 Well, we don't we do. We actually have we have Mindy and then a Sue Lowry is in the audience. We don't have a quorum though. We have just three of us. Well, it only just hit five o'clock. Here comes Jacqueline and there are really only seven members. So I guess Jacqueline makes a quorum. Hi Jacqueline and Christina. Very good. I think we need sound still from both of them. Hi, Christina. Hi, how are you? Hello to everyone. Jacqueline, are you do you have sound? Looks like she's still working at it. Hi, Anne. Hello, Anne. Can you hear us? Yes, I can. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for joining. Jacqueline, are you have sound yet? I heard her say something. She's trying. Not very clear, though. Hi, Terry. Rose, can we do a little introduction when everybody's here? Because I really would love to meet people. Hi, Terry. You have sound yet? Hi, how are you doing? Good. You can hear us. Okay. Jacqueline, can you hear us? She often has trouble with her audio. Okay. Jacqueline, you have a question. It's having difficulty. Maybe she could join by phone. Yeah, that might be better. Jacqueline, you want to try joining by phone? Well, we do have a quorum. So I can call the meeting to order. I don't know how to handle this with Jacqueline. She may be trying to call me. I am texting her right now and asking her to join us by phone. And I will look up the number and send it to us, to her. Yeah. Hi, Jacqueline. Charlene or Christina is sending you the phone number if you want to join us by phone. You have no audio. Okay. Well, let's try it again. Look at your email because Christina is sending you an email with another number. Good luck. Bye-bye. So hopefully she will get on. I will call the meeting to order. Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the Open Meeting Law. GLC 30A, this meeting of the Council on Aging, is being conducted via remote participation. The meeting is also being recorded. I will do a roll call now and that will check your sound and video. Let's start with Greg Baskin, not present, Chad Fuller, Karen Helfer, Mila Montemayor. I'm here. Christina Shabai. I'm here. I'm here. And Jacqueline, who will be here eventually. It might be best to mute your sound to diminish any background noise. And at this time, we are open for public comment. Anyone in the public is welcome to make a comment or express their views for up to three minutes. We will not respond, but we will listen to what you have to say. Is there any public comment? There is none. I want to welcome everyone, all members and also guests. Linda Terry is here and she's from Amherst Neighbors. Ann Scarra is here and Ann is the one that introduced us to the need for some sort of hearing workshop for members in the community. And we also have Mindy Dom, who will be in and out. Mindy is our state representative for the third district, which covers Amherst Pellum and Granby. So welcome everyone. And Dick Yorga is often here from the friends on the council on the Amherst Senior Center. I believe he is not with us today. Welcome, Greg. Greg Baskham. Welcome. You're muted. So Linda, members of the council on aging are myself, obviously. You've met Hailey and you've met Karen Helfer. Christina Sharbaugh is a member of the council on aging. And Terry Carr does the minutes for us. And she will hopefully soon be joining the council on aging soon as the town council approves. Jacqueline, can you hear us? Yes, she's still not getting sound. Okay. Well, I'd like to proceed. Hailey, would you please give us an update on what's going on at the senior center, services, activities, programs, and how things are looking? Good. So it's been a very busy couple months. Some of you may have noticed that the doors to the bank center are unlocked. We made that move a few weeks ago. And it's been really wonderful. There's actually been a few people coming in and sitting in the lounge and reading. So it's very nice to have that flow of traffic. Today we moved our meal program from room 101 back to the large activity room. We're very excited to have made that move. The health department will still be holding a weekly vaccine clinic, but that will be conducted in room 101 now on Thursdays. So we regained a little bit of ground and will be awaiting their decision on the future of the mask mandate following their meeting tonight. So quite a bit of changes at the bank center. And then in terms of programming, we have a watercolor paint class coming up in April. And then we'll be doing a whole host of programs come May and June. We will be doing an open house at the senior center to kind of refamiliarize people, refresh their minds on what it is that we have to offer. We'll also be doing a week of self-care related activities. We'll have a chair massage clinic. We'll have a woman coming in to do manicures. We'll have a mindfulness workshop. And then we'll have a few workshops featuring service animals. We have comfort dogs. We have cats, a cat behaviorist who can talk to seniors about why their animals do the certain things that they do. We'll also be holding a weekly blood pressure clinic in the bubble room. There'll be a program on Medicare. There'll be two different home modification loan programs coming up. Let's see what else. We'll be having an aging in place talk. And then there'll also be kind of like an informal coffee hour with both the Amherst Fire Department and the Amherst Police Department. And when the police department comes in June, they'll be bringing Officer Winston and Moose from the Amherst College Police Department. And those are both comfort dogs. And that's just kind of the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we have already set in stone. And I'm hoping to onboard a couple additional programs if I can pull the strings together. I don't know if anyone has any questions on those. That was a pretty long list I know. Are you finding space for one of those programs? Yes, it's a little challenging. But we are navigating the space issues. It's really nice to have 101 back in action. That's definitely made it a little bit easier for planning. Are there any other questions? Okay. Well, I'd like to move on and talk about the Age Dementia Friendly Working Group. I did put the link to the survey in the agenda. So I hope everyone has filled out the survey. I hope you're talking to friends and people in the community about the survey. And be sure that as many people as possible fill it out. There are paper copies at the Jones Library. There are papers copies in the south entrance to the senior center in Spanish and English. So please be sure it gets out there. And Hayley, could you tell us a little bit more about how that's going? So we conducted a we mailed the survey to 500 households. We've gotten about 15 percent of those surveys back, which from what I understand is a very good number. And we're working on doing more. There's potentially going to be a reminder going out to all those 500 residents if they didn't participate. We also have four days a week. The COVID ambassadors are in the computer lab and they are making phone calls to people in the and Waylon apartments and Clark House and other senior center participants, encouraging them to participate in the survey. And the ambassadors can even walk them through it on the phone if they're not able to do it online or we can mail it out. We've gotten a little trickle of paper copies at the senior center, but the telephone outreach has been very effective. And these COVID ambassadors, where are they coming from? Are they part of the town? Are they part of the planning? Yeah, so they serve a number of different roles at the town. They have been helping us on the phones with reception when we didn't have an admin assistant. So in addition to their duties, helping out vaccine clinics and helping to spread distribution about masks and COVID information, they also help us at the senior center. And so we have one person in there for about two hours shift in the morning. And then we have another person come in in the afternoon and they've been pretty steady with their calls, getting through as much as they can. Okay. And did you want to say anything about the in-person or the focus group discussions? I can say that the town manager will be issuing a decision on in-person meetings at the end of next week. There's currently a moratorium on in-person meeting. That's why we're doing Zoom right now. I'm hopeful that he will allow us to gather in-person and then that will allow us to then do these listening sessions in person. But I won't know that until the end of next week. However, there are going to be four different focus group meetings. There will be. So we are anticipating doing the first one virtually pending pause decision. And then we'll be doing the sessions in May, June and July on a range of topics, including transportation, housing, social participation, public safety. And these are going to be open to everyone in the, I mean, we're hoping to get people, all people in the community from all walks of life to participate in these. And of course it will be best if they are in person. And that's what we're hoping for. And that way, we're going to get a lot of questions, a lot of suggestions. And I think that will help a great deal. The survey is going to be helpful, but to have people actually be able to voice what their concerns are is going to be much more real and realistic. Right. It'll be a lot more effective. And they should be fairly interactive from what I understand in talking with Becky Bosch, who's the Pioneer Valley Planning Commissioner liaison. So people will have an opportunity to not only ask questions, but to identify specific needs. You know, for example, where would sidewalks need to be improved in downtown Amherst? So yeah, I'm really pulling for in-person sessions. Yeah, I'm pulling for good attendance. That's, I think would be the most important because meetings will be meaningless if we don't have the general public there voicing their concerns. Okay. Any other questions? Just a comment that about a hundred of them have been tabulated so far. And we continue to work on that. A hundred one tabulated. Okay. But that's probably a drop in the bucket compared to what has come in. Is that correct, Chad? No, not currently. Oh, what is remarkable about that is a mailed survey never has such a high percentage of returns. It's done very well in that. Well, you're talking about just the mailed. I think that the online surveys probably are much more plentiful being returned. So, okay. And Mila has been in touch with John Hornick and she's going to help when she gets back to Amherst. So, did you want to say anything about your contact with John Hornick? Oh, you're muted, Mila. Yeah. Yeah. I'm in touch with John and I was curious to find out what kind of returns we have, both from the English speaking questionnaires and the non-speaking questionnaires. And I told him I could help probably tabulate and start analysis with him whenever we have the tabulation ready. But I guess that's not ready yet if we're still inputting the data right now. So, but he said he was going to have the tabulation at that time at a certain time. And I wanted to, I would like to help when that comes. Yeah. And I should be back to Amherst by then. But right now I can only see with one eye. So, surgery. So, I'm functioning with one eye. But I also said that I could do the analysis for the Spanish speaking questionnaires when it comes in. That's great. Okay. Thank you, Mila. Okay. Let's move on and talk about the hearing loss program. In February, early February, several of us met with Hailey. And Sklar had kind of gotten us started when Pat Rector, she raised the awareness to Pat Rector of the need for better hearing assistance. And Karen, our own Karen on Council on Aging was with us, which was wonderful because she's an expert in hearing. So, it was Anne and Karen and a number of UMass faculty who were from their hearing clinicians from the Department of Communications Disorders. So, it was a meeting where we discussed the possibility of having a program called Living with Hearing Loss. And I'm going to ask Karen if she would talk about that a little bit and what the plans are going forward. Sure. I'm happy to. So, I've passed the ball to my colleagues. So, my understanding and I asked them to give me an update as there's going to be an initial workshop that's probably going to be an hour long. I don't know, is there a date? I thought there was a date that was set, but I don't have it in front of me. Maybe it was in April. April 24th, I believe. Yeah. And so, they were hoping that was going to be a face-to-face workshop. Fingers crossed. And so, I asked them for a list of topics and this is what they sent to me. Going to talk about hearing loss and the types of hearing loss with some sound samples so people can hear what the different types of hearing loss sound like. The effects of hearing loss on communication and other physical and mental health systems, possible management strategies like amplification or hearing aids, accommodations, things like good versus bad, acoustic environments, different venues, types of venues like restaurants and why they're so challenging. They're going to hit on some communication strategies so some things that people can actually try when they're in difficult listening situations. They also want to talk a little bit about the ADA laws, Americans with Disabilities Act, the importance of self-advocacy and then perhaps if there's time touching on the over-the-counter hearing aid bill. So there's a, there was an over-the-counter hearing aid bill. It went through the FDA just approved over the counter hearing aids. They're going to be implemented in the near future and maybe talk about the Medicare bill. So that was on their agenda. They thought it would be about now or again hoping that it's going to be a face-to-face format. They said if there was some talk of hybrid, they said if it was going to be hybrid they would need some help with someone from the senior center setting that up for them. And then the other thing they asked is if the people that it's going to be, the people representing this are going to be probably Toma Henkel who's our audiology, one of our audiology clinicians along with Jane Sackett who's a speech language pathology clinician and then some of our graduate students are doctoral audiology students and our masters in speech language pathology. So it's going to be a group presentation and they were hoping they could visit the room that the presentation is going to be taking, taking place in and is that room, did I hear that it's looped or as some kind of hearing assistance technology or not? For room 101. I didn't know which room, I wasn't sure which room it was going to take. I'm planning to put it in there and I can certainly show them the space and I can check with IT if it's looped up to anything. Okay, so Haley should I have them get in touch with you about that? Yeah, that'd be great. So that's, you know, that is the start. You know, I think there is some thought about having in the future a more multi-series program having to do with hearing loss but that would be something I would guess would be probably next fall after the summer. Excellent. Thank you very much. Are there any questions, people have questions about this? Here, Linda. Unmute. You did. Unmute. Got it. Okay. You can hear me okay? Yeah. Okay. It's just a follow-up on that we open the door to cosponsoring and trying to work together on this and Haley, I don't know if we need to do it in this meeting but I wanted to check because I don't know where the council fits in in terms of those decisions about cosponsorship with another organization or, you know, what it means to you. We've never done this before. Haley, do you have any comments about that? I think it would certainly entail some joint advertising and certainly putting, you know, both Amherst Senior Center and Amherst Neighbors on any promotional materials for the event outside of that. I don't know if you have any ideas but I would certainly think it's important to let the public know that we're joining forces on this project. That's a good united front in terms of what we want to accomplish. Yeah, that sounds great. I'm really glad to do our end of publicity and promotion. You know, I offer, if it's useful, if it comes to a hybrid situation and we need more tech support, I think I had mentioned that I've got this connection with the cost group up at UMass who have been wonderful with us and helping us with Zoom events and complicated Zoom events. So, you know, I'd be glad to, you know, follow through on that connection if it's useful. That would be great because I'm not sure about RIT Department's capacity to assist on that day. Okay, I'll check them out. Okay. And can you take of other things we should think about? Would they be more comfortable in the conference room? The, like the Garibrands room? Yeah. That's fairly small. That's why I was thinking it might be comfortable. It is very small, but I'm hoping that we get more than a handful of people. I don't think you can fit more than eight people in that room. No, it's the capacity. And there's likely to be at least five people from UMass, so. Yeah, I think room 101 would be a good place to meet. The other possibility might even be the town room in the town hall. Because that is set up with microphones and would really be ideal for hearing. But it's something to think about. We don't know how many people will be coming. And Hailey, I didn't know if you had gotten, I noticed that there was an article in the Senior Spirit Newsletter. And I didn't know if you had gotten any questions from people about the hearing clinic. No, not that I, not to my knowledge. I haven't gotten anything from the receptionist that people were asking about that. But certainly, I think once we actually have the day and can tell people this is what's going on, then we'll get a little bit more traction. It might just be a little too amorphous for them right now. Do we have signers and do you have people signing at the, at a presentation like this? Probably. And so I'll, I know that in general, when I've done this in the past, very few people who sign in the deaf with capital D community would attend something like this. I'm not saying I would rule it out. I just don't know. I guess that's something to ask. We're not asking for RSVPs, but I would be surprised if we had someone in the audience who signed, but who knows? I mean, we can't provide, we don't have the expertise to provide an interpreter. But, and I don't know if you usually have interpreters at your events. Not typically. No, I think it's just a lack of volunteers who would be able to do that. Yeah, it's something to keep an eye on, you know, certainly in the future, if there's the need for it, I think it's something we should consider in terms of accessibility. But I'm not sure how many, you know, I'm not sure in the town of Amherst, how many older adults we have who use sign language. And in the time I've been at the senior center, I have never encountered it. So, yeah, I'm sure it's out there. People may stay away because they don't have anyone that they can sign with. So. Anne, do you have any thoughts? I wasn't sure if you were, I think you were muted, and I wasn't sure if you were trying to say something before. I've forgotten at that point, yeah, on about the signing. I don't really have any thoughts. I don't really have any thoughts. I wish I knew someone to do the sign, but unfortunately I don't. And Christina, you have your hand up. Yeah, I'm thinking that captions would be something that would work because people can read the captions if you're having a presentation. And it's on a large screen. And if you have captions, people, it's a different way of someone who can hear, but they can see. I mean, we can't accommodate every single disability because then the person who can't see won't be able to read the captions, but we could start somewhere if we start on, you know, making a commitment to it being accessible to all people, then we can start out with what we can. And some of those techies, which Linda Terry mentioned, would be able to help us so that we can have captions. In fact, we can have captions right in this Zoom meeting if we knew how to do it. Yeah, it's actually very simple to do. It has to be enabled when you set up the Zoom meeting. But I just went to a talk where they were projecting on the screen behind the speakers, the Zoom meeting with the captions, and that's one pretty low-tech way of doing it. So Linda, you might want to, that might be helpful. I think that's a great idea, Christina. I do think captions are really useful for a lot of us, even if we're not deaf. I know I use captions when I'm watching Netflix, especially if I'm listening to someone with a program with British accents, for example. So they just make things a lot easier listening effort, even for people who only have a little bit of hearing loss. So I think that's a great idea. Yes, I do too. I'm big on closed captions as well. So that's possible through Amherst Neighbor, that's possible through Amherst Neighbors? Because, or would our technology department be able to do that? Do you know, Hayley? I can check with them, but I know that they're short staffed. There's only four individuals in that department for the entire town, and that it has been kind of indicated to me that hybrid is very intensive for them. On the other hand, if we can do it through Amherst Neighbors, at least, if we warn them far enough in advance, they can plan for it. I'm sure at the last minute, they wouldn't be able to do it. And then I will write to Alexandra, who's the coordinator in the next day or two, and let you know. Any other questions? Okay. Jennifer Moyston was going to be here for... She was going to talk about the diversity and inclusion workshop that she has done for many committees and groups in town. So I think that she did not get perhaps notified of that, and that's my mistake. So we will have her come next month. I'm very sorry about that. Then let's move on. I hope everyone had a chance to look over the minutes and let me know if there is any corrections or additions that you would like in the minutes. So if not, I'd like a motion to accept the minutes as written. Is there a second? Terry, did you have a question? You have to unmute. Unmute, Terry. I won't accept the minutes. Well, you're not a full voting member of the top one yet, so we need a second. And I second. The minutes are all in favor of accepting the minutes as written. Please raise your hand or say aye. And then Chad has his hand up. Okay, great. Okay, the minutes are approved. Thank you. And as I mentioned, we will do the diversity inclusion workshop. We'll have Jennifer Moist and come and talk to us about that next month. I did want to make an announcement about Amherst neighbors, as you know, then to Terry is here. So she's the best advertisement. However, I would encourage you, if you are not members, all to join. And I did put the website in the agenda. So it's there for you. It's a great organization. There is no cost to join. And it's a wonderful way to connect with other people in the community. I think they mainly wish to help people be able to age in place and stay in their homes. There is ways, there's many opportunities to volunteer to share services. If you need a ride, you can call and other people are willing to help you. There are people that share in gardening and reading and that sort of thing. And they are wonderful classes and workshops. There have been just way too many to enumerate, but they also have a book club and they have had classes on hospice. They've had classes on estate planning. And Linda, say whatever you want about Amherst neighbors. I think it's just a wonderful organization. Well, I think that's great. I do want to say Ann and I both represent Amherst neighbors. She is also the voice of the hearing program. But we are both representing Amherst neighbors. Yeah, it's been an exciting journey. You know, we are intending to be, I guess we'd say we'd like to think we compliment and supplement senior center. We are not the same. We are, you know, an all volunteer organization. And it's intended to be really reciprocity based and peer based in terms of, you know, both the helping component as well as even the programming and, you know, and support for each other. We're young. We've really been here two years, I guess, and we started in the middle of COVID and we're excited at how well we've done at this time and some ways it may have been just the right time, but obviously we moved to a rather virtual life rather than in person because of, you know, life. And we're starting to blossom and come out and actually we're going to start doing what we call contact based services rather than no contact service. In other words, go into people's houses or something where you're actually visually with somebody. Yeah. And we're just in the middle of developing a fundraising plan and getting ourselves going for our next phase. And I'd love to, you know, share that in a more sort of structured way at some point in terms of, you know, where we're going. And, you know, candidly, I would say one question that we do try to sort out and it might be fun to have a conversation with each other is the distinctions. How do we support each other and at the same time make a sufficient distinction between what we're offering so the community understands. And that, you know, and there are things we can do together, obviously, and I look forward to lots more of that. But at the same time, we, you know, we want to be able to sort of clarify for the public, you know, why would they come to us? Why would they come to you? Why did they come to us? And if that would be in, you know, a useful conversation for you folks too, we're glad to do that at some point. Okay. Thank you. Any questions? Questions for Linda. Or Ann. So, one other thing on the agenda is topics that were not reasonably anticipated 48 hours in advance of the meeting. And what recently came up was the issue of the CDBG grand committee. And how we could benefit by filling out a survey and expressing what we feel the senior center could use or need. Hayley, can you say a little more about that? Sure. So that information came across my desk. There's some vacancies on the committee. I was actually interested in joining it, but there's a residency requirement. So if anyone does live in town and wants to be on the CDBG committee, you can certainly feel welcome to apply. I was first acquainted with that pot of money through the Amherst Survival Center. That's how they fund a portion of their food pantry operation. So I know that it supports social programs here in town. And what they are asking folks to fill out is a survey on needs in the area. And I think that would be a really great way for us to kind of talk about what are the specific needs of the senior center? I hear a lot of folks that say they want a brand new building, but what do you want in that building? Do you want exercise equipment? Do you want a space that is designated as a coffee lounge? What do people actually want when they envision a new senior center? So I think that would be the vehicle to kind of start the conversation in a really specific way. Instead of just saying, well, we want a new building, this is a little bit more refined. So that's just one option. And certainly we could apply for funding for building renovations if there was something that needed improvement. Or we can also try to fund supportive programs for seniors. One of the things that came to mind for me is somehow making all of our rooms more friendly. Is there a way to make rooms accessible for hearing devices? I mean, people with hearing issues, are there things you can put into rooms to make them? Yeah, go ahead, Karen. I don't know the language. Yeah, so I mean, it depends. I mean, some things people need to use hearing aids to access. So if you've heard about a loop, that's something that you would need hearing aids to access the loop. Well, though you can get a receiver, you can get a system where you give people receivers. You can have just what's called a sound field system, which is basically a more or less a portable PA system, which makes it accessible to everyone. So yes, there are things that can be done to make rooms more accessible. Okay, that's the kind of thing that we might be able to get money for from the grant. I think that a sound PA system sounds very good where everybody would benefit from it. Certainly the loop system, if you have hearing aids, is a nice thing that everyone can benefit. As we get older, there's always some diminish in hearing, even if you don't need hearing aids, and so a PA system. And I would love to see our rooms have that kind of arrangement, every one of them. Yeah, I think that would be great. I would also say that we could use those funds to start a memory cafe for seniors in early stages of dementia. Those are very successful programs. There's a lot of really great resources in the area that we could use for that. And at some point down the line, we will need to revisit our kitchen equipment. The facilities that are in room 101, I talked to Donna Hancock today, that stove doesn't even work. So we have equipment sitting there that we can't even use in a space that is probably one of our best, not to mention how outdated a lot of the equipment is in the large activity room. If anyone's seen those stoves, they're very old. Which stove are you saying does not work? The one downstairs in the large activity room? One of those doesn't work. And then also in room 101, there's a small kitchen facility. And Mindy has her hand up. Hi, I'm sorry. I have one thing to say about this. And then I'm afraid I'm going to have to get off the phone, but I think this meeting is winding down. So I'm going to try not to feel too sad that I have to leave you. But in relationship to Hailey's suggestion and thinking about the idea of a cafe for people in the early stages of dementia, I'm wondering if there's a way to also make sure that that kind of lens or view is used when looking at the survey results. Since the survey is looking particular in one way to look at making Amherst and Dementia a livable community. I'm not sure if the timing works out with that, but maybe some of the results of the survey can be used to document the need for that kind of service. That's a great idea. And I'm looking forward to working with you to figure out what are the price tags on some of these items? And kind of brainstorm where maybe state grants might be of assistance, which I don't know, but I'm more than happy to try to find out with you. Okay, yeah, that'd be great. Thank you, everybody. I'm sorry, I have to leave. Thanks for coming. And then Chad, Charles, you also have your hand up. Yeah, it does have me down as Charles. No one knows me by that name. Chad, folks are pointing towards some of my thoughts. You know, we could develop a list of all these divergent needs. We were talking about the hearing impaired and moved on to stoves and so forth. If we're talking about the hearing, accessibility depends on the type of event. I mean, if it's people in a lounge, you know, as the senior center spaces now, you need one approach. If we're talking about the pole room, where there's an event and a center stage and that sort of thing, the loop or some other thing would work. But what it's all leading me to, including the stove and where to put the exercise equipment and everything, in fact, to that whole thing, we need to plan, we need to gather information, we need to make decisions. We have to have an organized way to go to the funders to say, this is what our needs are and this is what it would accomplish. You know, the very beginning of that would be simply a listing, if we could all work together to develop a list, whether we decide to have a subcommittee on that or some other kind of organizational structure that actually attacks the problem, comes up with a solution and requests help. I feel each one of our meetings goes in one direction the next meeting goes in another direction and we don't really ever accomplish anything. So my suggestion is that we empower ourselves and go in a certain direction. I don't want to be the one to say that, I just want to be the one to say, let's start to organize and develop. The survey does have, she's gone now, but the survey is not just about age friendly, it's about dementia friendly as well. So we will have some data from that survey. I'm not sure if we'll be allowed to receive the raw data. Certain individuals and entities and organizations will be interpreting that data and writing a report. If we get to look at the data ourselves, we can say what the data means to us. We can use that in newspaper articles to rally the public around us. We can use that as our own strategic plan as a council on aging. This has not been done for COA and Amherst since Jan Dizzard, which is two, three decades ago. We need to put our finger, it's almost like a drunk. You can put your foot out of the bed and the room will stop spinning. We need to begin to move in a direction like that with purpose and focus. Christina, did you have something to add to that? Yeah, I can certainly agree that we should move with purpose and not try to focus on too many things. That we should always have an informational part to our meetings. We should always inform the community about what's going on and then perhaps use a portion of our meetings to organize ourselves into a working group so that we can work on specific things. This initiative with the CDBG would be one of those things. But I need clarification because if I'm not mistaken, Charles Chas, we are not the people applying for the grant. Is that correct? CDBG was formed by President Nixon revenue sharing. It's actually giving our taxes back to us. No, I know what CDBG is. Who is applying for the CDBG? Who is applying? I would undertake that. Using the council's advice and input, I would apply for those fundings on behalf of the senior center. Okay, that's what I need clarity about. So essentially the person that is applying, we have to work with that person and not the other way around. If Hailey needs someone to work with her, I'm happy to work with her, but we need others as well. But we're not going to be setting the complete agenda for once we have data and the data is returned to us, and then we decide what the priorities are. And we come back to the group and say, this is what we have. This is what we think we need. This is what we think the community wants. And this is what we're going to write in our grant. And if you know grants have dates, specific dates, so you have to be a working group that's ready to work so that you can get it out by the day that they say, and then you have to have someone that knows about money and finances to work on the budget part of it. And so I don't know what support Hailey has, but I would certainly suggest that Charles, Chas, since you're interested. Well, it's Chad, yeah. We're on the area gospel choir together. You know me. Yes, I know who you are. Is you're interested in working and accomplishing something that you, myself, just volunteered. The two of us start working with Hailey when she's ready to apply and help her with the functions that she needs. If that's, you know, what we should be doing is helping the person that is applying. A fund, a grant has so many people on it doing different, working on different parts to pull it together. I worked on a grant with the professors at the university to help them fulfill those grants in the School of Nursing. And so I understand the process and I'm happy to be one of those soldiers to help you just get things rolling and moving and being available. And it sounds like Chad wants to help as well. That would be great. And I do appreciate you pointing out that it does take a lot of work and there are time constraints. So the RFP for this grant will be available, I believe sometime at the end of May. And then I don't know what the period will be in which we'll have to apply. I think it'll probably be about a month or two. So if we can start thinking now about what are the specific things that we want to apply for funding for, that would be really great. So maybe we do need a follow-up meeting. Chas, Christina, I don't know if anyone else is interested just to kind of identify some talking points that I can go off of. I do have some grant writing experience, but Christina, I'm happy to draw off of yours as well. So I think we can pull something together by the time we need to submit the application. Yeah, I did see that the applications will be out in late May and he expects them to be back in July. Okay, so that's pretty reasonable. I feel like that's enough time for us to kind of get a feel. And I think a lot of people already know intuitively what are the things we need, like listening devices. I had mentioned at the start of this Zoom that I was at Highland Valley earlier today, there will be some Title III grants available next year that we can also use to apply for specific programs. If we want to do a new exercise program, something that's evidence-based, we can use Title III funds for that. I have a message from Jacqueline who is listening in on the phone. She just can't talk, but she can hear. So I suggested that she text me if she has something to add. And she says, I think we should include some programming that might be off-site as well. They would be made available like satellites. So maybe she means remotely. So she says the word satellites. Like, so she would need to clarify what that means. Now, hello. Oh, we hear you. Yeah, I got some instructions, electronic instructions to press star six. So I did it and I succeeded. What I'm glad to be here. I am thinking like if there's a walking group, for instance, in South Amherst, and people, if there's something being held at the South Amherst satellite site, which could conceivably be the library. And there might be other things that come up. They may not meet inside the library, but they might meet at the library. So having that kind of collaborative relationship in place. And if it's going to be held at the library after hours, I don't know the hours. The latest that the Bang Center site is open. But if indeed there's interest in something after hours, if the hours end at five or six, and not that many elderly people would be going out after hours. But there might be a critical mass of people who are interested in a particular matter. Who would convene at the library. I guess what I'm a walking group that will depart from the library. There may not be a need for the fund. Or there might be some way to have to fit that in somehow. So can I ask a question? Yeah. Go ahead. I just thought about this. I don't have it fleshed out because I didn't know about the CBD grant. I guess what I'm hearing you say is that, and this is true for every grant. The grant writers, they want collaboration. The more collaboration you have, the more likely they're going to want to help you. So what we need to do is find someone to collaborate with, whether that be the library, whether that be someone else that we find someone to collaborate with, and a purpose for that collaboration, and how that will enrich the population that we're trying to serve. At some earlier point, I can recall vaguely somebody mentioning things happening in neighborhoods. And it was not discussed at length. And I remember something coming up about about making that kind of connection through the senior center. Maybe not being held at the senior center, but it would stem from something that's grounded, you might say, at the senior center. And to have the specifics of that right now, I don't. But it was just an idea that's being thrown out. We have until at the end of May to make this realistic. No, that's when the RFP will be announced. We'd have to apply sometime after that. So I think collaboration is a really great idea, but if we want to do something like hearing devices, that might be a hard thing to collaborate on. That's pretty unique to the senior center. Yeah. No, I'm suggesting something altogether different from what's been suggested. It's like expanding on the concept. Would that need funding, Jacqueline? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Not for the walking group, but there might be something else. Yeah. I mean, a walking group is great. And we could probably find a volunteer who could lead that. I would definitely suggest there is a page on the town website for the CDBG grant. You can take a look at other projects that have been funded in the past, because we might have really great ideas, but the RFP is going to be more specific in terms of what is eligible to apply for. But certainly like a social service type program, they fund the food pantry at the Survival Center. They'll fund initiatives to help with homeless individuals, providing tents and sleeping bags, things like that. So we want to be kind of thinking with that lens. What is a specific program? Is it hearing devices? Is it a memory cafe, staffing a cafe, inviting entertainment, those sorts of things that will serve a really concrete purpose? Like we want to think about what is the group that we are trying to help with this grant? I wonder if you could forward to us the seven purposes of the CDBG. It's on the Amherstown website. Yeah, I can forward the page. If we got that in an email, that would direct thinking in a certain direction that might work. We can do that. I appreciate that. Thank you. And there was a survey in that message that we got from Ben Breger, and it was the Engage Amherstown org where people can enter their own opinions. As to what they feel would be helpful. Can you cite that URL? I will send it to everybody. Oh, okay. Just as good. Thank you. Yeah, because I'm not sure the last time a program for seniors was funded through that grant. Yeah. I took a look at the 2021 projects. They didn't really see anything that fit and I didn't have a chance to go back further, but I think it's been some time. It's our turn. I do know that it was applied for last year when Mary Beth was here. She wanted money to do the outdoor patio and make that more usable. And that was turned down. We got the stairs. Turned down by, was it to Chess the town? Is that how that worked or? Yes, CBBG is its town. There was an article in the last week, I believe, that said what things were. Maybe I can make a copy of that article and send that out to what things were given money for and what was turned down. That might be helpful in people's thinking. Okay. Well, if there is nothing further, I think that the meeting is over. And the next meeting will be April 14th at 5 p.m. That's also a Thursday. Good work. Thank you all. Yeah. Thank you. Move to adjourn. Yeah. Thank you. Second. Okay. Bye, everyone. Bye, everyone. Thanks so much. Bye. Bye now. Bye. Bye.