 Hey, Chad. Hey, June. How's it going? Good. How are you? Not too bad. So I just sent you an email. Yes, the ARP. Yeah, I've never heard of that before. I have. I didn't go after it this year because we've been working on a couple other grants. Okay. And it's, you know, when you do, when you have a lot of applications, sometimes it's, I don't want to say more trouble than it's worth, but it's still a lot of like reporting and monitoring. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it looks like a, it would obviously require a significant amount of time to write up, but it looked really cool when I looked at all the things that you can do and how quick. Yeah, the quickness is nice. Hello, Dennis. Hello there. How are you doing? Good. Very well. Thank you. Terry. You're muted. Hi, Terry. How are you doing? Good. How are you? Good. Roughly, but I'm, I'm here. They're basically for shovel ready programs. Jean. I'm sorry. They're basically for what they call shovel ready programs, things that are pretty much in the pipeline and go on. Okay. You know, like. Yeah. I mean, Burton, I guess it was their last name has brought up under old business. Resilience center. Well, Haley's already started that at the senior center. You know, we could get some, some funding to make that. You know, more comfortable happen, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So I would like to discuss it with everybody tonight because that was new to me. And I just thought it's important for all of us to be aware of it. Cause there were lots of very interesting ideas listed on there, what other communities have done. So. How about other people writing the grant, Haley? I would just have either myself or a staff person, right? It keeps it pretty easy and it's easier to track on our end for reporting and. Yeah. Well, they have grant writers on staff at the town and some of the people on the committee of written on this committee have written grants. You've not monitored it of course and manage it, but it could take a burden off. Yeah. I mean, we definitely have. And one of the things I'm going to talk about is actually a grant that's just secured. For volunteer recognition and out and retention. So we've already been the recipient of. Two or three since I've been there. That's great. I think any, any grants we can get or a wonderful thing. Hi, Anne. Hey. Are we the whole group now? I don't remember if Christine. Christina said she wasn't going to be here. And then we're just waiting, I think for Jacqueline, right? And is Karen going to make it? Karen. I don't think she said no, I'll check my email. Okay. I'm just going to turn my light up. I feel like I'm in the dark here. Hang on. Of course, maybe it's better if I'm dim. Hi, Karen. Come on. We want you sharp as attack. I don't want to give you any excuse to call me a dim wit. Yes, the lame puns will. It's a, you know, it's a proud tradition. That's a tradition anyways. So Haley, do you have anything from Jacqueline or Christina? No. Okay. But we do have a quorum. So we could start. Unless you want to give them a few more minutes. Maybe we'll do one more minute. Everybody excited for spring. Yes. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. And daylight savings time is this weekend. Which is awesome. So. Okay. It'll be a wonderful thing, Karen. You'll be able to get out of work and it will still be daylight. So don't wait. And you must be excited that it's break week coming up. Yeah, you know, yes and no, you know, my current job, it doesn't really matter. So. Which is kind of sad, but, you know. What do you mean break weekend? Do you mass again? Yeah. Spring break. Yeah. Is it break weekend? You mass again. Next week. They just got back. Yeah. Well, they had a hard weekend of partying last weekend. So they've got to take a break. Yeah. They all need to break. Well, actually wouldn't it be nice if they didn't have a break this time of year and they could finish the term earlier. I just read the paper today. The term finishes going to extend. And therefore they'll be more good weather for weekend parties. Yeah. Yeah, I think there you go. Yeah. Yeah, it should be an interesting spring in town. No doubt about it. Yeah. All right. I'm going to get us started because I know everybody's. Busy. So I'm going to call the council on aging meeting to order. Pursuant to governor Baker's March 12th, 2020. General law chapter 30 a section 18. This meeting of the council on aging is being conducted via remote participation. This meeting is also being recorded. And we will take roll call to. Check to see who's here and. Here. Terry. Here. Chad. Yes. Karen here. Christina. Dennis. Here. Jacqueline. Nope. I have a blank square on my computer. Is that. Oh, it's Dick. Okay. Okay. All right. I wasn't sure if somebody was just signing in. Okay. Very good. Okay. And now. Public comment time. Any residents are welcome to express their views up to three minutes. Do we have anyone here? We do. But they are not raising their hand. So maybe he doesn't have any questions. Okay. All right. Well, welcome everyone. Six people. Do we have quorum? Yes. Yes, we do. We do. We do. All right. We'll start off with the director's update. Hailey. Yeah. So I sent you all a spreadsheet with some of the, the different statistics that we can share. And again, if there's any other specific info you want, just let me know so that I can add that. Our check in counts and average daily attendance is pretty much the same. So. That's a good sign that there has been no dips in service. We're pretty much on pace with the. February and January similar numbers. A lot of exercise participation. We had over 200 people take an exercise program. We had an average daily check in of 31 people. And we did quite a number of social events in January. We had 146 people logging in for different programs and activities. And then a lot of information sharing. We get tons of phone calls. People wanting to know different information, especially with tax season. We are booked solid through the end of March. So we've got 21 people each Tuesday coming to the senior center to get their taxes done. And there are still appointments in April. If anyone hasn't filed their taxes, it's open to people of all ages. Just at the senior center. So I didn't have any major changes in terms of the. Activities. And then the one thing that I did want to highlight is that we were awarded a $5,000 grant. To do volunteer recognition and improve our retention efforts. Julia worked really hard on this grant. She put a lot of her heart and soul into doing that. And we're so thrilled to have this because it'll allow us to do two things. We can do a volunteer appreciation dinner. To pay it back to everyone who gives their time at the senior center. We're making plans for that now. We're making plans for that now. We're making plans for that now. It will happen during the national volunteer appreciation week, which is the week of. It's April 16th. So check all your in be looking at your inbox. Cause you're going to get an RSVP. Everyone on the council. We would love to have you attend. So during the appreciation dinner. And we're going to, it'll be catered. We're going to make a couple of things in house. But it should be a really nice event. Just to treat everyone, you know, again, it's a really nice event. And it's the pandemic. And we rely so heavily on our volunteers, particularly with the meals program in and with our reception desk. So it'll be nice to give back to them. And then we're going to be doing a volunteer fair. Collaborating with some other area organizations. And that'll happen sometime in May. So we got funds to, you know, buy equipment, do promotional materials so that we can kind of spread the word and it'll be a nice way to kind of showcase some of the other agencies that we work closely with. So I don't know if people have questions about the grants. Every fund has to be expended by the end of June. So we're kind of in busy mode to spend the 5,000. Okay. I think Chad had his hand up and then I'll go second. Actually, for the first thing. When you said volunteers is this for. All the people specific programs and services. So for the volunteer appreciation dinner, it is just for people who volunteer at the senior center. It's people who deliver. So I don't understand your question. Sorry, you mentioned a fair. Yeah. So that'll be open to the general community with a focus on recruiting older adults who are volunteers. So Haley, I had a couple of questions about your. Your numbers on. For February, or maybe, maybe this is a misprint or it came out when I printed it, the average daily for February was three. This should have been 31. I just noticed that too. Okay. All right. Yeah, it was happen. Okay. And then also in February for volunteer hours, it was half of what it was for January. Yeah. I think it's a combination of factors. We did have quite a few people who went away or they got sick and had to take some time off. And then also people forget to sign in. So we're always re, you know, reminding people, please use your card to scan in. Okay. Okay. I don't think I got that. That. Report. It was emailed along with the agenda. And a word document that had the, the other parts of my report. So that all came with your meeting invite. Yeah, there were three things attached Chad. So maybe you didn't go all the way down to the bottom. I took it. Okay. Anyone else have any questions about. The grant or the stats. Okay. Do you want to talk about the. Open house and listening. So just some reminders slash Dave, the date. We are doing next Wednesday, a school building project listening session. So the, some of you may remember from the last meeting, Jean wrote a letter to the town council inviting them to come and talk about the project. You know, we're particularly concerned about it because of the impact on property taxes. We want to have older adults have a chance to voice how this is going to impact them. So that'll be next Wednesday, March 15th. It's the aides of March. And it'll be from 430 to 630 at the bank center. Large activity room. Town council president Lynn Griezmer will be there. Kathy Schoen from the school building project. And I think both Paul and Sean. The finance director will be in attendance as well. So spread the word I've promoted this. I was in Phyllis leaders bulletin column today. It's been hopefully broadcasted on Amherst neighbors. I've reached out to Amherst media. So. Got some pretty good exposure on this. And certainly I'm expecting a fairly large turnout from the green leaves. Community. Yeah. And then we are doing our second annual open house that will be Monday, April 3rd from three to five. Everyone's welcome to join us. We've got a DJ coming. We will have snacks. We will have a showcase on departments in town that we collaborate with and some outside sources as well. And so it should just be a really fun way to get involved, get people excited about coming to the senior center. We had 75 people show up last time. So hopefully we can match that or go bigger. But it's a really great way because a lot of people don't know all the things that we offer. And I would certainly love for as many council members to be able to do that. I would also like to reiterate that I think it's really important as members of the council on aging that we support these, you know, The open house and certainly represent our council well. Whether it's a tabling or greeting people or however. You know, you want to use as a, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know what I'm trying to say is you know, you know, if there is a lot of people who want to come to the city for whatever. You know, you want to use us Haley, but would encourage everybody who's able to please come out. It was, I was there last year. I was very impressed. So a good time had by all. Yes. It sounds kind of scary, but it's really easy. And you're just really mingling with the public. The event pretty much runs itself once everything is in place. So you can just show up and have fun. And there's a lot of great food there. I would just say, yeah. And I just want to tell you the reason I won't be there is that I have to be masked and around people who are masked so anything that's crowded and with unmasked people I just won't be there but I wish you well. Thank you. Thank you. We certainly understand that. I'll give a couple of tours again. Sure, we could definitely use that we want people to see all of the things at the bank center. And yeah, and it was really great last year and we were featured in wwp and on Amherst media. So hopefully we'll have both of them there again get get our name out there. It's kind of a non threatening way for people to step foot in the bank center. There's a lot of people in town have never been there and I will just say, it is the damnedest building it doesn't my humble opinion have a logical layout and it's not easy to find things so I think tours would be awesome. I wonder if we could get a show of hands of people on the board who will show. The reason the reason I say this is, it would be great if we had colored hats to identify board members. Name tags. If it's just the two men, the same colored tie, something to have us stick out. I like the volunteer day where we sit at the table, some way to be identified. The select woman was asking around the crowd. If there was any board members left last time and I can give it to her. So it's kind of catches catch can. Maybe we need t shirts. T shirts. All insurance. Well, as I remember, did you not hand out lanyards and name bags last year. That's why I say raise your hands if you plan on going. Can you make a name tag? Yeah, we can definitely make name tags. We have to order more lanyards. We actually distributed all of them. Excitingly enough, bring that back. And you took pictures last year so you're definitely on tap for that again. Okay, sounds good. You'll be there and it sounds like you'll be there, Chad. You'll be there twice. That's three people. I'm going to try, you know, I have a full time job so for me to sneak away sometimes I can sometimes I can't so, you know, I'll try my best so I can say, yeah, thank you. And if others, if your schedule changes, that would be great. We will be very excited to see you. All right. What's the date again. The open house is Monday, April 3rd from three to five. Okay, thank you again. Slightly in the evening. All right, three to five on the third. All right. Old business at our last meeting. We were talking about our changes to our council and aging meetings and the importance of hearing all voices. Making sure that everybody has a chance to talk our desire to maybe post ahead of time what information we're going to be discussing so folks can gather their thoughts. The our desire to have a positive meeting that obviously we want to be respectful and hear people out. And have everybody have a chance to say their piece before we kind of go for a second round on folks so that we don't have. Everybody has a chance to be involved and I think that's really important that everybody does contribute. I will appreciate everybody doesn't have an opinion on everything. But, you know, when you do have something I want you to feel comfortable to be able to to voice it. If you have any questions or additional suggestions about how you would feel most comfortable with meetings going, aside from what I just made mention of jet. Well, I wasn't there for the discussion. I had to go on to another meeting. I watched the tape. And one thing I heard was, we need to follow a format for writing. And I think that was a comment directed to me. I have a broken down laptop. I spent eight hours writing up. Well, what you're talking about Jean I call board development. And I spent, you know, a better part of a day writing up some stuff. Under the planning committee role. And it just, it couldn't people, people weren't able to pick it up. So I looked at the tape and I made some comments. It would take a little piece out of the meeting. So I don't know if you want me to do that. It answers some of the questions that came up. Okay, you're talking about 10 points on a piece of paper that I jotted. Okay. What I would ask you to do chat is to send it to us so we can take a look at that. We certainly want to make our, our council. And then if we have some committees, we want to make sure things are clear about what the expectations are, what people are to do, what we're expecting. Learning curve for me, we've never kind of broken into a committee. So I felt like I didn't send you off with clear guidelines. So trying to just learn my lessons as I go. So it wasn't directed at any one person chat. It was kind of trying to help the whole group in the future. This is, you know, kind of, this is, this is the plan we're going to follow. So that's one reason we suggested that all business, new business be on the agenda. So there will be some points today that I want to make sure. Go to all business. For instance, we've not talked about. We haven't talked about it. We haven't talked about it. Oh, shucks. I forgot her name. Well, we do have more. Excuse me. The agent dementia study. No, the woman that disappeared from our board meetings. We never heard back whether. Yes, we did. I updated you several months ago that Mila has moved and vacated the board meeting. And I think it's important to make sure that. That we already have one vacancy on the council. All right. How about if I do this? I just put these four points on a piece of paper. And send them, you know, to our combined email. And if it's not in a format you like, I still try to read it. Let me know if it's something that you think fits. Yeah. And well, and just to support Jean. I think it is important that we have. I think that's what we all learned in grammar school, because any document that we create is going to be a public record. And so it's really important for the council to have something that reflects our values and is prevented in a professional way. So I think that was also part of why we wanted to have that expectation across the board, like whether, whether it's minutes, whether it's a subcommittee report, things should be something that we would feel comfortable having the general public look at. Yeah. I have a question about that. And I think, I think Chad and I are on the, the same page about this. There's a real difference between a report. And bringing things up for discussion. A report is a much more formal thing. It could be a subcommittee report, but there needs to be discussion about what the subcommittee findings have been in order to make it a report from the whole council. So I'm looking for guidance as to how this body, our chairperson is, you know, kind of getting to know us and feeling her way along the way she would like to see the council work. And since Chad and I have been the only two people involved in a subcommittee, I think we need some guidance as to how to bring to your attention the things we have found important to investigate and think about without saying that we are completely ready to submit a report. Chad, am I, you know, kind of expressing what you were thinking to that we, we have to have some guidance as to how to discuss some of the things that have come up at our meetings so that our report can wind up being a report from the whole council. Yeah, I don't, I don't see why, well, you know, most of the work I do with organizations talks about a strategic plan from the strategic plan, you know, that the board develops themselves. There's goals and objectives that are laid out for the year five years, whatever it might be. Committees are struck on, well, we discussed the plan. So let's say as we have a little bit about the resilience center, that becomes a hot topic for all six of us. And we're excited about it. We think the town should buy it, etc. We would strike a committee, for instance, that would go forward with research. What does the town have now? Why isn't there a plan that's published so that old folks know how to get to the bank center and stay safe and so on. That committee would bring back a discussion. That's what we want to call it before. And the board would make a motion and say, we all are in agreement. Let's go ahead and follow this. I think that is the direction we're going Chad, because when last meeting that you missed, we did set a short-term goal. Of resilience center that everybody was an agreement on. That is something we're going to be tackling. Is that going to be on old business? Yes. Okay. I didn't see the vote on, you know, the board supporting the idea that a political discussion about the school should happen at the banks. That's the one reason I bring that up. Well, I don't, it's not a political discussion. We're not advocating in any particular way. This is just a listening session where people to bring their concerns, bring their questions to the council. There's a lot of confusion around the topic. And this is not to present any particular political viewpoint. This is just to give older adults a forum. Yeah. I don't mean political that way. What I mean political is usually a listening session in Amherst is where the town government tells us what's going to happen. They don't really listen. They tell us something. And so I want to, you know, anyway, it's a mood point. I appreciate the dialogue around it. Let me get out of the way. So it's a good segue to the resilience center, which we all agreed would be a great short term goal for us. And, and you. You were the one that's done the most work on this to date. And I want to check in with you to see. Can you share with us some ideas of things that you think we should tackle with regards to how resilient center and the impact on senior specifically, obviously there's other people in town working on resilient center for the whole community, but we really want to zero in on ways and things we can do to help improve and solidify our seniors in the event of emergencies. Today's news this morning. I heard that a woman of 92 was found dead in California. Next to her fireplace. She was snowed in. We are living in a period of time when. The earth. Weather changes are. We see all the time the impacts on people. They are life and death impacts. And in addition to the weather changes, there are a lot of bad actors out there that are fooling around with seeing whether they can shut off power or internet service to people. So now more than ever before communities need to make plans in advance for the resilience of their population. In Amherst. I'm going to start this by going back to the agent dementia study that we all. Looked at. And there was some statistics on it that I found interesting and maybe a little disturbing. Because it appeared that we had a. A population over 65. In the less than teens as a percentage. So I took the numbers of students. Out of the total population. And then looked at the number. Numbers for the senior population. And guess what? When we talk about the population of Amherst. The non-student population. The number of seniors is 32%. Wow. That is wow. 32% of the non-student. The permanent population of Amherst. Is over 65. And it's a growing group. It's going to get bigger. And the number of students. In our schools. And the number of young families in Amherst. Is getting smaller. Now there are a whole bunch of reasons for that, but let's just stick to the numbers. We are as a senior population. And as a group representing the senior population. Almost a third of the population. Of the senior population of this town. So I think we need to take that number. I need. I think we need to. As the COA. Be very cognizant of the fact that we're dealing with a large percentage of population that is a growing percentage. And not that I want to see us take anything away. But I think we need to be very cognizant of the fact that. We need to take schools for our children from a library that the town can use all of those things. But it puts us in a position where we really need. To talk about services for this very large population. So now going to the resilience center piece. I think we need to be very cognizant of the fact that. They had already looked into that the fire department had looked into this. Question. And had identified the Mullen center with UMass as being a place that had backup. Power. And that that would be the place used for resilience center. That's interesting. They didn't know about it and they assumed. That if they were a power outage. That that's what they'd use for the students. Hmm. So I still have questions about. Do we have something signed that says that the first priority. Would be Amherst residents rather than students. That wasn't answered by chief Nelson. The other things that weren't answered that Chad and I discussed is one. Do we know where seniors who are living alone. Are. Well, we that list could be easily compiled the town gets census material. And in the census material, they know who was living with a family, a spouse, whatever, and who's living by themselves. Seems that. That information should be at hand before we have an emergency. Where are seniors. Who live alone. Located. Next question. Interrupt for one sec. I just want to check in Haley. Is that true? We don't. Do you have that information or does somebody have that information compiled. The clerks office would have the census data and that is what we use to do our mailing lists. It's obviously. In its raw form. It leaves a little something to be desired because sometimes it won't tell you if there's a duplicate. So it might appear as though someone lives alone, but they actually have someone else living in the home. It can actually be a lot more complicated to take that and to a usable form as we're finding out as Al continues to work on that list. And it doesn't necessarily capture everyone because it's only people who submitted their census. And they only mail it out to people who are. The mail out to everybody in town, but. You know, not everyone might submit it. So I think no matter what, it would be impossible to get everyone, but if, you know, we'd obviously want to still make a good faith effort. Yeah, we'd start somewhere. And that would seem to me to be a. A goal for that. I don't know whether it's for us or for the town to know, to me, that's the most. A very vulnerable population if you're by yourself. Yes. People couldn't also self identify. So you can call on behalf of yourself or a loved one to either the police or fire department. You know, sometimes they, they have a list of people who have an emergency contact. So if that person wanders, they know who they are. They know where they're at the emergency contact. So people can take some initiative and reach out to those departments to be put on lists. But again, that requires people knowing it's an option. And then going out and doing it. Yeah. And so that might be something in the future. We could sort of promote and encourage people to read. I don't know if registers the right word, but. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Brazilian center. I think that. Our relying on people self identifying. Defeats this whole. Issue. The town needs to know where their vulnerable population is. They need to find out. That is a goal. They need to know where they're at. They need to know where they're at. They need to know where they're at and where they're at and where. To find out about a variety of things. The, the lock box. Triad self. Entry program and all of those other things. And I saw how many steps it took. For an I'm internet savvy. How many steps it took to get to find out. What's the internet doing in the form. Or mail it in or there was, there was no old people use telephones. Old people don't always. Once the internet doesn't give you a one click here. Answer. They get frustrated. I'm one of them. I know I get frustrated and I live through the frustration. That's another point that I want to make. We group. The senior population as 65 and older. People are living into their nineties. Some into the hundreds, but. We're talking about a 30 to 40 year lifespan. Do you think that the interest in needs of a 20 year old have anything to do with the interest in needs of a 50 year old. We also have a responsibility as a council on aging. To understand that this is an enormous. Age group. And 65 year olds and 85 year olds. Don't have the same needs. So when it comes to a resilient center. Hey. You know, an able bodied 65 year old might be able to get to the identified resilient center if they knew where it was. Once you're talking about a population between 85 and 95, they one may no longer drive. Is there a plan. Chad and I discuss this. Is there a plan to transport them to get them to safety? We know where they are. And so we think that, that that's a town responsibility, finding out where people are. And it's a town's risk. It's the responsibility of either the fire department or the police department or someone. To not only identify the place, but to set up a way to get people there. This woman who died in California yesterday. She died in California. She did not have a way to get out of her house. So we're really talking about. Unforeseen circumstances that would kill people that a life or death circumstances. And you need an entire community. I've done a lot of research on what's being done. By FEMA. And in other communities and in other places of. The fire department. The fire department requires a community effort. And I think the council on aging. Has a responsibility. To move this forward and make it happen. It's not our responsibility to find the sources of transportation, to find ways to contact people. It is our responsibility to make the town aware. And we need to make sure that we don't have to. We don't have to be calling a. The Mullen center as a place. Is only a beginning chat. I know you want that. I'm sorry. Were you done? No. We have to be called one right then. But we work together on this. So please. Add. All right. I didn't need to be called on right there in the middle of the. Thing. But anyway. You know, I can see. For C something like. Cress. Being involved along with. On call fire. People going to homes and, you know. What they call it commissioning. The PVPA bus that go down the street or whatever. It's, it sounds like a long-term thing. A lot of. We don't know whether we're supposed to make the plan because we don't know what's going on. And so on. My suggestion instead of taking a whole meeting, I'd like to make decisions in the meeting. Have information come here. Hear it. Then discuss it and make decisions. I suggest we strike a committee. If it be one person, two people. To come and sort of like we did with the planning. I don't know what happened to that. It sort of dropped away, but. I don't know what happened to that. I don't know what happened to that. Other, you know, it's, it's some work involved here. I don't know. I don't know if this is enough discussion of. The six of us here to say, yes. We think we ought to put somebody in this commission's energy into that. But I, I, I want to sort of beg the question and see if it is. I think it is something that. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is going on because that's something we identified. This is our short-term goal. So this is. Our project, if you will. I guess it is. Is a committee conformed. No. Has any motion's been passed. No. Okay. I move that we form a committee to. Cover the topic of. A resilience center. Plan. In the town. In the town. In the town. In the town. In the town. In the town. I'm up with whether we should write a letter to. The select board or. Or the town manager or whatever. When I move that we strike a committee of one or more people. Look further into the issue and come up with a plan for us. To. Move. Move the issue along in our town. I'm going to say that's pretty broad. But I think we need to be on seniors. Well, this would be the seniors. Right. Well, I'm just saying it. I think one of the challenges when we start. And I agree that we need to do work outside of this. Meeting. But I also want to learn my lessons from last time. I feel like we need to be specific about what it is we're looking. To do. Any motion to form a committee. I think we, we need to specify it is for the impact on seniors or. How the resilience center plans. That is a friendly motion. I'll accept that. I'm asking. I'll state it once more. I mean, if we had a. Superior super heavy duty note taker. They would read that motion back right now. But I'll try to state it again. That we strike a committee to further research. The issue of. A resilience center. In Amherst. And come back and report to us. Over the next 90 days. That's three months. That's three meetings. Period. So I think we need to do that. I think it would be helpful to flesh out like the reporting requirements that we kind of stumbled on the first go around and maybe flesh out how often this committee should meet. I think it sounds like it would be beneficial for people to have a more structured. Committee format that we had. We were pretty laissez-faire last time. Well, that's what the discussion after a motion is. I would like to. I would like to say something about the motion. We are trying to take into account the needs and the needs of. Resilient centers to researching resilience centers in other places and the needs that we have. I can certainly at this point. Supply. Whether we have a. Another committee working on it or not supply a list. Of what's missing. Here in Amherst. And what we need. And then. with it. But certainly we're talking about identification, transportation, and communication. Those are the three things that we're missing from Chief Nelson's report. And we would like to know more about whatever arrangement the town has with UMass, does that include cuts if people stay overnight? So I can just, you know, email a list to everybody about those unanswered questions and the issues that need to be addressed. I think that would be really helpful. One of my concerns is this can turn into a mammoth project. And I feel out of respect for everybody every well, some of you have full time jobs, but some of us do other things. So we can't vote 100 hours a week on this project, I want to make it doable. And so with the list, I am thinking potentially it could be, we could break it into multiple committees, so that there isn't one group trying to tackle all these things. But you know, I'm just going to make something up here. Chad, you do, you know, you and Terry do this one piece and Dennis and I do these other two pieces and Ann and Karen are working on two different pieces so that it's, it's more manageable. So I would like to suggest we get Ann's list, review it, and then propose maybe some subcommittees via email. Hey, Chad, I don't want the list. I don't want the list. I'm done with the issue. You know, if some people want to massage it up, I'll listen to over the next two, three months to what they come up with as they go along and, you know, make a decision on whether we're going to, you know, what action we're actually going to do. I don't want to be involved in the research and the rest of the work. So don't send me anything in the email. With all due respect, Chad, you're a member of the Council so if things go out to the Council, you will receive it. If you choose not to read it, that certainly is your decision, but we're not going to omit you. I would encourage you to be more open to the discussion and be more patient as we go through our process here, trying to figure out our best approach on this. Ann, I don't know that you were done and I wanted to check back in with you if there were other things that you wanted to share at this point or Karen had her hand up. I just want to recognize that in case you didn't see it, Jean. Oh, I didn't. Sorry. That's okay. I need to grow more eyeballs. I'll let Ann finish if she has more to say. No, I think I'm just going to send you a little bit of detail on the three things identification, communication and transportation. And the rest is, I mean, we do have a police and fire department that are involved with this. We simply have to let them know what our level of concern is and about what. And so I don't have more. Yes, I'm wondering, Claire, this is a huge undertaking, this whole idea of a resilience center. What I wonder is what is our goal? Is our goal to report to the police and the fire and the town manager about the need? I mean, I'm just a little unclear about what the outcome of what we're going to be doing is. Is there a report that talks about the need? Is it, you know, I think there's a lot of, this is like you said, Jean, this is a huge project. And I think it's not a project that a committee this size or even twice as big could undertake. And so I'm wondering what the goal is here. You know, we support the idea of a resilience center and letting the entities that be know the importance and the need and the fact that they're really falling down in the job. But beyond that, I was, I just wonder if there's clarification about what the Council on Aging's goal is surrounding this because we can't plan the whole thing. You know, I mean, we just, it's not our job. And it isn't, you know, it isn't. So I'm wondering what the product is. What is the endpoint that's supposed to come out of this work that we're going to do? Excellent. Excellent question, Karen. Chad? That's what my motion is about. Just to have some interested parties, look into the issue, talk to us about what they find out. Let us know. I mean, for me, I'll tell you what my bias is right up front in here and now is that we should have a little mini resilience center for seniors in the bank center somewhere. You know, hopefully in our, in our office, we only have what, three or four rooms. So it wouldn't be much. But so I don't know until somebody does a little work and comes back and reports to me, whether we should write a letter, like I said, at the beginning of the motion to the town council, to the cops, you know, just what we're going to do with it. Let's hear, let's send somebody out there who's excited and interested to, you know, research and come up with some stuff and come back to us. We as a group will have to decide whether we want to endorse it or not. You know, I don't really have a lot of interest in it one way or the other. Until it comes to a little motion, until we vote until we put our stamp of approval on things, I think we're going around in circles. Let's let's so anyway, there's my motion. It hasn't been seconded. And so it may die for all I know. So I would like to try to respond to your question, Karen, to me, as I listen to the discussion is our job as a council on aging is to we, I think we all acknowledge that plans for the resilience center are greatly lacking, particularly with regards to seniors. And so our job, I think is to identify the issues and the concerns and the omissions that, you know, I'm not being very articulate here, omissions in the town's plan that we've heard so far. Because I feel like, you know, our primary concern is going to be the impact on seniors. And we, you know, we heard a little bit, but I don't know that we've gotten all of the information from the town. But I feel like what we could do is raise a lot, identify a lot of concerns and ask a lot of questions. Because obviously we don't we're not the emergency managers for the town, nor do we have a staff and a budget to be able to pull this all off. But we can say we're really concerned about we we heard nothing about how people are going to get to the resilience center. How you know, and I feel like that would be a valuable contribution we can make to the town. And again, reiterating how large a population we are, they need to sit up and take notice. And if they already, maybe they already have some of those answers, and we just haven't learned of them. But if they haven't, then they need to get cracking. I don't know what others I have only one word. We need to advocate. Once we get information, we need to advocate for our population. It seems to me like Anne's done a lot of the work already. And she summed it up very nicely by its communication, transportation. And I don't remember the third thing is but really, you know, our concerns, what I can see is just a bulleted list of our concerns that we would like to see addressed. So these are there's this idea of a resilience center. We've heard some information about the plans to put people at the moment center, even though does UMass even know about that? And if there are students there, if students on campus at the time, would the students get priority? And if not, then what's plan B? And then these other things that are, you know, to me, a bulleted list of questions that we would like whoever it is, who's in charge of this to address would be, you know, one way of going forward with the bulleted list of questions, we ask them to address it. And then we advocate, depending on what their answers are. And maybe it's time to invite maybe Chief Nelson or someone from the PD to come and talk to us, you know, maybe there's some information that we didn't get the first go around that they might be able to offer now. If people are interested, I can reach out to them. I think it's also important to note that there are limitations. We can't force people to act on this list. And even if we had, if we have a resilience center at the bank center, you know, what does that look like? Where would we put all those materials? The storage is already very, there's not enough of it as it is, let alone having to plan for like big items like cots or more tables, things like that. You know, it's the rooms are fairly small. There's only so many people you can fit in them. You know, it's worth considering that there are physical limitations to that space. And we don't even use all of it for the senior center, right? Because we share it with three other departments and the Musante Center in the basement. How do folks feel about drafting a list of questions? Is that from Anne's list? Would it violate the open meeting law for me to just send you the, you know, those three things and little sub bullets under them that are questions? And then you could decide what it is you'd like to push forward or advocate for or do with them. I think it'd be fine if you send it to Jean and then she can send it to everyone. I'm wondering, would people be amenable to when you receive it? Is you think of questions to email those in so we could kind of pull them all together and then we could get them out to everybody? I know when you asked me to do something on the spot, I'm like, let me think a minute. So if we can get those out and then people can can draft questions, we can try to make sure everybody's thoughts are reflected on that list. Jean, I think it would be a good idea to put a list like that together. And I think it would probably also be fairly wise and also fairly easy to find the resources that we're actually looking for. You need to concentrate on two aspects as far as a resilience center is concerned. And one is a shelter and the other is probably also just food. Those are the two basics. At this point, being a child of the 1950s, it sort of disappoints me that we're sort of like going over something that really should have still been alive from the 1950s and civil defense. When all of us were shaking in our boots about about a nuclear annihilation, it shouldn't necessarily only be about nuclear annihilation. It should be civil defense. And that should have been ongoing all the way through the 70s and 80s and 90s and so on and so forth. And all of a sudden we're just sort of like trying to figure it all out from scratch. And it just it bothers me a little bit. We need to concentrate on figuring out what what town buildings actually have generators that can crack up when the power goes out and where to stick some cuts. Chances are, if there's a real serious problem, there really won't be all that great and outpouring of people who really need services all that much. But the options should be there for, let's say, a cooling center or a warming center or something like that. That's the way I'm looking at it. So I don't know. Why don't we just sort of like start a list at least find out what town buildings have generators to begin with? I hate to see the Mullins used. What happened with Katrina at the Houston Astrodome? That's worse than leaving them in the flood. Yeah, or yeah, yeah. Or down in Orleans for that facility. Yeah. Yeah, there are needs. Chances are, if there's a really serious problem, UMass students will be flooding over to the Mullins Center. I feel like we need something a bit more town-based. Yep, I agree. The other thing I will say, in my former career, I worked at UMass and had to do some emergency preparedness planning. And one of the challenges in doing it is you never know what the emergency is going to be and what area is going to be impacted. If there's an explosion at Mullins, Mullins is gone. So you've got to build in tremendous flexibility and depending on the season, right? So you need to have a variety of things in your back pocket. I do know from, again, this is dated information, but I believe it's probably still true. The emergency manager, certainly on campus, got grants and they have cuts and whatnot, and those are reciprocal. You know, if there's an emergency in town and the campus doesn't need them, there's reciprocity there in terms of loaning things out. So that's where it is advantageous that we do have colleges in our community. So they have facilities that could be utilized in the event that the campus doesn't need them. But yeah, that's good. Also, it's, it's, yeah, I agree. OK, so I think our two do's, if I am correct, if I'm not correct, please correct me, and you're going to send me your three things with your blurbs. I'm going to get that out to everybody and we'll ask you to email, I guess, email me your questions based on what those topics, what questions you you want to have on the list, and then we'll get that compiled list out to everybody. We'll do one final review and then we'll discuss it our next meeting, pushing it forward. Sounds good. Good. OK. Awesome. All right. Another thing on old business is the age of dementia study. We met last month and went through some of the sections, but we didn't get through all of the sections. And I don't believe we have another meeting scheduled with her, Haley, right? Not yet. But what we thought might be good to do would be for us to go back, look at those remaining sessions, sections, rather, in compile our comments or things that we wanted added or questions that we would have for Becky so that if we were able can reschedule with her, we could be most efficient with time in terms of and potentially we could send her that information ahead of time so that she could maybe address those things. Is that sound? Hi, Christina. Hey. How are you? I know we're on. We're probably on record, and I just need to say that I've been working a lot at night. If I don't, then I can't come, you know, get my work done. I'm glad you we understand. I finished late almost every night. Hope you get some time to yourself to unwind. Do you have vacation coming up? No. No, it's not about vacation. Is I have two jobs, so I work as a case manager and you can't do your work because you have to wait until the families get home so that you can communicate with them. That's it. I'm here now. All right. Awesome. So, Agent Dementia, study, follow up. Another proposal. Chad. Yeah. Just another proposal. You know, for the last one, I wanted less specificity and more ideas. For this one, I'd like more specificity than you, Jean. I'm wondering if each one of... Do people have copies of it? Of the study, of the report? They were emailed out to everybody. My thought is that if everyone could read it, there's five sections, I believe. Transportation, housing, social communication, health, et cetera. If everyone took those five sections, looked at those five sections as separate and said, what does the results of this study tell me about that issue? So for instance, look at transportation. It says 10 people want this, 50 want that, two want that. Well, you might look at it and say, well, it seems like the 60 to 75 year olds who use computers, remember, it's not a sample of the whole universe. It's just, I mean, 50% of it was Amherst neighbors, people who are on computers and middle class and that sort of thing. This is what, you know, this is what I see as the problem. Take each one of the five areas and say, this is the problem. Transportation, they might have said, you know, So we've already gone over some of the sections, Chad. So I don't think we need to be redundant. The sections that we covered last time. What I'm saying is for you personally in your own life, what do you think is a problem in that little box of, for instance, transportation. So would that be outside of the challenges and action steps that are already outlined for your section? No, that would be what somebody sees as a problem. From that, the second step would be, what do you want to work on as a council on aging? See, I'm getting back to the idea of a strategic plan. But that doesn't sound something Becky could help with because her report already has challenges and action steps. I mean, you know, I don't know if the council could adopt those steps or choose our own, but if we want to have her, but if we want to have her come back and do a presentation, we should figure out what we want her to talk about and then have our own discussion afterwards. Yeah. We're adults. We can read a study and see what's, what it tells us. Right. Well, she, I mean, she did put over a year's worth of work into that. So we might want to have her do it. And you too. All I'm saying is that. You know, I'm not saying that we want to have her come back and do a presentation. Is what helps people to put their energy out. Extrinsic like a stick on the back. People don't want to do that sort of thing. So if somebody, if people here come up with, Hey, that's something important to me. That's something I want to work on. That's going to energize this committee to, to move forward. I have to say, I don't think we want to tackle that. But I think we want to do that. And then figure out. Where council on aging fits in and what we're going to tackle. I'm not going to do something midstream. Cause I feel like this. This is still in flux. She's still. Receiving feedback from us. So some things could change a bit. Maybe not a whole lot, but I like to see the final before. We commit to saying we're going to do X, Y, or Z. Yeah. Yeah. The report is done. I mean, the data is in. I appreciate that Chad, but we're still adding things to it. She was collecting a lot of feedback. I mean, I thought we had a really good meeting with her. People had a lot of ideas and good questions. So I think we want to continue that with the remaining sections. You know, as I said, let's, let's gather our, our thoughts and questions and then get them to Becky. And see if she can come maybe for a shorter meeting. Respond to those. And then when we get the final, we can, we can decide as a council kind of what, what we want to do. I agree. So if folks can go back and, and look, I don't remember offhand which section we. I think we got through three, maybe four sections. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Last meeting. I think so. But we'll go back and we can check that and let you know where we. What sections to focus on. And again, if you have. Comments. Suggestions. Questions. We'll compile those and get those. To Becky. Right. You could. Yeah. I'm looking at you. I can. I can get in touch with her. And I think she's on vacation this week. So I'll probably just wait till next week. Okay. Okay. Awesome. All right. Any other thoughts or comments on the agent dementia study? Okay. Yeah. I think we have a new business. We have some, we have a vacancy. And we need. We really need to recruit because a lot of the people who have filled out the community participation survey. Filled it out. Six months or more ago. And some of those people we already have on this council. So it's not the most accurate pool of people. It's not the most accurate pool of people. It's not the most accurate pool of people. So we need to kind of strategically think about what kind of individual, what kind of background. Do we want on the council? So we, I think if we really should sit down and think about, you know, who can we ask? Who can we implore to please be. Be a member of our council. Does anyone have any friends in their life that might want to. We need one so far, but boiler alert. The end of June, we will need two more people. So. So that's three more. Yeah. So. So we need to fill one hopefully now before the end of the fiscal year and then at the start of FY 24, we'll need two extra seats. So we want to definitely be thinking now and then in the future. And we will also need a secretary. So hopefully someone who has some good writing chops because it's typically not a position anyone really wants to have. Oh, it's no fun. Don't sell it like that. Terry, we need people. Oh, it's great. I just love. The benefits are awesome. Yeah. You get double pay for your time. So I just want to say as someone who's relatively new and who's unfortunately stepping down because I don't have the time to devote to this. It's really hard to. To be on this board and work full time. I just don't have, you know, I think the board is going in a great direction with Jean at the helm. But it's a small board and I think in order to do things, I think we need subcommittees, which means more time. And I think that's just an impossible ask for someone who has a full time. Personally, I'm speaking for me personally. Who has a full time job. So, you know, just thinking about recruiting, I had every good intention of, you know, doing my best and, you know, really stepping up. But, you know, I've realized that there's only so much I can do. And I think that's true of anyone who works and also it's limiting, you know, I think. I bet there, once we go face to face, I'm sure there are people who would rather meet face to face during the day and have to wait until five o'clock or six o'clock to meet because there are people who are working. So not to exclude anybody, but I think, you know, just thinking about the type of people. We were talking about the type of people I think I really think beneficial. I mean, when I retire, you know, I'm sure I will step up, but I think it's just logistically. It's very difficult to do this. At least that's my experience as someone who works. And of course we love having you. It's not to say that, you know, the people who are stepping down, you know, you've served very well and we will certainly miss you. But it, you know, we do need to think about how do we fill these seats? How do we find the people who have the time? Do we need to make adjustments to when we need or how we need to in order to entice people to join us? You know, and those are not easy questions to solve. I want to respond to what Karen said. I had already spoken about that with Hailey and the other members that recruited me. I'm doing two part-time jobs, which equals the same amount of hours, if not more of one full job. And so I agreed to stay until my term ends in 24. Because that way they won't be a vacancy. However, my contribution is limited, you know, because of that. By the time I finished the work day like you, there's nothing left, you know, so I can't really give my all to the committee. And instead of quitting, I said, I'll stay on to be a number to fulfill, you know, a quorum. And I would help in small ways that I can. Like I went to the senior center. I helped fold flyers. I went to the open house and support people. I spread the information to my African American community church members about what's going on on the council with the senior center. And those are, and I had two individuals come because of that to the open house last year from Goodwin. So those are the things that I can do. It's limited, you know, because I, I know how to work on a committee. I've been a workhorse on other committees, but I just can't do it now, you know. But those are great. You know, I really appreciated you being there. We have great pictures of you. And I'm really glad to hear that people that you spread the word and people actually showed up. And it doesn't always have to be a large contribution. You know, really and truly every little bit helps. And I think it's important that we are reaching out to a wide variety of communities. Right. We all have our own kind of spheres that we operate in. And so I think that's really important is that we're getting to as wide a group as possible of our seniors since we know there's a lot of them. And they range in age. And range in diversity. And I, I am the church volunteer church clerk for my church. And that's how I get the word out. And so to connect them to the council and to connect them to the senior center and all the things that happen. You know, that they might not be aware of otherwise. So that's, that's my contribution for now. I mean, I spoke to Haley about this. So it's not coming as a surprise to her, but I will finish my turn. Thank you for that. Yes, we certainly appreciate it. Thank you for all the contributions you've given. Outreach is a big deal. Yeah. Does anybody have any ideas or suggestions about how to. Get great people. I wonder if it's worth contacting the UMass retired faculty association. Hmm. Good idea. You know, and there might be similar groups at Amherst college or Smith, I don't are not Smith at Amherst college or Hampshire. I don't know. I know UMass is a very act. Retired faculty association. Yeah. Great idea, Karen. Any other thoughts? How would we get in touch with the emeritus faculty? Karen. There's actually an association. It's, it's a. It's, I think it's just called the retired faculty association. Look in the provost website. See their age. You need the email address. I can find it. Jean, if you want me. I can. I can. Just forward it to Jean. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. That's a, that's a great idea. In the newsletter where it says about the console and agent. At the bottom, could we say we're recruiting. Yeah, I might. I might actually put that in like a different spot just cause I feel like people. Don't always read that page very, very closely. But yeah, we can definitely advertise it in the newsletter. Yeah. So does our COA have a presence on like Facebook? I know I'm, I'm connected with North Hampton council on aging. Or actually the senior center and I get there. I see their Facebook posts and I'm wondering if we. Have something similar that might be a good way of. We have a senior center page, not like a council on aging page. You know, which we have, we post a little bit. We could definitely be more engaged on social media. But yeah, we can advertise it there as well. And we could put that on the town's Facebook page, which probably has more viewership. Right. And I would say, you know, as you're. Out and about talking to people attending meetings and what not to make mention of it. Right. If people are interested, they can. Go to the town website. For the application. So, yeah. Okay. Well, if you have any other ideas, pass them along. Cause I think. We're looking for a few great people. All right. Okay. Next up are the minutes from last. Meeting in, I have a couple of. Ditions Terry, that I will. Yep. It was a big meeting. It was a big meeting. So I think it's important that we. Put in writing our meeting guidelines. On there. So I'm going to shoot them to you in an email. Sure. Okay. So meeting guidelines about posting and letting everybody speak and what not. Okay. Make sure that goes into the board. Manual. That's really where it goes. Clear expectations about participation, et cetera. Yep. Yeah. Great. Okay. Any other changes or additions to the minutes from February? Did we approve the December meetings? Minutes. I'm sorry. The December minutes. I think we got so involved in everything. I don't think we did. But we did both of them. Okay. Cause. I didn't have that down. I had a lot of other notes, but. We did. Okay. If we didn't find. Just let me know. I'll go back. I've got them all here, but I'm pretty sure you can, you can email me. Okay. Okay. Move approval of the minutes as written. With additions. Seconded. Yeah. Well, changing. We're changing the third of the February meeting when Jean emails me the corrections. With additions. Right. Yeah. So I feel like everybody should see them first. Right. We don't want to prove somebody. So can do them at the next meeting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. The. Friends is Dick. I am present. I can't say you must be that blank square on my screen. It's not unusual for me to be blank at this time of day. Join the club, right? Right. I want to focus. For the friends report. On the census letter. An envelope. And solicitation. And then the town didn't mail it. Yeah. All they mailed was. The return envelope. And they put the wrong address on that. Yeah. The address is wrong. It's supposed to be mailed right to the. The report. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All they mailed was. The return envelope. And they put the wrong address on that. Yeah. It's supposed to be mailed right to the. To the bank. Or direct deposit. Instead, they're all fluttering. Into the bank center. Although that actually has been really good, Dick, because we. We have a volunteer doing all the. Annual solicitation. Thank you. So it actually has been easier on our end to coordinate that. And then we just bat ship the checks out. Okay. Excellent. How often are you able to bat ship them? I think we've submitted everything to date, which when I last counted, it was a little over $6,000. Okay. Maybe close to seven. I had to look at the numbers again. Okay. Well, that's good news. Have you spoken to town hall. At all about their. Making the. The wrong address on the envelope and for not including your. Terrific letter. No, my letter, that was actually a different thing. I couldn't, the only template I had was a PDF, which I couldn't edit. So that's why I put things on the envelope. Like when you lifted it up, I had some stats. I couldn't do the whole letter. And then I don't know about. The old address because I just. They must have an out of date copy. So we just need to recreate that for next year. Right. But I. But we need to follow through and get you an updated PDF program or something too. Because that letter was very, very powerful. And especially now that we're. Spending twice as much. And we've only had half the income. We've really been bleeding funds. And this is going to be several years in a row. But we've not been able to do the job. We would like to do and need to do. So we need to. Follow through on that. Yes. Well, I, well, I have other updates for tomorrow. For the next friend's meeting too, about some potential leads. I'll save that. No end in the needs. Thank you. No. And that was the rest of the story. Yes. Thanks to Haley. Thanks. Thank you. But it's a. There are other things I could talk about, but considering there's only. Six minutes left in our allotted time. I think it's time for me to pass the baton. Back to you guys. And gals. Thank you. I think next up we have Norma. Yes. And I. Norma, I just promoted you to panels. There you are. Okay. I'm muted. Now you've got a real zoom. There's your, there's your, there's your camera. Hey, Norma. I've been there since about 10 or six, but I. I couldn't see you or you couldn't hear me. So. I just signed in the room. Well, but now we fixed it. Now we fixed it. Thank you. I'm. Norma Halak for those of you who are. I'm sorry. I may not have been here. Before when I gave some talks, but I'm, I'm on the nutrition council for Highland Valley elder services. And we have meetings every other month. And I just would like to briefly update you on the past couple. We had one yesterday. And so Highland Valley serves 700 and about 750 meals a day. And there are only two kitchens in. Massachusetts. And I'm not sure where the other one is, but. The one that Highland Valley works from is, is located at the Walter Salvo house. In North Hampton. And. They have two new vans with drivers with the, have iPads to do wellness checks as well as. Confirm their, whatever they've ordered. And the new sites that have been added are Goshen and West Hampton. They also, I didn't know this until yesterday that. They've had people from the senior centers have to go out and get the food because they didn't have the vans or the people to drive them to, to deliver it. That wasn't the case for Amherst, but I don't know. There are a lot of communities involved in this. And the commodity commodity items were always a major source of food for, for the seniors. And with everything going on with COVID and now I guess inflation, they, they don't have. Hardly any commodities anymore. And Riley is the head chef and he sent in an order and he didn't get a single thing that he ordered for this week. So they're going to have to buy, you know, buy some, some things. And they really are out to help the seniors, because we have what we also go through is this critique. And they will say what was good about it or what wasn't, or what they didn't like. And then they really do try to improve. They, they work together. They work well together and help each other out. So they're going to try to get more, more items. There's one person that's been working on that. And we will see if our commodity items come up, you know, come back and, and again, sometimes they're not things people always like, like frozen fish or, you know, well. They're going to get frozen corn from now on and the green beans will stay green if they're not from the can to, you know, maybe they overcook them too. They have to cook certain things obviously to a certain temperature. Yes. That was a big one. That really was a big one. But they're also. Yeah. They've also complained about the green beans and the corn and the corn tastes like a can and, and so they, you know, they're going to get frozen corn from now on. So they're going to get frozen corn from now on. So they're going to get frozen corn from now on. Temperature. And so this is the constructive criticism that they go over. And Riley has. Very good. You know, insight into what, what can go wrong? Like one time the rice fryer. Wasn't working and they cook the rice in the oven. And they got all these complaints about the taste of the rice. And they also have the kitchen inspected regularly. By Kelly and by I think the fire department. And they will. I think they come about twice a year. And they were just here. And the only thing they found was a small leak that they knew about in one of the faucets. And the plumber was right on it. And Kelly is the, the nutritionist. She and Riley are the ones that do the menus for the month. And also she, she, when she goes to do these inspections, she would like to have, if it's a congregate place where people are eating together, she would like to help them try to save some money with, you know, the cost of food going up. And she would be glad to go through that with, with a group if, you know, if they're interested. So that's, that's new in what she's offering. And what was really nice was they got the elementary school children to make Valentine's for the seniors. And they went out with the home delivered meals. And they got up to sometimes four of them because so many people wanted to do it. And I think that's really nice. That's great. Yeah. And the next meeting is the second Wednesday in May, which is May 10th. So thank you for listening. Do you have any questions? Yeah. Yes, I have a question. I want to know if those commodities are from the USDA. I don't know. It's from EOEA. And I meant to look that up. EA is the elder affairs, but I'm not sure what where their organization is based. It's the executive office of elder affairs. Okay. And I'd be willing to bet most of it is either me FAP. So mass food security program or like you say, Christina USDA. Okay. That's good. Yeah. And a lot of the local farmers are really good to give local produce in the summer. If you have time, my husband would like to say something because he's on that committee for retired. I just overheard the fact that you guys need new members or would like to expand your member base or something. I'm on, I'm on the executive committee of the retired faculty association. And if you send a one short paragraph. I'm going to give you a statement to normal of precisely what you want. I will get it on the next agenda. And that will be the last one in the spring. So our hero. When do they have to get it to you. If it comes saying sometime in the next week, it's fine. Cause we're not going to meet now until early April. We just had a meeting last this week. I think it'll be easy access to the leadership. And the leadership can put the call out to basically every retired faculty member. Because they, they send a monthly distribution or statement to every single retired faculty member. So you get access, whether you'll get folks interested, hopefully, but at least you'll have the opportunity. Great. Thank you. Yes. Yes, the opportunity. That's excellent. Who's going to do that for suggesting that. Who's going to do it? I think that should come from our chair. I'm sending you up for more work, Jean. I noticed that. But you are the chair with all its glory. I mean, if, if literally all you want. Is you want to request. The retired faculty association to ask its members of any might have interest in joining the committee. No problem. I can do just that, but have a sentence come to Norma's email. To make certain it's a reminder. And I'll get it into the president and it'll get on the agenda. Wonderful. Thank you. I do have a question. Does that person have to live in Hampshire County? Or Amherst. Amherst. Yes. So that has to be included. Okay. Understood. So does that the application is at the town hall of Amherst. So what will happen, I think it's those that are interested. We'll pass their names on to you guys and then you guys can contact them. Right. That's good. Perfect. That's perfect. Yeah. Wonderful. Good reminder. Because I was on the council for six years, but. Then they, you know, it makes sense. We live in just over the line in Franklin County. Excellent. Well, we certainly appreciate what you do. Working with the food program. Yes. And getting the information back to all the seniors here in Amherst. It's important work. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. All right. Thank you for letting me say my piece. Okay. Thank you. Topics not reasonably anticipated. I'm just going to make mention of one thing. And those of you that logged on early heard this. I just recently. Received an email from AARP. About their community challenge. Grant. I guess this is an annual grant. I don't think we're going to make it this year, but it's a really interesting program. And it's something that I want to put on our calendar for next year. To try to do. And want us to be thinking about what we could. Do what kind of project we could undertake. There's all kinds of guidelines and I don't have them all. But one thing that caught my eye was one of the categories they sort of listed was resilient center. So I think potentially there's some stuff we could look to do. For next year. So I will try to, I forwarded the email to Hailey. And send it out to everybody. If you all didn't receive it yourselves, you can take a look at it, but it looks really interesting. They give you, they did an awesome job. They give you samples of grant applications. They give you a listing of who's won them. What kind of projects. What's okay. What's not okay. It's very detailed, very specific. But it looks really promising, I think for us for, for the future. Another pot of money potentially. I think that's one thing. So just to $500,000. 50 to $500,000, right? But the window of putting in the grant and receiving the money. And starting the project is very, very close. Six months, nine months, something like that. Yes. Yes. You have to get the application as I said this year, it's due next week. It's due next week. It's due next weekend of the year. So you've got to, everything is going to be detailed out. You know, you need to have your to go plan, but I'm confident we can do that with a year's notice. So, okay. So I will send that out so you can all take a look at that and be thinking about what we might want to try for. Our next meeting is going to be the first Thursday in April, which is the second Thursday. So just wanted to make sure that everybody. Was aware of that we typically are the second Thursday, but this time we're going to be the first Thursday. And. Why is that. Because the second Thursday doesn't work. For folks. Yeah, there were a few schedule conflicts. So April. Is when the. Is when the meeting is going to be. Exciting. So the. The provision for virtual meetings will potentially be expiring. March 31st. Now, whether there is a bill going through the legislature that would extend. The virtual option for another two years, but it's not clear whether that will be signed or when. It's going to be the second Thursday, but it's not going to be the second Thursday. Unless they go ahead and sign the extension. So we should all plan to meet at the bank center. The first Thursday in April. And I will let you all know if I hear anything differently. You know, if that bill passes or not. What room are we going to be in. It depends. It's the second. Well, actually, it won't matter for April, but they also meet the second Thursday of the month. So. About Garrett branch. I don't think there's really enough room for all of us there. I was going to potentially do one oh one for April. Then then we'll look at. Like the glass room or something so we can spread out. Anybody have any questions? Other questions about that. Everybody okay with that? I'm so. Oh, sorry. I was just going to say. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was about to forget that you can request. Who still meet virtually. If you send a request to the chair, but it's unclear how we would make that work in practice. Because the only room that's set up for hybrid meetings is the town room and I doubt we'll be able to get in there. Or a meeting. We can certainly try to have people still be. In person, but it may be difficult. We may end up doing like a conference call kind of a thing. So I think, I think I would like a conference call. I think that's the easiest. Are you going to record it? No, the only way that we could do that would be at the town room and we can't use that room. So. People will have to show up in person. But don't you need to record it for the website? I think that was only a COVID thing as far as I'm aware. I'll check at the town hall, but I think the only reason we have them up is because we've been doing this through COVID. I believe the town of Granby has just been doing voice recordings of all their meetings right along. Oh, have they? Yeah. Interesting. I went to one of their, it was a, yeah, it was one of their meetings that they have an official. Recording device, voice recording device. That's it. Okay. Okay. I just want to say I would, um, I'm excited the possibility that we can meet in person. I also want to be respectful of the fact that, um, We all have different situations we're dealing with. Um, I would like to make this as comfortable and healthy as possible for folks. So, um, I would just like to throw out the idea. If, um, We're all amenable to wearing masks to make it more comfortable in that in the room, we would look to open, um, Um, and to adjust the room so that we could have some distance between us. I think basically what I'm saying is whatever we can do to make it. Comfortable for you to come in. Um, I certainly would be totally in support of that. Okay. Chad. Yeah. Um, what some committees do is, uh, They put a laptop beside, um, a staff member or the chair or somebody like that. Mine is on a little stand and they just point it so that the person has listening. Yeah. And a little bit of site. And they speak up on the laptop loud enough and say, can you be, you know, can I add a comment or so. If you don't want to use a phone that's a little teeny narrow. Window. Um, Some people actually use a laptop at a board meeting. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's a good choice. So I would say stay tuned. Obviously we'll confirm if in fact we are, you know, In person and with that, um, If that isn't something that you're comfortable doing, please let us know so we can try to figure out other. Workaround so that you can still participate and whether it's on a laptop iPad or whatever, we'll, we'll look to make that work for all. All right. All right. Let's go. Any final questions, comments, I apologize that we are, we ran so very late, but is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. Third. Any in opposition. Nope, not tonight. All right. Well, thank you all very much. Enjoy the rest of your evening and we'll see you in April. It'll be spring. Good night. Good night.