replaced to there could be a lot of interference from either these new and coming devices that are going to be used or other microphones. So the issue becomes as the spectrum gets rearranged for other devices that are going to be coming to market at some point how is the quality of wireless devices used in performing arts technology going to be compromised. So that is what the issue is here. That's a very brief summary in about three sentences there's a little bit more information at one of the stations but that's a quick overview of that matter. Also international cultural exchange I was talking to some folks here from Bond Street in the house. We got a little shout out to Bond Street and some of our materials. You're very welcome. So international cultural exchange operates out of the State Department and Bureau of Cultural Affairs and we advocate for the appropriations of that program. We actually just joined an alliance that advocates in general for cultural exchanges educational. So together we hope to bring a little bit more awareness to the benefits of international cultural exchange and we are advocating for that issue in this audience. Now it's on the floor. The visa process for a guest artist. Ooh, I've heard it. We know what that is. The amount of time that it takes for visa processing to go through. The issue at stake here is what is called the arts provision. The arts require timely service and it is an ask to Congress that if for some reason an organization's petition gets delayed not for any fault of their own through some sort of processing process that an organization not have to be charged that premium processing fee if it comes down to it not being their fault that the delay happened. That particular piece of legislation do you remember in June of 2013 when there was immigration reform passed in the Senate? That piece of legislation was included in that bill but if you also remember the conversation about that the House said that that legislation was dead on arrival and we have yet to as Congress review that immigration reform. So that is a piece of legislation that we're hoping might come back to surface as that conversation continues as what can we do to improve that visa processing situation. And also net neutrality. And people following net neutrality. Right? So the issue here at stake was can internet service providers do anything to harm or slow down or block legal content that is posted to various sites, YouTube any place that people have the access to have that freedom of speech to express themselves to reach new audiences to promote their own work? The internet should be that free platform where they're able to do so. So in this particular case in February the FCC came out with a new set of regulations about that neutrality. Last January their old rules got kicked out they were basically told by DC circuit court that they didn't have the authority to enforce them the way that they were laid out. The FCC had been over the last year having a lot of open comments periods with the public about saying what do you think is the best way to enforce rules of the internet and they use an authority in the communications act that basically allows them to regulate the internet with the same authority that allows them to regulate telephone services and considering that the internet as it is used now is much more of a utility than anything separate from that the way that people are using it on a daily basis. So in February the FCC came out with its latest set of rules that categorizes internet activity as the same way that we would categorize internet services and they felt that that was the strongest legal authority to create rules that would prevent internet service providers from being able to block lawful content or slow it down. Those rules went into effect in mid-June however as appropriations in congress were playing out both the house and the senate put some riders into their bills trying to prevent those rules from going into effect. A lot of the arguments are saying that the rules needed to fix it and a lot of some of the arguments are that well if congress creates laws to regulate the internet then they won't change every time there's a new FCC commissioner. So as it is right now the rules did go into effect in June the final legislation that particular those particular riders coming in from senate and from the house were in the bill that funds that's called the general services bill and until congress comes back from recess we won't know what the final version of that bill says but both sides have something in them that should try to prevent those rules from going into effect. That was a really really quick overview of a lot of issues. Any questions? Lots of questions. Did I skip trouble giving? Was it on my page? I'm sorry. It was. I had my thumb over it. Charitable giving, tax reform, tax policy. Different aspects of charitable giving. One being the general charitable deduction and the other being the IRA charitable rollover which allows donors I believe it's 70 and a half to give up to a hundred thousand dollars a portion of their IRA to their charitable to the charity of choice without tax. So it's an incentive for donors of that age and of that means and we also look at just the general charitable giving not that specific category. In the tax reform conversation there's been a lot of discussion about whether or not charitable giving ought to be capped. The number that gets tossed out is 28%. Capital charitable deduction is at 28%. And research about that particular percent is said that it's going to cut out a lot of people who would give. And the argument from the arts community is again well it's not really broken. You don't want to do anything that would discourage somebody who can give of their own expression of income to give. And that's people choosing to support the arts organization that they feel are doing good work and they want to be a part of supporting that. With the IRA rollover it keeps expiring at the end of every tax year. And the argument there is a lot of organizations have donors that that is the way they give and that's the way they commit their giving and organizations plan on that. But if this particular provision keeps expiring and expiring and donors don't know that they have at the next year development departments don't know that they have at the next year programming and your giving. So the argument there is to just make it a permanent tax revision so that people can rely on it and it's always there and it's a resource that we know we can count on for our work. Any questions? When you said the year of the debt was counted at 28 percent what is that 28 percent? 28 percent income. Yeah. So when you itemize and then okay. So what we I would like to do next is get into the conversation of what do you care about these kind of issues? How do they matter to your work? Do they matter the way that I've just described them the way that we talk about them and if not how should we be talking about them? Because what's important is that the way we represent the issues on the hill is reflective of the way that they play out in the field. So I've set up some stations Can I have the next question? Go ahead. Can you say like three victories, three successes that the organization will walk in the last in the last ten years? Ten years, whatever, five years. I've been here for two. So I don't know that I can make it ten. Okay, okay. Let's see, one that I well I can give you one that's a little bit ahead of my time. So I talked about our platform for arts education and how there's funding for the arts in the Department of Education and also funding or also the placement of arts education and elementary and secondary education now. I want to say this fiscal year 2011 a lot of different subject areas that their funding cut from the Department of Education's allocation. There were different subjects like math and science and reading and arts and et cetera each had sort of their own grant program, their own sort of individual funding stream and all of them got cut. The arts were at 40 million as their own program. Arts advocates rallied and stood up and wrote congress and went to meetings and the base really rallied and when the final budget was set arts education was the only program that came back with its own independent funding stream. It came back at 25 million but it was the only one that came back. So I say that that's a victory of the field of I guess we work a lot in coalition of the organizations getting grassroots aware of this is what's going on and this is what's going to affect and arts advocates really rising up to take action. That was a big deal and the funding is still at 25 million. In the past few years there has always been some sort of effort to consolidate all of the funding from all the subject areas to either 40 or 25 million so you have a lot of different logic and subject areas competing for a very small amount of money but arts education has still always been stand alone so I would say that that's definitely a win. I would also say around the white space issue the fact that performing arts organizations everything from small theaters to large performing arts centers would be affected by these new regulations about the broadcast spectrum was not even on the radar of the federal agency that was it was until that coalition came together and it isn't just theaters it's also churches sports arenas so the coalition around the wireless microphone has crossed sectors also which I think is a victory as well. As a board member she's like the treasurer secretary for the PA so also just a lot of information here. Also I just wanted to say tracking all of this takes a tremendous amount of time and by being in coalition with other national organizations there are people doing this work for us tracking the legislation letting us know when we need to act on issues because there's no way independently we could be active in this way at the federal level so thanks I'm just wondering how does the PAA fund it? we are on somewhere 501 C3 C4 membership organizations and we're funded through membership dues so like net is a dues paying member of PAA I don't know because y'all are doing the research for the arts it pays us to trust you but at the same time keep our ears to the ground and offer advice if we have things that come up but overall these are really trustworthy people they're doing the work for us and so yeah appreciate that because not just have time to do the work you guys do it's all about coalition and partnerships I think we've all found that to be true forever but it's all about coalition and partnerships TCG takes the lead their government affairs person takes the lead on the net neutrality issue and the League of American orchestras their person takes the lead on arts education so we all within our coalition have someone who takes the lead and then we come together to work collectively just one other thought since y'all are in the room of the sausage machine the stuff that banks the legislation is like making sausage we all have ideals in how we want things to work you have to deal with the nitty-gritty of what's possible within those things and so that's something that's just a note for ourselves because you're actually having to deal with intense detail when we say well how come they're getting more money for the arts you know but when it comes down to how those allocations remain on the hill victory was the house zero in the last several years and it took a lot of work from this agency to the arts a lot of citizens to get them to turn the senate included went to conference and it took a lot of bugging people and so the flip side of that is when these guys send out an email and say bug your congressman do it because it makes a difference and essentially citizens saved the national government of the arts a couple times in less than three or four years a note about this letter people raise their hands about saying they get emails from a foreign arts alliance we do a couple of different communications we have advocacy reports which is sort of a monthly summary of what's going on we do advocacy updates so for example when the senate came out with its version of the education bill we have an update in the summary but also we do action alerts so you'll get an alert where we're tracking how action is going, there's going to be a vote or there's going to be an opportunity for public climate we will send out an email with background information but also a letter that has some standard language just giving a general overview of why an issue is important to the arts and then also opportunity for you the recipient to write a personal message to your legislator that says I'm in your district, we do this work a charitable donation health fund XYZ and then you send that and those letters are counted your congress people, your staff members do count the letters that are sent in on particular issues they keep detailed notes of meetings when you go and you meet with your legislators and at the end of the week there is sort of a summary of everything that happened that the member of congress gets so when you go they are actually paying attention, you might get a staffer you might get a run down the hallway with somebody in between meetings but any opportunity you have to make an impression whether it's sending a letter from an alert you can even just go and find your congress person's email address from our site and you don't have to have be sending a letter or going to have a meeting makes an impact I think that's all he ended up here another elbow Is there a is there a differential impact if we were to email send an email or actually write a snail in a letter what's the difference snail mail might not make it it used to be that they would send an email but snail mail is going to get more attention yeah it might not make it but the email system the visits make a big impression and you don't have to go to Washington because every congressman has an office in your district and it's going to be a staffer but don't think oh that doesn't count, it does count so go to your local office every time the stuff comes up the staffer is the congressperson they hear and they share that information a few years ago Jerry and I did a visit to Capitol Hill the congress together and I highly recommend it they organize it it's like you just show up and they make the appointments for you to talk about and you go and it is I really recommend it it's amazing you feel like you're participating in your government and it's really awesome we visited my congressman Lou Bartoletta who was perhaps one of the nastiest anti-integration tea party of the Republicans that got elected he's still in office but we went and we told him about his district I told him about the schools that BT has performed and all this stuff he changed his vote and has been supporting the NEA ever since you were there and it was like part of it was just that knowledge of the district and the knowledge of his hometown and that this is making a difference and you're voting for this means that this institution can stay in business and serve kids in your district and he hasn't gone back it's one of two issues he's bolted the tea party on that and Flutter I still vote for him don't tell him man he knows we wanted to do I guess this is exchange part is have a chance for you to think about the issues as they are presented and there's some papers that are around at each station there is a different topic from that shortlist here and there is what is called our issue brief the issue brief if you've been to arts advocacy day it is a list of talking points it's a summary and some background which matters we want to know if the way we talk about issues is reflective of the issue to you is it far out of the field do you feel yourself represented in it and what else needs to be said again if we are to be representatives of the field then the field needs to be reflected in the way we talk about issues to your congress people or the way we talk about issues when we're strategizing here's a red marker and we've got some areas up to take notes so the goal is just to really look at the issue and say what is this, does this matter to me am I reflected in the way people are talking about this issue on a national level what is missing, what else should we be talking about and have that conversation and give us some feedback on the issues of paper that I hear so we get some breakouts I just want to say worry about charitable giving especially if you're a small organization you may think oh I don't have a lot of donors or the donors who give to me aren't really concerned about tax deduction but remember if that's good we give to foundations and I'm sure a lot of you get grants from the foundation so it may not matter to the donors you're in direct contact with but the foundations who support you that really matters to them a lot so that is an issue to pay attention to and be attentive to even though you can't you're one step removed from that line of thinking with your donors Hi In Washington there are compromises that are usually made part of our discussion is that is there a boundary or a a space where we choose not to go as PA or as part of the arts Is it you choose not to go to? Is there a line that we draw that we don't want to compromise beyond? I'm going to say no Yeah So we don't want to compromise or save it and therefore we look at compromising for the best I guess I'm not sure what you mean you say a compromise There are also a lot of the same things going on in the technology we don't want to compromise the fact that they need to make a type of tree we need to make that and they will compromise for that rather than say that we can see which is where Congress is right now we can see something is broken and then by that time we will have implemented policies from Verizon and ETHT and Keyboard Vision and it will be harder to change that So the compromise I'm talking about that So you're asking is there a line that we would not cross? A line you will not cross I still have to say I'm not sure that specific each of these areas would have different I don't think we've been confronted It just doesn't come off that simply It's really just so much back and forth Certainly on the net neutrality fighting the corporate media who want to control it has been a line that we could not cross But if we don't discuss it you may get hit really hard because you're not even thinking about it so we lose more So I found out that when we advocate about issues that we need to be aware of those areas that we wish not to compromise on I was informed that we have 15 minutes Speed round of brainstorming So I'm going to go around the room and tell you where the stations are We have back here Thank you That's our cultural exchange group Summarizing the issue on the chair and we've got some markers so we can someone who from that group can be the writer and sort of the one who tracks through the document We have cultural exchange over there Right back here on the door we've got white space that's our wireless microphone policy issue right back here in the door Right over here on the wall we have charitable giving a tax up here on the landing back here we've got arts education upstairs we've got NEA on the other side we've got visa processing and I guess we will go to the doorway because that's what's left for net neutrality and I'll be standing over there being a no-taker person So again we've got cultural exchange Anybody who wants to go talk, debate about cultural exchange back there we've got white space and technology back here we've got charitable giving over here arts education NEA visa and then we'll take net neutrality and if you go upstairs remember don't leave don't leave Isn't there a connection strong connection between the visas and the cultural exchange so we can divide ourselves You can divide yourself okay let's see cultural exchange I guess we can come together if we need to but in cultural exchange in the way that we talk about it as an appropriation for the program and the state parliament not necessarily how artists who are being funded for exchanges receive visas So they are connected but the way that we talk about the two issues is that we don't leave them together So yes, goodbye No, let's leave them separate So we've got at each station we've got markers so if someone from the group wants to be the writer of the thoughts and we have a summary so I'm following you for net neutrality perfect How are you doing? Deborah with Full Spirit Good to see you Yeah, great to see you I'm glad you're here of course making everybody famous actually I sent it out to my entire board and company and was like this is the way to stay connected so My concept is they're mails and they're on and I have to find people so I can get my money out of that. That's African, they have to pay it down. You know, such a narrow thing because you can't compete with other women. So that's why I'm trying to actually turn it off. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Pressing things to shout out from there from cultural change group. We need a minister of culture. Say that again? We need a minister of culture. Yeah. We're the secretary. This way. So back from our white space, wireless microphone group, one pressing thing, one space. Oh, yeah. We need a law line to describe to colleagues why it's so important to advocate for this. One to two sentences. I would like that, because that's a big one. Coming over here is a tax. One thing off of the tax, that there's a possibility for strong cross-sector support and alliances with churches, human services, et cetera. Good answer. This was our educational room to go. Right here. We talked about having specific data that exists to help us as advocates and to put into this as information of why, you know, why specific data about the arts and what they do. Great. Great. What was that? That was NEA. Direct grants for individual artists. Right? Over here, we had Visa. We're going to Visa right here. We've got a whole bunch, but let's go with, there's a lack of transparency from consulates is about what's actually going on here. And no access to that. Yeah, yeah. We had two people. Excuse her. Hey, Charlie. Hey, Charlie. We learned about net neutrality. Over to your session. I think I have 60 seconds. I'm just going to ask for the big. What else? Thank you. Thank you. Spelling some things out, even though there's, yeah. Thank you. There are some extra handouts of each of you. If you want to collect and get that debt overview of every issue, I'm around. Come find me. I'll give you a reason. All those fact sheets are just up on your website. Yeah, they are for the website. Yeah. So you can download them and we keep recent activity of current events up there as well. So thank you guys so much. Yeah, we're good. We're going to send you these sheets. You want me to put just more than one thing? I would like the papers. I guess we could put them up here. Yeah, you put them up there. Make sure to. Nice. Put them on yourself. We're going to put them together. Can you advise me? Yes. Should I do... um, Jude?