 Good. You're all set. That's loud enough. Yeah, you're good. Okay. Just don't click that red thing. You're ready. Hey Norma. Good to see you. Good to see you, Jean. Nice to see you. You too, Dick. Hello. Hi, Norma. Hi, yeah. Yeah. Bob wants to say hi to you. Hi, Bob. Hi, Dick. How you doing? Good and you. Good. I can't see you, but that's all right. Oh, you don't want to see me. Okay. Fair enough. As I am my witness, I'm in the witness protection program. I always did wonder. I looked in the mirror once recently and it scared me. So I just don't do it anymore. Oh, jeez. Remember walking around the field at UMass all those years ago. And I remember you telling me that 69 degrees was the ideal building temperature. Well, I do tend to fool people. It's great. College together. How did your memory cafe go this week? Oh, it's been really good. I've had about 15 people each time. So to this cafe, we had distributed some Polaroid style cameras so that people can take photo prompts and we can share them. And we had a couple of students from Amherst college and that it was really fun to watch them and everyone was like, they're practicing their pictures. We got some really nice ones. So yeah, been very good. And for sure. And I'm definitely going to talk more about that today. Because I think it's really going to take off. And I got some exciting feedback that makes me happy. Awesome. That's great. Was it wild there Monday with the COVID vaccinations? It was wild. Yes, for a number of reasons. So we had the COVID vaccine clinic. We also unfortunately had someone fall. So we had to call EMS. So yeah, it was just really like a chaotic day. And it actually hasn't really let up all week. So I'm glad it's Friday tomorrow. That's going to be really nice. Yeah. I knew several people that were going in. They had gotten an appointment so they could get their gift card. Oh yeah. People did love the gift card. Yeah. So we still had people coming in today asking if we had any, and we had to be like, no, sorry. You had to come one day. Yeah. How are you, Ann? Okay. That's enough sometimes to just be okay. We're all doing well if you can maintain your health. Given all the. The general goals. Holiday madness. Yeah. I know we're still trying to be low key. Good. Yeah. Good. I do know that Karen will not be here today. She had a work engagement or something like that. Okay. Otherwise we're expecting everyone else. More or less. I do have an update about Mila. So I can share that once we call the meeting to order. Okay. Great. Hey, Jackie. Hey, Jacqueline. Hey, Ted. Chad, I'm getting everyone's names wrong. It's been a long day. Long week. Yes. So everybody. EGIS. So I have two blank screens. I have two blank squares on my screen with no name, but I'm guessing maybe there's somebody there. So I have, we have Chad in one corner and then Dick Yorga and the other. Okay. Okay. Great. Thank you. No, that's not a wrestling thing. Chad has a picture now. Oh, excellent. Thank you, Chad. You're welcome. Thank you. Jacqueline, did you say hello to everyone a minute ago? I did. But that's, that's okay. Folks. We're on another roll. Hello back. Thank you. That's Norma. Hi. Hello to everybody. Hello. Terry is joining us. Hi, Terry. Hi, Terry. How are you doing? Hi, everybody. Hi. Hi, Terry. Hi. Hey, how's it going? Good. You. That's too bad. Do we want to wait a few more minutes? It's up to you. I mean, we can, we can jump in. Yeah. The first thing is the public comment and a welcome. And I don't see anyone in the audience from the public. I'm. Yeah, I. Or agenda. So I will follow along. As you go along. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to ask if, if possible, could you put your. Cameras on. And I look forward to the day when we can all meet in person. Cause I have to say, I love. Meeting people. And this zoom, although it's functional. It sort of inhibits relationship. So I look forward to that day. And I look forward to it. And I look forward to meeting to order. Pursuit to governor bakers, March 12th, 2020 order. Suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. General law 30 a section 18. Section 30 a. Chapter 18. This meeting of the council on aging is being conducted via remote participation. This meeting is also being recorded. What is it? Ascent. You didn't like cheese. No, I said lead half, but that's all right. It's fine. Open two packages. Oh, Norma, do you want to mute yourself for a second? Oh, sorry. That's okay. Okay. So roll call. We'll start with Ian. Here. Terry. Here. Chad. Yep. Christina. No, Jacqueline. Jacqueline is here. Excellent. Dennis. And I am here. Okay. Public comment. Anyone. You see anyone Haley? No. No, they're all going to watch it later. Yeah. Yeah. Hi, welcome everyone. We've got a, I think a pretty, pretty full agenda for December. And I think that speaks well to. Things that are happening at the center. I think things are on the move. So Haley, take it away. I would love to. Yeah. So I'm really excited about all the things we have going on. And there's a lot. Although our activity level went down in November. We had a lot of people that's down a little more than a hundred. From October. Some of that is to be expected. We're entering colder months. It's the holidays. People have a lot of competing things on their agenda. And in my experience, senior center activity across the board, just tends to decline a little bit in the winter. But, you know, we still served almost 300 people. And the, the biggest thing I want to know is the jump in volunteer hours. So we had that 46 hours in October. Now that we have been really consistent in training our volunteers to use the sign in system and a huge thanks to our volunteer coordinator. We have logged almost, we did over 350 volunteer hours. So that is huge. That's going to reflect really nicely on our EOEA annual report, because they do ask us to list volunteer hours as an in kind donation. So that's excellent. The meals were not finished at the time of my report. So I will have to backfill that in the next time that we meet. But I would say on the whole, I'm really pleased with what I'm seeing. We're certainly trying to be really targeted in our programming offerings and trying to get people in the door more. And one of the ways in which we've been quite successful in that recently is with our can't remember cafe. So we've had about 15 people attend each session. And not all the same people. So we had, you know, some folks come the first day, we had new folks come this week. I had a woman who brought her mother because she was looking for things to do with her mom. And this was a great opportunity that they could both come in and relax. And my favorite story was a woman who said that she was really on the fence about it. She was really stressed. And so she had talked to some friends and they had encouraged her to come as a way to meet other people. And she was really glad that she came and she told me she'd come again. And I hope that that's true because, you know, that's really the kind of person that we're trying to engage with those people who are hesitant to come back out and are looking for something that's approachable, something that's flexible, that meets their needs. So I was really quite pleased with that. We did hand out our Polaroid style cameras. So the people who came at this most recent cafe, we want to do like a little photo album with everyone and kind of showcase the art that our seniors makes. And you know, have a way to kind of exhibit the things that they do. So we distributed those. We took some fun pictures. And every meeting here after there'll be a photo prompt. So, you know, take a picture with a friend or take a picture of your, your favorite holiday decoration, something that's easy. And, you know, if they forget, that's fine. But the idea is just to engage with people in a different way when they're not at the senior center. Let me, Christina is here. I'm going to promote her to a panelist. So, yeah, and, you know, again, we have been so fortunate to receive donations from Coronation Cafe. Their food is delicious. I've been eating too many cinnamon buns, but we're getting some good community collaborations, which is also really strategically important for the center through this program. So we were in the reminder today. We were on WWLP. Check it out on YouTube if you haven't seen it. So we're getting some good press on this event for sure. And I hope people, you know, filter in as you, as you want. You know, you don't have to register, but you're welcome to just pop by and say hello, stay for however long you want. We're going to have a musical performance by Davis Bates next week. Yeah, Anne. Question, Hailey. Most of the people who came, and I know you can't on the basis of just to make a prediction, were they more children with parents, couples, friends with friends? I mean, what was the general makeup of the group? Sure. So I had a couple, two people who had brought someone with them. So it was an adult child with the parent. I had another woman who just came in on her own. She was the one who had been really anxious about it, but ultimately glad that she came. And I, from what I recall, it was mostly a single people coming, which is fine. You know, it's open to everyone. And, you know, as a way to kind of meet new friends. So that seems to be, and I'm not surprised on that based on the demographics of the town, but it's, you know, just a single individual coming. I asked the question because I asked my husband who was having memory problems and the caretaker in the household. Although his problems are not disabling at this point, would he like to attend? And he said, well, we've been so careful about going nowhere where people aren't masked. Could I assure him that everybody would be masked and I wasn't able to make that assurance? So I wondered what, since you were eating, I assume that people were not masked while they were having refreshments. What's the mask situation when you've got something like that? So we follow the general policy of the town, which is that masks are not required. They, you know, you are welcome to wear one and we do have them available, but it's not mandated that you wear one while in a town owned building. Question. I keep hearing the news. I'm a radio listener and I understand there's an upsurge that's, that we're in the midst of that and the rest. RSV is it? That and COVID numbers. So there still be no masking. Okay. No, I'm going to follow the town's policies and I check in very frequently with the public health director. She's, you know, not only our neighbors in the building, but her and I collaborate quite frequently. Whenever I do a big scale event or something, I've always gone to her and said, you know, hey, what can we do? And then like I said, we always have the masks on a table. So people can take one if they would like. We crack the door usually and we're in the large activity room. We're in the large activity room. So if you think there's about 15 or so of us, we're pretty spread out in a big building or in a big room. Okay. Right. I just wanted to suggest to you that. Not that you should change the mask policy, but you might be seeing fewer people because a lot of older people are. You know, concerned. And therefore maybe not showing up. You may find them showing up. Maybe when the weather gets good and you can hold some of these things afterwards, you may have better turnout. I think you're right. And I think that'll kind of, so not only do I anticipate service going down, people are going to go away or be busy with the holidays, but I think you're right. Health concerns will certainly be a factor. So, you know, we'll kind of just have to see what winter brings. And if we need to pivot, you know, we certainly will. I wonder if one option to sort of maintain the. Integrity of the memory cafe would be to offer the food and drink is, you know, you can take it, you know, you can. If you want to ask while you're there and then take a snack and drink. To go. Oh, I tell people, I tell them at the end, you know, please take something. Don't, you know, if you've got friends or family, yeah, people are more than welcome to take things to go. It's better than the staff all eating it. So we want them to have it. Yeah, yeah. And then the next on my list is the paratransit update. So we have it. It's at DPW. We are working on getting handicap plates there, but there's a little application process there. The next step with the paratransit van will be to initiate the hiring process for two part-time drivers. And for that, we will be using ARPA funds that the town has set aside for transportation services. So the idea is to have the two part-time drivers so that we can do Monday through Friday, nine to five rides starting with free medical ride transportation. And then, you know, we. I never like to bite off too much. So I think medical rides are really important and they're a top priority for me. And then if we can expand and offer additional rides to places, we'll certainly look at that, but we want to do things in an incremental way. You know, we've got a new staff and where everything is new post COVID. So this is a really measured approach. The program will be called the silver shuttle. And like I said, it'll offer free transportation to Amherst residents to get to the medical rides. And Chad, do you have a question? Yes. I don't want to interrupt you though. No, I mean, that that was the gist of it. There's not much I can report until we get the drivers in place and commence doing the rides. But I'm extremely excited about this opportunity. You know, again, the van has a lift so we can take people who are wheelchair bound or using walkers where we don't have the capacity to do that right now. So it's going to be filling a really critical need for our vulnerable seniors. All right. Let's see. I hear Monday through Friday. Is there. Is this. They restricted program. Is it restricted to specific purpose or. To seniors for medical rides. Okay. Is there an expansion expected in the future? Yes. So, so before you sat down, I was just saying that we're doing this in a really incremental and measured way. We are starting with medical rights. Okay. Yep. So what I had. Yeah. So what I said in tandem with that is that we will expand the ride capacity trips to the senior center, for example, a weekly grocery store trip, but I don't have a day on that. I don't want to get people's hopes up. But like I said, I want to be really thoughtful in how we do this. So would this be. Not on a Monday from Friday, nine to five. So again, I think that comes down to staffing capacity. We have to have a staff person on site who can book the rides. Our staff is only available right now, Monday through Friday. So we are limited in that respect, unless we got funding for an additional staff person. So what I'm hearing is that projected changes are up in the air and when that will be decided is also up in the air. We're going to, but we are ready to launch once we have the driver's one is an ability to change. That's, that's where I'm looking for something different. There's many rides now provided with health insurance. So that can be taken care of by the contractor out of Springfield. They come into this area and give rides for medical appointments. The PVTA picks up in your home. For medical rides and so on. So I'm looking for something that's different. That's all. Okay. You know, that's fair, but I think that's open. Right. But I think what's really important is that we're making strides. We, within a year, we've gotten this van and we will be doing free medical appointment rides to Amherst seniors. So I really don't want to undersell the, the, the work that my staff has put into doing this, my staff, my volunteers, they've worked tremendously hard, myself included to make this possible. So I don't think we should discount that. And, you know, good things are certainly on the horizon. We don't take what I say as a discount. Thanks. When can, what, what might happen in the future and one, one month might we know that's. Okay. I don't, you know, we didn't have this van before. I know. So that's not, I'm not rejecting that and saying that's not good. I'm just looking to something different. Perfect. And Christina, you have, I'll keep my eyes and ears open. Excellent. I will certainly keep everyone abreast of what we've got going on. And Christina, you have your hand up. Yes. I saw your report and. If I'm not wrong, there's. Other opportunities for transportation there as well. Oh yes. So the, the second item I was going to talk about. So I have applied for the community development block grant. I sent that application in at the beginning of November requesting $43,900. For the salary of two part-time drivers. We're thinking that right now with ARPA funds, we can hire two for a year, maybe a year and a half depending on the hours, what they actually turn out to be. If we receive the, the CDBG funds, we would be able to continue this program funded by the grant for at least two years. And that will give us time to look at other sources of funding, ways that we can collaborate with, you know, maybe Cooley Dickinson. They had to express some interest in helping us fund a transportation program prior to the pandemic. So that that two years, if we get the grant will be, we'll give us that leeway time to look at how else can we keep this program going? Cause we want to make it sustainable. We don't want to have it, you know, go away. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed and I think in the new year, we should get word on whether or not we've gotten this grant. And in addition to the salary, it would cover fuel costs and it would cover outreach materials because we'll want to make sure that we not only advertise this to seniors, but to our, our area health providers, you know, the Masante center, the health department, survival center, so that people know there's another option. And then speaking of grants, so I applied and today I got confirmation that we've received $8,000 from the mass councils on aging to do an outreach campaign to our seniors in town. And I'm tremendously excited about this. So the proposal that was submitted talks about an outreach campaign and what that will mean is a targeted mailing. So we're going to use a special software that the planning department has to find concentrations of seniors in town. And we're trying to identify folks who are about 65 to 75, because those are the folks who are likely to have time during the day to come to activities. And mailings will include a welcome letter. They will include a newsletter. They'll be a promotional coupon that they can use for a meal. And also they'll be given a promo code for a raffle. So everyone who uses that code to come to a program will get a raffle ticket. We'll do one first round of mailings and then follow ups and, you know, other engagement activities. But this is, it's certainly a big help, you know, I can see that the numbers are, they're picking up, but I think this will help us kind of make that push. I think that's a good point. And those funds run through the end of the fiscal year. So June 30th. And you have a question. It's not a question. It's comment. Okay. Congratulations. Thank you. And two, I'm 87. And I have a lot of friends in their mid 80s. Who are active and could partake. And I think. Yeah. I think the numbers are going to expand. Not happy that you're stopping at age 75. And writing those of us who are a good deal over 75. Out of the picture. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, we can certainly look at expanding. I'm trying to think about printing costs. And if there is the ability to print more copies and mail more, I'd certainly like to expand, but I mean, I don't think it's a good idea to do that. I think it's a good idea to do that. And I think that our newsletter runs about. About runs about $3,000. So it can be quite high. So I just wanted to set some realistic parameters, but it's not to say that people will be totally excluded. I, I, I, you know what? If I'm reacting emotionally, it is that. I've been experiencing ageism for a long time. I've been in ageism for a long time. I've been in ageism for a long time. I've been in ageism for a long time. When I was in age 75. That's a just, and I hate it. You're getting the reaction of one person. And I don't know whether other people, my age feels this way, but, but it is a reaction. I think it's an ageist. At all point. And I don't like it. Okay. I mean, it's not the intention of it, but there are. You know, some parameters that you have to make. But, you know, I mean, that's certainly something that I can write to the, the grantee or the grantor and say, you know, how we want to amend our application. You know, and I can see that Jacqueline and Christina also have their hands up. If you want to weigh in or if you have more to add to that. Yes. I very much want to weigh in because I was feeling. You know, it's just the same, the same way. I, there's a, an organization or committee I was part of. There's a 90. One of the members. 90 years old. Just decided that she would. She would throw in the towel. She drives. And I have. I have a friend. And especially I have a friend over in Wellesley who's 111. Very vibrant. And I think what has kept her living has been. Being included in so many different ways. We were talking last weekend. People come by and pick. So yes, I'm, I'm in perfect agreement with Ann. And I'm glad to hear that. I think this is a good idea. So you just allow them for participating correct. No, definitely not. This was just the proposal that went forward. You know, with the grant money, if I said to MCOA, we're going to include more seniors. They would certainly not say, no, you can't do that. But you know, in drafting the proposal, you have to have a framework for what you want to do. You have to start somewhere. And that was the reasoning behind what was sent in. And then having a number. Cutting off in terms of the number. Of people. Would serve as a better gauge than the age of people. Being served by an organization that. Seeks to serve. People who are aging. So it's not that we don't continue to serve people like that, but it's just doing a targeted push. I mean, if you, if you look at our numbers. They're not what they were pre pandemic. And even if they're slowly rebounding, there's not the same engagement with the community. So really what we need to do is the outreach. Because there's not going to be any better way to get people interested in coming to the senior center. If you get a special, you know, we send out a newsletter. We have a lot of folks just frankly, don't read. If we do a targeted mailing that has a specific address and is, has a special welcome letter and has special promotions for the person that's more likely to get them involved at the senior center. So, you know, and of course we continue to mail out our regular news. We would continue to do other engagement activities, but this is just a way to target. A new population of folks who aren't currently using this, the senior center. So, you know, Christina, you've had your hand up for a while and then Jean, you do as well. Oops. Can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. I'm not in a hurry. I can wait and listen to the discussion. As it evolves. And. I wonder. I don't know if anyone even has the time to figure this out. But I'm wondering if there's a certain amount of seniors that do actively answer their email, read their email and that we can communicate electronically with. And that would be one way of saving. The postage and then targeting the groups that do not come regardless of their age. The point here is that you're going to target people who are not participating, not because of their age. And so therefore is finding a way to reduce cost. Instead of doing a huge mailing. I am for one and one of the persons that asked the senior center, do not mail me that newsletter. I have problems with papers. I want to keep them forever. And I have a hard time recycling them and getting them out of here. And so. I basically prefer to get an email. And so I am in the age range as your targeted group. But I read my email. So how many of those people. Is there a way of capturing how many people read their email and would it be easier for them to receive this information by email. I think I demonstrated an example. When I first came on the council. Not to this group, but to the smaller group. And so I'm very happy to be here. I'm very happy to be a part of a newsletter that comes in every week from the senior center in Northampton. And I am delighted to look at it. It's colorful. There's no way you can dismiss it. It's not just written. And I showed it to. Jacqueline, you were there. At that meeting. I don't know if you were only there by phone. I saw one of the other two ladies, one of them moved to. Washington state. Yeah. Our other. Person is still here in Amherst and I showed it to them. And I explained. If you allowed me to share my screen, I could even show it to you, but we're in a women webinar format here. But I can send you a copy. there's just no way that you can ignore it. It's a great way of reaching a population and that will cut down on the amount of money that you use. I asked the senior center, do not mail me that because I go online and I read my newsletter. Sorry that I'm being repetitious. No, but thank you. Cause you bring up two really good points. So first of all, I also wanna say that the more people we mail to, this grant is paying for supplies. It's not paying for staff time. So we still have to find volunteers and or have staff do all this extra work, which I think is very much worth doing, but I just wanna flag that for people. But also that welcome letter is going to include we will be promoting a new monthly e-newsletter that people can subscribe to through the town website so that they can be engaged with us online as well. So I think I had said at the last meeting, the every other month format, it works out fairly well, but in that second month, we don't get the engagement with our seniors that we wanna be getting monthly news or even a weekly blurb would be better to help remind people, hey, this is what's going on at the center. That'll be included in the welcome letter so that people can go and click on that and subscribe to find out what we're doing. So thank you Christina for bringing that up cause I do think that's a really good point. Well, I'm happy to help with the mailing as long as I can pick it up and bring it home and bring it back to you cause I'm not gonna sit for an extended amount of time exposing myself. Okay, perfect. That's, it can definitely be done at home. And then Jean and Terry, you're up next. So I just want to second what Christina said, I subscribed to the Northampton senior center newsletter and it is eye catchy and I think it's very practical in terms of a weekly reminder about what's happening cause I will say when I get the newsletter, I read it and try to think, oh yeah, that's interesting circle that but if I don't act on it right away sometimes it drops off the radar. What I wanted to ask you Haley with regards to this mailing and whatnot it makes me think how much information do you have or do you know about our senior population? Like the demographics, do you know by age range, for example, there's roughly what 5,200? 5,200 seniors. I can tell you that there are 3,600 baby boomers and the other one that I know off the top of my head is Jen Exers who I bring that up because in two years they're gonna turn 60, there's about 3,500 people in that age group as well. So we have a lot of younger seniors, folks who maybe are using other services in town or going other places but they're not necessarily coming here and most of our clientele right now tends to be folks who are in their 70s and onwards and we will of course always still be offering programs and services for people. We have a woman who's 86 and she comes and plays cards in the lounge every day and sometimes I'll play with her and I never wanna turn anyone away. This is just a different way to engage with people and it's just a starting point. I mean, everything we do now will be built upon but there's gotta be some starting point. So I just wanna ask you one other question in that with regards to demographics. Do you have any information about the gender split with seniors? Not just think it's valuable for us to have a picture as to who the population is because I think that's also gonna help us identify where we need to focus and what's missing. So what I can tell you is that the software system used by the planning department can tell us all this information and I'll check in with the clerk's office again about the town census because the last time I checked in with them it wasn't finalized. But usually what ends up happening is that there are slightly more women as opposed to men. Generally the age breakdown but I will check in with the clerk and then we will gain a lot of information from the software because it'll tell us where are people living. So even if for example, we target a specific range for this study, we'll know, hey, we've got a concentration of folks aged whatever. Here, let's do something special or we know that we have a really high concentration of people in the North side of town. So how can we get them either to the senior center or bring our services to them? There's a lot of things we don't know and by doing this in a scientific way it's called ArcGIS. We're actually gonna find out quite a lot more data than we currently have which will also be a really nice thing for the future. Yeah, I think the data will be really useful. Terry, you're up and then Jacqueline. I just wanted to confirm that the age was 65 to 75 is what you're targeting. That is what was in the proposal, yes. So that's what we're gonna start with and expand as needed and again, keeping track of where is the age spread so that we can make note of that and do follow-up engagements with people. Okay, great, thank you. You're up Jacqueline. I just wanted to piggyback the demographics in terms of race. Earlier during my time here, somebody was wanting to do outreach to Black and Puerto Rican and Asian and other populations and they thought the place to go to get that information would be the senior center. And I didn't find that to be quite feasible. Is there some way that the center can get those factors included? Yeah, so we have a database for the people who use the center, but a lot of it is really out of date. We have folks who should have been removed from the system and are not. So I would say our records are not, I couldn't confidently tell you what the percentages of a certain population or a certain statistic we're using what we have now, but if we do a new outreach campaign and once the town census results are in, we'll have a much better glimpse of what the actual makeup is in town. And we have some volunteers. We have a student volunteer who can translate things into Spanish and Mandarin. So if we decide, hey, we know that there are folks who are non-English speaking that we want to reach, we can translate services, which will be. But the racial factor, I wouldn't expect you to have it for non-participating members of the community, but if there's somebody or some organization or some office in the town itself that would carry those statistics and carry that data, it could be very helpful and it could reflect quite favorably on the center or even on the town having some interest in knowing that. Yes, I'm sorry, maybe I didn't explain it. The clerk's office will have that. The census data from the town will tell us what the racial makeup of the town is, what are the sexes of the people in town and how many. So once we have that information, we can use that to kind of guide some of our programs and some of our activities. But I think I checked in about maybe four weeks ago and it wasn't finalized. So I'm hoping that soon it will be. Thank you. Christina and then Chad, are you there Christina? Yeah, okay, I'm sorry. That's all right. I don't know who asked you, sister Jacqueline and you don't have to tell me for the census data, but every town have census data because that's what they do every year is send us a form which we have to fill out to make sure that we stay up to date in the town voting database and everything. The other thing is we all get bills. Everybody who's a homeowner or not a homeowner has to pay taxes. So we should tell them to go to the town. That's how I feel and not ask us for this information or anyone else because it involves getting people that are working on from the nine to five to have to stop and do things for whoever wants this information. If you want information for research, whoever it is they need to ask the source that has it and not try to get it indirectly from anyone else. That's a good point. I guess the mistake of they were considering I'm not even sure it might have been during the beginning of the reparations committee formation and the question came up and people don't know automatically if they're not part of the system where to go. So if you mentioned that you were working at the university then people, and I called around to a few places and I was not successful at getting that data. They referred me to the Department of Public Health and I called a couple of other places then I just threw it to the wind. That's interesting. You should be able to contact the town clerk's office. Chad, you had your hand up? I'm starting to get confused between what information we have and what informational town has. I thought we wanted to make some programmatic decisions or float ideas and so forth about our own population. I thought we were talking about having the ability to look at the results of the swipe card, the information that you have to send to the Department of Elder Affairs about the people who come here. I thought we were gonna use some of that and say, oh, example, we got all women showing up. What can we do to get some men in the door? And now I'm hearing it, it's about the population out there in town. I'm more interested about how we're doing with our own folks, the elderly. Yeah, I think we- The second point, go ahead. Oh no, I'm agreeing with you. I think we've got a little off track on that, just talking about how to get data but I'm kind of confused about the two. And anyway, the second point was it's not on the agenda. I am not incompetent enough to see when our next board meeting is coming up and get on the agenda. But Ann and I met and one of the things we said about strategic planning is, it would be great to have old business, new business on our agenda. In this way, we could revisit issues, not solve all the world problems in one meeting but come back to them at the next meeting. So if we did have that old business, new business, I'd like to stay on this topic some way where we can say, how are we doing with our own people demographically? And let's compare that to the city's population. So this 65 to 75 year old effort. Now we've got our numbers in the door. How does that compare to how many of those people are out there in the town? And that sort of thing. I mean, it's about planning, it's about programming and so on. So, I'd love to see this go into old business so that we could follow along next week and get some continuity, I mean, next month and get some continuity, meeting to meeting. It's sort of like we're just, things pop up and they go, something new pops up and that goes. Let's stay on something and make some progress. Anyway. Sounds good. We did put that on this month and we'll continue that. I think that's a good suggestion just so we can all kind of stay organized like you're saying Chad. And then Ann, I know you have your hand up and then I don't want to detract too much from the other things that we have to talk about. So after this conversation wraps up, I just have a few upcoming programs I wanted to highlight. So may I bring up the point? I would be interested when we are dealing with demographics to know how many people are living alone would seem to me to be a very important piece of information. The other thing I want to bring up, Haley, and I know you have a great deal of experience dealing with running programs and things. So I'm now going to talk about the experience of being old. The person that I am in my 80s is not at all the person I was in my 70s. And that person was very different in my 60s. So when you are thinking of collecting information about interest in using the senior center, somebody once said to me in my early 70s, oh, are you not using it because you think it's just for old people, older than you? And my answer was, no, I'm really too busy. I was at a different stage in life. So I just like to bring to your attention that grouping, this is very big, 65 to 100, let's say. We don't have a lot of people that live past 100, well, you have some. But hey, if you were to take people from 20 to 60, a 40-year lifespan, 20-year-olds and 60-year-olds, very, very different in their interests and their needs. So I just like to bring to your attention that 65, because it's the age of being eligible for Social Security, that's a very, very different group of people than 85. A 20-year difference in life, think of your own life. Do you like, enjoy, are interested in things that people 20 years older than you are interested in? So I think it's really imperative that we as a group, not group, all seniors, you know, that's 45 years worth of lifespan, equally in terms of their interests, their needs, that it's an evolving situation and it evolves not necessarily with chronological age. There is some, you know, it's like the difference between a toddler and a kindergartner is great. The difference between a 65-year-old and an 85-year-old in terms of their needs and wants. So I'm just encouraging you to widen the demographic that you're interested in, but also to recognize that you are not going to ever have programs that are equally appealing to a 65-year-old and a 95-year-old. So that's all, I just wanted to point that out. Oh yeah, no, and that's a really good point. And if I haven't said it vocally before, you know, I definitely realized that throughout, you know, like you said, you say seniors, but it's like 45 years, that's almost a whole other lifetime, just in this one range, you know, folks of different needs. I wouldn't develop a program for someone in their early 60s that I would pitch to a 90-year-old person. Chances are, and this is not always true, but it's likely that they're not gonna have the same interest level. So I think one of the challenging things about a senior center is, you know, you have such a wide spread of people, of all kinds of backgrounds, and then you have these really kind of distinctive age ranges that you also have to have all these programs for. So I think that's one of our great challenges, but one of the things in trying to look slightly younger is that, you know, we hope that we have a, if somebody comes and interacts with the senior center, you know, in their late 50s, that person could potentially be active with us for 50 years. You know, and so you also have to be thinking, you know, how do I keep that person engaged and happy with us for 50 years? You know, that's a long time. So yeah, that, you know, absolutely, like I said, if I didn't make that clear before, I wholeheartedly agree with you. And that's a really important point. Christina, you have your hand up. Nope. I just wanted to give a short example of a neighbor without using names or identifying information. And I've known this person for all the many years, I've been an Amherst, and I saw the person going from being actively social, going out, asking for rides to go here and there, you know, here and there to only going to some things to now being in their 90s and not really wanting to go out of their home. It's typical. I mean, I don't have the research, but it's typical that you're not gonna want to be interested in all of these programs and that you're homebound. However, there's one thing that I found very interesting is that that person had never lost interest for painting and that person never lost interest and they have a person that reads to them once a week, once a week, on Zoom, they read a book with them and then they talk about it. There are ways of reaching the senior population that no longer come out of their homes because this has been going on with a volunteer from the university for several years now and that person is faithfully into this reading group with this 90-some-year-old person. And by the way, it's a community. So I just go and say, hi, how are you doing? Just anything of that nature. And I know that the senior center can't go out individually to everybody's home because you don't have the staff of case managers or anyone to do it. But in terms of being able to reach someone's interest, there are certain things that people stay interested in. And if they are, why not? Yeah. Yeah. That's great. That's nice that she has someone who can do that. And so could there be volunteers willing to read with seniors who don't wanna leave their home, read them a book on Zoom? Could their families set them up if they live with a family member to be able to log in to Zoom? It took a lot of people to help this person log in and that person now knows how to log in on a pad to visit with this young college student that reads to them. I'm gonna send you an email about how to put in a request to Amherst neighbors. Amherst neighbors would actually do something like that. Well, I'll email you anyway and you can do with it as you want. So the thing is, first steps first is that you have to, when you reach out in this large mailing, find out who never comes out of their home and would you like a program? Are you interested in such a program where we can read to you or something to that? I don't know how to word it. I guess somebody's gonna have to word it. But there's ways of reaching people that don't come to the center, but they're still being included. And I think that's the point. Yeah, definitely. And there had been a companion program before the pandemic, which would do things like that. I think we're getting to the point now where we could definitely look at resuming that. We have a pretty robust group of volunteers. We get pretty steady interest in that. So we'll make a note. I think a program like that is a win-win because it keeps people connected, motivated, engaged, and it's very rewarding for the person who's, you know, doing the reading or playing the cards or whatever. I mean, everybody benefits from that. So, yeah, it's great. And for students in the colleges around here, I know we would be looking primarily the university and Hampshire and Amherst. They get community service credit. So it's truly a win-win. And it's a win for the center. It's a win for participants at the center. And it's a win for the university because it gets visibility as being involved in the community. It's a win for the students because they get not only the experience, the intergenerational experience, but they get credit, community service credit. That's good. So, yeah, I can give those couple of quick program updates. So we're kind of laying low for the winter. Again, we're anticipating that service is going to kind of slow. So we will, of course, maintain our current roster of exercise classes, cosmology, Shakespeare, the cafe. We're also going to be doing a special New Year's party on Friday, January 6th at two o'clock. If anyone's around, we've got a musician coming to do 50s, 60s, and 70s music. And then we're going to, on the first and fourth Friday of the month from in January and February, we're going to do a Friday craft corner. So we're working with East Hampton Resilient Arts to do some different projects. One of them is making a snow globe. We have some other seasonal kind of themed activities, which will all be in the newsletter. So we're leaning into the arts and leaning into some socialization and lots of exercise as we kind of wait till the spring to offer a bit more. Oh, and I should say also, we will have a presentation by Gary Felder, who is a professor at Smith College on the James Webb Space Telescope. And he is a really phenomenal speaker. He's never heard him. So he'll be doing that. Ann, you had a question? Yeah, Hayley. I did go to one of the evening programs that you set up. And I must say, it was a dance program. And the teacher was quite wonderful. I didn't go back. And I did tell one of your staff who called me about something else. I hope that she gave you some feedback. But I love the idea of an evening program that I could get to because the building is so dark and because there's no video doorbell and because of a variety of things. I characterize the experiences being creepy. I just wanted you to know if you've got that feedback that I thought it was creepy. It wasn't the class that was creepy. No, she is good. I just wanted you to know the teacher was really wonderful. It was not the class. I would have gone back to deal with her, but it really was a kind of strange and uncomfortable experience. But I didn't want that feedback that you got to make you think that the class was that way. It was the experience of the building being dark and no way to ascertain who was at the door and running back and forth to let people in. That was the part. The person that you chose for teaching that class is wonderful. She is fantastic. Yes. And I know that. And I did hear that feedback. And what I can say is that we now have an evening maintenance person. So the lights are all on. This is a big center in the evening when we do classes. So we have that staff person in place. So it is a different experience now. I would invite you to try again. Good. And then I would definitely like to do some more evening programs. A lot of senior centers do like a lunch bunch, but I think it would be really fun to do like an early bird supper club and tour different restaurants in town that I think would be kind of hard to do in the winter. You know, this is just a weird time of year with the holidays and everything. So I anticipate offering a little bit more diverse programming come springtime. And we'll kick it all off, of course, with a nice open house like we did last year. So that was all I had for my update. We have the old, or Jean, you can launch into that. We do have old business. So I took that to heart. Yeah. And I thought that was an excellent suggestion, Ann, because I was feeling the same way that we had these kind of hanging threads that we weren't going back to pick up. So I can go back to all the meetings that I've attended in terms of speakers. And I'm just wondering if folks, I'm going to start with the architect when they were there. Did anybody have any remaining questions or any issues that you wanted to raise with Haley with regards to that? OK. And then last month, we had Chief Nelson who talked about emergency planning and gave us all kinds of great safety tips and resources that folks can tap into. Certainly gave me ideas in terms of things that I think we should promote through the senior center, Haley, and one thing that I thought of is in the newsletter to have kind of a safety tip column or I don't know what you would call it, you're clever. But I think on a regular basis, because I think that's an ongoing issue for seniors. And I think it really varies depending on the season and what may be happening. When I was in Monday, I picked up a calendar from the I think it was the district attorney. Yeah. Produced it. And it was chock full of fabulous information, lock boxes, all kinds of things, dating scams. And so I think if some of that can get extracted, included in the newsletter, included if you do your monthly e-news, put it on the website. I think one of the things that I think we were all in agreement after hearing from Chief Nelson is the need to share that information widespread. We don't all use the same resources to get our information. So we need to put it in as many different places. OK, I'm going to shut up. Ann, I know you have. Yes, Chief Nelson was I had been working with Chad talking about the need for what Chad helped me learn was a resilient center, not a warming center, but basically an emergency preparedness for what we've got climate changes and extremes of temperature and certainly both bad actors and climate that have played with our power source. So it was good to know from Chief Nelson that there is actually an arrangement with the Mullen Center at UMass should a resilience center be needed. But he did not tell us any details about whether there were cuts. And the question that I asked him about communication, he answered with, well, there is this emergency communication line. Well, the last time power went out, I was surprised. I have the privilege of having both a cell phone and a landline. My landline did not work. That's very scary. So that isn't a problem for the senior centers so much as I need to really say that one of the things I'm hoping that the Council on Aging will do is expand their interest in the needs of seniors beyond what the senior center could be expected to handle. So it was good to have Chief Nelson there. Left me with one, a lot of questions. And two, he did talk about the lock boxes on the alert system. So I did something that I used to do in the days when I did communications for a living. I didn't do a scientific study. I stood on the street corner in front of the Bank of America. And I approached everybody that looked to be mature. I didn't approach everybody. I approached 28 people. So this is not scientific. I didn't figure out whether they were of different races or different economic circumstances. I did just the first 28 people that were willing to talk to me. And I asked them whether they were prepared for emergencies. And they said, in what way? I said, well, let's say you were alone at home and you fell down and somehow you called 911 because you had an emergency. Would they have to break down the door? And so one person said, no, they would not have to break down my door and never lock it. But most of them said, I never thought about that. Well, I don't know. I said, did you know that there's a lock box program that the police department would supply you with the kind of lock that a real estate agent would use? So this was not, as I said, a scientific study with questions. It was just interacting with people. No, they didn't know that and they didn't know whether they trusted the police department to be able to know how to get into their house. I mean, I got all kinds of answers that I did not expect. But the biggest thing I did not expect is nobody had a sense that it was a sort of, why would I want that? Why would I need that? And I left and came home with a, wow, we have an older population that doesn't even know what the dangers of being alone in a house, of having an emergency, of where would they go, what should they have? And then I started asking people, do you have a go bag? What's that? I said, well, if they were an emergency, if they were a fire, if there was something and you had to leave your house quickly, do you have something that has information and a little bit of money and a change of underwear? I don't know. There are actually lists that exist as to what one should have in an emergency bag if you needed to grab something and go. We need to be as a counsel, maybe thinking about all of these things that would, I think, safety and security are a really big thing for people of every age. But we're charged with being interested in the older population. And I don't think this is a senior center problem, although Haley could probably be a good resource for us. I don't mean to lay this in Haley's lap. I'm sort of laying it in the lap of the council. If we are in a community where people don't even know that they need to be prepared for something, if I were being consulted, I would go back to Chief Nelson and say, you know what? We need some PSAs on television, on radio. Everybody knows the ad. I've fallen and I can't get up. Well, that kind of PSA, although they run it free, it takes some money to produce a good and effective one that is run not just once but quarterly, run again and again and again so people are used to hearing it. And so I was wondering, I don't know how to do this, whether there is a way to suggest to the police chief and the fire chief that if they got together with other towns who have the same problem, but they don't even know they have the problem, because they think they solved it. They think they solved it by the lock boxes and they don't recognize that people don't even know they need those things. If they got together and took a very small percentage of their budget and pulled it, they could get somebody to make a great public service ad for them. It would run again and again on television. It would run again. Now, people in communications know that if you really want somebody, and by the way, Hailey, congratulations on getting to the newspapers and the other people about the van. But what we know is you've got to use three different media, like television, print, mail. There are lots of others. All giving the same message within three days. Three different media within three days and then you might make a dent in people's consciousness. Otherwise, simply telling somebody something once or seeing it in the newspaper once, it's nothing. Never remember it. So yeah, I would like to find a way for us to examine the ways how do we report to people like the police chief and the fire chief and that there's really a need to not just find the solution, but make people aware that they need the solution. You know, we're kind of starting backward rather than the other way around over now. So it sounds like we should add this on our agenda for next time to talk about safety and security. I mean, go lots of different directions. There are lists out there. For example, the people that I talk to, I forgot to save us too. I said, do you have a health care proxy? What's that? Has your doctor talked to you about a most? Most of them, what's that? Do you have these? Do you have at least even the name of the person who should be called in an emergency near your bed? The answer for most people was no. So how do we raise people's consciousness about what they need to keep them safe? And what they're, you know, now I recognize lots of people don't want to think about having an emergency. But I was shocked by the fact that most people don't even know the smallest amount about, you know, how to protect themselves and what they need to be safe. I think that's, I think that's part of our job. Excellent suggestions there. Yeah, very good. That everyone can benefit from, regardless of your. Yeah, yeah. So a lot of education needs to to happen with our population. Thank you. I do want to give one really pertinent update and because I had a meeting with Chief Nelson and the communications director, Breonna Sundrin. And we did talk about how are we going to spread the word about things to seniors? You know, is our website really designed to get that information to people in a clear and concise way? So we are talking about that. Chief Nelson is very interested in doing some new PSA campaign campaigns. The fire department has done some in the past, but I had said, you know, we really need to think about targeting this population because I think you're right. People think it's not going to happen to me. I don't need these things because it'll happen to somebody else, but it won't happen to me. And that's obviously not true. So so we're talking about that. And I am envisioning that at some point, we're going to do some focus groups that we get real input from people about what it's the best way to get the message out and how can we make changes to the, you know, the alert system or the website and get that information to people who need it while also doing, like you said, different media. I think Jacqueline, you could. Yes, yes. I think this conversation tonight just sort of brings together something that is important for us to consider. And I think many other institutions in the community have had to come to terms with the fact that they're not finite and they're not confined to what traditionally we were confined to, i.e. the church, being aware of the collar. If there is any group that's learned, the church is not a place. The senior center is more than a place. The senior center is a spirit. It's a community. And what we put in the community should target members of the population and meet people at their needs to the extent that it can. Just remember, it's not just a place. It's important that there be a place. But the senior center is so much bigger. It's a spirit. It's a way of thinking. It's a way of doing. It's a way of sensitivity. It's a way of consciousness. It's a way of caring. Excellent point. Thank you. So there are two pieces for old business and the way they get into old business is somebody say, I want to talk more about that later. I want that listed in old business. So I'm seeing if it's not entered in the minute, it might be entered into old business. A deeper dive into the demographics of our population at the senior center. Don't know if Haley can do that or it's even legal. And the other one is, what's going on with this resilience center and the whole issue of, you know, how are our people going to be taken care of? So that might be two items that we would revisit over the next months. Yeah, absolutely. I would just say in terms of the demographics, I would defer to Haley when she's got the information, right? We want the data, so whenever that's available. Yeah, and that in all honesty, it might take some time. You know, whether that comes from the clerk's office through the census or whether that comes from our own outreach data collection, it probably won't, it would probably not happen in January, but I do absolutely want to revisit that because, you know, as we talk about, you know, getting the senior center, you know, more exposure, more people in the building, we need to be cognizant of the demographics. So I'm filing that away in the back of my mind as something we need to keep tabs on. Yeah, so in January, when it comes up again, we might say whether we want it to be by gender. We might say whether we want it to be in one of the three elder populations, young, elderly, middle, elderly or old, old, old, old. You know, income, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, I mean, there's a million different ways you can slice and dice at night. I would say potentially you're not going to get everything in one felt swoop. I mean, it's going to be, I think a slow build in terms of getting info from different sources. So, yeah. Let's see what we can do. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Okay. Is everybody comfortable if we move on to new business? Okay. Communicating about programs. Want to make one last statement about the old business and that is, for example, there's people, a lot of people probably don't know this, but like when you get Medicare and if all of a sudden you can't make decisions for yourself, I went online and I added my family members and it stays there for 10 years in the Medicare. So should something happen where I'm incapacitated, I put the people that I trust to make that decision for me and you can do it right online by creating an account with the Medicare people. Or if you're not the type that does things online, you could mail it to them and they'll put it in there, but it'll wind up on a database anyway. You know, a portal, the Medicare portal, it'll wind up there. Those people will be able to make those decisions for you as your representative and people don't know that information. Yeah, that's an excellent point. Thank you. All right. Communicating about programs, Hailey? So we do our bi-monthly. We will be doing a e-newsletter that will be coming out monthly. I'm working on curating a special YouTube page with lots of informational videos. The reason I want to do that is because I have noticed that educational workshops just simply do not draw a crowd. The ones that we have had scheduled were all canceled because no one showed up. But I think that people are a lot more comfortable with things like YouTube now, so I want to curate a collection and that would ultimately include things like, what to put in an emergency kit, what to do to sign up to emergency alerts. We can have a lot of different playlists and that we just decide, okay, we want to have this playlist for safety, we want to have this for learning and engagement and so on and so forth. So I want to kind of be slowly incorporating some of the benefits of modern society by having things that are more online. And again, if people need help getting online, not only do we have a computer tutor, but we are doing tech time with the Amherst neighbors. So there are some college students from UMass who come in and they do one-on-one consultations for a half an hour at the senior center for people who have questions about their devices. So I think, just like Ann said, getting that message out and getting that out in a variety of ways, making sure that things are on the town calendar so that people get email blasts that we're doing a special event and putting press releases out and trying to get either Amherst media or 22 news to come and do segments and the Gazette, the reminder, the Indie, all those things. So really just thinking about, I mean, ultimately I would really like it to be the case that people are just sick of seeing the Amherst senior center that we're everywhere and we're in their face and they can't escape it. So that takes a little bit of time to build that kind of momentum, but that's certainly what I'm eyeing. When I'm thinking about what are we gonna do in the spring? How are we gonna get people in here and how do we make them aware of what we're doing? I don't know, people have things I want to add to that. Christina? Piggy back on you. The Amherst neighbors, they are doing the same thing that the Northampton people are doing is that they're all in our faces with these very bright, colorful emails. And I saw that computer message several times. I even call Sister Jacqueline about it. I said, Sister Jacqueline, there's college students and they're helping people with technology. So yes, you're on the right track about being all in people's faces, both on paper, which we have done very well, but now we have to do it even better because we're living in a digital age. Thanks, Anne. I just came to me when you said college students. I don't know how to arrange for this, but a few years ago, a young man knocked on our door and I sort of suspicious what is this odd young guy doing. Anyway, it turned out that he was from a fraternity at UMass and it had snowed and he wanted to know whether I needed help shoveling snow. Well, I said, actually, I am fortunate enough to have somebody who I employ to plow my driveway, but you know what you could do for the whole neighborhood? You could shovel out the fire hydrant and they were happy to do that. Now I'm thinking that I know that my daughter who's blind uses the PVTA because she doesn't drive and during the winter, the bus stops are not shoveled and she's on the Transportation Committee and things. So I don't have to tell you that PVTA says it's the town's problem, town says PVTA problem. I was telling that to Chad and Chad said we would have a doctor bus stop program, right? So it just came to me as we were talking and I don't know how to begin this, but at all of the colleges, there is credit given for community involvement. Gee, when it snows, I don't know how many people are living alone in houses that are private houses rather than conglomerate housing where like if it's an apartment building, somebody is coming to shovel, but do we have old people who are by themselves and in homes who can't even get out their front door? It would seem to me that we've got all of those strong students around who might be looking for ways to help. How do we begin a great intergenerational program? So I just leave that out there for you to think of. Maybe there's a way to engage them and when Hailey finds out who is living alone where and where this population is, we would even know where to send them. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I will, let me think about that and see how we can make that happen. That's an awesome suggestion. So we have a number of things left on the agenda. So I wanna be respectful of our guests, Norma. So I'm gonna jump over goal setting and let Norma go. Tell us about the meals report. Oh, you're muted, Norma. There you go. Okay, sorry, but I'll go back to sort of the end of the summer. They've done a lot. I'm on Highland Valley's board and I'm on their nutrition council, which meets every other month. But they have a new director. Can you all hear me? Yeah. Yes, very well. But they have a new nutritionist and she is enthusiastic and has done a lot with, previously we had menus put out for once a month in what Highland Valley will bring to the, like they have a meal program at the senior center, but they also have the grab and go meals, which have been popular since the pandemic started. And people over 60 can just pick up a meal and I think they would help hope they give a donation, but they don't have to. And they can get this during the week, Monday through Friday. But what they also do is, and what we do when we have our meetings is review some of the reports that they get back from people filling out that are at the congregate meals. And I'll read you just a few, but they're, you know, you can't please everybody. So there's gonna be criticisms and there's gonna be, you know, things that people really like and others don't. So now the choice meals are also available for home delivered meals. So they can let the person, Donna Hancock is the one in Amherst, but to, you know, that they would like a home delivered meal on Wednesday and it's Monday. I don't know how far ahead you have to do that, but if they let them know in advance, they will get that meal instead. And some of the other comments are like, they got pancakes, but they didn't get maple syrup. And, you know, that the applesauce cap didn't stay on and they got their applesauce over. So, you know, that can happen with anything, but they really do look into it and talk to the people that work there. I mean, they have a great group. They work well together and they're fully staffed and they got a new van a couple of months ago that, you know, it is expensive to have vans for, well, I think for anybody, but you know, when you need specialty equipment like things to keep things cold and warmers to keep the food hot. And they deliver between, well, they make 700 to 800 meals a day. So you can imagine that if it's a little cool, stick it in the microwave, you know, it will keep okay. But what Kelly is doing is she does visit every congregate place that serves meals and will do an inspection of the kitchens and make sure that everything, you know, is up to par. And what I started to say about the menus, people do get the menus from their driver if they're getting the meals on wheels. But on the back, she used to have helpful hints for the seniors, but she didn't think that they really read them. So if someone's standing there and going over it with you was just a little talk after dessert, then you tend to stay and listen and talk to your friends. So that's been an improvement. But now she, with the extra meals that they're getting because more and more towns are signing up, particularly in the hill towns, they need to get another van and equip it the same way, which was several, like, I don't know, $40,000, at least to just update that. And this was a new van that they got. The other is that someone made the suggestion to have sort of ethnic meals. And so that they started those, I think it was in the spring, it was yeah, March and April. And they've had some like a Polish meal with Lazy Pierogi and Kielbasa and another one that was Spanish that had salsa and they've gone over really well. Or they don't complain about it being too spicy. Sometimes they're too salty, but they do have to go by certain standards. And so people says, well, I don't want so much salt or I don't want peas or, you know, you just again, can't please everybody. And they do get commodities. And in the summer, they were getting, you know, a lot of vegetables and fruits from the farmers. And there were some farmers that would give the equivalent of about $25 worth of vegetables or fruit to certain seniors in need. And I don't know how widespread that was, but I think that they said it was the equivalent of $25 donation with extra food. And the, yeah, the global meals are, well, every month they will choose a different one. Does anyone have any questions about their services or whatever? No? Okay. And again, you know, you just go ahead. Someone have something? No. Okay. I do, I do Norma. Okay. This was a long time ago, but I can remember being admitted for something and a menu will either have a hot vegetable or an exchange if you don't, everybody doesn't like peas, that's what I heard you say. And that is true, that's true. Somebody else, everybody may not all like carrots, but do they have a situation where if you don't want the hot vegetable, can you have a salad instead? And then that covers everyone instead of, you know, because the person that doesn't like the peas is gonna get the peas, it's not gonna like it, but can they choose? Yeah. I, that's a good point. I think probably if they made up a bunch of salads, but, you know, it's more time consuming to to have, to make a salad and put, you know, enough in it that's nutritious, I guess, that's what I wanna say. But I will ask about that, if that could be an alternative they have improved in the sense that they can, you can have your choice or have two vegetables instead of maybe so much starch. And people complained about some of the fish and it was too over breaded or it didn't have enough sauce or the pasta didn't have enough sauce and they made one, they try to be creative. Riley is the chef and he is really, really good, you know, looking into problems and straightening them out. But he mixed up pureed some, some butternut squash and put it in the macaroni and cheese casserole. That did not go over well, but. I can understand that, Normie. Mac and cheese purists. We're having mac and cheese for dinner. What I wanted to say, Norma is, I think that when people are gonna always complain, you know, and no matter what, no matter who they are, what age or population. However, when you give people choices and they pick what they want. Yeah. Then they really can't complain because that's what they wanted and that's what they got. That's right. If people have less complaining, if people have a choice of whether they have the two salad, whether they have a salad and a vegetable or two vegetables. Yeah. Okay, that's a good point. I will bring that up at the next meeting, which they voted on skipping December, but there'll be one in January. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Norma. Okay. Hey, we have a nice holiday, everybody. Thanks, Norma. Take care. Ailee, is Dick still with us? Yes, I believe so. Okay, I'm gonna jump ahead to him since he's been patiently waiting at our meeting and... Tonight is as an observer. Oh, okay. Sorry, I thought there was... Well, if we have any friends updates, Dick, we always like to hear from our friends. You have to keep your friends close, you know? Yes. Don't need the money. I hear you chuckling in the background here. I think Haley's still on my thunder. No. For me to speak would be the Department of Redundancy Department. And time is of an essence to them at this point. Well, I don't wanna waste your time. No, but we will have more updates, I think, once... Where we're working on... We've got some things in motion. Excellent. Excellent. I'm going to be filming at 11. Sorry. That's good. We're coming out at the Meals site, and I think the gentlemen here who've been in the service know what it's all about. The Meals in the service, they balance them out because they need to have the proper things in the diet for people's health. It's not about choice. It's about a list off the wall that balances it out. And our people come last, like the very young, the very old, are a bit disenfranchised. And this is what you get in that when you're in the disenfranchised population. So if we go into that with that type of mind, we push the peas aside and say, oh, good. I like this other stuff. I think I'll leave these peas on the side because I hate canned peas. You and me both. I don't have that problem. I came from a family where the mother said, you're going to eat it hot for dinner or are you going to get it hot? We cleaned the plate. We had the dog for that. So I am going to recommend we defer approval of the November minutes due to our time. I want to be respectful because we're running over. And I also just want to say 30 seconds about goal setting that I would like us to talk about next month. I think it would be advantageous for us as a council to set some goals for ourselves. What are we looking to do? I think we can go in a million different directions and I'm a person that likes to be organized. I like focus. And so then we can measure, are we accomplishing things? So I invite all of us to ponder over the next month what goals you think we should set. I will go so far as to say, I think we should just only do three because that's manageable. And I think once we kind of get on a roll with this, I think we can certainly expand. But as I said, we'd like to talk more about it next month when we have more time. But I am very cognizant that we have run over. Does anybody have any final? Is everybody okay with that? That we're gonna defer things to those things till January. Okay, awesome. And our next January meeting is Thursday, January 12th at five. I'm looking forward to that. I think we're gonna have some exciting things to talk about then. Is there a motion to adjourn? So move. Awesome. And I'm not sure who's, did you say that, Ann? Yeah, I did. Okay, and Terry, you can second it. Yep. Okay, all in favor? Aye. Aye, okay. I thank you all for your patience. I wish you joyous holidays. I hope you have an opportunity to relax and connect with family and friends, take a moment and breathe and appreciate how fortunate we all are. And I'm very excited to work with this group. I think you're amazing people and I can't wait to meet one person. And we got to see Christina. Thank you. Happy holidays, everybody. Happy holidays. Happy holidays. Bye, everyone. Goodbye. Bye-bye.