Economic Development Commission - Regular Meeting

[Music] Good evening everybody and uh thanks for being here tonight. Um I'm going to call the meeting to order first of all and we'll start with a roll call. Let's start with the folks who are dialing in by Zoom. Hi, it's Angela. Nicole Eier, Laura Dio, and Justin Wood is here and we'll wait from the town.

Okay, great. Uh, thanks everybody. Um, so Craig cannot Craig Dolphin cannot join us because he is at the library with uh Mark Alimo. They are having a uh it's an open mic question, ask us anything. Um, I am not sure. Carl said he would be he planned to attend by Zoom and I had not heard anything from Sean. So, but we now have a quorum.

So, um, the first order of business um is of course uh let's further the discussion of the EDC meeting. I'm not sure, Angela or Nicole, if you saw that uh what I had said a few weeks back that after looking uh searching for what dates we could get. I know we didn't want to go into November, but the only time we could get the library was the first November 4th. A lot of other things were, you know, booked for October, the month of October. So, it wasn't going to work. So, I didn't think November 4th, all things considered was uh bad. So, the good news is we have the Grafton Public Library, the big room for the event. So, that will hold up to 125 people. Um, so what I'd like to do tonight is firm up some of the logistics, including, you know, who we'd like to do the catering. I mean, it's going to be, you know, simple, you know, sandwiches, some cookies, maybe some pizza, etc. Um, So, I guess um I'd like to get everyone's input. Angela, do you want to start?

Um I was thinking about Bush and Pack. So, local business offers catering such as what you described and they're close to the library. Yes, I I thought the same. I thought the same. Uh Nicole, what do you think? Yeah, I think that's a great idea. And um whenever I've gotten catering from Bushel impact. It's been the food has been great and um super easy because they just they deliver it for you and set it up and it's awesome.

Yeah. Which is which is going to be a big deal by the way because one thing um that I heard from the folks at the library was uh we have to you know we're we'll have to set up ourselves. So that would So if they can come in at 5 to set up, put the food drinks out. I think we can we can get I can go and get bottles of, you know, the 24 packs of water, which is cheaper, by the way. The Poland Spring stuff, you can get that for $3.99. There's no sense in paying triple the price. I can I can get that. And then if Bushel and Peek would have the paper plates, the napkins, and things like that, that would be good. Um, we have a stop at ending the meeting at 7:30 because the library closes at 8.

Oh, I thought I meant tonight's meeting. Sorry. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm sorry. Uh, h the business the meet and greet at about 7:30 because the library closes at 8 and we'll have to clean up ourselves, which just means, you know, pushing chairs back and getting rid of this stuff.

So, I will say I have a kind of a preference on doing pizza because in my mind this sandwiches generally are a a form of meat of some sort generally. I don't know what portion necessarily does for the catering but at least for pizza you have if people are a vegetarian and don't eat meat at all you get you know few cheese and get a few pepperoni and that's basically almost everyone likes at least those two not necessarily and

the there's many business in town that serve pizza. They'll be generally open and available almost always that time. Sometimes push back I think closes you earlier than our meeting times. I don't know what they do that day but having you know pepperon express lucky usually very good in the town. There's grafting does pizza is that? Uhel does pizza. It's the square pizza. Um, you know what though? What's interesting? I'm I actually agree with Justin. There's no reason we can't We could have two people do it. We could have pepperoni express lucky. Who Who needs the business? Yeah. Now,

usually change. They have. Yes. Oh, when did that happen? Uh, about a month ago at a select board meeting, I believe. Is it Is it Ly's family? I thought his child was taking over, but if it's not, it might be someone else. I believe somebody else. Okay. I then that's news to me too. The I know Grafton Grill which is on Bridge Street also serves um brick oven pizza. I don't know how big or what they would be a able to support as far as our event. I know there's graph and pizza itself which it doesn't do the delivery but someone of us can pick it up.

I think um and also in Southampton you have fancies house of pizza but there's no reason we couldn't do some sandwiches and I know Bush Impact would have some vegetarian wraps. Yes. We catered from Bushel impact for events at town hall before. Yes. And had no issue getting vegetarian options. Yeah. And then also getting a pizza option from some, you know, from somebody else just to let somebody else in there. Yeah. That would be supportive in my mind. What does everybody think of? That also allows us to mix things up a bit if we have two people and given that we're not we're not paying for the venue itself, which is a big deal.

Yeah. And and if let's say the pizza place or even Bush Peek isn't providing you plates and napkins, those are relatively cheap to pick up from a store and get a bunch of paper plates, bunch of napkins. But yeah, I I absolutely like the idea of, you know, having getting one of our pizza vendors in there so they know we're here. Hey, this is what we're doing. And also Bushel and Peek because they are close and convenient and everybody likes Bushel and Peek and um perhaps since we've done it before, William, they can give us a break. I mean, because I know if I just go in as, you know, Jane Doe consumer, you know, some of the prices are high, but I would imagine if they're catering something, you get some deals and stuff.

I can't speak to that or guarantee it, but we can certainly look into it. Yeah. I mean, I can call up and ask or I think any any business we choose might offer us a deal because it's, you putting on, but I also think we should not expect any business at all to provide us deal. That's my No, but it's it's I just want to say that out loud. Yes. No, I agree. I agree. But, you know, hey, it does it never hurts. It never hurts to ask, right? You know, they're going to be at an event where their businesses will be showcased to other businesses, right?

So, yeah. So, that's that's good. Okay. So, um are we agreed on that? Yes. Okay. Terrific. To ask who's going to take point on contact businesses and arranging the arranging the food options for that night. Okay. So, um you know I'm happy

you know you know I'm happy to call Bushel and or the or a pizza place and then somebody else could call if they want or I could call both. What does everybody think? I'm flexible.

My gut feeling is it makes sense for one of us andor William to be on point for the entirety of that, you know, food option planning for the event rather than, you know, trying to split it up. It doesn't just feels easier to have one point of contact in my group. So, I'm happy if you want to do it or if you want or if William wants to do it, even though he's going to be gone at for that event, whatever the committee wants.

Okay, I can work with you on that because I probably have more free time during the day having my own business, you know, if you're out doing something, you know, or Angela's on a call or whatever, Carl is at the uh home field, that might be more difficult. So, I can work with William because we can get each other pretty pretty easily. Works for me. Okay. So, um William, the last time we were here last month, you were talking about getting potentially a speaker. Yes. and you hadn't heard back from

uh so I had sent the executive office of economic development two emails uh and I had not received a response. I had the thought today of going through uh MMA the mass municipal association because they're the ones who organized the event that I saw EOED at. So I sent our contact there an email this afternoon and she's typically pretty good about getting back to me. she'll either be able to point me in the right direction or hopefully give some insight of they don't do that.

Yeah. Nice. Okay. Um because we're going to be tight with time, we don't want to have too many speakers. So, if they can't do it, that's, you know, that's okay. I mean, obviously, I would expect that we would get up during this and uh just give people a brief over I'm putting together the PowerPoint presentation and I will send out the draft copy to all of you by the end of the week. So that way, you know, you can mark it up, suggest or or put in another, you know, suggest a slide that you'd like to see if I don't do it. But essentially, we're going to be pretty straightforward. We're going to give them background and demographics on Grafton with links to our website uh our web on the Grafton town of Grafton homepage and basically say look we've got approximately 350 businesses in town here are the biggest ones we have a lot of small businesses and we are trying to jumpstart development and then talk about um our mission and communicate the feedback that we received during our business event in the spring which was they would like to know they'd like us to help them out with you know crosspollination how can they promote their businesses and we can talk about some of the initiatives that we have extant which is essentially Hey, let's populate our web page. Let's try and do some highlights for anybody who's interested on spotlighting these people. Open to

all. Um, and also, you know, solicit feedback from them. I thought it might be interesting when we send this out and it's going to it's going to be a lot of fun because of course, as you know, even if we phone calls, do outreach by email, have stuff on the web page. A lot of people just forget about responding and RSVP. So, um, ask people if they could bring, you know, some business cards. We could put that in a, you know, a bowl or something. Um, so that was my thought there, but I wanted to get the PowerPoint presentation um firmed up and done. now and our next meeting. Okay, which would if we go for the third week in October that would we're looking at uh let's see the 15th that would be October 15th.

I'm sorry we not talking about the next meeting date. Yeah. So that would be October 15th and that gives us that gives us amp that gives us, you know, almost three weeks before the November 4th date. So again, we don't want to overwhelm them because we're going to be tight on time, but I think we we want to give them that presentation so we have a little bit more of a framework. say, "Hey, here's what we've done since we met with you last, you know." Yeah, we etc.

Just if I can go back to one thing real quick. Absolutely. You said you were going to send the PowerPoint out to the committee and have them send notes back. Correct. Yes. So, I would just caution the members of the EDC that if you do send feedback, you only send it to Laura. Don't respond all because that is deliberation and a violation of the opening law. If it just goes to her, it is okay. Um, but just some of the email communication we need to make sure it's oneonone and not to everybody thought doesn't it I could be wrong. Doesn't it still count if

your as one person is still talking in a sense with multiple members of the committee that make up a full and of itself. I I haven't found a really clear answer on that. I think since Laura is the chair, there is some leeway as I understand it. Okay. Um however, if the commission is uncomfortable with it, I'm happy to receive all the feedback, coate it, and then send it to you. Yeah. I mean, that gets around the deliberation in its entirety. That's probably I'd feel safer with that regarding law, but I don't I'm just one person.

Well, I always say air on the side of caution. Okay. So, even if there wasn't an issue about deliberation

and violating uh potentially violating a bylaw, you don't want everybody all the cooks to put stuff in the broth. So, it's good to have one focal point feedback. we can put the things in and then at the next meeting on October 15th, we can then we'll have a mockup and we can then decide here's what we're keeping. Here's what we're putting out. And and by the way, a lot of we all know how this works. Uh especially, you know, somebody like yourself, Angela, who's a lawyer. Oh, we have to put this in, you know. Oh, we forgot that or maybe it's a good, you know. So, we'll have Yeah, we'll have we'll have plenty of time and we'll make it we'll make it look good, you know, spruce it up with the graphics. Where we will need your help, William, is the um actual PowerPoint presentation to get the the Grafton town of Grafton green colors and seal on there. you know, it looks pretty. I mean, I have my business, but that's not going to do anybody any good to have it on mine. You know,

you my only comment on the date for the our next meetings, me personally, is I'm going to be in effectively work meetings from 9:00 a.m. till 5 6 p.m. every day that week. So, I might be burned out and not be able to come in terms of my own ability for that night. But I don't I think at the very least if I'm not committed to come I can have a a letter sent through William or or you Laura just I can be shared with committee and be part of the open record. Yeah I have comments but yeah no that's that's fine. I mean um I I'd rather hear this now you know so we know we know what's we know what's up rather than not hear from people.

You know I'll I'll be able to if I'm not coming I'll be able to say I'm not coming. That much is sure as well. Okay. Well, no, that's that's helpful. Um, so I think we're good here. Um, in terms of we'll wait for William to see if he gets any feedback and input to have a potential speaker. Otherwise, it'll just be us, which I think will be fine in any event given the the time slot. Y did you have anything you wanted to add, Nicole? Angela. Oh, are we doing any No, I don't. Okay. Are we doing any of

No, we decided we wouldn't we wouldn't do that. So, it will be sodas, juices, and water, you know. I'll just straight for the feedback on PowerPoint. If everybody could get me their thoughts by the 10th of October, that should give me plenty of time to get it all. Yeah. I'll get you a mockup of the point what I have so far. Okay? You know, we don't need it does not have to be elaborate. Again, we're looking at maybe 10 to 12 slides including the front slide and the last slide which has contact information and our names and etc. So, just so that you know we have a handout for them.

Yeah. And there's going to be a lot of people who are new businesses in town um that don't know, you know, that don't know anything. So, it would be great. And then I guess how are we doing on the progress of We're going to have to update the the bis the business list that we had the 350 businesses is that's online. Correct. Correct. Do we have Well, not all 350 businesses are on there. Just the ones who have requested to be on there.

That's something we could talk about in the meeting. By the way, if you don't know already, we have this list of businesses online for people to search. They're looking for someone specifically if you'd like to be on it. Yeah. And we can we can have that as a slide on the PowerPoint, you know, for informationational things because the main thing is we want people to know that, oh, guess what? We're out here. We're a resource for you. We'd like to help you. We'd like you to help us. etc. So, hey, we're here.

The only other thing I can think of that might be um interesting or neat to have people do is if they are a new business open less than a year, do they want to give their elevator pitch of their new business? Like, hey, I'm a new business. I opened nine months ago. Here's my business. Here's what I do. to like highlight some new businesses. I don't know.

The only thing about that I think it's a good idea. The only thing I worry about is that and I'm guilty of this too when you put me in front of a microphone and or in front of people and I can talk. So you don't you don't want somebody to get up there and talk for 15 or 20 minutes and then you get more people and then the next thing it's time to leave. So that's that's my only concern. Um, most tell people they have 30 seconds, give us their elevator. Yeah. A minute. You know, button that plays the costume. It didn't work for the Emmys where they were going over time and hurting kids. I know. I know.

I mean, I think that's a great point and something that we could put on. I don't know if we wanted to do a sign up form again, but we throw it on there. Have you been open less than a year? Yes. Would you like the opportunity to talk about your business? Yes. No. And then Five people say yes pick two or something like that because the last one there was probably what three or four like brand new businesses. Yes. Yes. We had uh we had that um K9 solutions tree cutting. Yes. Oh um hub um

Hubspot. Hubspot. Yeah. Nutrition. I think those are the three like brand new. And there's also um Val's going to cafe now. Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah, I've heard. Yeah, I went there today actually. Very good. Yeah, people people that's going great guns. Well, I ended up using K9 Solutions. Yeah, I know. Rocky this like for Rocky this summer twice. She was great. She was awesome. Yeah. Well, I'm thinking of using her too if I, you know, because sometimes I have to go out of town for overnight and I don't want to necessarily, you know, my my dog

into the kennel. So, somebody can come in, let them out, feed. I already have the food made up. They can just go in the refrigerator, take it out. Yeah, it's it's great. She's going to do very well. But it was like a perfect kind of I met her at that. Yes. Yeah. Everybody was taking her card. Weren't you, Angela, as well? Yes. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Anybody who has pets, the wonderful life of the American dog or cat. I know. Sometimes they look better than me. Okay. So, is there anything else we'd like to talk about uh that we need to discuss for the fall business event? Right now,

it sounds like we're going to um allow people if they want to get up and give their two to three minute elevator pitch on their business. It sounds like that we have a consensus on that. So maybe we include, you know, a little quip or something about that in our invite because we did we did experience that at the last meeting that people did want to share about their businesses. So it it was great. You know, we just we did that like round circle style, but this would be nice to give people an opportunity to be able to stand and and give that two to three minute pitch. That would be great.

Okay, great. So we'll include that in the invite. And maybe we just let them sign up, Laura, as they come in. Like I'm I'm happy to create like a signin sheet and and be the timer for that. Like, you know, just kindly like I can just like let people know. I'll hold up a card and give them, you know, the warning at two minutes and then the cut off at three. Yeah. No, I think that I think that's great. I love the idea that you want to do that. Yes. Yep. No problem. Okay. Okay. Um, anything else?

We're going to submit the um the flyer. We're going to submit that to All Things Grafton. That seemed to that that's how we ended up generating a lot of interest. Yeah, this um everybody is on all things Grafton. Grafton ready. Graft and informed. Graph. Yeah. Grafton informed. I mean people think all of those plus sharing on all of our personal social medias like help boost it. Yes. Yeah. No, I think that's a great idea. Yes. So if we can have a PDF to

and I think there is a not insificant portion of people in Grafton that are on next door particular neighborhoods. Yes. So, I'm I joined Next Door. I'm not in any of those neighborhoods. So, I didn't see those actual activities, but it's if we know someone that is in one of the active neighborhoods of that uses Next Door. Yeah, that would be good to My neighborhood's pretty active in there and I have an account on Next Door, I could definitely share it on there. Yeah. Okay, that's that's terrific. Okay.

Do we have one person Sorry. Do we have one person in our group who wouldn't mind taking the lead to do all things Grafton Grafton informed and Next Door. I can do it.

Thank you. Okay. All right. Terrific. All right. Moving on to item three, initiatives and guest speakers. Unfortunately, uh Carl is not here tonight. Um he was trying to uh enlist Brian Bouvier from the Marlboro EDC. Um about that for the December and January issue. Um we know William, you've already said you're still wait, you hadn't heard back from the mass um EDC, but you you reached out to MMA. So, um I don't know. All I can do, you know, I guess we'll just have to wait until we have our next meeting to see if Carl has made any

progress. Um so, moving on to item number four, Nicole, that's you, the proposal. Did you have any more info on creating the Grafton Chamber of Commerce? No, I know Carl said he wanted to reach out to Ebert at Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce and see if there was somehow we could operate a Grafton chamber under their umbrella. I'm thinking it's probably unlikely, but ask the question. Okay. So, I don't know if I haven't talked to him. I don't know if he's done that yet or not.

Okay. So, what are the rules? I I want to be very precise here. So, can we reach out to Carl and Do you have any update on this? I think US I would say US chair one person can so us chair can reach out to him get an update and then that update can be if it's can we shed our next meeting for sure. I'm trying to think if Carl Yeah, we can't do an update through though. I I would just recommend if there's an update, making sure it gets shared at the next meeting.

Yeah. So, I we can reach out to him and say, "Carl, sorry you couldn't make it, but please can you provide us an update on these two issues?" Yeah. Just in case you can't make it next meeting or whatever. Yes. Um Okay. So, that's that's good. So, we have to move on from this because we don't really have much to say. Does anybody have any other business or any topics that they would like to present or bring up? So, I did just think about something while I was sitting here in this building tonight. Okay. That I it's probably more of a longer term idea and thought that

I don't remember if Craftton ever utilized GCTV for any business spotlights, you know, type of thing. you know, short 15 30 minute segment with a business business owner possibly a how they start or how their business runs kind of a thing just taking like a handheld camera a piece of TV owns into a back room and doing basically a show on that. Okay. I don't again I literally just thought of this idea as this might be interesting for you to help in I know even though people less and less use cable TV streaming. We still have our actual channels in town that people will still watch. Yeah.

Especially the But could we take those little spotlight videos and post them on I think everything that is done is posted online. It would be it would be the kind of thing that would probably benefit from somebody talking with the GCTV staff and at least seeing, you know, the still Bobos that runs these Bob and Bill. Bob and Bill. So four years ago, Jay Hunter was doing something called business to business where it looks like he was going around town. Um looks like there are eight of them on the reacting community YouTube page.

So it seems like something that has been done before and can be replicated. You know, one of the things that strikes me and I don't know if we can do this, but it might be interesting because We have all these whiz kids at the high school or even some of them at the middle school if you really want to get down to it, but certainly at the high school um who might be interested in helping out here while we're doing it and getting because they sometimes get I don't know if it's credit but they get something you know when they

help out at the you know volunteer at the election. So if we could enlist some of the kids to volunter and I A lot of them are, you know, pretty good at it. They could operate the camera. They could, you know, make suggestions and it would be good for them, too, because I'm sure we have some communications and marketing, you know, budding marketing and content managers. This is an idea I had, but I don't consider myself personal personable enough or have enough time to to make it happen on my own. So, it's just an idea I wanted to share out and Yeah. No, it's it's a good it's a good suggestion. Yeah, I like the idea.

Yeah, I like it too, you know. Um, yeah, very helpful. Thank you. Um, Angela, how about you? Anything? Any other business? I don't.

Okay. The only thing I I I do have one thing to say and um we need to get better at communicating. I send out the agendas, ask for feedback and I know everybody's busy, but uh I have no idea who is coming or not coming. Um and that's problematic. So we just need to get better at RSVPing to these things. I understand people can't always show up. Something happens, you know, life, work, etc. Um, there's also I mean with the other boards, I mean, we're doing there's always going to be conflicts with the boards, the number of boards that we have,

but you know, Craig is the uh is an invaluable member because he's on the select board and he always had he's a businessman. His wife has her business, the Grafton Country Store. So, uh, I don't know. I just think it dilutes our efforts when people don't show up or communicate that, you know. I mean, Craig did get back to me and I I had already seen that he was doing the um, open mic, ask us anything. So,

with Mark Alimo, but I think we just have to do better at attendance. And I know this is something that Angela brought up a couple of meetings back as well. So I my take on it generally is number one we shouldn't have general like you said the agenda we shouldn't really make any discussion on oh this is worded differently or we need to add we can suggest adding in that item but beyond that we really shouldn't be discussing what's on like an agenda in email. That's part one. But the attendance, my general feeling is we should just assume everyone's going to make it. And if you can't make it, you should be communicating that.

Yes. And then if there's people that routinely cannot make the meeting and are routinely missing, the chair or the committee should at least notify and mention to the appointing authority for that person. And in my case, it's planning board. In Craig's case, it' be selected. I think everyone else is also selected. I don't remember for sure, but just mention it. Thank you. Yeah. The for example, Laura's not making it. Hasn't made it to the last six meetings. She's only told us she's not coming once.

You know, you know that kind of things. Maybe we need to maybe it's worth, you know, double checking. Is you actually going to be making meetings? Do we want to do you want to appoint someone else? You know, what do we want to do? That's my general feeling. But yes, I Yeah, but yeah, I agree. And I understand that things happen. But a couple of times in the past three or four months, I've been told by someone, "Oh yeah, I'm going to show up." And then, you know, they all of a sudden the next day they said, "Oh, there was a birthday party. We I forgot." Now, how do you forget? You know,

you can forget that, but at the same time, what was birthday party? Well, Laura, sorry, I forgot. I made a commitment to whatever or make a commitment period and I or somebody says tells me they they're going to show up and then they don't show up. And this this can become very problematic if we need to vote on something. Yes.

And need a quorum. And the other thing is we have to be responsive to GCTV if we're do if we're going to continue to do the flexibility for the Zoom meetings because I I said to Bob today, hey, um just wanted to let you know, you know, I'm expecting this many people, but please know that if we don't if nobody was going to show up, then I would make it an all Zoom meeting, etc. because we did have that issue going back to I think it was June or July.

So, I hate to be I hate to be the heavy or the bad person here, but um we need to do better as a group about communicating and then sticking to it. Obviously, if somebody says, "Hey, I'm going to be here." But then, you know, their car got a flat tire or there was a home emergency, we're not talking about stuff happens. Um but feel sometimes like I'm hurting cats. So,

and I I'll reiterate my one opinion is if even if no one in the committee is intending to be in the in the room, if we can't get the agenda amended before the clerk's office ends, my opinion is the room should still be open and available for the public. So, you know, bills in again my opinion should still come in to still have the meeting So someone does have a question, they can use that because we advertise it as in the DCTV station. Yes. If we if we learn no one's going to be attending in person or maybe only one person they want to make all Zoom, you just send us an email and have the clerk to read the agenda before the end of the day. Yes, that's

Yeah. And I've been, you know, uh, ever since I made that one faux paw about six months ago, uh, as Angela pointed out, it's like, okay, okay, I'm not going to make that mistake again with the 48 hour So I try and get it in on the Friday before. Yeah. Once it's in a simple change which would be a meeting location change or something like that can be done up until the last you clerk's office office is open as far as you know their timing is concerned. Yeah. So okay well that sounds good. Um, so the only other thing that I wanted to ask of William, what is the status of what is it? Conference room A or conference room F has? Conference room F.

Yeah, conference room F is mostly dumb. So they are having issues with um audio leveling. Okay. So basically it's either blowing out the speakers and you're getting all this snap, crackle, and pop every time you talk.

Okay. or it's coming in very low and faint. The audio engineer told us we had bad microphones. So, we brought in a vendor to test out brand new microphones. The problem persisted. We tried a second set of brand new microphones, which we didn't pay for. They were on loan, thankfully. Problem still persisted. So, the audio engineer and the vendor is coming back out at some point in the next probably two weeks to take a look at it and see if they can solve the leveling issue.

Okay. So basically we've been doing the right thing by having the meetings here and I'm guessing um we'll do that for next next month as well because of course the other issue is if we are going to do a hybrid zoom meeting we can't have a conflict and there seem to be so many boards and things so we might be best you know just staying here until further notice you know I mean Yeah, I mean I'm I'm good with I'm good with that, you know, but I just figured let me check.

I I unfortunately do not have a date for when it will be solved. I know that Bob and his team are working on it. Yeah. Okay. Well, that sounds good. Um, anybody else have anything? I have one more question. No, no, no. Good. The uh the event in November, um, since I'm going to be posting on social media, do I need to the new flyer or is that something William is doing? I don't care either. I can do it. I have I have to do it and show everyone next meeting if like to do it. I am okay with that. Okay.

Okay. Terrific. Um All right. This is this is terrific. Uh, Angela, the only thing I would ask you is, um, can you get the minutes of the meeting out in the next couple of weeks so that we can get that to Carl, Craig, and Sean?

Yep, I can do that. I can work on that to get that out and I can follow up um with them too to let them know regarding attendance about what we just discussed. So I can do that and also just check in with them um regarding regarding that piece of it was starting as I was hearing you talk where I was thinking about in other committees that I'm in. you get an email just like what you're doing. There's an email, but there's like a just a button that you click on that reserves, you know, on your account, whether it's Gmail or Outlook, and it reminds you that you have this upcoming meeting. So, I will I'll do that. I'll get the minutes out and I will check in with them regarding uh confirming for meetings. And I I appreciate what Justin was sharing. um you know just just assuming and I you know assuming that people are going to attend and I appreciate what you're also sharing because we do we do need to have a level of certainty regarding if we're going to have a quorum or not.

Yeah, exactly. And by the way, to your point, I get that I get that button. I have that button enabled on my my email. So, it tells me reminder one day until the EDC meeting and it's on the calendar. I have tried to make things easy. If you notice in today's in the email I sent out today where I confirmed that it was going to be held at GCTV, I also put in the body of the email in 20 point font. Here's the here's the dial in because Sean asked me, "Oh, where's where's the dial in info?" I said, "Well, it's in the agenda." And, you know, Yeah, I found it easily.

Yeah. But I figure, okay, let's make it really easy peasy for for people because, you know, oh, what if, you know, what if they don't open up the agenda? So, I want to make it as transparent as possible,

right? You know, now there are other committees. I'm on for for example uh the graft and emergency management committee and we don't have a meeting every month and we have other initiatives but they do more more concrete and practical things. So, for instance, we we I put on there, you know, Kathy uh Cedarberg, she'll write grants. I've helped her, you know, edit some of the things, do the verbiage, but we just did an initiative, you know, that you could see like sometimes we were we're getting equipment for the graft and fire department, you know, uh for the cardiac machines. Uh we were able to use some grant money to get things for um horses if there's an emergency involving horses in town. We have things for other animals. So we've got kits that are at the fire department. My point here is that we are not our charter is not the same.

It's more amorphous. So it takes you know more input more you know in terms of being creative. how can we help people? So that's why we need people to to be here and, you know, and participate. And again, I don't want to be the the heavy. I know that things, you know, happen. But I feel like I'm nagging here, you know, poking people with a sharp pointy stick. If there's one thing I've learned in my life is getting people in one place at one time, regardless of what the issue is, is always a curing cat.

It doesn't matter if it if it's part of their job and they're in the same building together, getting them to the same room the same time.

I know. Well, I feel, you know, and I know Angela, you've been around uh for a while now, but we've had a lot of fits and starts, especially during COVID and then coming back together after COVID and our one of our goals has been to have a meeting every month or at least 10 months out of the year. I know that we voted not to have it in July because we knew that was going to be a particularly, you know, busy travel month. People are doing things and and that's okay. But if we want this to work, we just can't say, "Oh, we're taking six months off." You know, I think we're at a cru I think that we're at a crucial time here because in terms of raising our visibility, seeing what we can do to jumpstart business in Grafton and how we can help the businesses and how they can help us. So, I don't know. That's I'll get off my soap box now. But um that was that was I did want to bring that up because it's like okay and I know Angela you brought it up and I was glad you brought it up three meetings ago.

Yeah. So I'll I'll do that Laura. I'll I'll have um I'll get the minutes out to everybody but I'll I'll follow up with the folks that weren't with us tonight just to give them a better appreciation of the need to do the RSVP. And I'll also ask them and then you know any any of our other members I'll just reach out individually to people and see if there's a preferred method for a reminder. So I can I can do that as the secretary for this group. So for example if people would like uh like me to send them a text message just as a reminder like I'm I'm happy to volunteer to do that. I think our formal stance is we've got the email, please respond to the email, but if it would help some people to get like a reminder via a text um an individual text from me just saying, you know, reminder, the meeting's on. We have you as confirmed. I'm happy to do that. So,

okay. I think the take away from tonight is just it would help to have a little more communication like one on-one so we don't have any open meeting law violations. So, I'm happy and engaging with more of that one-on-one communication and um just just getting some feedback to see what might work for some people personally. Okay. Yeah. Terrific. I mean, I think we went around I think we did a good job of saying, "Okay, Monday nights was particularly hectic for people." Correct. Because of things. So, we settled on Wednesday because it seems to be the least,

you know, uh the greatest common denominator. Obviously, we weren't going to have it on a Friday or Saturday night or anything like that. So, I mean, I think this is the best we could do. And then having it here and being able to do the hybrid Zoom meeting gives people flexibility. I mean, especially if you're doing something if you're showing a house or you're driving in from Boston, you know. Yeah. Um, thank you. You know, it helps. So, this is, I think, the best solution we can hope for right now. So, we just, as I said, we just need to better at communication and William's been wonderful. I appreciate all the help William has been giving us. No.

Yeah. Well, no, I mean it's it's it's great. I'm sorry you're not going to be at the event, but we don't want you flying back from Australia from Oz to join us. Yeah.

Thank you. Um thank you Laura for your leadership. Thank you for all that you've been doing. it's next month, October, we'll make a year um since since you know we've had these roles. So, thank you so much and um we greatly, as you said, greatly appreciate William coming and participating in our meetings and in his role for the town. So, that that's a huge help. And we're, you know, we're we're edging our way. We're definitely making some improvements. So, I think, you know, the takeaway from tonight is just some better communication. and I can take the the lead on that as the secretary for the group

and we'll do that and I think you've done excellent job Laura getting us into the GCTV room. We've got the hybrid ability um which has been a huge help having the third Wednesday of every month has been great for consistency and then like you said there there are times just like we had in July where you know we take a a group vote and and we did so we're definitely making progress but I appreciate that there's room improvement and I can do my part to help with that and I think it's the communication.

Yeah, thank you so much and you know right back at you because you have been a terrific secretary here and everybody here has been good. I mean I I appreciate everybody's input. We have a very good group all of whom were we're you know in consensus on let's get this thing rolling and let's do some practical things and you know have it So I mean that's good. I mean well this group has been you know very very active. So um I appreciate that as well. So if there's nothing else nobody has any anything else. What we will do then is just uh because we're right at 8:01 um we will I will entertain a mo uh a motion to adjurnn. and third.

Okay. Okay. I I I Okay. Terrific. So, we're done. Thank you. Thank you. So,