Podcasts about aid society

Dr. Cindi Saj: Top Therapist using EMDR, CBT, Hypnotherapy and Yoga for Trauma RecoveryHow to reduce Anxiety, Depression & cope with ADHDCindi is deeply committed to empowering individuals on their path to wellness. Dr. Cindi Saj is an educator in the Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology program at Yorkville University and a sessional instructor at Thompson Rivers University. She also serves as the Clinical Director of an Indigenous agency, runs a private counseling practice, and teaches yoga and spin at her fitness studio in Williams Lake, BC.Her academic qualifications include a Doctoral degree in Social Work and various degrees in social work and psychology. Dr. Cindi has experience working as a social worker and counselor in the Canadian Criminal Justice System, Children's Aid Society, and Ministry of Children and Family Development.Her doctoral research focused on stress, burnout, and coping strategies in the helping profession. She has published two books on cognitive behavioral therapy and positive psychology: "Finding your Purpose" and "Finding your Wellness."Currently, her research explores self-awareness, mindfulness, and somatic learning in counseling. She also has a passion to help prepare students and counsellor educators to enrich the counselling field of practiceDr. Cindi Saj reveals the shocking truth about popular therapy methods like EMDR and hypnosis!In this transformative episode Dr. Cindi will discuss:✨ The profound power of healing within us all.✨ The holistic approach to self-care and mental wellness.✨ Debunking myths about therapy and understanding the truth behind EMDR and hypnosis.✨ How purpose is not a destination, but a beautiful, ever-evolving journey.✨ Practical tips to reduce anxiety and enhance self-care in your daily life.

Join Grant Hardy on The Pulse this week for an important conversation about human trafficking, with Alicia Boothe and Natasha Hercules from Peel Children's Aid Society. Learn about what human trafficking is, how to spot it, and how to assist suspected victims. Plus, Natasha and Alicia provide advice for parents and caregivers to keep their kids safe on the internet. If you, or someone you know, is a victim of human trafficking and requires support, please call the Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-833-900-1010 Check out the Pulse on YouTube!About AMIAMI is a media company that entertains, informs and empowers Canadians with disabilities through three broadcast services — AMI-tv and AMI-audio in English and AMI-télé in French — and streaming platform AMI+. Our vision is to establish AMI as a leader in the offering of accessible content, providing a voice for Canadians with disabilities through authentic storytelling, representation and positive portrayal. To learn more visit AMI.ca and AMItele.ca.Find more great AMI Original Content on AMI+Learn more at AMI.caConnect with Accessible Media Inc. online:X /Twitter @AccessibleMediaInstagram @AccessibleMediaInc / @AMI-audioFacebook at @AccessibleMediaIncTikTok @AccessibleMediaIncEmail feedback@ami.ca

In the concluding chapter of our Auschwitz story, Al Murray and James Holland speak to the UK's most famous barrister - Robert Rinder. Robert lost many members of his family to the Holocaust, and has spent his life working with charities and schools in commemoration and remembrance. To find out more about 45 Aid Society, head to 45aid.org A Goalhanger Production Produced by James Regan Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Social: @WeHaveWaysPod Email: wehavewayspodcast@gmail.com Join our ‘Independent Company' to watch our livestreams, get earlybird tickets and our weekly newsletter - packed with deals. Membership Club: patreon.com/wehaveways Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Moana 2 set a Thanksgiving movie record… Here's Moana's 4-part strategy to melt Frozen.Aldi is the fastest-growing grocery store in America… because of an Ikea philosophy.Music ringtones for phones are making a comeback… and Soulja Boy made $20M on it.

Leanne Baarda is an Independent Living Skills Specialist and joins us monthly on the show. Let's talk about the digital divide being experienced by seniors with vision loss, and the inequities it's creating. Cal Jungwirth is here with trends from Robert Half Canada's 2025 Salary Guide. And November is Intimate Partner Violence Awareness Month. Charlene Randall, Service Director at Peel Children's Aid Society, joins us to share the work that they do to keep families together.

Family and Children Services, an organization focused on supportive community action around children and families, is selling its building in Battle Creek at 778 W. Columbia Avenue.But, CEO Diane Marquess tells Community Matters, the sale will not lessen its commitment to its mission in Battle Creek. Instead, she says, it's more of a post-COVID change in work posture.With origins all the way back to 1903, the organization's Battle Creek roots include the Michigan Children's Aid Society, established in 1917.Episode ResourcesFamily and Children ServicesABOUT COMMUNITY MATTERSFormer WBCK Morning Show host Richard Piet (2014-2017) returns to host Community Matters, an interview program focused on community leaders and newsmakers in and around Battle Creek. Community Matters is heard Saturdays, 8:00 AM Eastern on WBCK-FM (95.3) and anytime at battlecreekpodcast.com.Community Matters is sponsored by Lakeview Ford Lincoln and produced by Livemic Communications.

Handy-Dart, British Columbia's equivalent of Wheel-Trans, is suspended indefinitely due to job action. Grant Hardy has the details on trending headlines. Greg David evaluates the 2024 Paralympics coverage on CBC and NBC, awarding top honors for accessible broadcasting, athlete storytelling, and game coverage. A disability campaigner and wheelchair user is sharing her frustration after she was blocked from an accessible viewing platform at the Paralympics. She's hoping her viral social media post will be a catalyst for change. Laura Bain brings us the story on The Buzz. September 10th marks World Suicide Prevention Day, and Mary Beth Moellenkamp, CEO of Peel Children's Aid Society, joins us to discuss the work they're doing to enhance mental health supports for children and youth. Financial Planner Ryan Chin continues with our investing series. This month, we look at the key factors advisors consider when building your investment strategy. Plus, We chat about Disability Tour Bus, a radio play by Realwheels Theatre, that uses humor and storytelling to shed light on the state of accessibility in Vancouver, with playwright Amy Amantea.

September 10th marks World Suicide Prevention Day, and Mary Beth Moellenkamp, CEO of Peel Children's Aid Society, joins us to discuss the work they're doing to enhance mental health supports for children and youth.

On July 8, workers at the Children's Aid Society of Ottawa (CASO) walked off the job after contract negotiations broke down with their employer over issues of funding and a strained workforce for essential child care services. On Tuesday OPSEU/SEFPO, the union representing CASO, took to X (formally Twitter) to announce a tentative agreement had been reached with their employer.  "Children's Aid Society of Ottawa workers, members of OPSEU/SEFPO Local 454, reached a tentative agreement last night after braving 24 days on strike. Further details to follow once the ratification vote concludes this afternoon – solidarity!" On Wednesday, it was announced the deal had been ratified. However, as Michele Thorn, president of OPSEU/SEFPO Local 454 and adoption worker at CASO, says: the fight is far from over. Michele Thorn has worked at the Children's Aid Society of Ottawa since 1995 and was a child protection worker for 20 years. She is currently working as an adoption worker. She has been the president of OPSEU/SEFPO Local 454 since 2017 and has now been on the bargaining team six times since 2009. If you like the show please consider subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube or wherever you find your podcasts. And please, rate, review, share rabble radio with your friends — it takes two seconds to support independent media like rabble. Follow us on social media across channels @rabbleca.

Alana Jenkin and her husband were recently denied a request to foster children.The reason? They say the Children's Aid Society of Ottawa blamed the couple's fertility treatments.Ontario Today speaks to Alana and Alan Leschied.Alan is a psychologist, professor emeritus in the faculty of education at Western University and conducted Canada's largest study on foster care.

Mark 2:1-12Sunday,  June 30, 2023REV. DR. Hope Luckie of Preachers' Aid Society

Professor Dr. Tajuddin Rasdi - Why Are Young Malaysians Becoming More Conservative?  Prof Tajuddin is a Professor of Islamic architecture who also writes prolifically on social issues in Malaysia, much of it centring on politics, faith and education.  He would love to see a more united and cohesive nation, a nation where multiculturalism, tolerance and independent thought prevail.  These are his thoughts and principles.  (Many thanks to the Asia School of Business for their collaboration with The Do More Podcast, in whose studio this conversation was recorded. The Asia School of Business is a partnership between MIT's Sloan School of Management and Bank Negara Malaysia). CONTENTS  00:01:56 - Who is Prof Tajuddin? (How Does a Professor of Islamic Architecture Become a Social Commentator?)  00:06:07 - Which Direction is Malaysia Going? Forwards, Backwards or .. Standstill?  00:09:24 - Malaysia Seems to Be Stuck in a Time Warp  00:11:00 - Some (Most) Folks Don't Really Understand Their Own Faith  00:12:44 - Islam Is an Open, Tolerant and Personal Religion, Not a Political Religion  00:17:03 - Why Are Young Malaysians Becoming More Conservative?  00:21:33 - The Green Wave: I Never Agreed With Undi 18   00:25:59 - Will Malaysian Society Become More Divided?  00:29:11 - Prof Tajuddin's Advice to his Kids  00:34:44 - Speaking Out to Aid Society is a Social and Religious Obligation  00:38:00 - Principles to Navigate the World  00:41:46 - What Are Malaysia's Students Talking About? What Are Their Hopes and Fears?  00:45:41 - Advice to People If Malaysia Becomes More Conservative  00:49:45 - “I Admire Tun Mahathir But I wouldn't Vote for Him” Why?  00:51:46 - Education Reform: How?  00:57:42 - If You Leave Malaysia, Where Would You Go?   01:01:32 - How Would You Like to Be Remembered?   

On this MADM, we're hearing about the work of Children's Aid Society and upcoming pre-adoption trainings which begin next month. Listen and share. Sponsor: Park Supply Company, Inc. ParkSupplyCompany.com

On this edition of TMWS, Stacy Justice, Helen Glass, and Brittany Popham are sharing about their work with Children's Aid Society of Alabama and upcoming pre-adoption training taking place across the state of Alabama beginning next month. I hope you will listen and share.

Leah Wiggins is committed to helping people overcome obstacles and win in life. She is owner of Leah Wiggins Agency of Farmers Insurance, an award-winning scratch business she started in 2009. She is a Registered Representative holding both Series 6 & 63 licenses. She and her agency team have assisted thousands of individuals, families, and business owners protect their assets and build wealth. Leah is the author of two children's books under her company, eVision, LLC. The company has published more than a dozen authors' work as well. Leah is a member of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA) and has the Life Underwriter Training Council Fellow (LUTCF®) and the Financial Services Certified Professional (FSCP®) professional designations from The American College of Financial Services. She is a graduate of UAB's Collat School of Business and The University of Farmers® for insurance professionals. Leah was recognized as a NAIFA Alabama Top Advisor for 2022. She is a back-to-back winner of the Best Insurance Agent award given by readers of Birmingham Magazine. Leah has qualified for both the Farmers Insurance® Championship and its Topper Club two times each. In 2018, she was the only woman and only black owner to represent the state of Alabama. Her community service is centered around her passions for philanthropy, mentorship, and total life prosperity. She is a Life Member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.® (AKA) and the South Eastern Region Representative to the International Connection & Social Action Committee of AKA. She is the 36th President of AKA Omicron Omega Chapter where she led chapter operations, programming, and served on the executive leadership for the construction of its CEAF Pearl Center, a million- dollar community center during the global pandemic. Leah co-founded the CEAF Financial Empowerment Conference, which has impacted hundreds of Birmingham area citizens since 2013. The annual conference provides youth and adults with resources and education on how to build wealth, buy a home, and start a business. Leah is God's Heritage Fellowship Ministry Director at Calvary Resurrection Christian Church; President of Grace Browning Unit Parliamentarians; Board President for the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America - Central Alabama Chapter, and Board Director for the Birmingham Urban League, Huffman High School Alumni Legacy Board, and Children's Aid Society. She is an appointed Commissioner to the Alabama Sickle Cell Oversight and Regulatory Commission. Her awards include The Links, Incorporated, Tri-County (AL) Chapter, Model Citizen Honoree for National Trends & Services; AKA South Eastern Region Entrepreneur of the Year; and Omicron Omega Chapter Humanitarian of the Year, and Member of the Year. Leah attributes her success and ability to lead and serve others to God, her supportive family, and empowering mentors. Her proudest assignments are wife, mother, and grandmother.

Host Rachel Gilbert spoke with LFP reporter Norman De Bono, who detailed growing concerns at London's Children's Aid Society over a lack of foster parents -- meaning many local youngsters are being sent far away.

We speak with two members of the anti-human trafficking committee at Peel Children's Aid Society about this grave human rights violation and what can be done about it.

What is the difference between compounded drugs and regular ones? What do lay people need to know about them? Danielle Jongkind has more on Ask a Vet (7:51). What is reflexology and how can we benefit from it? We discuss more with Frances Wong on our Wellness chat (21:50). Native Earth brings us Omaagomaan by Waawaate Fobister, a dance piece that teaches us about the Grassy Narrows tragedy and the people defending and protecting the community today (36:35). There's an arts and crafts show coming up in Pictou County, Nova Scotia that has quilts and other homemade items created by an art support group for the visually impaired. Community Reporter, Julie Martin tells us more (51:40). On our Woodworking segment with Jeff Thompson, we talk about finding structural studs for pictures, curtains and more (1:03:54). We speak with two members of the anti-human trafficking committee at Peel Children's Aid Society about this grave human rights violation and what can be done about it (1:18:37).

Hope Kelaher originally pursued environmental engineering at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore but quickly realized that she preferred helping people. She worked in the college's career center as a career coach and had the opportunity to go to Cuba to study their public health system. After attending Johns Hopkins, Hope completed some internships with the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva on postpartum depression. This was her initial entry into the world of psychology as she “did a lot of work in Inner City Baltimore at the Hopkins School Public Health doing family and child health research.” She then had the opportunity to go into the Peace Corp, where they commissioned her to Uganda doing AIDS Hospice work. However, when getting her physical, her doctor looked at her and said “why are you going to Uganda? You could do so much good here in Baltimore, why don't you stick around?” Her doctor told her that hospice work is really hard and “I don't really think this is the best thing for you.” Hope's uncle also said the same thing. So, she decided to stay in Baltimore and worked at The Annie E. Casey Foundation, which was started by one of the founders of UPS, Jim Casey, and exists to help children thrive and survive in underdeveloped and low-income communities by providing services and grants to those in need. She also worked with the NECC Foundation and the Children's Aid Society. In this podcast, Hope shares her academic and professional journey, discusses why she went into social work and some of the requirements to become a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) in the state of New York. She also discusses her private practice, Hope Kelaher Therapy, located in Lower Manhattan, NYC. Hope received her bachelor's degree in public health and sociology from Johns Hopkins University and her Master of Arts in Social Work from Columbia University. She conducted her post-graduate study in Marriage and Family Therapy/Counseling at the Ackerman Institute for Family in NY. Those interested in a career in social work or psychology may find that schooling can be expensive. In addition to internships, scholarships, grants, and other funding opportunities to help offset the cost of schooling, Hope shares how she attained funding from the Children's Aid Society to help fund half of her tuition while attending Columbia University. Hope shares “so, Columbia and my agency had this agreement where I could, you know, go to school part-time and then work full-time, so that's what I did.” She continues by stating “any recommendation I can give to people going into social work, social work does not pay a lot of money, so wherever you can find a deal, take it, right?” After graduating from Columbia, she decided to pursue family therapy, so she attended Ackerman Institute for Family. When reflecting on her journey, Hope shares “so really, my journey into private practice and being more of a clinical person happened while I was working in a nonprofit agency.” After she completed the Ackerman Institute for Family's clinical externship, she remembers doing a lot of hard work, working really long hours, and not getting compensated fairly “and so, that's something that people have to really think about when they do this work.” Therefore, Hope started her own very small private practice in 2018 while she was still working full-time. She explains that, in New York, a licensed clinical social worker can do therapy whereas in some other states, you have to have a PsyD or PhD. At this point, we discuss some of the requirements for becoming a LCSW in New York and share some valuable information and websites for those interested in this career path. Hope discusses some of the biggest challenges associated with opening your own private practice and provides helpful advice including making sure you “get a lot of experience working with many different people before you go into private practice because you never know who will show up.

The Annual General Meeting of the Assyrian Aid Society took place on November 26, 2023. President, Peter Esho; Secretary, Richard Yalda; and Treasurer, Ninos Shemoon, presented their reports during the meeting. The new committee was introduced, and recognition was given to several new committee members.

Beth Truett, MDiv, BS, believes in serving. It comes naturally to her and has guided her career path over the years. Her earliest memories are of lunches with the Ladies' Aid Society. After a lengthy corporate career where she was committed to mentoring women, she worked at Chicago Lights, then Oral Health America. Both organizations needed to reignite or start a program for older adults, and she concentrated her efforts there. Oral health is crucial to total health, influencing both diabetes and heart health. But, it is difficult for most older persons because it isn't covered by traditional Medicare.When she retired from Oral Health America in 2019, Beth wasted no time in moving towards her interest in gerontology, receiving her gerontology degree at Concordia University. Today she serves as a consultant and project leader with the Center for Gerontology at Concordia. Beth is determined to help eliminate the implicit bias of ageism. Through the Center for Gerontology at Concordia, she is leading an initiative with  the National Center to Reframing Aging, (led by The Gerontological Society of America.) “Connecting men and women to opportunities in retirement is critical to mitigating social isolation and loneliness. - Beth TruettConnect with Beth Truett:Email: bethtruett@gmail.comVoice or Text: 708.271.2834 

On this episode Shawn interviews Justin Shaifer aka as Mr. Fascinate. Justin is the Executive Director of Fascinate Inc. an organization created to excite underrepresented students about STEM he develops culturally responsive STEM curriculum for institutions in New York City. He is known for his work on the Magic Cool Bus Project. Past partners of his organization include Microsoft, MIT Media Lab, and the Children's Aid Society. He is studying these programs effect as a PhD student at Columbia University.They will discuss the following:Discovering your passion Getting kids excited about STEMHood Science & the Magic Cool Bus ProjectTo learn more about Justin Shaifer please visit www.justinshaifer.com or follow him on all platforms @mr.fascinateSONW Resources:Signup for PodProMax: https://podpromax.com/Signup for my new pocdasting course:https://schoolsovernowwhat.thinkific.com/courses/podcast-secrets-revealed-the-course Download my ebook "Podcast Secrets Revealed":https://shawnanthony.lpages.co/podcast-secrets-revealed-ebook/ Support SONW with Patreon and get exclusive content:https://www.patreon.com/schoolsovernowwhatJoin the SONW Academy for 1-1 Coaching from Shawn:https://www.schoolsovernowwhat.com/academyAbout School's Over...Now What?Join Shawn Anthony as he talks to fearless business leaders who've shattered conventional wisdom to achieve massive success. In each weekly episode, our guests share jaw-dropping stories of overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Most importantly, they've answered the question we've all asked “School's Over…Now What?” Get inspired and access cutting-edge strategies that'll transform your business and life. New episodes every Friday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and all major podcast platforms. Contact InfoInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/shawnranthony_/ Website: https://www.schoolsovernowwhat.com/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIwYX2OncZFiq6Vv8EYKceA/Twitter: https://twitter.com/shawnranthony_ Press/Interview Requests: fenton@schoolsovernowwhat.com

EMMY Award winning News Anchor Sherri Jackson brings audiences the news that matters weeknights at 4,5,6, and 10 PM on CBS 42 in Birmingham. Sherri is the PM Managing Editor and a member of CBS 42's Your Voice Your Station Investigative Team. Sherri is a trusted journalist whose goal is to always provide accurate reporting on the conditions, people and places that we call home in Central Alabama. Sherri's motto, is “we are all connected”. Sherri's exemplary work as a journalist includes the CBS 42 teams award winning coverage of the pollution in North Birmingham and its effect on generations of families. The EPA declared the area a SuperFund Site shortly after the broadcast of CBS 42's “Deadly Deception”. Sherri followed artist Elizabeth MacQueen to chronicle the making of the Four Spirits Statue in Birmingham's historic Kelly Ingram Park. It led to the EMMY Award winning documentary “Hope and Honor” which tells the story of Birmingham's effort to erect a fitting memorial to the victims of the 1963 Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing. In telling the story of that seminal year in U.S. Civil Rights History, Sherri travelled to Washington, D.C. for coverage of the posthumously awarded Congressional Gold Medal to Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Denise McNair. As Sherri and Photographer Toby Carter boarded the plane to return to Birmingham that evening they were applauded by passengers on the plane who were also headed back to Birmingham. They said they were proud a local television station cared enough to travel to D.C. to tell this very important story. The medal is housed at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, where Sherri has moderated, hosted , or covered events that focus on our humanity. In 2022 BCRI named Sherri as a Courageous Communicator during the Institute's 30year anniversary at Fred L. Shuttlesworth Humanitarian Awards dinner. Sherri's journalism often focuses on health and families including the “Local War on Breast Cancer” spotlighting local research at UAB's O'Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center. The series included a podcast. Her Emmy award winning “Dangerous Connections” focused on protecting children on digital devices whether from bullying or predators. Sherri is the recipient of numerous professional journalism awards: https://www.sherrijackson.tv She's been named “Best News Anchor” several times by the Alabama Broadcasters Association. In 2019 Sherri was selected for the inaugural class of Top Women in Alabama Media. In 2022, colleagues re-elected Sherri to serve as the Region 9 Director representing Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas on the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA)Board of Directors. She currently serves on the board of the Foundry Ministries and has previously served on the boards of the Children's Aid Society, Childcare Resources, UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center and American Red Cross Blood Services Alabama. Prior to making her home in Birmingham in 1998, she worked for WGXA-TV in Macon, GA, WSAV-TV in Savannah GA, and WSAZ-TV in Charleston and Huntington West Virginia. Sherri is native of St. Louis, MO and graduate of Morehead State University in Morehead, KY. She is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists, Radio Television Digital News Association, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc.

Amanda Clayman and Ashely Wood join us to talk about the dos and don'ts premarital agreements. We discuss what a premarital agreement can and cannot address, dealing with disclosures, and important timing issues for attorneys. Amanda Clayman is a Senior Partner at Katz & Stefani, LLC, in Chicago, and is admitted to practice in Illinois, Arizona, and Massachusetts. Ashley D. Wood is a Partner at Katz & Stefani, LLC, in Chicago, and is a member of the Illinois State and Chicago Bar Associations and a board member of the Children's Home and Aid Society of Illinois Emerging Leaders Board. They are the co-authors of Ch. 2, Premarital Agreements, in IICLE's Family Law: Property and Financial Aspects of Dissolution Actions 2023 edition. The chapter includes a premarital agreement checklist and sample premarital agreement.Listeners can use the discount code INREPUBS-FLPFADA20 to get 20% off IICLE's Family Law: Property and Financial Aspects of Dissolution Actions through September 30, 2023. Music: Fearless First Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.

BY THE TIME Walt Disney Productions released “The Rescuers” in 1977, the idea of a “Rescue Aid Society” dedicated to the eradication of kidnapping felt quaint, old-fashioned, and fun. But not many years earlier, when memories of the Progressive Era were fresher, it would not have scanned that way. In fact, “The Rescuers” was first pitched in 1962, at which time Walt Disney himself killed it. And that was probably a good call: members of the real Aid Societies were still alive and had matured into one of the fiercest and most serious cohorts of old ladies the world had ever known. A cartoon that seemed to poke fun at the great accomplishments of their younger lives, even gentle and good-natured fun, would have brought them out of retirement ready for battle. And Walt knew what they were capable of — he had been there in those Aid Society ladies' heyday. And he'd been working in show business — one of the industries they regularly locked horns with. No, “The Rescuers” would not come out in 1962. It would have to wait until every society lady who in her youth had made it her life's work to stamp out “white slavery” was gone, along with Disney himself, before it could be safely made. For that was what the Aid Societies were about. They weren't dedicated to finding and rescuing little orphan kids who had been kidnapped by evil flame-haired swamp witches to steal diamonds. They were anti-human-trafficking organizations. And one of their most prominent and effective members was a Portland woman named Lola Greene Baldwin, known to history as the first paid female police officer west of the Rockies. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/23-06.lola-baldwin-municipal-mother-622.html)

Alison Myrden began her career as a Corrections Officer in 1988 after working with the Children's Aid Society. In addition to her website, you can find Alison at the following social media:  Twitter  -- LinkedIn -- Facebook -- During her career, Alison worked at troubled youth facilities around Southern Ontario and eventually solidified her niche with Young Offender cases in early 1989 at Community Resource Services. During her career, Alison was responsible for various duties including attending court, facility shifts and as court liaison for Cassatta Youth Custodial Facilities. One of her most challenging assignments included working with Psychiatric Young Offenders at a Secure Custody Facility. While working in the Youth Court Justice system, Alison noticed many Young Offenders were in trouble with the law for simple experimentation with illicit drugs. This seemed very wrong to her. Alison felt it would be better to educate these young people about drugs instead of punishing them. It seemed to her that our youth were being criminalized for no good reason. Around the same time, Alison was diagnosed with chronic progressive Multiple Sclerosis. She began experiencing Tic Doloureux (bilateral trigeminal neuralgia), an excruciating facial pain associated with MS. Soon after retiring in 1992, she was introduced to medicinal cannabis. She found immediate relief with cannabis without the harmful side effects of the other, more addictive medications. It was then that Alison became an activist for drug law reform. In 1995, Alison was prescribed cannabis for pain relief after her legal, doctor-supervised cocaine and heroin therapy, along with other prescription medications that proved to be insufficient. In 2000, Alison received a s.56 exemption from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to possess and grow cannabis for medical purposes, but was frustrated at not having her own high-quality, cost-effective supply. In 2004, Alison began working with Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), which was renamed Law Enforcement Action Partnership, where she was the first female speaker in Canada to represent LEAP U.S. until 2016, when she branched out on her own. For over 35 years, in over 1,000 interviews, Alison described the "War on Drugs" as a "War on People", calling for its end.  While cannabis was legalized in Canada in 2018, Alison believes the government has not supported those people who need high quality doses of cannabis products at reasonable prices for medical purposes. In 2017, Alison became the first Authorized Pain Patient in the World for Medical Psilocybin for pain relief.  She applied to Health Canada in 2019 for an exemption from the CDSA to grow her own mushrooms with a daily dose of 50 g. Last month, Health Canada denied her request. Alison is now considering her next Thanks to Jeremy Benning, co-producer and sound editor.For more insightful conversations related to cannabis law, listen to our other episodes at https://cannabislaw.ca/pages/russell-bennett-podcast If you're looking for a good text book on Canada's federal cannabis law and regulations with helpful related case law, read Canada's Cannabis Act.And if you need a cannabis lawyer, ask Russell for more information at https://cannabislaw.ca

Joshua Spodek PhD MBA hosts the award-winning This Sustainable Life podcast, is a four-time TEDx speaker, bestselling author of Initiative and Leadership Step by Step, professor at NYU, published in the New Yorker, and leadership coach.   He holds a PhD in astrophysics and an MBA from Columbia, where he studied under a Nobel Laureate and helped launch a satellite (having emerged from some of Philadelphia's most dangerous neighborhoods). He left academia to found a venture to market an invention that showed animated images to subway riders between stations.   He teaches and coaches leadership and entrepreneurship at NYU and Columbia Business School. He has spoken at Harvard, Princeton, West Point, Google, IBM, The New York Academy of Science, Children's Aid Society, and other renowned institutions.   He has been published in The New Yorker, TIME, Inc., Quartz, and Psychology Today. Featured in pieces every major network, the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, and more, he has been called “best and brightest” in Esquire's Genius issue, “astrophysicist turned new media whiz” by NBC, and “rocket scientist” by Forbes.   He visited North Korea twice, swam across the Hudson River twice, has done burpees daily since 2011 (195,000 and counting), takes 3 years to produce one load of garbage, hasn't flown (by choice) since March 2016, is in his second year with his refrigerator unplugged and sixth month with his apartment unplugged from the electric grid, and his carbon footprint is about 1 ton per year. He blogs daily at joshuaspodek.com.   His social media tools: twitter and facebook.   The songs picked by all our guests can be found via  our playlist #walktalklisten here.    Please let me/us know via our email innovationhub@cwsglobal.org what you think about this new series. We would love to hear from you.   Please like/follow our Walk Talk Listen podcast and follow mauricebloem on twitter and instagram.  Or check us out on our website 100mile.org.  We also encourage you to check out the special WTL series Enough for All about an organization called CWS.  The 11th 100 mile walk campaign will continue until the summer, find more info via de 100mile.org website. Or go straight to our fundraising page.  

Shushan Tower and Richard Yald: Assyrian Aid Society Members will Attend the United Nations Indigenous Peoples Conference in New York

Many affected families in northern Iraq by the Turkiye earthquake have received much-needed funds from Assyrian organisations.

In today's episode, Ally Cedeno speaks with Kami Bucholz who is a 2008 graduate of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy and is an Unlimited Master Mariner. She has worked in research, chemical, petroleum, Ro/Ro, towing, and aerospace vessels in her career.  She sits on the board of managers for the Boston Port and Seaman's Aid Society and has taught on academy training cruises twice.   She currently works in Aerospace and shares about her journey through IVY with Ally.Have a Listen & SubscribeThe Women Offshore Podcast can also be found on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and most podcast apps. Make sure to subscribe to whatever app you use so that you don't miss out on future episodes.What did you think of the show?Let us know your thoughts by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also reach out by sending us an email at hello@womenoffshore.org.

The Assyrian Aid Society Australian Chapter was quick to contact AAS - Iraq is on standby to assist people living in Northern Iraq affected by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake.

Do you wonder what it takes to build a strong community for your brand? In this episode, find out how the Trek Across Maine builds their brand community and how you can get involved. The Trek Across Maine benefits the American Lung Association, bringing people together from across the country and the world to support healthy lungs and clean air. The mission brings everyone together, but the experience keeps the community close. Listen to find out how Gale Auclair became part of the Trek Across Maine community and how her work is helping to grow that community even further.   4:08 – Gale describes how she was introduced to the Trek Across Maine through volunteering.    6:20 – Gale shares that her passion for her job is what keeps her in Maine.   10:09 – Gale provides all the information you need to know about the Trek Across Maine including the dates and what the route will look like this year.   14:53 – Gale explains how to sign up for the Trek Across Maine.   21:34 – Gale talks about how much the Trek Across Maine raises and where that money goes.   22:45 – Gale lists some of the different reasons why people ride.   24:52 – Gale gives some information about the virtual Trek.    Quote   "The Trek is this tool that helps people meet other people. They solve a personal challenge. They might make a decision on what type of journey they are going to go on. They make friends for life. It's a healing tool. I really believe that." – Gale Auclair, senior development director for the Trek Across Maine    Links:   VIP Tires & Service: https://www.vipauto.com/   L.L. Bean: https://www.llbean.com/   Puritan Medical Products: https://www.puritanmedproducts.com/   Courtyard by Marriott Portland Downtown/Waterfront: https://www.marriott.com/en-us/hotels/pwmcd-courtyard-portland-downtown-waterfront/overview/?scid=f2ae0541-1279-4f24-b197-a979c79310b0   Garmin: https://www.garmin.com/en-US/   Hammond Lumber: https://www.hammondlumber.com/   Martin's Point Physical Therapy: https://martinspoint.org/become-a-patient/learn-about-our-services/physical-therapy   Central Maine Healthcare: https://www.cmhc.org/   Bank of America: https://www.bankofamerica.com/   Mid Coast - Parkview Health: https://www.midcoastparkviewhealth.com/   Kennebec Savings Bank: https://www.kennebecsavings.bank/   Bangor Savings Bank: https://www.bangor.com/   Spectrum Medical Group: https://spectrumhcp.com/   Cross Insurance: https://www.crossagency.com/   Bilodeau Insurance: https://bilodeauinsurance.com/   Maine State Credit Union: https://www.mainestatecu.org/   Blueberry Broadcasting: https://www.wtosfm.com/   WGME: https://wgme.com/   Down East Magazine: https://downeast.com/   Fielder's Choice Ice Cream: https://www.fielderschoiceicecream.com/   Vibe Media Production Co.: https://www.vibemediaproductionco.com/   Gorham Bike & Ski: https://www.gorhambike.com/   CycleMania: https://www.cyclemania1.com/   Ski Rack Sports: https://skiracksports.com/   SideCountry Sports: https://www.sidecountrysports.com/   The Rusty Crank: https://www.rustycrank.com/   L.L. Bean Bike, Boat & Ski: https://www.llbean.com/llb/shop/1000001707?page=store-bike-boat-ski   Rainbow Bicycle: https://rainbowbike.com/   Ernie's Cycle Shop: https://www.erniescycleshop.com/     About the guest:      Gale Auclair was born and raised in New Jersey as one of five children. Her parents would bring the family to Newport, Vermont, every summer to visit their grandparents and rent a house on Lake Memphremagog. Gale was adamant that she was going to one day live in Vermont! After graduating from Trinity College in Burlington, Vermont, with a Bachelor of Science, Gale started a family in St. Johnsbury and began her career in management. She then moved to Winooski, to work with the Vermont Children's Aid Society as a development assistant. After 33 years of calling Vermont her home, Gale moved to Augusta, Maine. Her love of development brought her to work at the Sisters of Mercy in Portland and after four years, to the American Lung Association in Augusta as a development manager. After 15 years, Gale is now the senior development manager for the Trek Across Maine where she manages a six-member development team and a million-plus dollar event.  Gale lives in Augusta, Maine, with her husband, David Auclair, and their dachshund, Molly. Gale is a long-time antiquer and enjoys decorating. Her house is ever-changing with treasurers. As David says, “Don't stand still too long – she may sell you!” They share a blended family of three sons and two grandchildren. Gale's old federal-style home which speaks to her and the fact that everyone is family in Maine never has her yearning to be anywhere else but home.  Looking to connect:             Email: gale.auclair@lung.org   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gale-auclair-67495712/   Website: http://trekacrossmaine.org/  

I open & review the latest Journal if the Traveller's Aid Society boxed set and update y'all in the latest Traveller escapade by the heroes & crew of the ISS HighNDry (name to be changed later). Music by TJ Drennon. Cover Clip Art usually by Amy Lee Rodriguez. Today's cover art by Sergio Villa-Isaza. You can send me a message via the Anchor website, through DM on Discord, as an attachment to my email (gmologist@gmail.com) or to my speakpipe account: https://www.speakpipe.com/TheGmologistPresents.

For many decades, The Assyrian Aid Society has been working to help needy Assyrians in Northern Iraq and especially Assyrian schools to meet their needs and implementing very vital projects.

Why Seagrams Special? Listen to a remarkable story about Lynn Teatro where she will tell you about not one, but two times she went to high school. During her second stint, she was given the name.   While Lynn was raised to be a farmer's wife she always wanted more. After her marriage breakup, she chose to try school again as you will discover.   In college, Lynn studied Psychology. She completed a three-year program in 23 months even though her professors said not only that it couldn't be done and that it was against the rules to get her degree in such a short time. Unstoppable or what?   Among other endeavors, today Lynn is a member of an organization that serves persons with disabilities. Her attitude is very refreshing and quite positive not only about those she serves but about life in general.   Today Lynn is developing a program to help encourage dropout students. As you will see, she is teaching others to be unstoppable.     About the Guest:   Lynn Teatro was raised to be a farmer's wife and a mother. Rural Ontario, north of Hwy #7 expectation. She was married 2 weeks out of high school. Lynn wasn't able to graduate because she failed physics and was getting married, so it really didn't matter. Or so she believed back then. 12 years later she was a single parent of two kids, back in class with the teens and completing her Grade 13 (Yes, she's that old). This time I got to hang out with the cool kids. My nickname was the Seagrams Special. She applied to Trent University as a high school graduate and completed her 3- year undergrad in Psychology in 2 years. Lynn's academic advisor told her that she couldn't do that. It was against regulations or something. Too late, Professor Earnest, she had already finished the work for her last credit. Lynn had a varied career as a front-line social service worker. She worked in shelters for abused women and their children, with seniors, with sex offenders in prison, helping the homeless…She had a two-year stint pissing off landlords and pulling miracles out of her ass. Her daughter, Megan's words, not the actual job description. But it's close.   Now as a quasi-retiree, she has made it her mission to help dropouts and other struggling students find their zone of genius. She helps them boost their confidence with workshops, 1:1 counselling, and group coaching. She is also building a professional roster of like-minded people to help her help struggling students fly the nest and on to success.  It's a mighty task and Lynn has learned to ask for help the hard way.  She is proud of her rural roots. Lynn knows for sure that you can take a girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl. And she also knows that sometimes our personal trail takes us where we weren't expected to go. She challenges all of us to enter that huge unknown world of possibility.  So, take her advice no matter who you are and where you are at in life.  Surprise yourself.    How to connect with Lynn:   Website: www.MyVoiceCounts2.com LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/lynnteatro Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyVoiceCounts2 I broadcast my Facebook Live My Voice Counts, too: the parents' edition from this page  Calendar link for promotion: https://calendly.com/lynn-teatro/20       About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.     Transcription Notes Michael Hingson  00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson  01:20 Well, Hi, and welcome once again to unstoppable mindset. Today we get to interview Lynn Teatro. And I'm not going to tell you a lot about her. She's got an incredible story. We'll have to ask her about her nickname when she was in high school the second time around, but she has had a wide variety of experiences. And I think that we're going to find just how unstoppable she is. We'll see. Anyway, Lynn, welcome to unstoppable mindset. How are you? I'm great, Michael, how are you? Doing? Well. Good. Well tell me. Well, you're welcome one. Thank you very much for being here. Lynn is another one of our victims who came from podapalooza. You all have heard about that before. We had another pot of Palooza event last month in June. And by the way, if anyone is interested, there will be another one coming up on October 19. And if you want information about that, please reach out to me at Michaelhi at accessibe.com. And I'll get you all the information as soon as I have links. We'll put those up as well. But anyway, here we are with Lynn and you'll have to tell us all about why you were involved in podapalooza as we go through this, so let's not forget to ask you that. But I'd like to start by you telling us just a little bit about you growing up and all that sort of stuff.   Lynn Teatro  02:40 Well, I was born in Peterborough, which is the place I'm living right now. And my dad was worked in a grocery store and my great ANP company and my mom was a homemaker and I had a brother born right after me and then another brother born the year later, and that was the time that my dad became ill with heart problems. And he was nursed at home and he died just before his 20/25 birthday. 25 seems to be a rough year for the men in my family. My older brother Dale had a diving accident just before his 24th birthday and broke his neck and he was a fully disabled quadriplegic for 19 years. And my other brother kept attractor over on himself and the throttle went up into his leg and barely missed the femoral artery. So he was luckier than what Dale was, and I had a sister that was okay, go ahead.   Michael Hingson  03:35 I was just gonna say, now tell us about the women in the family.   Lynn Teatro  03:39 Yes. My mom found it very difficult to cope and mental health issues run in my family. So she had a long period of depression after my father died. And my teenage uncle came and looked after us for a while. And after we moved to Cannington, about four or five months, it's just a small village where my grandparents were close to. And we lived in a small town and I asked my mom for pink car when I was five. And she actually brought home a pink car. It was called buckskin Brown, but I was actually pinks. I was very, very pleased and the people in town got to know us because I have red hair and my brothers have been bright orange hair actually. We had a blonde German Shepherd shepherd that rode around in the trunk of the car with the lid up. And then it was a pink car. So when we drove down the street, people got to know us very quickly. They knew who you were. Yeah. So my mum ended up marrying about four years after my dad died and they had an incident and she was born with hydrocephalus. And for anybody who doesn't know what Hydrocephalus is, it's water on the brain. And we all have water on our brains. It goes around the brain to push up against the skull and it also goes down to up and down the spinal cord to keep it lubricated. And there was a blockage somewhere in that system that caused the fluid to build up around her brain before she was even born. So yeah, she was born prematurely. But it wasn't soon enough to help her from becoming profoundly developmentally, developmentally delayed. And, yeah, I looked it up in the in YouTube or not YouTube on the internet the other day, my sister required $100 worth of medication to control her seizures. And that's worth almost $800 Canadian, which is a lot of money, and my parents were paying for the farm. And they ended up having to my mom ended up having to go to work. And when she was at work, I was 12 years old, and I was responsible for profoundly, you know, high risk kids for two and a half years of my life when I was home on weekends and holidays, and that kind of thing. So I learned a lot about parenting, but not real parenting because Carrie was very much like a, an infant. She, like our like a doll. She was a living doll. She needed to be fed, she needed to be changed. But she never got that second reflex. She never cried, never laughed. The only real human response we got from her was when we were around. Like if it was just family, she would be awake more times than if we had strangers in the house with the exception of my aunt and uncle and their six kids. She seemed to have accepted them as family to and was quite used to them. So yeah, and yeah, and then yeah, so that that is where the women, women kind of lost it.   Michael Hingson  06:41 So everyone in the family definitely had some challenges. How long did Carrie live? I know that she no longer does.   Lynn Teatro  06:49 Yeah, she was two and a half years old. Two and a half. Yeah, yeah.   Michael Hingson  06:54 Well, you're still here.   Lynn Teatro  06:55 I'm still here.   Michael Hingson  06:57 That's a good thing. It is. It is. So tell me about as you were growing up you in school and so on?   Lynn Teatro  07:04 Well, in school, I did. Okay. I was one of those that was able to get marks without working very hard for them. And but as I got older, my marks started slipping, I started losing my confidence and developed anxiety around public speaking. And I was raised to be a farmer's wife and the mother of farm children. So I went to grade 13, which was popular, you know, was in in place in Ontario at that time.   Michael Hingson  07:36 Now, what is grade 13? Grade 13   Lynn Teatro  07:38 was the final program for going into university. So if you were on the university track, you took grade 13. Well, I just decided to take group three team because otherwise I wouldn't have anything to do. And then I got engaged in the middle of my grade 13 and was married two weeks out of high school. And technically I didn't graduate from grade 13 Because I failed physics.   Michael Hingson  08:05 Physics isn't that hard? Having my master's in physics, I had to say that anyway, go yeah, yes. I'm just defending the honor of science anyway, going well,   Lynn Teatro  08:17 and you know, I'm very interested in science. It's just that that was the one that I had, I had to work out a little bit. And, you know, I had a boyfriend. I was working at the house for doing chores and things. So you know, doing homework was just not one of my priorities.   Michael Hingson  08:32 So you got married two weeks out of high school,   Lynn Teatro  08:35 two weeks I've taught in school. And then two years later, I had my first daughter. And two years after that, I had the second my second daughter. And even though I was living the life that my parents wanted me to have, my husband wasn't a farmer, he was a mechanic. So still working with his hands within got dirty. So that was an honorable profession as far as my family was concerned. But I wasn't happy. I was not happy and my marriage deteriorated. Actually, I had applied to college and was accepted. And the day I was supposed to go down and register. Alright, the night before I was supposed to be down on a register. My husband and I had we argued all night because I was adamant that I was going and he said that we didn't have the money even though I had worked hard to to claim that money. But it was it was irrelevant, because my stepfather came up and said that my brothers had an accident and had broken his neck. So the family made a pledge that they would there would be somebody with my brother every day that he was in the hospital in Toronto. So every day one person, at least one person would drive down and spend the day with him. And I don't regret that at all. It was it was a rough time for him. But once he got moved back to our community and he ended up living in the hospital for most of those 19 years, but after he got back to the community I figured that, you know, that wasn't required. It was just you know back to, to being brother sister. And that's when I applied to university. And my marriage had broken up by that time too. And actually, before I applied to university, I decided I was going back to high school, I just on a whim, drove into the laneway of the high school that I went to earlier, and asked how I got into university. And they sent me to the guidance counselor, and he said, Oh, we're doing this semester system now. You can start, you can start high school tomorrow, upgrade your third grade 13 and apply as a graduate. So I did that. And that's where I got the nickname The secret was special. And it was really funny. Funny, because that was one of the outside ones the first time in high school. But I was one of the cool chicks in the in the second time around.   Michael Hingson  10:49 Well, how did you get this name Seagram special?   Lynn Teatro  10:52 Pierre Burton, one of our here's a host historian and an announcer with CBC had written about a book called The Bronfman dynasty dynasty. And when America had the prohibition against alcohol on the Bronfman, were doing Run, run, running down to the states, and making a small fortune and they are millionaires and the Bronfman dynasty continues, and they continue to make alcohol. And their alcohol is called Seagrams. And there's a special one that's always put in a crown, and it's called the Seagram special. So that's where I got my nickname.   Michael Hingson  11:27 There you are. Yeah. And cgroups is very visible down here in the United States today. Yes. So you finish grade 13, I got   Lynn Teatro  11:36 to finish grade 13. And then went to move to Peterborough and went to university. And I did a few things, right. I selected my courses. So that I was, I would be out the door when my daughters went to just go grab the bus for school, and I would be at home when they got back from school. I   Michael Hingson  11:59 before we go further. So you passed physics in grade 13?   Lynn Teatro  12:02 I didn't take physics. I did a math course. Okay. And I did well, the teacher said afterwards, when she heard that I was coming into the class that she thought that she would have to spend a lot of time with me, because textbooks had changed in that 12 years. Yeah. When I was in grade 13, the first time around calculators, calculators had just become affordable. And we weren't allowed to use them in doing our homework and doing exams and things. When I came back, the textbooks were written to be used with calculators. So there was a bit of an adjustment to make. But I did fairly well, I got 73 wasn't as good as the young woman behind me. She happened to be the, the daughter of the teacher that taught me the first time around in math. And she got 100 She graduated with 105%.   Michael Hingson  12:52 How did textbooks change? To accommodate calculators and so on? So what was different?   Lynn Teatro  12:59 I think that they, it wasn't that you it was the process that they wanted you to go through to go through the process and get the right answer. So rather than doing the, you know, the adding and subtracting and the multiplying, they acknowledged that calculators existed and they could be a good tool.   Michael Hingson  13:16 So what did they make you do instead of doing a lot of calculations to show that you knew what you were doing? Well,   Lynn Teatro  13:23 we still had to do the calculations, we still had to break it down. But it wasn't we didn't, we didn't have to do the math. Mentally. We didn't do figure them out each thought it was, you know, complicated formulas.   Michael Hingson  13:34 And was. Yeah, and what I'm really getting to is, of course, what it's really all about, is it isn't just enough to get the right numbers. But if you're dealing with units and other things, you have to prove that the units and the other aspects of the exercise all come out as well. So it becomes more than just numbers. And that's of course the real issue. And that's true in physics as well, to the unit's come out, it isn't just getting a number.   Lynn Teatro  14:04 No, it's the process. It's the process and the results   Michael Hingson  14:08 and showing that you know that process Exactly. Let's say you passed and you went into college and what did you study as major or did you   Lynn Teatro  14:16 have my major was was psychology, and I took all the requisites so that I get couldn't get my degree as a science, in science rather than arts. My backups were sociology and English. Always loved to read. So that was a good course for me. But at the end of the first year, I decided that I'm on a roll and applied to go to summer school. So I took two courses in the summer. And then I kind of looked at my year again and took six courses are the equivalent of six courses in the winter, two more in the summer and I ended up completing my undergrad degree in two years instead of the three year program. Wow. Which was really lucky. Like it was it was instinct that I did it. It wasn't thought out thoroughly. It was instinct. And that summer or that fall, my son was born because I was kind of a fiancee at that time. And the day my son was born, my beloved grandma Teatro had a stroke. And she didn't even know that the first redhead in the Family Grant great grandchild had in the family had been born. Because when my daughters are born, and I phoned her, I said, she she'd always tell them what it was a girl and healthy. She does actually have red hair, because my grandmother had red hair, and my other grandmother had had red hair. So yeah, she missed it on that. And it was, it was a really tough year, and I got married out here to fall.   Michael Hingson  15:48 How old were your daughters? At that time? My daughters were 10 and 12. Okay, so you did graduate at least high school before they?   Lynn Teatro  15:56 Yeah. Yeah. and got my degree and got my Honours Degree in the next two years, and spent most of my working life in the social services.   Michael Hingson  16:09 So did you did you get a master's degree or just?   Lynn Teatro  16:12 No, I didn't get anxious. Just a bachelor's honours, but it's just a bachelor's. In retrospect, I should have gone on. But   Michael Hingson  16:23 yeah, only so many hours in the day.   Lynn Teatro  16:26 Well, and I was the first person in my mom's family, my father's family and my stepfather's family to graduate from high school, let alone go on to post secondary school education. So that was that was huge.   Michael Hingson  16:40 Well, given the background from what your family or your family's expectations were, how did they take you go into college? And how were they when you graduated?   Lynn Teatro  16:51 Oh, when I was in high school, my sister in law had a tubal pregnancy. And she had one daughter at home, and my mom phoned up to insist that I participate in helping with my sister in law, and I said, I'm in school. And her immediate response is, Oh, you want to be you want to have a career, and it was really dripping with sarcasm. So that was pretty much sums up the support that I was getting from my family about later, still not, you know, it's still not the acceptance that I would have liked. And they did attend my graduation. But they were more impressed with Peters AUSkey, who was a well known radio announcer here in Canada, that he was the getting the honorary degree and doing the keynote speech at my graduation then, than the fact that you know, I was the first person in the family to graduate high school,   Michael Hingson  17:47 let alone University. Now how old are your daughters? Now?   Lynn Teatro  17:50 My daughters are 48 and   Michael Hingson  17:54 And they went to college, or did they? My   Lynn Teatro  17:59 younger daughter just finished. She just graduated from university this year. She got married fairly young. She tried college and ended up dropping out and got married and no, got had two kids. And then she got married, and ended up leaving that marriage and moving to Peterborough, and going to university. And she's studying psychology, too. And I'm urging her to go on to get her Master's.   Michael Hingson  18:23 Good for her and good for you. It usually will help some,   Lynn Teatro  18:27 huh? Well, I think that's a degree now is the same thing as what a diploma was when we were young. That's the starting out that says if you don't have a degree, we're just going to put your resume aside because there's other people that may be more qualified. So it's easy weeding, weeding them out. My other daughter didn't do that route. She's, she's was on she's on the edge of genius like her. Her IQ is around 129. And she chose to go someplace where she could learn and, and earn at the same time. So she got really good at helping computer companies make educational systems and then translating them into French because my children were all bilingual. So they came out of high school fully fluent in French.   Michael Hingson  19:23 You're close enough to Quebec. That makes sense. Well,   Lynn Teatro  19:27 French is our our other official or other official language, right. And when my daughter was young, one of her best friends had decided to go to to French immersion because French immersion had just been developed them. And since her dad worked in the town that the French immersion was being offered. We agreed to let her go and she was she missed the kindergarten portion. So her and Lindsay her her good friends had to sort of start a little bit behind there. peers in that class, but they very quickly caught up. And then my younger daughter just went along with them.   Michael Hingson  20:06 So you graduated from college? And then what did you start to do?   Lynn Teatro  20:11 I went into I started with an outreach center in the middle of low income housing project. And we served two projects, we did, and I was in part of the health care team. So I worked with the children around health and food and exercise and that kind of thing. And then in conjunction with a woman who taught mothers mostly about health and food, we would you charge a small fee and and teach them how to use fires for shopping so that they could get the best value for their dollar and try to avoid buying at the end of the month when everybody got their money, because that's when the flyers had less nutritious food. And then once once they decided to close the shelter, or the the Outreach Center, I started working in women's shelters, and did that for many years. But I also got a contract at a medium security prison here in Ontario, and work with sex, sex offenders. I did a stint with the CAS the Children's Aid Society and in schools. So my my career was very, very varied. And but like my daughter, I would get, yeah, I needed to to learn. It wasn't just about getting the money I had to learn. That was one of my the way I operate in the world. That's not learning. It's not enough fun. For me.   Michael Hingson  21:33 That's pretty obvious from the way you, you tend to behave. And from all the things that I'm hearing. And going back to your college experience, as I recall, you finishing in two years was something that cause some angst with your advisor. And so   Lynn Teatro  21:51 yes, yes, I had my final meeting with my, my professor who was my teacher's advisor. And she said, you know, where are you going from here? And I says, Well, I graduate, and she says, Well, how can you do that? And I told her how? And she says, Well, you're not allowed to do that. And I said, Well, I just had my last class last week, it's a little late to tell me now.   Michael Hingson  22:15 Did she ever decided that was really okay?   Lynn Teatro  22:18 I never had contact with her after that.   Michael Hingson  22:22 Don't you love it when people have these rules, fixed or otherwise are real or otherwise, and they have to go by them. And when you come along and you do something different? They just tell you, it can't be done? Well, it's too late. It's already done.   Lynn Teatro  22:37 Yes, I think that people filter experiences to their own abilities, rather than looking at the abilities of the person sitting in front of them. And sometimes, yeah, not nobody, nobody fits those little cubes that they want to push through students through. Some of them need to take time. Some of them aren't on the fast track. Some of them are great in the sciences, some of them are great, they're great in the humanities, what you do, and how they tackle that is very different. There's been a lot of research on cognitive learning, or cognitive intelligence, which is the way you choose to operate in the world, how you choose to solve problems. And then we've got the IQ. And then there's the emotional quotient. And then there's the personality theory. And so when you start looking at all those pieces, and although none of them are absolutely perfect bang on, they do give us a place to start and looking at those aspects. And when you look at these, like 716 different personalities, and there's 1212 pairs or modus operandi is in the Colby system. They haven't really defined for emotional intelligence. And then of course, for general intelligence, we've got the good old IQ. So when you know that people don't fit into that, there's so many options and you start figuring out in probability theory, you get to appreciate that people are really unique, and how they look at the world and how they act in the world can be very different from yours. So they're going to do differently.   Michael Hingson  24:17 How do we get people to start to understand that each of us has gifts, we don't all have the same gifts, and that's okay. Yeah. How do we get people to start to think more about that that's a reasonable premise to have. Well, certainly   Lynn Teatro  24:34 advocating within the the Council for persons with disabilities, I'm on the board of directors there and helping people understand that people can live rich full lives, and have a disability, and also comparing and being. I'm very vocal about how I act in the world now that I know how I act in the world. And I'm one of those that you know, I make a decision and it's zoom. Let's get into it. And so I'm an instigator. I think I take initiative fairly quickly. But I'm also a researcher. The follow through part, the follow through part, completing things is not my forte. Since grade one, my report card said, Lin does not complete her homework. And even in university, I was sliding, resurrect projects and essays under the professor's door date, the next morning, rather than on the day it was, it was expected. I'm getting better at that challenging kid, a challenging kid. And I think that's another thing too, is that a lot of parents want their kids to behave. But don't realize that the things that drive the parents crazy are the things that do them in most they're going to need as adults. I mean, I'm, I'm was stubborn. My mom tried to teach me with the hairbrush, the flyswatter on my there, but with her bare hands to get, you know, I wasn't supposed to be stubborn I was supposed to do as I was told. And she didn't beat that out of me. That's still there, I am still stubborn. I choose my battles now. But when I get my toes dug in, I'm there. I'm not budging. Unless you give me a really good reason to. I wasn't one of those kids that that took, because I said so as a reason. I'd like to know why.   Michael Hingson  26:34 We you have obviously pushed the envelope in a lot of ways. And there isn't anything wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with exploring and doing things differently. If it works, and if it makes sense. At the same time, obviously, you need to sort of analyze what's happening and decide whether you really made the right choice, I would assume. And then that's what sort of leads you to continue on whatever path you're on.   Lynn Teatro  27:02 So I want to pause right now, working with CPD. And one of the things that we're doing it come fall is talk to people with disabilities, about their lives that are rich and fulfilling. Despite their disability. I worked with a young woman a couple of years ago, in, in teaching her public speaking. And she went on to university and because she was visually impaired, she got so many people telling Well, it's going to take take longer, don't be hard on yourself. And she just graduated this year, she and she got Miss personality and couple of other distinguished awards. So she she went through with flying colors, like there was just no holding her back. And I was just upset with people who try to you know, they thought they were doing or good by saying you know, don't, don't set your expectations too high. But mi. And they you know, if you only make it to the seventh rung on the ladder, you aim for the fifth one, you're still up there. They're still up there. It's a success.   Michael Hingson  28:23 And then you can decide if you want to try to go for the eighth run more than that's run. Yep. Well, how did you get back into being comfortable with public speaking, you said earlier that you were not very comfortable speaking publicly. How did you fix that?   Lynn Teatro  28:36 Oh, when I left my sexist at my second husband, he was very abusive and controlling. And when he threatened to punch my daughter, my 13 year old daughter, shoved up against the kitchen counter and had his fist raised and was, you know, the angry red face? And I said, Nope, that's enough. So I made plans for them to move out. And so when I left him, I joined Toastmasters shortly after we moved and the first speech I did with Toastmasters was I was hiding behind the lectern. And I had it all written out and I read it word for word. And two years later, I was doing impromptu speaking contests and there's a trophy in Toronto with my name on it for impromptu speaking. So I went up the four levels for for table topics. And I'm quite proud of that   Michael Hingson  29:24 reaction. What kind of reaction did you get to that first speech since you were reading it all? What? What sorts of things did they say to you?   Lynn Teatro  29:31 Well, Toastmasters is a very supportive environment. Yeah, they that first speech is just tell us about yourself. And you know, with my colorful past, I didn't want to do a dump on you know, my life's been rough. So it took me a long time to figure out exactly what I would talk about. And but they were very supportive and talked about the things that were good and I'm a good writer, so I had had good language in my speech. And they pointed out a few other things that I did. But at least, you know, they got me out there and trying. And so the next speech was a little errand easier. And the next one after that was easier and and now I have to go back and learn how to prepare a speech properly rather than winging it. Most of the time,   Michael Hingson  30:17 I have found that I do a lot better at speaking, when I'm not reading a prepared speech, as such, oh, notes are one thing, having an outline is one thing. But reading a prepared speech. When I first started, people told me, that's what I needed to do. And I did it once. And one of the things that I always have done is to record my speeches, because I want to listen to how I sound. And I do that with these podcasts as well, because I want to look for habits that I need to break and so on. I think that I analyze myself pretty well, as well as listening to what others say. But I think that I have enough experience that I do get to do great analysis, I don't want to say I'm my own worst critic, because I don't think that that's really accurate. you're analyzing and looking for what's good and what's not. And it doesn't need to be a criticism. But anyway, I listened to that speech that I read, and I went, Oh, my gosh, this guy sounds horrible. And it was, it's, it doesn't sound the same. So I have learned to give speeches without reading it and writing everything down. And there have been times that that's actually been extremely invaluable, as you say, doing extemporaneous or impromptu speeches or prepared speeches, where you're still delivering something where you're talking with the audience, if you well, as opposed to reading it, so that you're making eye contact and communicating because that way, you are much more directly connected with your audience.   Lynn Teatro  31:59 And I hope you get to use your hands. I'm a person who uses my hands a lot when I'm talking. So if I'm holding a paper, I don't get the same. I don't deliver the same energy.   Michael Hingson  32:09 Yeah, I don't use my hands a lot. I recognize that I work on it some. But I do tend to want to make sure that I am communicating. And oftentimes will say things to get audience reactions. And I know when I'm connecting to an audience based on how they react to different things that I might say, and that's good, because I really want the audience to be engaged. I'm I'm a firm believer, and you don't talk to an audience. You talk with an audience.   Lynn Teatro  32:40 Yes, it's a it's a conversation. And even though there's not a lot of words coming from the audience, you still can get responses from them by asking questions and making them laugh. Get your responses that way,   Michael Hingson  32:55 among other things. Yeah, absolutely. So you went off and you learn to speak publicly, which is really cool. And I'm sure that that helped in raising your children. Yeah. Because you became more confident?   Lynn Teatro  33:10 Yes. Public speaking ability is certainly, certainly connected to confidence. And when you have confidence, you're gonna be able to public speak without a lot of prompting. And if you have, if you're not comfortable public speaking, then you're not always confident either. So there's a direct relationship between the two of them.   Michael Hingson  33:32 Right. Now, again, what's the organization that you're working with now that deals with disabilities?   Lynn Teatro  33:38 It's called the Council for persons with disabilities. I'm on the board of directors. We did actually, I was on a on a little cruise today on our little lake here in Peterborough. And we went up part of the Trent Severn waterway, and we'd have lunch before and we had about six people in wheelchairs and about seven people who are visually impaired, and we had friends and we had a blast.   Michael Hingson  34:03 Yeah, and I liked and I gotta say, I liked the way you say vision impaired because visually, it doesn't really matter whether you're blind or sighted, you're you're not visually different, but visually impaired or low vision is a lot more accurate. I think that low vision is probably even a more accurate thing. When you talk to people who are deaf. They like deaf or hard of hearing, they don't really like even hearing impaired. So blind and low vision. And the reality is it's all part of the same thing. And it gets back to what we talked about before, which is recognizing that everyone has gifts. Mm hmm. How did you get connected with CPD at the   Lynn Teatro  34:42 Chamber of Commerce? Oh, actually, yeah, actually. Yeah, it was the Chamber of Commerce because Jason who is the heart and soul of CPD, came to business meetings that I attended. And he invited me to participate. The only people who can participate in CPD has to have lived experience with disability. So if you're completely able bodied, then you can't join. Unless, unless you would like me, you've had somebody in your family that's been disabled.   Michael Hingson  35:13 And I love to have fun saying the reality is whether people like it or not every sighted person has a disability because you're light dependent. You don't do well on the dark. But we cover that with technology. It doesn't change the reality, though, that you still have the disability. But that's okay.   Lynn Teatro  35:29 Yeah, yeah, we're just we're just people, people with different skills and abilities, different weaknesses, and superpowers were just made different. And I love differences. I think the world doesn't want to have me in it. I think they're very happy that there's just one of me.   Michael Hingson  35:49 Yeah. And there's one of each of us. And it's important that we look at that and recognize that. So are you still working in, in a job somewhere or what?   Lynn Teatro  36:00 Actually, my mom passed away last year at the age of 88. And given that our family doesn't tend to live long. I think, well, I thought this is this is this is something to aspire to, my mum was going to be 88 or was 88 when she died? And I decided, Okay, I've got 22 years, what am I going to do with those 22 years. So I'm developing a program for dropout students, I was appalled when I was University. I, I knew what it was like for me to get there. So when I heard that there was a 30% dropout rate. for first year students, I was appalled. So I decided that I'm going to do something about that. So I've developed a program to help build confidence. It's got some public speaking elements, but it's also about getting to know yourself better to find those superpowers. We all know our weaknesses, because we've been told what our weaknesses are, yeah, whether they're real or not, whether they're real or not. And some sometimes the weaknesses aren't really weaknesses, it's just people present our superpowers because it doesn't fit for them, like my stubbornness. So yeah, to help them learn to understand themselves better. So that's what I'm doing right now. And I'm also doing a program called My voice counts to for focusing on adults. And I have people who come in, and the nine broad areas that I've identified as where students can become, become, start to struggle, the nine different reasons. So I've inviting people who have experienced in those nine different reasons and doing interviews with them, and they're sort of semi educational. And if somebody comes to me with a problem, I want to be able to send them to it, because I know that I'm working on the confidentiality and or confidence, confidence and and class engagement part.   Michael Hingson  37:50 How do you? How did you transition to that from what you were doing before?   Lynn Teatro  37:55 Um, well, my background in public speaking certainly helps. But again, I like to learn so taking my learning and putting it to practical use on my own. My own way, is is mine Urbana. I like to I like to be independent. So yeah, it was it was an easy transition is, well, not an easy one. It's doing it is easy, but making it profitable. And getting the word out there is a bit of a challenge.   Michael Hingson  38:26 Is it basically now your own business as opposed to working then for someone else?   Lynn Teatro  38:32 Exactly.   Michael Hingson  38:35 So when did you leave working for other people to do this full time?   Lynn Teatro  38:39 Actually, the partner, my last partner, yes, I've been married three times. My last partner had Crohn's disease. And he wasn't very good at cooking. And so it ended up that I stayed at home and did the domestic stuff. And we renovated the house too. So I helped with that. And I did the meal portion and supported him so that and he was making the better money. So that's how it worked out. For him to retire early because of his illness wasn't the best financial thing and he needed to be out of the house. Anyway. He's a very, very much an extrovert. Uh huh. So yeah, I quit working for social services at that time.   Michael Hingson  39:18 How long ago was that?   Lynn Teatro  39:20 That was about 15 years ago.   Michael Hingson  39:22 Okay. So you left working and stayed at home? When did you when are you still with that partners? He   Lynn Teatro  39:32 No, I'm not. No. Unfortunately, see, became a very angry man as his illness progressed, and he was becoming very, very abusive verbally. So I left and moved to Peterborough and what did some contract work I've with Toastmasters. I've helped develop conferences. So I took those skills and did some, some contract work for a couple of agencies here and social services agencies here in town.   Michael Hingson  39:59 How long To go to start the business then   40:01 was certainly after I moved into Peterborough. So 10 years ago.   40:06 Okay. All right. So you've been doing it for a while and becoming successful? Have you written any books or created? I gather, you've created some courses and so on around it. Have you written any books or done anything that's been published yet?   Lynn Teatro  40:21 I have been doing a lot of writing. You got a taste of that when you asked for those eight questions. Your vote Yeah,   Michael Hingson  40:31 the bio you sent me definitely does sound like three chapters of your autobiography.   Lynn Teatro  40:38 So yeah, I'm keeping on to everything I write, sometimes I just need to get it down and let it go. So that I can focus on what really needs to happen. So I'm not throwing that stuff away. I'm keeping it. And it will go into probably two books, one a, an autobiography, and another one about college confidence and what students need to succeed and why we need to support the current generation because our world is in turmoil. We, most of us, who are educated, recognizing is recognized that there is climate change, and it's causing devastating problems around the world. We've got, we've got we've still got war happening, why do we have wars, and then we've got poverty, we've got poverty here. In first world countries, it's the minority, but there's still there are conceptions around mental health, it's still you know, give them a pill and send them home. Yeah, people haven't learned to adopt. So we need well educated, passionate people taking over this world. And the only way we do can do that is for them to know who they are, that they are confident in what they're doing, and that they learn as much as they possibly can so that they can bring their skills and knowledge and superpowers into the next generation.   Michael Hingson  41:59 So how does what you do? Work? Exactly? Do you have an office? And do you bring people in? Is it online?   Lynn Teatro  42:09 I do I do. I do small group coaching, six to eight participants, because we're dealing with people who are not confidence. And so I want to I want to keep it to small groups, I will I also do one on one coaching. I'm developing some webinars for parents so that they will have some insights as to how to prepare their children for later for, for leaving the nest. And doing and I'm going to be doing my My voice counts too, for students so that I can bring in people who can help them directly. If they feel they need it. Do you   Michael Hingson  42:50 do it online or in person online? Do you just work mainly with people near where you are? Or do you have people all over?   Lynn Teatro  43:00 I am calling people from all over the place. One of the people that I like to refer people to people to lives in the state, but actually two of them live in the States. The one that I that I send to for parenting advice into how to communicate with your child is a speech language pathologist. And then I've got someone who does the Colby the cognitive assessments to help children under them understand themselves and to help parents understand their students. And she also works within the schools to help teachers understand their students so that they can recognize that no, just because children don't do something, the way that they think it should be done. It doesn't mean it's the wrong way. The important thing is getting it done.   Michael Hingson  43:45 Do some of the measuring technologies and systems that we use today, like IQ, for example, do those get in the way,   Lynn Teatro  43:54 I wish I'd had my data, I knew what my IQ was. Because, you know, my marks didn't reflect my intelligence. And my intelligence certainly wasn't cultivated. I mean, I think we had about 12 books in our home library, and black and white TV. I remember, when I was five, my grandmother took me through zip cellars in the toy department. And there was all these white dolls. And then there was one black one and I was that shocked me. Because I had never seen a person of color in my whole life didn't know they existed. So that was my first experience with you know, racism, because I was shocked. So I didn't have any experience i The the role models I had in my life for teachers and nurses and farmer's wives and was taught to bake and cook and do all those sorts of things. And that's what I was praised on not my intellect and my ability to write write reports. And so yeah, I wish I'd known They asked,   Michael Hingson  45:01 I asked the question, because I've heard from some people, I think we've interviewed a couple people here on the podcast that have said, The problem is that IQ isn't necessarily the best way, or the way we measure intelligence is necessarily the best way to really determine how intelligent a person is, I think   Lynn Teatro  45:21 one of the problems with being identified as intelligent is that those who are relying more on their strengths, and don't it's they don't recognize that process. It's not just the intellect, but you have to do the process, you have to start doing the research, you have to compile your papers, and you have to, to be able to spew that you have learned the knowledge and why it's important. So IQ, knowing that you've got good intelligence can get in the way. And there is some research being done that suggests that intelligence is fluid that we can actually build our, on our intelligence, and I'm going to be incorporating that those notions into my group work from now on. So that, yeah, starting to look at that part. And it's keep in the college confidence part. So it's, it's going to be, yeah, get to know yourself, be aware of your weaknesses and fight through them. And you will succeed.   Michael Hingson  46:19 Definitely learn what your perceived weaknesses are, and and see what you can do to change them. Yeah, we all have perceived liabilities. And I put it that way, because I think that is really the case, we often talk about what it is we can't do. The question is, how real is it or how much of a perception is it the whole concept of, as I say, in sales turn perceived liabilities into assets, I learned that from the Dale Carnegie sales course, when I first learned to sell back in 1979. The kind of idea of turning those perceived liabilities into assets, whether it's in selling, or just in our mindset, is extremely important. Because most of the time, the things that we think we can't do our our perceptions, and there may very well be things that we can't do a person who happens to be who lives in a wheelchair. And if they're a quadriplegic, they're not going to be able to walk upstairs. Now technology is changing some of that by introducing some mechanisms that can help do that. And that is perfectly okay. But that's still why it's a perceived liability, turn it into an asset, well, I don't want to walk up the stairs, I've got this great technology. And look, it just brings me up the stairs in a very effective way. Isn't that what you want is someone who's open to looking at alternatives to help you in terms of what it is that is going on in your company, or a blind person who applies for a sales job. And it's kind of one of my favorite examples of saying, well, you're blind, you can't really sell. What do you mean, I sell all the time just to be able to get things done and to live in the world? So do you really want to hire somebody who just sells a little bit every day? Or do you want to hire somebody who truly understands that we sell all the time just as a way of life, turning perceived liabilities into assets is something that we really ought to do a lot more of than we do collectively. And individually?   Lynn Teatro  48:24 I like to say, I try not to use the word can't I choose to or use the word I choose not to? For because for me that change changes perception. It's like okay, why do I choose not to? Is it just because I don't want to? Or is it because I'd have to work harder to do it. You know, what's, what's my reasoning for choosing not to?   Michael Hingson  48:45 I'm a Star Wars and Yoda fan? There is no try do or do not do not? Do or do not? There is no try. And I think that's extremely important to take to heart actually. So it is always a matter of choice. The the can't only is maybe we haven't invented something yet. Or maybe we don't know of what's already been invented. But that's not so much a can't as we don't have what we need yet. But that doesn't mean we can't go create it.   Lynn Teatro  49:21 Exactly. And it turns out, you know, rather than immutable facts, it's just we haven't we haven't found a solution yet. It turns it into a problem. Right problems have have solutions.   Michael Hingson  49:37 Problems always have solutions. We have to find them. What are some of your biggest successes you feel from what you've been doing then with with your teachings and so on for the past several years.   Lynn Teatro  49:52 My biggest success was the young woman who went on to university despite and did well, too. didn't let other people hold her back. She she went through my program,   Michael Hingson  50:05 what is she doing today?   50:06 She just graduated and it's in a childcare. That's when she got her degree. And so she's now working, working. She's looking for a job right now, just like everybody else. But hopefully now that COVID have over and done with your almost over and done with that. Child care facilities, they'll be open up, and she'll find something that's makes her happy.   50:31 It's still exciting that she has progressed so far, and won't hopefully lose any of that spirit will be able to take it to the job.   50:40 Well, she won't lose that spirit, as long as I'm in is connected with her   50:45 good for you? Well, it is important to get that support system and there's nothing wrong with having a good support system to help one, especially when one gets to feel a little frustrated.   51:00 Yeah, and support systems encourage and suggest they don't take over.   51:06 Right. It is called support for a reason. And, and having discussions working together. You never know what you're going to create to   51:17 Oh, yes, yes. I'm a good brainstorm. But if I've got other people in the room talking again, it's like I can take one other ideas and find offshoots from that and other people can do that too. So, the more people you have involved the the ideas and solutions exponentially rise.   51:39 What brought you to attend podapalooza, this last time,   Lynn Teatro  51:42 I'm doing my facebook live program. And I thought that a lot of the application ideas, a lot of the things that we would learn for that I can apply to Facebook as easily as I can for PATA Palooza, and also, I'm going to be taking my Facebook Lives and editing them and and probably making a broadcast out of them.   Michael Hingson  52:01 Tell us about tell us about the Facebook Live program.   Lynn Teatro  52:05 It's it's being rekindled, I've moved three times in the last seven months. So it kind of got lost in the shuffle there. But it's being rekindled. And I'm inviting people off on who have experience in and helping students thrive. In the end the various areas that I that the nine areas. You know, life skills is huge. Being independent and surviving is huge financing. Money control is huge, good stuff. Exercise, one of the things that I did right was get into the swimming pool once a day and do 100 likes. So I went into the campus during the day spent the whole day there did my work. But my noon hour was spent in the pool doing 100 lengths, and I totally avoided the freshman 15 pound gain and and exercise is so good for the for the body and mind. And it's also an opportunity for my mind to shut down and sort of do a meditation, a swimming, counting meditation, right? And swimming isn't everybody's, but you've got to have something that just gets you out of that. That homework studying overwhelms mode.   Michael Hingson  53:22 I enjoy even doing just home chores around here, whether it's doing the washing, which is easier for me to do doing a lot of the cooking, which has become easier for me to do and harder for Karen to do and so on. Because I can do those without having to concentrate and apply a lot of mental pressure. So I can, as you say, relax and meditate or listen to a book or read a book and do other things to take my mind off what normally goes on during the day. And that is so helpful to do. We don't spend enough time just cutting back our mental activity and thinking about what's going on, or at the end of the day doing self analysis to really let ourselves think about what happened that day. And how did it all go? And what can I learn from it really is something that we need to do more of,   Lynn Teatro  54:15 and count our successes for the day. Yeah, we all say most of us look at what what didn't get done, or instead of what did I get done. Because sometimes the reasons why you didn't get something done was because something else came up and you did a really good job of supporting a friend or, or taking out a client that really needed you or however it worked. So you have to count those successes.   Michael Hingson  54:38 The other part about it is though, that even if you have something that you didn't do well that day, going back and looking at it and saying what could I have done better about this? Because we focus so much on the failure that we don't look about what we don't look at what we did learn or what we could learn until we analyze it and that's why I am a major proponent of analyze at the end of the day, and do self analysis of all aspects of your day. Because it really does make a big difference. Well, anyway. So does your Facebook Live program have a name?   55:16 It's called My voice counts to the parents edition. And it's on my Facebook page page called My voice counts too   Michael Hingson  55:23 too as in too?   Lynn Teatro  55:26 the page is called to Oh, yeah, my hashtag is hashtag MVC. And the number two,   Michael Hingson  55:33 the number two. Well, that's, that leads me to my next question, which is if people would like to reach out to you and learn more about you and all that, how do they do that?   Lynn Teatro  55:44 Well, they can find me on Facebook. I think there's about five of us. But if I'm the one with red hair, probably not too many Lynne teatros with red hair, and I'm based in Peterborough. And yeah, I think can find me on Facebook. You can also email me at Lynn.teatro@gmail.com.   Michael Hingson  56:04 Can you spell that please?   Lynn Teatro  56:05 It's l y n n dot? T isn't Tom? E an echo A is an alpha T is and Tom, R and Romeo. O, as an Oscar at@gmail.com gmail.com again.   Michael Hingson  56:19 Okay. So if people are interested in your question, other ways, or other things that you want people to be able to have in the way of accessing you.   Lynn Teatro  56:28 My website isn't up yet. I'm having glitches with glitches with the male. So otherwise, I'd be talking about that. But when it is up, it's my voice.counts two with the number two.com. And Lynn at, My voice counts to the number two.com. But give me a,   Michael Hingson  56:46 we, if we can help you make it accessible, we'd love to explore that. And you probably have some familiarity with that. But with accessibe, we can probably make that a lot easier and a lot less expensive to   Lynn Teatro  56:57 that's certainly something that I want it to be is accessible. My I'm pretty good with technology. But I'm finding that I'm getting bogged down in it right now. And and I'm sort of setting it aside for pursuits that that come a little bit easier to me.   Michael Hingson  57:13 There are still only so many hours in the day. Yep, I want to thank you again for being here. I want to definitely, in the future, hear more about how things are going as you get everything up and running your website and so on. And if there is any way that we can be supportive that I'd like to do that. I know you asked me about being on the Facebook Live program, and I am looking forward to that when you're ready to do that.   Lynn Teatro  57:40 Well, I talked you up today at the CPD adventure and people know you few of them have read your book and are quite excited to know that you're going to be on   Michael Hingson  57:51 well in a way that we can help them be supportive, whether it's through that program or whatever, let me know. And I hope that you'll tell them all about unstoppable mindset, they can listen to it. And of course, when yours comes up, that'll motivate them more but if they'd like to go listen to it now, as most people here know, you can find it wherever you can find podcasts and they can also visit Michael hingson.com/podcast Michael Hanson has m i c h a e l h i n g s o n.com/podcast. But it's available wherever podcasts are, which is really cool. So they can binge listen. As of today. Actually, no tomorrow, it'll be 43 episodes that are up. So we're really excited and we really appreciate you being on today. And again, just if people would like to reach out to me, I'd love to hear from you. We want to know what you think. Please feel free to email me Michaelhi, m i c h a e l h i  at accessibe a c c e s s i b e.com. Let us know your thoughts and please give us a five star rating give Lynn a five star rating for being on the podcast and being very unstoppable. And her stubbornness and everything else. But we really do want to thank you for being here again.   Lynn Teatro  59:12 Well, thank you so much, Michael.   Lynn Teatro  59:14 It's an honor. deines.   Michael Hingson  59:15 Great.   Michael Hingson  59:17 It's been fun. Well, we'll have to do some more of it. Right. That sounds like an excellent plan. Yeah. And I'm sure you have other people that maybe we should be talking with as well. Don't hesitate to have them reach out. We'd love to chat with other people. So I've   Lynn Teatro  59:30 got a couple of in mind. I've a friend of mine as a blind artist, blind visual artist. And then there's there's Jason King who's just Yeah, love them to bits. He's just the Miracle Worker fruit and the heart and soul of CPD. He just knows I love to   Michael Hingson  59:48 meet him. Yeah. Well, we'd love to meet him and have a chance to chat as well. Well, thank you again. And we hope that you and everyone else will join us again next week for another episode of unstoppable mindset. Again thanks very much,   Lynn Teatro  1:00:03 Thanks Michael.   Michael Hingson  1:00:09 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

This episode is about delving into my self-limiting beliefs and finally finding the root of a really huge one…Being locked away. I always thought you could get locked up for your weirdness or negative thoughts... I unravel the story of that belief and mourn the consequences of the actions of society back in the 60s and 70s.  My friend Michel was one such casualty. In this episode I discuss the Rideau Regional Centre,known to me as the Rideau regional Hospital School: located in Smiths Falls, Ontario, opened in 1951 as the Ontario Hospital School. Along with similar residential institutions throughout Ontario, this was the largest such facility. On approaching the semi-circular drive that curved up to the front entrance it was an imposing sight. RRHS was designed to house individuals who were deemed to have cognitive and physical disabilities. Individuals could be admitted by parents and guardians, training schools, or the Children's Aid Society.  This institution left its mark on those who lived there and those of us who worked there as well.  In researching for this episode I came across a number of articles that actually reinforced my silence and aversion to authority and authoritative decisions.  I do not know where my friend Michel was sent once the facility closed.. nor do I know for sure he was there until the end. I simply know the injustice of him being dumped at a facility, stuck in my craw, and added to the litany of things that made me question all i knew in terms if authority, religion, and what was right  in my heart, my mind, my soul)  That first day of work in the Summer of 1970, I had to traverse the entire length of the main building the minute we arrived. That buildings' corridor was an eighth of a mile long! I was to check in at what was called Female Admission although, truth be told some of the residents, like young Lizzie,( I met her when i was a volunteer) had been there for years. (Lizzie was about 11- 13 at the time. Lizzie was unaware of her own strength and had a mercurial temper. When she was happy there was sunshine radiating from her smile) Remember I said the main corridor was an eighth of a mile long. Only 2 days before I started my summer job there, I had the cast on my leg,(hip to ankle), removed after eight long weeks.  My leg had required a meniscectomy, and at the time, after surgery, the surgeon placed your leg in a cast to restrict movement. Two months had gone by with my knee unable to bend. This long trudge a few times a day was definitely trial by fire.. an eighth of a mile one way, 4 to 6 times a day. The photo below is only one small section of one of the corridors which were endless.  Suicidal ideation like any other uncomfortable topic, was not something we ever spoke about like so much else in the sixties and early seventies.  I am so enamoured of millennials and gen Z who are taking out all the hidden, taboo subjects and working through their feelings in the open, more and more.  This is why this podcast exists.. to continue the much needed, often difficult conversations. Thank you for tuning in... Make the most of your today, every day!

The demands of the social work profession have recently been in the spotlight, in part because of the pandemic, as well as highlighted in Parliament. The heavy caseload and long working hours are just some of the problems social workers struggle to deal with. What are the pitfalls of working in a job that focuses so greatly on passion? What policies can be put in place to alleviate the challenges social workers face, and encourage them to stay in the profession? In this episode, host and Associate Director at the Institute of Policy Studies Liang Kaixin chats with two of our guests Louis Ng, Member of Parliament for Nee Soon Group Representation Constituency (GRC) and Cindy Ng-Tay, Director of Home at Children's Aid Society. They discuss how the community can support social workers, what the government can do to help the industry and what needs to change in the industry itself to retain younger social workers. Find out more about social worker burnout: CNA (17 April 2022): Back-to-back crises, days that end at 4am: Why some social workers in Singapore are burning out The Straits Times (14 December 2021): S'pore social workers' mental health badly hit during Covid-19 peak in 2020: Study About our guests: Louis Ng Member of Parliament (MP) Nee Soon GRC Louis was elected as MP for Nee Soon GRC in 2015. In 2001, he founded the ACRES (Animal Concerns Research and Education Society), an animal protection charity. He currently chairs the Government Parliamentary Committee for Sustainability and the Environment and is a member of the Government Parliamentary Committee for National Development. In 2014, he received the Advocate of the Year award in the inaugural Singapore Advocacy Awards in 2014 and the Inaugural Yahoo! “Singapore 9” award in 2011. Louis has been advocating on the issue of social worker burnout in Singapore since May 2021, pushing for legislative change in parliament. Cindy Ng-Tay Director of Home Children's Aid Society Cindy is a social worker by training with extensive experience working with low-income families and persons experiencing violence and abuse. Over the years, she has developed and executed programmes that aim to address poverty, violence and abuse in families and the community. Cindy is passionate about issues relating to early childhood trauma, poverty, income inequality and social mobility. She is an active advocate for disadvantaged communities in Singapore, where she contributes commentaries to local publications. She is also passionate about good social work practice and has developed standards framework to guide programmes and services and competency framework to guide the development of Social Workers and Social Service Practitioners. On Diversity is a podcast inspired by the Institute of Policy Studies Managing Diversities research programme. In each episode, we chat with guests to explore what diversity means to them, the changes they are making, and the changes they hope to see in an increasingly fragmented society. More from On Diversity Season 3 Episode 5: Leaving the Law Profession with Andrew Chan, Partner at Allen & Gledhill LLP and Michelle Yeo, Of Counsel at LVM Law Chambers LLC Season 3 Episode 4: Racism at Work with Dharesheni Nedumaran, Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, APAC, at Mediabrands and Shamil Zainuddin, Research Associate at IPS Social Lab Season 3 Episode 3: Ableism at Work with Cassandra Chiu, a vision impaired counsellor and advocate for PWDs, and Justin Lee, Senior Research Fellow at IPS Season 3 Episode 2: Ageism at Work with Heng Chee How, Deputy Secretary-General of the National Trade Union Congress (NTUC), and Associate Professor Helen Ko of the Master & PhD in Gerontology Programmes at the Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS) Season 3 Episode 1: Sexism at Work, with Corinna Lim, Executive Director of the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) and Simran Toor, Chief Executive Officer at SG Her Empowerment Limited (SHE)  Season 2 Episode 9: Youth Mental Health, with Dr Jacqueline Tilley, Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at the National Institute of Education (NIE) and Asher Low, Founder of Limitless Season 2 Episode 8: What Makes Us Singaporean, with Matthew Matthews, Principal Research Fellow of IPS and Head of IPS Social Lab, and Oon Shu An, Singaporean actress and host Season 2 Episode 7: Homelessness, with Harry Tan, IPS Research Fellow, and June Chua, Co-founder of T Project See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Heather Colasuonno is many things: she's a runner, she's a mom, she's a coach, and a photographer. But most of all, she's a great example of what can happen when you listen to your heart and follow what is in your heart and truly brings you joy. Heather is also the creator of the Run for Devon, an event that remembers Devon Freeman, an indigenous teenager who died by suicide while under the care of the Children's Aid Society of Hamilton. Heather's happiness is contagious, and I hope it encourages you to follow your joy too. 

Assyrian Aid Society in Iraq has contributed in the process of renovating a small number of the Assyrian Schools in North of Iraq, many more are waiting to get the hand of help from similar organisations. SBS Assyrian correspondent Naseem Sadiq met with ASS Director in Iraq Mr Younan Lazar Markhael who spoke to him about this important step.

Wayne Tuttle has been a self-described communicator his whole life. Even before he lost his eyesight, he wanted to go into broadcasting but could never get hired. However, ironically as he lost sight more jobs opened for him, not in radio but in areas such as the financial world and then later in the telecommunications industry.   Along the way, after losing his eyesight he first discovered the world of public speaking, and then later he found Toastmasters International where he learned to hone his talks. He now is a very successful speaker and communicator as you will hear.   I invite you to join me as we learn about Wayne's life and his adventures. His story is fun and inspirational and it contains life lessons for all of us. Listen along with me and see just how unstoppable your own world can be.   About the Guest: With over three decades as a Professional Speaker, a career in corporate communications, paired with multiple appearances on national radio and television as well as a full-length documentary featuring his life and dream of becoming a certified blind scuba diver, you will soon experience Wayne's infectious Can-Do attitude.    His powerful and inspiring message will shift attitudes, influence new ideas and share new ways of doing things that will inform, inspire and motivate audiences to lead happier, healthier and more productive lives.  With his self-deprecating humor and tales of personal triumph, Wayne has been entertaining, enlightening, and educating audiences around the globe in person and virtually.   Added to his many accomplishments, Wayne is a dedicated advocate for the disabled community and frequently facilitates Disability Awareness Workshops and Keynote presentations to organizations and corporate clients. For further information:  Email:  wjt.tuttle@gmail.com Phone: 705-578-2242       About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is an Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.     Transcription Notes Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson  01:20 Well, hi again. And thank you for being here, wherever you may be, if you're not sure you are listening to the unstoppable mindset podcast, where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet and we deliberately put inclusion before diversity. Because in my experience, diversity has not involved disabilities very much. Several of you have probably heard me say that on this podcast before. And you'll probably hear it some more. And you may even hear it from our guest today. who also happens to be a person who is blind. So Wayne Tuttle Welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Wayne Tuttle  02:00 Well, thank you very much, Michael, for having me.   Michael Hingson  02:02 Glad you're here. And Wayne was introduced by someone who heard him speak at a Toastmasters group. Someone as I recall, you didn't even know but they liked what you had to say and introduced the two of us. And here we are, which is always a fun thing.   Wayne Tuttle  02:18 Yeah, brilliant. It's a small, small world.   Michael Hingson  02:21 It is and grows smaller daily. Will will tell me a little bit about you tell me about your your childhood and all that growing up and so on. And I gather from reading your bio, and so on that you were not initially blind.   Wayne Tuttle  02:35 No, actually, I didn't start losing my vision. On till the year after I graduated college, I was on track to be involved with radio and television broadcasting moreso in the radio part of it, I never really wanted to be in front of the microphone, I always wanted to do the production end of it. And unfortunately, back in the day, it was really difficult to break into that market, you always seem to have to have on air experience for at least a year before they would even think about putting you into production. And unfortunately, since my vision was starting to change considerably, it was very difficult at that time because everything was done manually. It's not like today everything is so technologically advanced. So how long ago was that? Wow. Well, that's that's gonna default by age shared was back and it is 75   Michael Hingson  03:41 There you go. I know the year well. No problem. Well, so you before then you went to school and high school and all that and got into college I gather before you started losing eyesight.   Wayne Tuttle  03:56 Yeah, like, I thought as a kid it I felt very different than everybody else. It seems like you know, the old saying your parents would always say, oh, make sure you're home before the streetlights come on. Well, for me it darkness started early. So I was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa. And for those of you that are not familiar with it, part of it has to do with night blindness. So I thought everybody had the same issue as I did, that I wasn't able to see as well as everybody else. But it was like playing hide and go seek or playing tag that became more and more difficult for me. But as time progressed, I started losing the peripheral part of it. And I was okay for a number of years. It just started progressing over the years or level off and then we go down a little bit more. And then finally guess it was around 2017 Or I lost the remainder A portion of my vision.   Michael Hingson  05:01 So did you ever get an opportunity to go into radio production or TV production?   Wayne Tuttle  05:08 Well, it was well, and funny that you asked that. On on the onslaught. As far as getting into the business. No, I was never really involved with it. But it wasn't until I lost my vision that a lot of doors opened up, I became very involved with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, of the RP Foundation, they were named that at the time, they've since changed the name, thump, Foundation Fighting Blindness. And I just started having more and more opportunities. So be invited on different radio shows, television shows, magazines, all kinds of different opportunities, I think because of it.   Michael Hingson  05:58 So you, you end up being in front of the microphone, after all,   Wayne Tuttle  06:04 unfortunately, but I was involved with that I've been in three different documentaries. So I was behind the camera, as well as in front of the camera, I did some producing and directing in that aspect. I have produced a number of podcasts over the years and that sort of thing. So I still like to keep my hands involved with it. Now, with the advent of so much different technologies out there, as you you know, Michael, would you use in Reaper, Reaper is a program that's fully accessible for people who are blind. And that's one of my next missions to really start to learn the editing portion of it without vision,   Michael Hingson  06:53 well, and you will find using Reaper that a lot of that is really very open and accessible. As you pointed out, I've been using Reaper now for who almost a year and have not done anything in terms of really editing music, or any of that. And Reaper certainly has the capabilities to do that. But as far as being a mechanism to do editing for podcasts, it is great.   Wayne Tuttle  07:21 Oh, absolutely. And there's so many different tutorials on YouTube and a lot of different people that you can network with, they have Facebook groups, that they share their different tips and tricks. So beyond really looking forward to   Michael Hingson  07:38 that. Yeah, there's a lot there. It's it's a lot of fun to do. And in fact, I just edited a podcast episode that we're going to put up next week. And was and I'm always learning new things, but I was very pleased with the results in just doing simple editing. But it's it's still a lot of fun. Yeah. So you were you out of college by the time you started losing eyesight or was that before you left college.   Wayne Tuttle  08:09 It started really taking effect around 1976. I knew there was some changes going on with my vision, especially with the peripheral part of it. And I searched out all kinds of different so called when I say so called specialists. I had everything from diagnosis of having cancer to I'm not sure what it is tumors, you've got this, you've got that. And finally, I was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa Crusher syndrome. Which when did that happen? I wasn't actually diagnosed with Asperger's till I was 30. Okay, so I guess I was around what 1920 1976?   Michael Hingson  08:57 Okay, so you definitely started to see changes in salon, but you went ahead and went through college. And then what did you do?   Wayne Tuttle  09:09 Well, from there, since I wasn't able to get a job in the business, I moved back to my hometown, which a very small community in northern Ontario and Canada, maybe a population at the time around 10,000 people. So there really wasn't a lot of opportunity available. They did have their own radio station at the time. And from time to time, I got to know some of the disc jockeys and I would go in and do my audition tapes and using their studio and that sort of thing. But I still had that dream that I always wanted to get into radio, but unfortunately I had to put it on the shelf for a while. I went back and worked in a factory. The same factory I did when I was a kid. So I thought after a year I said no. I don't want to do this the rest of my life. I want to do something there. For. So there was an ad and one of the major newspapers in Toronto, Ontario, one of the largest cities in Canada, they had an advertisement for someone in in communications for the Toronto Stock Exchange, right on the Toronto Stock Exchange trading floor. I applied for the job, and they hired me on the spot. So within three weeks, I was moving from a little tiny town to the big scary city.   Michael Hingson  10:34 What were you making the manufacturing plants? What were you doing?   Wayne Tuttle  10:38 Em? Funny, you should ask. There was bridal gowns and bridesmaids gowns. There you go. And it was formal, where I was involved in the cutting area where we would cut the pattern. So with all these electrical solid type things a little bit dangerous as you're starting to lose your vision, but I managed,   Michael Hingson  11:02 did they know that you were blind or losing eyesight?   Wayne Tuttle  11:06 Oh, no. No, you would have been knocking back in the day that that was taboo. You never ever told your employer that things were changing, because he always had that fear of losing your job because of it.   Michael Hingson  11:22 Sure. So you move to the stock exchange, did you mention anything about eyesight during that process at all?   Wayne Tuttle  11:31 For the first two years no. Okay, by did not let on at all. And the way that things worked on the Toronto Stock Exchange, you would be working for the Toronto Stock Exchange. But there was all kinds of brokerage firms that were always scouting for people up in the back office or to do different things on the trading floor, that sort of thing. So I was scouted out two years later. And I got hired on by Merrill Lynch, one of the largest in the United States and in Canada. Yes. And I eventually told them that the job was becoming more and more difficult. And you have to remember, this is going back late 70s, early 80s. So technology for people with vision loss was very archaic. I mean, the first technology that I worked with was a CCTV system, right, where I would put the piece of paper underneath the camera, and it would enlarge and up to whatever size that I needed, and continue on with that. So it was quite a challenge at the beginning.   Michael Hingson  12:46 So when you when you told them know what happened, they I   Wayne Tuttle  12:50 was very fortunate that I had a boss who was very receptive to it, she saw that the things were changing in and of course, you know, you try and cover things up and get around things, asking other people to do things for you and that sort of thing. But it got to the point where I think, deep down I knew she knew. So I eventually had to have that conversation and say, No, I really need to look at other adaptive technology. And I need to be, I guess more so accommodated, was, what   Michael Hingson  13:30 involvement did she do? Well,   Wayne Tuttle  13:33 she took me off, what I refer to the assembly line, or we had to do a lot of communication. But back in the day, it was teletype. There was no real thought of computers yet. So we were we were using a world war two technology with the teletype for that sort of thing. But I eventually started climbing up the ladder and became a manager of the department and I had 28 people under me. So I would spend my day half the day would be right on the trading floor of the Toronto Stock Exchange and the other half of the day. I wouldn't be up in the office.   Michael Hingson  14:16 Why do you suppose that she reacted in such a positive way. When you finally told her what you needed to tell her?   Wayne Tuttle  14:24 Well, I think we had a very good relationship. Inside work. She was a taskmaster. She was very, very strict. I'd like to use the word but it's not appropriate. But she   Michael Hingson  14:42 I Korea, she was tough. She was tiring.   Wayne Tuttle  14:45 Yes. Yes. Very, very tough. And I can remember all I was there 12 years, and I can remember probably around year 10 Year 11 I had just had a Enough of it. She was always on me, says, can I talk with you? We went into her office, close the door. And I said, What is going on? I'm just so tired of you always on me. And she said to me, you know something, because of your vision loss. If you ever leave this environment, it's going to be tough out there for you. So I'm just trying to toughen you up. And when you know, two years later, I left. Why did you leave? I needed to change. I think it was the stress level, because it wasn't a typical nine to five job. You were basically there until the job was done. Because you would have to send information to other departments and they couldn't start their job until your job was done. So I know there was many, many times 10 o'clock at night, you starting at eight o'clock in the morning. So when the stress level really started to wear me down. Of course, a lot of people in that environment   Michael Hingson  16:12 leave because of course, the reality is with the stock exchange, and I'm familiar with it from selling products to Wall Street and interacting with them a lot, it really is a 24 hour a day job for the company. Because stocks are being traded somewhere most all the time. And information is extremely important. I remember once being down in Florida, we were working with some folks from at that time, it was Salomon Brothers, and then became Salomon Smith, Barney. And now it's gone away. But we were down there, because we sold the products that people use to backup their data. And so we were talking with some of the people at the backup facility for the Wall Street trading floor. And they made it really clear that even if they were down for one minute, they would lose millions and millions of dollars in transactions, they could afford never to be down. And they actually and they actually had to backup facilities in Florida and had them somewhat underground and in places so that even if there was a hurricane, they would be able to continue to backup and operate and provide support.   Wayne Tuttle  17:33 Yeah, it was just unbelievable. You know, the old saying Time is money in the stock market industry. Basically seconds count   Michael Hingson  17:44 seconds. Absolutely count. I can't remember it was seems to me it was something like possibly up to $5 million a second, they would lose if they were ever down. There was something incredibly awesome in terms of the amount. So yeah, there's a lot of stress. So you left the stock exchange. So that must have been about what 2000 2001   Wayne Tuttle  18:09 Or no, that was 19 JD Oh, okay. 89. All right. And then what did you do? I was searching around, they thought I wanted to get into the personnel industry. I did a short stint at Children's Aid Society. Then I had an opportunity to get back into communications with Rogers Communications. I was there for another 10 years.   Michael Hingson  18:49 He didn't sell telephones. So that's how you   Wayne Tuttle  18:56 in job. What did you do? I was in the call center. Okay, so I was a manager in the call center. And occasionally I would have to deal with difficult customers and that sort of thing.   Michael Hingson  19:10 Oh, you couldn't have any difficult customers?   Wayne Tuttle  19:15 Well, if the weather network goes off yeah, the phone would light up. Yeah. My mike tyson fight only lasted   Michael Hingson  19:25 two minutes and six seconds. Yes.   Wayne Tuttle  19:28 I was I was there.   Michael Hingson  19:30 I remember that fight. We were watching it. I was with relatives or a friend I guess it was relatives. Anyway. We we watched it on TV. I never thought about the fact that people would be all ticked off that it didn't last very long. But hey, he was doing his   Wayne Tuttle  19:48 job. Well, especially if they're paying that kind of money. You   Michael Hingson  19:52 pays your money. You take your chances. Yeah, exactly. What did you do after being with Rajesh for a while so now you're good. be close to 2000, I assume?   Wayne Tuttle  20:02 Yeah, um, I think it was. His was three years before I left Rogers, I took a transfer to a smaller community, who was the head office was in Toronto, but they had satellite offices throughout southern Ontario. And I decided that, you know, it was time maybe my wife and I would think about starting a family and we wanted to get out of the city, the hustle and bustle type of thing. So it was still a city we were moving to. And I took a job and their call center was a little bit different than what was and the head office. But they decided after three years of being there, they pulled me in the day before my birthday and announced that though we no longer need you anymore. Oh, thank you. Yeah, well, at that time, I was still looking at starting my own business. I think that really gave me the drive to take my business to the next level.   Michael Hingson  21:09 So they invited you to no longer be connected with Rogers. And   Wayne Tuttle  21:14 then what? And then I started my own business, and   Michael Hingson  21:20 accents. And what were you doing? And what is your business,   Wayne Tuttle  21:24 doing motivational speaking, different types of workshops, everything from disability awareness, to breaking down barriers to employment for people with disabilities, doing different types of keynote addresses, high schools, doing workshops for local groups, here in Canada, they call it scouts, Canada as opposed to Boy Scouts in the United States. So I did a lot of work with them. A lot of nonprofit organizations and that sort of thing. So   Michael Hingson  22:03 why go into motivational speaking? Was your eyesight sufficiently changed by that time that it made good sense, or what caused you to do that?   Wayne Tuttle  22:11 I don't know. I really enjoyed speaking in front of people and sharing my story, I think so really sparked an interest with it   Michael Hingson  22:23 was your story. So a lot about the concept of eyesight and disabilities and so on at that point?   Wayne Tuttle  22:32 Well, I think my message was that, you know, the sky's the limit, follow your dreams, no matter what adversity that you face in your life. There's always a possibility. You have to want it bad enough to achieve it.   Michael Hingson  22:48 What's the favorite venue? Since you became a motivational speaker? What's your favorite place that you've been or a place that stands out in your mind?   Wayne Tuttle  23:00 Oh, there's so many of them. I think probably a weather I would say it's my favorite. But the most fun was the ride for sites. I would speak every year, the ride for site and we would have anywhere up to 9000 rowdy bikers,   Michael Hingson  23:23 and they listen to you.   Wayne Tuttle  23:26 Well, it's funny, you should ask Michael it, it was so strange, because of course, these guys are there to celebrate. They're there because they've raised literally hundreds of 1000s of dollars in a short period of time. And they really want to let their hair down. So but every time I got up on stage, it was almost like it was a pin drop. I would always make it a shorter dress because I know that they were there to party and carry on. And I always had an opportunity to play with the band that was there. an accomplished musician, I play bass as well as drums. And I've been doing that since I was 14 years old. So I had that opportunity. And I think that's where I have my most fun. Well,   Michael Hingson  24:20 it's interesting that you you came to speaking in the way you did, and you've certainly obviously had a lot of fun doing it. And along the way, I also know that you join Toastmasters and when did you do that?   Wayne Tuttle  24:37 2016 Okay,   Michael Hingson  24:39 so you've now been in Toastmasters about six years and is Toastmasters been an advantage and a help to your speaking career into your speaking style and so   Wayne Tuttle  24:50 on. I am a totally totally different speaker than I was years before. It got to the point where I was doing a lot of speaking engagements, and some of them were repetitious. I never had a mentor. So I learned this craft on my own, but I felt there was something missing. I needed to freshen it up. Well, I heard about Dale Carnegie, but I didn't think that was for me. And I just went on Google one day, and I don't even know what keywords I use. And all of a sudden, this thing came up Toastmasters. What the heck is a Toastmaster, a bunch of old guys sitting around the table haven't told staffed or toast or is it a gourmet toast making thing or something? Oh, no. So I started to investigate it more and ended up going to a few meetings and I said, Yep, this is what I want to do. So in 2021, I decided to take it to even the next level and joined an advanced Toastmaster club. That sounds like a lot of fun. Yeah, I write differently. My speeches are written differently. My workshops are different. My presentations are totally different than what I used to. And I'd like to say they're more effective,   Michael Hingson  26:18 one would think and I think appropriately so that being blind shouldn't really affect your ability to participate in Toastmasters much less being a public speaker. From my own experience, of course, I say that. But certainly finding a tool to help you with that, like Toastmasters makes a lot of sense to do. Oh, absolutely.   Wayne Tuttle  26:43 But I also find that one of the things that I've noticed is that there are literally 1000s, or even hundreds of 1000s of speakers out there. And to get into that type of market, you have to have some kind of fuck. To stand out, you have to be different than the rest of the crowd. And I find that because of my blindness, I seem to be getting more bookings. Now more so than I ever have.   Michael Hingson  27:17 Why is that? I don't know.   Wayne Tuttle  27:19 I wish I had that answer. I don't know if it's people are intrigued by that fact. They want to see something different.   Michael Hingson  27:29 Do you work with a speaker's bureau? Or how do you find speaking engagements,   Wayne Tuttle  27:33 I was with the speaker's bureau for a short period of time, but unfortunately, I probably joined the wrong one. But it's pretty much word of mouth. Someone sees me at an event and usually people in the crowd will come up and want to chat with me and do different things. I dabble into a lot of different things. One of the things that I'm involved with, but I've been a Titanic, Titanic historian, and artifact collector ever since I can remember probably early 70s And usually around the anniversary date usually have a few bookings to my displays. So my collection then they do a two hour presentation about the Titanic. You never show the movie will tell you. I've only seen it a few 1000   Michael Hingson  28:34 times. Yeah. Understand   Wayne Tuttle  28:37 what JJ ever did. He did do a good job of it. That was a good movie.   Michael Hingson  28:40 And I in fact, when it came out, it is long enough ago that we bought the VHS tape version of it, which was two cartridges. It wasn't one it was if I recall what three hours plus not four hours it was three hours. So the to be a nominated for an Academy Award, though. You could not have a movie that was that long. So they always portrayed it as being only two hours and 74 minutes long. Yeah. That's how they had it under three hours. It was kind of funny. But let's come back to blindness a little bit. Tell me some of the the strangest and most absurd questions you ever been given our experience. And we can sit here and talk about that all day, the two of us but we'll start with you.   Wayne Tuttle  29:35 Oh my Lord. It is hilarious. I think that the funniest ones are kids, especially the elementary kids. You know kids will say the darndest things they don't care at all. Like here's some of them. Is your wife blind to know she's a blonde she's got offline to Sublime. I remember this one presentation I did. This kid was so excited. He wanted to ask the question, you know, at a grade two grade three level, it's always that you're jumping up and down and okay, that and he was kinda a little shy, a little bashful and he pays but of course, he didn't take Toastmasters, you wouldn't send so many arms. But what you got, is it? Is it key because that's a key gisc Key is what does he mean? Oh, do you mean can you get it? continued? I see I can't do this, right. So I said, Well, why don't you come up here and shake my hand? No, no.   Michael Hingson  30:51 I think the funniest question I ever got was also from someone and I don't remember what grade they were in. It was a guy course it would be a guy, too. And his question was, how do blind people have sex? And he said it with an absolutely straight face. Oh, my word. And so the only way I could really respond to that was to say, the same way everyone else does. And if you want to know more about that, you really need to ask your parents.   Wayne Tuttle  31:31 Yeah. I've never had that question. But I've always had the question. How do you go pee all   Michael Hingson  31:38 the time? I haven't had that one.   Wayne Tuttle  31:40 Yeah. Same way as you do. No different. But I think you know, it's thought by consult just the questions. It's the comments. And one of the quieter comments that I get all the time, is, what do you do? What blind? Yeah, well, you don't look blind at all. You don't look stupid.   Michael Hingson  32:06 I had an insurance agent Call me once on the phone when I was in college. And he said that he wanted to come and sell me insurance. And I knew that insurance companies at that point would not sell life insurance to any person with a disability. But I figured, oh, what the heck. And I said, Sure, come on over. He arrived at three in the afternoon. And I went to the door and open the door. And I had my guide dog with me. I decided to do this upright, right. So I had the dog and harness. And he said, I'm looking for Michael Hickson. And I said, I'm Mike kingsun. And he said, You are my kingsun. And I said, Yeah, well, you didn't sound blind on the telephone. And it was so tempting to say and you didn't sound stupid on the telephone either. And of course, needless to say, he came in and hemmed and hawed and brownies, I have to call my boss. And I never heard from him again. Because, and, of course, as we know, the reason that insurance companies would not sell insurance, life insurance to blind or other persons with disabilities back in the 70s, was not due to actuarial statistics or any fact but rather simply to prejudice. Yes. And we were able to eventually fight that there's still a lot of it out there. But still, at the time, we couldn't buy any kind of insurance. My parents, when I when it was discovered, I was blind couldn't even buy $1,000 life insurance policy on me. They could not it would have cost so much, because of the fact that the insurance companies were steeped in this prejudice that blindness was going to create a situation where I would die off sooner than other people.   Wayne Tuttle  33:51 Yeah. Well, I had a situation not similar to life insurance, it was coverage with one of the companies that I worked with their insurance company paid for prescription glasses. While I didn't need prescription glasses. Back in the day, they were experimenting with what they called Corning lenses, right? Which they figured it would be a preventative measure. So I had to fight the insurance company because these Corning glasses were extremely expensive. And I actually won. They did pay for the preventative classes.   Michael Hingson  34:35 It's fascinating to really look at what people's attitudes are. And you mentioned that a lot of questions that you get from kids are funny and so on. But the neat thing about any question from a child is still, it really comes from curiosity. And mostly it doesn't come from fear. It really does come from curiosity. And if there's fear, it's because there's been fear instilled. And then by their parents who are afraid of blindness? Or why would want to catch that or ever have that ever happened to me, even though the reality is that in our world today, given all the things that are out there that can happen to one, blindness is clearly something that anyone might have the opportunity to experience. But kids always ask questions. And I think it really comes from Curiosity. So they're always worth answering. I have now in the lowly, I have one. Go ahead.   Wayne Tuttle  35:33 What I was just going to comment on with the mentality of some people in our public is that they have this understanding that it could be possible that you could catch blindness. Yeah, I noticed a huge difference when I was using a white cane. People would literally, if you're sitting on the bus, they would kind of shift over to the left, why don't want to touch that person. But when I'm out with my guide, dog, totally different story. People are swarming around you like flies to honey type of thing. It's   Michael Hingson  36:12 all about the dog? Well, you know, and that's, that's one of the things about the Foundation Fighting Blindness. And the reality is it doesn't fight blindness, it fights eye disease, and it shouldn't talk about fighting blindness, but it does. Back in 2016, they created this campaign called how I see and I was e y e, and they wanted people to blindfold themselves and then take videos of them trying to perform a lot of different kinds of actions around their home and so on. And, and of course, it was all giving an absolutely wrong and horrible depiction of blindness, because of course, none of these people were trained to do what, what they did. And finally, I was involved in a lot of ways with it. But finally, blind people, ourselves started sending in videos saying, No, this is the real picture, and overwhelmed the site. And eventually Foundation Fighting Blindness took the site down. And there were some discussions afterward. But the reality is, blindness isn't the problem. It is still the attitudes and misconceptions that people have. And unfortunately, at that time that the foundation promoted, that didn't help the situation at all, which is extremely unfortunate.   Wayne Tuttle  37:34 Absolutely. And you'll find that kids today are more understanding than adults are. When you have adults that are around our age, they're old school. So they may be have been brought up in a small community, or if they're in a very large city, they may or may not have had the experience to interact with someone who has churned whether whether they're blind or in a wheelchair, or what have you. And then all of a sudden, there's someone in their church group that's in a wheelchair or Toastmasters, it's blind. They just don't understand. And they're afraid. I don't want to offend them. Like, you know, I don't know what the right words are. How many times have you heard say, people say, oh, did you hear that movie last night? What do you hear that movie? No, I watched a movie last night. And I've seen it before. Yes, I don't take those words out of my vocabulary, because I have no vision. It's still just a part   Michael Hingson  38:44 of it. In fact, as I tell people, I think I have lots of vision. And I try to make light of it. I just don't see so good. But the reality is, and that's the problem with even using the word vision, but I'm not sure there's a better solution. But the reality is, we're that we're either blind or low vision. And I think it is something that we really should deal with the concept of visually impaired is ridiculous, because visually, is a completely different thing than eyesight altogether. It has to do with appearance and aesthetics and so on. And the fact is we're not visually impaired. It's better to say low vision. It's like with Deaf people who don't want to be called hearing impaired, they're deaf or hard of hearing. We are blind or low vision. And I think that's an appropriate way to put it. That is acceptable to everyone. But the fact is that blindness still isn't the problem. It is still all about attitudes. And we've got to change that and I would like to see organizations like the foundation. Enter that discussion in a positive way. There's nothing wrong with trying to cure eye disease, but don't do it at the expense of Providing misconceptions about what blindness is and what it isn't. And that's unfortunately, what happens all too often.   Wayne Tuttle  40:06 Absolutely. And I think it really comes down to where you're from as well. Because in some countries, they use different terminology. And it's always changing. Like the the newest trend that I've been hearing is differently abled, yes. What?   Michael Hingson  40:29 It's horrible. Because we're not differently abled, hey, I use Reaper like anyone else does. I use a keyboard, I don't use a mouse. But I use a keyboard and more people should use keyboards because sometimes they're faster than mice. But the concept of differently abled is horrible. It still depicts the fear. Yeah, and my wife is in a wheelchair, she has been in a chair her whole life differently abled, that's ridiculous. But it is oftentimes what we experience. And more and more of us who happen to be in the community of persons with disabilities are trying to get people to understand that words matter. It's no different than any other minority group who has been down this road. Except that, I think that there's a lot more fear associated with disabilities. And so as a result, it makes it tougher, because no one wants to be like them, that is still the thing that we face.   Wayne Tuttle  41:34 Exactly. And I coined a new new phrase that by I'm a sighted man living in a blind man's body,   Michael Hingson  41:44 I am light independent. It's as simple as that. And the reality is, most everyone in this world has the disability of being light dependent. And, you know, the reality is that we love you anyway. external light dependent. So you know, it is just kind of what we have to deal with. On the other hand, being blind, what kind of embarrassing things have happened to you. We all have had those kinds of things to where,   Wayne Tuttle  42:13 depending on how much time do we have, like, I'd like to share this story with the audience. And I'll try and give you the Reader's Digest version of it. But it has to be the absolute worst day of my life. And the funniest day of my life. It was my dad's scream 2010, I was to be giving the eulogy. And unfortunately, because I was so close to my dad, I wasn't able to deliver it. I wrote it and had the minister read it. But at that time, my sister in law's she was newly blind, and she had her first guide dog, and I was there with my guide dogs. And it was time for us to leave. And since we were the immediate family, we were to leave the child pool first and the rest of the parishioners would follow us out to the hearse. Well, her guide dog had this uncanny ability to lie on his back and snore. And do you think we could get him to get up, she just could not get him up. So my brother literally had to lift him up to get them going. Whereas my dog Cosmo, she decided that as she got up, she let a very aromatic odor go. That caused my great aunt to start choking, because it was so bad. Well, of course, I sort of broke the ice a bit. We got to the grave site. And there were chairs set up for the immediate family. So prior to the rest of the congregation showing up, like my father was very popular in the Tony as a volunteer firefighter. He was a model railroaders. So we belong to a few clubs and whatnot. So there had to be, oh, I would say 100 or so people there. And my wife and I would we rehearsed how many steps it was from the chairs up to the grave site. My father was cremated. So this was the very first time that I was involved with a cremation. All I knew was a tiny little coffin. And they told me go out to the hall and then just sort of drop it in. So I counted the steps up to how far away it was sat down, so it was time for me to do I got up there. And I went to reach down. And I felt the the actual hole with my arm. But I didn't have any clue of how deep this was, I was thinking in my head, well, maybe it's only like three foot deeper thing, and I didn't want to drop them. So I lean forward, and all of a sudden, I'm going in the hole. And my wife is trying to grab a hold of me, my brother jumps up out of his chair, grabs me by the back of the pants, and lift me out of the hole. And I couldn't think of anything else to say, but   Michael Hingson  45:43 there you go. You know? It is, we all have experiences, and it's okay. Blindness has nothing to do with that. I doubt that there is any person who hasn't had something in their lives that has happened that, that they haven't been embarrassed over or found to be funny. I know, I was with one of my guide dogs, we were wandering the halls of Congress, and, and we had a few of those aromatic kinds of things that happened with her. And, and the more I thought about the more I went, Well, who was in Congress, they deserve it anyway. So it's okay. But you know, you just got to go go to it. Well, so tell me, in your experience, we've we've been seeing more laws pass. And we've been seeing advances in technology and so on. Do you think that society's attitudes toward persons with disabilities is is changing significantly yet? What what do you think?   Wayne Tuttle  46:51 Yes or no? And the reason I say yes, is, I'm finding that younger kids today, they get it. They understand. I've been in situations where you'd be in a grocery store with my guide dog, and a mother would come over and automatically think it's okay to bend down and start paddling. And right away, the the young child would say, Oh, mommy, he's a working dog, you're not allowed to distract them or catch them or anything like that. So yes, I've seen some steps forward with getting kids at a younger age. And it takes people like yourself and myself to go around to schools and educate and really get the word out that there are people in our society today with disabilities. But on the other hand, I think governments really have to get more involved with people with disabilities, and the sense of having different type of programs available out there, there are still a lot of discrimination. When it comes to employment. If an individual with a disability wants to start their own business, they should have programs available out there to teach entrepreneurship. For people with disabilities. It's really no different than any other entrepreneur but they have to do things a little bit different. So they can be involved with it. But again, I think we have a long way to go. In in Canada here. We've we've got all kinds of different laws, but every province seems to be different and unsure. It's no different than in the United States. They are apart, trying to implement different laws to assist people with disabilities. But they still have a long, long way to go to they're chipping away at it. But a lot of these people are living with disabilities. Time's running out. Yeah. So what about the next generation that comes along after us? Like it's despicable. The amount of money that the government puts aside for people with disabilities, with the inflation especially in the last couple of years, it's on believable. So you have to make that choice, whether to pay your rent or whether you're going to eat today.   Michael Hingson  49:43 Do you think that there's any more awareness in the world because of the pandemic and the fact that we've had to do so many things online? Has that really made a big difference?   Wayne Tuttle  49:54 In some ways that has like every country is different especially when it comes to disabilities there, there are countries around our world that still want to hide people with disabilities. They're not allowed to be out in public good, thick. They've shamed the family because of the disability.   Michael Hingson  50:16 And what happens in civilized countries to Oh, yeah, yes, absolutely.   Michael Hingson  50:21 You know, last year, I began working with accessibe, which is a company that makes websites for the products to make websites more usable and accessible, and the company has grown a lot over the last year. But we find that even though it can be pretty inexpensive to start the process, the reality is that a lot of people are going well, yeah, maybe I need to do it. But I really can't do it right now, or I just don't have any money to, to put into this kind of a project, or it's just not something that I think we really need to worry about. And it's so unfortunate that, at the same time, those people provide electric lights for everyone in their offices, they provide coffee machines, they provide computers, and a lot of other amenities. But when it comes to dealing with disabilities, or making their websites more inclusive, so that more people might shop at their sites and so on, they won't do that.   Wayne Tuttle  51:30 And their mindset is that they have this assumption. Well, there's just not enough of them out there. So we don't have to do it. But guess what, if you do do it, that's going to increase your bottom line. Because those 10 people who are now shopping on your website are going to go and tell 10 of their friends. And it's just going to snowball even more, and then they'd be recognized that they are a fully accessible website,   Michael Hingson  52:06 one of the projects that accessibe is working on and it's still not live yet, but hopefully it will be sometime in the near future is called Access find. What access find will be is a database of accessible websites, any website that has made the effort to become inclusive, not only for people who happen to be blind, but who have other disabilities will be able to put their website into the access fine database. And so it will be a central location where people with disabilities can go to find local or whatever websites they truly can search and whether the site uses accessibility or some other mechanism or company to make their website accessible isn't the issue. The issue is that they've done it however they've done it and access fine. We'll allow that to happen. We're not there yet. It's coming, though. And it'll be very exciting. When that opens. It's a it's a great idea.   Wayne Tuttle  53:04 Yeah, it's it's something that is definitely needed. Because I think that that, again, our society lacks is is communication. There are all kinds of nonprofit organizations that are doing wonderful things. But the disabled community is not aware of it. So they need to spend more time and effort in shouting it out and say, Hey, everybody, this is new. This is what's happening right now. But they don't and   Michael Hingson  53:36 Neil's the Nielsen Company, the company that does ratings and so on, used to do index and still does all the ratings for TV shows and so on the Nielsen rating did a study in 2016. And categorically states, that websites that become more inclusive, we'll have brand loyalty that will very much carry over to persons with disabilities and people will shop those sites, rather than going through all the frustration of trying to find some other website that may or may not be inclusive for them. It's it is something that is absolutely substantial. It's something that can be verified. But we're still not yet seeing nearly enough of our world really deal with that. And it's all about still the same attitudes. That as you said, there aren't enough of them or we really just don't think that they can do it. Other people are going to do the shopping for them anyway. And it just isn't the way it works. Yeah, exactly. Well, so tell me as a person who happens to be blind, what would you give in the way of advice to someone who is coming to terms with losing their eyesight, you meet someone, either a family member or whatever of someone who of becoming blind or you meet a person who is losing their eyesight and becoming blind, what would you say to them?   Wayne Tuttle  55:06 It to me, it's a very personal aspect that they're going through. Some people are fully sighted today and totally blind tomorrow, some people gradually lose their vision over time. So it comes down to being a personal thing. And my advice would basically be that go through that grieving process, because there is grief involved with any loss, especially when you're losing your vision or your hearing or your mobility skills and the list goes on. But realize that your life has changed, you can still do pretty much the same things that you've always done. It's just that you have to find new ways of achieving your goals. And that's what it comes down to the sky's the limit,   Michael Hingson  56:04 it still comes down to is not blindness. It's our attitudes. And we need to be as forward looking in that as people who can see, because if our attitude is not a positive one about being blind, then we won't be   Wayne Tuttle  56:19 absolutely can, we   Michael Hingson  56:21 will have the challenges. Well, Wayne, this has been fun. I really have enjoyed having you on unstoppable mindset. I hope you've liked it as well. Oh, my pleasure. And we will have to get together and swap more stories   Wayne Tuttle  56:37 but have to come come down to California?   Michael Hingson  56:40 Well, it is it was 97 Fahrenheit today. And according to my lovely little trusty Amazon device, we're going to have an excessive heat warning on Thursday. So if 97 Isn't excessive, that means it's going to be over 100 Just what it really means. So I Interesting.   Wayne Tuttle  57:00 Well, where I come from, I'm very Northern Ontario. We are so far north, we literally wave to Santa Claus as we're coming to this area. So we have had a couple of frost alerts the last few days.   Michael Hingson  57:20 Well as the big guy waved back.   Wayne Tuttle  57:24 I have no idea.   Michael Hingson  57:26 Well, then, you know, you need to put your communication skills to use and come up with a way that you guys can communicate better. Absolutely. Well, thanks for being on unstoppable mindset. If people want to reach out to you learn more about you and chat with you. How can they do that if they want to learn about your speaking career and so on?   Wayne Tuttle  57:45 Well, if you'd like to reach out, my email address would be my initials. So it would be a W J T dot tuttle. And that's t u t t l e @gmail.com. Okay, I have a website that it's still under construction. So I'm not sure when that will be up and running. But I will definitely let you know.   Michael Hingson  58:13 Well, let's talk about accessibe going on the site to help you with access that makes it a lot easier for your website people to do. Absolutely. Well, meanwhile, everyone, thank you for joining us today. I'd love to hear what you think about this. As always, please reach out to me Michaelhi at  accessibe.com. That's M I  C H A E L H I  at A C C S S I B E.com. Or visit our podcast page, which is www dot Michael hingson.com/podcast. Michael Hingson is M I C H A E L H I N G S O N WWW dot Michael hingson.com/podcasts. And of course, as I always ask, and I appreciate everyone who is doing it, please give us a five star rating. Wherever you're listening to the podcast and join us regularly you can subscribe to our podcast wherever you are finding us. And we hope that you will do that and join us for other adventures and other future podcasts. And again, Wayne, I really appreciate your time and you being here with us today.   Wayne Tuttle  59:20 Thanks for having me, Michael.   Michael Hingson  59:25 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. 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In this week's episode of Fostering Change, Rob Scheer talks with Angelique Salizan, Policy Director of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI), and with their summer Interns, all who are or have been in foster care: Stormy Lukasavage, Christina Parker & Ryan Young. CCAI hosts its annual Foster Youth Internship ® Program every summer- where young adults who have spent time in foster care come to DC and work on a policy recommendation for nine weeks.Angelique Salizan, Policy Director (she/her/hers) Angelique's work in child welfare advocacy, policy, and reform dates back to 2013 when she participated in a New York State campaign advocating for support services for foster youth pursuing higher education with the Children's Aid Society, a program that is still in existence today. Her advocacy efforts related to foster youth having access to education and workforce opportunities led to an internship and career working for the United States Senate as a congressional staff member.Stormy Lukasavage, (he/him/his)Stormy Lukasavage (he/him/his) is an established professional advocate from Topeka, Kansas who has experience working with FosterClub, National Association of Counsel for Children, National Foster Youth Institute, and the Children's Bureau in the Administration on Children, Youth and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In 2019, Stormy graduated with his bachelor's degree in criminal justice with a minor in acting, the latter he studied in London.Christina Parker, (ze/zir/zis)Christina Parker (ze/zir/zis) is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan School of Social Work where ze received a master's degree with a concentration in political science in April 2022. Christina has been in service for over a decade to diverse communities who experienced the foster care system, juvenile justice system, and houselessness. Christina's advocacy and passion for system change started with California Youth Connection (CYC), a foster youth-led organization that empowers communities to use policy, legislation, and advocacy to progress system change.Ryan Young, (he/him/his)Ryan Young (he/him/his) is a child welfare advocate, consultant, and author with lived experiences from Arizona's foster care system and as an adoptee from his birth country of Ukraine. Ryan has devoted himself to public service, advocacy, and consultation in reforming the child welfare system through local, state, and national efforts. Ryan is the current President of the Arizona Department of Child Safety's (DCS) Youth Empowerment Council.You can find out more about Harvey by visiting:Website: https://www.ccainstitute.org/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theccaiInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/cca_institute/?hl=enTwitter :https://twitter.com/ccainstitute?lang=enYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/CCAINSTITUTELearn more at https://www.comfortcases.org/ Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shushan Tower, one of the founders of Assyrian Aid Society Australia, told SBS the society is pleased to announce the relaunching of their Victoria branch in Melbourne this month.The branch is starting with three members and they are working to increase their team.The Melbourne branch was established a few years back and was operational for many years. The Melbourne supporters have been very consistent and committed for many years, but due to unavoidable circumstances, it stopped functioning. Now it will be relaunched with young, vibrant and committed youth who she believes will make a big difference.Ms Shuhsan invites members of the Assyrian community in Melbourne to attend the launch and to understand better the work and achievements of the Assyrian Aid Society.

Friday, June 10, 2022: A $30,000 reward is being offered for information about the deadly beating of an Akron teen, why the great grandson former Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson will be held without bond until Monday, why JD Vance's campaign and a Super PAC are being sued by watchdogs, why Terry Francona got ejected from yesterday's Guardians game, congratulations to the new Browns pre-season broadcasting team, what you need to know about Stark County's first ever Pride festival, how you can help support The legal Aid Society of Cleveland, and more on 3News Now with Stephanie Haney Need a break from bad news? Watch It's All Good (News!) with Stephanie Haney: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M4ZvAYmG8U Like this show? Check out the 3 Things to Know with Stephanie Haney podcast: http://wkyc.com/3thingstoknow Connect with Stephanie here: http://twitter.com/_StephanieHaney http://instagram.com/_StephanieHaney http://facebook.com/thestephaniehaney Read more here: $30,000 reward offered for information on beating death of Akron teen near I Promise school https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/local/akron/30000-reward-offered-information-beating-death-akron-teen-i-promise-school/95-19b39c8b-274d-45f3-a821-3bd9803da0b8 Great-grandson of former Cleveland Mayor Frank G. Jackson appears in court on aggravated murder charges https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/local/cleveland/donald-jackson-gates-appearing-in-court-murder-charges/95-eb095891-e348-4b52-9933-3c61b516277b Watchdogs sue J.D. Vance campaign, super PAC over alleged covert website scheme https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/politics/watchdogs-sue-jd-vance-campaign-super-pac-alleged-covert-website-scheme/95-8c74f7b2-d064-4413-a393-1049614c2d1c US lifts COVID-19 test requirement for international travel https://www.wkyc.com/article/travel/us-lifts-international-travel-covid-test-requirement/507-41e74d84-27d9-4b42-8171-a4f117e72533 Cleveland Guardians rally to win without Terry Francona, Oakland A's lose 9th in row https://www.wkyc.com/article/sports/mlb/cleveland-guardians/cleveland-guardians-rally-win-without-terry-francona-oakland-lose-9th-straight/95-b31bbcf7-7a0f-4747-8369-7f5783c2f04e Aditi Kinkhabwala announces new job with Cleveland Browns https://www.wkyc.com/video/sports/locked-on/lo-cleveland/ultimate-cleveland-sports-show/aditi-kinkhabwala-announces-new-job-with-cleveland-browns-no-more-baker-mayfield-at-minicamp/95-fa625b7b-c3cc-4f51-bc09-6d108e769396 Stark County to host first ever Pride festival tomorrow https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/local/its-all-good-news/celebrating-pride/95-5ef305c2-b9b2-4f52-8d73-3099cb1754af 3News' Stephanie Haney to join The Legal Aid Society of Cleveland at Brief Advice Clinic on June 11 in support of #ExtendJustice fundraiser https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/local/3news-stephanie-haney-legal-aid-society-cleveland-at-brief-advice-clinic-june-11-extend-justice-fundraiser/95-0e102a63-a850-44e4-b948-829bf09382db A milkshake favorite is coming back to Chick-fil-A for the summer https://www.wkyc.com/article/life/food/chick-fil-a-peach-milkshake-back/85-948401fe-1cce-4228-ab90-2d37680ac0e4

Are you feeling stuck in your life or business? Do you feel like you're just going through the motions, day after day, with no real sense of purpose or direction?If so, it's time to disrupt the status quo and create a vision that will change everything.Today, our guests on Trail Angels powered by Cairn there Load are Brine & Tonya Hamilton. They are going to share with us how creating a vision changes everything. How life will teach you humility and why humility leads to change.   Brine and Tonya live, work and podcast from Ontario, Canada. In addition to being the hosts of the Disrupt The Everyday Podcast, Brine and Tonya Hamilton are husband and wife and parents to four children ages 4-12 and their mini golden doodle, Samson. Brine has spent over 15 years in the security industry, focusing primarily on the healthcare vertical in roles ranging from frontline security to a number of leadership positions. Currently, Brine is a System Engineer with Omnigo Software and faculty at Fleming College and Seneca College and serving on the Board of Directors as President-Elect with the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety.Tonya spent 12 years working in the social workspace, with her first opportunity working in a shelter for abused women and children. From there, Tonya went on to work at the Children's Aid Society of York Region, Family and Children's Services of Waterloo Region, and facilitated sessions for the John Howard Society of Waterloo Region. Currently, she is a home daycare provider and owner of Raising Our Gifts. So whether you're feeling stuck in your career, your relationship, or just life in general, this episode is for you. Tune in now, learn how to disrupt the status quo, and create a vision that will change everything.

Are you feeling stuck in your life or business? Do you feel like you're just going through the motions, day after day, with no real sense of purpose or direction?If so, it's time to disrupt the status quo and create a vision that will change everything.Today, our guests on Trail Angels powered by Cairn there Load are Brine & Tonya Hamilton. They are going to share with us how creating a vision changes everything. How life will teach you humility and why humility leads to change.   Brine and Tonya live, work and podcast from Ontario, Canada. In addition to being the hosts of the Disrupt The Everyday Podcast, Brine and Tonya Hamilton are husband and wife and parents to four children ages 4-12 and their mini golden doodle, Samson. Brine has spent over 15 years in the security industry, focusing primarily on the healthcare vertical in roles ranging from frontline security to a number of leadership positions. Currently, Brine is a System Engineer with Omnigo Software and faculty at Fleming College and Seneca College and serving on the Board of Directors as President-Elect with the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety.Tonya spent 12 years working in the social workspace, with her first opportunity working in a shelter for abused women and children. From there, Tonya went on to work at the Children's Aid Society of York Region, Family and Children's Services of Waterloo Region, and facilitated sessions for the John Howard Society of Waterloo Region. Currently, she is a home daycare provider and owner of Raising Our Gifts. So whether you're feeling stuck in your career, your relationship, or just life in general, this episode is for you. Tune in now, learn how to disrupt the status quo, and create a vision that will change everything.

Ms Shushan Tower is the current president of Assyrian Aid Society-Australia. She told SBS that they have appointed Miss Stephanie Basdekis as a member in Melbourne to aid the society in expanding their work in Victoria.Ms. Tower told SBS that Miss Basdekis is a young, vibrant and active member of the community and is dedicated to serving the Assyrian people in Iraq. 

How many of you out there are feeling burnt out. Over the last two years many have been put under an extreme amount of stress from our daily lives. Are sick and tried of being sick and tired? Join me and Jenn Bruer as we talk about burnout prevention and recovery. Please donate and Help support my channel. Thank you https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=S9HELHULPMHTQ Jenn Bruer is a Child and Youth Care Practitioner, wellness advocate, burnout prevention & recovery trainer, parenting consultant, mindfulness teacher, cooking demonstration instructor, and retired foster parent after 18 years of service with the Children's Aid Society of Toronto. Jenn is the author of self-help book Helping Effortlessly: A Book of Healing and Inspiration, based on her personal experience recovering from burnout. jennbruer.com https://www.cafdn.org/standupforkids/ About: Michael Philpott Michael is a Reiki Master for over 20 yrs. with clinical experience. He is a Psychic Medium and has given readings to people in Canada US and the Caribbean. Michael teaches Intuitive Diagnosis for health professionals and is classically trained chef and former personal trainer and is the host of the popular podcast call The Metaphysical Mentor Show found on Apple and Spotify. Providing, Inspiration, Information, Knowledge and Motivation to help you on your soul's path. Covering topics related to all things Health and Happiness from the Mystical to the Metaphysical and everything in between. Making the unknown, known. Contact me through my social media or email me at michael@michaelphilpott.com https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5mSbeHemKiHhvBimJvWBww https://www.facebook.com/michael.philpott.3133 https://www.instagram.com/themetaphysicalguy Disclaimer. The information on this Podcast is for information and entertainment only and is not medical or non-medical advice intended to replace the advice or attention of health care professionals or non-medical professionals. Michael Philpott and associates will not be held accountable for any interpretations or decisions made by listeners or viewers based on the information provided during podcast. If you are looking for medical or non-medical help please consult a trained professional.

About This Episode: → On our new episode of BeingMe, our guest, Dr. Hina Talib, chats with Dr. Neha Chaudhary and her co-host, Hazuri Dhillon, about the difference between “quirky” eating habits and eating disorders, the “silver lining” of the pandemic for teens, advice on how to navigate the tricky world of Instagram and TikTok, how to advocate for your own needs–and finding the courage to take it! Hosts: → Dr. Neha Chaudhary, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, BeMe → Hazuri Dhillon, BeMe Teen Advisory Board Guests: → Dr. Hina Talib (she/her) is a board-certified Pediatrician and Adolescent Medicine specialist, writer, and teen media creative based in New York City and Bridgehampton. She is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Obstetrics and Gynecology & Women's Health at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore, where she has practiced adolescent medicine for over 10 years. Her clinical focus includes all things teen health, mental health, wellness, and gynecology. She is a consultant at the Children's Aid Society, one of the nation's oldest foster care agencies. → About Dr. Talib, M.D.: → Dr. Talib, M.D. https://www.drhinatalib.com/ → Follow Dr. Talib on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teenhealthdoc/ → Follow Dr. Talib on Twitter: https://twitter.com/drhinatalib About BeMe: → Learn more about BeMe: https://linktr.ee/withteensinmind → Download BeMe App: https://apple.co/3p7xXS0 → BeMe on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3FIYz1D → BeMe on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3Hr2jVW → BeMe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3t6DBGH Producer: → Derek E. Baird, Chief Youth Officer, BeMe Date of Recording: → November 5, 2021

The episode this week is a chat with three cool and awesome advocates who are doing great things for caregivers and individuals with FASD. It may be in my home province of Ontario, but what they have to say and are doing can inspire and help where you are. Today I'm talking to Sharron Richards, Mary Hutchings and Mary Ann Bunkowsky about social work, advocating for system change, building support teams and The Parents Helping Parents Project, a phone support resource provided by parent Mentors for parents and caregivers of individuals with FASD in Ontario. Sharron Richards received her Master of Social Work degree from Carleton University and worked in child welfare for close to 40 years, primarily as a community development worker. She chairs the Toronto FASD Network and is committed to bringing her knowledge, experience, resources, and social privilege to ensuring that individuals and families affected by FASD have access to the resources and supports they require. Mary Hutchings has a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Toronto. She spent 38 years with the Children's Aid Society of Toronto on the front line and as a Manager. She Co-Chairs the Toronto FASD Leadership Team and is a member of the Toronto FASD Network. She is motivated by the resilience and courage of parents/caregivers as well as an understanding that unresolved grief impacts lives in significant and often overlooked ways.  Mary Ann Bunkowsky participates in many community activities and FASD-related projects, but most notably is the co-founder of the Halton FASD Parent/Caregiver and Adult Support Groups. She also serves on the Halton FASD Steering Committee and served on the Family Advisory Committee with CanFASD. Mary Ann and her husband Brad have two sons. She often states that her children are her teachers, and they remind her often of the important role we all play in each others' lives. In each podcast, the aim is to not only let you know you are not on this journey alone, provide interesting stories about what is going on around the world but also give you inside tips and knowledge to help you advocate for services to make your life as a caregiver and for your children/teens and adults that much better. Today we talk about: The disconnect with social work and knowledge about fetal alcohol and how caregivers and professionals can help each other to build better-informed teams of support. and How the Parents Helping Parents Project (Ontario) came about, how it works, who it serves and how it's evolving to meet the need. "You have to be a champion for families and kids. It isn't bad kids or bad parents. It is they have a lot of diagnoses. They have a list of labels. When we realized that those labels really didn't fit them, when you realized what the disability was and you learned about the disability those labels just went out the window. If you put in the right supports, give them the right opportunities a lot of that behaviour stops.” It is so important to keep talking and connecting. Not only as caregivers but also as professionals. You just never know what you are going to learn – and I learned about some resources that are in Ontario that I wasn't aware of and some interesting projects the Toronto FASD Network is undertaking.  Even if you are not in Ontario, there are some great discussions about social work and social workers in this episode that I think are helpful for anyone. We know that when caregivers feel supported, they feel less overwhelmed, less isolated and more hopeful. I hope listening to these podcasts provides that.  Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/FASDSUCCESS)

We're making like the devil and heading on down to Georgia.  Most people's minds go straight to Savanah when picturing the haunted South, but today we're setting our sights the smaller, lesser known town of Americus.  Specifically, we're honing in on the historic Windsor Hotel.  Among the living, many denizens of the dead are said to be checked in as permanent guests-- but are the only true spirits those on the shelf in the pub?    Follow the Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crimesandwitchdemeanors Submit your feedback or personal stories to crimesandwitchdemeanors@gmail.com  Like The Podcast on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/crimesandwitchdemeanors  Episode Transcript: Available below the sources in the show notes Visit the website: https://www.crimesandwitchdemeanors.com    Sources: 1920 United States Federal Census—AncestryLibrary.com. (n.d.). Retrieved May 1, 2021, from https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/8354991:6061?tid=&pid=&queryId=56d4f8d41cd9be6445f55f92f41c2d2d&_phsrc=eBA312&_phstart=successSource   1940 United States Federal Census—AncestryLibrary.com. (n.d.). Retrieved May 1, 2021, from https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/51459890:2442?tid=&pid=&queryId=56d4f8d41cd9be6445f55f92f41c2d2d&_phsrc=eBA312&_phstart=successSource   A New Hotel. (1897, November 12). The Macon Telegraph, page 3.   An Americus Horror Story. (n.d.). Https://Www.Walb.Com. Retrieved April 22, 2021, from https://www.walb.com/story/27180029/an-americus-horror-story   Assembly, I. G. (1906). Legislative Documents.   Best Western Plus Windsor Hotel—Americus, GA. (n.d.). Yelp. Retrieved April 22, 2021, from https://www.yelp.com/biz/best-western-plus-windsor-hotel-americus-4   Bevington, R. (n.d.). Georgia Ghosts: A Mother, Daughter Haunt This Hotel. Georgia Public Broadcasting. Retrieved April 20, 2021, from https://www.gpb.org/news/2018/10/29/georgia-ghosts-mother-daughter-haunt-hotel   BS Paranormal Investigations. (2020, December 8). Just the Evidence: Windsor Hotel, Americus, Georgia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdlz84xuFm4   Down the Elevator Shaft. (1894, January 7). Columbus Daily Enquirer (Published as Columbus Enquierer-Sun), page 3.   Eoghanacht. (2007). Windsor Hotel in Americus, Georgia.  32°4′20″N 84°14′1″W  /  32.07222°N 84.23361°W  / 32.07222; -84.23361. Own work. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Windsor-Hotel-Americus-GA-1.jpg   Fraternity, P. U. (1917). Catalogue of the Psi Upsilon Fraternity.   Georgia, U.S., Death Index, 1919-1998—AncestryLibrary.com. (n.d.). Retrieved April 23, 2021, from https://search.ancestrylibrary.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=5426&h=2141242&tid=&pid=&queryId=103c0146dc83f8afe1a4b3f5bf750d72&usePUB=true&_phsrc=eBA297&_phstart=successSource   Haunted Best Western Plus Windsor Hotel. (n.d.). Mystery 411. Retrieved April 25, 2021, from http://www.mystery411.com/Landing_bestwesternpluswindsorhotel.html   Haunted Places In Georgia: (n.d.). Retrieved April 20, 2021, from https://www.haunted-places-to-go.com/haunted-places-in-georgia-2.html   Historic Windsor Hotel, Americus, Georgia. (n.d.). Retrieved April 20, 2021, from https://www.windsor-americus.com/   Historical Images—Americus 1. (n.d.). Retrieved April 28, 2021, from https://www.americusga.us/historical_images_americus%201.htm   History | Windsor Hotel. (n.d.). Retrieved April 23, 2021, from https://www.windsor-americus.com/history/   Hotel Spotlight: Historical Best Western Plus Windsor Hotel Americus, GA. (2017, July 27). HotMamaTravel. https://hotmamatravel.com/best-west-plus-windsor-hotel/   joshnjen010304. (2020, March 30). Ghostly Georgia. Guitars, Gear, & Ghosts. http://guitarsgearandghosts.com/ghostly-georgia/   Laura Lyn. (2014, February 17). Laura Lyn visits the historic Windsor Hotel in Americus, Georgia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_lubPaPWLU   MadeInAmerica1977. (2012, November 24). Windsor Hotel (in Americus, Georgia)—A Behind the Scenes Haunted Tour. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-FHmBAfOng   Married in Haste. (1892, March 14). The Macon Telegraph. http://newscomwc.newspapers.com/image/591679561/?terms=%22windsor%20hotel%22%20americus&match=1   Nothing found for Ghostreport. (n.d.). Retrieved April 22, 2021, from http://www.windsor-americus.com/GhostReport.htm   Recollections of a Vagabonde: The Haunted Windsor Hotel in Americus, Georgia. (2009, October 22). Recollections of a Vagabonde. http://avagabonde.blogspot.com/2009/10/haunted-windsor-hotel-in-americus.html   Rev Richard Sutton Rust Sr. (1815-1906)—Find A... (n.d.). Retrieved April 28, 2021, from https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/79029702/richard-sutton-rust   Richard S. Rust. (2020). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Richard_S._Rust&oldid=990829872   Schnur, L. M. (2014, May 31). Just the Facts. Please! The Haunted Librarian. https://thehauntedlibrarian.com/2014/05/31/just-the-facts-please/ Southwest Georgia city boasts haunts along with history. (2019, August 2). [Text.Article]. FOX 5 Atlanta; FOX 5 Atlanta. https://www.fox5atlanta.com/good-day-atlanta/southwest-georgia-city-boasts-haunts-along-with-history   The Windsor Hotel: Directors Select a Name for Americus Palatial Hotel. (1891, September 4). The Macon Telegraph, page 1.   The Windsor is a certified haunted hotel. (n.d.). Https://Www.Walb.Com. Retrieved April 20, 2021, from https://www.walb.com/story/5449720/the-windsor-is-a-certified-haunted-hotel   U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995—AncestryLibrary.com. (n.d.). Retrieved April 23, 2021, from https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/690841718:2469?tid=&pid=&queryId=e8f78aa6a0edd3b8ad24b526bc678038&_phsrc=eBA302&_phstart=successSource   U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947—AncestryLibrary.com. (n.d.). Retrieved May 2, 2021, from https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discoveryui-content/view/38590185:2238?tid=&pid=&queryId=68a411473ddd2b72490bc26cd63edd45&_phsrc=eBA313&_phstart=successSource   Windsor Hotel. (n.d.). GeorgiaHauntedHouses.Com. Retrieved April 20, 2021, from https://www.georgiahauntedhouses.com/real-haunt/windsor-hotel.html   Windsor Hotel—Americus, GA - Windsor Ghost Report. (n.d.). Retrieved April 22, 2021, from http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:I3dRut8YvvcJ:windsorhotel1.ipower.com/GhostReport.htm+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us   WindsorHotel101. (2009, November 30). Americus Windsor Hotel—Haunted House. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5al8YZFU0I   TRANSCRIPT: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Crimes & Witch-Demeanors, the podcast where we use historic and archival resources to investigate ghost stories and separate fact from fiction.  I'm your host, and loveable librarian, Joshua Spellman.   I wanted to take care of some housekeeping before we get into the episode: I hope the new podcast artwork didn't spook you!  I love the illustration my good Judy GiAnna Ligammari made for the podcast, and I'm still using it on the website and other branding, but I needed something that read better as a thumbnail and that is graphic and punchy for new listeners.  So…I hope you don't mind the change!  I did it as a stress doodle while waiting for updates about my mom who is in the hospital this last week and I fell in love with it…and I hope you do too!   But I digress!   On today's episode we're making like the devil and heading on down to Georgia.  Most people's minds go straight to Savanah when picturing the haunted South, but today we're setting our sights the smaller, lesser known town of Americus.  Specifically, we're honing in on the historic Windsor Hotel.  Among the living, many denizens of the dead are said to be checked in as permanent guests-- but are the only true spirits those on the shelf in the pub?  Let's find out.  But first, here is the alleged history of the ghosts at Americus Georgia's Windsor Hotel.         The Windsor Hotel, despite being located in the small city of Americus, Georgia, is a grand and opulent structure, not unlike the castle across the pond that shares its name.  Like Windsor Castle, the hotel has housed great figures of history and harbors ghosts of the past.   In August of 1888 a reporter for the Americus Recorder discovered John Sheffield and Ross Harper measuring the court square of the city.  When the reporter inquired as to why, Mr. Sheffield responded simply, “because Major Moses Speer and Papa told me to.”  Without hesitation, the reporter rushed to the Bank of Southwestern Georgia and asked to speak with the president, Major Moses Speer to get the real scoop on the story. Major Speer told the reporter that he planned on building a hotel and that “the hotel will be built and in short order.  There is no doubt about that…it will be a building worthy of the city.” And indeed it would be.   Two architects submitted plans for the hotel: W.H. Parkins and G.L. Norman.  On March 21st, 1888 the selection committee for the project, which consisted of S.H. Hawkins, John Windsor, and C.M. Wheatley, favored the design drafted by Parkins.    Parkins' plan for the hotel was to erect a square, four-story wooden structure with 120 rooms.  The front of the building would run the entire length of Jackson Street and the corner would house two additional floors.   However, G.L. Normann would not take no for an answer, and the remainder of the corporation preferred his design.  Normann described his plan as being “a more fanciful character, greatly resembling the Hotel Alcazar at St. Augustine” (which, by the way, is the modern day Ripley's Believe it or Not? Building).  Normann's design was a brick structure of three and five stories in height, contained 100 rooms, and space for ten shops on the street level.   On April 17th the committee chose Normann's proposal with an estimated budget of $80,000.  Construction began in September of 1890 and was completed on June 16, 1892.   The lavish hotel would go on to house famous guests including Presidents William Jennings Bryan, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter. The hotel is the epitome of Victorian architecture.  The Windsor spans an entire city block, complete with a tower, turret, balconies, and an open three-story open atrium.    The Windsor's outlook was auspicious from the start but it immediately fall on hard times.  In 1893, two years after its construction, an economic depression swept the nation, decimating the tourism trade – the hotel's only reason for being.  By the turn of the century, the Windsor filed for bankruptcy and was sold to Charles A. Fricker, a jeweler, for $40,000, a mere fraction of what the building was worth.   In September of 1910 the hotel was completely renovated, installing electric lights, telephones, steam heat, and new elevators…the likes of which would end up being the genesis of our first pair of hotel ghosts.   There was a maid, Emily Mae, and her daughter, Abigail, who lived in the hotel in the servant's quarters.  Emily Mae served as the head housekeeper but in order to support her and her child she wasn't a stranger to offering extra services to the gentlemen of the hotel.  However, Emily Mae had a jealous lover who did not appreciate the work she did to supplement her income.   One day, while working in the third floor hallway, Emily Mae's lover angrily confronted her, apparently jealous about her conducting sex work. Things got heated.  Voiced were raised.  Little Abigail heard the commotion and rushed to her mother's side, at first cowering behind her, but then holding her hand in a show of defiance and support.  Her and her mother would no longer tolerate the abuse from this man.   “You WENCH!” the man bellowed as he shoved Emily Mae backwards into the open elevator.  However, what he didn't notice…or perhaps he did…was that the elevator doors were open, but the lift was not stopped on the third floor.  Emily Mae and Abigail tumbled hand in hand down the empty elevator shaft, landing in a mangled heap on the ground floor with their fingers still interlocked.  They were together until the very end.   Their spirits still roam the third floor.  Many people spot Abigail rushing up and down the hall, playing with her toys seemingly in good…spirits.  Sometimes Emily Mae's ghost can be spotted in the mirror, but when you turn around…there's no one there, just you and an icy chill running down your spine.   Alas, Emily Mae and Abigail's accident wasn't the only treacherous tumble at the Windsor Hotel.  As a young and beautiful bride made her way down the private bridal suite staircase to wed her beloved, she tripped on her gown, fell down the steep staircase, and broke her neck.  Her spirit now roams the hotel, her bridal gown transformed from white to black, as she mourns the married life she never had.   As time ticked on, Windsor Hotel never fully recaptured the initial success it garnered in its first two years of operation.  The property was sold once again in the 1930's to Mr. Howard Dayton, of Daytona Beach, Florida.  Mr. Dayton would operate the hotel for four decades until it closed in 1974, having been open for 82 years.    Floyd Lowery, a doorman and lift operator, worked at the Windsor Hotel for the full 40 years that Dayton owned it.  Lowery was a happy, chipper man, who loved his job, the guests, and the hotel.  Floyd always made sure that visitors were happy and comfortable.  Luckily, Floyd did not die a tragic death in the hotel.  However, despite that fact, his ghost still roams the property.   Sadly, after the hotel closed in 1974, the Windsor fell to ruin, as buildings do, without living souls to inhabit it.  The hotel was donated to the city of Americus in 1978 by Howard Dayton's family and it sat for decades.  The only visitors being the pigeons roosting in the rafters and the rodents scurrying along the rotting floors.   The city had a big decision to make: either demolish the building and replace it with a parking lot, or funnel millions of dollars into its restoration.  The residents of Americus were almost unanimous in the decision to restore the city's gem.  It cost the city a lot of money to restore the hotel.  However, since the city owned the property, they managed to save nearly have a million dollars by utilizing the prison industrial complex and exploiting inmates for slave labor.  Construction and planning took many years, but the restoration was completed in 1991.    The Windsor Hotel is once again the opulent centerpiece to the small city of Americus.  While many guests come to stay for a night, the presence of its permanent, spectral residents are strongly felt.   Guests often approach the front desk to complain about the child running around the third floor…but are disturbed to discover that there are no children currently staying at the hotel. Countless others ask to speak to the manager to complement the courteous bellhop, Floyd who carried their bags to their rooms.  However, there's only one problem…that is not a service the hotel currently offers.  Nor do they employ anyone by the name of Floyd.   Floyd's ghost brings positive and uplifting energy to the old hotel, even assisting the staff on occasion.  While his spirit may have departed, his legacy lives on as the namesake of the hotel's restaurant, Floyd's Pub.   Ghost Hunters have come to the hotel and certified it as “haunted” and there is even a plaque that boasts this fact in the hotel's lobby.  So, if you ever find yourself in Americus, book a night at the Windsor, you may be in for a ghoulish treat.  And say hello to Floyd for me.         You don't know the heaps of trash I had to wade through to scrape together enough rotted crumbs to write this episode.  I think this is the most amount of sources I have in the bibli-ahh-graphy, but not because they're good.  I just had so much garbage to sort through.  There isn't a lot to go on in these stories, even the names of the mother and daughter took a while to find…and even then they are always changing.  I had to watch so many terrible shaky-cam ghost investigator videos and awful mommy vlogs…don't get me started on Hot Mama Travel…but I did manage to find out some very interesting things.  Including the ghost report from paranormal investigators.   The Windsor's original name was going to be the “Alhambra” but this quote “struck a discordant note in the community” and instead the name Windsor was chosen for John T. Windsor who was one of the leading capitalists in Americus and the community decided the name was “more suggestive of the aristocratic qualities to which Americus aspired”   Honestly, in a city in the south, named Americus, I'm not surprised they'd rather go with a very white sounding name of a prominent capitalist because it was “more suggestive of the qualities to which  they aspired”.  Aka.  White.  Rich.  And white.  But I digress.   The first thing I want to get out of the way is the date the hotel was completed.  Many sources say that it was completed in June 1892.  The building itself was actually completed in October of 1891.  However, the hotel didn't officially open until the grand opening in June of 1892.  Minor detail…but it bothered me.   So many things bothered me, honestly.  Like the fact there is another librarian coming for my gig?!  Fricken Lesia Miller Schnur, the Haunted Librarian!  She was extremely helpful in providing some of the names applied to the mother and daughter: Emma, Abigail, and Emily Mae.  Other sources say that the little girl's name was  Sallie, Theresa, or Selina.  Lesia reveals that John T. Windsor's name was Emily Amelia so there may be a link there to this legend.   But…other than that her post didn't reveal anything I hadn't read elsewhere despite claiming “I'm the history buff, so I still did my research…apparently other groups may not have”  I have.  I have, Lesia!   The story of the mother and daughter has many holes.  The first is the date of the occurrence: either the early  1910's or in the 1920's.  Second, is the fact that these two were poor, possibly people of color, and so their murder may not have been reported in any substantial matter.  Third, is the fact there aren't actually any names to assign to it.  I spent a few hours searching and while I did not find anything on this story, as great of a ghost tale as it is, I think I found something…better?   Someone did fall down the elevator shaft.   The Columbus Enquirer published on January  7, 1894 the following story:   “Down the Elevator Shaft: Serious Accident in Americus to a Wealthy Ohioan   Mr. R.S. Rust, an aged gentleman of 78, from Cincinnati, Ohio, vice-president of the Union Central Life Insurance Company of that city, fell down the elevator shaft of the Windsor Hotel today and sustained seriously injuries.  His shoulder is fractured and his nose broken in three places.  He fell about 10 feet from the office floor to the basement.  The elevator was above but supposing it at the office floor, opened the door of the shaft and stepped into the basement below.  Owing to his advanced age, serious results are feared from the shock.”   Now this is something to go on.  He's a man?  Check.  He's white?  Check.  He's wealthy?  Check.  These make up the trifecta you need to be preserved in history as anything other than a nameless stereotype!   Now using the name from article I did find an old white man from Cincinnati born around 78 years prior to the article's publication: Reverend Richard Sutton Rust, Senior.  There was one problem though…no modern material identified that he had any involvement with the Union Central Life Insurance Company.  You would think this would be highlighted in the book passages and articles I found about him.   Instead, these articles paint a picture of a man fully dedicated to the Episcopal Church who was a staunch abolitionist.  Was this the wrong man?  Nah.  It turns out when you're rich and white you can pick and choose what parts of your legacy are propagated.    I did find an alumni catalogue of his college fraternity and legislative documents from 1905 which confirmed that the Reverend Richard Sutton Rust and R.S. Rust from the Union Central Life Insurance company were one in the same.   During the civil war, Rust helped found the Freedman's Aid Society which gave teachers from the North supplies and housing to teach freed slaves in the south.  Rust also assisted nearly 30 colleges with educating former slaves and their children.   After the war he set up the Freedman's Bureau which was a division of the United States Department of War that provided shelter and supplies to refugees, freedman, along with their wives and children.   So it seems R.S. Rust was actually a really good guy!  I kind of felt bad that I hoped he died from the elevator accident…just so we'd actually have an elevator ghost in the hotel.  Turns out he lived and died in 1906 at the age of 91.  Good for her.   Part of me wants to change his Wikipedia page to include his major involvement in the insurance company (it's how he got that Daddy Morebucks money after all) as well as his embarrassing tumble down the Windsor's elevator but I'll exhibit some self-control.   While the elevator ghost story is bunk I was happy to find out that Floyd Lowery was indeed a real person…which I would hope since the pub is named after him…and he did work at the Windsor Hotel for a very long time.  I found a variety of fantastic records that I'll put on the podcast Instagram, @crimesandwitchdemeanors for you to look at.   Census records from 1920 to 1940 list Floyd's occupation as porter at the Windsor Hotel, the 1923 Americus City Directory (which is super cool) lists Floyd Lowery as a bellman; and I also discovered Floyd's draft cards.  It appears he was drafted during the second World War.    Floyd Ardell Lowery was an African-American man and was born on February 28, 1903.  I don't believe that he ever married as multiple census records show that he lived with his mother, Mammie throughout his lifetime.  Floyd Lowery died on February 1, 1982 according to the Georgia Department of Health's Death Index.  However, in that particular document birth is listed as 1915 and that he was 67 years old at the time of his death.  However, his military records and census records corroborate another and confirm his birthdate was indeed 1903, making him almost 79 at the time of his death.   I love that Floyd is such a presence at the hotel and that his memory is able to live on through the name of the pub.  However, some the ghost stories about him make me uncomfy.  But racism is uncomfortable.   When we say racism is systemic, we mean it is systemic.  It is so insidious that it even feeds down into the ghost stories we tell our children.  Ghost stories involving marginalized people, or people of color, are often based in, and perpetuate, stereotypes.  This is most apparent in the ghost tourism of the south which exploits the tales slaves but it can be observed elsewhere as well.   These types of stories served to illustrate what would happen if you dared to misbehave, stand up for yourself, or fight for your survival.  These spirits often are left to suffer in the afterlife for their apparent misdeeds and act as a warning – or threat – to stay in your lane lest you suffer a similar fate.    Other ghost tales tell of those who led a life of “good” servitude, who's life didn't tragically end, but came instead to a graceful close.  If you act like this you can rewarded in the afterlife, to continue to dutifully serve and labor even after death (wow—what a reward). These stories perpetuate the idea of the “good black” stereotype and further dehumanize the people they are about.   I feel like this is the kind of mold that Floyd Lowery has been put into as he is often helping guests with their luggage or working in the elevator.  Never having fun, never having a drink or just kicking back to relax.  But Floyd was more than his job, he was a human being.  I could hardly believe that he would want to spend his afterlife working for no wages.  Would you?  God, no.  Some of us already make ghost wages here among the living.  But I digress.  Onwards to more ghostly tomfoolery.   The story of the bride tripping and falling down the stairs is a strange one.  I have only read about it on one article about the hotel and it's hauntings.  However, that didn't stop me from investigating it for a ridiculously long amount of time.   I did find…something?  While it doesn't match the ghost story, there is some piping hot 129-year-old tea.   This excerpt is from the March 14, 1892 issue of the Macon Telegraph in an article titled “Married in Haste: and now the bride is without a husband”   (continued below)     So, it only tangentially involved the Windsor but I thought it was some hot Victorian goss to share with y'all!   But enough about gossip.  Back to the ghosts.  The ghouls.  The ghastly gremlins.   There was a big hub-bub in 2006 about how paranormal investigators claimed the hotel as “certifiably haunted”.  A number of articles were written about it, the hotel made a page on its website for the full ghost report and even put a plaque in the lobby boasting about it.   But now…it's gone vanished.  Gone.  Disappeared.  Stricken from the internet.  The hotel, which used to brag about it's ghosts, doesn't even mention it on their website anymore.  The paranormal investigators, the Big Bend Ghost Trackers, even removed it from their website.  I have a feeling that may be because they are now owned by Best Western and they want to keep it hush-hush.   Or…maybe they're embarrassed about what this “certificate of hauntedticity” contains.   So it's been deleted from the internet.  They tried to cover it up.  But they didn't know a librarian would be on their case.   Obviously, I found it.  It's not that hard.  If you're ever looking for a page that is now a 404 there are two really easy methods to see the previous  page.  First is just paste the URL in Google and search.  When the page comes up in the search results, hit the three dots and view the cached page.  Voila!  But if their cache isn't old enough, go to the good ‘ol internet archive and use the Wayback machine, hopefully you'll find what you're looking for!   And  boy did I find what I was looking for.  This oh so legitimate report was…something.   Here are the official findings from the report:   Out of 150 digital photos 3 yielded possible anomalies 2 EMF fluctuations were documented. One between the second and third floors with a 6 degree spike, and one on the left hallway of the third floor with an 8 degree spike Several cold spots have been detected…in a 129 year old building…you don't say? Some anomalies caught on film One of the hallway light bulbs that was completely unscrewed turned on without anyone near it Through channeling one investigator picked up the names of little girls: Theresa and Sallie   Because of the above phenomena the report lists the Windsor Hotel as H-A-U-N-T-E-D.  Yes.  They spelled it out in the report.   I do have some issues with these findings.  Especially the very subjective “evidence” they found via channeling.  Which was conducted thusly:   BBGT members Betty and Lisa were in states of meditation and channeling in attempting to make contact with the ghostly inhabitants of the hotel. Betty, while stationed in an adjoining 3rd floor hallway singing in a child-like voice the old turn of the century tune "A tisket a tasket", suddenly felt a cool breeze on her right side and the digital thermometer displayed asudden 6 degree drop in temperature. While continuing to sing she was clearly able to sense the presence of a young girl. After a brief time the camera recorded what appears to be orbs bouncing a short distance down the 3rd. floor hallway. The names Sallie (with an ie) and the names Theresa were very much attached to the young girl. BBGT member Lisa was also visually picking up and sensing the strong presence of an entity with the name Adams. Later, while attempting to validate our findings it was discovered that in the early 1940's there had been an employee named Adams.   But mediums aren't…a great source of reliable information.  I watched videos where other mediums visited the hotel so you don't have to, and dear lord they were an hour and fifty minutes of shaky cam footage.  But, for example the mediums in these videos experienced “giddy feelings” outside the bar and decided the ghost was a child definitely named “Selina”  But…that's an entirely new name than the ones provided, truly a shot in the dark.  And if we're experiencing a giddy feeling outside the bar…I would like to think that's good ‘ol Floyd.  Happy to see his name in lights and people enjoying a cocktail.   I tried to look for some first-hand encounters with ghosts at the hotel and I didn't find much.  Maybe because not too many people stay at the hotel.  I found a lot of Americus locals saying they've never even been inside.  But here are two experiences I did find:   “I was staying in room 308 and smelled old fashioned women's perfume several times while in the shower”   Honestly…to me that just sounds like catching a waft of some awful hotel soaps and shampoo.  But maybe there's an old lady who fell in the shower.  The next experience…also involves a bathroom?  Lending some credence to this new hypothesis.    Why is there a bath towel in the toilet? That's what my wife asked me last Wednesday the 17th of March 2021at 2:30 AM. I was staying there on business. What a beautiful hotel. I asked the staff at Floyds if they had experienced anything. I got mixed replies. Things about the lights turning on and off occasionally. My wife who was already in GA decided to surprises me on her way back to Florida. That night she got up to use the bathroom in room 211 and quickly came back to bed asking me why a full sized folded bath towel was in the toilet. Didn't sleep well that night obviously. It wasn't till the next day that the stories of hauntings came from everyone I spoke to when I told where I was staying. Weird experience and no plausible explanation on how the towel ended up in the toilet. I slammed doors, jumped up and down and could not get a folded towel to so much as move off the rack above the toilet. If I ever go back to Americus , I surly choose the Windsor Hotel again. Magnificently strange!   So maybe investigators should spend less time singing creepy folk-tunes in the hallways at 2:30 in the morning and spend more time on the toilet.   So what do you think?  Is the Windsor Haunted?  Would you want to stay?  Personally, I don't think it's very haunted.  2 thirds of its stories aren't even true.  But I think I'd like to enjoy an Old Fashioned in Floyd's pub just for the fun of it.   Please follow the podcast Instagram to view documents, historic photos, and other scans from today's episode.  If you listen on Overcast and enjoyed the episode, be sure to hit that little star icon on today's episode – it helps with  the algorithm a lot!  And likewise, if you're an apple fiend and  you haven't left a review, please do!   So please, look before you enter an elevator, remember racism is systemic, sex work is real work, and of course, as always – stay spooky!