 All right, we're recording. Great. Thanks, Stephanie. You're welcome. Do we have any. Do we need to do any minute reviews or anything from last time? I mean, no, I didn't include that on the agenda just because this isn't a regular meeting. It's a retreat. So I think we would save those for the next regular meeting. Okay. Also don't have public comment because it's a retreat. Correct. So you can just get right into the meat of your. Retreat agenda. Oh, Lori. Oops. I've got to let Lori in. I don't know why she's. I see Lori. All right. Great. So now that Lori's here, we can jump in. I think there was a while raising my, raising my hands around the dog. I'm here. I'm here. Well, no worries. We haven't started yet. So you didn't miss anything. Great. So I thought we could do a quick, like, ice breakery type thing just to like set the retreat stage. Granted I am not an ice breaker person. So. What I thought we could do is. You know, introduce ourselves and say either based on where you grew up. Some, a place that's important to your culture, like what's a food that people assume you really like. And do you like it or not? So I'll go first. I'm from Maryland. I grew up in. Large rocker. I grew up in Salisbury, Maryland, which is on the eastern shore of Maryland. It's a rural area. Lots of chicken farms. So because I'm from Maryland, people assume that I really would like crabs and old Bay. And the answer is I do really like crabs and old Bay. I eat old Bay on many things. So I've been eating that since I was probably in fourth grade and I was going home on the bus and I continue to eat it. Occasionally. All right. So then I'm going to popcorn to somebody. And so that's just, you pick somebody who hasn't gone yet. And we'll get to the end. So I'm going to popcorn to Stella. Hi, Stella D. I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. St. Louis style. Anything I've seen gets a bad rap on the internet. So. So I guess. I feel very strange ideas about the Midwest, but, but I don't like ranch dressing. I feel like that's a very Midwestern thing. And I've never liked ranch dressing. Awesome. Do you want to assign someone to go next? No, I don't. Jesse. All right. I grew up. Just in Watertown, Massachusetts. Watertown just outside of Boston. So I feel like I should. Like my instinct was to go baked beans, but that's kind of an easy one. Everyone obviously loves baked beans. I'm going to talk Chowder. And. Of the New England, which is the three I know about, there's probably hopefully more. I think Rhode Island is the best. And that's the one with the clear stock. New England being with the creamy white stock in Manhattan with the. Red. It's just like really. Manhattan. So. Rhode Island. That being said, I guess I will pass it to Lori. So I grew up on Long Island. And I guess I'll Chowder was one of our things too, but you know, being near the ocean, but I think bagels, bagels and locks are the thing I associate with Long Island. And the thing that I miss the most, because you really cannot get them around here, except at Cushman Market, which imports them from Manhattan every morning. So. Oh, I should pick someone. Dwayne. Both of my cards have been played a little bit. So I was going to, I grew up north of Baltimore, Maryland. And I was going to go with the crabs too. Though I don't eat crabs anymore. I have fond memories of. In childhood, banging the club on the crabs and eating crabs with the old Bay seasoning. I didn't. When I left. Baltimore basically around college. I didn't take the crabs with me. I left them behind. But I did one of my fond memories. I grew up. I'm a devout atheist, but I grew up by Jewish. And fondest memories of my, my parents, they moved to Baltimore, but all my rest of my extended family is from Brooklyn, New York. And when they came to visit or we visited them, it was that Jewish spread of bagels and mox and white fish and cream cheese. And that, that I like to this day. It's always brings back my childhood memories too. And I'll go with, with Don. Yeah, I grew up in North Central New Jersey, a town called Mendham. It's fairly small. It's a small town. It's a small town. It's a small town. And nobody would necessarily know about it. It's seven miles west of Marstown. And my favorite food going up. Because New Jersey had New York style pizza was pizza. And I have not ever been able to find anything like it. Never the same. So I miss my New York style pizza. And that leaves us with Steve. Yes. I grew up, you guys are all like local. I grew up out in California. In San Jose, which is the southern end of Silicon Valley. Except when I was growing up, I grew up in San Jose. And I grew up in San Jose. And I grew up in San Jose. Del Monte. Canning factories with tomatoes. And they would truck these tomatoes in on really big trucks. And sometimes you'd be driving on the highway, these trucks rumbling by the tomatoes would fall off. They wouldn't go splat. They would just roll along the highway at 60 miles an hour. Like a, like a baseball. But somehow they managed to cook these things down. And then those in the 80s and 90s, I guess, got torn down and converted into. At least the southern end of Silicon Valley. I guess just thinking back, some of my favorite food was the sweet corn that we drew in our garden out there. We had a small yard, but we grew a garden every year. And back then the sweet corn was the sort that. You had to like have the water boiling on the stove. Then you'd run out and pick it and husk it on them as you ran out. And then you'd get in the water as fast as possible. Because if it was picked before you cooked it, it would get all starchy. I sense learned that there's much better varieties of sweet corn. And so my, my favorite food is still the sweet corn. It's the local varieties that are super sweet. But with that old bay on there, somehow or look somewhere along the line, I discovered the old bay. So old bay on sweet corn is. One of the highlights of the summer for me. And I'm going to go back to the old bay. I'm going to go back to the old bay. And see Stephanie. I think Stephanie is next. Yeah. Thanks. So I grew up just north of Boston. So I am very, very local. And close to Jesse Jesse. I didn't know that we were nearly in the same area. So that's pretty cool. So food. I almost wish you had me last because I really have a really hard time. You know, I could go with pizza. I could go with, you know, but I would have to say, because of my family, I'm going to go with pizza. Because my parents grew up in the north end of Boston. By the original Regina pizzeria. And my stepmothers married into the fit. Her first husband was. Married into that family. So we have a kind of a connection with Regina. So I have to say pizza and sorry, Don, I'm going to compete with you for that best pizza category. To me that, but it has to be the original one in the north end. Like, I feel like that's the one. So yeah. And I love it. And I will pass it on. I think Vasu, I don't think you've gone yet. Yeah. Hi everyone. I grew up in Chennai, India. So I think Steve, you're, you're the closest. It's a 15 hour flight. It's, it's a coastal city, longest beach in the world. I'm a vegetarian. I've never, ever had me. Don't plan on ever having me considering what, what was going on in the climate. So needless to say I miss any food. My mom's food as well. My parents live in India. So, yeah. There are places in Northampton and Emirates, but it's not the same. Vasu, I had the opportunity to visit India for the first time, Asia for the first time a couple of years ago, I was to Chennai. Massachusetts had a delegation to Chennai to try to forge a partnership between this state of Massachusetts and the state of Tamil Nadu. And we were headquartered in Chennai for about a week or so. And it was an incredible experience. Not the two highlights that had nothing to do with the work were obviously driving or being chauffeured around on the streets, which is like a while to just compare to the US streets. It's organized chaos. Exactly. And it seems to work. And then the second was the, I love Indian food, but the sauces that they had there or whatever. The condiments were just incredible and so much more varied than what we have in Indian restaurants here. I don't think Andrew is gone. So third Marylander here, Maryland. I actually am on the Washington end of Maryland. And I will say that my favorite ice cream, you cannot get very many places is from Giffords ice cream, one of the early, you know, homemade ice cream shops in Silver Spring. Made Swiss chocolate ice cream. Tasted some that bordered on the Swiss chocolate, but it's just like this really subtle flavor. And one time I was in a workshop where we're supposed to bring our favorite food and we're going to eat it like really meditatively. I brought a whole gallon of ice cream. And I did not get through very much of it. It was a thrill to have it again at that point in my life. I wish we were in person. Yeah. I think the ice cream stand on 47 in Sunderland. It's a farm stand sells Giffords. I think they now package it. Well, I'll see if they have Swiss chocolate. Also, that was fun. I did not know we had the most people that we have are from Maryland on this group. That's kind of wild. I was actually born in Baltimore. I've also driven through Maryland. Dwayne, I have to ask if you're connected to the famous burger cookies. Famous. I've never heard of them. No. Yeah, they're like a famous Baltimore cookie, the burger cookies. They're not that good. They're not the same way as your last name. Breaker. Oh no, it's not spread. It's a different. Sorry. But nonetheless, I haven't heard of that. No. Chocolatey and. They're not that good. I mean, they're okay, but. I'm going to add my name to the Marylanders. I lived in Tacoma Park for six years. There you go. We're taking over. We're just playing along. So. As we've discussed. Over some. In our last couple of meetings, we thought we would do break this up into two different sessions. So. This session today is really thinking kind of big picture. And I was trying to brainstorm how to. You know, I'm going to have some ideas, but, you know, I think we should kind of let it go where, where it goes. But I think what we want to focus on, I think today will be successful is if we kind of. Are. Thinking through, you know, what are some of the big. Not just specific projects we need to do, but like, how are we actually. Moving, you know, how are we turning ECAC into a. You know, accomplishing our goals basically. And so I thought to start that discussion. We could start by just. Doing like a pretty open brainstorm session on that. So I sent everybody probably five minutes before the meeting started. To their email, a link to a jam board. Did everybody get that email or if you have it, could you check your email? I don't think I got it. Okay. Hold on. Hold on. I see it now. No. Oh wait, there it is. No, I got a. 26 is when it was sent. Yeah, I got it. I see it. Messing with our word. I did not get it. Okay. Yes, I did. There it is. Got it. Okay. So. Awesome. So. Has everybody used Jambo before? A couple of you will have it. Okay. People are writing on it. So it's, it's basically like a whiteboard. I know we have a whiteboard function in Zoom, but I've never used that. So I defaulted to. This one. And. What the good things about it is that we can, I can very easily PDF these and then we can share them around after our meeting. So that's what I like about Jamboard. As you can see, you can draw on them. So. This first page here is just, so just to orient you a little bit with the Jamboard. And I think Stephanie, I think you can, you know, I'm going to share my screen now, Laura. Okay. Great. So to keep us in line with open meeting. Stephanie is going to share the screen, which means it's a little hard for me to see everybody. So folks feel free to jump in. If they, if you have something. To add, but. Sorry. Yeah. Go ahead. Just quickly. I don't know how this relates to like open meeting law and stuff. But just if the links visible on Stephanie's screen share, I mean, I think it's unlikely, but then technically anybody could. Access to the board. I don't think we want, but I don't think we, I think we want to just keep it to just the ECAC accessing the board. So people can see as long as people can see what we're doing, they don't have to have access to the board. No, but I think what she's saying is that people could access it by typing in the. Yeah, it would be a little difficult, but. But I don't, I don't necessarily see that being an issue with edits or tracked, like who did what, just like, I guess, like just like worst, worst, worst case scenario. Like. If somebody. Not saying this obviously won't happen, but with malicious intent word at. Access the jam board. It would look like it was us. Do you know what I mean? Right. So we don't. Which is. Yeah, I see what you're saying. I don't know if there's a way to like draw on your screen to the links, not visible, or if we should like sign in. I don't know. You know what you could probably do, Stephanie is just type in another email address, but don't actually click on it. You know what I mean? That would that work. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just like that. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's going to go. Sorry. Yeah. I don't know. You can try. You don't, you just don't want to click, like type in the address, but don't click on it. Well, I don't know if I can do it and then. If my. Delete it and leave it blank. Where will it just take you away? I think as soon as I. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Because I'm trying to just. Yeah. I don't know that that's going to work. You could just sliding your window up. So it's out. The screen. Yeah. Or sliding like a blank word document just over it. No, you can't. If you're sharing that. It looks like you're sharing that. Yeah, I'm sharing. So I can't hear. Let me see. Well. I'll figure this out. If you highlight and hit the delete button, it goes away. Yeah. And then click on something else. Thank you. Yeah. I should have just gone right to you to figure that out. Great. At this time, whoever, if anyone had malicious intent, they've already got it. So. I mean. Anyway, so anyway. All right. Well, we'll give it a go and see how it works. Since some people came in as attendees since we said, this is a retreat. And so we're not having public comment. So, you know. Yeah, thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, and I think I'll make sure that as soon as our meetings, then I'll download the PDFs. So we have. Have them from, from them. Okay. So. The. The first, so this, I'm just, I just copied on this first page or charge again, just so folks can have it to look back to if they needed to. So. So the first activity. So now it's just about climate mitigation and resiliency goals. So on page two. So if you, if you click. That little arrow up at the top. Yeah. So I think the first activity is. We just spend a few minutes on or see how long we want to spend on this, but. meeting that purpose, right? We're guiding the town into meeting its goals. The town is moving forward to meeting its goals. What does that look like to you? And this can be a project, this can be a process, this could be anything. Like just what do you think would be happening in that scenario? The easiest way to add things to Jamboard is to click on the sticky note, which is over, it's sort of in the middle of this toolkit on your left-hand side. And so I, you know, you just write something and then it kind of pops up for everybody. And it's, so let's just start writing things in. You could pick different colors if you want and then we'll give it a few minutes. And when people are done, we'll look at it and maybe try to group things together. Does that sound good? Does anybody have any questions? No, all right, so let's go for it. All right, these are awesome. Everybody's putting in some really great things. I'm trying to start to organize them a little bit here. I think I'm seeing a couple of themes come out but would love to get other folks thoughts. There's definitely some themes around, you know, goals and timelines and checking our goals regularly and verifying our goals. So that's certainly a theme. And then there's some things around education and process, it looks like. Then there's some things on specific projects around or, you know, sort of like visions of what things would be. So, you know, we've gasoline and vehicles are a rare sight. Amherst is, you know, recognized as a leader. Then there's some points just on kind of process. Like, you know, we as a group, we have a good schedule and we're covering our top priorities. You know, we're updating clearly on what we know we're really working to move forward our processes and projects. Anybody else seeing? So I guess the themes I'm seeing is like tracking progress, having good process. And, you know, if we're successful, all of these things will be, you know, having a roadmap I think is another one here. And then we sort of, so those are like on the process side of things. And then we've got, you know, residents are understanding how they can reduce emissions. You know, town people are engaged. We're consulted. ECACs consulted as an expert. Buildings have been converted. Townland has been protected. Anything, any other thoughts here on? So maybe we can put kind of on the left-hand side sort of the operational pieces and on the right-hand side here we can move kind of our visions. I think one thing I notice and that I'm also concerned about is that this idea of people understanding what they can do, that's a real problem. I mean, I've been trying to convert my house for months now and get good information about what the right thing to do is. That's a, I think something that maybe we can help address. Yeah, that's a good point. I put a couple of stickies up with that sort of message in them but I see a couple others too. Anything, anybody else seeing something that surprising to them or that they wanna make sure we highlight here? Regarding process, I'm not seeing as much as I would have thought about being inclusive as part of the process. Yeah, that's a good point. We can find some way to, there are words like accessibility and accessible shows up a bunch of times. So maybe it's in there. Okay, anything else or folks feeling like they've added everything that they wanna add to this? All right. So it looks like, so I think this is great. This is a good sort of mixture of different things like I was saying of sort of process and goal setting or like tracking accountability of our work versus as well as kind of what we wanna see town look like and what we wanna see engagement with communities and constituents here. So with that, I thought and the next thing we could do and then hopefully everybody feels a little comfortable with and people feel free to add to this as we're talking because we can, like I said, we can go back to this next time. The next two frames that I've laid out are, I wanna have our head space in this as we move into thinking about it in a bit more, start to move from this really big picture into more project-based thinking. So the next two tabs here, Layout and Steve, I used your document here to Layout. I put them on two separate tabs because it was too much to put on one. Kind of the four key areas that you identified and these are pretty, and from the car, from our discussions, from the projects we're working on, of where we wanna make sure we're, what we need to do to make sure we're meeting our goals. So renewable energy development, resilient lands and healthy living, electrification and energy efficiency and I wanna point out that Steve, you know, in all of these, we need to be applying the lens of environmental justice and climate justice under each of these. And then I laid out on top, what I see is like the four key ways that ECAC and or the town need to address each of these issues. So either, there either needs to be policy changes, process changes and how the town does something or how residents or business owners do something or how we do something, research needs that we can contribute to or educational outreach that needs to happen. Laura, I'm sorry to interrupt. But I know that it sounds like you moved on to another tab, I just wanna make sure, I don't wanna do anything. Did you capture this one? Are you all set? Yeah, yeah, it's good. Okay, I just, I'm sorry, I just wanted to make sure. Yeah, no worries. So how do folks think we should do this? One idea is to take one at a time. One idea is to sort of fill in where you think you have interest or ideas within these four categories or four, I guess, four issue areas versus lovers, I would say. So the levers are the policy changes, the process changes, the research needs and the educational outreach to help achieve our goals of renewable energy development, residual lands and healthy living, electrification and energy efficiency. So a lot of the policy changes, process changes, those levers are in the carp. So do we want to have the carp, you know, look at the carp and kind of move things over or you've also created a kind of shorthand version of it that maybe could copy and paste from rather than just brainstorming what's on the top of our minds? Yeah, Jesse. I think I'm not, I don't know big picture-wise but one, and under this is not to take over what you just said, it's just like another idea and just I think maybe just throwing a couple of quick ideas out, but one is I'm curious about sort of this leverage points and where, trying to identify in this matrix and in the carp and all these things like where are we with the limits that we have, like where does this group insert itself into the process best rather than, I think we've got a good sense of the overall from the carp and even just seeing it in this empty diagram and even is helping me sort of like see, but like you had alluded to this idea of like where do we fit in? I think it's something to consider as we move ahead. It's really strategically thinking not only as a group but as individuals in the group. Not sure what that means. Yeah, yeah, that's too. Yeah, a couple of things to what Anders said and Jesse. Yeah, I think some of the information is already in the carp. So I wonder what the value at is in doing this exercise and unless there are more things that we want to add to the carp. And I wonder to Jesse's point that if we should do a SWOT analysis to talk about what are we good at? What are we not good at? What are some of the opportunities that we have? And what do we know about the town and the limits that we have that we need to be aware of? Yeah, so that's another, that's definitely another option is to do the carp or do a SWOT analysis, Fesu. I was thinking and agreed. A lot of this is in the carp. I think what Jesse was alluding to, which is what I was trying to also get to, but perhaps not as well as not the best way to do it is I think what I see as our challenge as a group is we know it's in the carp. We know what needs to happen. But actually getting down to the details of like, what is the specific thing? Like, what is the specific next step? We get a little bit lost in that. And there's so many specific next steps, some of which fall under eCack and some of which don't, that it starts to feel overwhelming. And then we sort of go back to our, I think what we go back to our kind of opportunistic approach as opposed to a planned, a process-based approach where we've really planned out, like our goal is to move forward on this thing and to do that, we have to change this policy. And so we're really going to focus on changing this policy because that's going to have an overarching goal on overarching. So I think my intent was to focus on what, because the carp is broader than just eCack, right? The carp is what the town needs to do to meet these goals versus what eCack itself is best suited to do and then are the processes in place for us to do that. So maybe a SWOT analysis is a better approach. I don't know, I'm open to ideas and thoughts here. I wonder if, and I'm just Googling SWOT analysis because I haven't done it in years and maybe ever. And maybe what I'm about to say is a little bit like a SWOT analysis, but I wonder if, because when I look at this, these boxes are like really clear to me. And I wonder if this gets at what you all have been saying where like, if we each pick four or five or something, so people aren't like selecting all of them and maybe just go in and mark in the boxes of things that we all individually, but not maybe broken down by name, just so we have a vision board of it. Like those boxes where people feel they have the most interest and or knowledge and or expertise and then the things, the boxes where people, the boxes that people feel would most effectively move the town toward carb goals. Because I wonder if just having that laid out visually, if there's alignment or mismatch between people, what people think is most important and what people individually have like expertise and interest in, if that could be helpful. Does that make sense? Yeah, Jesse. Oh, you're on mute. I think Lori. Oh, sorry. I can't see everybody's hand, so. I'll go after you, Lori. Yeah, I just wanted to agree that I had to look up SWAT analysis too, but having this blank thing in front of me is a bit overwhelming, right? It's since so much of this is spelled out in the carb and it might make more sense to be a little opportunistic to look through that and figure out what, because the other cross-section you want is what can be do, right? There's our expertise as what needs to be done, what's relevant to ECAC, and then there's also what is right for picking, which is, I think, really important right now because we need to do what we can do as fast as we can, right? So I think it would help to have more than a blank page in front of us here working on this. Yeah, Jesse. Yeah, and I think what I just to quickly follow up and then say the other thing is the idea maybe that I'm hearing is populate this, populate these pages and see what happens, see what occurs, see what we learn, what we learn, which I'm trying to establish in my mind what the end goal is, what might I learn, or what am I looking for, and maybe that's putting the cart before the horse, but one thing that keeps jumping out at me and I'm maybe saying the same thing in a different way is how do we have to narrow what we're doing? We dramatically, I think, narrow what we're doing. And so I'm trying to put the sentences like, does it mean like we're gonna pick one thing we're gonna do this year or pick two things we're gonna do this year? I heard someone say like four or five things per person. And I know it was little, and it was, I'm just like the whole group does two things, three things maybe. Like it just, that to me thematically as if we embark on populate this is where my head is at. Yeah, so another way to look, I guess another way to look at this could be carp has been published for almost a year. And I think in that year, we've identified some roadblocks to implement it. Like, what are the policy? Like what are the roadblocks that we're currently trying to address? And what are the ones that we haven't addressed yet? I mean, that's one way to look at it. And we've made some progress too. So I don't wanna sound like we haven't done, made some progress, because we've also made some progress, right? The other way to think about it is, like do we want eCAC to do projects? Is that our role? Or are we, should we transition to more of a advisory committee? And we put in process some, we focused then on putting in processes in place that ensure that we're advised at the right moments for the right things. Like, is that a better use of our time and expertise than trying to move forward on specific, or should we just be an education and outreach organization, like group? And all we do is make sure the public and the local businesses and other people are aware of what we're doing and that people's voices are heard in these, I mean, all of these overlap with different functions that already exist. But I think, so maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe it's focusing too much on the projects and not enough on like what is the, maybe we could go back to the, what is the role of eCAC in making sure where the town is meeting its goals, I guess. I think actually Anna might have something to say. Anna, are you here? And there's four people with hands up here. Okay, so again, I cannot see hands. So I don't know the best way to organize the conversation here. Laurie had her hand up. Why don't I keep an eye on the hands? Laurie had her hand up for a while. Hold on, I'm sorry. I'm not looking at the humboard, whatever it's called. Right now we could turn off the screen share while if we're not doing any work on it temporarily, that might help. Sure. Yeah. Currently Don has his hand up first. I'm a third in line after Stella. I have no being first, second, third, doesn't matter to me. So Laurie, Stephanie called on you. Go ahead. No? It's seriously, it's your turn, go ahead Don. All right, well, I just wanted to chime in and say I agree with Jesse. I may not have as good a grasp of exactly what our charge is. I mean, I can read language, but I don't often, I mean, I'm a lawyer and language can be interpreted all sorts of ways. I always thought our charge was to advise the council on what the town ought to be doing. If that's not right, tell me, because that's how I've been operating in my head. And so going back to what Jesse said, yes, the carp has been out there for a long time. I agree with the little stickums that said prioritize. I mean, I think we need to decide, there's a limit to what we can accomplish. And we ought to prioritize what it is we want to accomplish. What do we want to present to the council with respect to the goals we've set out as to actions for them to take, for the town to take, which I always thought what our goal was. What do we want the town to do? We're providing advice to the town council. I don't know, do we have the authority to go out and do our own projects? I don't know if that's the case. So maybe somebody could fill me in on that. But those are the issues that are swirling around in my head as I listened to this. I just wanted to clarify, because I think there might have been a little bit of a misunderstanding when I was listening to Jesse. I wasn't suggesting that we all volunteer to do like four or five things. I was suggesting basically, because I think this is a really nice chart, basically turning it into a chloroplast, like if people are familiar with that, like so you have the most kind of, the most densely populated squares and then the like least densely populated squares. We're here dense like lots of little dots would indicate that there's like a lot of interest and knowledge there and also a lot of belief that it's like important. And then using that to guide like prioritization, because if there's a box that's like empty, like no one knows about it, nobody thinks it's that important. Like then that could potentially be really helpful and immediately like ruling out what this particular group of people can prioritize even if it's like definitely important. Like all these things are obviously super important, but like everybody here has limited scopes of knowledge and interest and time. And so having some sense of like where people's like interest and because people are gonna people, even if in the abstract something, not that like objectivity in this way necessarily exists, but even if something is objectively the most important, if none of us are like interested in it, it's not gonna go anywhere, you know what I mean? So I think having a sense of that could potentially be helpful. Okay, so I just wanted to say that I think there's something that's been said several times that's bugging the heck out of me that the carp has been out there already a whole year. I would say the carp has only been out there a year, which is barely anything considering the scope of what's required from it. As a new member of this committee, I was sort of expecting we're gonna go through those, you know, that that was our roadmap. And the question is what did we wanna take on? And I would love to be talking about that roadmap and in that context, putting down, you know, what our interests and expertise is and what we would be excited about doing it again, what is right for picking and prioritizing that way. That's what I, and that would also give us new members a better idea of what's been going on because starting with this blank slate is not helping that unfortunately. So I'd really like to just chomping at the bit here to get moving on that, I'll give you to that. And I wanted to say that we can decide what we want to put our energy into, in terms of advocacy, in terms of GADFLY, in terms of organizing. I tend to feel like there are other entities in town that could do a better job doing some of those things, but we're in a position where doesn't, we don't need authority. We are a group of individuals who are volunteering our time and we can say, hey, not enough is happening here. And it's 122 and we have these goals. We have to meet by 2025, what's happening? We have access through Stephanie, we have a voice as a town committee and we should use it to meet our goals the best way we can. I just wanted to say something really a clarification point because it's been said several times. This committee is not a committee of the council. You're not a town council committee. You're appointed by the town manager. So your reporting authority is not to the council, it's actually to the town manager. And then the town manager is the one who sort of relates that information to the council. It's not to say that there isn't gonna be some interaction but there's been, I think maybe because of the previous configuration of the committee, it really confused and blurred some lines as to how that process should go. And I think it actually confused things quite a bit. So just for that point of clarification, it doesn't mean that ECAC wouldn't support the town council and its initiatives or the town council wouldn't ask you for specific information but it goes through the town manager. So I just want to be clear that that's the pathway. You report to the town manager, if they want something from you, they should actually be going through the town manager. So that's all. So Vasu and Steve and then maybe I'll try to summarize and see, get us on to a path forward. Yeah, Laura. So I think in terms of what we need to do today, I think of it as three different things around strategy, people and process. And with the strategy, it'll be our roadmap and the actions or the objectives from the CARP which I can share with everybody on my attempt to try to give a score to each of those actions, which I can actually do that right now while we're talking about it. And then the next part being around people to echo on what Don had said about, not knowing what the exact charge is. I think sometimes I struggle with, Steve and Dwayne do a really nice job. They bring up, Andra too, they bring up more and more stuff. I'm like, how do they know what to do? And I struggle with that. And I think making use of all of our times as volunteers and not just dump everything on Steve and Dwayne and Andra, I think that will be helpful. So, which I think the SWOT, doing a SWOT would help understand what are we good at and what are we not good at? And then the third thing will be around process which is execution is more on the tactical work around, you have an action, you have these goals. Are we tracking? How are we tracking? Do we have issues that we run into? What are our roadblocks and how do we overcome them? So I think that's the way I would look at it from a high level building the roadmap and the tactical aspect. And this here, what I'm sharing is the actions from the cart and my attempt to rate them by giving an overall score. So the top ones will be the ones that we would be working on and the ones that are lower score does not make an impact. So we shouldn't be really worrying about them. Vesu, I'm fascinated by that spreadsheet. Is that just your spreadsheet or is that something this committee has discussed? So I took all the actions from the cart and I created this and my attempt was here, we have an action. Well, are we responsible for it or do we wanna be informed? And if we're responsible for it, do we wanna lead it or co-lead it or I think it was just awareness, right? So we all understand whether Steve is working on it, it's just awareness. So he's a consultant in this case, right? Where's his, us being a lead. This is great. Is this new then? This is the first time we're seeing this or has this been discussed before? We talked about it, I think late last year. Thank you. Yep. Yeah, Steve, then Dwayne. One of my thoughts is that since we developed the carp, the Massachusetts roadmap has been more widely presented and the roadmap provides further roadmap for the actions that are needed. And yes, Laura, you presented those and as the rows in your matrix there and those are similar to but not necessarily always the same as what is in the carp. I think there's no shortage though of things we need to do and can do. And some of those are policy recommendations that go to the town, to the manager in the town council. Some of those are fleshing out of ideas that could become programs. And I think the rental property energy efficiency is falls into that example. We're researching various possibilities. There's a grant that's being administered by Stephanie in the town and some other agencies, but some of us have been helping to shape how that might be implemented. So I think there's a range of ways that we can work and perhaps we don't get too caught up into whether we are strictly advisory or whether we can do things. But I hope that we can do things guided both by our own carp and by the urgency of items that are presented in both the Massachusetts roadmap as well as a slew of other reports that are coming out these days as to what do we need to do to stop burning fossil fuels and to get climate neutral in 2025 by 30 years from now. I just want to add my voice. I've been listening and I don't disagree with anything that anybody said. I find there's an urgency as we're doing in this retreat to really hone in on what we can do as we've been talking about. And I think it is in my mind, it's kind of definitely an advisory role. We can maintain that. And I think we've been doing that largely and on both a proactive and as needed basis as things circulate through the town council or in the town manager's officers or that Stephanie's working on. So I think in my sense is that we want to continue that role and build that role so that we do become a well-recognized body for advice. In my mind that we can sort of continue sustaining doing that because it's not as resource intensive in terms of our time, I don't think as taking on some projects. Because I think we do also, at least I'm very keen on using this body to be a real change agent in the town in terms of some things we can point to there in the carp that we facilitate. We facilitated. I think we need to look at points of leverage because when it comes to those types of projects and Steve and Andra I think dedicated a lot of time to the with the RMI grant and project and so forth. And I think we can hopefully replicate some of that. I'm not sure how much of that we can take on. Given people's schedule and this is a volunteer organization. So I think we can do some of that but I also am really keen on trying to find leverage points within two forms. Maybe one is others in the towns that are organizations in town. I'm thinking of the CCA for example but others that are aligned with what we're doing and we can bring them into some of these ideas in terms of projects we might want to work on. And then second is looking using this body also to help to identify and potentially even I'm not sure about what Stephanie thinks about it but supporting Stephanie in identifying and finding funding opportunities for to support some of these projects more project oriented ideas that we might want to move forward. I'll finish by saying when it comes to sort of thinking about projects as was said before I think we need to really prioritize what's in the carp and pick one or two that are doable, actionable in the next short period of time that we can sort of start down a path. So I'll stop there. Okay, so thanks everybody that was really helpful and one thing I think that came to my mind during that discussion was the town is all about came to my mind during that discussion was the town is ultimately responsible for the climate goals and implementing the carp, right? So I've heard a couple of people talk about an advisory role I've heard a couple of people talk about going through and prioritizing. I think and the town has already done that to some extent like the town has taken the carp and each town department that has gone through and picked out things that they need to be working on but there's things that are probably falling through the cracks that either maybe we have interest in or that we wanna make sure push forward there's other things we're already working on. So I'm trying to think through like what I guess where I sort of get stuck and I'd be interested in other people's thoughts on is if we wanna play an advisory role are we set up correctly to do that as we're currently like our current as our current set up set up to do that? Because one idea could be that we mostly play an advisory role unless somebody's working on a project or has interest in something that they wanna bring into the table and then we can connect on that. I don't know. I mean, I'm sort of lost guys a little bit on what the best way forward for our group is. And so I'd be looking for any like we could go through the list, we could go through Vestu's list and the new members in particular could pick out some things they're interested in pursuing. I think that's a fine thing to do and we should do that but does that address some of these larger questions about or so maybe that's what we do. We just do, we continue to do what we've been doing which is the small projects. Everybody's doing what they're doing and we come to the group and we talk about them and we try to move them forward and we get asked to do things by other people and we do them. I mean, that could be what we do. So yeah, Lori. Yeah, I think that's important. I think having a group that is responsive, that's certainly what I feel like we ought to be doing. Finding out where we can make a difference and then making a difference and whether it's advisory or going out and doing some research or doing some outreach really depends on what we're trying to accomplish which is why I can't answer your question, Laura, without knowing what it is we're gonna work on. I'd like to go back to the first exercise. When we were brainstorming, we had a lot of stuff about focusing on our goals and holding different entities to the goals and collaborating with different entities to reach the goals and then a lot of engaging. I think every time we say, here, this isn't happening, how can we as ECA seek to make it happen? That's when we say, okay, is it policy? No, is it education? Yes, are we the right people to do the educating? Yes or no, do we need help from other people? Like really depends on what it is that's missing that we're obviously if the staff are doing great on getting electric vehicles, we don't need to do anything on it. So, but we should be watching, we should be in the know and filling in and or figuring out who should fill in if something's not happening. So I think we have a beginning already in that efforts. Yeah, and do we? And so that's a good, I think that's a good point, Andra, I think the question is, how do we get in the know? Do we feel like we're sufficiently in the know? Yeah, Dwayne. Yeah, just something came in my mind when Andra was just saying that, I mean, I think we're all about meeting these targets. And I think we could spend a little bit of time really truth telling what's gonna really get us to these targets. And it's not the town itself, it's the constituents within the town, it's all the heating we have, it's all the cars we have, it's all the electricity we use. And the town, I think that differentiates that's a little bit from Stephanie's work, particularly not to limit Stephanie just to the town, but her main work is getting the town, which represents what is it 3% of our greenhouse gas emissions for the whole town to be a leader by example. And I'm wondering whether there's a, if we sort of really think about how do we meet these targets, which are enormous. It's the change has to happen not at the town but in the people and businesses in the town. And is that a focus, more of a focus and that's education and it's, when we talk about projects, it's more like, are there demonstration projects that we can stimulate that lead the way, help to lead the way. And I think that's what the work Steve and Andrea were doing with the RMI and the rental properties and efficiency and electrification. But I think we wanna not lose sight of some of the substantial focus on the realish, on the real pathways to this deep carbon decarbonization and the role that we can take in the broader town, not just the town government itself. Yes, Stephanie. I just wanna second what Dwayne just said about the fact that a lot of the impact really is in the broader town and that is something that the town doesn't have the control. We don't necessarily have the control over. I mean, yes, maybe eventually some of our policies can implement more of that, but that takes time. And so we're really needing to, we are definitely needing to educate folks on what it is they can do. I think that gets back to Lori's point about like, how do I as a resident of this community who's a homeowner, how do I do the right thing? Or the thing that will get us to our goals. And I do, I mean, I've always felt that there is a really big component of this that requires education and outreach. And you are obviously an incredibly knowledgeable group. And I think you do provide that when it's asked for. I think you've contributed in some ways. I feel like you feel frustrated that you're spinning your wheels, but when I look back at what's been accomplished, I think you've done quite a bit. And I think the way that you're engaging with the work that I do, but also without reach to the town is kind of the work that you should be doing. And maybe it feels a little more haphazard, but I do think you're doing a lot more than you think you are, if that helps at all. Yeah, so I think, thanks, Stephanie. And yeah, that's a really good point. So then that kind of comes back down to the education and outreach piece. And it's something we've been talking a lot about for a while. And how do we move forward on that? Or do folks have thoughts on, because it gets a little overwhelming pretty quick. Yeah, Andra and Dawn. I think that we should focus a lot of our energy on the electrification and energy efficiency. The very things that people can do in their own homes or that we can influence landlords to do in their tenant's homes. Renewable energy is going to happen. Eventually we'll have a CCA. This particular group does not actually need to do a lot right now on that. There will be a time when we need to, and that, you know, or we could, but we could also just help facilitate other organizations to participate in outreach. So there's already a process for that. We don't have to do it. The resilient lands, healthy living lifestyles, whatever you had over there. I'm not sure about, to me, the biggies are electrification and energy efficiency, focusing on our buildings, and particularly on the private residential side. Andra and Steve. Yeah, actually I agree with what you just said, Andra. And I was looking at the materials that were sent out. I was looking at the CPACE materials and some of the little questions. I mean, we did have questions for us to consider. This is an outreach and educational kind of thing. How do we get the word out about this program? How do we get it out in a clear enough way? And, you know, one of the things people suggested was getting a list of eligible owners. I would think that through the town records, we ought to be able to, I mean, I know some of them from my business. I know Kurt Shumway. I know Barry Roberts. I know, but we ought to be able to get a list. And then, you know, do we put together materials? You know, how do we go about actually disseminating the information to the target group to be able to, just to take one project, one program, CPACE, and say, how do we make that work in this town? We have, because it's a university town, we have a lot of, you know, multi-unit smaller houses. We have probably have a lot more buildings that actually meet the criteria for CPACE. So it has potentially enormous impact if we can get our landlords who don't know about the project or who think they know a little bit about the project to really understand how this could be a game changer in a lot of ways. I can have, sorry to jump in only because I have a direct answer to Don. I think, you know, the easiest thing for that is partnerships and collaboration. We have the bid and we have the chamber right here in town and they're the organizations that we wanna work with. And I think Steve can tell you that it sounds like a really straightforward and easy process to get a list of, you know, who may and may not be eligible, but as we're discovering it is not that straightforward to get the data. I mean, I think people think the town just has these things readily accessible and we have lots of databases, but things are not always organized in the ways that you think they might be. And Steve can verify it's just, depending on what you're looking for, it can take a lot of time. But the bid in the chamber, really easy groups to work with and they're almost always willing and open. Yeah, so I'm not sure. No, I was trying again, sorry. I knew Steve was next and then beyond that. From my perspective, I think it'd be great if members of the committee picked an area of interest and it'd be fine if it's something from the carp. It'd be fine if it's one of the rows in the matrix that is on the ZAM board. And then spent some time, maybe there's two members working on a thing, on a theme, spend some time figuring out what needs to be done. And then in a future meeting, you report back, here's what we think needs to be done and either to make a recommendation or to make a collaboration or to write a grant. Whatever that next step is, is the thing that gets work done. And hopefully we get all the spaces in that matrix filled out, but it's not critical. It's more critical that we have people working and moving some projects forward, the projects that they're most interested in and knowledgeable about and excited about spending some time on. So in that, maybe we go back to Lasu's spreadsheet there and especially the newer members may wanna ask questions about some of the initiatives there as they think about which ones they might want to adopt and take a lead on. Yeah, Lori. Yeah, so I like everything I'm hearing now. I wanted to make one comment. I like Don and Andra's comments. I want to, personally, I think the emphasis though should be on conversion rather than efficiency because we already have mass saves doing a pretty good job of being very accessible about giving advice to homeowners and anyone who wants it on energy efficiency. The bigger problem is really how to get people to do that conversion and how to do it and how to get the information you need. I hope I will, when I'm done with my own process be able to report back because I am contacting a wide variety of contractors and everything from block power to mass saves and other people in the state to try to figure out what's the right way to go about doing something like this. So I might have some input there at some point but this is a problem that is not solved yet whereas the efficiency one and I also think it's less important in a sense that if we succeed in doing this energy transition we will have clean energy and efficiency will be less important. It's way down the road. I know but it's something else to think about anyway. Okay, so Don sort of got us to where I was thinking we would go to next time anyway which is try to take one project and really work through exactly what we needed to do to get it done. I think CPACE is a good example because it's there and I agree with I think I saw some nodding heads around education and outreach is where we have our biggest thing for our buck because we're trying to reach residents and commercial owners where we can't wait for policies and then when policies come to us to get and then I think there's another still another question in my mind about how to make sure policies related to this work come to us and budgets get reviewed by us but that's sort of a separate question that we can tackle maybe a different time. Dwayne, yeah. Sorry, I just want to, didn't want to interrupt that but just want to add, I think I agreed Don's onto something there. I would not necessarily limit if we bring together that use the bid in the chamber to organize an event, a symposium or an evening gala or whatever with the commercial owners in the community. I guess maybe it's a trivial point. I wouldn't limit it to CPACE. CPACE is the mechanism but what are they going to finance with CPACE? So as I see it, it's an opportunity to bring forward what we were also talking about maybe more on the residential side but on the commercial side of here's how you electrify here's the opportunities to electrify commercial buildings. Some of them, if I understand are probably multifamily units. So it may be more akin to residential but give them nuts to bolts of here's some really good opportunities to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions. We could bring in some of the suppliers of this equipment from town, Cerner provides heat pumps and I'm sure there's others or from out of town and a representative from Massave. I think to Lori's point, I think ideally you do the efficiency with the electrification because the electrification really needs that efficiency to work well. And I think we wanna make that clear to people and sort of give it nuts to bolts. Here's some ideas of technology to employ and here is a new financing mechanism that can make it work for you without great out of pocket expense. I do think I'll just add I think if we do pull something like that together again, I don't, we probably don't have maybe we can do some homework and provide some broader information that's useful but I think it really needs to come from a quote unquote experts and vendors in the field to bring this information and direct contacts that the owners could contact. But then I think we can also probably maybe think of getting somebody from Massave who can speak for Massave and even from the Mass AC or something to come out to talk about these programs as well. Yeah, Andra. So if we were in person, we might at this point divide into people who wanna think more in-depth about this idea of going after the commercial properties and some wanna go after the residential properties and start some working groups right now but we can't do that. So maybe this is the moment to say, okay, who's in for this? And take or maybe that's our next meeting but let's just take a minute and think about what to do with these ideas. Yeah, that's a good point. So I guess I'd also pause and say, I mean, I heard from some of our new members that I think they want the opportunity to make sure that they're, we're identifying projects that they have interest in or pieces of these projects that they have interest in. So looking to Don, Salah, Laurie, Vasu, is there another, is there something out in addition to sort of this electrification and energy efficiency in these two buckets, commercial and landlords and residential, I would say? Is there something else that we need to throw into this mix or do we wanna take some time to look at the carp again Vasu spreadsheet and come back next time with some thoughts? Yes, Salah. I'm always ready to talk about vegetation. I think that we can't forget the residential and commercial proximal land management when we're talking about electrification. And I think it does relate. I mean, I don't know if I really said this but I have experienced doing commercial tree work and that industry has seven times the carbon emissions of like related industries. And if these buildings like electrify, if you have guys coming like people coming two, three times a month to like mow the lawns on ride-on mowers and like, you know, like that adds up. And so I don't think, I know it's, I don't, I wonder if it's maybe too much to draw in the like the land piece and the land management piece, but I think it is really hard to disentangle and probably part of the same maybe conversation with people, especially because I think commercial land use and town land use for that matter really sets the tone for residential land use, you know, just like as a very concrete example, like if the town said, okay, we're doing no mow May, you know, we're not mowing the common for the month of May. That like sets a tone that like definitely has effects. So I do think vegetation has a role. I think like, and I think it has, it also like gets people excited if the town, again, just I don't know what the town's like wood use is, but if the woods like going, if tree removals in town have like an end-to-end local process where like the woods getting milled up and turned into furniture, what have you, like that also sort of similarly can really like change the tone of like residential land use. So that would be my two cents, that would be my two cents on. So I guess there's a question there, which is bringing in vegetation into this initial like conversation about electrification too much because if it is then like, you know, I'm like happy to work on anything, but if it's, but if it's, so that's the question. And then the comment is, the comment is my two cents is, I think it's really interrelated to the education and outreach piece on electrification because too many people I see like just electrifying their houses and then doing things very conventionally when it comes to the surrounding land. Yeah, that's a good question. My gut tells me that that's a separate conversation like or maybe the tactics a little bit different, like is the tactic, are these commercial? I guess my first, the first thought that came to mind, well, step back. I think for the residential piece, I think they could be combined. I think for the commercial piece, my first thought that comes to mind is that those companies probably aren't doing that work themselves. And so maybe we're talking about focusing in on the land management companies and maybe that's a separate conversation. I don't know, but that's a good point. There's also a place where, is it a policy? I know there are, there's been talk and I think even there are some counselors talking about like gas, you know, bands on gas powered equipment. Is that some, we've been asked about that before, like is that something we wanna pursue or do we wanna go with more of the voluntary approach or both, you know, at the same time? Yeah, Vasu. Yeah, I think each of us is gonna have something personal that we wanna work on, right? And, you know, Stella talked about vegetation and, you know, Steve could have something else, but regardless of what we like to do and what's personal to us, I think we need to look at the overall impact that each of those actions would have. And I think prioritizing those ideas and saying vegetation might not be the top idea. These are the top four actions that if we take, we can reduce emissions by X amount. I think that is more powerful than asking what we like to do. I think that's important, but I don't think it'll, you know, move the needle as much. Vasu, is it just me or is Vasu, is your microphone being weird? You sound very distorted. Does anyone else hear that? Yeah. Geez. How about now? Now it's good. You didn't hear anything at all? No, we heard it. There was just an odd robotic sort of sound to it. Okay. But you got the distance of the message. Okay. Thank you. Following up on that a little bit, what I heard from Stella was great. I think that's a wonderful thing. I would maybe ask whether it fits in the resilient lands and healthy living as one of the initiatives better than under electrification. And even if it's not high impact in terms of reducing carbon emissions, I think there can be value as in showing visibility as part of the education and outreach and getting people to think about their actions and the consequences and their values. So there's, I think a project can still be valuable even if it doesn't necessarily move the needle on carbon emissions alone a lot. I completely agree, Steve. I think that's why we need to look at factors. It can not just be carbon emissions. It should be around, how long does it take? You could move the needle by a significant amount but it's gonna take six years. Well, you could take on other actions that we have to think about those factors. So we could have a matrix that has some of these different attributes for each of the projects and carbon emissions is one but speed and bang for the buck. Things like that could all be financing. Right, yeah. I guess my preference is that somebody wants to do it and it's kind of in line with the carp and or the Massachusetts roadmap then go for it, develop a plan. Lawyer, Don, any thoughts from you on, I'm done, I think you sort of brought this idea forward. So we might have got you covered, but... You've got me covered. You've got me covered. Yeah. Yeah, I don't have anything additional. Okay. You have on the table. So this is what I'm hearing. Definitely want to focus on the community at large. It's easy for us to get focused on town stuff because that's the stuff that comes to us quick but that's not where the largest emissions are. Focusing on electrification and energy efficiency idea. I really liked your idea, Dwayne's, about maybe having an event organized with bid for commercial properties, bringing in these experts, bringing in the financing mechanisms, something we probably want to brainstorm what that might look like on the residential scale. Maybe that's an event at Hitchcock or something else, or maybe that's partnering with Mother's Outfront or some other groups. They could think there's something that we could think about there. The point about land management is this the same conversation, different conversations that a slightly different project is another question. And then I think the goals in benchmarking, Vesu, that sounded like what you were kind of getting at and that was definitely a clear topic of interest from our original brainstorm. So like, how are we tracking progress on our goals? How are we trying to see how... I think how are we tracking our progress and goals? We probably want to also think about how do we track the benefits of... So if we hold this event, is there a way to track whether that event was successful and how to make it more successful? And then this question of like, I think we all sort of agree that we want to play an advisory role and are the lines of communications there to help us do that where we need it when it's needed, I guess is the best way I can think of describing that. So what do folks want to do with... I agree with Andra. If we were in person, we would split up. We're not, we can't be in person, so we can't do that. So what is the best use of our time? So that's kind of five ideas. We could sit down together and try to map out. Somebody wants to take the lead on the commercial property idea. Like we could spend some time next time really mapping out. What would that entail? Who needs to call, who needs to email, who in like all hands on deck, let's figure out what's assigned tasks and get it done. We could start there. And then if we still have time, go into some of these other ideas, the residential property idea, the goals and benchmarking, and I know that Stephanie, you're gonna get an intern at some point, so that will cover some of that. But anyway, open to suggestions on how to make the conversation most useful next time. And how do we kind of, in this space that we're in where we meet once every two weeks and we go away and then we come back, like how do we make this, how do we move this forward? Yes, Stephanie. I just wanna throw in the mix while we're thinking about sort of project initiatives for next time, that there is a request in the ARPA funding. I put something in about a heat pump program and so there is, I haven't gotten like a firm yes or no, but I think the idea is that we might want to try to, again, partner with an agency to help implement something like that, but I really do see that there would be a role for the ECAC in that initiative. So I just wanna put that out there and that might also align with the CCA efforts too, but again, just letting you know that that's kind of an on the horizon thing that there is and there is funding being requested for it. And it's specifically, you know, the non-English speaking, low income, you know, residences that we really want to target to. So just putting all that out there because that'll take work. Yes, Steve and Laurie. I guess I have two thoughts. One is a possible homework assignment for the next meeting is that people go back and look at the carp and look at the matrix and then come back next week with some project ideas that they would like to possibly take the lead on. That might be a good idea or questions about some of the things in the carp for areas that they might wanna take the lead on. So that's one idea as we run down to the end of the meeting. The other was separately, I was semi-prepared to discuss and try to justify this proposal to organize our efforts under those four or five categories which Laura adopted in the Jamboard slide, renewable energy development, resilient lands and healthy living, electrification, energy efficiency. And then I actually I like how you put education and outreach as a column across for all of those as a set of separate robots. But I'm wondering if people are happy with that if we wanna discuss that as an organizing structure for us or not. I for one think it'd be helpful to think through that, like even for this process, even for the project around commercial properties, like let's look at just commercial property, electrification and efficiency. Like we know one thing we can do is try to organize this event and that will touch on education and outreach, but we also know we are gonna need some policy, we're probably gonna need some policy whether it's at the local or state level, we probably are gonna need some research or some other information. And so I feel like we need to keep that framing in mind as the ebbs and flows of this work happen. Let's say we have this event in September or whenever and then what's next for the commercial, what's next for that project? Is it another event? Is it a policy? Is it, I feel like, so I don't know if it makes sense to necessarily map them all out at the moment because then that may get overwhelming. I agree with that point that some folks made, but I think that's the framing we need to be aligning our work with, right? In some way, I don't know. Lori and Jesse. Okay, I wanted to mention something that's come up a few times now. So when we talk about partnering with some agency to try to make some change happen, some electrification happen, I worry a little that we're out of our, okay, I'll get a little personal. The thing that I think causes the problem here, there's funding available, there's all these great programs through Massachusetts available, but when it comes right down to it, when you bring a contractor in to look at your place and give you a quote, the contractors around here I'm finding out all want to do dual fuel. They know furnaces, they like furnaces, they want to keep doing furnaces. And they don't have answers. If you ask, why are we doing it this way instead of that way, they'll tell you, oh, because the manufacturer recommends it. And if you call the manufacturer to find out, they tell you to go back to the HVAC guy that's their local representative. So you can't get answers to anything. So I worry that this is a place where, and what I'm figuring out is there are companies that do this like Block Power. And I think there are others that come in and make those connections, make the recommendations, find the funding and make it happen. And I wonder if we shouldn't be thinking, and maybe this is for another discussion sometime, maybe in working on these, figuring out how to partner with agencies to do things, this will come up and this will be where we're going. But I just wanted to throw that bit of insight out there that's for my own recent pain that might be useful. Yeah, that's a good, so I think that reiterates Steve's point a little bit that we do need to be thinking in these four buckets because in my mind that's a, I don't know what bucket that would fit in, right? But that's sort of like a process bucket or how do we get the, yeah, or maybe we also need an education approach to the providers. And we're definitely not the right people to do that. So who do we need to talk to about doing that? Or maybe there's stuff out there that we don't know about. So then that's where the research comes in. Maybe Greenfield Community College or Holyoke Community College or one of the colleges is actually offering trainings on this that we, you know, so yeah, I think you're sort of illustrating to me, Lori, like the can of worms opening up that makes all this a little hard to focus. But I think we can focus. We just need to always have that barge of framing in mind in some way. Yeah, Jesse. So question, does this meeting end at 6.30? So one thing that occurred, I mean, I've got, I would imagine everyone here has got like a million things. And I know in the agenda, I think you had put in some time to establish what we're gonna talk about next time. I'm curious, is it, I wonder if it would make sense, Laura, rather than putting that on you to create an agenda for next time. If you could be supportive of that, is it, I wonder if like more than one person can take all the notes that they, you know, sort of take everything that happened today or maybe we even use the next 10 minutes sort of spit it out. What do we want to do next week? So the last two hours of retreat for the year, what do we want to do? Spit it out and establish maybe a couple of us and I'd be happy to meet in a group with someone come up with an agenda that you could emerge from a dialogue based on a listening session. Is that at a line? I don't want to step on toes. No, I would love for that. Andron, Steve, you have your hands up. I don't know about that or something else. I think Andron's pointing at me. Yeah, I think that is a great plan and that's kind of in line with what I mentioned earlier was that we all think of a problem that needs to be solved or that's one approach, think of a problem and that could be the electrification of home appliances and then we start brainstorming how to solve that and that would be the role. So if Lori was excited about that challenge, that could be the thing that she comes back to next week and in future regular meetings, reports on her ideas, progress. We discuss it for a little bit in our regular meeting and then we go on to the next effort that's being done and maybe that's Don talking about organizing a seat-pace conference for building owners and he presents a little bit about what he's learned. We give him some feedback and then we go on to the next project and I talk a little bit about rental efficiency updates. So that means that each one of us has got some kind of a project when we're doing work outside of our meetings and we come back and report on progress, get some feedback and ideas from the rest of us and then we in between meetings, we're continuing to advance those efforts and that includes doing research but partnering with organizations whether it's in town or nonprofits or statewide to help advance that goal or solve that problem. That would be wonderful. That looks like sounds like a great way to move forward. So people just need to find a project they're excited about and willing to invest some time in and maybe that's the homework assignment. I took my hand down, but I think that just, yeah, let's talk about what we want to talk about next week whether there's anything in between that should happen in terms of information gathering or idea gathering. If I could just correct something, I'm actually way more interested in thinking about conversion of larger buildings but dealing with it on my own, I see what the problems are for one little building, right? Yeah, I'll all say, Laurie, is that I was successful with Western mass meeting and cooling it just took a long to get time to get in their queue. Well, yeah, I have like five quotes now but they're all conflict. They're all telling me different stories and I don't know which one's right. They're not making sense. Yeah, happy to chat offline. ours has been going really well. So does anybody want to step up to leave the next meeting? Are you not here? No, I'm here, but I think, you know, it might be helpful to get another person's take on how to organ. So we have a couple, I think we have two options on the table. Option one is Steve's option where we each bring an idea or a thought and we kind of riff on those for a little bit. Option two is we double down on this commercial event and we really talk through like, what would it take to do it and who do we need to talk to? The problem with that is that it might, the first answer might be when he's talked to bed and we just have to do that and wait and come back but that could be, we could build that out of work plan for that and then use that structure of the work plan to then have other folks develop their own work plans on other projects that they want to do or we could take all the Jesse's suggestion and take all these notes and like somebody else with a fresh brain and look at them all and come up with an agenda for next time. So I think those are the three choices unless Andrea, you're gonna have to throw number four in. No, I was gonna weigh in on not the second choice. This is our retreat. This is our time to step back from project development and details and so we shouldn't dove into one except to think about, okay, so how would we do that? And perhaps two people could agree to come up with a proposal for how to do something like that and that could be a model for how to do other projects and we kind of have other models already but just to lead that part of the agenda. How do we go forward on something that not everybody really is gonna work on and then some other people might take a piece of the agenda to talk about education. Yes, Stephanie. You've in the past sort of divided up some ideas for projects and a couple of people working together on specific areas. So you've kind of been there before and it does seem like this is the opportunity for the people that said they would work together and this might have been pre some of our newer members. Although I think like Vasu was working on education and outreach so I think only maybe Lori and Stella weren't necessarily assigned to something but to sort of move forward from that idea focused on a particular area and I think it was one of the five areas that Steve identified looking at Steve's breakdown and coming up with even just one or two ideas that exist in the carp going back to Vasu's breakdown maybe sort of using his breakdown as your model and then sort of those two people going to that list taking projects and saying at the next meeting at the next retreat, these are the things we wanna do and then what Andra just said, creating the formula for how you then move that forward so that everyone's kind of working on a similar thing but you're all looking at different areas but you're in different projects but you're coming back at the next meeting to do what Andra said. I'm just basically encapsulating I think what several people said and then you create that formula for moving those forward because I don't think you wanna be spinning your wheels going backwards I think you wanna be going from a point where you already got to and moving ahead. All right, we have one minute left how do we wanna take this forward? We need assignments based on what we all talked about even if it doesn't end up being the particular group that you're gonna work with ongoing just a couple of people who seem to be interested in this or that to look at the tarp come back to the next meeting with some suggestions as Stephanie laid out. Laura, could you go ahead doing? I just do think we wanna think about an outcome for next for the end of our retreat which I agree with whoever said that we don't wanna necessarily spend retreat time going into details about exactly how we're gonna do a project but I think as an outcome of next week it would be great to be all on board with a set of projects that we are excited about and maybe everybody comes with a couple ideas that they're interested in and there's a process during the retreat to compare them and contrast them and put them together into a couple different projects that there may be overlapping ideas and to come up with a number of projects that we're all comfortable doing and then assignments of sort of for the next summer months or whatever to work on developing those projects. We should not lose track of our role as advisors as well and maybe there's people amongst us who don't wanna be so focused on projects but may be more focused on providing procedures and mechanisms and research and so forth that we need to provide advice to various parties. Okay, so what I'm gonna suggest or Vustu, do you wanna see something quickly? Yeah, maybe what I could do is work with Steve add those five classifications that he had proposed into the matrix and then share it with the rest of the team. The rest of the team can add new actions that they wanna take on if it's not on the curve already and then we can classify those based on those buckets that Steve had and then we can talk about it at the next meeting on who's doing what. So I would say a similar, I think you should definitely sit around your document. I think we should each come to the next meeting with what you wanna work on. And if everybody wants to work on the commercial event then that's what we'll work on. If everybody, if one person, if we all wanna work on different things we'll prioritize a little bit but I think we should just come to the meeting with what would make you excited to work, do work outside of UCAC time. I think that's like, yeah, Jesse. And think too maybe about how much time that is. Maybe we should all, and I might give an embarrassingly low number of hours with my life situation right now but still wanna consider myself valuable and not slow other people down so that might be something to think about. Okay. And then we'll figure out if anybody wants to brainstorm with me or has an idea on how to run the agenda so that we can get through all those ideas and end up I think to Joanne's point with a clear outcome, let me know. Okay, I'll save the Jamboard. I took a few notes, I'll save those and our front page and I'll send those to Stephanie. Question, can I send an email to everybody or should I just send it to Stephanie and will Stephanie forward it? You could send it to me because I'm thinking it might make more sense to send that to me and Laura. We have a conversation with whoever wants to work on the agenda and create the agenda and send that out. Like really, we need to get it out in the next day because the meeting's next week. I need to post it by Friday. So I'll send it right after this meeting. Some changes. Okay, great. Thank you everyone. Thanks everybody. I'll talk again next week. Bye all. Bye. Bye. Bye-bye.