Economic Development Commission - Regular Meeting

[Music] We're at 7:07 or 7:08 and hopefully Angela can join us. She might be stuck in traffic. She had indicated she was going to be here, but um so I'll formally call the meeting to order. This is the EDC meeting for Wednesday, October 15, 2025. Uh, I'm Laura Dio, the chairperson. And we can go, we can start with you, Nicole, since you're remote. Nicole, present. Justin, present. Craig, present. Will present.

Okay, so we'll uh get started. We've got a um seemingly packed agenda, although it's it's pretty straightforward this time. We wanted to talk about um uh finalize the discussion on the EDC fall business event, which is uh scheduled to take place November 4th in the large room at the Grafton Public Library. Uh Craig, I know you uh we had you weren't here in person last week uh last month, but you had the input. So, I think we all agreed that Bushel and Peek could would be uh doing the catering for the sandwiches and what have you. And then Justin also brought up the fact we should probably have, you know, we could get a we could get some pizzas as well,

which I think is a good idea. I'm just sorry that poor uh Lacis Theodaris who just retired, you know, who just sold the business? Pepperoni Express. Um, so we can Any suggestions on where we want to get the pizza from? I've been to there's many places that sell pizza in Grafton. There's Jim's Fancy House of Pizza is is nice. The new Fancy House of Pizza. Yeah. I mean, I I think that one's good. They're um they're economically I know that Reunion has great pizza, but they're also very expensive. And you know, I'd like to in the interest of sharing the wealth.

Yeah, sharing the wealth. They're in South Grafton, so let's let's be inclusive. I'll say my my favorite in general has been Grafton Pizza, which is again North Grafton, but I actually prefer the idea of using itself to spread the Yes. the intention there. Yeah, I agree. Um, so Uh, who's going to be in charge of ordering the food? Does anybody or the c you know the catering? I mean, it's coming up fast. November 4th. Yeah, it's three it's three weeks. I forgot. You're going to be around then, William. No, he's going to be on his honeymoon in Australia.

I'll be away, but I can put in the call in advance. I can I can do I can I know Michael Bushell and you know I can call in order just on you know I mean I can call I can Hello Angela welcome um so we're just we've just begun the meeting you can say you're present although we can see

uh so we're just on item number one item number to talking, you know, finalizing uh the stuff for the what we're ordering from Bushel and Peek does uh sandwiches. The only thing is we'll just need to charge it to the town. Yeah, the town has a PE card and then if if we can get it ordered, we can take care of the payment. Oh, okay. So, I mean, I don't mind calling, you know, the pizza place and if you want to deal with Michael at Bushel and Peek. Sure.

Okay. So, now we're planning for about 75 people in that would include us as well. So, uh that should be that should be adequate. And I will also pick up uh the water. Uh I can get that It's three for, you know, 10 or 12 bucks at Stop and Shop uh for the 24 pack and stuff. So, that should be that should be good. Um and we we just need from, you know, sodas or juice from Bushel and Peek. Do they have that or do we want to get that from like ref and you know, stop and shop as well?

I'm I'm happy that

Okay. So, I'll get I'll get the water and I will um order the pizzas from Fancy's new fancy house of pizza to deliver it and we'll get the delivery there. Once again, for anybody um we have the library room from 5:30 to 7:30, which means we have to be there to set up and accept the delivery of the food by 5:00. We will also have the AV equipment. Nicole has already uh printed out the flyer that we'll send out to announce the thing. I'm going to send you what I wrote up for the presentation, the PowerPoint presentation. If you can put that, it's I have it on, you know, just blank paper. Now, if you can put that the Grafton the town of Grafton

thing that would be great. Um now the other thing is do we want uh to speak at you know we'll give a little speech ahead of time but you know uh Craig do you want to say anything as part of the select board and you know does anybody you know we'll have our mission statement on the PowerPoint presentation now with it'll be we've got to be crisp about this because we want to give people time to, you know, hear the PowerPoint presentation. I think we only need to take five or 10 minutes on that. Maybe have a little Q&A and then let people, you know, mingle, see what they want, you know. So,

uh, so if I could jump in. Yes. Uh, I did hear back from the state. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And they are able to send somebody out to present on the mass economic development um programs and things like that. Is that still something that you may be interested in? Yes. Okay. For this for this meeting, for the business meeting. Okay. Yep. So, uh Kevin Curros, who's the central Mass Regional Director of the Massachusetts Office of Business Development. Kevin, can you spell his last name? Kur Os. And he is his title again. Uh he's the Central Mass Regional Director for MB M Od, pardon me. Okay, terrific.

So, getting back to your earlier point, I'm sorry. Is like, you know, somebody I think should just kind of kick it off and welcome everybody and maybe introduce we decide the class if you're still willing to do that. Yes, absolutely.

Yeah, we'll introduce everybody and you know I think the purpose here, we want to put more of a framework around it than we did the first two times, which went well, but we want people to know, hey, here's what we're doing. We're a resource for you. We want you to be a resource for us. And the PowerPoint presentation, you know, is going to be tight. It gives them the demographics in Grafton that we've got approximately plus or minus 350 businesses, you know, think most of them, you know, small businesses. Um, we'll outline what our initiatives, what we hope for as our initiatives to, you know, really obviously grow business, be a resource for them. Um, also let them know, hey, we we want to actively solicit your input as well for how we can help you. You've told us that you would at past meetings that you would like assistance in marketing. Let's see if we can't put some teeth behind that. And we're also willing to do spotlight on our website and on some of the town's websites, you know, business of the month and and that's open to everyone. So I think you know that should be you know encouraged and they also wanted to know and we'll we point this out in the presentation how how they can network with each other as as well as us you know I mean we have a lot of really creative people intelligent people in town so we ought to be able to harness that etc. So, um, okay. So, what we should do between

now and the fourth, I'll get started on making the phone calls to, um, FY's House of Pizza and then I can send we can send out, you know, send out emails on I don't know if they deliver or not. I want to say that they don't. I don't remember them delivering, but that's They don't. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, we get pizzas for our Halloween party from them and we always have to go pick up.

Oh, okay. Gee, it's too bad. Lucky is they always delivered. But yeah, it's not like it's a big deal for that one of us that are there, especially on the other side to pick it up. And yeah, it might even make sense for if we can if we can swing it to have it actually arrive like 15 minutes after the start of the of our event to the pizza because of doing presentation have people that might not show right away the pizza be warmer for more people. Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. Just a thought. I don't know. But then we'd have to send somebody to get it. Yes. No, I know that

because we will be at the event. Um well, we might be able to get him to deliver. We'll see. See if we can't I don't know if we talked about how much of the food we're looking to get. I know it's saying 75 peopleish, but how many pies from pizza? How much sandwiches from Bush? I I would think if we got, you know, four, five pies, you think that's enough? Probably.

Yeah. And then I'll get some either sandwiches or appetiz you know finger food like small plates you know because people Yeah at seven no it's at 5:30. Oh I'm sorry. So this would be this would be more like it's going to be from 5:30 to 7:30. Okay. And we have a hard stop at 7:30 because the library will close at 8. So, we'll have to have everything over and done with and strike things down and clean up.

Yeah. And they and they could they could set up their room for us. I mean, Laura mentioned us going up there and setting up. I don't know how we want it set up. Um, this is not hightops there. So, I don't know how you're going to set it up. No, library staff probably won't set it up, but we'll have a discussion and see what we can do getting set up. Yeah, but it'll have to be cleaned and things like that. So, if the maintenance team can get some the tra, you know, well, they'll have the trash cans there, won't they?

They will. Yes. So, we should get trash cans in there with the, you know, The usual black hefty trash bags for the refues. Yeah, we just need a couple of couple of long tables for the food. Yeah, drinks are on the floor on the table and then I guess some some seating folks. Yeah, a few small I say small, but a few tables with some seating. Not everyone's going to want to stand to eat. Some people will. A lot of people will. Yeah. And the library has all that. just a matter of pulling it out of the closet and getting set up. How we how are we marketing it? How are we promoting it? How we get more?

There was a flyer sent to around us a single page in the EDC email that I saw that look nice. Yes, there was we also talked about having the town's website and and Facebook posts saying stuff about it. Y because I know last time I did inperson calls to businesses. I did phone calls and I'm sure other people did as well and that didn't seem to work that well. So I think people see the stuff online and how did the mailings work from the mailings that you sent out? Well,

we got about 13 to 15 responses as I recall. Nicole, can you hear us? Yeah. Oh, okay. Sorry. I just saw the email you sent. Yeah, I couldn't. I couldn't before, but as soon as Laura started the meeting, then I could hear. Gotcha. Sorry about that. No, no problem. So Nicole, do you have any other suggestions on

um the only other thing I'm thinking? Um if you guys want, I can create like an Eventbrite link. Um so when we are posting on Facebook or social media, you can say um click here to RSVP and that will collect names and email addresses. But I think an email blast, posting on social media, and then putting it on the town website. I think that that's good. The other Oh, sounds good to me.

Yeah. I think the other thing we can probably do is take the flyer that you put up and ask I'll ask Kim Leinsky to post it in the library as well because that library gets a lot of traffic. Yeah. you know, is the committee happy with the flyer in this final form? I was waiting for this meeting to post it website. Yeah, I think that I think the flyer looks great for for me. I mean, it's straightforward. It's got it's, you know, town logo and colors. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, unless we're saying Tom Tom Brady is going to make a personal appearance, I don't see that.

He's old. He was up at my uh at Forom doing an event. Oh yeah. Or something. Yeah. Few weeks ago. If I could just circle back real quick to Mr. Kuros. So he

Yes. Uh just had a couple of questions about what the committee wanted him to talk about in general. So his office is the one that does the uh business front door that I was talking about a couple of weeks ago and has all of these tools and things open for attracting new businesses and helping small businesses expand. I figured the committee might want that to be more of the focus based on the clientele we're trying to attract, but figured I would opened up for discussion to the board before I told him anything one way or the other.

No, I think that I think that sounds great. Um I think people will be very uh enthused about such a thing to hear from a professional because that's what we're, you know, that's what we struggle with here. I wouldn't say we're backwater in Grafton, but it's not Route Nine like Shrewsbury, Westboro, etc. Brown water. Okay, I'll call him tomorrow and let him know. Okay, great. And um now when do you leave on your honeymoon?

Next Friday. Okay. So, can you send uh us an email with all of his contact info and give him ours as well? I can do that. Okay, great. Because I know you're going to be anxious to skip town. No, I would like to be married for a long time.

Um, okay. So, this this sounds good. Um, as soon as you send me the PowerPoint presentation for the uh the town's Am I sending you the PowerPoint or are you sending me I can send you the blank if you want to put it into the town's format. Yeah. Yep. that'd be fine. Okay. So, it's it's pretty straightforward.

You know, it's going to be demographics, what types of businesses we have, what our mission I'll I'll put in a copy. We'll have one slide, one slide basically has the EDC's mission statement, two paragraphs. We don't need the whole uh two or three pages. Uh won't fit. and what we'd like to accomplish and that we want input from them. We want we want to work with them. But basically, we're here for you. We want you to be here for us, you know.

Yeah. Um, if anybody has any other suggestions once we send that around, please feel free to go in to the PowerPoint and, you know, mark it up and, you know, initial it and then we'll be able to have, you know, I think we should get through in one or two passes. So, um, and then I'll consolidate all the feedback and put it in if that's acceptable to everybody. Yeah,

I I think and we talked about this last time, but I think you might run into open meeting log issues if you have everybody sending you the feedback if the feedback came to me and I consolidated then sent it to you. We navigate around that. I just want to make sure the committee of that. No, that's fine. Um, so if it goes to you, do you want to consolidate all of the feedback and input it into the that point. No, I I can take it and then send it to you as one document. That is not a violation. But if everybody's sending it to you. Yeah, because I was thinking it would be probably easier on you if I consolidated all the feedback once you received it. Yeah, it's what you paid for. It's fine.

Okay. No, that I mean, no, that's fine. I don't want to be in violation of anything, but you know, I don't want to give you more I don't want to load you up with any more work than is necessary as you're trying to pack. It's fine. It's a light town view. Greg's got it handled. Oh, okay. Is uh anybody from um any of the land use or permitting department going to be able to be there? I'm just thinking planning, building, you know, conservation or health. I'm just thinking those, you know, when a business comes to town, those are the four departments that they engage with. My memory Fiona is unavailable.

I say Fiona's Yeah, she's I think she's also going on vacation or a honeymoon or something. She will also be on her honeymoon. Yeah. Yes, she is. Um, however, I don't believe we've extended to the conservation uh building or board of health. We also have an assistant town plan. We get the assistant. We can very easily float it to them.

See if they can Yeah. I think I stopped by a little time. It might also be worth um I'll try to remember to do it myself anyway, but mentioning it to Bob Hassenger as a current Oh, as current chair film this whole event. What do you think? So as the current chair of the planning board is someone that might he might be interested in Bob's chair now right now he's chair probably for the time is six committees

he's on several he's also on the CMRPC in different capacities there too he's pretty busy so I don't know if he'll get to come but that's right right no but I mean that would be great if you could come staff would certainly be great too because people might have, you know, a question or Yep. I floated it to Evan. I don't know if he's going to be able to be there like you asked, but I will definitely float it to the other four the park we just talked about tomorrow. Okay, terrific. And do we want to uh what do you think about inviting like Dave Moradian? I I think it makes sense for both inviting Meridian and govern.

Yeah. Mike so yeah I don't know those guys'll be available initation

I can reach out to Dave okay still wouldn't hurt to have us send an official email anyway Yeah, I'll open the flyer. I can reach over the flyer and all your stuff. Okay. So, this sounds like we're going to have a chalk full. We have a bunch of invitees. Yes. We don't know. Don't come. Well, no, but we know we know that uh Kevin Kuros is going to come. So, that's that's good for starters. I I'm sure that Well, I'm not sure, but I'm hopeful that somebody you know, the assistant town planner.

One thought I just had, if if it's easy to do so, would it make sense to mention Kevin on our flyer? Yeah, I can do that. It's a good idea. William, can you email me his name and title? Yes.

And then do you guys want me to create an Eventbrite link because it does have the ability to have like a um simple agenda on it too so people can see like I can do the EDC intro, who we're about, what we're about or something like that. Um then the speaker and then the balance of the time will just be networking. Yes. So yeah, that would be great, Nicole. I'm I'm on board with that. So you mentioned something about a Q&A segment. Is that going to be after the speaker? Yes.

Okay. Just businesses might come with a question. You know, I think that, you know, we have a lot of disperate businesses and we have a lot of new businesses. And some of them, as you mentioned earlier, Justin, it's it's it's worth noting we've got some of these new businesses, like, you know, a new meal place or, you know, there's a new breakfast and lunch place down in South Grafton. And a lot of these where they're off the beaten path and now they're there's so much construction going on

and detours that, you know, their businesses, you know, need a boost and highlighting. I mean, one business that's one new business that's doing very well is the old Stephanie, which is now Val's Corner Cafe. Apparently, they're just people are just flocking to that. But look at where it's located. That's right. In the heart of things where you have there's that one um what's it first bite that's in South and down by a couple of nail places and one of the new you know juice juice bars uncommon cow is also at center is doing pretty well that they're moving to right next to the grass in now they're just getting playboard and while I think of it William

yes is it possible to make a note to also send an invite fly to the people that are doing the they're currently in permitting process for Bolak Plaza because I know they're doing a micro brewery among other things there. Yes, I will have to get It's not approved yet, but it's a Yeah, probably invite them. I'll have to get their contact information from the planning department. Yeah, that's what I figured. It probably doesn't make sense to me to reach out to them where I'm the appointing authority for that but not appointing authority but permitting authority. Yes. But still

so one of the pieces that we discussed in the last meeting was giving attendees an opportunity for their businesses to come up and speak a max of two minutes to introduce themselves, introduce their business. Do we still want to consider that? I know we have a very tight schedule of two hours and we now have a confirmed guest speaker. So I think we were talking about we didn't necessarily have a guest speaker. I'm leaning to have given the time

that we basically feel the room after the speaker and if after any Q&A and if there's basically dead you no Q&A or dead space we can say people are welcome to come up or we just we don't have that on any official agenda is kind of what I'm suggesting. Yeah. Okay. Because I do I have I do have it on the Should I take it off? I have I'll tell you what I have. I have new to Grafton. The EDC wants to celebrate local businesses open a year or less. Come share a quick introduction with our group.

So that's a smaller that's a big subset. Yeah. You think it's a big subset? No, it's a small subset. Small subset. Y right a year or less. Yes. Just because it seemed like we had quite a few people at the last one that were like brand brand new businesses and they like saw our flyer on social media and stopped by to say hello. That's why I thought of it. But I can definitely change it. So they saw take it off.

No, you're right. They saw the flyer on all things Grafton. That's what we heard from the majority of them. And then we created because we were a smaller group, we had like subsets of circles where people were talking about their businesses. So it made the event intriguing, engaging, and I'm I'm in favor for having a niche group. And that that feels more controllable than just anybody being able I've been here for 30 years and talking about themselves. Yeah, I I think this is my opinion and the looking at the flyer that section probably is perfect to be about the speaker you know that we're having and then like I said in the in person when we're there if they're you feel the room we can ask how do you is your business been here for a year or less or you coming to Grafton would like to say a few words that kind of offer the opportunity to talk but try to focus on that person and how two years or less if no one steps up you know whatever that kind of thing.

Yeah. And we we can tell them you know this will be open-ended. will have other events and there will be other opportunities such as you know if you'd like your business featured on a spotlight on the EDC's uh website on the town website we're open to that as well but yeah I mean there are certain businesses like Val's Corner Cafe is not really going to need a big boost or my favorite bread guy breads um but yeah there are there these little pockets of businesses. And then then there are the people who have the homebased businesses, right? Like Natasha

the K9 thing with the dog. Well, she got a lot of business just going from that thing um to our last event in you know on that rainy night. Yeah. You know, everybody had a lot of people have pets in this town and a lot of people need dog walkers, pet sitters, etc.

Yeah. That's great. By the way, we have a new business in town. I noticed this as one of said pet owners and my German Shepherd Blitz, you can't he's too obstreporous to take to the vet. So, I had to have the home vet visit. We have just had um a new vet who does integrated vet services just advertised here in Grafton and which is great. They'll do the home visits. They'll do the in Asia. So, it's you know, great service. So, this whole pet business, I'm also inviting um personally um some of the horse people.

Yeah. Okay. Like Ridge Valley, Hillside Meadows, Equestrian, and they do they do a lot of business there. And there are ancillary businesses as well that you know feed off of that. You know, the saddle shed for example,

you know, inviting them Um, some of these people don't always check all the websites, but you know, their businesses need boosting. Uh, I know Terry Tyrion told me his, you know, he does the pony rides and the birthday parties for ponies and he said even the trail rides, which at this time of year are usually going great gang busters, but business has been slow for the, you know, probably because of the economy.

Yeah. Not a lot of entertainment funds for people right now. Yeah. Yeah. So, um these are, you know, these are other things. So, I've made, you know, some of those person that personal outreach. But I think we're in good shape because if we do the introduction, me speaking, Ken Kurus, and then open it up to that niche subset of new businesses. That might take up to, you know, 35 minutes and then that leaves, you know, an hour and a half to mingle.

I do think Kevin might be a little bit longer than that. When we saw the presentation at the MMA meeting in Quinsey, it was about 45 minutes to an hour. Okay. So, we'll But it's a good 45 minutes. Yeah. You want people to Yep. want to stick around network. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I I can ask him if he can keep it on that shorter 45 minute side. Um but again I think there's there's some good content there. Yeah.

Yeah. We might even want to ask him. I mean I don't want to insult the man if he's coming out here but it might be easier for him to do even a 20 minute 25 minute presentation. What does everybody think about? We have two hours right? We have two hours. Yeah, my opinion is if 45 should be fine like I said where you know we can even make mention to him that where people might just go to the side and mingle anyway while he's presenting if they want you but the that might get that might get kind of I don't want to be disrespectful that might I don't know how to yeah I don't know how to

I think I think the way that you handle it is is just like with most meetings that you have you have have a clear agenda so people know what the expectations are. So I think you're Laura, you're at like five minutes, right? You're going to come in, you're going to do your introduction and then do you feel fine if um William can get to you some unless William wants to do the intro for the guest speaker. So how how would you like to do that? Well, you're not going to be here. So no, I can do the intro for the guest speaker to the guest speaker. And um so we've got the first hour because if he's going to go 45 minutes, okay,

we have to plan on time for questions and answers, right? So it could be easy like an easy 60 minutes, right? If you have Q&A, did you notice when you attended his presentation if he takes the questions during the presentation or does he wait until the end? They waited till the end. So So my experience with programming is if you're going to go 45 minutes, you should at least 15 minutes of Q&A. Yeah, I do that all the time. Yeah. On

on all my presentations as well. Although sometimes what happens and um that can get derailed if people if you have an open-ended thing and people say, "Hey, can I ask a question?" Now, in this case, we don't want it to get derailed because we'll want um Kevin to get through his entire presentation and we don't want to blow it to suddenly, oh, okay, there's no time for people to mingle. So we'll in in your intro you can just say Kevin will give a 45m minute presentation. We'll have time for Q questions and answer at the end. Yeah please we'll say please hold your questions to the end and then of course Kevin will be available after the presentation you know while you're mingling to speak etc.

Great. I think that's great. I think it's we'll help everyone set expectations and then just let them know we're opening up um the last hour for I I'm not going to let this go because I attended the last meeting. I really do want to answer what we heard for feedback at the last meeting which is our and our community were not doing enough to promote small local businesses and the people who showed up were small local newer businesses and so I I do want to rec hearing their voices and giving them an opportunity. We we did that networking, you know, small in a very small setting, smaller group setting, but I I'm a huge proponent of allowing people an opportunity, a scheduled opportunity to have two minutes come up, speak, tell us about your business, and move on and be, you know, be clear about that. And then if we don't have enough people coming up or if there's extra time, then we can open it up. It's It's tough. I think we heard that it's tough to be here as a local business and not not be able to get your name out there and what you're selling, what you're marketing, and just to also be able to hear others who, you know, who are who are newer in the field. Yeah. No, I agree. A lot of a lot of these businesses took a hit during CO and didn't necessarily bounce back in the same way like we saw that with Pepperoni Express when they were in the old Burger King location that be you know that was a hangout for a lot of the kids and it was like after school meeting place and uh Lacis Thea Harris was a wonderful He supported stuff with soccer and stuff, but then when he moved to the new, you know, well, he had to move out of there, not

because of CO, but it got flooded and he moved to the new location next to the old Santan Bank and he couldn't get help, you know, and I think his, you know, his business suffered. Plus, there's a lot of, you know, pizza places in town vying for things. But others, you know, I mean, lumber, for example, they're not going to it's a hardware store lumber. They sell feet. They're not going to take the hit. And there's a there's a lot of lumbers around Massachusetts anyway, too. Yeah. New England in general, I think, you know. So, what we didn't have were longestablished businesses coming to our last event. Yes.

They're known. They've got their clientele, but we had the newer businesses coming in. Yeah. So we have I mean somebody like a Washington mills which has been here since what right after the flood I guess but um yeah they they are established the same thing with Wyman and Gordon they're not necessarily going to come but um the industrial companies will be more retail

yeah I mean like we can maybe get Pecarinos to come as well they're on the north side of town And some of these businesses with what's going on with the real estate like that shopping plaza where Pecarinos is and where Anzios was where there's another business in there that building is up for auction now. So that's a big that's a big question mark. So of course these folks are going to you know

just an idea too. Do we want to put together just a one sheet maybe five questions and have it like a questionire for businesses like to ask them to fill out keep it super maybe it's three like you know what can we do as a community as as a town municipality you know what can we do better what do you like what do you don't like you know how can we How can we

how can we improve you know this you know communication stream whatever I mean just you know I don't know if you want to while we have them there just say hey if you take two minutes answer three questions and leave it on the counter so that we have you know it's an opportunity for us to get some input from I I love the idea my only hesitation is just in the time between now and that in our because I know survey questions can sometimes be a little nuanced in terms of how you word things. And to me, having that survey would be good to have both in person and paper and something online for as business owners or operators, you know, whether you have that in both spots at the same time. Then we can get the paper copies from

the hard copies and we can get the I mean digital ones not people that can't make it or just don't feel like writing may preer the online one. Um yeah no and that's fair. I'm I'm willing to take a stab at doing the you know three questions you know what would you like to see how we do

be very generic and broad brush but just an opportunity for them to give some feedback. We used to have those too. We used to have survey forms at building the building department, the board of health, the planning office, conservation. It was like a whatever you want to call it, but it was like a customer review form, you know, so they could say whether Did Tim ever read those? I think he did.

It was hard to get people to fill them out. You know, I mean, you have to put their name on it way to get some feedback.

You know, the other thing that I'd like to see, and Nicole, perhaps you can uh put this on the flyer. It's just a oneline thing. just asking people to please bring their business cards and we can have a bowl there for them to drop their business cards in. That would that would be great for followup outreach. We'll get a package of Evans and we'll put his personal cell number on there. You can do that. I I You mean you want to keep your job? Correct. I do just want to throw out there.

Well, I want to say gainfully employed. Uh we did do a survey for people who weren't able to attend in May. It was super basic. It was two questions outside of general contact information. What services does your business provide? And how can the EDC better serve your business? And did we get any feedback? We got three on that. Okay. Can you just send me that questionnaire? I know you just Yeah. said it and I'll work. That's why it's if they're in the room, if you can get them to do I'm a huge fan of it. If they already have the question, so there's no harm. I'm a Look, I'm a reporter by trade. So,

you can do it two ways. You can print out physical hard copies and then at the end of the PowerPoint, you put a QR code and if they're techsavvy, they pull out their phones, they do it right there. They want the hard copy, they do it right there. Yeah. Just have a stack of them there like We'll have to come up with three or four questions. Yeah, we'll just get two of them. We've got two. So, we'll just very simple. So, I have to do it. Like I said, I'm on I'm on board with that. So, well, yeah, but I mean, even if even if you get 10 responses, you have to start, you know, you start with the first brick on the yellow brick road. It's something is better than zero. Yes, exactly. Um,

I think that's great. So, we've got two. I think three is perfect. William, I'm in favor of the paper and the QR code. Yeah. Well, everybody can help us out with the QR code. I was at the town meeting already. That's great. There's a QR code. You and Carol were there. My QR code didn't work. Somebody else's, but yeah. Um Nicole, did you have any other thoughts?

Nope. Um, so for agenda, we're doing introduction, speaker for 45 minutes, Q&A for 15, and did we decide if we're going to do the new business spotlight or we're mixing that for this time? Uh, well, I'm in favor of it. Open night at EDC. Yeah. I mean, I think probably a lot of people won't do it, but we're we're saying for businesses for businesses that have been in business or doing business in Grafton for a year or less.

Well, for anybody too. And it's good to try it because if it works, then we'll keep it on for the next one. If it doesn't, you know, then maybe we won't get like So, how how much time should I like put on the agenda for business? I'm going to call it business spotlight. So my two suggestions on that for the agenda is number one the presentation. My suggestion is to basically put it as presentation and Q&A one hour because it's most likely going to be questions relating to the presentation from Kevin. That was his name right?

Kevin perfect. And then maybe say opportunity for speaking on your business two minutes each for like 30 minutes time or something. That's kind of saying opportunity where the people it's just whoever decides they want to do it and if we don't have people wanting to do it then then we'll just go straight to the to the mingling. Yep. Yeah. Okay. So then it'll half an hour of potential business spotlight and half an hour of networking. Perfect.

Okay. I'm I am keyed on the word opportunity for that rather than potential because it to me it just has a stronger meaning where potential is like if we decide to do it. Opportunity is we're giving you the opportunity to do it. I agree. Yes. It's an active yes verb. Good job. Okay. It'll be really engaging. It's a well planned out two hours. active.

Well, that's what we have to do. Okay. So, I think we've covered items, agenda items numbers two and three. Um, if everyone is in agreement, we'll go to number four. Um, Carl isn't here, so we don't know about Brian Bouier from Marlboro EDC. Um, the only other thing, William, you were waiting uh to hear out to hear from somebody other than Kevin Puros from the Nope, that was Kevin.

Okay, that was Kevin. Okay. So, does anybody have any other input for any potential guest speakers for say December or January? And I know Westro has a very vibrant EDC as well. Um, You know, I could I could give Carl a call and see if if he's made, you know, he's communicated with Brian to come. We just need We have a date for the next meeting. Well, that was what I was The next meeting. Okay. So, our event is November 4th. The next meeting that we would have would be

uh Well, we could do November 15th. How do people or do we not do a November 15th meeting and just go straight to because the next meeting would be November 19th. Do we want to have a November 19th meeting? That's the week before Thanksgiving. I I lean toward let's cut back on that for November. Okay, that's fine. If if we have someone that is wants to speak to us and they're not going to get to make the December meeting, I'd be okay. with the November 19th meeting. Like I don't have a reason I can't attend. It's just yeah,

you know, I don't see a strong need to unless someone's speaking that can't make the next. Okay. So, do we want to take a vote here? All those in favor of what? Skipping the skipping. We don't I mean I don't we don't have to vote for that. We don't have to vote for that because we don't meet in specific. We don't have a specific meeting like yeah nothing is specified ahead of time for meeting dates and that means discussion of the chair effectively. Okay. So so the November the November 5th actually it's November 5th that we're having our

November 5th. Yeah, November 5th. I was speaking saying November 4th. It's Wednesday, November 5th. So then our next meeting would be in December and that the third Wednesday in December would be the 17th. Correct. It's Wednesday, November 5th. Yes. Are you sure the I'm pretty sure I looked back at your email and it said November 4th. Yeah, Kevin. I asked Kevin for November 4th. I thought that was Let me see. I have to go.

I hope I just didn't work. Hold on a second. Um, search. So, it's a Tuesday. No, I think it was a Wednesday. It was Tuesday. Let me see. most likely to guess.

I do see an email from September 17. Okay. It does identify November 4th 7:30. Okay, because I know we were looking at Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday when I talked to Kim, but I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure it's the fourth. I

fourth is definitely Tuesday. That was what I just said. It was in the email on this agenda. Yeah, I'm looking Yeah. So, I think it's I think it's the fourth. Let's see. [Music]

The fire was the fourth. Um I did just find an email from August 28th stating that the library has been secured for Wednesday, November 5th. Uh oh. Sorry. Emails with both dates.

Yeah, I went off an email. I mean, I can change it. It's that's an easy thing to do. Um but I was going off one of the last emails that was sent around because I remember double checking Yeah. Um, I'll have to call Kim tomorrow. I'm looking for the thing, the mail that I had from um Kim. So, when did I say November 4th? What was the date on that? You know what? If it's helpful, you have it on the September 17th agenda as the first item.

Okay. And you have an email on September 12th. I can wait for this to

so that That invite has gone out to a bunch of businesses. No, no, the fly's not gone out to anyone. Okay. The flyer hasn't gone out to the person car said he'd be able to do the fourth. Okay. So, but I need to call him tomorrow anyway. So, I didn't run this by him and let the committee know. All right. So, let me I'm going back. I'll call Kim I'll call Kim Rapinsky. So, in the morning, I apologize if I messed this up. So,

here's my suggestion. You'll call Kim in the morning. Find out if we reserve for the fourth or the fifth. If it's the fourth, even if it's the fifth, if the fourth is still available, we can do the same hours. I We just do the fourth since that's what we already took out. If it's if we Well, the the problem was the library was booked up. So, I I'm thinking that's what I'm saying. If I'm thinking it's the Wednesday.

So, I see that in um I see that in an email from Laura on August 28th. I see Wednesday, November 5th from 5:30 to 7:30. I wanted to let everyone know that we have secured the conference room at the Grafton Public Library for our EDC fall business meet and greet event for Wednesday, November 5th from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. The Grafton Library conference room is available. Yeah, I'm it's I'm pretty sure it's the Wednesday. It's not it's not a Tuesday because we were looking at either Wednesday or Thursday. We knew it couldn't be Friday. We knew it couldn't be Monday. And then the planning board or the select board meetings were on Tuesday.

Yeah, Tuesday. So, we went for that Wednesday and uh there we go. It's your information's right here. I know we initially hoped to hold the event on a Wednesday in October. However, the Grafton Library was completely booked for Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and even Thursdays in October. Additionally, one of the alternate venues I was pursuing was not available. Yeah. So, it's Wednesday the 5th. Yes. Okay. So, that's what I I'm looking at my own email. Yeah. It still makes sense to me that we confirm with Kim to make sure nothing is confused. Just to double check.

Nothing's confused except me. And then Lori, you'll reach out to Will to confirm what the date is. Yeah. And then we'll can reach Kevin confirming Kevin can make the fifth if Yeah. I'm I'm pretty as I'm as I'm recalling now I was thinking that November 4th was the 5th but no I know it's a Wednesday and I know it was a Wednesday. So,

and then my additional thought on this is if Kevin can't make it, we go back to our original schedule and plan and probably will let Nicole and the committee know that final outcome. Yeah. So, it is a I it is a Wednesday, so it's it's going to it's going to be the But I will call Kim first thing in the morning. If if we want Brian to come and if he can't do Wednesday, hopefully he can do Wednesday. If he can't, do we want to switch venues? I know it's like short notice. I'm just thinking I could probably The tavern is closed on Wednesday.

Well, I don't think the venue was the issue on Wednesday. Oh, I thought the venue was booked on Wednesday. The venue is available on Wednesday. The venue, the library is only available on that Wednesday. They were booked up until the told Kevin Tuesday. Yeah, that's the issue. We're talking about the event as November 4th instead of November 5th. Yeah, that's

all right. So, we could do the So, if Brian's only available on Tuesday, say you can't do Wednesday, do we want to move to Tuesday? I'd be open to that. I don't know what be available or if there's a cost somewhere, but No, there's no there's no cost for us as for the library. No cost for us. Yeah, true. Saying if we're moving the if we're moving the venue to be somewhere else in the library and doing it on a Tuesday, that's the potential for a cost,

right? We find out if the library is available on Tuesday. [Music] I don't think they are. But you know what? Things can change. So, I will call Kim in the morning to confirm that it's Wednesday. That's what I meant

and then see if if it was available on Tuesday. But I was very surprised to hear that the library was booked up in October. There's all these different groups that that want that room. So, we were lucky to get Wednesday the 5th. We looked online at the library's calendar back in August and it wasn't it was not filled out online. So when you called and you got that information, it was really helpful because you could you couldn't tell otherwise without having

Kevin Kevin I think Brian from

call tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. I'll give him a call tomorrow. I'll see if one day later to work for him and I'll let the committee know as soon as possible. Okay. Yeah. Great. Thanks. I'm sorry for any confusion. I think we can work around it. Yeah. I I knew it was a Wednesday because I when I was talking to Kim and trying to set it, you know, for a Wednesday, a Thursday, that was mainly because there were so many other conflicts. They were with other boards and other committees, etc. Right. Tuesday was popular. We were

we were really focused on a Wednesday or a Thursday. Yeah, I agree with you. Okay. So, sorry for the extra work, William. No, no, not a problem. I'll give him a call tomorrow.

Okay, terrific. And then, uh, hopefully he can make it on a Wednesday if he can only do that Tuesday. Are we in agreement that we want to shift it to the tavern or someplace else? I'm open to it. I My thought is and William might help restraighten out my thought is us trying to move the venue up or and change the pick a venue possibly with a price. do that outside of a meeting and outside of a potential venue being changed on changed in this agenda. Would this make sense for if we need to change if we think changing the venue is a right idea to call another meeting with for like a zoom only for those of us that can make it with the quorum?

You could that is certainly an option. Um I'm just think I'm just the easiest but still within the, you know, right right path. Personally, I think that if Kevin isn't able to do Wednesday, the best course of action might be to continue with the event as yet the location secured uh and focus more on giving small businesses the opportunity to promote and talk about themselves and try to get Kevin for a future event.

I don't know. I'd rather keep Honestly, I just think it's might be a draw for people, right? To have him come in. We can if you got to do it on a Tuesday. Well, let's let's see what he says tomorrow. This might Yeah, this might be more time. Um, he might be able to make it. I mean, we are three weeks out.

Yeah. If if he is unable to make it, I will let the committee know. And as Justin said, we can always do a Zoom only meeting to discuss. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Why don't we're we're at about 811 now. So, just in the interest of time, so I'll I'll give um Sorry with the the committee. I will give um Carl a call to see about uh Brian Brian for the whatever we're going to do December early December. Okay. Okay. So that third we're looking at the third Wednesday in December.

That would be the 17th. Correct. So that's the week before Christmas, you know, but Um, that's fine. I mean, if we're skipping We did it as a Zoom only last year. Able to get to the December meeting as soon as Yeah, that makes sense. That would be December 17th. Yes. Um, we're also agreed that we'll skip a November meeting.

Yes. Since we'll have the event on the 5th. Correct. um you know and then at the when we reconvene in January we're looking at probably the 21st that's the third Wednesday of the month. Yes.

One thing I would request too and I know it's down the road but somebody can make a note for the December meeting just as an agenda item I would like to talk about having a an annual craft business award as meeting whether we do it in the spring or the fall. Fall is probably best meeting to do that. something we used to do years ago to recognize a business whether they're celebrating a big anniversary or for whatever reason you know success in the community whatever it is have to decide you know candidates or

yeah I mean like somebody like uh lucky Theo Harris who's retiring now sold his business, you know, for 30 years. Yeah, I think that's a perfect discussion talk. I have thoughts, but I don't want to get into it. Yeah. Yeah. Just just asking the Yeah, that's for discussion. Okay. So, do you have that on the I do. Okay. Great. Um Okay. So, if there's nothing more, no other business, I'll move we Okay. Third. Okay. We are Thanks, Nicole.