 ready to go So I see a I see a quorum. I will call the December 10th 2019 governing board meeting for CP Fiber to order I did have one addition to the agenda that was About the name registration unfortunately Susan is not here yet, so I'm going to take that towards the Towards the end of the agenda. Is there anything else? We should be talking about Okay, let's let's put that Do that first to say Okay, I see her all right, so we'll do the proposal and then we're gonna do the registration Okay, so it's a name registration and Address Anything else that we have to add to the agenda, okay Any public comments anything not on the agenda that anybody would like to talk about Okay, hearing done Charter's report, I guess we will press the snooze on until Anything gets here Proposals, okay Before I make a motion I just want to give a little bit of backstory in this and that is as I've come up to the speed I've done it a little bit challenging to find the information that I need in order to Effectively come up to speed and I've also noticed that when I point people to the CD fiber website as an example There's not a lot there in terms of minutes and information on what CD fibers all about In addition to that as I started sending out surveys and so forth I also noticed that the way we talk about ourselves is a little bit all over the place There are a lot of different claims and assertions. They're used out there about what CV's fibers purposes and why we're doing this So my proposal would be to create a communications committee communications committee Purpose mission would be to consolidate the official communications from and about CV fiber By taking out activities included but not linked into developing and building a library of the official claims and assertions that CV fiber Can make in a public capacity? Drafting and distributing press releases managing public communications profiles such as website and social media and Consulting with members on the board on how to best proceed and other communication activities on it has needed basis If a board member is presented with a particularly tricky community question that they want a little bit of guidance on board could could help with that Drafting survey intros is another good example of that And so that's the thought process there just to kind of help button that stuff up and make it a little more polished and consistent As part of that I would personally volunteer to help get the website a lot more populated with information as I have loads of experience managing websites And that's it. So my motion unless anybody wants well on the table to any questions for discussion. Yeah, so It would be nice to have the concrete like a charter like a list of things that the committee is Assigned to do sure by the government board Would be nice to have that in advance and I apologize for not responding to your email sooner about what the committees that currently are in existence That said, I'm just one voice here. I'm happy to hear anybody else thinks as well Michael It does tails into the discussion two meetings ago where business development committee was thinking of dividing into two committees or into subcommittees I don't think you were there for that. I was out. No, so we were Calling it the outreach committee Subcommittee and so I think there are certain functions in the business development committee that could be offloaded into something like that Where that could be dobbled into it either way. I think there are things like Form of communications, but it's also And that came out of business development, but we kind of thought that was kind of different from RFPs for construction or business plans So we're trying to think of how we could divide some of our units into That fits I don't know which way would like to go whether they want to Take some more things off the business development and put it into this new outreach or communications committee or whether you want to Join our committee and be part of that subcommittee either way Little piece of that in terms of having a consistent message visibility Where you are placed good stuff, right? We haven't had minutes for months, so you're not far away on that Where would donor tracking stuff go in relation to that But that same business development our communication In my experience many nonprofits Love communications and fundraising into one department or in this case and in other Instances they are separate distinct entities to my mind. It makes sense to have them Work together as closely as possible. Oftentimes communications will Develop and curate the grants language bank so that we don't have to keep reinventing the wheel and submit applications We can just pull from an encyclopedia of Descriptions or narratives that summarize what we're doing and how we're doing it And then you know, but so I think it's something to discuss whether or not Communications is wholly distinct from fundraising or not, but they definitely will need to work really close Jerry I would say at the present moment while we're While we're still still kind of organizing the fundraising aspect that it's stay where it where it is And and get a little get it get grounded a little bit more. I think Shavon has started up something relatively new But along with that, I think the idea of somebody managing the content on the website is Brilliant, I think that would be that would be because we really haven't delegated that to any It's it's a little bit a little bit, you know Have hazard in in what gets up there to have a committee that's dedicated to that. I think that would be great Yeah, we've just shot stuff to Jared and it goes up, right. Yeah, right, right, right You know, I think actually this is a great discussion because it says that we're growing and we know what we have to Be doing better than we did two years ago when we first came up with the different committees that we're going to Establish so it might be time to have it sort of a general review of how the committees are structured I think that suggests such a organizational kind of thing to spend time on but It's the the organization is growing and I I think keeping the focus of what we're doing and how we get the work done It's a great idea. Maybe what you're just said could be a good Hatch to getting a website up and running a little bit better And that would be a good truck to He's willing to do it to just take over and see what you can do with that one specific thing I mean, you certainly identified a great need We've known it's been there for a while Yeah, the need is expressed as awesome By and you just kind of had a backside of it though, which is you know, what are we doing really in my The overriding certainly don't have for a while that we're elected members for only a year for a year It's a little hard to be operational as a group as we are It doesn't mean that you don't get in front of need and figure out a way to do it But I don't most be more comfortable kind of like what we do with Jared like saying You're the web guy For now until we figure it out for something like that But I don't know it's just something to think about because rather than we could end up a committee upon committee and a little bit of Confusion and as things change it gets a little hard to be operational There's some value there to having a system in place So the one person steps down makes or some steps that you don't know for the chaos of somebody's got one system It's true And I think it's two different roles to kind of one. There's one role to manage the website There's another role to manage the content I think those are two two two separate things So and I think you know, we've gotten to the point where we have enough Content and certainly we're getting more and more all the time that managing the content is a real need and not for an individual but You know, hopefully You know, you'll have compatriots So I wonder from the short term it might that might be a good idea to Essentially hand chuck the reins and just empower him to go and do whatever you're willing to do with Jared's help Because you have all of like the domain registration you've got all the logins and everything for that But yeah, I think we could hand that off to you and then maybe if we had a concrete list Maybe worked on in conjunction between you Excuse me and the business development committee But what is the charge of that new committee? Then maybe there'll be some people peeling off Development you want to go and do that then or other people who maybe feel that that's a better a better option for them as well For the approval for the January meeting there would there would be something written to approve right there would be a charter As you said, yeah, okay Yeah, so so that I mean I think there's a lot of good ideas about what this To be created committee might do But I think having a concrete bullet like here's the thing that the governing board is actually going to Delegate that responsibility to you it up rather legal sense Yeah, just one other comment and that is on the fundraising topic I was definitely envisioning that that would stay in the hands the business development committee But that the two committees would be working hand-in-hand to craft the messaging around the fundraising activities Yeah, I just wanted to state that you know as we're as we are growing as organization And as we're getting these these grants as we continue to progress We are becoming more Evident in the public's eyes of PR has become really important really quick And the messaging that we're gonna have to construct To make sure that the public understands who we are what we do and why we're doing it needs to be constructed in a way that is understandable I remember you had brought this up before on some documentation that we've had that you wanted to go back in and make it a little more lame and whatever So that language is more to the broad majority of So I think maybe I don't know if it's a conjunction that Or how that would work, but I think that's a really important piece that we can't forget David did you have something? You got so many thoughts on this so what would you like to tackle first? It sounds like I have a pretty clear charge here Which is to come back with the January meeting with a concrete in writing proposal We added to the agenda and how for for discussion and and I'll join the business development committee in one of their Upcoming meetings to to work with them on a formula and plan on on goals and responsibilities That's how I'm right to you sure and if there's anything else that you think needs to be on the website I think we can probably even without a motion to say if there's something that you think belongs on there Something needs to be changed or added or whatever sure How do you guys just work work together and do? Do what you feel is best. I mean Yeah It's public and what is private Of course I would just add one final element to your already Charged which is that in terms of last at the last meeting. I'm just looking at the minutes now. We discussed collecting stories from Community members who would like to share stories about their internet service and CD fiber if we do have a Person or committee or whatever is in charge of communications. It would fall to them. I think to manage and and Catalog those stories in a responsible way in coordination the fundraising again So we don't use the same persons if we do choose to go with the fundraising, you know appeal letter process We don't use the same story every six months or whatever It would be community up to communications to Shepherd that makes sense Okay So you'll be located I do work. Yeah, excellent anybody else on this Okay Oh, yes Wonderful so Susan asked if we could talk about the name registration and there was another Another point brought up that we should also talk about having an address So we've been talking about getting a PO box for some time. We have funding for that We could pull the trigger on that at any point that somebody just wanting to go and do that paperwork. So I'm happy to Have things over to you at this point Does the town is a does it matter where the town the boxes? Be tough to have one bro I have a long story to tell you about that Okay Well, certainly the it buries the rates would vary with boxes I suppose my popular be the most expensive So that would be part of the part of the research I mean, I don't know that we necessarily you know need to nickel and dime too much but if you know if it is Let's say the Elmore post office Turns out to be the cheapest. I'm gonna go in a limb and say that maybe we don't want to choose that one Because otherwise Alan is gonna be you every time Well, and from me it's another 15 miles so We can so I want to think about what's that? That would not be so bad, so So, so what are the what are the candidates? I'm up here. I think there are actually some PO boxes that are they're available that are in Berlin they're on Cross on route and route 12 by the virus fire station That's very close to office, but actually have some They're So we could I mean we can Right now we can we can pre-approved who want to approve up to a certain amount But it might be it's cheaper, and I don't know if you're trying to get a place in my failure or you're trying to avoid my failure But I know the coffee shop there, you know escapes me at the moment At times has has Box services I guess I guess you can't say post office So still there Okay, so if it's okay with the group, we're going to look at East Calis, East Montpelier and Montpelier, and I would come at the budget in front of me. I don't know what the line item would be, but I can propose, I know, a little woodbury is like $65 a year. So a 5.5 by 11 post office box in East Montpelier is $150 per year. So we can maybe cap it. Is this smaller one? 3 inch by 5.5 inch extra small is $64. It's a really nice figure, right? Instruction materials. Well, I mean, it would be nice to be able to have to receive, you know, full-size envelope or something like that. But you just go to the counter. It's going to be that frequent? They just put a small box, they just put a little notice of the ability to go to the counter. To you? To you tell me. You're the collective wisdom global brain. And you can upgrade later. Yeah, go small. Start small. Okay. I think maybe we'll start small and do a 6 month. Look at a 6 month. And then renew it. I think you can always upgrade and just pay the difference, right? Here's the thing. You don't really want to change your PO box number that often. Especially you're going to have some stationery you're going to be printing out. Probably business cards. The physical box isn't where the number is. If you change the size box, you have to change your address. It won't go you. Okay. So why don't we just go for the 12 months then? I don't think that, you know, penny pinching about this is really going to matter. So I'm going to move that we authorize Susan to get a post office box for CP fiber for no more than $75 per year. Okay. Thanks. Any further discussion? Okay. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstaining. Okay. There you go. Okay. And if you if you paid for that yourself, we can revert to you or if you want, if you want to check drawn from our bank account. Okie dokie. So the PO box and the name registration, so that registration apparently the CP fiber name registration expired last February you said. Yes. It's just surprising. The non-profit entity itself is not registered. Just it was like a hold on a name. Yeah. Just the name was registered for. Yeah. And we had to actually kind of seize that name back through the ministry process because somebody else registered for it. We went through an unknowing process. Oh, okay. And so if that needs to be re-registered to, do you know the cost of that? Like $50? Usually, yeah, for corporations. So we should also register essential Vermont Internet. That was the actual trade name that we... Do you want to do a DBA as CP fiber? I mean that's that's how I think that's how we're organized with with the IRS on the EIN registration. Let me verify that. So we already have an EIN number. We do. And we needed to do that for all of the grants that we've gotten. So we are Central Vermont Internet doing business as CP fiber. Yeah. Central Vermont Internet is the name of the communications union district. But we have been doing business as CP fiber. Okay. So it's CV... It's Central Vermont Internet? Correct. Inc or LLC? Nope. It's not an Inc. It's not LLC. It's a communications union district. Question. That could be that you did a search for Central Vermont Internet and we... That's true. Yes. It could be that we are up to date. We should check and see. Okay. It could be. Because they do notify you just before you expire and let you know and I would think Becca would have gotten that message. Presumably. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it got updated. Right. It got followed. So... I'll look into it. I want you all to know what's going on. I'm just going to look it up right now because we should authorize you to spend the money if it's necessary. So, let's see. Stand by. Okay. Central Vermont Internet, CUD. This is technically a business name. It is registered by Becca. It is listed as active. So, that happened. The CV Fiber, that was a... I think that was registered as a DBA. I'm not mistaken. Let's see this one. So it's... What did you say? Central Vermont? Central Vermont Internet, CUD. CUD. If you just search for... CUD. Yes. We're a communications union district. Communications union district? Yes. That's the kind of organizational structure that we are. So, we're not a corporation or a specific kind of municipality. Okay. So, yeah. She only had a name reservation. We didn't actually pay to register it. So, it would be worthwhile to register that. And I think... I think that's $50. Somebody knows better than I do. And a DBA is better than a free... Okay. So, I'm going to move that we authorize Susan to also spend $50 on setting up the CV Fiber DBA. Is that your... Thanks, Chuck. Any further discussion? No. All right. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Okay. We have $50 more for you. Look at that. Yeah. I'm getting rich here. I guess so. All right. Anything else on this that you think that we need to do? Okay. Is there anybody else that... I would like a copy of the... Sure. ...number. All right. Just for my records in case I have to go out and find something and I don't want to pay tax. Oh, of course. You have it. Move it. Okay. All right. We're still parking the Treasurer's Report for the moment. Business Development Committee report back at next steps. Okay. The committee meant we could go Tuesday or we could go for today. Back. And we finalized the ranking sheets we used to review the proposals. They were sent out to everybody the next day when we received date proposals. We're meeting on Thursday night to look at all the results and try to deal with the numerous questions we now all have with each of the proposals. I don't want to forecast so we may not be able to deal with this thing next Tuesday. I mean, in terms of recommendations, we'll have more questions so we have answers. And then we'll let everybody know after the meeting on Tuesday, Thursday night what we got to and a pretty wide range of proposals for those people who had a chance to look at them. Some good ones and some mediocre ones. And I think there's a couple in there that we can probably all dismiss out of hand. But there's a way to even consider those. So we do have a ranking system that we agreed on. And there's only eight of them. And you got to read it before you can dismiss it out of hand. So it's going to get a poor ranking and it will not rise to the top. Having read them, there are some with major gaps, major holes, major flaws, that I think we have enough good proposals that we have enough to work on without spending too much time on the patently flawed ones. We're trying to do this aggregation and selection in one meeting. So we're only going to talk, I suspect, there's going to be pretty much agreement on which of the top ones. I do have a question though. It wasn't clear to me. I've already sent in my rankings to Greg. But is it only the Business Development Committee that's submitting rankings or is it everyone? You may want to review all eight and submit it tomorrow though, right? Today was the day. No, we'll have those tomorrow. Your email says tomorrow. My calendar for today so I can force myself to do it. So my follow-up question is because among the small group, we already assumed that we were going to do this. Is it appropriate for somebody to only send in a ranking on one or two of them and not all eight? You got to do all eight. You got to do all eight. You do. That's right. Okay. I did all eight. You all have to do all eight. And we requested that anyone who does, outside the committee who does do rankings, please attend the meeting on Thursday. Yeah, please come. And the meeting's at 5.15, right? Correct. Sorry about that. That's okay. I need an assistant. Editor, everybody needs an editor, right? Anything else, David? That's it on that. Any questions for David while he's here? We're going to have a good meeting on Thursday. That's going to be the bulk of the work for this quarter anyways. Okay. Status of the survey? Okay. I tabulate the results we have to date. And some towns are doing a lot better than they had been. We have 1,014 responses, which is 4.7% of all premises in Vermont. I mean in the district. Well, it doesn't include more town. We'll have more town in the next month. With middle sex still going up. I don't know what you guys are doing over there. 21% of middle sex households are filled in. Well, some of you are filling in more than one. I took hard copies down to the town clerk's office and said beat up anybody who hasn't filled this out. And then it was just number two. And then there's a fight between Calis and East Montpelier. East Montpelier has moved way up. That's great. It's a challenge. I mean, I took around paper surveys to the three posts. For those who don't know, Calis has three post offices. Two stores and a rec center. And I have not seen any paper surveys come back to me. So I'm not sure that's even going to work that well. But it's trying. I mean, at least we're trying. And we may have to go do it a door. But we definitely have some interesting information just from their turn so far. And in terms of CV5 or competitively priced broadband service to our community, how likely do you need to subscribe? 49% said definitely would. Probably would is 40%. That's 89%. Now, OK, so we get 50% maybe would be doing OK. But it was what I thought. And I didn't summarize the results. But most people who filled in the survey have internet service. So it wasn't like, you know, I mean, there's a whole bunch of questions about whether you're happy or not. But I thought those numbers were pretty nice. The next one was, it's dating that you're probably definitely probably subscribed to CV5. But what are your primary reasons? Number one was for higher speeds. 69% of the people filled in that pocket. And next was, it's improved liability was 55%. So that's what's driving some of the responses here. And then the last one that I've summarized, would you be willing to invest in the planning, construction, and their operation of the network in the first two years of the people who replied to that? There were 772 people who answered that. 46% said they'd do a two-year presubscription. Because we didn't know the price. I said, reasonably priced. And looking at the prices that we put on the survey, the bulk of them are coming in right now. People are spending between $50 and $100. Yeah. So I may have gone wrong, but the survey didn't indicate a two-year presubscription. Did it? It just said presubscriptions. OK. I don't want to get the two years. Anyway, thank you. And then the 8% or 63 people said they'd give a gift. So Juan has that data now. Yeah, I have the data. I haven't massaged it yet, or put it into a little green light, because it turns out it's going to be a bulk. And I don't know what other meant. 110 people said other. So that's the surface. They're going to go door to door for serving. In kind. In kind, yeah. All right. So that's, I mean, one of the issues in the RFPs, and for those who have read the RFPs, I mean, they're counting on us having this information for them to do the study. There are a number of communities that would be really hard to say that there's enough information in the survey for them to make a judgment. I know what to do about those. Like Elmore, Roxbury. Is Roxbury got a new delegate? No. No, it's still John, and he's still in Swanson. And so I will offer, because I'm going to have time over the next roughly month, if there are towns that don't currently have paper copies of the surveys at their town offices, schools, other public places, tell me now, I will print them out. And I will either put, if you don't want your address on it, or contact information, I'll put mine on there. And I will just, I will physically print it. I will physically drop it off. I have the time to do that. How many people have done the printed surveys and put them in there? And have you gotten things mailed back to you? I've gotten nothing mailed back to you. Actually, I have this question. I have you as very town numbers on it at all. Yes. Okay, good. You know, very town had probably the biggest increase, but it was so low that it was good. Oh, it's that too. The cabin's up. Cabin's up. So I put the QR code, the poster up, all over national life. And there's a whole bunch of people in national life who live in the immediate area. So I'm guessing that boosted some of the numbers because I had several people who were talking to me. Are you, Siobhan? Did you put that? What's going on? So I had several people in the building who pigged me on that. But I haven't, I can't get my clerk to understand what I'm asking her to do. I asked her to print out the poster, put it up and told her I would drop off paper surveys. But she said I can't get the paper survey into the newsletter because that would make it 20 pages long. Can you clear a spot on the desk? I'm just going to place it in here. I just haven't had a chance because her hours are so trimmed. I just haven't had a chance. So if you could drop some off for me, you could put my name on it. I actually constructed, sorry. Those folders you get when you go to conferences and people stuff paper on both sides. I kind of had half. I put Siobhan's little thing on the front of it and stuff 20 surveys in it. Use push pins in the places I went to. So the difference between callus and middle sex is callus put them in all the places. The middle sex said to the clerk, you've got to get everybody's business. And that's the key. So putting them in every place isn't the key. It's getting somebody to manage them there. And if you don't have someone to manage them, you can't manage them because it's not a language problem. So that was the right answer. Yeah, probably, yeah. For Berlin, you know, Corinne sends out the things you need to know for Berlin. That's true. Could she attach it as a file? Well, she could attach it as a file, but she could also, I mean, if they're getting her emails, they can easily click through on the link. Right, but if she had both options. Sure. I will send it to her immediately. We're sitting in a school, and this is where our education begins. And if maybe we can ask the superintendent on the school systems, if they could send home in their Friday folders maybe one of our surveys. Now Washington Central is supposedly doing that. Oh, yeah. Okay. I gave them all the information. I gave them the surveilling. Will you follow up with them and just get a timing? Yeah, sure. Who was that? Washington Central surprised me. But who was that? It's now called. Do you remember who the contact was? Yeah, it was the superintendent. Oh, okay. Wait a minute. It's a John Kendall. No, no. It's a woman. A woman. She's standing there. I presented to that district their meeting. It was held in Milisex about three weeks ago, and the IT guy from the district was there, and we got a lot. I mean, he's pretty much behind us a lot. There's five schools there. What is the... So data collected from surveys is often used to represent a snapshot in time. So I'm just wondering when... not to be the trumpet player, but what is the end point of this data collection? And I'm thinking long term, how would we use this data for fundraising purposes, for grant applications, that sort of thing? I just wonder if we stretch this out over six months, one could argue that that data is not representative of the current movement of the population since it's been going on for so long. Just throwing that out there, I think just my own limited understanding is that the response rate that we've received, if those numbers are unduplicated results, it's already statistically valid. We could write that by UVM or somebody, but I think... And they're very encouraging figures to be sure. So I'm just wondering when, if ever, should we call it? So first of all, I don't think we can call it statistically significant ever because it's a self-selected survey. Second, there's a percentage that we stated in the RFP that the consultant is expecting to work with. And that's where the buck stops. Are we going to hit 20%? I'm going to go with probably not. But we will get as close to that as we can so that we have something useful to hand over to the consultant who will hopefully then be able to do something useful with that. But that's the point. We need a time. It's really related to when the consultant needs to write the feasibility test. Which is the first two months. It's the beginning of the year. The first two or three months of the year that data has to be in hand and used. Deborah Taylor is on the way. Deborah Taylor, thank you. I would ask that we at least leave them open a little longer. We've had more times out there for four whole days. We've got a few more months. You already had a bunch of time. I would also argue that this, probably the stale date on this is probably pretty far out given how static the Internet landscape is in our area. So I don't think that that's going to change anytime soon. So I think we could make the argument that yeah, this was last November but nobody moved into the area since then. Sure. I was envisioning maybe using this data at some point when, given how encouraging it is, a sort of press release of generated bodies or a grant application or when we submit an appeals letter or something like that when really time of rights so that we can really benefit from the good press. Absolutely. I did use it in our grant application. Good. Any details on the server? Thank you. Status of grants. I can start us off. The think-for-month grant that's been waiting for insurance and was waiting for me. I have all the paperwork in waiting to hear. I've not heard back from DPS about the final paperwork to be able to pull the trigger on the broadband innovation grant. That should be soonish. We'll see. And then USDA is just kind of ongoing reporting. I submitted the first required quarterly report for the USDA grant actually before our last meeting. There'll be another one due in January, I think, for the fourth quarter. So the quarter ending in December 31st. So not much to report there. I have to get with Nathan to make sure that any expenditures that we have made that those just come out attractively. I don't think we've asked anything, any reimbursement from the CABAC grant. That would probably be the place where we should go first would be my instinct. Anything else? Anybody has any? Well, I was just curious. I never mind. It's not related to the grant. Okay. Can you let me know something about the CABAC grant? What is that? It's $500. It just needs to be an invoiceable item. You know, something that's whatever. It's just for general expenses or support. So it's through the community foundation. Oh, that's nice. So like PO Box, for example. The PO Box, the registration. The registration software. Those would be great items. Yeah. I imagine that turnaround is going to be rather quicker than USDA. Okay. Status, fundraising, and software. That's you. I have three days left on the free trial that I had for a little green light. I like it. I'm going to be able to work with it. And so I need to pay for it. I have payment options. If we pay for a year, the discount is $39 a month. If we pay for half a year with a 5% discount, I can pay for it with a credit card, an ACH payment, or an invoice. I can request an invoice. And I didn't know how we wanted to proceed with that, but it sounds like the CABAC grant could be used. I would say, why don't we try this with you pay credit card, give me the invoice, and you'll submit it from experience. I'm going to have to talk to my budget manager about that. I'll do it if you want. I'm happy to do it. So maybe could you work together at the end of the meeting? Go and do that. And then you'll get emailed a receipt. Please make sure that both Nathan and I get a copy of that. Because we'll need to document that as well. I've added both you and Nathan. Yep, and I actually clicked the thing once I set it up to actually get the little training videos and stuff. And I've added myself as a constituent and I put in my five hours of survey taking at $18 an hour because that's what survey companies are paying their survey takers who go out and around now. So if people are doing stuff, let me know what your hours are. I'll find out what the general rate is for whatever that is and I will add it as an in-kind donation to our database. How much is one year for that? I mean if you guys are going to pull the trigger. They're $39 times 12 minus 10 for each for each. You're the professor. I just thought you were not. It says $39 for per month and then yearly is a 10% discount. I hadn't tapped on it yet. Okay, $421. $10 off the $39. I included that. $421. So just in the event that they charge you extra for the credit card fee or something like that I'd like to authorize Siobhan to spend $450 on fundraising software. Second. Any further discussion? Okay, all in favor? Opposed? No, she passes. Siobhan, the national independent sector does a volunteer rate every year in a lot of non-profit hourly rate. It's $25.23 an hour. That's sweet. You got a raise. I don't need it even. That person might get paid $80 but you can tell you the firm is charging $38 or $50. I didn't know if it was local rate or if I could use a national rate. So I just called a guy. How much do you pay? Yeah, well I'm going. That was an up to 450. Yeah. I'm just going to comment on the logins and passwords for the website and the passwords for that stuff. If you want to start thinking about password management if somebody gets an accident we still have access to part of the system. Key pass database might be nice. Okay, that's something that somebody can just go and set up? Yeah, it's a free download and they can actually even export a database that we can have somewhere else. So in case with a password safe, I just didn't know if there was an enterprise sort of thing where we could essentially assign one password which is the other one. Yeah, it's quite unique. And they have more enterprise like features you're just going to pay for. So I think as long as we have more than one admin on each piece of software I don't think this should be too much of a problem that we need to go too crazy about it. Is there another person who has admin rights to your machines? I mean, I'd be happy to say a couple of things. One password teams is $4 per person per month. Which one is? One password teams? Not sure that we're at that point yet. There's last pass and key pass. Key pass. Now you use last pass. Okay, any other thoughts on fundraising and software? Anything other software that we should be looking at? Yeah, I hope I'm putting out the annuals Oh, okay. That's right, status of fundraising, so this is the our treasurer is not here, so in his place I will do the obligatory board member shakedown. You know folks, with your help we can build better broadband in Central Vermont. We can only do that with help from your wallets. I would encourage you all if you have the opportunity. Cook on the website. Yeah, you can do it right through the website. You can do it by handing me a check. What's up? And being able to say that fundraising effort has 100% board participation is very important. And it's often required for major fundings. Ordinance is $5. Yeah, that's something that Norwich really holds out as the faculty, just the people who even throw in $5, $10. So, notwithstanding all of the wonderful in-kind work that we do at, you know, a living wage. Not that you actually get paid it, but you get to live at a living wage. So, yes, if you're willing, we would certainly accept your contribution. Tax deductible. Okay, anything else on fundraising and software? Okay. Approval of meeting minutes. Thank you, Susan, for sending us meeting minutes. Nathan and I are still pounding Becca to stand. So, Becca, if you're happy to be watching this, we should not. It's minutes. Go, pull up those minutes. Does anyone have a chance to review them and see if there's anything that needs to be modified, changed, et cetera? Do you accept? Seconded. We've been seconded. One bit of feedback that I would have is that in the list of people present, my name is spelled correctly there in the actual body. My name is not. So, Hansen is the Swedish spelling E-N-H-N-S-O-N is the Swedish spelling. I'm Danish. Hansen, H-N-S-E-N. Just saying. Right there. Swedish was the O-N. All right. Any other comments on this? All in favor? Opposed? Abstentions. And two abstentions. Okay. My meeting was like this, right? Okay. I did see an email from Nathan, so I'm going to hold on. I'm just going to see if there's something to report back, and I'll do the churches report this. Oh. Not sure. So he was wondering, there's a calendar of events. Because he maybe didn't know that we had a meeting tonight. He was on the list, though, I thought. Anyways. Okay. So, we'll follow up with him next time, so we're not going to have a treasures report. That's the wrap. Okay. Roundtable. Bill? I'm just kind of excited in terms of waiting to really see what the business development community does as far as prioritizing proposals. We'll look at them and maybe there'll be a little bit more information coming up tonight before I Anyway, looking forward to next week. And at the end of the meeting, if you want to just thumb through them, I have them here. I just have one thing to add, and I've just looked at a couple of the proposals so far. But I was just looking at some of the proposals and the insurance that they offer under our name for the work that they do. And I'm just thinking back to the waiver that we got for liability insurance, and they want us to be covered up one million and a lot of those are not close to that. So I don't know if that's something that we need to think about as we're looking for these proposals, that they cover up for general liability at one million, 300,000 or whatever that they're proposing. So they're different thresholds for different grants. Right. That's the right way and the only way to do that is saying that that was the grant. And as we go forward, as an organization, we may need to be covered at a higher level. Well, 300 was a number we used because that went back to the grant requirements that we're looking for. So that wasn't even our number, right? The 300,000 was a state of Vermont number. But the thing Vermont grants had was a large number. Which is they're both state of Vermont grants, technically. Right. So we may have to go back and look through that. And like I said, I'm not sure which number is the right number that we should be thinking about using. I just wanted to put that out there. Yeah, well we used that number because that was the number needed for the grant that we're going to chase to pay for that. So that we have to pay for. Gotcha. And it might be worthwhile if we find ourselves still scratching our heads about this going back and talking to ACCD and saying this is the RFP that we have. Is this okay? Given that we're going by DPS requirements and for some reason ACCD's language was different. I don't know if you have any explanation. Yeah, if you find out any sort of secret message that we're not getting or misunderstanding things. I'm good. I'm good. I should have said it's the agenda. A report from the National Electric Liaison Committee. I forgot to say that. So Greg Kelly and I met with early in the months we met with Barry Bernstein and Stephen Holtman from the board and then subsequently we met with Dan Weston and Bill Powell staff members at WEC and I think we so the more important meeting was the second one I think and topics that came up were WEC participation with our surveys. We got further encouragement that we could use inserts in the currents or inserts in bills. We made it clear to them that the surveys they do at every five or six years they have to do a member survey and they wanted to include some some CV fiber questions in that survey and we made it clear that it really wasn't going to be useful to us to far out by time and second of all they only send it out to 600 members of the 41 participants so it's a tiny tiny sample but they would be willing to do a full CV fiber survey as an insert in different things and then one idea came up which has to be explored they have an answering service for how it is and such that answering service has access to all the member files and member contact information and that WEC would entertain the notion of CV fiber pain to have them do a telephone poll for us reaching members saying would you be interested blah blah blah so we could create a short poll of WEC members were in the 18 towns they could call them we could figure out a statistical method to do that and that might be very useful for the feasibility study statistical stuff so that was that we talked about placing fiber in the electric space versus the communication space and the different changing peripherals at the state right now the PSE has already submitted a final proposed new rule to get the acronym of the organization that's going to make the decisions which includes do you want me to go into the details of that or leave that part out? 10,000 foot view one touch which means the ability of an installer to do the make ready for all the communication staples rather than wait for the utilities to do it and also a provision to have approved contractors do it rather than wait for the utilities if they haven't if the utility poll owners have not met certain timeline thresholds and a shortened make ready allowance period and a different spacing on the poll and a different rate so there's a lot of changes coming some of these are really good probably the cost will go up so that's going to change the budget a mile for make ready cost goes up at the time your reaction time goes down way better so a 30,000 a mile estimate could go up to 32,000 miles I'm just doing that I don't know what it is but it's going to go up however if we're in the electric space we still think we can get away with no make ready and no pole attachment fees if we're working with the poll owner who would perhaps own the fiber lots of possibilities there's a lot of rules that WEC has to stick with and may not be able to do that for us so it's all and we're still going to have to go and bring that in power poles as well I think that's complicated so we discussed that a lot we're we're going to get a list of their entire 10 year plan to improve poles in the WEC territory that's really valuable because if we know they're going to replace poles in an area that we strung fiber it's going to cost us twice because we'll have to move cables so it's always good to follow their improvements plus more improvements they make the less make ready may be necessary so if we can coordinate with them that's going to save me too Velco Velco, that's what we started with so they have concluded an agreement what they're calling a pilot agreement with Velco to run 72 count fiber to two substations of which 12 fibers will be dropped into the WEC office building and one other substation and the other 60 strands are to be discussed it's a pilot because Velco hasn't figured out how they want to monetize it or they haven't been ready to tell WEC how much they want and so they've said we're going to let you have these for free we're going to work this out and then we're going to do the rest of your substations based on what we work out how many miles is the two substations? one of them is like half a mile or a mile and the other one is like six miles Jeremy, I hate to be this person but as a student of the open meeting all we didn't warn this discussion and I would suggest can it be just a new business that we asked for agenda when we asked for agenda? I can stop I just think that we should be careful if you're delivering your round table here and we don't get into too much discussion I think we're probably if there's back and forth I would caution against that I think we'll be good I think I covered it all anyhow so I've been chestized at the right time is there a value in putting this on the agenda in January? I mean are we going to know the same report or we're going to figure out meetings and I'll report the next one in January is when the RFP that Weck will respond to goes out I don't know if it goes out or if that's when their responses are due so to get a better sense of where Weck is thinking they're going with regards to getting their grant money to study stuff I think we could use it so that's a yes for the January agenda they're also very interested in hearing who we select because it might influence who they select January agenda or is there a 17th meeting? the 17th meeting as I understood it was for us to discuss our so we could add another item to that I thought we were going to keep it focused on focusing focused on just the selection of the proposal of the consultants we could go to a special meeting we could hold a different meeting but that was sort of where my brain went no, nothing from me I was surprised to learn maybe I shouldn't be surprised but Mansfield Fiber got the first VEDA loan already approved November how much? $300,000, $400,000 so not as big of a chunk as we are so I don't know what's available in terms of learning about what their proposal looks like so they must have already done a feasibility study of some sort I know they're a for-profit they know their business so who's the right person to follow up with them and see if they're willing to be kind neighbors I mean not that they're exactly neighbors not me obviously does anybody know anybody over there willing to talk to them I actually go inquire about the feasibility of applying now innocently VEDA you mean? I'm at Mansfield I just didn't know I didn't know if they would be willing to talk to us we're never going to compete with them what time is it? Jericho I know some I have a really good friend in Jericho I can name him I'm interested in their approach the principles of Mansfield Fiber are on the EC Fiber Board so perhaps someone from EC Fiber could look into it that's a good tip so that's not public information there I know a lot of business well the fact that there is a loan to them and the dollar value of the loan is public information I don't know what's public and what's not probably a lot of it's not because it's a business so the state would give money to a business without having that information be public I find that interesting VEDA VEDA is this arguably private ish I didn't realize that we could be in one of those situations where they are subject to the public records law and nobody's just pushed that fund yet they're just like BTA if they're just like BTA then they're subject to the public records law but BTA had executive decision session stuff that never had to be disclosed sure as long as they went through the process they're only into executive session so I will reach out to EC Fiber and see if they have any sort of insight into their process and what they're imagining because I would say even for three towns 300,000 does not seem like much anything else so thanks David communication rounds now are great I appreciate that given what Phil said earlier I plan to be there Thursday but it might be helpful for other people because it's a little bit of an insomnia cure to read all these that you do communicate out of Thursday as quick as you can so everybody who comes for the next week at least pair them out I have a narrative down to three or four everybody should know that so that that's a good plan again an important outcome from reviewing these are the questions you think the applicant should be supplying his answers with there's a lot that's a lot to do with so as of last week more towns like Ford officially sanctioned we had sort of gotten the tentative vote but they wanted to reserve the right to talk to Watesfield telecom and allow them to have an opportunity to provide push back they actually surprisingly were very cool with the idea and interestingly so that allowed us to start putting out the surveys the surveys have been out for four days and we've gotten a fair amount of data already the data mimics exactly what David expressed on the broader data some tidbits there 34% of admittedly self-selected respondents are on consolidated communications with terrible speeds not Watesfield Watesfield really only serves the southern portion of our town but I suspect self-selection bias weighs heavily into that one because they've already run fiber to their covered portions of town and 84% said probably would and speed and reliability were the top reasons so interested to see how that data progresses and happy to report that we are now 100% all in and I'll be here and you have an alternate and would you have either somebody from the select board or is it Sherilyn it was approved the same night I was Karen was I thought that I don't remember they made a motion to also make her that alternate I can double check the records I'll double check the records and if that motion hasn't been made I'll just bring it to them a little business that has to be taken care of I included her in the meeting agendas and what not because we had talked separately I didn't realize she was actually the ultimate otherwise she would be the most Susan thank you thank you