 So, good evening everyone my name is Angela Mills and I work for the town manager's office for the town of Amherst. This is a meeting of the public art commission. And this meeting is being recorded into the cloud and will be uploaded by our very capable friends in the information technology department and will be posted to the town of Amherst YouTube channel probably within 10 days. Welcome to Governor Healy's extension of COVID mandates. We are conducting this meeting on Zoom, and it is open to the public, and the link has been published four to eight hours before this day in time on the town of Amherst website. So at this time I'd like to turn things over to the chair Terry Holt, and I want to thank everyone for their wonderful service. Thank you Angela. So how many we got right now? We're still waiting. We're going to wait a little bit more for Robert. He should be here. Okay. And Dara. Dara's going to make it. So Terry, Robert's in the attendee room. If you want to as host you can pull him in, you can make him a panelist. If you just click on his name on the attendee, on the panelist list, it should show you who's in the attendee room and then you click on his name in the attendee room. And I think. Loud to talk. Nope. There's a panelist. Yeah. There you go. That one. There you go. Beautiful. All right. Robert's here. Hi, Robert. Okay. That's one, two, three, four, five, six. Still waiting for Dara. So I'm going to take off if you guys are feeling okay. And thank you for waiting for quorum. And Robert, it's always good to hear and see you. Likewise, Angela. Take care. Thanks, Angela. Thank you. Thanks. Good afternoon and how's everyone doing? Good. How are you? I should say evening is six o'clock. We're going to wait just a few more minutes and see if Dara is going to come. I didn't get any. Any indication she was not going to be here. So we'll wait just a couple of minutes. While we are waiting. We have quorum right now, but we can have the little talk. So welcome to Amherst public arts commission meeting of May 11th, 2023. I am Terry Holt on your chair. Light of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. We're still going by the emergency order from March 12th, 2020, allowing public bodies greater flexibility and utilizing technology and the conduct of meetings under the open meeting law. Pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021. This meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so by clicking the zoom link. So I think I need to listen about all I need to say. All right. Let's give her a couple more minutes. Well, let's give her one more minute. So she's going to show up. In the meantime. Man, it's a beautiful day. I'm getting fantastic solar. I don't know about you. I'm excited because I just got solar all installed. So I'm like, oh, you did. So great. Yeah, very cool. I can't get it because we live in the woods. Oh, I'm sorry. I just got a quote for it, but it doesn't pay, you know, break even until like year eight or nine. And I'm thinking, I'm not sure I'll be here. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right. Six or five. We'll go ahead and make sure she's not in the. No, she's not in there. Okay. Let's go ahead. Start our meeting and if she comes along, we'll keep an eye out. Okay. So everybody have an agenda. I actually was just looking for it on the town website and. Was not finding it, but sure it's there. Yeah. Okay. So Jim, are you ready for a minute? So you need a few more minutes. No, I'm all set. Thanks to getting the agenda. I set up all my framework. Ready to go. Okay. So this meeting is not called to order. Our roll call when I call your name. Tell me that you're here. Mikey cutting. Here. In Barnhill. Yep. Here. Roy Friedman. Here. Robert Rainan. Here. Okay. Okay. I would invite public comment, but there is nobody to invite. So we'll breeze over that approval of the April minutes. Do we have, do we get a copy of those yet, Jim? I don't remember if I got. I sent them out. I'm, anybody have any, anything to say about the minutes? I think I might have. Not seen them in my email inbox. So. Really. If I have any problem, I'll get back to you, Jim. Okay. Well, let's take a look. I don't know why I didn't see them to everybody else. I'm looking for them now. Well, they would have come out right after the meeting. I'm having trouble with my computer like crazy. I mean, the mail app is giving me grief. So it's possible that I sent them. Refused. I have one that was sent. Received on 424 that has the draft minutes. Yeah. There you go. Okay. Okay. Do you want me to share my screen with them or? Yeah, you could, you could do that. I'm having a little trouble. My Gmail is running very slow. So if you don't mind, could you do that? Yeah, I think you need to make me a co-host. Yeah. Making you a co-host. Go ahead. Oh. Got it. Okay. Let's see. Great. Thank you. Okay. Everything looks, looks good to me. Okay. So I move that we. Except approve the minutes. From the April 25th, 2023 meeting. Anybody second? I second. Great. All in favor. Raise your hand. Thank you. All right. Moving on. Chair report. All right. Chair report. Okay. So I met with Shoshona King last week and. I get some information on how the commission historically runs and how to put our best foot forward. And Shoshona shared her ideas about how to network in town to the commission in the coming months. She also brought me for a tour of town hall where I met Angela Mills, who's fantastic. I love her. I can now check our mailbox at the Jones library. So that was great. Good meeting. To deal with what I hope will be a lack of centralized repository of our upcoming calls for artists. I requested the addition of a call for artists page on the commission's homepage of our town website. Jim, I'm going to send you this so that you don't have to go through it. Thank you. I sent Angela a very detailed request for the page. We need a more visible, easy to find location for all of our calls for art, since we're going to be having more coming up in the future. I'm hoping. Angela agreed to forward along our request to the communications director, Brianna. Sunride. Sunread. So that is the thing that is going to happen. I'm led to believe and that would be great. So if you've seen our homepage, I'm going to give you a link to that. I'm going to give you a link to that. I'm going to give you a link to that. And one of those four will now be calls for artists. So right on our homepage on the website, you'll see calls to artists and it'll bring you right to it. Just basically a posts page that will just list. The calls. So, and the first one would be, of course, the making a public. Okay. Moving on for making it public. I created a new post on the Facebook page for Amherst public art, reminding local artists about the project. I'm going to give you a link to that. Which we'll be talking about later in the meeting. Regarding strategic planning, I met with Robert on Sunday for a conversation on our possible next steps and we'll get to that later. And on boltwood, Port Hall gallery, the fiscal year deadline. I contacted Julianne Applegate and Matt Holloway, who are the co-chairs of the Amherst cultural council. And I asked for an extension of the deadline and they sent me a document to fill out. And I was like, I don't know what to do with that. I don't know what to do with that. I don't know what to do with that. I still think maybe we might want to go forward with a call for art just in case. Also, because since they meet once a month, it might be hard for them to get back to us. We'll talk about that in a minute. Also, I toured the gallery and I opened the lock door. And I took a look inside to see what the setup is. And I took a movie of it. So I can actually share that with you. So I'm going to go back to the gallery. I'm going to have a, I'm going to have to put the art in and stuff it back. And there's a, there's a, every all five have a place you can plug in something. I checked three of the plugs they worked. So my assumption was that they probably all work. So I was pretty excited by that. Okay. I wanted to thank Mikey for excellent work. You're aiding for our town hall gallery. I don't know if you've been to town hall lately, but it's beautiful. I love the latest, the latest installation. I don't know if you've heard of it before, but I think that's a great thing. I think that's an amazing thing. So I hope you're ready to type her install. I'm happy to do that. So that's exciting. Thank you so much. And also there's not here, but congratulations to her. I don't know if you've heard. She's one of the May 2023 feature poets in the Emily, Dickinson's museum, phosphorescence poetry reading series. On May 18th, which is exciting. It's virtual. I hope you can attend. This sounds fantastic and I'm so proud of her for getting in there. And so all of this I'll be putting in the minute so the link will be there as well if you want to attend. Okay, and that is the end of my chair report. And I'm going to send this to you right now Robert. Sorry, not Robert Jim. Robert's pretty cool. Robert doesn't want it. I think he does. No, thanks. It's like, it's like play catch only the job is not to catch it. Oh dear. Okay. All right, and All right, sending that set. Okay. All right, so first order of business is the treasure report. So Robert, if you want to take the floor. And I can make you close if you want to use the, if you want to share screen or anything. Yeah, it'll be a very brief report. I really have nothing new to add to what was reflected in the minutes last time about the balance in our account. I was, I did follow up with Holly, I believe her name is the controller at the time because there was some question about whether the. I think it was $2,000 or 2,500 I think trying to clarify if that money for the portal gallery was actually reflected in that balance the 4,100. So I have not heard back from her so I don't know. You want me to follow up with her. I think you should try and I guess maybe also with your contacts at the cultural council to see if they have a record of having transfer the funds are made the payment. Okay, my other question would be. And maybe we've already talked about this I think Shoshona shared with me some financial records but they seem to end a few years ago so there seems to be a gap. So I'm thinking we'll just start fresh, you know from whatever balance we're told we have, and go from there in terms of record keeping I don't think it's necessarily worth the time and effort to try to recreate the past few years. So, sorry, I agree with you on that. I don't think it's worth the time to reconstruct what we have spent the last couple of years let's just go put our best for it forward starting today. Yeah, and and once we start engaging in activities that have financial impact will will will keep track and that way we can report on how we're doing how much money we have left that sort of thing. Okay, so do you have approximate a current balance known balance. It was the balance that was mentioned in the minutes that we just approved I think it was something like 4184 and some change. So the current balance hasn't changed from the last meeting. Right, it's 4184 dollars and 28 cents. Thank you. I just put it hadn't changed. So I think, as we do move forward, Robert, you'll be probably designing a process for how we handle our the money and the budget and just if you'll just document everything so that we will actually have great, you know documents to hand over to whoever, you know follows in our footsteps So ideally, ideally each project that we undertake will create a budget for it. So, you know, the costs we know how much money we have to raise and then then we track it that way so. Yeah, we'll definitely have some documentation going forward. Great. We'll have spreadsheets. I love spreadsheets. We'll have spreadsheets. Very exciting, very exciting stuff. Anything else, anything for Robert. All right, moving on to town hall gallery exhibitions. Mikey you want to take the floor for that. Sure. I don't have the photographs because I can't. I don't know how you do it. But anyway, I'm Karen Reese town hall and talk to Shoshana and I back in September. And then about two months ago she said I'm ready. I'm ready to put it up. And I went. So I, she didn't know the process. Anyway, she does colored pencil drawings, and they was this was it. I'm sorry, can you say that again slowly Karen Reese R E E S E tunnel T U N N ELL. Great thanks. I'm just gonna. So, Shoshana and I agreed to have her so we. I told her she could do July and August, because Stephanie's will be done at the end of June. Okay, sounds good. I have her website. If you want to join a great. website, so I'm going to try to share my screen and see if we can get this to work. Okay, can you give me the link. Yep, it's Karen Karen T U N N EL dot com slash gallery slash landscapes. Right. All right, let's see if I can do this. Okay magic you see you here. Yes, it. Okay. Let's move out of the way. Okay, so, yeah, she's got, she's got beautiful stuff here. Right. Each one. And they're colored pencil. These are, these are just gorgeous. I was looking through them when you told me about her Mikey and I just, I think her stuff is gorgeous. Yeah, she also did textiles to summer textiles but now she does drawings. I'm going to drag the corner of that so that it enlarges down the screen so we can see it better because it's really what I was looking at. You know what I mean, did it, you know how to do that. Here we go. Here we are. See a little better. So ghost trees, woven landscapes here and these are just so pretty. So nice and town hall so thank you Mikey. So gorgeous. All right so that's coming up and then after, after she is done then it's Isabella Halstead which I will get pictures of. She's already had one show. She had a show all through town. When, when. God what's her name. Now I drew a blank. Okay, hold on. So when the old person that ran the, the town hall was running it, she did an exhibit at the town hall of her courses. So did I send you any of those. I didn't see Isabella those stuff did not come through in the email but. Okay. Right, right. She doesn't have a website at this point, but she does watercolor paintings as well as oil and oil paintings, but she is been at UMass for many years. She teaches in English as a second language. She's retired now. She's 85 and she is the granddaughter of the famous artist Charles Hopkinson. She was the artist for the presidents. Wow. And she lives right here in Amherst. And so I have her slated for September and October. And then we have our famous Jim Barnhill. Oh, November and December. Jim, you sent me the, it was an email. And because I just got it. Oh really. So it was not a text. It was an email. So, if you have any photographs of your photograph. I'd say put one up and Jim will be November and December. All right. Quick question Mike because I just don't know how this goes. Do we invite any artists from outside of Amherst? Well, yeah, because Stephanie's lives in North Hampton now. So Pioneer Valley basically is what we. Right. Great. I don't even know if there's a limit to that. Shawna just said to me, anybody. Okay, because I know we have an on plane air society in town and I, I mean, I would love, I would love to have some kind of. They have a show right now at Leonard Art Center. Yeah, that's so exciting. I would love to, you know, get some kind of festival and get some of those in town hall and I've been, I've been going to lots of galleries and craft shows and there's been a lot of artists showing up at craft shows around here and I have been just grabbing cards. So I've got a lot of cards. Yeah. But the problem is with crafts, we don't have any plinths in the town hall gallery that we can put them in. We have no space. It can only be on the wall. So that's one thing. And what was the other. And the other thing is, oh, it's Amy Crawley who used to run the town hall gallery. They used to have Thursday night openings and Thursday night. You know, the arts night. So people would come in and they would see all the different artists. That kind of died with COVID. Right. So I don't know if that's coming back. I think it's too early to figure that out. And what I was told it's something that happened through the public arts commission. Yes, it was. And that's something that's up to us. We can talk about it, but I think we still have to wait for more COVID. But I think we still have to wait for more COVID. And I think we still have to wait for more COVID. Letting down, you know, so we're gotten. But that has been led by us. And I would love to take that up again. Right. I agree. But I think that's the biggest hurdle with artists work in the town hall. I please put this on hold. I am experiencing a computer disaster, which I cannot save the minute. It is frozen and I'm afraid I'm in the process of losing what I've done so far. But I think we still have to wait for more COVID. I think we still have to wait for more COVID. Well, I'll ask a question that doesn't have to go in the minutes. If an artist wants to show. At the town. Hall gallery. Do they just go online and they fill out the form and you got that Mikey. Well, actually, I haven't been getting it. There's, I'm supposed to be getting it. And I gave. I don't think I've ever gotten anything. I did get one from Terry. About a student at UMass. Right. And I thought we'd wait on that grouping till next year. When they're sending them to you. Should I send you if I have an artist who wants to show their. Yeah, I would rather than direct them to the website. I should direct. Yeah. I mean, I think it's easier just to direct them to me. And then I can look at their website. I can look at their stuff. I can look at their website. I can look at their website. I can look at their website. I can look at their website. I can also like more people. On my committee. Oh yeah. Yeah. I hear you. Yeah. We're going to talk about is calling for volunteers and getting more people involved in us and our commission. And that's something that we're going to be working on in the future. Right. Cause this is a lot of work. It's much more work than I thought. I bet. And I'm happy to help you in the next time you're hanging. Also. And I mentioned this earlier, the commission said that I had more people than I thought that would be appropriate. In Lakewood High School, one of the, our teachers, there's five right now. And ask him about students that would be interested. He said next fall, there might be quite a few. Right? Through the year that might be interested. That's good. Good. On our calls for artists page that we are having. So, you know, there is currently a place on our, I'm on that site now, but, you know, if you're not getting it, that's not good. Yeah, I'm not getting anything. I'm hoping that law will live under the same heading on this page that we're having them create so that. Because it says public art commission and then there's applications and you can upload spy images and it's a whole thing. So if it's not going to anyone, that really is a problem. Who with the town do we work with? Angela is sending those to me right now. So I haven't, I have only gotten the one. Well, that's fine too. They can go to you if you just poured them to me, which you did the last time. Yeah. That's fine. Okay. So you are getting them. Well, as far as I know, one. Right. Well, that's good. I mean, if you, yeah, that's good. Okay. When you can put a post on this moment, my file is frozen. I cannot save it. I cannot take the screenshot. I can't do deadly. Oh dear. So I may have to just force close it, which is going to kill me because I'm going to lose the draft minutes that I've already done. Well, this is all recorded. So we can always. Oh, okay. No, I'm not. So yeah. Why don't you just start from, you know, like close it down and then just start from when you boot another one up. Don't worry about it. That's what I'm going to have to do, which is what I just did. Being a quarter. That's that's my out. Yeah. Okay, wait a minute. Oh, it's going to recover it for me. A nice fantastic. No, it's not. I thought it was. You got to love it. Okay. So please, please, let me just have everything to the end of this year, which is good. Awesome. Okay. All right. Okay, I'm back. You're good. Yeah, I'm good now. Okay. Okay, so let's move on then to Boltwood walk gallery call for artists. Um, I'll talk about that first. Um, probably at Port Hole Gallery. Is it portal or portal? Well, we call it the Port Hole Gallery before. Hole. Okay. Or portal. P-O-R-T-A-L or P-O-R-T-H-O-L-V. P-O-R-T-A-L. But I think it's actually P-O-R-T-A-L. Yeah. Well, I have been misspeaking all along. I apologize. We can call it anything we want. Well, there is actually a sign, so we should probably go. Oh, oh, oh, yeah, there we go. We should probably go with that. Okay, so can I change the portal? Change to Boltwood walk the portal down? I went into the closet. I have a key. And, uh, the five windows for art all have a frame. Um, and, uh, it's, it's pretty cool. Like I was saying, you pull out this, like a little wooden box, like with the black, it's like painted black little wooden box and you put your art in it and then you just push it back in so that it's, um, there's like some dimension to it. That's why you can put little sculptures in there too. It's not just a flat surface. It could be flat too. Um, it really would do well with some lighting. I think I'm having a little something that has lighting would be really cool right there. Um, anyway, I took video. I can share that with you. Um, uh, I will be filling out the form that the Amherst Cultural Council sent to me and I'll send that in, but I'd also like to, I'd like to move forward with putting this out there. I realize we're not going to get any, any calls, but I think just getting it out there would be good for our image. And, uh, I think it just, it needs to be out there in the public and I'll share it to our page. Um, and, uh, I don't expect to get any bites, but obviously if we do, then we'll go from there. Um, I will also fill out the, uh, the form though, so that we're kind of covering both bases. What do we think about it? What do you mean by getting what out where? I want to get that call for artists for the portable portal gallery out into the world. And to where, where are you going to publish that? So we will go up on the Facebook making it public or the Facebook page for call for artists. And it'll go, um, there's a number of other places that we've publicized things. I'll have Angela help me and other places. There's also the Valley, um, Valley Arts Newsletter or something. Valley Arts Newsletter, which I need, I just found this, um, and I, it's free. So I'm going to make my profile on there and I'm going to, I'm going to share it to there. So, uh, what do we think about that? Like doing both, covering both bases. I think that's a good idea. Do we also, can we contact the artist who was there prior and just let him know that this is happening? So if he wants to do it again, he can apply just in case no one else does. I think we can, but I don't, I don't have his information. I don't know who it was. I think we had it from last time. Right? It's on the, um, it's on the, it's on the sign at the. It is that I took pictures. I can take a look at it. Okay. Ben Cowden, C-O-W-D-E-N. And isn't it also on, um, the town, uh, Town Hall site? I think he is. Ben Cowden. Cowden, C-O-W-D-E-N. Got it. Yeah. Let's think about that for a minute. You know, what are you going to say to him? We'd love to have you, uh, uh, display again. But of course, if anybody else whatsoever wants to. No, no. I mean, no, no, no, no, we would say to him, we're putting an open call out. You were the last artist. We wanted to let you know in case you want to apply again. Okay. So you're not going to make any promises about that's good. No. We still need to go through a formal process for, I still think, so we just need to get calls for artists out. And it's, I think it's good practice for us to get out in the world and we'll still cover our basis of asking for an extension. What do you think about that? I think it's good. Yeah, that's good. Okay. All right. Great. Um, Okay. Moving on to making it public. Um, okay. We have no applications yet. Uh, Gabrielle was invited to this meeting. She hasn't gotten back to me. Um, she has requested that our commission have input and finding and selecting the judges. So I reached out to you guys and said, Hey, I'd like, I'd love for you to give me some names and we'll start a list. Um, and I drafted a letter to send a potential jurors and I've got that whipped into shape. I think Lori took a look at it. So we have a letter, a draft of a letter that we can send out to any potential jurors that will be from Amherst public art. And then you can put your name commissioner. Um, or maybe I will be sending these out. I haven't quite figured out how this works. Brianna or Gabrielle is, um, I need to like sit down with her and chat with her. She's been a little bit hard to grab. She's, she's very busy. So I'm going to try to have a sit down with her and find out if she wants us to give, give her the list or if we need to contact the, be these people ourselves. So I will get back to you on that. Um, we have posted deadline of May 14th as a deadline for making it public. I would like to request that one of my fellow commissioners make a motion that we extend the deadline to the end of May. I'll make a motion to extend it. Second. Right on favor. Raise your hand fees. All right, Jim, you and. Okay. Thank you. Motion passes. So the deadline will now be the end of May. This will also refresh our news. Uh, this will be a new subject to put out there in the town website and, and on Facebook that we have been extended the deadline. So it kind of freshens up the news and I'll make sure that Gabrielle knows that so that she can send that out to, um, hopefully she can, uh, create a press release to send out. And if not, then I will. So we'll, we'll figure all that out and I'll let you know. Do you need more names of people to put on? That's my next question. Robert, probably Amy Crawley, who used to be on the public arts commission, who is now on another board that I'm on, but, um, she used to run the town gallery. Okay. And I am sending you a name right now. Shirley Jackson Whitaker. Oh, right. She's got an exhibit in the North Amherst hole. No, yeah, no, I've got one there too. Okay. Whatever the gallery is called there in North Amherst. It's the local gallery. Okay. This is names for artists to exhibit. No, this is name for potential jurors for the making of projects. Names of jurors. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Uh, Robert, do you have anybody? Um, I have a question first. Did we, um, did we determine the number of members of the jurors? Let me read to you what we have because that's a very good question. Okay. Um, we told the world in, in our, uh, all the literature on this, we said that we would, the art jury will consist of two APAC members, one representative from the Amherst cultural district, district, one representative from the Amherst BID, two members of the public and town staff, including representation from the planning department, department of public works, office of diversity, equity and inclusion, facilities department with additional representation from the Amherst disability access advisory committee and the Amherst design review board. Now we came up, we didn't come up with any of this. This was done with our prior town planner, um, who was, we were under the understanding was going to be doing the work of finding these people. Um, so, um, I'm a little, uh, I'm having a little trouble coming up with a, I have two names, but, um, it was a struggle because I don't, I don't know people just yet. So, I'm going to write these down and I'm going to talk to Gabrielle about it and see what she says. Maybe Jen Moisten. She's on the, I think she's on the equity and. You spelled her last name for me? M-O-Y-S-T-O-N. Okay. Moisten. Great. Um, anybody have me up there? Uh, I don't know her personally, um, but her name is, uh, Catalina Arubla. She's the executive director of the multi-arts, um, program in town. You spelled her last name for me? Sure. It's A-R-R-U-B-L-A. Catalina is her first name. Okay. I know her. Okay. She's excellent. Great. Okay. Um, I have two names. I have, uh, Demetria Chavez, who is a professor of Black Media Studies at UMass. And, um, her husband is very well known as, as a UMass professor as well. Um, and Letha Gale-Praset, who is a counselor at the middle school. Um, uh, she's a wonderful, a wonderful lady. They're having a lot of trouble right now at the middle school, as you probably have heard. Um, but Letha is, uh, is a, she's, she's amazing. I thought I would contact her and see if, either she's interested or if she knows somebody else who might be interested from the middle school. I'd like to have a little bit more representation, um, of, of schools. So. But we only are asking for two public represent, represent, uh, jurors from the public, right? So we have a lot of names. We do. Um, I think, yeah, what happens if you get more people that say yes, then I'm like, well, um, well, that's why it's a little unclear as, you know, I feel like we need to determine the size first to your point. And, you know, with all of those people who sound like they're town employees, at which, I mean, Jennifer Moisten is, so she could fill one of those roles rather than general public, but, um, I mean, I was going to toss into the mix and I don't have a specific person in mind. I, and maybe, I don't know. I thought it might be nice to have a student, you know, someone from the high school possibly to get, um, Okay, I can look at that cause I worked there. Yeah. And we definitely have to make sure we have someone of color. Well, we've got Jen. The two people that I have on my list are both people of color. Same with the person that I recommended, Shirley Jackson Whitaker, and she's an artist and, and, yeah. I'm going to make a guess that if we send names to other people who are supposed to get names, they would probably like it even if we don't pick them ourselves. So, um, I think what I'm going to do is take all of these names and, uh, contact Gabrielle and ask us, ask her what she would like us to do, that these are the people we come up with. We have not contacted them and, and see what she has. I think that's a good idea. I think we need to also talk with these people who work for the town. I don't know the town people very well. I could ask, ask Angela if she could help us reach out. So, um, I mean, we can all look up the names of everybody on these, on these committees here in the, you know, office of the, the DEI and the facilities, um, the DAAC, um, but, um, I don't have any insight into anybody who, who, who works in these commissions and stuff. If anybody else does great, but I don't have any context. So what I think I will do is ask Angela, she's been there for a while and see if she can give me some names too. So, okay. And like this, like a facilities department people, I don't, I don't know those folks yet. I look forward to meeting them. So. Okay. Anybody have anything else for anybody else? So we've got one, two, three, four plus the two I have. That's six and a student would be seven. Okay. For two, for two, for two jurors, right? Seven names for two jurors. Right. So I think we have to then talk with, um, I'm blanking on her name now. That's Gabrielle Gabrielle Gabriella to, um, decide, you know, how to prioritize the asks then. Right. Okay. Yeah. Plus, like I said, they may love it that we have extra names because they may be having difficulty coming up with names and they may like to pick some of the ones that we don't. I think the first thing I will do is, is contact Angela and ask her for if she has any, any names of people that she knows from these organizations because I don't really know anybody. And then the second thing I will do is send our list on to Gabrielle and see what she wants us to do next. And then we'll get back to you. Yeah, good. All right. So we have extended the deadline. So hopefully that will, uh, hit the new cycle with some new information and hopefully we'll get some people interested. Um, we're trying to make that call easier to see Robert was having a lot of trouble finding the call and I agreed. Um, that's why I'm wanting to put it on that front page, um, of the website of our part of the website and also share it to Facebook. So try to get it out there a little bit more. Okay. I think else on do we have Instagram? Uh, I believe we do. I don't think Shoshona has the password anymore. So I'm not sure how to get into it. So that's too bad because I think that would be a good place to share. I think a lot of artists use Instagram. I'm going to try to reset it using the, uh, the web, the email that she gave me with the password for the town, our commission. So I will try that and I'll let you know. So if that doesn't work, I will volunteer to, if you give me what information you have, I'll talk to Shona and see what I can do to try to get to get it working. I could also make a new Instagram if we had to. It's not, you know, I think it'll, I don't know, that was in the back of my mind actually. Yeah, yeah, you know, if we can't get in there, we'll we can, we can get around that. Okay, moving on to the next one. We're moving on to strategic planning update. Um, I have, so, uh, Robert and I talked and came up with some ideas and we'd like to propose some things to you guys for how to proceed for creating a process for doing this work that we're doing with the public art. Um, and we talked about it and we agreed that we are, we are each here for own reasons, we each bring our own strengths. And I think that we need to find a way to maximize those strengths and our, and our efforts while at the same time understanding that we are volunteers. Um, I want to honor your time and I think, um, I don't want you to burn out. That is something that does happen a lot in volunteer work as I'm very aware, having run a number of volunteer organizations, I don't want it to happen with us. Um, so that's something that's very important to me. Um, so Robert is going to talk to you about this and hopefully we'll have some constructive conversation and figure out the best way to move forward. So Robert, you have the floor. Thank you. So I think in previous meetings, we, we at least touched on the idea of, um, trying to come up with, uh, a strategic plan that would help guide our work, uh, because it feels like, you know, several of us are new. And, uh, just since the fall, it seems like a number of things have, have for lack of a better phrase, sort of been dropped in our laps and, um, you know, it doesn't feel like we necessarily have had a chance to, um, you know, further clarify what we feel is the vision for the commission and, um, you know, to, to define goals for the, the coming year. So, um, I'd be curious to get your perspective. I mean, in the discussion we had, you know, because our meetings are typically so full of kind of tasks that we have to deal with. We were thinking about scheduling a retreat and we can talk about whether this should be a half day or a whole day, um, and really just devoting that time to, um, focusing on this more strategic, uh, plan and, and goals, um, because, you know, we feel like we're, we're not going to be as efficient as we could be if we're always just sort of, um, in reactive mode as opposed to being able to plan and, and have a vision and that would guide, you know, fundraising efforts, et cetera. So, um, I'd be curious to, to get anyone's thoughts on that, uh, and then we can talk a bit more about what the retreat might look like. And I have the first thing, you know, we'll have to do a doodle poll to figure out a time that works for everybody. Well, I don't think we talked about this. We talked about this and I thought the, I think it's a great idea personally. And I think what we ought to do is pick a date and go forward and do it. Okay. I agree. I think you've been putting out fires for so long that, uh, you know, we don't really have any time to take a breath and decide what we want to do, what our process should look like, you know, going forward. So let's do it again. I talked to Angel a little bit about this before the meeting and she said that we just need to pick a date and, uh, she will, uh, try to find a, uh, I guess we've either, she finds a location or we find a location and then we still have to let the public know and they are invited, of course, because they have to be. Um, so it just has to be a room that is large enough for us and for, uh, public to be there as well. So I'll let Angela know and we'll go from there. So I can do a doodle poll. Good. Get that out to you. I did want to ask if anybody has a problem with possibly meeting on a Saturday or a Sunday, because having a few hours, you know, uh, all together on a weekday is hard for a lot of us. So would you, would anybody be, would anybody have a problem with putting out like some weekend days? Oh, no. Uh, for me personally, I would, it would have to be a weekend. I wouldn't be able to have, uh, the time during the week, unfortunately. Yeah. No, that's, I understand me too. Yeah. So, uh, like a Saturday or a Sunday afternoon or morning would be better or afternoon, I can send out a bunch of potential options. Mikey. So I think if we're going to have it at the town hall, it can't be on the weekends. Yeah. I don't think it's going to have to be at the town hall. I think we're going to have to have somewhere else, possibly at Jones Library or there's, I think Jim is about to give us some suggestions. Well, no, I wasn't going to say we should decide how long we're going to spend, but I think that's key to figure out where we're going to have it. So are we thinking, uh, four hours max, Robert, do you think? Yeah. I mean, I feel like, you know, there's a law of diminishing returns. I think if too long might not be as effective as a more focused time. So I think probably half a day. Okay. Or, you know, if we find we need more time, we could always schedule a follow up. I think it's, I don't think, I guess, you know, as we move into the process, I will think about what we want as an outcome from the meeting. I think, you know, I feel like we should try to guard against being overly ambitious. I feel like if we come out of the process with a couple of achievable goals, uh, that's, that's a good thing, you know, for, for the next year, and that's momentum to build on for, for the future. So I think to be realistic, you know, aspirational, of course, but, but also realistic, given that we are all volunteers and, um, you know, it kind of feels like we're starting from scratch in a way. So there's no kind of about that, Robert. Yes, we're starting from scratch. So, uh, so, uh, mornings are, uh, are afternoons better for people on the weekends? The better on Sunday's afternoons are better. Sunday afternoons. Okay, what about you, Laurie? Sunday afternoons can work for me. Okay. All right. So let's all send out some, some potentials and we'll pick one and we'll move forward. Okay. I think a four hour window to sit down and really, you know, have some, you know, the constructive conversations about goals, setting and, and, you know, processes will be really good for us. Yeah. Robert, you have something else? Uh, no, no. I was wondering, is there in all of the materials that you've now gotten boxes of or gone through, Terry, um, is, is there sort of a, um, anything other than what's on the website, Amherst's website about what the, this commission is charged with doing or, or a part of, is there anything? Cause I just feel like we sort of know about it because it's on the website or someone, Shoshana told us about things that were going on, but I'm a little lost in terms of, you know, there's, I don't know that is there any documentation? There's some historical, there's some newspaper clippings of past projects that we've done. There's a lot of forms. There's, uh, folders about past projects that I can totally share. I'll bring this to the meeting, believe me. Okay. Cause one of the things, I mean, I, I feel like the website, you know, the Amherst town website, it's really outdated and it should really reflect, you know, whatever we come up with in our strategic plan, um, going forward and so that it should be fairly visible for, for everyone to understand who we are and what we do. I think that's a question that we're going to be talking about in our retreat. Um, Robert and I have been talking about branding, um, the possibility of having, uh, you know, working on some kind of logo and that kind of thing. That's, uh, not the purpose of this upcoming retreat, but, um, it's something that we want to talk about, um, having some kind of logo, clear identity. I think it should be included because I think we should be in this retreat, you know, revisiting our commission overview, you know, what our charge is, what we say we're doing and really revisit it to see if there's anything that we want to change or if we're, you know, if it's fine the way it is, because that's really going to be the foundation for, for what we plan. That's what Robert talked about was coming out of this meeting with a more clearer vision for what public art should be doing in Amherst. Right. I look back and I've got a document from 2020 entitled draft committee charge. Great. So I will send that out to everybody. Yeah, any any past documents that would be would be really helpful. And since we are creating our own path forward here, I think that'd be helpful. Thank you. That's wonderful. Uh, just just to clarify, sorry, one clarifying question. If there are some documents that we would like to share regarding strategic planning, etc. Before the actual get together, I can I can send those as long as I'm not asking for discussion or vote or anything. That's that's permissible, Jim. You can send them if there is no deliberation, meaning no discussion. Right. So just please see attached documents. Right, you can do that. OK. The other thing, let me just say that the other members of the committee cannot discuss the document with a quorum and the quorum can be either a quorum at the same time or it can be one where you get A talks to B, B talks to C, C talks to D and all of a sudden the quorum has been talked to. They can't do that either. OK. But you can send them. OK, so we can send documents. We can't really talk about them. So to be good idea to send them to me because I have to attach them to the minutes. If you're submitting them, if they're submitted to the meeting, then they have to be attached to the minutes. OK. So it's not a big deal. OK. I think else for strategic planning. I guess I have one question. Because I was looking at the website and I think I asked this early on and we never got an answer. When it has the tour Amherst art, you know, that's kind of an old thing there. And I wonder. And I think we asked this in the past, but I don't know that ever got answered. Which art public art in the town is the Amherst Public Arts Commission responsible for? Oh, good question. Which say that again, I'm sorry. Which which which art was something that our Commission did. Is that what you're saying? Are we responsible for? Yes. Are we responsible for carrying forward and stewarding? Clearly, the Robert Frost Emily one poetic dialogue right comes under us. Yeah, poetic dialogue. And I actually, I guess I should ask if where we are with that, by the way, that's next. But yeah, so poetic dialogue. But on this list of, you know, all this art that's in Amherst that's here, that's public art, which of those are we responsible for caretaking, looking after which of it, you know, what's owned by the town. I think that's just really important for us to know what we're responsible for, that's already there. Yeah. And I don't know what are our assets and what are responsibilities to those assets. That's something we should probably try to bring to the retreat, too. Yeah. Well, I'll go through my files from the previous appointment and make a list of what I know about. Great. I think great. Yeah, any legacy documents that you happen to find, Jim, do you think that might help our move forward? If you could share those really, really helpful, including documents. OK. OK. And on that note, I wanted to talk about just the and other business not reasonably expected. I just didn't have a place for this regarding the poetic dialogue. When I spoke to Shoshana last last week, I she said she gave me the name of the person, which I have written down, and I have his phone number. And so I think what I'm going to do is with your permission, I will call him and see if he can repair this this this art and find out what his what his estimate will be. And if it is, I'd like to see if maybe we can approve, we can vote for and approve to pay him up to five hundred dollars and with no problem. And then Robert and I will both have to sign a check. It's two signers. And if his estimate comes in over five hundred, then I think I'm going to wait until our next meeting to get that approval. So what do we think about that? I just want to get it done. I just want to get it off our plate. You know, yeah. OK. I move that we approve paying up to five hundred dollars to repair poetic dialogue. I second. Great. Everybody in favor? Raise your hand. Jim, are you OK with that? Yeah, I just can't type and write and raise your hand. OK, I will be calling Jamil. I have his name written down somewhere. OK, so I will give him a call and see what he says. And we'll just move forward with that. I think that's all I've got on my list. Anybody would like to talk about any other subjects or. The thing I want one question. So are the I'm just on the website again. Are we responsible for those public boxes, electric boxes? Yes, so. By Amherst is a project that our town manager would like us to take up again, and I'm going to be meeting with him and asking him for a budget so that we can do that going forward. Robert and I talked about the fact that we need to go to Finance Committee and ask for money every year and we don't have any process for this. No one has said anything about this, but we know it's something we need to do. That is a project that I think is is a fantastic project and I'd love to see it see it bring brought back and also Paul wants us to bring it back. So what I have decided to do is just to make an appointment with Paul and talk to him about it and see, you know, if he can throw us any money at it. If he can't, then we will be, you know, writing some grants will be appealing to the Mass Cultural Council. They have a deadline coming up in October for the grant cycle coming up. So we'll we could ask we could ask for money for part of that for that for that project. So that is something that's kind of a future project. We can talk about that down the road. That is that is kind of my plan. Excellent. Thank you. All right. In the meantime, when you're driving around Amherst, if you see a transformer box that is a really been beaten with the ugly stick, then let, you know, write down the locations that we know, which ones we'd like to pin point this time. And I honestly feel like like we we center so much of our art and focus on downtown. I would love to see us reaching out toward other parts of town. You know, South Amherst has nothing. This is where I live. It was complete. So yeah, be on the lookout for other other places we can spread some art. I think that'd be great. Good. Thank you. That's a good suggestion. Yeah. OK, if we are agreed that there's nothing else that we need to discuss today, then I would like to call for adjourn adjournment of meeting. Anybody have a problem with that? All right. OK. Well, thank you so much for your time. I'm so excited that we kept this to an hour. I was so afraid this is going to be a two hour meeting, but it was not. Thank you so much. Thank you, Terry. I will be sending you emails and letting you know these things that I'll get back to you about. OK, thanks a lot. Great. Thank you. It's nice to see you tonight. Bye bye. Bye bye.