 We are now recording the May 9th, 2023 meeting of the Amherst Cultural Council. And I'm going to read the script that we read before all of our virtual meetings. And this is just to notify anybody that pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021, which was recently continued. This meeting is conducted via remote means and members of the public who wish to access the meeting are able to do so over zoom. And if they're not able to access the zoom link or the zoom meeting, they can they can view the recording, which is posted promptly on the town's YouTube channel. So no in person attendance is permit of the members of the public or anybody is permitted. But every effort is made to try the public can adequately access the proceedings and participate. So that that is that and now we'll just go and do a sound check and a hello so I'll just kind of read off the read off the boxes starting the top Leah here. Eleanor. Yes, here. And I will have my camera off sorry to say people. I think a few of us are under the weather so just take care of yourselves if you have to hop off. Robin. Yep. Rachel. Hi, I'm here. Hi, everyone. Hi, Rachel. And we know your connections body so just, you know, just those know. Okay. And Cody. Cody. So folks saw that we have an update from the business improvement district the bid on our agenda. Julian. Hello, Gould is going to join us at 615 just to kind of talk about that fall block party and sort of what it's going to take to make that happen but that sounds really good. So, before we get to that if we could just sort of, I guess start with just the. Well we have no. minutes attendees so we don't have a public comment at the moment, but I'll keep an eye on that. We'll send out minutes for March and April. Leah, thank you so much. Those are really, really detailed. I finally had a chance to actually read them carefully this morning. I really appreciate that. Very, very nicely done. So if folks have any changes or suggestions or other conversation about the minutes, please let me know. And if not, if somebody wants to make a motion to accept, we can certainly do that. Robin. So then, well, so the April minutes, if they need to read it. Wasn't George Ryan there. Public comment. He did. He did come and make public comment. That's right. Right. So it says, and you don't. Yes. So he doesn't get listed. Okay, I was just wondering, because he's the one who proposed that we. Absolutely right. So that that should be. Whether or not it's come in by name, that should definitely be recorded in the minute. So that's a good catch. So I think we should propose to amend and just include George's participation. Yeah, he was there and he asked us to consider. Yep. I think that's it. I did notice that. Leah caught. Leah said something like, you know, was proposed by the public or somewhere in there, but I think it's, it's worth, you know, acknowledging as a public comment during the meeting. I think I also may have been late to that meeting. I forget why. And so I think I arrived after that. Yeah. You know, your notes are very thorough. For sure. Okay. So I would, we'd entertain a motion or I'll go ahead. I'll move to accept the two sets of minutes as amended for Robin's comment just now if somebody wants to second that. I'll second it. Okay. And I do that with. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Any discussion. Okay, we'll just go to a roll call then Rachel. Come back to you, Rachel. Cody. Yes. Eleanor. Yes. Leah. Yes. And Rachel, you're unmuted so. Yes. I'm sorry, I was trying to do a new early. Thanks. We appreciate your efforts to participate. Okay, so it passes unanimously. So we will, I'll send those over once I get the amended one I'll send that over to. Angela for posting for the website, which is great. I really appreciate that. And then let's see. Why don't I jump down to the vessels and projects update? Because that's just good news, just good news coming every which way. So of course credit goes to Eleanor for for putting the original application in. Everybody knows the story with the FNP grant, which was that the money was awarded to us for the spring block party. The spring block party was postponed for a year slash canceled. We went to MCC and well, the F what the 2023 block party was canceled, whether it's, you know, whether they call that postponed or. We went to MCC and we asked them if we could, if we could amend, you know, and this was a, this was a tricky process. And I will say that having having Mindy sort of in her position helped us with MCC just make sure that we were able to move things along expeditiously and so they did eventually approve a very informal amendment request to repurpose these funds for the Juneteenth celebration. And it's really nice because Jen Moynston for, for several of you who've been here for a year or two, know that Jen has come and spoke with us twice now on the DEI efforts that she's been working on. She's, you know, she was literally the founding member of the DEI department. She now has a director Pamela Nolan Young who's also, you know, wonderful and very committed to this work but the Juneteenth has been Jen Moynston's baby for for as long as I'm aware. And she recently was awarded a big grant from the state for her work on behalf of African Americans in Massachusetts and so really just a nice thing for us to be able to repurpose that 2500 for Juneteenth. She was through the moon excited about, you know, being able to bring in like a headline performer. I haven't heard, I haven't heard who who finally is the performer yet. But one important thing I'll share with you with you all is that MCC told us that whatever, whatever Juneteenth wants to use the money for, they can use it for. In other words, that event is, you know, right in line with their equity goals with obviously, you know, festival it's a festival. You know, the town common event is a festival so they were, they're really excited about it they approved it very quickly. It did take him a few weeks to get us a revised contract but we have that. Julian and Holly Drake got it turned around. I'm sorry, Angela and Holly Drake got it turned around in less than a day and it's been received with the state so those funds should be deposited into our account. Our account slash the Juneteenth account within the next couple of days so everything has moved really nicely along there and I'm just grateful to you all you all for the brainstorming and I think just sticking with it so that we can make sure we we got that money through in their hands now and and I'm very hopeful that we'll have a great event I think if you've never been to the immerse Juneteenth celebration on the common it's awesome it really really is just a great example of like a community interactive community festival event. Be nice people. Everybody's happy. Yeah, very nice. Yeah, it's great. I didn't have an information update I didn't have any, any additional action items there. With the grants, if we want to just move ahead to the grants update we can, although actually what I mean let's hold off on that because if anybody had a chance to look at the amendment request form from the AHRA. It actually sort of turns the decision over to us a little bit in a way that we're, it'll probably take us more than two minutes to make that to make that decision so yeah I included as an attachment and Angela posted it on the, on the document folder on the town website but there is a there is an amendment request from the AHRA and I think folks probably remember that you know we don't need to vote on every single amendment request anymore that's kind of an MCC but it's a new thing that you know two cultural council members can can approve an amendment. However, Julian and I both agreed that this one was so long coming. And it's such a, and then the amendment request itself is kind of complex so we really didn't feel comfortable doing that without bringing it to the council and having, you know, having kind of an open discussion about it. So why don't we wait until after the bit I'll hold on that until after the bid update. So we have not communicated out to our grantees about the fall block party yet we kind of wanted to have one more conversation with you all and actually I had to get permission from the town offices to figure out exactly how we're going to transfer the funds into the bids hands so just there's just been a couple of little things we wanted to get worked out before we really put a blast out to all of our grantees. I'm hoping you know tomorrow or Friday to do that and just get just get the word out to you know not just the folks who said they were interested in the spring but really our entire slate of grantees we want to give them a second chance to participate in the, in the fall block party event. And that's what we're planning. So, I've been texting with Gabrielle I know she was kind of rushing home she actually said she wanted to get some asparagus which I have to say in, in May in Amherst is a very, very, very respectable and important goal to have. So we might want to sit tight for an extra minute or two on that. We are the asparagus capital of the world or we were. Yeah, let me say that because people don't know the pow wow has been changed to the high school for various reasons, hopefully next year on the come. Yeah, and if anybody hasn't been able to attend the pow wow, or didn't attend last year. It's, it's Saturday and Sunday on Memorial Day weekend, the 25th and six I think and really a lovely event and free to the public and, you know, just a good, just a good chance to connect with people who are very, very key, very social. Really enjoyed it. We do have a course pow wow royalty in our midst so you know I don't know what I'm talking about it. I won't try to represent much. So I went to the Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders event on the common so it was very simple. Started at one at 11 there was no one there doing any setup to the point that we wondered. So it was very nice. I don't. I don't know if it's something that, you know, we could assist with a grant to help enlarge it because it was pretty small and limited. And, you know, which means reaching out to various people and saying, you know, you might be able to apply for a grant and might be more expensive and they were. There was a table from the Historical Society about the there's a bit of doing on Cambodian refugees of 40 years ago in Amherst, and there was a town table giving out coded tests. And there was a map of Asia which is rather expensive, including Afghanistan. And the friend I was with was very excited to go to the map, 70 but she's still really excited to go see the map and place her pen. And then there was food free, which the restaurants paid for. And a little bit of performance it was small and it could be, you know. It's a good example of and I please let's hold that because when Rachel talks a little bit about the needs assessment, I think, you know, that's a good example of the kind of thing that we certainly could be more proactive about reaching out to and you know offering the application, you know, make sure they're familiar with the application process. Hey Gabrielle, can you hear us. I can hi everybody can you hear me. We can. So I'd say we're all very excited about moving moving forward and participating in the existing block party as it stands right now. So folks I haven't gotten the word out to our grantees yet. We're going to, we'll go back out to the whole group, not just the ones who expressed interest in the spring. And you know go back out to the whole group with sort of a positive energizing message around what it's going to look like in the fall and see who's game to participate. I love that. So, from, from our end, and I think anybody who attended the last black block party which was the block party that finally returned after two years hiatus saw that we did a major stage at the top of amity and basically we're going to double that stage and put the other one down by what Kendrick Park and I feel like with the protocol now being opened and also 11 EP, which is the new building going up is going to be finished by then. We're going to see I mean there's just a lot of life happening down there which is really exciting and I'm really excited to invigorate that space and this this this funding and this concept is really making that possible because now we get to program it with the artists that we were thinking of working with for the spring. And, and going forward with you guys so we're really excited about this because it really brings a new dynamic and really interesting opportunity for us to present art on both sides of the street. And, you know, not everybody can be at both sides but we're looking at keeping one side very very children friendly, and the other side a little bit more adult if you will. So nothing has been announced yet is the date final with the town. So nothing has been announced yet but it is absolutely final it is the third Thursday in September, which I believe is Thursday the 21st, which is our historic we always try and keep it on that third Thursday. So five to nine, I think is what it was last year. Yeah, I mean it's kind of five. Yeah, the, the, I think what we're going to do down at Kendrick because we're not going to have as many of those big massive Klee glides if you will, we'll do five to eight down there and then the the finale will be the big band up at the top. Okay. So five to eight. So we have about three our block, we have the single stage near Kendrick with obviously with the sound system and all. Yep, sound lights, everything. We're talking spring we're talking about multiple spots for performers slash folks in. Are you thinking this would be sort of a single stage for people to come on and off is that, or are there multiple spots that folks could do booths or whatever. What we're going to do with the stage is program it so see who from your grantees are interested. Like I think of starlight I think of ballet I think of you know all of that, and then we can interspersed. I know that there's a we always have brought in an Irish dance group I'm going to forget their names but it's a school for Irish dance maybe it's the Duffy Academy. I just want to be able to weave that in and out of the stage so I think what we'll do is we'll do half hour and have it fully programmed so people know and will. I think this is a great opportunity for us to go a little bit differently with the block party and have passouts. So like, when you're coming to block party so it'll be there to hand you a piece of paper that says like what the program is for the, the Kendrick stage and what the program is for the amity stage. It's boots. That's tricky. Because of course the focus of the block party is downtown businesses and as anybody who's attended the block party you'll see its boots, literally back to back to back all the way. I hadn't thought about that Matt to be perfectly honest so I, I think I need to regroup and maybe look at if we could use rents or the Catholic Church is under new. I used the wrong term but management. So the Catholic Church has a new fryer, and he is super he seems very community oriented, and I'm meeting with him and maybe he would be really interested in having, instead of turning the sprinklers on during the block party which the prior priest did. The fryer might actually be interested in being part of this and he has that huge parking lot, and that beautiful beautiful green lawn and we might actually be able to incorporate them into the block party instead of it being a no go zone. Isn't that usually a matter of insurance and liability. Nope. It doesn't open. I think it was just a choice. Yeah. Well, so that's, yeah, I mean, I guess that would be something before I honestly before I even put out a thing to the whole group is I'd want to know what the opportunities available are. So Matt, I'd like to say let me meet with the new fryer and discuss with him let me also reach out to rents and see what they would be willing to allow us to use in that area. Because the booths are definitely tricky. But the performance aspect is wide open and very exciting and inviting. What about we had folks. I can't remember which ones now but we had a couple of folks who wanted to do like juggling in the street kind of things you know what I mean. So that we can definitely do that that if they reach out we will, we will work with our Madica circus and our, our other circus performers, because we're going to be doing a lot of moving circus performance will do the big central circus again with the aerial. But we looking at moving and also face painters jugglers all of that so that's going to be something that we can definitely work with them on. Okay. Sorry. Is there going to be some sort of MC at each of the stages and an ASL. I will not. Yeah. MC is easy, because that can be me or someone from your team who introduces each that's super, super easy. Robin, I just ASL is something that I'm really learning about and coming into, you know, sort of relationship with. So I would actually rely on you guys to assist me with that. Yeah, and actually Robin you brought that up previously and we we did in fact vote to hold a little bit of money aside to get a get an ASL interpreter with one of several different organizations that we work with so that we definitely already made that commitment as a cultural council not necessarily with the bid but right. So we will absolutely commit to doing that. Yeah. And, and, you know, we have info and who does that in the area and all of that so yeah. Robin us as an aside would you mind sharing info with me just by email so I can have that for future thank you so much. Okay, so this now this is good so you'll you'll talk to to which I'm sorry Renz is the Renz is the gas station and they just we've always yeah. We've always sort of focus that as a as an athletic space so basketball and blah blah blah and we're still going to do that but they have so much space up there because they clear out all the cars for it. So it's an option. There's several places I just think I hadn't thought about that so I need to bring that back. Okay, yeah and we'll look out for that and we'll start I'll draft a little message to our grantees and then I'll wait for those for those details before I send it out and should be it should be just fine we're still we're still several months away so we're in good shape. Right, and, and I'd like to do. I think we could do a really nice joint press release on this because I think it's a really nice collaborative. So I just wanted to put that out there to everybody. Yeah, that'd be awesome. It'd be great. I mean this is a public meeting so and I guess but, but you know, and they can go back and watch the recordings and stuff but yeah I think a release that was in a story that we kind of push out is great. Yeah. Cool. Any questions for me from anybody. Yeah, sorry. I know you're good. So I actually just so who are you doing all of the organizing and production or do you have some people to help you. We've got it, we've got a great team. The block party is, you know, we sort of have a how to block party if you will. And, you know, the majority of the work honestly is on the businesses to get all of their food product and everything outside. And this is a new addition to it but I think that Liz and I are up to the challenge and I would love to work with, I think it was Cody and Leah who, which I know this is very different because now we're talking September so I don't know what the next schedules are like or I don't even know what your everybody is but if there's opportunity to work together, I would love to bring that group back together and work together on the programming and again I think having a pass out this year is going to be really exciting because there's so much programming going on which has not always been the case with the block party. I think as I understand it before I came along, had a DJ and in a future liner at the top and that was kind of it. So this is a next step. We stepped it up last year with the main stage and Mr. G and Shaka Zoba, but was it Shaka Zoba. Wait, sorry, I might be mixing up my band. I've got a lot of bands in my head. So this is a whole next step bringing another another main stage so if Leah Cody anybody wants to work with us on this. It was Eleanor last year actually. Oh, it's Eleanor. Okay. Okay. Okay. I was just about to say so I'm right now a senior in high school. So I'm going to be in New York next year so I could try and help virtually but I probably won't be as a lot of help. No, Eleanor what's your schedule looking like next year. My schedule is, you know, I'll be here in the fall I am going to go I think I'll be abroad in the spring but that will really. But yeah, I would I would love to help in the fall I think I'll be busy but definitely wanting to help out and prioritize this. Excellent. And I think it's pretty it's going to be reaching out to people it's going to be finding out who wants to be part of it. And then it's going to be literally putting people into the right slots and working with the production team. To make sure that we're putting things in order that makes sense for production, so that they're not running up and putting a whole band set up together and then taking it all down for a dance performance and then running back up so we just want to be careful about that. But I have lots of experience in that and I can work with you guys on that. Yeah, it's gonna be great. I have a quick question for Gabrielle. This is Rachel. Hi. So is there kind of like a timeframe in terms of planning schedules that, you know, for example, deadlines for each process that we can refer to or is it just a matter of emailing you or Julianne or Matt to find out. Like when the deadline is for specific, you know, whether it's advertising, you know, I mean that kind of thing. Yeah, so we sort of when we start to plan the block party we work backwards and we start to plan really in the beginning of July is when we get very serious about reaching out to the restaurants. I've already pulled all the permits and stuff like that I just get that done literally the year before I'm like hey set me up. But I can put a backwards timeline together for everybody and send that out. Matt, I'll send it to you and Julianne and we'll go from there. How does that sound. Yeah, well that'll be some of the info that we need to get into our messaging when we, when we send it out to our grantees as well. So, yeah, yeah. Grantees, I think we want people to like think about this and commit earlier because that gives us more ability to really talk to our production team and find out what's possible. Agreed. Thank you. I'm not, not to create extra work for you, Gabrielle, just not if there's something you already have going, you know, that you would prefer to share with us. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that would be great. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Um, just to let you know I'm definitely around in the fall so I can still report that process. Thank you, Cody. That's awesome. I think we've got a good team. Yeah, we really do. And we will be, we will hopefully have a couple new members as well. We're going to be doing. We're going to be doing that work over the summer as well. So, got a great nucleus and look forward to that. All right, Gabrielle, I don't think folks doesn't. Well, I don't want to jump the gun. Does anybody have additional questions for Gabrielle. But I love you. And I just made it. What you love what? Your watermelon, the spot show, and I just made it tonight. Did you find that online? Yep, I put it for recipes and I guess we're in. We have whatever the algorithm went right to your recipe. So it is. That was one of our last restaurant's most popular dishes. And people would literally in the winter be like, are you going to do watermelon despacho? And I was like, do you see any watermelons? So that is a very amazing throwback and it's really making me smile because I'm in the middle of helping a restaurant get open and I'm like, Oh yeah, I hate this business. Yeah, well, it's awesome. Well, thank you very much. I love it too. It's really sweet of you. All right, you guys have a great night. Thank you. Good night. Thanks Gabrielle. Good night. Hi everyone. Good night. That was an amazing reference. I'm very impressed. Well, if you could she make a, at least smile. So Rachel and I both have kind of quick updates. But I think we should tackle the AHA amendment request together first. Because I think that's that may be the more substantial conversation unless, unless somebody sees, you know, a clear, sort of a clear response to this. I would just tell you real quick, as it says in the amendment request, they put in for $5,000 to create a documentary. They were upfront with us from the start about, well, not from the very start, but but I think during our during our process of awarding grants that year. I got a call from, from Michelle Miller who said, you know, look, the reality is we're not ready to launch a full documentary anyway. And I said, well, that's good timing Michelle because we just, we just deliberated on this last night and we decided, you know, we're leaning towards giving you, I think the $500 seed, we kind of we refer to sometimes we refer to these things as seed money like, you know, we support your project but we don't think it's fully, you know, it's fully realized yet so here's some seed money to get the planning started. So that was, you know, a year and a half ago approximately, a little bit, yeah, right around a year and a half. And then there hasn't been any action sense from them, you know, understand sometimes that happens the seed money it's hard to figure out exactly how to use it if you're not. And so, as I mentioned earlier, Pamela Nolan Young took over the DEI office, and she became the town liaison to the AHRA, which is the African American Heritage Reparations Assembly. And this the original grant was to do a documentary, you know, documenting their their efforts towards reparations in Amherst. And so there was really no action on that for for about a year and a half, a year, a year and a half, although there was some some correspondence back and forth. And then with with Pamela joining the department, about six months, nine months ago. Eventually we wound up getting what you have in your inboxes. Now, which is the amendment request form. And essentially, the member, they make two sort of pitches. One being to transcribe AHRA meetings and listening sessions. And the other being so transcribing their meetings, which, you know, is has a clear connection to the documentary purpose that they originally came with. And then the other one is, it's kind of unclear to me what the actual use of funds would be here. And so I think it would engage in an informational and brainstorming session with Michael and Carrie. So maybe there are consultants who who charge an hourly rate for something like that. But, you know, this, this is really all the information that I have on the matter too is this is this attachment so if folks have questions insights comments, just kind of open the floor for discussion. The proposal was to basically document this new, whatever this committee department, I'm not quite sure what it is. No, it was to document the reparations. And how they came, they decide how to do that, right, because they're the committee making the decision and we had said, we don't think they're, you know, are they going to be able to do this at this point and apparently they concluded the same thing. So isn't this for the same. Is this just for the $500. Yes. Pretty well. Okay. Because they want to do, I'm not clearly there. So they want to do something else with it. Or just that it was extended. We gave them $500. To their request. Go ahead and read it. Do other folks have questions or comments? Yeah, so I mean, these are the sort of the two ideas they have for using the 500. Basically, you know, I mean, it's and it goes back. Yeah, it's still the original grant. But because it's a year and a half, because it's, you know, it's now six months past the end date. So I just wanted to bring it to Julian and I wanted to bring it to the council just to look at this. You know, looking at it now, I'll be honest with you looking at it now and sort of processing it. Since the original grant was to document the process. To me, the, you know, trend, the transcriptions is a very clean sort of straightforward documentary activity. The process and it feels like that money would have an immediate, you know, product in the documentation. On the other hand, you know, I could see an area where, you know, bringing in some high quality consultants leads, you know, to less immediate but maybe long term more impactful outcome for the grant. Honestly, I think I would probably support either one of these if they, if they came with either one, I don't think we've ever had the situation before where somebody gave us two, you know, two possible. I'd say the only trick you pull about is on two, six, well, will they ask for more grants, you know, and is that a failed process? To save funds, to fund and save that project for, let's say, two years. But I'd say, you know, the best call to work is long term, but I feel since they're six months past, I would say immediate project, I would approve but I'm not against an long term project. Yeah, I appreciate that point. I mean, we certainly we see people, you know, come in for multiple grants on the same large project over, you know, that's that's not unheard of, I don't think. But you know, I mean, I think you're, for me anyway, Cody, if I'm understanding you correctly, you know, certainly a year and a half of no activity doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in, you know, these funds being used promptly. So, but that being said, I mean, you know, it's a very important it's a nationally significant project that Amherst is doing it's an incredibly complex project. So, you know, I do have, I'm sympathetic to that as well I mean, I'm inclined to just sort of tell them that they can do either one of these things but they must spend these funds by the end of the calendar year. That's my, my inclination and just get it off the books and, and the other thing is if they haven't spent these funds, and then they put in for a new grant that they won't be, you know, it would be hard to support a new grant. While these funds sit unspent if they, if they spend them document it and then put in for a new grant and that's that's, you know, I think a very different thing. I get the sense though that they're going to be putting in for a new grant from us this, this fall I could be wrong, but you know nothing I see, you know, gives evidence to that but, but I would say if they don't if they don't have these money and we can communicate that to them that if these monies aren't spent, you know, it's going to it's going to reflect poorly on a grant application for additional funds if they come back in the fall in this fall. Do you think they're asking us with suggesting two different ideas for how to use this money do you think they're wanting us to come back with what we want or do you think they want us to be like we approve both of these. That's, I mean, you know what I really thought that was my question when I saw this I was like well what's yeah. I think we it's up to us, you know I think I have I can't I can't tell you what their intent was and giving us two options, but I personally am. I don't know comfortable but you know I would vote for approval of either one of these, you know, and I'm happy to tell them that either one of these is approved. You know, tell us which one you're doing, and then you know get it done by the end of the calendar year that's my kind of mind my inclination with this at this point. It's, um, it's only $500. Right. I mean if it was 5000 I think it would be much broader discussion. Probably, and I don't know they said oh we have this money how can we use it. Hmm, let's come up with some ideas. And then they came up with two. My question is more, you know, will the public see some sort of product by the end of the calendar year. And otherwise, I mean, it is it's a, it's, it's important, and it isn't just for Amherst, it's, you know, as you said being watched, and you know, possibly emulated or not. I think it's important and yeah it's been a year and a half but there's been changes in personnel and it's government and it's not a whole lot of money. So for me either of these are fine. I would just like to see something because it is important. Rachel please. Yes, hi. So, I guess, from our perspective, the way I see it is that we kind of approve, we approve the funding or the grant based on the merits we saw in the project and you know kind of we allocated accordingly and and I guess my my own response is just that do we really need to approve yes or no on either so I'm kind of kind of really agreeing with what you all have been saying but I guess the larger principle is, as long as whatever they're doing with this money is contributing to the goal or the product that they propose to to produce right so I think I wonder if like framing it in a kind of a broader broader terms, and then just saying that yes we do expect accountability by a certain date. Because I don't necessarily think it's up to us to tell them which, which avenue or how to spend that money specifically, as long as it's going to serve towards the purpose of the ultimate product and go expediently does that make sense. Yeah it does in fact I should have been more. The amendment request is the is the time extension, you know, and you're absolutely right. The time extension. Both both of these fall under the under the purview of of the documenting the operations efforts so absolutely right they're both they're both expenditures within within the already approved grant so it's really just a matter of. Are we willing to continue to to extend this timeline further so thank you Rachel that that does help clarify it for me. I think we should just make a motion and vote on it, you know, let's just and let's just tell them yes, you know yes please spend this money. That sounds good. Do you want to make that motion Rachel since you just made that excellent point. Sure, I'll make the motion to approve the extension to spend the money by the end of 2023 so voting on. And I'll second it. Eleanor. Yep, that sounds good. Robin. Robin. Oh, yes. Cody. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So it is unanimous. That's great. And I was, I will let them know. I'll let them know the extension is until December 31. But I'll also let them know that, you know, we do have another round of grants coming up and, you know, this is a direct direct grant fund and that's explicitly we, you know, we cannot award any additional funds for direct grants that haven't been executed yet. So. Sorry, I phrased that poorly. We can't award any additional funds. I liked it. To grant he's who haven't executed their, their, you know, previous year's direct grants. All right, great. Well, that's the business that was on the agenda. We did have two things that came up since we posted within 48 hours. Rachel, do you want to go first and just give an update on the community. Outreach survey that you've been exploring. Sure. Can you all hear me? Yes. Yeah. Great. Okay. So. Yeah. I think I just raised that one of the meetings because I thought it was interesting that different communities are doing community surveys or different cultural councils have done. Community surveys to, to better inform their own work. So after I raised that idea, I did go and look at a whole bunch of them because they were shared by MCC. And they, they kind of, they're all very different in the sense of like length and the questions that they ask you, you can imagine are pretty common. The extreme examples I can name is that a film is their questionnaire was 10 pages long, the survey was 10 pages long. Whereas in orange, I think they had a single question. So that gives you an idea of the range of the types of surveys people are doing. So I, I guess I raise it just to see if everyone feels, or if most of most of us feel that something like this would be useful. So I think for one, publicizing that we do have these grants and to help us maybe fine tune or refine our own criteria for assessment or for our priorities, you know, going forward. And if we think we want to do something like that. I guess we could discuss at some point how to do that because I have just personally I feel like the, the one question approach might be really effective in in maybe put out over several bursts, whether it's via social media or whatever but that's that's just kind of what occurred to me in thinking about it on my own so that's, that's the idea or that I have. So let me know if you have any questions. Leah. I would say I think it might be interesting to get information on who's like engaging with these product projects I think that would be interesting like if we could break down like even like age demographics like our people, how are people finding out and are people going to them and hopefully like targeting that could help us with marketing and outreach in the future and then also having some kind of statistic with like could also help in marketing being able to say like on we did a community survey. 80% of people said they wanted more theater projects, and here are like the theater projects were funded so like having some kind of feeling like the community has a stake in decisions that are getting made and is helping with that I think could be helpful for people being like oh yeah I did do this short thing and voted on this. This is like, I want to go see this this is and I think having that community input might be nice. Are you saying that if we were to do the survey we want to collect demographic information on the on the respondents people who is that what you're saying. I think so I don't know how in depth we should go but I think it could be helpful like if we're doing a lot of work, trying to improve diversity. I think it's important to track that. But I also I don't really know much about surveys and collect information so I don't know if that's. I don't know if it would be a reliable sample pool of like who's I don't know. Well, I will certainly correct the age range and maybe one type of culture. Culture events interest them like maybe not as well as necessarily Europe but do you like African American events do you like Asian American events that way we know all right this is the culture they want to see more events about. Thank you Cody. Oh, sorry Rachel go ahead. Can you hear me or no. Okay great. No no no I was just, I was just going to add that I think I guess the first question is really do we think it's worthwhile conducting a survey. Then if so, then we work out the mechanics how to do that in the time framing which we would like to accomplish it. So I guess there's not kind of a two step process. Yeah, I mean, I would, I know you looked at several but I would appreciate I mean if you would be willing to sort of present on. You know I don't have anything formal but just talk us through, you know the different instruments that you saw and, and your, your opinions on them I think when you brought this matter up last month or two months ago, I think we were all unanimous in wanting to do a better job of gathering community input so I think there's at least tentative support for the idea I mean I don't mean to speak for everybody but but you know when you brought it up before we all were, we all were enthusiastic. Thanks Cody take care. Like Cody. So, you know I think I think the answer is probably going to be tentatively. I think we all agree that we need to do a better job of getting public input. And so, if you're willing to talk us through a little bit more of what other communities were doing that you had seen. Sometimes it's helpful to even, you know, cold call contact them and find out. And I don't want to put this all on you I mean we can we can help you with that but I think it, it would be worthwhile to find out how can we get a broader and more diverse, you know, set of voices. Both as grantees and as participants of our of our grants. Leah please. I was going to say, I think it might be interesting to ask the question like, do you, because we know that there is a lot of programming in these different things I think it would be interesting to ask. Like, do you feel like there is abundant arts programming in Amherst, and I, I would be interested to see what the population of Amherst thinks about that. And then also like, how, like how are you finding out about events like is Instagram as effective as we think it is I think this could be. It would definitely be really beneficial to have a survey, and also, I think especially in focusing on public outreach and how the community interacts with events and finds out about them. I think that would be really beneficial. Thank you. Okay, so you want me to talk to now, or you're talking about another time. I mean, if you're seven o'clock, right. Yeah. Yeah. I think, sorry, what were you going to say Matt, if you wanted me to just do what. Well, if you're prepared now but I think I mean it might be helpful if you could. I mean, we put on the agenda and sort of, I don't know if you took any notes or anything but just sort of kind of a snapshot of what are particularly other communities are doing. Or I mean I'll be honest with you, you know, I think there's a fairly low risk venture that you're talking about here so if you just want to sort of propose a survey, you know a few survey items I think we would be open to having that I don't want to put on you, you know, some of us could just propose something for action, you know I don't think there's any, I think it's always, it's always worth trying something when it comes to community outreach and then learning from how that goes, you know, like I said it's fairly I think people appreciate an effort, you know what I mean. Right, okay. I was just very quickly, I can, I can certainly, I think my, my question to our group is just whether like the mechanics of it like how we would do it in a sense of, because my, my own inclination is to try to do something that's very short and maybe spread out over a few weeks. And I don't know how. Because I feel like the orange cultural council that just sent out one question because I think a lot more people are more likely to answer one question, as opposed to 10 pages or even 10 question right because of my phone from scrolling through something I see this was one question I answer I'm done. I don't know if I'm like setting myself up for like a huge amount of, I don't know, follow up work whatever but it just conceptually I don't know if you how you all feel about having a series of questions that would be that we can, through which we can accumulate accumulate data. It doesn't have to be a single question each time but you know maybe we can, there's certain avenues like whether the town website or social media that where people can answer questions and we can just, you know, collect the feedback I don't I don't know how involved that whole process would become and that's why I'm really wanting to find out especially from those of you who use social media a lot more than I do. Whether that's that's kind of even sensible approach to take. I personally I think that you know, short is good but I think it's a little. I don't think we need to decide right, you know, I think I don't think that the first to me the first question is not how many questions are going to be in the survey, you know the first question is what do we want to know. And then you know we kind of design the survey from there. So I would, and personally what I want to know is what kinds of arts and culture events, do folks want an Amherst that they don't currently have. And then I would also want to know, you know, if folks felt comfortable applying for our grants knew about our grants and felt, you know, I'm curious in both those questions. You know, broadly, you know what do people want. And, you know, are the people who we are the people that are the people that the people want able to access our grant application, you know, that those for me those are the two big questions and I'm sure if we, if we talk we could probably find a few more. I think with these kind of surveys and more specific the questions the more useful in the easier it is for people to answer and also the use more useful data, we would get. So, and I think that. Yeah, so no I'm glad you to answer the question that way because that was obviously I don't. I'm wanting to knowing what we want will help decide or, you know, really, we find what exactly the question is even if it's just a single one. So, yeah. Okay, so Matt, I know we have the meeting recorded but what you just said is I think a good kind of leading question. I mean we'll phrase it differently but yeah I think that's you know this is the goal. Yeah, I'm kind of happy I can go back and look at some of these questionnaires and see how that was done and I don't know if anybody who else wants to to work on this together. Maybe to, you know, certainly correspond over email and, you know, try to try to have something that we could bring, you know bring to the council next month for for discussion, you know, others on six weeks left or so. I think I can work on. With senior spring I have a lot of things I'm wrapping up but this would definitely be something I'd be like really interested to work in starting like June ish but I don't know if that's too late. I don't think that would be too late. Yeah, I go ahead. I was going to say yeah I'm feeling at the moment I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by work and sickness but like I think I'd be happy to help out over email or anything you know tie up loose sense wherever you need it. Thank you I think yeah maybe what I'll maybe Matt I can correspond with you first and we can just like least you know we define more clearly what the questions are and how to ask them I guess. And Robin I sorry I didn't catch what you just said you said you have six weeks left in your term is that what you meant for. Yeah, and then I, okay. We can still ask you questions in the meantime right when you think about. And pages is way too long. Yeah, one question, you know, maybe with just. Yeah, I mean I just got asked for feedback from. That was the point man I went to, and they kept saying it's really short well they took more time telling me that it was short than the questions asked, and it was very, it was annoying. Good to know, think about one, you know, would you like really answer this, even if you have things you want to say. So, you know, how to do that and shorter is better, you know, maybe more than one question, maybe not, I don't know. I also have, even with, I think there's a difference between like 10 open ended questions and then 10, like multiple choice. And I like the kinds of surveys where it's like, sometimes there's like a statement and then it's like strongly agree agree neutral disagree strongly disagree. We could have a few of those that we like target and workshop and those take like a second to answer. Like one or two, like optional long form answers at the end of that. Just put in a section saying is there anything else you want to say or you're interested in, if you know, the other questions didn't. I do have to move us along just in the interest of time. I want to give a very update, which is that I spoke to Amherst media this week yesterday, and they they have all this wonderful footage that Leah and Cole provided them last year. And they've been able to make three short videos showcasing three of our grantees which have been posted on Facebook and we've tried to distribute those through our Facebook channel and through the town's channels and stuff. They do have a bunch of additional footage they weren't able to get me a number, but it sounded like they had at least five or six additional short videos that they're intending to produce through the end of this year and actually called him right before this meeting to see if he had been able to get a hold of the number, like, like how many were actually in the slate, but that that person is not in she hasn't been in this week so. But just know Leah that I'm on top of it and we want to see those, make sure they'll see the light of day because that was in true labor of love for you all with emphasis on the labor and grantees to so. Okay, these videos, I will be sort of staying on top of that and making sure that those come out. You know, I mean obviously it's a Amherst media doesn't have a huge staff or huge budget so you know we'll play nicely with them but I want to make sure that those come out because you know you and our grantees put a lot of work into them. So you said three are online. Yeah, on YouTube. Under Amherst media, the Amherst media YouTube channel and then we've shared at least two of them on the face on our feet on the ACC Facebook page. And I think maybe all three I can only think of two off the top my head but. Yeah, but they're really nice I mean it's wonderful footage and obviously wonderful content. The other piece that I know Robin you'll be happy to hear this. So the disability access roundtable. And that is, that is still a project that we would like to fund with them using local funds. And there was, I think a communication breakdown towards the end of this past calendar year and into this spring, where we didn't give them all the information and context that they needed I think to be able to move the work forward. And now one of their key producers is on maternity leave. So really they can't take any action on that until the fall. But we told them, you know, that would be that's a priority that remains a priority for us and, you know, we'll work with that they're being very, very generous with their time in terms of scope of work. And the $2,500 that we're giving them. So I just want to let everybody know that that's that is also still in the sort of shoot for production. And those funds, you know, we will ensure that that happens with with them. And that is a that's a $250 grant that we gave them kind of a seed money grant. Like, you know, why don't you come back to us with a proposal for an actual project. And then when they came back to us with the proposal, we allocated 2250 local funds to make up to that 2500. So, so, you know, the, the funding is still set aside for the project and the grant. And maybe we're going to work with them and just make sure that we get it done in the fall, when the time comes and who knows we may even call some ex officio ACC members to come back and, and, you know, be a voice in that in that project as well. In fact, I anticipate we definitely will. Right. Well, it's a process. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's municipal. It's municipal agencies and the natural. So with that I do want to end I was trying to shoot for seven and I, we ran a little bit over but I want to end because I know we have at least two folks are feeling a little under the weather one who's traveling and then I hear the screams from upstairs so I'm I think I need to go address that as well. So I'm going to go ahead and adjourn and thank you all very, very much. We really appreciate it. Thanks everyone. Good night. Good night.