 So I will, I will call us to order at 633 the February 23rd, 2021. Orca. Board meeting is officially up and running. And our first item of business is public comment. Seeing none. I will move right to the approval of the minutes of December 15th. December 20, 2020. And if people do have their virtual board packets, and you could take a look at this. Type up of minutes that Carlos so graciously put together for us dated the 15th. Of December, 2020. We could just take a few minutes and take a look at it and. Come back and see if we need to make any changes. To accurately reflect that last meeting. Go quiet for a few. Hey, CJ. Hey, good to see you guys. Hey, CJ. Hey, all. Did you just come in when we were, we are right now looking at the December 15th minutes. Okay. That is the item we're on. Presently. Thank you, Mike. It's in your board packet and we're just taking that minute or three to. Take a look at it. Outstanding. I'm going to go audio only, but I can go back to video if you need me to. Sure thing. Found an item or two, but. Will. You tell me right now, I can start correcting. Yeah, there's a, at the bottom of page one, it says legislator. And I believe it should be legislator capital L URE. Let me see about my page one. I have it in, in, in a different program. So it's a little bit different under what section. Corrections report. Director's report. Okay. Let me see. Yep. I think the second sentence. Yep. That's the spot. Okay. The other thing is. Yeah. Actually it's under the low power FM presentation where it has my name all in favor to create. Yes. Yes. So I can't make a motion. So I believe John, Mr. Block made that motion and. Got it. Did CJ second to Dave second. I don't know, but. I think I formulated the question. I think I formulated the quite you redacted the question and then somebody, and I think it was John. Yeah, John definitely moved it. I don't, I don't recall the second. I think I was the second on it. That sounds great. CJ. I'll own it. Oh, it's a great idea. Anyhow. Those are my motion. Anyone. Anything else for fixings. What about your discussion? You mean. On actual. On the content items that are brought up at this meeting. Yeah. Because it seems like there's stuff that. Was proposed. And that. Should have some follow-up. Yeah. I mean, for now, we're just approving the minutes that this actually happened in this accurate. Accurately reflects it. You can hold that for old business. Okay. And I think. Rob does have a little fill in story about the. The state of that very subcommittee. So. Yep. Good. Any, any other just sort of technical fixes. And we'll put loose ends under old business. Okay. Good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I would move to approve the minutes. As amended. Sue has moved to approve the December 15th minutes. Is there a second. I get, I will. Thank you, Carlos. So, Rob, I will, as soon as I tonight, Rob, when I send you the new minutes, I'll send you the, the corrected old ones. Okay. Thank you, Carlos. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good and seconded to approve the December 15, 2020 minutes. All those in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. And opposed would be a nay. All right. That's unanimous. Acceptance of the December 15th minutes. Which will move us to. Rob has tucked in before the financial reports, and I just saw that Michael called in. So I just want to get Jen helping her get out, helping him get in on this meeting. So if I could just take a brief moment. Sure. He, he called to the actual studio. Yep. So I'm just going to check in with Jen. I'll be right back. And, and we'll try to get Mike in on this on this call. All right. Yeah. And I'll actually, um, and we probably can pick it up further in a new, uh, old business. But Sue, um, Rob got a call from John early in the new year. Um, saying he wasn't, um, feeling as well as he was. I don't think it's an alarming situation. But, um, He just was indicating a little bit of a back off. And, um, so he was the one, um, To take the lead on that subcommittee for the low power FM. Yeah. So that created, created a little limbo there. Okay. And then there's also the Chris, where's most ideas about, uh, Camp summer camps. Yep. Yep. And Rob will have an update on that as well. Rob, I just was that John block. That you were saying was not feeling as well as he was. Yeah. Yeah. It was just Rob, I used the time where you were gone to just catch people up on why that subcommittee didn't happen on low power FM. And was that, was that accurate? John was just called in the new year and. He just spoke to me. He said he said. Trouble, trouble focusing. So he wanted to back out. I didn't know if it was just committee or the full board appointment. Okay. The only other should be for new business. But the other place for his coverage was, um, important to us potentially is the broadband liaison coverage. So can we put that under, I don't know whether it'll be older noon, but. Yeah, probably, probably we'll park everything under old business that, um, that represents loose ends on this last board meeting. Okay. So, um, Mike, is that now on your list for old? Yes, those two items will, we'll pop right up. Awesome. Thanks guys. Yep. All right. Um, so that will roll us into the financial reports. And, uh, your success getting Mike to join us is. Yeah, not, not. Has not succeeded. My success is not successful. Okay. He doesn't really want to use zoom. So he did say that he's available. If you want to call him in and get a call. I'm not sure how I would. Oh, if you could let him know that he doesn't have to use zoom, he can dial in just like a call. Yeah, I did. Oh, and he still didn't want to. So he's, so he's kind of big off. I didn't have a good conversation with him today. He was excited to hear from me. He sounds in good spirits. I know that he's still fighting the cancer. Um, but he was excited to hear, but he wanted to know how things are going. Uh, so I was, uh, hoping he could get in so he could get updated, but he certainly seems in good spirits, but, um, and I will work with him. The one thing I talked to him about was that a few months ago, we had approved, uh, an additional $1,000 a month to pay off the loan that we had made to ourselves in 2018, which did not get facilitated. So I asked him how that would happen. He suggested that I call Ed Jones and if there's a problem, since I'm not a signer on Ed Jones, if they have an objection to me, he suggested that they do know who I am and that would be for business. Um, but if there was any problem, then he have Ed Jones to verify with him. So I was going to move forward with that and maybe even go back a few months. He was even suggesting we might pay the thing off now, but the, the, the board action that we approved a number of months ago was that increasing the, the payments from $1,000 a month to $2,000. Celebrate it. Yeah. And if you're saying that didn't happen, it did not happen. Reason not to pay it off. Are we worried about our credit reading? No, in fact, I think the, the reason was that Mike was advocating for not to do that. But at this point, there's so little left in payment in principle. That we seem to be on board. We just paying the entire thing off. So we could. What is left. Looking at the, at the financial report, it seemed like we had doubled. Our, um, Assets in the last five years over the course of five years. So yeah. So the, the five years ago, I think it was when we actually withdrew the 65,000 for the, for the purchase of this system. So that was a drop. So if you look at, you know, six years, you'll see that the number goes back up by 60, but we've certainly made up the money since then, you know, and done quite well. I was surprised to see how much it increased in the last month. I think it's almost $20,000 in one month. So whatever Mike invested in has been doing really well. So Mike has seen this and had no asterisks to add to the figures that are in front of us. Mike has as not, I would say he's not said seen this because he doesn't check, he said he doesn't check his email, but once a month. So he probably is not. Okay. But as I was looking at it, I see that the numbers are going out pretty, pretty extensively. And you're looking at the Edward Jones. Yep. I'm trying to see if there's a balance of the number, but I just want to make sure this one looks to be about just over $12,000. Got it. So, you know, if we, I'd have to look back, but I'd say it's spent at least six months. So, you know, we backdated and said, six grand of that we've already appropriated. There'd be only $6,000 left. So if, if you guys want to, we could just make a motion to pay off alone now. And we certainly have money that we got in the prior year in 2020 from the COVID relief. So financially, we're looking fairly well and maybe we should go through the finances statement just to show you that. I can give you a balance right now that of the three accounts that we have, the one that's tied to the PayPal is now at 94.54, Carlos? Yep, I'm writing, got it. By almost $50 and that was because of a donation we got at the end of 2020 from Kendrick Tite who donated $50 to Orca. Oh, nice. Yeah, nice. It was very nice to send him a nice thank you and obviously a statement so that he could use it for tax purposes. The check-in account currently holds $15,318.50. I'll repeat that Carlos. $15,318.50. Got it. And then the savings account which just got replenished because we got the fourth quarter check from Comcast. We now sit with 202,287.85 cents. And I'll say it again, Carlos, 202,287.85 cents. Okay. So we're, I don't see any difficulty with paying that back right now. I don't know if that would cut into my capital for this year but if we needed it, if we got hurt we could always pull from the reserve fund if we needed to. I guess a year of pleasure, how you want to proceed. So that would be entertaining a motion to retire this debt of about $12,000 in one fell swoop. I'm in favor of that. Is that become a motion? Sounds like it's becoming one. I move that we retire this $12,000 debt. And we're looking for a second. No second for purposes of discussion, CJ. CJ is seconded. A discussion on this 12 grand. Having a little bit of debt tends to be good for your credit rating. What's the interest rate again? I think we were at 5% but I don't know if it actually applies to our credit issue because we're loaning ourselves. Oh, right. Okay. It's not anybody that's reporting the credit to anybody. This is paid off at a grand a month. Yes. So it would be done next January or so. Well, so I mean, we didn't do the up payment in 2020. So I'm imagining it's about six grand that didn't get done with that. So we could apply that and just say, all right, there's six grand that should have gone through in 2020. So then there's only six left, but this year, or we could say it didn't get done, Rob, so now we're just dealing with 2021. I see what you're saying. That motion from the fall where we accelerated the rate of pay down. So retiring the debt now would actually mop up that confusion. We're in some weird limbo with a prior motion, correct? Yeah. Any further discussion on the motion to retire this? A remainder of this debt, sounds like our acceleration plan did not go through his plan, but... I will add that the original recently making the loan to ourself was to keep money in the funds, in the investment funds, because it was making more money than we were paying in interest. That it, right, our dividends would outpace the interest rate. And I think Mike was proved right on that. We did make, you know, as we've seen in the investment, it's been going up pretty, I think pretty good rates. In that case, that would argue to, if these are long-term, that would argue to leave it there because it's hard to get good rates of return for safe investments in an era where the interest rates are like 1.8%. I think prime is 1.24. Yeah, the only... And now, CJ, is that at that point, we were talking about $60,000 as opposed to $12,000 or $6,000. Yeah. So... Yeah. That's true. We're not going to make a lot on 12. Okay. I mean, either way, really, because if we're paying a thousand a month, it'll be done in a year. If we pay it off now, we're not losing that much in dividends. Right. And we're about, what, three months in where we said we'd like to pay it off at two grand a month, but that didn't happen. I'm trying to go back over the minutes now to find out when we actually made that motion. Come back to August now. August. August is five months back. So that's... That would have been another 10 grand paid off already. Well, we've made the one... We've made the one, sorry, right? So that would be five. So there'd only be seven left as of August, but it looks like you're going back even further, huh? Yeah. Now back to April. Hmm. Well, then the... It's really diminishing then. Well, that would be... A full year would be the 12 grand right there, wouldn't it? Yeah. Which I seem, I seem to remember thinking that we'd be done with it by the end of the year. So it makes sense, but I'm not seeing it. A quick review doesn't show me it, but you guys have a recollection of doing this, right? I'm not thinking about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess I'll call the question and we may just... This may be the way to mop up this confusion. All right. All those in favor of retiring this $12,000 debt that we've tried to accelerate paying down. And it just, I didn't happen. All those in favor of retiring this debt at about 12 grand left. Please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All right, so that's, that's all whatever, whatever that was great. Yeah, that's been, I don't know when we took that loan out but it's been. It was five years ago. It was five okay. All right, anything else in the financials you want to highlight Rob before you move to your executive director's report. No, just to answer any questions you might have as I said, the report that I submitted the budget versus actual was for last year for 2020. We're still working on finishing up some numbers. I've got to get the compensation numbers that the accounting people that deal the thing where they take the, the ASCII account and put it in the proper areas of personnel. But, you know, there's just a couple of cleanup things that we have to do before we start getting ready to file the 2020 tax, but if you guys see anything in there that's wanted to ask but we're in good shape. How's our relationship with MFA. VCFA. The college. Yeah. Why our landlord where our landlords happy with us. Yeah. It's amazing to me that I keep in mind that spending years to move here we actually the lease says an increase in rent next month so I have to remember to put the new amount of in there but it's, it's been quiet. There's, you know, there aren't students here the facilities guys come through there. They're always very responsive to our, you know, we've been asking questions about the circulation of the air with cove the questions. They've been wonderful. It's been a very, a very positive move I think up here and we're saving money too as well. Do we share the plowing fee when the snows come. They cover that we don't have any bill. We don't have good like this bill or cleaning bill. Rob, have you figured signage out with them. No. So that's, I, you know, I know that the when we put the mailbox on the building they said we can't really we had to sort of hide it from the street because if anybody could imagine they don't want anything on the building, but I was going to propose that we some kind of post in the front that might have us and maybe other people that are in the building so that we could get some findings. That's not going to affect their historic building was solved. Could we have a little tiny sign that says something like Orca parking with an arrow. But that we know we're, I mean, we don't have any designated parking for us, although we're supposed to get one spot which has not been designated yet. Parking doesn't seem to be an issue around here. It may be as we come out of the pandemic. I was thinking of it more as a direction for somebody trying to find the office. So, yeah, we want to try to look at placements so that people can find us. That's a key element. We do have stuff in our windows so that people can see. You know, but yeah, Mike, at some point we open the discussion, particularly as soon as the snow gets out, I'm imagining can we put some kind of post posted sign into the ground that doesn't interfere with the building. And then I think when you were trying to get Mike Doyle on Sue was asking and I'm also would love to get just a little of the, the summer camp, just how that's getting fleshed out. Yep, so I was going to do that in my executive director report. Oh, I'm sorry we're still in the financials I apologize. Yep. So I don't know if anybody else has any questions on the financials or we can move on to the report report. I'll catch the savings the last number I was looking for that number can you find it. The savings account is 202,287 and 85 cents. 85 cents. Yep. Okay. Got it. All right, let me open up my just on a note on staff evaluation evaluations we are getting to the end of them. It's been a great conversation with Jen she's been responsive she's feeding me back, and we just want to finalize it and get the final plan actions out and get it signed so we're scheduled to do that. So I think it's been easy years active and we have much feedback, but we'll have that in place we're still contemplating how do we get feedback or conversations with the part time people so we'll move to that. Rob when you have the full time staff completed and signed could you just get them to me and that'll trigger me to call Dave and Carlos to start your evaluation process that was on my plan so as soon as they're done they're calling you. Great. We did get some purchase equipment on last year's capital budget at the end we looked at how much we had left. We did get a new ABC camera, which has the ability to stream directly. Some audio recorders and controllers, and we were very excited about the Al meeting pro camera that we now purchase we have that, which is a 360 camera. We're going to figure out how we use it. For one thing I mean it's really a video conferencing camera, so that it has the 360 at the beginning top of it, and then they will choose whoever speaking. So it's really made me sit in the middle of the table, and being able to pick and move to the particular person's coffee. So we've done some work with it, I actually showed it with the state because they were talking about via it solution. And we, I think one of the ways we would be using it is when we get back into a room together that would be one way to report the meeting. Yeah, and you know but in the state house those small rooms, like the very tiny ones are ones that where they don't want camera operators. I mean just putting that thing in the middle before meeting starts. Yep. It should be able to capture that meeting without interfering. Correct. Yeah, Carlos that's such a good point. Yeah. It's a thousand dollar camera and we don't I don't know if we want to put one in each room but there are, you know, we look for opportunities, what kind of meetings, not just state house but also municipal meetings school board meetings that are, you know, that will have an opportunity to be able to use this, and then the output of it. So we need some way to be able to record it with through the USB interface. So, so you can you record, can you dump it into maybe a recorder that you buy from, you know, from. Bringing in USB it has some sort of computer capacity that you know it's going to have some sort of operating system that will. It only pumps out it's only the output is USB. That's it and how about does it capture online also do you have that possibility of capturing somewhere else. It was so it's it's it utilizes the streaming software so you can connect zoom to it and say, you know, much as another USB camera, you would just use this as a camera source. Yep. So it works with quick time so that was the way to record it that wasn't using streaming platform. It doesn't pull in additional footage from other places. So it's really fine to be the camera that sits in the end on is to be able to do the 360 and fold the person's talking. But as long as there's a good wireless network there, then we could capture multiple streams simultaneously using connecting by connecting each of them to zoom is that right. The end is in each room. What's that one in each room for example, if you put one of these in each of the committee rooms then you could potentially capture all the committee meetings are to be really nice because then we don't have to choose. Right. I don't know if we want to lay out that much money. I'm inclined to think they might argue that we would. It's going to reduce operator expenses. So I think it might offset and it dramatically increases our coverage in a way that the only beneficial suggesting is that the state might be able to contribute as well. Yeah, let's go for it. And I think, you know, I think, I think it's just, I mean, I remember seeing those small rooms. It's, it's terrible for a camera operator to be it's intrusive. And I get it, you know, if those small rooms, we could just have that thing only. I mean, you know, the senators used to they always used to get angry, because the operator was like in a corner there with all his gear and it was impossible and I think, you know, we have something like this that doesn't take up space that way. I think that would be a great option if we have it at least, you know, at least for a few rooms, maybe for two or three at least. I would say let's try to do them all Carlos because having spent a lot of time in there trying to get broadband legislation passed. And, and other legislation, you know, you know, it's like it's interesting like, in order to get a particular piece of legislation passed you typically need to get into two or three or four committees in order. To get the aggregate support that when it gets to the floor of the House and the Senate it just gets approved. You never know what committee it's going to be. So if we could get, I mean, this is why I'm suggesting that we, if you need emotion, I would really to bring emotion to get this equipment. If we're going down this road and we're going to talk to the government about this now is the time because I'm sure there's a lot of COVID funds that could that will definitely justify this come out of. So just to be clear, these the owl camera does not is not networked. So you need another device that would feeds it to the out to the internet or to the whatever device. Correct. And you're still working out just how to use this thing properly. Yep. But there has been interest in the state I mean we demonstrated it for the PUC. And I think there is real potential for it in the State House as well, because it overcomes the logistics of those committee rooms. So I'm sure. What is the additional device we need to connect to and it would be a laptop, you know, but if there's somebody else that could translate the USB and something. I don't know what that device is it some research but you know, it might be as I have it has to be a computer I think some sort of process. There's no there's there's also the terror decks of the small terror deck ones they have. They have protocols that are small that record and get pumped out to the internet. Yeah, in the terror deck but I think takes an HDMI. So I think, and I know that there are devices that switch the USB to HDMI. And we use one to go the other direction to get our cameras into the computers. But I would imagine that there's a comparable device that goes the other way. Correct. Yeah, and that's a little bit investigation and I, you know, and I think also maybe we should investigate later on look into an owl that has everything embedded inside of it. And companies doing the same technology that has creates the internet protocol has everything in it and records and everything. Yep. So I think CJ just warrants a little bit more thought and investigation before we get her talks with the state house. Yeah, you want to just try it out a little bit and work out some of the kinks and stuff and who's who's got the who's who's moving forward on this. I can. Carlos and I did jump in harness with you. Sure. Are you good. I think I'm good but I mean Carlos I know gets pretty excited about it so he may just come anyway. We can talk about this. Let's talk about this this week and I'll just look into it also this week and then we can just have a I feel comfortable but I'm not I'm certainly open to anything you're wondering if you guys would mind roping me and I'm not particularly useful. What I've been doing is reviewing our TMP. Because I was familiar with it but then I thought I had gone away because so many browsers for blocking it and and now I'm looking at the you know this underlying bandwidth limitations of it because I want to come back to it I'll take this offline but you'll you guys on the board you'll see an email from me regarding the fact that I do think we want to designate sites because we want to be sure we have the underlying bandwidth to handle the streaming of the video. Okay. Because you're using our TMP encoding right. Yep. Yep. So you still need you still need enough underlying. Yes. But and that's the part where I was like huh so every and you'll explain to me why I'm off base I'm sure because it sounds like there's some weird thing about cable versus Internet which I don't get. Okay. But yeah so back to the cell thing yeah I'm excited and I'd love to be roped in partly to health and partly to learn. All right. Next thing I'm sorry. I was just I was going to prompt you maybe you were getting ready to say it on the the whole radio situation you met with some people sort of in lieu of a subcommittee meeting that John was going to pull together. Yep. And that ties us back to our approval of the December 15 minutes. So I have on my report just bands report video camp and the low power FM. You want to go in that order. Yeah that's fine. So the legislative report that you know you have to look at you guys have is beginning a lot of press. If you if you don't feel like reading it there was a good concise sort of a overview of it that was Jane Lynn home did with Vermont edition on BBR. So that's worth it. Listen Lauren Linda the good thing I think that you know I like the fact that they really did talk about how essential the tech stations are. I think initially when we were discussing going to legislature with these ideas, you know, like 10 years ago, the worry and concern was that the legislator would say wait this is funds that we can pull back into I think we I'm feeling a little bit more comfortable about that that they will see this as a that the tech stations are so ingrained into our communities and so essential for the participation participation in our in our in our government in our school boards in our communities that I don't think you're going to touch it in fact Peter really does stress the work that we've been doing and I think the coven pandemic is certainly shed a light on that if people have access to get access to their local government. So the recommendations that he makes you know are are I think the one he's sort of really recommending is this idea of a tax to poll attachments. So, that's what he sort of putting although he does talk about a sort of a hybrid about, you know, you look at tax and streaming services like Netflix and he looked at universal service fund, and increasing that to have some peg money. He talked about capital money. That's an area I mean he does really talk about the, the area of negotiation that's available to the access center directly com guest is in that capital funding rates. So the 5% is packed for operating, but we can negotiate additional capital, capital, they typically stand at half percent per capital. The last contract we did we negotiated them up to 0.9% which has been nice. Burlington, for example, has three AMOs, they each get a half percent so if you combine them all with that service area they're getting 1.5. So he suggested that, you know, there might be an ability to renegotiate that even together to get an increase in that, which maybe managed by van. There were van numbers who were a little wary of that because that would mean that they would be their capital budget would then go to van and then van would distribute based on need. Although there's some argument for that. The smaller access centers say the Hardwick and Windsor are operating on a few grand capital expenditures years and when they get to like the need to buy a new server at $60,000 they can't even really get the contemplate. So there might be some argument that that this might be a way to go but it's just a proposal and idea that he floated. I think that's kind of the high points that I got out of it on my initial reading of it but you guys can certainly take a look at it if you have any questions. It's a discussion that's going to be continuing during the legislative session and within the van community events, contemplating a video conference for the van membership to be able to go through our talking points and what we see in the reports. So that should be happening. Maybe the end of next week could be in the week after or sometime in the week after. So as soon as that schedule, I can get that to you so you guys might would be able to participate if you're interested. But I think in overall we're very happy with the report. There was he was he was asked by the legislature to look at managing efficiencies. He was asked to share an opportunity to sort of streamline and he really said that bands already sort of doing that in that our work that you know, the obvious example was the statement conflict contract was working with done was done by van so that the the access center didn't have to go to loan. So shared resources advocacy where our areas that fans already been doing. He did talk about mergers. There could be any benefit to forcing mergers. But you know there are some examples of people merging for instance in Burlington, the cam and RETN are now merging and becoming the media factory. There could be some efficiencies but he felt that that being self driven by the acts centers themselves was was an okay way to go at it. I think that's the high points that I would say with that. So I don't know, Rob did the statewide channel come into play at all. That was one example of shared resources you know that was one another example of shared but not how to fund it or anything. Other questions on that legislative report to the legislature should say, I'll also add that it's being looked at nationally. And I chair the ACM Northeast Board. Massachusetts main are very interested in it because they're doing their own legislative bill work and trying to get funding, maybe taxing streaming services. And I know that nationally, the ACM was very happy to see it and was appreciative of the work that the modest on so we're getting national recognition in the access community about the work that this report is done so. And it really does come from the work that band members have done with action circles which is the advocacy group that we've been working. Amy Schoenberg has been wonderful. She has been contacting her for now two years, and it's been it's shown fruition, along with lines the COVID relief funds that we got last year was through that work, and this report is through that work and Amy and obviously the Lauren Glenn has been outstanding in her work and shepherding us through. I can, I can only express my appreciation for the work that they do. Moving on. Yeah. All right, the video camp Christopher and I have been talking and we're moving forward with this idea that we get late summer weekend sessions. Two groups of 10 kids each. He has already talked to some video or some camps that people that he works well up in. Like the Quinnfield area, Marshfield, Dallas, and how does this work so I said, you know, what are we looking for budget and came up with about just under seven grand. And I said, you know, we can work to try to make that back in the in the fees for the kids. I'm not looking at this as a money maker for workers just an opportunity to create content creators to shepherd in good feelings in the Vermont community and local community. So I said, I think we can pull it within the budget that was already been approved by the board. And I'd like to keep it within Orca. So you would be an Orca employee, you know, and so we're still kind of working out with the WS 1099 or WQ format with him with the work that he's doing. He's got some promotional materials that he's already started put together the website so we're pretty excited about it and it would be on the weekend so they would have access to rooms here at the college to convene. And he said two sessions of 10 so Saturday and Sunday with two different sessions. He's, you know, we did talk about the fee being progressive based on need. I also stress the fact that I would like diversity and inclusive attempts to get the kids who are, you know, not all, you know, some different aspects of that. So it's been favorable and I think, you know, we're moving forward with it. What what age range. So the, you know, the set that middle school into early high school, you know that you know, in work that I've done in the past that the upper classrooms in in high school tend to already be on a path and not being paid my attention so I think we get that that 12 to 15 or 16 age. Do we need special insurance. That's a good question I will look into that. Yes, insurance implication. What did you say in terms of sessions. So week for weekends in August for our sessions like to split between two days so like Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon would be different with kids Sunday mornings that Sunday afternoon. And this would be coed. Yes, absolutely. Got insurance. We're still working out some logistics with his his. As far as publicity, I think, as publicity should start pretty soon at some point, you know, in about a month or two from now and I think taking it to the social studies teachers in the middle school is a great place also to start also. Okay. Social studies and what social studies I think you know social studies history and English teachers but mostly the social studies teachers, I think. And we also expect that there may be some programs already that are around us that, you know, there might be audio, so I mean you may have people in your class Carlos. There are teachers that are already sort of teaching kids media. So, yeah. Well the high school used to have a program like a class. U32 not the U32 you have a program. It was a was a very short class. I think like a one period class for students maybe they're still doing that maybe contacting that teacher would be a good idea. So I actually have a young woman a freshman U32 that I've been mentoring for four hours every two weeks. Amy and so and she's been talking about you 32. There's another kid Colby I think who's been a little bit upper class. So he's been teaching her. So I have a connection in U32 already their teachers. Okay. I think between Christopher's and my connection with populate that the 20 kids are looking for. We might want to talk to somebody like one to find like Wendy finally come out already having a connection of with kids in school that have a mentor. And the mentor could be somebody that actually helps them bridge the gap to what we're trying to do with Christopher. Okay. Okay so moving on to the FM conversation so as we already mentioned earlier. John backed out of that so you know I in order to keep it going I asked Lou said maybe we should meet after the holidays and bring in Chris ruin from WGDR. And she also brought in Kate protagonist, who was very involved with Prometheus radio which is an organization that I think out of Billy. 10 years ago, that was trying to bring about the last time these licenses were available. So Kate's very knowledgeable in fact, you know, I think she pointed out the fact that we had had a conversation 1012 years ago about this. I've been very involved with the, the WB TV which is the low power FM station that was. That's at the media factory, and in Bronson so that's our there's already template in place that we said, it's great to have cake there. It's great to have Chris there I mean Chris, you know obviously one of our biggest concerns was like we don't want to have a fringe on WGDR's mission and work so you know we wanted is can this coexist within WGDR and so Chris is entirely on board and very appreciative of the fact, and wants to help and support. So we spent about an hour on a Friday afternoon on the call the four of us. Talking about the conversations that we'd already have so as an introduction it wasn't really something if it was just an opportunity to say, This is what the conversations that we have. Basically, the three of them are radio people on a community media I've not really done radio, but they understood about the licensing going through from the FCC. Some of the particulars around how you the application for our license so they're very very knowledgeable and willing to help, and they're tapping me. I guess, one of the top was the corporation for public broadcasting. And this has had to do GDR lost the funding from CPB because they weren't able to have to match funds up to 300,000 which I don't think GDR has been able to do, which means they lost their funding so now the only people that get CPB funding in Vermont is Vermont, Vermont BPR. So it was just that the wealth of knowledge from these people was appreciated and helped me understand what we're looking at it's a, it's going to be a year long process and we decided to go forward with it. So I know that's the update on that I you know I think I don't think that there was anything other than that we basically just had the introductions and recap of the conversation that we need to add to each other so Is Kate's last name really her last name or is that a norm to plum. You know, I wanted that myself when I looked up what's case last name and I'm like it really is protagonist and like, okay. It's really remarkable. He sounds like my kind of person. It was good to meet her and have a conversation I know that we've met years before but she was a wealth of knowledge and the fact that I mean I've known about from music radio and what they were doing in the early 2000s. They both, all three of them just knew it backwards and forward, you know, they're both low and take we're very involved in WPTV in Burlington and Chris obviously the manager of WPR. So, I think next steps, reconvene maybe we I think, looking at, is there a want for this in the community how do we talk to the communities about is there interest in this. And we move forward with that. Unless there's any objections from the board. No, I'm, I'm excited about that connection. Okay. I think that's it from my report the only thing I would add. I know there was a question on insurance that last board meeting about directors and officers. I have a call in Stephanie. But I haven't received a response yet so it's still on my list. Talk about do you know about the aggregate number for equipment and now I've added insurance for the camp on to my list so I don't have any answer for you today but it is on my list to make sure I get back to that for you. We, we could entertain a motion to accept the executive directors report. So just a second. We did we didn't approve the financial reports did we. Are we going to do them together because I need. Good catch. Good catch. We could, we could, we could move to accept both in a bundle. Yep. Correct. CJ, you want to amend your so moving. So amended. Okay. So a second to accept both the financials and the executive directors report which got a little blurred together with Rob being the presenter for all. I'll second it. And Dave has second. All those in favor of accepting both the financial and the executive directors report please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. And opposed. Is a nay. Thank you. Thank you for the last part of the report. I really didn't, I didn't order because we should discuss, but Rob, you're going to renew your call to the insurance people. But now you have a couple of topics, instead of just the DNO. Is that right. Correct. Got it. Thanks. All those opposed next. All right, that's a unanimous acceptance of both reports. Thank you, Rob. that's been used to cover the public. I don't know. I don't know. I think we have to do since. Other than John Block covering the. Fiber broadband. Thank you. Yeah. And the reason I mentioned it is that. There's enough going on. Easy fiber. Is now over 52 million in debt. All that money is going. Or it's unknown how much of it. Presumably it's all going out of the Vermont local economy. Unless it's being held by. The state. But it's being held up. Easy fiber in particular. Is now being held up as the model. For the state. And so I think it would be a real service to cover that meeting. And. Those meetings and see. What's happening there. You know, I think it's an important community service to do that. I have a conflict in that I'm also a board member. I'm not a board member. I'm not a board member anyways, but if it's just a matter of. If it's a matter of something that's not a conflict, I'm happy to do it. So I. I just a reminder. I reached out to her. I don't think it's. Here any longer. No effects plan. Okay. So. Was. Misinformed and thought that Montpelier that we wouldn't be interested because none of the towns are in our service area. When I reminded him. Some of the towns are in our service area. I think he was kind of using it as an excuse. So I don't know if there's a. An appetite for. Orca to capture, but yeah, I know that the. Central Vermont fiber. We have been covering their meetings. They've been remote. So there's just an easy to add it into our list of meetings. The capture as they're happening. We would just need to get. The link. And that, you know, I don't know that. I don't know that. Yeah. Denied to us, you know, I didn't really want to play hard. No, they can't because they're a municipality. You know that is like the reality. I think that's a really important thing that you've been making. I think that's what's really important and so is this. You know, that's the. The biggest part of this. Is you hear the argument. One of the greatest expenditures. I think. I mean, anybody know what the state budget is? On my head. No. I think a billion. How much is it? I don't know. That was five billion. Oh yeah. If we take healthcare out of it, what is it? I don't know what's where you going. And strategically, one of the biggest checks to Vermont's economic health is broadband. And one of the greatest expenditures and revenue sources is going to be broadband. So I think it's just kind of a public interest topic. Yeah, I don't even think we need to make the case. Do you know when they meet again or do you have access to their calendar? Yep, and it's public knowledge because they're a municipality. So, you know, having a municipality say no, we don't want you in our meetings is a little bit of a red flag. So I guess I would say, you know, it's the second Tuesday at seven, I want to say seven o'clock or seven 30 hanging in March, the second week. Is that the board you're on CJ? Yeah, it's one of them. Yeah. So, so you could refuse yourself if there was a conflict, couldn't you? Yes. Yep. I would love to have you be there and represent our interests and recuse yourself if you perceive a conflict and we'll try to find someone to replace you in that my work because we have other. Oh, yeah, we do have alternate delegates for Randolph. Kerry Ward, myself, we're, we're not talking about advocating a specific Orca agenda at EC Fiber, we're just talking about capturing their meetings, correct? Having someone to be there, correct, understands what's going on. Well, yeah, CJ connects. I mean, she is there. I, you know, she can inform this board. I don't know if there needs to be a conflict if she's just informing us. Yeah. And I'm happy to be at all. I mean, this is a topic of such importance that if somebody can throw me the calendars for the other meetings, especially given that there's zoom in, in educate me, I'm happy to. Well, certainly the prior, they're available at OrcaMedia.net if you wanted to watch any of the prior central Vermont Fiber ones. Yep. How are we covering those? It's capturing, you know, as, as the template has been for the last year, we just captured the zoom meetings here on a computer, record them and then trim them and, and brand them and ship them and put them on the channel. So all you need me to do is then just attend with a computer instead of my cell phone. Not even. Or all we need to do is tell my staff that here's the link and I don't know what platform they're using for their meetings. We're pretty used to. Yeah. So prior one. So I, you know, I would probably begin by talking to the chair and saying, you know, we want to cover these and can we have the link sent to us? There's high interest. I already covered central Vermont and, you know, you, you, I guess you are asking just to be polite, but it's not even really an ask. Yeah. And then to just run it through staff. So CJ is in and potentially. Yeah. So it's a weird. Meeting staff gets. So add to the, add to the Google, our Orca calendar. Here's the zoom information. Just like any other meeting we do dedicated computer to it. Just like any other meeting we do. Yep. So if you could just, I think. If you could just. Give me the email of the new chair. Sure. Yep. I'll do it now. And ECF gov is still the governing board mailing list. Yep. Okay. Great. Yeah, no worries. This is. All right. And is it right if I just read it out loud into the meetings that I've got it right here. The email. Yeah. Yep. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Fx Flynn is Foxtrot X Ray Foxtrot. Lima. India. November. November. That gmail.com. Okay. Can I just ask, you know, Fx, do you think he'd be more receptive than her was? I'm afraid not, which is part of the reason I think the coverage is so important. Okay. But what I will do is. You know, whatever. Work and needs. Since you're attending meetings, are there any other members of the public that generally attend? Oh, yes. So it, these are public meetings. And any member of the public may attend. The governing board now is up to something like a hundred people. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's, it's able to be up to that size. And maybe up to 70 or 80. You know, I'll phrase the email saying. As a courtesy, we're letting you know that we're going to plant. We plan on attending these and getting him on the channel. And onto the web. Mm hmm. So that would be the second, the second Tuesday, it looks like it would be March 9th. Yeah. The next time they meet. Yep. Yep. All right. Any other old business. And as far as old business goes, I know we talked about low power FM band, right? And there was a subcommittee, but, um, um, that subcommittee since John block is not. Are we, are we going to have a new subcommittee? And what's the next steps for that? What does that subcommittee need to do? I understood information. I understood they were to meet once before this meeting. And, um, I don't know. I don't know. Present findings. Correct. Correct. So that that sounded like a one-shot deal to me. And I don't know if Rob's meeting with, um, Lou and Chris. Is in lieu of that. Or if in fact. That subcommittee, which would. Was it Dave? Dave's in CJ. Dave CJ and John were that. Yep. I guess I would leave it to Dave and CJ to. Determine whether. A media, I mean, Rob, you laid out next steps. Um, when discussing low power FM, and that really came down to community needs assessment. Is that where we, I think, yeah, it's, um, understanding the timeline for the application for the license. And as well as some work on. Determining. Community need or our community wants. Yeah. I'd be glad to come in Rob and just, uh, shortly meet with you and then sort of carry the ball to Chris Gronan. And Kate, I already talked to Joseph Gaines of the day also. Okay. Super. And I'm happy to be roped in if you just text me. Okay. I'll dial in or be available. Would that work for you guys? Yeah. Let me talk to Lou about what, you know. When and what. What they imagine are next steps. And then offer to bring in you guys. Okay, that's great. Yeah. And Dave, you know the lay of the GDR land. Well, so that's a, thank you for stepping up there. I'm just really thrilled that we're keeping GDR. I was really worried that the, the, uh, faulty record of the college's money was going to leave the, the station unable to go ahead. So it looks like they've landed on their feet, huh? Yeah, it does look that way. They had a good fundraiser. They're serious about it. And they're going to, and they're raising funds and they're excited about, I think their application is lying before the, uh, the, um, The committee, you know, the, the federal committee for approval. Uh-huh. They're waiting to hear on it. That's a big relief. Um, any other old business? I will just add that I'm looking at what we would call the call letters for our new station. If you did it. And I came up with WORM for W on, in river media. The worm turns. I love it. It's awesome. I told Joseph games, since he was raising all the, a lot of the money, we could just call it WG AI. Which are the first three letters of his last name. I love the world though. Yeah. It is, there's some wonderfulness to worm, but there's, there's also a little bit of, uh, it's like the word Trump, you know, that people can get too carried away with it at some point. We'll see. Love it. I think it's as the worm turns though would be sort of perfect. It would be like our, you know, as the worm, it would be like our sign off more, more as the worm turns or welcome to as the worm turns. I think you should. You should be our Jerry McGuire or CJ. You got it. Savannah Tennessee already has a viewer. Well, that's fine. That's Savannah. Can we have ours in Vermont? I don't know how that works. I'll ask the guys. Okay. Once it's claimed, it's claimed. Okay. Um, BT. Perhaps there's new business. I have one. I had an idea that I'd like to float. You first. I was thinking that. Do you know, first of all, Rob, do you know, does MFA have a spring break? I don't know. I was thinking and they're doing remote residencies. So yeah, none of the students are here. This, this semester. And then when they do, they just do residencies for a couple of weeks and they're gone. Well, my idea won't work until we've lifted all the bands on having gatherings, but I'd like, I'd love to have an open house as soon as we could do that. Yeah, absolutely. That's, you know, I, you know, I'm looking at May for the annual meeting. That would be the place, but you know, are we going to be free enough to do it then? Or do we push it off? Yeah. I'm hearing that. I'd like to just have said enough money aside to buy refreshments or something and then, and then call it if we can, whether it's the actual annual meeting or whether it's even sooner if they lift things or later, whatever it's, it's convenient to do it. Yeah. Absolutely. They were, were chomping on the bit to have this all lifted so we can have everybody. All right. Good. So that's, that's my only new business. And use that green CJ, you had a new business. Yeah, just one thing. And if this is not appropriate, please tell me to take it elsewhere. For a different organization, we've been, this is a content question. We've now done 43. Zoom meetings of generally of generally large numbers of pilots on a number of topics related to safety and operations. There are a particular type of airplane and theory, but they're of general interest. Is that content that would be appropriate? It would be all about how to own and operate a small piston airplane. These are covers. These are pre-existing videos. Yes, but we're creating a new one every Thursday. So for example, the one that's happening this coming, the one that happened last Thursday was on surviving a catastrophic engine failure. Like 777. A little bit like, well, in this case, it was a young army captain and his engine. And this is a rear, rear event, but his engine. It was a, a connecting rod failed and stuck a, and basically took up, put a hole right through his case. And he had covered, you ended up with a, trying to fly an airplane with oil all over the windscreen and an engine that was completely stopped. And he managed to do an emergency landing in a field. Told us that he called his wife and said he wasn't going to be there to pick her and their daughter up. And then his wife called their, his parents. And he was like, Jim, we had a crash. And then this coming week. If you're, if you're interested in sponsoring that as a show, then it's, it's done. The question of appropriateness is, you know, we're public access. Yeah. I think it's very appropriate given that the first 777 that had the motor fire before the 48 hours had passed, another one also had a motor fire failure. The same kind of plane. And so people are now getting to the point where they, they don't know whether they're wanting to have the restrictions lifted so they can fly to see the people they haven't been able to be with or whether they don't, that planes aren't safe enough to take them there. You know, we could expand this hours happen to be Thursday nights, every Thursday at the, you know, people come in for hangar flying as they say at seven and then seven, three, we could, we could create for the public things to answer that. I mean, one of the guys that's in these meetings, something regularly happens to be a senior trainer for Southwest Airlines, which flies. That's the Boeing 737 max eight. It could be, it could be car talk for, for passengers of planes. Yeah, this would be passengers. This is under operators, but we could create one for, for passengers. Yeah. I think there's a market for it. I have four and a half million miles as a passenger of aluminum torture tubes as well as a pilot. So, Wow. I can talk on either topic with the ignorance. Reduce it, then it's, it's fine. You know, it's a, it's of general interest. Yeah. And what do we do with all the old content? Oh, sorry, Sagan. Even if it's a niche interest, it's welcome. There's, there's a lot of discussion. And you're also reminding me, CJ, you had an idea to produce a show about seniors and COVID isolation. And there was, absolutely. No, there's a. Rob, we have a. Someone comes to Oracle with an idea. Right? Yeah. And that turns into a show because we have a preexisting process. Yeah. Right. So CJ, it's just them. Welcome as any member of the public to access public access. Okay, well I talked to the singer for the board I don't think that's it and I but I like doing shows I encourage everyone to get their stuff on the TV and yeah please follow through on any great ideas you have. There are a few requirements and I think Rob has the list of things that you have to comply in order to be able to put that show online on air like for example the music you have to own the music or has to be. You have to have the only copyright or a copyright free music and other things and things like that but those are just little technical issues which we could provide the list of things that you need to have another. Yeah. I just just I realized this isn't appropriate board meeting so just real quick who do I coordinate with. Yeah. Okay thanks you guys. Carlos should you and I talk about how to move this content over. Absolutely yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's this is the company that I'm doing this with. It's a consortium but the other company who do I had it's a it's a registered 501 C3 so we can meet. I'll demo one of the videos that you have and I'll watch and then we can start our conversation there. Sure, I'll send you a link to the library. Yep. Okay, thanks. And then we'll take it right and then. All right sounds good and then would you be my contact point on the on the seniors in long term care facilities in the era of coven. Yeah, absolutely yes. Cool. All right then you and I will just. Yep. Yeah sounds good. I think the Vermont Council on aging would help that one might need a grant. But let's talk more offline. Okay, I'll pitch you an email right now. I think that's it. Any other new business. All right, I will call us to adjournment at 824. Just a quick question or anything in tonight's discussion is that we don't want on the air. Do you have a contract negotiation or anything like that? Oh, good one. We didn't get into personnel. No. I don't think we said anything that I wouldn't be happy to be fully transparent about. Okay, I think Dave's right, but it but Rob really, really good question. Yep. I can't do anything so we'll just go ahead with what we got. I don't know if there's anything sensitive we'd need to go into executive session. The only reason I thought it was because contracts are typically one of the things you would go into executive session for. Yeah. And I'm not sure if there's anything that we want and want compounds to know about. I don't think we got into any details. No, I mean, you get, you could, I mean, you could edit that part out on the video, right? Just download it. Would that be Bruton to do that? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Put it as executive movie and then move it. You know, to executive session. Yeah. It would be prudent because it's, it's, it's consistent with appropriateness. I think. Bravo is a good call. Okay. Yeah. I'll have that. I'll have to take out the contract part of it out of the, out of the video. Yep. Okay. You can even put a bumper in there saying, you know, move to executive session and then, you know, move it to executive session. Okay. It looks like our next board, the fourth Tuesday in April is the 27th. Okay. You make a note of that. I put it right. It's right here. We are adjourned. So thanks for that. Everybody. Thanks guys.