 I'm from Sweden, my name is Anu, I run my own centre with two float tanks since 10 years in a small town in the south of Sweden, it's called Vestvik. I'm also a founder and a member of the board of the Swedish Flotation Association. You are? My name is Katarina Jacobsson, I'm also one of the founders of the Swedish Flotation Association and I'm also the director of the Swedish Flotation and I run my own centre in Stockholm where I have two floating tanks. Good, to start with before we start to talk about the business and that stuff I just wanted to tell you something about Sweden. It's a very very small country far away from here up in the north where it's very very cold and dark most of the year and that means that Swedes don't talk very much because we try to save our energy to other things. For example, we divide Sweden into three parts. The northern part where it is most vast, if you say vast forests and it's the coldest and the darkest place, there people talk less than the other part of the country. For example, the guys up in the north love to go out hunting. The best thing they can do is to get this, you know, the elk with the, yeah, I don't know, 12 fingers. I don't know what to say, it is fingers? No. Okay, so a guy gets this big animal and he's proud to death and his closest neighbor come and he lives 10 kilometers from him. That's the closest and he comes by and says, heard you got one. And then the guy who killed this big animal says that's it. He could even also say, yeah, that's an alternative. Yeah. And then if we go down south in Sweden, we come to the middle part. For example, Stockholm is about the middle where Katharina lives and there is a little bit warmer, not so very dark, so they talk a little bit more there. Katharina loves to speak, but Swedish, she doesn't want to speak English. So as I live in the south, you understand, where it's warmer and where people talk more, I have to speak and also in English. So now that was the first presentation of our association. So now I will move. Oh, that took four minutes. I'm gonna, I will have Katharina here as a mental support in case my brain stops working or something like that. And she will feel it. Are you going to say something? No? Okay. Some history. I mean, this flotation stuff hasn't been going for more than 60 years. So it isn't very much of a history from Sweden. We had some tanks in Sweden in people's homes, as you can read here, and you probably already read all what is said here. By the mid 80s, at least three centers started in Sweden. One was a gym, we have heard, and the other one was Pantare floating. They started with two Samadhi tanks. And after a year, they started to produce their own tanks. And one of these tanks was sold to a man whose name is Lars Erik Ynestol. And in Sweden, he's a well-known psychologist. And he's known in Sweden because he started with mental training for athletes. And he also made some studies with athletes. And we believe that with him, the research started in Sweden. Two physicians in Lund, they founded a float business called Acasis. That was in 1985. And they started with two American imported tanks. And from these imported American tanks, they actually produced the first tank in fiberglass. And these tanks were very similar to the Pantare and Samadhi tanks. And we have learned that the last one left this award recently after having served for about 25 years. And then we have a company called Flitarium Noden. They worked in the beginning of the 90s. They imported and sold the Dutch tank. And Stefan Bernet from International Floating Race International worked with them from 1994. But in 2002, he started to produce his own tanks. And these were produced in Westervik, which actually is the town where I live. And as a parentese, I can say that I helped him to find the producer of the tank. And then we have a company called Restingwell. Started about 2005 to produce tanks. The research in Karlstad, where we have our most well-known researchers, they started by the end of the 90s. They also made some shorter studies with athletes, but mostly they made studies about relaxation. And later on, also Dr. Annette Kjellgren got interested in the research where she used the altered states of consciousness for reducing stress and pain. So that was picture one. Today we have three tank and room producers. We have about 125 float centers. And about 50 of these centers are members in our association. The growth of the business was between 2004 and 2008. At that time we had, I think, more than 150 centers. But due to the final Wall Street finance crisis that happened in 2008, made many centers to close. And now we have less, I think, than 125. Hopefully the work we do today in our association will help the business increase again. In January 2007, 2008, we were some people gathering in Stockholm at Dandereys Hospital to found our association. Our final goal from the very beginning, already there in Stockholm, we agreed on one final goal. And that is we have to work for getting flotation into the healthcare system. And I mean, you all know this is not an easy target. It's very tough with all the rules and regulations and stuff, making us, giving us problems to reach our goal. But as we know the potential of the flotation, we think it's well worth our efforts. So we, and also we work non-profits, so you can imagine this isn't done in a week or even in a year. I think it will take some years before we have reached our final goal. But we are working hard on it. So the three main steps to be taken is first, you see the National Board of Health and Welfare. They have a lot of rules and regulations, but they already approved on flotation and authorized it to be a method of treatment. So that first obstacle is already accomplished. The next is the Government Commission for Medical Evaluation. And then you wonder what is that? You, for example, I will try to shortly explain that. If we apply for them, with them, yeah, to, we want them to compare treatment for X, for example, lumbago, which is a back disease, with the normal treatment and compare that with flotation treatment. If they find this question or ask from us, I think it's a great thing to compare. They do their own research. And if they do, they will hopefully find that this will be favorable for the flotation. And when it gets, when we reach so far, then they go out with this information. It will be widely spread among hospitals, all health institutes, institutions, doctors, you name it. And that will mean that we will have a possibility to become supplier to the county councils. And the county councils, I mean, then you get paid from the government. But there is still one crux, and that is the education. And because we don't, we will never reach our goal if we are not educated and we have to be well educated. Otherwise, we won't be there. So to reach our goal, we had to start the first education in the world. And we have, let's see, we have two producers of the course. One is Professor Trevor Archer from Gothenburg University and a subject teacher, Anders Hedén, from the Linné University of Kalmar. And Professor Archer has, as a professor and researcher, more than 25 years of experience of, among others, research about reasons for ill health, rehabilitation and motor and psychological achievements. Subject teacher Anders Hedén, he's holding a diploma as a mental trainer and he has been working for 30 years with mental influence and learning processes. And these two guys have been working for seven years on the effects of influences on our health and behavior. So the level on our education will be very high and it will contain four parts. And as Professor Archer is responsible for the research level, that will be a great use for us in the future. So in the present situation, we are affecting part one and parallel the two instructors are producing step two. And after each part, there will be an examination and the standards will be raised gradually. So I'm short in information about the online course. We made it web-based because that means that you can study at home whenever you have the time and the energy to do it. And these four parts is what it's about. The first part will cover up fundamental knowledge about human influence. And then the second part will be the supplementary training. It's a continuum on part one. And the third part will be about the influence of the brain and body. And also the fourth part will be the certification. So I have got this information as we haven't gone through this education yet. I can't tell you very much more about it than what it is to be about. So the contents in short will be the floatation history and the background for the floatation research. And also you can read here the influence of the floatation on the human body, the brain, the heart, and dolphins. And the effects of floatation and also conducting the floatation center. So after the online course, to get even further to be certified or accredited, we have to go through an accreditation program. So also to be able to reach our goal a little bit quicker, we have to build up an occupational organization. So we have to get a title. I mean other therapists are called something. They can say, I studied this for two years and I got a master certified. I got acupuncture for after five years or whatever. We want to have the same something that tells people and organizations that we actually have an education. We know what we are doing. So only this occupational union will not be enough for us because we think that we want to have more muscles because this occupational organization will be very small as there are not so many floatation therapists in the world. So we intend to apply for a membership in a line organization and I don't know if you understand that. But let's say that the line organization will be above our head and in this line organization will be, for example, we as floatation therapists, there will be mazers, there will be acupunctures or other professional organizations with good education. So belonging to this line organization, that means it will give us more muscles. Mainly we will get more information from the government, for example. So we will be updated on what's going on and we can act earlier than if we didn't know about these things. And of course this will also make a difference considering the government commission for medical evaluation if we belong to this more muscled organization. And also for our clients, they will feel safe, they know we are responsible, we are well educated and we are ensured and that makes them feel good. So what are we doing for our members? Besides the first education and training certification program, we have produced a website. This website is for our members to log in and to find useful information about things we from the board place there. So for example, I can jump down to the interesting seminars. In the board we try to keep our eyes open to find interesting seminars or look for interesting things for us who work with flotation to take part in. When we have been to a seminar or something, we put up a report on that website and then our members can log in, find this information and hopefully they can use it for something where they work. And also the marketing material. Right now, Katharina and I are working with a base document describing the benefits of floating or flotation. And this base document is meant to work together with a letter or something which is targeted to a special group. For example, help me. The social insurance office, that's the national thing in Sweden and the employment service office, we can target a letter for students or different sport associations or associations for fibromyalgia and rheumatism and so on. And also we try to establish cooperation with other national associations like the fibromyalgia association. And here, actually, this is an omit. She can show it. She has something to do as well. This is the result of the conference in Gaffenburg in April. This is the fibromyalgia magazine, the latest one. And on the front picture is a floaty lucid. An insider is a free page, his article about floating and also from Dr. Bore, what he was talked about in Gaffenburg. Dr. Bore showed us earlier. It's presented in this magazine as well. And you will get that later. I took it with me for you. So even if it's in Swedish and you can't read what it says, but your name, you can see your name is written there. So, no, let me see. I jumped here. Insurance. We made a deal with an insurance company because it's not enough to have an insurance in case of fire or something in the building, but we have to have a special insurance in case people would say they are treated in the wrong way or if they should, it happened to die in the tank or something like that. We won't be sued. So the insurance will cover that, and that is all in all our members must have that kind of insurance. So otherwise, if something would happen in a tank, it would, I mean, if someone would die there, he would have died even if he hadn't been in the tank. But you can imagine the magazine, the papers and the lines and headlines, yeah, saying that people have died in a floating tank that wouldn't be very nice. So we would have to close down our business. And also we have national rules about water sanitation for public baths. So we work together with the National Board of Health and Welfare. And that will mean we will end up in a special chapter about how to clean floating tanks. And that will mean that we all have the same rules and regulations. No one will be doubtful about how should I do or what to do or what not to do or things like that. So that will make us feel safe and secure as well. And also our clients will know that if you're a member of the Swedish Flotation Association, you can, you manage your tank center in a good and nice way. Also we have produced a nice brochure, which our members can buy very, very cheap. This is, they pay less than 50 cents, I think, for this. And it's eight pages, nice paper, nice pictures. And if you have studied marketing, you know that there is a staircase called AIDA. And this is Attention Interest. Later it becomes Desire and Action. But this is the first, contains the first creating an interest for wanting to know more about Flotation. And here we, yeah, the float center put their own name there. So it's the same for all members. We can use it everywhere. And it's kind of a basic document. Also we have produced three short films about Flotation. One shows how it works, because many people are so anxious about how to do and everything. So this short film shows how you show it before and the earplugs and stuff like that and what it looks like and so on. So that's, and that is on our websites. And also we produced two more films with Dr. Annette Kjellgren. She's one of the researchers in Karlstad. And she, in one film, she answers questions about the research they have made. And the third film is also describing what she considered to be the possibilities for Flotation in the future. Yes, was this, this? So about the researchers, I mean we, they don't have any money. We don't have any money. But we try to, we have a very good communication with the researchers. We help each other the ways we can. We have talked about finance, some articles that they have produced, but that hasn't been published. So we can help them by that. And also Annette Kjellgren has been asked to write a letter to the hospital in Dandereed. Close to that hospital, Katharina has her float center. And we think it would be nice if we could have a study made from patients coming from the inside together with the researchers. Not only volunteers from the outside, which has been made earlier. So yeah, that's what we hope to be able to accomplish. We will see what happens with that. And yeah, where is it? The picture number 11. Should be one more picture here. Has it disappeared? Oh, that was the best part of all. Where is that picture? The latest version I sent to you the other day. Oh, so that would be, had been such a wonderful surprise for the guys. Because there was a picture with Ashkan and me, and one with Katharina and Graham. From Gothenburg. Good pictures. So I'm so, so sorry that it was like this. Yeah, we said thank you very, very much for inviting us. Oh yeah, great to have you. Great week. And we love Portland. And I told my friends that next life I will probably live here. Perfect. Thank you so much. Yeah, Swedish Floating Association.