 Thank you. In case that has you like, like, like tap out and say, I got to go. Okay, so welcome everybody here. Monday, June 13, Recreation Commission meeting. I would like to first move to approve the May minutes minutes from May, which were since was immediately after the May meeting. And that was Yusuf was not there that day, so I hope you had a chance to take a look and review. That's any questions but motion to approve those minutes. I'd second. Take a vote. Well, I just have corrections or any corrections. I did not. So, any corrections for the minutes for May. Then. Then let's vote. All in favor of, of approving the main minutes as is. Raise your hand. Yes. From here. Sorry, my camera's not working. You're okay. All the pain because I wasn't there, right? So, yep, all the pose. Okay. Made minutes have been entered into the record. Thank you, Matt. Thanks everybody for the vote. So today, the piece that I have Noah here, I wanted to get him involved early. And we can let him go after that if necessary is he is a number of different things for our department for people who don't know anybody here who maybe doesn't know Noah. Noah is our acting sports director for the time that overlaps into my coming on. He has been heavily involved in a number of different aspects of the program, including our sports program, of course, including Jerry Hill and after school. And he's been involved in this case directly. He's been the point person for putting together the, the Independence Day celebration for you mass. He has a background knowledge of how we, how we've operated that in the past. He has, he certainly has no connections out with the community that's been resourcing the event for us. And so I did want to know my saying what we have going on here is, I think too much me, I did want to invite Noah to, if nothing else to get him a little face time with you, the commission. And so I basically let Noah introduce the, the event and, and we can go from there with any questions that you may have directly about the event or anything connected. We have a little bit of time to talk about it if necessary. You may have some questions. So Noah. Thank you very much. And thank you all for your time. So like Ray said, I've been with Amherst Recreation or as it was then known LSSE for about five years starting as in my freshman year at UMass. I was a sport management major. So I came in through the sports route, but quickly picked up over the summer in the fourth of July. I ran it in 2018 and 2019 and was planning on coming back to run it in 2020. Unfortunately. Other circumstances occur. So with that in mind, my hope going, my plan going into this year was to leverage kind of the connections that we had existing prior and create an event that's more COVID friendly. Considering that we are still in a global pandemic. Also additionally, we knew that we would face some struggles in the form of sponsorship. In my senior year at UMass, I was a part of the sponsorship organization for the department. And it was very difficult securing them with partners that we had long standing connections with. And so we expected similar difficulties going in here. And so with that in mind, I'm going to focus on what sort of areas we can do to face cost reduction and also help facilitate a better environment for our fair growers. And so notable changes for this year is probably most notable would be the lack of the Amherst community band. We made contact with the director and a large portion of their membership is in some form of a compromised position. And so we were able to do that. We were able to either do the age or preconditions. And so it, given the nature of how they operate, which is come one, come all, it felt like a, a bit of a gray area in terms of how it would be executed in a safe, a safe manner for this year. So we had the calls, we kept the connection and he's, we'll be delighted to return for next year, because that being said, that allowed us to reduce our normal stage order, which is a, for the stage and audio production, that's usually our second biggest expense after the fireworks. And so not having 150 person band on stage allowed us to significantly reduce it. A side benefit of that being it significantly reduces the kind of focal point that having a stage in the middle of your event would create and allows people to disperse more significantly throughout the fairgrounds. And so we are keeping the similar sort of event layout from 2019, if anyone is familiar in 2018, we had had a format that we had used for about, to my knowledge, 15 years, as long as I've been going to the fair. And with the construction of the sports bubble put up behind McGurk Stadium, that altered where the firing spot was and significantly changed the layout of the fields. We kept for this year. And so the general layout is for essentially a promenade like walk-in from the parking lots surrounding McGurk and into the fairground where it will open up and allow people to disperse to their designated sitting spot and view. We will still have some amenities and features that we have always offered in the past. There's the kids carnival. We will have food from vendors and their food trucks. And we are working on providing some sorts of kind of give-outs. And we are working with our sponsors and partners to provide a raffle and hopefully some form of silent auction for this year. And as always, there will be fireworks. And if anyone has any questions, I'd be delighted to answer. Is there any, in the absence of the band then, is there any entertainment, other kind or? Yeah, so I don't know what, but yeah. We've been in negotiations with a few different groups. A few we either haven't been able to reach a fair price on. That's another factor that's changed. The price for our. Our performances has significantly gone up and that has kind of affected our budget. We are debating whether we want to up on our offer or just go for kind of MC event. And just with the audio company can provide some form of kind of royalty free playlist. That may be our best kind of lowest cost option at this point. And I've shared already, I should, I should make sure that there's one other major change here. And that's the date. And so that also has had an effect on some of the decisions that we've made. We're no longer is the event itself on the holiday. It's July 4th. I think the last I spoke to you all is that we were planning for the July 1st date, which is, which is the date. The rain date is the eighth. We intend to have no kind of rain date. So, so bear with us. July 1st is the Friday before the holiday weekend. And so what that, one of the things that puts Noah and our planning committee and a little bit of a bind on is that that's a work day. And so, and so in terms of getting volunteers to come in and work at the end, we usually have had our camp volunteer, our camp staff comes and volunteers to operate the kids carnival and to operate the hot air balloon and to operate the, to basically, basically serve as on site volunteers for us in a lot of different capacities, parking and, and everything else. And so we have an extremely limited. A group of volunteers to pull from. It is again, it's a work day. We don't know how that's going to affect overall the, the, the crowd that comes out on a holiday. They might be there waiting when we get ready to go at five o'clock, six o'clock or whatever. And they might be droves there, but that's the time where people are getting out of work or out of their other opportunities. And so, and so there's a little bit of a, of a, you know, holiday on a normal day conundrum that we were facing here that affected some of our decisions about where we spent our money and how we, how we invest in those cars, how we spread those costs around. I'm, I'm, I'm, I, I'm, I'm, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I'm obviously this is my first time going through it and being in a planning of something like this large and this scale being involved in it. And I, like it, it is an exciting thing for us to be putting on. I've talked to Paul Bach a little few times about it. And he's, he's made it. He, he, he definitely has made it clear that he's a big fan of fireworks and, and, you know, there's no way that we weren't going to find some way to make that happen for ourselves. But I think, I think it's, you know, certainly with, with Noah's expertise. I think, I think we've been able to create as much of a, of a, of a consistency creates a consistency between what we're offering this year and what we've offered in the past. Sarah, it will, it will be lots of fun. I know it will remind me what time it's going to start. So it has an unofficial world, unofficial, but a soft start at five o'clock. Again, as that's the end of the work day for UMass, we still have to square away with a few of their departments to gain final on that. But that will be getting cleared up shortly. And then really the heart of in years past things really kick off around six o'clock. And so, again, that's where the reports are, but the reports are, they are the kind of high buzz, lots of traffic times. And then nine is fire fireworks is nine. Right, great. And remind me where they are being set off from now, since it's. Yeah, so it's still behind McGeerks. The rules or regulations on fireworks. We've been able to keep the same shells that we've always used in years past, so it's the same display. We just had to rotate and kind of pivot the fairgrounds so that it can accommodate the shooting range. Thank you. Oh, I'm looking forward to it. So, so what were you saying you're having trouble getting enough people to stuff it. We, we have enough to staff what we, what we're putting out there there's been a few things that we thought about bringing back we definitely want to bring. I'm trying to gather some a secondary group of volunteers to come over and work. I love that. And it's a really great relationship we have with remax that that has put on that hot air balloon in the past. And so, and so that I think that's that it, it's financially an obligation of ours to, to continue that relationship. But, but it's also I think it's just a cool thing to offer right over by the kids carnival right out on university on them on the mall there. Can you can you use the MS to ambassadors to help with staffing. Oh, that's a great point I will reach out to them. A lot less strain on my basketball players. But we should, we can, we can definitely reach out to them and, and see if we can't get some bunch of it's the nice thing about moving it off the July 4 is that there may be more interest in people like people don't already have sort of plans I don't want to go and volunteer on a holiday which is sort of a, we can, we can force our workers to volunteer. We can, we can force the camp workers to come in and volunteer because it's part of the deal that they come in and work with us but it can be hard to scrounge up people to come in on their holiday and and share presumably there's no there's no pie eating contest presumably. Yes, yep, no pie eating contest, no course is there some alternative alternative kids activity. Yes, we do have the kids carnival, which we've had in years past. And so that is that'll be situated on the Dallas mall which is kind of part of the prominent and so the idea for that is for to exist as a sort of set aside bubble of just interactions and kid friendly activities with goodie bag handouts and kind of things keep the kids occupied. Is there anything like or or have, have you considered something like a slip and slide, if it's a hot day evening, I don't know. We've had issues in the past with the slip and slide in that it typically can flood the fairground just leaving it. We do have plans for like the hot day, we keep coolers of water loaded up that we will start driving around on our golf carts to everyone as it, depending on how hot it is and kind of how uncomfortable it can get. Could there be something like a missing station I don't know what it takes you know it's basically like a hose on it. Yeah, or sprinkler or something. Right. Just a thought you don't have to. Yeah, it's worth looking into maybe it's just in limited runs. Yeah. Other questions about the holiday that the Independence Day celebration. We're part of the issues that we've been dealing with and this is the non celebration parties knows also had to try and coordinate all of the logistics of, of non holiday about dealing with traffic and dealing with access and, and all those sorts of things it's we. I don't know how it's going to compare to years past but the number of people know do you know how many people have been there in the past, what were the estimates that we've gotten on attendance. The estimates have really been kind of shot in the dark, but the best number we've kind of come out with is about 15 to 20,000 in terms of total viewing of the fireworks, and then on the fairground itself anywhere from one to 5,000 depending on the time of day. In terms of, in terms of reaching out and, and that's a lot of eyes which of course allows us access to a bunch of businesses to say this, you know, we have advertising space here for you, we can come over and help us. We've, we've been soliciting for some contributions and support from from the wider Amherst community Hadley's been very involved someone's been very involved we've had a bunch of local towns because this is sort of, this is sort of some of the stretches that we've had with us. It's been a partnership with obviously Hadley and Hadley police and, and, and, you know, the emergency teams from from the general area we've, you know, all of you math the campus of UMass it feels like it's all had their hands in here in someplace. It's, it has been a complete team effort. Is there a chamber of commerce still trying to sell MS gift cards. I don't know about that. That's it mean at the, at the events or, while I'm interested in general, if they'd like to, if they'd like to have a have a place or a way to sell MS gift cards at the, at this fair. Okay. It's worth, worth asking. So the number of people and the number of eyes out there, I think that there's a lot of, there's typically been a lot of interest for people to, to participate in some way, if, in addition to the fact that it's a community event that that there's some benefit to just being a part of this large, large scale community event this is a lot of people in the community are coming together on this. Sarah. I just popped into my head. So a little out of left field but I wonder if there could be a table or somewhere. Maybe the League of Women Voters could do this but for voter registration. I think that it would be so you know all the anybody it's the same form live in Massachusetts to fill out this form you could, if we have internet, you know, access you can check your registration get people, you know, starting to be involved, and I think it could be some great outreach. Something actually relevant to July 4, something relevant to July 4 active participation. I think a little flags around. Notting like, like, yeah, you're on it or you thought of it. Berkeley we've always had the League of Women's Voters. So we're hoping to have their return still waiting to get confirmation on that. I didn't recall that at all. Well wonderful. We will sit with our like posted position right next to our information 10, or one of them at the fairgrounds. Okay, well I hope they would reach out to their, you know, neighboring leagues, like if there's one in Hadley or Sunderland or wherever. Maybe, you know, they don't have to staff it all themselves. Yeah, be a great civic perfect for July 4. You know what I just think now maybe that's the next year thing is, it'd be really cool if I just sit in a dunk tank all night and just harass people as they walk by. Do I get to pitch? I think so. Probably want to right. I'm just, I'll go where, you know what I'll go where Northampton jerseys and stuff and just harass everybody say walk by. Hey, is there any way to have a little putting operation. Little golf, little golf outreach. Somebody's got, and Nikki might have that answer somebody's got like a mini portable mini golf thing that they've used at the library before places like that. It'd be great to promote Cherry Hill. But then again it's the latest sport so I don't know. I could have had. You don't want just anybody. Nikki is the one overseeing this operation but Noah is is the point guy and much more interesting anyway so I'm just saying we will bring we will bring we'll bring Nikki the question about whether or not we have something set up like as part of as part of the festivities. And I don't think it was you know from this department but I think she coordinated something at the library was so she just might know to contact the person to ask is what I'm saying. Okay. I do have a putting game you can have if you want I won't be here I'll be away but you're welcome to borrow it. Any other observations questions comments. Relevant trivia for us stories stories of July 4 past that that we should know as we get ready to start this. It was the it was the horrible incident of 1991 when. Right. Then we thank you Noah. You can certainly hang out if you want to I don't know why you would, but you can hang out if you want to. Any questions for us, you can, you can direct them direct, you can send them directly to Noah by email you can send them to me I can. I'll answer all questions about July 4 by first waiting and going to know and finding out what the answer should be, but no is the point person for that and we will look forward to the event. Awesome. Well, thank you all for having me and hope to see you all at the event. Thanks Noah. Take it easy. Okay. Hey, we're right on time. So I do think I've, I've talked to Paul a few times about that July 4 event, the July 1 event, we've talked a bunch of times and maybe even especially given the, the sort of fizzle that I've mentioned a few times about Winterfest. This is, this is a chance for us to make sure that we, that we, you know, sort of steer a large public gathering here and my creations involvement in this is I think really important. And it's my chance to, to be involved with a major public event here for the first time after, after the Winterfest situation. Yes, it's scaled back a little bit. There are little things that we've scaled back because of the date because of, because of managing a crowd and pandemic. But, but none of that is is sort of bunting on the opportunity to put a really big event on for Amherst and surrounding towns. And so that's, that is our commitment here. It sounds like a fantastic event. I haven't been involved with, I've never come over for the UMass fireworks, but I did go on a walkthrough this week and just early last week and looking at on on satellite maps for the last month is a lot different from getting in a golf carton sort of taking the trip around and seeing where everything was I think it's all coming together in my mind now so is this an appropriate time I think, I think probably so. Let's stay on the schedule here I'll open for the new business there are a couple things I wanted to, I wanted to put on the table here at the end, but I did send you all the operational goals that I, I shared it with you all. I believe in March. A list of what I identified as being potential goals for recreation so I am switching gears here from July 1. Those operational goals I had a chance to think about at the time I had a chance basically some of them I was working on from week one, when I took the job in the fall. Some of them are ones that we've, it's been a, it's been a challenge for me to try and make sure that I am prioritizing trying to nibble some of them and nibble some of these we've, we've. I think we've had a nice combination of being, being incredibly ambitious and trying to get as many of these things on the table as possible, and some of them involve more effort and more work certainly from from programming and community standpoint from planning and in terms of experience. But also monitoring how much it was recommended last, last meeting, just. I remember you all essentially telling me just make sure you know to, to, to measure your, your ambition a little bit make sure that you have some sense of, of not spending so much out there and you're taking care of, of, of sort of a sequence with those. And so this is, this is my, my honest self assessment of where we are in those goals, I can share. I believe trying to share the screen. Did that work. Are you looking at my. Yes. Okay, good. So, here we have the, what I shared with you before. The top the staff news is essentially that's old news I won't deal with that right now that's still where we are in terms of wrapping up the, the programs and moving into the summertime pools open this week and and with war has about a week's delay because of a pump problem, but pools are opening this week and camps are opening almost immediately after that so it's, it is a transition time for us we're right on it. But year one operational goals, two of them that I think we spent the most time sort of planning and thinking about with staff and others are, are this communication system. For each one I sort of talked about this is the issue that led this to be a goal, talk about the challenge that it presents in terms of how we know what is the challenge for us to come in there and steer it. And then what as of right now has we accomplished along those goals. The communication system for all of these for any and all of these that you feel capable of, of adding input to my next, the next thing that I want to do with this is to, is to sort of figure out what those next steps are from wherever we are for someone we may be very advanced in the goals for someone we may be a little bit farther back behind in terms of where we wanted to be at this point. But your commission's advice in terms of what I should be looking at doing what where we should be moving next with them is what I wanted to reach out and spend a little bit of time during this commission meeting looking at. That communication system right now has essentially been introduces a possibility. So that the next thing that I do with that is going to be to sort of sit down with the, with certainly the active parties and facilities, which would be Rupert Roy Clark and, and, and Erica. Rupert and Erica from facilities that are largely responsible for for handling those facilities right now I've mentioned that trying to create a one stop shopping where the town can schedule through us that was a major point in my last conversation here. And the main in the main meeting is that we want to try and try and show up the communications and make it so that we have for the town sake, some, some one place for people to go and try and try and schedule field use. Carolyn, I see your hand now or Carolyn. Sorry, I was muted. I was saying, I'm not sure if or how this fits in it may fit in a couple different categories. And that is signage and website updating. I've been walking around Paul but Hill Road and Puppers and Mill River and noticed a lot of signs about winter use. A lot of signs looking really wear it worn out they don't have our new icons, you know, icons on them. Right. Our, our identity system so I think I don't even know how that gets done, but I feel like we need a review of all of that. I can say that right now. It's not, it's not immediately one of these goals here, it has been something we've been throwing out there that signage is a bigger issue than I thought it was just something that people are saying hey signage signage is becoming. I think I've understood why it's a major issue now. We've got temporary signs at Mill River that just went up this weekend as signage for that particular space. I believe I don't know anything about this for sure, but I believe that the capital request that we put in for signage one of the things that we put in for capital was for money for signage at Cherry Hill Mill River to basically increase our signage make better signs that that that part of this caught into some some of the way finding the there is a there's a signage issue that goes beyond our department. But in terms of our request to sign our facilities I think the town is in the process of, of giving us an answer on signage signage can very much, especially when you look at that second stage with rec spaces. My second goal there, that is one of the places that that that's one that essentially is a branding. My second goal is a chance for us to say, come out of the pandemic we are rec, coming out of the strategic plan and the name change and everything else is a chance for us to, as everybody comes back out, we are recreation department and this is what we are this is what we do. Those, I think that signage definitely ties into our activating rec spaces with rec programming. But in general, I think that it's an important piece of our, our departments. Next steps. Caroline follow up. I still say that sounds that sounds like a good plan. I want to remind you about the website to I noticed things on there was still still LSC appears a couple places. I want to go, you know, I will look through that that I will, what I'll do is right now I'm making a note for myself to tie that in to rec spaces, which is the second. It's the second of the of the goals, I think that that most directly ties into our interest of, of communicating rec spaces and branding recreation. Thank you. Thank you, Sarah. Well, first, a couple things just to add to that conversation. I think part of the reason there are still occurrences of LSC on the website, the town website is that it's not only at on the Amherst rec pages there are other pages that refer to rec still as LSC. So if there's a way for it to crawl through the entire site, not just the Amherst rec parts. But of course, there's also going to be somewhere there should be an explanation of the name change because there are legacy documents, you know that we're not going to go back and change them to say Amherst rec, you know, there are old news press releases or announcements or or whatever and people need to have somewhat some way to connect those to or if they're searching for something and they're not finding it under by by looking for recreation So that's just one thought. I was going to, yeah, it's going to throw out the word branding. When you were talking about signage because signage there's many elements or reasons to having signs what do you want to accomplish with the sign so that's, that's a big conversation, but my, the reason I raised my hand was one about this first point communication system. Maybe this is just an internal document but I would suggest changing that communication system because it sounds like telephones or email for how you're communicating with your staff or something I mean if you mean a scheduling system for recreation and school, you know town and school recreational assets, then I would just say that I'm very clear because it took a little bit longer than for me to figure out what impact you were talking about. And then my question is, are these in, are these in order of priority for you or they're not they're not in a priority order. Thank you for asking that. Okay, I think I dumped a couple early on I dumped a couple of them late because it didn't involve as much of my active energy and then put it together but it's not it is not a priority order. Thanks. This is, this is great is very useful. I mean for us to see and I think for you to have done it. And maybe you'll tell us after everyone else has commented how what what is your next step with this is like to have what's your plan to make progress with these. But that's enough for me right now. Thank you for that the, the labeling communication system for such it is an internal memo and so so this is just a working document for myself right now shared with you I shared with Paul. The reason why I think it began as communications I completely understand I think I think scheduling makes more sense to make it clear that this is primarily a scheduling. It's a priority for us. I think that I think it's origin came because it came from what I saw as a lack of communication between those three parties my recreation DPW and school department. And so, the, the, to have people moving back and forth across this little hallway here to go from our desk to facilities back to our desk, because we keep on steering them different ways. It felt to me when we were first month for first bring this together that it's a matter of just none of us are really talking to each other none of us really have what the information we have, we aren't sharing with them and they aren't sharing with us and that's one of the things that I think each of them has to do with communication when I was onboarding back in the fall saying we need to try and find some way to get this back together and have, have all of these scheduling parties on the same page and so for me at the origin was communications, but the function. Before, even before you then communicate to the public you have to know what internally what, what are the responsibilities in the area. And so that communication system, the scheduling system that we're looking at there is is a model for us to be able to use. We've already in terms of accomplishments as of now it's only been introduced as a possibility, our pursuit of new registration software has been done with this scheduling intention in mind. I've mentioned to you that we've been looking at new scheduling software that that speaks directly to our munis to the munis financial software that the town uses for more than just our scheduling purposes but but as we look for a department a department registration software. We've also been looking specifically for the possibility of something that will make scheduling easier for us, but even without that. We are, we've already, we've already discussed how we would situate it. If it has to be all analog which it won't be but it has to be like pen and paper. And we want to try and take it here and have our registration, our registration coordinator and in our, in our desk be able to take care of that, as long as we have the ability to not extend her to much beyond the job that she's been doing for us. It's, it's a heavy responsibility now for the fall in the summertime, especially, but it obviously would be a concern even outside of those time, outside of those that time period. And so the next steps for us I know involved in there, a conversation of sit down at the table and planning session with facilities being the schedulers for the schools. I believe that DPW is already a board with our, with our interests as long as we have a chance to schedule maintenance stuff from that central site because DPW doesn't know always what their responsibilities are and the people who are who are signing up the coaches who sign up for the field sometimes don't know, well DPW come over and take care of the trash here. Well that's not trash response that's not DPW responsibility that's the school departments responsibility to take care of that. And so, if we have a central software that we, we, if we have a central scheduler, then that we can send that. It can be automatic from us that it goes to DPW your responsibility to this, this and this, and we can communicate with them like, like we're communicating with our own folks here but without a clear understanding of whose responsibility it is which I've brought up here the last couple of years, understanding whose responsibility it is, then it just makes things harder for the, for the town community. For rec spaces. In terms of our accomplishments there. There is basically branding and getting out there and really enlivening public space with with with recreation programming and to be able to put our name put our mission and put our interests out there and have people know that this is what this new recreation department is doing. Pretty good events, at least small events here that aren't necessarily large motions here but they've they've been, I think really successful without without measurements here in terms of just how successful they are. But we have the pool collaboration I mentioned with the senior center, which will be done in rec spaces. Mill River the Boston Street hockey clinic which I mentioned to you all was a fantastic day of bringing a bunch of different parts of the town together, throwing wreck up and and sort of celebrating it and promoting it and and sharing that experience through social media and other avenues to get out and play collaboration with Jones Library which Nikki's been doing has been basically public spaces and and the cooperating with the library to do some sense it's been a Kendrick which is necessarily certainly not our space our programming space specifically, but it is certainly a chance for us to go out and do rack at that recreational grounds salsa Kendrick if anybody saw or heard about this, I wish I would have known more about this at our last meeting I would have, I would have said this, I would have gotten you all involved in this in whatever way you wanted to be. But there are more dates coming up yesterday Saturday it was that Jose Alan sports director has cooperated with a couple of members of community that are putting on salsa dancing lessons over Kendrick Park. We have about two or three hours on Saturday night over Kendrick music in the down music downtown partnered with Mexico Lito to bring people over afterwards and I think there was like a discount discount for for food service over there. So there's there's sort of a really taken care of aspect to it we got a number of emails and conversations Paul share with us a couple of people just thought it was one of the one of the really nice things that have happened over here. So we're going to get chance to do I think we have like three or four more dates of those coming up here this summer salsa night in the basically in the downtown Amherst. Whatever your levels are, come on over and dance with us. And then other recreational outreach that basically, we've, we've been trying to not just open parks and tell people hey there's stuff going on over here, but also to actively say recreation events over here, come over here and do rec Sarah. Yeah, how was, was the salsa Kendrick advertised somehow I don't. It was, it was, it sounded, sounded wonderful. It was, I think, I think the, all the permit stuff it was pretty late coming on the first date was pretty abrupt after we got it, and we did publicize it on our social media. The person who he's worth the person who's the instructor. I know was doing some outreach there but I think, basically this first time was like a word of mouth sort of thing and saying well, you like that. Did you hear about this. We have more of these nights coming up. I had a chance if I wish I was, I was out of, I wasn't available to come over and take pictures but I wish I was. If there are pictures available will be blasting those and, you know, sort of the good times of the town will get the press out there would have been nice to have the press to take a look at that that's the sort of event that I think would be fantastic for them to latch on to. So next steps there now or in the future if anybody has any advice or suggestions as to where what sorts of things we can be doing next. I saw a hand, maybe Carolyn. This, when I see cherry hill and some clubhouse thoughts. It reminded me something before you got here that's that used to be the case was that integrity builders integrity construction used to help us out a lot with sponsorships and so forth and I don't know if they're still interested but they might be a good place to talk about some upgrades, you know, in, in kind for the clubhouse help with design or some work or a lumbar something like that, you know a lot of people that give money might be able to give time instead. Any other, like, like any more depth detail into what integrity is relationship with us has been. Last year or two. I don't know. They were big supporters of winter fast. Are they are they not recently or have they. Well, we, you know, we had a, the winter fast committee was kind of a community based committee it wasn't really just, you know, the LSE or Amherst rex so they were a lot of people from the chamber from the community from recreation department. And so that's kind of how integrity came in as kind of an offshoot of the chamber. But they do like to get involved in things like this so you know when when we had a program that they could kind of latch on to they did I don't know if they would do. You know it's worth asking the question has to come from probably Ray or somebody like that but you know maybe they would but we're not on share hill yeah right. It's a women owned business which might might be good for us. Higher someone like that work with them. Good for me though. I guess that's also just an interesting point in general, if, if companies that previously sponsored things like the Fourth of July, or winter fast, and not feeling like they can sponsor them financially this year. Maybe there's some other in kind. Help they could provide. Are you thinking for the course, Caroline, or are you thinking in general. I'm thinking clubhouse because in raised notes here he has a clubhouse improvements wants to make it more of a community center and you know their people with design expertise and a lot of building experience so they may be just the right people I don't know to partner with. I am begging for for sort of a nudge in that direction here on that as, as I said in use of I did get your message and use of reach out to me a few weeks ago and let me know hey we started some momentum moving in the direction of cherry hill. Early right before the season started and we've, we haven't, we haven't sort of picked up on that momentum on that planning momentum that we had going into the year. So that was one of the main ones on this list that I think, I think when I think about next steps and it's been back burner, partially because of, because of funding issues and because of what have you but also because I've been sort of chasing these other things here. And, and maintaining a steady open for the season is different from from generating that that that change that progress and in the cultural part of it. And so the next steps there we do have what I think, for me feels like a long remainder of the season to really start doing our way behind trying to investigate those those basic upgrades to physical space clubhouse entertainment food of course always comes up when we talk about providing getting something for golfers for members for for green fees folks for community folks who just come by making it a place where people can, can do more than just show up in golf. There's been, there hasn't been a lot of action in terms of changing what we do there. And part of me is happy that it just hasn't fallen apart. As we as we put it back together and we've got new faces up there. But the one of my one of our, one of our goals going into that season was to reinvestigate what we're doing there. So next steps there probably involve again revisiting a collection of cross section of the users in the community there. And also involves a comparative comparative research with municipal courses and what have you. The one of the big challenges that I said limited cost and challenge but one of the big challenges for us in this is that it's going to be really hard for us to invest large money and cherry hill. If it doesn't directly and immediately turn into revenue, it would be hard to justify throwing in a huge that we can't knock down walls and build a build an annex to the to the to the trailer up there or something we can't. We can't reinvent the physical space. And ways that ways that we would if we had all of the money invested in that and we knew that that would be would be supported by the town. I, I think we got a little bit of we're making it more of a chicken and an egg kind of thing but I think what it needs is some, you know, somebody or body of people and other towns have like you know advisory groups or you know like think groups or whatever. There's a lot of things that we could do right away that would generate money at cherry hill. You know without before we even asked from me I know we wanted moors and things like that and that's important because without it we're not going to run the course of the ones that we're running on. I only, I only asked for stuff. If need is need I asked for needs. I understand but I think my, I think what we're, we're running into is that people are judging cherry hill for what it brings in. We're putting any effort into bringing in some other stuff. You know case and you know we have nine signs the one on each T T box right there the big granite signs that we have ads on there that were there like 20 years ago for $25 we can buy a new ad we sell it for $1,000. Let's say we can easily make five six grand just on that just that alone you can put a sign and they're saying this is available you know we take down what's on. So there's little things we could do that you know there's we can make it more inviting to be on on the deck we can we tell people don't break outside alcohol but we don't have a sign saying that we sell alcohol there you know hang out after you play. You know so I think we're at a point now everybody that's playing is people you know our members basically you know we have I don't I don't know what the numbers are now but I would imagine that there is still large screens fees. You know, you know, I was telling somebody that they kind of feels like you know we own this food truck and we only use it for my family parties, you know, we're not putting it out there on the street and making money with it. It's something that actually can make money I don't know what our budget is to bring in but people at the end of the season are going to judge it on what it did without us doing anything for it or with it. You know, go ahead. You know, like, you know, people I would say oh yeah we're spending money and cherry hill and it doesn't make any money. Well they could make money, but we have to kind of think about it you know I mean and with all due respect to everybody that's in your office you're all busy putting all these other programs together. You don't have time to say okay what can we do about share how can we share he'll make more money it's just not in the, like you don't have the capacity at this point because you're busy building all the other programs so that's understandable. So maybe if you know my thought was always let's just get some volunteer think tanks to work on it and just come up with ideas, you know we're not going to spend any money or they're not going to spend any money without being approved or whatever but I think there's a lot of things we could do without spending money. But before we know it will be over. The back burner was not because oh my goodness we can't spend money. I know but I mean I watched one of those things about the money thing. And the problem with cherry hill is it has this perception, you know we have some live people in town that always, you know want to tear it down and put it away, you know pack it up and spend money as a trail, but which you know obviously isn't smart but anyway that's another story for another day but that's the perception that we're running to so when we do say that we want to do some things with it. We're always going to run into that that and then the loudest people are the ones that are against it even though there are a lot of people who are for it they just don't have the forum to say, you know, some of the things they need to say about it. So my own clarification sake. When you say people are constantly saying people constantly saying other people you refer to those people who are, you know the parts of the community that are anti cherry hill that are against the process are you talking about like town hall and anti cherry hill, you know, but you know it's a small town and everybody's got a reach somewhere you know I mean you know for example, or who's the one who started that whole conversation of that one meeting that I saw. You know, maybe he's doing it because he wants money for the school, I don't know, you know, if that's if that's the reason why he started that whole anti cherry hill thing but it picked up momentum right away you know and unfortunately it's hard once it gets going it's hard to to talk about it after you know I mean like it's hard to stop it because you got to let it run its course and all of a sudden we're now stopping thinking about what what else can we do there, because now we have to let this thing calm down a little bit. We either need people who to start a positive campaign so to speak, you know, on purpose and figure out how to put the word out in a positive way, or just do stuff that makes money so that at the end of the season which is going to come up before we you know we have some positive results to show. Excuse me, you're not anyway. I think those are really good ideas and I think they're probably people right here is that could work on some brainstorming there. Also people who are the players and I don't know who they are, who the long termers are. But they have the best ideas and they know what they want or what they, you know what they've seen in other places and I think it'd be a great idea to tap them. Even if it's just a survey they pick up on the way back to their cars, you know. I spoke to Paul a little bit about and tell me what you, I'm not saying that I was pushing or he was pushing it but like a little bit about involving like a outside consultancy involving somebody to come in, even if it meant like a management department or UMass or somebody that finds somebody that can take a look at the, at our Cherry Hill as a business and tell us what we are doing well what we what we need to be doing more of, sort of get fresh eyes on the situation. I agree that we have rich ideas from people who have been golfing there for a long time or we're very invested and care about the community also fresh eyes also I think would be would be helpful for us and saying, how can we make this work better than it is right now. You know what should our next steps be in terms of enlivening this if our goals are this as this about building a clubhouse culture and bringing people in. What is the, you know, what are the steps for us to get there. And so we get fresh eyes outside eyes third party third party assessment would be part of that awesome. Sanjay. So that's about Cherry Hill first regarding the clubhouse. And also the human infrastructure at Cherry Hill, by which I mean john Quello. I just want to go on the record is saying that the wintertime users as representative by Amherst Nordic ski association. I believe in and support the idea that that physical infrastructure the clubhouse and the human infrastructure, a superintendent a salary superintendent john in our case, are crucial to the continued and improved wintertime recreation opportunities at the facility. That the physical facility the building should be rather than any notions that it should be moving towards abandonment should be moving towards enhancement towards 12 months for season use as a as a town recreational facility. Currently, the successful wintertime recreation programs are highly dependent on the presence of a salary superintendent maintainer at the site. The formulated wintertime sports do not generate any revenue for the facility. We're aware of that. Accepting very modest hundreds of dollars donations that this that the ski association makes towards maintenance of some of the grooming equipment. The skiers are very open to the idea of there being some sort of fee structure for use of the facility, as use of said provided that the, that the facility that the facility is improved. Right, and we've talked about various ways that wintertime recreation might be improved at the facility. So that's the first thing. And Sarah I hope you don't mind my giving a second comment before you jump in. Thanks. I'm as cautious about hiring consultants as anyone on the face of the planet. And yet, over the course of my now 16 years in Amherst, which still makes me very much a newcomer. I'm coming to the realization that you don't get anything without a consultant's report saying that you should do it. I'm sorry am I that I've become Amherst now I think I think I'm always looking for a way to have a consultant. Look, I, I'm sure it's not just Amherst. I think it's the way I think it's the way our society and government works these days. So, I know I'm being recorded so I saying don't quote me on this doesn't really work. Don't quote me on this, but I and the ski association fully support the engagement of consultant to study and make recommendations regarding year round use recreational use of the cherry hill property. And it's critical, I think that that consultant be prepared to do a four season analysis, and not to simply study the facility as a golf course as a municipal golf course, because there are there continue to be tremendous opportunities for true for season use of the property and the building and the human capital. So, as far as last season as director of the, the, the former LSE. She did actually include in her proposed budget funds for a specific wintertime consultant study. She wasn't supported by the town, and so that never came to be but you know I could still provide some information on what the cost and scope would be for the wintertime part of any of any outside study that might be might be performed on the property. Thanks. Thank you. Sarah. I just want to endorse Sanjay's point for at least the part, which is that the way I see it. If we only talk about cherry hill as a golf course that is creating a lot of the problem, because that's a small contests constituency, and I don't play golf so I don't see myself. I see that it matters to me. Alright, but I mean that's it's history that's it's obvious use that's what's done with it and in the good weather but I think it's a big mistake, only to talk about it as golf course. I think our signs should not, and I can't remember right now if it only says golf course I, I would like to see it called golf, excuse me, golf and recreation area because it ought to be a four season asset for the town, which gives you a much larger constituency everybody. Everybody does something could do something there at some point in the year. So I think it, it just exacerbates the problem only to focus on this as a, as a golf issue. I think the thing about the golf issue is that if you maintain it as a golf course it becomes available for other things you can do year round. So, and it's going to make money during that time it's not like, you know, maintaining a trail that's going to cost us money but it doesn't make you any money. If we if we run it correctly and if we do something with it we can actually generate income while making it available for you, you know for season use. That's exactly right and I, I apologize if that didn't come through clearly and what I was saying, but you know again speaking for myself and I think for the ski association. The ski association supports the continued municipal operation of cherry hill as a golf course, because the operation of it as a golf course makes possible the level of skiing that can be provided at the golf course. And the idea that one can simply cease maintenance of the facility as a golf course and yet continue to have somehow miraculously at no cost to the town equivalent wintertime operations is a total fallacy. And, and frankly should be called out whenever that argument is made. And I know that that argument is made. And it should be called out as as false when it's made. So, the, the, the, you know, to the degree that in any given year the town is seen as subsidizing the golf course well the town subsidizes, I believe all recreational facilities in town. Certainly many. I've looked at the numbers regarding pools and other things like that. And, you know, back to Sarah's point, if you said to skier as well, do you support the golf course. A lot of them are going to say well I don't play golf. And they say well, do you support the golf course if that's what allows skiing to happen the way that you like it. They're like, Oh, well, I guess. It's just true to say that the town subsidizes Nordic skiing. Right. It's not. It subsidizes both. It subsidizes all you. So, right, so. Gotta expand the constituency and the conversation. I think that's, I'm happy that you said that because that's kind of where I didn't. And I think that's the natural progression of the conversation is to say that we do ourselves a disservice by talking about it as a golf course in the golf course. And as a golf entity only the conversation about subsidizing golf. It's not an issue because the town shouldn't be subsidizing public public activities. It's an issue because frankly, should we be subsidizing the recreational habits of a, of what's perceived as being a very narrow swath of the community of people who could go and find opportunities to do the same thing someplace else. So, if it is only if we are only thinking it was a golf club and we're only thinking about developing it as a golf club and maintain as a golf club then we lose a lot of what I think, what I think makes it gives it a compelling case to be subsidized. We, a lot of things that we subsidize, we subsidize because it's for the greater good. We subsidize because it allows such a, such a wide range of the Amherst community to come and use the space for skiing come and use a space for winterfest to come and use a space for all the different things that that I'm expressing for if, which is one of the reasons why I started out by saying, you know, I haven't seen a full season of golf here but, but when, when members and golf insiders were telling me we need to do something about the clubhouse atmosphere. If it is a cultural center, if it is a community center where those different pieces that use it come together and, and form a community that it offers value other than just showing up hitting a ball and, and going home. That's where we lose the argument. If we don't take the next steps and the, and the process of trying to transform it from being a golf subsidy to being a community recreational center. Carolyn. I think there's a lot of fodder in your, your little handout here for other meetings and conversations. So, I don't know what we do with that I mean we can't get to it all sitting here, but I don't want to lose track of it either. Can we move that to another meeting or we can, we can definitely table this and move to another meeting. I've spoken. The last couple meetings I've spoken at some length about the feeder programs. My attention to the feeder programs, you can see that if you have any suggestions or, or observations about that. If I should say if anybody has something you desperately want to bring up right now about it we can certainly do that we don't have to completely put it in there but I was thinking the same thing that Carolyn was thinking. The strategic plan is some of you all were involved in that. Because I've seen your name in the book. But the strategic plan was, I have done almost nothing to this to this date about bring that back but really it's a rebuilding the stage in which that that that process of of re introducing recreation of consultancy. Of having of having a group come in and say this is where you need to be pandemic destroyed that we had all sorts of transitions in our department. And so part of my, my objective we kept on seeing it in all of our, and all of our budget objectives. And even really know what I'm supposed to be held accountable for. And so part of this now is us trying to revisit the findings and the expectations that strategic plan. And the last one is a use center track and turf I will, I will end today if there aren't any questions directly about strategic plan or feeder programs. We will be the next steps on Cherry Hill are going to be to, to revisit sort of pulling the crowd, talking about something about putting together a, it's not going to be me trying to make a decision on what do we do next it. It's going to be groups of input that come in on that strategic plan feeder programs if there are any specific questions about those I can take those now. Then the last one that I wanted to share with you was the use center track track and turf to use center I can briefly just say that the use center we're still I think I mentioned to the last meeting we're in a little bit of a holding pattern right now about where we're moving with that. I hope to have a better sense of that for the next for the next commission meeting. But right now it's been nothing no, no advancement there as we're starting to sort of turn on that in terms of what my role is going to be in that process. Track does have a little bit of information here that's not written up into my goals here because both of these to use center more now is outside of my immediate recreation. The track is very much not my own thing, but if it were to all of a sudden appear right now then it would become part of my own departmental goals but I would like to ask Sarah to share where the, where the situation is with the track before we leave. Right. So raise talking about, excuse me the regional high school track. You remember that they submitted an application to CPAC Community Preservation Act committee last fall to resurface the track, rebuild it in its current location. CPA was not happy with that proposal because you may remember the town had sponsored a study of the downtown recreational fields school and town owned few years ago and the plan that everybody seemed excited about involve turning the track 90 degrees, which allowed better layout for other playing fields, more sensibly oriented with respect to the sunrise and sunset so teams didn't have one team didn't always have one team that was sun and it's eyes and general field improvement so we CPAC did not take a vote on the track proposal at the time we asked for more information. And the school came back to us just earlier this month really late May with a new proposal that request or read or rather updated request to CPA for funds for a project that the regional school committee has already endorsed, along with a funding plan. So, the schools are still asking, and CPA did approve this request for $800,000 to rebuild the track, but only CPA money will only go for it if it is reoriented, if it is turned 90 degrees. If the school system is successful in raising all the funds necessary to do that, then the CPA funds can be used for that purpose. If they are not successful in raising enough money to do that larger project, and can only rebuild the track in its current location, the CPA funds will not be granted for that purpose. So CPA approved that request. You may remember that we only recommend to town council that they approve, since they're the ones who hold the purse strings. So a report will be going to town council soon, I hope by the end of the month. Asking for their support, which I expect they will give since they ratified the school's request for borrowing it's it's very complicated, but but I should say that the CPA plans, both both options, either rebuild in place for this larger effort that involves turning, turning the track and putting artificial turf field in the center asks for funds from all four, all four towns that are part of the regional school system so it's not all, hopefully not all on Ambers to make it happen. So that's where that's at. I should just add that because I'm going off this commission at the end of the month. I'm therefore also going off CPA, and this body needs to designate a new representative. And hopefully get that to the town manager, who then also has to get town council's approval, even though you all get to decide who it is still needs. Yeah, anyway, so that that all takes a while and the committee generally starts work. It's serious work at the beginning of October so I hope you'll get that ball rolling. It's a great committee. It's a lot of fun. So, Sanjay volunteer second. Oh, I don't have this. I don't have the gallery view. Are you making that go ahead, Sanjay. I'm at I have questions. I want to keep them brief Sarah. Does the 800,000 that's been allocated does that represent a single year or multiple years of the typical recreation part of the CPA allocation. Okay, first of all, we've we've recommended it hasn't been granted. I understand. It would be, it would be a borrowing. It's, it's too big to be paid for out of the CPA fund cash, you know, it's the money would be borrowed, and it's up to the town to decide based on the bond market if it's, you know, over five years or over 10 years. That's CPA CPA doesn't have control over that we do see and I'm happy to send to the committee or maybe it's at the, at this on the CPAC website, the finance department is prepared a schedule of, of all of the the current borrowing of CPA fund that CPA funds are paying back over time because there are many projects. Some of them are finishing this year next year, you know, so they roll off and new ones come on. So I, they presumably modeled the, you know, the yearly costs with a lot of assumptions about interest interest rates and the like. They're probably on the order of $100,000 for 10 years included, you know, to include the bondage. Yeah. I guess. But what I'm wondering is whether, if everything comes together, right if the recommendation is accepted by the council, and the other conditions regarding private fundraising and other towns and reorientation of everything comes together. Does the CPA commitment to the track and field project. Is it going to essentially preclude other recreational CPA allocations for the coming for some coming number of years. It doesn't preclude them. Depending on what the project is called new revenue kind of the new money available to CPA every year, 10% of that, at least 10% has to go to recreation or open space projects, and debt payments on recreation and open space projects count towards that 10%. So it won't, it won't preclude more it might satisfy the bare minimum because like the North common project part, which I think will start happening soon. Half of that is recreation money. So there. I think, I think all the categories that the historic preservation community housing, open space and recreation. They all borrowed money for projects in the past so it's. I don't think it's going to limit funds for recreation projects, in particular, it is of course true that the more the more money has been borrowed. The more the more of any years CPA funds goes to debt payments. Yep, you know, that's true but it doesn't automatically do anything as far as future. Thanks. Questions on track questions on CPA. Yes, Matt. I just had for my for my minutes, what was the amount that the school committee has to has to raise. Oh my gosh, do the school community up the school community I mean, I believe they have, and it's the hurricane boosters is, is that fundraising I think they've set themselves a goal higher than, than kind of what is needed immediately because they want to. Anyway, I think their goal is $2 million. But of course the CPA fund is separate from that. Right. Okay. Questions on CPA questions on the track. Yeah, I don't mind you all and anyone watching just for the record that seat by law CPA funds cannot be used on turf fields. So that part of the project. Really. Yeah. Artificial turf or any artificial. Wow. That's a, that's part of state legislation or 10. The whole thing. It's only a state program that towns either vote to participate in or they don't. So the state, the state authorizing legislation prohibits funding of artificial turf fields specifically. Yes, also, also in the recreation category for basically for permanent structures like I don't think you can build a gym or stadium. But, but could you build a natural grass field. Yes, sure. We, we, that's fascinating. I learned something today. This is. I thought I told you, well, I'm glad I mentioned. Oh, you probably did. Well, now you have particular interest. Yeah. I don't know. A track is okay. Yes. An artificial. Because it's not, it's not a surface pretending to be grass. We just, we just want our surfaces to be honest. That's what, that's what we want. Right. Okay, so we need to pick a next, our next meeting. I'm sorry, just to finish up, if Sanjay is indeed volunteering, I think we need to vote. No, really. I'm really, I'm really not. I'm sorry. Sarah, you didn't have gallery. You have a gallery of you. I just, as you were talking about the position opening, Sanjay was waiting to ask a question with his hand up. I think he volunteered. No, no, no, I mean, let me, I mean, I'm potentially interested though. The second question and it would probably be better for everyone's time if Sarah and I talk about this offline because I don't really think it's a commission meeting issue. I need, I would, I need to understand what the conflict of interest rules are on the CPAC committee because there's a high likelihood that things would come before the committee that are related to organizations I'm president of. I just need, I would need to understand those issues before I committed to volunteer and I'm interested, but I have not yet volunteered. When somebody volunteers, or whatever, I think, I think the committee commission, this book, this body needs to have a formal vote and then pass that along. Thank you. Next meeting. How are we on our calendars. We are right now in mid June for our July meeting. We can go. Are there any Mondays that don't work for people in July. I think the fourth is a Monday right right. The fourth is a Monday. We will not do it. Other than that everything's okay with me. You want to try mid July. We're in mid June right now trying to go mid July. 11th or 18th. For the 18th. 18th would be great. Go right smack dab in the middle of the month. 7pm. 7pm. Okay, with 7 o'clock we, I think people kind of drifted towards 7 as opposed to 6 last time. That's fine. So we'll plan on 7 o'clock on July 18th. Can't believe Sarah is leaving us. What will we ever do. What will we do will give you a. We'll give you a fake nose and get you another couple of years. Yeah, we need some more members. I'm. I, I think that. So I'll just get a big net and I'll try and go out there and capture somebody and bring them in. We might be able to, we might be able to reach a quorum. Correct. Word of mouth from members is also. One person who's definitely interested. So I'm doing a little bit of beating the bushes here, but I did speak to one member that's one person that's that may be very interested. It settles one, but now we have two more to try and deal with. You said you're almost done. I think one more year, right? Okay. Yeah. I think I'm going to be allowed ready to ask if you have received expressions from, of interest from individuals. I mean, there's someone I know who told me he might be interested. But. No, who's, who's the. Stefan Antonovic. I have heard that name. Yeah. Oh, I've, yeah, I do know who that is. If he's, I, what I'll probably do is I'll reach out to the people personally here this week and just. I'm trying to work that in. Yes. I do know that. Yeah, I'm pretty confident he continues to be interested. Good. Then I'll, I'll reach out to him. But I guess then in, in lieu of any other information to bring on, we can move for a adjournment. To move. All in favor. I will see you all on July 18th. Thanks, Ray. Bye everybody. Bye bye, Sarah. Carry on. Bye.