 Got it. Okay is a public throwing the thing into the chat window. Any, any public comments? We have received none. Okay. Thank you. Third agenda items always traditionally following the bylaws after our annual meeting, the board meeting after is the board officers vote. And our three positions are share treasure and secretary. And I guess we'll go in order all open the floor for nominations for chair. I nominate Mike the body if you're willing to serve you seem to be doing okay. Oh, thanks CJ. I will. I'm willing to serve another year. We'd need a second for that. I'll second it. And Dave seconds. Discussion or call the vote sounds like discussion is. Well, I'm just glad we have all those in favor of Michael body continuing as chair for another season. Please indicate by saying I need about in the officers position. Thank you all. Next up is treasures position. I can't nominate, but I would CJ is presently treasure. And is there a nomination of foot for, oh yeah, Jessica's joining us. We're well into quorum territory. Hey, welcome Jessica. Thanks for making it. Can you hear us okay. Yes, I can hear you fine. Great and we hear you as well. We're on agenda item three. The nominations for board officers always happens the meeting after the annual meetings. So it's this very meeting and we're in the midst of it so welcome to our democratic process. The floor is open for nominations for treasure. I think you've been doing a good job and I don't know if you're willing to keep doing that job, but it would be great if you did. All right, thank you, Carlos nomination for CJ to continue on as treasurer. We need a second. I'll second that. Thank you Chad. We've got a nomination and a seconding. And we've got a continued willingness CJ. Thank you for having me. It sounds like we've got at least two we want to call it call the vote. Yeah, no thanks for stepping in it's been a year, one year in. So all of those in favor of CJ remaining our treasurer please indicate by saying aye. And oppose. And that's unanimous congrats CJ. I'll just say that the secretary I believe is Rachel Muse has been the official. She had to step down, I believe in April and Chad has been graciously filling in. And, and doing a really great job. Yeah, the minutes. And press. That's a problem. But we do need a nomination, a seconding, and the willingness on the part of the person. Brad, would you be willing to accept the nomination of you? It's a tough job, I know, but you have been amazing. Yeah, I mean, I have gotten more used to it. I would be fine doing it, I guess. I know that's not it. That might be enough. I think that's enough. Or you could say, is there anybody in Jonesing to do the job? Yeah, if there's someone else who really wants to, I will absolutely not. That would not hurt my feelings at all. But I know it's not the position everyone's craving for. No. It's crucial for a well-run country company, and you've been doing an amazing job. And it does sound quiet in terms of other interests. So the floor is open to nominations. I'll nominate Jess. All right, David's nominating CJ a second. We do have some willingness on record, and I will. I seconded, but I'm going to say a but and an end. And this job should be rotated for one year, like the year after he's going to need the duties, right? Because I did it for a few years. Not one. I did it for a few. I did it a while too, and it is, it's definitely tricky to participate in the meeting and take minutes. Correct. So I would say, you know, as a caveat, I think we should, that position should be filled for a year, and that's it. The person who tires from that moves on to somebody else. That way somebody's obligated to jump in and take on that function. It is not easy. It also provides coverage if the person happens to be out and there are other people who are familiar with it in the future. Correct. So I second. All right, great. All those in favor of Chad becoming the official secretary for a year. All those in favor say aye. All those in favor say aye. And opposed. Is quiet. All right. Unanimous consent across the board. Thank you everyone for such a smooth process. And we thank you for your service Chad, really. Great gratitude Chad. We have a lot of gratitude. Absolutely. Yes, thank you. I guess I will just note that. Well, this is a little confusing. Our annual meeting in the bylaw says ought to be May because of COVID. It became September for a few years. And then our, our election of officers is, is, is tied to being the meeting after the annual meeting, the board meeting after the annual meeting. So we're looking at an odd, probably June. Revo, but then we'll be in our normal rhythm. So we're just, we got that weird COVID hitch still in our, our annual rhythm here. But for another time, let's get back to October 24th. 2023. We've got to approve the August minutes, August 29th minutes. And everyone should have that in front of them either virtually or on paper. And as yeah, another testament to Chad's. Equality work he's done as secretary. If people could just take a minute. And check out. Without actually, you know, commenting on the content, we're just looking for accuracy typos. And, and, and keep it to that. We're, we're approving the minutes of something jogs your mind. It would be for old business. So it is, I find my mind always saying, Oh, yeah, that. But we're just, just purely reading for accuracy. And I'll go quiet so everyone can do that. Yeah, I'll take any fixes or motions to accept as we get through. Move to accept. I second. Okay, great. Sounds like a very clean. Minutes. All those in favor. Of accepting these. August minutes, please indicate by saying I. Hi. Hi. You guys remind me of motion to approve it. Second. CK motion to approve it. I second. Thanks. Yeah, I should underline that. I would like to say that my last name is spelled with an OR instead of an ER. Oh yeah, yeah. If they can spell a body correctly, they should be able to spell Connor correctly. You don't have enough vowels in your last name. But Mike, you got mine. I've only got one. That's right. Yeah, you're constant and heavy. So. Chad, you got the, the motion and the second thing. Yes. And I guess I'll recall that question question. All those in favor of accepting the August minutes, please indicate by saying I. And opposed. And approve much appreciated everyone. Moving to the financial reports for agenda item five. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. In that case. If the easiest thing, am I the only person that's really in remotely? We have six participants. But, oh, Pat and Jessica, you guys are in. I'm sorry. Oh, hey, Jeff. Good to see you. Good to see you. Good to see you. Good to see you. Good to see you. Good to see you. Good to see you. Good to see you. Good to see you. Good to see you. Good to see you. But, oh, Pat and Jessica, you guys are in late. I'm sorry. Oh, hey, thanks for joining us. No, I'm just completely lost track of time, not even, not even a good excuse. No, that's okay. Did you, did you pick up that we're just starting? Yes. Financial reports. Yeah. Yes. I got. Thank you. Item, item five. Yes. Thanks CJ. The floor is yours. All right. So I've got a request, which is Jen. Alright, who's our host? Jen. In that case, I'll just read you the treasurer's report. I was going to try to share my screen. No, it's all good. It's not complicated. It just would be sort of fun. It's like bear with me one second. And so this is as of October 12, 2023. Our funds and our cash slash liquid investments are safe and growing modestly. Our fund investments are unchanged. They're still American funds. They're up a few percent year to date, not awful, but I continue to think we can and should do better on the money markets and CDs, positive news, ladder CDs report. As you know, Orca decided to transfer from Orca's bank account at less than 1% to our Edward Jones account, where we invested in a money market and ladder CDs, meaning that they mature every three months so that there's always this investment and then yield in case we needed that money because this is our short term push. And so they mature every three months. They all went in at approximately 5%. Our first ladder CD is matured and in addition to that, the money market is still doing well. The one that matured was 25,000, paid 5.35%. So in those three months, it made $337.12, which is about $300 over what we were doing before. The remaining ladder CDs are at 5.3%, 4.75%, and that was a discount purchase price. So we get some additional bucks when it matures, and 5.3%. CD rates are currently as of 1012 at about what's available through Edward Jones is 5.45% for a one year and 5.5 on a nine month. However, rather than rolling it into another ladder CD, we opted to shift Orca's funds into a money market at 5.25% because it looks like the Fed's going to raise rates they're due to meet in a week or so. So our money market was 4.98%. There was another better one available at 5.25. So $63,112.94 went into something called DWF government money market fund at 5.25%. Presumably all your eyes are now glazing over. Basically, all I'm saying is our cash equivalents are doing fine. The reason for going into a money market rather than jumping into one of those CDs is that there's another rate hike in the short term, but the long term outlook is for rates to begin to start to drift down. So it may be a good time to look at bonds instead of CDs because corporate bonds are paying 6%. They'll pay that for 15 years and in addition, bond values normally. Normally, this is weird period, but normally we go up as rates come down. So in addition to the 6%, we would get an increase in the bond values if that happens. I'll continue to keep the board informed, but not to this level of detail unless the board likes it. So I'll get into our funds really in a shorter report in a moment, but any questions on that? That's great. Good job. Okay. All right. On the funds, we had a meeting where I, when I was new, we asked Edward Jones, Mark Quinn to come in and talk. And so at this time, and at that time we opened an account, but we didn't fund it. And the account was currently the funds are in what's called the American Funds Group. We pay a fairly large amount of like 2% to 4% upfront to go in. And then the money that's already in can switch between, only between American funds, but new investments still have that upfront charge. So we had Mike Doyle, the outgoing treasurer, and I had met with Mark Quinn and with the board, and we're getting messages that that new account we set up will close unless we take action. So I thought it would be helpful to take a moment to say, what is it? And why did we in Mark Quinn feel it was a good idea for ORCA? And so this is the new account we created to allow us to transition to a single fixed upfront charge to allow us to make decisions that don't require we consider only the choices within American Funds Group and each time calculate the cost to ORCA. At the moment, we're locked into American Funds Family, which is not a bad family at all. We pay a much bigger upfront charge, and then we can trade the money that's already invested within American Funds without further costs. But Mark Quinn, when I talked with him last week, cautioned that even then we still pay American Funds some internal expense, and they pay Edward Jones some portion of that. So, you know, there's no free lunch changing to the new account. Just a reminder, the recommendation was made to allow us to make investment decisions based on what's best for ORCA and without needing to constantly also calculate fund costs. No single fund family has all the best all the time. And so, you know, that's my report respectfully submitted. And it's just a quick summary to the board about why that recommendation exists. We're safe where we are. We probably could do better with this change. And it's not going to make it, you know, a giant difference either way. So if the board still feels that this swap into a new thing is a good thing to do, I'd appreciate your, it's not required, but I'd appreciate your vote of your motion or your, you know, your sort of your endorsement of that. And we can do either one. Stay where we are. Move to this thing that gives us some more flexibility, but with a fixed upfront cost. Go ahead. Pat's got a hand. Yeah, I'm sorry. Could you just tell me again, sorry, it's a little hard to process the new account. It's easier to change money because there's an account essentially. Oh, right. It's a different vehicle that Edward Jones fed it set up. So the original one was set up what Mike, maybe 15 or 16 years ago? By our former treasurer who was with the company, Orcas, since its inception, Michael was here for the very beginning. Right. Yep. So a terrific guy and really helped hold my hand through the transition. So this is a managed account and that's what's okay. Got it. Exactly. That word I know. Right. Yep. The new, the upfront cost is only 1% to on the new on the switch over. Is that correct from memory? That's correct. Exactly. From memory. I would recheck everything just because, you know, things change, but it, you know, I have not heard of any changes from Mark when he just said they're going to close this account unless we do something. Yeah. I had some 60 day kind of use it or lose it thing. So we're still within it. And you're thinking maybe, maybe move in, move into some bonds and start doing what we've talked about or. Yep. The bonds are more likely to happen in the cash account just to, but both of them are eligible and we're already in some bonds right now. So it's just an opportunity to rebalance or to re, you know, to modify our investments based on current market conditions with a little bit more flexibility. And a higher percentage, correct? You said 6%. Yeah. I mean, we continue to have some funds that were more stock equity based. And then we would continue to have a large percentage of bonds, but move into some the bonds that are emerging now as interest rates are it for, you know, pretty much record highs from the last, what is it 10? That's a good question. That would be Carlos. Yes. So I do know like in news recently, like the bonds are getting a hit right now at this moment, right? And, you know, everybody's looking at the bonds right now. It's hit a little bit hard. Is what did they say in terms of that? Edward Jones. They say, past results are no predictor of future performance. They know they dance a little bit, but what Mark actually said is interest rates have been raising. That tends to put downward pressure on the value of bonds, including our bond portfolio, right? Because it was purchased, you know, when and then he said that the general feeling is that the Fed will probably do one more rate hike when they meet what is it next week, you know, soon. And then the, you know, the general predictions are that things will probably start to drift down. And so at that point, taking advantage of some of these higher interest rate corporate bonds, which if things behave in that, in that area that were in the old saw, whereas interest rates go down, the value of bonds with higher interest payouts go up, right? Naturally, because now if you wanted to get new bonds, you would get bonds that paid less. Whereas the old bonds that are paying more get they actually themselves increase in value. It's not just the interest payments. So his thought was it should be a good time to consider possibly reinvesting some of the cash equivalents even into bonds rather than to CDs. And I personally just so you know what I'd be inclined to do is to call Jen, check in with the direct the officers to make sure that that is consistent with their predictions for the future. Okay, cool. Thank you. Other other questions for CJ? And then there's, is Jen returned to do the sort of in-house side of the financials? Yes. Sorry. Okay. And as a side note in the chat, I put the link to the financial report that CJ had emailed. So if you all wanted to take a look at what was read, it's there. And I also put it in the board folder for this meeting as well. So in terms of the financials, I think we also talked about it in the Code Rectors report. So I will also just kind of quickly go if there were any, the major notes that to keep an eye out for is that I think our website project is going to be, is going to definitely be over budget. And it is that due to the traffic on our website, it's bumped us into a higher like paying position because there's more people coming to it theoretically. And so that's where that new amount is hitting us. And so I think it's, it may be true traffic. It may be miscellaneous traffic, but it will take a little bit more time to like dig deep into where the traffic source is coming for them. So right now it just, the hosting group is like, you're just, you're getting this much traffic. So you're in this new tier. And that's where the amount is higher. And so we'll expect it to be over budget just because it was much higher. And that's, and I think on term, in terms of health insurance also, and it's written in the Code Rectors report too, but we, the initial budget was put with cash and lieu of benefits. And so that amount was shown up in compensation. But since then staff, one staff member went to our health insurance. So now is on our health bill. And so now that it's getting, we're paying for that rather than paying it in cash. So what it is, is that the monies are just shifting out of compensation line into the health insurance and dental insurance line. So that's where it shows up as being over budget for health insurance and dental, but that's primarily just that compensation will be less. So outside of that, I think the accounting fees are also a little bit higher just because we got the bill for the tax return. And it was, whether it was higher than expected, it was higher than we budgeted. So that's, I think, the only bit also. So that's just the current budget reports that we've got. And I guess if there's any questions about it, do we do things the way the other organizations in Van do it? Or are we doing something a little bit different because of Edward Jones? So in terms of the budget, I think we generally have not really used any of the the interest from the investment accounts to put into the budget. I mean, we did a little bit this year. And so I don't know if that's a new trend that is done in terms of us. I think that if I remember the year before Rob left, I think he would listen to old meetings that it was something that he was bringing in like using the capital gains and some of the savings money. And he was doing that for that particular budget. And we've kind of done it not nearly as much just like I think generally we used a little bit saying we couldn't make our budget come out to zero without saying, could we pull some from the savings to kind of cover that deficit? And so whether that's how the other groups do it, I was most curious about the higher echelon of website charges. So that part, I think that website cost is also the group that we're using was part of what Rob, like the, I think a lot of the access groups do a cooperative for the website development in the website platform. And so the company that they've chosen to use as the website poster is this group. And so we've just kind of joined up with them. And so we didn't necessarily shop around to say, who's the web poster that's going to offer the cheapest rates? And that might be something to do in the upcoming year. But it may be that, depending, I think there was also this idea of kind of swapping platforms in from what we currently use to something that a lot of the other organizations are using because they're all kind of joined up. So that may be that it's whether that, how that falls out in terms of cost savings for us. I'm not quite sure. I know that it was something that Rob had like been involved in and we kind of were part of it and whether it will still make sense. And I feel like that's something in next year that would be a like to look and see, you know, what exactly are we getting from joining this cooperative? And is it really helping with our website or is it the fees too much for what they're doing? And I think that cooperative is also going through some transition. And so they're rethinking of how to provide service and things like that. So I think we're in it with the other access groups on, there's a bunch more access groups that are using that same website platform. But how, if it's, it makes sense for us or not, I'm not quite sure. And I think it may be what I'm hoping is that once there's time to really dig in to see where is all this traffic coming from, is it really true traffic to our website that we might be able to pull some of that out and talk with the host or and be like, that's not really traffic, we'd like it to be taken out. But it is, I think a bunch of time to like look at logs and see where things are coming from. And it isn't something that we had time this year maybe to do. But it's definitely one of those where it shifted us and we're like, oh, well, we need to definitely a lot of money being paid for website. So we definitely want to look at it and see if we can reduce that cost. And so, well, just for one humble board member, well, I was really glad that people wanted to go to our website. And then I realized there was a downside to that, which was we don't know who they are, maybe costing us more money than we want to pay. So it's a good news, bad news. And I can't figure out where's, what's the, how are you in the middle? We're hoping that it's good news and all of that will turn out to be real traffic, which then it's like it makes sense for us to pay it and whether, you know, the amount that we're paying for it makes sense. But if it turns out to be not real traffic, okay, then it's like, but I mean, we were expecting and we were hoping that all the work that we're doing to do like the forums and the press conference, like it was true traffic that we're seeing. That's got a hand up. Yeah, sorry. Jen, this group you're talking about this cooperative, is that a group that meets? And are you at the table with them so that these discussions are happening as a group? So I think it's similar. Is this a creature of van? Right. I'm curious of the build, the building of that cooperative. Right. So the cooperative was, I think, a function, like they, it's something that Rob was really involved in or like part of and whether it was like, it seemed to me and my understanding of it is the group that normally like managed our website was the same group that'll manage a lot of the other access centers website. And so that's why so many of the access centers look the same. So then they decided like, so they're like, oh, we do all this stuff. So we're going to just make this cooperative and we just kind of fell in with it. And so we haven't fully embraced the cooperative where they're doing the, as a cooperative, they came up with this whole new platform to try to make it easier for all the access centers and make a community of access centers and their website. But then we were just kind of trying to get to a point where we were going to transfer all our web data over to them. And it seemed like they weren't really responsive. And I think that's one of the things that they're working on now is that they got some service delivery issues where they're not. And so I was a little hesitant to like really move everything over just because the times that I've tried to interact with them, I didn't get a lot of response. And so I was like, if there's troubles, I'm a little bit nervous about having it all there and not really being able to get responses back. Whereas here, we kind of, we know how our website is not the best. And it doesn't work exactly the way we would ideally want it to. But we can manage it enough so that if there's problems, we can kind of work around. Whereas that new platform is so managed by them that it really isn't something that I was like, Oh, well, and then all this other trouble happened with them in terms of they're like, Okay, well, it's not quite. There's, I guess, you know, now that they're looking relooking governance and their service delivery, I'm like, Okay, well, maybe that's my next year, we'll really tackle that website and see if it's ready to move it over. Because I think ideally what they were presenting sounds great. But it's just, I was, I was waiting to hear and see. And so this, even like when I reached out to them say, Hey, what's, you know, what's the next step? What does it look like? I didn't necessarily get a response. So that's why I was like, Okay, let's just wait. And then when they were like, Oh, this is being talked about. And I was like, Okay, I'll just keep waiting. And that's why I think next year might be the year where we can, you know, hopefully those service delivery issues are resolved and then we'll be ready to like transition to them. And what's the name? But what is the name of that entity or speaking? Yeah, so they, there was an app, they were pitching like the next big thing. And it's eyes like eyes that you have, I remember it was a little fun there. And yeah, I remember them pitching and I don't, I didn't, I didn't know where that went. But it's, they now host our, our and many other pegs websites. Well, what it is, so it's like, they're the organization that manages the, the people, the website, posters that are managing the servers and the traffic. And that's what got that's what ended up being more expensive than we expected is Pantheon. And so they recommended that we move all like we use Pantheon. And then the localize is the platform that interacts with the server and does the website. So without Pantheon, like they are just kind of like the wrapper around it. And Pantheon determines how many people are hitting our sites and they're like, okay, this is how much traffic we're moving to your server. So this is this, how much it's going to cost. And so localize was like, they would just like, they were developing a content management systems. And it's bigger than that, that would allow us, you know, with our pages and manage our website. But that's still on top of just like the server stuff that's just doing the mechanics of it. I don't know if that makes sense. So that's where it's twofold. Like we haven't quite moved over to the localize. And I'm sure that in the new budget, we did put in some so that if we go to their, their app or their, their wrapper, that there's going to be some fees attached to it. So we haven't experienced those fees yet. This, the new amount is just website hosting fees and traffic that comes to it and how they determine what tier we're in. So. And you can see actually, I'm sorry. Oh, I was just going to add, we can share the website and you could see like all of the groups that are using it. It's all over the Northeast. It's not just, but it is a Burlington group. Yeah. Yeah. It just seems to me that it, it conceptually, it should be the same in all of the Orca type entities because you should be able to go one to the other. And but if I bet, if you're not, if we're not happy, I bet others are not happy as well. So how do they get feedback from people that are paying? So the service delivery issue that I was talking about. So they came out with a letter saying that I think the current head had stepped down because there wasn't, and they were going to rethink how to manage the service issues. I was like, you know, maybe we'll just wait till all that shuffling resolves. But I think that was, you know, I think it was at the Brooklyn conference where they had like a group and then they got a bunch of feedback from a bunch of people that were using it. That was the letter that was responding to the feedback that they received at the Brooklyn conference. Okay. Good. Thank you. Yeah. Really complete. More questions for Jen or accept a motion to accept the financial reports? Four more thoughts at 714. Oh, Jen, are we awaiting one last quarterly check or did we just receive it? Or where are we in the past? We are waiting one last quarterly check. And I think that's, I'm trying to remember when we're expecting it. Pretty soon it'd be. I think so. I feel like December's hitting me, but. No, it's not in the mail right now. I kind of remember December last year. Yeah. Okay. November, December. There are new neighbors with happy feet over there. They're all around us. They're above us. Oh, yes. Very interesting. Yeah, right. So far it hasn't been a problem. They make popcorn. I think we're just waiting for a motion to accept them. Yeah, or people scrutinizing that budget for really good nitty gritty, or I'll accept that motion to accept the financial reports. I'll make the motion to accept. Thank you, Pat. Pat has moved to accept the financial reports. I'm going to second it. And I heard Carlos on the seconding. Yep. All those in favor of accepting the financial reports, please indicate by saying aye. And the post is quiet. So that's unanimous acceptance of the financial reports. Thank you so CJ and Jim for thorough and clear reporting out. Moving us to co-directors report, I think Chris takes a lead on this, correct? Yeah, I will. I will go through this. So lots of things happening. We're just going to give a little highlight from each section here. So if you take a look at the production, in addition to every other regular production at Orca Media, we've been doing some special events. And the one that was particularly interesting, the taste of Montpelier just happened, which was also the reopening party and celebration, I think they called it. So there's some great videos on YouTube of juggling and acrobats and all of the fun things that happen on Langdon Street. In the outreach category, we're really ramping up the work with the Greenmont Film Festival. We hired a programmer and a sponsorship manager through the Greenmont Film Festival as independent contractors. And they're really great. And there's a lot of things moving forward with that. So stay tuned. Let's see. So I think under strategic plan, we were hoping to confirm in-person attendance. And then we'll talk a little bit more about it under the strategic planning update agenda item. But just to remind you all that it's the board retreat is coming up Tuesday, November 14th, four to seven. And we could do that now. Just if you all have your calendars in front of you, we could do an in-person confirmation. So yeah, we just, we are hoping everyone can make it in person. We feel like the retreat would probably work the best if everyone was in person. So we just wanted to highlight that part. I mean, but of course, if you can't, let us know and we'll try to make accommodations. Yeah. And this state did not fall out of the sky. We nailed it down last meeting and there was good. It looked good for people. I'm not sure they're getting the date. Tuesday, November 14th. Four to seven. We'll be here. Okay. They will be here. That's we're having pizza. Oh, there'll be pizza, brownies, everything. Maybe we'll upgrade from pizza. Yeah. No upgrade from pizza. For strategic planning. We might need two meals. We see something green like a lettuce, maybe. Nothing healthy. Yeah. I could be there at 14. Okay. So in person, I can in person. Yes. Me too. I will be there in person. Do your best to be in person is for the 14th. And if you do need remote accommodations, just reach out to the co-directors, please. So it would be great for that meeting. I had a time to ask Nathan, do we need to prep? So we'll mention that in just a second here. So we'll just move through the co-directors report and then during the strategic planning update. Yes. Good question. So under staff and interns, you can see we've hired a new camera operator and this actually, as of the printing time of this report, there's been three more camera operators on board, onboarding right now. Then we have an interview tomorrow, but we are still on the search for more camera operators just to get more hens in the barn, I guess we're saying. Just so that, the more hens, the more hens. The demand is heavy on Monday. So that's why it's nice to have a lot of folks to use. But anyway, we have transportation. We definitely have a lot of younger folks coming in thanks to Carlos. I think we hired two from the Career Center, which is awesome. Yeah, so send us your students, your family members. What camera are they going to go out with? The new Marys. No, it just started. And there are still ones that are going to be using our Canon stock. I'm going to stop by. At some point if I could borrow one, I could just go over it over in school. Yeah, we can get a job if you know how to. Yeah. And obviously we do provide training if you're spreading the word among camera, that we're hiring camera operators and we do train. So thank you. So I think we'll move on to finances, which we have a little bit of a heavier information load here. So we'll mention the 24 budget and I'll let Jen take it away here. I'm sorry, I had a question before. Please, yes. So how much time is the studio getting the units cleared? Step them outside members? Definitely underutilized still. I think that we have, if you all don't know this already, are the majority of the interactions and engagement that we get are event coverage requests so outside of the building. And then I would say that that's followed by equipment rentals or equipment borrowing and then regular community producers four or five still kind of stay there. So if your students send them. How did the higher ed collaborative find us or how did that have that? That looks like a good thing, a running of the studio for their own Yeah, that's a good question. There's been a few things like that recently where I'm actually on something like that happened recently to the a lobby in group that is based out of Montville. But yeah, they, I'm on a development, fundraising and development lists are essential for non-profits and every once in a while they'll be like, Hey, does anyone have a camera I can borrow? And then I'll immediately respond. Do you know about working media? And then so I think that's either one of the other ones. And I kind of, you know, oftentimes they're looking to make little in-house videos, training videos. And in that case, it was a training series that they were working with a contractor and all of that. And Orca's studio kind of was the perfect space. And they're making a contribution. So there, yeah, there, there, it won't be content that we could share, but it's great that they're able to make a donation for the time that they're using space. Yeah. So we're going to move to the finances, finances section. Okay. So the chunk of the big, the beginning part we went over in the financial reports, I think the main thing is, and I didn't exclude it with the other financial reports, but we, last year we did a projected budget report. So now that there's only really two more months, what we did was we kind of put in the, you know, the salaries or the compensation amounts. And we're knowing like at the end of the year is generally when we do our big purchases in equipment. So that's where if we say, okay, so the equipment budget for the most part for the year ends up being super below budget, but then in November, December, we start to look at where are we going to phase out and then Zach brings in his plan. And so generally we see that budget line hit at the end. So what we did is we just kind of did a projected for the next two months and where would be theoretically kind of stand and in this year's budget. So we're looking good. We're on target. We're a little bit like about 2000 below our revenue or so we're not with the budget because the budget actually has a deficit. But if we were to just look at our revenue or income against our expenses, we are we're under our expenses are under what we're bringing. So we're doing okay. I think so that's just kind of from bringing back a report from previous. So then the main thing is since generally December is when the budget for the next 2024 gets voted, we thought we'd give you a rough draft so that you can start thinking about it and how we're thinking about it. And if there's questions or if you want us to make adjustments, we have some time before it gets voted in. So it's not a big surprise in December. So that's what the 2024 budget draft is. And and our co directors, I listed out some assumptions or some I some assumptions that went into making this budget. So then it would be whether you know if there was any issues with any of those assumptions that we're happy to make adjustments. So the first one is we did put in a 3% pull up for everyone. So it's as for all full time staff as well as camera operators when they hit their year mark of their past the probationary period. So then I think last budget, we did a 3% cola and a 3% inflation bonus that would just be for this year just for the 2023 year because inflation was so high when we presented it. So we took that 3% inflation bonus out and put in. And so then we did the 3%. So really like for full time staff are our compensation will be the same. And so that we won't actually experience any change in our gross pay, but it is essentially a 3% increase. And that's so that's kind of a little bit funky, but we just wanted to make sure that it was transparent that that 3% inflation that we said it was just for a year that we did take it out this year because we felt like inflation was okay. And then the other bit is we did notice that we are spending a lot more on camera operators. We're doing more events. We're doing, I think we're trying to do higher quality events. So we're doing multiple cameras and switching. So our camera operator hours. So we have like a little sub budget that we pull in about where we estimate how many hours we're thinking we're going to be using for camera operators. And so that actually for this year has been increasing and it's over what we initially budgeted. So this year we added more to that budget so that we would have ample staff to be able to send to the state house to send to like, I think when we did the forms, like all set, you know, we had seven cameras out there. And so those were events that we didn't back in 2023 didn't budget. We just kind of said, we're doing municipals. We might do some more. But we did notice that especially, and I think we're trying to do graduations with multi camera so that it looks a little bit better. So with those pieces, we did increase our compensation line for the camera operators. So that we did have enough money in there to kind of be able to do that. So I think what you'll see is that even though the compensation line for 2024 like numerically is lower than the budget for 2023, that 2023 does have that cash in lieu of benefits amount that we were offering. So that's where and so it actually is even though numerically it doesn't look like we're asking for more. We are actually asking for more in compensation just because that cash in lieu will show up in the health insurance. So now our health insurance amount is way more than what we budgeted last year because they are all staff is on the on the health insurance plan now. So that's where a couple of things that are a little bit like just looking at the numbers. It doesn't quite tell the full story. So we just wanted to make sure that we put out there that we are looking to increase the compensation in terms of just the number of hours that we're allowed to use. And I think the other bit is that we included the $10,000 for the audit. And so you'll see at the end we're still under like we're presenting a deficit budget of $10,000 just because that $10,000 is the audit budget $10,000 that we put in this year's budget which we haven't used. And I figured like the audit is still something we want to do. So we'll probably put it in there but we didn't come up with a way to finance it. So it's still like just a deficit budget on that end. So the other thing to note is we're expecting a decrease in revenue still. And what we did was we took the lowest check that we've received this year and used that to project out for next year. And we are, so the government appropriations, we're expecting a check for $45,000 from the VAN group that was from the government appropriations. They authorized that $1 million amount. And so our portion is $45,000. So even though we're expecting the check in October, like in the next few weeks or beginning part of November, but we would like to use that money toward the 2024 budget rather than have it in the 2023 budget as extra income. So then I think so the other pieces I think is just an increase in the health and dental insurance. And I think I did leave a little bit of the consultants. So this year's budget 2023 had the strategic planning consultant in it. So I did keep a little extra in case there's like if we wanted to do like a community assessment or community needs assessment or something related to the strategic plan that we still might use the consultant for. So I kept a few a little bit. I think it ended up being like maybe a third of what we budgeted this year for Nathan to keep into this budget. And that's where the consultant amount is a little bit more. It's not quite as much as what it was this year, but it's still not like super less. So I think and if you want details of if you're like, you know what, show us the breakdown of the compensation. If you really want to see how much what we're thinking, we're happy to provide that. We just gave an overview of just across for the year and not broken out per month. So that it would be, I think, easier to digest. But I think outside of that. Do you want to add that this is also just like a chance to look at it, think about it, and we're not groaning on it? Or like, so do you want to come back to us a week from now or two weeks and say that you're, you need clarity on anything or have an idea for spending a lot of money? We have plenty of time. I had a couple questions. So before I may have just written this down wrong, did you say that one employee had opted for the health insurance or all the employees had opted for the health insurance? So there was one employee that was doing cash and lieu of benefits. So they weren't on the health insurance, but now they are. So all three are on the health insurance now. And that's where the health insurance amount for the 2024 is so much more than the 2023. And so it's not like a one for one change, like the same exact monetary amount out of compensation into health insurance. The health insurance is actually more. It's actually less. So and that's where the compensation this year, when we were talking about how like numerically, we're under budget, but we should have been under budget a lot more because of the cash and lieu of benefit not getting used. But because we're over on the camera operators hours so far that we're like, okay, so now we're trying to kind of minute like reduce the so we're trying to maintain and stick to the camera operator budget. So we're trying to reduce the amount of hours that the camera operators do so that we hopefully should be more under budget to reflect that cash and lieu that's not there. Does that make sense? So it's it's hard because that cash and lieu was a much higher amount than what's actually being paid out in health insurance and dental insurance. What would you say is that because of that you spend money off, you spend money off the last season. The for the army, but we didn't know there was going to be a flood. And they, you know, because those were like, they've been born. Yeah, and there were two forms where we had like seven cameras like they because when they did breakout groups, we wanted to make sure to cover those. So they there was like, yeah, there was one of them was this guy. Yeah. So there, you know, the first one was all together, but the second and the third they broke out into breakout groups. And so we wanted to make sure that we captured that for them. So for people who couldn't attend. So that was a lot more than we expected. Could have been easier if you had had like cameras smaller cameras for smaller rooms, like a GoPro would stick it in a corner on top of audio and get still needed someone to manage it to do the audio and put camera on. When you do something that big, do they pay you? So we didn't, we just offered it because it was part of like the community was getting together and we just wanted to be able to be a part of that. And so we didn't offer or we didn't what I'm driving. Yes, it was mission driven work. And I understand the mission and I understand the generosity and this and also the idea that we're trying to be a good partner. But there are other people making claims against FEMA money because of things that they couldn't do during the post flood period. We haven't asked for anything, I assume. No, not toward, but that means that a lot of the things that we might have wanted to do, such as do things downtown, you know, do things even at the State House were cut back because of the flood. So an argument could be put together that we serve the community and have served the community. The community has been deeply wounded and has been trying to have the forms that we donated our time and cameras to and we've donated them. But that also we've had no compensation for all the different things that were cut short following in the dead time after the flood. So I think it is definitely we are affected, but I think like so one of the other things like with COVID they were offering a employee retention credit and that was part of like things were adjusted. So I did work with a person to try to get to see if we would qualify and by saying, you know, our like we don't have any production revenue really that reflect that and that's where it's kind of hard. And so because we didn't have production revenue that got affected by COVID, even though our main like we couldn't go to the meetings where we showed that our business hours and what we could do was was deeply decreased and we could qualify but it was a hard push and it was like and I think that it would the person that I worked with they're like, you know, a lot of these cases are getting flagged by the IRS to audit and it because it's hard to prove and so that's where we ended up not following through with employee retention credit because we wouldn't be able to and they put a hold IRS put a hold on it any on a moratorium on that particular credit but going through and trying to prove like our operations were affected like because our revenue or production revenue doesn't show that decrease is really hard to be like, no, we really were affected and we couldn't do stuff. So I think it's a harder push to try to explain that even though like we all know like, you know, we couldn't go out to do these meetings and these events. But I think so if we could, I mean, we did look at trying to and so that I feel like it might fall in that same category with FEMA and trying to show like to FEMA and trying to get FEMA reimbursement. And I'll add that, you know, you'll see here in the next section that Van is putting out a call to to nonprofits and municipalities to support us in our efforts in the state house next year. And that is part of like my selling point too is, you know, to the city of Montpelier to the mayor here to sign the letter to saying that, you know, that that they support Vans efforts because we've been such a critical partner to them and have supported them with our production services, you know, our pre production services through the community forums. Well, I would hope that when we do an audit that we include some of this information, even in the footnotes at the end of the audit shows our integrity and it shows that our books are open and it shows that we have done been affected by the flood and that we're not asking for any compensation, but that we want to have our open books be part of the audit. Yeah. Yeah. And that we're proud of our audit because it's been an honest organization that's given time and lost money without getting any other compensations. Right. I mean, I will add that we since we don't make money from doing regular meetings and production work, that it's hard to argue that we lost money, even if especially during COVID, then during the flood, which is like a kind of the projection of having nine camera operators, you know, is a higher expense, the normal reverse engineer. Like, yeah, I mean, that's a good point. We ended up spending more money during the flood. Maybe because of the argument, I think that argument would work potentially with the SBA because you you've expending more money. And their their whole focus is to communicate. They were on WDV every other day trying to get people to come to these meetings and to participate. So you've got a good a good case for spending more money, not necessarily losing money, but they want you to help educate the people and you're covering this whole forum is one way to do that for sure. It's worth it. It's worth an ask. Nothing you're going to make on time. But the truth is, you know, if you had you send out 10 camera operators and whatever time that was, like the production itself the wear and tear of the gear, you know, extra press conferences to edit the editing time that took the post production time and to put that into uploading them to the system, the load on the system. I mean, I don't know. Yeah. And I think that that you're right. CJ's point in the in the chat there regarding a grant, I think that that would be a great narrative for a grant application. I don't think that that, you know, we would necessarily be able, I don't think we've been interested in SBA loan or be interested in more loans. That's so good. Forget that. Maybe. Yeah, I mean, that's part of grant writing is, you know, specific narrative. And I think that that is, that's the story. Yeah. It's a legitimate expense. Will you be able to prepare July, August from previous years and see, you know, is it is, was he expense higher? Yeah. And we did get, you know, I'll add to it and related to the letters of support. We did get a letter from Scott Finn, the CEO of Vermont Public, because he also recognized that, you know, Orca media played a critical role in housing Vermont public journalists here, in addition to providing the stream once again to play their chance. Can I ask Jin on the income part, do you have government approach 45, I don't have my glasses on 45,000. Do you have a commitment from somebody that you jacked it up so much higher? So it's this check is actually coming in October. So that's a real number. Yeah. So it's actually been deposited and approved by the government. So it was a million dollar ask that saw the check actually. Yeah. So it was deposited by Jess, who's the van charger. Great. To be dispersed somewhat, somewhat differently than the last one was dispersed. And it's going to be based on budgets of the 24 organizations. So we're going to get a little So I think in looking at how they chose, I think they did like some of the groups are getting 35,000 and some of the groups are getting 45,000. So we are in the 45,000 group because our budget was higher than some of the ones. So the ones that have lower budgets. So I think they just kind of differentiated it. I'm not sure what budget number it was that caused it. But it's, you know, some most some groups are 45, some are 35. And so whereas under 100,000 they're over 100. Okay. So that's where and I think in terms of that's why we wanted to put it into 2024's budget just because even though we're interested in October and why on the underwriting and sponsorship income you have zero for 24. I never quite understand the underwriting and sponsorship rules in public access that you can't have sponsors or there's all kinds of rules. Are there not there? I think that there's some it's like the non-commercial content, but you can be sponsored. So like your show, if you had sponsors paid for whatever that's, you know, you can have a little line that says sponsored by so and so I think we put it in here as zero and it's going to it's zero. I think from previous that I didn't know like how much that we were going to be either pushing toward. I think the ink that would also be maybe like grants like we don't really have a grant line right now. So I didn't know what our plan was. So I left it at zero. It may be that, you know, and it's also the strategic plan if there's like, you know, we're like with part of the strategic plan is like, we're going to put in like $10,000 sponsorship as one of the goals, then I'm happy to insert that in. But it's definitely, I think we haven't really pushed toward sponsorship income. And I'll add that, you know, the capacity is limited as you know. And so I think that the energy that, you know, could go into grant writing and that is going into the van advocacy work and getting money that way and really pushing as a collective. And then if, you know, whatever happens with that, I think that the grant writing and fundraising is on the horizon, whatever decisions made after that, I'll just answer CJ's question is that the audit is within the consultant is $16,000, right? So that $10,000 from the audit that was wrote it on is in there is in the consultant. Great. I mean, I don't, I don't know if it's for this part of the meeting, but you've referenced a few times about what, what van is advocating for and like there's a new ask and getting people to sign on the stuff is there. How do we know, do we know, like, we the board, do we know what van is advocating for? Yes. And I, I was prepared for that and I'm glad you asked that. So my notes are in the other room, but I have, yeah, in a second, maybe I could give you the talking points and I'd be happy to forward everybody the two documents that I am sharing with organizations, which is the short form of the bill that is being reintroduced and the kind of summary of like vans. So in a second, maybe I'll explain. Is that okay? So now I was going to say inside our board, Google Drive, the short form of the community media fund and as also like the summary and all the longer taxes in there. So you can definitely peruse at your leisure. And I think then we can also upload the van letter that you want to share. Yeah, I think the talking point. Yeah, I think those into the chat window. Sure. It might be better to just see the two documents, which is, and I can do this to you, Janet. Is this the $10 million ask? Right. Okay. So is there a moment? Do we have a second? I can explain it. Is that okay? I was going to say just maybe to close off the finances. I think that's, you know, I think that's all. And if you have questions, definitely email us or let us know or if you want to sit down and go over it, we're happy to do it. It is the first draft budget so that we wanted, we figured we all needed some time to cogitate over it. So it's a preview. We haven't gotten in the past. So thanks for that. It gets us a little ahead of ourselves in a good way. Share these two to start. They're in office and a sense of gin in the inbox. Oh, will you send it to the office? Yeah. So there's two documents. I think these are the most clear wrap your head around it. So, okay, I met with Lauren Glenn, Davidian, who's, and we'll stick this into our extended band part of the to co-director's report. So I met with Lauren Glenn, Davidian, who's the former executive director of CCTV, Tom being in TV, channel 17, CCTV Center for Media and Democracy, which houses Tom being in TV, you know, 17. Anyway, in Burlington. And she's been the real powerhouse and like carrier of all of this effort and has really led along with Action Circles, who's the lobbyist group that Van has hired to kind of like hold our hand through the experience here. And anyway, so this is, I guess, the elevator pitch. So Van has asked for the last three years, you can see on the PDF, we've asked for an appropriation. And I'm a little fuzzy as like where that it's come from each time. But like, so the appropriation was for the similar argument that the revenue has dropped slowly statewide. And so that in 2022, FY 2022, we were the request was 300,000 and we got it in FY 23, it was 600,000 and we got it. And the recent request was a million and we got it. The plan is to ask for a million one more time. And to reintroduce the community media public benefits fund bill. Okay. And now this is where it gets a little confusing. What is the public media public benefit fund bill. So I'll just read this a little bit, but the bill would establish a new community media public benefit fund funded by communication service providers in the state to ensure equitable and sustainable financial support for local education, government access organizations in Vermont, how it works is based on the 2020 van study. So in that study, which is also available, we can share that the suggestion was that if you added a pole attachment fee of say $10, this is just kind of like the math that they use. Yeah. I was like, remember that we are recording, right? So I think like this is what you can, this can be shared with anybody. So then this is this is just what this is just where we're at. So yes, thank you. I think we're not really saying anything that isn't already public. So this is just the summary of the bill and where it's at. If, for example, it was a $10 pole fee attachment, you would end up with $4.5 million if say there was 400 poles in the state. I think it's kind of unknown how many poles there are in the state. So there would need to be a study done and figure that out. But collectively right now, through cable revenue, all of the organizations get about $7 million. So the idea is that and then the details on like how it would work obviously is yet to be determined. So the idea is that it was $7 million from cable revenue continues to drop. And then we secure that $4.5 million that it would be, it wouldn't equal $7 million, but it would be closer and it would be a replacement for a long-term fund. So we're thinking that supporting this endeavor is a better way spent. Yes. And fighting grants. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, because this is a huge endeavor really, because it would affect everybody and secure a long-term funding. And under that van, what van is doing, how does the organizations themselves within that umbrella, how is the brand displayed? Because whoever controls that, the van itself has the most power right in terms of the state. Right. So that's another thing that's kind of happening right now, but how van is organized right now, it's just a 501c6. And so it's just, so actually like when the appropriations are handed over, they're really handed to like media factory or to CCTV and then they're distributed. So van, that's one thing that is in the works, like we van is hoping to form like a foundation to accept appropriations or accept grants and then we're working on that. So, but as like a, how is it talked about? I mean, like the, I think the idea is that van is advocating for and continues to advocate and for the 24 individual organizations. It's a membership organization, it's an association. So like from my question comes from the spot that, I mean, I would just, I think that they're always pushing for things and it would be good, like as board members, if someone happened to ask us about, well, what is, what is, you know, I don't know, we've got some sort of question, we need to at least know what they're asking about. I agree. I'm definitely curious about, well, if we're asking, if we're going to continue asking for more, what are we, are we saying that we're doing something different or in some way more beneficial to the state than what we're already doing, or are they just giving us money to just keep on keeping on? Right. I think that that's the idea of why it's being branded as a public benefit. And there is, there's an argument that, and I'm, you know, I'm, forgive me, I'm not a mathematician, but like on how it would actually be a more equitable charge to the companies that are involved. So, you know, with the exception of CUDs, every attachment, what was the language here, sorry, every, Full attachment? Yeah. So every, every, the bill would impose a charge on all companies that deliver commercial voice, cable, internet and wireless services with the exception of newly created CUDs. Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah. And you were talking about a woman that was sort of involved in it all up in Burlington. Right. Lauren Glenn. And if it helps, we're talking about telephone poles and the pull attachment charge is there's a pole owner for each of these phone poles. And then electric is always at the top. And then below that you have, you know, cable and telephone and fiber optic. And everybody pays the pole owner an attachment fee. And the pole owner has to allow you to get on their poles because they're in public rights subway generally. So this is just a quick tutorial on like, what is this pole attachment fee and what's the rationale. And then the CUDs, these are the union districts that are being created to bring fiber optic community fiber optic network to the various communities in Vermont that are underserved for high speed internet. And then the only other player that's sort of not really being tapped right now is there's an increasing availability of wireless, you know, 5G broadband. And so far they seem to be being left alone. Is that correct, Chris? I mean, I'm only able to share the information that I have, you know, that that I'm aware of, you know, as far as what VAN is currently working on. So if that, you know, if that's a company that is attaching to the pole, I think that that would be part of the umbrella. And the pole fee is part of the legislation that is going to be reintroduced. Right. And just forwarding the like the very, it's pretty straightforward. It's pretty like bird's eye view. And it's just a summary of the community media public benefit fund. And then you see the second thing is like a handout, which is called a legislative update that basically explains kind of how we got to this point. And the poles and the way they would subdivide it is in terms of region and how much poles are in their region versus service and content. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think that's yet to be determined. You mean like how the funds would be distributed? Well, yeah, exactly. Let's say that Montpelier covers the state house. Right, right. Right, versus other regions that don't, you know. You wouldn't think it would be the number of poles that would determine it because the Northeast Kingdom would have like, per person. So, so that's, I mean, those are questions that should be asked, right? And answered, and who's going to fight for what, right? Who's going to say that this is the way we're going to do it? Who votes on that, right? Yeah, I was going to say, because I mean, it's similar to how like we have this one million appropriations amount that we're like, because they're looking at budget, it seems like, you know, whether in terms of how much do we, how much content do we provide for all the other ones? It hasn't really come to like the equation and whether that, you know, as covering the state house, like all this, when they, I think, they put out a report for the BMX of, you know, how many pieces of content we're uploading and how many people are taking it. And I think that that gives them, and it may be something that later on comes down the line, I think, but it sounded like what they were doing is pretty much how they were doing the appropriations is it may be similar to how they'll do the fund, like split out the fund. But at the same time, I think it seems like, you know, whether, I don't know how detailed they have to be in legislature to say, you know, this is our exact plan of how we're going to split it out, or if they're just like, we just want to focus on getting that whole attachment past and amount that's associated with it. And I think there will be times where we'll be coming to you and who you know, because, you know, there's always that time where we say, can you come to the state house to vouch for us or like to testify and say, and I think especially if this is coming in front of one of the, if it's coming in front of the legislature, we also might be like, okay, and that's where the letters that we're, I think, pulling together that Christopher was talking about, we may be like, if you have organizations also that you know of that know us and love us, that we should be contacting definitely, let us know and we can. Yeah, I think for now, it might be best if I reach out to the organization. And then I can kind of like field questions to through the, through the folks that know even more about it than I do. So if you do have, you know, an organization that you feel like, oh, you know, my failure live should definitely sign this letter. Yeah, you can go ahead and check it time check eight o'clock, it sounds like with the ledge up and running in the winter, we'll get more details and more activity on this topic getting clarified. Thank you. We are in co directors report. And I think that's it that takes us to the end. Good job, you guys. Or more, more discussion. I have one thing I'd like to discuss. I'll put belongs inside or outside. So you guys let me know. I'd like to see the co directors and so on brainstorm or just come back with some proposed sponsors. It's an obvious thing. A lot of people love being listed as a sponsor to public television. It's it raises your community visibility in a nice positive way. And it's a great way to build rapport with the community that we already have. But, you know, always good to have more. How do you all feel about that? Can we put that challenge out to you? Well, I think it's a great idea. But I think and I don't know what the there's a lot of rules about accepting sponsorship money from what I understand. But if we could advertise them in a different way than just perhaps on as a tagline on the video, maybe in any ads that we run or something, I don't know if that's against their rules. But I think you get a lot more people stepping up if there was a way to highlight them more. Is there a rule against it? Code directors? I think that there's there may be we'll look into it's it's I feel like it's a little bit rummaging about because it doesn't necessarily like the policies and procedures document that I've looked at. It's about sponsorship for community producers, not necessarily for us as an organization. So I feel like I'll probably have to hunt through the files a little bit more to see about looking at what counts if we can do for sponsorship for the organization, not necessarily the spot. Like I feel like those rules would probably be different. So we can research that absolutely and come back with what can we do. So and then I think also the difference between games and maintenance. I mean, I keep saying again, right in terms of how we we've talked about Tony. We've talked about Tony Campos. He's got some kind of a separate organization where he can accept funds because I know he charges my long story, but a group I was working with him and we wound up having to pay for the stuff that he was doing for us. And I just about had a stroke. But he's got some kind of separate entity that allows him to do that. So I don't know if that's something we could do as well. Well, I was envisioning just public broadcasting service type things where you know, it's the can be foundation supporting Masterpiece Theater. Yeah, it's usually attached to an individual program. That's the response. We can help facilitate programers finding sponsors. But just messing around with a short list. And then just bringing this to strategic planning. It's a timely conversation for November. Because I know the gentleman that does the disability show, he has a lot of sponsors. And I don't I think that money goes to him, I'm assuming it. I don't think it goes to Orca does it. It goes to the show. What we're talking about is bringing money into Orca as an entity. And PBS itself has a lot of public sponsors. We could talk to Pat Moulton. Ah, that'd be good. Great. Yeah, I think that I know that if you look at the town meeting TV newsletter is sponsored by local businesses. And so I mean, so you could you could stick them in places. But I think we would probably want to start some kind of like sponsorship menu or package or something. But I also I also think regardless of money that we receive or not, I think it's also important to every time we service communities like what you did with the breakout sessions, right, for the floods is to get, you know, get the blurbs from the people of the organizations. I say, thank your communities. Without you, we could never have done this. That's like money. So we use that when you're applying for grants. These are testimonies that we will, you know, this is what this is what we've done several testimonials. And that's important to us. I have written grants and gotten money because I collect every time I shoot something for farmers, whatever I get there, test their their blurbs, let's get a letter and I have it there and I keep it and I use it. That's awesome. Chris, what are you doing with Montpelier alive? Because that Katie Trouts has taken that organization to the moon and back and and you've got a product. I forgot what you called it. You've got something going with Montpelier alive. Yeah, we always do. I mean, we work with Katie pretty closely and, you know, Katie was part of the organizers of the community forums. And so we've, you know, her effort has been mostly towards that since the summer. But the I think the note in there was about the projector committee, Katie and some of her board members asked Chad and I if we could help out just finding a better usage of their projector for art events or downtown. Yeah, because that alone is great PR for Orca because she has just done Yeoman's work. I just love that woman. Yeah. And hopefully, you know, she'll sign our letter for band too. So I think that that's, that's the push right now. So the holidays. Good. This is again, the only other thing I wanted to note is looking at the Vermont Access Network right up there on Google Drive. And it says key legislature legislators have encouraged band to develop short term funding requests while continuing to work towards the longer return policy goal. The Orca is a unique peg because of its coverage of the state capital. And the only other thing I'd like to ask the co directors to return to the board with is a proposed what if you had an extra, you know, 50 or 100 or 200,000. How could you improve and continue to expand public participation and coverage of the rulemaking and lawmaking in the particularly legislative and executive branches, but there's a real lack of understanding of the judicial branch. And that's undergoing some changes for sure. So it seems like they've kind of if I'm like, if that does that put you in any conflict of ban, if you were to go and make a direct request for state house coverage that the legislature might agree would be worth investing in. We have to check on that. Yeah. I'm not sure. Because your budget is being put together and you can, you know, it's a draft budget that means your business development thoughts, if you will, could be put in there as well. You could say if we had an extra quarter million oriented towards, you know, coverage of the making of the sausage, here's where we spend it. And then go to the legislature and say, here it is. You said so here we are. Yep. So we used to have very kind of exclusive coverage of the state house, but with COVID every committee has kind of built its own video infrastructure through the web. So there's, there is, there is that wrinkle or sort of exclusivity isn't as exclusive as always. I would think if they actually have that kind of money, they do it themselves, knowing the legislature because you're right, they've got the infrastructure already set up. Except if it's public access and they're all doing their own thing. How do you find it? I mean, what you're trying to do is to, no, they may not really want this, but they should have a lip service to, yeah, the citizenry can get involved. They can participate. I think it's really embarrassing. Yeah. I think it's great because every committee has a YouTube channel now. Which is all new-ish. Yeah. And it's all taped and you can have access to it through joint fiscal. I'm not joint fiscal. So should Orca go and say we'd like to bring all your YouTube channels into a single, a browsable thing in Orca? They might like that. Did we? Yeah. I mean, we have to think about that, but there's a way to just like link their channels onto our page. I mean, it wouldn't, it would take not a lot. An hour. I think that's the other bit. It's, you know, whether, how possessive of they are about their channel and their branding and how like if they may not necessarily, like we could ask to link. But I think the other bit is that there is a ton of footage. And I think even when we were just like, we sent, we sent our camera operators to the ones that had bad coverage where the cameras were in a weird spot. But in terms of like being able to say there's so much data and like what agenda items are covering. And so that curating might be like, even though we can have it be a link and be like, okay, here's more of their channel. But in terms of whether that is actual like a value, I think it's we, I don't know how like, because we could say we have people looking and you can click to it and we can have that link. But in terms of curating or like to somehow make it manageable, I think it's a huge that might be a huge endeavor because there's so much, like if you just look through the daily agendas for them, like when we go through it, it's like there's so much different thing. And it's, I think it may be, we'd have to be, I think more creative about the value that we could add to it because they have, they do have that video structure kind of there. And a lot of people, especially since COVID have been going to it and watching it live. So I think it would be, it may be some of those other groups that aren't at the State House. So like the judicial some, I think we've gotten inquiries from the Department of Public Service to do some of their evidentiary hearings and cover those. So and it's like, we've been starting, I've been looking at like the listening sessions that they're putting out. I think we just covered one about that was out for at the high school that the Department of Public Service was doing a listening tour. So those may be where we can be like, we can help you go out to these smaller locations and do the listening tour, maybe facilitate their Zoom and get them out because I think everyone's pushing for community engagement. And that's probably where we might be able to provide some sort of service or some sort of help. And you've got, you've got the Green Mountain Care Board on the, their public meetings coming up. Yes. And so the calendar. So, and I think they are still virtual. So that's the other thing is like, you know, is it like we record it and we kind of have it available, but they've also started to do their own YouTube channel too. So I think we just have to be creative of how can we help their community engagement process, which is really about going out, hopefully going out to the public too. I'll just consider that right now, Orca is the fourth estate for Montpelier, the state process of making laws and that we're able to balance the system. So hearing that they've all boiled their own part of my suggestion also is they may like it because it's a way of saying it's retaining the text and balances inherent in a fourth estate. And it makes it easy. Everybody just goes to one place, starts browsing Orca's listing. How are people finding it now? I think that the state has a very good website. So you can search representative, you can search by topic, you can search by witness. So that's what we kind of do because when we follow certain topics and try to, then we, and when we do the lower thirds, like it's really nice and you can, they take you to their site, their webpage or their YouTube channel. So their website is actually really handy. And we use it all the time to do scheduling. It's pretty robust. And it does link to every YouTube page too, pretty easily if you want to find their committee. We make the graphics match up. What's on the agenda on the website, which is harder than it sounds. So we do try to coordinate so that our topics or our text matches up. So if they're watching it on TV that they're like, Oh, that was the agenda item, they can go to their website and search for that same phrase and come to that same agenda item. And so we've been trying to match it up so that that gets used. I'm just thinking like, would my grandmother know how to find this? I don't. So that's all just trying to preserve the how to find it. I mean, I can I think like, I don't know about CJ's grandmother, but to me, it definitely like makes more sense that I would, I would like either Google it or go to the state website to look for it as opposed to going to work personally. Yeah, it's a question of how much value we would have. Yeah. Got a 815 time check. Are we ready to move to the strategic planning update? If that's within the co-director's report, or do we need to accept co-director's report to get there? We did not. Do we need to vote on it? If strategic planning is separate from co-director's report, we do. It's separate. All right. So we're looking for a motion to accept co-director's. CJ moves to accept. I heard CJ moving. Is there a second? I'll second it. Thank you, Pat. First, did and seconded to accept the co-director's report. Indicate by saying aye. Aye. And opposed. And strategic planning. Okay. So short and sweet. So I think we're going to pull up a document just to take a look at. So as you know, the effort is towards the retreat that's coming up. So that's why we're really excited about all the in-person participation. But I think that we wanted to just mention two things. Three things? So I was going to say, I'm going to just share. So we all did our policy circles and our circles in general. Sorry. And then we just wanted to make sure that I think across the board, like, are you all seeing it? Sorry. I think we're not. Oh, right. Okay. But here. Oh, sir. So we just wanted to confirm the mission. I think there was some circles where we got feedback that there might still be some confusion about the mission. And we just wanted to make sure that we were all agreed about the mission before we went to the retreat. So that what we were hoping for the strategic planning retreat is that we would get a more concrete document that was about like, we're hoping to have something that's more about like benchmarks and metrics. So that we thought if we could make sure that we were all on board about the mission so that we could tell Nathan that that's clear and we're moving forward from there. And I think the other bit that came up across from the circles was rebranding. And we just wanted to make sure that we discussed it and address whatever questions maybe are coming with that. So the first bit, I think is, I don't know what happened. Yeah. So maybe just like Jen said, if we could just wrap our head around one more time on the mission so that we can spend more of our time working on the document itself, the strategic plan. Can everyone see that? I can read it out loud. So the what we landed on and then which is almost the exact same as the suggestion was that we add the word free. So I'm going to read the suggestion because that was kind of where we left off. So working media facilitates engagement in local communities and government by providing free access to media production training and distribution. And for those of you that don't remember, this was like a very nicely worded compared to the previous mission, which was available on our website, long run on sentence. And so this was us kind of condensing what we felt like were the tiers of what we do, the three tiers being production, training and distribution. And then yeah. Okay, finish. Since I'm new and I've just sort of been looking at this, the only question that comes to mind, and it may make the sentence too long, is engaging who? Who are we engaging in local communities? Is that? That's a great question. And you're right, because the mission is like, who's our client? What are you solving and how? So that's usually the question you're answering. So I would say that the fact is that we serve our service area, right? So anybody in our service area can use us for non-commercial media production training and distribution services. So the engagement in local communities and government is trying to encapsulate the, you know, at the end of the day, we still manage a public and education and government access three different channels, right? And that is, that's where the, you know, the idea of peg. So it's like, we're, we're still peg organization. And so that local communities and government, anybody in our service area, we're trying to facilitate engagement in those local communities and government, which local communities obviously includes schools and everything else like Montpelier Live and all the fun stuff that happens, protests and celebrations by providing free access to media production, training and distribution. So I think that we often like, rather than name things, so like, because the facilitating engagement is like, it is everyone, we want to engage anyone and everyone in whichever way they want to, because we're just provide, we provide the training and the equipment. So that's where it's like, you know, by putting any, by adding words or any, like, like to say, you know, do we, it seems like if we say everyone and anyone, but isn't that everything, like, so if we didn't include it, then you say, oh, you know, is that me? Yes, it's you. Is that him? It's him. It's them. It's so- I think the opposite feedback. I feel like that you communicate more by like trying to be less, but by having, by clarifying less, you encompass more. I think there should be a period after government and the entire rest of the line should go away. So I'd like to ask a clarifying question. The verbiage in yellow is our present mission, correct? No, I think that yellow is, we, when we did the strategic planning process before Rachel left, we came with this agreement. I think we had it up on the board. Yeah, but we never voted on it. So I think, no, we, like that was the, it was, that was what was kind of agreed upon about that time. And I think time has kind of come and like more cogitating came back with other things. You're saying it was agreed upon, but not voted upon? No, I think we all, like there was just kind of like no disagreeing. I guess maybe what it was was no disagreement at that time that we were like, okay, we'll keep it. But we kept kicking the can down the road and we're like, oh, we'll really dig into this later. I would question the way this is making now the time we do that. Well, and that's in a regular board meeting with strategic planning right on the horizon. Maybe that we just, we don't have time to do this right now. And I think that if, if maybe we just come back to Nathan, I think we're kind of trying to answer Nathan's questions so that as he prepares the agenda for the retreat, he's prepared, are we spending time on the mission statement or not? And it sounds like we still are. So Can I have a comment or a question? Maybe we could ask Nathan to send us, send you, send us questions we should be asking ourselves about that. Yeah, let's write that down. That's good. Okay. I think what Chad says, I kind of agree with him in many ways, like that closing it off and not being very super specific about it might be the way to go. So, but, but that's something that we could discuss. Again, I think, I think having Nathan send us questions kind of tying us to see, you know, what we come up with. So Yeah, the programs that we fiscally sponsor are supposed to align with our mission. So tell me how the Green Mountain Film Fest provides media production, training and distribution. It doesn't. Unless there's a period after government and it does engage the local communities. So I agree. I do agree. So I guess that's the thing. It's like the fiscal sponsorship. I feel like the Green Mountain Film Festival came to us and there wasn't a lot of like thinking about should it align? Does it like it makes sense? Like, because we do kind of similar things and but whether it actually aligns with our mission, I don't think was really kind of pondered. It was kind of like they needed someone and we're like, we can step into help. And so that's where I think that fiscal sponsorship question, whether that's something that we as an organization will be doing is I think hasn't been discussed also. Because I think at that point, it's like, I don't know that work as an organization really has part of it as this fiscally sponsoring kind of entity. That's not I could make a very easy case for the Green Mountain Film Festival being a form of media distribution. But do we really want to get into this conversation at this time? So no. I actually thought we had voted on this mission. And I guess we had a general agreement but didn't pull the trigger. I think we were going to stop in the spring. Right. Dave, you want to ask your question? I would like to say something. Please. I believe that what our statement does is probably going to be more controversial in the area that we're now in. We just canceled the speech by somebody who was trying to explain the plight of Palestinians at UVM and they canceled the talk. So now even talking about what's going on in the world using the media gets to be a huge potential controversy and actually needs extra security when it's being shown. So I'm just saying that however we let the community and whoever it is speak out, we need to know what we, as an organization, feel we can do to support the voice of something at this point that some people are so threatened by that they're actually cutting free speech from places like Harvard and UVM and telling people they can't do that lecture because it's going to be too dangerous to the rest of the community. So I'm just saying that we need to be aware of all that when we make our mission statements out. That's just my opinion. This part of the values is I'm not sure if it's the mission statement or the values or the, but that's absolutely true. Can I say something? I feel in the mission statement for me what lacks is what's the part like okay we facilitate and we provide these but for what what's the the intention at the end is for the betterment of the community or like I feel we there is a lack of that like what's the idea what's the purpose of doing this service to the community. Right. That's a great point. To what end, yeah. Seems like we have to do a lot more work before we get to that place. And that is just what it is. And so Carlos's suggestion that co-directors send this off to Nathan for kind of thought, kind of help us formulate thought questions to push this to the finish line. Are people comfortable with that as next step? Yeah, yeah, I think so I just also with the rebranding I think that that was the other thing that came through and we just wanted to like we did talk to Nathan about that and he also thought we thought it'd be maybe not the strategic plan if that was unless there was I think the rebranding was a question of if there's farm being done with our name or our brand we definitely want to address that or if it's more of another reason that we would want to rebrand so we just kind of wanted to say that it is you know unless people feel strongly about needing to rebrand or wanting to rebrand we thought it'd be better at the next like this would not be the strategic plan to do that. So we just wanted to put that out there also and if there was questions or comments about it about the rebranding question. And maybe I'll just throw in my personal opinion that I've actually been in favor of rebranding for a long time but I do feel like that could be like the next strategic plan. When was the strategic plan prior to this one so we would know how long we're going to be waiting? Well I was going to say that the previous but I think this strategic plan so this strategic plan I think it was discussed about short term versus long term goals and so we're thinking short term around three years and we would imagine that we're setting metrics and benchmarks for three years out and that it would be redone or reimagined in the next three years and whether that becomes five years or a different range but we were thinking like this one also would be more towards short term versus long term. Is there a way there's I mean there's some history with pegs rebranding and like channel 17 obviously when their channel moved they went to town meeting TV. In White River what is now called jam junction access media they I'm not sure what precipitated that but they had a really successful rebrand. I don't know what their initial reason for doing so was but I think there's there's there's good examples of of Vermont pegs doing it. Is it something yeah I wouldn't just do it just because it sounds like a fun thing to do like purpose being dot dot dot. Plus you'd have to consider it in the budget because you need money to rebrand. Yeah everything right you're gonna do something like that. Yeah I think these are both grenades that I threw in with the mission statement and the rebranding because I just like I kept waiting for the right time I kept feeling like oh like being told it wasn't the time to discuss it but I think that both things are intrinsically related the mission statement and the branding and both of the main branding rebranding that we mentioned like jam and like the media factory both pivoted to be more actively engaged in their communities and have seen a big benefit from that. I think that it's like a chicken egg thing when we're talking about sort of rethinking of what we do. So that's that's that's what I say about the rebranding. I think if we can codify okay in three years we'll we're gonna do another strategic plan as part of the strategic planning process or something. But I still think that rebranding we don't have to wait those three years right that's something that we could do. We could budget for and roll out yeah separately. Or also attacking within subcommittees I guess because they grew through that. Yeah that's good yeah. Like a subgroup and then the other thing is reach out to the media through these media centers to jam and talk to and ask them how did that rebranding go what did you do and get that feedback and work off of that did that really help? Yeah and what it cost and how much you know outside expertise did you need to actually pull that thing off? And I'll add that Nathan did mention that you know we'd still like to do a community needs assessment as part of this strategic plan. So that could be something that we kind of like that we just uh when we're kind of rolling out this strategic plan and we like lock this in we go into the community and say what do you think of working media? And a couple questions could be like what does Orca stand for or what is it what do you think of when you think of working media or how do you recognize us or you know and those to kind of spend the next couple of the year or two thinking about okay who do we want to be how do we want to brand ourselves yeah. I think we're actively working on it I mean that's the way I see it. Yeah put it on the books. Yeah. I think that's a great place to start. Yeah. Okay. So I think we're almost done with the strategic plan. I think it's maybe we don't need to spend too much time on this but we just wanted to uh to say that like the last thing was that uh we are hoping to create you know all this hard work that we've done we're hoping that in the end we will have uh some kind of document that is that is legible and and shareable and it's it's beautiful and all the things and so I think that that was what Jin's point was too so we're working our way there and all of this kind of messy stuff that you're seeing behind the scenes it's getting there but it's you know we're looking at the Kellogg Hubbard document as inspiration so we're hoping we just wanted to reiterate that out of the retreat we're hoping to get this does that make sense sorry. So I think and then to end it we will send a list and so granted it's like it's an off month but we'll try to get you the agenda for the retreat but before that some list of questions that Nathan can generate for you to think about the mission statement is does that seem did I get that right of what you all would want from to do the mission thinking? Yeah I think you know one of the things we need to consider in terms of that mission statement in order to create it right what are the parts you know I know some from something whatever it is to kind of Chris yeah and we'll have three hours and we won't have these these type of agenda items to run through there'll be no board meeting nuts and bolts to do. Okay so that wraps up that thank you. All right so I guess I don't know motion except strategic planning discussion or we're just roll right into old business. I'll piece of old business I shared in the last board meeting that conversation with Mike Doyle he likes the idea of board member emeritus non-voting board member emeritus but I don't think correct me if I'm wrong I don't think we actually made a motion and voted that through I think I just reported out and it just actually make it. Can I make a motion to recognize thank you as board member emeritus or comedic? It's made the motion uh to uh Carlos that's Carlos so all those in favor of codifying Mike Doyle's move to non non-voting uh board member emeritus here here uh please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. And opposed. Great that's unanimous so that's that's now done official uh sorry that was my oversight last meeting other old business and or new business and there's plenty of new business on the horizon with the strategic planning so we'll be seeing that agenda uh sometime soonish. Yes I will aim for within the week we'll we'll get the timeline to Nathan that to try to have that within the week not it may not be this week but maybe by next Tuesday-ish so sure sure sure with with plenty of time to digest thank you. So can is there any of the old business that we can cross off that it's been completed so I'll take it off the old business for the next agenda is so with Mark when are we still thinking to invite him not I guess the October meeting but the December meeting or- that is also budget I don't know it might make more sense kick I think it's it continues to be something we'd like to happen um not sure if December makes sense CJ what do you think give him a give him a December invite in 20 minutes or we can do that um December tends to be a period when people are starting to think about holidays yeah and I do want to point out our fourth uh Tuesday in December is the 26 so I'm just gonna say we'll be the 19th we'll be third we'll be third Thursday that that board meeting I may not be able to be there for that even that might be tricky yeah CJ needs to be there yeah I think we're looking January um what I am hoping to do we need we need to keep it in December because we're passing a budget so are we looking at um the 12th get get away from the holidays as much as we can yes all right uh that's second Tuesday yeah we're doing second Tuesday in December is that what I'm hearing yeah second Tuesday is the uh EC fiber board meetings gotcha um CJ do you think for the 19th you could drop a report like you did tonight if you can't make that one yep I can drop a report I'm not sure what are we trying to accomplish um with mark I mean yeah that's another thing what if I I would say yeah let's let's push that into the new year um there's new board there's new board members he might just want to give an overview yep and if you want to have that what are we trying to accomplish conversation with him that would that would make some sense um I don't think okay sounds good I'm happy to talk with him um I brought him in the first time just to uh to help with the transition and to give us all a little bit of a picture about how he because he was new to us too a lot of the work was done with his predecessor and his predecessor's predecessor yep yeah so I think uh we could have him come in in the beginning of the year to talk about um Edward Jones what its service is our what we are taking advantage of and what we could take advantage of that might be pretty interesting yeah sounds good was there another old business item you wanted to clear up gin yeah so Dave Connor with I think the sale of the VCFA buildings I think you were inquiring so we have sent an email to VCFA folks to find out you know when they have I think they were still in the process of the sale so it hasn't been official yet but as soon as we know we um we'll let you know about who's I mean right now I think it's just the Greenway Institute and the new school there's still three buildings that I think haven't been decided or sold yet and the question was have we met our new landlord and we haven't okay because the sale hasn't completed yet so um can we take that awful yes okay so okay it'll be the personnel I think that's old business okay uh let's see anything else I guess we're sort of in business old or new uh at 840 oh has anybody been through an audit before I have to confess I haven't and I'm going to be trying to to get that scheduled is if it's a it's a huge amount of time I'll try to push it into the new year the mom knows so I guess it varies I've been through audits and doing the like pulling together financial reports for it so it may be but because a lot of our stuff is done also with the accountant and our bills and it's so it's it may be doable I don't know how what the scheduling might be with the auditing groups so whether they're also going to be packed and so I would say I'm I'm happy to go with with with with ever timeline that it does if you do you want to try to catch it in this year but it may be like their schedule may dictate what is available and it's yeah I think it's not I don't think we were going to do a full-fledged audit but a financial review which is like baby audit so that may haven't had an audit done in since 20 2005 was it I'd have to go back to my notes from um we did a baby financial review and I think it was 2015 something like that it's been a long time there's no suspicion or concern at all it's more of a housekeeping you know good business process so I think I think we have some flexibility and we don't want to you know we want to slot it into a time when it doesn't adversely affect the business and we can just kind of methodically get it done and leave it out there as a as a hey checkla check off good business management practices and just as an FYI I think that $10,000 that we I think I didn't know if that was for a financial review versus an audit if it was left open um because I didn't have actual current costs but I can rush do you want me to see what we've paid in the past would that help yeah we actually looked at that Jen you and I and Rob and uh so the you know the 10 is low for a full audit it's high for a financial review and um I have a couple of recommendations for people in the area that have you know that just come come recommended uh some of the people that help with the stagecoach stuff I talked with one of stagecoach's former directors and they said oh this woman's wonderful so it's you know it should be a learning experience but it should be one that we fit into a low period if we can you and go ahead Pat sorry are we required to put out bids for like say three out three open bids to get bids are we required to do that this organization I don't think we're required to but I think it would be a really good idea to do that yeah you don't have to do anything seriously formal just send a letter out to maybe three and see what they what they would give us that would probably help do an R yeah an RFP right because it makes sense especially if we're especially if we're our 10 grand is somewhere in between a financial and a true audit right it makes sense to see what what people will do for 10 grand yep exactly somewhere in there um well and we may also find people are friendly because we're orca we're a nice 501c community benefit but we'll find out how we do and anything else motion to adjourn at 844 yes all right I seconded that was Carlos to Chad to uh sounds like we'll call it a very complete meeting thanks everyone thank you thank you yeah maximize in person on the 14th let me there and then we'll hold the 19th for December next board meeting cool see and I appreciate it everybody