 All right. Welcome, everyone. My name is Angela Mills. I work for the town manager's office here in the town of Amherst. This evening, we are recording a meeting of the Amherst Cultural Council. I'm going to make sure that I've pressed record appropriately. I have, and this video will be uploaded to the town of Amherst YouTube channel, probably by the end of this week. At this time, I would like to recognize one of the co-chairs of the Cultural Council, Julianne Applegate, and I will make her host. Have a great meeting, everyone, and thanks for your service. Thank you, Angela. Thanks, Angela. Great. I will read the script, which I'll bungle my way through. 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 in the following manner. I believe that is on the town website. 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. In the event that we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship and despite best efforts, we will post the meeting on the amherstmass.gov website and any other comprehensive recorded proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. Matt, I'm going to make you co-host once I figure that out, and I will hand it over to you for the agenda. All right, great. Hi, everybody. And let me just say that Eleanor will be joining us shortly. I was just talking to her, but I think we should go around and confirm that everybody can hear and be heard. So why don't I just start with... I know we can hear Julie. Kimberly, welcome. Hi. Hi, great to see you. Good to see you too. Sylvie. Hello. Hi there. Cody. Cody. Rachel. Hello, everyone. Hello, Rachel. Welcome back, stateside. Yay. Thank you. And I just saw your email, Matt, and that's fine. So... Okay, great, great. And then I don't think Eleanor's here yet, but I know she's hopping on in just a second. So that is great. And I'm actually driving at the moment, so I don't have the agenda right in front of me, but I do not see any members of the public in our waiting room. So I don't think we're going to have any public comment then, but we always hold and make time for public comment as it arises. So if folks join, they can raise their hands. And I think we do have some minutes that need to be approved, but, Julie, I'm going to suggest we table that until our next meeting, just for the sake of... Like, let's get to the fun part, which is I would really love to let our new members introduce themselves to the group and just kind of share a little bit about your background and how you found out about the cultural council. I think we should introduce ourselves to them first and not put them completely on the spot. Okay, that's even better. Matt, how about you tell us about yourself one more time? Okay, that's a great idea. Oh, and I see Eleanor is joining now too, so we can get her audio check. Yeah, my name is Matt Holloway. I've only been living in Amherst actually for about five years, and the cultural council has been a big way for me to get to know folks in town, because when I moved here, we were... We had our first son maybe two months after we moved here, and I was looking... We were looking for ways to get connected to folks, and then this whole pandemic thing hit, and I learned about the cultural council, and it was meeting on Zoom. And so it was really just a fun and unique way to get access to the Amherst community. And so I have some background in arts and filmmaking, things like that, but really I'm just kind of interested in having a stake in the town that I live in. So this has been a wonderful way for me to be engaged. And I've been on... I guess I'm going to my fourth... This would be my fourth grant cycle, and my third serving as co-chair with Julianne. And I think we've really developed a great little team between the two of us and amongst our existing members. And it's just one of my favorite things about living in Amherst is being on the cultural council. And I'm going to stop there, and I'm going to pass the talking stick back to you, Julianne. Okay, thank you. And like Matt, I haven't lived in Amherst all that long, moved here in 2016. Now I can't remember whether I started in 2018 or 2019 with the cultural council, but it was before the pandemic, I think it was 2019. Yeah, and like Matt, I wanted to get to know people here. Career-wise, I work in fashion technology and I'm a designer, but along the way to that, I've always been involved in the arts, so acting, singing, painting, all that good stuff. And I was really excited to have the opportunity to join the cultural council and really get to know people, but to also be a catalyst of having culture and arts happen so the community can get together around those things. And definitely the breaks were put on with the pandemic and I'm just so excited that it's so wonderful that the Block Party is on Thursday and will be there live and in person. I'm so glad to meet you both and to work with you. Rachel, as another long-standing member, I guess I'm the longest-standing member now. Right, I joined right after you, not long after Julian. Hi everyone, nice to see you. And I think aside from Julian here, Eleanor is the only other person I've met in person and that just happened last week. So anyway, nice to see you all. I also moved, excuse me, to Amherst in the very end of 2015 from Japan via Australia. So it was a big change coming back to this country and to this part of the state and everything, but I have a background in literature and primarily visual arts. I've done a lot of work in museums, art gallery, and what else, kind of arts education and also children's literature. That's one of the things that I do as a writer and a reviewer. And it's been really interesting working, serving on the Cultural Council. One of the former co-chairs actually recruited me for this position. And anyway, so I look forward to working with all of you. I'll stop there. Thank you, Rachel. Cody, I'm looking forward to seeing Cody in person. I see him in person a lot for hockey because my someplace hockey. This was about, say, I wear so many to stay in national, it is so ugly. You know, Cody, it's so cool because you really have brought some great ideas and one of them was to do the showcase stage at the block party when it was unexpected and beyond our control that we didn't get to do the event in May. Cody said, no, we need to do something sooner. We can't wait a whole year and here we are. So really excited to work with you for another year. Thank you. Eleanor. And then we can put Sylvie and Kimberly on the spot. Perfect. I joined the Cultural Council at the same time as Cody, I believe, in August of last year. I am an Amherst College student. I am a junior, so I guess I started in the fall of 2021 at the college. And I always knew it was very important to me to be kind of involved in the place where I went to school, kind of beyond the bounds of the college. And I did a little bit of like volunteering in my first year, but a lot of it was virtual and it didn't help me feel that like connected, even though I met some great people through it. But I learned about this through an off-bed in our student newspaper. Cole Graper Mitchell, who was like a previous member of the council, wrote this amazing opinion article about his time on the Cultural Council and how much it had impacted him, how much he had learned from all of you. And I was really moved by that. So I decided to apply because art has kind of always been very important part of my life and an important way of how I connect with other people and see other people connect. So I'm so excited for the second grand cycle and I'm so, so excited for the block party on Thursday, because that's just kind of so representative of everything. I hope that the Cultural Council is like able to bring and do for Amherst and how I'm able to offer up my time. Yeah, and it's been so great to meet such wonderful people. Like, yeah, now I've met Matt and now Rachel at the Mead the other day and Sylvie, obviously, since we go to school together. But yeah, I'm just, I'm very happy with all the connectivity that ACC has brought me. Can't wait to see you on Thursday, finally. Exactly. All right, so Kimberly, you were here first today. So how about you? Hi, my name is Kimberly. I'm really excited to be here. I was born in Zimbabwe, but I've lived all over the United States. And now I go to UMass Amherst. I'm a sophomore and I'm studying public health and economics. And I joined this council because I really wanted to look into ways to get involved in the community. I'm really interested in the career and public service and a career where I interact with people in my community, build connections. So I thought this was a perfect way to do that. And I'm really inspired by the work and the projects that are seen by this council. So I just wanted to take part in it and yeah, also see what I can offer to the community. So I'm really excited to be here with you guys. Welcome. We're really excited to have you. And Sylvie. Hi, I'm Sylvie and I go to school with Eleanor. So I'm also a junior at Amherst College and I'm an environmental studies major. And I actually also found out about the cultural council through Cole's article. And I just have been, I just took a little longer than Eleanor to actually submit my application and everything, but I'm really excited to be here. I grew up in kind of a larger place than Amherst. And so I really appreciate the small town feel and the feeling that you can get involved much more easily and you can know people walking down the street. And I also did some volunteering during my first and second years here. And so I'm really excited to get involved in a different way. Great. And your timing was perfect in the end because we had space available for you by the time you reached out, right? Thank you. So nice to meet you. Glad you joined. Okay, Matt, I guess we should mention that we have another council member, Christy Anderson. And I hope you'll all enjoy getting to know her soon. She's on faculty at which university is in Toronto and Tuesdays, she lectures and has office hours. So she was not able to join us tonight. But she lives right across the street from Matt. You there, Matt? Yeah. Yeah, we recruit our neighbors. That's part of the gig. But no, that's really great. So Eleanor and Sylvie, I hope you'll both write amazing inspirational articles for the next generation. And then Kimberly, maybe you can write an article for UMass too. But we're just thrilled to have you both, Kimberly and Sylvie, and welcome. So without looking at the agenda right in front of me, I'm going to suggest we jump out of order just a smidge and just get a couple of quick business items out of the way, just things that we want to make sure we get locked in and then we can move on. And you do have a hard stop tonight at seven, right? I do. I have to step away, unfortunately. Okay, well, let's just go on. Yeah, I think, I mean, Rachel's got probably the most interesting thing of the night to talk through. And if I hop off, I'll regret missing it. But I think that's definitely something to really have fun and explore. But Julianne and I need to, so for Kimberly and Sylvie's sake, I'll just say really quickly that our work on the calendar year is kind of, it's very heavy in November and December. Late October, all of November, and then into December. We tend to meet on non-holiday weeks. We tend to meet twice a week for that span. And of course, we told you that at the interview. The rest of the year, it's kind of fun and entrepreneurial and we do little things and we come up with crazy ideas, like doing the block party or doing these accessibility videos. I mean, all kinds of different sort of local projects that we do. But making sure that we have enough meetings over that six to eight week span is really kind of our biggest priority because we have to give every application. It's do sort of do attention. And I think, and Julianne and I, we haven't really discussed like sort of the way that we'll process all these applications. But I think we've honed it down to a pretty efficient and meaningful process where we have meaningful discussion about the grants over a few years. So it'll be good, but we do want to talk about like the frequency of dates that we're going to meet in that time period. And as Julianne already alluded to, Christie, one of our other members, has a hard commitment on Tuesday nights. That's not going to be viable. So I guess we were, Julianne and I were kind of exploring maybe potentially like a Monday, Thursday night sequence, basically for about six weeks, minus like the Thanksgiving week and then any other holidays. So I guess I just want to put that out there for like discussion if folks have a class on Monday or Thursday nights or some kind of standing obligation that they can't do those two nights. Kimberly says no, Rachel. And Eleanor, oh, okay. Rachel first. Can't do Mondays. Sorry about the rest of you. Let's see what Eleanor has there. On Thursday nights, I have worked at 7, so I've cut off at 7, but I could do before that. And then, you know, honestly, if that worked for everyone, I could see about getting it moved. So would would a five or five 30 start work for anyone? We've been keeping it later. I know that could be really tough, but it for me, that would be good is let's let's hear from everyone about a five or five 30 start on Thursday in particular. Sorry to double you up, Eleanor, but this is this it's going to get tight with all this this. Yeah. Rachel, five or five 32 early for you. It's good. Sylvie. For Thursday, it's fine, but I have a bi-weekly Monday, like four to eight commitments. That's kind of sounding like Monday is going to be really tough. Matt, I really should get your timing five or five 30. Is that impossible for you or OK? It's not impossible. It's not great, but that's OK. I just want to say one thing now. We have we have six on the call and how many missing? Just just Christy. Yeah. Is that right? I thought we had there's seven of us here. Oh, that's yeah. I respect it. We'll have to find our strength. Yeah. Not counting myself. So we have we have we have eight active members. We have one they can see currently. So we only we need five members for a quorum and these deliberation meetings need to have five members in attendance. So, you know, if if if it's a bi-weekly commitment, Sylvie, then that's something we might we might be able to just work around. Even even Julianne and I don't necessarily make every single deliberation meeting, although as co-chairs, we kind of feel like we should. But but sometimes it doesn't happen and it's OK. So I just want to put that out there that I don't think we should do Mondays if Rachel can't do any Mondays. I don't think we should do Tuesdays or Christy can't do any Tuesdays. But I think we are going to have to talk about, you know, Wednesdays and Thursdays. But doing back to back nights is really not that's not realistic for anybody. I don't think it's OK to try a doodle poll and then just take the we we we can do that. Although often when you get into the doodle poll, there's so many options, right? So I think what we're trying to do is align on on what's workable. So for instance, being able to do a five or five thirty start time, I haven't heard from Cody where he is with with that. Like is that even an option? It sounds like Thursdays could be a strong night. But we will finalize with the doodle poll to make sure we really do have forum commitments for everything that we're laying out also. I just don't want to put something together that's meaningless or put something out there that's too broad. I don't know when I'm in DC. OK. So outside of that, I just don't know. So Monday, Thursdays are fine and my wife is ready to spring off. Oh hey, here you go to, like, come on, though, it's weird, so it sucks and never. Yeah. And you were great last year, as far as really trying to, you know, all of us, we all try to make every session that we can because, you know, things, things come up and we really do need a quorum. And one of the things that we'll all see when we get into the grant cycle, it's pretty fast paced, you know, basically the grants close. We get these panel books, which are now digital, but there are hundreds of pages of long, right? And we're going to bring everybody into our system of how we go through this huge amount of data and deliberate and get through. But it's, we've got to keep to a schedule to be able to complete this work in a meaningful way on time. So it is going to take two sessions a week. I think I have enough information now, Matt, unless you've got another thing to add. Yeah, I think Rachel's right. I think at this point with what we have, we'll put it into a doodle and we'll just do our best. My thought is probably it'll be Thursdays and then alternating Mondays or Tuesdays. You know, just whatever it takes to make sure we have a quorum. I think that's probably most realistic, but we'll do a doodle and then we'll find out the actual numbers. Like, you know, yes, Kimberly, please. I'm pretty much available like every day at night, as long as I know in advance. It's just my last classes tend to end at like 5.15. So like a 5.30 start would be doodle. Thank you for that. That's really helpful. Okay. So and just to keep it in my mind, Rachel, you're 100% blocked for Monday nights. And then Sylvie, every other Monday, you might be, you would be blocked. Would you mind shooting me an email, Sylvie, with which Mondays those are? So when I do the doodle poll, I can look at that versus the Monday, Tuesday alternation that Matt was saying that way. Hopefully we have you, even if we don't have Rachel. And then on the Tuesdays, we have wouldn't have Christie. Yeah, I'm going to run with that. Sorry, Julien, just please. What are the window updates we're talking about? So sometime from the end of October to the end of December. Is that I think it's more like the middle of October. I'm trying to think 17th or something like that. Yeah. So usually, I mean, generally, Rachel, we look at like the last week of October to the first week of December, basically. Yeah. No, I think this is great. And by the way, Sylvie and Kimberly, I know this is not the most thrilling part of the work. But you know, if we don't, it's like, we got to get the basic dates out there. And then we, and then we can really move into some rich conversations about it's just so much fun to look at. Last year, we looked at 93 of these separate grants and, you know, they're all quirky. Some come in at, you know, $10,000. Some come in at $200. And it's just, it really is a rich and fun way to connect with the community that we live in. So I'd like to add to that. What we will do is we will have a meeting in October just before the end of the grant cycle. And that'll be a faster meeting. But maybe it'll be a little longer because I think we're going to do two things there. One, go over the surveys that Rachel's going to present to us here in a moment and learn from them. And then we'll also kind of do a run through some examples of how we kind of score and validate and the information that we're looking through with the grants. Because, you know, like Cody said, this is, you know, my second year going through the grant cycle. It's going to be different this year. It's a lot. So what we did last year for everyone was we kind of did a session as if we were deliberating it with some examples. So you could get a really good overview of what you need to evaluate. We're not going to throw 800 pages of materials at you. And a lot of us just filler stuff, by the way, without any criteria. So we'll do that some time. I would say probably what? The week of maybe the 9th of October is when we should shoot to do that. So I will correspond about that as well. Okay, Matt. Well, I feel bad because you're the one who's been hyping it up, but I'm just going to say Ms. Blockbird is going to be incredible. I mean, it really is one of the coolest things that this little town does. And Rachel, some of the responses in the survey really talked about how, as a college town, Amherst should have more of a vibrant downtown arts and culture scene. And this is one night where that's not true. I mean, I think last year there was something like 3,000, 4,000 people all on Pleasant Street in downtown Amherst. I mean, it really does have the feel of like a much bigger town or city kind of event. And so what we've done thanks to Cody is we worked with, excuse me, the organizers of that event to have our own stage for our own, for some of our own grantees. There's something we've been talking about wanting to do in some format for a while. So it's just so exciting to have it happening. And I don't have it in my car right now, but Julianne has printed t-shirts. We have Amherst Cultural Council t-shirts. We're going to have signage and a table. So basically, we'll have our... I can say some of that if you want. I think I can at least. Okay, yeah. We'll have our... Oh yeah, anybody's volunteer. I mean, everybody gets one who's on the council, but then volunteers definitely, we'd ask that. I think we're planning on wearing them or not. You don't have... Don't feel pressure, but you're welcome to. It'll be great. They do that. I mean, we have a brilliant fashion designer or fashion technologist designing them. So we're in good hands, I feel like. But yeah, we get to show off five or six of our grantees. And then we put it out to all of them and those who express interest and then followed through with the planning sequence, they got a spot. And actually Paul Sticca and the Acoustica Band, who's one of our grantees, actually got a spot on the main stage. So that's really cool for them. They're fun. They're kind of like, excuse me, like a Tom Petty cover band, which I realize is pretty like middle of the road, you know, whitebred Americana, but they are fun and they're really talented. It's a good time. But I think we have a really fun range of folks. And the schedule is out there. I don't have it in front of me right this second, but the schedule is out there. And so what we're hoping for is, you know, we want to just get the word out about the ACC, but we do explicitly want to try to fill these last two vacancies. Well, we have one vacancy currently, and then we may have another one coming soon. So we really want to get some good recruits for future members. Oh, awesome. Thank you. Okay. So what we're going to have at our table is this is like, I guess a two foot by three foot printout that's going to be laminated and adhered to the top of the table. So when we're talking to people, we could explain who we are and what we do. And there are links, the MCC.org. That's where people would go to create a smart, simple account and be able to apply with us. The survey that Rachel's going to present here, you click this, you go to that QR link, it brings it right up in that survey doc thing on Google. And then this is our amherstmass.gov cultural council link. And that's where, as we're talking to people, we can direct them towards our guidelines or last year's grants to see what that was like. So then the other piece that we have is this is the showcase stage, which is for our grantees as opposed to some of the other entertainment that's going on. Matt, I got to thank you so much for really leading the efforts and working with the BID and the artists. And Eleanor, I believe you helped out too. I did nothing. So if I'm not crediting correctly, it's because all the heavy lifting was done and I just get to go and enjoy. So these are our acts. We have two sandwich board signs, the kind you see out in front of a restaurant, like an A-frame that we'll put on either side of the stage. So if folks will know who they're seeing and that they are there as part of our cultural council. And I'm going to turn it over to Matt and I'm going to run and get at least one t-shirt because I gave him all the t-shirts. I know, you gave them to me and then I forgot to bring them to the Zoom. Sorry. So I guess I should have said there's two big goals for us at this table. I mean, number one is exposure for recruiting new members. I think that's always going to be, has to be one of our main goals because our core work requires us to deliberate on these grants and that takes a full quorum. So getting exposure and doing that is kind of one of our two goals. And then the other one, will be open for several more weeks after this block party. Our grant cycle stays open until October 10th. Tell artists and culture. Matt, we're losing you. Matt, hello, Matt. Tell them that the grant cycle is open for them. And then Julie Ann. Oh, sorry. Did you want to show the t-shirt? I do and your audio is coming in and out. So. Oh, I'm sorry. I know. It's so hard to have a connection or anything. So this is one of the t-shirts. There's two colors. We just, we got to thinking that we're there and I don't know, it would have caused extra money to put staff on the back, but just something so that we can officially be recognized as a group and promote. And so we've got a size range. There should be good sizes for everybody the way I've ordered. And there's kind of like a bluish gray with burgundy lettering and then these burgundy ones with the white. So, yeah, so we can appear as a group. And I also have some as a handout, some kind of clear window decal stickers that you could put in like the back window of your car type thing, let's say with our logo. Because we wanted to have something other than just QR codes for people to click and to spread the word. So if anyone has ideas for that kind of stuff going forward, let me know. I'm just swinging it. So, yeah. Thank you so much. They look wonderful. So do we have extra t-shirts or no? We have, I'm trying to think, how many did I order in total? It's 25, 30, somewhere like that. Yeah, I think we ended up with at least two dozen t-shirts and they run men's small. Actually, that's another thing. If each of you could email me what size and what color t-shirt or me and Matt, that would be great. So we have small through two XLs in two colors. So do you want the bluish gray or the red and what size? You'll want it's men's sizing, just standard generic unisex T cotton. Oh, Cody, you got your hand up. Yes. You have one at the same time. You have a... You still get a t-shirt. Yes, we figured out how to get the t-shirt. Sure. Yeah. We'll get it to you. No problem. So I think we divided the shift. Is it four to 530 and then 530 to set? No, five to 630 and then 630 to seven. I'm sorry, 630 to eight. So like two 90-minute shifts ish. But I mean, it's going to be a pretty free flowing event. So I wouldn't feel like you're time bound to work the clock. But Eleanor did volunteer to do sort of the early, the five to 630 or so. And then Rachel's coming the later. Oh, okay. Great. Great. Awesome. I intend to be there for the duration. And you know, I've got to come over and do some setup with some of this stuff as well. And others coordinated. So she told me she was going to be there for the early part. So I'll go for the late part. So. Oh, brilliant. Yeah. But I'll be there in time to overlap, of course. Great. Yeah. And Matt's the MC for the showcase stage. That's so exciting. Yeah, that's going to be fun and interesting. The Kung Fu guy already told me his best joke for introducing the Kung Fu school. So I feel like once you have a good Kung Fu joke, everything else is just, you know, it's just downhill from there. So that'll be fun. And yeah. And I think others should feel free to come by the table, grab a chair at the table, you know. So I think if we... Sorry. Kimberly has her hand up. Oh, I'm so sorry. Kimberly, I didn't see it. I'm sorry. No, it's all right. I just had a question or two about where we go when we get there. Like, is there like a specific spot that our booth is going to be at? And then I also wanted to ask about like our social media or like how we like use it or promote things on there. We would love help with social media, but I think we're going to do a great job with that. Is that a Matt or Eleanor question there? That's me. That's Matt. Yeah. Kimberly, I have to tell you the burden of the Instagram and Facebook accounts is weighing me down. So if somebody... If you're willing to step in, I can connect with you offline and I would love some assistance with that. It's definitely more than I can handle. And if you know... So it's on Pleasant Street. So the north end of Pleasant Street, Kendrick Park is sort of the... Is that park at the north end of it? And our stage is just in front of Kendrick Park. And our booth is right next to... Let me get a graphic for us because you shared it with me earlier. And I can share it with everyone. So are you guys seeing this now? Yeah. So it's a little bit small. I was going to upload it into the chat, but we don't have a chat. I believe we don't, right? Is that correct? Somewhere I can... Oh, no, I don't see one either. Okay. So yeah, there's... We can email it out too. So there's the main stage. And then we're kind of over here by the toy box. So down at the end. This is our showcase stage. And then we've got people with yo-yos. And what was the other one? Bubbles, right? Balloons. I think balloons and stuff. Yeah. So we'll be down this way over here. We're like the first table right there, according to the map. Because we're number 33, which is like... Oh, okay. Good point. Our table's right in front of the toy box, that little strip of stores there. Matt, you already... One of... Either Julian or Matt sent this to us, along with the agenda for the meeting. So I saw that before. And we're actually privileged, because we're sponsoring most of the town, like committees and town groups, are all going to be at the firehouse parking lot. But because we're sponsoring the stage, we got a special table next to our stage. So we're in kind of a unique spot. The flow of traffic really goes pretty freely up and down Pleasant Street, because the big thing is that all the downtown restaurants, they just literally bring their food out front and serve there. So it's just kind of a... I mean, it's a block party. So from what point will the road be closed to vehicles? Sure. Yeah. So that is going to be shut down from the intersection of Pleasant Street and Main Street, all the way to just past Kendrick Park. To the rotary, or not that far? I don't think quite... I don't 100% know, but I don't think quite that far. I think it might be at the rotary. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So I would say pro tip might be if you're having trouble parking, try the high school parking lot. That's what I would do if I'm not easily getting access. It's pretty close, not too far. Yeah. Good call. Okay. So those are the things that I really felt like we needed to just sort of get out there. And Kimberly, thank you so much again for volunteering with the social media, because that's something that we definitely need help with. So I think, I mean, Julian, unless you... Julian and I are currently co-chairing, and we're also serving as co-treasurer essentially. And I don't know if we're ready to have that discussion quite yet. So I'll ask you, Julianne. We definitely are interested in having more help with the treasurer. And I did hear from Rachel. Rachel, would you like to talk a little bit about... Said that that might be of interest for you, or we can table that and move on to the community survey and get back to that at the next meeting? Oh, no, that's fine. I mean, I volunteer because I know that Robin has finished her term. And since everyone, like, you know, I've been here a bit longer, I guess. So I thought, well, maybe I should just step up and do the treasury work. And I have done the treasury work in the past in various capacities. So that was just something, you know, I thought I would put my hand up for that would be helpful because that is a very... I mean, it is a necessary part of what we do, right? So is that enough to say for now? Well, yeah, that's certainly enough. I mean, another role that we need to fill would be our secretarial people. We need a secretary since Leia left. And all of these roles, whether it's chair, co-chair, treasurer, or secretary, the council votes on that. So we need a quorum to be president and to vote to make anything along those lines official. Now, the treasurer work is... One, it's a great way to really be involved and know everybody who's working on various grants and events and to get to know folks. But it's not something that we just flip a switch because there's quite a bit of onboarding to do that, which we are happy to do. So I guess I'd like to ask if anybody is interested, perhaps, in stepping up for treasurer. And if there's a time when you can't attend, usually someone else takes care of that. Or I believe Leia would grab the recording after and go through and do the notes that way. It's really nothing to be intimidated by. We keep pretty minimal notes. Just who attended, time that we started, time that we ended. And so, Matt, do you have anything to add there? Well, I just want to make a suggestion, actually, because I know I was the one that started this conversation. But I think because it is a voting matter, we should really not take any action tonight and put it on our agenda for next month. Exactly. All right, perfect. So if anyone is thinking about that, you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me or Matt or both of us. One rule is, in general, don't message the whole council because of the open meeting laws. But feel free to reach out and we certainly help answer any questions you might have with that. So just to clarify, you're looking for volunteers to be treasurer or volunteers to be treasurer as well as secretary. Yes, both. Okay, okay. And before Matt has to go, I just have a quick question about the block party and maybe a suggestion, which is, are there a few talking points that you would like all of us to have ready? Excellent, excellent question. I'm going to jump on that. So talking points, our number one thing is to let people know who we are and find out who might be interested in joining us. You know, we currently have one slot available. But what we've learned is, you know, each of us generally is appointed for a three-year term unless we're picking up somebody else's term. And then we can elect to stay for another three-year term. There are several of you here. There's no way you're staying for six years, all of you. You know, when I joined the council, the prior chair of the council, you know, when she joined, everybody I think was on average, something like 73 years old. So the pendulum has swung the other way. It's great to have young members. But with that, what we've found is whether people are in their 30s or 40s or 20s, you know, someone moves, you know, do a new home and it's across the border and then we're filling it. So we really want to have that. We want to have a lot of people that are interested in working with us on the council and get to know them and a few of them we'd like to plug in as soon as possible. And then others just continue that. So when we're at the event, we can talk about those QR codes as being a way to point people towards, you know, the cultural council's page on the town website and express interest. Another thing that we've been really vocal and have been trying to lead about is accessibility. And I did print out two A document from the MCC about how to make events accessible. It's like a checklist. So that's something, you know, we want to encourage people to apply, but we also want to educate them about what we're looking for. So we can kind of point people towards here some information and those are kind of laminated hands out that people can pick up and look at while they're at the table. Other than that, I would like to bring in another group of high school students who would be non-voting members. We've lost all our high school students who joined us and that's something we could do pretty quickly. What am I forgetting that that would be an important topic just other than who we are, what we do and why that matters? My only thought is, and I do have to hop up, I'm sorry, but my only thought is just make sure folks know that the grant window is still open and that Julianne will be doing an info session on I think it's the following Monday. So if they want to learn more, there's a Zoom info session and there's a link on our website. So it's kind of, in my mind, it's kind of like, you know, you're looking for potential members and potential grantees. And I think just basically just visibility. You know, I think we could be a really special part of downtown Amherst and, you know, it's just something that helps the town, it helps build community, it helps build economy. I mean, it's good for the town to have strong, you know, strong arts and culture institutions. So I think, you know, we're just kind of, PR in general is great too. Yeah, just flashing back real quick to this that will be on the top of the table. You know, so many people don't know who lived there, hear all their lives. You know, where does the money come from? It comes from our lottery funds and it's distributed to all of the communities throughout Massachusetts based on need and based on their success with funding culture. You know, I guess we kind of get a scorecard as we go. So, you know, we want to speak to who the MCC is and that it's bigger than us and let people know that, you know, come on, it's just lottery money. You know, if you've got arts and culture that you want to make happen, you're equally qualified just like anybody else. And it's a great program to have in this state. Any questions? Good question, Rachel, as always. Okay. I guess Matt has left. He may have. Yeah, I was just trying to get over to look at the participants. All right, Rachel, you are up. Let's... Rachel came to us and I guess noted that the MCC has some kind of templates for community surveys and we're always trying to get at the heart of, you know, how to best serve the community. And I love that you took the initiative to say, hey, shouldn't we do this? And let me put something together and you're running with it. So tell us more about it. Okay, so I don't know if all of you have started receiving, like, you know, Kimberly and Sylvie, have you started receiving the regular newsletters that come from the Mass Cultural Council like our contact person, right? So probably six months ago or so? Yeah. One of the things they encourage us to do is to conduct community surveys. I said, you know, these various councils have done community surveys and we really encourage LCC or local cultural councils to do this. So I, at one of our meetings, I said, oh, is that something we would like to do? And then I looked at a whole bunch of the samples or what other local cultural councils have done in terms of surveys. And just based on our discussion developed a very, very short survey because some of the local cultural councils do their surveys like 18 pages of Google form, you know, and then some are just much shorter. So I thought, well, you know, for our purposes after we had the discussion, we came up with a very short to the point survey which would take people maybe five minutes to do. So I guess at the block party, whoever is there, you know, I think the other thing I would really encourage us to do is to ask people who are, do they need to be Amherst residents to complete it in theory? They should, right, Julian? Because that would be ideal, but I don't, is there anything on the survey that asks, you know? Yeah, it asks, how long have you lived in Amherst? That's okay. Then I think it's fine to just put it out there. I don't think we're going to get, yeah, I think that's great. So one of the things that if everyone who's at the table would please do is just to ask people, if they have done the survey, if they haven't, just ask them to scan the QR code and do it right there. And one of the reasons I asked about the whole t-shirt thing is can we offer that as a prize? If you complete the survey, you know, maybe, I don't know, that's... Maybe. And then... Yeah. That's not a bad idea. And then there's some maybe... Yeah, that's not a good idea. It's a social media that we can also offer a couple of t-shirts as prizes. I don't know. Anyway, so Kim, we have a question before I go ahead and share the survey. Yeah, just you talking about how you have to be a resident of the town of Amherst, I just had a question. What about students who may go to one of the schools in Amherst but don't necessarily live on campus in general? Are they allowed to participate? I believe for the duration, you are all considered Amherst residents and that's why you're serving on the council, right, Julia? Yeah, it goes kind of like two ways, you know? So if we have someone who's been local and their permanent address is their parents' place or whatever but they have roommates in Hadley or something, that's their permanent address. They're Amherst residents to that extent. You guys are residing full-time here in Amherst. But with other council members, it's been to the point that if somebody moves over into Hadley, you know, and they're no longer, you know, in the house that they were in in Amherst, they have had to resign. So it's just, you know, each town has their own cultural council. So it seems really, really strict and yet it is the most fair way to do this because it could get out of hand really, really quickly otherwise. And we fund things, you know, all over the region and a lot of the other cultural councils do the same, you know? So we'll get into that more when we do the kind of example grants review and deliberation. But yeah, you do have to be an Amherst. It's okay that you have a permanent address somewhere else, that's fine, but you have to reside in Amherst. Makes sense, thank you. Yeah, and then for the survey itself, that's a required question. So shall I just go ahead and share what we have for the survey now or do you want to add something, Julianne? I was, I'd love to be able to share the link. I was just going to email it out to the group. I was looking for a reply all because I'm lazy. The link for the link that you shared with me for the survey. Oh, I could, yeah. Do you all have that yet? Who here has completed the survey? I did something during the call, but I think that's not... So do you want me to share what we have so far or do you want to... Yeah, you want to present that? I'm just going, I'm going to just share the link and email right now so everybody will have it too. That's great, yeah. So if you all would please complete it and ask everyone you know who lives in Amherst to please complete it. So I'm going to share my screen and just show what the results we have so far. So the survey is going to be up through I think the 22nd of October which is right after the grants close so that people have plenty of time to complete it. So I'm going to share my screen. Oh, you've disabled screen... Oh wait, yeah. Here, let me make you, I'll just make you co-host. So I'll share the kind of results we have right now and then that way you'll see the questions too, right? Let's share now, Rachel. Great, thank you. Okay, so can everybody see that? Yes. All right, so so far we have 17 responses and so the first question is how do you hear about local cultural activities that interest you and here are the responses so far. Can you all see that? Is that big enough? Okay, great. Let me know if I can move on to the second question. So all that applies. So social media is really important, right? As we know, as we can see from here and then also brochures, word of mouth. All right, so that's the first question. There are only like five questions altogether so I'll move on to the next one. What are the most important types of projects that our council should consider for grant funding? So here are the different options and people were, again, we asked them to choose top five choices just so that we know how to prioritize to some extent. Any questions? If not, I'll move on, okay? My one question was, I know that I and maybe Julian and Matt had filled it out, I think like to test it when in that first call, are those included in this? No, because I edited it a little bit after we had the tests. So these are actually what you call them. They're valid responses, I suppose, like the individual, like, you know, genuine. Yes. Yeah, anyway, so there are no worries. So here are the, and when you go to do the survey yourself, you'll see, you know, that all of this listed out very clearly. So I'll move on to the next question. And you should all hopefully be receiving that link via the email. So if you have any questions, just, you know, reply back, don't reply all. Yeah, and then question number three is just the age range of the respondent. And people can opt to not answer. So we have, Yeah, we need more responses because it's crazy to have so many 19 to 25 year olds and not so many 26 to 35 year olds late. So a lot of people don't want us to know how old they are, I guess, like almost a quarter of the people. And then see these two categories, 18 or under. So I think maybe Julianne, you and I can talk to our people we know at the middle school or, you know, we have students middle school, high school to respond. Yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah, because one of the categories we have is like, you know, programs and teenagers or children. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so there's no reason elementary school students can't respond to this. Absolutely. We do a lot of funding for, but we balance it out. But there is, you know, a good portion of our funds support kids. Yeah, so most of the people who respond to so far are aware that we have these grants, but it would be interesting if we got more people to reply whether or not this changes significantly, right? So that and then the last couple of questions is one is for how many years have you been a resident of Amherst? So that's, and that's also a required question. So here's the kind of breakout we have so far, which is interesting. And the final question I just threw in for fun. Based on I saw this at one of the other local council's services as a town resident, what defines Amherst for you? Whoops, sorry. So I'll start at the top and let me know when you're ready for me to move on. So you can, you don't need me to read these aloud, do you? I don't think so. Oh, go ahead, Kimberly. I was just thinking I really like the survey and the way it's like laid out and all the questions that were asking it. And I was thinking maybe like we should like set a goal or something for like a target number of responses maybe that we're like aiming for to kind of just help us reach that. That's a great idea. Yeah, like how many responses will we like to to generate or to kind of solicit, right? Are you ready to scroll down? Yeah, yeah. And one thing in the back of my mind, it seems like it's super useful to do. And I don't know if we have it in the data, but I think it'd be great to segment some of the responses by age group as we go. Is that possible? Yes, for the people who have responded with their age, right? Okay, yeah. Yeah, that would really be helpful. Because we can, I mean, download all this information and then kind of, yeah, segment and present it in different ways. So there's more on the bottom. So let me know when you're ready for me to scroll down again. Small talent, large footprint. I love that. You could scroll a little more, I think. Okay. I guess it depends on how small this is on everybody's screens. Here we go. Here we go. This way you can see the bottom one clearly in the whole sentence. I feel like Amherst is the cultural crossroads, that one. Just to say, and it's, we don't even need to be able to see it, but when I click on the link that Julian said, I can't see the responses. I just see the survey. Yeah, it's a fresh survey for each of us to take. Oh, great. Okay. You shouldn't be able to see the responses, right? Rachel's presenting the dashboard right now. We're hoping that we get a lot of responses. Yeah. And then as we, after the grants applications close and we regroup, then we'll be looking at this again. Right. Yeah. Because I think as a, I'm the owner of the Google forum, and that's why I'm kind of sharing all this. But hopefully, yeah, I'm able to see. You said it's open until the 22nd of October? Yeah. Because I suggested that we keep it open until after the grants close, just in case that there are people who are just learning about the survey at the very end. Yeah. I think we're going to need to look at it, whatever we have, the week of the 9th. Oh, that's fine. We can see what we have available. And then, like, as Kimberly suggested, maybe we have a target, like maybe by the end of September, we try to get as, you know, this next number. Right. Yeah. That's a great idea. We might do that. Cody, hi. Hi, it's obvious. Okay. Let's invert words over. What do we plan to do with the results? Yeah. So we updated our guidelines starting with our grant cycle last year, right? Where we put in a little bit more language that, for instance, we want to make sure that, you know, there's there are different kinds of cultural events for different audiences. And so specific to like music, you know, if we have music, we don't want to necessarily have 75% of all of the cultural events be just music, or even within music, you know, that there are, you know, different styles of music that, you know, speak to different groups. That's just one example with music. But this is going to be tremendously helpful for us to understand what people want, why they want it, which groups want, which kinds of things if we can really kind of parse the data that way and to, you know, use that modification that we made to the guidelines to the community's advantage and to, you know, what they're hoping for. Rachel, what do you envision? Yeah, I think, yeah, similar to what you just said. And I think it's very, hopefully it will inform our priorities going forward as well. And also maybe let us know what other questions we need to be asking because I think we've been operating with guidelines that obviously have been amended and adjusted over time. But I think this is really just a really good, this is just a way to solicit more input from the residents whom this impacted and for whom we're actually making these grants, right, so that these activities can happen. It's to serve the community, I guess, is a short answer. Cody, does that answer your question? I think it's really hard and really so bad to force that to go forward too much in what we wish on being just a never-ending deal. Yeah, that's a great idea that if people are asking for something and artists aren't applying to do that kind of thing, and that's certainly something we can get the word out via social media or just word-of-mouth outreach to any groups in the area that do those kinds of things and bring that to the community, but we can't do that if we don't know. Right, and I think all of you, I know, have a whole lot of work and other responsibilities that, you know, on a day-to-day basis, but if anyone's interested, I can send you links to these other surveys that local cultural councils have done. Some of them are so granular that I thought, oh wow, like, and this is, you know, for example, a town that might get maybe less than $10,000 in grant money to distribute, but they ask very, very specific questions, and I thought that's really interesting. So I think that's a little bit of a reflection of the council as well as their demographics, I suppose, I don't know, but I think I just have a couple of questions before we kind of, you know, finish this conversation. One is that if we want to try to get as many responses as we can, I'm wondering if before we break up tonight's meeting, if each of us might be willing to just say I'm going to contact this group or these people to get them to help us spread the word or to get more respondents. So for example, Julianne, you and I can contact the local schools, right, whether it's the high school, the middle school, elementary school. I don't know if I'm putting you up for it. It could just be a couple of teachers. It doesn't have to be like a full-off effort, but it's just, it could be even just informal. So I don't know if that makes sense if people are willing to do that as one of the, or we could just wait until after the block party and see where we are. You know what, that's fine with me because I've got a ton of stuff for the block party, and I think the way that that goes, I might just bump into some of those folks there. Yeah, yeah. I've been asked so by just being there and then, and then Kimberly to be on what, you know, you and Matt talk about with the social media, that's definitely very effective. But for instance, like Cody and I know one of the guys whose assistant principal, I think, over at the middle school, like Farrow, like if that's not his thing, Cody, like he'd know who to mention it to at the middle school, right. It's pretty easy to reach out to the right folks. And you know, Cody went through the schools too, so he might be able to email some folks, not that he's not busy as well, but amongst all of us, yeah, we've got some good connections for that. Yeah, and I think just even, you know, on a very like informal or actually just on an individual basis, it could be something a teacher could do in a social studies class or some class, just like class, we're going to do this now, you know, as an activity, that would be kind of a learning experience. And what's great is if you can get the kids to do it and if their parents are willing to, you know, also do it so you get authentic information from both groups. Yeah, so that was one question I have, the other question related to the survey. I guess that's really it. And, you know, if anyone has other suggestions, because, you know, we can take those on board too. So Julia, we want to have, did you say or just somebody else say that we want to have be able to look at this in early October? I would like to, yeah, I think it's going to be too, we don't want to eat up time in the actual deliberation meetings, because if we got as many applications as last year, those are really tight. And I think we can look at kind of a baseline of where it is and then anything else that comes in after that, we can update our information. And I don't expect they're going to have all of the data parsed down to, you know, which age group said what and whatever, but let's at least know how many service they were and get a top level view as we go through our example grants reviews and deliberation with some prior year grants to let everyone get a picture of how the process works. Yeah, this is just only one kind of, yeah, one, one, you know, level of data, right. So Kimberly, please go ahead. I just had another suggestion kind of thinking about this form it's going to go out and it might be a good way of exposure as it's going to go to different people who might not have heard of this before. So maybe adding, I know on some Google surveys, you're able to add like a note at the bottom, maybe something like thank you for taking the survey survey. If you're interested to learn more about the work that we do, maybe like the plug to our website link or Instagram or something. So if someone's maybe seeing us for the first time we're hearing about us, they can put in, you know, some work to learn more. Thank you. Yeah. So at the beginning of the survey we, when you go to fill it out, you'll see that in the introduction or it doesn't, doesn't show here. So when you, when you see the actual survey itself, it'll say that at the, at the beginning and then when you get the confirmation message at the end, it'll come up again to say here's our website and please, I think we also, I don't remember if the final version has this, but we say, oh please share this link with people, you know, so they can complete the survey as well. So that's awesome. Yeah. Thanks. Okay. Any other questions, any other genius ideas, comments? I was going to say in terms of reaching out to people to share with, I know Rachel, you know a lot of people at the Mead and if you think that would be, or if they'd be willing to like be sharing that somehow, I just know that they have a lot of community outreach already that maybe they'd be willing to help us out. Yeah. Thank you. So none that you mentioned the Mead, I was actually thinking the farmers market as well. Yeah, that's a great thing. The Mead has a booth there, right? And then there's also, I mean, probably a lot of people who go to the farmers market. What about just evidence? What about that Amherst downtown, I mean, right now they're busy promoting the block party and stuff, but that Amherst downtown Instagram that I think the bid runs maybe I wonder if it, what's the best way to put that QR code for the survey at all the booths or whoever will have it at their booths? We could, I mean, we could make little printouts of the survey to hand out. I don't want to create trash, but So is that something we can do via social media? I don't know. So Sophie, you have a question or suggestion? Yeah. Well, as far as the QR codes, I'm not sure. Well, I was thinking that if people can just scan it, then just having like a laminated sheet just sitting there, but that might not be addressing the issue. We do have it on what would be on the top of the table for that in, you know, one table, one spot. I'm, you know, it's a QR code. I'm going to attach it for everybody here. If anybody has any, you know, you want to include that and however you're you're sharing it, that's cool. I don't know if we have time to make stickers. And I don't know how many people would want to adhere it to their particular booth. So I don't know if it's worth it to do that. But we could print and have a few available if you're circulating in the crowd. I guess, you know, people can put it on their own phone, right? Now that I've sent everybody the link, you can actually just save it as a photo and go here, click this. So maybe that's the better way to do it if you're talking to someone. And if the block party organizer, whatever, you know, with their social media feeds, they've got something going on about the block party, right? If that could be pended or somehow connected to that. I am as big as our block party is. I don't know. I am not going to add any more stress to anyone who has already locked up, step with like getting, getting this event, you know, up and going and done. So here's a t-shirt for a prize. Yeah. Okay. No, thank you. Got it. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, as we circulate, you know, talk to people, we can certainly, you know, share that and we should get it out on our own social media and all that as well. I think it maybe has happened. I'm really out of the loop with that. I apologize. Any other questions, comments, more ideas? Okay. Great. Then I believe we can conclude this meeting. I'll second that motion. Thank you. Yes. Thanks everyone for staying a little longer so we could go into this. I think it's going to be great. Yeah. So feel free to reach out everybody who we can see on Thursday. Great. Otherwise, we'll be in touch to organize schedules. So take care everyone. Thank you. See you Thursday. Yeah. Bye.