 Okay, the recording has started. Let's begin the meeting at 6.02. Are there any additions or changes to the agenda? Hearing none, is there any public comment? Hearing none, do we have any meeting minutes to approve? I don't know that we do. Anyone out there know of meeting minutes that have been sent out to be approved to be reviewed? No, okay. To my knowledge, Jerry, nobody sends out minutes anymore. You have to go on the website and download them. Am I correct? Okay, so has anyone been through the minutes and want to make a motion to approve them? I don't want to approve them. Okay, I heard R.D. say he made a motion to approve. Is there a second? David Healy's trying to talk, but he's muted. I made it. There it is. They're not on the website. They're not on the website. The website has January 22, and that's what I saw. And so, no, January 23 is not there. Okay, that's helpful because that's what I thought. Okay, so we are going to rescind that motion and we're not going to move forward with the minutes. So let's move on to the treasurer's report. So thank you. I sent out some materials earlier today and hopefully you've had an opportunity to look at them if you have not update your driver. Not now, I don't think, right? So we'll, I think this is where I want to go here. And what screen are you looking at? Are you seeing the balance sheet? Balance sheet, right? We're seeing the balance sheet. Okay, I sent out three reports. One with a balance sheet, profit and loss and expenses for January. And I guess the point here is that kind of the bottom line is that $9.6 million is the fund balance at the end of January. What I'd like to, and so the bank account shows up here, $9 million plus accounts receivable. So bringing us up to this 9.6. The profit and loss, a couple of things I wanted to bring to your attention. One was total administration expenses of about $24,000. And I'm interested in seeing what the next months look like. And once we start bringing people on board, what that's going to be because we need to project out for the next 24 months what our administration expenses are going to be. But of note, I think are $221,000 of make ready services. And this is just January. And materials payments of $173,000. David? Yeah, on the balance sheet, does that include all the, I don't want you to call them, things that we've got commitments to that we haven't paid for? Not yet, no. So that's important piece of information. Yeah. I'll take a look at that. The last one here is expenses by vendors. So I wanted to bring to your attention some of the major expenses here. Green Mountain Power, $83,000. And that would be in make ready work. KGP logistics is our materials purchases. Same with power and tell for 39,000. KGP was $133,000. And WEC, $95,000. And that's basically make ready. And so the month of $425,000 for vendor expenses. David, you still have a question? No. Okay. Any comments, questions, observations? Yes. Go ahead. Sorry, one quick question, Ray. What is the lag department of consolidated communications? The lag department. Those are the make ready folks. They're the folks that do the writeouts and perform the estimates of the work that needs to be done for work on CCI polls. Is that actually consolidated that's doing this service for us? If they have polls, the answer is yes. They have a requirement to perform make ready work. Thank you. I understand now. Yeah, there's two separate divisions. One that's competing with us and one that has the polls. Got it. Yeah, if they're no further. The reason we have consolidated communications with a $73 bill there is that's the internet at our warehouse. So not to be confused. Understood. Thank you. And if there are no further questions. Thanks, Ray. I'd like to make just two comments on the Treasurer's Report. There's two important things to note here. And one of them was already brought up. First is that we have an audit. We have what's known as a single audit that we have already hired a firm to perform and we are working towards having that audit accomplished. That's an audit that needs to be done and presented to the federal government because we have passed the threshold of receiving X amount of money from the federal government. So we need to perform this single audit and we got this firm on board a year ago knowing that it is a very difficult test to find someone to perform this kind of work. Somebody just had their hand up and I can't quite see who it is. It's Ted. Ted, please. I was just curious if there is an audit committee or how the work of an audit is planning to be divided amongst folks. Because there's a lot of work. Yeah, Ted, well, Ted, the good news is you're on that committee. Oh, well, well, I think asking the question would be the prerequisite, so yeah. Congratulations. Well, we know the answer to that is the finance committee is running that. We have a treasurer that participates. We have our, of course, Janiel is involved in everything we do. We have an accounting firm that manages our books on a day-to-day basis and then we hired a firm specifically to perform this audit. So right now the accountant and the auditor are collaborating to make sure we have everything we need and it floats down to us to make sure that we have presented everything appropriately. Cool, that sounds great. So we don't have a separate committee for the audit. I don't know that we necessarily need one. We have hired guns doing that for us. Well, I just might note that it is called the Finance and Audit Committee. Oh, yeah. Very good, right, thank you. The second thing I want to point out and I just want to mention this because RD brought it up is that one of the tasks that we are putting a lot of our effort in at the moment is being able to project our flow of funds. We are getting to the point now where most of the things that we're going to be spending our money on are starting to have start invoicing us that we're actually spending the money that we thought we were going to spend it at least in all these various categories. And what we're working on now is getting a month or two under our belt so that we actually understand the flow and then we're going to make projections. We've been making projections all along but now we're getting better data to make tighter projections and that goes to RD's comment and raise response that, yeah, would be a really good idea to know how we're going to spend this money in the future. That's something we're spending a substantial effort on understanding. Anything else on a treasurer's report so we can move on? Thank you. Janiel, there's an executive director's update. Oh, wait, we have a David Lawrence. Go ahead before we move on, sir. Yeah, I just had one quick question. What's a lag department? Oh, you missed that. I don't know what LAG stands for. I'm presuming it's an acronym but that is Consolidated Communications. Those are the folks that are in charge of their polls and we're required to pay a fee if we're going to put anything on their polls and we are required to pay for their make ready service requirements including a ride out and developing an estimate for cost. So that's their LAG department. We also pay $70 a month to CCI for internet services. Thank you. Two different things. Jeremy, Matt, I see your hands up, sir. Yeah, so did the minutes get approved or did you skip over because I was having trouble with teams? We skipped over the minutes because we weren't sure that we actually had read them. Oh, I sent them out. Like on, I believe the 14th. Okay, there weren't enough of us that were able to grasp that. So we missed it. I will resend them and then we can do the next one. Sorry, I don't know. Today's the 14th, Jeremy. No, 114, so. Oh, okay. Jeremy, they're not on the website. Right, I know I'm behind on that. Okay. Sorry. Yes, happy Valentine's Day. I'm behind on a lot of things. We all are. Yeah, yeah, everybody's shaking their head. Okay, Janiel, would you please move on with the executive director's update, please? You're muted. Janiel, you're still on mute. I'm sorry, we didn't hear any of that. That's a dollar in the jar. Yeah. So anyway, I'm just gonna go through what was on the executive director's report, AKA business as usual, which of course is not usual because everything is happening so quickly. There's always something new, but going down the list of things that are going on with CV fiber, public engagement Crawford agency is developing an internal document. It's a working document that is a work product for internal brand voice and temple for CV fiber. And we're expected to hear from them this evening. We have new subscribers or presubscribers on the crowd fiber interface on our website. We have at least 875 preregistrations for updates to the CV fiber services. And we are now at about five and a half miles of strand and one and a third miles of fiber that USTIS has been hanging in callus. And we are working on getting ready the OLT site so that we can start constructing the OLT pads in middle sex and in callus. We are hiring an operations manager, which will be the second full-time employee for CV fiber. We received 80 applications for this full-time position. And we are conducting, we whittled it down to eight, then to five or six, and now it's down to three. So we have three interviews tomorrow with three relatively local folks who are qualified on their resumes to be an operations manager for CV fiber. We expect this person to start in March. We'll be coming back to the board with a recommendation following the hiring process and back all of their reference checks in next month. The next role that we'll be hiring for is community relationship manager. This person will be hired on the heels of the operations manager. So that will be a person who will be collaborating with communications and with Crawford agency and will be working toward community relationships, essentially public engagement. Poll licenses, we now have 22 poll licenses. This represents about 150 miles of green light on existing utility polls. I don't know. As for funding, we're working with NRTC toward funding options. Something that wasn't mentioned in the written report is that we're also looking at possibly going early to the bond market and what is required or what this entails so that we can start looking at other funding options so that we are green in more ways than just our licenses so that we have licensed green lights and we have green as in money. Materials, we've received materials bids. NRTC is helping us compare the 200 additional miles of materials bids. And we are close to full on our warehousing. So we're considering all of the options such as have our suppliers hold some, maybe some extra space in Montpelier. And most importantly, can we burn through some of the existing fiber that we have in stock so that we can make room for new fiber? So the more materials we build put in the sky, the more we can accept. So this is progress. This represents progress. So that's the tip of the iceberg. Thanks. I'll add one more thing to that. And that is as we're moving forward and as we're actually starting construction and planning for future construction, so much of this needs to be planned well in advance. The lead times are almost a full year on some of the items that are absolutely critical. The lead times are in the 48 week, 46 to 48 week range on lead times. So you have to commit money early in order to have the materials when you need them. Make ready lead times are, it could take six to eight months to get the make ready accomplished in the place that you wanted accomplished, you needed accomplished. The thing is, is that we really need to be careful that we don't get over our skis, that we don't obligate more money than we have, that we make sure that our spending is in the right place at the right time so that we're not making sure we have make ready fully accomplished for an area that we don't have construction funds to go to for another two years. So this is all part of the projections that we need to make so that we can scale and control our spending to match our funding. And it's not just pedal to the metal and shoot forward as fast as we possibly can. We need to move forward strategically so that we're as efficient as possible as much money as we spend on construction, somebody can get lit. We don't do any good if we have make ready and strand throughout the entire area and nobody subscribed because we don't have any areas lit. So we're looking very hard at managing our spend, coordinating our construction so that we have as many lit opportunities as possible as we spend our construction funds. So I just wanted to lay that out for folks because that is a math problem we've been working on for quite a bit here. And I'm going to go to R.D. I see your hand is up. It's just a very briefly keep in mind that there may be warehouse space in Cabot if you need it and let me know well in advance because we may decide to do something else with it if CB5 doesn't want to jump in. That's all. Do you mean this is the town that has property that could be used for warehouse? Is this indoor or outdoor? Indoor and that is what I mean. Okay, well, Janeele, you got that, right? Yeah, I got that. And R.D., I do want to know more about this warehousing opportunity in Cabot so if we can have a conversation offline, that would be great. Okay. Thank you, R.D. Any other questions for Janeele at the moment? So it looks like Janeele that you may have talked about our operation manager search update. Maybe Ray, would you like to add anything to that? Or I can if you don't want to. No, go ahead. So I would just additionally point out that as we're winnowing down and coming to a short list of folks that we're interested in, we had a series of information we had a series of informational interviews that maybe interviews isn't the right term. We had a series of informational sessions where with three of the candidates, we sat with them for half an hour, 45 minutes and really explained to them to the extent we could who we are, where we're going, what we're doing and in quite detail, I might add. So that they can basically see what they're getting into and make sure that there's a good fit between them and us and make sure that they fully understand us and that we're presenting all the information that they would need to make a decision as well as we get from them the information that we need. So these weren't interviews in the sense that we were asking them questions. This was really more about sharing information and presenting them information. We did all of that just a couple of days ago in advance of the actual interviews that we are going to have tomorrow. So I just wanted to bring folks up to date on what we're doing there. Anything else on the operations manager search? We're very pleased by the way with the, certainly with the three folks that we're looking at now we're quite pleased, we would do well with any of them. So I think we're in a good spot there. Public engagement manager, Janiel, would you like to take on this discussion or maybe it's Chuck, whomever would like to lead this please? Do you want me to kick it off? Yeah, go ahead. No, look at us, look at us. Okay, that's fine, yes. We need somebody to help collaborate with communications committee, with myself, with Crawford agency, with our members of the public. We really need somebody to be the glue in that regard. And so a few months ago we decided, we'll start putting together a job description for a community relationship manager. N.E.K. Broadband hired such a person. This person helped with press events, collaborating with their marketing and getting the word out, social media. And now that we have Crawford agency on board as well, we want a point of contact with our marketing agency, maybe some local influencers as well. So the idea behind this role is on the heels of the operation manager, we'll be hiring our third full-time employee and that will be this person. It will be a person who will be involved in the public engagement for all of our communities and a collaborator among all of our partners. So that is the need, the ask, and we've started putting together a hiring group and a job description for this person. We expect this person is likely to start more than likely in April if we're realistic about it, but on the heels of the operations manager. We'd like to get this job posted this month. Well, Chuck, go ahead, please. Thank you. I would just like to stress the importance of opening this position for us. First of all, I will also point out that we have changed the name since the agenda was written. We're really targeting calling this position the community relationship manager. It is certainly public engagement. It is certainly a bit marketing, but it's really about how do we talk to our communities? How do we bring them along with us? How do we make sure they understand what we're doing, why we're doing it, how we're doing it? And at the end of the day, how they can either get involved or get the updates that they need or become subscribers if they have service in their area. So it's a very broad scope of a role. At a corporation, there'd probably be eight, 10 people doing this job. And unfortunately, we don't have that luxury, so we're gonna have to find somebody who is a little bit of a generalist and has a broad set of skills to try to fill in on this. But the good news is we'll be empowering them with additional capabilities via contracts such as Crawford and Cornerstone, CrowdFiber. And in all of these cases, we really just need that person who has the one holistic view of all the goings on and to date that has been shared by a few of us, in particular, Janiel and Linda and myself, although Ray and David have also engaged on it to a fair degree, but it's a lot, a lot of work. And we have been relying on volunteers for this and many of us are working a lot of hours to make it happen. And we're at a point where we need to step up our game and really take this to a professional degree of relationship with our communities and making sure that we're able to engage with our communities in the best way possible. We have to put front a professional image that shows that we are committed to building a sustainable community network. And to that end, I believe this position is incredibly important to Phil. Thank you. Well, thank you. Thank you, Chuck. I would add one thing and that is that this position is already in our budget. It was anticipated that we would require someone to fill a role as has just been described. Is there a motion that's been developed for this evening? There is, if there are no other questions, I'd be happy to put it forward. Well, we can have questions after your motion, that's fine. Sure we can, all right. Whereas it has become necessary to hire a community relationship manager due to the increased need for public engagement, managing the relationships between our communications committee Crawford agency and partners and due to the increasing need to set and manage consumer expectations. Whereas the CV Fiber 2023 budget has accounted for the hiring of a community relationship manager. Whereas a hiring group has been invited to finalize the job description and post the job description. Whereas the executive committee recommends the governing board to approve the posting of the CV Fiber Community Relationship Manager position. It is moved that the governing board approve the posting of the CV Fiber Community Relationship Manager position and authorizes the executive committee to manage the application process, the appointment of a community manager application review working group and make a hiring recommendation to the board. Second. Second. Oh, Siobhan, I think you got in there. Siobhan, give it to Siobhan. She got it. I think she earned it. Another notch in the handle. The microphone you mean, RD. Mouse, that's it, my mouse. Is there additional discussion on this? Is there anything that anyone would like to bring up or question folks have been working on this for quite a while, I must say. Quite hard as well. But I don't see any hands raised for additional discussion. So let's move through this then. Are there any opposed to the motion? Are there any abstentions? It appears to me that the motion passes unanimously. Thank you. I would like to thank Ray in particular, as always, for helping put together the motions because he does just such a good job of it. I'm the whereas guy. I would like to thank Ray for everything he does for CV Fiber since you opened that can of worms. Thank you, Ray. Thank you, Ray. All right. What's next on my agenda here? Ah, committee membership appointments. So we wanna make sure that we're doing this right, you know, that we're playing according to Hoyle and we have a number of committees where it appears to be uncertain as to who the committee members are. And we've had questions about who to count for a quorum. The executive committee is the easy one. So I'm lucky here because that's quite simple and straightforward. But I would like to ask the other committee chairs to identify who's on their committee and let's just confirm that we have the right folks on the committee and give that a thumbs up so that we all know who's on which committee. And there may be folks that don't know they're on a committee or there may be folks that wanna be on a committee that aren't. So, you know, here's an opportunity to clear that all up. And I'm gonna ask David to go first with the Planning and Development Committee. Thank you, David. You're on mute, sir. I can't read and talk at the same time. Anyway, the, as far as I know, the committee currently is Jeremy Matt, Ray Pelletier, Siobhan, Jeremy Hansen, Tom Fischer, Linda Gravel, and Christopher Schenck who is the alternate. And I believe Henry is on here but he's not on the website. So, Henry is the last one that I know of. Now, have I left somebody out or did somebody drop out that I don't know? Yes, Jeremy Hansen mentioned in the spreadsheet that he can be removed from this committee. All right. Is everybody else good with that list? David, my only question is, am I ex-officio on this committee? Am I ex-officio on all committees? How does that work? Or do I need to put my name on a specific committee? You need to tell me. I believe I'm ex-officio on all committees. I'll let our parliamentarian, Alan, challenge that if I'm wrong, please. Alan, am I nominating you? I can't challenge what I don't know. An honest man, thank you, Alan. That's what I've been looking for, anyway. I'll check the statutes. Jeremy, your hand is up, sir. Yeah, I'm just trying to get these figured. I'd update them on the website right now. So, the list of names that I have is myself, Ray Pelletier, Sean Paracon, Jeremy Hansen is going to be removed. Then, sorry, who else? You said Tom Fisher, Linda, and Christopher. Yeah, and then Henry. And Henry, okay. And now, and then Jerry. Jerry, DM and TDs. Okay. Jeremy Hansen pointed out that he was not ex-officio on all of the committees when he was chair. And I don't think that that's part of the rules. That's fine. Whichever way it lands, that's fine. Thank you. Then can we move on to the finance committee? Yeah, so I'll just post this in the chat room to make this easier for a few people anyway. And see if I can get that in here right. There we go. So, the members of the committee, in addition to myself, Jerry, Tom Fisher, Christopher Schenck, Ted Barnett, David Manix, and Phil Cuccini is the new member if it's approved by the board this evening. I don't know if this is the place for this, but I'm gonna have to drop from that committee because I can't do Thursday nights when it's being scheduled. So I'm gonna be taken off. I mean, I think now is exactly the time to do that. And to be clear, that's PDC, not finance, yes. Well, it's both, but PDC is kind of up in the air. From what I understand, finance has landed pretty firmly on Thursday, but PDC may not be. Is that right, David? That's correct. Tom, at our meeting on Thursday night, we'll pick a date that fits most people's schedule, which looks like it's gonna be Mondays. And at our next executive committee meeting, we'll finalize all the dates. So as folks are getting that straight. Yep. And I think we can make a motion at the end of this session to approve all of what has gone down. Okay, Jeremy. Yep. Thank you, sir. You read my mind. Yes, indeed. I could see the panic because it's going to streaking across your face. Chuck, can we move on to the communications committee, please? We may. Similar to Ray, I'll go ahead and paste the current membership. So we have myself, of course, John Walters, David Healy, Ray Pelletier, John Morris, Linda Gravel, and Marshall Cottrell. The only change we are likely to make is Marshall has unfortunately had to step away and has not been able to attend any meetings. So I need to follow up with Marshall to find out if he wants to officially resign his membership of the committee, or we could take an action to remove him if we wanted to as the board. But I will say, you know, if there's anybody else interested, obviously we have a vacant seat if you want to join us on communications initiatives. Thank you, Chuck. Jeremy, go ahead. So, sorry, going back to Phil, he's not a board member, is that correct anymore? Because he was treasurer and then- That's right. Yeah, he'd be open to his community volunteer. Community volunteer, right? Alan, sir, are you ready to engage? Yes. So I've just sent the members of the policy committee to everybody. It's myself, it's John Morris, it's Ray, Siobhan, it's Lexis Julian, and Linda Gravel. So there's six of us. Jeremy, your hand's up again. What do you need, sir? That's a residual on this fighting with the website. Okay, okay. I guess, Jeremy, before we made a motion, looks like we have all four now, right? Or, yeah. I guess I'd ask if there are any people who are attending the meeting who'd like to participate on any of these committees if they could raise their hand. You know, they always accept some volunteers on the finance committee and there may be some others that you might be interested in. Hey, Ray, would you mind, or would somebody mind reminding us of what nights of the week each committee is on? So the funniest committee is the first Thursday of the month. I just pasted in chat the current proposal that is on the table. It sounds like PDC is a little bit, did it not send? It didn't send, why didn't she send? There it is. It sounds like PDC may still be potentially changing things, but this is the current proposal that is under review for the committees. Sorry, Chuck, what did you mean by that? I'm sorry, I didn't. I pasted in the chat. I'm not sure I understood. I pasted in the chat the current proposal for meetings. I guess in the interest of video dialogue, I'll run through it really quickly. Board would remain unchanged at the second Tuesday of each month. Communications committee would remain unchanged at the Thursday following the third Tuesday of each month. Executive committee would be changed to now be the first and third Tuesdays of each month. Finance not it, it is changed. To now be the first Thursday of each month. Planning and Development committee would be changed to be the Thursday following the board meeting of each month. And policy committee, it would be changed to now be on the first Wednesday of each month. So are you offering this as a motion? No, sir, not the schedule as a motion. We still need to finalize the schedule. What we're going to offer as a motion will be all of the folks that have confirmed that they are on these committees. Ardita, further clarify, people were asking what evenings these committees were meeting so that they could know whether they're available on those evenings. I understand that. Thank you, sir. This thing along perhaps I move the governing board approve the appointment of the members that were mentioned for each committee as they were identified. Second. Seconded by Jeremy Matt. Thank you. Any discussion? Is there anybody that wants to be on a committee that hasn't been recognized? Okay, I don't see any hands. So I think we're ready then. I don't hear any discussion. I don't see any hands. So I believe we're ready to vote on this. Are there any opposed to the motion? Any abstentions? Hearing none. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you for clearing that up. Everyone looking forward to your service. All right. The next item on the agenda is the webinar schedule and this one is something that we can run through very quickly. There is going to be a webinar on, I believe it is the 31st, no, the 1st of March. And then what we're going to do is we will do that first, the first Wednesday of the month for the rest of every other month for as long as that makes sense. So we're gonna go to every other month. It's gonna be the first Wednesday of the month. This month it happens to be March 1st. So that's what, two weeks from now, we're gonna have a webinar update folks on where we are and we will have another one in, not April, we'll have one in May. Three May. Third of May. Alan, your hand is up, sir. Yeah, and what time will they be because we have our policy committee meeting at five o'clock that on the first Wednesdays? I believe they've been at six but I don't remember, is it six 30? Is it later? Was it seven? I apologize, but I only have one screen so I can't look it up. Is it seven? I think it's seven. Should be okay. Yep. And I don't know that we need to have any motion on that. That's just the schedule of the webinar as it's gonna be put forward. Always subject to change. R.D., sir. Do you have any, Jerry, do you have any statistics on attendance to these webinars? I do not, sir. Others may. Is there anyone out there that has any, any knows how many times we've been clicked? So I think the attendance. Go ahead. Janiel, what did you say? There've been 20 or 30 people at the webinar itself but then people will click. The answer that I don't know is how many times people are clicking on the webinar after it's already posted to our website or somewhere else. Okay, understood. Thank you. It would be, it would be an interesting datum to know how many people actually click in on the evening of these webinars. Now on the evening of, during the webinar itself, 20 to 30. Okay, so we have that answer. What we don't know is how many people bring it up the next day or the day after, you know? Okay, excellent. That's something our marketers should know about. Yes, our November update has had, has received 43 views on the website. Good. Thank you. So obviously the attempt here is to maintain some transparency and keep people up to date. And frankly, as they see more fiber being strung, there's gonna be a lot more interest. So I think that we're gonna see something grow. Yeah, personally, I feel it's something that we need to do, we should be doing. So it's, you know, the number of viewers may be small but we are providing the opportunity which I personally believe is something we should be doing. I don't think the word webinar is in the statute, but the numbers described were not small. They were very good. Okay, the next item on the agenda, subscriber agreement and subscription package. Janil, is this gonna be you, Chuck? You're gonna do this together again? Well, there's a couple of things going on here. We got the subscriber agreement approved through legal, but then Weitzfield came back with a few more substantive comments through their contractor, Bodimer. So I'll incorporate some more comments into the subscriber agreement. And then the subscription packages, there's a design that Crawford's working on, the design of the subscription packages that'll be integrated into crowd fiber. David Healy, you're laughing because this is taking so long, but yes, there's a process, there is a process, but there are two separate things here. There's the subscriber agreement that we need to post 45 days in advance of offering service per suit to our CPG. And then there's the design that needs to be integrated for the user interface and experience when people sign up. Janil, my understanding is that there is an action to be taken by the board on this, or am I mistaken? There's no action needed. Just to post the subscriber agreement because we're gonna have to post it 45 days in advance of our offering services. But we're not ready. And we're not ready to do that. Well, I think we are, we just need a motion for it. Motion to approve posting of the subscriber agreement that Janil just described. Second. Seconded by Siobhan, additional discussion. Hearing none, are there any opposed to the motion? Any abstentions? The motion passes, thank you very much. Is there another part to this that needs to be addressed now, Janil, or is that for a later time? Well, we already got an approval of subscription packages. So we just have to finalize the details and get that posted. So that's already been approved. So those two things will be posted. Excellent, thank you. Thank you. All right. Well, we've moved through this in good time. And I think what I'll do, Janil and Chuck, I would like to hand this over to you guys so that you can orchestrate our contractor. And I'll let you two please even follow up with taking questions or whatever that is. You guys have been far more involved in this than I have. So I'll let the two of you run it. So let me hand this over to Janil and Chuck and let them be the emcee for what's coming up next. Janil, would you like me to set some context for the board while you ping Crawford and let them know that we're ready for them? Okay, Crawford is here. We have Andy Windham. We have Ted Rook. We have Jennifer Pakansky. And those three individuals will be, what they have been doing is developing four CV fiber an internal document, this is work product that is not to be a public document but rather is an internal working document for CV fiber to then be the foundation of marketing plan. Marketing plan. So they are developing a brand temple and a brand voice for CV fiber. Again, this is an internal document and they will be presenting that to the delegates for information and feedback. It sounds like we might want to go into executive session for this but Siobhan has our hand up. Let's do that first. That's just what I was going to ask. Do we want to go to an executive session for that? The answer is yes. And what's our grounds for that? Yeah, strategic planning. So let me, I've been using the chat room and I've been putting stuff in there. I don't know if you've seen it. Because, okay, because Chuck you said you put some stuff in there and I haven't seen any of your stuff. So I haven't seen anything recently. Which chat room are you putting it into? The meeting chat room on the website here on the team. The last thing I see from you Ray is 637. Yeah, you didn't see the members of the different committees? Yes, he saw it. Oh, okay. The motion is to move to an executive session to discuss strategic planning that is confidential pursuant to one VS A section 313, Alpha 6, specifically brand development that relate to our strategic plan. And invite, let me find the language on that. Invite members of the board, both delegates, alternates and committee volunteers to attend the session in accordance with one VS A section 313, Alpha 3. Second. And 313 and Bravo. Oh, sorry. Second. All right, seconded by Jeremy. Thank you, Jeremy. And of just a reminder that once we are in executive session, we should not be using the chat. Okay, because the chat does not distinguish that. Chuck, your hand is up, sir, go ahead. Yeah, Ray, that chat still hasn't come through on that motion if you could try to send it again when you have a chance, thank you. I'll do that. I was looking at the participants on the call to make sure we didn't leave anybody out. Did anybody on the call who felt like they weren't included in the invitation? I don't remember hearing representatives of Crawford or did I miss that? And of course, representatives of Crawford. Okay. And just to let Sybil know, I will finish the rest of the minutes after, see, it probably doesn't make sense for you to wait around while we're in executive session. And Ray, I believe to be sure, let's make sure that staff are included. And staff. So delegates, alternatives, community volunteers, staff and the members of Crawford. Thank you. Sybil could stay as a community volunteer, right? Yes, so I mean, I don't know. Usually when we had CVRPC taking the minutes, they would scoot out. If you, do you want me to take notes or not? Not during executive session. We, no, there's no, I mean, that's the whole point of executive session is there is no record of it. Okay. All right. So then it doesn't really make sense for me to stay. Right. And then you just be sitting around twiddling your thumbs for, you know, 45 minutes or however long it takes us to get through this. I think probably have better things to do to spend your time. I might. Thank you, Sybil. Thank you. Good night. Thank you, Sybil. Please remind me, did we get a second on this motion? Yeah, I did. Okay. Seconded by Jeremy Matt. Are there additional discussion? Allen, sir. This is discussion about the motion to go into executive session. Yes, sir. I just want to make sure that people understand how we're doing this and how there are some limits to what we can talk about when we're in executive session. What Ray has cited as a reason why we can go into the executive session is part of the open meeting law section of Vermont statutes. And it reads, records exempt from the access. I'm sorry. This is what allows you to go into an executive session on this issue. Number six says records exempt from the access to public records provisions of section 316 of this title. 316 is the records rather than the meeting part of the statutes. So what we're actually doing is reaching into a claim that we make about the record itself being confidential and premature disclosure would put us at a disadvantage. There's a provision to this, though, that says discussion of the exempt record, the exempt record again is the document we're going to be talking about, shall not itself permit an extension of the executive session to the general subject to which the record pertains. So we have to stay focused on the document, document or documents that are being presented to us and not get off in the general description that's not based on those records. And I think what this provision is trying to do is to make sure that this doesn't become a way where you could make a claim that there's some information from a record that's going to make it impossible for you to have a public session. So you go into executive session and you end up talking about all sorts of other stuff. This tries to limit it to the record itself. So I just wanted to make sure people understood how this is working. That's excellent, Alan. Thank you. That's very helpful. Thank you. Chuck, I see your hand was up. I'm all set. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Oh, right. Chuck, we're gonna provide any more background as to what we're about to be presented with. Yeah, I intend to. I guess the question is, do you want me to wait until we're in the executive session or should I go ahead and do that right now? I think do it now. Well, hearing based on what we just heard from Alan and then we will get the presentation itself will be an executive session. Sounds good. All right, so, yeah. All right, so in order to move us forward in devising a strategic marketing plan of how we are going to go out and engage our communities, how we're going to go out, build a brand awareness and go out and get people to know about us, drive awareness, drive activation by signing up through our website experience and ultimately getting to the end of that becoming a subscriber. We have to do some initial groundwork that helps us articulate what are the fundamentals of how we are going to talk about ourselves and what our identity is in the world at large. So what we're going to be reviewing today is the initial work that is called brand development and in brand development, what you're talking about is what is your identity as an organization and how do you want to talk about yourselves to the world at large? What are your values? What's important to you? What are the things that you want to resonate with customers? What do you want customers to come away from every engagement with you feeling? And that's a very important element of work that really must be done before you can start planning marketing campaigns and have them really resonate and be effective over time. Sure, we could go out and spend money on marketing campaigns without doing any of this work, but this is a thread that ties all of that together and makes it so that you have a cohesive message as you are engaging your audience, your community members, our neighbors. And I will say this work that you're about to see from Crawford has gone through a number of revisions with a small working group that has given them feedback and helps guide them. And I for one, I think it's very, very good work and I'm very pleased with the outcome of it, but I don't want to shape your opinions too much. So I'll leave that at that, but I'm really looking forward to unveiling this to the board today. Just a reminder, this is an internal document for now. Obviously at some point we'll open it back up because everything needs to be open eventually. So there won't be anything to hide once we're comfortable with it as an organization, but right now it is still in development. So consider this an opportunity to provide feedback. Does it resonate with you? Have we hit the mark in what has been developed? Are there red flags or concerns that you have? This would be an opportunity to address those kinds of topics and that will help inform this work such that when we reach the final, final deliverable we'll be in that much of a better place. And with that, I'll stop if there are any other questions, happy to entertain them in the meantime. Excellent discussion, Chuck. Thank you, thank you. Any additional discussion before we vote on going into executive session? I'm not seeing any. Okay, then. Are there any opposed to them? Oh, Jeremy, Matt, go ahead, sir. I was just wondering, have we, I was not 100% paying attention. Have we presented the exact justification for why it can't be public now? It was in the motion. Other than we're trying to... It's internal document of work in progress. Okay, okay. Sounds good. Thanks. And critical to our strategy moving forward. I'm glad that if a competitor was to get this information they could use their dollars to undermine us and that is not a risk we're willing to take. Let's vote then. Any opposed to the motion? Any abstentions? All right, hearing none, the motion passes. Thank you very much. We're going to go into executive session. I am going to stop recording. We are going to executive session at seven o'clock.