Economic Development Commission - Regular Meeting

Evening [Music] everybody. Hi Greg. Thanks for everybody who's joining us. Uh we were just saying ahead of time, I don't know if you could hear us, but Justin has something to do. I hadn't heard from Carl or Nicole, but um in any event, this is sort of a recap um of our spring 2025 business meeting at uh Reunion Tap and Table and it went it went very well. I have a write up that I'll be sending to you folks and I did collect business cards and I know I already have William's write up. Thank you very much, William. Um so people were pretty enthusiastic. We the turnout was smaller of course. We had about 25 folks uh outside of our own fo uh outside of our own group here. And they were what they what we lacked in numbers we made up for in quality and enthusiasm because this group was um very very vocal about uh giving us suggestions about a number of things. They were very good about intermingling and um basically networking. So the question I've had since then is when are we going to do this again? Um Craig, uh William, can you tell me how much did that cost us because you have the credit card? Yeah, I don't know what the final tab was. Um I'm thinking it was around 1,500 but maybe uh will know the real number. It was right around it may have been 1,400, but it was it was right in that record. Okay. So, that's that's that's good to know because we want to be very

cognizant of the budget because we are not yet a line item on the budget and we don't want to blow it. Uh, a couple of thoughts that I had just administrative somewhere along the line. I I think that and this is just little nitpicky stuff, but it's important. Um, I think that there was like a communication gap because when we got in there, the uh girl who was bartending, she just had pictures of water out and I would have thought, "Hey, sodas." And she did put them out when I when I asked her about it and I mentioned it um to the folks at Reunion Tap and Table. The other thing was I guess they didn't really get um what our meeting was going to be about. So we we ended up pushing tables back to make space. So it was okay, but just in the future probably we, you know, if we if and when we do this again at another venue, we should just be more specific. I would say all things considered, the post office pub was um better at doing this probably because they do more events and that room they have is good. But it was all good. The important thing on this was that we had um a very enthusiastic crowd. They they really want uh our help. Um, one thing that we did uh that I did mention to people and I'd like to put it out for consideration here uh in asking the attendees, the small business owners, how we could help them and would it be helpful if we could do little writeups highlighting, you know, business of the week or business of the month. Yeah. uh just to show that they're here because when you

go on to the Grafton Facebook pages, all things Grafton, Grafton informed, one theme that is recurring is that the the members on these things that you know there's like 4,000 members, 5,000 members on certain of the Grafton pages is they would like um they ask, "Hey, does anybody know a good electrician or a plumber or who do you recommend for landscaping?" Things like this. and they those posts get a lot of replies and suggestions. So, one way that we could help is just put it out there on our on our web page and we have to update our web page on there to show events and things like this. Um, is that anybody who would like a profile done, please let us know and we'll put your name in quue to do it. I am perfectly happy as you know a reporter because it's my stock and trade to do these little writeups and we could put down a I could put together a template to make it easy for people just to say okay um name of business location how long in business fill in the blanks what tell us about yourself what do you like best about Grafton what are your suggestions for doing uh bring attracting businesses to Grafton, things like that. So that it would it would be easy peasy. If say Sean, you decided you wanted to do one, right? All you have the template, all you have to do is ask the questions or actually you wouldn't even have to ask unless you wanted to. We could email it to these folks or you spend a you know little time on the phone with them and then right boom we print it out. It could be on Grafton letterhead, right? What does everybody think about that idea? Um, Laura, do you think we could just

take a pause and officially call our meeting to order since we have we're just hitting a quorum and two of us are remote? So, if we could just call the meeting to order and announce our names and do a roll call vote. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Angela. Usually Justin calls me calls me out on that. Um, so yes. Okay. So this is um Wednesday, June 18th, 2025 meeting of the Grafton Economic Development Commission meeting. We're calling this to order. I'm Laura Dio, the chairperson. I'm present here at GCTV. Sean Sean Mack, president here. One more time. Go ahead, Craig. Sorry, I'm breaking off in my ear. And Angela, thank you, Laura. Okay. And also present on uh representing the town is William Blake, our assistant town administrator. So, what does how how do people feel about this? So, I think your your question, Laura, is about better use of our website, the Economic Development Commission website, and being able to highlight our local businesses. And you're looking for feedback on you creating a template that businesses could use if they would like to um have their services, their products, just basically their business advertised on the the website. So, I'm I'm in favor of of you creating a template that our board could take a

look at um at an upcoming meeting. We could review and discuss. Yes. Okay, Sean. Yeah. Go ahead, Craig. No, I was going to say I think that's a great thought from Angel agree. Um any way we can communicate with business community and um either internally or externally I think is is good for local business. So, it's a great idea. My my thinking is yes, it's a great idea and I we should definitely do it or try it. How would you avoid the uh someone eventually saying, "Well, this one's getting more press than I'm getting." you know, would we have to make it part of the rules for us putting their name and face up, their profile up there? Uh, you know, is it a a first come, first serve basis? Is it a seasonal basis? And you, I'm not saying trying to be negative about it, but you you wouldn't want someone to feel slighted that again, as I said, someone's getting more press than someone else. So we could do it as a link on our website so no one would have more room than another business and you could just put it in a simple alphabetical order. And so I I've seen this on on many professional websites. It's it's a link and then you get a list of of your businesses and the template that I it's Laura's great idea. So the template that she's suggesting to create, you'd go to that link and you'd be able to see the I think basic information is what she's identifying about a business. And the example she gave us before this was all things Grafton. So if someone was

saying, "Do you have anyone that you would recommend for lawn care services?" people would see the replies where if you came to the economic development website, you could see a link and we could have it categorized by services. Yes, exactly. I was just going to say that. Like pet services was a big thing. Yeah. So, it's not like it it's not like a like how many inches of like a square page ad does someone get? Um but more of a a link that we add and we can build off of. Yes. and William was good enough to give us the list of businesses in Grafton that we sent out the emails to. We could replicate that list on the website, you know, just again a link here are the here are the businesses. We could have it in alphabetical order and then do a deeper dive and categorize things as Angela was saying. So, electricians, plumbers, petsitting services, babysitting, um food, you know, because we do have several businesses like that, you know, where they do chocolates and cakes and what have you. People tend to like those things. So, yeah, I mean, so they are free to participate. We can also once we get this going, I would think it would be a great idea if we could um post the links on the various Grafton Facebook pages that gets a lot of eyes on. Yeah. And say, "Hey, this is open to everybody, every grafted business." Um, you know, if you have any questions, contact us. Um, and here's, you know, here's what we'll here's what we can do. So, if they elect not to participate, they that's that's

their choice, but they will still be listed under the businesses in Grafton that we could, you know, link to, right? Okay. Yeah, that fit. And it it shows that we're doing something outreach, communication, collaboration, right? And it it's not going to cost the town anything to do this, right? You know, which, you know, with tight budgets, I mean, I think that this is something, you know, visible that we could we could do, right? Okay. And if we had the template, it would be easy peasy for them to fill it out and then um one or all of us to review it and just go over some of the things with them and put it up there. Yeah, that sounds good. I also think that if you're willing to create the template, you can also replicate it as an online form. So that way if somebody doesn't want to fill it out by hand, they can just do it like that and have it sent directly to the entire committee. Oh yeah, absolutely. Be a great way to rejuvenate the current business directory that's on the EDC page by, you know, getting new businesses on there and also expanding what's already there. Yeah. So, um I think uh that would um that would be great and that would be something that we can do in the next over the next couple of months in the summer. So, uh but I think that that was one of the big takeaways. There is enthusiasm Yeah. here and willingness and people certainly it it might even lead to collaboration amongst the businesses once you know they do this because I did um Alan Vilatorro who is the CEO at discerned right he was talking to a couple of people about how you know they might be able to work

together etc right so I mean I think I think it's it's good so now this is to build upon that in some practical ways where we are more visible to the community at large, the business people as well as Grafton residents. So, um, anybody Craig, you have anything you'd like to add? No, not at this time. Thanks. Okay. Okay. So um so that was number two. Uh moving on to the third item in the agenda discussing upcoming EDC initiatives and guest speakers. Uh I did have a phone conversation with Christina Escobar who is the uh with the SBA. uh she's the director there at the SBA and she's also uh and she does the lending programs and she's also involved at the Worcester Business Development Corp. She emailed me some of the brochures that they have as well as some of the PowerPoint presentations that they do when they go to present to people. Um she and I discussed the possibility or potential uh if everyone here thinks it's a good idea of basically addressing us here about what they could do. She's not available in July, but that's, you know, could be a potential. But we do have the in the meantime we do have the PowerPoint presentations that she sent and there's a potential you know to put that up on our our

website or link or just put the link there so it goes back to them because that's the 504 the SBA 504 loan programs and she did mention that there are already several uh minority and womenowned small businesses in Grafton that have taken advantage of these known programs. One of them being um the dental associates. Okay. So, there's a couple and she said there was another one in progress. So, it would be and by the way um this SBDC is a free she gave us um links to free resources on business development and things like this. So if there's somebody for example at the meeting that we had uh our business meeting uh there was a very nice girl Natalie Batista who came and she has her own K9 solutions the professional yes pet services training pets sitting thing somebody like Natalie might be able to really make use of these resources possibly get a loan when she's doing that. But there's all sorts of resources that they have that we could link to to their sites, you know, to help people out and just say we can put that as we populate our our site more. Hey, here are some resources for people who are just starting out, loan resources, how to develop your business, things like this. So, um, that was there, but I I certainly think it would, you know, if you're all on board, it might be interesting to have Christina present to us at some point.

I I'm familiar with some of this. Uh, I don't know that we would per say need to have her come in and present to us the way that the other gentleman we had last meeting was here. I think something on that idea, we might use that as a agenda item for our next meet and greet session with small businesses because again to give them something more than a free pizza. Oh, not pizza literally, but you know, free dinner or whatever. Hey, don't knock those free pizzas. I know they were I should I Yeah, you know, free food. Let's put it that way. So, something like this. All right, come on. have have dinner with us and listen to this person tell you about a it's a free course a free a free course on how to work your business. Granted, it would be a a cliffnotes version, but still if there were people out there that had never heard of SBA or this SBDC, again, I I won't keep repeating myself, but I just think that would be a great agenda item to get more people in the door. And that's one help that people would have or we can one help. So, I agree. however we, you know, however we we want to do it, right? So, Angela, what do you think? I think that that's a great a great idea. I think it would be nice um heard definitely heard interest from the attendees that they would love to see these types of gettogethers

quarterly. I think we could probably work toward having a fall event so that 2025 had both a spring and a fall event. and invite a guest speaker. Added add a little bit more structure to our next meeting, our next inerson gathering. Exactly. Well, we'll get better at this now that we're you know um having regular meetings again. Craig, your thoughts? I know you've been very good at getting people to address us. Did you have any thoughts on this or and also any thoughts on who we might have in here as a guest speaker. Um, I don't have any specific thoughts about a guest speaker. Okay. I guess there's a lot of there's a lot of options I guess and we should probably compile a list maybe uh Will can help us with that. Um, just because he has an internal perspective. Um, but any anybody in the local community I think would be great if if you know if they have something to bring to the table. But I think, you know, I think just communication in general think we need to build that. I think we, you know, that's something that the the committee should focus on. We don't have a lot of um communication with the business business community. We just had the, you know, the event at our reunion, but um you know, we just had a presentation um at our meeting last night from the emergency management uh committee. You know, they compiled an incredible and we can't share that with the business community, but just to make them aware that there is a plan, you know, for their employees and if they had any questions, we do have a committee that they could reach out to, you know, in case there is, god forbid, an emergency in town, uh, our public safety folks will, you know, will step

forward and they will implement the plan. um from a variety of it's amazing you know the amount of things you don't think about um that they have compiled um but anyways stuff like that and we are doing a um one of the things that the select board does and is called ask me anything so um we all take turns doing that and me and Mark Elamo are up to do one and we've been kind of procrastinating to put it on um but we're going to be scheduling that and That might be a thing where we reach out to the business community and invite them to come in and not that we're going to have all the answers for them, but um for them to be able to come in and ask questions that, you know, we can either answer or take back to um to the administrative team and ask them, you know, for a you know, a full response. So, it's things like that. I think we need to we need to keep that dialogue going with them and so that we build that relationship and that trust. Um we can do it through through either scheduled meetings, events, um you know that that the town puts on. Just an aside here, um, the Grafton Emergency Management Committee of which I am a member and Kathy Cedarberg is the head of it does amazing amazing work. Not only do we have plans, I'm working on u a plan right now to uh on emergency evacuations of horses if if something happens. But we have so many resources there and this is one of those things where you can really it's very very practical and hands-on. So and she gets a lot of grants and

things like this. So um it's a it's a real model for the it's a real model for the rest of us even though we don't different committees function in different ways and have different needs but um it's a great job there and there are a lot of resources as well for the town. But yeah, um so um I thought that I if we're if we were talking about having regularly scheduled meetings with businesses and go back to having this guest speaker, let's call it a a seminar, mini seminar type forum instead of trying to have it in a in a place such as a restaurant or whatever. I We have rooms available in this building or not the in the town hall where we could advertise this seminar and uh have enough seats to uh you know have everybody in the room. Yes. I I know the in the select the room they have the selectman you know there's a lot of space unfort not unfortunate but you have to have the space for the board to sit and the desk and stuff and so you have room for say 20 whatever people if we had a room similar to this that room but with more seating room as opposed to more desks you know I think that would be an idea and yes maybe in the beginning we don't have that many bodies in the in the room. But if it becomes a regular scheduled event and we have quality, you know, information that we're giving out, I think it would grow on itself. So both conference room A, which is the select board meeting room and conference room F, which is where the school committee meets, uh, has capacity for

48, I want to say. Okay. But they're also fully remote capable. So, if somebody was on Zoom and wanted to participate, they'd be able to. Okay. Um, alternatively, if you were looking for more seating capacity, there's the public meeting room at the library, which is open, right? Okay. So, yeah, that that's a thought. I forgot about the library. Okay. So, I like this library. And, you know, don't necessarily have to have food. As long as you have refreshments of some sort, you know, then Yeah. All right. Well, that's a good idea. my my two cents. Um, we definitely have businesses in town who offer catering services. So, we could we could um I like Sean's idea and would be in favor of considering that for our fall conference. Yeah. Okay. Actually, all you have to do is get Chuck Brown of Bread Guy Bread. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm I'm thinking as as Carl has has mentioned a couple of times, you it's the same big businesses in town that keep tap that get tapped all the time. I'm thinking if we were to do, you know, coffee and tea and, you know, a little pastry as it's a low budget, the room the room is free. Coffee is reasonable, you know. So, a low budget thing, the big our biggest cost would be time and advertising and getting I think that way. Yeah. Most of the advertising can be, you know, digital online, you know, and just making up. I mean, that's the way a lot of things go. That was one thing that I don't know if anybody had the opportunity to ask. How many of the folks that actually showed up showed up because we handed them a flyer and asked them to show up or did they read about it on, as you said, some digital format? It was all things Grafton. The majority

of people that I spoke to had heard of it that day with a posting of All Things Grafton. Okay. Yeah. I spoke to a couple of people who had actually responded to the mailings. Now, it was funny. We only got about 15 or 20 responses from the mailings. And some of the people who said that they were going to come from the mailings and filled out the forms, they weren't the ones who showed up. Yeah. So, okay. Make of that what you will. It's just a little It's just a little ironic. So, um that is Angela makes a a good point, though. I mean, people saw it that day on all things Grafton and said, "Hey, we'll be there." Yeah. So, well, my the only I say negative that I thought of was the fact the timing of it because we were comparing it to the first event that we had in January. And and really, you can't because it's not apples and apples. someone with looking for something to do or with nothing to do on a cold Thursday night in January as opposed to a nice warm spring night, you know, in March or February. You know, there's there's a there's a big difference there. You know, when you start thinking of spring, you're not thinking about going someplace staying inside. We did have we did have heavy rain on the night of the event, so there were some people that couldn't make it. talked about some of the challenges who did make it and and that could have been an issue for some who didn't. Yeah. Or somebody said, "Hey, I'm going to go." And then they take a look out the the window and said, "Eh, maybe not." So, you just don't know. I mean, I was surprised that we got about a hundred people back in January of 2024, you know, but maybe people were just going stir crazy. Yeah. I don't, you know, it's it's just one of those

things. Um, uh, does anybody have anything else that they'd like to add for any potential ideas for upcoming EDC initiatives? Is without going too deep into it, National Night Out is is right around the corner. I know it's it's I know what it's for and what it's about. Would it be wrong to say or ask if we could have allow some businesses to set up a table and and hand off flyers or whatever? Well, I know that the Grafton Emergency Management Committee does it and they hand out like some Yes, but that I'm I'm talking over here a little Grafton Emergency Management falls right in line with part of the reason for having National Night. Yes. No, I know that. you know, so but if if we were say, hey, listen, you're going to have tons of towns people, maybe you could set something up off to the side and you know, I mean, I'm assuming Dunkin Donuts gives out free coffee or whatever, but that's that's a whole another type of business because it's a franchise and whatever, but I don't know. Is it is it right or wrong to say let's invite businesses to set up a table similar to a Not necessarily a flea market, but or yacht yacht sale. Yeah. I don't want I I think it would be good for the EDC to set up a table. Yeah. Okay. You see management. I don't know if we could invite businesses because that might be a huge undertaking in a lot of tables. If you know everybody took us up there for people there. Okay. All right. I I was thinking if they're showing up, they're bringing their own table. We're not doing it. Well, then the the Okay, so that's a two-edged sword. What I

would say, in theory, it sounds great, but you don't know who's going to show up and you ask people to respond RSVP, so you get an idea, but then you could have a run on people who say, "Hey, I want to show up." And there's no room for them. So, that's my, you know, but yeah, I like the idea of if if we're going to have an EDC table, then who's going to man it? What are we going to have on it? etc. Because it is we have a EDC table. You ask people, you say to them, just like the bulletin board in in the in the coffee shop, you want to put your business card on a bullet board. We're going to have an EDC table. You want your business card on want us handing out your business card or on our bulletin board, whatever you want to say it. Send us some business cards and we'll put them on the table. What else can you do? that that that's one way of offering people to advertise their business or talk about their business a little bit. Yeah. I mean, I like the idea. What's What's another word for bulletin board on the wall? Shameless. Well, it sounds like you're strong. You're talking almost like a trade show like not not at not at first night out, but I mean it's you know that that just made me think of maybe we should do instead of the the business networking night like we did at reunion do like a trade show and let businesses set up a table and make it make it about them so they can kind of promote okay what they're as a local business. Okay. Now would we we would have to reach out to Grafton PD for National Idaho? Yeah. Yes. And say, "Hey, is there space? Is this feasible?" Yeah. I'd be happy to touch base with the chief to Okay. inquire about that.

Yeah. That's okay. Action item. Okay. William, what would we do without you? One more thing, if I could have the floor just for a second. Um, time's up. Um maybe um sorry maybe after Labor Day um one of the things that I've that I'm trying to push the board to do my board is to uh bring in um bring in committees that we appoint um at you know have one at least one committee come in at each meeting um and kind of report what they're doing and get input from the select board and kind of just do kind of informational slash brainstorming session with the board. It could be, you know, 15 minutes, doesn't have to be long. And we're going to kind of try and rotate through all the committees between now and and um the end of the year because we know after the end of the year it becomes budget season and then you know it's it's uh off to the races. So we do have a window of time where we have I think agenda space Yes, we get committees to come in and and this is an important one for the town. We're trying to get it get it started again. Um so I I was wondering if the committee would be willing to come in um if we can get get the EDC on on the agenda to come in and talk to the board. Okay. Yeah, why not? Yeah. Okay. Absolutely. I think it's a great idea. So they they would present to us or we would go in and present to them. No, you go you go to the select board and you tell them what you're doing. Oh, yeah. That's fine. I mean, I know that that

was um in the past that was something that they had brought up in prior years, but it never happened. So, yeah, I'm I'm happy to do that and share the stage with u Sean, Justin, Angela, whoever. And okay, see I think it's I think it's a good idea because Yeah, that great. So I can Yeah. So I can I I'll talk to the board. We'll pick a a night and um make sure that we have, you know, a meeting to kind of prepare. Um, not that we we don't have to put on a big dog and pony show, but just kind of just um get focused on, you know, a few things that we, you know, just let them know what we're doing and then get their thoughts on uh maybe some things that we could that we could do in the in the coming year. Yeah. I mean, it makes sense. I mean, I think one of the things that is imperative for not just the EDC, but all of these committees is to have better communications and collaboration in order to foster that spirit of cooperation and then move things forward because we we haven't quite frankly had that in the past couple of years. I mean for whatever reason and certainly you know postcoid that was an issue then we were just reccalibrating and there were some big changes with people leaving the EDC last year and that wasn't communicated to us some of those changes it was in a halfhazard manner so this would this would certainly go a long way towards rectifying that and moving ahead and getting the you getting the initiative back. Yeah. You know, it's it's like you know you know we this group not this specific group but this committee has never really gotten a lot of traction

and I like I tell my members of my association we are where we are because of who we are. So I and I know we can do um we can get this machine moving. Um, which brings me to your earlier question, Laur, you know, maybe a guest speaker or who we can have come in. And I know Carl, um, he's not here tonight, but he had mentioned bringing in, um, the EDC chair or commissioner, uh, from either Westbrow or Wro. We still haven't done that yet because they have really robust thriving EDC um committees and you know in their communities and you know that's what we're all striving for. So you know um you know if they're willing to come in and I think they are we could certainly use their their knowledge and experience to help us. Yeah. So is Carl going to he had that contact. So, I guess what we could do is I'll send out an email and copy everybody and just ask Carl um if he would be willing to reach out to those folks again. [Music] So, I'm I'm in favor of Craig going forward and um giving us like a a date that you propose that we come to the select board. And I think one person from our group presenting to the select board would be very helpful. And then as many of our members that can be in the audience to attend would be very helpful. It would be an efficient use of the time. Yes, I agree, Angela. Um, just as a related topic, I think that within our um within our own rank and file, we should start considering attendance for our economic development

commission. So, we've got, you know, we're appointed without a cuto off date. And I think my takeaway from our spring event is that we do have other businesses in town who would have an interest in being a representative on the EDC. And I think that it helps to to have our own self assessment and see who really has the time to give to the EDC. um because it's it's tough to have a committee if we're not all, you know, regularly attending meetings. So, I know that we've had a couple of suggestions in the past um with presenters. I know there has been outreach and we've scheduled it and we put it on the agenda and it just didn't work out except for what Craig was able to make happen and that was great. So, I would just say as as we're looking ahead, we should really start thinking about having an honest discussion as as an EDC about time commitments and availability to give on on the EDC. I agree. And but we'll need the full complement of members to to discuss that. But, you know, I think it's Yeah. And if we don't have the full complement of members, I'm happy to make it an agenda item and let everybody on the EDC know about it. And if they choose to show up, that's great. If they choose not to, as long as we have a quorum, have a discussion. And I think we all have experience serving on other committees. And just as Craig has pointed out, our our committee is only as strong as those of us who are representing and engaging and working together.

Yeah, I know it has been it has been challenging the past couple of times like I didn't I had to cancel the May meeting because nobody could show up except what myself and one other person. So, and I had to do that at the last minute. It's sort of like hurting cats. Yes. You know, and I know everybody I know everybody's busy. Um, so I and I and I hear you, Laura, and I think um I think that the goal was to get as many of our EDC members at that spring event and so May and May is a it's a tough month, but I don't want to engage this in some discussion. I just am hearing the discussion this evening and I'm happy to present this um as a request for a future agenda item so that there's plenty of notice that's given. It's just a tough situation when there's not a a cut off to the appointments on the EDC. Yes, we really have to self police and just in a very professional collegial manner have an honest discussion because there there is interest within the business community in our town to learn more about the EDC and also an interest to participate on it. And so we do have a slot in our I'll call it in our enabling orders that tells us what our role is. how many are like an atlarge member who's a who's a a member of the business community. So, I don't want to take up more time on this because I know we're approaching the 8:00 hour and I think that we've been judicious. We're trying to keep our meetings to an hour. So, Laura, I'm going to turn the floor back to you so we can move through the rest of the agenda. Okay. So, the rest of the agenda is just um number four item, other EDC business. And the only EDC other business that I can think of, you all might have some thoughts, is that we

need to set the dates for upcoming meetings. Um, my thought, and I just want to put this out here for discussion. Um, normally the third Wednesday in July would be July 16th. So, we might Does how do people feel about skipping July or August or July, you know, one of those months because summer summertime is tough. I mean, I'm certainly going to be here, but I mean, I know things come up and we can't always predict them, but I I do know that summer is tough. So, do we want to have meetings in both July and August? The only I think the only item we would need to discuss in July is if we're going to have a presence at National Night Out. If if we we can or cannot. If we can and we we want to put something together, then you would we'd want to have you talk about it. But again, this is something that we need to have a meeting about. We're not voting on anything. We're not spending money. We're just finding out who who might be available. night out and you know do some table sitting really that's all we need to we need to find out if we can be there and I having been there before with other committees yes I'm sure we can and then who can do table sitting and that's really what we would need to discuss in July so then August we start talking about okay our fall business networking meeting so I would say July we could maybe do without and then definitely plan a meeting for August. So, yeah. To get ready for September, right? I I think that's a good idea. Uh

Craig, Angela, what do you both think? Angela, you want to go? Sure. I That's fine. That's fine with me. It's just that the August meeting, we would probably be really needing to push through that so that we could prepare for a fall a fall event. So that would either be pro it would probably be October given that September can be very busy for folks back to school and other items going on with work. Okay. So then an August meeting would be Wednesday, August 20th. Okay, I'm available. Okay, that's fine. Me, too. I would just ask Will um Will, can you uh could you run down if we could have a just a tabletop for um for the July event for the Grafton Night Out? Yep. Yep. I've already made note to uh contact the chief about that. What is the exact date for Grafton Night Out? Thank you. Second Tuesday of August is it? Last year it was August 8th. I believe it's always in the first half of August. Okay. So then this this year it might be August 12th or August 5th. It's usually on the night of a select board meeting. Traditionally it has and we'll get down there early but then we have to go back up to meet. I don't know if that's the case this year or not. Will I'm sure Will knows. Okay. Uh Tuesday avoid the dunking booth, you know. So yeah, Tuesday, August 5th, I believe, is the day for this year. Okay, great. Okay, so that's good. So are do we want to take a

vote on skipping the July EDC meeting? Yeah, I don't think we need a vote on that. just our next meeting for um whatever is August 16th or 20th whatever you said August 20th yes August that would be August 20th and then we'd be looking at after that September 17th and then um after that it would be October 15th but we'd be looking to do I like the idea of doing an event in October, you know. Okay. As well, but of course that's it's still early days. So, sounds good. Laura, I think we're sticking to the third Wednesday of the month. I think that's that's helpful for people as they're looking at that calendar. So, I think that sounds good. And I agree a vote isn't needed for the for the scheduling, but I appreciate you asking for a consensus. Yeah. So, um Angela, are you going to write up the minutes of the meeting? I will and I'll get that out to our group. Yes. Okay. Um and so it'll it'll come out as a draft and then we can make a motion at the next meeting to be able to vote to approve them. But I think as long as we have a draft so people know what was discussed. Yeah. So that that'll be great. So we can we can just keep up with uh things. So meanwhile, um we'll just I'll I'll just send out an email and you can also put it in the minutes, Angela, separately just in case somebody misses one or the other that uh we've decided not to hold a July meeting. Sure. Yeah. So everybody knows. Sounds good. All right. So, does anybody have anything else? Or if if you do,

speak up now. Otherwise, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Motion. So, move. Second. Okay. And then Laura, if you would, just because Craig and I are remote, if you would please do the roll call and we'll we'll just go in order. So if you want to start with yourself, we just have to do a roll call to close the meeting because two of us are remote. Okay. So Laura Dio EDC chairperson uh voting to adjurnn. Thank you. Sean second in favor to adjurnn. Go on a. Okay. Terrific. Meetings adjourned. 7:58 p.m. Wishing everyone a great weekend ahead and a happy July. Yes, thank you. Take care. Thank you. Have a great night. All right.