<p class="__intro">Leading specialist recruitment firm Acorn is celebrating after being recognised as Responsible Business Champions Cymru 2020 by Business in the Community (BITC) Cymru.</p>
<p>For over 20 years Business in the Community&rsquo;s Responsible Business Awards have celebrated businesses demonstrating strong, inclusive leadership, and who continuously innovate to tackle pressing social issues.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Acorn was acknowledged by the judging panel as having in place &ldquo;pioneering, innovative and inclusive employment schemes to solve skill shortages and imbalances in the labour market&rdquo;.</p>
<p>Through partnering with other organisations that are forces for social good, Acorn has been able to rehabilitate ex-offenders, support those at risk from homelessness, increase the representation of women and help the long-term unemployed back into work.</p>
<p class="__intro"><strong>Acorn&rsquo;s Director of Operations, Marc Jones said; </strong>&ldquo;We have seen first-hand here at Acorn by Synergie, what a difference the right support can make, having placed some 40 ex-offenders into permanent positions in the past two years alone."</p>
<p class="__intro"><strong>Bernard Ward, Group Managing Director said:&nbsp;</strong>&ldquo;This is fantastic news for our hard-working Construction Team, and everyone at Acorn is thrilled.</p>
<p>Our Operations Team constantly go above and beyond to build partnerships and create new initiatives to help overcome barriers to employment, and their focus on working to support their communities is relentless. To see this continued hard work being recognised is brilliant and encouraging &ndash; I look forward to seeing their future achievements.&rdquo;</p>

Leading Acorn team recognised as Responsible Business Champions Cymru 2020

<p class="MsoNormal">We have pledged to make a donation for every permanent job placement it makes in 2022/23 and support the planting of at least 200 trees or metres of hedgerow in local communities UK-wide, as part of its 30th year celebrations. The UK recruiter is working in partnership with the Tree Council (Registered Charity Number 279000) to help plant hundreds of trees in its name.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">With more than 450 permanent hires set to be made across the course of the year, the planting of trees and hedgerows in communities across the UK will be funded by the recruiter at the same time, with Acorn staff making the first cut of the soil in person at a special tree planting day in Hampshire.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Louise Bevan, Director of Operations for Public Sector, and Catherine Evans, Regional Sales Director, planted hundreds of hedgerow whips and seven trees as part of a team of 30 attending a volunteer day held with Network Rail and wildlife specialist Naturetrek at Alton, near Basingstoke.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong>Louise said:</strong> &ldquo;It was a wonderful feeling, as representatives of Acorn, to think about how the work we put into planting those trees on one day alone will affect the next generation in years to come, and in many ways working in recruitment is very similar.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;As a team, we are working daily to support and shape the ongoing development of a wide range of industries across all UK sectors today, so that there may be continued and ever improved prospects and opportunities for the workforce of tomorrow.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;That&rsquo;s also why the planting of trees is such a significant way for us, as Acorn, to mark our 30th year in business. Just as we have grown around the needs and requirements of our many long-standing and highly valued clients over the years, so too has the business itself grown into a mighty oak within that time.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">"It was a wonderful feeling, as representatives of Acorn, to think about how the work we put into planting those trees on one day alone will affect the next generation in years to come, and in many ways working in recruitment is very similar."</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Established in 1992 in Newport, Wales, Acorn as a company has continued to expand and grow ever since, and is now preparing to mark its 30th year in business with more than 30 branches operating on a global scale, and more than 15 specialist divisions to its name.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Working in partnership with The Tree Council, Acorn&rsquo;s pledge to care for our environment and our planet&rsquo;s future is just one of the many ways it is working to get its fourth decade in business off to a flying start.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Tree Council is a national charity and membership organisation that creates positive, lasting change at both a national and local level by empowering organisations, government, communities and individuals with the knowledge and tools to protect and promote trees. Since its establishment in 1973, The Tree Council have facilitated the planting of more than 1 million trees and hedgerow whips in communities across the UK.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong>Cat Gransden, Development Manager at the Tree Council, said</strong>: &ldquo;Louise and Catherine were fantastic and it was brilliant to have the opportunity to thank Acorn Recruitment for its amazing support. We&rsquo;re so pleased to be a small part of their 30th birthday celebrations, and can&rsquo;t think of a better way to celebrate a milestone birthday than by planting trees!&rdquo;</p>

Mass tree planting pledge

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<h2>A New Prison Employment Initiative</h2>
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<h3>The Reconstruct Programme is a platform designed to provide a solution.</h3>
Acorn by Synergie have set up a simple way for you to pledge your support to supporting people with convictions into employment.
<p>In partnership with the HMPPS (Prison Service), Acorn Recruitment Ltd are working with people with convictions across South Wales and Bristol via the three Welsh Prisons and HMP Bristol.<br>We go into each prison every month to work with those in their last 12 weeks of sentence that have shown a willingness to engage and are interested in a construction role.</p>
<p>Over a series of face-to-face sessions, we are establishing what skills, motivations and location areas are relevant for each individual. Our goal is to then try and assist with employment and training opportunities for each.</p>
<p>The individuals we are working with have an incredible amount of potential and in a lot of cases have construction skills that would make them a real asset to any business. There is also a tremendous motivation to turn their life around and give their all to the right company and profession.</p>
<strong>How does it work?</strong>
<h5>The key concept is strength in numbers. The bigger the network of companies pledging their support the more chance there will be an opportunity.</h5>
<p>By creating a collective of like-minded organisations based across the country we can help give confidence to these individuals that there is a chance for them to succeed and put something back into their communities.</p>
<p>Individuals could be based in a variety of various locations and could have a range of different skills. We have met Health &amp; Safety advisors, qualified tradespeople, and energy assessors through to those looking for an opportunity as a general operative or apprentice. Because of this, we feel this works best as a collaborative solution with a large network of companies big and small pulling together to make it work.</p>
<strong>What about CSCS cards?...</strong>
<p>CSCS training is now being delivered within the prisons, so candidates looking to get into construction are leaving with a full CSCS card.</p>
<p><strong>Acorn by Synergie are charging no fees for this service and there is no obligation to employ anyone via Acorn by Synergie</strong></p>
<h2>I&rsquo;m not sure I could commit&hellip;</h2>
<p><strong>That&rsquo;s the beauty of the network. The only commitment you have to give is to be open-minded and if you have a potential opening for an individual that falls into your area or line of work then you would consider them.</strong></p>
<p>We appreciate that employment (especially in construction) is often down to timing and location. With enough of us within the network, we believe that it gives the best chance of employment being secured.</p>
<p>Being part of the network also means that Acorn by Synergie will carry out the front-end work. We will take the responsibility of going into the prisons, meeting people frequently and working with the teams to get them work ready.</p>
<p><img src="https://www.acornpeople.com/media/4159/reconstruct_logos.png" alt="Reconstruct Logos (1)"></p>
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<h2>Key benefits to my company?</h2>
<p class="__intro">If your business chose to be part of this network it would include these benefits:&ndash;</p>
<ul>
<li>It is free to join</li>
<li>Business featured on dedicated network web page supporting people with convictions into employment</li>
<li>Social media promotion of your support</li>
<li>Shows you are supporting social value in the form of improving social mobility</li>
<li>Fantastic evidence to include in tenders and case studies</li>
<li>An easy way for you to do something massively rewarding and worthwhile without having to allocate a lot of resources to it</li>
<li>A fantastic way to identify new talent to assist with skills shortages</li>
<li>Positive PR for your business</li>
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<div class="usercontent"><strong>The pledge &ndash; What we would ask of you&hellip;</strong>
<p class="__intro">In short&hellip; very little, but we would look for the following:&ndash;</p>
<ul>
<li>Provide us with a rough idea of the locations and types of roles that you might employ</li>
<li>Be willing to receive an email about a candidate that matched your brief above</li>
<li>Be able to feedback to us if you didn&rsquo;t have any upcoming openings for that individual</li>
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<h4><span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px;" data-metadata="&lt;!--(figmeta)eyJmaWxlS2V5IjoiYTY0bGNsdXRxNG1tSXY5a1B1eVA2dyIsInBhc3RlSUQiOjgxNTA2Nzc2OCwiZGF0YVR5cGUiOiJzY2VuZSJ9Cg==(/figmeta)--&gt;">&nbsp;</span></h4>
<h4>If this initiative fits in with your Social Value Strategy please Lawrence Beach. Thank you.</h4>
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Reconstruct Network

<p>Shermayne Young is a woman who will be quite literally working to bridge gender gaps in the construction industry. &nbsp;The mum of one joined industry giant Willmott Dixon as a Gates-woman and is now a full-time labourer, following a five-year hiatus from the workplace due to the birth of her daughter, and the subsequent breakdown of her marriage.</p>
<p>The Aberdare resident and former lab technician finds herself back in gainful employment after accepting an invite to attend a &lsquo;Women in Construction&rsquo; event run by Acorn Recruitment, via the Communities for Work scheme.</p>
<p>Seven months on, Shermayne wants to help other women who may be looking for work to think about a job in the construction industry - where females otherwise represent around just 12% of the current UK workforce*.</p>
<p>Shermayne, who otherwise struggled to go back to work like she&rsquo;d originally planned, said: &ldquo;I would say to any woman thinking of a job in construction to just go for it. My marriage meant I&rsquo;d put off pursuing a job in the industry, but I made a decision to be true to myself and I haven&rsquo;t looked back.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I went along to Acorn&rsquo;s event in Cardiff and started my new job within the week - now they want me here until the end of the project and I&rsquo;m chuffed. No day is the same and I couldn&rsquo;t work with a better bunch of people, who know my daughter comes first, that I&rsquo;m doing things on my own, and couldn&rsquo;t be more supportive.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&nbsp;Despite a 50/50 split in men and women across the UK workforce, just 296,000 out of 2.3 million jobs created in the construction industry were occupied by women in 2016, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).</p>
<p>Acorn is among those working to redress the balance as one of the UK&rsquo;s largest recruiters operating across multiple business sectors nationwide.</p>
<p>As such, it runs a series of &lsquo;Women in Construction&rsquo; events across South Wales to encourage more women to enter construction, bringing together local employers and jobseekers to discuss fully-funded training opportunities and vacancies available regionally in the process.</p>
<p>Lawrence Beach, Construction Operations Manager at Acorn, said: &ldquo;Shermayne&rsquo;s story as a young woman thriving within the construction industry is a great one but still, unfortunately, a fairly unusual one too. Her work with, and commitment to, Bouygues is a great example of how employers and jobseekers of all backgrounds can work together in pursuit of a common goal, regardless of any perceived differences to the contrary.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;re absolutely delighted to have played a part in placing Shermayne into a work environment that she loves and in a role which she feels not only fulfilled by, but confidently capable of carrying out to the best of her abilities.&rdquo;</p>
<p>One of various employers signed up regionally, Willmott Dixon was more than happy to support objectives set out by Acorn in bringing more females into construction and fill key industry vacancies at the same time, not least with its own business objectives in mind too.</p>
<p>Jon Pritchard, Senior Project Surveyor at Willmott Dixon, said: &ldquo;We could not ask for a better employee than Shermayne and are really pleased to have taken the opportunity to partner up with Acorn on this pioneering project, not just for our own benefit but in support of wider changes in the construction industry as a whole too.</p>
<p>&ldquo;At the end of the day, it&rsquo;s about bringing the right level of expertise into focus for a range of organisations, regardless of whether those skills happen to come from a male or a female employee. In this case, that brief was one hundred per cent fulfilled.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Acorn is&nbsp;listed in the top 1% of all leading UK recruiters, helping to develop careers, grow businesses, fulfil ambitions and ultimately change lives.</p>
<p>The company works with hundreds of UK and international businesses to bring UK job seekers the best job opportunities available through its network of more than 40 branches nationwide, as well as through its specialist division.</p>

Working to bridge construction industry gender gaps

Tag - Insights

<p>Acorn's Kristy Moore talks to Recruitment Grapevine on how job interviews should never &lsquo;jeopardise&rsquo; an applicant&rsquo;s current position.</p>
<p>Securing an interview is arguably the easier part of the recruitment process, after all it&rsquo;s the first steppingstone for a candidate looking to embark on a new career or change jobs.</p>
<p>However, it&rsquo;s what comes next that can cause some issues &ndash; getting time off to attend said interview.</p>
<p>It&rsquo;s a tricky one, with many employees opting to take holiday in order to attend the interview for their dream role, but it seems one candidate was offered some unusual advice by a recruiter in order to attend theirs.</p>
<p>One Reddit user took to the forum to share his tale, after a recruiter suggested he take a sick day in order to attend an interview.</p>
<p>User u/brvtalbadger pasted the request from the recruiter, which read: &ldquo;Hey again Olly, struggling to get something booked in at the moment to be honest &ndash; do you think there is any way you could be cheeky and pull a sick day to get down on the Thursday at 3pm?&rdquo;</p>
<p>Shocked by the request, the user responded to the recruiter stating that he would like to decline the interview altogether if this was their typical approach, or that the company can wait a week to see him when he can attend an interview in his own free time.</p>
<p>Recruitment Grapevine reached out to some recruiters to gauge their thoughts on this tactic, finding out whether this is a standard procedure for recruiters or something that should never be considered.</p>
<p>&ldquo;When clients are looking for folks to join their company, headhunters are often approaching passive traffic; recruiters should always outline the detail of how they will approach the market, and what clients may expect. In today&rsquo;s market the onus lies with recruiters to educate and inform all parties around the process, and to manage expectations of all involved,&rdquo; said Laura Le Masurier, CEO of Crucial Recruitment.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Often, clients may need to interview outside of working hours. I would not hire someone who &lsquo;pulled a sickie&rsquo; to be at the interview, nor work with a recruiter who employed such methods, it sets an awful precedent.&rdquo;</p>
<p>If a candidate is happy to fake illness, then it may showcase a lack of commitment and responsibility if they can so easily drop their current role to attend an interview.</p>
<p>Similarly, Kristy Moore believes job interviews should never &lsquo;jeopardise&rsquo; an applicant&rsquo;s current position.</p>
<p>&ldquo;With flexible working on the rise, employed jobseekers are finding interviews easier to attend but coordinating them should never jeopardise your current position. You want to leave on good terms,&rdquo; she added.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The temptation to duck out between meetings is always there but I only ever advise caution &ndash; being discovered during company time means an uncomfortable situation for all. In a perfect world, avoid taking time off altogether &ndash; many of our clients understand the difficulties juggling a job search with work presents, often meeting the right candidate outside work hours.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Taking a day&rsquo;s holiday otherwise allows for plenty of preparation time and the benefit of feeling more relaxed. You are entitled to request time away whilst keeping your reasons vague but avoid pulling a sickie at all costs.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="__intro">How to advise your applicant to attend an interview:</p>
<ul>
<li>Work with clients and employers who can offer interviews out of working hours or telephone/video interviews.</li>
<li>Suggest taking annual leave to attend an interview.</li>
<li>Advise applicants not to lie to their current employer, to help avoid any uncomfortable conversations later.</li>
<li>According to CV-Library, jobseekers should also keep their reasons for taking time off vague. This will help to avoid any tricky questions when they return to work.</li>
</ul>

Best Practice | How Acorn advises an applicant to attend an interview

<p class="__intro">ecruitment often falls to people in quite varied roles such as operations teams and HR professionals. Take HR, there are many different responsibilities including employee wellbeing, training, working practices etc. Recruitment can take up many hours in your week, even more for that hard to fill a position or when roles are required at short notice.</p>
<p>Many people enter into the HR profession as it&rsquo;s a chance to help people to develop, shape company culture and really influence strategic business decisions. Of course, recruiting for talented employees is a large part of that as people are a company&rsquo;s greatest asset, however, if you could take away the time-consuming elements of the recruitment process, leaving you with a shortlist surely it creates the opportunity to really focus on why you took on the role?</p>
<p><strong>Being embedded in the recruitment industry and local communities for over 25 years, and with strong candidate networks we have calculated how much time we can save:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>25 hours per week for temporary jobs</li>
<li>70 hours for every permanent placement</li>
<li>1,900 hours per year for on-site temporary workforce management</li>
</ul>
<p>So all these hours are not just admin tasks, they take into account all the extras you&rsquo;d love to do within your recruitment process but don&rsquo;t physically have the time or budget for such as advertising on multiple job boards and an online, bespoke marketing strategy.</p>
<p>To be able to continuously improve your company and keep retention high, it&rsquo;s essential that the recruitment process is a finely tuned, modern and brand-friendly process.</p>
<p class="__intro">So, if you&rsquo;re finding yourself sifting through hundreds of CVs, planning hours of interviews or constantly managing absenteeism, we&rsquo;d love to discuss how we can help.</p>

Is your recruitment strategy costing you good candidates?

<p class="MsoNormal">Acorn by Synergie has appointed Carla Powell as its new regional logistics manager for the North, as it looks to expand on its operations within the sector across the North of England as a whole. Carla brings with her extensive experience of the logistics industry regionally and will be working with clients and candidates in the North, in response to an increasing demand for Acorn by Synergie&rsquo;s services locally.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Carla has more than 15 years of experience within the recruitment industry and is a resident of Hyndburn, just outside Blackburn, currently. She has lived in the North for most of her life and previously worked for Major Recruitment, and as an operations manager for Preston-based firm, Driver Hire Nationwide. Her responsibilities at Acorn by Synergie will include leading sales growth and implementing strategies in support of further expansion within the logistics division for the North of England, with her supply chain expertise set to support the other divisions of the business too.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong>On her appointment, Carla said:</strong> &ldquo;I&rsquo;m absolutely thrilled to be joining Acorn by Synergie as part of a move which, in many ways, feels like &lsquo;coming home&rsquo; to me. I&rsquo;m excited to be joining such a warm and welcoming group of colleagues based here in the North of England, and across the rest of the UK too.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Acorn by Synergie is a multi-specialist recruitment agency that has been named top recruiter in Wales and ranks in the top 1 per cent of all recruitment firms in the UK.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong>Bernard Ward, Managing Director at Acorn by Synergie, added</strong>: &ldquo;Given her extensive knowledge and experience of both the local region and the UK logistics industry as a whole, Carla is absolutely the right person to help us expand further on our presence in the North, and help the wider business continue to go from strength to strength in the process.&rdquo;</p>

New Regional Logistics Manager joins business to cover the North

<h5 class="__intro">Managing Director Bernard Ward is celebrating his first year at Acorn&rsquo;s helm. During this time, businesses have continued to develop and grow beyond the Covid-19 pandemic, reconnecting with the traditional and embracing &lsquo;new normal&rsquo; ways of doing business in the process.</h5>
<p>Here, he talks about the role well-being in the workplace has played in ensuring Acorn and its highly valued clients have continued to make the most of the opportunities made available to them as a result.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3>Joined in summer 2021</h3>
<p>Recruiters, clients, candidates and employees were already talking about greater flexibility at work before COVID-19, but the pandemic itself pushed us all to really do something about it. I joined Acorn in the summer of 2021, just as the world was beginning to think about life beyond Covid again. Like so many in the UK, my new colleagues had by that point already spent a full year working hard, pulling together and, where necessary, making sacrifices.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3>Joining Acorn: Remote working</h3>
<p>I met many of my co-workers virtually in the early days, where an in-person introduction and the chance to thank them face-to-face for everything they had done would have been far preferable. Remote working made integrating within the team more challenging, and though I could recognise pressure points, the route to relieving them needed some careful thought.</p>
<p>I could see that the previous 12 months of successes for Acorn had not come without its repercussions. I felt huge responsibility coming in at that time &ndash; and I had to make sure everything Acorn&rsquo;s team had done for their organisation in the early days of the pandemic would be recognised, but also returned.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3>Post-pandemic ways of working&nbsp;</h3>
<p>We have spent the last 12 months renewing and enhancing our focus on the well-being of the people that make our organisation what it is today. Our HR policies have all been, or are in the process of being reviewed, renewed and/or added to, including our terms for maternity and paternity leave.</p>
<p>Our highly valued colleagues are encouraged to make the most of the &lsquo;You Day&rsquo; made available to them &mdash; to take a days&rsquo; paid leave in addition to their annual leave allowance to focus on a cause they are really passionate about, with the support of Acorn fully behind their cause too. We have new coaching performance software which supports us in opening up the conversation around our individual and shared goals, encourages and facilitates one-to-one conversations on a regular basis, and more.</p>
<p>To focus on their own mental health and wellbeing with Acorns' full support.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3>The future of Acorn by Synergie</h3>
<p>The pandemic has made for some of the hardest times in business in recent memory and, although we&rsquo;ve made great progress, a year later I am still reminded by our fantastic team every day that the process of giving back and supporting staff is very much ongoing. Our focus for the next year and far beyond, therefore, is on the continued support and development of the people who make Acorn what it is today &mdash; a leading UK recruiter that I feel very fortunate to be at the helm of.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>

Reflecting on my first year with Acorn: Managing Director Bernard Ward

<p>Everyone will agree that having to return to work after nine&nbsp;months or more is a daunting experience. In fact, as the weeks, even months, approach the end of your maternity leave, it generally feels like your time as a parent is over, and someone is going to turn up and take your baby away; I&rsquo;ve been back at work for months now, and no-one has arrived to take him yet!</p>
<p>Don't waste your last few months of maternity leave worrying about the inevitable. Here's a few tips to make your return to work as seamless as possible:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Use your 'keep in touch' days during your maternity leave<br></strong>Employers offer up to ten paid work days during your leave, which are a great way to stay in touch with colleagues and keep up-to-date with latest products and services your company has launched since you left. They're also a very useful reminder that you still have the ability to do your job.<br><br></li>
<li><strong>HR support<br></strong>Meet with your Manager and HR Department to discuss your return dates. Remember you will have accrued holiday whilst you&rsquo;ve been off and this can be used to either extend your leave, or phase your return.<br><br></li>
<li><strong>Plan ahead<br></strong>Whatever your childcare options are; family, friends, child-minder or nursery, do your research as early as possible, particularly if you're going for the latter options. So many people told me to book my nursery place before I'd even given birth but, of course that was the last thing on my mind. I am however, advising everyone to do the same. Nursery places are like gold dust - do your research early, decide which nursery you're most happy with, and book your place.<br><br></li>
<li><strong>Settling in</strong><br>If you do choose a nursery or childminder as your childcare option, they'll offer you settling in sessions which are great for you and your baby to get used to their new surroundings. These sessions are for your benefit, so always ask for more if you feel you, or your baby need them.<br><br></li>
<li><strong>Build your confidence</strong><br>Your employer will be very excited to have you back; you've still got the company knowledge you left with, but now you have a fresh pair of eyes (albeit a little tired). You now have to believe in yourself! Knowledge is key to developing your confidence,&nbsp;so spend some time reading the latest news on your employer's website, flicking through the industry magazines to see what people are talking about, and why not go for a coffee to catch up with your Manager.<br><br></li>
<li><strong>Stop feeling guilty</strong><br>If you spend your time in work feeling guilty about your children, and spend your time at home worrying about what you need to do in work, absolutely no-one will benefit, and least of all you. Set your work / life balance and try to stick to it as much as you can.</li>
</ol>
<p><strong>Enjoy this new chapter and good luck from everyone at Acorn.</strong></p>

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