 Okay, it's 9 o'clock. Let's get started. Good morning. Welcome to today's meeting of the Jones Library Board of Trustees. I'm going to ask you to indicate your presence. Lee. Present. Thank you, Farah. Here. Jean. Here. Tammy. Present. Thank you. And Austin is present. Okay. I know of no changes or additions to the agenda. The next item, item number three is the approval of minutes of the meeting of January 22nd. Is there a motion to approve the minutes? Move. Is there a second? Second. Thank you very much. Corrections to the minutes. Farah. So I had a few little things like the AMPM and the monthier thing, but maybe that's something I could send Eugene for future reference if that's okay. But the one thing I had was the two main things were item 6B about the buildings and facilities meeting. I think we're meeting in March. We're not meeting this month. 9B, it should read how to act slash respond, not how to action respond. Those were the two big ones. Thank you, Farah. Okay. Other corrections to the minutes of January 22nd. Okay. On the question of approving the minutes, Lee Edwards. Yes, to prove. Farah. Yes. Eugene. Yes. Tammy. Yes. Robert Pam. Yes. And Austin abstain since I wasn't at the meeting. Okay. Next is public comment. We have looks like five people in attendance. Thank you for coming. If anyone would like to make a public comment, if you would raise your virtual hand. Okay. Next item is the president's report. So I want to let you know that we are very close to an agreement, at least having an agreement for you to consider with the Amherst Historical Society. We had very good meeting. We've had some back and forth about the particular details of the agreement. And I think what will happen is we may have to meet between now and our next scheduled meeting to actually review and approve the agreement. The agreement has gone to the town's lawyer. It's been shared with the historical society. And we've got a couple of things that we need to fix. But again, the conversations were, as one would have expected them to be quite constructive in terms of everybody's desire to reach an agreement about this easement. Okay. Any questions about that? And what I hope is that we will, when we have this agreement completed, that is to say, ready for you to look at, we'll meet and review the agreement, the easement. Okay. Next item is the library building committee. The building committee is not met in a while, but a lot of progress is being made. We're in the bidding phase now. It was a walkthrough with general contractors. We are also trying to make some decisions about interim sites. No decisions yet are made, no proposal yet for you all to consider. So that's the report from the building committee. The building committee will be, we have one opening in the building committee for a public member. And interviews will take place pretty soon. So we will hopefully pretty soon have, again, complete membership on the building committee. Anything else, any questions about the building committee? Okay. Next far, buildings and facilities. Do you have any report from buildings and facilities? No, we haven't met since, we haven't met this year yet. But the only thing I do know is that the North Amherst Library had the soft opening. And I don't know when we're having the official opening. Sharon, do we know? No. Maybe sometime in the spring is what Paul was telling me. But we'll probably meet again sometime early March. That's all I know. Yeah. And we do want to just say how fabulous it is that the North Amherst Library is open again from, I haven't been in the building from the outside. It just looks, it just looks fabulous. So this gem of a branch library will continue to serve as it has for a very long time. The residents in particular of North Amherst. So we're really, we're really thrilled. Development committee, Ms. Edwards. The tables in your packet that I'll just read out the results. Right. You also on this continuing on the trend that we've been seeing this year, we're slightly ahead of where we were at the same time last year with a slightly fewer gifts than we had. So we're getting fewer gifts, but the gifts are generally higher. So we're at 88,244 this year versus 81,315 last year, 479 gifts this year, 490 last year. And we're doing our best to figure out what that's about and to find people who have lapsed and see if we can encourage them to come back. And of course, as always, to thank profoundly all those who have so generously given the capital campaign. Again, you have the results. The total for the total at the bottom of the capital campaign is 9,465,919, which was up 40,418 for the month. December we took in almost 240,000. A lot of that was in kind of upside downside to the town council's vote because the vote came late. We probably did not get as much in end of the year contributions as we would have had the vote come earlier. But because the vote did come, it did encourage people to give. And people are starting to fulfill their pledges and in some instances, increase their pledges. So we've also various members of the committee have been working very hard on the historic tax credits and relations with the historic commission, as Austin pointed out. And that has taken a certain amount of time and energy. We are waiting for a large check from our largest institutional donor to come and clear. We understand that that's in the works. And when that happens, we anticipate transferring $800,000 from the capital campaign accounts to the town. So in addition to the 300,000, I understand the library recently transferred from its accounts, from the endowment, from bequests mostly, to the town that will make a million 100,000 of new cash transfers to the town. If you add that to the 500,000 that went over in June of 2022, I believe, that will bring what between the capital campaign and the library has been transferred to the town to a million 600,000. That's my report. Thank you, Lee. Questions for the development committee? OK, thank you, Lee. Thanks for the work. Tammy, anything from personnel planning and policy? We have not met since the last board meeting. We have a meeting scheduled tomorrow morning. I did want to ask Farah if she had any reporting from the Jedi committee. And now we haven't met since our last meeting either, Tammy. And there's been a few surveys coming in since then, so I have nothing to report either. OK. All right, that's it, Austin. Thank you, Tammy. Thank you, Farah. OK, next is the budget committee, Mr. Pam. The budget committee will meet tomorrow, I believe. So I don't have a report on that. However, the basic point about the budget is that the amount that is coming in from the annual appeal is running at roughly the same level as last year, which means that we are likely to be short compared to the budget that we adopted by $60,000 or $70,000. That may or may not make a big difference as long as we are not spending very much because we are basically packing up and moving, and that is not as expensive as some other things could be. It's also been a mild winter so far, so it may balance out. But nonetheless, we still do not have a functioning budget because we don't know where we will be going and we don't know what the cost will be for being there. So it remains something of a black box. Thank you, Bob, questions about the budget? OK, Bob, next is, did you want to say anything about the budget request? Haven't talked about it yet. We will talk about it tomorrow. Right, OK. Next is investment, Mr. Pam. Here there are a couple of things to be said. I have reported in the last couple of meetings that we need to make a decision at this meeting about whether to approve a motion which I will read, which is to continue to invest the Jones Library Incorporated Funds with Vanguard as the investment advisory service is shifted up to Mercer. Let me describe the situation once more. Yes. That's a motion you want to vote on. Yes, the actual words for it as written are to continue to invest the Jones Library Incorporated Funds with Vanguard. As Vanguard transitions, it's institutional outsourced chief investment officer business to Mercer. Bob, just one second. Is there a second to that motion, please? Second. Thank you. OK, Bob. OK. Vanguard decided that it would sell its advisory service business to Mercer, which is a offshoot of Marshall MacLennan, which is a very large business involving the investment in services of various kinds. So they are a major player in the insurance world. They're a major player in a variety of other worlds, including the investment advisory services to for-profit companies. They had decided they wanted to expand more into the nonprofit world, and Vanguard is one of the larger players in that world. So they have made an offer to Vanguard. Vanguard has essentially accepted it, and it will probably close. They had originally plans for February 15. I believe it's now late March or April. The result of that will be that the whole investment advisory services that we have received will be transferred over to Mercer. The basic rules and operations of that business will not change. However, their access to information will come not from Vanguard, but from Mercer, which has similar kinds of services. Our team will not change. They have been offered incentives to stay and to stay for a while. So consequently, what we would expect will be largely the same. Vanguard has separately from this been slowly evolving. It's monthly reporting and quarterly reporting, and that's not likely to change immediately, although who knows what it will look like in a year. I have been thinking about and looking at some of the alternatives for what we are doing, and most of them are substantially more expensive and are not something that I would want to do in a short term move. So my recommendation is that we sign the appropriate papers to allow our current advisory group to continue to provide services. And over this coming year, we should actually take a look at what other alternatives there are. As Mercer at that point will tell us what changes they will be providing. That's my report on that. So there are questions. Yeah, questions about this transition to Mercer. So Bob, can we be a little, so this notion that they're transferring their advisory services, does that mean they're transferring their whole business or they're going to retain some part of their business where they actually manage the investments? What does it mean in terms of Vanguard? Well, what we buy from Vanguard are actual accounts. And what we buy are a variety of investment products from Vanguard. And all of those will not be changed by this transaction included in those products are custody of their products. It is conceivable. Well, it's more than conceivable. It is accurate to say that as a Mercer advisory service, they may well offer and encourage additional investments which might be different. If so, then those investments would have different profiles in terms of costs and they would have different profiles in terms of custody and so on. But if we choose not to change what we are investing in, then none of those things would change. I am told that the actual fees for the advisory services they do not plan to change at this time. Since basically what they are buying is a book of business, it would be silly for them to immediately say, OK, now that we have you as a client, we're going to triple your fees. I know that would not encourage people to say. So I don't expect the fees to change anytime immediately, although I don't know who Mercer is. Well enough to say whether it will be like six months or a year from now. Yeah. And one other thing, Bob, you said that they've incentivized some of their staff to stay. So we would anticipate that at some period of time those people would make transition out and we would then have to deal with other people that Mercer would provide. Well, we are now dealing with our fourth investment advisor as our Vanguard representative. It is my understanding that they encourage the people to stay now and probably have an incentive structure which would encourage them to stay for a while. There are roughly 200 people in the advisory service and I'm told most of them are going over. Good job. OK, other questions about this transition to Mercer? OK, Bob, anything else on investment? Whoa, whoa, whoa. Sorry, my bad. So we're going to vote on the motion to approve the continuation of this relationship as the transition goes on to Mercer. So voting on the motion, yes. Who approve? No, not to approve Lee Edwards. Yes. Barr? Yes. Eugene? Yes. Tammy? Yes. Bob? Yes. Austin votes yes. Thank you. OK, Bob. OK, the one question that I would have is there's paperwork that requires a signature. I'm not yet sure whether it is my signature or your signature. That will be required. OK. OK, anything else from investment? Well, as always, there is a report which is that as of January 31st, the endowment account had a value of $8,814,076.78. And the Woodbury Fund had a value of $726,773.03. So this has been a good couple of months. It is nice to have it rise by basically a million dollars over the last six months. It'd be nice if I could say that that is always going to be the case, but that is not what I get to say. Now, that is where that is. The reports are available if anybody wants to actually read them. They're somewhat detailed. And they give a fairly clear picture of what we're doing in town. Any other questions about investment? OK, thank you. The next item is a report from the Friends of the Jones Library System. And I see Elaine Donahue is there. Hi, Elaine. Hi, I've been listening. Thank you for joining us. Sure. Starting next month, Rich Morse will be the liaison with the trustees. We had toyed with taking turns, but I think a consistent person is a good idea. So I asked him if he would be interested. And he was, but he couldn't make it this month. We're meeting tonight. So we have not had a meeting since the last time I reported. And that was on the fact that we finished selling Edith Byron's paintings and made about $9,000. We are planning on having what Nancy calls a brainstorming session on March 18th, sort of looking at the future of the Friends, what our plans are, things like that. And I think Lee and Kent are going to join us. So yeah, that will be next month. Anybody can join who wants to. And I think, oh, and we did start clearing out the third floor room of our stuff. But it might take a little while, but there's not too much. It's OK. I hope it was a joyous cleaning. It was a very dusty cleaning with lots of sneezing going on. There's a lot of stuff up there. If anybody's interested in bows and ribbons, I think it was from the time of Katie George, when he used to do the Valentine baskets. There are boxes full of really nice ribbons and bows and things like that, which I'm hoping to find a good home for. Great. Thank you. OK, any questions for Elaine, but the Friends? So we can't say it often enough. So let's say it how grateful we are for the work that the Friends do for your dedication to the library. It is absolutely remarkable, and we are very grateful. And we'll look forward to hearing what happens to the ribbons. Yes, thank you. And the rest of the stuff up there. Yeah, thanks. OK, any questions for Elaine? OK, great. Thanks, Elaine. All right, next is the director's report, Sharon. Nothing for me. Thank you. OK, so I think we are done. So it's Bob. Yeah, I have a personal note that I think is required, and that is that my son in Washington DC is expecting to have a baby, and he has requested that his grandparents be available to help, and that has led myself and my wife to think about moving to the Washington DC area. And consequently, I don't know exactly how quickly or when this will happen, but it is likely to occur before my term is over, and probably before the year is over, so I thought I should let you know that. It will be something of a lurch for me, but I am preparing for that. First and most importantly, mausole tough. That is fabulous. Second, word is planned to come to fruition. It would be an enormous loss for the Board of Trustees. You've done amazing work for us in all ways, Bob, and we are incredibly grateful for the work that you do and grateful that you gave us a heads up as the plan matures, and you are clear about when you might transition off the Board. Again, it would be great if you would let us know. And we wish you the best in thinking about that move. The weather will be better there. The library can't be as good, but the weather will be better. Transitions probably require that as this gets firmed up, we may want some people to be getting more active in the things that I've been doing. Yeah, absolutely. And I think the process is if, in fact, this transition comes to fruition, you would submit a letter of resignation and the town would go through a process of appointing a successor who would serve out the remainder of your term. Yes. OK, Yafar. On the plus side, Bob, you can bring your new grandchild to the new library, and they could actually make use of the updated library. Look forward to it. OK, everybody, thank you so much. Stay well. Keep your masks on. Stay well. We'll see you soon. Take care. Bye-bye. Take care. Bye-bye.