 Perfect. Excellent. Okay, so welcome everyone. I'm calling to order the September 12th meeting of the African Heritage Reparation Assembly at 2.03 p.m. pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021. This meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real-time via technological means. So I'm just going to take a moment to do a sound check here. Make sure we can all hear each other. So I will start with Welcome Yvonne. Can you hear us? Yes. Excellent. Okay, so you were the first on the sound check. You came in just in time. Dr. Shabazz. Yes. Okay, so because you're still in the attendees, that's what's happening is you're having an echo when you come on. So... Right, I've tried to move you twice. I will try again. Yeah, that's interesting. I've never seen... Do you want to try that? Yeah, okay, great. And let's see. Hala, can you hear us and let's see if we can hear you. Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me? I can hear you. Yes, thank you. Thank you. And Dr. Rhodes, can you hear us? I can hear you. Okay, and Ms. Bridges. I can hear you in my little tiny screen. I can't make it big. I can hear you. Okay. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. And just so you know, you appear, at least on my screen, just like always. So... Okay. Nothing funny. That's great. Yeah, that's good. And Pamela, can you hear us and... Yes, I can hear you. And Dr. Shabazz should be back in that as a panelist. So he came in correctly. Yes, I am. All right. Excellent. All right. So welcome. We have a really exciting meeting today. I mean, all of our meetings are exciting. But today's meeting is super exciting. And Brianna from the town is going to join us at 2.30. So what Brianna will be doing is presenting our engaged Amherst page that we've been working on behind the scenes. And we'll be asking you all for your feedback and for any recommendations for making changes or improving it. The hope is that we will be able to launch our campaign at the block party, which is happening on Thursday. So we'll talk a little bit more about how that can all roll out when Brianna joins us. But before we do that, we are going to invite a very special guest to join us for a couple of minutes. He is in the attendees right now. And so we'll bring him in. But just to give you a little bit of a just to give you a little bit of a background here, Cyrus Wheaton is the president of the Student Senate at Amherst College, which is a 33 member body that's elected on an annual basis. And we have been, we met once in the spring, and then we met recently to talk about ways that the Student Senate could collaborate with us. They, they reached out to me, I think, goodness, I want to say last April. And we started having some initial conversations about what that might look like. And then Cyrus and I met earlier this week. And so I'm going to ask if Pamela could bring Cyrus into the room and we'll start there. Welcome. Thank you for joining us, Cyrus. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I mean, I'd love to share a few words really quickly. And yeah, like really great to meet all of you. You know, Cyrus, he, him pronouns, I'm a senior at Amherst College. And I'm like Michelle said, I'm the president of the student like I'm a student body president here. Something that I've been thinking about a lot is how Amherst College needs to like work, want to work with the town, but also Amherst College's responsibility in like the disenfranchisement, disproportionate access to like education, all this like to black people to Amherst Towns black people. And so I was thinking of ways that Amherst could kind of involve like themselves Amherst College can involve themselves in Amherst Towns reparations work. And talking with Michelle and like other of my colleagues and other editors, we've kind of come with two ways we want to kind of approach this. The first is a more labor more like involvement working coming to the block party trying to do as much as we can, helping to just do a lot of the physical labor that like we can do involve ourselves in any little projects that we can. And the second is a monetary donation. I'm not sure exactly like what that exactly that number entails of, but kind of that two pronged approach and how we can contribute. But yeah, I'm really excited. A lot of the senators are really excited about this. And this is something that I've talked to like the Amherst College president about too. So it's very exciting. Thank you, Cyrus. Yeah, and just to build on that a little bit. I'm so happy that you had the opportunity to talk to the incoming the new president about our work and glad that you have that ability to connect with him. And in terms of the two pronged approach, the sort of the assembly hasn't yet seen the rollout pieces of the campaign that that are going to be proposed. So that's going to happen at 230 it just so happened that Brianna couldn't eat until a little bit later. But what we talked about what I talked with Cyrus about was sort of in the two prongs one being providing sort of boots on the ground help where we need it. So for example, when we have our registration portal up and running which we do and we're going to present that today. And we have our postcards printed giving Cyrus and his colleagues the black census that we conducted and asking them to go into the parts of the community where we've identified that black people are living and distribute our postcards and distribute information about how they can register to the registration portal. So if we're sort of kicking things off at the block party Cyrus has agreed to come and join us and bring other senators to be there and help distribute those items that we hope to have printed in time for Thursday. And then to sort of follow that up accordingly with boots on the ground efforts whether it's on the weekends or at times that are open for the senators to do that. And then the second prong is this monetary contribution and Cyrus is doing some work behind the scenes to figure out what the amount of that contribution is. And then at that point we can invite Cyrus and any other senators that would like to join to come back and talk to the assembly about how that contribution might work what the uses might be and things like that. So we're really excited about the collaboration and just on a sort of a broader level I think that Amherst College and the students are looking for ways to become more engaged in the Amherst community and in the opposite direction I think the Amherst community and I know the council and others that are on town committees are looking for ways to engage the Amherst College community. So this is one the work we're doing is specific to the reparations work but hopefully it will be a model for other engagement between the college and the town. So I want to just open it up and see if anybody would like to ask Cyrus any questions or express anything otherwise to Cyrus before before he leaves us. And just go ahead and I see Ms. Bridges I see your hand. Yes I would like to invite Cyrus and students to the exhibit that's next to the library the exhibit that we have is the ancestral bridges and it has it's a pictorial and indigenous of the Black families and indigenous families that lived in Amherst back from the 1700s to through we have now and I would invite him to bring students along faculty or whatever and come and see this exhibit Saturdays from 11 to 3 and also if they couldn't make Saturdays I could arrange another day for them to come in but it's very interesting for them to come and see. Yeah I'd love to go. Last semester I was the head of the Black Student Union as well so I'd love to just have a lot of Black students coming to see kind of the history of the town and the living as well as the senators. So yeah I mean I'll reach out for more information especially just like I know you said Saturdays 11 to 3 but I don't really know exactly where it is and if it's right next to the Jones Library to the left of the Jones Library. In the history museum right yeah right and Ms. Bridges I can connect you and Cyrus so that you can send because I'm also thinking that it would be wonderful for folks to come see the Civil War tablets. Absolutely I was going to say that after but yeah we can if we can do that that would be great. All right excellent and I do see Pamela and I also see Vons oh I'm sorry Dr. Chabaz also see yours so let's go Pamela and then Yvonne and then Dr. Chabaz. I just wanted to point out that there are participants and at least other participants have raised their hands so you and you did not do a public comment so I don't know if you wanted to do that to laughter Cyrus's but just wanted to point those couple of things out. Yeah I think we'll hold public comment I didn't so I think what I'm hearing you say Pamela is that somebody in the attendance office attendance office the attendance room had their hand up is that what you you mean because I don't see on my end any hands up in the attendees. Right so there so now I'm I'm not oh I'm not seeing any attendees now with their hands up but there was I think a few minutes ago and I just wanted you to be aware that there are attendees so. Oh absolutely yes thank you and just to check in with you I recognize two of the names but Cyrus is Rory Liddy a part of your okay all right so just wanted to make sure okay so we will be holding a public comment period just a little bit later in the meeting so when I call on that if folks want to speak please raise your hand at that point. So Yvonne and then Dr. Shavas. Sure just briefly I just want to thank you Cyrus for for your initiative and coming forward I think that all of the work that Amherst College students can help out with are it's really valuable I think those things that you mentioned Michelle you know like really you know boots on the ground kind of stuff is really great but also any any information or comments or ideas that the group might have for reaching out more to different communities you know Amherst College has a my sister went to school there and I know that there was a lot of organizing back in the day with black students and the Charles Drew house and all these you know so I think that there's um I'd love to see Amherst College students um relying on their own legacy to bring that forward in this process and you know understanding when our meetings are maybe just coming as attendees to keep up with what's happening but also you know really helping because that stuff is really really valuable to us as a committee. Yeah thank you for saying that and like right now I'm in Charles Drew house I live in Charles Drew um and so I don't know you know something that we do talk about but I'll remind everyone that Amherst College is so much more than just you know the college of the black students on campus we're like our history and everyone that's on that lives in Amherst too um so that's something I'll mention. Yeah I think it's really important I do think that Amherst College often is very um separate from all of the schools and from the town so I think this is a great effort this is really great to to for it to be happening now and with us. Yes my sister my sister went there so it's like oh man this is great. That's awesome. All right Dr. Shabazz thank you Yvonne. Dr. Shabazz. Yeah so thanks as well um I was just wondering Cyrus if you were familiar there of the status of any type of study looking at Amherst College's involvement connections to slavery in in the United States? Yeah I know there's a ongoing conversation a lot of research being done through like the school or like our archives and things like that so I know it's more of like an in-depth study that's taking a lot longer and something that I can conversations that I've had with administration asking them to like you know I like at least match our donation or like you know try to donate themselves their biggest conversation is they want to complete you know the research and try to see like what Amherst College's role in like I guess you know slavery and all these things before they they decide like the best way to approach it so I think I guess they're just like a little they're like further behind like Harvard's like research and um yeah I think I think I don't think they'll be done before I graduate and I'm assuming. Yeah Harvard appropriated a sum of money I don't know I'm trying to track how far they've got and I haven't seen any research reports come out as yet so Brown University I think is probably in Georgetown are two of the ones that are probably maybe a little further along Georgetown has gone so far as to offer scholarships to descendants of families who were enslaved and and that that Georgetown University profited off of and there's some other places that have that have researched it to that to that magnitude but but yeah let's please let's stay in touch and thanks for the offer to to assist us in our work. Yeah of course and when I kind of learned more about the school's the results of the research I'll yeah I'll tell you for sure. And one further suggestion maybe Cyrus to add to that and I don't know if I had a chance to mention this to you but so the first municipality Evanston Illinois to take on reparations the woman who led that effort former Alderwoman Robin Ruth Simmons has now is running an organization called First Repair and First Repair is going into local communities and helping them to create reparative justice plans. First Repair is very much working in partnership with lifelong trustee at Amherst College Chuck Lewis it just so happens to be that it was sort of a serendipitous that we would be the second community and then you know so that may be somebody that if you have the opportunity to talk to Chuck is a great resource and I think at some point we may all want to have to be able to because these are conversations that no no we all understand you can't just jump you know into things without really talking and recognizing the impact that all of these things have on the community and on the college and so I just really appreciate you playing the role of sort of liaison for that and so however we can support you in that please let us know. Yeah for sure thank you. Absolutely all right so I just want to check with Hala or Dr. Rhodes to see if you have any comments or questions for Cyrus or Pamela before we let him get back to his life. None here. None there okay thank you how about you Hala any questions right now their comments okay um she may have had to step away so wonderful so Cyrus I will follow up with you um you're welcome to her sound is bad yeah uh so Hala we can't hear you you're a little bit broken up right now do you want to try try again okay well if there's a if there's anything that Hala would like for me to communicate to you Cyrus I will find out and let you know yeah did you get that Cyrus I'm joking okay all right um no worries I'll check in with Hala and we'll relay that so I will be in touch with you Cyrus you're welcome to stay and watch the rest of the meeting if you would like to see what we're doing with the website and all of that kind of stuff otherwise I will follow up with you about Thursday's block party and getting out into the community in the next day or so so thank you and Pamela will move you back into the attendees and then you can decide from there thank you so much for coming and Dr. Shaba as your hand is still raised so just checking in with you okay all right okay so let me just do a quick check here all right so Brianna is going to be joining us in about five minutes and so what I'm going to do is share with you just a little bit about what's been happening since we last met so when we last met we discussed that Dr. Shaba's and I would meet with Brianna who is just been such a wonderful help to us and I'll be sure to thank her when she's here but she is responsible for the Engage Amherst webpage which is the page that sort of allows for projects to be to be put in have a project page and it has all sorts of excellent tools that can be used to engage with residents and so we've been thinking about a campaign we met with Brianna and had a great meeting and talked about what we were hoping to achieve with the website which includes various different components that Brianna will walk us through for to propose to you and for finalization and just thanks to Dr. Shaba's for joining me in that meeting I think it was a really really good meeting and we have a good product to show you so in addition to that part of our campaign is to get out into the community and and get into all of the pockets and try to reach as many residents of African heritage as we can and so I have been working with my ex-mother-in-law actually my ex-husband's mother is a wonderful artist and she has helped to create some artwork for us that we have used now on the Engage page as well as to create some postcards and a flyer and other things so welcome Brianna. Hi everybody. Hi there. Thank you for joining us and I was just saying how helpful you've been in this process and how excited I am to share what we've been up to so before quickly before actually you know what let's let's go straight to the to the page I was going to just briefly share the postcard but we can come back to that let's start with the sort of broader pieces so I'm going to do you need access to share screen Brianna or do you already have it? I think I have it okay perfect so I can I can do that from my screen just a moment while I pull it up is it worth giving the group kind of a higher level view of Engage Amherst for a moment or two first before we look at the page? Yeah I think just a quick overview of what it you know I I said basically what I thought it did but yeah please okay this will this will be quick just uh to orient people onto the same page just a minute while I get my screen shared so screen three can everybody see my screen? Yes okay I'm seeing head shaking okay good so just briefly engage amherst.org is a new public participation platform that's online and we try to put our major current initiatives on there in order to seek public consultation in addition to showing up to a meeting or making a public comment in the traditional sense so it's a really great way to connect with community members in a different way outside of public meetings with questions prompts information so it's really designed to any initiative that has a component where you're going to be asking things of the public or seeking feedback from the public so a couple of quick examples we've been using it for our hickory ridge acquisition to see what people want to do with the space we've been using it for the residential rental bylaw review that the CRC or the I think it's the CRC committee of the council is working on to get feedback around rental bylaw changes so there's a number of different tools that this site offers it could be purely informational it could be surveys there's mapping tools all kinds of different tools to engage people in different ways if they want to make a quick comment it's a ladder of participation you don't have to show up to all the meetings but maybe you want to answer the quick survey so it was designed to broaden our access for the public on important topics so you'll see here a number of things that are ongoing at the moment other initiatives and you can view our archive if anyone's interested in looking at this so what I'm about to show you is a draft page for the assembly's work and it will if it is something that we end up using this tool for which it sounds like we are it'll have a nice little real estate and a tile on here when people come to Engage Amherst they'll see that as an activity that they can participate in so I am going to flip over quickly to the draft page which is not live yet but we wanted to show you what we've come up with so far I believe councillor Miller mentioned before I got on the call about the logos and the things from yeah if I could just quickly because I didn't I didn't fully explain that if I could just okay awesome so the logo here is something that my mother-in-law helped to design if I would I would love feedback on that it's also showing up on the postcard in the flyer and then I also just wanted to point as Brianna goes through you'll see that we have the portal that Dr. Shabazz talked about the registration portal that Dr. Shabazz talked about is one of the first things that we're asking folks to do and that has a link off to another to something that I need to go through with you all but we'll do that once Brianna leaves so we don't hold her up because I want to make sure that I have all of the right questions in that registration form for folks all right back to you so each project that we do can have you know a custom banner here it could be a picture it could be something like this the way that we've structured the projects is typically we obviously name the project again this is a preview it's not live until we get the go-ahead to make it live each project has a custom URL so that if you want to put it on a flyer or you know let people know that they can go to this web address to find it typically we inform the public about who is listening since that's the assembly we have that front and center and then we always have staff members listed and available as a point of contact so that's how we have that set up right here the about section is going to give a little bit of information about the process and what you're working on and really clearly identify what the calls to action are so this isn't a draft status there's a couple things that we were planning to change that that we will we just haven't got a chance to yet but it seemed important to have this front and center about the registration portal we are trying to push people to the town's page for the assembly to look at the full membership to access minutes we also call out the resources page and one thing that we will probably relocate on this page is highlighting the black census data giving links we've made it interactive so people can actually see it on the website as well over on the right hand side you'll see a life cycle of your process that you're going through especially the public likes to see where they're fitting into the timeline of your work so we've identified some previous steps that have taken place so those are checked off and to show them that we're in this current consultation phase and ultimately what the end goal is to give that final report to town council. Brianna can you just pause I just got a notice that maybe some folks were having a hard time hearing you I'm hearing you okay but if could you say just unmute yourself if you're having a hard time hearing Brianna okay Ms. Bridges are you having difficulty hearing Brianna it's she's going in and out like like two three words and then I miss the word then she comes back but it's starting to get a little better now but it was she was going in and out but as it goes on I think it's like one word I'll miss but it's getting a little bit better but it's like an echoey but I'm listening if no one else is experiencing that it might be kind of connectivity issue yeah but I can proceed if everybody please go ahead well please do yeah okay um okay so we have the the life cycle here which again the public really enjoys seeing where they're fitting into this process and what's happening with the end result or what's going to happen with the feedback that they provide so really engage Amherst the whole point is to have actions or tools that we use for the public to come and do something or complete an action so we have the registration link right now we have an example of one of the tools but there's any number of them so right now we have a news feature where we've highlighted the Valley Advocate coverage if there's more news that comes out as part of your process that's a spot where we can post those almost like a blog however if there was a survey if there was an idea generator and maybe to give that some context I'll show you a couple of the other projects but there's any number of tools that we can have here and we can let people know please fill out the survey please submit your idea you know one thing that we were really successful with was the Hickory Ridge project we had an idea generator we open ended asked community what they'd like to see with the space and so the page filled up with 150 unique ideas people could comment on the ideas vote the ideas we made a word cloud of the ideas that were submitted so it's just another way to have the community interact with the work yeah I'm sorry I have to stop you one more time yeah Pamela Hala is in the attendees if you could bring no did she she's coming back okay I'm in here now oh great okay welcome back okay go ahead Brianna sorry um no that's okay so I thought maybe to give some context we could look at one or two of the other tools live just so you have an idea of what I mean when I say survey tools or idea tools this one's pretty self-explanatory because it's basically like a blog a news update so if we get another story or you're covered in another program or there's a development we can add new items to this and it's another spot for those people who are interested in the process to check back and and stay informed so I'm going to flip over to another project but if there's any questions I just asked the chair to feel free to funnel those to me as I navigate over to another project to show an example absolutely and just to be really clear any of this can be changed so for example the photo that we're showing doesn't include all of the assembly members and so one of the things that we talked about is can we get everybody together now that we're all seem to be back in Amherst and have a nice photo taken of all of us so that would go front and center here but with that a photo it was sort of lacking like a human touch so we added that one for now additionally we talked about whether or not this black census should be a standalone as it is here or should we include it into the news feed and that's something that we were playing with and that you may want to think about what that would do if we move it into the news feed it would move the how to get involved piece up and we're sort of working with two we're asking residents of African heritage to register that's our first call to action but we're also thinking about how we want to more broadly engage the community if we're at that moment right now what sort of tool do we want to use to do that and so those are just sort of some caveats the other piece is that we'll be changing if everyone's okay with that I changed on the postcard the language could you scroll up Brianna just so I can so where it says do you identify as African heritage black and live in Amherst we I changed you to say register yourself with the African heritage reparation assembly to be to learn more about a historical reparative justice initiative underway because it's possible that folks don't want to be part of it but they want to learn more and so to make it more inclusive that was a recommendation so I see Dr. Shabazz's hand is up we're going to go to him and then we'll pause before Brianna switches over please Dr. Shabazz I wanted to ask for a quick around if people will all be at the block party on Friday I can arrange to have a photographer like if we could designate maybe right at the top at five o'clock or five thirty and if everyone's there that might be an opportunity to get a photo that will it be inclusive of holla Yvonne and myself with with everyone else yeah and it's on Thursday just to clarify Dr. Shabazz the block party yeah did I not say you said Friday but Thursday at 5 p.m yeah um yeah so I think Dr. Shabazz is asking for folks to say if they will plan to be there I think that's an excellent idea if everybody is going to be there and maybe if not we can even do it I don't know but on Wednesday for example if we really want to get the picture changed in time so let's come back to that question and see what folks are thinking Dr. Rhodes I don't know the comment I had was about the postcard and the wording I think that's an excellent change I think that we when when we use the word register I'm not sure about that word and using it it's like um other people can weigh in on it but for whatever reason it's register is um it is problematic to me and it might not be to other people but if other people don't feel the same way I'm comfortable going here with it but it doesn't serve like registering for the draft or you know anyway another word would be better from my perspective but the rest of it is really good yeah I I think that's really good feedback and I am curious if the word register has activates anything for other folks as well um and and that's very easy for us to change in both this and the postcard so let's sit with that for a moment um while Brianna kind of finishes her presentation and then we can come back to that okay Brianna okay so um like councillor Miller said earlier any of these details are changeable I mean we can adjust content we can activate different pieces of information we can embed videos here if there's a good explainer video for for the work so there's a lot of possibility but something I wanted to just show quickly were a couple of the tools and how they could be used for the assembly's work should you choose to do that and one of them that I think was really successful in terms of getting the community interested in and contributing to the work was an idea generator tool and so you'll hopefully can all still see my screen this particular consultation is closed so that'll indicate that you know it's not something active that you you need to be contributing to so ultimately when your project winds down we would have that same language it would always live there forever but we'd archive it but just for an example so that you can see what one of the tools looks like in action we asked people to share their ideas about what they would do with Hickory Ridge again keep in mind your own project and your own content 156 people submitted ideas they're all searchable if you wanted to search for a specific word people can like the ideas they can comment on other people's ideas that's a great idea or I would rather do this so it's another way to get a lot of voices involved in a really low stake easy way so at the end of the day all of the ideas would be here but on the back end it would give you the opportunity to kind of package all of this the consultation surveys whatever tools you use into a cohesive report a PDF if you wanted to show that to your decision makers or include that in the report to the council in your case you can get a sense of sentiment by reading people's ideas and what they've submitted you can generate word clouds you can discover themes that are coming if people are repeating you know one thing that came up for us was trails bicycle trails those those things kept coming up with this particular consultation so there are a number of tools depending on what you're looking to do with the public that I would suggest based off of what you're going to be asking or how you want to interact with the public on this process so surveys idea generator there's even a mapping tool there's a Q&A tool where you can allow community members to ask questions and a dedicated person will respond to those particular questions so if you ever have a chance to look take a look at the site offline I can show more and answer more questions but if you ever wanted to see some of the things that the site can do you could take a look at some of the other projects that are listed here for example we've run the the town manager's review which is also coming up soon we last year we ran that through Engage Amherst so it's just we're trying to socialize the idea that this is a place where you can go to see what projects are going on and how you can contribute your your feedback and your thoughts to it in addition to all the other tried and true methods. Thank you Brianna and I noticed and I wanted to ask you about this so you could answer it for the assembly I noticed that in the idea generator you just shared there was one that said removed by the moderator it was just a box and it said removed by the moderator and so could you talk to us a little bit about the way that this is sort of security wise structured given especially the nature of what we're the kind of work we're doing. Yes so in that example someone had submitted an idea and in their idea they used a word that was considered inappropriate I don't remember what it was in that one I think it was you know whatever it was describing like don't ruin the nature and just at a very kind of sassy way and so it is moderated there are keywords that are searched but it's also moderated by the company so there's people actually looking at the comments not censoring them but just making sure that there's not any sensitive language any hate speech or anything like that coming through the comments that is across the board however on each project or tool you can make it as as open or as closed you can require people to register with their full information or provide a name an email address we typically tend to require at least an email address so that this that person can receive the updates if they get someone votes on their their comment so we can make it as fine-tuned as we would like in terms of what would have to provide if they want to comment we tend to again have that be not a barrier and make it a little bit more open but well you can make that decision on whether what level people have to register in order to interact with the materials excellent thank you so much so Brianna I was hoping that the assembly could answer some of these questions that we have but we I think it will be helpful to be able to see the site as we're doing that I don't want to keep you longer than you anticipated being here so I'm just wondering what your timeline is if you can be here as we work through some of these questions so that we can look at the site while we're talking about it or if you have to jump we'll figure out another solution for that I might be able to provide you with the preview link okay you could see if that works so just give me one second to see if I can do that and I think the best would be if there are changes to kind of work off of that and maybe say let's change this paragraph to this so if you give me one moment let me see if I can get you a preview link great and while you're doing that I see Dr. Shabazz's hand is raised yes the preview link is available that can be helpful and then in whatever manner that Councillor Miller would or the chair would like we can perhaps give feedback one of the questions specific questions Councillor Miller raised had to do with the information in terms of the study of the 2020 census I would agree let's make that a separate link or a news feed item and and therefore the how to get involved could could scroll up the information will be there just will be captured in a in a separate place that you would scroll to so that would be agreeable to that there are also things not to duplicate everything that's on our regular engage Amherst page I know this is more of a specific campaign trying to emphasize consultation so things like the link that we have there that takes us to all of our previous meetings as archived on on social media those would be things that are already on the main page but perhaps if there's some way to to highlight or to note what's some of the things that are available on the main page but other than that I will really try to think more specific to this specific consultative campaign things that we might look to include particularly I'm thinking of the seven the harm areas that are part of the the nationally recognized discourse in terms of housing home ownership health care education crime and punishment peoplehood nationhood and you know so if we could kind of maybe that might be an area to specifically guide or to prompt the ideas generation the generation of ideas is to to have people have some understanding of that which I can try to work on and suggest something that's a really great idea to use that as a prompt from my perspective to get people generating ideas but giving some sort of framework especially for folks who might not even know you know what's what what the discourses what any you know this might be brand new I'm thinking I was thinking over the weekend just about how somebody may come to this page that knows nothing and somebody may come to this page that knows a whole lot and so how can we reach that whole spectrum and I did just receive your email Brianna so that will allow me to open up and we can preview and that way what I'll do is including what Dr. Shabazz just said and then any of the other comments that come I'll create a list to send to you of all of the feedback and then of course we can touch touch in check check in throughout the week. Yeah I think that would be great and if the assembly can think of just as Dr. Shabazz just suggested if there's other things that come to mind that that I can go over and show you more tools if I know what kinds of questions that you're looking to ask I can suggest oh let's try this tool or maybe this tool will be a good one to the link that you have will expire in seven days and I would just ask if you're welcome to share it within the assembly but once you share it outside of that anyone can see that content and if you're not ready for it to be prime time I would just say that to keep the preview in the in the group for now. Awesome definitely we will definitely do that I don't know that there's a way when I oh it's it comes up just like it would if it was live so exactly nothing to okay great well thank you so much Brianna really been great to work with you on this yeah yeah so the back end of the site like all of the comments that people make if we decide to have people make comments and then moderating it would be in your office yes okay yep yep and so a lot of the um moderation happens through the actual platform itself and then we can decide as a group um or you can decide as a group whether you wanted to further secure things by requiring people to register before they interact with some of your prompts so we can there are a lot of options there and then the other the other good thing which I didn't show you today is really the reports and the analysis the analytics coming out of it that you can include as part of your final report are really compelling so more to come on that. All right great any other questions for Brianna before she goes and then what we'll do is we're going to pull up that preview and we're going to go through item by item and really get into it and see what we want to keep what we want to change um and and so uh Dr. Chabaz your hand is still up is that the hold over okay all right thank you Brianna really appreciate it we'll talk to you soon sounds good thank you for having me all right okay so I'm going to uh let me just do share my screen here um did she send you the preview link yes and I can email it to us absolutely yeah I'll forward it follow up follow along yeah let me do that right now I just have to pop it into my other email because I don't have everybody saved um hang on one second let's and I'll pull it up on the screen for us as well um while you're doing that I just will mention breaking news at at Harvard you know the case of Belinda X who the Harvard donor money went to uh was part of was one of the human beings enslaved by by the royals um it has been recommended by the dean of the law school that the Harvard shield the logo um with its ties to the royal family and to slavery uh be eliminated as the logo of Harvard University and it strikes me that the Harvard shield is a prototype uh influenced the the symbolism of Amherst town of Amherst it's almost an exact um it sort of draws right from the Harvard so it's something we might want to look at in terms of the history of the Amherst logo wow look I'm going to have to sign up momentarily because where I am right now is becoming incredibly untenable in terms of noise level and I'll find another place and come back on okay we'll be looking for you Dr. Rhodes right uh wow well if there's an article that you can send us Dr. Shabazz please do that but I'm sure we can get it pretty quickly um but thank you for sharing that and I did just email everybody the link I'm also going to go ahead and share my page now um so please let me know if you haven't okay that's the registration where is here we go does everyone see the the link like the page that we looked at on the can you see my screen right now okay great um and I just want to show you briefly and we're going to come back to this but this is the flyer that will get printed and includes a QR code the QR code takes us to the registration portal and then of course the websites on there and here we did change the language to to learn more instead of to be a part of and that was some feedback and so these can be printed I I have it as a an eight by ten flyer and then two sizes of postcards on a little bit of a harder stock that we can print to get out into into the community so I'm going to take I see Vaughn's hand is raised first and then we'll go from there um this is a general comment and I'd love for Shabazz to give me a little bit of background so I am enjoying the logo I think it's great I like the muted colors but I also know there's some significance in some colors that are direct to pan africanism and african history and so I'm wondering if there's a way to integrate a few of those colors into this color scheme so that there's some recognition by the african american community and those colors are gold black red and green their primary colors and if they're I mean I'm not saying for them to overrun the design because I like what you have here because it's the colors are more modern and universal and I like that I like the greens and the browns in this I like the orange colors because I think that that gets a little bit more at earth but the red black green and gold or have specific significance and Shabazz can chime in about you know green being the land and red being the blood of the people and so it would be nice in the small bands if we could replicate those those colors just in the small bands and keep the other colors the same absolutely okay you know Yvonne I had a smaller feeling about the color palette and uh and some of the words you just said I did feel some of the earth tones here I saw some of the foil foil foilage uh with our leaves here I saw you know I saw I like the vibe here but then there is also the pan african uh palette of of red black green and gold you're right so I mean I'm saying subtle you know a subtle addition the smaller a few of the smaller lines could be the those primary colors and leave the rest of it the same absolutely absolutely okay so and and that goes for the large banner with the ahra and then the smaller will okay great I think it's beautiful it'll be it seems so wonderfully universal you know like I I like it but I think that those colors like I said when I looked at it I was like where where are colors so it'll be nice to have them in there even as a hint of it yeah sure absolutely yeah and maybe uh Alexis I see your hand is up hi um I'm sorry that I'm coming in um so late I is this is this logo something that we um we commissioned someone to me no so I explained a little bit in the in the beginning about this Alexis I actually asked this is my ex mother-in-law who is a graphic designer and a beautiful artist and I asked her to come up with a design based on you know I showed her all of our stuff and so this is what she came up with um but it's totally up for any sorts of feedback whatsoever and can be modified in any ways um we're not paying her she's just totally inclined so okay yeah I just I didn't want to say anything it's like it's something that we already bought so um I I agree and I think that it's it might be worth it just to like like what if each of the letters was one of those colors um then it might kind of just eliminate the need for the background at all because I think that if we start it is an intentional color palette these these colors right now that we see here are in conversation with each other if we add in colors multiple colors outside of this color palette there will no longer be a conversation or at least it won't be in the same language and so I think it's fine if we just sort of take the step to just go in that direction because I think that when folks see that color palette that that right there speaks to them that this is of African heritage so I I I agree and I guess I'm saying like I would be okay with just with not being subtle with that and especially because like I'm like I don't know I don't I don't see any disadvantage to being loud about it so I just wanted to share that two cents sure absolutely so just so I can make sure I'm hearing you Alexis are you saying to get rid of the color scheme in the background completely and just have the letters and what would the in in your perspective the background color be so if we're if we're going to so either so either or I guess is what I'm saying like I I don't think that these two palettes like if we're considering the pan African flag colors to be one palette and for this autumnal palette to be another I don't see them meshing well and so I'm saying like either one of the other whether that's the background being those colors or if we just forego a background and just have the ahra because I'm also thinking you know this is going to have to exist if we're going to stick with this is going to have to exist and live in other forms and so like is this a logo that we can put at the top of like a letterhead or you know so I think that we have more options and more flexibility if we don't tie ourselves down to this background yeah and I think we will have to use it in other that's actually how I had explained it to her is like think of it as like almost a letterhead type thing because we weren't going to be getting into any you know fancy art necessarily I want to preface or I guess it's too late to preface but like I like this but I I'm hearing and agreeing with what um Yvonne and Dutch was saying so um that was that this is like my suggestion to like a an easy solving of it yeah I yes Yvonne go ahead I I agree and I don't I think I think those colors will fit fine with this background I actually I like the logo the way it is except adding that color I I don't think they'll conflict and I'm wondering if your designer can add the elements so we can take a look at it I don't know what kind of time frame that you're on but I do agree with Alexis maybe there is just the letter you I would say use this same design and change the color of the white letters as an option to the to the primary colors I said before or leave it as is with a couple of bands of those colors I don't I don't think it'll conflict I think it might it might make it pop a little more and make it more interesting a little bit more interesting yeah so I mean I would say go back to the designer and see if if they're willing to do that and we could take a look at it you could probably pass it around and have people just take a look at it yeah I think what I could do so she'll definitely be able to probably even tonight get to this and so what I would ask her to do is one version where the letters are using the colors that you suggested and then one where we add bands using those colors so we can look at both options it may be easy enough for her to even add no background but what I'm hearing is I think the consensus is generally that we like the background but we want to try to add these colors so and then what I think I can do is send it to Jennifer and Pamela and they and we basically I can send it but you can only reply to me we can't reply all on an email obviously so we can definitely do that that's really great feedback and I do see Alexis that your hand is still raised so I'm coming back to you no okay all right so since Irv is not back yet and he is the one who brought up some concern about the word register I'm gonna hold off on that particular piece of things but what I would like to do is go through the site and also take you to the registration I want you to see what the registration looks like and I think feedback on that is really necessary right now so let me see if this is actually gonna let me okay so let's just go here and start with the registration and this is something that I am going to send everybody to be able to view and offer suggestions so first and foremost here we have under the so again we have the banner and then we have under the heading we say to protect your privacy your registration will be assigned a unique identifier by the AHRA this was Dr. Shabazz who pointed me to Evanston's work and what they did which is to create a unique number identify identifier for each person that registered and there are programs that will allow us to do that I'll have to speak with the town staff just to see exactly how that might work we have first name last name we have are you over 18 years old um the thought here is I'm not sure about whether benefits will be you know under 18 you'll be eligible for benefits but we may want to capture youth and their um and have them involved in the process so um but being able to delineate that uh whether you currently live in Amherst what your address is ask whether you identify as Black or African heritage and then um finally would you uh two more questions would you like to be included in future outreach and then is there anything else you would like for us to know so again this is something that um is completely easy to adjust uh and I'm very curious the way I have it set up right now is that there will be a default message that comes to folks after they fill it out that let me just see here so they'll get a copy of what they wrote and then where is the there's a confirmation message um that we can include here so right now just as your response has been reported but we can if there's something else like for example we want to link people to the website so maybe they've only used the QR code to get here and then once they fill it out in the confirmation message they'll get an email that will that will send be sent to them with our website um so questions and comments about this and please just go ahead and raise your hand Dr. Shabazz could I turn it over to you this was really your vision and um we talked some what about it but I executed um based on what we discussed as much as possible but would love your to to hear if this is what you I would just say folks um if we can have um if we can't have approval now let's have a little feedback time and then if we can authorize us to go forward to finalize this uh again possibly before before Thursday I think this is in line with uh helping us to build a a the kind of listing of uh members of the community the African heritage community that want to be um in this you know in this consultative process want to be kept informed want to have uh a linkage to our work here to be able to contribute um you know in the way of generating ideas and the way of uh responding to how we're operating so I think this is uh this is just in line with what we what we called for and again if if uh people are in general agreement with it um we can you know I think we will be prepared to to start distributing links to are we going to do a bitly ultimately for that that address or is it going to be a long address or uh that's a great question dr spas the only place it shows up right now is as a q r code uh and then on the website itself it just has words and it's linked to it um so we could consider doing that and I'm thinking if we're going to want to go to print so that we can have our friends at Amherst college and others distributing um at the block party then I think if for example everybody can provide feedback by like noon tomorrow I can still get everything rushed to print in time for that um and and and the website can be a work in progress so we don't have to have everything perfect for that but since we have this opportunity I would have I would have a banner printed for us for our table at the block party and then these these postcards to go out and this will be after we've looked again at the coloring of the logo and everything so maybe if we can turn that around quickly by like tomorrow at noon or so we should be good and Alexis I see your hand is raised um so when you hit send and then you like if you were to hit send right now um and then if you go to the sorry sorry are you are you able to click on the send button oh yeah I was thinking some reason it was at the bottom but it's yeah it's right there okay let's see what happens and next to the mail envelope there's like a link like in between yeah right there and then where it says short in URL that's how you can shorten it oh brilliant okay thank you I just just as like a quick just because I could do it quickly um wait let me make sure that you can see um okay so so we have like the regular hra then we have it if the colors are primary colors over it and then this is it if the colors are integrated into here um so we could just change the white to red gold black I can't see it I can't Alexis can you share your screen I'm gonna unshare will you share yeah I saw it if we could just make the AHRA red black golden green where we're there I I did a version as well I'll that I emailed to you Michelle okay here let me show it on your screen I mean it works y'all are so badass man well Alexis yours is animated or something right mine is just I just added bands of color to mine so I just emailed it to you so you could yeah I'm gonna share that right now um and then we'll go to yours Alexis okay this is this is right right okay perfect so this adds the bands um this is one option oh my god I I am blown away that the two of you just did this on the spot like this it's so great um Alexis so this is one I want to see what Alexis did yeah okay so I'm gonna take this down and then I think she changed the lettering from the white lettering on top to to the colors to red black golden green sorry I need I'm gonna rejoin from my computer I'll be right back oh sounds good let me say as well one thing um on the the form itself Michelle yeah we're guiding people in already on the question of do you identify as black or african-american so rather than do you identify yes no maybe that's one that we could tweak to say something like you know as an african-american how do you identify and then could give instead opportunities to say you know historically african-american intergenerational after I'm just off the top of my head right now but also you know um ethnicities from from the caribbean and different african ethnicities from from the continent that might be something we could tweak there to get a to to fine fine tune the information but at the same time um uh already acknowledging that they're they're they're in the site because they have have expressed that they're of african heritage yeah absolutely I I think that that's a really good idea I wonder if we I wouldn't want I would at least want to get that list of from you and make sure that we work together to make sure I got that right um or yeah so let's that's I think that's an easy fix yeah okay and I see Ms. Bridges hands up so I want to go to you Ms. Bridges and then we'll um play around with this here please Ms. Bridges you're muted right now Ms. Bridges I was thinking about what Chabaz was saying but I would think that would be a lot of information to put but then again maybe not um I was also having the question after the the first name it said short version or something after the first name oh you know what that is that's a short no no I know it and I know what you mean it's it's um like you have an option to do short answer long answer or paragraph or something like that so for your first name right so it's the only option there is to choose short answer they won't see that though right right back end thing that part's invisible to them yeah right like yeah you better have a short no it's like yeah no that's what you know what after we do this let's go back to the form and and we'll yeah clarify that wait can Chabaz I was trying to understand what you just um what you just said you mean like to add a couple of questions or to fill in this question about Black or African heritage right so instead of saying yes or no to say you know how do you identify as a person of African heritage uh choice one could be from the Caribbean choice two could be from the African continent choice three could be you know intergenerational intergenerationally from the United States of America I don't that's not the exact language but it could offer there for you know three or four different choices of how they identify as part of being a person of African heritage resident of Amherst okay so for example said my friend said for rare he might check it off yes I'm I'm of African heritage and he might say I'm you know he's from the continent of Africa you know someone might say you know I'm from the Caribbean but we it would give us another layer of information but already acknowledging that they I have that they identify as being of African heritage can we can we come back to it because it can also have the opposite effect where people are like oh I'm like I have to check a box you know yes absolutely yeah so I think if we do it I'm I think it's a good idea if it's an optional question so that it's not mandatory for someone to pick a box so we want to finish the logo and then come back to it on the form sure yeah that's a good idea because I think I want to address what Miss Bridges was bringing up too so let's come back to the form I know we're a little bit all over the place today but this is a lot of exciting all at once good thing the results of our mass humanities grant are not today I thought they were but they're not until the 19th we'll know the fate of that so okay so Alexis do you want to show us what you did and Miss Bridges your hand is still up was that um for this or for the form you're muted Miss Bridges no I don't see that my hand is still up it's down okay yes sometimes the iPad I think yes problems with this one all right Alexis take it away here well so and I'm okay if nobody agrees with me but um this is giving me Halloween um it's it's not this this is not pleasing to me but I'm okay with being alone in that I can die on that hill I'm all right with that so you you prefer to keep the white lettering for the ahra that is well I didn't say that so I'm I'm I'm ready to go full pan african flag colors like I'm I'm sort of like I guess my my question would be as as a graphic designer if I see it I'm like why autumn I don't I don't dislike autumn but what does that got to do with me um so I don't know that like like I was saying before right for me especially in marketing and all that sort of stuff images speak louder than words I don't even have to read ahra or even really think about it if they're all in those colors I know it's pan africanism um so I guess I guess that's always my mindset is like how fast can we communicate this information and how hard does someone have to does someone even have to read in order to know what this is about okay um I see Dr. Shabazz and then um Ms. Bridges and that's what I see right now I should have lowered my hand I'm sorry okay no worries Ms. Bridges now mine says I lowered my hand does it still show my hand is up oh it does okay yeah okay hold on tell me now now what is nope you're good okay all right good um so okay so why don't I present a couple versions um from the designer and then we'll we'll finalize something because I think I understand what everybody has provided as feedback and if there's anything else after the meeting just text me and or email me just me and I'll make sure to pass that along does that work all right okay so let's go back to that form and then go back and just to kind of give us process wise in terms of the rollout the form is most important to finalize today in terms of the block party because if we're going to start printing something with a QR code on it so the form and the logo are really what we have to be sure of between now and tomorrow the website it's okay if it's not like everything perfect right now because between now and Thursday when anyone would be able to even see the website um we'll be able to update it so let's kind of go in order order uh starting with let's see again um what do I got here share okay is this mine am I sharing or there we go okay so um another option Dr. Shabazz to address what you had said is um the I think what Yvonne or Yvonne maybe pointed out to say like it could be an optional like so I can include something that allows people to free form so they could just we could ask the question in a way that allows people to go a little bit deeper into what they want to share with respect to that if they so choose as opposed to it being something they have to do to complete the form yeah it's really not a biggie for me and as I'm looking at it now back to the form one thing I would say is maybe that should go up top uh whatever how we're asking the the designation as uh as black uh African heritage and uh and be the first thing and then the the details of you know location and age and all of that can come can come after that but let me say this as well I have a possible I have a uh a proposal to address Erb's question about registration what about inclusion and this being an inclusion form saying that they have uh asked to be included for purposes of the consultation uh process with the with the African heritage community so African heritage slash black inclusion form is that what you're saying I like that a lot I don't know what other what do other people I see heads shaking miss bridges I think you want to say something but you're muted I couldn't hear what he just said what was the word inclusion so it would say African heritage slash black inclusion form as to say like you're choosing to include yourself in this process of learning more about our work I think that's is that right Dr. Spas yeah yeah okay I'm just responding to to uh uh our fellow uh colleague Erb's concern of registration being a kind of uh a word he he he had a bad reaction to and instead proposing inclusion great do we have consensus on that excellent okay holla does that work okay for you okay we'll come back I think um holla might be having trouble with her sound so oh um maybe what you can do is put your hand up if if it works okay for you oh there you are yes Yvonne my only um concern is black inclusion is that work together in the same sentence African heritage black inclusion form yes do we want to just say ahra inclusion form yeah okay and then let's see how that would let me just make sure so this um we would be saying then here include yourself or or how do you include yourself to learn more about a historical reparative justice initiative underway for residents of african heritage and amherst which kind of says it all because you're saying again that it's it's you're saying what it is it's not unclear what it what we're doing I'm wondering if saying in I don't know if this is just me is saying ahra inclusion form does that make it sound like they're going to be included in the assembly that's a good point oh goodness read that one what if it's what if it's without assembly what if it's a hr or how about consultation uh inclusion consult consultation inclusion form meaning that they're being included in in our consultative process is that better than uh registration well herb's not but but I thought his his reaction to registration uh which might be the same as enrollment is that it's yeah it sounds it sounds maybe too I don't know bureaucratic or like they're joining something rather than that it they're they're asking to be included in a process of learning in a process of of consultation but the form is really enrolling them with their information so maybe enrollment would maybe so let's let's ask him I don't have a problem with enrollment I think in so he had brought up like a mil almost like a military references what I had I thought he right like the draft card like the draft draft we got a draft african heritage people well that's enrollment is been used in that I think that states too yeah that's true um I mean I don't worry that they would you know I I don't know about that inclusion signals that we're including them in the ahra but if if inclusion still works um consultation inclusion form I'm looking in that the psorias for registration and one of them is matriculation which is more like for school I'm guessing all of these are are sort of the words that I guess herb is trying to avoid I like inclusion I just think you know we need to figure out how we're going to use it well why don't we do this let's sit with it a little bit over the next hour or so and then we'll um as long I mean I guess the only question is we won't be able to get a full consensus on a word before these would need to go to print without meeting again so and given that herbs not here it's unfortunate um but just hear that one option again ahra consultation inclusion form so here let me do this let me change this um let's see here we're in the back end we're in the back end yeah and I'm gonna actually send this to everybody actually you can get to it from the um I think I'll make sure that you can um okay uh ahra consultation and then let me show it to you I mean a little bit of the problem with this is you have to know what a lot of things are like so ahra let's say you know nothing right ahra what's ahra consultation about what inclusion what am I getting myself into here what about information inclusion because we're just getting at their information right well that that sounds better like it's it we're just getting at their information this first level so how about it's just an information inclusion form or information form you know what I mean instead of a registration I think people would understand that better right it's just the form for information right a well but so the and I don't want to speak out of turn for you Dr. Shabazz but I think the purpose of it was to get people to take a step to give sort of their information as a way of becoming part of this process so information works so an inclusion the way that you have it their inclusion also works because we're just including their information right if it's just an inclusion form they're filling out their information so we can include it in something well wouldn't they understand that if you're putting information form and then they go down and see what what you're asking for that just in layman's terms I think they'd understand that better as they're seeing what information they're putting in like you know African black African what and the options about from they already know whatever they're putting that in there right right I like the inclusion form or inclusion information form I like that because I agree with I agree with Shabazz inclusion is it is active you know it's about sparking um action you know yeah I like inclusion why don't we have inclusion slash information form I mean I'm easy to do y'all y'all got me I like that I like that you got me at an advantage I'm really easy to do okay we got you on a good day and I do have a hard stop at about 10 minutes I got a four o'clock plan okay okay so um let's just we do need to do public comment before you leave so I'm gonna move to that um I like what Ms. Berger's just said to do inclusion information the only thing I just want to confirm is here then it would say include yourself to learn more about the historical is that okay all right perfect and then that's great Pamela were you reminding me about public comment or okay I'm gonna do that right now and I'm gonna pause this share let's see here all right so that was a great back and forth I will say we got some things done that was definitely um so I'm gonna go ahead and call public comment and let me just read quickly okay during the public comment period the chair will recognize members of the public when called on please identify yourself by stating your full name pronouns and residential address residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes at the discretion of the chair and then the AHRA will not engage in a dialogue but we will be listening very closely and if you would like to make a public comment please go ahead and raise your hand um I think Mary had her hand oh okay that's okay Mara's here we'll do we'll do them both so welcome Mara hi can you hear me yeah um so I just have two comments from the Amherst community land trust for you one is that the family that was chosen for the $125,000 subsidy for hot home purchase has actually taken a house that was donated to ACLT so that subsidy is still available and we would love to have it go to someone of African American heritage um and the application form it can be found on the ACLT website under first-time home buyers and um I think we decided we're just going to do first come first serve since we didn't get many applicants the last time anyways and so the first person that gets a qualified application that's okay we'll get the subsidy and they have six months to find a house that fits and we may increase the subsidy available if there aren't any houses because house prices have gone up and the second is that our annual well not our annual meeting but our fall meeting will be held on October 15th from two to four at Mill River and that will be a meeting with refreshments talk about what we've done and where we want to go and then there'll be a walk afterwards all together there'll be a challenging one and they're not so challenging one so it should last to about four there'll be more information coming out about that but I just want to let you know okay thank you Mara before you leave I am going to just uh break from protocol just for a second to ask for a clarification um for the $125,000 subsidy can you just say a little bit more what exactly does that do for the qualified applicant um that is applied towards the purchase of a home which still has to meet the the applicant has to meet the um qualifications of only earning 80% of the area mean income and they're only allowed to pay a certain percentage of their income in order to um have so they can't buy a half million dollar home with that income because they won't be able to afford it so it has to be affordable and they have to meet the income um qualification and the people at Valley CDC are excellent at helping people work through what documentation they need and there are guidelines of what the income levels are on the webpage okay great and can it be a condo that's my final question does it I think so okay okay great well thank you very much really appreciate that thank you it's um it's community preservation act funds from a couple years ago but it wasn't used the first the first person couldn't find a home in her price range and then the second took the other home so still available what's the website aclt.com I think I think it's uh uh no.org amherstcommunitylandtrust.org and just thanks again for all the work that you're doing I was talking to somebody yesterday at the district one it's just really amazing work that you're doing so thank you and thanks for keeping us involved yeah all right so yes mary hello mary hello hi everyone um so excited to hear everything that's going on it's really it's an exciting time and um so it just I I've been involved um uh a little bit doing some writing in and some speaking for reparations for amherst in the past and been involved with lots of white amherst residents who are interested in in in helping supporting boots on the ground effort etc um I was thinking of of people these people people who I've been involved with who want to be involved and the engage amherst website which looks like it's going to be a terrific so I was wondering if if um AHRL is this uh it has a mailing list which could um maybe get back to people or or just get information out to people whenever there is something new on the website so if there's a if there's a new article if there's new research that would alert them to to get onto the website so that they can get informed is there anything like like that in existence Dr. Shabazz I see you shaking your head do you want to speak to that if I understood from um when we had our meeting with Briana Sunrid of about the engage amherst it's not constant contact but there is a kind of um uh process built in I don't think it's maybe through Microsoft I'm not sure the proprietary thing but there there is a way that those who engage with us through the engage amherst or as we build the email list or the address list from the from the portal that we will have a way to constantly feed information about the next AHRA meeting about community forums about you know whatever we're sending out I think there is a a process uh within engage amherst or that we can use to do that maybe maybe Dr. Young knows or Pamela Young knows or or maybe you know Michelle isn't wasn't there yeah absolutely so there are different functions like for example um if we use the idea generator then they'll they can register they would register with a name and an email address and then it is sort of gives permissions um accordingly but I think there's probably Mary a really specific way to actually have a mailing list that is like a call to action my only concern right now is just um sort of confusing that with the registration or with the inclusion portal um for so it's like sort of we're going through these steps and just to be clear one of the things so Mary has been an extraordinary extraordinarily supportive um ally in all of the work that we've been doing and has been really looking for ways that she can organize other um folks who want to get engaged and help in our process and so we talked about um having Mary next week on the agenda as an item to talk about how we want to strategize engaging um folks that were not not specifically African heritage folks but everyone else in the community who may want to be boots on the ground for example um like I saw an opportunity where Mary could be coordinating with Cyrus and really helping um for to coordinate that effort of getting out into the community and so Mary proposed some other really great ideas and so Mary I think what we'll do is kind of hold that for next week when you come back and then um explore the the piece about um getting people signed up a little bit more with Brianna great great because that's you know that's what I'm picking about in this question too just more broadly how can people be informed on a regular basis so they can jump into action because there there is an awful lot of interest that I'm finding so good I look forward to seeing you next week and thank you for this great work thank you thanks for being here Mary um okay I don't see any other hands right now and I know Dr. Chabaz has a hard stop so I think the only other thing I wanted to mention is I was thinking about and this would come out of my this isn't like anything to do with our budget but I was hoping to have some um fun items at the block party to be able to offer out and so was thinking about I have a friend who has a company basically that can make like for example little sanitizer bottles that would have our logo on them um and just a couple items like that that we might be able to give out for folks would everyone be okay if I made a decision on that as long as it's with the logo that we're all good okay all right cool um and does anyone know who's is anyone know for sure they're gonna be at the block party I'm gonna try to be there yes okay okay so Yvonne I'm gonna circle back I'm gonna send an email to everybody about us getting a group picture um I'll do a doodle poll just to make it easy and we'll find a date and really appreciate Dr. Chabaz I don't know if that photographer that you have is available like at any other times but um otherwise I'm sure we can talk to the town and see what we can figure out okay um so any other um let me just check the agenda Yvonne I think you're about to say something oh I was gonna say that um I went to the website that Mara suggested but it's not working I want to be able to share that information to folks but that website never loaded and so I'm just trying to figure out what the I guess I'll keep looking to see yeah and I can connect so I see it now it's um it's actually fully spelled out so it's amherstcommunitylandtrust.org is what I'm seeing and I'm trying to load but maybe it's not loading it's not loading it's not loading you're right it's something on there and okay I think Mara might still be here oh Mara's hand is up but we yeah it's loaded on my computer but um I'll I'll make sure that um you get some contact information Michelle through you okay okay that would be great yeah I want to be able to move people in that direction you know yeah yeah by the way if I could share something of course so I'm showing you on my on the screen Amherstown logo and you can see the um the similarity it it has with the logo of Harvard Law School um and the Harvard Law School because it had been determined uh and shown through a a um a work that came out in 2016 that the shield that the Harvard image was based upon the family shield of Isaac Royal Jr the slave trader slave holder who made so much money and was um you know and donated to to Harvard College before he left the United States because he didn't support the American independence so he went he was loyal to the crown and so he went back to England uh but this was the person who enslaved Belinda and left her no pension no resources whereby she then petitions the uh uh you know for for a pension um and so they have changed Harvard has changed they dropped the the three uh wheat baskets uh in favor of this logo now this is their new logo but here we are in Amherstown still replicating the royal the royal shield uh so that's just FYI do it what you like but that's really interesting wow burn the wheat oh geez um yeah good stuff if you would send that to us Dr. Shabazz if you get a chance I think everybody would appreciate having that um okay so I'm not seeing we didn't get to a couple of our other items because Irv had to leave he's gonna speak to us about the community survey he had a meeting with Kerry at the Donahue Institute um and we didn't get to see dbg funds um although I'm not sure there's too much to say right now but uh we could get to that for our next meeting um so if there aren't any other member reports or any other comments I just really want to say thank you so much this was such a great meeting and they always are but feel we really work together thank you Michelle and thanks to um your uh uh your mother-in-love and um in respect to you know the help that she extended absolutely Pamela yes please Mary has her hand up is there something additional that she'd like to say or whether that was left over from before so I'm just gonna allow her to talk now yeah perfect Mary did you sorry sorry that was I just didn't take it down thanks for asking all right awesome um and you know we did not approve the minutes that are on the agenda we could do that really quickly if people had had had a chance to look at them but if you haven't have people had a chance to look at them okay um so why don't we go ahead and quickly just approve those um minutes so I'm gonna move to approve the minutes of five sixteen six six six ten six fifteen and six twenty eight and this is a really good practice that we process say in because it keeps people informed and they can always be amended so is there a second second okay I heard um Ms. Bridges second and then uh let's see uh Heather Hala sorry Hala okay uh Alexis okay Yvonne yes thank you uh Deborah second oh you second in you yes okay and uh Dr. Shabazz yes okay and I'm a yes oh okay see you Alexis good to see you all right everyone well thank you it was a great meeting I'm gonna adjourn at three fifty one p.m thanks a lot bye bye bye thanks Pamela